Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Cultures and violence

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  • Keir Leslie,

    (I rather take issue with “dominated”: that word shows the extent to which “several women speaking in a non-women’s-only-area on the internet” is… unexpected.)

    Eh when it’s a professor at Princeton, and a prominent journalist talking about a nice comforting other of white males I think there’s a useful point of noting the class/power dynamics here.

    I think the idea that men don’t talk about the construction of gender is pretty insupportable — look at the man card thing, if that isn’t a consciously performative definition of gender I don’t know what is — rather I think it turns out they don’t reach the same conclusions as predominantly academic, predominantly female, scholars. And that’s quite a different problem.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown, in reply to tussock,

    2: The news this time has been damned kind to we few with Aspergers. They are never so kind to the Psychopaths. Privilege in it’s own little way.

    A very good point. If you're schizophrenic, people are going to feel much more comfortable about calling you "Evil" than if you're an Aspie. Even if that doesn't necessarily make any sense.

    But Aspergers people can become deeply obsessed with just one topic in life, and near-oblivious to anything else. If his Mum made his preparing for the imminent collapse of society and killing everyone who came for their tinned food, that’s just not something I can see an isolated Aspie handling well. Perhaps he was saving them all from the impending doom?

    Hard to know. I'm inclined to think the choice of a school (apparently the one he attended) has some significance too. But yeah: the fact that she stockpiled guns and habitually took her son out shooting them just for giggles probably has something to do with it too.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Danielle,

    “several women speaking in a non-women’s-only-area on the internet” is… unexpected.

    Are you referring to this forum? Because I kind of feel like PAS expects anyone and everyone to speak.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Keir, I thought you were talking about THIS discussion, not the discussion in the culture at large.

    men don’t talk about the construction of gender is pretty insupportable

    Performing gender is not the same as analysing why it's performed in that particular way.

    In part that’s because it can feel really quite perilous to do so.

    Because... feminists are so mean?

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    Crossed wires: Keir was talking about the culture at large and I was talking about this particular thread.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    Performing gender is not the same as analysing why it’s performed in that particular way.

    Hang on why are we assuming there's no analysis here? I think there is an analysis of gender and why it should be performed in that way. It isn't the critical one that gender studies supplies, but it is one.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Danielle,

    In part that’s because it can feel really quite perilous to do so.

    Because… feminists are so mean?

    That isn't it for me. For me it can feel like I'm being told my feelings are wrong sometimes. I don't mind being told my facts are wrong. I also don't mind being told things that change my feelings about an issue. The whole privilege thing really messes with my head a lot precisely because it revolves around my white educated male feelings about things.

    Not sure that makes sense even to me.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle, in reply to Keir Leslie,

    It isn’t the critical one that gender studies supplies, but it is one.

    I think perhaps you and I are using "analysis" differently.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Pretty basic question would be: where was this young man's father?

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    Well yes, I don’t particularly think an analysis of gender has to be literary, has to come packaged in theory or has to be easily digestible by gender studies scholarship to be an analysis of gender.

    [ETA: not an attack on gender studies scholarship, and not to say that those analyses are persuasive or attractive. But they exist and are more sophisticated than is generally credited.]

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to Sacha,

    Pretty basic question would be: where was this young man's father?

    Amicably divorced from the mother, by the latest reports.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    For me it can feel like I'm being told my feelings are wrong sometimes.

    Makes sense. People - including women - can sometimes assume we all feel the world the same way. Pressure on men to 'talk more about their feelings' reflects that.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • B Jones, in reply to Keir Leslie,

    I think the idea that men don’t talk about the construction of gender is pretty insupportable

    I'm in the middle of a Breaking Bad marathon at the moment, and that seems entirely to be a discussion over the construction of what it is to be a man, and it's done very much from the man's point of view - it's littered with insults traded between the characters over who wears the pants etc, alongside more serious points about a man's job being to provide. I'd stop short of calling it analysis though.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason, in reply to John Armstrong,

    Particularly as it would leave gun control as the only option. Given the barriers that that course of action seems to face, that might mean accepting these admittedly rare but horrific acts as part of the human landscape. Which is even scarier.

    Nothing like a few barriers to prevent this happening....Hmmmm..

    Perspective warning approaching:

    USA Road Deaths: USA since 1994: 623,925. (took 18 years) Drivers are licensed, cars registered, insured - except those that aren't, those who are drunk or drugged, those who are testostrone pumped pimped up. JA: "Which is even (more) scarier."

    Public transport is safer, right????

    .....but then if one includes random acts of violence like:

    Tenerife where 583 were immolated in two 747s not even flying (took prob 10 minutes).

    Flight 901 with 237 (took 10 seconds) of our own snuffed out due to a "malevonant trick of polar light". Locked inside a flying torpedo, most of us we accept the danger.

    Tsunami: 230,000 (took 4 or 5 hours). Who can believe a serene sea could reform within hours of such carnage?

    WTC: 2753. A couple of hours. Followed by 50,000 or 150,000+++ deaths in Iraq depending on your version of a body count .

    Horoshima/Nagasaki: 160,000 in seconds plus burn time. An indecent and inhuman method of snuffing out life we had never ventured to imagine. Until 1941.

    These babies/children have struck a nerve deep deep within where even though the world is full of random acts of death and destruction we appear to have reacted more than perfectly naturally. We can't handle such events. We are incapable of responding except with "why", "how" and "what if", followed inevitably by "why me?".

    There will be more. Bart and John are right. The thought scares the bejeezus out of anyone. But realistically, the chance of it happening to you is well below dying in your own bed.

    Acceptance, respect and hugs is all we can wish for I suspect. You cannot get away with calling them Acts of God. It only makes HIM more of a (testosterone fueled) bastard than HE already is!

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to B Jones,

    I'd stop short of calling it analysis though.

    I would. If it opens up a subject area for consideration, it counts.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • B Jones, in reply to Sacha,

    I'd expect something calling itself analysis to reach a conclusion rather than just open up a conversation. Drama sometimes does this, sometimes not.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to B Jones,

    You reckon the show didn't reach some conclusions? Don't have to be expressed in explicit written/spoken words.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • B Jones,

    I've only gotten partway through, I'm not sure what the conclusions are yet :-)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to B Jones,

    It's so beautifully scripted, directed and acted. Enjoy the interplay between him, his wife and his son unfolding.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart, in reply to Sacha,

    Enjoy the interplay between him, his wife and his son unfolding.

    Enjoy? Srsly? Even season 5, (**Spoilers**) where the relationship between then becomes a textbook example of psychological abuse? I've been treated the way Walter treats Skyler, and I found the first half of the most recent series almost unwatchably accurate.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Emma Hart,

    True. In the human rights sense of 'enjoy' perhaps.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Impact on parents of the aspie angle in coverage of this killing.

    I know of worried parents who have called local autism organizations, eyeing their sons with Asperger’s or autistic disorders, wondering if they are looking at future killers. Many more of us are worried that others are wondering the same thing about their sons. That last is a legitimate concern. In the comments to many articles on the shootings, you’ll find otherwise sensible-sounding people writing, for example, that they know 13-year-olds with Asperger’s and anger issues who could themselves become Adam Lanzas when they grow up.

    “Anger issues” aren’t the same as “inclined to mass murder.” Autistic people are people, just like everyone else. Personalities accompany their neurobiology. Some express themselves with aggression, just like some non-autistic people do. But autistic people “almost never” use weapons or planned violence when being aggressive, and their aggression rarely involves anyone outside of their immediate circle, Catherine Lord, director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at New York Presbyterian Hospital, told The Lede blog in The Times as the paper addressed the growing concern that people with autism might be stigmatized by media coverage of the Newtown shootings. In fact, the features of the Connecticut case are more common in non-autistic populations than among autistics.

    In spite of these correctives, autistic people and their families are now forced to do two things: mourn the horror in Connecticut and defend autistics against these misrepresentations.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • B Jones,

    Yeah, I'm enjoying it for the beautiful New Mexico skies, the clever editing, the nice cinematography, the unexpected twists here and there, and the OMG what an ARSE that Walt serves up just about every time you catch yourself sympathising with him.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to B Jones,

    he keeps that going longer than I'd thought possible

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • John Armstrong, in reply to Ross Mason,

    Ross, I'm afraid that I'm not really sure what your point is. I think there is clearly a difference between the 'randomness' of a tsunami versus the randomness of a mass shooting. Or the dropping of an atomic bomb. In these last two cases, asking why is a perfectly rational response, while 'acceptance' definitely is not.

    Hamilton • Since Nov 2007 • 136 posts Report Reply

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