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walkitoutOK, that is obviously an exaggeration. But today’s social media interactions included:
(1) Post on a blog I read about a person who runs a children’s store that sells books and toys, and her interactions with customers in the wake of the Toys R Us bankruptcy. While the excerpt did not include a name or gender, the original source was clearly indicated, and the author’s first name there was “Cynthia” and there was a picture and other information indicating a pretty clear gender. Commenter refers to owner of the store as “he”. I comment, I think you meant “she”. I get a snippy, no I didn’t, but if you want to read it that way feel free response. When I go to look and respond at the blog, the person has hastily re-edited to acknowledge that, yeah, “Cynthia” is a “she” and he hadn’t been thinking about gender at al. Yeah, well, you know, that’s exactly what’s wrong with male privilege. Moving on.
(2) My husband tagged me in the comment on a friend / former coworker’s FB post about Jeff Bezos, in which she referred to him as a sociopath, but that didn’t mean illness, just that he wasn’t subject to ordinary human constraints. I was pretty restrained — I said I thought that was a really idiosyncratic use of the term, and it seemed like she was attacking him but wanted to not deal with any pushback. She responded, saying, I meant “sociopath” in the sense of “psychopath”, and included a link to one of those Jon Ronson book follow up things about how some CEOs have some characteristics in common with psychopaths (CNBC link). I said, um, these are not interchangeable terms. And he isn’t a psychopath either. Then it became, Bezos doesn’t care about his impact on society. OK, I actually know that’s not true. And then —having moved form sociopath, to psychopath, to not caring about his impact on society, we get to the nut of the matter. She’s talked to some people who worked in a fulfillment center. That _definitely_ makes a person an expert on someone’s diagnosis (sociopath) or likelihood of recidivism (technical definition of psychopathy). I have no idea what the hell happened there, but if she’s one of those people who basically hates everyone who is successful in business, I clearly shouldn’t be having any kind of interaction with her, because neither one of us is going to enjoy it. Or she is, and I’m going to wonder if she has some kind of issue going on where she _likes_ making other people miserable. My husband did not know about the Humpty Dumpty part of Alice. I read part of it out loud to him. I feel like that’s what was really going on there. She’s doing autism wrong, basically.
(3) My son came home and asked me my opinion on something that made very little sense to me. He and the sitter were listening to someone on AM radio (yeah, it just goes downhill from there) talk about the criminal justice reform package about to be signed by Gov. Baker. She particularly seemed to take issue with the provisions relating to children. To be clear, the provisions I can find basically increase the maximum age at which juvenile offenders are diverted automatically to DCF, from 7 to 11 (seems completely reasonable to me and I tend to think anyone who thinks that under 12 year olds should be in the criminal justice system at all is maybe being a bit harsh, but I’m prepared to allow for the possibility that they know someone who was a victim of a juvenile offender — it does happen. My cousin, for example, was murdered by a pack of children, and his older brother and that family gets to say whatever they like about what should happen to juvenile offenders and I will not say boo in response) and put into statute something already in case law (parents cannot be compelled / are not allowed to testify against their minor children unless the victim of the crime committed by the minor child is another member of the household).
The parent / child privilege thing is interesting, but pretty rare. I sure wouldn’t rely on in-family eyewitness accounts for anything, because I’ve met some really, really, really fucked up people. If a parent says a kid did something, there is always the chance the parent did it and is framing the kid. It’s a sad and tragic thing, but we don’t really want to be relying on that. I’d like to see a whole lot of other evidence.
Anyway. Between the snippy male privilege, someone calling my favorite Big Boss a sociopath / psychopath / person who doesn’t care about their impact on society, and having to explain to my son why putting children in the criminal justice system is probably a bad idea, I feel like everyone has lost their damn mind.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.
(1) Post on a blog I read about a person who runs a children’s store that sells books and toys, and her interactions with customers in the wake of the Toys R Us bankruptcy. While the excerpt did not include a name or gender, the original source was clearly indicated, and the author’s first name there was “Cynthia” and there was a picture and other information indicating a pretty clear gender. Commenter refers to owner of the store as “he”. I comment, I think you meant “she”. I get a snippy, no I didn’t, but if you want to read it that way feel free response. When I go to look and respond at the blog, the person has hastily re-edited to acknowledge that, yeah, “Cynthia” is a “she” and he hadn’t been thinking about gender at al. Yeah, well, you know, that’s exactly what’s wrong with male privilege. Moving on.
(2) My husband tagged me in the comment on a friend / former coworker’s FB post about Jeff Bezos, in which she referred to him as a sociopath, but that didn’t mean illness, just that he wasn’t subject to ordinary human constraints. I was pretty restrained — I said I thought that was a really idiosyncratic use of the term, and it seemed like she was attacking him but wanted to not deal with any pushback. She responded, saying, I meant “sociopath” in the sense of “psychopath”, and included a link to one of those Jon Ronson book follow up things about how some CEOs have some characteristics in common with psychopaths (CNBC link). I said, um, these are not interchangeable terms. And he isn’t a psychopath either. Then it became, Bezos doesn’t care about his impact on society. OK, I actually know that’s not true. And then —having moved form sociopath, to psychopath, to not caring about his impact on society, we get to the nut of the matter. She’s talked to some people who worked in a fulfillment center. That _definitely_ makes a person an expert on someone’s diagnosis (sociopath) or likelihood of recidivism (technical definition of psychopathy). I have no idea what the hell happened there, but if she’s one of those people who basically hates everyone who is successful in business, I clearly shouldn’t be having any kind of interaction with her, because neither one of us is going to enjoy it. Or she is, and I’m going to wonder if she has some kind of issue going on where she _likes_ making other people miserable. My husband did not know about the Humpty Dumpty part of Alice. I read part of it out loud to him. I feel like that’s what was really going on there. She’s doing autism wrong, basically.
(3) My son came home and asked me my opinion on something that made very little sense to me. He and the sitter were listening to someone on AM radio (yeah, it just goes downhill from there) talk about the criminal justice reform package about to be signed by Gov. Baker. She particularly seemed to take issue with the provisions relating to children. To be clear, the provisions I can find basically increase the maximum age at which juvenile offenders are diverted automatically to DCF, from 7 to 11 (seems completely reasonable to me and I tend to think anyone who thinks that under 12 year olds should be in the criminal justice system at all is maybe being a bit harsh, but I’m prepared to allow for the possibility that they know someone who was a victim of a juvenile offender — it does happen. My cousin, for example, was murdered by a pack of children, and his older brother and that family gets to say whatever they like about what should happen to juvenile offenders and I will not say boo in response) and put into statute something already in case law (parents cannot be compelled / are not allowed to testify against their minor children unless the victim of the crime committed by the minor child is another member of the household).
The parent / child privilege thing is interesting, but pretty rare. I sure wouldn’t rely on in-family eyewitness accounts for anything, because I’ve met some really, really, really fucked up people. If a parent says a kid did something, there is always the chance the parent did it and is framing the kid. It’s a sad and tragic thing, but we don’t really want to be relying on that. I’d like to see a whole lot of other evidence.
Anyway. Between the snippy male privilege, someone calling my favorite Big Boss a sociopath / psychopath / person who doesn’t care about their impact on society, and having to explain to my son why putting children in the criminal justice system is probably a bad idea, I feel like everyone has lost their damn mind.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.