Review: The Little Red Schoolbook

 

The Little Red Schoolbook was written in 1969 by Danish educators influenced by the youth radicalization and counterculture of the period. It was soon translated into many different languages and published in many countries -- and also banned in many countries, as described by The Children's '68.

Its purpose was to encourage pupils to question authority and learn how to organize and stand up for their rights, just as their older counterparts at colleges and universities were doing. It also aimed to give them information that they wanted and needed which was typically being embargoed from them on topics such as sex and drugs.

Although I learned of its existence a few months ago while researching Beatrice Faust, the Australian civil liberties and women's rights campaigner who contributed to that country's edition of the book, it's an American edition that I recently finished reading.

The book goes into considerable detail describing how schools work and the role of the different actors such as teachers, principals, and school boards. It describes how to engage constructively with these, especially teachers who have power over students but little control of their own situation, as well as how to turn to outside forces such as the press when this is unsuccessful.

It also provides accurate, non-judgmental information about sexuality, including homosexuality, and tells girls how to avoid unwanted pregnancy as well as how to seek an abortion. One section that falls a little short is three paragraphs about "Child molesters or 'dirty old men.'" It begins, "In the old days people used to talk about 'dirty old men.' Children were told they were dangerous. This is very rarely true. They're just men who have nobody to sleep with."

While it's true that they're very rarely dangerous, they're not simply men who have nobody to sleep with. It's now understood that both men and women vary in their sexual age orientation just as they vary in their sexual gender orientation. Although most minor-attracted people don't harass children or youth, those who do do so because these are the people to whom they're attracted. They may well, and often do, have someone adult to sleep with, but that's not what they actually want.

The conclusion of this section is also problematic. It states, "If you see or meet a man like this, don't panic. Go and tell your teachers or your parents about it." This assumes a child wouldn't be interested in sexual activity with an older person, which isn't always the case. It also doesn't make sense, given not only that they're rarely dangerous, but especially in light of the fact, mentioned in the preceding sentence, that in the rare cases they become violent "it's usually because the man has got scared." In that case, it should be obvious that spreading around the advice that follows could only make violence more likely rather than less.

There's also a major section on drugs, with accurate information about a great variety of them with respect to both their affects and their hazards and without regard to whether a particular drug is "illicit" or "licit," such as tobacco or alcohol -- one of the things that made the book controversial.

Although I only learned of this book recently, reading about it in its historical context has prompted me to comment on the article I linked to above, as follows:

I only learned of this book a few months ago and subsequently read it. But the culture of that period had a profound effect on me, even though I only turned seven in 1968, thanks to my having Old Left parents who were friends with hippies. When I was eight years old and starting to form a perspective on the world beyond my immediate experience and what attitude I should take toward it, the adult conversations I sat in on when we had visitors and the "underground" papers and comics that lay around formed me as essentially radical several years before I actually got involved with politics. It was only natural that as I sat in a police station that same year after running away from home, I imagined myself tearing down the "Wanted" poster for Angela Davis -- so the police couldn't use it to help them catch her. And that when the Pledge of Allegiance was introduced in 10th grade, I refused to say it, even though some classmates initially forced me to my feet for it. (Ironically and tellingly, before the end of the semester no one in my home room was saying it, including those students.)

OTD in 1923 and 2016

On this day in 1923, the Nineteenth Amendment was certified as part of the US Constitution, ending sex discrimination in the franchise. Coincidentally yet appropriately, on this day in 2016 tickets went on sale for the world premiere of _The Red Pill_ documentary about the men's human rights movement. I ordered one that day for the very first screening the afternoon of October 7 in Greenwich Village, where I met filmmaker Cassie Jaye among other people. She posted the picture below the day before that.

My Creative Process

I just watched a video by Shirley Serban from a couple years ago about how she composes song parodies, prompting me to put down my thoughts on how it works for me. I posted them as a comment:

Interesting. It's a much more intuitive, organic kind of process for me. I've composed 24 parodies to date (8/23/23), all but three of them since August '19, but I've never thought systematically about the process. I think it usually starts when I realize that some song I'm hearing or thinking of has lyrics that could have a different meaning, or that rhyme with something that particularly interests me, and I gradually build around that starting point until I've got something of satisfying length. Often the entire process occurs in my head. Sometimes, if I don't actually know the original lyrics by heart, I'll print it out on a sheet of paper so that I can write what I've thought of alongside the corresponding lines. If I'm not sure I know the whole melody, or discover that I don't after I've started composing, I'll watch a lyrics video a whole bunch of times until I can recite at least the whole tune, if not all the words, without fault. This process can result in a parody that's longer in terms of unique lyrics than the original, though the running time may be the same since I don't care for repeating verses without variation. So, for instance, my parody of "Windy" would probably play about the same length of time as The Association's classic recording, even though it has nearly three times as many unique lyrics (eight verses versus three in the original). It takes no effort to review what I've composed since it's pleasurable and more or less compulsive to review my creation over and over in my head for several days thereafter, in the course of which I'll sometimes realize there's a tweak to be made that sounds more natural or achieves a more perfect parody of the original.

The video: https://fstube.net/w/w9BDWVdswbnefux2Jb22Lw

AP Tells Lies about ROGD

An AP article appearing in Wednesday's Metro contains some misinformation. I wrote the editor about it.

I am infuriated at the ideologically motivated distortion of science in your article ""How many transgender and intersex people live in the US?"

It says, "[C]onversations about gender-affirming care bans were at times clouded by a discredited 2018 study that claimed kids might experience gender dysphoria because of peer influence. This led to erroneous suggestions that the number of trans people was inflated."

The article deviously fails to name the allegedly discredited study, making it difficult for readers to check the facts for themselves. Fortunately I'd heard of the paper and read an interview with the author, Lisa Littman, in the magazine Quillette. The study was never discredited. The journal PLOS One did a re-review in response to criticism, but as stated in the Notice of Republication, “Other than the addition of a few missing values in Table 13, the Results section is unchanged in the updated version of the article."

Not only was peer influence not discredited as a factor in the recent rise in the number of adolescents and young adults presenting with gender dysphoria -- and the sudden shift toward more female-to-male, rather than male-to-female, transitioners -- but as Littman noted in the interview, "One amazing outcome [of the controversy] is that four young women who experienced gender dysphoria in their teens and then de-transitioned or desisted [pictured above] found each other and created The Pique Resilience Project, a video series they use  to share their experiences. All of them now speak openly about having experienced ROGD [rapid onset gender dysphoria]."

Blanket age restrictions or parental vetoes on young people's bodily autonomy would not be justified. But where irreversible procedures that destroy people's reproductive potential are concerned, this principle needs to be balanced with the ethical responsibility of professionals to thoroughly explore someone's gender dysphoria and other emotional issues to rule out other, non-trans causes before referring them for medical or surgical treatments.

Quote of the Day: Adorno on Sexual Taboos

In law and morals sympathy is accorded to everything that perpetuates the modes of behavior of societal oppression -- and ultimately sadistic violence -- whereas modes of behavior that are contrary to the violence of the social order itself are dealt with mercilessly. -- Theodor Adorno, "Sexual Taboos and Law Today," 1963

https://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/readings/adorno_sexualtaboostoday.pdf

Lolita Misread

 

In a book I'm currently reading I saw the following passage:

"There is the incontrovertible fact, very hard for some of us to accept, that in certain cases it is not the man who inaugurates the trouble. The novel Lolita ... describes what may well happen. A girl of twelve or so is already endowed with a good deal of sexual desire and also can take pride in her 'conquests.' Perhaps, in all innocence, she is the temptress and not the man." (The Facts of Sex, 1970, quoted in Fear of Child Sexuality by Stephen Angelides, 2019)

Doubtless in some cases this is what happens, but it misrepresents the novel, and I've encountered this misrepresentation quite a number of times. Go no further if you're supersensitive to spoilers, but in a nutshell here's what happens up to that scene in the book: Humbert sees twelve-year-old Lolita and finds her attractive, as he's a hebephile who loves "nymphets." There's no indication that she has any interest in him. He devises to befriend and ultimately marry her mother, pretending to love the latter, simply to get close to Lolita and ultimately achieve intimacy with her. Yet he's beset with the perverse notion that he's morally obligated to preserve her "innocence," so he devises to give her a drug that will put her out, allowing him to take her without her being "corrupted." But when he actually gets to this point, he's anxious to be absolutely certain that she's really unconscious, and so deeply so that she won't wake up during the act. So he keeps almost initiating intercourse without actually doing so. Finally he falls asleep from exhaustion, only to be awakened by Lolita's jumping his bones.

In this context, it appears perfectly clear what Nabokov was portraying: a relationship initiated and driven exclusively by the older man's desire, ultimately consummated by the girl only because his repeated "almosts" when she wasn't actually asleep have started to drive her crazy and to arouse her with the feeling that she's desirable.

For whatever reason, the term "Lolita complex" came to be used for a girl pursuing older men, and presumably this is why many people, perhaps people who haven't actually read the book, have had a misapprehension of the story it tells.