Philo's Workbench

A place for Matt Elwell to think out loud, personally and professionally. Philosophy, Psychology, Self-Help, Learning, and Leadership Development, but also comedy, improvisation, bisexuality, opera, graphic novels, classic Doctor Who, coffee, food, pipes, art, whatever. This is also where I work out ideas before they're ready for PLAYpolarities.com. Occasionally angry, self-righteous, and cussy-pants. 

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[amindamazed]

transcript of video by TikTok account thatannamarie from early December 2021

-begin transcript

Here's a word that every queer person should know: homonationalism is not the name of my new synth-pop album. It's a concept from sociology that acknowledges how queer people are used in conversations about global politics.

Homonationalism is when we use LGBT rights as a yardstick to judge how "moral" a society is. It's short for "homonormative nationalism"—say that five times fast—and it was first coined by Jasbir Puar to describe how the US presented itself as LGBT-friendly to contrast itself to "homophobic" Muslims during the War on Terror. It can also be applied to other contexts, like the way we talk about homophobic countries in Africa or the Caribbean while ignoring the role of European colonialism in those regions.

Put a finger down if you've ever heard something like:

You know being gay is a crime in Ghana, right?

Those Middle Eastern countries are so backwards. Do you know what they do to gay people over there?

Oh it's so weird. [Looks around as if hearing something from outside the room.] My neighbor's dog is going crazy...

You know you've lost the plot when you're talking about homophobia among Muslims, when white American Christians are the ones who made gay marriage illegal, ignored the entire AIDS crisis, and to this day don't have any national policies regarding conversion therapy, a trans-panic defense, or the forcing of trans women into men's prisons and vice-versa.

Barbados just became free of British rule this week; we should not be shocked if they have some homophobic policies.

And while I obviously believe that a more moral society is one with robust protections for queer people, LGBT rights can't be used to judge other countries, to make us feel better about bombing them.

As an aside, I live in Connecticut, an American state where it gets dark at 4pm now, and where LGBT rights are actually pretty good. We were one of the first states to institute gay marriage, transgender health care is part of our state insurance, and we're just generally more legally protected here.

And yet while legal support is very robust in our state, there's very little cultural support. Homophobia and transphobia in day-to-day life is roughly as bad as any other part of the country, and we have no gay cultural infrastructure. Only enough gay bars to count on one hand, and no known queer meeting spaces otherwise. It's obviously not as bad as living in a place where being gay is a crime, but it's still pretty lonely out here.

So for a variety of reasons, I don't appreciate queer and trans people being used as a pawn to further Islamophobia, anti-African sentiment, and general xenophobia. Mainly because it's racist and ignorant; many of these countries have a long, rich history of queer and trans and nonbinary identities before white European colonizers showed up, but also because western "acceptance" of LGBTQ people is very conditional and very limited in terms of material and legal protection.

White supremacy wins when we pit queer people and people of color against each other. We need international solidarity and an acknowledgment of colonialism to achieve equality and equity.

-end transcript

[philosworkbench]

I've engaged in this as an LGBTQIA+ person. I'm uncomfortable that the Left seems to categorically forgive the murder of LGBTs at the hands of Muslim extremists. But this presents a good argument as to why condemnation about anti-LGBTQIA+ policies in non-white countries is complex. Let's not be the useful idiots of Neo-Cons who hate us over here, but are willing to pretend they don't so they can bomb other people over there.

[philosworkbench]

When the Break Room is a Bullhorn

I've been watching the moralizing on Facebook about the "Slap Heard 'Round the Internet." At last night's Oscars, Chris Rock made an ableist joke at Jada Pinkett Smith's expense and her husband, Will Smith, took to the stage and slapped him.

Immediately, social media was a buzz with hot takes. The absolute wrongness of violence. The problem of toxic masculinity. The sanctity of free speech. The tradition of men usurping the agency of their minds.

Instantly, my Facebook feed became a 300-level Ethics class that I don't remember signing up for.

What's interesting was what one said:

"If I was sitting at an event and someone insulted my spouse about a medical condition, I would feel so..."

"If I was a comic doing my act and a peer came up on stage and physically attacked me, I would feel so..."

Those sentiments were absent from my feed. A great deal of moralizing; no empathy. (Maybe I just have the wrong friends.)

Eerily Familiar - Remember that Joke about Barron Trump?

In (I believe) 2016, an SNL writer whom I admire made a joke that referenced President Trump's eldest son, a child. I maintain that the joke was not about Barron, but I appreciate why everyone lost their minds. A child was mentioned. Time to scream on Facebook for the writer's head.

Again, I noticed what no one said:

"If I was a parent, even a famous one, and my child was invoked to make fun of me, I would feel so..."

"If I was a comic who was also a woman, watching an alleged serial abuser elected to office, I would feel so..."

As someone pushing 50 years old, I'm bewildered. Were we always this way? When did we become so pious, detached, and sanctimonious? When did we decide that -- at every given moment -- what the world really needs is not our empathy, but our hastily written morality plays? When did we begin framing everything in terms of the broadest possible narrative of right and wrong, rather than having any emotional connection?

Some would say not to be fooled: those moralizing are processing their emotions out loud. But that's interesting considering that most of the posts I read omit any mention of emotion.

So what is missing in today's society?

The Break Room: Facebook for Workers of the 90s

Did I mention I'm old? I worked almost every odd job I've ever worked during the 1990s: Landscaping, Horse Stall Mucking, Bookselling, Espresso-slinging, Maintenance Department-ing.

These jobs had one constant thread: a Break Room. Granted, it wasn't always an actual room. It could be a corner of a barn or the shade of truck. But there was a place and time to bullshit with coworkers.

Bullshit (n.) - Something that isn't true.

Bullshit (v.) - Talking about things that don't matter but with people who do.

Bullshitting was how you knew you were friends. You'd get into ridiculous arguments that couldn't possibly be relevant in your little corner of the country.

I'm not suggesting the Break Room was a haven for deep, empathetic talks, but I can guarantee you something someone would say that I'm not seeing a lot of online:

"If someone had joked like that about my wife, I would have..."

"Well, if someone had slapped me over a f***ing joke, I would have..."

But I see almost none of that. When controversies arise now online, 20+ years later, I never see anyone identify with the people they make their moral pronouncements about.

The Bullhorn has Replaced the Breakroom

Facebook is now a place we all take to with our "Hot Takes," so everyone else can learn what we think about something. How awful.

I'm not appalled because people are jumping up in the Public Square or that social media makes the Public Square everywhere. What's galling is the absolute high people get off their own performed piety.

"Will Smith should have never..."

"Chris Rock should not have..."

"Those people. Over there. Living lives I can watch over from my perch. I, who have never been angry to the point of rage, find him guilty. I, who have never punched down, deliver my verdict. To Facebook! I must address the nation."

This wasn't the way of the Break Room, which, seeing through the soft glow of memory, was a place where people put themselves in the shoes of those they discussed.

Of course, I'm doing the same thing.

It doesn't escape me that a time-honored trope in social media is to criticize social media using a post on social media. (Granted, this is Tumblr, so I feel justified. I'm actually typing this with both my pinkies extended.)

So maybe I should come clean. If I was sitting next to my spouse and someone made fun of a medical condition, I would probably start to stand. She would probably grab my arm. Her knowing stare would remind me that she is a fully capable human being who can defend herself. She'd make it clear in a glance that it's not my place to co-opt her anger for my own chance to play out the toxic masculinity I saw everywhere growing up. I would sit back down, and glare at the comic. And yes, if I had an opportunity to hit him later, I might go for it, knowing all the while that I was totally in the wrong. Sometimes you know you're wrong, and you still do wrong.

It's not moral; it's just human.

Our humanity -- base, amoral, and "problematic" -- is what we used to acknowledge in the Break Room. I'm not sure the moralizing of the Bullhorn is an improvement.

[philosworkbench]

Don't throw engaging training out with the "Learning Styles" bathwater.

Screenshot from The Biggest Myth in Education, by Veritasium (Youtube.com)

Confession: I like Learning Styles

I'm coming out of the closet (again). I've been having a really hard time with the virulent rejection of Learning Styles in mainstream Talent Development.

Yes, the studies show that you personally are not a specific "type" of learner. However, the sanctimony with which learning elites have disregarded decades of reflective practice from teachers has seemed more akin to a religious crusade than a thoughtful updating of approaches.

As every individual learner is biased toward their own experience, so am I. I have personally felt visually oriented for most of my life. I still find Kolb's Learning Styles a compelling way of looking at the process of learning and find it reasonable to assume that people are probably stronger in one of his four quadrants than in others.

But I didn't dare tell anyone.

For decades, Learning Styles were sacrosanct. For the last decade, they have been heresy. I can't remember an in-between time where they were allowed to be simply quaint.

Learning aficionados chucked Learning Styles out with the same force they rejected ADDIE for SAM. Anyone who had the slightest reservation at the 180-degree turn was dismissed as woefully out-of-date... immediately. Any learner who actually identified with a style was patted on the head and told it was all made up. "Go eat your visual broccoli. That 'auditory' stuff is just between your ears."

I kept my mouth shut, but part of me just kept being dissatisfied with the dialogue. The science may have been irrefutable, but there was something fundamentally good about learning being jeopardized by the rakes and torches.

This Veritasium video made it click for me.

(Maybe I'm a YouTube Video Learner? Someone call Howard Gardner; I have YouTube Intelligence and demand my own curriculum!)

How about "Learning Tools"?

In watching the Biggest Myth in Education from Veritasium, I finally have a way of appreciating what I don't like about the current conversation on learning styles.

We currently seem to be telling instructors and learners to ignore Learning Styles. Instead, we should say to use all of them.

Let's reframe Learning Styles as "Learning Tools." No, Billy, you're probably not a visual learner, but you may also not have an encyclopedic knowledge of which approach would be best for the material you're trying to absorb and process. So having a working understanding of these different approaches might not be such a bad thing.

Here's an example: Recently, I was learning about the history of American Pragramatism by reading Albert Spencer's 2020 book of the same name. In his introduction, he outlines and clusters the significant influences in pragmatism's history.

I took my diligent notes, but I was at a loss for relating these figures in time. So, using an empty page in my notebook, I started building a lineage from Peirce and James to the most recent thinkers Spencer introduced. Now, in one place, I had a way of "seeing" the history of pragmatism, a page I refer to often as I meet individual philosophers on Spencer's tour.

Maybe I'm not a Visual Learner, but I found the Visual "Tool" particularly valuable when it came to the task of relating concepts.

I don't think any of the theorists who are currently demonstrating the problems with Learning Styles would tell me not to use this technique. However, I do fear that the popular rejection of Learning Styles will lead many instructors to think in very limited ways about their teaching.

Who wants to sit through a class that only uses the specific modality determined to enable the greatest retention? I cannot see (or hear, or touch, or read -- for that matter) the value in improving learning by making it more mechanical. If we're dispensing with Learning Styles, please, oh please, let us not do so at the cost of engaging teaching.

Learning should never be limited to that which is scientifically approved. There's another element to consider.

The Case for Classroom "Magic"

At one point in this video, the host addresses some early writing by Neil Fleming, the inventor of the VARK model of learning styles (Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, Kinestetic).

"I was puzzled when I observed excellent teachers who did not reach some learners, and poor teachers who did..."

"One topic that seemed to hold some magic, some explanatory power, was preferred modes of learning, 'modal preferences.'"

In juxtaposing this statement circa 1987 and the quantitative studies conducted roughly 30 years later, the host clearly smirks at the idea of "magic."

I think back to the (equally unscientific) Malcolm Knowles and his reminder to meet learners where they're at (Self-Concept) and engage them as co-creators (Autonomy) of the learning journey.

I also can't help but think about all the successes of approaches like Storytelling and Arts Learning, where creativity is brought into the classroom to provide memorable and transformative results.

Something magical can happen in spaces where learners come together. That magic requires a human experience, with all its symbolism, mysticism, and theatricality.

So, no, you probably don't need to sing a song about John Dewey to teach pragmatism because a learner has "Musical Intelligence." But how cool would it be to introduce a prominent figure in the history of your subject by playing an excerpt of music popular at the time they were writing!?

Would that help the class ace the test? Would that help them get the best grades and jobs? Maybe not. But learning that engages us in all our senses and celebrates our humanity must be superior to a curriculum shackled to the most statistically significant learning mechanisms.

Even the video itself mentions the importance of "multi-modal" learning. In other words: use all the tools. Let's hope that all those calling for the death of Learning Styles don't miss that part of the chant:

If a Learner lacks a singular learning style, it is only because they have all of them.

[philosworkbench]

Listen to Your Mayo: A Story About Play

I love food. This is my story. So it’s going to be about food.

Two days ago, I attempted making a plant-based pimento cheese spread. It’s a long story. At the end of that story, I wanted pimento cheese. I had it all planned out. I had grated onion, cayenne pepper, vegan cheese, and pimentos. Pimentos. Do you have a jar of pimentos?

A jar of pimentos is not just a pantry item. They don’t just fall into the shopping cart. You have to go find the pimentos. You might have to ask someone to tell you which aisle. Pimentos are a decision. I had planned this pimento cheese spread.

The only thing I needed was my jar of trusty vegan mayonnaise. (No, none of this recipe was healthy. More on that never. Back to the mayo.) Vegan mayo is one of those things better left to the professionals: Just Mayo, Follow Your Heart, Primal Kitchen. I had done my share of tofu mayo homebrews, and I would give myself a 50/50 rating. Half the time, it was good. Half the time, it was a thin, sour mess.

Much like myself, if I had ever been thin.

On this occasion, however, I found that my large jar of vegan mayo had gone moldy. I now had a bowl full of ingredients that required – nay, demanded – vegan mayo. None in the house. What I did have was all the ingredients I needed to make vegan mayo myself, 50/50 record notwithstanding.

It was okay. I messed up the proportions and made way more mayo than I needed. It wasn’t my worse batch but still too sour, and the consistency was meh. One taste told me it wasn’t right for pimento cheese spread. For a good pimento cheese, you fold the ingredients lightly into a creamy, stiff, luxurious pile of professional-grade mayonnaise. My version of mayo was making very clear to me that it was not pimento cheese mayo. But I wanted pimento cheese, so I didn’t listen.

The resulting pimento cheese would also not win any awards but my partner said they enjoyed it, and that makes all the difference to a people pleaser like me. I made someone I loved happy, even if I hadn’t made myself happy. So the resulting dish left me unsatisfied. I don’t make food to feel unsatisfied about it.

Cut to tonight’s dinner. The vegetable for the evening was a green salad. I see the 12 oz. container of remaining sour, thin – not very pimento cheese-worthy – mayo languishing in my fridge. That’s when the mayo says to me, “ranch dressing!”

I’ve never made ranch dressing. I don’t know how to make it. But I guessed you made it with mayo. A few minutes on Google later, and I’m ransacking my spice rack. (Okay, let’s be honest. It’s a spice wall.)

No humble in this brag: I made amazing ranch dressing. It was cool, bright, and tangy. Everything ranch should be. No pre-made mix. No experience. Just lots of guessing and tasting as I went.

Two days ago, I executed my careful plan of making pimento cheese and it was “okay.” Tonight, I whipped together a ranch dressing I literally had no plan to make 10 minutes earlier. And…

It. Was. Fire.

I thought I had made bad mayo. I thought I had made the wrong mayo. But the mayo wasn’t wrong. It just didn’t want to be pimento cheese spread. It wanted to be ranch dressing. Listen to your mayo. You made it. Listen to it. Let it be what it wants to be. Then, and only then, it will make you happy.

This was a story about play.

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

Image Description.

Facebook post from Matt Norris.

Post reads like a conversation between 2 people:

Prison labor is a problem we need to address soon.

Convicts in prison should have to work like the rest of us.

You mean like slavery?

No, we’re giving them 3 meals and a bed, at our expense, while they just sit around and watch TV. They should have to work!

Right. Like slavery.

It’s not like slavery!

Can they leave?

No.

Can they refuse work?

No.

So how exactly isn’t this slavery?

We DO pay them!

Do we pay in accordance with labor laws?

No. We pay them between 33 cents and $1.41/hour with a maximum daily wage below $5, then take up to half of that as room&board fees and victim compensation.

Right. So like slavery.

BUT.

No.

Image then links to this url.

How much do incarcerated people earn in each state?

Prison wages come up again and again in the context of prison conditions and policies. So, we found the most up-to-date information for each

Below URL image reads “fun bonus fact: enough of our labor market currently relies on labor at these depressed rates, that it has a substantial downward pressure on both wages and job availability in low-skilled sectors. Immigrants aren’t taking your jobs. Slavery is.

End description.

I’d also like to add it’s not just private prisons. It’s also private detention centers where ICE keeps the immigrants.

-fae

[anarchopuppy]

The constitution disagrees with these people - it is slavery, legally and explicitly. An exception had to be made to the abolition of slavery specifically for prison slavery

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

This is just a legal fact. According to the US government itself, slavery is still legal and still happening in this country

[misshorrorotaku-deactivated2024]

With significantly higher conditions than any other slavery in existence, with money ON TOP of food and housing (and not just whatever scraps are tossed their way, but three full fucking meals), and they’re only doing it as punishment for wrongdoing (as opposed to being in debt, or being captured during war, or being too poor for anyone to give a fuck when you’re kidnapped and sold, etc) and it is not legal to abuse these “slaves.”

You can call it slavery, but this is what actual slaves wish slavery was. No legal abuse, three full meals, a bed, AND monetary payment? That’s privileged compared to full on slavery.

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

I guess you missed my post about his prisoners don’t get 3 “square” meals a day.

I posted a tiktok from a former inmate. They got one meal. The other “meal” was bread with peanut butter. If you missed the meal because you were in transport it something? Sucks to suck. You don’t get that meal.

America's Prison Food Is Still Criminally Awful

And COVID-19 has made it worse

And if sharing a shitty ass cell with 3 other people in bunkbeds with no 3 other people and no privacy is “housing” than sure. They get housing.

Not to mention rampant sexual abuse of women.

Words From Prison: Sexual Abuse in Prison

Dorothy was convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to life in prison after enduring years of severe mental and physical abuse thro

Solitary confinement is abuse.

An informational guide about the effects of solitary confinement and prison guard abuse.

Female inmates denied menstrual products.

'They just didn't give it to them': Female inmates denied hygiene needs, prison workers say

Corrections officers withhold sanitary pads and other items to inflict punishment, score political points or avoid paperwork.

Prisons denying soap during the pandemic.

Inmates sue for soap and paper towels as coronavirus spreads in jails

Prisoners are running out of soap and cleaning solution, then wiping their hands on their uniforms because paper towels aren't available. De

And actually, prison guards get away with accusing inmates all the time.

Why It’s So Hard to Fire an Abusive Prison Guard

Corrections officials say he injured an inmate and lied about it. He’s still a state employee. He’s more the rule than the exception.

And prison inmates are refused medical treatment.

Inmates Deserve the Right Medical Care

Prison staff members must provide adequate inmate medical care. When they fail to do so, they are violating an inmate's civil rights.

But yeah, these inmates get cushy lives where they aren’t abused, get their basic needs met, and are treated fairly. Sure, we’ll go with that (Sarcasm).

-fae

[historical-nonfiction]

Purple Oceans

For about seven-eights of the Earth’s history, its oceans were extremely rich in sulfides. This would have prevented animals and plants from surviving in 70% of the planet. But it was a great habitat for photosynthetic bacteria that require sulfides and sunlight to live. Known as purple and green sulfur bacteria (because those are the two colors it comes in) these single-celled microbes can only live in environments where they simultaneously have access to sulfides and sunlight.

That they thrived in the sulfide-rich ocean has been confirmed with the finding of fossilized pigments of purple sulfur bacteria in 1.6 billion-year-old rocks from the McArthur Basin in Northern Australia.

[jumpingjacktrash]

i looked up purple sulfur bacteria and now i’m laughing bc the ocean must’ve looked like a giant glass of grape juice, these things really are purple

[helloitsbees]

[reginaofdoctorwho]

WINE DARK SEA! WINE DARK SEA!!!

[philosworkbench]

OMG! I have to find out which of my professors are still alive so I can tell them?

[posbitivity]

Uncomfortably Bisexual

In my experience, the best way to confront biphobia, including internalized biphobia, is by being as loudly bisexual as possible. I don't think enough bisexuals realize how much pride affects how others treat us. The word "pride" is used a lot in LGBT vocabulary, but do we truly understand what it means to have pride?

Even just the word "bisexual" puts a dirty taste in some mouths. But only at first. You see, unfamiliarity is often the root of disgust, which is often the root of hatred.

I used to avoid using "bisexual" in favor of "bi" because something about it made me cringe. Saying it in public made me self-conscious of what others thought. I would anxiously shrink myself and say the word quietly to draw the least attention. I was thinking too much into it giving the biphobes what they wanted: fear. I shouldn't have to falter at all about saying a word. More than a word, in fact.

An identity. A statement. A weapon.

For every biphobic comment I hear—regardless of from or to whom—I say the word to their face at least twice. I say it loudly. I articulate. I make sure that they hear it and that they get used to hearing it. I say it obnoxiously and uncomfortably often, because that's the only way to make the word normal and comforting. Eventually, the word does not bring out such strong reactions or feelings from biphobes, or myself.

[philosworkbench]

RT if you're pro-bisexuality and anti-getting-hit-by-a-stick.

[dykemyers-deactivated20221223]

I made the rainbow flag using textures from 1970s comic books! the first one is from covers, second one is newsprint pages!

[philosworkbench]

These are gorgeous and may have to become my new Zoom backgrounds.

[politijohn]

Biden Administration ICE Contracts Encourage Forced Labor

A contract signed in April with the detention facility in Port Isabel, Texas, continues $1-a-day wages for those detained. Is that true?

I believe you're referring to this article. Frankly, I'm not surprised. Under the Biden Admin, ICE has signed new contracts with private prison firms worth more than $260 million. We already know how bad private prisons are.

[philosworkbench]

No, in fact, things are not "all better." Even presidents who can use their words should be held accountable.

[tiktoks-for-dead-pope]

[philosworkbench]

I'm in love. I don't even know with whom.

[justarandomsapphic]

I found this at a thrift shop and I am DYING at the idea that Kirk would definitely wear this.

[lokilenchen]

Love the shirt and even more the idea of Jim wearing it, but also that Jim makes Bones and pretty much everyone else wear it too, so I made a little doodle.

[justarandomsapphic]

THAT IS SO CUTE. Imagine he made it required uniform for everyone. Now I’m imagining Spock in a crop top-

[lokilenchen]

SPOCK IN A CROP TOP

I couldn’t resist drawing him after I imagined what he would look like. Also I wanted to draw the backside of the crop top, so here it is

[justarandomsapphic]

THAT IS GLORIOUS

[philosworkbench]

This has big Happy Pride energy and i'm here for it.

[tiktoksformyfriends]

[siliquasquama]

[borkthemork]

Another example that humanity never really changed

[no-thoughts-shower-empty]

1. I love humans

2. @just-gay-thoughts and anyone else who comes to mind

[just-gay-thoughts]

New life goals

[philosworkbench]

RB forever if you see the weasel.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[philosworkbench]

I don't like our brand.

[arinewman7]

Sculpture by Volodymyr Tsisaryk

[philosworkbench]

This is bewitchingly beautiful.

[catchymemes]

[retroactivebakeries]

#this does not fill me with confidence

[sonic-gems-collection]

yeah the glass sucks but it’s still no match for our shitty weak bears

[riotings]

fail glass covering our cringe bears

[philosworkbench]

Hundreds of pounds.

Splintered but not shattered.

Same, Bear Glass.

Same.

[philosworkbench]

An Amazon rep was helping me replace a stolen item and chatted: "Rest assured that this will happen again." I think she meant to include "not" but the flub made it the realest conversation I've ever had with Amazon.

[toastbutteregg]

[philosworkbench]

MOOD.