I Think Therefore IB

Here are a couple of articles I have come across in the past few days, that I thought you might find interesting:

Yes, Looks Do Matter: A social-scientific take on Susan Boyle. (If you missed all the brouhaha about Susan Boyle, check out this video.)

Twilight: The Hidden Market

I have been sort of avoiding Twilight, but this article raised a number of questions that touched nerve. Now, first of all a disclaimer: I have not read any of the Twilight books, nor do I intend to. I’m sure they would be  ’entertaining’ (i.e. keep me reading from first page to last), but the plot summaries I have read seem just a little bit too ridiculous for me (if I’m offending anyone here, I apologise). I did see the film, which had some gaps in the plot (so I thought) and though it was cutesy-romantic, I was primarily left with the feeling of “what a creep”. (Watching someone sleep without their knowledge? That’s stalking… and glorified in this story, and hence disturbing to me.)
Now, why is this article interesting? This “hidden market” is taken in by a story that has a very traditional relationship at its core. Yes, it is ‘romantic’, but it undeniably reinforces the most archaic gender stereotypes that there are: male power and female dependence – to the point of “I can’t live without you”. What I am wondering is how is it that we have – literally – millions of people (women!) endorsing this in the age of post-feminism? Were the feminists ‘wrong’? Or why this backlash, which seems like a contradiction in many ways? I mean, we are constantly denouncing the oppression of women, e.g. by the Taliban, clamouring for their freedom and independence, but escape into a story like this, which has the same kind of power structure at its core that we have been trying to deconstruct. Of course, Bella isn’t being deprived of her rights in the same way as Afghan women are, but does anyone else find the shared male-female symbolism embedded in this human/vampire relationship unsettling?

The Baby-Shaking Application on the iPhone

Here is another controversial topic – and I have to say I’m undecided about it. On the one hand, this baby shaking app is utterly appalling (for your information: shaking a baby is an extremely dangerous, often lethal thing to do), but on the other hand the “freedom of choice” argument strikes a chord with me. I would never purchase (or download for free) an application of this sort, yet Apple’s removal of the game could be construed as a form of censorship. I suppose this is a question of “Where do we draw the line?” and my personal line is right in front of the game, but my public line is right behind the game….

Beauty Pageants and Gay Marriage: The Miss California Controversy

I’ll keep posting on gay marriage, although sometimes I feel like I’m doing this too much (knowing that I am in a conservative country). However, I am strongly convinced that this one of the defining issues of our time, and that we should therefore pay attention to and talk about it. The above article discusses (yet another) “Miss” controversy, in this case the response of one of the contestants for the Miss USA title to a question on whether she was in favour of gay marriage. Again, I’m torn here. I support freedom of speech (which Miss California is exercising here) and, on a certain level, can find her honesty laudable, but I also strongly disagree with her opinion. That is not yet particularly problematic as we can easily ‘agree to disagree’, but what really has me pondering is the following observation by one of the ‘debators’:

No contestant would stand on that stage and argue for a ban on interracial marriage or come to the defense of a country clubs that banned Jewish members or condemn single mothers. All those positions were once considered thoroughly respectable, and people could argue for them on TV — pundits, candidates, beauty pageant contestants — without fear or repercussion. Not true today. It’s not that there are racial thought police, or anti-Semitic thought police, or single-mom thought police. It’s just that times and attitudes change.

Indeed – saying “I believe that a marriage should be between a white man and a white woman only” (or, for illustration’s sake, we could take something even more antiquated such as “I believe adult men should be able to marry a woman of their choice of any age, including children and infants” – since this was once a normal, respectable view also in the West) would likely be public suicide. I don’t think we are quite at this point yet with gay marriage, though we are clearly moving into that direction (as this controversy has revealed). So the question that arises for me is the following: When and how does something go from “freedom of opinion” to “unspeakable taboo”, that is, the point that social norms no longer permit any “freedom of opinion”? I have honestly never contemplated this issue before, but I do think it is true. We do reach, as a society, particular ethical agreements that become essentially undebatable. I would argue that this is positive and beneficial – and thus right – on a practical level (since many of these ethical positions generally provide more civil and human rights to people) but on an intellectual level I find this more open to question. Again, this doubt relates to the issue of ‘censorship’ and ‘deprivation of freedom of thought’ and the crux is this: by providing more freedom on one level, we reduce freedom on another. How do we know which freedom is ‘more righteous’? The contradiction is inevitable and cannot be resolved, but it is worth pondering. Your thoughts?