#it’s also very much a criticism of modern day entitlement from the mass media of both ’official media’ fans and haters

[fan-dweeb]

I put my two cents in the tags, but I thought this analysis really complimented this other one I came across for those who are interested

Tl;dr: Stain’s hypocrisy in his attempted murder of Tensei is another exploration of the degradation of a society in all aspects (vigilante, villain, hero, government, gen public) and the significance of children’s role in all this

Excuse me but am I the only one who didn’t know that the day after Kamino the media started calling All Might the “Symbol of the Dead”?!!!

[vramcpu]

Invisible Impact

How perception is affected by the interconnectedness of aesthetics, mediums, and ideologies.

Written by Ramirez De Leon

“In an electric information environment, minority groups can no longer be contained — ignored. Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other.”

— Marshall McLuhan

Note: This work is not a critique or analysis of politics. It is merely a look at different philosophical and artistic perspectives as they influence the perception of the self within culture. First, we take a look at the impact of mediums, next ideology and commodities, and finally habitus.

I.) MEDIUMS

“What you print is nothing compared to the effect of the printed word. The printed words sets up a paradigm, a structure of awareness which affects everybody in very, very drastic ways, and it doesn’t very much matter what you print as long as you go on in that form of activity.”

- MM

As an artist, as someone who walks in the unknown uncertainty of creativity, I understand that the work we do as artists has an impact beyond immediate description.

A work’s “non-descriptiveness” allows it to be felt intensely regardless of language, culture, or identification. It is an affect that is grossly underrated and under-discussed. This subject matter is rarely discussed or expressed because people are trained to think in a gross materialistic way at a very young age. Materialistic indoctrination forces one to see artwork (or creative projects) as merely products. (or as means to an end).

“Creativity is uncertain. To be creative you must get into the indeterminacy of your own structure, your own knowledge, your own future , one of the large control systems that you have in your head and in your body says… that for survival of the individual and survival of the race, these are the railroad tracks you have to travel. That may or may not be true. And we know that it’s true within certain limits, but these limits probably can be enlarged. We also know that in the software of your own brain, the province of your own mind, this is not really that necessary. We have sufficient computing capacity within our own structures, our own brains, so that we can turn over to a very small part of that computing capacity for the necessary programs for survival…you can have alternative futures, you can have alternative programming you don’t have to keep going round and round survival tape loop…”

- John C. Lilly

Oppression is not merely in the physical, economic, or material sense. Nor is it merely large entity versus the small entity. Oppression is often an ideologically materialistic , passive means of asserting dominance over the essence of creativity, true expression and new ideas. Oppression in its most basic form can be a concocted collection of institutionalized assumptions that repress possibilities of creative thinking.

Furthermore, we cannot underestimate the power of mediums themselves. To ignore the power of the medium or to maintain our ignorance to the medium is to refuse excellence in our art, thinking, and profession. This lack of awareness of the medium may be a direct hindrance to happiness and enjoyment in life.

For those not in a constant state of fight for survival, what must be obtained is the consciousness of the evolving medium that is the communication of our digital selves (avatars).

And so the title [The Medium is the Massage] is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral — it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were…

— MM

Mediums: the intervening substance through which impressions are conveyed to the senses (or that force that acts on objects at a distance.) are indeed very powerful. Ultimately, our experience in the material sense is exactly that, a stimulating encounter with that information derived from the senses (engagement with the unseen and seen, where material objects have the leading role). This means that the objects we encounter in themselves are created works, and therefore can have just as much impact (or more) than those objects that we call and designate as “art”(those objects which we intend to be treated, viewed, and considered to be “works of art”).

We are not at odds with ideas solely, or primarily (as many might suggest). We are at odds with objects and their suggested implications. We are at odds with the roles that we have assumed and the mediums which carry the polarizing and sometimes offensive ideas.

The medium is allowed to carry a concept or an idea and present it to the eye or ear, and in many cases, when the viewer gives those ideas credence, the medium , as well as it’s objective is able to stealthy infiltrate the attitudes, moods and modes of the now subdued perceiver.

“It is a matter of the greatest urgency that our educational institutions realize that we now have civil war among these environments created by media other than the printed word.”

— MM

II.) IDEOLOGY and COMMODITIES

“Ideology is not simply imposed on ourselves. Ideology is our spontaneous relation to our social world, how we perceive each meaning and so on and so on. We, in a way, enjoy our ideology. To step out of ideology, it hurts. It’s a painful experience. You must force yourself to do it.”

- Slavoj Zizek , [Perverts Guide to Ideology, 2012]

If objects as mediums have a profound and sometimes subliminal impact on our perception, then we must also look at commodities of industry. Commodities help establish class and class systems.

Certain objects are often appreciated by those families of certain classes that train their young to appreciate those very objects as well as their cultural significance. These activities and objects, of course, are often guarded by characteristics of economic inaccessibility.

The nature of the fine arts, more specifically oil painting, collectively, helped reinforced a sense ownership, commodity fetishism, and high classism.

“From 1500 to 1900 the visual arts of Europe were dominated by the oil painting, the easel picture, this kind of painting had never been used anywhere else in the world before. The tradition of oil painting was made up of hundreds of thousands of unremarkable works hung all over the walls of galleries and private houses rather in the same way as the reserve collection is still hung in the National Gallery …European oil painting unlike the art of other civilizations and periods placed a unique emphasis on the tangibility. The texture, the weight. the graspability of what was depicted. What was real as what you could put your hands on…. the beginning of the tradition of oil painting, the emphasis on the real being solid was part of a scientific attitude but the emphasis on the real being solid became equally closely connected with a sense of ownership.”

— John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Imagine two individuals from very different classes. One is highly rich and the other very poor. It is easy to imagine that in some oil paintings of the 1600s, those wealthier individuals will likely have a different relationship and attitude towards those paintings (especially if they see themselves reflected in those very works).

Many argue for equal representation of minority groups in mass and popular media. If one sees themselves in the artwork around them, then their perception of the world will change.

It is my argument that not only “fine art” or oil paintings in todays era are a reflection and establishment of classes and class structures, but rather, almost any commodity, product, or medium can have a very similar affect. All of these subjects, and how we interact with them, are reflections of class structures and belief systems.

Objects, in a way, force individuals to consider their options and reality in a very specific and sometimes narrow way. It can greatly limit what one perceives to be possible for them within a society. These assumptions further perpetuated by objects and mediums can systematically eliminate the thought of new and positive possibilities that otherwise gain access to the mental faculties of the higher classes.

This can be simply understood as the impact of design on the psyche. Those who appreciate and know that design can affect our reality and our relationship with it know how important aesthetic and utility can be.

The late John Berger, art critic well known for his work entitled “Ways Of Seeing” explains that previously oil painting would show a class of individuals as they were, with their materials and land and lifestyle. These oil paintings reaffirmed their positions in their reality. And on the contrary, our modern era of publicity and advertisement displays a fantasy of who we are not, but wish to one day be. For the modern era, it is not simply about the product but the fantasy and attitude that the product will grant us.

“It was already Marx who long ago emphasized that a commodity is never just a simple object that we buy and consume. A commodity is an object full of theological, even metaphysical, niceties. Its presence always reflects an invisible transcendence. And the classical publicity for Coke quite openly refers to this absent, invisible, quality. Coke is the “real thing”.

— Zizek

A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties….. as soon as it emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness.

— Karl Marx, Capital (1867)

III. HABITUS

In sociology, Habitus comprises socially ingrained habits, skills and dispositions. It is the way that individuals perceive the social world around them and react to it. These dispositions are usually shared by people with similar backgrounds (such as social class, religion, nationality, ethnicity, education and profession).

“Habitus also extends to our “taste” for cultural objects such as art, food, and clothing.

In one of his major works, Distinction, [Pierre] Bourdieu links French citizens’ tastes in art to their social class positions, forcefully arguing that aesthetic sensibilities are shaped by the culturally ingrained habitus.

Upper-class individuals, for example, have a taste for fine art because they have been exposed to and trained to appreciate it since a very early age, while working-class individuals have generally not had access to “high art” and thus haven’t cultivated the habitus appropriate to the fine art “game.”

The thing about the habitus, Bourdieu often noted, was that it was so ingrained that people often mistook the feel for the game as natural instead of culturally developed. This often leads to justifying social inequality, because it is (mistakenly) believed that some people are naturally disposed to the finer things in life while others are not.

— Social Theory Re-Wired

“The meaning of a painting no longer resides on it’s unique painted surface, which it is only possible to see in one place at one time. It’s meaning ,or a large part of it has become transmittable. It comes to you, this meaning, like the news of an event. It has become information of a sort.” — Justin Berger

In conclusion, I believe that once we acknowledge the affect commodities have on the world beyond their implied and immediately described purpose, if we acknowledge their assumed magical qualities, we will understand that mediums and commodities create a very particular context by which we view ourselves within the world.

These objects quite literally create the structural boundaries in which our imaginations dance. These objects influence the distance in which our imagination travels as well as the means of such travel. It is only until we discuss and acknowledge these invisible qualities that we may consider our own rational alternatives to these prescribed perspectives.

If we are to acknowledge at all the boundaries and limitations that are put on artists and subjects of class, if we have any desire to have a say in how our work as artists is perceived and activated, if we want to change any of these conditions in which we live, if we desire to acquire a taste beyond the commonly associated, false identities; we must begin to learn about these materials, their invisible qualities, and the descriptions that are indeed the basis of our culture.

Twitter — @VRAMCPU

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

Quotes that accurately describe White Trump Voters.

"It’s not just that he’s white. White people sneer at, mock, ostracize, and generally hate on other white people all the time. It’s that he DELIVERS RACISM and THAT is the priority to his base. This is what gets me when writers and thinkers wring their hands in befuddlement, like Nichols is doing, about how Trump’s base can “vote against their own interests.” They’re not! They’re prioritizing the babies in cages, the “shithole countries” remarks, the deadly Charlottesville clashes with literal fucking Nazis, etc OVER health care, transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels, education, assistance to the poor, and whatever other liberal agenda items one would think would be natural, rational fits for the Cleti everywhere.

These people are absolutely voting in their own interests, and getting exactly what they wanted out of the Trump admin. He has been a tremendous success in their eyes because he has delivered racism since Day 1, and that’s what they want out of politics."

"This, They will never -ever- admit it, outside of trolling on the net, but Trump has done more to support their views and find great joy in it then any GOP member before.

He’s all but given up on the dog whistles, once he found out that the media will simply ‘tut-tut’ and that delights his base. Even when he does something that will fuck them over, they overlook it because he continues to advance their agenda with huge leaps. Most of the never-Trumpers discovered early on that going against him can lead to getting primaried and Mitch is content to let Trump do whatever the fuck he wants with limited disagreement, because he’s busy installing GOP goal friendly judges everywhere.

The DNC’s response has been to avoid rocking the boat as much as they can by offering up Joe with a bone thrown to black people with a possable black woman VIP. (If that even happens), but the chances are high that Trump will get another four years to continue to do as he likes. And what will the Dems do? Protest and throw shade and offer limited resistance that won’t slow down Trump for a second.

People don’t like to even entertain the idea that Trump will win, but without a huge number of people turning out against them, what else can they expect will happen?"

"My father HATED John Wayne with a burning passion that I remember from age 3-4! He loved Westerns but he would spend the entire movie foaming at the mouth at all the racist tropes and outright historical lies of each one of them! Honestly, although he loved thoughtful rap, I think he idolized Chuck D for simply uttering his infamous lyric!

Now that I’ve reached a certain age, I find I love Westerns too - but not John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or any old ones. I like the newer ones that speak to what deplorables white cowboys were: The Revenant, Bone Tomahawk, Hostiles and the like. They’re still white-centered and white-washed but any modern thinking person can see that the cowboy image should stand for nothing but a savagely cruel, thieving, raping murderer (and we’ve been consistently lied to)."

"Does Trump accept responsibility and look out for his team? Not in the least. In this category, he exhibits one of the most unmanly of behaviors: He’s a blamer. Nothing is ever his fault."

"This is nothing but rose-colored bullshit. Anyone who’s ever spent more than 5 minutes working in corporate life knows for the most part this isn’t how white men behave. Those offices are full of extremely mediocre men who are very confident and have nothing to back it up with other than their bluster, egos, and the generational wealth that allows them a leg up over others. That generational wealth allows them to go to the diploma mills that open doors for them. Admitting mistakes or even admitting just not knowing something in that environment comes off as weakness to them. They spend most of their energy trying to project the image of confidence and control, which is why they’re quick to rage when things don’t go their way. A good example is the douche bag running Quibi that gave that horrendus interview a couple of weeks ago. He was asked a couple of questions about why his company was failing while other streaming services are thriving, and where they might have went wrong in their business model. He didn’t accept responsibility for shit. He went into his hurt little feelings and attacked the interviewer, and tried to make the questions seem like they weren’t valid.

On steroids this white American exceptionalist world view is called patriotism. It manifests in the idea that we as a country can do things counter intuitive the rest of the world just because we’re the USA. More mass shootings by far than any other country? USA! Other countries have cheap/free education through college? So what, USA! Biden even displayed this during one of the debates when Warren pointed out the same disparity in our healthcare compared to every other developed nation. Guess how he responded.

I feel like I started rambling a little but what I’m trying to get at is that whiteness, toxic masculinity, and patriotism are so intertwined that its beyond the author of that Trump think piece."

"Funnily enough as the article and subject matter were in regard to racism in the US I didn’t feel a burning need to mention Indigenous Australians but to answer your question they are pretty much in the same boat as black Americans. Did anything I say imply otherwise or were you just fishing for an argument?

"Stupid as it is, “You’re a manly-man, right? So why is your manly-man leader such a cowardly little pussy?”

That’s not what he projects and that’s not what they see. They see him using aggressive and accusatory tones and language all the time and it makes him look tough."

They fall for the “Emporor Has No Clothes” routine because they never look at him critically. They buy the bullshit on the surface, and don’t see that his words never match his actions. He said on tv several times that if anyone in the country wants a Covid test, they can get tested. Ask them how many people they know whose jobs don’t require it, have actually been tested. He down played the death toll of this disaster every step of the way. Remember when we were supposed to be in church for Easter? As long as he lies with confidence, they’ll follow him to hell."

"I’m definitely tired, and frustrated, and everything else. I keep holding my nose and voting, and that only adds to the exhaustion and frustration because very little if anything seems to change, and in some ways we keep repeating the mistakes of the past. I’d never advocate for doing nothing, but trying to engage and challenge the average Republican-voting dipshit to think critically, and not keep supporting people and policies that perpetuate and exacerbate the problems this country has??? No thanks. If you’re not black, I so encourage you to take up that mantle, but for me as a black dude in this country I can’t. Talk about shooting the messenger. Plus, to keep it a buck, this is mostly white people’s mess, if not all. They need to fix it.

Honestly I feel like racism festers because most white people just look the other way. The racism of their peers/friends/relatives doesn’t impact them personally so they’re probably just people to be avoided. Why rock the boat when you can just avoid an uncomfortable topic? Joe might forward you Fox News and OANN stories, and racist FB memes, but he’s fun at Bills games. Well what if Joe is also a cop, or in a management position over minorities? You can bet money he takes those views you overlooked with him to his job. The PoC he interacts with won’t have the benefit of seeing him at Bills games, or might not even have the benefit of being seen as equals."

"People get so caught up in the blatant, mustache-twirling racism that they don’t see the subtle pervasive way it spreads like a cancer. For every Trump there are dozens Joes, and along with the Joes are the real problem: The people who ignore the Joes. The Joes and Karens go on to commit all kinds of microaggressions that Poc pretty much have to tolerate, and in Joe’s and Karen’s minds that’s just the way the world works. I deserved to get followed around Joe’s store. I came in wearing a hoodie and Adidas so I couldn’t be up to any good. Karen felt threatened when I walked into the building she lives in, so she felt justified to call the police, never mind the fact that I live there too. This is how deep this shit runs. It’s not just politics. Racism isn’t just baked into politics. It’s part of the flour the US was baked with.

So I appreciate you if you’re willing to call these fools out. I’m glad somebody is because I’m not wasting my breath. They won’t hear me anyway."

"I mean if Tom Nichols was in front of me and read this steaming pile of shit to me I would’ve slapped him silly and said the reason that people that look like you excuse all of his fuck ups, failings and mistakes is because well HE LOOKS LIKE YOU!!!! The question that none of these mouth breathing chud monkeys seem to want to answer or are incapable of answering is would you excuse any black, Hispanic or Asian man that had his resume? We know the fucking answer.

When this bloated piece of unseasoned chicken shut down the government in January of 2019 hurting his all white, poorly educated base the most a quote from a voter in Florida was burned into my head forever. She said upon not getting her government subsidized check (I mean they have no issues with the government helping them, it is those pesky brown people that are lazy and entitled) “He is not hurting the people he is supposed to be hurting.” Let that sink in. A voting US Citizen thought it was the job of the sitting *president to hurt people. That says it all. Their allegiance isn’t based in anything other than anger and hatred of those that they deem less than them. Fuck him and them and may they both rot in hell."

"“He is not hurting the people he is supposed to be hurting.”

That spontaneous, bewildered, stream of consciousness utterance by someone who doesn’t think critically but has an indwelt recognition of like-mindedness IS the Trump voter exemplified! A racist who found themselves too poor, too old and without the power to demand or protect the status quo and just wants to stick it to their perceived enemies while retaining ‘something’ for themselves.

That sentiment has fueled every waking thought, worry and action of an American white since the founding of this country.

So, it’s not just every Confederate flag waver, every neo-Nazi and every flyover state’er; it’s every aggrieved American white who had to accept the changing world around them; there’s no reasoning with them nor changing their minds.

My fear is that I’m becoming inhumane like them because I was soooo happy when he cut her Meals on Wheels and didn’t cut her Social Security check."

"I think you nailed this right on the head. All through the article, he keeps pointing out what we already know except for one thing. After all, why would white people elect someone who is so far outside of what they claim to be/stand for? He’s not conservative in any real way. Yet conservatives stand behind him. He’s not a Christian in any practical sense by his actions. Yet Christians say he’s sent by God. He’s not a good businessman, father, or even person. Yet here we are. The only answer that makes sense in any real way is that he is proof that to many people, any white man can do the same or better than even the best black man, woman, or POC in general. There’s always a backlash to progress both real and imagined. Trump is it."

"Also, a lot of the characteristics Nichols thinks represent the opposite of idealized masculinity are actually representative of masculinity as it is performed in this country. From my experience with men who lean into their masculinity, it is about performing dominance by antagonizing people, all in the service of making shallow, insecure men feel better about themselves.  Trump is a domineering asshole, which is what too many men think being a man is all about."

"It is fascinating how unbelievably brainless racists are. Many of the commenters and you Damon have pointed out the stupidity of racism. I mean this seriously, racists have absolutely abandoned intellect, progress, humanity or desire for real greatness that could manifest through equality, in order to hold onto the despicable delusion of superiority based solely on a human having more melanin than another. The sheer simplicity of the trick doesn’t even seem like it should work; but alas, all roads merge at Slave Rd. The dimwitted aptitude it takes for a person to actually believe stealing humans, beating, burning, assaulting, selling their children on auction blocks, splitting families (and more brutalities)...... all for greed born out of sheer laziness, and again stupidity is mindblowing. You literally must turn your brain off to be a racist, and you see it now. Millions of white people, with switch STILL off, courtesy of their forefathers, have continued down this same disastrous, nose-spite-ing road. There’s a lot of white people walking around with black kerchief’s, hiding the draining blood and a ragged hole where their nose once occupied, holding a tight grasp of their hate. Their greed. Trump finally allows them to remove that blood soaked kerchief with pride for all the world see their disfigurement. It’s stunning that there is pride where instead, their should be pure shame for then and for now."

[sareally]

What’s my sin? “You’re ruining our family. Hindi ka ganyan.”

By: Ginny Puno

These words have changed myself dramatically. It has been hard for me to talk about this specific instance in my life. However, when I was asked to discuss a phrase or sentence that significantly affected my identity today, I could not help but recall these striking words uttered by my mom. In tears, she tells me, “You’re ruining our family.”

To put things into perspective, my mom told this to me when I was a third year high school student – still trying to figure out who I was in this world. With the growing availability of media at this point in time, I can say that my discovery of myself was also shaped by the information I was exposed to. As someone who was extremely fond of YouTube, I had come across certain viral videos of people coming out to their parents in a creative and touching way. Similarly, I was growing to like even more gay personalities like Tyler Oakley, Joey Graceffa, and Hannah Hart who proudly flaunted their sexual orientation. Even in the environment I was working in, I would see that most of my peers had developed an acceptance of homosexuality. More and more lesbian couples emerged within my school, people started developing their own “girl crushes”, and I would hear more frequent discussions on homosexuality. With all this considered, I started to question my own sexuality too.

Long story short, these events led me to having my first relationship with a girl and for some strange reason, my parents found out about it. This leads us to my mom accusing me of destroying the family. It boggled me at that time to think that my self-exploration was destructive to my family - that my own efforts in trying to figure out who I really am were in fact detrimental to my own family, whom I love and care for.

This experience still brings numerous questions to my mind today. It makes me question if it really was a conscious decision for me to identify as a cis-gendered female or if this was simply brought about by my fear of losing my family. I am certain that there is no greater love I possess than my love for my family. Did this, then, get in the way of me truly knowing myself? Of me truly discovering who I was at my core? This internal struggle I’m experiencing further stresses how my parents have become identity agents in my life. Identity agents are defined as individuals who participate in the formation of a youth’s identity. Through the entire process of trying to make sense of this new relationship I was in, it became even more evident to me how my parents were my identity agents. Upon learning that I had expressed my attraction towards the same sex, my parents could simply have let it slide. They could have let it go. However, they didn’t. They saw this new development as a threat to my overall identity. When I would ask them to explain to me why they expressed so much disdain, they would bring up issues on religion – saying that what I was doing was a grave sin against the Lord.

Ever since I was little, my parents have instilled in us this appreciation for religion. We would go to mass as often as we can and not simply reach the bare minimum of attending mass every Sunday. My father would force us to go through the sacrament of confession every month, even if we didn’t want to. From these instances alone, I see that my parents want me to grow up to be a religious person – swearing by the Bible and its teachings. Part of the identity they were forming for me was a Roman Catholic girl who would do anything for and by the church. I would say that I still aim somewhat religious and I still actively practice my religion. However, when I realized that the church was hindering my self-discovery, I started to question this. I started to ask, “How would such a religious and ‘holy’ institution shun me for simply expressing my love for someone?” I knew that I was doing nobody harm by being with my significant other at the time. I was simply acting on whatever feelings I had possessed. So, what is my sin? Here, I was faced with individuation.

Individuation is an important milestone in the development of adolescents. Individuals slowly let go of their strong attachments to the teachings of those perceived to be above them, like my parents or the church, and they start to see value in the formation of their own opinions and criticisms. My own assessment of the situation, especially with how my parents introduced me to the church, has led me to be more knowledgeable today. Without undergoing this event in my life, I would probably not question the church and its functions. Now, however, I do see that even the church system is flawed. That even issues like capitalism and corruption can penetrate such a holy organization. Going back, the way I was at the brink of losing my privilege to be worthy of love and acceptance simply because I chose to love someone of the same sex allowed me to question my parents and the church.

It is important to note, however, that although individuation is necessary, it can still be destructive if not carried out properly. There is a way to have healthy individuation in relationships – which I also realized at that time. Individuation does not end with concepts of rebellion or individuality alone, it must be paired with connectedness for it to be helpful in the growth of an individual. In my case, although I did question my parents, I did see their point. Aside from religious concerns, my parents also brought up some other issues on my young age, my limited environment, and “trends” and this allowed me to also question if my feelings were valid. Of course, I still asserted my own views, however, I still saw the value in respecting their side of the story. This consideration of their ideas against my sexual orientation helped me further assess myself. I now identify as straight, however, this does not invalidate the fact that I did feel what I felt and that I used to be bisexual. Although I identify differently now, I always go back to my experience as someone who was bisexual and I have used this to further understand the sentiments and struggles of other people.

Along with the words my parents had against me having a different sexual orientation were questions. “Hindi ka naman tomboy, bakit ka ganyan?” another interesting phrase I heard from them was, “Diba crush mo si James Reid? Paano nangyari ‘to?” I realized that gender stereotypes are not limited to just male or female stereotypes. Even with the members of the LGBT community, there are stereotypes that hinder them from expressing themselves freely. Just because I did not act, dress, or look like a boy, my parents immediately put the possibility of me being anything other than straight out of the picture. I am also, admittedly, a very “kikay” person who was fond of things normally perceived as girly. However, this should not limit me as someone who would be straight.

Another popular example that shows this was how Pia Wurtzbach stated, in an interview, that she would love for her son to be gay so that he could do her hair and make-up. Moreover, Moira de la Torre’s song entitled “Titibo-tibo” talked about how the persona in the song acted like a boy and this was immediately associated with the term “tibo”. As someone who did not fall under a certain stereotype as bisexual, it was hard for me to fully express myself as such. I knew that because I did not fall under certain physical qualifications, I may be questioned on my sexual orientation – and this is exactly what happened with my parents. It is important, then, to educate people to be more accepting to allow for authenticity to prevail.

Additionally, I believe that the propagation of social media and the internet has allowed for these stereotypes to dominate certain cultures. Although social media is a great platform for educating oneself on our modern world, we must also be careful to filter out the things we see. For example, my parents are also increasing their personal usage of social media. With this, they are exposed to even more members of the LGBT community and have learned more on this topic. However, instead of teaching them to be more accepting, certain portrayals of the LGBT community online have led them to further stereotype people and to box them within certain definitions. My mom, for example, is very fond of humorous gay comedians online and is fond of watching videos on Facebook of gay individuals dancing, doing splits, and doing death drops. However, this has limited her to seeing gay men as just feminine, when in fact, there are gay men who do not possess feminine qualities.

Although it is true that social networks have brought about various platforms for people to express themselves, it will only be effective if we educate ourselves as much as we can, and this includes going beyond what is said online and experiencing the real world. I have realized that the beauty about gender expression and identity is that it can never be put into a single definition. We live in a day and age where people are realizing more and more about themselves and are not afraid to break away from the definitions set by society. Similarly, I have undergone this entire process of discovering myself and building my identity. I know that there are some people who do not believe that sexual orientations can change, but I’ll be proud to tell them that that is not the case. Here, we go back to the importance of connectedness in healthy individuation. This calls for us to not end with critiquing and questioning things, but with creating healthy discourse and listening to multiple sides before arriving to a conclusion. Hopefully, more and more people can engage in these kinds of conversations for us to be able to build a healthy and accepting world.

SOURCES:

Schacter, E., & Ventura, J. (2008). Identity agents: Parents as active and reflective participants in their children’s identity formation. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 18(3), 449-476.

Moore, S. & Rosenthal, D. (2007). Gender, sexuality and romance. In Sexuality in Adolescence: Current Trends (Ch. 6 pp. 132-155). New York, NY: Routledge.

Grotevant, H., & Cooper, C. (1985). Patterns of Interaction in Family Relationships and the Development of Identity Exploration in Adolescence. Child Development, 56(2), 415-428. doi:10.2307/1129730

[daylflay]

Gen-Z

Biters’ Remorse (Or Lack Thereof)

Most good horror movies have something to say, some social commentary to thrust upon attentive and thoughtful viewers, especially zombie movies. George A. Romero was perhaps the most prominent director of zombie movies in cinematic history, and that’s because he basically invented the modern, flesh-eating, slow-moving, undead variety of zombie that contemporary audiences hunger for (forgive the quip). With Night of the Living Dead, Romero’s first, and arguably most seminal, foray into the genre, he used imagery such as that of hordes of white people attempting to kill a black protagonist in order to comment on the racism endemic in America circa the 1960s. Ten years later, In Dawn of the Dead, Romero once again used zombies as a vehicle for criticism, but this time he set the action in a mall in order to tackle the issue of consumerism. The latter portion of Romero’s zombie oeuvre features a couple of entries, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, whose messages would undoubtedly resonate with modern audiences even though the two films were released almost fifteen years ago: The former features a fortified city separating the entitled from the rest of the embattled world, commenting upon the xenophobia and nationalism engendered by a post-September 11th America; the latter features individuals recording the horrors of the apocalypse with handheld cameras, an obvious allusion to the advent of YouTube (Diary of the Dead was released in 2007). If Romero were still alive, then I’m certain that he would still be making zombie movies, and furthermore I’m pretty sure that the criticisms he’d be levying would be directed at misinformation and its propagation on the web, among a plethora of other subjects (recent events would’ve given him plenty to work with, to say the least). The world is currently facing a real-life pandemic, COVID-19, and its spread is attributable to many factors, such as lack of hygiene, large gatherings of people, etc., but I’d argue that misinformation has also played an inordinate role in this crisis. In Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology And The Law To Lock Down Culture And Control Creativity, Lawrence Lessig states that “the internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility…to participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that reaches far beyond local boundaries.” Lessig isn’t criticizing the internet with his statement, but I’m indeed doing so with my quotation. That “reach” that Lessig referred to, it’s what ultimately makes it difficult to quarantine those infected by misinformation, and it in turn makes life more difficult for those trying to survive in the web’s hordes of misinformation/misinformed people. 

The Survivors

Not all of the individuals I’m tracking carry pretensions of professional journalism, some are simply trying to live their lives as normally as possible during this national emergency. Having said that, considering the prominence of the novel coronavirus currently present in practically all matters of public discourse, much talk of the epidemic is present in almost everyone’s tweets to some degree. Of the individuals of my blog’s focus, Kashana Cauley and Patti Harrison are easily the least politically active and journalistically inclined. The Twitter accounts of both women have been producing a minor amount of content as of late, which makes sense considering they, like everyone, are likely dealing with the coronavirus situation and all of its associated complications upon quotidian life. Cauley’s only tweet from 3/12/20: In response to a quoted tweet from CNN journalist Ana Cabrera that read, “McConnell ally says Senate won't take up House #coronavirus bill until after recess. ‘The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters.”, Cauley tweeted, “I don’t know why, but I think if the rest of us rolled into work & said ‘let people die until March 23rd’ we might get fired.” Cauley is obviously paying attention to the news, but not necessarily engaging with it in any major way. Harrison only tweeted twice on 3/12/20, and one of the tweets read: “Lying in bed bottomless, legs spread, patting my mound, my phone 2 inches from my face, arching my back and moaning with SINFUL anticipation for all of the front-facing character videos we are about to see when all these comedians get quarantined inside our houses…mmmm fuck!”. Harrison is responding to the news, but not intimating at criticism of said news like Cauley did in her aforementioned tweet, instead vying for the use of apolitical humor in order to entertain her followers. 

Rick Wilson spends a lot of his time on Twitter attacking Donald Trump and the Republican party, and that hasn’t changed, as evidenced by his activity from 3/12/20: In response to a quoted Trump tweet that read, “Sleepy Joe Biden was in charge of the H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic which killed thousands of people. The response was one of the worst on record. Our response is one of the best, with fast action of border closings & a 78% Approval Rating, the highest on record. His was lowest!”, Wilson tweeted, “So this is how you want to play it?”. Wilson has never claimed to be a journalist, but he provides a lot of commentary on the news, especially news of a political variety, so it’s no surprise that a lot of his current tweeting pertains to the coronavirus considering its proximity to politics. Despite lacking in professional ties to the journalistic industry, Wilson is still playing an important role in the fight against misinformation by fact-checking and pushing against sophistic Trump/Republican narratives being circulated (https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21176750/trump-coronavirus-response-disaster).

The Quarantine

For all of the responsible web users who aren’t contributing to the spread of misinformation, there are of course those who need to be quarantined due to their being carriers and deliberate disseminators of said misinformation. Candace Owens is one of those individuals who needs to be quarantined, immediately. Twitter is by no means a newspaper, but it’s nonetheless a source of news for some, and when one has a following the size of Owens (2 million as of 3/12/20), then one has a responsibility to at least attempt to promulgate accurate information, especially when one likes to play at being a journalist. Owens has always fancied herself a journalist of sorts, but if she hadn’t dropped out of the University of Rhode Island while attempting to acquire a degree in journalism (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166), then perhaps she’d understand that the journalistic institution has a code of ethics. One of the most basic aspects of journalism, an aspect that’s tragically being undercut in the modern era by irresponsible fools such as Owens, is so simple that a child could ascertain it: Get the basic facts straight. This is one of Owens’ tweets from 3/10/20: “One day, we will look back and study the impact of the coronavirus…Not the virus itself of course, but the mass global mental breakdown that it inspired…Because people think it’s novel that 80 year olds are dying at a high rate from a flu…This tweet will age well.” Not only is the information contained in her tweet plainly incorrect, but it’s dangerous. First of all, there’s a big difference between coronavirus and the flu (https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-vs-flu-which-virus-is-deadlier-11583856879), evidenced not only by the disparate terms, but by the simple fact that the flu doesn’t lead the World Health Organization to declare the presence of a pandemic every flu season (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51839944). Secondly, while it’s been reported that it’s primarily older people dying from COVID-19, youth doesn’t preclude one from catching coronavirus and spreading it to those older people; not to mention those of varying ages with underlying conditions such as autoimmune diseases who could easily die via coronavirus (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlife-conditions.html). Owens is just an extension of a type web-user Christian Fuchs refers to in Social Media: A Critical Introduction: “Cultural communities are not automatically politically progressive...Facebook group[s] [exist]…for Norwegian right-wing extremists…[like]the fascist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in the Norwegian terror attacks on July 22, 2011”. Owens isn’t a violent terrorist (that I know of), but the misinformation she’s spreading could nonetheless be responsible for far more deaths than that of Breivik. It’s no wonder that Owens is a pariah to the vast majority of professional news outlets and can’t find columnist work outside of conservative propaganda-peddlers such as Fox News.

The Anti-Quarantine

Graduate of the University of Oxford, host of UpFront on the Al Jazeera network, writer/podcaster for investigative journalism outlet The Intercept, frequent commentator on networks such as CNN, Mehdi Hasan is essentially the diametric opposite of Owens (https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/14/18678698/mehdi-hasan-intercept-impeachment-donald-trump-pelosi-kara-swisher-recode-decode-podcast-interview). Hasan is a serious, passionate journalist who takes the dissemination of information/news very seriously, whether it be on Twitter or otherwise. Hasan has been absolutely restless on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting on germane news as it breaks and fact-checking those who attempt to misinform. Here’s Hasan challenging NBC columnist Richard Engel on 3/12/20, less than an hour after Engel posted his tweet: Engel tweeted, “The reaction/overreaction in the US to the virus seems largely political. Trump’s critics have no confidence in him, so they panic. Others defend Trump no matter what he does and don’t listen to anyone else. Not a recipe for keep calm and carry on. When broken you can’t be strong”; Hasan quoted Engel’s tweet and responded with, “Please don’t ‘both sides’ the anti-science, failed-on-testing, pandemic-minimizing conspiracy theorist in the White House.” Hasan is the antidote to the infection being spread by individuals such as Owens; whatever the opposite of a quarantine is, that’s what we need to do to Hasan. 

The Line

The line between amateur and professional may be blurred in some cases due to the rise of social media and the power of web-based technologies such as smartphones, yet in a lot of cases that blurring isn’t relatively important, but in the case of a pandemic such as COVID-19 and the blurring between amateur and professional journalism, the difference between an amateur like Owens and a professional like Hasan is of the utmost importance. Owens’ misinformation-spewing may well contribute to the deaths of actual people, and furthermore disrupt the important work of good-faith journalists like Hasan. What’s at stake here is clear: life and death. 

Life and death were subjects very much on George A. Romero’s mind during his filmmaking career, e.g.: Romero’s cinematic universe, a patchwork of films loosely connected to each other by an overarching narrative a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was kicked off by Night of the Living Dead; the concept of the living dead of course remained a linchpin of Romero’s work until the end. Unfortunately, like the namesake of so many of his films, Romero himself is now dead, so I have taken it upon myself to propose the concept for the next film in his cinematic universe of the living dead. In Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins talks about “the story of American arts in the twenty-first century [and how it] might be told in terms of the public reemergence of grassroots creativity as everyday people take advantage of new technologies that enable them to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content.” If I had more time, I’d certainly attempt to contribute to Jenkins’ perception of “twenty-first century” art via a short Romero-inspired film uploaded to YouTube or some similar platform, but I’ll settle for this faux-blurb instead: The year is 2020, and the world has rarely been more divided and vulnerable. Catastrophic weather events have ravaged the globe and displaced millions, spurred by a rapidly changing climate and subsequently decaying ecosystem. Political divisiveness has led to international protests and civil unrest with heretofore unparalleled levels of fervor. A highly contagious virus has begun spreading inexorably from country to country, slowly but surely infecting and killing an increasing number of people. Misinformation is running rampant on the web, leading to mass confusion and extreme skepticism of any and all information being disseminated. At the Biology department of a university in Fullerton, California, an accident is about to take place that will blur the lines between the living and the dead. For some, it’s felt like the end of the world for a long time, but those feelings are about to validated, and the world will be too distracted warring with itself, and the truth, for anyone to do anything about it. When the world already feels like hell, the living dead will feel right at home. Welcome to the world of…Gen-Z. Like those selfies while you still can. Coming to a theater near you…NOW! It’s already happening, so stock up on toilet paper…          

[theteenagetrickster]

Huachuma Cactus vs. Techno-idolatry|Awaken World

Contributing article writer for Get up Planet

When was actually the final opportunity you saw individuals chat to each other on the way to or from job? Take a moment to think of it. Whether you take a bus or train to reach your work environment, many of the moment you view folks glued to their phones, probably including you. It has become therefore poor that individuals are currently like drunks, walking in to each various other, slamming into walls, road illuminations, cars and trucks, falling into channels and also fountains while texting. Researcher Jack Nasar from Ohio Condition Educational institution states that there may have concerned 2 thousand mundane traumas associated to mobile phone usage in 2010. A Seat Proving ground poll in mid-2012 discovered that fifty% of cell managers mention that they have been slammed right into through one more individual because that individual was actually sidetracked by utilizing their own cell phone. Furthermore the increasing fad of selfie fatalities. If this were not therefore terrible, it would certainly be actually amusing!

Mobile innovation has actually changed coming from being an unit for far-off interaction to a device for mass hypnotism. The iPhone in the Western side globe today plays the function of the groove of the Indian fakir, whose sound hypnotizes the cobra. Your phone is actually that groove as well as you are actually the cobra. It maintains you in a steady trance while nourishing you garbage information, negative thoughts, disinformation and advertising. In modern-day American society, having a latest as well as far better phone is prominent. This form of techno-slavery is now as socially accepted as alcohol, one more hazardous stupefier that, like technology, produces an illusion of happiness. Technological idolatry is incredibly naïve in its assumption that a selection of gizmos suggests liberation as well as flexibility. Techno-idolatry has come to be a modern-day, transnational techno-religion, advertised by media as the methods to happiness. Billions of individuals online have made a cyberspace identification, which is highly susceptible for control as well as abuse. An absence of sort on Facebook or even Instagram posts creates depression in teenagers and young people as well as requires emotional procedure.

Depending on to a latest study, Americans check out their phones a 52 opportunities time, generally. Astonishing! If they would appear inside on their own as typically, along with an intention to find what's within all of them and also self-reflect, their lifestyles would completely transformed. The issue, though, is that Western culture carries out certainly not show individuals this vital method of self-reflection. It is actually simply missing coming from the socio-cultural story. This is actually why Eastern metaphysical heritages are actually helpful, for they point the means inward. Obviously, plant medication is actually a direct technique that leads to clearness and also understanding, of oneself and also the world around. Still, reading the phrases of thinkers of recent is a great beginning. Discovering to appear inside is actually the only means toward healing and improvement.

Probably we can easily recommend a brand-new phrase to be actually included in the psychological guidebooks: social media sites syndrome. The complication is actually that cyberspace, which is a power generator of mass confusion, has actually represented instructor as well as physician of humankind, thereby becoming a resource of understanding to billions of folks and also a location where they acquire their approach permanently. This constant rush for innovation possesses a serious psychological effects: that everything is actually brand new is actually far better than all that is actually aged.

Properly, just before our team go any kind of further, our team can easily take a minute to make fun of this. Merely a week ago, a friend of mine who mosted likely to South Korea on a business vacation created me to discuss his problems leaving the washroom. While on the bathroom, he really did not understand what switch to press to flunk. An electronic commode had actually become a problem for my friend, who merely wished to get performed. 25 different buttons, all in Korean, produced it inconceivable to carry out the easy action of flushing the bathroom. Attempting different ones, he obtained his buttocks blown along with very hot sky, splashed along with warm and comfortable water and also germicide. To create his tale much more credible, he sent me images and video recording as he was actually attempting to leave the droid commode. He said, also to him, an MIT graduate, the innovation was way too much to find out. I giggled therefore difficult that I got up my better half up along with my giggling at this digital tragicomedy. This was actually simply very funny!

The iToilet Dash

I will never mount this "smart" bathroom in my home, to ensure that it could make me look silly. Caught in a South Oriental iToilet, my friend admitted that these individuals have taken it as well far. Personally, I select the outdated hand-operated toilets, equally as I opt for old-fashioned personal interaction with people. Also in this feeling, much older is actually certainly much better. I have actually presently detailed my mindset towards modern technology earlier. I know its worth and I make use of innovation myself. Innovation is my server, certainly not my God. I will definitely certainly never praise a machine, whether it is my cellphone, space capsule or an iToilet.

There is actually a greater issue with the idea of development when it just shrouds the outdated means of lifestyle as well as thinking. It is difficult to uncover in the well-known thinking about our time any tracks of early and great mentors. Cleverness is certainly never understanding. These critical mentors that our company need in order to reside our lives in properly have been just viewed as outdated, unimportant as well as space by the techno-digital lifestyle. But regularly progressing modern technology possesses a massive price of alienation coming from self and also attribute. Technician lifestyle is coming to be the brand new tenacity that can just deliver a replacement for joy yet never ever joy and happiness itself. Our experts present possess the cult of Apple, and also folks take pride in belonging to it. The brand new the lords, such as Google.com, Twitter And Facebook, are worshiped and feared. An electronic heck has right now been actually produced; individuals are sentenced to Facebook prison through getting 30-day restrictions. The story is controlled coming from Silicon Lowland, where social developers have presumed the divine right to control. They strongly believe that this is actually redemption. Substantially wired but deeply detached, our team reside our lifestyles certainly not realizing that this separation from our own selves and also Attributes is the origin of our individual suffering. Huachuma's serious, problem-solving clarity is truly a good thing coming from nature. In much of the world it is outlawed by the electrical powers that should not be actually. The antidote for individual chaos is disallowed. What a saddening, incorrect fact! Individual physical nature consumption is being promoted by a behavioral researcher on TELEVISION.

Fortunately is that this horrible fact is actually just one means to interact along with lifestyle. Individuals in early times prized Attributes for its own recuperation powers. The plant empire is astounding and also is easily available to use. There are actually organic methods for recovery that have actually verified to persuade manies thousand of years. All true connections are actually rooted in our hearts, and also sacred vegetations are actually listed below to reveal our team what is actually in all of them. As if on a display screen, our team may view our interior web content and create the necessary adjustments in our life, so as to irritate our interior ability permanently as well as guarantee the circulation of the recuperation power offered to our company. Rewired and also totally reset due to the electrical power and also intellect of spiritual vegetations, our team have the capacity to open our greater abilities for creativity and also aware residing. Our company possess to create room within our own selves for religious relationship. Greater conditions of awareness are actually the important food for our hearts, which are mainly malnourished and also deficient coming from staying in the present day world. The desire in the direction of unity is arising from the depths of our spirit, which belongs of the Entire. Huachuma medicine is this Global port.

Benjamim Whichcote stated that "really good men spiritualize their body systems. Bad guys incarnate their soul." This declaration will make much more sense if our company simply substitute "excellent" and "bad" with "self-aware" and also "unfamiliar." Incarnated in modern technology, our character has dropped ill and also is moving in the direction of the urgent space. I located Huachuma medicine to be actually the solution to numerous concerns and also religious ailments, which acquire resolved in the more significant clarity of the thoughts. This, naturally, irritates the powerless reductionistic researchers, that have actually ended up being an idolaters of clinical view and also the atheistic sight of lifestyle. To all of them, the spiritual realm is an aberration, a spot in some dark corner of the human mind where only delusional and psychologically ill folks go. To their restricted spiritual belief as well as understanding, the intellect of a vegetation is entitled to no attention, for, in their very own thoughts, it doesn't exist. Thereby each scientific research and also modern technology are relocating back while maintaining an illusion of progression.

All this penetrates when you welcome Huachuma medication in the correct technique and also enable on your own to observe along with your soul and also mind. It is actually by the harmony of the mind that our company can easily transmute the false realities and pseudo-religions of the here and now and afterlife salvation of the future. Right here and right now is the only place and opportunity where redemption is actually feasible. Coming from a lifetime religious hunt, I have discovered plant-based shamanism, Sufism as well as Zen Buddhism to be the methods that most anxiety the significance of living in the here and now moment. Huachuma medicine, especially, is actually that messenger whose clear and also direct notification connects with the midsts of one's center.

There are actually lots of perceptions of salvation, and also many of all of them are actually only recognized in a posthumous condition. The wide-spread idea in an external broker or agency must be actually deserted, for it is actually the primary block in taking our lives and also destiny in our hands. From the Messiah of the historical opportunities to the unusual ambassadors of the Alternative, humankind has actually been actually and still is waiting for a God-like figure to come down coming from somewhere and spare all of us coming from our very own unawareness and also wreck. This immature and irresponsible perspective in the direction of life is perhaps the best hurdle to personal as well as cumulative improvement. All externalized forms of salvation must be internalized. Sparing our own selves from our very own ignorance is an excellent start.

The final taped words of Buddha were these: "Degeneration is actually intrinsic in all element things. Exercise your own salvation along with carefulness." Perhaps the best present of Huachuma medication is this incredibly advice toward yourself and your personal redemption. It is the self-realization of the inner authority that Eastern literature conspicuously communicates of. Any time of individual history, this powerful ally would be actually a benefit. But today, with the growth of psychological health problem worldwide, this kind of adventure and also link is actually critically important. Buddha is. You are your own savior.

As Mahayana Buddhism's Sutralamkara states: "Indeed, the saving honest truth has actually never been actually addressed by the Buddha, finding that a person needs to realize it within oneself." And also this is actually maybe the absolute most significant present of Huachuma medication. It allows you to carry out that, amongst others factors. It merely opens your inner dream so you may view the imaginary attributes of enjoying pseudo-salvations like materialism, modern technology, scientific research and also religion: The worship of rational cause on one hand and also old wives' tales and dogmas on the other. Huachuma can plainly show you that organized religious beliefs is actually simply a selection of convictions as well as is actually certainly not a secure ship to board on a trip all over the ocean of life. Very same holds true for medical materialism. Each boats have holes in all of them as well as both will definitely kitchen sink on the way. All-time low line is that waking up is absolutely no longer an opportunity of minority but an essential need of the lots of, and it is actually achievable under specific conditions.

Huachuma is a delicate veil-lifter you can easily rely on. It activates the illumination in your area, where you can easily find perfectly what is actually within. In its own intense, dynamic lighting, what was obscure today may be observed precisely. And just like you can observe the condition in your area when the lighting gets on, so too in the lighting of Huachuma medicine you can see the condition in your life. Viewing leads to recovery and also improvement. Self-realization is the information of the unaware Self. Become your personal illumination. Do not try to find an external sanctuary. This is a mentor you find in Huachuma exotic. And these are not merely terms. It's what you experience, it's what you experience. And this take in is louder and more clear than any words.

I have devoted my 2nd publication,, to the Huachuma cactus.

This publication is the light dose of my medication. If you sound along with my terms, you prepare to take the following step and expertise Huachuma medication with our team in Peru. There is actually just say goodbye to opportunity for prejudices. The only opportunity we have is actually for recuperation as well as regrowth. Of course, it comes just along with discovering, deep, sincere pondering and also brave diving inside your own self.

Plant medication shamanism is the method to go coming from listed here ahead. Phrases like Heaven, Nirvana, Samadhi and Knowledge will not take us far. If our company do not find our religious roots, our team will just ruin ourselves as well as every thing around our team. What our team need is actually a straight religious knowledge of Divine Union to change our lifestyles. This transcendent expertise is actually the unifier that makes certain common growing. No volume of political as well as financial organizing are going to do the job till our company discover the hookup along with our own selves as well as attributes.

Please view our brand new film Divine Exotic, which reveals just how our team deal with the Huachuma exotic in Peru.

Sergey Baranov is the founder of Huachuma Wasi, a healing center in The Spiritual Lowland of the Incas, Peru. He is actually the writer of Pathway: Looking For Reality In a Globe of Lies, The Mescaline Admission: Breaking By Means Of the Walls of Deception and also Create Your Zen in one month. Sergey's interest permanently in the world and its own conservation is actually the steering force behind his job.

You may speak to Sergey at www.huachumawasi.com

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[jmrphy]

Social science and the radical politics of not knowing

The amount of bullshit circulating at the moment is astounding. And to be clear, it appears to be just as bad in left-wing circles. In fact, what I see happening on the left is the most troubling to me because that’s where I’m positioned. There’s this idea you should “punch up” or focus one’s criticisms on one’s “enemies” but I think that’s a fatally mistaken notion. If you and your friends are thinking or doing something incorrectly, that is the most urgent issue.

As a political scientist, the truth is I usually don’t have that much to offer regarding current affairs. I think most social scientists, if they are being honest, have to admit this with respect to most issues at most times. But if there’s one thing my “expertise” gives me, if I have one valuable thing to offer in a time of crisis, it’s a highly refined bullshit detector. If there is one thing you learn as a well-trained social scientist, it is this: it is so hard to make correct inferences about what is going on in social phenomena. Most of the training of a social scientist is learning all the reasons why you cannot make certain inferences. So in times of crisis, when most people seem over-eager to make inferences (as a way of dealing with all of the cognitive and emotional anxieties), it is perhaps here that social scientists are most useful, to remind you that, whatever you think is going on—you are mostly wrong.

To be clear, when I say most people are “wrong” about most of their inferences, I don’t mean that nobody ever gets anything right, or that nobody understands anything. We all know a great deal, but it’s mostly embodied, practical knowledge. We know not to put our hand in a fire, and a million other important things. But when our mind starts trying to identify causal patterns in a hyper-complex situation (and really all social phenomenon are hyper-complex), collectively we will generate thousands of hypotheses and most of them will be false. Some will be true, but remember that some would be true even by accident. Monkeys typing on a keyboard long enough would produce true statements in some portion of the text.

Recognizing our incapacity to know things shouldn’t be distressing or disempowering; it’s humbling, liberating, relaxing, and empowering. It reminds you that the little ball of fat in your skull is actually a pretty faulty device and it’s not really your job to figure out everything going on in the world. Nobody can do that, but a lot of people think they can (and should); if you think you have this responsibility, not only will it drive you crazy but, as I said, on net you will not actually be contributing or helping anything. Again, don’t get me wrong, I think everyone has a lot to contribute—but not in the form of objective explanations of what is happening in the world. We have this ridiculous, faux-democratic notion that everyone is entitled to their own reading of what is happening, but this is wrong. We are all equal, but if anything, I would say we are all equally disentitled to our own readings of what is happening—we are disentitled by objective reality, which is ultimately chaos, and which does not allow any of us the privilege of knowing exactly what is happening or what is causing what. I think we can find a radically more true, honest, and ultimately connective/solidaristic community in the shared realization that I don’t know, you don’t know, but we both know we have each other in this moment. Crucially, you can adopt this attitude in good conscience as well, because it’s nobody’s moral or political burden—not even social scientists’—to save the world or a country or a people by pretending to have knowledge nobody can have

We are seeing right now the extraordinary mass-delusional implications of a media environment in which every agent believes they are capable of understanding what is happening, there are cultural and often monetary incentives for pretending to know what is happening, and no mechanism for sorting true from false. The primary problem isn’t fake news or purposeful deceit; the problem is massive new injection of noise in the system, everyday cognitive biases, and perverse incentives to perform knowledge where there do not exist mechanisms for testing and sorting knowledge claims (and I would add, absurd Western notions about personal control and responsibility which were temporarily useful in early modernity but are now leading to a kind of mental heat death in the context of the information age).

One of the other reasons an academic social scientist comes in handy here is that we do not primarily get paid to make prognostications about what is going on in the present moment. Sometimes people think this makes us “useless,” but indeed our “uselessness” is what makes us useful in times of uncertainty, deception, and mistrust: it is precisely because we generally don’t care about pretending to be useful that if we feel compelled to comment on current affairs, if only to say it is impossible to know something with any confidence, it should be relatively more trustworthy than someone who gets paid to provide useful commentary on a daily basis. In other words, the uncertain offerings of an academic social scientist are more likely to be a signal and articles by professional commentators are more likely to be noise. There is certainly a new cottage industry for academics who wish to enter the culture market of disingenuously over-confident inferences, but our real value is that generally if we are shooting from the hip with little to gain or lose, then you should be able to trust the academic social scientist, relatively. I would ask you to remember, especially if you are passionate about contributing to politics, that false answers are typically more responsible for evil than honest admissions of uncertainty.

We have to remember that the human mind has evolved to find patterns, even where they don’t exist. This is because, for the greater part of our history, if there was a snake in the grass and we failed to identify it, we could be fucked. But if there was not a snake in the grass and we thought we identified one, no big deal. So we evolved to err on the side of identifying patterns even where there is nothing. But what’s useful for avoiding snakes may very well be collectively suicidal for avoiding an infinite set of possible global threats via the internet. Right-wing people do this with crime and terrorism but left-wing people are doing this just as badly with the new semi-global, right-wing shift. As we now have screens that fling unprecedented volumes of noise at us all day and night (and which allow us to fling noise back into it!), I think we are really underestimating the degree to which our highly faulty human cognition, combined with our individual incentives to perform knowledge, can generate extraordinary harm to individuals and groups, sending collective understandings down systematically erroneous and divergent paths, and ultimately shaping actual behaviors of masses of people. And when the behavior of people is based on any degree of systematic error that is not being corrected over time, this is arguably the most potent recipe for almost all of the worst historical disasters.

To put it yet another way, even highly educated and otherwise trustworthy people right now are doing what social scientists call “overfitting their models.” In other words, developing theories that can fit all of the data they are observing, without realizing that a great deal of that data is noise. The thing is, a good explanation of noise is a really bad explanation of reality; what this means is that if you act or behave as if such explanations are true, almost by definition it will produce consequences other than the ones you are hoping to produce.

Again, this should all be liberating and relaxing to reflect on. If there is honestly a lot of uncertainty, and one honestly does not know, then one honestly deserves to try and relax, pay attention, learn, think, consider possible hypotheses, update them as you go, and in the meantime patiently focus on what you do know (inner convictions, empathy and solidarity for the people you encounter, etc). You are not obligated to go “do something” or “say something” immediately if the actual reality is such that really you are just scared because you don’t know what is going on.

Of course, be vigilant, be courageous, say and do what you believe in, but radicalism is an all-or-nothing proposition. If you want to be politically radical, you better also be radically honest, radically humble, and radically transparent. All I’m calling for is intellectual honesty regarding uncertainty. I’m not saying anyone should dampen their convictions or compromise with anything they find unjust. I’m just saying there’s nothing radical or even defensible about effectively making shit up because you want to produce some consequence, whether it be the soothing of your own anxiety, the production of “hope” for others, or the recruitment of others into your group. One of the most radical things you can do at any time is be correct. And in highly uncertain times, the most correct diagnosis of many things will be “we do not know.” You can still maintain deeply held convictions, and act passionately on various projects, while also maintaining the basic self-discipline of trying to honestly separate signal from noise. Speak and act decisively, at the highest intensity you can sustain, but only on the most correct possible interpretation of information. This is where I think social science converges with the most radical, progressive politics.

from Justin Murphy http://ift.tt/2k3ohGF

[spottedtoad]

Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychology professor and YouTube celebrity, received a hostile profile by the New York Times on Friday, from which the big takeaway was this section:

There has been a great deal of feminist commentary, much of it angry, on this section, to which some of the people I follow on Twitter responded with evidence on the robust relationship between polygyny and violence, among men and against women:

https://twitter.com/Evolving_Moloch/status/993259925454254080

https://twitter.com/NoamJStein/status/997513127095828480

From both a cross cultural and historical perspective, it seems likely that monogamy reduces violence; as  Ed West points out in Saxons versus Vikings, the population pressures in pagan Scandinavia were a significant driver of the Viking raids that beset medieval Europe, pressures intensified by polygamy; @NoamJStein expands on this point:

https://twitter.com/NoamJStein/status/997507367741861888

Earlier this month, Ross Douthat wrote a much-hated column entitled “The Redistribution of Sex,” in which he argued that enforced monogamy was a desirable but unlikely resolution to current sexual unrest, and that given the unlikelihood of returning to conservative norms, the normalization of prostitution and substitution of various forms of enhanced masturbation (virtual reality pornography or sex robots, for example) for sex were the more likely result in a society which takes sexual fulfillment as a highest good but is committed to resolving unhappiness solely through individual atomization and consumer choice.  The article, coming on the heels of a mass murder in Toronto committed by a self-described radicalized “incel” (involuntary celibate) and riffing off of economist Robin Hanson’s unpopular argument that sexual inequality does not receive commensurate sympathy or attention to economic inequality, produced perhaps equal anger to Peterson’s remarks, in part because it was interpreted as normalizing the demands of violent and misogynist men and suggesting through its very headline that sexuality should be a matter of collective coercion instead of individual free choice.

https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/992736672294080513

https://twitter.com/toad_spotted/status/992175962275147776

While I’m sympathetic to Douthat and Peterson’s views (and possibly to Hanson’s, too, though that’s a bit like sympathy for a sex robot), enough to think the associations between certain kinds of monogamy and relative social equality, civil peace and social dynamism are no accident, I think both most feminists and many of their critics are analytically and empirically wrong when it comes to the “incel” phenomenon. In particular, there is a widespread misapprehension that large numbers of unmarried and unpartnered young men are an historical aberration within Western societies, when the opposite is likely the case- Western Europe was distinguished by its late marriage patterns for both men and women, and many or most of those men and women were likely celibate until marriage:

My own examination of recent General Social Survey data does not support the contention that the distribution of sex is becoming radically more unequal; for example, black and white young men have in fact largely converged in their number of  heterosexual partners:

That was a mean; the median number of partners is much lower, but has barely changed for white and “Other” (Asian and Hispanic) men, while declining for black men.

(The Age Adjustment here simply weights each year of age equally, so as not to be confounded by shifts in the age distribution; you can think of it as the median number of partners by Age 25, roughly.)

The number of young men totally outside the mating market- with zero sexual partners since age 18, is also apparently down since 2000:

This figure may be somewhat misleading, since it appears that some men who responded “zero” are instead simply with the same partner since before they were eighteen.  In any case, these young men who state that they have not had any sexual partners since age 18 are no more likely to report “poor mental health days” in the previous month, and more likely to describe themselves as “very happy,”

although men with zero sexual partners are also slightly more likely to say that they have been told they are depressed:

Looking at self-reported sexual frequency, the percentage of young men having sex once a month or more has not declined significantly, while the percentage having sex once a week or more has declined somewhat, most likely due to the decreasing percentage married or cohabiting with a romantic partner at a young age:

For men, but not for women, there is an increase in the percentage of men without any sexual contact in the last year, particularly among GSS respondents who do not identify as White or Black.

Aggregating all groups together and adding confidence intervals, it does appear that, for the first time in recent years, the percentage of young men without any sexual contact is significantly higher than the percentage of celibate women:

Contrary to the current media narrative, this group of celibate men is moreover, according to the GSS not particularly concentrated among conservative men. Instead they are somewhat more likely to be self-identified liberals than the mean of all men or than celibate women.

So obviously some young men feel cut out of the sexual ecology, and on some dimensions the measure who have reason to feel cut out may be increasing- but not evidently that fast. Lyman Stone (with a few nudges from me, here and there, cough cough) expanded on some of these analyses in a post for the Institute for Family Studies. On the other hand, if people have few other measures of connection, worth, and future- and little expectation of sexual success or other sources of fulfillment in the future- they perhaps focus enormously on this one. The combination of no expectation of fulfilling sex or marriage in future, a culture in which sex is treated as the sole key to adulthood and value, an envy of others’ real/imagined sex, and little male camaraderie or friendship, all seem likely to compound upon each other to intensify and make what is not in of itself a (not particularly historically anomalous) level of celibacy in early male adulthood a cause for social unrest and despair, without giving us even any cool new orders of warrior monks or nerds in mech suits exploring the bottom of the sea.

To put it another way, any mass shift in mating system is going to be a kind of legitimacy crisis for the society as a whole. We focus on sex, because we have accepted sex as a human need, but the shifts in sexual frequency and increases in sexlessness are actually smaller than the decline in marriage, fertility, and commitment, which are perhaps the larger changes with more far-reaching effects.

You could say that happened for black Americans in the late 1960s with the sudden end of married childbearing and a near immediate social disintegration in black urban neighborhoods.

The “drug war” and mass incarceration came rapidly on the heels of a developing social crisis that must have been at least partially precipitated by a shift in mating system- black out of wedlock births went from roughly equal to whites’ in the 40s to over four times higher in less than twenty years.

And American Indians have gone through a different, but equally visible social crisis in the last twenty years, an explosive increase in suicides, drug overdoses, and (already very high) alcoholism, also coming on the heels of a decade in which marriages among American Indians diminished extraordinarily rapidly.

In the same period, total fertility rates for American Indian women have dropped from the highest to by far the lowest among racial groups since the early 80s, and overall mortality for younger Indians (under 45) has increased by around 40% just since 2000:

The evidence for a similar social crisis taking place in this decade among lower-education American whites- both men and women- is also quite strong.

And again, this social crisis accompanies- and is perhaps precipitated by- the asymptotic retreat from marriage.

None of these examples is really about an end to “enforced” monogamy, in the sense that in each case (expansion of AFDC welfare programs, expanded casino income distribution, an expanded 2000s welfare state and reduced relative income of men) was likely as much or more economic as relaxation of cultural or religious norms.

Along these lines, the angry young men posting on incel forums aren’t necessarily the most a priori undesirable (Elliot Rodger, for example, was a good-looking, affluent kid) but rather those whose autistic narcissism and rage can’t allow them to detach their ego from their sense that the legitimacy of every aspect of the society is threatened as its mating system shifts. This is part of the reason why these men focus so intensely on the putative undesirability  of modern women, rather than on their alleged inability to get a date. Jordan Peterson presents these angry young men as a reserve army of potential danger that must be managed, Robin Hanson talks about them as victims of inequality to be appeased by redistribution, but really no one has any idea how the society shifts- or how long it will take to stabilize- once it abandons one mating system without a clear sense of how it will take on another.  This isn’t just about creating new winners and new losers. Nobody has any real idea how our society, built around monogamy, will shift once monogamy is abandoned, though violence and despair and self-destruction are all par for the course, not because of an army of outsiders looking at the lucky ones will begin throwing dynamite but because we are thrown into an almost immediate period of uncertainty, of confused alarms of struggle and flight.

  We often conceive of the social movements of the last half century as unleashing erotic energies hitherto constrained and bound, but an alternative perspective is that they are increasingly anxious attempts to summon Eros back to the continent after his banishment by technological civilization, and no one knows what will live here after Eros leaves.

  All the Lonely People, Where Do They All Come From Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychology professor and YouTube celebrity, received a hostile profile by the New York Times on Friday, from which the big takeaway was this section:

[gigglesndimples]

The Importance of Cory Booker

For the modern movement to end cannabis prohibition, Sen. Cory Booker checks off all the boxes when it comes to being an all-star.

The New Jersey Democrat, born in 1969, has lived a remarkable political arc, beginning with outstanding scholarship at Stanford University, attending Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and graduating from Yale Law School in 1997. A year later, Booker, not even 30, was elected to Newark’s City Council. In 2006, he became the city’s youngest-ever mayor. Booker received national media attention for the innovative and successful public policies he championed, which put him in position to win a special election for the Senate in 2013 after the death of incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg.

From his early days on the City Council, while addressing Newark’s then-rampant crime problems, Booker readily embraced “harm reduction” policies rather than the “arrest and lock them up” mentality long championed by police, prosecutors and prison officials. During his seven years as mayor, he worked with the Drug Policy Alliance to help Newark become a vanguard urban community.

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 In succeeding Lautenberg, Booker replaced the author of one of the worst and most pernicious pieces of anti-cannabis legislation ever passed by Congress: the 1991 Solomon-Lautenberg amendment (a.k.a. “Smoke a Joint, Lose Your License”), which forces states to suspend the licenses of drug convicts for six months. The law doesn’t require any proof that the offender was driving while impaired, unlike the laws regarding driving under the influence of alcohol.

Almost immediately after he was elected, Booker introduced numerous criminal-justice reform bills, notably addressing prison sentencing and racial arrest disparities. He and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) sponsored the CARERS (Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States) Act in 2015, which would reschedule marijuana so states with medical programs wouldn’t have to worry about federal enforcement. It was reintroduced in June.

“Federal marijuana policy has long overstepped the boundaries of common sense, fiscal prudence and compassion,” Booker stated at the time. “This bill will help ensure that people who can benefit from medical marijuana—from children suffering from chronic illnesses to veterans battling PTSD—can do so without worrying about the federal government standing in the way.”

On Aug. 1, Booker took a more dramatic step, introducing the Marijuana Justice Act, a groundbreaking and far-reaching bill that would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, effectively “making it legal at the federal level,” according to a Senate press release. It would also “incentivize states through federal funds to change their marijuana laws if those laws were shown to have disproportionate effect on low-income individuals and/or people of color.”

The bill would also expunge federal convictions for marijuana use and possession, and prisoners serving time for a pot offense would be entitled to a resentencing hearing. Those affected by a disproportionate racial arrest or imprisonment rate would be able to sue. A Community Reinvestment Fund would be established to “reinvest in communities most affected by the War on Drugs,” for everything from re-entry programs for prisoners to public libraries.

“Our country’s drug laws are broken and need to be fixed,” Booker explained. “They don’t make our communities safe. Instead, they divert critical resources from fighting violent crimes, tear families apart, unfairly impact low-income communities and communities of color, and waste billions in taxpayers dollars each year.

“Descheduling marijuana and applying that change retroactively to people currently serving time for marijuana offenses is a necessary step in correcting this unjust system. States have so far led the way in reforming our criminal-justice system, and it’s about time the federal government catches up and begins to assert leadership.”

Regrettably, Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act has virtually no chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress or of being signed by a decidedly anti-marijuana President. However, the very introduction of such a profoundly anti-prohibition bill into the staid and generally conservative Senate is definitely a bellwether for future reform legislation and the eventual end of America’s 80-year-long outlawing of cannabis.

Booker says he’s a complete teetotaler. “I’ve never smoked marijuana,” he told Vice in October. “I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I’ve never eaten marijuana. I’ve never tried another drug. I’ve never drank alcohol. This, to me, is not an issue I come at through my own experimentation. I come at this as an issue of justice, as an issue of safety for our communities, as an issue of utter fairness.“This is the beginning of a journey,” he continued. “I don’t see the pathway to passage [of the Justice Act] right now. But I know that the first abolitionists that got together and started fighting for abolition didn’t see the likelihood of passage in Congress at that point. And that the first activists that started pressing for voting-rights legislation and civil-rights legislation didn’t see a pathway.

“It’s going to be a far shorter journey than many may think. Millennials in this country, Republicans and Democrats, overwhelmingly believe in legalization. So we’re getting there, and as experiments in a dozen-plus states continue to forge forward on medical marijuana, and as decriminalization and legalization begin to show more instructive ways for dealing with marijuana, I think the momentum for our movement is going to continue.”

Sen. Booker with Freedom Leaf’s Chris Thompson

NORML members got to rub shoulders with Booker and other pro-legalization Congress representatives during the organization’s Lobby Day in September. A group photo was taken, and the senator posed for plenty of selfies.

“Meeting Sen. Booker was an amazing opportunity,” says Chris Thompson, Freedom Leaf’s director of digital marketing, who attended both the NORML Conference and Lobby Day. “He was extremely genuine, listened to stories from NORML chapters around the country and explained his new legalization bill to us.

“The Senator was very gracious with his time, offering to take selfies with everyone. When it was my turn, he asked me where I was from and made jokes with me while we took the picture. Overall, it was an awesome meeting, and I’m so thankful to NORML for setting it up.”

Clearly, Sen. Booker is a favorite among legalizers across the nation. His support for the cause is a reminder of how the drug war has devastated minority communities.

“There’s no time like the present to advocate for what’s right, to advocate for justice,” he says with the faith of a true believer. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the federal government shouldn’t be in the marijuana-prohibition business.”

Cory Booker for President?

Asked on CNN in July if he would run for President in 2020, Sen. Booker commented, “I don’t know what the future’s going to bring. If I start thinking about the future like that or engaging in that stuff, I think it would make me less of a senator. I’m a guy that’s going to criticize policies that, frankly, in a lot of states that are important for presidential elections would find that very much of a threat. My loyalty is to the position I’m in right now.”

Currently, the political figures considered to have the best chances of defeating Donald Trump include Booker; fellow senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); former Vice President Joe Biden; and former First Lady Michelle Obama.

The post The Importance of Cory Booker appeared first on Freedom Leaf.

Source: http://www.freedomleaf.com/the-importance-of-cory-booker/

The Importance of Cory Booker is available on https://gigglesndimples.com/

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Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food?

iStock/wundervisuals

It seems that the highest praise that can be given to a restaurant these days is to mention its “authenticity” – but ask someone what they mean by the term, and you’re not likely to get a straight answer.

Authenticity has been a culinary concern for at least the past thirty years. In the ’80s, when most foreign restaurants (other than French) had “-American” tacked on at the end, it kind of made sense, but today, food has evolved leaps and bounds past the mere suggestion of a foreign flavor, and the question, not just of whether a cuisine is foreign – but just how foreign it is – has become a preoccupation of many.

“In the past twenty years, food has become a staple part of our identity,” says Fabio Parasecoli, associate professor and director of Food Studies initiatives at The New School. “We live in a highly globalized world, so where there are fast movements and exchanges of people, materials, ingredients, and information, there is a resurgence of desire for certainty. For a well-defined identity. And authenticity, I think, is a reflection of this desire.”

What Do We Mean When We Say “Authentic”?

While authenticity might seem like a simple word, it’s actually quite difficult to define. Raymond Sokolov distills it fairly succinctly, writing that a desire for authenticity is wanting “a French restaurant to duplicate the food [one] has eaten in France, as well as the atmosphere of restaurants [one] had been to there.”

But, as Sokolov goes on to explain in his article, “On Gastronomical Authenticity,” not everyone seeking out authenticity is looking to replicate a culinary experience that he or she has had elsewhere. More often than not, a diner is looking for someone else to vouch for authenticity, a sort of lazy-man’s approach to acquiring a cultural experience that has led to the word losing some of its meaning, according to culinary journalist Su-Jit Lin.

She says that the increased use of the term as a buzzword is “something to be alarmed about.”

“It’s becoming removed from its true meaning, kind of like ‘all-natural’ on food labels when your raspberry flavor is made from the anal secretions of beavers,” she explains. “Many people are misinterpreting ‘stereotypes’ as marketing ‘authenticity.’”

Parasecoli, for example, notes that as an Italian living in New York, he is often faced with people’s disappointment when a dish he has prepared that doesn’t reflect their expectations.

“Maybe their idea of Italian is influenced by the Italian-American tradition that they are used to here in the U.S. or by ideas in the media of what authentic Italian food should be,” he says.

Authenticity as Shorthand is Problematic, at Best

“Authenticity” has become a catch-all term in the culinary scene, and as journalist Soleil Ho notes, “Using shorthand can often elide critical details and make the story that much more vague.”

The clues that diners use to ascertain whether a given culinary experience is authentic, for example, are hazy at best. Writing for Thrillist, Kevin Alexander cites the origins of the restaurant’s owners, cooks, ingredients, or even diners as just some of many criteria that foodies will use to assure themselves that a given locale is “authentic.”

“Everybody’s heard this story from a chef or food writer,” says Chef Haan Palcu-Chang. “’I went into this back alley in Chinatown and found this restaurant with no white people, the food was so good and authentic.’ And I’m like… great. Just because it was in a dirty alley and had no white people, why was it more authentic?”

This story in particular is linked to yet another problem with the term: the fact that it tends, first and foremost, to be used to describe food that is seen as “ethnic” or “exotic,” (read: non-white, non-European).

“If we only say ‘authentic’ when discussing non-western foods, that ‘exotifies’ them, and historically, ‘exotic’ has meant the conquered,” says food writer Jacqueline Neves. “We definitely don’t see the word ‘authentic’ next to a western cuisine as often as those from the rest of the world.”

While there is nothing wrong with trying to experience a food from another culture, the risk in perceiving such foods as exotic poses the risk of rendering the entire culture exotic.

“So much of foodie culture is steeped in an attitude of imperialism: privileged folks’ entitlement toward the cultures of people they consider to be a spectacular ‘other,’” explains journalist Soleil Ho. “The dynamic where people privileged on racial and/or economic axes go on safari to the ethnic enclaves of their cities is based on that thrill of conspicuously engaging with the unknown, albeit in a very mediated space. It’s not about the food, even though they may try their best to convince themselves of that.”

Who Has the Authority to Vouch for Authenticity?

Some countries have tried to protect the authenticity of their local cuisine via legal means, from Penang’s ban on foreigners cooking local food to France’s AOC designations forbidding regions other than Champagne from giving their white bubbly the name. But when individuals use the word authenticity to describe food, they are basically claiming that authority for themselves, according to Parasecoli – and generally speaking, one cannot purport to have that authority.

Firstly, a tangential association with a cuisine – one that a consumer enjoys, for example, or has even prepared – is no replacement for the years of training that it takes to truly comprehend the flavors and techniques.

“Asian food is way more complex in terms of technique, execution, and flavors than the big three European cuisines of French, Italian and Spanish,” says Palcu-Chang. “The vast majority of [white foodies, writers, and chefs] have no authority by which to credibly speak on Asian food. They toss out the word ‘authentic’ to get validation from each other or anybody who will listen.”

Of course, the other side of this coin is that just because a given person is from a given culture doesn’t mean he or she has the talent or even the interest for that culture’s food.

“Just because you’re born into a culture does not mean you know and prepare the food of that culture well,” explains Viet World Kitchen founder Andrea Nguyen. “You may have stories and context but there’s no birthright when it comes to preparing good food or understanding it.”

Moreover, vouching for the authenticity of a given dish, restaurant, or chef is based on the assumption that some ways of preparing food are more authentic than others. The truth is, authentic means different things to different people.

“My perception of authentic Indian food is based on the kind of food that’s served at home or at anyone in my family’s home. For me that’s Gujarati food which is rarely served in ‘Indian’ restaurants,” explains Dipesh Mehta. “Indian food in restaurants isn’t what Indian people eat at home – first, it’s tailored to western tastes (lots of oil, pumped with sugar, spicy for the sake of it – I’m looking at you, phaal), and second, it’s not everyday food.”

It’s also important to take into account the evolution of food; desiring authenticity in cuisine can often force a cuisine to remain within the confines of an antiquated worldview.

“I called my mom the other day to ask about some ingredients and she told me she put peas in the jollof rice,” Nigerian chef and writer Tunde Wey told Thrillist. “And I was like, mom, come on, we don’t put peas in jollof rice. And she was like, ‘Tunde, I cooked this last night in Nigeria and served it to Nigerians. I think I know better than you what I can and can’t put in my jollof rice.”

“The notion of authenticity is complex,” says food writer Kendra Valentine. “Is it referring to food being prepared in the way in which certain peoples commonly perceive that dish to be? Or is it actually the historic preparation was of the dish when the dish was named? Or is it just about a black person making soul food? More often than not, our modern versions of dishes are not the same as the historic predecessors… unrecognizable even. Which is the authentic one?”

Searching for a Replacement for Authenticity

Searching for authenticity in food has become shorthand for an elusive quality in food that we cannot otherwise name – something that feels genuine and real, a food that does more than feed or nourish, but also purports to reflect an entire culture and history in just one dish.

“When I started cooking, I tossed ‘authentic’ around a lot when talking about where I cooked and where I ate,” says Palcu-Chang. “Now I think it’s probably the most ridiculous adjective one can use to denote some inherent quality in food.”

So which word could we use instead?

Megan McArdle writes for Bloomberg that what we’re really looking for is variety: something with character that is distinct from the mass-produced food that was so comforting in the 1950s, every can of peas or shrink-wrapped chicken breast looking precisely the same.

“Hand-processed food will not be as consistent as the industrially processed versions,” she writes. “And those small variations reward us with a new experience with each bite.”

Palcu-Chang, meanwhile, says that he would now describe his own food as “made from scratch, with care, love and technique. And it is an honest, edible representation of my story as a human—where I came from, where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I love.”

It’s more of a mouthful than simply saying “authentic,” but maybe that’s what we need to do: move past a buzzword.

“I believe good food should be genuine, true and honest,” says Nguyen. ”I subscribe Jean Paul Sartre’s perspective on authenticity: ‘If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.’”

Related on EcoSalon Ca’ Momi: Bringing Truly Authentic Italian Food – and Produce – to Napa Millennials Are Driving Organic Food to New Heights Turns Out, When We’re Eating Healthy, We Don’t Actually Eat Like Our Grandparents

The post Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food? appeared first on EcoSalon.

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Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food?

iStock/wundervisuals

It seems that the highest praise that can be given to a restaurant these days is to mention its “authenticity” – but ask someone what they mean by the term, and you’re not likely to get a straight answer.

Authenticity has been a culinary concern for at least the past thirty years. In the ’80s, when most foreign restaurants (other than French) had “-American” tacked on at the end, it kind of made sense, but today, food has evolved leaps and bounds past the mere suggestion of a foreign flavor, and the question, not just of whether a cuisine is foreign – but just how foreign it is – has become a preoccupation of many.

“In the past twenty years, food has become a staple part of our identity,” says Fabio Parasecoli, associate professor and director of Food Studies initiatives at The New School. “We live in a highly globalized world, so where there are fast movements and exchanges of people, materials, ingredients, and information, there is a resurgence of desire for certainty. For a well-defined identity. And authenticity, I think, is a reflection of this desire.”

What Do We Mean When We Say “Authentic”?

While authenticity might seem like a simple word, it’s actually quite difficult to define. Raymond Sokolov distills it fairly succinctly, writing that a desire for authenticity is wanting “a French restaurant to duplicate the food [one] has eaten in France, as well as the atmosphere of restaurants [one] had been to there.”

But, as Sokolov goes on to explain in his article, “On Gastronomical Authenticity,” not everyone seeking out authenticity is looking to replicate a culinary experience that he or she has had elsewhere. More often than not, a diner is looking for someone else to vouch for authenticity, a sort of lazy-man’s approach to acquiring a cultural experience that has led to the word losing some of its meaning, according to culinary journalist Su-Jit Lin.

She says that the increased use of the term as a buzzword is “something to be alarmed about.”

“It’s becoming removed from its true meaning, kind of like ‘all-natural’ on food labels when your raspberry flavor is made from the anal secretions of beavers,” she explains. “Many people are misinterpreting ‘stereotypes’ as marketing ‘authenticity.’”

Parasecoli, for example, notes that as an Italian living in New York, he is often faced with people’s disappointment when a dish he has prepared that doesn’t reflect their expectations.

“Maybe their idea of Italian is influenced by the Italian-American tradition that they are used to here in the U.S. or by ideas in the media of what authentic Italian food should be,” he says.

Authenticity as Shorthand is Problematic, at Best

“Authenticity” has become a catch-all term in the culinary scene, and as journalist Soleil Ho notes, “Using shorthand can often elide critical details and make the story that much more vague.”

The clues that diners use to ascertain whether a given culinary experience is authentic, for example, are hazy at best. Writing for Thrillist, Kevin Alexander cites the origins of the restaurant’s owners, cooks, ingredients, or even diners as just some of many criteria that foodies will use to assure themselves that a given locale is “authentic.”

“Everybody’s heard this story from a chef or food writer,” says Chef Haan Palcu-Chang. “’I went into this back alley in Chinatown and found this restaurant with no white people, the food was so good and authentic.’ And I’m like… great. Just because it was in a dirty alley and had no white people, why was it more authentic?”

This story in particular is linked to yet another problem with the term: the fact that it tends, first and foremost, to be used to describe food that is seen as “ethnic” or “exotic,” (read: non-white, non-European).

“If we only say ‘authentic’ when discussing non-western foods, that ‘exotifies’ them, and historically, ‘exotic’ has meant the conquered,” says food writer Jacqueline Neves. “We definitely don’t see the word ‘authentic’ next to a western cuisine as often as those from the rest of the world.”

While there is nothing wrong with trying to experience a food from another culture, the risk in perceiving such foods as exotic poses the risk of rendering the entire culture exotic.

“So much of foodie culture is steeped in an attitude of imperialism: privileged folks’ entitlement toward the cultures of people they consider to be a spectacular ‘other,’” explains journalist Soleil Ho. “The dynamic where people privileged on racial and/or economic axes go on safari to the ethnic enclaves of their cities is based on that thrill of conspicuously engaging with the unknown, albeit in a very mediated space. It’s not about the food, even though they may try their best to convince themselves of that.”

Who Has the Authority to Vouch for Authenticity?

Some countries have tried to protect the authenticity of their local cuisine via legal means, from Penang’s ban on foreigners cooking local food to France’s AOC designations forbidding regions other than Champagne from giving their white bubbly the name. But when individuals use the word authenticity to describe food, they are basically claiming that authority for themselves, according to Parasecoli – and generally speaking, one cannot purport to have that authority.

Firstly, a tangential association with a cuisine – one that a consumer enjoys, for example, or has even prepared – is no replacement for the years of training that it takes to truly comprehend the flavors and techniques.

“Asian food is way more complex in terms of technique, execution, and flavors than the big three European cuisines of French, Italian and Spanish,” says Palcu-Chang. “The vast majority of [white foodies, writers, and chefs] have no authority by which to credibly speak on Asian food. They toss out the word ‘authentic’ to get validation from each other or anybody who will listen.”

Of course, the other side of this coin is that just because a given person is from a given culture doesn’t mean he or she has the talent or even the interest for that culture’s food.

“Just because you’re born into a culture does not mean you know and prepare the food of that culture well,” explains Viet World Kitchen founder Andrea Nguyen. “You may have stories and context but there’s no birthright when it comes to preparing good food or understanding it.”

Moreover, vouching for the authenticity of a given dish, restaurant, or chef is based on the assumption that some ways of preparing food are more authentic than others. The truth is, authentic means different things to different people.

“My perception of authentic Indian food is based on the kind of food that’s served at home or at anyone in my family’s home. For me that’s Gujarati food which is rarely served in ‘Indian’ restaurants,” explains Dipesh Mehta. “Indian food in restaurants isn’t what Indian people eat at home – first, it’s tailored to western tastes (lots of oil, pumped with sugar, spicy for the sake of it – I’m looking at you, phaal), and second, it’s not everyday food.”

It’s also important to take into account the evolution of food; desiring authenticity in cuisine can often force a cuisine to remain within the confines of an antiquated worldview.

“I called my mom the other day to ask about some ingredients and she told me she put peas in the jollof rice,” Nigerian chef and writer Tunde Wey told Thrillist. “And I was like, mom, come on, we don’t put peas in jollof rice. And she was like, ‘Tunde, I cooked this last night in Nigeria and served it to Nigerians. I think I know better than you what I can and can’t put in my jollof rice.”

“The notion of authenticity is complex,” says food writer Kendra Valentine. “Is it referring to food being prepared in the way in which certain peoples commonly perceive that dish to be? Or is it actually the historic preparation was of the dish when the dish was named? Or is it just about a black person making soul food? More often than not, our modern versions of dishes are not the same as the historic predecessors… unrecognizable even. Which is the authentic one?”

Searching for a Replacement for Authenticity

Searching for authenticity in food has become shorthand for an elusive quality in food that we cannot otherwise name – something that feels genuine and real, a food that does more than feed or nourish, but also purports to reflect an entire culture and history in just one dish.

“When I started cooking, I tossed ‘authentic’ around a lot when talking about where I cooked and where I ate,” says Palcu-Chang. “Now I think it’s probably the most ridiculous adjective one can use to denote some inherent quality in food.”

So which word could we use instead?

Megan McArdle writes for Bloomberg that what we’re really looking for is variety: something with character that is distinct from the mass-produced food that was so comforting in the 1950s, every can of peas or shrink-wrapped chicken breast looking precisely the same.

“Hand-processed food will not be as consistent as the industrially processed versions,” she writes. “And those small variations reward us with a new experience with each bite.”

Palcu-Chang, meanwhile, says that he would now describe his own food as “made from scratch, with care, love and technique. And it is an honest, edible representation of my story as a human—where I came from, where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I love.”

It’s more of a mouthful than simply saying “authentic,” but maybe that’s what we need to do: move past a buzzword.

“I believe good food should be genuine, true and honest,” says Nguyen. ”I subscribe Jean Paul Sartre’s perspective on authenticity: ‘If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.’”

Related on EcoSalon Ca’ Momi: Bringing Truly Authentic Italian Food – and Produce – to Napa Millennials Are Driving Organic Food to New Heights Turns Out, When We’re Eating Healthy, We Don’t Actually Eat Like Our Grandparents

The post Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food? appeared first on EcoSalon.

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[porchenclose10019]

Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food?

iStock/wundervisuals

It seems that the highest praise that can be given to a restaurant these days is to mention its “authenticity” – but ask someone what they mean by the term, and you’re not likely to get a straight answer.

Authenticity has been a culinary concern for at least the past thirty years. In the ’80s, when most foreign restaurants (other than French) had “-American” tacked on at the end, it kind of made sense, but today, food has evolved leaps and bounds past the mere suggestion of a foreign flavor, and the question, not just of whether a cuisine is foreign – but just how foreign it is – has become a preoccupation of many.

“In the past twenty years, food has become a staple part of our identity,” says Fabio Parasecoli, associate professor and director of Food Studies initiatives at The New School. “We live in a highly globalized world, so where there are fast movements and exchanges of people, materials, ingredients, and information, there is a resurgence of desire for certainty. For a well-defined identity. And authenticity, I think, is a reflection of this desire.”

What Do We Mean When We Say “Authentic”?

While authenticity might seem like a simple word, it’s actually quite difficult to define. Raymond Sokolov distills it fairly succinctly, writing that a desire for authenticity is wanting “a French restaurant to duplicate the food [one] has eaten in France, as well as the atmosphere of restaurants [one] had been to there.”

But, as Sokolov goes on to explain in his article, “On Gastronomical Authenticity,” not everyone seeking out authenticity is looking to replicate a culinary experience that he or she has had elsewhere. More often than not, a diner is looking for someone else to vouch for authenticity, a sort of lazy-man’s approach to acquiring a cultural experience that has led to the word losing some of its meaning, according to culinary journalist Su-Jit Lin.

She says that the increased use of the term as a buzzword is “something to be alarmed about.”

“It’s becoming removed from its true meaning, kind of like ‘all-natural’ on food labels when your raspberry flavor is made from the anal secretions of beavers,” she explains. “Many people are misinterpreting ‘stereotypes’ as marketing ‘authenticity.’”

Parasecoli, for example, notes that as an Italian living in New York, he is often faced with people’s disappointment when a dish he has prepared that doesn’t reflect their expectations.

“Maybe their idea of Italian is influenced by the Italian-American tradition that they are used to here in the U.S. or by ideas in the media of what authentic Italian food should be,” he says.

Authenticity as Shorthand is Problematic, at Best

“Authenticity” has become a catch-all term in the culinary scene, and as journalist Soleil Ho notes, “Using shorthand can often elide critical details and make the story that much more vague.”

The clues that diners use to ascertain whether a given culinary experience is authentic, for example, are hazy at best. Writing for Thrillist, Kevin Alexander cites the origins of the restaurant’s owners, cooks, ingredients, or even diners as just some of many criteria that foodies will use to assure themselves that a given locale is “authentic.”

“Everybody’s heard this story from a chef or food writer,” says Chef Haan Palcu-Chang. “’I went into this back alley in Chinatown and found this restaurant with no white people, the food was so good and authentic.’ And I’m like… great. Just because it was in a dirty alley and had no white people, why was it more authentic?”

This story in particular is linked to yet another problem with the term: the fact that it tends, first and foremost, to be used to describe food that is seen as “ethnic” or “exotic,” (read: non-white, non-European).

“If we only say ‘authentic’ when discussing non-western foods, that ‘exotifies’ them, and historically, ‘exotic’ has meant the conquered,” says food writer Jacqueline Neves. “We definitely don’t see the word ‘authentic’ next to a western cuisine as often as those from the rest of the world.”

While there is nothing wrong with trying to experience a food from another culture, the risk in perceiving such foods as exotic poses the risk of rendering the entire culture exotic.

“So much of foodie culture is steeped in an attitude of imperialism: privileged folks’ entitlement toward the cultures of people they consider to be a spectacular ‘other,’” explains journalist Soleil Ho. “The dynamic where people privileged on racial and/or economic axes go on safari to the ethnic enclaves of their cities is based on that thrill of conspicuously engaging with the unknown, albeit in a very mediated space. It’s not about the food, even though they may try their best to convince themselves of that.”

Who Has the Authority to Vouch for Authenticity?

Some countries have tried to protect the authenticity of their local cuisine via legal means, from Penang’s ban on foreigners cooking local food to France’s AOC designations forbidding regions other than Champagne from giving their white bubbly the name. But when individuals use the word authenticity to describe food, they are basically claiming that authority for themselves, according to Parasecoli – and generally speaking, one cannot purport to have that authority.

Firstly, a tangential association with a cuisine – one that a consumer enjoys, for example, or has even prepared – is no replacement for the years of training that it takes to truly comprehend the flavors and techniques.

“Asian food is way more complex in terms of technique, execution, and flavors than the big three European cuisines of French, Italian and Spanish,” says Palcu-Chang. “The vast majority of [white foodies, writers, and chefs] have no authority by which to credibly speak on Asian food. They toss out the word ‘authentic’ to get validation from each other or anybody who will listen.”

Of course, the other side of this coin is that just because a given person is from a given culture doesn’t mean he or she has the talent or even the interest for that culture’s food.

“Just because you’re born into a culture does not mean you know and prepare the food of that culture well,” explains Viet World Kitchen founder Andrea Nguyen. “You may have stories and context but there’s no birthright when it comes to preparing good food or understanding it.”

Moreover, vouching for the authenticity of a given dish, restaurant, or chef is based on the assumption that some ways of preparing food are more authentic than others. The truth is, authentic means different things to different people.

“My perception of authentic Indian food is based on the kind of food that’s served at home or at anyone in my family’s home. For me that’s Gujarati food which is rarely served in ‘Indian’ restaurants,” explains Dipesh Mehta. “Indian food in restaurants isn’t what Indian people eat at home – first, it’s tailored to western tastes (lots of oil, pumped with sugar, spicy for the sake of it – I’m looking at you, phaal), and second, it’s not everyday food.”

It’s also important to take into account the evolution of food; desiring authenticity in cuisine can often force a cuisine to remain within the confines of an antiquated worldview.

“I called my mom the other day to ask about some ingredients and she told me she put peas in the jollof rice,” Nigerian chef and writer Tunde Wey told Thrillist. “And I was like, mom, come on, we don’t put peas in jollof rice. And she was like, ‘Tunde, I cooked this last night in Nigeria and served it to Nigerians. I think I know better than you what I can and can’t put in my jollof rice.”

“The notion of authenticity is complex,” says food writer Kendra Valentine. “Is it referring to food being prepared in the way in which certain peoples commonly perceive that dish to be? Or is it actually the historic preparation was of the dish when the dish was named? Or is it just about a black person making soul food? More often than not, our modern versions of dishes are not the same as the historic predecessors… unrecognizable even. Which is the authentic one?”

Searching for a Replacement for Authenticity

Searching for authenticity in food has become shorthand for an elusive quality in food that we cannot otherwise name – something that feels genuine and real, a food that does more than feed or nourish, but also purports to reflect an entire culture and history in just one dish.

“When I started cooking, I tossed ‘authentic’ around a lot when talking about where I cooked and where I ate,” says Palcu-Chang. “Now I think it’s probably the most ridiculous adjective one can use to denote some inherent quality in food.”

So which word could we use instead?

Megan McArdle writes for Bloomberg that what we’re really looking for is variety: something with character that is distinct from the mass-produced food that was so comforting in the 1950s, every can of peas or shrink-wrapped chicken breast looking precisely the same.

“Hand-processed food will not be as consistent as the industrially processed versions,” she writes. “And those small variations reward us with a new experience with each bite.”

Palcu-Chang, meanwhile, says that he would now describe his own food as “made from scratch, with care, love and technique. And it is an honest, edible representation of my story as a human—where I came from, where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I love.”

It’s more of a mouthful than simply saying “authentic,” but maybe that’s what we need to do: move past a buzzword.

“I believe good food should be genuine, true and honest,” says Nguyen. ”I subscribe Jean Paul Sartre’s perspective on authenticity: ‘If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.’”

Related on EcoSalon Ca’ Momi: Bringing Truly Authentic Italian Food – and Produce – to Napa Millennials Are Driving Organic Food to New Heights Turns Out, When We’re Eating Healthy, We Don’t Actually Eat Like Our Grandparents

The post Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food? appeared first on EcoSalon.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2mvNacL

[grgedoors02142]

Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food?

iStock/wundervisuals

It seems that the highest praise that can be given to a restaurant these days is to mention its “authenticity” – but ask someone what they mean by the term, and you’re not likely to get a straight answer.

Authenticity has been a culinary concern for at least the past thirty years. In the ’80s, when most foreign restaurants (other than French) had “-American” tacked on at the end, it kind of made sense, but today, food has evolved leaps and bounds past the mere suggestion of a foreign flavor, and the question, not just of whether a cuisine is foreign – but just how foreign it is – has become a preoccupation of many.

“In the past twenty years, food has become a staple part of our identity,” says Fabio Parasecoli, associate professor and director of Food Studies initiatives at The New School. “We live in a highly globalized world, so where there are fast movements and exchanges of people, materials, ingredients, and information, there is a resurgence of desire for certainty. For a well-defined identity. And authenticity, I think, is a reflection of this desire.”

What Do We Mean When We Say “Authentic”?

While authenticity might seem like a simple word, it’s actually quite difficult to define. Raymond Sokolov distills it fairly succinctly, writing that a desire for authenticity is wanting “a French restaurant to duplicate the food [one] has eaten in France, as well as the atmosphere of restaurants [one] had been to there.”

But, as Sokolov goes on to explain in his article, “On Gastronomical Authenticity,” not everyone seeking out authenticity is looking to replicate a culinary experience that he or she has had elsewhere. More often than not, a diner is looking for someone else to vouch for authenticity, a sort of lazy-man’s approach to acquiring a cultural experience that has led to the word losing some of its meaning, according to culinary journalist Su-Jit Lin.

She says that the increased use of the term as a buzzword is “something to be alarmed about.”

“It’s becoming removed from its true meaning, kind of like ‘all-natural’ on food labels when your raspberry flavor is made from the anal secretions of beavers,” she explains. “Many people are misinterpreting ‘stereotypes’ as marketing ‘authenticity.’”

Parasecoli, for example, notes that as an Italian living in New York, he is often faced with people’s disappointment when a dish he has prepared that doesn’t reflect their expectations.

“Maybe their idea of Italian is influenced by the Italian-American tradition that they are used to here in the U.S. or by ideas in the media of what authentic Italian food should be,” he says.

Authenticity as Shorthand is Problematic, at Best

“Authenticity” has become a catch-all term in the culinary scene, and as journalist Soleil Ho notes, “Using shorthand can often elide critical details and make the story that much more vague.”

The clues that diners use to ascertain whether a given culinary experience is authentic, for example, are hazy at best. Writing for Thrillist, Kevin Alexander cites the origins of the restaurant’s owners, cooks, ingredients, or even diners as just some of many criteria that foodies will use to assure themselves that a given locale is “authentic.”

“Everybody’s heard this story from a chef or food writer,” says Chef Haan Palcu-Chang. “’I went into this back alley in Chinatown and found this restaurant with no white people, the food was so good and authentic.’ And I’m like… great. Just because it was in a dirty alley and had no white people, why was it more authentic?”

This story in particular is linked to yet another problem with the term: the fact that it tends, first and foremost, to be used to describe food that is seen as “ethnic” or “exotic,” (read: non-white, non-European).

“If we only say ‘authentic’ when discussing non-western foods, that ‘exotifies’ them, and historically, ‘exotic’ has meant the conquered,” says food writer Jacqueline Neves. “We definitely don’t see the word ‘authentic’ next to a western cuisine as often as those from the rest of the world.”

While there is nothing wrong with trying to experience a food from another culture, the risk in perceiving such foods as exotic poses the risk of rendering the entire culture exotic.

“So much of foodie culture is steeped in an attitude of imperialism: privileged folks’ entitlement toward the cultures of people they consider to be a spectacular ‘other,’” explains journalist Soleil Ho. “The dynamic where people privileged on racial and/or economic axes go on safari to the ethnic enclaves of their cities is based on that thrill of conspicuously engaging with the unknown, albeit in a very mediated space. It’s not about the food, even though they may try their best to convince themselves of that.”

Who Has the Authority to Vouch for Authenticity?

Some countries have tried to protect the authenticity of their local cuisine via legal means, from Penang’s ban on foreigners cooking local food to France’s AOC designations forbidding regions other than Champagne from giving their white bubbly the name. But when individuals use the word authenticity to describe food, they are basically claiming that authority for themselves, according to Parasecoli – and generally speaking, one cannot purport to have that authority.

Firstly, a tangential association with a cuisine – one that a consumer enjoys, for example, or has even prepared – is no replacement for the years of training that it takes to truly comprehend the flavors and techniques.

“Asian food is way more complex in terms of technique, execution, and flavors than the big three European cuisines of French, Italian and Spanish,” says Palcu-Chang. “The vast majority of [white foodies, writers, and chefs] have no authority by which to credibly speak on Asian food. They toss out the word ‘authentic’ to get validation from each other or anybody who will listen.”

Of course, the other side of this coin is that just because a given person is from a given culture doesn’t mean he or she has the talent or even the interest for that culture’s food.

“Just because you’re born into a culture does not mean you know and prepare the food of that culture well,” explains Viet World Kitchen founder Andrea Nguyen. “You may have stories and context but there’s no birthright when it comes to preparing good food or understanding it.”

Moreover, vouching for the authenticity of a given dish, restaurant, or chef is based on the assumption that some ways of preparing food are more authentic than others. The truth is, authentic means different things to different people.

“My perception of authentic Indian food is based on the kind of food that’s served at home or at anyone in my family’s home. For me that’s Gujarati food which is rarely served in ‘Indian’ restaurants,” explains Dipesh Mehta. “Indian food in restaurants isn’t what Indian people eat at home – first, it’s tailored to western tastes (lots of oil, pumped with sugar, spicy for the sake of it – I’m looking at you, phaal), and second, it’s not everyday food.”

It’s also important to take into account the evolution of food; desiring authenticity in cuisine can often force a cuisine to remain within the confines of an antiquated worldview.

“I called my mom the other day to ask about some ingredients and she told me she put peas in the jollof rice,” Nigerian chef and writer Tunde Wey told Thrillist. “And I was like, mom, come on, we don’t put peas in jollof rice. And she was like, ‘Tunde, I cooked this last night in Nigeria and served it to Nigerians. I think I know better than you what I can and can’t put in my jollof rice.”

“The notion of authenticity is complex,” says food writer Kendra Valentine. “Is it referring to food being prepared in the way in which certain peoples commonly perceive that dish to be? Or is it actually the historic preparation was of the dish when the dish was named? Or is it just about a black person making soul food? More often than not, our modern versions of dishes are not the same as the historic predecessors… unrecognizable even. Which is the authentic one?”

Searching for a Replacement for Authenticity

Searching for authenticity in food has become shorthand for an elusive quality in food that we cannot otherwise name – something that feels genuine and real, a food that does more than feed or nourish, but also purports to reflect an entire culture and history in just one dish.

“When I started cooking, I tossed ‘authentic’ around a lot when talking about where I cooked and where I ate,” says Palcu-Chang. “Now I think it’s probably the most ridiculous adjective one can use to denote some inherent quality in food.”

So which word could we use instead?

Megan McArdle writes for Bloomberg that what we’re really looking for is variety: something with character that is distinct from the mass-produced food that was so comforting in the 1950s, every can of peas or shrink-wrapped chicken breast looking precisely the same.

“Hand-processed food will not be as consistent as the industrially processed versions,” she writes. “And those small variations reward us with a new experience with each bite.”

Palcu-Chang, meanwhile, says that he would now describe his own food as “made from scratch, with care, love and technique. And it is an honest, edible representation of my story as a human—where I came from, where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I love.”

It’s more of a mouthful than simply saying “authentic,” but maybe that’s what we need to do: move past a buzzword.

“I believe good food should be genuine, true and honest,” says Nguyen. ”I subscribe Jean Paul Sartre’s perspective on authenticity: ‘If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.’”

Related on EcoSalon Ca’ Momi: Bringing Truly Authentic Italian Food – and Produce – to Napa Millennials Are Driving Organic Food to New Heights Turns Out, When We’re Eating Healthy, We Don’t Actually Eat Like Our Grandparents

The post Is ‘Authenticity’ Ruining Good Food? appeared first on EcoSalon.

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[drscotcheggmann]

What is a Classic? And Does Classic Always Mean Keeper? Part 1 of 2

The words 'classic' and 'masterpiece' are bandied about quite a lot these days; from films to TV shows to records to novels. There are modern classics, cult classics and just plain old classic classics, seminal and universally acclaimed works that will stand the test of time. So why should video games be any different? Although video gaming is a comparatively new art form when considered alongside the written word and audio/visual entertainment media, you’d be a bit of a fool to ignore the success and influence of today's gaming industry. After all, it's now not uncommon for a top end AAA video game to outdo a Hollywood blockbuster in terms of revenue. As a result of widespread commercial success and appeal, many games are now considered staples in the libraries of both casual and hardcore gamers worldwide. These are games that we will continue to talk about, scrutinise and revisit for years to come. From a personal point of view, if a game is a 'classic', it will occupy a permanent space on my shelf and will never be subject to the routine cull of dust gatherers and 'in the disc tray once' titles which I've so foolishly bought and still buy in the wake of the inevitable pre-release hype train. For me a true 'masterpiece' is a game which grabs me so wholeheartedly that I would panic if I misplaced my copy, even though I would have no real plans to replay it anytime soon. But equally there are games which offer thoroughly excellent experiences from start to finish, which are lauded as classics but which I won't feel the need to keep in my collection from now until the day I die. So, what makes a game a 'classic' - cult, modern or otherwise? And does 'classic' always mean a game is going to be a 'keeper', a permanent feature in a gamer's library? Just to get this out in the open before we kick off: the purpose of this piece is not to determine which games are classics and which are not. Nor am I claiming to be any sort of authority on what makes a game a masterpiece. I may mention a few games by name to illustrate a point but I know that the word classic will mean very different things to very different types of player. It doesn't actually matter whether you are an avant RPG player, a lover of platformers, a fan of racing sims, mad for MMOs or a purveyor of open world chaos and exploration; but there are certain boxes a video game really should tick to be considered in the highest echelons of gaming culture. Often when playing a genuine classic you can actively feel the love and thought that has gone into every aspect of its development. This could be a meticulously mapped and resultantly slick control system, a coherent and thrilling story involving believable characters that do meaningful things in a world that feels lived in and alive. Or it could be clever level design which throws up surprises and variety at every turn, a high degree of challenge which keeps you coming back time after time, even in the face of multiple failures or even a sense of longevity and reward in exchange for the player having chosen to invest hours of their life in a single experience. A classic may possess all of these, working together in harmony to create something very special. Or just some of these. Not all video games need to rely on depth of character and story development to make them successful, for example. The overarching factor is what a developer sets out to accomplish, what their aims are and how well these aims are executed in the final product. Developers don't necessarily set out to make classics. Don't get me wrong, a developer is always aiming to make the very best game possible but it's what happens once a game has hit the shelves that can often determine whether a game gains classic status or not, for good or for bad. I've seen games that are absolutely wonderful from beginning to end, adored by the critics but unfortunately never gain any real traction with the public, shift far fewer copies than they really deserve to and are then often labelled as 'hidden gems' or 'cult favourites' but are sadly left relatively forgotten. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West stands out here, selling a mere 500,000 copies. We've also seen games that have promised lots pre-release but have fallen short when it comes to execution of core gameplay mechanics. The criticism attracted by No Man's Sky is the obvious example. In theory this could be hugely damaging to consumer confidence in a developer being able to deliver and meet expectations on a consistent basis. Thankfully in practice consumers are rarely as damning. More often than not consumers value good games over loyalty to any one developer. Thankfully. One bad release doesn't necessarily mean that it's game over, especially if the next game is a huge hit. But for the smaller developers, can there be a next game following a huge commercial flop? In the case of No Man's Sky, only time will tell for Hello Games. My feeling is that they should be afforded another chance, and to their credit have already set about things in the right way post release thanks to some hefty and very well received game enhancing updates. Despite the feelings of fan entitlement and talk of broken promises that came bubbling to the surface once discs began to spin in consoles, Hello Games did not set out to make a bad game, just as no one sits down with the intention of making a classic. And its also important to note too that for many, this is by no means a bad game at all. Not even close. The aesthetic beauty of its procedurally generated worlds alone is a marvel for some. Before being too quick to criticise, we should stand back and realise that at their core developers are teams of very talented, passionate people who make games they hope to be proud of and that they themselves would enjoy. Long may that continue. But any developer would be lying if they said they do not pay attention to what their target audience wants. It is too simplistic to say that was where Hello Games fell down, to continue with this example. Things change in the development phase and that's the way it is. The creative process is one that is constantly in flux, as it should be to allow the flexibility for new ideas to take shape and others to fall away. But at the same time being sensitive to your market is at the heart of any successful industry. As much as they are in it for the love of games, developers make games to sell copies and consumer behaviour is a huge factor in driving change which in turn keeps giving us fresh waves of new and exciting experiences that are packed with all or some of the features discussed above. For good or for bad, the consumer has perhaps the biggest say in how well received a game is and its perceived classic status or lack thereof. Commercial success is only one indicator though. The Xbox Classics or PlayStation Platinum range of days past sought to place games in the 'classic' category based on sales alone and bring them to the consumer at a fair price. Having once been a teenager living off a quite limited weekly supply of pocket money, this was always welcome. But if we look at sales alone, this does not always guarantee classic status. The Call of Duty franchise releases a new entry in the series almost every year, selling millions of copies in a blink, thanks to an engaging, well scripted single player campaign and fast paced, satisfying multiplayer modes. Hugely successful sales figures are one thing but can each successive entry in the series really be considered a classic? You might say no in the broadest sense of the word 'classic' but to the legions of loyal fans of the series, the COD games may very well be classics, in spite of recent criticism that the series is becoming a bit stale. The power of the fan community is a huge factor when talking about classic status which arguably carries as much if not more gravitas than sales do. You might say that of course if you are a fan of game or series of games, you buy the product, make your contribution and so a game's fan base is very closely linked to sales revenue. And, yes it is. But it's not quite as simple as that. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has sold somewhere approaching 20 million copies worldwide to date. From Software’s Dark Souls released in late 2011 has 'only' sold around 3 million units to date. Admittedly both are very different games but both have very passionate and dedicated fan communities, neither more or less so than the other and who would both argue their point for their game being considered a 'classic', regardless of sales. I'm glad to see that from a consumer point of view, gaming is and has always been an aesthetic experience first and foremost and not one about numbers and popularity. Gamers don't see sales figures flashing before their eyes as they shoot an enemy, slay a monster or screech around a corner and not all are driven by mass appeal. No matter what your gaming background may be, video game enthusiasts value their own experience of a game above all else, with many also proud to occupy a place in and make a contribution to their respective fan communities. And it's thanks to the relatively recent proliferation of the internet that these fan communities have really gained a firm platform upon which to exert a meaningful influence. Gamers are a species not afraid to make their opinion heard and the internet has made that even easier, for good or for bad. And it is heartening to hear that developers do listen to gamer opinion too. The developers of Nioh for example have rolled out no fewer than three demos, the first two serving as test spaces to gauge fan opinion in the now common beta format. But aside from the voicing of opinions, fan engagement with Dark Souls and Modern Warfare 4, both now relatively old games, has not receded. Although players of Modern Warfare 4 in its original release format are now dwindling, YouTube is still awash with Call of Duty multiplayer videos and skilful kills spanning the whole series. A recent reboot of the Modern Warfare is evidence alone of the fan appeal of this particular entry which will also aim to pull newcomers in too no doubt. Six years after release, Dark Souls on the other hand not only still has a very active PvP player community but is also able to boast of wikis that are as deep as the decent to Blighttown and as wide as the Gaping Dragon's toothy appendage. And across both series, content is always being uploaded and updated as new things and ways of doing things are still being uncovered. For fans of these games and many others considered classics within their respective communities, it is this wider experience that exists outwith the bounds of the game's world that is just as valuable and special as the game's world itself. You may think the phrase 'one can't exist without the other' does not apply here, as the game's world will exist regardless of how many people engage with it. But had there not been this deep engagement from fans initially, fixes and improvements may never have been made nor may there have been the appetite for subsequent entries in these series; subsequent entries which often aim to distil, refine and develop the winning formula to serve their fans and gain new ones along the way. So in saying this, it might be fair to assume that not only do classic games breed fans but fans and their feedback breed what developers hope will be further classic games. So the game’s a classic? But does even that make it worthy of becoming a permanent feature in your collection? Part 2 of 2 to come in a few days time….

[birchsblog]

Appropriation art analysed through the three frameworks of Art History, Originality and Formalism

"While appropriation art is critical to art, it’s an ambiguous art form in the world of the Supreme Court."

                                                                 - Lawrence Lessig

 I have chosen to carry on, on my journey of discovery of Appropriation art as it's a movement I find myself very passionate about. The frameworks I have chosen to concentrate on in this essay is the way my chosen artists and their work have used manipulation by either the way they changed the art to make it their own or the viewpoint and by so questioning the artist’s originality, is it something new that they've done? or just copying other artists work, and copyright issues appropriation art faces in their journeys of making the art and how the world outside or inside the art world has dealt with such controversial art of its time and finally I will be looking at art in a Formalism viewpoint, and how formalism came to be and how it affects Appropriation. In conclusion, my chosen frameworks are Art History, Originality and Formalism.

Art History  

Throughout art history appropriation has been everywhere, as art has progressed ideas and forms have been translated by different artists using media but the same ideas still stand from the original sources, basically, everything is a copy of a copy in a weird way. I have chosen three artworks to prove my point, the first art piece is Six Nudes of Neil by Edward Weston (above left) this is a series of photographs Weston produced in 1925, though for his time this piece was quite extortionary, but in reality, he wasn’t doing anything no one had done before really. Weston was a traditional artist in a sense, classical nude in art is a very common factor and by the forms of photography and using his son in ways was very inspired by work like Donatello's David sculpture (above right) that dates back to the 1430s, they both depicting a young boy in a very nude way, at the time of Weston's work I suppose using photography was quite a revolutionary media for an art form such as Donatello using bronze in his sculpture, but Donatello’s piece was just another appropriation of Praxiteles marble sculpture Eros (bottom right) who was apparently one of the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC, which really is interesting because you have three very different mediums with very similar outcomes through art history, as they say, history repeats itself and it’s always been that way. But then comes along Marcel Duchamp in 1917 with his very controversial Fountain and puts a whole new spin on Appropriation art.

"Fountain, 1917"

It would be hard for me to talk about this art movement without talking about this piece, in the world of appropriation art Duchamp was revolutionary with his band of "ready-made's". Duchamp liked the shock factor almost of people instantly hating his work of slow minded people who thought art was just a platform for still life paintings that looked nice, which it was for a very long time till the camera came along, art was having an identity crisis. Why spend hours upon hours painting when you could just take a photo, paint and in a way sculpture had become unneeded. So, when Duchamp got the chance to enter a piece of art (under a mock name) and presented the fountain people went crazy no one had ever done such a thing, the original even destroyed because of how out of its time it was, so was born the “ready-mades” And the facts are that there is nothing special at all about this urinal, it was manufactured in mass and bought at a store by him, which is why this piece is so ground-breaking because it had made a whole new appropriation, appropriation of mass production. Taking something man made and changing it, just like other artists had done in the past such as Weston, but on a much larger scale and helped pave the way for many artists and is still a controversial piece today.

Originality

Entitled "Untitled" (after Edward Weston, Ca. 1925). 1980-81

Sherrie Levine is a great artist to start within the terms of Appropriation movement goes, the reason I love Levine's work is because so much like other artists in appropriation, her work expresses the art of questioning whether the art is well art?

And the questioning of this piece is, is this really a photograph by Sherrie Levine? And the answer is well complicated, in the sense of looking at different viewpoints. Levine has done something staggering of her time, and even though looking at it from a viewpoint of today’s technology all she has done is re-photographed someone's photo, but that's sort of the beauty in its simplicity. 

She's very much following in the footsteps of a great co-founder of this movement of Marcel Duchamp of what makes a great artist, skill? Making? Creativity? And then spitting on it, but also doing something so simple but so very perfected craft, and I’d like to raise the point that people don’t bring up about this piece, it’s how beautifully painstakingly re-photographed this photo is, it’s not an easy task to undertake to take a photo of an image in a catalogue, of the original photo. To my understanding that is, but producing such prints that are nearly meticulously identical to the viewer and that’s where the manipulation comes in, rather not the manipulation of the art because she hasn’t touched the original but the manipulation of the viewer. By putting two nearly identical pieces of art in front of the viewer and saying they are by two different artists is just incredible in itself, and telling the truth too. Because in my views that is her work, she took the photo that makes it her work?  

But that's where copyright comes in and raises the question of where do you draw the line? Which comes up a lot when talking about Appropriation art. And it's true in this instance I believe it’s her art  and I’m not the only one that believes it’s her work Dr Shana Gallagher-Lindsay and Dr Beth Harri make an interesting point “if is a copy of what someone else did, and there’s no original thought involved, or thinking through things on her part, then what makes this art?” in which they answer “exactly that’s part of the question, that I think that’s really what she wants to raise to some degree” (Smarthistory. art, 2012) and I think that’s the point she wasn’t looking to answer whether it was right or wrong it was more so her wanting people to ask questions that should be raised. But then I also am on the fence about taking someone's work and claiming it as their own, like in my day and age it's so easy to print screen on our devices and claim as our own on our social media sites, but that’s when we need copyright. I feel that Levine's work was very revolutionary of her time and something no one had ever done before, and now something as an artist would be incredibly hard to do with such defined copyright laws, so in that way she will always be classically original.  

New Portraits, 2015, inkjet on canvas, 65 3/4 × 48 3/4 inches (167 × 123.8 cm). 

But now we go on to someone who has gotten away with Appropriation Art in the modern day and is a truly interesting collection by Richard Prince, and is known for his appropriation art and controversy has done something artists in our day and age would be scared to do because of the backlash of copyright and the world of suing but with such a well-known artist that has a lot of money he pretty much took his style of art into the present day, which can be really hard to do well, and in my eyes I feel he has pulled it out the bag for this one. Prince has changed the game in a sense and made the everyday people famous, and when I say famous I mean each print sold for around $100,000 a pop. But even Prince’s work made it on to MSNBC which is an American news network where they covered the piece in question stating “kind of a jerk move really sums it up Chris, I mean whether or not this is legally fair use is to me kind of beside the point. It’s okay to be a jerk on the internet or in the art world but is a cardinal sin to be a boring jerk, in my opinion, that’s kind of what Richard Prince is here.” (MSNBC, 2015) But this whole cover story makes me laugh because people who aren’t in the art world just hate Appropriation art. 

But how has Prince got away with the copyright laws on this one, one of the biggest ones is that he's using a world renown social media site and just print screened and cut out the name of the site "Instagram" and by doing so cleverly Instagram hasn’t really got the right to sue him for copyright, even though everyone knows that’s the site he used. The second big copyright issue is the people and photographers and artists he technically stole work off and I use that term loosely, mainly because different people have taken this platform different ways, he's manipulated the viewer like Levine, but by using the viewer in his work, and by doing so has created a new type of copyright, an Transformative art, and by achieving that he has done so by creating an Instagram account by the name richardprince1234, and by commenting on the photos he has used, so putting his name on the work is almost like signing the piece? By putting richardprince1234 on the print does that now make it his work?

Because this is a really recent collection when it was presented it blew up around the world especially with one company "suicide girls" in which Prince used one of their images from their account, their site themselves is like a self-model site where you pay monthly to upload photos and sign a contract to prevent you to posted anywhere else with chances of being chosen the best and getting a $200 award, but in this instance the owner of the company came forward with displeasing views on the piece  “My first thought was I don’t know anyone who can spend $90,000 on anything other than a house,' Selena explained. 'Maybe I know a few people who can spend it on a car.' She continued: 'As to the copyright issue? If I had a nickel for every time someone used our images without our permission in a commercial endeavour, I’d be able to spend $90,000 on art.' Selena went on to say that she was once annoyed by mass retailer Forever 21 selling shirts which featured slightly altered images taken from the Suicide Girls. (TEMPESTA, 2015)

Personally, I think it's because they didn’t get any of the $90,000 it went for, instead they went on their own site and made replicas of the original and sold them for $90 each and stated on their website “Do we have permission to sell these prints? We have the same permission from him that he had from us ;)” which is crazy in an art viewpoint, because it’s like Levine did but using a copy of Prince's original screenshot, it's an appropriation of an appropriation made by a large-scale company trying to profit off Prince's collection, even though I should mention they claimed the money went to charity. 

Then, on the other hand, you have the smaller people that he used such as small town artist Sean Fader and his post went for $40,000 and instead of getting mad and listening to his friends saying to sue him he took an artist’s viewpoint on the matter and treated Prince as the curator to his artwork. Which is such a great way to look at it. He used the free platform that Prince gave him a chance to have a moment in the spotlight and made it completely work for him, even going to lengths to go see it and take a selfie in front of it to then re-post back on Instagram, it's like a crazy modern day internet cycle. (Trending, 2015)

The question of originality is that yes he is totally original because he was one of the first artists to take appropriation into the modern day world and also win the copyright side of things too, unlike artists such like Damien Hirst's Hymn, who recreated a child's toy of human body, but enlarged it by tenfold then got a slap in the face by Humbrol Limited, maker of the Young Scientist Anatomy Set who won the copyright battle and sued Hirst but then “settled for contributions by Hirst to two children's charities, Children Nationwide and the Toy Trust, in lieu of royalties on the £1m sale.” Even the original sculptor of the toy “Mr Emms, 57, made the original model for the toymakers Bluebird, which sold the rights to Humbrol. He said: "It is an exact copy, completely and utterly exact - even the hair, the eyebrows."” (Dyer, 2000) Which is funny because it’s just another company doing appropriation art to get money back from artists making money. Prince's collection has so much controversy and that's one of the reasons I love appropriation art much like Duchamp and Levine it's doing something no one had done before in their time and inspiring and offending the close-minded people that don’t get it at the same time just by using the beauty of simplicity... and winning copyright cases. 

Formalism

Formalism is taking the phrase “don’t read a book by its cover” and shoving it back in your face and saying instead “judge the book only by its cover” which in a sense is a weird way of talking about art because often we like to know every little piece of detail that went into making the piece, like what the artists intent was, the culture behind it and the techniques used to make it. It’s like a philosophy of making and judging art, to formalism this info was deemed unnecessary for the understanding of the work but instead, all of that is removed and you are left with it based solely on what it looks like to the viewer. Such as line, symmetry and colour. And that’s why it’s an interesting framework for appropriation art, I feel that it has its pros and cons, the thing is with this art movement is that it’s all to do with the back story, what does Duchamp’s fountain become without Duchamp, it becomes a crudely signed urinal-based strictly on looks, which isn’t always bad, it helps the art in a way that makes it about the art again and not the backstory, it makes you appreciate what’s put in front of you and you’re made to focus on what the artist has actually created, because although appropriation art is all about the shock factor, the artists still went out their way to create it, and by doing so we should still respect their craft. “Whereas one tends to see what is in an Old Master before seeing it as a picture, one sees a Modernist painting as a picture first. This is of course, the best way of seeing any kind of picture, Old Master or Modernist, but Modernism imposes it as the only and necessary way, Modernism’s success in doing so is a success of self-criticism.” (Greenberg, 1909-1994) Through reading his ‘Modernist Paintings’ this passage stood out the most to me as he realises that you should just look at the art as art before latching it on to its backstory of how it became art or how controversial it is, even though I don’t find myself thinking about appropriation art in that manner a lot of the time because I get very caught up in such aspects of the shock factor I feel art should be sometimes just viewed on looks firstly to see what the artist has actually achieved, and then move on to how it came to be or how it affects people. Greenberg also mentioned about artists such as Paul Cezanne and how he realised he didn’t want to make art that was something he wanted to make art that expressed something, he went from painting landscapes that looked realistic to landscapes that slightly resembled landscapes because it was all about the medium he used to create the piece and that’s thinking in a formalistic artist. “Basically, what modernism is painters using paint on canvases and not caring about the objects they are painting, if they are painting objects at all anymore, but instead caring the texture and the colour and the application on the canvas” (SneakyMister, 2011)

Conclusion

In conclusion I feel very strongly about all three of my frameworks and Appropriation art never stops amazing me, but I also strongly agree that there is no right and wrong or where to draw the line when it comes to this movement, as an artist myself I found myself arguing about with myself and finding myself loving such art pieces I’ve talked about such as Levine and Prince but at the same time I myself have had people take my work without permission and posting it on their social media without credit, and that upsets me, but then I contradict myself because with them two art pieces they did exactly the same, is it because they are famous artists I’m more accepting of their work of being in the right? Or because they have done something no one had done before on a larger scale. But it seems not to be a problem unless the artist puts the work in the public’s eye and up for sale because everyone feels they deserve the money from the big price tag these works go for. But as I said at the start of the essay, how Appropriation art has been around since art started so it’s hard to come to a conclusion that has such a wide radius of art that is involved, but all the same I feel that’s why I love it so, because it’s something no one really knows the answer to and different viewpoints mean everything, from viewing a piece and the medium they’ve used to the way taking a photo of a photo to just the classical nude that’s been around since the dawn of time. You just can’t have one without the other.  

 By Emily Birch. 

[takebackthedream]

The Poisonous Politics of David Brock by Robert Borosage

The following was originally published in The Nation

  David Brock is the darling of Democratic Party millionaires and billionaires.

Donald Trump’s inauguration has sparked rallies in defense of Medicare and Medicaid, women’s marches across the country, protests against mass deportations and more. Brock, meanwhile, is using the occasion to convene over 100 deep-pocketed Democratic Party donors to a weekend retreat at Miami’s Turnberry Isle resort for a “Democracy Matters 17” conference. It will be three days of strategy sessions to bolster his multimillion-dollar nonprofit political machine.

Brock’s empire, including Media Matters, American Bridge, ShareBlue, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, served as a hit squad for the Clinton campaign last year. Now that Clinton has lost, Brock is retooling his machine to lead the attack on all things Trump. “We really aspire to be like the Kochs,” he explained, referring to the circle of ultra-wealthy right-wing donors convened by the notorious Koch brothers.

Brock, known for his silver pompadour and penchant for high drama, is a controversial figure among Democratic operatives. Nurtured in the netherworld of the far right, Brock was a foot soldier in what Hillary Clinton famously dubbed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” before converting. (He earned his stripes by slurring Anita Hill as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.”)

After recanting and changing sides, Brock nevertheless prides himself on being as ruthless and amoral as the operatives on the right, though his act doesn’t fly as well in Democratic circles. During the Democratic primary, Brock declared that “black lives don’t matter to Bernie Sanders” and called on the septuagenarian Sanders to release his medical records in order to cast aspersions on his health.

In the John Podesta e-mails released by WikiLeaks, Neera Tanden, head of the Center for American Progress, called him a “menace,” and “shady,” while musing whether he was a “Manchurian candidate of the GOP secretly out to tank [Clinton].” Podesta, chair of the Clinton campaign, suggesting Brock was merely an “unhinged narcissist.”

After months of slurs, Sanders erupted, denouncing Brock and the Clinton campaign for trafficking this dreck: “What the Clinton people do very well which is what modern politics is about is you spin,” Sanders said. “I don’t think you hire scum of the Earth to be on your team just because the other side does it.”

Throughout the campaign, good government groups also criticized Brock’s Correct the Record for trampling federal restrictions on campaign spending by asserting its right to coordinate directly with the Clinton campaign.

Despite his part in Clinton’s failure, Brock is a likely candidate to “monetize the resistance,” as Eric Levitz aptly put it in New York magazine. One reason is what Podesta termed in his e-mails “Brock’s $ Machine.” With Mary Pat Bonner, his fundraiser extraordinaire, Brock has built and run organizations that are hard-hitting and effective—which, in fairness, was not exactly commonplace in liberal circles. “He saw the permanent intellectual and ideological infrastructure they had on the right,” Paul Begala gushed, “and brought it to the left.”

In the run-up to his weekend donor confab, Brock promised to build a complex that would “weaponize” information to savage all things Trump. Media Matters would strafe the press, ShareBlue would be turned into a “Breitbart of the left,” American Bridge would churn out oppo research, and his legal center would bury Trump and appointees in legal suits.

Brock scorned the Democracy Alliance, the original circle of liberal donors that, among other things, helped build Media Matters and the Center for American Progress, as too divorced from electoral politics and partisan combat. “The DA has veered away from politics,” Brock told BuzzFeed. “This conference is openly political.”

Given the fear and loathing of Trump in liberal circles, donors are likely to respond favorably to Brock’s call to the barricades.

What Brock offers is a Faustian bargain: We can win, he promises, but only if you are prepared to shed your scruples, principles and ethics and descend into a back-alley gutter fight with the right. One question when you build a political weapon is who aims the gun. Brock is not a man of the left. His institutions are not grounded in the populist-progressive movement. He’s an agent of the Democratic establishment, funded significantly by its biggest donors.

To provide guidance on strategy and message, his Florida conference will feature among others, Rahm Emanuel, one of the most unpopular mayors in America, as well as resuscitating the likes of Harold Ford Jr. and others from the Wall Street–funded Third Way. That group, after being wrong on virtually everything from the war in Iraq to the attack on public schools, is now planning a multimillion-dollar opinion-research project to teach Democrats how to appeal to workers without alienating bankers.

Brock’s fete will also attract progressives like Senator Jeff Merkley, who has been reaching out to progressive groups, Cecile Richards and Ilyse Hogue and other leaders of women’s groups under assault, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and others. Unity against Trump and the Republican right is the watchword.

But overall his organizations offer no bold policies or agenda. And while Brock’s weaponized politics are highly valued by political operatives, they have yielded mixed results. Sanders opposed Super Pacs and big-money politics. His campaign didn’t pay Internet trolls or run negative ads. He used his integrity to make the case for fundamental change, inspired the young, and came damn close to beating Clinton, who had locked up the big money, the endorsements, the party apparatus, and of course, Brock’s SuperPac apparatus. Trump won after a campaign of insult and outrage. He was supported by the right’s SuperPacs, but gained far more from manipulating the media than Clinton gained by funding Brock’s high-priced complex.

Brock is nobody’s fool. He gets the populist temper of the time. He preceded his confab by publishing a public apology to Bernie Sanders, entitled “Dear Senator Sanders, I’m with you.” He apologized briefly for the “few moments when my drive to put Hillary in the White House led me to take too stiff a jab. I own up to that. I regret it, and I apologize to you and your supporters for it.”

Sanders doesn’t need instruction from David Brock about how to use his bully pulpit. While Brock was gathering his donors, Sanders convinced Democratic senators to lead rallies across the country in defense of Medicare and Medicaid, and reaped widespread media coverage. And while Sanders is all for unity against Trump, he understands that Democrats still have to decide if they stand with the Wall Street wing of the party or work to rebuild a party of working and poor people from the bottom up.

Brock doesn’t need Sanders’s endorsement, although he’d like to have it. He doesn’t need the support of progressive movements or activists, although they’ll be happy to cooperate. The only votes that count are the votes of big-money donors. He’ll gather them this weekend in Florida. They’ll decide how much they will invest in the back-alley politics of our time.