Every couple of months, some poor third-grader gets sent home from school for holding a fish-stick like a gun and shouting "pow pow!" at his friends in the lunch room. Or for playing tag during recess (nowadays at school, kids cannot touch each other in any way). Or for kissing a girl on a dare from his friends.
These are all signs of how paranoid the helicopter parents have become about their children's safety. They have browbeaten the school administration into imposing these ridiculous rules "just in case".
Time and again, nobody comes to these kids' rescue. At most, you'll hear a bunch of old-timers griping about how coddled these darn kids are these days (it's true).
And then comes along this guy who gets sent home for bringing a suspiciously bomb-looking clock to school. Why does his case set off a cascade of support on social networks among Gen X and Millennials, outspoken support from the head of Facebook, and an invitation to meet the leader of the (not so) free world itself?
Obviously not because the degree of paranoia was more flagrant than usual. A kid pointing a fish-stick "gun" cannot harm anyone at all, and everyone knows it. The clock in this case did look a lot like a bomb, and nothing like any kind of clock you or I have ever seen.
Most conservatives are pointing to the minority factor as the source of hypocrisy. This bomb-looking clock guy is a dark-skinned Muslim, so he benefits from the diversity forcefield, while the white kid who makes his fish-stick into a gun is one of those dreadful white males.
I think the diversity factor is secondary, perhaps one that made the case all the more attractive, but as icing on the cake.
I'm guessing that black students, too, get sent home for kissing girls on a dare, or wearing clothing with logos that an out-of-touch adult would take to be gang signs but that all the kids know is just some harmless fad logo.
Hardcore liberals may protest these cases, but that's not what happened here, where the #IStandWithAhmed crowd included a lot of moderate/independent types and probably a good number of conservatives. And no way Zuckerberg or Obama would risk their reputations by publicly supporting a black youth who got suspended for pretending some object was a gun. That would be tacitly pro-gun -- a big liberal no-no.
Which gets to what is really at work here: Ahmed's case involved consumer electronics, which our device-addicted mainstream worships like a cargo cult. Throw in the connotation of science and technology, and he's now got the support of all the I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE geeks. Tech companies and tech addicts tend to be more liberal, but not so uniformly and rabidly liberal as those who would protest a kid who got sent home for unwittingly wearing gang colors to school. It wasn't so much an outcry from liberals as from tech addicts and IFLS types.
Indeed, Zuckerberg didn't mention how unjust it was that a dark-skinned Muslim was discriminated against, and that he'd be welcome to have dark-skinned Muslims at his company. Rather, that it was unfair that a techie nerd was suspended, and that Facebook welcomes passionate techie nerds to come work for them.
This also explains why the normal cases of ridiculous school suspensions always go without protest -- those boys aren't nerds and device diddlers, but ones who are showing a healthy red-blooded male nature by innocently kissing girls even if they didn't openly request to be kissed beforehand, or by pretending to be a man with a gun who's going to go whoop the bad guys' asses and save the day.
Uh-oh, rising testosterone levels detected -- better throw him in the kiddie slammer so his toxic masculinity can be quarantined.
But in Ahmed's case, the helicopter parents and childless weenies on the sidelines perked up and said, "Hey wait a minute, he's not one of those toxic masculinity threats. He's an unathletic geek like us. Nous sommes tous Ahmed!"
Jocks only enjoy power and influence at a local, human scale, while nerds may rise to the top of lumbering gigantic organizations. And so, the over-reaching police state will be used to live out a great big revenge-of-the-nerds fantasy against those pint-sized douchebros who like to shoot cap guns and kiss girls on a dare.
Difference between getting sent home and getting arrested by the police. As Bill Gates said if your culture doesn't like geeks, you are in big trouble" (paraphrased)
ReplyDeleteAnd you know you are right about a lot of things including the nerd revenge fantasy. But frankly I don't care. I got picked on all throughout elementary school and middle school. A little in high school and university too, all because I read a little more than other students and was into things like sci-fi literature.
Now being a 4.0 student in medical school future as the head of a hospital ahead of me... while my jock cohorts can barely find a retail job in this shitty economy... All I can say is lol.
And I also have heartiste and the manosphere to thank. Turns out it is easier to learn basic social skills and lifting to become athletic, then it is for a person to learn how to be smart.
You downplay the effects jocks have too by saying they enjoy power only on a local "human" scale. They enjoy power at the time all kids are developing, their world view is developing, their habits and psychological frameworks are developing. They learn the sexual success and confidence early on, how to be popular (which can translate into later life success), and other things.
If they squander that and do nothing with their career or life then the fault only lies with them. Lastly, I live in NYC and see many of these over agressive police state members. Most of them were not extensions of nerds enacting revenge, but were actually the jocks back in elementary and middle school. They lost that feeling of control and went into the profession that allows them to act it out with impunity: The New York Police Department. Some jocks never grow up :/
"And I also have heartiste and the manosphere to thank. Turns out it is easier to learn basic social skills..."
ReplyDeleteYou mean how to disguise your autistic / sociopathic nature long enough to have a fling with a 6-7 from Da City, AKA some jock's sloppy seconds (or rather thirty-seconds by the time you get to her).
"Most of them were not extensions of nerds enacting revenge, but were actually the jocks back in elementary and middle school."
Police don't make up the police state. They're just the foot soldiers being directed by those who got bullied -- not their immediate bosses either, but those at the very top.
Your case is a wonderful illustration of the difference between smart people and geeks / nerds / etc. A person can be smart, intellectually inclined, and so on, but have a personality that allows them to get along with others -- including jocks -- as part of a team or group, where everybody has their own specialty.
ReplyDeleteThat's even more common among guys, where we don't all have to be carbon-copies of each other (like girls do), and can find our own place in the greater team.
But if you're basically anti-social, self-centered, etc., then of course you'll be ostracized -- whether you're smart (outcast loner nerd) or stupid (outcast loner druggie).
Stop trying to excuse your being bullied on being smart. Awkward, anti-social, weird people get bullied, whether they're smart or not. The bullies were just trying to make you act more like a normal person (evidently to little success).
That may have been the case back in the 80s, but in modern times jocks are usually status-striving children of hard-charging parents, from what I've seen. Get them in sports camp as soon as possible so you can post pics on FB. This creates a different dynamic.
ReplyDeleteThere was more malicious bullying at my high school, many of the jocks did not really seem like good people. For instance, chanting the name of a girl, in the school cafeteria, who had given one of them a blowjob at last weekend's party. Is that enforcing group unity?
ReplyDeleteLooking in retrospect, they were also pretty spergy and Millenial-like, though I didn't know it at the time(even though they were born 1981-1982), complete with childlike mean-spiritedness, though I didn't know it at the time. In one photo of the group, everyone of them is making some silly retarded face that we know many people love to do nowadays.
Actually jocks are even closer to the average since parents are so psycho about padding their kids' resumes / bragging to other parents. That brings in more typical kids than you would've seen back when only the really athletic ones would've been big into sports.
ReplyDeleteThey might start out more average, but the experience of being a jock has changed too. They are more tightly managed by school authorities and their parents. Status-striving gives them a raging superiority complex. The jocks at my school just separated themselves and refused to associate with anyone else, who were below them. Plus, they are making all those retarded faces in the photos, which I have no explanation for other than they were Millenialized.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is that it doesn't seem working-class kids go into athletics anymore, except for maybe in the ghetto.
Gone are the muscled he-men from the 80s, a lot of high school athletes nowadays come across more like immature goofsters. Maybe this was different at my school, because soccer was the only sport they could be good at - football and basketball were all filled with blacks.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your blog. I'm not sure a geek was even involved in this incident. I mean a clock doesn't impress me that much. On the other hand, he did build something with apparently his own initiative so he should get credit for that. I guess the thought that some kid might build something on his own would seem weird these days. The whole case is strange and I don't believe if he had been more open about what he built and why, I never would have heard about it. It did inspire your post so sometimes God works in mysterious ways.
ReplyDeleteNerds were more he-man like in the 80's, after all testosterone levels were much higher back then for everyone. Were people more temperamental and perhaps dangerous? Probably, but at least there was less moping and undue caution back then.
ReplyDeleteInstead of picking sides in the nerd Vs. jock debate, can we all just agree that dumb posturing has reached destructive levels over the last 20-30 years? I don't hear many (if any) Boomers debating this stuff. Prior to the late 80's people were more comfortable just being themselves instead of getting pre-occupied with proving the superiority of one's affected tribe (stoner, nerd, jock, goth, whatever who cares). My dad said that he played sports but identified more with the Spicoli types. But he didn't bitterly complain about tribal stuff. Not the way Gen X-ers and Millennials can sometimes grind that axe as though it really matters a lot. Which I guess it does for some.
Eventually we'll return to people setting aside their differences (which inevitably get embellished in a Dickensian age) and getting on with earnest camaraderie.
Looking in retrospect, they were also pretty spergy and Millenial-like, though I didn't know it at the time(even though they were born 1981-1982), complete with childlike mean-spiritedness,
ReplyDeleteI think Gen X-ers (and even late Boomers to some degree) were meaner in their youth. What happened to the sky high vandalism rates of the 80's that persisted into the 90's? There is less bullying and violence these days. The current anti-bullying climate is motivated mainly by paranoid Gen X parents and judgemental Boomer elders. It's got nothing to do with the level of actual bullying.
Neil Howe has consistently pointed out that teens started mellowing out in the later 90's. Which coincides with core Gen X-ers entering young adulthood/early middle age and beginning to mature out of some (but not necessarily all) forms of trouble making.
Gen X-ers (especially when young) tended to vacillate from detachment/ennui to "wilding" (the colorful and fitting way to describe Gen X teen hell raising in the late 70's-mid 90's. People made excuses for Boomers (who were witty in their own ability to justify goofing off) but X-ers never got a break. Getting blitzed, breaking a neighbor's window, passing out, and then affecting a trance like demeanor after coming to does not endear one to elder generations. Boomers on the other hand were (and still are) artists at spinning their mistakes as naive "experimentation" or "it was the thing at the time". The fact they are never held accountable is why they still are restlessly making a nuisance of themselves.
Millennials are averse to taking risks, and being mean (or wilding) certainly has it's risks. If you're getting at Millennials being clueless and rude around others, maybe you're onto something. But that's different from being rowdy, volatile, and possibly dangerous. Underprotected and scorned X-ers often frightened and confused adults when they were young; people don't fear Millennials as much as pity them. I mean, even black kids born since about 1989/1990 often seem incredibly naive. In the 80's and 90's, just about any black teen would send a sane person running to the other side of the street.
"If you're getting at Millennials being clueless and rude around others, maybe you're onto something. But that's different from being rowdy, volatile, and possibly dangerous."
ReplyDeleteYes, but as Agnostic pointed out in a comment to a post awhile ago, the younger generation has a sadistic tendency that goes beyond unintentional rudeness. With childlike curiosity, they may do something cruel just to see how the person responds. This was pointed out for one reason why Millenials don't want to be friends with each other.
Hazing is also qualitatively different today, not just a good ol' fashioned rite of passage, where everyone goes through the same tolerable initiation rites, but where each cohort tries to outdo the last one for sadism. Hence pledges dying, getting broken eye sockets in the NFL, and so on. You didn't see that back in the '50s.
ReplyDeleteGen X-ers were meaner in a pro-social sense, though -- trying to shame weirdos into acting more normal.
ReplyDeleteEven further back, Silent Gen teens used to give everyone a humbling nickname based on one of their faults -- Bucky for bucked teeth, Fats for the fat kid, etc. That's pro-social as well, so that no one acts too big for their breeches. Also common among hunter-gatherers, to maintain egalitarian norms.
When Millennials act mean, it's more self-serving than it used to be, rather than pro-social. Their only goal is to demote their rivals and raise themselves in the status pyramid. They aren't even very harsh toward the deviants, like homos and trannies, because 1) they'll get suspended for whatever-phobia, and 2) targeting obvious losers is a distraction from targeting your rivals.
Hey agnostic,
ReplyDeleteOff Topic: I was walking to work today and got to thinking: why was Bobcat Goldthwait so popular in the 80s but has (and any character kindof like him) disappeared in our cocooning times? Was he just an anomaly, or did he actually represent a character that people would find funny and entertaining in outgoing times, but not in cocooning times? He represents to me the epitome of what the 80s were like.
I searched your website and don't see you mentioning Bobcat anywhere. Would be interested to hear your take.
This is wildly off topic, but I watched this a few days ago on Amazon, loved it, and thought, "I bet Agnostic would find this interesting."
ReplyDeleteApparently going to High School in Southern California in the early 80's is the most fun experience a human being could ever have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0RaAzr1kLM
Nonsense. The media has been on the search for the perfect minority victim story for decades now. Purposefully egging on Ferguson, and Baltimore riots. Anointing Saint Tray by plastering his 12yo photo rather than his 17 yo one. Al Sharpton's career has been pimping minority "victim" after another to a media willing to broadcast it far and wide.
ReplyDeleteMore than 10 minutes of looking into this situation reveals that is exactly what is going on here. This kid, either at the behest of his family or to "get even" mocked up a suite case bomb by repurposing a 1980's clock and set about to get himself in trouble. No sooner than he did his media whore father went scream to the media which bit hook line and sinker. Then half the left thinking people in the country rushed in to prove they are morally superior to everybody else.
No, this bomb-clock thing enjoyed much broader success than the "hands up don't shoot" BS, which was confined to the hardcore left.
ReplyDeleteRioters burning down their own neighborhood were not invited to apply for jobs at Facebook personally by Marky Z, let alone invited to the White House by the President himself.
Much of the techie addicts and I Fucking Love Science types saw a piece of themselves in Ahmed -- misunderstood geeks who only wanted to advance the cause of technology -- and jumped on board. Nobody in mainstream America sees themselves in Trayvon, Ferguson rioters, etc., leaving only the hardcore "voice for the voiceless" people to act up.
"Apparently going to High School in Southern California in the early 80's is the most fun experience a human being could ever have."
ReplyDeleteFor those who didn't click the link, it's a documentary called All American High Revisited. Looks totally awesome, naturally -- it was 1984.
Even in the trailer, you can pick up on how mature and well-adjusted young people used to be. Including the metalheads, punks, and other against-the-grain types -- there were no crying, cutting rejects back in the '80s.
Doesn't mean they didn't face any problems -- they faced more back then, in fact -- but being socially integrated rather than isolated made them more resilient.
Ah, back when looking at America from a "foreigner's perspective" meant they were Finnish rather than Guatemalan...
ReplyDeleteSilicon Valley is trying to sell immigration to the masses so they can import Indian sub-continent code monkies that will work for $20k a year. See they like the IP protections and infrastructure offered by the first world, but don't want to pay the wages to support those conditions, and industrial espionage is a lot easier when you cannot secure your 3rd world labor force who would sell you out for a ham sandwich.
ReplyDeleteAhmed is just the kind of victim Z is looking for. He can play the part of a third world striver that Z and his PAC need to sell the open borders.