Friday, October 03, 2003
I saw yesterday night Dogville, the last movie from Danish director Lars von Trier. For those who haven't see the movie, but are willing to, skip this note.
They say that the movie was dismissed in the Cannes festival because it was anti-american. The Guardian published an article by a New Yorker who felt it was all a fable of the September 11th events. Let's see: a poor and beautiful woman, escaping from gangsters who were chasing her, hides in a town. The residents at first help her, and end abusing her. Finally she takes revenge, and sets the whole place in fire, killing every inhabitant. Any coincidence with the poor countries first upholded and later betrayed by the US and turning into factories of terrorism in the process, it's pure imagination. The fact is that the mainstream American media reacted violently against the movie, as it was predictable, and missed one of the best pictures of the year. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Variety, they were all extremely hysterical about the meaning of the movie. But the point is that while you're seeing the movie, you don't think it's a metaphor, "a metaphor with a map", as someone put it. It's a strong movie, an excellent occasion to see how people behave in some circumstances, and the fable could be easily timeless and ubiquitous. The American colour was given in the end of it, when you see a sequence of pictures from old American poor farmers. I am not saying that Von Trier is innocent of the metaphor: I'm saying that you, as a spectator, you don't perceive it as an attack to the American foreign policy until the very end, and even then, you could stick with the idea of a general criticism of human behaviour. Lars Von Trier naturally tried to provoke. He said that he's not really anti-American; in fact: he feels like an American. But that must be interpreted under his own view of what to be Danish and feel American means:
The United States dominates the world and we are all subjects of the empire whether we want to be or not. The Iraqis learnt something about that.
(Taken from a BBC article). The Washinton Post completes that assertion with another:
I would love to start a 'free America campaign,' because we've just had a 'free Iraq campaign.' That's how I feel. . . . I am sure it's a beautiful country. I would love to go there [but] I'm afraid of going there. Maybe this is all because of wrong communication [from European media], I don't know. I think it could be a wonderful place, but I'm not able to go to America right now because I don't think America is how it should be.
The article where I read that is a sample of how bitter were the American critics with the movie. Naturally, for the Americans the fact that Von Trier has never been to the United States invalidates every criticism. He said he was inspired by Steinbeck, one of the brilliant American writers that are still today underrated in his own country, for political reasons.
I can understand that the general public might not like the movie; even more, like me, wouldn't take the pain to believe in the provocation of the political metaphor, and perhaps just despise the movie because it was too much oppressive for the American movie standards. What it is still hard for me to accept is that the intellectual American class (the critics, in this case) they're still blind to thought-provoking art, and keep refusing every aspect of an artwork because it has a political side, not to mention to accept valid criticisms like this one. In the movie there is an intellectual, who's always analyzing the rest of the town and is always wrong. His only success is to win checkers with the next door dumb. As Henry Sheehan wrote,
Tom, the self-regarding secular saint, equivocates, clearly occupying the political space held by the modern liberal between an oppressive, but democratic majority and an exploited, but acquiescent minority.
With evident exceptions, like Noam Chomsky or Susan Sontag, the American intellectuals seem to fit that character of the fable.
A sample of the beautiful photography of the movie.
They say that the movie was dismissed in the Cannes festival because it was anti-american. The Guardian published an article by a New Yorker who felt it was all a fable of the September 11th events. Let's see: a poor and beautiful woman, escaping from gangsters who were chasing her, hides in a town. The residents at first help her, and end abusing her. Finally she takes revenge, and sets the whole place in fire, killing every inhabitant. Any coincidence with the poor countries first upholded and later betrayed by the US and turning into factories of terrorism in the process, it's pure imagination. The fact is that the mainstream American media reacted violently against the movie, as it was predictable, and missed one of the best pictures of the year. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Variety, they were all extremely hysterical about the meaning of the movie. But the point is that while you're seeing the movie, you don't think it's a metaphor, "a metaphor with a map", as someone put it. It's a strong movie, an excellent occasion to see how people behave in some circumstances, and the fable could be easily timeless and ubiquitous. The American colour was given in the end of it, when you see a sequence of pictures from old American poor farmers. I am not saying that Von Trier is innocent of the metaphor: I'm saying that you, as a spectator, you don't perceive it as an attack to the American foreign policy until the very end, and even then, you could stick with the idea of a general criticism of human behaviour. Lars Von Trier naturally tried to provoke. He said that he's not really anti-American; in fact: he feels like an American. But that must be interpreted under his own view of what to be Danish and feel American means:
The United States dominates the world and we are all subjects of the empire whether we want to be or not. The Iraqis learnt something about that.
(Taken from a BBC article). The Washinton Post completes that assertion with another:
I would love to start a 'free America campaign,' because we've just had a 'free Iraq campaign.' That's how I feel. . . . I am sure it's a beautiful country. I would love to go there [but] I'm afraid of going there. Maybe this is all because of wrong communication [from European media], I don't know. I think it could be a wonderful place, but I'm not able to go to America right now because I don't think America is how it should be.
The article where I read that is a sample of how bitter were the American critics with the movie. Naturally, for the Americans the fact that Von Trier has never been to the United States invalidates every criticism. He said he was inspired by Steinbeck, one of the brilliant American writers that are still today underrated in his own country, for political reasons.
I can understand that the general public might not like the movie; even more, like me, wouldn't take the pain to believe in the provocation of the political metaphor, and perhaps just despise the movie because it was too much oppressive for the American movie standards. What it is still hard for me to accept is that the intellectual American class (the critics, in this case) they're still blind to thought-provoking art, and keep refusing every aspect of an artwork because it has a political side, not to mention to accept valid criticisms like this one. In the movie there is an intellectual, who's always analyzing the rest of the town and is always wrong. His only success is to win checkers with the next door dumb. As Henry Sheehan wrote,
Tom, the self-regarding secular saint, equivocates, clearly occupying the political space held by the modern liberal between an oppressive, but democratic majority and an exploited, but acquiescent minority.
With evident exceptions, like Noam Chomsky or Susan Sontag, the American intellectuals seem to fit that character of the fable.
A sample of the beautiful photography of the movie.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
So, finally, I'll write a little about blogs. Some see blogs as a new kind of clean, free journalism. These days, when the press is so underestimated, if you know where to find, the real information is there in the internet. Such is the hypothesis of the blog-consumers. Bloggers are people who really know the internet, who know all those obscure passages you never noticed, and bring you the daily fresh fish. So if you manage to get the right group of bloggers, you'll be up to date as few are, and you won't be buying press that is, as we all know, managed by the big corporations. This is the general belief about blogs and bloggers. Bloggers are gurus, blogs are sources of hidden truth, blog readers are intelligent people who know the proper choices. There is a micro-universe of bloggers, blogs and blogreaders. Some call it "the blogosphere", because blogs are interlinked, and you travel from one to another, visiting interesting URLs pointed out by them, but always returning home to where the real information sources are posted. You may argue with this; after all, the bloggers in general terms are not professional journalists, and they only offer their point of view. They might be wrong, some say, as if real journalists are exempt from mistakes or bias. I, myself, write this log as often as time permits it, about news and politics and whatever I like. Does that make me a journalist? Am I assuming this is the only truth? I read other people's log as well. Do I consider them as the only source of reality? All of that is bullshit. But many people is very resented from this (especially professional journalists) and more than one ego got too much power.
Bill Thompson wrote a bitter article about the power of bloggers. He was head of new media at the Guardian; now the Guardian supports blogs as yet another source of journalism. But coming back to Thompson, he writes about the Big Bloggers:
Within the blogosphere, we can identify some that belong to a new intellectual elite - a small influential group of people, who have managed to turn their self-publication obsession into a power base. (...) Howard Rheingold, Tim O'Reilly, Clay Shirky, Doc Searls, Dave Winer and Ben Hammersley are all what Register reporter Andrew Orlowski calls 'the A-list bloggers', the people whose regular musings on their personal websites can shape debate and make reputations (...) If this was just a random collection of people with more time than sense - a self-referential group of average intellects sharing their views on the internet - then it would not be worrying. But these discussions do not take place in a vacuum. Despite the findings of the Pew Internet and America Life Project - that the number of regular visitors to even the highest-profile blog is too low to be statistically significant - blogs exert real influence over how many others think about the internet and its future.
Thompson thinks they are becoming too powerful, and that they don't have a rational view on reality, politically-wise. So he attacks them:
(...) any group with influence needs people outside that group who will criticise it. In the real world of politics and society, journalists do that - proper journalists who know what having principles means, who aim for objectivity while accepting that it is unattainable, and who are open about who pays them and who they work with.
Naturally, the elite of bloggers (or blogeoisie, using Thompson's word) is exactly the opposite to that description for journalists. The fact is that people feels inclined to search for opinions and news in the internet. According to the Pew Internet and America Life Project he mentions,
More than three-quarters of online Americans (77%) have used the Internet in connection with the war in Iraq. They are going online to get information about the war, to learn and share differing opinions about the conflict (...)
But within those who went to the internet to search for news, only 4% used blogs, while 76% used official American media (32% American TV sites, 29% American newspaper sites, 15% US Government sites). Blogs are something relatively subcultural, something that is not for the common surfer. Who would you trust more, an unknown guy writing in the internet or the New York Times? Naturally, the answer depends on your political view about the New York Times. I would trust more a prestigious blogger; Thompson denounces that the "prestigious blogger" is a non serious guy who deals with bribery and advertising of others to construct their own power. And as I wrote a couple of days ago, the blogosphere is really strong in the internet given the huge amount of links. Thompson again:
Fortunately for them, in the hyperlinked world it is not necessary to airbrush dissenters out of the group photograph. You can simply wait for Google's PageRank to promote the ideas the A-list find acceptable and linkworthy to the top of the page, while the websites of apostates disappear below the fold and out of history. Who needs a memory hole when the world's favourite search engine does the job so effectively?
So again we have Google in the eye of the storm, about democracy and dictatorship. The A-list is naturally the elite of bloggers.
Blogs can be seen either as an alternative to "official" media, or as the product of a dangerous group of influential and negligent people, whatever fits more your political point of view. The truth, probably, is halfway, as Brendan O'Neill wrote.
Bill Thompson wrote a bitter article about the power of bloggers. He was head of new media at the Guardian; now the Guardian supports blogs as yet another source of journalism. But coming back to Thompson, he writes about the Big Bloggers:
Within the blogosphere, we can identify some that belong to a new intellectual elite - a small influential group of people, who have managed to turn their self-publication obsession into a power base. (...) Howard Rheingold, Tim O'Reilly, Clay Shirky, Doc Searls, Dave Winer and Ben Hammersley are all what Register reporter Andrew Orlowski calls 'the A-list bloggers', the people whose regular musings on their personal websites can shape debate and make reputations (...) If this was just a random collection of people with more time than sense - a self-referential group of average intellects sharing their views on the internet - then it would not be worrying. But these discussions do not take place in a vacuum. Despite the findings of the Pew Internet and America Life Project - that the number of regular visitors to even the highest-profile blog is too low to be statistically significant - blogs exert real influence over how many others think about the internet and its future.
Thompson thinks they are becoming too powerful, and that they don't have a rational view on reality, politically-wise. So he attacks them:
(...) any group with influence needs people outside that group who will criticise it. In the real world of politics and society, journalists do that - proper journalists who know what having principles means, who aim for objectivity while accepting that it is unattainable, and who are open about who pays them and who they work with.
Naturally, the elite of bloggers (or blogeoisie, using Thompson's word) is exactly the opposite to that description for journalists. The fact is that people feels inclined to search for opinions and news in the internet. According to the Pew Internet and America Life Project he mentions,
More than three-quarters of online Americans (77%) have used the Internet in connection with the war in Iraq. They are going online to get information about the war, to learn and share differing opinions about the conflict (...)
But within those who went to the internet to search for news, only 4% used blogs, while 76% used official American media (32% American TV sites, 29% American newspaper sites, 15% US Government sites). Blogs are something relatively subcultural, something that is not for the common surfer. Who would you trust more, an unknown guy writing in the internet or the New York Times? Naturally, the answer depends on your political view about the New York Times. I would trust more a prestigious blogger; Thompson denounces that the "prestigious blogger" is a non serious guy who deals with bribery and advertising of others to construct their own power. And as I wrote a couple of days ago, the blogosphere is really strong in the internet given the huge amount of links. Thompson again:
Fortunately for them, in the hyperlinked world it is not necessary to airbrush dissenters out of the group photograph. You can simply wait for Google's PageRank to promote the ideas the A-list find acceptable and linkworthy to the top of the page, while the websites of apostates disappear below the fold and out of history. Who needs a memory hole when the world's favourite search engine does the job so effectively?
So again we have Google in the eye of the storm, about democracy and dictatorship. The A-list is naturally the elite of bloggers.
Blogs can be seen either as an alternative to "official" media, or as the product of a dangerous group of influential and negligent people, whatever fits more your political point of view. The truth, probably, is halfway, as Brendan O'Neill wrote.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Joseph Stiglitz (economist, Nobel 2001, ex-vice president and Chief Economist of the World Bank, etc.) in an interview with some Argentinean newspaper today:
There's more sense on using money to estimulate growth, investment and social justice than on sending a check to Washington.
and also:
Argentina showed that there's no need to have a program along the lines of the IMF. And if you're stubborn enough, you can get a good agreement.
There's more sense on using money to estimulate growth, investment and social justice than on sending a check to Washington.
and also:
Argentina showed that there's no need to have a program along the lines of the IMF. And if you're stubborn enough, you can get a good agreement.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Linux and the Free Software are slowly getting into the real world. Or into the third world, at least. Given the costs of proprietary software (notoriously Microsoft) and its inherent insecurity, third world governments are moving into the big change. The leader, of course, is Brazil. In the words of Gilberto Gil,
What we see today in the world, in the computer science dimension, in the digital dimension, has its starting point in the libertarian movement of the subculture. Nothing is more natural, thus, from this political and cultural point of view, than a movement pro-free software, to pragmatically achieve one more project among our realistic utopies.
The Minister of Culture from Brazil said that in a speech last month. Even more, he said that he wants Brazil to be the center of such movement:
The Culture Adminstration of the Lula Presidence thinks that Brasil should be prepared, specifically, to become one of the centers of Free Software in the world.
Today in the Argentinean newspaper Página/12, an article disects what is our current government's position about Free Software and Linux. They put the emphasys more on the fact that it's secure than on the costs. Like many other governments, they share the idea that if they use proprietary software, they don't own their computer systems. So a new bill is being drafted now, where free software would have priority if two programs are competing for the public administration. Naturally, the proprietary software companies like Microsoft claim that this is not fair. The answer was "write free software, then". This is happening in all the world, slowly. It happened in Brazil when Lula anounced proudly that they would migrate to free software as soon as possible. It happened in Munich, when the Linux giant Suse won over Microsoft the control of the 14000 computers of the public administration offices. It happened in many towns of Spain. It is happening now in Vienna, and many other governments are considering that too (Venezuela, Australia, Mexico...).
We would really live an utopia if free software wins over proprietary software. I worked (I still do it) using free software, I collaborated with my grain of sand, but I still fail to see where we, programmers, can earn our decent coins. Richard Stallman, the founder of the movement, made a clear statement about that insidious word, "free". He said "I mean 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'". But still the free software in general terms is free as in beer. The ones that make any money out of it are those who work in the customer support area (few are programmers), and those that by means of curriculum (having worked in an important free software project) got well paid jobs into the proprietary software companies. They still work on free software, though, but they make their living with other things. Stallman himself lives by his speeches around the world. Every programmer I know loves to contribute to the free software movement, because it's a great thing. There you meet the best programmers in the world, and normally it's a beautiful experience to work with many people of different countries to make something that is meant for the world as an entity, and not because some greedy monetary reason. As the project you're in advances and gets better, your ego receives its balm: a piece of it is yours, and the whole belongs to everybody, as seen through some kind of Indian religious point of view on software. As we all contributed, nobody can charge for it, and it's free, as in beer. Perhaps a company can make money out of it with customer support, installation, courses and the like, but the programmer is some kind of angelic entity that cannot perceive money directly from his creature, that would be dirty. Some of the companies that really make money (RedHat or SuSe, for example) pay for some programmers to work on free software projects, but they are not a significant part of the army of programmers that everyday is making this monster grow. They calculate that more than half of the programmers of the world work on free software project. That is a lot. How many of them make a living out of it? Not me, of course. And that is the Achilles' heel of the free software movement. Richard Stallman never said it should be free of charge; he even encouraged the opposite idea. But it's kind of a taboo this discussion, and when people like Sun decided to charge their free software products, everyone was offended. This is the big problem that we must face before consolidating the free software world.
What we see today in the world, in the computer science dimension, in the digital dimension, has its starting point in the libertarian movement of the subculture. Nothing is more natural, thus, from this political and cultural point of view, than a movement pro-free software, to pragmatically achieve one more project among our realistic utopies.
The Minister of Culture from Brazil said that in a speech last month. Even more, he said that he wants Brazil to be the center of such movement:
The Culture Adminstration of the Lula Presidence thinks that Brasil should be prepared, specifically, to become one of the centers of Free Software in the world.
Today in the Argentinean newspaper Página/12, an article disects what is our current government's position about Free Software and Linux. They put the emphasys more on the fact that it's secure than on the costs. Like many other governments, they share the idea that if they use proprietary software, they don't own their computer systems. So a new bill is being drafted now, where free software would have priority if two programs are competing for the public administration. Naturally, the proprietary software companies like Microsoft claim that this is not fair. The answer was "write free software, then". This is happening in all the world, slowly. It happened in Brazil when Lula anounced proudly that they would migrate to free software as soon as possible. It happened in Munich, when the Linux giant Suse won over Microsoft the control of the 14000 computers of the public administration offices. It happened in many towns of Spain. It is happening now in Vienna, and many other governments are considering that too (Venezuela, Australia, Mexico...).
We would really live an utopia if free software wins over proprietary software. I worked (I still do it) using free software, I collaborated with my grain of sand, but I still fail to see where we, programmers, can earn our decent coins. Richard Stallman, the founder of the movement, made a clear statement about that insidious word, "free". He said "I mean 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'". But still the free software in general terms is free as in beer. The ones that make any money out of it are those who work in the customer support area (few are programmers), and those that by means of curriculum (having worked in an important free software project) got well paid jobs into the proprietary software companies. They still work on free software, though, but they make their living with other things. Stallman himself lives by his speeches around the world. Every programmer I know loves to contribute to the free software movement, because it's a great thing. There you meet the best programmers in the world, and normally it's a beautiful experience to work with many people of different countries to make something that is meant for the world as an entity, and not because some greedy monetary reason. As the project you're in advances and gets better, your ego receives its balm: a piece of it is yours, and the whole belongs to everybody, as seen through some kind of Indian religious point of view on software. As we all contributed, nobody can charge for it, and it's free, as in beer. Perhaps a company can make money out of it with customer support, installation, courses and the like, but the programmer is some kind of angelic entity that cannot perceive money directly from his creature, that would be dirty. Some of the companies that really make money (RedHat or SuSe, for example) pay for some programmers to work on free software projects, but they are not a significant part of the army of programmers that everyday is making this monster grow. They calculate that more than half of the programmers of the world work on free software project. That is a lot. How many of them make a living out of it? Not me, of course. And that is the Achilles' heel of the free software movement. Richard Stallman never said it should be free of charge; he even encouraged the opposite idea. But it's kind of a taboo this discussion, and when people like Sun decided to charge their free software products, everyone was offended. This is the big problem that we must face before consolidating the free software world.
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