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Don Imus? Or race and gender inequality?

14 April 2007 - 5:28pm — xolotl
Something: 

Substantial racial and gender inequality exists in the United States.

Link to Something: 
Google News Feed on "Race & Gender Inequality"
Insteadness: 

Don Imus said some racist and sexist things about the Rutger's women's basketball team.

Link to Insteadness: 
Google News Feed on "Imus"

This is the first "insteadness" posted to the site.

Jonathan Lethem gave it as an example (well, at least the Don Imus part...I'm not sure Jonathan said what he thought Imus was "intead of") during his 4/12/2007 Arts & Lectures talk in Portland, OR.

Comments

19 April 2007 - 8:38am — Guest

insteadness as the fountain of youth

The other part of Lethem's rant had to do with neoteny, which he described as the tendency to retain childlike characteristics. He cited examples of folks engaged in neoteny: artists, inventors, etc... His juxtaposition of insteadness and neoteny made me really think about what it is we do in our culture to keep maturation at bay. And by maturation I mean turning into our "parents"--God forbid!

The passive way to avoid thinking of oneself as an aging beast is to veg in front of Idol or ET or any of the myriad distractions that take us out of ourselves. I think of neoteny as more of an active stance against ossification. Practicing creativity and outside-the-box thinking releases chemicals that both take one outside and inside to a deeper, more resonant sense of self.

I've been thinking about this a lot within the context of writing: www.suzyvitello.blogspot.com
and would welcome further voices in the discourse.

-Suzy

21 April 2007 - 9:26am — xolotl

Neoteny Instead?

Maybe you can help me understand what Jonathan was talking about with neoteny...

Do you understand it that neoteny as a form of healthy insteadness?

Rather than insteadness as distraction, insteadness as a creative act/object that leads to a positive result, a new understanding, etc?