Okay, so I was going to deal with the problems caused by the idea of the enfleshed mind. Ie the idea that all of us is contained within our bodies. It doesn't paticularly nix the idea of the soul but rather it focuses more on the fact that we have this interconnected web of biochemical reactions, electrical impluses, and a whole bunch of other stuff that we don't even know about and that is pretty god damn cool. It focuses less on the mechanical aspect and or on the fact that we are an organism and that the mind machine analogy is just that an analogy. Bringing it to far is retarded, and ultimately, harmful. I don't know if the idea of the soul and the enfleshed mind are truely compatible. However, I don't feel bad about throwing religion in people's faces and just sort of brushing it off. I mean you don't know what a soul is really. If I were to believe in one I would totally make it all about something that excists outside of our corporeal excistence. After all the idea of the soul and the idea of the body have nothing to do with each other. THey just happened to be connected because no one thought to disconnect them. Strange no?
I mean really though it we place the entiretly of our minds, our personalities, our ablity to be cognative thingies, then there is no reason that the soul can't be all of these things but outside of the body. How can it do that? Well through god's infinite power, duh. Its strange though because people put a lot of stake in the wholeness of the body. Try getting into a discussion about trans issues with people who are very body oriented. A lot of them can't do it. They can't see how it is possible sor someone to feel out of place in their own body. This is because to them the body is a unit, mind and all.
This is the danger of the enfleshed mind. Lets not dance around the issue or try and brush it off or anything like that. Nope no. The danger of the idea of the enfleshed mind is the fact that there will be people who are insistent that there is a certain way which your mind is supposed to work, any deviations from this baseline averageness is a disorder.
In all honesty this is where I am stuck. This is because people associate the idea of mental disorders with the crazy, and to be fair to a certain degree they are correct. So I guess I this would be the point where I would take a stand on trans issues. BUT I AM TIRED. I am tired enough that I will keep rambling away at this thing though instead of easting pasta noms and doing something else. Right so trans issues. How to get things going... well okay first of all the mind is capable of acting independently of the needs of the body. The mind is also capable of acting independently of the needs of itself.
So for example, the mind could produce a want/reward chain that leads to over eating. That might not be clear so to clarify... you are not hungry. But a plate of cookies is set in front of you. You like the taste of cookies. The desire for the taste of the cookies overpowers the fact that you are not hungry, and the health hazards involved with unessisary eating. You then eat the cookies, the cookies taste good and as a result you feel good encouraging you to eat more cookies. This coninues until you are either out of cookies or the thought of not being hungry/wieght gain prevents you from eating more cookies.
In short the mind is more than capable of working contrary to our best interests. We convince ourselves of bad ideas, or to belive in fictional concepts all the time.
The mind can also work in contrary with itself. I can't think of anything better so I am going to throw out clinical depression. Depression works in such a way that despite the fact that there is actually nothing mechanically wrong in your life, or more tenchincally there is no stimulus that should logically produce the responce of sadness, you become sad. In myself my mind would then search for a stimulus capable of producing that level of sadness like my signifigant other, my parents, or something abstract. However, that is mearly my mind putting a stimulus to an empty responce.
Woah okay now I totally need to go home and do something else. I'll come back to this eventually though because it interests me.
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
PPP: Genra
You know the funny thing is that if nothing else comes out of the PPP breaking the monolithic porno superstructure into manageable parts is kind of an amazing step fowards. I am almost sad that I am going to be the one to do it because it really does make sense. When you say pornography is harmful, you are including that picture of some naked chick sitting in a chair making a kissy face. When you say pornography isn't harmful you are including child porn, crushing, and rape videos. So yeah breaking this up a little bit is going to be a good idea. It is also pretty much the place to start so 'ere we go!
Starting broad and working our way down:
Soft Core- Naked chick making the kissy face, skinamax, and all those other things are softcore porn. A good way to measure it, is to ask, is the sex act being depicted real? Hint if there is no sex act and you are just looking at some naked dude then you are kicking it softcore. No actual penatration, pretty much means soft core territory. Oral sex, and other things like that? It doesn't matter what I say because people will argue either way. I'm going to say that actual cock in mouth, to ejaculation is wandering into hardcore territory. Where as hands on upper body private parts, kissing, that sort of thing keeps it closer to soft core territory.
Hard Core- Hard core is the sex act being depicted is actually real. So there is actual penetration, or multiple penetrations, there is lots of real baby batter being slung around. All that fits into hard core. Hard core is massive.
Note that neither of these definitions rely on numbers or genders. So if you have 57 Transexuals all standing around naked...soft core. Where as two women using a double sided dildo is hardcore. There is also no allusion to quality. Hardcore and soft core can all be equally trashy, or refined.
Fetish- Fetish pornography is something that adds an additional element into the mix that sexualizes something that is non sexual. Spanking, insertion, bondage, fully clothed sex, water sports, the use of religiouse iconography, clowns, these all fit into the fetish category. Note that fetish doesn't stand totally on its own. So it is possible to have softcore fetish porn & Hardcore fetish porn. It is important to seperate fetish porn out because it definatly plays by a diffrent series of rules. Note there is a diffrence between Fetish porn and things that just make us squimish. So fisting for example, makes me squimish, however, it is not a fetish thing, it is a hand going into a vagina. Whereas a foot, 4 Zucchin, 1 Squid, a stump left by an amputated limb, or a barbie doll would all be consindered fetish porn because it is taking something non sexual and turning it into something sexual.
Art- This one is going to be controversial. However, there is porn out there, that is still very much porn, but it tries to do something else other than just be straight up porn. This is a result of either production values, them doing something exparamental, or just trying to make a statement with the porn itself. This category will make more sense when I do the art/porn venn diagram in a lil bit. This is prolly also a very small genra at the moment. Lots of softcore porn fits into the this area. People who like to tastefully photograph nudes? Art porn look at that. Whereas the destricted project, is an example of hardcore art porn. This is also here to purposly confuddle the art/porn divide. Cause why not?
Finally there is:
Bad Porn- Bad porn is porn that just about everyone can agree is bad. Bad bad bad. This includes things like childporn, rape porn, crushing, and snuff. Yeah yeah the fbi claims that they have never found a real snuff film. Right, cause they did such a bang up job uncovering the 9/11 plot, as well as the amazing work they do curbing the drug trade. Really? The fbi hasn't found something? Holy shit you don't say.
Rant on the fbi's failures aside this pretty much covers everything. It feels weird breaking things into genras it isn't something I am good at, nor is it something I paticularly agree with. See people get way to fixated on genras and they start coming up with all these strange micro genras that really aren't nessisary. I mean look at meatal, you have black metal, speed metal, doom metal, drone metal, goth metal, as well as a whole bunch of others when in reality each of these genras only covers a small handful of bands. I've kept each genra loosely definied and it is OKAY to have something fit into more than one genra. Some people like the ultra specificity of micro genras. I would talk about these people dismissivly but sasha is one of them and she can beat me up. It is one of those things we disagree on but don't argue about because really? At the end of the day I have people for that sort of thing. New genras will be developed and that's all well and good. Getting the ball rolling is the most important part.
It also helps make the whole subject become so much less monolithic. I mean jesus christ, do people know how silly they sound when they say pornography is/does/says X? Hell the first part of the project was going to be on the pornography pattern, but I've changed it up to be the pornography checklist because people keep doing it in diffrent order. Good. Well looks like this is just about wrapped up. Barns and Noble totally lost my order so I am not able to go do things like read Simulacrum and Simulation. Though I realize that at some point I am going to have to address Foucault. I. Don't. Fucking. Want. To. I'm going to do it anyway. It is such a miserable chore though and he doesn't really adress anything I am writting about. He uses endless historical examples that go on FOREVER to make relativly minor points. Also the whole knowlage/power thing? I dunno it doesn't really seem to fit in. Not when I am doing real people like Bauldillard and Lacan. Since I am returning the discussion of porn back to its actual basics, by looking at actual porn then writting about that the way I would a novel, Foucault doesn't seem all to paticularly applicable.
Oh well. I might be able to do something with the panopticon and voyerism or something like that. That has some promise, but it isn't really postmodern, it is panotpicomics which is something I consider to be diffrent. If I do anything with Foucault it will be power relations in BDSM. Though ultimatly I would rather do somehting about how the bdsm porn enforces power relations, whereas most bdsm relationships have a symbiotic relationship to them. My source texts would be some generic bdsm pornos, Venus in Furs, and Secretary. I'd flip that mother fucker on his ear I would. See though, it doesn't really fit into my project though so I guess not. Eh whatever fuck Foucault, sure he makes some valid points but only in very limited situations.
Whatever that chick that tackled the pope, she should of grabbed Foucault while she had the chance.
See Bauldillard is directly useful. He talks about the dangers of putting our ideas of what the real is before the real itself. He also talks about how things are so fake that they make the rest of the world seem super real. These two ideas, right there? Yeah 15 page essays easy. See take the idea of putting ideas of the real before the real. Women have cosmo, men have porn. You put the two of them together and it is no wonder why people's ideas of what actually happens during sex is so fucked up.
Oh well back to work I'll get back to this some more later.
Starting broad and working our way down:
Soft Core- Naked chick making the kissy face, skinamax, and all those other things are softcore porn. A good way to measure it, is to ask, is the sex act being depicted real? Hint if there is no sex act and you are just looking at some naked dude then you are kicking it softcore. No actual penatration, pretty much means soft core territory. Oral sex, and other things like that? It doesn't matter what I say because people will argue either way. I'm going to say that actual cock in mouth, to ejaculation is wandering into hardcore territory. Where as hands on upper body private parts, kissing, that sort of thing keeps it closer to soft core territory.
Hard Core- Hard core is the sex act being depicted is actually real. So there is actual penetration, or multiple penetrations, there is lots of real baby batter being slung around. All that fits into hard core. Hard core is massive.
Note that neither of these definitions rely on numbers or genders. So if you have 57 Transexuals all standing around naked...soft core. Where as two women using a double sided dildo is hardcore. There is also no allusion to quality. Hardcore and soft core can all be equally trashy, or refined.
Fetish- Fetish pornography is something that adds an additional element into the mix that sexualizes something that is non sexual. Spanking, insertion, bondage, fully clothed sex, water sports, the use of religiouse iconography, clowns, these all fit into the fetish category. Note that fetish doesn't stand totally on its own. So it is possible to have softcore fetish porn & Hardcore fetish porn. It is important to seperate fetish porn out because it definatly plays by a diffrent series of rules. Note there is a diffrence between Fetish porn and things that just make us squimish. So fisting for example, makes me squimish, however, it is not a fetish thing, it is a hand going into a vagina. Whereas a foot, 4 Zucchin, 1 Squid, a stump left by an amputated limb, or a barbie doll would all be consindered fetish porn because it is taking something non sexual and turning it into something sexual.
Art- This one is going to be controversial. However, there is porn out there, that is still very much porn, but it tries to do something else other than just be straight up porn. This is a result of either production values, them doing something exparamental, or just trying to make a statement with the porn itself. This category will make more sense when I do the art/porn venn diagram in a lil bit. This is prolly also a very small genra at the moment. Lots of softcore porn fits into the this area. People who like to tastefully photograph nudes? Art porn look at that. Whereas the destricted project, is an example of hardcore art porn. This is also here to purposly confuddle the art/porn divide. Cause why not?
Finally there is:
Bad Porn- Bad porn is porn that just about everyone can agree is bad. Bad bad bad. This includes things like childporn, rape porn, crushing, and snuff. Yeah yeah the fbi claims that they have never found a real snuff film. Right, cause they did such a bang up job uncovering the 9/11 plot, as well as the amazing work they do curbing the drug trade. Really? The fbi hasn't found something? Holy shit you don't say.
Rant on the fbi's failures aside this pretty much covers everything. It feels weird breaking things into genras it isn't something I am good at, nor is it something I paticularly agree with. See people get way to fixated on genras and they start coming up with all these strange micro genras that really aren't nessisary. I mean look at meatal, you have black metal, speed metal, doom metal, drone metal, goth metal, as well as a whole bunch of others when in reality each of these genras only covers a small handful of bands. I've kept each genra loosely definied and it is OKAY to have something fit into more than one genra. Some people like the ultra specificity of micro genras. I would talk about these people dismissivly but sasha is one of them and she can beat me up. It is one of those things we disagree on but don't argue about because really? At the end of the day I have people for that sort of thing. New genras will be developed and that's all well and good. Getting the ball rolling is the most important part.
It also helps make the whole subject become so much less monolithic. I mean jesus christ, do people know how silly they sound when they say pornography is/does/says X? Hell the first part of the project was going to be on the pornography pattern, but I've changed it up to be the pornography checklist because people keep doing it in diffrent order. Good. Well looks like this is just about wrapped up. Barns and Noble totally lost my order so I am not able to go do things like read Simulacrum and Simulation. Though I realize that at some point I am going to have to address Foucault. I. Don't. Fucking. Want. To. I'm going to do it anyway. It is such a miserable chore though and he doesn't really adress anything I am writting about. He uses endless historical examples that go on FOREVER to make relativly minor points. Also the whole knowlage/power thing? I dunno it doesn't really seem to fit in. Not when I am doing real people like Bauldillard and Lacan. Since I am returning the discussion of porn back to its actual basics, by looking at actual porn then writting about that the way I would a novel, Foucault doesn't seem all to paticularly applicable.
Oh well. I might be able to do something with the panopticon and voyerism or something like that. That has some promise, but it isn't really postmodern, it is panotpicomics which is something I consider to be diffrent. If I do anything with Foucault it will be power relations in BDSM. Though ultimatly I would rather do somehting about how the bdsm porn enforces power relations, whereas most bdsm relationships have a symbiotic relationship to them. My source texts would be some generic bdsm pornos, Venus in Furs, and Secretary. I'd flip that mother fucker on his ear I would. See though, it doesn't really fit into my project though so I guess not. Eh whatever fuck Foucault, sure he makes some valid points but only in very limited situations.
Whatever that chick that tackled the pope, she should of grabbed Foucault while she had the chance.
See Bauldillard is directly useful. He talks about the dangers of putting our ideas of what the real is before the real itself. He also talks about how things are so fake that they make the rest of the world seem super real. These two ideas, right there? Yeah 15 page essays easy. See take the idea of putting ideas of the real before the real. Women have cosmo, men have porn. You put the two of them together and it is no wonder why people's ideas of what actually happens during sex is so fucked up.
Oh well back to work I'll get back to this some more later.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Post Modernism Pornography Project opening shots
This is where it is all going to begin. Right here. I still have a lot of reading to do, luckily I actually ordered a copy of Simulacrum and Simulation along with Ecrits, so they should be coming in the mail any day now. I hope to be elbow deep in them soon. 1000 Plateaus, while it is something I love dearly, is not something I can use as a foundational step in my writting. So it has gone back to the shelf temporarly because it was really forcing me to get off track. Rizomatics will work best for extreame fetish pornography not, your baseline Jenna Jameson stuff which is where I am starting from.
Still getting some foundational thought work done will go a long way twords making thins whole thing go smoothly.
And so, what is pornography?
Oh fuck. Project over.
Just kidding. Seriously though pornography is something that needs a definition to it. And it needs to be better than "You'll know it when you see it" though I do bless the supreme court for that decision. No worries though I am not 12 people 7 of whom must agree with me, I am an army of one. I am army strong as well.
The inhenent problem with coming up with a deifination of pornography is the art porn divide. See art and porn share a one way binary relationship. Something is either art or it is porn. Porn can never be considered art, and art can never be considered porn. Even attempts to confuddle the barrier like the Destrictided project which is a series of short art films which all feature real sex acts, is hailed as an art film and doesn't make the pornographic rounds the same way as...well porn does. Once we understand this binary opposition it becomes very easy to break down. Why is there such a clear opposition? Simple! Pornography has sevearly negative conotations to it, whereas art has a protected status in our, ie american, mindset.
So when coming up with a definition of pornography they only real descision is what bullet do we choose to bite?
I've come up with 2 analogies to help make this work, the horror movie analogy and the action movie analogy. We are going to start off with the horror movie one because it is the bad one.
Saw. Getting a good solid definition of porn can be easily done through Saw. When most people are dismissing the saw movies, they will dismiss them as torture porn. That is to saw that the plot is nothing more than a thin veneer for getting people trapped in ludicris situations and watching them try to escape as they inflict horrible amounts of pain on themselves and others. Hostel is another great example, as is House of 1000 Corpses. These movies excist in only the flimsyest sense of the word. They have the bearest trappings of plot and setting just so that the gore effects have a vehicle for which you can ride in. There is actually a genra of extreme German gore film which is nothing but an endless repitition of gore effects. They are really boring to watch. Never the less we continue onwards.
This definition fits porn extreamly well, however, it has sevearly negative conotations to it. Also despite several attempts by many directors horror movies have yet to really breach that art/entertainment gap. They still fit neatly into a sort of dull turgid genra of exploitation, even with offerings such as Inside, Eyes Without a Face, and The Devils Rejects, the genra itself is poorly regarded. Which is all porn will ever be. Poorly regarded, and that's not the point of this project. I want porn to be more than its set peices. It isn't most of the time but I see nothing wrong in demanding higher quality porn. I'll go into it more later but I am running out of time so lets get to its flip side.
The flip side is the action movie. Action movies are a diverse genera. It has its share of trash. Okay let's face it most of the genra is trash. However, it does have some highly entertaining entries, 5th Element, Con Air, The Rock, and Die Hard 3: Die Hard with a Vengence. Man that movie has a long title. Oh I forgot Leathal Weap... never mind. Then there are some entrants into the genra that are actually quite clever, Fight Club is an amazingly intelegent movie that breaks the third wall, has a non linear narrative, all without the movie goers really noticing. You'll even have people arguing that Fight Club is more of a Drama than an action movie because they don't want that action movie association. It is though deal. There is also Crank, Crank is one of the most visually clever movies in years, it gives all sorts of nods to the audience regarding the fact that the main charecter is kinda dumb but that's okay cause we like him anyway. Crank also beats up on the third wall showing off the fact that it is a movie and we can all relax.
This is where pornography needs to be. Instead of dismissing it as we do the horror genra, sorry horror genra, we can maintain a more healthy relationship to it. I am not shooting for the stars here, but to put it on the same ideological level as the action movie. They have the potential for greatness, they have the potential to be meaningless acts of entertainment, and the genra is mostly crap.
Right now, we see pornography as something that is directly wrong. We have laws about viewing it, and I can't get a couple of paintings I needed to illustrate some other points I was going to make because my work has banned sites with nudity, including...art nudity. So when I get back to this again on... Wendsday? Maybe? I'll start breaking down the art/porn barrier I'll also make those analogies make more sense as I go along. You'll get it. The idea is to make porn not so strange and alien.
Oh I also want to break porn down into gereas because right now when I say porn I am emcompassing everything from softcore to crushing and that's just a little to broad. Yar I want my books damnit I am excited!
Still getting some foundational thought work done will go a long way twords making thins whole thing go smoothly.
And so, what is pornography?
Oh fuck. Project over.
Just kidding. Seriously though pornography is something that needs a definition to it. And it needs to be better than "You'll know it when you see it" though I do bless the supreme court for that decision. No worries though I am not 12 people 7 of whom must agree with me, I am an army of one. I am army strong as well.
The inhenent problem with coming up with a deifination of pornography is the art porn divide. See art and porn share a one way binary relationship. Something is either art or it is porn. Porn can never be considered art, and art can never be considered porn. Even attempts to confuddle the barrier like the Destrictided project which is a series of short art films which all feature real sex acts, is hailed as an art film and doesn't make the pornographic rounds the same way as...well porn does. Once we understand this binary opposition it becomes very easy to break down. Why is there such a clear opposition? Simple! Pornography has sevearly negative conotations to it, whereas art has a protected status in our, ie american, mindset.
So when coming up with a definition of pornography they only real descision is what bullet do we choose to bite?
I've come up with 2 analogies to help make this work, the horror movie analogy and the action movie analogy. We are going to start off with the horror movie one because it is the bad one.
Saw. Getting a good solid definition of porn can be easily done through Saw. When most people are dismissing the saw movies, they will dismiss them as torture porn. That is to saw that the plot is nothing more than a thin veneer for getting people trapped in ludicris situations and watching them try to escape as they inflict horrible amounts of pain on themselves and others. Hostel is another great example, as is House of 1000 Corpses. These movies excist in only the flimsyest sense of the word. They have the bearest trappings of plot and setting just so that the gore effects have a vehicle for which you can ride in. There is actually a genra of extreme German gore film which is nothing but an endless repitition of gore effects. They are really boring to watch. Never the less we continue onwards.
This definition fits porn extreamly well, however, it has sevearly negative conotations to it. Also despite several attempts by many directors horror movies have yet to really breach that art/entertainment gap. They still fit neatly into a sort of dull turgid genra of exploitation, even with offerings such as Inside, Eyes Without a Face, and The Devils Rejects, the genra itself is poorly regarded. Which is all porn will ever be. Poorly regarded, and that's not the point of this project. I want porn to be more than its set peices. It isn't most of the time but I see nothing wrong in demanding higher quality porn. I'll go into it more later but I am running out of time so lets get to its flip side.
The flip side is the action movie. Action movies are a diverse genera. It has its share of trash. Okay let's face it most of the genra is trash. However, it does have some highly entertaining entries, 5th Element, Con Air, The Rock, and Die Hard 3: Die Hard with a Vengence. Man that movie has a long title. Oh I forgot Leathal Weap... never mind. Then there are some entrants into the genra that are actually quite clever, Fight Club is an amazingly intelegent movie that breaks the third wall, has a non linear narrative, all without the movie goers really noticing. You'll even have people arguing that Fight Club is more of a Drama than an action movie because they don't want that action movie association. It is though deal. There is also Crank, Crank is one of the most visually clever movies in years, it gives all sorts of nods to the audience regarding the fact that the main charecter is kinda dumb but that's okay cause we like him anyway. Crank also beats up on the third wall showing off the fact that it is a movie and we can all relax.
This is where pornography needs to be. Instead of dismissing it as we do the horror genra, sorry horror genra, we can maintain a more healthy relationship to it. I am not shooting for the stars here, but to put it on the same ideological level as the action movie. They have the potential for greatness, they have the potential to be meaningless acts of entertainment, and the genra is mostly crap.
Right now, we see pornography as something that is directly wrong. We have laws about viewing it, and I can't get a couple of paintings I needed to illustrate some other points I was going to make because my work has banned sites with nudity, including...art nudity. So when I get back to this again on... Wendsday? Maybe? I'll start breaking down the art/porn barrier I'll also make those analogies make more sense as I go along. You'll get it. The idea is to make porn not so strange and alien.
Oh I also want to break porn down into gereas because right now when I say porn I am emcompassing everything from softcore to crushing and that's just a little to broad. Yar I want my books damnit I am excited!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Not Phantasy Star Zero
Yeah right now I really really want to be playing that game cause it is frigging awesome. However, I'm starting to suspect that it is becoming a bit of a problem so off to blogger land instead! I'm on the home stretch for my novel, if all goes right I'll hit 50k by friday! Then I'll be back to my normal blogging schedual including a nice big indepth blog on the whole ups and downs of the novel writting process.
What I am instead going to talk about is why do Americans work the way they do. It's interesting really. If you don't know, go look up the amount of vacation time you'd get in England or France. The rest of europe follows suit. On top of that they are expected to stay home when sick, they get holidays off, and all sorts of other crazy things.
I don't want to focus to much on that though. Even if Europe doesn't excist the average worker is pretty crazy here in the USA. White Collar wise they work 40 hours minimum. They are oftentimes expected to take their work home if it isn't done by the end of the day, come in on weekends, and all with no additional financial benefit. That's the fucked up thing about salaried empolyment, you get fuck all in terms of over time compensation and you end up working a lot of it. It is kind of insane. The worst insident of this I've ever seen with my own eyes happened back when I was working help desk a place called Supra Telecom. They were doing major upgrades to the network. So they had a team of contractors come in over night to do the job. My boss, the network administrator, gets to work at about 7am or so. He works the whole day, stays over night to help out with the crew doing the upgrades, and then he works until 12 the next day when he finnally decides that he is going mother fucking home. To give you a little history 5 years ago this guy was fresh off the boat from Greece of all places and working in a warehouse. He's a man who took the time to educate himself so that he could make a better life for him and his family. He deserves better.
Leaving white collar and IT behind minimum wage jobs, and blue collare employers are actually even worse about abusing their employees. I'm talking unpaid over time, unsafe working conditions, or skirting the bare edges of the employment laws to squeeze the most out of each and every person until there is nothing left. This all isn't from person experience either. Nor is this an unfocused rant. I... okay well I lost the link that has all the numbers. Wait no I found one! I am doing this at lunch so my time is somewhat limited. It has european numbers too! Woop!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-h-williamson/why-do-americans-work-so_b_362111.html
Anyway. They ask why do we work so hard. It's an article with an open question that I will attempt to answer now that the whole framing part of the blog is done. The answer is two fold, American employers are dicks, and there is absolutely nothing from stopping them from being dicks. Historically speaking America has always had a large influx of immigrant population to make things happen. In the north around the civil war time we had the irish. Lots of irish who were fleeing a potato famine. There was no hope back home, work here, and as the maxim goes there are more where you came from so you will put up with whatever horrors we inflict upon you otherwise we will just do it to someone else. In the south we had slavery which is basicly the same thing as the irish except we paid their life time salary up front to someone else. I'm half joking put the damn rocks down. We made the chinese build our rail roads, cause you know they came over here and, well they might as well. The list doesn't go on much further though, unless you want to count the Mexicans doing every shit job ever, which you should.
With the miners we saw the first organized reisitance which coincides with some of the most apalling working conditions ever seen and easy access to dynamite. I don't think people really understand that in order to get mine owners to not be such massive collective mother fucking ass holes they literally had to engage in terrorist actions to make them stop. They blew up bridges, mine shafts, rail lines, all sorts of things. Of course back then they were called Anarchists, but in order to wrest back some basic human rights that should be a part of our consititution, lots of people had to die.
We also had to go to war with ourselves to make ourselves stop using slavery. I really do hate the whole states rights part of the civil war thing. Blah blah blah federal government this and that. NO motherfucker you can not use black people as disposable labor and going neener neerer not part of your country anymore isn't going to save you. Put your rebel flag down.
Rants aside. Blue collars, thanks to the anarchists have unions to hell and back as a result most of the blue collar work went overseas. Its funny, why wait for immigration to happen when we can just go to them? Its cheaper and their countries have less laws. Or we started abusing our white collar workers.
I think I am going to make this a two parter.
Anyway! So yeah employers are dicks. Why is it better in europe? Well they had royalty. They had empires, and they understand that it is important to treat your population with care and respect, not only that but to make sure that other people treat them with care and respect. That is kind of how that works. I mean saying a blanket statment about europe is retarded because there is so much to it and so many diffrent overriding factors. But this is one that paticularly stands out. One thing that makes them very diffrent than us. I do think it is one paticularly critical diffrence between them and us. There is also the historical idea that many of our ancestors came over here to get away from monarchy.
I'm not saying europe is perfect. They had all the same human rights violations we did. THey had them worse in some cases. But they also didn't go to war over stopping with the slavery, and they don't ride their empolyees like we do here now. So something is certainly diffrent.
What I am instead going to talk about is why do Americans work the way they do. It's interesting really. If you don't know, go look up the amount of vacation time you'd get in England or France. The rest of europe follows suit. On top of that they are expected to stay home when sick, they get holidays off, and all sorts of other crazy things.
I don't want to focus to much on that though. Even if Europe doesn't excist the average worker is pretty crazy here in the USA. White Collar wise they work 40 hours minimum. They are oftentimes expected to take their work home if it isn't done by the end of the day, come in on weekends, and all with no additional financial benefit. That's the fucked up thing about salaried empolyment, you get fuck all in terms of over time compensation and you end up working a lot of it. It is kind of insane. The worst insident of this I've ever seen with my own eyes happened back when I was working help desk a place called Supra Telecom. They were doing major upgrades to the network. So they had a team of contractors come in over night to do the job. My boss, the network administrator, gets to work at about 7am or so. He works the whole day, stays over night to help out with the crew doing the upgrades, and then he works until 12 the next day when he finnally decides that he is going mother fucking home. To give you a little history 5 years ago this guy was fresh off the boat from Greece of all places and working in a warehouse. He's a man who took the time to educate himself so that he could make a better life for him and his family. He deserves better.
Leaving white collar and IT behind minimum wage jobs, and blue collare employers are actually even worse about abusing their employees. I'm talking unpaid over time, unsafe working conditions, or skirting the bare edges of the employment laws to squeeze the most out of each and every person until there is nothing left. This all isn't from person experience either. Nor is this an unfocused rant. I... okay well I lost the link that has all the numbers. Wait no I found one! I am doing this at lunch so my time is somewhat limited. It has european numbers too! Woop!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-h-williamson/why-do-americans-work-so_b_362111.html
Anyway. They ask why do we work so hard. It's an article with an open question that I will attempt to answer now that the whole framing part of the blog is done. The answer is two fold, American employers are dicks, and there is absolutely nothing from stopping them from being dicks. Historically speaking America has always had a large influx of immigrant population to make things happen. In the north around the civil war time we had the irish. Lots of irish who were fleeing a potato famine. There was no hope back home, work here, and as the maxim goes there are more where you came from so you will put up with whatever horrors we inflict upon you otherwise we will just do it to someone else. In the south we had slavery which is basicly the same thing as the irish except we paid their life time salary up front to someone else. I'm half joking put the damn rocks down. We made the chinese build our rail roads, cause you know they came over here and, well they might as well. The list doesn't go on much further though, unless you want to count the Mexicans doing every shit job ever, which you should.
With the miners we saw the first organized reisitance which coincides with some of the most apalling working conditions ever seen and easy access to dynamite. I don't think people really understand that in order to get mine owners to not be such massive collective mother fucking ass holes they literally had to engage in terrorist actions to make them stop. They blew up bridges, mine shafts, rail lines, all sorts of things. Of course back then they were called Anarchists, but in order to wrest back some basic human rights that should be a part of our consititution, lots of people had to die.
We also had to go to war with ourselves to make ourselves stop using slavery. I really do hate the whole states rights part of the civil war thing. Blah blah blah federal government this and that. NO motherfucker you can not use black people as disposable labor and going neener neerer not part of your country anymore isn't going to save you. Put your rebel flag down.
Rants aside. Blue collars, thanks to the anarchists have unions to hell and back as a result most of the blue collar work went overseas. Its funny, why wait for immigration to happen when we can just go to them? Its cheaper and their countries have less laws. Or we started abusing our white collar workers.
I think I am going to make this a two parter.
Anyway! So yeah employers are dicks. Why is it better in europe? Well they had royalty. They had empires, and they understand that it is important to treat your population with care and respect, not only that but to make sure that other people treat them with care and respect. That is kind of how that works. I mean saying a blanket statment about europe is retarded because there is so much to it and so many diffrent overriding factors. But this is one that paticularly stands out. One thing that makes them very diffrent than us. I do think it is one paticularly critical diffrence between them and us. There is also the historical idea that many of our ancestors came over here to get away from monarchy.
I'm not saying europe is perfect. They had all the same human rights violations we did. THey had them worse in some cases. But they also didn't go to war over stopping with the slavery, and they don't ride their empolyees like we do here now. So something is certainly diffrent.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Take Africa...Please
I've been trying to write a blog post about Africa for three days now. Last night I pulled out some of my theory books, and thought to myself, "hell maybe I'll write a for real paper" I reread all the comic books involved and then I realized something. There was no way in hell I could do this.
It started with a comic called The Unknown Soldier which is what the fuck mega awesome and you need to go read it right the fuck now. It deals with the stuff going down in Uguanda. I also have another comic that is dealing with what is going in Darlfur, and there is a one shot of Thor where he visits some no name country in Africa. So I started getting all my source material together and I started to realize things. First off I didn't even know if Darlfur and Uguanda were the same place (Darfur is a region of Sudan not Uguanda). I then realized that the country in Thor was a real place. I did a little bit more preliminary reading and I realized that...holy shit this is big. I abandoned the project because of this problem. See we aren't talking about just Darfur, or Uguanda. We are talking about the better part of an entire continent. If they aren't genociding each other than there is famine, waste and corruption. Aids is sweeping across the entire continent at such a pace that if we stick our heads in the sand for long enough the Africa problem will solve itself. The entire continent is a disaster on a scale that simply hasn't been seen before or since. People like to blame colonialism but I think colonialism is mearly the thing that shined an ugly light on the problem.
See if it was down to one region I could say something, but this is a continent, I can't even imagine operating on that sort of scale. Okay I can, but it would be bad.
So lets turn to history. Europe used to be a shitty place to live. That place was in a series of wars more or less constantly up until WW1, WW2 was there to make sure that they never have an argument ever again about anything. Going through and looking at all the crap they used to do to each other? I mean man that was some fucked up shit. Then something happened and it all stopped.
China was roughly the same way. The whole of modern day china used to be several smaller warring factions, it wasn't until Cao Cao united the land through war and bloodshed that things began to settle down.
Japan had the same thing happen under Tokagowa, Ceaser conquored the known world and Alexander the Great did the same thing before him. Lets take a look at Pax Romana. 200 years of peace. There wasn't 200 years of peace everwhere mind you, I'm sure the Incas were kicking up a fuss, and Navahos were off making someone's life miserable, but you get the idea. Big sweeping war, then peace.
Now there is Africa, the cesspool of the world. Even if I were to go in and conquor it tomarrow I wouldn't want to keep it. The roman empire was more modern then that place.
There see that's it though. That is the voice of colonialism. The voice which says my way is better and here I am going to show you how, then I am going to make you do it that way. But...at the moment our way is better. It is LOOK. I mean my god there are people there who just want to go home and not have to worry about getting raped, then hacked apart by machettes. We aren't the best country in the world, not by a long shot. I also don't think democracy is the one true way. I do think that just ignore Africa under the mantra of, "they can figgure it out for themselves" is more than just a little bit bullshitty.
Big projects don't really scare me but lets face it, we can't even not fuck up Iraq. Imagine trying to deal with all of or even part of Africa? We would have to kill millions just so that they could be slightly safe.
As far as I am concerned this is a problem that won't go away as a result of diplomacy or any of that other crap. But ignoring it? Ignoring it is just unacceptable to me.
The most I can think of is this. Protect those who wish to live peacefully as best as we are able. They are the future of that country. While we protect them we can show them sustainable farming and such so they don't end up with the same problems as us. I dunno, the answer is actually very simple. It is however, just to big. It is something the whole world needs to be concerned with, it is something the rest of africa needs to be concerned with. No one wants another Ceaser, Cao Cao, et cetera, but the better way requires all of us.
It started with a comic called The Unknown Soldier which is what the fuck mega awesome and you need to go read it right the fuck now. It deals with the stuff going down in Uguanda. I also have another comic that is dealing with what is going in Darlfur, and there is a one shot of Thor where he visits some no name country in Africa. So I started getting all my source material together and I started to realize things. First off I didn't even know if Darlfur and Uguanda were the same place (Darfur is a region of Sudan not Uguanda). I then realized that the country in Thor was a real place. I did a little bit more preliminary reading and I realized that...holy shit this is big. I abandoned the project because of this problem. See we aren't talking about just Darfur, or Uguanda. We are talking about the better part of an entire continent. If they aren't genociding each other than there is famine, waste and corruption. Aids is sweeping across the entire continent at such a pace that if we stick our heads in the sand for long enough the Africa problem will solve itself. The entire continent is a disaster on a scale that simply hasn't been seen before or since. People like to blame colonialism but I think colonialism is mearly the thing that shined an ugly light on the problem.
See if it was down to one region I could say something, but this is a continent, I can't even imagine operating on that sort of scale. Okay I can, but it would be bad.
So lets turn to history. Europe used to be a shitty place to live. That place was in a series of wars more or less constantly up until WW1, WW2 was there to make sure that they never have an argument ever again about anything. Going through and looking at all the crap they used to do to each other? I mean man that was some fucked up shit. Then something happened and it all stopped.
China was roughly the same way. The whole of modern day china used to be several smaller warring factions, it wasn't until Cao Cao united the land through war and bloodshed that things began to settle down.
Japan had the same thing happen under Tokagowa, Ceaser conquored the known world and Alexander the Great did the same thing before him. Lets take a look at Pax Romana. 200 years of peace. There wasn't 200 years of peace everwhere mind you, I'm sure the Incas were kicking up a fuss, and Navahos were off making someone's life miserable, but you get the idea. Big sweeping war, then peace.
Now there is Africa, the cesspool of the world. Even if I were to go in and conquor it tomarrow I wouldn't want to keep it. The roman empire was more modern then that place.
There see that's it though. That is the voice of colonialism. The voice which says my way is better and here I am going to show you how, then I am going to make you do it that way. But...at the moment our way is better. It is LOOK. I mean my god there are people there who just want to go home and not have to worry about getting raped, then hacked apart by machettes. We aren't the best country in the world, not by a long shot. I also don't think democracy is the one true way. I do think that just ignore Africa under the mantra of, "they can figgure it out for themselves" is more than just a little bit bullshitty.
Big projects don't really scare me but lets face it, we can't even not fuck up Iraq. Imagine trying to deal with all of or even part of Africa? We would have to kill millions just so that they could be slightly safe.
As far as I am concerned this is a problem that won't go away as a result of diplomacy or any of that other crap. But ignoring it? Ignoring it is just unacceptable to me.
The most I can think of is this. Protect those who wish to live peacefully as best as we are able. They are the future of that country. While we protect them we can show them sustainable farming and such so they don't end up with the same problems as us. I dunno, the answer is actually very simple. It is however, just to big. It is something the whole world needs to be concerned with, it is something the rest of africa needs to be concerned with. No one wants another Ceaser, Cao Cao, et cetera, but the better way requires all of us.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The New Post
...go read the post before this one. Then read this one. Why? Because I am WAY to lazy to go use bloggers publishing options.
Okay you done? Actually I don't care.
So Language games! First some preliminary reading.
"2....Let us imagine a language ...The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones; there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words 'block', 'pillar', 'slab', 'beam'. A calls them out; --B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. -- Conceive of this as a complete primitive language. "
"6. We could imagine that the language of (2) was the whole language of A and B; even the whole language of a tribe. The children are brought up to perform these actions, to use these words as they do so, and to react in this way to the words of others."
"7. In the practice of the use of language (2) one party calls out the words, the other acts on them. In instruction in the language the following process will occur: the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word when the teacher points to the stone.--And there will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil repeats the words after the teacher--both of these being processes resembling language. We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will call these games 'language-games' and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game.
Okay you done? Actually I don't care.
So Language games! First some preliminary reading.
"2....Let us imagine a language ...The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones; there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words 'block', 'pillar', 'slab', 'beam'. A calls them out; --B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. -- Conceive of this as a complete primitive language. "
"6. We could imagine that the language of (2) was the whole language of A and B; even the whole language of a tribe. The children are brought up to perform these actions, to use these words as they do so, and to react in this way to the words of others."
"7. In the practice of the use of language (2) one party calls out the words, the other acts on them. In instruction in the language the following process will occur: the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word when the teacher points to the stone.--And there will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil repeats the words after the teacher--both of these being processes resembling language. We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will call these games 'language-games' and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game.
And the processes of naming the stones and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of much of the use of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses. "
Wittgenstein is neat. It also gets much much more complicated later on. Right now though we can all be good with that. Yeah? Well to bad that is all I could find off the interwebs at the moment. Those numbers at the start of each quote are actually in the text. He did that to make the whole thing easily cross reffrencable. You can see it happen in both 6&7 where he reffrences 2. It's neat he was dyslexic so he broke up his text like that to avoid tripping over himself like I am wont to do. He als does it because he is weird.
Language games is one of the foundational building blocks which I used to construct my ideas of both politics and the outer church. It is also the way I use to justify a lot of my ideas regarding the way we construct our value systems and moral beliefs. Language is how we communicate after all, not just with each other but also inside our own heads as well. When we think to ourselves we don't revert to some basic proto language that only works for ourselves, this is unfortunate and I think I might get started building one. No our own introspection is affected by language as well.
Alright all ready off to the point. If you aren't on board by now I'll catch you later. Lets start big and work our way down. At this historical moment the biggest, shineyest, example of one word meaning all sorts of diffrent things is nigger. Oh yeah. I don't really throw that word around to be big scary or shocking, but lets face it. This is the clearest example of what I am talking about ever.
Quick run down
Black on Black- Some of them disaproove of it, some of them don't care, but the offense is mild to moderate at worst.
White on White- Well if I walk past you and hear I will think you are stupid. It is generally used ironically...or as a synonym for dude.
Black on White- Not a good idea.
That's how language games work. Honestly, I would be better off with another Wittgenstein quote but it will do. Go back up to two. Stone has a diffrent meaning between builder assistent than it would between two people hanging out looking at pretty rocks. I illustrated this with nigger. I also chose nigger, because the word itself has a set of ideological values behind it. Black on black it is a source of something, speaking for black culture will just make me look like an idiot but if I had to hazard a guiss I would say that it is a source of identity for them.
When we go white on black it takes that source of identity and preverts it, it turns it ugly in the most profound way possible and makes that identity into a shameful thing. THats so strange too, that identity could be shameful.
Thing is that it connects together for much bigger ideas as well. Groups of people gather together based son something...lets say gaming. Within this gaming group words will take on certain meanings that they don't really have in out side world. Nuts I can't think of one at the moment but they do. So when one member of the gaming group mixes with another group and starts to throw the terms around to people who aren't familiar with it there will be confusion. The closter the word sounds like it actually means something the worst this disconnect will get.
Hyperreality is an excelent example. It sounds like it means something, realtiy that is so real that it becomes unreal. Or whatever you think it means in your head. Its cool. It is actually a theoretical term coined by Bauldillard in his book Simulacra and Simulation. It means something specific. When we take it, and run with it based on what we think it means we are creating a language game around it. When we take it to our friends we induct them into the language game, and this conitnues onwards. The original deinition isn't lost, it is just changed to a limited group of people.
We do this on a much larger scale with ideas.n Lets take... hmm... abortion. No I just erased a paragraph proving that abortion is a terible example. The rules to D20. Actually I just repeat myself by saying the same thing in the nigger section.
The problem here is that this is fundamental. It is also unique not only with every individual person, but also with every group of people that person interacts with. I think I am going to come back to this topic in a little bit.
What I am running into is the problem that people act diffrently in a group of people than alone. There is a certain vidication in knowing that next to you there are people who hold the same beliefs and that you two are playing the same language game when you speak to each other. Those who we choose to surround ourselves with have a much bigger impact on our actions than say a talking head in a box. We will take that talking head's words and we will convert it to our own. Or we will take our own rules and convert them to the talking heads. Either way. Okay yeah I need to come back to this one after some reading. There is more here I just need to get at it. I also want a pretzle.
Keeping my Promises
Media Dogmaists and you
Or perhaps you are one of them. It is hard to say. See there is this piece of convetional wisdom that "the media" is this all encompassing urentity which controls "the masses". This is an argument that for a long time I agreed with and even advanced every so often. Then... I started to make arguments that advanced things like personal responcibility, and I started to break away from the idea of reffering to people as empty souless masses and I started to recognize them more as people. More and more the arguments for media dogmaism began to fall by the wayside further and further until now I am on the other side of the argument. The problem is that I didn't take the rest of the world with me and I can't do my outer church politics love fest when I have people still believing that we are a homogenious mass of that all think/believe the same thing and that it is the media that makes us this way. I realize now that I can describe the media's eddects in terms of my own theory, and I might either do that later as part of a larger post where I talk aobut the catholic church along with it. Still we need to do some generalized practical work, and flying off on my own little thing is appealing but I'll wait a little bit before doing so.
I need to repaint my nails. TThere are three of us again which means no more pots and pans. Don't worry that's code for something, if you were menat to know you'll know.
First a linguistic approch. THe phrase "Media control". Meida control it is one of those things oh man for now on I am spelling media as Medea because that is really cool. Medea control, is one of those concepts that we don't even question anymore. The medea gives out information, people absorb this infomation as fact and they don't form their own opinions, instead their opinions comes from the "dark part" of the medea. Reductive? No not really that is how these people believe the world works. There is this fundamental belief that other people all think diffrently and by diffrently not at all. However, in terms of people and their responces, the media controls NOTHING. Nothing at all. They do not have mind control lasers, they do not beam information directly into people's heads, they don't even force us to watch. No. What the media does is influence people's views.
Yeah that may not seem like such a big deal. However it is. I don't think there is a big fancy latin term for it. BUT it is a logical fallicy. Or I suppose more accuratly it is a rhetorical trick. Eiher way it is one of the lower of the blows. See by using the word control it adds an extra sense of urgency to the arguement that simply isn't present when we use a term like influence even though influence is the more accurate term. Control is one person asserting their will over another suplanting desires and free will. That is what control is. Control isn't a narrowing of options it is me telling you what it is you will do. Control is hot. The media no more controls what people think and believe any more than video games lead to violent behavior. You can tell you can watch yourself a little Glenn Beck Marathon and not think he is right once.
If you hadn't guessed it the video game thing is part of my next point. See this is another fallicy which does have a fancy name but I can't remember what it is. I also don't feel like looking it up. See this presupposes that you believe that the media isn't a major influence in violent behavior. If you think violent media CAUSES violent behavior see the above section. Enough on that topic. Behavior, and beliefs are two different things but they are indeed closely linked. Lots of people behave based on their beliefs, you know how that goes.
Now I'd use these two arguments to form an ideological wedge which I can then use to pry their argument open and I can begin pulling out all the garbage that they have had rammed into their heads from... you know I have no idea where it comes from.
As a brief aside the idea of media control is actually really simplistic. This is because it is so rarely challanged. I mean the only people who would stick up for the media are people in the media or drones. Drones are awesome but should generally be written up as either special cases or lost causes. You essentially have to deprogram these people which is a fascinating process, but it is also something I've never managed to successfully do. I've come close, but man it is rough going. Anyway, no forget the anyway I just sort of airdropped drones in without explaining what is going on lets get to that.
Back when nintendo was a real company we called them Nintendbots. They are the people who get violent during the coke vs. Pepsi debat, and heaven forbid you run into one of them while you are trying to talk about something real. These are the drones. People who have entirely surrendered themselves to whatever dogma happens to catch their atension. They are big, loud, kind of scary, and they will whole hearted believe just about anything no matter how utterly insane it is. These are the people that media dogmaists end up pointing at the most. They do present a tricky thing to work around. One thing that is important to do is to remeber that these people have always excisted. THere has pretty much always been an entity out there telling people what to think. The easiest and most famous example of this starts with a C and ends in atholic church. Sure sure religion blah blah blah. I am willing to say that the catholic church used religion as a convient vehicle to get its message acrost without being argued with. The media just had to develope some really interesting tools.
I think I got mos of this down and taken care of. One of the things I need to address, is something that actually came out of left field for me, and that is the unifying effect of the internet. The funny thing about this argument is that it, it, god I actually don't know where to begin because it is so perfect. So utterly perfect that you can't even begin to imagine it. The argument as presented is that the internet acts as a unifying force which allows fringe groups to gather together under one banner. I'm not sure where it came from or how but it caught me off gaurd with how utterly wrong that statement is and how utterly perfect it is for my point.
The internet here died and I forgot how much I love notpad. Then I just fixed it! Still love note pad. Anyway...
The internet as a unfying force? Are you seriouse? That is about as far away from the truth as you can possibly get in terms of what the internet does. As a communication platform, it generally is a spectacular failure on a grand scale. Take look at the evolution of blogger, which came from livejornal, and before that the personal webpage. Lets face it right now I am just a little bit better than a talking head. See you can leave a comment or something, but there is no gaurntee I'll read it. Actually FYI I get no notiication what so ever when people leave a comment so sometimes months will go by before I will see it. The communication here is nearly entirely one way. There are forums, but lets face it forums are more people shouting their opionons next to each other rather than to each other. There isn't enough of a dialouge, and even when there is, the conversation is rife with things like misinterpretation, people reading to fast, or even people no teading the entire post without thinking. Aim and other chat programs don't really do much better in this regard. Esentially communication over the internet is just like comunication in real life, it is flawed, people don't listen,there is an over excitment to express one's own views rather than to deal with the ones at hand, and actual conncetion is exceedingly rare. The internet is not a solution. It is a tool, just like the rest of "the media".
With the expetion of the drones, people cherry pick what they believe and what they don't. They form their opinions because they agree with what they hear or they see no reason to disagree with it.
This blog became ramble tastic but I enjoyed writting it, I got a better handle on what I want to say for a later date. I need to dig out my copy of philosphical investigations and really put some weight behind this.
Here's how just from memory. See there are the language games... hrm I'm gonna break this off into a new post though.
Or perhaps you are one of them. It is hard to say. See there is this piece of convetional wisdom that "the media" is this all encompassing urentity which controls "the masses". This is an argument that for a long time I agreed with and even advanced every so often. Then... I started to make arguments that advanced things like personal responcibility, and I started to break away from the idea of reffering to people as empty souless masses and I started to recognize them more as people. More and more the arguments for media dogmaism began to fall by the wayside further and further until now I am on the other side of the argument. The problem is that I didn't take the rest of the world with me and I can't do my outer church politics love fest when I have people still believing that we are a homogenious mass of that all think/believe the same thing and that it is the media that makes us this way. I realize now that I can describe the media's eddects in terms of my own theory, and I might either do that later as part of a larger post where I talk aobut the catholic church along with it. Still we need to do some generalized practical work, and flying off on my own little thing is appealing but I'll wait a little bit before doing so.
I need to repaint my nails. TThere are three of us again which means no more pots and pans. Don't worry that's code for something, if you were menat to know you'll know.
First a linguistic approch. THe phrase "Media control". Meida control it is one of those things oh man for now on I am spelling media as Medea because that is really cool. Medea control, is one of those concepts that we don't even question anymore. The medea gives out information, people absorb this infomation as fact and they don't form their own opinions, instead their opinions comes from the "dark part" of the medea. Reductive? No not really that is how these people believe the world works. There is this fundamental belief that other people all think diffrently and by diffrently not at all. However, in terms of people and their responces, the media controls NOTHING. Nothing at all. They do not have mind control lasers, they do not beam information directly into people's heads, they don't even force us to watch. No. What the media does is influence people's views.
Yeah that may not seem like such a big deal. However it is. I don't think there is a big fancy latin term for it. BUT it is a logical fallicy. Or I suppose more accuratly it is a rhetorical trick. Eiher way it is one of the lower of the blows. See by using the word control it adds an extra sense of urgency to the arguement that simply isn't present when we use a term like influence even though influence is the more accurate term. Control is one person asserting their will over another suplanting desires and free will. That is what control is. Control isn't a narrowing of options it is me telling you what it is you will do. Control is hot. The media no more controls what people think and believe any more than video games lead to violent behavior. You can tell you can watch yourself a little Glenn Beck Marathon and not think he is right once.
If you hadn't guessed it the video game thing is part of my next point. See this is another fallicy which does have a fancy name but I can't remember what it is. I also don't feel like looking it up. See this presupposes that you believe that the media isn't a major influence in violent behavior. If you think violent media CAUSES violent behavior see the above section. Enough on that topic. Behavior, and beliefs are two different things but they are indeed closely linked. Lots of people behave based on their beliefs, you know how that goes.
Now I'd use these two arguments to form an ideological wedge which I can then use to pry their argument open and I can begin pulling out all the garbage that they have had rammed into their heads from... you know I have no idea where it comes from.
As a brief aside the idea of media control is actually really simplistic. This is because it is so rarely challanged. I mean the only people who would stick up for the media are people in the media or drones. Drones are awesome but should generally be written up as either special cases or lost causes. You essentially have to deprogram these people which is a fascinating process, but it is also something I've never managed to successfully do. I've come close, but man it is rough going. Anyway, no forget the anyway I just sort of airdropped drones in without explaining what is going on lets get to that.
Back when nintendo was a real company we called them Nintendbots. They are the people who get violent during the coke vs. Pepsi debat, and heaven forbid you run into one of them while you are trying to talk about something real. These are the drones. People who have entirely surrendered themselves to whatever dogma happens to catch their atension. They are big, loud, kind of scary, and they will whole hearted believe just about anything no matter how utterly insane it is. These are the people that media dogmaists end up pointing at the most. They do present a tricky thing to work around. One thing that is important to do is to remeber that these people have always excisted. THere has pretty much always been an entity out there telling people what to think. The easiest and most famous example of this starts with a C and ends in atholic church. Sure sure religion blah blah blah. I am willing to say that the catholic church used religion as a convient vehicle to get its message acrost without being argued with. The media just had to develope some really interesting tools.
I think I got mos of this down and taken care of. One of the things I need to address, is something that actually came out of left field for me, and that is the unifying effect of the internet. The funny thing about this argument is that it, it, god I actually don't know where to begin because it is so perfect. So utterly perfect that you can't even begin to imagine it. The argument as presented is that the internet acts as a unifying force which allows fringe groups to gather together under one banner. I'm not sure where it came from or how but it caught me off gaurd with how utterly wrong that statement is and how utterly perfect it is for my point.
The internet here died and I forgot how much I love notpad. Then I just fixed it! Still love note pad. Anyway...
The internet as a unfying force? Are you seriouse? That is about as far away from the truth as you can possibly get in terms of what the internet does. As a communication platform, it generally is a spectacular failure on a grand scale. Take look at the evolution of blogger, which came from livejornal, and before that the personal webpage. Lets face it right now I am just a little bit better than a talking head. See you can leave a comment or something, but there is no gaurntee I'll read it. Actually FYI I get no notiication what so ever when people leave a comment so sometimes months will go by before I will see it. The communication here is nearly entirely one way. There are forums, but lets face it forums are more people shouting their opionons next to each other rather than to each other. There isn't enough of a dialouge, and even when there is, the conversation is rife with things like misinterpretation, people reading to fast, or even people no teading the entire post without thinking. Aim and other chat programs don't really do much better in this regard. Esentially communication over the internet is just like comunication in real life, it is flawed, people don't listen,there is an over excitment to express one's own views rather than to deal with the ones at hand, and actual conncetion is exceedingly rare. The internet is not a solution. It is a tool, just like the rest of "the media".
With the expetion of the drones, people cherry pick what they believe and what they don't. They form their opinions because they agree with what they hear or they see no reason to disagree with it.
This blog became ramble tastic but I enjoyed writting it, I got a better handle on what I want to say for a later date. I need to dig out my copy of philosphical investigations and really put some weight behind this.
Here's how just from memory. See there are the language games... hrm I'm gonna break this off into a new post though.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Swing
Alright kids so lets be honest, I hated the last two things I wrote, and one of them was a funeral for my ds. So this no longer just affects me. This affects everyone.
So we are going to try this again.
Helium is a freelance writing site where you can make money. It would be like organized versions of me doing this. At the moment I've lost my swing which PISSES Me OFF. So here we are.
On the site though it had an interesting question, under the heading "race issues" it had the age old debate, "Should we ban the southern flag?"
The real question isn't a matter of should the flag be banned or not, (not btw due to 1st amendment reasons) but as to why it is a racial problem.
Why is race part of this question at all? Okay well you all know the obviouse answer, aka the abhorrent slavery thing our country did for quite some time, and it is important to not minimise this fact. The thing is though that the plight of the black people really aren't centeral to the issue. If they were then the nature of the racist problem would of shifted dramatically as a result of the wars outcome, but it didn't. Hell it still is a major problem today for both whites and blacks.
This problem is tricky and I am not thinking clearly so lets lay all the cards out on the table:
The rebel flag is a hyperburdended symbol which holds multiple meanings to multiple groups of people, many of these people feel very passionatly about these meanings and I kinda want to unpack some of them.
First and foremost it is important to take a step back and recognize how minute of a n issue this is geographicaly. Most of the stuff in the lousiana purchase wasn't a state yet, because a great deal of it wasn't settled. Then you have all of california which holds a massive amount of our population today. All the time I've spent in new england, no one really thinks twice about the rebel flag and the fact that it is still flown, to the point, the vast majority of the people in this country don't give a god damn about that stupid flag. I mean lets face it unless you are black or true southern than what does it matter.
It really is important to establish the geographical, and historical context of this problem. It is relativly minute in of itself. It is only because it is tied to racism that this problem gets any press at all. Racism is one of those topics that one can easily write about until the end of time and not really worry about running out of things to say.
So people give knee jerk reactions, racism bad, symbol of rebellion, symbol of freedom, heritage, and any number of other catch phrases. It is a cluster of ideas that doesn't even deserve the term ideology because ideology infers that there is some sort of idea involved. In this conversation there isn't one. Rebel Flag is! See it is that "is" that hangs everyone up.
I find it odd that the rebel flag isn't a part of more art pieces. I mean we get an american flag that's been used as an ass wipe for 15 diffrent homeless vietnam vertrens and it is art. We burn an american flag and it is protest.
We burn a rebel flag and? What are we protesting? Who are we offending? All the right people as far as I am concerned. Burning an american flag is a big deal because it is very much an internalized part of who we are. Even if we don't like it, want to move to canada, whatever. Hating America is an idea that sprang up as soon as there was an america to hate. The confederate flag, it isn't us. It isn't who america is. It doesn't represent its people, hell it doesn't even represent all the people within its intended geographic region.
People say it represents racism, but there are a lot stronger, clearer represntationsd of racism. We have shown in our regretable past that we as a people have little to no trouble demonstrating our racist beliefs. If someone is racist they are going to demonstrate it far clearer than that flag ever could. The flag sparks controversy and I like that, or more that I can respect that. It is important to realize though that this is a self perpetuating discussion that is really very small in scope.
Would/could/shoulds of the situation are all irrelevent. We have to allow it, that is what the freedom of speech means. Protest it any way you see fit. Seriously, I openly encourage you. But if we are really going to get anywhere with this issue and as to what it means, it is essential to move past the fact that this is just a racist issue. Because it isn't just a racist issue. It is also a free speach issue, it is heritage issue, and there is the issue of historical remeberance. We are one country, that almost became two.
There is no real way to end this with any sort of closure. It just is. A problem on the table. What do with do with our hyper burdered schizophretic symbol? Me? I ignore it. Its how I treat most manners of speech I find stupid but no offensive enough to stand against. I mean really REALLY racism has much bigger things to take care of first.
So we are going to try this again.
Helium is a freelance writing site where you can make money. It would be like organized versions of me doing this. At the moment I've lost my swing which PISSES Me OFF. So here we are.
On the site though it had an interesting question, under the heading "race issues" it had the age old debate, "Should we ban the southern flag?"
The real question isn't a matter of should the flag be banned or not, (not btw due to 1st amendment reasons) but as to why it is a racial problem.
Why is race part of this question at all? Okay well you all know the obviouse answer, aka the abhorrent slavery thing our country did for quite some time, and it is important to not minimise this fact. The thing is though that the plight of the black people really aren't centeral to the issue. If they were then the nature of the racist problem would of shifted dramatically as a result of the wars outcome, but it didn't. Hell it still is a major problem today for both whites and blacks.
This problem is tricky and I am not thinking clearly so lets lay all the cards out on the table:
The rebel flag is a hyperburdended symbol which holds multiple meanings to multiple groups of people, many of these people feel very passionatly about these meanings and I kinda want to unpack some of them.
First and foremost it is important to take a step back and recognize how minute of a n issue this is geographicaly. Most of the stuff in the lousiana purchase wasn't a state yet, because a great deal of it wasn't settled. Then you have all of california which holds a massive amount of our population today. All the time I've spent in new england, no one really thinks twice about the rebel flag and the fact that it is still flown, to the point, the vast majority of the people in this country don't give a god damn about that stupid flag. I mean lets face it unless you are black or true southern than what does it matter.
It really is important to establish the geographical, and historical context of this problem. It is relativly minute in of itself. It is only because it is tied to racism that this problem gets any press at all. Racism is one of those topics that one can easily write about until the end of time and not really worry about running out of things to say.
So people give knee jerk reactions, racism bad, symbol of rebellion, symbol of freedom, heritage, and any number of other catch phrases. It is a cluster of ideas that doesn't even deserve the term ideology because ideology infers that there is some sort of idea involved. In this conversation there isn't one. Rebel Flag is! See it is that "is" that hangs everyone up.
I find it odd that the rebel flag isn't a part of more art pieces. I mean we get an american flag that's been used as an ass wipe for 15 diffrent homeless vietnam vertrens and it is art. We burn an american flag and it is protest.
We burn a rebel flag and? What are we protesting? Who are we offending? All the right people as far as I am concerned. Burning an american flag is a big deal because it is very much an internalized part of who we are. Even if we don't like it, want to move to canada, whatever. Hating America is an idea that sprang up as soon as there was an america to hate. The confederate flag, it isn't us. It isn't who america is. It doesn't represent its people, hell it doesn't even represent all the people within its intended geographic region.
People say it represents racism, but there are a lot stronger, clearer represntationsd of racism. We have shown in our regretable past that we as a people have little to no trouble demonstrating our racist beliefs. If someone is racist they are going to demonstrate it far clearer than that flag ever could. The flag sparks controversy and I like that, or more that I can respect that. It is important to realize though that this is a self perpetuating discussion that is really very small in scope.
Would/could/shoulds of the situation are all irrelevent. We have to allow it, that is what the freedom of speech means. Protest it any way you see fit. Seriously, I openly encourage you. But if we are really going to get anywhere with this issue and as to what it means, it is essential to move past the fact that this is just a racist issue. Because it isn't just a racist issue. It is also a free speach issue, it is heritage issue, and there is the issue of historical remeberance. We are one country, that almost became two.
There is no real way to end this with any sort of closure. It just is. A problem on the table. What do with do with our hyper burdered schizophretic symbol? Me? I ignore it. Its how I treat most manners of speech I find stupid but no offensive enough to stand against. I mean really REALLY racism has much bigger things to take care of first.
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