human rights

What makes an interesting person?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

She looks like she has had a rough life, full of hardship and violence. How does that first impression make us look at her? It is a drawing from a picture of an arrested person which I found online, an elderly woman with fierce look on her face. She is not defeated, she is not surprised and she is very different from an ideal look for a woman which interests me. I don’t know who she is, what she did or what has been done to her. Her face is a story. We let our imagination wonder and wander when we let it and are able to, assumptions and stereotypes lead our thinking very easily. Feelings of contempt and repulsion, feeling of fear, of pity, wanting to judge her on the spot come so quick and toss her aside as unwanted now that she is captured.

Education the gift

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Schooling is a priority in making society making people evolve as makers and thinkers. The more knowledgable and capable members of society are the better and more civilized society is? I wish. It is a complex issue even though it should be quite simple: there are people who have knowledge and skills that other people need to survive and should learn and know. Altruism and sharing sound so good on paper. Just as eating and production of food are in principle the simplest of things. We must eat and we must learn otherwise what else is there. Where does the complexity arise is what kinds of things there are to gain, who benefits, gets respect, has the most assets and what is shared. There are schools who take pride in giving the best possible teaching possible, then there are schools that think they are giving the best possible teaching for their students but fail to do just that. There are schools who concentrate in mere existing and fooling students who thought they would get proper instruction in to a craft but did not. There are schools who fail but fail to see that they fail because they are full of themselves thinking they do their best and are the best in their field. How do these delusional and grandiose ideas get born and why isn’t there enough will to correct failed schooling? There are people in power who like to protect interests of theirs. In education big money moves as does merit. Teacher’s position is still appreciated not to speak of position of a professor. It is undeniable and critique is taken personally even though it would be at place and accurate.
There are fields where I have had the best schooling there is. Art has not been that kind of field. Art has proven to be a kind of field where expertise and quality do not play the most important role. Low quality of schooling has been a rule. Progress happens very slowly for various of reasons, one being that money and merit play such a big part. When teachers are picked by merit gained in the field of art no experience in teaching is required. What is a student here, in this game of merit? Arrogance and enjoyment for entitlement tend to be more important to hold on than making progress. Interests of those who enter the field of art do not seem to be interesting enough. It is strange to be a customer in a shop where the customer has no authority, value or say over. Especially when schools get public funding one is to think the primary requirement of high quality of teaching is provided self-evidently, the tools for students to survive at the chosen field as artists.
Contempt and sensitivity towards straightforward criticism where one has to be scared of retaliation and being left outside is not uncommon. Such happened to me at art school for filing complaint some courses were not taught at all. So to complain for not getting what is promised nothing is given as a punishment. To file a complaint is normal in a shop when the product is not what the ad promises it to be. What is the legal position of the student in such case when school refuses to take responsibility for adequate schooling, school refuses to provide what it promises taking complaint personally and putting student in a position of air, a button which has no say over. Since it is an insult towards the student to lie, to play with future career of this student who wants to get the skills and info to manage in a profession. My conclusion is that schools who do not take professional quality of teaching seriously and do not know what it should be are not doing their job, are not there for students but for themselves.
Yes education is a gift and I take it very seriously since my work is the most important thing in my life. There are people who do not see this clearly and do not appreciate what I do as there is little merit and little money involved, also telling work should not be the main issue in one’s life. In this bullshit world it is the most important thing and I refuse to think otherwise. There are people who study to get a well paid job and respected place in society. I study for various reasons, reasons I have to explain over and over. Why I study something which possibly has no high pay in sight, why I study something which clearly is not in demand. What is in demand are quick winnings and being a successful consumer. What comes to schooling oneself I decide what is important for me to learn not my school, not the job market, not what sells. Art school that does not have expertise in poetry should find expertise instead of telling we really don’t know what to say.

Intellect of anything. Do butterflies have intellect or is it intellect of nature which they follow?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Intellect is connected with self-consciousness, ability to develop oneself disregarding the natural state one could be in thinking what one could, should be and would be, how else to do, how many options there are for that person to take advantage and see solutions. It is awareness and learning of one’s abilities, possibilities and what is around, learning by looking, imitating, inventing, trying out, failing, seeing ways to evolve with what one has and putting things together. It is not enough to have information you have to know what to do with it. It is to see oneself as one self with something special to contribute. It is to be able to manipulate, calculate, think for oneself, see consequences of actions, be able to realize oneself as individually capable being and solve the complexity rather than escape it. Intellect is itself complex to the point we are not clear yet what it is. We still dwell in the old concept of intellect and are very quick to think of knowing what intellect is. The concept of intelligent things and beings and intelligence in people we many times like to keep alive as one-sided, thin and inaccurate. It could be mixed with a loud bully who is rich. To be able to make a fortune equals intellect in this world. It means one is able to play the game of the market, ready to take risks knowing circumstances, map of the market and ready to put oneself there in the game.

The idea of what intellect is, is more an illusion, what gets our attention and gets noticed most and as such keeps the old structures of society as they have been. Where intellect is found can surprise as deeds talk mightier than words. Who has intellect, how it actualizes itself in our every day when it seems to have vanished but still we think we are very clever. Doing what? It is stitched into and stamped on, held on though it is gone, sown and hammered in a way that it stays on the surface rather than would be thoroughly understood, weight, respected, found and known, if you know what I mean. Simple solutions can be brilliant but be simple and oversimplify complexity is stupid. It is a possession and quality hastily judged which deed itself shows lack and disrespect towards intellect as it is something that measures carefully looking into details and nuances rather than glancing fast without second thought. Intellect has been a possession of the upper classes and has been seen as result more than something that all could have and cultivate. High-born more than peasants, men more than women, adults more than children, money men more than poor men.

It is the most talked about characteristic and trait of anything. We may say that something is frivolous, meaningless, something is difficult and something stupid is easy, light-headed. Intellect is high and stupidity is low. It is to pay attention, ask, learn, but it is not to underestimate because nothing is meaningless. The mere label can do a great deal of damage especially when those labels given get stuck and are taken as such without questioning why it is so, who says, who decided this and why it could not be looked further, why it could not be something else. True stupidity is to believe without second thought, not to see underneath, not to do research and learn from that and believe old truths are true always. Something said becomes a label and fable when said repeatedly like a fate made by people. There is more than meets the eye is true wisdom. To play a broken record on and on, as does mankind in repeat doing the same mistakes over and over again. Things and beings represent something that have intellectual capital of certain amount. Intellectual capital gives value in cases where there is vast public awareness by this capital, what this intellectual capital is and value of what? It has contributed to make general innovations, understanding of facts and truths, made our comprehension wider about the world and ourselves. How we find intellect is to find meaning and more importantly how do we find intellect of our own and evolve and how we see evolving.

To learn value of things and beings, what truly is precious goes beyond intellect. We make a mistake when we stop there and start admiring intellect. Intellect is a tool. We are taught who is who, whom we should be afraid of and why, where value and strength come from, what is valuable, what it is to be strong. We learn to unappreciated ourselves as intelligent learners and makers when atmosphere is set in a way who can be intelligent and what it is to be intelligent. It is to put something and someone on to their place which place is dictated not necessarily actively chosen. To call someone or something stupid is to take no interest further. It is to verbally say out loud where you stand compared to what you deem stupid and beneath you because you are more clever. To judge is to deny development. To say she is an idiot means there is not anything other than irritating non-intellectual nonsense she drivels, does and represents. She is useless. She or he is worthless because of this judgement. There is not anything in her or him that is interesting to you, is valuable in what she does and says. She or he is seen through in that moment like a nonperson whose value is taken.

Prisoners of Tradition: Women in Afghanistan All the things we should do but do not. Following progress.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Why marital rape is still legal in India?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/servant-sex-machine-punching-bag-why-marital-rape-is-still-legal-in-india?utm_content=bufferca1ef&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

To place feminist critique upon feminism itself is very appropriate and needed. How to do it is another matter.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

The bashing of contemporary feminism gets nowadays an unchangeable tone or should I say what else is new. It is desperate yet in its despair forceful as it is surreal. For many feminism today is useless. Its points of views illogical, old-fashioned and untrue. It is to tear down institution of family, which as it is now, is a true comfort zone (see the sarcasm). Who would not want children, lawn and. According to men’s rights activists and fascists, to mention just a few, feminists hate men and boys, yes feminists are true haters, they disregard welfare of men and boys considering themselves only, feminism has no base in reality, their goals are unrealistic and disastrous and it, feminism, is an invention of hateful bitches who think they are better than, just to mention few juicy topics and ideas about feminism on Finnish social media.

When feminists start to speak they prove to all how useless and stupid the whole ideology is, they are irrational. What are these women talking about equality, rights and emancipation. All is well, or was before. Women who work for equality and for sexual rights again destroy something meaningful, solid and effort to change this godly state of ours is ruining the perfect welfare state, a nation and heritage, order of things as well as unity in our country. What unity? Country is getting more and more divided, of course, feminists are to blame. Noteworthy is how there must be a group of people to blame for all corruption and decline which would not exist and happen if there were not feminists and the left, women should stay quiet and at home. Let men do what men do without interruptions. What do men do? They are a pretty active lot. All blame falls upon those terrible feminists who destroy the good there is in tradition based patriarchal society, which can solve issues there may be in its own way, which issues are those? Immigrants, intellectuals, critics? We don’t have any issues other than unwanted people. Everything is fine, or was until feminists came. Men’s rights activists can talk about difficult psychological  problems like alcoholism, depression, mental abuse and physical violence, bullying, loneliness, unemployment without women’s rights activists meddling in. Feminism causes disturbance and brokenness. Men truly dislike being underdogs, till the end the fight is against the left. Anybody who is against male dominance is a communist which is bad. It is bad to be a communist. (Yes this is a very rational argument.)

There is a lot of nerve to blame feminists for doing the dissolving of values our country builds on when women’s rights movement has played a huge part in building this country as it is now. Home, religion and Fatherland stay solid, how else, and for some they should stay unchanged and we rooted to them no matter what. It is men who have done all the building. There must be some pussy to bang though.

To tell you that home, religion and Fatherland so far have not been all about equality, creating well-being and prosperity for all and those holy units will change whether you like it or not, they already have. I can say I come from a very sexist culture where men set the boundaries, where femininity is weakness, women aren’t rational but emotional, where gay is a swear word, men are more often listened to over everybody else, they get promoted, their authority and expertise is relied on no matter how poor it is. I have been told how I should dress, have my hair, when to get pregnant, that it is men’s world where I as a woman enter, that I will never make it as an artist, I should choose the easy way, I should not say what I think, I should not object my given role as a woman, my place, I should not think for myself, be critical and I should smile more, my body is constantly under scrutiny, so is my clothing, what I do for a living and will I make a living, to be loud is very unfeminine, so is swearing, still there are jobs that are for men only, odd is to draw porn, my intellect, professional knowledge and abilities are always suspected and undervalued, the ones I must constantly prove and still since I am so difficult and almost non-existent I must be stupid. I am a body without a mind, any demand is whining and complaining, all the wrong I do is many times bigger than when man does the same, men can do whatever because they are men, I must do many times better if I should overcome a man and show I actually can do something well. Culture that does not evolve is a dead culture.

Feminists do this and feminists say that, mostly arguments are based on assumptions, hearsay, bias and worn out repetition which seems to be the old record people are afraid to discard and through away. Need a thumb to suck? To see feminists in bad light is a default deeply rooted in misogyny which hateful look on women pushes aside issues that are important for women. Things that are important to feminists like equal opportunity to healthcare, education, possibilities to use one’s abilities and be good at what one wants, human rights, abolition of child labor, justice, right to seek justice and defend oneself, freedom of speech, possibility to live free and in peace without threat. Constant sexism is a threat, constant suspicion and ridicule are threats and deny dignity and human worth.

Feminists make everything difficult when it could be so easy. It is too easy to kill, bully and torture. What about men then? Do feminists advocate men’s rights, is feminism doing anything for men? What a question one has to answer all the time. Men have been boys. Having been able to attend day care, school, to have balanced life at home, see that mother is well and able to take care of children as well as go to work has been the very result of women’s movement and feminism. Yes women can work elsewhere than at home and aspire careers. People, women and men, have ambitions, talents, dreams, future that hopefully is full of challenging and inspiring work. Especially children, boys and girls, benefit from feminism a great deal. It gives hope that to pursue one’s goals is possible. Well-being of mothers results well-being of children. Can men’s rights movement say having done the same? It is time for a deep sigh on a good day and on a bad one to shoot every one who puts feminism to dirt just because they don’t like it. Yes it opposes to machismo attitude which has caused trauma and damage to men, women and children, which is almost impossible to escape. Macho is to lock in and keep in captive, incapable to show vulnerability. Still to like feminism sounds like liking a dog, a good dog that wags its tail when you tap its head. Criticism is welcome, for most part it just is not very constructive. To play nice is not how it works or how results have been accomplished. To dislike feminism because of multiple reasons you have invented and believe are true is kind of childish and thinking hitting is what makes it all go away, because feminism and women’s rights movement just is unpleasant, unnecessary and annoying. To hate feminists is to hate progress and human rights. Feminism is raising strong opposition and the threatening atmosphere builds up quite easily between leagues and camps. There is no unison in sight.

 

About how we could face and see difficulties disabled face is to try out life disabled live.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
How to deal with offense? What kind of things offend the most? Hurt against disabled is very every day. It is often situation of constant hurting and comparing to those who are not visibly disabled. Disabled stick out of the crowd, need special care, special planning for every detail in everyday life we take for granted, are in many cases denied dignity and control over their lives, do not have access to decent health care or have to fight constantly to find it, fight over aid and possibilities to influence their constantly disregarded and undervalued situation. Who wants to offend disabled? No one, but many do just by staring, being inconsiderate, calling names, talking about disabled without knowledge over their lives, feelings, thoughts or much reason because many disabled can speak for themselves. The thing is who listens to them, the kind of second class who are at our mercy, we who can do whatever we please, almost.
To talk about disabled as an abled person is awkward, it feels like I am stepping on toes. Situation of how to speak of those others whose experiences are more or less unknown is present and quite demanding. To speak about anyone whom you wish to be able to help but possibly do nothing but create empty talk of good-hearted naivety, everything may and will go wrong anyway because the experience is too distant and alien. You haven’t sat in their chairs, haven’t been looking at the stairs which you are not able to climb, haven’t been at the level of someone who sits all the time. Therefore I welcome all art that juggles this dilemma of finding the level and connection where we can truly understand obstacles and walls someone faces, identifying with complex hurt we carry abled and disabled, because we do not easily meet, learning to respect thoughts and feelings of others especially when realities of other people can be so completely unknown and far away even we physically stand close.

Designers design aid and mobility tools for disabled, but as I have come across many times, there is not much understanding of the every day problematic, which could be very simple things like how to keep your wheelchair clean, how much space one needs to turn and what kinds of doorsteps truly one has to go over at one’s house or how to reach out.

Reality hits those who like to cherish illusions.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Reality of another person can be extremely hard to grasp and see, even though it is right in front of you. It is the impossibility of understanding feelings of the other, seeing the position where one may be and how one got there. Value of the other, feelings of the other can be denied, belittled and despised just because you can. Reality of someone who is despised as such. Christians like to repeat we are born equal, somehow it does not resonate in true life. Christianity, the religion, is an excuse to put people down since God is on side of those who have the right god. Even though people don’t practice faith they are born in to culture which 100% has roots to some religion and practices of religious ideas, stories, beliefs and traditions. We are as cultural beings bound to religion, faith, mysticism, rules, which tell us how to live and how we see our place in the world and among other people.
What are realities now that religious people see in society which is more open to difference but still is very violent towards many people. Society is sexually more open, at least in theory, in entertainment and in advertising, demanding equality, equal treatment of the sexes, open discussion is available demanding tolerance and freedom of expression and speech. Religions are not the most tolerant. Religious entities are not demanding end of violence quite the contrary. Religions make war possible. Hypocrisy flourishes. How easy it is to not look. When religion demands hiding of our nature, hiding of beauty because it is seen evil and corrupt, how divine and godly that religion actually is. In societies where sexual intercourse is a sin, a taboo which makes all sexual topics shameful, all which is banned happens in hiding. We are punished for our sins which usually are of sexual nature. We are punished for wanting, desiring, lusting, having dirty ideas and doing filthy acts. Touching can become illegal and scary. Touching is too much to take, not to speak of kissing.
As an artist I am used to seeing nudity and I think it is the most natural thing as is sex. Just to depict and see nakedness is not porn, female and male sexual organs as such are not pornography to me, sexual yes but anything can be sexual. Asshole is holy as Allen Ginsberg stated in his poem Howl. What a scandal that became, all what he wrote was against the comfort and mediocre American society held dear. Dear hypocrisy, dear silence, dear oblivion, dear order which cannot be broken because it is not proper. Violence is more tolerated than sex. Violence is normal, so normal people don’t necessarily see when they are being violent and accept bullying when someone is to be put in order, be punished for what one is, dares to be in public. Order which cannot be torn apart because it is too frightening, too much to handle.

 

Responsibility of a bully

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Act of bullying is irresponsible. It feasts out from illegal position of a cock seeking any kind of possibility to humiliate, rip off dignity, power, humanity to take power and hold that position. Bully is arrogant and thinks he or she is superior. Person collects a herd of adorers around to prove this excellence which is a show off and an image created with outer signs of something to admire. For very young people something to admire are things that can be bought, signs of power are signs of having wealth. Only things that matter in this scene are those possessions that bring admiration and the feeling of being better than. When those things are taken away position is very different. Appreciation to material things is what very young people like to have, which they like to compare and hang on to. Such immaturity also applies to many adults, which means mental growth does not self-evidently follow aging and values are something that are connected to how people treat each other. The more culture bases emphasis on material things being the ultimate measure of worth the more people are bullied for not having things they are supposed to have to belong and be grand. To teach children to appreciate people without signs of wealth is essential. Elitism is one definite reason division happens over and over again. Desire to belong to the elite, no matter what the elite is and stands for, is a yearning for many. It makes one feel important, powerful and able. It can also give permission to act in irresponsible violent manner, because what the elite does is somehow correct and righteous, otherwise they would not be the elite. To talk about the elite, that some group is the elite takes responsibility as such. One has to define what elite means and what this particular group does is better and outstanding compared to the rest.
In a group bully is safe. Alone a bully is nothing. She or he is doing something acceptable and cool in a group, which is otherwise punishable, shameful and wrong, but this vowed group stand behind anything within they decide. Ill can be done to prove superiority, character and toughness, but there has to be witness to see shame caused to someone, hurt caused, enjoyed and spread for others to continue and leave the different loser outside the fun. For bully to lose his or her power is isolate, to say she or he does not have power over others with violence or with any other measures this person and group of persons seek power position over others or over one person. When power through violence is not power it loses and this has to be shown.
True problem is when bullying is accepted, ignored, minimized as something normal we all have to cope and tolerate with. That bullies can’t be hit back. When extreme violence, mental torture and sadistic behavior continue among school kids, at work, on the net, on the street and it cannot be answered to bullies continue. They do not face trial, public shaming, they do not learn what kind of pain they cause unless they are given adequate punishment as any criminal. To face the consequences is what happens in adult world. Authorities do not completely comprehend how serious crime bullying is and what kinds of consequences and scars it leaves behind. Psychotherapy is costly, so is a mass shooting. Do bullies go to therapy? Maybe after a mass shooting if they have survived. When papers talk about school shootings asking why this happens, all in horror, how is this possible, papers characterize the shooters as psychopaths, outcasts, loners who are a threat to society, one wonders what are the bullies? One also wonders how bullies seem to climb the ladder quite easily in the world. What is their responsibility when a disaster hits? They do not have any. They have become victims of visible bloodbath. When a school shooting is a result of years long bullying, I ask who truly is the psychopath, irresponsible nutcase who ruins lives?
To celebrate and protect a bully is what society and authority does.