Obsessive Disorder

In an earlier post, I mentioned in passing a piece of anti-Islam propaganda, the DVD video Obsession, being distributed via newspapers and direct mail in key U.S. states by a group called the Clarion Fund. I implied that carrying material such as this as legitimate advertising compromises the moral standing of any publication that does so (fully aware of the irony in pretending that no publisher might secretly harbor sympathy for such campaigns). Now, however, we can see that - surprise! - purveying messages of hate also has real consequences, often for the very people those words and images attack - who would have thought?

I Could Put Some Pink Floyd Lyrics Here, But I Won't

There was recently a brief discussion at the Open Anthropology blog concerning the commoditization of academic work, and its implications for the quality of higher education. One correlate of this restructuring of the academy, a shallowing of content in the work of both students and educators, is also implicit in this discussion at the Savage Minds blog regarding celebrity prof. Tony Blair's new course at Yale (and explicated further in the comments).

Dressed for Success

A recent discussion on the Racialicious blog concerning some ludicrous toddler footwear from Old Navy led me to think about how children's clothing has become one of the most pervasive forces for gender socialization in Western culture, and how this may have come about.

From the first day ex-utero onward, the forms and iconography of the clothes that children are dressed in differ distinctly between boys and girls. This not only plays into the process of binary gender identity development, but also the teaching of what kinds of behavior are expected of each gender role. These implied behaviors can be perceived in the very forms of articles of clothing - the types of activity facilitated (and degree of modesty demanded) by trousers, as compared to a dress, establish the boundaries for action within which children feel comfortable. More overtly, but perhaps less direct in dictating behavior, the decorative images featured on clothing definitely promote different affective attachments and role models for boys and girls (one need look no further than the aforementioned Old Navy socks to see what kind of career is being held up as the male ideal).

Lacking any real functional purpose, why should these differences exist in the first place? Until relatively recently, distinctions between the clothing of very young boys and girls was practically nonexistant. I would speculate that the differentiation came about as a result of the industrial revolution, and the commoditization of these clothes; by promoting the idea that only certain forms of clothing were appropriate for each sex, and thus not interchangeable between bro and sis, manufacturers could to sell more units to each family. Of course, this marketing tactic wasn't a completely conscious, crass invention of the capitalists - it required preexisting, at least nascent, cultural ideas about child rearing. These two forces, commerce and the common sense, could then proceed to feed off of and reinforce one another, as they plainly continue to do today.

Pocket-Change Revenue and Ethical Standards, or Why I'm Wary of AdSense

During the earliest planning phases of my blogging venture, I became aware of the Google AdSense service. While the idea of making some extra money, even a few dollars, for labor I'd be expending anyway, with essentially zero investment, is undeniably a tempting proposition. Nevertheless, I've yet to install this particular widget, and I don't expect to any time soon.

My initial reason for refraining was more a matter of some imagined sense of "professionalism" or "integrity" than anything else (blogging - serious business!). But more recently, I've been reminded of another problematic aspect of forming relationships with advertisers: abandonment of ideological control.

Desperate for cash, traditional print media are not very fussy about their advertisers these days. Ann Caulkins, the publisher of the Charlotte Observer, told the paper’s religion reporter that [Obsession, a DVD currently being distributed by the Clarion Fund (http://clarionfund.org/), a nonprofit shell organization devoted to propagandizing against Islam] met the newspaper’s criteria for ads: “We’re all for freedom of expression, freedom of speech. This is in no way reflecting our opinions, but it is something we allow,” she said, adding that the newspaper would not allow material that is racist, profane, or “offers graphic images of body parts,” which at least distinguishes the paper from anything in the CSI television franchise.

Explicit standards of decency for advertisements, such as those maintained by the Charlotte Observer, the Journal of Higher Education, and presumably Google, are designed not with objectivity, but rather consumer palatability, in mind. An advertisement is deemed acceptable so long as a majority of a publication's audience will not become offended and raise an (circulation-plummeting, revenue-slashing) outcry.

The problem is that some products and services that many people find palatable or even enticing, I find myself unwilling to implicitly endorse by featuring on my website. Surely nothing so vile as Islamophobic propaganda films, certainly not from Google; but I don't want to associate myself with any of the vacuity- and vanity-perpetuating goods that are the mainstream advertising norm, either. Luckily for me, that zero investment-cost I mentioned above means my publishing overhead is significantly lower than the average newspaper or scholarly journal, and so, unlike the unfortunates at the Observer, I remain free to allow only content that does reflect my opinions. Ah, to be in the new-media vanguard...