fantasy

BAY-BEE, Identity Language and Oppression Narratives

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The nurse pronounced baby as “BEE-bee” in our prenatal class and it got me thinking of how language develops.  Words will shift to reflect their usage.  The meaning eventually match with the reality when we attempt to disguise unpleasantness in flowery speech or try moral inversion.  Cultural values will shine through and snap understanding back where it was prior to the manipulation.

How did “bAy-bee” become “BEE-bee”?  

The latter evolution in pronunciation is cuter and therefore a better representation of the subject matter.  The word never will change the thing it describes.  Yes, words influence our perception, they also change to reflect a new understanding of the things that we are describing.  For example, the word “baby” only changed in pronunciation for me when considering the little human now within my wife’s belly.  It was no longer an abstraction or vague category, but a tiny vulnerable ball of loveable life.

When we experience something firsthand it is harder to deny what it is.  We can use the terms detached and technical to distance ourselves from the emotional content.  Say that a baby is just a clump of cells or some kind of parasite—up until the moment when we finally hold it in our hands.  To keep up the charade after this would be delusional or psychopathic.  It is not human to see an infant as anything other than precious.  The political lexicon becomes irrelevant.

A Tangled Ball Of Words 

Words trigger emotions.  I was thinking of this as a tear formed while the instructor in a prenatal class described the ideal of “skin to skin” and a soothing environment.  Some of this reaction may be feeling the weight of my wife’s pregnancy.  But it also has a lot to do with my own identity as the “premie” and “fighter” who struggled for life.  Discussion of baby care today compared to what it was for me.  The thing is, while my experience certainly impacted my development, I don’t have memories of the trauma.  It probably only looms large as a part of my personal identity because my mom told me what I went through and reinforced it.  The I gave further shape and form to it by attributing many of my struggles to the events of my birth—everything from my delayed growth to difficulties with focus in school.

However, it is impossible to know, outside of creating a genetic clone, if I would have been much better off with a normal birth or with more human touch rather than being in a plastic box with ‘stimulating’ music.  This had some impact, no doubt, and yet there is the bigger psychological complex I’ve built on top of this named thing.  Like an irritant in an oyster, it provided a nucleus to attach all of my insecurities to and blame for my failures and shortcomings.  With a normal birth would I have been more like my more accomplished siblings and less a mess?

However, it is very easy to reverse cause and effect to give ourselves an excuse for our being lazy and taking of exceptions.  We become the label that we apply to ourselves as much as it truly describes us.  We act the part.  Things of identity, like race, sexuality, religion, are as much a construct or fantasy as they are facts.  We live up to our name to an extent.  My mom would often tell me that my name meant “strong-willed” and it might be one of those self- fulfilling prophecies.  If we tilt confirmation bias in a direction it isn’t a big surprise if our character develops that direction.  It is like strapping a young tree to influence where it grows.

In a sense, nobody is truly “born this way,” it is a statement discredits conditioning and culture too much. But the environment itself doesn’t make us where we are as much as those descriptive words that reverberate in our heads.  A child that is called “stupid” by a parent or teacher may spend many years trying to sort through their doubts.  My dad letting me look over his blue prints and then giving some affirmation when spotted an error made by the engineers is likely what led to my being confident in my abilities and a career in design.  Our reality is influenced by use of language.

These are just personal observations, but it is also backed up by other sources that put it more succinctly:

Language is not just a medium of communication; it’s a lens through which we view the world and a mold that shapes our identity. From shaping cultural perceptions to influencing personal identities, language’s role is pivotal in constructing our social and personal realities.

Language as a Mirror and Molder of Reality and Identity

Language is more than a mere tool for communication.

It’s a portal through which we perceive and interpret the world.

Imagine how our understanding of colors evolves when we learn names for shades we previously couldn’t distinguish.

With each new word we acquire, a facet of reality emerges from obscurity, offering us a richer tapestry of experiences.

The Dynamic Relationship Between Language and Reality

 Neither of those sources are academic or truly authoritative, but do say what I’m saying in a different way and thus useful so far as my goal here which is to provoke thought.  New use of language reframes the world.  It can amplify our efforts and transform society as more people begin to see the world through the lens we provided.  Memes do this, as do pounding of propaganda headlines, it is why “fact-checkers” exist—all to reinforce a particular narrative.

With so much power in our words there is plenty of reason for cunning and conniving people to exercise this for their own selfish ends. 

They take advantage of insecurities and level accusations to shame or confuse the innocent. 

Wordsmiths, they could turn a baby into a villain and murderer into a saint—beware. 

His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords. 

(Psalms 55:21 NIV)

There are some use the guise of compassion to gain control.  Their promises are about attaining power.  They seek only to bind us and yet many people are blinded to these motives because their identity has been hijacked by these nefarious actors.

Categories Are Social Constructs 

The structures and constructs of language are entirely fabricated.  There is no person who is “black” or “white” by birth, no, rather these are categories we create, clans that we join, and always artificial divisions.  We are often grouped by others using various label words and internalize the divisions as being inseparable from our own experience, in that we identify with other “rednecks” or “blue-collar” types as those ‘like us’ and yet also *become* like that.  Nothing requires a rural person to use country slang or go buy a massive diesel pick-up truck, some of the markers of this lifestyle (chewing tobacco or dress) can impact opportunities.  This is about politics, not genetics.  It is about the strength of an identity group that helps us gain power for ourselves.  Being a victim of an “ism” is a lever, a social tool or means to build a coalition against others.  

The individual without these groups, that is denied the right to put their fist in the air in solidarity with others ‘like them’ is weakest and most disadvantaged in this game.  That is the irony of the “systems of oppression” language.  Those who describe this kind of problem are actually creating it more than they are simply observing.  In the same way that observation in quantum mechanics is an influence of reality (collapses the wave function), the ‘study’ of human interaction is an interaction and is a product of our bias as much as it has basis in reality.  Those who are concerned with the existing ideas (of racism, sexism, or heterosexism) steal attention (and thus disenfranchise) victims of systemic heightism and those who lack privileges in ways not discussed, defined or even recognized.  The individual is the most vulnerable, a minority of one, and frequently abused by recognized groups.  Bullies travel in big groups—victims are often alone.

This line of questions quoted below is most likely well-intended, but is exploitative:

1) “Language both mirrors reality and helps to structure it” (2). Explain and give an example.

2)Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and class privilege are all interlocking systems of oppression that ensure advantages for some and diminish opportunities for others, with their own history and logic and self-perpetuating relations of domination and subordination (3). Explain what this means. Do you agree/disagree? Why?

3)What are the economic impacts of constructing race, class, and gender?

Sandwiched between the lines of this effort to build awareness (indoctrinate) are a pile of assumptions that, in the end, only serve to darken these artificial dividing lines. 

It is rewarmed class warfare rhetoric, Marxism, and is basically designed to feed envy or feelings of being an other and disenfranchised.  No, this is not to say that prejudice or abuse is entirely a social construct.  What it is to say, rather, is that their worldview, segregated by these simple binaries, is too compartmentalized and minimizing of other factors.

There isn’t one group of oppressor and one group of oppressed. 

There is no hierarchy of victimhood. 

Everything depends on the context or situation.  A Jewish student that is harassed on a college campus because of the IDF dropping bombs on Gaza is not privileged in this moment even if they are ‘white’ and rich.  Nor is it anti-Semitic to characterize the decades long campaign against the Palestinian people as an ethnic cleansing.  Labeling terms like “terrorist” or “occupier,” while useful to an extent, rarely explain accurately and are dehumanizing ends of conversation.

The whole point of claiming the existence of “interlocking systems of oppression” is to make anyone who dares to question their narrow perspective a part of a monolithic enemy rather than an individual with life experience to be respected.  It is truly the educated left’s own version of a conspiracy theory where anything they don’t like is part of some invisible system that can teased out of the statistical categories they created to emphasize identities based on color and physical features.  If some in one of these groups lag behind then some other group must be at fault.

Building humanity requires the de-emphasis of meaningless boundaries and formation of bonds based on behavior.  Skin color is not synonymous with culture or the choices one makes that shape their outcomes.  Yes, we must identify mistreatment of people on the basis of appearance, but this isn’t black and white, nor is it oppression to apply the same standard to all.  Indeed, some people are treated unfairly, but many end up being marginalized for antisocial behavior and yet claim to be victims of oppression when the chickens come home to roost.

Call A Turd a Baby…

Bringing this full circle, the word “baby” is cute (and the pronunciation of the word is becoming cuter) because babies are cute.  The language of description is merging more and more with the reality adorableness that we perceive in a human child by our instincts.  Using the word “baby” to describe an adult does not make them cute.  Albeit pet names, used to convey fondness, do imdue the quality a bit or at least will hijack some of the sentiment that associated with babies.  However, this is something that can only be stretched so far before the absurdity is too obvious.  

In this regard language that is used in an attempt to counter popular perspective, or overrule accurate description, will eventually take on the meaning that it was supposed to erase.   The language police can only temporarily remove a stigma (albeit never long enough to make the effort worthwhile) and it is because the unpleasant reality will always bubble to the surface again.  In fact, “special needs” today probably carries more negative baggage than the use of the words slow or retarded in the past.  

Likewise when a person is accepted at the university or get your job simply as a result of the particular identity group they belong to rather than only on the basis of equal qualifications this leads to an asterisk with the accomplishment—even when equally earned.  New terms like “diversity hire” will spontaneously and organically come into existence as a result of need to delineate between identity and merit based.  These, sadly, are far more damaging stereotypes applied to minorities who are outstanding by their own right.

Just as one cannot relabel a turd as a baby and expect people to cradle it once the truth is revealed, one can’t just apply credentials or distinguished titles to someone thinking this will change a lack of qualifications.  It will only degrade the meaning of words and in the long-term will do nothing to solve the socio-economic divide. 

Calling someone a fisherman and giving them a pile of fish is not the same thing as teaching them how to fish.  You can’t simply declare reality as the left believes they can.  Turds are only cute when the term is used ironically to describe something truly cute.

We’re Not Made for Paradise

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Having overindulged in a stimulating activity more than once, I’ve felt the effects of the dopamine withdrawal.  Trivia Crack, aptly named, consumed me for a few weeks as I moved up through the ranks of friends.  The game played to my strengths and it became obsession after a little success.

The chemical rewards system of our body is hijacked by addiction.  For me things will often spiral quickly when exposed to a new stimulant.  Which is the nature of things in the social media and smart phone era, it is not restricted to location, the gratification of desire is instant, and the stigma is not large enough to restrain us.

What gives me new clarity about this is my good intentions for my son.  He loves to be on his tablet, watching TikTok videos, and can do this for hours on end.  Which is fine if his life is to be a consumer rather than a creator.  The problem is there is no need of art or mastery, both of which require some effort end struggle.  His entertainment will come at the expense of ambition.

The reason why I limit his screentime is to keep him directed towards development of talents.  In the ‘real world’ you don’t actually get any where sitting on your butt glued to a screen.  I mean, I do make a living this way, by clicking imaginary objects on a screen that others will fabricate into trusses using wood and metal plates.  Still, this isn’t really as fulfilling as it would seem and certainly isn’t as rewarding as winning a hard fought basketball game after weeks of practice.

Whether by creation in an instant or through generations, the basic systems of our body are designed to seek out those things that we need to survive.  And the rarer that these things are the more desirable they must be because this is what drives us.  Essentially, free will is questionable when so much of our own behavior is governed by impulses we have little control over.  Just try going without food for a day or two and tell me who is really in control of your actions.

The real problem is both excessive supply of things meant to be rare and the artificial replacements.  Eat too much sugar and the results will eventually catch up in the form of weight gain and diabetes.  If you wish to crush a man’s natural desire, the kind that is accompanied by productive behavior, then give him a unending access to sources of pleasure that aren’t tied to any work.

And this is the true sin of pornography and masturbation.  It isn’t so much that seeing the female form and appreciation of those feminine assets is so bad, it is why men get married after all.  However, it is when these things are satisfied in a way that does not produce the end that was intended.  Sexual activity without relationship or commitment is certainly fun and yet equivalent to empty calories.  It doesn’t build anything.

Which leads to the other problem of access and that being diminished returns.  In other words, with the replacements, while killing natural drives, one must do more and more to get the same pleasure.  No, maybe it isn’t good to enter the world always horned out or starved, that has it’s own problems, but some things are meant to be obtained via the traditional path.  Men who always get what they want in life never develop good character.

Which is the paradox.  We dream of having our desires satisfied.  And yet, even if we had the real deal to indulge ourselves to the max, would we be happy?  Was King David content with multiple wives?  Did it prevent him from noticing what other men had and acting out in lust?  The reality is most of us would be lascivious and bloated, like Harvey Weinstein, if we actually had the power to take shortcuts to our paradise.

We are not made to be removed from the limitations of our environment.  But, beyond this, all triumphs are short lived.  The point of our natural desires isn’t to ever lead us to contentment.  If anything, accomplishment of our ultimate goals may be anticlimactic and a disappointment.  That ‘perfect’ girl is going to fart in bed.  She’s not going to look dolled up and sexy like the fantasy version of her suitor’s mind.

As a child I wasn’t much different from my son.  I would draw my ideal world.  And in one of these visions was a bedroom with an automatic pizza making machine and soda fountain.  As an adult, I now know that this would be awesome for a week and not too long after that it would be disgusting.  The same goes for almost anything when piled up in excess.  Value drops with availability, which deprives is of satisfaction.

In the end, a Grand Theft Auto world, or one where we can simply take anything we want and is free of all consequences, would not be wonderful.  This is what went wrong with sexual liberation and dismissal of the moral wisdom passed down.  No, religious authority doesn’t accomplish the balance without wisdom, but it definitely can give a head start to the wise.  We’re not made for heaven—only to strive for it.

What Wears Me Out

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I’ve always been a sort of magical thinker, my hopes always far outpacing my realities, and to the point that sometimes when my dreams would finally come true the pleasure had already been exhausted.

I had so wanted a go cart growing up.  On the school bus ride home my mind would start to wander into the fantasy realm.  I would picture a shiny new go cart, like the ones in the catalog, waiting for me at the end of the driveway and would actually be disappointed when it did not end up being true when we would finally pull up to to my stop. 

That’s not to say that I didn’t love the old go cart that my dad would finally weld up, using a rusted frame as a starting point, and an old lawnmower engine.  Anything with four wheels, that ran on gasoline, that could be slid around corners, definitely scratched that itch.  Still, my vivid world of make-believe did not always end with any fulfillment.

In my adulthood this tendency to be way out ahead of myself did not get any better.  I’ve cried, on more than one occasion, thinking of my beautiful bride walking towards me up the aisle.  And not in sadness either, it was in bliss having momentarily put myself in that wonderful place.  Of course, given that I never even so much as went on one date with this young woman, I pretty much ruined that music.

The world between my ears can be a paradise.  A place where there’s such thing as innocent love and anything is actually possible.  I used this as an escape.  My school years spent doodling and hoping for some kind of rescue from the mundanity of the classroom.

These visions were often grandiose.  A child scaled B-17 would land in the school yard.  I would run out to meet my faithful crew as the teacher and 5th grade class would watch in disbelief, stunned, as we revved the engines and were on our way to the nation (later a planet with two suns) that I benevolently ruled along with my brother Kyle and cousin Mel.

Truly, I had always thought that Kyle and I would always be together, build a house with a chimney in the center, like the ruins that I saw on a Civil War battlefield.  I’m not sure why, but it didn’t seem possible then (despite our fights) that we ever be separated, let alone hours apart, and I really can’t claim to have gotten over that disappointment yet.  He moved on, it seems that I could not.

And I have lived a sort of Peter Pan existence.  Holding on, hoping that some day the love that had eluded me, child-like and innocent, would finally magically arrive to rescue me from my torment for having failed to achieve.  I long overstayed the youth group.  Until I had my happily ever after, what choice did I have?  Get old by myself and alone?

Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy and I lacked the necessary social tools to approach an attractive young woman—let alone convince her to date me.  

Years would go by, where I would convince myself, “this time will be different,” and end up leaving the church retreat no closer to my goals and disappointed.  These beautiful wonderful thought going in would slowly morph into a nightmarish reality as opportunity would pass me by and I would be left with only my profound loneliness again.

It was only in my mid thirties that this optimism would crack and the pattern of hope followed by disappointment would finally overwhelm me.  Brimming with outsized expectations, I would arrive at the weekend, and suddenly shut down.  The wheels came off, I would collapse into the nearest couch, curl up, unable to push myself to try again—eventually ending up a sobbing mess.

The pressure had become too much.  The difference between my hopes and reality too insurmountable. 

Sure, I could entertain my delusions, the right one was going to finally arrive, we would look at our feet, shy at first, we would talk, she would smile at my earnest thoughts, I would finally be at ease and soon enough we would be walking hand in hand out the back of a church.  But the chances of that were as good as Gatsby somehow being able to turn back the hands of time and Daisy would be his.

My collapse from exhaustion came at the tail end of decades of forced optimism and sweeping aside my rational fears.  I did not want a world where my being 5′-8″ tall and rather unathletic disqualified me.  Love, to me, especially pertaining to my female religious counterparts, was supposed to be something transcendent.  Unfortunately, what I got instead was a brick wall of rejection.

Life is especially cruel to those with a high ideal.  If I were less able to see the marvelous maybe I could have more easily moved on to more practical aims.  But I could never get my head out of the clouds nor was I willing to acknowledge the harsh truth about romance.  The young women were also chasing their version of perfection and that perfect man wasn’t me.

Somehow, despite a mind that could span universes, I ended up being thirty years old living in Milton and thus ineligible for that kind of love.  How does a dreamer, still holding to those childish notions of escape, ever recover from that terrible pronouncement?

They don’t. 

It wears me out thinking about it.  

It makes me think of another novel and protagonist, Ethan Frome, an injured ruin of a man.  His house reduced in size as he limped, painfully, through what remained of his life.  Not even granted the merciful end to his suffering of that suicide pack those many years before.  Perhaps my life would have been better had my secret world been a little more stark, desolate and devoid of life?