Author: Ophelia Benson

  • No one ever talked to me for more than a minute

    About appearing Normal, and being different (or not), and independence – Patricia Churchland has a telling little illustrative story in Braintrust. In a section of chapter 6, “Skills for a Social Life,” she discusses mimicry as a social capacity – it’s reassuring because it makes prediction easier.

    As social sizing up develops over a few minutes, assuming I got the preliminary signals I needed, I may be motivated to reassure you. So I play my part in mimicry so that you do not start anxiously watching me, making me even more uncomfortable. [p 160]

    There’s an endnote there. It’s the illustrative story. When she was a grad student in Oxford she was expected to go to the sherry parties

    that my tutor at Balliol College held for his male undergraduates. I was always uncomfortable, because as a colonial, and a country bumpkin to boot, I did not have the slightest idea how I should behave. Trying to assimilate the ways of young Englishmen educated at British “public” (private) schools was, quite simply, beyond me. Needless to say, with the exception of a very awkward Irish lad who was comparably handicapped socially, no one ever talked to me for more than a minute. [p 230]

    It’s a depressing little tale, because surely the tutor could have and should have managed things better. The English do love to play their little exclusion games though.

  • In line with the rest

    Libby Anne posted on this cartoon:

    Shades of The Life of Brian –

    I’m not

    Brian, talking to a cheering crowd: You’re all individuals.

    Crowd, in unison: Yes, we’re all individuals.

    Brian: You’re all different.

    Crowd, in unison: Yes, we’re all different.

    Single voice in crowd: I’m not.

    This business of being independent and thinking for yourself…Even for people who really do that to a smaller or greater extent, it’s such a small proportion of everything they do that in a way it’s absurd even to talk about it. The most eccentric of humans are only a tiny bit eccentric. Few humans resemble ants, or grey whales, or stones. Carl Sagan used to like to point out how human most movie and novel extra-terrestrials are, when there’s no reason whatever to think an intelligent agent from another galaxy would look at all humanoid.

    We don’t even want to be more than a little weird. I certainly don’t. I don’t want to be weird in the style of Dennis Markuze, for instance. I don’t want to be like the guy I once saw in my neighborhood marching along the street in Nazi regalia, talking rather loudly. I don’t want to be a sentient eggplant or spider web. In many situations my conscious hope is to appear Normal, and I know damn well I’m not the only one.

  • Jacques Rousseau on gendered epithets

    Racist epithets are unquestionably considered unacceptable, but the sexist versions operate in a context where misogyny is so deeply entrenched that it can escape notice.

  • It gets better, but he couldn’t hold on until it did

    What happens.

    Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old boy from Williamsville, NY, took his life Sunday after what his parents claim was years of bullying because of struggles with his sexuality.

    His parents, Tracy and Tim Rodemeyer, say that Jamey faced bullies for years, though things intensified in middle school…

    According to NBC, the Rodemeyers had gone to the school about the problem in the past. Jamey even sought counseling to learn to deal with the problem, but it seems it wasn’t enough.

    While they say their son seemed happy in the days leading up to the tragedy, his “It Gets Better” YouTube posting from May includes details about how intense the bullying was.

    The kind of thing that helps to make it happen.

    SANTORUM: I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. The fact they are making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to, and removing don’t ask don’t tell. I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing: to defend our country…

    Rick Santorum calls it a “special privilege” to be protected from dismissal on the grounds of sexual orientation, as if dismissal on the grounds of sexual orientation were a perfectly reasonable and acceptable social practice.

    Notice the fumble. Notice the midair correction – he was going to say “and give them a special privilege to…fuck each other like the disgusting depraved spawn of Satan they are” but realized that that might get him into deep waters, so he pulled the second cord on his chute. But he’d already said it, anyway. The dog whistle was already out there. He made it sound as if the point of ending DADT were to encourage gay soldiers to have sex while in the military – on duty, presumably, and anywhere and everywhere. He made it sound as if the point were to give gay soldiers “a special privilege” to interrupt doing their jobs in order to hump each other whenever they felt like it.

    Millions of high school bullies are indebted to Rick Santorum.

  • Consciousness is part of the fabric of the universe

    Really?

    Richard Dawkins has no sense of irony. He rails endlessly against
    fundamentalists yet he defends old-fashioned, Thomas Gradgrind-style materialism as zealously as the Mid-West Creationists defend the literal truth of Genesis.

    Really? Does he, really?

    Colin Tudge says he does, but I don’t believe it. That’s because I don’t believe Dawkins is as crude as Gradgrind or as ignorant as fundamentalists. I think Tudge is exaggerating.

    He accuses others of misrepresentation yet he seriously misrepresents religion.
    Also, which is irony writ large, he misrepresents science, in whose name he is
    assumed to speak. He condemns the Catholics for filling the heads of children
    with a particular view of life before they have had a chance to think for
    themselves – and now, in The Magic of Reality, written for readers as young as
    nine, he has done precisely that. As somebody said of Miss Jean Brodie, it’s
    time he was put a stop to.

    Does he? Is it “a particular view of life” he objects to? Is it not the dogmatic aspect of the view of life that is the problem?

    Thus he tells us that “reality is everything that exists” – and “exists”, he makes clear, means whatever we can see or stub our toes on, albeit with the aid of telescopes and seismographs. Everything else – including things we might think exist, like jealousy and love – derive from that material base and are to a large extent illusory. This, he implies, is what emerges from science, and science is true.

    Really? He tells us that jealousy and love are to a large extent illusory, meaning, they don’t “exist”? I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know, but I’m skeptical.

    Many philosophers have, like Baruch Spinoza, argued that consciousness is not
    just the noise that brains make but part of the fabric of the universe. We do
    not generate consciousness in our heads: we partake of what is all around us,
    just as our eyes partake of light.

    Yes, and the hills are alive with the sound of music.

    The other clichés turn up too – Dawkins is an unreformed logical positivist, materialist philosophers like Dan Dennett and AC Grayling, zeal for eugenics, religions do not depend upon their myths, any theologian could have put him right on this, Newton and Descartes were devout, to explore the wonders of the world through science was to glorify God, Dawkins’s ultra-materialist view of life is crude by comparison.

    Ho hum.

  • Colin Tudge says it’s time Dawkins was put a stop to

    Says “Religions do not depend upon their myths and miracles. They are there as
    illustrations.” Says other things too.

  • Tim Radford on Dawkins’s The Magic of Reality

    He covers a lot of ground by addressing a series of pleasingly simple questions. Who was the first person? Why are there so many kinds of animals? Why do we have night and day?

  • We understand the concept

    As we saw, Jordan Sekulow complained that

    Whether it’s Governor Rick Perry calling for prayer for our nation, Congresswoman Bachmann discussing her “calling” to run for elected office, or Governor Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, it is now acceptable for many in the media to ridicule the religious beliefs of one particular group of Americans – conservatives.

    Let’s have a look at that first link. It’s Jordan Sekulow himself saying what a good thing prayer is.

    Prayer is essential. Faith is powerful. Non-believers and skeptics cannot comprehend the concept of literally asking God for His guidance and blessing. This is not surprising nor is it, in itself, offensive. When the lack of understanding turns into sneers and insults, usually coupled with a lack of basic knowledge about the evangelical Christian faith, we have a duty to respond.

    But that’s quite wrong – of course we can comprehend the concept – but we think it’s wrong about reality. We can understand it, but we think it’s as effective and useful as asking a water faucet for its guidance and blessing, or a tree, or a galaxy, or a hurricane. We think it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding. We think there is no “God” to ask for “His” guidance and blessing.

    Many of us also think that adults ought to be able to understand that, and thus at least keep their practice of “asking God for His guidance and blessing” private, in the knowledge that it’s not something that all reasonable grown-ups think is sensible. Adults don’t talk to ghosts or fairies in public, mostly (apart from people like Sylvia Browne, that is), and for the same reasons they ought not to talk to “God” in public either.

    That’s how the sneers and insults get in. It would be the same if adults were talking to fairies and ghosts, and Sekulow is wrong to think his “God” is fundamentally different.

  • Because she’s got a passport, he can get a visa

    The familiar pretty story:

    Seventeen-year-old Jessie faced being forced into marriage to her
    40-year-old cousin in Bangladesh. She begged the British Consulate in Dhaka for help and officials stepped in. She is just one of an estimated tens of thousands of British women at risk of being forced into marriage.

    Alan Morrison, the British Consul in Bangladesh, says his team meet a girl
    like Jessie every week.

    Born in Britain but living in rural Bangladesh and promised in marriage to a
    much older man.

    Jessie managed to call the consulate when her father was at evening prayers.

    “She told them she was desperate not to marry but did not have any money and
    was not allowed to look after her own passport,” said Mr Morrison.

    Jessie had been promised to her cousin at the age of 11. She was due to turn
    18 next month so the consul decided to act immediately.

    In these circumstances, when you’ve got a British girl, often she’s seen as a
    commodity,” explained Mr Morrison. “Because she’s got a passport, he can get a visa, and work in the UK. We’re seeing a generational strategy to emigrate to
    the UK.”

    And she’s just a thing to be used. And there are tens of thousands like her; she was rescued but most are not.

     

  • The God-given freedoms of its people

    Now for Jordan Sekulow’s post itself.

    He’s pissed off because the pesky leftwing atheist media have been saying Dominionists are Dominionists.

    Whether it’s Governor Rick Perry calling for prayer for our nation, Congresswoman Bachmann discussing her “calling” to run for elected office, or Governor Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, it is now acceptable for many in the media to ridicule the religious beliefs of one particular group of Americans – conservatives.

    The new insinuation is that conservative Christians are engaged in a concerted effort to establish a theocracy here in America. Under the guise of so-called ‘Christian Dominionism,’ our alleged goal is, “replacing American law with the strictures of the Old Testament.”

    Nothing could be further from the truth.

    As I have explained before, Christians who seek to participate in the political process do so not as an attempt to install some type of theocratic rule, but to ensure that the government fulfils its God-ordained role in society to promote justice, provide security, and protect the God-given freedoms of its people.

    Uh…………………………..

    I fail to see the difference.

    I see the difference in the wording, yes, but the difference in the wording doesn’t amount to a difference in the substance. Thinking and saying (and insisting) that government has a “God-ordained role in society” is theocratic. Working to enforce that idea is working for theocracy. Thinking and saying (and insisting) that freedoms are “God-given” is theocratic – it entails thinking that only the freedoms you consider consistent with your idea of what “God” wants are to be protected; all others are to be eliminated. This includes for instance the freedom to stop being pregnant. It includes the freedom to attend school if your Amish parents want to take you out of school. It includes the freedom to marry someone of the same sex.

     

  • Jessie’s cousin wanted her for a passport

    17-year-old Jessie faced being forced into marriage to her 40-year-old cousin in Bangladesh. She begged the British Consulate for help and officials stepped in.

  • Infiltration

    Here’s a question. Why is the Washington Post providing a platform for Jordan Sekulow, Director of Policy and International Operations for the American Center for Law and Justice?

    Founded by Pat Robertson, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and its Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow quickly established themselves as key players in the right-wing movement, litigating a variety of cases at all levels, including the Supreme Court. The ACLJ has been particularly active in fighting marriage equality and defending the Pledge of Allegiance, while Sekulow has maintained very close ties to the Bush White House and played a central role in pushing for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito.

    It reminds me of Obama – listen to all points of view, invite everyone to the table, be even-handed to a fault, reach out to your enemies while abandoning your allies, model good behavior toward opponents and assume that they will do likewise. Right-wing newspapers and magazines don’t give left-wing commentators a platform, so why do putatively liberal or centrist or at least reality-based newspapers and magazines give right-wing theocrats a platform? Are they thinking the right-wing theocrats will reciprocate? Has it escaped their attention that this never ever happens?

    The ACLJ thinks and says that rights are “God-given.”

    Our Mission | Freedom and Liberty are God-given rights

    It also apparently has no women in important roles, at least not judging by that banner.

    By focusing on U.S. constitutional law, European Union law and human rights law, the ACLJ and its affiliated organizations are dedicated to the concept that freedom and liberty are universal, God-given and inalienable rights that must be protected.

    Universal and God-given – there’s a tension there. If “freedom and liberty” are God-given rights then they are rights as defined by “God” and that of course means defined by clerics. Clerics and their religions have particular, narrow, goddy concepts of “rights” which often in secular terms mean the opposite of “rights.” I don’t trust that clump of guys at that table to protect my rights. Far from it: I’m quite sure they want to take some of my rights away.

    It’s very odd that the Washington Post feels obliged to help them with their work.

  • New Statesman on the rise of Dominionism in the US

    Dominionism is theocratic, and that’s alarming.

  • The misery of India’s “holy” cows

    Many of the cows and buffaloes wandering Delhi’s roads are owned and neglected by illegal dairies who are concerned only about milk production.

  • The move for fetal “personhood”

    How to take a woman’s rights away.

  • 22 MacArthur genius grants announced

    One for Jad Abumrad, the co-host and producer of “Radiolab,” a program on WNYC in New York that explores questions of science and philosophy, like the nature of altruism.

  • Tom Martin on “whoriarchy”

    Remember our friend Tom Martin, the MRA who is suing LSE for being unfair to men? He just sent me a message to let me know he’s done an interview with two other MRAs so that I could listen to it if I wanted to. Nah, I don’t. But I looked around a little and found that after his chatting at my place he did some chatting at Cath Elliott’s place. Oh boy; treats.

    I’ll give you some highlights.

    Sunday at 4:21 pm:

    So ‘male-dominant’ cultures, are more likely female-powerful.

    It’s a skanky, whorish, back seat-driving type of power which leads to economic and cultural ruin and war –  a whoriarchy.

    We know for instance, that women tell men what to do in marriages 90% of time – that is the same everywhere in the world.

    Monday at 2:30 am:

    Right out of the gate, you assume that women just pick the colour of the curtains, but ask any estate agent, and they’ll tell you its the woman of the couple who has the final say on whether to buy the house or not.

    Women make 90% of couple decisions big and small, according to a 2007 Harvard Study I can’t find, but is out there somewhere.

    The next thing you’re doing, is presenting the domestic sphere as separate from the political sphere.

    Women in the home have access to more political debate than men do in the workforce, as women at home have more access to media.

    But yep, restricted movement and the veil are the price some women think is worth paying, as long as they don’t need to get a job.

    Women can’t drive in Saudi, but they do have chauffeurs.

    And most of those who can afford it, choose a chauffeur.

    Muslim women are really the boss in the home, and fascism starts in the home.

    In a whoriarchy, in the same way you don’t need to drive to control where the car goes, you don’t particularly need an education either, as long as you know how to steer a man, but these whores don’t, which is why their countries and cultures are failing.

    Yesterday at 5:14 pm:

    Feminists sometimes tell the truth, in which case, no court case.

    As soon as people lie, in order to make women look like bigger victims than they are, or men bigger perpetrators than they are, then that is no longer feminism, but anti-male victim-femalism.

    It is a negative stereotype, which is harassment.

    It is bias, which is not protected under the academic immunity principle.

    It is a breach of university regulations, which makes it a breach of contract.

    It is misleading advertising, if this agenda wasn’t made clear in the prospectus.

    You cannot reason, with the unreasonable. Those addicted to the unreasonable assertions that men are bad and women are good – who refuse to acknowledge any new positions, even in light of overwhelming evidence, should not call themselves feminists.

    Furthermore, I did not sign up for a degree in feminism, but one in gender – which LSE personnel acknowledge should be about men and women – but which behind the scenes, they try to make all about women.

    LSE legal team please note.

  • Little indeed

    The Massachusetts Republican party wants Harvard to stop paying Elizabeth Warren’s salary while she runs for the Senate. It doesn’t just want Harvard to do that, it’s trying to tell Harvard to do that.

    “By restoring her to the faculty, even though she has now formed a federal
    election committee and is actively campaigning, the university is establishing a
    bad precedent for academic appointments,” Nate Little, executive director of the state GOP, wrote in a letter to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust.

    As if that’s their business. As if they’re the boss of Harvard. As if Harvard were taxpayer-funded.

    The Globe adds later, drily,

    During last year’s special election, [Republican Senator Scott] Brown continued to accept his taxpayer financed salary as a state senator. He has not expressed any plans to give up his federal salary while running for reelection to the US Senate.

     

  • Libby Anne on the nostalgic iconography of Vision Forum

    Most of the 19th century wasn’t prosperous people gathered around a hearth, it was ragged people crowded into tenements.