3 May
2013
3 May
'13
6:38 p.m.
Depends on what the goal is.
Originally this was presented as having a goal of shifting the language
usage in the culture at-large.
OK, so we come up with one example ("killing it"), and then it turns out
that the example may have been appropriated from the African American
community: uh-oh, if we go after that example it may appear that a bunch
of nerds (conventionally thought of as white) are engaging in some kind
of outsider-critique of someone else's community (black).
That would be a mess, but we don't even have to go there: we have
examples in our own subculture such as "killer app," and I'm suggesting
we clean up our own house first by going after those.
Analogy: Violence in media. "Violent lyrics in rap music!" Uh-oh, same
uh-oh as with "killing it." Contrast to "violence in video games,"
which does _not_ have potential implications involving race.
We have enough mess to clean up in our own back yard before we have any
reasonable basis to venture forth into others' back yards where we might
be seen as busybodies or worse.
The place where that principle does not apply is when one community is
under attack from members of another: for example where racism or
discrimination are occurring, the targeted minority has every right to
counterattack the culture of the attacking majority. But that's not
occurring here.
The additional issue, which wasn't the original issue behind "cuddling
it" (or "cuddler app" for that matter;-) is cultural appropriation.
Each of these is a distinct issue, with connections to other issues, but
there's a difference between recognizing those connections vs. lumping
all of it together to the point where nothing can be done.
Re. Anthony:
Anthony gets the award for "most-compact elucidation of a large &
complex dynamic" for his item, "...(the) existential struggle among
companies to achieve a position of oligarch in a crony capitalist market
by killing off the competition once and for all and salting the earth
they ate from with regulations and collusions so nothing will ever grow
there again."
Oligarchy & crony capitalism: One thing we _really really need to deal
with_ is economic class. There has been, in the Bay Area, an
undercurrent of tension between "proletariat" and "lumpenproletariat"
worldviews, and the analysis of the potential nexes of social change
that follows. This also deserves its own topic.
Salting the Earth so nothing will grow: This one is also huge, and it
has some truly vicious implications for things we commonly interact
with, and the attached political & economic realities. And it's an
additional issue that deserves its own topic.
So, with that, it's time to start a couple more threads.
-G.
On 13-05-03-Fri 5:39 PM, mattsenate(a)gmail.com wrote:
But not to be lost in the discussion, and, in fact,
most critical, is
the value in multitudes, in variance, and in solidarity, based upon
empathy and mutual understanding. This in resistance to dominant
patterns of division and subsequent conquest. Therefore I claim
scrutiny over cultural and linguistic appropriation remains relevant
and crucial to recognize in context of mutual respect rather than a
laissez-faire attitude.
What I mean is, let's try not to muddle it, but certainly cuddle it.
// Matt
----- Reply message -----
From: "Anthony Di Franco" <di.franco(a)gmail.com>
To: "GtwoG PublicOhOne" <g2g-public01(a)att.net>
Cc: ",sudo-discuss" <sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org>
Subject: [sudo-discuss] cuddling it
Date: Fri, May 3, 2013 5:19 PM
That is all quite interesting and adds a lot of texture to the discussion.
And so is the question of the phrase "killer app" interesting.
Consonant with an existential struggle among companies to achieve a
position of oligarch in a crony capitalist market by killing off the
competition once and for all and salting the earth they ate from with
regulations and collusions so nothing will ever grow there again.
Though, I don't know how to limit things to a subculture supposed to
be our own since we are all part of and relate to many different
cultures, without necessarily any universal common thread, and the
idea of creating fiefdoms of discourse based on arbitrary dualistic
in-group-out-group distinctions is unappealing anyway.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 4:53 PM, GtwoG PublicOhOne
<g2g-public01(a)att.net <mailto:g2g-public01@att.net>> wrote:
Yo's-
None the less, useful to explore.
As I understand the history of this:
The word "savage" is the English adaptation of the French word
"sauvage" that originally meant "forest-dweller." At the time
of
early European settlement in North America, the practice in Europe
was that only members of the nobility had the privilege of hunting
in the forests: "commoners" (that would be us) were forbidden from
doing so, often under penalty of death.
The Europeans who settled in North America were highly surprised
to see that no such restriction existed among the Native peoples:
any and all tribe members hunted freely in the woods.
The phrase "noble savage" originally referred to this: the idea
that ordinary tribe members had what in Europe was a special
privilege of the nobility, the freedom to hunt in the woods. The
European settlers envied the First Nations peoples for having a
privilege that they themselves did not have.
The dynamic is quite real to this day, of city-dwellers' envy of
rural peoples, and industrial-culture peoples' envy of
hunter-gatherer peoples. It's a generalization of "the grass is
always greener in the other person's yard." It works both ways:
every axis of contrast between someone's own circumstances and
someone else's circumstances can become grounds for comparisons
that may risk turning invidious in some way. And once that
process gets started, it opens the door to all manner of
psychodynamic smog.
So about "killing it":
Seems to me that if we're concerned about (whatever issue), and we
run across examples that may be entangled with
racial/ethnic/religious/gender/etc. issues, the best thing to do
is to stick to examples that come squarely from within our own
subculture.
And what's the most frequent example of embedded violent language
in geek/nerd/maker/hacker culture?
How'bout "killer app"? Let's start with that one.
-G.
(Back under the correct address now; thanks to all who helped fix
that.)
On 13-05-03-Fri 3:18 PM, Anthony Di Franco wrote:
No worries. My response was a rhetorical
answer.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 3:16 PM, netdiva <netdiva(a)sonic.net
<mailto:netdiva@sonic.net>> wrote:
Dont worry, that was really just a rhetorical question.
On 5/3/2013 3:11 PM, Anthony Di Franco wrote:
Of course.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 3:08 PM, netdiva
<netdiva(a)sonic.net <mailto:netdiva@sonic.net>
<mailto:netdiva@sonic.net <mailto:netdiva@sonic.net>>> wrote:
Did you actually just say this in public?
On 5/3/2013 3:04 PM, Anthony Di Franco wrote:
Doesn't the civilized psyche secretly crave the
things it sets itself
apart from and gives up and projects on its image
of the noble savage
though?
Your description seems more like meditatively
flowing through it.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 2:58 PM, netdiva
<netdiva(a)sonic.net <mailto:netdiva@sonic.net>
<mailto:netdiva@sonic.net <mailto:netdiva@sonic.net>>
<mailto:netdiva@sonic.net
<mailto:netdiva@sonic.net> <mailto:netdiva@sonic.net
<mailto:netdiva@sonic.net>>>> wrote:
Here I was thinking "killing it" was just another
example of
appropriation of african american vernacular by
the mainstream.
On 5/3/2013 2:46 PM, Leonid Kozhukh wrote:
"killing it" is a recently popular term to denote
excellence and
immense progress. it has a violent, forceful
connotation.
friends in the circus community - through
empirical evidence - have
established a belief that operating at the
highest levels of talent
requires mindfulness, awareness, and calm. thus,
a better term, which
they have started to playfully use, is "cuddling it."
thought sudoers would appreciate this.
cuddling it,
-- len
founder, ligertail http://ligertail.com
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