6 Great Music Videos (For Totally Different Reasons)

In no particular order.

1. Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice

Yes, that's Christopher Walken. Just doing his thing. He's actually a trained dancer, you know.

2. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

I'm not sure just why I love this video, but I do. Probably some symbolic synergy of the Rorschach, that combination of surrealism, symmetry, symbolism, subjectivity, and psychology, all things that strike chords of mine. What do you see in it?

3. Biting Elbows - Bad Motherfucker

Innovation will get you everywhere. This is actually a sequel to the video for their song The Stampede.

4. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal

With all the publicity he got later for his appearance, habits, and Peter Pan syndrome, some people forget why he was called the King of Pop. Just look at those moves. Thriller gets a mention as well, but although more ambitious, it's as much a short film as a music video, and Smooth Criminal just takes the cake for the style.

5. Dead or Alive - Spin Me Round

Odds are you've heard this song, but the music video makes it so much better. This just may be one of the best dances of all time, for reasons I can't explain.

6. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone

http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html
This won't embed here, so just check out the link. Innovation will get you everywhere.

What Is a Man?

You are what you do, not what you say.

Do you agree? My answer is 'yes and no'. At its barest, the statement is just 'people lie.' And that's true. But can you not lie in action as well as in words? Some argue that doesn't matter, that motives are irrelevant, only actions count. Motives are internal, they do not affect the outside world, but actions do. It's a very pragmatic view. It's also very self-centered. 

Think about your own existence. Your experiences, your feelings, your thoughts, your opinions. Do you define these as part of you? I believe identity is ultimately subjective, so if you do not then we may have a very different argument on our hands that I will discuss in a later post. But I think most people would say, 'yes, that is a part of me.' So who are we to deny that to others because such things do not impact our world?

And they do impact our world, albeit indirectly. It could be argued that they're irrelevant, as they are only catalysts to action. Thus, we could remove them from the equation and only look at action - the sum and result of all these motives, feelings etc. But not all of these parts of 'you' always manifest in action. We are frequently contradictory in mind, but our actions can only take one course. If you believe in any degree of determinism, it is this mental 'you', and the rest of your biology's interaction with the outside world that determines action. Those thoughts and feelings of that do not noticeably influence our actions are not any less real to us for it. Why should they be less real for anyone else?

That's certainly a more complicated picture. But I suppose, 'you are the sum of your thoughts, feelings, and biology, as influenced by your environment, manifested by your actions, and determined subjectively' just doesn't have the same ring to it.