Public Service Article in The Onion

I don't intend to normally post philosophy-relevant items here. But this one is too good to pass up. Readers of the satire newspaper The Onion might have already seen this, but if you haven't, here's an "article" calling much-needed attention to a phenomenon that appears to be global.

Downside of the Upside

I crossed the 3-month mark over a week ago. My first term at Vic is winding down. I'm almost completely moved in (just gotta get that wireless router set up so that I can move my computer into the office and set up my studio in the living room). So I'm starting to feel settled. I've also started to hear back from the Lucky Few who know about the blog. Thankfully, you've gotten a good feel for many of the things I've liked about New Zealand.

It's not all roses, however. I've tried to emphasize the good things, mainly to keep a positive attitude and enjoy myself as much as possible. But now I'm starting to think that the Lucky Few might have been misled to think that there's nothing wrong with NZ. So I think I'll occasionally post on what is not great about life here.

But before getting into it, let me be clear. So far, my all-things-considered judgment is that things have gone well. I'd probably even give it an A-. Great people, good tenure(equivalent)-track job, attractive city, etc. I haven't been able to say that before, and it sounds nice even just to write it now. That said, here are some things that put the minus in the A-.

We can roughly divide the not-great items into three groups. First, there are the little things that I simply like to winge about (add that to the Words I Like: winging is what Kiwis call whining). I've already posted on two such things: crap TV and chips. Second, there are the things that are worse than the US on what must be some objective standard. I'll leave it to all the lay aestheticians to decide if there really are such objective standards. Finally, there are things that are negative, but only because they're the cost of the positive things here. They're the downside of the upside of life here. Without further ado, here are a few things in the third group.

1. Hangovers. I love the nightlife here. It's incredibly vibrant, and I've been lucky enough to fall into a group of folks who contribute to the vibrancy. But I also end up staying awake until 6am and drinking too much. No-sleep+alcohol=no good.
2. Lack of productivity. See #1. I'm actually getting more done than any time in the last 4 years, because my courseload has gone from 9/year at CSUB to 6/year at Oxy to 3/year here at Vic. (That is, I'm getting more done in terms of both teaching innovation and research.) Really I haven't taken full advantage of that yet, because I've had so many new preps (then again, I also had a ton of new preps at my previous stops). But the social life is good enough that I'm not getting enough done! Okay, that might be winging, since when I was at Bakersfield I would have killed for that problem. (We're pulling for ya, D-Bo!) But still, downside of upside.
3. Lack of productivity, part 2. In addition to enjoying the carnal things in life, Kiwis also more generally value quality of life in balance with work. The standard work week is 37.5 hours. And finally being on the tenure (equivalent) track has made me much, much, much more relaxed than I've been in years. So there are lots of incentives here to enjoy life. Gotta crank up the effort a bit, though.
4. Material well-being. Things are much more expensive here, on the whole. The one notable exception is real estate, which is fairly affordable (to buy, but not rent, oddly) for a city with so many things going for it. But almost everything else is expensive, especially food, beer, gas, and cigarettes, my four main sources of pleasure, directly or indirectly. More broadly, material objects aren't as well-constructed, the level of service is arguably lower than in the US, etc. However, this is the downside of an upside: higher minimum wage, shorter work week, less comsumption-oriented culture dampening demand. I guess that's why Julie and Ann tell me I'm pathetic for regretting the lower level of material well-being. But what can I say?...I'm an American.
   

Classic Rock Rules the World

I grew up on classic rock. Unfortunately for me, I also grew up in the 80's, quite possibly the worst decade ever for popular music. In Portland, after moving to Ainsworth Elementary in third grade, I seem to remember that my friends and I started out listening to Magic 106.7. They used to play the Stones and the Who. It was great. Then they started playing things like Kenny Loggins' theme song "Footloose." Then I stopped listening to Magic 106. From then on, all classic rock was listened to on KGON, 92.3 FM.

Since then all of us have moved away (and some have moved back), to various parts of the US, but we've also noticed that wherever you go, there seems to be a KGON. Of course, each station has its own variation. For example, KGON has always seemed to have an unfortunate fixation on George Thorogood (and The Destroyers, of course). But you also get the staples: Dylan, the Stones, Zeppelin, etc.

Of course, all of us have moved on from classic rock to embrace other genres. But I doubt that any of us have left it entirely. Whatever else I'm listening to at the time, I almost always sneak a listen to KGON when I go back to Portland (as my folks have frustratingly found when their car stereos have been not-so-mysteriously tuned to 92.3).

What's amazing is that classic rock, and its various cousins but primarily classic rock itself, is huge over here. There must be 5 or 6 KGON's coming across Wellington's airwaves (and there are relatively few radio stations). The what's-on-TV-at-the-moment channel is always playing Hendrix for some unknown but wonderful reason. Many of the bars play classic rock, and many of those that don't play either its blues-based ancestors or descendants or cousins, such as reggae, which is very popular here, or soul music (which replaced classic rock as the dominant musical influence of my grad school years, and still is fighting to maintain that status).

My other musical favorites (or favourites) aren't doing so well, though. As best I can find, there's only one jazz station (dominant in my life during college), and they play an unfortunate amount of "smooth jazz" [sic]. Rap and neo-soul are also semi-big here, which is just about right for me. I almost never hear alt-country or alt-country-derived rock (competing for the dominant genre for me, against soul, during my post-graduate school life). Supposedly there's a great band here called Ghostplane that a recent review compared to Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and Sun Volt all in a few paragraphs, but I haven't heard them yet (CDs here are incredibly expensive). Maybe that will be good. At any rate, at least there's a lot of classic rock.

I guess it's too quick to say that it rules the world. Ann tells me that you don't get that kind of music in Sydney, for example. (There you get a lot of vacuous Euro-crap, I'd uninformedly and dismissively imagine.) But of all our cultural exports, we (okay, and the UK too) have done a lot worse. It's nice that there are more outlets of classic rock than all the fast food joints we've sent here, for example.

At times that fluctuate with no pattern I can discern yet, I can also get FOX Sports radio. That's nice too, but my massive US sports withdrawls are another story (as are my internal conflicts about consuming anything FOX). Mmmmm, football.

First Poll: to tip or not to tip?

Okay, this might not work, but I like trolling for intuitions when I'm not sure of something, so I thought I'd try to take a poll for some intuitions from the lucky few who know about this blog. Here's the question: would you rather live in a society with tipping for services rendered, or without tipping?

In NZ, tipping is non-existent (except when Americans visit, and ruin it for everyone). Even if you get a great meal at a five-star restaurant, there is no expectation that you'll tip. Of course, it's nice if you want to (the servers won't complain), but there's simply no need to. Wages aren't set in a way that depends on servers getting tipped, servers don't expect it. It's their job. And the price of your meal already includes the cost of service.

So what are the pros and cons of not tipping? Pros: you know the price of your meal at the start of the evening; there's no norm to follow about correct tipping; servers' financial well-being doesn't depend on the often inconsistent tip. Con: less incentive for servers to perform their tasks well (which, in my limited experience, does occasionally result in poorer service).

So since I'm not sure which system is preferable, anyone have a vote? Anything I'm missing here?

Things I like about New Zealand, Part 2b

My running collection of things I like about New Zealand has been a comparative endeavor--they're mostly things I think NZ does better than the US. In my last entry, I mentioned that I thought that NZ's progressive politics is CFAAB (clearly far and away better) than what we have in the US. For folks like me, it's simply crazy that some of my fellow citizens want a pluralistic state run under a religious banner, or that intelligent design would be taught as a rival to the biological theory of evolution.*

As I remarked in the last entry on this topic, I really like that such nonsense goes nowhere here. Lately I've been trying to do some armchair psychology to explain the difference. Sadly, I was moved to think further about this because of the disaster in New Orleans. There are a lot of things that need to be, and are being, analyzed about how it got so bad. But two things stood out to me when I wondered if something similar could happen here in New Zealand. My guess is that it wouldn't, on (at least) two levels.

First, the desperately poor are almost nonexistent here. There are very few homeless people, because there is a wide safety net. Nicholas Kristof's column, "The Larger Shame," in today's NY Times nicely hammered home how bad America is in terms of poverty. In an era in which it's sometimes hard to justify being a Democrat (that is, not on principle, but on how poorly organized and inarticulate we are), Kristof makes the case nicely: Republicans want tax cuts, except for military funding, while Democrats are willing to swallow lower paychecks for the sake of poverty relief. Poverty is perhaps the primary, humanly controllable culprit behind the staggering suffering and death in New Orleans. We left behind the people who couldn't get out on their own, so we left them behind twice: first, when we didn't give them enough resources to leave on their own, and then again, when we didn't give them the means to evacuate before Katrina hit. As far as I can tell, that sort of thing simply wouldn't happen here. If a hurricane was clearly heading towards a NZ city, everyone would likely have a chance to get out, simply because people care more here about other people. They're willing to have smaller paychecks, fewer profits (there's an incredibly high minimum wage here, and even that isn't enough, probably) so that everyone can live decently.

Second, given the colossal failures of organization and urgency on the federal level in dealing with Katrina's devastation, it's absolutely amazing to me that people aren't being fired right away. I was stunned to watch live on CNN International as Mike Brown, head of FEMA, announced he wasn't aware of the stories of murder, rape, and beatings in the anarchic Convention Center until well after I was, just from watching CNN, literally a world away. That total incompetence is inexcusable, but our President tells him he's doing a good job. Now there's plenty of political nonsense down here in NZ, but that sort of obvious failure tends to get laughed out of the room. For example, when a prominent Australian politician recently made an ethnically insensitive comment about his rival's wife (while drunk at a party), he immediately resigned his leadership post (contrast that with Trent Lott's defiance after his Strom Thurmond debacle, and more broadly with Karl Rove's racist tactics against Senator McCain in the 2000 primary--in the US, politicians win elections by being racist). Sadly, the Australian politician was so ashamed that he then attempted suicide. Obviously, that's not the right result. But it's worth observing that people still have something like honor here--if politicians screw up, they're called out on it, and held to account (and the media don't get over such a critical story in one news cycle). In the US, if politicians screw up, they get defended in the name of loyalty, and more people die.

So what does all this have to do with the progressive politics from the earlier post? My armchair psychology is simply that people are more reasonable here than in the US. I mean "reasonable" in the literal sense of "willing to listen to, accept, and require good reasons for important claims." Patently ridiculous, socially-relevant behavior, such as wanting to use state influence to get everyone to believe in God, teaching intelligent design and undermining our most advanced science, letting people slide into miserable and deadly poverty, and excusing negligence that leads to homicide are not practiced by reasonable people. I like that so many New Zealanders are reasonable in these ways. I hate that so many Americans are unreasonable in these ways.

*(Defense-of-Profession aside: intelligent design is, roughly, the theory that this world must have had been designed by an architect with an intelligence, since that's the only way of explaining its complexity, beauty, order, etc. This is not a rival to a biological theory, because it is not itself a biological theory. Intelligent design is consistent with evolution, despite the protestations of ID's adherents: it may be that god designed a world that changes via evolution. No, ID is a philosophical theory, a philosophy of religion--under another name, I used to teach it in my Intro to Philosophy courses. By my lights, it's a pretty bad theory. But the point is just that if ID'ers want it taught in the schools, that's fine by me. Let's give high school teachers some philosophy training, and they can do a few weeks on the philosophy of religion. That would do our society wonders, I'd think. At least the flaws of ID would be exposed, but I guess that's why its advocates are trying to smuggle it into biology textbooks.)