The longer version, if you missed it back in September, is here.

“As the new upper class increasingly consists of people who were born into upper-middle-class families and have never lived outside the upper-middle-class bubble, the danger increases that the people who have so much influence on the course of the nation have little direct experience with the lives of ordinary Americans, and make their judgments about what’s good for other people based on their own highly atypical lives.” -Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

I found that quote—from chapter four of Murray’s book, which is titled “How Thick Is Your Bubble”—via a New York Times blog, and I found that via How to Be Black author Baratunde Thurston’s Twitter feed, so I guess I’m already off to a rather bad start, bubble-wise.

I am one of the people Murray speaks about—born, raised, and lucky to have remained upper-middle-class, with zero lived experience of poverty, rural America, or hand-roughening work. I’ve eaten at an Applebee’s recently only because my sister has kids and lives in the suburbs; I’ve walked a factory floor only because my dad was the boss; I score no points for living in an economically and educationally mixed neighborhood because I am one of the white gentrifiers. I’m friends with a few people who were raised in evangelical Christian families and communities, but they’re all atheists now. (Wait! I was just reminded that one is now a Reform Jew.) I lettered in yearbook, and the only uniform I’ve ever worn was a teal polyester skirt suit required by the bank where I worked for six weeks in 1993, before I quit in tears and admitted to my wealthy, supportive parents that yes, fine, I wanted to go back to college. I have a master’s degree, a professional husband, no kids, and a sense of entitlement a mile wide.

Still, while my Murray-defined bubble is indeed quite thick in some areas (Nascar and military knowledge; “close friendships with people who don’t share my politics,” seeing as how my politics are firmly grounded in how I believe human beings should treat each other), it’s more porous in others (I’ve watched a whole lot of Oprah and Judge Judy, and I walked in my public high school homecoming parade—albeit as a member of Russian Club)—and still more porous in many areas Murray completely ignores in his efforts to paint a picture of “ordinary Americans.”

Murray writes as though being rural, white, Christian, and poor is not its own sort of bubble, as though everyone else in this country is living on the fringes of that center (and voting to spite it). And that’s a load of bullshit even when applied to admittedly privileged and sheltered people like me. Everyday city life, for instance (at least outside the most exclusive enclaves, which tend to be populated by straight-up 1 percenters, not upper-middle-class professionals) comes with a ton of exposure to other people–in good, bad, and chronically irritating ways–and opportunities that simply can’t exist without a certain number of people around to make them worthwhile.

Don’t get me wrong: I am privileged beyond belief, in both the academic and colloquial senses of the word. If I wanted to, I could choose to live in a neighborhood that’s significantly safer, wealthier, and whiter overall than the one I do live in, and I already choose to live in a safer, wealthier, whiter part of this one. My life actually is “highly atypical,” and I am grateful for that.

Nevertheless, here are 25 more questions for Murray and the “ordinary Americans” he speaks for. I can answer “yes” to all of them. If you can’t, how thick is your bubble?

1. Have you ever lived for at least a year in a city with a population greater than 1 million?
2. Have you ever lived without a car for longer than a year?
3. Have you ever lived for at least a year in a municipal area in which more than 10 percent of the population was not white?
4. Have you ever had a close friend of a different race?
5. Have you ever had a close friend who is openly atheist?
6. Have you ever been to a gay wedding?
7. Are any of your close friends gay couples with children?
8. Do you or any of your close friends have more than $50,000 in student loan debt?
9. To your knowledge, have you ever met a transgender person?
10. During the last year, have you attended a free public lecture, reading, performance, or movie screening in your community?
11. Would you and, if applicable, your partner and/or children be able to attend a different free public festival every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day, without traveling more than fifteen miles from home?
12. Have you or, if applicable, your partner and/or children ever been to a Planned Parenthood or similar non-profit clinic for affordable contraception, preventative health care, and/or STI testing?
13. Have there been one or more homicides in your neighborhood in the last month?
14. Have you lived for at least a year in a community with a visible homeless population?
15. Do you have a YMCA or YWCA within five miles of your home?
16. If, as an adult, you wanted to play a sport, take a dance class, or learn or a foreign language, would you be able to in your community? Would you have more than one option?
17. In the past five years, have you seen homeless people fishing in your neighborhood?
18. Have you ever patronized a fast food drive-thru that had a revolving window of bullet-proof glass?
19. Do you live within five miles of a mosque?
20. In the last year, have there been one or more newsworthy acts of violence at your local public high school?
21. Is there a public playground within easy walking distance of your home?
22. Can you travel a mile from your home on foot or by wheelchair or mobility scooter without running out of sidewalk?
23. Can you get from your home to a public library without using a car or spending more than $3? (How about an art museum? A sporting event? A beach? A fireworks display?)
24. Choose one. Who was Jane Addams? Or: Have you ever bought a tamale from a man who came by your local bar at 1 a.m.?
25. Does your state receive fewer tax dollars than it contributes?

Occupy Valentine’s Day

I’ll also add a quick note for those of you (not yet in the comments below, but elsewhere) who cry, “So what! Terrible people are everywhere! It’s the Internet!” You? You are awful, too. R/atheism is a huge community of atheists, and here is an example of a young woman attempting to join it, to get more involved, who is sexualized and mocked for being a girl. Why would she ever want to be a part of any atheist community, if that’s how she’s treated? The next time you look around your atheist events and wonder where all the women are, think of this and know that there are at least some of us who aren’t willing to just accept this culture without trying to change it.

I love that “you are awful, too” bit so much, I’d like to expand on it.

First, to anyone who would dismiss these men’s behavior as the consequence of unbelief, as though [your religion here] automatically bestows upon its practitioners a deep and abiding respect for women: you are awful, too. Because in fact, it’s the consequence of a sexist culture, in which any time a woman shows her face or opens her mouth in public, whatever point she wanted to make stands to be delayed by a referendum on her fuckability. Pretending that some people, your people, good people, live entirely apart from that culture just means you don’t want to do your part to change it.

Similarly, if you’re an atheist whose first response to something like this is, “Don’t blame atheists! Most of us aren’t assholes!” you are awful, too. You’re right–most of us aren’t! And that has nothing to do with the fact that this is happening on an atheist forum–not to mention at atheist conferences–and yet, instead of wondering, “How might I help clean house in this community I care about, which I do not wish to see filled with assholes?” your first instinct is to explain to women why they’re wrong.

Whether there is a sexism problem within the atheist community is really not up for debate. People affected by it have been telling you and telling you and telling you there is a problem. So when you say, “Sexism is not a problem for/by/about atheists,” those of us who have direct experience with sexism hear, “I like things fine the way they are and thus would rather spend my time antagonizing the people who say they’re hurt than the people causing the pain.” And we conclude that you are awful.

Finally, if your solution to sexist abuse on the internet is, “Just don’t let anyone know your gender, or see a picture of you, or ever mention where you live” (as one of the first commenters on Watson’s post suggested), you are so fucking awful, I can’t even. It’s not just that you’re putting all the onus on the targets of hatred to change so that bullies won’t have to, or that you’re conveniently ignoring situations, in almost 20fucking12, where a woman might want to have her picture and contact info on the internet for, I dunno, business reasons? For example? And it’s not even that you’re representing yourself as someone who’s clearly more internet-savvy than the lady blogger in question, but you apparently don’t realize that a highly motivated person can pretty easily discover the identity behind a pseudonym. No, it’s that you’re arguing that abuse of women online would solve itself if only women disappeared from the internet.

Oh, of course that’s not what you’re saying! I know, I know. In the scenario you describe, sexist shitheads would know that there were still women out there–it wouldn’t be as though around half the human race had just vanished!–but they wouldn’t know which specific screen names deserved to have their hotness assessed, their gender mocked, their ideas dismissed, and their bodies threatened. So they wouldn’t even need to bother with all that! PROBLEM SOLVED YOU’RE WELCOME.

Know what, dude who thinks this? You’re probably the awfulest. That’s all.

People who have never eaten out in the U.S. can perhaps be forgiven for assuming that, in addition to plates the size of manhole covers, American restaurants typically have employees whose sole job is to hover over diners, demanding that they finish their food before they’re permitted to leave. But if you are familiar with the concept of a “doggy bag,” then the only excuse for assuming that restaurant portion sizes are directly correlated with American ignorance and/or gluttony is pretty much that you enjoy thinking of Americans as ignorant gluttons.

And I mean, sure, a lot of us are. Some of us, all of the time; probably all of us, some of the time.

But we are also a people who really fucking like our leftovers.

Signed,
A genuine, bona fide obese American who can eat with the best of ‘em, and still often makes multiple meals out of a single restaurant order

Around September 2010, I also turned off comments for the whole site, forever, and said I wasn’t going to check the moderation queue again, which is hands-down one of the most liberating decisions I’ve made in recent years. Until tonight, I’d kept good on my promise not to check the queue. I’m not entirely sure how I ended up with 206 pending comments–most of them spam, of course, but many of them real comments from 2011–in the Shapely Prose queue, since the current template doesn’t even offer comment boxes at the end of posts anymore. But I have changed the template a few times, so maybe some did?

Anyway. Tonight I pop over to the SP dashboard to see what kind of traffic I got on a post that was linked a lot yesterday, while the #mencallmethings campaign was going strong. (This is because I am narcissistic and have too much time on my hands, so save your breath. I know.) And I decide I’m going to skim those 206 pending comments to see how many of them are exactly the kind of thing we were talking about. Wouldn’t it be funny if people were commenting on a long-dormant blog in hopes that somehow, someday, I would still receive their very important messages about how I am ugly, disgusting, stupid, deserving of painful death, etc.?

HILARIOUS, is what that would be.

So yeah, here are some highlights of the last few months, on a blog that’s been closed for over a year. Most of these were on two posts from 2007.

The same 2007 that happened four years ago, just so we’re clear.

“What??? This is bull crap. Fat is a sickness and is horrible. Do double chin looks sexy or healthy? People please loose weight and stop mistreating your body. Start today by eating healthy and start doing some exercise. Sedentary people sadly don’t know how to eat and they eat mostly “crap”, processed “microwaveable” food. Lots of refined sugar and white flours, lots of fried foods. Some people is Fat because a medical condition no matter what they do or don’t. But being fat without a reason is a WORSE sick condition because you don’t realize how bad and ugly is your situation.

Of course there are thin people who eat crap and don’t exercise …. and so what??? Fat people do not eat healthy either don’t lie to your self, you get there by just eating bad and toooo much. Stop hidden behind the “dignity” crap and start by showing some guts and self control and lose weight. Stop being a loser, if being fat is a good and acceptable matter why you feel so depressed and you read books about loving your fat body?????? Don’t destroy your self, please wake up! Even if thin people are eating crap and they are not healthy (as you state as your good excuse to mistreat your fat body) No one can denied that fat people look ugly, sick and destructive (of their own body)”

- “What?” at yourareabadfatperson@repentoruwillperisch.com

“Fat people are fucking disgusting.”

- “Fred Zanford”

“Just put the f**king fork down and think of the Somali children you disgusting pigs.”

- “Weslers”

“all i see is a bunch of fat ass losers bitching because they think they deserve special accommodations for their lack of self control.”

-“John Smith”

“I thought there was going to be a load of bullshit written, but this is good.”

- “G”

The one drawback to all of these lovely spaces is that they’re not as close together as one might hope. When I was planning my theoretical event schedule, I didn’t take venues into consideration, so in practice, my ambition has been thwarted by logistics; so much for making it to both Taussig’s lecture at the History Museum and “Tomorrow’s History” at the Chicago Cultural Center immediately after, for instance. Making matters worse, Saturday was the most difficult day of the festival for me, choice-wise. Between 1 and 2:30, I wanted to see “Lend Me Your (Bionic) Ears” at the Parker School, “Facing Up to the Uncanny Valley” at the Harold Washington Library, Sylvia Nasar at the UIC Forum, and Taussig. I will always have to wonder what might have been, and what might have been, and what might have been. Oh, the humanities! (Look, you knew I had to say that once. Now it’s over.)

Still, what I saw last week was pretty great. On Sunday, Virginia Eubanks’s talk, “A Jane Addams for the Digital Age?” challenged assumptions about the “digital divide” and the role of technology in creating opportunities for poor women. During four years of “participatory research” with women who used the resources at a YMCA in New York’s capitol region, Eubanks found that most already had access to computers and at least the basic skills taught in classes meant to bridge the divide; many were working in “low-wage, high-tech” jobs at call centers, or performing data entry. The problem is, these jobs tend to be temporary, unstable, and unsustainable–and just as troublingly, advances in technology have decreased workers’ privacy and autonomy, created negative impacts on their health and quality of life. Eubanks argued that we need to look at technology as “another site of struggle” and build it around specific social justice goals, instead of assuming that access to computers and skills training will magically create a level playing field. I look forward to reading her book, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age.

And then there was Laurie Anderson. Holy cow! I took three pages of notes during her conversation with the Steppenwolf Theatre’s Martha Lavey, but what kept going through my head was, “Wow, this woman is just frightfully smart.”

I don’t mean to say she was intimidating or abstruse—in fact, she was a wonderfully accessible and engaging speaker. What flabbered my gast so thoroughly was the way her mind connects disparate sensory elements to create art that operates on multiple levels—a sound leads to an image, which leads to a physical project, for instance. She spoke of using art to evoke desire, “the way perfume works,” creating an image in the mind and an instant sense of longing. And in a move dear to my puppy-loving heart*, Anderson once staged a concert for dogs because she wanted an audience for her music that wasn’t limited by weak human hearing. The axiom that we only use 10 percent of our brains may be false, but Anderson left me feeling as though I use only a small fraction of my senses.

This week, I’m especially excited about Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery’s interview with David Carr, Rebecca Solnit’s “Technological Wild West” lecture, and “Shakespeare By the Numbers” at the Poetry Foundation, among others. Plus: even more new (to me) auditoriums!

*Murray had surgery on a cherry eye this week, by the way; he’s recovering nicely.

The fourth annual Hyde Park day was an abject failure in terms of my overachiever’s schedule (act surprised), but nevertheless one of the best days I’ve had in a long time.

Since my husband had to take the puppy to obedience class in the car, I made my way to the University of Chicago via public transportation, which took about 90 minutes from my home in Rogers Park. Unfortunately, I had only budgeted slightly more than an hour for the trip, so I missed the presentation on the Mansueto Library, which I had been really excited about; future-of-the-book stuff is right up my alley.  On the bright side, it was a ridiculously gorgeous day, so I found myself a bench outside and read until it was time for the 1:30 tour of the new library.

A little background on me: I am 36 years old and reasonably well-adjusted, yet still enormously and (needless to say) irrationally bitter that my undergrad experiences failed to live up to the promise of the movies.  Once, a friend and I were watching a film set at a small, New England liberal arts college but filmed at my alma mater, the University of Toronto.  The friend, who had gone to a small, New England liberal arts college, looked at a breathtaking shot of an old building covered in multicolored ivy, and sighed, “I wish I’d gone to a school that looked like that.”

“You did!” I yelled. “Whereas I actually went to that school, and it looks nothing like that in real life!”

I mean, of course parts of it, in isolation, look exactly like that, which is why so many movies are filmed on that campus every year. But mostly, it is sprawling and urban and tragically bereft of thoughtful, ruddy-cheeked young men in fisherman sweaters, who spend their days riding bicycles around duck-dotted ponds, occasionally stopping to rest under explosively colored old maples, where they all have the same daydream: about a shy, chubby girl with a kind heart and a terrible attitude showing up with a thermos of hot chocolate. Spiked with whiskey.

I enjoy real life quite a bit, most of the time, but I was deeply, deeply disappointed by it in my college years, is what I’m saying. So these last two gorgeous autumn Sundays, strolling through the Northwestern and University of Chicago campuses, I’ve been beset with that old, familiar, increasingly embarrassing longing for a do-over.

When the 1:30 tour of the Mansueto Library was too packed to accommodate me, I headed across the street to Mandel Hall to grab some lunch before the 2:30 tour. Looking for a place to park myself for a bit, I wandered into a dining room that could easily have been from a movie set: impossibly high ceilings, hand-carved woodwork, oil paintings of old white men along the walls, that sort of thing. And I did something I almost never do, something I haven’t done regularly since I was an undergrad in the early 1990s: I took out a notebook and started writing longhand.

Unfortunately (again), I didn’t stop in time for the 2:30 tour, or the 3:30, or for the Amitav Ghosh interview at 4. (I saw my friend Jill on the way out of that, though, and she said it was wonderful.) I kept writing for hours, finishing up with just enough time to have a cup of tea in the courtyard before The Encyclopedia Show.

In other words, for one afternoon, at 36 years old, I essentially had the college experience I’ve always wanted. (Well, minus the guy in the fisherman sweater, but a big guy in a grey hoodie asking a tiny puppy for kisses is a pretty good alternative, and one of those was waiting for me at home.) I do feel bad about wasting the all-access pass for those few hours, but it was really rather glorious.

And then the Encyclopedia Show! So much fun! From Megan Mercier’s piece about a suburban subdivision as literal uncanny valley to Jamila Wood’s lovely poem about FRIEND, a robot built to assist people with disabilities, it was a fantastic evening. And for the rest of my life, I get to tell people I was once invited to speak on nanotechnology at the University of Chicago. Sort of.

Next up: Laurie Anderson! I will most definitely make sure I leave myself enough time to get to that. See you after the first full week of the festival.

When Shanny first sent me my assignment–”You, Kate Harding, are to write on the theory of GREY GOO!”–I couldn’t begin to imagine what I’d find when I googled those words. I am a former English major who wasn’t even very good at that, let alone science. And while I am the kind of person who hangs out with–even marries–people who read a lot of science fiction, I generally do not.

Since this is a humanities crowd, I assume some of you might be similarly ignorant, so here are the bullet points. The theory of grey goo is one of those technology-run-amok scenarios that’s basically ridiculous but hypothetically possible, and therefore sort of tantalizing to consider. The deal is, scientists are building these tiny, tiny–like, way smaller than a hair’s breadth–robots, which will be able to do stuff like take incredibly detailed pictures inside the human body and make really, really strong building materials. Or something.

But in order for these little, wee robots to build stuff on a human scale, they will also need to be able to build more of themselves as they go along. And they use bits of organic matter as fuel, which is no big deal when they’re working molecule by molecule. But if we somehow lose control of the off switch, these little, wee, self-replicating robots will just go on consuming all the organic matter they can get–like, for example, us–until there’s nothing left on earth but a thick coating of nanorobot sludge. That’s what a guy called K. Eric Drexler described as “Grey goo” in 1986, and the name stuck.

That’s about as far as Wikipedia will take us. And I don’t know about you, but I still found it difficult to conceptualize grey goo after that. So, like any good former English major, I turned to literature for help–specifically, Michael Crichton’s 2002 thriller, Prey.

Prey deals with the early stages of a potential grey goo scenario, so it offers us some useful tips for averting disaster. In the novel, swarms of hungry nanorobots, numbering literally higher than I can count, are defeated through a three-step process:

1. Spray the swarm with isotopes to make it trackable at night, when the tiny robots are… asleep?
2. Track the now-radioactive swarm to its nest–because of course there’s a nest–and bomb the hell out of that.
3. Spray any remaining tiny robots–for instance, the ones that are more-or-less possessing our hero’s workaholic wife–with virus-infected poop water. Seriously. These particular nanorobots are surviving and multiplying on bacteria, which this particular virus (that lives in the scientists’ fermentation tanks) kills, so poop water saves the day. Our hero, Jack, actually yells, “How’d you like a shit shower?!” before he lets it fly.