shadowkat | (no subject)

1. Ursula K. Le Quinn - On Being a Man.

Who are we when we, to borrow Hannah Arendt’s enduring words, “are together with no one but ourselves”? However much we might exert ourselves on learning to stop letting others define us, the definitions continue to be hurled at us — definitions predicated on who we should be in relation to some concrete or abstract other, some ideal, some benchmark beyond the boundaries of who we already are.

One of the most important authors of our time, Ursula K. Le Guin has influenced such celebrated literary icons as Neil Gaiman and Salman Rushdie. At her best — and to seek the “best” in an altogether spectacular body of work seems almost antithetical — she blends anthropology, social psychology, and sheer literary artistry to explore complex, often difficult subjects with remarkable grace. Subjects, for instance, like who we are and what gender really means as we — men, women, ungendered souls — try to inhabit our constant tussle between inner and outer, individual and social, private and performative. This is what Le Guin examines in an extraordinary essay titled “Introducing Myself,” which Le Guin first wrote as a performance piece in the 1980s and later updated for the beautifully titled, beautifully written, beautifully wide-ranging 2004 collection The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (public library). To speak of a subject so common by birth and so minced by public discourse in a way that is completely original and completely compelling is no small feat — in fact, it is the kind of feat of writing Jack Kerouac must have had in mind when he contemplated the crucial difference between genius and talent.

Le Guin writes:

I am a man. Now you may think I’ve made some kind of silly mistake about gender, or maybe that I’m trying to fool you, because my first name ends in a, and I own three bras, and I’ve been pregnant five times, and other things like that that you might have noticed, little details. But details don’t matter… I predate the invention of women by decades. Well, if you insist on pedantic accuracy, women have been invented several times in widely varying localities, but the inventors just didn’t know how to sell the product. Their distribution techniques were rudimentary and their market research was nil, and so of course the concept just didn’t get off the ground. Even with a genius behind it an invention has to find its market, and it seemed like for a long time the idea of women just didn’t make it to the bottom line. Models like the Austen and the Brontë were too complicated, and people just laughed at the Suffragette, and the Woolf was way too far ahead of its time.

2. Academic Bullying

Bullying can sometimes take such unequivocal forms as yelling at and or publicly disparaging the victim, but micro-aggressions are the bully’s trademark because there are innumerable opportunities for them and because no single micro-aggression ever appears sufficiently heinous to warrant disciplinary action. Micro aggressions include such things as a consistently condescending tone of voice on the part of the bully toward her target, repeatedly interrupting the target when she attempts to make a point in a department or committee meeting, laughing or making faces or whispering to colleagues when the target speaks and failing to respect the target’s authority as a committee chair, program director, or academic advisor. (More examples of bullying are listed in an article entitled “Tackling the Menace of Workplace Bullying” on the website Law Crossing.)

People usually try to ignore micro-aggressions. Sometimes they even worry they’ve imagined them. People don’t expect to be relentlessly taunted and goaded. Human beings are social creatures and evidence suggest that their default position relative to others is trust (see, for example, Louis Quéré, “The Cognitive and Normative Structure of Trust,” and Guido Möllering, “The Nature of Trust: From Georg Simmel to a Theory of Expectation, Interpretation and Suspension”).

That people are social creatures and, all other things being equal, generally decent, kind, sympathetic and empathetic toward those with whom their lives bring them into contact holds, I believe, the key to controlling academic bullies, and any other kind of bully for that matter. People don’t like bullies. Since all human beings, as social creatures, want to be liked, bullies can be controlled, to a large extent anyway, if not entirely, by simple public condemnation of their behavior. Someone in a position of authority has to make it clear that the offending behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Academic departments, like other professional communities, become toxic when people in positions of authority are reluctant to do this.

The absence of an open condemnation of unacceptable behavior makes people fearful that if they express disapproval of such behavior, they’ll draw the attention of the bully and become her next victim. Worse, rather than expressing disapproval, many people will try to ingratiate themselves with the bully in order to insulate themselves from attack, hence rewarding the bully socially for her bullying behavior.

A bully whose behavior is positively reinforced by frightened colleagues quickly becomes out of control. There are ways, however, to discipline faculty, even tenured ones. They can be denied authority on committees, excluded from departmental social functions and given teaching schedules that effectively isolate them from the rest of the faculty. In extreme cases they can be excluded from serving on committees, assigned undesirable courses, have their teaching loads increased and be denied promotion and sabbatical leave.

Bullying doesn't exist in a vacuum -- other's encourage it and allow it to happen, like watering weeds. I'm super-sensitive to it. I was advised not to pursue a career in academia -- because I have a tendency to mispronounce words and academics along with grad students are needlessly cruel. So pursued law instead -- I wanted to fight bullies. And I have in various ways. Lawyers can also be nasty bullies, by the way. It's another field ripe with them. So finished that, and chose not to be a lawyer and fight in other ways.

My father, who had been in academia and done compensation plans for academics, warned me away as well -- of all the companies he'd worked with -- the worst was academia. A co-worker stated the same -- the worst bullying and behavior he saw was at Columbia University. And I'll state that the worst bullying I received was in the academic library reference publishing industry. They were worse than the banking, telecommunications, health, video game, and rail road. A friend who wrote a book on serial bullying told me that most of the bullying stories she collected were from academia and publishing.

I don't know why. I wonder if it's because they don't get much respect? Or low pay?
At any rate -- it's why I disliked school and have no interest in going back. Too much bullying. My brother was the same. We both realized it was easier to just teach ourselves. And he taught his daughter at home for nine months, then when they moved back -- they researched schools and found one that didn't have bullying.

3. Not feeling great today -- bad allergy attack -- finally found the potential source. It's in the yard behind my living room windows -- and the window was open a crack -- letting in whatever it was...once I found a way of closing the top window, and put my air purifiers on high, the A/C on high and the ultraviolet idonizer -- my allergies abated significantly.

Still recuperating. When I get allergy attacks, everything seems more dire than it is. Also the news...sigh...very depressing. I keep getting angry. Found out on FB that people got killed in mass shootings in El Paso and Ohio...honestly? Why can't we get rid of the stupid guns? Why? It's not protecting anyone. Or at the very least put stronger rules in place? Ugh.

So, I'm watching Marvel action flicks. Also bought two "The Avengers" and "The Avengers Endgame", I'm debating buying Infinity War (which is available for free on Netflix at the moment) and Age of Ultron.

I adore the character arcs -- they work for me. I don't think I'll get all the individual movies though. I find superhero action flicks weirdly comforting, also the comics. I don't why -- but I find them comforting. Clearly I'm not alone in this.

Will definitely have to consider subscribing to Disney +, damn it. Only way I can get free Netflix from T-Mobile is if I up my T-Mobile plan -- not worth it. I have the cheapest cell phone plan that I can get through T-Mobile.

Buying the movies is weirdly cheaper than seeing them in theaters. I buy electronically. No longer buy DVDs -- too hard to play and they take up space.