Escaping the Trunk

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged very much recently is that I’ve been so damn busy. I went away for a while to a lake up north, where I worked on the story in this subject heading as well as a couple of others (I even did some foresighting work, if you can believe that). The good news is that all of the stories I was working on were requests from other people — this one came from Rudy Rucker. In his words on the story, Rudy called it “a profound and richly felt piece so closely rooted in reality that it barely feels like SF,” and “an important story-essay on women’s rights.”

This story actually came about as a consequence of my involvement in the Strategic Foresight & Innovation program at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Initially, I wrote a fictional essay about the fall of Shenzhen from a systems theory perspective, invoking Donella Meadows and Jamshid Gharajedaghi and Clayton Christensen. It was an interesting exercise, one that I delayed starting for too long because I was stymied and had been working on my novel re-writes. I was in desperate need to write some short fiction, so (as I have done before) I turned in some instead of turning in a straight paper.

The story linked above has been cut significantly from that first essay, and a new subjectivity has taken the POV position within the story because the footnotes and bibliography and conceptual framing for systems theory has been removed. It took me a long time to re-frame the story appropriately, but I finally settled on a woman in the Quiverfull movement. Quiver-minded people follow Psalm 127:3-5:

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;
so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:
they shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

I felt that a Quiver-minded woman would be uniquely positioned to speak to China’s only child policy, because while she eschewed any form of birth control, the women of China are legally obligated to embrace it. I’ve always been fascinated by reproductive policy, and I thought it would be interesting to bring this dichotomy into focus. I also knew it would mean delving into two worlds that I knew very little about: the factories of Shenzhen, and the farms and households of Quiver-minded families.

Conditions in both environments can be terrible.

The reasons for this should be obvious. In the worst of both cases, rigid patriarchy oppresses women who live almost barrack-style, endlessly performing the same tasks during their sixteen-hour days for very little reward and with little opportunity for open communication or self-expression. I recommend reading No Longer Quivering for insights into the consequences of the Quiverfull lifestyle, and this Fortune City post about working conditions in Shenzhen. (Or you could just read Cory’s latest, For the Win.)

This isn’t to say that I’m some sort of moral authority on either subject. I’m typing this on a Mac, which means I’m a consumer of Foxconn products, products made in factories where conditions are so awful that suicide is a regular occurrence among employees. I also don’t think that the entirety of the Quiverfull movement needs to die. Mary Pride, the author who in many ways began the movement, has since spoken out against Biblical patriarchy. Some might see this as a reversal, but to me it’s a more nuanced understanding of one’s own opinion and its consequences. I felt that I hadn’t really nailed the voice of this story until I read Pride’s post.

I also think that there are a surprising number of connections between the Quiverfull lifestyle and the DIY maker/crafter one espoused at BoingBoing and elsewhere online by avowed atheists. Having a lot of children (some Quiverfull families can have more than twenty) means learning how to stretch a dollar (that’s putting it mildly) and learning how to make consumables as cheaply as possible. In particular, I was fascinated by the women of the West family, who have turned their DIY expertise into a profitable video series for the Christian market. (Their blog is great, too. Warning: music.) Here’s a taste:

This isn’t a lifestyle that I can see myself living, but it is one that I can respect, and it’s part of how I found my way into the story. Personally, I find the idea of life without birth control horrifying, in a screamingly awful “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” kind of way. But part of being pro-choice is believing in the sanctity of the choice. Our bodies are ours to do with as we will. Anything less is slavery. And slavery takes more forms than we know.

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On June 14, a bystander shot this video of a Seattle police officer punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during an altercation with her 19-year-old cousin.

My pal David Forbes tweeted this bit of news to me this afternoon, and I’ve been trying to wrap my head around both the video and the responses to the video ever since. The response is overwhelmingly in support of the officer. Here are a few choice snippets:
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I got hacked this weekend.

My pal René Walling let me know about it in an email Sunday morning, and I immediately phoned up my host to ask for help. I’m hosted through Superb, a company recommended to me by the late, great Emru Townsend (through whom I met René). When Emru made this recommendation, I had no concept of the scope of his illness, or how very dearly it would cost him and his family. If I had known, I wouldn’t have nagged him for web help. But on Sunday, I was grateful that I had.

The site was hacked by a person claiming to represent the “Lebanese Cyb3r Army.” (During the examination of my corrupted files, I hesitantly asked my tech support serviceman, “Is it covered in L337 speak?”) The graphic taking the place of my site made reference to the FlotillaFAIL. Ironically, I had met a very sweet Lebanese couple Friday night after seeing Splice. They offered me a lychee cookie, and then we talked about our favourite desserts. They recommended some local Middle Eastern restaurants. “Go to Jerusalem,” the husband told me. “The restaurant! Not the city.”

“No, not the city,” I said. “The city would be too stressful.”

I said this casually, but perhaps I shouldn’t have. The truth is that people navigate the streets of Jerusalem daily. They work and dance and pray and have families there. At some point, the reality of war must fade, like the high-pitched ringing of tinnitis, into something shrill and persistent but easily forgotten during moments of pleasure. At least, that’s what the recollections of my friends Kung Fu Jew and Miriam Libicki would have me believe.

KFJ has been to Jerusalem. Multiple times. He’s volunteered there, studied there, dated Israeli girls there. The first time he returned, he said, offhandedly, “You know they’re bulldozing homes in Gaza.”

“Empty homes?” I asked.

“Sometimes.”

He later went on to say this:

What Israelis and conservative American Jews don’t seem to care is that a surfeit of dignity for prolonged periods of time foments extremism and increases hatred. If Israel was looking for a policy that would enable it to be rid of Gaza, then it chose the stupidest one possible.

It’s safe to say that I’m with KFJ on this one. I hate what happened aboard that ship. I advocate a withdrawal from Gaza. I advocate peace and dignity for the people who live there. I think Israel’s government should listen to its young people in the diaspora, who are steadily refusing to “check their liberalism at the door” when it comes to Israeli politics. I think KFJ is right when he says that the conflict is not between nations, but between innocent people and purveyors of violence.

I don’t know why I was hacked and I still don’t. But if it forces me to express myself on this very thorny subject, so be it.

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So glad you asked. Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion about modifying Miranda warnings, or the warnings suspects are given upon arrest in the United States that inform them about their rights to silence, an attorney, termination of questioning, and possible contact with a consular authority. Current Attorney General Eric Holder is pushing Congress to modify the rules for terror suspects, specifically to change when Miranda warnings can be read, and to whom they apply.

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C. Wess Daniels has a great post wherein he explains Henry Jenkins’ definition of fandom thusly:

1. Appropriation – A person appropriates in their own life a particular text, work, and practice relating to their fan object. Often these objects are reinterpreted in their own life.
2. Participation – There is an openness for people to participate at all levels within the community. They are so inspired by it they write music, create events, etc.
3. Emotional Investment – People become really invested in this this object, topics, etc. It is something they are really into and something they want to talk about.
4. Collective Intelligence (rather than the expert paradigm) – There is room for everyone to have something to say and contribute to the collective understanding of the group. Collective intelligence doesn’t need credentials, degrees, etc., experiences and insights are beneficial to the community and conversation.
5. “Virtual” Community – These are communities that are not necessarily built around face to face meetings. Some of these people know each other and some are unknown, but more often than not these groups will have times to meet face to face. 

Mr. Daniels then suggests (inspired by his thesis advisor) that we should start judging all communities by this standard. Are the members involved? Are they passionate? Informed? Communicative?

Enter Toronto’s cycling community, who won a major victory yesterday when the city council agreed to transform Jarvis Street from a five-lane, no-bike street to a four-lane + bike lanes version. Cyclists responded to a city-sponsored ad in NOW Magazine regarding bike lanes on Jarvis by appearing at a committee meeting and voicing their support for the lanes. But during yesterday’s city council meeting on the subject, some councilors claimed that not enough of Toronto’s citizenry knew about the proposed lanes — one meeting, they said, could never inform everyone impacted by the alteration. 

And they were right. A single in-the-flesh meeting could never inform enough of the people involved.

But it doesn’t have to. Why? Because there’s this handy-dandy little thing called the internet. Which is where people meet, discuss, plan, and organize. For example, search “bike lanes” on Twitter. All the posts are still tagged with information about Toronto. This is how people acquire and disseminate information. Learning about a topic online might mobilize a population to appear in public (see also: cyclists, cosplayers, vidders), but the process rarely works in reverse (if an event is unlinkable, it ceases to exist). Fandoms have known this for years, but politicians are just now discovering it (to their chagrin).  But it poses an interesting question: what would politics look like if it worked like fandom? What if voters looked more like the collective intelligences that Jenkins talks about?

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I was raised Catholic. I should know the answer to this. But somehow it just never came up, in catechism. If you asked me what various theologians would have to say on the issue, I might be able to speculate (Augustine would likely say no, on the grounds that robots have no soul to save; Aquinas wouldn’t know his own mind until he wrote a 13-volume treatise on the subject; Benedict would probably consider their rote behaviour as Godlike in its simplicity, purity of purpose, and dedication to service; Ignatius would advise you to look into your heart and discern the answer). But as to whether the Holy See would ever, well, see artificial life as in need of salvation…well… let’s have a look.
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“We are evolving every year, every decade. That’s a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment….”

–Canadian Science Minister Gary Goodyear, responding to criticism about his refusal to answer whether he believed in evolution

It would be easy to criticise Minister Goodyear for not “believing” in evolution despite his position as an alleged scientist. Many people already are. But evolution is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of decision: one either decides that the theory is valid based on meticulously-gathered evidence, or one doesn’t. Belief and faith should, ideally, have no bearing on whether a theory is sound. A well-constructed argument needs no faith on the part of the reader — it is persuasive enough on its own without appeals to the intangible. (Years of watching Law and Order have taught us otherwise, I know. But it may shock others to learn that some people can recognize sophistry, and “I shouldn’t be asked about my religion” is it, not least because none of the major religions I’m familiar with emphasize privacy of practise. God does not like it when you pretend to be strangers in the hallway outside homeroom. This allegedly hurts God’s feelings.)

What one can criticise Minister Goodyear for is not knowing what evolution is.
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Sitting in council chambers, next to the person who invited me specially, taking photos and eating cookies and being offered coffee by friendly cameramen.

And clapping for science.

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Last night my old roommate IM’d me with: “Dude! We just elected a black president! You missed out!” I replied that I was still a citizen of the United States of America, and I had voted for him two weeks ago, and that the things he had promised her as a candidate were privileges that I already enjoyed, like socialized medicine. 

If I had been thinking clearly, I would have added more to the list: gay marriage, reproductive rights that aren’t squabbled over each election, banking policies that didn’t create record foreclosures this year, and and domestic energy production (which is destroying the environment but which America seems to want nonetheless). In terms of leadership, Canada’s already had a female prime minister, and our current governor-general is a black woman in an interracial marriage. (Apparently, the Queen saw this all coming.)

Obama won. The world feels different. But what has changed is not reality, but the perception of reality. Now we know what can be done. We have stretched the limits of possibility. However, troubling issues remain: the Patriot Act and FISA are still on the books; Guantanamo remains open; Proposition 8 and similar measures all across the US have revoked or banned the basic human rights of an entire swath of the population. 

There is work yet to be done. 

But among the good news (and there is plenty of it), what I might be looking forward to most is the way that American politics wash ashore in Canada. In four years, Obama will be running as an incumbent. And in four years, with any luck, Canada will have realized the desire (the heartfelt longing, the need) for a leader of similar calibre and similar hopes. 

Oui, nous le pouvons.

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