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“It Smells like Cock Here”: Warmongering, Masculinity, and Repeating History

October 7, 2024

Society

masculinity, psychology, society

The title probably sounds entirely ridiculous and out of place, yet there is a connection with the subtitle. Indeed, when it comes to warmongering and masculinity, historical examples abound.

Inspiration behind this post came after I read the excellent nonfiction book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, by Christopher Clark. Among the many intriguing details, a chapter aptly titled “A Crisis of Masculinity?” proved eye-opening.

So let’s dive deeper into the connection between warmongering and masculinity (here clearly meant as toxic), and see how dangerous it can become to ignore the lessons of history. But first, let’s begin with a hilarious anecdote – which gave the title its name…

Warmongering masculinity. Image of
This car (Museum of Military History, Vienna) is associated with the events that precipitated the Great War. It’s the car where “a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ’cause he was hungry”. For the more official version, see here
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YouTube Facade: a WordPress Plugin

September 30, 2024

Programming

internet, programming

YouTube Facade is the name of this plugin I’m sharing with you, but it started – like most things I make – as something entirely for my own use, on Home for Fiction. A facade is an interface that “masks” another kind of content — in this case, an embedded YouTube video.

Why, you might ask.

Facades serve a dual role:

  • They help with privacy requirements. Because the third party (in our case, YouTube) doesn’t load automatically on page load, Google/YouTube can’t place cookies unless the user explicitly allows it.
  • They help with site speed, as the page only needs to load a small image, rather than an embedded video.

If you’d like to see how it works, check it out e.g. on this page. Everywhere on the blog (and the main Home for Fiction site) there’s a YouTube video, facades are displayed.

YouTube facade: screenshot
YouTube Facade can speed up page load while safeguarding privacy
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Functional Illiteracy: a Widespread Problem

September 23, 2024

Society

ignorance, misunderstanding, reading, society, writing

Many (most?) people consider illiteracy – the inability to read – a binary problem: Either you can read or you can’t, they think. However, there is a far more insidious issue that passes largely unnoticed in modern societies. That is functional illiteracy, or the inability to read beyond a superficial level.

To give a somewhat simple example (I’ll show you more structured cases in this post), someone who is functionally illiterate may be able to read a basic headline and a blurb conveying the simple description of a traffic accident, but will not understand the piece itself that, say, analyzes the problematic design of the traffic junction or the political aspects of lack of funds etc.

Of course, the reason that functional illiteracy passes unnoticed is a sort of Dunning-Kruger phenomenon: People who can’t read complex texts – and only seek simple answers – are very unlikely to be aware of their own shortcomings. This creates a dangerously volatile mix with unpredictable consequences.

functional illiteracy - image of old book
In older times literacy was more of a black/white phenomenon: Either you could read or not. This might have been illusory, but at the same time the presence of vast numbers of the population who were entirely illiterate made functional illiteracy less visible. Today, the situation is far different
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