freelark

Where are the anti-heroes of color?

2008-08-10T20:01:02Z

I'm pretty sure International Blog against Racism Week (IBARW) is over, but I'm also pretty sure there's still racism in the world, so I'm going to register my disgust anyway.

The seed for the idea of this post was planted when I learned of the cast of the upcoming film adaptation of Watchmen. I started to wonder why there are so few anti-heroes of color. The only film I could think of that had an African American anti-hero was Spawn. When I tried finding another, the only relevant film title I found was Superfly, a sort of exception that proves the rule. I considered that the lack may partly be due to movie creators' feeling that they need to tread carefully in order to remain racially sensitive. After all what sets an anti-hero apart from a hero is certain less-than-heroic qualities, and an ignorant audience member might associate these qualities with the character's ethnicity. However, I didn't think that alone explained the dearth of anti-heroes of color in mainstream media.

I was then reminded of something else I had noticed: Why is it that in recent years the judge, the computer expert, or the God of a mainstream work of fiction has been black? At first glance this might look like a cause for celebration: Finally a positive portrayal of black people! But I started to feel that I was seeing the genesis of a new stereotype. But it was only while thinking about these stock characters in relation to anti-heroes that it hit me: These characters are just one step away from being magical negroes (indeed the article that I link to lists God as played by Morgan Freeman as a magical negro). By and large their history is neither explored nor shrouded in a mystique to give the audience cause to supply their own history. They have a lot of power that comes from their genius or near-genius mental abilities, but they generally only use it to bail white protagonists out of trouble or teach them valuable lessons.

The anti-hero could be considered the antithesis of the magical negro. Anti-heroes tend to have rich histories; this is part of what helps us see them as heroic. I can remember reading Classic X-Men and coming to admire Wolverine, because even though he acted like an asshole a good part of the time, the writers hinted at a rich history of suffering to explain why he acted that way. (This was many years before the publication of Weapon X.) Anti-heroes also tend to be somewhat egoistic, working with the group only insofar as is needed to further their own ends. So I think there are two main reasons we don't see many anti-heroes of color in fiction. First, white writers don't want to depict people of color with rich histories that involve suffering, even though real life people of color experience oppression that white people in a racist society will never know. Second, white writers don't want to depict people of color being reluctant to help out white people or doing things for their own sake. And so we have characters of color who have or may as well have dropped out of heaven to help out white people -- though never white writers, it seems.

If anyone insists that this is an innocuous lacuna, consider how often you see anti-heroes who belong to any oppressed group. (This is appropriate, as the theme of this year's IBARW is intersectionality.) In Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta the protagonist's race and sexual orientation are left ambiguous. But the movie makes V white and straight, despite the movie's pervasive pro-gay-rights theme. It's difficult to excuse this by saying, "We wouldn't want people to associate V's anti-heroic qualities with being black or being gay," when the film version of V has been stripped of most of his anti-heroic qualities. This is even less justifiable when the film has Evey make reference to V's being an everyman. One of the advantages of having a masked protagonist be an everyman -- one that Moore had the insight to exploit -- is that you can let many of the character's attributes remain ambiguous. It seems that the film-makers simply did not want to present a protagonist or an everyperson who even ambiguously knew what it was to be a person of color or non-heterosexual.

On a note unrelated to anti-heroes but related to racism, if I were a person of color, people might attribute my lateness in contributing to IBARW to my ethnicity. But because I'm white, I have the privilege of never having to deal with that accusation.

On the Colonization of Taoism

2008-07-30T01:59:07Z

I feel that I need to correct a mistake I've made. Though I don't know if I've ever said it, I've certainly had many thoughts along these lines:

You know, as far as quasi-religious philosophies go, Taoism is pretty cool. It's more or less free of the supernatural elements found in comparable schools of thought, and I agree with most of its main points. I could see myself going so far as to call myself a Taoist.

Unfortunately, as I learned by reading a piece by Russell Kirkland, this sort of thinking is Western hubris. Like many Westerners I had the impression that there is a tao-chia (philosophical Taoism) that was later perverted by religious Chinese people, who made it tao-chiao (religious Taoism). However, the distinction between tao-chia and tao-chiao has little basis in reality. Even so, the distinction has taken root in the West for a number of reasons. One is that Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi are taken to be representative of true Taoism, even though they are not the only or the first Taoist texts to be written. Another is that many Westerners become acquainted with Taoism (also known as Daoism) through "translations" of the Tao Te Ching written by people who don't know Chinese but have an ideological axe to grind. (Sadly, one such "translation" was written by Ursula Le Guin, an author who is popular among anarchists and other leftists for having written fiction novels with an anti-colonialist subtext.) The underlying problem seems to be that Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi -- or popular distortions of these works -- have little in them that "enlightened" Westerners take offense to, while polytheism and religious rituals are more likely to be seen as superstitious nonsense.

If I've contributed to a misunderstanding among anyone here, I'm sorry.

Edited to clarify a couple of things.

My White Privilege 2

2008-07-07T23:52:38Z

My White Privilege 2
My Understanding of Privilege in General and White Privilege in Particular

My understanding of privilege is based to a great extent on the writings of René Girard and feminists who draw from his work, especially Rebecca Adams and Jennifer L. Rike (in that order). According to Girard myths have their origin in a series of events that culminates in violence. The series of events begins because people tend to imitate each other, so one group models itself after another and wants to have an object -- something in limited supply that the model group posesses. This leads to conflict. After a long time of tit-for-tat violence a crisis develops, because it's no longer clear who's in the wrong. The crisis is resolved by redirecting rage toward a scapegoat chosen not because zie has done something wrong but because zie is vulnerable -- usually, someone who is on the margins of both groups. And so all myths have their origin in this relationship between subject, model, object, and scapegoat.

For my purposes I'm more interested in the threat of violence than in a particular instance of real violence. So, for example, in the modern US part of what motivates racializing discourse is that white bosses don't want a unified working class. They fear losing their decadent lifestyle, so they convince white workers that they have more in common with the white people who employ them than with workers of color. If myth comes up at all in discussions about privilege, I think it should be understood as narrative. There are narratives that guide the discourse that justifies privilege. A simplified version of the one that's relevant in this context goes something like this: White people tend to have more, because they've worked and struggled for it; if a person of color has more, it's because affirmative action has helped them out.

One important point that Girard missed but that Adams explains is that people can desire people as objects. This is something I've encountered when I've been read as female. I generally become aware that I'm seen this way only when someone starts to treat me like a fuck hole. This is especially true when I'm read as a trans woman, because trans women are seen as good for being fucked and little else. Adams and Rike note that in situations like this the objectified person may model hirself after the ones doing the objectifying and come to see hirself as an object. This is the internalization of oppression. In this example if I come to see myself as a fuck hole, then I am imitating the objectifying behavior of a model and, therefore, experiencing internalized oppression.

It's important to keep all these phenomena in mind when thinking about white privilege and racism. White people often fail to appreciate that race as a biological category simply does not exist. (In biology race is a synonym of subspecies, and there is only one human subspecies -- homo sapiens sapiens.) Race is socially constructed by narratives. I've already given one example of this. Another example occurred when the US became involved in World War 2. As I said in Part 1, my biological ancestors were eastern Europeans, but this has little bearing on how people see me. Part of the reason for this is that US propaganda made the Japanese the racial other in order to provoke patriotism, and this had the effect of making "white" more homogeneous. So my white privilege comes partly at great cost to people who were ethnically Japanese, both here and in Japan. Similar events have helped shape the construct of whiteness throughout the history of the Americas.

White people must also ask themselves how the human tendency to objectify others plays out in contexts of race. For example, it's important to ask why some white men have a preference for women in certain groups of color but not others. (White men are far more likely to marry Asian women than black women.) It's particularly important for white people doing anti-oppression work to avoid being tokenizing. I once saw an example of this when someone in a group more or less said, "This is a predominantly white group. I think we should start attending events sponsored by Arab Americans and get them to join us." Tokenizing usually isn't so blatant, but it's always a problem.

Finally, white people need to be aware of the fact that everyone, regardless of race, has internalized the racism of dominant institutions. So, for example, black people internalize racist ideas about black people. (There's a particularly heart-rending demonstration of this in the short film A Girl Like Me.) The lesson to take from this is not that racism isn't so bad, if people of color also have racist assumptions. I think one prong of the solution to this problem is empathy; a good starting point for this idea is Adams' paper "Loving Mimesis and Girard's 'Scapegoat of the Text'".

As sort of an addendum to this piece, I'd like to point out how my understanding of white privilege has helped inform my neo-Girardian analysis. One reason why people in the West are resistant to Girard's ideas is that he doesn't pray at the altar of the individual that so many others do. Because we are all inclined to model ourselves after others, Girard would say that human behavior can't be understood without appreciating what he calls interdividual psychology. While doing the assignment proposed by stoneself I realized that one reason individualism has become a dominant ideology in the West is that it reflects the dominant, i.e., white culture. White people have the privilege of being seen as individuals, while people of color must distance themselves from crimes committed by people of the same race, lest they be seen as capable of the same behavior. Perhaps one reason why religion has lost its prominence in the West is that the narrative of the individual has taken its place.

My White Privilege 1

2008-07-07T23:46:03Z

I'm posting this and Part 2 as part of a project assigned in the community debunkingwhite.

My White Privilege 1 Its Importance and How I Came to Understand It

Based on what I know of my biological ancestors, I am eight eighths white. Perhaps more importantly, I pass as white. My biological ancestors probably had a hard time when they first came to the US, given that they were eastern Europeans who emigrated prior to World War II. But because I was adopted and a member of Generation X, this really had no bearing on me. My point? Squeeze a tube of Colgate as hard as you can, and I'd still be the one to ooze more with white privilege.

I think part of me must have always understood that there was such a thing as white privilege. I can remember being in the first grade, seeing a white girl trying to get another girl's attention by saying, "Hey, little black girl!" (At the time I was in a public school that had maybe .2 black people per class.) I told the white girl not to say that. Why? I think part of me recognized that this was othering, because she had the privilege of never having to hear someone address her by her race. When I was seven, this was emphasized when I had a school friend over who told some jokes using words I had never heard before. When he left my mother told me in a disapproving tone that he was using racist epithets. This infuriated me, so the next time I saw the boy I tore him another asshole. (Ironically my most heated race discussions would end up being with my mother, who was actually quite racist.) Of course these were only baby steps in the right direction. It's one thing to recognize blatant racism and quite another thing to recognize one's own privilege.

Fast forward to my mid-twenties. I couldn't understand why some people wouldn't say that bigoted remarks about men were sexist. Then someone explained that sexism was connected to institutions that kept women down. I pretty much said to myself, "Oh, so sexism has to do with institutional oppression? That makes sense." It was easy enough for me to see that racism was analogous to this. Simply understanding the terms sexism and racism helped me to have more meaningful discussions about sex and race.

Of course I've skipped an important chapter. If I was able to distinguish between racism and bigotry so easily, I must have at some point developed a distinction between the concepts. Unfortunately I can't identify when this happened. It may be that there was no one moment -- that it was a process. If I may speculate, I'd say it helps that even though I was in a conservative Christian milieu, I was exposed to some anti-racist rhetoric. In particular even though there is a lot to criticize about the Promise Keepers movement, they did make racial reconciliation a major part of their discourse, and they did put the onus on white men to make amends for white people's past treatment of people of color. I think I also gained awareness when I started doing the most unenviable unskilled labor. This gave me class consciousness, and from my understanding about class I was able to analogize about race. Also, I was faced with the question of why I found myself in the racial minority while working these jobs, and I couldn't believe that it was because my race somehow made me inherently better.

Fast forward again. After spending some time discussing my white privilege among activists I realized that to a great extend we'd failed to put what we preached into practice. There's a joke I heard a few years back that sums it up pretty well:

Q: How do you know you're an anarchist?
A: All your clothes are black, and all your friends are white.

For me it's important to be aware of white privilege, because a lack of awareness prevents me from working with people who are involved in the same liberation struggles that I am. Given that the people who oppress us are united, we really can't afford to stand apart.

One Mocha Latte, Hold the Blood

2008-07-05T17:39:47Z

I'm working on a project related to my interest in René Girard, so I've been studying myth. One thing I discovered recently is that Qingu, the name of a god in Babylonian mythology, means unskilled laborer. According to the Babylonian creation myth Marduk created the human race out of Qingu's blood, upon slaying him.

On a related note, today is a global day of action against Starbucks. The day of action has been called for jointly by the IWW and the CNT to protest the firing of Cole Dorsey in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Monica in Sevilla, Spain. If you've ever been inclined to make some noise about the way Starbucks has been (mis)treating its workers, today would be a good day to do so.

Goodbye, George

2008-06-23T17:24:53Z

I didn't think I'd ever embed a YouTube video into one of my LJ posts. But George Carlin was the sort of person who could inspire me to do a lot of things I never thought I'd do before.

Here's a link to a video that explains why he was so great:

george carlin nails it

But given the occasion and given that I think George would prefer that we see him off laughing, I've chosen to embed this video instead:

Damn, I'm going to miss him.

Action Alert Regarding Autphobic Teacher

2008-05-26T12:46:45Z

Message from the president of the Autism Self Advocacy Network:

Please Distribute Immediately

Hello,

As some of you may already be aware from news
articles<http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/23/st-lucie-teacher-has-class-vote-whether-5-year-old/>and
blog <http://www.autismvox.com/5-year-old-boy-voted-out-of-his-class/>
posts<http://aspergersquare8.blogspot.com/2008/05/not-special-support-alex-barton.html>on
the topic, last week a Morningside Elementary Kindergarten teacher had
students "vote out" of the class a 5-year old autistic student named Alex
Barton. According to the news article, the teacher had each of Alex's
classmates, including his sole friend in the class, state publicly what they
disliked about him and then announced that they would take a vote to remove
him from the class. Alex has not been back to school since and has suffered
significant emotional trauma as a result of this incident. Regardless of who
you are or what your connection to the autistic and autism communities might
be, I think we can all agree that this is unacceptable.

We need to band together to prevent future such abuses from occurring, to
ensure that this teacher is properly disciplined and to encourage this
school to adopt both a strong bullying prevention policy and training on
respect for all forms of diversity aimed at both teachers and students. As
such, we've provided contact information below for you to write to
communicate your outrage. Please be polite yet firm in your comments,
pointing out the unacceptability of such actions when aimed at any student,
as well as the need for this school to adopt policies to prevent this from
happening in the future. This is an opportunity to drive home the message
that we will not stand by while one of our own is abused. We ask that you
please cc: info@autisticadvocacy.org in your e-mails to the school district
so we can keep track of the strength and sources of this response. Remember:
abusive messages hurt our cause - please be respectful in your comments.

ETA: I just learned from zorah and robertrabbits that Utah Phillips has passed away -- he died on the 23rd. I didn't know him, but I know many of the lives he has touched. This is an incredibly sad day.

Support the Holy Name Six

2008-03-24T15:29:02Z

On Sunday morning six anti-war activists were arrested for a die-in they staged at an Easter mass in Holy Name Cathedral, a mass where Cardinal George was delivering a homily. The point of the action was to draw attention to the Cardinal's fence-sitting -- he recently met with President Bush -- while the holidays of US soldiers and Iraqi citizens have been disrupted by war for five years.

This is perhaps the most accurate article you'll find on the 'net currently:

http://chicago.indymedia.org/feature/display/70337/index.php

By all means, check out what other media sources have to say, but based on what I've seen, I can only conclude a lot of it is distortion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has downplayed the fact that the activists have suffered abuse since being arrested, and one of them is being denied medical treatment.

If you're in the Chicago area, please consider coming well-dressed to the arraignment hearing at 1:00; it will be at 26th and California. Also please consider donating to help the Six. If you want to donate via Paypal, visit http://tiny.cc/holyname6. The e-mail contact is holyname6@riseup.net.

I'm posting this without my wrist splint. Please don't let my self-destructive act be in vain.

Chat Tonight

2008-02-23T18:39:16Z

I'm going to be hosting a chat about the syndrome of nonverbal learning disaiblities (NLD) at 7:00 tonight Chicago time (8:00 PM EST). The chat room is an IRC channel, meaning that you'll need an IRC client to visit. If your web browser supports it, you can get there by clicking here:

#NLD

There's no harm in visiting before the chat room, but I don't promise to be there until the scheduled time.

Where have all the Girardians gone?

2007-12-28T15:47:04Z

It's been a while since I've posted here, not counting the one message I posted that's visible to "just me". I've been doing a lot of thinking lately -- thinking about philosophy and religion. One of the major conclusions I've reached is that there really needs to be some kind of online community for people interested in Girard's theory of mimetic desire, so I'm thinking of creating one of my own. Of course, there's little point in my doing so if no one else is interested. So if you'd like to see such a thing, let me know -- this would help me plan.

Meme I caught from zorah

2007-11-13T06:14:19Z

Post anything that you want here, and post it anonymously. A story, a secret, a confession, a fear, a love... anything. Make sure to post anonymously and honestly. Post as many times as you'd like. Then, put this in your LJ to see what others have to say.

IP logging is off.

Comments are not screened, but I reserve the right to delete hateful stuff.

This post will be locked at some point - in a day or a week or a year, who knows?

Love,
The Anon E. Moose

Scribblit

2007-11-10T17:38:35Z

So I've become an early contributor to Scribblit, a blogging service that grew out of the whole Live Journal/Six Apart free speech mess. Until November 18th anyone who donates 30 Canadian dollars (around 33 US dollars) to Scribblit can become an early contributor (click here to read more), which amounts to getting a permanent paid account. If you can't pay that now, at some point there will be an opportunity to become an early adopter -- that means you'll get all the then-available paid account features, but you won't get paid account features that are introduced after that. I'm not sure yet what I'll be using my new blog for, but I thought I'd let my friends know about these opportunities before they pass.

Incidentally, this is the first time I've converted US dollars to Canadian dollars and gotten a smaller numerical value. It's too bad that the color of US bills wasn't updated in time to reflect that we are now the ones with Monopoly money.

"About Your Ratings"

2007-11-08T19:23:17Z

What I learned from Movielens:

The five least often rated movies that you've rated:

1. CrissCross (1992)
2. Funny About Love (1990)
3. Murderous Maids (Les Blessures Assassines) (2000)
4. Cemetery Club, The (1993)
5. Ogre, The (Der Unhold) (1996)

The five most often rated movies that you have not rated:

1. Batman (1989)
2. True Lies (1994)
3. Usual Suspects, The (1995)
4. Mission: Impossible (1996)
5. Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)

The five movies where your rating is lowest compared to the average rating:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
You: 1, avg: 3.9
2. Casablanca (1942)
You: 1.5, avg: 4.3
3. Session 9 (2001)
You: 0.5, avg: 3.3
4. Element of Crime, The (Forbrydelsens Element) (1984)
You: 0.5, avg: 3.3
5. Straw Dogs (1971)
You: 1, avg: 3.8

The five movies where your rating is highest compared to the average rating:

1. Tarnation (2004)
You: 5, avg: 3.5
2. Angel Heart (1987)
You: 5, avg: 3.6
3. Lost Highway (1997)
You: 5, avg: 3.6
4. Dark Crystal, The (1982)
You: 5, avg: 3.6
5. Jacob's Ladder (1990)
You: 5, avg: 3.6

No matter what bed

2007-11-04T16:50:46Z

We were lying in bed together, and I had my hand on her tummy. It felt very familiar, but something wasn't right.

"Is it you?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Is it really you?" I asked.

"Yes," she said again.

"I'm just so afraid that this is going to be like the other times. I'm going to wake up and find this is all a dream. You will still be the one who abused me. You will still be the one I'll never be able to talk to again."

Silence. So I lay with her in my arms, as if by holding her tight enough I could prevent wakefulness from snatching me away, and she would still be with me, no matter what bed I found myself in when I awoke.

Another Transfeminist Manifesto

2007-11-02T03:39:28Z

For some time now I've been wanting to write something to introduce some of the thoughts I've had after reflecting on Girard's theory of mimetic desire and Rebbecca Adams's reassessment thereof. Yesterday I think I finally settled on what I'd write -- another transfeminist manifesto. I say, "Another," because Emi Koyama has already written one that's quite good.

The difficulty I'm encountering at the moment is figuring out how much, if any, of the text should be spent discussing Girard or the insights feminist theologians have drawn from his work. Girard's thoughts on scapegoating are a crucial part of my feminist thought, but there are at least two reasons why I don't want to use a lot of ink to talk about him and his theory. First, every time someone writes a paper about Girard, they devote a lot of space to introducing his ideas, which can be annoying, at least to someone who is already familiar with his ideas. Second, Girard wasn't particularly feminist. Indeed, it seems to me he is at his most non-feminist when he's trying to answer feminist objections to his ideas. So if I were to devote substantial space to writing about Girard, I'd feel as though I'd have to also devote substantial space to explaining why women and feminists should take some of his ideas seriously. If I'm going to devote so much space to talking about Girard, I might as well write about Girard, and that's not my goal.

My "Aspie-quiz" results

2007-10-28T08:27:33Z

I found out about this from aesmael.

Your Aspie score: 154 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 60 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

I wasn't surprised I was told I was "very likely an Aspie". NLD and Asperger Syndrome are closely related, though there's disagreement about the nature of the relationship. However, I was surprised at just how high my score was.

No War in Iran!

2007-10-03T14:19:55Z

A coalition of sorts is going to be hosting a meeting tonight about what to do, should Bush decide to launch an air strike against Iran. It will start at 6 PM at 637 S. Dearborn. More information here:

Emergency Meeting to Stop War in Iran

I don't know if I'll be going; social anxiety has been kicking my ass lately. But if you go, you have my utmost respect.

On Messes

2007-09-07T01:40:21Z

I did some cleaning in my room today. Apparently I did a good job -- finding things is a pain in my ass now.

If you've read more than a little about NLD, you should know that NLDers tend to "miss the forest for the trees". One of the consequences of this is that while I can see the individual components of a mess, I can't see the mess itself. I can see when I have blankets, articles of clothing, and applesauce jars strewn about, but to my eye this does not produce a whole that's especially aesthetically unpleasing. I deduce that there are messes but don't really see them. I think this is one reason I'm seldom motivated to clean. That said, there is an appreciable difference between my room then and now; I hope I can maintain a more orderly state from now on.

Which majority?

2007-08-09T16:55:16Z

My last post generated some unexpected but very stimulating discussion offline, so I thought I'd post a little more about Anthony McGann's insights into majority rule. This will also give me an opportunity to mention the Marquis de Condorcet, my favorite example of a "Resaissance man".

Back in the day some philosophers justified the use of majority rule by saying that majority approval was the voice of the "general will". People thought of society as a human being, capable of reason. Good politics was simply a matter of tapping into the inner voice of this entity. However, this view started tumbling down when Condorcet pointed out that it's possible for there to be no one majority preference. Imagine you and two friends want to go the supermarket and indulge in a container of fresh fruit. Each of you has a perfectly rational sequence of preferences -- that is, it wouldn't be right to say that one of you preferred blueberries to strawberries and strawberries to blueberries or something weird like that; to use a more specific term preferred by voting theorists each of you has transitive preferences. However, two of you prefer raspberries to blueberries, two of you prefer blueberries to strawberries, and two of you prefer strawberries to raspberries. Though each of you has transitive preferences, the aggregation of these preferences does not lead to transitive results. If you ever read between the lines of a paper by a voting theorist and get the sense that she or he is saying, "Oh, shit, what do we do now?" this is why.

McGann's response to the problem of cyclying, as it's called, is, "Well, good." After all, isn't one of the threats we want to avoid a tyranny of the majority? Isn't it a plus then that under majority rule there are often situations in which there is no single majority? Granted, once a vote is taken, the result will reflect only one of those preferences. But a majority that has a different preference could turn around and propose something else, making the previous decision null and void. So what do we get -- an endless loop? What McGann says (and he offers some empirical confirmation of this) is that we tend to get compromise. People in groups that use majority rule tend to seek broad support for their proposals. Maybe you'll say to your friends, "Why don't we get raspberries today, blueberries next week, and strawberries the week after that?" Alternatively the members of one majority might look for outside support from a disinterested minority who will agree to help in exchange for support for a proposition they think is important. Once again, when it comes to protecting minorities, majority rule comes out on top.

What's the alternative? Wolff argues that since majority rule is irrational, we should go with unanimous direct democracy (which presumably isn't all that different from what's today called "consensus"). I can't think of a better way to refute this than to particularize it. Let's go back to the berries and add that blueberries is the default option, because it's what you and your friends agreed on before you knew the store sold raspberries and strawberries. Wolff is effectively saying, "Look, I know you want raspberries, but that leads to intransitive preferences, and that's just silly! So you can take the blueberries or leave them." The problem of course is that while the aggregate preferences are irrational, that's no reason to dismiss your preferences, which are at the very least transitive. Of course if you and your friends have even the slightest bit of compassion, you'll come up with a fairer solution anyway. However, the point is that under majority rule unfairness has a lot more disincentives, which is important because people have to make decisions that inflame the passions more than berries do.

What's wrong with the US and the modern anarchist movement?

2007-08-08T22:36:30Z

I recently found that a book I'd been wanting to read, The Logic of Democracy by A. J. McGann, is freely available on the 'net in the form of PDF files. I was already familiar with McGann, thanks to a paper I found some time ago -- "Tyranny of the Supermajority" (which is more or less identical to Chapter 5 of the book). I found the paper to be brilliant, so I couldn't wait to read on the book, which expands on his ideas.

Given that I'm left-leaning to the point that I've toppled over, I have a lot of friends in the US who talk about how cool it would be to live in a place like Norway or Belgium. In many respects people in these countries have better health care, more freedom, and less income inequality. Why is that? According to McGann there are two axes that determine how democratic a country will be. As many people I know have probably guessed, the first depends on the method used to elect legislators. Countries that use proportional representation are more democratic than those (like the US) that use plurality a/k/a first past the post. The second is more likely to come as a surprise: The fewer constraints a country puts on majority rule, the more democratic it will be. McGann even argues that, counter-intuitive though it may be, countries that have unfettered majority rule are better at protecting minorities. In Chapter 8 of McGann's book a number of democracies are put on a chart according to these two axes. Countries like Belgium and Norway are in the lower right corner; the US is opposite them, holding a unique position in the upper left corner, because while there are other countries that don't use proportional representation, no other puts so many restrictions on majority rule.

Can McGann possibly be right? Almost as soon as schools in the US offer kids antidepressants, they teach kids that minorities in the US have unique protections, because the US constitution has a number of supermajoritarian requirements (e.g., the three fourths majority needed to amend the constitution) and checks and balances. (Note that checks and balances are really just another sort of supermajoritarian requirement, given that they prevent a motion from being passed by simple majority.) The reasoning here is that a minority ought to be able to protect itself from decisions that the majority might otherwise pass. The trouble with this reasoning is that in politics a decision is always made, even if it is a decision to do nothing or keep doing things the way they've always been done. So requiring more than a majority to approve a decision privileges the status quo or the default position, effectively privileging any minority or majority that is aligned with it. This sort of decision-making has a conservatizing effect, making it less likely that a decision-making body will take an active role in protecting minorities. Because I don't think the regular readers of my journal need to be convinced that people in the US are worse off in many respects, I'll only mention one empirical observation offered by McGann: In the US one of the major obstacles to civil rights legislation was the requirement that a filibuster be ended by a vote of sixty percent, rather than a simple majority. (There are other reasons to favor majority rule, but this post is already too long. Perhaps I'll mention them in comments.)

The irony is that in all the anarchist groups I've been a part of embracing majority rule was anathema. The preferred alternative was "consensus", which entails a requirement for unanimous support. McGann, citing Rae, notes that there are parallels between Wolff's arguments for anarchism and Calhoun's arguments in support of cotton growers' "right" to own slaves. What's sad is that when many anarchists object to majority rule, they are, whether they know it or not, rehashing Wolff's arguments. I have yet to see someone who favors "consensus" engage with McGann's arguments for majority rule (the anarchists who do acknowledge that his arguments have merit are at the very least not so opposed to majority rule), much less produce rational counter-arguments. This raises a dilemma I've faced for some time to the surface of the mind: How can I justify my participation in a group, anti-authoritarian or otherwise, that insists on using "consensus"? I'm seriously considering limiting my activism to the Industrial Workers of the World, at least for the time being.

Goodbye, L.

2007-06-20T07:20:44Z

Dear L.,

I'm writing this to explain why I can't talk to you anymore and to give you some parting words. Some of this may be hard to read, but I hope you'll stick it out, because I've tried to end on a positive note.

For almost as long as I've known you, you've complained that I don't let go of the past. I think I may have finally found a way to explain to you why this appears to be the case: The past is my tarot cards. I don't do tarot cards. I don't do horoscopes. I have only one way to know the future and determine what course of action I should take in the present: I look at the past and draw inferences based on that. And you know what? It works. Back in the day when you and I were in a relationship, I looked at the past and suspected that you would one day cheat on me. I told you what I was thinking, and you explained through sobs that you only did what you had done because K. [your ex] had been horrible to you and you would never cheat on me. I sympathized, and for you I put my tarot cards away. I don't need to tell you what came of that. There have been other times I've put people's words before my tarot cards, and the results were similar. The bottom line is that I have more trouble holding on to the past than you give me credit for, and generally the consequences of this haven't been good.

Pulling the rake through the muck seldom benefits anyone, so why am I telling you this? It seems that whenever we talk about our past, you talk about it in terms of blame, forgiveness, and retribution. But this isn't how I think about it. The older I get, the less value I place on assigning blame to anyone. So why would I like to be better at holding on to my tarot cards? Because I don't want to get hurt again. I have no profound philosophical points to make on this; it's really as simple as that.

Actually, in your case I want to avoid not only a repeat experience of the pain you caused me in the past but also the pain you cause me in the present through the insensitive statements you make time and time again. That brings me to my next point: One of the catalysts for this letter has been the frequency of the use of the term empathy in our recent conversations. I've spent a lot of the past year reading about empathy and practicing what I've learned. One of the things I've learned is that you can tell a lot about who a person has and doesn't have empathy for by the stories they tell. If someone is empathizing with another person, they don't paint someone else in the story as the primary victim. Do you acknowledge I've been hurt in the stories you tell? Yes, absolutely. But my hurt becomes little more than footnote in a story about how much you've been hurt. You say you wouldn't have hurt me, had you not been hurting so much yourself. You say you would not be hurting so much now, had you not hurt me. When you tell our story, you are the only participant who's a victim in every scene. Whoever you're empathizing with, it isn't me.

And, you know, I think if you were honest (I'm not sure who you most need to be honest with – me or yourself) you would say that I haven't been a good friend. Some people like to surround themselves with people who will never get too far from them and never get too close to them either. This seems to hold true especially for people who have at some point suffered greatly. I think one of the reasons I'm a desirable friend to you is that I lacked the good sense to say goodbye to you the day you hurt me, and so there's a sort of guarantee, fucked up as it is, that I'll always be there. But because of our past there's also a guarantee that I'll never get too close; at the very least I'd never make the mistake of pursuing a sexual relationship with you again. But I think part of you must recognize that this is ultimately unsatisfying, because the unconditional love you want isn't rooted in gullibility.

But if you're unkind to yourself in your friendship with me, you're utterly cruel to yourself in the stories you tell. In your stories you suffer from illness because of something you've done to me. To be honest, I'm inclined to think that this is a little passive-aggressive; it seems to be another way you redirect attention to yourself. But I also think that the people who are best at being passive-aggressive probably truly believe what they say, and anyway if you say something enough times, you'll end up convincing yourself that it's true. I really wish you knew that you don't deserve this. I'm going to have to play the myth-busting atheist one last time and say that this aspect of your stories is complete bunk. None of your actions are so bad that they make you less deserving of health. Did you fuck up? Most definitely. Do you have immeasurable value? Most definitely. Even if the word forgive had meaning for me, I wouldn't say, “I forgive you.” That may be what you want to hear, but it's not what you need to hear. What you need to hear is that no matter how wrong your actions may have been, you're still amazing and deserving of the utmost respect. It's paradoxical but true.

Because you deserve my respect as much as anyone else's, this will have to be the last letter I write to you. You say I'm empathetic, and I've certainly been applying a lot of what I've learned in the past year, but I know that I'm capable of so much more – just not with you. The spread before me shows that I'll never see your true feelings, and so I'll never be able to empathize completely. But, you know, there are other people in your life who have other spreads before them. I hope something I've said will make you think twice before giving them reason to say goodbye. I hope they stay in your life, empathize with you, and give you the respect you deserve, and I hope you spend inordinate amounts of time being happy and healthy with them.

Love,
Raven

freelark @ 2007-05-30T23:24:00

2007-05-31T04:29:18Z

In case you haven't heard already the people at LJ have been licking lots of boot recently. I've updated my interests list to reflect this.

The Most Ironic Live Journal Entry Ever

2007-05-22T09:05:29Z

An uncited claim from Wikipedia:

During an appearance on Sessions@AOL, Morissette discussed "Ironic" and recounted an incident where "a woman came up to me in a bookstore bathroom and asked 'Is the ironic thing about "Ironic" that it's not actually filled with ironies?' I nodded and smiled."

For those of you who don't know Alanis Morissette once did a song called "Ironic" in which she makes statements like, "It's like the Damen bus finally arriving and you can't get on it 'cause you just stepped in dog shit," and then asks, "Isn't it ironic?" Okay, I made that one up, but you get the idea.

It's like writing the song "Ironic" and not being able to live as a recluse throughout the five years it takes for the whole thing to blow over. Isn't it ironic?

Assume the quote from Wikipedia is true. If "Ironic" is ironic, because it's not ironic, doesn't that mean that the title is appropriate after all and, hence, that the song fails to be ironic? More generally, if something is ironic only in virtue of being labelled ironic, can it be ironic? If you're familiar with Russell's paradox, I'm sure you see the parallels here.

It's like being the only one reading this entry who knows what Russell's paradox is and not being able to brag about it because you don't want to let on that you're a geek. Isn't it ironic?

(Note, however, that you blew your cover in an insanely audacious manner the moment you subscribed to my LJ, so that might actually be ironic.)

I'm writing this entry at 4:00 AM when I have to leave for an appointment in the morning. That's not ironic -- not even in the Alanis Morrissette sense. That's just fucking sad. Still, if you label it ironic, I'm not quite sure that doesn't make it so.

Attention People in the US:

2007-05-01T11:59:41Z

Get off the Internet!
I'll see you in the streets.

Mass March for Immigrant Rights (Chicago)

If you're not in Chicago, find out what's happening in your city. This might be a good place to start:

Immigrant Rights

Letting go

2007-04-24T02:47:13Z

I'm in Dumpsville again, but it's for the best. I've made no effort to bring us back together this time. Throughout the relationship I noticed that my now ex-partner had some rather possessive tendencies. Indeed my insistence on making time for my friends while limiting time with her (even though I still spent more time with her than I did with everyone else put together) played a major role in the undoing of what we shared.

I'm not really hurting much at the moment. I don't know if that's because part of me has long known that the relationship needed to end or it hasn't had time to sink in yet. The sadness I do feel doesn't seem to be specifically related to her; it's more of a feeling that I'll never have a lasting healthy relationship. On the bright side, this situations has brought out the best in my friends; that includes everyone who posted to my journal and especially counter_zero who lent an ear after both break-ups.

Thank you, all.