White man derangement syndrome

After hearing a clearly traumatized woman make credible accusations of attempted rape against a Supreme Court nominee, a white man who very likely will help eliminate a woman's right to have an abortion, Senator Lindsey Graham launched into an uncontrolled tirade against the injustice of the accusations. He seemed to inspire the nominee himself to engage in his own uncontrolled tirade of self-pity, decrying the public humiliation he has suffered and the death threats made against him and his family.

Lacking in either man's outburst was any hint he had processed even a tiny part of the trauma suffered by the woman who was attacked, trauma which included not just having to relive the incident before many skeptical senators and a nationwide TV audience, but both public humiliation and death threats that forced her and her family to go into seclusion prior to the hearing.

These two white men — one a United States senator, the other a federal judge under consideration for a Supreme Court seat — could only find room for indignation about the white male nominee's suffering. They could only lament their own powerlessness against the enormous "injustice" being done to them.

I call it White Man Derangement Syndrome.

Zack Beauchamp at Vox calls it "white male backlash". As Beauchamp puts it:

“I will not shut up” is a perfect mantra for Trumpian backlash politics. There is no risk that white men are, en masse, going to be silenced: They occupy the commanding heights of power in every walk of American life. The demands that they be quiet at times are a response to the overrepresentation of their voices, that they understand what life is like for more vulnerable people and then change the way they act accordingly.

But Graham is not willing to give even that little ground.

Sen. Graham shamed both himself and the Senate. Let this be his political epitaph.

Any lingering inclination to give Judge Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt vanished after his petulant whining and unabashed evasion of awkward questions. Whether he can be proven Christine Blasey Ford's attacker, he has proven beyond any doubt that he lacks the self-control, sense of responsibility and moral sense that a Supreme Court Justice must have.

Both of these white men demonstrated with stunning clarity the unhinged paranoia and blinding self-pity lurking at the heart of modern conservatism.

Gamification

"Gamification" is apparently the term used to describe applying game elements to non-game settings. Natasha Singer's piece for the New York Times says:

Companies like Recyclebank, for example, use game incentives, like points and rewards, to prompt consumers to perform eco-friendly activities. Other businesses offer awards like virtual badges to induce their employees to embrace corporate goals and increase productivity. Meanwhile, a number of well-known retailers and brands, including Samsung and Warner Brothers, are employing point reward systems as a way to engage customers more deeply.

[links omitted]

It's all about games, so it must be harmless, right? Well, this is corporate America we're talking about. What do you think?

“Why not call it a new kind of analytics?” says Professor [Ian] Bogost, a founding partner at Persuasive Games, a firm that designs video games for education and activism. “Companies could say, ‘Well, we are offering you a new program in which we watch your every move and make decisions about our advertising based on the things we see you do.’ ”

And as for in-house use?

“We used to provide incentives to employees by means of compensation and benefits,” like raises and pensions, he says. “This seems to be a move to use these no-cost incentives.”

Now, it needs to be noted that Prof. Bogost is the only critic of gamification cited in the article. Still, when was the last time you heard corporations giving away stuff they couldn't afford, or acting in your best interests rather than theirs?

Gamification is all about playing games with the consumer, or maybe the employee. That was pretty obvious to me, but judging by the number of people who have responded to the efforts cited in the article, what's obvious to me isn't obvious to a lot of others.

Be warned: KidZania is coming

The Morning News has a profile of KidZania, an "edutainment" experience franchised around the world and expected to arrive in the U.S. by 2013. The chain's premise is that kids can learn by play-acting at real jobs.

Sounds harmless enough at first blush. The trouble is that KidZania at its heart seems more interested in indoctrinating children than in educating them.

... at the heart of the concept and the business of KidZania is corporate consumerism, re-staged for children whose parents pay for them to act the role of the mature consumer and employee. The rights to brand and help create activities at each franchise are sold off to real corporations, while KidZania’s own marketing emphasizes the arguable educational benefits of the park.

KidZania embeds corporate sponsors deep into the experiences it provides.

When Kahori Roskamp’s daughter took part in a cooking class activity, Roskamp found that “it was about eating chicken nuggets, probably frozen, which I don’t find very healthy, educational, or interesting.” During the activity, TV screens played a commercial for the chicken nugget company on a loop. “It was more about promoting the products rather than creating a fun, educational place for children,” Roskamp said.

Does anyone think that these companies' priority isn't to make kids more loyal customers?

Your kids will grow up seeing corporate logos on their clothes, in your pantry, and on the 'net (or TV, or both). Give them a chance to develop some defense against the marketing blitz that is modern culture. Even before the first KidZania opens in the U.S., I'll bet that if you can afford the entry fee, you can also afford a trip to a park. Go to the park, okay?

(Thanks to Kottke for the link.)

Work-play divide

Mike Wise, a Washington Post sports columnist, was suspended from his job for knowingly publishing a fake tweet about a football player. Apparently Wise's tweet was intended to be "a test ... of how fast a piece of misinformation could spread online."

I must admit, it's an interesting question from an academic standpoint. However, Wise's experiment, if that's really what this was, was supremely dumb: you don't invent falsehoods about real people, for crying out loud. How you get to be a professional journalist without understanding how serious an ethical violation that is, I can't imagine.

That's not what this entry is about, though. From further on in the article:

Within a few hours of Mr. Wise’s Twitter post on Monday, The Post’s sports editor, Matthew Vita, sent an e-mail to his staff reminding it of the paper’s guidelines for using social media.

“When you use social media, remember that you are representing The Washington Post, even if you are using your own account,” Mr. Vita wrote. “This is not to be treated lightly.”

My quibble is with "even if you are using your own account."

I believe that a bright line separates work from non-work. When you're working, you're working, and what you do is your employer's business, but when you're not working, what you do isn't your employer's business. There are exceptions to this, but they're few and far between. I don't believe that reporters are among those exceptions, unless, as Wise did, they speak out on the subjects they cover.