#// she becomes a bit of a bad influence on others if left unchecked

[fatedefyd]

if past chang'e was allowed to leave the heavens as she pleased the first thing she would do is invent surfing but without the board

[moskaisley]

okay so i had like nothing to do at work today so im gonna ramble about my goth spidey girl 🖤

full name is pia maria paloma ✨

other aliases include: widow + four eyes (by hobie <3)

born and raised in san franhattan’s earth 94114

tattoo artist by day n spiderwoman by night

pinoy!! 🇵🇭

her style is v heavily influenced by siouxsie sioux hehe

was in the middle of her masters studying genetics when she got bit at a goth rave

tripped REAL HARD but thought she was just thought the weed was hitting a lil extra that day and kept dancing lol

the next day she woke up on hippie girl gwen stacy’s couch feeling like the world was made of radio static. gwen makes her eggs and pia throws up in her bathtub :’) they fall in love and get married obvi

gwen makes her a suit stitching together lycra, leather and many. many. many pairs of fishnet stockings. pia gets v upset when it’s damaged

pia gets RIPPED btw. partially from the spiderbite but also shes kind of a gym girl. likes to train in a junkyard lol

loses gwen and is very sad and drops the mantle :(

in her desperation, pia tries to bring her back using her own spider dna’s rapid healing and previous studies in cell regeneration

project backfires terribly and ends up growing another set of eyes and fangs

her venom causes necrosis!! if she doesnt let it out once in a while it gives her a tummy ache

drops the mantle of spiderwoman and goes into hiding

about a year later, an anomaly appears in her universe

with the city is left unchecked in her absence, crime had skyrocketed with all her enemies takin over the city

miguel is like “?? wtf who isn’t doin their job rn”

they get into a pretty nasty fight but he beats her ass so bad its kinda embarassing

miguel is eventually the one who pulls her back into being a hero, giving her comfort in the fact that shes not the only spiderperson dealing with loss. he helps get the city back to normal before returning to HQ

not before givin her a watch tho, awkwardly telling her to visit whenever she wants. or not. her choice. whatever

goes by widow when she comes back + becomes a tattoo artist to pay the bills. crashes with hobie in exchange for free tattoos in case her landlord comes knocking.

wears a pair of sunglasses to cover up the whole.. eye situation.

spends a lot of time at HQ, building friendships and cultivating her own community to come out her shell again :')

[darthbutterfingers]

Child Abandonment, Rey, superstition about Darth Vader and the Knights of Ren

So I wrote this for an online Reylo forum and got one positive comment but then as has happened before the thread died almost the moment I added a post (Kylo may be the Jedi Killer but I am the thread killer). Anyway, I thought I’d put it here and see what people think.

Child Abandonment, Rey, superstition about Darth Vader and the Knights of Ren

So I was in Wikipedia looking at the Chinese practice of infanticide (1), in particular the practice of female infanticide or gendercide. I was looking because I wondered if this historical practice (including very recent history) may have had an influence on the creation of Rey’s background. The practice both was and was not condoned in China. It happened because children were valued less than adults and female children in particular. Buddhist teaching frowned on it, believing the practice would bring bad Karma. On the other hand parents assuaged their guilt with the belief that the child would be reincarnated anyway (doesn’t excuse it in my book).

Infanticide (and mostly gendercide) was used as a kind of family planning method/population control. The Aftermath book series hints that child abandonment did happen in the outer rim/unknown regions. So I was wondering if Rey really is a child abandoned by her family as opposed to other options such as her parents being dead, or she was stolen by non-family before abandonment or something.

I’m going to go off on a tangent here but I’ll get back to Rey eventually. The Star Wars galaxy is one that seems to be rife with myth, legend, superstition etc. in relation to force use. There are the old myths and legends about the Jedi still floating around the galaxy. In the absence of the actual Jedi Order quite a lot of myths and legends etc. have no doubt arisen. Even with Luke’s attempts to rebirth the Jedi, there is no doubt still a lot of “fake news”, “alternative facts” and “convefes” out there about force use. Even Luke is viewed as a myth.

Add to that the spectre of Darth Vader and you get a really dodgy soup. Family connections to him are apparently enough to get you the march of shame from the senate as your political career goes up in flames despite everything you’ve done for the Rebellion and the success of the New Republic. The shadow of Darth Vader doesn’t just loom large for unfortunate family members though. His shadow still darkens the galaxy. Darth Vader is both revered and reviled. There is so much mythology surrounding him now it’s hard to know the truth (a fact Snoke has happily taken advantage of).

So imagine you’re in the camp that reviles Darth Vader or at least views him and anything about him with deep superstition. They don’t tell ghost stories in a galaxy far far away, they tell Darth Vader stories. So if your parents/family find out you’re force sensitive, or suspect that you are, and they’re scared stiff you’re going to grow up like Darth Vader and child abandonment is a practice in your culture...I reckon you can see where this is going.

The Aftermath series points to Jakku as being important to the Emperor and possibly the dark side. Is it possible Rey was abandoned there on purpose? A force sensitive child abandoned on Jakku by people with deeply held superstitions and beliefs about Darth Vader and force sensitivity as a whole. In ancient Greek culture babies that were deformed, or even had birthmarks, were abandoned on a mountainside to die. If force sensitivity was seen in a similar way then it makes me wonder if Rey was intentionally abandoned because of her force sensitivity.

Why Jakku? Was it a planet where young force sensitive children were abandoned in the hope that they would die and never become like Darth Vader? Another possibility is the idea of abandoning a force sensitive child on Jakku, a place synonymous with the dark side, in a sacrificial sense. Maybe even the idea that if they’re abandoned there and survive…sort of like a proving ground for the force sensitive (although it sounds a bit over-the-top).

Rey believes her family will come back for her. Was this just something she was told to stop her leaving the planet? Maybe they were going to come back…if she survived? Or maybe her parents believe she will be taken in by the force? Whatever they needed to believe to assuage their guilt in leaving her. She’s force sensitive so she has that to help her survive, right. In Rey’s case that turned out to be true. Still, it’s not a recommended way to raise a child.

Of course, along comes Unkar Plutt and his particular brand of child exploitation. Did her parents know about him or not? I don’t know.

If you ask me there are a lot of signs and snippets that fit with the theory that Rey was abandoned, possibly intentionally due to her force sensitivity, and that her parents may have chosen to abandon her on Jakku for a reason.

Anyway, back to child infanticide in China. According to Wikipedia “The Confucian attitude towards female infanticide was conflicted. By placing value on age over youth, Confucian filial piety lessened the value of children, whilst the Confucian belief of Ren led Confucian intellectuals to support the idea that female infanticide was wrong and that the practice would upset the balance between yin and yang.(1)”

Now in all of that did I read the word REN. My mind immediately went to the Knights of Ren. So what is Ren? According to Wikipedia “Ren is the Confucian virtue denoting the good feeling a virtuous human experiences when being altruistic. Ren is exemplified by a normal adult's protective feelings for children (2).”

“Ren relies heavily on the relationships between two people, but at the same time encompasses much more than that. It represents an inner development towards an altruistic goal, while simultaneously realizing that one is never alone, and that everyone has these relationships to fall back on, being a member of a family, the state, and the world.(3)”

So what if the Knights of Ren believe themselves to be an altruistic organisation with altruistic goals in mind. They consider themselves a “family” with the First Order as their “state” and the galaxy as their “world”. As Kylo Ren, Ben Solo has rejected his birth family and accepted the Knights of Ren as his family. That’s one reason why he knew killing Han Solo would be his test of loyalty, not just to Snoke but also to the Knights of Ren. In fact his birth family represent everything that the Knights of Ren and the First Order are against.

I’ve often wondered about Snoke’s statement “If Skywalker returns, the New Jedi will rise.” In which case they would be in direct opposition to the Knights of Ren as an organisation and a philosophy. Kylo Ren understands this. Remember Adam Driver’s comments about both sides thinking they’re right. The Knights of Ren believe themselves to be an altruistic organisation bringing order and peace to the galaxy. The First Order has the same philosophy – they’re bringing Peace and Order to the galaxy. Whether they really are is up for debate. The inaction of the New Republic Senate certainly fed that view though. There also seems to be a lot of organised crime going unchecked in our galaxy far far away as well.

So what does all of that have to do with Rey? Well let’s think about Finn for a moment. “I was taken from a family I’ll never know…” It seems to me that the First Order is snapping up children for their Stormtrooper program. Accusations of child abuse aside, why are they doing this? They need troops of course. Why is no-one jumping up and down and saying this is bad, stop it. Probably because the First Order thinks they’re doing a good thing.

We have a part of the galaxy where child abandonment is a reality. In the Outer Rim (and possibly the unknown regions, wild space etc.) there is much poverty. There is much crime. I’m not sure about slavery but can you say it’s not happening. The First Order probably believes that they’re doing a good thing by turning these kids into stormtroopers instead of them becoming criminals or being left to die or have miserable lives of some kind. Or at least that’s how it started (or what they tell Kylo Ren – puts a different spin on why he called Finn a traitor). Things probably got out of hand, which is why Finn said he was actually taken, not just picked up after he was abandoned or something like that. And I think we all got the bit we’re Hux’ Stormtrooper program is particularly brutal and dehumanising.

Another possible reason to abandon a force sensitive girl on Jakku was to keep her away from the Storm trooper program and the First Order. But then that would be giving Rey’s parents a bit of credit. If they really wanted to protect her then they would have stayed or dropped her off with the Church of the Force guys at least.

Oops – maybe the Church of the Force on Jakku also has something to do with why force sensitive children were abandoned on Jakku. Maybe her parents were hoping the Church would take her in but for some reason they didn’t (I’m looking at Unkar Plutt here).

Anyway, the Knights of Ren, believing themselves to be an altruistic organisation also believed that they needed to help abandoned children or at least stamp out any practice of child abandonment. Perhaps Kylo Ren knows what’s going on with Rey because of this (“It is you” TFA novelisation). Perhaps there was a force sensitive child that they had tried to acquire to become one of the Knights of Ren but she ended up abandoned on Jakku instead. If child abandonment is a thing in the outer rim etc. and it was something both Luke and Ben Solo were aware of, then maybe they had different ideas about how to deal with it, given that it is as much a bad cultural practice as well as a criminal issue.

Ben seems to know more about Rey than she knows about herself (according to the novel). He got this from her head as well as her emerging abilities. He knows what kind of child she is. A force sensitive child abandoned by her parents on Jakku – who damn well SURVIVED. But there is something more isn’t there. Maybe they know about one particular child and the story of her abandonment and had once tried to do something about it. Obviously without success. Maybe this was the thin edge of the wedge for Luke and Kylo.

When Rey gets to Ahch-To and Luke says “Who are you?” I wonder if he’s saying that not because he really has no idea who she is but, just like Orson Krennic to Jyn when they finally come face to face in Rogue One, he knows there’s something to her story that links her to him but needs some more information to connect the dots (no she’s not a Skywalker). Is this the force sensitive girl from the past who was abandoned that they couldn’t find or were too late to rescue (or something like that).

Rian has said in TLJ he is going to really “test” the characters. They’re going to face things that really get at the core of who they are. If Rey were to find out that her parents intentionally abandoned her on Jakku because of her force sensitivity and lied to her about coming back…that would test anyone.

Refs

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_(Confucianism)

(2) Mungello, D. E. (2012). The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442219755.cited by Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_China

(3) (Chi-Yun 34) quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_(Confucianism)

[ultrajonlewis-blog]

Breaking News: Media Coverage Belittles Millions

The maintenance of inequalities is not something that is hard to do.  Change is difficult, but maintenance is more easily handled.  The media plays a big part in maintaining the inequalities that we see in our everyday lives.  The media is an indefinitely expanding entity that broadcasts a wide variety of different ideas to the general public.  The media ranges from everything on cable to social media plus everything in between.  The billboards we see in big cities to the small signs seen out in the countryside, all of it can be the media.  And all of it, without a doubt, shapes minds and opinions like no other force on the planet.  Everything we see on TV, Instagram, newspapers, radio, etc. is all a range of ideas and messages being thrown at us, whether we are aware of it or not.  This either reinforces our ideas as we know them or forces us to view things from a different perspective.  The way we interpret media is either a result of our mindset or a contributing factor to how our mindsets are shaped.  Again, whether we know it or not, messages pertaining to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. make their ways into our brains.  This shapes the structures and institutions that we build in society.  They provide the basis or foundations of these institutions, directly and indirectly.  Furthermore, bell hooks provides some interesting commentary on the unique subject of the perspective or gaze of Black females, which is quite relevant to the conversation of media presentation and its effects on the public.

To be frank and possibly simplistic, the media is a huge contributor of the information we receive.  Yes, the parents and teachers of society provide a bulk of knowledge for future generations.  However, what happens in between the time spent with parents and teachers?  Adults, teens, children, and even toddlers now have access to information like never before.  The learning never stops with the pervasiveness of technology in this day and age.  TVs, phone, tablets, laptops, etc. are widely accessible.  Even at exorbitant prices, people manage to purchase electronics, all of which have the power to show you some form of media.  Children watching cartoons on TV can take the shows they watch with them wherever they go, learning valuable lessons about sharing and caring wherever their parents take them.  Teens continue scrolling through all platforms of social media from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed.  Adults watch the morning news while getting ready for work, hear news while they commute, have their phones out all throughout the workday, and can end the day with nightly news.  Movies and shows are made available to the public for indulgence at all hours of the day and night with services like Netflix and Hulu.  There is a nonstop barrage of media we are able to consume in 2018 and it is only still the beginning of this massive technological revolution.

With all this media surrounding us at all times, it can absolutely have a negative impact on the institutions we have set up to enhance and enable the smooth flow of societal necessities.  Additionally, it can have a negative impact on the mental health and schools of thought of many in the general public.  When this does occur, we have individuals in society that are shaped by the on-goings of the world and this does not only affect those individuals.  They bring this thinking to work, to school, to anywhere they take themselves and if they are notable individuals in places of importance (schools, business, prisons, media) they can harm others mentally, emotionally, even physically with their anomalous ways of thinking.

Let us take a broad example, a trend per say, of recent media coverage of politics that may (and does) reinforce or shape ways of thinking that can potentially (definitely) affect peoples’ lives in more ways than one.  I will analyze here potential direct and indirect effects of this media coverage on an individual’s life.  So, how can media coverage on politics directly effect a person’s life and maintain the inequalities we see every day?  A “caravan” of migrants has been a big story in the media recently.  The biggest development in the ongoing story has been the mention of US troops going to the United States/Mexico border to stop this “invasion” as it has been referred to by many.  Regardless of what the story is about, talk of troops “protecting” the US automatically enables a sense of fear and subliminally identifies an enemy.  Media coverage that describes troops protecting this country, no matter what it is from, objectively identifies a hero (troops) and a villain (something bad).  This plays into the vilification of Mexican immigrants that has been ongoing for much of US history but has been very prominent and overt in recent years.  So how does this directly affect the average American?  Well, let’s take the case of the average Latinx-American who has to see these heartbreaking messages of people with whom they may identify.  This not only affects their mental health directly but affects the way they go through the world.  Within the workplace or at their school their race/ethnicity becomes overly apparent to them.  They become hyper aware of their belonging to the “other”.  They become the anomaly.  They become a representation of the villain.  At work, coworkers bring their thoughts on the matter in with them, and some are not too pleasant.  At school, other kids make racially-charged jokes, whether they know how much of an impact that has or not on the Latinx in this example.  Just because of media coverage, some people are introduced to ideas or have ideas reinforced that are neither conducive to a healthy society nor happy individuals.  A person’s life is both directly affected by what they actually see for themselves and indirectly affected by the ideas or actions that other people may present to them.

Regardless of the type of media or the topic the media is covering, this example is analogous to so many situations.  Whether it’s the topic of race in “Dear White People” (Netflix Original show), the coverage of the #MeToo movement in the local newspaper, or Breitbart posting something political on Instagram, media portrays a message and that message truly stays with people.  That message can linger for an entire lifetime and this is a powerful sentiment.  These messages shape individuals and therefore shape the institutions of which they become a part.  This has drastic consequences on how some live their daily lives, and can unfortunately add to the inequalities many deal with all the time.  Today, this isn’t something that can be turned off.  It affects people 24/7.  How can one not internalize these messages?  If a person is told something enough times and/or for long enough, they will start to believe it, no matter how offensively outlandish that message might be.  The media has the power to eat away at individuals if left unchecked.  Even with all the good the media does, the negative side can absolutely have long-lasting negative effects on peoples’ psyche and well-being.  

A notable and relevant reference to this commentary is bell hooks and thoughts on “The Oppositional Gaze”, with specific reference to Black female spectators.  As stated by Manthia Diawara but mentioned by hooks, “Every narration places the spectator in a position of agency; and race, class and sexual relations influence the way in which this subjecthood is filled by the spectator” (117).  Here, we have this ever present idea of media affecting the minds of individuals and that individual’s mind perceiving media in very distinct ways.  Furthermore, hooks references “rupture” or the resistance of “complete identification with the film’s discourse” (117).  I think this can be applied more widely, specifically to the resentment man feel toward many forms of media.  This is again all part of the negative effects media may have on the general public.  If you are told to believe something negative, perhaps many in society will refuse to accept this and shy away from media consumption or a particular message being portrayed.  When hooks dives deep into that opinions of Black women she writes “[Black women] testified that to experience fully the pleasure of that cinema they had to close down critique, analysis; they had to forget racism.  And mostly they did not think about sexism” (120).  I think this is so relevant to the times; people can become so jaded by the negative role media may play (direct/indirect) in their lives that they may reject it altogether, in order to live peaceful lives.  Unfortunately, this ushers in the thought of “ignorance is bliss”, which may not always be healthy.  But this is the unfortunate reality with which many live.  hooks continues by adding, “[Black women] consciously resisted identification with films   that this tension made moviegoing less than pleasurable; at times it caused pain” (121).  The relevance this has to my fictitious, yet very realistic scenario, is spot-on.  The overwhelmingly affect media can have on one’s life truly is something awfully spectacular.  It can really cause so much hardship for an individual, especially when these message of inequality are floating through the airways nonstop.

I do not know if there is a remedy to all this negativity.  Somehow, throughout history, in the face of negativity people have found a way to resist and provide social change in this country.  Classes such as AFS 363, for example, serve as a way to educate motivated individuals to create a more informed society.  Other classes on race, gender, economics, politics, and so on also serve to better society and produce individuals more equipped to bring about change, even if that change is something as simple as one person providing their friend with just a little bit more knowledge than they had prior.  Media that provides fair and moderate coverage or perspectives on very polarizing subjects, in light of much bipartisan frames of thought, also serves to push society toward a more fair and equal world.  Still, we live in a time where media is a never-ending production of information that can affect people’s lives in so many different ways.  We must be the change and further advance the change to eliminate inequality and internalize more positive messages about ourselves and others.  

References

hooks, b. (1992). The oppositional gaze: black female spectators. In Black looks: race and representation (pp.115-131). Boston, MA: South End Press

[morrisbrokaw]

Learning to Live With Myself

The other day I tripped over my post-shower pile of dirty clothes and reminded myself to move it out of the way before everyone else gets home. Then, after a beat, I remembered: No one else is coming home.

For the first time in my life, I live at an address that no one shares with me.

People did live with me – until this fall – but now they’re off launching their own lives. One of my people will be home on college breaks (but not often, and not for much longer). The other is rocking it out in Chicago, her first stop on the way to many more amazing places I’m sure.

Which means, it’s just me and the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor.

I feel I need to add a disclaimer here.

  Let’s be clear.

I have not always picked up my piles “before everyone else gets home”. Far from it. I am somewhat famous for piles. Big piles. Little piles. Piles coming in from the thrift store. Piles heading back to be donated. Piles waiting to be folded, washed, and sorted. Piles passing their expiration dates before finally being brought to the post office. Piles I do eventually get to, but perhaps not as quickly as experts would recommend.

Still, good or bad, I’ve always been highly aware of my piles in the context of other people. I’ve always had some level of awareness (guilt??) when my mess has spilled into shared spaces.

So, the other morning, with my dirty laundry staring back at me, I had a revelation. I realized I could literally leave that pile of wrinkled jammies right where it was for as long as I wanted, if I wanted. I could let it turn into a Mount St. Helens of unlaundered clothing. I could let it spread into a quicksandy pit of textiles. It wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. It might eventually block the bathroom door from closing, but no worries. There’s no one around to shut the door for anyway.

No one would care. No one would even know.

No one… but me.

One thing was clear: if my motivation for picking up piles had anything to do with living thoughtfully in community with others, that motivation had packed up and moved away—leaving a question in its place: What would it look like to live thoughtfully with myself?

  LIVING thoughtfully With me

For the past decade or so, I’ve understood the value of trying to treat myself as kindly as I treat other people. The quest to do so has become pivotal in my life. It’s helped me learn to love myself AND others better. But self-love was a paradigm shift for me, and I’m still learning how it looks.

Recently, as a houseguest with a friend, I noticed how intentional I was about putting my water glass in her dishwasher, wiping out the bathroom sink, and making my bed. I said to myself, “Self, you aren’t this tidy at home. Why are you so tidy here?” I heard myself answer, “I want things to look nice for my friend.”

Something clicked.

What would happen if I gave myself that same kind of thoughtfulness? What if I chose to pick things up at home just so things would look nice…for me? Wouldn’t this be a lovely form of self-care and self-kindness?

It was a revolutionary thought. Not enough to motivate me to make the bed, but enough to make me wish I was making the bed.

Which brings me to a second thought. What would it look like to live graciously and patiently with myself?

LIVING GRACIOUSLY With me

Before all my people moved out, I’d been curious about how much of the mess was actually theirs. I knew that two-thirds of the clutter on the coffee table would leave with them, but what about the endless stream of dirty dishes? The dustballs in the corners? I wondered if my house would become a shimmering land of glowing perfection after they left. Perhaps all the mess was theirs all along!

Yeah, no. As I write this, I’m trying to avoid looking at the over-filled bags of recycling, compost, and trash that are begging to be taken out. And somehow, my toilet still needs cleaning. So I guess I am part of the problem here.

Or am I?

What if being messy isn’t a problem? What if it’s just human? What if I cut myself some slack for being a bit all over the place and (*gasp*) just not all that interested in cleaning?

What if I could learn to live thoughtfully AND gently with myself? What if I could appreciate the times when I do put my dirty plate straight into the dishwasher, and also not scold myself with judgy disdain when I don’t?

What if.

And so, with the option to either pick up or not pick up staring back at me from the bathroom floor, the real question became clear.  

  What do I want?

I had never noticed how much of a constant narrative was rolling in my head about the people around me – what delights them, what irritates them, what they have planned, when they’ll be back, what they want for dinner. That narrative has influenced most of the big and little decisions I’ve made, for years.

But if I’m going to decide what to do with that pile on the bathroom floor—and every other little decision I’ve come across since then (what kind of milk to buy, what to watch on Netflix, how often to run the dishwasher, whether I should pack up and move to New York City) there’s a new set of questions that matter more.

What do I want? What kind of home do I like? How do I want to live?

  This is new for me.

I’m aware that maybe these questions shouldn’t feel quite so foreign, but I also know why they do. I mean, first of all, I’ve been nurturing a family for a lot of years. I’m a mom. I’ve been pretty tuned in to what my people need. But it’s more than that, I know. Call me a pleaser. Call me an Enneagram Nine. Call me a recovering codependent. I am all of those things. For a cocktail of reasons, I value connection and peace so greatly that, if I’m not careful, I can forfeit my own desires in an effort to maintain it.

At the lowest points in my story, I have altogether forgotten I even have my own desires, living completely in the world of someone else’s preferences. I’ve come a long way since then, on every level. It’s not like I have no idea what I love. I mean, hello. I have a pink stove and a coral front door, I keep the heat no lower than 72, I don’t settle for relationships that aren’t mutual.

Yes. More than ever, I know what I want, and I’m living it.

But, left unchecked, I know I can merge into the people around me. I can melt into whatever they prefer. And, because I’m genuinely flexible and easygoing, I can be happy with a wide range of scenarios. The trouble starts when I stop paying attention to—or voicing—what actually makes me happy.

Which is why that pile of clothes on the bathroom floor has become so important to me these days. It’s inviting me to pay attention to someone who is sometimes left out of the conversation; someone I want to get to know better: Me.

  give us a minute.

I do want to do life with someone again. I long for close companionship. But, at the moment, I’m feeling pretty curious about this new person I’m living with right now. I’m really enjoying getting to know this girl who has, sometimes, in some ways, faded into the background to let others shine. It feels important to give her some space to become exactly who she is when no one else is around. I want to make sure I know her well before anyone else joins the equation.

And I want to make sure she sticks around.

Image sources: 1/2

Julie Rybarczyk (re-bar-chek) is a freelance writer, fair-weather blogger, and newly solo mom who never has to send lunch money to school again. She’s perpetually the chilliest person living in Minneapolis—so most of the year you’ll find her under layers of wool, behind steaming cups of tea. Or at  shortsandlongs.net.

The post Learning to Live With Myself appeared first on Wit & Delight.

Learning to Live With Myself published first on https://workbootsandshoes.tumblr.com/

[boney-king-of-nowhere-blog]

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia by Peter Pomerantsev

Recently I’ve had quite a few conversations with friends about Putin’s Russia. I realised that I was really not very informed about the subject, but was finding myself annoyed at hearing what I felt was a complacent apology for a corrupt, murderous oligarch.

In one of many memorable sketches from this book Pomerantsev describes his then colleagues at  the state-controlled Ostankino channels. These producers, when asked how they square their liberal private lives with the fact of working at the state-controlled Ostankino Technical Center, reply that ‘everything is PR’ and reject the author’s ‘Western attachment to such vague notions as ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’ as a blunder’. Elsewhere Pomerantsev characterises this type of attitude as ‘easy relativism’, referring to a Western journalist’s justification for taking a job at Russia Today.

The conversation with the Ostankino producers falls within the context of a chapter on Putin’s personal adviser, Vladislav Surkov. I’d first heard of him through an Adam Curtis segment included on Charlie Brooker’s end of year Newswipe. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od4MWs7qTr8) The filmmaker later developed these ideas in Bitter Lake and Hypernormalisation, again drawing heavily on Pomerantsev’s work. As Putin’s adviser Surkov has been credited with creating a state of constant confusion in Russian society. By funding the creation of extremist political parties on both the left and right, lending support to conservative and liberal media, and generally stirring up as many competing causes as possible Surkov created an atmosphere in which Putin alone appears as reliable. Moreover, Surkov maintains a similar policy of obfuscation with regard to his own image. Most famously he is thought to have written the satirical novel, Close to Zero, which Pomerantsev describes as ‘the sort of book Surkov’s youth groups burn on Red Square’. Surkov himself teases this dual identity by writing the novel’s preface!

After watching those Adam Curtis documentaries and while browsing follow-up material, I quickly realised that this was a book pitched at my level. (With its 100 page bibliography Putin’s Kleptocracy by Karen Dawisha feels like a step too far at this point). Dizzying and druggy, though held together by a focus on Moscow, the book bounds quickly through its diverse cast of characters. Indeed Pomerantsev gives the shapeshifting Surkov a run for his money in the speed with which his gaze moves from one figure to another. Yet ultimately the book is held together as much by scepticism about Surkov’s brand of unrestrained, postmodern relativism as by its focus on Moscow. This combination of a postmodern style in order to critique postmodernism also underpins Adam Curtis’ Hypernormalisation, which again takes much of its subject matter from Pomerantsev. (Though Curtis places the origins of this postmodern conception of reality within the Soviet era, whereas Pomerantsev seems to regard states like the USSR and Korea as ‘classic’ (modernist?) totalitarian states.)

Of these several vignettes one which seemed particularly revealing of how power is delegated within Putin’s oligarchy was the story of Yana Yakovleva. The head of a drug company importing diethyl ether, an organic compound commonly used as a laboratory solvent, Yana in 2006 was arrested by the Federal Drug Control Service and detained for 7 months while awaiting trial. She was charged with the illegal sale of the diethyl ether without a license. An absurd charge against the head of a company whose entire business had for years hinged upon the sale of this very drug. More terrifying, however, than the Kafkaesque story of the arrest itself, is Pomerantsev’s account of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring which led to her release.

One of the key themes of the book is the interplay between the actors of Russia’s “liberal” drama and the super-rich stage managers behind the scenes. In Yakovleva’s case it becomes clear that the most important factor in her acquittal was not the bravery of her industrious lawyer Evgeny Chernousov or the inherent ridiculousness of the prosecution’s attempt to prove that diethyl ether was a narcotic. The real battle was not between prosecution and defence, but between two rival factions on ‘the Olympus of the Kremlin’. On either side were Viktor Cherkesov and Nikolaj Patrushev. It became known as ‘the war of the Chekists’ (the KGB men) and arose after a perceived snub to Cherkesov, a close friend of Putin’s who, expecting to become head of the FSB (successor to the KGB) upon Putin’s inauguration as president, instead found himself appointed to the Federal Drug Control Service (considered the least important security organ). Patrushev was chosen as head of the FSB and in retaliation Cherkesov launched an investigation into illegal smuggling at the Chinese border, overseen by the FSB. This in turn prompted Patrushev to make sure that cases such as Yana’s, part of the FDCS’ wider attempt to take control of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, received intensive media coverage and that the police allowed protests to continue against her unjust detainment. Ultimately both men were fired by Putin, who remained silent and inscrutable throughout the battle, but in the chaos of the conflict her lawyer was able to engineer an acquittal.

I hope what I’ve written so far doesn’t sound completely self-satisfied. I started off convinced that Putin’s Russia was a profoundly alienating post-mafia regime in which human rights abuse goes unchecked whilst true democracy remains elusive and I reached for a book which could confirm all of these preconceived notions. (Of course, there was the added sweetener of its fast-paced, picaresque style and a subject matter of shady political puppetry designed to appeal to the same stoner demographic as that of Adam Curtis*). In fact I think that Pomerantsev gives a very even-handed account of the West’s role (or complicity) in Putin’s Russia without ever veering into an apology. In the book’s penultimate chapter ‘Offshore’, he details the way in which areas such as Mayfair, Belgravia, and Knightsbridge have been bought up by Russian money to the extent that the traditional binary of ‘Russia and the West’ might now seem irrelevant.

In light of recent revelations about the poisoning attempt carried out by GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) agents against their one-time colleague Sergei Skripal the question of how to impose sanctions on Putin takes on greater urgency. Any serious retribution should surely include some kind of check on Russian assets in London. To put it in Pomerantsev’s terms, can we really afford to just ‘keep all that bad stuff up in the spare room of our culture’? Jeremy Corbyn, writing in the Guardian in March, voiced support for sanctions of this sort. It remains baffling, however, that he refuses to condemn the Russian state outright for its involvement in the attack. Whilst France, Germany, Canada and the USA pledged to support Britain and its assessment that Russian officers were behind the attack, Jeremy Corbyn still refused to say anything more than that the ‘evidence points strongly’ to Russian involvement.

The parallels with Trump are worrying - it seems that for the hard-right and hard-left alike in 2018 Russia and Putin represent an antidote to the corrupt centrist mainstream. But it is an image which surely says more about Corbyn and Trump’s own projection than it does about the actual functioning of Russian society. It is an extreme isolationist response to the Iraq war which runs that ‘because we intervened hastily and unsuccessfully once, we should never intervene anywhere in any form again.’ The all-or-nothing logic of the grumpy adolescent dominates and transforms Putin into a kind of anti-hero, onto whom the hard left and right can project their own sense of nobility.

In this way they start to look very much like Pomerantsev’s cynical colleagues at Ostankino. Easy relativism provides a justification for political apathy and the truth (in this case that Russian agents were sent to carry out an assassination on British soil) becomes lost, hidden in plain sight amongst countless equally valid, though obviously contradictory, versions of reality.

*I don’t mean to sound so down on Adam Curtis. I really like his use of music and archive footage - I think you can see the way that recently this has influenced more traditionally “objective” documentarians like Ken Burns. I also think he is a provocative and assured speaker. But not long ago I listened to his interview with Adam Buxton, whose podcast I follow religiously, and he came across as a bit of a tosser. Normally on that podcast I’m looking to see a different side to people and an ability to relax into a friendly chat, but he sounded like a prerecording, offering long, humourless lectures often only tangentially related to the question asked and generally sounding like a smug Oxbridge student bullshitting his way through a tutorial after one too many glasses of port the night before. I also think that he, like many journalists, is very good at convincing himself and his audience that he is presenting original research, when in fact his “subjective” style is often a means of avoiding references or bringing in voices other than his own.