0:03

This is the illusionist in

0:05

which I, Helen during the year

0:07

twenty twenty two, who brought you a

0:10

surprisingly long history of the name

0:12

Tiffany. The surprisingly short history

0:14

of Fiona, we considered the

0:16

lexicons of offy the vampire slayer

0:18

and golden age detective fiction.

0:21

We met the protest vote more inancerous, and

0:23

there was a quiz all about animal atomologies.

0:26

A trampoluziness bubble street has big

0:28

things. We dug into the terms of rainbow

0:31

washing and clear baiting and bork,

0:33

and we went deep into the multilingual warning

0:35

message in side of Kinder Surprise egg.

0:38

And now, oh, I've been saving

0:41

things up all year 167 now it's time to smash

0:43

open the piggybank to play the

0:45

annual parade of bonus

0:47

bits. These are the interesting

0:49

things this year's interviewees said that I didn't

0:52

include because their episode was

0:54

already too long or on a topic,

0:56

but now, here they are. Content

0:59

note, there are some illusions to body

1:01

talk and there is one category

1:04

a square. There

1:06

are discussions of mental health there's

1:08

a brief reference to parental violence.

1:11

On with the show.

1:20

On the in character episode, Jiangsu

1:22

talked about how Chinese writing systems dealt

1:24

with the challenges of new technologies like

1:27

telegraphy having been designed

1:29

for European writing systems One

1:31

of the things Jinshu mentions in

1:33

her book Kingdom of Characters is

1:35

Nizhu, a writing system used

1:37

only by women in one region of the

1:39

province of Hounan. New shoe, especially

1:42

women's script, and it's developed kind

1:44

of like an informal writing for women

1:47

who otherwise had no access

1:49

to education. In a society, traditional

1:51

society. My favorite thing about

1:54

that script is it's slender.

1:55

It's thinner than what you see

1:57

a character. But these are these

1:59

individual

1:59

markings and there's lot of crisscrossing

2:02

patterns.

2:04

it's because they're used to approximate

2:06

patterns that women see when

2:08

they do embroidery. So

2:09

it's this incredible relationship or

2:12

reflection on their social condition. That's

2:14

reflected back in the very writing system

2:17

that they build for themselves. In

2:19

the encounter episode, Jiangsu talked

2:21

about how Chinese language teams many

2:23

homophones, and how these present

2:25

a lot of difficulty to anyone trying to transcribe

2:28

Chinese into the Roman alphabet. But

2:30

a currently very handy function of homophones

2:33

is that they can be used to say things that

2:35

would otherwise be censored, ingenious,

2:38

Yes.

2:41

It isn't it? There's

2:42

so many dentures in Chinese culture

2:45

and linguistic context. Somebody really is

2:47

impossible to translate, but it's true. Homeowners

2:50

is a fabulous way of saying what you're

2:52

not supposed to say. For

2:54

instance, there's the larger rubric

2:56

for describing these kind

2:58

of internet anti authoritarian, white

3:01

evasive slings is actually

3:03

called which is

3:06

actually a grass mud

3:08

horse.

3:09

Of course. Now, yes.

3:11

But

3:12

those three put together is

3:14

actually to approximate the homophones

3:17

for screw your mother.

3:20

So it's it's not

3:22

coincidental that is used to describe,

3:25

what would you call it, like kind of underground

3:27

use of Chinese characters? Yeah.

3:30

To escape authoritarian control. Incredible.

3:35

Language games almost like instinctive for

3:37

any Chinese speaker. There's this endless workplace

3:39

in in Chinese language is quite remarkable.

3:41

Mirenica, Guizhou and Nai

3:44

Wu appeared on the episode about moving

3:46

away from the term Asberg's

3:48

syndrome, and we discussed the vocabulary around

3:50

autism. I asked her how she

3:52

feels about the term neurodiversity. My

3:55

thoughts on this are evolving.

3:57

Initially, before maybe a

4:00

year

4:00

a couple of years ago, I would have said that.

4:02

It's a term that I love I think is important.

4:04

I do use it quite a bit. NeuroDiversity

4:07

is a is a term that was really meaningful

4:09

to me when I first learned of it. And

4:11

it similarity to biodiversity. And

4:14

I feel like there's a lot of really profound

4:16

concepts within it. But I do understand that

4:18

there's nuances and there's complexities, and

4:21

I have noticed that it's been co opted

4:23

to a lot of people with another code word for autism

4:26

or autism in ADHD. It includes

4:28

so much more than that. Like, neurodiversity is a

4:30

fact of life. No human beings have the same brain.

4:32

And, you know, neurodiversity, overall,

4:35

collectively includes those with more more typical

4:37

presentations or non autistic, non ADHD,

4:39

non dyslexic, you know, what have

4:41

you? You know, Judy Singer created neurodiversity,

4:44

and she has kind of clarified what she

4:46

meant versus what it kind of

4:48

come to mean colloquially.

4:49

Australian sociologist Judy Singer

4:51

came up with the term neurodiversity in

4:53

her thesis published in nineteen ninety eight,

4:56

Judy Singer offered neurodiversity as a

4:58

term for a civil rights movement. Neurodiversity

5:00

is not supposed to be diagnosis is meant to

5:02

be a term to analyze inequality and

5:05

abuse and a term for activism for

5:07

people who are marginalized on grounds of neurology.

5:09

She has also used bio diversity as a

5:11

comparison explaining diversity

5:14

is a measurement of the degree of variability

5:16

of a given very able in a given population

5:19

or place. It is not a characteristic

5:21

of the individuals in that population. And

5:24

I also don't like that neuropathy has come

5:26

to mean this is a buzzword that I can use

5:28

so I can throw it on top of an employment program

5:30

or put some colorful brains or try to get some

5:32

programmers in cases, when people

5:34

are talking about neurodiversity, they expect it to present

5:36

in particular way. It can

5:39

be used for Allusionist,

5:41

even though that's not at all what intended to

5:43

be used for. I've seen neurodiversity

5:46

type of language or affirming language for people

5:48

to describe things that are, you know,

5:50

like segregated work shelters

5:52

and housing and programs. And so it's

5:54

it's very tricky using language

5:56

that's supposed to be laboratory to

5:58

convey a meaning

5:59

that's anything, but that happens an

6:01

awful

6:02

Unfortunately. Yeah.

6:04

And also just these euphemisms

6:06

where -- Yeah. -- it's it's not

6:09

like anything under the surface has changed people

6:11

haven't adjusted their

6:12

language because they have considered

6:14

how accommodations can be made

6:16

for different people's needs. Yeah.

6:18

They're just oh, I'm supposed to say this now. Like,

6:21

you know, it's just it's just a substitution. It's

6:24

not even really a a period on shift for a lot

6:26

of people at 167, and then that's sad.

6:28

Are

6:28

there any other terms you'd like

6:30

people to add to their

6:31

vocabularies for

6:33

talking about what is in? Sure.

6:34

And they might already have the there's the term

6:36

holistic, which means non autistic.

6:39

Years ago when I first heard that author, that just sounds

6:41

so ridiculous. But

6:42

the reason why so I might use holistic

6:44

or non autistic. But what I what I don't want

6:46

people to do people have started to use neurotypical

6:49

to mean non autistic. And that is

6:51

not true. A person might be

6:53

non autistic, but they could have dyscalculia.

6:56

Or they could, whatever, you know. So,

6:58

like, that's not they're not necessarily, quote unquote,

7:00

or a typical. Well, who decided typical

7:03

exactly? Exactly. The committee.

7:05

Exactly.

7:06

So I

7:07

feel like people should be more precise in what they

7:09

mean. And I also for people

7:11

to use descriptive terms as opposed to functioning

7:13

labels, you know, profound autism career

7:15

autism mild autism, high functioning, low

7:17

functioning, anything that's gonna make a person feel bad,

7:19

like, with

7:20

the opposite of high, it's low. Who

7:22

wants to be low? It's just think that

7:24

people should describe things in a way to

7:26

where

7:26

you know what's happening and

7:28

you're not gonna be made to feel any particular

7:30

way elevated or lowered.

7:32

Speaking of neuro, here's

7:34

the words etymology with Tim player who

7:37

appeared on the Coward episode. I've

7:39

just learned the etymology

7:40

of neuro

7:41

that came from the Greek

7:44

nerve but before that was sinu,

7:47

but also sinu as in like a bowstring

7:49

or an instrument string or

7:51

a penis.

7:54

Those seem like quite radically different

7:56

things are bostering in a penis I

7:58

like to think. One hopes

7:59

Timber

8:00

died discussed some other brain ophthalmology,

8:03

like hippo compass. Oh, gosh.

8:05

I love that word. And the brain's quite a tricky

8:07

one because you'll get lots of hypo.

8:09

Like you'll get the hypothalamus. Now

8:12

that, of course, means under, that's

8:14

the other term. And so I've been calling to get the

8:16

hypothalamus it's the hypothalamus, meaning

8:18

under the thalamus. But hippocampus,

8:21

meaning,

8:22

horse is because it looks like

8:26

Seahorse. Right? So we at

8:31

oh, don't look at them. They look absolutely

8:33

terrifying. I've never seen a hippocampus,

8:35

so don't know. Oh my goodness.

8:38

There's that there's there was a real

8:40

David Cronenburg like Element

8:42

to the Oh, no. III guess the hip the

8:44

hippocampus came first. So so much

8:46

of the brain is kind of

8:48

lovely. Because just the

8:50

first time someone took that piece of

8:52

the brain out, they thought, this

8:55

looks a bit like a belt or a girdle.

8:57

I'm gonna name this after that. This looks

8:59

a bit like a seahorse. What I'm gonna call it the

9:01

hippocampus, the amygdala from

9:05

A Migdalena, meaning

9:07

almond.

9:08

I suppose his almond shaped. The Migdalena

9:11

was also the Latin

9:11

for tonsil

9:13

other languages still called tonsils almonds.

9:16

Really?

9:17

Wow. I guess they are like 167 as

9:19

well.

9:20

Yeah. Everything

9:21

looking like almonds. suppose it is

9:23

quite a general shape. Yeah. In

9:25

the episode viewer, Tim Klar and I talked

9:27

about the origins of the terms anxiety,

9:30

angst, cowardice, 167 I

9:32

brought up the etymology of worry. It

9:34

was originally strangle

9:36

or kill by biting the throat.

9:39

Would you kind of have us still like dogs worrying

9:41

cattle? And it was only relatively late

9:43

in the eighteen hundreds that it

9:45

meant to trouble someone or for someone

9:47

to feel troubled? We still have that

9:49

sense of worrying as being a kind of

9:51

knowing or a terrier

9:54

worrying at a rat throat or something

9:57

like that. And it's a lovely metaphor, isn't it?

9:59

Because it

9:59

it speaks so much to what we do when we

10:02

worry, which is to

10:04

nor at a problem over and

10:06

over to try and wear it down. And

10:08

the sense that worrying is an

10:10

active process, that it's

10:12

still a verb Anxiety is a

10:14

state, isn't it? Or

10:16

a diagnosis or a condition? Worrying

10:19

is is active there's also there's

10:22

often built into that this implication that if I just

10:24

worry at this enough, I might solve it.

10:26

I might be able to

10:28

fix the problem. I might be able to find

10:30

a new solution. It's an expression

10:32

of care in some cases. Yes.

10:36

Yes.

10:37

And yet, I think there's also that violence

10:40

tied up in it as well. And I don't mean, I worry about

10:42

my daughter, so I'm not meaning to malign people who

10:44

worry about their children. I worry about all

10:46

the people I love. I worry about the future of

10:48

the world. But there's

10:52

something I think

10:55

destructive about it

10:57

as well. There's something harmful. There's

11:00

something painful. There's something

11:02

bloody. The etymology of

11:04

it implies how I feel about it that it's

11:07

ultimately a

11:10

futile and painful

11:12

and destructive process. Stephanie

11:14

Fu came on the show to talk about complex post

11:17

traumatic stress disorder. This year she

11:19

published a book, what my bones know,

11:21

in which she recounts the experiences she had

11:23

had in being diagnosed and treated for the condition.

11:25

There was one therapist with whom

11:27

Stephanie had a breakthrough. You

11:29

talk about working with therapist where

11:31

after you've had your

11:32

sessions in person, you studied the

11:34

transcripts.

11:35

What was it about seeing the words written down

11:38

that helped you more than

11:39

just speaking with the therapist.

11:42

I was sort of able to dissociate

11:45

Look, I don't think everyone

11:47

could be able to do this, but I'm very used to looking

11:49

at a Google Doc and editing it.

11:51

So being able to have it on

11:53

the page It

11:55

was, like, first of all, I couldn't argue with it.

11:57

Right? I couldn't

11:58

say, like, no, I wasn't

11:59

triggered. Right? Then, no, you're

12:02

misinterpreting it. It's right there. Like,

12:04

I have the recording. I have the transcript.

12:06

I did it. There's no getting around.

12:09

Number two, yeah, I was

12:11

sort of able to shift from,

12:14

oh my god, you're criticizing me mode until,

12:16

like, we are editing this together mode.

12:18

Here we are in front of the script we wanted

12:20

to be the best we And

12:22

let's just like make little notes everywhere.

12:24

And my therapist was also great at just

12:26

making me feel really safe and cared for.

12:29

And he built a really safe environment

12:31

where if there was somewhere in the

12:33

session where I was like, I

12:35

highlighted it I was like, you're being kind of a dick

12:37

here. He'd be like, oh, absolutely. And

12:40

he would do that himself. He would be like, look, I'm

12:42

pushing you way too hard here. Like,

12:44

this is not okay. He was the first to

12:46

criticize himself and really look at his

12:49

own failings 167 conversation. But

12:51

as as well as saying, like, hey, what's

12:54

going on with you here. You're ranting on

12:56

and on about nothing.

12:58

And I would notice it too. I'm like, you

13:00

you can see it on the page, like, Why is there

13:02

half of a page or two pages of me ranting

13:04

about nothing? And then we would scroll

13:07

And right before this long rant,

13:10

I was, like, talking about my mom holding

13:12

a knife to my throat. And

13:14

I was, like, I see.

13:16

He's, like, yeah, you dissociated. In

13:19

order to tell this story you

13:22

disappeared.

13:24

And you just got lost on the way because

13:27

you were dissociated. You weren't in your you weren't really

13:29

conscious of what you were talking about. I

13:31

was like, yeah, that's very real.

13:34

And it it didn't make me feel

13:36

like I was that was my fault.

13:38

You know?

13:40

Like like

13:42

it was a broke in thing to do. It just help me

13:44

understand. I see why I did that. I understand

13:46

it. Like, I can go

13:49

back and engage with that differently next time

13:51

maybe. If I if I start to feel myself

13:53

talking for a long time, just take

13:55

a step back question like hey, might

13:58

I be triggered right now? Maybe

13:59

I need to slow down.

14:02

Coming up, we've got more complicated feelings

14:04

plus little women and

14:07

life hacks. But right now, we're

14:09

just going to take a quick commercial hiatus.

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16:32

Okay. Back to the bonus bits.

16:36

In the objectivity

16:38

episode, Lewis Raven Wallace talked

16:40

about what objectivity is supposed to

16:42

mean 167 what it tends to mean in practice.

16:45

And the failings of the concept. When

16:48

you were working in public media,

16:50

were there words or constructions

16:52

that you were supposed to avoid?

16:54

In the interests of so called objectivity.

16:58

Oh, there were so many words and constructions.

17:01

I remember early in my first year

17:04

I refer to

17:06

a source

17:09

as anti gay,

17:11

I would still refer to that source.

17:14

As anti gay. If I were

17:16

asked today, it was like a

17:18

conservative activist of some

17:20

kind who was advocating pretty

17:22

fiercely against queer trans

17:26

children having rights.

17:28

But

17:28

the word anti gay, my editor

17:30

was like,

17:31

That seems biased. It seems like you're expressing

17:34

an opinion about that person's opinions.

17:37

I know. Mind blown. I can't remember now

17:39

what we changed it to, but it was like instead

17:42

of saying an anti gay activist who's like an activist

17:44

who opposes gay marriage

17:47

or something like that. Well, that's

17:49

a lot of woods. So, like, these also these

17:52

clunky, ungraceful ways

17:54

that we try to avoid terminology

17:56

that might seem biased from some

17:59

perspective. So I was

18:01

just very confused by

18:03

that. I think more recently, there have been

18:05

more pronounced and

18:07

prominent

18:08

examples of

18:10

that kind of weird censorship

18:13

like not being able to call Donald Trump

18:15

a racist or not being able to

18:17

call white supremacists activists,

18:20

white supremacists, the

18:23

whole debate over how to for two

18:25

undocumented immigrants is 167. That

18:27

definitely has played out in many newsrooms

18:30

that editors have said, oh,

18:32

well, undocumented is a sort

18:34

of activist terminology. That's

18:36

what they want to be called. But we're

18:38

going to continue to refer

18:39

to them as illegal.

18:41

Which, of course, calling a person

18:43

illegal has a ton of implicit

18:45

bias in it as to what you think about

18:48

that person's actions that they took to

18:50

survive. And undocumented as

18:52

terminology you know,

18:54

proposed to push

18:55

back against that and to reduce the

18:57

amount of bias against undocumented immigrants

19:00

in the way that their 167 the way that

19:02

their stories and reasons for being in

19:04

this country are perceived. Hear

19:05

more about the language used for migration in

19:08

the OA team episode of the show from a few

19:10

years ago. On

19:11

the topic of bias and objectivity or

19:13

impossibility thereof, here's historian

19:16

Charlotte Lydia Riley who appeared

19:18

in the Emergency Episode about the Maligne

19:20

Emergency, the twelve year military

19:23

conflict that Britain refused to call

19:25

a war. There's

19:26

no objective historian. All historians

19:28

are subject even if you're writing about the tudors

19:30

or ancient Greece, there's

19:32

no objective historian. Right? Yeah.

19:35

I think there is often presumption that the recording

19:37

of history is neutral.

19:39

of course, it isn't. And

19:41

the terminology isn't. It's very

19:43

loaded. Absolutely.

19:44

And what's happening now actually

19:46

is that historians like me and and and other

19:48

historians who are being critical of Empire

19:51

say we are being accused of such activity

19:53

against what is assumed to be an objective historical

19:56

record. So we're

19:58

accused of being politically motivated.

19:59

We're accused of being inhoc

20:02

to the values of our time. We're accused

20:04

of being motivated by our own

20:06

beliefs and feelings about Empire, as

20:09

if that wasn't also the case for the people

20:11

who originally wrote these histories, and

20:13

as if that wasn't the case for the people who want to

20:15

defend Empire as well. The people

20:17

who are defensive of the sort

20:19

of very traditional historical

20:22

record about Empire are just as subjective

20:24

as we are. But it's become a way for

20:26

them to really criticize this rewriting. And

20:28

and much more, actually, when it's

20:30

aimed at people of color, and historians

20:33

of color. They are always being told they can't

20:35

possibly be objective about this or they

20:37

are definitely politically motivated or they're motivated

20:39

by their own experiences as if all historians

20:41

weren't. As if everyone wasn't in the same

20:43

boat? Like, it's not just the kind of culture

20:45

wars you think that's coming from ordinary people.

20:48

It's actually government ministers are telling

20:50

people that they're doing the wrong source of his

20:52

Education Secretary set up a conservative conference

20:54

this year and said that people were teaching anti

20:57

British history in schools and universities. Which

20:59

is sort of funny and sort of is probably going

21:01

to get someone killed. It

21:04

seems really terrible. It does really

21:06

feel like this has really happened recently.

21:09

It started my career. It was hard to get anyone interested

21:11

in empowering. I haven't been a historian for that long.

21:15

And it you know, it was difficult to get people to

21:17

say British Empire seriously ought to think about it

21:19

really at all. It was all the second world war

21:22

and the 167 now,

21:24

empire is everywhere, and it is

21:26

something that has become hugely emotionalized.

21:29

And all

21:30

history is political, but this has become a real

21:32

political football.

21:33

it is interesting because I think it was a lot of kind

21:35

of gentle critique of Empire happening for

21:37

quite a long time, and and now it's very

21:39

difficult to get that stuff written down. when

21:42

you have things like the

21:42

history reclaimed project, they kind of fight against

21:44

this idea of sort of political greatness or whatever.

21:47

And -- Mhmm. -- they want people send an examples

21:49

of things like museum exhibits

21:52

and statues and events that they that have

21:54

been

21:57

tempered or had extra description added

21:59

or been

21:59

kind of worked on by

22:01

historic instrument than more critical of imperialism.

22:04

So

22:04

even retain and explain, which

22:06

is supposedly government policy

22:08

on imperialism even that's now coming under criticism.

22:10

They're not actually that keen on the explaining element

22:12

of that. No. Think it'll be

22:14

very hard for them to do

22:15

that and get the other things to hold up. Mhmm.

22:17

That's the trouble with the truth. Yeah. It looks

22:20

bad.

22:20

When it was bad, it is bad. Right? It's

22:22

quite difficult to find yourself constantly labeled anti

22:24

British when actually what you're doing is just

22:27

writing quite banal,

22:28

things that happened. You

22:31

can get labeled anti British

22:32

as a historian. Really for not being particularly

22:35

critical. You actually don't have to be that

22:37

out there.

22:37

To be seen as a kind of anti British activist.

22:40

The fragility.

22:42

Mhmm. It seems also a bit inconsistent.

22:46

That well well, maybe it's because I you've

22:49

got several

22:49

generations of people now who

22:51

were too young to have lived through the times

22:53

when a lot of

22:55

these conflicts were happening -- Mhmm. --

22:57

but also weren't educated about them because,

22:59

like, at school history, we weren't taught about

23:01

anything that recent.

23:03

And then the empire is just like

23:05

this kind of thing where you can have a

23:07

mindset that it's

23:08

sort of in the past.

23:10

Or was gently a good

23:12

thing, and

23:14

then you get quite animated about preserving

23:16

it against criticism and whatnot.

23:18

It is quite strange It's funny to think about

23:20

it in tandem with the second cohort actually because

23:23

a lot of people talk about the second cohort was if they

23:25

were there. And the number of people in

23:27

Britain

23:27

who having direct experience

23:29

in the second world always vanishingly small

23:31

now. Actually, it was such a long time ago.

23:33

But

23:34

because I think

23:36

we kind of got frozen in time as a

23:38

moment that the second world war was kind of a generation

23:41

ago. Yeah. And

23:43

we've continued that feeling that it's about

23:45

a generation ago. Right? So we still talk

23:47

about it as if our grandparents or

23:49

as if people who are grandparents today were

23:51

involved in the war fought in the war. You know, my grandparents did

23:53

fight in the war, and my grandparents are no longer with us.

23:55

We we're getting to the point now, actually, where there's not

23:58

very much actual memory,

23:58

full memory of the war. So

24:01

that's

24:01

something that we think was being very recent. It's not

24:03

very recent. Whereas the Empire is something that

24:05

we think about has happened. happened a long time ago,

24:07

so long ago, why are you jacking up the past? Whereas,

24:09

actually, many of these countries, India

24:12

Pakistan and Bangladesh became independent

24:14

in the late nineteen forties. Most are in

24:16

societies 167 the Caribbean become independent

24:18

in the mid nineteen sixties. Still very

24:20

much within living

24:21

memory. There were still quite a lot of people

24:24

alive in Britain and whose family have history

24:26

within the empire,

24:27

they themselves do or or it's only a

24:29

generation back. And it's interesting, I

24:31

think, the way we talk about the two things that the empire

24:33

is something happened so long ago that if you tried to talk

24:36

about it now, you're distracted 167 the past and the second

24:38

world war is something which apparently happened so recently

24:40

that you can't as a historian ever, criticize

24:43

people's interpretations of it or talk about

24:45

correcting historical record because it

24:47

happened so recently, and

24:49

it is sort of interesting disconnect. And

24:51

it's it's kind

24:52

of soft British patriotism,

24:54

which is completely

24:56

unthinkingly uncritical of imperialism. 167

24:58

remembers Empire as a sort of Victorian aesthetic.

25:01

Yep. Doesn't remember it as a nineteen forties,

25:03

nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties aesthetic.

25:05

Wonder what most people's boundary is

25:07

for news events

25:10

becoming history

25:12

because it's

25:13

sort of theoretically immediately yet.

25:16

It's

25:16

funny because I think from a historian's perspective,

25:18

it's

25:18

to do with

25:20

well, lastly, from a historian's perspective,

25:23

it's to do with the skills and the tools that you

25:25

used think about it.

25:26

It's not to do with distance. It's not to do

25:29

with timing. Historians, I think think

25:31

about history because

25:32

we think about ourselves as people who use particular

25:34

tools and particular skills, and we have particular

25:36

ways engaging with the past. And

25:39

we can do that

25:40

about something that happened last year.

25:43

I guess the theme of this bonus compilation

25:45

is thoughts and feelings. Let

25:48

me move up for textual theme of absolutely

25:50

everything. Therefore, it's not particularly remarkable that

25:52

the next section is about those things

25:54

too. Hannah McGregor appeared on the

25:56

episode's sentiment talking about to

25:58

mentality and literature. And we got

26:00

to talking about Louisa May or Scots noble Little

26:02

Women, wherein the four March sisters

26:04

live with their Saint Lee army, while

26:06

father is waving an army chaplain during

26:09

the American Civil War.

26:11

In the book, it is considered far

26:13

more Integrity

26:14

laced to write what you know

26:16

and with real emotions. But in reality, Louise

26:19

Mayor Court was doing that to make

26:21

money because she much preferred writing swashbuckling

26:24

genre fiction. She sure did. Good

26:26

for her. Yeah. Yeah. It's

26:28

a great example

26:30

of a version of

26:32

a common genre form

26:35

that has endured specifically

26:38

because it was actually really

26:40

messing with the genre at the

26:42

time. This is a constant challenge for literary

26:44

scholars that a lot of the the

26:46

texts that endure are actually the outliers.

26:49

167 that we actually spend very little time

26:51

talking or thinking about books that were

26:53

the mainstream in their historical moment.

26:55

But it was absolutely this

26:58

weirdo Lesbian. Being

27:01

told by her publisher, there's a lot of money

27:03

in girls fiction her

27:05

being like,

27:07

okay, fine. I'm a working

27:09

writer. I'll write some girls fiction,

27:11

hear some girls fiction,

27:13

and also just refusing to

27:15

play the game a little bit. One

27:17

of my favorite bits of that. We have actual

27:20

quotes from her saying that,

27:22

you know, she published the book in two parts. And

27:25

For the second part, everybody wanted

27:27

Joe to end up with Lori because

27:29

that's the conclusion of the sentimental

27:31

arc. And because

27:33

Joe was based on her, she

27:36

was like, no, Joe isn't gonna end up with anybody.

27:39

Joe wants to be a writer and you're gonna be

27:41

a woman and a writer, you can't get married because

27:43

there's no space for your career if you're running

27:45

a household. But her publisher

27:47

was like, no. Joe has to get married.

27:50

Otherwise, people will be wildly dissatisfied.

27:52

And she was like, fun. You want Joe to

27:54

get married? She's gonna marry a weird

27:56

old German guy.

27:58

I'll show you well dissatisfaction.

27:59

It's everyone's marriage in this

28:02

book.

28:02

And Laurie's gonna marry her

28:04

horrible little sister. Yeah.

28:07

Yeah. It's a a real fuck

28:10

you to the expectations. Still feel a bit

28:12

sore

28:12

about how all that turned out, and they're gonna set

28:14

up a boys school. And they're gonna set

28:16

up boys

28:16

school, how empowering. I think it's

28:18

such an interesting example

28:20

of somebody who is so obviously bucking

28:23

against the restrictions. Of

28:25

what they can say in their moment.

28:27

There are these genre expectations being

28:30

forced upon her and there's her

28:32

very the cool desire to write a book

28:34

that will make her money. And then there's

28:37

that attempt to just, you

28:39

know, sneak in something that

28:41

sorta just says

28:43

no to

28:45

all of those expectations. When

28:47

you were describing the tropes

28:49

of

28:49

sentimental fiction of the nineteenth century, The

28:52

other example that I

28:54

thought of

28:54

was what Katie did Mhmm.

28:56

-- where you've got a

28:58

bit

28:58

similar to Joe and little women,

29:01

a sassy, naughty, female

29:04

weed. But

29:05

then

29:06

she is kind of

29:08

fully converted into the sentimental with

29:11

a spinal injury.

29:15

And the council of

29:17

her beatific disabled cousin?

29:19

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And

29:21

I mean, that is an important part of the sentimental

29:24

education, and a lot of these girls undergo,

29:27

right, that Joe becomes

29:29

better

29:30

because of Beth's

29:31

illness. You

29:32

sort of encounter this this

29:35

perfect paragon of sentimentality who

29:37

has to be dying because there is

29:39

nothing more perfect that a woman

29:41

can do than die. Truly

29:43

the purest the purest way

29:45

for us to exist is to And

29:48

we still see this, you know. Up to

29:50

the present day, like repeated in contemporary

29:52

culture. The dead wife is the perfect

29:54

wife.

29:55

Except in Rebecca. Except

29:57

in Rebecca. That's why Rebecca's

29:59

an interesting

29:59

Gothic. The Gothic, the

30:02

dead wife is a sinister presence.

30:05

In the sentimental, the dead

30:07

wife is the perfect wife.

30:08

There's a really interesting

30:10

trend in scholarship recently

30:12

about sentimental novels

30:14

pointing out that

30:17

while the goal of the sentimental

30:20

narrative is the emotional maturity

30:22

of her heroine, The story

30:24

becomes deeply boring, the second

30:26

she becomes mature, because the

30:28

emotionally mature 167 doesn't do

30:30

anything.

30:31

so we spend a

30:33

lot of time in the childhood. We

30:36

dwell in the childhood because

30:38

that when the narrative is interesting. That's

30:40

when she can actually go out and do things.

30:42

But she's gotta become a army at some

30:44

point. Otherwise,

30:46

she has not sort of reached her

30:49

her conclusion.

30:50

Mommy, old death. Mommy, her

30:52

death. That's

30:53

it. Allusionist.

30:57

it they say in never let me go completed?

31:00

Yes. Yes. Exactly. There's

31:02

two ways that a woman can become completed,

31:05

and that is that she either becomes a army

31:07

or dies.

31:08

Either way, desactualized a

31:11

life lived in

31:12

sacrifice and deference to others. Yes.

31:15

Yes. All of the above.

31:17

Anger, present,

31:18

but contained. Yep. Yeah.

31:20

And within this

31:21

sort of imagination of what is possible

31:24

for women, we then have to

31:26

have, like, institutions insist

31:28

stems that punish or manage women

31:31

who refuse to fit into

31:33

those molds. Right? So we've got

31:35

hatred of the spinster, the suspicion

31:38

of the spinster. We've got the

31:40

long history of institutionalizing women

31:43

for hysteria. Because they refuse

31:46

to fit into these molds. So we've got

31:48

ways of managing all of these

31:50

unruly bodies. That aren't

31:53

willing to either

31:54

die or become a army.

31:57

Jilenta Greenberg and Christian Meinzer talked

31:59

on the self help

31:59

episode about things they've learned from

32:02

living by various self help books on

32:04

their podcast by the book.

32:06

I asked them what they think about the term life

32:08

hack. Which came out of hack

32:10

being used in computing as a solution that

32:12

might be little unorthodox and perhaps crude at

32:14

the usual, but probably quicker. Like

32:17

chains soaring a path directly to the center of

32:19

the hedge maze.

32:20

Lifehack is attributed to technology

32:23

writer, Daniel Rourke, in two thousand and four,

32:25

he meant it to denote the kinds of little bits

32:28

of script that programmers would write to make their

32:30

daily lives easier. Programs to

32:32

help them remember household chores or not 167

32:34

birthdays. Whereas now life

32:36

hack will mean things like turning

32:39

toilet rolls into all kinds of storage or decorative

32:41

items or making mashed potato out

32:43

of crisps, which seems more hassle than

32:45

matching a potato to me.

32:47

And

32:47

a lot of the life hacks are just

32:49

fairly standard tips. So

32:51

why do they get called life hacks?

32:54

I think it's a way get men to

32:56

read self help books And

32:59

and it's also, you know, the language

33:01

of a lot of social media too.

33:03

Just like, oh, we don't

33:04

wanna actually have to work for this, but

33:07

Watch this thirty second TikTok video

33:09

to find a hack for this. There's

33:11

a lot of, you know, let's do it quickly.

33:14

Let's have it sound masculine. When I think

33:16

of a hack, I think of like a machete.

33:18

Mhmm. Yes. Yeah. Hacksaw. Yeah.

33:20

This has gotta be tough. This has gotta be

33:22

quick. This has gotta be violent, and

33:24

it's gonna pay off. That's

33:27

what I think of when I think of hacks. And I

33:29

also think that very rarely

33:32

is a hack life changing. If it's something

33:34

that only is a ten second difference in my life,

33:36

or

33:36

a thirty second thing that I have to do differently,

33:40

I don't usually find that transforms my entire

33:42

life. Yeah.

33:44

Diet. It does feel

33:46

like transformation is

33:48

only thirty seconds of video consumption

33:50

away. Yeah. remains

33:54

just beyond our grasp, shocking,

33:56

I know.

33:57

Also, the life hacks are often just doing

33:59

things in a way you can do things

34:02

-- Right. -- but is new a bet on it. I was gonna say sometimes

34:04

it's just, yeah, how to, like,

34:06

more easily separate the

34:08

egg white from the yolk. That's just, like,

34:10

another way of doing something. And it's just

34:12

a, like, buzzy way of being, like, here's a way

34:14

to do it.

34:15

Here's another technique in the kitchen. Yeah.

34:17

A technique. Thank you.

34:19

Instead, we say, lay that.

34:21

Yeah. I just want the currency of that term

34:23

to fully dwindle. Hopefully

34:26

it is. It's gotta be. Since

34:28

Gilentra and Kristen are mavens of

34:30

concerted self improvement, I asked them

34:32

about New Year's resolutions. Tisch

34:35

the season,

34:36

I've definitely not made any resolutions

34:39

since we've been making by the book

34:41

because living by self help books

34:43

is like making a new resolution every

34:45

time you sort of sign up for 167.

34:47

That's intense. So I've I've sort of let

34:49

myself off

34:50

the hook when it comes to the actual New

34:52

Year's resolution.

34:54

Yeah. III don't

34:56

really need New Year's resolutions. See

34:59

how happy I'm well adjusted. I'm

35:02

good. No. Nothing I'm happy and well adjusted,

35:04

but New Year's resolutions just

35:07

they seem so fraught. And the whole idea

35:09

of New Year, New Year, New Year, like what's bad with

35:11

Old Me. You know? And

35:14

so many people, they just fail at their

35:16

New Year's resolutions. It's just because most

35:18

people aren't clear and specific

35:20

and attainable

35:23

when it comes to their goals.

35:25

And so a lot of them also just

35:27

feel very punitive very few people

35:29

are making resolutions that sound fun. Right.

35:31

Right. Why don't we make resolutions

35:33

that aren't really about

35:34

punishing ourselves that aren't about, like, cutting

35:36

out sugar Yeah. 167 you

35:38

add something? Yeah.

35:40

Like, a goal I came up with was midyear this

35:42

year. I'm like, I'm gonna

35:44

to

35:46

celebrity memoirs while I walk

35:49

just see how many I can get through. See,

35:51

that's my kind of resolution. It's like, it's not

35:54

necessarily at New Year's, and it's like, this

35:56

is a fun thing to do. I'm resolving to do

35:58

something kind of fun this year,

35:59

you know.

36:00

I've made two in

36:02

adult life that really stuck. One

36:04

was to keep a spreadsheet of every

36:06

book I finished, which was to get myself

36:09

reading more. I've been keeping it for

36:11

twelve years, and the other was not to click

36:13

on any daily mail links. And both of

36:15

those have gone great. I love that

36:17

second one. Yeah. Yeah.

36:19

And I love it. Love it. Both

36:22

these resolutions of mine have been going strong for

36:24

more than a decade. The Allusionist

36:26

made at the start of this year was to spend more

36:28

time with illusionist listeners. And I did,

36:30

I set up the Elizabeth Discord and we

36:32

have the live streams

36:34

and the illusionist patrons

36:36

hang out and it's been really lovely,

36:38

in my opinion, ten out of ten years

36:39

outcomes. You you

36:41

would like to join us, you would be ever so welcome.

36:44

Go to the dot org slash

36:46

donate.

36:54

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39:16

Thanks

39:21

to you for listening to the show this

39:22

year, and thanks to all of the people who've appeared on

39:24

it. In this episode, you heard again from

39:27

Jingtu. Merenica Guido and Nairoil,

39:29

Tim Clare, Stephanie Fu, Lewis

39:31

Raven Wallace, Charlotte Lidya Riley, Hannah

39:34

MacGregor, Kristin Meinzer, and Jilenta

39:36

Greenberg. I'll link to the episode

39:38

there in earlier this year at the dot

39:40

org slash bonus twenty twenty two.

39:44

Your

39:46

randomly selected word from

39:47

your dictionary today is.

39:52

Washing. That's Washing

39:55

with no g on hand. Washing,

39:57

noun, air nuggets.

39:59

An increase in the angle of incidence for an

40:02

airplane wing towards the

40:03

tip.

40:04

Try using washing in an email today.

40:08

This episode was produced 167 Helen Martin

40:11

Orswick makes the original music for the Here's

40:13

compositions via pale bird music dot

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Thanks to Amanda and Carly

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This is the last illusion of episode twenty

40:32

twenty two.

40:33

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