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hermionesviolinNow, i know not everything can. Some statements are the product of lots of research, and can’t be attributed to a single source. However, if you’re citing statistics and studies, surely that obviously calls for footnoting. It’s not that i want to look up everything i read, i just want to be able to if i ever did want to. I’m getting so tired of “a study conducted by such-and-such organization in such-and-such year found....” You must have found the study somewhere; put a mention somewhere so i can look it up too. Statistics can be deceiving.
I’m also getting tired of people not interrogating their assumptions. I’m reading this zine called Reflections on Women in Prison and near the beginning is an article on who determines what a criminal is, and it includes the following sentence:
“Indigenous people had existed here for (years here) and were living lives that were centered around a holistic communal culture, one that both lived off of the land and gave back to it.”
Eek. Idealizing “the other” is so problematic. I regret that i didn’t photocopy the “Pre-Columbian America” chapter (and references, of course) from Paul F. Boller, Jr.’s Not So!: Popular Myths About America from Columbus to Clinton (itself an imperfect work), but it definitely refutes that assertion.
It’s not that i think everyone should come up with documentation for everything they say before they say it, but it would certainly improve things if people held that as an ideal. You should be able to back up everything you say. If you can’t think of somewhere to refer me, that should be a big warning sign to you that you need to think critically about what you’re saying and why you believe it.
This also brings me back to one of the problems with protesting, etc. I have this need to know all about an issue (sweatshops, free trade, Mumia Abu Jamal, genetically engineered food, etc.) before i make a decision, and obviously i don’t have the time or energy to research everything, so i pick my battles.
And fairly unrelatedly, i was at Puddingstone last night and Diane and Ron were talking about music -- eras, composers, etc. It’s something that’s really important to them, but i’m just not really into it. Jane says when i have a family i won’t have so much energy for caring about some of the stuff i get righteously indignant about now. I certainly understand that (esp. seeing my mom being so exhausted caring for her mom and just not up for getting angry about marketing to children and such) though it always irritates me too, the implication that this stuff isn’t important enough for me to still get worked up about once i have a family. (Hey look, it’s youth privilege. We can get angry about this stuff, because we don’t have “real life” draining our energy.) I doubt anyone would tell them that once they have a family they wouldn’t spend so much time and energy thinking about the conductor of the BSO or anything. It’s interesting, no one tells you that when you have a family you’ll stop caring about (pop) culture stuff (though of course you’re often laughingly assured that you’ll grow out of your Buffy -- or whatever -- obsession) but people say it about political activist concerns, which one would think one would be much less likely to let go of. Yeah, i’m not sure exactly where i’m going with this, and i know i’m basing it on limited experiences and generalizations. So i’ll stop now.
I’m also getting tired of people not interrogating their assumptions. I’m reading this zine called Reflections on Women in Prison and near the beginning is an article on who determines what a criminal is, and it includes the following sentence:
“Indigenous people had existed here for (years here) and were living lives that were centered around a holistic communal culture, one that both lived off of the land and gave back to it.”
Eek. Idealizing “the other” is so problematic. I regret that i didn’t photocopy the “Pre-Columbian America” chapter (and references, of course) from Paul F. Boller, Jr.’s Not So!: Popular Myths About America from Columbus to Clinton (itself an imperfect work), but it definitely refutes that assertion.
It’s not that i think everyone should come up with documentation for everything they say before they say it, but it would certainly improve things if people held that as an ideal. You should be able to back up everything you say. If you can’t think of somewhere to refer me, that should be a big warning sign to you that you need to think critically about what you’re saying and why you believe it.
This also brings me back to one of the problems with protesting, etc. I have this need to know all about an issue (sweatshops, free trade, Mumia Abu Jamal, genetically engineered food, etc.) before i make a decision, and obviously i don’t have the time or energy to research everything, so i pick my battles.
And fairly unrelatedly, i was at Puddingstone last night and Diane and Ron were talking about music -- eras, composers, etc. It’s something that’s really important to them, but i’m just not really into it. Jane says when i have a family i won’t have so much energy for caring about some of the stuff i get righteously indignant about now. I certainly understand that (esp. seeing my mom being so exhausted caring for her mom and just not up for getting angry about marketing to children and such) though it always irritates me too, the implication that this stuff isn’t important enough for me to still get worked up about once i have a family. (Hey look, it’s youth privilege. We can get angry about this stuff, because we don’t have “real life” draining our energy.) I doubt anyone would tell them that once they have a family they wouldn’t spend so much time and energy thinking about the conductor of the BSO or anything. It’s interesting, no one tells you that when you have a family you’ll stop caring about (pop) culture stuff (though of course you’re often laughingly assured that you’ll grow out of your Buffy -- or whatever -- obsession) but people say it about political activist concerns, which one would think one would be much less likely to let go of. Yeah, i’m not sure exactly where i’m going with this, and i know i’m basing it on limited experiences and generalizations. So i’ll stop now.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-28 01:10 pm (UTC)I am not a big fan of proof. Proof definitely has it's practical uses, in a lot of things it is a definite requirement for an idea to make any sense at all. But there are a lot of issues for which no physical proof can be found. Things like that involve educated guessing and theorizing, the reason I find that to be so useful is not as a means of arguement because no one will take an unproven argument seriously (unfortunately) but because, in my opinion, if gives people a chance to discover their own proof.
For instance, if a religious discussing occurs between two people, one person is obviously the affirmative and the other is obviously the opposition, it's very difficult to find any sort of proof of religious points that are satisfactory to someone who opposes those points simply because religion is a sensitive issue. But, if you provided an idea as a foundation for thought to be built by the opposing person using his or her own experience and belifs...he or she might not agree with you and probab;ly never will but at least you've encouraged someone to think and form their own opinion. Ideally, I could share one of my own opinions with someone by giving them the background of my idea and handing it over to them to ponder, and then later we can discuss our collective findings. I think that method of learning is highly overlooked, unfortunately most people are not of a mind to listen to something they've never heard before and then interpret it for themselves. That makes me sad.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-28 02:15 pm (UTC)see: trace!!! :-)