#and her position on society being that it is fundamentally corrupt and unjust

[whetstonefires]

i saw your reblog of lesbianincelsnape’s post, i really want to hear your thoughts on how dumbledore and snape are similar

Oh! Sure, why not. 😂 I'll do my best.

So the position I'm adopting here is basically that Dumbledore is secretly a lot like Snape.

Specifically, the person Snape was, at that crucial juncture in his life when Dumbledore stepped up as his patron, reminded Dumbledore so much of himself at the parallel point in his own life it was like getting punched in the stomach every time he looked at him.

(I've also said elsewhere I think he was probably jealous that Voldemort and Lily were separate people. Like!)

The extremely vital point in Albus Dumbledore's backstory that gets neglected an astonishing amount is: his father went to Azkaban for anti-muggle hate crimes, and never came out.

But it wasn't really a hate crime. It was an honor killing, or vigilante justice. It was revenge for an assault on his daughter that could not be prosecuted thanks to the Statute of Secrecy.

The Dumbledore family was destroyed by 1) muggles and 2) the government. And then their mom died.

And that's where Grindelwald found him. Recently out of school and recently orphaned, brilliant and isolated and embittered, all his lauded potential being squandered on having to stay home and care indefinitely for his disabled sister. And knowing exactly who to blame. This is an alienated youth.

Aberforth was 100% correct to come over all 'what the fuck Rousseau you're just going off with this asshole to chase your weird dreams and leaving us?' although dueling about it was obviously foolish, but it's not surprising Albus could be radicalized at that point, even without factoring in the crush.

It wouldn't be really surprising, just disappointing, if Grindelwald had led with much more blatantly evil rhetoric than 'we will tear down this broken system with all its hideous injustices and erect a new one where we will personally ensure justice and rule over the muggles for their own good' and still gotten him.

But regardless. First he was that brilliant, embittered, horribly lonely young englishman signing himself away on a charismatic figure's fascist agenda. And then he was the slightly older, broken young man whose selfish choices had killed a young woman he loved, but had failed to care for properly.

Dumbledore despised the first one but he respects the sentiment of remorse enough to be able to sympathize with the second. He's built his whole identity from that point in his own life.

Which gets him right in that weird mental spot he's clearly got, where he wants to believe in redemption more than anything but also believes people can never really change. And that he, for example, can't be trusted to attempt major reforms to society or government considering the circumstances of his original resolution to unfuck the system.

So although Snape doesn't know it they've got this super complicated relationship where Dumbedore identifies with him a lot, and alternately cuts him inappropriate amounts of slack and is Very Weird And Passive-Aggressive With Him because of it.

What's most interesting here is that while he did usher the guy into the life choice that had ultimately allowed him to feel like he was doing something meaningful without grasping too outrageously at power (without any apparent understanding of the differences of context and psychology that stopped teaching from being fulfilling for Snape in the same way, or of the ways this could be bad for students) Dumbledore did not seriously pressure Snape to adopt his specific coping mechanisms.

Is this because he understood that this would be inappropriate and unhelpful, or more broadly unethical, or because he lacked the introspective awareness to realize that he had e.g. spent the last 70 years in a weird internal war with his 20-year-old self? Who can say.

Interesting that the result was that Snape just stayed that exact person for the rest of his life though.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Conservatism in Brandon Sanderson’s Writings; or, Reflections on Revolution in the Cosmere

I’ve only read The Stormlight Archive and Warbreaker, so this is based on an incomplete picture, but the combination of those two have given me an impression of Sanderson’s ideas on social structures, appropriate and inappropriate responses to institutional injustice, and revolution. These ideas strike me as being essentially conservative; I’m tempted to say Burkean (hence my alternate title), but I don’t know Burke’s writings well enough to be sure if that’s correct.

To be clear: this is not a ‘call-out’ post. I personally disagree with some of Sanderson’s themes, but I’m trying to understand, engage with, and debate them, not flatly condemn them.

My interpretations here are primarily based on two storylines: Warbreaker, and Kaladin and Moash’s arcs in Words of Radiance. Both of these two storylines, and their resolutions, seem grounded in the following political ideas:

1) Injustice and cruelty are the result of bad, or flawed, people; not of bad systems. And people can change. The solution to a system that seems unjust is to improve the people within it, not to tear it down.

2) Those who seek revolution are basically self-serving and vengeful, not interested in the good of others or that of society.

3) Radicals and those who seek revolution have a blinkered political perspective, flattening societies and people into stereotypes rather than acknowledging their complexity.

1. People, not systems

For the first point: both Alethkar and the world of Warbreaker have systems that are fundamentally founded on entrenched and institutionalized inequality. In Alethkar it is the division between lighteyes and darkeyes (and the different ranks thereof). In Warbreaker it is the position of Returned, who can only exist by daily taking life-force/spirit from others - typically from the poor. Nonetheless, the narrative justifies the maintenance of both systems, primarily on the basis that the ruling classes contain good people (e.g. Dalinar, Adolin; Siri, Susebron, Lightsong); one of the major themes in TWOK and WOR revolves around forcing Kaladin to recognize that some lighteyes are good, and others, like Elhokar, have the desire and capacity to improve.

The basic political conflict is, to me, expressed by two lines following Kaladin’s (second) defeat of a Shardbearer. The first is Dalinar’s, when he states what Kaladin should do about institutionalized discrimination against darkeyes: “You want to change that?...Be the kind of man that others admire, whether they be lighteyed or dark...That will change the world.” This fundamentally rubs me the wrong way - it’s the Booker T. Washington theory of how to address racial inequality, and history has proven time and time and time again that it doesn’t work. If Kaladin did that, people would say, “Wow, that Kaladin, what an unusually exceptional darkeyes!” and continue to treat the rest of darkeyes just the same.

The second line is Kaladin’s when he refuses the shardblade that would make him lighteyed: “I don’t want my life to change because I’ve become a lighteyes. I want the lives of people like me...like I am now...to change.” This, I completely agree with - but later events would suggest the narrative may not. (And the fact that Kaladin doesn’t used his increased status in later books to push for change on this front frustrates me.)

To give another example: when Sadeas treats bridgemen as cannon fodder and their lives as utterly disposable, the problem is treated as being that Sadeas is a bad person (and facing certai. tactical constraints) - not the fact that Sadeas and the other brightlords has the power to treat darkeyes’ lives as disposable in the first place. When Kaladin is imprisoned for challenging Amaram to a duel - in effect, imprisoned for being darkeyed, since a high-nahn lighteyes would not have been punished for issuing such a challenge - this is treated as Kaladin’s fault, not the fault of a system that treats him as having fundamentally less worth than Amaram.

There’s no focus in the books on getting rid of the unjust system - by any means, violent or non-violent, bottom-up or top-down - just on having the ruling class become better people, which is expected to alleviate some problems without fundamentally altering the social structure.

2. Revolutionaries are selfish

The most open expression of this idea is in TWOK, where Moash says outright that he’d like to keep the same system but flipped, with darkeyes on the top and lighteyes on the bottom. Vivenna’s endeavours towards revolution are also portrayed as driven by bigotry against Hallandran culture. And Kalladin’s desire to remove Elhokar is shown as driven by a desire for revenge, with any larger goals or motives being mere rationalization. Likewise, the main antagonist of Warbreaker is shown as having destructive, not constructive goals.

While this is ceratinly true of some revolutionary movements, in Sanderson’s works it is shown as invariably true, with no revolutionary characters being driven by genuine justice or the desire to improve people’s lives. This provides a stark contrast with the number of virtuous characters who are shown depicting or upholding the existing social systems.

3. Radicals see society in shallow and stereotypical terms

This is a big part of the characterization of both Vivenna and Kaladin. For Vivenna, the main example is that she initially sees her people - from a largely rural nation - as fundamentally virtuous, and is horrified by the ‘criminals’ they have to live among in the slum. When she’s made to see that those ‘criminals’ are in fact members of her people, she sees them as victims tragically corrupted by the terrible (urban) culture they’ve immigrated to. She generalizes; she doesn’t want to recognize the fact that some of her people prefer life in the city - despite marginalization and poverty - to life in their country of birth, and wouldn’t want to return. She spends most of the book being gradually forced to break down her stereotypes of her culture as good and Hallandran society as corrupt.

Kaladin, for his part, continually stereotypes lighteyes. In his youth, it’s a kind of internalized caste-ism - he’s constantly disappointed and mistreated by the lighteyes around him, and he keeps on thinking that the people doing it aren’t ‘real’ lighteyes, ‘real’ lighteyes are noble and honorable and he’ll get to fight for one someday. After being betrayed one too many times, he switches to thinking that all lighteyes, invariably, are corrupt, exploitative and evil; it takes a lot to get him to trust Dalinar, and for well after that he continues stereotyping every lighteyes he meets (Adolin, Renarin, Shallan) as spoiled and uncaring even after evidence to the contrary. Even in Oathbringer stereotypes are his default reaction to lighteyes he doesn’t know. He also tends to ignore the fact of major differences in variations in status and life with the two main castes, by nahn and dahn. It’s treated as one of his more persistent character flaws, and contrasted with the more open and merit-based attitudes of the main lighteyed characters.

I’m not really comfortable with this portrayal. Kaladin’s entire life, and everything he’s suffered, have been defined and determined by being lighteyes. He doesn’t have the luxury of being ‘eye-colour-blind’ . Does he make invalid assumptions? Yes, especially about Shallan. But Kaladin thinking of Adolin as a spoiled brat and Adolin calling Kaladin ‘bridgeboy’ are not the same kind of thing; calling someone from a discriminated-against group (who is an adult of about your age) ‘boy’ has implications that both the author and reader are aware of; it is, intentionally or not, an expression of power and superiority, and it is quite justified that it would guve Kaladin a negative impression of Adolin! More broadly, mistrusting lighteyes is basically a trauma-induced defense mechanism for Kaladin, and understandable given what he’s been through. Adolin’s thinking, early in Words of Radiance, that “he was all for treating men with respect and honor regardless of eye shade, but the Almighty had put some men in command and others beneath them; it was simply the natural order of things” is to my mind far more offensive than Kaladin’s personality hostility to lighteyes, but the only main character who the narrative treats/criticizes as being bigoted on the basis of eye color is Kaladin. Adolin’s treated by the narrative as a great person who Kaladin needs to be nicer to, and the aforementioned attitude is never addressed again; it’s not part of his character arc like Kaladin’s view of lighteyes is.

In short, Sanderson’s works are strongly grounded in the idea that the quality of a society is grounded in the personal goodness of its people (including the goodness of its ruling class) more than in the creation of just and equal social structures; and that attributting a society’s problems to structures that create and perpetuate injustice rather than to the choices of individuals is basically wrongheaded. I agree with him on the importance of individual goodness and choices; I disagree with his minimization of the need to dismantle unjust social structures.

[amillioninprizes]

Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here. 

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service 

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

[bang7an]

A list of BTS’ most socially-conscious, thoughtful, woke, non-love songs:

2 Cool 4 Skool (2013)

No More Dream * = about the pressure of the younger generation to follow the dreams of their parents/elders and give up the dreams of their own

길 (Road/Path) = about taking the untraditional path despite the uncertainty of the future

O!RUL8,2? (2013)

Intro: O!RUL8,2? = about pursuing your own dreams, taking chances, and living without regret

N.O * = about the machine-like nature of the current education system

팔도강산 (Satoori Rap) = about being proud of where you’re from and your dialect. acknowledges and unifies Korea’s vast linguistic/provincial diversity

Skool Luv Affair (2014)

Tomorrow = about making the future better by being the instigator for change and never forgetting who you really are

등골 브레이커 (Spine Breaker) * = comments on consumerism/materialism and respecting your elders

Jump = about remembering the hopeful dreams of one’s youth and growing up to become the hero of your own childhood

Dark & Wild (2014)

힙합성애자 (Hip Hop Lover) = about the power of music to change one’s life

Rain = comments on the repetition/monotony of life and that fact that one has to confront oneself in order to create change

BTS Cypher, Pt. 3: KILLER = haters? “i don’t give a fuck”

핸드폰 좀 꺼줄래 (Can You Turn Off Your Phone) = comments on society’s obsession with social media and the decline of face-to-face communication

2학년 (Second Grade) = about working hard and staying humble in order to reach the top

Wake Up (2014)

The Stars = about facing the ups and downs of life and never giving up no matter what

Wake Up = about continuing to work hard as others sleep & taking control of one’s life

The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 1 (2015)

Intro: 화양연화 * = comments on the uncertainty of the future, the search to find one’s purpose, and the dangers of comparing oneself to others

I NEED U * = going beyond a classic love song, the song comments on the insecurity of youth

쩔어 (DOPE) * = about waking up the sleeping youth and breaking the stereotypes placed upon the younger generation by working hard to reach the top. reject rejection!

흥탄소년단 (Boyz with Fun) = about ignoring the judgement of other’s and doing what makes you happy

이사 (Move/Moving On) = about remembering/learning from the past while reaching for a higher place

The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 2 (2015)

Intro: Never Mind * = about looking forward and working even harder if you feel like falling down

Run * = about not letting anything stop you from pursuing your passions

Butterfly = comments on the insecurities of youth & the fears of feeling dependent on someone

Whalien 52 = about loneliness & feeling like no one is listening/understanding

Ma City = comments on being aware/proud of your hometown’s history (& also calls out a Korean online terrorist group that targets minorities and leftists, especially people from Jeolla province, were J-Hope was born)

뱁새 (Baepsae/Silver Spoon) = comments on the concept of social status/privilege and the growing gap between the upper and lower class

고엽 (Dead Leaves) = comments on the difficulty of giving up something good for the better

The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Young Forever (2016)

불타오르네 (FIRE) * = about how one should live however one wants to without labels & that it’s okay to lose

Save ME * = comments on the duality of youth (happiness and sadness) through depending on others and thanks ARMYs for accepting who they (BTS) are and letting them be who they are

Epilogue: Young Forever * = comments on the difficulty, but importance, of facing reality, moving forward, and following one’s dreams

House of Cards = comments on how ignorance can be bliss but that reality will always catch up eventually

YOUTH (2016)

Good Day = comments on brotherhood and the importance of lifting each other up to create a brighter tomorrow

Wishing On A Star = about not being afraid to have big dreams because the more you hope, the more likely it will come true

Wings (2016)

Intro: Boy Meets Evil * = comments on the dangerous addiction of greed/ambition

피 땀 눈물 (Blood Sweat & Tears) * = comments on the danger/ease of succumbing to temptation & losing the innocence of youth

Begin * = about brotherhood & how the other members shaped him to become who he is today

Lie * = about feeling trapped under the lies he told himself & losing his identity in the process

Stigma * = about struggling with his self-identity & his guilt because he can’t always be there for the people he cares about

First Love * = about how the piano guided him to recover his passion for music

Reflection * = about insecurity, loneliness, self-hatred & learning to love himself

MAMA * = about thanking his mom for always supporting him & telling her she can lean on him now

Awake * = about acknowledging his limits and imperfections but trying hard anyway & putting the other members before himself

Lost = comments on the uncertainty of growing up and finding one’s own path

BTS Cypher Pt. 4 = about not listening to those trying to bring you down & to love yourself

Am I Wrong = comments on the corrupt government system that doesn’t care about the general public and only focuses on pleasing the top 1%

21 세기 소녀 (21st Century Girls) = comments on the unjust treatment of females in current society & a women-empowerment message of strength and self-love

둘! 셋! (그래도 좋은 날이 더 많기를) (2! 3!) = about enduring/overcoming hardship by sharing your burdens and finding strength from one’s loved ones

You Never Walk Alone (2017)

봄날 (Spring Day) * = comments on government corruption by referencing the Sewol Ferry Tragedy & is about missing a friend that you haven’t seen in a long time

Not Today * = about empowering the underdogs/minorities/women of the world

Outro: Wings = about believing in oneself and having trust in one’s decisions in order to choose one’s own path

A Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone = comments on the importance of teamwork in order to dream bigger and reach higher

Love Yourself: Her (2017)

Intro: Serendipity * = about whether an individual is special because he is fundamentally different from others, or because of the relationships he foster with others

Pied Piper = comments on the possible all-consuming nature of fan culture & advises individuals to stay self-aware and maintain their personal lives as priority

MIC Drop * = about the satisfaction of rising above one’s haters by not wasting time on their meaningless words and instead focusing on one’s successes

Go Go = addresses the “YOLO” culture that has pervaded our generation, where the youth use consumerism as a means to escape the hopeless/purposeless feeling that saturates the societal work force

Outro: Her = about sacrificing one’s true self for the happiness of others. more specifically, about BTS’ gratitude/dependence towards their fans, and therefore, how the members try to hide their vulnerabilities and strive for “perfection” in order to please the said fans

Sea = about how the two emotional states of happiness and sadness are really one and the same, because one inevitably leads to the expression of the other. also about how hope can be birthed from a source of trial

Face Yourself (2018)

Let Go = addresses the inevitability of ARMYs eventually leaving the fandom and accepts that we’ll eventually walk separate paths, so that in the future we can look back upon the past with fondness

Love Yourself: Tear (2018)

Intro: Singularity * = about facing the truth of one’s loneliness, but realizing that life is transient and that change is coming

FAKE LOVE * = about lying to yourself by hiding your weaknesses and living a life that is not true

The Truth Untold = about feeling inadequate to love others because you cannot love yourself first

134340 = about the feeling of resentment and loss of self-identity when dismissed from one’s previously held entity

Paradise = comments on how it’s okay to not have a dream nor fully understand your purpose in life; just don’t fall into the trap of adopting someone else’s expectations of yourself as your own “dreams”

Love Maze = about ignoring the opinions of others and living for yourself, even if the path may seem unclear

Magic Shop = thanks ARMYs for helping BTS become the best version of themselves and tells their fans that they trust you will take care of your own selves as well

Airplane pt.2 = about the satisfaction of observing their haters from the sky, as they fly to higher success. also about not forgetting where you come from and continuing to work hard with your initial intentions in mind.

Anpanman = about wanting to be a hero for others, even if it means sacrificing oneself

So What = about letting go of the worries one has built up in one’s head and running forward without regrets about things you can’t fix

Outro: Tear = about learning to deal with one’s self-hatred and self-destruction before being able to face one’s true self and reciprocate real love

Love Yourself: Answer (2018)

Euphoria * = about holding on to naive but painless dreams and refusing to wake up from the false comfort of “euphoria”

Trivia 起 : Just Dance = about turning even the negatives into positives by steadily pursuing your dreams and enjoying each moment as they come

Trivia 承 : Love = about the importance of balancing the relationship between live (살아) and love (사랑) to human (사람) existence

Trivia 轉 : Seesaw = about getting trapped on a metaphorical seesaw of manipulated emotions and urging himself to stop playing the game

Epiphany * = about the moment of realization that in order to truly love others, you must learn to love yourself first; the journey to self-love can feel lonely and endless, but the progression will leave you feeling powerful and free.

I’m Fine = about learning to not depend on others in order to feel self-worth and move on from downfalls

IDOL * = about accepting and loving yourself no matter the constrictive labels that others try to put on you

Answer : Love Myself = about the process of learning to forgive oneself and to live one’s life without the mask of conformity

Map of the Soul: Persona (2019)

Intro: Persona * = about the process of discovering one’s true self through questioning different versions of one’s identity, including the archetypes persona, shadow, and ego

Boy With Luv * = depicts the growth from ‘in love’ to ‘with love’ through discovering love and inspiration within oneself. also about how self-love is the greatest and most humbling power of all

Mikrokosmos = about finding the universe of potential that exists within every individual and uncovering strength from the pain

Make It Right = about leaving the haters in the endless desert and following one’s dreams towards the giving ocean

HOME = comments on the frivolity of wanting materialistic things and instead places importance of finding someone you can call “home”

Jamais Vu = about not having a do-over in life, but refusing to give up after trial & error and taking advantage of every second chance

Dionysus = about celebrating one’s successes and acknowledging that the only competition is the fight against oneself

name: video w/ lyrics

=: live performance/dance practice

*:official music videos/trailers

Enjoyed this list? Check out A list of BTS’ UNOFFICIALLY RELEASED socially-conscious, thoughtful, woke, non-love songs

Note: I have included some of BTS’ “love songs” whose meanings I found more artistically profound/expressive than the traditional pop love song. All descriptions are my own. The great thing about music is that every individual can interpret the same lyrics differently!

[lcohen35]

Assignment 12 Final Draft: Are You Scared Yet?

Figure 1. There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale. (Personal Photo)

I’ve always been afraid of the end of the world. I would cry during a rainstorm or even if the sky became grey midday. I always felt, deep down, that a freak weather incident would be the way we would all go. Then, when I was in high school, I took an AP environmental science class and was enlightened by what I learned was going on in our world. I felt that my suspicions had been somewhat correct, in that if we don’t change the way we live, mother earth will wreak havock on the human population. And to be honest, I don’t blame her. 

The chapter starts with a quote by Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, who said “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there” (Lewis and Maslin 368). I wondered, why not? Why are we so conditioned to just continue to take and take with the assumption that because no human has laid their claim on it, that we have the right to take it? It seems unjust to me that we find ourselves so superior to all other life on earth.

This chapter outlines that there are “three possible futures: continued development of the consumer capitalist mode of living towards greater complexity; a collapse; or a new mode of living” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 369). I personally hope we choose the third route, since the first one is unsustainable for our lives to continue, and the second implies death of the human race. The third option implies that what we spend our time doing would effectively change, and so would our planetary impacts.

Business as Usual

Historically, human societies have been adaptive to change, and this leads the authors to believe that we will rely on innovation and technological advancement to save us from the inconvenience of change. The book cites three major reasons why the current mode of living is unlikely to continue:

Positive feedback loops (problems building on more problems) drive the current system and end in fundamental changes.

The energy, information and collective human agency factors that underlie all human societies are changing at exponential rates.

There are core environmental challenges which may cause collapse.

The second reason stands out prominently. The world is more interconnected now than it has ever been, and it is easier for communication to have a farther reach. This suggests that greater numbers of people are able to take collective action than at any other time in history, and collective action often incites change. With more people and more connection, more ideas are produced. However, the ideas being produced currently are those which allow us to continue to live how we want to with no environmental consequence. These are ideas like green energy, which are meant to provide an infinite source of energy for people to continue consuming. Consumption is inherently unsustainable and can cause collapse at high levels. These are the consequences of the exponential growth we are experiencing.  

Figure 2. Replacements for Plastic. (Personal Photo).

Collapse?

This begs the question, are we doomed for collapse? It seems that the greater power that humans have across the world, the greater the opportunity for such power to be damaging (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 378). As humans gain power, they also gain access to more technology and resources which have the capacity to ruin us. This is seen with our own country relying on “cheap” fuels to power us and keep us “efficient.” I quote these words because obviously coal is not cheap, when the full costs are considered and the efficiency of our country relies on cheap labor that laborers rarely reap the benefits of.

The book suggests that this is not even our biggest threat. “The central, pressing, existential threat to human civilization results from a core contradiction in today’s mode of living: it is powered by energy sources that are undermining the ability of today’s globally integrated network of cultures to persist” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 378). Fossil fuels are considered a trap for progress because of the obstacles their emissions cause: climate change. “The rate and magnitude of climate change are closely correlated with the cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 379). But it’s not really the CO2 destroying the planet, it’s us. We emit the CO2 and are addicted to fossil fuels. This addiction must cease to exist in order for us to survive. We (humans) must stop, systemically. 

A huge problem lies in what our leaders are telling us, which is different everywhere. In some places, there is a huge shift to green energy and lowering of individual and collective footprints. In other places, this is a niche “belief” of some sort. It also is confusing when there is no real physical marker for the change, since our leaders are preaching that we limit our atmospheric warming from 1.5ºC to 2ºC. It’s hard to track something we are avoiding, I think. It would be much better for leaders to try and lower the current warming, rather than stick to the status quo. Especially because these proposed metrics are too high in some areas of the world for survival. This is considered a shortfall of the Paris Climate Agreement; it is not comprehensive enough. 

But as the chapter shows, event the current proposals are quite hard to reach, and will require “halving global greenhouse gas emissions in every decade going forward, doubling the share of renewables in the energy system every five years, ending deforestation, and reconfiguring agriculture and our diets (so we eat less beef and more plants)” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 382).

Figure 3. Flag from Arcadia Earth Exhibit. (Personal Photo).

Though we need to ban the use of fossil fuels everywhere, the only part I find fault with here is relying too heavily on green energy, because the configuration and support systems of the current green energy models still rely heavily on fossil fuels. Countries also don’t necessarily want to make the switch to clean energy because it costs more and does the same, if not a worse, job at providing livelihood. Fossil fuels have been long subsidized and these subsidies are hard to lift due to nationalization, that is, the state-owned oil companies make money for the governments that own them. Additionally, this plan overall is highly ambitious and requires all societies “to place the eradication of greenhouse gas emissions at the same level of importance as the pursuit of economic growth” (Lewis and Maslin 2018, 382). I wonder if this is truly possible is our ever growing capitalist society.  

It is clear that the mode of living must change to avoid climate change and collapse. Otherwise, human societies will be unable to manage the consequences, and we will die. These consequences include, but are not limited to, food shortage (which will occur as a result of unpredictable climate ruining crops and our GMOs and pesticides have ruined the soil in irreversible ways), unlivable habitats (due to flooding as a result of sea level rise and unbearable heat), and of course civil unrest. The pentagon sees climate change as a threat multiplier, which means that the problems that already exist in our world will be exacerbated on unprecedented levels.

Equality is Necessary

I have long been weary of the communist socialist arguments toward climate change, thinking that agendas are being pushed that are unfavorable. However, I have come to realize that I have been privileged and conditioned to believe that capitalism is good because it has served me. I have been conditioned to believe that more is better.

Capitalism serves this message on a silver platter and has corrupted the human value system. In order to create a new mode of living, equality must exist in a variety of ways. Policies must limit climate change to avoid human suffering; we must focus on the human experience of all people, everywhere, and give value to all life. Everyone should also have access to information and education which will provide a more diverse global community to engage in collective action. Everyone in the global community should have access to healthy food; this should be a basic human right that is focused on more intently because food production currently is unbalanced and results in too much waste.

The unequal balance of economic power has historically favored the progress of the West and worsened the development of the global East. However, both East and West must work together to solve the climate crisis. The West has a larger debt to pay in this task because our emissions make up almost 100% of the emissions in the atmosphere. This was an interesting point since the textbook has repeatedly blamed poverty for rising temperatures. However, the West is hesitant to accept this reality, which presents a great challenge. The West is seemingly dependent on the East for resources, and they have become dependent on us for labor. This codependent relationship, as with any codependent relationship, is toxic and does not benefit either in the long-run. One way to reduce this dependency is with Universal Basic Income (UBI), which supports subsistence needs and covers healthcare. There would be no obligation to work, which would create an increase in autonomy and education. Equality is always a future aspiration, but it really shouldn’t be. We (the west) consume on irrational levels, so much that if global consumption was equal to that of the West, we would essentially be feeding the demand for 32 Billion people; this is impossible.

Figure 4. The Extinction Rebellion Protest. (DiCaprio, 2019).

It doesn’t help that the most comprehensive international document to date, the Paris Climate Agreement, has no clear penalties for countries who do not perform their pledged actions. This is so commonly a reason why nothing ever changes; there are no consequences for the status quo! If the Paris Agreement is truly implemented, the world will be transformed in ways that very few people understand or desire. Fossil fuel emissions won’t really be cut to zero, but rather managed in ways that aren’t truly sustainable and put a sort of band aid over the real issues.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

The current story around climate action is that cutting fossil fuel emissions to zero is all good. However, the proposed methods of doing so are actually quite harmful to biodiversity and only exist to serve human nature. It is a convenient story which allows us to phase out of harmful choices, placing a large amount of ownness on the individual, rather than directly correlating the damage to fossil fuel industries. Using economic solutions to paint a picture of the future is ineffective because people exist in the physical state and numbers exist in the hypothetical. Policy-makers are relying on the economic story that is constantly told, that we are able to phase into a greener world, and that story is destructive to progress. It doesn’t accurately highlight the severity of the issues.

Something I also did not agree with in this chapter is the part about the materials revolution. While I think this type of revolution is definitely necessary, it still supports the culture of consumption, especially a centered reliance on recycling. Recycling is the least productive of the 4 R’s and requires a large amount of energy, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid. Rather than focusing on the elimination of waste or the recycling of waste, I think we should be focusing on the elimination of production of wasteful products. If we create products that people can reuse over and over again, then recycling ceases to be necessary. The story of recycling is damaging and continues to perpetuate environmental issues.

Figure 5. Zero Waste Store Liberté Chérie in London, England. (Personal Photo).

Another story we tend to tell ourselves is that of “deserving.” We say, “I’ve been active all week, I deserve an ice cream cone,” or “I have been studying all day, I deserve to watch a movie,” and especially “I have worked so hard, I deserve a vacation.” UBI, as mentioned above, breaks the link between work and consumption, which in turn lessens environmental impact. It does this by giving money with no expectation of anything in return, and by allowing people a stronger sense of free will. UBI is a controversial idea, but it really shouldn’t be. It has been shown that entrepreneurship, future planning, and environmental benefit increases with UBI; that doesn’t sound so bad.

We also have distanced ourselves from our food, in a way which causes us not to value it. Products are cheap, so they exist in surplus, but the environmental cost is high. Placing cheapness at the center of our perspective on food is damaging because we waste it since we don’t see a high value in it (similar to water). Yet another story we tell ourselves: food doesn’t matter, and we will always have it. How can that be true when the population is growing and we cannot survive without food? This is just one example of the values that must be transformed in order to create real radical change.

Figure 6. Outdoor Open Market in Nairobi, Kenya. (Personal Photo). 

The planet can and will survive without us, but we cannot survive without it. I would like to believe we are experiencing some sort of transformation right now, while we are all stuck in our homes watching the world go on without us. We see pictures of massively lowered levels of pollution, and I hope we are acknowledging our destructive power. This is the first step, which hopefully can move us to transition to greener modes of life and economies. We need to rely less on innovation, and more on going back to basics and looking to nature to help.

Words: 2200

Question: Is it effective to be optimistic about the future of the human population? Can optimism create change?

References:

DiCaprio, Leonardo. [@leonardodicaprio]. (November 18, 2019). Gathering at India Gate in Dew Delhi to set up a panel to address Climate Change. [Instagram]. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Av6eolKYJ/?igshid=1dtnvcp5xk0jw.

Lewis, S. and Mark Maslin. 2018. The Human Planet: How We Created The Anthropcoene. Connecticut: Yale University Press.

[saadqc-blog]

Introduction to law and practise

Learning outcome:

Understand the structure of the law.

Learning Assessment:

1.1 Explain the classifications of the law.

Knowledge, understanding and skills:

1.1 Explanation of how the law impacts on our daily lives, the “pervasive” nature of the law. Definitions of and comparisons between Common Law, Equity and Legislation.

Source: Cilex

Note: Whilst I am using syllabus targeted to developing understanding from 16-18 Year olds and above, I am not limiting the pass to school standard. There is no point in my view teaching bite size bits to students to be built on by someone else, as is often the case with British schooling through to university. Hence, the aim is to reach mastery of the subject being learnt, which uses level three framework, but extends in material all the way to level six, thus making the learning process less complicated, as it is not the complexity of any subject, nor intelligence, that limit a student, but gaps produced when any student despite having the skill set, is burdened by level 6 material without the prior grounding.

Definitions:

Philosophy - “Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally “love of wisdom”[1][2][3][4]) is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[5][6]The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation.[7][8] Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it?[9][10][11] What is most real? Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)?[12] Do humans have free will?[13]” - wikipedia

It is my firm belief such thoughts, and frivolous wastage of time, are the devil’s doing, for verily mankind is in loss with the passing of time. Thus contemplating variables and unknowns are signs of a soul and mind at unrest, because the human condition longs for comfort and reasoning. If the true message and belief has never been heard or ignored then a man’s condition will be lost in imaginations and conundrums when the manual of success is ignored. THUS, whilst I try to find a mm of common ground with the people of yester years by respecting creator’s right to guide whom he wills, I from the out set do not wish to waste your time with lesser knowledge, that seeks to resolve problems of its own creation centuries down the line.

What is law then IMO? Rules, that if disobeyed carry some sort of penalty be it loss of wealth, liberty, freedoms, etc. These rules carry such weight, because it is the best way a country has agreed - or been forced to agree on - in controlling any behaviour deemed harmful to society.

The people of the book, believers have commandments, to obey, or examples to live by, through line of prophets. However, in a secular world, of global commerce and factoring in corruption of the true message from creator to mankind, we have societies engaged in their own law making and keeping order. Such societies, tend to be the upper classes and elitist, who profiteer from the status quo of a stable diet of takeaways upon the masses for instance. They thus cause problems like car crashes, because they have chosen to tarmac and create a motorway and wish mankind to drive and all get insured to not stop the flow of commerce. Anyone, questioning the norm, is suddenly a person of suspicion, in need of high surveillance be it through doctors, neighbours, e.t.c. Such persons movements need to be restricted their thoughts analysed, and their temperament tested by the state and its agents to see what risk if any they pose. This is all under the law. Lets thus take a breather and engage some non bias, analytical reasoning, of philosophers who became professionals in the loss of time in their own thoughts, and cite their works to balance these notes with token gestures of credibility that the forefathers have accepted as the model of sound mind on which to build modern laws, or for time’s sake find a professor instead (note this believer views image making a door to ruin) however if it saves one taking on interest in youth to meet such a person and hear her out, then lets make an exception:

Lecture: ‘What is Law?’ by Professor Dame Hazel Genn

**My Transcription of Lecture: ‘What is Law?’ by Professor. Dame Hazel Genn: **

Sir. William Blackstone, (18th lawyer, judge, academic at Oxford): “I think, in an undeniable position, that a competent knowledge of the laws of that society in which we live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar, and highly useful, I had almost said essential, part of a liberal and polite education.”

Well I don’t know whether we will achieve a competent knowledge of the law, but I hope we will provide a bit of general education on the Law of England and Wales.

So the aims of this course, the formal aims of this section of this course, are first of all for you to:

Have a basic understanding of the history of the common law.

To identify several key features of the English Legal System.

Recognise the way that the course works, what we expect of you, and how to be successful in doing the course.

But to start with, before we get into the history and the detail, I want to start with a very broad question.

Which is: WHAT IS LAW?

We are talking about the English Legal system, we are talking about the laws of the land; but what is Law? Now, you would think that was a very simple question to answer, but in-fact its one, that is quite difficult. It’s a question that has been struggled with, by legal theorists going back to Aristotle and Plato, and the question the people have struggled with is: What is the content of the law? and how do we recognise a rule as a Law?

Now we don’t have time to go into the complexities of those deep philosophical questions, and that is something you could do if you decide to go with the study of the law, but for the moment what I want to do is for us to think about it in a rather pragmatic way.

So, the starting point is that the Law is centrally concerned with the problem of social order. For human being to live together in a society, they need to have rules to govern how they are going to live. Rules can be of many different types: we have informal social rules (No ball games please respect other users, mind the gap) we have rules of behaviour, we have rules of dress, we have rules of conversation, and these social rules are complied with as a matter of convention. If you don’t follow the rule you might be the subject of social disapproval, or you might be excluded from a group. But, as societies become more developed and become more complex they need more formal rules for people to live together in an orderly way. So, for introductory purposes, what we can say is, that when we speak of the law, in a democratic society, what we are thinking about, are the rules that govern how we live, and how we do business and we are thinking about the rules that are backed by the coercive power of the state - What I mean by that is that these are rules that we have to obey and if we don’t obey these rules we will be made to pay some kind of a penalty, pay a fine, or perhaps go to prison.

So, when we talk about the law, we are talking about rules that we are obliged to follow. If we break a criminal law, then we may have to pay a fine or we may have to go to prison. If we break a none-criminal law, what we call a civil law we will usually have to pay money compensation, what I will call damages - there’s some legal terminology that you will get used to later on. Now this is not the idea, the idea that law is fundamentally concerned with order in society is not a new idea, I said it goes back, but people have been struggling with this since the time of Aristotle, and Aristotle put it very pithily (“A pithy comment or piece of writing is short, direct, and full of meaning”). Aristotle was a Greek critic, philosopher, err- in-who-err was err writing er many hundred of years even before the birth of Christ and what he said very simply is that: “law is order, and good law is good order.” So that underlines the idea, of what / the purpose of the law.

But then, moving along onto the concept of the Legal System. When we said / when we talk about the Legal System, what do we mean? The Legal system constitutes all of the bits of the law and the surrounding machinery of justice: So the legal system comprises of the laws - produce by law making bodies, parliament, legislature, judiciary and it also includes the institutions, processes and personal that contribute to the operation and enforcement of those laws. So when we talk about the legal system we are talking about the legislation - acts of parliament. Common Law - the decisions of judges in court. We are talking about the workings of the courts, we are talking about judges what judges do and how they are appointed, about legal professionals. Lawyers, solicitors, barristers - are the people who operate the law. We are also in the criminal context talking about the police, about the prosecutors, about juries and in a broader context we also talk about those organisations that support access to justice. So we are thinking about citizens advice bureau, we are thinking about the provisions of legal aid. All of institutions, all of these processes, all of these personnel, are part of the English Legal system and they provide the machinery for the justice system, to operate. Now later in the course we are going to talk about some of those institutions, processes, and personal, in much greater detail but for the moment I just want you to get a feel of what we are talking about when we talk about the English Legal System as a whole.

We talk about the English Legal System but those of you who live, in the United Kingdom will know, that it is made up of a number of different, jurisdictions, so the United Kingdom, is made of England, Wales, Soctand and Northern Ireland,. But, when we talk about the English Legal system we are talking about the laws of England and Wales, because Scotland and Northern Ireland, have different legal systems, in fact Scotland has laws that are completely unknown in England and Wales, and one of the things that you may want to be aware of is that Wales itself is becoming… is developing, its own jurisdictional differences and in time Wales itself may have a separate Legal System. But generally what we are talking about the English Legal system then we are focusing on the laws and machinery of the justice system in England and Wales and when we are talking about the English Legal system we are talking about the Law we need to have a sense of where the law comes from, what are the sources of law that we are going to be dealing about in this course.

There are basically four sources of English Law:, and the building behind me are:

English Parliament

On the top is the: Uk Supreme Court, below that the Royal Courts of Justice. Common law courts.

European Union.

European Court of Human Rights.

So our law comes from parliament, that is (in the form of): legislation, statutes, acts of parliament, written laws, I will talk more about that later on.

It comes from the common law decisions of judges sitting in courts, - supreme court, royal court of appeal, high court and so on.

But also, it comes from Europe. From the European Commision and European Council of Ministers as well as the European Court of Human Rights.

So looking at the English sources of the law: we have the Uk Supreme court, and other courts of record, that produce decisions that constitutes the common law and we have the UK Parliament that produces acts of parliament, statutes and legislation - the written law. So those are the two sources of English Law.

But we also have law that emanates from Europe which is directly applicable, within the English legal system, and these are law that come from the European Union, and are produced by the council of the European Union and the parliament council of ministers and European Union parliament and also their commision and they sit in Brussels, in Belgium.

But there is also law that emanates from the European Court of Human Rights, relating to the laws of the European Convention on Human Rights and in 1998 the UK Parliament incorporated, the European convention of Human Rights into English Law. So the European convention on Human Rights becomes a part of English Law, and that is an additional source of our law. So those are the sources of Law. Although there are, like I have said, there are statues, common law, and European union law, the most voluminous source of law in the English Legal system an probably for that reason, the most important source of law, is the common law. I want to spend a little bit of time on that, explaining what I mean by the common law, and thinking about how, the common law developed, many hundred years ago.

English Legal System > Machinery Institutions Processes > 4 Sources of law.

My notes added Sunday, 28th January 2018, Time: 8.55pm (below):

I have just finished listening to the lecture, its provided a useful insight and introduction into this vast field, interlinked and intertwined with different subject areas like history and philosophy. Before we build on this knowledge, lets consolidate it into memory for the purposes of passing any tests. The best way, is the quickest least taxing way, which for I at least, is not reading through pages of text straining eyes, but visualising and giving the text structure, just in a similar way the author/lecturer had on her notes before she delivered the knowledge. Thus we can map the knowledge by testing ourselves if we have grasped the subject matter sufficiently. One can do this by just getting a blank piece of paper or digital page and jotting down key points they can remember. They can then test using the syllabus whether they have covered and ticked off key definitions the examiner will be looking for if at school. Unfortunately, in a money making world, the test for intelligence is merely reciting words the examiner is seeking to find. This produces the A or A* for entry into an establishment where you can then read advance matter, justifying your own points of view using accepted theorists to critique and providing a logical framework and reasoning which your reader or professor can follow. We earn the right of such an esteemed person reading our works, having gone through a schooling equipping us with the tools to enable us to converse and engage with the esteemed, in the most succinct but persuasive way possible, thereby demonstrating complete mastery of the material but adding our own thoughts and opinions by tackling modern day matters that we both happen to be living through in present moment of times. The fact we must pay for our tuition so the professor can regurgitate his notes by delivery of his lectures by day, and do much more interesting/complex problem solving and research is neither here of there. We haven’t bought him, nor are we holding him to a contract, where he will give us his insight to our less developed answers to his script or paper, when he grades us. Instead, we expect this as a matter of courtesy to the venture we have both invested our times in and out of respect to our beloved subject. Hence, why must a student go knocking, or chasing, for his right to learn properly and to be shown the first class standard why is the answer secret?

So thus, lets build on the bank of key definitions, to ensure, our meanings of the words used are of the same standard. Then let’s stick to learning from any institution within our area of formal schooling, not least because a student less travelled, will have a nightmare understanding any twigg speaking with a scottish accent, when the student has never left his area. Thus even if his red brick area, may not be accepting of him (due to severe shortcomings to entry standards), necessitating him to meet unfair demands of attendance of University and career building - taxed on him by state through pressures felt by parents leading to their demands - via attendance in compromised institution in fields further away and consequently, making poor unsound, investment through large sums to get him there, one can at least engage in critique on paper with such a contracted authority or party that continuously calls seeking a payment for that injury.

A conduct of behaviour financially capitalising on a less developed mind, by diluting good accepted standards in the norm, and mis-selling funding, and using undue influence and pressures of sanctions once there, - should one seek criminal sanctions for the injury, distress and alarm or should one be grateful at a simple refund? What if you no longer were a student, but a country subjected to the same conditions, would you accept the “sorry” your people have suffered and treatment they have been burdened with and accept monetary redress alone, or would you rather, seek to prevent such abuse ever taking place by making the conduct criminal and proving it as such?

The law therefore becomes essential reading and learning of all citizens, this is a point Sir William Blackstone stresses in order to protect the civil liberties of the constitution. The law especially common law, is often evolving thus to be able to grasp it, and discern the problem of the days becomes a skill for all its citizens with time and scope to learn it. In doing so they protect the law and the agreements that are made under it, when these are not solely left by way of the professionals resolving disputes. In fact he says the reading should be inherent, just as a Roman learns his 12by12 Table.

He is also critical of those landed gentry, with fortune and ambition to represent their citizens in parliament running for candidacy, but who have never engaged in reading or developing a thorough understanding of prior laws:

"They are the guardians of the English constitution; the makers, repealers, and interpreters of the English laws; delegated to watch, to check, and to avert every dangerous innovation, to propose, to adopt, and to cherish any solid and well-weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and of religion, to transmit that constitution and those laws to posterity, amended if possible, at least without any derogation. And how unbecoming must it appear in a member of the legislature to vote for a new law, who is utterly ignorant of the old! what kind of interpretation can he be enabled to give, who is a stranger to the text upon which he comments! " 

REF:  Liberty Edition: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/blackstone-commentaries-on-the-laws-of-england-in-four-books-vol-1/simple#lf1387-01_label_499 [Last Accessed:  at: 11:44PM, on: Saturday 28th of January 2018].Book: “Blackstone commentaries on the laws of england in four books -vol-1, 1973”Chapter: “INTRODUCTION, Of the Study, Nature, and Extent of the Laws of England.” SECTION I: “ON THE STUDY OF THE LAW,” 

When one factors in anyone can be called to jury service, as a lay member, to pass judgement of guilt on a criminal case, why then must lay be reduced to a standard of no knowledge, even knowing of the structure of the courts and procedure becomes vital. Thus when one engages with the reading of the law better than reading a tabloid, you produce a society that can express, and converse all to the same English standard. Many problems, corrupt /deliberate or otherwise, and injustices often take place and breed in conditions of poor grasp of the language and hide behind such individual appointments. Thus pursuit of the law, is an extension into Politics, English, History, Philosophy developing oratory sills and powers of reasoning, analysing and persuading, as well as defending facts and proper conduct, if the the standard or conduct is raised to the spoken word of fact, needless to say blanked rules of imposition caused from suspicion and improper onus, will no longer be subjected on masses when they are told you MUST sign on any council register confirming attendance. Instead the council of the day will be more trusting, tactful, and engaging to politely request any period of absence to instead be brought into its notification, in council-funded-private properties where the stay is outside of any stipulated or reasonable period of temporary agreement. Thus I am left in no doubt that when rogue elements bully using the power of the state as a fascade, to bring about loss of faith in the English system as a whole, they will not succeed, because on the evidence, if one ever engages with the written letter and reads the common law cases, they will appreciate the time, mental faculty and energy involved of giving any verdict with appreciation to the fundamental principles of the law. Thus any shortcomings, are more in my opinion, to do with vested use of power similar to bylaws given to councils instead where there is little accountability or recording of its use, due to business and money being made at the integrity of law’s expense and ultimately the human being. 

[slowrollchicago]

A Matter of Life or Death: Vision Zero Chicago

"This is a matter of life or death."  -- Charles Brown, MPA, Senior Researcher & Adjunct Professor, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

I recently spoke via phone with Rutgers University Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor Charles Brown regarding Vision Zero Chicago and Slow Roll Chicago's Bicycle Equity Statement of Principle document (draft version). During our conversation, Mr. Brown made a clear, forceful case for the Vision Zero Chicago Action Plan being a matter of life or death. He explained that the process of developing, as well as implementing, Chicago's Vision Zero (VZ) policy and plan will determine the degree to which VZ will have an adverse or beneficial impact on low- to moderate-income (LMI) communities of color on the South and West sides of Chicago. Mr. Brown described the City of Chicago's commitment, or lack thereof, to justice and equity as key factors in VZ taking more Black and Brown lives than it saves.

The Slow Roll Chicago community, sadly, knows all too well the life or death nature of reckless driving behaviors in Chicago. In January of 2016, we lost our beloved Slow Roll Chicago family member and dear sister Marian Hayes to a fatal car crash, while she was walking near the intersection of 87th Street and Kedzie Avenue in the Ashburn neighborhood on the Southwest side of Chicago. After riding with us for the first time, Marian immediately embraced me and our movement. She always brought her beautiful smile, warm energy and helpful spirit to our rides and our work. Marian inspired us to prioritize the role of history, culture, style and art in our rides. I personally dedicated our 2016 ride season to my friend and sister Marian Hayes. The fatal traffic crash that took Marian away from her family and away from our movement continues to reverberate through our organization, nearly two years later.

As a grassroots bicycle movement, born from Chicago's marginalized, LMI communities of color, myself and my Slow Roll Chicago co-founder Jamal Julien, as well as many of our members, have either directly experienced or witnessed over-policing, police abuse or worse, all at the hands of the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Many of you reading this article right now have seen the videos and read the articles documenting CPD's horrible track record of unjust murders, civil rights abuses and rampant corruption. Earlier this year, the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) announced their findings of its investigation into the Chicago Police Department and publicly released its accompanying investigation report. Even with the new United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions in office, there is a real possibility that CPD will come under a federal court-enforceable consent decree with the USDOJ. In 2016, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and, in 2017, CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson both publicly acknowledged the existence of racism within the Chicago Police Department, City Hall and other city agencies.

"We are in a time where we know that the practice of over-penalizing people for traffic offences does little to deter people from repeating chargeable driving behaviors. Any law that targets poor people for profit is unjust and unconscionable. The end result is further mass incarceration of an already marginalized people. This only further harms communities in a vulnerable position. Specifically, low- to moderate-income, working class, Black and Brown communities become the most susceptible to egregious, racist police interactions, that lead to a greater inequity in arrests and convictions, further breaking apart disenfranchised families. When poor communities, already struggling economically, are targeted for increased traffic enforcement, this will likely reduce people's physical and social mobility, further perpetuating the concentration of poverty and violence."  -- Kofi Ademola, Organizer, Black Lives Matter Chicago

Yes, The Slow Roll Chicago Bicycle Movement entirely agrees with Professor Brown. Vision Zero Chicago, especially its police traffic enforcement strategy, and the City of Chicago's commitment to equity and justice are all matters of life or death here in Chicago.

Approximately two weeks ago, on August 7, the Active Transportation Alliance (Active Trans) here in Chicago announced their Vision Zero Chicago summit via email and on its website. The summit's roll out strategy was fundamentally flawed because it was not sincerely, deliberately inclusive of the very people VZ is targeting at the neighborhood level. Active Trans did not engage people of color (POC), LMI residents, community-based organizations and other stakeholders who live or work in the VZ-targeted neighborhoods in the development and the planning of the summit, prior to its public announcement. In addition, the summit included several elements which served as significant barriers (cost, time, day, location and marketing) for POC and LMI people in the VZ-targeted neighborhoods from fully participating in the summit.

"Active Trans is making a positive step towards equity in postponing their planned Vision Zero summit in order to get more input from advocates representing communities of color and low-to-moderate income communities. It's critically important that the communities who will be most affected by Vision Zero efforts be represented at every step of the way in creating and implementing the details of this program. It's also essential to make extensive efforts to get community participation in public meetings once those meetings happen."  -- Anne Alt, President of the Friends of the Major Taylor Trail, President of Chicago Cycling Club and Former Board Member of the Active Transportation Alliance

After the summit's original announcement and my public statements challenging the summit's lack of inclusion, I immediately called for Active Trans to cancel their planned summit. I requested that Active Trans go back to the drawing board to create an event that would be more inclusive and accessible. Next, I wrote an article on our website, detailing the inherent flaws in the Active Trans summit and the multiple reasons why we were calling for the summit to be canceled. Days later, there was a growing chorus of local and national advocates, organizers and concerned citizens who vocally supported our position on the summit and explicitly supported our call for Active Trans to cancel the summit. Nearly a week and a half after the original announcement of the VZ summit, the Active Transportation Alliance formally, publicly announced, via email and their website blog, that they were officially cancelling the summit. 

We readily acknowledge Active Trans Executive Director Ron Burke and their senior management team for doing the right thing here by canceling the summit. We recognize this fundraising event was logistically difficult to cancel due to a meeting room being reserved, attendees purchasing registrations, sponsorships having been sold and having high-level policymakers confirmed to speak at the summit.

However, this summit should have never went forward in the first place without the ownership and investment of people who live and work in the VZ-targeted neighborhoods. POC and LMI residents should have been engaged, from the beginning, in developing and planning a summit which respects, elevates and responds to their needs, concerns and voices. While the Active Trans VZ summit has now been canceled, a systemic blind spot and pervasive bias still persists within the organization. Its leadership was willing to move forward with the summit, even after we called for the summit to be canceled and pointed out the dangerous flaws within their lack of inclusion. For these reasons and more, we advocate for a transformative restructuring at Active Trans, where an authentic commitment to equity is explicit, deliberate and public. Further, we advocate for Active Trans to sincerely and dutifully operationalize its commitment to equity from the board level to the staff level, from inclusive community engagement practices to staffing diversity, from priority projects to policies around how resources are distributed and from the removal of implicit bias to the dismantling of a dismissive culture toward LMI communities of color from within the organization. 

"For Vision Zero to work, all members of the affected communities must have a voice in the entire planning and implementation process. Active Trans has correctly canceled their previously scheduled Vision Zero Summit, now recognizing as much. They are to be applauded for continuing to be a great, mature organization that cares deeply for all people that bike."  -- Brendan H. Kevenides, Attorney at Freeman Kevenides Law Firm and Member of the Active Transportation Alliance Board of Advisors

In my phone call with Professor Brown, he discussed two primary problems with the mainstream, European approach to executing Vision Zero strategies in US cities:

Lack of Focus on the Root Cause of Injustice: The root cause of injustice in US society is structural racism. Many local and state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and mainstream Vision Zero advocates are solely focused on the symptoms produced as a result of the root cause instead of focusing on the root cause of structural racism itself. Structural racism causes communities of color to be marginalized and disenfranchised. Structural racism causes communities of color to be disproportionately, adversely impacted by a poor quality of life, interpersonal violence, healthcare disparities, unemployment, poverty, mass incarceration, access to affordable housing, access to healthy foods, access to quality education and access to physical and social mobility. All of these symptoms contribute to the relatively high rate of fatal car crashes in LMI communities of color and all of these symptoms are caused by structural racism in our society.

Lack of Authentic, Sincere Community Engagement: The difficult truth is that many transportation professionals, mainstream VZ advocates and DOTs simply don't value or respect the voices of POC and LMI residents in communities of color where VZ is being implemented. This is what led Active Trans to announce a VZ summit mostly impacting LMI communities of color with no prior engagement on planning the summit with the VZ-targeted neighborhoods. This is also what led the City of Chicago to release a VZ policy and plan without a preceding, comprehensive community engagement process to help develop and implement the plan together in concert with the community. The same is largely true for many cities across the US, implementing VZ at the neighborhood level. We are largely considered the consumers of the VZ product. In fact, we should be the owners and deliverers of the VZ product in our neighborhoods. We are the proper experts on what is needed in our communities in order for us to feel safe and be safe. No DOT and no advocacy organization should ever begin the process of developing or implementing a VZ plan without an authentic community engagement process where residents and stakeholders invest in the plan and take ownership of its execution. Anything less is dismissive, disrespectful and potentially deadly.

Where do we as a local and national VZ, equity and justice community go from here? What are our next steps to ensuring the City of Chicago implements VZ in a manner in our neighborhoods that does more good than it does harm.

Here are our tentative, initial next steps:

I will host a live social media Q&A video/text chat on Thursday, August 31 from 10:30-11:30am CT. This video/text chat will serve as an opportunity for us to all collectively reflect and debrief over the past two weeks. I will also use this opportunity to answer questions and offer lessons learned that were gleaned during this process. Please follow us via our website blog and on social media to receive the up to the minute details for our video/text chat.

Slow Roll Chicago, Go Bronzeville, transportation advocates of color, and other stakeholders in the VZ-targeted neighborhoods will explore the potential of convening a broader, community-based VZ forum to receive feedback and input on the VZ plan directly from neighborhood residents, in partnership with the City of Chicago and other potential community partners. 

Slow Roll Chicago, Go Bronzeville, transportation advocates of color, and other stakeholders in the VZ-targeted neighborhoods will explore the potential of engaging with the City of Chicago Mayor's Office, Chicago Department of Transportation, Chicago Police Department, Chicago Department of Public Health and other city agencies to take ownership of VZ's development and implementation in LMI communities of color on the South and West sides of Chicago.

Slow Roll Chicago will facilitate a comprehensive Vision Zero and transportation equity data analysis, research project, led by Rutgers Senior Researcher and Professor Charles Brown. This project will utilize both data analysis and surveys to better understand the root cause of transportation-related inequities and injustices experienced by POC and LMI residents in communities of color on the South and West sides of Chicago.

How may you continue to help support our advocacy work and our next steps with regards to VZ and transportation equity here in Chicago?

Here's our Call to Action:

Share this article via your website, email newsletter and with your internal and external networks.

Share this article on social media, tagging "Slow Roll Chicago" (@slowrollchicago) and "Olatunji Oboi Reed" (@theycallmeOboi). Slow Roll Chicago has a social media presence on Facebook (Page & Group), Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube.

Sign up for the Slow Roll Chicago Email Newsletter to stay updated about our rides, events and advocacy work.

Sign up to volunteer with Slow Roll Chicago. 

Volunteer to join Professor Charles Brown's Vision Zero and transportation equity data analysis, research project team.

Assist with identifying and securing funding for Slow Roll Chicago's comprehensive Vision Zero and transportation equity data analysis, research project, led by Rutgers Senior Researcher and Professor Charles Brown. Please contact me directly to discuss this particular Call to Action in more detail. 

Join me, Slow Roll Chicago and equity advocates from around the world at the PolicyLink Equity Summit 2018 here in Chicago from April 11-13, 2018.

Donate to Slow Roll Chicago, financially supporting our work to create a diverse, inclusive and equitable bicycle culture in Chicago. Slow Roll Chicago is intensely focused on the role of bicycles, as a form of effective transportation, contributing to reducing violence, improving health, creating jobs and ultimately making our neighborhoods more liveable. Your financial support helps us push forward, within a challenging local context, our mission, vision and priorities. 

A heartfelt thank you and proud salute to all of the local and national advocates who supported our call for Active Trans to cancel their VZ summit. Our collective voices are powerful and together we accomplished what many said was impossible. I also want to thank the PolicyLink Transportation Equity Caucus and the National Bike Equity Network for raising your voices together with ours to shift how mainstream transportation organizations engage with communities of color. I especially want to thank my dear sister Tamika L. Butler (Executive Director at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust) and my good brother Ronnie Matthew Harris (Visionary Lead with Go Bronzeville) for their relentless strategizing, advocacy and late night phone calls. While Active Trans cancelling their VZ summit is a relatively small step in the right direction, it is something we accomplished together and we should all be proud of the work that brought us here to this moment. 

Slow Roll Chicago is a bicycle movement.

We ride bicycles to make our neighborhoods better.

This is why we exist. This is why we ride.

Mount up and let's ride for equity, justice and freedom...

Warmly,

  Olatunji Oboi Reed Co-Founder, Slow Roll Chicago 773-916-6264 oboi@slowrollchicago.org  Website | Twitter | Instagram | Snapchat | Tumblr | Facebook | LinkedIn 

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Book Review: ‘The Great Theft’ by Khaled Abou El Fadl

Khaleds views are very refreshing, and very much needed in our time. He speaks the words that many think but refrain from saying due to the fear of being condemned or seen to be 'controversial'. Let it be clear that he under no circumstances sees 'Islam' as being the issue in creating extremism, but the interpretation of Islam by some groups. Although I did not agree with all of his points, such as the extent or even the idea of 'reforming' some areas, I did agree with his general argument. I think this is necessary reading for anyone, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Although I do believe that it is imperative for Muslims of today to read this in order to fully understand why they see Islam the way they do. Why the majority of 'Islamic' scholarship in our time tends to push one narrative, that being a strict, black and white interpretation of Islam. Why some groups teach you not to question their beliefs, and that if one does so then one is not a true follower. Why some groups have the audacity to claim that a person is a believer or not if they do or do not believe in a particular ideology. Islam is a peaceful religion, one of tolerance, compassion, mercy, kindness and ease. Not one of arrogance, harshness, rigidness and ugliness. Khaled makes this clear in this beautifully written book. A few quotes I highlighted below: "By controlling Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia became naturally positioned to exercise a considerable influence on Muslim culture and thinking. by regulating what might be considered orthodox belief and practice, Saudi Arabic became uniquely positioned to greatly influence the belief systems of Islam itself." | p.72 "According to its adherents, Wahhabism is not a school of thought within Isla, but is Islam itself, and it is the only possible Islam." | p. 74 "In the puritan paradigm, subjectivities of the interpreting agent are irrelevant to the realisation and implementation of the Divine command, which is fully and comprehensively contained in the text. Therefore, the aesthetics and moral insights or experiences of the interpreting agent are considered irrelevant and superfluous." | p.96 "If the men of this orientation feel the need to compensate for feelings of powerlessness by dominating women, they read the text to validate the subjugation and disempowerment of women." | p.97 "All along the puritans claim to be entirely literal and objective, and to faithfully implement what the texts demand without their personal interference. This claim is simply fraudulent and unture because in every situation we find that the puritan reading of the text is entirely subjective." | p.97 "God has many attributes, but it is fair to say that the attributes most emphasised in the Quran are the mercy and compassion of God." | p.126 "In moderate thought, God is too great to be embodied in a code of law. The law helps Muslims in the quest for Godliness, but Godliness cannot be equated to the law. The ultimate objective of the law is to achieve goodness, which includes justice, mercy, and compassion, and the technicalities o the law cannot be allowed to subvert the objectives of the law. Therefore, if the application of the law produces injustice, suffering and misery, this means that the law is not serving its purposes." | p.131 "Submission to God means refusing to submit to any other person or thing. For a Muslim to be dominated or subjugated by a human oppressor is fundamentally at odds with the duty of submission to God. Human free will cannot be surrendered or submitted to anyone but God, and a Muslim is commanded to accept no master other than God." | p. 131 "God consistently sets out in the Quran the types of people that God loves - God loves those who are just, fair, equitable, merciful, kind, and forgiving, those who persistently purify themselves, and so on. At the same time, the Quran repeats that God does not love those who are aggressors, unjust, corrupters, cruel, unforgiving, treacherous, liars, ungrateful, arrogant, and so on." | p. 133 "To truly love God, one must love all human beings, whether Muslim or not, and love all living beings as well as all of Gods nature." | p. 134 "According to moderate Muslims, no person or institution is authorised to judge the piety of another or evaluate the closeness of any particular individual to God. In this regard, moderate Muslims rely on the Prophets teachings, which emphasised that people should not be so arrogant as to presume that they know what is concealed in a persons heart." | p. 137 "In numerous traditions, the Prophet Muhammaed also warned Muslims against the immorality of thinking ill of others and the arrogance of presuming to know how or what God thinks about any particular person. Furthermore, in addressing the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran, God emphasises time and time again that he (Muhammaed) was sent but to deliver a message and not to subjugate or dominate people. Accordingly, as the Quran stresses, even God's Messenger does not have the right to presume to know what is in the hearts of people." | p. 137 "Human beings make a best effort to reach for and understand the eternal law, but it is arrogant and offensive to ever claim that human beings could be certain that they have successfully comprehended the eternal law." | p. 150 "The specific rulings of the Quran came in response to particular problems that confronted the Muslim community at the time of the Prophet. The particular and specific rules set out in the Quran are not objectives in themselves. The rulings are contingent on particular historical circumstances that might or might not exist in the modern age. At the time these rulings were revealed, they were sought to achieve particular moral objectives, such as justice, equity, equality, mercy, compassion, benevolence, and so on." | p. 156 "Building upon the Islamic tradition, moderates argue that at a minimum all human beings have a right to dignity and liberty. The moderates' belief in democracy and human rights begins with the premise that oppression is a great offence against God and human beings. The Quran described oppressors as corrupter of the earth and also described oppression as an offence against God. In moderate thinking, it is recognised that all human beings are entitled to dignity. The Quran clearly states that God has endowed all human beings with dignity. Liberty and choice are the essential components that constitute human dignity. I think it is all too obvious that when human beings are shackled, imprisoned, suppressed, or denied the means to self-determination, they feel that their sense of self-worth is greatly diminished." | p. 184 On liberty and freedom of choice "In a well known islamic tradition, Umar, the second caliph and the close Companions of the Prophet, declared that humans are created free. Umar instructed one of his governors that injustice could be a form of enslavement and subjugation, and he rhetorically asked his governor: Who has the right to oppress people when God has created them free? Moderates usually cite this tradition and others in arguing that liberty is a natural right for all human beings, and that robbing people of their liberty is equivalent to subjugating and enslaving them. Submission to God can only be meaningful if human beings are free to submit or not to submit. Without freedom of choice, obedience, and submission to God became entirely meaningless. Choice (liberty) is a Divine fist, and this gift is part and parcel of the ability to submit to God, and hence, the freedom to pursue Godliness or to refuse to do so." | p.184 "Being enslaved or subjugated by a human being is fundamentally inconsistent with the duty to submit oneself without reservation to God. In fact, the Quran invites Muslims and non-Muslims to reach a consensus between them to worship God alone and not to take one another as lords. For moderates, this verse affirms a basic and crucial principle: human beings should not dominate each other. The only submission that is ethical is submission to God, but the submission of a human being before another is nothing but oppression. This Quranic discourse encourages Muslims and non-Muslims to find an arrangement according to which each one of them does not dominate the other." | p. 185 On the status of women... "There is one word that sums up the puritan attitude toward women: fitna. Fitna is a vast term that has many connotations, all of which are decidedly negative. Fitna mean sexual enticement, a source of danger, civic and social discord, a sense of instability and impending evil." "Although puritans often praise and celebrate the role of women as mothers, in every other role women are portrayed as deficient and subservient. Therefore, as a wife, she is completely under the tutelage of her husband; as a daughter, she is under the tutelage of her father; as a member of society, she is under the tutelage of all men. she is never an independent and autonomous being who shares in equal measure the obligation of fulfilling the Divine convenient. In the puritan paradigm, she is cast in a role in which she fulfils her obligations only through men-whether as husbands, fathers, or men who control the public space. Consequently, it is hardly surpassing that puritans often claim that women will not enter Heaven unless they subserviently obey men on this earth." | p. 257 "The Quran exclaimed that a husband should either live with his wife in kindness and honor, or divorce her also in kindness and honor; but in all situations, those who hold on to their wives in order to torment or harass them have committed a great sin and they have . become among those who are unjust toward themselves." | p. 270 "The Quran consistently and systematically condemned conditions that were oppressive and abusive toward women. There is a condition in the Quranic language called 'istid'af (abusive and oppressive treatment that renders a person powerless). The ethical lesson consistently and systematically taught by the Quran is that placing women in oppressive and abusive conditions is fundamentally at odds with Islamic morality and with the very idea of submission to God." | p. 270