[PEN-L:32548] Re: ow things change ref # 32537

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Jim Devine writes,
I read Doyle as saying that accusing, say, Bob Barr, of having "loony"
positions does not really argue against his positions and therefore is
simply involves leftists talking amongst themselves (preaching to the
converted) which doesn't have any obvious progressive effect. If so, I
agree. However, there's nothing wrong with the left talking amongst
themselves, especially if it involves trashing the Right rather than the
standard leftist infighting and emotionally-laden branding of deviants
who've strayed to the right as heretics or apostates. ("Loony" is a cliché,
of course, but it's not that bad of one.)

Doyle,
Obviously out of habit most people indulge in just that sort of low level
name calling when they lack more insight.  The left may not fundamentally go
along with that thinking but at the same time where does the left substitute
a serious understanding of the issues.  I use the work of Philip Fisher (who
isn't a leftist but does a decent history of passions which serves my
purposes) because that allows us to think about what underlies the concept
of calling someone a loon.  I.e. that we have unexamined assumptions about
Vehement Passions (or more broadly all emotions) and brain work that are
really what we are talking about when we say someone is a loony.

Incidentally I looked up the other book, I was trying to remember, William
Reddy, "Navigation of Feelings, A Framework for the History of Emotions",
Cambridge University  Press, 2001.  Very interesting book in the sense that
Reddy systematizes how to consider emotional content in a culture.  Reddy
seems to have some degree of left orientation.

Jim,
As for the term "loony," I think there are two responses. We can interpret
it in the politically correct way, to say that it's an insult to
psychological deviants and should be avoided. Or we can embrace it, the way
some young people embraced the insult "punk" and said that they were proud
to be punk. 

Doyle,
I don't agree with the idea of taking over pejorative labels like punk.  For
example a very common pejorative that has been 're-appropriated' that
gay people are 'queer'.  What underlies the concept of appropriating a word
from those who hate homosexuals is the passion which the bigot holds about
homosexuality not the word, 'queer'.  The tactic does not address the root
cause in conservative passions and gives the impression that our culture
understands what is at stake when emotions are addressed.  If you look at
High Schools for example harassment is stronger than ever.

Jim,
In my experience, every individual is loony in a different way. Most of the
time, that's one thing that makes life interesting. We should embrace and
celebrate human heterogeneity.

Doyle,
How can we talk about this economically?  It is my view that looking at
video games is a key way to understand how emotion can be communicated
outside face to face contact.  Look at the dollar amounts in various aspects
of the communication industry.  Why does telephone conversation sell/produce
more content than the movie industry?  The levels of production differences
have a reason for why they reach certain levels and then stabilize there.

There are considerable industry efforts to provide video games that
we feel emotionally engaged *(see Time article excerpt pasted in below).  We
are in effect manufacturing emotional content when a cartoon shows emotion.
Are these artificial sources of emotional content for human consumption
competing with real faces, real ways of emotional production?  Can we see
providing emotional needs this way?  Could we have a framework for economic
analysis as Reddy suggests with his book?
Thanks,
Doyle

http://www.time.com/time/sampler/printout/0,8816,391544,00.html

>From Time magazine,

Sunday, Nov. 17, 2002
Sim Nation
The Sims Online is a new virtual frontier. Is a video game just what this
divided nation needs? By LEV GROSSMAN Let's imagine the most boring video
game possible. Instead of crashing spaceships and trigger-happy aliens, you
would have suburban houses, leaky faucets and chatty neighbors. Instead of
fighting evil, you would do the dishes, watch a little TV, then call it a
night. Instead of saving the world, you would be saving for a bigger
split-level. It's the opposite of fun - like an '80s family sitcom without
the jokes or Clark Kent without his secret identity.

Now open your eyes: you've just invented the most popular computer game of
all time. It's called The Sims (short for simulation), and the premise is
simple. You control an ordinary suburban family. You make them dinner at
night and send them to work in the morning. You turn on the TV when they're
bored and put them to bed when they're tired. Since it debuted in 2000, The
Sims has sold 8 million copies in 17 languages and has inspired a devoted
fan following. It's also one of the rare computer games played by more women
than men.


Next month, when video-game titan Electronic Arts launches The Sims Online,
it will become something more than a game. Using the Internet, The Sims
Online will enable millions of individual Sims to live, work and hang out
together in a shared virtual world very much like our own. Result: a daring
collective social experiment that could tell us some interesting things
about who we are as a country. We're about to witness the birth of
Simulation Nation.

....

But in the hands of its legions of devotees, the game has become an
expressive language they can use to tell stories about their own lives.
Briar Sauro, 27, a school librarian in Brooklyn, N.Y., readily admits to
having a "slight Sims obsession," i.e., on a good day she limits herself to
two or three hours. "It can take up my whole evening. I don't do anything
else." She experiments with using The Sims to "re-create real-life
interpersonal relationships." Sauro has created an entire Sims world full of
her actual friends and family. "The first year I had the game, we were all
having affairs with one another's spouses," she says. "When the Sims get
jealous, they slap each other. There was a lot of slapping."

Sometimes things get even more serious. Elizabeth Powell, 56, a retired
nurse, took up the game after her husband died. She made little Sims
versions of herself and her husband to help her work through her grief. "I
could still be with him psychologically, even though I understood the
reality," she says. "To many of us, it is more than just a game. We don't
just play The Sims; we express ourselves and our lives with real emotions,
situations and interactions." Wright believes that it helps people
understand their own lives: "You start to see patterns you don't when you're
living. It takes all the messy grayness of real life and makes it bright and
shiny."