Yes, I know, what can I say? I read fast, especially when books are as good as the ones I have chosen for the Classics Club.

All I knew about Alberto Moravia’s famous novel Contempt before I started reading it was what I saw in the Amazon reviews I’d glanced through. Here is one example:

Told from the perspective of a neurotic egotist, the narrator accounts how he “sacrificed” his literary writing career to debase himself in the tawdry task of writing screenplays so that he can afford to lavish his wife with a bigger more opulent living quarters. The narrator convinces himself that not only does his wife not appreciate his “sacrifice,” but that she no longer loves him. It’s horrifying to read this narcissist’s account of his marital disintegration because you begin to realize that he is projecting his own lack of love toward his wife (a pefectly fine, loving woman) and you realize that he is so emotionally arrested that he is incapable of loving anyone.

Now that I have read the book, I have no idea how it is possible for this reviewer to have arrived at this interpretation of the novel. To me, Contempt is the perfect response to everybody who insists that the patriarchy invariably benefits all men and hurts all women. The novel demonstrates that the patriarchal model rewards people of both genders who conform to the traditional gender roles and punishes those who depart from them.

(There will be spoilers, so I’m putting the rest of the post under the fold.)

Continue reading “Classics Club #2: Alberto Moravia’s Contempt” →

Today I realized that I really miss my very first career which was that of a translator. Translation is great for the following reasons:

• you don’t need to interact with people;
• you can spend all day in complete silence;
• every word brings you money, so you can feel like you are creating money by the minute;
• it requires a high degree of concentration which makes it akin to a video game in its potential of restoring one’s psychological health;
• very little thinking is required;
• it’s very peaceful;
• I’m very good at it.

And now I need to go translate some more.

Reader David Bellamy sent me two disturbing stories about idiots overrunning the systen of public education in this country.

The first story tells about a initiative by the NYC Department of Education that proposes to ban a list of 50 “bad” words from standardized tests:

Fearing that certain words and topics can make students feel unpleasant, officials are requesting 50 or so words be removed from city-issued tests. The word “dinosaur” made the hit list because dinosaurs suggest evolution which creationists might not like, WCBS 880′s Marla Diamond reported. “Halloween” is targeted because it suggests paganism; a “birthday” might not be happy to all because it isn’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. . . The word “dancing” is also taboo. However, there is good news for kids that like “ballet”: The city made an exception for this form of dance. Also banned are references to “divorce” and “disease,” because kids taking the tests may have relatives who split from spouses or are ill.

For the full list of the banned words, consult the link. I warn you, you will be outraged.

The second story is just as sad and has to do with legislation that dictates how climate change should be taught in schools:

One such model bill has just passed the Tennessee state legislature, and this one mandates that schools teach climate science as a theory alongside other ‘credible’ theories – like those ones preferred by fossil fuels companies, for example, that hold that global warming is caused by solar cycles and other nonsense. Sound familiar? This is the same structural tactic employed by creationists to try to discourage the teaching of evolution in schools.

DeSmogBlog explains that the bill was opposed by almost every respectable scientific institution – and was passed by a margin of 70-23 anyway. Tennessee joins Texas, Louisiana, and South Dakota in passing such ‘model’ legislation. As a result, children in each of these states are apt to receive a confusing, less fact-based climate science education.

Having read these disconcerting articles, David made the following observation:

There is more and more reason to homeschool to prevent your childrens’ indoctrination, I fear. Next we shall have laws mandating the teaching in public schools that storks bring babies, since children must not have any prompting to think of sex.

I fully agree that the sad joke about the storks is likely to become a reality in the near future. I don’t, however, agree that this – or anything else – is a valid reason to homeschool.

As you all know, I went to school in the Soviet Union. No public school in the US can even begin to imitate the kind of indoctrination we had there. Daily discussions of capitalist evildoers, endless books about Grandpa Lenin whose photograph we all wore in a small badge next to our hearts (I kid you not), regular military marching and singing of patriotic songs, a very carefully sanitized list of readings from which every work of the world literature that was not considered proto-Communist had been excised, stories about admirable kids who ratted out their anti-Soviet parents to the KGB – this is just a small part of the constant brainwashing I was exposed to since early childhood.

Now, if you have been reading this blog for a while, please tell me, do I seem like a particularly pro-Soviet person as a result of all that indoctrination? Have you met anybody who is more critical of the USSR than I am? Not really, eh? Obviously, the brainwashing did not work. A school simply does not have this kind of power over a child.

And do you want to know how often this Soviet indoctrination comes up in psychoanalysis as something that impacted me for life? Never. Because it didn’t. As opposed to the fact that I was kept at home by a bunch of adoring relatives until the age of 7. That comes up a lot because this was a very negative factor in my development and socialization that I’m still, 28 years later, working to overcome.

All of the Education Boards, silly bureaucrats and incapable teachers combined and multiplied by fifteen cannot cause as much damage as an immature parent who resolves his or her issues by depriving a child of normal socialization. The entire process of growing up consists of a gradual separation of a child from her or his parents. The damage that is caused to a child by a parent who wouldn’t let the poor kid out of their sight is so absolutely tragic that a mere list of a few banned words looks like a silly little joke by its side.

I just found a very confusing article on the cost of real estate in Montreal:

The latest annual Demographia study on housing affordability reveals that it would now take 5.1 years of median Montreal household income ($54,700) to pay off a median house in Montreal, ($281,700), placing Montreal’s affordability at a dismal 255 out of 325 cities surveyed. It’s a big slide from the 182nd spot two years ago, and an even bigger drop from years prior.

The annual study now describes Montreal as “one of the worst performers” since the group started analyzing the ratio of income to housing prices in hundreds of world cities in 2004.

By way of contrast, in Detroit, a household could pay off the typical house with less than one-and-a-half year’s income.

At this particular moment in time, I happen to know for an absolute fact that for $281,700 you can buy an amazing, completely new place in a prestigious, 100% safe, beautiful area in Montreal close to all kinds of public transportation. The above-quoted article is suggesting that in Detroit (which, with all due respect, should not be compared to Montreal in terms of living conditions), you can buy something comparable for under $80K. I’ve been to Detroit, and somehow, this does not ring true to me at all.

Montreal is, without a doubt, the best city in North America to live in terms of the quality of life. I’ve lived in a variety of areas in the US and I can’t think of a single city (mind you, not a tiny village in a godforsaken region where you can’t live without a car and don’t even get to see any people outside for weeks) where the cost of real estate wasn’t many times higher than in Montreal.

The cost of housing has, indeed, been climbing in Montreal. Quebec is in great shape economically, culturally, and in every other possible way. It is not surprising that a growing number of people wants to live in this great country. As a result, the value of real estate rises.

P.S. A growing number of people wants or want to live? I always get confused, and Google isn’t being helpful. Are there any grammarians of English around?

 

Need I say more?

A pseudo-feminist du jour has come up with the following pearl of wisdom:

By refusing to acknowledge men as feminists that is not to say that I want to exclude them from the feminist movement, on the contrary we need as many men in the feminist movement as possible, but their role is different.

This funny simpleton with poor writing skills doesn’t realize that she has just justified every gender-based injustice under the Sun. Talk to any anti-women chauvinist, and you will hear the same argument verbatim. “I have nothing against women,” such woman-haters always say. “In fact, I love women. All I’m saying is that women are different, so their role in society has to be different.”

Of course, the moment you have justified a single instance of the gender-based separation of spheres, you have justified all of them.

The hilariousness of the quoted post does not stop here. If you follow the link, you will see that the post’s author argues that this “different role” men should play in the feminist movement is none other than protecting and defending women from nasty Internet trolls.

This makes sense, too. If the only admission ticket to the feminist movement is a vagina, then the old and tired stereotypes of womanhood have to follow. Women become pathetic little damsels in distress who need their separate sphere to be protected from encroachment by strong and powerful men. This is where every attempt to ascribe meaning to physiology always leads: right back to eternal stereotypes about gender.

I simply had to steal the following passage from Spanish Prof because she explains it much more succinctly than I ever could:

Latin American Feminist: somebody who doesn’t necessarily believe that Josefina Vazquez Mota is the best candidate in the upcoming Mexican elections. Somebody who doesn’t believe that if Josefina Vazquez Mota doesn’t win, it is due to Mexican “machismo”. A Latin American feminist would never link to this stupid article, where not only are basic facts wrong (Andres Lopez Obrador was the 2006 presidential candidate by the PRD, not the PRI), but it doesn’t even bother to explain what are the political leanings of the three major political parties in Mexico (PAN, PRI, PRD). Because, as we all know, political ideas are not important. Electing a women president, on the other side, would be a great victory. Even if she comes from the conservative and right-wing PAN.

I can only add that if Vazquez Mota

has said that her gender will help bring the war on drugs to a peaceful end, and that male politicians are responsible for its escalation and the growing power of drug cartels,

then she is a blabbering fool who is not fit to run a lemonade stand, let alone a country.

Feminism is not about electing people with vaginas irrespective of their political beliefs. You need to invest a little bit more effort than figuring out the candidate’s gender and, at least, look at their election platform.

A certain university I know (khm, khm) is considering hiring for the top administrative position a person who is known for destroying entire departments because they are not profitable enough. I am sick and tired of hearing people drawl, “But at least she is a woman,” whenever this candidate is discussed. I don’t care if she is a woman, a man, or an iguana. If she is in the habit of destroying programs in the Humanities, I don’t want her anywhere near my campus.

Of course, as it usually happens, on the day when I’ve been fuming since early morning because of the hypocrisy, general stupidity and vapid uselessness of overpaid and corrupt college administrators, the universe is sending me one piece of proof after another of how horrible they are .

An idiot du jour who is also a college administrator published an article titled “Do College Professors Work Hard Enough?” in a conservative rag that loves to bash education and promote stupidity. I’m not going to address the completely bizarre text of the illiterate piece of garbage that this nasty administrator calls an article. I just want to mention the staggering hypocrisy of this arrant fool who at no point questions how much useful work overpaid and spoiled administrators like himself actually perform.

Once again, I have to point out that we, the academics, are to blame. We put up with atrocious treatment at the hands of these useless clowns. After the vile article like this one, the quack who dared to write it should become a pariah in the academic community. No self-respecting person should remain in the room when he enters it. Nobody should greet him or acknowledge him in any way. By participating in this willful and obviously completely corrupt effort to destroy the American system of higher education, this David C. Levy individual has lost his right to be respected by normal, honest, hard-working people.

Whenever a single officious, plodding and completely brainless administrator who is enamored of pseudo-psychological buzzwords culled directly from the Dr. Phil Show appears on campus, the following stupid policies begin to proliferate:

ACADEMICS at RMIT University have rebelled against new behavioural requirements on staff to be “positive” and “optimistic” and team-focused, claiming it undermines free academic inquiry.

The new “behavioural capability framework” is included in new staff work plans and performance appraisals. It includes such exhortations that a staffer “promotes the positive rather than the negative and remains committed and effective in the face of setbacks and adversity”. It asks staff to be “resolute” and “passionate”.

We all have seen eager administrators try to enforce citizenship, community spirit, kindness, enthusiasm, good mood, etc. It does not even occur to these simple creatures that you cannot make people feel positive or experience passion by force. Academics usually treat such earnest fools with the compassion normally reserved for the brain-dead.

In the meanwhile, the promoters of positive thinking and the collectors of silly buzzwords take all the power on campus in their own hands. While we try to hide our sarcastic smiles during meetings for fear of offending their non-existent sensibilities, these idiots pass regulations that are nothing short of humiliating. Soon, we will not be allowed to show up on campus without a huge, idiotic grin on our faces.

I suggest we stop being nice towards them and subject them to loud and vicious ridicule whenever these plodders come out with their ridiculous initiatives. Let’s greet every suggestion of “enforcing citizenship, promoting sustainability and requiring positivity” with loud laughter. Let’s make these unintelligent, uneducated creatures remember that their job is to see that the toilets are well stocked with toilet paper and to ensure that they keep very quiet on matters that they are not capable of understanding due to their limited brain power.

P.S. Yes, I have special reason to be extremely annoyed with such stupid administrators today.