Writing Negative Reviews

This week I went back and read Electron Deception’s negative show review from April (sorry, I'm not linking to that). I was really trying to see if any of our efforts to drive it down in the Google search results had worked (they hadn’t), but it got me thinking about the purpose of reviewing things, especially local things.

 

Ultimately, as I’ve considered this topic, I believe that writers who decide to cover local events should actually avoid giving negative reviews, at least initially. If communities are going to thrive and produce things (arts, restaurants, etc.) people have to actually go out and support those things; negative reviews, on the other hand, prompt people to avoid local activities and can contribute to increased isolation. Taken to their extreme, they also eventually kill off local endeavors and leave people with few options other than chain restaurants, generic music, and mediocre art.

 

I’m not suggesting here that writers simply lie and say that everything local is good. Instead, I would hope that when covering a community, they focus on the positive. If a restaurant, musician, etc. isn’t great, simply chose to cover something else. If at some point something becomes so big and so ubiquitous that members of the community have begun weighing on it with various opinions, then it might be time to start writing honest, hard-hitting reviews. I know that’s a nebulous distinction to make, but the vast majority of local entrepreneurs and artists aren’t becoming rich, famous, and powerful. Instead, they’re struggling to make ends meet and a single negative review can sometimes force them out of business.

 

Of course, negative reviews may prompt people to improve whatever it is they’re trying to sell. When Electron Deception got our scathing review we genuinely tried to address some of it’s more legitimate points. On the other hand, most of our efforts have never been heard by anyone; our shows often don’t have huge attendance and the review has certainly not done anything to improve that. In fact, despite our efforts, we think the negative review may have caused some people to not come see us, even after we’ve changed our sound considerably. If the people who wrote the review had wanted to improve the music scene they could simply given their suggestions to us privately, let us work on them, and waited to see what had happened. If they had done that we would have been happier of course, but local venues might have made more money when we played there (because more people would have wanted to come out) and parties would have been livelier (for the same reason). However, as it was, the negative review only dampened the music scene across the board.

 

Electron Deception is just one small band and few people will probably remember us, but I think this incident is illustrative of the anti-community effects of negative reviews generally. If a writer, blogger, or journalist decides to condemn a local theater production or restaurant, for example, people will go elsewhere. If you live in New York where there are hundreds (or thousands) of local performances and food establishments all the time this probably isn’t as big a deal. However, if you live in a mid-sized town (like Provo, Utah, for example) people don’t necessarily have other options. A scathing review of a single local theater production can thusly put an end to all or most of local theater generally. A bad review of a local restaurant can drive people to chains (which typically serve terrible food). In both situations innovation is stifled, local economies suffer, and people interact less with each other.

 

Journalists certainly don’t have the responsibility to advertise for local businesses and events. Journalistic integrity is important and should be defended. (I would argue, however, that that doesn’t apply to the blogosphere, where many local reviews take place. A negative review on a blog seems closer to cyberbulling than journalistic honesty to me.) Still, if we want to live in vibrant places where diversity and creativity abound, it’s important to ask ourselves if what we’re writing is going to bolster that community, or stifle it. 

Commuting Part 2

In the past I’ve been highly critical of suburban living generally and the commuting it requires specifically.  While I still believe that suburbia is an ecological catastrophe, I’m quickly approaching my own moment of truth in which principle meets practice.  Unfortunately, that moment is looking more and more like it’s going to be a no win situation. 

 

The situation that I’m talking about is mine and Laura’s newly acquired status as college graduates.  Laura recently got a job in American Fork (about a twenty minute drive to the north) and we no longer have any reason to live next to BYU campus.  Because I still don’t have a job, the logical thing for us to do would be to move to American Fork so that Laura could bike or walk to work.  Such an act would be in keeping with my earlier statements about the environment and the need to eliminate commuting from American culture.  In other words, it would be the ethical choice because it would avoid causing unnecessary damage to the environment.  

 

The problem is that American Fork is a really undesirable place for a young couple to live.  Generally speaking, there’s nothing to do there.  There are a few bottom-of-the-barrel chain restaurants and a movie theater that plays the most mainstream of films, but as far as I know there’s nothing that caters to a diversity of interests (with the very notable exception of the Chocolatier Blue).  The surrounding communities (Lehi, Cedar Hills, Highland, Apline, etc.) are more of the same, only worse.  Obviously these communities cater to a specific group of people, but they hold absolutely no appeal for me.  What’s more, rents are actually higher in these areas than Laura and I currently pay (and apartments are smaller), so we couldn’t really afford to live there if we wanted to.  These factors have combined to create a situation where the choice I see as most ethical also means months of insufferable ennui.  

 

So we’re faced with a few options.  We can live in American Fork or the surrounding communities.  Laura wouldn’t have to commute (which I’m sure would be nice for her) and I wouldn’t feel like a hypocrite for condemning something that I’m overtly complicit in.  However, we also wouldn’t have many (or any) friends and we’d have to drive a considerable distance to do any of the things we enjoy.  We’d also be paying more in rent, which would obviously be difficult.  On the other hand, we could stay where we are and continue to have easy access to many of the things we love.  Still, that’s hardly the behavior I’ve argued for in previous blogs.  

 

I draw several conclusions from this scenario.  First, that people often have to make hard and unpleasant choices when it comes to where they live.  Unfortunately, environmental factors rarely take precedence (or even show up on people’s radar) when they weigh the pros and cons of a particular living arrangement.  For me, I do weigh environmental factors against things like social life, but I’m not sure which is more important.  I’d like to say that I’d sacrifice all my friendships and hobbies for something that I believe is ethically right; I’m just not sure that I will.  For other people it might be schools or big houses, and while I don’t think those reasons are any good, I recognize that to some people they're much better than my own.   

 

Second, I conclude that many modern communities are not set up to provide for all the needs of their members.  American Fork definitely isn’t.  (Provo might not be either, but it does a better job than a lot places.)  In turn, people have to drive considerable distances if they want to do anything outside the home.  This seems like the bigger problem to me.  People are constantly forced to choose between schools, social life, etc. and how much time they spend in the car.  If housing choices always represent an expression of values, it seems immensely problematic that the environment is so often on the losing end of those choices. 

 

For the time being we’ll be in Provo while we figure out what we're going to do (and while I figure our what I’m doing post-graduation).  Ultimately, I’d like to put all the blame on the way our culture has been set up to encourage unethical behavior.  And while I think that that is definitely part of the problem, I also believe that I can’t completely avoid culpability for being willing to contribute to the problem rather than sacrifice for change.

College Parking/Environmental Responsibility

The Provo-Student Alliance has recently received a fair amount of attention and press for its efforts to involve students in local activities.  While it’s genuinely exciting to see another organization getting students more involved, this particular group is wrong about the very idea it was founded to protect: student parking. 

 

Like many college towns, Provo has serious parking problems.  The streets are filled with student cars, which I know frustrates permanent residents.  Related to (or possibly stemming out of) this conflict, Provo city has recently pushed a plan to require permits for students to park immediately south of campus.

 

The goals of the students fighting for the right to park near campus are understandable, but also painfully near-sighted.  For one, simply maintaining the status quo will merely postpone inevitable conflict; students will continue to park in increasing numbers on the streets, while residents get angry and city leaders eye student pocket books.  This isn’t going to change, especially since BYU slowly increases its enrollment over time.  More importantly however, the Student-Provo Alliance is arguing in favor of an activity that is environmentally destructive and practically unnecessary.  Driving pollutes, and student cars are typically among the oldest and dirtiest on the road.  Accordingly, advocacy of student parking implies advocacy of student driving and, subsequently, of student polluting as well.  Though I doubt that many in the Provo-Student Alliance think of the issue in these terms, their agenda will cause lasting and harmful collateral damage to the environment by fighting the curtailment of a destructive activity.  Ultimately then, when considered in terms of environmental impact, the students are on the wrong side of the debate when they argue that their own convenience trumps greater responsibility to the environment.

 

While I suspect that the motivation behind the permit proposal was ill-conceived and largely an exercise in resentment directed against students, the ultimate result of the idea—fewer cars on the streets—is a desirable one.  If students are required to buy parking permits, fewer of them will be willing or able to park (though I’d like to see the plan altered to not blatantly favor rich students over poor ones).  In the short-term this will create frustration, late nights looking for parking, missed classes, and a multitude of other hardships for students.  Basically, it’ll be rough.  However, as current students begin to graduate and move on (and take their cars with them), the lack of parking will become simply one of many other considerations new students have to think about.  With no place to store cars, fewer students will be able to bring them in the first place.  More people will have to walk, bike, or use public transportation.  The city will have to adapt planning and zoning practices to a populace that can only travel a few miles, as opposed to one that drives everywhere.  With time (at least five or six years, though maybe as much as a generation), the hardships immediately following the permit plan will recede, having become merely growing pains during a time of change.      

 

If the Provo-Student Alliance really wants to help students, it might pause to consider what will be most beneficial to students in five, ten, or fifty years.  Unfortunately, driving isn’t that thing. In addition to the many wonderful things that this organization is now doing (things like voter registration drives), it should shift its focus toward reducing students’ need for driving.  For example, the Alliance could petition the city for mixed residential and commercial zoning that would allow students to work and play closer to where they live.  For it’s part, Provo city could explain their proposals in better terms that demonstrate a benefit to students as well as residents (in the end, the problem with this most recent plan wasn’t so much the idea itself as it was the fact that its branding left it reeking of prejudice).  If that happens it’s likely that both long-term residents and students alike will assume greater responsibility for their shared community and our environment.

Talk To Strangers

The Family Matters theme song opens with the line “it’s a rare condition, in this day and age, to read any good news, on the newspaper page.”  Of course, it’s probably been rare to see good news in newspapers in any age, but that doesn’t make the song any less apropos for our time.  More specifically however, I’m always surprised to see “news” that exists seemingly for the sole purpose of making people afraid of some commonplace thing.  For example, I remember when my mom stopped letting us eat raw cookie dough because she read that the raw eggs could give us salmonella.  A lot of the news I read online seems to work in similar ways.  It makes us afraid of common foods, different people, normal behavior, and global pandemics (really, just look at the “Crime” or “Health sections on any news site for numerous examples).  None of this news is fabricated; instead it finds a real problem and suggests that it might be a real big problem.  (Jon recently discussed hitchhiking and how people become afraid of people, among other interesting points.)

 

While all these threats may be very important, the result of all this fear mongering “news” simply seems to be less trust.  People suddenly have to avoid activities they enjoy and, even more disheartening, they avoid new people because those people may be drug addicts, "gang bangers," or mass murderers.  As a result communities shrink and interactions become laced with suspicion.  The pattern of fear is perpetuated as parents remove their children from social situations because they can’t trust other adults not to molest their kids.

 

I see this as a real problem, so maybe I’m guilty of doing the very thing I’m condemning by describing a situation and then raising alarm over it.  The difference, I hope, is that there is a simple and rather pleasant solution to this problem: choose to trust.  I think it’s possible to choose to believe that every person out there is actually a great person.  It’s possible to assume that public places won’t make us sick.  It’s possible to assume that every child who goes over to a friend’s house or gets on the internet won’t fall victim to a sexual predator.

 

In some circles, choosing to trust is already common.  One example that comes to mind is couch surfing, which involves allowing total strangers into your home while they’re traveling.  Depending on how it’s done the participants may know more or less about each other beforehand, but ultimately it requires that people simply believe that they won’t hurt each other.  And in the end, they usually don’t.  I experienced a similar situation recently when a band from Las Vegas offered to let my band stay at their house on an up coming trip.  They didn’t know us and we very easily could be the kind of people who would rob them blind (or worse).  Still, they chose to believe that that wouldn’t happen and the result was that we’ve all made new friends.  

In the end, these examples can’t solve the world’s problems, but they do lead me to believe that fear and suspicion are choices that can be avoided.  I also know that if everyone chose to trust everyone else all the time, there would be causalities.  Someone would end up trusting the murderer or the sexual predator.  Still, fear doesn't seem to provide much protection now, and, more importantly, the trade off is worth it.  If we try to trust more we'll be happier and have more fulfilling experiences.   

Commuting/A Big Problem

One of the best things we could do as a country is reduce the time we spend commuting.  Of course this would require people to adjust their priorities, but in the end it would result in more free time, better environmental conditions, and a general increase in the standard of living. 

 

People commute for a lot reasons but one of the most common seems to be home prices.  While the American dream apparently includes homeownership, most people tend to find cheaper homes farther from their places of work.  Right now, for example, I live in Utah and it’s much cheaper to buy a house in West Jordan than it is in downtown Salt Lake City or even Sugar House.  Both Laura and I grew up in Southern California and the situation is even more extreme there.  Either you live in a “rougher” neighborhood in the city, or you live in a suburb and drive into town.  (L.A.’s notorious traffic leads me to believe that everyone in Southern California lives quite a distance from their places of work).

 

Another big reason people commute is schools.  When my family moved to Utah, for example, they chose to live farther from my Dad’s work so that the kids could attend the better school.  I can’t argue with the numbers that say which school districts are better, but I do question just what “better” means.  Obviously if you’re choosing between Glendora (where I grew up) and Compton,“better” probably means fewer gangs and drug problems.  On the other hand, if you’re choosing between Provo and Alpine, “better” apparently means a more homogenous student body.  In any case, many people aren’t choosing between a great school district and a terrible one.  Instead they’re choosing between an okay district and a slightly better one.

 

There are a lot of other reasons that people commute, but in the end I haven’t found any that are particularly compelling.  If you’re buying a house, a smaller, more centrally located home could be just as satisfactory.  For that matter an apartment could also probably work.  The point is that we could shift our values so that they no longer include big houses (that sit empty while we drive around all day).  The same goes for schools; we could choose to attend schools with slightly lower rankings and accept the fact that the degree to which a child succeeds at school mostly hinges on the home environment.  Better yet, we could try to improve the communities and schools closest to where we spend most of our time. 

 

Ultimately, whether people choose to shorten or eliminate their commutes for altruistic reasons or not this problem needs to be addressed.  I suspect that people would be generally happier if they weren’t in their cars so much.  Even if that’s difficult to prove, the environmental impact of commuting is not.  Just because a person rakes in a decent salary doesn’t mean that they should have the right to pollute at will.  (I don’t care what kind of car you drive it still pollutes more than walking or biking.)  Instead, I suggest we invest in our happiness, our future, and the future of our planet and start living closer to where we work. 

Patriotism verses Politics

Is patriotism inevitably political?  As I’ve learned what Provo has in store this year for its annual Freedom Festival I’ve been surprised at how political it all seems.  Though I initially wished the city had gone in a more ideologically neutral direction, I’ve also been wondering lately if such a direction even exists.   

 

This year’s Freedom Festival includes a few things that strike me as overtly political.  For example, when I received the free Freedom Festival Magazine in the mail I was surprised to see the words “Family, Freedom, God, Country” printed just below the title.  In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.  Provo, Utah, is supposedly one of the most conservative places in the nation, and I know there is a whole segment of the population that has no problem whatsoever with intertwining ideas about God, family, and country.  Moreover, while some people might make the argument that these words aren’t in themselves all that political, I would disagree.  They are keystones of the conservative lexicon and thusly connote the ideology that lexicon is commonly used to propagate.  If nothing else there are also many people who would feel that “God” shouldn’t be construed with “country” (atheists are only one, obvious example), and I think the recent controversy over Proposition 8 has revealed the political weight of a word like “family.”

 

If the language used to describe Provo’s Freedom Festival left a faintly sour taste in my mouth, the performer list for the Stadium of Fire (which is a concert, firework show, and big part of the Freedom Festival held in BYU’s football stadium) left me in stunned silence.  Of course the event includes the usual list of generic pop stars (this year it’s the Jonas Brothers), but in this case it also includes Glenn Beck.  When I discovered this fact I realized I had apparently been under the wrong impression all these years; I thought the Stadium of Fire was supposed to be wholesome family fun.  Bringing in Glenn Beck (a kind of poor-man’s Rush Limbaugh who, like Rush, peddles in the basest kind of demagoguery) clearly politicizes the event.  I don’t care what he says during his performance, as a political figure he inevitably brings all the baggage of his public persona.  In that light, I would never bring my family to listen to someone like Beck and its no wonder that this year’s event still isn’t sold out. 

 

Despite my personal frustration, the point here isn’t really to single out Provo’s Freedom Festival but to use it as an illustration: one person or group’s idea of a  (non-political) celebration can also be another’s definition of an offensively partisan activity.  In this light it’d be easy to see other, less overtly political, performers at the Freedom Festival as expressions of one ideology or another.  Someone like Miley Cyrus (who came in 2008) may seem fairly benign, but she does represent certain values and those values would be both painfully apparent and offensive to people who don’t agree with them. 

 

So is it possible to celebrate patriotism without politics?  More specifically, is it possible to find activities that accurately represent all, or at least most, members of a given community?  I don’t know, but as I perused the list of performers from previous Stadium of Fire celebrations the answer seems to be a qualified no.  In each case I can easily imagine people whose values would not be represented by the performers.  (In fact in almost every case I can think of specific people in my actual community who would object to the guests and what they represent.)  Because every statement, public figure, or event brings with it an ideological baggage, and because no community is ideologically homogenous, celebrations that purport to represent “our values” or “our community” end up being political statements that alienate people as well.  In the end then, patriotism and politics may not be the same thing, but if recent events in Provo are any indication, they are inextricably intertwined.