Said a commenter, at WaPo, on an "Ask Amy" column about a letter from a woman who wanted another woman's husband to stop talking so much and so obnoxiously on Facebook.
The larger issue is the way people expect the wife to control her husband and think it's a wife's job to be an intermediary on their behalf. It's always the woman's job to tend to social harmony. A secondary issue is that people who are unhappy with interactions occurring on Facebook don't seem to realize you can just click a button — "snooze" or "unfollow" — and you don't have to see that person anymore.
But the line "Instead of trying to carpet the world, put on slippers" was so good, I figured it's unlikely to be original with that commenter. Google gives over 9 million hits, rephrases it — "It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world" — and attributes it to...
Al Franken!
I see there's a discussion of the Al Franken adage at a subreddit devoted to... Jordan Peterson.
The Redditor also quotes what purports to be the writing of some unknown person in the year 1100... though it sounds like something somebody wrote yesterday... and therefore I'm not going to quote it here. It's not good enough. It's like something somebody I'd like to snooze would put on Facebook.
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30 comments:
Just. Get. Off. Facebook.
Google gives over 9 million hits,
Google actually returns only 149 "hits". That initial (fake) number is usually off by several orders of magnitude.
If you "repeat the search with the omitted results included" you get 208 results.
Actually just go bare foot. It is healthier for your feet. If you wear slipper or socks make sure their is little support.
It took about 6 months to build my feet up. Started with walking, did a short jog up the hill every day into multiple sprints and now I can run miles with bare feet. The tendons under there are bulletproof now.
It helps a lot with running and jumping too. If your feet are stronger they make stronger levers.
That reminds me of, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." The origin of that phrase also seems lost to history.
Adjusting yourself to the world instead of trying to force the whole world to accommodate you goes against all of the rules of Wokeness. I'm amazed that comment got through.
It's the woman's job because women have a lower tolerance for social stuff not going the way they want. Or you could express it as a greater interest, meaning satisfaction from it.
The feelings that make women dysfunctional voters make them ad hoc social arrangers.
"The larger issue is the way people expect the wife to control her husband and think it's a wife's job to be an intermediary on their behalf. It's always the woman's job to tend to social harmony."
Not on Twiter. Husband/wife journalists Seth and Bethany Mandel often discuss how often he is told by total strangers to control what his wife says. Raely happens in the other direction. EG. https://twitter.com/SethAMandel/status/1152018635361095681
Prof. Althouse, the last of the tabula rasa feminists. Nowadays, everyone knows that women's moral reasoning values relationships, connectedness, and harmony over abstract reason or frank discussion, so Amy's correspondent is wholly justified in expecting her friend to take action to advance those values over what is motivating her husband's confrontational approach. Also, everyone knows that women's values are superior, so expecting the wife to control her husband is the same as expecting parents to control their children.
"Instead of trying to carpet the world, put on slippers."
This is one of my favorite expressions.
There's a lot of wisdom in it, and it captures quite nicely why Wokeness is so intrusively annoying. "You want everyone in the world to refer to you, as an individual, using a plural pronoun??? Say what?"
About the image of putting on slippers: the quote comes from Franken's movie about Stuart Smalley, who is an endearing nebbish, so it is very much in character for Smalley to talk about putting on slippers -- comfy, warm, homey, slippers.
"...he is told by total strangers to control what his wife says."
LOL. I can promise you only a total stranger would think I would/could control what my wife says.
@Fernandinande
Could you explain that in terms that are completely easy to understand?
"It's the woman's job because women have a lower tolerance for social stuff not going the way they want."
It's like the way the person with the stronger preference for cleanliness has the job of doing all the housework. They might take on the job and thus be bamboozled by their shitty roommate, but in this instance, we're talking about OTHER people expecting the woman to take on the work of providing something THEY want and giving advice to that woman to avoid getting slotted into the stereotypical role.
You're saying something close to: But it actually IS the woman's job because I believe the stereotype.
Amish adolescents go barefoot in the warmer months, including while doing chores like milking cows.
"Instead of heating your home, go put on a sweater." -- James Earl Carter
“ On the other hand, you can go walking out in the world in leather shoes, but if you're only wearing slippers, you kind of need to stay home.“
Both carpeting and slippers are for sissies. People have walked across the country barefoot. And every year several people complete the NYC marathon barefoot.
If you want to sneak up on a sleeping woman so you can grab her tits, it's best to walk on carpet.
-- also Al Franken
"it actually IS the woman's job because I believe the stereotype."
It's not a stereotype, it's science. Carol Gilligan. Also, difference feminism is the prevailing intellectual fashion, and fashion is even more important than science.
@Fernandinande
Could you explain that in terms that are completely easy to understand?
I'll jump in and hope I'm correct.
Google initially estimates how many entries exist for your search terms. We don't know what standard they use, but it's a guess.
It's not until you click from page to page that the estimate hardens into fact.
(For example, I looked for my brother's name, and put it within quotes. On the first page, it said there were 610 results. By the time I reached page 5, it admitted there were only 48.)
It's like going into a hardware store and asking if they have a screw in a particular size. The salesman says, "We got thousands of them," but it's not until he goes looking in the box that he realizes, "Oh, wait, we only got three."
Also, I can speak with some authority about quotations, because I published a quote book for writers. I wanted it to be accurate, so I always searched for the original source. That's where I learned:
a) The most misquoted author is Mark Twain. Hint: If it sounds like self-help or a comedian's punchline, chances are he didn't say it. He had some good ones ("lies, damned likes, and statistics"), but fewer than you think.
b) Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson." P.G. Wodehouse did.
c) Quote Investigator is a great website for checking on the source of quotations.
It's the woman's job because women have a lower tolerance for social stuff not going the way they want. Or you could express it as a greater interest, meaning satisfaction from it.
Much like house-cleaning and clothes shopping. Women make work for themselves that does not need to be done, and buy clothes and accessories to raise their standing in the eyes of other women, and then blame their oblivious husbands for it.
Eyeshade and earplugs, too ...
Someone wants me to do work for them? What's it worth to them?
If it is worth nothing to them to have it done, and they just demand I do it for them, it can't be that important, can it?
Althouse writes, "And I once saw a lady try a case in federal court in slippers. Pro se."
Maybe she was working on a diminished capacity plea as a fallback position. Vinnie the Chin tried it; worked a few times, thanks to some compliant shrinks.
Unfollowing someone on Facebook is like putting down an area rug. It doesn't carpet the whole world, just one little piece of it.
Blogger Smilin' Jack said...
Both carpeting and slippers are for sissies. People have walked across the country barefoot. And every year several people complete the NYC marathon barefoot.
And thousands (mostly old and infirm) climb Croagh Patrick barefoot every year. Mind you, their feet bleed from the sharp shale of the path, and they do it because they are making a pilgrimage... Otherwise barefoot hiking and running is stupid.
When I was a child in Ireland, My sister and I used to walk 6 to 10 miles a day in the summer on roadways of broken slate because we were so tough. Then we realized that it was dumb.
Facebook isn't bad. I regularly snooze people who share obnoxious political slogans, and if they keep doing it I unfollow.
I also installed Social Fixer and use it to block suggestions and targeted ads. Ad Block Plus stops whatever ads get through Social Fixer (and it blocks YouTube ads.)
Now I only see what I want to see. Facebook is now useful. I follow many niche pages and keep track of people I know who live far away.
Google is a lot worse than Facebook because it manipulates search results and you don't know what it isn't showing you. Withholding information is a lot worse than giving me crap I can filter out. There are alternatives, but they are frustratingly inadequate. Either way, my searches are limited because Google is a jerk.
Twitter is the lowest circle of internet hell. Our elite use it and they believe things that are not true if many people retweet it. This is the real misinformation problem, because the elite have real power and make decisions based on lies. I do not use Twitter at all because it's very difficult to filter crap out of my feed because there are so many retweets. Everyone feels the need to agree with vacuous opinions.
OK, am I hallucinating (got to figure out what I took!), but isn't this an old folk tale? King who stubs his toe offers huge reward to have his whole kingdom carpeted. And somebody offers a pair of slippers instead? I'd swear I heard this story in my teens, some fifty years ago, if not earlier (and it certainly wasn't new at that point), long before Al Franken existed. Can't believe this didn't show up in the "9 million" Google hits.
--gpm
"but in this instance, we're talking about OTHER people expecting the woman to take on the work of providing something THEY want and giving advice to that woman to avoid getting slotted into the stereotypical role."
Society is at optimum when we minimize the total cost function. This function includes inverse scaled factors of Maslow's Needs=N. Assign to each individual, scaled factors of needs, and a gradient decent method can find the N_sub_0 that minimizes cost. Spock said it best, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Better than Spock, he weighted needs of the many outweigh the weighted needs of the few. So a small discomfort of the many may outweigh a large discomfort of the few-socialism!.
In the question case, do you ask the man or do you ask the man's partner? You get better results by getting the man's sex partner to bitch at him than you do bitching at hin directly. QED
Did the pro se slipper wearer win?
I once had a tough and professional lady lawyer friend who made it through a long hearing vomiting in a big gulp cup discretely as possible in the hallway. She had a bad flu. Not sure many people could do that. Her client won.
Its a fun re-phrasing of a basic self help concept.
You cant change others so, if you want relief, change yourself
Its the serenity prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can.
Its learning and ACCEPTING that what ever is bothering you is YOUR fault...
If your feet hurt, put on slippers, don't demand there rest of your world cover and soften the world.
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