Despite that pockets of America are certainly uncomfortable with a black (mixed-race) president occupying the White House, we are a society enthralled with the idea of hybrid vigor. Dreams of a post-racial world in which iterative intermixing renders us all a pleasantly common shade are very much a part of our national consciousness. See, for example, the cover of a previous issue of Time Magazine. As the dream goes, a multiracial America with a 'mixed' future of interracial marriage will lead the world into a new era of post-racial harmony. Today, even, interracial marriages are on the rise.
What's more, from popular fiction accounts of the intermixing of vampires and werewolves to commonplace comments about how 'mixed babies are so cute' (and the like) to overdeterminations and misunderstandings of heterosis in a society that is shallowly obsessed with generalized science and technofuturism, we get the distinct sense that hybrid vigor is real: that mixed-race people are more beautiful, maybe even genetically superior.
Obviously this idea is problematic for many reasons, not the least of which is that it risks stigmatizing, ethnicizing, and objectifying mixed-race people. But it also reflects a creepy and contorted understanding of human relationships. Though we've come so far in not just 'accepting' or 'tolerating' mixed-race relationships, but in removing much of the stigma historically attached to racial mixing, these seemingly positive associations with mixed-race people (and, by implication, interracial couples) nevertheless do the negative work of placing the racial difference of the couple at the center of the conversation.
As someone who is presently in a relationship with someone of a different race than my own (and has been in multiple interracial relationships in the past), I can tell an all-too-familiar story to illustrate this point.
I know well enough that when a white male is dating or even perceived as dating an Asian woman, many default to the assumption that he is some kind of Asian fetishist. Such assumptions are made possible almost entirely by a long history of racist portrayals of Asian women and Asian men in Western literature, film, popular culture, and political discourse. That Asian men are feminized and cast as sexually inept nerds in these media means white guys are always viable predators. Asian women, as you've heard, are supposed to be docile, coquettish, etc.; so the white men who pursue them must then be the types who 'can't handle a strong (read: white) woman,' are controlling, are looking for someone to clean up after them and gratify their sexual inclinations, etc. Men of this sort have an 'Asian fetish,' and, so the racist tautology goes, a white man dating an Asian woman has an Asian fetish, because an Asian woman (as portrayed in racist stereotype) gratifies such desires.
If you're a white man who's dated more than one Asian woman..well, then, you're really at risk for being labeled a fetishist. Curiously, however, a white man who dates more than one white woman in a lifetime rarely (if ever) risks being labeled a 'white fetishist.'
If you think about it, there are only two reasons why the 'fetishist' label comes into play in the former example, but not the latter. One, because the people in the relationship in the former example are not of the same race; two, because one of the two races represented has a history of being portrayed in lewd and racist ways. We can fairly surmise that, though indeed the world has its share of creepy guys who fetishize Asian, black, Indian, hispanic, etc. women, the suspicion that one is a fetishist typically comes not from any actual demonstration or hint of fetishistic behavior or attitudes, but from the simple facts that 1) the couple is interracial and 2) this interracial 'combination' is stigmatized as a consequence of racist portrayals and attitudes.
This suggests to me that, multiracial America be damned, even the enlightened, intelligent, and liberal-minded among us are still inclined to stigmatize certain kinds of relationships along racial lines.
Accordingly, I urge you to ask yourself, next time you find yourself inclined to question whether an interracial couple is together because one of them has a 'black thing' or an 'Asian thing,' if you'd ask the same question of someone in a relationship with someone of the same race as their own. Do you ever wonder, white people, who have dated exclusively white people, whether you have a white people fetish? Do you ever think the Asian guy and his Asian wife have mutual Asian fetishes, or if one of the black couple eating across from you at the restaurant is totally just into black men? I suspect you don't; which is why I wonder at you wondering at me. How many white women should I date before I'm allowed to date nonwhite women without being suspected of fetishism?
What would your answers be like if I applied the same racial scrutiny to your relationships as you do to mine? What if I asked you why you only date within your race? Don't you like the way people of other races look? Is there something particular to your race that you're 'into'? Do you like 'white' features? If you'd think it odd or inappropriate for me to ask you these questions, consider revisiting some of your own.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
"Harlem Shake" and the Failure of "Multiculturalism"
We must be in the habit of challenging ideological orthodoxies. This is a necessity. When an ideological position becomes so entrenched as to become off limits for debate, discussion, and critique, our views and our knowledge stagnate in a kind of dead zone.
A prevailing and damaging ideological orthodoxy, for example, is the belief that a critique of Israeli state policy is tantamount to anti-semitism. As a consequence, it has become nearly impossible to have an informed and productive discussion in virtually all US media outlets about the ethics and effects of Israeli state policy with respect to Palestine. That a serious critique of Israeli state policy is regularly confused with a hatred of the Jewish people is a sign of how poisonous this orthodoxy has become. Not only does it stifle potentially fruitful debate; it cheapens the suffering of those who face or have faced anti-semitism.
A similar buffer to critique has formed around the ideology of multiculturalism. Because multiculturalist ideology arose from right and noble origins--to account for, combat, and correct centuries of white-European colonialism, slavery, and discrimination against peoples "of color"--critiquing this ideology has become a dangerous proposition. To question not just the effectiveness, but the theoretical rigor of multiculturalism, is to risk confusion about whether one is questioning the noble political aims of the multiculturalist agenda, or simply the way the agenda itself has unfolded (perhaps to the detriment of everyone). In this way, then, multiculturalist ideology has become a buffered orthodoxy, its own critiques labeled 'reverse-racist' by its opponents, and its opponents' critiques labeled 'racist' by the orthodoxy.
My critique of multiculturalism here is most certainly not of the 'reverse-racism' variety. I'd rather not spend much time on this idea of 'reverse-racism'--an impoverished idea--but I feel it necessary to say a quick bit about it before moving on. It should go without saying that, though the net effect of correcting for historical discrimination, slavery, colonialism, deprivation of rights, etc. for 'protected' groups might be felt by those used to being the privileged group (i.e. white people of European ancestry) as a loss of agency, this is not racism or 'reverse-racism.' This is simply leveling the playing field. This is gathering everybody on the starting line of a 100m dash and moving them up 10m next to the people who, for centuries, have been given a 10m head start. I do, however, believe that socioeconomic distinctions are far more reflective of privilege than simply race; but this is a topic for another day.
My critique of multiculturalism is to do with a very different effect this ideology has had on both white people and people 'of color.' The recent 'Harlem Shake' meme illustrates this critique lucidly, I think. The 'Harlem Shake' meme typically features a bunch of arhythmic white people flailing and air-humping in silly outfits and with corny props to a techno-pop song called 'Harlem Shake.' Without going too far into it, the Harlem shake is actually a dance (which the idiots of the meme don't in any way resemble in their flailing), and has actual ties to the rise of hip hop culture in and beyond Harlem. This video will catch you up if you still don't know what I'm talking about. Needless to say, people from Harlem--predominantly nonwhite--are pretty pissed that their local dance has been so debauched and disrespected by a bunch of white college kids and office dorks.
The most troublesome aspect of the 'Harlem Shake' meme, then, is the fact that it's just another example of cultural pillaging, or the mining of minority cultures by white commercial culture. Such a process takes and distorts something of high cultural value to a minority group, profiting from what it's taken while giving back nothing to the group from which it's taken. Further, this is not a cultural appropriation, but an expropriation, the taking of something from a less powerful group by someone or something more powerful. A similar kind of cultural expropriation has gone on for centuries with Native American customs, crafts, and attire: lucrative culture industries run mostly by white people sell distorted versions of Native American cultures, miseducating consumers about such cultures in the process. Today, memes like the 'Harlem Shake' and the aggressive marketing of 'raw' rap music (above other kinds of rap music) are tailored to appeal to white suburban consumers; what becomes of the art form is, of course, an afterthought.
The billion-dollar question, then, is why is there such a market for ironic expropriations like 'Harlem Shake'? Why do people (at least, people who don't have a stake in the real Harlem shake as an important cultural artifact) find this idea so cool and so funny, to the extent that this bastardized version of 'Harlem Shake' has become such a powerful meme?
This question has many answers and many facets, so I won't claim to answer it all right here. But one facet of the answer is, I think, to do with the effects of the multiculturalist agenda.
By multiculturalist agenda I mean the concerted push, primarily from the left, to 'embrace diversity' by constructing a kind of cultural aura around people 'of color.' In practical terms this means raising our consciousness of race and ethnicity to such heights that race becomes the most powerful category of identification: black kids eat with black kids in the school cafeteria; Asian co-workers host pan-Asian cultural events; universities build 'resource centers' and 'affinity houses' for various racial and ethnic groups. Being 'of color' becomes literally a representation of colorful and meaningful living with rich cultural context, while being--what, without color?--becomes an empty basket, a cultural vacuum. To be white is to be blank, blanco, without any meaningful culture. Consequently, with blogs and memes like 'shit white people like/say,' 'white people problems,' and the candidacy of explicitly pro-white-privilege politicians like Mitt Romney, the cultural vacuum of whiteness continues to be filled with characterizations of 'white culture' ranging from the dull to the abhorrent. Whiteness becomes synonymous with, at best, no ethnic or cultural identity, and at worst preppy clothes, bad dancing, awkwardness, a lack of athleticism, being rich, and being greedy.
Lest you misunderstand me here, not all of what multiculturalism has wrought is bad; what's bad is the unintended consequence of allowing race and ethnicity to subsume culture and heritage, both for white people and people 'of color.' Though having a powerful racial identity as a minority is certainly politically expedient, it also has a way of essentializing race, and 'ethnicizing' minorities. For white people--especially poor, undereducated, and underprivileged whites--being told that you have no cultural identity but that of an oppressor at worst and and a pasty-faced New England yuppie at best has (has had?) catastrophic consequences. When multiculturalism arose with good intentions, it might have done better to foreground more meaningful aspects of identity, i.e. culture and heritage. How we look is not unimportant, and race should be part of such conversations about building a diverse, equitable, and harmonious society; but how we look is also just as arbitrary a category of identity as any other. A more successful and meaningful multiculturalism would (or should) be prepared to celebrate cultural diversity above racial diversity, allowing race to exist as it does within the folds of culture and heritage, and not above these.
In any case, I think a significant part of why there's a vast white market for expropriation memes like 'Harlem Shake' is because so many white people, particularly young white people, have a genuine but unhealthy obsession with the 'ethnic' quality of urban diversity and cultural traditions. A people without a developed sense of their own cultural identity would, I think, be best inclined to become culture vultures, mining other more coherent cultural identities for bits and scraps to make their own. No suburban white consumer would want the dangerous life described in countless rap songs; but those elements, like toughness, virility, brashness, acquisitiveness, which form the basis (and the garb) of a hybrid identity, draw white consumers to 'ethnic' and 'exotic' rap culture. In a similar way, few white, yuppie Facebookers really want to lean anything about the real Harlem shake, the rise of hip-hop culture in Harlem, the Harlem race riots, the Harlem Renaissance, etc.; but like the idea of people, white like them, entering into a kind of burlesqued dance battle over the internet.
Perhaps the number one rule of white people (like this author) is: never complain about being white. This is another ideological orthodoxy that must be challenged, not necessarily for the benefit of white people themselves, but for the benefit of the minority cultures that the white culture industry pillages on a regular basis. Interrogating what whiteness has actually come to stand for today is an important step toward combating harmful and disrespectful cultural expropriations, the racist and racialized anger that some whites unfortunately embrace, and the general deracination of whiteness. A true (and admirable) multiculturalist agenda should reclaim its root word, 'culture,' as its focus.
A prevailing and damaging ideological orthodoxy, for example, is the belief that a critique of Israeli state policy is tantamount to anti-semitism. As a consequence, it has become nearly impossible to have an informed and productive discussion in virtually all US media outlets about the ethics and effects of Israeli state policy with respect to Palestine. That a serious critique of Israeli state policy is regularly confused with a hatred of the Jewish people is a sign of how poisonous this orthodoxy has become. Not only does it stifle potentially fruitful debate; it cheapens the suffering of those who face or have faced anti-semitism.
A similar buffer to critique has formed around the ideology of multiculturalism. Because multiculturalist ideology arose from right and noble origins--to account for, combat, and correct centuries of white-European colonialism, slavery, and discrimination against peoples "of color"--critiquing this ideology has become a dangerous proposition. To question not just the effectiveness, but the theoretical rigor of multiculturalism, is to risk confusion about whether one is questioning the noble political aims of the multiculturalist agenda, or simply the way the agenda itself has unfolded (perhaps to the detriment of everyone). In this way, then, multiculturalist ideology has become a buffered orthodoxy, its own critiques labeled 'reverse-racist' by its opponents, and its opponents' critiques labeled 'racist' by the orthodoxy.
My critique of multiculturalism here is most certainly not of the 'reverse-racism' variety. I'd rather not spend much time on this idea of 'reverse-racism'--an impoverished idea--but I feel it necessary to say a quick bit about it before moving on. It should go without saying that, though the net effect of correcting for historical discrimination, slavery, colonialism, deprivation of rights, etc. for 'protected' groups might be felt by those used to being the privileged group (i.e. white people of European ancestry) as a loss of agency, this is not racism or 'reverse-racism.' This is simply leveling the playing field. This is gathering everybody on the starting line of a 100m dash and moving them up 10m next to the people who, for centuries, have been given a 10m head start. I do, however, believe that socioeconomic distinctions are far more reflective of privilege than simply race; but this is a topic for another day.
My critique of multiculturalism is to do with a very different effect this ideology has had on both white people and people 'of color.' The recent 'Harlem Shake' meme illustrates this critique lucidly, I think. The 'Harlem Shake' meme typically features a bunch of arhythmic white people flailing and air-humping in silly outfits and with corny props to a techno-pop song called 'Harlem Shake.' Without going too far into it, the Harlem shake is actually a dance (which the idiots of the meme don't in any way resemble in their flailing), and has actual ties to the rise of hip hop culture in and beyond Harlem. This video will catch you up if you still don't know what I'm talking about. Needless to say, people from Harlem--predominantly nonwhite--are pretty pissed that their local dance has been so debauched and disrespected by a bunch of white college kids and office dorks.
The most troublesome aspect of the 'Harlem Shake' meme, then, is the fact that it's just another example of cultural pillaging, or the mining of minority cultures by white commercial culture. Such a process takes and distorts something of high cultural value to a minority group, profiting from what it's taken while giving back nothing to the group from which it's taken. Further, this is not a cultural appropriation, but an expropriation, the taking of something from a less powerful group by someone or something more powerful. A similar kind of cultural expropriation has gone on for centuries with Native American customs, crafts, and attire: lucrative culture industries run mostly by white people sell distorted versions of Native American cultures, miseducating consumers about such cultures in the process. Today, memes like the 'Harlem Shake' and the aggressive marketing of 'raw' rap music (above other kinds of rap music) are tailored to appeal to white suburban consumers; what becomes of the art form is, of course, an afterthought.
The billion-dollar question, then, is why is there such a market for ironic expropriations like 'Harlem Shake'? Why do people (at least, people who don't have a stake in the real Harlem shake as an important cultural artifact) find this idea so cool and so funny, to the extent that this bastardized version of 'Harlem Shake' has become such a powerful meme?
This question has many answers and many facets, so I won't claim to answer it all right here. But one facet of the answer is, I think, to do with the effects of the multiculturalist agenda.
By multiculturalist agenda I mean the concerted push, primarily from the left, to 'embrace diversity' by constructing a kind of cultural aura around people 'of color.' In practical terms this means raising our consciousness of race and ethnicity to such heights that race becomes the most powerful category of identification: black kids eat with black kids in the school cafeteria; Asian co-workers host pan-Asian cultural events; universities build 'resource centers' and 'affinity houses' for various racial and ethnic groups. Being 'of color' becomes literally a representation of colorful and meaningful living with rich cultural context, while being--what, without color?--becomes an empty basket, a cultural vacuum. To be white is to be blank, blanco, without any meaningful culture. Consequently, with blogs and memes like 'shit white people like/say,' 'white people problems,' and the candidacy of explicitly pro-white-privilege politicians like Mitt Romney, the cultural vacuum of whiteness continues to be filled with characterizations of 'white culture' ranging from the dull to the abhorrent. Whiteness becomes synonymous with, at best, no ethnic or cultural identity, and at worst preppy clothes, bad dancing, awkwardness, a lack of athleticism, being rich, and being greedy.
Lest you misunderstand me here, not all of what multiculturalism has wrought is bad; what's bad is the unintended consequence of allowing race and ethnicity to subsume culture and heritage, both for white people and people 'of color.' Though having a powerful racial identity as a minority is certainly politically expedient, it also has a way of essentializing race, and 'ethnicizing' minorities. For white people--especially poor, undereducated, and underprivileged whites--being told that you have no cultural identity but that of an oppressor at worst and and a pasty-faced New England yuppie at best has (has had?) catastrophic consequences. When multiculturalism arose with good intentions, it might have done better to foreground more meaningful aspects of identity, i.e. culture and heritage. How we look is not unimportant, and race should be part of such conversations about building a diverse, equitable, and harmonious society; but how we look is also just as arbitrary a category of identity as any other. A more successful and meaningful multiculturalism would (or should) be prepared to celebrate cultural diversity above racial diversity, allowing race to exist as it does within the folds of culture and heritage, and not above these.
In any case, I think a significant part of why there's a vast white market for expropriation memes like 'Harlem Shake' is because so many white people, particularly young white people, have a genuine but unhealthy obsession with the 'ethnic' quality of urban diversity and cultural traditions. A people without a developed sense of their own cultural identity would, I think, be best inclined to become culture vultures, mining other more coherent cultural identities for bits and scraps to make their own. No suburban white consumer would want the dangerous life described in countless rap songs; but those elements, like toughness, virility, brashness, acquisitiveness, which form the basis (and the garb) of a hybrid identity, draw white consumers to 'ethnic' and 'exotic' rap culture. In a similar way, few white, yuppie Facebookers really want to lean anything about the real Harlem shake, the rise of hip-hop culture in Harlem, the Harlem race riots, the Harlem Renaissance, etc.; but like the idea of people, white like them, entering into a kind of burlesqued dance battle over the internet.
Perhaps the number one rule of white people (like this author) is: never complain about being white. This is another ideological orthodoxy that must be challenged, not necessarily for the benefit of white people themselves, but for the benefit of the minority cultures that the white culture industry pillages on a regular basis. Interrogating what whiteness has actually come to stand for today is an important step toward combating harmful and disrespectful cultural expropriations, the racist and racialized anger that some whites unfortunately embrace, and the general deracination of whiteness. A true (and admirable) multiculturalist agenda should reclaim its root word, 'culture,' as its focus.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Is there an American 'Middle Class'?
Pointing out the (grotesque) lengths to which both President Obama and Marco Rubio went to mention, placate, and pander to 'middle class' Americans, this Wall Street Journal article sets out to answer a poignant question: who is middle class?
Danti Chinni chooses to tackle this expansive question by looking at median income levels and middle 60% income ranges for different states and counties in the US. He arrives at the semi-useful conclusion that 'middle class' by income level varies tremendously from county to county, state to state, such that the phrase 'middle class' could describe annual income levels that vary by roughly 15,000-150,000 dollars. Being 'middle class' in Mississippi, then, may mean something very different from being 'middle class' in Fairfax County, Virginia or Manhattan, New York.
What I'm more interested in, however, is what these income variations actually *mean* for people's lives. It's one thing to look at an income figure, even another to compare it with other incomes and costs of living, yet another to take account of the psychological effects of income and wealth disparity, all to get some measure of how these factors affect one's lifestyle and quality of life. Still, each of these is merely a proxy for the evasive notions of happiness, quality, satisfaction, etc. What about the superstructural components of class in America?
By this I mean, what are the most important structural elements of class, and which have the greatest effect on how people actually live their lives.
Remember, the concept of the 'middle class' in the modern sense arose in the late-18th and 19th centuries alongside global capitalism and industrialization, when it became more broadly possible for people from outside of the aristocracy to accumulate wealth. What fundamentally distinguishes 'middle class' from 'working class' is the ability to accumulate wealth over a lifetime, with the promise of being able to exchange wealth for leisure (real human life) at certain points. The 'working class,' by contrast, is alienated from fundamental human necessities, like time to pursue one's own interests and self-maintenance, because low-skill, low-pay work for someone else requires nearly all the time and energy a worker has to give in a single workday. Despite the difference in nomenclature, the 'middle class' is also a working class, a group of people who, rather than owning what in Marxian terms are the 'means of production,' works for someone else's profit, under the direction of an owner or a boss (or a series of bosses) who have a direct stake in the profit. Those who have enough of a direct stake in the profit, or who can accumulate thereby enough wealth to purchase back what I call real human life--the ability to pursue things for oneself, or to direct the course of one's work when not enjoying time away from (or retirement from) work--are the upper class.
Crucially, then, whether a member of the American 'middle class' makes 37,000 or 65,000 dollars per year, this person is likely to be someone whose employer controls what they're allowed to do with their lives for at least 8 hours a day (and usually much more), who does low-skilled, alienating work (even, if not especially. white-collar work), who does that work for the profit of an owner of the means of production and without direct stake or say in the type of work, the direction of the employer's plan of action, or the profit the work generates, who has little or zero savings with which to invest, accumulate wealth, or otherwise purchase real human life, and, in fact, is usually indebted (negative savings) such that they live under the thumb of not only an owner-employer, but also a series of banks.
In short, the operative difference between a member of the American 'working class' and the American 'middle class' is little more than notional at this point: slightly bigger televisions, slightly larger mortgages, slightly better school districts all matter to varying degrees in the real lives of people; but these disparities are small indeed compared to the gulf between the provisions, wealth, leisure and self-directed time, control over work conditions, incomes, amenities, and access to governmental and legislative power enjoyed by the American upper classes.
This is to say that there is no such thing as the American 'middle class'; or if there were, it might be a very narrow segment of the population, comprised of high-skilled professionals (doctors, lawyers, senior academics) in transition to becoming upper class. There are only people who give up freedom and real human life to work for and be directed by someone else, and people who own and control both their own lives and the lives of their employees. In other words, a 'working' class of people, and an 'owning' class of people.
Politicians like Obama and Rubio may well know this, and favor the term 'middle class' because it sounds less revolutionary, less like an admission that we have transitioned from capitalism to hypercapitalism to a kind of neo-feudal state.
Danti Chinni chooses to tackle this expansive question by looking at median income levels and middle 60% income ranges for different states and counties in the US. He arrives at the semi-useful conclusion that 'middle class' by income level varies tremendously from county to county, state to state, such that the phrase 'middle class' could describe annual income levels that vary by roughly 15,000-150,000 dollars. Being 'middle class' in Mississippi, then, may mean something very different from being 'middle class' in Fairfax County, Virginia or Manhattan, New York.
What I'm more interested in, however, is what these income variations actually *mean* for people's lives. It's one thing to look at an income figure, even another to compare it with other incomes and costs of living, yet another to take account of the psychological effects of income and wealth disparity, all to get some measure of how these factors affect one's lifestyle and quality of life. Still, each of these is merely a proxy for the evasive notions of happiness, quality, satisfaction, etc. What about the superstructural components of class in America?
By this I mean, what are the most important structural elements of class, and which have the greatest effect on how people actually live their lives.
Remember, the concept of the 'middle class' in the modern sense arose in the late-18th and 19th centuries alongside global capitalism and industrialization, when it became more broadly possible for people from outside of the aristocracy to accumulate wealth. What fundamentally distinguishes 'middle class' from 'working class' is the ability to accumulate wealth over a lifetime, with the promise of being able to exchange wealth for leisure (real human life) at certain points. The 'working class,' by contrast, is alienated from fundamental human necessities, like time to pursue one's own interests and self-maintenance, because low-skill, low-pay work for someone else requires nearly all the time and energy a worker has to give in a single workday. Despite the difference in nomenclature, the 'middle class' is also a working class, a group of people who, rather than owning what in Marxian terms are the 'means of production,' works for someone else's profit, under the direction of an owner or a boss (or a series of bosses) who have a direct stake in the profit. Those who have enough of a direct stake in the profit, or who can accumulate thereby enough wealth to purchase back what I call real human life--the ability to pursue things for oneself, or to direct the course of one's work when not enjoying time away from (or retirement from) work--are the upper class.
Crucially, then, whether a member of the American 'middle class' makes 37,000 or 65,000 dollars per year, this person is likely to be someone whose employer controls what they're allowed to do with their lives for at least 8 hours a day (and usually much more), who does low-skilled, alienating work (even, if not especially. white-collar work), who does that work for the profit of an owner of the means of production and without direct stake or say in the type of work, the direction of the employer's plan of action, or the profit the work generates, who has little or zero savings with which to invest, accumulate wealth, or otherwise purchase real human life, and, in fact, is usually indebted (negative savings) such that they live under the thumb of not only an owner-employer, but also a series of banks.
In short, the operative difference between a member of the American 'working class' and the American 'middle class' is little more than notional at this point: slightly bigger televisions, slightly larger mortgages, slightly better school districts all matter to varying degrees in the real lives of people; but these disparities are small indeed compared to the gulf between the provisions, wealth, leisure and self-directed time, control over work conditions, incomes, amenities, and access to governmental and legislative power enjoyed by the American upper classes.
This is to say that there is no such thing as the American 'middle class'; or if there were, it might be a very narrow segment of the population, comprised of high-skilled professionals (doctors, lawyers, senior academics) in transition to becoming upper class. There are only people who give up freedom and real human life to work for and be directed by someone else, and people who own and control both their own lives and the lives of their employees. In other words, a 'working' class of people, and an 'owning' class of people.
Politicians like Obama and Rubio may well know this, and favor the term 'middle class' because it sounds less revolutionary, less like an admission that we have transitioned from capitalism to hypercapitalism to a kind of neo-feudal state.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Ethics of Drone Attacks, Snipers, War
Two recent developments in the news cycle deserve our attention as related issues, despite that most probably aren't seeing them that way: one, the shooting of the prolific 'American sniper' Chris Kyle; two, the contestation of the legality and ethics of US drone strikes. In a single news program you can hear Kyle, a decorated Navy SEAL with 160 kills to his name (that we know about), referred to as a 'hero' numerous times, before the story shifts to how potentially awful it is for the US to use drone strikes as instruments of war.
This is a curious discrepancy in language to describe two instruments of war, both known for their deadly precision. When a human kills on the 'field of battle' (if even from the kind of distance from which snipers attack), he's a hero; when a human pilots a machine from thousands of miles away, it's an ethical and legal conundrum. But surely this isn't just a question of distance.
I have serious ethical issues with drone attacks, particularly when they strike US citizens of whichever ideological persuasion whom the government owes due process rights. I worry about what happens to the way we think about and experience the taking of life when we're able to put such distance between the killers and the killed. I also have concerns, largely out of my own ignorance of the specifics, about the ability of those engaged in drone attacks to make last-second adjustments, as a human sniper might, upon discovery that the target is not what it seemed.
One the whole, though, I understand drone attacks as just another instrument, just another extension of a much more troubling problem. The ethical and legal conundrum of drone strikes is presently centered on issues of due process rights, accuracy, and the covert nature of carrying out such acts of war not necessarily as acts of war, but as covert operations under CIA command. In other words, the 'off the books' nature of so many drone strikes rightly freaks people out; but are these drone strikes really so fundamentally different, in terms of their motivations and the processes by which they're sanctioned, than our more 'conventional' military actions, like the deployment of a sniper like Chris Kyle?
The current administration may be sending drones into Pakistan and other countries with which we're not technically at war; but weren't we doing this long before drones?
The problem, as I see it, is that the US has been operating under poorly defined parameters of war for a long time now. The decision, under the Bush administration, to invade Iraq, and to make enemies of pure abstractions such as 'terror' and 'evil' was already done on extremely shaky legal ground. These decisions already made the US enemy an amorphous and moving target, rather than a specific state, a specific nation, or even a specific organization (al-Qaeda has been a primary target, but not the only target under the broad banner of 'terrorism'). Accordingly, while we send human troops like Kyle all over the world to fight an undefined enemy, despite the grey areas that every regional expert on North Africa or the Middle East or Central Asia acknowledge are substantive and real), we shouldn't be surprised that more of our military actions have shifted over to CIA command, covert operations, and drone attacks.
This may be the inevitable 'new frontier' of modern warfare; but the question I have stands: why are we so concerned about drones when we've been doing with humans what drones do for over a decade now?
This is a curious discrepancy in language to describe two instruments of war, both known for their deadly precision. When a human kills on the 'field of battle' (if even from the kind of distance from which snipers attack), he's a hero; when a human pilots a machine from thousands of miles away, it's an ethical and legal conundrum. But surely this isn't just a question of distance.
I have serious ethical issues with drone attacks, particularly when they strike US citizens of whichever ideological persuasion whom the government owes due process rights. I worry about what happens to the way we think about and experience the taking of life when we're able to put such distance between the killers and the killed. I also have concerns, largely out of my own ignorance of the specifics, about the ability of those engaged in drone attacks to make last-second adjustments, as a human sniper might, upon discovery that the target is not what it seemed.
One the whole, though, I understand drone attacks as just another instrument, just another extension of a much more troubling problem. The ethical and legal conundrum of drone strikes is presently centered on issues of due process rights, accuracy, and the covert nature of carrying out such acts of war not necessarily as acts of war, but as covert operations under CIA command. In other words, the 'off the books' nature of so many drone strikes rightly freaks people out; but are these drone strikes really so fundamentally different, in terms of their motivations and the processes by which they're sanctioned, than our more 'conventional' military actions, like the deployment of a sniper like Chris Kyle?
The current administration may be sending drones into Pakistan and other countries with which we're not technically at war; but weren't we doing this long before drones?
The problem, as I see it, is that the US has been operating under poorly defined parameters of war for a long time now. The decision, under the Bush administration, to invade Iraq, and to make enemies of pure abstractions such as 'terror' and 'evil' was already done on extremely shaky legal ground. These decisions already made the US enemy an amorphous and moving target, rather than a specific state, a specific nation, or even a specific organization (al-Qaeda has been a primary target, but not the only target under the broad banner of 'terrorism'). Accordingly, while we send human troops like Kyle all over the world to fight an undefined enemy, despite the grey areas that every regional expert on North Africa or the Middle East or Central Asia acknowledge are substantive and real), we shouldn't be surprised that more of our military actions have shifted over to CIA command, covert operations, and drone attacks.
This may be the inevitable 'new frontier' of modern warfare; but the question I have stands: why are we so concerned about drones when we've been doing with humans what drones do for over a decade now?
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Americans are Ignorant about Whisk(e)y: The Basics
Maybe it's because I'm at that age where it becomes a badge of honor to drink and know about whiskey, or maybe it's because whiskey has gained momentum in the US as a drink of interest; but I often find myself astounded by how much misinformation circulates among Americans about this category of spirit. This is particularly astounding given how popular it seems to have become, predominantly among men, to enjoy a Scotch or a Bourbon. I've listed below some basic things that people in my country probably don't know (but should) about this holy drink that so embellishes the bravado:
1) You're probably spelling it wrong. For all you supposed Scotch aficionados out there, if the drink is Scotch, then it is a 'whisky' with no 'e.' If it's Bourbon, Irish, Rye, etc., then it's a 'whiskey' with the 'e.' Note that this is not simply a difference in American spelling, but a substantive spelling difference that signifies whether the product is Scotch or not. Both the Irish (whiskey) and the Canadians (rye) use British spellings, but spell their products with the 'e.'
2) Whiskey or whisky, it's all under the same umbrella. Many have asked me what's the difference between whiskey and Bourbon (or whisky and Scotch), having no idea that these types are spelled differently, but figuring the thing said phonetically as 'whis-kee' is one category, while Bourbon or Scotch are another. These are all types of whiskey/whisky, meaning a spirit maid from fermented grains. We can further differentiate them thusly: Scotch is made mostly from barley; Bourbon mostly from corn; and rye with some preponderance of rye (these days rye is made mostly with corn, but still contains rye). Scotch must be made in Scotland to be Scotch, just as champagne must be made in the Champagne region of France to be called champagne (which means if you're drinking 'champagne' that isn't produced in that region of France, you're actually drinking a form of sparkling wine).
3) Single malt versus blended makes a difference. If you come across a single malt spirit, chances are it's a Scotch. Single malt means that the spirit was produced from malted barley and water in a single distillery. If the spirit is blended, this means it contains a mixture of two or more single malt batches from different distilleries. Though single malts are the heart and soul of the Scotch world, you can also find blended Scotch. Johnnie Walker, for example, is a blended Scotch whisky. Despite that Johnnie Walker is so widely distributed throughout the world and in the US, it's actually not a very good example of a representative Scotch, because it's a blended whisky (so if you fancy yourself a Scotch drinker and you've been clinging to the Johnnie Walker all this time, get out and try a single malt Scotch, dammit!). Bourbons (which, by the way, must be made in the US, like Scotch must be made in Scotland) are blended spirits, as typically is Irish whiskey (like Jameson and Bushmills) and Canadian rye.
4) For the love of everything good, watch the ice. I don't know where the phrase 'Scotch on the rocks' came from, but it's possibly the dumbest phase in all the spirit world. As a general rule, you may want to put an ice cube in a glass of blended whiskey/whisky, but you should NEVER put ice in a single malt. Since most Scotch is single malt, the idea of drinking it on ice is simply absurd. I'm shocked even at the number of US bartenders who will ask me if I want ice when I order a single malt Scotch; of all people, a bartender should know better. Here's the thing: if you were drinking a bottle of Cristal champagne, or a 50-dollar bottle of aged wine, would you plunk an ice cube in your glass? If you wouldn't, please note that putting an ice cube in a single malt is considered just as ridiculous. Just as with cheap beer (think Coors Light, Bud Light, etc.) served 'extra cold,' cold temperatures damage the flavor of the drink. It's intentional with cheap, crappy drinks, because the objective is to get you to taste the beverage's shortcomings as little as possible so you can get drunk and have a good time. If you've sipped a room-temperature Coors Light left out from the night before, you understand what I'm talking about. By contrast, tastier British ales, for example, are served closer to room temperature and with little to no carbonation so you can taste them properly. If you have a single malt Scotch in front of you, it was made for you to enjoy its complex flavors. If you put an ice cube in there, you ruin it all instantly. If you find the single malt has a bit too much bite for your liking, consider adding a few drops of water to liven it up but also dilute it a little bit. But never, ever, ever add an ice cube to a single malt. If you're going to do this, you might as well just save your money and buy a handle of Jack Daniels, which you can load up with ice 'till our heart's content, and taste as little as possible.
5) On mixing. For the reasons stated above, you can mix tasty cocktails with blended spirits, but please don't mix a single malt into a cocktail. Again, save your money and get something cheaper and of lower quality if your aim is to mask, not taste, the whisk(e)y. You wouldn't use a rare Bourbon or a bottle of Moet to make yourself a whiskey and coke or a mimosa; don't abuse the Scotch either.
1) You're probably spelling it wrong. For all you supposed Scotch aficionados out there, if the drink is Scotch, then it is a 'whisky' with no 'e.' If it's Bourbon, Irish, Rye, etc., then it's a 'whiskey' with the 'e.' Note that this is not simply a difference in American spelling, but a substantive spelling difference that signifies whether the product is Scotch or not. Both the Irish (whiskey) and the Canadians (rye) use British spellings, but spell their products with the 'e.'
2) Whiskey or whisky, it's all under the same umbrella. Many have asked me what's the difference between whiskey and Bourbon (or whisky and Scotch), having no idea that these types are spelled differently, but figuring the thing said phonetically as 'whis-kee' is one category, while Bourbon or Scotch are another. These are all types of whiskey/whisky, meaning a spirit maid from fermented grains. We can further differentiate them thusly: Scotch is made mostly from barley; Bourbon mostly from corn; and rye with some preponderance of rye (these days rye is made mostly with corn, but still contains rye). Scotch must be made in Scotland to be Scotch, just as champagne must be made in the Champagne region of France to be called champagne (which means if you're drinking 'champagne' that isn't produced in that region of France, you're actually drinking a form of sparkling wine).
3) Single malt versus blended makes a difference. If you come across a single malt spirit, chances are it's a Scotch. Single malt means that the spirit was produced from malted barley and water in a single distillery. If the spirit is blended, this means it contains a mixture of two or more single malt batches from different distilleries. Though single malts are the heart and soul of the Scotch world, you can also find blended Scotch. Johnnie Walker, for example, is a blended Scotch whisky. Despite that Johnnie Walker is so widely distributed throughout the world and in the US, it's actually not a very good example of a representative Scotch, because it's a blended whisky (so if you fancy yourself a Scotch drinker and you've been clinging to the Johnnie Walker all this time, get out and try a single malt Scotch, dammit!). Bourbons (which, by the way, must be made in the US, like Scotch must be made in Scotland) are blended spirits, as typically is Irish whiskey (like Jameson and Bushmills) and Canadian rye.
4) For the love of everything good, watch the ice. I don't know where the phrase 'Scotch on the rocks' came from, but it's possibly the dumbest phase in all the spirit world. As a general rule, you may want to put an ice cube in a glass of blended whiskey/whisky, but you should NEVER put ice in a single malt. Since most Scotch is single malt, the idea of drinking it on ice is simply absurd. I'm shocked even at the number of US bartenders who will ask me if I want ice when I order a single malt Scotch; of all people, a bartender should know better. Here's the thing: if you were drinking a bottle of Cristal champagne, or a 50-dollar bottle of aged wine, would you plunk an ice cube in your glass? If you wouldn't, please note that putting an ice cube in a single malt is considered just as ridiculous. Just as with cheap beer (think Coors Light, Bud Light, etc.) served 'extra cold,' cold temperatures damage the flavor of the drink. It's intentional with cheap, crappy drinks, because the objective is to get you to taste the beverage's shortcomings as little as possible so you can get drunk and have a good time. If you've sipped a room-temperature Coors Light left out from the night before, you understand what I'm talking about. By contrast, tastier British ales, for example, are served closer to room temperature and with little to no carbonation so you can taste them properly. If you have a single malt Scotch in front of you, it was made for you to enjoy its complex flavors. If you put an ice cube in there, you ruin it all instantly. If you find the single malt has a bit too much bite for your liking, consider adding a few drops of water to liven it up but also dilute it a little bit. But never, ever, ever add an ice cube to a single malt. If you're going to do this, you might as well just save your money and buy a handle of Jack Daniels, which you can load up with ice 'till our heart's content, and taste as little as possible.
5) On mixing. For the reasons stated above, you can mix tasty cocktails with blended spirits, but please don't mix a single malt into a cocktail. Again, save your money and get something cheaper and of lower quality if your aim is to mask, not taste, the whisk(e)y. You wouldn't use a rare Bourbon or a bottle of Moet to make yourself a whiskey and coke or a mimosa; don't abuse the Scotch either.
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