Two More Back Issues of Harper's

by Various

Back in the early eighties, in the newest of the stripmalls on the edge of the poky little bedroom town where I grew up, there was for a brief time a small business called "Newer Trimmer You" which offered, in transparent plastic letters on a big yellow lit-up sign out front, "PASSIVE EXERCISE - THE FEMININE WAY!" My mother and I used to chortle at it as we drove by in the K-car on the way to the orthodontist's. I never found out first-hand what went on behind those dusty-pink vertical blinds, but I heard, or imagined I heard, that it involved lying on a platform and being gently prodded, flexed and jiggled by esoteric machinery, or alternatively that it consisted of the administration of a series of small electric shocks to the fatty tissues.

I will leave you, dear reader, to ponder the implications of all this for the development of gender identity, body image and class consciousness in a young person growing up in that place and time. My recollection of this cultural oddity was triggered by something quite different - namely, the experience of reading Harper's magazine. To clarify: when I read Harper's, I feel as though I were thinking "THE FEMININE WAY".

Ironically (or not), I found a clue to what disturbs me about reading Harper's in Harper's itself, in the "Readings" section, in an interview with author Douglas Rushkoff culled from edge.org, about his latest book, "Coercion". At one point in the interview, Rushkoff says:

"The other main set of techniques that is being used in coercion today is taken from neurolinguistic programming. They are really just simple hypnosis techniques, such as Milton Erickson's "pacing and leading". If you're sitting in a room with someone, what you would do is subtly assume the same position as your target and adopt some of the same breathing and speech patterns - that's pacing. Then, amazingly, you can slowly lead the person by changing your posture, breathing rate, or speech pattern. Your subject will change his posture too, to conform to yours. Then you begin to work on his thinking."*

I always come away from Harper's feeling vaguely paced and led, as though my mind has been passively exercised. I open it up: fascinating tidbits of information that reinforce my view of the world! An article that echoes my ideas on nuclear nonproliferation treaties, in language more eloquent than any I could ever muster! My resistance is worn down. Even when I read something that strikes me as somehow suspect, I find my desire to disagree gone. And when I put the magazine down, I feel a dull craving deep in my guts for an Ivy League education, for mutual funds, for expensive scotch, for sensual products catalogues. I have the mute conviction in my bones that I am an economics professor at a small but prestigious university in Maine, in my early forties, instead of the wealthy heiress with connections to right wing libertarian terrorist organizations that I really am.

*This is good to know anyway. Coincidentally, the evening after I read this, I saw an actor use this technique with a turkey in Emir Kusturica's movie, "Time of the Gypsies."