Thursday, April 05, 2012

Smalll things

With my therapist hat on, I notice that everyone in the media speaks of Trayvon and Zimmerman. Notice. First name vs last name. Trayvon is our national friend. We call him by his first name. We know him. We mourn him. (Like the supermarket tabloids, when they lament that Brad and Jenn broke up...) But then there's that distanced Other, Zimmerman. Zimmerman, Bush, Hitler. You know, guys we all call by their last names.

It's like when "unwed mother" became "single mom". From judgmental to kinda cute and cuddly and vulnerable. Even the language they teach us to use is a way of getting us to stop thinking and to feel about things they way they want us to.

PS Before anyone mentions the ubiquitous "Obama", used by friend and foe alike, it's because Americans can't really tell if it's a first name or a last name.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another villain name marker is when the full name is used. Lee Harvey Oswald is a prime example. And that says something about the comic strip Peanuts, because the lead character is always referred to by his full name while the rest of the characters by their first name or a nick-name only.

- Trevor

Anonymous said...

... Since the meaning and cultural relativeness of "IQ" Ich are so contested, maybe the American hierophants should replace considering intelligence in terms of IQ and related tests such as SAT, LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, etc with intelligence in terms of the ability to grasp "intersectionality" and exploit intersectional analysis to advance one's prestige in the educated-class. ...

I assume that the sectioning and interment of man in terms of race, gender and class derives from Heidegger's crucial deconstruction (e.g., Intro to Metaphysics, p. 196), so white guys shouldn't fear that 'whitesplaining' and 'mansplaining' interpretations of intersectionality will be dismiss'd as failing to really grok intersectionality.

Talk about targeting blaming the victim! ... and conservatives' war on peace!

Anonymous said...

Osiris (sc. Dionysos, dixit Herodotus) was section'd by his evil brother Seth (depicted as an Oryx) whose consort is Nephthys (Persephone?).

Seth scatter'd the sections throughout the Egyptian provinces, but Osiris was inter'd only after he was regather'd by Isis (Demeter) (mostly, cf Ayin+js5631 with js8328; and yet she then got sort-of pregnant by him, sc golembaby).

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