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April 28, 2005

Notes: How Adulthood Evolved - A Speculative History

[NOTE: This document was added to the blog on May 22, 2005]

These are notes I took in my little notepad today while on a 5-mile, 2 hr 25 min walk. [Plus a few notes at the end that I made while typing up this document.]

• I don't want a historical montage of examples; I'm looking for a direct legal lineage.

• ** If my premise is adults = org then I need to look not only at the history of law, but also at the evolution of government itself.

• The Middle Ages may be a period without a "state" government -- only local law. Common Law may be particularly relevant here.

• For artificial age lines, I want to find instances of specific numbers throughout history: 14, 16, 18, 21, 25, 30, 35...

• ** Two kinds of adultism: modern and pre-modern. Modern is interwoven with the existence of the state and a legally based status system. Pre-modern still deals with community rules.

• The overthrow of the elderly may only be as recent as the New Deal. It will require research in the field of aging.

• I recognize that my history is Eurocentric. This is because I am an English-speaker, and because I want this work to be useful to youth here.

• Canon law / biblical law may be a thread of maintaining the artificial age lines' lineage during the Dark Ages.

• I am looking for rules that have been written down that govern the relationship between youth and adults.

• ** Youth / Adults is an abstraction from the father / son relationship. It is inherently about a relationship between government and the adults; youth / sons are property -- if patriarchy breaks down, then the government needs an alternate way to identify adults... Persons who are free, not owned.

• **For most of history, being owned by someone has been the norm. The governmental recognition of "free men" to include blacks, women, has been relatively recent.

• **** Slavery is the norm. Slave-like statuses of command / obey, non-voting, right to murder -- are the status of most humans, going back to the earliest camps. We see the term "free men" in Hammurabi. It's fallen out of use, but the principle remains active.

• **** Let us presume tow sorts of societies: (1) Those that are isolated, geographically cut off, thus homogenous; and (2) those which are in contact with outside groups, thus inherently in conflict, internally diverse. The first will be ruled by elders -- a gerontocracy rather than adultism per se. This resonates with village life, where there are elders as judges, but no need for a strong autocratic mayor. City-states on the other hand, are almost by definition in conflict with other city-states, which facilitates the rise to power of warlords.

  [A similar dynamic may exist in tribal societies where war-leaders assume power, toppling gerontocracy, instituting a form of adultism... If so, ** I would expect "rites of passage" to be more common in warring tribes -- the transition marks one's readiness to no longer be protected (and used) like the women, but instead killers who join the adult soldiers. Rites of passage for girls may be derivative of those for boys -- signifying readiness to be a wife -- but existing only because rites exist for the men (much like hazings -- intended to cull out the weak, since struggles will be life-or-death).]

  ...Warlords succeed by controlling their soldiers -- organizing them. It's a mindset that leads to military coups and assuming control of society in general. After the conflict is over, the principles of inheritance kick in -- the king giving the world to his son. Recall that property is inherently an extension of oneself. Thus, the son being the property of the king -- who has been groomed and indoctrinated -- the king feels he lives on -- regardless of religious beliefs. In advanced society, overt war may be replaced with commerce between nations -- wherein stealing resources from neighboring nations / tribes is replaced with trades.

• [Potential title: Intergenerational Justice]

• Now that I've speculated about tribal life, let's go back even farther. Tribes are originally nomadic extended families. So long as there is little property, merely food to hunt and gather, there is a relative lack of conflict -- there are no material goods to argue over! Which is not a utopian peace... So long as there are feelings, there are hurt feelings. Being scorned by a lover you want, an older brother who toys with a younger and hurts him, a lusty male raping a female. Such conflicts probably lead to splits in the extended family and new tribes forming.

• Jealousy for attention -- attention and affection being a commodity -- are a likely origin of (sexual) possessiveness. Being with a mate because you favor them may look like monogamy, but lacks conscious exclusiveness. [Premise: age taboo, heterosexuality (vs. bisexuality), monogamy -- are inventions too.]

• Incest is a modern taboo, but I doubt the taboo exists in tribes that aren't in conflict -- that have not been stratified by the soldier / warrior class. The incest issue (and monogamy) bear on the issue of marriage. Gerda Lerner has hypothesized that marriage originates in capturing female (sex) slaves -- women as booty, which has a dehumanizing effect upon the whole society and is probably the antecedent of patriarchy and enslaving blacks, or Hittites, or whatever.

• ** So, I am revisioning my notion that gerontocracy (respect of elders) was simply replaced by adultism. Yes, there are modern instances of the overthrow of the old by the middle-agers (retirement age) -- but there are antecedents of this in tribal societies at war, where the middle-age soldiers seize control. Gerontocracy is most likely to appear in homogenous, isolated communities without elaborate governments.
  
• Enslavement of youth may be a function of how much the slave-owning mentality permeates a society.

• [RE] ** U.S. military service is 18-25. The last U.S. amendment was inspired by Vietnam -- dropping the voting age from 21 to 18. That means that 18 is probably related to the "age of military" in the Common Laws of England. Having a minimum draft age probably has to do with kings respecting the property rights of their subjects -- not taking their sons. [This might be an interesting segue to discussing Feudal lords' right to "first night" with a woman being married!]

• [RE] The varying ages of consent, military, discretion, and majority may have to do with the theories of stages of psychological development from the Middle Ages -- which are likely to derive from bible interpretations! I can see myself needing to read up on the canonization of the bible.

• Age relations deal with two levels of ownership:
  
  1. father-son (women being a whole other category of animal)
     
  2. king-subject (free man)
  
  
• [RE] The essay Kristian recommended on state-making as organized crime is probably going to be useful.

• I'm increasingly seeing more historical themes to pursue:
  
  • rise of the organized state
    
  • lineage of written law
    
  • origins of marriage and child custody
    
  • origins of communal affirmation of child obedience to parents
    
  • origins of parental responsibilities
    
  • consequences of tribal isolation vs. war
    
  • origins of slavery / free men
    
  • state oversight of custody disputes (between men?)
    
  • scenarios that encourage gerontocracy
  
  
• Just as parental responsibilities have increased, so have state responsibilities to the subjects -- moving on a continuum from kings (elected by god) toward socialist democracies (capitalism being rule by merchants vs. laborers / consumers).

• It has been thousands of years since the primary meaning of adulthood was ability to procreate. You are able at 12 or 14 -- but the current adult organization attempts to prevent us from doing so.

• Adulthood came to mean something else -- the owner of property, slaves, and slave-like familial women and youth. Adulthood, then only had meaning for a minority of men -- those with hope of being "free men". This is in a period where slaver and slave-like states is the norm for humanity; only the king is free -- all others are more or less ruled from above.

• The state has evolved, and while youth are still primarily the property of adults, membership in the organization is heavily mediated from above. No longer simply mediating in disputes, the single-ruler system has moved toward being a service provision apparatus (except in times of war) -- largely driven by the interests of merchants. Thus, adulthood has become a state-level public status, rather than an inter- and intra- familial "contract" [...for having been born. See Blackstone.] "Free men's" membership has been expanded -- but the vestiges of slavery and slave-like statuses persist.

• I should insert another stage: when adulthood was primarily defined by / made meaningful by the rite of passage -- being inducted into a tiny organization of soldiers, essentially a hazing prior to going into life-or-death battles with other tribes / animals. [Is the hunt for animals what shapes our treatment of other tribes as animals??] This is the "ritualistic" stage in the evolution of adulthood.

• The evolution of adulthood (like the evolution of the state) is motivated by the organization of society to meet the demands of war.
  
• Gerontocracy, then, is a parallel phenomena to adulthood. It is most likely to emerge in peaceful, isolated societies.

• At the theological level, gerontocracy is ultimately propped up by ancestor worship. Adultism, however, is bolstered by a war-like father. God is the father of nation, government the super-adults who oversee average parents. In the autocratic state, authority is invested in the ruler directly by the god -- like the Egyptian king whose lineage goes back to god himself. The autocrat, with god-like power, is invested with the actual power of god. In an organized state, motivated by war / commerce -- whichever keeps resources flowing -- god is going to be rule-oriented -- just like the authorities, whose job is to mediate disputes. A sun-god ruler enjoys absolute power. A bureaucratic government has a god that is a judge of right and wrong.

• Am I moving into the anthropology of adulthood, rather than pure history? And where's the line between that and sociology?

• OUTLINE:
  I. Premise: Modern adulthood is a membership organization
  II. Speculative: The stages of adulthood's evolution
  

  A. Societies without adulthood [or "pre-adult, in peaceful tribal society"]
  (Note, early anthropologists saw tribes as child-like -- perhaps in part due to lack of owning youth)
  B. Ritualistic adulthood in warring tribal society
  C. Children among the slave-holdings of free men
  (warlord-governed societies)
  D. Adulthood as a status in the advanced service-providing government

  
  III. Involved discussion of each stage

• A few principles:
  
  1. the organized state emerged due to war
     
  2. age stratification was motivated by war
     
  3. people as property has existed since tribal war began taking captives
     
  4. slavery transforms a whole society, slave-ness bleeds into other relationships
     
  5. historically, free men have been the exception
     
  6. slavery is an outgrowth of war
     
  7. marriage is an outgrowth of slavery
  
  
• Love is an invention of romanticism: "I love my child, and it is obligated to love me back" originated then.

• Prior to romanticization, the contractual view of youth held sway: "obey me and you will inherit." Sentimentalization obscured the bargain.

• Rome believed "I made you, I own you." Blackstone commented that we owe something to those we've borne.

• I wonder if romantic love sprang from urbanization -- you shop around for love, rather than marrying whatever farm girl lives within 20 miles. Romancing then is advertising for a desirable mate in a competitive market.

• Inheritance is an interesting phenomenon to try to explain.

• It's interesting to think that government has shifted from being the instrument of a single ruler's power to being a vehicle shared by a government of many co-rulers, an organization whose purpose is to provide services. ...Being a member of adulthood, your only semi-metaphorical membership card gets you a bunch of privileges, services from the club.

• Perhaps the pinnacle of the third form of adulthood was Rome -- the warlord of the city-state having evolved into the emperor. Or maybe Rome had achieved the fourth variety of adulthood? Maybe the government was a service-providing structure -- I don't know enough about the history of Rome to really say. Perhaps during the Dark Ages, adulthood back-tracked, going back to the ritualistic phase -- but transformed by peaceful isolation into less meaningful rituals, possibly even moving laterally into gerontocracy. The only difference between the city-states and the empire, as contexts for adulthood, is probably the extent to which the government provides services, versus merely mediating in disputes over child custody, paternity, etc.

• My four stages in the evolution of adulthood can be linked to stages of social organization:
  
  1. nomadic extended family
     
  2. tribal organization, with role-differentiation for combat
     
  3. city-states overseen by warlord kings
     
  4. nation-states / empires which provide services to some citizens
  
  ...What's notably missing here is any mention of agrarian societies. What sorts of governmental structures are common when a people is primarily made up of farmers, rather than hunters? Is a key distinguishing factor, in terms of types of adulthood, whether or not a people has some sort of organized military? Is militarism the origin of sexism, adultism, and all other slave-like statuses, after all?

• Rather than focusing on the military, perhaps my demon should be property-ownership. If you're willing to fight and kill, then you're also willing to take human captives, which then become slaves. On the other hand, if you work the land, then territory is the primary form of property... Which may shift father-son issues somewhat away from obedience, and more towards inheritance.

• When a community's survival is dependent upon having enough laborers, it's understandable why they procreate. Slaves are desirable if there's a high death rate, or if you need farm hands. But if you're a merchant, or can't support more mouths, then you move to infanticide. You make a child, it belongs to you. You steal a child from another tribe, it belongs to you...

• Within the nomadic extended family, adulthood need not exist. A four year old can carry and tend a newborn; a four-year old can lend their hands in the fields. Everyone with hands can help. In terms of hunting, even fairly small children can hunt small game -- it's only big game that requires a full-on hunting party. Women may stay at home due to pregnancy or wet-nursing, but the gender-divide need not be strong. There may be long-term mating due to favoratism, but it need not be monogamy in the sense of conscientious exclusion. The exclusion of other partners of the same age isn't necessarily there, nor is there necessarily an age taboo. "Sexual games" and all-out incestuous sexuality may be present. Biologically pregnancy, development of breasts, pubic hair, and menstruation may be markers of adulthood -- but still, these things need not be invested with much pomp and ritual. ["Becoming a man", is probably a somewhat more symbolic transition.] In nomadic extended families, there is surely recognition of infancy, youth, adulthood, and old age -- but there need not be the dissociation from one's social inferiors that we see in more stratified societies. Control is practical -- those who are competent lead -- rather than there being a system of command / obey relationships, where power for it's own sake has taken on significance. The extended nomadic family, then, represents the most natural manifestation of adulthood -- where transitions are organic rather than artificial, and may go without any sort of ritual or change in social or legal status. Adulthood is (could be) purely functional, without layers of symbolism, status, prestige, privilege. [Perhaps, again, because there's not much for the adults to bother with hoarding.]

• Adults can hoard and control resources such as: land, command of labor, symbolic money, goods such as a house. No wonder why being severed from the filial relationship has typically been seen as a terrible thing... The sort of independence that Youth Lib is interested in today only makes sense in the context of a democratic socialist society, which provides services to its members, distributed according to the will of the society's leaders.

• ...How important is it for youth to understand their place in history with regards to the new benefits? --Not just with regards to the lingering vestiges of slave-status? Within the family, we can easily talk about dismantling the command-obey relationship. In the greater society (as well as in the family), we have the more difficult task of discussing how to distribute wealth and share control of it. Asking adults to share their wealth and power with those they have created -- not easy!

  Posted by Sven at 12:00 PM

  April 27, 2005

  Research: History of Adulthood

  [NOTE: This document was added to the blog on May 22, 2005]

  Today I'm actually in the library doing research. I have a few lines of questioning to pursue. My premise: contemporary adulthood is an organization. Two aspects of that that I want to research further: (1) the evolution of artificial age lines, (2) the evolution of obedience [adults' entitlement to command -- which is interwoven with the history of their legal responsibilities].

  With regards to age lines, in "Exploration: Outline for a Youth History of Adult Power" (12.08.04), I outlined four theses:
  

  1. Previously birthdays were not taken into account in separating adults from children -- only practical distinctions.
     
  2. Numerical legal age lines mimic lines between child / parent / grandparent.
     
  3. Gerontocracy, "rule of the old" and "older is better", existed previously.
     
  4. The power of the elderly was toppled, resulting in modern adultism -- rule by adults, not just the oldest.
  
  These theses will have to be proven or disproven using the historical record. Let me summarize some of the historical points I've made a connection with so far...
  
  • "Rites of passage" probably exist in pre-historic tribes. The book "Rites of Passage" will probably be helpful here.

  • Prior to the invention of writing, Western Civilization was forming into city-states in the Middle-East.

  • The first written legal code of note appears to be the code of Hammurabi in Babylonia (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM). I have noted references to parental rights over children in the 282 rules listed therein; however, I have not read closely enough yet to discover if there's a definition of adult vs. child there yet. [Note that numbers 13, 66-99, 110 have been lost.]

    I have a suspicion that the origins of "adult" as opposed to "parent" may evolve out of the origins of marriage -- that in Babylonia, you're a child to be controlled by your parents until you're married yourself. If this is the case, then I'll need to pursue the origins of marriage further.

    Beyond the code of Hammurabi itself, there are anthropological descriptions of Babylonian society that will likely prove useful. One source I saw said that a father had control over his children until marriage.

    Question: What does the code of Hammurabi say specifically about age-lines?

    From my wikipedia search on "Hammurabi" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi) [note - a photo of a sculpture of Hammurabi is included]: "Hammurabi reigned over Babylon and the Babylonian Empire from 1728BC until his death in 1686 ... The Kassites ruled for 400 years, and respected the Code of Hammurabi.

    From my wikipedia search on "Cod of Hammurabi" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi) [note - a photo of an inscription of the Code is included]: "The Code of Hammurabi, created ca. 1700 BC, also known as the Codex Hammurabi, is one of the earliest sets of laws found, and one of the best preserved examples of this type of document from ancient Mesopotamia. Other collections of laws include the codex of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur (ca. 2050 BC) the Codex of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BC) and the codex of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1870 BC)." ...So, while Hammurabi is important, there may be other ancient laws that need to be researched.

    Question: How do other ancient Codexes compare to that of Hammurabi?

    Question: What are the commonly recognized periods of world history?

    [Note: it looks like "History of Europe" is the relevant wikipedia search here, since it goes back to Greece and Rome...]

    More: "The code is often pointed to as the first example of the legal concept that some laws are so basic as to be beyond the ability of even a king to change. By writing the laws on stone they were immutable. This concept lives on in most modern legal systems and has given rise to the term written in stone."

    Reading through the code now, I notice the term "minor son"

    Question: Does use of the word "minor" in Hammurabi mean that a legal category for youth existed?

    ...It appears that fathers choose who their son will marry; and that a price is paid for someone else's daughter; and that that fee is for child-bearing -- you basically get your money back if you don't get children out of her. ...An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth -- and a son for a son! ...It looks like a "minor son" may be a younger son? ...The most relevant quote herein may be #195: "If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off." [There's also a bit about getting your tongue cut out if you say "you are not my father!" -- but that's perhaps not so much about defiance as lineage.]

    Also of note: #135 talks about fathers retaining custody of their children; #169 talks about depriving a child of their filial relationship -- casting them out; and #182 talks about artisans apprenticing youth -- which reminds me of the apprentice relationships in "From Father's Property to Children's Rights".

    ...Having now read through the code, it does look like an anthropological history will be more useful. The code, with regards to family, has mostly to do with inheritance and marriage contracts (which seem to be very focused on producing more children).

  • Roman law influences everything that comes thereafter. Fast-forwarding to England at the time of William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" , you basically have two forms of law that go into the work: common law, and civil law. Common law comes from customs of "time immemorial"; civil laws come from Rome.

  • Roman society seems to embody the height of adult supremacism, fathers having the right to murder their children. I also seem to recall that Roman adulthood was set at 25 -- which explains where number 25 comes from in the U.S. Constitution.

    Question: Where in Roman Law is the number 25 located, specifically?

  • In England, it appears that there was a period during which the country was controlled by inconsistent local laws, and Canon law (church law).

    From my search on "common law" (http://www.wikipedia.org/): "Before the institutional stability imposed on England by William the Conqueror in 1066, English citizens were governed by unwritten local customs that varied from community to community and were enforced in often arbitrary fashion. ... In 1154, Henry II became the first Plantagenet king. Among many achievements, Henry institutionalized common law by creating a unified system of law "common" to the country through incorporating and elevating local custom to the national, ending local control and peculiarities, eliminating arbitrary remedies, and reinstating a jury system of citizens sworn on oaths to investigate reliably criminal accusations and civil claims." ...The further I read in this entry, the more I complexity I see in the history of law. Uh-oh...

  • There is a debate about childhood in the Middle Ages spawned by Philipe Aries about whether or not a conception of "childhood" as distinct from "adulthood" existed. He puts forth the notion that children were merely seen as little adults. This point of view seems to have been nearly disproven by people more familiar with that time period. I found a summary of the debate in the "Handbook of Marriage & Family", which said that Aries himself had more or less conceded the point.

    Question: Did the concept of "childhood" exist in the Middle Ages?

  • The idea that "childhood" did not exist in the Middle Ages was not matching my own research, either. In "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 2nd ed." (1940) I discovered that "Before the age of majority come military age, age of consent, and the age of discretion." (See definition of "age"). Each of these age lines originates in common law. They also tend to set different lines for boys vs. girls.

  • After Rome, I was going to make my next big stopping point William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/blackstone/blacksto.htm).

    From my wikipedia search on "common law" again (http://www.wikipedia.org/): "The definitive historical treatise on the common law is Commentaries on the Laws of England, written by Sir William Blackstone and published in 1765-1769. ... Today it has been superseded in the English part of the United Kingdom by Halsbury's Laws of England that covers both common and statutory English Law."

    From the wikipedia link to "Commentaries on the Laws of England" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaries_on_the_Laws_of_England): "The commentaries are frequently quoted as the definitive pre-Revolutionary War source of Common Law by US Courts ... Blackstone's four volumes cover the Rights of Persons, the Rights of Things, Private Wrongs, and Public Wrongs. The first treatise on the Rights of Persons is by and large concerned with the relations of status in the English social structure, from the King of England and the aristocracy down to the untitled commoners. Also Dealt heare were common relationships such as that of husband and wife, "master and servant", what we would now call employer and employee, and guardian and ward."

    Within the commentaries themselves, the chapters relevant to my studies all seem to be in book 1:

    "Chapter the Fourteenth : Of Master and Servant Chapter the Fifteenth : Of Husband and Wife Chapter the Sixteenth : Of Parent and Child Chapter the Seventeenth : Of Guardian and Ward "

    Summarizing chapter 16 [for clarity, I'll translate the archaic use of f into s]... "Children are of two sorts; legitimate, and spurious, or bastards" ...No, I change my mind: I'll include the text below as an appendix.

  • Parental rights and responsibilities in Colonial America seem to be spelled out pretty explicitly, legally, according to the book "From Father's Property to Children's Rights".

  • In the U.S. constitution, the numbers 25, 30, and 35 seem to derive from Rome, where 25 seems to have been the line for adulthood. The number 21 doesn't show up until the Amendments, when the electoral college is being reworked. And 18 seems to be the most recent Amendment... Therefore probably not likely to be changed soon. I suspect that these numbers, 18 and 21, derive from English Common Law.

    Question: Where do the age lines in the Constitution come from?

  • The New Deal seems to have revolutionized age relations in the U.S. As I understand it, this is where retirement age was really cemented into place -- in a sense, overthrowing the power of the old. I believe it is also where labor laws for the young were really put into effect -- not for their protection, but to protect the earning power of adults.

    Question: Is the New Deal summed up in a single document that I can read?

    Posted by Sven at 12:00 PM

    April 22, 2005

    Don't Learn Your Ethics In "Sin City"

    My questions: Is Sin City sexist? Not only is the fantasy world it portrays sexist -- but also, does creating a film like this promote sexist thinking in the real world? (If so, what should we do?) Putting aside how it portrays women, what "moral lessons" does Sin City teach me as a man? Beyond the ethics of personal relationships, and beyond just Sin City, how does author Frank Miller think men of honor should confront corrupt institutional power?

    I.

    I want to address "Is Sin City sexist?" Starting point:

    "I think it's a bit ridiculous saying [the vignettes are] misogynistic when several women actually have both prominent and powerful roles. Nudity does not equal misogyny. Additionally, cruelty to women is punished harshly in the movie."

    This post sums up the way a lot of people feel about Sin City, so... Let's begin with the word "misogyny".

    I agree that Sin City is not misogynistic, not in the strict sense of "woman-hating". It's true that its world is populated with men who abuse women -- but, yes, the misogynists get punished severely for their crimes.

    Misogyny is just one flavor of sexism, though. I can describe several models of sexism, and show how Sin City meets the criteria for most of them.

    [Aside: There are several widely-recognized branches of feminism: Liberal, Marxist, Radical, and Socialist being the best established. See "Feminist Politics and Human Nature" by Alison Jaggar, or "Feminist Thought" by Rosemarie Tong, for a good introduction. Since dictionary definitions of "sexism" derive from feminist thought, but only succeed insofar as the dictionaries' authors are familiar with feminist thought, I choose not to ground my arguments there. ...Nor, do I see a need to choose one variety of feminism as the "correct" one here. Looking at a variety of definitions makes for a richer discussion.]

    One approach to defining sexism taken by Liberal feminists is to equate it with stereotypes. Men are strong, women are weak, and anything that contradicts this notion is anti-sexist. This is a line of thinking that helps fuel the "girls kick ass too" strain of films, exemplified by La Femme Nikita, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tank Girl, Xena, etc.

    A weak case can be made that Sin City is non-sexist or even pro-feminist using this standard. Certainly some of the female characters shoot guns, wield swords, and kick ass. On the other hand, you also have a fair number of women whose sole purpose seems to be being precious objects, to be protected from the misogynists, abusers, and women-killers by other strong men. If all sexism boils down to is the notion that "men are strong, women are weak", then the movie goes both ways.

    Another line of thinking in Liberal feminism looks for double-standards, rather than just at caricatures.

    Double-standards in Sin City? Heck yeah. I certainly agree that "Nudity does not equal misogyny." But isn't it interesting how much female nudity we get relative to male nudity? Why not show us Bruce Willis' penis? We got to see the lead male's penis in 28 Days Later... My impression is that we get to see a lot of women's breasts because that's what the male target-audience is going to enjoy.

    That's just one instance of a double-standard. On the other hand, you have both men and women wielding guns -- so the movie also has an equalizing effect, at least on this one point. But probably the most commonly cited double-standard, the "virgin / whore" paradigm -- that's in full force. The only woman in the film that I can think of who's not literally a virgin or a whore is the lesbian parole officer -- who, according to the traditional pulp script for homosexuals, is promptly killed off. It's almost comical, the way in which Sin City universally divides women into those who must be protected from sex, and those whose sole purpose is sex.

    Another line of thinking about sexism focuses on "androcentrism" -- male-centeredness. Using this criteria, I notice that none of the protagonists in the vignettes are female. The voice of the narrator is always male. The movie is a fantasy designed to be enjoyed by a male audience. In itself, perhaps that's not necessarily a bad thing. But look -- women are constantly in the position of having to be saved by the men. Even the gun-toting prostitutes are going to be in a world of trouble, if this one male hero can't get control of the severed head back.

    ...If even strong women have to be saved by a man, then doesn't that undermine any real sense of their strength?

    If androcentrism is the essence of sexism, then to be anything but sexist, we need to see women existing independently of men. Here's a useful test to apply to any film: (1) Do two women talk to each other? (2) Do they talk to each other about something other than men? ...Sin City fails miserably on both accounts.

    One more model of sexism -- the one that I personally find most useful, and the one that seems most damning for Sin City: women as men's property.

    In the world of Sin City, bad men abuse their female property, and good men protect their female property by murdering the bad men. The only control that women can hope to have in this imaginary universe is preemptively selling themselves to men as prostitutes -- renting their bodies, rather than being in the clutches of possessive boyfriends. [And, as mentioned before, even as seemingly self-possessed prostitutes, their safety really depends upon being saved by the male protector.]

    See, sexism is more than just women-hating. Reverence for women can be sexism too. In every instance, our male narrators -- in their quest to defend their angelic women -- wind up knocking them unconscious, slapping them, ignoring them, or lying to them. The consequences of this reverent urge to protect look pretty abusive and disrespectful to me.

    II.

    OK -- that's enough of surveying different interpretations of "sexist". My original question was "Is Sin City sexist?" ...Really there are two ways of interpreting that: (1) Is the fantasy world created within this piece of fiction governed by the rules of sexism? or (2) Is the production and propagation of this film in the actual world an act of sexism?

    Me, when I consider all of the different definitions of sexism that can be applied to this movie, I think it's pretty clear that the imaginary world of Sin City is governed by sexism.

    As for whether creating and distributing this film in the real world is an act of sexism -- well, let's look at that.

    You could laugh the movie off and say that it's just a fantasy. We all know the difference between reality and fiction, so even if the movie's content is sexist, it has no impact on the outside world.

    You could acknowledge that the movie's content is sexist -- but then minimize that point. You could say that the story is situated in a time-period or sub-culture that was overtly sexist, and so to be accurate about the period, you must show sexism. ...You could even argue that omitting the sexism would be a white-washing of things as they really were!

    Counter-arguments: Our lives are governed by fantasy. I watch Star Wars, in part, because I enjoy projecting myself into the role of Luke Skywalker. Conversely, I don't watch Steel Magnolias or other "chick flicks" because I don't enjoy projecting myself into the characters presented therein.

    If the author and director of Sin City had any commercial interest at all in making this film, then they must have been concerned with getting men to the theater who enjoy this particular fantasy. This film not only reiterates past fantasies of being a possessive hero-protector of women, but also generates stronger feelings of identification with such characters. I feel comfortable saying that the film expands the influence of sexist thinking, rather than shrinking it.

    So? What if the author and director of this film are guilty of promoting sexist thinking? Am I advocating that this film should be censored? Or that activists should picket the theaters where it's being shown? Or that we should minimize its financial success by not going to see it, not buying the DVD? Am I calling for movie producers to make films that are more "politically correct"? Or urging the male audience to balance out their psyches by going to see movies like Steel Magnolias once in a while?

    Frankly, I don't have a prescriptive measure. But I don't think that means I shouldn't say: "the fantasy world of Sin City is sexist" or "the popularity of this movie is actively bolstering sexist attitudes".

    III.

    Sin City is a visually stunning movie. And though the performances were occasionally wooden, I still found it emotionally compelling. I too have sexist fantasies of being a possessive hero-protector in my head.

    So, turning 180-degrees from my first discussion about the movie's attitude towards women, now I want to ask this question: "What does Sin City tell me about how to be a good man?"

    The heroes in this film were criminals. But in a universe where the government and police are corrupt, only criminals can truly be just. [The exception of course, is Bruce Willis, who was a cop bucking the system -- and whom had to consent to being treated like a criminal in order to do the right thing.] Regardless of which side of the law these characters fell on, however, they all had strong personal codes of ethics. You could say that they followed a higher law than the laws of men. [Yes, "men".]

    This film says to me: "the most important thing in the world, in order to be a good man, is to protect women". I should protect little girls from being raped. I should avenge women who are murdered. If a new boyfriend is mistreating my ex, I should beat him up. If a group of women is in trouble, then I should be truly noble and risk my own life to save them. I must be made of steel; I must be ready to do violence in the name of protecting women; I must be a loner, ready to over-rule the will of women if they're not talking sense.

    And my reward for this behavior? I may have to die -- but I'll know that I'm good, because I've saved a woman. I'll be recognized by strangers as a potential protector, and consequently get laid for the only time in my life. I'll get my ex-girlfriend back -- not the wussy one who dated an abuser, but the sexy one who's full of fire.

    Wow. That's a thrilling image.

    And I don't think that this ethical ideal is limited to Sin City. I won't try to make a critique of contemporary male role models in general -- but at least with Frank Miller, there seems to be continuity. I can't even say that I'm a Frank Miller aficionado -- but within the "Dark Knight Returns" universe, there's a scene where an aging Batman is arguing with his frail heart, trying not to have a heart attack just long enough so that he can do the right thing. The similarity to Bruce Willis' character in Sin City is so striking, I have to assume that Miller actually believes this stuff. It's not just making fun of the old pulps -- Miller truly wants us to look up to these characters, view them as legitimate ethical role models.

    As a man who aspires to remove sexism from my own behavior, I think I should explicitly contradict at least two of Miller's "moral lessons", so as to not let them sink too far into my unconscious:

    (1) Women do not need my protection. It's not my job to be a bodyguard. Women are perfectly able to fight off attackers. If my partner wants to bolster her ability to fight back, she can take a class. If I want to take a self-defense class, too -- that's cool. But a safe escape is almost always going to be preferable to a knock-down drag-out fight. Turning myself into a killing machine to protect women's virtue -- just makes me a killing machine.

    [This point goes for little girls, too. Better to arm them with the self-determination to get away on their own, than dependence on me as some kind of savior who'll swoop in after the assault.]

    (2) Don't get too invested in being one of the "good men". Seeing the men-who-hit-women as such embodiments of evil in this film, I'm encouraged to imagine the real world as being populated by good and bad men. Investing my identity in being a "good man" can lead to defensiveness against any implication that I've done wrong. If my "honor" makes me deaf to criticism, then I don't progressively learn how to be a better person -- I simply make it difficult for the loved ones I've hurt to confront me. Personally, I'd rather see "bad men" as persons who've taken negative ideas, ones that exist in my head too, to extremes. If all men have received sexist training, there's no guilt in harboring sexist thoughts -- just responsibility for making changes when you become aware of them, particularly if the revelation is via someone telling you you've hurt them.

    Maybe this is my answer about what to do in response to Sin City's sexism: explicitly discuss the how the fantasy shows men treating women in sexist ways -- but then move on to focus on how it depicts men. The story's anti-heroes excite my imagination; yet, I don't want them to implicitly be held up as role-models for being an "honorable man".

    IV.

    Let's take the "how to be an honorable man" theme beyond men's relationships with women.

    In Miller's universe, everyone who has institutional power is corrupt. The only solution is to become a vigilante. [Both points are true in Miller's Batman stories, too.] ...Given my Lefty perspectives on the tradition of police brutality, officially sanctioned use of torture at American detention centers around the world (such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo bay), the efforts of COINTELPRO to squelch radicals within the U.S., etc. -- there's something that feels... refreshingly honest? ...about how Miller depicts institutional power.

    I'm an activist -- I'm interested in changing the institutions that govern our lives. ...But the vigilantism that Miller seems to lionize is street justice. If I really believe in Miller's worldview, then I need to be out on streets hunting down sexual predators -- perhaps with a gang of other gun-toting vigilantes behind me. [No thanks!] Or, I need to become a hard-boiled cop who doesn't follow rules. [Also, no thanks!]

    In Sin City corrupt officials are as untouchable as gods. In Dark Knight Miller finally reveals what his alternative to corruption is: the "good guys" need to forcefully set up a global totalitarian regime.

    [Hm. Do you suppose that George Bush II is himself playing out a similar fantasy: acting as the infallible Superman, pushing aside checks and balances, in order to become the sole arbiter of what's right?]

    If the question is now "How do we uproot official corruption?" -- then I don't have a proposal of my own... But I know that I don't like what Miller would have us do.

    * * *

    So, in conclusion:

    NO to Frank Miller's vision of honorable manhood.

    NO to Frank Miller's vision of fixing the government with vigilantism and global totalitarianism.

    ...Sin City is exciting in part because of the force of it's internal ethical code -- but Miller's code is one that we should vocally reject.

    Posted by Sven at 03:17 PM

    April 09, 2005

    Justice is a drama that plays out on many stages

    [NOTE: This document was added to the blog on May 22, 2005]

    Justice is a drama that plays out on many stages.

    Many of the instances of injustice occur within institutions, where behavior is very scripted. Moving from injustice to justice, then, requires formally re-writing scripts -- laws, within-organization policies, training manuals. Scripts must also be taught to the people that will enact them. This involves someone being paid to do trainings for officials, money being spent on public education, youth being trained on how to use their rights, and formal processes being in place for resolving complaints.

    We cannot re-write these scripts from above. The physical scripts exist on many levels: from an individual teacher's syllabus & classroom rules, to the college textbook they read, to the policies of national education associations, and federal laws that dole out funding. In many ways, the process of bringing society-wide justice is like being a book-editor. You have to focus on the wording of texts, what texts exists -- and which don't. ...Unfortunately, the number of texts that need editing is enormous, and the physical reprinting of institutional documents is infrequent.

    An oft unnoticed aspect of justice is that all the acting officials are paid. Creating social change is founded upon countless unpaid volunteer hours. But with regards to institutional justice -- every act of justice has a literal price tag attached to it. If a city fails to levy enough tax money, courts shut down, and prisoners are released from the jails -- as I've seen in my home town of Portland, OR. Corrupt government is inexpensive -- but the "checks and balances" that bring about a just system require paid employees. When economic hard times hit, justice will suffer.

    The causes of adultism are selfish; the opponents of youth lib are aggressive in their interests. But institutional systems, to an extent, run on inertia. There is room for the Youth Lib movement to take proactive moves toward justice -- against the current of opposition (which may take some time to organize its backlash).

    Our movement must recognize two important principles in its self-organization: (1) specialization, (2) youth community development.

    With regards to specialization, there are so many institutional areas that require attention and effort -- within any city, there is a need for dozens of oversight and activist groups. Yet, the pool of youth who have an interest in doing this work, rather than simply enjoying their own lives, will always be inadequate for the job. Justice is likely to always be only partial. But something is better than nothing!

    Regarding youth community development, there is a fair amount of discussion that has to go on among youth about what it means to be a youth in order to encourage even a portion of youth to become activists. There need to be physical locations where youth can meet that are non-school and non-activity oriented, that is, where youth have some opportunity to talk about their experience of being youth in their particular locales. These opportunities for discussion should not be limited to projects intended to train activists. While YL activists may fantasize about all youth joining the cause, we have to accept that many will not (and some will even be against the cause). Even so, the discussion about the experience of youth identity is a discussion that should be shared as widely as possible.

    HOME

    acceptance of spanking and parental tyranny
    

    • explicit condemnation by parenting books and experts
      
      • adoption of principles by American Psychological Association, etc.
        
        • supporting research papers
      
      
    • projects that offer voluntary youth-adult "contracts"
      
      • domestic "mediation" projects for youth-adult conflict -- a voluntary conflict resolution system
    
    ending an instance of violence against minors by parents in the home
    
    • creation of anti-violence laws at city, county, state level
      
      • funding for public ed campaigns (billboards, TV ads)
      
      
    • physical self-defense training projects
      
      • violence awareness and "safety planning" education
      
      
    • calling the police
      
      • having been trained at school about your options
        
      • police receive training in how to intercede in such situations
        
        • making restraining orders available to youth
      
      
    • temporary escape to safe houses
      
      • youth underground network (potentially illegal)
        
      • good public transit system
        
      • working with youth hostels to provide emergency shelter
        
      • eliminating runaway laws
        
      • eliminate curfews
        
      • train police not to return youth to parents
      
      
    • divorcing your parents in the courts
      
      • establish a legal precedent with a court victory
        
      • write the right to divorce a guardian into state law
        
      • youth access to welfare system
        
      • creation of special scholarships for youth leaving parents
        
      • college scholarships should not be based on parental income if separated
        
      • project of youth co-op / shared (inexpensive) housing opportunities
    
    [homeless youth services]
    ?

    SCHOOL

    classroom practices
    

    • adoption of principles by teachers associations
      
      • "fair classroom" ideas taught in colleges
        
        • publication of books on "fair classroom" practices
          
          • research on "fair classroom" practices in academic journals
      
      
    • adoption of "fair classroom" principles by school board
      
      • teachers go through training on what is required of them
      
      
    • complaint process is in place in school
      
      • training for students on how to use the complaint process
    
    participation in the decision-making processes of the school board
    
    • "unionization" of students (replacing bogus "student councils")
      
    • processes formally documented for making hiring / firing / funding decisions
      
      • school model is documented and shared among national assoc. of schools (?)
      
      
    • regular trainings for students on how to participate in school government
      
      • a curriculum for these trainings is written
        
        • an in-staff is given responsibility, or training is contracted out
      
      
    • governmental funding of school is dependent upon meeting standards of student inclusion in decision-making
    
    [unschooling / deschooling]
    
    • promotion of student-directed learning model
      
    • teachers no longer hired for on-going contracts, rather on-call for students
      
      • ght with teachers' unions
      
      
    • option of unschooling is promoted
    
    PUBLIC SPACES

    discrimination in housing and public accommodation
    

    • knowing your rights and how to document abuses
      
    • a well funded / staffed bureau of labor & industry to prosecute complaints
      
      • education of owners of housing and public accommodation
        
        • in-house staff training
      
      
    • public outcry at discrimination - protests and news coverage
      
    • meet city / county / state representatives to institute non-discrimination ordinances / statutes
    
    media defamation
    
    • watchdog groups for local papers, local TV news, national TV & papers
      
    • orchestration of quick-response letter-writing campaigns (sim. to Amnesty International)
      
    • youth voice media projects producing their own (counter) stories
    
    [anti-youth attitudes]
    
    • among youth, discussion of anti-youth attitudes (toward "youth culture"?) [targeting youth because they become adults]
      
    • celebration of youth culture: music, clothing, etc. [=pop culture?]
      
    • youth arts projects promoting creation of authentic, original youth expressions
      
    • ongoing discussion about "maturity" and "adulthood" as behavioral ideals
      
    • youth centers / cultural orgs for non-school, non-activity youth interaction
      
      • identifying youth community needs (e.g. new playground, bussing options)
    
    STATE

    city hall / state legislature - discriminatory policies
    

    • independent lobby groups exists to watchdog these decision-making bodies
      
    • grassroots effort to identify youth interests and lobby for them
      
    • a model of how to involve youth (not youth advisory councils) is propagated among city / state-level attorney associations
      
    • pro-active meetings with city / state representatives to dismantle curfews, etc.
    
    city / state / federal vote
    
    • changing the U.S. constitution
      
    • changing state and city level constitutions
      
    • funding for public ed campaign about voter registration for minors
      
    • voting sites in locations easy for youth to access (schools)
      
    • cultural support for youth vote via youth participation in school decision-making structures
    
    NOTE:
    Missing here are economic issues... Youth right to work, how much money a youth is entitled to receive from their parents, etc.

    This list of "stages for the drama of justice" should be double-checked against other "bill of rights" type documents.

    Should "bedroom" be a stage for justice, with regards to sex? Or does this fall under the context of parental tyranny and potential youth-parent contracts? I'm thinking that voluntary participation in an agreement is the only solution within the family. We can outlaw certain acts, which then requires involving an outside agency to intervene. But within the voluntary association of parent and child, you have to mutually agree on who your conflict-resolution party will be. Agreeing on the use of an outside conflict-resolution organization may be the best solution I've found so far -- given that otherwise you have to always fall back on the parent as their own judge.

    I'm also very interested here in how I've configured anti-youth attitudes as negative attitudes toward "youth culture" rather than individuals. This then situates the origins of fighting stereotypes in the with-in community discussion about youth culture. That's an exciting development. Interesting how it moves away from individualism toward the necessity of community-building (and maintenance). No justice without community. No community without communication.

    1:40 hrs writing

    Posted by Sven at 12:00 PM