Strangechord

These past few days, I’ve been reading an extraordinary amount online and want to pass along some amazing articles/essays:

• I’ve been reading Derrick Jensen’s The Culture of Make Believe, in which he attempts to tease apart (in an almost thinking out loud sort of way) the tightly woven foundation of atrocities and exploitation most of civilization is built upon. His writing is clear, deeply thoughtful and conscious. It’s striking a profound chord with me as far what, in my heart of hearts, I feel my life is about - acting in ways that restore humanity and love in a world that pathologically rewards the opposite. This morning I read Jensen’s incredible “Why Revolutions Fail” (via Feministe):

  Before we can speak of peace, we have to speak honestly of the war already going on, and we have to speak honestly of stopping, by any and all means possible, those who have declared war on the world, and on all of us. Those who destroy won’t stop because we live peacefully, and they won’t stop because we ask nicely.

  Then there’s another essay by Jensen about the beauty of resiliance; I cried this morning while reading it. It’s extremely moving: “Pools of Strength: The untouched places, whether in our hearts or the world, hold the keys to our survival”.

• UC Berkeley Sociologist Arlie Hochschild answers the question, “Why are 50% of Blue Collar White Males Planning to Vote for Bush in 2004, Even When He is Picking Their Pockets and Stealing the Futures of Their Children?”. It’s been a source of frustration that so many Americans continue to support Bush despite all the ways his policies are fucking them over. As far as blue-collar male voters go, I found Hochschild’s theories around this point among the most perceptive theories I’ve read all week about anything. An excerpt:

  And Bush himself, although he comes from entitlement, in many ways he shows that the more he fails, the more secure maybe white males feel who are feeling uncomfortable with their position, because he’s still the President of the United States. It is a reinforcement of all of the white males — that no matter how much they screw up, they’re still head of the family . . . you can mess up and still end up on top. He’s not providing any policies to help that happen. That is the sleight of hand. He’s actually making the working man’s life a thousand times harder.

• Via LaDiDa, “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies” by Susan Bordo, a brilliant writer who writes expertly on the topic of body image in the culture. Among other great bits in this essay, she writes of how none of us are immune to the influence of beauty industry advertising:

  Now, I simply catch the eyes of the 20-year-olds in the audience. They know. They understand that you can be as cynical as you want about the ads — and many of them are — and still feel powerless to resist their messages. They are aware that virtually every advertisement, every magazine cover, has been digitally modified and that very little of what they see is “real.” That doesn’t stop them from hating their own bodies for failing to live up to computer-generated standards.

• “Midwives Popular, But More Forced out of Business”. Apparently, the demand for midwives has jumped 100% since 1990, but more and more are getting squeezed out by dramatic rises in insurance premiums. I cannot tell you how adamant I am about using a midwife when I give birth someday; this just strengthens my resolve.

• Finally, a well thought-out piece outlining objections to the argument that gay sex is “unnatural”. Read Eugene Volokh’s deconstruction and know better how to articulate the absurdity of that claim.