On Creative Writing Classes

One of the most hotly debate topics among authors is whether or not creative writing classes are worth an aspiring writer's time.  The internet is filled with wonderful think pieces by writers of all types on the topic.  While a few of these pieces are unrelentingly pro- or anti-creative writing class, the majority of them have a more nuanced view that weighs the relative pros and cons of creative writing classes.  Many of these articles that end up being against creative writing classes recognize their merit, while many of these articles that conclude they are worth it do recognize they aren't without drawbacks.

Well, as an author myself, I figured I would take a moment to weigh in on the debate.  I took two creative writing classes in college and both had a tangible impact on my writing.  In this post I will lay out why I think these classes can be of a lot of benefit to aspiring writers, though they are not without their drawbacks.

Of course, no amount of writing classes can be as helpful for your writing

as finding a frenemy to become dramatic rivals with.

The first and most obvious merit to creative writing classes is one that almost every think piece on the subject, regardless of their ultimate position, regards as a merit for creative writing classes: time spent reading other creative works and writing your own pieces.

There doesn't seem to be much to say here, really.  The more practice you can get at whatever you're trying to do, the better.  A creative writing class mandates that you read and write a certain amount, and that extra practice on top of whatever else you do in your free time is important.

On the other hand, you can say that a dedicated writer will find time to write no matter what.  There is a lot of merit to this idea at first glance, especially considering the majority of authors we consider great never took a creative writing class in their life.  Sure, you might not be doing it for a class project, but that doesn't matter if you're getting in that practice on your own, right?

Well, yes and no.  To get at what I mean, let's talk about another one of my favorite topics for a moment: boxing.

First lesson: if you can throw a punch, you can write a book.

Say you want to try your hand at boxing.  You scoff at the idea of going into a gym "because all you need is a heavybag and the practice", and so you go to your local sporting goods store and buy yourself your own gloves, mouth guard, wraps, heavybag, and heavybag stand.  Of course, knowing that direct practice is what counts, you make sure to get in your sparring rounds by boxing with friends in your backyard.  After training for a while you set up your first boxing match and, surprise surprise, you lose terribly.

It doesn't take a professional boxer to figure out what went wrong in the scenario above.  You didn't have a coach to instruct you on how to better your technique and fight more effectively.  Meanwhile, your opponent was being guided along a path of proper boxing and constant peer-review from people who have at least an idea of what they're doing.  But that's completely different from writing, right?  Boxing is about objective results (winning matches), whereas writing is a much more subjective experience.  Stemming from that, there is an objective way to be a good boxer, whereas there isn't really a standard way to be a good writer, right?

Well, not exactly.  Yes, there are general ways to become a better boxer- keeping your hands high to protect yourself from getting hit, for instance.  It's one of the first things they try to teach you in any boxing classes.  "Hands up, hands up, hands up!"  Yet tons of famous boxers, including the infamous Muhammad Ali, had a habit of winning fights with their hands down.

Hah, this "Ali" fella clearly knows nothing about boxing!

There is no universally "correct" way to box.  Check out just a few seconds of a highlight reel of Pernell Whitaker, then Roy Jones Jr, then Roberto Duran.  I could go on, but the point is clear: the way each of these men fight and move are very different, and yet they're all regarded as some of the greatest boxers of the last few decades.  None of their styles are "wrong" even though they don't clearly resemble each other at all.

So, we can understand there isn't a "right" way to box, even if there are general principles you want to keep in mind.  The same can be said of writing.  And this is where someone might reasonably come in and say "but writing is completely subjective!  Proper boxing is partially subjective, but you're still trying to win.  Writing is completely subjective!"  That technically isn't wrong, but it's also not an opinion most people actually hold, even if they think they do.

Let's try something real quick to see what I'm getting at.

"Once there was a guy named Sam.  Sam worked at an office.  One day he died of a heart attack and it was super sad."  If story telling were completely, absolutely subjective, do you think it is perfectly reasonable to say what I just wrote is as compelling and absorbing as The Great Gatsby?  Or, to compare it to a work of comparable length, even as much as Hemingway's famous six word short story "for sale: baby shoes, never worn"?  Probably not.

Like with boxing, there isn't a "proper" way to do everything, but there are some guidelines you should try to follow.  How can you make readers care about your characters, or challenge them to think about the themes in your story, or keep them on the edge of their seats as they race through your story's plot?  The story I wrote above doesn't even try to answer any of those questions.  You don't know who Sam is and why you should care about him, you aren't challenged to think about any sort of themes, there is no story arc for us to get absorbed in.

*scoff*  Obviously my story was a commentary on post-industrial capitalism.

So what does all this have to do with writing classes?  A lot.  The feedback from your instructor and peers will be valuable, and guide your practice in the right direction.  In your writing teacher you will have the equivalent of your boxing coach, who presumably has more writing experience than you and therefore some valuable perspective on what you're trying to accomplish.  In your classmates you have your sparring partners: putting your work up for review is like stepping into the ring to test your technique.  Like the feedback that comes with testing your boxing technique in sparring, the feedback that comes with testing your writing technique in peer editing will help immensely.

It's important to note this feedback is coming from other people pursuing the same craft as you.  That's what makes it so important.  It's not that people who haven't taken a creative writing class can't bring equally valuable advice to the table- of the friends I turn to for trusted feedback on my writing, a number of them have never taken a creative writing class in their life.  It's that a creative writing class gathers a group of people who enjoy creative writing and spend time thinking about it.  That's not easy to find outside of a classroom specifically dedicated to the subject, especially if your city doesn't have any sort of writer groups/clubs.  Getting feedback from people who also take writing seriously is what counts, and a creative writing class just happens to give you an environment where you are more likely to get that.

Let's go back to something we mentioned earlier: the fact that many writers we call great never took a creative writing class in their life.  That is absolutely true.  Yet most of them still had a lot of experience in writing-related environments: Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, and Sinclair Lewis all worked as journalists before becoming novelists, for instance.  Countless writers began as copy editors and other such small time jobs involving writing.

All of these experiences helped them shape their writing and understanding of the written language itself, making claims of "they didn't take any creative writing classes at all!" true but disingenuous when looked at in context.  Even if they weren't writing fiction when they worked in these other fields, they were still interacting with the written word, day in and day out, consistently.

Sort of like how a background as a breakdancer can help you on your way to becoming a Jiujitsu blackbelt in a record amount of time (yes, I am shamelessly promoting my Jiujitsu coaches).

Now, this isn't all to say that you should take feedback from others unquestioningly.  I have written an entire post about this topic before.  The gist of my final point in that post: even when you're getting feedback from people who know what they're talking about, not all feedback will work for what you're trying to do.  Sometimes you may even get directly contradictory feedback; one person may suggest a certain part of your story needs less descriptive writing, for instance, while another may suggest more for the exact same passage.  You have to weigh the pros and cons of each bit of feedback you get, while also making sure you reject or accept feedback for the right reasons (for instance, making sure your ego isn't getting in the way of accepting certain feedback).  This is, of course, easier said than done.

But the point here is that creative writing classes offer a good chance to get this sort of feedback, which will help guide your writing with useful tips and guidelines to keep in mind.  This practice, as in any other pursuit, is a lot more valuable than practice that isn't informed by any sort of feedback or awareness of craft.

This is all without getting to specific exercises and ways of writing that you can get in a creative writing class.  To give an example of something that helped me early in my writing, in the first of the two writing classes I've taken in my life our teacher had a rule when it came time for writing: we couldn't kill off our characters.  His reasoning was that too many aspiring writers try to kill off their characters at the end of a story as a shortcut for unearned drama and tragedy.  At first I scoffed and rolled my eyes, but in the long run it helped me.  It gave me practice writing stories where the stakes are raised without character deaths, and practice writing tragedy which comes from more than just the end of life (unfulfilled dreams, compromised values, other such things that can deflate us without death).  It also meant I was more careful about choosing when a character dies.

That's just one example of a few rules that teacher had.

Another rule: if possible, be Murakami.  Not, like, emulate his writing style.  Just literally be him.

In both classes we also did specific writing exercises, beyond just free writing, that helped our story-telling.  In the second class I took, one incredibly helpful writing exercise we had was to read short stories and analyze specific story telling decisions the writer made in putting the story together.  The point is to zoom in on every narrative decision made to determine whether each decision worked, and in what way, and to what extent.  I used that exercise in writing a post about poignant moments in videogames and another one in looking at the writing in Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra.

So, creative writing classes are very helpful.  That said, they're not perfect.  While I had a great experience in both of my classes, I've heard mixed results from others who have taken creative writing classes.  Sometimes the instructor is pretentious, sometimes the instructor doesn't like writing styles that don't fit their definition of what writing "should" be, sometimes the teacher doesn't have much of a background in writing at all, sometimes there is nothing wrong with the teacher but their teaching style and your learning style just don't vibe; sometimes the instructor is great, but your classmates suck for various reasons.

Beyond that, maybe you're already in an environment where you have plenty of exposure to the written word and don't feel the need to take a creative writing class.

Also, with college being as expensive as it is, maybe you can't afford paying over $100 just to take a 3 unit creative writing class- or, you can, but that's still a lot of money and you don't want to risk spending that much in case the class doesn't turn out to be good.  That is perfectly understandable, even wise.  But in that case I would recommend supplementing your reading and writing practice with looking up reading and writing exercises online, reading books about writing from masters of the craft, and other such forms of enhancing your practice in guided and informed ways (which, to be fair, you should be doing even if you have taken classes before).

Whatever your field, it's important to supplement your practice with study and thought about your art.  A creative writing class is a good way to get that, hence why I would recommend it, but it is by no means a necessity.  Just remember the most important part of writing: keep creating, and have fun!

Top Everything of 2015

With 2016 now upon us many news outlets, columnists, and bloggers are creating lists about different parts of 2015.  Topics like entertainment, politricks, science, and all sorts of other areas are each getting their own end of the year write-ups.

As anyone who knows me or has read this blog can probably guess, I have a lot of interests.  Writing an entire article about only one subject just isn't my style when looking back at the entirety of 2015.  Therefore, like with 2014, I've created a comprehensive end of the year list that encompasses picks for a variety of topics.  The list will cover everything from hip hop to politics to MMA to science to film, and more.  The categories will mostly be the same as those from last year, give or take a few changes.

My criteria for each pick is a combination of merit/quality, personal preference (anyone who tries to pretend their "top" lists are objective are lying to themselves), achievements in a given field, and cultural significance/impact.

Let's dive in!

Movie: Straight Outta Compton

This was a tough entry for me to select. There were a lot of movies that I loved this year, from very different genres, so much so that even narrowing my favorite films of the year list to just five presented quite a challenge.  But movies that stay with me the most are those that challenge me to both think and feel, and after reflecting about all the movies I've seen this year, one movie stayed with me more than the rest of my favorites by a slim margin.

Straight Outta Compton is the story of the NWA, covering their story from their inception to the death of Easy E.  The movie can be thought of in three stages: the group's rise, the group's fall, and the group's reconciliation.  Both the first and third stage are fantastic.  The beginning of the film introduces us to each member of the group and gives societal context to their ascent: the streets of Los Angeles.  A place of violence, racist cops, and little opportunity.  The group rises from the hood by harnessing the very anger that the hood gave them in their music to powerful effect.  The second phase is when the NWA falls apart, with Ice Cube and Dr Dre each going their own separate ways after tensions come to a head and the group disbands.  The final phase covers the group reuniting after Easy E is diagnosed with AIDS.  Overcoming ego and squashing beef is always easier when the specter of death is an imminent reality instead of an abstract idea.

While the movie loses some of its intrigue when covering the group's fall, my main problem with the film isn't that second phase.  It may be formulaic, but the first part of the movie (mixed with brilliant performances by the actors) got me invested enough to care when they started to fall apart.  The biggest problem with the film is its portrayal of women.  Women have two roles in this movie: mother or nameless sex object.  The only exception is Easy E's girlfriend, who is only around for less than half the movie.  It also goes out of its way to downplay the misogyny of the group, including completely erasing the history of domestic abuse by some of NWA's members.

Aside from this glaring flaw, Straight Outta Compton is top notch.  Had it handled women better, it probably would have become one of my favorite films of all time.  Still, the rest of the movie is so strong that it is my favorite movie of the year.  The performances are great, the characters are compelling, the social commentary about the hood (specifically the police) is important, and the emotional moments hit the mark every time.

Comedy Movie: Spy

I love comedy movies, but I never know how to rank them alongside "real" movies.  Comedy movies have such different goals from most other movies that it's hard to compare them.  So, I figured I might as well make a category specifically for comedy!  (For what it's worth, if I'd created this category last year, it would've gone to 22 Jump Street).

Spy is another Paul Feig directed comedy featuring Melissa McCarthy, continuing the hilarity train that started when the two worked together for Bridesmaids (I haven't seen The Heat, though I've heard good things about that one as well).  The movie stars Melissa McCarthy as Susan Cooper, a character who sits behind a computer monitor directing CIA Agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) through his missions.  To keep this summary short and spoiler-free, early on in the movie bad things happen and circumstances lead to McCarthy's character going out to the field as an agent.

Both the writing and performances are all on point; almost every single joke hits perfectly.  My only problem is that the movie sometimes leans a little too heavily on fat jokes about McCarthy.  At times these jokes are piled on so much they become cringe-worthy.  That aside, though, this movie is absolute comedy gold.  The funniest parts come with Jason Statham's character, an unhinged loose canon who recklessly stumbles through the film with no regard for anyone's safety, including (perhaps especially) his own.

But while Statham's character maybe the funniest, McCarthy's character still stands out as the most interesting.  Cooper has a distinct character arc, gradually coming out of her passive, self-effacing shell to believing in herself and taking action.  This character archetype has existed as long as human beings have been telling stories, but McCarthy and the writing team bring enough life to the role that her character's journey feels relatively fresh and engaging.  She isn't the only prominent female character, either; her boss, best friend, and main enemy are all women who play important roles and have agency in the plot.

With almost nonstop laughs, a well-done character journey, one of the best comedy performances I've ever seen thanks to Jason Statham, and more female character agency than you'll see in almost any other film this year (or any other year), Spy is an easy pick for comedy of the year.

Animated Movie: Inside Out

The competition for this year's best animated movie isn't as fierce as last year's (Big Hero 6, The LEGO Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and The Book of Life all came out in 2014).  Yet even if the competition were equally as steep, Inside Out would still be my pick for movie of the year.  This is the best movie Pixar has put out since their amazing three consecutive years of instant classics with 2008's Wall-E, 2009's Up, and 2010's Toy Story 3.  Yes, this movie truly deserves to be mentioned in the same conversation as those three.

The premise of this movie is refreshingly creative.  It takes place inside the mind of an eleven year old girl named Riley, following the five anthropomorphized emotions that run her brain: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear.  The five emotions work together to take care of Riley, with Joy being the leader.  Of course, as with any movie, things go wrong and it is up to our heroes (in this case, Joy and Sadness) to set things right.

The creative premise of the film leads to some brilliant ways of representing the human mind, with tons of imaginative set pieces and clever jokes about how the mind works (or, sometimes, how it doesn't).  Throughout the movie I was excited for each new scene and location, eager to see what other imaginative things Pixar had cooked up for the human mind.

The movie is about more than the inside of Riley's head, however.  Much more.  The central conflict of this movie is Riley's trouble adjusting to San Francisco after moving from Minnesota.  The message of this movie is a simple one, but also one of the most important and emotionally healthy messages you'll ever see in a kid's movie: it's okay to feel sad.  Each emotion has its own uses in certain situations; the movie shows us we shouldn't try to suppress them to appear happy all the time.  That's an extremely important message to send to children so that they don't grow up hiding their vulnerability from people who care and suppressing their emotions.

This is a movie with a vivid imagination, great laughs, creative metaphors for the human mind, and an important message for kids.  Like with The Book of Life, my favorite animated movie from last year, this movie trusts kids enough to cover an important subject thoughtfully and is all the better for it.

Actor: Michael B Jordan

This was a difficult category to pick.  Oscar Isaac and Sylvester Stallone each occupied this spot at one point as I kept changing my mind on who to pick, and a few other names came close as well.  There were a lot of compelling performances this year.  But in the end, I had to go with Michael B Jordan.  I've been a fan since Chronicle and I thought his performance in 2013's Fruitvale Station was fantastic, so it was nice to see Michael B Jordan become an A list star in 2015.

Of course, that is entirely on the strength of his performance in Creed.  I didn't see The Fantastic Four reboot, and according to everyone from friends who had seen it to 90% of critics, it was better that way.  But in his role as Adonis Johnson, the son of Apollo Creed, I bought every minute of his performance.  I felt the pain of Adonis that came with him not knowing his father growing up, going from foster home to foster home.  I felt his enthusiasm when he tracked down Rocky Balboa to ask to become his student.  I felt his dedication in every training montage.

Michael B Jordan didn't just convince me of his dedication through his acting abilities, either- he also took to boxing quite well.  This movie has the best boxing choreography I've ever seen and, as someone who has actually trained at a boxing gym before, I can say that Michael B Jordan actually looks and moves more like a boxer than any other character I've seen in a boxing movie before.  This is no small statement.  I've seen Raging Bull, The Fighter, Million Dollar Baby, Ali, and many other good boxing movies.  Of all of those films, none of the actors involved showed the same level of dedication to learning how to box for their role as Jordan did in this film.

Had Jordan not given his all for this performance, Creed would've fallen flat.  The story is formulaic and lacks any real surprises.  While the writing helps give some life to the roles, what truly gives them their heart are the performances of the actors and actresses involved, especially Jordan and Stallone.  Not only does Jordan do a great job with his own performance, but the dynamics he has with his love interest, his adopted mother, and Stallone are all interesting and full of chemistry.  Michael B Jordan proves with Creed that he is star material, even for a movie series that has as many high expectations for it as the Rocky series does.  I already can't wait to see the next time he is on screen.

Actress: Daisy Ridley

Yes, the original cast returns and Harrison Ford does a great job acting as the wise old mentor type for the group.  Yes, John Boyega is a likable, relatable actor who helps ground the movie while also providing a lot of its funniest moments.  Yes, Oscar Isaac plays an impossibly charming and good looking pilot who makes me question my heterosexuality.  But we all know who the real star of The Force Awakens is: Rey, as played by Daisy Ridley.

Rey is a scavenger on the desert planet Jakku, having been abandoned by her parents there at a young age.  Even before she gets mixed up in intergalactic political conflict, we are shown during the exposition that she is a tough and resourceful character, while also having a kind side and showing occasional moments of vulnerability.  Throughout the film Ridley has to convey every single emotion one can think of.  If a sequel to Inside Out were made starring Rey, she'd need over a dozen characters to represent all the emotional layers Daisey Ridley convincingly gives her.

Criticism against Ridley's Rey aren't common, but among those who do have complaints the biggest one by far is that Rey is too naturally talented at everything she needs to do in the film.  At first glance this doesn't seem to have a lot to do with Ridley's acting, but it actually does.  As I mentioned above, the film establishes early on that Rey is a scavenger who knows her way around a ship and how to use a weapon when attacked by other scavengers.  Rey's journey in The Force Awaken's isn't like Luke's in A New Hope.  Luke's conflict is external and his growth comes largely in his skills, which also results making him braver yet more grounded.  To keep this write up relatively spoiler-free, I'll just say that while Rey shares some of the same goals as Luke, her conflict is a lot more internal in this film.  She's already physically capable of a lot of what she needs to do- again, not because of bad writing, but because the film establishes early on that these are skills she has already learned living by herself on Jakku.  She's not some naive farmboy on Tatooine.

In a sea of fantastic performances (seriously, naming your least favorite performance in this movie is like asking a parent to name their least favorite child), Ridley's performance stands out.  She presents a rounded character who can be brave, scared, angry, happy, sad, regretful, determined, conflicted, horrified, and somber.  The depth she adds to Rey's character is astonishing for such a newcomer and definitely deserving of an Oscar nod.  I can't wait to see her in the rest of this trilogy, and I can't wait to see what else Daisy Ridley does in the future.

Hip Hop Album: Meow the Jewels

Run the Jewels has a lot going for it: two seasoned MCs, clever lyrics that are witty and often insightful without being self-important, top notch production thanks to El-P, and wonderful chemistry.  Their music is a lot like a Quentin Tarantino movie: fun and exciting at first glance, but also done with an impressive amount of attention to detail and craft upon further inspection.

Nothing epitomizes how fun this duo is than their album this year, Meow the Jewels.  The entire album is composed of songs of theirs remixed with cat noise centered beats.  Meows, hisses, purring, bells, kitten squeals, anything you can think of.  Whereas most rappers are concerned with projecting an image of gravity and grandeur, with Run the Jewels we have two seasoned rappers releasing an album with cat noises in the background.  And, aside from being both funny and fun, the cat-infused beats actually sound great.

With strong introduction track "Oh My Darling (Don't Meow)" and standout joints like "Close Your Eyes (And Meow to Fluff)" and "Paw Due Respect", these songs go hard, entertain relentlessly, and are just plain fun.  While Kendrick Lamar's album To Pimp a Butterfly is also excellent and is arguably much more important on a societal level, I've found myself bumping Meow the Jewels a lot more often.  As a result, it is my pick for album of the year.

Hip Hop Song: Black Friday

I mean, holy shit, right?  If hip hop is dead, someone forgot to tell Kendrick Lamar (and J Cole, and El-P, and Killer Mike, and Logic, and...)

MMA Prospect: Yair Rodríguez

Over the last few years we've seen an emergence of a lot of moves from Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and other martial arts that a decade ago were mostly ignored for "not working" in serious MMA competition.  I even wrote a post about it last year.  Side kicks, spinning back kicks, front kicks with the ball of the foot, and other such moves have been used by MMA fighters at all levels in increasingly large numbers.

The problem is that a lot of fighters have began to use these moves without properly gauging distance or setting them up.  Using some of the flashier kicks that have become popular, like the spinning back kick, leaves you out of position to defend yourself should your attack miss.  That is why it's important to throw it at the right time, when it is least likely your opponent will take advantage of the opening your attack leaves.  If not, it can cost you- Chris Weidman lost his title because of a poorly timed spinning back kick that left an opening for Luke Rockhold to take Weidman's back, get him to the ground, and lay on some of the nastiest ground 'n pound I've ever seen.

Yair Rodríguez is a featherweight who has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  Because of his time invested in Tae Kwon Do, Rodríguez hasn't just learned how to throw fancy kicks but has spent years learning exactly when he should throw them and how he can build a game around them.  He throws punches as distractions from his kicks, his footwork does a good job at maintaining kicking range distance, and he changes stances to effectively change the angles of his attacks.  He is also quite capable in the clinch and has a slick ground game that is about as entertaining as any MMA fighter's.

Rodríguez is not without his weaknesses.  When pressured too much he retreats straight backward, rather than circling out; his punches are sharp enough in the opening round, but get progressively sloppier as the fight goes on; he leaves a lot of openings, like by leaving his hands too low or leaning forward when on the offense against an opponent.  But he is twenty three years old and has only had seven professional fights, three of which have been in the UFC.  It'd be weird if he weren't making mistakes, and he has years ahead of him to correct them.

The 145 pound division is already electric; it has easily become my favorite division in the UFC.  While much of the talent toward the top of the featherweight heap is relatively young and won't be going anywhere soon, it's nice to see a prospect with such potential coming up.  Seeing Rodríguez grow as a fighter and continue his ascent among the 145-ers in the UFC will be a real treat for years to come.

MMA Fighter I'd Like to See Bounce Back: Kyoji Horiguchi

I first noticed Kyoji Horiguchi in his match against Jon delos Reyes in September of 2014.  His impressive fight style immediately caught my attention: he combines the excellent range-conscious movement of someone like Machida with the head movement and combination-punching ability of someone like Ross Pearson.  His striking is, essentially, a mixture of some of the best parts of karate and boxing for MMA.

When I first saw him fight, I remember thinking to myself that he had it in him to someday beat flyweight champion Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, one of the most well-rounded and strategically intelligent fighters in the world regardless of weight class.  This confidence in Horiguchi only increased when he fought Louis Gaudinot.  Against Gaudinot, who is currently ranked #12 in the flyweight division, Horiguchi performed brilliantly and let his unique karate-boxing hybrid style shine.

His victory made me think he might be ready for a shot against Mighty Mouse if he got past someone in the top 10, then someone in the top 5 to earn a title fight.  Instead, Horiguchi received a title shot after his victory against Gaudinot because Mighty Mouse had cleared out the flyweight division of any other contenders.  Horiguchi fought Johnson in April and did well the first round, but as the fight went on Might Mouse's control of the fight became more and more pronounced.  The final round had Johnson dominating the match completely and submitting Horiguchi with an armbar at 4:59 of the 5 minute round, a record that can literally never be topped.

I sincerely hope Horiguchi can bounce back and work his way to another title shot, this time fighting top 10 fighters on the way up.  His fighting style is the rare combination of entertaining yet strategically sound.  If he takes the loss against Johnson as a learning experience and keeps getting better, I think he has a very real shot at winning his next title fight, provided that he is given a more gradual path instead of being thrown in head first again.  He is already off to a good start, having beat Chico Camus in September.  I hope this trend continues, if for no other reason than to keep the flyweight division interesting (seriously, Might Mouse has totally cleared out that division).

Male MMA Fighter: Conor McGregor

I'm going to get this out of the way: I don't like Conor McGregor's schoolyard trash-talk antics.  I don't personally dislike McGregor (or any other fighter) for doing it because it's a proven model for success, but I hate that the fastest way for a fighter to gain attention is to talk shit like a high schooler desperate for attention and what they think is respect.  There are plenty of ways to market fighters for their personality beyond the shit talking, but media outlets love drama and interpersonal conflict.  It's the same reason Donald Trump gets so much attention from the press.

But let's forget about McGregor the personality and talk about McGregor the fighter.  His ability to gauge/control distance, throw flashy kicks in strategically well thought-out ways, and counter with that excellent left hand are all top notch in MMA.  McGregor is excellent at using his kicks and footwork to control the range of his opponents and bait them into attacks that he then counters with his left hand.

McGregor's first opponent of the year was Dennis Siver, an elite striker who up until that point had only lost to Cub Swanson since dropping down to the featherweight division.  McGregor ran through him.  McGregor then beat Chad Mendes, who up until that point had only lost to featherweight champion Jose Aldo.  Finally, McGregor beat Aldo himself in an astonishing 13 seconds.  That's impressive for any professional fight, but especially so when you're fighting the UFC's then-longest reigning active champion.

It should be noted those last two victories might come with an asterisk of sorts.  Chad Mendes took the fight on a week's notice after Aldo had to pull out due to injury and Jose Aldo had been out of commission for over a year when the two finally fought.  But neither of those were McGregor's fault, and he did everything he had to in order to beat the champion of arguably the deepest division in MMA today (or perhaps the second deepest after the lightweight division).

2016 will be a big year for McGregor.  Will he defeat Aldo in a rematch?  Will he defend the title against other contenders like Frankie Edgar and Max Holloway?  Will he move up to lightweight to fight for the lightweight crown?  I don't know what path he'll take or how well he'll do.  But I do know that I look forward to seeing those fights (while ignoring all the silly pre-fight man drama).

Female MMA Fighter: Holly Holm

Joanna Jędrzejczyk, the champion of the new women's straw weight (115 pound) division, is an excellent fighter.  After capturing the title from Carla Esparza in the beginning of the year, she has since defended her title twice.  She deserves a lot of praise for her performances and accomplishments this year.

But the clear winner of female fighter of the year goes to the woman who dethroned Ronda Rousey, who was the UFC's biggest star at the time of this fight.  Holly Holm, who is also a former boxing champion and kickboxing competitor, beat two middle of the pack bantamweights to earn the title shot against Rousey.  Many wrote her off as not having a chance, while others "predicted" she would win simply because they wanted Rousey to lose.  Most fans wrote this off as yet another bout where Rousey would clinch up, hip toss her opponent, and eventually sink in that killer arm bar of hers.

As we all know, that's not what happened this time around.  Holly Holm used the footwork she gained as a high level striker to continuously slip away from Rousey and pick her apart with piston-like straights.  Rousey is excellent at operating once she has the clinch in a fight, but she doesn't have as much skill in setting it up.  Usually she rushes her opponents, who often try to stand their ground and strike with her in the hopes of getting a knockout before Rousey can sink in her clinch.  With her opponent standing right in front of her, Rousey would throw a bunch of wild punches until she saw an opening for the clinch.  When Holm decided to circle out and not let Rousey rush her, Rousey didn't have an answer.

Holly did a fantastic job picking Rousey apart and defending on the few occasions she did get caught in the clinch, eventually seeing an opening for a beautiful headkick that killed all wildlife in a five mile radius.  Many people afterward blamed Rousey for "trying to strike with Holm instead of using with her Judo", but make no mistake, this was Holm's doing.  In professional MMA, you simply can't walk into the clinch.  You need to set it up with strikes to create an opening.  Holm did everything she needed to in order to make sure Rousey couldn't do that.

Holm defeated one of the biggest stars the UFC has ever known thanks to sound striking strategy.  She also became the first fighter to hold championships in both MMA and boxing.  Heading into 2016, she will inevitably have a rematch with Ronda Rousey.  This winner of this rematch will be determined by who has the better footwork.  If Rousey improves her ability to cut off the cage instead of just chasing opponents, she will win.  If Holm is able to continue escaping Rousey, she will win.  Either way, it will be a hell of a match.  Until then, though, Holm has rightfully earned her place at the top of the women bantamweight division.

MMA Fight: Cormier vs Gustafsson

This category came down to a very, very close decision.  After whittling down an extensive list of fantastic fights this year, I was left with two: this one and Robbie Lawler vs Rory MacDonald.  Both fights were incredible championship fights that demonstrated the heart, technique, and versatility of each fighter.  In the end, I went with Cormier vs Gustafsson because (1)the fight felt slightly closer and (2)there were some specific aspects from this amazing bout that I wanted to talk about (though shout out to Lawler's excellent MMA boxing, which might just be the best in MMA right now).

Before we get into the details of this fight, the outcome is a perfect example of the fact that styles makes fights.  Tallying who has beat who in MMA doesn't always work because every fighter's style contains its own strengths and weaknesses.  Alexander Gustafsson got destroyed by Anthony Johnson, who was meticulously picked apart by Daniel Cormier in their fight.  If Cormier so effortlessly beat the guy who demolished Gustafsson, clearly Cormier should've smoked Gustafsson himself.  As we saw, though, that's not how things went down.

This was a phenomenal fight.  The first round made it look like Cormier would neutralize Gustafsson's striking with his wrestling and grind out a decision on the ground.  Clearly that didn't end up being the case.  Gustafsson did an impressive job using his polished footwork, strong combination punching, attacks to the body, and excellent gauging of distance.  Cormier, on the other hand, did a fantastic job of cutting off the cage with his footwork (that is, intercepting Gustafsson instead of just following him), striking from the clinch, and setting up his right hands with lighter kicks and punches, rather than just winging crazy right hands like most wrestler-turned-strikers do.

One thing that I appreciate about Gustafsson is that he isn't afraid to go for takedowns against wrestlers.  Conventional MMA wisdom says that lanky strikers should never try to grapple against stocky wrestlers.  Gustafsson reminded us here that conventional wisdom is something that should always be challenged.  Like against Jon Jones, he only scored a couple complete takedowns, but that was all he needed.  As I've talked about on this blog before, shooting for the hips against an opponent in MMA gets them thinking about your wrestling and takes away from their ability to focus on striking defense.  Grappling-based MMA fighters use this strategy all the time to out-strike opponents that have stronger striking credentials than them.  When you're a striker who can employ this strategy, all the better.

Another noteworthy part about this fight was how each fighter battled it out in the later rounds.  In MMA it is common for tired fighters to stand still in the later rounds and wing powerful, sloppy strikes at each other.  Not in this fight, though.  Cormier still used good intercepting footwork, Gustafsson still did a good job of being elusive, and both fighters (for the most part) kept their strikes diverse instead of only trying to throw wild right hands.  Even in the last round there were jabs, body kicks, lead uppercuts, lead hooks, feints, and combinations.  That is a large part of what makes a champion level fighter: not just physical attributes and their "heart", but also the ability to keep fighting sensibly even towards the end of an exhausting, exhilarating, incredibly close fight against the best in the world.

Cormier said in the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan that this bout made him a better man.  For those of us who payed close enough attention, it also made us better fans.  This fight didn't just prove a lot about Cormier and Gustfasson, but also about certain aspects of MMA itself.  For the first time in a few years, I am truly excited to see where the light heavyweight division is going, especially with the return of Jon Jones.  It's gonna be a hell of a 2016 for the 205-pounders.

Scientific Discovery: Liquid Water on Mars

For centuries humans have written about Mars, before the name "Mars" was ever given to it.  As astronomy advanced and people learned more about our red neighbor in the solar system, the possibility of life over there captured our popular imagination.  Could there be sentient lifeforms over there?  Could we find a way to reach out to them someday, or them to us?  If they looked like us, what are the intergalactic protocols about getting freaky with aliens?  Creative minds of all sorts told compelling stories to answer all of these questions, and more.

Toward the end of the 20th Century we began to realize that our Mars fan fiction wouldn't become true.  There weren't any civilizations on Mars.  But even with the idea of intelligent Martians being put aside, there are still a lot of interesting questions to be asked.  First and foremost: does any form of life exist?  Well, if life as we understand it does, it needs liquid water to function.  The question of water on Mars, therefore, became a big one.

In 2015, we found proof of liquid water on Mars.

Now, a problem with popular science journalism is how sensationalist it is.  It's a bit of a necessary evil, considering how few people would pay attention otherwise.  Headlines about water on Mars and speculation about the possibility of life on Mars went wild.  Often this went beyond the scope of the actual findings.  What we figured out with this discovery was that water seasonally trickles on Mars and leaves salty residue behind; there were no actual bodies of water discovered.  Scientists have a few different hypotheses about where this water is coming from.  Two of the leading ones right now are (1)that it comes from the atmosphere or (2)that it comes from the ice beneath Mars' surface.

We still don't know everything about the water on Mars yet, so we can't jump to any conclusions.  But that being said, we still made an incredible discovery about our rusty red neighbor that could hold the key to figuring out whether or not life exists.  Yay science!

Scientific Achievement: Teixobactin

I personally think science is at its best when it's being used to save lives.  Medicine is one of the best things we have done as a species, figuring out ways to cure ourselves (as well as animals) so that we don't have to contemplate our own mortality each time we get sick.  While the industry behind it is incredibly greedy and often shady, modern medicine itself is a wonderful testament to what the human scientific mind can do.

One of the challenges faced in modern medicine is the arms race between antibiotics and antibiotic-resistance bacteria.  Whenever we use anything anti-bacterial, the overwhelming majority of bacteria won't survive.  There will always be a tiny percentage, however, who are immune to whatever anti-bacterial item you're using.  These immune bacteria, being the only ones left alive, go on to reproduce and suddenly you have a whole generation of bacteria inheriting resistance to the anti-bacterial products that killed most of the previous generation.  This is why antibiotics are always becoming stronger and stronger.  We need stronger medicine as newer generations of bacteria are born from bacteria that is resistant to the previous generation of antibiotics.

Thanks to researchers at Northeastern University, we now have a new type of antibiotic joining the fray.  Teixobactin is the first new antibiotics developed in decades.  Ignore all the pop science articles that claim in the headlines there are no bacteria resistant to it, that's just because the antibiotic is so new.  Once teixobactin becomes widely used, bacteria with genes that make it immune to teixobactin will start reproducing and we will eventually have the same problems with immunity to teixobactin that we do with other antibiotics.

That said, this is still incredible news.  For now, we have an antibiotic that bacteria are not at all used to.  This means that current infectious diseases that are difficult to fight because of antibiotic immunity can be treated.  Teixobactin has the potential to save millions of lives the world over once it becomes readily accessible to medical professionals.  This is what we as human beings are capable of when we decide to find new ways to help save each other instead of new ways to kill each other.

Bullshit News Story: Muslim Brit Support for 'Jihadis'

According to an article from The Sun, one of the biggest news organizations from the United Kingdom, almost one fifth of British Muslim support "jihadis" who left the UK to fight in Syria.  The numbers are even higher in the 18-34 age bracket at about one in four.  Clearly something must be done!

Except for the fact that this article is complete bullshit.  The survey itself did happen and the report is based on an actual question, so it wasn't a complete fabrication.  Rather, it was a manipulation of information that would have even the most repressive of dictators nodding in approval.  The question The Sun points to asked British Muslims how much sympathy they had for "young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria"; the answers were a lot of sympathy, some sympathy, no sympathy, or don't know.  You'll notice that literally nowhere did the term "jihadi" come up.

See, there are a metric fuckton of groups fighting in the Syrian Civil War right now.  To even begin to try to make sense of all the factions, their ideologies, and their allies would take days, but suffice to say that ISIL isn't the only group over there.  There are many groups representing many different ideologies, including some that are fighting for democracy and human rights.  So when asked about "young Muslims" who go to "join fighters in Syria", that can mean a number of things.  It certainly doesn't automatically mean support for "jihadi" groups- which, can't be stated enough, is a word that doesn't come up at all in this question.

It'd be easy to roll our eyes and make an offhanded comment about bullshit in the media before forgetting about this story, but it's not that simple.  Hate crimes against Muslims in the UK are on the rise.  We're seeing the same thing in the US.  Whether it's The Sun or Donald Trump, whenever bullshit is spread that vilifies a group of people, we're not just dealing with intellectual dishonesty.  We're dealing with physical threats to the livelihood of living human beings, their families, their communities.  And that's complete bullshit.

Actual News Story: The Paris Attacks

If you didn't spend 2015 living under a rock, you know about the attacks that happened in Paris.  It was by far the biggest media story of the year.  On the night of November 13th, coordinated attacks happened all over Paris that left 130 dead and many hundreds more injured.  There are no amount of adjectives that can encompass all the horror and tragedy about the situation.

These attacks also reveal some troubling aspects of US and European media that require some examination.  The issue, though, is that an attack that killed 40 people and injured many more in Beirut, Lebanon happened the day before.  The attack received only a fraction of the media attention the Paris attacks did, and never became a Facebook profile picture.  As a result, few people knew it happened, and the beautiful outpour of support that Paris received wasn't extended to Beirut.

On top of that, hundreds of innocent people have been killed by coalition airstrikes led by the US that include France.  The attacks on Paris weren't a random attack, but another drop in the bucket of the horrible cycle of violence that has been going on between Western Europe/the US and the Middle East since the early 20th Century.  A cycle of intervention by what is traditionally referred to as "the West" and desperate counterattacks by those from the Middle East have gone on since before World War 1 and continued throughout the century.

The problem is that our media, thanks to an intersection of private and government interests, doesn't acknowledge this history.  A "tension between cultures" narrative is often used to describe the current conflict between the US/Western Europe and the Middle East, without acknowledging the historical legacy of Western intervention that contextualizes it.  As a result, we're given a narrative that doesn't properly acknowledge the historical background of everything going on.  Imagine walking in on someone punching another person in the mouth and having someone tell you that these two have been fighting for the last ten minutes, without clarifying that it started after one person killed the other's family.

This story and the way it was covered shows how media creates narratives without acknowledging historical context.  Media not giving us the full background is a serious issue.  By doing so, we are denied the ability to create a fully-informed opinion about one of the most important issues of our time.

Meme of the Year: Hotline Bling

All of these Hotline Bling memes were comedy gold.  Or at least comedy silver.

Video of the Year:

I first stumbled across this video on Facebook, shared by one of my coaches at 10th Plant San Diego.  The video features the coach of 10th Planet Decatur, Brandon Mccaghren, revealing the "dirty little secret" of Jiujitsu.  No, it's not some secret forbidden technique to beat your opponent effortlessly or gossip about the seedy underbelly of the Jiujitsu scene.  In fact, it's not about anything unique to Jiujitsu at all.

This video, at 1 minute and 45 seconds, is the most important video you will watch today, whether you practice Jiujitsu or not.  The "dirty little secret" that Mccaghren reveals: everybody had thought about quitting Jiujitsu.  Everybody.  Because mastering a skill, whether it's Jiujitsu or anything else, requires tons of hard work and hours invested.  On this journey, you will face setbacks; progress isn't a linear path.  There will be times where you feel you have stagnated, or even taken steps backward.  There will be times where you feel it is all pointless.  There will be times where you want to stop what you're doing and never pick it back up again.

As Mccaghren puts it: "that's precisely why you can't quit, no matter what.  You gotta keep going.  Because it's hard, because it makes you wanna quit.  The discipline and the perseverance that you learn from going through something incredibly difficult and then to keep going, that's gonna carry over into every other part of your life.  It's gonna become the most important part of your training.  Not the fact that you can choke somebody unconscious or that you can break their foot, but the fact that you know that when your back gets put against the wall, and when everything is going wrong and all you wanna do is just stop, you know you got what it takes to keep going."

Again, this goes well beyond Jiujitsu.  Anytime we stick with something that challenges us, whether it's a martial art or anything else that requires discipline and perseverance, we're building ourselves into people who can keep our cool and get shit done under pressure.

For me, being able to maintain my composure when someone is on top of me or trying to yanks my limbs in directions they weren't built to go is what I value most in my Jiujitsu training.  Same with my training in other martial arts.  Keeping my cool, making sure I don't leave any openings out of panic or carelessness, and thinking about how I can work my way out of that bad spot has translated directly over to other parts of my life.  I just finished my first semester of graduate school, and to call it stressful would be an understatement.  There were times where I felt I couldn't possibly handle the workload and wanted to quit.  I honestly considered dropping out at a couple points.  But thanks to my years of martial arts training (among other challenges I have worked through) I was able to take a deep breath, find my center, and focus on what needed to get done.  I ended the semester with a 3.9 GPA.

I may not be the biggest badass in Jiujitsu (I only competed for the first time in November), and those of you reading this might not be the best boxer or soccer player or sex architect around.  That doesn't matter.  What matters is that we stick with something we have a passion for, cultivate a skill that we can take pride in, and forge an iron will that will get us through whatever challenges we face in life.

Photo of the Year: Alan Kurdi

Sometimes we think of geopolitics as an abstract idea.  This picture is a heart-breaking reminder they aren't.

The only difference between refugee kids like Alan, the elementary school students I mentor for my job at an after-school program, and any kids any of us happen to know, whether our siblings, children, nieces, nephews, or whoever else, is where they were born. But many of these refugee children are dead now because of awful geopolitical machinations that they had nothing to do with.

Too many children have been buried, and will continue to be buried, by their parents, their siblings, their grandparents.  Not just those fleeing Syria, either.  While Syrian refugees are currently the ones most prominently in the headlines, it is worth noting the Central American refugee crisis is still happening despite no longer being in the headlines.  There are refugees being created every day in other parts of the world as well.

These tragedies are why understanding international affairs matter.  Politics aren't abstract ideas.  They're very real policies and institutions that affect lives all over the globe.  Sometimes they also end them.

Badass of the Year: Aura Elena Farfán

Some of the entries on this list have touched on the grim side of humanity, the horrors we commit against one another, the tragedies that result from the often ugly world we have created.  Especially the entry before this one.  To call these injustices discouraging is an understatement.

But the power to fight back and work for a better world is possible.  It's not just possible, in fact, but it's something that many people around the world are doing right now as I type this and as you read it.  This entry is partially for them, but also for us: a reminder that action, not cynical resignation, is what we can and should strive for.

The Guatemalan Civil War began in 1960 and lasted all the way until 1996, when peace accords were signed and democracy restored.  Yes, 1996; me and many of you reading this are older than Guatemala's current democratic regime. Democracy had existed once before, from 1944 to 1954.  But in 1954 the US overthrew the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz and installed military dictator Castillo Armas, who was assassinated by Guatemalans in 1957.  The United States tried to impose order by backing more military dictators after Armas was killed, but stability didn't come.  In 1960 Guatemala's Civil War erupted between a repressive military government and left wing guerrillas.  Gross human rights violations occurred, 93% of which were perpetrated by the military government, with 83% of its victims being indigenous Mayan people.

In 1984, Aura Elena Farfán's brother was kidnapped and killed by the military regime.  She opposed the military regime when it was in power, and in 1992 she founded FAMDEGUA, an NGO that supports families in their search for missing loved ones who were kidnapped (and usually killed) by the military regime.  She gets results, too, which would probably explain all the death threats she gets from people still connected to the military regimes of the Civil War.

But does that stop her?  No.  Aura Elena Farfán still presses forward, continuing to support the families of people who lost loved ones during the Civil War, and fighting to get those who committed atrocities behind bars.  That takes a ridiculous amount of courage to do in a nation still plagued by corruption and violence.  For that reason, Aura Elena Farfán is my pick for badass of the year.  A reminder that a better world is possible, but only if we take up the effort to make it so.

The One Problem I Had with The Force Awakens

This last Thursday I finally finished my first semester of graduate school.  I also saw Episode VII: The Force Awakens that night.

Many people who have written about Episode VII have felt the need to talk about what the original Star Wars trilogy meant to them.  Unlike a lot of the people who attended the premiere, I am not a hardcore fan of the series.  I quite enjoy the original trilogy and would even call A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back great movies, but I don't hold the same level of reverence for the series a lot of people do.  That's not to pretend I'm above geeky obsessions; half of this blog is me picking apart geeky works of fiction that I unapologetically love to obsess over.  It's just that I didn't grow up with Star Wars the way many of the more dedicated fans have, and as a result it doesn't represent more to me than a well-done, exciting trilogy- which, of course, means I still hold it in high regard.

With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.  I think, other than the dazzling visuals and imaginative universe that are trademarks of the Star Wars universe, what truly made this movie good was its cast of characters.  I loved the introduction of Finn, Rey, and Poe; I loved the way they fit Han Solo, General Leia, and Luke Skywalker in; more than anything, though, I loved the dynamics between these characters and the relationships this film created.

I also very much enjoyed the absence of a character internet writer Seanbaby

perfectly described as "a floppy-eared moon fuck in black face"

That's what made the film for me.  Yes, they cut and pasted a lot of the same story beats from A New Hope.  Considering how much pressure they had from the fans to make movies that "actually felt like Star Wars" I don't blame them for adhering so closely to the original trilogy.  But while the story beats borrow a lot from the beginning of Episode IV, the characters in this movie are very much their own.  Their interactions and journeys are enough, at least to me, to call Episode VII a success.

I've seen a lot of criticisms of the new film, some of which I think are unfair and some of which I think are fair but didn't quite ruin the experience for me.  An example of the former is the complaint that Kylo Ren doesn't feel as intimidating as Darth Vader; the movie makes it clear that an intimidating, inhuman villain like Darth Vader isn't what they are going for in Kylo Ren.  An example of the latter is the complaint about how Han stumbles across Finn and Rey; the level of perfect coincidence is definitely ridiculous and made me cringe as a writer, but as a viewer I was just glad to see Han Solo show up again on the big screen even if what got him there was kinda silly.

But there was one major problem I had with the film that jarred me out of the experience: it had to do with Finn.

In what will be obvious to most people reading this but not quite everyone: SPOILERS AHEAD.  You should only read on if you have already seen the movie.

Finn is introduced to us as a storm trooper who doesn't like violence and hates his role as a storm trooper for the First Order, the successor to the Empire from the original trilogy.  The inner conflict is seen through Finn's body language before we even see his face.  As part of the group sent to Jakku to rough up Max von Sydow's village to find the map that contains the location of Luke Skywalker, Finn sees an ally of his get gunned down right before his very eyes.  This nameless storm trooper's bloody hand desperately flails around as he is killed by one of the resisting villagers, leaving blood-stained finger prints on Finn's helmet.  This kicks off Finn's arc as a storm trooper who hates the violence he finds himself mixed up in.

This is not the look of someone who enjoys being surrounded by killing.

Shortly thereafter Finn helps Poe Dameron, one of the Resistance's top pilots, escape from captivity.  When Poe asks Finn why he is breaking him out, Finn responds with "because it's the right thing to do" after everything he has seen.  It's a well-done moment that begins Finn's arc from storm trooper tired of killing to someone who fights for the Resistance against the evil First Order.  When done right, this character archetype can be one of the most interesting types of characters out there.

Then his arc loses consistency only minutes after Finn breaks Poe out of his cell.

 When Finn takes Poe to the hangar to escape, they end up commandeering a TIE fighter.  Poe, being the pilot he is, takes the controls of the TIE fighter.  That leaves Finn in charge of the turret attached to the back.  When he climbs into the turret seat Finn's struggle is entirely external, trying to figure out how the controls for the turret work.  As soon as he figures out how to work the controls, he gleefully starts killing his former allies as he makes his escape with Poe.

The tone shift is jarring.  In the scene before he stood somberly over his dead ally, clearly upset to see the death of one of his own.  Then, in the very next scene, he's blasting away at the only people he'd known ever since he was kidnapped as a child and forced into the storm trooper army.

The horrors of war are truly too much for one man to bear...

unless that man gets to shoot a totally fucking sweet laser turret!

Speaking of being kidnapped as a child and forced into the First Order army, let's think about that for a moment.  If a large portion of storm troopers are people who were kidnapped as children and forced to become soldiers, that makes Finn's lack of remorse even more weird.  How many people does he kill who are just as scared as he is, but haven't summed up the courage to defect from the First Order?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he should've not shot at them or that this needed to be a film where he is constantly haunted by unrelenting guilt for the entirety of the film.  What I am saying is that it was off-putting to see Finn, a person who knows the plight of the common storm trooper better than anyone, switch from being shaken by the death of a fellow storm trooper to gleefully shooting at them without even a hint of hesitation.

This trend continues throughout the movie.  We see later how much he fears The First Order, especially when he wants to flee to the outer system to escape their reaches, but we never see much about his connection to his former fellow troops.  Later, when he first picks up Luke's light saber, we see him face down a fellow storm trooper who busts out what looks like a laser chainsaw that calls Finn "traitor!" before initiating an attacking.  I thought this might be a former friend of his, yelling "traitor!" because they feel betrayed by Finn switching sides.  Maybe they would have an emotionally impactful showdown and we'd see Finn feel some sort of inner conflict about fighting former comrades of his.

Unfortunately, it just turns into a normal fight against a generic storm trooper who just happens to have a cool looking weapon.  Finn goes on to keep mowing down storm trooper after storm trooper without a second thought.  Later he helps blow up the Starkiller, which is the size of a small planet.  As someone who used to work there Finn surely had to have people he knew there, but he helps initiate the plan and carry it out without any sort of internal turmoil.

Who needs moral ambiguity and nuance when you have a motherfucking lightsaber?

Again, I'm not saying Finn shouldn't have done anything he did.  The First Order is clearly terrible and, even if the storm troopers might be human beings coerced into fighting for them, any storm trooper who fired a gun at the Resistance were fighting on the side of planet-destroying fascists.  They needed to be dealt with for the good of the galaxy.

But when you have someone who grew up a storm trooper, who knew the human side of them, who understood that many of them probably didn't want to be there but felt like they had no choice, it's strange to see Finn kill wave after wave of them without even blinking.  Even a throwaway line or facial expression to show any hint of conflict would've shown hints of an internal struggle that Finn was trying to overcome.


So that was my biggest problem with Episode VII.  Rather than having a character arc that shows Finn gradually come to terms with the fact that he has to fight former comrades of his, we go from him being shaken up by the death of a comrade to joyfully shooting at other storm troopers in the time it takes some people to take a dump.

Regardless, I still very much enjoyed the movie.  When the beginning text crawl and music started I found myself more excited than I thought I would be.  Despite how early I had woken up that day and how much I had done, I never felt the least bit tired.  The movie raced by and I felt like it ended too soon, despite a run time of two hours and fifteen minutes.

I can't wait to see where this trilogy goes.  This movie set up a lot of promising character arcs and interesting directions for the dynamics between them to grow.  Hopefully the next two movies include more complex character moments for Finn and everyone else. Given what this movie showed me, I have confidence they'll build something wonderful.

Why The Way We Think About Bias is Wrong

Often, when we think about bias, we think about a person or group explicitly making their opinion known and using slanted rhetoric that clearly favors their position.  Everyone knows that Fox News is biased towards the Republican Party and MSNBC is biased towards the Democratic Party, after all.  Instead, they should put their opinions aside and let the facts speak for themselves!

If only it were that easy.  Avoiding bias isn't just about using a neutral tone and consulting the facts.  Bias runs much deeper than that, and it isn't at all mutually exclusive with neutral tones or factual accuracy, either.

Here's an experiment.  Choose a recent world event and read different news sources about the event.  Not opinion columns, just regular articles.  Let's take the recent anti-government protest in Beirut as an example.  Here's ABC News (United States), The BBC (Great Britain), Al Jazeera (Qatar), Tasnim News Agency (Iran), and Deutsche Welle (Germany) covering these protests.

 Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything from the world's greatest news personality.

Take a quick glance through at least a couple of those articles.  They cover the exact same event, but check out how they frame their story.  What historical context do they give to this event?  What individuals and groups do they choose to cite?  How do they describe the different factions in this story?  Which quotes from the protesters do they choose to use?  Each of these articles have different answers to these sorts of questions, each one presenting different pictures for the exact same event.  And here's the thing: none of them are factually inaccurate or using slanted rhetoric.

It's not just news, either.  It's an inherent part of how we receive and impart information of any type.  Being a history graduate student, I'll use the field of history as an example.  The process of creating History with a capital "H" involves consulting all sorts of credible sources, extracting verified facts, and weaving together a narrative.  But which credible documents do you consult?  Which verified facts do you include?  How do you integrate all of this information into a historical narrative?

Once more, it's tempting to say "let the facts speak for themselves!" and leave it at that.  But think about the implications of that for a moment.  If you were a historian trying to chronicle the present, in order to document the present right now, you'd need to use bias.  You'd need to make decisions about the questions from the above paragraph.  Otherwise, you'd have to go through literally every single document about the present and include literally every single fact you find.  Could you imagine how long it'd take to write the History for a single day if you included a multifaceted, well-sourced section about every documented event that happened during that day?

In the United States, we all remember how George Washington crossed the Delaware River to fight Hitler in a bare knuckle boxing match [citation needed].  But why do we not mention almost everyone else who has ever crossed the Delaware before or since?  On the other hand, why have we not studied George Washington's bathroom etiquette in depth?  It's because historians have collectively decided that those aren't important details to include.  And if they didn't make those sorts of decisions, we'd have impossibly pointless and boring history classes that would take weeks just to cover what happened in a single hour of any given day.

And that concludes everything we know we know about the 11,584,137th person to ever cross the Delaware.  Now, onto one of my personal favorites, the 11,584,138th person...

No one would study History if that were the case.  We need to chisel down how much information we include to make it digestible, and those decisions ultimately come with bias.  How important do you consider peasants, or merchants, or artists, or nobles, or prostitutes, or incredibly good looking internet bloggers when creating your History?  Do you think History is closer to a biography of certain great individuals or of mass movements determined by complex social factors outside of any one individual's control?

Regardless of your answer to that last question, you're probably going to mention some influential individuals and some influential mass social movements either way.  What kind of individuals and movements do you include?  And how influential does an individual have to be, and how big does a movement have to be, before either of those meet the criteria of "influential" in the first place?  Does that change based on the relation between what these individuals or movements stood for and your own world outlook?  That includes not just your opinion on an issue, but how much you think a certain issues matters; if you care more about the issue of environmentalism than animal rights, regardless of your actual stance on either issue, would you be more likely to include themes from the environmentalism debate in a History textbook of yours than those of animal rights?  If not, how would you decide which themes to put in there?

It's not just modern History that suffers from bias problems, either.

We often think of the Middle Ages as super religious, defined by peasants whose life was dominated by the church.  And, yes, that was the case for a lot of people.  But it's also important to note that during this time most people who could read or write came from the church.  Most of our sources from the time period, therefore, come from clergy members, and the result is that our understanding of the time period is heavily skewed by a religious perspective.  There is evidence to suggest that plenty of non-religious people were around back then, too (check entry 9, though the whole list is worth a read).  Considering where most of our historical sources from that time period come from, though, we're given a lot more information about the church and its importance than a more comprehensive variety of sources would reveal.

In reality, most people from the Middle Ages enjoyed playing chess against Death.

What's crucial to understand here is none of these examples necessarily involve deliberate bias.  Yes, certain documents we use from the past might consciously be trying to alter how people might view the world.  Yes, certain historians will purposefully cherry-pick facts only if they conform to the narrative that they wish to create.  But other times, it's all the nuances of both our general world view and how we view History specifically that subtly inform how we decide what constitutes "real" History.

This makes History sound like a field prone to bullshit, but this type of debate isn't exclusive to History in particular.  Not by a long shot.  The point is that, when it comes to choosing what information to include and how to frame that information, we are always making decisions about what is "important" no matter what area of knowledge we're talking about.  Decisions like that are impossible to make without bias on our part.  I mean, how many people completely agree on what's important in life in general, let alone what's important when it comes to a particular topic?

Bringing it back to the news, when we're reading an article, we're reading a collection of facts and interpretation of these facts that come about as a result of countless processes of selection beforehand, and even if an attempt is made to be neutral about the subject of the article it doesn't erases the biases of everything that led to it.  On top of that, "neutral" itself is a relative term, because different groups of people have different default "neutral" positions.

I've heard people call Al Jazeera, one of the world's most respected news sources, unreliable because it's "anti-American", for instance.  Yet that's just as revealing about our own biases in the United States as it is for those who write for Al Jazeera.  In the US, both major political parties consider United States power and influence to be a good thing, and therefore the "neutral" middle ground between these viewpoints does too.  The Democratic Party may generally prefer a more restrained and multilateral version of United States hegemony, but it doesn't question US supremacy itself.  So when Al Jazeera includes perspectives of those who do and don't like US hegemony, in their own attempt to be neutral because they're based in a part of the world that doesn't automatically consider US supremacy to be good, we are tempted to see it as "biased" because it doesn't fit with our version of what is neutral.  In reality, there is no such thing as truly, objectively neutral.

Except for those from the Neutral Planet, of course.

So when it comes to bias, it's not just a matter of people explicitly stating their opinions, lying, using charged rhetoric, or even purposefully being biased at all.  Yet, for those who do want to talk about a topic and be biased, what facts they do and don't include is much more important than taking potshots at the people they disagree with.  Only choosing facts that make the people you don't like look bad, while not explicitly saying a single bad thing about them, has the dual benefits of painting them in a poor light and not making you look biased in the conventional sense!  Documentaries are great at doing this, though it happens everywhere.

Let's take something that is in no way controversial: racism in the media.  In today's day and age, no one in the news is going to blatantly come out and say black people are criminals.  They don't need to, either.  Just disproportionately cover crimes with black perpetrators and people will unconsciously fill in the blanks on their own.  Bombard people with images of black folks as criminals and you don't need to say a single prejudiced thing about them.  Hell, I would imagine most people involved with the news don't even do this on purpose, and are unconsciously perpetuating this racist imagery that they themselves were bombarded with growing up.  And it's not because those people thirty years ago were consciously racist, either- they almost certainly grew up in the same environment with the same sort of stimuli.  I could go on, but the point is that we can't entirely escape the confines of our biases.

That sounds like cynical resignation that could justify total bullshit because "nothing is really unbiased, man! What's the point of exchanging information if it's inherently impossible to be completely objective?  Might as well just say fuck it and write whatever you want!"

Caution: that's a slippery slope toward becoming an "edgy" doofus

who has nothing particularly interesting or noteworthy to say.

But that doesn't have to be the case.  Most of us don't enter into friendships or romantic relationships expecting the other person to be perfect.  Instead, we get to know people we feel a connection with; if we judge them to be overall good people, we build a bond with them.  It's when we allow for imperfection while still valuing the other person and how they can help us grow that we open up the possibility for very rewarding and positive experiences with them.  There's no reason we can't exercise that same idea for how we deal with information: valuing what we get while making sure we understand it isn't flawless.

Like with almost every other problem, awareness of the issue is the first step.  By understanding that no single source of information can ever be perfect by itself, we can seek information from a variety of credible sources and mold our own outlook to make it as well-informed as possible.  When I say a "credible" source I don't mean an unbiased one, of course.  I mean one that has trustworthy factual accuracy and is held to a certain set of standards, whether journalistic, academic, peer-reviewed, or whatever else.  If we consult a diverse group of quality sources and expose ourselves to as many merited ideas as possible, then we can expand our worldviews and grow intellectually.

This approach may take more effort and nuanced thought than pretending you are immune to bias or embracing "fuck it!"-style cynicism, but the results are more than worth it.