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]

Well, okay, fine, I'm not calm now. Happy? It really, really makes me unbelievably sad and frustrated to see you react this way and try to respect it, because, let's face it, I can't.

I am not saying that you are irrational, and in making this about race and me a hegemon you are refusing to see that this is fundamentally a disagreement between two individuals, and you are refusing to see your own insults as effective and having the same basis in power as my own. You could. You could say, "I'm sorry I insulted you." Then at least you would admit that you possessed the power to do such a thing. I admit you do. I admit you can offend me, and that you in fact have. If you place so little value on my own friendship, and my own integrity, well, that hurts. Does that make you happy? Does it make you happy to make me cry? And I have admitted countless times that you are, or are at least able to be, both rational and highly intelligent. That's not what this is about.

Also, this--this that you wrote here--is HUGELY condescending. As if I could not have my own opinions or at all respect you merely because I am white. As if you understand all of this, and I will remain, can only remain, in ignorance for the rest of my life because I have no real experience. As if I am not at all capable of ever being your equal.

What I see is this: I see you being insecure about your own position, I see you therefore interpreting things I say as being intended to insult and condescend to you when they never were because of that, and I see you becoming angry because of these insults that exist more for you than for me. I do the same thing talking to Steve. It's not about race, it's about power, and I don't know why you're giving it to me when you could just as easily treat yourself with the same respect any decent human being would, when you could just as easily see the real power you have to both win this argument and deeply hurt me.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I didn't want to say it until now, although that's what I've been thinking for a long time. I'm sorry that you're taking this as an insult, and I'm sorry that I've insulted you (although you're right, I don't really think I have the power to insult you, but if you feel insulted I guess I do), but the fact that you're taking this as an insult says something as well, doesn't it? Anyway, okay, I am sorry I insulted you. I can be quick to throw things out there, and when you don't respond to them with belligerence I usually assume they had no impact.

And I truly felt that you were saying that I was irrational.

I do think you can have your own opinions. I doubt that you can really respect me because I am not a Great and Important Person, or one of your college friends who you've learned from. I haven't taught you anything and I feel like those (teachers) are the only people that you respect. I'm not saying that you can't respect me because you're white, I don't think that has anything to do with it. I don't even really expect you to respect me to be honest.

I don't think this is just a fundamental disagreement between two individuals. I guess that's a difference. I've said that I don't think people are just individuals, and I don't think we are either. I think it would just be wrong to assume that we are - and if you want, that you believe we are individuals and I don't is a fundamental disagreement between us, although now I'm getting twisted up. I think that we can try to "transcend" that, as you say, but I don't think we have. People come into every argument with biases, no one is a clean slate, and that's what the hegemon/subaltern thing is in this case, a bias.

"It's not about race, it's about power, and I don't know why you're giving it to me when you could just as easily treat yourself with the same respect any decent human being would" - well, why do you think I give you that power?

Okay, I'm insecure. This is just a last ditch effort to win an argument that I'm bound to lose. Whatever.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Okay, I shouldn't have said that last thing, it was snarky. I don't like it when people tell me I'm insecure.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I feel like people should be insulted by being thought of as (or hell, actually being) hegemons, or with an unavoidably hegemonic viewpoint, and if they aren't, it might be that the accusation is too absurd, they don't care about the opinion of the person voicing it, or they know they're hegemonic and don't care. So yes, that I was insulted shows I don't like being trapped and bound to being a 'white oppressor' (strangely enough, i think i'm quoting myself...or abbey). In any case, I accept your apology.

I really am sorry you felt that way. I had only meant that you seemed angry and insulted, which you had explicitly said, not at all that you were irrational. If I didn't respect your opinion and intelligence, I probably wouldn't try to talk about these things with you (even things which I have more academic experience with, though disciplines seem to promote their own way of viewing the world, and I think it's good to talk with people whose academic experience isn't bound to the presuppositions of your own department...). Hell, if I didn't respect your opinion and intelligence (not that they're your only good qualities), I probably wouldn't be your friend.

Well...if you don't, then I expect myself to respect you. I respect my friends, and they do teach me things and influence my opinion. I also have a different sort of respect (more purely intellectual, unless I know more about their lives, I guess) for certain people I read. But none of them is always right; no one is. Steve is probably the only teacher I have at all equal respect for, and that partly just because he's a friend, or at least someone I can trust. He's wrong sometimes too, and I am learning to be better able to question or disagree with him without my whole self-worth resting on it. I mean...when I have arguments with Jason about topics related to what I study, he's come at it from the perspective of "anthropology is a wrong and misguided discipline, and this is why" and I've had to defend myself every freaking step of the way. I still respect his opinion, even though I often disagree, and there are some points on which we will probably never agree. You and I much more often already agree about a lot of things, whatever the reason for that is. I think you've already changed my worldview and how I grew up. However, I am admittedly very stubborn, and it does take a lot to convince me I'm wrong once I believe something. That in no way means I don't or can't respect your opinion and the fact that you have reasons for it. Besides which, there are plenty of situations where we'd be in the opposite position, if we started talking about anything more political science oriented, I'm sure. I don't expect that my opinions would be as nuanced or well-supported as if I had read and studied what you do. I don't think that means I am irrational or not worth respect, although I also don't expect to be able to convince you of my opinion, at least not without some understanding of what you do and a lot of effort, possibly never. But convincing you of what I think and you respecting me are two totally different things. Same here. Me disagreeing with your opinion does not mean I don't respect you, and I'm very sorry if anything I've said has given that impression (I'm obviously emotionally caught up in the debate, and if I said otherwise, that's just wrong).

People only transcend the groups they place themselves into when they treat each other as equal individuals (I suppose there is the possibility of groups on an equal level, but I think it's not what we're talking about), and if we aren't doing that, then no, we aren't acting as such. I agree that no one is a clean slate...we all have habits of perceiving, acting, and thinking. Sometimes they do us more harm than good.

I don't know why. I wish you wouldn't.

(to your comment below) Fair enough. I probably don't either.