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chriscdcase95 · 5 years ago

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Why people like Luaggie and odd couples

The following is based off my opinions and observations.

This is the only gif I could find of them by the way. I haven’t figured out how to upload pictures from desktop.

So I haven’t really been vocal about being a Loud House fan on here, mainly because I want to avoid (often manufactured) fandom drama that often comes up in my circle of friends and acquaintances; but some of the few discussions I’m willing to engage in these the fandom are shipping’s and alleged shipping wars. Shipping’s are a funny thing - they are a small thing all things considered, and yet people make these big deals about them as if they are the center of the fandom as a whole.

Because this is Luaggie Week in The Loud House fandom at the time I am writing this, I decided to use Luaggie, and other Loud House" ships - both canon or non canon, and both romantic and non romantic - as examples. But Luaggie is the primary example here.

“So what is Luaggie ?” It is a popular non canonical ship in the Loud House fandom, and is a good example of a “Fanfic Ship” - This means a ship that can only work in fanfiction and is very, very, very unlikely to work in canon. And why is that ? Because Luan has a canonical lover interest in Benny and in the actual show Maggie only appears in one episode, and doesn’t remotely interact with Luan in the actual episode. Maggie’s mother appears in the show more than Maggie herself, and that is as a background character.

This is because Maggie is an Ensemble Darkhorse, which TV Tropes defines as “A secondary or minor character in a work who becomes popular among the works fandom”. What Maggie made popular ? Arguably because she was a teenage version of Haiku (an Ensemble Darkhorse in her own right) or was an emo girl who was the opposite of Luan in terms of personality, but close to her age that it would be believable they’d know eachother. From such, fanfics and/or fan art did one or two things to Maggie; they either pair her up with Luan, or more rarely make Maggie a big sister to Haiku. It should be noted that Maggie is hardly the only example of the Ensemble Darkhorse trope in the Loud House, and is hardly the only secondary/minor character to be shipped with one of the main characters.

“So what makes Luaggie so special ?” Nothing canonically, there’s two short and simple answers to this; some fans write fanfics and art, in turn other fans grew to like them. And so Luaggie spread, but what made them appeal ? Others answer with “opposites attract”; Luan is a clown girl for lack of a better word, and Maggie is a near stoic goth. But my answer is a little more lenient and applicable to other ships both in and out of The Loud House; canon or romantic or no. This is a little something called the Odd Couple and the appeals to these couples are not what they have in common, but what they don’t. They have differences that can play off eachother, and I think that’s what people like to see in polar opposite relationships. This dynamic is also applicable to non romantic relationships and family bonds.

And to demonstrate this, I present to you Loud House examples. The biggest familial and platonic example of this in the Loud House can be seen in Lola and Lana’s dynamic; as twins they are arguably the closest pair of sisters among the Loud siblings, and yet their entire characters revolve around how they are polar opposites of eachother. And for a romantic example, there was Lucy having a crush on Rocky, despite them being seeming opposites with Lucy being a total goth and Rocky…pretty much being your average nerdish kid. Other canon or non canon relationships apply to this dynamic; Lynn and Clyde -or Clynn- are a popular non canon pairing (a jock girl with a nerdish boy); Lincoln and Ronnie Anne - Ronnincoln - is considered one of the biggest pairings in the fandom and it also somewhat falls into the same category of a tough girl and not so nerdish boy. I bring these up because these “Tough Girl and Nerd Guy” kind of relationships have a special appeal to me for some reason. Both Lincoln and Clyde are also popularly paired up with Haiku, which can fall under the same category as Lucy and Rocky above.

Why is contrasting characters appealing to fans ? Because pairing someone up with someone who is the exact same as they are can get boring, if there is nothing to play off with. Let’s take the episode L is For Love for example; besides Benny, Sam, and Chaz, the love interests introduced for the sisters in this episode are basically male, two dimensional, carbon copies of the sisters that serve as plot devices to segway into the reveal that Luna is Bi; Sam was initially popular because she was a confirmed love interest for a major female character, and even then the episode where they go on a date has a plot about what they don’t have in common, which saves Sam from being a total copy cat of Luna; Chaz became popular because he was (physically at least) the opposite of Leni; Benny was initially popular because he wasn’t Maggie (more on that below) and even in his and Luan’s spotlight episode we see a slight difference between them in that Benny was more of a theatre lover than Luan, who was more of a comedian.

It should go without saying contrasts don’t always work for compelling positive relationships. Many of fictions greatest rivalries stem from how two rivals contrast eachother.

But didn’t Luaggie start a fan war ? Hardly. There was a pretty one sided fan war going on around the time Stage Plight aired. Because this was Luan and Benny’s episode, fans of them - Lunny’s -were getting all hyped that their ship was going to be made official, and spent a good amount of their time bragging about it to Luaggie fans. Now as I mentioned above one of the reasons why Benny became popular with fans in the first place was because he was a Luan love interest that wasn’t Maggie, and Luaggie detractors tend to hate it with a burning passion. Now I can see where they are coming from, considering Luaggie’s popularity in fanfics and art, and some fans have a problem when it comes to compartmentalizing fanon and canon. It gotten to the point that when Luaggie art used to get shared, Lunny fan’s would get all up and arms about how Benny was Luan’s love interest. What people call ship policing.

Trust me, I can understand their frustrations I’ve been on the receiving end of such things, so I can certainly put myself in their shoes, albeit with different ships.

Anyways, Stage Plight airs and Luan and Benny are an official couple. Did Luaggie’s complain ? Cry ? Leave the fandom ? Have a total social media meltdown ? No. For the most part, Luaggie’s I’ve seen and talked too generally took the episode in stride, said they liked the episode and went on with their lives. The episode certainly didn’t stop Luaggie fan works from being made, as the Lunny fans predicted. Because Luaggie was always a fanfic based ship, and I don’t think anyone seriously thought or expected them to be an actual couple in the show. Lunny fans on the other hand spent their time showboating and singing sweet victories over the “defeat” of the Luaggie fans, celebrating a war they made up in their own hands.

I have seen some go as far as to say Luaggie is a toxic ship, which I don’t see. I think people have different ideas over what a toxic ship is. A friend and I talked about two different ideas of what a toxic ship is; to him a toxic relationship was reflected by their fans and bullying behaviour they do in the name of their ship; to me a toxic ship would be a relationship that promotes or romanticizes abusive ideals such as rape, incest, pedophilia, victimization, etc. As such I don’t see how Luaggie falls into that category - although a non Loud House ship called Jemma from Every Witch Way, might fall into that category, but that an analytical rant for another day.

That being said, it does bring to mind the concept of Ship Policing, which means telling people who they are allowed to ship or not to ship and bullying others over them. Again, I think this might have to do with a failure to differentiate between popular fanon and canon, and I have been on the receiving end of this so I gotta vent.

Stress Induced Rant incoming

I once got into a shipping debate earlier this year regarding two non Loud House related ships in a Facebook group I’m in where the non canon Kigo ship of the Kim Possible fandom was brought up. I mentioned that Kigo didn’t really appeal to me due to re-watching the show and coming to the conclusion that Kigo would be canonically problematic, and their canon pairings (Kim x Ron, and Drakken x Shego) grew on me. At no point did I say Kigo doesn’t work as a fanfic couple, but canon wise, I saw too many problems that goes against Kigo’s favour in comparison to their canon boyfriends.

I am going to use this as an example of what shipping police are and how not to debate other fans. So when I mentioned I wasn’t into Kigo in comparison to KiRon and Drakgo, this one Kigo fan went ballistic and kept badgering me. So I explain myself, answer all her questions, and bring up some of my points and reasonings. In turn, she answers my points with Double Standards and Non Sequiturs; either dodging my questions or saying my answers don’t apply when they don’t go against her arguments. She then resorts to using fanfics as “proof” that Kigo would work in canon, and when that fails she starts making Ad Hominem attacks and personal insults - notably calling me retarded when my autism was briefly mentioned in the discussion - and went on about it well past midnight. Rule of thumb, when you resort to personal insults and attacking someone over an opinion that won’t budge, you kind of forfeit your argument. Luckily, this was only one Kigo fan, who doesn’t represent its fandom as a whole

Venting over.

Like I mentioned, ships are a funny - they actually mean very little in the grand scheme of things, but to fandoms, they are the center of the world.

I should also say there a third or fourth reason non canon ships become popular; a lot of fans either take note on onscreen chemistry a paring may have, or project some where there is none, and that is because fans tend to project themselves or their ideas onto characters they like, including what their ideal relationships would be like. It’s hardly exclusive to The Loud House fandom. Me for example, in stories I wrote but never posted, I paired a young adult version of Steven Lloyd from the Halloween series and Edith Sawyer from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series; I design them to have an obvious contrast between them and show how it would play off between the two, but these are two characters that never met in canon (especially since the two series never crossover). Had I wrote a legitimate Halloween/Texas Chainsaw crossover, chances are I’d implement that pairing into the story.

As far as Luaggie goes, I don’t see it as any different than another Leather and Lace relationship applied to fanfiction and fan art. What’s my opinion of them ? Really that depends on the fic or the artwork. I’m not gonna delude myself into thinking it’s gonna become canon or have some power over canon. Nor do I think it’s worth getting all hyped and excited for a non existant ship war.

#the loud house #Luaggie Week #luaggie #Luan Loud #Maggie #Benny #Lunny #lincoln loud #clyde mcbride #lynn loud #haiku #lucy loud #rocky spokes #ronnie anne santiago #ronnincoln

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sweetpea-cc · 6 years ago

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Pieces of Me (Part 2)

Summary: You are Y/N McCormick, the Northside Queen with a knack for defending yourself. Ultimately, too many warnings lead to being expelled from Riverdale High School and you transfer to Southside High where you’re immersed in a completely different life. Slowly, you become closer to Sweet Pea, along with the rest of the Southside Serpents while discovering the missing pieces of yourself.

Paring: Sweet Pea x Reader (ft. Toni Topaz) Warning: Some language, Word Count: 1.9k+

A/N: Your last name is McCormick for reasons which will be explained later. Also, this is a slow burn miniseries. :))

(Part 1) (Part 3)

Three days later, the transfer papers were all completed and signed, and you were officially about to start your first day at Southside High. In a way, the school looked exactly as you imagined it would; practically in shambles, and it was apparent that upkeep of it wasn't a priority.

Ahead, you could see lines of students waiting to walk through metal detectors and scanners due to the violence that took place here and the collective sound of groans and laughter filled the air. You weren't blind, you know some, if not the majority of the student body, were staring at you. Understandable, really, you were what they called a "Northside Barbie," and it was apparent that you didn't belong.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, you finally set a foot inside the infamous Southside High. This school was the complete polar opposite of Riverdale in the sense that it was chaotic and no doubt its poor reputation preceded it.

"You must be Y/N, I'm Toni, your peer mentor for today." Your attention falls on a spunky girl, with dark brown hair and pink highlights. Toni appeared to have a small frame, light brown skin, and almond-shaped eyes. Suffice to say, she was beautiful, and you were slightly intimidated. You made a note of the amount of jewelry she was wearing; a broad assortment of rings, bracelets, and necklaces.

"Yeah, nice to meet you." You offered her a genuine smile as you ran your hands through your hair and began observing the life around you. Toni made a motion for you to follow her down the hall as she pointed out various things and facts according to your schedule.

"Mr. Phillips is cool I guess, you'll have the same class as me and a bunch of other serpents." Her voice seemed to fade away as you took in your surroundings. Southside was chaotic for sure, but there appeared to be a system; the serpents on one side of the school and the ghoulies on the other. Highly similar to the factions, as you liked to call them, at Riverdale- Royals, Jocks, Nerds, and dare you say it, nobodies.

"Hey, hey! Earth to Y/N!" Toni's voice suddenly registered in your head as you turned your attention towards her.

"What? Sorry, my head went to a different universe." You offer Toni a sheepish grin which she seems to gladly return.

"I was just wondering what you're doing here. No one transfers to Southside at their own will."

"Well, it was either here or Seaside, and there's no way in hell I'm driving two hours every day just to go to school."

"Why not Riverdale?"

"Oh, I got expelled. Apparently defending yourself against hormonal boys who can't keep their hands to themselves is a huge no-no. That, and writing a damning article about a teacher who is a child predator."

"Wow, props to you. Okay, uh, lunch is at twelve, and it looks like you have a free period from one to two. Everyone eats lunch at the same time so it shouldn't be too difficult for you to find it. I hope you brought something to eat because the food is not edible."

"Thanks for the warning, you've definitely made my day like five times better." Toni smiles and nods her head at you and disappears down the hall, meeting with a group of kids all sporting the same "Southside Serpents" logo. One of them, in particular, caught your attention though, he slim and very tall, and from your point of view, you spotted his double-headed serpent tattoo on his neck. His jet-black hair was loosely combed off to the side and good lord, he was handsome as hell. You

You turned away before any of them could see your face and stalk off to your first class which passed by excruciatingly slow. Thankfully, lunch rolled around quick enough, and you realize that Toni wasn't kidding about it being easy to find the cafeteria given how everyone was rushing to the same room. Upon entering, your sights almost immediately fall on the caged off sections of the lunchroom and quickly note that it was explicitly for the Serpents. Across the room, you spotted a bunch of kids sitting around lazily, and you recalled how Toni had described them to you— "Rival gang, drug dealers, street racers, rumors of cannibalism."

You definitely knew it would be best to avoid them at all costs, it was already enough that you were a hundred percent out of place. You say down at an empty table situated in the middle of the cafeteria, and there was that feeling again, all eyes on you as if they were waiting for you to make a mistake. To your left, you watched as the serpents, namely Toni, look back and forth between you and their section, it appeared that a small argument with the great serpent was currently taking place.

"Come on Sweet Pea, let her sit here. She's actually really nice, and you know the second they get, the ghoulies are going to eat her alive."

"No. She's not a serpent, she's a Northside Barbie." Toni scowled at Sweet Pea and had to fight the urge to punch him. Sure, he was right, you weren't a serpent and this section of the cafeteria was reserved for such but at the same time, sitting with them was better than sitting by yourself where you were a likely target for whatever games the ghoulies had in mind. And as if on cue, Toni watched as a ghoulie walked up to the table that you were sitting at and plop himself down beside you.

"Did Northside Barbie get lost?" his voice taunted and felt yourself physically cringe. It wasn't that he was a ghoulie that creeped you out, it was sound of his voice made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You quickly found yourself fighting the urge to send your fist into his face, with it being the first day and all.

"My sense of direction is fine, thank you." You were doing your best to keep the conversation between you and the ghoulie to a minimum, but it didn't look like he was going away anytime soon.

"You're a pretty little thing, you know that?" this time, his finger made its way over to your arm that was resting on the table, and he dragged it slowly across making you jerk your arm away so fast it was like it became Usain Bolt for a few sections.

"Don't touch me. I'm leaving." You begin to put together your lunch and stand up, preparing to walk away only for greedy fingers to wrap themselves around your forearm, yanking you back. Quickly your eyes dart over to where Toni was sitting, looking slightly worried and back to the creepy crawly ghoulie.

"Ha, I didn't say you could leave. So why don't you sit your pretty little ass back down?" You scowl to yourself, had you really just heard him correctly? What year was this? 1930's or something? With your mouth forming a straight line, you level with him and speak slowly and plainly just to ensure that he understood you.

"I'd recommend that you let go of my arm before someone gets hurt. And here's a hint, it won't be me." The ghoulie then stood up, still refusing to release his hold on your arm, a disgusting smirk plastered on his face. After tugging a few times but finding no avail, you finally decide that physical force would be necessary.

Quickly, you twist your captured arm around and clasp your hand on the ghoulie's arm, wasting no time turning it and using all of your force to pin his arm behind his back. To add insult to the injury, you swiftly kick one of his legs from underneath him causing him to lose his balance, and with your free hand, you smash his face against the table.

"Now, you have about five seconds to apologize for being a dick before I simultaneously snap your arm in two separate places." The ghoulie struggled underneath you, and you weren't going to lie, he was a lot stronger than he appeared, but nonetheless, you persisted.

"Fuck you, you bitch!" He spat, nearly wriggling free until you applied further pressure on the smalls of his wrist causing him to yell out in pain.

"One... two... three..." You counted, applying even more pressure with each count until the creep finally gave in.

"I'm sorry! Let me go!"

As quickly as you took him down, you released him with a small shove forward and move backward, creating plenty of space between the two of you.

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" You coo like tattling big sister, crossing yours loosely over your torso.

"Psycho bitch!" The ghoulie spewed, cradling his injured arm in his other hand as walked back to his friends, a small limp present in his wide strides.

"I've been called worse." You shrug carelessly as you finish collecting your belongings when the croaky and strident voice of the school Principal called out from behind you.

"McCormick! My office, now!" You look up, scowling at no one in particular and spin around coming face-to-face with a burly man in his late fifties. Letting out a quiet sound of annoyance, you trudge towards the man and you did, you caught a side glance from the same raven-haired boy you saw this morning. Though it was completely irrelevant, his crazy height and the way he towered over everyone reminded you of a pine tree. "Hm, maybe that's his name." you joke to yourself as you walk close behind the Principal and down the oddly silent hallways.

Sitting in the Principal's office was an all too familiar sight and you were starting to think you were more trouble than you were worth. Given Southside's reputation, you were surprised that the school even had a Principal, after all, had anyone been paying attention to the system?

"Would you like to tell me why you physically assaulted another student?" Principal Wright asked as he sat back in his chair folding his meaty hands over each other. Based on the newspaper clippings hanging on his walls about various sports teams and honorable mentions, it would appear that once upon a time, long ago, Southside High was actually a school. 'Poor man.' you thought to yourself, he had to sit back and watch his school be torn to shambles.

"I used necessary force after asking multiple times for the creep to let me go, I even as much tried to walk away like a normal person. So all in all, Principal Wright, I'm completely innocent in this narrative." You threw your hands up in surrender and cross your legs, sitting like the proper lady you were supposed to be. The man looked beyond exhausted from dealing with constant fights and standoffs and he really didn't need the stress of a prominent Northside rich girl making things any worse than they already were.

"And Mr. Bowers will be dealt with, I promise you that. However, until then, I must urge that you stay away from him and his little gang. Right now, the last thing I need is another McCormick wrecking havoc in my school like your father and uncle did." The mention of your uncle made you smile, you didn't know much about him because your father often refused to talk about; something about the memories being too painful to relive. Perhaps one day, your sleuthing skills would serve you greatly and you'd find out more about him, until then, you were stuck with the vague explanations that your dad would give you.

#riverdale #cw riverdale #reader x sweet pea #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea #archie andrews #veronica lodge #betty cooper #jughead jones #toni topaz #southside #northside #reader #imagine #sweet pea imagine #fanfiction #fanfic #one shot

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architectnews · 3 years ago

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World Trade Center Architecture: WTC Manhattan

World Trade Centre Architecture New York, Manhattan Ground Zero Buildings

New York World Trade Center Architecture

Discussion on the Design of the Freedom Tower in Manhattan, NY, USA

post updated September 11, 2021 ; Mar 15, 2004

9/11 anniversary – 20 years since the 11 September attacks

Manhattan World Trade Center

Memory Marker: Remembrance of Things Past

Article by Adrian Welch, Architect and e-architect Editor

Article written in 2004 for the The Drouth Literary magazine

Any marker to ‘9/11’ must sit in relation to polar opposites: the capitalist drive to extract dollars per sq ft on the site and a desire to leave space for memory of this atrocity. But are these truly irreconcilable opposites or could a creative architect – or team (important distinction) – reconcile these goals partly or even fully?

Ground Zero New York photograph : Andrew McRae, 2007

I won’t dwell on questions of how the site is being parcelled up – the sadly separate competitions for ‘building’ and ‘memorial’ – but the separation is relevant background information. The ‘building’ competition came first probably due to its size and thus fiscal importance. The ‘memorial’ was slotted in afterwards – eight typically minimalist ‘spaces’ shortlisted mostly using water and light. If a creative mind was behind rebuilding this site the two could have been married together.

Pre-Modernism memorials were mostly formal objects – think of Lutyens’ Thiepval Arch in the Somme, memorial to the First World War dead. Modernism brought us simple forms – the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington DC stands out, more recently Libeskind’s Memorial Garden outside his Berlin Museum.

Memorials are described as being places to reminisce, but not normally too vividly: no overt references to falling bodies will appear in the Twin Towers Memorial. To avoid hurt they seem to retract from death and tragedy into abstract pathos or general formality. Memorials inhabit a twilight zone between architecture and sculpture; typically linked to taboo issues – here ‘atrocity’ – they sometimes suffer from lack of critique.

Back to the opening premise: can Libeskind et al make the dollar generator into the memorial, can ‘Freedom Tower’ itself have the required potency? The foot of Manhattan is already a powerful marker for many US immigrants, including members of my own family. Arriving on a ship seeing the towering lights of Mammon and the symbolic Statue of Liberty. The latter has a dual purpose – icon and climbable tourist attraction: how could the ‘Freedom Tower’ express both poles of its duality?

For a start the height of 1776 ft, resonating with America’s Year of Independence, fell flat for me: I expected it to change post-competition and so it did, unusually revised up! The impression is of lip service to the tragedy whilst the fiscal side is worked up in the background: the result is an aim to simply parcel off a patch of prime real estate purely for memory. The Ground Zero site is owned by Larry Silverstein and, with George Pataki, the City Governor, he ran an international architecture competition to find an architect / scheme for the site. The shortlist was whittled down eventually to Daniel Libeskind – radical Polish-born architect – and Rafael Vinõly – a conservative but contemporary architect born in Mexico.

But cries of ‘sell-out to Silverstein’ – especially from relatives – drown out reason: like Swiss Re for London, [after years of IRA bombs] is not the burgeoning tower of real estate the most fitting memorial? It should express city, embody confidence, and emanate determination to progress. The people who died, were primarily part of the bullish capitalist drive to make money: why pretend otherwise, wrap up reality with the cotton wool of disconnected abstraction?

Central to the memorial is symbolism and inscription. From Stonehenge to the humble gravestone we see this. For example Kahn’s 1968 abstract memorial to the ‘Six Million Jewish Martyrs’ proposed for Lower Manhattan contained both – the central pier served as an ohel (chapel), complete with inscription. The written word introduces the personal – the name you can point to, relate to. An unspoken rule of architecture is ‘good buildings don’t need signs’ and, by extension, ‘words’. Yet no architectural memorial seems complete without inscription. ‘Set in stone’ is a phrase to suggest permanency – rootedness is a useful aura when suffering loss. Hope, life after death.

Memorials also of course allow the State, organisations, people to make a statement, exert power, show respect. Just as arguments exist around the extent of ‘respectful’ space around city cathedrals – for example the years of vigorous debate around Paternoster Square’s relationship to St Paul’s Cathedral – so the same applies for memorials: do monuments really need space? Discussion re this site seems to have revolved around the notion of space given over to ‘memorial’: space = respect.

This corollary comes from the public / private opposition that has characterised debate on urbanism for decades: the more ‘public realm’, the greater the developer’s generosity and perceived benefit to the populace. The demand for rent creates maximum development by default. The Public appears to want ‘sacrifice’ where possible. Here the sacrifice could be a viewing platform at the top of ‘Freedom Tower’ a contemplative pool or a square for parades and gathering. The clever bit (in developers’ eyes) is dressing the necessary space around the building (building laws related to light, etc.) as the ‘sacrificial space’.

Monuments were essentially ‘monumental’ in the past [sounds obvious!], hence the textual linkage, i.e. grand and impersonal, arching over singularity to create plurality and collectivist aspirations but mostly subjugation. The Arc de Triomphe, Nelson’s Monument, the Monument to the Great Fire of London all rise above an urban context and dominate the human.

What validates ‘monument’, differentiates it from sculpture or building? Does the ‘title’ matter if you realise there exist ‘living structures’ (The London Eye) and ‘functionless buildings’ (Edinburgh’s National Monument)? The Ground Zero site will be home to one of the most observed memorials ever, trying to come to terms with huge, spectacularly vicious loss of life, and in one of the World’s largest and most popular cities. New York almost epitomises what we think a city should be. The memorial will be a marker for more than atrocity: it will also become a marker for cities, architecture and society.

The agenda of the people, the owner/developer, city and state may all vary. Monuments generally use scale, heroic forms, emblems/icons, metaphor and allusion. The Marker could synthesize function and memory and be emblematic of New York. Empirical institutions and situations of the city stand as allegories of the invisible substance of society as a whole.

Politically the site has to represent unbroken spirit, confidence to progress, unhindered by fears of terrorism but without creating what Giedion termed ‘devaluation of symbols’, empty gestures of civic monumentalism. Monuments should be catalytic. Tension between the ‘opposites’ could be played up or down. Aspirations of State could transmit to surging height or connotations of peace and freedom.

In Rossi’s ‘The Architecture of the City’ he defines monuments as ‘primary elements in the city which are persistent and characteristic urban artifacts. They are distinguished from housing, the other primary element in the city, by their nature as a place of symbolic function, and thus a function related to time, as opposed to a place of conventional function, which is only related to use’. A monument is dialectically related to the city’s growth.

In these days of superfast media the permanence of solid physical memorial may be a welcome antidote, but memorial possibilities have multiplied if NY wanted a more imaginative zeitgeist marker. Loops of crash footage on a massive screen, raining mannequins projected from above, the smell of kerosene and worse, screams and sirens blasted around the site complete with multi-screen slivers of reaction from bereaved families. However, this is not a horror film-set but a place of reconciliation for the bereaved, for East and West, conservative and radical.

Libeskind is working on a book fittingly about ‘tragedy, memory and hope, and the way architecture can reshape human experience’: his asymmetric tower ostensibly follows the Statue of Liberty so unless the forces of commerce puncture this concept, we will have iconoclastic towers forming a lop-sided symbolic gateway. Neither forms a traditional abstract solid, the obelisks, pyramids and towers of the past. The Twin Towers form modern day icons blasted into people’s minds. The Towers were considered by many to be ugly, but they will be a hard act to follow. Memory is what matters most, not built form.

* In 1946 New York State Legislature set up a WTC Corporation to analyse such a facility. The World Trade Centre idea formed in 1960* and preliminary drawings were drawn up by SOM, who slipped in behind Libeskind 43 years later (via David Childs). Michigan-based Minori Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Sons completed the Twin Towers between 1966 and 1973. Yamasaki had over a hundred schemes, one being a single 150-storey tower. Towers 1 & 2, nicknamed ‘David & Nelson’ after the supportive Rockefeller Brothers became quintessential New York symbols, appearing on a large proportion of postcards.

Author: Adrian Welch is an Architect and runs this website. The New York Freedom Tower article first appeared in The Drouth Literary magazine in 2004

Architectural texts welcome – no limit to words : info(at)e-architect.com

Location: 99 Church Street, New York City, NY, USA

9/11 Architecture

Contemporary 9/11 Architectural Designs

Pentagon 9/11 Memorial Visitors Center, Arlington, Virginia, United States of America Design: Fentress Architects image courtesy of architects practice 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Visitor Education Center

September 11th Memorial Building, New York City photo : Jin Lee 9/11 Memorial Museum New York

Architecture in New York City

Contemporary Architecture in New York City

New York City Architecture Designs – chronological list

New York Architecture Walking Tours

Site of World Trade Center New York (destroyed 2001) 1966-73 Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth & Sons

Freedom Tower New York – Site of World Trade Center Ground Zero, Lower Manhattan 2004- Daniel Libeskind Architects + David Childs of SOM Architects Controversial towers to replace the World Trade Centre skyscrapers lost to New York in 2001. The main skyscraper by Libeskind was to be a significant number of feet high – 1,776 ft – to mark a key American date in history – United States Year of Independence; the building was largely handed over to architect David Childs. Designed to be the tallest tower in the world for the site leaseholder – real estate developer Larry Silverstein. The angular design is typical for Libeskind but here echoes the Statue of Liberty. A Snohetta building was also due to appear but the situation is in a state of flux, more online soon – 2006.

Daniel Libeskind was commissioned to design the Freedom Tower after a strongly contested World Trade Center design competition in Feb 2003, beating architects such as Norman Foster and in the end winning a two-strong shortlist.

Freedom Tower New York designer – Daniel Libeskind Architects

Six teams were shortlisted in Sep 2002 out of over 400 submissions, including: Foster + Partners Richard Meier Architect Studio Daniel Libeskind United Architects Think Group

Gehry Partners LLP and Snøhetta were selected as architects for the World Trade Center cultural complex by Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in Dec 2004

Ground Zero – first building now on site SOM Architects 7 World Trade Center

New York Skyscrapers

World Financial Center 1986 Design: Cesar Pelli Architect Including the Winter Garden

World Trade Centre �� New Museum Complex, Ground Zero Design: Snohetta, Architects International Freedom Centre + Drawing Centre. Also named the WTC Cultural Center. Snøhetta Architects became well known with their Alexandria library in Egypt which won a major architecture competition. Snøhetta Architects have an architects office in New York based at 50 Broad St World Trade Centre Cultural Center architect : Snøhetta

World Trade Centre site – Ground Zero : News 2006 Richard Rogers Partnership to design Tower 2 Foster & Partners (Norman Foster) to design Tower 3

Norman Foster has recently designed New York skyscraper the Hearst Tower and is designing another, adj. The Seagram Building, so despite losing out in the final shortlist for the World Trade Centre site Foster has done well.

Richard Rogers is working on massive designs for the Jacob Javits Convention Center with controversy in early 2006 when he joined a group opposed to certain Jewish settlements in Palestine

World Trade Center Towers – photos of existing buildings + images of new designs

World Trade Center Architectural Drawings : Wright’s Important Design Auction

World Trade Center New York Competition finalist : Rafael Viñoly

Another featured building by Daniel Libeskind: Creative Media Centre – Hong Kong Buildings

Another New York building by Daniel Libeskind: Condominium tower in Union City, New Jersey

New York Architectural Designs

Contemporary Architecture in New York, USA

New York Architecture News

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Comments / photos for the New York World Trade Centre page welcome

Website: Visit New York City

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mitchellvernon · 5 years ago

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Audience Studies (3P18) Blog Post #2 Mitchell Vernon

Week Six

During week six we looked at uses and gratifications, this material allowed our class to take a deep dive into the minds of the consumers and provided context regarding the quantification of media consumption. The major question asked this week was “how and why individuals use the media” (Sullivan, 108). This main question forced some self-reflection as I decided to look within myself to further understand the motivation behind my own media consumption. I found the example at the beginning of the textbook chapter incredibly useful in looking into my personal habits. I too have participated in fantasy sports and have found myself more dedicated to my fantasy team then my local team.

This is a very new form of gratification as only technological advancements have made way for this new form of consumption. This thought drew to mind many more uses and gratifications that I would not have initially thought of from a traditional point of view. In general, this week was very informative in regards to the multitude of possible uses and gratifications. There is a long history of academics looking into uses and gratifications so this week we took a deep dive into the early studies and tries to uncover the evolution of the topic. It is not only sports audiences that are affected by this phenomenon the world of theatre and cinema are often driven by personal responses to the content they are being subjected to.

I would like to dive deeply into my own personal experiences regarding uses and gratifications. I believe it is incredibly important to apply this theory to real-world situations to better understand all of the different consumption methods and gratifications that are available. The textbook states that: “the audience members actively choose media channels and content to suit their own needs at a particular moment” (Sullivan, 113). This explanation is valid in describing my own relationship with media as often times I will only consume particular types of media depending on my mood and what I’m doing. For example, if I am at work or doing something me to be active and involved I will often listen to podcasts and radio this way I am free to move about and concentrate on other things.

On the other hand, if I am completely free I will often find myself watching television or movies, in this situation I can fully concentrate on this content without being restricted by outside influences. This thought has forced me to analyze the amount of content that is created in our world today and how much of it is made for very specific consumption methods. As far as gratifications are concerned it is obvious that each form of media provides a differing gratification. For example, radio is used as a form of information gathering and mind occupation while movies and other forms of visual content require more attention and are often used to distract the consumer and draw them into whatever content is being expressed. In our seminar, we discussed the individual differences between each person and how this affects our consumption and gratification, we spoke about the idea of music being used as a study tool for some and for others (like myself) a complete distraction. This proves that individuals can consume the same content for completely different reasons and the gratifications that one receives can be completely independent of that of another. In my personal experience, I find that the consumption of media is increasingly dependant between individuals especially these days as there is simply so much content in the world that everyone can find their niche. I live in a house with 4 other guys and on the surface level we are very much the same, we all have a similar sense of humor and get along well. That being said we all consume very different forms of media and even the things that we watch together we get completely different gratifications from them. The best representation of this is sports, we are all massive Toronto Maple Leafs fans and sports fans in general but a couple of my roommates are avid gamblers, in this case, the gamblers are receiving a completely different experience than the common sports fan as they are not simply watching for the love of the game.

I would now like to look into the history of uses and gratifications theory as presented in the lecture and the textbook to draw comparisons between then and now. The article in the textbook regarding female radio listeners in the 1940s was incredibly informative in the changes that the media landscape has undergone. A few sentiments have held true though, for example, the woman would use the radio to acquire information, this form of information gathering has not changed as today millions of people receive their daily news on their way to work through their radio. The woman also used the radio to distract them from their own lives and give them a form of entertainment. As mentioned earlier I often find myself using audio content in the same way as I tend to isolate myself from the world around me by simply tossing in my headphones and forgetting the world. In general, the ways that we consume media has completely changed over the years as technological advancements such as the internet and television have allowed us to expand upon the previously narrow world of entertainment. That being said the world of sports consumption has remained quite similar to earlier years and I find myself consuming sports in much the same way that my ancestors did.

In general, the study of uses and gratifications has been massive in expanding my knowledge of the world of media. I now know that there is something for everyone and everyone is free to experience the media however they choose. With the development of the internet, the possibilities only expand and we will see new media develop at a much faster rate than ever before.

Week Seven

The idea of decoding mass media texts has been something that I have been personally interested in over recent years as I start to understand underlying messages within the media. This week’s lesson asked questions about what we had learned in the week before “were media audiences truly as autonomous as the uses and gratifications perspective imagined?” (Sullivan, 135). Academics wonder whether the media plays a major factor in creating ideology within our society. This question has become ever more prevalent today with all of the division in the world within the opinion based society that we live in. It is clear to uncover bias within the media depending on what you are consuming. Many media companies have certain agendas that they follow to intentionally shift public opinion about key issues. A topical example of this would be the American news landscape and the battle between CNN and Fox News.

It is clear to anyone who watches either of these channels that the news is being reported from an incredibly biased standpoint in an attempt to convince the viewer that the network’s beliefs are the correct ones. In my opinion, this is both dangerous and important in shaping the public dialogue within our society. I consider it dangerous because it tends to divide even more creating an evil narrative for the opposition and it seems as though this has created a “you’re either with us or against us” mentality from both sides. On the other hand, I do believe that it is important that both arguments are heard for people to develop their own rational opinions, this format allows for debate. The world of social media also plays an important role in this theory as Twitter can be one of the most polarizing places in the world. Social media allows any individual the opportunity to voice their opinion no matter how offensive it may be to some.

I would Like to begin right there in the world of social media. I have been forced to re-write this section of the blog this week because of recent events on social media that I believe cannot go unmentioned. This past week’s legendary hockey personality Don Cherry was removed from his infamous role as the host of “Coach’s Corner” on Hockey Night in Canada. Cherry had made controversial comments before but this time he crossed the line, the analyst went on a rant (as he often does) about the Canadian remembrance day tradition that is the poppy.

Cherry used the phrase “you people” during this rant while discussing the lack of poppies he has seen on the streets of Toronto. This comment was considered by many as a direct attack on immigrants and Cherry was removed from his position two days later. In previous times this is where the story would stop but not today. Because of the impact of the media and this particular program, a war began on Twitter regarding Cherry’s comments as everyone and their mother had an opinion and a stance. This led to another television personality named Jess Allen to talk about the situation in her program called “The Social”. In her response, she offended many people within the hockey community calling them “bullies”, “white boys” and even generalizing the community as out of touch and privileges based on the price of playing the sport. As you may expect this ignited another Twitter was leaving many people within the hockey community (which I consider myself a part of) up in arms for the hypocrisy of her comments. This is a very new media situation that proves the impact that mass media has on the people that are subjected to it. This situation forced me to look in the mirror as a Canadian and take a moment to realize how much I had been consumed with this debate. In this case, the messages within mass media brought the country to a halt, and in all honesty, made us all reflect on the way that we generalize every day and how the media helps us to form their generalizations.

Now I’d like to take a look at traditional media and how interpreting and decoding mass media can be applied to specific forms of media today. After a fairly negative example of the social media issue, I’d like to be more positive in this section of my weekly blog. I think an excellent case study for this would be the recent Marvel film “Captain Marvel”. I have seen this movie multiple times now and it seems as though each time I watch it I uncover more hidden messages within the dialogue. The film itself is an incredibly powerful feminist message, the main character is a woman, a superhero and the most powerful person in the galaxy. Some of the messages within the film were incredibly obvious and simple to decode, others were not so simple. My personal favorite message was simply the raw power and independence that the character had throughout the film. Captain Marvel was fearlessly driven and I believe that this was a welcome theme within the typically male-dominated superhero genre.

Another piece of media with a prevalent message would be the recently released “Joker” film which was an incredibly dark take on the world of mental illness. Throughout the film, the character battles manic depression and an uncommon disease that makes him laugh uncontrollably. In this case, it was not so much the dialogue that displayed the message but the plot and the cinematography. Our seminar discussed this film this week and most agreed that although the film was chilling and dark it provided an important lens into the world of mental illness and a window into the mind of someone with severe mental problems. One of the most important lines in the film was the main character stating in a therapy session “all I have are negative thought” (Joker, 2019). As someone who knows multiple people who have been through the worst of depression, I believe that this statement is incredibly truthful in representing the daily life of someone with this debilitating disease.

I’m gonna say it… This was the most important week of class that we have had all year up until this point. I found the course material incredibly topical and helpful going forward. I will not forget the lessons that I have learned regarding the practice of decoding mass media and I will always be mindful of how the media is interacting with my thoughts.

Week Eight

Media rituals are an essential study, especially in today’s modern media world. At the beginning of the chapter text, there is a case study of a family and how they use media daily and how they have used this media to essentially change the way they live. In the seminar, we discussed similar examples as we individually attempted to recall all of the ways we consume mass media daily. For this blog, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to ask the same of my roommates as I know they are consuming immense amounts of media somewhat unknowingly, we will get to those results later in the blog. It is important to distinguish between traditional media and new media when looking into this topic because the two forms have had opposite trajectories in recent years as much of the youth culture has shifted away from their tv sets for their laptops. My personal media rituals are fairly unique compared to the average person as I am a student without cable television therefore I rely only on new media for entertainment while I am at school. It is interesting to think about how this has changed in my life, I remember a time when I only watched television. I would rush home at the end of every school day to watch Spongebob Squarepants and other kids programs and then finish my day watching sports with my dad until I fell asleep.

Now with advancements such as Netflix, I can have all of my favorite programs at the touch of a button. It is also essential to look at the media rituals surrounding other demographics of people. For example, the textbook addresses the media ritual of housewives who also have incredibly unique habits. Most of the general public is out of the house during the day at either work or school so mid-day television programming is geared towards the woman who is still at the house. This phenomenon birthed the incredibly popular tradition that is day time soap operas. Much like the serial radio listeners from the 1940s the soap opera consuming women use this day time programming to kill time and distract themselves from their daily lives.

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, I decided this week to gather some information about my roommates regarding their media consumption. I decided to ask them three main questions regarding their media consumption, 1) How long do they spend consuming media during the day? 2) How long do they spend on new media? 3) What do they most consume within new media? It was incredibly interesting to me that all of my roommates mentioned a general lack of traditional media consumption, this likely has to do with the fact that we do not have cable at our student house but they also said that even at home they are more likely to entertain themselves with new media. The results of the questions were as follows:

Question 1) How long do you spend consuming media per day?

Roommate 1: 4 hours

Roommate 2: 6 hours

Roommate 3: 2 hours

Question 2) How long do you spend on new media?

Roommate 1) 3.25 hours

Roommate 2) 4.5 hours

Roommate 3) 1 hour

3) What do they most consume within new media?

Roommate 1) Instagram

Roommate 2) Instagram

Roommate 3) Youtube

I found the results of this extremely enlightening as my housemate’s consumption of new media is very indicative of the youth culture of today. In our seminar, we also discussed the evolution of media rituals and discussed the fact that news media rituals have also changed amazingly. Formerly there were three main ways to receive news media the first of which was the traditional newspaper, the second of which was the radio and finally the classic television broadcast. Today, on the other hand, you can receive your news anywhere and anytime on your phone through social media, now we can get our information the second that it happens. In my opinion, our media rituals have become far less predictable as we are now able to consume media and be apart of an audience at the drop of a hat. It is clear to see that new media has taken over the way we go about our day. Our media consumption rituals have completely shifted based on the sheer eas of access available today.

To summarize it is clear that the media consumption rituals completely depend on the demographics of the consumer. It is also evident that with technological advancement and the wave of new media out consumption habits have completely changed due to the new capabilities brought about by new media platforms and the internet.

Week Nine

Audiences as producers and subcultures are the topics of this week’s course material and we discuss media fandom and audience subcultures. The world of fandom is an extreme one and a strange one at the same time. The dedication shared between the fans to the media that they love can consume them and create massive armies of people all in love with the same thing. A solid example of this is the fandom surrounding the film series “Star Wars”.

The fans of this series often watch the movies and television programs regularly and even dress up as the characters to go see the films. The most interesting aspect of this study to me is the mind frame of the fans and what their fandom represents. Personally, I would consider myself a superfan of the Toronto Maple Leafs and I find it fairly easy to draw comparisons between fans of film and fans of sports. Much like the Star Wars fans I also dress in my favorite player’s jersey whenever I go to watch the game, I believe that this allows me to feel as if I am apart of a community. The idea of community is what truly drives people to this level of fandom in my opinion as people enjoy sharing experiences with like-minded people. Initially, when this topic came to light this week I could not picture myself as a “super fan” of anything but I was simply not looking at the entire picture. We discussed our favorite content as a class and I found it baffling that everyone in the class came to the conclusion that they are a part of a fandom of one type or another. The widespread of this term is what is truly incredible to me, there were people in the class that were part of video game fandoms and there were people who loved specific movies so much that they made it their wallpaper on their laptop. This brought about the idea of subcultures and how they are formed. Subcultures consist of groups of people committed to their fandom so much that they find themselves within a community of similarly obsessed people.

In my case, I would consider myself a part of “leafs nation” which is the self-given name to those of us who love our Maple Leafs so much that we would remain loyal through 52 seasons without a Stanley Cup.

This is not limited to sports and film though. For Example, Lady Gaga has amassed such a large following that she has created her own subculture of fans who she calls her “little monsters”, these are the people that would go to war for their queen without hesitation. The textbook states that fans exist “more on the fringe of mainstream culture” (Sullivan, 195). Subcultures are exactly that, subsets of the larger society with specific interests and shared beliefs. The mainstream is always consumed by an immense amount of people but I would argue that the more passionate consumers reside within subcultures. Subcultures of super fans can exist for any form of media or really anything within the public sphere. This brought to mind an interesting case study based around the film “The Room” which is well known as possibly the worst film ever made and it is for that reason that it has remained a staple within a strange subculture devoted to terrible cinema. The film is still shown in theatres around North America regularly and is referenced in popular culture quite often. James Franco even made an entirely new movie based on the filming process of the film and the insanity surrounding it. This example goes to show that anything can develop a devoted following as long as people can find gratifications within it.

In the textbook, there are plenty of examples of films developing large fandoms and subcultures but I believe that social media has allowed for subcultures to develop around individuals. The idea of fan pages is one brought about by the internet based on the previous practice of fan clubs. Today there are accounts on all social media platforms with the sole purpose of fostering a community for superfans of individuals to come together and share their love. For example, a celebrity such as Justin Beiber has countless active fan pages on social media run by people with no ulterior motive other than sharing the love. Many of these accounts have 10s of thousands of followers all just as dedicated to their favorite pop star as the account owner. Social media has created a completely new way for subcultures to interact as you can literally find a fan count for essentially anything you could possibly imagine within the popular culture landscape.

I think it would be fair to say that almost everyone belongs to some sort of subculture. Fandom is something that does not require anything other than passion and the mindset of a super fan is one of pure love and unconditional support.

Week Ten

The term viral is one that used to mean infectious ailment but since the dawn of the internet it has taken on a completely new meaning. The internet is the home for new media and has become an absolute necessity for much of the developed world. With this new form of content creation comes to a whole new world of opportunities for people looking to capitalize on their 15 minutes of fame or maybe even turn into a full-blown celebrity. I feel that it is often forgotten today that Justin Beiber who is arguably the most influential pop star of our generation began his career on Youtube.

The internet offers something that traditional media cannot and that is billions of eyes to whomever it sees fit. The internet does not discriminate based on fame or fortune but it allows anyone to pick up a camera and become a celebrity. This has created an incredible shift in the world of fame as it seems that fame has almost become its own social status within the rankings of human success. Personally, I have tried to make many viral videos with my friends (unsuccessfully) but it is the access that the internet provides that allows for regular people to believe that one day it will be them Think to yourself what you would do if a crazy argument broke out in public today, your first reaction would likely not be to call the police it would probably to whip out your phone to create viral content. In the lecture, we talked about the idea that the audience has become the creators and this could not be truer. The internet has also created entirely new forms of media such as video game streaming and laugh compilations. Although the internet does create incredible opportunities it can also be a very cruel place as many times users will be bullied off a site for creating content that is seen as poor. This content creation is not restricted to video creation as many people have gained large followings on platforms such as Twitter which allow users to speak their minds and tell jokes all in the hopes of garnering attention and developing a large following. It seems as though anyone can be a celebrity these days and it makes for an incredibly interesting media landscape.

The idea of internet celebrity is something that has developed over time as the content has changed and improved. Youtube’s largest independent creator PewDiePie recently hit 100 million subscribers on the site which proves the immense platforms that some of these creators have been given. Internet entertainment has become such a staple within youth culture that advertisers have stumbled upon a new gold rush. In some cases, a simple video can attract more eyes than the SuperBowl making internet advertising quite expensive depending on the creator. YouTube creators at the highest level have become incredibly wealthy which has drawn the eye of mainstream celebrities like Will Smith who has decided to hop on board and attempt to shift their career towards the new media. The attractiveness of internet celebrity comes from the simple nature of the content needed to go viral and the accessibility to incredibly large audiences. For Example, popular vlogger David Dobrik has amassed such a large audience in recent years that he is receiving six-figure brand endorsement checks for simply mentioning a company like Seat Geek at the beginning of a four-minute and 20-second video. Internet celebrities have become mainstream celebrities within the blink of an eye and they have nobody to answer to but their fans.

Participatory culture as mentioned in the textbook is another reason for the massive popularity of sites like YouTube. Users are encouraged to post comments on the videos they watch to increase engagement with the video and promote it to a higher level on the page. The participation makes the user feel that they are part of the video and a popular comment of a popular video can receive 10s of thousands of likes and allows the user to promote their own channel. This form of participation is also encouraged on Twitter as users often reply to tweets that they consider thought-provoking of funny, the allows the tweet to be seen by more people and yet again allows for promotion of an account.

The internet has given birth to an entirely new form of celebrity and the idea of virality has only served to promote the potential for the average Joe. Participatory culture has allowed for a strong self-reliant community to develop online forcing mainstream celebrities to pay attention. Advertisers did not take long to see the value within the internet as they have discovered platforms that provide millions of young eyes.

Week Eleven

This course has been incredibly interesting to me as it has provided me with the knowledge that I would have never thought of before. These blogs have also helped me to gather my thoughts about course material and put it into my own world. I remember back to the first week of the course when we were told to think about our own personal audience experiences and all I could think about was sports games that I have attended. Now after going through this entire course, it is easy to see that we are always part of an audience and that my previous definition of the term was simply too narrow-minded. I found the week regarding the internet and audiences to be incredibly enlightening as it was something that I had talked about in previous blogs but did not fully grasp the full scope of what the internet has created. This class has also forced me to look into the mirror and address how I have been influenced by the media and how my mind has been controlled. I believe this is incredibly important as it is always essential to be mindful of where your thoughts are coming from.

The uses and gratifications lesson was also essential in my understanding of my own relationship with the media that I consume as I had never looked into why I get pleasure out of my media. I have also realized that everyone is different when it comes to audience studies and each person has different gratifications related to their personal media consumption.

The idea of fandom and subcultures has always been something that I have found incredibly interesting as I am drawn to passion and I love to see what every individual is passionate about. As I previously mentioned this for me would be the Toronto Maple Leafs but I had never considered myself to be a part of a subculture until we dove into the true meaning of the term. Overall this course was incredibly informative and truly interesting, I look forward to taking more audience studies courses in the future and learning more about this topic.

P.S. I apologize to my loyal readers for the short final blog but I think I have said it all and I need to go to bed and prepare for my final audience studies class tomorrow!

#AudienceStudies

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mild-lunacy · 8 years ago

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The Continuity Axiom Strikes Back

For what it's worth, even though I admit I was wrong, it seems a bit ironic that the main arguments people have against TJLC still ring false to me. Possibly because they haven't evolved with the times. Quite the opposite: there's many signs of the same old fannish polarization we see in society at large in response to divisive social or political issues. I guess saying 'well, that wasn't what they were going for after all, but good points!' doesn't quite give people that certain... schadenfreude. So the arguments I do hear are, 1) Moffat and Gatiss are bad writers; 2) Moffat and Gatiss should simply always have been taken at their word. There's also 3) we're reading too much into things and indulging in confirmation bias. One is perhaps a little subjective but largely obviously incorrect (look at the awards, if nothing else), and two is objectively ill-advised, since they've said they lie and cannot be trusted multiple times. Personally, I've always had a particular sore spot for the argument that boils down to 'Moffat and Gatiss are bad writers', and I take issue with those who argue against or otherwise mock the idea of canon Johnlock without both understanding and loving the show first. Even so, I realize it can be difficult to understand both perspectives at once. I just think it's important to integrate if there's any desire to engage with the different sides of the Johnlock fandom, and honestly the Sherlockians at large at this point.

The core of the issue cognitively might be summarized by the TJLC interpretation of this quote by Moffat: he initially said they wanted to do the show not just to update it but to correct everyone else, to say 'Now this is the way it should be done'. This ties in with all the hype-- and the hope-- about the BBC LGBT report and the way the BBC hyped Series 4 as 'making history', though I personally was taking a break from fandom at the time and in any case, always take such things with a grain of salt (at best). My point is that there's certainly been circumstances aside from 'confirmation bias' that lead people to think something a bit bigger and more exciting than... Sherlock's origin story and journey to being a 'good man' was going on, which culminated in TFP, as @ivyblossom described. That is (more or less) what I currently think Mofftiss were *going for* with that quote, but the fact is that Gatiss admitted he's interested in 'flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock', and they certainly followed through with that on a large scale. I think that it's a bit of a case of po-tay-to/po-tah-to, honestly. When you build a character growth arc where the main character is being 'humanized' by his relationship with his colleague/best friend/conductor of light/family, *and* you add many classic romantic tropes and rampant queer coding and subtextual homoeroticism... what you have is a love story, pure and simple.

Regardless of intent, it exists and is valid at least as much as an accented pronunciation of the same word would be equally 'valid'. In Sherlock's case, I would argue they'd gone far enough (too far) with the subtext and tropes, and indeed the romantic reading became the primary, most fully correct textual reading. At this point, I imagine this situation got out of Moffat and Gatiss's control... which is a huge challenge for any writer, and one that they didn't really address (in part because of a penchant for self-indulgence, I think), but this still doesn't make them *bad writers*, per se.

Obviously, I'm not saying this in self-defense or to 'prove' explicitly romantic canon Johnlock at this point. Besides, I do think that critique number three makes a good point, in that plenty of meta *was* reading too much into things, but you can say that about any type of meta, of any flavor. For example, I realize I tried way too hard to deny the surface reading of HLV, which... I clearly should have integrated more closely instead, if the Mary storyline resolution in TST is any indication. And many, many people enjoy speculation and pattern-matching and playing with metaphors or symbolism, but don't make a hobby of analyzing either their own thinking or other people's, perhaps understandably. Many fans who had donned the 'conspiracist hat' haven't been as vigilant as we could be about other people's analyses, never mind our own work. Anyway, overall, I still think any truly competent literary/media critic of BBC Sherlock I've ever seen would have to acknowledge the queer/romantic subtext in it at some point, even if they disagreed or simply wouldn't care about it becoming explicitly textual. So just as a total lit nerd, it's unfortunate that people can now continue to think that being dismissive and heteronormative is somehow a superior mode in analysis. And it's also unfortunate that 'bad writing' continues to be a one-size-fits-all approach to excusing one's lack of understanding of the show's deeper layers, more or less.

Basically, my point is that I still believe that Moffat and Gatiss are good-- or at least intelligent, often complex and certainly fundamentally competent-- writers in many ways. They do have their own preset ideas about what they want and don't always communicate those ideas to the broader audience effectively. And I have to further qualify that by saying that the thing I object to is dismissive thinking and 'explaining' stuff that doesn't make sense in the text with the offhand response that 'the writers suck'; I don't mean you can't simply have that as a subjective opinion, obviously, or critique the lack of follow-through in the writing. I definitely need to admit that they can be sloppy and leave plot holes when they lose interest in following up on the details, or introduce significant plot elements that they try to build and build without slowing down and integrating properly. I think @girlofthemirror's postmortem on what went wrong in Series 4 definitely speaks to this issue of too many 'spinning plates' in the plot and no room to breathe, particularly starting with Series 3. Just like Sherlock, they can get arrogant and try to be too clever for their own good. Worse than simple plot holes fixed by mild retcons, like Eurus shooting John with a tranquilizer, or the genre-related writing choices that @plaidadder took issue with in TFP, there's the truly unfortunately executed stuff like Mary's arc or that baby. Including a baby as a plot device to keep John and Mary together and then basically doing nothing else with it is inexcusable. Even with all those caveats, Moffat and Gatiss are so good in other ways that I really don't think you can hand-wave all analysis with 'it's just incompetence', surely.

Even if that has gotten much more battered after Series 4 and TFP, I haven't given up or decided TFP means the old continuity is destroyed, really. I think it's important to read for assumed continuity even when it's hard; perhaps *especially* when it's hard. If you have difficulties finding the textual pattern in characterization or the plot arcs that makes sense, it doesn't necessarily make sense to assume that it's automatically the writers' fault, basically. Even if there's problems in the writing (as there almost always will be), the chances are that there are more preconceived ideas and more incorrect conclusions to prune in one's own analysis. If you're invested and interested, then the best thing to do next would be working to dismantle your own preconceptions of the show. I've already done it once when I accepted canon Johnlock, but that doesn't mean it's the only time. There may well be multiple times. It does get easier, once you gain some emotional distance, assuming you're still interested at that point (granted, most people aren't). If you agree insofar that Authorial Intent matters in analysis (not an automatic thing by any means), then it makes sense to assume that the writers have some kind of *goal* or purpose to the characterization, especially given that it progresses in an apparent growth arc.

This is basic stuff. One should always assume that the writers have something to say in literary/media analysis, no matter the quality of the text. This is necessary in order to then be able to say anything coherent about 'real' or 'apparent' interpretation of the text in the first place. Further, one needs an understanding of the goals if one wants to judge the work as artistically successful or fundamentally 'well-done' or consistent on the larger scale or not.

That has always been the best claim to fame for TJLC: that frame exposed the logic in the show, while other types of analysis focused on their favorite bits of characters and dismissed everything that didn't fit as plot holes and pointless fluffery. For example, this definitely applied to Mary Morstan fans: she was seen as already redeemed and her marriage with John was unproblematic because Sherlock said so (and while she was more or less redeemed, it was only in TST, and their marriage continued to be plainly portrayed as quite troubled until the end). Anyway, in order to make sense of the show, we all picked at bits and pieces and disregarded what's inconvenient to some extent, but canon Johnlock did that the *least*.

Essentially, I'm saying I have a bone to pick with people who take this opportunity to accuse TJLCers of sloppy thinking, denialism, projection, fetishizing queer ships and so on, while offering only sloppy thinking themselves in return. The fact is, many TJLC-friendly meta writers have long challenged people to challenge *us* on our own terms, but of course no one did. It has definitely long been difficult to integrate this show for most viewers, from Series 3 on into TAB (which confused many), and finally into Series 4. Many non-TJLCers (including critics in the media) have said Series 4 jumped the shark and/or disregarded internal plot and character continuity, same as what happened with Series 3 except worse. In general, TJLC-friendly analyses are really the only ones I've seen that have presented a unified view that offered a cohesive and understandable reading of the entire show after Series 3. Here I'd also include many implicit or platonic Johnlock readings like Ivy's or stuff like this old meta of Skara's on TSoT, for example. The tricky thing is that (to the best of my current understanding), Mofftiss were essentially trying to write a near-classic love story without making it about sex, as Moffat once said. So a lot of people (rightfully) found that romantic and expected an explicitly textual romance. Regardless of whether it's actually *become* a genre romance, though, the romantic frame is inherent in the intensity and drama of John and Sherlock's relationship.

It builds up, too. Taken separately, there are platonic explanations for most Johnlocky things, but together these things create a sense of continuity, to the point where I can easily read an implicit romantic resolution after the end of TLD simply because of all this context. For example, think of Sherlock leaving the wedding early in TSoT. You *can* interpret that non-romantically and have it work for quite a while, so you'd still understand the show and Sherlock's feelings, as Skara once demonstrated. Even then, this only works if you essentially still fully accept that John is the most intense, most important, most passionate relationship of Sherlock's life. But then there's HLV, and the classic, epically romantic trope of Sherlock coming back to life for John, which would be 'just' epic friendship, except this is after his friend's wife shoots him again... in her wedding dress. If you have any understanding of narrative tropes in fiction, it's hard to miss the romantic tropes at work here, and we know Steven Moffat does. Except that's not enough, and we have Sherlock's heartbroken expression when he tells John he's 'abnormally attracted' to dangerous people (like himself and John's wife, naturally). And this kind of paralleling between John's obviously romantic love for his wife and his feelings for Sherlock goes on repeatedly in Series 3, and all this mirroring and subtext and acting simply... goes on and on. It would take a real and ongoing mental effort-- and/or a personal commitment to implicit or open-ended romantic relationships in stories-- to be aware of all this and resist the natural conclusion.

At a certain point, 'romantic' or 'platonic' becomes a question partially of your own internal definitions for interpersonal relationships and partly of your judgment of Moffat and Gatiss as show-runners and/or 'old white men', both of which have nothing to do with the show. The important thing for predictions would probably be determining Moffat and Gatiss's own definitions, and that was always going to be a difficult endeavor. We made some guesses, like using Moffat's interest in The Princess Bride and the fact that he wrote the most romantic episodes, such as ASiB, but there's only so far one can go with that. I'd say most people made the choice initially based on their own preferences for where they wanted the show to go, given they understood the text as it stood in S3. But the people who just said 'they're bad writers' simply didn't do any of this work; they dismissed the importance of the underlying question itself. Fundamentally, I think thinking critically about the text and reading it closely is always positive and to be supported, particularly in an environment that *exists* to celebrate and focus deeply on said text, such as fandom. A lot of people in fandom project onto the characters or use them for their own purposes, within or without the TJLC community. That's just how fandom is. But that's certainly not *all* we were doing, and thank god for that.

#fandom meta #sherlock meta #the great divergence #series 4 #writing #narrative #sherlock feels #tjlc #analysis kink #reader response #sherlock spoilers

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randomslasher · 7 years ago

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Mmm, i completely agree that Anx is a hufflepuff... and I dont’ think anyone disagrees about Logan going in Ravenclaw. And you do make a compelling argument about Princey--but I am going to offer a different argument about it (for funsies!) Same with Patton. Roman belongs in Gryffindor. And Patton? Well, Patton’s the slytherin.

Hear me out:

Gryffindors are brave, to the point of recklessness in many cases, chivalrous, loud, and adventurous. All of these things fit Princey. That’s the obvious part of the argument.

You make the point that Princey is also ambitious--which he is. But ambition is not exclusive to Slytherin. Harry himself was plenty ambitious, as was Hermione (time turner to get to all her classes???). And the sorting hat always considers one very important thing: preference. Would Princey--valorous Princey who worries endlessly about how everyone perceives him--ever want to be sorted into a house whose students are perceived to be villainous? I would venture to say no. As far as being mean and cutting to the others--Gryffindors are not kind. They’re brave, brash, loud, sure--and some of them might be nice--but they are not known for kindness. They are known for being headstrong, bold, and adventuresome, but they will and do turn on each other when they believe they are the ones in the right. Slytherins, while definitely capable of being cutting, tend to do so on a far more subtle, nuanced level than Gryffindors. Roman is the polar opposite of subtle. But let’s get to the interesting part, because I know there have got to be some folks out there going, “Randomslasher has lost their MIND--Patton? A slytherin? Pshh!” Sit back, friends, and let me tell you why:

I am a lot like Patton. I’m a goofball. I act a bit ditzy. I am outgoing, social, friendly, and I genuinely love people. I also generally get exactly what I want from them. And, as you might have guessed from context clues, I am a Slytherin. Patton himself says it: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I believe that Patton, like me, knows exactly what he’s doing when he is non-threatening and open. He downplays his own intellect to put others at ease. He plays the fool to give others someone to patronize, so they’ll work together more efficiently (a strategy I used often at my previous job). He ensures people underestimate him, because that lets him ‘in’ a bit further, and keeps their guard down. And he uses this information to manipulate them into doing what he wants. Now. Before anyone attacks me, let me elaborate on the word ‘manipulate.’ People hear it and think ‘bad!’ but manipulate just means ‘influence.’ Patton uses his powers of persuasion for good. He works to keep them all functional as a unit, even if it means swallowing his own pride and greasing the cogs of the machine a bit with his own weaponry--emotions, perceptions, and feelings. He will also change his strategy when necessary in order to get what he wants. Whether it’s the dad-voice, the goofball, or simply keeping people off-balance with random outbursts (”Potato!” “bagels!”), he is quick on his feet, and able to adjust his approach to achieve his desired outcome. He is a lot smarter than he lets on, too--see ‘infinitesimal,’--but his area of real expertise is people. There’s a reason he’s never had a major falling out with any of the others. He knows how to keep relationships running smoothly. It also explains why he gets along so well with Anxiety. Slytherpuff friendships are legendary. I’m engaged to a Hufflepuff myself! But that’s just a theory, of course! And it does rely a lot on reading between some lines and applying some of my own experiences to the Sanders Sides, which, of course, could be subjective. Either way, debating’s fun! :D Hope you enjoyed this alternate interpretation!

Sanders Sides Hogwarts Houses???

Okay but hear me out guys…

Roman-Slytherin

Everyone thinks he’s a Gryffindor because he is brave and adventurous, the Prince!! But!! He has a massive ego, first of all. He knows what he wants and he will do what it takes to get it, no matter who is in his way. He can be a real jerk when it comes to his own needs and wants. He lets his mouth fly without a thought and it often ends up hurting people. Just look at the originality video. He is attacking the others left and right in his hunt for being original. He knows that is what he wants and when the others try to help he completely shoots them down. As well as all of his stand offish comments to Anxiety. He is very ambitious, and he will accomplish his goals… whatever it takes.

Patton-Gryffindor

Just because he is loving and sweet does not necessarily mean he is a Hufflepuff. I think he is a Gryffindor because well, he is morality. He knows what is right and wrong and he will always stand up for what is right- no matter how scary it is. He is brave enough to stand up to the others every time he needs to, even occasionally using his dad voice! He will always protect the people who need protecting, and he will always fight for what is right. Just think of Ron Weasley! He was very Hufflepuff-ish, but he was a Gryffindor because of his bravery, willingness to fight, and his protective nature. Those are all things that Patton has in massive doses!!

Logan-Still Ravenclaw obvs

I mean come on, that one’s just what he is in every single way.

Anxiety-Hufflepuff

Now here’s the kicker. I understand Anxiety is a little jerk, but that doesn’t make him a Slytherin. Not all Slytherins are evil!! (And Anxiety is not always the bad guy!!!) I think that all of that bravado is a coping mechanism to hide how much he really feels and cares. He shows it sometimes, in little ways. He is the only one who said happy birthday to Thomas in the growing up video. And in that very same video he is the only one who didn’t basically attack Patton. Everyone was being a jerk to Patton and Anxiety just looked around like “what are you doing? This isn’t right?” But he didn’t say anything because it would blow his cover… until Thomas said that they needed to acknowledge how much Patton contributes. “I was going to say that… but it was too much work.” Nice cover. I would also imagine that once you gain his trust, he is fiercely loyal. Once he decides that you are his friend, he would go to the ends of the earth for you.This shows in his protectiveness. Most of the things that he does to give Thomas anxiety are things that could potentially hurt him in someway. I think he is very sweet, thoughtful, and loving… but his own anxiety gets the better of him and he lashes out because he is afraid of being rejected. And his “I’m not always the bad guy” theme is very telling. He doesn’t want to be bad, he doesn’t want the others to see him that way. He knows that he isn’t that way, it’s just how he acts because he is afraid. And them thinking that he’s bad, well… that hurts him horribly. He is really a loving, loyal, sweet Hufflepuff….. deep down on the inside. Where it really counts.

TELL ME WHERE IM WRONG I WILL FIGHT FOR THIS

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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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Netanyahu’s Annexation Plans Meet Surprise Opponent: Israeli Settlers

JERUSALEM — Having crushed his political opponents and won a new term, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cleared a path to fulfilling his most polarizing campaign promise: annexing occupied West Bank territory, the long-held dream of right-wing Jewish settlers.

Yet with a month until he says he will apply Israeli sovereignty over large stretches of land the Palestinians have counted on for a future state, Mr. Netanyahu is suddenly facing stiff resistance, including a surprising rebellion in the ranks of the settler leaders who have been agitating for annexation for years.

Mr. Netanyahu’s plan, they argue, would open the door for a Palestinian state while ending any expansion of Israeli settlements in much of the West Bank, killing the religious-Zionist project to achieve dominion over the entire biblical homeland of the Jews.

“It’s either or,” Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand lawmaker who has led the push for annexation, said in an interview. “Either the settlements have a future, or the Palestinian state does — but not both.”

The unexpectedly fierce opposition, coupled with mixed signals from the Trump administration, is raising questions about whether Mr. Netanyahu will follow through on his annexation pledges after all.

On the left, supporters of a two-state solution have been sounding the alarm for months, saying that unilateral annexation by Israel — which would be condemned by most of the world as a violation of international law — would break its commitments to the Palestinians under prior peace agreements and destroy any hope of a conflict-ending deal.

Current and former Israeli military officials have begun to weigh in, too, warning that annexation could ignite a new wave of violence in the West Bank and force King Abdullah II of Jordan to adopt a hard-line stance against Israel, endangering the two nations’ peace treaty.

But it is the emerging opposition among settlers that potentially poses the most disruptive obstacle.

Mr. Netanyahu promised annexation in three successive election campaigns over the past year. In January, his promise won the backing of the Trump administration, whose peace plan allows Israel to keep up to 30 percent of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley as well as all existing Jewish settlements, which most of the world considers illegal.

There is pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to act swiftly. The American presidential election in November could replace Mr. Trump with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has spoken out against unilateral annexation.

That makes the next several months a window of opportunity that could slam shut, said Oded Revivi, the mayor of the Efrat settlement. “Eat it now, before the ice cream melts,” he said.

But the loudest voices in the settlements — including influential activists, mayors and community leaders — argue that Mr. Netanyahu’s vision for annexation amounts to no less than the death knell for religious Zionism.

Citing a yet-to-be published map of the annexation plan Mr. Netanyahu is drafting with the Trump administration, these critics say it leaves too many Jewish settlements as disconnected enclaves that would be barred from expanding. And they say it would further isolate them from the rest of Israel, giving the Palestinians control of roads that could turn a 35-minute commute to Jerusalem into a roundabout desert trek of two hours or more.

The result will be the evisceration of the settlements, they argue. “No one will want to live in an enclave, no one will want to build a home in an enclave and no one will be able to sell their home in an enclave,” said Yochai Damri, chairman of the South Hebron Hills Regional Council.

A minority of settlement leaders are behind Mr. Netanyahu, mainly from communities close to the Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary separating Israel from the West Bank. Many of these communities are populated not by ideological settlers but by people who moved there seeking affordable housing or a better quality of life.

They say that Israeli sovereignty will remove a question mark that has always loomed over their homes.

“It’s an acknowledgment that the places we are living in are part of Israel for eternity,” said Nir Bartal, mayor of Oranit. “There have been several decades of people talking about evacuation. We are now saying we are here to stay.”

Mr. Netanyahu only began pushing annexation last year as a way to shore up right-wing support during three hard-fought re-election contests against Benny Gantz, a centrist former army chief who campaigned on a promise to oppose any unilateral moves.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s continued push to expand Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, even when he is on trial for corruption, has led to speculation that he wants to cement his legacy. Annexing the Jordan Valley, on the eastern edge of the West Bank abutting Jordan, would give Israel a permanent eastern border for the first time. In his coalition agreement for a unity government with Mr. Gantz, Mr. Netanyahu won the right to proceed with annexation as soon as July 1.

The Trump administration’s peace plan envisions Israel retaining control over the Jordan Valley and existing settlements in the West Bank while allowing the Palestinians to work toward some form of limited sovereignty elsewhere. But the Palestinians could only achieve that provided they disarm Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, accept overriding Israeli security control, recognize Israel as a Jewish state, give up on the goal of having a capital in East Jerusalem and agree to a range of other conditions few believe they would ever accept.

Some annexation proponents argue that those conditions preclude the possibility of a Palestinian state, so settlers should not fear the Trump plan. Mr. Revivi, for one, said he did not believe the Palestinians would turn “from wolves into sheep.” Still, he said he hoped they would meet the American conditions for statehood, “because I want to see a better reality.”

But Mr. Smotrich and his fellow hard-liners believe that a new administration in America could abandon those requirements.

“Very quickly, all those conditions will be forgotten,” Mr. Smotrich said. “You will quickly lose control, and what will basically happen is a state like Gaza will be established.”

The American ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, has sought to assuage fears of a “terrorist state” emerging on the West Bank, telling an Israeli newspaper last month that Israel would only have to contend with a Palestinian state “when the Palestinians become Canadians.”

The debate on the Israeli right boils down to whether Mr. Netanyahu’s push to apply sovereignty on the West Bank is a ploy to get settlers to agree to a Palestinian state, or whether the Trump peace plan is a ploy to get supporters of a two-state solution to go along with Israeli annexation.

Fueling both sides of the argument is a perceived rift within the Trump administration’s Middle East team, which has sent conflicting signals since January, when Mr. Friedman encouraged immediate annexation, only to be countermanded by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who slowed things down by requiring that an Israeli-American mapping committee first agree on the contours.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also appeared to be pumping the brakes on annexation during a brief visit to Israel last month.

Mr. Smotrich said settlers believed the administration was divided into two camps: One, led by Mr. Friedman, is made up of people who “really don’t want to establish a Palestinian state, and they want a good map for Israel.” The other is led by Mr. Kushner, who appears more invested in the Trump peace plan, having led its development and worked hard to win support for it within the Arab world.

Mr. Smotrich said he would prefer the status quo over a plan that even contemplates allowing for a Palestinian state at the expense of expanding Jewish settlements.

“I don’t want shortcuts that harm my ability to put facts on the ground and that weaken the settlements,” he said. “If the sovereignty map is favorable, I will accept it with open arms. If not, I prefer to go without it. I will persevere, work hard, set up settlements and fight with the Palestinians for another 20 years.

“And in 20 years,” he continued, “the American government will give me sovereignty over all of the territory, because there will be settlements on all of the territory.”

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dcgmentor · 5 years ago

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There hasn’t been much good to come out of the Coronavirus Pandemic. But it has led me to catch up on a lot of reading. Two books I read, David Epstein’s RANGE, and Ezra Klein’s WHY WE’RE PARTISAN, hit me like a ton of bricks. Together, they explained to me… and I hope now to you… the connection between how we think, and how we are manipulated by media, into the extreme partisanship faced by modern America. The problem is, I am not sure we can get out of it. As Klein says, “Absent an external unifying force [Covid?] like a war, the divisions – or worse- that we see today will prove to be the norm, while the depolarized politics of mid 20th century America will prove the exception. And if we can’t reverse polarization… then the path forward is clear: we need to reform the political system so it can function amid polarization. I’ll leave it to younger folk to figure that out.

James Flynn, a New Zealand professor of political studies showed successful adaptors drew on outside experiences and analogies to INTERUPT their inclinations to follow the same old patterns, the skill is TO AVOID those patterns. Detailed prior knowledge is less important than a way of thinking. A little training in broad thinking strategies can go a long way in calling BS.

Learning what is both durable and flexible is neither easy, nor fast. Strategies must be more long term and have “desirable difficulty”, not “desirable ease”. For example: To discuss something to come to an agreement or compromise is more difficult and takes longer then to win (or lose) a debate. Yet it trains us to think to come to solutions far better. Frustration is not a sign you are not learning. Ease is.

John Dewey said, “A problem well put is half solved.” The best problem solvers are more able to determine the deep structure of the problem BEFORE they MATCH a strategy to it. Less successful ones are more apt to classify problems superficially using overly stated features. Sound familiar?

Faced with unexpected findings, rather than assuming what they knew, or thought was correct, students should be taught that the unexpected becomes the opportunity to explore alternatives with analogies serving as the guides. We need to foster more “OUTSIDE IN THINKING” where one finds solutions in experiences far outside of the focused training for the problem itself. Imagine applied not just to STEM, but to politics and civic thinking!

What we have in America is a society made up of far too many HEDGEHOGS, those who are deep but narrow expertsand know, or think they know one big thing well. They “toil devotedly and reach for formulaic solutions to ill-defined problems.” We can apply this to partisans on both sides of the political aisle.

Hedgehogs perform especially poorly on long term predictions in their OWN domain. They get worse as they accumulated credentials and experience in their own field. They rely on more an entrenched single big idea about how the world works, even in the face of contrary facts, as they amass information of their mental representation of the world. Unfortunately, they are often who we see in TV and the Media…and mislead the public who “believe.” But they make great TV!

What we need to have more of in America are FOXES, those who range outside a single discipline or theory and embody breadth. They “know many little things… draw from an eclectic array and accept ambiguity and contradiction.” Thus, they are able to see all sides of a political argument and come up with a more creative solution.

Yale professor Dan Kahan has shown that the better Hedgehogs are in finding evidence of their convictions, the more time they spend looking, and the more hedgehog like they become. He found that curiosity, not knowledge was the key to looking at new evidence, whether or not it agreed with current beliefs.

The curious, like a fox, roam freely, listen carefully, and consume omnivorously. Foxes see complexity, not black and white. They know relationships are problematic, not deterministic. They know luck and unknowns are involved. When an outlook takes them by surprise, they adjust their idea. Hedgehogs barely budge or worse yet, become more convinced of their original beliefs that led them astray.

Foxier people with wide ranging interests and reading habits but no particular relevant background, do far better in these processes. It was found that they beat experienced hedgehog Intelligence analysts with access to classified data by margins that remain unclassified. In the face of uncertainty, individual breadth was critical. Narrow experts “have blinders on them.” Foxes are also particularly better collaborators. The believe their own ideas are hypotheses in need of testing. Their aim is to encourage their teammates to poke holes in their ideas to move forward.

THE CHALLENGER SCREW UP:

On January 28, 1986, NASA had the right data to delay the launch Challenger and prevent the “O” rings that led to the explosion from getting cold, hardening the rubber, and not expanding correctly. They relied on the Hedgehogs’ quantitative analysis too much and not a few Foxes’ qualitative, more subjective, observations.

To make this brief. The hedgehogs at NASA “sorta” knew that launching below 53 degrees was not a good idea, but couldn’t prove it quantitatively. “Unable to quantify; supportive data was subjective” was their refrain over and over. They were fervent believers of, “In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data”.

There were subjective data. There were several examinations of photographs of launches at 53 degrees that showed jet black soot, evidence of O ring hardening. That quantitative assessment was ignored. They barely budged. They regressed under pressure to what they knew best, familiar procedures. With Challenger, they were outside their usual bounds. When you don’t have the data, you have to use reason. They needed to “improvise” like a fox rather than throw out information that didn’t fit the established rubric. We saw the result on TV.

In investigating the Columbia NASA accident, it was found that “allegiance to hierarchy and procedure has once again led to disaster.” Like a Medieval guild, NASA created conservatism and stifled innovation.

So, when entire specialties grow up around a devotion to a particular tool, process, or procedure, the result often is a disastrous myopia. This happens often in medicine. For example, repeatedly randomized clinical trials that compared stents with more conservative forms of treatment for stable chest pain prevent 0 heart attacks and extend patient life for 0 years. In addition, 1/50 patients will suffer serious consequences or die as a result. The same is true of meniscus surgeries.

We now see it as millions of us grow up politically on FOX or CNN.

One big problem in education (especially higher) is our propensity to have courses with a huge amount of very detailed, arcane, specialized stuff often forgotten in a few weeks, so we have people walking around with information stuffed in their head or found in research but without the training in thinking , reasoning, and drawing conclusions using a number or incongruent sources, therefore missing systemic issues. Let’s see where this has led us.

All politics is influenced by identity. Our fights over group identity and status express themselves in debates about power and policy. Ove the past 50 years our partisan hedgehog identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities…thus tearing the bonds that hold this country together.

This wasn’t always the case. We were once more fox like in our gathering of political information. For example, in the 1950s voting for a Liberal Democrat like Hubert Humphry or a Jack Kennedy for seats in the US Senate also got you a majority that included segregationist conservatives like Strom Thurmond. Republican Nixon created the EPA and proposed both a basic minimum income and a national healthcare program more ambitious than Obamacare. In 1965 Medicare received 70 Republican votes in the House and 13 in the Senate. No Republican voted for Obamacare.

Did you know that once upon a time (in 1989 and 1991) both the conservative Heritage Foundation and conservative economist Milton Friedman wanted either “assured affordable health care for all Americans” or “a requirement that every US family unit have a major medical insurance policy’? What happened?

Look and decide. In 1980 voters gave their own party a 72 rating on a “feelings” thermometer. However, they also gave the other party a 45. By 2016 that feeling about the opposite party was down to 29 while feelings about their own party also fell to 65. Party affiliation fell, from 80% to 63%, thus increasing the % of those who self-identified as independent. A 2106 Pew poll found that these independents who then tended to vote for one party over another (even though not officially affiliated) did so BECAUSE OF NEGATIVE MOTIVATIONS against the “other party”, whose policies they said were “bad” for the country. This NEGATIVE PARTISANSHIP is the political landscape we now live in.

It doesn’t take much to see that. Go to Facebook. Count the number of anti-other side posts and comments vs pro their side? I see it daily. As the parties have grown more different, we have grown more negatively partisan. We have become more like hedgehogs.

Let’s look at a couple of hot issues. In 1994 39% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans said discrimination was the main reason African Americans could not get ahead. In 2017, 64% of Democrats believed it and only 14% of Republicans. Similarly, in 1994 32% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans said immigrants strengthened the country. In 2017, 84% of Democrats believed it and only 42% of Republicans. In 1994, 63% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats felt poor people had it easy because they could get government help without doing anything in return. By 2017 65% of republicans still felt that way but ONLY 18% of Democrats.

The average partisan gap on all issues grew from 15 percentage points to 36. {note. The 1994 numbers can explain a lot of Democrat Bill Clinton’s turn to more conservative policies regarding welfare reform and criminal punishments.}

A 2015 paper by Patrick Miller and Pamela Johnston Conover entitled “Red and Blue States of Mind” noted that “the behavior of partisans from both parties resembles that of sports team members acting to preserve the status of their [respective] teams rather than thoughtful citizens participating in the political process for the broader good.” Election results accentuate the team mentality pushing them to make further “US v them” comparisons that draw attention to the STATUS lost by losing… thus increasing anger and rivalry. They become “fired up team members on a mission to defeat the other team.” My hedgehog is better than your hedgehog.

Another big indicator worth noting of how very wrong things are is a 2016 Pew survey. Among Republicans “moving from a ‘mostly unfavorable’ to a ‘very unfavorable’ view of the Democrats increased the likelihood of voting 12 points and the number contributing money went up 11 points. By contrast, developing a deeper affection for the Republican party only raised that 6 points. For donations it was only 3 points.

For Democrats is was similar. “moving from a ‘mostly unfavorable’ to a ‘very unfavorable’ view of Republicans increased the likelihood of voting by 11 points, while a more favorable view of their own party did zippo to raise potential voter numbers.

The lesson learned by pols? Anger gets more support than love.

Now add to all that the connection between identity and politics. “Partisanship can now be thought of as a Mega identity with all the psychological and behavioral magnifications that implies. Living as segregated as we are by zip code and social media accounts also has blown our rage up exponentially. We live breath and chat mostly with those who agree with us. Our tribal instincts protect us from the foe. Americas political geography (demographically and culturally), have determined voting results. Our “hedgehogian fact finding” has only made that worse.

HOW DOES THE LACK OF RANGE AFFECT PARTISANSHIP?

Who are rallying the tribes? Media. The media have become “tribal leaders”. They tell each tribe how to identify and behave and the tribes follow (and retweet.) Most of us act as part of groups and are also hedgehogs. Once group loyalties and therefore group think have been established, Jonathan Haidt says, you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments.

“Thinking is mostly just rationalization, mostly just search for supporting evidence.” Psychologists call that “motivated reasoning.” Some look to CNN, some to FOX. When Laura Ingraham or Tucker Carlson, for example say, “it does seem like the America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore”, it motivates that tribe. The simplest way to activate them is to tell them their identity is threatened. It is radicalizing. When Rachel Maddow says, “the biggest divide in this country is… between people who care and people who don’t care, it is radicalizing.

Most people follow media news as a hobby the way they follow their local sports teams. They can usually only tell you everything about “their” players but nada about others. They follow CNN like YES, or FOX like WGN. News media is primarily for those interested in it, and especially in the “stars” of the shows and their strengths as “players” in the field of news. Those “players” seek higher ratings and more fame as their corporate owners want more spectators in their seats and therefore higher profits.

{Historical note: We have actually reverted back to the 18th and 19th century media circuses when most media (print obviously) was explicitly partisan. For example, “in 1870, 54% of metropolitan dailies were affiliated with the Republican Party, 33% were Democratic, and ONLY 13% claimed independence!}

So, to gain fame and profit, media teams have changed the old adage, “If it bleeds, it leads” to “if it outrages, it leads.”

Again, just like sports fans, media fans are invested in their side winning and the other losing. It has become a matter or group pride and status. The interesting thing here is that those following the two “teams” are more alike than different. The animosity far outweighs the differences. They ae similarly predominantly white, middle class, heterosexual, middle aged, and nonevangelical Christian.

The issue is that they perceive each other as radically different. “Democrats believed:

44% of Republicans earned over $250,000. It is 2%.

40% of Republicans were seniors. It is 20%.

Republicans believed:

38% of Democrats were gay, lesbian, or bisexual. It is 6%.

46% of Democrats were black. It is 24%.

44% of Democrats belonged to unions. It is 11%.

And the more they consumed their “teams” media, the more their “understanding of the other side was WRONG! If you saw Will Farrell in “Anchorman” you saw a satirical look at what has become reality. He says. “What if, instead of telling people the things they need to know, we tell them what they want to know?”

This has not only been true in Cable News, it skyrocketed in the Social Media arenas. You Tube, Twitter, Facebook all disseminate and recommend videos or tweets or posts in a manner that ups the stakes through “enragement engagement”.

Once again, the hedgehogs win. If you thought by introducing the other sides thoughts changes minds… you’d be wrong. In 2017 this was put to a test using 1,220 Twitter users. After a month’s long exposure to popular authoritative voices from the other side the result was INCREASED polarization.

So, what is neutrally newsworthy? An election one would think. The news media, instead of reporting political news has become the biggest actor in creating it. In practice, newsworthiness became some combination of new, important, outrageous, conflict oriented, secret, or interesting…. mostly outrageous or conflict oriented.

Here are some examples that many say led to a Triumphant Trump in November of 2016.

May1, 2015-April 30, 2016: Trump’s median share of ALL cable news mentions was 52%…with 17 Republican candidates and even with the Clinton – Sanders thing going on.

August 24- Sept 4, 2015 he received 78% of all coverage on … wait for it… CNN!

By November of 2015 he had received more “evening news” coverage on the major networks than anyone – 234 minutes. Ted Cruz? 7 minutes.

A shortcut for the determination of newsworthiness became social media virality. If people were talking about something already through social media, it was “already newsworthy” whether it was true or false. Add to that the narrowing point of view by the algorithms created by those platforms and you have even more entrenched polarization.

As a result, we have flipped from a democracy that put forth candidates for office who were broadly appealing to those who adored by base voters…exacerbating group identity conflict and Twitter wars, Facebook fights, and a political scene that is reminiscent of World War One trench warfare

The hedgehogs cannot get out of their own trenches, even if they wanted to.

What we need far more of is creative thinkers. Our society suffers from too many patterns that inhibit creative thinking. Unfortunately, the traits that earn higher grades in American schools do NOT include critical ability of any broad significance. Schools and universities simply do NOT maximize potential for applying conceptual thinking across disciplines. We must be able to get students to think outside of the box…and that will include how they see politics. They need to be able to…

OUTFOX THE HEDGEHOGS.

FOXES, HEDGEHOGS, MEDIA, AND PARTISANSHIP There hasn't been much good to come out of the Coronavirus Pandemic. But it has led me to catch up on a lot of reading.

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): In early February, Democrats Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled the “Green New Deal,” an ambitious 14-page manifesto that outlines a number of different proposals to tackle climate change.

It wants to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create millions of jobs. It’s not just a plan to save the environment; it’s also an economic vision, focused on social justice. And depending on which side of the political aisle you sit, it’s either been touted as absurd or as a way forward.

Democratic 2020 contenders are busy taking positions on it –- even if they’re wary of it — so it’s safe to say it’ll keep cropping up, even if it’s as fodder for Republicans trying to paint Democrats as having moved too far to the left.

So is this bad politics for Democrats? Good politics? What do we make of the Green New Deal? And where do we think the conversation goes in 2020?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The Green New Deal is neither green, nor new, nor a deal. Actually, I take that back. It’s certainly green and it’s certainly new, in the sense that it represents a pretty big pivot in strategy from what Democrats had been trying previously.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, we should also clarify that the plan doesn’t lay out policy specifics. So … people are kinda just taking stances on the ultimate goals it outlines.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): The video of school children confronting Sen. Dianne Feinstein about the Green New Deal, and the reaction to it, was super interesting. It showed how divided Democrats are on policy, but also how divided they are by ideology, age and tactics.

It reminded me of when speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, another longtime congressional Democrat, referred to the Green New Deal as the “green dream,” and also dismissed younger members of the party.

sarahf: Philip Bump at the Washington Post had an article about how younger Americans are more likely to view climate change as “very serious” problem compared to older generations, which might help explain why Sen. Feinsten, who has been in Congress for more than thirty years, didn’t see eye-to-eye with the students asking her to support the Green New Deal — some of what we’re seeing is a generation gap.

natesilver: Well, it’s young people who are going to have to live with the mess.

maggiekb (Maggie Koerth-Baker, senior science writer): Although you can’t count on that to be a trend where the next generation just cares more forever. One researcher I talked to looked at whether age cohorts are a factor that determines support for environmental policies. He found that political ideology and economics mattered more — meaning if there’s a recession and people are feeling economically insecure, that can trump support for environmental policies.

perry: Interesting. I wonder if younger Democrats are more liberal overall, and we are capturing that effect on this issue but would see it on other issues as well.

natesilver: But maybe young people are more liberal in part because of climate change?

maggiekb: Ehhh, that’s not what the social research suggests, Nate. For instance, there’s a study from Australia that found support for climate change follows FROM your political identity and who you voted for. Not the other way around.

natesilver: It seems like the Green New Deal raises two major tactical questions:

1) Incrementalism vs. swinging for the fences.

2) Separating climate change from other issues vs. lumping them together.

sarahf: In regards to your first point, Nate … why not swing for the fences? I’m thinking of Maggie’s piece on the Green New Deal where she pointed out that an incremental approach hasn’t exactly gotten Democrats the environmental change they wanted.

perry: I don’t know, Sarah. Other political movements have happened incrementally and have experienced success. I’m thinking of the civil rights movement, and various health care programs (Medicare, Medicaid, and, of course, the Affordable Care Act). So I see merits in a more incremental approach.

It’s not clear, at least to me, that incrementalism has failed on this issue — maybe it’s just taking too long and there is not enough time.

maggiekb: Yeah, that’s the really big question, Perry. Incrementalism can work. But can it work fast enough?

natesilver: And obviously a lot of scientists feel that unless action is taken immediately, the problem is going to become exponentially worse. The U.S. has somewhat curbed its CO2 emissions, right?

maggiekb: Yes. But the biggest drops coincided with the recession and have tapered off since 2015.

sarahf: But what do we make of the intentional choice to package it as the “Green New Deal.” Was it smart of Democrats to explicitly evoke President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal? Or a bridge too far?

maggiekb: Is it namby-pamby waffling on my part to say that’s probably really going to depend on what you thought about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats to begin with?

sarahf: Yes, Maggie

clare.malone: It’s better than “socialism” if you’re looking to sell it to a wide swath of Americans.

perry: Making climate change part of a big comprehensive proposal helped me connect it to other issues. It isn’t just an environmental issue — it’s something that requires a “New Deal.” I thought connecting climate change to a broader policy agenda was smart.

clare.malone: In general, I think the Democratic Party calling back to the era of FDR isn’t too controversial. He’s sort of seen as generally “good” through the mists of history.

maggiekb: I was surprised to talk to an environmental scientist and some science policy people who thought the branding WAS an overreach. I had expected them to be more on the “YEAH LET’S GET THIS DONE HOO-AH” side of things. And, instead, they were criticizing it for trying to tie itself to issues that had lot stronger levels of unified public opinion.

perry: The way Pelosi and Feinstein have reacted is significant. They seem to think this broader packaging is bad — and they are not against climate change legislation.

natesilver: Swinging for the fences is good, in large part because that’s maybe just what this particular issue necessitates. But I’m much more uncertain about whether linking it to a broader leftist economic policy is good politics.

sarahf: I guess I thought it was a weird branding choice for Democrats to evoke the New Deal, because it opens them up to criticism from the right. I’d argue Republicans blame FDR for creating much of America’s current social safety net, but then again, maybe I’m conflating too much with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society policies.

natesilver: For years, one of the Republican critiques of efforts to ameliorate climate change was that it was just sort of a liberal excuse to implement left-wing economic policies. Now, you have a framework that explicitly ties those things together. So it’s a big shift. And maybe it’s smart — you can make some arguments for it, certainly. But it’s a big shift.

maggiekb: So here’s the thing, though. Given the way carbon emissions and fossil fuel use is embedded in everything we do, it might be pretty wishful thinking to imagine that you can keep the role of government and the exact business-as-usual business world the same while actually making big cuts to carbon emissions.

And this creates a political stalemate. Because telling conservatives that we have to gravitate to a political/economic system they oppose in order to address the full scope of the problem is a tough sell.

perry: But if you think that politics is fairly polarized, and Republicans will oppose a Democratic-backed climate policy no matter what (and that’s basically what I think), then liberal policy activists’ goal should be to make the issue more salient among Democrats. And so, what we have with the New Green Deal is a useful litmus test for environmental activists to apply to candidates. Asking whether a politician supports the Green New Deal serves as a proxy to basically asking, “How committed are you to fighting climate change?”

natesilver: But some versions of the Green New Deal implement, for instance, universal health care. Others don’t because the Green New Deal is really more of a sort of … framework or rubric or rhetorical device than a concrete set of policy positions, and indeed, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats have sometimes been a little shady when people have tried to pin them down on exactly what the Green New Deal would do.

sarahf: Regarding Perry’s point about it being a useful litmus test, I think that’s right. And maybe because the environment isn’t the most important issue to Democratic voters (Gallup found it ranked fifth among voters behind health care and wealth inequality before the 2018 midterms), it does actually make a certain amount of sense to broaden the scope of the Green New Deal so it just isn’t about the environment.

natesilver: Couldn’t you argue the opposite? That if the environment isn’t a high salience issue, the last thing you want to do is to bury it in with a bunch of other stuff?

Instead, you want to raise the profile of global warming relative to other issues, arguably.

maggiekb: I’m not convinced you could do that, Nate. I mean, humans are more motivated by immediate things affecting us than big picture risks in the far-off future. How do you convince people to raise the profile of global warming relative to, like, whether they’re going bankrupt from medical bills right now?

Here’s a question for the political side: To my understanding, the Green New Deal is pretty clearly written as (and meant as) a rallying cry, “This is what we care about. Let’s move the ‘Overton Window’ kind of stuff.” So why are people treating it like it is (or was meant to be) a detailed policy proposal? It feels like going to an auto show to see “Car of the Future” designs, and then being pissed that you’re not looking at a 2017 Taurus.

clare.malone: That’s an interesting question. And I think it has a lot to do with the presidential campaign. Democratic candidates want to be able to point out that they’re on board with the new left-leaning litmus tests without having to get pinned down by policies that might prove controversial. I think that’s a learned behavior from the 2016 campaign: people don’t vote on detailed policy proposals, they vote on the good feelings evoked by broad goals.

natesilver: I’m wary of drawing too many lessons from 2016, And I’d think the architects of the Green New Deal might be, too.

clare.malone: Who, Nate, are the architects?

natesilver: The — I fucking hate this phrase — thought-leader types. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly qualifies there. Sean McElwee.

clare.malone: Ok, and you’re saying they don’t think incrementalism works? Because of Obama’s legacy?

natesilver: I don’t think of most of those people as being anti-Obama. In fact, the relatively few anti-Obama Democrats seem to march in somewhat different circles. But I do think there’s an implicit critique of Obama in there. That he was naive to think the Republicans would go along with his agenda. And that taking half-measures doesn’t really get you anywhere. In fact, it might weaken your bargaining position relative to demanding a ***lot*** and then settling for half of what you get.

The thing that’s a little hard is that all of this is guesswork. My guess is that GND activists are right (politically) about the Overton Window stuff — wanting big, bold sweeping initiatives instead of incrementalism. But that they’re wrong (politically) about the strategy of lumping environmental policy along with a grab bag of other left-ish policy positions, instead of being more targeted. But I have no idea. It’s just my priors, and they’re fairly weak priors.

maggiekb: Do you see much of a political future for incrementalism, though? I mean, hypothetically, it can work. It’s worked on other issues. Realistically, we’ve seen a lot of attempts to do this that couldn’t pull bipartisan support necessary to get enacted, either. I mean, what is a candidate like Biden going to propose that COULD actually get through congress?

natesilver: I mean, it seems like we haven’t discussed the Most Important Thing yet.

The Most Important Thing is that *any* policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions are going to face huge challenges because the U.S. Senate dramatically inflates the power of rural states.

sarahf: This is a fair point, but I think some rural *coastal* states are more hip to climate change that we give them credit for:

clare.malone: All Democrats have to do is win the Senate then, right? That’s pretty easy.

perry: It will be worth studying at some point how much climate change policy you can do via the Senate’s reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes. And this also ties into the progressive push to get 2020 candidates to support ending the filibuster.

natesilver: I actually think one of the better arguments for swinging for the fences in terms of the GND is that because the Senate is so resistant to change, you need some kind of paradigm shift.

A paradigm shift where even action that seems incremental is actually quite bold, just because the goalposts have shifted so much.

clare.malone: Do we think the paradigm shift comes through just political wangling/rhetoric like the GND? Or is something else needed too?

natesilver: I think the shift would just be a generational one. There’s a *lot* of evidence that people under about age 40 are willing to consider left-wing worldviews that a previous generation might have considered too radical.People under age 40 have also lived with two really unpopular Republican presidents, Bush and Trump (along with one semi-popular Democratic one). So I think there’s a decent chance that policy in the U.S. shifts significantly to the left as those young people grow older and gain influence and power.

sarahf: I don’t necessarily disagree, but I think part of what will limit the GND’s appeal is how easily you can dismiss it as a socialist overreach.You’re already seeing Republicans do this and I think that’s only going to be ramped up here leading into 2020

sarahf: It sounds as if, we’re on the fence for whether or not the GND will be good politics for Democrats?

natesilver: I’m not on the fence so much as I just have no f’ing clue. I guess the heuristic is “what we tried before didn’t work, so let’s try something new”, which I suppose on some level I agree with.

maggiekb: I second Nate’s take-away. With the addendum that I’m sort of skeptical incrementalism is going to do much better. So, what the hell?

natesilver: That’s an interesting argument, Maggie. Like, maybe the GND isn’t any more likely to succeed than incrementalism, but when it *does* succeed, there’s a much bigger payoff.

maggiekb: LEEROY JENKINS, basically.

natesilver: That even goes a little bit to whether you think climate change is a linear or nonlinear problem. If you think we’re all fucked unless there’s a massive paradigm shift, then you take whatever chance of a paradigm shift you can get, even if you also risk a backlash. If you think climate change harms are more adaptable and/or uncertain and/or solvable by technology and/or with international agreement, maybe you want a more incremental approach.

But I do think the particulars of climate change a problem are relevant here. The GND shouldn’t be taken as a stand-in for the overall debate about incrementalism vs. the big swing. You could very easily think that an incremental approach works for health care but is a disaster for the environment, for instance.

But then again, the fact that the GND lumps the environment together with so many other issues is complicated. Arguably it undermines the messaging that climate change is a *uniquely* urgent issue that requires uniquely bold solutions. Of course, the GND advocates might say that uniquely bold solutions necessitate a change from capitalism to a more mixed economy.

I’ve basically just typed out a whole American Chopper meme, so going to shut up now and revert back to “I have no fucking clue.”

maggiekb: When we’ve linked to Know Your Meme twice in 5 minutes, it’s time to go home.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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stopkingobama · 7 years ago

Text

Here's why you should hug a Klansman

youtube

“How can people hate me, when they don’t even know me?”

This is the question that drives the subject of a fantastic new documentary on Netflix called “Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race, and America,” directed by Matt Ornstein.

For the past 30 years, soul musician Daryl Davis has been traveling the country in search of an answer in the most dangerous way possible for a black man in America: by directly engaging with members the Ku Klux Klan.

He’s invited KKK members into his home, he’s had countless conversations, and as unlikely as it seems, now considers a number of them to be his friends.

Daryl might say that he’s not really even doing anything special besides treating his enemies with respect and kindness in the hopes of actually dissuading them from their hateful views.

Yet, that’s something almost no one else has the courage to do, even when the risks are considerably lower.

Disagreements are stressful and difficult, and the more horrifying someone else’s viewpoint is, the easier it is to dismiss the people who hold those beliefs as inhuman garbage who simply can’t be reasoned with. Social media has also made dehumanizing people considerably easier, as we all get to interact with people from around the world without ever seeing their faces or considering their feelings.

As a result, we live in an increasingly polarized time when a lot of people are saying that the only answer to hate and awful ideas is to meet them with even more hate, more anger, outrage, and even violence.

And it’s not just a problem when dealing with the worst ideas in human history like racial supremacy and fascism. Some people now take this approach for even trivial and academic disagreements.

Don’t like a speaker coming to campus? Silence them and prevent them from getting into the auditorium.

Don’t like what a Facebook friend has to say? Block them.

And of course, if you think someone you meet is a white supremacist or a neo-Nazi, the only thing left to do is punch them in the face.

Punching Doesn’t Work

But consider that most of human history is filled with people allowing their disagreements to turn into bloody, horrific warfare; it’s only our commitment to dealing with our adversaries peacefully through speech and conversation that has allowed us to become more civilized. So escalating conflicts into violence should be seen as the worst kind of social failure.

And besides, punching people who disagree with you doesn’t actually change their minds or anyone else’s, so we’re still left with the same deceptively difficult question before and after:

When people believe in wrongheaded or terrible things, how do we actually persuade them to stop believing the bad ideas, and get them to start believing in good ones instead?

Judging by social media, most people seem to believe that it’s possible to yell at people or insult and ridicule them until they change their minds. Unfortunately, as cathartic as it feels to let out your anger against awful people, this just isn’t an effective strategy to reduce the amount of people who hold awful ideas.

In fact, if you do this, your opponents (and even more people who are somewhat sympathetic to their views, or just see themselves as part of the same social group) might actually walk away even more strongly committed to their bad ideas than they were before.

The evidence from psychology is pretty clear on this.

We know from studies conducted by neuroscientists like Joseph LeDoux that people’s amygdalas — the part of the brain that processes raw emotions — can actually bypass their rational minds and create a fight-or-flight response when they feel threatened or attacked. Psychologist Daniel Goleman called this an “Amygdala Hijack,” and it doesn’t just apply to physical threats.

People’s entire personal identity is often wrapped up in their political or philosophical beliefs, and a strong verbal attack against those beliefs actually creates a response in the brain of the target similar to a menacing lunge.

Even presenting facts or arguments that directly conflict with people’s core beliefs or identities can actually cause people to cling to those beliefs more tightly after they’ve been presented with contrary evidence. Political scientists like Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler have been studying this phenomenon for over 10 years and call it the “Backfire Effect“.

And when the people whose minds we desperately need to change are racists and fascists (or socialists and communists, for that matter), a strategy that actually backfires and pushes more people towards those beliefs is the last thing we need.

Principles of Persuasion

The good news is that in addition to knowing what doesn’t work, we also know a lot about how to talk to people in ways that are actually persuasive — and the existing research strongly supports Daryl Davis’ approach.

In the psychologist Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, he describes what he calls the “Principles of Persuasion.”

One of these principles is called “reciprocity”, and it’s based on the idea that people feel obliged to treat you the way you treat them. So, if you treat them with kindness and humility, most people will offer you the same courtesy. On the other hand, if you treat them with contempt, well…..

Another principle Cialdini describes is the idea of “liking”.

It’s almost too obvious, but it turns out that if someone likes you personally and believes that you like them, it’s easier to convince them that your way of thinking is worth considering. One easy step towards being liked is to listen to others and find common ground through shared interests. This can be a bridge — or a shortcut — to getting other people to see you as a friend or part of their tribe.

You might think somebody like Daryl Davis would have nothing in common with a KKK member, but according to Daryl, if you “spend 5 minutes talking to someone and you’ll find something in common,” and if you “spend 10 minutes, and you’ll find something else in common.”

In the film, he connects with several people about music, and you can see these connections paying off — breaking down barriers and providing many Klan members with a rare (and in some cases only) opportunity to interact with a black man as a human being worth respecting instead of an enemy.

Even better, over time, forming these relationships has had an interesting side-effect.

In the last couple decades alone, over 200 of America’s most ardent white supremacists have left the Ku Klux Klan and hung up their robes and hoods for good.

Many of those robes now hang in Daryl’s closet.

And in a lot of cases, these individual conversions have much bigger consequences and end multi-generational cycles of bigotry. When a mother or a father leaves the darkness of the Klan, they’re also bringing their kids into the light with them. A few of these cases are profiled in “Accidental Courtesy”, and they’re indescribably moving.

Daryl Davis can be a model for how to change people’s minds and with everything that’s going on in the world today, we need successful models now more than ever.

Making Friends From Enemies

There’s another point to all of this that I think often goes unsaid.

Unlike Daryl, most of us aren’t actually interacting with KKK members or trying to change people’s minds away from truly evil ideologies, and yet we all fall to the temptation of yelling and name-calling, and using all those techniques of influence that have the opposite of our intended or desired effect.

It’s easy to allow outrage and emotion carry us off into treating other people as inhuman enemies to be crushed rather than human beings to be persuaded.

But if Daryl’s techniques can work to convince die-hard white supremacists that a black man — and perhaps eventually all black people — are worthy of respect, imagine how effective they can be when disagreements crop up with your friends, neighbors, and co-workers who don’t actually hate you or the things you stand for.

Who knows, if you have more genuine conversations with people outside your bubble, you might even find yourself changing a little bit for the better as well.

“Accidental Courtesy” teaches us that the way to deal with wrong or evil ideas isn’t shouting them down or starting a fight; it’s having the courage to do what Daryl did and making a friend out of an enemy.

Sean Malone

Sean Malone is the Director of Media at FEE. His films have been featured in the mainstream media and throughout the free-market educational community.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

#Daryl Davis #Video

0 notes

americanlibertypac · 7 years ago

Text

Here's why you should hug a Klansman

youtube

“How can people hate me, when they don’t even know me?”

This is the question that drives the subject of a fantastic new documentary on Netflix called “Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race, and America,” directed by Matt Ornstein.

He’s invited KKK members into his home, he’s had countless conversations, and as unlikely as it seems, now considers a number of them to be his friends.

Daryl might say that he’s not really even doing anything special besides treating his enemies with respect and kindness in the hopes of actually dissuading them from their hateful views.

Yet, that’s something almost no one else has the courage to do, even when the risks are considerably lower.

And it’s not just a problem when dealing with the worst ideas in human history like racial supremacy and fascism. Some people now take this approach for even trivial and academic disagreements.

Don’t like a speaker coming to campus? Silence them and prevent them from getting into the auditorium.

Don’t like what a Facebook friend has to say? Block them.

And of course, if you think someone you meet is a white supremacist or a neo-Nazi, the only thing left to do is punch them in the face.

Punching Doesn’t Work

And besides, punching people who disagree with you doesn’t actually change their minds or anyone else’s, so we’re still left with the same deceptively difficult question before and after:

When people believe in wrongheaded or terrible things, how do we actually persuade them to stop believing the bad ideas, and get them to start believing in good ones instead?

The evidence from psychology is pretty clear on this.

Principles of Persuasion

In the psychologist Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, he describes what he calls the “Principles of Persuasion.”

Another principle Cialdini describes is the idea of “liking”.

Even better, over time, forming these relationships has had an interesting side-effect.

In the last couple decades alone, over 200 of America’s most ardent white supremacists have left the Ku Klux Klan and hung up their robes and hoods for good.

Many of those robes now hang in Daryl’s closet.

Daryl Davis can be a model for how to change people’s minds and with everything that’s going on in the world today, we need successful models now more than ever.

Making Friends From Enemies

There’s another point to all of this that I think often goes unsaid.

It’s easy to allow outrage and emotion carry us off into treating other people as inhuman enemies to be crushed rather than human beings to be persuaded.

Who knows, if you have more genuine conversations with people outside your bubble, you might even find yourself changing a little bit for the better as well.

Sean Malone

Sean Malone is the Director of Media at FEE. His films have been featured in the mainstream media and throughout the free-market educational community.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

#Daryl Davis #Video

0 notes