Monday, April 14, 2014

True Names: Vice Magazine, Lord Voldemort, and An EcolinguisticApproach to Climate Change

Social rule #1: Never bring up climate change at a cocktail party. People will look at you like you're from outer space and if not visibly slip into existential panic, then look away and see if someone else can't better distract them from their mortality. It's quite possibly even rude- like asking how much money someone makes. Climate change is He Who Shall Not Be Named. But why is this? And what if Climate Change wasn't the True Name of the phenomenon at all?

I must have my nose far too deep in my books because I think climate change is facinating. It's too bad because I like to talk about the possibility of impending planetary doom. I'm curious to see how people squirm under existential questions... that's it, I've decided- I'm officially cut off from cyber punk and dark Russian novels!

Now the question is really, 'is Climate Change really Lord Voldemort? No, of course not. Maybe? I don't know. The name is somewhat telling however, of his true nature. Vol-de-mort, similar to the words "thief" voleur and "death" mort in French, really was trying to steal himself away from death, or steal life from others. But what really strikes me as similar is that both Climate Change and Voldemort use destructive threats and are shrouded in mystery. Is it going Voldemort or Climate Change kill us all? Can we even talk about it if he/it is going to kill us all?

I'm curious about the finitude of life and I'm curious when people find it very problematic. So when I saw this article from Vice Magazine titled 'What Are We Supposed To Do With Our Lives Now That The World Is Ending?' it seem especially interesting and revealing. It is really a point blank statement of the human condition of the Vice readership- a demographic I'd consider mostly "millennial" and those up to about 45-year-old, Westerners, interested in art and perverse, trendy, pukey, and often far-left political issues.

The article in question discusses (I use that word liberally) a study just reviewed by UK-based news outlet, The Guardian. The article is about the implications from a new NASA study that portends the end of civilization as we know it in the next few decades as a result from climate change. Let's just say the tone is a lot less, 'Hey, check out the implications of this science!' and a lot more, 'Holy fuck, the world's ending! Ahh!!!'. If you scroll to the comments section, it's even worse.

Honestly, fatalism bums me out. But really, it's the effect it has on people that makes me distrust it as a philosophical approach. Take for instance the Harry Potter series, now granted I didn't read it and the movies sometimes put me to sleep, but I know that it contains an important trope featured throughout literary history- The Story of True Names. Harry Potter's arch nemesis wasn't always called Lord Voldemort, and threats to human mortality weren't always called Climate Change.

A Short History of True Names

J.K. Rowling is kind of genius in what she does, but she wasn't the first to make use of the concept of True Names. The idea that an object or being or even an adjective has a name that is truer than than any other has an ancient history in philosophy, religion and folklore. Plato explored this idea in Cratylus, it's the Hellenistic Judaic divine notion of 'logos', it plays a vital role in Kabbalism and to some extent Sufism. Wiccans sometimes take a secret magical name after initiation, a ritual which relies on the same power inherent in the knowledge of a being's True Name.


A diagram of the names of God in Athanasius Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–54).

Western Europeans are familiar with the story of Rumpelstiltskin, the story of a magical imp who appears to young girl trapped by a cruel king and forced to spin wheat into gold. Rumpelstiltskin gives her three chances to guess the imp's True Name and thereby relinquish his manipulative power over her.

Of Sanskrit origin is "Om", written universally as ॐ, which is sometimes referred to as praṇava, literally "that which is sounded out loudly". In various religions, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sihkism, view ॐ more or less as a seed syllable- the sound that creates the universe. This idea of sound generative power is similar in concept to the True Name of God in the Western world.

So there's a long history of people telling stories about the power of vocalizing, and particularly of naming- so what? 

That's where the story of stories comes in. By telling the story, by vocalizing object's/idea's True Name, power is wrest from it. When Harry Potter (*spoiler alert*) learns the True Name of Lord Voldemort to be Tom Riddle, Jr., Voldemort/Riddle's story is fully revealed and Harry and his friends are able to trace his path from murdering his family member, to splitting his soul, to inevitably becoming the terror that menaces them.

Re-engineering Climate Change

The emerging field of Ecolinguistics is circling in on just this concept of True Names. Through all kinds of angles, through many types of critical discourses, from many different specializations, ecolinguistics seeks the exact words that are being used to frame the discussions surrounding climate change. In his recent essay, "An Ecolinguistic Approach to Critical Discourse Studies", Dr. Arren Stibbe guides readers through various techniques used by academics in this field. Stibbe brings together philosophies from ecopsychology, ecofeminism, deep ecology, and "all the other 'eco' disciplines'" (Stibbe 125) to provide a theoretical tool set for the study of Climate Change's True Name.

If you've notice, I've used 'Big-C' capital letters to write 'Climate Change' throughout the essay. I've named it in this way because it is a Big Idea. It is a mighty and powerful idea, and also kind of vague idea.

The idea of climate change is layered with so much baggage that it creates a True Veil that shrouds the concepts it supposedly should elucidate. Let's just call climate change what it really is-

'Climate Change' is the term given for disasters created by large industrial polluters.

No- I wish it were that simple. Truth is, the times we live in are complex and we need diverse approaches. Language and naming are important parts of finding ways to deal with change.

Now for a banishing spell, if you will. Climate change, I'm calling you out. We're learning your true names and your end is nigh.Vice magazine readers- keep that sky up there where it belongs, it's not falling down yet.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Trending #Pre-crime: Airline Security as Purification Ritual



Stories surprise the undressed mind.

They slip in the back door, past reason and judgment.

Years ago, cultural anthropology taught me that our experiences, our habits and rituals, shape the stories about who we are. I realized how we run our political economic processes were based on the stories that we tell each other. That was when I began to study art and literature seriously. The more I noticed these stories we tell each other and ourselves, the more I realized how often we don't recognize our own experiences as stories at all.

1. Imagining The Ritual Experience

I was flying overseas a couple of years ago when I looked out the window at the huge expanse of the clouds below and I had an idea: 


‘What if flying was a sacred experience in Western culture? ‘


Flying is a paradigm shift, something I imagine earlier humans had greeted with wonder and associated with godliness. Everyday on the backs of giant jet-fueled grasshoppers, groups of souls and bodies leap up into the air in hopes of landing safely in some far-off land. What if the rituals we practice before, during, and after take and landing were different? What if Western culture had produced a different sort of airline culture? I imagine being blessed with scented oil or holy water, taking a sacrament as we enter the plane, maybe a sacrifice or group prayer. What if we changed our practices regarding our mortality, our security, our flying experience?


One time the ritual of airline security proved to me how fragile it really was and theatrical our Western airline security rituals really were. I was traveling from California to Wisconsin in February when an announcement on the intercom informed us that it appeared that our landing gear wasn’t coming down and that we were preparing for a crash landing. At this moment the security provided by the airline corporation seemed utterly irrelevant. The passengers began to process the spiritual implications of our situation. Some cried or held their breath, some prayed. At 17, I felt unprepared for death.


We circled around the airport until all of our landing fuel had burned off. Passengers seemed to make a sort of peace with their maker as we stared death in the eye and prepared to crash. Lower we descended until we reached the moment of impact with the Earth.


We didn’t crash.


The problem turned out to be the electronic signal on the control panel not functioning properly. We took it seriously however, and when we reached the landing strip we saw the dozen or so fire trucks and ambulances that welcomed us. My idea of air travel security was forever changed, and I realized that I would need better rituals to prepare me to face head on the reality of my mortality as I entered into the risk negotiation of travel.  


2. The Purification Ritual

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines ‘ritual’ as:

rit·u·al
adjective \ˈri-chə-wəl, -chəl; ˈrich-wəl\
: done as part of a ceremony or ritual
: always done in a particular situation and in the same way each time 


The rituals we perform in our daily lives trace the patterns for our thought habits. Our thought habits create our stories about who we are. One of these thought habits revolves around the story of 'Security', a word that contains a multitude of complex ideas. But security is more than just a word- it is a practice. What we think of as ‘security’ is also set of rituals we perform to protect ourselves against perceived threats. They are rituals we perform to solidify our identities to gain confidence- like a cat bristling to appear larger when threatened.

A particular ideology emerges from Western airline security rituals. Through our practices, particular stories are established about who we are and how respond to threats. Threats are indeed sometimes real, people do sometimes carry bombs and hijack airplanes, and this does need to be taken seriously. However, Western cultures need to keep thinking about what these threats mean from a variety of angles. As we negotiate the space between the nebulous category of 'the other' (hijacker) and ourselves, we must stay aware of what we are projecting onto this unidentified enemy. It's not only another person that we are constructing in this way; we are also simultaneously constructing ourselves. In fact, it is precisely how we imagine the identity of our shadow that informs who we become.

In airports in the United States, passengers hold our breath through security, during takeoff and when landing; they shrink as they get x-rayed, poked, questioned, undressed, groped, and monitored; they are trained to not question the process and that their bodies and voices are subject to a ugly mix of corporation and government authority. American germ culture insists that we need to be careful to cleanse ourselves of dirty ideas. Passengers must not get to close to those already infected. Once passengers pass through the airline security purification ritual, they are once again assured of their purity. They no longer have to feel guilty. Any malicious thoughts toward capitalism, imperialism, or neo-liberal policies are purged. Passengers are then free to go about their lives as usual, free of having to think about why anyone would have such a problem with their country.  We cleanse ourselves of evil, and deftly apply it to the unknown.


Our fear of death is consoled because we know that we are 'good', and all those who will enter the sacred chamber are also free from contagious thoughts, ideology germs, and other possible weapons. But what if all these security practices don't really serve the purpose we imagine them to? In “Smoke Screening”, an article from 2011 in the popular American magazine Vanity Fair, journalist Charles C. Mann quotes security analyst and frequent flier Bruce Schneier,

“The only useful airport security measures since 9/11,” he says, “were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can’t break in, positive baggage matching”—ensuring that people can’t put luggage on planes, and then not board them —“and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater.”[i]

In an opinion article written in 2012 for The New York Times titled “A Waste of Money and Time”, Schneier is quoted again calling most airline security practices "[...] a stupid game," and recommends, "we should stop playing it."[ii]

The mystique of airline security procedures fades when viewed as a purification ritual designed to rid the participants of their contagions. The airport security acts as a kind of secular priest, acting in the space not between God and Man, but between Corporation and State. They agents act as midwifes as they deliver of forth, free of sin, toward the vehicle that will place us between Heaven and Earth.

3. The History of Security at Airports

When airplane technology developed the capacity to carry passengers 1916, the first airline company primarily catered to the wealthy upper class in England as a way of traveling across the English Channel. Afterward Western governments took interest in air travel and began using planes to deliver mail and as the preferred way to travel to distant colonies.


Western airlines rituals haven't always been the way are today, not nearly as invasive. There was a time when airport security in the United States was a man with a metal detector wand who would limit himself to checking people who looked suspicious. Even though there were plane hijackings nearly every week for years in the 1960's in the United States, changes only began to occur in the 1970's when the United States deregulated the airline industry.






The deregulation of all U.S. airlines resulted in an influx of new air travel companies. Heavy competition ensued. All airlines were forced to lower their prices substantially. This resulted in many more people being able to afford air travel who had never before been able to quickly travel such long distances. The competition proved to be too much for the industry and the resulting financial collapse of many airlines required a bailed out by the federal government over and over again in cycles since the 1970's. With the airline industry secured by the federal government, and with the federal government again taking an interest in global transportation, a change in security culture began to develop.

 
Before deregulation, airlines were more interested in getting customers to fly with them and therefore downplayed the hijackings. Airlines feared that if people were wary of flying because of this threat, they would lose business. With so many people being able to fly after the price reduction in the 1970's however, airlines decided upon a change in priorities and security measures were advanced. At this same time, the world experienced a huge influx of hijackings, and the nature of the hijackings turned markedly more violent. When before hijackings were mostly to draw attention to a cause or to escape a country for (usually) political reasons, this new wave of hijackings was wildly unpredictable. Security rituals that then emerged included passing through metal detectors, bags being scanned using x-ray machines, and sometimes hand-checking bags for international flights.

Today in the United States the Transportation and Security Administration regulates itself.[iii] The TSA has a high employee turnover rate and workers hired with few qualifications and little training. The TSA are known to grope travelers, scan bodies through clothing, and threaten or detain people who speak out against how they are treated. One NYT article[iv] commenter noted that 9/11 seemed to bring about a secret desire in Americans to “treat anymore who isn’t normal as dirt.” Another commenter mused that they should remove the bathroom doors aboard the plane in true Foucauldian panopticon[v] style if they really want to control passengers through surveillance. But perhaps the new developments in security culture are best summed up by social control scholar and MIT sociology professor Gary Marx in 1988, “Control is now better symbolized by manipulation than coercion, by computer chips than prison bars, and by remote and invisible filters than by handcuffs and a straightjacket.”[vi]

4. Facial Recognition and Pre-crime

An ongoing project being developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security that promises to take this thought screening a step further. The U.S. DHS website asks the question,


With 400 million people entering the country every year, authorities are always on the lookout for individuals who may harbor hostile intent toward the United States and its citizens. But while measures such as biometrics—including fingerprints, iris, and facial scans—are in place to detect known terrorists, how do we detect those without a past? What about those with no known ties to terrorist organizations? Or those who do not appear in any government database?[vii]



Photo via Wikipedia Project Hostile Intent


The photo above shows a kind of technology that the United States is developing in a program called Project Hostile Intent. The technology uses facial recognition data in an algorithm based on "micro-expressions" (tiny, fraction of a second twitches in faces that are recognized as revealing concealed emotions). In the years since the September 11, 2001 airline hijackings in the United States, there has been a trend in Western airline security culture toward preventing crime from happening, rather than prosecuting criminals after a crime has been committed. This trend is witnessed by millions everyday as they pass through security terminals in airports.


One might ask however, if we are shaping the technology, or is the technology shaping us? Pre-crime scholars Van Brakel and De Hart in 2011 conclude, “the distinctive technologies seem to be one of the defining characteristics of modern policing.” They then ask, “But is it really that daring to go one step further and suggest that modern policing is partly shaped by the technologies at hand, as partly ‘enabling’ factors, rather than passive desired tools?”[viii] (172) When looking at the specific history of how new technologies are emerging, it’s important to recognize that these are also the histories of the stories we tell each other about ourselves as Westerners. We must remember the rituals we create are shaping the way we think about ourselves and conversely define our enemies.

It is within this space between the private ventures of commercial airlines and national interests of airline security where new technologies and methods are tested in the field of security culture. Through the use of ritual, specifically a purification ritual in the form of passing through airline security checkpoints, we reinforce our own identities as 'safe' as also give form to our conceptual opposite. The nebulous idea of 'the other' is solidified through our own understanding of our collective selves, and thereby gives an identity to 'terrorists'. We feel more secure as we solidify our own identities through the negation of what we are not. This process takes on additional layers of meaning as we continue to build upon this framework, as we identify ourselves we simultaneously describe our enemies.


Despite concerns over human rights violations, western countries especially have began to implement indefinite detention policies in the last couple of decades. Australia has had laws in place since 1994 that allow for the indefinite detention of potential sex offenders. Great Britain has laws against indefinite detention, but passed contradictory laws that allow for the detention of immigrants.[ix] Most recently, in December 2013 the United States signed into law the National Defense Authorization act- a law that allows for military detention of anyone, even U.S. citizens, indefinitely and without trial.[x] Even Switzerland has a recent history of locking up an Egyptian professor and refugee for his "dangerosité", his ‘dangerousness’, rather than because he committed any crime. People concerned with protecting their human rights need to be wary as we form ideas about what 'terrorists' are, and what measures we should take to prevent terrorism because we are concurrently enacting policies toward a global trend toward indefinite detention based on suspicions of what we may unconsciously recognize as 'other' than ourselves.


5. Toward Conscious Rituals


We usually recognize our stories as fixed, but they are as mobile as our voices allow them to be. Meanings change when stories change. Stories change when we notice them as such. The stories we tell about the future are just as important as the stories we tell about our past. When we further investigate the symbols and rituals around us, we help shape the stories we want to live. We can recognize the history of our thoughts, we can look to our rituals to act as a mirror for who we are. Westerners concerned with human rights need to take special consideration of how the rituals we create shape our legal policies, lest we slide further toward pre-crime notions of "dangerosité".
 






[i] Charles C. Mann, ‘Smoke Screening’, Vanity Fair, 20 December 2011 <http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/12/tsa-insanity-201112> [accessed 29 March 2014].
[ii] ‘Do Body Scanners Make Us Safer?’, The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/22/do-body-scanners-make-us-safer/a-waste-of-money-and-time> [accessed 6 April 2014].
[iii] ‘Do Body Scanners Make Us Safer?’.
[iv] ‘Do Body Scanners Make Us Safer?’.
[v] Michel Foucault, ‘“ Panopticism” from Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison’, Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 2 (2008), 1–12.
[vi] Gary T Marx, Undercover: Police Surveillance in America (Univ of California Press, 1989).
[vii] ‘Deception Detection’ <http://www.dhs.gov/deception-detection> [accessed 6 April 2014].
[viii] Rosamunde Van Brakel and Paul De Hert, ‘Policing, Surveillance and Law in a Pre-Crime Society: Understanding the Consequences of Technology Based Strategies.’, Technology-led policing, 20 (2011), 165.
[ix] Ellie Mae O’Hagan, ‘Britain Shames Itself by Detaining Immigrants Indefinitely’, The Guardian, 18 December 2012, section Comment is free <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/18/britain-detaining-immigrants-indefinitely> [accessed 6 April 2014].
[x] Natasha Lennard, ‘Obama Signs NDAA 2014, Indefinite Detention Remains’ <http://www.salon.com/2013/12/27/obama_signs_ndaa_2014_indefinite_detention_remains/> [accessed 6 April 2014].

Sunday, March 16, 2014

I "Felt" Attacked

When you follow American politics, it's easy to realize that there is a lot of confusion about the verb "to feel." It is versatile in the English language with an etymological history that connects its meaning to physical sensations, emotions, and perception in middle and old English. According to the Wikipedia dictionary page, "feeling" can mean:
  1. To use the sense of touch
  2. To be or become aware of something
  3. To experience the consequences of something 
  4. To seem (through touch or otherwise)
  5. To understand (slang)
  6. Or, to think or believe
It's this last definition that interests me most. It seems that more often than describing an emotion, an experience, or understanding, American politicians are in the habit of using "to feel" instead of "to intuit." The verb intuit is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as, "to know or understand (something) because of what you feel or sense rather than because of evidence." It is this definition that makes it an unusable verb in political conversations.

American culture is steeped in reductionist thinking where every argument must be explained, it is something that has been normalized as a part of an effective rhetoric. It seems however, that there exists a semantic loop-hole if you will, that lets one intuit under the premise of describing a subjective experience (presumably such an intimate experience that it cannot be explained). When deconstructing the semantic units "feel like" and "feel that" in context, it becomes evident that this phrase very often conceals a wealth of information.  When used effectively, the phrase shrouds the speaker from the responsibility of having to explain themselves.

A couple of weeks ago I watched an episode of The Daily Show with John Stewart where Stewart criticizes the lawmakers of Arizona, United States for voting for a bill that was designed to give legal protection to people who refuse to do business with people based on their own religious beliefs about their potential customers (supposed) sexual orientation. When you get to minute 4:30 in the video linked above, John Stewart shows his audience a montage of clips of Fox News commentary warning their viewers that their religious faith is "under attack."
However, if you listen closely you will notice that the news anchor doesn't say that people think they are under attack, she says people feel that they are under attack. Just like that, by replacing the word think with the word "feel" the person expressing themselves is excused from justifying why they sensed they were attacked. However, when a nation for example, claims they were attacked, the public demands concrete evidence. It would be laughable for a country to claim they were attacked because they "felt like" it. Why then, do we excuse one another when we make illogical claims?

There's a great book called the Tao of Conversation by Michael Kahn that explains this phenomenon. On page 73 Kahn describes how people often use the phrases "I felt like..." and "I felt that..." as a way to express their reasoning for their actions. The problem with this however, is that adding the words "like" or "that" after "I feel" turns the statement from the description of a feeling to what basically amounts to an intellectual cop-out. Feeling statements, Kahn says, are "I feel scared, worried, sad, etc." Feeling statements describe emotions (see this picture to see the breakdown of "basic" emotions). Therefore, if one is trying to express an emotion, the word that follows "I feel" should always be an emotion word.

What happens when one is allowed to pass a statement that includes the phrase "I felt like I was attacked" is that the person is excused from explaining why she thought she was attacked. I'm not sure if this linguistic sleight-of-hand is unique to the English language, but there are many times when this phrase is translated into another language the mystique of the abstraction is lost. "I feel like" becomes "I think" or "I intuit" and suddenly the phrase must be justified. The other person can then ask: 'What makes you think that?' Or what leads you to this 'intuition?' When imagined in this way, there is no secret  magical, emotional experience that can't be described- the phrase is once again clear and the conversation proceeds rationally.

In the clip montage referenced to above, the politicians interviewed could have say, "I was attacked," or "I think I was attacked," or "my intuition is leading me to believe I am being attacked." All of these other methods of expression open up a space for further questions or elaboration. However, when one states a thought or sensation as feeling rather than an experience, it closes the dialog and there is nothing further that can be inquired of the person- no further reasoning is possible. This lends the speaker a kind of unquestioned "Truthiness" to their statement, although no justification is required.

For the record, I am by no means a proponent of reductionism, nor do I have anything against intuition. In fact, I do much of my preliminary thinking through the use of intuition and it's often when I get my best ideas.  My argument is that it's good practice to be aware when one is employing this mystifying tactic, and to call them on it. Ask them to justify themselves, to think through what they are experiencing.

I think this is an important deconstructive tool especially in media studies when political actions are often described with this phrase. By requiring those from whom we request vital information to use more clear speech patterns, we can facilitate more reasonable conversations and ultimately more understanding. It's often hard to cut to the point and admit one is actually scared, angry, worried, etc., but when we do, it encourages meaningful reflections and promotes taking responsibility for ones own actions.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Radical Honesty and Imagined Space



(Photo via Ads of the World)

Is honesty always the best policy? Or better stated, how can the truth be used to gain power over someone? I read an article in Esquire Magazine a few months ago that sparked a conversation with a group of friends that made us wonder if and when honesty is ever inappropriate. The article, titled "I Think You're Fat," features the story of one of the company's young, male writers as he narrates his arrogant and often disturbing account of his experiment with "Radical Honesty."

I understood a lot of what the author A.J. Jacobs writes about the problems of actually implementing radical honesty because I too have experimented with the practice. If lying were a drug, you could say I've been sober for just over a year. It's not that I was a compulsive liar, or that I lied all the time. When I did lie, I was holding back crucial information, or I would purposely not tell the whole truth.  I usually did this in relationships to avoid answering questions I knew would lead to hard conversations or arguments.

Last year however, something changed. I told a whopper of a lie (or rather a whopper of holding back the truth) and I almost lost someone I love very much. Ever since, I've committed to a personal standard of radical honesty and checking in with my deeper feelings about what I wanted to conceal.

(Photo via Why Vegan Guide)


It wasn't easy, and I failed a more than a few times. I always admitted the lie after and talked about why I was scared to confront whatever situation I had to deal with. Every time was about trust. I was scared that the other person would misunderstand me and/or react in a way that I would not be able to handle. It was about fear of not feeling strong enough to be capable of handling the implications of the truth.

Funny enough, it turns out that I can handle the truth. Like a muscle, it gets stronger with practice. Over the journey of this past year, I had times when I realized that it wasn't appropriate to "just" tell the truth. Sometimes I knew it was going to hurt the other person, a lot. In these situations, that old fear would come back and I'd try to find excuses to not tell the truth. I followed the guidelines I had set out for myself at these times and realized that my fear then was justified, the other person will be hurt by what I was about to do. So I asked myself, what then should I do?

I had a friend a few years ago who lived down the street from me. We would meet at either her house or mine a few days a week and talk about all of our worries and concerns in our lives. We'd talk about our guilt, anger, frustration, and our humiliating secrets. Obviously, this isn't the kind of thing one would usually do in public or with someone they've just met. There's certain parameters we would establish in order to facilitate the truth session. We'd light some candles, put on a pot of tea, put on some nice incense and music, sit on the floor and smoke cigarettes. In effect, we created a space for it and gave it what Walter Benjamin might call the sacred "aura" of a ritual.

We called it a "Blah Session." She'd call me up and say, "Can we Blah? I need to Blah." Sometimes a Blah would go terribly wrong. The situation or timing parameters wouldn't be adhered to and it set into motion a challenging and painful (un)reception of the Blah. Like playing football with cold muscles, it hurts to enter into Blah space when you're not ready. When we recognized that it was a failure of ritual and setting, we began to coin a term for it- we called it a "Non-consensual Blah."

The Non-consensual Blah feels like being violated. Imagine, someone coming up to you at an inappropriate time (maybe while you're at work), in an inappropriate space (maybe the bathroom) and telling you something deeply personal when you are not expecting it. Now imagine, someone you know first asks you if they can talk with you, then together you go to a park bench where they proceed to tell you deeply personal.

(Photo via NY Mag)


In the first instance, your personal boundaries feel violated. It's usual to become angry, as if the other personal has taken something from you, or as if they have soiled you by dumping their problems on you (perhaps that phrase reveals the physical sensation of the feeling?). So in the article, I can understand when the author feels guilty for being so brutally honest. His performance of being honest has no connection with social behavior. By dropping truth bombs on his unsuspecting recipients, he places himself in a position of power over them. His recipients didn't give consent to the kind of intimacy required to listen to him, and he therefore proceeded to violate what I would consider their social boundaries.

In the case of Jacobs, he said he felt creepy after he told the young woman he employs to watch his children that she's "stunning" he would ask her out on a date if he wasn't together with his wife. Feeling creepy is a side effect of blatantly using the power of his truth to put his nanny in a position of inferiority. Because he didn't ask if he can tell her something, he didn't afford her the agency to agree or disagree to subject herself to his advances. By asking her he would be arranging a sort of social contract that would allow them to equally hold the power in the intimate space he was creating.

The imagined space of intimate conversations exists on a real level, and practicing radical honesty can take you to that space before you and your audience is ready to handle it. Consent for discussing an intimate topic is just as important as consent in any other intimate activity. Because the truth can be so powerful, it's important to recognize how you use it. When one is careful to create structures of equal power relationships when practicing radical honesty, it becomes a tool for creating the kind of transformative space where a trusted friends can help each other take heavy truths off each other's backs.