Maintenance
I’m changing web hosts this weekend, so if things get a little wonky, that’s why, and I apologize. Back next week!
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On Contempt, and Emotional Decluttering
I’ve been thinking a great deal about contempt lately, and reflecting on what feeling contempt for a person prompts me to do, say, think, or feel.
What sparked it was an advice column, of course. A woman writes in, angry that her husband refuses to wear his wedding ring even though he knows it bugs her; worried that it means he is cheating, or planning to. A commenter sums it up nicely: The problem here is not the ring. It’s simply that the man is showing contempt for his wife by refusing to explain, by goading her with his refusal:
The truth here is that this man is showing contempt for his wife and glories in the fact that he can get to her this way. This marriage, if you want to call it that, is doomed: once one partner shows contempt for the other, there is no saving it.
That really struck me: Once one partner shows contempt for the other, there is no saving it. I think that is so true, and then some: Once one partner feels contempt for the other, the relationship is probably over.
This prompted me to think back on romances I had ended in the past, and I discovered a common thread: Most of the relationships I had ended, I had done so once I began to feel contempt for my romantic partner. Oh, not wholly, of course; but for something about that person. Once the contempt was there, it ate away at me until I ended things. I have explained to friends in the past that I like men who are easy to get along with, but if they let me walk all over them I lose respect and then it’s over. As I’ve made these mental connections in the last few weeks, I realized it wasn’t a loss of respect so much as beginning to feel contempt. And I am someone who really has to admire my friends and lovers to feel any sort of connection.
Sometimes I get contemptuous about minor things: He never has any opinions or ideas, he refuses to lead the way and make his share of the relationship decisions, anything from “What do you want to do tonight?” to “How shall we handle the holiday visits this year” and all the way up to the big things, like how do you envision the shape and the feel of our lives together. Sometimes I feel contempt about bigger things. Once it was about an utter failure to plan ahead, combined with an inability to fulfill a proscribed gender role when I wanted to indulge in the stereotypical female role. Some of these expectations were unspoken, but I think fair – we evaluate our partner’s character and we want someone like us. For me, that’s someone level-headed, independent; prepared to deal with minor emergencies without having a complete mental breakdown; being flexible but still willing to shoulder the load of leading sometimes.
Contempt is definitely a friendship-ender, too. It’s a harsh word but a really accurate one for what I’ve been feeling lately about some people around the fringes of my life. Let’s break it down:
1.the feeling with which a person regards anything considered mean, vile, or worthless; disdain; scorn.2.the state of being despised; dishonor; disgrace.Yes, when I contemplate something worthless, I definitely feel contempt. Disdain, disgrace – also good words.contempt , disdain , scorn: imply strong feelings of disapproval and aversion toward what seems base, mean, or worthless. contempt is disapproval tinged with disgust: to feel contempt for a weakling . disdain is a feeling that a person or thing is beneath one’s dignity and unworthy of one’s notice, respect, or concern: a disdain for crooked dealing . scorn denotes open or undisguised contempt often combined with derision: He showed only scorn for those who were not as ambitious as himself.I think scorn goes a little too far most of the time – my contempt is mostly private, even if the effects are eventually public. No need to ridicule people openly (unless they really, really deserve it;* which most of the time, people do not). But disdain is perfect: disapproval and aversion, tinged with disgust. “A person or thing is beneath one’s dignity and unworthy of notice,” yes, that’s it exactly.What it comes down to is that I deal with enough shit in my life, day in and day out, enough lame, contempt-worthy people that I have to associate with or be confronted with or enter into business deals with, that when I’m in my personal space and time I only want people I respect and admire around me. Unfortunately for me, this means cutting out a lot of my family and some former friends, mostly from college, whose ways and values have diverged from mine. Nothing overt need be done, but I find that I no longer pay attention to these people. When they talk, my mind hears a sort of annoying buzz but the words skate right over my brain instead of sticking. I’m sure people get frustrated with me. But this effort has been paying off; it makes me feel really true to myself, and strong, and pure. “Judge not,” they say? Motherfuckers, I judge. I value discernment in others, I judge people’s merit and some don’t make the cut these days. And pondering all this makes me value other friendships I have drifted away from, ones that have not so much ended as petered out for one reason or another, but are with people I still value, and admire, and miss. Lord, how I miss some of them.One time, several years ago, a cousin with whom I had been very close in my younger days said something to me that, at the time and for a long time after, I took as a personal and very hurtful insult. We were talking about how our family had begun to drift apart, and that the two of us hardly saw each other any more. She said to me that she had determined to pursue the parts of her life worth pursuing and not worry about keeping up relationships just because she had them. “If people are important to me, I make the effort; I find a way to fit them into my life.” As someone who had just been noting, with regret, that it had been a long time since we’d seen each other, you can see how I was deeply insulted and took that remark to be a blunt statement that I didn’t matter.As time passes, though, I come more and more to see the wisdom of her point of view.People who matter are generally worth the effort. I personally have been through some times when I was incapable of making the effort, but all that stops me from reaching out and reconnecting now is fear and inertia. Time to take my newly-gained strength from these insights and purgings, and put them to good use.—–*Wow, this really has me reflecting on that passage in Jane Eyre where Jane first refuses St. John’s offer of marriage:“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it.” He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could command his countenance thoroughly. “I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.” -
Don’t Apologize, Dan Savage
So everyone’s jumping up and down, calling Dan Savage a bully because he heckled a group of so-called student “journalists” who walked out of one of his It Gets Better speeches. He called them “pansy-assed” so now he’s a bully.
Right?
WRONG.First, let’s talk about bullying. Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project started as an attempt to reach out to LGBT kids who were thinking about killing themselves – as all too many LGBT kids do – by assuring them that even though life seems totally rotten, once they get out of high school and escape their small-minded surroundings, life can be really awesome. Too often, teenagers lack the perspective of just how long a life they will have as adults, and how good that life can be. Gay kids are surrounding by institutionalized, legalized bigotry day in and day out for every second of their young lives. They are ridiculed at school for being sissys, or dykes; their parents may send them to churches where they have to hear about what dastardly sinners they are; schools are muzzled and even helpful teachers prevented from reaching out and helping them. Just last week, some idiotic Missouri legislators sponsored a bill that would prevent the discussion of sexual orientation in Missouri schools. That environment, and the kind described in the Rolling Stone article linked above, is bullying.
Now, what happened? Dan Savage tells a crowd of high schoolers that the anti-gay stuff in the Bible is bullshit and should be ignored, along with a lot of the other Old Testament stuff about slavery and shellfish. That’s a great point and one that a lot of Christian teenagers don’t hear from anyone else – how the prohibitions regarding homosexuality are somehow cherry-picked and considered absolutely necessary, but the ones forbidding shellfish, or stoning a woman who comes to her marital bed as anything but a virgin, are okay to ignore.
And then you have a group of self-described “Christian journalists” who can’t stand hearing something they don’t like, so they walk out. First of all, if they’re supposed to be journalists, they should learn how to hear things they don’t agree with. How are they going to report on events if their beliefs are so tender they can’t stand to hear them discussed in a way that offends them? Then Dan calls them pansy-assed for leaving. That’s not bullying, it’s just rude. Dan Savage standing behind a podium and saying a few sentences that singles out a handful of kids for ridicule is rude, it may be offensive, but it sure as hell doesn’t come close to the day-after-day kind of torment that drives teenagers to kill themselves because of their innate sexuality.
So Dan, here’s my advice to you: Don’t give in and apologize. Don’t help the bigots water down what “bullying” actually means. By including any speech that offends someone in the definition of bullying, you’re helping the bigots water down your message, helping them seem less bad, making it seem like the bullied gay kids were just too delicate and couldn’t take a little healthy disagreement. The bullying epidemic goes WAY beyond that.
As a libertarian, I am totally against any laws or policies that prohibit speech that offends. But I’m in favor of schools, particularly, enacting and enforcing rules to prevent bullying. Let’s don’t conflate the two.
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Goose/Gander
I’m okay with allowing women to be fired from their jobs by their religiously-motivated boss if said boss doesn’t like them using birth control to prevent pregnancy (rather than to treat a medical condition), so long as it’s okay to fire men who do the same…or use crusty socks, or any other such measures. I don’t need to spell it out, do I?
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Classic Photo
The ex-stepmom sent some old photos today. I particularly liked this one of me with wee Emma.
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Something’s Not Right with Shameless
I’ve been watching the Showtime series Shameless for the past few weeks – God bless on-demand! – and I think it’s a really, really great show. It’s a very honest (but not too dark), funny (but not sitcom-joke-cracking) look at a very dysfunctional family.
But one aspect of the show has disturbed me from the very first episode. In the opening monologue, Frank, the family’s patriarch and arguably most dysfunctional member, is doing a voiceover description of each of the main characters (mostly his children). His second-youngest son, Carl, is described by TWOP as “an eight-year-old psycho in training.” Frank mentions how he microwaves various animals. There are several mentions in the first season, either audibly or visually, of Carl doing horrible things to animals. He also does horrible things to other kids at school, to teachers, and to various people around the neighborhood. In one episode, Fiona has to intervene to keep him from being suspended from school and DHS from being called in. His behavioral problems are incredibly severe.
I don’t think Showtime really should go there, unless they really intend for Carl to grow up to be a serial killer.
Cruelty to animals is not a joke. Although the research is not 100% on the connection, the idea that animal abusers grow up to be serial killers is so commonly-known that it has become a trope. Furthermore, research has established a link between animal cruelty and violence against humans, even if not serial murders.
I think that the show writers did realize this at some point, and in the second season Carl is presented more as a general juvenile delinquent, though he does still get an occasional moment of glorying in violence (Such as his reaction when informed about an inmate murder that affected his next-door neighbor, he exclaims “Yesss” or “Awesome” or something similar). But the Gallaghers, from the show’s point of view, are supposed to be ultimately loveable slackers or misfits – even Frank. So they need to nip that story premise right in the bud unless they intend to explore the very dark topic of where sociopaths come from.
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Cooking up a Storm
I made my first ever quiche this morning – well, crustless spinach bacon & cheese mini-quiches – and it turned out so nicely that I want to share. I modified it from a bunch of recipes so I’ll just put what I did.
Ingredients:
- Onion
- Fresh Spinach
- Shredded Cheese
- Oil to cook
- 6 eggs
- Cream or milk (optional)
- 4-5 strips cooked bacon (optional)
- Salt & pepper to taste
Finely dice half of a medium-sized onion. Cook for several minutes, until translucent, in some oil in a deep pan, like a chicken fryer. You want room for the spinach. While the onions cook, chop about half a bag of fresh spinach. When the onions are mostly done, stir in the spinach and cook until wilted, a few minutes.
In the meantime, beat six eggs. Add about a quarter cup of milk or cream, if you so desire; otherwise add a little water. Stir in shredded cheese of your choice. Now, the recipe I saw called for five eggs and three cups – THREE CUPS! – of cheese. I used about a cup of cheese and added the extra egg instead. Add salt and pepper. Stir the onion/spinach mixture in a little at a time so you don’t accidentally cook the eggs.
I also cooked about half a package of bacon ahead of time, so I crumbled in four or five strips of completely cooled bacon. (I use a jelly roll pan lined with heavy aluminum foil, lay out the bacon, put into a cold oven, turn on to 400 degrees and walk away for twenty minutes. Voila – bacon!) You could use finely diced ham, tomatoes, broccoli, anything you want. I want bacon.
Pour into twelve greased muffin cups and bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes. I think next time I might adjust down to 325 because a few were a little overdone. The eggs should be just set. I used a mini silicone spatula to remove the quiche from the cups and transfer to a cooling rack. Now I’m going to bag them, two by two into sandwich bags, and take one to work with me each day to toss into the microwave for breakfast, maybe with a spoonful of salsa on top.
If you aren’t eating them right away and plan to reheat, make sure the eggs are JUST set so that when you heat them, they won’t be overdone.
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Advice
I like to read advice columns because they make me feel like I can deal with anything that comes up, since I’ve already seen just about everything. My favorites are Savage Love, Carolyn Hax, Dear Prudence, and Dear Wendy. (I used to love Mr. Blue on Salon.)
I also like how they make me feel so smugly sane, normal, and well-adjusted.
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And to all, a good night
Merry Christmas to all!
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Are Gamers War Criminals?
Key quote, as with every instance of nanny do-gooding: “[T]here is clearly no simple answer. There is, however, an overall consensus and motivation to take action.”
Ah! The do-something impulse, which causes so many many terrible, bad laws and ever-expands the powers of the state to regulate every aspect of our lives. Now even gamers aren’t safe.
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Older Posts Yeah! There are more posts, check them out.