Children's Rights and Feminist Blogs

So, I read Feministe on a regular basis. A new guest blogger arrived this week named mai'a, and yesterday I saw that her first post was about the right of children to inhabit public spaces. Being a frequent Feministe reader, I've seen what happened on some of the other occasions when this topic has been broached in the feminist blogoshpere. All I could think was: Wow, she went for it. She opened the door to the Child-hatred Vortex. Brace for comments!

Just to make sure it gets said: what mai'a wrote was excellent. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I even attempted to comment, but then I saw the comment count: 320 comments in less than 4 hours. Of course I started reading them, because I'm perverse, and I saw basically the same sentiments I saw in the comment threads on all those previous posts. The same anger, entitlement, fear, arrogance, and self-righteousness...the same distortions, exaggerations, misconceptions, and false equivalencies. Seeing it all out on display again, I realized I had two things I really wanted to say.

Before I dive in, I want to make some clear distinctions about rights, responsibilities, and morality.

When I talk about rights, I'm referring to fundamental freedoms to do or not do certain things, which I believe to be approximately universal. Por ejemplo, all people have the right to bodily autonomy. These rights may or may not be codified by law, depending on where you are.

When I talk about responsibilities, I mean what is necessary to act in a way that contributes to a healthy and joyful society. Responsibilities may not be legally mandated, and I'm not saying they should be. What I am saying is, when you do not meet your responsibilities you are not supporting, and may be actively inhibiting, the emergence of a healthy and joyful society. This does not make you an intrinsically bad person, but it does mean that your actions are negatively impacting your fellow human beings. Example: people have a responsibility not to use hateful, derogatory language. I have a tendency to use the word "retarded" as an insult, and when I do I'm not fully meeting my responsibilities to my community. I'm harming myself, and others. I'm a work in progress.

OK, with those definitions in hand, here are two assertions that I think are at the heart much of the uproar over child rights.

1. You do not have the right to child-free public spaces.

This statement covers parks, post-offices, airplanes, conferences, etc. To a somewhat lesser degree, it covers restaurants, bars, theaters, and other venues that are privately owned and operated but open to the public. Yes, certain behaviors are not appropriate in certain places. That's why we discourage, or even outright ban, those behaviors. Not whole groups of people who have a reputation for sometimes engaging in those behaviors. Full stop. (A similar statement applies to venues that are not safe for people with certain characteristics, although really no public space has any excuse to be unsafe for all short people, or all people with limited fine motor control, or all people who do not speak or understand a specific language.)

2. You have a responsibility to connect to and interact with all ages and classes of people in your society, to the best of your ability.

This is getting at people who say "I don't like kids." You have the right to say that, and to act on it by avoiding interacting with children to the best of your ability. However, it is my assertion that such behavior harms you and the others in your community. By holding that attitude, you are hurting me. You don't get to "not like kids" without ever facing criticism for the consequences.

Now, you may have a desire and intention to connect with children, but be prevented by physical circumstances, or money, or legal restrictions, or any other number of things. We all have many battles to fight and only so many resources. I have the urge to insert a raft of caveats and disclaimers here to ward off misdirected arguments, but that's not really the point.

The point is that you understand and value connection with people of all ages, and seek it out when you can.

Life's Small Secrets

I have a small bit of genius to share, a discovery about every day living that has truly improved my life: Two Blanket Sleeping. Two Blanket Sleeping refers to the act of sharing a bed with a partner, but each using your own blanket. I'm telling you, this is the co-sleeping rosetta stone. You can be close to your loved one, even touching knees or holding hands, but as you both fall asleep you drift off into your own private physical worlds. No more kicking, blanket stealing, sheet tangling, or pillow hogging. This works especially well if you have a matress that doesn't transmit every little jiggle to the other side of the bed. (If you don't have one of these, get one. A good mattress is worth the money.)

This may seem trivial, but getting good sleep on a regular basis is just so nice. Where is our cultural repository for such practical wisdom?

Change Immunity

So I've had this idea in my head for a couple weeks, and I want to actually get it out of my head and into the record. I wrote a post a couple weeks ago about the importance of futurism, in which I basically argue that the accelerated pace of change makes futurism a necessity just like market analysis and weather reports. But here's the really interesting question about change: why is it accelerating? I know people are always saying that the spread of information and connectivity is behind it, but why? What, exactly, is happening?

I started thinking about change as a virus. Each time I encounter a new idea that alters my daily behavior or my life philosophy or my sexual habits or whatever, I've caught a virus. This is hardly a new idea. Viral spread of ideas and information is a very popular topic these days. The bit that really fascinates me is the extrapolation to a concept of individual change immunity. How well do you resist change?

We all have some level of change immunity. If we didn't we'd be redirecting so often we wouldn't get anything done. There are thousands of potential new ideas in even pretty mundane experiences, and our fellow humans are also repositories of the unexpected, even those we think we know well. Generally speaking we filter all that disturbance out, cherry-picking information that supports our current patterns and ditching all the rest of it. A couple hundred years ago our change immunity was good enough to allow us to keep living our lives with minimal upheaval, even over generations. A fellow might wander into the village bringing samples of the fabulous new drink from the new world and convince a few people to try it. They would promptly spit out the bitter dreck and go home for a nice cup of tea; so much for Starbucks.

These days the sheer volume of exchanges and encounters with new ideas is overwhelming our change immunity. We spread new thoughts and experiences to our friends and family all the time. In my case, being young and embedded in Silicon Valley culture, it's happening every day. Thus I contribute to the dizzying whirl, where we never quite find our feet.

Is it possible to measure individual change immunity? Take me, for instance. I actually like change much of the time. In fact, I have a rather serious problem with boredom in my day to day life. I don't tend to stay in a job, or a location, for very long. I would have been the person who, when offered a drink made of ground up boiled beans that tasted distinctly like tree bark, would have said "Sure!" (And then gotten the shivers, had heart palpitations, and probably been exorcised, since it turns out I'm allergic to caffeine, but that's not the point.) My friend Steve, on the other hand, lived for years with a group of close friends who were all flamingly liberal, and managed to change his conservative political views not one bit. It just seemed to wash over him, and the dissonance between his affection for us as people and his avowed hatred of our positions didn't seem to bother him one bit. He was immune.

Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson posited in the Illuminatus! trilogy that there were in fact two types of humans: homo neophilus and homo neophobus. Is it true? I wonder how we would measure that?

Hail and Farewell

George Carlin died on Sunday. Normally I'm not into bemoaning death. We all die, and if you made it past 70 you did pretty damn well. I don't see death as a tragedy-death just is. Still, I wasn't ready for George to go. He's been a viciously hilarious and wise presence in comedy my entire life. Not many people can spit the truth in your face as convincingly and lyrically as he did. I wanted to hear the next routine on the primary, and Iraq, and everything else.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sad that George died. He's well quit of this mess, gone to become one with the Great Electron (hummmmm, hummmmmm). But I am sad for myself, because I kinda thought he was always going to be there, reminding me of the absurd reality of this society we live in. Now I'll have to do my own remembering, and I'm not nearly as fucking funny.

P.S. Is it just me, or are a lot of famous people dying lately?

Futurism is not a fad

I was at a party last night with a whole bunch of poli-sci grad students, all from the same program. They were talking about the various ways they find to kill time on the net while still nominally thinking about their dissertation. One guy spent 3 hours that day watching YouTube clips of Irish folk discussing the recent defeat of the EU referendum. He's a European policy studies major-it's topical, right? More or less, anyway.

This got me thinking as I brushed my teeth later that night: where do I lurk on the net, and how does that relate to my work? Sure, I spend a lot of time reading about sustainability and environmental policy, which directly applies to my work. But I also find myself reading a lot about futurism, even when it has nothing to do with "green". Why? The short answer: because it's Important. Yes, with a capital I.

Once upon a time it was fine if Nostradamus was the only guy with a bead on the future. Change happened so slowly that you were pretty sure to live and die under the same rules. Events might come and go, but the governing principals of the universe as you knew it didn't alter. When change did happen, it was usually isolated and well-announced, making it easier to assimilate. World-shattering change occurred on a time scale measured in generations.

These days world shattering change comes around several times a decade, and smaller changes proliferate like bored bunnies on Viagra. We have to keep looking ahead just to avoid getting clobbered by some unforeseen upheaval. Five years out is cloudy, and 50 years out is essentially impossible to predict. The only way to be even mildly prepared is to wade through the ocean of daily events and look for the sticky stuff. What's a Tickle-Me Elmo, and what's the next World of Warcraft? What's going to hang around and have an impact?

Searching and sifting through the proliferating changes of our world is not something most people can devote a whole lot of time to in a day. Most of us still have to write the memos, sell the sandwiches, and pave the roads that keep our society running. That is why futurism, and futurists, are so important. They do the foresight for us, and hopefully we learn to listen and adapt. It's like Nostradamus, if Nostradamus had wandered down south in the early 1800s talking about the new-fangled cotton gin and the fact that slave labor was on its way out.

As long as the pace of change outstrips our ability to predict and process, we are going to need futurists. Someday they may be seen like the meteorologist or the market analyst-just another purveyor of specialized knowledge that we consult in the daily paper to guide our decision-making.

Attack of the Deep-Fry Bandits

Lock up your lard, ladies and gentlemen. In the post-Iraq, carbon-paranoid world of the near future, grease is the new gold. How do I know this? Because people are stealing it. Mad Max, eat your heart out.

Shifts in criminal activity may be one of the best futurist tools out there. While the majority of America is talking about tar sands extraction and corn ethanol, the black market is trading fry oil because it's WORTH MONEY. Imagine it: the bandit in the article had collected a $6000 haul just by vacuuming up oil that most restaurants store out back with the garbage. Fry oil has quintupled in price over the last eight years, but to most people this commodity still looks and smells like waste.

The massive increase in the value of used grease indicates an intriguing shift in thinking. Instead of talking about the price of gas, we need to start talking about the price of personal transportation. Gas isn't really the point; the point is, how much does it cost me to use a personal combustion engine to get around? Oil, ethanol, and biodiesel all offer the same service in the end-combustible fuel. Leaving your fry grease in a tub out back is like storing a couple barrels of crude next to the dumpster. Except that fry grease is easier to process.

My friend Brian likes to talk about preparing for the End Times. He says he's stockpiling rice and guns in his basement-the Apocalypse ain't takin' him unprepared. Me, I'm filling my basement with lard. Brian won't get very far without fuel for his biodiesel scooter. Also, lard makes the BEST pies.

Duct Tape Vagina

So yes, I just watched this abstinence video asserting that having multiple sex partners makes you dirty, less of a person, and incapable of lasting commitment. Where to begin? First of all, why is some sex like sticking to a wall or a garbage can, but other sex like sticking to other pieces of tape? If we're all tape, then all sex is tape-on-tape, right? Maybe tape-on-wall sex is bestiality? Or use of sex toys?

OK, maybe my tape gets dirty when I stick to other dirty tape. That makes some sense. But how did that tape get dirty? Does the very act of pre-marital sex-I mean tape sticking- somehow involve dirt? What, do you think premarital sex only happens in cornfields and public restrooms or something? I like my own bed with clean sheets, thanks. The floor can be fun, but I prefer it swept.

Of course, physically the whole analogy fails. My vagina is not sticky, and I wash regularly whether or not I'm having sex. There is nothing in my body but me. Up to and until the time I may get pregnant, all of my body belongs to me alone. Same goes for all of you, male and female.

But psychologically, emotionally...maybe this whole duct tape thing has a point. I have certainly taken a part of all my partners with me, whether big or small. And that's a GOOD THING. Some of my favorite music, authors, and ideas have been discovered through lovers. From one I learned that I love to have my hair brushed, from another I learned a whole new depth of feminism. I in turn have left behind some good taste, absurdist humor, and self-knowledge. These things are not diminished in the sharing. One night with a loving friend helped give me back a piece of myself that I had been missing since an assault months before. My partners have also helped teach me how to have sex that I really enjoy, which believe it or not is something I did need to learn.

Abstinence advocates could argue that the important things can be shared without actually having sex. Maybe, maybe not. The depth of emotional connection that exists in an sexual partnership can open doors that otherwise remain shut. Some of my best (and hardest) personal growth has come out of my intimate relationships. I'm not advocating that you sleep with everyone whose taste or personality you admire. That probably won't be right for you. Choosing to have sex with the wrong person can be it's own important lesson, but no need to go looking for that experience.

Also, if you don't want to have sex, DON'T! For heaven's sake, do what is right for you. You can develop other types of relationships that will help you grow and enrich your life. TAKE YOUR TIME. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that intimate sexual relationships have an important and unique impact on who we are as human beings. I wouldn't readily enter into a relationship with a person who did not have a similar level of experience. I don't mean they need to have had sex with X number of people, I mean they need to have gone through certain things: first love, first heartbreak, co-habitation, doing the stupid thing and surviving to tell the tale...

So, to bring it all back home, I have a thought. A counter-video, if you will. Using the same music and most of the text, but showing people with big pieces of duct tape covered in bite-size candy bars. Any time two people "stick" to each other, they exchange candy. "Oooh, I got a strawberry starburst from that one!"

Which leads to a whole new question: What flavor candy are you?