Green Room - Week 3 - Day 11

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

There is voting happening - http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/876790.html although not the voting that was originally planned.

For those keeping track at home - (if my scrolling over technique worked) There were 15 entries in the Friends (the entire Team Ocelot took a bye!) and 28 entries in the Rivals!

***

In yesterday's Green Room I was reminded of something - Idol is a really diverse group. Always has been. I hope it always will be.

I think there have been, and continue to be, dangers of too many people who share the same opinions on things - but hopefully human nature will prevail and we will never go too far down that route.

What I like is taking all of these people with different lives and throwing them in the same room together and see what happens!

There have been times when it's been explosive! There have been times when there was just a spark or two and everyone came to understand each other over time. Each has it's uses.

Heck, there have been times when those forces have been directed against me - sometimes I've responded well and other times "not so well". Because at the end of the day, we're still people and are going to have our good days and bad ones.

That's not just for the people responding either - some days those sharing their ideas aren't at their best at getting across what they actually mean and end up coming across like the jerks! It happens. I've seen it. I know you have as well.

There's a lesson in there somewhere about common humanity bringing us together to discuss how to treat subgroups and individuals. If you locate it, please bring it to the lost and found!

***

I keep having these random memory glitches where I have come across something and say "That should be in the Green Room", but when the time comes I keep putting it off until I forget the context.

In this particular case, there was an article that I saw someone share that keeps pinging in my head - (paraphrasing) it said that white cis-males needed to stop writing and/or trying to get published so that non-white cis-male voices could be heard.

I've started to type my own feelings about it, but as a white cis-male, I may be a little biased. ;)

In thinking about it though, I did think it was funny that I had set aside my own writing to concentrate on creating a community that encouraged the writing of so many diverse voices. It wasn't intentional, to gather diverse groups here, but I'm really glad that it happened.

Comments

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

We were having a discussion last night (in regard to a book review that brought up the subject) about how kids are now being taught to "interpret the text" in their reading with "How would this make you feel?" rather than a discussion directly about the characters and their actions, because it increases their empathy and ability to put themselves into the situation.

I definitely remember the push to do away with labels - and have seen that boomerang back to the "I want to be labeled correctly!" movement. Both groups were trying to accomplish the same "sort of thing" of "I just want to be treated as an equal". But two very different thought processes are involved.

I won't say "people are more Me-focused" these days, because while I do find some truth in it, I think there is something that sounds like I'm saying that's totally a bad thing and I don't think that it is. I think there are problems with it, and ones that as as culture we are only starting to see... and I think there are some really good things about it, and the benefits that are only starting to show.

Besides, it makes me sound like I need to be chasing those damn kids off my lawn when I say it, and I don't want those kids to see me coming!! ;)

[murielle.livejournal.com]

"We were having a discussion last night (in regard to a book review that brought up the subject) about how kids are now being taught to "interpret the text" in their reading with "How would this make you feel?" rather than a discussion directly about the characters and their actions, because it increases their empathy and ability to put themselves into the situation."

Yes! We need more empathy. We need to relate to the "other." Watch out. I may just break into a chorus of What The World Needs Now. ;-)

Perhaps the need for labeling is so important at this point in time because the drive to define oneself is so immediate. Perhaps my generation was less interested in being defined because we were not driven to self-realize so soon. We might have been more concerned with the journey than the destination. I remember hearing that a lot.

I do think the great we spends an inordinate amount of time looking into "the mirror." Reality TV has convinced us that our petty little dramas are what make us special, important, and that what we feel is vastly more important than what we say, or do. As a whole I think our society has become dangerously narcissistic. But teaching children to "feel" for the other, relate to the other, and be able to empathize with the other's experience is a good way to confront, if not combat, narcissism.

As to those kids on your lawn Gary, put them to work, pulling weeds trimming hedges, sweeping driveways. And don't forget to tell 'em to get a hair cut and pull up those pants. ;-)

[tjoel2]

"Perhaps the need for labeling is so important at this point in time because the drive to define oneself is so immediate."

I think that's really the key. There's a difference between imposing a label outward, on someone else or a group of someones, in an attempt to categorize them or fit them into a safe box for your own comfort and attempting to create some sort of label inward as a tool to define oneself, understand who and what you really are and come out with that in a positive and liberating way. I think some of the masses of labels that we see now have come from the need to express gender, gender identity, sexuality and sexual preference. There are definitely some that I come across and have to look up as well! But I think it's a fabulous phenomenon, and can be very freeing if used in an an inward way and not projected outward.

[murielle.livejournal.com]

"There's a difference between imposing a label outward, on someone else or a group of someones, in an attempt to categorize them or fit them into a safe box for your own comfort and attempting to create some sort of label inward as a tool to define oneself, understand who and what you really are and come out with that in a positive and liberating way."

Yes. I agree. But the flip side of this can also be forcing, shall we say for argument's sake, the less enlightened, not only to accept one's self-definition, but validate and reinforce it, whether they are ready to do so, or not. This is also a form of imposing a label outwardly.

In a perfect world there would be enough compassion for everyone, and no one would ever be bullied or made to feel less-than, whether they were on trend or not. In a perfect world....

[tjoel2]

"But the flip side of this can also be forcing, shall we say for argument's sake, the less enlightened, not only to accept one's self-definition, but validate and reinforce it, whether they are ready to do so, or not."

Sadly this does happen. Lucily I haven't encountered this as much in my circles as I have the more liberating effects of discovering and defining oneself with labels. For example, here's my label: I am a bisexual polyamorous switch. That's there, it's me, who I am now, which is ever evolving and changing. And people can take it as they will, accept me or not. That's their work however, not mine.

[murielle.livejournal.com]

"That's their work however, not mine."

Yes. Yes. And yes.