|
|
|
July 5th, 2009
09:14 pm - Reflections after my first week
Whew! So I'm at a break now after the first week of classes. My program is every weekday, four hours with 7-8th graders in Santa Clara in the morning (8AM-12PM) and then three hours of instructional classes at Stanford (2-5PM). The schedule is rather grueling -- especially doing homework after the end of classes -- but it's fascinating at the same time and I am learning a lot.
For the 4th of July, I invited my classmates over for a BBQ at my house -- cf. Liz's Flickr pics. We grilled veggies and chicken, had lots of watermelon, wine, and chips; toasted marshmallows; and then went to see the fireworks from a parking lot.
I like the STEP program a lot. I like the kids, and the coursework is good. I have to work some on my positive feedback. In my adult life, I've tended to be a little argumentative -- showing a subtler point, or pushing for my own view of the nuances of the situation. However, I think that kids benefit enormously from positive feedback, especially those who are struggling. I think there is good effort from most of them, and I need to work at sincerely expressing recognition of that -- without immediately launching into a daunting series of corrections and advice. My advice should be for the next thing for them to work on, I think, rather than for every flaw that I see.
|
June 25th, 2009
05:29 pm - Joining STEP
So I'm in the middle of my first week in STEP -- the teacher education program at Stanford. This week was orientation -- a lot of ice-breaking with the 87 other members of the program (22 elementary and 64 secondary); some familiarization, because next week we immediately start on classroom experience, helping teach summer school for 5th to 8th graders.
The STEPpies are a lot of fun. It's strange being on campus after all this time, but everyone's very friendly.
At a guess, maybe 2/3s of us are from California, with the rest being a wide mix of other states. About a third of us are fresh out of undergrad, about half had a few years of experience and/or grad school, and a sixth like me are older with different work experience. Master's are pretty common, but there's only a few of us with doctorates. (Professor Lythcott called on me as "Dr. Kim" at one point in the class, which was a little embarrassing. I'm proud of my doctorate work, but I never have people call me doctor.) Our class is mostly women (91% of the elementary and 70% of the secondary). A few are married, but less than a handful have kids. In the secondary science cohort, we've got 3 in physics, 2 in chemistry, and around ten or so biology. (A little unusually low for chemistry.)
Starting on Monday, I'll be helping teach a science class for 7th-8th graders with three other STEPpies, doing a five week sequence on the "Clean Air Challenge" -- covering how air pollution works. The students will mostly be remedial, though a few have chosen this as an option. It's an exciting but a little scary as a prospect. I gather that for the summer, we're mainly there to acclimate us to kids, learn how to do classroom observation, and analyze methods for ourselves. We'll be shooting video, analyzing the footage, and editing out clips.
|
June 20th, 2009
04:10 pm - Heroes vs. Whistle-Blowers
So I've been watching more of the television series Heroes through the end of the third season. I find it like a fascinating train wreck, really, in how the characters just keep getting stupider and stupider. At some point in Season Three, I couldn't take it any more and just read summaries before skipping to the end.
( Lots of spoilers )
|
June 19th, 2009
08:15 am - Thoughts on North Korea
Some random thoughts, prompted by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zigguratbuilder's post.
As a bit of background, my father was originally from North Korea, but his family moved south before the division. In 2005 I went with him to China where we went along the North Korea border and up Mount Baekdu -- see my brief August 2005 entries.
There are some North Korean sympathizers within China - our tour guides in Jilin province were among them. However, they are far from the mainstream. While travelling near the border, we visited an isolated cultural outpost run by North Koreans. They came across to me as creepy proselytizers a bit reminiscent of Mormon missionaries with their ultra-clean suits. They had a gift shop of art produced in North Korea and a set of propaganda books in Korean, though they were not interested in selling the latter to us.
I just read The Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi, written about the year of liberation when she was ten years old in North Korea. It is a young adult book in the Newberry tradition of presenting horrific experiences. The Japanese occupation was described as particularly horrendous, and the early Russian occupation just as totalitarian but with less hostility. On the other hand, the South Korean government was also totalitarian for decades -- and executed thousands of suspected communists before, during, and after the Korean war. It remains illegal in South Korea to express communist sympathies, subject to punishment ranging from imprisonment to death.
(As a side note, my father's experience was not like that. My grandfather had spent a year studying in Japan, and apparently got along passably with the Japanese authorities. The family moved south by cart before the border was formalized cut off. Still, it was difficult. I remember vividly when my cousin Scott brought his Japanese girlfriend to Christmas one year when we were in college. My grandmother began a raging tirade in Korean that made everyone uncomfortable, and Scott looked distinctly embarrassed when she asked him what it was about. I couldn't follow it, but it had a lot about the godless Japanese.)
North Korea is most certainly ruled by a dangerous totalitarian regime. They have been pursuing a nuclear weapons program and space program in defiance of the U.S. and U.N. However, I find some of the rhetoric regarding them odd. People refer to North Korea as being child-like and/or insane, using words like "tantrums" to describe their actions. They are morally reprehensible on many fronts, but their actions have a logic to them.
The Korean War was a terrible tragedy started by the North, but from what I read, they genuinely were motivated by a nationalist desire for a unified Korea free from foreign occupation. They were willing to pursue an incredibly bloody war that killed over 2 million Koreans. Korea in 1950 had a combined population of about 30 million, roughly equal to the United States in 1860. The Korean War killed nearly three times as many as the U.S. Civil War, but whereas in America most of those deaths were soldiers dying of infection, in the Korean War most of the deaths were from wholesale slaughter of civilians on both sides. This extremism -- the willingness to pursue goals in the face of enormous cost -- remains a major issue. There was an interesting editorial by Yang Sung-chul for The Guardian on it.
The present situation is that the nuclear-armed powers and the rest of the international community want North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons as well as its space program. However, I note that Japan has had a space program for decades, launching its first satellite Ohsumi in 1970 -- and South Korea has also been developing a domestic space program since 1989 supported by the U.S.
North Korea has often been defiant of this, at great cost to its economy and civilian population. However, rather than thinking them childishly foolish for defying the rest of the world, I may also picture them as strong-willed. It seems quite possible to me that the U.S. and its allies would not want to pay the price that North Korea would extract in war to maintain its sovereignty. I expect that they feel that ultimately, countries with nuclear weapons (such as Pakistan and India) are treated with respect -- while countries without them (like Iraq) are subject to regime change.
Edit: As I note in this comment, Audrey McAvoy states in a Japan Times article that Japan is North Korea's biggest trading partner, noting: "North Korea shipped $ 225.62 million worth of goods to Japan in 2001, according to figures compiled by the Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency in South Korea. Its next biggest markets were South Korea, which imported $176.17 million, and China, $166.73 million." There may be other metrics of trade which rate these three differently, but it is useful to note.
|
June 18th, 2009
12:35 pm - Subtexts in Evolutionary Psychology
A key issue in the debate over evolutionary psychology is the subtext of the debate. I am reading Stephen Gould's The Mismeasure of Man currently, and one of his points is that the science is inextricably tied into social policy. Rather than trying to pretend objectivity, it is better to make the subtext and social consequences clear.
Evolutionary Psychology Subtext
The subtext of much evolutionary psychology is that humans are inherently sexist, racist, and violent, and that our culture tries to reduce these tendencies but it cannot wipe them out entirely. Champions of this subtext tend to argue that humans are closer to common chimpanzees than bonobos. This is often accompanied by a warning that we should not go too far in trying to eradicate human nature, because there will be bad side-effects.
By identifying the source of problems as natural genetic tendencies, this subtext tends to be more conservative. It spins traditional culture in a positive light, by claiming how it is moderating unwanted tendencies.
An example of this would be Naomi Wolf's column "How the male brain can't see the laundry pile up," endorsed by wanton_heat_jet. Wolf claims, "The feminist critique, for example, has totally remade elementary-level education, where female decision-makers prevail: the construction of male hierarchies in the schoolyard is often redirected for fear of "bullying", with boys and girls alike expected to "share" and "process" their emotions. But many educators have begun to argue that such intervention in what may be a hard-wired aspect of "boy-ness" can lead to boys' academic underperformance relative to girls and to more frequent diagnoses of behavioural problems."
I was immediately set off by the use of scare quotes. Wolf cites no sources for her characterization of feminists, but links to two sources for her own view: anthropologist Helen Fisher, and neurobiology consultant Michael Gurian. In short, her message is that the modern breakdown of the traditional gender roles is going against nature, and that this has problematic consequences.
Contrasting Subtext
An opposing subtext sometimes found is that humanity is by nature relatively cooperative and egalitarian. The spin is that agriculture and global population pressures of the past 5000 years have tended to create more hierarchical societies than prior hunter-gatherer societies. Populations were selected for success in war, with more rigidly defined class, race, and gender roles. Such a spin is more critical of modern culture, pointing out its mix of advantages and disadvantages.
The difference between these views is often in spin rather than fact. For example, the comparison of humans versus both common chimpanzees and bonobos is relatively well known -- but the same list of similarities and differences can be re-phrased by either side to create a different emphasis. Neither way is wrong per se, nor would a neutral way be any more correct.
My View
Obviously, both of these views as expressed are simplistic. The history of culture will have influences in varying directions, and may not follow a simple progression. Rather than a single continuous trend, even in the broad view there may be shifts back and forth. I do suspect that violence levels during the past 5000 years among agricultural societies, have tended to be greater than among hunter-gatherers previously. However, I do not have proof of this.
My introduction to this was Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which presents a theoretical framework as well as a number of historical examples. He suggests that increased population density and other changes in agricultural life changed relations. However, hunter-gatherers still have some violence -- and most importantly, have levels of violence that vary just as agricultural societies vary in their violence. There are references to the scientific debate in a 2006 paper from University of New Mexico on the high violent death rates among the Hiwi of Venezuala, which contrast with low rates in previously measured hunter-gatherer societies (the Ache, Agta, Hadza, and Ju/'hoansi).
Regardless of the past trends of culture, though, possible future trends are not determined by them. While some environmental influences may be cyclical, there are clearly many that are not. Life in the 21st century -- both in our general environment and culture -- is not a simple function. For many centuries, our environment and culture have been vastly different from our ancestors 10,000 years ago -- even though as a species we are little changed genetically. There is no inherent reason to think that making our culture either closer to or further from our ancient past will be better. There are behaviors that we have in common with other animals. We have patterns of eating, mating, and socializing. Our culture sometimes clashes with behavior seen in other animals -- such as arranged marriage. Other times, culture reinforces patterns seen in many animals -- such as the common condemnation of incest.
Eating is a good example. Eating is critical to survival, and is a behavior we share with other animals. It is almost certainly genetically coded for, in both our instincts and our anatomy. Yet despite this, our modern eating habits vary widely by culture and are quite different from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There have been some calls to stick to a paleolithic diet, but those are usually dismissed as fads even by sociobiologists. However, many do think that the paleolithic gender roles are important.
Another example would be incest. Evolutionary psychologists, following the first subtext, tend to say that murder and war are the outcomes of human instincts that favor violence, particular by men. Yet conversely, they suggest that humans have instincts against incest. Incest among humans is almost always condemned by culture, with a few exceptions. However, incest also happens -- often a father or uncle abusing a daughter. The rate is difficult to pin down, but in the modern United States it seems to be more common than murder (cf. the National Center for Victims of Crime Incest page). The facts can be spun in different ways, but the spin tends to say more about motivations than about the facts.
Steven Pinker and the History of Violence
Another example of imposed narrative is in a TED talk endorsed by Tweet, "Steven Pinker on the myth of violence." He attempts to spin the history of culture as reducing violence. Shortly into the talk, he presents a graph, saying: "But the archeologist Lawrence Keeley, looking at casualty rates among contemporary hunter-gatherers -- which is our best source of evidence about this way of life -- has shown a rather different conclusion. Here is a graph that he put together showing the percentage of male deaths due to warfare in a number of foraging or hunting and gathering societies. The red bars correspond to the likelihood that a man will die at the hands of another man, as opposed to passing away of natural causes, in a variety of foraging societies in the New Guinea highlands and the Amazon rainforest. ... If the death rate in tribal warfare had prevailed during the 20th century, there would have been 2 billion deaths rather than 100 million."
I have not read Keeley's book, but I think can see the names on this graph. It looks like: Jivaro, Yanomamo (?), Mae Enga, Dugum Dani, Huli, Yanomamo (Nanowei), and Gebusi.
The first problem is that he begins with an obvious lie. Most of those societies are not hunter-gatherers, as a few searches will show. For example, the Mae Enga raise pigs and sweet potatoes along with taro, bananas, sugarcane, and others. He further implicitly claims that the seven societies listed are representative of "tribal warfare" in general. Starting off like this makes me highly doubtful of the rest of his statistics, and in particular suspicious of his choice of those seven societies. I noted before about the 2006 UNM paper on the high violent death rates among the Hiwi of Venezuala, which notes a wide range between violent death rates in different hunter-gatherers.
Steven Taylor reviewed the book by Keeley that Pinker cites, saying "And, while the ethnography he draws on is varied, you don’t have to be that attentive to notice the frequency with which a certain notoriously violent tribal society in New Guinea are referred to."
Methodology
I don't think that it is necessary or important to pretend to be purely objective. However, one should be truthful and clear about one's sources.
In particular, genetic influence is difficult to pin down. Supporters of evolutionary psychology often suggest that if a behavior is common in many cultures, and provides an advantage, that therefore it must be programmed into our genes. However, that is clearly a weak argument. Behaviors that are advantageous will be selected for among cultures as well -- sometimes referred to as the "meme pool." I had earlier used the example of making stone cutting tools. This behavior is older than hunting, continued for over a million years, and occurred across the world in a variety of cultures. Yet given the evidence of modern humans, it seems that the behavior is not genetically programmed. i.e. We do not find it natural or simple to make a stone axe.
One counter-argument is that genetics do not determine our behavior, but only produce predispositions that may be expressed to varying degrees based on the environment. wanton_heat_jet says a version of this in his post "genetic soft-coding." However, saying that genes code potential for behavior that is expressed based on environment is functionally the same as behaviors that are caused by the environment. Stephen Gould expressed his feeling on this in the conclusion of The Mismeasure of Man, saying: I believe that human sociobiologists have made a fundamental mistake in categories. They are seeking the genetic basis of human behavior at the wrong level. They are searching among the specific products of generated rules -- Joe's homosexuality, Martha's fear of strangers -- while the rules themselves are the genetic deep structures of human behavior. For example, E.O. Wilson (1978) writes: "Are human being innately aggressive? This is a favorite question of college seminars and cocktail party conversations, and one that raises emotions in political ideologues of all stripes. The answer to it is yes." As evidence, Wilson cites the prevalence of warfare in history and then discounts any current disinclination to fight: "The most peaceable tribes of today were often the ravagers of yesteryear and will probably again produce soldiers and murderers in the future." But if some people are peaceable now, then aggression itself cannot be coded in our genes, only the potential for it. If innate only means possible, or even likely in certain environments, then everything we do is innate and the word has no meaning.
|
June 15th, 2009
12:01 am - Review of The Thirteenth Child
(no significant spoilers)
The Thirteenth Child, by Patricia Wrede, is a flawed story. I read it because I was troubled by others judging it solely by a summary of its premise, and I read another of Wrede's books (Dealing With Dragons) before commenting. Several reviews summed it up as "Harry Potter meets Little House" -- or this review on books4yourkids.com that describes it as "Diana Wynne Jones meets Laura Ingalls Wilder." Comparisons to Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker books are also inevitable. It is a coming of age, with young Eff Rothmer growing from age five to sixteen. She goes with her family to the frontier and learns about magic there, and ends up having an adventure.
I'd agree that it is trying to emulate some of the feel of Laura Ingalls Wilder. However, I feel it tells a bad lesson to young adults in doing so, and I would not recommend this book for young readers.
I do not inherently oppose the idea of an alternate history where the Americas were not colonized until the 16th century -- any more than I oppose the idea of an alternate history where Hitler won, or a future where humanity is devastated by world war. However, Wrede isn't trying to explore what America would really be like without American Indians. She is trying to emulate the feel of Laura Ingalls Wilder, while avoiding the ethical problems of colonialism. In her history, the United States is still independent -- with initial presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson leading the country; and a Lewis and Clark expedition under Jefferson, though it never returned. These are the only historical figures she cites are these. There was also a Secession War, in 1838 that ended slavery.
She avoids obvious gaffs such as the myriad of American Indian place names -- so the Mississippi is instead called the Mammoth River, for example. There is no mention of foods like potatoes, corn, chocolate, or peanuts -- or mention of tobacco or smoking. She makes no mention of pilgrims, or any mention of South America, Mexico, or Canada. However, this just makes it more problematic. Without Aztecs and their gold, Mexico and the Carribean would be vastly different. Without the fur trade, Canada would be vastly different. Without the Nauset, the original Plymouth Colony would most likely have failed. However, her view as expressed in these book is that all of these were inconsequential. There is no sense that white America is missing anything from the lack of indians.
Now, Wrede does make an effort to be multi-cultural. However, that effort is also problematic. Young Eff has a black schoolteacher, Miss Ochiba, who teaches her about the difference between Avrupan, Aphrikan, and Hijero-Cathayan magic (i.e. European, African, and East Asian). However, the characters, including Miss Ochiba, speak of these in different terms. They speak of the great Ben Franklin and his achievements, along with the wise ancients Plato, Socrates, and Pythagoras. They also list presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson as well as explorers Lewis and Clark. However, there is no mention of any famous Aphrikans, Aphrikan-Americans, or Hijero-Cathayans. The single mention of a non-white figure in history is a passing comment that great Thomas Jefferson mentioned a (fictional) Hamid al-Rashid, but no one was sure who he was talking about because other magicians hadn't read four thousand or so books the way he had. Instead of characters, Hijero-Cathayan and Aphrikan magic are described as fundamentally different approaches to dealing with the world -- along with their strengths and weaknesses.
To start with, having a black grade-school teacher who teaches Eff the secrets of Aphrikan magic runs straight into the magic negro archetype, paired with Wash Morris -- the helpful explorer who tells her about the wildlife and gives her a magical talisman. The descriptions of the different magics echo too closely old ideas of racial essentialism. The Oriental Hijero-Cathayans lack individualism but can be powerful in large groups, while Aphrikans are close to nature and work with it instead of against it. [*]
While I am condemning this, I do want to make clear something. It would have been easily possible for Wrede to write a fantasy story set on a version of the American frontier with no non-white characters at all, and simply avoid significant mention of Indians. Doing so would probably have brought less comment than her book did, but would have been at least as problematic. I do want to give some credit to her effort to be multi-cultural. However, much of this is very simple.
Eliminating all American Indians is a huge change, and if you are going to do that, the changes should be noticeable and explored -- not hidden from view. If you are just trying to imitate the frontier settlement genre, then don't choose so divergent a history. If you are going to have a black schoolteacher teaching African magic, you should mention some non-white historical figures instead of only waxing on about the great Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.
[*] The following is the description of the contrasting types of magic from the book, from page 200 of the hardback edition. It comes across to me very much as an essentialist description of cultures, but you can judge for yourself.
"Aphrikan maigc isn't much like Avrupan magic, or even Hijero-Cathayan magic. Avrupan magic is individual. Even when teams of magicians work together on something, they do it by each casting one particular spell that fits together with all the other spells, like the teeth on a set of gears fit each other. If one magician gets it wrong and his piece fizzles or it blows up, the big spell doesn't work, but it doesn't hurt any of the other magicians or affect their magic. Still, you have to be very precise to work as part of a team of Avrupan magicians, because nobody wants to waste all that effort just because someone else got it wrong.
Hijero-Cathayan magic is group magic. They hardly have any small, everyday magics that one magician can do alone, like fire-lighting spells. They're good at big things, like moving rivers and clearing out dragon rookeries -- at least, they say it was the ancient Hijero-Cathayan magicians who cleaned out the last few nests of dragons in Ashia and Avrupa and made all the land safe for people to live in.
Hijero-Cathayan magicians almost always work in groups, with all the magicians linked together by a spell so they can pool their power. The trouble is that if even one of the magicians makes a mistake, the whole spell can come apart, and when it does, it can hurt or kill every magician who is part of it. The leader of the group, who channels all that power, usually burns out after a couple of years, if his groupworks steady. I could never make out why anybody would take up magic at all, if they knew that was in store for them, but I guess the Hijero-Cathayans don't see it that way.
But different as they are, both Avrupan and Hijero-Cathayan magic have one thing in common: The main idea is to raise up and control enough magic to do things. That's why learning either of them starts the same way, with doing small spells, and then bigger spells, using more and stronger magic to do larger and larger things each time.
Aphrikan magic starts with looking, not doing. Instead of calling up magic and controlling it, Aphrikan conjurefolk find the places where magic is already moving and then guide it somewhere else. It means the Aphrikan magicians can work together a lot more safely and easily than Avrupan or Hijero-Cathayan magicians, because they don't have to match up their spells precisely, or worry about burning each other out. It also means that Aphrikan spells hardly ever work the same way twice. Sometimes what the magicians wants to make happen is too different from the way the natural magic is moving, and he can't get it to do what he wanted at all. Because of that, most Avrupan magicians think Aphrikan magic is unpredictable and unreliable."
|
June 8th, 2009
08:55 pm - More on Evolutionary Psychology
So I've been commenting recently on wanton_heat_jet's journal about evolutionary psychology after he left a series of comments on my RPG journal post "On Gender Disparity in RPGs" from last year. At around that time, I also had a post on my personal blog, "Evolutionary Psychology," more about the scientific side of this.
He started in with "ev psych and RPGs." and followed with a series of ten posts thus far on evolutionary psychology (see his June 2009 archive). This was also picked up by robin_d_laws in his post, "We Evolved On the Grasslands To Have This Debate."
A number of others have been dismissive of this. However, I ran into similar evolutionary arguments from multiple people at a panel at WisCon, so I am convinced that belief is widespread enough that it bears addressing.
The Short Form
From my observation, the field of evolutionary psychology is overwhelmingly filled with unscientific crap. It may be that there is some valid work within the cesspool, but I haven't seen it, and it would have to overcome a major hurdle to distance itself from the rest of it.
robin_d_laws admitted widespread problems in evolutionary psychology, but did recommend a few including Robert Wright, Jeffrey Schloss and Frans de Waal. I'm remain doubtful based on what I read, such as his recommended vlog entry, "Humanity's Primate Heritage." From what I've seen, their discussion is airy speculation -- it's trying to argue in favor of evolution over creationism, but there isn't any real content regarding psychology.
( The Long Form )
|
June 2nd, 2009
04:09 pm - Field Trip!
Whew!!
So last week I chaperoned a 4th grade field trip with around 90 students, 25 or so parents, and 5 teachers. The kids had been doing a history segment on the California Gold Rush (1848-1855), and so our trip was to "Gold Country." It had a lot of driving, and we organized into 18 cars/minivans with about five kids each, where each car was paired with another to guard against getting lost.
I made a map of the sites on Google Maps.
Wednesday we gathered at 7AM, went to the railroad museum and Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, and then onwards to Jenness Park Christian Camp where our cabins were. Thursday we went to Columbia State Historic Park, to look at the town and to wander the camp of gold rush reenactors for the week. That evening the kids listened to a professional storyteller, who told stories about Charlie Parkhurst, the jumping frog of Calaveras County, and others. Friday we went panning for gold, then into Moaning Cavern, and then got back to Redwood City a little after 7PM.
The kids had a lot of fun, as did I. On the bad side, I already had a sinus infection going in that was miserable with the altitude changes. Also, sleeping was rough, particularly on the first night. In a cabin with nine boys, a few of them insisted on staying up and making noise well past their silent time at 9:30PM, and then on the first morning I woke up to their noise at 5:40AM. Milo was pretty annoyed at two of his cabin mates in particular.
However, he got along fairly well with the other kids in the car (Jose, Sophie, Lauren, and Kiran). Sophie's mom was driving, and we got along well. That lasted until some time during the long drive back at the end, when a rift grew between the three girls sitting in back and the two boys in front and they started trading insults. I think that mostly reflected being tired and uncomfortable, though.
|
May 29th, 2009
11:38 pm - WisCon 33 Report: Male Answer Syndrome
So I arrived back from WisCon late Monday night, and had only a day of recovery before leaving early Wednesday morning to help chaperone a long 4th grade field trip that took me offline until getting back Friday night. Whew!!
Here's my report on the one panel I moderated...
Added: firecat also has notes on this panel.
Dealing With Your Male Answer Syndrome
The panelists were Suzanne, Stef, Moondancer, and John. The panel description focused on being someone with the syndrome, and that was how it worked out. All of the panelists and nearly all of the audience commenters identified with having an answer syndrome. However, I did feel that we missed a bit when an audience member asked about how to deal with answer-syndrome people.
I lead into this by a bit of a monologue where I did my best imitation of a bad moderator, where I used the excuse of introduction to talk at length on the subject. I slowly got more and more into the issues, and then stopped and looked from side to side at the panelists and said "Oh! Maybe I should introduce the panelists." There was a pause before an audience member called out, "Wait, was that on purpose..." and I answered yes.
I then had brief panelist introductions, and I then took one round of questions from the audience to guide the first half of the discussion among the panelists. Questions included: (1) Is the male specifier a shortcut for a more complex split? (2) Does calling it a syndrome imply a range of related but distinct behaviors? (3) Does it have a function as a social lubricant, keeping discussion going? (4) Is the behavior different and function differently in the workplace and in social life? (5) Is the syndrome distinct in the American Midwest and other regional cultures? (6) Is it a conscious effort? (7) How does it reflect the power dynamic?
In addressing these, each of the panelists discussed their own personal background in having a form of answer syndrome. We then went on to discuss the questions. There were some general agreements. Most agreed that the syndrome was not exclusive to men at all, but that it did link into important gender dynamics. Stef had some interesting comments separating out "Geek Answer Syndrome" and "Mother Answer Syndrome."
There were many who distinguish the tendency to pontificate, as opposed to inventing answers that one really doesn't know. However, I noted that giving genuine answers could still be problematic. I noted the well-known example of Rachel Solnit's essay, "Men Explain Things to Me," where she described a man lecturing to her for a while about an important new book in the field -- one that she had written. This man was talking about real knowledge he had about a real book, but he was so focused on answering that he couldn't learn even a basic bit of information from dialogue.
Moondancer noted that some regions explicitly taught cultural rules that men were supposed to have answers. However, we did not have any simple answers about regional or national variations. It was felt to exist in other cultures, but no one felt ready to tackle a cross-cultural comparison. Joell from the audience noted how men are often taught to be the provider, and to be a mentor as training for boys to become men.
Most felt that the answer syndrome behaviors did not function as a social lubricant. The person is distancing themselves from the social situation by moving into answer mode rather than dialogue, and avoids emotional connection. Instead, though, there are hierarchies of dominance that answering establishes.
We did not have many good ways to deal with answer syndrome behaviors except for pointing them out when they occur. There was a point in the panel when one of the panelists did speak over the other one, that was pointed out from the audience and discussed.
I think it went fairly well. However, I think another approach to take would be to have more dialogue between those who identify with the syndrome, and those who do not. This panel was more about people who identified with the syndrome analyzing what it meant for themselves and others.
|
May 24th, 2009
01:20 am - Two Days of WisCon
Arrived on Thursday but basically just ate and collapsed.
Friday was the Gathering with Milo, then one panel -- "Warrior Women in Current Fiction -- Do They Exist, Really?" This was fair but not great. The moderator, James, had a lot of comments; but I preferred the input from panelists Jacqueline and Kerry. What stood out for me some was some of the back and forth over Red Sonja. Jacqueline appreciated very much while growing up, but James was dismissive of as a "man with breasts" by R.E. Howard's writing -- which was rightly challenged in the audience.
Saturday was my day as a panelist on the subject of science to a large degree. In the morning I was a panelist on "The Mismeasure of Man, and the Rest of Us, Too: Science, Colonialism, Genocide, and Science Fiction" -- along with moderator Rachel and fellow panelists Evelyn, Micole, and K. Joyce. There was a lot of good material in this. I got to go on some about revisionism in the popular history of science. There was pretty wide agreement that there was an objective reality touched on by experiment, but that the specific social structures of science did have a role in colonialism and oppression. The interesting question that I took from it was about what science with a different social role would look like. Several people recommended some fiction that I'd like to read.
There was also an unresolved disagreement over economics. My position was that economics doesn't fit the same scientific model, because by publishing a paper on economics, you are changing how the economic system works. If you come up with a new model, companies will take that new model into account in making their financial decisions.
After lunch I was a panelist on "Science/Religion/Art" -- which had a lot of interesting discussion, with moderator Georgie and fellow panelists Ted, Brad, and Marna. There were a lot of people knowledgeable about history and science and comparative religion, and we had interesting debates about topics I enjoyed such as Isaac Newton. It came across to me as a very educated and interested crowd, which made for a rich discussion. No one felt that the three were inherently opposed, but there was some disagreement over whether they should be defined as exclusive or whether they overlap. In particular, are creationists categorically mistaken as taking a religious belief as scientific fact, or is it that they have a religious belief that is wrong. An interesting question that we struggled with was how to talk to people like this.
Later I attended the panel on "Are We Done Believing in God Yet?" -- with substitute moderator Keith along with panelists Doselle, Jack, Kerrie, and Steven. The moderator and panelists here were all atheists, except for one Jewish agnostic. I am glad that I attended because I did get to see the other side, and people who were unabashed in expressing their distaste for theism as irrationality. Their comments had much of what I would expect, such as identifying all of religion as bending to authority and/or tradition, and resentment over discrimination and assumption of Christianity. There were also a few I didn't quite expect but could have, such as anger at God appearing because that would make things more boring. In discussion afterwards, the latter seems to be based on biblical literalism -- that there can't be anything interesting that we haven't seen, because if so it would've been in the Bible. The panel introduced their views, then exchanged ideas on how they would get rid of religion in principle, and then opened up to questions.
I don't think anyone's views were particularly changed. However, it was at least interesting to see all this in person, with a more friendly crowd than I might see elsewhere.
That evening I went to the academic panels: "Feminist, Fantasy, or Fetish: The Evolution of Wonder Woman" by Nicole Provencher, and "Little Girls on the Hero's Journey." The former's points were fairly obvious to anyone who had read some of Wonder Woman, which has very blatant fetish roots. The latter was an intriguing analysis of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Lucy in Lewis' The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, and Chihiro in Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The problematic part was the lack of male figures using this feminine archetype, which we discussed.
|
May 18th, 2009
11:02 pm - Thoughts on the Star Trek film
So, my thoughts on the new Star Trek movie, which I saw last Friday with Liz... In general, it was good pulpy fun, with lots of action and explosions.
( Lots of Spoilers! )
|
May 12th, 2009
07:46 am - Spoilers!
OK, here's a originally-blank post for me and others to talk about the books (Blindsight, Skin Folk, and/or Shatterpoint) including spoilers.
( Added in about the Chinese Room and Blindsight )
|
May 11th, 2009
11:38 pm - My WisCon 33 Panels
This year, I'm a panelist in topics related to science -- as opposed to previous years where I'd mostly engaged from my experience as a gamer. It'll be an interesting change, and it seems a topical idea as I'm going back to teaching science. My three panels are:
The Mismeasure of Man, and the Rest of Us, Too: Science, Colonialism, Genocide, and Science Fiction (Sat 10:00 - 11:15AM in Senate B)
Moderator: Rachel Virginia Swirsky. Panelists Evelyn Browne, John H. Kim, Micole Iris Sudberg, K. Joyce Tsai.
A number of recent works have examined the relationships between science, colonialism, historiography, and science fiction, from Rosemary Kirstein's stealth sf Steerswoman series to M.T. Anderson's Octavian Nothing historical re‚visions to sf tv such as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. How are sf and related genres envisioning and revising the ethical and social dimensions of science? What role does the idea of Science play in maintaining or subverting power inequities of empire, nation, race, and gender?
I'm a bit lost because I haven't read any of the listed recent works, but I think there is plenty of material on the topic in general. I'd like to talk some about how the institution of science itself can be reflect and reinforce inequities -- in particular physics and gender.
Science/Religion/Art (Sat 1:00 - 2:15PM in Assembly)
Moderator: Georgie L. Schnobrich. Panelists John H. Kim, Ted A Kosmatka, Brad Lyau, Marna Nightingale.
How do the structures of Science, Religion, and Art differ? What do they share? Are Faith, Conviction, Belief and Self-delusion the same state? Can we prove it? Let's define our terms instead of letting the popular media do it for us.
This is an interesting one for me. Here my pet peeve is the idea that convictions are opposed to science -- i.e. that scientists should follow an essentially Baconian method, believing nothing until they study the data, and then only tentatively tossing out hypotheses. This has never been how real science works, and yet I still see this considered central.
Dealing With Your Male Answer Syndrome (Sun 10:00 - 11:15AM in Assembly)
Moderator: John H. Kim. Panelists Suzanne Allés Blom, Moondancer Drake, John Helfers, Stef Maruch.
Although it's not absolute, there's a strong tendency among masculine people to always want to have the definitive answer for everything, even if they don't necessarily know. In panels and elsewhere in life, it can be hard for men to admit they don't know things. Why is this? How can men deal with the pressure (either internal or external) to always have the right answer? How do women and other non-masculine folks deal with Male Answer Syndrome? If you think the answers to all these questions are obvious, then you need to come to this panel!
Hehehehehehe. This should be amusing to moderate, or so I plan.
|
11:00 pm - Recent reading
A few notes on books I've recently read. The first, actually a few weeks ago, is Shatterpoint, by Matthew Stover. The second is Skin Folk, a collection of speculative short stories by Nalo Hopkinson. The third is Blindsight, by Peter Watts.
( No major spoilers, but some details below the cut )
|
April 28th, 2009
03:19 pm - Vacations Report
I just had three vacations in a row, which has been fun but eventually exhausting.
First was a family trip to San Diego, where we took in Legoland and Sea World while renting a condo by the beach. Milo got to play with his cousins, and we did the Dolphin Interaction Program. It seemed shorter and less cool than years ago when Liz and I did it (pre-Milo), though it was still very cool to go in and pet a dolphin. (They also may have held back more when dealing with kids who were uneasy around the dolphin.) Liz posted pics for the vacation.
Immediately after getting back from that, I left for Norway to attend Knutepunkt 2009, including the "Week in Norway." I'll post more details on that in my RPG journal. On the social side, the "Week in Norway" tradition this time was split into a slightly more larp-filled two days prior, and a purely social two days after. In theory, the latter period would have more discussion and analysis, but I had fun just spending time socializing with people there. I was kindly hosted by Britta, who put up with nearly twelve people crashing at her house. Last year in Finland, I booked a cheap hotel room to avoid this, but I found that it was more fun to be with the group. Many thanks to the hosts, to fellow guests Martina, Larson, Alex, Karsten (and others whom I'm forgetting) -- and especially to Sofia.
Following Norway, I took four days to visit Moscow, where my friend Emily is teaching at the Anglo-American School of Moscow. I did Moscow sightseeing: Red Square, the Polytechnic Museum, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Pushkin Museum of Art, the Kremlin (including the inner churches and armory museum), and Victory Park (and WWII memorial museum). I also got to see the school and meet some of the teachers and students there, and we went out to eat at some very nice restaurants.
It reminded me of Manhattan in many ways. It is a giant bustling metropolis; the locals ranged from standoffish to surly though fellow tourists (usually Russian) were quite friendly; the thirties-era subway (though Moscow's metro greatly outshines NYC's subways). The most dominant buildings in numbers were very dull blocky tenements that unsurprisingly reminded me of East Berlin, but the highlights included the churches and the Stalinist-era gothic buildings, which parallel some parts of NYC.
It was interesting to see the construction of Russian identity going on. Many of the places I saw were monuments constructed in the nineties to contrast with the Soviet era. (I did have lunch at the McDonalds right beside Red Square and the Kremlin, which had the taste of American victory along with the grease and additives.) I'll be putting up pictures shortly.
I was very glad to finally get home, though, and my sinuses are slowly recovering from the combination of the usual convention cold plus many air trips.
Edit: I now have my Flickr sets up for both my Moscow trip and Knutepunkt 2009.
|
April 3rd, 2009
12:27 pm - Dance Your Ph.D. Contest
Via martinemonster and shehasathree, I came across this:
"Can Scientists Dance?"
about the world's first Dance Your Ph.D. Contest, held at the Medical University of Vienna. It looked like a blast.
|
March 29th, 2009
10:27 pm - Re-watching The Karate Kid
So, I watched The Karate Kid with Milo tonight. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, but I remember overall liking it, cheesy though it was.
There is a scene about three quarters of the way through where Daniel finds Mr. Miyagi drunk and broken up over his long dead wife on their anniversary. What I completely missed when I watched it as a kid was about how she died. From just a few drunken lines, we learn that Miyagi had been a soldier fighting the Germans as part of the 442nd in Europe, while his wife had been interned at the Manzanar War Relocation Center as a Japanese-American. He cries that she and her infant son had died due to complications in childbirth, and no doctor had come for her. I was shocked to watch that, and I stopped the movie to explain to Milo about what that was about.
It struck me that this was a huge deal. The film makes out strongly that the problem of the bullies is not in the kids, even in their leader, but in their teacher -- in this case John Kreese, who we see from photos in his dojo was a karate champion in the Army in 1970-71. So there is a subtle but real political side to the movie and its lesson about how "karate isn't about attacking, it is about defending so you don't have to fight." There is a subtle linking of Kreese's dojo, with its attitude of attacking with no mercy, with the Vietnam-era military -- as opposed to Miyagi's very painful service in WWII, and his philosophy of fighting as a last resort.
I was intrigued enough to at least check out comments on the anniversary scene from the "making of" featurette and commentary track on the DVD. The comments were that the studio executives had wanted to cut the scene during editing, as they said it stopped the flow of the movie, but the director had urged its inclusion and kept it in. They noted that this scene was crucial for Pat Morita being nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
|
March 18th, 2009
12:02 pm - Rereading Watchmen
I recently re-read the Watchmen graphic novel, since Liz had borrowed a copy from my neighbors. I had read it way back in college, and had disliked it at the time. I thought of it as deconstructing superhero comics, and as such, I thought it was very thin -- trying to be dark and edgy for the sake of it. There are have been a number of works that try to mix superheroes and realism, and the effort usually struck me as easy and trite. Yes, skintight costumes and capes and superpowers aren't realistic, but pointing that out in a dozen different ways doesn't say anything interesting about the genre.
On re-reading it, though, I appreciated it more as a political allegory using superheroes. I still feel that it is part of a trend of pointlessly dark takes on superheroes that are trying to be edgy and distance themselves from the superhero traditions rather than stand on own. However, the story does have its points.
( Spoilers... )
|
March 5th, 2009
10:40 pm - The Ethics of Debate
So I've been having some arguments lately, and I've been following on the sidelines others which have prompted me to think more on ethics and etiquette. This spins off in part from various discussion of racism, from a discussion with kynn and nihilistic_kid, and some from comments with greyorm. (Tangentially, bruceb had some interesting comments on "Ebert on Admiring", citing Roger Ebert's post on avoiding snarking.)
I call this ethics of debate rather then etiquette. I tend not to rant or insult people much, but I appreciate those and use them on occasion. For me, these principles apply even if I'm in the process of calling someone a dickhead.
General Points of Ethics
So the following are some of my principles in the abstract.
1) One should refer to people by the names they go by within that field. I'm not above name-calling as a exclamation or taunt -- and I can appreciate a rant. However, trying to assign someone a nickname, repeating insults, or calling them by a name they don't use is uncalled for. This applies particularly for exposing people's identities (see below).
2) One should try to avoid ad hominem in debate, but it can be appropriate. It generally means the end of debate over substance, though. Usually it applies if you think someone has been arguing in bad faith, adopting positions just for the sake of argument. Even then, though, there are reasonable limits. You should stick to the scope of the debate. If the person you are arguing with is only criticizing someone's online writing, then there is no call to drag in their offline identity (see below). Similarly, one shouldn't bring another's family or friends into the argument unless they are somehow involved. If someone is using a sock puppet in the debate, it's appropriate to expose that. Also, if someone in harassing and does not stop, that may enter into the issue.
3) In general, one should source one's quotes -- specifically providing a link to the context where they came from. One should also quote in a way that you think represents a substantial position. Picking out a one-line anonymous comment from a long thread is effectively a straw man. This is particularly true if you don't know who wrote the comment and/or whether that single line represents a serious position. Many comments are from someone deliberately trolling, someone drunk or high, or some 13-year-old (or a drunk, high, 13-year-old who is deliberately trolling). Rants against such are equivalent to Maddox's mocking I am better than your kids.
4) Avoid making judgments where you don't know. For example, if you haven't seen a movie, then do you really need to make a point about how it is worse than some other movie? The same goes for a book that you haven't read. The book that you haven't read may well suck and if anything, be worse than your expectations. However, if you haven't read it, I don't think anything is lost by just not commenting on it. If it is part of some other point, then refer to it with the disclaimer that you haven't read it.
5) Avoid speaking as or for other people. It's much better to speak from your own view, even your judgement of others, than to say what they are saying.
Anonymity
I have definitely had issues with anonymity in the past -- most notably last summer when people from an online forum started trying to harass me over comments I made. cf. The Encyclopedia Dramatica entry that others made for me. I had vented a little about this in a off-topic thread on an RPG forum I frequent. Really, this made me much more positive about people who were crusty and annoying, but still had basic ethics.
I generally feel that being in public on the Internet should be like being in public anywhere else. People cannot look at you and know your full name and other details. However, they can recognize your face and identify you later. Unless you are at a formal gathering, you'll probably only introduce yourself with your first name. In many places, you may go by a nickname without it being considered odd -- i.e. at the local pub, everyone calls him "Bulldog."
Acceptable behaviors vary depending on the place, but there are some generalizations. Wearing a mask or disguise is frowned on outside of a few specific occasions. You may go by different names in different places, including different dress and style -- but it is expected that you will be uniquely recognizable. Giving out another person's full name and phone number without their permission is at best rude and may be harassment. Following someone home is usually discouraged as stalking, though not illegal in itself. However, asking your friends about the guy you just met is reasonable.
If someone is suspected of a crime, it should be possible for the authorities to do things like get their credit card receipt from a bar they went to, or the security camera recording. However, establishments should not give out such information for anything less than authorities investigating a lead on a specific crime.
Outing
As a general note on outing: I think that people should have a right to privacy, but I don't think that it inherently gives them power.
I think no matter what your ideology, I think one can agree that in some parts of the world, the innocent can be unjustly hurt by being exposed. The term of being "outed" comes from exposure of homosexuality. However, even if you're conservative, you could imagine someone in a liberal region might be shunned from their jobs for non-politically-correct activities -- or someone in a repressive country might be in danger from holding pro-democratic views.
I am lucky in this respect in that I have had no problems being public on the Internet. I almost always post under my real name, and aside from keeping my private life private, I am pretty open. That gives me power, moreso than anonymity. One of the amusing bits in my encounter with the Encyclopedia Dramatica folk was how desperately afraid they all were of being outed. For example, posting there, some posted my work details and threatened to call my boss -- met with calls of how fucked I was then. I simply shrugged and gave them my boss' phone number.
However, I realize that many people are in more tenuous positions through no fault of their own. So I consider it best to respect privacy unless they bring their private identity into the debate in one way or another. Kynn had a post on "The Politics of Outing" that examined this, that I replied to.
Side Example
A minor example started on John Scalzi's whatever with a post on tie-in novels. Down in the 77th comment, an unlinked poster titled "Jamesdsn" said that Matt Stover's Traitor and Shatterpoint are the best novels ever. This is ignored by the other commenter's as a silly bit of hyperbole.
However, nihilistic_kid stated that Jamesdsn's comment was the "apex-slash-nadir" of the debate, and posted specifically on this point. He went to Amazon and pulled a quote out from Stover's book, and put it alongside a selected quote from Joyce's Ulysses to conclude that Joyce was superior. In comments, others proceeded to compare the book unfavorably not only to literary classics, but also to other tie-in genre novels -- by authors such as Brian Daley, Barbara Hambly, John Ford, and Timothy Zahn. Author Matt Stover then commented on the thread, insulting nihilistic_kid, saying that he didn't mind bad reviews, but they should be from people who read his book. kynn then commented on this, and concluded that maybe Matt should stick to his day job.
I commented on kynn's post linked above, but to summarize, I had two main objections to this. First, pulling in an isolated sentence from the 77th comment of a 17,000 word thread is obviously an attempt to score points rather than address anything of substance. Second, even given that you're pulling that single sentence, pulling a quote from Amazon of a book that you haven't read doesn't show anything. It's rude to the author, and it is insulting to the intelligence of the reader to imagine that it does.
More generally, this grates on me in its tone of trying to score points by mocking Jamesdsn's one comment. It is only a minor case of etiquette, though, compared to some other issues. Though it is noteworthy how the insults escalated in the course of comments.
The Bigger Issue
The whole recent race debate is so broad that I really don't want to get into any specifics on it. A lot of other people have covered events in it better than me, and understand more of the context. (Incidentally, I dislike the tendency of some to call it "RaceFail" in the same way that I dislike others calling it "The Great Silliness" or what have you. Both are nicknames that basically fall under my point #1 above. It's fine to say that your opponents are full of fail, or that your opponents are silly, but coining it as a term seems petty to me.)
I think characterizing the other poster is called for -- given shifting positions, deleting posts and accounts, and related behavior. On the other hand, some of the characterizations simply aren't very convincing to someone who isn't already inclined to see things that way -- in part because of the breaks of principles, I think.
|
February 25th, 2009
03:19 pm - Joining Stanford STEP
So I have officially been accepted and signed up for the STEP program at Stanford. It's a competitive teacher education program that has about 70-90 students gaining a combined master's degree in education and California teacher credential. There's an Edutopia article about it with some description.
Friday morning I had taken the CBEST test -- a SAT/GRE-like test that California requires its teachers to pass. It has a reading section that includes many questions on reading an index, table of contents, or a graph -- in addition to the usual vocabulary and comprehension questions. The math portion is focused on basic operations and simple statistics, i.e. if the students got these scores, what is the average and what is their percentile? I did well, actually getting a perfect score on the reading, rather better than I did on the math, where I probably flubbed some simple arithmetic.
That afternoon, just before I left to pick up Milo, I got a phone call, which went something like:
Voice: "Dr. Kim?"
Me: "Uh... no?"
Voice: "Dr. John Kim?"
Me: "Oh! Yes."
Voice: "You've been accepted into the STEP program at Stanford..."
I got the official email on Monday, and have started to go through the program information in more detail now. I start classes in late June, and graduate in the spring.
I'm excited and a little nervous. I haven't taken any classes since the end of my second year of grad school back in 1993 (with the sole exception of a local tap-dancing class in Irvine). Hopefully it's like riding a bike.
|
|
|
