Glen Beck Cont... uhh! - no, national hero !

So you think I forgot ! - Admittedly I'm only mentioning Beck because he dissed India (in a sense). I had thought that this was the first time. However, a cursory google on "Glen Beck India" returned results as old as 2006. He's being going on about Indian doctors and the river Ganga etc... This one is just another string of his rants. Mmmm it's good to look outwards - from a psychoanalytical point of view - having a 'world view' is good, for sure. It deters from obsessing about one's self and helps alleviate neurosis. So if viewers of Glen Beck's show get off on making fun of others countries and cultures then so be it. I think there is a place for such incendiary commentary; if only to relieve their isolation and neurosis about their own culture and society. For this alone, Glen should be commended, as well as the owners and sponsors of Fox News (fair and balanced of course). Mmm I almost regret watching Avatar now... money goes to Rupert Murdoch. Must stop reading WSJ too. oh no ! For the rest of humanity that doesn't prescribe to the 'adventures' of Glen Beck ? We must wait till his demographic changes its perspective on things. Long wait you say ? Well, there is a generational change in America - this is its last throes.

"May You Live in Interesting Times"

For those that haven't read any Terry Pratchett, this is meant to be a curse. However, I use this in its non-Pratchett sense. Today really has been an interesting day. As I start on another journey, into a land that is both known and un-known to me, I am filled with apprehension about what circumstances tomorrow will bring. Not in a bad way, simply in a human way. When I feel like this I watch documentaries. I have filled my head with so much information that I can talk about at least the happenings in about 25 % of the world. Let me tell you about today. Obama is the Democratic Nominee; I was 60 % sure this would happen. I have been blogging on various news sites and blogs. Salaam Cafe, Amitabh Bachchan, BBC, Washington Post, etc... If you were to spend a day watching SBS you would truly appreciate the world we live in. I have seen no other channel where such a global perspective is brought into my living room. Today I was exposed to the following topics. American Politics, Race issues, International travel, luggage issues, Muslim issues, International money transfer issues, cell phone issues, computer and html issues, comedy, nostalgia, school, college, medical degree issues... I actually wrote a poem once, which described my day from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. It started off by dreaming, waking, yawning, stretching, brushing... and end up with reading, yawning, thinking, sleeping, dreaming. If everyone were to do this, you would realise we do so many activities in a single day. If we were to note each and every thought that went through our minds, it would be an astonishing list !

What is Race? Is it genetic, phenotypic or is it just an excuse to exclude a group of ppl who we don't identify with? We define ourselves by exclusion. We start of as 'over-inclusive' ; We want to be everything, but we settle on being just a few things. So the colour coding of American society warrants that Obama is Black, but the Blacks, who associate with slavery, say Obama is 'African'. Is Obama black enough/white enough ? His grass root support says he is! Does it matter? It depends on who you are. It depends upon how far your thought process, and that of those around you, carries you towards being 'inclusive' rather then 'exclusive'.

It is about perception and our inability to question our own state of thoughts and emotions. We hold onto our thoughts and emotions as if they are the most precious of commodities, not realising that they are fickle and inducible. If I were to say that Emotion defines as as Humans, everyone would agree (mostly). On the flip side of that same coin, I could say that Emotion is fleeting and inducible, and hence Humans would be defined by impermanence. Maybe these Budhists are onto something... But we are not impermanent, at least we 'think' we are not. Hence it is our thought process which is at fault. I heard on a 'talk show' (no not Oprah) episode on "Faith based' education, a representative from the Christian School Association or (something like that) responding to an Atheist, that 'God' is their answer to 'Why we have been created and why are we on earth'...

Irrespective of whether this is true or not, why would you ask this question in the first place? We replace one intangible unknown with another tangible unknown; one that causes exclusion rather than inclusion. It fools us into believing a few 'reasons' as to why we are here. I have no issues with ppl believing in God, as long as they don't try an make too many decisions which are detrimental to me, based on their belief of their God. I mean do ppl actually presume to know what God thinks? See this is the irony of religion.

It is clear to me why we have been put on this earth. We have been created to engage with our environment. There !! Dr Narayan's solution to man's existential crisis. No it isn't my solution, it is the Hindu-Bhudhist solution. The concept of Maya refines itself from Hinduism to Budhism. It reveals itself in any 'theory of mind'. I reckon it would be at the heart of every organised religion too. However, engaging with one's environment, involves a subjective interaction. Do we dominate of do we sublimate to our environment? This is the question my imaginary readers. This is the question. Our interaction with the environment is facilitated by our intent. Intent to do what though? Some intentions are bad even though they are good. The notion of 'civilising' the savages is such an example. Such a convoluted world we live in. How do I know if my intent is good or not ? The Kantian method of answering this question would be to think 'n' steps in the future, or to question 'what would happen if the step that I'm contemplated was performed by each and every member of society'. Another way of establishing the 'Golden Rule' would be to ask what would happen if 'this particular action was done onto me'? But aren't all ppl different? I may not appreciate help, but someone else may appreciate the help while we were struggling with the same thing. There isn't a simple answer. Perhaps it would be good to carry labels on our clothes. Cloud Tags of our thoughts, perhaps. Of course someone would invent an optical clothe reader and try and sell you something after you walked underneath an awning or something.

I could try and treat ppl the way they like to be treated if I knew, only if it didn't involve too much sublimation from my side. Should be really be interacting with our environment without censure or limit?

I have reached a stage where I now limit my interaction to where I think I hold a sense of Agency; agency doesn't mean control, agency also means being ok, not being in control. I treat others as I would like to be treated and I listen, listen to what ppl are saying both verbally and non-verbally. I seek genuine interaction. I make eye contact with each and every person I talk to, even if it's a stranger and I try to smile as much as possible. I shall call this the 'Unbeliever's method of Humanism' I'll try and think of something original soon :)

Psychotherapy for the Masses

Problematic: The subject for my research paper, under the topic of ‘what psychotherapy has to say about society and social power’, is “The use of comedy as a means to ameliorate racial prejudice; Psychotherapy for the masses.”

Introduction: There is something abhorrent about an egalitarian society that ‘randomly pre-selects’ individuals for a ‘special screening’ at airports, especially when the ‘special screening’ seems no different, in its effectiveness, from the screening procedures employed for general passengers. Not only does the individual being segregated feel humiliated and confused, but the people around him feel threatened as well. Their eyes refuse to meet the eyes of the isolated individual and conversations abruptly stop, refusing to start again. It seems to re-enforce the opinions generated by commentators whose racial vilification and incendiary comments blare across popular culture and publicly accessed media. In today’s world of instant communication, rhetorical sabre rattling intended to create a ‘Straussian’ internal environment within one country, spreads its jingoistic message across the planet, providing fodder for an unending cycle of worthless and incompetent dialogue. What is the effect of this type of an environment on an individual of colour? Imagine the following circumstance of a person, of indistinct colour, in a large metropolitan city. Imagine a person who is considered to be a ‘Latino’, when sitting outside a Latin American cafe, by its Columbian owner, a Muslim from Pakistan, when he grows a beard by a Sikh taxi driver (being bearded himself) and is neither. In other words he blends into a cosmopolitan mix and has image of him based on geography rather than race. He suddenly finds himself being segregated. Imagine the effect on a proud hard working immigrant, who pays his taxes, when the society he so adores for accepting him and providing him with a means to earn a living, creates an atmosphere of disenfranchisement and segregation. How prevalent is this type of experience and what are the triggers that set this type of experience into motion? What is the effect of this experience? How does this ‘newer’ racial profiling compare with racial profiling of African – Americans in the US?
The psychotherapeutic community has known about the benefits of using humour in the therapeutic setting. There have been studies done of the benefits of using humour as therapy for the individual. However, there is less discussion about the ongoing therapeutic role, performed by comics, for the masses.
The purpose of the paper is to identify the role of comedy as a form of preventative psychotherapy for the masses. The ‘affect’ generation is not the main consideration here, though it is important, but it is the ameliorating effect; the cognitive remodelling of the individual’s perception, that is. The paper will present a theoretical model of this remodelling along with statistical data gathered from a web survey created for the purpose of this paper.
The paper will concentrate on the work of two categories of comics. The first are stand up comics; Dave Chappelle, Russell Peters and Ahmed Ahmed. The second category comprises of satirical TV ‘news’ programs ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’, ‘The Colbert Report’ (based in the US) and ‘The Chaser’s War on Everything’ and ‘Newstopia’ (based in Australia). These programs have similar methods of delivering information, which will be identified and elaborated. It will be described how these methods complement the work done by the first category.

The outline of the paper is as follows...
1. The need for providing psychotherapy to the masses has been elaborated in various articles. This paper shall briefly summarise and reference these points and introduce the paper in 500 words.
a. The individual as a member of society
b. The individual’s intra-psychical structure; how this pre-disposes to prejudice
c. Racism as an institution
d. Society’s influence on the individual
2. The semiotic nature of information and the creation of cultural institutions that breed and propagate differentiation of the masses. The paper shall cover the following points in 500 words.
a. Gesaltic perception and condensation of information
b. Blurring of news and opinion; the agenda unfolds
c. News satire in popular culture
d. Why the fight of ‘opinions’ and ‘name calling’ doesn’t work
3. The comic performance: similarities between stand up and psychotherapy. The paper shall cover the following topics in 1500 words.
a. Types of stand up comedy (briefly)
b. The nature of ‘improv’ and its methods
i. How psychologically minded in the Comic?
ii. What is his/her interaction with the audience?
iii. Which topics can be covered by a comic?
The author will supplement information obtained from second party interviews of the above comics with direct interviews (via email/telephone) where possible.
c. The individual; a member of the audience (supplemented with web survey data)
d. The comic material; content is king
i. The comic as a racial icon (supplemented with web survey data)
ii. Advantages of Self defeating humour
4. How stand up comedy fulfils it role as a specific intervention. The following points will be covered in 1300 words (supplemented with web survey data).
a. It is not just about ‘Affect’ creation
b. Exposing prejudice in a non-threatening way
c. Cognitive remodelling
d. Re-enforcing the reality principle
e. Creating common ground: priority to ‘sameness’ vs ‘difference’ without eliminating ‘difference’
5. Where comedy doesn’t work and conclusion. To be covered in 400 words (supplemented with web survey data).
a. The limitations of this approach
b. Moving forward with the insights from this paper
6. Annotated Bibliography and Appendix

Survey Link