Review Of Alex Gibney’s “Client 9: The Rise And Fall Of Eliot Spitzer”

Although the Eliot Spitzer scandal elicited 3 responses — support, hostility, and puritanism — Alex Gibney’s excellent 2010 documentary, Client 9, hammers home how idiotic all 3 really were, revealing, as it does, how such extremes arise in the first place, as well as the costs of norms that stray too far from the mean. Yes, Spitzer is in the middle of it all, but in a sense, the film’s periphery shows men and women exhibiting precisely the things hated in him and that Spitzer hated in turn: selfishness, hypocrisy, single-mindedness, and the way that culture, on all sides, tends to refract such. And while Spitzer is painted as an extremist, in ways necessary, in ways not, he is also revelatory of the things around him, something that the ‘middle’ — in its dilution of itself — often cannot do.

Client 9 begins on such a note, with a Spitzer ad extolling ‘right’ bore alongside mock advertisements for the scandal, as if New York is celebrating both the man’s importance and his downfall. Spitzer is immediately apologetic, calling his story a “classic tale of hubris,” which is nicely paralleled with the paintings of New York artist and former pimp Hulbert Waldroup, who muses on human beings’ dual nature. None of this is particularly deep, but still sets up a controlling metaphor for the film’s remainder, ensuring that Gibney has much opportunity to play with images and ideas as the film goes on. Spitzer then gives a brief ‘in’ to his childhood, noting how his father “cruelly” beat him in Monopoly to teach his son a lesson. This leads to Spitzer’s distinction between violent and white collar crime: that while violent crime is glamorized, and visible, white collar crime is neglected but just as important (in fact, I’d argue it is worse overall, for feeds and enlivens the former). And, indeed, for the film’s many examples of white collar crime sum to trillions in damage, millions of cumulative years shaven off of workers’ lifespans due to the related stressors, and other abuses that — rarely punished — point to a discrepancy that favors one class of thug over another. This offers an informational edge for those that want illumination. More importantly for the film’s narrative, however, its focus on real, named criminals props up a number of characters, many of them interesting and mysterious in their own right, that will serve as antagonists to Spitzer and offer some hints to the ‘how’ of his eventual downfall.

As the film progresses, these names come fast, reminding one of the jigsaw-like quality of Gibney’s earlier Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. There is Henry Blodget from Merrill Lynch, whose fraud — while merely a scapegoat for a much bigger problem — shows how ingrained the thug mentality really is, with Blodget privately poo-pooing the criminal investigation since fraud was so prevalent, and, therefore, a kind of entitlement. Then there’s Richard Grasso, former chairman of the NYSE, who received a … Continue reading →

Soylent Is A Dismal Art

A few years ago, a new foodstuff called Soylent hit the market. It purports to be a meal replacer for people who, like me, hate the inconvenience of cooking (I do it every day anyway, the import of which will be apparent by essay’s end), or even eating, but wish to get what the human body needs without the typical sugar overload and poor, refined oils such things usually entail. To be sure, Rob Rhinehart, Soylent’s creator, is a tricky one. He initially tried to live on Soylent alone for a while, and survived the few months without issue, even submitting blood-work to show that was, indeed, possible. Predictably, Rhinehart eased off of Soylent, mixing regular food into his diet, as well, all the while insisting that others can remain on a Soylent-only diet. Yet the signals are quite mixed, from Rhinehart’s poorly-timed self-study that ensured no chronic issues could begin to surface, to encouraging others to blend Soylent with real food, thus turning the thing into a de facto supplement, to the fact that, for all of its supposed completeness, not even the creator, himself, is willing to live on it for the long term. And, in fact, I’d argue that no one should, since the relationship between food and disease is — save for some basics — a virtually unknown quanta, and even that little bit of knowledge is colored by ideology, falsehood, and outright manipulation.

Now, as a former fat guy, I’ve had to learn quite a bit about cooking and nutrition, but as an all-around curious type, with little inclination towards ideology, I’ve also learned how much bullshit — how much ignorance — goes into nutritional ‘science’. Indeed, it seems to me that the average nutritionist knows as much about food as the average literary critic knows about craft, thus confusing otherwise intelligent people, like Rob Rhinehart, into accepting things that can never be. And this is not simply because they have too many wrong answers. It is also that, for every question they purport to answer, there is a deeper, more important one that was NOT asked due to the original bias. Perhaps more importantly, it wasn’t even thought to be asked, and — worse! — cannot logically be asked under the conditions. Remember that, in art, the question is: how does it all cohere? And in science, the question is: how does it all cohere? You can read this statement left, right, up, or down, for the inflection will be the same; the meaning will not change; the spirit will not molt.

Art begins (or should begin) with a subtle understanding. If art’s a ‘thing,’ then it is, logically, a thing distinct from other things: from philosophy, say, or historiography, or politics. Perhaps it might have elements of each. And perhaps it might draw on multiple disciplines in order to sum up to its own thing. But if two things can be conflated with nothing lost whatsoever, then what the hell are they, … Continue reading →

Tale Us Of Your Triggers

It seems that while human violence is on the ebb, the world’s arsenal is maturing for a very different kind of war:

In a way, this is to be expected. Material concerns have no future. Poverty, in time, shall no longer be in business. And if ideology is less and less in vogue, there must be other things — other means of self-expression — to club each other over the head with. But while the weapons have always been around, their location tends to shift according to the needs of civilization. Today one prods the world for signs of power yet comes up short. One looks for strength and is turned away. Such values are no longer a point of negotiation, for strength is undemocratic- is deemed tyrannical– and has, therefore, been replaced with victimhood and frailty as a new ideal.

Yet the club is no less heavy; is not, to be sure, to be put away merely on account of personal weakness. After all, the drive is still to hurt, to outdo- to overpower. To this end, there’s been a long list of hurts written somewhere in the ether: a catalogue of ills, attachments, and offenses — called “triggers” — that people can freely choose from and indulge as part of their natural identity. Their numbers are numberless, and by extension can pretty much be anything. There’s racism, rape, homophobia, there’s sexist thoughts, ‘fatphobia’, the wrong feelings, or the right ones expressed at the wrong time. In fact, the more of life is seen, the longer this list becomes, for any desire to take offense — and it IS a desire — will forever search for new stimuli, new ways to engage a rapidly narrowing world. Of course, none of it is new at all: it merely comes in greater quanta to satisfy this ever-growing threshold for pain. The lust, here, is to take on as many hurts as possible, to really FEEL them until the world is little more than the sum total of one’s own eye.

Indeed, you could even argue that this is all a hermit kingdom with its own rules, its own army, and its own peculiar sense of decorum. The rule is simple, really: do not offend. Or rather, learn to read the cues to KNOW what offense entails. As for enforcement- there is anger, of course. There are guilt-trips and mobs to help turn others in acolytes. There are emotional fits meant to keep the ‘debate’ (whatever it may be) from crossing the parapet. At times, these kingdoms are too distal, too fucked up, emotionally or otherwise, to truly let others in. At other times, however, a confederation of the offended will come together to- essentially- find ways of never moving past the safety of these walls. Sure, a few might turn into genuine relationships- I do not doubt this. But they will be friendships that, instead of building upon one another’s best, tend to wallow in the worst, until- … Continue reading →

The Red Pill, Feminism, & The Missing Synthesis

“Perhaps all philosophy boils down to the simple fear that the universe has no need for us: men. I mean, because women are, in a strange sense, more essential to Being than we are…We build machines, create tribal languages in philosophy — like little boys with secret codes in their clubhouse — to get back at the universe because she has failed to give us a function. All our works, male works, will perish in history — history, a male concept of time, will vanish, too, but the culture of women goes on, the rhythms of birth and destruction, the Way of absorption, passivity, cycle and epicycle.” – Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale

“The weakness of men is the facade of strength; the strength of women is the facade of weakness.” – Lawrence Diggs

“I believe every word that man said because it’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” – Space Ghost

Introduction: ‘The Red Pill’ In The Feminist Context

Of all grating human tendencies, I’d argue that the wont towards simplification to be among the most retrograde. Forget violence- it’s been on the outs for thousands of years now, and will be quite unrecognizable in the next few centuries. Forget bigotry- it’s little more than personal immaturity made visible, and at times rewarded. Forget whatever -ism that happens to be ‘in’ right now, for people are too fickle — and their attentions too limited — to celebrate or deride a cause for more than a few decades at a time. Yet simplification is a human constant, splitting, as it does, political spectra into a neat (and illogical) 50/50 divide, corralling ideas into contrapuntals, and apportioning the whole world, really, into the dullness of ‘sides’. To get this to work, you only need one thing: myth. And to get it working for a while, you need to have myths on both sides, as well as people dumb and insecure enough to believe them.

Just think, for a moment, of all the deeper truths such systems occlude: how the vast stores of human ignorance have kept the big picture (whatever it may be) from materializing. This is to be expected, for there’s something in the brain — a survival mechanism, perhaps — that encourages human beings to simplify even when it’s inappropriate. Sure, black and white is great for the jungle, where quick decisions rule, but consciousness did not evolve for higher-order thinking: this is merely our proximate use of something with far more distal causes, thus entangling logic, instinct, and emotion into thinking patterns that have the imprint of none of these things, but share, by being so diluted, all their weaknesses. Thus, in recent decades, there’s been a backlash against the least credible of these innovations. And, unsurprisingly, one of these is the excesses of gender/sexual politics, and the odd, asymmetrical demands this has placed on human conduct.

So what’s the problem, exactly, and what have been the proposed solutions? It’s simple, really- to borrow that abused word. Feminism … Continue reading →

Lance Armstrong And The Lie They’ll Come To Love

Now that the Lance Armstrong ‘controversy’ is dying down, cycling — they say — is ripe for a renewal. This means new races, new competitors, and, yes, new rules; a fresh way of looking at things. The last two decades (perhaps more) — they say — have been quite shameful. There was no wont towards fairness, no sportsmanship, no real inclinations but that of ego, name. That’ll pass — they’re sure — because our basic human instinct is good, and overpowers the more selfish drives that got us into this mess in the first place. Maybe, but there’s just one nagging problem. Lance does not believe he cheated — at least not really — and they say that he says that he’s still the winner of 7 Tour de France titles, despite being stripped of such years ago, with most public opinion comfortably against him. Yet he persists, for the rules — they NEVER seem to say — are, were, and will not ever be too clear, if not on this point, specifically, then on what the surrounds mean in the long run, over a much deeper context.

Now, is Armstrong merely a psychotic: that is, a man utterly divorced from reality, causal relationships, and the like? Perhaps. More likely, however, is that Lance Armstrong understands the situation he was in a little better than most, and can’t quite reconcile the word “cheat” with what he first saw, in the mid-90s, quite possibly railed against, then dutifully accepted. He has said that cheating was rampant as soon as he came into the sport, and he is right. He’s claimed that cheating is rampant, still, and if you know anything of human nature — much less culture — and recognize the billions and billions of dollars that get pumped in and pumped out of a sport like this, what with the bicycles, supplements, spare parts, and international branding, with every con artist, CEO, thug, petty gambler, and politician hoping for a score, and with so many hands mixed up in so many pockets: well, to assume that cheating, big AND small, is an exception rather than the norm is not just naive, but unforgivably stupid.

This was, Armstrong argues, his inheritance, and, unsurprisingly, few want to buy it. In their perspective, whether they realize it or not, context is meaningless, and individual choice — like individual freedom, responsibility, and those mythical, now-tattered bootstraps — trumps all. It’s a wonderfully American myth, and one that mirrors everything that Americans wish were true, and most, for all we know, believe to be true. Yet there’s obviously more to this ‘thing’ than Armstrong, because while he may be a bit loftier of a con in a network of a million smaller cons that get manufactured every single day in the name of sportsmanship, he is also the first in line, the most visible, and therefore the most unconscionable. It is his (not their) affront that matters, for it is he who violates a … Continue reading →

IDEAS ON IDEAS

::: Art, Film, Literature, & The Human Politic :::

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