1 post tagged “linda hirshman”

First and foremost:  TO THE PEOPLE OF BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (except electric firefly):  YOU ARE IRREDEEMABLE ASSHOLES.  Also, do you really think the Marine Corps is going to be intimidated by a mass public breastfeeding?  THIS IS WHY PEOPLE MOCK LIBERAL ELITES, YOU IDIOTS.  YOU COMPLETE, UNMITIGATED IDIOTS.  Semper Fi, Rob Riggle!

Second, and making reference to the very same episode of The Daily Show:  My husband (ex-military, sort of--I don't feel entirely sure the Jieitai [Japan Self-Defense Force] constitutes military, but they pretend they do) and I were watching Jon Stewart interview that dude, Lt. Gen. Whatever, and we couldn't help but notice that these two men are from entirely different planets.  They were both apparently speaking English, American vernacular, yet they were not having the same conversation at all.  It was awesome.

Next:  WTFF?  Yeah!  Fabulous!  Teenagers have no fucking idea about anything at all in history, but they are so great at using Facebook!  They are choosing (that word is used many times, because the fact that something is chosen is enough to give it validity and force, at least in the world this lady inhabits) to spend hours and hours not doing homework or bothering about who this Hitler dude is but reading and writing about themselves and reading and writing in order to socialize!  So, see?  Teenagers can read and write!  They can completely comprehend LOLcats and txt msgs that involve complex code-substitutions of numbers for syllables (like Prince didn't totally already do that shit back in the 80s), so they're totally smart.  So just get off their backs, old people!  You crazy old people who want, like, coherent thoughts and maybe writing about something other than myself.  You suck with your whole "knowing about history" deal.  Because it's not the same as what teenagers used to do, just writing in a diary or something, because this is totally, like, online, and teenagers today spend upwards of 2 hours a day doing this newfangled diary-writing, whereas you oldsters had to do, like, chores or some shit and learn about boring stuff like wars.  Yes, I see this logic so clearly.  Srsly, this is one of the lamest fucking articles I've encountered in a while.  FEH.

And finally, my old friend Linda Hirshman has an article in Slate again.  Ah, how nice, how refreshing.  She uses the example of Silda Spitzer to make the case that women should keep their paying jobs instead of staying home with kids (for those of you who don't know, Hirshman hates women who stay home with their kids).  First off, hasn't poor Silda been used enough?  Fucking leave her alone.  I don't know why she stood on those podiums (podia?) with her slimy husband, but that isn't my business.  But for fuck's sake, Linda--the woman has enough to deal with without being made an "example" of by some vicious little "feminist." 

Second, OK, go read the piece.  Her case for not quitting your day job consists primarily of:  1.  You just never know when your husband is going to get caught paying $4300 for a night with a ho and your whole world is going to come crashing down on you!  2.  When that world comes crashing down, your social standing is likely to come down a notch.  I mean, you know, you're probably still going to be quite well off--especially after the alimony!--but you will now be only the divorcee Spitzer instead of the governor's wife.  OMG!  Like, OMG!  How humiliating, this precipitous decline in standing among the elite philanthropist types.  It's almost as unbearable as finding out your husband goes to hookers. 

Nevermind that Hirshman's "opt-out revolution" doesn't really exist (does a revolution really exist if it only marginally exists among the richest classes and not at all among the rest of us?  I hardly think so), she again bases her entire argument for keeping your day job on wealth, power, and social status.  The problem with doing this is the same problem Kant identified with moral judgments and arguments of this type.  To someone who cares little about validation from outside, whether that validation is derived from money or a certain social position, the argument becomes meaningless.  Most of us like to make money and no one likes to be really impoverished, sure, but not all of us derive our ethical compass and sense of self-worth from whatever pays the most, Linda.  Nah, Linda, if you want to be convincing, you need to convince me why I should give a fuck about the old man's game of corporate rat-racing and expensive toy accumulation and the jibber-jabbering of the caviar-eaters.  So far all I've heard is because that's what will make other people, especially those old white men we all love to hate, think I'm worthwhile.  But the secret here is, Linda:  I already know I'm worthwhile.  I have no need of their validation.