Justifying my obsessions
Nov. 18th, 2006 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSometimes I worry I get wound up about the wrong things. I can get everso wordy on the subject of the dumbth of the idea of covering up demons and/or aliens for the good of the world.
And really, it isn't exactly likely to come up in day to day life...
... right?
Unlike my human rights for vampires speech, which has *obvious* real world applicability.
Actually, when I wrote that five minutes ago I put an :eyeroll: at the end of the sentence, but then I went to check the news.
News scary.
News full of people who are being judged as a 'what' instead of a 'who'.
And locked up.
And treated in ways we'd prosecute someone for if they did that to a dog.
So, yeah, the vampire speech? Scarily applicable.
We need to treat everyone as people, not because of what we think they are, but because of who *we* want to be.
That whole hierarchy of exclusion thing again - the line between raman and varelse is in the eye of the beholder.
And the line between any of them and djur?
Some days seems to be about when somebody who looks like them pulls the trigger.
Which is pretty messed up.
So how does Torchwood treat the alien?
They think they can own it. Even if it looks human, talks to them, has polite conversations. It somehow belongs to them.
Been reading a book on the total horror of slavery lately.
That's just not a good attitude.
So what about the other thing? The cover up thing?
Well it does in fact relate. Because how can people evaluate anything - or anyone - if they can't get to know it?
What if all communication by extremist groups were suppressed for our own good?
What if a particular religion was defined as an extremist group?
How would we get to know them? Figure out how to treat them? How to talk?
Maybe in the majority opinion right now there's no room for the alien, or the demon, or whatever the label is. Maybe the average person on the street wouldn't understand.
But how will they get to understand? Magic? Osmosis?
Education. Knowledge. Learning.
And also media representation. I mean, in the TWverse you've got a group being (mis)represented, repressed, silenced, in the mainstream. Aliens. Whenever they're discovered, Torchwood has the job of covering it up. What if the discovery is somebody dropping by to have a chat? Why should they be stopped? I mean, why shouldn't the aliens come party here?
And the wording there is lumping together an awful lot of types of people. Aliens happen in a great many varieties.
And then there's stuff that is part of Earth that some secret society knows about and doesn't tell. What up with that? What gives them the right? Why not give everyone the same data so they have just as much chance of negotiating that side of the world? Isn't like they can just avoid it. Happens all around them. Can't shut the door on things that happen in your own home.
And that loops back to another reason this stuff bugs me. There's stuff RL that some people have trouble believing. Buffyverse made metaphor monsters of it, but it's all that everyday stuff you'd really hope never happens near you but that probably does anyway. It is possible to sit there and talk about your day and have your audience purely believe you're making it all up, just because their world doesn't have such things in it. And that stuff makes a difference. Everyday life kind of difference. Because how to change what you don't know about? How to tell anyone, how to get help, when they're not going to believe it?
And then there's the idea that somehow people aren't ready to accept some group, so they should therefore get covered up, hidden. I read that as someone who identifies queer and it pisses me off in ways the speaker almost certainly would never intend. Because it is all very well talking as some kind of notional dominant majority that would rather call ignorance bliss and close their eyes to it all, but from the point of whoever is being shut out of acceptable ignorance is pure poison.
I guess what it comes down to is I don't identify as the secret group in a privileged position of knowledge-power. I identify as the average person on the street who wanders along until they wander right into the danger, having no clue it could ever be there. Or I identify as the group being called the danger, and being kept silenced or misrepresented.
And even if I was a secret society type, I can't see how staying secret is any help at all. Surely they'd want to recruit? Surely having more people in on things would get things sorted much quicker?
In the Buffyverse there's the problem that they're outnumbered to the point the Bad Things, which actually are hunting them, could certainly kill them if they knew where to look. So, keep the individuals secret.
But the knowledge? It's the library vs net argue - net can let it be known without revealing secret identities.
Why keep the secrets?
Because they know best? Well, yeah, they know best, because they're stopping everyone else knowing them.
Because people would misuse them?
That would be with a *little* knowledge, the howto without the dangers. Give them the whole knowledge, they know just as well as you what not to do.
The other layer is, knowledge=power. People with power tend to like to keep it. If that means keeping secrets, they tend to like to keep their secrets.
The whole democracy, freedom of information, everyone being able to point out where the bad ideas process would suggest that such a reason for secrets is of the bad.
And that applies all over the place.
One of Niven's laws:
The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
That, right there, is pretty damn important.
And the idea of anyone, individual or organisation, being dedicated to destroying, undermining, or stealing all the data that could back that up with real world proof? Really pisses me off.
... of course since I tend to gravitate to the 'horror' end of things, a lot of stories seem to add on the end of the law "and that's really scary".
Which, you know, bit of a problematic idea right there.
And one of the reasons I most like the teams - Buffy, Stargate, Doctor Who - which have aliens and humans on *both* sides. Because then there's "different but not trying to kill us" as well as "different and dangerous" and the important bit isn't just different.
Torchwood has Jack.
... am wondering how he counts ...
And really, it isn't exactly likely to come up in day to day life...
... right?
Unlike my human rights for vampires speech, which has *obvious* real world applicability.
Actually, when I wrote that five minutes ago I put an :eyeroll: at the end of the sentence, but then I went to check the news.
News scary.
News full of people who are being judged as a 'what' instead of a 'who'.
And locked up.
And treated in ways we'd prosecute someone for if they did that to a dog.
So, yeah, the vampire speech? Scarily applicable.
We need to treat everyone as people, not because of what we think they are, but because of who *we* want to be.
That whole hierarchy of exclusion thing again - the line between raman and varelse is in the eye of the beholder.
And the line between any of them and djur?
Some days seems to be about when somebody who looks like them pulls the trigger.
Which is pretty messed up.
So how does Torchwood treat the alien?
They think they can own it. Even if it looks human, talks to them, has polite conversations. It somehow belongs to them.
Been reading a book on the total horror of slavery lately.
That's just not a good attitude.
So what about the other thing? The cover up thing?
Well it does in fact relate. Because how can people evaluate anything - or anyone - if they can't get to know it?
What if all communication by extremist groups were suppressed for our own good?
What if a particular religion was defined as an extremist group?
How would we get to know them? Figure out how to treat them? How to talk?
Maybe in the majority opinion right now there's no room for the alien, or the demon, or whatever the label is. Maybe the average person on the street wouldn't understand.
But how will they get to understand? Magic? Osmosis?
Education. Knowledge. Learning.
And also media representation. I mean, in the TWverse you've got a group being (mis)represented, repressed, silenced, in the mainstream. Aliens. Whenever they're discovered, Torchwood has the job of covering it up. What if the discovery is somebody dropping by to have a chat? Why should they be stopped? I mean, why shouldn't the aliens come party here?
And the wording there is lumping together an awful lot of types of people. Aliens happen in a great many varieties.
And then there's stuff that is part of Earth that some secret society knows about and doesn't tell. What up with that? What gives them the right? Why not give everyone the same data so they have just as much chance of negotiating that side of the world? Isn't like they can just avoid it. Happens all around them. Can't shut the door on things that happen in your own home.
And that loops back to another reason this stuff bugs me. There's stuff RL that some people have trouble believing. Buffyverse made metaphor monsters of it, but it's all that everyday stuff you'd really hope never happens near you but that probably does anyway. It is possible to sit there and talk about your day and have your audience purely believe you're making it all up, just because their world doesn't have such things in it. And that stuff makes a difference. Everyday life kind of difference. Because how to change what you don't know about? How to tell anyone, how to get help, when they're not going to believe it?
And then there's the idea that somehow people aren't ready to accept some group, so they should therefore get covered up, hidden. I read that as someone who identifies queer and it pisses me off in ways the speaker almost certainly would never intend. Because it is all very well talking as some kind of notional dominant majority that would rather call ignorance bliss and close their eyes to it all, but from the point of whoever is being shut out of acceptable ignorance is pure poison.
I guess what it comes down to is I don't identify as the secret group in a privileged position of knowledge-power. I identify as the average person on the street who wanders along until they wander right into the danger, having no clue it could ever be there. Or I identify as the group being called the danger, and being kept silenced or misrepresented.
And even if I was a secret society type, I can't see how staying secret is any help at all. Surely they'd want to recruit? Surely having more people in on things would get things sorted much quicker?
In the Buffyverse there's the problem that they're outnumbered to the point the Bad Things, which actually are hunting them, could certainly kill them if they knew where to look. So, keep the individuals secret.
But the knowledge? It's the library vs net argue - net can let it be known without revealing secret identities.
Why keep the secrets?
Because they know best? Well, yeah, they know best, because they're stopping everyone else knowing them.
Because people would misuse them?
That would be with a *little* knowledge, the howto without the dangers. Give them the whole knowledge, they know just as well as you what not to do.
The other layer is, knowledge=power. People with power tend to like to keep it. If that means keeping secrets, they tend to like to keep their secrets.
The whole democracy, freedom of information, everyone being able to point out where the bad ideas process would suggest that such a reason for secrets is of the bad.
And that applies all over the place.
One of Niven's laws:
The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
That, right there, is pretty damn important.
And the idea of anyone, individual or organisation, being dedicated to destroying, undermining, or stealing all the data that could back that up with real world proof? Really pisses me off.
... of course since I tend to gravitate to the 'horror' end of things, a lot of stories seem to add on the end of the law "and that's really scary".
Which, you know, bit of a problematic idea right there.
And one of the reasons I most like the teams - Buffy, Stargate, Doctor Who - which have aliens and humans on *both* sides. Because then there's "different but not trying to kill us" as well as "different and dangerous" and the important bit isn't just different.
Torchwood has Jack.
... am wondering how he counts ...