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illarian-rambling · 10 months ago

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Thanks for the tags @wyked-ao3 and @inkednotebook!

Character Profile Tag

Because I've been working on two big report chapters recently and I miss him, let's do Anarac!

Full name: Anarac Fifth-Blood

Age: He died at 32, but existed for about ~7000 years after that, so I'm not sure how you'd count that

Gender: Cis man

Type of Being: Araunian

Appearance: A tall, gaunt man with berry-red skin, amber-brown eyes surrounded by dark circles, ears that come to a rounded point, and shoulder-length blonde hair usually pulled into a slightly unkempt ponytail. He looks older than 32 by a good bit. A wound encircles his throat, and though his head stays on, it's easy to infer he died by beheading. He wears a tunic of ancient make with some bits of light armor on his chest, forearms, and shins.

Way of speaking: Not much at all. Anarac rarely speaks more than a few words at a time. His voice is deeply strained and rusty with disuse. Without the enchantment that allows the crew of the Starbreaker to understand each other with clarity, his Janazi dialect is very antiqued.

Physical characteristics: Dude has top-tier crazy eyes. That's probably what an outside observer would notice the most. Anarac switches between looking through most things and focusing with an incredible intensity. Also, the way he moves is pretty jerky and uncoordinated, almost like he's not used to having a body to move.

Occupation: Even the dead (or these dead, at least) have to work, so he's the R.S. Starbreaker's onboard End expert.

Family: In life, he had two sons, Finlay and Baerdyn. The last time he saw them, they were thirteen and ten. He was never close with his parents. He also had an ex-wife named Eabain who never paid her fantasy child support.

Best friend: I wouldn't describe the crew of the Starbreaker as his best friends yet, but Izjik has earned that title. They haven't seen each other in a long time, since he's dead and all, yet he still considers her a pal.

Pets: None currently.

Relationships: The crew of the Starbreaker is who he's been interacting with lately. In his mind, he sees Faalgun as a responsible leader who frequently bites off more than he can chew, Nyda as easily the funniest person he's ever met, Kaulakri as a stuffy science type who's also the actual hand behind keeping the mission on track, and Pash as a misguided kid who someone really should've taught better manners to.

Describe their room: None of the ghost crew got rooms when the ship was constructed because they don't technically need them. They've carved out their own places, though, so Anarac's 'room' is a private corner between a supply crate and the wall. It's dark, with a little slit he can watch the cargo hold through. There aren't really any decorations, but he does work on sample sorting in there, so there are usually a few stacks of preservation boxes.

Items in their bag/purse/pockets: Honestly, nothing.

Hobbies: People-watching is a big one. He sort of remembers that he liked to cook in life, but he hasn't had the chance to try that out again yet.

Favorite sport: Another thing he remembers enjoying in life is dancing. Dance was a big part of communal Araunian culture, so he would've gotten a lot of practice in life. Maybe he'll work up the courage to try again someday.

Abilities/talents/powers: Anarac has been dead for long enough that, while he can feel pain on an abstract level, his brain has lost the need to perceive it as dangerous, so it doesn't actually 'hurt' him. Also, give him a situation where he has no choice, and my boy can kick some ass in a fight.

Fears: Everything? Ok, I'm only kinda kidding there, but Anarac is extremely skittish around any overwhelming sensations, since he hasn't had a body for 7000 years. He's scared of people because he still has the initial instinct that End is going to take control and make him kill them. He scared of the stars especially, because of End again.

Faults: His fear. It keeps him from reaching out or beginning to heal. Also, a bit of a minor one, but after being part of a hive mind, his sense of boundaries is a little eroded. He will 100% watch you sleep because what is that compared to watching you think?

Good points: Under all the fear and general creepiness, he has a heart of gold. Anarac does his best to protect and guide the people he cares about, albeit in his own way. Those dad instincts are very much present. He also has a genuine curiosity about new people and new ways of doing things.

What they want more than anything else: To find the lost Araunian afterlife and apologize to his sons.

I'll tag @mk-writes-stuff @kaylinalexanderbooks @astor-and-the-endless-ink @drchenquill @cain-e-brookman and anyone else who wants in :)

Questions under the cut

Full name: Age: Gender: Type of Being: Appearance: Way of speaking: Physical characteristics: Occupation: Family: Best friend: Pets: Relationships: Describe their room: Items in their bag/purse: Hobbies: Favourite sport: Abilities/talents/powers: Fears: Faults: Good points: What they want more than anything else:

#writing #writerscommunity #writblr #my ocs #character profile

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bullshit-usa · 5 months ago

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Gender is a social construct for people to express the complexities of their identity as they experience it, when humans relate to each other in similar ways, we can define these experiences as specific identities. There's infinite ways to identify so there's infinite genders. Only focusing on the societally imposed 2 genders and trying to find scientific links is of course not going to yield results because it's a social construct. That's like trying to find a scientific link between red and stop because you see it on traffic lights.

Just let people express their identities, it's not that hard. You're not helping anyone like this. There are plenty of social constructs that deeply impact us as people and gender is one of them. If transition keeps people alive I don't really care if there's a "reason" they're trans. We're not asking cis people if there's a "reason" they're a man or a woman.

If you're the psychology major, I think it's concerning that you haven't realized this or haven't been taught this. Eh, well, I forgot that I actually went to a tier 1 so I may be overestimating other schools. Lol. Sorry, I have to flex as much as humanly possible.

Let me point out the assumptions in your argument:

A. You assume "identity" is material, a legitimate thing. Thoughts can be illegitimate.

B. Each human being genetically different from every other human, except a twin, but regardless of such, having their own unique experience, does not mean there are no patterns of behavior.

C. Just because you can't see the results doesn't mean the results aren't there. My last post did show that female and male brains can be distinct from each other.

D. It's not keeping them alive.

You can be wrong. What stops you from being wrong about yourself? And I mean "stop" in a physical sense. What is the existing barrier that prevents you from being wrong? No force on Earth stops you from being wrong. You just have faith in yourself that you aren't misinterpreting yourself or lying to yourself. I don't believe in magic. You can't argue that magic is real by making arguments that only make sense to people who already believe in magic. You have to step into my philosophical foundations and argue me out of it.

But where does this threshold lie? When is your brain honest and when isn't it? You can only guess, so you have to analyze all your thoughts, and feelings, and you have to come up with ways to determine your true feelings. This is why I do coin flips, why I give myself plenty of time to think about myself by myself, and I argue against myself to be as logical as possible.

Saying there are infinite ways people can identify doesn't mean that their identities are valid. If I can identify as a cat and still not be a cat, you can identify as a man and still not be a man. What separates "saying you are a cat and not being a cat" from "saying you are a man and not being a man?" How does the universe separate the two?

In terms of physics, what would make it true that saying you are a man makes you a man, but not true for saying you are a cat and not being a cat regardless? That's why I focus on cause, it's because things can't appear in reality from nothing.

The law of conservation of energy says that energy is neither created nor destroyed. I believe in this principle of the universe, so I do not act like there are no reasons for something to happen. To every effect, there is a cause.

This is just intellectual laziness. You aren't motivated by being right, you're motivated by validating other people and misinterpretations of Hegel's dialectic. You think that other's thoughts about themselves are right, that other perspectives of the world are the truth, that empiricism reigns supreme, and observation is true. This is where I bring up the double slit experiment. to simplify, scientists were trying to predict which slit an electron went through, and found out that when they thought it was going to go through the left slit, it did, and vice versa. So they opened up both slits, thought it would go through both, and it did. Then they went back to thinking it went through one slit, and it did. What explains this?

The electron simply went in every single possible direction. It only seemed like the electron was going into one slit after someone thought it would because after thinking it would go through one slit, they would only observe that slit. They essentially closed all awareness of the electron going in different directions when they thought it would go in one direction. That's confirmation bias, that's how observations can be wrong. Regardless of what the scientists thought the electron would do, it went in every direction. They only observed it going in one and thought that was the only direction it could go in, but they were wrong. Physics said otherwise.

Physics is independent of humanity. It happens regardless of an observer of physics. The universe was still expanding even if humans couldn't see it.

Reality is separate from what you interpret to be reality. You can interpret your reality and say you are a cat, but in reality, you are not. You only think something is the case, but your thoughts cannot manifest into reality. If you cannot ponder spaghetti to appear in front of you, you cannot believe that someway somehow your thoughts will manifest you into being a cat. Life doesn't work like that.

You cannot think yourself into being a man or woman.

But what is "being a cat?" How can I know how it is to be a cat if I never was one? My only "sense" of knowing what being a cat is like is by observing cats.

My only sense of knowing what being a man would be like is by observing men. But that doesn't make me a man.

Comparing myself to what I observe to be true of cats doesn't make me a cat. I also like to lay in the sun and I like to sleep. That doesn't make me a cat. I also like seafood. That doesn't make me a cat.

Apply this to being a woman or a man. You can also like makeup and dresses, but that doesn't make you a woman. It can't, your only frame of reference is your observations, but your observations do not bend reality, your observations come after reality. Your observations react to reality. It takes a few microseconds for your brain to interpret what you're seeing, and that only comes after the light enters your eyeballs. Reality is the light entering your eyes and observations are what you interpret the light to be and mean.

Even if every observation about oneself is valid, it doesn't mean there are no patterns. It is true that the overwhelming majority of women in the West like makeup. But what is false is believing that this is inherent of women, and not the result of conditioning.

Believing that something is inherent is believing in determinism. At the time of their birth, women are set on the path of liking makeup. False. What comes first is birth, how women are treated, and then liking makeup. Women like makeup because they are essentially groomed into a mindset that makes them predisposed to liking makeup. But this doesn't ring true for all women. For me, the "grooming" into liking makeup went in the complete opposite direction, when I wear it, I become overwhelmed with thoughts that I am a fraud, that I'm useless, and that I'm better off dead. But it doesn't mean I was not predisposed into thinking that because of how people reacted to me being born a certain sex even if I deviate from what is considered "normal" of women, because the causes are the same-being born female. There are of course other potential causes, but if being female is true for both, then it is true for both. You can't put them in different categories, they overlap. They don't contradict.

If I say "Books are fun to read" and there is one book that is not fun to read, it doesn't mean "books are fun to read" is false. A singular book does not prove that generally, reading books is not fun. Singular cases do not prove or disprove general cases. General cases prove or disprove general cases - because general means general and singular means singular. Intersex people do not generally disprove that there are two sexes, because regardless of their existence, the two sexes are still overwhelmingly true. Intersex people are still classified within those two sexes, because intersex is only a difference of one or two traits, and besides those traits, they overwhelmingly overlap with one sex, but never both. No human on Earth cannot produce both egg and sperm simultaneously. No being on Earth can, for that matter. Intersex people still would produce egg or sperm, what makes it not the case is one or two traits. Remove the traits and they'll be like everyone else.

This is just an effect of you being tunnel-visioned through ideology. My position is incomprehensible to you because I operate with different principles, principles you do not believe in. Imagine it like sunglasses. You cannot see what I see with sunglasses on. Only having the sunglasses on makes you see what I could see with sunglasses.

Only believing in my principles will make you see the world as how I see it. Don't be hung up on the sunglasses example. You can still imagine how I think, but it doesn't mean that you're necessarily right. And you don't need to believe in my exact principles to comprehend my beliefs, you just need to think similarly enough to how I think to comprehend and come to an agreement.

This one is short. Recent studies show there is a spike in suicides around 10 years down the line for people who transition. They experience temporary relief, then dysphoria comes back and it wreaks havoc and leads to many suicides.

From Chapter 1 of Detransition Diaries by Jennifer Lahl and Kallie Fell

#transandrophobia #anti transmasculinity #baeddelism #baeddel #transmisandry #liberal feminism #radical feminism #gender critical #gc feminism #transgender #transition #transitioning #detransition #detrans #post modern #post modernism #gender ideology #4b #4b movement

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midnightactual · 4 years ago

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Yoruichi & Gender Construction

Something that isn’t immediately intelligible to an English-speaker is that Yoruichi (and Kisuke) have somewhat opposite gender roles to what one might casually expect. This is initially reflected in their personal pronouns.

Yoruichi uses washi (儂) for herself in addition to describing others as onushi (御主). These mean, respectively:

washi: Often used in western dialects and fictional settings to stereotypically represent characters of old age

onushi: Used by elders and samurai to talk to people of equal or lower rank. Literally means "master".

Kisuke, meanwhile, uses atashi to describe himself in the present (あたし), while he used boku (僕) in the past:

atashi: A feminine pronoun that strains from わたし ("watashi"). Rarely used in written language, but common in conversation, especially among younger women. It was formerly used by male members of the merchant and artisan classes in the Edo area and continues to be used by male rakugo performers.

boku: Used by males of all ages; very often used by boys. Perceived as humble, but can also carry an undertone of "feeling young" when used by males of older age. Also used when casually giving deference; "servant" uses the same kanji (僕 shimobe).

In other words, Yoruichi has seemingly always talked like an old, gruff samurai, and Kisuke has always adopted a deferential and self-minimizing posture.

While not all samurai were men, with possibly up to 1/3 of combatants in some times and cases having been women, men were still the majority, and so this can be broadly seen as Yoruichi adopting a masculine affectation. Likewise, while there was an obvious example among men for Kisuke to emulate (as he was and remains a merchant in what used to be the Edo area), his choices contemporarily read as feminine. A modern-day English equivalent of this which one might imagine could be Yoruichi talking like a drill sergeant and Kisuke talking like a valley girl.

At least in Yoruichi’s case, this kind of defiance of expectations goes yet farther still. There is often a marked difference in how men and women approach positions of command. To give two examples, let me start with an anecdote from World War 2:

To reach [Douglas MacArthur], [George Kenney] had to get past [Richard K. Sutherland], who had shut [George Brett] out and had taken it upon himself to write air operations orders.

Kenney decided to confront Sutherland. In a meeting, he jabbed a dot onto a piece of paper. As he thrust it before MacArthur’s chief of staff, he said, “The dot represents what you know about air operations, the entire rest of the paper what I know.”

When Sutherland reacted belligerently, Kenney suggested they see MacArthur. Sutherland backed down.

And then move on to a quote from Margaret Thatcher:

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”

Without getting too deep into this subject, I think these two examples neatly illustrate that two very contradictory styles of command exist which tend to be employed rather distinctly depending on who is demonstrating them. In general, men are allowed (if not encouraged) to be direct and assertive, whereas women are expected to be reserved and non-confrontational.

Yoruichi does not adhere to this distinction, and does not believe in Thatcher’s logic whatsoever. So, for example, while some powerful women like Queen Elizabeth II might defer to breaches in protocol like being hugged by Michelle Obama (not that the former actually minded at all), or otherwise hold their tongues, Yoruichi will instead usually directly call out whatever behavior she finds unacceptable and state her authority unflinchingly and directly. She does not believe that strength always resides in silence and stoicism if there is an example to be made.

She’s quite willing to not only talk like a man, but to assert herself in a way traditionally viewed as masculine. This professional or at least operational posture exists in an interesting tension with her interpersonal and casual behavior, which is quite often decidedly feminine. Her ability to swap between these at a moment’s notice is yet another complicating factor in how she’s perceived.

#Out Of Character #Meta #Headcanons #[ Yoruichi flagrantly deriding ]#[ Tobiume and Haineko as being merely girls ]#[ while hyping herself as a woman ]#[ is yet another example of her looking down on Thatcherian logic ]

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woman-loving · 5 years ago

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I’m curious about “respectability politics” and how it applies to variations on the “born this way“ / “it’s not a choice” argument for toleration of homosexuality.

I’ve heard that “respectability politics” was theorized by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church 1880-1920, which I have not read yet. (Although this might be a good time to start it, cause I’m just about to finish my current book!) My impression was that it referred to appeals to middle-class norms of respectability as a basis for claims to citizenship and protection and nondiscrimination under the law.

I associate the “it’s not a choice” discourse (and I’m not entirely sure if that’s a bit different from the “born this way” discourse) mostly with a counterargument to conservative Christian pronouncements about homosexuality in the US. I had previously rejected the idea that this argument was a form of “respectability politics,” because I didn’t think that “not being able to choose your sexuality” was a typical marker of middle-class respectable citizenship. I had instead described this argument as “toleration politics,” where, rather than being seen as meeting moral (or citizenship) requirements just as well as everyone else, a special exemption from the standard requirement was being requested based on a (tragic) inability to fulfill it.

But I’m thinking about some things I’ve read and feel like variations of these arguments (which each have their own particularity, but also some commonalities imo) may have more to do with respectability than I originally thought.

But the other part of the equation is that they may involve appeals to religious patriarchal moral authorities. And I’m curious about the relationship between patriarchal religious morality--which I would basically describe like that, although I’m trying to work “religious” out of it--and class and citizenship dynamics. Because it seems like, at least in Christianity (and also in Islam from what I know about it), the acknowledged orthodox sexual morality is patriarchal and doesn’t authorize sex outside heterosexual marriage, even if it overlooks it. (But what variations might I be overlooking because they’re not considered orthodox by more institutionalized authorities?) Is there an automatic link between orthodox patriarchal sexual morality and “middle-class respectability,” just because the former is taken as a basis for the later? In the US, appeals to Christian patriarchal morality are also important to citizenship given the influence of Christian conservatives in politics, but is this also/only about middle-class ideals? (This has all got me thinking about the argument I heard Naomi Goldenberg make on The Religious Studies Project that religions can be understood as vestigial states.) I’m also thinking of religious authority here in terms of patriarchal authority: is this a good way to think about it and how is it incomplete?

Anyway, there are some passages that have been fitting themselves together in my brain:

Karen, editor of Frauenliebe, used sexological concepts of congenital and acquired homosexuality to draw a strict boundary between the two. She argued that anyone seeking same-sex love out of enjoyment of transgression [acquired homosexuality] damaged society and should be "separated from the public." On the other hand, Karen continued, "Same-sex behavior, entered into voluntarily and clearly by both partners [congenital homosexuality], belongs, like every intimate heterosexual behavior, to the realm of things one accepts but does not talk about."[68] Karen also warned aspiring writers to avoid writing explicitly about sexual experience in their stories and essays.[69]

Categorical exclusion shaped a debate in Frauenliebe about bisexuality. Like prostitutes, bisexuals were excluded from homosexual community. Frauenliebe printed fifteen responses to a letter asking readers to express their view on women who had relationships with both sexes.[70] They saw homosexuality as moral and bisexuality as immoral. It was not only movement leaders who wanted to discipline sexual desire in their followers. Letters from readers grouped bisexual women with prostitutes and "sensual" heterosexual women, accusing all of seeking homosexual experiences out of curiosity or sensual desire rather than as an expression of inner character.[71] [...]

Vilification of bisexual women allowed women the opportunity to enter into the classification and definition work of sexology and to create a purified figure of the female homosexual suitable for political citizenship. The "sexual" in homosexual was tamed through strict denial that irresistible desire defined the category. Rejection of prostitutes and bisexuals allowed women to construct "female homosexuality" as materially and sexually pure. As a type, they argued, "true" homosexuals kept desire under the control of the individual will.

-- Marti M Lybeck, Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933, 2015 Fuller quote here. This one links sexual morality and citizenship most directly and perhaps in the most “respectable” way (the realm of things you don’t talk about).

To understand how MSM is read, it is important to examine how explicit and implicit boundaries are drawn around the category gay. Consider, for example, a passage from Paul Farmer in which he claims that, in recent years, there have been fewer HIV cases than predicted among gay men in the United States, a category he implicitly racializes as White via the contrast with “injection drug users, inner-city people of color, and persons originally from poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean.”21(p47) He further excludes gay from poor and suggests that “males involved in prostitution are almost universally poor, and it may be their poverty, rather than their sexual preference, that puts them at risk of HIV infection. Many men involved in homosexual prostitution, particularly minority adolescents, do not necessarily identify as gay.”21(p47) With this juxtaposition, Farmer seems to suggest that same-gender behavior among poor men of color (especially youth) is sex work rather than sex for pleasure and is devoid of identity and community; same-gender behavior among White men is read as synonymous with gay identity.

Compare these assumptions with a recent ethnographic report on men at risk for HIV in Dakar, Senegal.22 While many of these “men who have sex with men” are poor and engage in sex work, the authors found that they have indigenous sexual-minority identities that are differentiated and socially meaningful. Senegalese sexual-minority identities serve as a basis for social organization, including, but not limited to, sexual roles. The authors describe ibbi as men who “tend to adopt feminine mannerism[s] and to be less dominant in sexual interactions,”22(p505) whereas yoos are men who “are generally the insertive partner.” They also stress that the categories have “more to do with social identity and status than with sexual practices.”22(p506) [...]

Is MSM a useful term for describing groups that eschew prominent LGB categories? Much has been made of the fact that men on the DL lead secret lives and do not consider themselves gay.25,26 But DL is not a behavioral category that can be conveyed as MSM. As Frank Leon Roberts has put it, “DL is . . . about performing a new identity and embracing a hip-hop sensibility [italics added].”27DL functions not as a nonidentity but as an alternative sexual identity and community denoting same-gender interest, masculine gender roles distinct from the feminized sissy or faggot, Black racial/ethnic identity, and a dissociation from both White and Black middle-class gay cultures.26–28

-- “The Trouble With “MSM” and “WSW”: Erasure of the Sexual-Minority Person in Public Health Discourse,“ by Rebecca M Young and Ilan H Meyer, published in American Journal of Public Health, July 2005. This one doesn’t deal with the “it’s not a choice" argument directly, but suggests who people might want to exclude and have actually excluded in practice from categories of “sexual orientation" and “born this way” gay identity.

Omar’s analysis of linguistic terms has direct impact upon the issue of interpretation of the Qur’an. This analysis, published in 1997, predated the El-Moumni Affair by four years, yet illustrates exactly the conflation of terms which the imam pronounced in that controversial interview. Omar writes, “Many words are used to express sexual relationships that take place between man-and-man or between woman-and-woman. . . . Whether in modern standard Arabic or local dialects, there are terms like sexual deviance (al-shudhudh al-jinsiyya) and sodomy (al-liwat) and also homosexuality (al-junusiyya). . . . The problem is that most people use these different terms as synonyms, creating a situation of naming experiences with names that do not really fit, thereby generating misunderstanding and confusion about the topic of sexual orientation. . . . I see the critical importance of writing about homosexuality as the attempt to remove these confusing mix-ups of terms and issues.”[15] In this crucial passage, Omar explains that his project is to differentiate between homosexuality and sodomy. In his understanding, the Qur’an condemns sodomy as the act of anal penetration rather than homosexuality as sexual orientation, while the Islamic legal tradition mistakenly conflates the two.[16]

The distinction between homosexuality and sodomy makes sense if one asserts that there is a psychological reality called sexual orientation, which is separate from and prior to any sexual act. He writes, “Sex is a phenomenon that happens by way of the body, whereas sexuality is a matter existing at the level of psyche and personality.”[17] In his analysis, only a person with a psychological identity of constant and exclusive same-sex desire should be called “homosexual” (junusi in his terminology, or mithli jinsiyya in the Arabic terminology of other contemporary writers). The person who performs same-sex acts without doing so within the framework of exclusively homosexual orientation can be described as sodomite (luti). It is this behavior that characterizes the Tribe of Lot, who wanted to perform same-sex acts for reasons other than as a genuine expression of their sexual identity and psychological persona.[18] Omar’s analysis challenges classical Islamic law. Jurists instituted practical norms forbidding same-sex acts such as sodomy (liwat), with the assumption that those performing them were, in their inmost character, actually heterosexual (or at least functionally bisexual).

--Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims, by Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, 2014. I read this one yesterday. I can’t be sure whether bisexual people are considered at all, even as a footnote, in Omar’s analysis, and if they are, whether their pursuit of same-gender sex would be categorized with the acceptable homosexuals or unacceptable heterosexuals. I’m not sure here if Omar has in mind for sodomy rape specifically, or any anal penetration, or sexual activity (anal or not) between men that’s perceived as ‘voluntary’ rather than following the demands of exclusive sexual orientation.

But I think it’s interesting how intent/context/constraint of orientation is factored into ethical analysis here and in the first quote, in a way that accepts some forms of or reasons for having same-gender sex as unethical or socially disruptive. And in the first quote, these ‘voluntary’ expressions are imagined to be rooted in hypersexuality and sex work, distinctly un-middle-class. The last quote is engaging with Islamic legal traditions as well as theology, and I don’t know much about how this articulates with “citizenship,” although the author was writing in the Netherlands where LGBT rights were guaranteed by secular authorities.

Anyway, that’s what was bouncing around my head last night.

#lgbtq #born this way #it's not a choice #citizenship #respectability politics #religion #patriarchy

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63824peace · 6 years ago

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Monday, 5th of december 2005

I saw the movie Always: San-cho-me-no-yuuhi again over the weekend, on Saturday. I watched it at the Navio Tohoplex in Umeda, Osaka.

I hadn't visited Navio since they renovated it. I felt so nostalgic when I saw traces of the older Navio Hankyu. I even saw the elevators that went straight into the theater. The Kitano Theater had already occupied Navio Hankyu's construction site, so they simply built Navio Hankyu around the theater.

Back then it had been Umeda's most popular theater. Popular films often filled the theater to capacity from morning until evening. No one who really wanted to see a movie ever let the crowd deter him. It compares with the Marion Theater in Ginza.

They built Navio Hankyu in the shape of a ship. Each floor looked like a triangular wedge of cheese. They offered an art gallery inside, as well as a number of restaurants. I would eat at one of the restaurants after watching a movie.

I entered the renovated Navio Tohoplex. It has a number of smaller theaters inside since it's a cinema complex. Unfortunately, they chose to show Always in one of the smaller theaters.

I descended to the seventh floor and entered theater number eight. They used to have restaurants there in the past.

The movie has run for several weeks already, so I was surprised to find the theater almost full. Always is a real blockbuster. I took a seat in the back of the theater, and I had a good view of the audience's crowns. I was astonished once more to see that half of the audience had gray heads... they were elderly. Saturday wasn't a workday, so people were more likely to attend the theater... but I remain stunned by the overwhelming nostalgic support that people over fifty have given the movie.

I heard that Always ranked number one in the box office for three weeks. The film's renown as a hit really woke up the older movie-going audience. We don't often see mature-aged people touched by a CG movie.

I felt freer to cry during my second viewing. I knew the story's development and I no longer scrutinized the special effects, so I could let myself go more easily. Tears fell endlessly.

In the theater, I heard the audience weep in Dolby Surround Sound. We rarely see people of all ages and both genders cry in a theater. The older generation especially wept tears in remembrance of that lost time. I felt as though they were the tears of the Showa Era itself.

I hadn't been to Osaka's Umeda in a long time. I had last been there for the MGS3 release event, so that meant that I hadn't been there in about a year.

Umeda is the city of my youth. I met so many people there when I grew from boyhood to adulthood. I experienced so many steps on my way to becoming an adult, like dating, taking a part-time job, shopping, and entertaining.

Umeda is really special to me. It's quite nostalgic... although I don't feel quite as much nostalgia now as I had when I walked there a year earlier. It's the city of my memories... have I been in Tokyo too long?

I hadn't realized that my gait had fallen out of sync with the rest of the Osaka pedestrians. Walking became difficult... I often bumped into others. Osaka's dialect aggravated my ears. I couldn't stand the poor manners that people displayed while crossing the street. The billboard colors and people's clothing seemed obnoxious and harsh, rather than vibrant like people usually regard Kansai color schemes.

I couldn't collect myself for some reason. I used to feel calm every time that I returned to Kansai, but I couldn't feel that way this time.

That was a real problem! Was I still a Kansai man?

I mounted the long escalator leading to the Hankyu Umeda station's central gate. I held the handrail and looked at my feet - something just didn't feel right.

I looked up and didn't see anyone in front of me. Everyone stood on the right side of the escalator en-masse, and I had reflexively stood on the left. The escalator passengers going down glanced dubiously at me. I - a supposed Kansai man - had become an alien in Osaka.

People in Kansai form a line on the right side of the escalator, and people in Tokyo line up on the left. We simply do these things-no one formalized them. I heard that the habits switch somewhere around Nagoya, a city situated between Osaka and Tokyo.

"Where do I belong?"

After I asked myself this, I moved slowly to the right side.

I enjoyed the live version of Green Day's album Bullet in a Bible so much that I purchased its studio recording, as well as the Japanese release of their album American Idiot. The Japanese version has two discs and includes a bonus track, Bakuhatsu Live!~Tokyo, which they had performed at Makuhari Messe on March 10, 2005.

My favorite tracks are Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Wake Me Up When September Ends. It came with a lyrics card, so I'll memorize them to sing at Karaoke. I doubt that karaoke versions exist, though.

In the afternoon, we shot the footage for Metal Gear Saga at the sound-mixing studio. Lui handled the actual shooting, and KojiPro's Takahashi-kun obtained another camera to make doubly sure that we got the footage. We had rehearsed it last week, so everything went smoothly. We actually finished shooting ahead of schedule.

I changed into another jacket, and we filmed a video-letter that will run at one of our programmers' wedding party.

We got a real surprise when our make-up artist arrived for the shooting. She had worked with us last year at TGS 2004. A year and a half later, we met back together.

Murashu suddenly started wearing glasses. Four-eyes Murashu!

He explained that he wore them because his eyes were bloodshot.

Sexy glasses!

Shinta wore glasses too... was it a coincidence? Four-eyes Shinta!

Shinta wore glasses for the same reason that Murashu wore his. Had they contracted an eye disease? Or had they been in cahoots last night?

Double sexy glasses!

The InterLASIK eyesight operation had become very popular at KojiPro around the beginning of this year. Ryosaku lost his glasses, and then the Colonel lost his... and then pairs of glasses diminished day by day.

KojiPro's glasses diminished heavily within six months. I seriously considered having the operation at one point.

And now the four-eyed boys have returned! The times have reversed, and we see glasses in December... oh those sexy glasses!

I went to Jinbo-cho to get some pictures taken of myself for publication purposes. I only learned today that I needed to do so when Ichiro Kutome the Braggart King told me about it. We had planned to eat Torinabe together, but Torinabe turned into photography without my even noticing.

"Torinabe has chicken in it, and since the Bird Flu is still pretty hot conversation, let's settle for our usual tempura."

We changed our plans, and he took me to Jinbo-cho. Yet he didn't leave our taxi in the direction of the tempura restaurant once we had arrived at Jinbo-cho.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I want to show you a store. Come on, let's go." He walked into an alley.

He walked deeper into the alley as he spoke. I had no choice but to follow him through the maze of alleys. It was like a hedge-maze garden. I would have gotten lost if had we been separated. I lost my sense of direction after several turns right and left. Yet I felt as though I had been there before.

"Haven't we been here before?" he asked.

"I think we came to a second-hand bookstore around here together, didn't we?"

Suddenly, the King of Used Books stopped. My eyes settled on a nice-looking shop named Higurashi. They had set up photographic accoutrements (such as the camera and the lights) in front of the shop. Mr. Kato, the photographer, and his assistant Hasshy had prepared to shoot photos in the cold weather outside.

I'm always so grateful for Mr. Kato's work.

"I've walked into a trap again!" I thought, but I quickly resigned myself to the cold weather as soon as I noticed Mr. Kato and his assistant. I consented to the photo shoot even though I had only worn casual clothing.

We stood in the gallery of the painter Mr. Kuniyoshi Kaneko. People often use the place for movie or photo location shoots. It's a great place to go for a location shot.

At least the King of Location-Hunting showed good taste in that.

The King of Presents had gone out of his way to set up this photo shoot as a gift, once he had learned that Mr. Kaneko once interviewed L'Arc-en-Ciel's Hyde there. I also noticed memorabilia from my much-loved Jean Cocteau inside the gallery.

Ah, all that made me really happy!

The King of Consideration sure is thoughtful.

We took a photo of the gallery entrance.

We took a few more photos inside the gallery. Hasshy turned out to be a fan of L'Arc-en-Ciel. I learned that Hyde had sat in a particular chair. We shared an animated conversation about the band for a while.

We finished taking pictures safely at 9 P.M.

Thank you so much everyone!

I'm also grateful for the art club Higurashi's cooperation.

We wrapped up by taking a commemorative photo with Mr. Kato and Ichiro Kutome. Hasshy actually pressed the camera shutter. I pressured him in good humor, saying, "This will appear on a blog that's received over 600,000 visitors!"

He took the photo very well.

Mr. Kato is a marvelous man. Five years have passed since we first met, when he took my photograph for the limited edition of MGS2. The King of Introductions had introduced me to Mr. Kato. Since then I have requested Mr. Kato's services every time when I need photos taken of myself. He also took the photo for HIDEOBLOG.

His photographs are superb of course, but I just plain like him. I always find his conversation really interesting when we take a break. He really expands my knowledge.

He's a pretty cool old man.

Good photographers are attractive people. A photographer's sensibility and talent draw out the subject's charm, be it a person or scenery. I only have limited experience with photographers, but the good ones are always interesting people too. Their soulful sensibilities become the true subjects of their photographs, whatever the concrete subject might be.

Photography is a subjective art... it isn't objective. We didn't really get pictures of me today. Rather, we got pictures of Mr. Kato's perception of Hideo Kojima. If I think of them this way, then I don't feel as embarrassed to appear in them.

I ate tempura at Yama-no-ue-Hotel. I don't know why, but I always eat tempura here with the King of Tempura after we finish an MGS game. We first came here about seven years ago when we completed MGS1. Neither one of us had proposed the habit... we just fell into it naturally.

We ate today to celebrate the completions of Subsistence and MGA2.

Ichiro Kutome handles all of the art direction for KojiPro's MGS-related packaging. The King of Tempura had been reckless once and became a father. Now he seems to have grown up a little. He understands now that the tempura batter is just as much a part of tempura as the bulk. He has become more sensitive to subtleties.

Afterwards we went to the cafe Milonga Neova, where the Cafe King often goes.

We drank a Belgian beer named Guillotine. It had a good body and was really tasty. I'd like to drink it again.

The cafe's closing hour hit at 11 P.M., and they threw us out. The King of Evictions had only worn a T-shirt, even in that cold weather.

Strangely enough, I didn't feel too cold. Perhaps that's because the Showa Era's warm appearance remains there in Jinbo-cho.

The Showa Era lives on in people's minds and in Tokyo's charm.

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spamzineglasgow · 6 years ago

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(ESSAY) ‘BodiesTM: Poetry. City. Whiteness.’ by Elliot C. Mason

A provocation on whiteness, futurity, capitalism and the fricative movements of racialised and gendered embodiment in contemporary poetics, by Elliot C. Mason.

> Capitalism keeps time in a centrifugal swirl that expands as space. The myth of the future is sucked in to the endless present of working time, the working day that never ends but rather blurrily recalibrates its always-changing relation to the past (the time before Capital, that horrific barbarism which could be called Communism, Africa or Keynesian Social Capitalism, depending on the context) and the future. The mythical future is total temporal accumulation, when the life-times of the disenfranchised are finally worth nothing and the life-times of the Tech-Execs, the Winners, the Exemplary Individuals are worth so much time that they have reached secular eternity: a capitalist immortality. The working time of people is pulled into the blurring vortex, this weightless phantasmagoria, and it expands imperially, ideologically, a waxed leg in steel-capped boots, over geographical codes. The move is architectural, strategically ordering bodies under spatial blocks and signs.

// James Nixon / Ars Poetica #5 //

> The violent horror of this vortex is that it is not there at all. We cannot see it. Our way of seeing is mutually constituted with what we see; Capital’s expansion is simply our sight. Precisely what makes capitalism so different to other ways of organising money and people is that it takes over everything. It destroys religion and becomes God itself. It makes every interaction geared towards accumulation. Dating is like opening a betting account, like browsing estate agents’ windows. The end of a relationship in 2019 is not when you stop seeing each other – it’s when you find each other on a dating app. But this has been happening since the beginnings of this system. Modern sciences are ways of justifying slavery, which Capital needed to produce far more than feudal farmers ever could; the city and its divisive architecture are a response to the need to keep laborers close to factories, to houses given by the factory-owners, to food provided by the factory-owners: to the total subsumption of life in a single Capital. In the beginning there was nothing, and then we traded commodities to accumulate labortime in the imperial movement of endlessly expanding architecture.

…

our new home has cockroaches. an exterminator came –

…

it’s smart how the poisoned gel spreads through the colony by cannibalism. he explains that they will eat their family, that the poison will spread faster that way.

/ AK Blakemore / nymphs //

> The creation of the body and its technological assemblages that constitute race and racial thinking are necessary components of these movements. The body in other systems is dependent on context: there is the body on the farm who picks tomatoes, the body in the family who teaches children how to speak, the body in the factory who welds iron, the body at war who receives bullet holes; the body is alive, and at any moment, for any misdemeanour, the lord or the law can kill it. The body in capitalism is always a laboring body, always awaiting work: we ask why that mother doesn’t have a job, why that homeless man isn’t working, we ask children what job they want and lament the misery of our jobless friends, hoping only that one day they will enter an office and reproduce some capital; the body is at work, and if it resists work, at any moment the economy can force it to stay painfully and agonisingly alive until it makes some fucking money! This is the totalizing development of the body as a machine of money-production in capitalism, in which each one of us is a camera for capturing space, pushing those architectural movements of Capital a little further on.

look, i’m not going to manufacture any more sadness. it happened. it’s happening.

America might kill me before i get the chance. my blood is in cahoots with the law. but today i’m alive, which is to say

i survived yesterday, spent it ducking bullets, some flying toward me & some trying to rip their way out

// Danez Smith / every day is a funeral & a miracle //

> The white body can never quite die, though, because whiteness is ownership. The white body is coded as the proper owner of Capital. The Black body is coded as property, and it belongs to the white body. The Indigenous body is coded as a misuser of property, the body that doesn’t know how to turn the land into an industrially productive machine and property into an expansive force of racialization. In the racial architecture of capitalism, the white body is property-ownership, the racialized other body is property. And so what this way of seeing in the vortex consuming time does is maintain a spatial boundary between bodies allowed into one racial category and bodies relegated to another, and this space creates existence: the white body lives and must die; it is narrated as the pinnacle of History and its property must be inherited, passed on to the next imperial body in the patriarchal line – it must become a statue marking space in the city. The racialized other body dies and must live; it is always on the periphery of every narrative, of History, of Capital, of wars and events and statues and the school syllabus (EUROPEANS INVENTED EVERYTHING), always on the edge of existence (AFRICA NEEDS HELP), always in the past (CHINA IS BECOMING WESTERN), and yet it can never die, it must work more, it must join the factory, get a loan from a bank, invest in property, make a classic slapstick YouTube clip, date on a narrowboat with fruity IPA and be saved by the bloody claws of white saviourism.

I chose my brother over my desire To be invisible.

We thought your brother was dead… He is.

And his death made you Visible?

You only see me When I carry a man on my back.

// Jericho Brown / The Interrogation. Part ii: The Cross-Examination //

> Seeing is capturing. The city sees, and in the racializing city the police maintain the neat division of which body captures and which is captured, which is inside the wall, which outside, which is allowed into the private park and which is not, all the while keeping up the imperial distraction of the ceremony: nothing to see here! Some bodies are allowed protection from this capturing, and must work endlessly for that protection. To have a body becomes a war, an endless body-on-body battle for superiority, the superiority of more accumulated Capital. Some bodies are accumulated, others accumulate. There is no longer any option but these two, and both these options are endless war. To see – to have a body – is not a secret war, a war by other methods: it is war. The very language and code of being becomes the body-on-body bloody war.

Language has no body. The message is a virus. The message cannot be killed.

// Jackie Wang / THE DEATH THAT IS NOT A DEATH BUT IS THE BIRTH OF EVERYTHING POSSIBLE //

> Time is taken into this fight, stolen from the bodies in their endless war, and more space is made. Space pushing forwards into open land, making it a battlefield. Space-as-Capital conquers everything and then moves upwards, scanning the land with drones now that the whole world is a warzone. As the drone indiscriminately flies above the areas of extraction, every speck of life everywhere is a possibility, another battlefield for producing profit. Every space is coded as beforethe present of American Capital, and every space needs to be violently hauled into now. Everywhere that was unspeakable in the grammar of Capital is retroactively certified as nothing but primordial barbarity always awaiting benediction by Capital, a zone marked for extraction, for abstraction, into the language of spatial domination and the force of being defined as a racialized body with no purpose but reproduction.

I was one burnt daughter in a genealogy. Stepped into the oil spill like a siren emerged dyed black backed with the wings of a tanker’s logo jangling stranded in the outer ocean

// Rachael Allen / Apostles Burning //

> This force is whiteness, and it is everywhere because it is unspeakable. Language cannot speak itself. Like the Law that opens everything but itself to condemnation, the centre cannot be self-seen, cannot be captured by the capturing mechanism of the photographic eye that functions only dialectically – the holder of the camera, of the eye, looking at the object and creating subjectivity through the object-status of the other. There is necessarily always an exemption to the rule, and the expansion of white supremacist Capital is exempted from its own language. It is a violence that constantly labels everything, but which disappears when turned to. A violence that abstracts itself as immovable/unspeakable myth above the rest, God to the Apostles, approachable only through the mediation of the myth itself.

Where are you I am not there for You. I’m morning in the milkiest decade

of all, a piece of white snow in a snow dome. Make happy, make ache vanish or dispel well

out on the winter’s wish well well well well

// Amy De’Ath / Holey //

> The Law can only focus on repairing a wound without realizing that the Wound precedes and creates the Law. Without the Wound there is no need for the Law. The Law is a force of imbalanced power that functions to maintain the divisions and differentiations of the Wound. People for millennia have traded in the inequality of bodies, but it was not until Caucasian capitalism that the racialized divisions were retroactively inscribed as the entire ontology (way of being) and epistemology (way of knowing) of life. Every defender of capitalism loves to eternalize power imbalances: Greeks had slaves; feudal farmers were fucking miserable. Obviously. But only in Caucasian capitalism has the racial code become a reproductive dogma, inscribing racial power imbalances in the ideology of time and constructing nothing but the liberal futility of the Law to enforce change, so that regardless of what anyone does, regardless of which laws are passed or who is voted into seats of power, the racial code will survive because to undermine it, the entirety of being, knowing, space and time have to be destroyed. Only in Caucasian capitalism is an ideology of “nature” a homogeneous hegemony. Time, space, being, nature, life: all are bound to Capital. No other system has ever been so self-obsessed. That is the problem with City Everywhere.

If Black Lives Matter, then that means the destruction of America. The entirety. That vibrates deep down into the core of the earth, to emerge and destroy Europe and the imaginings of it.

I’m the angel knocking on yr door To let disease in The place that I fit in doesn’t exist, Until I destroy it.

// Jasmine Gibson / Hollow Delta //

> The greatest show imaginable of the whiteness of the Wound in the terrifying horror City Everywhere is the ejaculating white male. The man staring at his laptop screen, pixels tied around the form of feminized bodies, jizz-spilt, spunky teens, the man in his endless war strumming, rubbing time into this spatial production. Rub, rub, rub, make space, man. Spill it over the time you have used, man. The first act of masturbation is Onan in Genesis, who spills his seed on the ground to protect his property. Wanking, like Capital, captures space. But does wanking steal time? Or is wanking its own kind of temporality? It is circular, endless, it goes on and on and never changes and rewrites all time as itself (while wanking, all you want to do is wank forever…) – just like Capital and the shiny shitshow of the white supremacist city. But in ejaculation there is no promise of a Future. Capital must promise a greater Future, the time when value is accumulated entirely in the Tech Execs and the Supreme White Bodies of the Law and the Economy. Wanking is the cancellation of the Future. It is labor that produces no value except the value of itself as a valueless act. It is the spillingof the Future, the cut in flows of Capital. Wanking is the brief moment of calm in the endless war of body-on-body. The body is still producing spatial codes as it spunks up its Future. Ejaculation is the waste of white supremacist Capital.

// Fuck Parade / Wank Against Capitalism //

> And poetry is so spatial, it’s such a rubbing force, collapsing the solidity of structure and yet being so structural, bound so strictly to the past and its ordered forms. The words rise up, the imperial power of language limiting thought to its own centrifuge, restricting knowledge to its own mythology. Poetry clearly shows the impossibility of Wittgenstein’s famous “Whereof one cannot speak”. One is always already speaking, regardless of what one says, whether or not sound is made. In the language of late liberal Capital, everything is said by the code of value accumulation and racializing modern sciences. Poetry is the spatial performance of language, cutting up pages and fetishizing the blank spaces not yet marked in the ink of languages. It is, as it has been thought since Ancient Greece, a mimesis of the city. It is the towering code of privileged space, placing monumental statues as celebrations of imperial domination and the pride of extracting materials to produce more space which creates the architectural/poetic language of words and buildings versus not-yet-conquered land, which is codified in Capital as white bodies versus bodies of colour. Everything about poetry is a battleground of racialized bodies. I keep speaking to people about this and they keep waving me away. But poetry swirls the myth of poetic time into more poeticized space, turning everything into it while it removes itself. Poetry is the city, and the city is whiteness. For how long can we just pretend that raciality and its violent colonial ideologies that construct divided bodies are not inherent in poetry? We’re walking through the city all the time, picking up new spatial codes that break the seamless ease of futurity, spunking out predictable Futures, and so we are complicit in the divisions and the violence.

We drill through to our body’s core with quack psychoanalysis, drawing ancient oils to conflagration. And it all starts with a tug on the sleeve: desire to be known.

But what we discover in the cistern of our history is pure horror.

// Oliver Jones / tug on the sleeve //

> I wish I had some kind of solution. All I can think of is writing poetry about whiteness, confront baldly the violence of the city we exist in. To ignore it is to accept the racializing code of the Law. To say it’s not a problem is to presume the spatial divisions of this city are somehow natural or unchangeable. Poets who exist in the category of corporeal privilege called Whiteness (which is the City and the Law) have to undermine the solidity of their bodies by writing it away with new codes of space, spatializing the bodily city in new ways that snap the normative movements of the violent force. Since the white body’s power comes precisely from its self-removal from City Everywhere and its racializing dynamics, it is poets with white bodies that must join the chorus of antiracist poetry by poets with racialized bodies to break the horrible solidity of City Everywhere and its divisive architecture. When poets existing in the privileged category of whiteness recognize that the constitution of their body is precisely the power of the city, when white poets call forth the violence of their oversight that captures while paving over complex temporalities with more white ground, then and only then will a poetry of radically subversive equality be existent. Then there will be a poetry that is not all one, that is not held together by misunderstood pursuits of homogeneous unity and uniformity, but rather a poetry formed of infinite differences in which the meaning of each difference changes every time it is spoken. Poetry distorts the path from sign to signifier, from the thing to what the thing is meant by. When poetry consumes City Everywhere, eating up its tracks and blinding the power of its sight, then black will not mean what black means, indigenous will not refer to that, white will not mean what we all know it does now. There will be difference untied from its singular orbit, unscratched from the hackneyed tracks.

[insert poem]

// you //

// Notes // Citations in the order they appear in the text:

James Nixon, ‘Ars Poetica #5’, from Rimbaud’s Lost Manuscript, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Goldsmiths (2018).

A. K. Blakemore, ‘nymphs’, in Fondue (London: Offord Road Books, 2018), p. 23.

Danez Smith, ‘every day is a funeral & a miracle’, in Don’t Call Us Dead (London: Chatto & Windus, 2018), p. 66.

Jericho Brown, ‘The Interrogation’, in The New Testament (London: Picador, 2018), p. 12.

Jackie Wang, ‘THE DEATH THAT IS NOT A DEATH BUT IS THE BIRTH OF EVERYTHING POSSIBLE’, in Carceral Capitalism (South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2018), p. 313.

Rachael Allen, ‘Apostles Burning’, in Kingdomland (London: Faber & Faber, 2019), p. 70.

Amy De’Ath, ‘Holey’, in Lower Parallel (Brighton: Barque Press, 2014), p. 21.

Jasmine Gibson, ‘Hollow Delta’, in Don’t Let Them See Me Like This (New York: Nightboat Books, 2018), p. 80.

Fuck Parade, ‘Wank Against Capitalism’, photograph taken by E. C. Mason at LARC (London Action Resource Centre, Whitechapel), November 2018.

Oliver Jones, ‘tug on the sleeve’, in Chronic Youth (London: Eyewear Publishing, 2016), p. 27.

The ideas developed in this essay are taken principally from the following texts:

Neferti Tadiar, ‘City Everywhere’, in Theory, Culture & Society 2016, Vol. 33(7–8), pp. 57–83.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory to Visuality (London and Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).

Jacqueline Goldsby, A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Macarena Gómez-Barris, The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017).

Sam Ladkin, ‘The “Onanism of Poetry”: walt whitman, rob halpern and the deconstruction of masturbation’, in Angelaki, Journal of Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 2, Issue 4, 2015. pp. 131-156.

Bruce Baum, The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race: A Political History of Racial Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2006).

Gaye Theresa Johnson and Alex Lubin (editors), Futures of Black Radicalism (London: Verso, 2017).

Michelle Wright, Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).

William Rasch, Sovereignty and its Discontents: on the Primacy of Conflict and the Structure of the Political (London: Birkbeck Law, 2004).

Text: Elliot C. Mason

Published 3/11/19

#Elliot C. Mason #essay #essays #race and poetry #contemporary poetry

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lesbian-ed · 8 years ago

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Hey! Sorry this is more of a vent post cuz I think my problem lies w/ self confidence which is something I have to fix myself. I really want to dress more androgynous/butch. I've ordered things from the mens section and loved everything I've bought and felt great in it, but for some reason I can't make myself wear the clothes I want out in public. I hate the thought of people staring at me & maybe guessing I'm gay (in the closet currently) but I still wish I cud express myself how I want ya know

Oh, anon, I do know.

When I was in the closet, I longed for being able to wear what was comfortable and looked good to me, not what other people thought I should wear. I didn’t want frilly blouses or skirts or the like. That one shirt from the men’s section my dad gave me? It was my favourite shirt to wear. Those shoes from the men’s section I somehow managed to convince my family to buy? Best shoes I ever bought. The first plaid I ever got? I wear it to this day, really. They were bits and pieces of things that ‘fit’ me that I could wear without being too obvious when it wasn’t very safe to be obvious at all.

Yes, a lot of it has to do with confidence. Going out looking like yourself, if you’re anything like me, demands that you basically flip everyone off and don’t care about what they’ll whisper (or say loudly as well) or the way they’ll look at you. Because people will look and, a lot of the time, they will talk and they will make you listen to whatever bullshit they’re saying.

Because, see, being visibly gender non-conforming will disturb the people who are (and benefit from) conforming and they don’t like to be reminded that these ‘rules’ are nothing but hogwash. So there is intimidation, I’m not going to lie to you. You might get stared down by women, you might feel threatened by men calling you names in the street – situations vary, but it’s very probable that you’ll be badgered for your appearance in one way or another. Gender non-conformity is closely tied to gayness, so we do end up sticking out like sore thumbs even when we’d rather not be in the spotlight. It’s very difficult to be a butch lesbian and not feel random strangers’ eyes following you everywhere you go.

Then again, you’ll also be visible to other lesbians out there, so not all is gloom and doom. Also keep in mind that you’re not inviting any of this unwanted attention by dressing as you like and being who you are – it really isn’t our fault that society is full of shit and can’t accept the fact that lesbians exist and that its expectations of womanhood are too damn narrow for any woman to live comfortably by. At some point, we have to stop cutting ourselves short to please someone else and just accept ourselves and live as we are. Yes, we have to make sure we’re doing so in a ‘safe’ environment but I’ve also found that, depending on the scenario, by being out and proud and visible, we sort of create that space ourselves just by existing, Then again, it can take an emotional toll to be visibly gay 100% of the time, so it does require us to have thick skin – which, lol, in some interesting dialectic fashion, is something we gain by putting ourselves out there as well.

I get the dilemma between timidity and ‘obviousness’, though, wanting to be comfortable in your own self but not wanting to be ogled. If my experience is worth anything, however, I’ve found it better to deal with strangers’ prying eyes by being unabashedly myself than to blend in as if I’m one of them. Because, idk about you, but I can’t blend in even if I try. I used to worry about being seen as gay and the violence towards me that it could awaken in someone else, but the truth is that even in my most self-hating period of trying to look as feminine and straight as a pole, I would be uncomfortable with all of it and it showed. People knew something was ‘off’ regardless of what I did, they whispered about my being a dyke since forever. So it was a bit of damage control that didn’t amount to anything but my getting myself into situations I disliked, wearing a mask that had nothing to do with who I really am and putting effort into denying myself just so I could get out of harm’s way… And to no avail because the attempts were fruitless.

(With my sob story out of the way...) I also think it’s important that you know in which waters you’re dipping your foot in. You gotta protect yourself, so if you’re in a place that will offer you real danger if you’re visible, you’ll have to be very careful whenever you come out. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t come out when you’re ready, heaven knows the torture of having to fake it every day, to everyone, all the time.

Having said all that, I have only two other things to add: 1) butchness is not a costume, so you’ll notice I avoided the construction “dressing butch”, but maybe that’s just my personal pet peeve that I keep an eye out for when reading the asks we get, lol. It’s usually quicker to say, I know, but the implication irks me a bit so I wanted to take the opportunity to comment on that, ha; and 2) what you’ll have to keep in mind is that you’re the best judge of whether you can go out and be visible or not, really. If it’s a confidence thing, though, you can do as I mentioned doing in the beginning of the post, using one item of clothing at a time to see how your body reacts to it. Or you can say screw it and go all in, as well; it’s dauting, but it can also be the confidence boost that’s missing, tbh. As long as you’re okay and comfortable with yourself and safe. You’re under no obligation to force yourself into disagreeable situations.

I know you’ll find your footing soon, anon. What you’re experiencing isn’t all that uncommon. And feel free to vent, we’re here for that as well :) I know you basically weren’t asking anything and I got off on a tangent there, but I suppose I can’t keep my mouth shut when it seems I can offer any sort of help, ha.

All the best to you and may you be free to be yourself :)

/Mod T

#Anonymous #answered asks #gnc #mod t

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babylonthrum-a · 8 years ago

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Things to Consider When Worldbuilding

Also known as ‘Things to Consider in General with Slugterra’; while they hit with some points, they fail to note other crucial things. Like. A LOOOOOOT of crucial things.

While this is not the most complete list in the world and it’s kind of dumbed down in terminologies for the sake of folk of all ages being able to understand it, it’s still something to get you started!

Consider it a writing tool in general, if you like, and don’t be afraid to add to it! The more, the merrier!

Under ReadMore for length:

Agriculture: What do they grow to keep themselves fed? What do they raise in the ranches, if they have them? How big is the area they use for it? How do they maintain it? What is their irrigation system, how does it work? Do they provide enough to support their area? Do they not? Is it open to civilians? Is it not? How?

Allies/Enemies: Who do they get along with? How well? Who do they not get along with? How badly?

Architecture: What do their buildings look like? Do they have any details specific to them? What are they?

Climate: What is the weather like? Does it rain a lot? A little? Too little? Is it dry? Hot? Wet? How often does it change, if it does?

Commercial: Do they have a shopping district[s]? Do they have an open-air market[s]? What do they sell there? Where is it in relation to other districts/regions?

Conservation: Do people who live there take an active role in preserving the natural state of their world? Do they have reserves? Do they have groups? Who are they and what do they do?

Culture/Customs: What do people wear? Do they have a specific wardrobe for formal versus casual? Do they prepare food a specific way? Do their houses’ interiors reflect their religious or social customs? How? What do they see as polite or rude? Socially proper and improper? What are some traditions? How do they affect their response to their peers? How do they treat guests? Do they use body language and facial expressions differently? How? How do names affect your population? Do they need to mean anything special? Do they show what a person’s character is like? How are people named, if it’s a special process?

Economy: What do they call their currency? What is their currency made of? What is their currency’s hierarchy [pennies to nickles to dimes etc]? Is it the primary source of currency in the world? If not, how does it translate to other currencies in the world? How does it travel, if it travels?

Education: What does the education system look like? Does everyone have a right to be educated? If not, who doesn’t and why? Do they have higher education? What do they teach? What does basic education look like?

Entertainment: How do they pass the time? Do they dance, sing, perform theatre pieces? How does this affect the peoples and their mood? Are there caste-specific forms of entertainment?

Exports/Imports: What sorts of goods do they make? Do they ship them out? How? How often? What do they not have access to natively? Do they have them shipped in?

Flora/Fauna: What sorts of plants and animals are native? What do they look like? How do they act? How do they interact with each other? What is their ecosystem balance?

Geology/Geography: What is the terrain like? Is it rocky? Hilly? Flat? Rolling? What are some natural features and formations? Are there mountains? Volcanoes? What is the ground made of? Rock? Dirt?

Government/Politics: What political standing do they have? Who is their leader, what is their title? What kind of power does the authority have? What do they change, how do they change it? Are there peacekeepers?

Industrial: What sorts of raw materials do they have access to? Do they mine them? How do they refine them? What do they use raw materials for? Do they use renewable energy resources? What are they? How are they processed and used? If not, what energy resources do they use? How are they processed and used? Where is it in relation to other districts/regions?

Language: What sorts of languages do they use? Is it verbal or visual or both? What is their main language? Are there dialects in these languages? Accents in their voices? Describe them. How do the languages affect names of people or places? Do they differ between languages? What, if any, slang is present?

Military: How is their military strength? Who is in charge of the military? How does the hierarchy of power work? How often is it used?

Population/Majority Demograph: How many people live there? What do they look like? What is their class system, if they have one? What is the highest percentage of age? Are they young, old, or families? What percentage do the other two take up?

Religion: What religion is most prominent in your space? How does it work? Do they believe in opulence or humility? Who are their gods? What do they control? Are there religious books? Can practitioners read them or only a priesthood? What do the temples look like, or is it small private communions? Who is at the top? How do the people look to them? Are there other religions? Describe them similarly.

Residential: Where do people live? Do they have multiple neighborhoods? What do the houses look like? Floorplans? The street-plans? Are they sectioned and contained behind walls, half-walls, open? What do lots look like? How big are they? Is there a covenant on housing? How strict are they if so? What are their rules? Where is it in relation to other districts/regions?

Social Climate: How are the native folk with foreigners [whether from other regions of your world or other sentient species entirely]? Do they treat them kindly? Is racism rampant, controlled, or non-existent? How are differing lifestyles handled? Are orientations of both sexual/romantic and gender seen as something to fear, something average, or something to strive to? Is there a caste system? How is it set up? Is there a huge gap between them? How do they treat one another?

Technology: Are they technologically advanced? How so? Do they use technology in every day life or just for necessary tasks? What are some devices or advancements they might use every day? What do their advancements do for their medical community? Do they negate the need for doctors/are the machines doctors? Or do doctors use machines and tech to help their daily routines? How does technology affect their military prowess? Does technology rule their military or only enhance it?

Transportation: How do people get around? How do the streets work in cities? Are they straight-forward? Do they meander? Describe them. Do communities have a public transportation service, like cabs or buses? How do they work? How do people get from one location to the next over long distances? Is it fast transit or does it take a while? How long?

Slugterra-Specific Things to Consider

Stuff to take into consideration in addition to the above general subjects to make your cavern fit into the world of Slugterra! I won’t restrict names on anything because Slugterra in canon seems to be a pretty big melting pot of races, species, and therefore names.

Availability to the Rest of the Caverns: How do your people get in and out of their cavern? Are there multiple ways in and out? Is your cavern connected to any other caverns? What are they? Describe them if not canon-seen. Do they have access to a canon cavern? What’s the closest one? How’s their relationship with them?

Blaster Models: Does your cavern make their own special Blaster model? Describe what it looks like. What does it sound like, if it has a special sound?

Community Slinging: Does everyone in the cavern use the same canon styles? Do they teach different styles of Slinging? How? What does it look like? Is it ritual or common knowledge? Do only certain individuals learn, or does everyone learn?

Mechabeast Construction: Do they make their own mechabeasts? What models do they make? Can they mod models bought from The Forges? What are some mods they can do?

Native Slugs: Does your cavern have a species of slug that is special to it? What do they look like in protomorph? What are their abilities, in proto and veloci forms? What does their velocimorph look like? Do they like other slugs? If not, why? Do they like people? If not, why? Do people like them? If not, why? Do they like being Slung? Where and how do they nest in your cavern? What do they eat? Do they make a noise? What is it?

#Slugterra #Worldbuilding exercises #since the list was asked for!#yes i am using this list to populate the remake of the Babel info [and thensome]

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universalpronouns-blog · 8 years ago

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The Linguistic Lie Behind Singular "They"

Originally Posted at http://lettersfromhoquessing.blogspot.ca/2017/05/the-linguistic-lie-behind-singular-they.html?m=1 Reposted Here Without Permission. No Infringement is Intended. Letters from Hoquessing By Claudio R. Salvucci and the grace of a loving God Monday, May 22, 2017 The Linguistic Lie Behind Singular "They" Recently I watched a confrontation between a student and University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson, who publicly took a stand against non-binary gender pronouns last year. The student kept stridently insisting Dr. Peterson was morally obligated to use the plural pronoun "they", claiming repeatedly and with absolute confidence that it was historically attested in English and went all the way back to Shakespeare. Beyond the shocking rudeness with which this claim was asserted, it seemed a rather bizarre assertion to make, and I wondered where it came from. After a bit of digging, I was led, very unfortunately, to what seems to be the source of the claim: the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year for 2015. Here's the problem. The ADS's statement is shot through with an improper and apparently politically motivated conflation of two historically and grammatically distinct usages of singular "they": 1) an old, often contested but stubbornly enduring usage that was always restricted to a particular context--that I will continue to call "singular they" proper 2) a very new misapplication of the pronoun as an alternative to individuals who refuse to identify with either of the two biological sexes, that I will call "non-binary they" Note well: I am not asserting that the ADS is unaware of the distinction. Their statements show that they are quite aware of it. What I am asserting, rather, is that the ADS and some of its members are deliberately obfuscating that distinction to advance a political agenda. The statement the ADS released in 2016 mentions the non-binary aspect of singular "they" multiple times, and indeed that new definition is the entire focus of their decision. Some illustrative statements can be seen in the passages below (emphases mine): • "They was recognized by the society for its emerging use as a pronoun to refer to a known person, often as a conscious choice by a person rejecting the traditional gender binary of he and she." • "While editors have increasingly moved to accepting singular they when used in a generic fashion, voters in the Word of the Year proceedings singled out its newer usage as an identifier for someone who may identify as “non-binary” in gender terms." • “In the past year, new expressions of gender identity have generated a deal of discussion, and singular they has become a particularly significant element of that conversation,” Zimmer said. In a purely descriptive sense, acknowledging the existence of this new usage is certainly well within the purview and mission of the ADS. The issue is not that non-binary "they" was discussed or even voted Word of the Year, but rather that the organization defended and promoted it with misleading statements. For example: “While many novel gender-neutral pronouns have been proposed, they has the advantage of already being part of the language.” Has "they" been part of the English language? Yes. Indisputably. But here's the catch: it has never been part of the language in the way that gender activists imply. Historically, singular "they" occurred when an unspecified individual from a mixed sex group was being referred to, such as: "Each one of you needs to pick up their stuff". An editor who does not want to use a circumlocution has a couple of choices in such sentences: either use singular "their", or use the (binary!) construction "his or her". Although not every editor acknowledges the grammatical correctness of singular "they", practically speaking these are the two common options. In my own work, I have found that the clunkiness of "his or her" has tended to tip the scales in favor of "they", particularly when multiple pronouns are required. How did a plural pronoun find itself continually intruding in this position, with a singular subject? I have not consulted any research on this, but I suspect that common speech has tended to support it because of the implicit plurality of the subject as one of a group and also because the plurality of genders of the referents. This is just a hypothesis; I may well be wrong. But whatever its origins and theoretical underpinnings, its usage over the centuries is crystal clear. Singular "they" has only ever appeared in a very limited set of cases, which have themselves been strongly contested by grammarians. Outside these cases, it is dead wrong. There is absolutely no historical justification for grammatically barbaric sentences such as these, culled from an actual news story: "In Britain, 20-year-old Maria Munir made headlines when they came out as non-binary", and "In the US, an Oregon circuit court went much further, ruling in June that Portland resident Jamie Shupe could change their legal gender to non-binary." Obviously, gender/sexual identification is the underlying driving issue here, so we need to look at the way English has handled this issue in the past. Cases of uncertain or intermediate sexual identity, of course, are nothing new, and have been known and discussed since antiquity. The practice has generally been in those cases to simply assign a sexually ambiguous person to the closest of two of the three established genders: masculine or feminine. This assignment could draw from widely different observational parameters, from a mere glance to a medical examination. However, in all cases, the judgment was always made on the same assumed basis. A person's biological sex, as nearly as that could be ascertained, determined their grammatical gender. To illustrate how forcefully this principle held, we can look at a couple of lectures (here and here) given by Dr. Hay Graham in 1835 at the Westminster School of Medicine on individuals of doubtful sex. Watch the pronouns Dr. Graham uses. Of Maria Pateca: "…she became a man. He afterwards married, but remained beardless." Of Germain Marie: "when she was fifteen years old...she suddenly found herself furnished with the parts of generation of a man...Cardinal Lenoncourt, after the necessary examination…ordered him to assume the habits of his sex." And "Jean Pierre was a woman from the waist upwards, and a man from the waist downwards; and in the centre was a woman on the right side and a man on the left; yet, in point of fact, he was neither one nor the other." Marie Derrier's sex was likewise unable to be agreed upon by medical experts: "Hufeland and Mursinna pronounced this individual a girl; Stark and Marteus, on the contrary, considered it a boy." The two last cases mentioned—Jean Pierre and Marie Derrier—are precisely where we should expect to see the singular "they" of supposedly longstanding English precedent. But of course, we don't. And it's obvious why we don't. Graham could not have said "*Stark and Marteus, on the contrary, considered them a boy" because that construction would have been flagrantly ungrammatical in natural language. And still is. If Graham gives us any justification for any non-binary pronoun, that would be "it"—and if that one seems jarringly cold and insulting, remember that we use it more commonly than you might realize at first. We are quite used to asking an expectant mother with absolutely no qualms whatsoever: "Do you know yet if it's a boy or a girl?" A co-worker may be complaining about being cut off in traffic, and you might mischievously inquire about the driver, "Was it a man or a woman?" I have not reviewed the literature for pronoun use, but I have little reason to suspect that Graham's usage is anomalous. He sometimes presents us with a jarring switch between masculine and feminine pronouns following a medical event or diagnosis, and he sometimes gives us a constant pronoun throughout. But beyond the neuter "it", which for obvious reasons is employed for human beings only in quite limited circumstances, there is no gender outside of "he" and "she" to speak of, even in the most difficult cases of sexual identification. Not "they", not anything else. As long as the sex of a person was known or was clarified from a previously indistinct or incorrect state, the language has always demanded that the corresponding binary gender—masculine or feminine—be applied. To be sure, in common social circles this application involves a practical, on-the-fly judgment that has worked in the favor of the gender activists: English speakers naturally find it insulting, demeaning, and rude to misgender people and call a man "she" or a woman "he". And since we do not, thank goodness, subject everyone we meet to a thorough anatomical and genetic panel, it has always been easiest to simply extend strangers the benefit of the doubt when visible markers tilted one way or the other. But it is foolish in the extreme to confuse that pragmatic application for a general underlying rule. No one's personal opinion, preference, or mindset has ever had anything to do with the assignment of gender in English. Biological sex dictates grammatical gender. Period. That is simply how English works. So it's quite deceiving for the ADS to defend the current neologism with a statement so misleading as: "The use of singular they builds on centuries of usage, appearing in the work of writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen." Note what that sentence does not say. It does not say that singular they was used for centuries in a non-binary sense. It admits that it merely "builds on" centuries of usage. Again, the ADS knows full well that non-binary "they" is a new coinage, explicitly acknowledged not only in the text of the statement but also by linguist and columnist Ben Zimmer, chair of the ADS's new words committee, in an interview with Business Insider: "It moves beyond the traditional binary of 'he' and 'she'," Zimmer told Business Insider. "It feels like an opening up of the language, allowing for a greater possibility of what these pronouns can refer to." So here's my question. If non-binary "they" is indeed a newly invented term, then what exactly is the purpose of mentioning "centuries of usage" in the first place? Are we explaining its appearance, or trying to justify its appearance? Are we describing language as it exists, or are we actively trying to make it something else? Of course, language is not permanently fixed, and semantic categories can expand. But linguists have typically been preoccupied with watching words naturally expand to new semantic categories. They have not been typically been encouraging them, artificially, into those categories. And that for a good reason. Attempts to coerce linguistic change do not have a very good track record of achieving what they aim at. University of Illinois Professor of English and linguistics Dennis Baron has compiled an extremely useful list in his "The Words that Failed: a chronology of early nonbinary pronouns". What is immediately striking about these pronouns is their lack of consistency. There are over a hundred cited: strange invented combinations from academic and lay proposals, and a few obscure dialect variants. They are a thorough mishmash in terms of derivation, construction, and overall form. Baron is absolutely right to call these "words that failed" and contrast them with the comparatively successful singular "they"—and his thought process, linked on the ADS-L listserv in December of 2015, likely influenced the ultimate ADS decision. But in another article "The politics of He. Literally", Baron strangely argues as follows: Today, the literal politics of generic he is settled. As the second-wave feminist slogan puts it, “A woman’s place is in the House, and in the Senate.” And in the White House, as well. And the gender politics of the form is settled as well: all the major grammars, dictionaries, and style guides warn against generic he not because it’s bad grammar (which it is), but because it’s sexist (which it also is). The authorities don’t like the coordinate his or her, either: it’s wordy and awkward. The only options left are singular they or an invented pronoun. None of the 120 pronouns coined so far over the past couple of centuries has managed to catch on. And despite the fact that there are a few purists left who still object to it, it looks like singular they will win by default: it’s a centuries-old option for English speakers and writers, and it shows no sign of going away. Many of the style guides accept singular they; the others will just have to get over it if they want to maintain their credibility." If you'll permit me to roll my eyes at the cheesy triumphalist progressivism that brackets this paragraph, I can address the essentials of his argument. Baron's logic behind preferring an existing pronoun to an invented one like thon is certainly understandable. It is a sound theoretical instinct, and if I were lobbying for a new pronoun I'd make the same case myself. But here we see the same sloppy conflation that underpins the ADS statement: singular "they" is indeed a centuries old option, but absolutely not for the use he is advocating. And is it really any easier to force a pronoun into grammatically forbidden territory than to invent a whole new one? Baron characterizes the acceptance of "they" as so inevitable it will destroy the credibility of those who oppose it. Which "they" does he mean here? Singular, non-binary, both? We are left to guess—but while I may heartily agree that the prevailing winds are in favor the former and have set my editorial sails accordingly, I am utterly unable to imagine the latter doing anything but floating ignominiously in the doldrums of the Great Linguistic Garbage Patch. After all, Baron's own research shows that a desired expansion of the word "one"—advocated by quotes he collected from 1868, 1884, and 1888—failed just as badly as "thon" and the rest, despite a history of use much more solid than non-binary "they". In a slide presentation, Baron gives two disadvantages to singular "they": first that it "drives the sticklers nuts", and second that "People aren’t so comfortable using singular they for specific, named, individuals, especially when the referent is in the same syntactic unit as the pronoun". Aren't so comfortable??? For goodness' sake, that's admitting the entire point right there! People aren't comfortable with it because they know it isn't natural to the grammar they speak. The activists are blithely minimizing the objections of millions of Anglophones and are trying to impose an invented construction onto a public that does not want it or need it. The sticklers in this controversy are the gender activists, who have invented their own phony grammar for completely non-linguistic reasons and think they should be allowed to cram it down everyone else's throats without so much of a whimper of dissent. To object to their linguistic Jacobinism is not some prissy grammatical fetish—it is defending the good sense of the common folk against the insufferably imperious diktats of the Academy. So here's the bottom line. I cannot stand here in 2017, in the middle of the veritable graveyard of failed pronouns that Baron has so helpfully uncovered, and place the mantle of inevitability on a completely unnatural coinage invented by radical gender activists and obsequiously ratified by irresponsible academics and publishers. I am only one editor, but I will happily throw my lot in with Dr. Peterson on this. I will never ever acknowledge non-binary "they" as anything other than atrociously ungrammatical English. Period. But more importantly, the English-speaking world at large will never acknowledge it either. This linguistic hijacking is doomed to eventual failure because it is founded on fallacy, and there's not a stitch any activist can do to change that. Punto, e basta. In the meantime, since it seems fashionably stylish to make demands on academics, I am calling on the American Dialect Society do three things. First: retract its grossly misleading conflation of singular "they" and non-binary "they", and specify clearly that the latter has no grammatical precedent in the English language and is an entirely new coinage on par with many other failed prescriptivist proposals of the past. Second: publicly correct the false claims made by gender activists on the historicity of non-binary "they". Third: clarify more forcefully to parties outside and inside the society that the ADS only offers its Word of the Year in a descriptive sense, and that it is in no way a prescriptive ratification, approval, endorsement, or advocacy of the words in question. Realistically, though, I am not expecting any of this to happen. Because we all know the climate of American academia is such that the "Social Justice Warriors" (there's a phrase for 2017) would then show up at the ADS's doors and dish out the same bullying treatment that they gave to Dr. Peterson. And given the plainly telegraphed views of some of those involved, I am not hopeful for any result besides continued capitulation to the hubris of the social engineers and their Babelian fantasies of piercing heaven with a tower of invented pronouns.

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thetwoguineabook · 8 years ago

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Historical notes - the gay scene in post-war London

In Nazi Berlin, carrying on a gay love affair was quite literally a risk to life. While gay men and lesbians were not targeted for systematic extermination by the Nazis in the same manner as Jewish people or the disabled or mentally ill, they were imprisoned in concentration camps in large numbers and usually treated as the lowest form of prisoner, being subject to ‘scientific’ experimentation, and tortured for the amusement of SS guards and other prisoners. Even when no explicit attempts were made to work them to death, some 60% of gay concentration camp prisoners died. Notably, gay men who survived the camps were not considered to be victims, and many were subsequently re-imprisoned as they had not served the full sentences for their ‘crimes’.

While anal sex between men had ceased to be a capital offence in the UK in 1861, the subsequent Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 created the conveniently vague crime of ‘gross indecency’ between men- this is the law under which both Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing, along with some 50,000 other men, were prosecuted. However despite all efforts of the police to arrest any men who did heinous things like speak to other men whilst looking gay (an incident related in Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant), the gay scene in London and elsewhere flourished in the inter-war years, centred around the theatre and the broader arts world. Homosexuality was even considered fashionable amongst a certain set of students and intellectuals in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge during the 1930s.

The outbreak of war itself represented an enormous opportunity for gay people of all social classes- entering either the military or one of the many other voluntary wartime services enabled people to leave small and repressive home towns and travel around the country and the world, and meet other people like them for the first time. This was only bolstered by both anonymity and the sense of impending doom that pervaded life in the cities- a favourite anecdote of mine is from a man who, on the first night of the Blitz in September 1940, decided to forgo finding shelter in order to finally visit a gay pub in Soho, and said, “I thought, I may die tonight, I’m going to see what it’s like”. Judging by the wartime rise in rates of both STDs and the birth of illegitimate children, that’s probably a much better summation of the real spirit of the Blitz than ‘keep calm and carry on’!

While the post-war conservative backlash is perhaps most obvious in the sudden and intense pressure for women to give up their wartime jobs and return to traditional gender roles, there was also an uptick in police repression of lesbians and gay men, which in Britain increased from the late 1940s into the 50s in no small part due to political pressure from the USA.

Gay life and culture, however, abided as always. Many of London’s gay pubs and bars survived the Blitz and continued as they always had- the Salisbury in Covent Garden, Yuuri and Phichit’s favoured Saturday night haunt, had been a gay-friendly venue since Wilde’s time and still exists to this day. Parties in the arts world were often divided into sections- the ‘normal’ party, where the heterosexuals were allowed, and the ‘hair down’ party where same-sex couples could dance together and both men and women frequently dressed in drag. In the later fifties and sixties there was considerable crossover between gay venues and the unlicensed late-night music clubs run by black people, perhaps out of some common sympathy due to the frequency of police raids on both.

Slang and euphemisms were important for being able to suss others out undetected, and vintage gay slang remains my absolute favourite aspect of gay history. The gay theatre circle had its own dialect in Polari, but other ways one might refer to another ‘confirmed bachelor’ or ‘modern woman’ would be as ‘one of them’ or ‘our sort’, one who ‘dances at the other end of the ballroom’ or ‘wears sensible shoes’, or as a question to ask ‘is he musical?’ or ‘is she so?’ The post-war period was also when slang terms we still use today emerged, such as ‘gay’ itself, and ‘straight’, as a back-construction out of the notion of ‘going straight’ and attempting to lead a heterosexual life.

The greatest risk of prosecution or police brutality came in the attempt to meet and connect with other gay people. Amongst lesbians the popularity of butch and femme dress codes grew partly out of the fact that any woman who did not know how to fit in could be reasonably suspected as a police plant. ‘Sting’ operations to trap gay men into making a pass at a police officer were a common tactic, as was the practice of extracting the names of all of an arrested person’s gay friends and acquaintances during interrogation, so they all might be brought to prosecution together. The proprietors of popular gay establishments could sometimes buy their clientele a quieter life, but only at the price of frequent bribes paid to the police.

Ten years after the publication of the Wolfenden Report, which had dismissed the notion that homosexuality was a disease or that its continued illegality was of any social benefit, sex between men was finally decriminalised in England and Wales by the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, although with a higher age of consent (21), which was not equalised with the heterosexual age of consent (16) until 2000. It would remain illegal in Scotland until 1980, and in Northern Ireland until 1982.

Today the British government states it is ‘committed’ to pardoning all men convicted under the 1885 act.

(Source: It’s Not Unusual: A History of Lesbian and Gay Britain in the 20th Century. I fucking love this book)

#historical notes #fic: blackbird #homophobia

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cameronpauly · 8 years ago

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What has happened to America?

These days it seems like the U.S. is falling apart, especially since last November. Violence is more and more common, intolerance and racism is de rigeur, the political system is fundamentally dysfunctional, and it seems like everyone with an opinion – regardless of their place in the political spectrum – takes their ideas as dogma and lives shut in to a tiny little echo chamber where all they see and hear enforces their beliefs. And whenever someone else challenges them, their immediate, visceral reaction is to shut down opposition instead of opening up discussion. Today’s America is fueled by anger.

How did we get here? People like simple answers to tough questions, but the fact is there are no simple answers here. The country’s plight is not simply due to Donald Trump, nor is it due to a liberal conspiracy against freedom, or to whatever the “deep state” is. It may be comforting to take an enemy, build them up into a straw man, and pillory them for destroying America, but that is not the case, nor is it constructive. Curing the country of its ills is not that easy, despite the moral comfort this thought process brings.

It seems to me that at least a handful of factors are at play in this crisis:

· Political and social polarization: The two major political parties in the U.S. have drifted steadily towards the edges of the political spectrum. As the gap between party platforms grows, bipartisan politics fades into oblivion. Such a divisive system leaves voters with no choice but to pick a side, even if many Americans fall somewhere in the political center. And, as divisive politics spreads to the rest of society, the country as a whole begins to split in two.

· “Big money” and oligarchy: More and more, politicians of every stripe are under the sway of money. Corruption is rampant in the United States, which is now teetering on the verge of outright oligarchy. A system where money equals power has led to both major political parties serving a select few special interests to the detriment of the average voter, which only serves to widen the fracture in American politics and society.

· Elitism: The Democratic Party has in recent years fallen prey to a holier-than-thou attitude that rejects anyone outside the fold as either a simpleton or intolerant when in fact the vast majority of non-Democrats are neither. This attitude makes people angry, it prevents Democrats and liberals from seeing good ideas that originate elsewhere, and is a major contributor to the fractured nation that exists today.

·�� Populism: Parallel to the problem of elitism, the Republican Party has turned to a dangerous populism to appeal to its base. Populism is dangerous for many reasons, chiefly the tendency for political “solutions” to prejudice “feel-good” answers instead of actual policy. This can lead to an extreme radicalization of a voting bloc, putting many marginalized groups at risk and endangering the safety of the country as a whole.

· Liberal and conservative arrogance and self-righteousness: Both major political activity groups, the liberals and the conservatives, are deeply convinced that their fallacious orthodoxy, fed by elitist and populist rhetoric respectively, is correct and refuse to see any other good answers elsewhere. No one is willing to talk to the other side or even see them as people capable of reasoned thought, and it is pulling the country apart at the seams.

· Self-fulfilling news cycles: The mainstream media (which, contrary to popular belief, does include Fox News – the largest, most powerful, and most mainstream news network in the country) is tasked with upholding the political leanings of their base, be they liberal or conservative. The same story will be put through 5 different news stations and come out with 5 completely different takeaways. We see so many talking heads on 24-hour news programming regurgitating the same spin that it is no wonder that people buckle down on their side’s interpretation when different readings of a situation are so diametrically opposed. The news of today serves no purpose but to reinforce previously-held beliefs and to demonize opposing interpretations.

· Anti-intellectualism: The leaders of this country seem determined to replace rigorous exploration of the truth with “alternative facts” and label anyone who dares challenge them as “fake news.” Anyone who seeks to block discussion to protect their views is perpetuating this anti-intellectualism. The most effective way to combat this is not by trying to shut down these propagandists, which only cements their deification amongst those who believe them, but by engaging them in debate and refuting them with the truth. It is important to remember that if the truth is given a chance to be presented, the truth will always win.

· Racism, sexism, religious and myriad other forms of discrimination: In the more than 200 years of this country’s existence, some of the most powerful indicators of opportunity have been the color of one’s skin, one’s gender and where they worship. Unfortunately, this has not changed at all in the new century. I won’t pretend to know how to stop racism and discrimination, but I am convinced that many of the other topics above are implicated in contemporary American discrimination. For example, populism and polarization have given popular credence to discriminatory thought and action. Combating many of these other factors, coupled with a dedicated effort to directly challenge discrimination, seems to be the best plan of action.

All of these factors combine to result in a country ruled by dual orthodoxies. The country is pulling apart at the seams. The question that we need to ask is, “who is profiting from this strife?” And if we look at those in charge of these two orthodoxies, namely the Democratic and Republic Parties who dominate American politics, we will find the answer.

The Republican-Democratic dialectic is toxic. In order to fix America, we need to change this paradigm. There are far more viewpoints in this country than those that are represented in politics. Despite the two dominant parties consistently combining for 90% or more of the vote in every election in this country, only a small minority of Americans actually adhere to the party line. People’s beliefs are too varied to be properly expressed in a 2-answer multiple-choice question. But, with no viable third option, party leaders know their most dangerous opposition is from somewhere else in the giant coalition within their party. So, the “party line” shifts towards the radical end of Blue, or the reactionary end of Red, to prevent rebellion from “the base.” In the end, this means that two minority opinions are far over-represented in this country’s politics. Worst of all, these opinions are often extremely controversial, and they completely alienate the rest of the political spectrum. If only this were not the case – without two behemoths keeping these minority opinions afloat, they would be relegated to the far corners of politics, where they belong. If, for example, there was a strong center-right party in addition to the far-right Republican Party of today, the far-right party would rapidly fade into an irrelevant minor party.

It should come as no surprise that a country as large, diverse and powerful as the United States would have some incredibly challenging, complicated and deep-set issues to deal with. Nevertheless, all is not lost. It is possible to bring this chaos to an end. The hegemonic power of party allegiance must be broken, and discussion of ideas must instead take center stage instead of mere mudslinging, if this mess will ever be cleaned up.

#what has happened to america

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iamthegreenman-blog1 · 8 years ago

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Essentials: Desire for Desire

In my first university seminar, on the week that studied virtue ethics, I said, “There is no virtue in being in a wheelchair.” as the words left my mouth I was suddenly surrounded by horrified faces as four voices spoke at once to shut me down. I was told I was committing ableism, that I was advocating eugenics and that I was just plain, morally wrong. The professor added the last part, so it really was a class ganging up on one student because of what he said. It really was the university class that the right fears, as it was a class that wouldn’t even entertain social Darwinism as the correct philosophy of life.

As I sat there, embarrassed at having ten other people notice me for the first time, I could only think, “What the fuck are they on about?” It seemed obvious to me that to be able-bodied is preferable to being not able-bodied; that if given the choice between being able to walk and being in a wheelchair, any sane person would choose to walk every time. So I was horrified in turn, as what was so obvious to me seemed unthinkable to the others. There is no virtue in disability, it just sucks, and yet to say so is to commit a thought crime.

This in of itself is just some alt-right rider’s anger at the world, but it led me to one of the core tenants of my philosophy: desire for desire. Within the human being, there are many prime desires of which the human being navigates, choosing to satisfy or repress as they go about their lives. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this drives the majority of human behavior, but it doesn’t explain all of it or even most of it. There exists acts and history that seem to be done of anti-desire or irrelevant to desire. To explain them as resulting from the first premise results in the assigning of unique, essential qualities to human individuals, something that I refuse to do. To explain this, I’ll use the example of the asexual. Asexual people are those that have no sexual desire, to them sexuality is either a minor curiosity of minor repulsion. Sure, whatever, but it seems that anytime some social media user makes a joke about sexuality there needs to be some other user piping up to state, “Excuse me, some of us are asexual and I don’t appreciate being erased.” Which then gets put into feminist matrix and forgotten about. Checking privilege is common there and who really cares, but it always gets to me because I need to ask, “Why the fuck do you care?” If an asexual has no sexual desire then they don’t care about sex, and shouldn’t care about the existence of sex jokes. The entire concept of erasure should be alien to the asexual as the thing which they do not want erased is already erased. They feel no sexual desire, so to them and others, it should be a non-issue. The oppressive forces of historical society that do erase homosexuals and transsexuals just do not care about people who don’t have an active sexuality. Asexuality even has historical precedent with life long bachelors and spinsters lining the ledgers of history. If asexuals were truly equal to those with sexuality then they would never feel the need to ask others to recognize their lack of sexual interests, and yet they do that all the time. You don’t have to go far into internet sex discussions to find the person talking about their lack of it, even though, by their own identity they should never feel to need to have a say.

There is something going on here that needs recognition. Within the human being, there are a number of shoulds. These shoulds defy reason; even as we can recognize their powerlessness, they still act upon us. An asexual lacks sexual desire, but does not lack the feeling that they should have sexual desire and that the entirety of society has been built for those that do. To the asexuals that feels the needs to pipe up, sexuality is this fun thing everyone else enjoys, but they can never truly understand. Even as they hear of the girl who cries for weeks when her she has break up, or the young man who lets other men do unspeakable thing to him because his father rejected him, they still see sexuality as something they are missing out on. Even as they rationally understand their particular affliction, they still feel as if they should have sexual desire. This is desire for desire, the feeling of should, even as the rational mind understands the lack of need for the should, it still exists. No matter what we do, these shoulds, mysterious to consciousness, will not go away. This leads the realization of the need for wholeness; the need to be the ideal human being.

There exists in us a need to be healthy, to have all the components that we understand to make up a human being; good health, good sexuality, a purpose, friends, lovers, family, healthy emotions, healthy actions, and a general feeling of well-being. Even as we understand that none of these things are necessary for a good life, we still desire them, and if we lack the desire for them, we still desire for the desire. Even as we understand that there is no ideal human being, no perfect woman or man, we still point ourselves towards that. Even as we understand that those that genetics have gifted beauty, intelligence and “normality” do not live better lives than those that aren’t gifted, we still look to them in envy. There is no model human being, and still we want there to be one and vaunt those that we hope to fill that void, and act surprised when they reveal themselves to be all too human. So, if we admit the presence of irrational shoulds, if we admit there are some wants that we will never rid ourselves of, then the question becomes, “What do we do about it?”

We accept it. There are qualities of existence that are just better than others, but this does not mean the your lacking of those qualities means you are somehow lesser than those that do. You didn’t choose to be asexual, or straight or gay, or in a wheelchair. You shouldn’t be blamed or shamed for things about yourself that you cannot change, and there I unify with most feminist theory. Where I differ is in the creation of prescriptive norms, as desire for desire is not a construct. It can’t be done away with like gender because it is not something that was thought up to explain biological differences; it was only something reacted against. The reactions were bad, but necessary in order to deal with the lacking an individual feels.

It cannot be denied, fulfilling shoulds feels good. I myself wrestled with my own should for a long time, being alternately repulsed and shamed by them as I eked out a youth. Though I tried to deny it, fulfilling traditional masculine roles felt good; having a woman look up at me as her masculine ideal felt good; dominating others that try to contend with my ideas feels good; winning a physical fight against another “alpha male” feels good. Even as I admit these qualities central disservice to humanity and myself I cannot deny how good they feel, how right they make me reality feel.

To tell a person that their shoulds have no meaning is a fool’s game. You can’t tell a woman that fulfilling her gender roles doesn’t feel good, you can’t tell a violent man that hurting others doesn’t feel good, and you can’t tell a person in a wheelchair that they are not in a wheelchair. These things are obvious, so trying to insist that should are constructs will always result in reactionaries. This is the time we find ourselves in now, with feminist theory exporting itself to a society that can admit their utopian qualities but cannot reconcile their prescriptive claims with reality. Individualism feels good, even if every individual recognizes that they exist in dialectic with the collective. Telling individuals that their individualism is evil can only result in the rejection of the charge.

Being in a wheelchair is worse than being able to walk and that sucks. No person should feel shamed or repulsed by the fact that is there lot in life, but at the same time, we shouldn’t pretend that there is some virtue in being in a wheelchair. We shouldn’t pretend that the denial of that reality can somehow equal being able to walk like everyone else can, because it never will. Part of post-modern philosophy as it has emerged, works off this assumption that no way of life is better than any other even as reality shows that up to be entirely false. My ongoing explication of desire for desire exists for this reason, because there needs to be a way to unify post-modernism’s moral objections to reality with reality. From that we can make prescriptive claims that everyone can agree with, and eliminate the divisions which exist for no other reason than most people are too stupid to recognize their futility.

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bestnewsmag-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Bestnewsmag

New Post has been published on https://bestnewsmag.com/the-life-and-times-of-collingwood-legend-lou-richards/

The life and times of Collingwood legend Lou Richards

Critical Analysis of the Legend of the Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Washington Irving weaves heaps and lots of spider webs earlier than he involves the primary plot of the story. I would love to analyze the story from the factor of view of Romance, Gothic Fiction, Marxism, Psychoanalysis and Feminism.

As a romance, the story revolves around the protagonist Ichabod Crane’s efforts to woo Katrina. Ichabod Crane involves the village to be a college grasp. Katrina a buxom lass has many admirers and the tale sets the conflict between Brom Bones, the country lad, and Ichabod who’s additionally her admirer. The romance follows a regular medieval sample of courtly love. The men strive their first-rate to make amorous advances to Katrina.

Katrina unearths it attractive to be wooed by using many guys. This kind of romantic paradigm is identified through the Truthseeker Kristeva as belonging to melancholia that could be a longing for something that cannot be obtained. In this sport of romance, women are silenced and romance acts as a pursuing ritualistic recreation for the guys. Are ladies gadgets to be courtroom worshiped and obtained by subservient gestures? Is the proper of romance converting to women taking a more energetic role? Are ladies, poetic hearts to be adornments? Are gender roles moving and becoming extra feminine in trendy romance? The questions are clean to frame however the solutions are tough to conjecture.

The tale is modeled along the strains of Gothic fiction and the village is haunted by many ghostly stories. The most outstanding of them is the legend of the headless horseman who visits the village nocturnally and returns to his grave earlier than sunrise. The legend of the headless horseman turns into the crux of the plot of the tale as we in a while apprehend in the long run that when a celebration at Katrina’s residence, while Ichabod Crane is using on the pony, he’s accosted by a headless horseman and loses manage of his horse and whilst the head is thrown at him, he turns into an entire disarray.

We can handiest consider that the author has woven the plot as a ploy made by using Ichabod’s rival Brom Bones who is Katrina’s admirer to oust him from the village. the author has created a plot that is weak but leaving lots of room for fictional imagination. Submit modern-day style of fiction has sounded the dying knell for the Gothic. New age readers can examine via the plot as a fictional construct and Gothic plots within the postmodern generation are dull. The truth isn’t the amazing however the aesthetic in contemporary fictional phrases. Ridicule, irony and self-mirrored image are the devices thru which Publish current writer explores his or her work.

From a Marxian attitude, the story portrays the existence of the elite bourgeoisie, who’re rich but rustic and not very knowledgeable. It’s an underestimation that they do not pay a whole lot of an importance to the schooling of their children. That is found out within the shoddy construction of the school that is clearly a shack. Negritude is also portrayed within the tale with the magnificence of attention of disdain.

The story indicates the evolution of rural The united states and fits the paradigm of class consciousness that is snobbish, elite and but muddled in waters of being unsophisticated. The cultural ideals and values of Rural America are primitive and deeply tainted with excellent-naturalism and myths. The protagonist of the play, Ichabod is the most effective individual who resembles the proletariat. however, alternatively, the author clouds him with superstitious ideas. girls are limited to the role of congenial housewives or as items for guys to set their charms on.

Psychoanalytically talking, the story revolves around haunting specters, Christianity and the paganism of witchcraft. The humans of the village are riddled with the panoply of a harassed jargon of having staunch Christian ideals and yet being ardent admirers of witchcraft. This salmagundi is an amalgamated cauldron of irrationality. One finds it difficult to digest these myths inside the postmodern era. It also exhibits the writer’s confusion of an emotional dialectic between tough held Christian beliefs and paganism. At an archetypal degree, the dualism of the cosmos with properly and evil grow to be silhouettes that waddle the thoughts in perforations of substantiation. Devil and God grow to be allegorical attributes of a thought this is bewildered with arcane riddles. the writer’s unconscious is manifested with a consciousness that mingles fantasy and superstition with Reality.

Looking for the story from a feminist factor of view We will say that guys are phallic fathers attempting to find the Oedipal female. ladies are either submissive, doting housewives or coquettish damsels prepared to be enticed by using men. Yes, Katrina is an authoritarian feminist in relation to romance. She enjoys fascinating all of the men out to entice her. however, Katrina’s role is limited to a gender stereotype and missing in autonomy and democracy. The phallic language of the textual content by means of making stereotypes of the masculine and the feminine desires to be strongly questioned via the lens of feminist deconstruction. Gender and language vibrate with a magnet that is a Utopian Phallic Father.

Developing Courage in Difficult Times

We do not broaden braveness by way of being satisfied each day. We develop it via surviving hard instances and challenging adversity. Our tough instances often deliver out the first-rate in ourselves.

In my experience, human beings who’ve been via painful, tough instances are full of compassion. In spite of adversity, folks that are happiest seem to have a way of mastering from hard instances, turning into more potent, wiser and happier as an end result. The man isn’t always made for defeat. It’s far real that Mango through one of a kind phases in life. It’s a part of residing and current. On occasion we’re devastated because of the loneliness and emptiness we feel inside but we want no longer lose hope.

Extremely good guys do not enjoy small challenges. They face Fantastic project but that is what makes them Brilliant. that’s what give them the First-rate story. They live and leave one of a kind footprints of existence on minds

braveness is a choice that requires action. deliver yourself credit. Use the identical electricity to make courageous choices these days. On occasion, making the wrong preference is better than making no desire. You have the courage to move forward; that is uncommon. I am not a courageous individual by way of nature. but at a positive factor in my life, I discover the courage to go away my husband.

Finding the braveness to stand wherein I fall allowed me to have perseverance in existence. Or perhaps at times, It is a mixture of spirit and choice, love and wishes to recognize in which to the appearance without flinching. The only actual measure of braveness is perseverance under pressure.

Real braveness is doing the right component while nobody’s searching. The key to lifestyles is accepting challenges. Be thankful to the ones painful memories of your lifestyles, due to the fact the ones what shaped you to come to be who you’re now. Each mistake teaches you something new about yourself. There is no failure, take into account, except in no longer attempting. It’s far the courage to keep that counts. It could absolutely transform your lifestyles. Do the right issue because It’s miles proper. Those are the magic keys to staying your life with integrity even in hard instances.

You expand it by means of surviving hard times and hard adversity. You’ll never do whatever in this international without courage. It’s far the finest first-class of the mind, next to honor. The task will not wait. life does no longer look lower back. Preserve on to your energy and in no way supply it away.

That is what braveness is. Starting again. Damning the previous day and going through day after today together with your head held excessively.

Finding the True Love of Your Life – Be Yourself

Finding the true love of your life is a cry of each regular human being in the world. A few are nonetheless scouting for that true love. Others are inside the technique already and they doubt if the only they have got is the genuine one. All people desires to be truly loved. A few attempted and they got disenchanted alongside the way and they determined to stop searching. You may nonetheless find your genuine love, it isn’t too past due. I admit that Locating the true love of your life is not that smooth. Why? People are complex. In order that complicates the technique. Finding the real love of your existence is a great factor. Let us read collectively the subsequent scriptures:

Seasoned 18:22 Whoever unearths a spouse reveals what is right, and receives favor from the LORD.

1Co 7:2 Due to the fact sexual immorality is so rampant, every guy have to have his own spouse, and every woman must have her personal husband.

It is straightforward for one while he sees someone he fancies to get tempted to come to be a one of a kind character. He tries to grow to be what the capacity existence companion is looking for. However one of these reinventions of self is short-lived. Eventually, you’ll be discovered out if you pretend to be something you aren’t. You cannot fake all the time. while the capacity love of your existence finds out you might lose badly. Just consider the golden rule. in case you had been to date a person and later find out that the character becomes faking himself or herself, how would you without a doubt feel? The opportunity is that folks that are proper to themselves would Simply terminate the dating system. Or if they had pre-dedicated, they could resentfully terminate the connection.

One can also ask, “What if I am in a relationship now and I am now not absolutely myself?” You can pop out to the open now earlier than it’s far too overdue. “What if the relationship comes to a cease?” you ask. it’s miles higher for it to come to a quit now than later. That could keep A few very deep hurts. The foundation of real love has to be honesty Due to the fact if not, it’s going to stop badly. In the end, you could discover that your genuine individual is what your ability love of your lifestyles is searching out. In no way faux yourself Because you might discover someone who isn’t always suitable for you. By using so doing you can appeal to the wrong accomplice and that isn’t always what you want.

I consider that out there, there may be a person who is searching exactly for the sort of man or woman you’re. That person is looking for an original which you are. This is someone who will not have a problem dwelling together with your failings and flaws. So be true to yourself and be who you certainly are. Be happy with yourself. Nobody is such as you on this planet. you are specific. So allow yourself to be distinctive.

Why perform little Human beings fake themselves?

Those are a number of the reasons amongst many legend Life times.

1) They may be insecure. someone who is insecure lacks self- confidence. He feels inadequate.

2) They experience that the capability love of their lifestyles is seeking out something better than they could offer.

Be yourself. Recognize what you stand for. You have to Understand what you are seeking out yourself. Have your own necessities to be met for a lifestyles companion. Do not be moved. As you continue to be true to yourself, be patient. Do no longer bow to stress. Right matters come to individuals who are capable of the wait. That is why I offer a dating coaching software to put together you for the love of your life.

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neo-losangeles · 8 years ago

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http://www.thevocal.com.au/loudest-room-isnt-correct-rise-twitters-pop-sociologists/#.WNCDbxq9GSs.twitter

Devyn Springer Devyn Springer is an Atlanta artist, writer, and activist who is currently studying the African diaspora and art history at Kennesaw State University. Approx 8 minute reading time My grandmother used to always tell me, “the loudest one in the room is not always the smartest, and the one saying the most words is not always saying the most truth.” Then again, a year ago, days before publishing my first book, a mentor of mine reminded me, “the person whose book has the most pages does not always have the most knowledge on the pages.” Taking these two statements to heart and analysing how they exist in different spaces, I instantly thought of social media, specifically Twitter.

Over the past few years the world has witnessed a paradigm shift in the ways Twitter is used, with the platform rapidly transforming into a tool used for education and sharing of news. Following the death of young Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, we saw a rise of people utilising Twitter as a means to educate and inform people on different topics. And while this was not new to the popular social media platform, it did begin a new trend of what I call the “pop sociologist,” or folks who dedicate much of their existence on Twitter to educating people on various topics of race, gender, class, activism, history, etc.

As someone dedicated to delivering dialogical and liberatory education, the possibilities of educating individuals on Twitter are endless, but not without limits. There are trends in several popular Twitter ‘pop sociologist’ accounts that at times can do more damage than good.

The concept of an audience, or building a following, plays a central role in motivating individuals to produce content which can be seen as damaging. A trend has set in which promotes the idea of “watering down” or discussing topics on very basic, 101 levels for the sake of gaining a large following. While it is important to start with basics whenever discussing a topic, it is important to understand the problematic nature of never progressing educational content beyond this basic level.

Tweets are often made in thread form – a tool which allows you to string together several tweets and easily pack lots of information together – for the sake of going viral, not for the sake of educating individuals. This alludes to the intent of many Twitter ‘pop sociologists,’ and doing this allows for content to go viral which lacks critical engagement with the subject, dialectical analysis, and historical context. It is the difference between discussing how non-Black people of color often have anti-Blackness in their communities and discussing how non-Black people of color have anti-Blackness in their communities due to a specific historical context and integration into a systemic context which leads them to this. The latter would be less popular because it discusses a historical context and lends itself towards a solution-based analysis, while the first would go viral for its simplistic nature. When statements that lack nuance, depth, and historical context go viral, this often allows for the misrepresentation and misuse of content and theory. Tweets that allude to theory, but do not explicitly source, discuss, and cite, allow generalisations and blanket statements to become the norm, which is a problem.

Another problem we often see is the deliberate altering or rendering of form and content within tweets for the sake of whiteness, or rather white comfortability, to garner more retweets. Content is often pacified and de-politicised in order to not upset white followers, and what this creates are several accounts nearly appropriating radical language for a white audience. Examples of this are several “pro-Black” accounts that create content about Black politics from a very liberal and respectable perspective. Individuals who perform a radical or leftist politic, but obscure true leftist content with neoliberal ideals.

To understand this, we can look at how several Black queer intellectuals exist on Twitter. People like myself tend to stay in our lane, continually talking about the things we are well knowledged in, keep our content heavily experiential based, and never seek to make ourselves an authority of any certain politic. Contrasted with several other users, you can immediately notice individuals only talking about certain things when they are trending topics, often appearing to present themselves as authority on topics and politics in order to gain social capital.

And within the context of Twitter, the idea of creating yourself as an authoritative figure on a subject is important to note because it often positions one’s politics as anti-dialogical, or above criticism and approach, and stifles critical engagement. By positioning themselves as some social justice authority through various means of accumulating social capital, individuals present themselves as uncheckable and infallible. This is an individualised rendering of a popular mechanism of neoliberalism; to position your politics, your identity, and your positions as binarily true. To position your self with a false sense of authority is to disrupt the organically engaging, dialogical, and uniquely communicative nature of Twitter.

What does this mean in the larger context of Twitter and what does it mean to exist in a manner that might be inherently damaging, even if done with pure intentions? And what solutions can be theorised and put into practice to effectively use Twitter for education? For starters, it means accepting the notion that if you want to dedicate your account to education and advocacy, you are taking on a responsibility to also progress and sharpen yourself over time. This is a process that the social justice oriented individual should be invested in already, but as our great elders like Paulo Freire, Walter Rodney, and Assata Shakur have taught us, the responsibility of education is not one to be worn lightly.

It also means the one dedicating to using Twitter to educate people having a clear line of introspection, as well as a pedagogical approach rested on engagement. Of course no one person is required to engage in any capacity if they don’t wish to, but on some level critical engagement is critical and vital to the education process. A model for this pedagogical, or educational, approach would be one that not only welcomes but insists upon engagement, constructive comments, questioning, and even at times critique; which Twitter is the perfect platform to allow this sort of pedagogy to blossom. The educator, like the activist or the artist, can be anything but neutral, and we must begin to see Twitter as an extension of a liberated classroom if we are to continue to attempt to use it as such. Tearing down the walls of promoting certain individuals as ‘authority’ of a certain politic due to their following and social capital is harmful to this pedagogical approach, because it allows individuals to deny introspection as well as critique.

And we have to ask, is Twitter even the best platform for the role of education? Surely, as a realm for social interaction and entertainment it is of fantastic use, but is it possible to ever properly use it pedagogically? I believe it can be, or it often is, but when done correctly with good intentions. Certainly many can agree that only so much depth and nuance can be packed into 140 character tweets, leaving out large portions of theory and context often, however with innovations in Twitter’s threading, linking, and photo/video uploading features, this is rapidly changing. While Twitter is not (and should not be viewed as) a space to build an entire personal political analysis from, replacing books, personal study, and research, it can be a great medium to exist as a starting point for analyses. We have to begin to see it as such – a starting point – and develop the craft of using Twitter to educate around that notion.

Much of my own nature on the platform exists in this same space, having dedicated the majority of my presence on the site to educating folks on different topics I’ve studied and devoted time to, so this exists not just as a critique to strangers but a self-critique and reminder as well. A reminder that if I am going to use what tools the master has given and attempt to subvert them to build power, I need to also hold myself accountable to using the tools as best as possible.

We saw the rise of the “pop activist” in 2016 and the entire construct was critiqued to hell and back, and rightfully so. But may I suggest the “pop sociologist” or “pop expert” is an equally problematic and at times harmful construct that we need to examine, dissect, and mould into something better? Can we turn the ‘pop sociologist’ into a pedagogical figure where false authority doesn’t replace dialogical critical engagement, a large following is not more important than the actual depth of content being produced, and knowledge is not pacified and distributed without historical context for the sake of appeasing a following?

As Paulo Freire informs us in his book Pedagogy of Freedom, “whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.” Therefore those dedicated to using Twitter as a platform for educating others must never feel they are above being educated, because it is a crucial part of a healthy pedagogy. One that involves the ‘pop sociologist’ to move beyond analyses formed solely on social media and into a praxis of education rooted in theories of liberation. Twitter can be a powerful tool for education and pedagogical activism, as we’ve seen already, but only if we continue to harness its power in the sharpest, most emancipatory ways possible.

Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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liz27moore · 8 years ago

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Gender-Neutral Pronouns: Singular ‘They’

It was only about a year and a half ago that I did a show about using they as a singular pronoun, but I told you this was an active area of language change, and there’s been enough new change that you need an update.

When we’re talking about the singular they, we’re usually talking about using they in sentences like these:

Tell the next caller they won a car.

Every student should thank their teacher.

Who left their coat on the playground?

In these sentences, we’re talking about one person, but we don’t know whether that person is male or female. In the past, people might have written Tell the next caller he won a car or Tell the next caller he or she won a car, but as we’ll see, more people are starting to accept the pronoun they in sentences like these.

Back at the end of 2015, Bill Walsh admitted the singular they into the Washington Post style guide, and the attendees at the American Dialect Society annual meeting voted to make the singular they the word of the year.

Now both the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style have updated their style guides to be more accepting of they as a gender neutral singular pronoun. But this is still an active area of language change, and the two style guides still disagree about how much they accept the singular they.

First, I’ll tell you about the specific changes, and then I’ll wax philosophic about what it all means (or something like that).

Chicago Manual of Style Update: Singular ‘They’

The Chicago Manual of Style took the more timid position of the two stylebooks. In the 17th edition, which will come out in September, the editors first distinguish between formal English and informal English.

Singular ‘They’ in Formal English (Chicago)

In formal English, Chicago would still rather have you avoid using they as a singular pronoun. However, you can tell that they’re struggling with the decision because the editors also want you to avoid gender-biased language, so they seem to grudgingly allow that if you can’t find another way to avoid using he as a generic pronoun, you can use they, even in formal writing.

Carol Fisher Saller, who gave the presentation at the ACES conference about the style guide updates, described meetings in which some editors wanted to go further than this and allow they to be used more broadly in formal writing. Further, in a later update on the Chicago website, they note that Chicago supports flexibility, writing

“Editors should always practice judgment and regard for the reader. For instance, some recent books published by the University of Chicago Press feature the use of the singular they as a substitute for the generic he. Context should be a guide when choosing a style, and the writer’s preferences should always receive consideration.”

So, in formal writing, the way I read Chicago style is that you should try hard to write around the problem, but if you can’t or you feel really strongly about proactively using they as a singular pronoun, it’s fine.

Singular ‘They’ in Informal English (Chicago)

When we move on to informal English, Chicago is more straightforward. They say it’s fine to use they as a singular pronoun in our “Tell the next caller they won a car” sentences.

‘They’ to Refer to a Specific Person (Chicago)

And then we get to a different kind of sentence: the kind of sentence we use for people who don’t want us to call them he or she. Again Chicago is straightforward, advising that “a person’s stated preference for a specific pronoun should be respected” even in formal writing. That means that if someone’s tells you their preferred pronoun is they, use it.

I’m struggling to come up with an example sentence that couldn’t be rewritten, but here’s an example to start with that I found in a direct quotation in a recent New York Times article about Alessandro Moreschi, the Vatican’s last castrato singer:

It’s been written that they sang with a tear in each note.

You could easily change that to It’s been written that Moreschi sang with a tear in each note, but the speaker used they.

And here’s another one. This time from a review of the TV show Billions. There’s a character named Taylor whose preferred pronoun is they, so a sentence describing someone named Axe pitching an idea to Taylor reads like this:

Axe’s pitch to them shows a surprisingly progressive understanding of the value of workplace diversity.

Again, the writer could have substituted Taylor’s name and written Axe’s pitch to Taylor shows a surprisingly progressive understanding, but the writer had already used Taylor’s name a lot in the paragraph so decided just to go with Taylor’s preferred pronoun and use they.

Anyway, just because I can’t think of a sentence that doesn’t require you to use they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I’m sure they exist. If you can think of one, leave it in the comments.

‘They’: A Singular or Plural Verb?

And if you need to pair the pronoun in cases like this with a verb that is different depending on whether it’s singular or plural, use a plural verb. For example, if you were talking about Taylor’s response to Axe’s proposal, you could write They were happy with the proposal.

This seems to be one of the things that bugs people most about using they as a singular pronoun—I see a lot of snotty comments about how we should write They is—but it’s actually not unprecedented in English. The pronoun you is both singular and plural, but we always pair it with a plural verb. We write You are not going to like this whether we’re talking about one person or a room full of people.

So that’s Chicago. Let’s move on to the new AP style.

Singular ‘They’ (Associated Press)

The biggest difference between Chicago style and AP style is that AP doesn’t break it down as more acceptable in informal English and less acceptable in formal English—perhaps because the AP Stylebook is primarily for news writers its users aren’t quite as varied as Chicago’s. And even though the Associated Press also recommends writing around the problem whenever possible, the Stylebook’s tone also seems just more generally accepting or less grudging than Chicago’s, depending on how you look at it.

The AP also wants you to respect people’s pronoun choices, although they note that they do not use other gender-neutral pronouns such as xe or zir, so they aren’t that accepting. (Chicago didn’t specifically address that topic.)

And then they say, generally, that if you try and rewriting is too awkward or clumsy, it’s fine to use they in our “Tell the next caller they won a car” kind of sentence.

‘He’ as a Gender-Neutral Pronoun

A related change that is more about what isn’t in the Stylebook than about what is in the Stylebook is that it no longer says that it’s OK to use he as a gender-neutral pronoun. The last edition said it was OK, and the AP was one of the last stylebooks that I’m aware of to say so. They were the last holdout in my mind, and now they no longer specifically support it. Instead, the entry reads

“Do not presume maleness in constructing a sentence. Usually it is possible, and always preferable, to reword the sentence to avoid gender.”

And they go on to say again if rewriting isn’t possible, use they and just make sure your readers can tell you’re writing about only one person.

All the Feelings

So, what does it all mean? As I’m sure you’re probably aware, people have a lot of feelings about these changes. At the American Copy Editors Society meeting, a cheer erupted in the room when the Associate Press made their announcement. But I’ve also seen comments from people who feel like it’s the end of the world.

I did a poll on Twitter, asking people how they felt about the changes and giving just the very simple possibilities of yay, boo, and don’t care. And of the 581 people who responded (I presume most of whom follow the Grammar Girl account), 58% voted yay, 31% chose boo, and I raise a glass to the 11% who bothered to check the don’t care box. You can hang out with my husband someday.

So the majority like the changes, but if you don’t like them, you aren’t alone. And if you don’t like the singular they, you don’t have to use it unless you’re writing for an editor or client who wants you to follow AP or Chicago style or another stylebook that favors the singular they.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my TED talk because it was about this kind of language change, and my premise was that we vote on language change with our usage and our lobbying and our complaints. If I remember correctly, both the AP and Chicago presenters said they were reacting to comments they see on their website and social media accounts and to usage questions they see from writers. Gender-neutral pronouns have been a topic at the style guide sessions at the ACES conference for at least the last couple of years, and I know that neither the AP nor the Chicago editors consider themselves activists for language change. They tend to be relatively cautious and react to what they see in the real world and, in the case of the AP, what they see their writers doing. They follow. They don’t lead.

So, people voted. They voted when they left comments for the editors. They voted when they turned in their articles using the singular they, and eventually the editors took notice, tallied the votes, and decided it was time to make these changes.

One cautionary note that I think is worth making is that as far as I can tell, standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT still mark the singular they as wrong. So if you’re a teacher or studying for one of those tests, you still have to think of it as wrong, at least for the test. And as a teacher, I know it’s easier to teach students straightforward rules than to try to explain that it’s wrong on the test, but fine if you’re writing for a newspaper, but that’s the state of the language today. But don’t worry, it will probably change again in a couple of years. In fact I’m sure it will because if there’s one constant you can count on, it’s that language change is constant.

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