Peg Tittle's Blog, page 56

December 24, 2011

Bang Bang

Ya gotta love Christmas. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men, and record sales of toy guns.


But, my friend says, her son, and all of his friends, will make a gun out of any old thing. The problem isn't the toys.


Okay, so it's the boys. Seems they're hardwired with a propensity toward killing. Why is this not a problem? A stand-up-and-scream problem. Not a sweep-it-under-the-carpet boys-will-be-boys problem.


Why does it not bother parents that their son considers pretending to kill to be fun (that is, that he derives psychological pleasure from pretending to kill)?


Why does it not bother them that their son considers killing a game (that is, an appropriate activity for make-believe)?


Anticipating 'It's just the noise and the chasing that's fun, he doesn't associate the action with killing' – is that supposed to make it better? That he pulls a trigger on a gun and doesn't associate the action with killing? Maybe you should take him to an ER and let him see what a bullet does to a body. He might think twi – he might think then before so casually making that pulling-a-trigger motion.


I wonder whether parents would be as blasé if he as repeatedly put his arm around someone's throat and swiped a piece of stiff cardboard across it? Is it just that people have become desensitized to the shooting-a-gun action?


Further, I am puzzled by the 'doesn't bother me' response not only because of the psychological and philosophical implications, but also because of the practical ones: first, once he's fourteen or sixteen, the action becomes illegal (at least in the States). (Then again, it might be illegal at all ages and maybe it's just when a kid points a fake gun, no one presses charges.) (Because boys will be boys?) (So the men who do so are also boys?)


And, second, such an action may well get him killed. 'Cuz I have to tell ya, since real kids have access to real guns these days, if I were walking down a city street and a kid jumped out at me pointing a gun, I'd shoot first and ask questions later. If I had a gun.


Which I don't. So instead I'd just break out into a cold sweat and try to raise my arms. And then when the kid laughed and lowered his arm, telling me it's just a toy, I'd haul him off to his parents and give all three of you a huge piece of mind. What right do you have to let your kid terrorize me like that? What the hell is wrong with you??


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 24, 2011 08:08

December 9, 2011

Appropriation or Imagination?

Two poems of mine have been published in a journal dedicated to "the Black experience". An audio piece of mine has been aired on Native radio programs. I am neither Black nor Native. Had this been known, I suspect some might have accused me of cultural appropriation.


It's an interesting idea, but as a reincarnation of the autobiographical school of writing – according to which one must have actually experienced what one is writing about – it is also a poor idea.


Taken to its logical extreme, any poem about a child must have been written by a child. Well no, one could say, you were at one time a child, so that's okay. Hm. So memory is okay but imagination is not? I suggest that often the one is as accurate as the other.


But perhaps accuracy is not the point. Perhaps it's a matter of "I can speak for myself, thank you" – a reaction against previous patronizing attitudes to the contrary. And if that's the case, if you can speak for yourself, then by all means do so. But that shouldn't stop me from also doing so if I want to. And if the editor or publisher selects only and always my speaking, then take that up with the editor or publisher, not the writer. Let's be inclusive rather than reactionarily exclusive.


Further, there is a difference between speaking for and speaking about. Speaking for does entail the suggestion of advocacy – patronizing if unrequested, and possibly unnecessary. Speaking about entails no such suggestion. And actually, there's a third option, the one that I thought I was doing – speaking with.


Think, for a moment, of all the literature that would not exist if writers had to restrict themselves to what they have personally experienced. Entire genres would disappear: science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, probably most adventure and mystery too. Oh, and romance.


Also, to be consistent, this perspective should extend to non-fiction writing as well. So there goes most of the news – most stories are not first-hand accounts. But at least, you'll say, the third person accounts remain third person – there is no saying 'I' when you really mean 'he/she'. True. And this is one important difference between fiction and non-fiction – the leap of the imagination, the projection of oneself into the other.


But let's not pretend for even one second that news reports are bereft of this very same imagination. If they were, they'd have to be written in a purely phenomenological fashion, bereft of all ascriptions of emotion, for starters. To say 'the demonstrators were angry' instead of 'the demonstrators were shouting' is as much a leap of imagination – unless the reporter spoke to the demonstrators (all of them) and they said they were angry. (Even then, strict accuracy requires you to report 'they said they were angry' rather than 'they were angry'.) To merely assume anger on the basis of their behaviour is to project, to imagine, to fictionalize. Chances are, you're quite correct, they were angry. If you know about human behaviour and if you know about the context, you can probably come up with a very accurate story without actually experiencing it yourself. The same goes for the fiction writer. (But then again, I suspect accuracy is not the issue.)


The 'no appropriation' perspective doesn't seem to recognize that there are people whose awareness doesn't go very deep. They live in and for the moment, they are not reflective, they are not analytic. Or they may be all that but not very articulate. And there are others whose research is thorough, whose imagination is rich, and who are articulate to boot. Which is why Brian Moore can write a better novel about a woman with PMS than a woman who has it but doesn't even know it. And which is why I can write a better poem about being Black or Native than some Blacks or Natives can. In short, one's imagination can exceed another's awareness.


But it's not really 'just' imagination, it's informed imagination – it's empathy. So not only does the 'no appropriation' perspective discourage imagination, it discourages empathy. But surely to limit ourselves to ourselves is sad. Oh, and dangerous.


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 09, 2011 20:52

November 29, 2011

Smile!

If I had a dollar for every time someone (i.e., a man) told me to smile, I'd be rich. (And if I had five dollars for every time that same someone did not tell a man to smile, I'd be really rich.)


Why is it that women are told, are expected, to smile a lot? (Or at least a lot more than men?)


Could it be that there are (still) some men who believe women are their responsibility, theirs to look after, care for, and protect (these are the men who call us 'dear') – and so for them, an unsmiling woman is a reproach, an indication of the man's failure? 'Smile!' means 'Tell me I'm a success!'


Could it be that women are (still) perceived to be the species' emotional barometers? Men are not allowed to be emotionally expressive (forget for a moment every hockey game and every soccer game you've ever seen men watch – I never said our society was logically consistent); a smiling man, especially, is effeminate. So when men feel happy, the women have to smile.


Could it be that women are (still) perceived as having the responsibility for the emotional health of the relationship, the family, and well, the world. And men want to think (not necessarily to know – different things) that all is well. They want us to smile.

Well, for someone to smile that much, they'd have to be in denial about cancer rates, ethnic cleansing, teenage violence, political corruption, big business subsidies, population growth rates, the nuclear industry, and well, the world. They'd have to be pretty sick, psychologically, to be able to smile with all that.


Or they'd have to be hypocrites.


Or they'd have to just not know about all that – they'd have to be pretty ignorant. Or children.


Ah, maybe that's it. Men, when they tell us, expect us, to smile all the time, are telling us, expecting us, to be childish.


Next time a man tells me to smile, I'm going to tell him to fuck off.


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on November 29, 2011 07:25

November 20, 2011

Supervisory Responsibility

I have come to realize that the corporate definition of 'responsibility' is very different than the common definition. I am thinking, in particular, of 'supervisory responsibility'.


Consider this situation. A subordinate (say, an assistant) prepares and distributes advertisements for a position; she interviews various applicants, selects one and notifies him of his success, then trains the new person, and periodically checks his work performance. One might think the subordinate's job description would include "recruit, hire, train, and supervise".


One would be wrong. Subordinates can't hire. Only superordinates (supervisors) can hire. Subordinates can't supervise. Only superordinates can supervise. Say what? But the subordinate did hire and supervise, so obviously she can hire and supervise. Nope.


And apparently this set-up is common: the subordinate actually does X, but the superordinate is responsible for X. If there's a problem, he's the one who'll be held accountable.


First, there's a substantial incoherence here. If indeed the subordinate is not responsible, why is she reprimanded and sometimes even fired for making a mistake or doing a poor job? The notion of penalty implies the notion of responsibility. Why blame A for X if A isn't responsible? Shouldn't we blame whoever's responsible? Shouldn't the superordinate, then, be fired if the subordinate messes up? (Yeah right. That'll happen. When pigs fly.)


Second, this conception of responsibility infantilizes the subordinate. A sign of maturity is that one takes responsibility for one's actions. Only with children (and the mentally incompetent) is another held responsible. Denying the subordinate that responsibility is, then, insisting on juvenile (or incompetent) status.


Third, it puts a great deal of strain on the superordinate. It is very stressful to be responsible for someone else's behaviour. One has the responsibility, but not the control. No wonder they develop ulcers.


And no wonder they develop into control freaks – a fourth problem. If one is responsible for something, one is surely going to try to have some control over that something. And so superordinates try to control their subordinates: they give orders, they criticize, they reprimand, etc. The greater the subordinate's autonomy (insistence on maturity), the more antagonistic the relationship will become.


Fifth, there's an ethical problem. It's simply not fair to hold people responsible for something over which they have no control. This moral principle is even threaded throughout our legal system.


This conception of responsibility is unfair in another way as well, and this is a sixth problem. Usually, one of the relevant aspects of a job description that determines the salary for that position is degree of responsibility. So the subordinate does X, and is awarded, say, 10 points on the salary scale. But the superordinate is responsible for X, and is awarded 100 points. Not fair.


This logical sleight-of-hand makes the superordinate's job look so much more demanding – after all, they're responsible for so very much: if they supervise ten people, they're responsible for ten whole jobs! No wonder they should get paid ten times as much! But, of course, there's something wrong here – the meaning of the term 'responsible' gets changed half way through: in the first case, 'responsible for it' means 'doing it', but in the second case, 'responsible for it' means 'seeing that it gets done'.


Let me suggest that supervisory responsibility was instituted as a checks-and-balance sort of thing, as a quality control mechanism. And this is a good thing. But having someone be responsible for making sure another person does his/her job is quite different than having that someone be responsible for the other person's job.


And the first kind of responsibility need not have a great deal more status and salary attached to it. In fact, it need not have any more status and salary attached to it. A doing X, B doing Y, C doing Z, and D double-checking A, B, and C doing X, Y, and Z – why shouldn't all four people be considered equal in terms of status and salary? In fact, one could argue that A, B, and C should have more status and salary than D. It usually takes more skill and effort to do X, Y, and Z, to a standard than to see whether they got done to that standard. And if B messes up, why can't B be held responsible for not doing Y, and D held responsible for not checking B's work (which is different from D being held responsible for not doing Y)? And why can't B have control over how to do Y, and D have control over how to check B doing Y (which is different from D having control over B)? There would be a need for B's work to be accessible to D, but accessible is not the same as controllable. This way, both responsibility and control are kept in their proper spheres. And both B and D are treated like adults. And neither is put on a fast track to an ulcer.


So why does the corporate world maintain the problematic view of responsibility? Well, it sure keeps the hierarchy cemented in place. The very terms 'subordinate' and 'superordinate' mean 'inferior' and 'superior' (in fact, one often hears references to 'one's superiors' rather than, as is more accurate, 'one's organizational superiors'). So my guess is that the desire to control is not necessarily linked to responsibility; more often, it's linked to ego.


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on November 20, 2011 22:09

November 14, 2011

King of the Castle

Octavia Butler got it right in Xenogenesis when the aliens identified one of our fatal flaws as that of being hierarchy-driven (they fixed us with a bit of genetic engineering) – but she failed to associate the flaw predominantly with males.


And Steven Goldberg got it right in Why Men Rule when he explained that men are genetically predisposed to hierarchy (fetal masculinization of the central nervous system renders males more sensitive to the dominance-related properties of testosterone) – but he presented that as an explanation for why men rule and not also for why men kill.


And Arthur Koestler got it right in The Call Girls when, recognizing that the survival of the human species is unlikely, a select group of geniuses meet at a special 'Approaches to Survival' symposium (and fail to agree on a survival plan) – but I'm not sure he realized (oh of course he did) that one of his character's early reference to a previous symposium on 'Hierarchic Order in Primate Societies' was foreshadowing.


The reason the human species will not survive is simple: the males can't help playing King of the Castle – all the time, everywhere, with everyone.  Talk about aggression and violence, greed, or competition is all very good, but these things are secondary: aggression and violence are means to the end of becoming King of the Castle; it's not really that men are greedy, they just want more than the next guy, they want to be better, higher than the next guy, then the next, and the next, until they get to the top; and competition, well, competition is just another word for trying to become King of the Castle.


And once they become King of the Castle, they see, from up there, that there's another castle to become King of.  Once they've got the one-bedroom apartment, they go for the two-bedroom.  Then the duplex, then the single-family dwelling.  Once they get a house, they need a cottage too.  And once they get the cottage, then they need a summer home.  Then a yacht.  They can't stop adding and upgrading.  Whether it's homes or cars, stereo systems or computers – nothing is ever (good) enough.  Nothing satisfies.  Sold one million?  Let's aim for two million.  This year's profit is X?  Let's set a target of double X for next year.  Consider the business graph of success – more, more, more…  They cannot 'say when'.  Contentment forever eludes them. The only joy in their lives is that associated with achievement, with getting a toehold a little higher on the hill, winning an extra inch.  They can't play without keeping score.  They can't go canoeing without a destination and an arrival time.  They cannot concede, surrender, or lose without shame.


It's not about the pursuit of excellence, don't let them kid you: there's no standard of intrinsic quality involved; comparison is all.  And it's not about self-improvement: being King of the Castle seldom improves the self.


The end result to this deadly game they play will be the same, whether it's achieved by genocidal war, environmental destruction, or the global marketplace: loss of diversity.  It's the kiss of death for any, for every, species.  (Unless, of course, some Nero goes nuclear first.)


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on November 14, 2011 07:51

October 21, 2011

Leadership?

Some time ago, I attended a "Women in Leadership" conference put on by one of Ontario's larger unions.  Wheat I learned there disillusioned two parts of me: the labour part and the feminist part.


In the seminar on Collective Bargaining, I was told that "Every negotiation is an exercise in perceived power: if you have power and act as if you don't, then you don't; if you don't have power and act as if you do, then you do."  If you don't have power, then don't act as if you do!  Don't act like every obnoxious male I know, strutting about with an inflated sense of importance, acting like The Authority on Everything.  Yes, of course, many buy the act (including, eventually, the actor): many are suckered in by the suit and tie, the bass voice speaking with weighty pauses, the overly serious demeanour.  But to pretend is to deceive.  And to pretend in order to gain power, in order to control – that's manipulation.


Furthermore, I am disturbed by the view that perception is more important than reality.  Though perception may well guide human action more often than reality, I think that state of affairs is unfortunate.  What ever happened to 'Don't judge a book by its cover'?  To perpetuate, indeed to encourage, pretence over substance, form over content, is very dangerous.  Especially at the bargaining table.  It occurred to me that the union probably hires image consultants – does it pay them more than it does its policy consultants?


I was also told that "I need is better than I want."  Wait a minute, there is a difference between needs and wants, and to call a want a need is misleading, and, again, manipulative.  So is inflating needs and wants, the next piece of advice.


I was reminded of the scene in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in which a worker describes why the fictional socialist-run Twentieth Century Motor Company failed miserably: at first 'from everyone according to their abilities, to each according to their needs' worked fine, but then people didn't just need supper for their kids and a wheelchair for their grandmother, they needed cream for their coffee, they needed the living room replastered, and they needed a new car.  Well of course it was the squeaky wheels (the "rotten, whiny, snivelling beggars") that got the grease – as well as the yacht they 'needed'.


It's hard enough to reach an agreement when two parties have different objectives; to lie about those objectives makes it harder, not easier.  We should say what we mean and mean what we say.  So if you want X, say you want X, not X times two.  It's the morally correct thing to do, but even from a pragmatic point of view, it makes sense: people stop believing people who exaggerate, people who lie.


"Negotiations is a game."  One seminar leader said it, and another illustrated it.  The 'ice beaker' in her seminar was a game called "Diverse Points".  Basically the game went like this: the Leisure Area was for single players to form pairs in preparation for negotiation; the Negotiations Area was for negotiation – people met in pairs and tried to reach agreement on how to divide 100 points between them in any of four proportions, 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40 (a division of 50/50 was not permitted); the object of the game was to accumulate as many points as possible and the player with the highest total score was the winner.


Well.  First of all, trying to get as many points as possible is not negotiating, it's competing.


Second, why isn't a split of 50/50 permitted?  In the absence of significance (the points had no meaning) and therefore rationale, a split of 50/50 is, to my mind, most fair.  Why structure a game that excludes fairness as a possibility?  Could it be that achieving fair agreement is not the point?


Third – the Leisure Area!  I suppose it simulates the golf course, the tennis court, the cocktail lounge – you butter up your associate, pretending to be friends, doing the leisure thing together, and then you saunter over to the Negotiations Area.  'How To Use Your Friends' couldn't be written more clearly over the entrance.  Instead, why not just show up at the Negotiations Area when you want to negotiate?


I played the game, with great reluctance and after considerable thought, trying to average 50 points per negotiation.  As I mentioned earlier, it was the best I could do in terms of fairness (I believe a split of 90/10 could also be fair – it depends on context, which was absent).  To my pleasant surprise, many of the women I interacted with were quite happy with this approach, and we easily and pleasantly decided who would get 40 and who would get 60, based on each of our totals so far; sometimes we agreed on 70/30, or even 80/20, if one of us was quite a bit over an average of 50 and the other quite a bit under.  However, at least one woman lied to me about her point average.  This was not surprising, given the preceding instruction.  She may have been the winner, I'm not sure; to be honest, I didn't care much who won.


The conference proceeded and the more I learned about succeeding in my role as a union officer, as a woman on the labour front, the more I wished I hadn't been elected by my branch.  The last thing I remember was this statement: "Collective bargaining has nothing to do with logic or reason."  Apparently it has nothing to do with ethics either.


 


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 21, 2011 22:39

October 13, 2011

Useless Humanities

That a humanities degree is useless for the workforce says more about our workforce than the degree.  It says that we value, that we'll pay for, someone to provide cars, electric toothbrushes, and running shoes.  But not beauty and insight.


It doesn't have to be that way.  Imagine a world in which companies had, along with finance departments to look after their money and maintenance departments to keep things clean, art departments to make the place beautiful.   Municipalities could have art departments too, right alongside their legal departments and transit departments, to keep the city beautiful.  Or entertaining.  Or edifying.  Depending on your view of the role of art.


Provinces could have, in addition to the Ministries of Environment, Energy, and Revenue, a Ministry of Music.  Yes, of course, there is a Ministry of Culture and Recreation, and that's close. And there are provincial arts councils.  Close again.  But they're just administrative bodies: there are no practicing artists on staff whose job it is to do their art.  (The Ministry of Environment, on the other hand, has, for example, biologists on staff whose job it is to do biology.)


We'd have municipal and provincial concert halls and theatres and galleries with full complements of staff – that is, full-time paid musicians, playwrights, actors, painters, providing a year-round schedule of daily events.  Attendance would be free of charge, just as is driving on the roads.


Imagine a world in which video stores had as many videos of dance performances as of war movies.  A world in which poets and short story writers and novelists read in movie theatres.  And people paid to get in.  As many people.  Hell, our lit grads might make a living!


Imagine a world in which we valued knowledge about ourselves as much as knowledge about our money.  And we paid philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists as much as we pay financial advisors.


Imagine a PR department hiring a historian to manage the information, to develop true, coherent archives.  With intelligent analysis.


We have concert halls, libraries, and museums.  We have jobs for musicians, poets, and historians.  But we have so many more banks and stores and restaurants.  We thus have so many more jobs for business majors (the managers and the accountants) and non-majors (the clerks and waiters), for people whose raison d'être is to make or serve profit – not beauty, joy, insight, or understanding.


Is it truly supply and demand?  Do we really have the world we want to have?  Yes and no.  If we asked the philosophers and psychologists and sociologists, we'd know that we want what we're used to, so supply creates demand as much as, if not more than, demand creates supply.  And we'd know that pressure can modify our wants: customs and marketing strategies can compromise our autonomy if we don't pay attention.  To our real desires, our real goals.  To our joys, to our hopes.  (Every now and then, I think things may be different in Europe.  But how would I know – it's not the sort of thing that the U.S. or even Canada puts on the news.  Around and around…)


And anyway, so what?  So what if a humanities degree is useless in the workforce.  Not all value need be tangled up with the economy, with business, with the workplace.  (Have you mistaken your job for your life?)  Not everything has to have a price.  Not everything need be, or can be, sold.  Or bought.  Some things just are. (The recognition and appreciation of beauty and joy.  The cultivation of curiosity and interest.  The achievement of exhilaration and understanding….)


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 13, 2011 23:56

October 4, 2011

"Daddy, daddy, the house is on fire!" "Not now, sweetie, the game's on."

So about this guy in Taiwan who drops his child in order to catch a foul ball at a baseball game…


I don't know whether to be more appalled at the man's action or at the media's framing of it.


Am I appalled that we condition our males to value sports over parenting? That they'd rather catch a ball than take care of a child?  No. I myself would rather catch a ball than look after a kid.  Which is why I didn't make or adopt any. The appalling thing is that a father would rather catch a ball than take care of his child.


(Yes, of course, it would be as appalling if it were a mother. But I can't resist suggesting that if it had been a woman who had dropped her child in order to catch a ball, they'd be hauling her ass into court, taking her kid away, and sterilizing her.)


Why do sports have such a hold over men? Is it the competition and the possibility of winning? And is that so bloody attractive because that's the way we raise our boys? Or is it simply because they're hardwired to compete? Either way, if their upbringing or their testosterone (or whatever) makes them choose catching a ball over holding on to a child, something's seriously wrong.


Or is our obsession with sports an indication that we are so very desperate to be heroic? Have our daily lives become so bereft of significance? (And why is that?) And has the mere catching of a ball become a heroic act? What does that say about us?


Or is it just that men will reach out to catch a ball, even if it means putting a child at risk, because like many animals, their attention is captured by anything that moves.  Which is a good thing if you're a Neanderthal hunting for your next meal, but—we're not. Neanderthals hunting for our next meal.  So does this mean that contemporary men are unable to suppress their primitive brain?  If so, we shouldn't let them—run the world, for starters.


Men, if this (dropping a child in order to catch a ball) isn't a wake up call to question and reject your conditioning and/or to recognize and resist your biochemistry, what is??


And then there is the commentators' response. Laughter, first of all.  A child is dropped, and they laugh.


And they laugh in a "boys will be boys" way.  Men, don't you find it insulting? To have your irresponsible, immature behavior accepted as inevitable?


Or they laugh because, hey, just goes to show that men aren't cut out to look after kids; best leave it to the women.  Oh please.  (Like they can never seem to do a good job of cleaning the house either.  And yet the car gleams.)


Then there are the giggling comments about his wife's "death stare" and how he's gonna get it now.  What is he, twelve?  Apparently.  And what's his wife, his mom?  Apparently he needs one. Still.  (If I were a man, I'd be enraged at this implication that I am to be scolded.)


And then, there are the endless snickers about how "he's going to be in the dog house" or "sleeping on the couch".  A child is dropped, and the big concern is that he won't have sex for a while. What is wrong with you people??  (And that whole marital dynamic—if he's good, he gets sex; if he's bad, he doesn't—that's okay with all of you?)


Where are the men who are wincing at all of this?  Where are the men who would confront this guy and tell him to grow the fuck up?


Truthfully, and unflatteringly, I'm not surprised.  (Men, are you not ashamed that we're not surprised?  Not surprised you would put a child at risk in order to catch a ball, not surprised at the depth of your irresponsibility, at your 'me-first' behavior, at your priorities…)  I expect shit like this in the States and Canada.  But it happened in Taiwan. And the Taiwanese commentators giggled and snickered just like the American commentators.  (In fact, the similarity was chilling.) Could it be that the gender role conditioning that is so prevalent here is damn near universal?  A scarey thought.  Or is that universality evidence that it's not a matter of nurture, but of nature (testosterone, the Y chromosome, the primitive brain, whatever).


Either way, the conclusion has to be that men are universally children. Or idiots. (Or both.)


 


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 04, 2011 20:52

September 30, 2011

"And son? Take care of your mom while I'm gone."

Excuse me? I don't need a child to take care of me. I know, he might reply, I'm just trying to – trying to what? Teach him to be a man? Teach him that grown women need looking after? And that he, as the one with the penis, is just the person to do it?


For six months while we're pregnant – if we get pregnant – we're vulnerable, yeah. And while we have kids, okay, yeah, if we're attacked, one of us should protect, hide, get the kids to safety. We could both fight, but the kids need one of us alive. Though of course who does what need not be determined by sex. If I'm closer to the gun and you're closer to the kids – be reasonable! But otherwise, for the other 594 months of our lives…


So whatever it is you think you're trying to teach the boy, it's at my expense. He grows up to think – hell, already at thirteen, he thinks he's more capable, more competent than me. Than a thirty-five-year-old – woman. And since everything tells him to, he generalizes: he comes to think he's more capable, more competent, than all women. And the patriarchy lives on.


It's interesting that when there are two boys in the family, it's the older one who's told "Look after your mom and your sisters and your younger brother." There and only there is age a factor. But only for the males. Why doesn't dad say the younger sisters? Is it that, like blacks, we all look alike?


Which is why I love Sarah Connor (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Even when her son is sixteen, she's the one protecting, looking after, him. And why not? She's twice his age. And he's no less 'a man' for it – John still manages to be capable, competent, interesting, sexy-in-progress. True, they've added the 'He's more important, she's more dispensable' factor, perhaps because without that, male viewers would consider John emasculated by her protection. But still.


("Tell me again why are the boys in here and the girls are in there?" "'Cause one of the boys is still wanted for murder and one of the girls is harder than nuclear nails." "And the other one's a cyborg.")


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on September 30, 2011 17:26

September 25, 2011

To Connect

At first, I noticed incomplete sentences in their conversation and in their writing. But I thought hey, it's a fragmented world: videos with their bits and pieces of images, radio and tv with their sound bites, even entire degree programs at university present their courses as if they're unrelated.


But then I wondered, is it because they don't have complete thoughts? Or is it because they're used to being interrupted? And is that the cause or the effect? Were they interrupted so often they never got the chance to finish a sentence? So it's become a habit, and worse, a skill they never developed for lack of practice. Or do they interrupt each other because they don't expect an end, a complete sentence? So they haven't really interrupted, they don't even seem to consider it rude; it's just us older ones, those of us who do intend to finish our sentences, who feel interrupted.


Or is the incompleteness just the extreme of brevity? Apparently many students get through high school without having to write more than one paragraph on any give item. 'Extended thought? What do you mean?'


Yes, of course, in art, fragmented images are often effective. But unless the audience can make the implied connections, such art will also be unsuccessful. That a group of thirteen year olds did not agree about whether a particular rap song condemned or condoned violence suggests that the latter is often the case.


Then I noticed that even when the sentences were complete, there were no connections between the sentences; there were no connections between paragraphs; there were entire essays without a thesis, without a point.


It's not just a matter of continuity; it's a matter of connection. Connecting the dots makes it linear. Connecting them in a particular way gives the line a particular shape.


Call me masculist, call me eurocentric, but linear thought is important. The ability to connect enables us to survive. We need to see similarities and differences ("Categories", clap, clap, "Names of", clap, clap, "Colours"…); we need to see cause and effect ("Look both ways before crossing…").


My students' sentences lay like so many dots on a page. They expected me to make the connections, to give their work shape, to give it coherence. The most important words are not nouns or verbs: they're prepositions, conjunctions, and all the other transitional words – in, through, before, after, and, neither, therefore, because, although, despite. I spent time in a second year Philosophy class explaining that not only was 'A because B' not the same as 'A therefore B', but that they were exactly opposite.


It's not chance that left their writing without colons or semicolons. The former introduces an explanation or an example of a thought; the latter joins related thoughts of equal importance. If students don't see these connections between the dots, their sentences, they can't see, they have no use for, such advanced punctuation. I say 'advanced' – that's the truth now. Being able to use a colon or a semicolon was a fairly valid indicator that one would be in the minority that passes the Writing Competency Test given to all incoming students at the university.


'Wrong word' is often not just a dictionary error or a matter of using 'quick' where one should use 'quickly'; it's more a matter of using 'with' where one should've used 'through'. Such an error indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of the connection, the relation, involved: 'A with B' describes merely a correlative relationship; 'A through B' can describe a causal relationship.


'Irrelevant' and 'off-topic' are not just harmless 'messy bedroom' problems. Rather, something has been connected, albeit implicitly, without justification. What's indicated is that the person doesn't truly understand the nature of the subject and so can't tell if something is relevant or not.


Preparing an outline is the step in the writing process that was most often omitted. It's not a matter of laziness. And it's seldom a matter of just not bothering to write it out. Most often, the student didn't know what his/her main subjects are, and then what the subordinate subjects were for each of the main ones, etc. Preparing an outline is a rigorous task involving relation: chronological relation, causal relation, categorical relation, etc. Making an outline is making connections – conceptual connections. (I fear the best answer many would've given to 'Which doesn't belong – shoe, jacket, or saw?' is 'Jacket – because it doesn't begin with an S.')


But perhaps the scariest symptom, the most dangerous manifestation, of this inability to connect is the view that 'Everyone's entitled to their own opinion,' with its correlative, stated or implied, 'You can't criticize my opinion, my opinion is just as good as yours.' True enough if you didn't have to worry yourself with connections to fact (truth), or connections to other opinions (consistency), or connections to consequences (pragmatics). To understand that some opinions are better than others, some more certain, some more valuable, is one of the most important skills we can develop; but it is dependent on perceiving relations, on being able to connect.


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on September 25, 2011 17:56