The Good, the Bad, and the Needs Revision

Midway through one of my political science courses at the University of Alberta, my professor pulled me aside for a chat after class. 

"What happened with this essay? You've done very well on your exams, so I know you can do better than this. It reads like a Time magazine article." 

For a second, I was confused. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of "Isn't that good?" 

"No, no," he said. It's well-written, but it lacks depth. There's no real analysis here, it's just a shallow summary of the subject matter. You need to dive deeper, think harder about the subject matter, do some extra research, develop your own thoughts." 

Those may not be the professor's exact words, but that was their spirit, and they hit me hard--because I knew he was right. Sometimes, when I'm not motivated or invested or I've left an assignment to the last minute, I can get lazy and produce material that doesn't reflect my full potential. It still happens on this very blog! 

A little over a decade later, my friend Bruce (then my supervisor), criticized a story I'd written for our gardening magazine in much the same way, comparing it to a freelance article I'd written about Superman. The words he used were different, but his point was the same--and like my professor, Bruce was right. 

During my time at the University of Alberta and at my corporate writing jobs across the years, I've written plenty of stories and speeches that I'm quite proud of. But there's also a large collection of pieces I know could have been better. 

I feel especially bad to have let my professor and Bruce down, back then, and I'm sure those weren't the only instances when a teacher or colleague or client was disappointed by my work. 

It makes you wonder if writers of, say, Hemingway's caliber have drawers full of old articles and stories that they look upon with a bit of self-loathing. 

On the bright side, it's a real pleasure when you stumble upon a work you've forgotten and think to yourself, "Hey, I wrote this? I did, and wow, it's pretty good." 

When I look back on my career, I hope I can say I wrote more good stories than bad. 

2058 Films

Ever since Bruce and Leslie asked me how many books I thought I read in a year, I've felt an increasingly overwhelming urge to catalogue not just what I'm reading now, but everything I've ever read. This mild obsession has extended to cataloguing every film I've seen and television series I've completed.

I've been using Letterboxd to log the films I've seen, and tonight I crossed the 2,000 film mark; indeed, I've catalogued 2,058 films, and I know that doesn't cover every film I've ever seen because I keep remembering more. Only tonight did I realize I'd forgotten to log Zero Effect, Xanadu, Vamp, Stripes, The Mummy, Red Dawn and many others. Remembering which films I've seen recently is relatively easy compared to digging out memories of movie nights from decades ago.

Letterboxd has a wide range of cool features, but I discovered one tonight that I really like a lot: it will sort your list of films by decade or even year. It's easy to see how many films you've watched from each of the dozen or so decades of the art.

So here's my list - at least as it stands today:

1900s: 4
1910s: 15
1920s: 22
1930s: 96
1940s: 109
1950s: 179
1960s: 207
1970s: 245
1980s: 335
1990s: 347
2000s: 300
2010s: 196

It's an almost disappointingly linear increase through the decades, with the exception of a small dropoff from the 1990s to the 2000s and a bigger drop from the 2000s to the 2010s (although to be fair, this decade is only a little half over).

As for individual years, the winner is 1998; I've seen 44 films released from that year. They are: The Thin Red Line, Shakespeare in Love, A Simple Plan, Star Trek: Insurrection, Babe: Pig in the City, Enemy of the State, American History X, Apt Pupil, Soldier, What Dreams May Come, Antz, Pleasantville, Rushmore, Elizabeth, Ronin, Run Lola Run, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, The Avengers, Ever After (which I reviewed in The Peak), Saving Private Ryan, The Mark of Zorro, Pi, Armageddon, The X Files, Free Enterprise, The Truman Show, Godzilla, Bulworth, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Deep Impact, Tarzan and the Lost City, The Big Hit, From the Earth to the Moon (HBO miniseries), Lost in Space, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Dark City, Burn Hollywood Burn, The Big Lebowski, The Replacement Killers, Zero Effect, Gods and Monsters, and Great Expectations. Of these, of course, I caught most on DVD or Blu-Ray or movie channels after their initial release; but I did catch a few of these films in theatres, including Shakespeare in Love (with Leslie, maybe, or do I just associate her with Shakespeare?), A Simple Plan (with Allan, I think), Star Trek: Insurrection, Soldier, What Dreams May Come, Antz, Pleasantville (with Kim, I think), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (with Parvesh in California), The Mark of Zorro, The X Files, The Truman Show (with Allan and Leslie, I think), Godzilla (with Sean?), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Tarzan and the Lost City (in St. Albert's theatre for some reason), Lost in Space (again with Allan, I think), Dark City, The Big Lebowski, and The Replacement Killers (maybe with Pete, Mike and Jeff Pitts?). Quite a year.

Several years are only represented by one film: 1900 (Cyrano de Bergerac), 1903 (The Great Train Robbery), 1917 (Bucking Broadway), 1918 (Take a Chance), 1921 (The Kid), 1922 (Nosferatu), and 1926 (The General). And of course, there are several years from the 1900s and 1910s from which I've seen zero films. But not for long - thanks, YouTube!

So there's my pitifully small sampling of the world of film as it stands today. As I continue to pore over my records and memories, I'll improve the list's fidelity. Let's see how many I've racked up by the end of the year...

Billions and Billions of Kudos for Dr. Carl Sagan

Yesterday would have been Carl Sagan's 77th birthday. My first exposure to Sagan came, as it did for so many others, through his PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The show mesmerized me from its opening seconds, with its majestic opening music and journey through the stars to Sagan himself, defining the universe thusly: "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be..."

In thirteen hour-long episodes, Sagan explained our current scientific understanding of the cosmos, covering astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology and how all these elements impact human history and culture. I devoured both the series and Sagan's companion book, Cosmos, ravenously. Sagan wrote and educated with sublime beauty and passion, inviting viewers and readers to explore the wonders of the cosmos in a manner that was inviting, warm, logical, scientific, even reverent, but never condescending or opaque. I bought the Cosmos DVD set back when it was an expensive limited-edition set available only online, and I have no regrets about paying a premium for the show. Important works deserve our support.

After Cosmos I scooped up The Dragons of Eden and Broca's Brain and eagerly awaited each of Sagan's books in the years to come. My favourite, alongside Cosmos, remains The Demon-Haunted World, one of the best books ever written on the importance of critical thought.

Back in the 90s I wrote book reviews for Singapore's The Peak magazine. Here's an excerpt from one of those reviews, covering Sagan's last book, Billions and Billions. The review's final line remains a pretty good summary of my feelings for Dr. Sagan and his work.

...Finally, on a somewhat somber note, we come to the late Dr. Carl Sagan's final work, Billions and Billions.  The book's subtitle is sadly prophetic - "Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium".  Dr. Sagan, whose contributions to the space program and to science education in general are almost incalculable, died last year of a rare blood disease. Billions and Billions is a worthy capstone to a brilliant career.

As in his previous books, Sagan attempts to lift the dark clouds of superstition and ignorance that continue to hinder humanity's progress towards achieving greatness as a species. Sagan takes a level-headed, rational view towards contentious subjects like abortion, the environment, and nuclear arms proliferation in this book without preaching or seeming arrogant. Especially interesting is the chapter detailing his efforts to unite scientists and religious leaders under one popular front devoted to expressing concern over the damage that we are doing to our precious environment.  That such diverse and often conflicting groups can be united to advance a common cause is reason for hope in what often seems a hopeless world.  The entire book is laced with cautious optimism, even in its closing pages, as Sagan describes his battle with the blood disorder that eventually killed him. For this, the gift of hope, rather than mourning his passing, we should celebrate the fact that such individuals exist all around us, fighting the tyranny of despair and giving us reasons to hope, to dream, to live.  This was Sagan's legacy.  

Cover to Cover #7

Originally published in The Peak, Volume 16, Number 3

March, 2000

I haven't read this article in years. I think I enjoy my memories of the old BBS days more than the book reviews themselves. 

Stepping Into the Parlor

My first introduction to the concept of a web of computer users came in 1986, when I was 17. A high school friend, knowing that I enjoyed creative writing and technology, showed me how to “log in” to the first electronic bulletin board systems, or BBSes. With a computer, a telephone line, and some exotic peripheral called a modem, I could send text from one computer to another and exchange story ideas, gossip, and jokes with people I might never meet face to face. I purchased my first modem when I started university, and soon I was hooked, spending more time in front of my old Atari monitor (featuring glowing white text on a blue background – wonder of wonders, I didn’t go blind) than in the library doing research. The process of logging on was often frustrating – because most BBS operators had only one phone line leading into their server, only one person at a time could use the BBS. Busy signals often echoed for hours in the tiny confines of my dorm room. Once successfully logged into the board, the text crawled along at 300 baud. There were no fancy graphics, other than primitive stick figures drawn in ASCII. And it was local; most BBSes in Edmonton were self-contained, not connected to the outside world.

But the BBSes provided fascinating messages from people with fanciful aliases like Hyperion Mok and Benchmark and Cardinal Fang and Fex Semlin. It was a place where you could shed your mortal guise and become whoever or whatever you wanted; all that counted was the quality of your interaction. Together, my virtual co-authors and I spun tall tales of magic and wonder, each of us adding a chapter once a week or so. The results were hardly art – the finished stories were far too disjointed – but our stories served as hints of things to come.

A couple of years after I completed my degree, all that changed. The BBSes, much as I loved them, were quickly left behind when I was captured by the promise of the next new thing: the World Wide Web. Not only did the Web promise fancy computer graphics and a wide range of interesting places to visit, but you could interact with people from all over the world. Not only that, but multitudes of people could use the Net all at the same time. No more busy signals! (Well, theoretically – as anyone who has used the Web knows, back in the beginning the Internet Service Providers often found themselves a bit overloaded with users, despite having much more sophisticated servers than the independent BBS operators.)

 I leapt in with both feet. In the years since, I’ve come to depend on the Internet and the World Wide Web for everything from research to personal finances to correspondence.

It’s amazing how quickly the Net has become essential. Late in 1999, I received a hand written letter in my mailbox. I was honestly stunned – it had been years since anyone had sent anything other than a brief postcard through what we now derisively call ‘snail mail.’ I immediately sat down and responded in kind, and was shocked by how arduous I found the process. No simple push of a button would send my response on its way – I actually had to find an envelope, seal it, go to the post office, buy a stamp, and, finally, toss it into the outgoing mail slot. But I wasn’t annoyed – the act of actually mailing a letter had become so novel that I relished the experience. Similarly, it’s been ages since I’ve stepped into a bank or paid a bill personally; practically all of my household affairs are now handled through the Net.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I became so caught up in the wonder of the Web that I didn’t spend much time considering its origins; soon it became just another essential appliance, like my oven or TV set. The Web seemed so technologically complex that I doubted any serious investigation into its creation could provide anything more than a chorus of yawns.

Actually, it turns out that the story is a fascinating one. For anyone interested in the history of the World Wide Web and its future, two new books, each with a different but complementary perspective, provide a fascinating insight into the tangled world of the Web.

Weaving the Web

Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti

HarperSanFrancisco

Tim Berners-Lee didn’t invent the Internet, but he did create, on his own, the structure that actually made it useful on a global scale: the World Wide Web. His firsthand account, though a little dry and technical, is nonetheless a captivating look into the development of the Web. More importantly, it is a glimpse of a powerful personal vision that is in the process of transforming our global culture.

According to Berners-Lee, he first conceived the notion of a World Wide Web while working at CERN, site of the famous supercollider where great minds smash together atoms in the hopes of uncovering the secrets of the universe. His explicit hope is to “connect anything with everything.” Appropriately, Weaving the Web is a story of consensus. Though Berners-Lee created the Web, its widespread adoption required the co-operation of hundreds of scientists, engineers, and other professionals. The author describes how, in the space of a few short years, the Web began as a simple tool to exchange data between CERN scientists to a global information warehouse.

Today, Berners-Lee serves as director of the World Wide Web Consortium, the non-profit body that co-ordinates Web development. His work on W3C forms much of the narrative, from the Consortium’s creation to its current initiatives. Without rancor, he describes the clashes with colleagues and the struggle to make the Web a tool not just for the elite, but for the masses.

Especially useful are Berners-Lee’s discussions of current Web shortcomings. He talks about the need for better measures to protect the privacy (not to mention crucial data like credit card numbers and health care information) of surfers without impairing the efficiency of the system. I was shocked when, just a few weeks ago, I discovered that it took just the click of a mouse for Internet Service Providers to make “carbon copies” of all their customers’ e-mail. While I’m not concerned about my own provider, I found the discovery sobering. Berners-Lee asserts that an easy-to-use encryption program should be available to all Web users, to ensure that only the sender and intended recipients can read information sent through the Internet. But it may be difficult to accomplish – currently, the US government considers such encryption programs as munitions, and thus subject to some pretty severe regulations.

As far as the Web has come, it’s still not as user-friendly as it could be. If Berners-Lee has his way, soon there will be more intelligent browsers that use human-like reasoning to make connections between kinds of data; web searches will provide far more useful results, cutting down on the need to laboriously wade through the hundreds of links a typical inquiry currently produces.

In the closing chapters of Weaving the Web, the author describes what steps need to be taken to keep it a free and universal medium, accessible to all. He speaks of a Web of Trust to support the emerging relationships springing up between individuals, corporations, institutions, and governments around the world. He urges us to address the problem of access – the current state of wired rich nations and web-impoverished poor nations. He describes a “Semantic Web,” one far easier to use and more intelligent than today’s work-in-progress. And he urges us to keep the web free from the control of any one government or corporation. Berners-Lee even gives us an insight into the specific hardware and software tools that need to be developed to realize the dream of truly “connecting anything with everything,” and, implicitly, everyone with everyone.

Berners-Lee was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 greatest minds of the 20^th century; reading Weaving the Web is like taking a peek into what motivates genius, and into the future of the ongoing communications revolution. It is also a call to action, an entreaty to consumers to demand a better Web. We would do well to listen.

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

Michael Lewis

Norton

In contrast to Berners-Lee, Michael Lewis is concerned less with the structure of the World Wide Web than he is with a man who made it more accessible for millions of people. In The New New Thing, Lewis tells the story of Jim Clark, the manic creative genius behind Silicon Valley legends like Silicon Graphics and Netscape. It begins with an improbable cruise upon a storm-tossed, experimental yacht, and ends with the promise of still more to come from an indomitable, mercurial innovator.

Jim Clark’s yacht, the Hyperion, serves as the symbol for Jim Clark’s never-ending quest for what Lewis calls “the new new thing.” For someone like Clark, the new thing is already old hat; once a concept is conceived, Clark leaves it to others to sort out the details while he moves on to the next wave.

Take, for example, Clark’s creation of the Geometry Engine, a computer chip he developed that made 3D computer graphics possible. It led to the formation of Clark’s company, Silicon Graphics, along with the new science of computer-assisted design and even the special effects in many Hollywood films. But almost as soon as Silicon Graphics was off and running, Clark recognized that the $70,000.00 SG workstations would soon be made obsolete by faster generations of much cheaper home PCs. But Clark made enough money from Silicon Graphics to start up Netscape, the company that triggered the Internet boom on Wall Street – before it had even created a single product. Similarly, once Netscape was off and running, Clark moved on to Healtheon, his vision of a system that would eliminate the teeming middlemen between doctors and patients.

Through the story, Clark works on Hyperion, his massive, computer-controlled yacht, a 154-foot beast with an astounding 197 foot tall mast – among the tallest, if not the tallest, in the world. But at book’s end, after making only a single transatlantic journey, Clark is already tired of his technological marvel and working on the next new new thing.

Clark’s ventures have made him a multibillionaire- Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon were all valued in the billions of dollars - and yet, it isn’t enough. Though Lewis makes it clear that Clark likes money – a lot – one gets the sense that more important than the wealth is the feeling Clark gets from exploring the fringe, from standing at the bow of a ship that dances at the dangerous but lucrative edge of the world. Behind him, Clark leaves equal amounts of wreckage and prosperity – Silicon Graphics and Netscape have each fallen on hard times, but his loyal associates became rich men in his wake, and the Web became much easier to use thanks to Netscape’s better browsers. The ultimate success of Healtheon – now WebMD – hasn’t been determined yet. It will be interesting to see if Clark’s latest venture follows the established pattern of titanic boom followed by relative obscurity.

Lewis spins an engaging story that I found difficult to interrupt. His prose is unpretentious but rich with humanity; each character, from the iconic Clark to his cadre of sometimes bewildered but brilliant followers, is drawn with precise, elegant strokes.

Webs Within Webs

When I finished these two books, I was struck by how the experience of reading them underscored the web-like structure of the world we live in. Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the early web browser, Mosaic, appears in both books, as does, unsurprisingly, Jim Clark. The Netscape vs. Microsoft conflict is mentioned in both books, as is the Microsoft antitrust suit. (John Gutfreund, the central player in Lewis’ earlier work, Liar’s Poker, makes a brief cameo appearance in The New New Thing, standing Clark up when the executive journeys to New York to pitch Silicon Graphics as a publicly traded company.) But the similar stories are far from redundant. Each narrative is an essential strand in the tale of the Web, adding context and depth.

By far the best thing about the Web story is that we, too, each weave our own distinctive strands into it; we, too, are part of the story, with the ability, through email, newsgroup discussions, and our own personal WebPages, to build the kind of Web we want. Will it be a monument to human creativity and understanding…or an elitist ivory tower denied to the masses? Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain: the Web is here to stay.

Happy Birthday, Superman!

This article was originally published in a 1998 issue of Singapore's The Peak magazine, which explains the dated references to the "electric blue" era of Superman comics and the thankfully cancelled Tim Burton Superman Lives project. It was a real pleasure not only to write about my favourite comic book character, but to be paid good money for doing so! 

Looking back, this article seems a little breathless to me, and somewhat haphazardly organized. I'd approach the subject with more nuance and deeper analysis today. Still, I think it serves as a reasonable primer for forgiving audiences. 

Happy Birthday, Superman!

60 Years of Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Sixty years ago, a ten-cent pulp magazine called Action Comics #1 hit newsstands across North America. On the cover was an unlikely image: a caped figure in red and blue tights, lifting an auto over his head, smashing it against an outcropping of rock as a band of terrified criminals scrambles for cover. That caped figure was Superman - last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton, who, disguised as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, fought a never-ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The character was an immediate smash hit, and his adventures have seen continuous publication since that first appearance in June of 1938. Today, Superman is one of  a select number of fictional characters in the pop culture tradition recognized the world over; perhaps only Tarzan of the Apes and Zorro are as well known. It all began when two teenagers, inspired by the exploits of daring crusaders like Doc Savage and the Scarlet Pimpernel, decided to create their own hero in the same vein - but with a few fantastic twists.

Jerry Siegel was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1914. Joe Shuster was born in Toronto, Ontario, that same year. Joe moved to Cleveland at the age of nine, met Jerry, and the two began a friendship that endured until their deaths just a few years ago. They would ensure their place in history when, in 1933, they developed their first concept of Superman: a visitor from another world, with “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.” For five years they attempted to sell their creation to the newspapers, intending to publish their character’s exploits in the syndicated comic strip format. It wasn’t until 1938 that they would finally manage to get Superman published - but in a new form, the comic book. Before Superman’s debut, comic books had only been collections of reprints of already-established newspaper comic strips. Action Comics would be the first comic book to feature original material. The editor of Action Comics was a little nervous about such an outlandish character being marketable, especially in a new medium, but to his surprise, the magazine sold extremely well and continued to rise in popularity with each successive issue. In those formative years, Superman fever hit the nation, spawning a second comic devoted solely to Superman’s exploits (Action Comics featured characters in addition to the Man of Steel), a radio program, movie serials, and a 1942 novel. By 1940 he was also featured in a syndicated newspaper strip - the original goal of Siegel and Shuster.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t be surprising that the character was so popular with young men - the target audience, at the time, for comic book adventures. Superman was strong (stronger than anyone!), handsome, invincible - the things every guy wants to be. Not only that - the girls all fell for him, world leaders respected him, and no one but no one messed with him. (As the song goes - “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.”) The real secret to Superman’s popularity, though was his alter-ego: mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, the bespectacled nerd who served as the stand-in for the reader. Superman had to disguise himself as Clark, the reasoning went, so that he could spend part of his time living a normal life, as well as ensuring that criminals could not strike back at Superman through his loved ones. Clark was shy, a little cowardly, and very awkward with women. He was smart, but clumsy and weak - no football or track star, he. He wore the same blue suit every day, along with an unflattering pair of horn-rimmed glasses. But when danger threatened, Clark would, without fail, rush into a telephone booth or empty storeroom and rip open his shirt to reveal the red and yellow “S” - a sure sign that hard-hitting action was not long in coming. It was, and remains, an attractive fantasy for young men. Sure, your friends may think that you’re a wimp - but you have a secret. If they only knew that under that meek exterior burned the heart of an unstoppable crusader for good…

The lively supporting cast helped expand the comic’s popularity. For the girls, there was Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, Clark’s co-worker and love interest: feisty, independent, smart, beautiful, a career woman before being a career woman was fashionable. For younger kids, there was Jimmy Olsen, the eager copy boy who became Superman’s best pal. There was even a gruff father figure, the irascible but warm-hearted Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet. 

Superman’s background story adds to his mythic power. Consider that he is an orphan, the last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton. In the Superman tales, Krypton is an incredibly advanced civilization, densely populated by perfect beings who have conquered war, disease, hunger, and crime. However, the Kryptonians have grown somewhat complacent. Their world is about to explode, and only Superman’s father, Jor-El, realizes that the danger exists. As his wife Lara watches tearfully, Jor-El places his only son, the infant Kal-El, into a tiny experimental rocket ship. Just before the planet explodes, Kal-El is shot into space, saved at the last moment. The rocket lands in Kansas, where farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent find it. They hide the secret of the child’s alien heritage from the world, raising him as their own son, teaching him values and impressing upon him that he is a special being and must use his incredible abilities only to help others, never to cause harm or seek personal power. The circumstances of Superman’s origin are strongly reminiscent of Christian accounts; a godlike father figure sends his only son to Earth to spread the good word. 1978’s Superman: The Movie makes the allegory even more blatant. Marlon Brando, as the spirit of Jor-El, lectures his son at one point in the film:

“It is now time for you to rejoin your new world…and to serve its collective humanity. Live as one of them, Kal-El…they can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be - they only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all…their capacity for good…I have sent them you…my only son.”

In the film, the Kryptonians are garbed in brilliant white and the cities are gleaming crystalline towers; all very heavenly and angelic. The metaphor was little bit too much for some Christians; in the year of the film’s release, there was a brief period of outrage at the comparison of a comic book character to the Biblical Saviour. The furor died down quickly, though, and Superman’s popularity continued to fly high.

Superman’s rich back story became a little diluted over the years, though.

As the 1950s and 1960s progressed, writers began to introduce other survivors of Krypton. First there was Supergirl, Superman’s cousin Kara, a blonde teenager who had survived Krypton’s explosion when her home, the bubble-enclosed Argo City, was blown off the planet in a separate chunk. There was Krypto, Superman’s dog, and Beppo, the Super Monkey, both test animals shot into space by Jor-El whose capsules eventually drifted to Earth. (The SPCA would probably not have approved of Jor-El’s methods.) Then there came Comet the Super-Horse, Streaky the Super-Cat, Titano the Super-Ape, a plethora of super-criminals from the Kryptonian prison known as the Phantom Zone, and eventually an entire shrunken city in a bottle full of survivors of the cataclysm. By the early 1980s, one began to wonder if Superman’s parents were the only Kryptonians who didn’t survive the planet’s destruction.

Superman’s abilities grew as time went on, as well. In the early years, he could merely leap tall buildings in a single bound and was more powerful than a locomotive. By the 1980s, he was flying at speeds faster than light, shifting planets in their orbits, and had a ridiculous array of powers, including “super-ventriloquism” - which, apart from the obvious applications, enabled Superman to talk in the airless vacuum of space!

As the character neared his 50^th anniversary, editors at DC Comics, publishers of the Man of Steel’s adventures, decided that something needed to be done - so they started over from scratch, “rebooting” the character as though he were a buggy computer, to get the kinks out. The experiment worked. In 1986 Superman was born anew, once more the only survivor of Krypton, with more basic superhuman abilities and a less convoluted array of supporting characters. Revitalized, Superman became more popular after the reboot than he had been in many years, and his success has continued into this 60^th anniversary year. At present, Superman appears in over a half-dozen comics per month; he had a very popular television series, the whimsical “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” wrap up last year, and an excellent animated series is still running on the Warner Brothers network. Tim Burton, director of the first two Batman movies, is currently at work on what will be the fifth Superman feature film. Currently rumoured to be playing the lead role is superstar (if you will forgive the pun) Nicholas Cage; Home Improvement’s Tim Allen may play the villain Brainiac; and Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects) may essay the role of Superman’s arch nemesis, Lex Luthor.

Recently, some longtime Superman fans have been outraged by a radical change to the character; in 1997, his costume and abilities were changed. Superman lost the old red, yellow and blue suit; it was replaced by a blue and white jumpsuit, and his traditional powers were gone. Even the cape was discarded. Now, Superman had an array of electromagnetic abilities, acquiring blue skin and a lightning-boltish appearance.  Dubbed “Bluperman” by detractors, the storyline has nonetheless been popular. DC comics recently revealed, however, that as part of the 60^th anniversary celebrations, Superman will get his traditional costume and powers back.

The character has become a pop-culture staple; the phrases “Look…up in the sky!”, “Faster than a speeding bullet,” and “Up, up and away!” are as immediately recognizable as “Beam me up, Scotty,” and “Who was that masked man?” His symbol, a stylized “S” in an irregular pentagram, is as widely known as any corporate logo, adorning t shirts, keychains, watches, and even underwear. Not an episode of Seinfeld passes without some glimpse of a Superman statue or sticker somewhere in the background; Seinfeld is an ardent fan of the character and even appears with him in a very entertaining commercial running currently in the United States. Musician Jon Bon Jovi and athlete Shaquille O’Neill sport “S” symbol tattoos. The Crash Test Dummies had a hit with “Superman’s Song” a few short years ago, as did the Spin Doctors with “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” - a reference to Superman’s pal.

During the run of the 1950s series The Adventures of Superman, the character was portrayed by George Reeves. I Love Lucy was running at the same time, and Reeves, as Superman, drops in on Lucy in one memorable episode. Superman has always enjoyed the company of famous personalities; he held off an invasion from Mars in 1950 assisted by, appropriately enough, director and writer Orson Welles. He met actress Ann Blyth in 1949, was honoured by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, argued with Ronald Reagan in 1986, and brought Hitler and Stalin to justice for crimes against humanity in 1939 (!), preventing World War II. (One regrets that this particular adventure was only imaginary.) He visited Disneyland with science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury in the 1978 Eliot S. Maggin novel Last Son of Krypton. He even fought the famous boxer Muhammad Ali - and lost! - in a very enjoyable late ‘70s tale. 

When the character “died” in the much-ballyhooed Death of Superman storyline a few years back, CBS anchorman Dan Rather read the following statement: “We can no longer say, ‘Let Superman do it.’ The quest for truth and justice must become our quest - not singly as vigilantes, but together as the great people Superman hoped we would be.” Superman recovered, of course, but Rather’s words remain moving.

Why such devotion to someone who is, after all, a fictional being, a four-colour wraith who only exists in our imaginations? I think it’s because, at heart, Superman’s greatest desire is to do the right thing. He never lies; he is polite and generous; he is humble; he uses violence only as a last resort; and, despite the ability to do so, he eschews personal power and uses his fantastic powers only in the service of others. In a world where all too few of us display such characteristics, it’s hard not to be inspired by such a concept. A few years ago, a friend and I were watching Superman III on television. She turned to me at one point and said, “You know, Earl - you’re just like Clark Kent.” Though I felt undeserving of the remark (and still do), it was the highest compliment I have ever been paid, and I treasure the memory. The idea of a Superman has inspired countless numbers of people, including me, to be kind to others and to help out whenever possible. In that sense, he is very real - real enough that from time to time I imagine that I glimpse a red and blue blur soaring overhead, and I am tempted to cry out, “Look! Up in the sky…”

So, Happy Birthday, Supes, and thanks for sixty years of adventure and inspiration.

The Redundant Human

Originally published in The Peak, Volume 13, Number 7

July 1997

The End of Work

by Jeremy Rifkin

Tarcher/Putnam

The End of Work is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of our global civilization. Author Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington DC-based Foundation on Economic Trends, presents us with a chilling choice: be prepared for a fundamental change in the way our society is structured, or face the consequences of global unemployment on a scale never before seen in our history. Even the elites should take heed, according to the author, for they will not be immune to the tragic effects of massive worldwide poverty and the disappearance of the middle class.   

 

Rifkin opens with a grim statistic: over 800 million people are unemployed on Earth, the highest level of joblessness since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The cause?  Technology. The author is not a modern Luddite; he acknowledges that the new information and computer technologies have created many new jobs - but not nearly enough to replace the jobs lost due to the increased use of machines to supplant human labour. Bucking the current conventional wisdom - that being the argument that we are merely in a "transitional phase" and that technological change will eventually result in more wealth for everyone - Rifkin provides compelling evidence that unless steps are taken to prevent it, producers of goods and services will discover that the vast majority of the population, rendered unemployable by the new computer revolution,  cannot afford to buy what the producers sell. The results, needless to say, would be catastrophic. 

               

The first four-fifths of the book is tough reading - not because of any deficiency in Rifkin's skills as a writer, but simply because the picture he paints is almost too bleak to withstand. Through the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds of thousands of workers in every stream of the economy have been laid off, from unskilled labourers to clerical workers to bank tellers to middle management. Teenagers and college graduates are unemployed or underemployed in record numbers. (After investing thousands of dollars to obtain a university degree, I spent three years earning a subsistence wage doing menial labour because of the intense competition for the few jobs left for college graduates.) But, Rifkin notes, productivity is up, profits are up, and today's most popular buzzphrase seems to be "jobless recovery,” a seeming oxymoron. How is this possible?

               

The key lies in humanity's newfound ability to produce more goods and services with less human labour.  Computers, working together with robots and other labour-saving devices, have made it possible for corporations to drastically reduce their employee overhead costs while at the same time creating more goods more quickly and with fewer defects than ever before. So far, the labourers hardest hit have been those working in the traditional industries: auto manufacturing, steelworkers, farmers, machinists. But, Rifkin warns, no one should be complacent. With the speed and capabilities of computers doubling every eighteen months, tasks once thought to be the exclusive domain of human beings could fall into the realm of automation. One telling example is that of the potboiler novel Just This Once, two-thirds of which was written by a computer. While not a work of art, this book is, according to critics quoted in Rifkin's book, easily as readable as any number of Harlequin romances on the bookstore shelves today. Even actors are not safe. We have all seen the Coca-Cola ads of a few years back featuring Humphey Bogart and Fred Astaire frolicking with Paula Abdul. The film greats were digitally inserted into footage shot in the modern era; these commercials already seem crude in contrast to the amazing special effects we see in movies and television today. Soon, it will be possible to create new episodes of television series cancelled decades ago, using stock footage edited and digitally enhanced by computer. Actors will find themselves competing for roles with stars of the past, or even younger versions of themselves!

Every day, we use devices that have replaced human beings: we bank at instant tellers, we purchase goods through television and internet shopping networks, and we even buy CDs from robots - at least, we do in one American shopping mall, and that shop has been so successful that more are surely on the way. The convenience is undeniable, but what is the ultimate price of our love affair with modern technology?     

               

The simple fact is that machines work longer hours, never complain, never get sick, and are much cheaper to use than humans. Sometimes instant tellers are friendlier than their overworked human counterparts. It's no wonder that corporations, in a continuing battle to remain competitive, turn to machines to reduce costs. 

               

The potentially catastrophic side effect is that hundreds of thousands of people are thrust into poverty, and that many of them slip into hopeless lives of despair or turn to crime, frustrated by their lot. The gap between rich and poor is widening at a dizzying pace, and fear and suspicion between have and have-not threaten to boil over into armed confrontation. Already, we see evidence of what was once considered science fiction; a privileged minority of super-rich individuals are cowering behind stone walls, perimeter guards, and security cameras  in many North American communities, sealing themselves off from the increasingly violent urban landscape that surrounds them. 

               

If this were all there was to The End of Work, I could not recommend it, for too many books provide criticism of our society without suggesting solutions. Fortunately, Rifkin is not of this doomsaying ilk, and the final part of his book provides several possible ways for humanity to escape the seemingly unavoidable fate that awaits us.  To reveal too much here would be unfair to potential readers; suffice it to say that Rifkin's solutions are refreshingly free of naive idealism. Nor does he suggest that we return to a simpler, pastoral life, free of machines. Rifkin acknowledges that you cannot turn back progress. Rather, his ideas are hard-headed, practical approaches that are well within the capabilities of our society, if we can muster the political will to carry them out. Rifkin ends the book on an cautiously optimistic note, pointing out several localised examples of a new economic dynamic at work, one that may give us a way out of a stratified, rich vs. poor future. The End of Work is not light entertainment by any means, but Rifkin's prose is clear and precise, so much so that he makes a heavy topic a relatively easy read.  Give it a try sometime when you're feeling pensive about the future and want some ideas on how to build a better world. I, for one, will try to take heed of the author's advice - after all, my next column might be written by my once-faithful PC.                  

Force Fed

In early 1997, at the urging of my friend Parvesh Bal, I finally submitted a piece of writing to a publisher - and it sold! My first article was published in Singapore's The Peak magazine back in June of 1997. For your amusement, here's the article.

FORCE - FED
How Special is Star Wars:  The Special Edition?

Is Star Wars really new and improved?  Like the rest of the world, I lined up to see it again, braving mobs of rabid, lightsaber-waving fanatics dressed up as Jedi Knights or Wookiees or Princess Leia. Darth Vader jumped the queue at the popcorn counter, but I was too intimidated to protest. Star Wars, the ultimate space opera, is back in theatres, and, to paraphrase the inimitable Vader, there will be no one to stop it this time.

Not that anyone stopped it the last time, either, back in 1977.  It became the highest grossing film of all time, held that honour until E.T. came along in 1982, and now it has reclaimed the top spot, crossing the $400 million dollar mark. This should come as no surprise, as this new version of the science fiction classic, with new special effects and added footage, has been hyped constantly for almost a year. Why the new edition?  Was there something wrong with the old version? Or is this just a cynical grab for money?    

Clearly, everyone loved this film when it was first released - I know that I did.  When I first saw Star Wars, I was eight years old.  It cost 75 cents to get into the only theatre in the little mining town of Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, and that included a pop and a bag of chips.  My best friend Kelly and I went three times in the first week, and we immediately begged our parents for Star Wars toys. I got R2-D2, the little droid who looked like a garbage pail with legs. Kelly got Luke Skywalker, the last one in the store, and I was a little envious - after all, Luke was the hero - but I grew really attached to that feisty little beeping garbage pail, and we wound up collecting the whole set of characters, anyway. R2 became, and remains, my favourite - twenty years later, I still have the little guy in a box somewhere, paint faded, plastic chipped, but stubbornly intact, just like its onscreen doppleganger.

The movie inspired great devotion. My little brother, only six months old and not quite yet hip to the Star Wars scene, made the unforgivable error of throwing my Stormtrooper action figure (boys never called them "dolls") out the window of our truck while we were speeding down the highway. I had a fit, naturally, making Mom and Dad stop so that we could get out and look for it. This was summer in northern Manitoba - which meant that the ditches we were combing in search of my lost toy were filled with enormous mosquitoes, blackflies, and other unsavory creatures. An hour later, my infinitely patient father shouted triumphantly and lifted the scraped but whole Stormtrooper into the air. We resumed our journey, and I rolled up the window before letting my brother play with my things again. So profound was my relief that I didn't even notice the mosquito bites.  

My most memorable Star Wars moment happened in 1979. A friend and I were playing with those wonderful dolls, enacting our own little scenes like every other kid on the continent. At one point, my friend Keith was playing the role of Luke Skywalker, rattling his little plastic lightsaber in Darth Vader's face, who I controlled.  In my best menacing baritone, I said "Do not fight me, Luke....I am your father."

Imagine our shock and delight a few months later when Vader and Luke had an almost identical exchange in The Empire Strikes Back.  I promptly decided that I was psychic, but later experiments proved that I'd just gotten lucky.  It was probably just as well.  No psychic flashes foreshadowed Return of the Jedi, so none of the surprises in that film were spoiled.

Years passed; adolescence turned to young adulthood; young adulthood slipped away to that dreaded period known as "Dear God, I'm about to turn Thirty." Star Wars became a pleasant memory of easier, more innocent times.

Now it's back. This time I went to the movie alone, with jaded eyes and an outlook not quite as open to romance, heroism, and swashbuckling. This time I went because I was disturbed by the notion of filmmakers going back and editing their works, "cleaning them up" for a more sophisticated audience. This time I went because the unceasing barrage of advertising made it almost compulsory to do so. It was either go, or endure the endless cries of "Have you seen the Special Edition yet?"  There was no joy or anticipation in the prospect of seeing this "new" version. I am, after all, an adult, far more interested in the sociological implications of this restoration than in cheap thrills and derring-do. How dare Lucas meddle with Art, even if it was his own work? Would da Vinci have changed the Mona Lisa a few years later if he decided that her eyes should have been a different colour? The notion is ridiculous. I sat down and crossed my arms sternly before me, prepared for the worst.

It didn't take long for the old magic to penetrate my curmudgeon's shell.  That magnificent opening shot of the Rebel cruiser being chased by an Imperial Star Destroyer is even more awe-inspiring now, thanks to Industrial Light and Magic's retooling. It was an impressive sight in 1977; one is forced to admit that the new, updated special effects do indeed enhance the film, making some scenes merely clearer and crisper, others into audience-rattling spectacles. The destruction of Alderaan is truly frightening in its power and realism now, adding to the impact of the movie. Lucas has even added a few scenes that had once lain on the cutting room floor, enhancing some story points and giving key characters more depth. In fact, my only quibble is that the much-ballyhooed Han Solo/Jabba the Hut meeting features dialogue repeated almost verbatim from the Solo/Greedo confrontation from a few minutes earlier in the film, obviously a result of Lucas having dropped the Jabba scene in the original movie. Still, this scene serves as welcome foreshadowing for events to come in the sequels. More welcome is the reunion of Luke and his friend Biggs just before the final battle over the Death Star; during the original release, we wondered why Biggs' fate was treated as such an important moment when he was such a seemingly peripheral character. Now, we understand why Luke looks so upset when Biggs meets his doom.

By film's end, I wanted to cheer along with everyone else as the Death Star exploded. Being a responsible adult, of course, I didn't indulge in such behavior...but it was a near thing. I still feel that the notion of retroactively altering a movie in such a radical way raises several disturbing issues (will jingoistic war movies of the 1940s be reinterpreted so that some of the uncomfortably racist scenes are eliminated?), in this case I think that the final product justifies the tampering. For when I left the theatre, I saw a new generation of eight year olds clutching their little R2-D2s, imagining worlds long, long ago and far, far away...and anything that stimulates the sense of wonder in our children can only be seen as that rarest of things, an unqualified good.  Star Wars isn't really about special effects, after all; it's about heroes, and Good and Evil, bravery and sacrifice and nobility; none of these things are lost in the enhancement. Take a couple of hours this weekend and let yourself be a child again; lose yourself in the exploits of an intrepid band of galactic adventurers.  Remember your innocence, and...May the Force Be With You. 

*****

LOOKING BACK: I'm less fond of Lucas' revisionism these days. I now feel that the additional Biggs scene is probably the only worthwhile change, and I notice now that I didn't even mention the infamous "Han shot first!" debacle. Still, I think this article holds together fairly well; I'd forgotten I'd included so many personal memories.

Deep Reading

Originally published in The Peak, Volume 14, Number 9
September, 1998

This year, Germans and lovers of the theatre all over the world are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht, author of Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Threepenny Opera (origin of “Mack the Knife"), and a score of other plays. Born 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Brecht went on to become one of the most celebrated and controversial of the modern dramatists, earning the monikers “the German Shakespeare” and “the poet of the Communist revolution,” this last nickname being applied to him because of his fervently Marxist outlook. In fact, so identified was he with the Communist cause that his plays were not performed in capitalist West Germany until after his death in 1956. His exposure in North America has been limited even today; the internationally renowned theatre company he formed in East Berlin, the Berliner Ensemble, did not perform on that continent until a 1986 performance in Toronto.

Indeed, Brecht was always something of an exile. He wrote in Germany during World War I, later fled the Nazis to work in Scandinavia, spent time in Hollywood writing screenplays (only to be forced to testify before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee), and finished his life in East Germany. Along the way, he fathered three children by three different women and made a good deal of devoted friends and bitter enemies. His was not a life of moderation.

The Communist East appreciated the devotion of a famous and influential figure to their cause, but were uncomfortable with his unflinching devotion to art and to his own version of the truth. Plays like The Measures Taken (1926), in which an evangelical Communist shows her loyalty to the Party by meekly submitting to an unjust execution, even though the young Comrade knows herself to be in the right, anticipated the Stalinist fervor that would make life in the Soviet Union such a nightmare for hundreds of millions of its citizens. This kind of criticism made Soviet authorities distinctly uncomfortable; Brecht was never popular in the USSR, though Communist Party propagandists made much use of Brecht’s celebrity status. And while Brecht was profoundly influential in the West, affecting the careers of important English directors like Peter Brook and playwrights like John Arden and John Osborne, his politics were often thought to interfere with his art, making his plays just a little less effective than they could have been. Indeed, at the close of The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1945), the conclusion is so obviously a not-too-subtle rephrasing of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to his needs” that even the least astute reader feels like he’s been somewhat beaten over the head with the point. But then, Brecht was convinced that the theatre had to be a way to promote social change; he would not apologize for appearing to belabour his points.

Brecht’s mode of storytelling, what has been termed “Epic Theatre,” has had more impact on drama than the plays themselves. Brecht took pains to point out that his method was really a rebellion against the relatively new phenomenon of the naturalistic theatre, wherein the audience is made to feel that they are merely eavesdropping on real events. He felt that the relatively new naturalist method of direction encouraged audiences to leave the theatre entertained and sated, but uninstructed in any way. It was too easy to enjoy; the audience was not required to think. In contrast, Epic theatre uses older dramatic traditions like the aside, the monologue, or the chorus, devices that make a play less “realistic” but more intellectually engaging. In any play using the Brechtian mode, the audience cannot help but realize that they are watching a play - they cannot for one second believe that they are simply peering into a realistic world. For example, Brecht once painted the faces of a group of soldiers chalk-white to symbolize their fear of charging into battle - much more likely to provoke thought than a simple expression of fear on an actor’s face.

In the early 20th century, most plays used the naturalist method; it was almost like watching a movie. Today, more and more stage plays are using the traditional devices that Brecht brought back into the spotlight. Brecht’s influence can be seen in the works of Canadian playwright and director Brad Fraser, author of Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love and Poor Superman. In Poor Superman, the stage is very much an artifice; surreal forms take the place of furniture and the walls are made into a slideshow of rampaging comic-book characters. Critic Martin Esslin called Epic Theatre “a production naively sophisticated yet highly stylized.” Naïve, perhaps, but the evidence of Brecht’s impact is all around us.

To celebrate the centenary of Brecht’s death, a number of special events are happening all over the world through 1998. His childhood home in Augsburg was renovated and turned into a German national monument on February 10; a Brecht postage stamp was also produced. Several television specials on his life have already aired, and no less than three different CD packages have been released featuring Brecht’s songs and readings of his works. The Korean Brecht Society will be holding a conference in Seoul to celebrate the centenary during the final week of September this year, on the theme “Brecht in the Post-Socialist, Post-Modernist World.” Four films on Brecht’s life and work are currently in production. Canadian pop singer Jane Siberry participated in a celebration in Toronto in April. Perhaps most exciting is the planned publication of Bertolt Brecht’s War Primer, a controversial look at the Cold War that was originally released in 1955. Consisting of Brecht’s thoughts on the madness and futility of war, it was too frank for Cold War audiences on either side of the Iron Curtain to take; the 90s may be a more receptive era for this important, eloquent testimonial. The works of Bertolt Brecht may not have received the attention that they have deserved in recent decades, but it looks as though the long Brecht-fast is over at last.

Why People Believe Weird Things
Michael Shermer
Freeman

If you’re not in the mood for theatre, there are plenty of good books to feed your craving for intellectual stimulation. One of these is Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine. An examination of the alarming rise of superstition and adherence to pseudoscience in today’s world, Why People Believe Weird Things is a valuable examination of why people choose to believe things that are, under any kind of scrutiny, ludicrous. Unflinchingly, Shermer tackles the alien abduction phenomenon, faith healers, psychics, Holocaust deniers, Afrocentrists, and even Objectivists, the right-wing cult formed by American Ayn Rand. Some targets - psychics, alien abductees - are easy to debunk. Others, like the Afrocentrists and Objectivists, are more controversial subjects to place under close scrutiny. Shermer takes each belief quite seriously, however, never stooping to name-calling or condescension. In fact, he takes pains to assure readers that he is not calling into question the intelligence of anyone who holds what he calls a weird belief; he merely points out that they are not thinking carefully about issues, that they are choosing what they want to believe over the evidence that reality presents. I especially recommend this work for the chapter on Holocaust deniers. Whatever your faith, it’s important to read this examination of how political ideology can pervert and distort history, and how this is dangerous for all of us.

Girlfriend in a Coma
Douglas Coupland
Harper Collins

Canadian Douglas Coupland, the man who named a generation with his novel Generation X, is back with a new book, Girlfriend in a Coma. It’s part Microserfs, an earlier Coupland novel, and part It’s a Wonderful Life, the famous Frank Capra film. In brief: the year is 1979. A group of Vancouver teenagers are traumatized when one of their number, Jared, dies, and another, Karen, falls into a coma. As the years pass, they heal, go to college, get jobs, and eventually wind up working as technicians on an unnamed television show that is clearly meant to be The X-Files. Then, in 1997, Karen wakes up. She is predictably shocked and amazed by the advances in technology and the changes in the world (the rise of AIDS, the collapse of the USSR, etc.), but more importantly, she is profoundly disturbed by how busy and meaningless life seems to have become. She observes her friends, working twelve hour days, six days a week, accumulating material wealth but losing their identities and sense of purpose. This is the most effective section of the book; Coupland asks hard questions about where our society is heading, questions that will hit anyone between the ages of twenty and forty very, very hard. What are we filling our lives with? Why is the bottom line the most important thing in the West? Who are we becoming? The book does falter somewhat in its closing act, becoming a sort of science-fiction story without any real foreshadowing of an apocalyptic event that stuns the reader. Despite this misstep, the novel remains deeply affecting and I have no reservations about recommending it.


The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the New World Order
Samuel P. Huntington
Simon & Schuster

If you missed the hardcover release of Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, it’s now out in a trade paperback edition. Huntington, a prominent political scientist recognized by Henry Kissinger himself, examines the new structure of global politics in the wake of the collapse of Soviet Communism. This collapse, he argues, was not the final obstacle to Western hegemony over the Earth; rather, it signals the beginning of a multipolar world made up of seven or eight key civilizations: The West, Latin America, Japan, Islam, Orthodoxy, Buddhist states, Hinduism, Sinic states, and Africa. Huntington foresees a world of increasing conflict between these civilizations, with fewer conflicts within civilizations. While tensions in Ireland may ease, for example, those in Cyprus can be expected to increase. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are, in Huntington’s view, both part of one civilization; that is more important than petty regional differences. Cyprus, on the other hand, is divided between Islamic Turks and Orthodox Greeks; he feels that reconciliation is less likely between peoples of different civilizations. Huntington describes religion as the key component of civilizational identification; he feels that it is the most important facet of international relations in our current world. The evidence he uses to back up his claims is impressive, but I feel that he doesn’t give enough credit to the mitigating effects of increased travel and communication between civilizations; he discounts the notion that peoples of different religions can get along in any meaningful way, an assertion that I find profoundly disturbing. Still, in the end, I found it hard to dispute many of Huntington’s conclusions. If you’re looking for an intellectual workout, pick this book up.