Profiling: Well, Maybe It Works

I recently read several books by John Douglas (with Mark Olshaker): Anatomy of Motive, Journey Into Darkness, etc. John Douglas worked for the FBI and was one of the guys who started the whole profiling business.

To be clear, this type of profiling is about categorizing people psychologically. This is not "Muslim extremists claim credit for a terrorist act, therefore we should look for Muslim extremists" profiling. I have no problem with the latter type of profiling. I don't even call it profiling; I call it commonsense.

In comparison, the kind of profiling John Douglas writes about is where a crime with no discernible suspect is attached to a specific type of criminal; one discovers the type of criminal by looking at the psychology of the crime itself.

I have mixed feelings about this type of profiling. I love reading the books, and I'm a big fan of the first season of Criminal Minds (it got too yucky in season 2 for my tastes). Still, the "one random bit = conclusion" angle seems rather hit-and-miss, like Sherlock Holmes (whom I also admire) saying to Watson, "Ah, I know you walked here because of the mud splashed on your boots." Don't you always half-expect Watson to say, "Actually, I took a cab; a passing cart splashed mud on me"?

Here's my personal theory concerning John Douglas. I think he was/is (he's retired) the type of guy who could go into a crime scene and see what elements belonged to an ongoing investigation and what didn't. Through experience and pure talent, he could exclude the unimportant information and focus on the important information. He could see the forests and the trees but never get distracted by either.

The whole profiling conundrum arose when he decided that his ability was a science, not a gift. So he, and a bunch of other people, created these nifty categories and clear-cut applicable definitions, and I'm not just sure that can be done. (To be fair, Douglas does say over and over, "Don't be misled by superficial applications," but he doesn't seem to realize that not being misled by superficial applications has more to do with the nature of the man rather than the beast.)

I think Douglas' ability is legitimate. That is, I'm perfectly okay with him testifying in a jury trial: he has the expertise, the experience; he knows where-of he speaks. But I wouldn't let just anyone with profiler training testified. And I wouldn't let Douglas testify about anything outside his expertise.

I say this because although Douglas makes insightful observations about serial killers, including Jack the Ripper, in his books, his comments about "ordinary" criminals are surprisingly blah. Although he accepts Lizzie Borden's guilt, he insists on perceiving her in serial killer terms. I think Lizzie Borden was the original all-American/home-spun/no-frills crime-of-greed chick. Looking at her in other terms leads to all that silly "blacking-out" and fugue-state stuff. Not very helpful.

Douglas is right about Jack the Ripper (no, it wasn't the Duke of York) which means Douglas is good in his speciality. He can cut through the crap when it comes to what he knows.

I think the desire to generalize from the speciality--create a science out of one man's ability--is a desire that surfaces beyond law enforcement. You get a manager who is good at seeing the forest for the trees, good at pinpointing problems, good at separating the wheat (useful suggestions) from the chaff (stupid, wasteful solutions), and there's this "Hey, how do we duplicate this, so every manager is as good?" reaction.

And I'm not sure you can.

That is, you would probably duplicate techniques with someone who already gets "it," "it" being the talent or perception or whatever, but you can't really teach it to people who don't. It's like trying to teach irony to people who don't get irony or trying to teach conceptual thinking to people who think concretely (all you end up with is a bunch of people who want to make rules about using the "spirit of the law."). It's like (major segue into politics here), Democrats trying to win elections by duplicating Republicans and coming over kind of flat.

You can't duplicate people if you don't understand where their hearts lie.

BOOKS

High School Xander

I've been rewatching the second season of Buffy. Like many people, I've seen plenty of Buffy; I've developed opinions regarding Angel, Spike, Willow, Giles, Buffy, each season, the excellence of Principal Snider, the humor of Joss Whedon, yadda yadda yadda.

However, other than a very decided opinion on the stupidity of Xander's non-marriage to Anya (the writers' fault, not the characters), I haven't spent much time thinking about early Xander or High School Xander.

Watching Season 2, I've come to appreciate all over again how well-written and funny the show is. I've also come to appreciate Xander's character and, naturally, Nicholas Brendon's portrayal of Xander.

Joss Whedon has said somewhere that Xander is basically "Joss in high school," only (quoth Joss, not me) much better looking. Nicholas Brendon isn't really my type (I prefer rugged actors like Robin Sachs of Ethan Rayne's fame). Still, he is cute, and yet, and here is where we get to Nicholas Brendon's awesome acting, he manages to sell the whole I'm-a-geeky-unpopular-kid-who-uses-humor-as-a-defense-mechanism persona.

When you consider how much Seasons 1-3 of Buffy rely on faux high schoolers, the success of those seasons is remarkable. I believe in the teenness of Willow, Buffy, and Xander in a way I never believe in the teenness of Smallville's cast. Nicholas Brendon's acting is part of the reason. He captured the essence of 16-year-old guy; he used whatever background/memory/experience/observation he had to give us the mannerisms and emotional responses of a male teenager.

To return to Xander the character, the success of Xander the character rests, I believe, on Xander's humanness. Xander is fundamentally good, but he isn't heroic-rush-to-the-rescue-and-look-soulful good. He's just average guy good, real life good. Even in "Inca Mummy Girl" where he gets to play the romantic hero, he does it in a very human, 16-year-old boy way. He shares Ho Hos! He tells silly jokes! He takes Inca Mummy Girl to a dance!

Xander is the guy who is brave in spite of being freaked. He is the guy who does the right thing eventually. One of the most mature/human things Xander ever says is after he returns from his hyena/pack phase. To Giles he says: "Shoot me. Stuff me. Mount me." Yeah, he was being a jerk. It's over. He'd rather not remember. And he's never going there again.

Xander's one flaw is a tendency to hector. But again, this tendency makes him human. It isn't so over the top that you start to detest him; it isn't so understated to make Xander too good to be true. I hold Xander more responsible than Willow for the whole Xander-Willow fiasco (Season 3). Yes, yes, I know that in general terms, they are equally to blame, but Xander has a tendency to take a situation and run with it. It's a type of me-me reaction that accompanies hectoring. It's, well, it's so 16-year-old guy.

And yet, this is also the Xander who buys Cordelia's dress without telling anyone. He always protects Willow (watch the show carefully to see how often Xander puts Willow before everyone else). Also, as I've stated elsewhere, I believe Xander is the only one who really understands how lonely Buffy really is (here Xander stands in for Joss).

Lastly, Xander is just funny; Nicholas Brendon has excellent comedic timing. In my favorite episode of Season 2 "I Only Have Eyes For You," Willow makes scapulars for everyone. Xander responds by saying, "And what are we going to do when we find the spirit, Will? Flip it?"

Ohmigosh, I'm laughing so hard, I can barely write.

Okay, so maybe you have to be an English teacher to think the transposition of the words scapular and spatula is just hilarious, but my point is, the joke works to a large extent because Nicholas Brendon makes it work. It's one of those word jokes that are easily lost until you've watched a movie a couple of dozen times (like the "Moby Dick" joke in Finding Nemo--yep, really, it's there). There's lots of those jokes in Buffy, and the ability of Whedon's cast to deliver said jokes deadpan is a huge part, I believe, of Buffy's success.

So kudos once again to the first three seasons of Buffy and extra kudos to Nicholas Brendon's Xander.

Television

Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me About Columbo?

I grew up without a television set; nevertheless, I was aware of shows like The Brady Bunch, not to mention The Addams Family, and, later, Family Ties, Cosby, and Soap. I watched them on friends' televisions, my grandparents' television, and the occasional television that we rented. Yet somehow, I missed Columbo.

I'd heard about Columbo, of course, but for all I knew it was one of those odd 70's shows where people stand around in yellow and orange kitchens, having pointless conversations accompanied by incredibly boring camera work. (Guy one talks. Guy two talks. Guy one talks. Guy two talks. Pan of kitchen. Guy one talks.)

But Season 4 of Diagnosis Murder isn't available yet, so in desperation, I ordered Columbo over Netflix.

I love it! Yeah, it is more or less the same plot over and over and over, but sometimes, it gets downright clever. The camera work isn't that bad. The acting can be quite good. Peter Falk is adorable. The clothes (now that the 70's have come back) are surprisingly modern. The timing is excellent. And the whole thing is so very relaxing.

I should state here that I enjoy television that doesn't demand too much investment. There's this idea in our culture, which I have addressed elsewhere, that if something doesn't MAKE ONE THINK or MAKE ONE FEEL, that thing must be shallow and a waste of time. But I'm a huge advocate for the well-made piece of entertainment. It doesn't have to much me THINK and FEEL; it just has to satisfy my entertainment needs.

I'm also a big believer that anything can be judged to a standard, but that it should be judged to an appropriate standard. There's no point comparing Columbo to War & Peace, but it is perfectly okay to compare it to, say, Diagnosis Murder and other murder mystery shows.

In fact, the producers of Diagnosis Murder were producers on Columbo: they use the same approach, which is to tell the audience the identity of the murderer right off the bat. I actually like this approach. I was never one to try to guess the murderer anyway. I'm more interested in the detection process, how the murderer will be caught (which is probably why I like forensic type shows). The payoff is that the writers can make the murderer as cunning as possible; they don't have to drop incredibly obvious clues. The one catch with Monk is that Monk's brilliant observations are really, well, the sort of thing police do catch. However, in the interests of playing fair, the show can't make the clues too obscure (the audience can't be too surprised when the murderer is revealed). The downside is that obvious clues pit the audience against the detective: why can't he figure it out faster than us? But Columbo (and Diagnosis Murder) avoid this.

And of course Peter Falk, like Tony Shalhoub, makes a great detective. He is smart, tenacious, and unflappable. And he has all the required tics and idiosyncrises. I have mixed feelings about idiosyncrises. The detective has to have them to make him/her memorable: a detective like Monk is all about his idiosyncrises. However, the idiosyncrises can get distracting. I personally prefer sarcastic Monk to totally freaking-out Monk (although the Alice Cooper episode with freaking-out Monk is worth the freaking-out).

Likewise, I prefer subtle Columbo to bombastic Columbo. In the pilot, Falk played Columbo as low key and tough. When the murderer said (they always say this), "You just won't give up, will you?" Falk ducked his head and gave this slow, private smile. It was utterly charming and very subtle.

Yet in the next few episodes, Falk was all over the place. It was almost as if the director said, "Hey, they love Columbo's idiosyncrises. Give us more!" so he did. I was very disappointed.

Now he's settled down to somewhere between the two, which I can handle. In any case, Falk reminds me of Leslie Jordan (completely different personality type): short men who can walk into a scene and completely steal it.

This isn't the same thing as Dustin Hoffman stealing a scene because he acts well; Falk (and Jordan) can do it through good-old fashioned radiating charisma. It's a remarkable thing to see. Part of it, I think, is that something that Charles Grodin, Craig T. Nelson (I've been watching Coach episodes lately), Richard Dean Anderson, and Thomas Haden Church all have: the ability to make you laugh by lifting an eyebrow or just looking blank. It's something about the way their faces are constructed. (By the way, Thomas Haden Church is totally underappreciated for his excellent comedic talents. He is the master of the deadpan.)

Closing tangent: I've noticed all the above examples are men; this is nothing against the excellent comedic abilities of, say, Dawn French (Vicar), Emma Chambers (Vicar), Jane Leeves (Frasier) and Melissa Peterman (Reba). However, after a brief glance through IMDb's top comedy movies, I'm forced to the conclusion that women are not called on to play the "straight man" very often.

The one exception I could think of is Gillian Anderson, who does it very well. There's an X-Files episode where Mulder and Scully go to a town where, due to some astrology thing, everyone's personalities are accentuated to the nth degree (turning the teen flirts of the high school into man-seducing psychopaths: it's a kind of Buffy meets Amityville Horror deal). Mulder gets even more obnoxious than usual, and Scully minds it much, much more than usual. There's this ongoing fight about the car, and how Scully never gets to drive, and about how far she has to pull up the seat (Gillian Anderson is only slightly taller than me at 5'3" and David Duchovny is over 6'). It's totally hilarious, but it's all played straight. Great stuff.

Back to Columbo: if you want to veg (and yes, in my world, vegging IS okay), check out Columbo: non-demanding, tons and tons of fun.

TELEVISION

No One Is Free While Others . . . Oh, Get a Grip

You've probably seen it, the bumper sticker that says, "No one is free while others are oppressed." Well, it is a nice thought, but it also happens to sum up what I think is wrong with so much political (and literary) discourse (and yes, I think one can refer to bumper stickers as political or literary discourse).

If one takes the saying literally, it begs the question, "Why bother to free anyone then?" Since no one is free so long as some are oppressed, then if you subtract 7 (the number of oppressed people) from 10 (the number of people), you will get zero every single time, which means that so long as a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of oppressed people exists, no one is free, and we're just kidding ourselves that anything we do matters.

To be fair, however, I don't think that's what the bumper sticker means. I think it means, "No one should feel free while others are oppressed."

In other words, it isn't the actual freedom to, you know, put a bumper sticker on a car and grouse about it on a blog that matters, it is whether or not I'm happy about my freedom. Which I am. By the way.

However, once again, I should probably narrow the meaning of the bumper sticker to the intent of the bumper sticker. I think the intent isn't so much emotional blackmail as a kind of passive activism. The bumper sticker is supposed to stop people feeling happy about their freedom and encourage them to feel unhappy and uneasy instead on the supposed grounds that unhappy and uneasy people are more likely to help oppressed people than people who are light-hearted and relaxed.

I don't buy that. My experience is that unhappy and uneasy people don't help anyone very much at all. But it makes you wonder--do the people sporting the bumper sticker feel unhappy and uneasy? All the time? Or do they, like so many of us, go home to books about self-enlightenment and finding one's inner guide and coming to peace with one's self?

I don't know. Perhaps, they are continually unhappy about the state of the world. Maybe they never let up. Maybe they badger people in banks and at cocktail parties. Maybe whenever someone tries to tell a joke at work, they growl, "There are people in this world who aren't allowed to joke," or maybe they get together with like-minded miserable people and receive mild jolts of happiness as they bash everyone in the world who doesn't think exactly like them.

On the other hand, perhaps they don't think they need to feel unhappy and uneasy since they have gotten other people to feel unhappy and uneasy. Which doesn't work on me (despite the fact that I am quite suspectible to reports about my own failings). Whenever I'm driving behind one of those cars, I grumbled, "Well, I am free, and so are you."

Whatever their motivations, people who instruct everyone on how miserable everyone should feel seem to buy into an erroneous idea that is fairly wide-spread. It goes something like this:

People who change things are rule-breakers who step outside the cultural box; therefore, the only way to change things is to break rules and step outside the culture box; that means pointing out to people how unhappy they should be with the ways things are.

Yes, (point one), there are people who cause shifts in thinking, re-evaluations of cultural norms, changes in government. The mistake is in confusing the outcome--Shakespeare's plays, the Protestant Reformation, Jane Austen's novels--with the actual process. There is no guarantee that the actual process involves rule breaking or disgust with the establishment or dislike of one's culture, and it may involve misery only incidentally. In any case, adopting an attitude of change doesn't make one bit of difference to the outcome. One doesn't become a great painter by hosting art parties at the Met. One becomes a painter by painting. And there's no guarantee that any greatness will occur--just that one will produce a lot of art.

Likewise, one doesn't become a great political figure by labeling oneself edgy or revolutionary or miserable. One becomes a political figure by actually doing something, which usually involves a great deal of hard work. (No, sticking a bumper sticker on your car doesn't count as "doing something.")

The most amazing thing about Galileo, for example, wasn't that he was FIGHTING THE ESTABLISHMENT in some hey-where's-my-change-inducing-bumper-sticker sense but that he didn't realize he was. He was seriously surprised when his book evoked criticism from the Catholic heirarchy. After all, he'd dedicated his book to the pope. Perhaps he should have seen it coming, but the point is, he was too busy doing his thing, working hard on his ideas, to realize it was coming.

Granted, change-invoking people have been known to call attention to themselves and their supposedly outside the box thinking. But not always. Dante had serious, hard-core political opinions, but he wasn't sitting around going, "Hey, guys, why don't we rehaul the whole system--you know, get rid of kings and emperors and popes entirely. Huh, what about it?"

Unfortunately, the actual history of individuals often gets lost and replaced by a summary of their achievements. In the case of literature, sometimes even the commentary on the achievement replaces the actual achievement! (But that's a subject for another post.)

"But," the why-won't-you-feel-bad-for-being-well-educated-and-self-sufficient? folks might argue, "if it wasn't for us look-at-how-bad-things-are types, the changes wouldn't continue," which is rather like administrators arguing that if it wasn't for the billing, the doctors wouldn't be able to perform surgeries. Well, okay, maybe there's some truth there although I have my doubts. I think most long-term change is effected by people who get up, go to work, and enable their culture/nation/neighborhood/family to survive. Because the changes have to go somewhere and if the culture doesn't survive, that's a whole lot of nothing for them to go.

My final thoughts on "No One is Free While Others Are Oppressed" is: Have the guts and the maturity to admit when your culture benefits you! I suppose a bumper sticker that read, "I'm free even though others are oppressed" would be tactless but "I'm free, and I'm not going to whine about it because that won't help anybody who is truly oppressed in the long run because in order to help them, I have to be able to recognize real freedom when it bites me in the tuss" might overrun the bumper.

I could settle for, "Isn't freedom great! Let's share it!!"

FARES

Nature, Judith Rich Harris, and My Theory of Memory

I just finished Judith Rich Harris' No Two Alike, a fascinating book. I am not going to attempt to summarize all her points in this post--that's what the book is for! (Buy it! Borrow it!) I am going to respond to a very specific issue.

Here's the part I am going to summarize. Harris is trying to explain where personality variation comes from. Using controlled studies, evolutionary psychologists and behavioral geneticists (Harris herself is an amateur insofar as a person who synthesizes and clearly explains extremely complex scientific ideas can be called an amateur) have shown that genetics account for approximately 50% of personality. Something between 0-10% of a person's personality is due to his or her homelife. The rest is anyone's guess.

At this point, I have to clarify that when Harris refers to 0-10% of a person's personality being due to his or her homelife, she is talking about one's homelife actually forming personality (a belief promoted by developmentalists). Harris believes that the remaining "rest" is due to the environment in the sense that she believes that it is due to evolutionary factors that work themselves out in the environment. I believe Harris is making the distinction between an environment forming a person and a person bringing his/her genetics and homelife (however inconsequential) to bear on an environment.

Because Harris is an "amateur" evolutionary psychologist, she looks for the answer to the "rest" in evolutionary psychology, not in poetry or philosophy. She presents the need to determine relationships (who can I trust? who can I not trust?), the need to socialize (how do I get along?) and the need for status (how can I survive by getting resources?) as the three factors that make up the "rest" of a person's personality (I'm super paraphrasing). It is in the juggling of these three factors that personality becomes differentiated.

And I more or less think she is right. This doesn't contradict my religious beliefs since I believe one of the purposes of mortality is to experience mortality which seems redundant but does include things like evolution. (I also believe--side note--that genetics is the best defense for free will; as products of environments, we would never get the chance to form individual personalities. Our current environment would mold us instead. I also believe--double side note--that free will is a much more specific instrument than it sounds; I don't think free will means, "Creating my own personality free from outside pressures!" I think free will means, "Being or not being a total dork"--at least from a religious standpoint.)

However, believing Harris is right doesn't prevent me from understanding why she freaks out the developmentalists. (Harris wrote a book called the Nurture Assumption that apparently got the developmentalists very upset). You think the Middle East has problems, check out academic camps regarding nature versus nurture versus evolutionary biology. Yikes!

And Harris, unfortunately (for the developmentalists), is able to point to extremely slipshod trials and experiments run by developmentalists. But this actually brings me to my own (slight) problem with Harris. I am not an amateur evolutionary psychologist. I'm an English teacher. My slight problem arises from inside the gap between evolutionary psychology and the human experience or what humans communicate about themselves.

The developmentalists are upset because Harris states that one's homelife does not form one's personality. It isn't useful to say that parents who go out of their way to attend parenting classes produce better children who become better parents because parents who go out of their way to attend parenting classes are the parents who care about issues of parenting in the first place and will pass on said genes to their kids. (This actually happens in teaching all the time; the teachers who attend the boring required teaching courses often happen to be the best/most dedicated teachers; that doesn't mean the teaching courses are any good.)

Now, partly the developmentalists are upset because their egos are bruised and because there's a whole industry out there built on giving advice to parents to make them better parents (and what? everyone is suppose to just not care?), but I think the developmentalists are upset for another reason as well. (And I think Harris is a little dismissive here; she seems to think that parents are upset about their lack of influence for reasons that have nothing to do with the claim itself.)

Society is filled with conventional wisdom and commonsense wisdom: everybody thinks it and that just makes sense. Now, I'm not a huge fan of conventional wisdom. EVERYBODY thinks that global warming is due to pollution and that, if not stopped, the world as we know it will fall apart at the seams. Yeah, well, it's always something, isn't it?

But I am a huge fan of commonsense wisdom. That is, I do believe that human beings are some of the best people to ask if you want to know what is going on with human beings. So if people have been writing about the impact that parents have on children for thousands of years, I'm kind of going to think they probably do.

Harris argues that this connection between homelife/parenting and personality is relatively new, and she's sort of right (in terms of the obsession and the blame). Ancient Roman fathers may have worried about being good examples to their sons, but I'm not sure how much they blamed themselves if their sons turned out badly. I think they blamed the kid. Or society. In other words, the dependence on socialization in producing decent people has been higher throughout history than dependence on the family.

Except for the nagging problem that you have whole swaths of human beings who for much of history didn't socialize with anyone but their families. I'm not talking about hunters/gatherers where a large percentage of individuals were related. I mean, the pioneers (for one example), sitting out there in some cabin hundreds of miles from nowhere (Laura Ingalls Wilder, anyone?).

Now, note, that Harris and I are talking about two different things. She is talking about the formation of personality and would argue, based on my understanding of her book, that in the absence of an obvious outside social structure, the child will go looking for one. It is vital to the child's growth to respond to something other than ma and pa.

I, however, am talking about influence.

But this is where I feel there is a gap in Harris' arguments. Because that influence exists and human beings talk about it all the time, both historically and contemporarily. People claim influence from their parents. It is easy to say, "Well, you say your parents taught you to be honest, but the fact is you inherited a predisposition for honesty," but when you are relying on those same people to tell you about their personalities, it seems a bit churlish ("a little weird" is my totally unscientific response).

And I think this is where the nature folks lose adherents. I don't think most people are frightened of genetic determinism (why genetic determinism would be any more threatening than environmental determinism is beyond me), but I think there is a reluctance to undermine one's own understanding of one's experience. Commonsense tells us that our personal understanding carries weight. Historical documents assure us that people have always expended energy on their own thought processes. Since I live in my own head and since my personality is (however constructed) my own, I'm hardly going to trust anyone who tells me to ignore my own reason or my own senses. Good grief, Jane Austen didn't. Why would I?

This brings us to my own theory which is the theory of memory. Actually, Harris could probably incorporate my theory of memory into one of her factors (systems), but I separate it because it brings homelife back into the game. I believe with Harris that we tell ourselves stories (explain ourselves to ourselves), but I also believe that those stories, specifically the memories we select to tell ourselves those stories, have tremendous weight. I believe people start creating memory stories (these memories describe me and my experience) as soon as their reasoning skills develop adequately. I also believe that people are drawn to creating a memory story exclusive to their homelife: holidays, vacations, family dinners or lack thereof.

Commonsense (and cognitive learning theories) state that the pathways formed by the selection and repetition of certain memories has something to do with how a person operates. We can change our stories of course, but I find it almost impossible to believe (in terms of commonsense) that a homelife that supplied few positive memories would result in a hugely positive homelife memory story. Gotta work with something. And I also find it difficult to believe that a positive or negative homelife memory story won't influence me in terms of my choices (and I believe that while personality may not be the result of choice but rather the determination that leads to choice, looking at choice is really the only way personality CAN be determined. You can look at a DNA strand or brain scan, but you have to put the owner of the DNA/brain in motion to determine anything about the relationship of the strand or scan to the owner. Otherwise, evolutionary psychology falls into the category of "really, really boring.").

Here is where Harris and I would agree (I think): the homelife doesn't determine what memory story I create or even how much time I focus on creating and repeating a memory story ("time spent" could be genetic). Homelife simply supplies evidence. Other factors will determine what/how I create the memory story but once created, it does carry influence, and that influence impacts my choices outside the home.

Now, it is possible that my desire to create a memory story based on my homelife is a result of experiences outside the home: I come from cultures (American and Mormon) that place a high premium on what happened in my childhood home. But here's where Harris can't have it both ways. If socialization is a factor in our personalities, and if we come from societies which place a high premium on our homelife/experiences with our parents (and most of us do), then we have been socialized to take our homelife seriously which is going to impact our personalities.

And we may not even know it, according to Harris who argues that socialization is largely unconscious. We adopt the patterns of speech and behaviors of our culture in order to conform/operate. This isn't a bad thing; it's survival. If we didn't, we couldn't communicate (and I believe Harris is right that operating successfully as a social animal comes down to communication). However, an invisible force leaves room for other invisible forces. I doubt very much that overt discipline in the home greatly alters a child's personality (unless, as Harris points out, such discipline is relentlessly severe), but I do believe that the influence of memory (what happened to me yesterday; what my parents did this morning and the morning before that; what I tell myself about what happened) does. It just doesn't make any (common)sense that it wouldn't.

I should end by reminding the reader that I am more on Harris' side than opposed to her. I recently took a (very boring) education class where the material instructed me that girls and boys don't always learn information the same way. The material also instructed me not to be sexist and not to harass the boys--oh, wait, that was a different class--and frankly, what the material had to say about male/female learning differences was pretty shallow. But still, I was pleased to know that one is (finally) allowed to say that genes and biology make a difference. It's about time!

HISTORY & LEARNING

Northanger Abbey 2007

Northanger Abbey is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels, so I've looked forward (with some trepidation) to Masterpiece Theatre's latest version.

Trepidation because when it comes to favorites, the result often doesn't live up to the expectation.

It should be stated immediately that 2007 Northanger is far superior to the 1986 version. Peter Firth did an excellent job as Henry Tilney in the 1986 version, but he was far too worldly-wise (more about this later). And collectively, the 1986 version didn't get the joke.

The joke is that Catherine Morland loves "horrid" novels (more about this later) and enjoys imagining potential gothic horrors, but her own life is fearfully prosaic. So prosaic, in fact, that when she finds herself in the middle of a classic adventure story, she fails to recognize herself as the thwarted romance heroine.

The 1986 version instead presented Northanger Abbey as straightforward gothic romance--which completely and totally missed Jane Austen's point.

Unfortunately, the 2007 version kind of missed it too (they did miss is less). I think Catherine's "prosaic" adventure is just too tempting: script writers and filmmakers can't resist it. They can't resist underscoring parts of the plot with thudding music. They can't resist making Northanger Abbey a huge, rambling building with dozens of towers (no, it isn't that way in the book: that's part of the joke). They can't resist making John Thorpe far more villainous than he actually is. And consequently, they miss how truly funny the novel is.

Watching the 2007 version, it occured to me that perhaps the novel isn't translatable to film. If you moved the whole thing into modern times, Jane Austen would be the smart, introverted, withdrawn high school student who decided to spoof not JUST the antics of the jocks but also (and this is important) the antics of the arty-self-important crowd. In other words, nobody is spared. There's Isabella who complains about men looking at her and then insists on strutting past every man in sight. There's John Thorpe who brags about on fast he drives his "car" and then brags about how safe a driver he is and then brags about how he got into an awful wreck just last week (all in the same conversation). There's Mrs. Allen who says placidly to Catherine, "Oh, yes, dear, I wish someone was here in Bath to talk to you" and then does absolutely nothing about it.

Basically, Northanger Abbey is Heathers.

But the thing that makes it outrageously funny is how completely matter-of-fact it is. No thudding music. No gothic ramparts. Everything is down-to-earth and ordinary. The horrors don't stand out the way they do in a "horrid" novel and in a movie. When Catherine travels home by herself, she doesn't even realize she has behaved heroically.

This hum-dum quality is hard to translate into film: instead of asking you to sympathize with the main characters, the audience would have to be taken into a conspiracy with the narrator against all the characters. The downside of such a conspiracy is that the audience would have a hard time sympathizing with Catherine and, possibly, a hard time understanding Henry.

Catherine is the original innocent. She is so artless, she is clueless; her love of "horrid" novels does not translate into, for instance, a Jane Austen type of imagination. Catherine would never spoof anyone. And a complete innocent, who is also likable, is hard to pull off. (Hence the 1999 Mansfield Park where innocent Fanny becomes instead a combination of Elizabeth Bennett and Jane Austen.)

2007 Catherine, played by Felicity Jones, is not Elizabeth Bennett and does a good job as an innocent, but she is not quite as gullible as the book's Catherine. (In the book, our high school Jane Austen isn't spoofing Alicia Silverstone (Clueless) as much as Mandy Moore (Walk to Remember). And she isn't really spoofing; she's just being cryptic. Rolling her eyes a bit, perhaps.) Without some hint of reserve or suspicion, a film Catherine would, I'm afraid, come across as an airhead which doesn't invite sympathy, especially since Jane Austen fans tend towards the Elizabeth Bennett model.

The second main character is Henry Tilney and here 2007 Northanger hit the money bag. The actor is JJ Feild, who is a PBS classic workaholic
(Railway Children, Death on the Nile, Pullman novels). The character of Henry Tilney--working off our high school model--is the stereotypical smart, semi-arty type who sees through the arty pretense but doesn't have the confidence to be completely himself. So he turns sardonic. This pretty much sums up every guy I knew in High School. I should have hung out with the AV guys, who really didn't care what anyone thought. Instead, I hung out with the arty guys who couldn't stand to be thought pretentious, so they watched lots of Monty-Python. THIS is Henry Tilney.

And he is entirely lovable. He is funny, first of all, and he is flawed. The 2007 Northanger won my heart because although the writer and director fell down when it came to capturing Austen's caustic purpose, they entirely captured the unstable dynamics of the Tilney household. Henry is an unhappy and vulnerable young man. He isn't unhappy because his father is a gothic villain; he is unhappy because his father is an overbearing jerk. There's mundane and prosaic for you.

The 1986 Northanger made Henry much too confident and wise to the ways of the world; one never had any doubts that that Henry would fix everything. But 2007 Northanger gives Henry much more complexity; he may not fix everything; he isn't masterful like Darcy; he isn't accustom to authority like Mr. Knightly; he may not be as heroic as we wish him to be.

Okay, it's Jane Austen, and she may have been caustic but she wasn't cynical: Henry does achieve a level of heroism, but one suspects that this Henry, at least, is just relieved that someone loves him at all. Which is sweet in a very ordinary, human way.

MOVIES

Psychoanalysis--Hollywood Style

Starting with Spellbound in 1945, Hollywood became a factory of psychological/"that-darn-childhood-trauma" thrillers.

Okay, I don't know if it started with Spellbound, but Spellbound is a very good example of the basic plot of these psychological thrillers; the plot's premise goes something like "Person X suffers terrible experience as child/young adult. If person X is forced to confront terrible experience, person X will be instantly cured."

It's the premise of the movie The Three Faces of Eve and of the movie, Marnie, which I watched this weekend for the first time.

Now, Marnie deserves a few kudos.

(1) Marnie's terrible experience is what I thought it should be but didn't believe Hitchcock would actually present: sexual abuse.

(2) There's no indication at the end of the movie that Marnie (Tippi Hedren) is "cured." Her last comment to her husband/amateur psychiatrist is, "I'd rather stay with you than go to jail." Well, yes, I think most people would rather live a life of comparative luxury than go to jail.

(3) The husband/amateur psychiatrist (Sean Connery) is a bundle of weirdness himself for voluntarily marrying a woman who lies, steals, and won't let him near her. Marnie states this during the movie, and the point is never really refuted; in fact, based on the beginning of the movie, the husband is carrying out his dysfunction when he married Marnie--although he does give great lines while he is doing it:

When we get home, I'll explain that we had a lover's quarrel... That you ran away... That I went after you and brought you back. That'll please Dad. He admires action. Then I'll explain that we're gonna be married before the week is out... That I can't bear to have you out of my sight. He also admires wholesome animal lust.

You're very sexy with your face clean.

However, the movie still depends on a really silly idea--that Marnie is troubled and messed up but fundamentally, in her core, normal: there is a normal person in her fighting to get out. Or, at least, a person who still has the right instincts even if said instincts are covered up by trauma.

Marnie isn't a normal person fighting to get out--she's a freaking sociopath.

Basically, the character gets positions of trust in small companies by telling incredible lies that play off people's emotions. She then becomes friendly with the staff. And finally, robs the company blind. This isn't a nice person who just can't help herself. Or even a nice person who due to her terrible childhood is doing things that in her heart of hearts she knows are wrong. This isn't even a cat burglar who steals from acquaintances or unknown victims--this is a person without conscience manipulating the people around her, so she can get what she wants.

And interestingly enough, Tippi Hedren plays the role that way--she is completely believable. Grace Kelly was originally slated for the role, and I think she could have pulled it off, but I think she would have brought more pathos to the character. Hedren has a coolness, even deviousness, which makes the role far more modern than perhaps Hitchcock intended.

Still, the fact that Hitchcock (and many other directors of the time) presented extreme psychosis as a veneer to otherwise good and normal desires tells you a lot about the time period and psychoanalysis in that time period.* I'm not sure if the idea stems from nurture (we can undo the bad environment!) or nature (the basic personality is still intact!), but the theorists of the day seemed to have completely missed the reality that a lifetime of behaviors, no matter how repented of, don't simply vanish. Marnie might feel repentent; she may recognize her childhood trauma; she may wish to be a wonderful wife and mother to her darling husband/amateur psychiatrist. But it's doubtful that robbing five companies through sheer manipulative cunning and hatred leaves a person with a lot of conscience to cling to. Not to mention that her flight responses are pretty well-trained; ten to one, the next time she panics, she's outtathere.

*Granted, Spielberg did more or less the same thing with Catch Me If You Can. According to Abagnale, nothing in his childhood accounts for the thefts he pulled off. However, Catch Me If You Can has several points in its favor; Christopher Walken does a fabulous job as the father who kind of knows what is going on but can offer no refuge to his son; Leonardo DiCaprio's character (Frank, Jr.) commits all of his thefts before, I believe, the age of 21. And lastly, Frank, Jr.'s flight responses, not his character, are tested at the end of the movie.

And finally, Catch Me If You Can, like Marnie and all psychological thrillers, is a whole bunch of fun!

MOVIES