Squeezing the lemon

[oursin]

Or at least, doing that lj thing of turning something adverse into the basis of a post.

An accusation that one does not give enough attention to burning global issues like world poverty and the environment, is, I think we can all agree, somewhat vitiated when the source is a vitriolic anonymous troll comment in ones's lj [deleted], by someone who is, self-evidently, neither out there doing something about these problems nor producing thought-provoking essays on the subjects, but simply sitting at their computer on a Saturday evening venting at other people for writing about other topics than these in their own ljs.

However, this gave me to consider, or complicate, this question.

Omitting the fact that I might be doing all sorts of stuff relating to burning global issues which for all sorts of reasons I might not be posting about, why is it so immensely virtuous to post on these questions rather than feminism and gender issues (the topic of the post to which this comment was appended)?

Okay, there is a looooong history of women being told that all sorts of issues ought to take priority over fighting for women's rights, which are a sort of icing on the cake to be applied when everything else has been sorted out (see jonquil's recent post here). I wouldn't exclude this as having some relevance to the attack.

But on the complaint that I am 'self-opinionated': I think that I have some grounds (personal experience, academic immersion in the field, having read the book/seen the film in question, etc) for having opinions on the subjects on which I express opinions. 'Opinionated' suggests to me people holding forth at length and as if authoritatively on subjects on which their every successive word reveals they know very little. And my feeling is that if I were to be holding forth on world poverty (Bad Thing: something ought to be done) or the environment (Preservation of, Good Thing: something ought to be done) this would be 'pompous and self-opinionated', in a way that my thoughts on feminism, history, literature, etc, might not be, and also constitute a rather pharisaical demonstration of what a Concerned Person About Major Issue I was, because it wouldn't say anything about anything I was actually doing, or not, it would purely be a gesture of self-righteousness.

***

And because this seems somehow related: why I am not flying the icon described here. My vision of cities, any city, and particularly my own dear London Town, is that they are made up of many communities, and that is one of the things that is good about them. So I would find the slogan 'Many communities - One city' far more resonant.

Comments

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, now you've made me think of maybe an "E Pluribus, Unum" version, except that's so associated with US currency....

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have to defend your editorial choices. It's your journal to write in as you please. You choose to write about things that you feel deeply about and know something about. That seems a pretty good editorial policy to me. People who don't like your journal don't have to read it.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I don't feel I have to defend what I write about: I'm simply curious concerning a mindset that assumes that certain topics are innately 'better' to write about than others, as if it were not possible to be trivial and superficial about anything at all. Reading Lolita in Tehran, which I was reading recently, mentioned Nabokov's notion of 'poshlost', one of the meanings of which is bogus profundity: this seems to me a relevant concept here: the supposition that one makes oneself Deep and Meaningful by dealing with Big Important Subjects.

[ann1962]

Your journal and you have only been gracious and kind.

bogus profundity: this seems to me a relevant concept here: the supposition that one makes oneself Deep and Meaningful by dealing with Big Important Subjects.

Some people obviously hold that position. The debate and judgment comes in deciding which are the deep and meaningful "important subjects". The answers reveal more about the person shouting off their porch than they would ever know.

I am still insisting that people often times need to reassure themselves about their own opinions and mindsets and world views so they have to go around doing just that. They are usually the ones claiming openmindedness too. It is a way for them to shore up a shaky structure and that is all they have. And they know it too. Hence the insistence focused at others.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Thank you.
Insisting that someone addresses the topics they think fit is the way people like this avoid having to engage with the topics that are being addressed. I think of article someone on my flist linked to about 'where are the women bloggers', in which it was quite clear that they were there, but under the radar of the person writing, because they were not writing 'political' blogs according to a very narrow definition of politics.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

like those banners that are everywhere: 7 million londoners/1 london.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Well, you could always say, "Well, I delegated world poverty to Sir Bob Geldof, and the environment to Jonathan Porritt, and I'll only take them back if I think they're making a hash of it". But actually I think in this context it's a cheap rhetorical device that ought to be a Godwin equivalent; one of the most annoying examples of it I came across recently was missmarypotter in accio_uk criticising those of us who were kicking up a fuss about (as we had been informed at the time) Warner Brothers having stepped in to prevent the discussion of queer theory and gender issues at Accio, on the grounds that we should be worrying about world poverty. Many of us thought that large corporations sticking their noses into areas which didn't properly concern them was not unrelated to world poverty, actually, and said so.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I don't see 'eradicating poverty' (or worrying about same) featuring prominently, or even visibly, on her info page. There certainly should be be something like Godwin for the meaningless but self-righteous invocation of world poverty or global warming as things people ought to be worrying about. And yes, behaviour of large corporations not entirely irrelevant.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Oh, and "self-opinionated" is another of those terms like "psuedo-intellectual" which is intended to cast doubt not merely on the choice of topics, but of one's qualifications for speaking on any topic, as in "I am an expert, you are self-opinionated, he is talking out of his backside."

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Well, and since there is so much well documented evidence about the linkage between poverty and women's education and access to economic power, to talk of feminism and gender issues is to talk about the starving milllions, even if it is tangential.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Quite.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

This is so weird. I always thought a journal on LJ was, you know, sort of a journal kind of thing, where you'd write about what you felt like writing about. I feel so ashamed and misguided. Here I've been content to write about whatever I was thinking and never once address issues of global economic or political significance except, you know, by accident.

In fact, as a sign of how deluded I've been, I've always deeply admired /this/ journal as tackling some of the really big-broad-deep social issues of our time and doing it inteligently and well. Imagine my embarassed surprise to find out that none of this solid thought and scholarly rigor count at all.

I'll have to go delete my journal or something. Gosh.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Oh golly, gee-whiz, here I am being Bridget Jones - v surprised! Perhaps restyle lj in dainty pink?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

With hearts!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And My Little Pony icons!

[callunav.livejournal.com]

And blink text!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Which, with the pink-on-pink text, will ensure that no-one can read it even if they want to.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

....which is probably all to the good, really, if your content ends up being in line with your presentation.

[alchemyangel351.livejournal.com]

The idea that you can only talk about the big issues until they have been solved has always seemed an absolutly insane one to me. Firstly if we were not to talk about anything else until global poverty had been alleviated we'd either be silent or repetitive for an exceedingly long time. Secondly, and much more importantly, I've never met anyone who takes a passionate and intellectual interest in any aspect of the world or the people in it and then fails to extend that interest to the other big issues. On the other hand I've met lots who utterly fail to give a stuff about anything.

Informed discussion of any serious topic leads to reflection on the world, which leads to reflection on the big issues. Needless to say trolling pretty much leads to reflection on trolling.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. In this particular instance, invoking Big Global Issues was a rhetorical strategy which completely trivalised them.

[szandara.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that without feminism as a neccessary precondition, women would lack the power and the voice to do anything about other "burning global issues" such as poverty or the environment. And as shiv5468 points out, issues of gender equity are inextricable from discussions of global poverty; there is a great deal of evidence that improved educational opportunities for women leads to economic development.

Cart, meet horse. Chicken, say hello to egg. You may now debate your relative importance and decide who gets to come first.

[nessreader.livejournal.com]

Tangents aside, this is somebody dictating to you what your topics should be - which you surely left behind in english composition class in school. And comments above has already pointed out that feminism is a live issue, that inequality and poverty are linked, that if you want to blog about My Little Pony, that's quite up to you..

Having said that about how this is your blog and noone else's; when you said my own dear London Town it reminded me - what do you think of the new statue in Whitehall to the women of world war 2?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen it yet (some while since I've been down Whitehall) - is there an image anywhere online?

Women of WW2, Whitehall, on www

[nessreader.livejournal.com]

Hmm, just spent a while googling, without success unfortunately.

It's a 3d rectangle, the long side running along centre of the road, with sculpted coats from various services hanging off it as if it were a coat rack. I didn't like it at 1st but am coming round - it falls nicely between personal by being informal/domestic and universal in that it doesn't make up a "typical WW2 face/age/whatever" (and how would they decide what typical was?) It takes ages to get comfortable with new statues; it's like seeing someone you've known for ages with a radical new haircut.

It looks like the bottom part, without the bloke+child part, of the smaller pic on this page.

http://www.thewrens.com/mem-stat.html

[redbird]

I also note that the people who say that you (or I, or anyone else) ought to be writing about their topic of interest instead of what we care about never say "I'd love to see you write about X, let's discuss a pay rate." To the extent that my writing is done on an amateur basis [1], it will be about what I love, or possibly about what someone I'm close to loves, not about what a stranger or casual acquaintance thinks I ought to care about.

[1] I am inclined to follow Le Guin here, and state that the distinction is that a professional gets paid--not a difference in quality--and that in a money economy, zir work is likely to be more widely distributed

[oursin.livejournal.com]

It's quite simply politer to say 'I'd be really interested in your views (if any) on [Given Subject]' (if they really want to hear them, rather than just beating one over the head with [Given Subject]) - because we are most of us susceptible to the best butter even if there isn't any money in the offing - rather than 'Why aren't you/you oughta be writing on [Given Subject]'.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

'Many communities - One city'

Hence my 'diversity is our strength' bumper sticker. (Um, that is, I'm thinking on a similar line for the US. Which often baffles quite a few people in the US, who seem convinced that the only way out is homogeny.)

And yes, Yon Person's attack does rather smack of "women's issues are just fripperies; think about Real Things" attitude.

To which I have many responses, only some of which are printable.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I think I have to channel or adapt mrissa here. She sometimes talks about disliking people who need total orderings. (It's a mathematical concept: something is a total ordering if you can compare any two things belonging to it and decide which is larger and which is smaller. Normal numbers are an example. There are also semi-orderings and partial orderings and all kinds of other wondrous things).

What it boils down to is that some people have very simplistic, one-dimensional views of the world, and they have to squeeze all the complexity onto one single axis, from "Important" to "Trivial", or "Good" to "Evil". I guess it's a bit better than those people who can't even manage a single dimension, but just have the "Good" and "Evil" (or "Us" and "Them") buckets.

I personally really like living in a world where I don't have to try to compare everything to everything else on an absolute scale. And noticing that the world doesn't fall apart or stop making sense if I don't even try to do it. I get the impression some of these people think there's absolute ordering, or absolute chaos.