THOUGHTCRIME AT WORK

We have been having DEI training at work, specific to the Alphabet Community. One might have done this in five minutes by instructing employees to treat their co-workers with respect, maybe giving a few simple examples of disrespect. But no, we have to dedicate about an entire workday to repudiating the various phobias and isms that poor pathetic LGBTQIA2S+ people (like myself) are forced to endure on a daily basis apparently, with suitably condemnatory rhetoric employed. To wit, there was a slideshow done up in comic book style, a series in which an 'offence' is depicted, and on the next slide follows an explanation of why it is considered an offence. No argument, no debate. You WILL use our pronouns. The last two panels in the presentation, shown below, were especially egregious, inspiring the Orwellian title above.

"This is of course a private thought..." This is presented as if it's a bothersome technicality. We'd really love to lay down the law on horrible people like this, quite possibly terminating their employment, but unfortunately we can't actually read minds. However we can strongly advise people not to have evil thoughts like these. INTENT IS IRRELEVENT appears on every other slide in this presentation. It has the same authoritarian cadence as RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

SUDDEN ONSET PRONOUN DYSPHORIA

If I wanted to avoid using pronouns and I wanted to tell you, for instance, about this woman who was on the bus with me this morning, and how she was talking in an annoyingly loud voice to her friend on her cellphone, things would get awkward for both of us. In other words:

If the person who is writing this wanted to avoid using pronouns and the person who is writing this wanted to tell the person whom the person who is writing this is addressing, for instance, about this woman who was on the bus with the person who is writing this this morning, and how this woman was talking in an annoyingly loud voice to this woman’s friend on this woman’s cellphone, things would get awkward for both the person who is writing this and the person whom the person who is writing this is addressing.

 LET’S TAKE IT A STEP FURTHER ---

    LET’S ABOLISH ALL PRONOUNS!!!

So if the person who is writing this is asked, “What’s your preferred pronouns?” the person who is writing this will respond: “The person who is speaking prefers that the person whom the person who is speaking is addressing not use any pronouns at all when referring to the person who is speaking. Rather, the person who is speaking prefers that the person whom the person who is speaking is addressing use: (subject) “the indicated person”, (object) “the indicated person”, (possessive) 0“the indicated person’s”. Thus the title of this paragraph REALLY ought to have been:

“LET A GROUP OF TWO OR MORE PERSONS WHICH INCLUDES THE PERSON WHO IS WRITING THIS TAKE SOMETHING A STEP FURTHER -- LET THE GROUP OF PERSONS WHICH INCLUDES THE PERSON WHO IS WRITING THIS ABOLISH ALL PRONOUNS!”

BASIC ETIQUETTE MATTERS!

When someone invites you into their home as an Honoured Guest, it is not proper to shit on their living room rug.  Nor is it correct for you to proceed to tell them that it's their fault, because in your opinion  their bathroom is not a safe space.  If you had a problem with their bathroom arrangements, you should have discussed it with your hosts before you accepted the invitation.

I WOULD GIVE YOUR RATINGS SYSTEM ONLY ONE STAR, AND THAT IS ONLY BECAUSE ZERO ISN'T AN OPTION (AS THEY SAY ON AMAZON)

I have over the past six months or so been slowly working my way through the Bach cantatas, after having purchased a low priced (but high quality) complete set of Bach's music. Early on in this project, I decided that I wanted to know what the scripture readings that tied into each cantata were, so that I could read them before I listened and thus enrich the experience. Easily enough I found a website that offered just that for each cantata, together with capsule descriptions/reviews. Unfortunately, the author of this site also saw fit to provide "helpful" ratings of each cantata, 1+ representing the highest, with the lowest I have seen so far being 3. How very irritating.

I would not deny that a numbered or starred (or otherwise bulleted) ratings system is helpful if you are searching for a good restaurant, hotel or resort. To have a poor dining experience, to be forced to endure inadequate accomodation or dreadful customer service, are great inconveniences, not to mention requiring significant outlays of time and money. To listen to a few minutes of music that proves to be less than top-notch is hardly in the same category; nor is viewing a bad movie or reading a dull book. None of these experiences cost more than a few dollars, and can often be had for free. I gather, too, that tourist ratings systems are somewhat objectively arrived at, whereas a starred review is just one person's sometimes dyspeptic reaction.

A low rating predisposes you to think less of the work in question, no matter how much you may try to pretend otherwise. Or you will valiantly pretend to like it better than in fact you did. In either case, your ability to appreciate it has been compromised. And if you do not enjoy the highly rated work as much as you think you should, you will be disappointed, as opposed to recognizing that you enjoyed the work somewhat.

THE DEATH OF "THE DEATH OF..." (PLEASE!)

Roland Barthes, dead author

If you wish to make a name for yourself as a would-be intellectual, write an essay, an article, or a book with the title "The Death of X". ("The End of..." works well too.) Argue that X, which once was a vital, living cultural phenomenon is now virtually defunct. Sometimes the authors of these tracts (all of whom tend to be alive when they write them, despite the first item listed below) regret the passing of X, sometimes one suspects wishful thinking on their part. Here is a random listing...

The Death of the Author

The Death of the Novel

The Death of the Book

The Death of Ideology

The Death of Communism

The Death of Capitalism

The Death of Sex (subtitled ...and the Birth of Romance)

The End of Gay and the Death of Heterosexuality

The Death of God

The Death of Feminism

The Death of Democracy

.... and on and on it goes. None of these things need actually be dead, dying, or even feeling a little unwell. The important thing is people will be curious enough to read the article/book and then want to earnestly discuss it with others in an effort to appear up-to-date with the latest death-cults. If the originator of the death-cult is someone like Roland Barthes, the defining phrase will be tossed off by the intelligentsia as if it's an established fact, not a tenuous conceit. If it's more like Bert Archer, a few interviews in bar rags and a few invitations to present one's case on local talk shows should suffice for the standard Warholian quantum of notoriety.

RULES FOR ADOLESCENTS (AND THOSE ETERNALLY YOUNG) - 1st INSTALLMENT

Stairways and escalators are for moving upwards or moving downwards. (The operative term being moving.) They are not places where you may stop and wonder what exactly you should do next for a few minutes - there really are only two choices: get moving or get out of everyone's way. Nor are these appropriate places to stop and have a chat with your best friends about plans for the evening ahead. You're already hanging out at the mall -wasn't that your plan?

There used to be a quaint rule in libraries about maintaining an atmosphere of quiet studiousness. Now most libraries are a-chatter with teenagers vocally doing their homework, or just treating the library as an extension of the mall (which it sometimes actually is). If you wish to read or study in peace or quiet, there are a limited number of isolation booths available, which essentially means you're being made to feel like an antisocial freak. I yearn for a place I can go where silence is valued and nurtured.

Mostly for boys: Nobody on this bus except you and your buddies cares how wasted you were last night. Nobody thinks its cool except yourselves, and that creepy middle-aged drunkard/pothead in the back seat who cackles at everything you say. Nobody wants to listen to you share druglore with each other. Nobody thinks that when you say "fuck" eighteen times in thirty seconds and "yo" at the beginning of every sentence that you have established yourself as being at the pinnacle of Mount Stud. It would be pleasant to hear you say something once in a while that indicates that you might have a few brain cells that haven't been poisoned with testosterone and cannabis.

Mostly for girls: Sometime I'd like to meet that girl you're always complaining about, the one who lies, the one who is worthless, the one who does such evil things, the one you all should exclude from your special little clique, because you all know just what she's like. Oddly, she never seems to be one of you... or is she?

DEAL OR NO DEAL

My life's course has been placid in these past few weeks, my garden of gripes not requiring much in the way of weeding. Then yesterday I helped out at a yard sale held at my parish church, and one little, noxious weed did begin to sprout.

Due to inclement weather the sale was held indoors, in the church space proper and thus would more accurately have been labelled a rummage sale. The pews were rearranged to display the wares and one despaired of getting everything back to normal. If you've ever been to one of these events - there was a lot of junk.

I was one of the people taking cash first for the books, then for the lamps. Towards the end of the day (the sale only ran from 9 until 1:30) we announced that people could fill a bag for $5, which made things go faster. That, of course, did not apply to the lamps, which would not fit into the bags provided. I had been instructed to haggle to a certain point. But.

One woman was willing to take a floor lamp for $5 rather than the $20 marked. That was fair enough, because as I showed her, the cord was missing and it was only useful if she knew how to fix it. There were also two table lamps marked at $5 each, which I allowed to be argued down to $2; there was nothing wrong with them, except they did not have shades. Well, how about $1 each, she suggested. After all - no shades. At that point I stuck to my guns and insisted on $2 each or nothing. And she walked away with the floor lamp, making an offhand remark that implied I was stupid not to sell her the other two.

Actually it struck me that however socially acceptable haggling is becoming, however fun it might be to a certain degree, it is extremely boorish to do so at a charity fundraiser which is already offering goods at dirt cheap prices. If you don't care a fig about the charity in question, so what? It is still people attempting to to some good in the world and you are diminishing their power to do so with your petty pennypinching. The more I think about this, this is a serious moral issue. The acceptability of haggling encourages viciousness and deceit on both sides - sellers overpricing goods because they know buyers will deliberately undervalue them.

The leftover goods at the end of the day went in three directions - some to Goodwill; some to another church which will distribute directly to needy people in their parish; and the rest to the dump. If Madame is upset that she did not get the steal that she wanted, Madame is welcome to rummage through the last destination.