Blog Archives - Northern Overexposure

Brene Brown: Listening to Shame

6/30/2013

This talk by Brené Brown on listening to shame has become a virtual hit from TED. She discusses vulnerability. She argues that vulnerability is not weakness. Yet, at the same time, she notes that when we see vulnerability none of us see it as a weakness which is a real paradox. Vulnerability, she says, is actually a measure of courage.

She says most of the people who contact her want her to discuss innovation, creativity and change. These are indeed buzzwords circulating in the business field today. She says that vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.

Brown studies shame as a research area. She discusses how discussion of race inevitably leads to question of privilege which leads to inevitably to issues of shame. Discussing embracing failure and not listening to the critic but instead fearlessly continuing to engage in life, she shares a great quote by Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

She goes on to discuss the difference between shame and guilt. Shame is “I am bad; I am not good enough; or who do you think you are” whereas guilt is “I did something bad”. Interestingly, shame correlates with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, and eating disorders. Guilt is inversely correlated with those. Guilt can be adaptive.

She goes on to divide how shame is expressed differently between genders which is quite fascinating. Empathy is the greatest antidote to shame. What causes shame to thrive is secrecy, silence and judgement.

Cycling Through Reality

6/30/2013

From "Jazz at Lincoln Centre", Kendrick Scott Oracle performing Cycling Through Reality. I believe that this is on their cd, Conviction. Who says you cannot find great new jazz. Enjoy!

Goodbye James Gandolfini

6/22/2013

James Gandolfini died last week. Best known for his portrayal as Tony Soprano, on the Sopranos, Gandolfini created one of the most iconic movie characters in television history. As Dominic Preziosi at Commonweal writes:

What Gandolfini definitely did was make Tony recognizable to viewers who might have had someone like him in their own families or neighborhoods. The voice, the carriage, the sentimentality (“it’s about family”), the sudden, explosive rages—even if their father or uncle or brother wasn’t a murderer, many people nonetheless saw something pretty familiar there. As a New Jersey native of Italian heritage, I suppose I saw something recognizable in Tony too, in the way he chewed up the words “Hacklebarney State Park” (site of numerous grade-school picnics) or fed himself cold-cuts in the light of the open refrigerator; friends from the midwest called after one episode desperate to know the meaning of “gabagool,” and I was able to inform them that it was capicola. It was good to be in the know.

See more at: Gandolfini and Tony

Tony's tête-à-têtes with Melfi were the best part of the show and I tuned in regularly just for that. The clip below illustrates their sessions as well as the range of acting skill that Gandolfini possessed.

Irshad Manji discusses reform of Islam

6/22/2013

Islam is not well understood in the West. Some scholars have referred to a "clash of civilizations" to discuss the conflict between Islam and the West. With increasing globalization and pluralism it is important for us to understand the complexity of Islamic life and society. Scant attention has been paid to understanding Islam. This particular program from Aljazeera provides an interesting glimpse into the inter-religious debate that is occurring within Islam today.

Irshad Manji, a Canadian author of The Trouble with Islam Today, suggests the democratization of key Islamic concepts such as ijtihad which she translates as independent reasoning but has been translated elsewhere as "to use all your power and effort in order to bring some hard and difficult works into existence" is imporant in modernizing Islam. She uses the concept of Ijtihad as a vehicle to democratize Islamic life. She defines it as the ability to critically reason, dissent, and reinterpret.

According to the interviewer, who has read her works, she is too pro-Western to the point of denigrating the Islamic world and tends to paint her arguments in polarizing, black and white terms. The interviewer presses her on some of her use of language. He also notes that there is a growing Islamophobia in places like France, the UK, and even the USA. There is certainly some of of that in the West. Dialogue and listening is important which is why I posted this interview.

She touches on women's rights including the use of the hijab. I have seen women wearing the hijab and have wondered about how free this choice is. As far as integrating Islam in Canadian life, Premier McGuinty contemplated the use of Sharia in Islamic communities to resolve certain civil, marital disputes. This was criticized not only by the legal community but many feminist Muslim women who saw the system of Sharia as tilting towards the male rights in the dispute. Their preference was for the current secular system. In the end, the idea was abandoned.

I am not sure how representative she is of the Islamic community but the interview is provocative. She is an openly gay Muslim women and discusses this briefly. She is not sure to what extent that may or may not play in her thinking. It is an interesting exchange.

American Medical Association deems obesity as a disease

6/20/2013

By a close margin, and in the midst of debate, the AMA acknowledged obesity as a disease. The Globe and Mail had a good article detailing some of the inside baseball surrounding the decision. In an article, Did the American Medical Association make a mistake in classifying obesity a disease?, Ryan mentions that:

In the end, the AMA cast aside the findings of its own council and opted instead for a resolution pushed forward by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American College of Cardiology and other organizations.

As the AMA’s governing body sees it, obesity is a “multimetabolic and hormonal disease state” that leads to such debilitating ailments as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Nobody would argue that obesity is a risk factor for certain diseases, notably diabetes, high blood pressure and heart conditions, however, is the disease model the most fitting means to address the issue of obesity?

Controversy continues to swirl around surgical interventions such as bariatric surgery and Ryan mentions how pharmaceutical companies are finding ways to address the problem. Before rushing in with simplistic solutions such as diet and exercise (although these are obvious remedies), the entire issue requires a more sensitive and accurate analysis.

Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple had an excellent article on this very issue. It is among the better articles I have read. Sisson is author of The Primal Blueprint, and writes sensitively concerning the obesity stigma. Sisson writes:

Some say the obesity/overweight stigma is the last allowable prejudice. Although I think there’s enough animosity and judgmentalism in the world to debate the statement itself, I understand the central point. Researchers have time and again measured the “anti-fat bias” (effects ranging from outright discrimination to unconscious stereotyping) at work in everything from employment to health care. Obesity/overweight stigma figures into the collective consciousness far more than we often give it credit for – lurking in places and people we’d assume would be immune to its effects.

Physicians themselves, numerous studies show, demonstrate a significant anti-fat bias. Just a few weeks ago, a published study reported 40% of medical students demonstrated an unconscious weight bias. Research has illuminated anti-fat bias in therapists and even health professionals within obesity related specialties.

With all this, research shows primary physicians are offering less weight loss counseling to their patients – particularly those with high blood pressure or diabetes.

Physiology is physiology. The biological facts behind obesity are constant, yes. The personal picture of one’s weight – not to mention each person’s experience of it – however, is much more complex than any stereotype or momentary judgment can begin to tell. When we simplify other people’s stories, I think the person we end up diminishing is ourselves. My mother used to constantly say “Worry about yourself.” Sure, it was generally in response to sibling quarrels or school yard gossip, but it gained dimension as I grew older. To this day, it’s one of the most abiding pieces of wisdom I’ve ever come across. It doesn’t mean of course, don’t appreciate other people or help where and when you can. After all, life is about connection. Happiness and health are about connection. That said, we miss the point when we bring a self-grandiosity or condescension to that engagement. We do better when our support for others comes from a place of personal humility.

Read More: The Stigma of Obesity

As we tackle this issue, we should do so sensitively and also with an awareness of our own challenges with our physical, spiritual, and mental health. I am all for personal responsibility but I am all to aware of human weakness, particularly my own. This means that as I get older there is less and less room for judgement of anybody on my part and more and more compassion.

A temptation many have had

6/17/2013

Humorous vignette from the Tony awards. Regrettably, I have been on both sides of this conflict (the one texting and the one smashing the cell at least metaphorically). Thankfully, more often than not, I have been on the David Hyde Pierce side; that is the anti-texting especially at the theatre!

Prism's boundless prison

6/10/2013

Edward Snowden has now come out publicly as the leaker who revealed to The Guardian top secret details of the NSA's data gathering system. In a nutshell, the national security agency gathers all cell phone records, e-mails, texts, and any other form of communication and stores them in a large database. This is a program known as Prism. It also collects data from other countries in the world under a program entitled Boundless Informant.

The justification for Prism is found in the Patriot Act which was developed under the Bush administration and allowed the US to tap into foreign communications with any citizen in the United States without a search warrant. Obama has expanded this program and placed it under congressional oversight. In order to look at the content of information gathered, NSA officials need to go through a secret FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance) court. FISA is composed of seven federal district judges and the hearings are not public and are classified. They are not adversarial and function as a kind of grand jury.

These revelations have renewed the energy of civil libertarians who see this program as an illegal and unconstitutional encroachment on their fourth amendment rights under the US Constitution. The fourth amendment of the US Constitution reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Nation wide dragnets of citizens against whom no allegation or suspicion of wrongdoing is expressly forbidden. This is precisely the opposite of what the Prism program, in fact, admittedly does! The NSA claims that they are not looking at the raw data, it is just stored and compared with known outside terrorists. Yet, one warrant from a FISA court to Verizon includes literally millions of individual citizens.

Not only is the NSA collecting information on its own citizen, it is also mining data from other countries. Many countries including Canada have expressed concern. Just today, for example, the Globe and Mail ran this story.

Canada’s privacy cops fret over U.S. snooping, to dig deeper

And further, according to the Guardian:

In London, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, was forced to defend the UK's use of intelligence gathered by the US. Other European leaders also voiced concern.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is expected to grill Obama next week, during a much-awaited summit in Berlin. Peter Schaar, Germany's federal data protection commissioner, told the Guardian it was unacceptable for the US authorities to have access to EU citizens' data, and that the level of protection is lower than that guaranteed to US citizens.

Edward Snowden's explosive NSA leaks have US in damage control mode

Below is an interview with Edward Snowden by The Guardian where he explains his rationale.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out but this story is a major national and international story requiring substantive and open dialogue among citizens of all democratic countries.

Existential Economics

6/4/2013

Interesting and humorous article from The Economist on existential economics. Edmund Phelps, the award winning economist, argues that Kierkegaard's insights are the forerunner to modern economics particularly as it pertains to the dynamics of individual choice and the inherent anxiety contained therein. Phelps adds, “What is striking to me is that, in Kierkegaard’s view, if I understand it, the impossibility of truly knowing the best decision, time and again, is not an unavoidable difficulty of living. Neither is it a difficulty made avoidable by the nanny state. It is instead an invaluable well-spring of experiences that can provide us full personal growth.”

Kierkegaard frequently wrote under pseudonyms and spoke through that figure. Consequently, discerning the meaning of a Kierkegaardian text means discerning the character of his pseudonym. However, it is certainly true that Kierkegaard was different than Sartre and other later existentialists who wrestled with the problem of freedom and anxiety. Certainly, there is a certain nausea or "staring into the void and it staring back" involved in choice. Yet, choices, for Kierkegaard involve a leap of faith as the consequences cannot be rationalized in a logarithm. Facing anxiety is thus part of the mature response to a life lived openly to new experiences. This has always been the human predicament and Kierkegaard mines the biblical figure of Abraham to illustrate the point that the leap of faith involves suspending the ethical (e.g. the binding of Isaac) and living out of the wellspring of one's own obedience to a higher authority which resides in the conscience.

The article goes on to explain that this kind of openness to new experience is described by Joseph Schumpeter as innovative entrepreneurship and the “animal spirits” described by John Maynard Keynes as “a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.”

Overall, an interesting article. My only criticism is that it jams two distinct themes into one. It also discusses how Kierkegaard with his pithy saying would fit well into today's twitter world. True, but that could be saved for another article. I found one of his pithy sayings along with a photo of Kierkegaard below. On a personal note, I have always been fond of Kierkegaard, and did my undergraduate project in philosophy on him.

Here is the entire article:
Existential economics #Soren Kierkegaard