I’m not sure what “modern” means. I’m not sure anyone knows what it means, because the term is so broad that it gets used in a lot of different ways. But that is not to say that the term is meaningless. There are some consistencies in the way the word is used. One of those consistencies has to do with secularity: modernity entails a viewpoint that understands basic questions about the universe from a secular perspective. What causes the events in a person’s life? What is the origin of the universe? Where do human beings come from? If your understanding of these issues does not assign primary significance to divine beings or forces, then in this respect you have a modern world view. This does not mean that people with a modern world view don’t believe in God, but it does mean that they accommodate that belief to what they understand to be scientific and secular explanations.

Lots of people, even in the contemporary West, do not have a modern world view. In most of the world, this is not because they have not heard about modernity, it is rather because they know about it and they reject it. I am probably not the person to explain their objections, since I do not share them, but it is not difficult to see that indeed one could argue there are some downsides to secular modernity (For example: the collapse of communal values, a pervasive sense of anxiety and meaninglessness, loosening of restraints on consumption and sexual behavior, and so on).

What we call “fundamentalism”—whether based in Christianity, Islam, or some other religion– is a system of thought that rejects the modern world view. But at the same time, fundamentalism could not exist without the modern world, because it is a reaction against the modern world. There were no fundamentalists in the 12th century.

Fundamentalism is not going to go away, and the clash between fundamentalists (of different sorts) and the modern world view is undeniably one of the most important political conflicts of our time. But for the most part people on the different sides of this conflict don’t talk to one another. As a result misunderstandings and suspicions grow, and so does the level of conflict. It is up to people on both sides to try and change this. But it won’t be easy. For example, those who consider themselves scientists—who are probably also modernists—typically consider discussion with fundamentalists futile, because the scientists know they are right and their opponents are wrong. Funny thing is, typically the fundamentalists feel the same way.

Photo by Global X.

Photo provided by Tara Hunt

The novelist Virginia Woolf once said, “on or about December 1910, human character changed.” (see Jackson Lears). She was kidding about the specificity of the date but in earnest about the change. Roughly speaking, the change in human character to which she referred had to do with the shift from an emphasis on duty, respectability, and moral uprightness to a concern with enjoyment, popularity, and personal fulfillment.

Lately I’ve been writing about how, along with this change, modern institutions such as entertainment, advertising, and psychotherapy started to develop. These things all fit together in some uncanny way. The new ideas about the importance of personal enjoyment and fulfillment encouraged consumption because they made people especially interested in the steady supply of consumer goods being turned out on assembly lines. Advertising stepped in to help enhance the message that consumer goods and services could bring fulfillment and address one’s personal ills. Psychotherapy came from another direction, of course, but it too was based on the new idea that personal happiness and self-realization should be an expected right for everyone.

A society that emphasizes the right of everyone to pursue their own desires and inclinations is going to have to be willing to tolerate a wide range of beliefs, values, and behaviors. Thus it is not surprising that this period was also characterized by a growing flexibility about values.

The good news about this flexibility—often called cultural relativism–is first of all that it is adaptive in an economy based on high levels of consumption. In a climate of cultural relativism, people are willing to try new things; they are on a quest to discover themselves and are receptive to arguments that this or that is just what they need.

Second, cultural relativism tends to encourage tolerance of different ways of life and beliefs, and is an important part of the foundation for the diverse society that began to take shape. But cultural relativism also creates some significant problems. For example, what are its limits? Are there no final standards of right and wrong?

This may all seem somewhat philosophical and academic, but in fact it is one of the most important questions of our time. The political climate in America today is becoming increasingly polarized, and one of the reasons for this is that people have different moral standards and are losing their faith that these differences can be reconciled. In recent decades the strongest backlash against cultural relativism has taken the form of religious fundamentalism. This battle over cultural relativism has been and will continue to be one of the defining conflicts of our time.

Freud in 1939, provided by Cesar Blanco

In my most recent post, I argued that two institutions that today seem utterly unconnected—psychotherapy and advertising—in fact share some intriguing historical connections. And none of these connections is more intriguing than the life of the American who is often known as “the father of public relations,” Edward Bernays. The place where it starts getting interesting is when you realize that Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

Bernays is known for inventing a number of the public relations and advertising techniques that revolutionized marketing in the early decades of the 20th century. For example, Bernays was a pioneer in creating what Daniel Boorstin would later call “pseudo-events:” staged happenings that were covered as news. One of his most famous stunts was to hire a number of young women to march in New York’s Easter Parade in 1929 while smoking cigarettes—at that time public smoking by women was still widely regarded as taboo. He made sure photographers and reporters were on hand, and had encouraged the women to refer to the cigarettes as “torches of freedom.” The women were thus depicted as fashionable rebels against the discrimination that forbade public smoking by women.

The event was front page news in papers all across the country on the following day, and in many cities women took to the streets with their cigarettes to show their support. What didn’t come out until much later was the fact that Bernays had been under contract to the American Tobacco Company to expand the market for cigarettes among women.

In everything he did, Bernays began with the basic principles of the psychology of his time, and not only his uncle’s. He felt that it was not reason but emotion and instinct that moved the common man, and throughout his long life he held onto the elitist view that those who understood this could and should control the masses. As he said in the first paragraph of his influential book Propaganda. “Those who manipulate [the habits and opinions of the masses]…constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

In saying that there is an important relationship between psychotherapy and such institutions as public relations and advertising I am, of course, neglecting one very important fact. This is that the goal of psychotherapies, very broadly, is not to control people but in some way to free them. Whereas the goal of advertising and public relations is to persuade people to behave in a particular way or–if you want to put it in the way Bernays would have–to control them.

Nevertheless, both endeavors strive to harness what we know about human mental processes, cognition and emotion, to change people’s lives. And it is interesting and important to understand that this attempt to effectively manipulate human minds is one of the fundamental building blocks of our way of life.

Psychotherapy is such an important part of our way of life that one can forget that it’s a recent innovation. You will never see a character in a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens novel heading off for therapy, because therapy didn’t exist before the very late 19th century. Why not?

Some psychologists will argue that psychotherapy (like, say, chemistry) could only get going after some key scientific discoveries, but this is at best only part of the story. Psychotherapy emerged because of some important moral shifts in the late 19th century, shifts that also had something to do with the emergence of contemporary consumer society, advertising, and entertainment. When I say moral shifts, I am referring to matters like how people think about themselves and what they value in life.

The historian T.J. Jackson Lears sums up these matters by saying that around this time people began to develop a “therapeutic ethos.” By this he means that—compared to earlier ages–at this time people began to be very concerned about their physical and mental health, their well-being. In earlier, more religious, periods, questions like “are you getting all you can out of life?” and “are you happy?” were considered less important than questions about your state of salvation and your obligations to others. In fact, the idea that one should be maximizing one’s enjoyment and potential would have been absurd most people of 17th century.

However, throughout the 19th century the idea started to take hold that individual happiness and satisfaction was not only important, but in some ways the very purpose of life. People began to resonate with the notion that what was meaningful was not doing what society or God demanded, but rather finding and realizing the potential of their own unique selves. And as this inner self became important, taking care of it through various kinds of therapies became more important as well.

Why did these changes happen around this time? A full answer to that question would probably require a book, but notice that this is the period in which mass production techniques and other innovations began to create today’s consumer economy. The new moral attitudes encouraged consumption, because they stressed the importance of the individual’s happiness and fulfillment. It is especially important that this period also saw the spectacular growth of advertising and entertainments such as motion pictures.

Historians have pointed out that one of the most effective promoters of consumption was a new kind of advertising started to appear in this period: instead of providing information about the product, the new ads told the potential buyer that the product could transform his or her life. Strange, isn’t it: In a way, the ads were offering the same promises as the new science of psychotherapy, the possibility of personal transformation and a new level of satisfaction and happiness.

In pointing out this relationship between entertainment, advertising, and psychotherapy, am I saying that psychotherapy is unscientific? Absolutely not: a century of research has led to enormous advances and refinements in therapeutic techniques. But it’s best to remember where you came from, and back in the nursery it was a little more obvious who psychotherapy’s siblings and cousins were.

Photo from flickr, username Lulu

I almost never see newly released movies, because I’m cheap (let’s wait for the DVD!) and hate battling crowds. But one of my daughters really wanted to see Avatar so I broke down and took her. By now I’m sure that it’s virtually impossible to say anything original about the movie but I’ve got a new angle: I want to talk about the audience.

As we searched for seats in the sold out theatre, both my daughter and I observed that an overwhelming proportion of the audience at the movie was of overwhelming proportions. That is, a lot of people were overweight, very overweight. And judging from the vats of popcorn they were lugging around, they were going to be more overweight by the end of the movie.

Let me be very clear: I am not disparaging these folks. Some may have medical problems that contribute to their condition, but whatever their reasons, I have no right or desire to be critical of others’ weight. From a social point of view, however, I have to say that the whole thing was a little weird. Avatar is a utopian eco-fantasy about a world of lithe and powerful humanoids, the Na’vi, living in perfect harmony with their environment. Hundreds of Na’vi appear in the movie, and not one appears to have a single gram of body fat.

So here we’ve got a bunch of humans sitting inside for three hours in a dark room, munching on fat-drenched snacks, enthralled by the physical exploits of courageous beings utterly in tune with their natural environment. That’s what’s weird: Presumably the audience values being out in nature, perfecting physical skills such as balance and quickness, and over-the-top fitness; if they didn’t they wouldn’t be spending good money to sit and watch these things. Why, then, are these values not manifesting themselves in the lives of many in the audience?

The truth is that we often prefer the imaginary experiences of fictions over the real ones of life. For one thing, the fiction is easier and safer; we can imagine ourselves in the most challenging and dangerous situations and face no real discomforts or dangers. But even more important is the fact that we are capable imagining situations that are more compelling and meaningful than life ever is. Even when things are going well, real life brings a mix of feelings and emotions, our happiness is never as pure as we can make it in our stories.

Could our love of fictions be our undoing? Could it be that we are drifting towards the situation depicted in another dystopian movie, Wall-E, in which humans have become so sedentary that they spend their days reclining in floating chairs and pursuing bovine amusements? My guess is probably not. I think instead it’s best to interpret the situation here as just gently humorous.

In a way, the Avatar audience provides a metaphor for all of us who enjoy entertainment. What we are most attracted to is not infrequently what we lack in real life. And it’s kind of poignant that we may not recognize, as we passively soak up our electronic dreams, that often we are thereby ensuring that what we are attracted to will remain out of reach.

Some schools today have “media literacy” programs that teach students to be thoughtful interpreters of what they see and read in the media. Such programs often focus on news and opinion reporting, but they should also include the topic of “entertainment literacy.” By this I mean that we need to be more aware of the ways in which entertainment conditions our thinking, values and behavior so that we can make conscious choices about how we use and react to entertainment.

This is especially important because entertainment (such as TV, movies, novels, sports events, and so on) aims to provide powerful emotional experiences. As we all know, our emotions can strongly influence our assumptions and actions in ways that remain at least partially outside of our awareness. Thus it is possible to be influenced by entertainment without really knowing that this is happening.

A good example of this is what I call “romantic realism.” These are images that are similar to the world we live in, but somehow better. Think, for example, of a TV ad for food: the beautiful food sizzles and bursts with flavorful color, it is surrounded by gorgeous people having great fun as they consume the food. It’s like life, but better. Romantic realism is sold directly to people (movies, for example) and is also used to promote products.

There is a cumulative effect of observing these romantically realistic images day in and day out: We begin to be convinced, on an emotional level, that there is a world like our world but a little bit better. We begin to wonder why our own lives are marred by imperfections. We are prone to fantasies that our lives could be transformed “if only” If only I could get a new cell phone, if only I could lose weight or get cosmetic surgery, if only I could get a date with Mary…

Another example: Entertainment is so enjoyable that it begins to transform other institutions to become more like entertainment. Consider, for example, what we call the “news.” The news is supposed to make us better informed citizens. But people also expect the news to be entertaining, and news programs that do not meet this standard will not survive. Thus, to take a single example, much of our news today is actually about celebrities and entertainment.

In general, entertainment promotes a range of values we might not consciously endorse, but which are nevertheless very important to us and our economy: fame and celebrity, self-indulgence, demand for stimulation (the lack of which is experienced as boredom). This does not in itself mean that entertainment is a bad thing. Rather I just think we would benefit, both as individuals and as a society, from a clearer understanding of how entertainment actually affects our emotions and our experience. Entertainment can be a lot of fun, but it may also contribute to a sense of dissatisfaction with real life.

Photo by Johnny Henriksen

A recent (and widely commented on)  CNN.com article reports that some viewers of the film Avatar are so desperate to occupy the fantasy world of the film that the thought of having to return to day-to-day reality here on earth leaves them depressed or even suicidal. “When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed … gray. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning,” wrote one young man on a fan forum.

This may sound somewhat extreme, but this is simply an example of a common phenomenon I call “getting caught up” and which a number of psychologists have studied under the label “narrative transport.” The fact is that it’s fairly normal for human beings, at least in our society, to become so immersed in stories that we feel like we are actually there. And if we really like the story we become caught up in, we don’t want to leave it—as when you don’t want to put down a book you’re reading, or don’t want it to end.

The work of developmental psychologist Paul Harris helps us to understand why human beings are so likely to become caught up in stories. By the age of two, children’s play includes complex pretend episodes that are based on imagining what some situation—such as being a firefighter or a princess—would be like. In other words, even very young children can project themselves into an imaginary situation and proceed to consistently think and talk from that situation, keeping it separate from the real world. They don’t have to plan this, they just take off and go.

Michael Tomasello’s work on the differences between cognition among non-human primates and humans provides a compelling explanation for this remarkable ability. Tomasello attributes much of the difference between the mental abilities of humans and our closest relatives to our unique ability to put ourselves “in the mental shoes” of others and easily grasp what they are up to. This cognitive ability to adopt other perspectives is what makes elaborate pretend play so easy even before our brains are fully developed. And it is also what makes it possible for adults to plunge themselves into a fiction so deeply that—for awhile—it seems and feels like the fiction is real.

For better or for worse, we live in a society in which the capacity for becoming caught up in fictions like movies, television, novels (as well as games like sports contests) is a fundamental part of our way of life. The joys of becoming caught up in entertainment are a big part of what many of us live for. In this sense, we are like those of firm religious faith who believe that a genuine paradise awaits them, except that we don’t even have to die to get there.

So, when we read about weird people who don’t want to come back to this world after visiting the vivid reality of another, we might want to consider if they are really so weird. I suspect that most of us have had the same experience at some point.

Photo by Andrew Griffith

Neal Gabler’s recent Newsweek article on celebrities is the latest installment in the “are celebrities good or bad?” debate. Gabler says they are good because (among other things) “they provide us with life lessons,” and “stimulate the imagination.”

As a social scientist, I’d prefer to stay out of the “Celebrities: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?” discussion, and focus instead on the matter of why our society is so rabidly focused on these people. For example, Gabler names 11 different celebrities in the first three paragraphs of his article. Part of the reason for this is that he is no dummy and he knows that readers will be excited just by seeing the names of the most current celebrities. When it comes to celebrities, we including me, by the way) are a lot like chimps hooting our approval at a pleasing stimulus.

Gabler does eventually get around to the question of why we are so fascinated with celebrities. His theory is that celebrity is a form of art that “doesn’t have to create the pretense of reality; it is real.” Stories about celebrities are on the one hand entertaining and compelling—like TV dramas, say—and on the other hand they are really happening! Can’t beat that.

That’s a great theory, except for the fact that it’s wrong. Or, to be more positive, it’s exactly half right. In fact, celebrities are fascinating because they are real and aren’t real at the same time.

Take the now-somewhat-embarrassing Tiger Woods. I agree that there really is a gifted golfer named Tiger Woods who recently crashed his car and evidently had several extra-marital affairs. But I have never met Mr. Woods, and therefore my knowledge of him has been acquired entirely through the mass media. Mr. Woods has a publicity team, he gets interviewed by journalists who want to write something interesting, photos of him are carefully chosen and may be retouched, etc. So there are very important differences between “real-guy Tiger” and “mass media Tiger.”

These differences are so important because mass media Tiger is idealized and simplified and made into a coherent story in a way that no normal human ever is. A single example will have to do. Recently, the Associated Press named Mr. Woods the top athlete of the decade. What does that even mean?  How could “top athlete in all sports during ten years” be measured? If you were to hear someone claim that some real person you know is a better athlete than anyone else in the world, wouldn’t you immediately recognize that statement as something that could never be shown using actual evidence? The “Top Athlete” thing is just a media creation, a story. And the Tiger who is the Top Athlete of the Decade is a media image, not a person.

Now, what Neal Gabler and millions of other celebrity worshippers do is conclude that “real guy Tiger” and “mass media Tiger” are the same, and therefore “mass media Tiger” is a real person. Once you make that move, you have entered the realm of religion. You have accepted that certain human beings are fundamentally different from the rest of us, they are transcendent, they can have qualities the rest of us cannot have (“Top Athlete of the Decade.”). Christians believe that Jesus Christ was at once a real man and a transcendent being. Celebrity worshippers believe the same thing about Tiger Woods and Lady Gaga. I agree that’s fascinating, but not because they’ve got it right.

Photo by Michelle Jones

Americans typically take it for granted that their behavior reflects their own decisions about what to do. Holidays provide many clear examples to the contrary. On New Year’s Eve there’s a very good chance that you will attend a party, that you will stay up until midnight and make noise at that time, and there is a fairly good chance you will drink too much alcohol. If you think this is simply a reflection of your own individual decisions, you need to explain how millions of others happened to make exactly the same individual decisions at the same time.

We do these things because they are traditions, and that implies that we don’t necessarily think very carefully about why we are doing them. So, quickly now, why exactly does the beginning of a new year require that you stay up and experience it and that you get excited, perhaps with the aid of a mind-altering substance?

Americans, of course, are not the only ones who observe these traditions. Throughout history, people have celebrated transitional holidays with parties, noise-makers, and drugs. By transitional holidays I mean times that mark important transitions in the calendar, such as New Year’s Eve, Halloween (New Year’s Eve in the pre-Christian European calendar) or Mardi Gras (held on the transition to the Christian season of Lent).

As I pointed out in an earlier post, transitions of all sorts are often marked with rituals. Think for example of initiation ceremonies in which a person goes through a transition from one sort of being to another. Anthropologists have shown that transitions are ritualized because they represent a point of tangency with the unknown. All human beings have classification systems that divide experience into classes and categories: types of people, types of animals, times of the year, and so on. When one sort of thing—say, 2009—turns into another sort of thing—say 2010—there must be a moment that is between the two and is nothing at all. “Nothing at all” is strange and potentially a little scary, because it could draw our attention to the fact that really all of the order we have imposed on the universe is our own creation.

Thus people have developed traditions to deal with those moments of time that are outside the normal order of things. They gather together both to pay homage to and to ward off the powers that dwell out there in the dark. Raucous gatherings at these points can serve many purposes: distraction from uncertainty, celebration of successfully negotiating the danger, flirting with the powers of the unknown, to name a few. Is there any problem with following age-old traditions without really thinking about why we do them? Not really; in my view this is one way we express our kinship with other human beings everywhere. Although now that we are armed with automobiles it’s probably best to re-think the drinking too much thing.

Photo by Matti Mattila

This time of year one is certain to encounter the opinion that we have lost the true spirit of Christmas in the orgy of consumption that has come to characterize our greatest holiday. While I am sympathetic to those who wish to encourage virtues such as charity and gratitude, I’d also like to point out that in fact consumption is as much a part of the true spirit of Christmas as anything else.

Christmas is a ritual, and like all rituals it reflects the social and even political circumstances of the people that practice it. For hundreds of years after Christianity began, the holiday of Christmas did not exist, so in this sense if we want to get back to the original spirit of Christmas we should not celebrate it at all (which, by the way, is what the Puritans did).

Christmas was first established as a church holiday in the fourth century. Conveniently enough it was scheduled on the calendar right at the time of the pagan Roman ceremonies that Christianity was beginning to displace. And even today several of our Christmas traditions are based on the winter solstice rituals practiced by European peoples before their conversion to Christianity. So in this sense, if we want to find the true spirit of Christmas we have to look to pagan ceremonies.

However, what I particularly want to look at here are the changes that occurred in America and Great Britain during the 19th century. At this time, Christmas became a much more important and universal holiday than it had been before, and this was not because churches wanted to put more emphasis on the birth of Jesus Christ. Historians stress that it was a combination of commercial forces and ideas about sentimentality and domesticity—encapsulated in the growing fascination with the new image of Santa Claus—that managed to turn Christmas into a major occasion for gift-giving.

In short, without consumerism we would not have Christmas as we know it. This illustrates a point I have tried to make a number of times before: We live in a culture with two somewhat contradictory sets of values. The first set is the official one, and includes such ideas as responsibility, hard work, religious faith, integrity, etc. The second set is what I have called “shadow values,” and includes such ideas as the pursuit of pleasure, self-indulgence, leisure, and sexual desire. In general, the first set of values is associated with work and production, the second set with leisure time and consumption.

We need these two sets of values because our society and economy require us to be highly productive workers and frenetic consumers at the same time. If we did not play both these roles, how could continual economic expansion be ensured? Christmas is simultaneously about both sets of values. Christians give homage to the deity who stands behind our highest values at the same time as almost everyone gives enthusiastic homage the values that remain in the shadows. That’s the true spirit of Christmas.