Wednesday, November 29, 2006

You Talkin' to Me?

This is a generally fascinating and occasionally disturbing interchange between two very smart, committed men regarding (ostensibly) whether or not God exists. In point of fact, it seems to be really about whether belief in God does more good or more harm, today and in the past.

Sam Harris avows that belief in God is uniformly nonsensical, that there is no value whatsoever in it, and that human life is in immediate danger from all of its manifestations, not just the ones that encourage people to fly airplanes into great public buildings.

Dennis Prager avows that belief in God is true and factually based, that no moral system can survive without it, and that human life is in imminent danger from atheism in all its forms.


My many millions of readers know by this time that I believe in God and that I seek (with varying degrees of success) to live a Jewish life. I've never heard of or met Sam Harris, except in his appearances on Salon and The Huffington Post; on the other hand I have a nodding acquaintance with Dennis Prager and disagree with his politics, except where Israel is concerned.

Both of these guys are smarter, better read and more skilled in argument than I am, which may explain why their rhetoric is so fractious. The question of whether or not God exists - whether or not belief in God promotes good individual or collective life - is an important one, so both Mr. Harris and Mr. Prager seem to have acted accordingly. They've rolled out the big guns and attacked both each other's arguments and each other personally, which I've always found a little distasteful in spiritual discussions, but that's just me.


Anyway, the most fascinating thing about this interchange is that Mr. Harris and Mr. Prager spend much of their time accusing each other of the exact same things! Observe; here and there you find them both saying "You have neither disproved my arguments nor presented any new ones of your own," and "What you're saying has nothing to do with the subject at hand," and doubtless a few other things you can find for yourself.

I make no claims for my own ability in this kind of argument, and if I found myself sitting across the table from either one of them I know I'd lose; Dennis has demolished me once or twice in the past. That doesn't stop me from noting that they don't seem to be listening to each other very carefully. Neither Mr. Harris' devotion to reason and scientific clarity, nor Mr. Prager's devotion to truth and moral clarity, seem to have led either one of them to much respect for the opponent. (Of course, respect for the opponent is not very popular these days, but I like it.)

Well, maybe they're both bumping up the intensity because they're in a public forum and want to sway the audience if they can. Maybe if they met one-on-one, they'd take a less confrontational tone. Makes sense, but doesn't that mean that they're not really talking to each other? They're talking past each other to the audience. So they're neither talking to each other nor listening to each other, and what's the point?


I once saw a panel discussion on television between a pro-lifer and a pro-choicer, moderated by a specialist in conflict resolution. The first thing the moderator did was require both parties to present the other side's argument, without comment or objection. The remaining discussion actually led somewhere, if memory serves.

Zealots may not believe that such a tactic is either useful or moral - why spend time detailing a point of view you know to be wrong? - but it works for me.

Benshlomo says, If you want to discuss something with me, you can start by remembering that you're discussing something with me.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Goodbye to the Real Player

Robert Altman's dead, and somehow I have a hunch he's not too unhappy about it.


That's pure speculation, of course, and those of us who love movies are decidedly unhappy about it, but the man was 81 years old, and although he worked practically up to his last breath he had been in poor health for a while. It's not like he owed us anything, either.

Much has been made of his distinctive style of filmmaking. He's the one who directed his actors to speak over each other and his cameraman to pan over to action already in progress, so that we in the audience felt like we were seeing something as it happened, not something set up artificially (it was, of course, set up artificially, it just didn't seem that way). Altman got to direct movies in his own manner, and make money at it, which very few filmmakers have ever had the skill or the support to do. He was lucky, and knew it, and deserved it. We're going to miss him.

Opinion is divided as to his greatest movie. Some vote for M*A*S*H, some for The Long Goodbye, some for Nashville, some for The Player, some for Popeye, some for 3 Women, maybe even some for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (no). I'm no cinematic maven, but I remember one comment from Roger Ebert's original review of McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Mr. Ebert later described this as Altman's only "perfect" movie, and for all I know he's right. That's not what struck me, though. In his original review (not the "Great Movie" review but the original one, which doesn't seem to be on his website for some stupid reason), he describes the opening scene thus (I'm paraphrasing):

A hooded man rides his horse in a mild snowfall down a muddy path and stops just short of a ratty little cluster of slapped-together shacks. He gets off, shrugs out of his hood and puts on a snazzy bowler hat, first brushing the snow off. As he does so, he mutters to himself. We can't understand his words at all, but his meaning is clear enough - this time, he snarls, the bastards aren't going to get him down.

Some time after I read that review, I watched the movie. I had assumed that Ebert's description was mere rhetoric - if you can't understand what the man is saying, how can you possibly know what he's talking about? Well, lo and behold, Warren Beatty stopped his horse, got down, put on his hat and muttered to himself, and his meaning was exactly what Ebert said it was.

That's a compliment both to Ebert's understanding and to Beatty's performance (and I've never thought too highly of his acting), but Altman's the one who knew what was needed at that moment, got the proper attitude out of his actor, and realized, critically, that the audience should not be able to make out the words. Most directors (most people, for that matter) assume that the audience has to be spoon-fed, if not force-fed. Remember the controversy over what Bill Murray said to Scarlett Johanssen at the end of Lost in Translation? Altman did stuff like that all the time. It was a critical encouragement to audiences, and I just hope that Sofia Coppola and maybe some others will continue to take Robert Altman's cue.


Benshlomo says, It's hard to treat adults like adults, but that's the only way to play.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Re Yesterday's Election, Just One Word:


Benshlomo says, whew.