Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The origin of the spoon metaphor:

http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/navigation/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf

The A+ people seem to be using it in a way that is cautioned against in this article:

http://academicronin.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/against-the-spoon-metaphor/

Plus, of course, many of them seem to be using it while completely able-bodied (and able-minded, or certainly not diagnosed with anything), all the while bleating on about how appropriating things from those less privileged than yourself is NOT OKAY.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Spoons strikes me as a euphemism for energy.

 

[Dinwar]

So how do you define the anti-semitism of some African-Americans? Or the strongly-held belief of some Japanese that they are genetically superior to Koreans? Or the anti-Hmong hatred of some Asians? etc. etc.

How do you deal with racism between white races? I grew up in an area where there were Germans, and there were Irish (<1% of anyone else, according to census data--not even the native folks lived in that area before the Germans drained it). There was a LOT of trouble not that long ago whenever a German person and an Irish person would wed. We're talking lynchings in the more distant past, and crosses burned on front lawns by the KKK within the last 60 years or so. My great-grandfather actually disowned his daughter for marrying a German. This whole social justice thing ignores this entirely.

I'm not saying "My racism is superior to your racism"; just that this is a very complex topic, and Atheism+ and their ilk are actually damaging it by oversimplifying it this way.

How long will it be before everyone starts to end a day of shopping by plopping down in Starbucks with “Phew–I’m out of spoons. Decaf latte, please.”

So, to be clear: The complaint is "Language changes through time". Sheesh.

 

[TeapotCavalry]

Thank you, Professor Yaffle. That was an interesting read.

Not really a theory, though, more of a metaphor then. And not exactly a good one either, since I never start my day with "unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever I desire". We all have certain amount of spoons. At the risk of sounding ableist, I'd call it even a really lousy metaphor. It doesn't explain anything beyond saying "every task requires more effort for me than for healthy people". I remember the couple of years I spent in depression (yes, clinically diagnosed - I guess that gives me victimhood legitimacy brownie points) and had panic attacks, it was exactly like that. Everything was so tiresome, burdening and bleak.

Maybe I'm so accustomed to computer games that a metaphor of using actions points for movement and tasks is so trivial and applies to healthy people too. Now that I'm physically and mentally relatively healthy, I still plan and manage my days to get stuff done, and have to drop morning meals or evening activities just to get priorities done. Not because I'm disable, but because that's life. Sure, it's harder when you're ill. I guess I didn't like the tone of the author thinking healthy people are Duracell bunnies.

 

[mijopaalmc]

So, to be clear: The complaint is "Language changes through time". Sheesh.

No, what you just said rather effectively obfuscates her objection: that the metaphor, while providing a physical representation of her experiences doesn't capture the emational aspects of the chronic exhaustion that accopanies her lupus and that she feels that the metaphor ultimately trivialize her experiences as a disabled person. I do partially see her point because "I'm out of spoons" does stand in for "I'm too tired to walk three blocks...and I feel this way all the time". However, if her greater contention is that people just don't understand and that possibly they will never understand because they don't have to live through it everyday, I don't see any way short of giving everyone lupus that allows people to have the lived experience of having lupus. In the end, most non-permanent representations of a lived experience ultimately trivialize it, because people experiencing the representation do not actually have to continue to live the experience. Allowing people to "sample" experiences that aren't theirs, though, really is the purpose of the representation and her objection does appear rather blunt as it mistakes the representation for the thing represented.

 

[TeapotCavalry]

So, to be clear: The complaint is "Language changes through time". Sheesh.

It's always amusing to see battles against the usage of language, as if some words are owned and patented. I cannot begin to fathom how trivial someone's everyday problems are and privileged their life is when their main concern is how people use some certain word.

 

[Dinwar]

No, what you just said rather effectively obfuscates her objection: that the metaphor, while providing a physical representation of her experiences doesn't capture the emational aspects of the chronic exhaustion that accopanies her lupus and that she feels that the metaphor ultimately trivialize her experiences as a disabled person.

I don't think I've obfuscated it. I may have focused on an aspect she didn't want to focus on, but the final statements in the quote make it clear that the term entering common usage is, to her, a bad thing--despite the fact that this is how language works.

As for trivializing her experiences, any metaphore will do that. It's an inevitable aspect of metaphore as such. If you don't want your condition trivialized, don't find cutesy ways to talk about it. I never discussed owies or boo-boos, but rather lacerations and fractures and abrasions. If you come up with cute ways to avoid it, the rest of us get the reasonable impression that you don't want to talk about it, so we avoid it. For some people, that's what they want--not that they're trivializing it, just that it's their problem and they don't want you bothering with it.

The issue isn't that healthy people don't understand; it's that in our PC culture we're usually not sure what we can and can't talk about, so if someone indicates they don't want to talk about it any rational person will avoid the topic.

 

[Quinn]

How long will it be before everyone starts to end a day of shopping by plopping down in Starbucks with “Phew–I’m out of spoons. Decaf latte, please.”

Yeah, that would be as tragic as if people started using "hysterical" to mean merely "excessively emotional" rather than "crazy due to having a womb"; or "idiot" to mean "a person exhibiting extreme foolishness" rather than "a mentally disabled person." What would the world come to?

 

[tsig]

I'm working on a controversial spork theory.

Can it go downwind faster than a lie?

 

[Jono]

But... but I thought the truth was that... there is no spoon.

 

[TeapotCavalry]

@Dinwar

Very well put! I was thinking along the same lines. If you go out of your way to find cute metaphors and not directly say "sorry, I feel too ill to go for a coffee" it's reasonable you don't want to talk about it, so it's odd to demand that the metaphor should be a real representation of the disability, convey the same amount of pain and desperation the actual illness does. Of course it trivializes the illness, you're talking about spoons! Wasn't that the point of the actual Spoon Theory - not to overly depress the fragile able person who doesn't know what pain and fatigue is? Ease in the horrible nightmare life you're living, day in, day out, without making them cry out of sadness and pity.

 

[Wildy]

These seem like privileged spoiled brats who avoid worthwhile targets for their SJ warfare and go to battle on the most frivolous fronts.

That's because they are. But instead of checking their privilege they use tortured logic to turn themselves into an oppressed minority.

"Moron" as a psychologist's term for mental retardation is obsolete and is now purely a colloquial, disparaging term for "Someone who lacks one shred of intellectual curiosity" (Urban Dictionary). Use of the word today this way would not do a shred of tangible social injustice.

But it does because feels.

A+ activists need to pick their battles more intelligently. There are people being beheaded in the street right now in the name of a nonexistent god, and this is what they get all worked up about?

That's "Dear Muslima" territory you're entering there. But then you could probably point out real problems in their own backyards that they could deal with and you'd probably get death threats.

I think they are trying to one-up each other in an effort to prove who's the greatest SJW by identifying smaller and smaller targets.

It's an Oppression Olympics of Stupid.

How do you deal with racism between white races? I grew up in an area where there were Germans, and there were Irish (<1% of anyone else, according to census data--not even the native folks lived in that area before the Germans drained it). There was a LOT of trouble not that long ago whenever a German person and an Irish person would wed. We're talking lynchings in the more distant past, and crosses burned on front lawns by the KKK within the last 60 years or so. My great-grandfather actually disowned his daughter for marrying a German. This whole social justice thing ignores this entirely.

Because Irish people weren't white and that means that it was miscegenation but it's not a problem now because they successfully pass for white or something. Because white people have always been one homogeneous group with no ethnic/cultural divisions because they stole all that stuff from coloured people.

I'm not saying "My racism is superior to your racism"; just that this is a very complex topic, and Atheism+ and their ilk are actually damaging it by oversimplifying it this way.

To be honest I think you're being pretty generous there. I'd say they're saying that if someone is white their racism isn't racism.

 

[Dinwar]

Because Irish people weren't white and that means that it was miscegenation but it's not a problem now because they successfully pass for white or something. Because white people have always been one homogeneous group with no ethnic/cultural divisions because they stole all that stuff from coloured people.

YOU tell the Welsh they're no different from the Brittish! I saw someone make that mistake once. It was rather epic.

To be honest I think you're being pretty generous there. I'd say they're saying that if someone is white their racism isn't racism.

That was my interpertation, too. Which is perpetuating privelage, ironically enough--such a view of race is a distinctly American view. As I pointed out above, Great Briton has had all kinds of trouble with racial issues involving white races throughout their history. The story of King Arthor's battles is essentially the story of a race war, for example. I doubt an American could tell an Albanian from an Arian, but in Yugoslavia it was a pretty major issue. And calling all dark-skinned people one race is, from a biological standpoint, about as moronic as you can get (there are more races originating in Africa than on all other continents combined from the biological standpoint). Clearly, they're allowing their wold-view to be colored by the views of the privilaged class of nations.

 

[mijopaalmc]

I don't think I've obfuscated it. I may have focused on an aspect she didn't want to focus on, but the final statements in the quote make it clear that the term entering common usage is, to her, a bad thing--despite the fact that this is how language works.

As for trivializing her experiences, any metaphore will do that. It's an inevitable aspect of metaphore as such. If you don't want your condition trivialized, don't find cutesy ways to talk about it. I never discussed owies or boo-boos, but rather lacerations and fractures and abrasions. If you come up with cute ways to avoid it, the rest of us get the reasonable impression that you don't want to talk about it, so we avoid it. For some people, that's what they want--not that they're trivializing it, just that it's their problem and they don't want you bothering with it.

The issue isn't that healthy people don't understand; it's that in our PC culture we're usually not sure what we can and can't talk about, so if someone indicates they don't want to talk about it any rational person will avoid the topic.

Why didn't you comment on the half of the post where I said (without the reference to "PC"*) essentially what you said?

*I mean why should not use term like "Oriental" or "squaw".

 

[mijopaalmc]

Yeah, that would be as tragic as if people started using "hysterical" to mean merely "excessively emotional" rather than "crazy due to having a womb"; or "idiot" to mean "a person exhibiting extreme foolishness" rather than "a mentally disabled person." What would the world come to?

Or "gay" for "something I don't like"?

 

[Dinwar]

Why didn't you comment on the half of the post where I said (without the reference to "PC"*) essentially what you said?

*I mean why should not use term like "Oriental" or "squaw".

Because I find "I agree with you" to be tedious after a while. It's more productive to discuss the portions which we disagree on.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

That's "Dear Muslima" territory you're entering there. But then you could probably point out real problems in their own backyards that they could deal with and you'd probably get death threats.

Remember kids, it's fine to tell people that you should be killed or issue threats of bodily harm if you're a SJW, but if you do it to them you're evil and deserve to be killed!

 

[Quinn]

By the way, thanks to Professor Yaffle for posting the origin of the spoon metaphor. I knew what it meant, but not where it came from, and I had been vaguely curious about why people had latched onto something as seemingly random as spoons for that metaphor. It's good to know that it is, in fact, as arbitrary as it seemed, and that if those women had had a basket of chips in front of them at that moment, the A+ board would currently be full of people who don't have the nachos to deal with something.

 

[Dinwar]

Imagine if it had been marbles.

 

[Piscivore]

That was my interpertation, too. Which is perpetuating privelage, ironically enough--such a view of race is a distinctly American view. As I pointed out above, Great Briton has had all kinds of trouble with racial issues involving white races throughout their history. The story of King Arthor's battles is essentially the story of a race war, for example. I doubt an American could tell an Albanian from an Arian, but in Yugoslavia it was a pretty major issue. And calling all dark-skinned people one race is, from a biological standpoint, about as moronic as you can get (there are more races originating in Africa than on all other continents combined from the biological standpoint). Clearly, they're allowing their wold-view to be colored by the views of the privilaged class of nations.

I just had an SJ class wherein the textbook author literally could not decide between "race is a social construct, it doesn't exist" and "white people are bad, m'kay"