We hear a lot about the "evils" of modern technology - by which people seem to mean smartphones, rather than, say, kettles.
Endless photos are posted on social media (it's not clear whether this is deliberate, or unintentional, irony on the part of those posting...) showing people "staring mindlessly" at their phones in settings from art galleries to restaurants. People ignoring the band on stage at a music venue to film it on their phone. Because, of course, the people commenting in despair have never taken a photograph of any event they attended, or recorded any family event, They are much more intellectual advanced, far more morally superior, than that.
Because, of course, technology and social media are almost universally slammed for "encouraging narcissism and endless self-promotion." Indeed. Including the somewhat narcissistic idea that we have a right to comment on how others, who are not known to us personally, choose to pursue happiness.
And perhaps there's truth in the accusation - perhaps people are genuinely more self-obsessed than they have ever been previously. Perhaps social media is less social, and more an endless round of people shouting about themselves, at people who can't hear, because they're also shouting about themselves?
Or perhaps the apparent self-involvement and narcissism of social media is a symptom, not the problem. A symptom of a society already fractured by greed, arrogance, divisive political and socioeconomic actions, inactions, policies and ideologies, a society in which people have been systematically deprived of the love and respect of others, and so have come to realise that they might as well love themselves, rather than go mad from the isolation of being seen as one more piece of human detritus.
When I think of "modern technology", I think of the fact that I wouldn't have a job if I didn't have a laptop and on-demand internet access. I think of the years - actual, literal, soul-destroying years - I spent chasing every job listed in the paper, every vacancy poster stuck in the window of every shop. I think of the money I wasted travelling to register with employment agencies who weren't interested.
And then I think of how much easier earning money, through something I am actually good at, has been since I've had broadband. I think of how much easier getting in touch with employers has become thanks to email - no more playing phone tag for days on end before you finally manage to return someone's call at the same moment they're free to take yours.
I think of oppressed groups, fleeing war, violence, persecution, and using Facebook to tell the rest of the world what's happening.
I think of victims of abuse, of disabled people, of mentally ill or neurodiverse people, who can finally connect with other people who know what their life has been like, even if they don't feel able to leave the house. I think of housebound people finally able to shop for themselves.
I think of LGBTQ+ youth, finding their community without the risks of dubious bars, clubs, and physical meetings with unknown people.
I think of people in geographically remote locations, without transport, able to develop friendships.
I think of non-verbal individuals who are able to communicate their interests and intelligence.
I think of Deaf individuals, able to engage in lively conversations.
And I think of Socrates, and his aggressive rejection of the "new technology" of writing...and realise that social media and smartphones aren't "modern technology" at all. They're a very ancient and long-established technology presented in contemporary fashion.
There will always be vain and selfish people - they existed even in Socrates' time, before the advent of the written word, and they will exist long after the laptops and smartphones we're familiar with have been replaced by something incomprehensible to today's 30yr olds.
Technology is, like so much else, morally neutral. It is our motivations for engaging with technology that make it troublemaker or therapist.
Showing posts with label Forest Fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forest Fire. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 January 2017
Sunday, 31 July 2016
Privilege Isn't the Problem
"Privilege": it's often used to shut other people up, particularly in online spaces. Whether intentional or not, its use is frequently aggressive, with the undertone of "You don't deserve to have an opinion, you are not worth our time, you have no right to be in this space."
Privilege is something that others frequently assume is in operation: I have schizophrenia, which impairs the way I process information, my employment opportunities, and the way I see the world. I grew up in an emotionally abusive dynamic, which impacts on how I respond to criticism (real or perceived), and how I handle confrontation and conflict, among other things. I am also a trans man - that is, I was born female bodied, but live, present, and am seen as a man.
However, it is typically assumed that I have, and always have had, white, male, abled privilege.
White privilege, yes. Male privilege - yes, albeit conditionally: if people know my trans status, or find out about it, I am immediately thrown out of the "male privilege" category. Abled privilege? No, not so much.
"Waah, privilege!" is often used to say "I don't value you enough to even listen to your opinion!"
And yet privilege can be used for good: watch this video to understand how. Sometimes, people don't want to be "the angry black woman", or "the screechy gay guy", or "the aggressive lesbian with the attitude", or "the whiny disabled person", or "the embarrassing trans person", or "the crazy dude." Sometimes, they don't want to draw any more attention to themselves than they already have, especially around people who don't care how awkward they're making interactions for these people. That's where those with privilege - including conditional, or "passing" privilege - need to step in, and use that privilege to say "Excuse me, this isn't acceptable - you don't treat another human being like that."
Privilege isn't the problem, because privilege can't be helped - I can't change the fact that I was born white, for example. I wouldn't want to change the fact that I can live and be seen as a male - not because I'm "treated better" (I'm treated about the same, although I'm more likely to be called "faggot", if I try and stop other men street-harassing women. I'm also more likely to be laughed at by women when I wear shorts), but because I feel better - I feel more like me. Life may one day change the fact that I do not have a physical, visible disability, or it may not. The fact that I am white and able-bodied, the fact that I am perceived as male, doesn't mean I don't have intelligent things to say, valid contributions to make to discussions.
However, as a person with white male privilege, at least, I need to remember that mine should only ever be a voice in a wider, more diverse chorus - that women and ethnic minorities should speak about issues that directly affect them, that physically disabled people should dominate conversations around public access, because they often have barriers, such as wheelchairs, to everyday navigation that I don't face. I don't have much to say in trans spaces, because I don't see myself as trans, and am not seen as trans by the wider world - I'm male, first, foremost, and (pretty much) exclusively. There are people who, through choice or circumstance, will never be seen as anything other than trans - those are the voices that should be loudest on trans issues, although, where those such as I do have something to say, our voices should be welcomed, and heard - passing, especially as completely as I do, can be very lonely - you never really fit in with the non-trans world, you're always aware, painfully aware, of the general dislike, suspicion, and, in some cases, violent hatred that that world reserves for people like you, but you don't really fit in with the trans community, either - especially, it often seems, if you're Asexual, as I am: Asexuality embarrasses the trans community, at times, just as it sometimes embarrasses the disabled community, because both of those communities focus - rightly - on the fact that their members "enjoy normal, healthy, sexual relationships." It's always awkward to know what to do with the person who says, nervously, "Ummm...Excuse me, but I...ah...I'm not interested in sex." When you're focused on normalising your community, and their experience, presenting the adults of the community as sexual people is a big part of that normalisation. Asexuality is poorly understood, and too readily assumed to be "a physical or hormonal problem" - something that can, and should, be fixed.
The problem isn't "privilege", which can't be helped, and is often situation-dependent in any case.
The problem is entitlement - the belief that factors entirely outside your control, and not related at all to the intelligence or validity of anything you may have to say, make you superior to others, and your opinions thus more valid. Entitlement, not privilege, is what causes people to believe their voice should drown out every other, or that they should be deferred to, that they should have the "final say" on all matters, whether those matters affect them or not. Entitlement feels perfectly justified in blaming those who are perceived as "lesser" for any "failure" of the entitled person's natural privilege to grant them access to what they want - as someone who has the privilege of being a white, physically able male, I understand that, sometimes, a better qualified person will be interviewed for, and given, a job I badly wanted. I understand that successive governments have been forcing down wages, and fostering divisions between employers and employees. If I don't get a job, or something I try and set up doesn't work out, my first thought is "what do I need to improve about myself, or about this concept?" Entitlement's first response is "I didn't get it because someone else stole it!" or "It didn't work out because all those other people (who are different to me) are awful/lazy/stupid." Entitlement sees "discrimination!" in every refusal, because it cannot comprehend how a "lesser" person can succeed where it has failed.
Normalisation won't combat entitlement. Only standing up for, and in, our diversity will do that, because when we are clearly "different", we can't be "lesser" - because we're not working to the same standard.
I look fully male. It is not a "failure" of "lesser" trans men that they don't - it is a difference, and one that should be celebrated. Some trans women conform to traditional ideas of female beauty - others do not. That, again, is a difference of people who are diverse, not a "failure" of those who are "lesser." I don't understand or interact with the world in the same way someone without schizophrenia does - I never will do. That is my difference, not my failure, just as a wheelchair is the physically-disabled person's difference, not their failure. I look at members of the Deaf community, as someone whose schizophrenia includes auditory processing impairment, and I wonder how anyone can see as lesser, as "failed", people who have learnt an entire language, who have often spontaneously innovated within that language. I am, and grew up, working-class. Like many working-class people of the traditional stripe (ie, what is now called the "working poor", rather than those in receipt of welfare intervention), I never thought my family was "poor" - we were different. Our experiences were different. But we never saw them as less valid. (As an adult, I tend to see the working-class experiences of part-time childhood jobs, of making do and mending, of innovating - using an old bed frame to make a garden gate, for an example from my own childhood - and of getting by on very little as far more valuable, in practical terms, than the experiences of exotic gap years, plush internships, foreign holidays, etc - but, at the same time, I understand that wealthier people who enjoy these things see them as valuable in the scheme of their life, and that's fine, too.)
I love, and value, interactions with people whose experiences aren't like mine. With people who aren't me. I can't help it - I'm a writer: people are meat and drink to me.
Privilege is something that others frequently assume is in operation: I have schizophrenia, which impairs the way I process information, my employment opportunities, and the way I see the world. I grew up in an emotionally abusive dynamic, which impacts on how I respond to criticism (real or perceived), and how I handle confrontation and conflict, among other things. I am also a trans man - that is, I was born female bodied, but live, present, and am seen as a man.
However, it is typically assumed that I have, and always have had, white, male, abled privilege.
White privilege, yes. Male privilege - yes, albeit conditionally: if people know my trans status, or find out about it, I am immediately thrown out of the "male privilege" category. Abled privilege? No, not so much.
"Waah, privilege!" is often used to say "I don't value you enough to even listen to your opinion!"
And yet privilege can be used for good: watch this video to understand how. Sometimes, people don't want to be "the angry black woman", or "the screechy gay guy", or "the aggressive lesbian with the attitude", or "the whiny disabled person", or "the embarrassing trans person", or "the crazy dude." Sometimes, they don't want to draw any more attention to themselves than they already have, especially around people who don't care how awkward they're making interactions for these people. That's where those with privilege - including conditional, or "passing" privilege - need to step in, and use that privilege to say "Excuse me, this isn't acceptable - you don't treat another human being like that."
Privilege isn't the problem, because privilege can't be helped - I can't change the fact that I was born white, for example. I wouldn't want to change the fact that I can live and be seen as a male - not because I'm "treated better" (I'm treated about the same, although I'm more likely to be called "faggot", if I try and stop other men street-harassing women. I'm also more likely to be laughed at by women when I wear shorts), but because I feel better - I feel more like me. Life may one day change the fact that I do not have a physical, visible disability, or it may not. The fact that I am white and able-bodied, the fact that I am perceived as male, doesn't mean I don't have intelligent things to say, valid contributions to make to discussions.
However, as a person with white male privilege, at least, I need to remember that mine should only ever be a voice in a wider, more diverse chorus - that women and ethnic minorities should speak about issues that directly affect them, that physically disabled people should dominate conversations around public access, because they often have barriers, such as wheelchairs, to everyday navigation that I don't face. I don't have much to say in trans spaces, because I don't see myself as trans, and am not seen as trans by the wider world - I'm male, first, foremost, and (pretty much) exclusively. There are people who, through choice or circumstance, will never be seen as anything other than trans - those are the voices that should be loudest on trans issues, although, where those such as I do have something to say, our voices should be welcomed, and heard - passing, especially as completely as I do, can be very lonely - you never really fit in with the non-trans world, you're always aware, painfully aware, of the general dislike, suspicion, and, in some cases, violent hatred that that world reserves for people like you, but you don't really fit in with the trans community, either - especially, it often seems, if you're Asexual, as I am: Asexuality embarrasses the trans community, at times, just as it sometimes embarrasses the disabled community, because both of those communities focus - rightly - on the fact that their members "enjoy normal, healthy, sexual relationships." It's always awkward to know what to do with the person who says, nervously, "Ummm...Excuse me, but I...ah...I'm not interested in sex." When you're focused on normalising your community, and their experience, presenting the adults of the community as sexual people is a big part of that normalisation. Asexuality is poorly understood, and too readily assumed to be "a physical or hormonal problem" - something that can, and should, be fixed.
The problem isn't "privilege", which can't be helped, and is often situation-dependent in any case.
The problem is entitlement - the belief that factors entirely outside your control, and not related at all to the intelligence or validity of anything you may have to say, make you superior to others, and your opinions thus more valid. Entitlement, not privilege, is what causes people to believe their voice should drown out every other, or that they should be deferred to, that they should have the "final say" on all matters, whether those matters affect them or not. Entitlement feels perfectly justified in blaming those who are perceived as "lesser" for any "failure" of the entitled person's natural privilege to grant them access to what they want - as someone who has the privilege of being a white, physically able male, I understand that, sometimes, a better qualified person will be interviewed for, and given, a job I badly wanted. I understand that successive governments have been forcing down wages, and fostering divisions between employers and employees. If I don't get a job, or something I try and set up doesn't work out, my first thought is "what do I need to improve about myself, or about this concept?" Entitlement's first response is "I didn't get it because someone else stole it!" or "It didn't work out because all those other people (who are different to me) are awful/lazy/stupid." Entitlement sees "discrimination!" in every refusal, because it cannot comprehend how a "lesser" person can succeed where it has failed.
Normalisation won't combat entitlement. Only standing up for, and in, our diversity will do that, because when we are clearly "different", we can't be "lesser" - because we're not working to the same standard.
I look fully male. It is not a "failure" of "lesser" trans men that they don't - it is a difference, and one that should be celebrated. Some trans women conform to traditional ideas of female beauty - others do not. That, again, is a difference of people who are diverse, not a "failure" of those who are "lesser." I don't understand or interact with the world in the same way someone without schizophrenia does - I never will do. That is my difference, not my failure, just as a wheelchair is the physically-disabled person's difference, not their failure. I look at members of the Deaf community, as someone whose schizophrenia includes auditory processing impairment, and I wonder how anyone can see as lesser, as "failed", people who have learnt an entire language, who have often spontaneously innovated within that language. I am, and grew up, working-class. Like many working-class people of the traditional stripe (ie, what is now called the "working poor", rather than those in receipt of welfare intervention), I never thought my family was "poor" - we were different. Our experiences were different. But we never saw them as less valid. (As an adult, I tend to see the working-class experiences of part-time childhood jobs, of making do and mending, of innovating - using an old bed frame to make a garden gate, for an example from my own childhood - and of getting by on very little as far more valuable, in practical terms, than the experiences of exotic gap years, plush internships, foreign holidays, etc - but, at the same time, I understand that wealthier people who enjoy these things see them as valuable in the scheme of their life, and that's fine, too.)
I love, and value, interactions with people whose experiences aren't like mine. With people who aren't me. I can't help it - I'm a writer: people are meat and drink to me.
Monday, 27 June 2016
Sparking Forest Fire
FOREST FIRE - ONLINE, COMING SOON IN PRINT
BURNING DOWN TO BRING UP.
(Image: Firewx1, courtesy of David Hans.)
Forest fires serve a unique purpose - they burn down the old, thick growth, clearing the way for young shoots, previously choked of light by the thick upper canopy, to burst forth, and create a new landscape in the ashes of the old.
FOREST FIRE intends to do that with journalism - burning down the old growth of manipulation and propaganda, the over-thick canopy of accepted "names" and opinions, and clearing the way for a fresh, vibrant, truthful brand of journalism - a genuinely new media.
We are very keen to hear from writers, photographers and designers who feel they are able to contribute to FOREST FIRE - initially, this will be a voluntary commitment, but we hope to be able to pay our staff within 6mths to a year - in the meantime, we understand that you may not be available regularly, and that's fine - just let us know what you can do, and we'll work within that until we're able to offer you a paid position. (If it helps, I'm not getting a salary or anything from this, either - pure love, that's me! Ed.)
FOREST FIRE, while politically neutral, will not accept racist, homophobic, transphobic, or misogynistic language, although articles that respectfully and intelligently discuss issues around race, immigration, culture, and the LGBTQ community, along with other issues, will always be considered without prejudice. We may very well end up "causing offence" at some point - that tends to happen when you tell the truth, and is necessary for genuine dialogue, that gets all the issues out into the open - but we will NEVER allow any of the work we publish to cause harm.
As well as this blog, which we will aim to update at least weekly, and more often if something of note comes up, we will be publishing a monthly print magazine, available by subscription, with the first issue released on the 28th July. Future issues will always be posted in time to reach subscribers by the 28th of that month. The deadline for articles for the print magazine will be the 21st July, and, thereafter, the 14th of each month.
If you would like to subscribe to the print magazine, payment is £10 for a year's subscription - please pay this by PayPal to forestfirejournalism@gmail.com, and make sure we have your correct address, and the name you would like to receive the magazine under.
forestfirejounalism@gmail.com is also the contact for those interested in working with or submitting to FOREST FIRE - whether that is the blog, the magazine, or both! Whichever you're submitting to, we'll make sure there's a link to your web/social media site/s, so people can follow you and keep up with what you're doing outside of FOREST FIRE. It'd also be great if you could provide a short bio with any articles, photos, etc you send us, so we can tell people a bit about you.
This blog will ALWAYS be free to follow!
FOREST FIRE is run from, and published in, the UK.
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