A question answered

It's Kamala Harris for Veep.  As everybody says, it's a big deal of firsts.  She represents several marginalized groups in the US - women; people of color from a couple of groups.  Naturally, there are snipes from Republicans, and probably a number of people remember the criticisms she faced when she was running for the presidential candidacy.  She was a prosecutor in California, and according to some was responsible for a number of cases not being reexamined when new evidence came to light, or even outright suppressing evidence to get convictions.

But really, isn't that what a lot of people want right now?  A law and order candidate, a true law and order candidate, who will actually get the job done.  I was surprised she didn't get more traction during her campaign for that very reason.  We're in a difficult time and we're seeing lots of smoke, but no fire in the oven.  People want to see real action being taken, even if it doesn't necessarily help them.

I don't have much against Biden, beyond his being another sloppy speaker, and being far too mushy moderate for my taste.  But I guess when I vote, if I am allowed to vote ever again, I'll really be voting for the Veep.

nothing real

 When we first got wind of COVID-19 as any sort of serious thing, it was probably too late to do anything about it.  Nobody I knew was taking it seriously at all until late February, and even then the attitude that it was just a "bad flu" was pretty common.  Then, in the middle of March we had sort of a shut down.  Everyone was encouraged to stay at home, the majority of businesses were locked up, only "essentials" were allowed to keep working.  We got through our lockdown with stories of makeshift hospitals and morgues, hundreds and thousands of infected and dead, and now we are trying to open up to our new normal.

Spain has the highest number of infections in Western Europe, even more than Italy and the UK, major centers of viral activity in their own right.  The number of deaths doesn't put the country at the top of the list, although some calculations give a number of around 45,000, very close to the UK's leading 46,498. Many people blame the poor management of care facilities for the elderly, where apparently we still don't know how many were infected or how many died of the virus versus some other cause (lack of care because of lack of material and human resources, for instance).

Although the majority of people wear their little masks when they wander out onto the street, there is a lot of movement, socialization and contact between people.  It's not a surprise, and it's not an unreasonable way to behave; however, it doesn't keep a virus at bay or drive it out of the population.  I'm pretty lax about sterilization after being outside myself, relying on a good hand washing.

The problem can probably come down to the government not wanting to be a Chinese-style hardass.  There were fines issued to people outside their homes in the center of town, but a lot of others were out walking their (new?) dogs or exercising unmolested.  The shutdown was very gradual, keeping children home first, then waffling about stay-at-home orders, then fudging around with hours of permitted street access.  Also, people moved around all over the country when there was no national system in place to track infections or deaths - and there still isn't.

To be honest, I don't know if I'll ever take the virus seriously.  I haven't gotten it (as far as I know) and nobody I know has gotten it.  Somebody in my building was infected, but there were no reports of anybody else after that.  I hear about second hand cases, but nobody I know personally, so it doesn't have the same impact.  Despite the stories of beds packed into IFEMA, there was no visible transportation of patients, so the whole things seemed unreal and continues to seem so.  Sadly, I think it's the same for a lot of people.  We don't mind curtailing our activities a little, but because there doesn't seem to be any effect directly upon us, it's difficult to maintain our resolve.

The future just seems unreal.

Opportunities And Hating Life

So I'm living in a country that has seen a huge drop in its GDP in the past couple of months.  The problem is, Spain relies on outside money coming in, tourists mainly, and right now there are simply not enough tourists to go around.  Even if they wanted to, they might not be allowed to travel as they wish.  As a language teacher, I don't have tourists as my base of funding, but when money slows down, it slows down for everybody.

During the last recession, I didn't suffer too much for work.  A lot of people wanted to improve their English and with that, their chances of employment, or so they thought.  Some of them were all set to leave the country, pinning their hopes on the US, the UK, or Scandinavia.  That's not how things are going to go this time.  Certainly, people will still dream of a study program or an internship abroad, but it's going to be tougher to get it.

One of the opportunities we have now is the greater connectivity around the world.  I was able to keep about half of my classes through online platforms when all unnecessary interaction was banned in March.  Online, you can meet with students anywhere, in their homes, in their offices, on the other side of the world if it comes to that.  And, people are getting more and more comfortable with those sorts of meetings and classes.

My problem is marketing.  Potential students can't choose you if they don't know you're there.  In the past, you could put an ad in a local magazine or newspaper, and the calls would come in.  Just like for a lot of businesses.  Recently, however, it hasn't been that simple to collect students with those ads.  People aren't sure that they want to spend money on classes when they can play games online (hey, I do it myself).  There are possibilities of international students, but you have to find those advertising outlets.

One thing that has been suggested to me, which I have really never wanted to do, is to make videos.  I could post short little things on Youtube and try to generate a following.  I would really prefer not to do that.  I have no interest in that kind of content creation.  It seems like it is a lot more work for a lot less reward than is acceptable to me.  Still, sometimes we have to shovel some shit to get something to grow.  I also have to be more proactive with telling people about things that exist.  Again, I do not like that.  But there doesn't seem to be any other choice.

What Price Pays The Pacifist

Lots of old news and old stories have come up recently, maybe because distance somehow makes them more palatable than new ones.  On one hand, a discussion of the life and values of Utah Phillips, storyteller and pacifist, on the other, another Nazi being punched in public.  Well, at a concert, so not exactly public.

The story is that six years ago, at a Dropkick Murphys concert, members of the crowd surged up onto the stage to dance along with the last songs.  One of those songs was "Skinhead on the MBTA".  So one, apparently only one, man started sieg heiling in time, the band's bassist noticed, whipped of his bass and socked the man a few times before having him ejected from the stage and the venue.  Then, he announced to the crowd that Nazis were not fucking welcome at their concerts!  The crowd was most pleased.  When the story surfaced again on Pharyngula, many fully supported the action taken.  But, there were several people who voiced discomfort, of the same type that there was when Richard Spencer was punched in the face while giving an interview on the street.

The two cases do not seem very similar on the surface.  The concert goer was actively showing his support of a violent and hateful ideology at that moment while Spencer was just having a talk.  Spencer, however, has made his opinions known in other interviews, and his white nationalism is not in any doubt.  Even though he was not actively threatening any particular person at that moment, his ideology is a constant threat.  The concert goer is actually some random man, who we know nothing about, including his actual politics.  He may in fact not be a complete Nazi.  On Pharyngula, and on the linked story, most comments were supportive of what had happened.  The concerns on the original story were about other songs and their possibly rapey content, while there were concerns about fomenting indiscriminate violence on Pharyngula.  While we should be mindful of "stooping to the level of our enemies", it seemed that some oddly felt that Nazis were not by nature violent and dangerous people, made all the more bold by the backup of a group (really, a gang).

It shouldn't be any surprise that there is rough and tumble activity at a punk show.  Maybe it got out of hand, but that's not any sort of news in itself.  On the other hand, what would the pacifist's reaction be?  I can imagine Utah Phillips, who said that the pacifist not only will not punch back when knocked off their stool but offer to shake hands, would probably invite dialogue.  He might ask the guy on stage, if he was just in the audience, express curiosity in his ideas and values and allow an explanation to be given.  It sounds like a mature, generous and fully human reaction.  Unfortunately, for many people it might not be an option.  Phillips himself recognized the privilege he had as a white man of a certain age, privilege that many people who work against Nazism and fascism do not have.  It is all well and good to say that we should try to uphold the values of pacifism and tolerance, but individuals also have to protect themselves.  They have to send a message of what is acceptable and what is not.  While wondering about the humanity of people who do not look like you is impolite, just wondering is not necessarily a threat.  We should be clear on the fact that Nazis and like-minded groups are not wondering.  They are completely sure and feel perfectly justified in using violence at every turn.  Sometimes the right answer is a punch in the face.  And sometimes, just sometimes, it is also the right statement.

Not What You Are, What We Think You Are

After (yet more) shootings in Dayton, OH and El Paso, TX, many people who do not support Donald Trump have all but blamed him directly for the violence.  Some have even said it openly.  It seems that the Ohio shootings were just good old misogyny rather than racial hatred, but certainly we can blame the pussy grabbin' prez for promoting that too.  His photo ops are heavily criticized, the family of the orphaned baby receive furious messages for allowing Melania to hold him next to a grinning, up-thumbing Donald.  In response, Trump's supporters almost plaintively cry that he is not racist, has said and done nothing to promote racial violence, and this unfair idea of the president does nothing but polarize us further as a nation.  The thing is, the exact words that Trump uses and the actions he takes do not matter.  They have not mattered since he took office, and probably since he was named candidate.  He as a person is basically invisible; all we see is what he represents.

It would take a truly deluded view to say that Trump does not represent all sorts of prejudice.  He is a rich, white man, loud and thoughtless, used to getting his way one way or another and skipping out on responsibilities.  He represents the typical privileged white man Americans have always revered.  He does not need to openly advocate racist actions for himself or by the populace, he represents approval of such actions.  His existence confirms their appropriateness.  The big winner in the American game is the one who uses every single advantage he (and I do mean he) has, at the expense of everyone else.  He represents the pure 20th century American dream, where anybody can build an empire of obscene wealth (always forgetting the part that it helps if you start where somebody else left off).  His brash and pushy way of dealing with everyone around him is the aggressive businessman's technique, and the businessman is the true American, at least for the past hundred years or so.  Even if he has supporters among the rural and anti-urban segments, they admire him for his purported self-sufficiency.  Remember, he won the dream through his own work, not through government aid, grants, or any such handout for the weak.  Or so we hear.  His businessman's government should do what old-time Republican governments did, which was let business run itself.  Why, don't you remember the "Roaring Twenties"?  Product of business doing business that was!  Let's just forget about the Great Depression that came after that, that was obviously the real Russian meddling.

Many Trump supporters are frustrated and confused by being called racists/misogynists/homophobes etc. by the simple fact of being a Trump supporter.  Weirdly, a man calling himself Jesus Christ on a right winger's Youtube show made a good argument for why they might be so sensitive to it.  Basically, we have all accepted that it is wrong to be racists and racists are bad people.  However, we are good people.  We do not beat our loved ones, kick stray dogs, or go to Klan rallies.  We do not even demand segregation to be enshrined by law again.  We are not bad people.  Therefore, when somebody points out some statement or action that could be thought of as racist, it must not be because only bad people are racist.  As good people, by default nothing we do or say is racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, classist, etc.  Now, if we support the president because we think his hands-off policies on domestic business and pushing around imports will improve the economy, and our own economy specifically, that has nothing to do with race at all!  Yet, if the president is racist that makes him a bad person, and we as good people cannot support bad people.  If we support him, he must, by default, be a good person without flaw.  Donald Trump represents a strong America for his supporters, so no matter what his policies bring, they will support him and be deeply hurt that they are labeled racists.  By the way, the Youtuber was either so offended at being an implied racist or just so nervous to be next to "Jesus Christ" that he did not even try to make one of his slick arguments, he only repeated, "Everything you said is incorrect."

Of course, many of his supporters truly are racists and otherwise terrible humans, and back him up for that very reason.  He represents approval of violent dissuasion for the "wrong people" to participate in society.  He represents bullying softer, weaker voices into submission so the loud and violent can do whatever they want.  This is why, even after Trump has said that he does not support white supremacy, neo-Nazis and white supremacists wink at those words and boldly demand public visibility in their America on the right track.  Trump himself can deny his approval all he wants, and he may genuinely not approve, but he probably does not strongly disapprove unless there is serious violence and people try to smear his name with it.  In any case, it does not matter what his words and actions are, because his figure is all the approval necessary.

This is not limited to Trump, of course.  Obama was also more of a representation than a man.  However, he represented something very different.  Where Trump is not only the stagnant status quo and even a slide back into a more oppressive past, Obama was a signal of movement forward, to a fairer world for everyone, a society where maybe everyone did have a chance to succeed.  His background, his rhetoric, his campaign on "hope and change", gave the clear idea that progressive ideals were being taken seriously and a better country for all was in the works.  It did not matter than he failed to close Gitmo, that he authorized drone attacks that killed many civilians in the warzones that he also did not finish with, and even the fact that children being separated from their parents at our southern border became commonplace under his administration means nothing.  Obama represented a truly kinder nation and one that looked to the future.  What he represented was more important that practically anything he did or intended to do.  He won a Nobel Prize for being not-Bush, for god's sake.  Maybe he will win another for being not-Trump.  All he has to do is represent.

Bad Education

I like to watch old films, and Film Preservation has a bunch of them on their website to stream or download.  A lot of them are educational, commercial, or propaganda films, which are very interesting indeed.  One I watched recently was Crowded Out, showing the difficulties faced by schools during the Baby Boom and redistribution of population during the '50s, what with lack of funds for new schools and more personnel, leading to crowded and uncomfortable classrooms.

More than uncomfortable in fact, detrimental to the learning process for a number of children.  Not only were the "slow learners" left behind by the teachers who had no extra time to dedicate to them, but the "gifted" students finished their work early, got bored, and got busy making trouble for themselves and their classmates.  Some of them also stopped trying due to lack of stimulation I would imagine.  I had always thought of traditional schooling as the lecturing teacher and the crowd of students, with group work being done under strict supervision and everybody on the same page, so to speak.  Only rarely would students be allowed to explore their educational opportunities on their own.  If course it happened in some "alternative" schools and school systems, and in this short film, nearly 20 years older than the first, we see children using more hands-on and self-guided techniques of learning.  The teachers have their goals, but let the children find their own way, so it seems.  But those styles were stamped out by the overburdening of the classrooms or the desire for regimented thinking among the nation's young.

Why would people not want their children to learn at their own pace and in their own way?  Obviously money has a great deal to do with these choices, as public schools depend on a certain amount of "generosity" from the taxpayers and private schools depend on whoever funds them.  Even if people prefer a more individualized method they might not be able to provide financially for the necessary resources, human and material.  My feeling, though, is that another factor is even stronger than money, and that is control.

The control I mean is the rigid training of the young to fit the mold(s) of society and not have the confidence to question why.  Everyone keeps their head down, follows the status quo with some amount of willingness, and doesn't rock the boat at all.  Sure, we do find anti-war protesters of the '60s and '70s who must have been stuffed into their school boxes, but they are a bit of a blip on the radar.  While some things have loosened up, much depends on the individual districts and schools to get away from the regimented, factory-style of education that the second half of the 20th century saw as normal.  More than that, many people saw and still see it as "correct".  They bemoan attempts to give children more freedom in the classroom and more resources to stimulate their own learning and learning styles.  And that's not to mention the problems of underfunded public schools in poor districts.  The overcrowding and lack of resources continue in many places, and the most idealistic and energetic teachers are no match for the utter nothing that they get from the system.

Again I ask, why do people not only allow but insist on this?  It is control.  Children who can't think are easily led.  They will do the bidding of their betters, pushing out who needs to be pushed and continuing the trends for the promises of treats.  Uneducated, miserable masses will be desperate, they will fight wars far away for a chance at a better life.  They might also kill each other in frustrated despair, taking care of the problem at home.

There were always good ideas about furthering education and respect for learning.  There were always people who were afraid that the wrong people would learn they were people.

The Triumph of Communo-Capitalism

Let us all agree that the world is getting ever fonder of the individual - individual rights, individual liberties, individual possessions, individual lifestyles.  If there’s something that capitalism should be about, it’s the individual, what with the encouragement of increasing personal property and wealth and all.  At the same time, the capitalism envisioned by Karl Marx in his time was one of limiting individual ownership to a select few who were lucky enough to scrape up or to be endowed with the means to purchase it.  One of his biggest beefs was that the producers were not the owners of the means of production.

Well, what would he think today?  We have moved beyond cavernous factories full of machinery and embraced intangible services rather than material goods as the results of our labor.  Certainly, there is some outside ownership of certain tools, but as each day goes by we get closer to a world in which each employee may be allowed - nay, required - to provide their own resources to get the job done.  What’s this?  Yes!  It has become too onerous to provide for employees who now expect benefits and safe working environments.  Now, the business is merely a network, a tent under which independent contractors can gather to do their part in moving the economy inch by virtual inch.  The big winners are those who run the network, of course, the new captains of “industry”.  But, if we ask who owns the means of production the answer is - the producers!  The perfect blend of capital and community!  We are all responsible for ourselves, free individuals, and as such we are beholden to no master, no factory owner.  With a laptop, even a phone, we can create content for consumption by the masses, we can provide services in ways unimaginable a century ago.  Admittedly, private property still exists, so true Communism is unfulfilled by this reality, but if everybody has the means of production in their hands, then the distance between the old masters and servants is diminished.

Now all we need is to own the means of promotion too.

/s tag necessary

Ever notice that most conspiracy theorists belong to a particular group of people?  They tend to have a similar look, don't they?  Yep, white guys.  Of course ages vary, as well as economic status, but that's the group you find in this activity, by and large.  They might even be straight white guys for the most part, but that's none of my business anyway.

So, why is that worth commenting on?  Well, we've all been in conversation with one of those people, who just absolutely have to angle the flow of talk away from the original topic and into their preferred angle of attack.  It's easy to brush this off as some quirk of personality,  maybe even part of some social disability.  It could even be true in many cases.  However, there might be something else going on, something more sinister.  This is my theory: conspiracy theorists are working hard to distract us from solveable issues while their masters prepare to bring us back to Feudalism.

Consider the conspiracy theories that are bandied about: mysterious poisons in the air; mind control that may or may not be wirelessly produced; technological knowledge hidden from the public "for our own good".  Now, it is true that pollution and general wastefulness have created an unknown danger to us from our own environment.  It is also true that governments and militaries have technology that they do not share.  However, the conspiracy theorist never points to a specific target as the source of the problem, except for vague entities like the Illuminati or occasionally "the government".  They leave us nowhere to aim at if we need to attack.  Everything is a danger, and everyone should be in a state of constant vigilance - or panic.  When the source of danger is ill-defined or omni-present, fear is a great method of preventing action, as much as it can be a spur to action.  We cannot fight against people we see in offices and in the media, but we must fear members of secret societies whose names and faces are a closely guarded secret.  What can this be but demoralizing?  What better way to prepare us to accept a fate of subservience and slavery by telling us we have no chance in the first place?

Now, a good many conspiracy theorists claim to have the good of humanity in mind.  Their fight is against the "elites" who would tamp down the population with either fear or marvel.  But again, I say their targeted problems are not ones that are clear and fightable.  Moreover, they insist on drawing attention to those problems and away from others, which are defined and have people searching for workable solutions.  Interestingly enough, those problems that they distract from tend to affect people who are ... not in the same group as these conspiracy theorists.  Consider: when did conspiracy theories become a popular pursuit?  Perhaps in the mid-twentieth century?  I think another thing became popular around that time, and that was the demand for civil rights by groups of people who not white, men, or either.   Quite the coincidence!

It could be enough to leave it there, with conspiracy theories being a smokescreen for resisting social change.  However, I did mention feudalism towards the top, and as long as we're talking about conspiracy theories, let's go big.  Without trust in technology, health care will decline.  Without trust in expertise, education will decline.  In any case, many people will be denied access to those things.  Those people will then be simple labor, with no way to intellectually impose their will.  They will be cogs in the machine.  Ironically, the decline in technology will mean a greater need for human labor and less mechanization, so it is true that more work will be available.  The question is if it is good work. 

Imagine that people work for one employer who is able to provide them with services they need, such as housing and security.  This is not a new idea exactly, as company towns existed in the nineteenth century in the revving of the Industrial Revolution.  The government, for lack of funds or lack of interest, provides little to nothing.  Who will people be loyal to?  To an abstract government that provides to proof of its very existence, or the source of their daily bread?  People will focus their loyalty on local providers, and the very concept of the nation will vanish.  This is feudalism, the organization of laborers around a local power.  We will exist in a collection of small states that have little to nothing to do with each other, fostering a sense of suspicion and tribalism.  Not only that, but communication will be tamped down to the bare minimum.  For one thing, what does a person with no immediate connection to the outside world care what happens in it?  For another, how will most people be able to pay for access to that information?  We will also be in a world without access to health care, so we can assume there will be little to no birth control.  This works out splendidly for those who need labor, as unwanted and uneducated hands will have few opportunities to work for their own survival.  The human being will be practically interchangeable.  A cog in the machine.  And when we are at the state of laborers and masters, how will we manage to escape?  How will we recognize "talent" if everything is designated from birth and social class?  Naturally, those who were in a privileged position before the decline will have more opportunities to maintain a good position.  So, again, the white male conspiracy theorists only seem to be fighting to protect themselves and their privilege, not humanity as a whole.

Who'd a thunk it!!

Intellect And Emotion

(I wanted to be more thinky this month, but I haven't been as disciplined as I wanted to be.  Even the rants don't quite fill in as much as they could.  I'll do better next year, I guess.)

Some time ago an acquaintance told me I should be more in touch with my emotions and less intellectual.  Now, more in touch with my emotions might be a valid criticism, but less intellectual?  Are we really going down the path of anti-intellectualism?  Is it really necessary to choose between awareness and analysis and awareness and feeling?  The very idea is offensive to me on two fronts.

One, to say that a person should reject the inclination to analysis implies that it is wrong or dangerous to do so.  Analysis is the way we find things out as human beings, unfortunately.  We have to gather information and assimilate it, preparing to predict consequences, in order to function in the world.  There is the possibility of overthinking things, but that is not being intellectual and should not be confused with it.  The intellectual view takes an abstract and objective stance, as much as possible, and seeks to understand.  Where there are problems, it seeks to solve them.  It is not especially sensible to tell somebody to reject problem solving.  That might be the connection to the next point, however.

I am a woman and this acquaintance is a man.  Women have the reputation for being more emotional than intellectual, so it is sometimes the case that an intellectual woman is a bizarre and uncomfortable thing.  At least, that is the argument that I hear.  The suggestion now becomes not "be less intellectual" but "be more like a typical female".  I do not have the right to thought or analysis because my physical form is not the "correct" one.  Whether this was the conscious idea or not is immaterial, it is the message that was transmitted.  This person happens to hold a few rather romantic ideas about gender and society, so if it was meant, he certainly believes that it is a compliment.  Perhaps I am not truly intellectual enough to fathom why being told that I am not allowed to use my powers of critical thought is, in fact, a compliment.  I should stop trying for my own good, I suppose.

The other problem is the assumption that I am not in touch with my emotions.  I do not share my emotions regularly because they are almost without exception negative.  I am not a positive person.  I do not have a secret soul filled with sweetness and light.  I do not share my emotions because they are not welcome to be shared, and I am not such a good actress as to create a joyful persona to please people.  I have the impression that my acquaintance believes everybody is really angelic within and we should simply open the doors to our inner selves, but that is simply ridiculous.  Some people have nothing but darkness inside them.  Some of them give in to it and some of them hide it.  Those who hide it have varying levels of success.  It is insulting and demeaning to be told that my decisions about what I share are mistaken because I do not actually know what I am.  I am quite perfectly aware of what I am, and that is why you do not know.  Believe me, you should be thanking me.  You do not really need to know how much people can hide themselves for the sake of getting along.

Schadenfreude

There is a certain amount of shame in feeling happy about somebody else's pains and problems, and there should be.  We know that in order to function as a society there has to be empathy and acknowledgement of other people's feelings, not to mention sympathy and understanding when there are disagreements.  The problem is, some people take advantage of our attempts to be open and interested in their well-being and project their own desires on that behavior.  This is especially common from men to women, as a great number of social commentators have pointed out.

I am having my own shameful pain enjoyment fest, having recently been told that an enemy has finally faced consequences for his bad behavior.  This is an enemy because of his continuous harassment of me personally, not merely because of some philosophical disagreement.  For years, seven or eight I would say, he sent periodic invitations for drinks, sexual comments, apologies for "rudeness".  But it was never the end, not until I left the discussion group that we ran into each other in.  First they were only phone messages, but eventually he started leaving his dribblings on the blog and whining during discussion, seemingly in an attempt to get attention, even if that attention was negative.  His portrayed himself as a worse and worse person, insisting that he had no interest in points of view from people who are not like him, e.g. women, gays, minorities, etc.  He threw small tantrums several times.  Even after people agreed with him he weirdly kept insisting that they had to agree.  The continual whining, which sometimes stretched for more than 20 minutes, became more of a hassle than is worth it, especially because there was simply nobody else to listen to.  The other attendees came to "improve" their English, but did not participate in any meaningful way.  So, I left.

Bizarre and vaguely sexual messages continued to pop up for months, finally stopping at the end of last year, nine months after I left.  Apparently, he found a new target with somebody who started attending a few months ago.  He interrupted this person non-stop in the final confrontation, to the point that he was physically attacked, or almost.  I am not sure if there was actual physical contact or not, but it was made clear that the intention to swing some fists and mash some noses was there.  I felt nothing but glee.  I wish there had been a beating.  I wish bones had been broken, particularly jaw bones.

I wish I did not feel that way.  I wish people would not expect miracles from others when they insist on being garbage.  I wish I did not feel justified in calling people garbage.  Schadenfreude.

Fisk A Stranger's Comment - On Traffic Lights

The original opinion piece is in Spanish, here.

The City Hall of Madrid has changed a few crossing lights to give them a more inclusive, integrated, and egalitarian bent.  They are so kind, those humanized lights, that they would even carry us across, as if we were fording a river and they didn't want us to wet our socks.  Such lights could mediate traffic disputes to end with hugs.  Lights with proper feelings about public morality.  So no naked people?  Nobody openly drunk?  Even though the garden-topped buses failed, isn't this the best of all possible cities that could have emerged for The People to frolic in in a state of Rousseaunian grace in the paradise of New Politics?  No snide exaggeration there, nosiree.

On seeing the new figures, I was reminded of the solitary dignity of that Ampelmännchen of East Germany, who insisted on wearing a hat, when only nostalgic characters created by Garci did anymore.  Its creator, Karl Peglau, thought the East German authorities would not permit it, since the hat was a bourgeois attribute of dress.  But the Little Man stayed, fearing deportation, Fucking really, deportation is the worst you can think of? until Reunification made him one of Ostalgia's favorite memories, the German homestead.  I think I've seen little men in hats on the lights in Santander, and I shouldn't be surprised.  A city with that sense of elegance, and that rain, easily makes the standard description of its citizens one with an Italina fedora, or at least a rain hat.  Sooo, is it cool for the lights to represent a figure apart from the people in the city or not?  Now you're saying that it's perfectly normal for crossing lights to reflect the people on the street.

The new figures on Madrid's crossing lights are fruit of City Hall's attempt to take on all positive values, as if they were the province of Podemos alone.  But in trying to be inclusive they have created a sticky problem.  We had taken for granted that the old figure represented us all and that we were all invited to cross in safety when it turned green.  Now things have changed.  Uh, damn right things have changed.  We took straight white religious men to be the default human in the past and now we're trying to make everybody equally human.  If you can't see a reflection of yourself in a symbolic representation of a possible human then - YOU DON'T THINK IT IS HUMAN.  That is the problem.  That's what people are working to change.  Not creating little balls of snowflakes, but a blizzard of varied humanity.  Now you have to be personally invited, like homosexual couples.  Actually there are heterosexual couples too.  And if there's discrimination or confusion for anybody, it's single people who don't have a hand to hold.  Is that your real problem, it reminds you of having to walk in pairs as a schoolboy and you always had to hold hands with the weird kid?  And why the fuck do you have a problem with inviting different people to make sure they feel welcome?  Is it actually true that you just want to keep your he-man woman hater gay basher xenophobe club?  Does a fat man have to wait until the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock turns green before he crosses?  Are fat people not people?  Because if two ladies in skirts appear, how does he know he's allowed to cross?  How did ladies in skirts know before, you ass?  Especially ladies who liked to walk hand in hand.  They were pretty clear about the fact that they weren't welcome to cross, or be anywhere on the street really.  Does the punk have to wait until he sees a light with a mohawk?  What do I do if I go to cross with my children and the light doesn't have an adult man surrounded by little people?  What if the light isn't for a large family?  I don't know, what did mothers do before?  Oh, right, nothing they could have to say is nearly as important as your ego stroked by being reflected on every single crossing light in the city.  Am I only allowed to cross holding the hand of the man next to me and leaving my offspring behind?  Well, they can hold hands with each other.  Unless you have an odd number of kids, then somebody's screwed.  You say the lights are inclusive, but I don't see a fat gay punk family guy light anywhere.  You sure have a tame picture for a fat gay punk family guy.  Must be an old one.  Or one for a fishmonger.  Or a jogger.  Or a horse rider.  Or a guy with a beard.  Or a misanthrope.  Or somebody pissing themselves.  Or wearing a tie.  Or an old man with a cane.  Or...  Like I said before, the problem is you think you really are the only real human because you've been the default for so long.  You expect others to see their humanity reflected in you but you won't take even a second to find yours in them.  You are a lazy, fearful, arrogant basket of rotten rats' assholes.  But I bet you think your picture should still signal all humans, except the ones your behavior shoves out as soon as they show up.  The most mind boggling thing about arguments like this is that people think they are actually saying something intelligent!  It's simply incredible.  They mewl about the most insignificant and meaningless problems, only to turn around and say that the other side is too sensitive.  Oh, the problems of the top dog.  Should we put that on a street light for you?  Or do you not want to be bothered by reading?  If we just put words on the crossing lights we could do away with all the symbolism you so fear, but then everybody would have to be literate, and really you need something to help you imagine how much better you are than the dregs, right?  The dregs that can't even recognize that you represent every human being on earth while they represent only themselves.

The Color Of Evolution

So, many months ago I had more time to spend in late-night discussion groups...OK, it's not the time at night now, it's that I have had to get up early in the morning that's curtailed that.  The thing is, in one group somebody mentioned the emergence of the words for the color blue.  Humans didn't always distinguish this color from others.  Some languages still don't quite distinguish blue from green in all cases (when comparing with an English speaker's perception, of course).  My problem is that this person said that humans "evolved" to see blue.

"Evolved"?  So the sky was literally a different color before that?  Bluebirds were, what - greenbirds?  Or were they yellow?  I think what this person meant to say was that our perception was refined, rather than that we evolved.  We began to make distinctions between different parts of the color spectrum that we didn't before.  It may be that pigments and dyes were more available to reproduce these particular colors than before.  Blues are not especially common in cave paintings, for example.

We still create terms for different shades of color, especially when some means of reproducing that shade becomes available.  Paint or crayon colors are examples of this.  The fact that cerulean blue was not a term before the 19th century does not mean that nobody perceived that shade of color before, it only means that it was worthwhile to name at that time and not before.

If we consider multiple names for color to indicate advancement in evolution, should we consider Russian speakers to be the most evolved humans, since they have separate colors for light and dark blue?  Are we saying that most human beings are actually incapable of seeing the difference in those hues?

We did NOT evolve to see blue in the last thousand years.  We only developed the technologies to reproduce it.  Let's use language precisely.  For fuck's sake.

unsolicited advice when you feel like shit

That's what it feels like.

You only have problems to bother other people.  Everything you have trouble with is your own fault.  You shouldn't need any help, and I'm only helping you because you're so pathetic and people would think I wasn't generous if I didn't tell you what to do.

It's threats disguised as advice.  How dare you not click your heels and line up like I want?  You're just overreacting.  Nothing you care about is important.

You only matter to make me look good.  If you don't make me look good, you're trying to hurt me.  You're an awful person if you have any problems and you don't pay all your attention to me.

It has nothing to do with the rest of the comic, actually, but Outcault was right fucking on with that panel.

gender 2.0

As the meeting was not, in fact, very illuminating or given to thought, I'm not treating it like other meetings.  The topic had been discussed before, probably as my own idea.  I have my treatment of the previous discussion here.  The Leader and the True Philosopher also had their ideas at the time.  The discussion continues in public life, although the exact nature of gender is not evident to many people, whether they participate in the discussion or not.

For me, gender is an internal idea, what one imagines oneself to be.  It does not depend on physical characteristics or the notions of others, but what one feels inside.  This seems to be supported by studies where children were educated to think of themselves as one gender when in fact they believed themselves to be of the other/another.  It also shows in the reactions many children have to being told their interests are of the "other" gender.  After the kerfluffle of Target removing the gendered signs from their toy department, some studies were brought to light that indicated that children who are given toys for the "opposite sex" are not as interested in them.  They might still play with them, but not as much and they ask fewer questions related to the toy and what fields or issues it might be connected with.  In the Target scandal, there were a number of people who objected to anything not being explicitly labeled as for boys or girls because it's "natural" that they have different interests.  That's fine, of course, but if it's so natural the labels shouldn't be necessary; the natural differences will appear without any outside interference or impositions.  Somehow, we know what we are and what group we belong to, even if society tells us differently.  The Leader told us an anecdote about his niece, who he was baby-sitting one day.  She was then a small child, just a few years old, but that day she was wearing blue overalls and had her hair cut very short, making her look boyish.  Some little old ladies came over and said she was a lovely boy, which infuriated the girl.  We didn't get to hear if she had chosen her clothing and haircut herself, but even if she had she still felt strongly that she was a girl, goddammit.  Even cross-dressers are not always wistful about actually becoming a member of the opposite sex, they just want to enjoy some of the dress and accoutrements.  The main topic of conversation ended up being the discrimination attached to gender, rather than the idea of gender itself, and the Leader spent a good bit of time talking it up, as well as the True Philosopher considering it anew.  Several people brought up some tired old tropes about differences like women being better with language, but any identified difference was treated as immutable and eternal.  It was a frustratingly superficial and fruitless chat.  Towards the end, the question was raised about new genders based on sexual orientation, which struck me as frivolous and stupid.  Not because there is an iron-clad definition of gender that doesn't allow orientation to be a factor, but because nobody had any definition to begin with and couldn't be bothered to attempt one.  If it had been, "I think orientation has something to do with your gender, so maybe gays should be considered something other than male or female," is an understandable comment.  But blundering into, "Iz teh gayz no menz n wimminz cuz jenderz?" is thoroughly ridiculous and really, purely time-wasting.  There was also some yammering about athletics, defended incomprehensibly with "but you can't deny the differences!"  Every human individual has differences from the rest, but the question when it comes to discrimination based on those differences is if it makes sense to discriminate.  Dividing people into teams with all the players being of similar abilities makes sense.  Saying that the team you get assigned to determines your personhood does not.  Furthermore, if there is no question about the differences, than there isn't much reason to bring the goddam point up.  No new information, no new perspective, no creative way of viewing reality.  Not very philosophical at all. Just blathering.  Even more aggravating perhaps was the denial of gender-based discrimination in the workplace, under the old "if it doesn't happen to me it doesn't happen to anybody" trick of worldview.  Utter bullshit. Gender is only one of the many axes of discrimination, of course, but since it was supposed to be the focus of discussion, it was what we should have defined plainly and clearly so at least everybody would have had a field to play on instead of crashing through the woods of vagaries and deliberate lack of clarity.  Even the Source didn't bother to show up or leave any sort of comment for us, so I'd say this topic was doomed from the start.  Thankfully, it probably won't come up again for a while.  Or if it does, we'll know better about definitions.  It really does get boring when it's obvious nobody knows what anybody else is talking about.