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Hugo Schwyzer is once again venturing back into the question of "do men need male role models?" I've written before about my take on the issue, which boils down to agreeing that there's utility in a role model who has shared your experiences, but putting much stronger emphasis on the diversity of experiences within the genders, the blurriness of the line between them, and the importance of other axes of difference.
This time around, Schwyzer uses the example of male aggressiveness. He argues that men are, on average, more aggressive than women, and so women can't show men how to channel their testosterone. In comments, I suggest that we should be more specific and say that aggressive people need agressive role models, and that most people in both groups would happen to be men. Certainly I can name a number of women who would be much better role models for a testosterone-crazed boy than I would. (This is similar to my response to the argument that since women are usually too weak to be good soldiers, no women should be allowed on the front lines.)
But after I posted that, an idea occurred to me. I think there's a sense in which I agree with Schwyzer's conclusion about the need for same-sex (and same-race, and same-religion, etc.) role models. But it's built on a quite different foundation. Schwyzer's explanations rest on the idea of internal differences. There's something going on inside men's minds and bodies, whether due to Y chromosomes or early-childhood socialization, that makes men and women profoundly different. But I would say that men's greatest need for male role models (and likewise for any other socially marked group) arises from external conditions.
To me, being a man is not mostly about having facial hair or being better at math. It's about finding myself treated a certain way by the world around me. Society extends a certain set of privileges, expectations, opportunities, and responsibilities to me on the basis of my gender. It's a basically existential proposition -- we find ourselves thrown into gendered/racialized/etc. social positions, and we have to decide, with guidance from others, how to deal with it. Becoming a "good man" on top of being a "good person" is mostly about learning to deal in a constructive and progressive way with all of this. Women, not being able to directly experience a life of male privilege, cannot be ideal role models for men in this respect (though I would add that 1. there's value in the outsider's perspective, 2. some elements of the female situation resemble the male and hence can be modeled across gender lines, and 3. insofar as various forms of privilege have similarities, women who are white or rich or what have you can be role models by analogy).
The seed of this perspective was laid back when OSP had its brouhaha over the question of racial pride. It seemed to me that there was a role for something that we could call "white pride." It would be a pride in, and a desire to emulate, whites who had done the right thing with their whiteness. Abraham Lincoln was the example that sprang to mind (though I'm sure if I knew more about the history of racial issues I could think of someone better). He experienced privilege -- no black person could have won the presidency in the 1860s -- but he worked to undercut it by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. (Whether this is a historically accurate picture -- and I'm cynical enough to suspect Lincoln's motives were not nearly as pure as they're made out to be -- is beside the point. The point is the archetype that the legend of Lincoln presents us with.)
Stentor Danielson, 11:08, ,
Environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday, claiming a 6-year-old federal law aimed at preventing wildfires has degenerated into a backdoor effort to eventually increase logging across 340,000 acres of national forests in the Sierra Nevada.
... The environmental groups say the plan allows the cutting of bigger, more fire-resistant trees in an area already cleared of smaller, more flammable material. They say it also would destroy 4,280 acres of old trees around 16 California spotted owl nesting sites.
Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes said the 6,400 acres are unique, because the agreement “specifically requires us to promote the economic health of that area, and part of that is helping the local timber industry.”
It would be nice if they told us the name of the law, since it looks like it has the potential to be used in the same way as Healthy Forests.
Stentor Danielson, 01:12, ,
1.10.04
Reduce Vote Or Die!
Scott Wells points out WordCount, a neat toy that shows English words in the order of frequency of use. I think the structure of our language is trying to send us a message, though. Consider these two snippets of the list:
I'm feeling positive about politics for the first time in months. And it's because of last night's presidential debate, of all things.
I had expected the debate to be a total farce, and to a certain extent it was -- but not as much as I expected. I hadn't planned on watching it, but I came home and Zach had it on, and I got sucked in. Both candidates had their canned talking points, but there seemed to be a bit of substance to them, and they tried to respond to each other and to the moderator.
Kerry missed some chances to defend himself -- I would have liked to hear a response on the thing about criticizing Allawi, and about the International Criminal Court. Hammering the fact that North Korea got nukes under Bush's watch was good, but he failed to really make the case for bilateral rather than multilateral talks, which he especially needed to do because it contrasts with his emphasis on internationalization of Iraq. But Bush flubbed as well. Kerry handed him a golden opportunity with the "global test" line, and I'm sure we'll hear the conservative pundits harping on it, since it plays right into the "Kerry wants the US to be at the mercy of the UN" storyline. Bush repeated the quote, as if he knew it was an opening, but he couldn't figure out where to go with it. He also seemed unable to really respond to the specifics of Kerry's current view on Iraq, because he was so wrapped up in repeating (without the kind of specific examples that could have embarrassed Kerry) the flip-flopper talking point. I also like that the moderator kept saying "OK, let me get this straight. You both have the same position on this issue?"
The media seems to agree with me that Kerry won both on style and substance. If his campaign can capitalize on this, it might start to pull me out of this funk.
Stentor Danielson, 10:20, ,
30.9.04
Draftmongering
A surprising number of people on the left are trying to push the idea that the Republicans will bring back the draft. Never mind that Bush has clearly disavowed the idea. Never mind that the only people to have actually formally proposed reinstating the draft were antiwar Democrats making a publicity stunt. Never mind that if Karl Rove is the kind of evil genius he's reputed to be, he knows the draft would be political suicide.
The rationale for why Bush will being back the draft goes something like this. The American military is overstretched and low on recruits, but victory in Iraq is nowhere in sight. Within the next few years, the administration will be forced to make a choice between either giving up on the war, or using the draft. So while Bush may say he won't bring back the draft, he'll wind up with no other choice.
Looking at the president's handling of a parallel issue makes me skeptical taht events would force him to reinstate the draft. The nation's budget is overstretched and low on funds. The administration seems to be faced with a choice: either give up on government spending, or "draft" new funds by raising taxes. Yet Bush has shown little inclination to do either. Rather he's forging on ahead, even creating new spending programs.
If this were George H.W. Bush, who saw the writing on the budgetary wall and reneged on his "no new taxes" pledge, a case could be made that in similar fashion we'd see the draft come back. But not W. He's likely to continue to try to get one soldier to do the job of three rather than either reduce the workload or find more soldiers*.
Then there's the emotional side of things. One of the left's main critiques of Bush is that he's a neocon warmonger. It would fit this storyline perfectly if he were to start the draft. So there's a subconscious longing for the draft to confirm and prove Bush's warmongery, particularly since it's a move that could easily be used against him.
*Not that a draft would necessarily help. My understanding is that the military's need for poorly trained and unmotivated cannon fodder is rather low.
Stentor Danielson, 16:16, ,
Today's Comics Today
And now here's the stuff by yours truly from this week's Scarlet:
Drawing-wise I really like this one. I just wish there was an alternative to making the whip handle so huge so as to fit the word "Guantanamo" in it (note to any postmodern literary theorists reading this: no, it's not a phallic symbol).
As promised, my column (and its comic) deals -- in a rather intemperate tone -- with the question of homosexual Republicans. I wound up using "gay" as a synonym for "homosexual" a lot, even though it's not technically correct, because it's awkward to keep saying "homosexual" and it didn't occur to me to use the "LGBT" acronym.
Stentor Danielson, 13:22, ,
Last Week's Comics Today
So I've finally got my commentary and comics from last week's Scarlet. You'll note the venting of some cynicism that built up over the summer.
My column, as mentioned before, deals with the National Museum of the American Indian, and comes with its own comic.
Stentor Danielson, 13:14, ,
More On Outing
There will be yet even more on outing when I post my column from this week's Scarlet. For the time being, Will Baude offers an interesting and unusual explanation for non-consensual outing:
When a given group of people are widely and inaccurately stereotyped, and especially when membership in that group of people is relatively invisible, some folks make the choice (be it bold or foolish) to stand up and say, "no, I am part of the group, and I am not what you would expect."
The next step, and while it is a very dubious step, it is hopefully an understandable step, is to say, "and that man over there-- he is part of the group too! Bet you didn't expect that." It is unsavory to draft other people as unwilling martyrs in a campaign for social acceptance. But when people perceive themselves as leading a social or political fight for their rights, they sometimes act impatiently, and they sometimes tread or try to tread on the rights of others to acheive what they see to be a greater good.
There's some plausibility to this as a rationale for outing, and perhaps it's happened at times during the struggle for gay rights. But I have yet to hear it offered by any of the out-ers whose actions have sparked the most recent discussion of the tactic (though perhaps Baude knows of sources I haven't seen). The message intended by outing is not "look, we're everywhere." It's "this individual* is a hypocrite and a traitor." The aim is not to change people's thinking about homosexuality, but to engineer legislative victories by cowing or destroying some members of the opposition.
*Or in some cases, such as Alan Keyes's allegedly lesbian daughter, "this individual's relative."
Stentor Danielson, 01:42, ,
28.9.04
Perhaps We Should Call Them "Unitedstatesian Indians" To Avoid Confusion
While researching my column for last week's Scarlet*, on the new National Museum of the American Indian, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't find any statements critical of it to argue against. I wound up having to invent a plausible-sounding counterargument that highlighted my own point. But now Front Page comes to the rescue with this delightfully unhinged anti-NMAI screed. It starts off with a feint in the direction of "boo for cultural relativism, huzzah for Western civilization," then gets down to business. Apparently the museum is a global Communist plot to make us think that the native people of non-USA countries in the Western Hemisphere are "American Indians." I hadn't realized that your tribe had to have waged war against the United States government in order for you to call yourself "American Indian."
*I'll post it next week, as I forgot to grab an electronic version before I left the office.
Stentor Danielson, 20:55, ,
I Never Stop Working
I may not have been posting here this weekend, but don't think I was just slacking off, playing Balderdash and making animal noises. I was also engaged in serious philosophical discussions. Here I am explaining postmodernism and structuralism to my friends' landlord Ted.
Stentor Danielson, 20:43, ,
Dog Bites Man, Candidates Continue Posturing
Mark down another pointless campaign cliche that John Kerry has trotted out (via Redstate). Now he's whining about attack ads and trying to pretend he has the moral high ground by calling for an end to them. Here's a mirror, Mr. Kerry. It might help you understand why half of Americans don't bother to vote*.
*Of course, stupid campaign-trail grandstanding really has little to do with whether someone would be a good president. Yet the causal power of these kind of stunts is such that even I'm tempted to give up on the whole mess.
Stentor Danielson, 13:43, ,
While there has not been a stampede of consumers out of S.U.V.'s - one of the auto industry's most popular and profitable segments - there are signs that their popularity is weakening. The market share of some popular S.U.V. models has declined even as that for some new station wagons, which have some S.U.V.-like features, has climbed.
... Several factors are at work. Although gasoline prices are down from their peak in May of $2.07 a gallon, on average, for self-serve unleaded regular, they still averaged $1.86 a gallon on Sept. 10, according to the Lundberg Survey. In many places, the price remains above $2.
And new safety warnings about the stability of truck-based sport utilities, especially in rollover ratings, have some people reassessing their belief that S.U.V.'s are safer. Such safety issues are starting to outweigh what many people say drew them to S.U.V.'s: the bad-weather traction of four-wheel drive and the ability to drive on rough terrain.
Abiola Lapite suggests that this is a case of the market succeeding where "years of harangues by environmentalists" haven't. In the sense that the market is creating an outcome (fewer SUVs) that environmentalists desired but failed at getting, he's right. But that's a basically coincidental fact. The market is reducing SUV purchases for two reasons -- gas supply is tight, raising the price of maintaining an SUV, and safety concerns have reduced people's desire to own an SUV. Neither of these are particularly related to the environmentalist anti-SUV rationale, which is that they generate a lot of pollution. The market has manifestly failed to translate the harms caused by pollution into reduced SUV ownership.
Environmentalist anti-SUV-ism is actually rather market-friendly in two of ist three avenues of attack (the exception being the push for better gas mileage requirements). A higher gas tax is meant to internalize the externalities of pollution, thus making the market responsive to environmental issues. And the "harangues" Lapite refers to are aimed at the same mechanism that has caused safety concerns to cut into the SUV market -- alter people's perceptions of the product, which in turn changes the demand.
Stentor Danielson, 11:09, ,
27.9.04
Flip-Flopping Or CYA?
I just don't buy Kerry supporters' explanation that he voted for the war resolution in order to strengthen Bush's hand in negotiating non-war measures to deal with Saddam. Certainly that's one thing a war resolution could be used for. And as the above-linked story points out, Bush claimed at the time that that's what he'd use it for. But it's also pretty clear -- and it was pretty clear at the time -- that Bush's claims were disingenuous. Kerry had to know that if you vote "yes," you get a war. No amount of speechifying about how Bush should use his authority would prevent him from using it as he pleased, and it was obvious how he pleased to use it.
There are three theories I can think of as to why Kerry missed this point. One is that he just doesn't know what's going on. This doesn't match up with his overall character. But if it's true, it doesn't reflect well on his suitability for office. Second is the idea that he was duped by Bush. Back in the primaries a lot of his supporters were pushing this line. The theory was that lots of voters had initially bought Bush's claims, then changed their minds later, so they'd like a candidate that went through the same thought process. As an electoral strategy this may be right, since Americans want a president who is like themselves -- witness the success of Bush's faux populism. But it doesn't seem like a recipe for a good commander-in-chief.
I prefer the CYA theory -- Kerry really did want war (either because he genuinely thought Saddam was a threat or because he figured it would be electorally advantageous). But he knew that anti-war people were disproportionately on the left, and there was a decent chance the war would go poorly. So he built in a political out for himself, by being pro-war in substance but anti-war in style so that come October he'd be able to plausibly emphasize whichever side would get him more votes (as we see now with all the liberal bloggers excitedly pointing out his claims to see war as a last resort back in his war resolution Senate speech).
Stentor Danielson, 10:15, ,
26.9.04
The Lesser Evil
Grist points to this handy chart ranking gas companies according to their environmental and human rights records. As expected, Exxon/Mobil and Chevron/Texaco are at the bottom. I'd been avoiding them for some time now based on some less systematic research (though I did fill up at Mobil today, because I was nearly out of gas and had no idea what other stations I would encounter in rural Vermont. So of course a few miles down the road there was a Sunoco.). It was a bit of a surprise to find Sunoco so clearly at the top of the list (I'd heard nothing either good or bad about them), beating even BP/Amoco, though perhaps something has changed since 2001. Unfortunately there are some companies missing -- notably Hess, where I usually fill up in Worcester, and Gulf, which is my main option in Bridgewater.
Stentor Danielson, 17:20, ,
debitage 
Role Models And Privileged Pride
