Category: The Dish

Husband Beaters, Ctd

Another reader shares his story:

I am a large, physically capable male who worked as a bouncer in bars through most of university. My ex-wife was emotionally and physically abusive. She would hit/attack me without warning, sometimes when I was asleep, sometimes during sex (out of the blue), rarely in front of witnesses, even though the kids saw her do it a couple of times.

When my ex-wife would hit me, I would challenge her later (after a cool-down). I would ask her why she did it, and why she felt it was ok to hit me, but not ok for a man to hit a woman. Her response was a few apologies, many deflections and dismissals, and often “My mom did a lot worse to my dad.”

FYI: for very personal reasons, I am a violence-against-women activist and have been since my late teens. I do not strike or abuse women. I am a firm feminist. My ex-wife would use that to her advantage, knowing I wouldn’t respond other than verbally and to try to protect myself without striking back. I didn’t even grab her wrists – except once, when she attacked me while I was sleeping and I was disoriented on awakening.

My ex-wife was abused/beaten by her mother and sexually abused by a family member. I tried very hard to be understanding and accommodating of her life trauma. Some of the writers on this thread, and in articles on other sites, have minimised the kind of injury a woman can effect on a large male. Some writers even call them “little taps” and “harmless taps”.

I still have PTSD flashbacks from my ex-wife hitting me, with her fists or other objects, or a pillow or fists during sex, because she had a sudden flashback to the sexual abuse she suffered as a child and she lost self-control (and chose to lose it).

My two now-adult children are still edgy around the subject. They were witnesses to their mother hitting their father – however “little” the blows were. The blows she landed caused no permanent physical injury, but they were in no way harmless. While I understand the context of my experience and my ex-wife’s issues, the lasting pain of those “little taps” is pretty profound (that and the emotional abuse that accompanied it). I have difficulty getting people to believe the deep emotional injury those “harmless taps” caused, and I have been mocked for my ongoing anguish.

Under male stereotypes, I should be just brushing off the fact that the person I ostensibly loved most (my spouse) perpetrated physical violence against me on a regular basis.

Another sends the above video:

Long-time reader, sometime emailer here (you’ve actually published a couple of my emails a few years back, about Bioshock/Ayn Rand and about loyalty to a sports team). Full disclosure: I’m male, I have never been the victim of domestic abuse, so this is not something I’ve ever experienced (thank goodness). I’ve been following your “Abuse In The Public Eye” thread for some time, and I am not at all surprised that there are stories of women domestically abusing their husbands/boyfriends.  When I was a teen and a college student, I assumed that if there was a case of domestic violence it would be a man striking a woman.  That is, until I saw a stand up routine by Christopher Titus.

This is a man, in his 40s, who’s had a very rough life (psychotic mother who committed suicide, alcoholic father) and the way he deals with it is basically making a comic routine out of all the awful things he’s had to deal with. His awful experiences include an ex-girlfriend who would physically abuse him.  Now, much of the information is from a comedy routine, so it’s played for laughs, but as Titus puts it, his girlfriend would routinely lose her temper (because she was bipolar) and “crack me in the face”.  But he doesn’t leave.  He stayed for months, even moving in with her after she beats him up watching a Christmas special.

Seeing Green

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Michael Gorra shares insights from Green: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau:

In the Renaissance the color’s chemical instability made it seem “false” and even treacherous, a “deceptive color, simultaneously appealing and disappointing.” As such, it became associated with games of chance or hazard; think of the green baize with which tables for cards or craps or pool are covered even now. The color here carries a symbolic charge that is inseparable from its use—gambling means green. It connotes luck, the ups and downs of a player’s fortunes, and it also suggests avarice.

A sixteenth-century painting by Quentin Massys shows a money changer spreading his wares on a table covered by a verdant cloth, and in fact the Seven Deadly Sins had each their color. In early modern Europe pride was seen as red and black betokened anger, while in pictures the greedy Judas was often clad in green. In northern Italy, as Pastoureau writes, “dishonest debtors” might be clapped into the stocks wearing acornuto verde, and bankrupts were later said to have taken “the green bonnet.”

Other scholars have touched on aspects of Pastoureau’s project, most notably John Gage in his 1993 Color and Culture. But none of them approaches his range or indeed his prodigality, a range that makes Green and its companions seem stuffed with rarities and wonders, an attic of all the centuries, right up to Babar’s cheerful lime suit.

(Image: depiction of Judas by Fyodor Andreyevich Bronnikov via Wikimedia Commons)

The Sociology Of Style

Rachel Signer praises the new book Women In Clothes:

It is a striking endeavor in that it is … verifiably “crowd-sourced” and contains no input from anyone who could be considered a style icon, although a former fashion model and a prominent fashion critic are amongst those who contributed survey responses. The book is, in this sense, a truly contemporary item, representing an age brought along through the Internet’s dominance, in which all opinions are valid, and sharing private thoughts and practices is acceptable.

Jenna Sauers also recommends the collection:

Most affecting, for me, were the roundups of answers to single survey questions, both for the specificity of the unique responses and for their shared engagement. I liked learning that Eileen Myles resents the way men can let themselves go, because she wants the same “freedom to be a pig” that men have, and that Audrey Gelman and I both tuck our blouses into our tights. Clothes are vehicles for memory, objects of economic trade, and products of history. The anthology succeeds as an investigation into this often seen, but rarely looked at, element of our material culture.

Elisabeth Donnelly talked to the authors about what they learned from their research:

What have you learned about the ethics of clothes in the Western world?

[Sheila Heti]: We interviewed the Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland about this — and the conclusion she came to (she is a woman who doesn’t buy herself clothes) is that there’s really no good solution. You can say it’s bad to shop at places like H&M because the (mostly women) who work in the factories that make these are labouring under terrible conditions, yet the minimum wage in America is so low that many people cannot afford clothes except those that are made in these factories.

So it’s hard propose a likely ethics of clothes in America when wages are so low. I would like our book to help a little bit, simply by saying: maybe you don’t need to buy and consume as much. Maybe a new shirt is not the solution. Shop more carefully and make what you have last.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Rodent Mind

Maria Konnikova examines the work of neuroscientist Roberto Malinow, who appears to have wiped out the memories of rats:

Malinow’s team used Pavlovian conditioning to teach the rats to fear a tone: each time the tone sounded, they would feel an electric shock in their feet. Soon, as predicted, they froze at the tone itself. Then, the U.C.S.D. scientists did away with both the tone and shock. Instead, they stimulated the relevant nerve cells – the route between the hearing centers and the fear centers—by shining a blue light pulse. The rats froze, as though they had heard the tone. Not only had the researchers created a memory but they could trigger it without making any environmental changes.

They then went a step further:

if they could use light to make a rat react as though it were recalling a painful shock, perhaps they could also use it to make the memory of the shock go away. The idea is closely related to the notion of modifying memory – reconsolidation, the process in which we recall a memory and, often, subtly change it as we do. (It’s described in detail in Michael Specter’s recent piece for the magazine.) However, instead of working at the level of the stimulus (desensitizing a rat’s memory by playing a tone repeatedly without a shock), you would do it at the level of the synapse. For fifteen minutes, the researchers stimulated the nerve cells that had been responding to the tone and shock in a pattern that has previously been shown to cause L.T.D., the rough equivalent of playing the tone repeatedly with no ill effect. By the end of those fifteen minutes, the rats had forgotten their fear: they no longer froze. Using light stimulation alone, Malinow’s team had been able to extinguish the memory completely.

The Best Of The Dish Today

The Final Day Of Campaigning For The Scottish Referendum Ahead Of Tomorrow's Historic Vote

There’s a kind of hush all over Britain tonight, as Herman’s Hermits once had it. That bitter old lion, Gordon Brown, delivered a barn-burner for the union:

Tell them this is our Scotland. Tell them that Scotland does not belong to the Scottish Nationalist Party. Scotland does not belong to the Yes campaign. Scotland does not belong to any politician – Mr Salmond, Mr Swinney, me or any other politician. Scotland belongs to all of us. This is not their flag, their country, their culture, their streets. This is everyone’s flag, everyone’s country, everyone’s culture and everyone’s streets. Let us tell the people of Scotland that we who vote No love Scotland and love our Scotland.

It was arguably the strongest speech in the campaign – and even revived calls for Brown to get back into politics. Watch it all here. And isn’t it marvelous the way this referendum has really brought out a huge outpouring of democracy, of debate in every venue, and a staggering 97 percent registration rate? At a time when politics seems increasingly distant from most voters’ lives, in which political elites become as despised as economic elites, the simple ballot and the simple question have brought real democracy back to life. The Guardian introduced a new point:

A decision of such gravity – to break away from a 300-year-old union – should be the settled will of a nation. The very fact that Scottish opinion is so closely divided is itself a weakness in the case for independence. Moves of such import should command enduring and overwhelming support, as the creation of the Holyrood parliament did in 1997.

But what if the vote isn’t as close as it now seems to be? The referendum has achieved a 97 percent registration rate, as Tim Stanley has noted. You think all those new voters want to keep the status quo? But, as usual, the Onion FTW:

A tragedy is unfolding in Scotland. One glance at this week’s headlines reveals that the region’s fractious political situation is intensifying, with separatist activists gaining more and more support every day. Barring something drastic, Scotland seems bound inexorably for a cataclysm. Can the United States stand idly by as Scotland descends into civil war? …

How many Scots need to die before Obama says “Enough is enough” and steps in? The United States has a moral imperative to intervene, starting immediately with air raids to break the militant separatists before they gain a stranglehold on power. But that will not be enough. We need boots on the ground as soon and in as great numbers as possible.

Where is John McCain when you need him?

Full Dish coverage of Scotland in one place here. Elsewhere on the blog today, I tried to add some historical perspective to the growing hysteria over Russia and Iraq and Syria. Readers revealed their own personal eggcorns – after my epic embarrassment. We noted that Obama has not just given ISIS the mother of all propaganda coups, but has actually brought Al Qaeda and the Caliphate into an alliance. Pretty great start, no? Instead of letting these fanatics fight each other, we’ve gone and made them all want to fight us. I hope Lindsey Graham is satisfied.

As for the midterms, the Democrats seem to be holding weirdly steady. Could it be a function of general loathing of the GOP?

Many of today’s posts were updated with your emails – read them all here.  You can always leave your unfiltered comments at our Facebook page and @sullydish. 20 more readers became subscribers today. You can join them here – and get access to all the readons and Deep Dish – for a little as $1.99 month. Gift subscriptions are available here if you’d like to introduce the Dish to others. A reader gets what we’re trying to do here:

[Dish editor] Chris, thank you so much for posting [my email on husband beaters]. You have no idea how much it brightened my day/week/month and probably my year. It’s also interesting to me which part you cut out of my email. I don’t know if it was just to keep it snappy or not to attract the pure shitstorm that comes with even mentioning men’s rights activists? Either way I wouldn’t blame you.

I’ve been reading Andrew since this 2006 article on the rise of fundamentalism. At the time I was wrestling with a lot of questions about faith and his words in this felt like a revelation to me. I’ve been reading ever since. When I have strong opinions about politics or other things that go on in the world, I usually talk with friends and family, but I can never be sure I’m not just in an echo chamber. I can look for conversation online, but, well … you know how bad the comments section can be. It’s full of people yelling half-formed opinions into an abyss of pure noise and never really listening to what others have to say.

But even getting a passing mention on the Dish is special to me. It’s actually having a seat in a full conversation. I’m sure some readers will disagree with what I say, and I welcome that, but even being one voice on the Dish tells me at least I’m asking the right questions.

See you when the conversation resumes in the morning.

(Photo: Unionist supporters gather near George Square, where Yes activists had been holding a pre-referendum event in Glasgow, Scotland on September 17, 2014. By Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The Great “Unraveling”?

[Re-posted from earlier today.]

I’m a huge admirer of Roger Cohen’s writing – and can appreciate many of the thoughts percolating in his latest column on what he sees as a disintegration of the world order. He manages to cite Scottish independence, the rise of ISIS, and the devolved powers to Eastern Ukraine – and even Ebola! – as part of a trend toward dissolution and anarchy.

But when I look at all the developments he is citing, I don’t really see anything that new. Take Iraq – please. What we are witnessing is the second major Sunni revolt since they were summarily deposed from power by the United States in 2003. How is this new? The Sunnis have long since believed in their bones that Iraq is theirs by right to govern. They despise the Shiites now running the show. The entire construct Syria_and_Iraq_2014-onward_War_mapof Iraq in the first place was designed on the premise of permanent Sunni rule over the majority. That rule necessarily had to be despotic – as all attempts to permanently deny rights to a majority in the country must be.

So we removed the despot – as we did in Libya – and we have an ongoing power-struggle that is a continuation of the same power struggle Iraq has been hosting since time immemorial. I mean look at that map on the right, from Wiki on the current division of power and land in Iraq. Does it look familiar? It looks like every map of Iraq’s sectarian divide since time immemorial. And we think we will change that by air-strikes?

My fear is that the catastrophic error of 2003 will never lead to a stable state, because the Sunnis will never tolerate or trust majority Shiite rule. Yes, we bribed them enough to switch sides temporarily in the “surge”. But they knew we’d leave; and they knew what they had to do when we did. The only conceivable way to avoid such a scenario would be to stay in Iraq indefinitely – but that too is untenable, for both the Iraqis and for us.

The Beltway nonetheless decided – against all the evidence – that the surge had worked, that sectarian passions had subsided, and that a multi-sectarian government would be able to overcome the profound rifts in Iraqi society that have always been embedded in its DNA. We were sold a bill of goods – by Petraeus and McCain and the other benign imperialists. They have spun a narrative that Iraq was “solved” in 2009 – and that the absence of US troops led to subsequent failure. But they flatter themselves. We never had any real reason to believe these sectarian divides had been overcome – and after a decade of brutal and traumatizing mutual slaughter, why on earth would they be?

Iraq was unraveled in 2003; in my view, it has thereby become the battle-ground for the simmering, wider Sunni-Shiite civil conflict that has also been a long-running strain in the region. Our own solipsistic focus on ISIS as another al Qaeda against us – again the narrative of the utterly unreconstructed neocon right and the pious interventionist left – misses this simple fact. We cannot see the forest for our own narcissistic tree.

When you look at Russia and Ukraine from the same historical perspective, the unraveling meme also seems unpersuasive. Russia is a proud and ornery and mysterious country. It has gone from global super-power to regional neo-fascist state in a matter of decades. Its sphere of influence has retreated from the edge of Berlin to the boundaries of Ukraine, which it simply controlled for an extremely long time.

Ukraine has never existed as an independent country for very long; as you can see from another Wiki map on the left, it is itself a cobbled together mix of land lost to Russia, gained from Poland and Czechoslovakia and Romania. It was “given” the Crimea by the Soviets only in 1954. And throughout, Russia has obviously been its big brother, with a deep belief in its right to dick around with its near-abroad (a similar historic belief to the Sunnis faith in their own right to rule).

Ukraine-growthAnd what is sometimes lost in all this is that the last pro-Russian leader of the country was democratically elected and then deposed by a revolution from the European-centered populations of the West of the country. Russia did not start this; it reacted to a sudden, revolutionary loss of a pliant neighbor. Anyone with any inkling of Russian history would know what would happen next. I’m not defending Putin’s military and pseudo-military aggression. I am saying that the resolution reached this week – with significant autonomy for the Eastern, Russian-speaking provinces together with a new trade pact with the EU is a perfectly logical way to resolve this. And if Scotland demands outright independence, who could deny the East Ukrainians for wanting more autonomy?

Then Scotland. I don’t know what will happen – and, yes, the term “unraveling” is the most apposite in this case. But what the campaign has shown is that the unraveling has already taken place, that the desire for self-government and the disdain for the Westminster elites have combined to make the current arrangement anachronistic. But that kind of change – conducted democratically and peacefully – is not the same thing as an undoing. It is an adjustment to an emergent, new reality. And it increases democracy in the UK, rather than diminishing it.

What I’m saying is that America is in great danger of over-reacting to all these things, and blundering into new errors because of a generalized anxiety about declining relative US power, and PTSD from 9/11 in which every Jihadist in a hummer with a knife and a social media presence is imminently going to come over here and slit our collective throats. So my “hysteria” about this new, unknowable, fast-escalating rush to war is actually the opposite. It’s really a call to calm down, to breathe deeply, to stop reacting to the news cycle like neurotic lab-rats and to remember history – ours and theirs.  And to carry on.

I thought Obama was the man to sell this message. But he has been overwhelmed by the collective freak-out. Maybe he’ll regain his composure, keep this war limited and contain these loons for others, with much more at stake, to fight. Or maybe American amnesia will take hold again – and the Jacksonian impulse will once again trump every rational attempt at a foreign policy that isn’t always doomed to repeat the errors of the past. From the way things are going, it’s America’s own history of Jacksonian violence against outsiders that will prevail. We believe we are immune from history – that it can be erased, that what matters is just the latest news cycle and the political spin that can be applied to it. But history will have – and is having – the last word.

“Scotland’s Impending Disaster”

BRITAIN-SCOTLAND-INDEPENDENCE-VOTE

That’s how one reader puts it:

I am an American and I love Scotland and Scottish culture. My father is from Scotland, my grandfather served as an officer in a famous Scottish regiment, The Black Watch, and he was given an award for bravery posthumously by the King of England in WWII. I am involved with Scottish charities in the US and have been a Trustee representing one of the largest Scottish charities here in the U.S.

Sometimes when dealing with the home country, I’ve heard my fellow Scottish-Americans mutter, “The smart ones left”. I can’t help but feel this may be true, as the “Yes” vote seems an increasing possibility.

Who rules who? The last three prime ministers are Scottish or of Scottish descent. The Scots have historically been a force at the Bank of England. Scotland is subsidized by the rest of the U.K. and, unlike the English, they have their own separate parliament. In fact, it makes (barely) more sense that England would tell Scotland to leave at this point, rather than the other way around.

This isn’t the thirteenth century or even the seventeenth century. There’s 300 years of cooperation and prosperity with the English. Where was Scotland before the Union in 1707? It was broke! That’s why they agreed to join. The U.K. assumed their debt and gave Scotland access to their markets to trade. I hope they like independence, because they’re coming out the same way they went in.

Oh and by the way, the only people the Scots like to fight with more than the English are with each other. You can see it now with the violence and intimidation (mostly by the SNP it seems) as the vote gets closer. And if there’s a “Yes” vote in Scotland tomorrow, get ready for a Shetland Independence vote as well. Huge economic incentive for these folks with a big slice of what’s left of the North Sea oil. We reap what we sow …

Another is also worried:

While we wait for the Scots to decide what they want to do, it might be worthwhile to consider the ramifications beyond Britain.

I have seen a couple of people speculating about the implications for various places in Europe: Catalonia, Northern Italy, etc.  And no doubt there will be an impact there.  But what nobody seems to be talking about (at least in my limited browsing) is the impact beyond Europe. The Middle East and Africa are full of countries that are completely artificial constructs, with no relation to the reality of the nations (or tribe, or ethnic groups, or what-have-you) on the ground.  If Scotland can become a separate country, why not Kurdistan?  Why not Somaliland?  Etc., etc., etc.

How will Britain, or any other country that recognizes Scotland as a separate country, justify not doing the same for others?  How will they justify the last half century norm of treating virtually all national boundaries (Bangladesh and South Sudan being the only exceptions I can think of) as set in stone?  Will China decline to recognize Scottish independence, lest it be used as justification for considering independence for Tibet or Xinjiang?

If it happens, there is a huge can of worms being opened up, not just for Britain but for the entire world.

Another reader:

I like many in Northern Ireland, England, and Wales are waking up to the possibility that a part of our identity may, in many important and resonant ways, cease to exist by this time tomorrow.

The British aspect of national identity in Northern Ireland is, as can be expected, complex. Between the hardline orange unionists and the revisionism of Sinn Fein that sees British influence as nothing but negative, there are many in the province who hold a kind of conflicted affection for being British.
It comes less from a conflict of national identities than a kind of hierarchy.

I would view myself, first and foremost, as Northern Irish, possessed of a mongrel mix of Celtic traits that borrows from Irish and Scottish influence. Because of this, I have no issues with being described as Irish. But both Irish-ness and British-ness seem inaccurate designations that prompt a “yes, but” rather than a “no, actually”.

If Scotland secedes, our closest cultural link with the rest of the UK will disappear. In the short term, this will lead to a crisis in political Unionism that, frankly, will be an entertaining watch. Over the long-term, a referendum on a united Ireland will be inevitable. The Scottish debate, while notably mature by Northern Irish standards, has so far failed to present a positive case for Britishness beyond the financial implications for the Scots. I would fear that a national conversation in Northern Ireland would be dominated by the extremes of both sides, leaving the rest of us, with complex identities that can love Radio 4, value the NHS, and still despise the England rugby team with a jihad-like passion, out in the cold.

Follow all of our Scotland coverage here.

(Photo: A pro-independence supporter blows a “Yes” balloon during a rally in Glasgow’s George Square on September 17, 2014, ahead of the referendum on Scotland’s independence. Campaigners for and against Scottish independence scrambled for votes on Wednesday on the eve of a knife-edge referendum that will either see Scotland break away from the United Kingdom or gain sweeping new powers with greater autonomy. By Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

Who Would Replace Cameron?

Daniel Berman predicts a Yes vote would be bad news not only for David Cameron, but also for other prominent Conservatives:

Cameron’s successor will be chosen for a very specific task; leading the Conservative party into the elections due next spring, not for the next two, three, five, or ten years. As such there are a number of considerations that may well lead the leading factions to settled on someone less prominent.

The first will be the nature of their ascension. Cameron’s fall will be interpreted as a judgement on Cameron’s tenure as leader, and the entire policy of his government. At the very least it will be seen as a repudiation of his handling of Scotland. The Chancellor, George Osborne is associated with both, and his recent entry into the Scottish campaign, the only senior Tory to do so, will reinforce that impression. This does not mean that Osborne or the Cameron faction will be without resources or prospects. Just because they cannot win a leadership contest in 2014, does not mean they would necessarily be unable to in 2015 or 2016. As such they have every interest to delay the issue of a permanent leader as long as possible, while also preserving as many existing MPs as possible in next year’s elections. The current MP intake is far friendlier to Cameron than any of their potential replacements will be. Both goals can be accomplished by backing a lesser-known right-winger as leader.

Is Britain Doomed Regardless?

Gordon Brown’s stirring speech against Scottish independence:

But, even if Scotland votes no tomorrow, Cassidy wonders if the union can survive:

For, although the unionist side seems likely to win this round, in the longer term the impact of the referendum could well be disastrous for those who want to maintain the status quo. About the best they can hope for is a federalized Great Britain that retains the word “United” in its name but is, for most intents and purposes, two separate countries. And even that outcome may prove to be unsustainable. Indeed, the English, who today are lamenting the possible dissolution of their beloved union, may well end up kicking the Scots out of it. …

Imagine what will happen if there’s a “no” vote, and, over the next few years, “devo-max” is enacted. “At that point,” Janan Ganesh, a columnist for the Financial Times, notes, “MPs representing Scottish seats at Westminster, who are overwhelmingly Labour, will be voting on legislation that scarcely affects their constituents. Anybody who thinks this will be allowed to stand does not talk to enough Tory MPs, many of whose private views on Scottish independence already range from insouciance to glee.”

Nora Biette-Timmons suggests that, either way the vote goes, it will strain the union:

Some Conservative Party leaders, for instance, are urging Westminster to revoke the voting rights of Scottish MPs over English-only legislation if Scotland ultimately chooses not to secede on Thursday. Others are calling for more dramatic constitutional overhauls of the United Kingdom. “While the majority of us would like Scotland to stay in the UK, a large majority of us in England now want devolution for our country too,” John Redwood, a Conservative MP from southeast England, wrote in the Financial Times on Wednesday, on the eve of the independence vote. This devolution, he argued, could take the form of an English Parliament as well. “What has emerged from the Scottish referendum is the idea of a federal state, with much greater power being exercised in the constituent nations of the union,” he noted. “What is fair for Scotland now also has to be fair for England.”

And the Tories might even be able to compete with UKIP on that platform. More Dish on Scotland here.

Face Of The Day

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A Kashmiri flood victim sits at a bonfire outside a tent in Srinagar on September 17, 2014. Army and other emergency officials have battled to rescue tens of thousands of people stranded by the floods, triggered by heavy monsoon rains, that hit the northern Himalayan region and neighbouring Pakistan. By Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images.