Grassroots American Militarism… For the Children

March 8, 2012 By Justin Whitaker 5 Comments

Or “weighing in on the Kony 2012 campaign…”

Here is the video:

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When I first watched it, having seen it posted on facebook by a do-gooder Canadian friend and a very-smart-cookie friend from Africa, I was inspired. To get me to watch anything not related to my studies these days is quite a task, and this video managed to get, and hold, my attention for 30 (precious) minutes.

I reposted it. A couple more of my friends reposted it as well.

And then I saw a message stating that the organization behind it, “Invisible Children,” was “questionable.”

Uh oh. Perhaps this is “Three cups of Tea” all over again?

After reading this (npr) and this (jezebel) I’ve decided that my enthusiasm for the video and the awareness it attempts to raise is not the least diminished.

Here’s why:

  1. It appears (and nobody has disputed) that this grassroots campaign has rather amazingly led to the US government committing resources to capturing a criminal who in no way threatens US security of economic interests. Now, I’m a peace-loving hippy liberal Buddhist, but I do think America and other nations that have grown wealthy on the backs of those in other countries have a moral responsibility to help innocent people in those countries.
  2. Joseph Kony, like Slobadon Milosovic, Muammar Gaddafi, and many others has committed unthinkable atrocities and must be brought to justice.
  3. Like many of you, I didn’t know who Joseph Kony was before I saw this video. Now I will never forget his name, his crimes, or his face.
  4. I didn’t plan on committing financially to the cause (I’m poor and I have a few charities that my spare nickels already go toward), but I was encouraged to spread the word and still am. You can check out Visible Children, a site often referred to in the criticism of Invisible Children, for other organizations that you can support.
  5. Building on the last two points, the best part of the video is its ability to raise awareness an to empower others to do likewise. As a Buddhist and an educator I think it is too often simple ignorance that prevents us from doing the right thing.
  6. What caught my attention was that he was the #1 Most Wanted man according to the International Criminal Court. I haven’t actually been able to verify that status, but if that is the case, and people like me still didn’t know who Joseph Kony was, then bravo Invisible Children for raising awareness where it was needed.

Some of the criticisms of the video are just silly. From the jezebel story:

That idea is to make Kony, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, into a household name. The video profiles Jacob, a Ugandan boy whose brother was killed by Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, which routinely abducts children and turns them into soldiers — but it also cuts away from his story to scenes of non-profit members showing adorable blonde kids photos of “the bad guy” to make sure Americans don’t get too bored with the facts.

“Bringing it home” to the filmmaker’s “blonde kid” isn’t really a problem for me. I remember Al Gore talking about his tobacco farm and loss of his sister in An Inconvenient Truth and appreciating the personal side of his story, which, if I’m not mistaken, helps the rest of us relate and make it personal to us. Do you really want a lecture? Just a list of facts? It’s not just “Americans” who get bored with lists of facts…

But the self-satisfied voiceover and slick editing reminded me of the most obnoxious Kickstarter-funded documentaries I’ve been asked to fund. Is that truly a reason not to get behind a worthy cause? Not really.

So why bring it up? A bit of self-indulgent cynicism perhaps? Yes, it’s a well-made video, and it has voice-overs. If you’re a fan of the BBC and David Attenborough, you’ll get off your high horse and actually appreciate decent editing and some ‘tasteful’ voiceover (video below).

Again from From the jezebel story: From Yale Professor Chris Blattman:

“[The video] feels much the same, laced with more macho bravado. The movie feels like it’s about the filmmakers, and not the cause.

Me: I didn’t ‘feel’ that. But okay.

There might be something to the argument that American teenagers are more likely to relate to an issue through the eyes of a peer. That’s the argument that was made after the first film. It’s not entirely convincing, especially given the distinctly non-teenage political influence IC now has. The cavalier first film did the trick. Maybe now it’s time to start acting like grownups.

Me: Not sure what this is about exactly…

…

There are a few other things that are troubling. It’s questionable whether one should be showing the faces of child soldiers on film. And watching the film one gets the sense that the US and IC were instrumental in getting the peace talks to happen. These things diminish credibility more than anything.

Me: I didn’t get that ‘sense’ either – only that Kony was using peace talks as a ploy to rearm. So no credibility lost here.

“Invisible Children is staffed by douchebags”

“Now when I first watched the Kony 2012 video, there was a horrible pang of self-knowledge as I finally grasped quite how shallow I am. I found it impossible to completely overlook the smug indie-ness of it all. It reminded me of a manipulative technology advert, or the Kings of Leon video where they party with black families, or the 30 Seconds to Mars video where all the kids talk about how Jared Leto’s music saved their lives. I mean, watch the first few seconds of this again. It’s pompous twaddle with no relevance to fucking anything.”

Me: Really? Funny, but the video didn’t immediately draw my mind to any music videos or movie stars (perhaps I’m too far out of pop culture for that). And “no relevance…”? Yes, I suppose if I go back to your first sentence, “I finally grasped quite how shallow I am” then I can make sense of the rest of the paragraph. Connecting child soldiers, systematic murder, rape, and gorilla warfare in Africa with Kings of Leon? Shallow. Very. Enough said.

~

As with any causes, movements, or the like, do your due diligence. While I wasn’t going to donate money to this cause, I am grateful for Visible Children and others for poking around and showing that other charities might be better choices. But I am still very grateful to Invisible Children for bringing awareness to this issue which would otherwise still be hidden… Cynicism, especially to the extent displayed by some, really has no useful purpose in the world we live in.

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Filed Under: Activism, Commodification, Happiness, video 5 Comments

Review of Crazy Wisdom

December 5, 2011 By Justin Whitaker 5 Comments

Recently I was sent two DVD Screeners, this one, about the life and times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and another called “Force of Nature” about the Japanese-Canadian scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki. I will review the Suzuki movie this week, and today I’ll write a bit about the Turngpa flick.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche via Crazy Wisdom Films

Chögyam Trungpa via Crazy Wisdom Films

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who was born in Tibet prior to the Chinese invasion, lived, quite frankly, a crazy life. And his charisma in teaching the Dharma and ability to motivate and inspire a generation of drop-outs and seekers across the West certainly suggests that he had great wisdom.

This well-made documentary traces the fullness of both his craziness and his wisdom. As a story of a man so instrumental in bringing Buddhism to the West, it is a film that should be seen. Having passed away in 1987, Trungpa left a broad and still flourishing Dharma movement known as Shambhala and today has at least a half-dozen biographies written about him. Those I have met over the years who have met him always use one word in describing their encounter: unforgettable.

Even those from distinctly different schools of Buddhism felt attracted by his unconventional, direct, and often shocking teaching methods. In the film, you get at least a hint of those – such as the story of when he invited his students to bring all of their marijuana to a retreat, and then tossing it all, bag-full after bag-full, into the fireplace chanting, “burning self deception, destroying our illusions…” (Here is a fascinating audio recording of one of the students telling what happened before the dope-burning incident, including Trungpa getting into a fist-fight with one of his students…)

And yet Trungpa himself was a heavy drinker, perhaps an alcoholic, and perhaps dying young (at age 47) due to his heavy drinking. Such behavior, along with marrying a 16 year-old girl in England and then continuing to sleep with other students, has led many to discount his teachings and perhaps even the whole Shambhala movement. And before we speculate about the Modernist nature of these activities, keep in mind that such unorthodox practices have been a factor in Tibetan Buddhism from as early as we can tell (certainly dating back to the time of Yeshe O’d, 958–1055). Often in the West there is still the impulse to project a certain purity, perhaps even somber and rigid nature, to pre-Modern Buddhism. But the more we look into the history, the more we see very multi-faceted the traditions have been. So seeing a Tibetan acting a bit ‘crazy’ perhaps shouldn’t surprise us too much.

[Anyone familiar with Aku Tunpa will know exactly what I mean. Unfortunately a web search doesn't turn up much on this famous Tibetan rascal - perhaps an alternate spelling is needed?]

In any case, one of the bright points of the film comes up when Pema Chödrön, one of Trungpa’s best known students, discusses the tension between his wisdom and behavior, ultimately concluding with what to me appeared to be supreme honesty by saying, “I do not know. I can’t buy a party line where I say it was ‘sacred activity’ or something like this – come up with ground to make it okay. I also can’t come up with ground or fixed idea to make it not okay.”

And speaking again of influences on Trungpa, I don’t want to pick on a recent very good book too much, but this film does a nice job of showing that Trungpa was influenced by Western material culture, political ideas, military organazation, music, dress, and more (not just psychology or Romantics). And as I mentioned in a recent post, this seems to have been a factor of Buddhism since its inception.

Rachel Saltz of the NY Times suggests that “the movie goes mushy when it should be critical, and leaves you with questions that it’s not prepared to answer.” The film is definitely sympathetic, relying largely on former students still very much devoted to Trungpa, many of whom are moved to tears in describing him. And while we hear of people leaving his community, we don’t get to hear from any of them. But I’m not sure what exactly they would add. What would a more critical examination of his life look like? You can read one account here, called Stripping the Gurus.

In the end I was very pleased with the movie and would definitely consider showing it in the classroom as part of a course on Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhism in the West. In either case I would be careful to provide context – if many of the events depicted in Stripping the Gurus are factual, then even more openness and honesty would have been good in the film. But even without that, I think the film opens the door for discussions of ethics in Buddhism.

Filed Under: American Buddhism, Book review, Commodification, Happiness 5 Comments

Tantric sex and kissing nuns (Video)

November 15, 2011 By Justin Whitaker 5 Comments

Warning: potentially disturbing images and manipulation to follow.

I’m just back from a mini-conference held here in Bristol, and I can only say “my mind was blown.”

Yes, this is going to be an academic post.

Though all of the talks were stimulating, the ‘keynote’ of sorts was on the topic of the use of religious imagery in corporate advertising by Katie Edwards. While her paper focused on Christian imagery, principally Catholic because that seems to have drawn the most outrage, she did mention the use of Jewish, Islamic, and Buddhist images in advertising campaigns. One of the interesting points she made was that ‘general’ Christian imagery didn’t seem overly offensive, such as a model who looks like (typical portrayals of) Jesus with his arms outstretched:

Vodka Jesus

Vodka Jesus

The really offensive ones seemed to attack a particular sect, usually Catholicism, like this:

Nothing says Ice Cream like topless priests kissing nuns

Also of interest was the fact that the least-used religion was Judaism. This is pretty understandable, I think, given the history of vicious antisemitism in the West and the resulting sensitivity. Islam, however, was the target of an increasing number of ad campaigns, the most provocative of which Ms Edwards didn’t even show us:

Eshe Streetware ad: Tick-Tock Muhammad

Yes. Very offensive. I know. They also have Brainwash Brian, Hole E Christ, and Pedo Pope.

The great point of her presentation was that these ads are meant to be controversial. In fact they often aim to anger people. Why? Free media attention. And tons of it. They can run a few ads in a relatively cheap, low-circulation periodical and with just a few inevitable complaints, the same ad can show up in countless major newspapers, on television, on American Buddhist blogs, the works! And as long as their target audience is at least relatively sympathetic, that is, anti-authoritarian and/or irreligious, they win, big.

An issue raised in the Q&A was whether her academic studies and presentations could be themselves offensive to audiences for perpetuating the offensive images. Hmm, could this blog post itself be offensive? Context is key – as is having a rough understanding of your audience. Academic conferences are usually pretty safe – only groveling students and complete nerds go to those. But a blog? Anybody might read this. Hence, I can only hope that the warning above and the content throughout will alleviate any sense of betrayal or offense.

Buddhists, as anyone who reads theworsthorse knows, tend to get portrayed in a positive light in ad campaigns. But, as a small minority religion, Edwards noted, Buddhism gets a disproportionate amount of advertising attention. Buddhism is highly commodified in the West. I know many bloggers have written about this in the past and hope a few of you can drop links in the comment section below.

In the cases of offending religious beliefs, it should be simply acknowledged that controversy gets attention gets notoriety gets sales. A simpler equation presents itself with some of these ads (like the ice cream ad above): sex sells. Hence the title of the post. Got’cha.

You have to realize that you’re being manipulated when you see these all advertisements. The difference between the commercial ads and an article or academic presentation is that the former diminishes your understanding of the subject. They draw on the emotions of either desire or aversion (or perhaps both) to get a product image or name into your head so that you will buy it. Academic presentations and articles hopefully get you to think about what is happening – in a sense deconstructing the ad by showing the processes that created it and effects it is having on you and others. To be Kantian (if only for a sentence), the former increases heteronomy - being ruled by outside forces- while the latter increases autonomy, self-rule. This is true of so much of our lives: subtle manipulations and unseen prejudices dominate so much of our decision-making that we really need to regularly step back and seek a better understanding of what is going on.

Near the end of the talk, Ms Edwards gave this admonition, “If you see an advert and it really offends you: don’t say anything!” Just walk away. Sage advice, I’d say. Maybe go meditate on your feelings :)

And now on to those videos:

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And something to really get your heart pumping (don’t watch if you have a heart-condition!):

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Filed Under: American Buddhism, Commodification 5 Comments