Gaashk
15d ago
Sure, I suppose I was mostly responding to the first two items on the list being "patriarchy, gender norms." I grew up in a conservative homeschooling community, and the families that were more serious about patriarchy and gender norms (also very heavy on "cheerful obedience") than about the other items experienced some poor results. The families that were more serious about the exposure to nature part through small agricultural operations run by the mother and children generally seemed happier.
Gaashk
21d ago
Maybe that's why I didn't really care for it. I already prefer very low stimulation, and things like meditation sitting alone in the dark.
Gaashk
22d ago
Interesting, I hadn't really thought about it. I asked my husband, and he is but doesn't mind it. Our religious tradition goes both ways, with no particular opinion on the matter. We'll consider.
Gaashk
24d ago
The people I knew in Chicago did. But they or their parents are working class and close to the neighborhoods in question. The Irish, Polish, Black, and city worker neighborhoods know. They're mostly people who had to keep working in person through the riots and Covid. I don't have a good understanding of the wealthier neighborhoods. I've also know people who are intergenerational middle class and talk a lot about systemic injustice for work and status, but are weirdly racist in person.
The people I knew in Minnesota didn't talk about what happened in front of me at all, and just hiked or fished alone all through the Spring and Summer of Covid/Floyd.
Gaashk
11d ago
I just looked this up, since I had never really noticed or thought about height all that much before. Turns out I've been spending time with all the tall ethnicities by accident. I didn't know the Balkans and Southern Slavic people were noticeably tall before, TIL.
Gaashk
13d ago
I don't, it's very hard to learn, and I am not much good at languages. I learned enough to do things like go shopping, hire a cab, or give an extremely basic toast.
It wasn't too bad -- most communities have at least a couple of English speakers, and will go find them. Most older people know some Russian, and younger people know some English. We were part of a government volunteer program specifically to provide English speakers for people to practice with. The latter goal had mixed success in my case, since I'm more introverted than ideal for the role. I went to a lot of occasions where I just didn't know what anyone was saying most of the time, but didn't really mind it.
Gaashk
15d ago
So I guess looking at Coffee Enjoyer's list:
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media restrictions -- common and generally seems like a good idea. Even secular academics like Jonathan Haidt are now advocating for this. I'm unsure how much I want to apply it personally, though -- so far very little.
-
simplicity -- I'm not sure that I've seen this seriously attempted, or what exactly it means in most contexts. For instance, look at a grown up homeschooler Paula at the Cottage Fairy Youtube channel. In general, I like her, and she likes to talk a lot about simplifying her life and home, and about "simple living," but actually, she's always buying craft kits off of Etsy, filming complex shots from multiple angles, moving her artwork around, and dusting the bundles of dried herbs artfully decorating her wall space. I sort of get what she means (contrasted with a complex social and work life in a city, more or less), but also somewhat don't (contrasted with playing DnD with friends once a week in the city? Going to bars? I'm not actually completely sure) People in Bronte novels sometimes advocated for it seriously, and they seemed to mean only owning three dresses, all of them grey, keeping one's hair in the same basic bun every day, without curls or lace, and only leaving the house to go to church. This has been found undesirable and left untried in my circles.
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social competition predicated on virtue -- I'm not very clear on this one, either. It seems to depend somewhat on the virtues that are most focused on. The people I most genuinely respect seem to be the "beauty will save the world" sorts. The ones who were eventually disgraced, their daughters prostitutes, their wives divorced, focused very hard on controlling other people in their household, to get them to act virtuous for social credit. Mostly, the men seemed fine and stable, but often boring and bored. There were a few years where several of them got really into Wild At Heart, with not only book studies and conferences, but also a salmon fishing trip and beating on drums in the forest. Our church bought the pastor a claymore sword. The men occasionally got a beer together, despite mostly not drinking. It seemed interesting sociologically, related to contemporary alienation. Several of these men worked a engineers at a missile company, and came home every night to their two to six basically fine children and an expectation to "give everything to God," but it's still important to provide for the children, so nothing too wild is on the table, really.
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emphasis on tradition -- I suppose that the people I grew up with were mostly in the American Evangelical tradition, where it is traditional to talk a lot about the unimportance of following traditions of man, and then there are traditions like giving testimonies and going on mission trips. I did traditional to my family things like reading George MacDonald and complaining about Calvinism. Then I was Orthodox, so of course there are general traditions, much talk about Tradition vs traditions, and some people went around checking out the different cultural traditions and cobbling things together. This is all a worthy project, but fairly complex in America, in a way I don't think Coffee Enjoyer is representing realistically.
Gaashk
15d ago
It's certainly possible to have too little space. My first daughter was born in a 500 sq ft section of duplex, and that was too small. My current house is something like 2,000 sq ft, and that is larger than necessary. 1,000 sq ft seems like an alright amount of space for a family of four if it's well designed. All else equal, I would rather a slight smaller place with thicker walls, a better layout, or architectural details than a larger space built as cheaply as possible, but when house searching in America, all else was never equal.
I have trouble telling other people's preferences because all else has never been equal for anyone I've ever known well enough to ask -- there's always a school they want to go to, something about the yard or neighborhood, a subsidy, or something else involved that's more important than the square footage.
Gaashk
16d ago
My understanding of the progressive position is that it isn't necessarily the case that the same social constraints will make different groups happy, hence the stuff about "white culture" like following strict schedules and reading a lot or whatever the things were, and that it isn't necessarily a good idea to pick the most stable happiness producing white Christian social system and try to get everyone else to progress towards it. Hence, tossed salad theory replacing melting pot theory.
That doesn't seem completely unlikely. I'm basically willing to believe that different groups have slightly differentiated teloi. I realize that isn't necessarily compatible with Disparate Impact, but I would also strongly prefer a telos oriented way of thinking about social groups to an Equity based one. Everyone knows it's silly to ask why Amish aren't producing their fair share of programmers, and I would prefer a world where we talked less about demographically proportionate FAANG jobs, and more about who the best adjusted, happiest, best liked members of a given group are, and how to get more of that.
Gaashk
22d ago
I got involved in an argument on the Nextdoor platform with someone who's working on opening a cannabis and dog gift shop in our very small local shopping area, that currently only has three things in it, despite the nearest town (6 min drive) already having about 8 dispensaries. Mostly, I want an ordinance saying they can't have giant green flags in an otherwise beige setting, huge leaves on their signs, and other attention grabbing street side signage. My opinions aren't very strong on the substance itself, other than I tried it a couple of times and it did nothing for me. I don't care for getting drunk, either, but drink a cocktail occasionally for the aesthetic presentation.
Gaashk
14d ago
I used to do intermittent fasting and part time veganism for Orthodox fasts, and generally liked it. Their feasts are more fun after fasting as well. At some point when I'm not pregnant/with small children, I'd like to get back into it.
Gaashk
15d ago
It seems likely you've had some bad relationships or experiences with people who behave in that way, and haven't completely gotten over it.
The scenarios in the Kindness article, especially, strike me as weird.
Sure, it's pretty lame to just be vague and open about what to do with a friend when they visit. But it's also kind of weird for the friend to just kind of passively expect you to play tour guide, rather than just asking about a good restaurant or museum or something, and if you want to join. When I've shown up places with vague expectations, I'm not at all surprised if we just have tea and I'm left to wander around the city or follow them on a grocery trip or something.
The second one is also odd. A man has gone to a woman's house, is there late at night, just the two of them, and is planning to stay until she kicks him out? So he's, what, going to either fall sleep or make a move, but it basically indifferent as to which? Or he likes her so much, but as a friend, he'd be interested in staying up all night together platonically? None of that has much to do with "kindness" or lack thereof on his part. And this is in the same category as lighting up a cigarette in a group of people, as long as you ask how annoyed they'll be first? Isn't the convention to announce you're going around the corner to smoke, and offering one to anyone who wants to join?
I'm pretty sure the convention for gas is to wait until they stop for gas, and then buy the gas?
Umm... giving game. Right.
Anyway, everyone described sounds so foreign that interacting seems like it would be an interesting cultural experience.
Gaashk
19d ago
- Pick up the kids and drive them home
- Make something for dinner, or talk to my husband while he makes something
- Eat the dinner
- If the weather is nice, look around the yard. Otherwise, read online message boards and talk informally with family who are also watching or reading things.
- Put the children to bed.
- Have alone time -- write, read, meditate. I am very much an introvert.
Theoretically, I would also like to paint, but I never actually have enough energy after working, so I suppose I should just accept that I paint during the summer, when I'm on break.
Gaashk
20d ago
All I saw of it was Self Made Human casting shade on Pakistan, the title didn't make it very appealing to actually click through.
Gaashk
23d ago
Huh, it does look like they aren't too bad. I haven't flown for several years, because the last couple times I tried looking it up, the flights were pretty expensive, and I just gave up.
When I was single it was more expensive to fly, and then stay, in a major American city and do anything interesting there than to fly and stay in Southern Europe and wander around on public transportation, on account of hotel/hostel, ticket, food, etc costs, but I should probably do the math again sometime now that I have kids. I remember spending about as much going on organized trips to DC and Syria, but then in Syria we were staying in church sponsored accommodations, which I both liked better and cost less.
Gaashk
23d ago
If they’re at a regional hub like Dallas. It gets harder and more expensive pretty fast from smaller airports.
Gaashk
1d ago
Except the UMC-raised men don't have the same financial status now as the UMC women did when they were growing up; they're earlier in their careers and thus lower on the finance/status ladder than the women's fathers were.
It seems like a person would have to be awfully stupid not to notice this about their own life?
The latter are actually double whammy, as higher rents hurts UMC men's ability to save for a home/family, and higher home prices means that their diluted savings don't go as far when it comes time to get married and buy a place.
Hence why in America women generally contribute to housing costs. I'm not sure about the statistics, but Americans mostly seem to buy houses when already engaged/married/ready to have a baby. Do they not in Korea? If not, why not?
Gaashk
11d ago
The other famous case recently was teachers in NYC schools. They proved that the test was fine to one judge and then lost on appeal and had to shell out $2 billion.
What was their test like?
It seems trivially obvious that a high school math teacher should have to pass a math test slightly higher than whatever they'll be teaching. Or that a bank employee should be able to do whatever kind of math they might use for their job.
It seems unlikely that the extra friction and expense of requiring kindergarten teachers who can pass even Algebra II is worth it, as long as they're literate, patient, enforce social norms, and willing to stick with the phonics and counting curriculum. I vaguely remember having to pass an algebra test as an adult, some years after taking the course, in order to continue teaching a subject that involved no algebra at all, but a lot of enforcement of social norms and some design stuff. It seemed a little silly, and I do think I would have been pretty pissed if I had failed and needed to both re-learn algebra and pay a fee to re-take the test.
Gaashk
16d ago
Probably that it's not super relevant to other groups, like noticing that Bhutan is doing well on some indicators. It's not like either joining the Amish or replicating their community structure is a real possibility for most people at this point.
Gaashk
11d ago
That's interesting, though not directly related to the community I was thinking of.
One of the things I like least about the current BLM iteration of ethnic strife is the way it read ADOS Black/white dynamics into completely different ethnic histories and interactions in regions very far from the areas affected by slavery. Even entirely different countries are adopting it! European countries, with utterly different ethnic histories! But the American West Coast wasn't centrally racist against blacks more than, say, Chinese for much of its history.
Anyway, I guess I was thinking of crafts and community gardening as a stand in for the kind of traditionally human things that most people who are average for their own group really can do, the community is happy to have, and the government likes to encourage, but for Seeing like a State reasons once they are Jobs, or even just Volunteer Positions, they become administratively complex, such that the people who are perfectly able to do the thing itself cannot administer the permits and grants, where most of the money ends up going.
Gaashk
15d ago
I always ask why don't they just clean up the place and rent it out and it's always a "eh, I guess I could do that, but eh, Im fine".
Being a landlord in the US generally seems somewhat high risk and high responsibility. Better not to if you don't need the money.
Gaashk
16d ago
Patriarchy, gender norms, media restrictions, simplicity, social competition predicated on virtue, increased exposure to nature and an emphasis on tradition can all be emulated
What if those aren't really what make the Amish special, and you've invested all that energy, but your daughter turns out to be Aella, or the lady who wrote Quivering Daughters, or Samantha? It's not like traditional, strict, "umbrella of protection" patriarchal Protestantism has not been tried recently.
This is not a small scale question...
The small answer is to apply state force to the defectors regardless of any sympathy inducing specifics. Crush them into dust under the massive boot of Leviathan instead of shaming others for complaining about them. Let some people starve to death. Reinstate an earnest belief in hell. The question of why that's not possible is large.
Well at least this involves individual choice, not massive government bureaucracy. There are probably people who do in fact spend a lot of money eating out. There seem to be a surprising number of rather pricy restaurants, even in not terribly well off towns, so I suppose people are going there. It's doubtless more entertaining to find and talk to those people than the ones who are in debt because of health problems, or because they want to live in a big city, and are paying 60% of their income in rent. It would be quite the downer to have to tell someone to move to a much cheaper, duller city far away, choose a small apartment near public transportation, sell their car, and get rid of their pet.
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