In an Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times former presidential candidate Mitt Romney weighed in with his views regarding Detroit’s request for loan guarantees. While I think Mr. Romney basically is an idiot, I have to say his views on this point are well-considered. Detroit has no more entitlement to a bailout than any other American industry.

That being so Mr. Romney succumbed to what I will call the “expertise fallacy.” He stated: “management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.”

I have been through this issue a dozen times in the entertainment industry. For example, Chrysalis Records recruited Joe Kiener, a tennis shoe executive. Angel Records recruited Steve Murphy, a book publishing executive. EMI Music recruited Terri Santisi, who for all I know now is preparing tax returns at H. & R. Block. As adept as they may have been in their respective fields, none of these executives had the slightest idea of what they were doing in the record business.

I’ll never forget a record company convention I was at in Palm Springs, California.  At the time Chrysalis Records had a big hit with Sinead O’Connor’s cover of the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U.”  Kiener and I were talking and he says, “I’m busy planning her 4th single” (i.e., the one that was to be the fourth one after “Nothing Compares 2 U”).  I said, “Joe, shouldn’t you be worrying about her next single first?”  I liked Kiener and thought he was a nice guy, but he didn’t understand a word of what I was saying.  Shortly afterwords O’Connor shaved her head and started insulting Pope John Paul II, which was the end of her major label career.  God knows how much marketing money Kiener spent on this quixotic notion.

The premise underlying the expertise fallacy is that there are two separate knowledge bases. One pertains to the “industry” and the other pertains to a substantive field of endeavor, for example, “finance” or “marketing.” Companies delude themselves into believing the latter trumps the former and that people from other unrelated enterprises must know something they don’t.

This isn’t how the phenomenology of expertise works. As analyzed by experts such as Hubert Dreyfus, it is a series of steps to acclimatize oneself to the nuances and dynamics of a particular firm, how it is situated in the marketplace, and the product handling characteristics of what it has for sale. Every industry has its own specialized and non-fungible set of customs, conventions and protocols. Strategies that may work for consumer products companies such as Procter & Gamble have little in common with the nuances required to originate, market, promote and distribute records or movies. It only is coincidental these terms even are used interchangeably when in fact they have completely different meanings.

I make this observation ecumenically. While I am not aware of specific examples, I am sure record or film industry executives would not be very good at selling underarm deodorant.

One of the main differences between consumer entertainment software (CDs, DVDs, video games, etc.) and other types of consumer products (laundry detergent, groceries, etc.) is the economics of replication. Consumer entertainment software is inexpensive to duplicate (and has become even less so with the increasing obsolescence of physical goods). The only investment required is to originate it (e.g. recording costs for a record, the negative cost for a film). This cost in turn is amortizable over the number of units sold. As it is recouped, its per-unit cost becomes increasingly small (and one of the key measures of a project’s success is the rate of this recoupment).

Consumer product companies, on the other hand, incur very little in the way of fixed cost. And, their marginal per-unit cost always will be higher because they are selling a physical thing. This leads to completely different product life cycles, handling strategies and marketing campaigns. The ways in which these are structured will depend more on the particular industry than on some set of general theoretical principles.

Automobile companies have plenty of reasons to be insecure right now. There is no reason to suspect, however, that executives from some outside industry will be any smarter than the present incumbents. In fact they most likely will be less successful because they don’t know a thing about making or selling cars. In appealing to the alleged “expertise” of industry outsiders, Mr. Romney is making a significant conceptual error.

The way signs work is complex enough as it is.  Not only is there the sign, but also: that which is signified; the person responding to it; and the social conventions that give it meaning.  A “stop sign” at an intersection, for example, has no inherent or intrinsic properties.  It commands us to brake the car, and we do so, because it’s a traffic law.  Among other effects, this has social utility, because it tends to minimize the likelihood of collisions, with their attendant personal and economic cost.  So strong is this pull that most of us still come to a halt, even at 2:AM, when there are no other cars for as far as the eye can see, because we are acculturated to obey the rule. 

In principle, though, the stop sign could be almost anything else.  It could be square instead of hexagonal; green instead of red; and be inscribed with the word “go,” instead of the word “stop.”  What’s important is the semiotic relationship between these elements, their mode of signification, the behavior triggered by the sign, and the web of meaning surrounding these elements.

The power of the stop sign depends on human agreement.  As characterized by John Searle, it is an “institutional fact,” as opposed to a “brute fact,” such as the height of Mount Everest, The Construction of Social Reality 2 (1985).  It is an invisible feature of our “socially constructed reality.”  It is not functional, like a screwdriver, which needs to be a certain shape in order to accomplish its purpose.  Nor is it world-constrained, like the Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge.  Hoover Dam had to be built at the narrowest gorge in the Grand Canyon in order to effectively block the flow of the Colorado River.  The Golden Gate Bridge was built as a straight line between to promontories defining the entrance to San Francisco Bay.  It does not meander in, say, a semi-circular pattern.

Screwdrivers, dams and bridges are not signs, thought they may be incorporated into them and later acquire a signifying role, e.g., a scenic picture of the Golden Gate Bridge may come to mean, “Visit San Francisco on Holiday.” 

Signs per se, on the other hand, are arbitrary.  Their combination of symbols just as easily could mean something else.  Their meaning, as Searle says at 12, is “observer relative.”  Observer-relativity in turn depends on (1) the agreement (or imposition) of function; (2) cooperative behavior; and constitutive rules, which exist only because of the human institutions that adopt them.  These in turn comprise a set of “background capacities,” enabling us to function in the world, 129.

Unfortunately, Searle misleading calls element (2) “collective intentionality,” 23, which assumes a kind of teleology.  As economists such as Fredrich A. Hayek have observed, teleology “occurs only on the level of the individual, who has purposes planned only for the short-term future.  The entire system has a teleological structure only in so far as those individual teleologies interact to govern the dynamical behavior of the entire system.”  The long-term evolution of a biological or economic system, however, is “unpredictable and any trends which may be visible at a given time could be reversed in the future,” Barrow, J. & Tipler, F., The Anthropic Principle 140 (1986).

Whatever its provenance, the schematic of signs breaks down in the case of strange signs.  By “strange signs,” I mean signs that, because they are (or can become) ambiguous, end up not doing their job.  They either are ignored; communicate no meaning; or actually communicate a meaning that is not at all what was intended by the creator of the sign.  Three examples I will consider are: (1) the pedestrian no-crossing sign at the border checkpoint in San Onofre, California; (2) the Carl Sagan space probe plaque; and (3) the (proposed) sign at the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

 1.            The San Onofre Check-Point Sign

This sign is intended to communicate a warning to immigrants not to run across Interstate 5, which is the high-speed freeway the border check-point intercepts.  The reason why immigrants should not attempt to cross the freeway at this point is because a fast-moving automobile may strike them.  This risk is exacerbated at night.  Night-time crossings are probable because they supply a cover of darkness, which in turn minimizes the likelihood of interdiction by Border Patrol agents.  Darkness, however, considerably reduces visibility on the freeway. 

The problem with this sign is that, as a matter of historical fact, it actually has encouraged immigrants (primarily, persons of Hispanic origin) to cross at this point.  They think the sign means to run across the freeway at the spot where the sign is posted, in order to get to the other side.  This is an example of the sign potentially meaning – and having actually meant – the exact opposite of what was intended.

 2.            The Carl Sagan Space-Probe Plaque 

Carl Sagan notoriously designed a plaque that was attached to the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft.  It signifies essential aspects of life on Earth.  Supposedly, any extra-terrestrial being with sufficient intelligence to decode it thereupon would become apprised of human existence and some of its characteristics.

The decipherability of the plaque blatantly depends on an application of the anthropic principle.  As characterized by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler in The Anthropic Cosmological Principle 1: “[O]ur location in the Universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers.  The basic features of the Universe, including such properties as its shape, size, age and laws of change, must be observed to be of a type that allows the evolution of observers, for if intelligent life did not evolve in an otherwise possible universe, it is obvious that no one would be asking the reason for the observed shape, size, age and so forth of the Universe” (emphasis in original).  This mild version of the anthropic principle almost certainly is true, albeit vapid.

A stronger version, though, goes on to claim that “the Universe must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage,” Barrow & Tipler 6 (emphasis in original).  In other words, the Universe has to be the way it is, and we have to be in it here on the planet earth, if for no reason other than we perceive it and are capable of making the observation that we do so.  Anthropicists cite recent hypotheses from string theory in modern physics suggesting that, even though in principle there could be any number of possible multi-worlds or alternative universes, in fact very few of them have the unique combination of physical and mathematical properties necessary in order to support life. 

In fact, this hypothesis is absurd, since there are an infinite number of possible galaxies and worlds, and infinity divided by infinity, no matter how small, still is infinity.  “[T]here are other miracles which could occur and lead to anthropically acceptable worlds with a vastly larger probability than our world,” Susskind, L., “The Anthropic Landscape of String Theory,” (2003).

In principle, evidence cited in support of the anthropic principle could be entirely coincidental, Carr, B.J. & Rees, M.J., “The anthropic principle and the structure of the physical world, 278 Nature 605 (Apr. 1979).  To demonstrate its validity, one would have to “multiply reality” “to such an extent that very special events like emergence of Life become quite possible.”  This number, however, would have “to be fairly huge in order to accommodate all the unlikely events leading to modern picture of Life,” Kamenshchik, A. & Teryaev, O., “Many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory and mesoscopic anthropic principle,” (2007). 

A further problem arises from the potential number of observers resident in the many possible alternative worlds.  “The anthropic principle claims that what we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers.  So it is natural that the probability should not be proportional to the number of observers, rather, it is just the probability for the existence of observers.”  The “anthropic selectional effect does not become stronger just because there can be more observers … there should be an infinite number of observers. … This is more than the finite number of observers like us.  So the question is, why we are human observers, not freak observers. … But if freak observers are infinite, we can not be typical. … [I]f there are both a finite number of humans and a finite number of freak observers (or without freak observers) in our universe, then the anthropic probability for our universe should be infinitely small compared with some other universe with infinite number of freak observers, which can be self-consistently realized,” Li, M. & Wang, Y., “Typicality, Freak Observers and the Anthropic Principle of Existence,” (2007).

Sagan’s space-probe plaque assumes that extra-terrestrial life will be able to understand and decode its inscriptions.  It depicts artifacts of our world, which may not pertain, or in fact be completely different from, those found in any potential other world.  That possible world, if it exists, will be as unintelligible to us, as ours is to them.

3.            The Yucca Mountain Sign

Yucca Mountain is designed as a repository for spent uranium, fuel rods and other waste generated by nuclear power plants.  Its premise is that, rather than carefully storing this detritus at the site of the nuclear power plant where it is generated, it should be tidily packaged and then safely transported to a central location.  Yucca Mountain is located in Nevada, conveniently upwind from Las Vegas.  Las Vegas residents previously have been subjected to large doses of nuclear radiation from early above-ground atomic test experiments.  Evidently some more radiation from spent nuclear fuel rods won’t hurt them, and actually might contribute to their social and environmental well-being.

Yucca Mountain is designed as a repository for spent uranium, fuel rods and other waste generated by nuclear power plants.  Its premise is that, rather than carefully storing this detritus at the site of the nuclear power plant where it is generated, it should be tidily packaged and then safely transported to a central location.  Yucca Mountain is located in Nevada, conveniently upwind from Las Vegas.  Las Vegas residents previously have been subjected to large doses of nuclear radiation from early above-ground atomic test experiments.  Evidently some more radiation from spent nuclear fuel rods won’t hurt them, and actually might contribute to their social and environmental well-being.

The spent nuclear fuel rods will continue to be radioactive for, say, 10,000 years.  It therefore has been thought to be desirable to install some kind of a “universal warning sign” or “permanent marker” in order to designate their location.  Only with such a marker will our distant progeny be able to avoid intrusion into, or interference with, the site. 

The problem is that any sign assumes our descendants will be able to understand its semiotics and signification.  It is highly dubious whether this is so. We cannot, for example, interpret Stonehenge, or the pyramids in Egypt.  They are relics of previous cultures, and our successors surely will face the same difficulty.  This is so even if they might be able to redeploy the nuclear waste for beneficial purposes, e.g., they have devised more efficient extraction or utilization techniques.  Assuming either good or bad, the sign remains incomprehensible.

For that matter, there is no reason to believe they will have language, to begin with.  They might not have any form of communication at all.  They might not even exist as life-forms analogous to us.  And, as with the San Onofre border check-point, there is significant risk that any form of sign actually might encourage the very behavior it was designed to deter.  This could be a disastrous consequence if, as life-forms, they are vulnerable to the same proclivities, as are we.

In conclusion, the concept of the Yucca Mountain sign is futile in principle.  At best, we can rely only on the dangerous nature of the site being transmitted through the evanescent media of pop culture, such as the internet.  When these media (or their successors) expire, then so will knowledge of the site.  Any other alternative is a waste of time.  While this in and of itself is a trivial objection, the sign also is faulty in principle.  The danger of future misinterpretation of it far outweighs any plausible beneficial effect.

I am sick and tired of hearing George Bush (most notably) refer to people as “folk.”  Mr. Bush is not the only one with a predeliction for frequent misuse of this term, although he is the most notable example.  I now cringe whenever it is uttered by anybody, even if the context is benign. 

From an etymological standpoint “folk” means indigenous culture.  It typically is spatially localized to a particular community.  It frequently (though not necessarily) comprises a “tradition” or set of historical practices shared by members of a discrete social group.  It has a number of precipitates such as “folk psychology,” which is a common-sense set of beliefs and assumptions underlying everyday knowledge and practices.  From an anthropological perspective, local “folk” thought (Völksgedanke) can be contrasted with the common mental “endowment” we all share (Elementargedanke).

Bush uses the term negligently to mean “everybody.”  The reason why he does this is because he is striving to seem ordinary and unassuming even though he is President.  His motive is to attempt to ingratiate himself with the populace.  Instead of doing so he just seems stupid or condescending.  His public opinion polls are at a record low.

Like Porky Pig said, “that’s all, folks!”

There was a widely-reported news announcement today that Nancy Reagan had endorsed John McCain for President of the United States.  I certainly don’t have anything against Ms. Reagan, who strikes me has having conducted herself with dignity and comportment during a long and illustrious career.  Neither do I have anything against Mr. McCain, though I do wish he wouldn’t mumble quite so much, and I think he’s too old and generationally-embedded to be President.

What was irritating were Ms. Reagan’s remarks.  “Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed,” she said. 

This strikes me as being an extreme mis-use of language.  Few things could be as meaningless as a post-facto endorsement.  The whole point of an endorsement is that the endorser lends weight and prestige to the endorsee, thereby assisting the endorsee to achieve traction with whomever it is to whom the endorsee is attempting to appeal.  Conceptually, endorsing somebody after “everything was decided” is like deciding to place a bet on a race-horse after the race has ended. 

If this is Ms. Reagan’s, or Mr. McCain’s, concept of an “endorsement,” then something is seriously amiss.

“Product.”  This term frequently was used in the consumer entertainment software business, back when there was one.  It refers to “things” such as books, records (CDs, cassettes), videos (DVDs, VHS), etc.  My objection to it is two-fold.  First, it is misused to refer to the work embodied in the tangible medium, as opposed to the physical or mechanical instantiation of it.  Second, even when correctly used (in the second sense), it is implicitly derisory to the creator’s effort.  It suggests it isn’t artistic or unique, rather, it’s fungible and replaceable.  Even if the latter is so – and it may be true more often than you think – it still is derogatory.

“Content.”  Which is a convenient lead-in to the successor to “product,” particularly as aesthetic works migrate to the Internet.  “Content” is every bit (get it, bit) as dismissive as “product.”  It demeans the creator’s effort.  It suggests the work’s sole function is to take up space, attract page-views, stimulate advertising dollars, improve search-engine rankings, or the like.  When in fact it should be the primary driver of these activities, not the subordinate one.  By analogy, “articles” in many newspapers, magazines and other print media frequently are regarded merely as “devices” or “carriers” for advertising, and “content” carries the same connotation.

“Folk.”  If I hear our President George Bush refer to “folk” one more time, I think I’ll barf.  Same with the current crop of presidential candidates, together with their “analysts” (oops, I mean “operatives” or “spin doctors”).  “Folk” is a specialized term referring to a narrow affinity-based group, such as an ethnic tribe, a clog-dancing club, people who play “folk music,” and what not.  It cannot and should not be used to refer to “people in general,” or an amorphous group of individuals to which one is attempting to appeal.  Its mis-use in this context reveals the faux-humanization of political discourse, that is, trying to make yourself sound sincere, when in fact you’re not. 

So apologies in advance if we encounter each other and I am mildly remonstrative on the above points.

Rather, what’s interesting is, several commentators have extrapolated from Mr. Imus’ particular circumstances, and see the situation as a foil or platform to descry the state of contemporary media. How much longer, they wonder, will P. Diddy, R. J. Kelly, the rap/hip-hop community, and other assorted miscreants, get a pass for their use of similarly-pejorative terms? See, e.g., Garofoli, J., “Experts see firing of Imus as broadcast tipping point – Extraordinary push by sponsors, activists, network employees,” San Francisco Chronicle (Apr. 13, 2007); Kava, B., “Experts predict move to civility on talk radio after Imus firing,” San Jose Mercury-News (Apr. 13, 2007); Kava, B., “Imus dismissal may have profound effect on media,” San Jose Mercury-News (Apr. 12, 2007); and Garofoli, J., “Imus ouster perhaps a tipping point regarding on-air language,” scrippsnews.com (Apr. 13, 2007).

The answer to this question is, these different types of media have nothing to do with each other. They partake of varying degrees of plasticity, in McLuhan-esque terms. Despite its pretense at spontaneity or improvisation, rap records are meticulously produced by industry heavy-weights such as Dr. Dre. So are movies like “Hustle & Flow,” with its celebratory anthem, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” winner of the 2005 Oscar for best song in a motion picture. One therefore might characterize their mode of discourse as more preconceived, more deliberate. While I’m sure Mr. Imus likes to provoke controversy whenever and wherever he can, it’s doubtful his remarks were “scripted” in this careful a manner.

But time-frame and pre-meditation are not the most defining characteristics. Rather, it is the specificity of discourse. Rap records, “Hustle & Flow,” etc. are not directed towards specific individuals. Rather, they more are in the nature of cultural commentary, or cultural observation. Highly sensationalized, so it’s better marketable, for sure, but such a critique, nonetheless. Mr. Imus’ remarks, on the other hand, were directed at a specific group of individuals, who then later were able to appear, sympathetically, on television, and even interact with Mr. Imus in the mandatory expiation ritual which so many celebrities undergo in penance for their transgressions: Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, etc.

This still does not explain phenomena such as Anne Coulter, the desiccated-yet-still-somehow-sexy harpie and conservative commentator. For example, her remark characterizing presidential candidate John Edwards as a “faggot,” essentially went unpunished – indeed, practically unobserved, particularly when considered in light of the Imus affair. The reason for this is, Mr. Edwards is a public figure. Whereas, the members of the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team, aren’t. They didn’t invite, or expose themselves to, such remarks from somebody like Mr. Imus, whereas, Mr. Edwards did.

It’s also possible public opinion rallied around the women’s status as a sports team; or even the fact they’re a women’s sports team. For example, I doubt Mr. Imus would have gotten into hot water for characterizing the USC or UCLA men’s basketball team as a bunch of “pimps,” or some similar word of approbation (analogous to “ho” when applied to women). While these may have been factors, I think they are secondary to specificity of discourse.

Nobody seems to have noticed this, but I think there’s a curious connection between Mr. Imus’ downfall and the forthcoming downfall of Alberto Gonzales, our attorney general. There’s no particular link between these two stories, except that the media seems to have tasted blood with Mr. Imus, which may inflame its passions vis-à-vis Mr. Gonzales. He’s a nincompoop anyway you look at it, and shouldn’t even be considered as a city attorney, much less Attorney General of the United States. My point is much simpler, though – which is, once the cry goes up for “off with their heads,” it’s a difficult train to derail.