The Altercation Decision (or How I’m Looking Towards a Productive Future)
You might remember this rather cryptic post from a few days ago in which I discussed my apprehension about engaging, once again, with a community and topic I have addressed before (don’t worry, I’m going to clarify everything in the bottom of this post, but first, I want to explain my position). In that post, I commented that I thought there were really only two ways to go about it: 1) address the topic here and take apart all that happened and perhaps stir the controversy pot again and talk, yet again, about a topic I have discussed here a number of times so far this year (and all of them rather…controversial), or 2) disengage entirely from the people involved in this problem and those who use the same form of rhetoric or are at least part of the same general movement. Both of the above options are seriously flawed. In the first case, I’ll be adding fuel to a fire that I think is burning in the wrong place and needs to be seriously redirected, and that’s something that, quite honestly, I’m no longer interested in–mostly because I think the rhetoric behind said discussions general runs or dissolves into something like this: “I’m right because I say so and because I disregard contrary evidence and resort to ad hominem,” which is a poor argument indeed. In the second case, I’ll be punishing people who aren’t responsible for the actions of others. It’s a silly option the more I think about it, but the segment of that community who brought me to this decision have begun to influence how I think about the movement of which they are a part. Such influence wouldn’t a problem if I disagreed with all of them, but is because I think, overall, the movement is absolutely vital. The fact that my opinions are being tainted by the more radical group is, for me, unacceptable. It’s a terrible, unfair human reaction that we all have at some point or another. Pathos works in wondrous ways. So, I have come up with a third option that is a compromise between the two. I have made the decision not to discuss certain aspects of the topic on this blog. The topic will still appear, but probably less frequently and definitely not in relation to the aspect that I disagree with. I’m also going to officially cut out and ignore the segment of the community who I feel have lost their way, rather than everyone. I’m not going to allow that segment to influence how I feel about the movement in general, because it’s not fair to those who are doing good work with better arguments, better tactics, and a larger interest in open discussion with people who may be outside of their movement. I’d rather help the people I agree with and completely ignore those that I don’t, than disengage entirely. And I am well aware that this is not a perfect option either, but I prefer to save my sanity and focus more on what I can actually do to make things better, rather than waste my time arguing with people who cannot think outside of their view of reality. Having said all of that, you might be wondering what I’m actually talking about. I’m talking about the women’s rights movement. There have been a number of instances this year, but the catalyst was this “argument” (for lack of a better word) over at Cheryl Morgan’s blog (between Morgan and myself, and eventually between Morgan and a friend). You can read the comments if you so choose. I assume that if you read the comments (mine, Cheryl’s, and my friend’s) objectively, you’ll see what’s wrong with the whole thing (and I’m not saying that what I wrote was somehow infallible, because it wasn’t). So, that’s that. The condescension, rudeness, dismissal, and so on are not effective strategies, and seem only to alienate people who might actually be willing to learn, rather than change opinions or perform a didactic role. There’s a complete lack of mutual respect, and you can’t foster good relations, change, and so on without that (in my opinion). So, I’m disengaging and focusing my energies on things that are either more interesting to me or might produce better results (you know, like supporting campaigns to help bring educational supplies to women in impoverished regions across the world…like the one here, which I’ve donated to before). So, how are you?
Blogging About Altercations Happening Elsewhere?
(Forgive the title. I couldn’t think of anything else to call this post.) A few days ago I had a kind of argument/altercation with another person on another blog. The story vaguely goes like this: I posted that I thought there was a problem something in the post, but that otherwise I didn’t disagree; the blogger proceeded to assume I was attacking him/her because of an -ism and denied doing what was in the post; I pointed out where it occurred, reiterated that I didn’t disagree and that it wasn’t an attack; the blogger went off on me for something I never was doing and implied I was an -ist. Note that I’m using -ism and -ist here, because you can basically shove any sort of ism into this situation and it would basically be the same thing. A friend of mine did join in on the conversation in an attempt to point out why the blogger had basically gone overboard (he/she had) and then got banned for apparently being a troll (my friend wasn’t, but apparently if you disagree with someone on the Internet, you’re a troll). So, the point of this post has more to do with my apprehension to post a more detailed discussion and critique of what happened. On the one hand, I think the situation is ridiculous and am tempted to post a scathing argument against the individual in question to point out that he or she has essentially gone off the deep end. On the other hand, I don’t know if I want to continue with the discussion or bring up that topic on this blog again (for the third or fourth time this year), partly because it might open up a shitstorm and partly because I’m not entirely sure I can get enough distance from it to speak calmly about it (though I’m rather surprised at how calm I am while writing this, so maybe that isn’t a real concern after all). The question is: At what point does one subject become too much for one blog when that subject isn’t the primary focus of the blog itself? At what point do we turn away and decide we’re fed up and have no interest in engaging with a certain part of the community any more, even if what that segment is fighting for is something you care about too? Is it possible to disengage and shut out such a group of people, and is that healthy to do, not just for yourself, but for the community at large (isn’t that the opposite of what should be happening)? I guess what I’m concerned with here is that if I don’t talk about it, then my only recourse is to stop paying attention to anything like it again, even when I agree with the discussions, because I am not the type of person who will not point out flaws when they exist. But maybe that’s a weird way of thinking about all of this, and it’s not like I’m giving specifics to make this make more sense. So, taking into account the vague-ness of this post, what do you think? Is there a point where you feel you can disengage, even if those you are disengaging from are still using your words against you and others or making arguments that perhaps damage the community they claim to be a part of by participating in the same discourse they are attempting to fight?
Science Fiction and (Real) Advertisements: WTF?
You’ll have to forgive me for bringing attention to something several years old, but I discovered the following advertisement while borrowing the special edition of the movie Jumper from the University of Florida library, and it threw me for a loop. I have no doubt that such things are not original. Still, the concept of an advertisement like this is alien to me (after the fold):Apparently General Tire is the choice for jumpers. I didn’t know that. Did you? And with them, anywhere is possible. That’s a bold claim. Joking aside, what is curious about this is how serious the advertisement takes its premise, so much so that you don’t get the impression that the ad is making a mockery of the product or Jumper. The ad is certainly being facetious, though; that has more to do with the fact that this is an advertisement for tires than it does with the fact that it’s an advertisement targeted at a fictional audience (jumpers). We see the same sort of amusing tone in advertisements geared towards women, men, kids, and so on for products ranging from incredibly useful to downright silly. So, am I being ridiculous by thinking this is a very weird thing indeed, or is it really as unusual as I think? Have you seen ads like this before?
Self-publishing Fail: Achieving Weak Goals is Meaningless
I’m still on my anti-self-publishing kick, primarily because there has been a lot of really crazy things popping up on the Internet as of late, such as B&N’s decision to get their hands into the self-publishing pot. One post that bothered me the most recently was The Book Designer’s 26 Ways to Win At Self-Publishing. Overall, the list is quite poor, with the majority either failing completely as praise-worthy goals or falling short of being impressive, and only a few falling into the “good goal” category. Some of the “wins” seem to have more in common with the 40-year-old man who still lives in his mother’s basement who is going nowhere fast than with the guy who tries to run for President. They’re not goals so much as really sad ways to feel good about yourself when you’ve essentially achieved nothing. It’s sort of like saying I am proud of myself for waking up and breathing today, an action that, for most people, requires no effort whatsoever, and which pretty much everybody else did today. The list starts pretty much on the lowest scale possible and jumps around from meaningless to semi-praise-inducing. Take, for example, the first item: You finally get the book finished, printed and in your hand: you win. Explain to me why this is something to be proud of. Anyone can do this. I can waltz over and print out a book from Lulu and have it in my hands in five days, with very little cost to me (in effort or cash). Unless you live in a country without the Internet, or you have no arms and legs and had to type your whole novel with your nose, then I fail to see what is impressive about this goal. It’s a non-starter. To get excited about printing out the book that you self-published is like getting excited about finding your seat on the airplane. It’s on your ticket, dear…The only thing praise-worthy about this is that you wrote a book. That’s it. But even that is becoming less impressive these days, because anyone can write a book. Most people can’t write a good book, though, and if you manage that, then maybe you can get a little excited. The list doesn’t get better after the first item either, with the second being just as meaningless: At last you have a chance to fully explain the ideas you’ve been thinking and talking about for years: you win Couldn’t you have done this before you self-published? Why do you need to have a self-published book to tell people about your ideas and thoughts? There’s no magic barrier that can’t be crossed without SPing a book. Unless your family and friends don’t listen to you, in which case I’d wonder why you hang out with them, then really there’s no reason why this goal is even worth mentioning. And then there’s the fourth, eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth, seventeenth, twenty-fourth, and twenty-sixth: You send a copy of your book to your ex mother-in-law: you winYou gift wrap a copy and hand it to your mother, watching her unwrap it: you winYou send an autographed copy to your 8th grade English teacher: you winYou overhear coworkers talking, and one mentions that you’ve published a book: you winYour dad pulls you aside at the next family gathering and tells you how proud he is that you dedicated the book to him: you winA friend at a party asks if you’re still looking for an agent, and for a moment you don’t understand the question: you winYou start to think about other books you’ve always wanted to write and can now publish: you win So, if this list is getting at anything, it’s that you should be really proud of yourself for gift wrapping or sending your book to people, or proud that people you know paid attention to you long enough to soak up the fact that you “published” a book. This is starting to sound like a list for the underachiever, someone with very few serious goals in life. If this is what makes you happy to exist, then maybe you need to reassess your priorities. Children find these kinds of goals exciting, not adults. Why? Because these are the kinds of goals that children try to achieve. They don’t know any better. But perhaps most pressing and most misleading is number fifteen: Every one of the people you care about tell you how much they love your book: you win If American Idol has taught us anything, it’s that praise from the people who care about you (or that you care about) is not always reliable. Look at all the idiots on American Idol whose family didn’t have the heart to tell them that they sucked. We know they suck, but they didn’t because their family never bothered to be honest with them, thus sending them out to be crushed by the judges and the public (who gets so much pleasure out of their misery). If everyone is telling you they love your book, then maybe something is wrong. Even if they all are being honest, praise is meaningless if it isn’t accompanied by constructive criticism. If all you’re told is “this is wonderful,” how can you ever expect to improve? If you cut the list down to ten items, it’s not a bad list. There are some good goals, but, for the most part, the list is dominated by awfully pointless and plain stupid goals. Having low standards for success doesn’t suddenly make you a winner. You don’t see football players saying “if I manage to hold onto the ball for three seconds, I win.” Why? Because there’s nothing about that goal that is remotely impressive. It’s a weak goal, and weak goals are worth about as much as non-existent goals. Short of impressing your cadre of weak-goaled friends, saying you win and doing something that pretty much anyone can do is a waste of energy and time. Achieve
TV Show Finales: The End, the New TV Narrative, and So On
I just finished my sixth straight re-watch of the entire Battlestar Galactica series (the new one, not the old). Now that the reality of the ending is sinking in, I’ve discovered that I don’t actually like watching the finale. No, it’s not because the finale leaves much to be desired, as so many have pointed out at one time or another. I don’t like watching the finale because it is an enormous, unavoidable reminder that Battlestar Galactica is over and will never come back. The show wasn’t canceled. Nor did it end abruptly. The show ended on its own terms–slightly faulty as they are–and can’t be brought back without screwing up the continuity of the series or ruining the impact of the show as a whole. This reaction is a fairly new development for me. I’ve never had this sort of emotional connection to a show, as ridiculous as that might sound. I did love Sliders and a number of other shows when I was a kid (and older), but none of those shows had a finale that I couldn’t watch. Something tells me that this is not something isolated to myself, and I think I have an idea why. Television has changed dramatically since I was a 90s kid. Almost everything on television in the 90s was anthology-style. Sliders attempted to create a storyline in its second season (one beyond the whole “we’re trying to get home” bit), but ultimately every episode was the same: a group of folks traveling to random alternate Earths where some different social development has occurred and bad things happen. The same can be said of most of the other shows that I watched as a kid–mostly cartoons on Nickelodeon, with X-Men being the only cartoon show that I can remember that broke the anthology mold. There were certain shows that were not anthology-styled, but, looking back, I can’t help feeling like the 90s and early 2000s were remarkably non-storyline. Most episodes were self-contained, perhaps for good reason: maybe we weren’t all that interested in episodic TV stories yet.The 2000s, however, has been a decade of leaps, with more shows striving to develop a narrative style in which episodes are interconnected, and intricately so. Exceptions obviously exist, but so many great shows (and bad ones, even) have appeared which have a clear, connected storyline running through every episode. Shows like Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and so on have been designed to have continuous stories, moving seamlessly from one season to the next, always progressing major and minor plot points to their conclusions (at least, that’s the intention). What does all of this mean for viewers? Well, with storylines progressing from episode to episode, rather than contained within a single episode, that gives ample time for character development. More development means viewers can get attached on a deeper level, since they are invested in the future of that character. The anthology-style can’t really compete with this. Instead, anthology-style narratives had to evolve or divert their attention to cartoons, sitcoms, and other 30-minute-per-episode programs–some of them remain quite popular, with some hour-long shows remaining at the top of the heap (particularly police procedurals like Law & Order, CSI, NCIS, and so on). This explains why shows like South Park, Family Guy, and American Dad have become so popular. We don’t need to grow attached to the characters of these shows–though, undoubtedly, some of us do. Instead, we can watch a 30-minute episode, or skip the episode and wait for the next one without worrying that we’ve missed something vital from before.But, for the bulk of our programming, this isn’t the case. The anthology-style narrative has been supplanted by the continuous storyline and we seem to be better off for it. I certainly don’t watch the majority of the stuff on television–mostly because I find some of the shows that are wildly popular rather irritating–but the reality still stands: television has changed in a way that the movies have not. Kevin Smith, the infamous screenwriter and director, has acknowledged as much in interviews, and I’ve said something to that effect here. Television has taken narrative storytelling to a new height, and it will, perhaps, be a while before the movies can catch up. Coming full circle, then, it shouldn’t be a surprise that fans like myself dislike the finales for the shows we love. It’s not all about what we don’t like in the finale. Stories may end in ways we didn’t expect, or they might leave too many questions unanswered, but what people like me are upset about is that it’s over, that the characters are now gone, never to be seen again in a form other than a re-run.How about you? Have you ever had this kind of experience with the finale of a television show? Do you think television has changed drastically in the last ten years? For good or for bad? Let me know in the comments! P.S: Feel free to correct me if you know more about the history of television in the last twenty years than I do.
The Cutest Critters Ever (and Something Funny)
When I headed out this morning with a friend to get lunch and wander around the mall (you know, stuff we 26-year-olds do all the time…), I had the distinct pleasure of seeing the cutest group of critters ever, and something funny for reasons it probably shouldn’t be. We’ll start with the cute first (click the read more to see the pictures and captions):Ducklings! Sixteen of them!See how well-behaved they are? They sit and listen very attentively!And they know who’s boss, and that’s mommy duck.And when mommy leaves…They follow! Aren’t they absolutely adorable? I’m amazed this one duck had sixteen little ducklings. That’s impressive! She’s a big duck, but still! (For those that care, this is about five feet outside my front door!) And now for the funny picture:Apparently the designer of this amazing hanging (hung?) Hilary Clinton doesn’t quite understand the implications of the design itself. Misogyny much? Yeah. And that’s it from me!