jeneralize

From “Breeding evil?” in the Aug 4th 2005 edition of The Economist:

“Scepticism of new media is a tradition with deep roots, going back at least as far as Socrates’ objections to written texts, outlined in Plato’s Phaedrus. Socrates worried that relying on written texts, rather than the oral tradition, would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.” (He also objected that a written version of a speech was no substitute for the ability to interrogate the speaker, since, when questioned, the text “always gives one unvarying answer”. His objection, in short, was that books were not interactive. Perhaps Socrates would have thought more highly of video games.)”

Last week, somebody named “Robert” left a nondescript message (”Hello Jen, this is Robert, please give me a call…”) on my answering machine. I didn’t recognize the voice, and he didn’t say why he was calling, but I know a few R|Bobs, so I returned the call - and got his answering machine, and left a message, coda. Yesterday, I finally got Robert on the phone. “Hi, this is Jen - I’m returning your call.” Silence.

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Probably, if bigotry and sexism are defined as having implicit mental associations between specific behaviours and roles and specific sexes or racial groups.

Find out: http://www.implicit.harvard.edu

The Implicit Association Test measures reactive relationships between human distinctions (male / female, black / white, gay / straight, etc) and characteristics (entrepreneur / homemaker, tragic / happy, humiliate / pleasure, etc). The test measures how quickly you associate distinctions and characteristics: when the word “entrepreneur” flashes on the screen, does it take you longer to associate that word with “female” than with “male”? Do you associate negative words more quickly with pictures of black people than of white people?

Probably yes. Probably yes, even if your negative associations regard your own sex or race.

Malcolm Gladwell says in his book “blink” that fifty percent of black people have stronger positive associations with white people than with people of their own race.

WTF is that all about? It’s about the way our mind - our “subconscious” - does its own thing, sucks in its own information and makes its own judgements, regardless of our sensibilities, our analytical abilities, our choices our freedom our concerted efforts to rise out of ignorance and nastiness.

Frankly, this whole subconscious business just pisses me off.

The December / January 2005 edition of The Walrus has a photograph of merchant Zilgai Tajahi in front of his kite stall in a Kabuli bazaar. The Taliban outlawed kites in 1996; during the years they were illegal, Tajahi sold contraband kites to children.

In April 2005, Pakistani Mullahs attempted to ban a kite-flying festival (”Basant”) in Lahore. What tangled strings have these poor Lahori kites: Basant is a Hindu festival; no, it’s a Muslim festival; no, it’s both, but it falls on the same day that, in Medieval times, a Hindu was put to death for insulting the Prophet, causing riot and retaliation. So Basant glorifies an infidel; no, it glorifies the righteous wrath of Islam against infidels; but Basant pre-dates the incident - it has nothing to do with it. “But it might“, say the Mullahs.

Some things have too much symbolism for their own good.

John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace”, from “The Kite, or the Fall of Pride”:

…Were I but free, I’d take a flight,
And pierce the clouds beyond their sight. (more…)