Delcine, part 2

About two weeks ago I wrote a post on settlement scaling, which is a theory that cities and cultures grew and settled in a similar manner of land consumption and hierarchy. This, even though they grew independent of one another. This shows a commonality to the human mind, the human spirit, and of course the human ability (limitations) of movement. Yet, there is also the issue of civilization decline.  Is there a commonality among past civilizations that went into decline and became no more? The post last week focused on the decline in Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, and the Mayan culture on the Yucatan peninsula. This post will focus on a western culture from which we currently draw much of the basis of law and our very culture--Rome.  It will end with lessons for today.

Curia Building, Rome, home of the Roman Senate
Author photo from 1990

Interior of Pantheon in Rome, showing oculus
1990 Author photo

The Roman Empire is viewed as one of the greatest of historical societies or civilizations. Rome began as a republic and would turn into a dictatorship (generally agreed by scholars to be about 27 BC when Octavian became the emperor Caesar Augustus). Part of what we have in our culture today derives from the former Roman Republic and/or Empire. Edward Gibbon attributed the decline to the rise of Christianity and political effects. Others spoke of invasions, plague, population decline and lack of military spirit. Gibbon placed Rome's golden age for less than a hundred year time span--98 to 180 AD.  Yet, this was also the time during the dictatorship that the seeds of decline were planted. Gibbon was so engrossed in the enlightenment thinking cause celeb of placing blame on Christianity that he failed to recognize what had truly occurred in the Empire, particularly during his beloved Antoine age. The golden age Gibbon so highly praised was based on slavery, and as times turned against the use of slaves, the labor and economic markets failed to adjust. Perhaps the slow rise of Christianity had something to do with the decline of slavery, but our present day thinking we would not regard that as bad. In any event at that time, Christian communities were small and underground, and certainly were not setting forth moral standards of the Empire, to know and understand this all one has to do is look at what was occuring in the coliseum, and other venues.  The ruling class of the Empire continued the exploitation of the labor class and further reduced the little freedom those workers had. This change from slave to serf production is often thought to have led to the revolts of the third century. The majority of people failed to benefit from their work and that is one of the causes of the downfall of the Roman civilization.  Ah, the glory and grandeur of Rome!

Roman Forum
1990 Author photo

These aspects of decline of the Roman Empire, however, probably began from something more common and less abrupt--depletion of farmland in and near Italy. Reduced farm land fertility in the area near and around Rome led to a reliance on crops from the hinterlands. This led to an increase in trade, but with this increase, just was we saw with the Mayan civilization, so too did Rome develop, or further enhance, a class of the top ten percent. The need for productivity led to the Roman version of what we would call today factory farms. These large farms, founded on the periphery by Roman emigrants were facilitated, according to one historian, by moneylenders and a policy of Roman officials “who would guarantee borrowers against bad debts.” Sounds like the 2008 housing crisis, and the US Government guarantee of bad debts. Small tenant farmers were transformed into servile dependents, with limited legal and economic position. The movement of production to the outer limits of the empire led to a the rise of wealth in the hands of a few. Those few, just like in Rapa Nui and in Maya, would fail to recognize the root causes and problems that occur when wealth accumulates in the hands of the economic elite.  The wealthy would argue against any improvement which could threaten their power and holdings. Thus, the vast majority of citizens and people of Rome lacked the ability to “taste the fruits of their labor,” consume goods and hence there “was a shallow internal market.”

Roman Coliseum
1990 Author photo

Site of Roman Hippodrome
1990 Author photo

Walter Scheidel and Steven Freisen, who had quantified economic opportunity within the Roman Empire, wrote a paper in 2010 outlining their results.  They apparently concluded that the elite 1.5% of the population controlled 15 to 25% of the wealth.  Others have interpreted their figures and say that the top 1% controlled 16% of the wealth.  Rome had a pecking order, and for much of the time the "middling" Romans had a comfortable, but not extravagant or lavish lifestyle.  From this we can see that there were two Romes.  Below the elites was a class that made enough to survive, but "not enough to prosper."  Scheidel and Freisen have said that "the disproportionate visibility of this 'fortunate decile' must not let us forget the vast but-to us-inconspicuous majority that failed even to begin to share in the moderate amount of economic growth associated with large-scale formation in the ancient Mediterranean and its hinterlands."   The glory of Rome, as one reader of the Scheidle and Friesen study put it "is really just the rubble of the rich built on the backs of poor farmers and laborers, traces of whom all but have vanished."  The monuments of Rome built by an elite, with little credit to those who really made it possible.

Christian Catacombs under Rome
1990 Author photo

What does this mean for today?  In the United States today we have 1% of the population controlling 40% of the wealth, and a Gini coefficient slightly worse than what existed at the time of glory and grandeur of Rome.  The CIA, and World Bank are among institutions that use this method (ie Gini coefficient) to track income inequality.  The powerful elites of the U.S. have been made more so by the quantitative easing policy of the Federal Reserve for the last seven years that has led to an increase in stock prices, which of course most benefits large stockholders.  The financial elite of the nation, regardless of party control, come from or go to large banks, particularly Goldman Sachs.  A presidential candidate today was paid well above the middle six figures for a speech to Goldman Sachs.  Fifteen hundred years after the fall of Rome, the progressive and advanced United States has a greater income inequality than the dictatorship of Rome.  The financial and political elite today are to be viewed with caution every much as was the ruling class of ancient Rome, Rapa Nui and Maya.  Is economic disparity and social disenfranchisement a result of a maturing civilization, and bound to occur regardless of policy pursued?  The answer to that question will take a mind far greater than mine to discern.

Roman amphitheater in Gerasa, Jordan
Author photo, 2013

The three examples noted over the two posts show that power is controlled by an economic and/or political elite with self-interested decision making. Resource problems that arise (loss of trees, long drought, or reduced farmland fertility) can lead to downsizing of the society and even total societal collapse. Every society, or civilization, has a dependence upon resources, and as shortages occur adjustments also need to occur. The seeds of the collapse of the Roman Empire existed at what some historians regard as its peak period. Societies are complex organisms, and perhaps not one factor can be said to be the cause of the turn of fortunes. History shows us, however, that societies while complex are fragile and require proper management of resources and wealth in order to maintain stability, if not to allow for growth.  But, what happens is that the powerful and financial elite use their control to benefit themselves, thereby allowing the civilization to founder.  This happened in Rapa Nui, Maya and Rome.

Gerasa, Jordan Triumphal Arch built to commemorate the visit of
Roman Emporer Hadrian in 129-130 AD
My, how cities like their arches.
Author photo, 2013

Decline, part 1

Cities and cultures are intertwined. Cities often embody the advance of civilization. They allowed the human population to move from a hunter-gather and nomadic lifestyle to one of specialization of labor. Cities did not evolve by themselves as their development and scaling was dependent upon the institution of agriculture. Yet, in the annals of history cities and their related monuments are often telling of the nature and advance of a civilization. However, just as a pattern exists to settlement scaling, or how cities and related land consumption occured as discussed in a prior post, is there also a pattern to decline of civilizations? If so, is the decline cross-cultural? In other words did similar occurrences lead to decline in varied independent civilizations. Those are difficult questions to answer and over time varied interpretations have occurred for the decline of some major civilizations. At times those explanations are related to bias from the standpoint of the writer themselves or the times in which they find themselves.



Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island

One of the current pre-eminent writers in this area is Jared Diamond, who in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2006) reviews some successes, but also many failures of certain past societies. Often his theories are based on environmental degradation. He studied cultures as diverse as present time Montana, past Norse settlement of part of Greenland, Mayan culture, and Easter Island. In each case environmental degradation led to collapse of some sort or other. Montana culture has, of course, not fully collapsed, but Diamond paints a not too bright future given the pollution and degradation that has occurred to mining and the after effects such mining will pose for generations to come. Tracts of land in Montana have become unlivable due to the degradation of mining, and the costs to the public for cleanup. However, this post will focus on the decline of three different cultures: Easter Island, Mayan culture and a later post will focus on the decline of the Roman Empire and a wrap-up of lessons of history.

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, according to Diamond was the “clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources.” Rapa Nui is best known for the large stone heads, or Moai, that were carved and moved to varied locations on the island. The construction of these monuments required a complex culture. The sculpting and transporting of such large carved heads required division of labor, and a ruling and religious class. The Moai were for religious purposes. More recently archaeologist Terry Hunt claims that Diamond’s theory does not hold and the population of Rapa Nui never reached the size noted by Diamond. He further notes that the results of western discovery just after Easter in 1722 (hence its name) was more the issue in the decline of the island’s population. He refers to slavery and disease. However, two issues of the decline of Rapa Nuii stand out. First, evidence shows that the island was once covered by the largest palm trees in the world. The seeds of the palm were gnawed by rats brought with the original Polynesian settlers, and unable to produce and grow. I wonder if the inhabitants may not also have eaten the seeds.





Moai on Rapa Nui

European accounts upon first-contact picture an island that was basically treeless. The large palms were gone having been used for a variety of means, including the movement of the Moai to their varied locations on the island. The tree loss was dramatic and while the population may well have survived into later years, it likely was not the culture it once was. Certainly, western disease and possibly enslavement likely affected the population post 1722, but the culture then was not the complex society that is earlier thought to have been present, and often described by Diamond and others. Second, evidence clearly shows that while the society had cut the last large palm tree (one wonders what the people who felled the last large palm were thinking) the Moai were still being constructed. Perhaps they had a belief that the heads, as monuments to a god, would have their god look kindly down on to them. Perhaps it was a continuation of the power of the main ruler who desired the construction of more monuments. What we see is a society not willing to reinvent itself in the face of coming disaster. Work continued as usual. The construction of the large stone monumental heads commanded a great deal of manpower and resources. Yet, with loss of valued resources the Rapanui leaders continued in the quest. Build more Moai.

Monuments were not unique to the Rapanui. They are part of most every culture and the monument construction is what we today tend to view in awe. Monuments also explain a good deal about a culture. In the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala and other parts of Mesoamerica sit ruins of some of the past grand monuments from the Mayan culture. Mayan settlements were large and hierarchical, not unlike the structure of settlements of Europe or the United States. Aspects of Mayan culture were first discovered in the 1840's, and their collapse has intrigued archaelogists ever since. This is a culture that had math, pottery, writing, calendars and advanced agriculture—all important elements to the establishment and advance of a civilization. It is thought to have been as large as 19 million persons. The civilization went from a series of bustling cities, Tikal in present day Guatemala being one, to ruins in about 100 years. A rather sharp decline. Geographer Billie Lee Turner indicates that perhaps the Mayan decline was not as dramatic and widespread as often believed. However, Turner believes, as noted in the book 1491 by Charles Mann "there is no other known time when a large-scale society disintegrated--and was replaced by nothing." When the Maya collapse occurred there were no more cities and people, it was a mass of land and monuments left to ruin. In the 1930's a Harvard academic noted that the decline was due to the Maya having exceeded the carrying capacity of the land.



Mayan art

A number of different theories, of course, have been advanced to explain the collapse of the Mayan civilization which occurred well before 1492, as it occurred in the eighth and ninth centuries. Deforestation and drought, brought about in part by deforestation are now thought to be the leading theories of the collapse of the once great and learned Mayan culture. Of course, these factors are related to the carrying capacity of the land. The capacity of the land changed due to these conditions. The theory of deforestation and drought was first advanced by Jared Diamond, and more recent research seems to uphold his theory. Trees were important for Mayan fuel. It is thought it took 20 trees for one square meter of cityscape as the trees were required to “fuel the fires that cooked the lime plaster for their elaborate constructions.” Land was also cleared not just to provide fuel, but to also provide land for agriculture. Near the time of collapse weather patterns were already in a drought condition and researchers believe that the quick deforestation led to less rain due to less solar radiation which leads to less evaporation which in turn produces less clouds and rainfall. This at a time of what they term unprecedented population density.



Mayan Monument in Tikal

The decline occurred even though the Maya well understood the complex environment in which they lived and had developed sophisticated farming production and water supply techniques. They understood their environment and knew how to survive, but a tipping point was reached and the environment could no longer sustain their society. We often think of Native Americans as being exemplary stewards of the land, but yet an ecological catastrophe was brought about under their watch. Like us today, Native Americans had different values, and like us used the land, and its resources to their benefit. The civilization was hit with a perfect storm or confluence of events from which it could not recover. Yet, it is more than a simple explanation, it is also an economic one. The traditional elite, what we would likely call the top ten percent today, relied on trade routes and crops of which to trade. The drought not only decreased crop production but also affected the trade routes. The decline in power of the top ten percent caused those peasants and craftsmen under them to make choices, such as abandoning their home in the lowland empire.



Mayan Civilization

Decline of resources, and alterations in natural systems are not an uncommon explanation for the decline of a society or culture. People depend upon the land and the resources it provides. When one or more aspects of the natural systems of God's creation change, failure can result. Think of Flint, MI. That is why wise use of resources is a necessity. This post focused on two different cultures and their decline. The decline of the Maya being so great that nothing else went into its place. The next post will focus on the decline experienced by one of the greatest empires of Western Civilization--Rome, and at the end the commonalities will give us pause as to where we as a current culture wish to move. So, tune in someitme next week for part 2 of Decline.

Cities, Culture and Continuance

General Electric, one of the largest industrial conglomerates in the world, is moving its headquarters from a suburb of Stamford, CT to Boston, MA. Historically corporations developed in cities, but they later became part of the move to the suburbs following WWII. GE’s move is based on both a company growth strategy and its capitalization. In its most basic sense, however, the move is about the role cities play in our culture and the connectivity and exchange of ideas they provide. It is ironic that as the world becomes more digitally connected that companies are taking more value in face-to-face contact and the creation and fermentation of ideas that result from such collective action. A city, as it has been termed, is a social reactor.

Cichen Itza, a pre-Columbiann city 

About 18 months ago the chief economist for GE wrote a paper called “The Value of Connectedness” As reported by Rod Stevens, the paper “described the value to industry of creating networked devices to keep trains and planes moving.” The economist sees GE as playing a major role as a digital industrial company. It also may affect GE’s value as a company. A typical industrial conglomerate, according to Stevens, has a price to sales multiples in a range of 1 to 1.5x, but in the software industry that valuation multiple is about 5x. That is a significant uptick in value. Retail digital use is only part of the connected picture. GE sees digital connections as important in industry and transportation. If the future is robots, something (through someone) has to control and manage them. The move to Boston is based on a need for the company to be better connected to the engineering capacity of MIT and other Boston-based universities, and just as importantly the many small start-up technology and IT hardware companies that are taking hold in Boston. Boston still has a machine industry into which GE, and these start-ups can tap. Many of the new firms are being established within a short bicycle ride of a major university or of gentrifying neighborhood. These start-ups often locate in old factory or warehouse buildings that were missed in the loft apartment conversion craze of the last generation (think the 1980’s movie “Ghost”). What GE is realizing, and is driving their location to Boston is, as Stevens notes, “the flow of people and ideas is vastly more important than freight costs.” The tech start-ups in old buildings prove the idea of urbanist Jane Jacobs that new ideas often need old buildings. It is often too expensive to build new, much less in an area which provides the cultural landscape so often desired by the young high-tech work force. The culture is not the company alone, but in the other things that follow—gyms, restaurants, breweries (what is a millennial with craft beer?), and the like. But, this is not a new phenomenon.  This connectivity is part of what, according to Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, makes cities one of the best human inventions.

Aztec sculpture

As much as this may seem like a unique idea, the confabulation provided by cities goes back to their earliest formations, and just as interestingly, cross cultural. Luis Bettencourt and his colleagues have developed a model of settlement scaling theory that derives a relationship between population and settled areas as an interplay between social and infrastructure needs. They studied 1500 settlements over two millennia and in four major different cultural periods in pre-Columbian America. They determined that settlement scaling is similar among independent cultures as varied as Europe and South America Indians. For example, Ortman et al note that the “most important feature of human sociality is that individuals can derive advantages from social contact, e.g. by trading goods, sharing information and developing cooperative strategies.” This activity is part of growth and hierarchy of cities. This is why GE is moving from a Connecticut suburb to Boston. The company realizes the importance of this interaction and sharing of ideas. Humans have benefited from the creation of social networks from the advent of human time. Hunter-gatherers knew the importance of social interaction. Urbanization has led to increased specialty which results in increased importance in social networks.

Economist Edward Glaeser Book

For urban areas to have developed in a similar manner and scale in widely varied cultures, with no known interaction between them, shows that the human mind and thoughts for human social organization is more alike than different. Anthropologist Dean Saitta in commenting on the work of Ortman, Bettencourt and others notes that his students are “intrigued by the sensitivity of ancient planners to local environmental conditions” and how they “used history, iconography, materiality and wider ‘sacred landscapes’ to promote civic identity out of cultural diversity.” This leads to what he quotes as “alternative forms of social and spatial belonging.” This fuels urban creativity. GE to Boston. Bettencourt and others have recognized Jane Jacobs’ insight that the creativity of cities is due to their being social reactors. A social reactor derives from people and their interactions. However, the built environment is not simply a result of the interactions, the form of the city helps shape the interactions. One is dependent upon the other. That is why settlement scaling is cross-cultural, and temporally similar. Each culture produces different urban processes, so urban form is more than its creation by settlement processes over time. As varied as the processes of settlement creation are, the theory of Bettencourt, Ortman et al holds that the settlements still follow a typical pattern of development.

Jane Jacobs

General laws of human nature and ability create our urban form. People can only walk so fast, and until recent times (use of steel building construction) construction techniques limited building height. But, if the theory developed by Bettencourt, Ortman et al holds true, there are cross-cultural methods to human organization which inform past and current settlements. Technology has allowed human activity to change: we now have skyscrapers; we can communicate by skype over long distances in a fraction of a second; and we have mechanized travel that allows us to minimize the distance gap. However, there is no replacement for direct human interaction and the interplay of ideas that leads to expanded creativity and flow that allows commerce to flourish.  Hopefully to the benefit of more than just a few shareholders, CEO’s, and the top ten percent. The true capital is not money but our connections with others. GE is betting that a change to a digital player in the industrial field on connections with planes and trains and other industrial aspects will increase its valuation and strengthen its position. GE realizes the importance of connectedness not just between devices, but between people. On his visit this week to the indigenous region of Mexico, Pope Francis noted, just this week, that we can learn a great deal from indigenous cultures. Settlements in pre-Columbian Mexico followed a scaling pattern similar to those of Europe and before cross cultural contact. Those cities, and their cutlures face obstacles from which one can learn. However, just as there is a pattern to settlement scaling there also exists similarities in one other critical aspects, which will be discussed in a future post.

Outside of New Delhi, India

Halftime

This past Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday.  A day of NFL self-indulgence.  In the NFL all but one of the 32 teams are owned by someone who is not wealthy.  Not only is the owner of the soon to be LA Rams building an over one billion dollar stadium, but he is buying a $725 million mega-ranch in Texas.  It should come as no surprise that the NFL likes money.  Two of the teams in the league annually face each other in this American gladiator spectacle.

Ad for Cold Play for Super Bowl 50 halftime

American football is a sport of fast movement, brute strength and strategy.  Quick decisions are required of a quarterbacks as a 300 pound defensive linemen and 240 lb fast linebackers break for the man holding the ball.  The game is increasingly centered around a good quarterback and, on the opposite side of the ball, good defensive lineman. Running backs are now secondary to the offense. You have large men running into each other at full speed, and while they lack the swords, daggers and battle axes of the Roman Gladiators, they have their hands, bodies, and helmets.  Unfortunately, professional football players are more and more succumbing to head injuries,  Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) was first diagnosed on a former Wisconsin citizen, Mike Webster.  Ken Stable, a quarterback with the Oakland Raiders recently died and was diagnosed with the same disease.  While we seethe at the brutality of the sport we nonetheless watch the games.  While this Super Bowl did not set an over-the-air attendance record, it came in second to last year's game, it was still very popular.  The game has become a full week of shows and extravaganzas with this years broadcasting network having a special on the best Super Bowl commercials, and another on the best half-time shows.  There may be no other one item that speaks of current American culture as the Super Bowl.

Who will the lion eat?

As brutal as the sport of football is, and regardless of how much it forms our current cultural patterns and invokes a harking back to Roman times, the halftime shows are a different kind of entertainment than that presented in the Roman Coliseum two centuries ago.  I am not much of pop culture aficionado, so I had to ask my spouse who the opening group was of the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show.  It was a group called Cold Play.  Astonishingly, I recognized one of their songs.  Maybe, on second thought, I am not such a pop culture out-caste after all.  This group was followed by Beyonce and a retread from last year Bruno Mars.  Why the NFL cannot just have one group instead of three I don't know.  More money I guess.  I heard yesterday, that the performers actually pay the NFL to be in the halftime show.  That apparently started several years ago, according to the broadcaster on sports radio, with a performer whose name I cannot recall.  On third thought, I really am not much into pop culture since that name is not in my memory.  I guess getting time in front of over 111 million persons in a television audience is worth their paying the NFL.  While I could take Cold Play, I started getting a headache from the other two.

Will the tiger win?

The persons involved in the halftime shows of the gladiatorial disputes in Roman times decidedly did not pay to play.  Rather, they were criminals or Christians.  While the lead singer from Cold Play would jump up and down, and over the stage, in Roman times they used a version of the seesaw (or as I grew up, teeter totter), with one condemened person on each end.  One going up, and the other down.  Today Las Vegas oddsmakers even take bets on the color of the liquid to be dumped on the head and back of the winning coach.  In Roman times, before the wild beasts would be released the crowd placed bets on which of the two would first succumb to death by a lion or bear.  The animals were trained to the scent of man, and had been on a diet of human flesh to intensify the training--and to make sure they succeeded in killing a human.  As one commentator noted, the organizers (not unlike advertisers are paid to produce a commercial today) had "succeeded in serving its purpose: to keep the jaded Roman population glued to their seats...."  Today, persons are glued to their seats not just for the halftime show, but for the ever-present commercials during the Super Bowl.

Gladiators in Roman time

With this Super Bowl, the NFL has a half century of spectacle under its emblem.  They have now gone away from using the pretentious Roman numerals to common Arabic numerals.  Perhaps Roger Goodell thought that  L in Roman numerals would be more difficult for the common person to decipher than XLVIII (48) or XLIX (49).  Yet, Roman games lasted for centuries.  The Super Bowl may have begun with the Packers playing the Kansas City Chiefs, but in 242 B.C. the Roman Games began when two sons decided an appropriate end of life celebration for their father was to have slaves battle each other to the end (ie death) at the funeral.  In 189 B.C. animals were introduced as another act.  Rather than simply having humans battle one another to the death, why not add some more spectacle--watch a lion eat a human.  The Roger Goodell of the Roman time, Julius Caesar, used the events to "inspire fear, loyalty, and patriotism."  Perhaps Roger is the Julius Caesar of our time.  One historian notes that Caesar relied on the trainers of the beasts to manage, breed and train the animals for fighting.  To put it in NFL terms, they coached the beasts.  The animals had to be trained to avoid a disappointing performance that failed to please the citizens of Rome.  In fact, as time went on and the empire grew, so to did the spectacle become more cruel, more flamboyant and more elaborate. Super Bowl halftime shows have evolved in much the same manner--more flamboyant and more elaborate.

American Gladiators--Cam Newton fumble in Super Bowl 50

If one looks and thinks hard enough we can find a variety of parallels between many occurrences. Yet, the Super Bowl is like no other event in American modern sports history.  It draws well over 100 million persons world wide to their televisions.  It commands the highest advertising revenue in television.  Sometimes the game may be the main show, and sometimes (Seattle blowing out Denver two years ago) it is the side show.  Whichever it is, as brutal as the game is it does not match the savagery of ancient Rome.  I, personally, would prefer a halftime show of a marching band, or perhaps the Chicago Symphony, but the draw to pop culture demands a group that generation X'ers and Millennial's would pay to see.  The American Gladiators will take the stage again next year, and again next year there will probably be two or three performers to please those with performers of the pop culture.  It could be worse, we could be Rome.

Images from Google

Commercials

Commercials are on radio, television, and the Internet. They are a mainstay of life in our commercial-oriented semi-capitalist economy. Commercials allow over the air networks to broadcast for free. This way persons in range can see the evening news, watch their favorite sitcom, night time talk show, or more importantly their favorite NFL game. Commercials are also part of some cable channels. You pay to go to a movie theater only to have to watch some commercials. There are good commercials and bad commercials, although taste is in the eye and mind of the beholder.

Mean Joe Green Commercial 1979
Google images

Some commercials enter the main stream of society, particularly many of those played during the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl, the 50th game of which will be played this year, has become cornerstone of American excess and spectacle. I know a good number of persons who watch the Super Bowl, not for the football contest, but for the commercials. Some people find commercials addicting. As a young boy I was sent to my room to do my homework, but showing how parents no longer fight the fight with their children my youngest brother did his homework in front of the TV. Yet, he did his homework during the show and took his break to lift his head and watch the commercials. We thought he would take up advertising, instead he became an accountant. Super Bowl commercials have become so popular that they have spawned their own television show. For example, during prime time on February 2, CBS, who is broadcasting the Super Bowl on February 7, will have (or had) a one hour special devoted to Super Bowl commercials. So you can spend one hour looking at old interspersed with new commercials. An American advertisers dream. After the Super Bowl, the talk is not about the did you see Russel Wilson’s last minute interception, but “did you see the commercial that….” Commercials are part of culture and inform who we are as a people. It shows the lasting, or perhaps fleeting, nature of the aspirations, our goods and services. In a sense it shows what is important to us. They become part of our everday experience, and provide catch phrases that long endure after the commercial has ceased on the air. “Where’s the beef?” Or they provide lasting images--Mean Joe Green receiving a coke from a boy and in return throwing his jersey to the boy.

Super Bowl Commercial
Google images

Yet, there are two commercials today which I have seen rather regularly.  I find them difficult to accept. The first is the ATT cellular commercial with Samuel L Jackson, who apparently has replaced Morgan Freeman as the go-to commercial guy, on a cell tower in the middle of nowhere. In our connected world of today, I am sure that many in the nation would like the commercial and that you can (or at least supposed to) get ATT service in the middle of nowhere. Yes, it is to be a metaphor, but quite frankly, to me we still need wilderness and plopping cell towers every few miles in our wilderness and hinterlands does a disservice to the wildlife, and to our wild lands. In that sense it also is a disservice to us. We need to know there are times when we have to work for something, and you get a special pleasure at the end. When I was in the Boundary Waters—Canadian side—there were no cell towers, and at times the portaging was difficult, but special moments arose—like seeing the mother moose and her calf. Or, in Jordan climbing up several hundred stairs, and then up rocks to get to what was termed the “end of the earth” only to see a site of desolation of crags, hills and valleys of desert unoccupied by man. A humbling and awe inspiring site. Sure it would be nice to call if you got hurt, but part of the journey is being prepared for the unexpected. We cannot at all time expect the easy way out, or to forever be connected.

"The End of the World" near Petra, Jordan
Photo by Author, May 2013

The last of the two commercials is for the realty firm, Redfin.  I had never heard of Redfin until I saw the commercial, proving the purpose of commercials--get your "brand" out to the public.  yet, I find this commercial creepy.  The untold back story is of a family with a teenage son moving to a new home, perhaps to a new town.  Teens, being teens, would not be too happy moving at a crucial point in their development, but this I think is what is happening.  The male teenager, who we know palys the clarinet, seems to sulk around at different homes.  His Dada shows him photos of homes prospective homes on the smart phone, only for the boy to give a clear no.  Like the kid gets to select the home.  The last home featured the teen is still sulking and the realtor knows it.  She motions with her head for him to go to the bedroom behind her.  In checking out the bedrooom he notices a teenage girl below playing the cello, or a bass.  He looks down at her while she practices in her living room and she gazes up.  I just find this not only rude, but, as I said, creepy.  Here is this strange boy staring down at a girl practicing music.  They could have had her playing soccer in a yard and accidentally kicking the ball into the yard and he retrieving it for her, but I guess that would take the intended magic, and creepiness away.

Boy in Redfin Commercial

 As creepy as I find the Redfin commercial and as derisive as I find the ATT commercial, I realize they are part of life.  Many commercials actually entertain; some are even inspirational.  Super Bowl advertisers will spend more than $8 million for a 30 second commercial, so they well hope they will make a good long-lasting impression.  Super Bowls have many of the largest audiences in the nation, so is it any wonder it commands such commercial value?  As for the Redfin commercial, it is sufficiently creepy that it has grabbed my attention, and has made their brand known to me.  In that matter it goes with the saying that there is no such thing as bad press.  Another old saying goes that the only truths in life are death and taxes, to this one could add commercials.