"Othering" and iTunes

Note: I've been reading The Mueller Report and have fallen behind on my blogging. Here's a "two-fer": 

 

"OTHER" AS A CONNECTING WORD

It's not just "'I' and 'the Other'" anymore; some places nowadays one can use "other" as a verb or "verbals": "to other" some group, or engage in "othering" them.

Okay, but a more old-fashioned "other" can be used to connect. My favorite since at least 1984 has been "alcohol and *other* drugs": putting ethyl alcohol back among the recreational drugs, reminding recreational drinkers of ethyl alcohol of their community with other drug users (and alcoholics of their community with other addicts), inviting The Straight People to test overly-broad assertions about "drugs" and "drug users" with their own experiences with, say, Chardonnay.

There's also "humans and *other* animals." We may be "the beauty of the world, / The paragon of animals," as asserted by Hamlet and HAIR, but we're still animals: in 20-Question terms of Animal/Vegetable/Mineral or fancier divisions of Earth's life into Archaea, Bacteria, Plants, and Animals <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea>. As animals capable of reason and even, apparently, consciousness, it's good to avoid cockiness and to keep our kin and kinships in mind.

 

 

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I-TUNES (BY-GOD: *TUNES*)

On the MacBook Pro I use as a very expensive radio, I listened this morning to a recorded episode of NPR's discussion show _The 1A_ in what may technically be podcast format. The topic was the demise of Apple's iTunes and its replacement by three apps: Video (?), Music, Podcasts. At least until the last five minutes of the show, the word "podcast" occurred only once I can recall, and that was when they named the three replacement apps. At no time did they mention audiobooks (a word Spell-Check rejects).

Interesting given that the _1A_ audience skews old and that as recently as one of the Gulf Wars DOONESBURY could have a gag on US enlisted personnel listening to music while a playlist for their older officers was precisely audiobooks.

Do fish know they're in water? Do large numbers of people walking around in bubbles of their own tunes realize that some people who appear to be in similar microcosms are actually in semi-permeable membranes of words? (And will Apple think it worth their effort to include audiobooks in their instructions for "migrating" to the new apps?)

One bit of irony: The audiobook I'm currently listening to again — on my iPhone operating as a very expensive iPod — is Benedict Anderson's IMAGINED COMMUNITIES. I suspect there are ways in which Apple vs. PC and the various music communities have more reality than, say, The United States or The United Kingdom or the other national "imagined communities" that are at the heart of Anderson's book.

 

Opioid Numbers

            A Chicago Tribune editorial reprinted in my local newspaper as "How to halt deadly toll of opioids" (Nov. 13) says that in 2016, "64,000 people died of drug overdoses," generally opioids. In 2014, there were 207,400 drug-related human deaths, so it's safe to assume there were more than that in 2016; 64,000 is for the US.

            It is a number that needs to be put in context and analyzed.

            In 2014, there were 2,624,418 total deaths of Americans, nearly 46% of them from heart disease and cancer. The 64,000 figure would put the US death rate from drug overdoses between those in 2014 for diabetes (76,488) and influenza plus pneumonia (55,227).

            What makes the 64,000 newsworthy — aside from money, politics, and the good old American obsession with drugs — is that such deaths are largely preventable.

            The Trib editorial suggests some ways of prevention, but we need more detailed numbers and analysis.

            To clarify a related discussion, I've suggested that the most direct way to decrease gun deaths in the USA would be to provide old men like me ways of killing ourselves more elegant than blowing out our brains. How many of those drug deaths are relatively nonmessy suicides? We might have less an opioid crisis than one of despair; and the responsible social answer to despair is psychological intervention and helping people achieve lives worth living.

            Are many of the deaths from accidental overdose? We keep down the rate of overdose deaths for legal drugs by regulation of purity and labeling. A direct way to reduce deaths by accidental overdose would be similar supply of FDA-approved illegal drugs, dispensed by responsible people. If we refuse to supply drugs of certified purity and dosage, then we need to make that decision consciously, and tone down laments about the horrors of overdose as such: we clearly have other priorities.

Straight-Talking in Al Franken's "Age of Neo-Sticklerism"

Franken: I am hoping for the pendulum to swing back,

and that we have an age of neo-sticklerism

where everyone is a stickler for the truth.

         The Honorable but still funny Al Franken, junior U.S. Senator from Minnesota, hopes for "an age of neo-sticklerism where everyone is a stickler for the truth" — but he doesn't "see that happening." I don't either, but in the Time of Trump and Tribulations, we should attempt to denormalize, so to speak, lying, and to limit bullshitting to contexts where bullshit is funny and fun, and everyone know the rules.

         I will contribute toward an age of neo-sticklerism with some curmudgeoning on my field of language.

         As a student of language and a human person, I know that it's unlikely we'll ever get most people most of the time to listen seriously to what others are saying, but I think we can get people more frequently listening to what they themselves say.

         So listen to yourself and think about what you say, and try to avoid talking what we intellectuals often call "weird shit." Or "weird shit," if you think about it, which few people do, so it's too familiar to seem weird.

         Start with figurative language.

        

Hyperbole: Hyperbole — overstatement, "hype" — is a figure of speech and can be fun, as in the American tradition of the tall tale. When a bit of hype become a cliché though, it's a problem because with clichés we don't think (which is the primary reason George Orwell disliked clichés so much).

         E.g., when people say they just love something. Okay, Would you run into a burning building to save it? If not, ratchet that back to "like." (Same with people, although that gets really complicated. Take seriously the moldie oldie advice "Be sure it's true"; it is usually a minor sin, but, indeed, in intimate human relationships, "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie," although lying may be less bad than telling some truths.)

         Or if you're tempted to demand 110% dedication from your employees or students or players, remember that there is usually only 100% of anything and you damn well don't deserve anywhere near all of anyone else's time and effort.

Absolutes (read again about "hyperbole"):

         President Trump is bigly on this one, and it's an old habit going back to at least to building temples to the god Jupiter, "Optimus Maximus": "Best and Greatest" or what we might call Biggest and Best. 

         Something doesn't have to be "the best" to be good or "biggest" to be big. Besides, such absolutes would invite serious listeners — and there are some out there — to come up with an exception. Any exception. "The exception proves the rule" means exceptions test rules. If you've thrown out an absolute, one exception disproves your "rule."

         One common form is "everybody" and "nobody." We should know better. If your kid comes home and tells you "Everybody in seventh grade is getting lip studs," you're going to say "Name two," rattle off some families you're really, really sure won't have kids with lip studs, and end the argument.

         Similarly with something like "Nobody would want …." Check out the Internet. If it's something sexual, there's probably a website devoted to devotees of what "Nobody would want."

         If you've dealt with humans a fair amount, you should know to be careful with absolute generalizations about people. There are always at least trivial exceptions, so even when you're really sure of your assertion, try, "With only trivial exceptions, if any, everybody/nobody …."

Political Metonyms/Synecdoches: This is mostly for journalists and other political writers and is more familiar than it sounds. If you're from the UK or part of the old British Empire, you can talk of a "Crown Prosecutor" without much danger of people thinking a piece of fancy headgear has a staff of lawyers (or barristers?).

         But if you talk of "Whitehall" for some part of the government of the United Kingdom — or "the Whitehouse" or "Kremlin" or "Capitol Hill" — there are problems. The buildings and such don't do things; people do, and you need to do your best to name the people or explain why you don't need to.

         It sounds much more impressive to report, "The Whitehouse said today," than, "a media release from some flack whose name I've forgotten reads in part." Still, in the Time of Trump and Tribulations, in the time of accusations of fake news — and the fact of fake news — in the time as always, where people who do stuff often want to avoid responsibility, spell it the hell out.

Embedded Lies, or at Least Embedded-and-Assumed Arguable Assertions:

         This one I've written on before, in the case of the phrase "alcohol and drugs." There's an assertion buried in that phrase: "alcohol is not a drug." One can argue that the phrase is just a short form for "alcohol and other drugs" or "alcohol and illicit drugs" or "alcohol vs. drugs used by less respectable people than alcohol users." Uh-huh. Just say "alcohol and other drugs," or be prepared to argue, "Alcohol is not a drug," and offer a sensible definition of "drug" that excludes alcohol.

         Well, and so forth, including "polite nothings" where every now and then maybe we should tell someone, "Well, you've got other clothes that make you look better" and respond to "How are you?" with something short but fairly honest, or maybe just "Thank you for asking."

         It's difficult: English is a highly figurative language, and the vast majority are harmless (any many are fun). Listen, though, for the dangerous ones and try as much as possible to stick to truth.

         Except when you're sitting around swapping lies, and everyone knows that's what you're doing. But when someone says, "Really?!" and it's not, emphatically not really real, just say, "Nah. I'm bullshitting."

         Oh — and if you've got a job as some high-power but ultimately sleazy flack doing PR or deceptive advertising: Quit. Repent. Go straight.

Marijuana (Yet Again): Drug Policy for American Drug Culture

            In a letter to the editor posted on line on Feb. 3 and later printed in the Ventura County Star, Al Knuth of Camarillo, CA, argues that marijuana is "Not a harmless drug" and notes that he has "personally witnessed the recreational use of marijuana destroy the lives of some relatives, friends and others [… through] divorce, loss of jobs, loss of friends, loss of ambition, criminal acts, etc." and adds, "the use of alcohol causes about 88,000 deaths and more than $224 billion in damages per year in the United States," finally asking rhetorically, "Do we really need to encourage and legalize yet another 'harmless' drug for our society?"

            A very close friend of mine had addiction problems leading to criminal acts, loss of job, divorce, and ultimately his death. His addictions started with beer and cigarettes and ended with beer and cigarettes, but I don't conclude from that personal experience, nor from the clear facts of the harm done by alcohol and tobacco, that we should make nicotine an illegal drug and return to alcohol prohibition.

            What I do conclude is that we need to recognize that mainstream America has drug problems, and we need a rational approach to dealing with them.

            A rational approach would classify drugs dispassionately and scientifically, do the math and public-health analysis, and attempt to limit harm; and a rational approach would get over our puritanical heritage enough to acknowledge that most people use psychoactive drugs because it gives them pleasure and to acknowledge pleasure as a good thing and to be placed in the equations along with harm.

            The US federal and local governments gave up on alcohol prohibition for complex reasons, but most justifiably because capital "P" Prohibition did far more harm than good. If you count jail time as often justified harm, but still harm; if you count sucking people into the US criminal justice system as punishment in itself, even when they're acquitted; if you count punishment disproportionate to crimes (and historically racist) as an outright evil — then marijuana prohibition currently does great harm.

            Better to treat psychoactive drugs as a group and regulate stringently drug pushing. For net harm reduction while allowing drug users to seek pleasure and drug addicts to avoid pain, it would be useful to legalize for those over 18 possession of any recreational drugs while limiting advertising and aggressive marketing. Like, it makes no sense to put people in jail for selling a few grams of marijuana while allowing brilliantly-executed alcohol ads on television and "happy-hour" at your local bar to ramp up the use and abuse of booze.

            We need tough-minded policies on drugs: on all and any drugs, of both underclass and mainstream American drug culture.

            If there are First Amendment issues with limiting advertising and marketing of alcohol as a recreational drug — and there are — well, we dealt with similar issues with tobacco.

            If people aren't doing their jobs because they're stoned fire them: not for using drugs but for not doing their jobs. If people are endangering others because they're driving while zonked, punish them for endangering others. If limiting the pushing of currently legal drugs will result in increased unemployment, then former bartenders and others of the deserving unemployed should be given generous support and aid finding other jobs, and ad agency flacks and marketing folk can be offered retraining for more honest work.

American History 101: Blood Money (USA as Well as CSA)

            "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography," Ambrose Bierce is said to have said, and we might add nowadays that multiple murders, shootings, and figurative battles over emotion-laden symbols is God's way of teaching Americans a bit of history.

            Among the more useful lessons that can be taught may come from the backlash against removing Confederate (CSA) flags and memorials through a more legitimate variation on the argument tu quoque — "You're one too!" — that points out the evils committed under the flag of the United States (USA), and notes how slavery flourished because of complacency, complicity, collusion, and corruption extending far beyond the South.*

            We talk today of "blood diamonds": diamonds from combat zones in Africa whose purchase helps brutal warlords in their massacres. Well, in England and much of the United States one could talk of "blood sugar" in England and the northern American colonies and not refer to people's glucose levels but to the brutal exploitation of slave labor in the Caribbean plantation system that supplied the sugar. Similarly for tobacco in what became the United States, and then, finally, cotton.

            It was indirect, but elegant people putting sugar in their coffee and tea and learning to "drink" tobacco — that was the early expression — were complicit in the slave trade (plus other exploitation for the coffee and tea). Less culpable were more ordinary folk later producing cotton fabric and being able to buy cheap textiles: people complicit in "blood cotton."

            Far more directly sin-laden was the wealth generated by trade by northern colonies and then under the United States converting blood sugar and molasses to rum to slaves in the Triangular Trade: "a pattern of colonial commerce in which slaves were bought on the African Gold Coast with New England rum and then traded in the West Indies for sugar or molasses, which was brought back to New England to be manufactured into rum." Although some of the rum went to other purposes: as Benjamin Franklin said, in his Autobiography of the local Indian tribes, with only a bit of hyperbole: "[…] if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the sea-coast" (1771-90, Part III, p. 57).

            Cotton is a useful product, and sugar is a "food-drug," not just a drug. With tobacco and rum, however, colonial America and later the United States were engaging in trade in psychoactive addictive drugs produced by slaves, including the hard drug ethyl alcohol that from colonial times to the present has been devastating to many Native Americans.

            Et bloody cetera.

            So we do indeed need to look back at the sins of the CSA, but to do so without hypocrisy, all White Americans (and some of the Black economic elite) need to acknowledge how much of our present wealth is blood money, the product of good old USA crimes against humanity.

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          * "Under the flag of the United States" could get literal. In Smuggler Nation, Peter Andreas points out that during the period in the 19th c. in which slavery was widespread but the slave trade illegal, US flagged vessels were the ships of choice for what had become illicit shipping of slaves. The US government resisted British attempts to stop and search even blatant slavers on the grounds that freedom from search on the high seas was more important than ending the slave trade.