my thanks to feminism

I’d like to give thanks to feminism.

That comes after i, grudgingly, reluctantly, finally came to accept that i am not, and should not be, a feminist. For most of my life i, a man, had been more of a riot grrrrl than mos of my girlfriends. I’d been enraged again and again for what i saw as submissive attitudes of them, even ones that could equally well be read as submission to me. In more than one way, i wanted the role of the girl: I wanted to be approached instead of to approach, i wanted to be seduced instead of seducing, i wanted to accommodate to their lives instead of providing a grand narrative for them to accommodate to. I actually felt that the two people in a relationship should do a bit of each, and it pissed me to no end that no woman at all accepted to. Lazy, prideless girls, i thought. But i came to realize it does not make any sense for them to do any of that, and it came together with me realizing feminism is not an answer to anything.

But feminism has been useful to me, in very personal ways, and i want to give thanks.

merchants and innocence

The process of marketing penalizes naivete. In other words, wishful thinking does not work well when your actions are subject to the kind of multi-lateral vote-with-your-wallet judgement present in a bazaar-like environment.

For example making something that is neighbourhood-friendly and expecting everyone to buy just because of that, even though it is expensive. Or Ford refusing to fancy-painting his cars because colour is not important. But this is extremely different from most of the moral fables about The Will of the Market®, which tend to equate business dynamics with a special kind of complete automatic fairness and dependability.

proving me wrong

Paul Feyerabend sez:

I choose my word very carefully — they must sound right, must have the right rhythm, and their meaning must be sightly off center; nothing dulls the mind as thoroughly as a sequence of familiar notions.

Loving a intelligent conversation so much, i will always try to steer the subject into uncharted curious relevant ideas. That basically means i will often say things in which i don’t really believe a lot, and that are really weird, just because they frame things in different ways. You could say i just say those things to shock.

What one has to gain in doing this is that sometimes it is possible to spark new ideas in other people’s minds. The risk you run is that someone will try to prove you wrong. And that is boring.

starts with my ass

One week ago i was at a Rage Against the Machine gig. There were actually a lot of bands, 3 days and lots of shows. It was a big event going by the name of SWU: Starts With You.

Then again, maybe it does not.