But on Monday, April 26, we all have a chance to strike a blow for critical thinking on a global scale.
Let me explain.
Over the past six months or so, a variety of garden-variety idiots have variously attributed tectonic plate phenomena to cosmic wrath.
Pat Robertson explained on national TV that the Haitian earthquake was caused by retribution for the Haitians’ “pact with the devil” over the bloody slave revolt in 1790 (wow, did that take the deity a seriously long time or what?).
Rush Limbaugh blamed the Icelandic volcanic eruption on cosmic wrath over the American health care bill (because the best way to seek vengeance against the American liberals is to seriously inconvenience John Cleese).
And Iran’s Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi announced that “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes." (We are women, hear us roar–our boobs have unimaginable power.)
This last inane statement, unlike the first two, is what we science types call a “testable hypothesis.”
And it is going to be tested. Oh, yes. A critical thinking experiment is being planned in real time. The brainchild of Jen McCreight, who blogs at Blag Hag. BOOBQUAKE is designed to test the concept that immodest dress causes tectonic plate disruption.
Women are asked to wear their lowest cut, most immodest blouse on April 26th. If you happen to wear a short skirt, too, I can’t imagine that that would skew the results.
I have a see-through t-shirt that should do nicely.
To drive the lesson home to our kids, though, it’s important to make sure they understand the working hypothesis of the experiment. Then park them in front of CNN for the day, and let them watch, like we did when Katrina was leveling New Orleans.
I’m going to pop popcorn.
“Girls’ experiences of object loss, in conjunction with female anatomical structure, may lend themselves to a particular genital anxiety regarding openness and emptiness. The relational void in giving up the mother as love object may lead to an internal self-representation of a “hole” to be filled, much as the mouth sucks the pacifier in the absence of the nipple. This image may then be extended to the genital representation. In turning to the father, a girl may find that she lacks a relationship with him in the relational space opened up by the loss of the mother; the penis is symbolically withheld from her in the father’s relational distance. This lack of sexual and relational gratification, it is proposed, may be schematized by a female as her body being empty of something. The father’s absence–the absence of the paternal penis–may lead to an absence of the mental representation of the vagina and to an inhibition of the role the vagina then plays for a woman in sexual desire. Vaginal repression may serve to disguise object hunger that might otherwise be experienced as vaginal longing. An abbreviated clinical vignette, revolving around a masturbatory fantasy, is offered in partial illustration of the thesis.”
