Skip to main content
Post a Comment

Not Crass, Class (A Response)

A response to Paul Krugman's Not Crass, Class

Regarding the narrowing of focus:
  • Unemployment doesn't matter, because no one we know is unemployed, and we aren't blue collar males
  • Police abuse don't matter, because we aren't black or hispanic
  • Profiling is perfectly acceptable, because none of us is black or muslim
  • Poverty doesn't matter, because, well, you know....
The list is endless, and this problem extends to most everyone's perceptions, but it is particularly important because the policy decisions affecting millions are made by people who have little awareness of problems of the less powerful, or of the problems they cause by warped policy decisions.

In retrospect I could have kept going, including one of the larger sets of underclass, women and children, particularly women of color, single moms, and their children.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Meanings of Ender's Game

In response to an Ender's Game discussion (Goodreads), with a link from Reddit, I posted the following: Much of the Reddit stream seems to focus on military tactics, or the lack thereof, used by the Ender, but who reads Ender and thinks it about military tactics, except the 20-year old grunt that started the thread? For a book written in the 80's, then edited in the early 90's, it seems more prophetic, with its use of game immersion, remote military operations and portable computing. Then when you think about the use of children in military games, one can think somewhat more deeply about sociopolitical indoctrination.  The series itself becomes a broader exploration of empathy and foreign culture.  The criticism seems more like the problem of a man with a hammer, who thinks every problem is solved by hammering, but even worse, every problem is about hammering. An additional post, regarding suspension of disbelief: Some people commented on the suspension of disbelie...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Right to Write - NYTimes.com

In an article,  The Right to Write - NYTimes.com , I commented on the right to write, since writers are sometimes questioned on the validity of their writing, e.g., Harriet Beecher Stowe with Uncle Tom's Cabin: One, people always have the right to write, but readers concurrently have the right to reject said writing. Much personal criticism of depictions from writers is whether the depiction seems valid or plausible, but even that is an exercise in empathy, since it requires one to experience that depiction ideationally.  Two, there is a streak in Americans, and maybe anyone, that states that you cannot understand 'my pain', usually the death of a child or some horrific personal lose. Over a longer term I have sensed that people most easily accept empathy if it is expressed by someone with similar experiences, an aspect I believe is part of human nature. I find both irksome, since they deny empathy.
Post a Comment
Read more

Opinion | The Nation Betrays a Poet — and Itself - The New York Times

An interesting piece turning on freedom of thought and the press, coming against a tide of public opinion, fueled by concerns of racism, Opinion | The Nation Betrays a Poet — and Itself : My first thought was that the offense was a cultural appropriation, but I decided to go read it. On the first pass, maybe not reading so closely, it sounded like it might be sensitive to the plight of discrimination, and insightful about how perception is displayed to justify our self-perceptions. I read it again. Hmmm. Now, it sounds like a description of a deceiving street person, but still with an understanding that the world's perception is to justify their own self-worth. On some level, there are people like this, although the idea that it would be used to enable racist perceptions is plausible but unlikely. Does the fascist right-wing read The Nation, let alone poetry in The Nation? Have we all read great literature that stereotyped? Yes, but almost always it comes with a big dose of em...
Post a Comment
Read more