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meta-squash · 4 years ago

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Brick Club 1.5.10 “Outcome Of The Success”

It’s long, I’m sorry. There’s just so much in this chapter!

The chapter’s first paragraph is a description of the misery of winter weather, bookended by sentences about Fantine. It’s been nearly a year since she was fired. The bit about winter is a description of Fantine’s descent as well as the weather. Winter brings short days which means less work; Fantine’s position in society means she’s finding less work as well because she is essentially freelancing rather than working for an employer with steady jobs. “No heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning” is such a good description of the way everything is miserable and just blurs together when you’re trying to just stay alive. All the awful stuff is sharp and dull at the same time. “Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.” Fantine is starting to harden here; we see her become more shameless, tougher.

Fantine wears a cap after cutting her hair “so she was still pretty.” And this disappears so rapidly in this chapter. Her beauty is so important. Fantine is the only character aside from Enjolras who is repeatedly described as beautiful in a way that seems to really matter. (Cosette is also beautiful, but that description is almost entirely through Marius’ POV, rather than from a more general POV with Fantine.) The slow destruction of Fantines beauty--the discarding of her pretty clothes for peasant ones, her frequent tears, the loss of her hair and teeth, the torn and threadbare clothing--mirrors her social destruction. She desperately clings to her beauty by wearing a cap, but she obviously gives up pretty soon.

What fascinates me here is that Hugo mentions that Fantine admired Madeleine, like everyone else, but he also implies that she didn’t hate him straight away for her dismissal. In the previous chapters, her reaction is to accept the dismissal as a “just” decision. She works up her hatred by repeatedly telling herself it was his fault. It seems as though she lands on the right conclusion in the wrong way. She blames herself first, and only through gradually convincing herself does she start to blame Madeleine. He and his crap system are the ones to blame, but she comes to that conclusion in a roundabout way that feels like she still blames herself but is trying not to. Fantine has been a scapegoat for everyone up until now; Madeleine has become her scapegoat to avoid (incorrectly) blaming herself.

“If she passed the factory when the workers were at the door, she would force herself to laugh and sing.” She’s trying so hard to make them think they haven’t gotten to her, but it just makes it so much more obvious. The laughter and singing is the “wrong” reaction, and it makes everyone notice her even more, and judge her even harder. It’s just so sad because I can understand that behavior of trying so hard to act the opposite way of how you think people will expect you to, only it backfires and makes your true feelings all the more apparent, which gives even more fuel to the cruel people.

Fantine takes a lover out of spite, “a man she did not love.” There are a few things here that contrast with the grisettes of 1.3. This lover is someone Fantine does not love, her first relationship since losing Tholomyes, who she was in love with. The man is also a street musician, which reminds me of Favourite’s actor/choir boy. The difference being that Favourite’s boy had at least some connections through his father, and Fantine’s lover is only a street musician. Fantine takes this lover in for the same reason that she sings and laughs outside the factory: to try and show that she’s unaffected, which really only serves to do the opposite. She has this affair “with rage in her heart,” which seems to be the only emotion left for her for anyone besides Cosette (and maybe Marguerite).

“She worshiped Cosette.” My only comment here is that this is something that Valjean will later echo. Both worship and adore Cosette as a point of light, something to cling to and love and care for.

Okay maybe I’m missing something here, but Fantine can read but she can’t write? This is probably my “been good at reading/writing my whole life” privilege talking, but wouldn’t she be able to write if she could read? I suppose maybe it’s like how I can look at numbers and understand the numbers but I can’t do math for shit? I don’t know. That just caught my eye.

Fantine is starting to lose her inhibitions as she begins to lose control of everything in her life. She’s laughing and singing and running and jumping around outside in public, she’s acting loud and brash and odd. Her reactions to her misfortune and the terrible things that keep happening express the “wrong” emotion. It’s an attempt to cope, and a courageous one, but it’s drastically different from the quiet Fantine who barely spoke that we were introduced to.

“Two Napoleons!” grumbled a toothless old hag who stood by. “She’s the lucky one!”

This line really struck me. We’ve been tunnel-visioned on Fantine’s misery this whole time. Suddenly the focus pulls back a little bit and we get a little bit of perspective. Fantine is not at rock bottom yet. She could still go so much lower. To this toothless old woman, she’s lucky because she’s pretty and because her teeth have worth. Fantine is poor, and cold, and worried about her kid, and most of the town laugh at or scorn her, and yet this old woman still thinks she’s the lucky one of the two of them. It’s a much more subtle commentary on the levels of poverty and abjectness that exist. Once you’ve fallen through the cracks in society to the level of homelessness, to the level of selling your teeth and hair and body, to complete aloneness, anyone who has even a scrap more than you seems “lucky.” And Fantine’s not too far from that existence.

The conversation between Marguerite and Fantine about military fever is so weird. Is Marguerite just saying stuff? This dialogue sounds like a conversation between two people who have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s like those scenes in comedies where one person pretends to be super confident about something to impress the other even though both of them are completely wrong. Oh okay wait! I just did some googling and I’ve realized that neither of them know what they’re talking about because Thenardier did his bad spelling thing! “Miliary fever” is an old medical term for an infection that causes fevers and bumpy skin rashes. (Mozart’s death is attributed to it; it seems to have fallen out of use as it became easier to pinpoint certain illnesses.) I think this isn’t just Marguerite not knowing what she’s talking about. This is a misunderstanding due to Thenardier’s misspelling (whether deliberate or not, I don’t know) and neither Marguerite nor Fantine know enough to realize it.

ETA: Okay wow I’m keeping that whole “miliary fever” thought journey in just to record my thought process but I’ve just double-checked against the Hapgood translation and the original French, and the mistake isn’t with the Thenardiers at all! It’s entirely the fault of the translators. The original French says “miliare” and Hapgood has translated it as “miliary”; Fahnestock and MacAfee clearly did not notice that the French was “miliare” and not “militaire,” and neither did their editors.

“During the night Fantine had grown ten years older.” Off the top of my head, I can only think of three instances of not-old people being blatantly described as looking old. This description here, Valjean when he returns from Arras, and Eponine. There are probably more I’m missing, but the connecting factor between these three is severe, prolonged trauma. Trauma and a difficult life can prematurely age people (I always think of that Dorothea Lange photo of the migrant mother who was only 32 but looks 50) and Hugo uses this fact to bolster his descriptions of what they go through. But Fantine and Valjean both age almost suddenly; Eponine is already old-looking the first time we meet her as a character with dialogue. Fantine’s sudden aging is another level of departure from her old life. In Paris, she was the youngest of the group, and now she looks far older than she is.

“Actually, the Thenardiers had lied to get her to get the money. Cosette was not sick at all.” As readers, we know this. We’ve seen the Thenardiers lie over and over and we see Fantine sacrifice with no idea. But this one hits harder than the others. Partly, I think, because Hugo puts it so bluntly in a sentence that has its own paragraph. But also because this is the first sacrifice that is truly unalterable. Fantine’s hair can grow back. There may have eventually been some slim chance of a job opportunity or something coming up somehow, or an influx of things needing mending or something. But she cannot regain her teeth. This is also the first sacrifice that physically disfigures her in a visible way. She can hide her lack of hair under a cap, she can hide her lack of money by using and reusing things. She cannot hide her missing teeth.

It’s interesting that we do not hear about Mme Victurnien here. Rather than the last chapter, this would be the one where Victurnien would be “winning.” The consequences of Victurnien’s actions have now permanently affected Fantine’s life. Except I think the reason we don’t see her here is that she wouldn’t face it. She can look out her window at Fantine walking down the street in distress with her beauty intact and feel satisfaction, but if she saw Fantine walking down the street, toothless and hairless, I don’t think she would feel satisfaction, because she wouldn’t be able to connect her actions to this Fantine. Feeling satisfaction towards this level of misery would require acknowledging her participation in causing it. It’s one thing for the townspeople to laugh at or gawk at her, but I think claiming responsibility for her condition is something else altogether that I’m not sure Mme Victurnien would do.

Fantine throwing her mirror out the window is a strange sort of contrast compared to Eponine’s reaction to a mirror. Fantine cannot face her descent. Eponine is already there, and her excitement at Marius’ mirror is a weird sort of distracted examination of herself. Fantine cannot bear to examine herself because unlike Eponine, she can remember what it was like before this. Tossing away the mirror is tossing away the thoughts of her past life and her past self; she can’t ever go back to that.

“The poor cannot go to the far end of their rooms or to the far end of their lives, except by continually bending more and more.”

God I don’t really even know what to say about this line except ouch. It’s just so poignant and intense. The older you get the harder it is to survive, to get up with each new stumble. And we can also take into account things like the cholera epidemic that will occur a few years later in the book, which mostly affected the poor. There’s so little access to any sort of help or assistance. And clearly Valjean’s few little systems of aid aren’t good enough. He may have set up a worker’s infirmary and a place for children or old workmen, but there doesn’t seem to be assistance for single, unsupported women, or the homeless and unemployed. They’re left to bend more and more under the weight of life.

“Her little rose bush dried up in the corner, forgotten.” I can’t help but read this as a parallel to the Thenardier’s treatment of Cosette. As Fantine falls apart and falls behind on her payments, Cosette is growing up which means the abuse from the Thenardiers has probably increased. It also feels like a weird sort of throwback to the spring/summertime imagery of beauty and chasteness and modesty from back in 1.3, which has now completely disappeared and dried up as Fantine loses her beauty, her modesty, and her coquetry.

I love the little detail about Fantine’s butter bell full of water and the frozen ice marks. It’s such a small detail but so evocative. It also feels like a metaphor for each of Fantine’s new hardships. Every time the butter pot freezes over, it leaves a ring of ice for a long time; each time Fantine encounters a new trauma, she hardens and becomes tougher. She keeps her dried up, long gone modesty and youth in one corner and the suffering that has hardened her in the other. On a side note, I’m wondering if there is actually butter in her butter bell or if she’s now using it only for water? I would imagine water only; butter seems like something that might be expensive. Also, would the building she’s living in have had indoor plumbing, or would she have gotten water from a well or a pump somewhere? My plumbing history knowledge is lacking.

Hugo describes Fantine’s torn and badly mended clothes. At this point she’s working as a seamstress, which means she’s at least proficient in the skills needed to sew and/or mend clothes in such a way that they stay together. This means that the repairs done for herself are likely careless and messy. I think this is partly an indication of how little time she has for herself--if she’s sewing for work for 17 hours a day, she has very little time to mend her own stuff, and definitely can’t afford better quality material--and partly an indication of the ways in which she is falling apart. She doesn’t bother mending her things properly, she goes out in dirty clothes. She doesn’t mend her stockings, she just stuffs them further down in her shoes. It seems she has only one or perhaps no good petticoats, which means she’s probably walking around in just a shift and a dress. Not only is her stuff threadbare and falling apart, she’s also probably freezing due to the lack of layers.

“A constant pain in her shoulder near the top of her left shoulder blade.” This makes me wonder if Fantine’s left-handed. If she’s sewing by hand, by candlelight, in a shitty rush chair, for seventeen hours a day, that is absolute murder on the back/shoulders/neck. Whenever I do hand-sewing I’m usually sat on the floor or my bed, and my back and upper shoulders tend to get sore if I get in the zone and I’m bent over the work for a long time. I don’t know about French dressmakers, but I know around that time the English were really big on very small, neat, almost invisible stitches. Which would hurt to do for seventeen hours a day by candlelight.

“She hated Father Madeleine profoundly, and she never complained.” The Hapgood translation of this line is better, I think. Still, I think it’s important that it’s pointed out that she never voices her opinions or her complaints. It’s only when Madeleine is in front of her that she announces them at all (despite not speaking directly to him then, either). She hates Valjean, she blames him, and yet obviously some part of her still thinks that she deserves it, or that her dismissal was right.

“She sewed seventeen hours a day, but a contractor who was using prison labor suddenly cut the price, and this reduced the day’s wages of free-laborers to nine sous.” Reading this book is always a lot because aside from the still-relevant general overarching commentary about society and poverty and mutual aid and goodness and all that, there are so many smaller details that are so painfully, strangely relevant to the present day. Even today there’s fear that employers will come up with a new policy or a new labor shortcut that means less income. Employers who pay their employees less because the workers get tipped, or outsourcing that causes layoffs. Prison labor, too (and behind that, the fact that prison labor doesn’t guarantee a job in a similar field after release if desired).

In the next two chapters, we jump ahead somewhere between a few weeks to a couple months. What happened to Marguerite in the interim? Hugo describes her as a “pious woman [...] of genuine devotion,” but I have this sad thought that maybe when Fantine made the decision to become a sex worker, Marguerite may have turned her back on her as well. As we’ve seen with Valjean, being poor but modest is Good, and being poor and desperate enough to do something improper and “immoral” is Bad. Despite Marguerite’s canonical generosity towards the poor, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fantine’s decision overstepped some moral boundaries of hers.

“But where is there a way to earn a hundred sous a day?” I’m a little stuck on this. Would she make this much money? I’m basing the following information off of Luc Sante’s The Other Paris, so the monetary info might be slightly different a for non-Parisian area. According to Sante, someone like Fantine, a poor woman working without a pimp or madame and not in a legal brothel, would basically be working for pocket change. 100 sous would equal about 5 francs. If her earnings are basically pocket change, I don’t think she’d make 5 francs a day. Just considering the fact that a loaf of bread might cost about 15 sous, which seems like pocket change, or even slightly more than pocket change. Fantine probably becomes a sex worker and finds herself in the exact same position that she was in before, not making any more money than she would have if she had continued to be a seamstress.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.5.10 #les mis #les mis meta

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 6 years ago

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Humans are Space Aliens “Your Planet”

Some of you guys wanted to learn a little more about Krill and his planet. It was a difficult subject to write about, and I think I missed a lot, but this might as well be a start.

As always questions, comments critiques, ideas, messages, and prompts are all welcome. I try to write the stuff that is most requested, so if you want something written its best to request it :)

Descent into atmosphere was as smooth as ever, the atmosphere parted around them under the light of the constant sun-stream. The transport ship rattled maybe once or twice upon entry passing through the rare pockets of cloud that dotted an otherwise open sky. Krill sat buckled into his seat next to Captain Vir, who sat next to a large duffle bag reading a magazine.

All around the transport ship, eyes stared at the strange pair, wary of the towering human. This wouldn’t be the first time humans ventured onto his planet, in fact this would be the captain’s second time, but this would be the first time any outsider would be experiencing an extended stay. Shore leave had come sooner than expected, ad with human colonies cropping up further and further away from earth, it became only fair to let those members of the crew home for a holiday.

Since captain Vir had nowhere to stay, Krill had offered to show the man his planet in more detail. The man seemed pleased and had readily agreed to the idea. The captain had at first wondered if Krill wanted to go back after they had treated him so poorly the last time. Krill honestly did not understand the question, despite their treatment, they were still his species, and he had a duty to return, to be connected, and besides, next to the captain, he wouldn’t seem half so intimidating.

They exited the shuttle near the location of Krill’s hatching, he could see the distant incubation building from atop the landing pad. He ushered the captain follow him quickly, the man got distracted very easily, and he was notoriously hard to rein in. As they went they paused crowds and drew staring. Krill made his way up to the receiving window allowing them to run identification on him.

“Krill, will you be returning to your duties I the surgical suite during your stay.” Vrul asked.

“Yes, of course.”

The Vrul craned his neck upwards at Vir, “And will your friend be staying as well?

Krill nodded.

“Where would he like to apply his services?”

Krill looked up at Vir, and Vir looked down at Krill a confused expression on his human face. Krill wondered for a long moment about that. He knew the man was a pilot, but from what he understood about the human ideas of flying, no one would really appreciate his skill, “Um…. Demolition….. He’s very good at that.

The Vrul gave a curt gesture and sent them off.

Vir looked down, “What was that about?”

Krill looked up at him, “The nature of our species is communal, as long as we are here, we work together for the common good; everyone has their strengths and their abilities, and must apply them for the common good. While I am here I must provide my services, and as a guest you must too.”

Vir tapped a finger on his chin, “Sounds like communist propaganda but ok.”

“What?”

“What?” the human waved him off, “Never mind, I can destroy things, that’s cool.”

“I thought you might think that.” Krill muttered

They walked down the ramp and onto the city street krill pointing out things as they passed by, “That is the seat of the populous council, every seventh cycle we are expected to meet there to make decisions for the city, all of us, it’s mandatory.”

“You have mandatory democracy?”

“Yes? You may not like it, but our system of government is far more effective than yours.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my freedom.” The man grinned at Krill who just shook his head.

“Over there are the incubation chambers, ever year after mating season, all the eggs are housed there.”

The man paused, “Uh, Krill, I know that this is us a weird question to ask but….. I don’t think I ever asked if you were you know…. Male or female….. I suppose I probably should have.”

Krill waved it off, “My species doesn’t find those things as important as humans, mostly because we don’t have genders in your sense of the word. Under certain circumstances any member of my species can lay or fertilize an egg. However laying an egg takes much more time, so my work doesn’t allow for it.”

“Wow…. That’s…. that’s really weird…. So you don’t have…. Families?” The human seemed rather uncomfortable at that thought

“Traditionally we never did, but upon meeting other species we were introduced with new ways of doing things. Some of our number choose to raise their own offspring and many choose the traditional method. Either way children tend to be raised by the community.

“How many…. Children do you have?”

Krill gave a small shrug, “I don’t know, could be a hundred could be none, I’m not sure. Thousands of eggs are laid and thousands of them are fertilized, but it take the perfect conditions to hatch and even more perfect conditions to keep the young from dying. We lose hundreds every season, and that’s why many of us choose to do things the traditional way. It’s less painful if you don’t know which one was yours. However, after that you can petition to keep one of the grubs and raise them to maturity, generally everyone who has a job that allows for it must participate. Since my job is so demanding, I have never been asked, and have never asked.”

They stepped off the ramp into the street the human staring at him in wonder and confusion, “So I don’t get it, do you or do you not have families.”

“Depends on your definition. If you are talking about like your family, than you have to understand that my species does whatever makes sense and is logical for the survival of the species. Other species in the galaxy have families like yours, so it is logical to conclude that there is some benefit to doing it that way, so SOME of us follow that line. Others raise children by themselves with the help of the community, and sometimes you pare off with someone you like. Personally, I was raised by two such Vrul, and, as for you definition, I have a few other siblings.”

“So…. With all of that being said, does that mean you…. You could potentially have kids with any of these people.” He motioned around to the passing Vrul and their staring eyes.

Krill laughed heartily like the idea was absurd drawing a few eyes as they moved on, “No, no. As you know our species needs the perfect incubation to grow and thrive, however, there are subperfect incubation that allows for someone to be born, but allows some…. Deficits, most of these tend to be cognitive. Some are no more than children, others cannot understand abstract concepts and so on. Luckily for me, I remain a member of the class with four functioning cortical zones which makes me a member of a higher class. Due to the genetic likelihood of cortical malformation, they generally encourage members of my class to produce offspring together.”

Vir seemed to shuffle uncomfortably, “That seems kind of messed up, that seems like discrimination against the disabled, don’t you think.”

Krill shook his head, “to the contrary, each level is as important to society as the others. None can function without the duties performed by the others, however you need abstract concepts to build rocket ships. Though, unlike humans they are not treated less, and have the same pull in our council as anyone should.”

They passed by another set of staring eyes. Vir scratched the top of his head, “Wow, I never knew that about you guys…. Kind of makes me sound like a jerk doesn’t it?”

He paused, “Speaking of things that will make me sound like a jerk, is there anything I should avoid doing while I’m here.”

Krill snorted, “Probably avoid being human.”

The man snorted and nudged him playfully to the side, “You know what I mean, anything particularly rude or offensive I should avoid doing.”

Krill gave a sigh, “Captain, by virtue of being you, you are bound to scare someone absolutely sh*tless, but if they use logic like all of us do, than they will know that you can hardly help it. For me, on the other hand, it is quite rude to act against anything that is not species specified. The more human mannerisms that I pick up, the more I am forced to regulate my behavior.”

Captain Vir went silent just then, he felt bad for Krill, he didn’t mean to make him something that he wasn’t supposed to be, but what was he supposed to do? He took it as his only real option to watch and learn about this new planet. He had been here before, but now he was more fully able to drink the whole thing in. The sky was a soft pastel orange fading towards pink near the horizon. The ground around was awash strange white stone that glittered with crystal. Distantly he could hear the sound of rushing water, watching as a strange blue grey plant waved languidly from the distance. The distant mountains were a faded purple color.

In the sky two moons glittered.

It was a shocking and strange new world unlike earth in many ways. Compared to earth it was particularly vanilla for a habitable planet. Its weather conditions were downright affable 459 days out of its 461 day solar year. The creatures there were almost as affable as the weather. Due to the climate the idea of competition so rife on a planet like earth was almost nonexistent here. For every ecological niche there tended to be one primary filler of that category, or several who performed different variations of the same thing, never crossing paths.

As for the Vrul, they were also very affable. They had no definable religion as far as Vir could tell other than science and logic. Their society revolved about being a good citizen of the community. Everyone had their job and their place, and everyone was expected to contribute, anyone who could not follow those rules was quickly ostracized.

The buildings were made from the same crystalline stone that lined the streets, though they separated themselves form their surroundings with delicate architecture. The buildings didn’t tend to reach to high towards the sky usually one or two floors. As far as he could tell, transit consisted mainly of floating or walking, anything out of the city was completely public transit.

They didn’t have any form of currency mostly subsisting upon the idea that the most logical way to live involved everyone contributing equally to the societal good. It was a society that humans had been striving for, and failing for, for thousands of years always corrupted by greed. Communal ideations broke down in favor of greed, and the only way to survive in this world was by way of capitalistic ventures.

But there was an undertone to all of this, an ostracism towards the different, and the unknown or the unorthodox. It was subtle, but poignant. Krill may not have seen it, but he was a definite example. Perhaps that’s why Vir was here, because it made Krill stand out less in comparison. But it wasn’t just his human-ness that set him apart, there was something different, something that had already been there, something that had made him leave his planet to become a trauma surgeon and make the illogical decision to join a human ship.

It seemed interesting, that a curiosity, so common in humans, could be so rare in other species.

On this perfect planet, with its logical structure, communal goals, and perfect weather, they were missing something quite profound, love, companionship, joy?

Because you can only find light in the dark, so you can only see joy compared to pain.

Krill was different, Vir didn’t know how to put it into words, but Krill was surprisingly human in his inhumanity, and that made him special.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #humans are space australians #earth is space australia

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notesfromthefielddesk · 3 years ago

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Episode 2 - E.E. Evans Pritchard

Episode link - https://open.spotify.com/episode/0LqJQ1q2kv5utkoct7V8Cg?si=485ef5c24837440e

John

I’m looking out over the plains of what was once Nuerland. The heavy clay earth is broken apart by the relentless sun. Deep cracks and the threaded depressions of rivers which rarely fill, even in the rainy season, are the only features on the dead flat, almost alien landscape. Around me cattle rest on the slightly (We hear gentle mooing) elevated sandy spot I found for my desk. From here I can see clear to the horizon where I spot sporadic patches of trees but all other greenery has browned and died back months ago. What these cows are living off is beyond me.

In years past the sodden clay retained water allowing certain plants to survive through the dry months. When the rain came this whole plain would be covered in grass reaching over my head as I sit behind my desk. Near the rivers edge they’d reach up to my shoulders even when standing. The rivers would fill then overflow making the whole plain a marshy swamp. At times like those this sandy mound would be prime real-estate and i’d be sharing space with far more cows.

Nowadays, this is South Sudan. The rainy season has become more sporadic and unpredictable. Often the relief of rains arrival is followed - shortly - by overwhelming flooding. Right now people are still waiting on that rain.

(we hear the wind starting to pick up)

The wind is picking up. A cloud of dust is rising on the plain. The horizon, with it’s sporadic trees and the cracked earth disappear from view behind a wall of air thick with clay. I can see about two cows away. Out of the dust emerges a figure. They’re walking towards me.

This is notes from the field desk.

Theme

oh! you. Look after what you told me in Papua new guinea I don’t think we should be talking. What are you doing here anyway? -

what do you mean am I following you? I am here by chance. My flight back to London from Brisbane got diverted because of technical fault with the plane and we landed in Juba. So there is no way I could have followed you here. If anything you’re probably followed me!

(sigh) Fine, I suppose there is no harm in you sitting here. There’s a tree stump just there you can listen to me record if you want. That is if you’re not busy organising a coup or whatever.

Anyway, when we got grounded in Juba I had a look through my collection. Oh, I should explain, I travel with a trunk of the one hundred most influential ethnographies, that’s what we call the books anthropologists write.

Side note, I never thought the trunk would be a problem, in all these Ethnographies they talk about getting porters to carry all their stuff, but when I asked at the airport for a porter, they just laughed at me?

Anyway, we were grounded a while before they cancelled the flight. So I had a look and it turns out another anthropological founding father did research in South Sudan. E.E.Evans-Pritchard. Or as I call him EEEE Pritchard. Okay well look, I don’t even want you to find my jokes funny so you just sit there rolling your eyes all you want.

Evans-Pritchard was a student of Malinowski at LSE and in the late 1920’s he set out for what was then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He wrote a couple of Ethnographies about the Azande which mostly focused on magic, kind of an obsession with early anthropologists. Then he headed south in 1930 to do research on the Nuer, which focused mostly on politics. A good hard subject we can get our teeth into! Anglo-Egyptian Sudan came Sudan in 1956, then split into the mostly Muslim North and mostly Christian South in 2011. Then in 2021 I arrived to do some peer-reviewing. I’m hoping Evan’s Pritchard is a bit less of a controversial figure so my students will get off my back.

(phone rings) ignore that, i’m ignoring, that’s nothing.

(Clearly still flustered) Okay, last time, we talked about the two sides of anthropology, the field and the desk. If Malinowski represents the innovation of field, you know participating in society, going native, spending years in the field. Then Evans-Pritchard is the OG anthropologist who developed the desk. Anthropology trades on being able to create a sense of being there through vivd description, where Malinowski could be a bit stiff and scientific Evans-Pritchard had a bit of flare with his flowing prose.

Is that cow looking at me? That one there with huge horns. I swear to god it’s looking at me.

Anyway, EP, I like calling him EP when I do he feels like a friend. (clear throat) He made drawings, he took tonnes of pictures, he described the plains, some of his diary crept into the ethnography. No racism as far as I could tell but He talks about being frustrated, he shows his work. A move towards modern anthropology. So reading his The Nuer, which is the ethnography he wrote about this region, is really like the experience of being here. Way less of a slog than boring old Malinowski.

(Email Chime)

Ohh an email, do you mind if I just check this? I just got assigned a student whose thesis i’m supervising. Very exciting. Shaping the next generation of anthropologists and all that.

okay, here we go.

“Dear Professor Johnson”

Not a professor but i’m quite pleased with that.

“I discussed briefly with Susan, uh-huh, during the introduction lecture that I’d be interested in researching the club scene, queer identity and youth in London. I’ve been reading tony Adams and Stacy Holman Jones on Auto-ethnography and that’s inspired me to try it myself. If you could point me in the direction of some readings to get myself started with.

All the best,”

I’ll leave their name out of it, bit of privacy. Hmm well i’m not sure about that. I mean really ethnography should be done in a rural place, not the city, should they even be doing research in the UK? This is anthropology not sociology. Plus auto-ethnography? I’ve never heard of it but we’re supposed to be studying the other not ourselves, this isn’t psychology. Hmm well I need to think about a reply, don’t want to stamp on the young fellows aspirations but he needs setting straight.

What is that cow doing. Is it - it’s coming over here isn’t it. Shoo, shoo! it’s licking me. Do something don’t just laugh. No do not nibble my suit! Argh. This suit cost a lot of money cow! Get off me. Shoo. Fine, i’m getting up. it’s your desk now!

Go on get out of here!

You know what happens now because you wouldn’t help me? We’re going to talk about theory. Yes groan away, there isn’t even a sea for you to paddle in this time so I guess you’ll just have to sit down there with the cows and listen.

This book actually is mostly about cows. All three hundred pages of it, I don’t think there is a single sentence that doesn’t mention cows or cattle or I don’t know bovine. I mean I like cows as much as the next englishman but it’s not exactly thrilling. But in fairness to Evans-Pritchard the Nuer didn’t exactly give him a choice. He said that

“whatever subject I would start on, and approaching it from whatever angle, we would soon be speaking of cows and oxen, heifers and steers, rams and sheep, hegoats and she-goats, calves and lambs and kids.”

Basically the Nuer loved cows. He said this fact was the underlying structure of Nuer society. So everything in Nuer society comes back to cows. Love, war, religion, politics, it was all about cows.

Our boy EP is a structural functionalist, - look the terms are important so just get used to it - meaning he thought there are underlying structures to all societies, that cause us to behave in a certain ways. Where Malinowski and functionalism thought post hoc ergo propter hoc - I can see you rolling your eyes, sometimes latin is useful! (deep sigh) Fine, i’ll explain it another way.

Malinowski would say the Nuer like cows because they give them milk - our boy EP would say okay but why love cows instead of say… soy beans which can also give you milk. It’s because the conditions the land in which the Nuer live aren’t good for growing soy beans, but they are good for raising cattle.

What would be a good comparison. Okay, Malinowski would say you like your iPhone because it gives you messages from friends. Those messages make you feel nice, so it fills a need. And EP might say, yes that’s true but it’s also possible that you like the phone because the underlying structure of Western society values objects especially expensive ones. Or else you’d have a nokia 3310. It still fills the same function but EP aims to explain why people choose one thing over another. If you’re a quote fan here is how Evans-Pritchard put it.

“Although the Nuer have a mixed pastoral-horticultural economy their country is more suitable for cattle husbandry than for horticulture, so that the environmental bias coincides with the bias of their interest and does not encourage a change in the balance in favour of horticulture.”

Oh there is a guy over there! (Shouting) Hey! Hey sir! Sir! Who do these cows belong to? Sir? (Biggish pause) (Snort in distance) He’s gone. Well I didn’t have time to chat anyway, i’ve got a tutorial. Just keep that cow away from me while I’m teaching. I doubt you care but here’s a Nuer song that Evans Pritchard translated.

Extract

The wind blows wira wira;

Where does it blow to?

It blows to the river. The shorthorn carries its full udder to the pastures;'

Let her be milked by Nyagaak;

My belly will be filled with milk. Thou pride of Nyawal,

Ever-quarrelling Rolnyang.

This country is overrun by strangers;

They throw our ornaments into the river;

They draw their water from the bank.

Blackhair my sister,

I am bewildered.

Blackhair my sister,

I am bewildered.

We are perplexed;

We gaze at the stars of God.

White ox good is my mother

And we the people of my sister. The people of Nyariau Bui.

As my black-rumped white ox. When I went to court the winsome lassie,

I am not a man whom girls refuse. We court girls by stealth in the night,

I and Kwejok Nyadeang.

We brought the ox across the river,

I and Kirj oak

And the son of my mother's sister Buth Gutjaak.

Friend, great ox of the spreading horns,

Which ever bellows amid the herd. Ox of the son.

Return from tutorial

You let the cows eat my notes!? I thought I said watch the cows! What happened? Was it that same cow again? What do you mean they all look the same, the one with the evil eyes!

Okay, so it seems like I missed some things again. The students pointed out that on page one of the preface, I might have skipped the preface, says “My study of the Nuer was undertaken at the request of, and was mainly financed by, the Government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.” Which means the colonial government most likely paid for him to do the research because they wanted to control the Nuer. He describes them as violent willing to go to war over cattle at the drop of a hat. In text he says;

“At the present time cattle are the main cause of hostility

towards, and suspicion of, the Government, not so much on

account of present taxation as of earlier tax-gathering patrols

which were little more than cattle raids and of the avowedly

plundering expeditions of the Egyptian Government era that

preceded them.”

The students pointed out that given theat the government violently took their property, it was kind of understandable that the Nuer were angry. Again, if he was there trying to collect information so the colonial officers could control them, can we trust his findings?

During the second world war he used his ethnographic relationships to recruit Sudanese troops who he then led in Guerrilla warfare against the Italians. I said that sounds pretty cool right? Which made them angry, academic knowledge shouldn’t be used as a weapon to manipulate people into fighting in a war, which, regardless of the outcome would leave them colonised. They asked why we were spending so much time focussing on old men.

(Phone rings) Ignore that!

Pause takes a breath

I said fine, but we have to cover foundational figures who would they rather cover? What about Boas? He thought races were biological different and with some inferior to others. Ruth Benedict? They say she wrote a book for the US army in the Second World War about how to defeat the Japanese based on their culture without ever setting foot in Japan. Fine, Margret Mead? Exoticised the sex lives of Samoans and thought they were primitive.

I’m taking off this jacket it’s so hot and it’s got cow slobber all over the shoulder.

Well if all of them were racist then let’s just pack the whole thing in! They said I wasn’t understanding. I was thinking about racism as an individual failing caused by ignorance. But they weren’t ignorant, their racism was a product of society. In that way Evans-Pritchard was right. They lived during colonialism and the rise of the nation state. Which meant Nations had to justify their difference from others and their superiority over others.

People had to have a reason to believe in “Being British” rather than French or Sudanese. Or why would you think it was okay to rule them? Or to enforce boarders? These ideas of superiority and difference permeated the early anthropologists the same way the utility of cow herding led to the Nuer loving cattle. So everyone from that era was bound to be Colonialist.

They also said It doesn’t help that doing fieldwork confirms the differences between people. My head felt like it was going to explode. Still trying to figure it all out and it doesn’t help that that cow is still looking at me. I asked where they were getting all this from? Lentin and Visweswaren they said, apparently it’s on the reading list… I haven’t read the reading list.

(Phone rings once but he immediately hangs it up)

So, they said maybe next we could talk about Talal Asad. Apparently he is an anti-colonial ethnographer or something. I said fine whatever. They seem to know more than me anyway. Maybe we shouldn’t do fieldwork, maybe we should all do auto-ethnography. My students said maybe, but we still need to pay attention because racism hasn’t gone away, it’s still in our society. Which means we still might make arguments for it in our work unless we’re careful.

I guess before I do field work I should look at what the underlying structures of Britain are effecting my thinking. Not just my assumptions like I thought with Malinowski but what it means for a British person to turn up at a former colony. What does that act mean even before I start interacting with people.

I know that sounds like the same conclusion as episode one but my students assure me it’s subtly different. My head hurts, let’s go.

Nah leave the desk I’ll just get another.

Theme

This was notes from the field desk written by me James McGrail.

This episode references

Evans-Pritchard, E.E., The Nuer, 1940, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Lentin, A. (2004). Racial states, anti-racist responses. Picking holes in 'Culture' and 'Human Rights'. European Journal of Social Theory 7(4): 427-443.

Pocock, D. (1975). Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard 1902–1973: An appreciation. Africa, 45(3)

Visweswaran, Kamala (1998) Race and the Culture of Anthropology, American Anthropologist 100/1: 70-83.

Theme ends

Susan

Do you think I’m stupid? You think I believe your flight got diverted to South Sudan? South Sudan? Oh and it just so happens that it’s thematically appropriate for your little podcast? Get back to London. Now. We need to have a serious conversation.

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#podcast #transcript #cows #anthropology #arts and entertainment #culture #society

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yumeka36 · 7 years ago

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Fandom and the death of adulthood

A few years ago, The New York Times published an article that I found very relevant to all manner of fandoms. It’s called “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture” and it involves a film critic for The Times discussing how American society has changed over the decades in terms of what it means to be an adult; he cites popular TV shows, movies, and books that reflect how the old view of adulthood – being part of an authority-following, gender role-centered society – has been losing popularity in favor of a freer and more rebellious idea of adulthood, most notably one that embraces childhood and supposedly childish things rather than cast them off.

The majority of the article talks about American TV shows, celebrities, books, etc., that I’m not too familiar with, but the basic idea of this “death of adulthood” is something that extends to all branches of pop culture and fandoms of the past 20-30 years, all over the world. A perfect example is an incident the author of the article, A.O. Scott, mentions about how a journalist named Rush Graham published an essay on the topic of how adults between the ages of 30-44 should feel ashamed for buying young adult literature (for themselves, not for their kids). Readers of her essay were furious of course, and Scott described their sentiment as “‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ as if Graham were a bossy, uncomprehending parent warning the kids away from sugary snacks toward more nutritious, chewier stuff.” He goes on to say that “It was not an argument she was in a position to win, however persuasive her points. To oppose the juvenile pleasures of empowered cultural consumers is to assume, wittingly or not, the role of scold, snob or curmudgeon.”

So if “young adult literature” should be for “young adults (older kids/teenagers) only”, then so should most video games, anime/manga, and so-called children’s literature like Harry Potter, and certainly My Little Pony, Disney movies, and any work of fiction that doesn’t scream “For adults only!” So for those of us who are a part of these fandoms, should we feel embarrassed? I’m sure most of you will say “no,” which is great, and it definitely shows how times have changed.

To illustrate further, my mom (who’s currently 72 years old) doesn’t have a problem with my hobbies. But it does puzzle her at times and I can understand why. After all, when she was growing up in the 1950s-1960s, what it meant to be an adult was simpler, but also limited: men and women would get married and have kids, with the men having full-time jobs and supporting the family while the women would take care of the home and the kids. In addition to these societal roles, there were also personality expectations: men were supposed to be masculine and authoritative, and like manly things like sports and cars, while women were supposed to be motherly and into womanly things like fashion, romance, and raising children. Men and women who indulged in childish things like collecting toys and reading comic books were basically unheard of, or if they did exist, they kept themselves hidden. So you can imagine how someone from those times must feel when they see grown men make a fuss over the cute little Pokemon plushie they just bought, or women who spend their free time playing PS4 games together over Skype instead of raising a family.

Going back to the article, Scott continues on this topic by saying that “In my main line of work as a film critic, I have watched over the past 15 years as the studios committed their vast financial and imaginative resources to the cultivation of franchises (some of them based on those same Young Adult novels) that advance an essentially juvenile vision of the world. Comic-book movies, family-friendly animated adventures, tales of adolescent heroism and comedies of arrested development do not only make up the commercial center of 21st-century Hollywood. They are its artistic heart.” I certainly agree with this as all one has to do is look at the most popular movies of the past two decades to see that they’re not the standard adult fare of Hollywood romances and dramas from yesteryear, but the very kinds of “juvenile” stories that Scott described: they’re the animated adventures from Disney and Dreamworks, the comic book sagas like Iron Man and The Avengers, and the fantasy epics like Harry Potter and Star Wars…the young adult stories that are marketed for a younger audience yet keep garnering a noticeable adult demographic. And there’s no denying that the main consumers of anime products, video games, and comic books are adults. I would even claim that the majority of Pokemon fans nowadays are adults rather than kids, evidence being that every Pokemon tournament I’ve been to in the past few years has had more adult participants than kids.

So, should we mourn this death of adulthood? I’m biased of course, but I’m definitely happy to embrace a more free and open-minded idea of adulthood than we had before. To me, being an adult simply means being responsible, thoughtful, intelligent, and self sufficient…if one is able to be in these tough times of course. And that could be another, less positive reason for this so-called death of adulthood: a lot of the current generation can’t afford to live like adults. I can’t speak for other countries, but here in the US, a young person being able to “move out and start their own life,” with that life entailing the ability to pursue pleasure and luxury while still being financially secure, is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish when the cost of living is always going up and salaries never seem to keep up. So it’s no wonder that those in their late 20s or older who are still living like they did in their teen years, not necessarily by choice, feel no rush to grow up when adulthood has become synonymous with debt, overwork, and stress. There’s no avoiding at least some adult responsibilities, like holding down a job and paying bills, but being able to indulge in the fictional worlds of TV shows, movies, and video games is becoming increasingly attractive for adults to escape a stressful and unsatisfying life rather than just a playground for children’s’ imaginations.

Regardless of whether you’re over 30 and still living with your parents, or whether you’re one of the lucky ones who found a great job right out of college and are living happily on your own, adulthood shouldn’t be defined by how one chooses to live their life or the kinds of things they’re interested in. I’m glad that in every college class I’ve taken and every job I’ve had, there’s always been at least a few people (adults mind you) who like anime, video games, or other of these so-called childish hobbies. And at the recent fan conventions I’ve been to, I’ve been seeing more and more couples with children attending, obviously because the parents like this stuff and not just their kids. So they can now pass on this idea to the next generation that it’s perfectly fine for adults to indulge in cartoons and games as well. As Scott says near the end of his article, “It is now possible to conceive of adulthood as the state of being forever young. Childhood, once a condition of limited autonomy and deferred pleasure (“wait until you’re older”), is now a zone of perpetual freedom and delight. Grown people feel no compulsion to put away childish things: We can live with our parents, go to summer camp, play dodge ball, collect dolls and action figures and watch cartoons to our hearts’ content. These symptoms of arrested development will also be signs that we are freer, more honest and happier than the uptight fools who let go of such pastimes.”

It’s a very, very different world than it was 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. A lot of things have changed for the worse unfortunately, but what I’ve discussed here is something that I feel has changed for the better. So to wrap up this post, I’ll give you one last quote from Scott’s article that sums up our fandom-consuming, Internet-inspired generation very well: “A crisis of authority is not for the faint of heart. It can be scary and weird and ambiguous. But it can be a lot of fun, too. The best and most authentic cultural products of our time manage to be all of those things. They imagine a world where no one is in charge and no one necessarily knows what’s going on, where identities are in perpetual flux. Mothers and fathers act like teenagers; little children are wise beyond their years. Girls light out for the territory and boys cloister themselves in secret gardens. We have more stories, pictures and arguments than we know what to do with, and each one of them presses on our attention with a claim of uniqueness, a demand to be recognized as special. The world is our playground, without a dad or a mom in sight.”

*This is a revision of a previous post I wrote on my old anime blog. You can also comment on the revised post here*

*Crossposted from my main blog, Yume Dimension*

#animation #anime #cartoons #editorials #fandom #fandoms #games #nostalgia #pop culture #video games

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sabrinajulie · 7 years ago

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Want To Get Out Of Debt?

You should treat Your Life Like A Business. Think about it. Everywhere you turn, whether it’s TV, radio or the internet, consumers are inundated with “get out of debt fast” scams. Unfortunately, most families end up learning the hard way that if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Companies like Tax Masters, JK Harris and others have gone out of business due to an inability to deliver on the unrealistic promises they make to their customers.

The Business World Has Important Lessons To Offer Consumers Trying To Get Out Of Debt

Since those searching for debt relief have been warned about scams, and have already read countless articles on saving money, paying down debt, borrowing from family and friends and shopping for lower interest credit opportunities, I wanted to liven things up a bit with a different type of get out of debt plan.

Start treating your life like a business. While it may sound counterintuitive, there are many important lessons consumers can learn from successful small business owners.

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Successful businesses track spending and don’t take on overhead unless it’s necessary

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Start tracking where your money goes

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Successful businesses are organized

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Too often, consumers facing bill problems are overwhelmed by the sheer number of creditors that are calling and writing. They lose track of who and how much they owe. If your plan is to get out of debt, this is not an option. Like a small business that keeps records of all vendors, expenditures, deductions and receipts, you too need a master list of all debts. Even if it is nothing more than an excel spreadsheet that you update every week or so, keep track of every outstanding bill you owe. Make a separate category for bills that are recurring on a monthly basis. Again, this strategy is made much easier by using software like Quick Books, but any system is better than no system. For the chronically disorganized, even a special folder where all bills are kept would be a start. There is no way to get out of debt, unless you have a clear picture of how deep you are in the first place. Get organized.

Successful small business owners think outside the box

Even if only for a moment, break free from the “salary mentality.” Your income does not necessarily need to be finite based on a raise or promotion. Most successful entrepreneurs are creative, they’ve invented ways to make money, either on the side, or as the sole focus of their career. You can do the same, and don’t think you need a multi-million dollar idea to participate. Brainstorm with friends or family, where does your expertise lie? How can you monetize your talents? Even something as simple as selling baked goods to local businesses, creating gift baskets for events, tutoring local students, or making special T-shirts with a catchy slogan can begin to generate income you can use to pay down your debts.

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Successful businesses have a long term time horizon

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Successful businesses use bankruptcy as a reset button

At the dinner table, bankruptcy is taboo, but in the board room, it is a sophisticated move that businesses use to start over stronger than before. While bankruptcy is not a process to be entered into lightly, it must be considered as an option for a struggling consumer just as it is for a struggling business. Regardless of level of organization, time horizon, reduction in overhead or side profits from an entrepreneurial business, some consumers are hopelessly saddled with debt and have no other way out than bankruptcy. The point here is that bankruptcy cannot be foreclosed as an option, and must be evaluated, even as you seek to avoid it.

Getting Out of Debt Isn’t Easy, But It Is Possible

Getting out of debt isn’t easy and there will never be a shortage of voices telling you the “best” way to succeed. Regardless of which path you decide to take, incorporating some of sophistication of a successful business into your personal finance routine can only help in the long run.

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