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Wiscon 31 Panel Report: Making War on War
Jun. 1st, 2007 09:21 amFirstly, a news flash. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yhlee's LiveJournal has apparently been deleted (presumably as part of this massive journal deletion crap), but I definitely know that I was looking at her journal on the 30th, and possibly early morning on the 31st? I thought LiveJournal was done deleting journals, and trying to rectify the situation? Does anyone know what happened to Yoon?
Making War on "War"
Politics, Race, Class, and Religion•Conference Room 4• Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m.
Every time we are faced with a serious situation, we Americans have to make a War of it: (i.e., the Wars on Poverty, Drugs, Obesity, and Terror) despite the fact that "victory" continues to elude us. We even have to "battle" disease with "magic bullets". Why are we so taken with war as our default metaphor for action? How does that limit our problem solving approach? What might we replace it with? What metaphors have other cultures turned to? And how might we popularize a change?
M: Jean Mornard, Paul Kincaid, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Wendy Alison Walker, Laurel Winter
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Before I say anything else, I will note that the panel description defines 'we' as Americans, and thus the focus was on the English language and metaphors. It was defined as such in the panel description, so I didn't feel too weird about it. Also, I feel like I remember panels differently than others. Mostly, all I write down are things that I found interesting. So, if you don't agree....too bad!
As both an English major and a Political Science major, this panel was like my dream come true. Nerdglee.
( Here are my notes. )
All in all, it was a good panel. The only thing that bothered me was that there was a lot of anti-Republican sentiment, or at least I got the sense that many panelists and people in the room blamed conservatives for the "war" metaphors being so prevalent to begin with, which I don't think is a fair statement. Hello, Lyndon Johnson? I actually feel like this is something I could have argued about with some competence, but after thinking about it for 3 seconds, I figured that if there's one thing a person doesn't do at a feminist sci-fi convention, it's try to defend Republicans, ;) (And no, I don't consider myself Republican.) Also, it wasn't really relevant to the focus of the panel, and I dislike it very much when the conversation topic shifts away from a panel's focus.
Recommended Media:
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear - BBC documentary
yhlee's LiveJournal has apparently been deleted (presumably as part of this massive journal deletion crap), but I definitely know that I was looking at her journal on the 30th, and possibly early morning on the 31st? I thought LiveJournal was done deleting journals, and trying to rectify the situation? Does anyone know what happened to Yoon?Making War on "War"
Politics, Race, Class, and Religion•Conference Room 4• Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m.
Every time we are faced with a serious situation, we Americans have to make a War of it: (i.e., the Wars on Poverty, Drugs, Obesity, and Terror) despite the fact that "victory" continues to elude us. We even have to "battle" disease with "magic bullets". Why are we so taken with war as our default metaphor for action? How does that limit our problem solving approach? What might we replace it with? What metaphors have other cultures turned to? And how might we popularize a change?
M: Jean Mornard, Paul Kincaid, Chris Nakashima-Brown, Wendy Alison Walker, Laurel Winter
----------------
Before I say anything else, I will note that the panel description defines 'we' as Americans, and thus the focus was on the English language and metaphors. It was defined as such in the panel description, so I didn't feel too weird about it. Also, I feel like I remember panels differently than others. Mostly, all I write down are things that I found interesting. So, if you don't agree....too bad!
As both an English major and a Political Science major, this panel was like my dream come true. Nerdglee.
( Here are my notes. )
All in all, it was a good panel. The only thing that bothered me was that there was a lot of anti-Republican sentiment, or at least I got the sense that many panelists and people in the room blamed conservatives for the "war" metaphors being so prevalent to begin with, which I don't think is a fair statement. Hello, Lyndon Johnson? I actually feel like this is something I could have argued about with some competence, but after thinking about it for 3 seconds, I figured that if there's one thing a person doesn't do at a feminist sci-fi convention, it's try to defend Republicans, ;) (And no, I don't consider myself Republican.) Also, it wasn't really relevant to the focus of the panel, and I dislike it very much when the conversation topic shifts away from a panel's focus.
Recommended Media:
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear - BBC documentary
