Out Here in the Jungle

[purejuice]

1.
I first encountered the liquidity of appointments engendered by the cell phone 10 years ago, trying to get the California Closet bitch to come to Dupont Circle from Suzy Creamcheeseville, which she was bound and determined not to do, because she had heard there were Negroes in the city.

I was outraged.

Now Fabian and Dylan, the rockstars who are bidding to rerock my garden, are doing it again. As really does everyone under 35 -- Walter, the vegan compost guy at Soilutions, called me five times yesterday when one phone call would do.

An old and minor case of PTSD has been reactivated mainly by my mother's taking to telephoning me 20 times a day about four or five years back. So it bothers me more than it would normies.

But I now understand that Fabian's changing his appointment four times -- via seven phone calls and four emails -- to offer me a bid on a five-figure job is just the way it is.

Nevertheless, I'm ab.so.lute.ly horrified.

2.
For various reasons, including that the parental woofs were feral in the most upright 19th century way, with moral authorities being Pickwick and Calvin, I have no, absolutely no, sense of strategery. Work hard, tell the truth, love thy neighbor because he's the motherfucker who's going to piss you off worst, is about the size of it. It is why the Old Husband called me Billy Budd and accounts for a great deal of the purity of the juice.

So it's really shocking when somebody like villagecharm points out really simple and obvious solutions to me -- about the disastrous and dangerous failure of strategery in the French ban on the veil, where the U.S. strategery of letting the Old Amish marginalize themselves is both fitting and just. He's no smarter than the rest of you, he does -- like me -- hew to certain antediluvian codes of ethics in the nicest way, and he has a poker champion's sense of when to hold 'em. Go, charm. And thanks.



The elegance of the paradigm is the sure evidence of its truth. There are some things I could and would argue about, the Old Amish being white people and not "guest workers" for starters. I still think, with Max Weber (go 19th century!!!!) that free education is the very touchstone of democracy, France has it, it is available to the grandchildren of the guest workers, and that high school is absolutely the assimilationist tool of [racist and sexist] capitalism, and that the social contract requires even former slaves to assimilate. If they want the goodies. Part of what is on the table here for me is the excellence of French education, and its free availability to the highest reaches of Parnassus to anybody who can pass the exams. Okwui Enwezor, the first African curator of a modern African art retrospective, is such an one and he is completely revolutionary, and totally French, in the very best way.

And if the Euro Muslims do not want the goodies -- aside from the fact that Muslim guest workers in France and Germany are people of color -- the veiled ones will marginalize their own asses. This is the nut of the brilliant observation of my Old Hell Freezes Over Friend about Germany: If you want a shitty job, put on a headscarf.

Your choice, feminist Muslimaaaaaaaz.

[I have to add, there is also the criminalized aspect of Muslim wear brought on by 9/11. I think Muslim pride, especially among the young, is playing with this Mau Mau aspect of the trad outfits and -- what? Bottom line, dressing like a slave to piss off the slave masters is a suicidal idea; and suicide has a terrible romance for young Muslims. I offer as evidence that the successful jihadis -- let's say, the 9/11 hijackers -- wore Western clothes, and Muhammad Atta was educated (in structural engineering, was it?) in Germany. So if you're a real revolutionary, and not a gas bag, you'll lose the headscarf and get yourself the finest free education in the world. It wasn't Islamic society which invented the box cutter.]

Comments

[fj.livejournal.com]

There were few Amish. There are many many muslims and their amount is growing. Hispanic Panic is what it will look like in the US.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

thank god for a euro point of view here.
as for hispanic panic, yeah. i get it. and it always makes me laugh, and not in a very nice way, when the ancient democracies of europe find themselves dealing with fellow citizens who don't look like them. bwahahahahaha.

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this, about why there's comparatively little panic about Muslim immigrants in the U.S. It again underlines, I think, that this isn't really about religion, or at least it's not only about religion: the Muslims of France are the Latinos of the U.S. The French fear is not really about a caliphate being established in Paris, it's about young, rootless Muslims committing crimes, having babies, collecting welfare, getting some of that free health care we all hear so much about.

And while there may be more French Muslims than Old Order Amish, there are a lot more Old Order Amish than there are Muslim women in France who wear the veil. We're talking about what - fewer than 2,000 people? Left alone, they marginalize themselves within the Muslim community, just like breakaway polygamists marginalize themselves with the Mormon community (interestingly, some of the Mormon splinter groups require women to wear veils in public). But as the target of a government fiat about what they can and can't wear, these women become symbols of resistance to cultural bigotry, at least to some people in their community.

I also think you have a brilliant insight on the actual people doing the killing, and how they tend to be middle class and educated, but I've already taken up too much space...

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

the Muslims of France are the Latinos of the U.S.

yes, and viewed as illegal aliens no matter what, illegitimately feasting on the sugar tit of euro welfare. this is the rallying call of howard jarvis----->reagan, the ill-disguised racism which says my taxes shall not pay for roads in your neighborhood, nor the commonweal, etc.

this, the resistance to immigrants and refugees of color, is a huge topic in genocide studies -- the UN itself being a progenitor of many racist quotas and protocols for the treatment of legitimate refugees. the boat people of the early 80s started it all, this yellow/brown/peril panic (Terms of Refuge is the name of the encyclopedic authoritative book on this tsunami of racism, in which even the canadians who had formerly been so welcoming to refugees became pigs) and its connection to the illegitimate diversion of state welfare funds by opportunistic immigrants of color.

the latest estimate on face veil frenchies is 2,000. they are different from the headscarf frenchies; i think; and the face mask criminal aspect, i believe, is bringing out the worst instincts of the chauvins. when asked how to pique and revive the interests of jaded french audiences of the belle epoque, sardou ("tosca") replied, Torture the women.

Cell Phone PTSD

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

Back in LA I had a horrendous boss who lacked any sense of boundaries or self-restraint. I would get phone calls at all hours and on all days, regardless if I was working or not and oblivious that I had a fiance and desire to have some sort of life. Phone calls would often include yelling screaming, paranoia, urgent demands, accusations, panic. (I said "often" because the true horror of it was between that shit and the seeming pleasantness- YOU JUST NEVER KNEW.) As an added bonus several of the high-end clients were given my number so I could "deal with it" especially when the "it" came at odd hours because why should we ever think about the fact that the help might be sleeping?

I has taken me the two years out here in the Heartland of the Midwest to disconnect from that physical, pit in stomach dread I would get every time I would hear my own ring-tone. (Thank God I had the sense to stop using the vibrate function on the phone within a few months, the buzzing shock of it only made the awful Pavlovian connection worse.)

P.S. Maybe the Charm will back me up on this, but I always thought it part of the New England Manners that you didn't constantly contact others, since that violated the prime directive of allowing others their space.

Re: Cell Phone PTSD

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

this is a book. i wish you would write it.
my mother described at various times in her life her happiness in the sensation of floating -- in the TB sanatorium, and when she was a very ancient and handicapped lady. accountability to anyone, to time and space, was extirpated, and her own sense of boundaries was -- expanded? it also happens in extremity, that is, concentration camps/gulags, and there is an aspect of "cosmic consciousness" in it james describes in The VArieties of Religious Experience. floating, flaneurism, all those aspects of boundary-lessness are very very interesting; one scholar of concentration camps describes civilization (time, space, body hair, one-third of your body weight, the amenities which are stripped from you in extremity) as the safe space in which the spirit may effloresce.

your boss' sense of entitlement to your space, i wonder, is the result of the seemingly affectless floating in cyberspace? i have long observed that cell phones were made for control freaks -- tiger mothers, jealous lovers. etc.

Re: Cell Phone PTSD

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

The boss was pretty inept when it came to technology, she was mostly crazy and horrible all on her own. Someone who lived their life constantly in the spirit of a panicking drowning person, clinging to anyone nearby, thrashing and unaware and unconcerned that they would drown the help as well.

Re: Cell Phone PTSD

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

as a second wave feminist, i have to say the, uhm, collaborative and consensual styles of leadership suck.

i just got a load yesterday at the public access TV station where i am the oldest living intern of the terrible, terrible shit that goes down when old hippies are the "executive" (hahahahaha!) directors. no justice. no peace.

Re: Cell Phone PTSD

[villagecharm.livejournal.com]

On constant contact, I think it's just a matter of making a plan and sticking to it. Before cell phones, you had to commit to something and then follow through on it, or have a very good reason why you couldn't. With cell phones, it's an invitation to constantly pester people while remaining positively Spanish on the actual commitments being discussed*.

One night last week, six of us were out to dinner, and at one point we were all responding to messages on our Blackberries and cell phones. It's as ugly a social habit as smoking.





* I like Spain and the Spanish, but my New England sensibilities revolt at being told that "meet me at 7 p.m." means "7:30 at the earliest, maybe."

Re: Cell Phone PTSD

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

one of washington d.c.'s stuffiest gentlemen's clubs -- and ergo certain others, as well as wannabee restaurants -- does not permit you to put [business] papers on the dining table.

there is a great deal to be said for that, not least the nature of the business that is conducted.

Re: Cell Phone PTSD

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

When I landed in LA for the first time I went out for lunch at Urth Cafe and saw a table of six sitting together, all with their back to the center of the table talking on cell phones. If I wanted the perfect LA experience, I could have easily turned around and gone home right afterward.

[uberconfused.livejournal.com]

He's no smarter than the rest of you

I disagree.

I had an interesting convo with a Brit in Denmark a week or so ago about integrating minorities. He had a good point, which is that there are still two pervailing models at work: assimilation and multiculturalism. In Denmark, the policy has been assimilation, in that the bottom line is "you must become Danish. You must look like us (as well as you're able), think like us, and talk like us. However, you will never be one of us, so keep that in mind." In the UK, the policy has been: "you can bring your weird food and crazy customs, just learn how to speak English and mind the class system." Despite its many problems and flaws, the UK has been far more successful at integrating immigrants than Denmark.

Also, you mention about something about "the ancient democracies of europe find[ing] themselves dealing with fellow citizens who don't look like them." Of course, much of the issue is that the people who don't look like them are not fellow citizens. Jus sanguinis is alive and well in Old Europe--there is an extremely strong relationship between ethnic in-groupness and citizenship. But this highlights one of the underlying contradictions of "Europe," and specifically the EU: the EU cannot simultaneously be inclusive (welcoming to all) and exclusive (based on citizenship).

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i think there is nothing in the world more interesting than these convos with fellow travellers. in a way that's what this is.
my understanding of denmark, which i spent maybe 30 seconds looking into when the dogs of mohammed cartoon flip out occurred, is that there is a strongly racist -- lutheran, is it? -- theocratic thing happening there. we never think of this, since they are such nice-looking, free-lovin', kewel furniture design, modernist white folks.
and the brits have been eating shit -- the other -- since i don't know, the angles and the saxons. very, very interesting.