Whenever UC Roosevelt explained the concept of 'liberal arts and sciences' to (prospective) students and their parents, some people often drew on the medieval and Renaissance concepts of the 'trivium' - grammar, logic and rhetoric - and the 'quadrivium' - arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy - which together are supposed to make up a full education.
Naturally, today's demands have changed education - especially music and astronomy are often left out of general education, although some schools may offer music as an elective art class and some schools may touch briefly on astronomy in science classes. Nevertheless, the point remains that a full education should entail the mastery of several subjects rather than just one.
This concept is not wholly foreign to Universities - just consider the recent founding of a number of liberal arts colleges in the Netherlands (UC Utrecht - 1998, UC Maastrict - 2002, Roosevelt Academy/UC Roosevelt - 2004, Amsterdam UC - 2008, Leiden UC The Hague - 2010, Erasmus UC - 2013).
For a very long time, people were considered to have been educated up to a sufficient level if they could read, write and pay their bills.
People were considered well-educated if they had a profound theoretical knowledge of a certain topic. But in today's world, where all information known to humankind is a screen-swipe at a rainy bus stop away, even if this is generally used to look at videos of Star Wars-sourced lyrics set against a capella renditions of John Williams soundtracks (it never gets old), this just isn't enough. People need to go back to the idea that a good education contains a bit of everything - the current day-reading&writing&maths.
UCR puts it that '[t]he Liberal Arts and Sciences educational concept is based upon the idea that today’s most complex problems can no longer be solved with a mono-disciplinary approach.' (http://www.ucr.nl/about-ucr/Pages/Liberal-Arts-and-Sciences.aspx), EUC says that '[t]o be successful in today’s evolving world, one must be literate in a host of arenas.' (http://www.eur.nl/euc/liberal_arts_sciences/introduction_las/), while AUC states it best when it writes that '[t]oday's society is in a constant state of flux, and our future leaders need to be flexible, creative thinkers, able to cope with the complexity of the issues facing the world. A liberal arts and sciences education is an excellent foundation in this context. In addition to factual knowledge, a liberal arts and sciences education prepares you to become a multilingual, informed and engaged global citizen, with well-developed intercultural competences, able to read intelligently, think critically and write effectively on the processes shaping our world.' (http://www.auc.nl/about-auc/about-liberal-arts--sciences/liberal-arts-sciences.html).
I do, however, recognise that changing education for the best takes a very long time (changing it for the worse, however, is much easier - but building always is more effort than destroying); it's already been 15 years since UCU was founded and only now the UC-movement has gained enough momentum to be recognised by people outside HE. So to help this process, let me list some advantages we interdisciplinarians have over those monodisciplinarians.
1. If we are in Arts, we can still do maths / if we are in Science, we can still deconstruct pop culture.
There are, of course, many other things we are also capable of, depending on the modules we took, but the fact that we will have had to pass modules in fields only tenuously related to our major (if that) means that we have a good theoretical knowledge of our major (that's what it's our major for) but also that we haven't been allowed to give up on basic capabilities such as doing maths and analysing poetry. I'm not saying a Literature major should be able to do calculus at the level of an astrophysicist, or the astrophysicist to understand all the subtleties of 'he was withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage' (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 20), but I am nevertheless saying that interdisciplinarians can do more than just their major. We are inherently mixed methods rather than either quant or qual - we grasp SPSS as much as we grasp doing an ethnography.
2. We learn / study more flexibly.
This is related to the point above and naturally differs per person, but the fact that we have been forced to study different things means that we will have had to develop ways to deal with different topics, meaning that we are likely to be familiar with a whole range of study methods. This, in turn, will quite likely have prepared us to deal with having to learn new things later in life. We may have majored in one field, but our study skills make it easy for us to pick up knowledge in other fields too.
3. We can keep up an intelligent conversation.
This is not to say that monodisciplinarians can't - of course they can - but we are perhaps more comfortable than they are in doing so. We in Arts can still discuss time travel with a Science-friend, who is equally capable of keeping up a conversation on misogynist ideology in mainstream media (without saying profoundly stupid things).
4. We look at things in different ways.
A philosopher with modules in economics, a mathematician with modules in sociology - it works. Instead of continuing on the well-worn paths, we are able to apply concepts from other fields and translate our own ideas into other fields, thus finding ways of thinking outside the box, of approaching matters from different angles. This may not necessarily make us more creative, but it does make us less derivative.
Crossing fields is incredibly daunting, but being able to do so will keep not just Academia fresh and flexible, but industry too.
5. We don't have to give up interests.
While the first four make us good employees/entrepreneurs, this one is perhaps more to our own benefit. Not having to give up your other interests can change your life. I shall take myself as case in point: when I was 17, I really wanted to study Law. I was going to study Law, too, at Tilburg University. Had I gone on to study law, I would now be starting my internship at a law firm, probably having specialised in Family Law and intending to be a divorce lawyer, although I find Criminal Law much more interesting - Family Law is the safer option. But instead I got to combine Law with Economics and a bit of Politics, as well as Media Studies, Rhetoric and Stylistics, and I got to attend a book club and a literature and linguistics discussion group - so now I'm doing a PhD in English looking at UK news media (re)presentation of corporate fraud instead of learning how to tell people what's in it for them if they decide to get divorced. I dare say I am much happier than I would have been in the alternative scenario, if only because I get to do everything I find interesting, instead of just some little bit of it.
So, to summarise; we interdisciplinarians are flexible, hard-working, fast-learning, creative, intelligent and, importantly, happy people. There may be a fallacy here - did our interdisciplinary education make us so, or did we so start out so and chose an interdisciplinary education because of it? It is probably a bit of both, but fact remains that an interdisciplinary education is something to be supportive of.
Of course, interdisciplinarity does have its downsides. It is incredibly hard work - UCR used to advise that the average week in the semester entailed 56 hours of course-related work. I sometimes joke that my love for my alma mater is the result of Stockholm Syndrome. In order for it to be effective, class sizes should be limited - this could go both ways, as it would improve employment for academics but may be quite expensive if ill-organised. And it is difficult to explain what exactly you're doing - which is fine if you're just talking to your gran at a birthday, but is perhaps a little more difficult when you're looking for a job and have to say "yeah, uhm, look, I did major in Science but since I took modules on Physics and Engineering and IT and Mathematics it's basically equivalent to having studied Computer Science", or even worse, when you're a politician trying to make a point that Higher Education funding should not be further cut (which would get you my vote) and have to say "yes, look, I know it is not incredibly clear what our students are being trained for but I can assure you that they will be incredibly capable at whatever they end up doing" - saying you're training n lawyers, p surgeons and q historians (or, even more political, that you're training x STEM-field students, who are obviously a worthwhile investment because of the clear-cut monetary value of STEM-research - I have briefly covered this before, I promise to expand on it some other time) is much more likely to earn you the approval of other politicians. Perhaps monodisciplinarians with only one interest are happier being monodisciplinary.
And sometimes being interdisciplinary makes us a bit arrogant because it makes us think we know it all.
But it's worth it. Because ask yourself - would you rather have a GP who is really good at her job, or a GP who is really good at her job who also understands what she is doing when she votes during elections? A computer engineer who is really good at fixing your computer but also understands when the media are trying to manipulate him? An investment banker who is brilliant at handling your portfolio or one who is brilliant at handling your portfolio and also understands ethics?
What Is It About Boobs That Makes People Act Like Idiots? (02 September 2013)
Today I read an article in De Volkskrant (well, its online version) that I thought so good that I felt it needed to be translated. It's an incredible example of how sexism is still pervasive and why sexism is just STUPID AS HELL.
The original article (http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/13166/Joyce-Brekelmans/article/detail/3502529/2013/09/02/Wat-is-het-toch-met-borsten-dat-mensen-er-zo-raar-van-gaan-doen.dhtml) is by Joyce Brekelmans and was published on www.volkskrant.nl on 2 September 2013.
'What is it about boobs that makes people act like idiots?'
It isn't the case that Joyce Brekelmans would like to become a member of the SGP [Dutch Fundamentalist Christian Party] or the Woudrichem Fishing Club, but sometimes someone just needs to say out loud that it is pure bullshit to not be allowed to do something just because you're a girl.
It never occurred to me to want to become a member of the fishing club of Woudrichem, but it's incredibly lame that I'm not allowed to do so in any case because I'm a girl.
I don't think having a meat-rod is a necessity to sit on a fold-up stool on the waterside whilst looking into the distance, donning a stupid cap. You also don't need a third leg to play football, but when she was a child, my sister still wasn't allowed to play with the local football club. She could play with the boys a bit futher away - good for them, because she was awesome at it - but when she started puberty it was all over. Breasts as the ultimate off-side [translator's note: don't think "off-side" offers the same connotations as "buitenspel" (which also means being put outside the game in Dutch) but I decided for a literal translation here].
What is it about boobs that makes people act like idiots? When last week, Bits of Freedom activist Ancilla Tillia tried to awaken the Netherlands to privacy issues, she was told that as an ex-Playmate she had no right to complain. As if the Google-ranking of her nipples has anything to do with the policies of Ivo Opstelten [Dutch minister of Justice and Safety], about which she was expressing her concerns. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention in Biology class, but as far as I am aware, taking off your jumper does not equal a frontal lobotomy.
My own naked everything isn't available for publicity, but if I would ever want to draw attention to these two important issues, I would hope to be able to continue doing my work after that. Whatever the Gordons [Dutch telly persona] of this world think of that.
In 2013 there are still people who are so incredibly scared of the magical effect a pair of women's breasts have that they keep trying to forbid girls participating in things. Even in the Netherlands, where we, in comparison to a majority of women, men and children all over the world have an incredibly privileged situation. Isn't it somewhat bizarre that I was forced to do gymnastics in PE whilst the boys got to play football? That I wasn't allowed a job in the Tour de France-crew because "women would mess up the social atmosphere"? That, as a student, I was not allowed to work as a barmaid because working the bar was guys' work and girls had to do the waitressing? That a guy friend of a girl friend now joins his father-in-law to the Freemasons because his daughter, who would love to accompany her father, isn't allowed in?
And then we still are in a privileged situation, as for instance the Afghani Malala would gladly change places. It would just have been nicer to have known beforehand that those pleasant boobs - which I once desperately wished for - could be such party poopers. It isn't that the membership of the Dutch Fundamentalist Christian Party, the Woudrichem fishing club or the group of people that Gordon thinks have a right to speak out against privacy invasion is very appealing, but sometimes someone just has to say out loud that it is pure bullshit that you are not allowed to do something just because you're a girl.
Monopolies (12 August 2013)
Note: I had planned to post this yesterday, but unfortunately couldn't due to WiFi issues. So I'm posting it now.
***
I spent four hours on a coach yesterday travelling from Prague to Vienna on a bit of a bumpy road, winding between hills and mountains and lakes trillions of trees. Certainly this would inspire anyone to good thoughts – Kristy and I had a very clever conversation over dinner yesterday about the global economic crisis.
I have before cited Lon Fuller's notion that the most basic of all human duties is the maintaining of channels of communication – certainly I am still very much taken with his ideas of the Morality of Duty vs the Morality of Aspiration. Today, I wish to elaborate a bit more on why I am so taken with the idea that the basic duty is communication.
I have also been reading Crime and Economics, which is a wildly fascinating book that explains that crime is indeed just behaviour that turns out to be criminal, and that there is long-term utility and short-term utility, and that what makes people decide which one to do is will-power. As with most economic terms, 'will-power' is slightly undefined – as is 'utility' – but it makes for a wonderfully useful concept to think with.
What I find interesting is the idea that government has the 'monopoly to violence', or is the only party that can legally, justifiably actively use violence – if certain conditions are met. We citizens are only justified in using violence in self-defence. So I've been running with that idea, too, taking it to an abstract level – if certain parties have certain rights and privileges that other parties do not, those parties have, to some extent, a monopoly*.
As, if I remember correctly, game theory, or at least industrial economics dictates, monopolies are inherently unstable – as the rights and benefits (profits) are usually appealing to other parties as well, these other parties will try to get a slice of that pie too, which leads to all sorts of strategies on the part of the monopolists until the monopoly collapses – in political terms, revolution. Unless, of course, the other parties consent to the monopoly, in which case they will not challenge it – I suppose this must then be part of the social contract.
This is where I believe communication comes in. And why arts and humanities are important. Governments have, as we know, been trying to cut funding to arts and humanities research, claiming it is not important as it does not lead to the betterment of humanity, like science does – of course, biomedical science cures cancer and engineering invents cleverer hoovers and chemistry creates better shampoos and astrophysics – well, astrophysics is just really, really cool.
And if people's only argument in favour of arts and humanities is that is makes life prettier, that's not very convincing.
Of course, life would be horribly bland if we all lived in utilitarian grey concrete flats and ate only pills that held all vitamins and minerals and drank only water and spent the ideal part of the day working and the rest resting in perfectly engineered beds and all lived healthily to be 165. Quite dystopian. So I suppose the aesthetic value of arts and humanities is not to be underestimated.
But there is also value in the communicative side of humanities. What use would perfectly engineered computers and mobile phones have if we did not use them to communicate?
And then what is the use of communication?
Negotiation. All of it.
Negotiating what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, what is beautiful and what is dreadfully ugly – which is, in the first case, of course what law is for, but also fairy tales and Hollywood blockbusters and literature. See a Renaissance painting with sinners being punished in Hell? Negotiating what was wrong in that era – what was considered sinful. Dante writes that he came across classic authors in Hell's ante-chamber – they weren't evil people, according to him, but they were still wrong in not being Christians. J.K. Rowling makes Voldemort the villain – he is hateful, angry, delights in killing people and thinks all non-magic and non-pureblood-magic people are lesser people.
By extension, these are also our channels to communicate who has a right to what monopoly – or who has a right to what, anyway. How Twitter led to the Arab Spring is of course a very clear and explicit example of this negotiation, but other less explicit works negotiate the rights of powerful groups – such as governments – just as well.
Think of my favourite novel, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. People were outraged over it – of course they were, Dorian spends the majority of the time being a hedonist and delighting in all sorts of “immoral” pleasures, not in line with, to steal a line from Alfred Doolittle in My Fair Lady - “middle class morality” (which is precisely why it's my favourite). But yet Dorian still dies at the end.
And arts and humanities research is important in uncovering these negotiations. Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Which is why I have taken such a liking to Linguistics and Stylistics, I suppose, because it helps uncover what texts say.
But I'm afraid that this could just as well be a reason to cut funding for humanities, as funding is usually done by the wealthier and thus more powerful parties, who'd I'm sure gladly stay in charge, as it is a reason to increase funding, as in the end I do believe it would lead to fairer distributions of just about every commodity, as it would destabilize most monopolies. Short-term utility vs long-term utility.
In the end, I think this is the more philosophical reason why I like my dissertation topic. Why I like corporate, white-collar and organised crime. These are Sutherland's Crimes of the Powerful, and by researching how these are constructed textually, such monopolies can be discovered and perhaps eventually be re-negotiated. But that's the idealist in me, my long-term utility – my other reason is that it's just really very exciting, and that's very short-term indeed.
In any case, I suppose I should read more philosophy, I'm sure there's plenty of ideas there already that say what I've just said, or that can introduce to me a new angle to think about. For now, however, I'll stick to researching whether Starbucks not paying UK corporation tax is bad or really really very evil.
*In strict economic terms, a monopoly is when one company or one party has an almost absolute control over the supply of a certain good or service. My use of the word 'monopoly' is slightly wider, to indicate a majority control over a certain commodity or privilege, not just by one party but by a certain group – a cartel, if you will.
My Obsessions (22 July 2013)
My brother recently described one of my characteristics as follows: "whenever there's something you find interesting, you try and find out everything about it, immediately".
Or, in different words, I'm somewhat obsession-prone. This blog is also largely self-indulgent and a bit rambling. But that's okay, it's really a procrastination post anyway.
I did it between 11 and 15 with CSI. Obsessed to the point of actually reading up on forensic investigation techniques, improvising forensics kits using make-up brushes and the finest flour I could find in the shops (didn't work very well) - and then using these kits to, with a friend, make a complete mess of a room in her house while doing a "forensic investigation". Obsessed to the point of writing tons of fanfics (which are not worth a read nowadays except for a handful of flashfics). Obsessed to the point of writing a screenplay for an episode and actually emailing it to one of the producers - who then promptly turned me down saying he could not possibly read it as it would cause copyright troubles. Obsessed to the point of then writing another screenplay and attempting to film it with a group of friends, which then of course fell apart because 14-year-olds cannot make a film together without there being leadership struggles and schedule clashes, except for when it's a school assignment. Obsessed to the point of actually proclaiming Chemistry my favourite subject, at least for some weeks.
Also did it with Harry Potter, for a longer period and more intensely. Obsessed to the point of reading every of the first five books about 20 times (literally), being thus able to, for a short while, hear any sentence being quoted from the books and being able to place it not just within the book, but even within the general page range. Obsessed to the point of demanding my parents take me to the premiere-showings of the films for my birthday party - which worked well up to Goblet of Fire, but not so much after that. My amazing parents also taking me to the midnight launch of Order of the Phoenix - the novel, that is, so I traipsed around Rotterdam Central station at night in full wizarding get-up (and getting my hat blown onto the tracks, which resulted in me jumping after them since it was well before the steam engine was scheduled to arrive and I wanted my hat back. I was then promptly and rightfully scolded by one of the National Railways-employees). Wanting to get shoes just like the ones Hermione wears in the first film - and being really very sad that I couldn't find anything like it. Having a deck of Harry Potter playing cards, which I carried with my to school, daily. Being inconsolable when I lost that deck. Attempting to sew robes whenever I could get my hands on a decent sized bit of cloth. Carving branches (and narrowly missing my fingers) to make wands. Going to midnight premieres in full get-up, even at age 20. Learning runes (which then came in handy to exchange notes with my friend in Maths class because our teacher, brilliant as I suppose he was (though he did not like teaching us non-mathematical people) naturally couldn't read runes) because Hermione studied Ancient Runes. Also reading up on Numerology (another Hermione subject). Attempting to read Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces because one of the non-authorised "encyclopaedias" said the story followed the monomyth and I was desperate to see whether it was true (of course I didn't manage to fully read Campbell until I was 21).
And I recognise it's happening again now. Watching Doctor Who. First I watched the new series, because heck, that's four series of David Tennant and there's nothing wrong with four - no, three series and a year of specials - of David Tennant. Matt Smith and Christopher Eccleston were nice bonuses at that point. Then getting started on the old series because My word I addooooorrred the new series and I had to see more - at that moment, series 7.2 was just being broadcast on BBC, so I got to - well, I've already written about the Matt Smith episodes I watched this year on telly.
So I liked the First Doctor and his companions (specifically Ian). Frankly adored the Second Doctor (and he and Jamie had such remarkable chemistry!), he's my favourite I should think. Found out Patrick Troughton also had a guest role on Inspector Morse once, which was two-for-one really cos it means I got to go back and re-watch a Morse episode.
Rapidly watched Three and Four (yes, all of it) - upon stumbling upon bags of jelly babies in Morrisons, I promptly bought some and spent the next few days mumbling "would you like a jelly baby?" whenever eating one. Watched the Fifth Doctor, found him - well, not boring, but beige.
Of course, me being me, I read up on the actors on Wikipedia (yes, I know, shame on me - all my past teachers are welcome to shame me for using Wikipedia) and found out that of course Peter Davison also was Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small and I hadn't ever properly watched that but I do know the series as my Mum and stepdad used to be quite fond of it so I watched that too and came to the conclusion that the WE'RE GOING TO CRASH-LAND BUT I'M DAMN WELL PILOTING THIS CRAFT!-scene at the end of Caves of Androzani (see below) - which is my favourite scene of all the Fifth Doctor's because he seems quite obsessively mad with crash-piloting that craft - is very Tristan-y and then I suggested to a friend that all of the Fifth Doctor should've been Tristan-y but I suppose a smoking, drinking and womanizing Doctor wasn't ever much of a good plan (Tristan Farnon may actually be well on his way to become one of my favourite television characters).
Also feeling bland about the Sixth Doctor, liking the Seventh, agreeing that the Eighth is very underrated - and now I'm done, which is leaving something of a gap.
So what *have* I been up to lately, obsession-wise?
- Getting tickets for the 50th Anniversary event in ExCel London, which entailed me getting up really early to sit in front of my computer for about five hours, refreshing the page over and over until I managed to be so damned lucky as to snatch up some normal tickets for the Saturday - judging by the anecdotes on some of the fora, doing so in the General Sale was actually practically impossible as they sold out in about four minutes and most tickets had already been snatched up in the pre-sale to which I unfortunately had no access. That Saturday, of course, the 23rd, is the day of the Anniversary itself and the only day for which so far Four instead of three Doctor-actors have been scheduled - Matt Smith, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker and the marvellous Tom Baker.
- Designing an outfit for said event. I'm not yet revealing what it's supposed to end up looking like, but I will give the hint that it's going to involve me getting my Mum to teach me to knit.
- Doodling Daleks in my notebook (also a T-Rex, with the Dalek saying "*YOU'RE* complaining?" which I would've posted on here if my T-Rex didn't look like a frightened lizard).
- Reading up on time travel (again).
- Getting very worked up over the BBC not releasing their 50th Anniversary Trailer to the general public BECAUSE THERE'S A GAP IN MY EXPERIENCING THE DAY WHERE THERE USED TO BE SOME DOCTOR WHO THING I HADN'T YET SEEN TO WATCH AND NOW THE BBC RELEASED THIS TRAILER TO THE COMICCON PEOPLE AND SO THERE IS SOMETHING NEW AND I CAN'T WATCH IT AND IT'S REALLY VERY FRUSTRATING - I suppose it may be somewhat similar to what addicts go through when they're going through withdrawal and their indulgence of choice is *JUST* outside of their reach.
- Watching All Creatures to deal with said gap (and some dissertation panic - nothing like All Creatures to take away dissertation panic) and it would seem now that if I watched any Fifth Doctor stuff now I'd perhaps expect him to stick his arm up a space-cow's rear*. Also, I've this annoying switch-thing with Harry Potter, in the sense that if I'd watch any Harry Potter now I'd expect the Minister for Magic to have the abuse of magical creatures as an interest, which of course he doesn't as he's quite willing to have Buckbeak slaughtered, whilst when watching All Creatures I'm sometimes almost expecting Siegfried to start about Ministerial stuff - which of course he won't as that's all bureaucracy anyways and Siegfried and paperwork are not very good friends.
- Being sorely tempted to buy some Doctor Who novels but I mustn't, I really mustn't because that would mean lugging about even more books at the end of the summer.
- Being tempted by a friend to stick a Dalek reference in my dissertation, which so far I have not managed...
...
Oh, obsessions. I suppose that's one reason why I'd like to be an academic. After all, plenty of opportunity to get obsessed with lots of interesting things.
Now then. The Caves of Androzani-clip. Because it's quite fantastic, and despite me thinking the Fifth Doctor is a bit beige (maybe it's the coat? Love the trousers though), Caves of Androzani is really among the more memorable episodes (well, episode-arcs) and frankly perhaps one of my favourites (together with - oh actually, another Fifth Doctor episode, Arc of Infinity, but that's because it's set in Amsterdam I suppose. And City of Death (Fourth), Tomb of the Cybermen (Second), School Reunion (Tenth), The Empty Child (Ninth), The War Games (Second)... oeh! Pyramids of Mars, of course, because of the Egyptian stuff (Fourth). But not Blink (Tenth). Love the Weeping Angels, just don't quite like the episode. Actually - I'll stop now. Just watch this clip for a bit, okay?).
*May I assume - please - that the Doctor is also a qualified vet? Pretty please? Seeing as he's supposedly got degrees in everything - quite impressive actually for someone who didn't pass his Time Lord Academy exams until the second time and then still only scraped a 51%.
Home Is Where The Heart Is (13 June 2013)
Yesterday, I returned home after a week-long trip... home.
I spent the week rushing hither and thither, attending interviews, parties and meetings, seeing people I haven't seen in almost a year and generally forging new and renewing connections. It's been a busy week.
It's very peculiar, the things you come to appreciate when you're away for a bit - and some are very small things, too, linked across countries.
I've come to notice that there really is a difference between the amounts of please and thank you people say in shops, and that there really is a difference in whether or not to queue, and whether to close the curtains.
But not all differences are substantial. I had chats with multiple people in which the fact came up that I'd managed to bring my bicycle across the sea, and the main question was - can you even cycle there?
Well, yes. Leicester's magnificently bicycle-friendly. We've bike lanes and most motorists are very courteous - more courteous than Dutch motorists, in fact - although most seem to have some trouble anticipating velocity. I can park it just about anywhere, in the centre we've lots of dedicated bicycle spots. In that sense, it is not much different from any moderately large Dutch city, except for the fact that my bike stands out a bit because it has a luggage carrier and is clearly very old according to non-Dutch standards - if I calculate correctly, I must've had it for, oh, eleven years now. The biggest difference, however, is that Leicester's not flat.
I used to yearn for stroopwafels and paprika crisps, but I've found replacements - flamed grilled steak crisps taste similar enough, and there are so many other biscuits to try. Besides, I don't eat those on a regular basis anyway.
I do still miss bread, because English supermarket bread is generally fairly dense and heavy, and some of the brown breads lean towards tasting like rye bread, which I've never liked. But I've found that the cheapest white bread more or less takes on the flavour of whatever I put in my sandwich and isn't nearly as sweet as white bread in the Netherlands, so I'm satisfied there too.
And there are things that are so much better here. I love the cleanliness and comfort of the Greater Anglia and CrossCountry trains to respectively London and Stansted, and that you can reserve a seat when pre-booking a ticket. Pre-packaged sandwiches (with bacon!). The fact that real bookshops (still) exist here on a relatively large scale (related is the fact that they're all English-language books - I generally dislike Dutch literature, it's generally pretentious pseudo-existentialist nonsense). Queueing. Please and thank you. The way some elderly ladies and gentlemen dress. The fact that left-handed side roads feel strangely calming to my left-handed brain (or that might just be me, any other lefties willing to weigh in on that?). The fact that British English has cutesy words like 'lorry' and 'wheely bin' for things that are generally loud and/or filthy. For that matter, British English and its many, many accents. The BBC. The fact that if you have to go to some institution of national importance, it's bound to be in London instead of all over the place (Netherlands, not so much - could be in Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht - or, in the stupid case of DUO, Groningen). For that matter, London. The fact that paper money still has people on it (and cool people, too - Charles Darwin and, in a bit, Winston Churchill). The fact that pound coins are shaped funny. Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Sherlock (Holmes), Narnia, His Dark Materials, Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare. The Beatles (and generally most of the stuff done by Paul McCartney), The Rolling Stones, The Who.
I often like to complain about things, such as that I don't think Leicester is very pretty (as it isn't), and that the weather's foul (as it is), etc.. But it's not all bad. In fact, if I'd get the chance to stay, I would, without a doubt, stay.
There's a place where a lot of my friends live. And there's my room in Leicester. And having been away for a week, after having lived here for eight months, they're both home. Funny, that.
Gender Roles and Stereotyping (29 May 2013)
I promised to write about the search for the missing brothers Julian and Ruben, but then my dissertation prep caught up with me and I stopped having time to stop and write. And now it's more or less dropped from Dutch news, so I don't think I'm going to bother any more; I missed the moment. Let me just conclude my thoughts on it by use of the following statement: I know it was an emotional affair. It was a horrible thing, and my thoughts go out to their Mum.
But the hysterical reporting reminded me an awful lot of the massive outrage over stranded whale Johannes last year.
There are, however, plenty of other serious topics to write about. This is one I care deeply about.
***
Recently I've been getting worked up over a lot of things, including rape culture, the perpetuation of the patriarchy, people who argue against gay marriage and against blasphemy, and democracy. I've become a regular visitor of Everyday Sexism, which exists to point out that despite some people arguing the opposite, sexism is (unfortunately) very much alive - and surprisingly ingrained.
And quite simply, all issues I get worked up over all come back to one basic concept: people should be treated as individuals of equal worth. My main issue today is gender roles; the ideas that men are supposed to be men, who are into women, and women are supposed to be women and there for the enjoyment of men (because, as is an unfortunately still prevalent belief, "women don't like sex" - which is an obviously ridiculous idea).
I think I classify as middle class. I attended a solidly middle class elementary school, in any case, and grew up in a solidly middle class town. I've been brought up as a white, Dutch, agnostic protestant in the white-majority, protestant, prosperous Netherlands, and have received a good education. I have never been discriminated against based on race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, education, political preference or religion. I have been and am immensely privileged.
There should be no external hurdles for me to do anything I want to do - except for being the leader of a strict hierarchy, because, as my father has now declared in two discussions, "women don't do hierarchy well" (Don't get me wrong, I really do love my Dad, we just tend to have different views on different things - doing discussions is pretty much our family sport).
I suppose I understand my father's point of view - his was a time in which males went into the army at 18 and females stayed home to take care of the family. I don't think he ever expected to have to defend his views of whether females are generally particularly unsuited for certain types of work to his daughter.
But this is not what makes me angry, though it does get me worked up.
What makes me angry are the comment sections of online news articles I have been reading lately, where people broadcast their opinion that somehow females who dress in short skirts ask to be raped and that somehow males are losing their masculinity for allowing females to "feminise" society.
But neither are particularly worrisome issues. Sure, these opinions are tremendously grating, but they can be opposed. They can be discussed, because they have been vocalized.
What is, however, a worrisome issue is the underlying corrosive attitude towards gender and gender-roles.
Gender still so often forms part of our identity. Many people before me have gone on to state how there is a difference between sex and gender - sex is what gives male homo sapiens their XY chromosomes, and what gives female homo sapiens their XX chromosomes. It's basic biology.
What isn't biology, however, is gender - gender is a social construct. When I say 'male' and 'female' in this post, I mean biological sex - when I say 'man' or 'woman' (or the plural) I mean gender.
Gender is what makes people expect females to like pink and glitter and flowers and ponies and stuff, what what makes people expect males to like beer and sportscars and steak and boobs and stuff.
Gender is, regrettably, also the thing that make people say truthfully idiotic things such as "women should not be in charge of a ship because women don't do hierarchy", or "men should not be nurses because they aren't caring".
Gender stereotyping is what makes me lament to one of my friends "sometimes I wish I were a guy, things would be so much easier - I could just wear a three-piece suit if I'd like to" and what makes manufacturers like McCoy's proclaim that their crisps are man crisps - so I can't possibly enjoy them?
It's what made McDonalds release a commercial in the Netherlands in 2006, in which they promoted "man-burgers"...
Translated transcript:
Woman: Oh, I'll have a man-burger.
(McDonalds falls quiet)
Voice-Over: Okay, if you girls want to act like men, we'll act like women!
(Man trying on wellies)
Man: It's exactly what I'm not looking for. It's the wrong colour, the heel's ugly...
(Different shop)
Man: Well, they feel right.
Woman: Yeah, I think they're...
Man: But they're really ugly.
(Different shop)
Man: Colour's exactly right. But those ridges, I really don't like ridges...
Woman: Ridges?
Man: Yeah, they're ugly, those ridges.
(Different shop, woman offers a pair of wellies, man only sniggers)
(Different shop again)
Man: It's so difficult. I think I like those in the first shop best. Yep. We could drop by tomorrow.
V.O.: The Big Tasty with Bacon. A man-burger. For men. And women, if they still feel like one now...
I'm fully aware that commercial was to be taken as a joke. It's not like I lack a sense of humour - I giggled tremendously when I first saw it.
Except the whole fact that I feel the need to defend myself by asserting that I do have a sense of humour is already a result of ingrained gender roles and the perpetuation thereof, because the whole notion of a female finding fault with commercial products that perpetuate gender stereotyping, no matter whether ironically or unironically, is far too often neutralized by the simple remark that the female who finds fault with the commercial simply lacks a sense of humour. Such neutralization is of course tremendously useful, because if you can neutralize something without having to actively consider it, you save yourself the trouble of questioning the underlying assumptions.
More simply said: accusing people who take offence with female-driver jokes, female-kitchen jokes and female-sandwich jokes (worse still, rape jokes) of having no sense of humour whatsoever allows people to go about their business as usual, without having to wonder whether females are often marginalized and then - gasp - actually having to do something about it. But actually, making a joke about females (and reducing their experiences of sexual abuse to a joke) is just as bad as racist jokes. No one wants to be known as a racist, so why is being sexist still okay? Why is it so much easier to call out someone on saying something racist than it is to call them out on a sexist joke?
I fully support seeing gender - like sexuality - as being on a continuum. Sex is generally dichotomous (though, as always, there are exceptions), but gender is far more fluid.
Gender stereotyping is a dreadfully narrow thing.
I am female and generally identify as a woman, but display many characteristics considered unfeminine or masculine; I loved to play with my brother's Lego bricks as a child, prefer technical and scientific documentaries over soap operas and talent shows, loathe chick flicks and chick lit and want my crime films to be as gruesome as possible, and generally enjoy taking charge of my own affairs.
Women are, however, generally expected to not like or even be capable of science and technology (consider the awful EU campaign about science for girls, see below - even if women do science, it can, apparently, only be so when science is pink and can only have to do with make-up and other "girly" things), generally expected to love chick flicks and despise action films (consider so.awfully.many internet how-tos for a woman to get a male friend to join her to see a romantic film, and so.awfully.many action film reviews that have at least one point of why women would love that film too, not generally having to do with enjoying the action but with the looks of a male star), and generally are expected to have their male companions pay for them and sort out their affairs (consider the majority of Everyday Sexism anecdotes).
I am no different from most women, or most people for that matter, in enjoying the things I enjoy. Should the things we ought to enjoy really be dictated by our sex, or can we just accept that people have different interests, which have nothing to do with their sex or gender?
Gender stereotyping is a dreadfully narrow thing.
I am female and generally identify as a woman, but display many characteristics considered unfeminine or masculine; I loved to play with my brother's Lego bricks as a child, prefer technical and scientific documentaries over soap operas and talent shows, loathe chick flicks and chick lit and want my crime films to be as gruesome as possible, and generally enjoy taking charge of my own affairs.
Women are, however, generally expected to not like or even be capable of science and technology (consider the awful EU campaign about science for girls, see below - even if women do science, it can, apparently, only be so when science is pink and can only have to do with make-up and other "girly" things), generally expected to love chick flicks and despise action films (consider so.awfully.many internet how-tos for a woman to get a male friend to join her to see a romantic film, and so.awfully.many action film reviews that have at least one point of why women would love that film too, not generally having to do with enjoying the action but with the looks of a male star), and generally are expected to have their male companions pay for them and sort out their affairs (consider the majority of Everyday Sexism anecdotes).
I am no different from most women, or most people for that matter, in enjoying the things I enjoy. Should the things we ought to enjoy really be dictated by our sex, or can we just accept that people have different interests, which have nothing to do with their sex or gender?
Do be aware, most people are in one way or another guilty of gender-based assumptions and stereotyping. Just the other day I found myself accusing someone of "acting like a woman" for holding a grudge.
Similarly, men are expected to behave irrationally when it comes to sexually attractive females - should we really believe that men are so terribly weak that they cannot control themselves when they see a flash of skin? Funny then how there are still places in this world where females can walk around with uncovered breasts and the local males don't go into horny fits. Isn't assuming that men are sexually weak creatures not also gender-stereotyping? Placing men within the beer-drinking sports-watching category, in which men turn into drooling stupid-boxes whenever a somewhat-sexually attractive female passes by.
Most importantly, should men somehow really be denied their active role in sexual crimes, as so often rapists are assumed to be male because women are not considered to actively seek out sex? Generally, according to infuriatingly large sections of The Internet, females are apparently somehow asking to be harassed, because apparently to these sections it is a man's right to consider females public property, to be touched and used at their own discretion. If a female goes out wearing a short skirt and she gets raped, how is it that her fault? She did not request to be raped, the rapist decided to do the raping and went ahead with that. There are so many men out there who do respect females as people, and who show no signs of acting irrationally whenever they see an attractive person - is it then really irrational to ask all people to at least respect others regardless of dress and behaviour?
Gee.
If you identify as a woman and you're somehow less than feminine, you're criticised for being un-feminine. If you're attractive, you're 'asking' to at least be harassed, as if access to 'pretty girls' is somehow an inalienable male right. If you're unattractive, you're supposedly not worth the attention, or only negative attention.
If you identify as a woman and you're somehow less than feminine, you're criticised for being un-feminine. If you're attractive, you're 'asking' to at least be harassed, as if access to 'pretty girls' is somehow an inalienable male right. If you're unattractive, you're supposedly not worth the attention, or only negative attention.
If you identify as a man and you're not so much into sports or anything, people are actively supporting the idea that you should have your man-card revoked, whatever that means. If you're a man and you like taking care of other people, same thing.
Awfully oppressive, isn't it, being denied the basic right of being respected and being considered worth equally to all others just for failing to fit these dreadfully narrow stereotypes.
Awfully oppressive, isn't it, being denied the basic right of being respected and being considered worth equally to all others just for failing to fit these dreadfully narrow stereotypes.
And respect really isn't that difficult a thing. It is nothing more than considering others individuals with basic inalienable human rights such as, well, set out in the declaration of human rights. It is a social glue, keeping society together, lifting destructive conflicts (conflicting with others for who they are - like Hitler's attempt at annihilating just about everyone who didn't adhere to his Aryan ideal, and on a much more individual level, the rather silly fallacy of the Ad Hominem) to the level of a constructive conflict (conflicting with others for what they do).
And it's not at all difficult to implement, either. When I was in Cairo, of all places, a few years ago (pre-revolution), with my father and brother, our male tour guide took my questions about Egyptian politics, economics and the Islamic faith just as seriously as he took my brother's and father's on the same topics, and actually asked my permission to put his hand on my shoulder when we took a photo with him. Of course asking me and not my brother or father this is still recognizing a gender difference, but far more along the lines of recognizing that some women (should've been people) might be uncomfortable with others touching them without permission. At the time, I was surprised and actually found it a bit silly, as I have been lucky enough to not have had to endure much groping and catcalling in my life, but as I keep reading articles about females feeling sexually harassed my appreciation for this gesture has increased exponentially. The reverse has happened with the man in Luxor the year before who, although probably in jest, offered my Dad a good lot of camels in exchange for me - at the time I felt incredibly flattered that 1) I was apparently worth a good lot of camels, even if it was a bit of a joke and 2) my Dad was offered more camels for me than he was for my Mum 20 years earlier in Tunisia. But I've come to realise that not only is it very, very wrong to treat women as pieces of meat, to be traded against camels, as a joke it's in as poor a taste as "sandwich" jokes are.
What if we just let people like what they like, do what they do, regardless of their biological sex, wouldn't that at least stop a whole lot of nonsense about people somehow being worth less for who they are rather than for what they do?
Was Ernest Hemingway a marvellous writer because he was male or because he wrote things like For Whom the Bell Tolls? Sure, he's a "manly" man writing about "manly" things, but does that make him any better or worse as a writer?
Was Jane Austen a wonderful writer because she was female or because she wrote the wonderful Pride and Prejudice, among other things? Sure, she was a woman writing novels that seem currently most often read by women, but does that make her less of a writer than Hemingway?
Furthermore, I simply love Oscar Wilde's writings; would one even remotely think it reasonable to consider him a better or worse writer than Austen for the sole reasons of Wilde being male? Surely not. Would one even remotely think it reasonable to consider him a better or worse writer than Hemingway for the sole reason of Wilde being gay? Surely not.
Surely, are all three completely different writers who should be judged for their own merit.
Was Jane Austen a wonderful writer because she was female or because she wrote the wonderful Pride and Prejudice, among other things? Sure, she was a woman writing novels that seem currently most often read by women, but does that make her less of a writer than Hemingway?
Furthermore, I simply love Oscar Wilde's writings; would one even remotely think it reasonable to consider him a better or worse writer than Austen for the sole reasons of Wilde being male? Surely not. Would one even remotely think it reasonable to consider him a better or worse writer than Hemingway for the sole reason of Wilde being gay? Surely not.
Surely, are all three completely different writers who should be judged for their own merit.
On the very clever Oscar Wilde-segue, let's discuss sexuality.
With rigid gender attitudes comes a rigid attitude of heteronormativity. It seems that a lot of (straight) males are more or less homophobic, perhaps because in homosocial (a social situation of men amongst men) situations, being bi or gay is supposedly less manly (i.e. the idea that a lot of men are scared to be even be for a second thought bi or gay because they think their male buddies might think less of them for it - the reverse is a man being able to pick up numerous very sexually attractive girls who are in their mid-teens to mid-twenties).
Most (straight) females are much more socially free to 'experiment' with other females, presumably because of pornography in which "girl-on-girl" is a trope - or the pornography trope is reflective of the general male arousal as a result of "girl-on-girl", in any case, it seems much more accepted, perhaps because a majority of heterosexual men appear to find it attractive - not judging it too harshly serves general (straight) male interests. But in the end, women are still expected to settle down and have children.
Most (straight) females are much more socially free to 'experiment' with other females, presumably because of pornography in which "girl-on-girl" is a trope - or the pornography trope is reflective of the general male arousal as a result of "girl-on-girl", in any case, it seems much more accepted, perhaps because a majority of heterosexual men appear to find it attractive - not judging it too harshly serves general (straight) male interests. But in the end, women are still expected to settle down and have children.
I don't understand why some people are against homosexuality. Seriously. If a person against it on religious grounds, fine, they should go ahead and deny themselves every same-sex sexual urge they might ever have and be miserable about it. But why try and forbid others from doing what they please?
I suppose what I don't get is the "threat" of homosexuality. How is it threatening? Some people seem to be afraid that people of their own gender might crush on them. But then I still don't get the threat. What is different for a straight-man-identifying male between a woman crushing on him and a man crushing on him?
Perhaps it's indeed the homosocial status thing but then I still don't get it. Shouldn't one feel flattered that someone fancies them? (on that note, being flattered because someone fancies you is very, very, very different from being sexually harassed - fancying implies a respect for the person behind the looks, considering them actually people rather than pieces of meat or public property).
And why do people protest so vehemently against gay marriage? Surely marriage is a personal thing, a personal contract between two people (and sometimes their god) - surely such a personal bond cannot be made worth less or more based on whoever else decides to use a similar template to formalize their personal bond?
And why do people protest so vehemently against gay marriage? Surely marriage is a personal thing, a personal contract between two people (and sometimes their god) - surely such a personal bond cannot be made worth less or more based on whoever else decides to use a similar template to formalize their personal bond?
If one truly feels it's a sin, shouldn't they leave it up to their god, à la Matthew 7:1, "Judge not others; then God will not judge you. 2 For God will judge you in the same manner as you judge others, and God shall judge you according to the measure with which you judge others." (apologies, translation from my Dutch bible, but the message remains the same).
If gender is on a continuum, then sexuality must be so too. If you particularly fancy people with certain characteristics, should it then still matter as what they identify?
I personally often find myself socially attracted to funny people, who've read books that I like too and like to discuss things like politics and films and ethics. Though I so far have only been sexually attracted to males; if I were to feel sexually attracted to a female, would that make me a different me? Would that change who I am? Surely not.
Shouldn't we then agree that people should be judged according to what they do and how well they do it, rather than according to whether they identify as man, woman or anything in between and rather than according to the type of people they generally feel attracted to. Let's try and be as my Cairene tour guide and treat people as people, whose opinions and beliefs are important regardless of gender or sexual preference and whose bodies are their own, not public property.
Because people are just people, and they have every human right to be happy with themselves just the way they are.
Freedom of Speech (04 June 2013)
One of my the commenters on my last blog post brought up the point '[i]f someone wants to comment on someone else's body, who am I, or anyone else, or the State, to stop them [...]?'. Fair point. Good point, too.
It's indeed something that needs to be brought up when we're discussing gender equality or any other thing, because oppressing people's speech is just as bad, or perhaps even worse, than any form of discrimination and unfairness. Or at least I think so.
Freedom of speech is a great good - without it, we can't challenge existing paradigms, can't make a change, and can't progress. Without freedom of speech we can't ensure justice, for injustice cannot be challenged when freedom of speech is taken away. There's a reason sites like Twitter are blocked in a number of countries.
Who can decide what can and can't be said? I agree with my commenter, and I don't think my agreement makes me a hypocrite for simultaneously thinking we should challenge sexists and misogynists (misandrists too, btw, it's just as prejudiced a set of ideas as misogyny and just as harmful).
This is a confusion of meaning I see in lots of arguments - I'm also guilty of them. It's confusing the meaning of freedom from prosecution and freedom from consequence.
Freedom from prosecution means that you should not be punished for having one opinion or the other. This includes imprisonment, fines, corporal punishment, but also being socially outcast.
Freedom from consequence means that no one is allowed to challenge your opinion.
And by conflating consequence and prosecution, one essentially limits another's freedom of speech.
I should be able to say that I think monarchy is an outdated concept and that both the Netherlands and the UK should stop having a royal in charge. Should I be allowed to say this? Very much so - if either the Netherlands or the UK should decide to prosecute me for it, they'd be in the wrong.
Should my friends, some of whom are very much in favour of monarchies, be able to say that my opinion is wrong, that monarchy isn't outdated at all and that having a royal family is a great benefit to either nation? Also very much so.
And that was my intention with my Gender Equality post. I don't think sexists, misogynists and misandrists should be locked up or socially outcast, despite me thinking that their opinions are wrong and actually sort of evil. What I do think, however, is that their opinions should not go unchallenged - we (I was also called out on my use of 'we', I intended an inclusive we, i.e. those who agree with my line of reasoning versus those who don't, who are 'they') should instead call them out on their opinions, telling them "well, I think you're wrong to think like that, and here's why".
If there's no one to challenge an opinion, if everyone surrounds themselves only with people who agree with them (and I know many people do prefer doing that, including myself), you'll get those sort of amplification cycles where an opinion just gets more and more extreme.
I reiterate, freedom of speech is a great good; it may actually be our greatest good.
Lon Fuller writes, "If I were asked, then, to discern one central indisputable principle of what may be called substantive natural law - Natural Law with capital letters - I should find it in the injunction: Open up, maintain, and preserve the integrity of the channels of communication by which men [sic*] convey to one another what they perceive, feel, and desire." (The Morality of Law, 1969, p. 186 - one of my absolute favourite non-fiction books).
*It was the 1960s, I suppose I must forgive him for it.
In other words, we must communicate - and if we are going to communicate, we'd better make sure we can do it as well as possible by putting up as few barriers as possible. Freedom of speech is the ultimate way of taking away most, if not all, barriers. But we would do well to remember that not everything which is said and done, is right, and if it isn't, we must be able to challenge it.
In short: sexists should be able to express sexist thoughts. But we should also be able to call them out on it, and actually do call them out on it, and they should, in turn, be able to poke holes in our arguments, et cetera, until we reach a consensus. It's a bit like trying to reach an economic equilibrium.
Baruch de Spinoza (also a fan of Freedom of Speech) thought that revolution wasn't right, as it was an emotional thing; instead, he advocated social evolution by educating the public, which is a very rational approach (according to my SSC151 Introduction to Political Theory course notes).
I tend to agree - I too am a fan of education and I too think a rational approach is better. For this rational approach, freedom of speech is needed - it is the only way to reach a logically solid consensus.
Freedom of speech can be compared to a pressure vessel. Contain the pressure (i.e. disallow people from expressing their opinions), and the vessel will explode. Release the pressure, and the vessel will remain intact. Without freedom of speech, we might end up with a revolution. With freedom of speech, we can reach a consensual state of overall fairness without having to resort to more drastic, more destructive, means.
But freedom of speech does not just mean that everyone has the right to shout sexually explicit things to others in the street. It also means that those who are shouted at have the right to have their experiences of feeling intimidated be heard, too, and it also means that these victims have the right to ask the people doing the shouting to consider not doing it.
Can those advocating gender inequality be prosecuted for their views? No, and we shouldn't want to. But can they be asked to consider the consequences of their views, should their views be challenged? Very much so.
Freedom of Speech (04 June 2013)
One of my the commenters on my last blog post brought up the point '[i]f someone wants to comment on someone else's body, who am I, or anyone else, or the State, to stop them [...]?'. Fair point. Good point, too.
It's indeed something that needs to be brought up when we're discussing gender equality or any other thing, because oppressing people's speech is just as bad, or perhaps even worse, than any form of discrimination and unfairness. Or at least I think so.
Freedom of speech is a great good - without it, we can't challenge existing paradigms, can't make a change, and can't progress. Without freedom of speech we can't ensure justice, for injustice cannot be challenged when freedom of speech is taken away. There's a reason sites like Twitter are blocked in a number of countries.
Who can decide what can and can't be said? I agree with my commenter, and I don't think my agreement makes me a hypocrite for simultaneously thinking we should challenge sexists and misogynists (misandrists too, btw, it's just as prejudiced a set of ideas as misogyny and just as harmful).
This is a confusion of meaning I see in lots of arguments - I'm also guilty of them. It's confusing the meaning of freedom from prosecution and freedom from consequence.
Freedom from prosecution means that you should not be punished for having one opinion or the other. This includes imprisonment, fines, corporal punishment, but also being socially outcast.
Freedom from consequence means that no one is allowed to challenge your opinion.
And by conflating consequence and prosecution, one essentially limits another's freedom of speech.
I should be able to say that I think monarchy is an outdated concept and that both the Netherlands and the UK should stop having a royal in charge. Should I be allowed to say this? Very much so - if either the Netherlands or the UK should decide to prosecute me for it, they'd be in the wrong.
Should my friends, some of whom are very much in favour of monarchies, be able to say that my opinion is wrong, that monarchy isn't outdated at all and that having a royal family is a great benefit to either nation? Also very much so.
And that was my intention with my Gender Equality post. I don't think sexists, misogynists and misandrists should be locked up or socially outcast, despite me thinking that their opinions are wrong and actually sort of evil. What I do think, however, is that their opinions should not go unchallenged - we (I was also called out on my use of 'we', I intended an inclusive we, i.e. those who agree with my line of reasoning versus those who don't, who are 'they') should instead call them out on their opinions, telling them "well, I think you're wrong to think like that, and here's why".
If there's no one to challenge an opinion, if everyone surrounds themselves only with people who agree with them (and I know many people do prefer doing that, including myself), you'll get those sort of amplification cycles where an opinion just gets more and more extreme.
I reiterate, freedom of speech is a great good; it may actually be our greatest good.
Lon Fuller writes, "If I were asked, then, to discern one central indisputable principle of what may be called substantive natural law - Natural Law with capital letters - I should find it in the injunction: Open up, maintain, and preserve the integrity of the channels of communication by which men [sic*] convey to one another what they perceive, feel, and desire." (The Morality of Law, 1969, p. 186 - one of my absolute favourite non-fiction books).
*It was the 1960s, I suppose I must forgive him for it.
In other words, we must communicate - and if we are going to communicate, we'd better make sure we can do it as well as possible by putting up as few barriers as possible. Freedom of speech is the ultimate way of taking away most, if not all, barriers. But we would do well to remember that not everything which is said and done, is right, and if it isn't, we must be able to challenge it.
In short: sexists should be able to express sexist thoughts. But we should also be able to call them out on it, and actually do call them out on it, and they should, in turn, be able to poke holes in our arguments, et cetera, until we reach a consensus. It's a bit like trying to reach an economic equilibrium.
Baruch de Spinoza (also a fan of Freedom of Speech) thought that revolution wasn't right, as it was an emotional thing; instead, he advocated social evolution by educating the public, which is a very rational approach (according to my SSC151 Introduction to Political Theory course notes).
I tend to agree - I too am a fan of education and I too think a rational approach is better. For this rational approach, freedom of speech is needed - it is the only way to reach a logically solid consensus.
Freedom of speech can be compared to a pressure vessel. Contain the pressure (i.e. disallow people from expressing their opinions), and the vessel will explode. Release the pressure, and the vessel will remain intact. Without freedom of speech, we might end up with a revolution. With freedom of speech, we can reach a consensual state of overall fairness without having to resort to more drastic, more destructive, means.
But freedom of speech does not just mean that everyone has the right to shout sexually explicit things to others in the street. It also means that those who are shouted at have the right to have their experiences of feeling intimidated be heard, too, and it also means that these victims have the right to ask the people doing the shouting to consider not doing it.
Can those advocating gender inequality be prosecuted for their views? No, and we shouldn't want to. But can they be asked to consider the consequences of their views, should their views be challenged? Very much so.
Committing Criminology (10 May 2013)
This blog was never intended to play out as a sort of online diary. There are other ways to keep my parents informed, such as Skype.
This blog was initially intended to outline the academic stuff I do. Sometimes I did - I wrote a tips page for current (Dutch) undergraduates thinking of studying in the UK, and every once in a while I tried to give my opinion about politics, but I keep returning to diary-like posts.
And yet, for the last week I've been trying to write a post on gender equality, which should be serious enough. I ended up analysing the Boston Marathon Bombing-reporting in my Crime and Media paper, while instead I could've written about it here.
I suppose a blog name as 'Adventures' does not actually encourage many serious ideas either, which in turn easily leads me to turn to writing semi-diary posts. As some of you might know, I've been trying to find a new blog name for a while now, and I finally have found one.
The other day I attended one of the Scarman Lectures here, which was this time done by Dr Barbara Perry from the Uni of Ontario Institute of Technology, about islamophobia in Canada. Her lecture consisted mainly of anecdotes by victims of islamophobic violence. From these anecdotes it seemed apparent that much of that type of violence is justified by the offenders to themselves through a sort of Othering-mechanism (e.g. comments to go back to countries of origin), which upset me.
In my view, the things that upset me - gender inequality, Othering, ignorant politicians - all relate to one thing - the existent power structures. Crime and especially crime reporting relate to this too - calling a mugging criminal and banking fraud culture are very much in line still with Sutherland's crimes of the powerful and those of the powerless. Calling one set of behaviours criminal and immoral and the other not simply maintains existing power structures, and of course media representation of crime feeds especially into this by making criminals seem monstrous, non-human.
Which is also why I am writing my dissertation on how UK newspapers reported on the notion that multinationals companies that make large profits in the UK - Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay, Starbucks, etc. - avoided paying taxes through accounting tricks. Technically, this is legal. Technically, this is not criminal. The newspapers, however, seem to think otherwise - though it is not strictly called criminal, it has by at least one paper explicitly been called immoral, while a number called for boycotting these companies. And several drew criminal justice process-analogies by terming Starbucks's decision to pay 20m in taxes over some years as pleading guilty. Which is a fascinating turn of events; a sort of pre-legislative criminalisation of corporate behaviour, which seems quite rare judging by the general apathy towards legislating against corporate misbehaviour that over and over again is apparent in corporate crime-literature.
I suppose it all, in the end, relates to my belief in true democracy, a more or less Aristotelian constitution - in which everyone is a citizen, i.e. with equal rights and the duty to consider what is in the advantage of society. In such a society, everyone would be seen as of equally human, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, or in any other way advantaged or disadvantages, and everyone would have the duty to contribute to the best of their abilities. Indeed, if everyone did what they enjoyed best and what they are best at, there comes into existence a true free market, exchange of goods and services, and one would expect general utility to continue going up. I might come back to this at some point in the future, for I do have more to say on it.
Which is why any type of power structure that deprives any human, whether through stigma, through bad education (or none), through general violence, is immoral to me. Industrial organisation teaches that eventually, theoretically, monopolies should disappear because the continuing invasion of other companies trying to get into the market should force them to keep prices low, and those sorts of mechanisms. The same should work for incumbent power structures - if the powerless continue to invade the spheres of the powerful, at one point the power structures must change. Except that industrial economics don't always seem to take political (lack of) power and societal apathy into account.
This. This is the stuff I want to be writing about. I want to explore morality and equality and crime reporting, I want to go into adventures in the land of criminology. I want to continue. I want to discover what makes people violent and what can be done against harmful acts, whether criminal or legal, whether corporate or individual. I want to understand society.
Dr Perry referred to a statement by the Canadian PM, who took a dig at sociologists by saying that it was "not a time to commit sociology". But it is, of all the moments in all the centuries in all the past, this is it, and I want to commit criminology in my time.
So from now on this blog will called 'Committing Criminology', and I will be writing about serious things. Mostly.
What I Learned From Doing My Essays (26 April 2013)
So, now my essays are done and I can relax for a few days before polishing the essays and going all out on my dissertation.
Some of the things I learned from doing these essays:
- The Netherlands are really very much over-regulated, so much so that any amount of information available on things for which the government is responsible is completely overwhelming - but not necessarily very helpful. I think they're trying to create opacity through transparency. That said, really crucial information still needs to be WOBbed (Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur, or the Law on Transparent Governance) and won't be released easily.
- I really don't like the system of amendments to British laws. It's incredibly opaque.
- The different legal approaches of the Netherlands and Britain make for legal constructions that are surprisingly similar despite being based on completely different legal ideologies.
- Britain is safety before privacy, the Netherlands vice versa - for now.
- I really enjoy doing comparative legal research.
- The Media are evil.
- People don't care about what's real, only about what fits with their own idea of reality.
- The Media pander.
- The Media have always been evil. There has never been such a thing as "oh my, the media sure weren't that bad-news-oriented when I was a kid" - they were, it's just the same state of mind as the one that goes "today's youth sure weren't as badly behaved in my time!" that makes you think differently.
- I really enjoy doing media-sociological research.
- Effective policing is really difficult.
- Transnational crime hinges on market forces, not on transnational policing efforts.
- Europol has a really annoying website.
- Europol's annual OCTA reports are very clear, but not very helpful.
- Europol's publications reflect the country that Europol is located in - the Netherlands.
- Europol's publications are mainly pro-Europol propaganda.
- Europol is really pessimistic with regards to the future of transnational crime in Europe.
- I should never toss out old papers, and also not any of the paragraphs I take out of papers to diminish the word count.
- In order to actually effectively approach transnational crime, law enforcement in Europe needs to be harmonized to a degree that would make even the most pro-European party cry about loss of sovereignty.
So that's some of the stuff I learned from doing these essays. Fascinating stuff, really.
Things That Are Cool (Yes, Bow Ties Are Cool Too) (10 April 2013)
Now they've gone and done it.
Alright, they went and done it back in 1965, but still.
I think they've now covered just about everything I find supremely cool in Doctor Who. They've done Egyptians (Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship), Napoleon (Reign of Terror), Vampires (sort of, in Vampires of Venice), Shakespeare (more than just one episode), Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe (well, they mentioned them in A Christmas Carol). And I'm watching The Chase now, and not only is Ian's dancing and his remark to Barbara to "get with it" slightly embarrassing ergo hilarious, they've featured The Beatles. On telly, but still.
I also find Vicki's remarks regarding The Beatles surprisingly apt. Mind, this was 1965. They were big, they were massively big back then, but they still had 5 years to go, to get even bigger.
Mind you that nowadays, Abbey Road is still crowded on cold Thursday mornings with people trying to take pictures of themselves on the crossing. That's almost 50 years later. Would the BBC have known, back in 1965, how big The Beatles would still be years and years later? How it would endure? Mind you that nowadays no one expects - whatever Deity you choose to believe in, please help us if I'm wrong and they do endure - Justin Bieber or One Direction or Nicki Minaj or whatever's the most popular thing going on right now to still be THAT popular in 50 years. Okay, sure, Vicki's from 400 years into the future and perhaps The Beatles will have faded in 400 years, but they haven't as of yet.
Also I love her classification of them as 'classical music'. I suppose they are, though. Classical pop.
Doctor Who s7e6 Sort-of-Review (31 March 2013)
So yesterday I watched the new Doctor Who-episode (Who-pisode?).
I was quite excited for it, also because it had been promoted as being somewhat James Bond/Jason Bourne-like. It wasn't like that at all, though.
Seriously, the Doctor can't be like James Bond - the only character in the episodes I have watched so far that can make claims to being somewhat Bond-like would be Ian, the 30-something science teacher in a suit (but willing to dress in funkier outfits) and JFK-haircut who, together with Barbara and Susan, was one of the first companions back in the 1960s (I do have a bit of a weak spot for the Ian character).
But I quite liked the episode, apart from a few things I am all too willing to overlook. Except for Clara. I don't like this version of her. I liked her as soufflé-girl, and I liked her as Victorian Clara, but current-day Clara is just odd. She seemed to be trying too hard to be feisty but missing the actual spark to be feisty. A bit too-cute-to-be-true, in a sense (also, didn't she call him 'Doctor' before he'd properly introduced himself as such? Might have to re-watch).
Monsters in the WiFi, heck yes. Nicely done, too, with the Spoonheads and a creepy CEO-type lady.
Motorbike - why? He's got a bloody TARDIS. Seems a bit contrived and just a plot-thing to have the Doctor drive up the side of the Shard, which seemed slightly off. I watched it going "WHAT." in my best Tennant-imitation. Slightly deus ex machina - "You can't enter" "Well I can because this motor bike that I've been driving around because somehow I thought it wise to leave my TARDIS on the South Bank and that no one has ever seen before can suddenly defy gravity". Yeah No.
Seriously, that could've been done much more easily with the TARDIS, without having to stick in a deus ex motorbike - "Say Clara, let's have breakfast" "Did you just park the TARDIS on the pavement in the middle of London?" "Yes I did" "Awesome" - breakfast - "Oh No, I have to be in the Shard!" - TARDIS - "Hello creepy CEO lady".
But in general I liked the episode. Nice pacing (which is what has me screaming at my laptop about the early episodes - mainly going "seriously Ian, DO SOMETHING!"), nice baddies, nice TARDIS interior, nice purple coat (purple is cool).
I watched the episode expecting it to be part of a bigger whole, which is why I am willing to overlook things - if they bring back the motorbike for something that can't be done with the TARDIS later on in the series, I'll drop all my complaints about it.
The only thing I felt was truly missing was something of a transition between the Christmas special and this episode. I know the prequel is there, but it's not sufficient. Hope they'll come back to that later in the series also.
In general, therefore, nice opening for a new (half) series but only if the writers are willing to wrap up a big number of loose ends.
Very much looking forward to next episode, if only because 'Akhaten' reminds me of the name of pharaoh Akhenaten, which is cool because Akhenaten was not only the heretic king but also the father of Tutankhamun (who really isn't important but his treasures are still cool) and the spouse of Nefertiti - which is cool because we already saw Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.
Besides, Akhaten seems to translate to something having to do with the solar-deity Aten (whom Akhenaten made the focus of his monotheistic religion) and pharaonic effectivenes, or something of the sort.
The summary on the BBC website says "The Doctor takes Clara to the Festival of Offerings, but the Old God is waking and demands sacrifice!". I've seen the preview and trailer, and there's definitely a fiery planet or even star in there, so that works too. Of course it's in space - but who's to say Akhenaten's religion didn't travel?
So, definitely something with Gods, and Festival of Offerings sounds quite like something that fits with the religions of the Egyptian and classical world. Cool. Fingers crossed that they're actually putting in allusions to Ancient Egypt, for that would forever solidify my fanship of Doctor Who. They've already done vampires and Napoleon, after all.
Time (30 March 2013)
Seeing as tonight sees the broadcast of a whole new Doctor Who episode, this might be the right moment to write about one of my greatest problems with the show: Time. And time travel. Especially the Earth-centricness.
I don't have any problems with space travel, mainly because space travel is just covering distance and whether covering a certain distance in little to no time passing at all might well be possible when technology improves. Sure, if one travels by coordinates - as the Doctor seems to be doing - one needs to be extremely specific in order not to land halfway in the ground somewhere, or stuck in a ceiling - one would need to know the exact location of every atom in the general area of where one would want to land (which, so I've been told, is one of Physics's major practical problems in making teleportation possible). But I'm sure the TARDIS is perfectly equipped for this, and there appears to be a Galactic Zero Centre (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_centre), like our global coordinates are at 0 where the equator crosses the Greenwich meridian, just off the coast of Africa. Such a zero point is an agreed-upon point and so not an absolute, but can still be used to measure against and so base travel upon. There need to be no extremes known - you don't need to know the "end", just keep on counting. It does not even need to be a Galaxy-widely held convention, even if only the TARDIS would use such a zero point, it can be used for travel, as long as elevation or at least a third dimension is taken into account.
But Time. Time does not truly exist, does it, other than as a purely abstract idea to mark the duration of a sequence of events. Time, as a concept, is a human invention - the basic notion is the rotation of the Earth and the orbiting of the Earth around the Sun, nothing more. A day is the duration for one point - or line, the Greenwich meridian - to move from a specific location relative to the Earth's axis to that same location relative to the Earth's axis, or from Midnight to Midnight. But that's a modern invention, as for instance in the Ancient world, if I remember correctly, a full day lasted from sun up to sun up and so the duration of a day varied. But an agreed duration for a day is good, so humans could divide it by 24, and then by 60, and then by 60 again, and so forth, to find out hours and minutes and seconds and miliseconds. There wasn't even a unified time per country until railways demanded it, and then it still took a while for everyone - it took especially the French very long - to agree that time is to be derived from the Greenwich meridian.
A year is just the same, the number of days it takes to orbit around the Sun - 365.24... something, so we need a leap year every four years except some. To us, that is, because to the Ancient Egyptians a year was 360 days (12 months, 30 days per months, 3 weeks per month, 10 days per week) plus a festival of five days for the Gods, which fell outside the year.
And what is our zero for years? Some Pope decided that the birth of Christ was supposed to be zero, so he calculated zero, and still got it wrong, so that our calendar begins at a completely random point in time. Fair enough though if we can all agreed that that random point is zero, but then the Jewish are currently in the year 5773. And we can't even agree on the point when the year should begin - Midnight at the start of the 1st of January? Or later, in late January/early February, like the Chinese New Year? Roman New Year did not start until March, while Ancient Egyptian New Year was some time over summer.
Fine, so let's say the TARDIS travels by Gallifreyan time - one could presume that at least the Gallifreyans would agree on one time, some of them being Time Lords, after all.
Travelling forward in time should perhaps not be too difficult, if one can teleport or travel really really fast - something with time running slower than elsewhere, something Einstein, something relativity.
But travelling back in time should only be possible if each event, or each sequence of events, is stored in some dimension, and that time passing is just - I'm going fairly metaphysical here - our consciousness passing through those dimensions. A bit like our consciousnesses are watching a stop-motion film, but then they are part of that stop-motion film. I guess this could be possible with parallel universes etc., quantum physics and what not. Schroedinger's Cat and that.
Besides, time travel should only be possible if one can map time against something - but against what?
But perhaps I'm taking time too much as a linear thing and instead it is "a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff".
Anyway. What I did realise is possible was what I realised yesterday as I was trying to fall asleep. Basically, we only see parts of the Doctor's adventures (most notably the Eleventh Doctor suddenly ages from 900-something to 1100-something over a series, and we don't really see what happens in the 200 years in between), so at any point in time, if the Doctor were real, we humans could meet just about every incarnation - a TARDIS could appear right here in the grad lounge and the First Doctor could come stepping out "hmm"-ing (or, more interestingly to me, the Tenth could step out brandishing the sonic screwdriver). Of course that would also mean (I haven't watched any episode yet in which the Doctor meets himself, so bear with me) that a Doctor with little to no hang-ups about crossing his own timeline could easily meet himself in an earlier (or even the same - but hang on, he did that more or less when Rose wanted to save her Dad) regeneration. I'd love for the First Doctor to meet the Eleventh and go all "hmm" and "my boy" and patronising and all that until the Eleventh points out that he is him but - hilariously - older.
What if time passed faster in the TARDIS (or any other other dimension) than it does in the outside world? It would explain why suddenly the Eleventh Doctor is 200 years older, for I doubt he'd travel without the Ponds for 200 years while the Ponds were still free. If one is used to a human pace, and time moves faster in another dimension, what would seem like a month could indeed easily be a year, or even two centuries.
It would also explain why some Doctors (especially the Tenth and Eleventh - I've yet to observe Two to Seven) seem a bit hyperactive compared to a human pace.
Sort of reversed relativity.
Perhaps it WOULD, in case of reversed relativity of time, be possible to travel back in time. Perhaps the pace of time inside the TARDIS can be altered so that travelling in time both ways is made possible. I don't know.
Hang on. Time goes faster on the inside than on the outside.
The TARDIS is Narnia.
That, or the Eleventh Doctor spent 200 years in Narnia.
Either one is cool.
Fascinating stuff, time. I just have difficulty grasping it - I do wish I hadn't dropped my science courses in secondary school. The upside of all this is that if time was a stop-motion film observed by our consciousnesses, I'd be totally right in believing there is no Truth and all there is, is our observed reality.
Physicists, do feel free to step in and answer my questions...
PS I love this: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970401c.html. I'm quite terrible at the whole sine/cosine/tangent bit of mathemathics (only mathematics test I failed back when I was still good at maths), but let's ignore that bit. This bit: "The Earth is doing a lot more than rotating, although that is certainly the motion we notice most, because day follows night as a result. We also orbit the Sun once a year. The circumference of the Earth's orbit is about 940 million kilometers, so if you divide that by the hours in a year you will get our orbital speed in kilometers per hour. We are also moving with the Sun around the center of our galaxy and moving with our galaxy as it drifts through intergalactic space!". Pure Epic. Basically, it tells me that there should be four basic units of time on Earth: a day (rotation), an Earth year (orbit), a Galatic year (moving around the centre of the Galaxy) and an Intergalactic period (a distance in drifting through Intergalatic Space). Yes, I *am* ignoring time derived from atom clocks etc.. So basically, the TARDIS would not only have to have a sort of internal library of the positions of every atom - impressive enough to start with - but also of every atom's movement through time - and surely this must include 'paths not taken', i.e. unrealised futures and disregarded pasts.
Whoa. Time Lord technology must be truly awesome. No wonder the sonic screwdriver can do lots of things that seem like deus ex machina plot-tricks to us mere humans...
Criminology as a Field (5 October 2012)
The introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Criminology describes Criminology as being extremely inter-disciplinary, as actually being a field rather than a discipline because the uniting characteristic is the topic rather than the methodology.
Of course I agree there; whenever I look for Criminological explanations I find them often in the fields of law, behavioural economics, politics, psychology, anthropology, history or, in rare cases, linguistics.
Why does the law have the effect is does? Well, because the linguistic properties of the law make it what it is, and what it is makes it a sort of contract, and that sort of contract attaches possibly undesired consequences to socially undesired actions which makes most people wanting to keep to that law (unless the law is about jumping red lights on a bike or something, because there the chance of being caught combined with the fine makes for too small a consequence to outweigh the convenience of being three seconds faster). Linguistics, law/politics, economics/politics/psychology (the risk-averse person).
If the Oxford Handbook and I are both right, I would assume I am right in concluding that Criminology is one of the ultimate liberal arts fields in social sciences.
That said, I would go on to state that plenty of Universities are wrong to put it in the departments of either Sociology or Law; Criminology is neither and thus deserves its own department (yes, I am aware that this reasoning would go for a number of other fields as well) or should have its own track in University Colleges like University College Roosevelt.
There is a fragment of self-interest in there too; if given the chance to ever teach this at a Uni, I would lobby for making it a separate department (and I don't even have a desire to be a Head of Department, I don't like office politics, but I just feel that Criminology would benefit from having its own dept) or, if at a UC, I would lobby to make Criminology have its own track within Social Sciences.
Practical example: if (IF) I do ever manage to teach Crime & Law Enforcement at UCR and UCR hasn't given Criminology its own track by then, I WILL lobby for that - besides, the massive over-subscriptions for law and psychology courses would surely guarantee that at least the costs for two more crime courses will be covered, thus actually allowing for a full track. That would also make it easier for students who wish to go on and do Criminology masters in the Netherlands, where one of the requirements is still to have done a certain amount of ECTS within the field of Criminology (because if they do want to go on and do Criminology, the Netherlands and Britain offer, apparently, the best masters. For Criminal Justice, the US is apparently really very good - and yes, there is a difference).
But who knows what the future will bring.
They Have Stolen OUR A! (01 February 2013)
Today, my undergraduate university, Roosevelt Academy, posted an announcement on facebook about a change to be revealed on 5 February. Initially, this change was supposed to have been revealed on 23 January, but, as it was explained to me (I whinged about it, obviously, unable to contain my curiosity), as 23 January was Dies Natalis, the start of Spring IntRAweek and the professorial inauguration of one of my old instructors.
In any case, the change should not be THAT surprising - it'll probably be a name change. After all, last year the students were polled on a new logo AND a new name, and there have been rumours of a change to the website going round for YEARS now (I became an Ambassador in November 2009, and I think I first heard of a new website design in March 2010 - it is now February 2013 and the new website is still not up and running).
Question about the poll though: why the charade of democratic decision by the students if the poll on the new name never had a majority of votes for 'UCR'? Then just don't put up a charade and instead change everything without polling, like a proper tyrant. Now it just reeks of bad politics.
All university colleges in the Netherlands have a name that is some sort of variation on the xUCx theme - UC Utrecht, UC Maastricht, Amsterdam UC, Leiden UC, and coming September Rotterdam will see the opening of Erasmus UC. I think there are some more opening too.
Roosevelt Academy was always the odd one out.
Speculations have been going on whether it would be UCRA then, University College Roosevelt Academy. I've seen people actually using that acronym in official correspondence.
It seems not the case. Why not?
www.ucra.nl is unclaimed.
www.ucr.nl redirects to www.roac.nl.
I understand the need for RA to be similar to the other UCs, it's just easier to represent all UCs that way which would be a tremendous advantage if the Minister for Education ever decides to actually do something about the deplorable state of Dutch HE. It's probably also easier marketing wise.
Furthermore, after having struggled (and emerged, of course - it's still a Zeeuwse institution) for years with people thinking it was an HBO, I'm sure RA wouldn't like for Brits to think it's a secondary school.
Choosing UCR over UCRA is also understandable, because having 'University College' and 'Academy' in one name is just a pleonasm.
But I would hate it if UCR is indeed the new name.
For one, it makes all RA puns obsolete. Where's the fun in saying something is totally cRAzy and RAndom when RA itself no longer has any meaning?
Where would it leave the photographic facebook thing - 'RA' combinations are easily spotted and photographed, but UCR - no.
And I really liked RA being the odd one out among all the new UCs. RA should always be the odd one out, it's the only way to maintain the bubble.
Besides, think of it - University College Roosevelt. It just doesn't sound right (but thank god they haven't coined Roosevelt University College, imagine the jokes among secondary schoolers - "nee, daar ga ik niet heen, dat is ruc!"). UCR itself is just too short - it feels like there's something missing. There is. An A. Can we really let that happen, people taking the 'A' out of RA? Can we, RA alumni and students, let them steal our A like that?
I am not a classicist (everyone knows I much prefer the Egyptians over the Romans and Greeks). I am very much not a fan of Plato (mainly because the concept of 'philosopher-kings' makes philosophy students arrogant, and because I don't believe in capital t Truth - more on that some other time).
But you can't just take my Academy away from me.
Sure, RA doesn't have a very long history, but the 9 year history that it does have, is brilliant. And there is always the link to the past - the mother uni, Utrecht University, is one of the oldest and best in the Netherlands. UCU, the older sister, is the oldest University College in the Netherlands. RA was established by the man whose undertaking inspired all other Dutch UCs.
Willem van Oranje wanted to found a university in Middelburg back in the 1500s (he chose Leiden instead). The main building dates back to the heyday of the Dutch East India Company.
And, why I referred to Plato - his Athenian school was called the Akademia (I'm a much bigger fan of Aristotle, but any reference to the Lykeion would make any Dutch person definitely think it's a secondary school). I want to spend a significant part of my life in academia, and now they're taking my A, my Academy away from the place that inspired me to actually consider academia? It's just - wrong.
So let's hope I'm wrong. I loved RA, love RA and always will love RA - Let's hope the UCR link is just a decoy, and that the change is something much more awesome.
But please don't take my A.
UPDATE:
They have taken our A.
It's official; it's now UCR.
It's a bloody shame really, also because the new website is somehow now PINK. I like everything but the colours.
Listen, RA folks responsible for the change (you know that I know who you are - and I refuse to call it UCR), the website is nice, the logo is nice, but UCR? AND PINK?
As if a PINK website is going to do anything to correct the awfully skewed gender ratio... and would RA really like to have the same colour as notorious Dutch HE failure InHolland? I'd hope not.
Not only have they stolen OUR A, they have now also stolen the beautiful RA red that the website used to have, and the owl.
Why, I think there's now only one more thing left at RA that's also one of my favourite things (wine red and owls happen to be my favourite colour and animal respectively) but I'm sure they're now ready to take that away too.
UC Roosevelt.
Pink.
Bloody shameless self-promotion.
There goes the one HE institution that actually required a sense of adventure, independence and perseverance to discover and survive - it's begun to identify itself with the rest of the homogeneous masses. There goes whatever shred of individuality RA had left.
There goes ouR A.
UPDATE 2: I've just been reassured the website should not be pink, but bright red. It might just then be Google Chrome.
Very happy about that, that's one thing at least.
Crime Shows (17 February 2013)
Crime shows have always appealed to me. Before watching Lewis I watched Morse, and before watching Morse I watched The Wire. And Dexter. And CSI. And Baantjer.
In fact, I have memories of watching Baantjer when I was about 9 or 10, and sneaking downstairs to have my mum allow me to watch CSI when I was 11.
I have been a big enough fan ("obsessed") of CSI:Miami in the past to write fanfiction (on a public forum to which I will not link for reasons of embarrassment).
But I lied in one of my earlier posts. I wasn't done watching Lewis. I still am watching it - I pay less than 75p per episode to rent them on ITV Player for three months. I *was* however done watching all freely accessible Lewis episodes.
I'm also watching Baantjer - again, since I haven't seen it since I must've been 15 or so.
There is always a bit of adjusting when I watch a Baantjer episode, not just because I have to switch from English to Dutch, but also because 45 minutes seems extraordinarily short and rushed after you've just seen a complicated case taking 2 hours to be solved and because it's incredibly formulaic.
In that sense I like Lewis and Morse much better, not because it's more realistic - it's not - but at least because you need to keep track of things. And because it's set in Oxford, that does help something, for I am not the greatest fan of Amsterdam.
What I do like about Baantjer is that I'm dying to do an analysis of how it may reflect social attitudes in the Netherlands from the mid-90s to early-00s.
Take for instance Vera Prins, who in the novels is actually a man but a woman in the show, and whose female-ness is made important in the TV show. She is highly competent and intelligent, and often on the receiving end of Vledder's not-so-funny-or-innocent innuendo. In an episode in the first series, Buitendam appoints her as sexual harrassment officer at the station, and she remarks to Vledder that she'd like to write him up for it, which, according to her, should not be that difficult. Interestingly, somehow she doesn't report him for harrassing her, and when she gives another young female officer approached by Vledder a flyer, this officer replies that it's not harrassment.
If I remember correctly, Vledder and Prins actually date at one point or another.
What this seems to imply is not only that it's only weak women incapable of verbally defending themselves who experience the negative effects of sexual harrassment, but also that if a man sticks with it long enough, it will have a certain success rate. So although Prins defies explicit gender stereotyping by being a very competent detective, the general implicit attitude towards women is still old-fashioned.
Another interesting aspect is the relation between Vledder and chief detective De Cock (yes, you may laugh, but it is a normal Dutch surname), in which Vledder, eternal jeans-and-leather-jacket-clad womaniser, fulfills the role of Watson to middle class De Cock's Sherlock; when Vledder-Watson states something during the investigation that reflects supposed audience sentiments; e.g. when an underworld figure is shot, that the case will resolve itself, or when a neo-nazi is found murdered, that he must've deserved it (and thus the case is not worthy of too much effort); De Cock then usually follows by stating that every case deserves the same effort and attention. This is emphasised by the end-of-episode segments, where the team meets at De Cock's house, where his wife (in a traditional gender role) serves snacks and drinks and De Cock explains how he knew whodunnit and why, and then the team and Mrs De Cock reflect on it. Mrs De Cock then often offers some sort of emotional statement, to which De Cock replies, for instance, that a murder is still a murder, thus implying that regardless of whatever emotion people feel towards a certain event, law is supposed to trump all.
But, yeah, seeing are there are 123 episodes, making the time to watch all isn't too difficult but to analyse all is. But I will. At some point in the future.
A fun thing about studing Criminology is that you always have a good excuse to watch crime shows - "research".
Tomorrow in Forensic Science and Justice we will discuss the portrayal of Forensics - i.e. we will discuss that CSI is evil.
It's quite interesting how some of my past activities somehow always come back years later. Of course the CSI-effect is something to be worried about and I never expected NOT to discuss it, but what I find interesting is that I had to do an argumentative presentation on a topic in my 5th year in secondary school in Dutch class and I did so about the CSI-effect (and how I didn't believe in it). I forgot how I structured my arguments (or what they were) but I do remember that my delivery was far from flawless - but Mrs Hoff was still kind enough to give me a pass on it.
Criminology. It was inevitable.
In Defense of High Heels and Corsets (25 January 2013)
Today, a friend posted something on his Facebook wall about an article in which he'd read that high heels were designed to keep women from running away et cetera - in any case, the article perpetuated the myth that high heels are supposed to be painful. In many ways, this is similar to the myth that corsets are supposed to be constrictive and painful.
As a some-time wearer of both, I can contest to the falsehood of these myths. Of course, anecdotal evidence is far from scientific, but as there are online guides to wearing both these garments, I am fairly certain I am not alone.
I own a range of heeled shoes, heights varying from 2 inches to 5, and two corsets, one which is supposed to give me a 4 inch waist reduction and one supposed to do 8 (when fully closed).
I like heels, for a number of reasons. The main one is that they make me look far prettier (or so I'd like to think), and because, in a country such as the Netherlands, I'm fairly short, being 5 foot 7. Of course, there are practical downsides; they take training to walk in, and wearing them in icy weather is a sign of stubbornness far beyond stupidity. I don't wear them often here in the UK, because the pavement is fairly irregular and somehow I'm no longer short, but average. You don't have to wear heels every day to be able to walk in them, but you do have to know how to, first: High heel training
Corsets come with a similar set of pros and cons, the main pros being that they make me look much thinner (especially in the case of the 8 inch one, which I can't close fully and with the 6 inch reduction I *can* achieve already looks somewhat ridiculous... like heels over 5 inches also start looking ridiculous) and their rigidity does tremendous things for my spine. Like heels, you can't just put on a corset and expect to be comfortable with an immediate 6 inch reduction; you have to train yourself. Also, indeed, you can't really bend over in them or do anything else that requires upper body flexibility. In fact, there are websites devoted to helping people train their waste - this does rely on wearing corsets often for a permanently altered waist, but the same goes for just being able to wear them: Waist training
Corsets and heels suffer from the same disadvantages, but they both do wonders for the way one looks.
And yes, they will be painful if you don't train yourself right. If you start out wearing flats and suddenly switch to 5 inch heels then yes, you'll feel like you're ready to topple over any time and after a while your feet will hurt like hell. Seeing as I haven't worn any heels lately, I can't take 5 inches now either; I'll stick with 4" maximum, and even then it's a little painful. Same with the corsets; there's a reason I can't achieve that 8 inch reduction, and it's not because I'm fat (though that plays a role, too). It's mostly because I don't wear corsets often enough (because of their lack of practicality, which is the same reason I hardly wear heels in the UK) to train myself to actually be able to take those 8 inches without suffering pain.
Wearing heels and corsets is about knowing yourself and knowing your limits and wearing what you like best regardless of what anyone else thinks, which is, if anything, empowering. Regardless of whatever patriarchal and misogynistic ideas led to the conception of both these types of garment. If it hurts, don't wear them. If you don't like them, don't wear them. But not wearing them because although you like them, they were originally supposedly designed to keep you from running away or to cause you pain? Screw that, and wear them as much as you like.
(and if the good people from Christian Louboutin wish to thank me for featuring a pair of their shoes on this blog with its massive audience consisting of my parents and friends, they're absolutely welcome to do so with a nice pair of heels ;) [also because if I ever become an academic, I won't be able to afford a pair of 500 pound heels... pity me, Louboutin-people!] )
The Netherlands Are Idiotic (24 April 2013)
It's 5 am and I'm still awake and I can't stop thinking.
I love Britain, and the Netherlands are an idiotic country.
In the Netherlands...
...Politicians debate whether the titles of academic and professional degrees should be made the same - that is, people who would've previously gotten a B Eng or a B Ec or something of the sort will suddenly all get a BSc or a BA in the future, supposedly because B 'Something not Sc/A'-degrees are not recognized abroad (nevermind that there are plenty of foreign educational institutions that offer precisely such degrees), while ignoring the fact that this will tremendously devalue all current BSc/BA-degrees;
...Politicians debate whether to (finally) abandon the Law against Blasphemy - yes, that was an actual law that existed in the Netherlands until 2013, and yet even in 2013 there were parties trying to keep it. I have no problems with religion but people's faith should not be imposed on other people's lives just like that;
...Politicians accuse each other of "nibbling space cake";
...For the inauguration of King Willem-Alexander, the composer of some of the Netherlands's most successful and simultaneously worst songs (the Dutch should be famous for their tremendous lack of any taste in music) is employed to write a song, which predictably ends up bad - when everyone is suitably outraged, he withdraws it, and then despite there being fairly okay-ish alternatives, the Inauguration Committee says "screw the public, we're going with the bad song anyway" because that's just how Dutch committees roll;
...The release of and criticisms on said bad song actually received about the same amount of coverage as the Boston Marathon Bombings;
...The Rijksmuseum is finally open after ten years of refurbishment and restoration - it took about three times longer than planned and went about four times or so over budget because the Stadsdeelraad of the part of Amsterdam in which the Rijksmuseum is located was actually making an expensive fuss over a stupid bike passage;
...State secretaries who make a mess of their responsibilities don't actually get kicked out of office;
...UPDATE: Political parties (though the same as the one that was making a fuss over Blasphemy) are now trying to move to forbid adverts for the website SecondLove, because the site encourages adultery. Seriously, regardless of what I *personally* think about adultery, who gives a toss about what other people do in their spare time, as long as it's not illegal?
Despite all this, I've lived in that stupid country for 22 years. It's my stupid country.
Despite all the idiotic over-regulation, there are things I miss about it.
I miss how the Dutch are open to the point of rudeness. I find it tremendously difficult here to gauge what people think of me (if they even do so), while of Dutchies I'd generally know fairly quickly whether they like or dislike me. I think I'd rather have a "sod off" than a blank stare.
I miss how Dutch supermarkets have a proper selection of vegetables. I'm getting really annoyed of alternating between cauliflower, sweetcorn and green beans. Though I did see that the greengrocer on Queens Road has rhubarb, so I'll have to drop by that place.
I miss how the Dutch don't look at you funny when you try to make small talk while queuing in the shop and actually respond.
I also kind of miss not having a strange accent.
Funny how it's the little things that make me feel somewhat homesick after 7 months in the UK.
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