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nerves-nebula · 8 months

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"the actors don't like the ship it makes them uncomfortable!" yeah that does not and never has mattered. they're actors. they act as characters. they are not the characters themselves, they do not have a say in how you think of or portray the characters they act as. this is not real person fanfiction. Alex is just a homophobic creep.

anyway after talking to my friend i've decided to just tell you guys. the series i hate is The Mandela Catalogue. it's so shit. absolute garbage. Plays into every ableist trope in the book.

If you try to analyze the way characters are coded to be scary or creepy or "inhuman" it's 99% of the time just them being disabled or neurodivergent or some other marginalized identity.

the fascist undertones of the series are incredibly evident, from the stranger-danger propaganda being given at face value with no commentary on how fucked up it is to just say it's reasonable for you to shoot someone you think is an alternate/looks weird (are white people not aware of all the poc and disabled people who get shot and attacked cuz their existence is seen as threatening?)

the public announcement shit is literally fear mongering except it's in universe proven to be correct because the universe alex has created is an inherently fascist one where innocent white Christians and their innocent white children are under attack from Real Demons (where have i heard that one before)

the THINK principles are akin to a cults guideline. how is the scary thing here that there are weird looking people out there that will Say Scary Shit to you (the idea of an Unknowable Truth as it's alluded to in tmc is bullshit and one of the dumbest Monster powers I've ever heard of) instead of the fact that society is gonna collapse because this shit will make people paranoid as hell, and start shooting their neighbors. But no, that would make it a GOOD series with something INTERESTING to say.

OH and the fact that the enemies in the series are somehow supposed to Look Just Like You (they could be anyone!!) but also look biologically impossible (so many of the alternates + The intruder just look like disabled or disfigured people put through a scary filter)

and hey, while we're here, can we think of any other examples of tropes in media in which all of these apply to The Enemy?

looks very similar to REAL humans, so much so that they could fool you into thinking they ARE one! and yet are also somehow inherently biologically different in a way you are capable of figuring out just by looking at them.

has dark beady eyes and a hooked/big/prominent nose (thinking of the intruder specifically here)

Kidnaps your children for their own nefarious means (blood libel)

Kidnaps/corrupts your children by controlling the media/technology/TV screens.

Desire world domination/is part of some big conspiracy stretching far into the past

Guilty for the death (or in this instance possibly the replacement of) Jesus Christ

depicted as literal demons

Hint! it's antisemitism! it's always fucking antisemitism!!! Coming from a man who's main source of inspiration is his Christianity & mental health issues (though he doesn't seem to mind demonizing the symptoms of mental illnesses he hasn't had personal experience with) i'm not surprised! Though I am disappointed, because he supposedly wants to be a writer, and he doesn't seem very aware of any of the tropes he's propagating. like c'mon man, i thought you liked literature.

I could make another list exactly like that one but for ableism, but if i committed that hard then we'd be here all day.

Alex has even started using words like Degenerate/Degeneration in promotional material too (which if you know anything about fascist rhetoric is a bad sign) not to mention his weird behavior around queer headcanons/shipping and his tendency to mock people who read queer subtext into his work.

The only good things that come from the mandela catalogue are from the fandom but even the fandom can't stop talking about how SUBVERSIVE and UNIQUE it is when it's literally just regurgitated reactionary talking points. The fandom also loves reinforcing Alex's weird ass "no gay shipping" mandate.

like, he clearly doesn't mind the inclusion of romances. Adam had a girlfriend. what he says he minds is "sexualization" which just so happens to include every instance of two male characters looking at each other or holding hands (because being gay is inherently sexual to him, which is homophobic btw. not a "boundary")

i could write essays about how every little single aspect of this series is, thematically speaking, dogshit garbage which appeals to the majority and barely admits the rest of us exist (which i wouldnt even care about so much if people didn't act like this series was at all unique or subversive)

I've talked for fucking hours about how every time i think it can't get any worse it somehow does. i've barely touched on the ableism here, haven't even mentioned the racism OR how all the female characters are defined by their relations to the male characters.

ALL THIS. ALL THIS!!! And all you see about it is praise praise PRAISE. but guys. it's just BAD.

side note: if this post makes you feel the need to tell me why it's actually good: don't! i really dont care if you like it, good for you i guess. as far as i'm concerned the fans of it are the best part of the whole damn series (to be clear the fandom has its own problem but even then. it's generally fine) but it is NOT good source material.

#nnstuff #hateful webseries

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ktgracewhiteman · 2 years

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*Gender Norms*

Artifact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

In this entry, I will be answering the critical question: What gender/sexuality norm is constructed or undone in this artifact, how is it rhetorically done, and/or how does it promote a dominant ideology over a marginalized group or push back against the ideology or gender norms? Is it productive or unproductive (ethical/unethical)?

The artifact I will be using to answer this question is an Old Spice commercial from a 2010 campaign titled “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”. This ad reinforces the societal norm that men should only be “manly” and women should only be “ladylike”, as well as the norm that men should smell “manly” if they want to attract a woman.

Old Spice, manufactured by Procter & Gamble, is an American grooming brand for males that is known for its deodorant, body soap, and after-shave. This brand is also notoriously known for its humorous advertisements that target both men who purchase their own hygiene products, as well as women who purchase products for “their man”. The particular ad I will be examining mainly targets a female audience by addressing them continuously throughout the duration of the ad, as well as incorporating topics that women are stereotypically interested in, such as attractive men.

When discussing the idea of “undoing gender”, Butler says “What does gender want? To speak in this way may seem strange, but it becomes less so when we realize that the social norms that constitute our existence carry desires that do not originate with our individual personhood.” By writing this, Butler is saying that there are gender norms that exist in society that have a very strong influence on how people are expected to act, think, and be, all according to their gender. This influence is so strong that it causes people to express themselves in a way that may not even align with how they actually want to be perceived in the world.

The commercial begins with a young attractive man standing shirtless in a bathroom. He says “Hello ladies, look at your man. Now look at me. Sadly, he isn’t me. If he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice he could smell like he’s me”. By saying this, he is insinuating that in order to be attractive and likable to women, a man must not smell like a lady, but like a man. This commercial is utilizing a heteronormative agenda that states not only that men must smell manly to attract women, but that women only want men that smell manly.

Another problematic part of this commercial lies in the last line at the very end. The main character of the ad states, “Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady”. This is saying that a man that smells “like Old Spice” or “manly” holds more value and is more capable than a man that smells “ladylike” in the eyes of a woman. This idea is quite problematic, as a person’s scent should not dictate what they are capable of or their value.

Although they are satirical, The gender norms demonstrated in this ad are unethical and problematic because they enforce stereotypes that simply don’t apply to everyone; not all women are attracted to men, not all men necessarily want to smell “manly”, and not all women are necessarily attracted to a “manly” scent. Old Spice uses these stereotypes in hopes of gaining the attention of a female audience for a product made to be used by men. It can be argued that this commercial also enforces the idea that women should be purchasing personal hygiene products for male partners, which is extremely outdated and inaccurate.

In an article that explores consumer responses to male and female gender role stereotyping in commercials, authors write “Advertising has been criticized, for instance, for creating or reinforcing unwanted prejudice and negatively affecting men and women’s self and body esteem”. This means that not only are the stereotypes depicted in advertisements harmful because they are inaccurate, but they are also harmful because they negatively affect the self-esteem of both men and women. This leads to the question: if the use of these stereotypes has been shown to cause negative effects for consumers, why are they still being used? The artifact I am examining provides a potential answer to this question, which is simply so that it can successfully gain the attention of the vast majority of American consumers that hold these stereotypes and prejudices to be true.

To conclude, the Old Spice commercial titled “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” uses a heteronormative lens to reinforce the societal norm that men should only be “manly” and women should only be “ladylike”, as well as the norm that men should smell “manly” if they want to attract a woman. These norms are unproductive and are unethical for society, as they emphasize ideas that are outdated and potentially harmful for viewers.

References:

Butler, Judith. (2004). Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge. 1-4.

De Meulenaer, S., Dens, N., De Pelsmacker, P., & Eisend, M. (2018). How consumers’ values influence responses to male and female gender role stereotyping in advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 37(6), 893–913. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2017.1354657

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sulphur-crested-cocktease · 7 years

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Please protect yourself online because it's not my job to make you comfortable

I am not an abuse survivor, and I can only imagine how horrible it would be to be constantly in a frame of mind that caused me to equate anything that even remotely reminded me of my abuse/abuser with the abuse I suffered. Just thinking about it actually makes my heart hurt! To anyone who feels this way, or has experienced abuse at all, I am so very sorry! Under no circumstance did you deserve the abuse you suffered! You are not worth any less and you should not feel ashamed because of the deplorable actions of another person, but I really do understand if you do feel that way sometimes because I know I would really struggle with that if it ever happened to me. You are unbelievably strong! If you need to step away from people, or communities, or fandoms, or anything that reminds you of your traumas that is 100% okay! You have every right to dislike and avoid things that upset or trigger you; you have every right to vent about those things on your own blog; you have every right to feel the way you feel. You should always be your own most important person. Your wellbeing should be your number one priority, always. Even if you are responsible for the care of others, your own physical, mental, and emotional resilience and fortitude are what will allow you to be there for them. You are important! Please understand though that this same self-affirming, self-care centred mentality applies to *everyone*. Not just you. Not just abuse survivors. Not just minors. Everyone! Who experiences your feelings and understands you and your needs better than you do? The answer is probably "No one". Of course, the flip side of this question is, who will always place *your* needs and *your* feelings above even their own? The same answer likely applies: No one. Certainly not some random person on Tumblr--and that's as it should be. Everyone else on this site, like you, is just living their life and doing what they feel is right for them. Maybe that's something they want to do because it makes them happy (or cathartic-sad, or makes them think, or allows them to experience some of the emotions and feelings associated with a situation that would be dangerous or traumatic in real life in a way that's totally safe). Maybe that's something they personally feel they need to do to in order to cope with things that have happened in their own lives. It doesn't matter. The point is that you, as an abuse survivor (or anyone really), have things you don't want to be exposed to and that's completely understandable and totally fair. That's why we have tools for tagging, blacklisting, and blocking content we find triggering, or distasteful, or, heck, just don't want to see appear in a search on a shared computer. There are ways to report content that is in violation of a website's ToS or content that is *actually* illegal (not just triggering, distasteful, or against your personal values or beliefs because we have blocking and blacklisting for that). What isn't understandable or fair is to make your personal wellbeing (particularly in an online space like Tumblr that is populated by millions of random strangers) the responsibility of others. And, you're not just making your personal wellbeing someone else's responsibility--you are esentially telling that other person that your personal wellbeing is their obligation because you and your likes, dislikes, triggers, traumas, wants, and needs are more important than theirs. You, some random stranger on the internet whom they do not know, trust, or have any real reason to sympathize with. Do you see why this could start to rub some of us the wrong way? It's not a nice feeling to be told you're not important, that you don't matter--that you are, in fact, disgusting and wrong for the way you enjoy things that are not illegal and not a violation of the rules. Someone else's icky feelings about something you enjoy that is not actually harming another person (a REAL person) should never overrule your right to make decisions about yourself, for yourself! There are many benefits to social media and online communities. A sense of belonging or kinship; shared enthusiasm for a television show or maybe a character or pairing that is a better representation of you/your feelings/your life than is typically depicted via mainstream media; exposure to different attitudes and opinions than are espoused by the people you interact with face to face; support from other people who have been through the same sorts of traumatic experiences you have, etc. The complete paradigm shift that has occurred over the last few decades in the way we use technology in a social sense is testament to the fact that these interactions are valuable and sometimes sorely lacking in the real world. There is, however, an inherent risk in exposing yourself to online content. Your control of your online space is limited to the choices you make *for yourself*. The space beyond that belongs to hundreds of millions of other people in a way that we don't really experience in our physical real world communities. The internet provides us access to a much wider, deeper pool of knowledge and human experience, but it does not qualify them for us; it does not tell us which part of the pool is safe to swim in versus where we might find ourselves in over our heads, which is fair because some of us, if you'll forgive the extended metaphor, are taller or more experienced swimmers than others. Basically, there are no buffers between you and the content you specifically do not want to view, except those you erect yourself, and they can't always guarantee that you will be 100% protected from the things you don't want to see. It's a risk you take when you go online. Exposure to different points of view and alternate opinions and media on the internet is wonderful, but it's also without the strict social framework and safeguards we grow up with and are used to navigating in real life. The fact is, people who share some of your same interests may also like something that triggers or upsets you. This thing might not technically be illegal or even against the ToS of the website you encountered it on, but say it really, really disturbs you. Other people with similarly traumatic experiences to yours might also morally object to this content. It might even trigger you or make you feel unsafe. *You* need to take steps to protect yourself. Why would you ever rely on some faceless stranger on the internet, someone with no personal connection to you, to ensure *your* safety? That seems like a pretty bad idea, quite frankly. Please do not assume that your shared participation in fandom and the social awareness that comes with belonging to a subculture that is made up of those who are often somewhat marginalized themselves will prevent other people from doing things that may impact or jeporodize your physical, mental, or emotional safety. That's a huge fucking assumption! One that you have no right to make if you aren't even willing to take the most basic of precautions to protect yourself first by employing the tools provided (namely, blacklisting tags and blocking) for that very purpose. Content that you disagree with, that isn't actually illegal and does not violate the ToS of the site on which it is posted has a right to exist. Other people have a right to create it--for whatever reason they choose, whether they choose to divulge those reasons or not. And, those of us who choose to consume it have a right to enjoy it without being slandered, harassed, told to kill ourselves, doxxed, or sent material that is, in fact, *actually* illegal (to even distribute). Because, what you are saying when you do these things is that, despite ostensibly being against inequality, you believe yourself to be more important than everyone else. Despite claiming to be morally superior to others, it's your values that are fickle and situationally dependant. Despite your insistence that it is other people who are out of line, you are the person insisting that it is everyone else's responsibility to protect you (or some hypothetical minor) from your own feelings, and that isn't how feelings work. You can't claim another person "made you" act a certain way. That's fucking childish, but it also denies your own autonomy. I promise you, there is freedom in choosing to walk away. Hitting that block button actually feels fucking great! :)

#fandom wank #old and salty as the sea #psa #let people enjoy things #abuse mention #the internet is not a safe space!#i am not your mommy #and it's not my job to protect you online!

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sexkoreasblog · 4 years

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Conservatives and liberals see the world as zero-sum — when it suits them

by Clark Merrefield, Journalist's Resource February 7, 2020

New research in Science Advances breaks down the policy issues on which political conservatives and liberals think in zero-sum terms -- a black-and-white view of the world where there are only winners and losers.

Conservatives think zero-sum when it comes to policies that touch on social change, like immigration reform, according to the paper, “The politics of zero-sum thinking: The relationship between political ideology and the belief that life is a zero-sum game.”

Liberals, on the other hand, think zero-sum when it comes to economic inequality, like overall wealth being concentrated in fewer hands. In the U.S., national elected leaders at opposite ends of the political spectrum have been known to push zero-sum narratives.

“We argue that both liberals and conservatives view life as zero-sum when it benefits them to do so,” the authors write.

All in

A zero-sum situation happens when one party gains and another party experiences a commensurate loss. Consider a poker hand. Joe and Maya each bet $10. Maya wins the hand. Her $10 gain is Joe’s $10 loss. Add Maya’s win with Joe’s loss, and the sum is zero.

“It’s this seesaw view of the world where we can’t all be winning,” says Columbia Business School assistant professor Shai Davidai, who wrote the paper with Martino Ongis of the New School for Social Research.

In real life, zero-sum thinking is not so much about an equal and opposite reaction, where Maya’s gain is perfectly balanced by Joe’s loss.

Racism, for example, can’t be quantified like dollars and cents. Yet research suggests white people sometimes see racism as zero-sum. A May 2011 paper in Perspectives on Psychological Science surveyed a nationally representative sample of 417 Americans, roughly equal numbers white and black, and found:

“White respondents were more likely to see decreases in bias against Blacks as related to increases in bias against Whites -- consistent with a zero-sum view of racism among Whites -- whereas Blacks were less likely to see the two as linked.”

The more things change …

The new paper looks at results from six surveys with a total of more than 3,200 participants. The largest group participated in the World Values Survey, a nationally representative survey conducted semiyearly around the world by an international consortium of social scientists. Each of the remaining surveys had roughly 200 to 300 U.S. residents the authors recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) an online labor market researchers commonly use to recruit study participants.

The authors used World Values Survey responses from 2010 to 2014 from 2,128 Americans on their political ideology and tendency to think of economic issues as zero-sum. Conservatives tended see wealth distribution as less zero-sum -- “wealth can grow so there’s enough for everyone” -- while liberals tended to see wealth as more zero-sum -- “people can only get rich at the expense of others,” according to the paper.

“This observation, however, flies in the face of research showing that conservatives are more prone, not less prone, to zero-sum thinking,” the authors write.

The MTurk surveys further explore economic and social situations in which liberals and conservatives exhibit zero-sum thinking. Those surveys, the authors explain, provide evidence that liberals think in zero-sum terms on issues where the status quo is being maintained, while conservatives think zero-sum when the status quo is challenged.

Take rising income inequality -- a status quo condition that's been maintained for decades. Since the 1980s, a smaller share of households have steadily come to control a larger share of the country’s wealth, according to landmark research from Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

This zero-sum outlook is reflected in the national political debate. Liberal politicians establish an us-versus-them rhetorical framework when they talk about rising income inequality:

“We must tell the economic elite who have hoarded income growth in America: No, you can no longer have it all.” -- Bernie Sanders, December 2019.

Conservatives think in zero-sum terms on policies that would re-stitch the country’s social fabric -- a challenge to the status quo. For example, conservatives tend to think immigrants gaining more wealth would come at the expense of U.S.-born citizens, the authors find. National conservative leaders similarly push this narrative:

“Newcomers compete for jobs against the most vulnerable Americans and put pressure on our social safety net and generous welfare programs.” -- Donald Trump, May 2019.

The trouble is that a combative stance makes it nearly impossible for parties affected by a policy or issue to find common ground, according to Davidai.

“Zero-sum rhetoric blinds us to solutions,” he says. “It’s much easier to say, ‘It’s us versus them,’ than thinking, ‘It’s us and them.’ The issue is many of the problems that are really pressing in the U.S. and the world -- climate change, inequality -- all of those issues affect everyone but they require broad support from different people and different groups.”

In the authors’ final survey, they explore a counter to the zero-sum hypothesis: Maybe liberals are simply more inclined to side with historically marginalized groups. They randomly assigned nearly 200 participants eight questions that boil down to one of two worldviews -- one zero-sum, the other not -- then asked if they agreed or disagreed:

Since the 1960s, educational, political and economic opportunities for black people have come at the expense of white political power, economic gain and education.

Black political, educational and economic opportunity has expanded at no one’s loss.

Participants aligned by political ideology in the zero-sum scenario -- very conservative participants were more likely to think black progress has come at the expense of whites, not so for liberals -- but responses didn’t correlate to ideology when black political and social progress was not presented as zero-sum.

“Rather than gravitating toward any frame that implicitly or explicitly sides with Black Americans, liberal participants seemed to uniquely reject zero-sum statements that depicted progress toward racial equality as coming at the expense of White people,” the authors write.

Zero-sum? Bad outcomes

Situations that are truly zero-sum often involve personal choice or are limited to a few participants. A boxing match or a chess game, for example, are zero-sum encounters. There’s a winner and a loser. Media consumption is another zero-sum situation. Reading a newspaper for an hour means an hour less spent watching cable news or scrolling Twitter.

Politics can also be zero-sum, explains Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, in a December 2018 paper in European Political Science. A vote for one candidate means another candidate loses that vote. An interest group with legislative clout gains influence at the expense of other interests.

But research suggests that applying zero-sum thinking to intricate situations that aren’t zero-sum -- like business negotiations, workplace interactions and international trade -- can lead to bad outcomes.

Employees fall into zero-sum thinking during economic downturns, finds an August 2017 paper in the Academy of Management Journal that looks at nearly 60,000 responses from the World Values Survey spanning 1995 to 2012 across 51 countries, including the U.S., supplemented with smaller surveys the authors conducted of workers across a range of sectors.

Economic crises put economic instability front-and-center in the minds of workers. A sense of loss of control might make employees less likely, for example, to start new projects, according to the paper. When employees stop working together, it’s a reaction that’s “likely more economically consequential than the reactions exhibited by less central actors, such as bank customers,” the authors write.

International trade is another area where national leaders have, in recent years, deployed zero-sum rhetoric. President Trump frames international trade as analogous to a transaction between himself and China’s President Xi Jinping, argues John Odell, professor emeritus of international relations at the University of Southern California, in a January 2019 paper in Negotiation Journal.

“I have a great relationship with the President of China, President Xi,” Trump said in September 2018. “But it’s got to be a two-way street. It -- for 25 years and longer, it was not. And trillions and trillions of dollars was taken out of the United States for the benefit of China. We just can’t have that. We have to make it fair.”

But negotiating trade between countries little resembles negotiations between individuals, according to Odell. Imports and exports course into and out of America from nations around the world. Tighten one of the bigger trade valves and that can affect prices at home.

“Washington can reduce goods imports from China,” Odell writes. “But as long as Americans continue to demand more than they produce, goods will flow in from different foreign countries at higher cost. The result will be lower American living standards and little change in the external deficit.”

It’s true, too, that international trade can hurt individual workers in certain regions, particularly regions that don’t produce many exports, according to Dartmouth economist Nina Pavcnik in a March 2019 paper in Survival: Global Politics and Strategy.

“International trade is widely presumed to make households in developing countries better off,” Pavcnik writes. She continues: “However, it is important to remember that international trade generates winners and losers (at least in relative terms) within all countries.”

Economic theory says workers will move to where the jobs are. Yet as Pavcnik points out: “Moving is costly and may entail giving up informal insurance such as the help and support of family and friends.”

How and when national leaders apply zero-sum thinking can have consequences that hit beyond the financial ledger. For example, zero-sum thinking was a core rhetorical credo of National Socialism, says Somin, who has also written about zero-sum thinking in the popular press.

“You see numerous examples where zero-sum thinking has led to oppression and mass murder,” he says. “The Holocaust was the result of a kind of zero-sum thinking. Those who advocated the Holocaust said, ‘The only way Germans can prosper and succeed is if you get rid of the Jews.’”

Darwin for the win

Emory University economist Paul Rubin and others have suggested that zero-sum thinking is a byproduct of human evolution and early culture. Imagine a skilled hunter some 12,000 years ago refusing to share meat with an unskilled hunter. There’s a clear loser in that scenario because there’s no corner butcher for the unskilled hunter to swing by instead.

But human brains evolved to understand complex systems, like language, to communicate subtle wants and needs. So why do binary outcomes sometimes seem intuitive when talking about big economic and social issues? There might have been no evolutionary reason for humans not to think in zero-sum terms.

Writing in the Southern Economic Journal in July 2003, Rubin suggests, “the fact that we understand only simple models without specific instructions is evidence that there was no benefit from evolving a structure for more complex models.”

Because zero-sum thinking might be evolutionarily hardwired in our brains, people might not recognize they’re using zero-sum arguments.

“It’s intuitive to think in the very short term that more for some people necessarily means less for others,” Somin says, adding that it’s easy for people to “accept fallacies -- like, there’s a fixed number of jobs so if I get a job there’s fewer jobs for everyone else.”

If people think they would lose if certain policies or rhetoric are advanced, no matter whether the situation is truly zero-sum or not, the fact remains that the thought of losing hurts.

“A bias in favor of the status quo can be justified if the disadvantages of any change will be experienced more keenly than its advantages,” wrote the late Stanford psychologist Amos Tversky and Nobel Prize-winning Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman in a November 1991 paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

As Tversky and Kahneman succinctly put it elsewhere in the paper: “Losses loom larger than corresponding gains.” Or, as retired Brooklyn-then-Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully once said: “Losing feels worse than winning feels good.”

This article first appeared on Journalist's Resource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

source https://newsfirst.tistory.com/5993

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topmixtrends · 6 years

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SINCE HIS DEATH in 2002, Pierre Bourdieu has remained one of the most significant and commonly cited scholars in sociology. His 1979 book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste was voted the sixth-most important work of sociology of the 20th century in a poll conducted by the International Sociological Association, and he is the rare sociologist whose ideas are widely diffused in the humanities. In the English-speaking world, interest in Bourdieu remains so strong that publishers, having brought out translations of his dozens of books, have more recently turned their attention to his lectures and unfinished manuscripts.

Manet: A Symbolic Revolution is the latest collection of scholarly remnants: a compilation of lectures on the art of Édouard Manet given at the Collège de France in 1999 and 2000, to which is appended an older, unfinished monograph on the same subject, co-written with his wife Marie-Claire Bourdieu. Though he influenced many subfields of sociology, from the sociology of law to the sociology of education, Bourdieu’s presence looms particularly large in cultural sociology, where an absolute majority of current books and articles cite his work. This is so, in part, because he made such a strong case for the larger social importance of studying patterns of cultural consumption. Distinction builds a general theory of social inequality from a descriptive study of differences in individual taste: what sort of people like what sort of food, decorations, works of art, et cetera, and just as importantly, how people talk about what they like. Bourdieu argues that variations in taste, and the success of the powerful in making their personal tastes appear to be natural or objectively valid, play a role in reproducing large structures of social inequality. Bourdieu’s approach to culture makes it possible to move easily from the local world of face-to-face interactions to patterns unfolding at the national level over generations.

In later books like The Field of Cultural Production and The Rules of Art, Bourdieu turns his attention from consumption to creation, examining the social world peopled by artists and authors, producers and publishers, and critics and gallerists. Bourdieu views the art world as a space divided in many ways: not simply between those with high and low status, but between young and established artists, work that embraces tradition and work that challenges it, and work that appeals to a large paying audience and work that appeals to a small group of fellow artists who offer their social esteem. In this pair of books, he sought to explain how art became an independent world (or, in Bourdieu’s parlance, an “autonomous field”) in the first place, and how the aesthetic we know as modernism moved from a marginal position to canonical status: both processes he traces to the 19th-century Parisian demimonde.

These books say a great deal that will ring true to anybody who has spent much time in the small, gossipy, status-conscious worlds of art or literature. A cynic could take The Rules of Art, which pays particular attention to the career of Gustave Flaubert, as a handbook for getting ahead in the literary world. But many critics have found something very important missing from Bourdieu’s account of the art world: art itself. He does not approach art as a critic, and typically spends little time in careful examination of particular works of art or literature or their aesthetic qualities. His extended reading of Flaubert’s novel Sentimental Education, whose plot Bourdieu regarded as a mirror of his own theory of cultural production, stands as a notable (and in some ways troublesome) exception.

Bourdieu’s theory, when applied to people who live by and for art, may thus seem dispassionate. More seriously, absent a sustained engagement with art works themselves, his theory may appear to suggest that artistic esteem or aesthetic change is purely arbitrary or mechanical: simply one more means by which social power makes itself manifest. Bourdieu did not endorse this view, but the fact that so many readers have interpreted him this way suggests that the charges of dispassion and determinism are not trivial. A theory that seeks to explain how art gets made, assessed, and preserved should have some place in it for genuine appreciation of art, and ought to be able to make sense of the bodies of work of particular artists, not just large-scale, long-term changes in taste.

In the lectures included in Manet, Bourdieu sets himself exactly this task. He argues that Manet’s career was the catalyst for a “symbolic revolution,” a complete change in how people produced, looked at, interpreted, and valued visual art. Understanding how this transformation happened is no simple matter, because the art world Manet helped invent is the one in which we now live. “[T]here is nothing more difficult to understand than what appears to go without saying,” Bourdieu writes, “in so far as a symbolic revolution produces the very structures through which we perceive it.”

Bourdieu argues that the emergence of a distinctly modern art happened first in France, a country that was, at the time, notable for its large number of practicing artists, its robust contemporary art market, and strong connection between art and government institutions. (His effort to answer the question “Why France?” is a welcome contrast to the many researchers who simply assume that their own country’s mores are an appropriate starting point for building a universal theory. American social scientists often level this accusation at the French, while the rest of the world levels this accusation at Americans.) The lectures consider a wide range of factors that made this period one in which an aesthetic upheaval was possible: technological innovations, growth in the number of practicing artists to a level not easily managed by the French academic system, the ideological and political crisis of the Second Empire, and the earlier emergence of a body of professional critics all played some part.

The artistic world that existed before the upheaval of modernism was rigidly rule-governed. There was an established, strictly hierarchical course that successful artistic careers were meant to run during the Empire. There were also strict hierarchies about the value of different subjects and rules for depicting them. Most foreign to the modern sensibility, there were formal government institutions empowered to decide what could be exhibited, and thus, in a nearly legal sense, which paintings could even be counted as art. At one point, Bourdieu discusses a group exhibition that was shut down by French officials, not because the paintings were morally harmful, but simply because they had been judged aesthetically inferior.

The position Manet occupied in that world was unusual. His aesthetic was rebellious and his political values were far to the left, but he had little affinity with bohemia, and his personal conduct was thoroughly conventional. His general level of cultural literacy and education was unusually high for a painter of that time; he was also well schooled in the dominant academic artistic system. By his familial and educational background, Manet was connected to notable members of the commercial, artistic, literary, and political elite of Paris, and he moved in that world gracefully. And he always enjoyed the moral and financial support of his respectable, wealthy parents, which allowed him to remain artistically independent and productive during a long period of infamy.

Manet was by no means the only painter to bridle against the rules of official art. But unlike others, he embodied a combination of personal qualities, education, and social background that allowed him to break those rules thoroughly and skillfully, and in a way that would necessarily command the attention of the people who defined the artistic conversation of the period. Just as importantly, his career began at a moment when larger factors, outlined above, left France’s official artistic culture vulnerable to crisis. Manet’s revolution may well have been partly accidental. Over the course of the lectures, Bourdieu advances the view that Manet’s most controversial works — Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia (both painted in 1863) — were animated by a youthful spirit of parody, and came to mark the start of a revolutionary transformation of painting, in part, because of the consequences of the controversy they created. Rather than viewing Manet as a charismatic genius, he calls him “someone who got himself into a very strange situation, and […] then spent his life struggling with the very tools he had used to produce this problem, in order to try to solve it.”

Pursuing that solution made for an artistic life that was, in many ways, lonely. Differences in social class and education limited the mutual understanding of Manet and the Impressionists. Manet and Courbet, who are now frequently viewed as closely related figures, were antagonists in life. The radical critics who first came to Manet’s defense, Bourdieu argues, comprehended him even less than the conservatives who opposed him; it was Manet’s peculiar burden to be understood only by his enemies. And even while Manet remained infamous, imitators like Jules Bastien-Lepage grew rich by producing “a soft version of the hard revolution.” Such, in simplified terms, is Bourdieu’s explanation for the aesthetic transformation associated with Manet: a mixture of general social conditions in the France of the Second Empire, specific conditions of the Parisian art world, and Manet’s peculiar combination of skills and connections.

Bourdieu’s corpus is already so extensive, and his ideas already so embedded in sociology, that this new volume is unlikely to have much effect on his reputation or the use of his work. That is unfortunate, because the lectures in Manet provide a particularly lively approach to a topic on which Bourdieu is frequently misunderstood: how cultures change, sometimes quite rapidly and unexpectedly. Although he is often interpreted as a theorist of social reproduction, Manet offers a dynamic account of cultural change that improves on his earlier writings on cultural production.

More striking than the argument itself, perhaps, is the way it is presented and developed. The lectures on Manet are the result of a great deal of labor, and for me, their value is to be found in the fact that they often appear labored. Like any major thinker, Bourdieu has left behind theories and schemes that can be applied thoughtlessly by others (“field,” “habitus,” and “cultural capital” being among the most famous), and there are many readers who seem to believe that recourse to such formulas can solve any and all sociological problems. The self-assurance and impersonality of his finished works can make it easier to slip into these mistakes, despite their author’s repeated warnings against them.

Manet provides a view of a thinker at work, not a prophet. At various points in the two lecture series, Bourdieu confesses frankly to feelings of anxiety and doubt about the project he has set himself. He calls attention to questions that are in principle answerable that he lacks the time or skill to answer: most notably, a reconstruction of the biographies of the body of professional critics who defined the era’s taste. He also points out important questions that cannot be answered at all: for instance, the substance of conversation in the Boulevard cafes where Manet’s reputation grew. Bourdieu often breaks off the exposition of his argument in order to pursue thought experiments, answer audience queries, and share anecdotes and witticisms. In some places, he knocks down what he has already said, obliging him to rebuild his argument from scratch.

Bourdieu had an extremely unfavorable view of the normal mode of art appreciation and criticism. “[T]here are few social objects which […] provoke as many historically determined stupidities as works of art,” he carps at one point. Yet throughout the series, he spends a great deal of time looking at and talking about Manet’s paintings, even at the simplest level of verbally describing the composition, or trying to puzzle out what it would have felt like to paint them. Storming the “fortress of received wisdom” that surrounds Manet’s work requires a naïve, direct approach, Bourdieu believes, that leaves the interpreter vulnerable “to the charge of appearing uncouth or philistine”; this is typified by a four-page speculation on “what happened on the day that [Manet] started to paint” Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. Such sustained attention to Manet’s paintings, though not conducted in the standard mode of art criticism, provides exactly what many critics regard as a missing piece in Bourdieu’s earlier accounts of art. These lectures provide the fullest example of what it would take, within Bourdieu’s theoretical scheme, to produce a truly sociological explanation of art.

Bourdieu’s performance also embodies the virtues of his subject. Painters like Manet reacted against academic art’s obsession with producing perfectly “finished” works. Such a fixation, they argued, reduced art to the planning and careful application of proven methods: a thoroughly academic enterprise of tackling only problems that are predictably soluble. Bourdieu’s unabashedly speculative lectures mirror Manet’s own insights about the value of attacking a problem boldly and without the sort of forethought that produces a neat, readymade truth. This document of Bourdieu in action, grappling with a problem he has not quite mastered, is particularly valuable for those of us reading his work in translation, in a different country, after his death. It provides not just a statement of theories, but a sense of his personality and his intellectual practices — exactly the sorts of things that must be understood, if one wishes to see, and explain, the world the way Bourdieu did.

Ben Merriman — a sociologist by training — is an assistant professor at the School of Public Affairs & Administration at the University of Kansas.

The post Rewriting the Rules of Art: Pierre Bourdieu’s “Manet: A Symbolic Revolution” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff · 6 years

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Ben Merriman — a sociologist by training — is an assistant professor at the School of Public Affairs & Administration at the University of Kansas.

The post Rewriting the Rules of Art: Pierre Bourdieu’s “Manet: A Symbolic Revolution” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2AU9VOo

#Blogger

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pabluesman · 7 years

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The latest rant:

A common picture of the Republican Party is that of a cabal of big-money plutocrats, rubbing their hands gleefully as they kick starving children into the cold and knock retirees over for the Social Security benefits while lighting cigars with $100 bills. And while this is useful as agitprop, it creates a divide in the discussion of serious issues. Granted, there are some on both sides of the aisle who are craven and corrupt, and unfortunately they also make the most noise. It also doesn't help that the top figures in the party -- trump and his staff (Spicer, Conway, et al), Ryan, and McConnell -- further this perception with their words and actions, but such is a topic for another day ... The thing is, though, almost all Republicans are working with the best of intentions. They honestly believe that their proposals and actions are in the best interest of the American people. So why is there such a gulf between Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, trump and normal people? My opinion? It comes down to a fundamental difference in how progress is measured. The Republican Party measures everything in terms of dollars and cents. This is fine as far as it goes -- it is a completely objective measure, with no wiggle room for interpretation. Something costs what it costs, and revenue is revenue, and the numbers are going to be the numbers whether you like them or not. As a result, for many things this is fine ... but there are aspects of the things the government does that do not translate well into currency. Things like quality of life for a family that can no longer afford health coverage. Or environmental quality. Or lives lost fighting bullshit wars on false pretenses. The modern Republican Party is, on paper, dedicated to the idea of fiscal responsibility. They believe that deficit spending is fundamentally bad, that social welfare programs impede individual initiative, and (at least, on the far right) that many of the problems faced by marginalized populations -- the poor, people of color, and so on -- are the result of moral failings at the individual level. Proposals presented by the Republicans are centered around the idea of "if ya ain't got the dough, don't spend it." Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in the following statement made by Rep. Mo Brooks on May 1:

“My understanding is that it will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool. That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now those are the people—who’ve done things the right way—that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

On the surface, this seems like a pretty cruel, heartless stance. After all, what Rep. Brooks appears to be saying here is that if someone gets breast cancer, say, then it's their own damned fault for not living a clean life and they deserve to pay more for insurance as a result. Now, everybody knows this is bullshit, and it's a pretty safe bet that's not what Rep. Brooks meant. My guess is that he was speaking more to the apparent fairness of premium amounts, taking a position that people who need more health care should be paying higher premiums. And while this does seem like a reasonable proposition, it misses the point entirely on how insurance is supposed to work (the people who need less subsidize the people who need more, thus spreading the cost more or less evenly ... but diving into the intricacies of health insurance actuary is way beyond the scope of this article). This illustrates a higher point, though. Whether it stems from ideology, or the need to maintain viewership across the basic cable spectrum, or just pure salaciousness, we have been trapped in a cycle of "gotchas" for the past several decades. Barack Obama says "So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion ..." as a statement on small-town America's reaction to steady job losses over the prior twenty years, which is clearly evident when the entire quote is used:

"Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

However, the right-wing shriek factory chose to highlight a specific phrase in a manner designed to generate the most outrage, furthering the narrative of Obama as a Kenyan Muslim terrorist atheist communist dictator, hellbent on taking away everyone's guns and forcing them to adhere to Sharia law (which, let's be fair, almost none of the target audience knew anything about except what they had heard from the right-wing shriek factory in the first place ... and not for nothing, but it is impossible to be a Muslim and an atheist. Just sayin'.). To be fair, this sort of nonsense happens on the left as well, but again ... a topic for another article ... The thing is, there are actually very few Republicans who hew strictly to this line. The vast majority of them do not agree with ideological purity at all costs; instead they adopt a stance of "Okay, I have my ideology, you have yours, and there has to be some agreeable middle ground." For example, as you may have guessed, I am a liberal. Very liberal. Not quite to the anarchist extreme of some, but definitely more than most. One of my best friends is a hard-core conservative Republican. We argue about politics all the time, and rare is the occasion when one of us makes a solid enough argument to change the other's position. Despite this obvious mental deficiency on his part (kidding, and he knows it), he is a wonderful stepfather, a good and decent person, and regularly kicks my ass at pool. And this is the fundamental point. Republicans are not, by nature, evil. They are not the sort of cartoonish, sinister villains portrayed in the media, any more than liberals are all a bunch of skinny, stoned, granola-munching whiners with acoustic guitars militantly guarding against trigger words. Republicans just have a different viewpoint from Democrats. That's all. They are both still Americans, they both still love this country, they both still respect the Constitution. Go to any firehouse, police station, military barracks, elementary school, restaurant, grocery store, auto shop. Unless there is only one person there, chances are pretty good that there will be a roughly even split between conservatives and liberals. And I guarantee that the EMT who is driving the ambulance taking you to the hospital doesn't give a hairy rodent's posterior about your political affiliation, the only concern is getting you to the goddam hospital. This is what we, as a society, are losing sight of lately. It is incumbent upon all of us -- right or left, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal -- to always remember this, and to accept the fundamental humanity of those with differing views, and to allow the respect that is born from this acceptance to be shown. And it has to start with a decision on which media outlet to frequent. Yes, there are no purely objective sources. Every media outlet has some sort of political leaning. It's only natural, considering they are all people. Where the differences lie is in how this slant is addressed. Some, like Breitbart and the Daily Wire on the right or Occupy Democrats and the Palmer Report on the left, make no bones about their political leanings. Which is fine, as long as people understand that their content is all opinion, not fact. Others, like the New York Times and the Washington Post on the left and the Wall Street Journal and Forbes on the right, acknowledge their political stance but strive to keep it from coloring their reporting. Yes, sometimes they are better at it than others, but they all have one common characteristic: when a mistake is made, they cop to it. Publicly. They issue retractions and correct the erroneous information. If there are enough retractions credited to a specific reporter ... well, that reporter is then out of a job. So I urge everyone reading this -- both of you -- to ask the following questions when considering a news source (not including articles clearly labeled as opinion pieces):

Does this news source use objective language, or are there subjective terms (excluding quotes) used to attempt to sway the reader to a particular way of thinking about an issue? For example, the Daily Wire recently published a story about funding being pulled from a Shakespeare in the Park production of "Julius Caesar" because it depicts the assassination of donald trump. While the story may be true, and it is not at all uncommon for theater companies to adapt Shakespeare to modern settings, the Daily Wire uses language like "objectively despicable contents of this production" to describe the play. Rather than just reporting on the "who, what, where, when" of the issue, the Daily Wire attempts to apply a value judgement to the play, thus robbing the reader of that opportunity.

Can the story be verified by multiple reliable sources? For example, if you see a story in the New York Times, or Forbes, or the BBC, or even the Daily Caller, can you also find reporting on that same topic from another source? This excludes the latest practice in which someone creates content that may or may not be factual and distributes it to like-thinking outlets, who then publish it blindly (basically, what happens here is that the article appears in multiple outlets, with identical or near-identical language).

In the case of erroneous reporting, does the source acknowledge it and issue a retraction? This only applies to factual errors. For example, an article about Ivanka Trump's clothing line that reports on a pair of shoes costing $2,500 when they are actually $250 deserves a correction. An opinion piece stating that they are the butt-ugliest things to come down the pike since the Pontiac Aztek does not.

It is vitally important that we all -- Republican and Democrat alike -- do our due diligence when consuming media. It is only once we emerge from the shriek factories on both the left and right and into the light of day that we can start to find common ground on the issues facing this nation today. Please like and share my page at http://ift.tt/2rkD9UV for more.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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bdbdb · 7 years

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As a participant in the Santa Monica Community Police Academy I was allowed to schedule a “ride along” if I wanted one. I’ve never been on a ride along before so it wasn’t even a question, I wanted to go! Every ride along is different because everything you see/learn depends on the calls you get, it’s impossible to predict the future after all, but that might just be the most important lesson to take away from the experience.

There isn’t any photography allowed while on a ‘ride along,’ this was the only picture I was able to sneakily take. And then I got “artsy” with it.

Generally speaking you show up at the police station right before a shift starts, sit in on ‘roll call,’ meet your new cop buddy, and then hit the streets catching bad guys and/or helping people. After about 4 hours your new cop buddy takes you back to the station, swears up and down that you haven’t haven’t annoyed them with your non-stop silly questions, and you’re done!

Uh… Some of that may only apply to me, now that I think about it. 😉

My ride along was with C shift, so it was evening when I started. (You guys don’t even know how long I had “C is For Cookie” stuck in my head!) Roll call sort of seemed like homeroom in a strange kind of way. Attendance was taken and there were “school announcements” (department information etc.) No one was furiously copying their neighbor’s homework or trying to hide how sleepy they were,* so maybe it wasn’t that much like homeroom after all.

*(I mean that no one was sleepy, not that they were all yawning in the open or resting their heads on the table.)

Specific cases were discussed so everyone was working with the most current information, and I played a very quiet game of “guess the acronym” to myself. Some of them I knew from TV, some from class, and the rest I sort of guessed at. I would later learn that NFD stands for ‘no further description.’ Although I had two out of three words wrong, I’m giving myself credit for NFD because meaning wise my guess was 100% accurate. I was thinking ‘details’ instead of ‘description’ and I’ll let you figure out the rest on your own.

#gallery-0-6 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-6 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

One of the walls in the roll call room has a very large depiction of the Santa Monica Police badges through the years. Now I have questions all about badges too. Why the change in 1915 from the star shape to the shield shape? I mean, both are cool, it’s just idle curiosity, but someone had to have wanted the change right? Things don’t just decide to change shape on their own, so what’s that all about? Same with the change in color from silvery to gold-ish in 1915 and back again in 1948. Is there a specific reason for the changes, or does it have more to do with who was mining what ores at the time? I think my biggest question is why the change in 1959 from “policeman” to “patrolman”? That makes no sense to me. I’m sure there’s a reason, but I don’t even know who would have that information or where to look for it.

After roll call was dismissed my partner for the night gave me a tour of that section of the station and we headed out to the patrol car. The most interesting part of the tour was actually watching people interact with “my” officer. Sometimes in an official manner, but usually not. Usually about work, but sometimes not. I’m not dumb, I know everyone knew there was an extra set of eyes on them and would have acted accordingly. Generally though, if I had to describe the ‘feeling’ or vibe I saw within the SMPD I’d have to say it was camaraderie and respect.

Actually, I should go back. The most interesting thing to me about roll call was sort of the same. Roll call is more formal than people passing each other in the hallway obviously, but it wasn’t just “here’s some info, now go to work” either. Officers were shown how to use a digital tool they have at their disposal and encouraged to play around with it until they were more comfortable. Officers were encouraged to think about strategy and operations they could develop and bring those ideas back to their supervisors. It was about making the community safer, but it was also about supporting/nurturing co-workers and employees to challenge themselves and grow. It was really nice to see.

On our way to the patrol car we passed the most gorgeous old police car but there was no time to stop and admire it. A little research online tells me that the car is an 1964 Plymouth Savoy. I’m not really a “car person” (unless we are talking about things like the Nethercutt collection) but this car is so adorably bad ass that I’m a little in love with it. (I tend to anthropomorphize everything around me.) I want to take pictures of it. I want to ride around town in it. I want to pull people over with that car. Mostly I want to watch people’s reactions to that car. Would they even take it seriously or would they think they be looking for hidden cameras?

We were finally ready to go, or so I thought. Nope, it’s not like jumping in the car to run an errand, there’s a whole list of things to do to make sure the patrol car and various equipment is ready for use. My ‘partner’ also showed me the computer system they use inside the car. Everything I was shown made sense, but collectively the amount of coded information on the screen is overwhelming. I’m sure it’s like anything else and becomes second nature after a while, but wow it was a lot!

We left the police station and headed out. We answered a number of different calls throughout the night, never getting the same kind of call twice. At one point there was a call to my home address about a neighbor, but that wasn’t answered by us. It just amused me to see from the opposite perspective.

Typically we’d get a call and look at the information on the car’s computer. My ‘partner’ would talk to me about what might potentially happen when we arrived and how we should arrive (depending on the type of call.) My ‘partner’ was always thinking ahead about the best/safest/most effective way to do their job. Sometimes the information the police were given was wrong, and officers had to sort out what they were actually dealing with and shift gears to respond to the situation.

Calls are prioritized so sometimes we’d arrive just after something happened and deal with it, but sometimes we’d go to calls that were hours and hours old and find nothing. That doesn’t have anything to do with laziness or whatever reason you’re thinking, it’s entirely about too many calls and not enough resources. Just like sick people in an emergency room, the lowest priorities are going to the bottom of the list.

There were a few procedural things I learned here and there, but mostly I found value in being able to fade into the background and watch. In nearly every civilian interaction I witnessed officers were treated as “the enemy” upon arrival, but always the dynamic would shift at some point as the civilian would try to put the officer into the role of “mommy/daddy” and expect the officer to “fix it,” whatever ‘it’ was. It was only a few hours worth of patrolling, and not every call resulted in a civilian interaction, but even in very different circumstances I saw that same shift. I also watched a civilian speaking very differently to a female officer than a male one. The civilian never crossed the line into being outright disrespectful, but the difference was noticeable. I just wanted to smack the jerk upside the head and say “dude, they’re both police officers, knock it off!”

I asked the female officer about what I’d seen and she didn’t really have anything to say about it. I mean, of course she only knows how people talk to her, it’s not like she does her job in someone else’s body occasionally, but it just aggravated me that it happened at all and makes me sad that it’ll probably happen her whole career. I also asked what it was like being a female officer in the Santa Monica Police Department and she didn’t really have an answer. She wasn’t blowing me off, she genuinely tried to satisfy my question, but there really wasn’t anything specific she could point to. The lack of an answer is actually its own type of answer, and I’m taking that to mean it is a non-issue in the SMPD. So really, it was the perfect answer.

I can’t really talk about the specifics of any of the calls we went to, but there was one that was so potentially dangerous that I was told to stay back and let the officers approach without me. I tried to surreptitiously watch from the shadows. It was too dark for me to get a ‘selfie,’ but it probably looked exactly like this:

I have no explanation that doesn’t involve brain damage.

Survey results!

Every week I’ve found at least one opportunity to ask an officer “When has TV or film come the closest to accurately showing what law enforcement is like?” (Or some variation of the same question.) I’m also including in the final tally a few responses from police officers I asked outside of normal class interaction. Two different law enforcement agencies other than SMPD are represented. I asked my ‘favorite cop of all time’ (hi Brad, miss you!) what his thoughts were on the subject. I also had to invent a reason to talk to a sheriff on a Metro platform in downtown LA because he was one of the most attractive men I have ever seen (shut up, I’m allowed to be shallow sometimes) so into the survey he went. It’s not like this was a super scientific survey or anything, but now you can’t accuse me of misrepresenting the data.

Final tallies: End of Watch – 6 Southland – 5 Cops (and other “reality” TV) – 5 The Wire – 4 Reno 911 – 3 Law & Order – 2 Lethal Weapon – 1 CHiPs – 1

If there was a “winner” it would be End of Watch. I haven’t seen it and don’t know much about it, but it is going on my “To Watch” list after this. Based on the title I’m guessing it doesn’t end happily, so I’m going to keep some tissues nearby when I watch it.

@bdbdb @SantaMonicaPD If U chk the IMDb credits for End of Watch, U'll will see a familiar name; hint: SantaMonicaCoP, who was then w/IPD where movie was filmed!

— Jacqueline Seabrooks (@SantaMonicaCoP) May 17, 2017

I checked the IMDB credits and here’s what I saw:

Chief Seabrooks was involved and it’s the best Hollywood has done. Yeah, that makes sense. I get it now. Winner.

Southland and Cops/”reality” TV are the other two responses that I heard the most. (Southland is the show one officer found so realistic he couldn’t watch it!) As for Cops and other “reality” television, I’m still skeptical. Maybe this reveals the most interesting thing about the results though. I think, looking over the variety of the answers, it’s pretty obvious that whatever question I thought I was asking the person at the other end was hearing something different. I think some officers heard the question with law enforcement overall in mind and other officers were hearing me ask about their specific job. There’s no right or wrong answer, although I’m guessing “Lethal Weapon” was a joke answer and not an attempt to start a conversation about mental health and the particular challenges police officers face. But maybe I’m wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No one answered Brooklyn Nine Nine which surprised me a little. Not because I thought it’s accurate or anything, its humor is ridiculous, but because it is a current show and when the B99 writers want to make a serious point they do it incredibly well. (Did anyone watch the episode where Terry is detained for being black in public?)

I’m also a little bummed that no one answered Scott & Bailey. I didn’t expect to hear that as an answer, but it means I need to continue my search for someone who works in law enforcement and has seen the show. Unlike American crime shows where the “bad guy” is a 4th act reveal, a lot of Scott & Bailey’s drama comes from building the case so the criminal can be charged. The audience and the police both know who the “bad guy” is early in the episode. I have no idea if Scott & Bailey is accurate or if they are just telling a story in a different way than I’m used to, but it would be fascinating to talk to someone in law enforcement and get their take on it.

It’s not quite a “palm tree pic” but this wasn’t a normal class post so I’ve decided it counts.

My ride along w/ the @SantaMonicaPD (also final survey results!) As a participant in the Santa Monica Community Police Academy I was allowed to schedule a "ride along" if I wanted one.

#Law Enforcement #Police #Santa Monica #Santa Monica Community Police Academy

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nastysnowflake-blog · 7 years

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Intersectional Feminism

So I was browsing Facebook today, as I often do, when I happened across an album of screenshots. The screenshots were from a Twitter thread started by an indigenous woman who attended the Women’s March in D.C. on Saturday with a group of other native women. The women came dressed in traditional regalia and were prepared with songs and chants for the march. The woman, Hokte as the images said, began her thread with thanks to the organizers and a mention that the experience was invaluable. This quickly degenerated into talks of the toxicity of the movement, “plagued with white supremacy.” She mentioned that many women of color had already criticized the march and that she was disturbed in the moments when she left her prayer circle, her “home” as she called it, to be surrounded by the gaze of white women.

She went on to describe a very uncomfortable experience of being photographed, mocked, of having her culture questioned and of being approached by women who were more interested in fondling her regalia than discussing the fliers she and her partner were handing out. She talked about women walking through their prayer circle and about women approaching them wearing “R*skins” hats (Washington Redskins, a team that has been under fire for its racist depiction of American Natives).

She concludes her thread with a few statements that could be seen as slippery slope fallacies by the uninformed reader (generally anyone who listens to Faux News) and begins angrily attacking the values of all white women in attendance, listing off an experience with a woman who “is from Minnesota” and “knows Indian” because she can name all the lakes as her reason for feeling disrespected, finishing with, “White feminists treat us like we are burdens or that we are divisive. Because it’s inconvenient for you to let go of your whiteness.”

Being a white woman, this should be where I stop and put my tail between my legs and apologize for my support of the feminist movement I’ve been taught about. Being a middle-class, college-educated liberal in a blue state, this is where I should strip myself down and cry, clearly in the wrong.

Bullshit.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I haven’t been ill-prepared for this moment. I’m not going to deny the inherent privilege I’ve grown up with my entire life being white, and I’m not going to deny that I’ve certainly been blinded by the white-washed education I’ve received. I’m certainly not going to deny that the women partaking in the genitalia-based marching that seemed to flood the social media sphere on Saturday were not excluding literally every other demographic in attendance. “Not all pussies are pink!” No shit they’re not. So let’s get started.

If you search for images of the Women’s March, you’ll undoubtedly be met with wave after wave of women sporting home-made beanies with pointed edges in all shades of pink imaginable. Thus, The Pussy Hat Project. According to their website, the mission of the project is to provide the people of D.C. with a visual statement that will help the activists be heard and to help those who could not be in the National Mall with a way to show their support. The mission statement then breaks into separate sections: “Power in Numbers,” which discusses the imagery that would spawn from every marcher wearing a pink hat, “Power of Pink,” which discusses the societally assigned femininity of the color pink, “Power of Individuality within Large Groups” which allows for varying shades and patterns of hats to show that we don’t have to be identical to be powerful, “Power of the Handmade” which covers the assigned femininity of certain crafts and how this has created a stronger unity among women, and, lastly, “Power of Pussy” which discusses the term that has since been turned into an insult and their desire to reclaim it as a symbol of power and resistance. This section is precisely the section I’d like to focus on.

The Pussy Hat Project has come under fire for being exclusive to white cis-women, or women with pink pussies. Because the color pink was selected it was seen as an attack on women of color, and because the term “pussy” was used it’s been seen as an attack on trans-women or intersex people. The project literally addresses this concern in their mission statement: “Women, whether transgender or cisgender, are mistreated in this society...A woman’s body is her own.” Right, but what about women of color!?

The color pink was literally selected as a statement, not to in some way elude to the color of genitalia. When I was in high school we often had “color war” nights for certain sporting events. A week before the game we’d all agree to wear all red or all black or all white in support of our team, and when the night finally rolled around we would show up in large numbers, looking unified in our goal to win whatever game it was we were playing. The intent with the hats was the same. Create a large group of people that, when seen from higher positions (both literally and figuratively), it appeared to be a unified mass with the intent of “supporting their team.” Pink just happens to be the color many of us are assigned at birth. Had that color been yellow or green the Pussy Hat Project would have patterns involving yellow or green worsted yarn. Not all pussies are green…?

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the necessity of intersectional feminism. I’m not going to pretend that a white feminist is going to have to fight in the same way as a black or latinx feminist. My concern, however, is in taking something as innocent as a knit beanie and dismantling the message. It is literally attempting to be all-inclusive and is somehow still not good enough. Don’t like that the color pink seems like it’s excluding you? Knit a black one. Knit a brown one. Knit a fucking rainbow one, it clearly didn’t matter. The beauty was in the difference. No two vaginas are the same, no two women are the same, and no two hats were the same. I’m sure no one was going to castrate you for showing up in a tan pussy hat, they’d have probably applauded your thoughtfulness with the issue at hand.

Which leads me to my last point, thoughtfulness. Returning to Hokte and her message, I must repeat for the people in the back that I AM A PRIVILEGED WHITE FEMINIST. I have never struggled to be taken as seriously as my counterparts, I have never been told my “costume is really pretty” or had my heritage brought into question. I will never know the struggle for clean drinking water, and I will only know the qualms of being hired second if I’m applying for the same job as a man. I will never be marginalized and stereotyped in the way that many other cultures have been (though there are plenty of stereotypes I face, that’s an argument for another day). That does not mean I cannot stand with you and that I will not support you.

It was her anger that triggered me. It was the way Hokte approached the issue that made me feel so disappointed. It’s the many women of color on my feed who argue and misplace messages that make me feel like nothing I do is safe. I am a child of the white-washed education system. I am born of the feminist movement, thinking it was merely a universal movement for all women to partake in. I was never taught to scrutinize photographs for their diversity, to choose my words carefully so as not to exclude people who do not identify as cis like I do. I was simply taught that if women wanted to fight for equality of the genders, they became feminists. So as I’m learning there are many facets to feminism I’m beginning to notice things like the exclusion of trans and intersex, I’m beginning to notice the silencing of women of color. I can see it. I am trying my best to understand it.

It’s when you attack me for being an uninformed cis white feminist that the power of our movement turns against us. Is that not the argument of those who fight against feminism? We’re constantly angry at those who do not identify as feminist, we call them names, we generalize them, right? At least that’s what they say. So when you perch on your branch of this great tree and shout at those perched on other branches that they’re uninformed, not good enough, and thoughtless, does it not alienate them? Is that not what we’re trying to end?

You have to educate us.

It’s work, and it takes time, and there are always going to be the bandwagon feminists who are simply unteachable. There’s always going to be someone who thinks they know more than they do because they took one women’s studies class during their freshman year of college. There’s always going to be someone who thinks saying, “I guess we’re Indians today!” is a good way to start conversation with the traditionally dressed women beside her. There’s always going to be someone who dresses up as a giant vagina and thinks they’re helping the cause. It’s still worth trying. There are more than a few women in those crowds that marched on Saturday and that are still knitting Pussy Hats (like myself) that would be genuinely interested in learning about your culture and learning how best to include you in our idea of feminism. There are going to be bumps in the road, but rather than call us disrespectful and force us to leave, explain why what we said was wrong and teach us how to work with you rather than against you.

We can make intersectional feminism a reality. You just have to understand that many of us are still fighting with what society has taught us and are blinded by misinformation. Help us learn so we can stop fighting one another and start supporting one another. While some of us may not want to part with the “convenience of our whiteness,” there are plenty of others who would like to learn how to use that convenience to help raise you up.

#Womens March #Intersectional Feminism #White Girl Rant

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sexkoreasblog · 4 years

Link

Conservatives and liberals see the world as zero-sum — when it suits them

by Clark Merrefield, Journalist's Resource February 7, 2020

“We argue that both liberals and conservatives view life as zero-sum when it benefits them to do so,” the authors write.

All in

In real life, zero-sum thinking is not so much about an equal and opposite reaction, where Maya’s gain is perfectly balanced by Joe’s loss.

The more things change …

“This observation, however, flies in the face of research showing that conservatives are more prone, not less prone, to zero-sum thinking,” the authors write.

This zero-sum outlook is reflected in the national political debate. Liberal politicians establish an us-versus-them rhetorical framework when they talk about rising income inequality:

“We must tell the economic elite who have hoarded income growth in America: No, you can no longer have it all.” -- Bernie Sanders, December 2019.

“Newcomers compete for jobs against the most vulnerable Americans and put pressure on our social safety net and generous welfare programs.” -- Donald Trump, May 2019.

The trouble is that a combative stance makes it nearly impossible for parties affected by a policy or issue to find common ground, according to Davidai.

Since the 1960s, educational, political and economic opportunities for black people have come at the expense of white political power, economic gain and education.

Black political, educational and economic opportunity has expanded at no one’s loss.

Zero-sum? Bad outcomes

Darwin for the win

Because zero-sum thinking might be evolutionarily hardwired in our brains, people might not recognize they’re using zero-sum arguments.

If people think they would lose if certain policies or rhetoric are advanced, no matter whether the situation is truly zero-sum or not, the fact remains that the thought of losing hurts.

This article first appeared on Journalist's Resource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

via entertainment

#IFTTT #entertainment

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