Trust in the Body Politic

photo via Giphy

One of the more obnoxious phrases that gets tossed around by thoughtless people in conversations about politics is that "America isn't a democracy... it's a republic."  Setting aside the revoltingly pedantic tone of comments in this vain (the top dictionary entries for "democracy" and "republic" are functionally identical), the implication thrust proudly forward by this phrase is that although the American people have some influence over its governmental processes, there are many elements of the political system designed to prevent the exercise of the will of the majority.

Is this the case?  Undeniably yes (see: electoral college, two-party system, gerrymandering, et cetera).   I really hope this doesn't seem controversial to anyone out there - even the structure of the Senate is anti-democratic, because Senate representation isn't proportionalized to population (if you live in Wyoming, your vote for your local senator wields sixty-six times more influence than a Californian's vote for their senator; each senator from Wyoming represents about 300,000 people, and each California senator represents 29 million people... that's fair, right?)

Asking Hard Questions

Should this be the case?  I think each and every person, certainly each and every American citizen at least, should take a long, hard moment to ask themselves this question and interrogate the answer, because if you don't, then the honest truth is you don't really believe in democracy.

As mentioned in Monday's post Complacent Victims, the rich, wise old white men that crafted the skeleton of the American state didn't really believe in democracy either; they feared the "tyranny of the majority", the power the mob might wield against vulnerable minority populations.

It's a fair concern - it's a concern that's been realized countless times throughout human history.

But maybe we should at least consider the other side of this question, right?  I mean, let's just think this through logically.  The argument for incorporating anti-democratic elements into our system of governance goes something like this:

1. People can't be trusted.
2. We need people to regulate our political decision-making.

Alright, that's basically incoherent, because if people can't be trusted, how can we trust people to regulate the political process.  I must be over-simplifying... let's try this again:

1. Some people can't be trusted
2. We need other people to regulate our political decision-making.

Feels a little bit more like a cogent thought, so I must be on the right track, but this line of reasoning still doesn't make sense unless we can somehow differentiate between some people and other people.  Here's one more stab at fleshing out the argument for why America shouldn't really be a democracy:

1. Some people can't be trusted (because they'll act selfishly, at the expense of people that are different than them)
2. We need other people to regulate our political decision-making (people who will be totally selfless and only think about the greater good).

Those other people mentioned in Premise (2) are supposed to be our political leaders and the institutions they've built - does Premise (2) describe most people that you know?

We're all tacitly endorsing a system that divides the American polis into groups and explicitly incorporates the idea that we'll be vicious towards each other, so we need the smart, responsible political leaders to keep us in line.  I don't know about you, but to me, this whole arrangement feels very, very broken.

For now we end on a cliffhanger, but come back for a deeper dive into two important aspects of this debate: how the safeguards designed to protect minorities are used to protect the interests of ruling elites (Friday), and how we need to change the discourse of American politics if we ever want things to be different (Monday).

Happy Hump Day America.

Complacent Victims

photo from Sandbox News

An extremely contentious and unusually competitive presidential primary season has opened up discussions about quite a few aspects of the American political process that many find frustrating.  Before he emerged as unquestionable Republican nominee, many of Trump's supporters were outraged at the prospect that he might walk into the convention with the most delegates and be denied the Republican candidacy by the party leadership through a contested convention.  Similarly, Sanders fans have lobbed numerous accusations at various pieces of the Democrats' primary process that they believe are being leveraged to put their man at a disadvantage (for instance, that for technical reasons he may be left off the ballot in Washington D.C.).

Full disclosure: Bernie Sanders is my candidate of choice.   Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'll add that I think such frustrations are totally reasonable.  Many (particularly those who'd rather see Hillary or one of the "establishment" Republicans that have since fallen by the wayside sitting in the Oval Office) dismiss such concerns as tantrums thrown by people playing a game to which we all know the rules.  We should accept, they say, the real world as it is, and not waste our energy on complaining about things we can't change.

I just can't get on border with that kind of lifeless fatalism, largely because I think its a tool deployed by people vested in the Status Quo.  The powers that be have the most to lose from a conversation about changing the world, and the more we allow ourselves to be convinced that things will always be the way they are right now, the more sure that prospect becomes.  With that in mind, I'd like to point out a few obvious truths for the Internet's humble consideration.

1. Being a Democrat or a Republican is not a constitutional requirement for being the President

All of the angst, all of the controversy, all of the gamesmanship and politicking around the nominating processes for the country's two major political parties exists only because it is accepted as an unassailable truth that President will be a candidate nominated by one of these two parties.  Political reality that may be, but only because we, the voters, have surrendered this power to the Dems and the GOP.  For whatever mind-boggling reason (probably because we assume that only a Democrat or Republican can win, and therefore those are the candidates that we must vote for... thus the self-fulfilling prophecy continues), the overwhelming numbers of voters will only cast their ballots for members of one of these two parties.  This is our fault.  Think that the way the party elites design the rules isn't fair?  You're probably right, but no one's making you vote for members of their party.  We, as an electorate, have essentially ceded the power to determine our leaders to these two gangs whose members life experiences have a lot more in common with each other than with most of us that will be casting ballots.

Don't like super-delegates? Don't like party affiliation rules?  Don't like arcane procedures for assigning delegates based on percentage thresholds and geographical vote distribution?  These things, each of them designed to restrict the ability of the general public to freely elect their leaders, they exist only because we all freely choose to keep voting for the same goons that put these structures in place.

2. All the people that DON'T VOTE every year could have decided every presidential election. Ever.

A resounding victory in an American presidential election means between your opponent 60%-40%.  Most presidential elections are decided by a difference of less than ten percentage points.  That fact is astounding when one considers that strong voter turnout for a presidential election in American is sixty percent.  That's not of the general population - that's a fraction of eligible voters.  Barely more than half of people that have the opportunity to officially voice their opinions about our country's leadership bother to do so.  No wonder they think they can get away with nearly anything - because no matter how frustrated we are with the state of American politics, many of us will do absolutely nothing about it.

Some of you may be grumbling about various barriers to voting that exist.  Some of you may be recalling stories about the Arizona democratic primaries, where people were waiting in line until Midnight to vote.  Once again, you're right.  Our leaders have put roadblocks in the way to try to discourage people from participating in governance, because frankly they'd rather you didn't bother.  And the problem is that we're not outraged.  We should be prepared to pull down any leader that tries to take power away from the people, but most of us are too excited to try to earn marginal advantages for our own political factions instead of having any respect for the democratic process.

3. Seriously, your leaders are afraid of you, and they will do things to try to pacify and disenfranchise you.

It's not a dark secret - it's been part of the discussion of American political process since its inception.  That was the primary motivation for the inclusion of the Electoral College in presidential elections.  The problem was so openly discussed by Founding Fathers like Madison and Hamilton that observer of early American politics Alexis de Tocqueville gave it it's own snazzy name: "The Tyranny of the Majority".  The rich, educated guys that made the rules (and still do) didn't trust the average person's judgement.  They built mechanisms into our elections that allowed them to present the elegant facade of democracy while still preserving the safety of oligarchic dominance.

America (and the rest of the world) will only ever be as free as we demand it be.  If these simple facts make you angry, my recommendation is straightforward - start giving a shit about democracy and elections.  Not just the candidates.  Care about the process, even if it means your team might be more likely to lose.

Bringing out our Worst Selves

Many people believe that the key to effective teaching, particularly at the secondary level, depends primarily on a deep level of content knowledge.  In fact, in many ways it was that perspective that drove me to the field - I had very little background in formal teacher training, and banked my science teaching career on a physics undergraduate degree from a respected institution.  As it turned out, that was enough to get my foot in the door, but I didn't really become halfway decent at my job until I accepted the fact that understanding the way developing minds was AT LEAST as important as content specialization, if not more so.

I spent much of my first few years on the job learning the ends and outs of pedagogy: how to manage a classroom, how to break down concepts in different ways, how to create experiences that help diverse groups of young people connect the dots in their own ways, and so on.  In other words, I learned how to lead a herd of horses to water and talk them into drinking it.  That was crucial, because I assumed when I was a teacher that the horses would drink the water on their own once I told them all where to find the oasis.

Basically, I've grown to believe that a huge part of the teaching profession is facilitating that cognitive development that helps young people bridge the gap between actions and consequences.  The kids that are the most successful (and pleasant to be around) are the ones that learn these lessons quickly.  And on the flip side of that coin, the students that fail the most consistently and spectacularly are pretty much always fixated on a mission to find someone else to blame for their predicament (and in almost all cases do so with the vigorous backing of their enabling parents).

It's the eerie consistency of this pattern that has me thinking about a dark side to the technological golden age in which we currently find ourselves.  Many technologies are designed to protect us from the consequences of our own poor choices; many experts are banking on technological advancements to resolve the impacts of climate change, for instance, and many others are so convinced that we'll be able to come up with clever fixes for whatever messes we make that the idea of considering consequences seems laughable.

Given how many problems have actually been solved by technological advancements, one might be tempted to dismiss such concerns as paranoia, but I think there are at least two reasons to be concerned about the way that our own ingenuity is warping our worldview:

First, there will always be a very real chance that we'll make a mess that we won't be able to clean up.

And second, living a life where we constantly push our pleasure buttons and assume we can clean up the negative repercussions later (even if we're right about that) turns us into crappy people, on an individual and cultural level.  Self-control, thoughtful consideration, stewardship of the world around us, these are values that serve a social good above and beyond the immediate consequences that they steer us away from.  Ask yourself if you want to live in a world where these virtues will become obsolete before you put an unconditional stamp of approval on the unimpeded march of progress.

Extinction Music

I didn't want to pigeon-hole the creative energy flowing through the reflecting pool, so I've decided to mix things up yet again: February's Fiction Fridays will be presented in the form of dystopian sci-fi Elizabethan sonnets!  Presented for your reading pleasure, this month's first selection follows below.

Extinction Music

The shadows frame an otherworldly scene

of human aspirations overthrown:

Forever stilled the grinding of machines,

Forever lost electric humming tones.

For centuries our symphony had grown,

Expanding to include melodic lines

That steered our arc to swelling apex notes,

Precipitating, now, the end of time.

Beyond this brief caesura? Songs await.

The music re-establishes the beat

With new musicians raring to create

New harmonies from all of this debris.

The human theme will quickly disappear

from evolution's optimizing ear. 

Eyes Cast Skyward: Technological Relations to Reality

Brian Mahabee is a graduate of Teacher's College at Columbia University, and has been involved in the education world for nearly a decade.  Brian and I work together, and a big part of his job title involves increases the utilization of educational technology in our classrooms, so I thought he'd be the perfect person to ask for thoughts on intersections between technology and culture.

His thoughts are collected in the lovely, poetic essay which follows.

Look down, look down, and look down some more. For years we’ve been taught to look up, gaze at the stars, shoot for the clouds and rise like the sun, but nowadays all we do is look down. More and more we’re being taught to look at the screens we have. Stay connected they say, interact more, look at this new thingy that does that one thing you always wanted to do. So we look down some more. And that one thing you always wanted to do, is it really something you always wanted to do? Are more interactions actually taking place? And the ever present question, are we really interacting?

Culture in my opinion is something that is deeply rooted in a people’s being, in their beliefs and stand for something that is unique to their core. The supposed connections, interactions and new advancements in “things you always wanted to do” will soon be the culture that is passed on to following generations. So can this type of acquisition become a culture? Can making new connections and interacting virtually define a culture? Or does that dilute a culture that already exists? Many times to experience a culture, travel is presumably involved. A new place, to feel the atmosphere, to meet the people and experience the landscape. Nowadays, we are able to do similar things virtually, and what an advancement this is. However, is it a diluted experience? Many would say they would rather have the diluted over nothing at all, including myself in some cases. However, which is better? A powerful video, or no video at all. A glimpse into the Egyptian pyramids, or no view of the hidden treasures?

I recently viewed a video based on Polynesian culture, and it touched me in an emotional way that I would have never known if I wasn’t virtually connected to someone who is of Polynesian descent. With an experience like this, my apprehension slowly becomes undone. Yes looking down at our devices constantly is becoming cultural, and yes superficial connections are replacing in person deeply confirmed interactions, but the connections that give a somewhat diluted experience that nurture an appreciation for the actual thing, whether it be the Polynesian culture, the pyramids of Egypt or the interaction with a person online can have a place in cultural discovery.

A negative impact of the unlimited availability of information is easily tripping over a line that is a mile wide but an inch deep. The vast amount of knowledge is just that: vast. And with its availability users can easily jump to another resource without a depth of knowledge worth having. I now guiltily look at emails, articles and notes by skimming. I skim, then move on. This has now become my culture of reading. I fear that I am becoming acculturated to this type of reading that my breadth of knowledge spans a mile wide with an inch of depth.  I fear the same for present day peoples with the breadth of information available. I fear my reality. I fear present day culture.

Zeno's Paradox & Wall-E

Zeno's  Dichotomy Paradox is an ancient thought experiment that seems blatantly fallacious, but it's deceptively difficult to untangle.  It goes something like this:

Suppose that you wish to walk from here to there (doesn't matter where, as long as here & there aren't the same place).  You begin, and eventually you arrive at the halfway point between here and there.  And you continue, and you reach the halfway point between the first halfway point and the end point.  And you continue walking, and then reach a halfway point between the second halfway point and the ending.  And this process continues infinitely, because between any two locations there is a midpoint which must be traversed, meaning there are an infinite number of midpoints you must cross before you reach the end of your journey, which would take an infinite amount of time.  Therefore movement is impossible and displacement in space is an illusion.

I mention Zeno's Paradox because I think it mirrors the thinking demonstrated by many people I've met toward the modern sci-fi classic, Wall-E.  They've seen the movie, they've appreciated the references to the ways that the sedentary humans who live in an orbital space colony parrot some of the lazier aspects of our modern technological society, and they dismiss it as an amusing spectacle that might lurk in an impossibly distant future.  In a sense, they feel that the number of steps in human social and technological development that lie in between the status quo and the world of Wall-E is so tremendously large that the scenario doesn't bear serious consideration.  Just like Zeno suggests that we can never arrive at any destination.  In both cases, the reasoning is fatally flawed.

Converging Infinities

Let's start with Zeno.  The key to untangling his puzzle is an interrogation of the notion of infinity.  He's quite correct that numbers are infinitely divisible, so that any person traveling anywhere has to traverse an infinite number of distance increments.  The issue is that Zeno takes all infinities to be functionally equivalent, which is certainly not the case.  Infinities come in two zesty flavors: divergent infinities (like 1+2+3+.... a series that continuously grows by larger and larger values), and convergent infinities (like 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... which grows by smaller and smaller chunks).  If you take a calculus class, you'll learn the rules for calculating the values of such infinite series and determining whether they converge or not, and if so what value they converge on.  But long story short, the kinds of infinite series that grow by diminishing amounts eventually reach a maximum value.  That's why you can, in fact, move from one place to another (or if you can't, it isn't because Zeno's Dichotomy Paradox).

Accelerating Toward Destruction

The same mathematical logic yields a horrifying conclusion when we use it to analyze the social evolution that tracks the course from early homo sapiens to the hypothetical future humans depicted in Wall-E.

If estimates from modern hunter-gatherers function as a viable comparison, early humans probably walked anywhere from eight to twelve miles a day on average.  On the other hand, the Wall-E people, who move exclusively via hover-chair, probably walk close to zero miles per day.  That puts humans in modern America pretty close to the halfway point, according to Catrine Tudor-Locke, head of the Pennington Biomedical Research Group, who estimates that we walk between five & six miles per day (pretty appropriate for the Zeno comparison, right?).  So that makes the real question whether our path to the hover chair follows a course of a convergent or divergent infinity.

Considering the rapidly accelerating pace of technological development, it seems like a given that our evolution towards a totally sedentary state follows the convergent pattern.  That means that every step we take towards a future where our bodies become rarely-utilized accessories hastens our progress down a potentially irreversible path.  Think about that every time you take the elevator instead of the stairs; every time you troll the parking lot for a premium space so that you don't have to make the hike; every time you longingly wish for a teleportation device to expedite your daily lives.

We are the stewards of all future human society, and if we don't actively choose to embrace and preserve our biological corpus, we'll soon be living without it.

Huxley and Orwell: Two Views on Oblivion

I'll lay my cards on the table right at the start: I love both the books discussed in today's post.  A Brave New World and 1984 are both seminal, practically genre-defining works of dystopian futurism, that sub-family of science fiction that appraises the present and supposes what the world might look like after making a few pessimistic assumptions about our capacity as a species.  My appreciation for both books was deepened last year when I stumbled on this review of 1984, written as personal correspondence directly between Huxley and Orwell!

If you're the tl;dr type, Huxley's analysis of Orwell's book boils down to this: it's a great piece of literature with tremendous vision about the dangers of totalitarianism, but Huxley was pretty sure that he had the right answer when it came to the modes of control that the autocrats of tomorrow would employ to subdue the population.  The gist is captured in the following passage: Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience."

Brave New World came out in 1932.  Nineteen-Eighty-Four was released in 1949.  So now, with a respectable sixty years of buffer time since the publication of the more recent work, I think it's a fine moment to consider who was the more accurate predictor of today's modes of social control.

The Iron-fisted Master Narrative

First, let's consider Orwell's vision.  How is social control achieved in Oceania?  There are two principal means that intertwine: the crafting of an officially endorsed vision of the world (including both contemporary politics and historical events), and punitive force wielded against any that pose potential threats to the hegemonic worldview.  To what extent do these things exist in the world of today?

Any honest intellectual can accede to the reality of certain elements of Orwell's vision.  In fact, during America's Bush II years, when extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay were new parts of the American conversation, direct parallels were frequently drawn between many of Bush's anti-terror tactics (which have largely continued under Obama) and the politics of Big Brother.  After the Snowden revelations, it's more clear than ever that the United States government has an interest in monitoring more information about its citizens than it's comfortable disclosing in the light of day.

There are, however, a few crucial differences.  For instance, the metadata being culled by the NSA only exists because we willingly surrender that data to corporations in exchange for access to information technology.  Likewise, many of the violently normative expressions of anger against people that dared to question government policies in the mid 2000's didn't originate from government sources, but rather from attack dogs in the media and the social sphere intent on spearheading a self-policing policy for the American electorate.  These differences hint a a fundamental miscalculation present in both works, but more on that after we turn to Huxley.

Disappear into Sweet Oblivion

Huxley thought he was right about the future because he'd considered how to make people comfortable with surrendering their meaningful political engagement - control their perceptions about the world by conditioning them from an early age, and constantly push their pleasure buttons to distract them from more significant life ambitions.

Huxley was definitely right that government has been concerned for quite a while with proper socialization of the youth to ensure the continuity of the political system; When the second generation of founding fathers were debating the merits and design of a public education system, one of the most significant arguments in favor was to control the perceptions of huddled masses, so that they would understand that the decisions being made by the political elites were being made in everyone's best interest.

And I think he's also right that to a large extent, at least in the developed world, and particularly in America, political disengagement grows in tandem with our materialistic obsessions.  Our energies and our desires are almost entirely focused on accumulating and appreciating objects of consumption; they become totems for how we measure and compare our value as humans, and our principle avenue for entertainment.  But once again, I think Huxley was wrong to suppose that it would be some kind of central governing body that would be the delivery mechanism for the hedonistic cycle.

Dollar Dollar Bills, Y'all

That's right, the real issue is capitalism.  The modes of control to which we are all subjected in the status quo are largely decentralized and exist primarily because of our "voluntary" participation.  We surrender our data for analysis, and we certainly elect to participate in the consumerist rat race, but is it really fair to say that we make these decisions freely and without coercion?  The significant alignment between the political elite and the socioeconomic elite in America means that the rules and systems that govern practically every interaction in our everyday lives pushes us to conform to the expectations of assimilation into the workforce and pacification via consumption.  We're socialized from a young age to use these metrics to measure our progress through life.

Brave New World and Nineteen-Eighty-Four are both make prescient guesses about the nature of the strings that are tied to us all now, but they misidentified who'd be yanking on the threads from the other end.

Devouring the Zeitgeist

It's a new month, a time to switch the lens the reflecting pool will gaze through as we unpack the multi-faceted phenomena of everyday life.  Last month, we talked about patriarchy, a system that arguably grows out of our evolutionary history and has infested human interactions for perhaps as long as there have been humans.  This month, we swing to the opposite end of the spectrum as we explore the cutting edge of the human tool-making process:

technology.

More particularly, I'll be putting together pieces that explore the feedback loops that exist between technology, culture, and human evolution.  If you like sci-fi, futurism, or complaining about the kids these days, February is going to be great month for you at TFP!  To get the ball rolling, I'm starting today with a broad observation about the relationship between new modes of information consumption and our understanding of the world.

Information Overload

The graphic novel and film Watchmen  [spoiler alert, this analogy contains substantial references to the plot] both prominently feature billionaire super-genius philanthropist character Adrian Veidt, a former freelance superhero who capitalized on his renown and incredible intelligence to build a corporate empire.  Veidt's many public enterprises are geared towards an overarching aim: the ultimate improvement and salvation of human civilization.  And to that end, he also conducts a series of secret operations in a Machiavellian attempt to engineer a massive global conflict that will push humankind to the brink of extinction, in order to teach them necessity of peace and cooperation.

Why would a humanist like Veidt resort to such horrific measures?  Because, in his analysis, borderline apocalypse is the only thing that could bring us all together.  In his sub-antarctic lair, Veidt often sits in front of a giant wall of televisions air broadcasts from every corner of the Earth as a means to distill and digest the global zeitgeist.  In so doing, he's confronted from all corners by narrow ideological entrenchment, hate, fearmongering, and threat construction.  Veidt is in the unique position of being able to consider all of these perspectives simultaneously, and watching from that farm removed vantage point, he's brought to the brink of despair at the prospects for successfully building bridges of mutual understanding between the various gangs of homo sapiens.

Watchmen was originally published in the late eighties and is set in the alternate nineteen-seventies, technological epochs where rapidly analyzing media from all around the world would only be possible for super-geniuses with access to massive economic resources.  In the present, the capacity to rapidly collect information from thousands of different sources and deliver it directly into one's pocket is available to any person with a twitter account and a smartphone.  The internet has exponentially increased open access to information from anywhere and everywhere, so theoretically we should all be drifting towards a more pluralistic, tolerant worldview, right?

Not really.  Where before divisions were enforced by physical proximity, now most people voluntarily segregate themselves from any meaningful engagement with viewpoints or people that make them uncomfortable.  Collectively, we've engaged in a willful balkanization that confirms and violates all of our biases, rather than challenging the perspective we carry into situations.

All of this meant to preface February discussion of technology with an overarching thought.  All technological innovations are tools.  By themselves, they are devoid of moral and ethical content, and manifest positive or negative tendencies based on the uses to which they're put.  Uninhibited global communication could bring us all together, but only if we engage with that communicative network with an appropriate attitude of ideological and emotional openness.  Our goal must not be to win, but to understand.

The Great Bifurcator, Part 4

Check out parts one, two, and three before you read the final chapter below!

Part 4. Golden Parachute

"So you mean to tell me he's nowhere to be found?" He was shouting.  President Sanders didn't intend to shout, but he was momentarily overcome with the sheer absurdity of his present situation.  "I'm sorry Commander Rodriguez, but 'he's gone' isn't going to be the end of this conversation!  Elaborate, please."  To emphasize the amount of time he was willing to make available for clarification, he strolled across the room, took a seat behind his desk, leaned back and drummed his fingertips together as he waited for the general to tell his tale.  Rodriguez looked supremely agitated, but he wasn't prepared to disobey a direct order from his commanding officer, so he presented the sequence of events with the monotonous ramble of one reading from a grocery shopping list.

"Sir, after we concluded the aerial bombardment phase of Operation Dutch Oven, strike teams entered target zones in twenty-three separate hostile cities and encountered zero resistance.  All those who had previously identified as enemy combatants surrendered their arms, and in nearly all target zones captured hostiles are assisting our soldiers as they work to defuse IEDs and booby traps.  A SEAL team proceeded directly to enemy headquarters, again facing no enemy fire, and found the secessionist leadership assembled in one large room - all of them, minus President Trump."

"And I suppose our men inquired about Mr. Trump's present whereabouts?"

"They did, sir.  It appears that he fled yesterday by helicopter, after draining all of the accounts and currency reserves the enemy had been using to finance their acts of terrorism.  Frankly, Mr. President, I think they'd be as happy to find him as we would, sir."

"Make no mistake, Commander Rodriguez, nothing would make me happier than to hear that I'll never have to lay eyes on Mr. Trump's ugly mug again, but knowing that the Pied Piper robbed those fools after leading them into the wilderness and just before deserting them, well that comes close."

"Sir, what are your orders regarding locating Mr. Trump?" Sanders closed his eyes and reclined in his chairs, savoring the moment of pregnant silence, holding onto the pause for as long as he could, because he knew that once he opened his eyes again, he'd have to get to the work of putting the country back together again.  It was so much more difficult than tearing it apart.

"Commander, I leave that question to the collective wisdom of our armed services and intelligence divisions.  Liaise with CIA, develop an action plan and run it by me.  But please, no torture, and no illegal surveillance.  Do you think we can manage that?"  Rodriguez nodded in reply, saluted and left.

Trump got away with the money.  Was that the plan all along?  Bernie knew he shouldn't fixate on keeping score, but it was damn hard with a vision of Donald's smirking pooch floating in front of his face.  He had to hand it to the guy: he didn't have any sense of moral calculus, but he had certainly mastered the art of capitalism.  He crafted a scenario where he got to keep all the profits, and everyone else paid all of the costs.  The president sighed and picked up his phone, preparing to assemble the Cabinet so they could finalize the plans for reconstruction and reconciliation.

Bringing Children into a Mad World

I'm incredibly excited to present the final guest blog post during January's exploration of patriarchy: Dr. Rae Colley, formerly a professor at the University of West Georgia and presently my esteemed colleague. She's a deep thinker on the issues we've probed this month (her dissertation was entitled "Domesticating the Frontier: Representations of Native Americans in U.S. Women's Prose, 1820-1885"). You can read her literary criticism on her blog, Read This Book, Y'all. Below you will find a heartwarming and hilarious exploration of someone who identifies as a feminist and who has raised both daughters and sons.

My first experience wrangling with the concept of patriarchy occurred some years ago (I won’t say how many, because my commitment to feminism does not diminish my commitment to personal vanity) when I was a graduate student at Emory University in Atlanta. I was a young Ph.D. candidate in English, and I thought I would like to earn a certificate in Women’s Studies. Also, I was recently married. And, shortly after making that fateful decision, pregnant. But nevertheless, I wanted to fight the power of the male gaze and began taking classes in Women’s Studies, where I produced papers entitled, “The Hegemony of the Governess: (Re)inscribing the Patriarchy in Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” I love this title because it contains so many of the academic markers of the day: parentheses, dependent clauses, and of course a colon.  [Side note: this paper was a finalist that year for Most Outstanding Paper by a Graduate Student. It didn’t win, and to this day I wonder if I invested too heavily or not enough in the academic markers.]

At the time (ok, fine, it was the mid 90s) I was proud of my commitment to feminism. A professor of mine wrote a newspaper editorial arguing that everyone who was in favor of equal pay for equal work was a feminist, and I couldn’t really argue with her logic (mainly because I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about when she mentioned an Aristotelian paradigm of something or other). I strutted into my Emory class on Women in American Popular Culture full of ideas about how to elevate popular culture (occupied by women) into the stratosphere of intellectual culture (occupied by men.) My pregnancy was a frequent topic of discussion in my all-female class of varying gender identities.  My child was born in June, and when I returned to class in September, everyone was eager to hear about my new daughter. The only problem was that she was a son. I don’t mean that the baby was transgendered or confused about his gender identity (to my knowledge). Rather, in our enthusiastic reimagining of American popular culture, everyone had imagined a culture that included another open-minded young woman. I was so proud of my perfect baby boy and not a little offput when a classmate jokingly [I think] moaned, “Not another member of the patriarchy!”

I laughed, but then immediately began to worry: how would I prevent my innocent baby boy from joining the tidal wave of repressive male power? I thought I had the answer. I would not play into restrictive gender stereotypes! My boy would not play with guns or swords or army men! He would have a Barbie doll, and he would play dress-up! I would buy him a Baby Alive and teach him to change her diaper! He would wear pink, for heaven’s sake! While he was a swaddled infant, it was relatively easy to enforce these strictures. He wore his cute pink onesies with aplomb, and threw up on them just as efficiently as he did on the blue clothes. He gnawed on the Barbie’s shaved head when his teeth were coming in, and he actually asked for a Ken doll on his second birthday (I still don’t know if he knew I was going to get him one anyway, or if he genuinely wanted a tanned partner for Malibu Barbie. Or two Malibu Kens).

In the midst of all my self-congratulatory gender reassignment exercises, I became pregnant again, and this time to the delight of Women’s Studies students everywhere, I had a little girl. I knew what to do: regift her pink clothes and baby dolls to her brother, and make sure she had a full supply of Thomas the Tank Engine books and action figures. A funny thing happened here: Grace exhibited no interest whatsoever in her brother’s collection of Matchbox cars, and the only thing she liked to do with Thomas the Tank Engine was wrap him up in a blanket and pretend to rock him to sleep. To be clear, Thomas is a train. And he was swaddled nicely in a Barbie blanket. At least I think the blanket was a nice, gender-neutral yellow. More horrifying, despite my desire to avoid firearms of all kinds, my son Jackson had a real knack for weapon formation. He could make a gun out of a stick, a pencil, a shoe; he was a regular little Smith and Wesson MacGyver. And he quickly lost interest in the Malibu Ken that he had requested [accepted?] the previous year.

Over the years, my children have accepted and rejected gender norms in varying degrees: Grace never did enjoy the toy trucks I bought her, and I eventually had to cave in and buy her an American Girl doll to replace Thomas the Tank Engine. Jackson enjoyed dolls intermittently, but once he discovered Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that was all over. And to my immense chagrin, he has always loved guns: Airsoft rifles, BB guns, and violent video games. There, I said it. However, for years he played with the kitchen set I bought them, and now he’s studying to be a chef. My daughter is president of her school’s Business and Entrepreneurial Club, and is a master at outside sales (I myself could never even sell Girl Scout cookies). What does all this mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

This entire post has been one long piece of anecdotal evidence about my experience trying to carry the banner of feminism as a mother, first of boys, then of girls (I now am the proud mother of two beneficiaries of the patriarchy and two future breastfeeding advocates [optimism reigns here]). Society has changed a lot in the years since I earned that elusive Ph.D./Women’s Studies certificate, although maybe not so much as my classmates and I would like to believe. We are nearing the end of Barack Obama’s second term as the first African-American president, but we are also forced to listen to debate on how the infidelities of Hillary Clinton’s husband disqualify her from the presidency. Not to veer off into the political, but the personal is political, or so I’ve come to believe. I wanted to end with a pithy quote, but when I went to Tumblr, I kept getting distracted by the vitriolic comments and hate-mongering under each quote. Why is feminism such a dirty word to some? I did find one quotation that spoke to my story, though, from Gloria Steinem: “Though we have the courage to raise our daughters more like our sons, we’ve rarely had the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” Here’s to a judgment-free, egalitarian childhood, with all the dolls, trucks, cake pans, and sword-wielding turtles that implies!

Donna Haraway: Rise of the Cyborgs

Stop Number Three on our tour of voices lifted against patriarchy takes us even deeper into the depths of feminist literature and identity to consider the work of scholar Donna Haraway.  Where bell hooks views resistance to oppression as the building of coalitions between people with broad intersections of identity categories, Haraway resists the idea that categories and intersections have any validity at all - that there is no "being a female" as such.  From Haraway's perspective, the female experience (like all experiences) is constructed on the social, cultural, and scientific level and exists only in our imaginations as a platonic form, rather than an immutable fact.  And that's ok.

A Fusion of Dissimilar Elements

Haraway gained the most renown with the publication of her Cyborg Manifesto in the early eighties, which is an amazing metaphor expressing a very sophisticated idea.  With demagogic flourish, she forcefully makes the following point: there is no single feminism because there is no singular female experience.  There may not even be any aspects of female experience that apply to all people that self-identify as females.  However, Haraway does not see this as a problem for feminists: rather, it is an asset.  In the same way that cyborgs in science fiction transcend the limitations of both their organic and metallic components, feminists can transcend the limitations of their own limited perspectives by amalgamating the diverse body of perspectives that consider themselves feminist.  The goal is no longer assimilation, or even reconciliation; it isn't necessary to hash out a general understanding that creates internal consistency between different advocates against patriarchy.  

“The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity.” 

That is to say, working to construct the perfect feminism doesn't have to be a prerequisite to toppling patriarchy.  We can accept and move past the fractured nature of resistance (inevitably fractured because none of us can let go of the notion of divisive identity), and instead focus on our shared affinity - abhorrence of oppressive power structures.

Existential Horror

There are many wonderful authors of feminist literature in the world, but I chose Donna Haraway today because I think that her particular advocacy is emblematic in the differences in thinking that can arise when we suspend the demands for structural rationality that grow from the old order of knowing and organizing our knowledge.  At different points this month I've blogged about the ways that our understanding of the world (science, medicine, etc.) has not developed in a neutral, humanistic vacuum.  All of history is tainted by the arc of historical development that has concentrated power and influence in the hands of men, and has enabled these men to frame our social expectation for acceptable argument in ways that make it difficult to uproot the status quo.

Donna Haraway doesn't care about any of that.  Her argument disregards those logical demands (that all feminists should agree on what feminism is); she rejects them on face and calls them what they are - not inherently necessary elements of truth, but rather conditions imposed by the existing social order.  In that sense, Haraway's work is not only a beautifully evocative metaphor, but also a challenge to patriarchal power structures by the virtue of its very construction.

bell hooks: I'll meet you at the crossroads

Humble gift though it is, today I'd like to give my appreciation and draw hopefully simultaneously draw more attention to the scholarly work of one of the authors of the twentieth and twenty-first century who has been successful at making the conversation around feminism and patriarchy bigger.  Today we discuss bell hooks.

Standing at the center of the oppressive panopticon

For those of you who may be less conversant in feminist literature, bell hooks is a scholar that's been writing important texts since the seventies.  Before she was an academic, however, she was one daughter of a working class family in Kentucky that lived through the insult of segregated education and the trauma of integration.  Indeed, the confluence of multiple oppressive systems in her life primed hooks to significantly broaden the feminist conversation - bell understands intuitively the way that capitalism, racism and patriarchy function in a mutually supportive way to preserve the fundamental distribution of power in the status quo.  She made an argument for intersectionality - an understanding of identity that expands beyond the singular explanation to consider the dynamics interactions that shape people and movements.  

As a black feminist, bell experienced (perhaps still experiences) marginalization; she identified the toxic way that many conversations about gender equality entrench other forms of oppression, either by devaluing voices that come from outside of the center of the movement or deprioritizing issues that particularly affect members of the movement who have other overlapping identities.  For instance, one might argue that when Chris Rock attacked Jennifer Lawrence by comparing her struggle to the arguably more significant struggle of black female actors, he was raising an issue of intersectional feminism, challenging the idea that there is a singular collection of "women's issues" that impact all women equally (I critiqued the tenor of Rock's response as divisive to broader movements against oppression, but that doesn't mean it isn't a conversation worth having).  A strong alternative to oppressive power structures should be radically open to all voices.

Many people on the left aren't crazy about scholars like hooks that critique the state of activist movements; they perceive such scholarship as nitpicking or inflexible idealism that sacrifices the good in the name of the perfect.  I would argue that such attitudes are a replication of the same oppressive structures that movements try to combat.  I've criticized patriarchal institutions and world views for privileging certain forms of knowledge or certain modes of thoughts, and movements that don't value a diversity of voices and experiences are a micro-political reproduction of exactly the same thing.  bell hooks and her ideological successors are the post-modern vanguard intent on guaranteeing that as movements gradually collapse the old power structures, the new world that emerges will actually be better than the one it replaces.

To put it another way, a feminism that seeks only to make women equal in standing to men will inevitably fail, because not all men are equal to each other.  Racism and capitalism elevate the rights and protections that some men receive, and a meaningful challenge to that inequality cannot neglect other systemic oppressions to focus only on one.  It's a failing strategy and it fractures the coalition of humanity whose common interest is positive global transformation.

Bowie's Challenge to Heteronormativity: Turn and Face the Strange

Last week I considered some aspects of conducting activism in opposition to one of the most significantly engrained power binaries of human culture.  Now,as our month-long exploration of patriarchy winds down, I thought it might be nice to turn our gaze on a few figures that have made a significant (and I would argue positive) impact on the tenor of cultural conversations that take place around the intersections of gender, biology and power in our society.  What better place to start than by paying homage to a recently deceased icon that launched a pivotal challenge to people's normative perceptions of gender and sexuality: David Bowie.

Free Your Mind and Your Androgyny

Pressing an album on whose cover he appeared in a dress (The man who sold the world) was only a token of the totalistic way that Bowie's amorphous persona challenged the dogma of gender roles: an obviously identifiable trope that represented a deeper rejection of category that pervaded all things Bowie.  His physical features, his fashion choices, his language and mannerisms both drew from the hypermasculine (metal-riveted leather jackets and bulging codpieces) and the hyperfeminine (glitter, feathered blowouts and skin-tight leotards).  I think Bowie was the first truly mainstream figure that brought this type of gender-bending image to the fore; he was dangerous because he was a living manifestation of the message when radically masculine and feminine characteristics were both embraced, the result was not a failure or a cancellation (something like Pat from MadTV), but instead a potent summation of eclectic elements of human potential.  Bowie was amazing because he lived such contradictions effortlessly, dismissing the difficulty that the normal mind attaches to the liminal spaces that live between our well-defined notions.  Before Bowie, imagining the kind of male-female amalgam that he would become might have been well beyond the pale of many suburban imaginations.  With his establishment as a household name, people had a reference point to anchor their newly expanded imaginings about the range of the possible, and perhaps even the desirable when it came to enforcing particular gender traits on children with particular biological sexes.

What made Bowie particularly insidious, at least from the perspective of the dominant order, was the unapologetic element of his idiom.  Despite being so far ahead of the curve, despite challenging so significantly what many may have considered "normal", he refused to endorse others' frustration and confusion by giving it substance.  He lived in a world where normalcy was defined by his own perceptions of what a better world might look like, and with the force of his passion and his personality he shook the way that others looked at the world.  He knew that he, the emperor, was the only one wearing clothes, and his unflappable assurance that this was the case despite the indignation of so many of his naked subjects is what allowed him to pave the wave for futures icons like Prince to further blur the lines of identification that are used to normalize and substantiate roles of subservience and dominance in our patriarchal society.

We can all take a page out of Ziggy's playbook.  Live in a better world, and when you encounter others whose worldviews have been detrimentally polluted with prejudices and entitled expectations, invite them to leave all of that behind and join you in a better place.

The Great Bifurcator, Part 3

Don't forget to read Part 1 and Part 2! And when you're done here, check out Part 4.

Part 3. Atlanta Berns

The situation room was tense.  All eyes were on the Commander-in-chief. President Sanders stared back impassively at a room full of men who had expressed varying degrees of objection to his suitability for the highest office in the United States of America,  but who were now obliged to defer to his will or risk further rupturing America's storied political institutions.  That was one thing the president could certainly appreciate in these fellows' uncompromising military minds: even if they didn't always see eye to eye with him, he could at least count on them to hold fast to their central principles.  They didn't like him, but they loved America, so they would tolerate him.

"What are we hearing about evacuations and enemy movements?" It still didn't sound right coming out of his mouth.  This was not the reason he ran for president.

"It's no man's land, sir, everywhere outside major urban areas.  Satellite intel and flyovers show almost zero movement along the primary evacuation routes, which our ground teams have kept well secured.  Radio communication from the checkpoints confirms." Altenborough delivered his report with all the gusto of an adolescent reciting multiplication tables.

"Yes, fine, and what about the militias?" Rodriguez jumped into the fray this time.

"A few more have surrendered here and there, but none in the last six hours.  We have some unconfirmed reports of friendly fire on the other side.  If it's accurate, it may be that the last holdouts are gunning down anyone attempting to lay down arms and reach our perimeter.  Enemy ranks may be experiencing a morale problem.  Not unusual in the face of overwhelming firepower superiority.  If we keep waiting, the whole gang might unravel without us ever taking any offensive action."  This comment prompted a buzz of murmurs around the table that faded to silence as the president stood up and walked to stand in front of the giant monitor at the foot of the table.

"Remind me, General Rodriguez, what is my official title again?"

"Sir, you're the president, as well as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces."

"The president of what, exactly?"

"The United States of America, sir."

"You're damn right about that, except we aren't united at all, not at this particular moment.  Every day that this offensive farce drags on, every day that we let a band of prejudiced thugs wave guns around and tell people what the real definition of American freedom is, we lose.  We lose prestige with our allies and our enemies all around the planet.  We lose leadership on the international stage.  But most importantly, we lose the hearts and minds of good, decent Americans who expect the most powerful military in the world to be able to slap these terrorists back into line.  I'm tired of losing, General, and America is tired of losing.  Today, we're going to win, and it's going to be unquestionable."

"Sir, I wish you'd reconsider letting us deploy ground forces to mop this up."  Sanders grimaced, but swept his hand across the table in a gesture of acquiescence.

"Alright then, let's consider.  First, enemy casualties.  Do you expect to take a significant number of prisoners that might otherwise become casualties if we lean on airpower?"

Rodriguez hesitated.  "Well, No sir.  Minus the few poor bastards that got shot in the back this morning, we believe that most of the combatants remaining are highly ideologically motivated, perhaps radicalized by propaganda and psychological conditioning.  Surrender isn't likely."

"Second, OUR casualties.  Do these goons have any anti-air capability to speak of?  Anything that can tangle with our bombers?"

"No sir, nothing that can touch us."

"But they can shoot at us, right?  If we send our men into harm's way?"

"Yes sir.  They lack heavy artillery, but most of them are armed with assorted rifles and sidearms, and may have placed IEDs in combat zones."

"So the primary reason then would be to save the buildings, is that right?  That's why you're trying to talk me out of dropping bombs?"

"Sir, winning hearts and minds will be a lot easier if we're not trying to fill in the craters of major Southern cityscapes.  We're just trying to apply the lessons we've paid dearly to learn in Iraq, Mr. President."

"See, General Rodriguez, this is where we don't see eye to eye.  The way I see it, most of the hearts and minds we're interested in are already making a run for the safety and sheltering arms of American Military Forces.  The only souls left breathing in the target zone are a bunch of low-lifes that raised deadly arms against their fellow citizens.  I intend ensure that any of these fellows that live to see the other side of today will answer in American courts for their crimes against country and humanity, not to win their hearts and minds.  The only people who stand to lose much from me pushing the big red button, besides our naughty secessionists, are the industrialists that are invested in protecting the status quo.  Status quo is over, boys, and protecting the military-industrial complex is the least of my concerns.  Now give the Wing orders to commence Operation Dutch Oven."

                     *                                                  *                                                   *

Hunkered in tiny bands in makeshift bunkers all over the city, the last remaining militia clung to their weapons with sweaty palms, waiting for the assault to begin.  None of them had any illusions anymore about victory; they were only waiting for the opportunity to die the glorious death to which all real men were entitled.  They could hardly hear the whistling as thousands of tons of munitions came crashing down on them, robbing them of their dying wishes, but purging their ugly hearts all the same. 

Theories of Feminism: An Intergenerational Conversation

We have another incredibly special post today! The second guest blog of the year was put together by  veteran educator Holly Chesser.  The conversation below took place in a facebook chat between Holly and her former student Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy.  In decades past, Holly was Jennifer's eighth grade teacher.  Now, Jennifer is a writer publishing on a wide variety of issues including reproductive and women's health.  She contributes to The Guardian and Yahoo! among others, and is one of the founding editors of Jezebel.com.

Holly Chesser

HRC: Ok, so as I mentioned before, my friend asked me to write about patriarchy. Initially,  I was going to write about the varied treatment of women and men in politics. Abuse heaped on Hillary Clinton (and by the way, Nikki Haley now because she opened her mouth) tends to demean them sexually: the uninspired, common “dumb whore,”  “stupid slut,” “crazy bitch” that women have endured for years. Critics of Trump and Jeb may have nothing nice to say about the two, but they don’t “reach below the belt” for their choice terms. But I decided against writing that blog post because I didn’t want to spend any time thinking about people who think or talk that way about women.  Instead, I had an exchange with a student that took my thinking down a different path. One of my students asked me if I am a feminist. I responded, “Of course, I’m a woman. Why wouldn’t I be a feminist?” She sorta rolled her eyes and commented, “Burn your bra and all that.” I retorted, “No, equal pay and respect and all that.” Her dismissiveness of feminism made me wonder if there is a generational divide that I had just encountered and couldn’t appreciate. I have to regularly remind this young woman that her skirt is too short, a dress code infraction. She’s a little sassy in a very likable way and generally has the last word – like telling me that she’s sorry if what she’s wearing is disturbing the boys. I’ve quite literally had to tell her that I don’t think anyone in the building should know the color of her underwear simply because they are following her up the stairs. So, what am I missing? Some might argue that my behavior towards her qualifies as “slut shaming,” but does it? Shouldn’t we all keep our privates private? You’re a former student, roughly 20 years younger than I.  Help me understand.

Jennifer Uffalussy

JGU: I think we have to start by breaking these into a few separate issues, the two biggest being the unfortunate resistance that young women feel about the word "feminist" (help us, Beyonce!), and then the separate issue of so-called slut-shaming.  And I should qualify all of this with the fact that a high school student would probably think I am old and out of touch too since I now graduated almost 15 years ago. The issues are linked for me, and I believe for you, too -- but I think for many young women in particular, they are not -- which probably brings us to them resisting the whole feminist label to begin with. I really wish I knew why feminist is a bad word. Because, like you said, to me it's like, “Hi -- do you believe that you have the right to make your own choices? Do you think human beings should, inherently, be thought of as equals? Because then you _should_ then say you believe in feminism.”

HRC: But I wonder if young women resist the word "feminism" because they equate that word with lesbianism, with challenging men, with strength. And they don't want to be viewed in those terms. They don't want to be viewed as aggressive, which of course is nonsense. Nonsense, as in lesbians, challenge, and strength are not inherently aggressive.

JGU: (Though of course this brings us to the whole other issue of "white feminism" vs "intersectional feminism" -- ideally, the word feminism would, be default, imply intersectional feminism. It often does not. That is also part of the problem. It reminds me of a college professor I had once who asked us all to define the word feminist and I told her I thought defining the word was anti-feminist.) But I don’t know, perhaps for your student -- I wonder if it's just more granny-ish. like, “ugh the olds are into the feminism.”

HRC: "The olds”? Please tell me that won't catch on. If it becomes a hashtag, I'm going to assume it's a misspelling.  It seems to me that many young women want to define their power through their sexuality. Isn't that a throwback to the old dichotomy: men assert strength through physical power and women through sex?

JGU: No promises on “the olds.” I wonder too if some of the problem ("problem") is with a lack of conversation happening -- in homes, in school, among peers -- about the relationship between gender and sexuality. Because, for me, it's really important to not qualify feminism as a "women's issue" -- though of course women's issues are part of feminism. We just need more discourse on gender _and_ sexuality. And marginalization and otherness.

HRC: Yes, I think you're right because in schools gender is a word used in biology and sexuality is used in health class.

JGU: And both of those words are complicated in their own right! And we need to talk about that! Maybe this is wishful thinking, but maybe younger women would be less resistant to the idea of feminism if they realized how messy and amorphous it really is. And how if you care about bodies and performance and also about equal pay and who has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own body -- that's all part of feminism.

HRC: At the beginning of the year, I engaged with my students in a discussion about rape on college campuses. We talked about the desire to explore independence from one’s parents and the need to protect oneself. One of the boys asked what role dressing or dancing provocatively played in rape. Does the woman have any responsibility to protect herself?

JGU: Campus rape is another topic like dress code where I think the issues get muddled a lot -- But to me, it comes down to -- no one is "asking for it." If a girl wanted to hang out naked all the time, good for her. But it would not be an invitation for assault or objectification, even. And I think that's where your dress code question comes up.

HRC: Naked in a public place or even at a party? Isn't there a difference between the ideal and the pragmatic here?

JGU: There is a phenomenal academic at the University of New Hampshire, Sharyn Potter, doing research on what she is calling "bystander culture" -- The idea that communities have to understand accountability. And that if you saw someone who looked drunk to the point where they were no longer coherent, as a bystander you are obligated to intervene. It's on you. And that the real problem is that we aren't socializing children -- from the youngest age -- about bystander culture enough.  She always gives the example, which I love, of how her elementary school age daughter has a child in her class with a peanut allergy. But ALL the students know it is critical that they don't bring nuts to school. And they need to help watch out for the student too.

HRC: But I taught my daughter - now 24 - that she should never accept a drink from a boy at a party, never fill a cup from a barrel, always be with someone.

JGU: I mean, look who you are talking to. Safety first! But I don't think the two things cancel each other out. No one deserves to be raped. I don't care if you are blacked out drunk. And learning that in elementary school could in theory have a huge impact on how they grow up to think about "rape culture." If you see something, say something. And teaching consent in kindergarten even, too. We forget that age-appropriate sex ed is, in fact, age appropriate. For a kindergartener, that means asking if you can hug someone or hold their hand. And that is such an important lesson.

HRC: But rape is about power, right? 

JGU: Rape is definitely about power.

HRC: Right. So what's that about? Why is rape prevalent on college campuses? I don't know the statistics - whether it's increased or decreased. But I wonder why men feel the need to assert such power. What's going on there? Although men can be raped, the numbers pale in comparison. If patriarchy is about male power, what is the continuing role of rape about? I wonder if - and believe me I'm not assigning blame to women at all - rape is so prevalent because women are dressing more openly and behaving more provocatively and men are asserting their power. As in, "there are less of us on campuses these days because these damn women are so bright, and what's worse they are dressing sexy and asserting themselves, and by God they can't have both, so I'm going to assert my age-old vestige of power - I am going to sexually overcome them"? 

JGU: But this comes back to how we socialize young men. And these ultimately all come back to one person's word against the other. And certain people's words get privileged over others. Which again -- is where feminism comes into play.

HRC: But in the case of the UVA claim of rape, it wasn't rape.

JGU: UVA is so hard and so complicated too. (Full disclaimer: I know you went there!) Rolling Stone totally screwed up on every level of journalism. Like in every possible way. And I do think it is really really important to trust survivors, because one of the few things we do have hard data on is false reporting -- and it is so rare.  Not that it never happens. But so, so rare. So if someone says they have been assaulted, believe them.

HRC: Actually, initially I didn't defend the school at all. There is enormous entitlement there. The exposure of the story has been really sad to me. Not because I wanted it to be true - of course, no one should want that. But now the waters are considerably muddled. But it's ridiculous to think that one woman speaks for all women. Or one Muslim speaks for all Muslims. etc. etc. etc.

JGU: Absolutely! I honestly hurt for any victim of assault whose story is dismissed (that much quicker) because of what happened with Rolling Stone. And the onus is really on Rolling Stone there. The systems are just all bad too. The systems themselves are too deeply flawed. Internal adjudication means something different to every school. And there is so much murkiness with disclosure. (Like what happened with that Oregon case I reported on!)  We need Title IX reform and there are a lot of really smart young women advocating so hard. These two amazing young women started this 

group, Know Your IX.

HRC: Ok, so what about the word “slut”? What does it even mean anymore?

JGU: That is actually one of my favorite stories I wrote last year! 

HRC: It seems so many young women have appropriated the language of oppression like “slut” and “ho” in the same way that African Americans have taken ownership of the n-word. 

JGU: Ooh I don't know about that as a 1:1 comparison.

HRC: Last year, I had a young black man write a wonderfully satirical essay on the proper reparations for slavery: exclusive use of the "n" word. What makes you uncomfortable about the comparison?

JGU: I think the historical context of the terms is just too incomparable And the weight, even. You can say "slut" on network TV. And for fear of the whole "speaking for all women" thing -- I think -- I think! -- that women who use the word slut re:themselves and their peers aren't doing so within a larger socio-political narrative. But doing so because it's just what they're supposed to be -- to go back to your way earlier point -- women are taught they can assert power through sexuality in a world where they are not equal with men, so. As Tenenbaum puts in her book, then you can be "the good slut." You can perform the role correctly. You can be sexual but not too sexual, to be threatening but sexy enough so that you’re noticed but innocuous.

HRC: Oh, god, that's so complicated. Sexual but not too sexual? So, no nip slip?

JGU: Or maybe, a nip slip but not a crotch shot. Social media plays such a big part in it too! Because you can document your own performance

HRC: But that goes back to what I mean. Kim K's sex tape got her where she is today. But I'd argue she is nowhere.

***Long conversation between teacher and former student about Blanche Dubois, Lady Macbeth, Jane Eyre, Virginia Woolf – blah, blah, blah ****

JGU: But it's all about choice -- and not that feminism only means drowning yourself and cheating on your husband and abandoning your children -- but that you can make whatever kind of choice you want. And not feel like your only option is drowning yourself. Or, do! And feel cool about that choice, as well!

Conversation ended shortly thereafter because, as Jen wrote, - 

JGU: In 5ish minutes I have to go call the high school senior who asked Carly Fiorina about feminism (full circle!)

Questioning the Voice of Oppression

Yesterday I made the case that pushing people to stop taking actions that reinforce patriarchy (rather than condemn individuals for being patriarchal) is a key element when it comes to transforming our society through bottom-up activism.  But that begs a significant question: how do you get someone to stop taking patriarchal actions?To answer that question, I draw on my years of experience as an educator.

Inside Out

There are two general categories of motivation that drive all human behavior: extrinsic motivation (things that come from outside of you) and intrinsic motivation (things that come from inside of you.  In the educational context, grades, treats, rewards, etc. are all extrinsic motivators, while the desire to learn/understand is an intrinsic motivator.  So if your goal is to change someone's behavior, you have one of two choices - you can either change the set of consequences (i.e. extrinsic motivators) they experience for their choices, or you can try to get them to see the world differently and therefore feel differently about their decisions, thereby shifting their intrinsic motivations.

Since we're discussing ways to transform large scale power structures, that pretty much rules out changing the extrinsic motivators, at least in the short term.  Changing consequences for acting like a patriarchal jerk, at least on a large scale, requires authority and influence.  Passing laws, shifting broad social perceptions, and other steps like these that significantly shift peoples' extrinsic motivations might result in quick change, but if people that wanted to militate against patriarchy were already in positions of power, we probably wouldn't be in the position to discuss how to break it down...

So how do you get people to look at the world in a different way?

The Wisest of Us

It was thinking about the problem in that way that made me realize that getting people to look at the world in a different way is basically my day job.  I am a teacher.  I walk into my classroom and I pull a bunch of tricks out of my bag to get my students to question their conceptions and strive to understand the world more completely, so here's my two cents on how shake people's deeply held beliefs:

1. Start with questions.  Follow the example of Socrates.  If your goal is to change minds rather than score points, you're better off taking people out of a defensive frame of mind, and making them feel as if they're talking to a person that wants to understand them.  It's a fundamental aspect of the human condition.  Everyone wants to be understood.  Plus, this questioning serves a dual purpose - not only does it put the question recipient into a more pliable frame of mind, but it allows you to guide them to a point where they can test to what extent their beliefs about the world (or women and men and the ideal structure of society) are founded in factual observations.
2. Dig Deeper.  Don't ask just one question.  Peel back layer after layer.  Sexism, like most prejudices, is usually deeply engrained, and its ultimate origins are likely buried beneath accumulated layers of anger, frustration, and selective information absorption that tends to confirm one's own prejudices.
3. Be empathetic. The project of social transformation ultimately aims to include all members of the human community in a more loving, inclusive, supportive social arrangement, and that's not possible if the deviants that call the shots right now are all sentenced to excommunication.  Plus, I believe that all human actions, even the most horrible and condemnable, grow from real emotional experiences with which we can all empathize to some extent.  Connecting on that empathetic level is the key to getting someone to put down their weapons.
4. Don't bite off more than you can chew.  As mentioned above, prejudices dwell deep.  You probably won't convince some sexist jerk that he's been treating women like shit all his life and that might not be a good thing after a single conversation.  But you might tweak something just a tad that sheds a new light on an experience he has in the future.  And if he has a few conversations and experiences like that, then maybe he just will realize the error of his ways.

I'm advocating for a movement towards universal empathy that lacks the vicious satisfaction of the hyper-masculine revenge fantasy.  It isn't sexy in the conventional sense.  But we've been fixing the world in sexy ways for millennia, and look how messed up everything is now!  Pretty much every genuinely positive choice I've ever made (eating healthy, exercising, apologizing) has come with a period of painful adjustment where I've had to force myself to forego short-term gratification in the pursuit of a comprehensively better life.  Giving up on the idea of getting even and embracing the idea of getting better strikes me as the big-picture equivalent when it comes to activism for a better world.