Month: January 2018

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Most people have experienced shame at some point in their lifetime, usually when you or someone you know does something clumsy or foolish. You feel as if you need to change or disassociate with the clumsy fool until he or she changes. But what if that feeling becomes harnessed as a consequence? A man named Edmond Aviv bullied his neighbor and her children for 15 years due to her children’s disabilities. Besides jail, community services, and counseling, the man was also sentenced to five hours of public shaming, holding a sign stating his wrongdoing during on busy Sunday. The fact that Aviv was being so excessively and unnecessarily rude for an entire 15 years is just completely ridiculous. Utilizing shame as a way for Aviv to learn from his action is a powerful way for him to learn how ludicrous his behavior towards his neighbors was. Shame is a very sensitive emotion; too little of it and it could have no effect but too much of it can lead to suicide. If the person does not think that their whole self-properties can be changed, then it can make him/her think that the only way to avoid the shame is through death. Otherwise, a change in behavior or thought process is all that is needed. Because of this, public shaming can arguably be more effective than jail time for reforming and punishing criminals. With each car that passes Aviv and each dirty look is given to him, he feels his misbehavior backlashing against him. Therefore, public shaming should not completely replace jail time but instead be used as an alternative (if it doesn’t break the Eighth Amendment) if deserved and/or jail time has proved to be ineffective.

Why would Marvel Universe want to associate themselves with something as “ridiculous” as feminism? They have such as successful company, so why would they risk supporting something as controversial as feminism, especially on the Captain Marvel herself, one of the most well-known female Marvel superheroes that people know? To be clear, the story of Captain Marvel may not directly be about feminism, possibly only subtle commentary about it. Captain Marvel cannot solely be centered around the beliefs of feminism since the audience would notice it, spread that information, and make Captain Marvel as controversial as feminism itself. The most likely case is that Captain Marvel has great examples of a woman showing how great women are, enough to fill in the role of a potential male superhero. Besides, by not making the comic blatantly obvious that it is about feminism, it can be seen as like a comic about Black Widow, Wonder Woman (I am aware that she is from DC Universe), or any other female superheroes. The only people who notice that support for feminism can be found within the comic are those who want to see it, the feminists. Those who are neutral or are against feminism may perceive the comic as just another female superhero comic. Overreacting and cursing about the comic because someone thought it was about feminism would be too bold and absurd of a move for how subtle it is. This way, the Marvel Universe can subtly state their stance on feminism, whether intentional or not, while not losing a good portion of their fans and profit.

During this previous weekend, I spent a lot of my time with friends playing Pokémon Go, a game that lost most of its popularity after the summer of 2016, when school started up again. That was when my current SCU friends and I also stopped playing, so why are we playing it again now? It all started when I noticed that my girlfriend, who I met at SCU, still playing the game, so I started playing again, remembering how much fun I had. This would eventually spread to a bunch of my friends. Initially, everyone just played casually, catching whatever we liked or wanted. However, we started to work together to defeat gyms, help find strong and rare Pokémon, and eventually attempt to beat raid bosses to catch legendaries. The latest being from meeting an SCU Pokémon Go community while casually playing (https://discord.gg/w7eQnST).

Now my friends and I are competing to catch the strongest Pokémon, claiming every gym they can get, and even paid real money to make those tasks easier. But why? Well, as the title of this blog suggests, competition. Meeting that community and seeing so many other strong Trainers make us want to be stronger; it convinces us to be more dedicated to the game and work harder to be one of those strong Trainers. They also make us feel justified for spending that extra hour or pay that extra dollar for the game. And, honestly, it worked. However, this was not entirely a negative impact. We were able to make new friends and form closer bonds to existing ones. My friends and I are aware of our priorities; we are not skipping classes or not doing homework just because a rare digital code appeared in a specific area. Competition is a form of entertainment, whether it be sports or games. Although its more difficult when applied to school/education, this new form of knowledge I learned can be applied to many others activities.

First of all, I do not actually believe that feminism is anything associated with hating men. It is, unfortunately, one of the negative connotations the theory has now. This first originated all the way to the events leading up to the creation and passing of the 19th Amendment, which, in short, granted women suffrage in certain elections. Unfortunately, women were still treated unequally in comparison to men. Two more waves of feminism arose from 1960s-1980s and 1980s to today. Although my knowledge of feminism is not too vast, I am aware of the “jokes” and other negative ideas people make about it. I have heard some ridiculous beliefs that radical feminists agree with in high school. One belief was that women are based on men with words such as female, woman, and history. Although I just thought it was ridiculous at the time, after pondering about it for a bit, it is quite interesting and “coincidental” that words like those have masculine related words within them, even though it involves, includes, or deals with the feminine side. Another time I was informed about feminism was during the One Love and Embrace meeting at Santa Clara University. The story was about a term mentioned within the powerpoint: intersectionality. A very qualified black woman was applying for a job but was rejected. The employer although did have female employees and black employees, he/she had no female black employees. The employer attempted to bypass racism and sexism by doing that but it did not justify it. Although some forms of feminism are ridiculous or corrupt, the fact that feminism continues to exist to this day is shocking yet understandable.