turistas go home!

[intertribal]

The title is my reaction to Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  The above is also my reaction to every Indiana Jones movie, so I guess if you like Indiana Jones, you'll like it.

Let me just say though, that as someone who watched 9 FUCKING seasons of the X-Files, this sanitized, Americanized, and abridged version in 2 1/2 hours and M&Ms packaging just feels like a smack in the fucking face.

+ : every time Indiana Jones fails at something. 
- : every time Indiana Jones succeeds at something.
best character: crazy professor man + mutt
worst character: marion ravenwood + indiana jones
best impossibility: Indiana Jones gets pulled out of a sand trap by holding onto a snake that is somehow able to hold his entire weight!
worst impossibility: Indiana Jones survives a nuclear explosion by hiding in a refrigerator and doesn't die of cancer in three weeks!

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying we instantly get there, and I'm not saying that you can ever reach perfection/utopia. I don't think that is possible. In short, far from fundamentally disagreeing, I agree with you there. I just want to make steps toward improvement and change that aren't actually steps backward.

I'm not saying you're stupid, and I'm not saying, even, that there is something inherently wrong with emotion. I never said you were a dumbass, and if you feel like one, I refuse to take blame for it, as I really do not think you are, nor am I arguing that you are. As for the rest, I don't think I can say anything productive, so nevermind.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I don't think they are steps backward.

I'm not arguing about intent. I'm arguing about your result. Throwing out statements like this: "I admit I'm taking a lot from Nietzsche and Bourdieu and Judith Butler and various other authors and Steve...so it'll probably take a lot to convince me otherwise" is going to make me feel uneducated and dumb.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I just wanted you to know this wasn't something I made up myself, that I had thought about it seriously, if not from a perspective you're used to. Seeing as we are both students at small liberal arts colleges with decent reputations, I really don't think I'm the only one of the two of us who has a background in authors who take some aspect of this as their concern, or the only one of us whose opinion has a basis in our education. There is nothing about my comment that necessitates it being taken as a statement of my education in comparison to your lack. We are, in most respects, equals here, and your taking my statement as indicating otherwise shows something, I guess, but it's neither contained in my intention or the statement itself.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Actually, you are the only one of the two of us who has a background in authors who take some aspect of that as their concern. Cross-cutting cleavages is as far as my education goes. And the fact is I haven't thought intellectually about this. I haven't read anything about it or heard lectures about it. My opinions really are based solely on my experience and my upbringing.

Well, if you don't see it, I guess you don't see it. I see it as an arrogant remark and I don't think I'm the only one who would see it that way.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that until now. I have no idea what authors you've read or what they have said.

Fine then, we don't have equal background here. That still doesn't mean I think you're dumb, as what someone has read is by no means equal to either what they know or what they are capable of knowing.

I refuse to be ashamed of myself, to say, "Okay, I'm wrong, I give up, you're right" just because I'm white. That would be truly condescending. because race has got nothing to do with being right or wrong.

Fine, if you want a minority pedigree instead, does it help that it's not just white people who think so? That Jason (who is very much mexican-american) largely agrees with me about issues of race (although I suppose the elementary school kids he was teaching before he left for bulgaria thought him a race-traitor for not speaking like he should, for going on to college and acting like a white kid--if that isn't racial identity keeping people from opportunity, I don't know what is)? That there are actually people, of various races, that debate issues like this and that it's horribly racist to say that just because someone is not white means they will have a particular opinion on these issues?

Furthermore, Bourdieu is very much a working class provincial guy who ended up in academia and became disillusioned with it, causing him to write lots of books about how the social position of academics influences their opinions and struggle with being an intellectual, trying more and more to be a part of the public domain. Butler is, of course, a woman, and hugely influential in gender and queer studies. These are people who are arguing against social domination... Nietzsche, however, is sort of unabashedly elitist. Although most of all, what he is against is the sort of weakness (invariably created by hierarchy and culture) that he sees as ruining the pride and happiness of men. These are interesting and complicated issues, and reducing the argument to a matter of upbringing does it a huge disservice.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know Jason. I know my friends. I'm sorry if I claimed to be speaking for everyone who is not white. I will say that I agree with my friends who I have talked to about this.

"I refuse to be ashamed of myself, to say, "Okay, I'm wrong, I give up, you're right" just because I'm white. That would be truly condescending. because race has got nothing to do with being right or wrong."

Okay. Don't. I have told you repeatedly that I don't think you're wrong, I'm just explaining to you how it's coming across, and fine, take everyone out of the equation, it's how it's coming across to me as a person. That has not entirely everything to do with race and nothing to do with what is right or wrong.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you know your friends, I know my friends. I'm sure a lot of people would agree with what you've said on this.

I was more than a little emotionally disturbed when I wrote that. Part of what I meant by "overreacting."

I understand that it's how it came across across, and if there's anything I did to make it sound that way, I'm sorry. A lot of things you had said had sounded like insults to me, and I was trying my best to stay calm until this point...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Also, because this is bothering me - this whole statement you're making has nothing to do with minority/working class pedigree. At all.

"it's horribly racist to say that just because someone is not white means they will have a particular opinion on these issues" - this to me, is what the fuck, because I did not say that at all, and you completely made that up.

This goes back to the idea of namedropping, right? Ok. I don't associate namedropping with being white or hegemonic or anything. What I meant by saying that I felt it was arrogant and that there were people who would agree with me is that I felt it was elitist and over-intellectual, and anybody can do that. And by "other people who would agree with me" I mean my friends who dislike it when people namedrop in class. The particular backgrounds of the people you're namedropping has nothing to do with the namedropping itself.

And a "minority pedigree" of people who agree with your position on issues of race has NOTHING AT ALL to do with what I said about namedropping and people who would agree with me, because that's entirely related to classroom politics.

I know I should leave this alone but this whole argument is entirely misplaced.

And of course there are minorities who would agree with you on issues of race. Bill Cosby, for example.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Again, part of the "overreacting." It seemed to me you were suggesting here:

"[. . .] you and your authors and Steve saying that comes across as something the hegemons are telling the subalterns to keep them from complaining too loudly. Yes, still and yet, that's how it comes across, and I guarantee if I showed this conversation (which I wouldn't) to my friends who are poor minorities, that's how it would come across."

that the authors I was citing were all WASPy, well-off, hegemonic ones, and that all "poor minorities" would see them in exactly the same way. But I know I overreacted to your comment here.

I can't help but disagree about namedropping necessarily being arrogant. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. Like I said, I could just as easily name-drop a punk band (Crass), and both the band and the academic names are part of things I like and where this viewpoint comes from, which I was just trying to explicitly acknowledge. I hate it when people in class use names or departments (if they are a different major than the course they're taking) as an excuse to not have anyone be able to contradict them on what they're saying (and usually when they do so they invariably misrepresent the departments/authors they bring up). If you saw me as doing that, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. I am willing to talk about what I think, or what I take from any of the authors I mentioned, I just wanted to be clear about what reasons/background I had for taking the position I did. Sometimes people in class do this as well, to make clear their trying to argue a Marxist analysis or that they're trying to describe something analogous to Bourdieu's definition of symbolic capital or symbolic violence, or bring up their thesis research if it's relevant, etc. I see nothing wrong with this, and sometimes their perspective is more helpful and enlightening for the academic experience they have, but I can see where I didn't really explain what I was taking from those authors, so to that degree it's my fault, although if you asked me, I would.

I was calling it a "minority pedigree" to mock the idea that I was talking about a pedigree of "Great and Important People" who were part of the hegemonic viewpoint. I think the whole point is ridiculous, as I wasn't trying to drop a pedigree from anywhere, but clearly, I misunderstood you about name-dropping, so I'm sorry this was misplaced. I gladly take it back.

I'm not sure Bill Cosby would agree with me.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see how you would get that impression, and that was part of my overreacting.

I think the namedropping thing is just us having different ways of talking about things, as I am very used to not doing that, and I'm glad you agree about people just using things from other classes to get around having an actual point is annoying, which is really what annoys me most, and I think I was taking out my frustration with Columbians on you, and I'm sorry for that.

Bill Cosby would totally agree with you. Maybe. I don't really know. I just know what Leonard Pitts was citing about him.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

"I think the namedropping thing is just us having different ways of talking about things, as I am very used to not doing that"

That's probably true. Maybe this is different at Reed, too--I wouldn't know.

"and I'm glad you agree about people just using things from other classes to get around having an actual point is annoying, which is really what annoys me most, and I think I was taking out my frustration with Columbians on you, and I'm sorry for that."

It's cool. Probably wasn't the smartest thing for me to do. When I first read this, I thought you meant Columbia the country (which i realize is spelled with an O, but yeah), not the school, and I was like wtf? Fortunately, that interpretation made no sense.

I don't really know enough about what Bill Cosby thinks to say, don't even know what Leonard Pitts cited about him. I might agree with him on some points...