Les Liens du Jeudi
Jul. 18th, 2019 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentric- Caroline Kitchener (The Lily), A female historian wrote a book. Two male historians went on NPR to talk about it. They never mentioned her name. It's Sarah Milov. What it says in the headline, folks.
- Related thread from Monica Kristin Blair, lead researcher on the segment:
I am BackStory’s Lead Researcher. I am also a grad student and a woman. I write research preps for BackStory, and they provide a lot of core content for segments like this one. I reached out to Dr. Sarah Milov, and I promised her credit. I never dreamed she wouldn’t get it. 1/17 https://t.co/9dT5DNTdqg
— Monica Kristin Blair (@monicakblair) July 16, 2019
Good News:
- SBS news Ancient Budj bim site in SW Victoria added to world heritage list. This is the first site in Australia added *solely* on the basis of its indigenous heritage.
Longer pieces - essay, memoir, natural history, other
- Henriette Chacar (+972 Mag), 'To ask an Arab student to internalize this is a way of humiliating him'. Pull quote: 'Israel requires all high school students who want to travel abroad on school-sponsored trips to pass an online course that promotes far-right and often racist ideas about Palestinians.' This includes a multiple choice question on how Palestinian organisations use social media, for which the only correct answer is 'to incite violence'.
- Justin Koonin of ACON (SMH), I'm the gay grandson of a persecuted Jew: freedom of religion is not freedom to harm:
In the midst of the current rancorous debate about freedom of religion, there is a misconception of a grand feud between lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people on the one hand, and people of faith on the other.
The reality is far more complex, not least because many LGBTQI people come from a faith background themselves. Perhaps more than most, we are sensitised to the harm that is caused when any group in society is marginalised on account of their identity.
- Adolfo Aranjuez (RightNow.org), The Abstraction of Privilege. I read a bunch of Aranjuez's essays this week. They're theoretically complex and difficult to soundbite, but really get to the meat of some issues that have been Bothering Me These Days:
Dennis Altman says that true liberation lies not in concessionary gestures within the prevailing society (he mentions, by way of example, contemporary pride marches), but rather in an overhaul of the system as a whole. Tania Canas advocates for a similar gambit: dispensing with appeals to diversity, which often just lead to tokenism, and aiming instead for initiatives that target equity from the get-go. But, as I see it, the most strategic way to achieve all of this is through chipping away at the larger system of oppression from within. If not respectability, then we can at least accommodate respect; if not education, then empathy.
Instead of seeking sanctuary from those who challenge us – presuming ill will on their part, casting them away as bearers of privilege-based sin – I entreat us all to seek middle ground and aim for deeper understanding, lest we alienate those who are already our allies and fail to “recruit” those who could be. And lest we ourselves stagnate because we have become ruled by our abstractions and duped into just toeing the party line, forever encased in our ideational bubbles.
Much like cognitive-behavioural therapy on a personal scale, actionable change on a societal level must begin with changes in perception and definition. Despite the separatism based on essentialist notions of identity that IdPol, in its extreme forms, seemingly takes as its starting point, political participation is inherently intersubjective. All knowledge – as feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins has pointed out – is partial, both biased and incomplete; this means individual understanding is finite and fallible. We must therefore bolster it with others’ input and rely on one another’s cumulative expertise.
- Adolfo Aranjuez (Meanjin Autumn 2019), Quest and Queerness: Role-playing Identity. This is what lead me to the above, and I implore you, if you have the slightest interest in matters queer, give this one a shot. kaberett might be particularly interested.
When it comes to identity, therefore, feeling comes first. In pursuit of the ‘big’ things like recognition, belonging, respect, love, we take on certain labels—whether by choice or resignation—then feel an obligation to act out what we think other people would expect of those identifications. The affective impact of this form of role-play is the opposite of what we’re seeking, however; we shouldn’t be imprisoned by our concepts. Just two issues ago, in Meanjin, Jonno Revanche suggested that queer, for many, ‘was a label forcibly assigned from the moment they began expressing “unconventional” traits, one they could not escape from and had to react to’. Emcke again: ‘Identities aren’t only a matter of choice; they are also constructed, assigned, ascribed […] I can reject that. I can find it ridiculous […] But it won’t make any difference to the social reality of the world where I live.’
How have we arrived at a point where concepts—akin to Platonic Forms—are seen to pre-exist, and sometimes plague, the actual persons they’re meant to describe? I don’t purport to speak for every single person, but ‘living non-binary’, for me, will always feel more authentic than ‘identifying as non-binary’. In a world where some still regard deviations from traditional norms as morally deviant, what people see about you (presentation) is often more dangerous than what they know (label). It’s tricky enough traversing the world the way I do: unable to ‘pass’; making men double-take in discomfort as they share public toilets with me; having elderly women mutter under their breaths about whether I’m ‘a transgender’ while the kids they’re minding stare, fascinated. I’ll admit it: I don’t find the prospect of expending mental energy to wrestle with label choice and the exhausting ceremony of ‘coming out’ particularly appealing—I’m already living it, every goddamned day. I imagine I’m not the only one.
- Patti Miller (Meanjin Autumn 2019), Against Purity.
I’m against purity; let that be made clear from the beginning. It’s a hydra-headed monster with many forms, most of them destructive and divisive. In some forms it has caused the violent deaths of tens of millions of people, in others it has caused long-lasting psychological damage. It could be the single greatest cause of evil in the world. It can also be breathtakingly beautiful.
- Henry Reynolds (Meanjin Autumn 2019), Frontier Conflict and the War Memorial.
- Laura Wynne (Meanjin Autumn 2019), We may not own these houses but these are our homes: on sell-offs of council housing in Waterloo.
By bringing in diversity, so the theory goes, more opportunities will be created for residents to develop ‘social capital’—connections and networks that will help them to improve their lives. It should be noted that governments, despite their apparent concern for socially mixed communities, generally seem uninterested in diversifying the many areas of concentrated advantage that exist in our cities. I sat next to Emma, a Waterloo resident, at a recent capacity-building work-shop on social mix. After a university professor explained the concept, she turned to me, incredulous.
‘Let me get this straight. The government thinks that if I have a middle-class neighbour that I’ll suddenly learn how to become a better person?’ Emma scoffed, sat back in her chair. ‘What, do they think I’ll suddenly be able to get a job once I have a wealthy neighbour?’
- Eve Fairbanks (HuffPo Highline), Behold, the millenial nuns.
We are a thing that is wounded, American society. People raised for the new millennium were to be a kind of final proof that democracy and American society was, indeed, the greatest that ever could be made, now that primitive superstitions had been cleared, tech and science and finance reigned, major political threats had fallen and our hegemony seemed complete. We were, and shakily remain, utopian in ways I would laugh at if I hadn’t bought into them, too. More than half of millennials still tell pollsters they believe they’re going to be millionaires. Most of us expected to achieve idyllic marriages, even though so many of our parents had divorced. We were taught that anything you hoped for could be achieved with the right planning, that life is a series of hacks: fabulous tricks, but ones that have a reliable code for how to repeat them.
- Bathsheba Okwenje (LSE blogs), Visa applications: emotional tax and privileged passports. This is economists, but at least one African researcher I heard of didn't get his visa in time to attend the Leeds IMC this year. Grim times.
Comments policy: Everything I said in the caveats to this post applies. I teach critical thinking for a living, but I'm not *your* teacher, and this blog is not a classroom. That means I don't have to abide by the fallacy of 'there's no such thing as a bad contribution to discussion'. In particular, I would caution you against hot takes counter Adolfo Aranjuez if you haven't read the entire piece, and keep in mind he's not writing from a position of grand privilege here himself.
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Date: 2019-07-18 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-18 12:39 pm (UTC)Glad they’re of interest!
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Date: 2019-07-18 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-19 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-19 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-19 05:05 am (UTC)You know what, I’m not going to yell at you, but I do find your inability to read and process complex pieces if they contain /one thing/ that seems wrong to you, and your love of facile ‘gotcha’ responses, infuriating. I’m blocking you and you can feel free to read only Pure Rational Skeptics forever on your own time.