OPERATION: Edify
Concerning the Lauren Slater article in the February 2006 issue of National Geographic "Love":
Prologue:
At the outset I apologize to the author of the article. It is a good thing to be published, I know,
and I would be upset if someone came along and shot every paragraph of it full of holes, as this is what I must do now.
Some of the information presented in the story is useful, but the net effect is terribly destructive and must be quashed. Furthermore, I will try to keep the criticisms to the article itself, even though many of the passages invite savage attacks
on the author herself. That is the one bait I will not take. Every other aspect is pertinent, and I will destroy this paper
from all sides all at once.
Overview:
The article is titled several different ways, using the all-too-common system of making you search around the damn magazine
before you find what you want, peering past advertisements. This is a mark against the article, as to be surrounded by
gaudy trash advertisements could never be a mark for. The article is called "True Love" or "Love: the chemical reaction"
or has no title at all. It is difficult to say, and makes the reader at the outset confused. Am I reading a title, or are
all these markings a kind of preamble to it? Does it really have a title at all? I think it doesn't. No dishonest thing on
Earth is content with only a single name to tell to people, nor a single name to have for itself.
The overall arrangement is adequate for a college-level short essay, relying on misplaced page-size photographs to meet the
page count requirement that, perhaps, the magazine itself has found its articles ought to be to keep the reader as
interested as possible while seeing as many of the supporting ads as possible. Just a guess. The pictures are certainly
next door to irrelevant, as in the context of the article nearly the opposite of the theme is going on. The article will
present, for example, a picture of newlyweds around a section about how love fades, as if this series of shots is only a
burlesque of the romantic process to be mocked. It is generally not sporting to mock pictures of people. Mock the people
while they can hear you. Keep your slights out of print. This would have been best done by axing the silly photos, but then,
why have a color magazine?
Or a magazine article at all for that matter: Another annoying feature is the need to feel journalistic by printing excerpts
from the article at the heading of each page that counters a picture. This would be a great tool for visual balance and
design, except neither the picture nor the excerpt is useful. Moreover, the particular excerpts chosen have the damnable
quality of instilling alarm in the skimmer, where the reader finds this alarm reduced by a greater understanding of the
context of the excerpt. Even with that understanding these ominous headings get read and repeated in your head again and
again as you go, becoming the slogans with which you contemplate the article. It
is this beat that completes the foul trap of the whole piece, each paragraph
offering between mild sedative and harsh stimulant of the idea. This makes the
whole article feel as though it is trying to bore its way into the psyche of any
reader and paralyze thoughts of love as a transcendental ideal or even positive
good.
Page by Page:
34. From the very beginning, Slater places the reader in her shoes by
reciting personal experiences. This rhetorical tool finds good use in articles
about life-threatening survival experiences, fox-hunts, mystery novels, and epic
science fiction. There is nothing at all wrong with the tool, and even in the
context of an essay can provide substantial emotional underpinning, lending an
understanding of the intended tone. It rounds out a piece. Slater uses the tool
poorly throughout, as on article page 34. Verisimilitude, indeed trust in the
narrative is needed and missing: Slater's proclaimed "I am a modest person"
falls flat. Modesty didn't forbid her to unflinchingly expose herself to a
professional tattoo artist, or from getting the henna, or from telling a million
people all about it. What exactly does modesty forbid her from doing? Going
further along in the story than her husband "newly wed one" undressing her,
which was, at that, a modest feat. Finishing the intro with the vague "I
blushed, and we began" cements the confusion. Clearly she's not going to tell us
any more about that night, or else the article would have been found in a
Playboy instead of a National Geographic. More is the pity, as perhaps that
would have been a worthy read: a newly wed bride speaking from personal
experience about the intimacies of honeymoon night would at least have the stamp
of solid journalism: write what you know. Instead we have a chimera of cultural
puerility and scientific misunderstanding, inbred with poor writing.
35. The personal narrative is actually not bad, even readable until
Slater tries to make a segue into the focus of the article. The first attempt is
at the top of page 35, right after recanting her emotional baggage over the
stresses of everyday married life. Slater flips to the general with casuistic
alacrity: "Does passion necessarily diminish over time?" , "Can a marriage be
good when Eros is replaced with friendship..." Can I have a reason why you're
telling me all of this? Instead of reason, the reader finds flowery elaboration
of the baggage, leading to a charming mixed-metaphor for romantic love that I
shall piece together along the way. The bulk happens on 35, showing us that love
is little imps that tie a tight knot that is marriage until it is frayed, and
that Big Bird is one of these imps. Watch out for the rest of this metaphor. As
for the writing, omitting the second paragraph of 35 "Let me be clear..." would
help the flow of the article much without losing needed information. I will let
you be clear, if only I could. Instead the reader is thrown back into the vague
and general, faced with Dracula and the Flintstones, and a general statement
that sounds more like a personal recitation than the opening does:
"...All is gravel and somewhat silly, the song so familiar you can't stop singing it, and when you do, the emptiness is almost unbearable."
This sounds more like a person
posing a hypothetical question about an anonymous third party who is actually
the poser. For this reason, the article thereafter makes far more sense if the
reader replaces instances of the impersonal with the personal identifier:
replace "we" and "you" with "I." This montage is also our introduction to the
first scientist called to light, as well as a personal introduction that makes
the Anthropologist Helen Fisher out to be a madam. Maybe that description is
appropriate. My guess is not. The segue is lost on me, but I'm not a very clever
person. Finally ready to quote Fisher, Slater shows poor grip of flow and even
tense, the effect is to shock the reader once Fisher starts in about orgasms as
a scientific measurement. Further on "'madly in love'" is put in quotes, and
therefore must be a scientific or technical term, doubtless thanks to the MRI
people. At last the reader discovers Slater's intent with mentioning the
Anthropologist at all, showing one of a handful interested in linking the
psychological behavior of attraction with the measurable cognitive phenomenon
underlying it. This is a touchy subject and needs a little explanation:
It is easy to read about brain surgery and worry that mind control isn't far
behind. Such a leap is unwarranted and dangerous. Cognitive Neuroscientists,
like the above Anthropologist doubtless also is, are interested in the biology
of the mind, and spend toilsome days mapping and charting and measuring. Not
meddling. Fisher is as interested in developing a love philter as in leaping
from her penthouse. This caveat goes once again for all the other instances of
neuroscience, and while Slater lends to the suspicion that the scientists are
out for your soul, a sapient reader will not take the leg-up.
The brain regions that Slater mentions regarding Fisher's research deserve a
little more light than they're given: the ventral tegmental area I think refers
to the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex. I could not find her term in my books.
The VLPFC is involved in some executive functions and memory, is near the
hippocampus toward the midbrain, in front of the central sulcus and below the
prefrontal cortex. I am not surprised that this area lit up when patients were
shown pictures of their lovers. The caudate nucleus is part of the basal ganglia
in the midbrain, has weak input functions, routes some motor signals and lights
up for spontaneous facial expression. Again no surprises. As for tracing the
exact chemical pathways responsible, no competent neuroscientist would try it
with anything more complicated than a lobster. By the way "'lit-up'" is another
technical term.
As for the mention of dopamine, the neurotransmitter has a well-established role
and a wide recognition. Parkinson's patients lack the neurotransmitter in a few
key regions and as a result lose motor function. Heightened levels throughout
the brain have been shown in schizophrenic patients. Plenty of history. This is
not proof of anything, certainly not of the thesis Slater presents toward the
end of the page, read as: Love stimulates the reception of dopamine in the right
amount to the caudate nucleus, which creates intense energy to make one bold and
active. The thesis does just as well without mention of the dopamine or caudate
nucleus, and would instead drop the mask of authority presented when the terms
are present. The terminal phrase "which sometime you survive, and sometimes you
don't" could only possibly stimulate worry. Mention of the pitfalls surrounding
the phenomenon of attraction jabs at the reader at intervals, and is out of
place every single time.
36-37: The first graphic. These people are enjoying themselves around
Slater's discussion of her first childhood crush on a teacher. Again, I'm not
clever enough to make the connection.
38. The flip back to the personal narrative came out of the blue and
offers little relevance. The segue finally leads Slater to link love and mental
illness, which is a burlesque and melodramatic statement fit for the girl
described and not the writer describing. The transition into the second
scientist is particularly jarring. Slater stands behind the second scientist out
to get you, a professor of psychiatry Donatella Marazziti, who allegedly became
interested in exploring the similarities between love and OCD. The page brings
out a lot of buzz words and little science, calling to light serotonin and some
popular drugs used to alter its levels. "'Imbalance'" is our next technical
term. Marazziti sounds like a qualified and competent scientist, and surely
would not have condoned the translation of her work presented:
"Translation: Love and OCD could have a similar chemical profile. Translation: Love and mental illness could be difficult to tell apart. Translation: Don't be a fool. Stay away."
To begin with, Marazziti discovered nothing of the kind. Correlation does not determine causation. Even within this translation, Slater drives from the almost sensible to the plain batty. Read it again and again until it sounds silly. Then you will have the correct tone. Slater is a poor translator. Love and mental illness do share a rare quality, though, each is baffling to psychologists. If the closest neuroscience can come to describing each is a little vague road mapping and mere mention of two neurotransmitters, then the mystery is still safe. A much simpler analysis would conclude that it is still safe to categorize love and mental illness under different headings, the former generally an adaptive trait, the latter generally a maladaptive trait. Drawing the conclusion from this part of the article that people on the medications mentioned experienced emotions only because of the drugs is illogical and dangerous and fully possible given the context and tone. This danger alone precludes Slater's article from credibility, as even good science bent on tearing apart people's lives does not garner praise.
39-43: Dropped in graphics. The story around them is Slater's description of the psychoanalytical psychological orientation's viewpoint of connection-making. The appropriateness again eludes me.
44. Slater picks up on the
general narrative regarding the biological explanation of love as an adaptive
trait. About half of this is adequate reading. A half-truth is a whole lie. The
only valuable part on any level is the continuation of our mixed metaphor for
love: Gorilla glue. This time its pretty gross, doubtless the intent. In
starting a new heading, Slater is no longer content to stick to science for
backup for poor translations and explanations. Instead, the reader is presented
with a comparably elaborate story about how romance looks in non-western
cultures. The tone is condescending and even vulgar. The effect is to rally
culture adversity, while providing no explanation of context or control of
topic. These pages in a thoroughly confusing article stand alone as baffling in
the extreme.
45. Finishing with the story, Slater flips back into the poor translation
of science.
46-47: In the middle of explaining a study of prairie voles and oxytocin
levels, this picture of an annuated couple appears. I think they're portrayed
because they're animals, or maybe because biologists tampered with their levels
of oxytocin. Maybe I'm stumped for the third time.
48. Now autism joins in without warning or consideration. Seems we're not
content with only one kind of mental disorder as a foil for attraction, we need
to include more without adequate comparison or justification. The reasoning
seems to be that the more maladies mentioned bring more credibility to bear for
the ideas presented. I am neither impressed nor fooled. For considerations of
flow, omit the part about autism. The article will read the same, although I
can't make it read well. Our running metaphor is now an acquired taste, peas in
addition to everything else.
The kissing school is the closest Slater comes to having a sound
narrative underpinning: too bad it was cut so short. Too bad it was misplaced. I
could have used knowledge of Slater's failure at the beginning of the article as
to put the tenor of the argument in context. Hindsight says that the tone fits.
49. As for the finisher with the game of stare-eyes, take this article
with the turtle back to the sea. Let it float away.
I hope to have provided a suitable reading companion for a dangerous piece of literature. I hope to have taken the stinger off the edge of the argument presented therein. I hope to have entertained good humor, good science, and good culture. I hope to have defended the production of quality attraction through reasonable means, and aided an understanding of how the methods and qualities of love can be best studied. Mostly I hope I never have to meet Lauren Slater in life.
And in case you're wondering what she thinks love is, look no further than our running mixed metaphor: Love is an acquired taste for peas who are imps tightening the knot of your affection while tearing at its threads of togetherness, held in place by sticky gorilla glue of your strong love life's skin of a lice-ridden peasant. I love poetry.