A terrible word, -splaining — and a not terribly nice thing
I go to Washington to receive the National Medal of Arts and arrive two days early to look at paintings. At the National Gallery of Art, Linda [Hall’s girlfriend] pushes me in a wheelchair from painting to painting. We stop by a Henry Moore carving. A museum guard, a man in his sixties with a small pepper-and-salt mustache, approaches us and helpfully tells us the name of the sculptor. I wrote a book about Moore and knew him well. Linda and I separately think of mentioning my connection but instantly suppress the notion — egotistic, and maybe embarrassing to the guard. A couple of hours later, we emerge from the cafeteria and see the same man, who asks Linda if she enjoyed her lunch. Then he bends over to address me, wags his finger, smiles a grotesque smile, and raises his voice to ask, “Did we have a nice din-din?”
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To revert to “mansplaining” — it also involves woman listening, at least at first, though not necessarily with much enthusiasm –a fact deliciously illustrated by Mallory Ortberg in one of her Toast pieces, Women Listening To Men In Western Art History.
Too funny, if you don’t mind my saying so.
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zen:
May 9th, 2016 at 3:07 pm
Mansplaining in its original context was an important and valid point about laymen windbags patronizing women who were experts.
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The word now as it is generally misused on social media “debates” means “A man who disagrees with a woman….and he needs to stop!”
Charles Cameron:
May 9th, 2016 at 5:13 pm
Of course, men have been splaining to men since forever, hence the Britishism “Club Bore” as used by HH Munro:
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Bryan Alexander:
May 10th, 2016 at 4:48 pm
Agreed with both points, Zen. The term moved quickly.
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I fear a Clinton-Trump race, and likely Clinton presidency, will spread and deepen that second sense.
Bryan Alexander:
May 10th, 2016 at 4:48 pm
Saki is awesome and delicious, as ever.
Charles Cameron:
May 10th, 2016 at 5:33 pm
Indeed, in full agreement on Saki, Bryan.
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And FWIW, I’ve corrected a typo (Hore to Bore) in my comment #2 above.
zen:
May 11th, 2016 at 1:46 pm
“I fear a Clinton-Trump race, and likely Clinton presidency, will spread and deepen that second sense”
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Bryan this use reminds me a great deal of religious movements where zealots police and try to intimidate other believers by calling out hidden indications of sin or radical movements where hardliners make accusations of ideological deviation, trotskyites etc.
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Fortunately, we have no need to go along with this rubbish if we don’t wish to do so
Charles Cameron:
May 11th, 2016 at 4:01 pm
Hi Zen:
As an historian, when would you say the distinctions sacred vs secular, religious vs political / radical / ideological, sin vs deviation, &c, first manifested, or have they both been there, off and on, all along?
zen:
May 13th, 2016 at 3:48 pm
I think the underlying psychology is largely the same, the desire to social power over others at the moral level by becoming self-appointed judges and commissars.
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There was an unsuccessful effort to short-circuit this tendency some 2000 years ago:
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Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Charles Cameron:
May 13th, 2016 at 4:17 pm
Great comment, Zen.
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Would you accept that Christianity thus understood is (at least arguably) slowly succeeding in an extremely resistant medium?
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It is the sort of stretch that’s hard to demonstrate or disprove, but I’ve seen it suggested that the Bodhisattva tradition in Mahayana Buddhism derives from Christian influence, and suspect Gandhi was not unsusceptible, either.
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Side notes, perhaps, on Christianity’s impact on the west, both secular and sacred — and notably, on the kindred of the recent Coptic martyrs in Libya, who called immediately for forgiveness — cf Some recent words from the Forgiveness Chronicles,