EricHerboso.com

So let's say that I was in the market for finding a significant other. The total candidate pool (C) would then be:

C = Pdc * F * G * A10 * S * Dn * Ra * A

Where:

C = total number of candidates

P_dc = total population of DC metro area

F = ratio of females

G = ratio of college graduates

A₁₀ = ratio of those within a ten-year age range of myself

S = ratio of single

D_n = ratio of nondating

R_a = ratio of atheists/agnostics/nonreligious

A = ratio of those I find attractive

Note that I am assuming (quite incorrectly, I might add), that each of these terms are completely unrelated; i.e., that F does not differ based on the metro area in question, or that G doesn't vary according to F. I have done this to make the research for this type of equation much easier on my end, and also so that readers can determine an analogue of this equation for their own hometown.

Of course, this equation doe not even take into account basic chemistry-type stuff, or whether or not I'd even get along with them at all. Every additional variable makes C drop even more, which is disconcerting when you take into account how small C starts out at.

(Of course, there is one variable that is actually additive, since it would be placed instead of another variable, rather than appended to the end of this product. As an adherent to polyamorous philosophy, I might replace S and D_n with P, the ratio of polys in the total group. This number, however, is significantly smaller than what I have listed in the equation above, so we will ignore it for the purposes of this journal entry.)

With the help of Google and the all-powerful internet, I have found the following data:

P_dc = 1 million

F = 50%

G = 27% (2003 report on 2000 census)

A₁₀ = 10% (2000 census)

S = 31% [unmarried] * 52% [percent of unmarried that also do not cohabitate] = 16% (2008 report from uscensus)

D_n = ? (can't find this information)

R_a = 16% (2007 religious ladscape survey; interestingly, the US census does not gather religious data)

A = ? (I will need to think for a while before getting this number)

With these values, we can determine C:

C = 1 million * 50% * 27% * 10% * 16% * 16% * Dn * A

  = 345 * Dn * A

That's less than three hundred forty-five people. Significantly less, in fact. If I put D_n at 50% and A at anything remotely reasonable, like 25%, the number drops precipitously to just 43 people. Even if I stretched things out a bit and put A at 75% instead, it's still only 130 people. In all of the Washington Metropolitan area.

And this is just to determine the potential pool of people from whom I could even consider seriously dating. Can you imagine trying to find one of 43 people in a population of 1 million residents? That's .0043% of the population. Talk about a needle in a haystack. The odds of even finding one from that potential pool by chance is astronomically low.

I never realized I was quite this picky. /c:

With apologies to David Kestenbaum, who gave me the idea to do this on This American Life. To find better statistics for your own area, I recommend ask.census.gov.

Feminism is a tough subject for me to discuss, if only because I generally hang out with a lot of feminist friends who hold distinctly different ideals than I on the topic.

This is not to say that I am anti-feminist, nor is it to imply that my friends are anti-feminist. On the contrary, both my friends and I are staunch believers in the equality of the sexes, and we would both call ourselves true adherents to the cause of feminism.

But there is one issue in which we differ, and that is the topic of my entry today.



The word "mankind", when used in most ordinary conversation, is a terribly sexist word to use. This is not because the speaker is generally anti-female, nor because the speaker intends any particular injustice to womankind in general. Instead it is because the perpetuation of a term which implicitly recognizes the male to be superior can easily influence others into subconsciously believing that the speaker feels men to be more important. As dumb as it at first sounds, it has been repeatedly proven that the human mind works in such a way so that this feminist interpretation of the word "mankind" is in fact well justified.

However, this is not to say that every usage of the term "mankind" is inherently incorrect. So long as the speaker recognized the general anti-feminist nature of the word, they may then choose to use the word anyway for stylistic reasons. After all, the full effect of a single usage of the word "mankind" is extraordinarily low for gender equality purposes, and should the writer specifically need to use "mankind" for alliterative or syllabilistic purposes, then they very well may be justified. All that is necessary is that, other things being equal, one should use an alternative word such as "humankind". But if literary or rhetoric purposes instead call for the less preferred term, then so be it. Such usage is NOT sexist, because another priority (good writing) took precedence.

But this general form of argumentation, it turns out, can be applied to more than just word choices. It also applies, in a slightly modified form, to the viewing of breasts.

In general, when one person looks at another person solely as a sexual object, it is considered an example of sexism. There are many reasons for this, the most obvious of which is that bisexuality is still not very well understood in today's society. But the main reason becomes clear once we take a specific example: consider a straight male ogling a woman's breasts, and further consider that if that man were instead looking at another male, he would not be ogling at all.

But though this very well may be a good example of sexism, it is most assuredly not a good example to look at when trying to determine why it is sexism. After all, sexism is NOT the treating of a woman differently than a man, but instead the treating of a woman differently than a man in identical relevant circumstances.

It is true that when a guy looks at a girl and considers them as nothing more than a sexual object, the guy in question is being utterly sexist. But (I would contend) that when a guy looks at a girl and sees them as nothing more than a sexual object, it unclear as to whether or not he is being sexist.

This is a complicated point to grasp, so I’ll explain.

It is difficult to deny that if you have a man who distinctly loves and truly respects a woman, then he cannot also appreciate her breasts. Obviously, in any instance that he looks at the breasts of the woman he loves, he is NOT being sexist.

There are two general arguments for why this is so. The first argument is that her breasts are not the only thing he sees. This is the traditional argument that most feminists will take. The reason why it is not sexist is because, in addition to seeing those breasts as a sexual object, he also sees her as an intellectual and psychological being: he sees many different facets of her. This, most feminists claim, is what makes it nonsexist.

I do not hold with this argument. My reason is that if that were the case, then in order for something to be nonsexist, one would have to see ALL the facets of the perceived person. In our example above, if the guy missed any one facet of his love’s personality, then he would not be seeing her in her full capacity. And this is what most feminists seem to be saying he would need in order for his ogling to not be sexist.

(The reader might be tempted to claim I am employing a slippery slope fallacy. But in fact there is no appropriate point at which one may claim to know another person except at the extreme of fully knowing them. Using a relative alternative, such as “know them better than any other person save myself”, cannot work because, for each individual, this threshold would be qualitatively different. And using a qualitative alternative, such as “know them well enough to be able to predict with 90% accuracy their position on a random question” does not have relevance with regard to their breast-ogling. Through reading this blog, you may be able to achieve the latter, yet this would not be relevant in your viewing me as a mere sexual object.)

Now obviously (unless you're mystical or something) two people cannot ever know 100% of another person. No matter how much you are in love, nor how big a groupie you are, nor how extreme a fanboy you may be, you just can't understand every facet of another person's personality. It’s not physically possible. And this is why the second argument appeals to me far more.



The second argument why the man who ogles his love’s breasts is not sexist is not because he also thinks of her in other ways (although this is obviously a positive thing), but instead because he is aware of the fact that it would be wrong to treat a person as though they are less than what they are.

The guy doesn't necessarily know all the facets of the girl. (After all, he can’t.) But he IS aware of the fact that IF he treated her as nothing more than a sexual object, then that would be degrading. By ‘degrading’, I mean a particular type of pain. It’s a peculiar type of pain: a psychological pain. But it is a pain nonetheless. This pain is what I mean when I say ‘degradation’.

The reason why this guy is not being sexist is not because he loves her, nor because he knows other facets of her being (although these are both certainly positive things), but rather because he recognizes that he cannot ACT solely on the basis of treating her like a pair of breasts. If he did, then he would be inflicting pain on her. And this is just as wrong ethically speaking as if he hit her physically.

This is where the distinction between “considering” her solely as a sexual object and “seeing” her solely as a sexual object comes into play. If he considers her solely as a sexual object, then he risks degrading her, and this is as wrong as throwing a punch at her, regardless of whether or not it connects. But if he considers her as more than a sexual object, then it doesn’t matter if he sees her solely as a sexual object. This is because he would not ever act upon her only as a sexual object, so long as he realized that she was more than just that.

(This being said, it is important to realize that while seeing someone solely as a sexual object is NOT sexist in the main sense, it still remains sexist should those who perceive this behavior interpret it in a sexist way. Even in a situation where the man and woman are both in agreement that no sexism is present, it still may be possible for undesirable sexist effects to exist if a third party notices the behavior and interprets it as additional incentive for them to behave sexist in the future.)

One interesting aspect of this observation is that since it is no longer necessary for one to know other facets of a human being, that means that is now possible in this view for a guy to see a girl for the first time, notice her breasts to the exclusion of all else, and yet STILL not be sexist.

This is important because a lot of feminists would not agree with this statement. While I agree that (by far) most guys who look at breasts to the exclusion of all other aspects of a woman's personality are indeed sexist, I nevertheless maintain that some few of them may in fact be nonsexist. In fact, this is why I will unhesitatingly call myself a complete and utter feminist and yet when I see a pair of nice breasts, I have neither compunction against nor dissonance with enjoying them solely for their sake.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I feel sick.

This is not happening. I am worried and scared. My best friend needs my help, yet I am unable to help her.

"But there is nothing you can do about it, Eric. It is not your fault; so why worry about it?"

Do you honestly think that I am doing nothing wrong? Even this very instant, as I sit here talking to you, I am in the wrong. Look around you. You can see for yourself: nearly every cafeteria worker, and nearly every janitor, and nearly every groundskeeper -- they are all black! Yet how many black students are on campus? Less than two dozen?

But who is to blame for all of this? Whose fault is it? Since obviously, as you say, only those whose fault it is, or those who can do something about it should be worried about this. Stop for a moment, and think. Who is to blame? Are the admissions people to blame? Certainly not, for they give equal consideration to both black and white applicants. Is it the managerial staff? Of course not -- for how can it be considered bad to hire those blacks that most need a job? Who, then, may we say is at fault?

The problem here is that there is no 'man' who is putting down non-whites. It is instead that the society, as a whole, comes together in just such a way as to favor whites above blacks. But if this is so, how can it be helped? How can it be stopped? And who is to worry about these things?

::sigh:: As I lay in bed this morning, skipping classes for no reason other than disgust, I thought of what could be done. Ethics, it seems, is descriptive -- not prescriptive. I may speak of what I feel is right or wrong, but not of what is. In the same manner that physics describes how I notice a cannonball falling, yet does not actually say that a cannonball must fall in this manner, so is ethics describing how humans feel certain things to be right or wrong, yet does not actually say that a certain thing is right or wrong.

But given this definition, slavery in the South in 1850 was right; just as horrendous discrimination against the Jews in Germany circa 1938 was right. And we certainly cannot admit these to be right, can we?

I am a vegetarian, and an aspiring vegan. But what basis have I for this? If ethics is merely descriptive, then eating meat was right for me until the day I decided it was wrong. WTF? We cannot allow this; can we?

Bush was re-elected, even by a count of the popular vote. (Hitler was elected into office as well, you know.) December is approaching fast, and I'm not sure of my plans yet. And as I read a passage from T. S. Eliot last night, I could not help but to cry. This is the Wasteland. But the tears which fell from my face were not valiant. I was not an aspiring cather in the rye lamenting the hollow men surrounding me. For I, too, am a perpetrator of the evil I so despise. And this makes it umpteen times worse.

Only a few moments ago, I overheard one of my fellow students on campus refer to Dr. Morgan as "Crocodile Dundee". I informed him: "Down there, that is not considered a compliment, except by poachers, perhaps. And Dr. Morgan is certainly no poacher."

"What? Oh, it's you. You need to just shut up. There's two things that piss me off in this world, and you animal rights people are on of them."

So I shut up.

The SOA annual protest is coming up again. I am reminded of two years ago, when I opposed the SOA Watch, since it seemed no different from the US training our own troops. What they do with the training, I remember thinking, is up to them. Strangely, I still agree with the facts and substance of what I felt back then. But now, instead of saying SOA should be as respected as any miltary installation, now I find myself saying that the military institution should be as respected as the SOA. I still see no reason for one to be considered better or worse than the other, but whereas before I felt it stupid to try and oppose SOA, now I feel it stupid to try and defend the military tradition.

Back then, two years ago, I saw no reason why humans should be treated any differently from any other animal. That's why I saw nothing intrinsically wrong w/ the murder of humans, since the murder of other animals was apparently okay. Of course, I still see no intrinsic difference between humans and other animals, but instead of lowering humans to that of other animals, I now consider that non-human animals should be raised to the standards of humans -- and higher, actually, for not even humans are yet treated as I feel they should be treated.

Ethics must be prescriptive, or else my change of heart has no basis -- and it must have a basis. But if ethics is prescriptive, then how do we tell what prescription it follows? God does the right thing. But does He do it because it is right? Or is it right because He does it?

I'm scared. How may I help? ::sigh::

He still works there.

Every day I see him, rearranging the ketchup bottles. Except on weekends. He has weekends off.

I wonder if he ever notices me watching him. Today, he wore black jeans. His face reminds me of how old these college grounds are. There is a building on campus that was built before the civil war. The grass I walk upon as I go to class each day was once mowed by the hard work of slaves.

Please don't get me wrong. This college is a Jesuit college, and it is famous for being the very first in the South to integrate both blacks and women, before it was mandatory by law to do so. I have always ben quite impressed with the Jesuit culture and history, for as long as I've been aware of it.

But there is still an underclass here. I see them every afternoon, when I stop to look at the construction site on the library and new chapel. Once, I even noticed a guy named Chris that went to middle school with me. Apparently, Chris works construction now. I wonder how he must feel in seeing that I am attending school here.

I'm talking to myself, now; I realize this. You, of whom is reading my words, take this fact for granted: I am not writing to you. I am not interested in converting anyone from whatever point of view they might hold. I am not to that point yet. Before it is okay for me to try to convince another, I must first convince myself. And this is the argument of that convincing process.

I have heard people say that those who do not make as much money do not deserve to make money. While I am unsure as to whether or not this is true, Iwish to admit it for the sake of this argument. I want to see if their argument holds even when their premises are taken to be true.

Let us say, then, that these people have less income because they do not work hard, or they are lazy, or they are stupid, or they make bad life choices. While others, who do make good money, work hard, and do the right things.

This does not change the existence of slavery -- it only changes the form and definition of the slave.

Whereas slaves were once determined by color of skin or makeup of gender, now we see them (even if the aforementioned premise is admitted) determined by stupidity, laziness, or bad life choices. How is it right, even if Chris did not do the right things, that he should have to build the schoolhouse that I will attend?

I am reminded of a journal entry I made on 11/19/2002, when I first started to realize these things:

--begin copied text taken from part of "Anarchy Versus ... Me?", 11/19/02--

He is there every day when I go to the cafeteria for food. Forty hours a week he toils, sometimes more. Yes, he gets paid, but so what? How does he get out? 

"How does he evade the system?" my friend asks me. 

I'm stumped. I sit for five or so seconds, and the smile on his face grows as others at the table snicker at my expense. It is the first time they've ever seen me hesitate. 

I have to answer with something... anything. "Well, ..." I imagine a bead of sweat rolling down my forehead, but it is too cool for any such thing to happen. "... he shouldn't procreate. If he can't give a good life to his children, then he shouldn't have any; this will break the cycle, and the children that are born into this world will be better off than otherwise." 

"So we should round up all the poor people and have them spayed? Then we can use them for slave labor afterwards and it'll all be good, right?" The snickers become outright bursts of laughter, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. 

"No, no -- they shouldn't be forced into it, but surely you see why --" 

"No, I don't see, Eric. What do you mean? What are you getting at?" 

...

I look at him, and I see what I see everyday that I come to the cafeteria. He walks from table to table, fixing chairs and sweeping floors and rearranging ketchup bottles.

Am I really doing this to him? Is it really people like me who have dictated that his life be as it is? My glass of tea is empty, so I excuse myself for another round. Is this what capitalism really means? That I am better than him? Why am I better than him? I can't stop glancing at him as I walk through the cafeteria. I worked hard to get where I am; I am working hard even now. Why should he get what I get if all he does is rearrange ketchup bottles? I fill my glass with tea. But he has no choice; where else can he go? This is the best job he can get? Could you do better if you were in his position? 

I pour out the tea, disgusted with myself. I look at my hand, quivering in the bland light of the cafeteria, and I see the scar. Greg's scar. It was his sword that pierced me that night; it was my thoughts that night that scared me more than any other night I've ever been alive. I lied that night. I know not why, but I did. It wasn't a big deal at the time, but now, looking back, I know how important that night was to my life. On that night, I was the one rearranging ketchup bottles. By choice. 
What am I here for? Why do I do what I now do? Why do I have such thoughts? ...such hurt? 

Absalom? No. God, I hope not.
Tyson? Perhaps. I don't think so, though.
Conan? ... Maybe. Maybe so. 

That's scary, you know. Really scary. 

--end copied text--

The slavery is not ended, but only the face of how it is done is changed. To work for another is to be cheated, regardless of the price given for it. If I sell you a thing, why would you ever buy it for what it is truly worth? If you did that, then you could construct it of your own free will for the same cost. Instead, you pay more than what it is worth -- though from my perspective, and not neccessarily your own. But the difference in our perspectives is due to a difference in how much money we have in the first place! It is a circular thing. If I sold a for what it is worth, then I'd be seling at cost, and I wouldn't be making money. By definition, I must sell for more than what a thing is worth, preferably in a situation where it is sold for less than what it is worth to you (otherwise, why would you even buy the thing?). But the whole relative difference in price is based entirely upon whomever has the means of production. If I can produce at an easier rate than you, then there exists a cost for an item where what is above cost for me is below cost for you, and I can make money while you are saved the expense of having to obtain the means of production that I already have. But how is it that I get the means of production in the first place?

This world is not just, and I do not like it. Some form of justice in this world should be in existence. Even if it is my own. Does it truly take the Übermensch to get things done? And if I want it done my own way, does it have to be me that does something about it?

There is something inherently selfish here in these thoughts of mine that anybody else would forever consider selfless.

I said that I hoped I was not Absalom. I was referring to catholic history there. It scares me that I even considered Mike Tyson's use of force. And the Conan reference, to those who missed it (which was everyone by my last count), was for Conan O'Brian, a tak show host who uses such thoughts as humorous material.

There is a fourth option... One that I had notconsidered at the time. That of Nietszche. But... The odds are against it. Still, were it true...

But it isn't, Eric. Quit hoping.

I am a selfish, selfish man.

)c:

The following is an assigned essay which was completed for a grade. Unfortunately, some formatting has been lost in the transition to LJ.

Eric J. Herboso
11 September, 2003

On The Jewish Question: But What Exactly Is The Jewish Question?

In Karl Marx’s essay entitled On The Jewish Question, Marx explores the question of how to emancipate the Jew. But he doesn’t accept the idea that for the Jew to have religious freedom in a Christian state is true emancipation, since having that religion legally established by the state would not allow the emancipation to be of a “true” kind. Nor does he accept that the Jew may be politically emancipated, since no one in Germany is politically free. (Why this is so is not made clear by Marx, though Marx probably presupposed that anyone reading his essay would at least understand the state of the state at the time.) In fact, Marx refuses to admit of any kind of emancipation as truly being free, unlike the person to whom he is responding, Bruno Bauer (Die Judenfrage, “Die Fähigkeit der heutigen Juden und Christen frei zu werden”).



So what exactly is it that the Jewish question of emancipation is in regard to? Marx restates Bauer’s idea that religious opposition is made impossible by “abolishing religion” (Marx 28). Marx’s wording isn’t always quite clear (probably due to the translation from German), but what is clear is the idea that “the state which presupposes religion is not yet a true or actual state” (29). Therefore, the Jewish question becomes: “what kind of emancipation is involved” (30)? Having reached the appropriate question, however, still has yet to resolve the answer. Marx continues on, attempting to determine how to answer this “Die Judenfrage”.

Marx denies the idea of political emancipation being anything more than a tool with which to ultimately give individual emancipation. He says that “[i]t is not…the final form of human emancipation, but it is the final form…within the framework of the…social order” (35). He even shows why this is so: “it is because [the Jew] can be emancipated politically, without renouncing Judaism completely and absolutely, that political emancipation itself is not human emancipation.” It would help if Marx defined some of his terms a bit better, but the logic here is good enough to show the main distinction between that of Marx’s “species-life” and “species-being”. The existence of the “species-being” requires that “the privilege of faith is a universal right of man” (41). Unfortunately, this distinction becomes much more blurry when Marx quotes the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen on liberty, security, and property. Is Marx saying that a “species-being” requires these rights in order to exist? One would think so, especially when Marx observes that the rights of man should always come before the state: “the citizen is declared to be the servant of egoistic ‘man’ ” (43); this observation is most obvious in Marx’s criticism of the Constitution of 1793, which states that “ ‘the freedom of the Press should not be permitted when it endangers public liberty’ ” (44): since we are giving the public liberty in order to achieve individual liberty (apart from the state, or citizen, or species-life, depending upon your choice of jargon), then that same individual liberty (of which freedom of the press is a part) must trump over the public liberty whenever they happen to clash. But does Marx say that the constitution should be better worded? On this, he is unclear; he calls the situation an optical illusion and a problem, but in what way exactly is it an illusion?

But despite the ambiguity here, Marx makes it clear that political emancipation is not the emancipation that the Jewish question is asking about. Rather, it must be human emancipation. At least, that’s what Marx seems to be saying. But then he goes into section two.

Marx begins the second section with quoting Bauer’s views on the very capacity of Jews to be free. But Marx does not stop with Bauer’s ideas of the Jew requiring Christianity in order to be truly free; no, rather he goes on to talk about the so-called “real Jew”, of whose religion is supposedly nothing more than that of money itself.

It need not be said that this view is either totally and completely wrong, or else the Jew of the German world must be completely and utterly different from the Jew of today. But despite this, Marx goes on to say things that seem to make little to no sense at all, and the reason for these statements to be included in his argument is equally unclear:

• “The Jews have emancipated themselves in so far as the Christians have become Jews” (49). Is he saying that Christians have become more interested in money? If so, what does this have to do with Jews at all?
• “The monotheism of the Jews is…, in reality, a polytheism of the numerous needs of man…. The god of practical need and self-interest is money” (50). Is Marx seriously saying that the God of the Jews is money? Literally?
• “Judaism attains its apogee with the perfection of civil society; but civil society only reaches perfection in the Christian world” (51). One wonders as to whether this quote of Marx’s should even be commented upon or not.

But truly, the most strange statement of all is that of Marx’s concluding sentence: “The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism” (52). What Marx is saying right here may be construed from his earlier stated sentiments, but the logical conclusion of this point is still very far from clear.

Tucker, Robert C. “On The Jewish Question”, The Marx-Engels Reader. Au. Karl Marx.
W. W. Norton & Company.: New York/London, 1978