Hidden behind a playful title, C.J. Pascoe’s 2007 work "Dude, You’re a Fag" is an articulate examination of gender and sexuality socialization in a suburban American high school. Through her retelling of a series of rituals and socialized phenomena, Pascoe examines the social markets through which high school students construct gender and sexuality. This leads to a clearer understanding of the causes of heteronormativity in America, and the domination / subjugation paradigm that pervades our culture.
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In California right now, a debate is raging over a proposition which aims to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. In question are the values and descriptions of human sexuality, and by derivative sex, gender, and culture. Accounting for sex and gender fluidity, it's clear that a new perspective on sexuality should establish equal protection without endangering spiritual tradition: If marriage is only between one man and one woman, what's for the 1.7 percent of us that are neither?
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Since writing my last article on personal productivity, a number of people have written in asking for updates. I'll make every attempt to keep this platform-neutral: whether you're using a Mac, a Windows or Linux machine, or a simple paper-and-pencil implementation of David Allen's GTD system, it always helps to see how other people are doing it. This article covers what works for me, and is adapted from an email on GTD that I recently sent to a colleague.
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A central aspect of the study of cognition lies in the differentiation between various major regions in the brain. The major three physiological regions display a marked difference in function as well as purpose. An increased reliance on higher technology through the phylogenetic progression of function through these brain regions leads to amelioration of interconnected human needs. This progression is continuing in modernity to include metasyntactic representations of thought as well, which I describe herein as the "fourth brain."
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Durkheim uses the term Anomie to describe the social isolation emerging from breakdown of cultural heteronormativity. Recall that social institutions require some measure of heteronormativity in order to function. Without full regard for the humanity of your fellow citizens, it's unlikely that one will fully support his exercise of human rights, regardless of whether they infringe on your own right to do the same. This article describes the relationship between anomie and the various constructions of state, and how the former moves the latter towards the construction of human rights-centered social, political, and economic institutions.
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