Young Adult

Can meaning be extracted merely from living out an ordinary life in an ordinary town? Must a person be among the literary, political, entertainment, or business elite to feel fulfilled? Are the popular kids in school the happiest? If so, why does a sense of over all contentment and ongoing enjoyment seem to come easily to some people while being arduously difficult for people leading ordinary lives to attain? Are people in the elites necessarily or even just usually happier than people who live out ordinary lives by earning enough to put bread on the table and simply enjoy friends and family. Would so many people be content to live such lives without any publicized accomplishment that will outlast them if ordinary life itself were not very satisfying? The 2011 film, Young Adult, is notable for how it deals with these questions in a non-formulaic way. Aside from contrasting ordinary living in a small town with being an accomplished, albeit flawed, writer (and person) in a way that puts accomplishment above a life centered on local events like high-school football games on Friday nights and family birthday parties, the film can be read as providing a statement on how not to write a novel. That the screenwriting is so good makes this dimension possible even though the medium is film. 

The full essay is at "Young Adult."

Shadows in the Sun

Challenging the dichotomy between reading a book and watching a movie, a film can include writing lessons within a narrative that is oriented to a romance and the business of a publishing house signing a writer for a second book. In the film, Shadows in the Sun (2005), Jeremy, a young employee of a major publisher, is sent by his brass, business-minded boss, Andrew Benton, to sign Weldon Parish, who lives hundreds of miles away from London and has retired from writing due to his fear of failure. In resisting Jeremy’s efforts to manipulate him to sign, Parish agrees to talk shop with the young writer. Although by no means a major part of the film, Weldon’s brief lessons and exercises can be of use to viewers. Film can indeed serve the cause of writing rather than merely draw readers away from books to the screen. In fact, astute viewers can critique the brief lessons and thus actively make use of film for intellectual and vocational purposes. Going through the lessons and exercises in the film can illustrate such an active engagement.

The full essay is at "Shadows in the Sun." 

An American Constitutional Scholar: Gilding the Lily

No one in one’s right mind would claim to be a scholar of chemistry after just three years of courses even if all of them were in natural science or even just chemistry. Nor would a business student, after just three years in a business school, claim to be a scholar of business, even if those three years were filled with only courses in business. My first degree comes very close to that (which is why I later studied humanities at Yale), and yet it took two more years in a MBA program and six more in a doctoral program (business and religious studied) before I was declared to be a scholar. So it is with a cringe of incredulousness that I read an opinion piece on MSNBC.com in which the author, Jamal Greene, put in his essay’s title, “I’m a legal scholar.”[1] That he avers that the U.S. was then in a constitutional crisis is hardly a trivial claim in American politics, so his claim of being a legal scholar, rather than only a practitioner and instructor, is important and thus should be subjected to a critique. 

The full essay is at "An American Constitutional Scholar."

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1. Jamal Greene, “I’m a Legal Scholar. We’re in a Constitutional Crisis—and This Is theMoment It Began,” MSNBC.com, April 26, 2025.

I Wasn't Supposed to be a Writer

Ideally, a person is able to earn money doing something that matches one's authentic self. In other words, working in a field that is also passion and involves an innate talent or ability can add a lot to the happiness of a life. Many people get sidetracked, whether by greed or limited opportunities. Still other people do not know what their passions are, or have not realized what natural talents, or "gifts," could be tapped. Some people get trapped in dysfunctional organizations in which the organizational culture discourages self-discovery or is otherwise negative and even vindictive. 

The full essay is at "I Wasn't Supposed To Be A Writer."

So You Want to Become an Excellent Writer?

A good writer writes well. This truism maintains that a good writer is has mastered the craft of writing. Unfortunately, this feat does not come without considerable effort, for takes some good old-fashioned study in grammar and spelling. Unfortunately, the linguistic mechanics furnish only the means of entry, though this point seems to be lost on the American English teachers who slighted grammar pedagogically in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. Perhaps the novelists who have felt immune from being grammatical for the sake of style have been the interlarded culprits behind the trend of grammar be viewed as relative or an elective. To be sure, style has right of exception, but the problem is when the exceptions become the norm and even an excuse for bad grammar. This is all just foundational stuff; the quality distinguishing the excellent writer from even a good one is passion-fueled insight. The writer who writes out of a strong urge, or instinct, to express an insight publicly naturally finds his or her own voice, and thus identity, as a writer.  In this sense, a writer is like an entrepreneur whose passion breaks through the confines of an organizational structure like lava pushes through the tough shell of a lava dome.

The full essay is at "Excellent Writing Is More than Grammar."

Is Blogging a Marxist Activity?

In writing posts on a blog, is a blogger alienated, or estranged, from his or her own labor and the product (i.e., the posts)? If not, would Karl Marx say that both the blogging activity and any resulting content exemplify his ideal? In short, are bloggers de facto Marxists? Or are we entrepreneurs better suited to Capitalism? In this respect, we can distinguish the free-standing blogger from the blogger who works on a blog owned by a company (i.e., others). In answering these questions, I look first at Marx’s criticism of labor that is alienated from the worker. Marx argues that a worker laboring on another’s product is estranged from both the worker’s own labor and the product. In both respects, clues of the sort of labor that Marx advocates can be found. From these inferences, I turn to Marx’s positive characterization of labor that is natural for the sapiens species, drawing also on Maslow, Locke, and the erasable Nietzsche for additional support.

The full essay is at "Blogging from a Marxist Perspective."

Strategic Thinking Beyond the Business Plan

“When smart people came up with ideas for well-conceived business opportunities, we said go for it. As always, organizational charts, management consultants, and business plans played virtually no role in any of this. My own strategic thinking I did mostly while showering or shaving.”

—Alan C. Greenberg, former Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns

The full essay is at "Strategic Thinking Beyond Plans."

Writing an Original Screenplay

Jay Fernandez of The Hollywood Reporter asks, “Who’s to blame for the lack of original movie projects being submitted to film studios these days?” He points to vertical integration and a bottom-line reliance on pre-branded franchises, plus diminished film slates, producer deals, and writing jobs. Indeed, in early 2011, spec submissions were down by more than half.

The full essay is at "Writing an Original Screenplay."

The Great Wall

William has come to China for rumored gun power, but what he really needs is trust. Therein lies his vulnerability, even if he views it better not to trust. Yet it could be that he is just afraid; Commander Lin Mae thinks so. The protagonist wants one thing, but in order to get it he must overcome a critical flaw. This is the basic form, or dynamic, of a screenplay. I submit that because film is an excellent medium in which philosophical principles can be explored and wrestled with, the protagonist’s vulnerability, raised to a principle, can efficaciously be more salient in a film than merely in the immediate struggles of the protagonist. In other words, the principle at issue in the protagonist’s flaw can play a more expansive role in a film, deepening it in the process.

The full essay is at "The Great Wall."

Business Culture Forming Higher Education

“Publish or perish” is the infamous mantra of those intrepid scholars who work at research universities and many prestigious Liberal Arts & Sciences colleges dotting the map of the world. The need to demonstrate regular output is perhaps nowhere more stressed (hence, stress) than in the United States. As if the declining number of tenure positions (amid increasing reliance on adjuncts, not coincidentally) at colleges and universities in the U.S. were not enough of a challenge for the newly-minted doctors aspiring to the intellectual freedom that goes with the protection of tenure, that the young scholars are increasingly being subjected to an "assembly-line" process wherein faculty administrators treat their junior colleagues' published journal articles like chocolates on a conveyer belt puts scholarship at odds with itself and thus is utterly self-defeating from the standpoint of society gaining new knowledge.

The full essay is at "Business Culture Forming Higher Education"

Wrestling Out, Dancing In: The Modern Olympics

Even as custom or tradition that has outlived its justification—which is not the same as usefulness—is essentially deadwood, there is presumptuousness in redefining a concept or event without regard to how it is understood. For example, Stephanie Meyers disregarded one of the major confining attributes of the vampire lore in enabling the vampires of the Twilight saga to not only stand in the sunlight, but actually sparkle!  It was as though Meyers felt she need not be constrained to fit into the folklore; she could essentially redefine it. Were a reader to object, “that’s not a vampire then!” she would presumptuously state matter-of-factly, “yes it is.” This is essentially subjectivity presuming to define social reality as a projection of whatever the self wills. Any constraint on the self is presumptuously thrown off as though with impunity.  Modernity itself may have this attitude in paying too little heed to established definitions and practices in seeking to redefine them (mindlessly retaining customs being the other side of the coin).  The Olympics may be a case in point.

In February 2013, the International Olympic Committee decided to remove wrestling form the 2020 Olympics. That the sport was among those of the ancient Olympic games in Greece was apparently an easily-dismissible factor. Although the committee did not disclose its reasons, the desire to draw younger viewers, who follow potential alternatives such as climbing and wakeboarding, was likely among the committee members’ reasons.

                                                                                                     Wrestling was a sport in ancient Greece, as depicted here on this ancient vase.     BBC

Although including new sports to make the Olympics relevant to a contemporary audience is advisable, and keeping the games from growing without limit is doubtlessly prudent, taking from one of the most Olympic sports risks removing the distinctiveness of the games, as rooted in the sports of the ancient games. “I think this is a really stupid decision,” an Olympic historian said. “It was in the ancient Olympics. It has been in the modern Olympics since 1896.” The decision looks even more stupid relative to the committee’s action to retain “rhythmic gymnastics,” which is basically dancing to music. In one manifestation, the “gymnastic athletes” conduct artistic movements with ribbons.  Watching the performance, a viewer is apt to wonder how dance had become a sport—not to mention an Olympic sport. Meanwhile, the ancient Olympic sport of wrestling is expendable.

Two underlying problems, or mentalities, are evinced in this case study. First, if rhythmic gymnastics is a sport simply because it is scored and has an international federation, then virtually anything under the sun could be classified as a sport. The very term sport could become a near-tautology. One person could mean one thing by the term while another person means something else.  The term itself could become mere reflections of personal ideological agendas.

Secondly, dismissing something elemental to a concept while continuing to admit and tolerate applications exogenous to the unmolested concept essentially “morphs” the concept into another without being intellectually honest in renaming the concept. If dance rather than wrestling is the way the Olympics are to go, then at least shouldn’t the games be renamed so people do not expect them to be the modern expression of the ancient games. In other words, in expressing the basis of the games still in ancient Greece, such as by starting the torch at the original site, and yet shifting the games away from the ancient games and toward activities that may not even be sports, the International Olympic Committee was at the very least sending mixed signals—or worse, trying to have it both ways. The result could be that the concept, Olympics, becomes severely blurred in meaning. The culprit is the presumptuous ego bristling at any possible constraint.

Sources:

Jere Longman, “Olympics Moves to Drop Wrestling in 2020,” The New York Times, February 12, 2013.

Mandi Bierly, “Olympics: What’s Your WTF Sport? And Don’t Say Rhythmic Gymnastics!” EW.com, August 9, 2012.