#So Why is That Only Allowed to Manifest in Uncritical Positivity? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aprito · 4 years ago

Text

hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me)

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please)

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since.

so finally we can move to the first question

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara.

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

#nonitxt #meta #another hot take from me #but seriously if you're offended over these #unfollow me lol idc #defending predatory content is not a hill im gonna die on in this life

37 notes · View notes

whitehotharlots · 5 years ago

Text

It’s impossible to square the circle of #BelieveWomen

Let’s think back a month ago, to what turned out to be a pivotal moment in the 2020 campaign: Elizabeth Warren’s bizarre claim that Bernie told her a woman could not win the presidency.

The dishonesty of the attack on Sanders was so manifest that the takes barely need to be re-enunciated: her campaign was stalling so she lied about Sanders, hoping to re-focus media attention on herself while riding the most cynical aspects of MeToo into a poll bounce. Bernie faced an accusation, and since the only properly woke response to an accusation is immediate and uncritical acceptance, he was going to be dinged no matter what happened afterward. (Only, hilariously, he was not dinged. It was actually Liz whose campaign was ruined by the stunt. And this signals, I hope to god, an end to this bullshit).

This is all very basic. Good writers have already covered it. You don’t need me to rehash it any further.

I would like to talk, however, about how this highlights larger and more fundamental problems within the #BelieveWomen/#MeToo cinematic universe--problems that must be confronted if the people who seriously believe in the goals of these movements wish to accomplish anything other than securing book deals for a handful of shitty writers. My framing device here will be a concept introduced by Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, in their 20-year-old critique of identity politics. This has to do with the split between hard “identity,” a fixed and firm conceptualization of identity that carries immense rhetorical weight but does not hold up to theoretical scrutiny, and soft “identity,” which views identities as protean and constructed--a more theoretically sound concept that has very little purchase in everyday discourse.

To start with an aside: it’s important to note that the malignant strains of identity politics presently infesting liberalism have been around for decades. It’s just that they didn’t have much utility until the Obama years--when it became clear that the promises of Hope and Change really just meant more means testing, more austerity, mass deportation, the wanton destruction of the planet, and an acceleration of our Forever Wars. The Democratic Party had to shift gears. In response to a crushing defeat in the 2010 midterms, their media apparatus decided to aggressively pursue identitarianism. This came with two benefits: 1) It allowed them to differentiate themselves from Republicans and motivate supporters while still sharing 98% of the GOP’s policy positions (this is where we get the logic about it being, like, so important for kids to see Black Panther); and 2) it provided an easy means of discrediting any material politics (“if we broke up the banks tomorrow, would that create more trans CEOs?”). Very little has changed within cultural studies-based understandings of identity over the last 20 years, as will be demonstrated from our review of Brubaker and Cooper’s piece.

Brubaker and Cooper posit that

“Identity,” is both a category of practice and a category of analysis. As a category of practice, it is used by ‘lay’ actors in some (not all!) everyday settings to make sense of themselves, of their activities, of what they share with, and how they differ from, others. It is also used by political entrepreneurs to persuade people to understand themselves, their interests, and their predicaments in a certain way, to persuade certain people that they are (for certain purposes) ‘identical’ with one another and at the same time different from others, and to organize and justify collective action along certain lines. (4-5)

As a category of practice, identity is morally neutral--its goodness or badness depends upon what ends its evocation is utilized toward. The trouble is when this category of practice is spun into a foundation of analysis, at which point the conception of identity becomes reified, made to appear as sort of an inatlertable given. “We should,” the authors note “avoid unintentionally reproducing or reinforcing such reification by uncritically adopting categories of practice as categories of analysis” (5).

Now, you may be fine with the notion that identity markers are un-transcendable, that they serve as the primary or perhaps even exclusive determining factor of a person’s being, worth, or moral stature. That’s what’s called an essentialist point of view. There’s trouble, though, because essentialism is (at least nominally) rejected within most bodies of academic thought. The more prevailing frame is called constructivism, which posits (correctly, I feel) that there’s nothing magical or inevitable about identity groupings, that they are instead social constructs and can therefore eventually be transcended even if their present-day effects are very real. This, the authors note, points to the fundamental contradiction of how identity is actually understood:

We often find an uneasy amalgam of constructivist language and essentialist argumentation. This is not a matter of intellectual sloppiness. Rather, it reflects the dual orientation of many academic identitarians as both analysts and protagonists of identity politics. It reflects the tension between the constructivist language that is required by academic correctness and the foundationalist or essentialist message that is required if appeals to ‘identity’ are to be effective in practice. (6)

Basically, “identity” has been formulated in such a way that it can be utilized in a essentialist sense even while its purveyors issue rote denials of its essentialism--like how someone can shamelessly use the #VoteLikeBlackWomen tag while claiming to not regard black women as ideologically monolithic. Or, more generally, by asserting that social problems can only be addressed by listening to Oppressed Group X or Y, (which is done most commonly as a response to left-materialist suggestions for change), as if all members of those groups would understand each issue identically and would suggest the same response. This is a dishonest and incoherent approach to politics, but it prevails because of its utility--that is, because it poses no real threat to existing power structures.

Here we find a rhetorical move that is foundational to contemporary identity politics: leaning on popular but theoretically indefensible understandings of terms and slogans while claiming that we actually understand these terms and slogans in obscure ways that are unpopular and rhetorically weak. Simply put: this is a lie.

Brubaker and Cooper go on to explain that “weak or soft conceptions of identity are routinely packaged with standard qualifiers indicating that identity is multiple, unstable, in flux, contingent, fragmented, constructed, negotiated, and so on. These qualifiers have become so familiar--indeed obligatory--in recent years that one reads (and writes) them virtually automatically. They risk becoming mere place-holders, gestures signaling a stance rather than words conveying a meaning” (11). And the parallels here to Intersectionality are manifest--like how class is perfunctorily nodded toward but never substantially engaged with, or how what is purported as a means of understanding a multitude of identity positions is, in practice, a victimhood hierarchy that’s used to determine the (in)validity of people’s actions and observations. As long as we keep allowing people to hide within this double-conceptualization, we will continue promulgating an understanding of social problems that contradicts itself so fully that it cannot lead to any actionable analysis.

This is fairly obvious now, in 2020, with identitarians having taken control over our liberal institutions and failing miserably at enacting any but the most superficial of changes. But in 2000, Brubaker and Cooper pointed out the simple fact that “weak conceptions of identity may be too weak to do useful theoretical work. In their concern to cleanse the term of its theoretically disreputable ‘hard’ connotations, in their insistence that identities are multiple, malleable, fluid, and so on, soft identitarians leave us with a term so infinitely elastic as to be incapable of performing serious analytical work” (11). And so they wondered, naturally, ““What is gained, analytically, by labeling any experience and public representation of any tie, role, network, etc. as an identity” (12)?

I find the answer pretty simple: leaning on an intellectually dishonest understanding of identity allows writers to cosplay as radicals without giving up any comfort, status, or power. Liberal leadership (by which I mean, those with power in academic and media spaces, as well as the center-right mainstream of the contemporary Democratic party) embraces this charade, as they realize it poses no threat of disruption or upheaval. Conservatives (Republicans, and more generally those in power in business and finance sectors, as well as the military), however, despise this, and are ideologically unaware enough that they regard it as an actual threat, and react to it with physical and fiscal violence (mass shootings are domestic terrorism are conspicuous examples, but selective austerity is much more commonplace and causes more harm on the whole). But now, most terrifyingly, a whole generation of young humanists have found themselves inculcated into this belief system but utterly unable to interrogate its foundational contradiction. They don’t realize it’s a grift.

This is why the left-leaning criticisms of Warren’s’ campaign stunt fell so flat, even when they were being issued by writers with whom I usually agree. Warren was accused of cynically misappropriating the #BelieveWomen mantra. Writers explained that, actually, everyone knows that we shouldn’t seriously believe every claim by every woman, that the hashtag is instead meant to encourage people to simply be more empathetic and less dismissive to women who claim to have suffered abuse. This is the same fundamentally dishonest contradiction we find in the split between hard and soft identities. The hashtag isn’t #BeSomewhatLessIncredulous. It’s #BelieveWomen. It a blunt mantra, a demand so intense and absolute that no one could possibly take it literally--that it sometimes comes packaged with some post-facto qualifiers does not change this; it just makes its purveyors seem dishonest.

Warren’s stunt failed because most people could see through it. We recognize self-contradiction as easily as we recognize cynicism and hypocrisy, and unless someone has an awful lot of charm we tend to react negatively to all of those traits. A movement founded on such a flimsy edifice is never going to attract outsiders and is never going to achieve anything of value. It’ll elevate a small number of people and make everyone else even less likely to engage with social justice going forward.

23 notes · View notes

leavyes-a · 5 years ago

Text

meta on media consumption as beholding, and the creation of the conservator role, based on conversations with @hdtvtits. content warning, as always, for addiction, compulsive / obsessive behavior, aggressive hoarding, and implied terminal illness, all of the eldritch variety. also allusions to real-life hollywood dramas, though nothing remotely specific is discussed in this post.

foreword: this is just the first part of a bunch of meta i’ll likely end up posting on why levi is what they are and why their beholding manifests the way it does, because like... for secrets and the underbelly of film production i have a lot to say but a lot to source as well. but there are a few things i want to address in this post, namely: what the eye feeds off of, whether or not levi is feeding the eye in their media consumption ( and how ), and how it ultimately serves the eye’s purposes to have this be levi’s method of feeding. this probably won’t even be my last post on the subject as i keep sort of logicking out the way that beholding works and how it can manifest. it’s important to me though that it exist and function outside of just what happens in the institute ( which is proven in the statements ), mostly because fear entities are global and primal and jonny said that the story really is britain-centric. now, media consumption isn’t particularly groundbreaking; it addresses a more american culture, but that’s still western-centric and sort of ‘typical’ of europe and america, though i will say that european filmmaking as an institution is... different. it has its own history and quirks. hollywood is its own beast. someday i’ll make a post on levi’s judaism and how that interacts with beholding and manifests as more than their aesthetic, because they haven’t even used their ayin hara on this blog yet though it’s a ( minor ) power they possess, but that deserves its own post. ANYWAYS. with that said.

what does the eye feed off of? the eye doesn’t just function based off a primal fear, it has a drive that it imbues its servants with: “it is the manifestation of the fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you.” i think that most of the entities function in a similar way, with the things they inspire and feed off of on the one hand, and avatars with a desire to evoke that fear in the other; i.e., avatars create food to feed their entity, and if they don’t, the entity devours them instead. that’s pretty basic knowledge. ( i also have stuff to say about entities consuming themselves because every time claire says autocannibalism i go absolutely hog wild about it but that’s for another day. ) there are, then, multiple ways that an avatar can go about gathering fear for its entity, but what sets the eye apart from others, i believe, is that it doesn’t need to directly cause the fear it consumes -- though i think that it finds the fear of being watched more filling than just watching other people be afraid, it can still ‘survive’ off of that. this is where eye shit starts to get confusing and it’s why these posts are so longwinded and involve me talking myself in circles, because the eye both has a specific fear that it’s linked to and can devour other people’s experiences of fear that it did not cause, yes even before the apocalypse. that’s just how jon feeds for the majority of the series. for a good long while, he’s not going out and getting statements himself; and even when he does, he’s double dipping on both the fear they convey to him about their experiences ( knowledge gained ) and the fear that this man is pulling information out of them ( secrets exposed ).

but that’s jon and we’re not talking about jon, we’re talking about levi, and my ever-evolving thesis on voyeurism in / and media.

so what does an eye avatar need to do, exactly, to eat? it needs to accumulate knowledge, that’s the baseline that it can survive off of -- knowledge of the other entities is best, but i don’t know that it’s a requirement... and i don’t know if it’s not! i am going to make the call that eye avatars can survive off of just hoarding information because the eye isn’t super picky and wants to know everything anyways, but not feeding off of fear for a long time is going to leave the avatar really weak. and for an eye avatar to develop its powers and grow, it needs to take statements directly, or else give other people the distinct feeling of being observed against their will. the more people it feeds off of as a result of its own actions, the more powerful it becomes. that said, i don’t think this is common, which is why watchers ( heads of institutes ) have set up these systems where they’re generating food for themselves on two axes simultaneously: fear of people who give statements, and fear of people who have to work at their institutes ( either taking statements or working directly under the eye ). that just sort of accumulates power upwards within eye bureaucracies, though the archivists who take and sort the statements are also going to become remarkably powerful if they lean into their role.

( also side note: these systems work for the english, american, and chinese institutes, but there are ways for beholding avatars to thrive outside of them, and again someday i’m going to post about oral traditions and the ability to craft stories in different regions of beholding that feed the eye. but i need to do research first and we’re talking about levi! )

here’s the thing... levi is not an archivist. levi is not powerful. levi does not have a strong connection to beholding. they worship it, but fanaticism does not equal feeding, sadly, and the role they’ve been given is not one that pushes them to go and gather statements for themselves. they have taken read and statements at afi, because wyatt was raising them into an avatar, but, though conservators and archivists can overlap in the real world, they ( in my word of god for this blog’s canon and the monster i made up ) are two very different things under the eye. essentially, conservators serve archivists ( and watchers ) by witnessing, recording, and playing back statements that archivists can then maneuver through. the more experienced the conservator, the more they can shift the camera, allowing the archivist to comb through statements in detail and pull the knowledge that they want from them. remember that the beholding grants knowledge, not understanding, and while that may be fine for the eye, sometimes its ‘human’ servants need to put the pieces together in order to advance its plans.

the conservator is a relatively new position within beholding, because it does function like a film camera. i think that, in other times, places, and cultures, there were similar avatars who filled a similar role, but it wasn’t the same. the conservator really is a miskatonic / american experiment to help the institute delve into the information it already possessed. for one example of how conservators are useful, consider what happened with sasha: the archivist had his voice recordings of her, because it can’t effect magnetic tape, but jon the person still had her wiped completely from his memory. that wouldn’t happen to a conservator, because all of their memories are converted into (meta)physical tape stock. they are a lockbox that cannot be opened or altered unless you’re a more powerful beholding avatar. ( the limitation here is that they only have so much storage space, they will need to expunge some memories to store more; though those memories can be kept in physical containers, film stock obviously degrades and is a very unstable and extremely flammable medium; their body will also internally decompose to make room for more data and that is a painful process that eventually renders the conservator just a storage without any ability to function beyond sitting still and replaying witnessed / read events. )

we’ve established that levi feeds normally. they take statements, they are present in an archive, they’re hearing the scary stories. finally, finally on to why levi consumes media and how levi consumes media, because the one is intrinsically linked to the other. let me start by saying that just watching television or films does not a beholding avatar make. yes you are watching, but the distinction is in whether you are passively or actively viewing. and the power that is drawn from someone zoning out and being addicted to passively consuming media does not go to the eye. that is neither a fear of being observed ( for the one watching or for the actors / writers, because nobody is going to care about an audience that doesn’t form an opinion at all beyond basic emotional reactions; uncritical consumers are milk and honey to them ) nor a pursuit of knowledge ( passively accepting knowledge is, according to elias, far less effective in raising up eye avatars than letting them learn to ‘see’ on their own ). all that power goes to mx media ( @hdtvtits ) or, if you don’t like crossovers, Just Definitely Not the Eye. it’s when you start performing analysis that the eye takes interest -- which is why the eye continues to thrive in academia ( au where i write meta on just how bad that gets, historically, but again there are things we don’t get into until we research thoroughly ). the more you lose yourself in compiling information, to the exclusion of everything else, the more you appeal to beholding. and when you start unveiling secrets, which there are plenty of in film and film production, things kept private from the audience, ‘movie magic’, then feeding can begin.

this may come as a surprise, but levi does not have a response to whether or not they ‘like’ movies. if you ask them, ‘did you enjoy that movie?’ they will not say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, they will just start launching into ripping it apart. levi probably started out enjoying movies recreationally, but at some point, they became not just unwilling to but incapable of watching films without analyzing -- and what separates this from normal people who are conscientious and engaged viewers is that this is a mania that spans hours. their ‘digestion’ of a film is obsessive and has a physical component because it is eldritch in nature. i can’t stress enough that levi isn’t just a pretentious film buff who says ‘oh i can’t consume media for pleasure or uncritically’, though they may have been at some point in their college career! they have a physical and metaphysical makeup that drives them to frenzy over what they watch. the instant they finish a film, they’ll begin a rapid accumulation of knowledge of anything they can dig up: the who, what, when, where, why, how. if they do have an emotional response, it’s incredibly removed, and their way of processing it is to drill into how and why the film made them feel that way.

if they try to avoid this step in the process -- if they just watch a movie, turn it off, and attempt to go to bed -- they will start to weaken immediately. watching the movie isn’t enough for feeding. if it was, the eye wouldn’t take any interest at all. it’s the genuinely out-of-control driving impulse to keep researching and researching until there is nothing left about a piece of media that isn’t known, shredding through academic papers and script drafts and director’s notes and interviews and everything they can get their hands on, that stems from and feeds beholding. they do not settle for what is put on the screen. they will even cold call creators in a fit and try to get them to talk about the production ( which is, yes, invasive -- beholding is an eldritch entity, it is not healthy or good and does not inspire healthy or good habits! ).

they may not even be capable of enjoying a piece on its own merits; it’s all about the world it opens up to them, it’s about stuffing themselves with information until they can’t breathe and overstimulate and pass out. then recovery from that can take days as they process what they learned and sort it all out in their mind. they don’t really do much with this information; just knowing it is enough. if an archivist or watcher wants to take action about it, they can ask levi to spit it back up for them. but ultimately, despite the impact that this has on their health, this is still low-level feeding for a low-level avatar. unless it’s a truly gruesome movie or has an exceptionally shady production background, it’s not really the fear that the eye is looking for. levi is feeding one half of beholding, the half that wants them to consume knowledge and secrets. if levi didn’t take / read statements as well, or go out and witness live horrific events, they would probably starve -- their body would eat itself processing knowledge.

and i will talk about the component of parasocial relationships, anxiety that stems from being an actor / director / content creator in general and having your work and your image spiral out of control as it’s ripped apart and dissected by consumers, because that is beholding territory as well. it’s just not actually what levi does, but because it relates to the media-beholding relationship, i’ll have it on this blog.

#➢ photoplay expresses the action of the mind! ( headcanon. )

1 note · View note

deepdeeprivers · 4 years ago

Text

Climbing

Around February 2019 I started rock climbing with my friend Jake. From that point on I climbed on average two to three times a week, purchasing a monthly rolling membership almost immediately. I maintained this commitment to climbing in the gym right up until February 2020, at which point we (London, UK) entered the various stages of ‘lockdown’. I then did not climb (bar two or three outdoor single-day climbing trips) for a solid 8 months.

This past month I turned 28. I also returned to the climbing gym, and subsequently travelled with Jake, Alex, and some new climbing friends to Cheddar Gorge (Somerset) and the Isle of Portland (Dorset). Although tinged with the novel and odd background noise that Covid-19 related anxiety seems to manifest (like a somewhat audible mosquito whine - it’s there if you choose to listen), the three day return to climbing provided a complete breakaway from the cooped up ‘lockdown’ agitation that has begun to creep back in to daily life. I felt so strongly removed from this hyper-critical, curmudgeon-y agitation and anxiety that I thought I would try and write something on here about climbing.

I’ve spoken at length to friends about my enthusiasm for rock climbing. I can kind of remember sitting in pubs or at dinners, drunk or slightly drunk, allowing myself to fully lean in to a kind of uncritical spiel of these enthusiasms, unrelenting and unwavering. I note these times, and this way in which I could speak about climbing, as they/it feels unique in its complete and total positivity and confidence. There are few other things I talk about (with friends, colleagues, family, etc.) that adopt this position in my head, or in the words that end up coming out of my mouth.

There is a positivity embedded in climbing. The literal act of going ‘up’, of attempting to get to the top of something, feels life affirming. I suppose it’s a combination of mind and body at work in synchronicity that enforces this positivity. With each step upwards, each hold reached, there is a sense of achievement and a feel-good dopamine kick. This is paired alongside the inherent danger and fear that comes with climbing up big tall walls - taking on challenges that are uncomfortable, that your brain and body wills you not to do. It’s this initial equation of going ‘up’, and then making yourself do something that seems challenging, uncomfortable, and risky that sets the cogs in motion.

Writing something premeditatedly positive about climbing isn’t exactly straightforward. It feels too gushy to just list reasons why ‘climbing is great’. It’s sincere to the point of potentially boring, so perhaps better told by my overly enthusiastic drunken self in conversation than via a text on a blog. For the purposes of this exercise though, the task of attempting to put down in words what it is that feels important about ‘talking about climbing’ might be of value. So in a sense, this is more than a text about ‘climbing’, but also something about ‘talking about climbing’, and essentially, about talking about things we love and obsess over.

So, to try and be concise on ‘climbing’, I think there’s a value in the relationship climbing has to ‘time’, to ‘work’, and more specifically ‘hard work’. Climbing embraces a long-form relationship to time. It’s something that takes a long time to get good at, and does not necessarily offer instant gratification in the way much of, say, the attention-span-short contemporary entertainment industry seems to be desirous to cater to. Part of its appeal seems to lie in this ability to make the partaking individual uncomfortable, and to achieve and feel something unexpected and new as a result of pushing through this discomfort.

I was watching a (gushy) video made by outdoors brand Patagonia on youtube the other day, and one of the assets listed in regards to climbing’s appeal was its ability to make kids of us all again. To ‘play’ and learn, and in playing, forget all about notions of ‘big time’ - understandings of time that relate to the big, incomprehensible abyss that is ‘our future’. It’s this refusal of ‘big time’, that which could be paralleled with childishness and a desire for immediacy that’s at the core of climbing’s attractiveness. A kind of presentness.

So under the parameter’s I’ve set there in regards to climbing’s value, it feels necessary to attempt to talk about the more difficult relationship developing that is ‘talking about climbing’, and the space in which uncritical relationships with ‘joyful’ activities develop in our lives. The lack of criticality is both what makes the enjoyment so ‘pure’ and ‘real’, yet (goddammit) causes me concern retrospectively.

I’ve been emailing my friend Will (who doesn’t climb) in an attempt to better understand my difficulty surrounding the idea of an uncritical relationship with an activity (social), or at least the possibility of an uncritical relationship with an activity. My last line in an email to him was this: 'Maybe I’m kind of just writing something about how great holidays are…’ as we started to discuss ideas relating to critical theory that deny the possibility of an uncritical relationship with a social activity within Capitalist society. This may feel like a shift from the terms that I’d previously been discussing my interest and thoughts on both ‘climbing’ and ‘talking about climbing’ with, but it seems necessary when the activity of climbing is an accompaniment to a larger idea of a ‘practice’ that incorporates my artistic work, domestic work, paid work, etc.

This idea I open up re the ‘holiday’ could be seen to link to the idea of the ‘hobby’, which takes us down the route of the ‘comfort’ and ‘joy’ found in these activities (climbing) being that which allows us to ‘escape’ from everyday life, or under the terms Will was presenting, offers the illusion of escape from the Capitalist system. So, ‘thinking about talking about climbing within the shadow of capitalism’ could be an ominous working title that we adopt from this point on in this exercise.

*In regards to this, my first jitters in relation to my endeavour here: perhaps it’s only necessary to discuss my interest in climbing under the terms of this new title when thinking about ‘talking about climbing’ or ‘thinking about climbing’ critically. And perhaps in a grander sense doing just that could be a dead end, in that going through with a social/critical breakdown of an interest in climbing might just kill the thing dead in its ultimate simplicity.*

As I continue to write and wrangle with attempts at critical thoughts on the subject of ‘talking about climbing', more and more examples of valuable aspects of ‘climbing’ (the activity/sport) come to mind. As my original intention was to write something about just that, I do not want to let them pass without note, even if it means jeopardising the flow of this text.

There is something unique in climbing’s ability to induce a kind of present-ness that is rarely found in day to day life, a level of focus and requirement for concentration. Similarly, climbing seems unique in its lack of competitive sporty-ness given that it is a ‘sport’. Or at least I think it could be defined under the genre of ‘sport’ - another point contested by Will via email. This second point feels crucial to the success of climbing's appeal. It advocates a lack of direct competition, whereby there are very few examples of modes under which climbing puts one person directly up against another. There is no ‘fighting’ so to speak. Rather, it’s a sport that requires team work and trust to function at its best, with belayer and climber forming a bond difficult to experience elsewhere. In part this is due to the danger of the sport, whereby the climber’s life is in the hands of their belayer when free-climbing. But more than this, once the idea of ‘imminent danger’ is removed (with time and practice), the relationship of belayer-climber speaks of joint learning, and shared experiences that are unexpected and, at their core, supportive.

This relationship perhaps above all feels special within the sport. Akin to a dance partner, there is a combined function to the partnership that is both social and purely performance oriented. This can flex from hyper-concentrated and attentive to relaxed and passing, often depending on the difficulty of the climb. At times, upon easy climbs, the belayer is barely necessary other than to pass through rope that seems happy to just be performing the role of ‘life saving device’. The next minute the climber is down on the ground a meter from the belayer and the potential for all and any drama that moments ago was ‘live’ has dispersed in its entirety.

I thought it might be interesting to try and talk about climbing, or why I enjoy climbing so much, in part due to the distinct differences and or similarities the activity bears with artistic production and the world ‘Art' occupies - that being the thing which concerns me most during my week/months/life. Like the Patagonia video that I described as ‘gushy’, climbing does not feel like an activity that will ever be able to walk the same walk as the fine art world. These are two quite distinct cultural worlds, yet this is not purely down to genre or classification. There’s a level of removal which, in crude terms, seems to separate an activity like climbing from that of the critical and sexy world of art. It doesn’t so much feel like it’s the core politics embedded in each that causes this removal, and recent films such as ‘Free Solo’ starring climber Alex Honnold proved that climbing is able to enter the ‘mainstream’ in the form of feature length documentary (so it’s not that it’s ‘uncool’). Perhaps it is something about the performative functions of each thing, climbing being that thing which is not a performance, and art (whether read cynically or not) being that which is almost entirely performative. One being the thing that is to be viewed by others, and the other being the thing which almost seems to operate in secrecy and private. It feels like there could be an irony in there somewhere in part due to the often individualistic pursuit of the artist vs. the social activity of climbing.

This line of thinking begins to feel like it’s boiling down to ideas of what ‘artistry’ looks like and is composed of. For e.g. you often hear football commentators describe elements of the game as ‘art’. Sport and art seem to have a strange relationship in this sense. To explore this further we must compare the two acts in their ‘active’ and happening states. This is instead of the initial comparison of ‘culture' or ‘worlds’ as above. By all this I think I mean something about intention, i.e. you climb to experience a ‘good time’ or enjoy and better yourself, the ‘live’ experience is what you're searching for. However (and if we are willing to take this a little further down the critical line) Theodore Adorno might argue that Art was/is a “collective subject”, of which critic and theorist Isabelle Graw expands further: “a sort of better human being who takes on a life of its own, independent also of the Artist” (Graw, TLOP, pg. 53). Art in this sense is a ‘live’ entity, removed from those making it. It could be said that climbing only exists whilst the act is taking place - there is no one thing called ‘climbing’ that continues functioning once the deed is done. Climbing will cease to exist if the act ceases to be practiced, whilst Art has the capacity to be alive and immortal in the form of artworks produced.

One area which I feel links Art practice (with that capital ‘A’) to the practice of climbing revolves around ‘mastery’ and self-teaching. There is a specificity and singularity to climbing and learning to climb that shares values with the artist or artists’s practice. I listened to a talk by the painter Merlin James recently, in which he talked at length about the importance of the idea of ‘connoisseurship’. This feels prescient here, whereby connoisseurship for James is seen to act as an idea of value above the market, beyond Capitalism. Knowledge above monetary value. He discusses this quite specifically with regards to the practice of painting and art criticism, focusing on the discipline and history attached to both. Although, of course, we are not dealing with an activity with the same breadth and depth of history as painting (rock climbing only really saw it’s emergence as a popular sport in the 19th and 20th centuries), specialism feels essential within both activities.

So, rather than adopt a dismissive rhetoric or attitude towards ideas of escapism and ‘holidays/hobbies’ perhaps working with this notion of the value of specialism, of investing in something and caring deeply about it (without financial incentive?), is a means to proceed/conclude this exercise. I put ‘without financial incentive’ in brackets and with a question mark as I am not sure that this goes without saying, but seems to within Merlin James’ descriptions of the value of the expert or connoisseur. The world within a world. This presents itself as an attitude that could trump the bleakness and wariness that comes with the aforementioned ‘thinking about talking about climbing within the shadow of capitalism’, as it proposes a value higher than that of money. Perhaps this feels like a conclusion that is obvious, or at least should be when discussing climbing in the same breath as Art (that thing which has seemingly always been able to wrestle with capital), but more importantly it feels essential in its resolution of a critical stance that does not completely disable the ‘joy’ and enjoyment found within the activity and sport of rock climbing.

I’ve reached a conclusion of sorts here. I wasn’t really sure what I was attempting with this exercise beyond writing down my thoughts on the benefits of rock climbing. I’m satisfied with the way in which I’ve managed to talk about certain aspects of climbing (social, sporting), but realise I’ve opened up a can of worms in regards to my decision to start analysing the ‘value’ of the activity in relation to Art. What I’ve written is very personal, as the only real reason for comparing one thing to the other is my experience of them both and their centrality within my life.

What I feel I haven’t managed to talk about here is the difference between the performative elements embedded within a sport that could be understood as beautiful, ‘artistry’, or ‘art', and the creation of art objects that hold value as commodities. Perhaps this is due to the comparison being a stretch too far (for this exercise) and potentially unnecessary, however (and despite my attempt to differentiate performative elements of sport/art) this difference feels like a sticking point in need of more unpacking if I am interested in drawing together ideas of art connoisseurship and criticism, and the mastery of an activity like climbing.

0 notes

robertbassweb · 5 years ago

Text

What are You Thankful for – Gratitude is the Key to Open Doors

https://ift.tt/2AlcsXq

What are you thankful for?

We forget the ability to feel grateful when we have everything too much. But gratitude opens the door to a life of plenty. What are you thankful for?

For when we have too much of everything, we take things for granted. When we are not grateful, we are dissatisfied.

When we become dissatisfied, we are unhappy and do not know how to come back grateful.

How alienated we are from reality. The minced meat comes from a plastic box, a clothing store, a furniture store, a milk jar, a water tap and an interpersonal phone. And what a huge job behind them!

What would be a world where suddenly this would no longer be the case?

Okay, this is the reality today. I’m not claiming that everything was better before or that the reality was wrong. But all this abundance and ease blurs our gratitude for everyday things. We can no longer be grateful for such simple things as food, health, rest and work.

So we can’t be grateful for everyday life. They are all burdens. Burdens that we should just be.

It is dangerous to be so ungrateful. For it drives us to want more. To seek that happiness in the wrong places when it is no longer out of everyday life.

To seek that happiness everywhere outside of everyday life, while nullifying every “ordinary” day.

Gratitude is the Key to Open Doors

One of the guiding stars of my life has been: to forget what cannot be changed is happy. ”

It is easy to agree with this archaeologist Arvo Ylpö’s life wisdom. However, the realization of wisdom many times seems to be a completely different matter.

It is worth taking pride in taking it seriously, because according to research, seeing the good in life improves health. Gratitude has been found to lower blood pressure and improve immunity.

With gratitude, a person can even relieve himself of physical pain.

WHAT moves in our minds before falling asleep doesn’t matter. If we think about the themes of gratitude in life, we fall asleep relaxed.

In addition, we sleep better all night. People who are prone to gratitude are also more merciful to themselves and their fellow travelers.

Almost always this does not happen by itself, but gratitude is a skill where there are many other things and thus it can be learned. In any case, what you pay attention to is strengthened; whether it is good or bad!

Another plus of gratitude is that it increases a person’s ability to boldly pursue their dreams.

What you are thankful for maifests faster

EXCEPT FOR DREAMS , gratitude can open doors in difficult life situations.

When you have learned to be grateful for the little things of everyday life, your endurance in the face of adversity is greater. Gratitude seems to cut off the tip from awkward feelings and give things the right proportions for the situation.

Whether it’s dreams or difficulties, a grateful person doesn’t have to be uncritical at all.

The situation and its own possibilities can be seen realistically. Difficulties are difficulties, but they do not discourage.

Just as Arvo Ylppö once said, it is wise to separate the things that can be influenced from the things that cannot be influenced.

Gratitude has some strange relationship with presence.

Stopping at good things is at the same time being present in the existing moment. And when you are present for yourself, there is an opportunity to be present for other people as well.

For another person, being present can, at best, allow him or her to be an accepted and valuable person. And that, in turn, gives cause for gratitude. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Gratitude does not come by force, but rather by gently inviting. One effective tool is a gratitude diary.

Simply put, in the evening you record the things you have been grateful for during the day and why.

It’s not for everyone to keep a gratitude diary every night. It can easily become a mere mechanical list. However, when you start writing a diary, you may get the most out of writing every night, for example for three weeks.

BY THE way, what are you thankful for today?

The author is a lecturer in geography and biology at Kiuruvesi High School and the hostess of an organic dairy farm: Sari Tikkanen

What feeling does the article evoke in you? By expressing your feelings, you can see the reactions of others.

A gratitude diary helps you notice the good

The counters stink, there is a bladder on the toe and the dog should run in the pouring rain.

The situation could also see this: I have put healthy food, bought a good-looking shoes, and in addition to her workouts. That’s what a person who is grateful and therefore also happy thinks.

It is easy to add a sense of gratitude. A proven way is to write a diary of gratitude. Coach Anne Karilahti advises that at least every other night it is worth recording things that you appreciate and that are good that day.

Things that are important to the diary can be very mundane and self-evident. I’m healthy. I have wonderful friends. I periodically clean up.

There was a good cabbage box in the workplace canteen.

– If you think only about what is missing, you live in inadequacy.

When you write topics of gratitude, you start to notice that whether it’s a nice program on the telly or whether it’s wonderful to get mail.

The ability to feel gratitude increases happiness, for a grateful person is not constantly thirsting for something more. He knows how to stop and see that things are going well right now.

This way you never forget what are you thankful for.

What are you thankful for today?

Through my research I have found some good examples for inspiration. To the exact question what are you thankful for today, this is what some interesting people referred:

Actress-dancer Sami Sarjula:

A trap who loves me just the way I am.

That I get to share with my spouse the joy and excitement of expecting a child.

Wedding planning.

About finding a dream home for our family.

About a great job and co-workers.

Song gigs.

About the opportunity to play rally and hockey.

That our dog Kaffe is super happy when we get home.

Personal trainer Mirella Koullias:

Happy kittens Blue and Fiona playing with each other.

Lovely parents and little sister.

About a man making spaghetti sauce when I come home tired.

Love and caring for loved ones.

Soft snooze blanket.

From emails sent by co-workers.

About calm stretching music.

About health and exercise.

Coach Anne Karilahti:

Awesome family.

A nice home with a utility room.

For the clothes I have already chosen for tomorrow.

From a new inspiring interior design book.

About the man cleaning the kitchen.

About the feelings of happiness.

For having time to watch Click me series.

Breakfast in a new wonderful place.

Practice gratitude everyday

To live the life we want to live, it is important to be thankful for each and every little aspect of our present lives that makes us feel good.

Just focus on the positive things. Focus on what pleases you and feel the joy of what you became until now.

Take notice that, as you have done today, you can manifest or make real ecerything you want into your life. Be aware that bad things can be attracted too, so keep your vision on whatever makes you glad.

Each and every morning wake up thanking a brand new day. It is the opportunity to create a wonderful page of your personal story.

Gratitude is the power that makes you get closer to the things you want, so think again, what are you thankful for today?

youtube

Gratitude F.A.Q.

What are you thankful for today?

Right here are 60 points that I am grateful for today: I am appreciative for my wellness. I am appreciative to have a God that loves me. I am thankful that we have the flexibility to prayer just how as well as where I want.

What are you most thankful for in your life?

Primarily, I am most grateful for the gift of healthiness. A lot pertaining to the high quality of one’s life depends upon healthiness. I applaud and also bless God daily for the solid mind and body he has honored me with. I am appreciative I have love in my life.

What are the points you are thankful for?

Things To Be Thankful For In Life

Healthiness. Even if your wellness isn’t terrific, it could be worse and also you likely still have some working parts to be happy for. Deposit. Having simply a few coins makes you richer than lots of people in the world.

Great Friends. …

Freedom of Religion. …

Your Parents. …

Weekend breaks. …

Having a Partner. …

Pet dogs.

Resources:

Doenload our free manifestation guide.

Comment & Share

I really hope you enjoyed the article!

If you liked it, I would really appreciate it if you can share it using one of the social sharing icons.

Also, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought – I love talking to the readers, so hopefully will talk to you in the comments below.

what are you thankful for

The post What are You Thankful for – Gratitude is the Key to Open Doors appeared first on Manifestation Matters.

from Manifestation Matters https://ift.tt/31xXpF4 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Manifestation Matters

0 notes

kasunpererablog · 7 years ago

Text

What Prisons and Universities have in common?

It is the Summer of 1971. Phil sits in his office, patiently watching. He sees everything his prisoners do, and everything his guards do to his prisoners. He wonders how hostile and devilishly inhumane things get, yet he watches and lets the scenes unfold. Because only when he lets his prison run wild would he get closer to what he’s searching for.

This is the setting of the 2015 film, The Stanford Prison Experiment. It’s also a true story.

Phil here is Philip Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Stanford University. The Stanford Prison of Experiment of 1971, now infamous, was his attempt to understand how social situations distort morality and turn mostly good people into evil. It was a dramatic simulation, done with 24 college students divided randomly into two groups of prisoners and guards. After converting a hallway at Stanford University into a temporary prison, arrests were staged, the prisoners were documented and put into prison cells with steel bars, and the guards stood on duty. There was even a “Hole” for solitary confinement. The corridor was the prison yard, the only space outside of the cells where prisoners were allowed. “The Stanford County Jail” was meticulously planned.

The experiment, originally designed to run for 2 weeks, had to be called off after 6 days

Why? The guards began abusing the prisoners so much it got out of control. Prisoners suffered emotional break-downs under the verbal and physical assault, and the guards seemed to be enjoying it. In other words, Philip Zimbardo had turned an otherwise perfectly normal set of college students to maniacs. He did it simply by giving them a platform, an elaborate role play of which the setting was perfect to exercise abusive authority.

Based on this study, and the lifelong work that followed afterward (which included a study of the mistreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib by the US Army) Zimbardo is convinced that all of us, given the right motivations, are capable of an unspeakable act of evil. In a 2004 Ted Talk, he pointed out that transformation of character (in this case, from good to evil) could manifest because of the following reasons:

Dispositional: You’re a Bad Apple. You choose to be evil, it’s inside you.

Situational: You’re essentially a good person, but some external factors force you to become evil. You’re in a Bad Barrel.

Systemic: The broader political, economic, cultural and social factors contribute to pushing you towards evil. You’re a victim of the Bad Barrel-Makers.

He says:

That line between good and evil is permeable. Any of us can move across it… I argue that we all have the capacity for love and evil — to be Mother Theresa, to be Hitler or Saddam Hussein. It’s the situation that brings that out.

I watched the movie and the TED Talk two years ago. Recently, it occurred to me that I never did give any serious thought to what parallels could be drawn between this story of evil and what I see in the world around me.

Interestingly enough, one of the first things I thought of was our universities. Perhaps the systemic element appealed to me.

Every single year, heinous crimes are committed under the guise of “ragging” in almost all state universities in the country. The abuse is not only verbal, it’s glaringly physical and even sexual. The oppressors are students themselves, taking out the full breadth of their misguided superiority complexes on freshmen. Usually, no one takes notice. Even when deaths occur, the initial outcry dies down in a matter of days, and the perpetrators go back to their old ways.

The authorities are in complicity

Despite all its absurdity and wickedness, ragging has simply become a part of university life in Sri Lanka.

Unjust authority over the lives of others should not be encouraged. Yet our universities are doing just that. (Image source: Daily Mirror)

A sizable chunk of the university crowd, including the ones who’ve been subject to it, regard ragging as an essential element of the orientation process. Now, they’re not referring to the inhumane and extreme acts, but to the more arguably “fun” ones (like walking up to a girl and offering her a flower on your knees.) I disagree. Every act involves some form of humiliation of one’s self or another’s. More importantly, they serve as a vehicle of brutal satisfaction to the perpetrators, one that gives them the sense of unjust authority over others. That should never be allowed.

“As you know, madness is like gravity…all it takes is a little push.”

-The Joker

So, what allows a destructive and regressive sub-culture like this to flourish? Zimbardo gave us the answer when he articulated the systemic nature of evil. What we’ve done for years on end is normalizing and institutionalizing the exercise of unjust power. The educational institutions we hold in high regard as bastions of knowledge have simply turned into passive sponsors of crime. It’s alarming how, even after making the act of ragging a criminal offense, it’s being continued gleefully by the corrupt few.

It’s unnerving how much Zimbardo’s prison and our universities have in common

One of his observations was how institutions anonymize the perpetrators of evil. This detaches them from their real selves and gives them the freedom to resort to evil ways. In our universities, intricate networks of pro-rag students, academia, alumni, and authorities provide the luxury of anonymity to individual perpetrators.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment, guards were given uniforms and sun-glasses which gave them a different identity. The guard facade, not the college student behind it, was allowed to do evil. (Image source: prisonexp.org)

In Zimbardo’s study, the prisoners were dehumanized by giving them a number, in our universities the same things happen when freshmen are given profane nicknames (or “cards” as they’re known in local discourse.)

There’s more. Zimbardo also identified the role of blind obedience to authority and uncritical conformity to group norms in transforming good characters to evil. Sounds familiar?

All this brings us to a shocking realization. The students who humiliate their fellow freshmen are not necessarily evil. Yes, there could be a few bad apples, as could be anywhere, but circumstances draw the rest into this. They find themselves in the wrong situations that are enabled by all the wrong systems we’re cherished for years. Unknowingly, they too are victims. They find themselves in a position of power and just give in. This is power without oversight that should never have ended up in their hands.

If you’re reading through this thinking

“I’ve never been part of any ragging, nor do I support it. I’m not evil,” hold your horses for a bit. You and I are a part of this, too. The following quote from the movie sums it up:

I was running experiments of my own. I wanted to see just what kind of verbal abuse people could take before they start objecting, before they start lashing back. And it really surprised me that nobody said anything to stop me. Nobody said ‘Come on man, you can’t say those things to me, those things are sick.’ Nobody said that. And nobody questioned my authority at all. And it really shocked me. I started to abuse people so much it started to get so profane and still, people didn’t say anything.

When we choose to show passive tolerance to this horrendous act, we’re no better than the perpetrators themselves. And the cliched (yet profound) articulation, “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.,” comes to mind.

We’re all products of our circumstances. (Image source: The New York Times)

That is why I think it’s important that more people — yes, even the ones like me who have never set foot in a state university — talk about this. False ideologies like ragging should be deplored, for we will be saving legions of young people not from who they are, but from who they could turn into.

මේ වගේ තවත් ලිපි | Read more like this

Visit thamara.blog

The post What Prisons and Universities have in common? appeared first on කළු කුහරය | Black Hole.

කළු කුහරය | Black Hole http://ift.tt/2BlWQBD

http://ift.tt/2o1qeHO Read more from our website

#Black Hole #Sri Lanka

0 notes

suzannemcappsca · 8 years ago

Text

Who are we helping? The mediator as co-creator.

Charlie Irvine

Have you ever wondered who mediators are helping? The parties, obviously! Well, not so obvious to our critics. In this blog I consider worries about mediation’s approach to manifest injustice before making the case for understanding the mediator as co-creator, with the parties, of outcomes. I argue that co-creation enhances the prospects for justice.

Stories

Academic critics often express their concerns about mediation via stories. We know how stories go: powerless and friendless victim comes up against confident and remorseless villain. Victim is crushed. Hero appears. Hero takes up victim’s cause, ensures victory and humiliates the villain. And so with tales of mediation. The so-called ‘weaker’ party (female, poor, from an ethnic minority) comes up against a powerful company (with wealthy, white, male lawyers). The mediator appears. If she fails to act heroically, championing the cause of the weak, the critics accuse her of injustice. If the mediator steps in to even the scales, she’s accused of partiality.

I’m tiring of these two-dimensional representations. For one thing they patronise women, minorities and the poor. By assuming these groups need special assistance this stereotype underestimates people’s capacity to take advantage of mediation’s qualities: the valuing of everyday speech, the patience to hear the whole story, the tolerance of emotion.1)In tribute to Ken Kressel’s remark that ‘all mediation is local’ I acknowledge that these qualities are not present in every mediation. It is often the apparently powerful party, perhaps a middle manager or representative, who expresses discomfort at confrontation. For a nice debunking of the myth of the powerless female see Andrea Schneider’s excellent Ted talk ‘Women don’t Negotiate and Other Similar Nonsense‘

Furthermore, these rhetorical tales simplify complexity. In real life mediation, “everybody’s story makes sense to them.” That doesn’t make them right, but they almost certainly believe they have good reasons for their actions. Why would managers, directors or lawyers want to take part in a process that ignores or slaps down their thinking? Their stories need to be heard too, not only for fairness but to let the other party glimpse the logic driving the dispute.

In fact mediators often face the opposite problem: over-optimism. The ‘weaker’ party’s lack of knowledge about legal norms can lead them to believe they are entitled to much more than courts or tribunals will award. How then should a mediator behave? If they uncritically champion this position they do that party a disservice, missing potential settlements and pissing off the other side. Even so-called neutrality has the same effect. A voice inside my head says: “If I go home knowing that this party will never get anywhere near the £X,000 they seek, and keep that knowledge to myself, whose interests am I serving?” So, ironically, a mediator may work to reduce the aspirations of the less powerful party in that person’s interests.

Real-life research

To return to my question, who then are we helping? If we don’t extend equal support and regard to both parties, why would they trust us? This goes to the heart of mediator ethics. In whose interests do we act? The parties? The justice system? The State? Our own?

Recent Australian research sheds some light on mediators’ answers to these questions 2)Noone MA and Ojelabi LA, ‘Ethical Challenges for Mediators around the Globe: An Australian Perspective’ (2014) 45 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 145. Inspired by Ellen Waldman’s excellent volume on Mediation Ethics 3)Waldman EA, Mediation Ethics: Cases and Commentaries. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011 the researchers presented employment mediators with a scenario seemingly designed to tempt them into heroic intervention.4)A sexual harassment claim by a 23 year old female against her boss where the company arrives mob-handed (boss, HR, two directors and two lawyers) while the claimant has one not-terribly-impressive attorney. Then they posed some tricky questions about how the mediators might act. Their conclusions won’t come as a huge surprise to practitioners. Mediators were keen on informed decision-making and procedural fairness but more cautious about substantive justice. Most saw that as the parties’ own business. I was relieved to read that, despite a shared enthusiasm for self-determination, ‘mediators have individual moral compasses’.5)Ojelabi and Noone 2014, p. 147 The impression was of experienced and thoughtful practitioners wrestling with questions to which there is no simple answer.

Models: Facilitative, Evaluative and Mediator as Co-creator

Conventional models of mediation don’t quite capture what’s going on. The classic ‘facilitative’ presentation of the process has the mediator as a kind of well-intentioned conduit for parties’ messages:

What is the mediator actually providing here? A setting? A process? A witness? A message bearer? The notion that the outcome comes entirely from the parties is almost sacerdotal in the facilitative mediation canon. And because the result is attributed to ‘lay’ people, the justice it produces is seen as subjective.

Evaluative mediators have no such squeamishness about their influence, claiming to enhance informed decision-making by providing expert predictions about the courts’ likely behaviour:

Here the mediator provides normative guidance of a specific kind.6)corresponding to Riskin’s “evaluative/narrow” style: Riskin LL, ‘Understanding Mediators’ Orientations, Strategies, and Techniques: A Grid for the Perplexed’ (1996) 1 Harvard Negotiation Law Review 7 She may act as reality tester, confidante, message bearer and influencer, but most would still see the parties (or their lawyers) as decision-makers. As most evaluative mediators appear to be legally qualified the justice produced is seen as objective.

If we were starting from scratch we might approach things differently. My own experience and studies by too many scholars to name in a blog7)For a small selection see Wall J a and Dunne TC, ‘State of the Art Mediation Research : A Current Review’ (2012) Negotiation Journal 217; Greatbatch D and Dingwall R, ‘Selective Facilitation: Some Preliminary Observations on a Strategy Used by Divorce Mediators’ (1989) 23 Law and Society Review 613; Jacobs S and Aakhus M, ‘What Mediators Do with Words Implementing Three Models of Rational Discussion in Dispute Mediation.’ (2002) 20 Conflict Resolution Quarterly 177; Wall JA and Kressel K, ‘Mediator Thinking in Civil Cases’ (2017) 34 Conflict Resolution Quarterly 331; Coleman PT and others, ‘Putting the Peaces Together: A Situated Model of Mediation’ (2015) 26 International Journal of Conflict Management 145 have convinced me that mediators (mostly) co-create outcomes. This doesn’t mean supplanting the parties, as in James Alfini’s nightmare vision.8)Alfini JJ, ‘Trashing, Bashing, and Hashing It out: Is This the End Of “Good Mediation��?’ (1991) 19 Florida State University Law Review 47 Rather it means acknowledging the complexity of mediation as a system. If we are there, we have an influence.9)Wheatley, MJ, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler, 2006

I’m not suggesting that party self-determination plays no part. I’ve always found it a merciful discipline that parties have the ultimate veto in my work. It ain’t over till they say it is. But most of our clients, most of the time, welcome a well-intentioned other who has the patience and persistence to probe, test, suggest, craft and hone until something appears. Far from being apologetic about our impact I’m coming to believe we should celebrate it. The doctrine of neutrality, borrowed from judges, needs to be returned to the courts. Not only does it confuse parties (do you care about us or not?) but it confuses mediators. Again and again I hear new mediators describe some party misperception as a block to resolution. When asked if they said what they were thinking they answer “But I didn’t think we were allowed to say that.”

A more plausible model of practice would look like this:

The mediator as co-creator does the same things as in the classic models – questions, summarises, reality-tests, gets alongside the parties and sees things from their perspective – but acknowledges his influence. Things said and not said all impact the result. Mediator and parties keep negotiating not only about the outcome but about the criteria by which it is to be evaluated.

Let me be clear: co-creation is not evaluation. The mediator’s input is held lightly, open to negotiation, rejection and modification. What we are really doing is assisting people to forge their own vision of justice. No-one suggests law and justice are identical. Most people know what is just; why shouldn’t they know what justice is? If we respect people enough to give them a say in the justice of their own cause we may find that we gain more than we lose.

References [ + ]

1. ↑ In tribute to Ken Kressel’s remark that ‘all mediation is local’ I acknowledge that these qualities are not present in every mediation. 2. ↑ Noone MA and Ojelabi LA, ‘Ethical Challenges for Mediators around the Globe: An Australian Perspective’ (2014) 45 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 145 3. ↑ Waldman EA, Mediation Ethics: Cases and Commentaries. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011 4. ↑ A sexual harassment claim by a 23 year old female against her boss where the company arrives mob-handed (boss, HR, two directors and two lawyers) while the claimant has one not-terribly-impressive attorney. 5. ↑ Ojelabi and Noone 2014, p. 147 6. ↑ corresponding to Riskin’s “evaluative/narrow” style: Riskin LL, ‘Understanding Mediators’ Orientations, Strategies, and Techniques: A Grid for the Perplexed’ (1996) 1 Harvard Negotiation Law Review 7 7. ↑ For a small selection see Wall J a and Dunne TC, ‘State of the Art Mediation Research : A Current Review’ (2012) Negotiation Journal 217; Greatbatch D and Dingwall R, ‘Selective Facilitation: Some Preliminary Observations on a Strategy Used by Divorce Mediators’ (1989) 23 Law and Society Review 613; Jacobs S and Aakhus M, ‘What Mediators Do with Words Implementing Three Models of Rational Discussion in Dispute Mediation.’ (2002) 20 Conflict Resolution Quarterly 177; Wall JA and Kressel K, ‘Mediator Thinking in Civil Cases’ (2017) 34 Conflict Resolution Quarterly 331; Coleman PT and others, ‘Putting the Peaces Together: A Situated Model of Mediation’ (2015) 26 International Journal of Conflict Management 145 8. ↑ Alfini JJ, ‘Trashing, Bashing, and Hashing It out: Is This the End Of “Good Mediation”?’ (1991) 19 Florida State University Law Review 47 9. ↑ Wheatley, MJ, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler, 2006