The Prime Directive

December 6, 2013

I hereby decree…

Screw the Prime Directive.

Been watching a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation lately. I like it, but one thing that just keeps pissing me off is the Prime Directive, that Starfleet may not interfere with another planet’s way of life, must not reveal themselves before that planet is “ready”, even when a situation is life-threatening to one individual or to the whole damn society.

Yeah, seriously, even where the whole planet is in danger. In one episode, Worf’s human brother saved a society whose planet was about to be destroyed by stashing them in the holodeck until they could get them to another planet, all without them knowing what’s actually happening because they don’t know about space yet and can’t know because Prime Directive. And the Enterprise crew was all pissed at Worf’s brother because of this, that he didn’t just let them all die, because Prime Directive.

Then there’s when Deanna Troi’s usually-nonsensical mother Lwaxana is the only one making any damn sense when a man she meets is about to turn 60 and thus according to his planet’s culture, he was celebrate his life and then kill himself because they’re all like “eww, old people!” And Lwaxana is the only one who rightly calls this shit out for being despicable, while her daughter and everyone else is all like “it’s their culture, it’s not our place, I’m sure our traditions look just as weird, PRIME DIRECTIVE!”

I’m thinking of the popular image of Picard facepalming, except he’s on the receiving end of this one.

Cultural relativism is one thing. Yeah, people have their different celebrations and symbols and whatnot, and that’s where such open-mindedness makes sense. But then there’s moral relativism, as if this tolerance must carry over even to things that are actually heinous and wrong, and that is not okay. If the best its adherents can come up with is “you’re not one of us, this is our culture, don’t criticize our beliefs!” Go to hell. Your beliefs are stupid and are maiming and/or killing people.

And even beyond that, the Prime Directive forbids interacting too much with planets that haven’t ventured into space yet. There are episodes where the people on such a planet find out about the Enterprise and that there’s life beyond their planet, and their society is then somehow damaged over it, whether their top scientists want to leave and explore the galaxy or they just plain go ape shit over it in some way. So, basically, leaving some planet to live under the delusion there’s nothing beyond their society and thus missing out on greater knowledge is the right thing to do? These are questions brought up in such episodes, yet there’s still Picard and others so sure they “ruined” the society by arriving there.

Maybe what is ruined by mere knowledge deserve to be ruined.

It’s Always Going Around

December 3, 2013

I hereby decree…

There’s always something going around.

I’ve noticed that literally every single time I have a cold and tell someone about it, I get this same canned response: “Yeah, you and everyone else. Something must be going around.”

When is a cold ever not going around? At any given time, any time of year, a bunch of people have a cold. Not to mention that when I’ve been told this, I couldn’t think of anyone I knew that also had one or had one recently. Maybe I just grabbed the wrong can at the grocery store or played with the wrong gadget at Best Buy or something. But other than that, didn’t seem to be “going around” any more than usual.

You know, I probably shouldn’t talk, as I’m painfully terrible at small talk and surely say thoughtless quips often. And maybe nobody is good at it and yet feels the need to say something, anything, lest they look rude or stupid. Maybe the latter can’t usually be helped.

Pet Peeve

April 12, 2013

I hereby decree…

Your pets are not your children!

And as such, you are not your pets’ parent.

Now I’ll admit I’ve never liked the term “owner” for the person in that position, since the idea of ownership of an animal just sounds icky. I don’t care for “master” either. I like to just refer to the human as the, well, human. But referring to these people as the pets’ parents or guardians is just way too far in the other direction.

You know whose parents you actually are? Your children! Your human children, born out of a human woman’s womb, whether yours or your partner’s or someone else’s. The dog? Not your child.

I have nothing against elevating the status of one’s pets to “member of the family” consideration. But they are still their own category. The actual children are the HUMAN family, moreso than the pets. Equating the kids to the dog just dehumanizes the kids. And it outrageously ignores the VERY different needs that actual human children and the dogs or cats you call “children” have.

I mean, aren’t there enough people out there who have children with this idea of having a permanent baby or toddler? Completely forgetting they are bringing forth a person with their own mind? Treating their children like their sole purpose in life is to obey their parents and live as their parents dictate and to their parents’ pleasure?

You see, those are the reasons one should get a dog or cat! Dogs and cats aren’t going to grow up to be members of your own society. They’ll go their whole lives wanting your affection and, while not necessarily obeying you, being around when you want them. You don’t have to worry about differences of opinion since they don’t (usually) tend to have that many.

Granted, the idea of seeing pets as children is out of affection, yes. Not intending to make any statement either way about the status of the actual children. But if the pets are being elevated to the status of children, where does that leave the actual children?

Or is it the idea that the pets, like the children, are those within your home that you are obligated to serve? Yeah… I don’t think I need to get into everything that’s wrong there!

Still Not a Laughing Matter

December 7, 2012

I hereby decree…

Sexual assault of men is still sexual assault!

Male victims of sexual assault have a way of being completely forgotten, especially if their assailants are female. But they exist. And it’s still sexual assault regardless of genders. Anyone working against sexual assault who’s worth their salt knows that.

Trouble is, many people who do know and voice that have a way of saying shit like “why are we worried so much about female victims?” Proceeding to resent feminist anti-rape activists. And this is a totally wrong way of looking at it.

Because the reason sexual assault of men gets treated as unimportant or even as a joke is still the same gender stereotypes, that men are supposed to want and enjoy sex all the time and women are supposed to refuse and not enjoy it. And that men are never supposed to refuse. And if they did refuse, they aren’t being masculine enough. Or that he must really have wanted it. Or he must be lying. Because the idea of a man, who’s supposed to be strong, being overpowered and taken advantage of by a woman, who’s supposed to be weak (and thus “supposed to be the one who gets raped”), just doesn’t compute with people. It also assumes sexual assault must be “forcible”, ignoring she could also have drugged him or blackmailed him.

It’s dangerous also to send women and girls the idea that nothing we do counts as sexual abuse toward a man. That it isn’t just as wrong for us to disrespect his boundaries and to touch him inappropriately and to pressure him into things. Combining that with the message that it is not possible for men or boys to be victims of this behavior (or that when they are, it’s not serious and actually just funny), and you have a troublesome situation indeed!

Sexual assault of ANYONE, by ANYONE, is a serious crime and violation. That isn’t to say rape culture and the objectification of women isn’t a major contributor. But they are still all symptoms of the same disease, the same rigid gender binary. And, simply, one very evil individual deciding he/she has complete rights over another’s body and will thus act accordingly.

And ridiculously pitting one kind against another, saying one is worse than the other, saying one gets too much attention, couldn’t possibly be less productive.

Snape

December 5, 2012

I hereby decree…

Snape was an asshole.

Alright, if a warning is still needed five years later, the following contains Harry Potter spoilers.

Okay then…

Severus Snape was an asshole and deserved what was obviously an awful death by Nagini the snake.

Oh, what’s that? He was a selfless hero?

Maybe. He might have actively tried to save Harry’s life a couple of times and was integral in Voldemort’s downfall. But it doesn’t change the fact that he was an asshole.

It doesn’t change the fact that, having saved him or not, he still treated Harry like shit for several years. Ron and Hermione, too.

Okay, Snape was butthurt that James Potter bullied him at school and married the girl he was in love with. I can see how that sucks. But treating their son like crap about it, their son who never did a thing to him except be James Potter’s son, is inexcusable.

And yet, at the end, we find Harry has given his second son the middle name “Severus” and was telling him that the man his middle name comes from was the bravest man he had ever known. Snape hands Harry a memory strand as his last action, and suddenly Harry forgets everything else and decides Snape should be ordained as a saint or something.

It’s an interesting philosophical thought, though. Recognizing someone for having done something heroic despite that person having in general been a total vindictive asshole. One might call it forgiveness. But this goes beyond forgiveness. This is reverence. Reverence by the main person to whom this otherwise hero was decidedly awful. And it wasn’t even for-his-own-good awfulness. None of the other Hogwarts professors were anywhere near as disrespectful and downright cruel to Harry as Snape was (well, except for Umbridge, of course!). And that’s even considering the two who turned out to be active Death Eaters. There was no reason for it. I mean, sure, he was helpful and heroic and brave and all that when it came to taking down Voldemort. But why be a jerk to Harry? Because he was sad and heartbroken about Lily?

And even then, that didn’t explain why he was nasty to Ron, Hermione, and Neville. And to anyone who wasn’t in Slytherin for that matter.

Come on, Harry, should have named him Albus Remus instead.

Because You Think It’s True

May 31, 2012

I hereby decree…

Comedians are not philosophers!

Jokes have nothing to teach you. Hey, I love jokes! Don’t misunderstand. But they provide you no new wisdom. If they did, they wouldn’t work.

For example, consider this classic: “Horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks ‘Why the long face?'”

See, if you weren’t aware of the shape of a horse’s head, you wouldn’t get that joke. If you weren’t aware of the idiom “long face” to mean sad or depressed, you wouldn’t get that joke. The joke only works if you’re aware of these things, and the entire point is to elicit a chuckle at the clever word play.

Comedians are people whose jobs are to tell jokes. A stand-up show is like an hour of jokes flowing into each other. Therefore, they have nothing to teach you, because if they were to provide you with new information, you wouldn’t understand any of it and therefore wouldn’t get the jokes and would not be amused. So they say things based on what they assume you already know or believe.
Continue reading “Because You Think It’s True”

Hypocrisy

December 23, 2011

I hereby decree…

It’s pointless to point out hypocrisy.

Sad but true. A hypocrite will never see himself as hypocritical.

Point it out and what happens?

“That’s totally different!”

It’s a common climactic plot point in sitcoms when someone points out where someone is being hypocritical to get the response of “oh you’re right!” and he changes his ways or something. Yeah, like most other things that happen on TV, that’s bullshit. Never happens.

The people who whined that anyone ever said an unkind word about George W Bush will say the nastiest things about Barack Obama (and vice versa).

Those who fear and fight government monitoring will use even more intrusive monitoring methods on their children.

Someone who tells all his friends something he heard or believes about someone else will complain when that someone else tells all her friends something she heard or believes about him.

From an objective standpoint, seems hypocritical. Oh, but they have their reasons! Bush/Obama deserves to be called Hitler because of XYZ! Children aren’t people! My gossip is totally different from hers somehow!

Just keep telling yourself that.

Careless Hyperbole

December 5, 2011

I hereby decree…

It’s NOT “just like the Holocaust”!

A common rookie mistake. I’ve done it myself. It’s this need to justify your movement by comparing it to the Holocaust, to slavery, or whatever other Historical Bad Thing that everyone knows is Very Very Bad.

This needs to stop. Not only is the one who makes the comparison often ignorant of the thing they are comparing their issue to, not only can it make light of the compared atrocity, not only does it just piss people off more than anything else (and not in a way you’d want to piss them off), but it contributes nothing to the case and movement.

If the thing you’re trying to say is horrible is really as horrible as you believe (and it probably is, don’t get me wrong), then you can make that case in and of itself.

For example, at my car’s dealership, there are these Humane Society posters with what looks like a half-dog half-child figure, and the point is that people who are abusive to their pets are likely also abusive to their children. And that this is apparently a reason to save abused pets. Yeah, as a youth rights supporter, fuck you, Humane Society! Your point is saving pets, not children. Children are abused rampantly regardless of how the family dog is treated. In fact, the movement to protect abused animals started BEFORE there was ever one to protect abused children. I guarantee you there are active members of PETA who still go home and beat their children. Instead, you piggyback off a serious issue, that you erroneously assume everyone knows is bad (90% of parents hit their children, “everyone” my ass!), and use it to promote your unrelated one. And you don’t have to do this, because abuse of pets is plenty bad enough on its own and you can argue that easily without pretending saving pets means saving children.
Continue reading “Careless Hyperbole”

Unconsciously Prejudiced

November 10, 2011

I hereby decree…

Yes, you ARE racist/sexist/ageist/homophobic/etc.

You just don’t know it.

Wait, what? What am I saying? If you were bigoted or prejudiced, wouldn’t you be aware of it? Wouldn’t it be obvious?

No. Doesn’t work that way. Most prejudices (except for ageism I guess, since that one is still socially acceptable) today are unknown to those who hold them. It’s unconscious.

The idea of white being the standard or male being the standard is so ingrained in our society, so laced in culture and attitudes and language, that it’d be a miracle not to adopt even the slightest unconscious belief that non-white and/or female is somehow “other”.

So don’t take offense to this. In fact, it’s through challenging these assumptions that we can seek out these harder to extinguish bugs of bigotry. Take it as a suggestion, not an insult. True, it is sometimes used as an insult, and that’s not right, nor is someone who points out a possible prejudice in you always necessarily right. In the long run, you do yourself a favor examining yourself for personal unseen prejudices, before it settles in too much.

Let’s take sexism for example. Let’s say you’re part of a group of people, mostly male, let’s say six guys for every one girl. And you generally like most of these people, but some of these people you find really goddamn annoying. You find them hostile or rude or demanding or ignorant. Oh, and the majority of these annoying people just happen to be girls. In a group where girls are outnumbered by guys six to one.
Continue reading “Unconsciously Prejudiced”

Culture Is No Excuse

May 12, 2011

I hereby decree…

Your cultural traditions are NO excuse for harming others!

In the New York Times today was a piece by Nick Kristof about female genital cutting, and after glancing at Feministing’s mention of it, found a piece from two years ago in American Prospect, Rights Versus Rites.

Rights Versus Rites is about the debate about female genital cutting. That’s right. Debate. As in there’s a side that’s all for it. Seriously, go read it. It’s long and horrifying, but read it.

Okay, seeing as the practice is still going throughout Africa, despite little victories here and there where small areas decided “meh, let’s not do this anymore, seems harmful”, of course it has supporters and lots of them. How do they defend it? Why, with the well-worn: “It’s our culture!”
Continue reading “Culture Is No Excuse”