#(the book is of course far superior in discussing how these effect the culture and is an amazing resource to any fantasy writer)

[theoreticallysensible]

The Hell Without Poetry

I started reading Proletarian Nights by Jacques Rancière, about contradictory aspirations held by artisanal workers in early 19th century France. One of the most interesting points so far are the fact that some workers had a culture of emulating bourgeoise fashion and not saving money, both to differentiate themselves from the domestic servants they felt they were superior to, and to signal that they deserved the same privileges as the bourgeoisie but rejected capitalist ethics of accumulating in order to exploit others.

I’ve just gotten into the famous Gauny section, where Rancière goes off an a tangent about this philosophical joiner (someone who makes wooden building components). The first of his books I read was The Ignorant Schoolmaster, which similarly takes up a single historical figure in order to develop their ideas into a universal, ahistorical frame by blending his voice with theirs. I find the idea really interesting, and it makes me wonder if I could do the same for the people I interviewed for my dissertation. I like how it deconstructs the boundary between historical actor and theorist, emphasising that all people are both, but it only works of course if the people you’re quoting are doing a substantial amount of philosophising. I also don’t want to lose marks for a stylistic gambit.

One of Gauny’s ideas is that work is work, always demeaning no matter what its content is. Rancière points out that this is similar to the philosophy of a preacher at the time, who valorised work for its essential self-sacrifice (Max Weber pricks up his ears), because it allows our body to fulfil its debt created by the wage given by the employer. This is obviously ideologically beneficial to the status quo because valuing just particular aspects of work rather than work it and of itself would suggest that those parts should be expanded i.e. that work can be better or worse and might be improved.

However, Gauny twists the message by separating the effect it has on the body from the effect on the soul. He admits that there is a pleasure to physical self-sacrifice - even though hard work of the sort he was doing can have awful long-term consequences, there’s pleasure in the oblivion you can reach in the arduous routine of it - but he emphasises that it kills the soul by not giving you breathing time to sit and contemplate, discuss ideas, and make art. There’s a beautiful section where Gauny says

“Ah, Dante, you old devil, you never traveled to the real hell, the hell without poetry!”

This speaks to the ideas at the heart of Rancière’s entire project: that everyone aspires to critically engage in the arts, and that the extent to which do is not overdetermined by class position. His project in this book in particular is to demonstrate that there is no pure working class - there is frequent infighting within and between professions and genders, and their morality is often inspired by the bourgeoisie.

In fact, one of the most interesting parts is that many of the workers start seriously questioning the status quo only after they’re visited by bourgeois do-gooders, but rather than take on the ideas of these champagne socialists uncritically, they use them to inspire new ideas. Rather than expecting a new world to come from one place, we should recognise that novelty is always a result of the melding of difference. It actually makes me think of the fact that so many of the progressive ideas developed in Europe, from Rousseau to Marx, were inspired by Native American philosophies (David Graeber & David Wengrow’s book, The Dawn of Everything, has a great section on the possible influence on Rousseau).

The aspirations of people like Gauny to write poetry, to come up with new ideas based on a variety of sources, was largely unrecognised or dismissed when Rancière wrote this in the ‘80s. He was frustrated that not only did capitalists view working people as beneath of that sort of thought, but Marxists saw it as counter-revolutionary and therefore unbecoming. Rancière was disillusioned with Althusser, who’s structuralist Marxism he saw as not leaving any space for people to resist their circumstances, instead being overdetermined by class. I don’t know Rancière’s stance on free will, but as a rather dogmatic determinist even I find that frustrating, as if we aren’t influenced by so much else which can give rise to disruptive convergences. Basically, people are more complicated than that! Any supposedly emancipatory philosophy with a single vision of what the working-class should be is doomed to failure, as Rancière well knew from witnessing the dismissal of the student protests of ‘68 be dismissed as “not real revolution”.

Rancière saw in Gauny a way out of this structuralist trap, where by taking on the high-minded ideas of the more romantic bourgeoisie and reinterpreting them with a personal need to act against the system, new ideas could be created and used to disrupt the distribution of the sensible, or the matrix of acceptable ideas - most important of which was the idea of who is capable of having such ideas. This concept is actually where my name comes from!

I wonder if we’re losing this time to contemplate even more today, with the spectacle invading so much of our lives - social media being the quintessential example. This is not such a danger if we’re using it to chat to people, but if we’re just scrolling… there’s not much thinking going on there. 😅 Guy Debord, in the ‘50s, was already talking about capital colonising our everyday life, and this stealing of attention, our time to think and talk and create and have ideas, seems to be the worst consequence of it.

[glasshalftrue]

Thoughts on "The Dispossessed" (Ursula K. Le Guin):

Shevek is an interesting protagonist. Having grown up in Annares, he's thoroughly entrenched in the anarchist Anarresti (holy shit how did I just make that connection) mindset; when he arrives on the capitalist planet of Urras, he's surprised to see that the it appears to be well-functioning and maintained, realizing that "the lure and compulsion of profit was evidently a much more effective replacement of the natural initiative than he had been led to believe." This is, of course, the opposite of the capitalist view, which is that people need to be motivated by profit in order to do good work. Yet he's also somewhat of an outsider in his own society, never quite fitting in with other people and ultimately coming into conflict with the rest of the planet over his scientific theory and willingness to communicate with the Urras. It makes for a more compelling and dynamic perspective than, say, a full-throated true believer.

I'm still unconvinced of the feasibility of a truly anarchist society like that of Annares, at least on that scale. Self-regulation can only go so far, and at a certain size it becomes necessary to have some some of central governing body, and that body needs to have the power to enforce its will. The book itself depicts Annares succumbing to bureaucracy and de-facto archism, with a "government" exerting force through customs and social pressure rather than laws, but it's functional the same thing, and it seems to me that, rather than being a social disease that can be defeated, this fate feels like the inevitable outcome of such a society.

On Annares, "dirty work" (work that's either unappealing or dangerous) is done by a lottery system, and people are constantly rotated in and out of doing such work. When asked why they would do this given the inefficiency of such a system, Shevek replies: "Yes. It's not efficient, but what else is to be done? You can't tell a man to work on a job that will cripple him or kill him in a few years." As a socialist-leaning person myself, I think there are a lot of progressive policies that would ultimately be a net good in pretty much every way. But some things are trade-offs, and even if they're worth it, it's useful to acknowledge them as such.

Particularly interesting to me was the culture, taboos, and societal norms of such a collectivist society. "Egoizing" seems to be the Anarresti's default insult, which sheds insight into the way that Annares maintains its society by building a strong sense of taboo and shame around the idea of self-centeredness and self-serving behavior. But is that enough? The book acknowledges that people like self-serving people who flaunt the Odonian ideology, like Shevek’s superior Sabul, will always exist, and sufficiently crafty and ambitious ones could easily exploit such a society. Of course, capitalism is obviously far from safe from exploitation of that sort, but it’s not clear to me why Annares would be able to do any better of a job at keeping it at bay.

The book brings up interesting ideas about freedom, and what it actually means. In Annares, people are "free" to do whatever they want; job postings are heavily encouraged, but never mandatory, and there are people in Annares who end up rejecting society entirely and living on their own. But how free are they, really? Near the end of the book, when they’re discussing whether to send an Anarresti an Urras, it’s stated that, though an Anarresti is free to leave the planet, they won’t be welcomed back. In the same way that people in America are “free” but still ultimately constrained by material conditions like poverty, it seems like people on Annares are similarly constrained by heavy social pressure. Agency doesn't exist in a vaccum, and there's no such thing as being able to truly do whatever you want - the question is which chains you want to wear.

It's a surprisingly romantic book. A line that will stay with me for a long time: "Please come back... separation is education all right but your presence is the education I want."

[theprofessionalpromptmaker]

Worldbuilding Questions (Ask Meme)

(IMPORTANT NOTE: These questions are either taken directly, paraphrased, or added to the questions provided in the book ‘HARP Folkways’ by Johnathon Cassie, which goes into way more detailed explanations and has even more questions to consider and is a great read for anyone doing heavy duty worldbuilding.)

These are some questions to ask when developing fictional cultures. They are broken into 20 categories with a couple questions in each.

As an ask meme: Send a category and a number (or numbers) in to be answered.

Questions Below the Cut!

Environment: Topography | Water | Ecosystem | Weather

How do your cultures respond to, shape, get shaped by, understand, anthropomorphize, and live in their physical environment?

What are their water sources, fauna/flora, landscape, altitude, weather patterns, etc. like?

Do they have seasons and what do those season entail?

Urban: Permanence | Configuration | Aesthetic | Stratification

How does your culture build villages, towns, and cities?

What does the built environment look like?

How do people move through it?

How permanent are structures (settled vs. nomadic)?

How are things placed and spaced?

How do different socioeconomic status people’s homes differ?

Family: Reach | Relationship | Authority | Idealization

How does your culture structure and support families and households?

And what is the difference between the reality and the ideal?

How are power dynamics distributed in the family?

How far does the connection of family reach (to sibling or first cousins or distant cousins, etc.)?

What are family obligations for different members?

What is the most common family structure?

Marriage: Authority | Inheritance | Legitimacy | Love

How does your culture define and understand the courtship ritual, the marriage-bond and divorce?

Who inherits what when someone dies?

Who are you allowed to marry?

How many spouses are acceptable and/or common?

Under what circumstances are you allowed to terminate a marriage?

What is the relationship between marriage and family?

Lifespan: Infancy & Childhood | Adolescence | Elderhood | Transitions

How does your culture treat children, adolescents, adults, and the aged?

What does it say about birth, dying, death, and the dead?

What education is given at each stage?

Does it differ between groups?

When does a child become a productive member of society?

Are there ritual practices in transitioning between stages?

What are birthdays and funerals like?

How does the culture mark the transition from living to not?

What are the obligations of those close to the deceased to perform if any?

What behaviors are allowed or restricted in different stages of life?

What celebrations or experiences are required/common for a person to have they move through their life?

How do these transitions shape the next phase of life?

What is the age of majority in your culture?

Gender & Sexuality: Definitions | Norms | Non-normative Patterns | Relations

How many sexes does your culture/species have? How any genders?

How is gendered defined in comparison to biological sex and separate from biological sex

What aspects of biological sex and gender and sexuality are acceptable in the culture?

How do people outside those norms interact with the culture?

Are they suppressed, eliminated, exiled, or punished?

How well does the society tolerate and treat them?

How do the different genders, sexes, and sexualities interact with one another? Is there norms for this? Are their social rules and expectations? Gender roles and obligations?

How is the difference between biological sex, gender, and sexuality defined in my culture?

What will it enthusiastically embrace as a norm, what will it tolerate as an emerging norm, and what will it suppress?

Association: Distance | Fraternity | Guild | Obligation

How does your culture govern patterns of friendship, kinship, clan, fraternal organization, affiliation, and settlement?

How tightly does your society bind those in association together?

What do people who become friends do together? What makes them friends?

And once they are friends, do they develop special subcultural behaviors that make them obviously different from others? Do they acquire a tendency to wear particular jewelry or clothes or speak in a particular way?

When part of a group, what does that mean? What does their membership obligate you to do? Is your association public or private? Do you wear insignia that identifies you as a member of your group?

About what do members of the society gather together for purposes of fellowship, friendship, safety, and collective action?

What is the line between friendship and family?

What makes an association legitimate? What makes it criminal?

Rank: Nobility | Mobility | Exclusivity | Coercion

How does your culture assign rank between members of the society?

What do the different roles entitle or obligate the holder to and what are the relationships between ranks?

How does one raise their standing?

What privileges are given to the different ranks?

What are the mechanisms that compel the holders of specific ranks to act in a certain way?

Do these elements coincide with family or marriage?

Order: Sphere | Joining | Tenacity | Presence

How does your culture define orderly and disorderly behaviors?

How does it maintain orderliness and punish disorderliness?

What are the ordering institutions within that society?

How does the culture exert social control or legal control?

What are the social or legal laws of the culture?

Who decides the rules?

Who has the power to enforce and assign orders?

What organizations are in place that do the day-to-day business of enforcing the rules?

Where do they draw their authority?

What are the police and militia equivalents of this culture?

What parts of your culture are so important, so integral, that your culture would kill to ensure they aren’t violated?

What cultural practices does your culture’s most powerful forces ignore or miss? What can powerful people get away with?

What venues are available for disorder or protest?

Who has the power to give an ordering institution authority to enforce its will?

What happens when ordering institutions within one society are at cross purposes?

Authority: Legitimacy | Power | Authority | Participation

How does your culture define power, authority, and political participation?

What marks someone as having legitimate and real power?

How are they allowed to wield it/where might they wield it?

Who has authority in smaller groups? What’s the descending order of authority?

What gives someone authority? And how do people gain authority?

Who wields power in the culture and where does the person’s mandate derive?

Who exists in my culture that challenges the most powerful?

What are the competing forces at work?

About what do the members of the culture care about when it comes to power and authority and where do they feel compelled to use their own authority?

Freedom: Freedom | Liberty | Binding | Directionality

How does your culture define liberty, freedom, restraint, and libertarian customs and institutions?

What is the relationship between individualism and collectivism in the society?

About what is the individual both entitled and encouraged to act on?

Where do expectations about the broader society impinge on the rights of the individual?

What are the correctives that society uses against people that do not behave themselves?

What are the correctives that your culture uses to limit the power of the collectives to act?

Wealth: Objectification | Status | Gift-Giving | Reciprocity

How does your society feel about wealth, wealthiness, the wealthy themselves, and the impoverished?

How does your society distribute wealth?

What is rare in your culture and what is recognized, by its scarcity, to have value?

What does having a lot of money confer a particular status?

Does having wealth make you powerful or not?

Does it give someone access to the levers of power?

Does wealth shape order, authority, or rank?

Does your culture have private property?

What does it mean to have anything in your culture?

Does having or not having wealth cause people to have certain obligations to others and their society?

Work: Subsistence | Feudality | Ethic | Slavery

What does your culture value about work?

What is its work ethic?

Is there slavery?

Why do people work? Is it due to needing to stave off starvation or for other reasons?

Do people commonly enjoy their work?

What value do people assign to their work?

What value is assigned to different jobs?

Leisure: Leisureliness | Competitiveness | Athletics | Diversions

How does your culture design leisure? Does it value it?

What do people do to kick back, provided they have the means to?

Do they like individual sports? Team sports? Learned pursuits?

What do members of the culture feel competitive about? How do they manage these feelings?

Is your culture vigorous or languid?

What does a typical member of the culture prefer to do to relax?

Are different ranks/groups allowed to engage in leisure together or the same leisure activities?

What sports and games are played?

What do people do to pass the time other than sports and games?

Dress: Practicality | Status | Jewelry | Body Modification

How do members of your culture dress and adorn themselves?

How practical are their clothes?

What do different ranks wear?

What is considered jewelry? What is precious in your society that isn’t money?

How does clothes express different ranks or groups or ages?

How is social status marked via dress?

What are the materials that your culture uses to make clothes?

What about accessories like hats, shoes, gloves, and such? How are they used?

How does your culture engage in body modification of any kind? Are branding and scarring and tattoos common and used? What about piercings?

Food & Drink: Locavore | Status | Embellishment | Technique

What do members of your culture eat and drink?

What animals and plants and potential food materials readily available in the culture’s landscape? What are their local ingredients?

What foods and ingredients are reserved for people of certain statuses?

What do the poor eat vs what do the rich eat?

How do they cook? What preparation techniques are used in cooking? What are common cooking techniques?

How do people embellish their food with tastes and textures and visually?

How are kitchens commonly laid out? What are common items found in a kitchen?

Language: Dialect | Majority | Pidgins | Naming

How does your culture use language and naming?

Are there mannerisms of speech, terms, phrases, accents, etc. that are reserved for/commonly spoken by different groups/ranks? What’s a snooty way of speaking? What’s a low class way of speaking?

How is naming done? How is it important?

What are the linguistic/ethnic minorities and how is their cultures and languages treated?

How many names does a person have? Does this change based on rank?

Are named sacred and if so, how?

How do they use slang and what makes something slang?

What are terms used by different groups that aren’t commonplace in the majority language? What are code words in different groups?

What words or expressions mark someone as being of a certain rank?

What are the naming conventions of the culture?

Do the characters conform to these conventions?

What is common and what is considered completely weird when it comes to naming?

Magic: Value | Occasion | Constraint | Instruction

How does your culture understand, shape, control, teach, and use magic?

Does it have a positive or negative relationship with magic?

How do non-mages view magic?

When is magical commonly practiced, what occasions call for magic to be used?

What personal limits would an individual impose on themself and their magic? What magic is off limits/taboo?

How are mages trained formally? Is it passed down and taught by parent to child or is their public institutions for it?

Who is allowed to use magic?

How does magic impact one’s rank and status?

How hostile or friendly is the majority of the population to users of magic?

Is magic viewed as supernatural or natural?

Would magic frighten a child or delight them?

Does the practice of magic have any influence on other sections of the culture?

Supernatural: Reason | Reflection | Ritual | Soul

How does your culture understand the relationship between that which cannot be seen and that which can?

Does the culture engage in religious practices? If so, how and what are they?

How much do people trust religion and the intangible vs science and the tangible?

What are the big questions that shape the culture and it’s religion or religions?

What is the right relationship to have with the supernatural?

What kinds of relationships can people have with it?

Are their rituals or buildings or people who wield religious authority and power?

Do the religions generate a rich interior life?

How does it help the mind and soul?

Is it more internally or externally practiced? Is it personal or public?

How are people without a religion treated?

What are the religious minorities of the culture?

Self-Reflection:

What lies does your culture tell?

What does it refuse to be honest with itself about?

What are secrets and tension and cause for shame?

[cosmi-trashbin]

Thoughts on Moon and Eclipsa as Queens

Think of the wand as thematically tied to Star’s role as the princess of Mewni. While the wand transforms into a design that best fits and reflects the personality and aesthetic of the current wielder, it’s also tied to the heavy responsibility, expectations, and history of Mewman royalty. A Mewman queen benefits from being imaginative and creative, but she’s limited by the expectations of her role as queen and the needs of her kingdom. The tie-in book showcased that most queens had difficulty walking on this particularly shaky tightrope: Every one of them was molded by the current status of their kingdom, their perspective on what it took to be a proper queen in some way, shape, or form, and how much they personally cared about/were invested in their role as queen. Some weren’t fit for the crown period because of how flighty or selfish they were. One queen was totalitarian. And some queens did what they felt was absolutely necessary.

Discussing Queen Moon

Queen Moon was an example of the last category: She was thrust into the role at a very young age and molded herself into the idealized picture of what she believed a proper Mewman queen should be. She followed every rule and mandate as closely as she reasonably could. She’s elegant, coiffed, and stern, but fair. She tries to be calm and collected for the sake of her people; to maintain a comfortable, but efficient status quo for her kingdom. But, a problematic part of maintaining this status quo was either burying and/or upholding the previous policies/effects of previous queens in regards to monsters.

Though, as the series has continued, viewers discover that Moon isn’t entirely rigid or unsympathetic. The bumbling, doofy King River is an example of the warmer, more tender side of Moon’s personality. River is a terrible king, but his importance as Moon’s partner shouldn’t be understated. His kind words, goofiness, and warm personality played a big role in helping Moon settle into her role and responsibilities as queen; he’s her ongoing emotional rock and moral support. The reason I bring this up is that it’s an example of Moon trying to balance personal happiness with being queen. She could have picked a king that was beneficial for strictly political relations or even specialized in overseeing a specific part of the kingdom. She even could have chosen to stay an independent, self-sufficient queen (ala Solaria). Instead, she chose to take on River as a figurehead while she runs the kingdom. It’s the one decision that she, arguably, received a lot of criticism for. In short, there’s a breathing, feeling person behind the crown.

When Queen Moon relates to Buff Frog on the common ground that they’re both parents, it shows a shift in her thinking. She’s not an unapproachable, unsympathetic figure. This is further showcased when she tries to reach out to Ludo and even tries to help Eclipsa with Meteora. Moon knows what it takes to be an effective and liked ruler, but apparently, she’s also willing to change and adopt new ideas. Moon was definitely willing to work on means to improve relations between Mewmans and monsters. She might use her reputation/influence as queen to slowly and carefully convince the people this is a very needed, very positive change for the kingdom.

The caveat is the controversy surrounding Moon and her lineage as the “imposters” in the royal bloodline. The first two episodes of season 4 reveal that Moon has become the poster child for the Piefolks’ very open, blatant contempt towards Mewni, if not all Mewmans. They readily hand-wave and mock River and Star for being ‘full-blown’ Mewmans while praising and aggrandizing Moon. Confirming that Moon is Piefolk validates their prejudices in some kind of twisted, backwards way. Of course they want to keep Moon herself around to push and fuel propaganda (which could lead to Piefolk trying to ambush and overthrow Eclipsa).

River’s comments about ‘dirty peasants’ and Piefolk comments about Mewmans bring up questions about what other peoples have race tensions/conflict with Mewni and what kind of impact/fallout Mewni’s class system has had. Mina Loveberry’s introductory episode pokes at some of these ideas, too. Since Mina was a super-soldier during Queen Solaria’s reign, she’s a living relic of previous Mewni sentiments and ideas: She approached Earth with a very imperialist, Manifest Destiny kind of mentality. “Mewmans are superior, so it’s our right to conquer!” Star’s response is indicative of how much Mewni has changed since those times. At the very least, Mewni royalty try to approach most kingdoms and peoples with some measure of decorum, diplomacy, and respect. The sad thing is that this approach was rolled out by the time there was a deeply cut, ingrained series of ideas such as “Monsters are inferior” and “Certain peoples are and always will be lower class by default.” 

In short, Queen Moon’s rule was the textbook definition of what’s expected of a Mewman queen. Without the context of her personal new revelations about Buff Frog or Ludo, her reign was the last example of a classic Butterfly queen.

Discussing Queen Eclipsa

When Eclipsa was next in line to be queen, she was already high-key rebellious by dating monsters in secret and practicing “controversial” magic. In some ways, her role as queen was peripheral to her personal pleasure and hobbies. She had very progressive ideas and the potential to dramatically overhaul then-current kingdom policies, but it feels like she couldn’t or didn’t act on them. It’s a bit ambiguous what her personal take on being queen is, but she seems content with the idea of just being able to live a peaceful, quiet life with her baby and monster husband. When she encountered rampaging and fully realized Meteora, note that she was trying to talk Meteora down and explain the delicate, complicated mess behind why Meteora couldn’t just stomp in and declare herself queen. Eclipsa was willing to help stop Meteora despite the fact that Meteora, technically, was the rightful royal princess. She realized how different current circumstances were in Mewni and what has to happen to keep the peace.

When she was an upcoming queen, Eclipsa was already locked into bureaucratic obligations when she was expected to marry Prince Shastacan. Her chapter in the official spellbook reveals that Globgor gave her an ultimatum: Run away with him or stay in Mewni. She chose to run away with Globgor and, presumably, start a new life among monster society until she was caught by the Magic High Commission. Globgor’s ultimatum shows that Eclipsa was forced to chose sides at the time. Globgor is the unknown variable for what Eclipsa’s reign would have been like. While I don’t have a lot to work with for determining the nature of their relationship, I get the impression that Eclipsa would insist on them being equal in regards to ruling; either that, or Globgor is the more assertive, dominant party in their relationship.

By herself, Eclipsa seems to just be going with the flow. She opened Mewni to monsters and her reign so far has been reshaping Mewni’s culture and encouraging a melting pot between peoples. Though, beyond that, the concern about dissatisfied peoples like the Piefolk or even the continuing tensions between Mewmans and monsters has been brushed under the proverbial rug. Eclipsa isn’t dumb, but she needs some pretty intensive PR to back her up. As far as Mewni is concerned, she’s an unabashed monster lover and would pick monsters over Mewmans in a heartbeat. In short, she’s going to be viewed in pretty black and white terms without the gravity or nuances of her personal story and circumstances. From the episode titles released thus far, Eclipsa’s definitely going to work on just that. But, again, the atmosphere surrounding Eclipsa’s current reign is tied pretty heavily to what Globgor is like. He has enough importance in Eclipsa’s personal life that she’d weigh his opinions and her happiness with him that she might not act as rationally as she would solo.

Ending Thoughts

There’s so much emphasis on the balance between a queen’s personal life and her role as queen. For Moon, there’s glimpses of the role being a mandate or obligation. In the episode where Moon was wandering around the pure magic dimension, viewers see a surprisingly carefree, almost childlike side of her. Moon was allowed to “cut loose” for an episode and it poses the question of what she’d be like if she weren’t bogged down with royal responsibilities.  For Star, there’s been hints at what personal hobbies and freedoms she feels like she’d have to give up as queen. Her mom gave up everything; Star is fighting for a balance between her eccentricities and living up to expectations. For Eclipsa, the biggest issue was her decision between duty and following her heart.

Most of Star Vs. queen characters’ stories study the pressure of being born into a position of power and responsibility. Having a list of previous queens to compare and contrast opens the floor for discussing the importance of having the right person in a prominent political office and how their personal morals affect what they do while in office.

[scotchfields]

Galbraith, Friedman, and the Televised Argument

I recently subjected myself to an entire season of the all-but-forgotten 1977 BBC documentary series The Age of Uncertainty, a drab early version of the now ubiquitous “television documentary”. Filled to the brim with stiff academic talk, thick cigarette smoke, hokey animation, and silly references to the New Wave, The Age of Uncertainty is a neat little time capsule. It was written, produced, and hosted by Canadian-American economist and sensation John Kenneth Galbraith, more than once dubbed “sexiest man alive,” and also remembered as a profoundly radical and influential public economist. Adopting a similar style to earlier television documentaries like Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man and Kenneth Clark’s Civilization, Galbraith had a big budget, plenty of important names attached, and complete creative control over the show’s content. With the BBC’s backing, and embracing a tongue-and-cheek, at times fiery style, Galbraith launched the first major attempt at a television documentary covering economics.

And in this modern viewer’s hindsight, the result was a complete and utter trainwreck. The Age of Uncertainty is not only boring as fuck – it ranks among the snooziest programs I have ever laid my eyes upon. For all of Galbraith’s sophistication, all of his finesse, the man’s slow monotone tests absolute limits of sustained attention to even the most passionate audience. Still, The Age of Uncertainty is worth talking about, even if it is probably not worth watching. In our day of Netflix, Kanopy, Hulu, HBOGo, et cetera, the television documentary has become a staple of living room background ambience. The Age of Uncertainty was at the apex of the format, brandishing some of its worst and best characteristics. The Age of Uncertainty also spurred unprecedented amounts of debate and rebuttal from public intellectuals. It proved, if anything, that television documentaries could matter in the real world.

Over the course of twelve episodes and three one-hour special interviews, The Age of Uncertainty explores the history of economic thought since the 18th century. Special attention is paid to the ways in which ideas shape institutions, and how history has been fundamentally altered by different notions about how the economy functions. In framing economic thought as profoundly institutional, Galbraith hopes to break down the barriers of academic discourse that, in his view, make economics needlessly complex to ordinary people. By the end of the final episode, Galbraith develops his thesis: markets, far from an abstract, complex concept, actually affect day-to-day material realities, and thus should be put under greater public, democratic control. Galbraith’s argument, rooted in an explicitly neo-Keynesian, left-of-center ideological background, connects form with content. He attempts to use accessible language, along with various methods of viewer-friendly visual storytelling, to reject free-market economics, and to propose an economic order more oriented around human need and participation. Galbraith’s use of animation, skit acting, expensive sets, and various other techniques are hit-or-miss, but do reveal the ideologies informing Galbraith and his opponents, and help us understand the relationship between an economist and the public.

Before exploring the content of the show, it’s important to understand Galbraith’s position within the economics discipline and his views on academia more generally. Indeed Galbraith’s lofty ambition in creating The Age of Uncertainty, and his more implicit desire for audience resonance and participation, both stemmed from his unique relationship to the academy. Galbraith was a recognized and even self-admitted heterodox economist, who tended to break from mainstream economic thinking on a number of important questions. Most notably, Galbraith tended to reject economics as reducible to a set of concrete laws. Human behavior, in Galbraith’s view, was a product of the institutions, communities, and cultures from which it developed, rather than any process reducible to mathematical models. As a result, Galbraith tended to reject many core economic precepts, such as the tendency towards perfect competition in markets. Economic historian Alexandre Chirat has written extensively about Galbraith’s relationship to the economic mainstream, explaining:

“Heterodox economists — and, more specifically, institutionalists — have always dealt with power in economics more than others. Whereas textbooks economists find this notion disappointing at best, Galbraith thinks, as Bertrand Russell,  that power is a fundamental concept in social sciences. According to him, “in eliding power — in making economics a non-political subject — neoclassical theory, by the same process, destroys its relation with the real world.” In other words, it destroys its raison d‘être… It is exactly because of the introduction of power in his analysis that Galbraith gives up on orthodox postulates, on one hand, and deals with the power of economists, on the other.” [2]

Chirat sees Galbraith’s power analysis as the core motive that undergirds his entire worldview. In particular, Chirat brings up Galbraith’s interest in three crucial power dynamics: the sovereignty of the consumer, the sovereignty of the citizen, and the maximization of profits. These three factors, which Galbraith sees as largely ignored by the economic mainstream, introduce elements of uncertainty to economic decisionmaking on a massive scale. Chirat considers Galbraith’s mutli-faceted power analysis as veering towards disciplines like political economy or even social theory, especially in its consideration of “socially-constructed” understandings. “Considering power in economics,” Chirat argues, “leads Galbraith to reflect on the role — and, therefore, the power — of economists.” For Galbraith, the very way academics think about issue areas like education, healthcare, and immigration determines real-world outcomes. Such a self-reflexive notion – breaking down the ideologies that form how decisionmakers think about the economy – leads Galbraith to a “pluralism regarding social purpose.” For Galbraith, “the economy” is not and ought not be synonymous with “public welfare.”

Galbraith’s heterodox economic views are expressed in both the content and form of The Age of Uncertainty. Firstly, with regard to content, the scope of Galbraith’s historical analysis seems to fit his ideological background. Galbraith makes clear the connection between “ideas,” or the economic orthodoxy that he so opposed, and lived, material realities. The history of modern society, in his view, was little more than the net outcome of ideas adopted and ideas rejected. One example comes with Episode 2, “The Morals and Manners of High Capitalism,” an episode almost singularly concerned with the rise of robber barons, and the ideology of “Social Darwinism” that permitted their existence. Galbraith says that “a strong and even dominant current of social thought in the last century set the rich apart and held that they were, indeed, a superior caste.” This current of social thought, Galbraith explains, “protected wealth,” as no entity “could interfere with the essential process” of wealth concentration. Social Darwinism, in Galbraith’s view, is an idea like any other, depending “a little on economics,” a little on “theology,” and mostly on a notion of “biology.” But this simple concept had immense power in the shaping of Western society in the 19th century, justifying the stratified social system under which nations existed. Galbraith goes on in the episode to discuss Thorstein Veblen, Norweigan-American economist and Galbraith’s “main influences.” Veblen’s ideas about “conspicuous consumption,” Galbraith argues, had the effect of beating back the trend of Social Darwinism, and targeting criticism towards the wealthy. Ideas, then, can work both ways.

In fact much of Galbraith’s analysis, from the early days of industrialization in England to the modern, postwar Keynesian period, is concerned with the nature of ideas about wealth, poverty, and inequality. He is especially concerned with how ideas are adopted, and how power relationships impact perception of ideas. In Episode 7, “The Mandarin Revolution,” Galbraith talks about the origin of the Keynesian idea, and the ways in which it fundamentally transformed society. “Keynes,” Galbraith says, “had a solution without a revolution… [When] Washington was cool to Keynes… he captured the United States by way of the universities.” Galbraith discusses how the older generation of economists roundly rejected Keynes’ ideas, while younger economists were quick to adopt them. Eventually, Keynesianism became ubiquitous, and as a result, human welfare improved. During his discussion of Nazi Germany’s response to the Great Depression, Galbraith is sure to invoke this skepticism of “mainstream” academic thought. “The Nazis were not given to books,” he writes. “Their reaction was to circumstance, and that served them better than the sound economists served Britain and the United States.” He discusses how the German motivation to borrow and spend money on public works like the Autobahn massively reduced unemployment. In the end it was nothing short of an economic miracle, where the Germans recovered from the Great Depression much faster than their peers.

In examining the ideological content of The Age of Uncertainty, Galbraith’s analysis should also be contextualized within the historical moment of the Cold War. In particular, Galbraith seems intent on understanding both sides of the conflict, and perhaps even arriving at some sort of a consensus between the two models. One of Galbraith’s main policy ideas, after all, he termed “new socialism,” and involved the extension of various aspects of centralized planning in the United States. While preserving a market-based framework, Galbraith’s “new socialism” adopted elements from the Soviet system regarding  medicine, public utilities, and the industrial sector. The twelfth episode of The Age of Uncertainty captures Galbraith’s attitude towards these two poles of capitalism and communism, concluding with a somber warning about the horrors of nuclear warfare and the common humanity shared by Americans and Soviets. “The Russians are no less perceptive, no less life-enhancing, no more inclined to a death wish than we are,” he explains. “That, indeed, is the highest purpose of politics in both countries, one that far transcends differences in economic of political systems.” While this quote digresses slightly from my point about Galbraith’s search for capitalist and socialist consensus, it still captures his attitude towards the Cold War quite effectively. Galbraith, in final analysis, viewed both systems as having merit. The “great uncertainty” of the show’s title, after all, refers to Galbraith’s view of the ideal economic system as basically undiscovered.

The Age of Uncertainty’s visual style compliments Galbraith’s ideological message by twisting and contorting the traditional science-documentary format. In doing so, Galbraith attempts to break down the barriers between audience and expert that he feels needlessly complicate economics for ordinary people. The ultimate goal, then, is to demystify economics, uncovering the ways in which free-market economic ideas create their own logic and embed themselves within society. For one, The Age of Uncertainty employs animation to visually articulate Galbraith’s lectures.  In the first episode, “The Prophets and Promise of Classical Capitalism,” Galbraith notes how the computer “can be made to reach back in time,” before revealing an elaborate metaphor for serfdom using an animated village. In the animation, buildings represent individual power and status, with a castle atop a hill equalling the state, a less ornate castle representing the landlords, and small houses representing agrarian villagers. The animation is arranged in the form of a pyramid, with the poor villagers at the bottom and houses slowly increasing in size as they move up the hill. The point of the animation, Galbraith explains, is to convey the strict nature of precapitalist society, wherein peasants were locked into their position at the bottom of the pyramid. The animation, however, is rather difficult to understand at first, as the various buildings don’t have obvious meanings. This invites a degree of ambiguity on behalf of the audience. If Galbraith’s goal is to connect on a human level with his audience, his visual materials should probably be more explicit.

The Age of Uncertainty also takes advantage of grand, expensive sets. In the fourth episode, “The Colonial Idea,” Galbraith tries to convey the turbulent and brutal nature of 19th century European politics with a massive, life-sized map of Europe painted on the floor. Atop each country stands a soldier, played by a real actor, dressed in a military uniform appropriate for his particular country and weilding a sword. The actors, apparently representing the military of their respective countries, take turns clashing swords with one another in an almost rhythmic, dance-like fashion. The scene is clearly meant to portray 19th century Europe as rife with aimless, nonstop bloodshed, but mostly comes across as silly and cheesy. Only several minutes later in the episode, Galbraith discusses British Empire, and in particular the 1947 partition of India. Outlining the chaos and bloodshed that occurred in the subcontinent, Galbraith uses what appears to be real archival footage of mass migration and human displacement. Spliced into the archival footage, though, are scenes of actors clashing swords. The juxtaposition of real, tragic archival footage with more obviously fake scenes filmed on set, both following the comical “map of Europe” scene, seems rather tone-deaf.

The public reception to these visual techniques, and The Age of Uncertainty at large, was mixed at best. Some critics dismissed Galbraith’s lectures as overly complex, despite his efforts to use relatively simple language. Others favored his speaking style and appreciated his command of language. The main criticism of the show, though, focused on the sets and animations. Critics tended to dismiss the visual style of the show, which rather than aiding understanding, actually “distracted” them from Galbraith’s message. The Historian Angus Burgin has written about the reception to The Age of Uncertainty on both sides of the Atlantic:

The extravagant and self-conscious visuals in The Age of Uncertainty seemed to have done little to make Galbraith’s arguments more rhetorically compelling for his audience. In America, George Stigler (1977) wrote that the documentary had fulfilled his “fears about the effective use of television” as a  medium for economics, as Galbraith “made no observable attempt to use visual methods to illuminate ideas”: in England, one observer noted that Galbraith’s visuals seemed as though they had been “mischievously” devised by a conservative think tank “to distract attention from his message.” Silent reenactments and composed dances, it seemed, were a disruptive complement to Galbraith’s narrations; in a series on the social sciences, viewers manifested a preference for visual economy rather than excess.

Criticism was also directed towards the ideological content of The Age of Uncertainty. For the most part, ideological criticisms were divided along partisan lines. Prominent figures like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, for example, dismissed The Age of Uncertainty as left-wing propaganda. Notably, the American economist Milton Friedman released a ten part series entitled Free to Choose: A Personal Statement as a direct response to Galbraith’s program. Released in 1980, Free to Choose features a loosely similar style to The Age of Uncertainty, with Friedman narrating a variety of historical case studies of economic thought and policy. The main difference is Friedman’s focus on an explicitly political agenda. In contrast to Galbraith’s chronological, step-by-step history, Friedman organizes his program based on specific, hot-button policy topics. Episode titles range from “What's Wrong with Our Schools?,” to “Who Protects the Worker?,” to “How to Cure Inflation.” Where Galbraith maintains a pretense of objectivity, Friedman openly confesses his biases, and essentially outlines how the free market is the solution to the problem of each episode. At the end of each episode, Friedman engages in a debate with a prominent expert on the opposing side of the issue. Friedman’s debating style and overall charisma were praised.

Burgin has written about the relative success of Free to Choose compared to The Age of Uncertainty. Overall, he attributes Galbraith’s failure to a few main elements: Galbraith’s “stiffness,” the “cheesy” production techniques, and perhaps most importantly, the lack of a strong “unifying” theme to encapsulate Galbraith’s ideas. On the latter, Burgin sees Friedman’s message as concise enough to resonate with audiences in a single sentence: the free market works. He explains how Friedman’s charm was based around this simplicity:

“At the center of his appeal, however, lay the force of the market metaphor. While Friedman’s rhetoric aligned well with the requirements of late twentieth century modes of transmission, Galbraith never found a way to distill his views in such simple and broadly applicable terms. As one journalist wrote before the release of either documentary, to be an “economic superstar” it was necessary to arrive at a ‘fixed view of the world, learn to state it forcefully and cast unremitting scorn on those who disagree.’”

Burgin expands:

“Galbraith, as one might expect, was horrified by Friedman’s means of  persuasion. He found the arguments Friedman adopted “simplistic” and perhaps even “purely rhetorical,” relying “almost wholly on passionate assertion and emotional response” (Galbraith 1981b). He marveled at the “radicalism” of economic ideas in the early 1980s, labeling himself a dispositional “conservative” by comparison.”

Burgin’s analysis of the problems that plagued The Age of Uncertainty helps to explain much of why the show failed to gain traction. In addition, his comparison with Free to Choose, a more critically and commercially popular program, helps to underscore the public’s lack of interest in Galbraith’s lecturing style. However, Burgin’s analysis is incomplete insofar as it fails to consider what the proper role of an economist should actually be. Perhaps Friedman is better at concisely communicating his ideas to the public, but is this necessarily better for the public? What is the proper relationship between an expert economist and their audience?

These questions have been debated constantly by economists for decades. It might be useful to view the debate in the context of television history. Galbraith, as evidenced by his show, clearly favored some role for economists in connecting with audiences and ensuring that their ideas received a wide public hearing. However, his “horrified” response to Friedman’s rhetorical style also suggests that he opposed any oversimplification of complex ideas. The scholar George Stigler, cited by Angus Burgin, agrees with Galbraith. Like Galbraith, he sees the economist as needing to straddle a line between maintaining authority and fulfilling a social need. In turn, he sees economists as inherently in conflict with vested interests – be it corporations, or labor unions – who seek to manipulate the public agenda through more sly, unscrupulous tactics. For Stigler, though, the economist ought never sacrifice personal integrity, as academic truth will win out in the end.

One contrasting view on the role of economists, particularly relevant to The Age of Uncertainty, comes from economist Samuel Bowles in his essay “Economists as Servants of Power.” Like Galbraith, Bowles sees economics as inherently political from the outset. In particular, both are interested in how “social constructions” of power shape material realities. However, Bowles takes the discussion further by exploring how the state apparatus, monied interests, and professional economists feed off of one another, and in turn develop ideas symbiotically. Bowles argues that experts, in their close proximity to power, either “figure out ways to ameliorate social conditions which run the risk of being politically explosive,” or outright “obfuscate the roots of inequality and hierarchy,” which in turn “constricts the range of policy alternatives.” As a result, Bowles argues that economists should drop all pretenses of being apolitical, and should assume more activist roles in pursuit of egalitarianism. In short, Bowles not only believes that economists should consider both how power shapes the world, but also that economists’ priorities are shaped by power. The conclusions are significant. While Free to Choose connected Friedman with the public on the surface level of his rhetoric, deeper down, his methodologies were still informed by his close relationships with institutions of power like the Republican Party, the US Treasury Department, think tanks like the Hoover Institution. Thus, in reality, Friedman’s conclusions were actually developed at a distance from the public.

Over the course of twelve episodes and three one-hour special interviews, The Age of Uncertainty explores the history of economic thought since the 18th century. Galbriath’s ultimate objective, which forms the entire trajectory of the show, is perhaps best conveyed in the opening chapter of The Age of Uncertainty’s accompanying book. “What people believe about the workings of markets and their relationships to the state,” Galbraith argues, “shapes history through the laws that are enacted or discarded.” In framing economic thought this way, Galbraith hopes to demonstrate the close proximity of “economics,” broadly understood, to real peoples’ lives. In turn, he hopes to make the economics discipline more participatory and open.

Galbraith’s argument, rooted in an explicitly neo-Keynesian, left-of-center ideological background, rejects mainstream economic thought, viewing power, institutions, and outright “social constructions” by academics and policymakers as crucial in human decisionmaking. A variety of techniques, including animation, skit acting, are used to make this case. These techniques had a mixed reception among critics and audiences, mostly coming off as stiff and tone-deaf. Especially compared to the more charismatic, plainly rhetorical style of Milton Friedman, Galbraith largely failed to fully involve the public the way he wanted, and to connect economic ideas with lived realities. However, the notion of involvement with the public is complex. As scholars like Samuel Bowles have argued, there are different ways in which an economist can be “close” to the public. More important than an easily-accessible communication style is a research methodology that invites participation from various stakeholders from throughout society. In this sense, Galbraith’s desire for a more participatory economics discipline, and one that connects ideas with the material world, might be the more authentically “public” style after all.

Theodore Molina

1 Angus Burgin, Age of Certainty: Galbraith, Friedman, and the Public Life of Economic Ideas

2 Chirat, Alexandre. “When Galbraith Frightened Conservatives: Power in Economics, Economists' Power, and Scientificity.” Journal of Economic Issues 52, no. 1 (2018): 32

3 Chirat, 33

4 Chirat, 35

5 Galbraith, 45

6 Galbraith, 213

7 Galbraith, 342

8 Chirat, 31

9 Burgin, Angus. Age of Certainty: Galbraith, Friedman, and the Public Life of Economic Ideas. In: Tiago Mata/Steven G. Medema (eds.), The Economist as Public Intellectual (= History of Political Economy, annual supplement), Durham 2013. 51

10 Burgin, 50

11 Burgin, 30

12 Bowles, Samuel. "Economists as Servants of Power." The American Economic Review 64, no. 2 (1974): 129-32.

[rwbyconversations]

Why has Adam proved controversial after Volume 6?

Fandom is a culture that is constantly changing. It’s a culture effectively built around self-sustaining itself through fanart, music videos, fanfiction and discussion theories about the content the fandom is built around to tide them over until the next big release. Taking the RWBY fandom for example, it’s a fandom that’s really only alive for less than two fifths of the average year, from October to January when the volume itself airs. The rest of the year, RWBY’s fandom has to keep itself afloat through self-generation of ideas and the sharing of the aforementioned means of content to tide people over until October comes back around and the season starts anew. Headcanons and fan theories become commonplace and can become exponentially more popular than ever intended thanks to the gap in seasons giving it time to form and gain weight as a theory before canon can prove it wrong. 

What that long period of downtime means is that you can see previously loathed characters come back from the brink and gain a lot of fandom support and approval in the turn of a season. Or alternatively, popular characters can take a swan-dive in popularity, being reduced to joke status that they never recover from. People who swore up and down that “this character is trash and I don’t care what they do with them” suddenly next hiatus are on the other side of the trenches. One season can do a lot for a character in either direction is what I’m saying. 

Because that’s what’s happened the past two years to Adam Taurus. 

Adam after Volume 5 was a turbulent wreck of a character. Humiliated at the end of the season and forced to run with his tail between his legs, while his character lost much of the appeal that it had garnered over the prior four volumes, making him resemble a whiny child LARPing as a doomsday villain. It was a pathetic display for his character, one so infuriating it inspired me to begin writing analysis essays after a heated Discord discussion, and that essay struck a note with many of the people who read it and agreed with the contents therein, especially in regards to how much Haven damaged Adam’s threat factor. People simply weren’t scared of him appearing like they were prior to his smack from Blake, several comments even derisively writing off Blake and Yang’s rematch against Adam in advance because “they made him job before, they’ll do it again.”

 And yet interestingly, within the span of a year, the tides partially turned. With Volume 6 Adam wasn’t widely derided as a joke anymore, but in spite of that, the discussion around him was just as heated as it was last year. Adam was still the core topic of the argument but now the battle lines had been redrawn thanks to his death in the climax of Volume 6. Now it’s become commonplace for RWBY’s discussion communities to deride many of the dime-a-dozen posts about Adam and his “wasted potential” that have been arriving nearly daily like reinforcements to batten at a wall. But why? What changed in just one year that changed the entire argument around Adam? Why are his fans and critics embroiled in a new war to enter the hiatus?  

That’s what I’m trying to set out and accomplish in this essay. I am going to hopefully explain the primary reasons for why Adam is a controversial character following Volume 6, in particular why his fans are dissatisfied with the way his characterization was taken over the course of the show. Keep in m ind that parts of this essay touch on Adam’s abuse so if that’s a thing you’d rather not see, avoid going further. 

1) Headcanons were proven wrong

No one likes being wrong. Just look at students who get fail grades in exams, they’re usually despondent. It’s never something you lose as you grow up, in fact, Being wrong just sucks, to put it bluntly. 

Remember how I mentioned at the beginning that because of the content droughts fandoms experience, headcanons and theories can grow far further than anyone intended? Adam is an example of that happening for three years. 

Adam’s first appearance was in the Black Trailer, released on March 22nd, 2013. He wouldn’t make a significant appearance in the show until Heroes and Monsters, the penultimate episode to Volume 3, released on February 6th of 2016. His only significant appearances between those two dates was a cameo in the Volume 2 finale and V3C7, Beginning of the End, released on January 2nd. 

Adam’s initial appearance left much of his personality vague, barring that he was Blake’s superior, a stoic swordmaster and that he was fighting to liberate the Faunus from humanity with the full intent of taking a pound of flesh from humanity for what they’d done to the Faunus- to quote From Shadows: 

From Shadows, we’ll descend upon the world, take back what you stole, from shadows, we’ll reclaim our destiny, set our future free.

As such, the mental image of Adam that the fandom was given had nearly three years in real life to set in stone, that he was Blake’s former mentor who had fallen into extremism and terror attacks. Some even suspected going off Oobleck and Blake’s interactions in Volume 2 that Adam would receive a redemption from his wicked ways to show as an example of how Blake would redeem the White Fang from its own muck-filled past, or that Adam would need to die in an alternate variant of that story to show how far down the dark path he’d gone. Tauradonna was even a fairly high-profile ship in the early days of the show, being on roughly the same level as Blake/Weiss.

The headcanons were only given further room to grow thanks to adaptations of the Black trailer and early RWBY not taking the time to more properly setup Adam’s true character, in particular the Shirow Miwa adaptation. Miwa’s version of the scene, or at least the localized version, was released across two chapters in April and May of 2016, with the full book getting a physical print in the West in August 2017. Adam in the Miwa adaptation is far more talkative than his canon counterpart and even makes several dry quips throughout the fight:

When they first see the AK-130 guards (”Looks like we’re doing this the hard way” in the trailer): “Looks like all the seats are taken Blake.”

When asked who they are (Adam doesn’t have a line here): “We’re thieves.”

Upon seeing the Spider Droid for the first time: “Tch! He’s one serious baggage clerk.” 

Adam’s dialogue is also softened from his original dialogue to boot: 

“Buy me some time!” “But-” “Do it!” instead now is “Blake, buy me some time.“ “But that’s-” “I just need a second.” Blake also gets to make a quip that “You know... You’re fairly high-maintenance.” 

When Blake’s barrage ends, she says “I did all I could,” and Adam thanks her with “It was more than enough, get back.” All Adam says in the animated version of the scene is “Move!” 

The manga makes a significant addition to the aftermath of the battle, where Blake chides Adam for the ambush being sloppy. Adam initially just smiles as “that’s what you’re here for,” before Blake quickly rebukes him, cutting the train car as she says that the White Fang “not lower itself to bloodshed.” The last we see of Adam in the manga is him standing on the train carriage, pondering to himself “You think this is wrong Blake?” 

A similar change is And “Perfect. Move up to the next car, I’ll set the charges,” is now “There’s at least 5,000 cases. All right, let’s kill the engine.” “What about the crew?” Adam is silent and when Blake presses him for information, the Spider Droid attacks 

Prior to the train attack there is a scene added by the Manga where Blake says that the Dust will be redistributed to Faunus in need. She asks Adam to confirm this and he looks back over his shoulder, lips parsed, and says “Of course.” However the next page has a black box of him saying “Don’t overthink it Blake.”  

The point of this extended summary of the Black Trailer in Miwa’s adaptation is to show that even in adaptations of the trailer, RWBY didn’t do much to dissuade people from forming the headcanon that Adam was simply a fallen revolutionary. In fact the manga smooths out Adam’s rougher edges, making his dialogue less harsh and more sarcastic. Remember as well that these were initially released soon after Volume 3 wrapped and before the commentary confirmation of abuse, meaning that these gave Adam fans one last bit of material to bolster their ideas of what Adam was. 

Obviously, all of these ideas and theories went out the window with Volume 3 Chapter 11 and the subsequent reveal by Miles and Kerry in Volume 3′s commentary track that Adam was in fact an abuser. A lot of his fans didn’t take to this reveal well, which I’ll return to in a future section of this essay, since in part it shot down all of their theories about Adam and made him an irredeemable monster. Adam’s potential redemption was destroyed the moment he slapped Blake. 

It is telling that most of Adam’s more passionate fans are from the early generations of the RWBY fandom who were around since the early trailers, since there’s a sharp divide between those fans and the more common Adam fan reaction of “I like him in spite of the abuse or explicitly only work with AU stories where he isn’t as bad.” Again, no one really likes being wrong, especially when it means accepting you were wrong for nearly three years.

2) The abuser twist

Something that I’ve never liked about Adam’s turn as an abuser was how looking back at Volumes 1 and 2 for evidence of the twist in advance, it’s difficult to find anything concrete. I had this discussion on a server lately where looking at all of Volumes 1 and 2 along with 3′s first half, there was really only one agreed upon sign of abuse prior to V3 in Volume 2- Blake’s flinch when Yang goes to hug her in Burning the Candle. But the problem with that is that even this can be taken into a different context, as one of my friends pointed out. As she reminded the chat, Yang had already shoved Blake several times by that point in the conversation and Blake may have flinched instinctively when she saw Yang’s arms raise again. 

Of course given the context of Adam’s abuse, Blake flinching may in fact have been foreshadowing, or it may have just been her instinctively preparing for another shove. We just don’t know, and that vagueness around Blake’s past and the abuse twist is partly why a lot of fans argue that the abuse twist was never planned in the early stages of the show and was an idea introduced during production. This is not a concept new to RWBY- Monty came up with the Maidens one day while working on Volume 3 after all- but it does mean that for sudden character turns like Adam’s abuse, the question will be raised of “was this always planned or was it just something you added as the story flowed along?” 

Much of the cited evidence that Adam was planned to be an abuser from the early show is in a similarly murky place. Blake speaks of Adam in Volume 2 as a mentor (”I had a partner... more of a mentor actually”), Monty himself called Blake the “apprentice” in an interview after the Black trailer, and much of her subdued behavior compared to her more affectionate self seen in Volumes 5 and 6 can be simply explained as Blake keeping a low profile to avoid Faunus discrimination and the attention of the White Fang. 

Even in Volume 3 Chapter 7- Adam’s last scene before Chapter 11 and the confirmation of his abuse- things are kept vague. Adam even sharply rebukes his Lieutenant when he offers to hunt Blake down following the Black Trailer, saying “Forget it.” Adam’s plan is to go to Mistral without a care for Blake, which goes against his obsessive behavior seen later in this very season. 

Much of the evidence given for Adam’s abuse- him gaslighting Blake in the Adam short, Blake talking about him in Volumes 5 and 6 to Sun and Yang, his dialogue during the Volume 6 battle- is all retroactive evidence, which does not solve the initial problem of the initial seasons poorly setting up Adam’s turn. Much of the evidence for and against the twist is shady at best, and reaching at worst due to how vague the wording is around Adam. Blake only ever speaks of him as a partner or mentor, never belying a romantic connection outside of the volume 2 premiere with the drawing of him in her notebook. Certainly with the benefit of hindsight some may find evidence in Volumes 1 through 3, primarily that Blake is simply an unreliable narrator, but I still feel like the lack of clean foreshadowing to such a large part of Adam’s character it weakens the twist, and some of Adam’s fans remain bitter that his character underwent a drastic 180 out of relatively nowhere.

3) Simple preference

Being blunt, a lot of Adam’s fans just prefer the Adam shown in the early seasons to the one the show closed out on. This idea is often mocked by some that his fans just wanted to see a Vergil knockoff, but for some of Adam’s fans it just came down to wanting to see cool fights. After all, RWBY was built on the initial idea of well-designed characters having well-choreographed fights. The show advertised itself initially as “From the maker of Dead Fantasy and Haloid,” which to surmise, weren’t shows that lured people in for their narrative quality. Monty’s loyalist fans who followed from his freelance work and from Red Vs Blue followed for cool fights, and Adam’s fighting style and design made him an instant fan favorite. It has only been from Volume 3 onwards that the show has advertised itself more as a drama than an animation showcase, and as such some of Adam’s fans don’t care less for his character turn other than that it makes him whiny and edgy and they’d like to see him swing his sword a bit more.

While the idea of preferring Adam as a revolutionary over his Yandere self seen from V3 is also a mocked concept as it tends to be used by people less well-versed in expressing critique of Adam’s character and makes for a popular strawman tactic, a morally gray villain may have worked well for RWBY. Especially as Adam and Cinder both show in different ways that the series should stay away from villains with no redeeming qualities. 

Though I suppose at least unlike Cinder, Adam actually has a backstory, so I should count my blessings. 

To surmise, for some of Adam’s fans it was a purely physical love affair

4) Adam’s death and its connection to Bumblebee

Blake and Yang’s final confrontation with Adam in Volume 6 marks a significant step in their relationship, which means if you like Bumblebee then the emotional climax of the volume hits home for you. If you shipped literally anything else then at least the choreography was good, but if you didn’t ship Bumblebee and never liked the Adam abuser turn... hoo boy. 

Being blunt, a fair few Bumblebee shippers don’t mind the abuser twist since in the long run, it helped their ship and gave Blake and Yang plenty of angst to work through both alone and as a pair. I’ve said before that Blake’s recovery arc made for some good content in Volumes 4 and 5 barring the Sun slaps, and Yang’s PTSD arc, while bare-bones in Volume 4, was some of the more consistently good material that year when shown. And as such, Adam being made a one-note psycho who wanted to kill Blake suited them well, as it gave a clear villain for Blake and Yang to overcome while developing past their respective traumas. The problem of course being, Adam’s fans not appreciating this turn and definitely not appreciating the names they were called when they expressed this dissatisfaction.

This led to a litany of hot takes- “Adam’s fans only cared for the show and the character as an outlet for a male power fantasy,” “Adam’s fans were entirely made of sexists who just hated women,” “Adam stans are abuse apologists.” (Like 40% of the Adam fans I know are actual abuse victims so fuck yourself on the front of trying to use their trauma as a low blow) And to be fair, Adam’s fans responded with their own disappointing share of bad takes involving the dreaded words “wasted potential,” alongside murder and nerfing, but I go over those later. 

(also you know genuine homophobics but trying to avoid braindead reasoning here for my own sake)

Getting back on topic, I quite obviously detest this lumping in of all criticisms. For one it means that simply shipping something that isn’t Bumblebee and disliking the fight can get one labelled with accusations of homophobia. A disgusting tactic on its own, to say nothing of how some people use it just to deflect criticism. Liked Adam? Then you’re an abuse apologist now. It’s interesting to compare the response to Adam last year and this year, where suddenly the fandom went from dismissing Adam after Haven to suddenly being very insistent that his death was well done and that only bigots opposed it; a naturally insulting statement to any members of the LGBT community or racial minorities who took umbrage with the handling of the Faunus.

And speaking of, my largest gripe with Adam’s turn personally is how it overshadows his previous commitment to the Faunus. Even though Adam’s short shows him fighting for the Faunus, to the point where Lionized and From Shadows are both expressly about how the Faunus are subject to inhumane treatments, it all gets tossed aside for the sake of Adam’s obsession with Blake and I’ve always found the almost-retcon of “Adam only truly cared for his own equality” a bit.. hard to get a read on? Since the original reason for his fall was because of his rabid devotion to his cause/getting vengeance on humans. Adam in-setting had been prepped as a Malcolm X style analogue before most of these traits were pushed over to Sienna. I feel like there is a lot that could be said about how RWBY handles its racism narrative, especially when it pertains to Adam given his own placement in the narrative, but that such a thinkpiece would likely be hit with accusations of homophobia or abuse apologism likely curtails that idea in anyone’s head. Some voices in the fandom have even come forward and expressed their dissatisfaction at how the arc depicting racism got curtailed for a romance. Adam rather sadly could have been part of a cornerstone on a narrative about the natural consequences of violent extremism, but instead the writers went with a far shallower option in my opinion.  

Also being blunt the whole “Adam was just a secondary character for Blake and Yang’s arcs” feels a bit like revisionism of weak writing. 

5) Damaged goods

Adam lost a lot of fans thanks to Volume 5. You can argue about this all you want but the facts don’t change that the volume was overall one that shot his character in the leg. Alongside having him go completely bananas out of nowhere with the “THE BELLADONNA NAME HAS BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT GRIEF” scene, Adam’s humiliating head smack from Blake that knocked him out for an entire episode and his Naruto run escape from the Battle. Put bluntly, people didn’t give a shit, especially after CRWBY’s own attitude was to mock Adam, further undermining any threat factor Adam was meant to have.

It’s quite obvious in hindsight that Adam’s short was made quickly, and was almost certainly damage control made to counter the backlash from the Battle of Haven episodes. Sienna’s inclusion has eve been admitted by Miles on RWBY Rewind to be done as pure fanservice for the fans who wanted more from her design, and it shows with how Sienna dominates the back half of the short. But the short’s nature as damage control, while ultimately well received, still marked it as a fix job for Haven. Even last year fans wondered what was the point of trying to hype Adam back up as a threatening villain given he would almost certainly lose any future battles he fought in. 

Ultimately, a lot of people just didn’t care about Adam. The damage had been done by Haven, and even a lot of his own fans wrote off him being allowed to be even half as competent as his Volume 3 self again. With even his own fans having written off his chances of being a fearsome combatant again and the crew openly reviling Adam, not to mention his own voice actor despising him, a mood of “why should we care if the crew don’t?” began to settle in for Adam’s fans. Some even looked forward to his death since it would mean at least in death, Adam was free of being written as a psycho Yandere. For some of Adam’s fans, his writing had been so schizophrenic that death seemed like the only way forward instead of dragging it out.     

6) “Wasted potential”

This is a point I don’t entirely agree with myself, but as this is an essay about why Adam has been controversial after Volume 6 I only feel it fair to include it, even if solely for the purposes of rebuttal. Wasted potential has become a set of dirty words to portions of the fandom thanks to the many, many, many arguments about Adam post-season. 

A rather large complaint is that Adam “jobbed” for Blake and Yang, despite neither of them really having gained much experience onscreen since Beacon. I disagree with this notion since it does take some details out of consideration for this angle- B&Y were both tired from earlier fighting in the day, Blake was shocked to see Adam out of nowhere and that’s why he overwhelmed her, Adam still actually defeats Blake at Argus and it largely comes down to Yang to win the fight, and V5 had actually set up her changing her fighting style to better combat Adam’s own style. 

One idea of potential for Adam that I will admit to liking is the idea of Adam as an ideological villain to Blake. Adam and Blake could have both represented the differing sides of the Faunus debate and how to achieve results, perhaps even going for a scenario where neither side was truly correct or wrong. Such a plot would have even had the benefit of tying the Faunus narrative into the wider stakes of the show while also humanizing it on a base level through their struggle. But at this point, this is becoming me wishing the show was something else. I’m sure a great fanfic could bloom from this idea in the future and I hope I get to see it one day. 

There’s also the entire idea that Blake and Yang “murdered” (it was self-defense) Adam since apparently this is a big deal. I dunno fam, you just ignoring all those White Fang goons RWBY killed in V2 by leaving them in the tunnels? The ones they smacked around during V3? All those people Yang probably killed in the Yellow trailer? Now seems like a bit of an odd time to draw a line in the sand about the RWBY girls killing someone. 

7) Conclusion

To conclude, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding Adam, and a lot that will surround his character for years. I feel like arguments around him will still be going by the end of the hiatus, if not for years to come. Adam has attracted a fandom from varying walks of life, but one thing I’ve noticed with some regularity is how many of of them themselves have histories with abuse. What unites a lot of them in their reasons for liking the character is the tragedy of how Adam is a person who has been persecuted then gained the power to bite back, but in his blind rage winds up lashing out at someone he is supposed to love. With permission, they let me share their accounts so I could put them here:

Be it purely visual/choreography appreciation, falling for fan theories and headcanons, his allusions to the Beast, the mystery of his mask and later branding, his potential as an ideological rival for Blake or for personal reasons, Adam gained a fan following from all walks of life over the past six years, who may not have learned everything they wanted to about him but who wanted to learn more regardless. Even if they only liked him just to watch him fight, Adam has a small if passionate fanbase, and I hope I’ve explained some of their grievances with the show as a whole now, particularly following Volume 6. Adam might have been a scumbag, but ironically his fandom has actually been quite pleasant to talk to, so I hope I’ve presented their more accurate or personal issues in a fair light. 

Thank you for reading. Please consider sharing the post around if you enjoyed it or think someone you know would. 

[arcticdementor]

You probably don’t support free speech, even though you say you do, and I want to prove it. How? Well let me explain by showing what happened to my thinking on this topic.

I used to be a free speech absolutist, with qualifications of course – which begs the question doesn’t it? Qualifications like you cannot make a death threat, you cannot shout fire in a crowded theatre, etc, etc. The standard conservative fair. But for virtually all other speech I believed there should be freedom for people to speak their conscience.

My position on free speech was formed by a large dose of having grown up in secular Australia, a peaceful, stable and prosperous society, which was influenced heavily by the USA, also a peaceful, stable and even more prosperous society, alongside of a Protestant understanding of the Catholic Church’s punishments of heretics, dissenters and unauthorized Bible translators. My appreciation of Anabaptist and Baptist history especially encouraged my views on free speech. There was also, in the past, an unrecognized influence of Hollywood propaganda on the issue. How much of what we think is really just regurgitated Hollywood propaganda?

…

Therefore, as a Christian, while I did not believe I had to right to say whatever I wanted, because I was to be bound by conscience and truth, I believed my neighbour had this right, because they were to be guided by their conscience, and their understanding of what is true.  

But then I sought to make this case on Vox Popoli, Vox Day’s blog, when they were discussing something regarding free speech. It was there that I heard the first truly persuasive argument against free speech: the case of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Like me at the time, you probably have never heard of this book. And really, it is not a book worth reading. But there is one reason why you should know about this book: it helped pave the way for the degraded, porn addicted, culture that the West is in bondage to today.

…

Effectively, this case helped progressives do what they love doing best: transgressing boundaries. Indeed, you could argue that this is the definitional pillar of progressivism, to smash every possible boundary and recreate humanity into the image of the boundaryless divinity, Baphomet. I do not think that every progressive is aware that this is what they are doing, but this IS what they are doing.

Herein, lies the reason I suspect that even though you might say you believe in freedom of expression, you very likely do not believe in free speech, especially if you are a Christian. Because I know you do not believe that porn should be disseminated freely or widely, but rather that it should be either banned outright (the best position) or heavily limited to who can watch it when (the current approach our TV stations take, but not strictly enough). And I know that pretty much every thinking Christian is genuinely concerned about the hyper-sexualisation of our culture that happens in the media, and especially how it effects many from too young an age.

Once you realize that porn is too dangerous to be free and accessible, a position which many people, not just Christians, agree with, you realize that you cannot continue in a state of cognitive dissonance that believing this and believing in freedom of expression puts you in. You cannot both agree that expression should be free and heavily restricted. Once you realize that this, you can freely move to the correct position: free speech is not good for humanity, or really good in pretty much any context. There should always be limits on what can be said when and where, and this is just wisdom. Clean speech is a far superior position, and makes for a better way of life, and a better way for society.

…

Nothing I have said here is particularly radical for the average believer, as I said at the beginning, “You probably don’t support free speech, even though you say you do, and I want to prove it.” The question is not, “Should we be absolutely free to speak?” The question is really, “Who should be the censors, and what should be censored?” We understand this intuitively, but the mantra of free speech propaganda often causes us to miss this.  

There are always blasphemy laws in any culture, even a libertine culture, where it is blasphemy to say, “That is immoral”, or “Maybe you should have self-control,” or, “Do you really need another cookie?”. We Christians and conservatives in the West fell into the trap of believing that neutrality could exist in a nation. That is, we thought a society based on a secular public sphere, allowing a freely expressed marketplace of ideas was possible. But this was always a lie, and this is why such a society didn’t last very long.

Really, those who sought to break the boundaries of what could and could not be said, were just using that as a means of usurping the Christian nature of the West, and taking power for themselves, so they could then enforce their version of blasphemy laws. Have you noticed how todays almost exclusively leftist cultural elite are not even slightly interested in encouraging the free market of ideas any more? They want no part of free speech. Why is this? Their goal of taking power has been achieved. There is no desire for the anti-establishment to let people freely continue to criticize the establishment, once they become the establishment. No, it actually becomes a threat to their systemic control.

This is not my opinion of what has happened, either, elements of society have been agitating for the disestablishment of the church for some time, and they have been utterly successful. Here in Australia, it is not uncommon to see the media go after politicians who are open in their Christian faith, even if their advocated policies are not all that Christian. The eminent historian and Medievalist, J B Bury, told us that progressives viewed free speech as a means of achieving this goal of destabilizing the Christian West.

First tradition had to be undermined, “It is only recently that men have been abandoning the belief that the welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on the preservation of its traditions and institutions unchanged.”[10] The process of dismantling tradition was encouraged by the effective and continued challenging of Western heritage, by the very elites who were supposed to preserve it. “DURING the last three hundred years reason has been slowly but steadily destroying Christian mythology and exposing the pretensions of supernatural revelation.”[11]

This was not the dispassionate scientific process that it is often presented as being in the movies. Humanity did not just wake up one day in a state of “enlightenment” and determine based on scientific reason that all tradition must be rejected. It was guided in that direction, by ideologues and freedom of expression was the tool used to achieve this end. As Bury says, “…nothing should be left undone to impress upon the young that freedom of thought is an axiom of human progress.”[12] By “human progress” Bury, and many other enlightenment thinkers really mean less Christian. Indeed, this is explicit in Bury’s A History of the Freedom of Thought, for example: “In this sense it might be said that ‘distrust thy father and mother’ is the first commandment with promise.”[13] This is an explicitly anti-biblical command. This brings to mind Richard Dawkins misguided attempt to create a new 10 Commandments in his book The God Delusion, to replace the real ones.

These attempts to create new commandments are always foolish, because if mankind sees very little reason to follow God’s commands, why would he care about some enlightenment professors list?

…

Previous generations of enlightenment thinkers argued for, and even genuinely defended the principles of free speech. But once they had completely replaced the authority of scripture and the Church in guiding society, the doors began to close on anti-establishment sentiment, which Bury conceived as possible,

It is by no means inconceivable that in lands where opinion is now free coercion might be introduced. If a revolutionary social movement prevailed, led by men inspired by faith in formulas (like the men of the French Revolution) and resolved to impose their creed, experience shows that coercion would almost inevitably be resorted to.[15]

In other words, if socialists were to come to power, or people of a similar ideology, freedom of thought would likely be smothered and thoroughly. Which is precisely what is happening and, this is significant, was always going to happen. The enlightenment thinkers and those of us in the Church who foolishly sought to create a secular culture really just created a power vacuum, and that vacuum attracted the most power hungry to fill it. They now guard their power with supreme jealousy.  

So here is my mea culpa on free speech, I was wrong to ever defend it. To summarize, free speech is neither possible, desirable, or sustainable. It is not possible, because as I said at the start, no one should be able to threaten someone, among other things. It is not desirable, because there should not be the freedom to degrade with porn, and other degradations, as there now is. And it is not sustainable, because it was simply a means to an end, which has been achieved, and it is now being shelved, as it always was going to be, because power vacuums attract the powerful.

Indeed, this last point is so important. Because we Christians have been defending a tool which has been consistently used to undermine and degrade the Christian West. How the Devil must be laughing at us, for all the ways we have been fooled.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The original legacy of Wendy and Richard Pini's ElfQuest

In this excerpt from Dark Horse Comics's 40th Anniversary Ashcan issue of ElfQuest, available today in comic stores, Hanna Means-Shannon explains how Wendy and Richard Pini showed indies the way in an age before crowdfunding.

For those of us who grew up reading print comics from the newsstand or the comic shop, but have since then witnessed the birth of digital comics, we may feel we have seen major changes in the landscape of comic publishing. We would not be wrong to think so, and the developments that we have gradually embraced in comics form a continuum that may yet lead to changes far beyond our current imaginative climate.

However, the shifts that occurred in both the method of creating comics and in publishing in the decades before many of us were part of the comics conversation were so wide-ranging and astonishing in their impact that it is hard for more youthful readers to fully grasp those seismic shifts now. And yet those very shifts created the continental drifts that led to the current changes we still witness. Conceptually, comics became community-driven in the hands of self-publishers like Wendy and Richard Pini, the creators of ElfQuest, long before the dawn of fan-driven webcomics or crowdfunding platforms.

No doubt books will be written on the ways in which ElfQuest, and self-published comics that followed ElfQuest’s example, blazed remarkable trails in fan engagement. This is particularly likely now that the Pinis have generously donated a wealth of original art and supporting documents as an ElfQuest archive to the library at Columbia University. The size of the donation itself, and Columbia’s delight in receiving it, suggest just how significant comics historians know ElfQuest to be, and what potential for research and discussion lies ahead.

The unlikelihood of ElfQuest ever coming into existence as we know it was, however, profound. All it would have taken would have been a momentary hesitation from the Pinis when their first ElfQuest story appeared in an indie comics magazine printed on sub-standard materials, only for that publisher to promptly go out of business. They could have taken that as a sign to move on and try some other endeavor less precarious, less potentially disappointing, than comics. But instead, they didn’t simply take the series to another publisher, but sat down and conceived of a superior way to present the material, geared toward aesthetic values and a rich reading experience for the audience. Taking matters one step further, they self-published that material, a decisive act that set them on a path which is still unfolding forty years later.

Trying to pin down the alchemy of appeal in the comic series itself will leave you certain of its raptor-like ability to seize the its raptor-like ability to seize the reader’s attention, but perhaps even less able to single out just one particular quality that makes it shine. But if you open a book like The Complete ElfQuest Volume 1, which takes you back in crisp clarity to the “Original Quest” and earliest ElfQuest stories, you will be immediately struck by Wendy Pini’s art style and the intense use of page space for layered narrative. You’ll also notice the manga-like visual focus on the emotional state of the comic’s characters, as well as the more general mood of each panel. It’s no exaggeration to say that a single panel is often capable of conveying a whole world in ElfQuest. And yet this is a book that transmits thousands of years of alternate history for its star-traveling and shipwrecked elves, the splintered clans that result from their crash-landing in pre-history, and in particular, the life and times of the Wolfriders. This is a story world that plays out on both the large scale and the small scale, and suggests that both have virtually equal emotional weight in the narrative.

Central characters Cutter and Skywise immediately enable the reader to grasp the intense personal lives of the elves, and the procession of long periods of time and vast distances in space enable the reader to grasp their cultural and historical context in ways that we may wish we could grasp our own. The Pinis built upon these original core elements to establish an astonishingly wide cast of characters, times, and places. It is hard to conceive of a more expansive story universe in the realms of science fiction or fantasy than the Pinis have created through attention to their original architecture. Their ability to build ElfQuest has been just as impressive as their ability has been to reach readers outside of mainstream distribution.

Of course, prior to the Pinis, there had been other comic creators who discovered that self-publication can reach readers, and their lessons learned no doubt empowered ElfQuest to come into being in the same way that ElfQuest has since then empowered many comics in the digital comics generation to reach out to their own fanbases. But innovation is often found, not only in the tools we use, but in how we use them. With ElfQuest, the Pinis essentially took a model previously associated with underground comix and applied the verve and self-determination of that movement to an entirely new mode of storytelling.

Their new mode was genre-blending fantasy that would parallel the interests of the mainstream comics industry and, even more closely, the interests of the mainstream prose fiction market. Somewhere at the intersection of the two, ElfQuest would not only become a monumental success story, but usher several generations of fantasy fans into the realm of comics readership, too.

In retrospect, what Wendy and Richard Pini did contained plenty of common sense, but it also reflected very specific personal aesthetics that the Pinis expanded into in the hopes of creating a superior reading experience. They took their story and blew it up into magazine format, created a full-color glossy cover for it, and provided extra character portraits on the back covers. They created their story on substantial paper stock that would do justice to the lavish inking and make reading the script elements sharper and clearer. That paved the way for readers to encounter the Pinis’ story as a more opulent experience of the fantastic.

As ElfQuest grew, and as readers, holding this superior quality of book in their hands, experienced the unique world and universe the Pinis had artfully created for them, people were, quite simply, hooked. The Pinis had created a new product in a new format that appealed to the senses, the emotions, and a desire for community among readers. Only as the comic became increasingly successful did other potential self-publishers take note of this emerging fandom as a developing marketplace.

ElfQuest soon garnered interest from publishers, but the Pinis decided to only work with publishers on the collected editions, and not on the creation of the stories themselves for many years. This effectively reduced the influence of outside sensibilities on the creation of characters and storylines and shored up the original feel of ElfQuest to an even greater degree. However, the Pinis were not without their own organizational structures for production. They have spoken in the past about Richard’s role as editor and co-scripter in the creation of ElfQuest, and little insights like these help unlock the mysteries of the comic’s success.When Richard and Wendy co-scripted each issue of their comic, they produced a back-and-forth typical of editorial process. When Richard quite literally took out a pen and trimmed and reconfigured dialog, he brought an internal awareness of process to the series that kept the reader in mind and focused on a specific goal: the greatest possible quality in the final product.

If the Pinis are beginning to sound both like business people and a two-person publishing house, that is because they pioneered both personas for comic creators seeking to publish and distribute their own work. If that sounds unromantic compared to the alluring, and often extravagantly beautiful stories that Wendy and Richard tell, ask yourself: What could be more romantic than producing an experience with readers so firmly in mind that stories arrive regularly for them in high-quality format? Nothing takes a reader as directly out of the world of a comics story than the conditions under which they are read. The Pinis fine-tuned those conditions as carefully as they crafted their stories.

Over the years, the Pinis would have to become even more firmly entrenched as business people in running their own publishing house. It is hard to conceive of any other independently created property that, in continuing to publish new work across four decades, was obliged to make deals with several major publishers for collected and remastered editions. From Marvel Comics, to DC Comics, and finally, to Dark Horse for new stories, collection and distribution, few creative teams have had such an intense experience of learning just how creator-owned properties can have mutually beneficial relationships with publishers.

But that task has not been thankless for the Pinis. The response from fans has always been what has buoyed the series and inspired the Pinis to continue their work. Developing into multi-media formats, from prose, to drama, to music, and more, the world of ElfQuest has proved highly versatile in inhabiting the imagination of its audience. The existence of ElfQuest continues to support the idea that creative people can craft new ways of thinking, as well as new ways of storytelling, and when released on the world, those innovations can find a community who will benefit from them.

ElfQuest found a tribe in the days before crowdfunding, before webcomics, and before the rise of all-access digital platforms. And it managed to adapt new methods in order to reach readers over a swath of publishing history very few properties can boast. As such, it represents the power of like-minded communities to find each other through the stories they tell.

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/06/the-original-legacy-of-wendy-a.html

[dentalsleepmaster]

3 Dental Practice Management Tips: The Definitive Guide

Owning an oral practice is no simple job. Although you excel at providing your clients with superior oral health care The Entrepreneurial Dentist, it's simple to become so caught up in the everyday operations that you forget the other essential aspect of an effective dental practice: an exceptional client experience. The reality is, the way you handle your oral office leaves long lasting impressions on your clients and significantly affects your retention rates.

Here are 8 ideas to help you enhance your dentist-to-patient experience: All effective oral marketing campaigns share 10 constant components , but in order to really develop your practice as the leading oral health care company in your location, you should likewise recognize, market, and safeguard your special competitive advantages. Whether you use an expansive array of oral health services or emphasize a certain specialty, your unique perspective has the power to bring in and keep a high volume of patients.

So instead of depending on standard marketing channels podcasts by Dr. Avi Weisfogel, which are frequently one-size-fits-all, you ought to consider tested methods that highlight what sets your practice apart. Uniquely tailored social media material are just a few of the methods you can engage with higher-quality clients, construct awareness of your practice and what you offer, and promote your company as the reliable choice in the region.

8 Tips For Running A Successful Dental Practice - Patient News

Avi Weisfogel

Even your workplace design and physical environment play a function in your office culture. Yes, discover. Your office culture currently exists-- you just need to discover it. It's in your character, your management design, your values, your systems, your habits, your expectations, and the way employee interact with each other and with clients.

Data Driven Dentistry Archives - Oral Health Group

Even your workplace decor and physical environment contribute in your office culture. When tweaked, your distinct way of doing things has the power to boost efficiency, attract quality staff, and keep patients returning for more. To develop and enhance your workplace culture, collect all of your employee and have a thorough discussion about your dental office's day-to-day operations in addition to its long-lasting goals.

When each staff member is working towards the very same goal, they'll be happier and more caring and your oral practice will flourish! When it comes time to grow your client base, think about ways you can expand your services to improve value, reinforce your competitive position, and ignite the interest of prospective clients.

11 Tips For Running A Successful Dental Practice

Maybe you're interested in improving your center's ease of access. Or perhaps you're considering introducing new specializeds to satisfy your community's growing needs. Whatever path you're considering, ensure you do not overextend your practice! By striking the ideal balance of cutting edge innovation and uncompromising quality, you will end up being an effective dentist with a strong reputation, loyal customers, and maximized profits.

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Listen to Podcasts from Avi Weisfogel, The Entrepreneurial Dentist

Avi Weisfogel is the owner of Dental Sleep MBA, a continuing education program for dental experts. Avi Weisfogeleducates dental practices on how to operate their organisation a lot more effectively and also make more revenue. Apart from the Oral Sleep MBA course, Avi Weisfogel additionally offers company suggestions to dental professionals that need help in building a successful dental practice. He does this with his new podcast, Entrepreneurial Dental expert.

After all, retaining existing clients is significantly less costly than needing to put in the effort to acquire new ones. However retaining existing patients requires more than just using satisfactory service, hassle-free hours, and an easy-to-access area. It has to do with engaging clients, connecting to them on a psychological level, making their trust, and developing relationships that last.

Should I Work For Someone Else Or Open My Own Practice

Through cross-channel marketing, which includes a mix of direct-mail advertising, social networks and e-mail marketing, it's never been simpler to stay at the forefront of patients' minds, reveal them you genuinely care, and end up being the most successful dental professional you can be. When it concerns growing your client base, nothing beats a word-of-mouth recommendation.

As terrific as patient referrals are, existing patients are hectic with their own lives and do not typically think of supporting and growing your organisation. So, to assist motivate patients to tell others about your services, you'll require to be proactive in requesting for patient referrals . You might distribute referral cards at the office, tuck cards into your practice mailings, offer a referral perk program, offer patients with fast links to online review websites, or perhaps incentivize employees to motivate them to grow your practice.

It creates much better client flow, maximizes performance, decreases tension for both clients and personnel, and ultimately contributes to the exceptional customer care that your clients expect. That's why you need to ensure your dental practice has the most versatile, effective, and updated scheduling software application possible. A client's experience starts with their very first point of contact, which is usually a receptionist or another member of your front desk team.

Starting A Dental Practice: 10 Tips For Success

Their professionalism, mindset, and interaction skills all leave a long lasting impression on patients-- an impression that can make or break your oral practice. That stated, professional training and continued education are necessary aspects of how to run a dental practice. Make certain that each individual who greets and deals with your patients, either in individual or over the phone, is trained to make the most of each patient interaction.

Client News is a leading Dental Marketing company dedicated to assisting grow your practice. Ask for a call 888-377-2404 for a free info plan, or to speak to one of our oral marketing experts.

As an independent dental specialist, it is frequently hard to look at your oral clinic as a service rather than looking at it as a service-oriented concern. While your main issue is your client's wellness and complete satisfaction, you should offer sufficient attention to your office too. After all, the finest method to bring about patient complete satisfaction is to guarantee all treatments and services from your end are fully optimized for them! If that's the case, then consider altering your working hours to accommodate your patients.

Dental Practice Management

Continuous schedule modifications, cancellations and brand-new reservations are no trick to an oral workplace. This is why it deserves purchasing a digitalized scheduling system to assist you manage your clients' schedules quickly and make the system as hassle-free as possible. By doing this, your staff member will constantly have the ability to upgrade themselves with client info quickly, therefore enhancing the service offered to each client separately.

By having the ability to see a detailed schedule, your groups can search for instances of cancellations or 'no-shows' and book extra appointments in such slots. While a lot of dental professionals neglect this element, inventory management is vital to guarantee that you constantly have the best products and the ideal quantities on hand.

6 Tips for Running a Successful Dental Practice - HHA

By doing this, you avoid blocking your capital by resting on undesirable stock while reducing the threat of wrong orders or over-ordering. Creating a stock management system that works for your office is essential. Everything, from assigning inventory management to a single individual to avoid confusion to storage details, should be considered in order to optimize the procedure as far as possible.

from https://dentalsleepmasters0.blogspot.com/2020/01/3-dental-practice-management-tips.html

[enddaysengine]

Exploring the Manifest Zone - The Last War

Here's Episode 2 and man have I been looking forward to this one! It's been a while since life kinda happened in between this being released and now, but I'm okay with playing catchup. Today we are talking about the Last War.

https://manifest.zone/02-the-last-war/

I like that Wayne's bringing up the civil war aspect of the Last War. The fact there are no recent civil wars in Europe or North America certainly does alter our vision of what war looks like, although it is worth pointing out that we are still feeling the shock waves of the American Civil War today, even in the not-United States parts of the continent. Imagine what it must be like for those who are only two years removed from a century long civil war.

The tension of having no winner in the Last War is a plot point that you can spin multiple campaigns out of. It was an excellent call for the setting not to resolve the problems that nations are facing. It adds a level of dynamism because everything is so unstable and can collapse into multiple potential futures.

Huh, I never really thought about the Dragonmarked Houses having terms dictated to them by the Empire of Galifar. Maybe that's because I always saw them as being partnered with the royals, but then again, alliances come and go. Just because Galifar I got them on his side doesn't mean they still had a cozy relationship by the time that Jarot rolled around. It makes sense that the Dragonmarks would be screwed before the Last War if the Empire didn't want to play ball. Stormreach was a minor economic player, and while the Lhazzar Principalities were technically autonomous, but they still bent a knee to Thronehold. I could easily many Dragonmarks feeling that the war was horrible, but that in many ways it saved and freed their families.

I'd love to get an entirely in-universe book that shows the history and contents of the Korth Edicts and the Treaty of Thronehold. It probably won't happen anytime soon and would be more likely as a product produced by fans (or Keith) in the DM's Guild once Eberron finally gets allowed.

I hadn't considered that the creation forges might have been shut down because Cannith came in with a weak hand. It always seemed to me like the forges got closed because of escalation fears. The fact that some Cannith heirs may be resentful towards that poor leadership is an interesting perspective.

Warforged leases or rentals. Excellent idea. It makes perfect sense for Cannith to try and extract payment for warforged soliders multiple times. They may even try and argue that this wasn't so different from pain a soldier salary, and to structure their lease agreements to make it look like you paid less for the warforged.

The separate culture of Valenar from Cyre is something that's come up a couple of times, but I don't ever think got the attention it deserved. Take a look at the pre-War map of Galifar:

What is now Valenar is cut off from the rest of Cyre by the Blade Desert. They were nominally part of the nation and the empire, but they were both distant from the heart of its power and geographically isolated. I highly doubt this is the first time they tried to break away and rebel. I also note that as I compare maps, it does look like there is a piece of old Cyre that escaped the Mourning, the south shore of Lake Cyre. It's now part of the Talenta Plains, but I expect this may be one of the last remnants of the nation that still looks much like it did before the war. There could be interesting plot hooks there.

So, Droaam. One of my favourite nations out there, but Keith's suggestion that the Five Nations treats Droaam like Westerns treat Daesh is fascinating. It's not a perfect comparison because Droaam isn't actively at war with everyone around them (can you even got to war with the Shadow Marches), but it does inform other types of attitudes and plots you could use in stories.

The distinction between Droaam and Darguun's political situations is important listening if you want to use either of those countries in a campaign. The goblins were more involved with the war and had gained allies. Essentially, they played the game of politics and came to the table at the Treat of Thronehold with enough clout and chips to offer to gain legitimacy. They also had a past president. For a very different analogy, consider the relationships that Christians and Jews had with the Roman Empire. Both were disruptive to the state religion, which demanded that homage is paid to the Roman emperor and his ancestors. Both Christians and Jews refused, but the Romans allowed the Jews to practice their religion because they saw that religion as being a fundamental cornerstone of an ancient civilization. To the Romans, the Jews had enough historical legitimacy that they would be tolerated, even though they disrupted the religious status quo. The Christians, on the other hand, were a recent phenomenon for the Romans, so they were not seen as having the same pedigree and same legitimacy. Darguun is like the Jews in this scenario. The goblins not only had nations but empires before humanity conquered them. A goblin nation could be seen as a revival of that tradition and be more socially/politically acceptable than a gang of monsters trying to build a state.

Another important note on that legitimacy thing is the age of elves. An elf's lifespan of 750 years for an elf being about the biological equivalent of 110 for a human (before magical enhancement). The Dhakanni Empires collapsed about 5000 years ago, an extremely extended period for humans on modern Eberron, but more like 1283 CE for them the historical memory of elves. Given that countries like Israel and Greece in the real world were able to garner enough recognization using historical memories from the first millennium BCE, it doesn't seem very far-fetched for the elves to view the rise of Darguun as the return of an old but hardly forgotten nation.

The Mournland being in the centre of the continent create some challenges, particularly in the east to west movement, but the payoffs you get are much larger. I've had several campaign hooks hinge of off Breland and/or Darguun trying to restore overland (or underground) transportation routes to Talenta, Valenar, or Karrnath. There's a lot you can play with there. I also really like having the wasteland in the middle of everything. The whole "World's Largest Dungeon" schtick plays well. The Last War is also useful in justifying dungeons beyond modern structures. Large magical explosions could easily have exposed previously hidden ruins, and now that there is peace, those dungeons can be explored.

The Last War is a great story hook for building a character. I really like the idea of starting a group during the war as a prologue/flashback, then skipping ahead to 998 YK. That helps to give a sense of the significance of the Mourning.

Kalashtar can be tricky to include in the War, and I've never really given them much thought in that context. Their culture is a bit isolationist and it has more than a bit of a superiority complex. Why would they get involved in a quarrel between warring siblings when they have all of reality to save? I like the idea "orphaned" kalashatar who have lost contact with their culture. That does not mean they have to be literal orphans, it could be the result of Kalashtar who fled East from Sarlona and ended up in the Shadow Marches or Demon Wastes, or whose Kalashtar parent renounced the shadow war with the Dreaming Dark to live amongst humans. Of course, that the Dreaming Dark may have been one of the groups trying to engineer the Last War is logical and would be a perfect reason for Kalashtar getting involved. That gets lots of cloak and dagger, espionage, and spycraft stories going.

Thinking about the effect war has had on you is interesting. I've dealt with PTSD (not from combat, but still) so I know there's a balance to walk with your character between having the War impact the way you act without crippling your character. I definitely appreciate Scott's perspective. He's given very good advice on how to get inside a military mindset. Handicapping vs storytelling is also an important discussion to have.

Scott's storytelling advice is excellent in general, not just for warfare, but for everything. Get into more senses than just sight and give your players choices of what do, even if it doesn't change the immediate plot to get them to engage in the moment and the emotions. Then let the ongoing plot further develop from those choices. The experiences shared by a party who served in the war together is a great place to start. I like Keith's questionnaire a lot. Definitely going to steal it.

The idea of a party trying to rebuild their bar after it burned down in the war is a great take on how to tie everyone together. I should write some fiction around that. The impact of the war doesn't have to be all angst and devastation. The war can impact people in other meaningful but relatable ways too.

The reignition of the Last War is something I haven't actually played around with much. That said, I have messed around with the breaking of the balance of power. My games have tended to either be localized to specific cities if they deal with politics. I do want to develop Thaliost and a couple of other cities in the future and it would be a good idea to bear in mind some of the potential local sparks that could set the continent back on fire.

The Lord of the Blades leading a warforged nation is something that I have wanted to do, but haven't had the chance to yet. One idea I had was House Cannith and Orien trying to reattach the east-west Lightning Rail trade routes by going under the Mournlands through Kyber. The Lord of Blades doesn't take to kindly to that, claiming that the caverns are part of the warforged's sovereign land and that it was effectively a declaration of war. I love the question of "Is the Lord of Blades Magneto or Doctor Doom?" It gives a nice touchstone to the personality of LoB.

I know this is beating a dead horse, but Eberron's ability to handle issues from the real world is amazing. Cyran refugees is an easy one since it is a hot topic in global politics. You could pretty easily pull up any newspaper, leaf through it, and use any given article about the current plight of refugees to get yourself a plot hook. If you are looking for something a bit more complicated, I suggest reading into the current controversy around Safe Third Country agreement between the United States and Canada.

Above and beyond that, I've plotted a couple of campaigns revolving around Cyran refugees. On is a straight up adaptation of Pathfinder's Kingmaker adventure path, substituting the Stolen lands for Eastern Breland. The general idea was that between the Mournlands and Darguun, Brelanders were fleeing their lands westwards, so New Cyre was allowed to send out companies of refugees to resettle the abandoned lands. It works well and maps pretty nicely to the geography if you flip Kingmakers east and west. The other one was similar in concept but comes from the original ECS itself. Aundair, not wanting to take in any more refugees, instead resettles them in the abandoned town of Desolute in the Demon Wastes. Effectively, Desolute becomes both a frontier city and a high-functioning refugee camp.

I would be all over a book about wartime technology in Eberron. Technological advances in war have driven a lot of Earth's history, so seeing a magical counterpart would hit my sweet spot where science and history overlap. Treetrunk artillery is a wonderful mental image.

Next Up - Dragonmarked Houses. I'll be quicker this time, as long as the Traveller doesn't steal my keyboard.

[salmanadergalal]

Male Gaze of Women in Advertising: Visual Examination of An Uber Outdoors’ Ad in Egypt.

Introduction & Literature Review

 Gender has been a crucial matter of discussion all over the history of art, the riddle of whether women are being equally represented in paintings, films, ads... etc, in comparison to men has always been argued by many historians and theorists. Not only the fairness of representation that has been the subject of discussion, but also how women are being represented as objects in the context of a male field of vision or the Male Gaze. Griselda Pollock noted in her work on modernity and the spaces of femininity (1988) that there is a long tradition in art that female nudes are understood as of possession to the male artist. Similarly John Berger wrote “Men act women appear”.They both reflected upon how images of women are exclusively presented for male viewers.

  In her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975), Laura Mulvey, British Feminist and Film Theorist, coined the term Male Gaze to the gendering of the spectator. She has drawn from Freud’s idea of scopophilia - the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as objects and argued that most film narratives do not only typically focus on a male protagonist, but also assume a male spectator (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001). Mulvey argues that Traditional Hollywood films present men as active, controlling subjects and treat women as passive objects of desire for men in both the story and in the audience.

  In the same essence, Mulvey’s psychoanalytic view of the gaze can be applied to advertisements that are directed at a male target audience. Sexual appeal has long been counted on by adverts to sell products. In some instances, sexuality becomes the only allure used in an ad for attention getting no matter how far it is from the selling service or the intended ad message. With a lesser extent than in western societies, women in Egyptian ads have been objectified in indirect ways that position them at the male power of gaze or represent them in a voyeuristic point of view to male viewers and that was apparent in how female models in Egypt used to have western features and perfect body shape.  In both cases, women as a part of the audience as well, are included to share POV of a male spectator in which they are supposed to feel pleased as subjects being looked at.

 After years of being raised among social norms that emphasize male domination over females, women in eastern societies subconsciously get used to perceive their self image in a male perspective in which they feel more safe. In a similar manner, some ads even those about women or created by women are still impacted by the male gaze somehow along the course of their life.

 The power of the gaze develops unplanned consequences (Manlove, 2007). The unplanned consequences can be identified not only through knowing the person’s looking intentions and position but also by becoming subliminally affected by the gaze. Jacques Derrida argued that the norm is always set up in opposition to that which is deemed abnormal and thus the category of the feminine is commonly understood as that which is not masculine (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001).

 Whereas in reality these distinctions are mostly blurred, in our daily life interactions male superiority and dominance often take place at levels of cultural, linguistic, social and cultural meanings and drawing from that the power of the gaze can be effective on the intellectual level rather than only in a voyeuristic sense. In other words, being backed up by social norms that empowers masculinity over femininity,  the male gaze can stereotype women and demean their role to an extent that frames how women think of themselves.

 I am using an Uber outdoor ad as an example to show how advertisers are subliminally affected by the male gaze even in addressing a feminine point view. In my opinion this ad unintentionally defied the conventions of looking, the same way the 1991 film Thelma and Louise defied the traditional formula of the gaze and it’s power relations by preseneting women’s gazes with agency. 

~ Source: Google

Theoretical Framework

 Uber Mother’s Day outdoors’ campaign on Al Mehwar, the ring road and 6th October bridge is supposedly showing how Uber’s service in Egypt has made Moms’ life easier by providing them the safest and best ride to wherever they are going. It enhanced it’s objective through drawing from real life social traditions that women encounter in Egypt and reflecting upon how Uber relatively helped unsaddle some of these social burdens.

  This paper will mainly examine how this ad visually operated to show a female gaze within a feminist social context (Mother’s Day), but the textual content accompanied with it might have inflicted a male gaze to a women-related dilemma. The theory used to examine the ad is the Jacques Lacan and Laura Mulvey’s“Gender Gaze”.

~The ad says “Since Uber came along, I spend way less time on the Ring Road”

Contextual Analysis

 Generally, the ad itself had nothing to do with the selling service Uber is offering in Egypt which is basically a safe and comfortable ride. The ads didn’t show any uniqueness or brand enhancement. The campaign called since “Uber came along in Egypt” has mainly depended on a series of outdoors in which the visual production has been clearly a secondary aspect of the campaign. All the campaign billboards had either a blurry or a black background of men or women at the back seat of a car (which is consequently an uber). To deliver it’s message, the campaign ads have depended on the slogan (“Since Uber Came Along in Egypt”)  and a caption that varied according to the situation- visually expressed on the billboard.

~The ad says “Since Uber Came along, my mom only calls me twice instead of ten when I go out “ 

 Drawing from the campaign’s slogan and captions, the objective is to show how Uber made transportation and commuting easier in Egypt. Though the ads haven’t stressed on Uber’s points of strengths with regard to the concerns people have always had regarding the safety of taking a taxi in Egypt.

 Amidst Careem’s feud, after firing its Managing Director in Egypt, Wael El Fakharany - one of Egypt’s sweetheart entrepreneurs- many Careem customers were disappointed in the company and it was expected from Uber to step in and seize Careem customers, learning a lesson from it’s US competitor Lyft that found Uber’s conflict the opportune moment to seize it’s customers after JFK airport protesters decided to boycott Uber rides because they believed that the ride-sharing app dropped it’s surge as a try profit from the (New York Taxi Workers Alliance) NYTWA’s demonstrations following Trump’s Muslim Ban.

 Instead it came out with an outdoors campaign that sparked significant backlash on social media.

~The ad says: “Since Uber came along, I escaped from driving my mother-in-law home 64 times” (Source: Ola Mohey Elden Facebook Account)

  As shown above, this billboard was the one to anger many of Uber clients. It says “I escaped from driving my mother-in-law home 64 times”. Among the series of (“Since Uber Came along”) billboards, this particular ad being released days before Mother’s Day in Egypt; wasn’t quite a clever idea. Egyptians might not be as religious as they claim to be and they might as well complain about some threadbare social norms, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t hold these unfavorable duties at high value. In eastern societies family bonds and relations are way tighter than they are in it’s western counterparts. We might covertly feel bothered about giving a relative a ride but we won’t like to either admit it publicly or be faced by it as a joke.

  I personally imagined Uber’s creative team to have met up and said let’s do something creative and equally funny to relate between Mother’s Day and Uber’s ride service and from there came the idea for this billboard without an understanding of either the customer perspectives or the market insight. Some brands have gone bold lately (Sunny Food Oil) depending on a similar reverse psychology strategy that offended women and it backfired, so why use it again?  

 What I found really interesting about this particular ad, is how the combination between the visual and the written have deviated from the ad’s intended gaze. Featuring a woman in a female related context, this ad was supposed to present a female gaze to the situation in hand which is giving your mother-in-law a ride home. We can reflect upon two scenarios in which this sentence is said by a man and/or a woman “I escaped from driving my mother-in-law home 64 times”; in both cases this sentence represents a gaze power over the (female) mother-in-law. If said by a man, this textual content strongly places the woman in a weaker position in which the (male) son-in-law is the superior and stronger party whom the woman commonly needs to be given a ride by him and judging by our social norms there is a great possibility that this sentence was said by a man because men especially relatives are always sought of as a sign of power and also safety that should always give girls a drive in our society. In this case, young women and ladies being brought up surrounded by such social traditions adds a male gaze to how they view the world.  

~One Twitter user (Noura Nader) about the ad (” It could simply have said Uber helped me drive my mother-in-law home safely instead of Escape”)

Source: Think Marketing

~One Facebook User on the ad (Reem Essam Sabry): “ Why is the poster suggesting that it’s an ad for a home for the elderely?, it could have been better if Uber says that it made it easier for Grand Moms to attend their grandchildren’s social events, with a picture of the lady booking a ride. Reem also asked “Releasing this ad during The Month of Mothers, seriously?”

Source: Think Marketing

 It’s less likely for this sentence to be said by a woman, because even if a woman feels the same discontent that a man might feel about giving his mother-in-law a ride, she won’t probably admit it as to not shake her image in front of her husband, which again places her under his male gaze. Another reason why I think many women got angered by this ad, is that some day they will eventually become mothers-in-law and they don’t want to be treated in the same demeaning way the ad did. In this sense, women responded to this image through identification with it ( Sturken and Cartwright,2001). 

 Visually examining the image of the lady on the billboard (supposedly mother in law), that’s clearly a female gaze. Her look and facial expressions collectively say a lot. For me it seems like she is so angry and menacing over the fact that her family ordered her what looks like a taxi at the end of the day from her own perspective, instead of they giving her a ride home. The look can also convey a sad and a lonely feeling of a mother-in-law living on her own and is becoming more sad that the few moments she spends with her family are becoming less because they don’t have to give her a ride home anymore thanks to Uber. 

 Furthermore, the camera had an important role in framing the woman’s look in a way that she won’t be looking directly at it which might suggest that she is looking at someone whom we can’t see and sharing gazes with him/her as if she’s reproaching her son or daughter who left her go home alone. Adding text to this female gaze has changed it’s concept and switched the woman’s role from being at the powerful position of looking and controlling the camera to being controlled by the male gaze power of the man and/or woman who said the sentence. 

Conclusion

 Regardless of Uber’s epic fail to deliver a campaign that respects and understands it’s audience, there are some key concepts that contributed to this ads failure; for a mother’s day celebration, that is aimed to honor the mother, Uber had to be appreciative towards the mother figure even more on this special day, instead of making a joke about escaping giving her a ride home. The campaign ad lacked expressive visuals and only depended on the textual content that was written in a font that can be barely seen by the naked eye especially for a street-hanging-ad. The caption accompanied with the picture has presented a very interesting aspect of how women can be objectified in ads not only in sexual or voyeurstic paradigms and also showed how adding a text can present a male gaze to a seemingly feminist situation, the same way the male director of Thelma and Louise (1991) presented feminism from a male gaze POV.

References

Sturken, Marita, and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of looking. Oxford University Press, 2001.P 122:124, 130.

Website Links:

https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/uber-egypt-billboard-ads-one-word-makes-difference/

[valentinesailor]

Seafaring has an Anti-Blackness Problem

This is a repost from my medium page and the original can be found here: https://link.medium.com/aa2pMsGBo7

Content warning: this article contains discussion of rape, murder and racism.

I have been working at sea for almost ten years. I have worked on Hong Kong, British, Singapore and Danish flagged vessels and sailed with people from all around the world. But no matter where I go or who I work with one thing remains as a constant: anti-Blackness.

According to the International Chamber of Shipping, the ‘worldwide population of seafarers serving on internationally trading merchant ships is estimated at 1,647,500 seafarers, of which 774,000 are officers and 873,500 are ratings.’ The vast majority of these seafarers on merchant ships come from China, India, the Philippines, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. It is difficult to quantify how many seafarers identify as Black, according to the IPC (Institute of Public Care) less than 4% of all officers in the Royal Navy personnel identify as BME (as it is referred to in their study carried out in 2014) and during my research for writing this I could find no such figures or studies into the ethnicity and racial identities of merchant navy seafarers, British or otherwise.

Black seafarers remain a minority in the Merchant Navy as a whole and the industry remains unwelcoming to them even when they are not even any Black seafarers on board a vessel. I can only speak from my experience in the single company I have worked for, but even so, I struggle to think of a any ship that I have worked on where I have not encountered anti-Black racist sentiments coming from all kinds of people, entirely unprompted. The issue is further compounded when the ship is either calling at African ports or there officers on board who have worked in Africa before. I don’t think it is appropriate for me as a white person to delineate here the specifics of what I have heard people come out with at coffee time or meal times, but suffice to say it is the same egregious and dehumanizing language of white supremacy you would expect.

West African ports such as Conakry in Guinea have a particular infamy among seafarers especially (you guessed it) the white ones. The difficulty of calling at ports with poorer facilities or difficult approaches aside, after even gentle probing the complaints about these ports always boil down to race. Anti-Black racism comes from all nationalities I have worked with, but the Western Europeans appear especially outspoken and unabashed in their views.

Seafarers have a unique way of justifying their racism, because unlike many of the racists you may know who have not left their own country and can quite happily exist within a bubble of white friends, family and co-workers and consume only white-centric media, seafarers are ‘well-travelled’ and are exposed to different cultures on a daily basis. On the whole I think this is for the better, I definitely feel that I have benefited from it, I have made many friends from different places around the world that I would never have met otherwise. I have learned about traditions and cultures and food first hand, something that I would never have been able to afford or had time to do had I chosen another career. But on the other hand, it breeds a kind of contempt in people who think that because they have had this experience and travel, that they are now fully informed, assured that they now see the full picture when in reality they have only seen what they want to. They have traveled to these countries, met the people who work there and had limited exposure to the culture, just enough to confirm their already existing biases.

When I confronted anti-Black racist statements from a white captain I had last year, he immediately went on the defensive in a way that he believed I could not dispute. He asked me if I had been to and worked in West African countries (on a ship anyway) and when I told him that I hadn’t, this was enough for him to justify his racism and try to shut me down. Perversely, his aim was to portray me as ignorant since I had not traveled to these places, when in reality it is far more ignorant to go to different places in the world and still maintain the original bigoted views you had before you went there. Ordinarily, out-spoken racists can’t use this argument, and their ignorance is unusually a weak spot and their arguments tend to fall apart in the face of new information (even if they refuse to accept it). But how do you convince someone who already believes they are educated and has the ‘credentials’ to prove it? In seafaring, having been to a place when someone has not is a kind of social capital. Appeal to authority is always a fallacy, but it is particularly pernicious in seafaring where practical experience often really does have positive pay-off (in the form of skills gained or being able to anticipate issues that might be faced in an upcoming port). Experience is good in seafaring, therefore all experience of any kind, whether or not it is coloured by personal bias, must be good and the more of it you have, the better.

Of course, this is ludicrous and illogical, seafarers do not know about a country by virtue of calling at its ports. I once flew home from a ship via Dublin airport. I had to go through immigration there, walk outside and then go back in to the other terminal to get my connecting flight. In the sense of ‘walking on Irish soil’ during my short walk between terminals, I can technically claim I have been to Ireland, but knowing what really happened, no reasonable person would agree with that statement. This is pretty much the way most seafarers engage with the countries our ships call at. Of course, after a few years at sea, let alone the 40 years at sea most captains have behind them, you get to know the ports very well. Almost every seafarer who works on container ships will know their way around the Malaysian port of Tanjung Pelepas (affectionately known as TPP) or where the best place to buy chocolate is in Algeciras — but this is not the same as knowing a country , its people or its culture. Imagine if someone told you they knew and understood all about British people’s culture, motivations and problems just because they had been out to Felixstowe Morrison’s a few times?

In June 2010, Black South African cadet Akhona Geveza was found dead after allegedly falling overboard in the Mediterranean. Her family still does not have justice or answers as to why she died the way she did. It was alleged that she had been raped by a superior officer and that her tragic death was not an accident. She reported that she was being harassed on board, her fellow cadet, also a Black South African, reported to the captain that she had been repeatedly raped by a senior officer. Although the captain tried to act in accordance with harassment protocol and organise a meeting the following day, Akhona did not turn up. To claim that race and anti-Blackness is divorced from this event is naive at best and extremely dangerous at worst. And Akhona is not alone, there are many other reports from other Black female & male seafarers similar to her experience.

The anti-Blackness at coffee-time, the ‘jokes’ that seafarers tell about Black women in the ports that their vessels call at, all have material consequences, they are not harmless but rather part of a pervasive and dangerous attitude that runs to the very core of the shipping industry. Would the captain have taken the allegations more seriously had Akhona been white? Would more protections be put in place to prevent her disappearance the night before the meeting? Would she have been believed more readily? Would she even have been harassed and assaulted at all in the first place? It is an indisputable fact that Black women, especially dark-skinned Black women are fetishized and dehumanised in an especially violent way. Akhona was a cadet, her assaulter was a senior officer. When you are a cadet you are the lowest on board and senior officers wield all the power, they are who you rely upon for your training, if you want signatures in your training book you often have to do them favours or at least treat them deferentially. There are reports of senior officers using their position to elicit sexual acts from cadets in order to have training tasks signed off. When I hear my captains, my senior colleagues, talking about Black people and Black women in the dehumanising and violent way that they do, it is a declaration that Black seafarers will not be safe on any ship they work on.

I became chief officer just over a year ago and that has given me a lot more leeway to use my position of authority and relative power to push back against the anti-Blackness I hear from my colleagues and captains. So far the interactions have been relatively positive and people are receptive but the fact that I have to do it on essentially a weekly basis whilst on board is very disheartening and terrifying. It has been a decade since Akhona lost her life but in re-reading her story in order to write this, I can’t say that very much has changed at all in our industry. Apart from a few very male, very white, very western voices, few people talk about the issue of sexual assault at sea let alone the issue of racism. Racism and discrimination on board is still treated with kid-gloves, as an interpersonal issue rather than a structural and cultural one. Until seafarers as a collective understand and acknowledge that racism and anti-Black racism are a structural and endemic problem in our industry we cannot begin to take effective action to stop it. For individual seafarers, especially those in a position of power like mine, I urge you to break your silence, to not allow anti-Blackness and racism to go unchallenged and unopposed on your ships. Whistle-blower systems, as janky as they are, exist for matters like this. You are more likely than not to find yourself unsupported in this matter by higher ups because they themselves benefit most from the problems of structural racism being swept under the rug, so take it ashore if you are not getting support on board. If you are the captain, you are in the prime and unique position to end this kind of thinking and behaviour on your ships and protect your Black crew-mates from harm. Nothing is a more scathing indictment of the silence and anti-Blackness of the seafaring community, than the fact that Akhona Geveza has been forgotten. We as seafarers are not innocent.

[vegas-glitz]

The Feel Excellent Morality

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Televisions, stereos, computer systems, video clip game titles, and mates are usually means by which small children develop their sense of right and improper in a lot of families. Do you assume small children must create their own sense of morality from signifies exterior of their dad and mom? In the hustle and bustle of life, a mum or dad could possibly be a lot more apt to enable his youngster to turn to a person of these mediums for prolonged intervals of time. This does not permit a boy or girl to establish crystal clear expectations of what constitutes suitable and wrong conduct. This also leaves the boy or girl to ascertain suitable and wrong by the social customs to which he is exposed. Have you ever listened to the time period moral relativism? Moral relativism indicates that moral specifications are grounded only in social custom made. Morals are outlined as good functions.

Do you know how you can get a great act to remain very good if the social personalized is hurtful? Don´t stress, I do not know the remedy possibly. The terms moral and relativism are contradictory. The prevailing considered or customized of culture demands to comprise a safeguard to avoid immorality. How will you maintain your behavior in check out if you do not adopt a morality that includes absolute legal rights and wrongs? These days, a lot more and far more youngsters are adopting their parents´ "come to feel fantastic" morality, which usually will cause them to inflict damage toward some others. If extra people declare a conduct an acceptable social personalized, the habits will grow to be morally satisfactory in accordance to a relative moral perspective.

A person's watch on a social tailor made can be affected by audio, television, motion pictures, literature, and societal developments. If these views are not held to a conventional that is absolute in regards to ideal and wrong conduct, the person can get started to get rid of his capacity to see the line concerning excellent and terrible. Have you ever searched for a superior sensation via sex, prescription drugs, substance belongings, or open up expressions of anger or rage? Are your thoughts rational when you believe that you can preserve a balanced marriage even though pursuing only all those points that make you experience superior? What is right or erroneous without obtaining an absolute morality? You may well issue how this absolute common is established. This will be defined and described in a lot more depth in the future chapter.

Susan is a seventeen-year-outdated expanding up in a family that does not instruct morality. Susan and her buddies have classroom discussions with academics and counselors declaring that sexual activity is correct if the two people today are consenting and safe and sound intercourse is practiced. Via the media and discussions with other pupils, Susan concludes that the act of oral intercourse is not considered sexual thanks to this act not involving penetration. Susan seriously enjoys her boyfriend and decides this is a way to continue to be a virgin and show her boyfriend she enjoys him.

Can you relate to Susan or Susan´s mom and dad in this illustration? If you have viewed the news and specific reports on tv, you have been knowledgeable that this instance has transpired between several teenagers. Many boys and ladies think they are trying to keep their virginity by engaging in oral sexual intercourse. They understand the social customized to be that oral sexual intercourse is not intercourse. The place have you listened to this before? This is an a further case in point of moral relativism. The conclusion designed by Susan was not dependent on rational imagined procedures. If Susan recognized that her actions ended up in direct opposition to an absolute moral code that defines acts of really like and intimacy, she would make extra rational options. If her parents created clear behavioral expectations based mostly on precise virtues, she would be confronted with the accountability of generating a choice either to respect her parents´ view on morality or not.

This is not to say that Susan would not have engaged in a sexual partnership. Her preference wanted to be based upon her figuring out that this behavior experienced effects and was not endorsed by her dad and mom or the other units of care in her lifestyle. She and her boyfriend would require to learn what virtues must information their conclusions, and establish conduct expectations based mostly upon these virtues. These anticipations would want to align with their parents´ anticipations in these same regions. Her imagined that oral sex was not sexual intercourse was very easily adopted, considering that she did not have an absolute morality to obstacle this watch. As you see, irrational feelings can be used to justify behavior and stay clear of accountability. The man or woman who thinks in morally relative conditions would experience difficulties recognizing the harm that he would trigger another man or woman.

The abuse that young children endure in their households also contributes to their irrational contemplating. Do you see how the ideas and steps of parents can lead to their children´s adopting the exact same thoughts and actions patterns? Much more than 3 little ones die every single working day as a outcome of little one abuse in the dwelling. In 1998, approximately 1100 children died of abuse and neglect. Most of the children who die are under the age of 5 38 percent of the youngsters are under the age of 1. This is the main lead to of dying for infants and young small children. This features falls, choking on meals, suffocation, drowning, household fires, and motor automobile accidents. Pretty much one-fifty percent of all substantiated circumstances of neglect and abuse in a household are connected with a parent´s alcohol or drug abuse. As pointed out previously, people today with addictions are grounded in irrational thoughts.

Youngsters can act in horrific methods simply because of the irrational thoughts they build from damaging verbal messages, sexual and physical abuse, and moral relativism.

Brendan Smith was sixteen many years old when she killed two individuals and hurt 9. She experienced resolved to shoot a 22-caliber rifle across the street from her household onto the entrance of Grover Cleveland Elementary University in San Diego, California, on January 29, 1979. She talked over how...her violence grew out of an abusive home. She claimed that her father conquer and sexually abused her for yrs. She mentioned, "I had to share my dad´s mattress ´til I was fourteen several years previous." She went on to say that her father purchased her a gun for Christmas when she asked for a radio. Brendan was the primary university rampager.

On September 2, 1996, fourteen-yr-previous Barry Loukaitis broke into algebra course at the Frontier Junior Substantial College in Moses Lake, Washington, with a superior-powered rifle and shot a few students and their trainer. Two of the college students and the teacher died. Pupils recalled that Barry shot just one of the college students with whom he was constantly getting a conflict. Barry's mom suspected that one particular of the tracks that Barry listened to had driven him to commit the criminal offense. The father advised that the family members had a few generations´ well worth of depressive ailments in the loved ones. Barry´s mother explained to the jury that she treated her son as a "confidant" and instructed him every little thing. She went on to say that this provided designs to get rid of herself in front of her ex-partner and his girlfriend on Valentine´s Working day, 1996. He had been an honor pupil at school.

The damage in people is staying broadcast in the media much more and far more. The media is also endorsing acts of abuse. Do you know that there are individuals in academia who endorse pedophilia? In the April 22, 2002, version of US Information & Earth Report, John Leo wrote an post entitled, "Apologists for pedophilia." Larry Constantine, a Massachusetts loved ones therapist and sex e book writer, mentioned that small children "have the appropriate to express by themselves sexually, which signifies they may perhaps or may possibly not have call with folks older than by themselves." Wardell Pomeroy, coauthor of the unique Kinsey stories, stated that incest "can be in some cases effective." Minnesota sociologists included pedophile sex with all those "personal relations that are critical and cherished." There are propedophilia rationalizations however remaining designed currently.

Some of these rationalizations involve the pursuing statements: "Youngsters are sexual beings with the proper to select their associates." "The excellent of associations, not age, establishes the worth of sex." "Most pedophiles are gentle and harmless." "The damage of pedophilia comes mainly from the stunned horror communicated by mother and father, not the sex by itself." A new controversial book known as Hazardous to Minors: The Perils of Guarding Youngsters from Sexual intercourse by writer Judith Levine, includes a foreword by former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. Just one report claimed that this e book performs down the risks of pedophilia and that Levine thinks this is a excellent time to endorse "some priest-boy sex." The report discussed how the "problem of the mental planet" trickles into the preferred society, including the college system. Tom O´Carrol has been requested to deal with the global sex convention in Paris relating to the personal legal rights of pedophiles and their youngsters associates. His pedophile reserve is on a study course list at Cambridge University. If far more people in culture find this to be satisfactory habits, pedophilia will be a morally appropriate actions. Does this audio like rational imagining to you?

Listed here are examples of irrational thinking patterns:

Perfectionistic thinking - Must statements / ideas: In your relationships, you criticize your self or other persons with phrases these types of as "I must have", "I ought to", "I have to", or "I shouldn´t."

All or nothing at all considering: A tendency to assume in complete black or white. There is no center floor, no home for blunders. Numerous adult males that are survivors of abuse believe in these conditions. They describe feelings in their associations in terms of contentment or anger.

Labeling oneself based on one particular knowledge or interior emotions: The tendency to get a person isolated occasion and make a normal rule from the expertise. "If I do not realize success at the time, I will hardly ever thrive." "If I built a error the moment I will often make a blunder." "I sense horrible, so I have to be awful."

Unfavorable Thinking: The tendency to always focus on the damaging and to omit the beneficial areas of a circumstance. Childhood activities and techniques that problems have been solved in your interactions will identify what kind of lense that you watch the earth. "I can do the job by way of this occasion and gain beneficial encounter", or "There is no hope to make this circumstance superior or to address this trouble." This also leads to you to blow scenarios out of proportion. "My final decision to go on the business journey was the lead to for my wife's dying in an auto accident."

Components that lead to irrational ideas

Psychological Health issues - Panic, phobias, melancholy, panic diseases, temper ailments, imagined problems, hyperactivity, individuality issues.

Trauma - Abuse, witnessing horrific activities, abduction, bullying, and other existence threatening occasions. Acquiring Adverse Messages as a baby - not desired, minimized, not the favored, not very good plenty of (perfectionism), not able to make selections or think critically (codependency).

Household and Societal Norms - 60% of households are single mum or dad, 75% of families have each individual guardian performing, even larger properties, much better everyday living for children.

Ethical Relativism - Morality centered on social customs - "experience-fantastic society", challenges of sexuality, tunes, television, video clip online games, and speedy fixes to difficulties.

Every single of these factors prospects a particular person to seem to self and absent from analyzing how he or she is relating to one more particular person. Self directed action has the opportunity to result in harm to other people in a romance. The delicate damage in associations are what induce the majority of romantic relationship troubles right now, not bodily or sexual abuse. The missing component in lots of relationships is a mindful attempt to incorporate an absolute morality to the marriage that can be evaluated in an goal method. In my partnership e book, I define aim ways to assess damage in a romance together with approaches to heal this harm.

Source by Jay Krunszyinsky

[jonboudposts]

A Christmas Carol in a Time of Moral Bankruptcy

2018 marked the 175th year since the publication of A Christmas Carol. 2019 sees among other things a new BBC television adaptation and stage version at The Old Vic. Even if you have never read the book, chances are you are familiar with Charles Dickens’ story, or at least parts of it. The storytelling and the moral core are woven into the culture in Britain and America; the story of a man who lives to make money and dominate others finding out, during the course of one Christmas Eve, that his eternal soul will be damned if he does not changed his ways.

There are literally more versions than I can (be bothered) to count. From TV adaptations to classic films to stage productions to school plays; modern-day updates and cartoons; Alistair Sim, Albert Finney, Jim Carrey, Patrick Stewart and Scrooge McDuck have all played Ebenezer Scrooge.

But the reason I am writing this is to discuss the love and hate that this story brings out in me every year; there is nothing I am saying that as not been said before. Yet I feel compelled to say it still.

The story itself is easy to admire, built like so many stories by great writers on simple yet deep story-telling traits and character arcs. It is inventive, with the use of fantasy to push real life struggles into sharper contrast, promoting sympathy; empathy and sadness.

We have our favourite versions; I love the Muppets with Michael Cane giving genuinely I think one of his best performances (singing aside) and the TV version with Patrick Stewart; an underrated one that dials down the schmaltz and shows the hardness of poverty, with a tough performance by Stewart to match. His is a genuine transformation from vicious capitalist to caring human and a very physical one; as he goes from looking like a piece of flint to slowly softening his features as he grows into a better man.

Such performances are celebrated and cherished, making many of those lazy pointless lists every year of favourite past cultural thing you relive because we are incapable of making anything new.

But all of this is perhaps part of the problem I have with the story too. The way we can watch, cry even, at how someone can change their ways and then fail to do anything ourselves for the very people that Dickens wishes us to care about. The story was inspired when Dickens read an 1843 report describing terrible living and working conditions in the Industrial Revolution in Britain. He could read the same thing today and find a callous population sifting through piles of shit to find the pile that does not smell as bad, so they feel superior to each other.

In this world, we can clearly see real Scrooges, except unlike their fictional counterparts, they never learn nor change. They do not need to. Our society and the way culture is organised worships the rich and punish the poor for their perceived failure.

The rich are in fact totally cut off from humanity.

So why should these greedy bastards change? We are never going to make them. The real Scrooges utterly destroy our lives all year long; then expect every Christmas to put that aside and wish each other meaningless platitudes of good will.

The biggest enemy in the story is the carelessness fundamental to ignorance and the damaging power of want. It makes the most vulnerable what they are; victims.

While I do not think the original story of A Christmas Carol is meaningless sentimentality, I think too many experience it exactly that way; feeling elated at the goodwill at Christmastime vibe and stepping over the people in the street on your way out the theatre or cinema. In London for instance, you could attend a performance at a theatre like the King’s Head (formally in Islington) and step out to a modern London as lacking in human warmth as Dickens dreamt of. Up the road is the Union Chapel church, who run a winter shelter, providing food and shelter for those in need. Every year the church has a screening of that other hope-filled story for the season, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Modern Britain still likes to present A Christmas Carol every year despite it teaching us less and less and the years roll by. The world this story is now told in looks like this:

One and a half million people use foodbanks each year

More foodbanks across Britain than MacDonalds

1-in-3 children in poverty; that is 14 million Britons living in relative poverty

Growing benefit claimants in work

Reduction in life expectancy for the poorest

120,000 deaths of people thrown off benefits, including the disabled

The richest 1000 families resident in Britain, which includes bankers and financiers, have doubled their net worth during the austerity era.

Non-British children being charged for citizenship (since defeated in the court, no thanks to the British people).

To top it all, this information being widely known before the 2019 General Election and still the population gave the Conservatives a majority despite them causing all this misery.

Councils in some parts of the UK have embarked on clean up (or you might argue cleansing) campaigns targeting the homelessness in town centres with Public Space Protection Orders (PSPO); homeless people are routinely fined hundreds of pounds and in some cases sent to prison for the ‘repeat offence’ of asking for money. Local authorities in England and Wales have issued hundreds of fixed-penalty notices and pursued criminal convictions for “begging”, “persistent and aggressive begging” and “loitering” since gaining strengthened powers to combat antisocial behaviour in 2014, by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary. Rough sleepers are harassed and landlords (as Mr Scrooge was) have gained far greater powers to evict tenants sooner and with less reason.

Charities and solidarity organisations give the option to buy a coat or hat or gloves for a refugee or homeless person; they however are in no doubt this is a sticking plaster; the purchasers I am not so sure about. It reminds me of something Naomi Klein said about the present order insisting on finding some way to buy our way out of the problem; be it poverty or climate change or a bunch of other shit.

The party that our present Prime Minister leads contains MPs who openly admire the Victorian era and all the social wankery of top-hatted toffs passing the peasantry in the streets. Plus we have sociopathic self-haters like Priti Patel hovering over the Human Rights Act with a metaphorical knife.

Refugees are another group not afforded decency; we deny people their rights, violate those we pretend to give them; punish them for the crime of crossing a boarder and even threaten communities that protect them. The Conservative Party manifesto for 2019 targeted traveller communities with attacks on their rights, including increased powers to take their property.

A child will become homeless 'every eight minutes' in the UK (Shelter, Dec 2019) or suffer insecure accommodation; meanwhile schools have an average of five homeless children.

Ignorance for sure; want for the same people as ever; dire need for change not answered.

Our societies do not embrace those less fortunate than us; we blame them for their own predicament and indulge in poor hate. There seems no bracket of people we can rely on, as even children's writers like JH Rowling indulge in one of modern society's most vile vices, trans-hate.

The empathetic are a dying breed.

Around Christmas people will often give more to charity, commonly Crisis as they run their huge shelters over the festive period in various cities to feed and shelter the increasing numbers of homeless people across Britain. Keeping up with the state of poverty in general and homelessness in particular is no easy task. One reason is we forget about the needs of people the rest of the year and only the magic of Christmas makes them give a shit for a week. This is just liberal conscience-wash if you do not back it up with demands for change in the system, which the British public have just shown they are unwilling to do.

Yet the system – capitalism in the only form it really exists – is embodied by Ebenezer Scrooge. The end of the story is pretty clear; Scrooge stops being cold and heartless; he will no longer allow the market to run without interference. He rejects capitalism for something wholly more humane.

Much of the problem in A Christmas Carol, like It’s a Wonderful Life later on, is the dehumanising effects of capitalism. The individual change required in Ebenezer Scrooge is a rejection of his hardcore individualism and embracing the needs of others, to the point of saving the life of Tiny Tim; his banker counterpart Mr Potter must be defeated by George Bailey and his supporters (although like in the real world, Potter is never jailed). At the beginning of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is a miserable man beset by loneliness and isolation. His nephew refuses to give up on him though, always inviting him from Christmas in his warm, happy home despite constant rejection by his uncle.

The rampant free market gave us Ebenezer Scrooge as an everyday occurrence, year round with no ghosts to haunt them into decency. In the real world, Ebenezer Scrooge does not change his character no matter what happens. He is Philip Green, who dodges taxes, sells off a business knowing it will collapse soon, tries to abandon paying staff their pensions and pours scorn on the elected officials trying to hold him to account for the way they look at him. Green in particular managed the near-impossible in 2018 of seeming even more repulsive, with revelations of abuse accusations from many former BHS staff; from bulling to sexual harassment along with homophobia and a general staggering lack of respect for his staff. He is scum and will never reform.

In the 1980s we had Scrooged, a non-traditional adaptation starring Bill Murray as Frank Cross, a ruthless TV executive whose every cruelty was rather too enjoyable, along with his abusive Ghost of Christmas Present giving him much-needed kicking.

At the end of the film, Cross invades the set of the live adaptation of A Christmas Carol that his over-worked staff are producing, proclaiming that the meaning or power of Christmas is how for one night a year ‘we become the people we always hoped we would be’; that is, we smile more and are nicer to each other. This sums up the 1980s very well and why progressive and socially just forces lost that particular war so badly. This piss-weak response to be a little nicer to each other is why people die in the street. The film is also an example of the age; doing all this good for one night a year (how 1980s).

In Michael Moore’s first film Roger and Me, we witness the General Motors chairman of the title Roger Smith at the GM Christmas party, giving a speech that includes extracts from A Christmas Carol. This is inter-cut with footage from Flint Michigan, the town devastated by GM when they outsourced their workforce to cheaper parts of the world. While this pompous twit quotes Dickens and the wonder of Christmas, a mother and her children are evicted. That scene says more about our culture than any other I can think of in any film.

It is well told but worth remembering that in 2008, when the perfect economic system crashed, the people were responsible were bailed out and did it all over again, with the consequences being completely directed toward the least responsible yet again. The horror this unleashed has never relented.

From a consumer perspective, Christmas never ends. As a postman, I deliver to people massive amounts every day and it is never enough. They answer the door, perfectly politely, take the packet(s) and discard them as they sign and/or shut the door. These wonderful items are given that much thought; just the latest play thing or dress up. Literally discarded before opening because this in one of many deliveries probably that day. I am nothing to them; just a cypher to bring their life a meaning it never gains; I used to like being part of a public service, keeping people connected and possibly educated; now I just feed an addiction. This hyper-consumption will bring the system down again and whose fault will it be this time?

A Christmas Carol’s message is one that every Christmas we seem to get further away from. It is used to stroke the egos of the guilty and make them think nothing else needs to be done. Just be a bit nicer to the people you ignore the rest of the year, maybe even slip them a fiver (although not your postman or other service provider anymore it seems). You do not challenge poverty and homelessness by simply not liking it or giving a bit of pocket change, just like you cannot challenge racism and sexism simply by existing in a certain position socially or economically. However you feel, someone is still sleeping on the concrete tonight.

A Christmas Carol is less a morality tale and more a fantasy; but for the consumer not the writer. In the Britain of 2019, we have no moral right to tell this story. No version should be staged; no adaptation on TV; no school play. It should not entertain, nor pander to the desires of selfish consumer-obsessed grown-babies to make them feel a little better. This country has just voted to make the poor suffer more; to keep the status of 1-in-3 children suffering poverty – which will grow – and destroy the National Health Service. Tiny Tim is just a failure and when he dies, we just move on.

You have no right to a Merry Christmas, nor to discuss god as anything other than a punchline. The fix is in and no one cares. Misery for all is the name of the game today and if you want better, you are a fantasist.

Britain is a horrible little shithole of a country. Mean and worthless, in love with a horrific dream of decrepit empire in a world becoming dangerously hot.

Merry Christmas? Fuck you and your family.

[inbonobo]

Research conducted at the University of Toronto by Stéphane Côté and colleagues confirms that the rich are less generous than the poor, but their findings suggest it’s more complicated than simply wealth making people stingy.

Rather, it’s the distance created by wealth differentials that seems to break the natural flow of human kindness. Côté found that “higher-income individuals are only less generous if they reside in a highly unequal area or when inequality is experimentally portrayed as relatively high.” Rich people were as generous as anyone else when inequality was low. The rich are less generous when inequality is extreme, a finding that challenges the idea that higher-income individuals are just more selfish. If the person who needs help doesn’t seem that different from us, we’ll probably help them out. But if they seem too far away (culturally, economically) we’re less likely to lend a hand.

The social distance separating rich and poor, like so many of the other distances that separate us from each other, only entered human experience after the advent of agriculture and the hierarchical civilizations that followed, which is why it’s so psychologically difficult to twist your soul into a shape that allows you to ignore starving children standing close enough to smell your plate of curry. You’ve got to silence the inner voice calling for justice and for fairness. But we silence this ancient, insistent voice at great cost to our own psychological well-being.

A wealthy friend of mine recently told me, “You get successful by saying ‘yes,’ but you need to say ‘no’ a lot to stay successful.” If you’re perceived to be wealthier than those around you, you’ll have to say “no” a lot. You’ll be constantly approached with requests, offers, pitches, and pleas—whether you’re in a Starbucks in Silicon Valley or the back streets of Calcutta. Refusing sincere requests for help doesn’t come naturally to our species. Neuroscientists Jorge Moll, Jordan Grafman, and Frank Krueger of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) have used fMRI machines to demonstrate that altruism is deeply embedded in human nature. Their work suggests that the deep satisfaction most people derive from altruistic behavior is not due to a benevolent cultural overlay, but from the evolved architecture of the human brain.

Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Paul Piff monitored intersections with four-way stop signs and found that people in expensive cars were four times more likely to cut in front of other drivers, compared to folks in more modest vehicles. When the researchers posed as pedestrians waiting to cross a street, all the drivers in cheap cars respected their right of way, while those in expensive cars drove right on by 46.2 percent of the time, even when they’d made eye contact with the pedestrians waiting to cross. Other studies by the same team showed that wealthier subjects were more likely to cheat at an array of tasks and games. For example, Keltner reported that wealthier subjects were far more likely to claim they’d won a computer game—even though the game was rigged so that winning was impossible. Wealthy subjects were more likely to lie in negotiations and excuse unethical behavior at work, like lying to clients in order to make more money. When Keltner and Piff left a jar of candy in the entrance to their lab with a sign saying whatever was left over would be given to kids at a nearby school, they found that wealthier people stole more candy from the babies.

Researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute surveyed 43,000 people and found that the rich were far more likely to walk out of a store with merchandise they hadn’t paid for than were poorer people. Findings like this (and the behavior of drivers at intersections) could reflect the fact that wealthy people worry less about potential legal repercussions. If you know you can afford bail and a good lawyer, running a red light now and then or swiping a Snickers bar may seem less risky. But the selfishness goes deeper than such considerations. A coalition of nonprofit organizations called the Independent Sector found that, on average, people with incomes below $25,000 per year typically gave away a little over 4 percent of their income, while those earning more than $150,000 donated only 2.7 percent (despite tax benefits the rich can get from charitable giving that are unavailable to someone making much less).

There is reason to believe that blindness to the suffering of others is a psychological adaptation to the discomfort caused by extreme wealth disparities. Michael W. Kraus and colleagues found that people of higher socio-economic status were actually less able to read emotions in other people’s faces. It wasn’t that they cared less what those faces were communicating; they were simply blind to the cues. And Keely Muscatell, a neuroscientist at UCLA, found that wealthy people’s brains showed far less activity than the brains of poor people when they looked at photos of children with cancer.

Books such as Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work and The Psychopath Test argue that many traits characteristic of psychopaths are celebrated in business: ruthlessness, a convenient absence of social conscience, a single-minded focus on “success.” But while psychopaths may be ideally suited to some of the most lucrative professions, I’m arguing something different here. It’s not just that heartless people are more likely to become rich. I’m saying that being rich tends to corrode whatever heart you’ve got left. I’m suggesting, in other words, that it’s likely the wealthy subjects who participated in Muscatell’s study learnedto be less unsettled by the photos of sick kids by the experience of being rich—much as I learned to ignore starving children in Rajastan so I could comfortably continue my vacation.

In an essay called “Extreme Wealth is Bad for Everyone—Especially the Wealthy,” Michael Lewis observed, “It is beginning to seem that the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge. The problem is caused by the inequality itself: It triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.”

Ultimately, diminished empathy is self-destructive. It leads to social isolation, which is strongly associated with sharply increased health risks, including stroke, heart disease, depression, and dementia.

In one of my favorite studies, Keltner and Piff decided to tweak a game of Monopoly. The psychologists rigged the game so that one player had huge advantages over the other from the start. They ran the study with over a hundred pairs of subjects, all of whom were brought into the lab where a coin was flipped to determine who’d be “rich” and “poor” in the game. The randomly chosen “rich” player started out with twice as much money, collected twice as much every time they went around the board, and got to roll two dice instead of one. None of these advantages was hidden from the players. Both were well aware of how unfair the situation was. But still, the “winning” players showed the tell-tale symptoms of Rich Asshole Syndrome. They were far more likely to display dominant behaviors like smacking the board with their piece, loudly celebrating their superior skill, even eating more pretzels from a bowl positioned nearby.

After 15 minutes, the experimenters asked the subjects to discuss their experience of playing the game. When the rich players talked about why they’d won, they focused on their brilliant strategies rather than the fact that the whole game was rigged to make it nearly impossible for them to lose. “What we’ve been finding across dozens of studies and thousands of participants across this country,” said Piff, “is that as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases.”

Of course, there are exceptions to these tendencies. Plenty of wealthy people have the wisdom to navigate the difficult currents their good fortune generates without succumbing to RAS—but such people are rare, and they tend to come from humble origins. Perhaps an understanding of the debilitating effects of wealth explains why some who have built large fortunes are vowing not to pass their wealth to their children. Several billionaires, including Chuck Feeney, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett have pledged to give away all or most of their money before they die. Buffet has famously said that he intends to leave his kids “enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.” The same impulse is expressed among those lower on the millionaire totem pole. According to an article on CNBC.com, Craig Wolfe, the owner of CelebriDucks, the largest custom collectible rubber duck manufacturer, intends to leave the millions he’s made to charity, which is amazing—but nowhere near as amazing as the fact that someone made millions of dollars selling collectible rubber ducks.

Do you know someone who suffers from RAS? There may be help for them. UC Berkeley researcher Robb Willer and his team conducted studies in which participants were given cash and instructed to play games of various complexity that would benefit “the public good.”

Participants who showed the greatest generosity benefited from more respect and cooperation from their peers and had more social influence. “The findings suggest that anyone who acts only in his or her narrow self-interest will be shunned, disrespected, even hated,” Willer said. “But those who behave generously with others are held in high esteem by their peers and thus rise in status.” Keltner and Piff have seen the same thing: “We’ve been finding in our own laboratory research that small psychological interventions, small changes to people’s values, small nudges in certain directions, can restore levels of egalitarianism and empathy,” said Piff. “For instance, reminding people of the benefits of cooperation, or the advantages of community, cause wealthier individuals to be just as egalitarian as poor people.” In one study, they showed subjects a short video—just 46 seconds long—about childhood poverty. They then checked the subjects’ willingness to help a stranger presented to them in the lab who appeared to be in distress. An hour after watching the video, rich people were as willing to lend a hand as were poor subjects. Piff believes these results suggest that “these differences are not innate or categorical, but are malleable to slight changes in people’s values, and little nudges of compassion and bumps of empathy.”

(via Why Are Rich People So Mean? | WIRED)

[j-kaiwa]

Discussion Article Jan 21st

Christian Wolmar, author of "Blood, Iron and Gold," on how trains changed the world and why the U.S. isn't seeing their greatest potential benefits.

If you’ve ever gotten annoyed at the meal service, or lack of it, on a cross-country flight, consider the plight of passengers a century ago traversing Russia on the Trans-Siberian railroad, the greatest transcontinental rail project of them all. As they rolled east toward Vladivostok, nearly 6,000 miles from their starting point, the crews stubbornly kept serving meals on Moscow time—until passengers were finally sitting down to a mid-afternoon breakfast, and digging into a hearty dinner at 3 a.m. Heartburn aside, they were still far better off than travelers of just a few years earlier, when the same journey took not weeks, but months of far more arduous travel.

Little details like this are half the fun of British transportation writer Christian Wolmar’s sweeping new history,Blood, Iron, and Gold: How Railroads Transformed the World. (Read an excerpt here.)He’s got an epic subject to work with. From their start in England in 1830, railroads spread like kudzu across the globe. They unified countries, created great fortunes, enabled the growth of new industries, and thoroughly revolutionized life in every place they ran. Yet the human tolls for some projects were ghastly, with deaths of native laborers running into the tens of thousands.

Wolmar doesn’t avoid these horror stories. But in his telling, trains ultimately emerge as forces of human progress. Though they’ve been eclipsed by automobiles as a means of travel—particularly in the United States—Wolmar predicts a resurgence. Not only are they more fuel-efficient, but as roads become ever more crowded and lines at airports grow, he writes, “Rail travel in modern trains is more attractive and pleasant than any other means of travel.”

He spoke recently with theAARP Bulletinabout the pleasures of train travel, and the past and future of the world’s railroads.

Q. A railroad—two rails, anyway—physically doesn’t look all that impressive. But you tell some surprising stories about what it took to lay down those rails in places around the world.

A. These were huge, unprecedented undertakings, and the stories of how they got built are quite dramatic. One of the most memorable and saddest stories is the building of the Panama railway. Not many people are aware of it, but it was the first transcontinental railway—very significant in its day. It’s just a little 50-mile railway through the jungle, but I estimate 6,000 lives were lost building it—around 120 people per mile.

Q. How did that happen?

A. It was built by a combination of Caribbeans, Irish and Chinese. What happened is that most of them died, except for the Caribbeans, who were immune to the tropical diseases. The most poignant thing I uncovered in my research was the fate of many of the Chinese workers. They were cut off from home, in difficult conditions, and many were going through opium withdrawal. They committed suicide en masse, in some cases asking other workers to cut off their heads with their machetes, or by simply walking into the sea.

Q. I didn’t learn about that in school.

A. You hear more about the work of the Chinese on the American railroad. Not long after the episode in Panama, they made a fantastic contribution to building the transcontinental railroad across North America, which changed everything for the United States.

Q. Did railroads really, as your subtitle puts it, transform the world? Didn’t they just speed things up somewhat?

A. It’s no exaggeration to use the word “transform.” You have to put yourself back in the perspective of people before the iron road. No one had traveled faster than a horse could gallop, and going more than 20 or 30 miles was a long journey.

Q. How quickly did all this occur?

A. It was rather quick. Within a short period of time from the beginning of the railways—in 20 to 30 years—you had tens of thousands of miles of track crossing the North American continent. People’s entire sense of the geography of places changed, and distances took on different meanings.

Q. How did life change?

A. Obviously, you could suddenly travel long distances quite easily. If you lived in a smaller city or town, you could travel 100 miles to a big city for business in a day, whereas before railroads that trip could well take a week. It changed life in other ways as well. People in New York and London suddenly had access to fresh milk, for instance. No longer did you have the sad situation of cows being kept in cellars in the middle of the city.

Q. How did people use their new freedom of movement?

A. Among other things, it really enabled the holiday industry. Here in Britain, around the late 1840s or 1850s, you started getting connections to seaside resorts. Before that, not many people were able to visit the sea.

Q. Trains have this aura of something out of the past. Do they really have any advantages today over other forms of transportation?

A. They have great advantages. One driver can take a couple hundred containers on the back of one train, whereas it would take 200 trucks. That’s 200 fewer trucks on the road, and a great savings of fuel, among other things.

Q. What about for passenger travel?

A. For people traveling by train, it’s a fantastic way to travel—far superior to cars in that you can sit down, read a book, look out the window, and not get exhausted just trying to get where you’re going. In London we have 3 million journeys a day on the London Underground system. If all those people got in their cars, it would be permanent gridlock.

Q. You write about the profound political effects of railroads. What were they?

A. Railroads were a unifying force for European nations. Neither Germany nor Italy were unified countries before the advent of railways. In both cases they helped create those nation states. In Belgium, they were seen as an important way of guaranteeing independence from Holland, from which the country had just broken away a few years previously.

Q. What about in the United States?

A. In America in particular, railroads are a fundamental uniting force. They started out allowing faster travel in the East and the South, but when they made that big jump across the continent, linking the two coasts, they became more important even than railroads were to Europe. They really created a United States that stretches from sea to sea.

Q. It’s interesting that a country that was such a leader in railroad development today has such an underdeveloped rail system.

A. The first major railway was in Britain, and much of the technology and practices that would be used around the world developed there, but it’s true that the United States quickly became the leader. At its high point, America had one-third of all the rail mileage in world. That’s not the case any longer, of course.

Q. Why do railroads in other countries so dramatically surpass those in the United States?

A. It’s part of a cultural ethic. It requires a strong state involvement to make intercity railways viable, and that hasn’t happened in America, where there’s always been a laissez-faire attitude toward railroad development. America realized that too late, and tried to compensate by creating Amtrak.

Q. You’re no fan of Amtrak.

A. Amtrak is a sad political construct. It could probably work more effectively if it weren’t so involved with pork barrel politics. It’s really a great shame. There’s no reason to spend that much money to run one train a day across the country, but there are places in America that have great potential for a really efficient high-speed rail system, if you only had proper investment.

Q. Like where?

A. From D.C. up to Boston is a perfect candidate for a dense intercity network. It has Amtrak’s Acela service now, but that has its problems. Track conditions really limit the speed of the trains in most places. There are perhaps parts of the West Coast and Midwest as well where passenger rail could be expanded.

Q. Any sign that anything is changing in the United States?

A. It’s a cultural thing. The Europeans have invested in high-speed rail, but until now America has not been willing to do that. But Obama has announced a big rail program, and perhaps now that will be reversed in a very historic way, and maybe America will get the rail program it needs