Greetings Economists, Two articles of interest in the NYTimes this week. First in the Magazine an article about the on-going influence of bullying amongst young women in terms of the impact of social emotion.
Confronting Bullies Who Wound With Words NYTimes, October 16, 2005 Long Island Journal By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER ... The war isn't fought with sticks or stones, but with social weapons that cut children this age much deeper: taunts and teases, name-calling, gossip-mongering and scapegoating. The ways youngsters are tormented and ostracized by one another, often in the guise of being cool or hip, are the stuff of teenage nightmares: being made the butt of a clique's disdain, not being invited to the party everyone is talking about, and increasingly, being eviscerated in nasty instant messages over the Internet. ... popular girls are the cliquey girls, and they are exclusive. They won't be friends with anyone who is a little different from them, and they won't interact with anyone who is not in their group." Middle schoolers say meanness pervades their world. ... "Bullying today is less about children hitting each other than it is about children being victimized by a culture of meanness," said Alane Fagin, executive director of the organization. "Children understand what many adults seem to have forgotten: You don't have to get hit to get hurt." Doyle, And earlier in the week one of those advice type bits of capitalist wisdom here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/13/fashion/thursdaystyles/13crying.html? 8hpib Ms. Majewski, 34, knows what it is like to cry at work because she has done so herself - once. She was in her early 20's and had a scare about a magazine cover photo shoot falling through. Her boss took her aside and told her she needed to remain composed in front of her colleagues. She has since handed down the lesson to her own employees, suggesting that they leave the office and take a walk if they feel the need to cry. "Don't even go into the bathroom," she said. "If you go into the bathroom, someone's going to see you and the gossip gets around." When a woman does cry at work, she should address her superior about it directly, Ms. Majewski said. "Go to your boss and say, 'I was quite overtaken with emotion, it's so not me, I hope you understand,' " she said. "Just don't blame it on your period." Some women pinch their skin, bite their lips or breathe deeply to stem tears while at work. Advice on the Society for Women Engineers' Web site, swe.org, suggests anticipating and rehearsing difficult situations. An article about crying on Womensmedia.com, advises emotional detachment: "Compartmentalizing feelings is also a good skill to learn. Practice not acting on a feeling you have." Crying at work is different from crying at a wedding, a sappy movie or at someone's hospital bed because it is typically triggered not by compassion or even sadness but by frustration or anger. And at work people are expected to react rationally to such feelings. "When people show emotionalism in the workplace, they are not taken as seriously," said Mary Gatta, the director of work force policy and research at the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. Men learned this lesson back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the Industrial Revolution structured the workplace and the workday, and required a disciplined work force, said Tom Lutz, the director of the M.F.A. writing program at the California Institute of the Arts and the author of "Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears." Factory managers trained their workers to be calm and rational, the better to be productive. "You don't want emotions interfering with the smooth running of things," Mr. Lutz said. Doyle, The Iraq war demonstrates a good socialist strategy to whip the capitalist ass with, social solidarity. But not just any old solidarity. While religion can in the absence of robust socialist alternatives gives a ready made communal structure to batter the juggernaut of capitalist culture, the real deal is emotion structure built up in working class political structures. Primarily universalist in theory, meaning all the working class is included, the problem has been material understanding of emotion structure to out maneuver the long standing moralist theories of various religious practices that capitalist use to oppose socialist national liberation. Where morality is a primitive of emotion structure theory. As the Times article indicates a solution for young women directly addresses the sexist structure of American society. So it is obvious a socialist women's movement would take up a reformation of global socialism to directly advocate an emotion structure that tears apart those emotion structures that oppress them. This is not a nation state issue but a global power for women issue. The most significant female thinkers in socialism, de Beauvoir, Nussbaum, Davis all seem pointed in that direction. They have an alliance with the demands for disability rights ready made to end the oppression of capitalist emotion structure. Let women cry, and fire managers that demand anything that stops emotion in the work place. thanks, Doyle
