The Zootopian Agenda

Zootopia was fun and funny and entertaining. I recommend it, with a caution that there are some parts that would be super scary for little kids (like, scarier than Ursula getting huge in The Little Mermaid; about on par with that Jekyll and Hyde thing in The Pagemaster--not quite that bad but getting there).

Having said all that, I have to comment on its agenda. The film had a very clear one: that biology is immaterial (excuse the pun) when it comes to living the life you want and achieving your dreams. Spoiler alert: they had a rookie 2-pound bunny consistently outperform experienced 2,000-14,000-pound animals like rhinos, elephants, and cape buffalo in the field of law enforcement. While it is of course not impossible that a bunny could do that, the movie goes beyond "it happened one time and it was special" to emphasizing that it should be this way for all at all times, and biology is nothing but an old-fashioned state of mind that, if abolished, would usher in utopia. Wait, like, what? Do these moviemakers inhabit the physical world like the rest of us?

Because it was a movie, they were able to carefully craft the narrative such that the bunny's job never required her to do something she physically couldn't do; her brain won every battle for her. For instance, she hops off the backs of her classmates in police school to scale a wall she couldn't otherwise have any hope of surmounting. This impresses everyone (the teacher) rather than makes them ask, "What if the test had required her to climb the wall alone? Do ten police officers usually handle the same situation at the same time?"

I accept that movies are often unrealistic. It's damn hard to craft a believable story in a compressed space. Real life is way more boring, so you have to skip lots of parts in a story, which can make it seem "too easy." You have to partially shave off the inconvenient bits of reality to make your point. But this movie's flouting of reality is vast and noteworthy.

Judy the bunny had a lot to offer the police squad, but that doesn't mean that she was equal in every way to all the stronger animals, with no differences, as the movie implied. We all have different strengths and weaknesses (yes, often based on biology), so working as a team we can achieve a lot more. In this case, the police force needed brute strength as well as passion and smarts.

Biology is a real thing. It matters, sometimes on a small scale and sometimes on a large one. It's wonderful to tell children to pursue their dreams, even if they seem far-fetched. But rising above one's circumstances or biology is different than denying or ignoring one's circumstances/biology. Zootopia does the latter, and that's why I'm concerned.

A tragic example of what happens when we tell children they can be and do whatever they want unconditionally, no questions asked, is the story of Jessica Dubroff. She's the 7-year-old whose parents never taught her the word "no." She had 35 hours of flight training when, upon the suggestion of her father, she decided to become the youngest person to fly across the North American continent. Great emphasis was placed by both her parents on the fact that she chose this for herself. Here's a mention of her biology from Time Magazine: the "Federal Aviation Administration... permitted a 4-ft. 2-in., 55-lb. seven-year-old whose feet did not reach the rudder pedals to fly an airplane across the country." Tragically, Jessica didn't reach her goal. She died in a crash that also claimed the lives of her father and her flight instructor. Famously, her mother said she had no regrets, emphasizing her daughter's freedom of choice as an American. Time's take: "Many wondered whether the freedom to pursue personal identity had been pushed too far."

Asserting that biology is a real thing feels oddly risky in our day and age. Then again, maybe it felt that way in 1996 as well (the year of Jessica's flight) and I was not old enough to know it. It reminds me of the Emperor's New Clothes story. It involves a lot of group pretending to arrive at and stay at the conclusion that the physical world doesn't matter, is nothing but an inconvenience on the road to human self-realization. As it relates to Jessica: "The hype of the whole enterprise, in retrospect, seems reckless. Let us tick off the deceptions that everyone involved pretended were true: the trip was Jessica's idea; she was doing it for the joy of flying; she was truly piloting the plane; it was safe; she wasn't scared. For the most part, the public played along with this game, for it is easier not to question the received platitudes." I won't go into the full list of topics these sentences could apply to. I'll simply say that ideologies like the one blatantly promoted in Zootopia push us to pretend certain things are true. It's still easier (and more politically correct) not to question them. May we as adults encourage the children in our lives to participate in reality as it is, even when our aim is to rise above where it finds us now. Even if that means a conversation on the way home from Zootopia.

The Truth Takes Time

I collapsed on his white carpet, sweaty from a morning of walking miles in the city sun. I was too hot to do anything else. He approached me with a cold, damp washcloth, which he progressively put on my neck and my back and my legs while I giggled incredulously. He noticed when it got warm and refreshed it with cold water. He washed my feet with it. He brought me cold grapefruit and refilled my water glass when it started getting low. These are facts from years ago. He made me feel more beautiful and amazing than probably anyone else ever has in my life. That's a fact, too. A more relevant and contemporary fact is that this relationship was incredibly unhealthy and it needed to end. This last fact is supported by countless other factual vignettes, darker and deeper, separated from the washcloth in space and time by months or just hours, that are beyond the scope of this post.

I've been reflecting lately that a true statement doesn't exist in isolation. Reality is too large. One sentence can be true, but it cannot be 100 sentences; in each true sentence, 99 facets of fact are absent. "The truth takes time." "The years teach much that the days never know." "A single story is dangerous." A story or truth is on some level misleading if it not properly contextualized. A wise woman I look up to once pointed out, "Until you are in a relationship with anyone, you judge poorly who they are and what they represent."

I came across this idea again in an article sent to me by a friend, titled "How the Invention of the Alphabet Usurped Female Power in Society and Sparked the Rise of Patriarchy in Human Culture." Very worth reading. TL;DR: the alphabet and its resulting communications are direct/pointed, linear, analytical. These in contrast to image, which is simultaneous and holistic in its presentation of ideas. Men's thinking tending toward the former traits and women's toward the latter, women were disadvantaged when literacy arose and became the primary way to organize human thought/truths at a societal level. A pull-out quote: "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse," --Sophocles. This morning I came back to that thought in my own words and decided that's why we have the expression, "it seems too good to be true." I thought of all the new products and foods that have come out in the past few decades and their promises of a more convenient life. They certainly delivered on that promise, but a generation of thinking people have begun to ask, "at what cost?" and intentionally return to slower, messier living for the piles of fringe benefits it brings. Examples: home cooking, making your own [yogurt, almondmilk, bread, etc.], growing gardens, cloth diapers, simple homemade cleaning supplies, etc. Of course I don't want to abolish literacy (I feel like subtracting literacy from it would literally ruin my life), and neither does the author of the article, by any means, but its reminded me to remember the bigger picture.

Reality always contains both shadow and light, so if something looks perfect upfront, your only safe assumption is that you don't yet know it in full. This goes for products as well as people. My story is longer than the first nine sentences of this post, though they could seem to paint a complete picture of a relationship (and I used to think they did). I try to remind myself the whole story whenever I'm tempted to tell only half, calling myself back from the edge when I villainize either of us. A true story can be a long story. It can have lots of sides. The truth takes patience.

Finding Facebook in Anna Karenina

I'm reading Anna Karenina for the first time and really enjoying it. Tolstoy is so insightful; his writing often resonates with my experience. Anna Karenina was written around 1875, and it contains this passage:

"In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else."

I cannot overstate how contemporary this feels to me as I read it.

Facebook's "trending" section daily overflows with stories of "offendedness." Taking offense is likely a human inevitability, but acceptable offense, as in the quote above, flows in one direction. Only one of the classes is called ridiculous; the other class is simply referred to as "real." The first class clearly offends the second, and if the reverse is true as well, no one cares, because the reigning narratives are written by the second class's point of view and presented as real, unbiased fact. Today as I confirmed the title of the trending section I happened to notice a very current case in point. The first story was about an airline apologizing to a passenger for asking her to cover up on a flight. I clicked through to a slew of outraged responses defending her clothing choice."A woman [should be] modest." What ridiculous, old-fashioned, stupid person would think anyone should be modest? Or would dare ask a person to do anything at all for the sake of those around them? The airplane was publicly called out for "slut-shaming" and will surely think twice before asking passengers to dress in a manner appropriate for being in public.

Not everyone thinks the same way as the "class of real people." Politically, America's largely divided into conservatives and liberals, which may loosely correspond to the classes in the quote, but there are plenty of different ideas out there. More and more, the "real" class's opinions are presented as neutral facts while the opinions of the others are considered outdated, unacceptable, and quite frankly, objectively speaking, ridiculous. Especially in today's Petersburg world of Facebook.

On a Lighter Note...

It's been a heavy day for me. I spent too much time reading online about what's wrong in the country at large, and talking on the phone about what's wrong a little closer to home. And all my potential blog topics for today seemed so serious. So I'll share something happy.

I think fetal development is fascinating, so I paid 69 cents for a magazine called "As Your Baby Grows" at the thrift store this winter. The cover says its from the publishers of American Baby, which sounds like a movie but is apparently a branch of Parents magazine. It's written in second person (maybe I should have guessed that from the title) but I'm going to change quotes so they don't all say "your baby" and "you" and stuff.

I'm skipping the first month, probably because I don't super like the word "sperm." In fourth grade, I cried when my group was assigned to research the sperm whale, partly for embarrassment at having to be publicly associated with sperm, partly because I was also embarrassed at the thought of having to explain why I didn't want to be in that group. My teacher was cool about it and let me switch discreetly, but I'm pretty sure I was then in the humpback group, a cold comfort. Whatever happened to orcas? Anyway, all the genetics of a baby are already determined at the moment of conception, stuff like eye color and sex. Because of genetic material contained in the egg and a little thing I will leave unnamed.

The second month "is probably the most important for a baby's growth. At the beginning of the month... each cell has begun to perform a distinct and indispensable role. Despite all the advances in biology and genetics, no one can explain how every cell in the embryo knows what to do and what part of the body to become; that remains one of the many mysteries of how human life develops." That is SO COOL! And they don't even have email or Slack or Facebook or texting. I've worked at places where the intelligent adult humans don't all know what to do or understand their role in the organization, despite chains of command, job descriptions, you name it... and these are incredibly tiny little specks that just start going about their crazy-specific business without having been commanded (except... well, I think God is directing this process ;)

"By the time the mother is six weeks pregnant, the head end of the embryo already looks different from the bottom, and a pair of bumps near either end mark the beginnings of arms and legs... In the fifth or sixth week, two parts of the heart develop separately, then fuse to form a minuscule organ that begins to beat rapidly--almost twice as fast as the mother's." A beating heart implies that there's blood. I think I had realized that "At no time during pregnancy does the mother's blood mix with the baby's." Reading the description of how that affects nutrient exchange, etc. reminds me of putting healthy boundaries in place even from a young age. The little one is still always its own person, not an extension of the mother. Even at the age of -7 months! If only codependent mothers would remember that for the next 18 years (just kidding! maybe).

And there are already eyes forming in the second month! It says, "although the lids will close next month, a baby in the womb can still discern light." Wow. "By the end of the second month, the embryo looks more familiar. The tiny buds that hinted at arms and legs now show little weblike ridges where the fingers and toes will be... Most of the baby's internal organs--lungs, liver, kidneys, and intestines--are in place, but they are not yet fully formed and they do not yet function fully."

I am so amazed at creation and especially the way this process happens silently and in the dark and yet each little part somehow knows its role in the dance. How is it that the dividing cells of an embryo form a tighter and more cohesive task force than a collection of intentional, educated adults? I feel like there's something deep I should learn from that fact, but for now I'll just admire it.

Sticking My Hand in a Snake Den: Controversial Facebooking

I guess everyone knows that a reasonable political debate on Facebook is like a unicorn sighting. I see Facebook more as a means of getting better informed and hearing multiple perspectives than an effective mind-changer.

I have commented on controversial issues on Facebook a handful of times in the past year. None has ended satisfyingly, though some have felt useful at some point. When I comment, I'm not picking a fight. I'm not even sharing my "side" on a subject, though I am treated as though I have and I dissented, which is fair since I haven't simply said, "Yeah, totally!" My views (like I would hope most peoples') are way too nuanced for Facebook, which is no place for nuance. Sound bites and oversimplifications win the day there. And often it really is only a day; the great river of new posts rolls ever on.

No, I don't bring my own ideas to the table. There's no point debating conclusions while we can't even agree on premises. My involvement is to address times: 1) the truth is being distorted beyond recognition, or 2) a sensible question or point is blasted as being ridiculous and unworthy of being entertained. I have asked people to at least consider where the other side is coming from instead of rejecting it outright. I would never attempt this in a random comments section, one full of strangers. That would be like, as Proverbs 26:17 puts it, grabbing a stray dog by the ears.* It's not my quarrel. My quarrel, I suppose, is against misinformation and unwarranted ridicule. When the original poster is a friend, someone I'd like to consider somewhat reasonable, and the lies have harmful implications for an important matter, I sometimes can't resist weighing in, hence, my comments.

I weigh in if only for the sake of readers who may believe they learned something from the original post; the idea that what they "learned" is false is so abhorrent to me that it's caused me to take risks that are perhaps foolish. If people are going to hate something, I desperately want it to be for the right reasons. If they have all the facts and conclude differently than me, that's their prerogative, but I can't bear to think that they're being fed a pack of lies and believing they're choosing wisely or rationally. I saw this quote the other day from a book I haven't yet read that accurately captures my concern: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.” --Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow. I don't know whether the quote would have an effect on others, but it hits me in the gut and then the tear ducts. We are surrounded by lies and finding the truth is hard work. Do people know this? Do they do that hard work? Or do they assume the truth doesn't matter, doesn't exist, or is equivalent to what they usually hear on a daily basis?

A friend pointed out that people often don't understand their own or the other person's premises, so that's why we have so many zero-sum conversations. I wish people would examine their premises. Here's an example: I once asked a young woman why she supported Planned Parenthood. She replied, "Because I respect women." Full stop. Funny, I respect women, too, and that's the exact reason I'm not a fan of theirs. It wasn't the time nor place (nor relationship, honestly) to go deeper on that particular topic, but it left me thinking that she's imbibed the cultural, broadly repeated, governmentally-sanctioned message that respect for women goes hand-in-hand with PP, without actually considering what respect means or looks like or independently examining how PP does or doesn't live up to the ideal of respect for women, men, children, law enforcement, etc.

My efforts to publicly dig deeper on Facebook are overall super unwelcome. I see glints of civility shining upon the lakes of hostility. Irritatingly, I am often attacked for things I didn't say. What a waste of time. More than once, I've sensed that someone didn't even read what I said, instead spotting a few keywords and launching into their own rote reply. I am concerned that "opponents" see my words and assume I am making things up. I endeavor not to be that irresponsible. I favor statistics, case studies, and informed testimonies. If I didn't honestly believe in the validity of what I was saying, based on evidence, I would consider it useless, even foolish, to dare to speak up at all, because I'd be afraid of being found out and invalidated. Sometimes it's not a matter of sharing truths I've learned, but simply of posing a question. A common reaction to valid questions in these settings is to treat them as invalid so as to say, "I'm not going to dignify that with a response." This tactic short-circuits learning and dialogue on both sides.

I've always wanted so much for people to not think I'm an idiot, but apparently I've finally found something for which I'm willing to stick my neck out. I'm not even at the phase of trying to defend Biblical truth or anything close to that, just basic truths about facts and logic and differing perspectives that will allow us to occupy the same space for long enough to actually interact instead of just screaming past one another at the height of emotion and disgust, with no common ground. The truth doesn't need to fear honest questions or true statistics, so I don't need to fear those things. If I'm honest and sincere with questions and answers, maybe I'll see a place I was wrong and get closer to the actual truth. The truth doesn't need to bully or cave to popular opinion. If I beat someone down with excellently-worded rebuttals, that doesn't make me more right. If I am the only person to say "X" in a 200-comment thread of people insisting, "Y," and patting each other on the back, that doesn't make me more wrong. The truth is unwelcome when conclusions have already been drawn, since truth has consequences and if it causes a chink in the armor of certainty, it could ruin it all. Integrity is a dangerous thing, because it means you can't promise unconditional loyalty to a group, person, or idea, however lucrative or popular.

And it's dangerous for me personally because I know what waits for me on the other side of desperately trying to inject some balance into ridicule. I pay a high emotional cost for my involvement. I know I'm not the only person to experience this, and I can't measure it against anyone else (what would be the unit of measurement?) but it's very high for me. My life is pleasant enough now that these comment exchanges have been some of the most physically and emotionally unpleasant things I have experienced all year. Almost each time, I have physically trembled after posting, then again after reading harsh replies, and it can take a day to calm back down all the way. I hate having secrets or mental barriers or resistance in my mind; I think it's unhealthy as a source of constant stress. So when I intentionally avoid Facebook for a time to avoid pain aka notifications, this avoidance is ugly to me. Anxiety flares up and I have to remind myself that even though words can have the physical effect of someone reaching through my screen and throttling me, they cannot touch me, they don't know where I live, and I can decide how much I accept their anger, at least in theory.

To say commenting never, ever works is a huge oversimplification, I know. It works sometimes. Here and there, good things happen. Here and there, a commenter says I brought something new to their attention. Of course, there's always the quiet hope that an anonymous reader also got something out of it. I can't say whether it's all worth the cost I pay for it; I'd have no way to measure that. I don't even know if it's worth it for me. I suppose it must be; maybe I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I never even tried. From now on, whatever else happens, I'll always be able to say I tried. But I may find that I stick to blogging.


* Proverbs 26:17 (NIV) Like one who grabs a stray dog by the ears is someone who rushes into a quarrel not their own.