Innovation, Outering & Equilibrium

Any innovation threatens the equilibrium of existing organization. In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so that they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses. When one is found, it is assigned to a group for neutralizing and immunizing treatment. . . . No new idea ever starts from within a big operation. It must assail the organization from outside, through some small but competing organization. In the same way, the outering or extension of our bodies and senses in a "new invention" compels the whole of our bodies and senses to shift into new positions in order to maintain equilibrium. A new "closure" is effected in all our organs and senses, both private and public, by any new invention. Sight and sound assume new postures, as do all the other faculties. (Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media)

I could, I suppose, draw comparisons between this observation by McLuhan about the politics of innovation and Jesus' observation that "only in their own towns, among their relatives and in their own homes are prophets without honor" (Mark 6:4 TNIV)--but given my recent effusion over McLuhan here and elsewhere, that would probably cause some people to worry that I'd joined a cult. Here, actually, I'd like to argue that what McLuhan sees as a pitiable reaction against innovation is actually a constructive approach.

If sustainability is a reasonable goal for organisms and institutions, which I think it is, then equilibrium--a steady stability that fosters harmony and even predictability--is a reasonable value. That value is of course held in tension with what I think is also a reasonable value: innovation--the impulse to change our circumstances for the better. Sustainability implies an ongoing flourishing even as the environment we inhabit changes, which almost demands innovation even as it seeks equilibrium.

So then, what do we do when innovation and equilibrium, as competing values, clash? We can do a couple of things:

1. We can cordon off the innovative impulse, setting up the lab McLuhan suggests as a way of filtering potential changes until they are rendered reasonably innocuous--not to mention isolating the innovators who might otherwise get their peers riled up about the need to change something right away.

2. We can send innovators away, either temporarily or permanently, so that their tinkering with the status quo doesn't mess anything up.

It's worth noting that both of these are options for the innovator as well. Sarah Palin, supposedly, has left government in order to change government from the outside. Barack Obama, presumably, has charged any number of people in his administration to change the financial and industrial infrastructures of U.S. society. In both cases, the desired outcome is equilibrium, the promotion of the general welfare and the securing of blessings of liberty. Equilibrium + innovation = sustainability.

Most of innovation, at least in media as defined by McLuhan, exists in this notion of "outering," whereby we deputize wheels for the functions of our feet, television for the function of our eyes, newspapers for the functions of our ears and, he foreshadows, the Internet for the functions of our central nervous system. We are actively outsourcing our intellects and sense perception; we are persistently employing external hard drives for all our information. We are actively outering.

The hidden notion in McLuhan's comment above is that we find being acted upon easier to manage than acting ourselves. It's better, for an example from my industry, publishing, to wait for Amazon or Google to force the issue of digital publishing than to actively and unilaterally pursue a digital publishing program. But we are always, arguably, "innering" as well--observing our changing environment, reflecting on its significance for us, calculating an appropriate response that will lead us not into perplexity but deliver us to equilibrium. So, like seemingly everything these days, we're not talking about things but processes: even equilibrium is not static by dynamic.

Why I Like David Letterman, and Why Sarah Palin Fans Should Take a Chill Pill

I don't think underage sex jokes are funny. I think they're sad. There, I said it. Having said it, I will now move on to say why I am a fan of David Letterman, whose inadvertent underage sex joke last week wasn't terribly funny and made a lot of people mad.

And so, here now are the top three reasons I'm a fan of David Letterman:

3. He's a great broadcaster. Better across the board than Jay Leno, more at ease than Conan O'Brien, more consistently conscious of his place in broadcasting history and his role in the cultural conversation than just about everyone in talk and variety, Letterman brings the funny consistently in fresh, original ways--even when he's repeating jokes over the course of days and even weeks. Late Show staffers put their energy in creating funny bits and crafting pranks; for every elaborate set manufactured on the Tonight Show during the Leno era there were two blue-collar Late Show staffers smoking together. I've argued here before that the rise of Barack Obama has a lot to do with not the politics of David Letterman but his ability to get the whole country to laugh at the same thing. It's worth noting that Conan O'Brien, among countless other broadcasters, has acknowledged a debt to Letterman's craftsmanship.

2. He's an underdog. It's significantly harder to line up guests with massive star power when you're based in New York rather than L.A. Musicians and actors head west to build their brand; they head east to hone their craft--or to visit Letterman. He stays in New York because he thinks it's "the greatest city in the world," and he does his own thing consistently, without regard to the pressure of competition from the more strategically situated Tonight Show. He even makes jokes about it from time to time, which takes moxie, and I respect moxie.

1. He's a Midwesterner in the big city. You can take the boy out of Indiana, but as Letterman has shown consistently, you can't take the Indiana out of the boy. His interview style, his sardonic commentary on current events, his interactions with his mom, his no-nonsense interviews on serious matters--even his ability to make a fully developed, serious statement about a joke gone wrong or an attack on his city without letting that comment hijack the humor of the show, or vice versa--I think reflect Letterman's upbringing in the Midwest, which is a helpful corrective to the snobbery of both coasts and the wide-eyed assimilation of other Midwesterners who've made it big. Beyond his own show, the sit-coms and dramedies he's produced over time reflect well the sensibilities he was nurtured in back home in flyover country.

So I'm a fan of David Letterman, and I remain so despite a joke that some say went beyond the pale. I'd like to suggest that people who think so give the matter some further thought.

1. It was an A-Rod joke. The joke that's raised the hackles of so many is a classic type for Letterman, which begins with a focus on one newsworthy item (in this case Palin's visit to New York) but ends with an abrupt, surprising focus on another (here, Alex Rodriguez's notorious promiscuity). Really, try the joke without A-Rod in it and it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

2. The outrage didn't match the joke. Letterman makes jokes about A-Rod's sex life all the time, and likewise celebrity mashup humor (where two unrelated stars are absurdly brought together) is also a hallmark. People concerned for the hypersexualizing of contemporary culture or for the privacy of public figures have ammunition lobbed at them every night by Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and, weeknights this fall at 10pm Eastern, Jay Leno. Analyzing the phenomenon that followed this ill-conceived joke on the Late Show quickly reveals it to be not actual concern for women's rights but a contrivance: conservatives grabbing the spotlight from the liberal majority and flexing their cultural muscles. I don't begrudge public figures their efforts to stay in the public eye, but I will--in true Midwestern style--call them out when they're manufacturing offense and manipulating public outrage. There are far more urgent and upsetting things for people to be outraged by. Besides, it was a joke, for Pete's sake.

The whole scandal is probably over by now; Governor Palin has accepted Letterman's apology, deftly turning her comments from the joke to a jingoistic salute to the U.S. military. Maybe she took lessons from the Late Show in crafting that little switcheroo. As for me and my house? As long as I hold the remote, Letterman will be on my TV.