Absolutely, IMO corporate co-option tends to move the dynamic away from an open and sharing culture to one of secrecy and exclusivity. The main point of the article about making being elevated above other forms of work is the one I have the most difficult time understanding. I suppose that stems from the fact that I’ve never considered “making” to be a job description, nor the result of making to be part of a product line. Making to me generally has no direct value to anyone but myself, as that’s who I’m doing it for - not a corporation. I have the luxury of having a makerspace close by that encourages sharing and has a culture of inclusivity. Everyone in there is working on their own projects, not their employers product. The same is true for almost every online interaction I’ve had with other makers. So by my definition of “maker”, it doesn’t make sense to even rank it against “jobs” like teacher or caregiver. To me it’s like comparing jogging to the color blue.
Why can’t I just be a white dude and ignore your politics interfering with my dudeness?
“dudeness”
it suddenly sounds like you’re talking about fabulousness
It is more that the people you decry politics in things and pretend that things aren’t necessarily political are usually the people who have the most advantage in the dominant political order. It isn’t a, for example, Black Working Class Lesbian saying “Can’t we just hack and ignore the politics?” It is the white dude who wants to pretend politics and power imbalances aren’t inherent in these things to begin with…
Many many years ago, I read an artical in Skeptical Inquirer on therepeutic touch. From What I remember, the author connected this quackery to the need to generate dissertation topics for nurses who wanted PhDs onto top of RNs. there may have been a twinge of sexism in that article.
YEs, WHY? Why cannot the various wannabe warriors stop trying to pull people into their pet wars? What motivates them to keep being annoying way outside their usual turfs? Whom do I hurt when I just want to be left alone in the shop and not be pushed around how I should and should not call things, and that I should have Everything Politically Well-Defined, with the attached hours and hours of pointless arguments, instead of leaving things undefined and Actually Make Something instead?
And why not wanting to join somebody’s pet war invites racial slurs of the “white dude” class? Isn’t that a racial slur, after all, couldn’t it be spun into such meaning and kill another three or five days in a debate as heated as pointless?
Can’t at least the shop be a place to peacefully coexist, where later-mentioned black lesbian can teach me knitting in exchange for telling her that her joints suck because of too little flux and too hot tip, without cramming ideologies down each other’s throats? What’s wrong on a politics-free sanctuary?
Politics is for people who can’t handle science. A post-ideology world is too painful for them. They’d rather we waste our lives living in a zoo.
Because nothing in the world is free of politics and when white dudes want to pretend that things are, it is because they’re looking at the world through the lens of their experience, which is that of the dominant group complaining when minorities (or less privileged groups) want their viewpoint acknowledged and the issues they encounter addressed.
It is easy for you to do these things and pretend politics doesn’t exist precisely because of who you are. If you are of one of the other groups, you wouldn’t get that option unless you want to be a second or third class citizen.
OK. Here’s where I’m coming from. I’m a cisgendered heterosexual elderly white male. I can’t do anything about any of those - particularly if I accept that sexual preference isn’t a matter of choice.
That means I’ve been going through life on the ‘easy’ setting. I totally get that. It’s not fair.
I also happen to enjoy making things, and reading about the things others have made. That activity may well enjoy an undeserved ascriptive status. It’s also an activity that attracts a disproportionate number of people like me, which may well contribute to its ascribed high status. To the extent that is so, it’s not fair.
Except for choosing to do things that I enjoy, I’m not aware of very much else here within my control. If I give offense by the very fact of my existence as a member of a privileged class, I’m sorry. But I don’t have a choice in that. I can try not to abuse privilege, but broader society won’t let me renounce it. The cop wil still suspect me less, the boss will still favor me disproportionately, the marketer will still target me as a member of a favored group. And I must bear the full guilt for that.
And I don’t know one damned thing I can do about it. But that’s my fault, also - because as a member of the privileged class, it’s my responsibility to figure that out.
Everything I do or fail to do must be interpreted in that light. To that extent, I’m probably a failure as a parent as well. I made sure that my daughter came to adulthood knowing how to solve a differential equation, climb a mountain, make a fire, solder a PC board, run a tractor, handle a rifle safely, build a wall, and so on. She made the choice that what she wants to do for a living is one of the “maintainer” professions. I can’t quite figure out whether my failure is in not having guided her more strongly into a choice that enjoys greater ascriptive value, or not having moved society far enough in the direction of ascribing greater value to her choice. At least I managed to impart what I believed to have been enough skills that it was something she chose to do, not something she was forced to do. (Or was it? Being a member of the privileged class, I’m no doubt too blind to see whether she really believed she had a choice. And of course, I’m in too much of a position of power to expect a truthful answer when I ask her. Nobody in an underclass dares speak truth to power.)
I don’t object to the expectation that everything I do has to be second-guessed from the point of view of identity politics. I do object to the expectation that everything I do, when seen in that light, will be weighed in the balance and found wanting. The discussion I am reading here tells me that there is no hope. Everything I say or do, when viewed in the harsh light of identity politics, comes up as a mere reinforcement of the privilege that I did not choose and cannot refuse. Seen from that jaundiced perspective, why bother trying?
And I suspect that the people who are saying, “why can’t the shop ever be free of politics,” are like me - not unaware of the unfair privilege that they enjoy, but simply despairing of actually doing something about it, much less something that would be acceptable as a peace offering.
Because nothing in your world is free of politics.
Your worldview is also noticeably airtight in its assumption that nobody has to be allowed to opt out, or they are part of the problem.
And because you allow nobody to opt out and just do something inherently apolitical they like doing, you irk people and then wonder why you seem to live in an adversarial us-vs-them kind of world.
Yes, I was born as a white male (in an area where this is about 50% of births so I don’t see how wrong it can be). How much self-flagellation do I have to do as a penance?
And how much more to opt out of your pet crusade?
You know, to have time to actually make stuff?
No, most of the people saying that refuse to recognize the very concept of privilege or that they might have more of it and that their default worldview comes from it and the ease at which they go through life in certain ways (be it their views being the “default” or other things) is even something of which to be aware. See others in this thread for examples of this.
Failure to recognize the world and privilege doesn’t change the reality of it, no matter how much certain people want to pretend that it doesn’t exist.
[quote]
Yes, I was born as a white male (in an area where this is about 50% of births so I don’t see how wrong it can be). How much self-flagellation do I have to do as a penance?[/quote]
No one is asking you to do any self-flagellation. Is it self-flagellation to admit that you have a dominant and more privileged position in the world because of your gender, class, race or other factors? Does denying that such a thing is true (la la la la) make it not true?
It isn’t a pet crusade. It is an awareness that there world is not fair, historically and now, and it is up to us to be aware of power and privilege and, as decent human beings, actually take it into account when we interact with folks.
Q.E.D.
Keep sticking your fingers in your ears and convincing yourself it is uppity fill in this blank people who just are bothering you and making something out of nothing. So much for compassion for the plight of people who didn’t get your benefits.
All of this is like some white Englishman living in India in the 19th century with local servants etc. as part of the ruling class saying “You expect me to feel bad simply for being British? Why, privilege doesn’t exist!”
Clearly, in that circumstance, it does. He’s on top because of his nationality, his race, and his social position (not to mention the conquest of that nation by his). The people that work for him, that might very well choose to do so for pay and even, perhaps, like doing so, are not in an equally privileged position. In fact, theirs is quite inferior in obvious ways.
Is this any less the case today if you are:
- Non-white in a nation dominated by European descended folks
- Poor
- Not heterosexual
- Female
- Not living in an industrialized Western nation
- fill in a large number of categories here
Should people in these latter categories pretend that society treats them exactly the same, with all of the same advantages and benefits, as people who conform to the dominant racial, sexual, gender, or wealth positions? On a purely abstract level, it is clear that there isn’t a level playing field. Why are folks here pretending that there is? Is it because they are uncomfortable to realize that they are, by the very structures of our societies and their institutions, better off and with less barriers that people without these privileges? Why do people pretend that we have some sort of uniform and level playing field when it is pretty fucking clear that we don’t?
No one is asking anyone to feel guilty for a situation they are born into. That said, you can still acknowledge that you’re in a much better societal position than some other folks and act from that knowledge.
Or, perhaps by assuming that inequity is the baseline of all social reality, you have internalized a dysfunctional, unhealthy view of the world. Instead of recognizing instances of abuse, you prop it up as an all-pervasive totality which every individual is automatically affected by. It is easy to complain that people dismiss or ignore this trap, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to say to those who refute it, who denounce it. I work against inequity, but I am not interested in commiserating with anybody in impotent sympathies.
I make plain to people that they are each as wondrous, worthy, powerful, and inviolable as anyone who does or has ever lived. That this is intrinsic to their person. That I recognize that this world, this society, the future - are theirs as much as anybody elses. And do you know what? People hate me for this, with a stronger resentment than if I acted out corny manipulative social game BS could elicit. I have been trying to connect with people for decades, and what it has shown me is that people do not want allies against oppression. That they are terrified of recognizing and acting upon their real worth as human beings, of knowing that power in relationships is symmetrical, to not only expect but to demand this out of respect for themselves and for others. So what options are there? A slightly more comfortable version of the same games which we can see played around us?
It is easy to complain about injustice, but apparently the choice of assuming the personal responsibility of implementing different systems is among the options people tend to be much less interested in.
I’m pretty sure if they hate you, it isn’t for the reasons stated. It may be for offering platitudes and pretending social injustice doesn’t exist and that if we wish really hard and expect others to not recognize it, that it will all be ok in the end.
Inequality is a fundamental fact of social reality. The fabric of our societies have always had people on the top and people on the bottom. The people on the top have always pretended that they were mandated to be there by God, birth, karma, or what-have-you and pretended that the order in which they are on top is the natural order. Of course, that means if anyone doesn’t like it or complains about being disadvantaged by it, they’re going against the natural order and causing trouble.
You realize that “instances of abuse,” when pervasive, form a societal pattern, right? Every black person targeted by the cops isn’t just an “instance of abuse” when it turns out that the police disproportionately target black folks.
Too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing.
Where do you put the thresholds where one does not have to feel guilty (or whatever you want people to feel)? How does a black person in USA compare with white one in (say) Eastern Ukraina? Or with somebody from another, even hotter war zone? Is there some reliable, non-wishy-washy way to quantify the privilege/oppression, some expert system that you can fill with variables and get the O/P-coefficient? Or is it just a way to pass time and raise emotions?
Is there any way or place to get some rest? Any sanctuary where it is okay to not feel guilty for having less bad luck than someone else?
Making things is inherently apolitical, and should be left that way.
Ideologies divide people. Making stuff unites them.
This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this–You are not extraordinary. It’s all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it’s much more interesting to assume that you wouldn’t have and then ask, “Why?”
The primacy of product over process is one of the key tenants in capitalism. You are being explicitly political.
NOT EVERYBODY MAKES STUFF. But as you said before, those who can’t make just teach. And we’re supposed to think you respect that? THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ARTICLE, attitudes that value making tangible product over process.
You keep proving her point over and over and over again, like you read the article and wanted to give concrete examples.
The journey is the destination.
For a lot of people.
But … maybe… those who can’t travel, just make?
