tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80183839536256192512024-02-18T21:47:43.305-06:00Five Dollar RadioUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2000125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-56040133713872636442017-08-24T18:24:00.003-05:002017-08-24T18:24:23.345-05:00Google Memo, reduxIt's been nearly a month since the memo heard round the world (Twitter) dropped off the front page, but it's made me rethink a few things that I'd been taking for granted too long. I'm not one to shy away from criticizing feminism, especially when it collides with the internet outage industry, but this one left me particularly disappointed as people retreated to familiar corners. The majority of women I follow, and fair number of men, interpreted it as "women are less capable" instead of "women, compared to men, are less interested in stem and that might contributed to their lack of representation." Maybe my interpretation is charitable, but when anything less than "SEXISM! ALWAYS! ALL THE TIME!" is viewed as heresy, speaking up is social suicide.<br />
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I still don't think he should have been fired.<br />
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But something else started bothering me. I'm not about to deny that sexism exists, or that it's not a huge problem in the tech industry, but not even considering that there might be other factors at play does a disservice to those women who are outliers. High-status things coded as "male," like good paying jobs in the tech industry, garner more attention when they fail to reach gender parity than, say, road work or firefighting. For someone without a college degree, they pay well, better than service industry jobs where women dominate. Granted, those jobs are physically risky and less likely to appeal to women, but there aren't a whole lot of think pieces written about their lack of women.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-1727613883492672462017-08-12T18:24:00.002-05:002017-08-12T18:24:53.222-05:00 That Google memo, women in tech, and stepping in landmines<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
(Reblogged from my Tumblr)</div>
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I wasn’t planning on tackling this at all, and certainly not with what will most likely amount to a statistically meaningless anecdote, but whenever I read feminist arguments regarding nature vs nurture (and let’s face it, when it comes to discussions about the gender, the left can look pretty hypocritical sometimes), I think, “Jeez, I haven’t made it to feminism yet.” I was good in math and science when I was a kid (enough that I was skipped from a third grade math class to a fourth-fifth at the end of semester), and then I just wasn’t so good at school for reasons to numerous to go into here, but no one ever said to me, “Hey, this is a job you can do,” not because I was a girl, but because without role models, I had no idea what a computer programmer did or a scientist did outside of, like, Young Frankenstein. All of the adults around me had “jobs” not careers. A job was something you did to earn a paycheck. A job was something that probably left you tired and dirty at the end of the day. A good job – like my grandfather’s truck driving job – gave you security and a pension and healthcare – and if you want to talk about “masculine” working-class jobs vs “feminine” (waitressing, housekeeping, service industry) ones, I can, and I think we should, but “Omg, someone at google is thinking the wrong things!”</div>
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The memo was dumb. And in the giant game of telephone that is the internet, it was turned into something evil. I read what was posted to Gizmodo and thought the reaction was overblown but unsurprising (and apparently he was fired so good job I guess). But also disappointing because this is how we talk about these issues now.</div>
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<a href="http://fivedollarradio.tumblr.com/post/163984575174/casually-perusing-anti-diversity-headlines">Also,</a> <a href="http://fivedollarradio.tumblr.com/post/164039662459/how-the-internet-got-the-google-memo-wrong-the">also,</a> <a href="http://fivedollarradio.tumblr.com/post/164061954684/when-it-comes-to-the-genetic-differences-between">also</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-26976027433998614242017-06-10T08:31:00.001-05:002017-06-10T11:26:21.771-05:00Bill Maher's Teachable MomentI caught Real Time last night, Bill Maher's first show back after dropping the n-word in response to a clumsily insensitive remark from senator Ben Sasse. Full disclosure: I've watched Maher's show in some fashion since his Politically Correct days, which I know in 2017 is the wrong answer. It's easier to not only outright condemn but demand punishment, but I think Real Time is one of the few shows out there that does feature a diversity of opinion among its panelists (sometime to its own detriment), and Maher isn't afraid to criticize his own tribe, sometimes to his own detriment, and that's pretty rare these days. Anyway, this is what I scribbled down after watching "Bill's teachable moment":<br />
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Maher is in a position of great "privilege" (and I don't use that word casually) in that he's afforded what most people who's been at the receiving end of a public call-out don't have and that's a large platform. Despite the calls for HBO to fire him, he's never been in danger of losing his show. He can screw up royally and survive. Even if HBO had decided to pull the show, he'd still land on his feet because he's done it before. Everyone should have this luxury. (And guess who generally doesn't?)<br />
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That said, he's a clueless 60-year-old white guy whose brand of comedy went out of style decades ago, and didn't exactly demonstrate that he understood why what he said was wrong in any context. (Symone Sanders, one of the panelists, was astute in pointing out that it wasn't just a slur against African-Americans, but black women in particular.)<br />
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I did like how he said it was "wasted political capital." Maher's a polarizing figure, but he thrives on controversy almost to the point of being self-destructive (especially now when it's better to signal loudly than offer nuance and context). But it was a little selfish.<br />
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Ice Cube made a really good observation that he might have to choose between comedy and politics, because it's almost impossible to juggle being thought leader and a subversive comedian. I've always thought the same thing -- you can't be both edgy and "woke." Sorry, in 2017, it doesn't work anymore.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-58369247126476887582017-02-19T09:35:00.001-06:002017-02-19T09:35:31.703-06:00Writing, editing, structuringThe biggest problem I have isn't writing, it's structuring writing. Making a long piece of fiction make sense is fucking hard! No really, you can conceive of a complete story in your head and have it all turn to shit once it hits paper.<br />
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I can't stop obsessing over this. Is it a "writer" problem or just a "me" problem? The un-fun aspects of writing are rarely talked about, There's much said about inspiration, about writer's block and how to get your ideas on paper, but very little about the dirty work required once you've vomited those ideas all over the page.<br />
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As a child, when I wanted to makes something, I'd taken an existing thing apart and lay all its pieces out on the floor to see how they were interconnected. A few years ago, I did the same thing with a novel I was reading. I literally dissected it, chapter by chapter, and made a timeline to have a visual representation of how the narrative "flowed." I recently did that with one of my drafts, and I plan on doing it with a second. I can't say yet if it's working, but I can spot some of the flaws easier than I would if I had to treat it as some big thing, and that's a plus.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-79163106981388198282017-02-18T09:26:00.001-06:002017-02-18T18:28:00.491-06:00UpdateIt's been a while since I posted here. As standalone blogs have become quaint and limited to those with a large platform, this one has become largely unnecessary for me to maintain on a regular basis. I haven't give up yet, but I don't relish coming here anymore.<br />
<br />
Despite my reservations about its being a platform for younger people, I've been using Tumblr as my online home. It's actually pretty good for fandoms and the kind of casually blogging I started with before everyone was required to take a political stand on everything. Yes, it has a history of that, too, but it's unavoidable, mostly, if you know who to follow. The bad part is, of course, how quickly a post can go viral, so I feel as though I have to be extra-careful there. Not because I'm so afraid of being hurt (one of the benefits of getting old is developing a pretty thick skin), but because I'd rather not strangers have feelings all over me or be tethered to an online fight. I do miss the contrarian bullshit I did here, however tamely.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-53884475239669573332016-08-01T08:55:00.000-05:002016-08-01T08:55:40.770-05:00Updates; NaNo, etc.It's been a while since I've posted here. Between NaNo and some family I haven't had time, and frankly I don't know if I'm going to continue this blog in the future. (I'm still active at Tumblr, by the way.)<br />
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Camp NaNo went as smoothly as could be expected, meaning chaotic as hell. The last thing I needed was another long piece of fiction that I'll probably never edit, but I hadn't written in a while, and the diversion was a good one. The story, on the other had, is a meandering piece of surrealist garbage.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-66030072000217655482016-07-01T08:55:00.000-05:002016-07-01T08:55:05.391-05:00Resources for Writers (Updated)There are plenty of free online word processors out there, but <a href="http://docs.google.com/">Google Drive</a> and<a href="http://www.zoho.com/docs/"> Zoho Docs</a> are two of my favs. Personally, I use a combination of Google Docs and Microsoft Word on an old laptop that I use primarily for writing. That way, I can write anywhere, and download later when I'm home. Plus I have an extra saved copy. (I also periodically print my work because I like a "hard" copy I can mark all over.)<br />
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<a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://writerunboxed.com/&sa=U&ei=asZuUtrDPOWN2gWV24CICQ&ved=0CBkQFjAA&sig2=5egPB2rzU5sBkJaScTRHmQ&usg=AFQjCNFuAxNdn7HOT6T4Tf3PXlTNjImGQQ">Writer Unboxed</a> and <a href="http://blog.pshares.org/">Ploughshares</a> are two excellent writing blogs for when you need extra help and inspiration, or just an impetus to keep going.<br />
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<a href="http://nanowrimo.org/forums/writing-101">NaNoWriMo's Writing 101</a> forum is just what it says: a nuts and bolts writing forum where no question is too basic or embarrassing. All of their forums are a fun diversion from NaNo's kamikaze style, but this one is particularly helpful, as are NaNo'ers as a whole.<br />
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<a href="http://writeordie.com/">Write or Die</a> forces you to write by punishing you when you don't. According to their website, it's <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you’re fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences."</span> To be honest, I've never used this, but I know a lot of people who swear by it. And swear <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">at</span> it.<br />
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This <a href="http://random-name-generator.info/">name generator</a> is helpful if you're stuck on a character's name. There are options for names as rare or as common as you need.<br />
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Need help organizing your writing? Here is a handy <a href="http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/your-novel-blueprint">novel blueprint.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-761352589742944302016-06-27T09:00:00.001-05:002016-06-27T09:00:04.398-05:00What should writers write?Short answer: whatever the hell they want to write.<br />
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I want the trend that says a writer should only write about things they've experienced directly to be over. At best, it says, it's inauthentic; at worst, it's appropriation. I even saw an example of addiction being something that shouldn't be written about unless one has experienced it directly.<br />
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I'm not about to become an alcoholic to create a character who is an alcoholic.<br />
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James Walker of quillette posted a lengthy<a href="http://quillette.com/2016/05/04/authenticity-and-experience-the-problem-of-identity-politics-in-literature/"> piece</a> on the fetishization of identity and authenticity in art and literature:<br />
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What has been forgotten in this consciousness of how we are shaped, misshaped, and battered by the world is our own ability to shape it: Freedom. And it’s this forgetting that has perverted our understanding of authenticity. We take how the world has acted upon us as definitive of who we are. We rarely consider that authenticity might not lie in what has been done to you, not in the mere situation in which you find yourself, but in the manner in which you conduct yourself toward it. Writers are not merely receptacles of experience just as they are not the sum of their influences. As much as authors draw from their own experiences or other authors, they seek to define themselves from them, to set their own work apart. When we admire a beautiful work of art, we do so not as if it is a sort of serendipitous accident, the fortunate convergence of historical and social determinacy, but because it bears the mark of a particular will, imagination, and creativity. It is what is active that renders art art, defines the artist as an artist. Authenticity is activity.</blockquote>
It's important to view this as part of a larger phenomenon where experience trumps knowledge and is exempt from criticism. To this, he adds:<br />
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Rationally and epistemologically speaking, this elevation of “lived experience” to a sort of untouchable status makes little sense. At the most basic level, personal experience is unreliable at best, outright misleading at worst.</blockquote>
And it says nothing about talent, about detailing the human experience in a way that anyone can find meaning in. Restrictions on who gets to say what doesn't make the canon any stronger.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-6071292488526420112016-06-25T08:26:00.000-05:002016-06-25T08:26:24.235-05:00Quoted: Carol Tavris on Victim Identity<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The power of these symbolic abusers -- and the power of the narrative of The Victim Who Survives -- are reasons that many women, and increasingly men, are attracted to the victim identity, which is rapidly expanding its boundaries. Incest in childhood is abuse, because it is committed by a trusted relative, and is extremely detrimental to a child's emerging sense of self, autonomy, and agency. But is it as traumatic to be flashed by an exhibitionist, fondled briefly in the subway, or kissed against one's will at the end of a date? Increasingly the answer is yes: if you feel abused, you were abused. -- Carol Tavris from The Mismeasure of Woman</blockquote>
This seems harsh now, but given the self-help/repressed memories climate of the late 80s and early 90s in which the book was written, it made sense to ask those question. And maybe I am heartless, but I think those questions should be asked today. <i>"If you feel abused, you were abused." </i>If you feel victimized, then you are a victim. Not much different the cries of "My FEEEELS!" from those even tangentially tied to the activist left. When your choices are oppressed and oppressor, and you see the most oppressed claiming the biggest prize, what's the alternative?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-10519096734121715492016-06-20T08:58:00.001-05:002016-06-20T08:58:23.903-05:00Susan Faludi on the constructs of identity<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Surely there was a more complex drama beneath the crinoline and cinched waists, a narrative involving a particular set of needs, desires, aspirations, fears. If so, it was impossible to divine from those accounts [of transgender narratives]. The one plotline of I-have-always-been-a-woman seemed to be trumping all the other motivations that might reflect the crosscurrents of the human psyche, motivations that weren't exclusively about gender. Where were the memoirs that engaged in some degree of self-introspection? I looked in vain for an account where the author asked, "Could I also be seeking womanhood to reclaim my innocence, be exonerated from the sins of my male past?" Or "Could I be craving the moral stature that comes from being oppressed?" Or "Do I want to be a woman to feel special? Celebrated? Loved? Could that whole nest of an individual's history, all the idiosyncratic struggles, disappointments, and yearnings of a life, really be stuffed so tidily into the bottle labeled Identity? -- Susan Faludi from <i>In The Darkroom</i></blockquote>
I'm reading Susan Faludi's new book on her father's late-in-life transition. I hope it isn't summarily dismissed as "transphobic" simply because it asks those very questions. For what it's worth, I do find those other narratives, sometimes written by de-transitioners, usually hidden in the deep recesses of the blogosphere and under assumed names.<br />
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"Could I be craving the moral stature that comes from being oppressed?" </blockquote>
I think this is pretty important and under-explored in progressive-thinking circles, not just feminist-queer ones. When you have an ideology that places everyone along axes of power, and now, where even being an "ally" simply isn't good enough, spurious claims of "victimhood" (Tumblr's never-ending parade vanity genders, someone claiming to be "disabled" by seasonal allergies, etc.) are bound to happen. Of course I'm not saying <i>all </i>claims of oppression are created in response to a system that rewards suffering, but as someone who's spent a fair amount of time in those circles, it's easy to see how, say, someone like Rachel Dolezal happened.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-32572681286395759462016-06-16T08:54:00.000-05:002016-06-16T08:54:59.988-05:00HousekeepingI'm not deleting this blog -- not yet -- but I've done some serious housekeeping, getting rid of the link dumps and the video dumps that have become all too familiar around here. I'm going to be focusing on my other writing for a while, so my posting here my be pretty sporadic. The truth is, it's just not fun anymore: the constant worry that one wrong post, one "wrong" opinion that can forever slot a writer in the category of "bad person." The weird "ownership" or particular viewpoints. I'm ready to be done with it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-88674019148604987432016-05-30T08:53:00.000-05:002016-06-14T08:53:06.735-05:00A Young person speaks out against online feminism<a href="http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fquillette.com%2F2016%2F05%2F29%2Fconfessions-of-a-recovering-tumblr-feminist%2F&t=OWMyYTQ1YTA3OTI5MjM4NmNlZGIyNmM4MDcxNzIxOGUxZjIzY2M1YyxyelJDYjh5Zg%3D%3D">Confessions of a Recovering Tumblr Feminist</a>
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When I was in middle-school, I discovered feminism. Always a voracious reader, I devoured every book on it that I could find — eagerly eating the words of feminists like Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, and Naomi Wolf. When I was done with books, I turned my attention to the interwebs, where communities of social justice warriors congregate. </blockquote>
I was exposed to feminism piecemeal; I never had a “click” moment. My grandmother had a lot of disdain for “women’s libbers" because she thought they were taking away men’s jobs. To her and her sisters who waited tables or worked in factories, staying home to raise kids seemed like a luxury, so I don’t blame her. I read Blacklash and The Beauty Myth in high school, and later Greer and Friedan, but I also read women critical of feminism like Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Katie Roiphe. I thought they were part of the same system, not the enemy. I never took a woman’s studies class, for which I’m thankful now. Either way, I love when posts like this one pop up in my newsreader.
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For me, feminism was an enticing religion. Raised in a home devoid of faith, I eagerly accepted its philosophy as my ticket to salvation.</blockquote>
Any ideology can function as religion when you grant it enough power.
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Social justice theory also taught me about microaggressions. Rarely did I go a day without interpreting what someone said as such, as a personal affront to myself or one of the <b>7 marginalized identities that feminist social-justice Tumblr gifted me. </b></blockquote>
I snorted a little at this.
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The advent of conservative speakers being de-platformed or harassed by screaming social justice warriors is a logical consequence of an ideology that equates conservative opinions with physical violence. </blockquote>
Except that it’s not only conservative speakers being de-platformed. (And even if it was, I would still think that’s wrong.) The greatest vitriol has been leveled against other liberals who don’t pass ideological purity tests.
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(Reblogged from, ironically, Tumblr)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-3757158465931656182016-05-29T08:28:00.000-05:002016-06-14T08:54:15.108-05:00Identifying out of womanhoodHelen Lewis in the<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/05/so-many-teenage-girls-don-t-want-be-treated-girls-any-more-and-who-can"> New Statesman:</a><br />
<blockquote>
Because we have smudged together the categories of “transsexual” and “transgender”, is every youngster who questions their gender – and, frankly, every youngster should, because gender is restrictive bollocks – getting the message that they must bind their breasts or tuck their penis? I wince when I read oh-so-liberal parents explaining that they knew their toddler son was a girl when he wore pink and played with Barbies. Is there really anything so wrong with being a boy who wants to dress up as Elsa from Frozen? Or a girl who would rather be outside getting muddy than wear skirts and be “ladylike”? Toys and children’s clothes are becoming more gendered: when I was young, we played with Lego – not “Lego” and “Lego for Girls”. As we have shrunk the boxes, is it any wonder that more and more children want to escape from them?</blockquote>
For those of us over forty, this trend -- and I don't say this to discredit anyone who feels their gender differs from their assigned sex, but it is a trend in the sense that there has been a measurable increase in girls calling themselves non-binary -- looks a lot like identifying out of womanhood. Particularly for those of us who now find ourselves fitting the "non-binary" category, which didn't exist in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and instead turned to feminism to validate those feelings of being "not girl enough." Until I read this, I didn't even know Lego made a "Lego for Girls" lest the original Lego require testosterone. And it's frustrating because to even talk about these things is subscribing to a kind of bigotry. Rather than expanding what it means to be a man or a woman, we're just creating more boxes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-86226546173433292302016-05-26T08:42:00.000-05:002016-06-14T08:54:34.725-05:00The New Yorker on coddle culture; campus activismThe New Yorker has a<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/the-new-activism-of-liberal-arts-colleges"> lengthy feature </a>on the current state of campus activism, particularly at liberal arts colleges. (The focus is on Oberlin, which is sort of ground zero for this kind of thing.) The whole thing is worth losing an afternoon for but there are a few points I need to make:
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<blockquote>
Whatever job they’re doing, they appear to do it diligently. “In class, sometimes I say, ‘Is your identity a kind of knowledge?’ ” James O’Leary, an assistant professor of musicology at the Oberlin Conservatory, told me. “The answer, for forever, has been no.” But his current students often vigorously disagree. In the post-Foucaultian tradition, it’s thought to be impossible to isolate accepted “knowledge” from power structures, and sometimes that principle is turned backward, to link personal discomfort with larger abuses of power. “Students believe that their gender, their ethnicity, their race, whatever, gives them a sort of privileged knowledge—a community-based knowledge—that other groups don’t have,” O’Leary went on. The trouble comes when their perspectives clash.</blockquote>
One of the most dangerous products of an identitarian, post-structuralist, whatever-you-want-to-call-it culture is the exchange of intellectual honest for identity. Lived experience is important, but it shouldn't be the sole qualification of whether someone's opinion has merit. Which brings me to my next point:
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<blockquote>
“It’s just a massive catastrophe,” Eosphoros reported of the microaggressions he encountered even in his work-study life. “You get your supervisor monologuing about how everyone is just here for ‘pocket money,’ and you’re sitting there going, ‘You cancelled the shift on Sunday, and, because of that, I can’t pay my rent.’ ” He feels that he’s been drawn into a theatre of tokenism. “It’s always disappointing to be proof of concept for other people,” he told me.</blockquote>
But it's all part of the same system that got you there. When we're nothing but a collection of "identities" tokenism happens.<br />
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“Students are coming to campuses today with mental-health challenges that in some instances have been diagnosed and in some instances have not. Maybe, in previous eras, those students would not have been coming to college.” </blockquote>
No, a lot of them still would have gone to college. They would have gone undiagnosed. Maybe for another decade. Maybe some of them would have dropped out, but it's hard to guess the rates of mental illness among undergrads when in past decades, things that now are considered pathological would have been dismissed as bad behavior. Those of us who collected our diagnoses in adult have had to walk back a lot of adolescent and post-adolescent crazy to determine what was disorder and what was just... adolescent crazy. And it's still hard to determine.<br />
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Okay, this just sounds like the Onion:<br />
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I literally am so tired of learning about Marx, when he did not include race in his discussion of the market!” She shrugs incredulously. </blockquote>
But old people still don't get it:<br />
<blockquote>
Hyman started college in the eighties. Her generation, she said, protested against Tipper Gore for wanting to put warning labels on records. “My students want warning labels on class content, and I feel—I don’t even know how to articulate it,” she said. “Part of me feels that my leftist students are doing the right wing’s job for it.” </blockquote>
This has been one of the hardest things to swallow for us “olds” who grew up with a concept of censorship that was decidedly right-wing. Yes, Tipper Gore is part of the tribe, technically, but the PMRC was still viewed as “conservative" to leftists in the 80s. (We had punk rock on our side, damn it!)<br />
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I do think a lot of this is generational, but with the added development of social media as a tool for activists. PC existed when I was in college, but it was routinely mocked, and often by the people it was supposed to help. There was no Facebook, no Twitter. When you couple that with liberals fear of being seen as anything less than tolerant, a free exchange of ideas seems a little less free.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-39047576311378048562016-05-22T08:27:00.000-05:002016-06-14T08:53:42.161-05:00About that xojane pieceI'm not going to rehash the latest controversy to plague the women's blogging world, nor am I going to offer a moral imperative against shaming mentally ill people (which should be a given, and every other blog and its second cousin, Tumblr, has already done just that). But I would like to remind anyone who's even tangentially involved in "women's blogging," or hell, "women's writing," that this didn't happen in a bubble. xojane is a major offender, but still a small part of an environment that rewards women for splaying themselves open and revealing the worst. There should be a space carved out for provocative writing, but it needs to be done well and it can't exploit women for clicks. I just hope people remember that through all the hand-wringing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-14049481540485283072016-05-08T08:41:00.002-05:002016-06-14T08:59:52.570-05:00Prince's death and misconceptions about addiction; celebrityI hate deconstructing articles <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/prince-did-not-die-from-pain-pills-he-died-from-chronic-pain/">like this </a>one that makes a few good points, a few misguided ones, then devolves into the anecdotal. I'll go with this somewhat convoluted statement first:<br />
<blockquote>
Chronic pain management requires, in most cases, the taking of strong, often-opiate based medications. ANY patient who takes these drugs on a daily basis will become “physically dependent” in a short time. Physical dependence is not addiction. Diabetics are physically dependent on insulin, and yet we do not call insulin an addictive drug. Without it, diabetics would die. Stopping pain medication that has been used for chronic pain can kill you if it’s done abruptly. Under a doctor’s care, a change in pain medication is handled on a strict schedule in which the body is weaned off one drug in order to either start a new medication, or to determine whether the body is reacting in a different way to the condition causing the pain.</blockquote>
Correct. Physical dependence isn't addiction. Someone taking narcotics for a pain <i>can </i>abuse them, and that's no reason to paint every person dependent on pain medication as an addict, as popular culture is wont to do. The "just like diabetes" trope has got to stop, though. Diabetics take insulin because their bodies don't make it. Someone dependent on narcotics isn't taking it because her body doesn't make enough Percocet. Then there's this:
<br />
<blockquote>
Into the mix must surely be added the element of race. Prince was a black man. Strong racial disparities in how doctors and other medical staff respond to pain in the emergency room has been documented. For example, a recent study published in one of the most prestigious pediatrics journals studied the treatment of appendicitis, a condition that is often initially suspected after a “chandelier test.” In medical slang, if a doctor places her hand on the pain point in the lower abdomen affected by the pain of an inflamed appendix, the patient will try to jump up into the metaphoric chandelier on the ceiling above their head.</blockquote>
I've written before about racism in medicine, specifically psychiatry, and while it's a huge, often overlooked, problem when it comes to medical care, Prince was not only a black man, he was a <i>famous </i>man. Famous people who have access to the best care often get the worst care. This is something, irrespective of addiction, we've seen over and over. Plus doctors aren't immune to feeling starstruck in the presence of celebrity, seeing "commodity" where they should see "patient." This plays out over and over irrespective of addiction.<br />
<br />
One final thing that bothers whenever there's a mass discussion on addiction or dependency is the heavy displays of moralism. While it's good to note the distinction between the two, the line if often drawn too sharply, defining addicts as selfish while someone dependent on meds to manage pain worthy of empathy. Ideally, both should be worthy of empathy.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-34153204210843302342016-04-28T08:58:00.000-05:002016-04-28T08:58:42.992-05:00Unfortunately this isn't a rarity anymore<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/TiADiscussion/comments/4ge98v/sincere_thanks_a_story_and_some_questions/">This</a> is incredibly sad:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Anyway, time went on and the rhetoric continued to escalate, and certain ideas came to the fore that my gut and my rational brain told me were no good. But I resisted questioning them. I told myself that the reason I didn’t like them was unconscious sexism/racism etc., and to resist those questions was the right thing for a man to do in order to fight the “patriarchy.” The right thing for me to do was feel guilty for the color of my skin and the fact that I’m a guy; the right thing to do was shut up and fall in line. Needless to say, these feelings were nothing but fodder for my depression. By the end of 2014 I was genuinely convinced that my ceasing to exist would be beneficial to the world in some way. I was never directly harassed on tumblr, but the environment had proven itself toxic regardless. December 2014 was my nadir; trudging home from the metro in a daze, I wandered through several busy intersections with no concerns for my own safety. On some level I was hoping to get hit. Then something interesting happened. I heard a voice in my head; my voice, telling me that this was not the end, that I am stronger than this, that I would not be beaten. That moment, the façade of the SJW ideology began to crack, and I began to claw my way out of that dark place with some newfound clarity. </blockquote>
If you're prone to self-doubt, the social justice internet is a minefield. I'm old and have a pretty good bullshit detector, and I'm certainly not immune to it. Theories of structural privilege lose their effectiveness when applied to individuals and personalities, even those -- sometimes especially those -- with the most "privilege."Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-70562852501430328972016-04-27T08:56:00.000-05:002016-04-27T08:56:58.120-05:00Camp NaNo: Week FourI passed my word goal of 25,000 and decided to continue writing despite not needing another draft to pick at for the next three years. I got... inspired and frenetically added more to a character who started out as not much and ended up being a major player, so much that I think I should scrap the rest and make it about her instead.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-49952483168551710052016-04-26T08:58:00.000-05:002016-04-26T08:58:53.770-05:00Social Media KillsJohn M. Grohol's credits <a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/04/22/u-s-suicide-rates-go-up-up-what-does-it-mean/">social media </a>with the ever increasing suicide rate:
<br />
<blockquote>
Coming back to that idea of social networks like Facebook contributing to the rise in the U.S. suicide rate, I find that there may be something there worthy of researchers pursuing further. If you’re already depressed, lonely, or socially isolated, checking a site like Facebook on a regular basis is likely to reinforce those depressive feelings, according to the research.
Inadvertently, Facebook has created a method that makes sad people feel even more sad about their lives, because of the social comparison that is happening that is the foundation of the service.</blockquote>
A trend I've noticed also within online support groups and forums for people with mental illness, there's sort of a perverse "hierarchy of helplessness" that privileges the loudest, not necessarily the sickest, ignoring the fact that measuring someone's worth in yardsticks of suffering (which is purely subjective in the first place) is a pretty shitty thing to do. You can (get out of bed, go to work, ect), therefore, your pain isn't as great as <i>mine. </i>This, I think, is just as bad as the kind of "haves vs have nots" social comparison he's talking about.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-43544300443493657302016-04-25T08:57:00.000-05:002016-04-25T08:57:04.964-05:00Earworm of the Day: Crass - Bata Motel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8LL-6XZovZE/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8LL-6XZovZE?feature=player_embedded" width="600"></iframe></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-56067893920171515472016-04-24T08:28:00.000-05:002016-04-24T08:28:08.207-05:00Lionel Shriver on gender and identityNovelist Lionel Shriver wrote a <a href="http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/gender-good-for-nothing">lengthy piece </a>on the trend of gender as feeling for Prospect Magazine. Whether you think gender is innate of societal, the entire article is worth chewing through. (Personally, I tend to see the gray area, which is, apparently, unfashionable these days). She says:
<br />
<blockquote>
We have entered instead an oppressively gendered world, in which identity is more bound up in one’s sex than ever before. (Note: dictionary definitions regard gender and sex as interchangeable, and I will, too.) As Jemima Lewis wrote in the Daily Telegraph in March: “You can be agender, bi-gender, cisgender, demigender, graygender, intergender, genderless, genderqueer or third gender—but by God, you will accept a label.” The gay and lesbian world having gone so mainstream as to become a big bore, western media has moved on to an enthrallment with trans-
genderism bizarrely out of proportion to the statistical rarity of true gender dysphoria—though children and people generally being so suggestible, the condition will doubtless grow more common. Facebook has extended its gender options beyond the 71 it reached a year ago (thrillingly, two options in this dizzying smorgasbord of self-definition are “Man” and “Woman”). Users are now allowed to infinitely customise their profiles. As the Facebook Diversity Team published, “Now, if you do not identify with the pre-populated list of gender identities, you are able to add your own. As before, you can add up to 10 gender terms…”</blockquote>
Age has a lot to do with this, as a lot of the pushback has come from women my age or older who grew up in a world with fewer opportunities, but also fewer sexualized images from an early age. As someone who could probably claim a "genderqueer" or "agender" identity, but doesn't, it does feel as though we're creating more boxes instead of opportunities, and the option to not identify with gender somehow doesn't exist. If there were a stagnant definition of cis, I'd be fine to use it for myself -- or not. As it stands right, if cis simply means not trans, then I guess I am. If cis means "identifies" with birth gender, then I guess I am not. But claiming a different one (particularly as an old person) feels a lot like opting out, and even though I don't "feel" female I feel a responsibility toward womanhood.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-89048000967938680982016-04-23T08:29:00.000-05:002016-04-23T08:29:18.101-05:00R.I.P. PrinceIn case you've been living under a rock for the past few days, Prince has died.<br />
<br />
His, as in the death's of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, hits hard for a generation who grew up with his music, which was so omnipresent in the 80s it functioned as a kind of sonic wallpaper. His music, "Darling Nikki," in fact, was the impetus for the PMRC, the censorship group responsible for those "parental warning" stickers. But what got lost, and I think still gets lost, when one talks about Prince's music is the way he wrote about female sexuality, and not just sexual as performance for a man's pleasure. And to a little girl growing up in the 80s, that meant something.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-29063149181856071922016-04-20T08:56:00.001-05:002016-04-20T08:56:48.885-05:00Stephen Fry decries self pity; internet reacts predictablyStephen Fry<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjerMf765rMAhVksoMKHUQZCR4QuogBCCMoATAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2016%2F04%2F11%2Fstephen-fry-tells-sex-abuse-victims-to-grow-up-prompting-social%2F&usg=AFQjCNE-OjqSgiDctcWJQoSq8eT7IS88SA&sig2=hQTmT2xdBz63Su_qWll03g&bvm=bv.119745492,d.amc"> messed up</a>. Twitter responded accordingly and he <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjerMf765rMAhVksoMKHUQZCR4QqQIIIigAMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fculture%2F2016%2Fapr%2F14%2Fstephen-fry-sorry-for-telling-pitying-abuse-victims-to-grow-up&usg=AFQjCNFCjOcEXH5ZHB4tuS3U4DacQE1iqg&sig2=Rs-5ZKPPRs0-7RRNoSA_og&bvm=bv.119745492,d.amc">apologized</a>. Of course that was the end of it. Of course not.<br />
<br />
Just as when any celebrity dares to express an unpopular (some would say "harmful") opinion, a barrage of think pieces followed, pitting freedom against privilege.<br />
<br />
On the freedom side, <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/frys-right-self-pity-is-nothing-to-celebrate/18256#.VxY4LtQrLs0">Luke Gittos</a> from Spiked points out how Stephen Fry is allowed to criticize self-pity when referring to his own vulnerability:
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<blockquote>
The reaction to Fry’s comments is bizarre and contradictory. Firstly, it is worth noting that Fry has expressed the same view of self-pity before. In a 2011 interview with the BBC, he described self-pity in the context of his own depression as a ‘destructive vice’ that ‘destroys everything around it except itself’. In another interview, he discussed the importance of ‘getting out of the I-mode’ as a means of moving forward from depressive thinking. This was at a time when he was the figurehead for various mental-health campaigns. It seems that when Fry is criticising self-pity in the context of his own vulnerability and victimhood it is entirely legitimate, but when he condemns it in others he becomes worthy of opprobrium.</blockquote>
That he said the same thing in 2011 without repercussions says a lot about how we're allowed to talk about trauma today compared to then.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/2016/04/stephen-frys-objections-trigger-warnings-arent-acceptable-they-are-understandable">Laurie Penny </a>couches her argument in the faddish language of privilege:
<br />
<blockquote>
All of this is the modus operandi of many institutions of privilege - including British boarding schools, several of which Fry went through in his youth. Researching a piece for the New York Times in 2014, I learned that the British boarding school system is an ancient, terrible and precise machine designed, over a number of centuries, to take little boys and systematically traumatise them until they are capable of running an empire. It enacts ritual bullying in order to create well-mannered monsters: men whose capacity for empathy has been hammered flat as a cricket pitch in summer. Those who, like Fry and many, many others, are too sensitive, too queer, or too obstinate to endure the system, still come away with the principle that you do not speak about the terrible things that happened to you and to others, things you were powerless to prevent. And you definitely don’t indulge in self-pity.</blockquote>
I am exponentially less privileged that Stephen Fry, and I agree with him. I loathe self pity. While his boarding school background most likely played a part as my working class one did, one point both arguments neglect is sheer human variation in the way trauma is experienced. What I've observed over the past few years as something of an infidel in leftist circles is that there is only one way to react to trauma, and if you don't -- for example, if you like to make jokes to take the piss out of big scary things -- you simply haven't suffered enough. You're privilege "allows" you to think that way. And it's been detrimental to my own mental health, which is why I no longer participate in online discussions of privilege and victimhood.<br />
<br />
I agree with Penny that there is a generational component at work as well. For those of us over forty, censorship was something that came from the right, so watching "our tribe" use the same authoritarian tactics as those to ban Mapplethorpe's photographs or sticker heavy metal record (okay yeah, PMRC was liberal), it's a huge mind fuck.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-72733359424837604042016-04-18T08:45:00.000-05:002016-04-18T08:45:45.778-05:00Quoted: Robert D. Putnam (Bowling Alone) on education tracking<blockquote>
[…] the practice of separating students into college prep and non-college prep tracks, while for decades was common and tended to provide a modest edge to kids from more educated homes. During the period in which the opportunity gap has widened, however, access to the college-prep track among kids from less privileged backgrounds has increased. Tracking continues to provide a slight advantage to upper-class kids, but it can’t account for the substantial increase in the overall opportunity gap.
—
Robert D. Putnam from Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis</blockquote>
My high school went a little excessive with the tracking, Instead of the usual two or three, we had a whopping six ability tracks, which roughly translated to honors, second honors, above average, average, lower average and remedial. I think it was originally used to indicate the difficulty of the course, not label the kids, but once you’re slapped with a 1 or a 2 or a 6, the label stuck. (Those of us in the second honors-above average tracks called ourselves the dumb “1′s.” - smart but not smart-smart, you know.) It was highly political. The years I was there I never saw one student of color in an upper track. If you went to an under-performing grade school, no matter how well you tested they’d assume you couldn’t do the work without a lot of “catch-up” and those honors classes were hard to get into without some serious parental intervention.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8018383953625619251.post-44983285242564309182016-04-17T08:30:00.000-05:002016-04-17T08:30:47.558-05:00Camp NaNo: Week ThreeI forgot a week two update, but since I get my target word goal for only 25,000 I'm close to finished as I type this. My general feeling is, meh. If I had to describe my story is pompous terms, I'd say it's Philip Roth meets<i> Bridget Jones Diary. </i>And not really in a cute way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com