Musings on Language

Feminism does not need to redefine “feminine”. Nor “women”. “Masculinity” does not have to incorporate demureness; nor “man” sensitivity. “Feminine” can keep the non-violent connotation it has.
Feminism needs to redefine how the terms “man”, “woman”, “masculinity”, and “femininity” are used.
Male and female* are biological factors. You are born with testes or you are born with ovaries. Man and woman are a matter of personal identity (As Cocky says “some women have a penis"). Masculinity and femininity are in reality categories of personality traits.
Society says that male, man, and masculinity are all grouped together and are considered to go together; as with their counterparts.
They are not.
The mere existence of transgendered peoples proves this. Once can have a male body and be a woman; as one can have a female body and be a man. Surely masculinity and femininity are the most ephemeral terms. Both are slowly being equalized; often you hear of a woman being described with “masculine” traits and men with “feminine” traits.
A job of feminism is not just to promote the rise of feminine qualities to the same status in society as those of masculinity; it is to demonstrate that these words, these traits and identifiers, are entirely separate of gender.




*In humans, at least

A thing more people should know about

The Obama Administration has a Council for Women and Girls.

Why have more people not heard of this? This is the sort of stuff that should be all over the place. I had not heard of this before yesterday.

I can find no reference of "feminist" on the sight anywhere. Has NOW heard of this?

Incidently: some comics for you to check out.
Neil Gaiman is a great writer. His Sandman stuff is more grown up and metaphysical than most comics, so much that it won a literary award (and the panel in charge made a rule so that no comic could ever win again). Read it and contemplate.
I just read his Marvel: 1602 trade. THAT was good. Marvel superheroes, in 1602 Europe/America. Spanish Inquisition and Queen Elizabeth and such. A nice refresher from the "realistic tone" of modern comics.

A good introduction to the comics world: CrazySexyGeeks: The Series (These videos have a tendency to pop up elsewhere)

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled programming

I was looking for an article, and I found things to link.

Students Retain Information In Print-Like Formats Better
I knew there was a good reason I liked books.

What a 21st Century Education Means To You
Something that is actually challenging; and makes sure that people actually learn something. If students do not learn what they need to, they stay back until they have learned it, NO EXCEPTIONS. Also, get rid of standardized testing. It really does no good.

Is the Internet Killing Our Reputations
The thing about reputations and the Internet is that it makes having a good reputation even harder and more important to uphold while making it easier to destroy one. It only takes a little bit of information in the right place to destroy someone nowadays. When so few people can live publicly and keep a reputation, all those who can, in comparison, seem better. But then some right (or wrong) placed words emerge in a place where it is nearly impossible to destroy information; and yet another person goes down the drain.

GUYS READ

Symposium on Male Studies at Wagner College
As for my opinion: This whole idea just seems like a stupid attempt to try and make some sort of semblance of “fairness” where one is not needed. Though people should not exclude thinking of males when it comes to planning, organizing, or doing any sort thing in public or private.
I'd probably take this course to see what it's like, though it seems to me that all this is covered elsewhere in discussions on psychology and demographics and such.

Increasing Number Of Parents Opting To Have Children School-Homed
Though The Onion is a satire paper, it hits surprisingly close to home about people's attitudes toward public schooling.

My inspired rules. Feel free to follow them if you so choose.

Explanation for this last post.

1. If you have to think about it twice, don't do it.



2. Be mindful about your body language.



3. Act mature and exercise self-restraint.



4. Don't talk bad about people.



5. Think of others first.



6. Share Knoweldge.



7. Think of consequences.



8. Use titles, like "Sir", "Mr", "Mrs.", "Ms." and "Ma'am".



9. Never assume a "Mrs." title.



10. Success comes at a price. Remember it.



11. Attempt not to assume; first appearences aren't everything but they are useful.



12. Cultivate an image you can live with.



13. At the end of the day, all you are is all you made of yourself.



14. Play impartiality



15. Practice integrity, and to maintain it, admit when your views change and why.



16. Make sure there is good reason behind a change in thought.



17. Keep perspective.



18. Set an example.



19. Goals are little wishes. Know what you want.



20. Live by your standards.



21. Step down if you cannot do the job. Admit you cannot do it; and delegate the tasks.



22. Be flexible in changing your plans.



23. Research and admit when you do not know what you are talking about.



24. Be conscious of what you are saying.



25. Think ahead.



26. Do not say "uh", "um", or "like" excessively when speaking.



27. You can take a second to pause when you speak.



28. Connect information.



29. Do not use words you do not know the meaning of.



30. Remember your duties.



31. Keep responsibility and cupability with your actions and words.



32. Act and behave with honor.


33. Public personae can be different from private personae; but do not make them radically different.


34. Stay honest about your past.


35. Be careful with your lies.


36. Power is a means to an end of doing your duty; an ends in and of itself.


37. Know your bounds.


38. Try again.No matter how far you go, you can come back. It may just be much harder than it could have been earlier.


39. Violence can be a solution, but it is an unfavorable one.


40. "I respectfully disagree."


41. Be able to argue and anticipate the other parts of a debate.


42. Read Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and keep it to heart.


43. Stay polite in your arguements.


44. If you must answer a question you are unprepaired for, say "No Comment" or "I polietly decline to answer your question".


45. If you cannot decide, say polite drivel.


46. Go where the smart people are going.


47. Keep intelligent people around you.


48. Keep good company.


49. Stay true to yourself.


50. Keep working.


51. Collect business cards.


52. Ask


53. Say Thank You.


54. Work on it.


55. Speak your mind.


56. Don't use social networking sites; or use sparingly.


57. Be mindful of what you say and do in public.


58. Err on the side of apology and ettiqute; as well as politeness.

Farenheit 451

I haven't read this one in a year or two, and then I remembered why this was one of my favorite books of all time (though to be fair, that designation usually changes with what I'm currently reading).

Some exerts:

1. "More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience."
2. "It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God!"
3. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, thinkers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual', of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own class who was exceptionally 'bright', did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was."
4. "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non combustible data, chock them so damn full of 'facts' that they feel stuffed, absolutely 'brilliant' with information. They'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with."
5. "Books cut shorter. Condensations. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending. Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fit a two-minute book column... Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Whirl a man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!"

And my responses:

1. I hate when the teachers tell you that "We got these new textbooks because they have more pictures and you have to read less!" School is there for education, to make people think, not to make the work somehow 'easier' for the students at the sacrifice of a real mental workout. School is about learning things like math and how to read and good writing techniques and history and how the world works and all that; but it's also about real culture (values and different points of view, not 'pop culture' stuff) and learning how to see other people's point of view and make informed decisions (my Government teachers likes to term it 'learning how to think'. I digress. You can't teach people how to think or make critical decisions if they don't want to or don't have the motivation. Sadly, I also learned that at school.) and applying all that knowledge and the things you've learned to your life (Not in the 'how does this connect to your life' of the Properly Structured Essay, but 'how does this event reverberate through society today and how does that effect myself and others').
2. Technology and Mass exploitation. This work of Ray Bradbury's outlasts 1984 in cultural relevance. Think about this one. I leave you to come to your own conclusions.
3. Schools give focus, front-page laudations, and very good scholarships (academic ones notwithstanding) to athletes. Schools cut creative arts, special education, library, advanced course, electives, and even core-course funding to finance sports teams and equipment. Sports teams get more trips than the non-athletic classes get field trips. When money could be spent on getting more books for the library, the money is spent on fake grass for the football field. Isn't 'intellectual' already a vague sort of insult? It implies in today's culture that someone is weird in someway, whether it be a bit out of their minds or just uptight and rigid in views. I know you know at least one story about a kid being bullied for being smart. I won't bore you with another one.
4. Singing Bee. American Idol. So You Think You Can Dance. America's Got Talent. Even Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, as much as I like those shows, are examples of this.
5. Twitter. Facebook. Most blogs. The decline of newspapers. Most of the Internet. There are so many sad, sad examples.

Fahrenheit 451: 57 years old and still predicting the decline of society.

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury.

More Lord of the Flies

A quote:

"This has gone quite far enough. My poor, misguided child, do you think you know better than I do?"

Now, Lord of the Flies is all about the breakdown of order and man's basic, animalistic, brutal nature (You may disagree with Mr. Golding as you please. I do). Yet, somehow, order is portrayed as almost evil here. So perhaps Mr. Golding was trying to say that order is a bad thing and anarchy/survival of the fittest is the best (or at least better) way?

I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant. It could be, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Anyone up for philosophical discussion?

(I feel a real need to read Ayn Rand's Anthem or Machiavelli's Prince now. Possibly reread Stranger in a Strange Land.)

Lord of The Flies

From a worksheet I had to do:

Okay, here's where you can voice your opinion! Is Goldberg onto something? Are we really that way? Do we really need some sort of rules/order to live by? Do we have an evil side? Do we do negative things to each other without noticing just how bad they are? OR do you think Golding is just way too pessimistic (negative, gloomy) and traumatized by the war? Give me some examples to back up your opinion.



And my reply:

The problem with 'good' and 'evil' is that the terms are entirely subjective based on cultural and personal view. For Americans, eating dogs or blowing people up may be evil, but in Korea eating dogs is perfectly acceptable and for Radical Islamics, killing Christians is almost a religious mandate; it's how you get to heaven.

Golding poses the proposition that humans, when left without rules, degenerate into murderous savages who live by 'survival of the fittest'. Technically speaking, humans do not need rules. You could live completely by yourself with no rules and survive perfectly fine. The problem is that humans are social animals, and society demands at least some sort of rules, even if it only be "Do not kill or harm other members of the community". As soon as you get two or more people in one place, you need rules or guidelines of a sort. Those rules and guidelines increase proportionately to the size of the community. Depending on the resources and conditions, 2-5 people could probably live fairly close to one another with an understanding to not get into each other's business. This gets increasingly harder as you get to the 6-9 range, and once you hit 10 you will probably need some sort of authority figure and cooperation system in place. The more people, the more cooperation needed.

I think Golding makes good points about power struggles and 'entropy in the system'; but simply saying things must happen that way fails to address the free will that each character was in the book. The choir/hunters and the little ones CHOOSE to follow Jack and to not do the work that Ralph and Piggy outlined. The little ones, likewise, choose not to do the work. Ralph and Simon end up doing most of what needs to be done, along with Samneric for awhile and occasionally Piggy (without whom the group would never have been able to stay together as long as it did). Everyone chose to keep following Jack even after Simon was killed and Samneric were tortured and Piggy was murdered. They could have chosen not to, but they did. It is on this that I chose to argue that 'Lord of the Flies' is simply one scenario of a quite a few that could have happened.