I just came from my “lecture” at UP Baguio, where I got Best Thesis honors along with Rosanna, Cherry, and Danileen.  Somehow, the eager young minds of tomorrow really enjoyed my “presentation,” which came across more like the random rantings of a man who has spent too much time in an office cubicle.

   I enjoyed being around familiar ground and familiar people: Prof. Liezl Astudillo, Dr. Mark Calano, Dr. Ray Rovillos, Dr. Lorelei Mendoza, and young scholars working on their thesis proposals for Social Sciences 199.  I appreciated the receptiveness of my audience, some of whom were inspired to do study on virtual environments.

   During my presentation, I had to defend my post-structuralist take on Friendster.com, if only because there is still a lot of resistance against a “nothing outside-the-text” perspective in textual analysis.  One of the more interesting questions came from a young lady who asked if I was unduly influenced by that very perspective.  I wasn’t looking for “the truth” in my research as much as I was looking for patterns.  Another interesting question came from a young man who wanted to know how I analyzed 417 Friendster Profiles: I told him that it was a matter of staying up until the wee hours of the morning reading each and every single one of them.

   But it was nice to be back in UP Baguio, for a change.

   Karlo Mongaya of Postcard Headlines wrote some thoughts about postmodernism yesterday.  To be honest, I have had my own fair share of “paradigm shifts” over the course of my active intellectual life: like most UP students, I started out reading Marx, but eventually moved my own line of thinking parallel to anthropological theory, where names like Tylor and Morgan come to the fore.  Then I became a bit radical: later on in college, I became riveted to the ideas of Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and nowadays I’m doing some self-study on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

   I can’t say I understand every bit of them, but I try.

   I met up with Tano, a philosophy instructor and a friend of mine back in college, yesterday, and she put things rather bluntly: “That’s the problem with you: you are the exact opposite of Ockham’s Razor.”  To which I playfully responded: “Because I don’t shave.”  Did William of Ockham have a beard, a stubble, or was he clean-shaven?

   I’m reminded of the Sokal Affair: basically, a physicist named Alan Sokal wrote a “piece of nonsense” and the paper was eventually published in a journal.  I don’t know: I can claim publicly right now that my own thesis on Friendster played on the Sokal Affair (although I’m not saying that my own thesis is a bunch of bullshit).  I could have entitled my thesis “It’s Complicated,” but I opted against it.  My own “philosophy of social science” can be summed up in one sentence:

   “When confronted with a social problem, fuck it up.”  To which the response would be, “Depends on how you fuck it.”  Basically, a social problem is a whore, and you can penetrate it by the ear or the nostril if need be.

   I’m off to Manila, and I’ll be explaining this through a 20-minute lecture in two weeks.

I was reading a friend’s Friendster blog when I came across an entry on “competing role conflicts.” Multiple roles are an important aspect of modern society: we all have to go through about a dozen roles every day. At the very moment that I’m writing this blog entry, I am going through six roles:

1. Man
2. Blogger
3. Young adult
4. Filipino citizen
5. Computer shop customer
6. Anthropologist-in-passing

At any given day, this short list of roles expands to a larger set of roles: taxpayer, employee, passenger, pedestrian, commuter, son, uncle, godfather, cousin, and so on and so forth. I may have six roles at this very moment, but I would add to to that whenever I feel like smoking a cigarette (smoker) or whenever I feel like running in place and quack like a duck while prophesizing the Apocalypse (lunatic).

Among premodern societies, there’s such a role as a “village whore:” the community’s resident sex slave. The village whore’s tent is on the far edge of the hamlet, where her only job is to pleasure the menfolk either in ritual ceremony (like rites of passage), or just for the libidinal desires of a man looking for some action. Yet even a role as low and base as the communal prostitute is not exempt from multiple roles: the village whore is the community’s taboo, the tribe’s pariah, is afflicted with sexually-transmitted diseases. She also happens to be a woman.

While we won’t be voting for whores anytime in 2010 (although I beg to differ, if by “whore” we mean a more general term), my small example of the multiple roles of a village whore can be exponentially increased in modern life. In Republic, Plato abhors the idea of multiple roles, at least from the perspective of an auxiliary becoming a philosopher-king, or of a shoemaker (an artisan) expected to defend the State.

Why that didn’t happen, I do not know.

   Back in high school, the class named “Computer” was more of an exercise in operating an overpowered cash register: at the turn of the new millennium, we were still running Windows 3.11 and learning the basic commands at MS-DOS.  In time, my school improved its computer structures and now has its own website.

   I advocate the general idea of “cyber-education:” the thing is, it is important to situate any kind of development into the proper frame of context.  In my view, what kept the Department of Education from implementing “Cyber-Ed” was not the inherent corruption in the National Broadband Network deal, but that the timing of such a priority was questionable.  At the time, it didn’t make sense to wire schools into broadband when there is a shortage of classrooms chronic enough that some classes are held under trees.

   Last night, I was watching a BBC World documentary on One Laptop Per Child, and it seems that the people of Africa are doing a better job at “cyber-education” than we are.  It makes perfect sense: free laptops.  I like the XO Laptop: while you won’t catch me blogging with one, or that no self-respecting high school DoTA player would even touch one, it is purpose-built to serve the purposes of cyber-education.

   If you asked me, the Philippine government would do well in recruiting the services of OLPC: this isn’t about laptops, this is about education.

   Pardon my yapping at the Virtuality category, but I’m still stuck in a moment when it comes to writing about virtual environments.  When you write a thesis, it gets tattooed on your mind, so to speak.  For now, let’s (by the collective term I mean “I”) talk about “personal technology.”

   Steve Jobs talks about “revolution” a lot: not that he’s the Karl Marx or the Salvador Allende of technology, but there is something “revolutionary” about the iPod (or for that matter, anything “i” that will surface in the next few years until he decides to use “j”).  Jobs’ project is a classic example of what I call “waves of personalization.”

   I’ve been watching a documentary on Roman engineering awhile ago: it’s been a while since my last World History class, but I was reminded of public baths.  Bathing, to us in modern times, is a strictly private activity: unless you’re a prostitute in a back-alley strip club floor show getting soaped up with a laundry bar by old perverts, you won’t bathe in public.  Given this example, it is easy to see the transitions that have taken place in terms of space.  While these changes and transitions have been dramatic, I’m not saying that we have effectively ditched the marketplace in favor of online groceries.

   This is at the risk of being called an “evolutionist,” but using the term loosely, life is “evolving” from public space to personal space.  However, this is not universal in virtual environments: while there is evidence of this “evolution” in chatrooms, there is a case against it in cybersex, which is articulated over long distances but still done in the relative privacy of one’s own room (or one’s own rented terminal in an Internet shop, at the very back row where there are cubicles).

   To invoke Karl Marx, the transition from communal property to private property has made significant changes not only in the economy, but in life itself.  In the 1950s to the 1970s, jukeboxes were centers of social activity.  Even before that, listening to the phonograph was social.  Nowadays, music has become more personal with the iPod and other portable MP3 players (like Microsoft’s Zune and China’s Artech), and way before in the 1970s with the original Sony Walkman.

   Or take photography: before, it took a studio to create a portrait.  Nowadays, digital cameras have become so small that you can fit the entire thing inside a really small phone.  Now, you can literally take a picture of yourself.

   In my random “theorizing,” I thought of at least four possible “waves of personalization” that come in no particular order:

• The availability of personal technologies in the market (capitalism);
• The increasing public perception of the necessity of personal technologies to everyday life (although that is debatable);
• The shift from the shared sense of community to the shared sense of individualism (Gemeinschaft/Gessellschaft, for you sociologists);
• The resurgence of wealth and the proportional resurgence of leisure (I think that a study could graph that).

   Waxing on this matter makes me think if technology has sort of become a “shell” that keeps human beings from interacting socially.  Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to hear of people who die from excessive gaming or cellphone theft.  Television text chatrooms become social venues, but “eyeball” becomes ever more rare these days.  Social interaction is no longer confined to physical space, but virtual space as well.

   But is it even personal?  Are one’s earphones Marxian chains, or is a smartphone the new “opium of the people?”

   More on that tomorrow.

   I’m a bit flabbergasted that danah boyd, who is a foremost expert on social media analysis, added my thesis to her list of known researches on online social networking.

   One of the more poignant things about my thesis is that I analyzed 417 Friendster Profiles manually, in the span of five months.  I still have bad memories about sitting down in front of my computer poring over the Profiles (and their screen-captures) for 12 straight hours for a full week, just getting color categorization right.  Needless to say, most experts on the matter of Internet research would stop short of calling this “stupid.”

   I haven’t heard of technologies and tools dedicated to Internet research before, like “data mining” and “sentiment analysis.”  From what I’ve read on the matter, tools ranging from simple scripts to full-blown programs have taken the place of the manual method I used in my work.  Personally, I feel a bit bad.  Pissed, even.  Had I known of these tools beforehand, my thesis shouldn’t have been a pain in the ass to commit into writing.  But with these new tools at the disposal of new researchers, I expect the floodgates to be opened for students at my school to do more social research on the Internet.

   I’m still stuck in the “dark ages” of Internet research.  I’m not a computer scientist: I am not very well-versed in programming languages, and I would probably end up with better results doing manual data mining.

   The disadvantages of manual data mining come to the fore, in that a (scientifically) less-objective methodology surfaces as a primary criticism.  There is no way, as far as I’m concerned, to do a strict and committed random sampling method in an online social network if you’re going to do it manually.  I relied on a particular Friendster group, so questions may be laid on (a pretentious sort of) objectivity.

   But even then, large groups come with large samples.  With large samples come hard work, and hard work demands extreme commitment.  Dedicated programs cancel out hard work and extreme commitment, leaving you with interpreting the returned data (in terms of correlations, variances, and so on).

   There is also no escaping errors.  Manual data-collation, especially with large samples, would lead to errors.  While they were minor ones in the case of my thesis (rounding errors), I still can’t sleep at night knowing that the integrity of my thesis can be compromised by a single miscalculated element.

   But then again, you can’t do much with numbers alone, no matter how good you are in statistics.  In general, I’m a skeptic when it comes to statistics: correlations, for example, don’t show actual relationships between arrays of instances.  It is still important for any researcher in social network analysis to go through the tedious process of reading the site itself, because each element is unique.  Establishing personality information, to me, is the first step in establishing the network for purposes of analysis: the whole is the sum of its parts.

   In general, however, I am impressed with the possibilities brought about by computer-aided data mining, in terms of researches on social media.  Dammit, I should have had a tool.

   Roland Barthes, when he discussed semiotics (or “semiology,” to be faithful to his use of the term), expanded the traditional notion of Ferdinand de Saussure’s sign into two levels: denotation and connotation.  At the level of denotation, there is just the arbitrary and conventional relationship between the signifier and the signified.  At the level of connotation, there is the concretized and contrived relationship between the signifier and the signified: Barthes calls this “myth.”

   Advertisements are classic examples of “myth,” in that “subliminal messages” become part of the package, the marketing machine.  Think “Josie and the Pussycats.”  But to me, all this talk about “hidden messages” and “semiotics” surrounding certain aspects of a commercial is misguided analysis.  A class I took in my sophomore year comes to mind: a student said that there was a “sexist message” in advertisements for wristwatches, where the minute- and hour-hands of the watch’s face “represented the legs of a woman,” and the second-hand “represented the penetration of the penis.”

   But is it?  If my watch reads 10:10.01, should I then assume that the watch company has intended to do this to sell sex to me?  Obviously not.

   Marshall McLuhan comes to mind: the effect of media is not the content, but the medium itself.  McLuhan is often quoted and invoked for the phrase, “The medium is the message.”  There is no “pro-gay” message in rainbow-colored lights: the light bulb’s message is the expansion and the extension of waking, working, and leisure hours.  The medium that is the advertisement has served the purpose of extending “social realities,” but in truth, it doesn’t.

   In selling papaya-based skin whiteners, do I disregard a preference for the morena?  In advertising milk, am I in effect a racist because there’s no such thing as “black” milk?  Do I discriminate against curly-haired people by selling shampoo?

   If there is a “subliminal message” to any advertisement, it is that there is a different reading of truth, or a different truth altogether.  Advertisements “mythologize” truth: shampoo alone will not give you extremely smooth, straight and shiny hair.  Ice cream will not result in perfect scoops that won’t melt.  Washing clothes with a particular brand of soap will not result in a really old shirt looking brand-spanking new.  Herbal remedies are not substitutes to clean living and exercise, and there is no substitute to exercise.

   As such, all advertisements function at the level of connotation: not just soap, but this brand of soap.  Not just shampoo, but this brand of shampoo.  Not just a TV show, but this particular TV show.  There are no implicit messages about anything, but just an explicit message of the denial of choice, of signifying the signifier.

   A recent Pulse Asia survey shows that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the most corrupt President in the Philippines, followed by Ferdinand Marcos in the #2 slot and Joseph Estrada in the #3 position.  This is no survey that you would like to jockey a top spot for.

   But wait: should we make a big deal about statistics in the first place?  After all, Benjamin Disraeli wrote that infamous quote: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

   Whenever I do social science, I wouldn’t rely on statistics for two reasons.  One, I’m not a good statistician (I took my Statistics course twice).  Second - and perhaps the most important - is that statistical data is all-too-often misread and misinterpreted.  Numbers show something, all right, but the numbers rarely ever tell the story.  To me, the story behind the numbers is perhaps more important than the story the numbers tell by themselves: numbers beg the question of sampling method, statistical tests, and so on and so forth.  As such, any statistical presentation of anything is itself a source of doubt.  Which is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time.

   I’m not an Arroyo supporter - for heaven’s sake I’m an Arroyo critic - and I must say that while I agree that Arroyo is corrupt beyond reasonable doubt, there’s just no way in hell an unbiased and objective survey would point to her being second only to Marcos, or even Estrada.  Had Marcos been a non-factor, she would definitely top the list of the most corrupt Presidents post-Marcos.

   Here’s why: every corrupt excess Marcos had in two decades of iron-handed rule is the absolute benchmark of corruption (I hope) in the Philippines.  You can throw every shred of evidence of corruption against Macoy and you wouldn’t be hard-pressed to back them up: from the billions plundered and coursed through Swiss bank accounts to Imelda’s shoe collection when Malacañang was raided post-EDSA I.  Surely, Arroyo wouldn’t make the same mistake in being far more corrupt than Marcos to incite the anger and revulsion of the Filipino people in being “more corrupt than Marcos.”

   As far as Erap is concerned, say what you will about the Sandiganbayan verdict, but the verdict just goes to show that if we cannot indict the former President fairly and justly for plunder, we might as well indict him for a thinly-disguised charge of incompetence.  The evidence against Erap, as the prosecution panel said, can fill up a room.  If it did, then what more for Gloria?

   Here’s the thing: I’m not downplaying the negative effects of surveys against the President, but once the survey’s findings becomes questionable, then it is possible to downplay the whole idea of the survey.  Especially when the survey is supposed to corroborate something obvious.

   Not too long ago, I was talking to an instructor-friend of mine: like me, he has no love lost for Arroyo.  But he brings up a rather interesting point: aren’t the allegations against GMA completely circumstancial, like connect-the-dots painting-by-numbers things?  If anything, my general impression of the Arroyo Presidency is that it has proven to be a scapegoat for everything wrong with this country: if you can’t blame anyone else, blame Arroyo.  This goes for everything from the ULTRA Stampede to the death of Marrianet Amper.  Giving her the title of “Most Corrupt” only serves to add to the long list of “circumstancial crimes” we can pinpoint to GMA.

   Anyway, here’s what I think: statistics only tell half the story.  The other half still remains as speculation.

   In the interest of humor, “Youth Suicide” is the name of a Wrestling Society X wrestler famed for throwing himself off 25-foot ladders and into thumbtacks and explosive ring props.  However, for this entry, I’d like to talk about a different sort of youth suicide: young people killing themselves before they reach the prime of their lives.

   Awhile ago, I talked about a recent suicide by a 12-year-old girl at Cabinet Hill, Baguio City.  The latter half of this year has been rife with youth-related suicides: Mariannet Amper of Davao City, a boy who committed suicide in Iloilo under the influence of rugby, and various hangings.  Rather than of the kind of suicides consistent with the depressing lyrics of Fall Out Boy and Hoobastank, these are suicides that are of a different nature from teen “emo” phases: there seems to be a prevalence of depression among the youth today.

   This article, haphazard as it may be, attempts to ground youth suicide into a framework: a social-anthropological one.  Here, I attempt to make sense of suicide from a different perspective outside of blogging commentary.

*     *     *

Boring sociological brouhaha

   Emilé Durkheim, considered by many to be the father of sociology, was also one of the first to study suicide scientifically.  In his work Suicide, Durkheim distinguishes between four forms of suicide:

• Egoistic suicide: results from too little social integration, where suicide is committed because of having little in the way of social support mechanisms;
• Altruistic suicide: results from too much social integration, where suicide is committed because people are willing to sacrifice their own lives for others’;
• Fatalistic suicide: results from overregulated, unrewarding lives (i.e., slavery;
• Anomic suicide: results from problems in integration like the inability of societies to provide for needs (acute and chronic economic anomic suicide), or the inability of societies to provide for adaptation (acute and chronic domestic anomic suicide).  (http://durkheim.itgo.com/suicide.html)

    Suicide, at least given this framework, is not caused or done solely by the individual: the value of Durkheim’s sociology (perhaps even its limitation) is that it frames social events and phenomena from and into the social world.  For the lay person reading this entry, it is already possible to assume that youth suicide is by and large anomic: for example, Mariannet Amper’s suicide was an acute or chronic economic anomic suicide.

   But while we can chalk up a lot of youth-related suicides to the inability of social institutions to provide for needs, surely something else outside of institutions has to be a cause for suicide.  If you asked me, from the structural-functionalist framework of viewing things, the social structure is composed of social agents: think of Lego blocks creating a tower of Legos.

   My newfound knowledge and appreciation for psychoanalytic theory leads me to a probable cause for suicide: the human psyche itself.  I’m fairly new to psychoanalysis, so right now, my firmest grasp on the matter is more towards Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (BTW: they’re not “psychoanalytic” per se, they critiqued psychoanalysis) as opposed to Sigmund Freud or Jacques Lacan.

   The psyche being the Lego blocks in the tower of Legos, we need to consider the human individual: Deleuze and Guattari, in Anti-Oedipus, write that the individual, being a desiring-machine, works only by breaking down (this holds true for every machine).  This breakdown can cause many in the way of what Deleuze and Guattari call “neuroses:” while I’m not sure if suicide is in the text, I’m sure that it is a manifestation of it.

*     *     *

   It’s clichéd, but the reality of youth-related suicide (or suicide for that matter) is that it is not caused by a single factor: instead, it is caused by a multiplicity of factors.  There is no central cause to youth-related suicide: consider the MySpace suicide, among many other Internet-related suicides for that matter.

   I’m not saying that suicide is an event without a cause: all I’m saying is that because we cannot trace suicide to a single pool of causes that are easily addressed, there’s really no way to prevent suicide.  It is possible to alleviate the effects of suicide-causing factors so as its effects would not be so prevalent, like more jobs and a common social understanding for the lesser among us.  But as far as preventing something that has been with modern society since day one, it’s not possible.

   “Vicious cycles,” says my friend Rhon.  I just hope that’s not it for a problem I don’t really know how - or where - to start solving.