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typicalgirls - [TypicalGirls] June 2026 HumanifestX update: Asset or Liability (Can we agree to share accountability?!)

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  • From: Dina Hornreich <hornreichdina AT gmail.com>
  • To: Dina Hornreich <hornreichdina AT gmail.com>
  • Subject: [TypicalGirls] June 2026 HumanifestX update: Asset or Liability (Can we agree to share accountability?!)
  • Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2026 10:27:09 -0400

Dear friends (new and old):

As an educator, I learned to assess students’ strengths in order to find ways that foster their participation in order to make them an asset (rather than a liability) to our microdemocratic communities of lifelong learners. It’s a principled pragmatism (and similarly eclectic meta-heuristic approach) that we develop as classroom managers who assess the potential of all participants because we assume responsibility for the success of each and every member; in other words, fostering an environment of shared accountability. Because we still have free will, don’t we?!

From those experiences, I continue to ponder how good leadership should be making decisions according to a trauma-informed rationale when recruiting, hiring, and otherwise deliberating on whether to include a potential student, employee, client, patient, etc. Established criteria for professionals are intended to regulate those processes in order to promote fairness and equitability at all stages

Despite those efforts, I only continue to document the ways in which we are still relying on antiquated practices that are based on stereotypic thinking (and other kinds of profiling strategies); in order to merely “placate” accreditation agencies (and otherwise adopt workarounds instead of striving for more meritocratic operations despite ongoing attempts to undermine these ongoing unjust biases). 

I have not encountered many institutions in my career who are willing to comprehend the importance of actively doing this work as a socially transformational and otherwise more justice-oriented endeavor. I am continually reminded how our current efforts merely reinforce the parasitic marketing approaches that are frequently abused when manufacturing dystopias (rather than constructing meaningful engagements). Ever heard of consumer existentialist disengagement? It explains our reality hunger quite well.

As such, everything feels performative; there is nothing liberating (or meaningful) about further perpetuating debased, egocentric practices, skills, interests, and accountabilities (i.e. wanton ludicrousness). It is very easy to abuse the integrity of the gatekeeping measures that are supposed to better regulate and standardize those vetting processes in our noble pursuit of liberty and justice for all. 

Teachers are competing with communication artefacts in order to engage their students for successful course completion and degree attainment; meanwhile government officials are similarly competing with communication artefacts in order to engage their constituents for successful participation in a democratic citizenry. If the medium is the lesson, then how do we regulate these communication channels, systems, networks, and platforms (from the design stage to the utilization phases) to support moral values and virtues as a cultural campaign for becoming an informed, engaged, and wise citizenry? 

Can moral education practices be more actively embedded into these socio-technical infrastructures in order to regulate how we negotiate our lifestyle choices and other habits, rituals, customs, etc.? If so, then what is the role of broadcast media when civic journalism has uprooted the foundation of the entire media landscape? Furthermore, how do we engage in leadership roles that actively facilitate becoming informed, engaged, and wise participants across micro, macro, and meso levels? 

Avoidance is a common reaction when we realize the scope of these implications for daily practices. However, that inertia continues to feel like just another “rigged game;” where we are repeatedly set up to fail. And it is a predictable pattern that is easy to see in the early stages of deliberation because it becomes so easy to detect!  It might be easier to focus on the promotion of creative explorations for fostering healthy connections and otherwise validating social intuitions as a meta-heuristic for planning, managing, and constructing a meaningful life. So I continue to advocate for “wising up” from those unfulfilling performative associations which often feel more like parasitic manufactured dystopic delusions; because resistance to fostering more democratic and pluralistically meritocratic realities persists. 

The ongoing abuse of “status quo” avoidance tactics may even seem justified (as a short-term “quick fix”) to keep the illusion of peace; but over time they only seem to exacerbate the original issue by continuing to place accountability on the individuals who were inadequately supported right from the start. (And the longitudinal data should make it harder to continue to ignore that fact!) Those ongoing failures are not for lack of trying or other intrinsic failures (in order that allow us to place guilt, blame, and shame onto one isolated “troublemaker”); nonetheless, those efforts remain misguided due to improper management practices and other ongoing “blind spots” that arise from that “problem-deficit” mindset which tends to lead to cultures of complacency and indifference.

It is  that very kind of lingering kind of systemic inertia that continues to perpetuate substantial resistance toward formally recognizing the existence of these socio-cultural barriers; and therefore continued reliance on avoidant habits that are covert microaggressive attacks (including the abuse of blame, shame, and guilt as emotionally abusive motivational tools) only seem to relegate accountability for those systemic failures onto particular “temporary traits” — and maybe also some “dispositional traits” — because those whom we have been struggling with supporting (despite infrequent valiant attempts otherwise) will eventually succumb into becoming a liability (rather than a liability). 

We know that “situational states” are reflective of emotional contagion and other measures of social climate and communal morale (including cognitive dissonance and “selective attention” biases); and this is what happens when we are accustomed to opting for “shooting the messenge.” And we only wind up “cutting off our noses;”  just to spite our faces!” I often find that organizations will have a rotating cast of mid-level managers as a result of these systemic failures; because they opt to eliminate the “canaries in the coal mine” and otherwise try to cover their own interests (at the expense of everyone who is above them, below them, as well as those in-between (or even beyond?!). 

This form of intentional misconduct can be hard to pinpoint because of the overwhelming “angry mob” miasmic cloud that explodes around it; and creating such disturbances as “the end to the means” is a stalling tactic in and of itself! As such, few wait around long enough to see how the most satisfying outcome is the other side of that conflict (i.e. a healthy resolution). It often makes you wonder if there ever was such a thing as a fair fight in the history of humankind! 

And it is this awareness that reminds me to keep striving for becoming a more informed, engaged, and wise citizenry; as I continue to assert that applying the principles of data feminism should offer us the best tools for promoting wisdom attainment (artificial, authentic, or likely something that is in-between – or even beyond?!): 

  1. Reducing power disparities (caused by abuses of binaries and hierarchies)

  2. Accepting emotional responses as valid physical sensations and similar empirical measures

  3. Recognizing pluralistic epistemologies (secular, scholarly, and otherwise)

  4. Defining concepts in order to better support understanding

  5. Emphasizing context for meaningful engagement

  6. Redefining social status across micro, meso, and macro levels


And these kinds of negotiations seem likely to better support successful lifelong goal attainment as they help us to grow and develop artistically, creatively, & spiritually; as well as intellectually, rationally, & scientifically. Like I’ve said before: we can be creative (without being intelligent), and we can be intelligent (without being wise); but wisdom requires both creativity and intelligence!  Could our “conquest of cool” (sic) promote wisdom attainment through prosumerist activities rather than conspicuous consumption that only feeds on our vulnerabilities causing behavioral patterns that become lifelong habits? 

This is the difference between supporting people who are trying to find their way to becoming an asset; rather than invoking “moral emotions” like disgust by which we allow our “inner homunculi of scrutinizing fascist dictators” to abuse guilting, shaming, and blaming tactics; forcing us to surrender into that “deplorable” status by default in order to perpetuate the illusion of liabilities rather than an assets! (If you don’t believe me, read my review of the Pavements rockumentary film which prompted me to question whether intelligence could ever be socially reinforced as desirable and hip?) That’s why we need to recognize the effects of socio-emotional trauma and interpersonal violence; which interferes  with our lifelong development and goal attainment (personally and communally). 

By turning unhealthy survival habits into lifelong coping mechanisms unnecessarily – because they become just another self-fulfilling prophecy amongst the litany of atrocities in the history of humankind (cf: witch hunts, McCarthyism, etc.).  If morality is about protecting individuals from corruption; then blatant exploitation of our vulnerabilities should be condemned as immorality. And tackling delicate issues with brute force doesn’t typically solve anything; it only makes matters worse!

That’s exactly why our culture is so riddled with numerous long term moral injuries including, but not limited to, spiritual or religious traumas (even clergy can get burned out). We won’t solve our problems with the same logic that was used when we created them; instead we have to agree that we should use our limited resources to create systems that better address those problems (rather than continuing to abuse the tools that never worked in the first place). 

Embedded into our civic architecture should be an awareness of historical developments so that we can look ahead to our futures by applying various narratives that help us to conceive and construct a cognitive map for navigating that lifelong journey. We can retrieve, even reorganize, the metaphorical understandings for memory retrieval; in order to prioritize the temperance, patience, and humility needed to withstand the continued onslaught of adversity affecting us mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, culturally, politically, and financially.

In these emerging socio-technical realities, the ubiquity of civic journalism has transformed our information gathering and sharing mechanisms which offers new ways for public officials to engage with participants in our communities. As an educator in information, media, communication, and technology “meta”-literacy skills; it seems natural for me to explore those different entry points throughout the entire process. Nothing we are witnessing today is new; but at least we now have ample data to validate their existence - in order to apprehend ongoing bullying tactics (like gaslighting). 

The most qualified practitioners for this work remain my colleagues in librarianship who are accustomed to stewardship practices that actively support becoming informed, engaged, and wise citizens in our participatory democracy. By approaching this process with this objective, I hope to find opportunities for aggregating (and eventually consolidating) our communal resources, and this should support our needs for addressing ongoing exploitative practices that are causing media pollution, information poverty, techno-lust, and pluralistic ignorance. 

In other words, can get back to recognizing how we need to support each other with becoming assets (rather than a liabilities) as participants who are capable of becoming competent communicators by actively promoting authenticity, safety, consistency, acceptance, comfort, and impartiality in our exchanges; and otherwise formally recognizing our needs, wants, and desires for intellectual, physical, spiritual, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing for personal and communal lifelong success! 

We might want to consider these ideas on July 30 which is our international day of friendship; and continue to ponder similar efforts for promoting a culture of peace and nonviolence. There is research which suggests three overarching tensions between modern society and sustainable citizenship, according to an article on the importance of “self-control” <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13178198/>:

  • Consumer society constantly pushes individuals to buy, consume, and satisfy their immediate desires; whereas the sustainable citizen must learn to make mindful choices and consider long‐term consequences. 

  • Society expects individuals to act responsibly but often fails to provide the structural conditions (education, accessibility, and alternative models) that would support truly sustainable choices. 

  • A society that celebrates comfort, speed, and individualism makes it difficult to adopt a lifestyle based on restraint, solidarity, and self‐discipline. Breaking these norms requires challenging cultural values that are still prioritizing immediate gratification over long‐term sustainability and collective well‐being.


Don’t ever forget that we are all deplorables; which is why feminism is for everybody! So let’s continue to “manifest the x (chromosome)” as posited by these HumanifestX endeavors; because we all have at least one! 

Thank you for your ongoing support and other considerations of these updates; and (as always) please be well!


-Dina


Dina L. Hornreich, MS, MLIS 


HumanifestX: Artificial wisdom for authentic experiences!

(Because digital citizens are hooked on bullsh*t and it is driving us DEIMOCKRAZY!)


Our current socio-technical realities continue to validate creativity and other “feminine” sensibilities through our use of information, media, and technology artefacts supporting the emergence of prosumerist communicative practices.


Media pollution, information poverty, techno-lust, and pluralistic ignorance are crashing our culture. Our preferences, styles, aptitudes, modalities, and orientations have adapted in ways that continue to transform our lifestyle choices. Now, it is time to wise up by becoming “data feminists” who will usher in a conceptual age. 


Join our task force of informed, engaged, and wise citizens who strive for more equitable access to the resources we need, want, and deserve for intellectual, physical, socio-emotional, spiritual, and financial wellbeing in order to succeed as individuals, communities, and across the meta-verse.


Don’t ever forget that we are all deplorables; which is why feminism is for everybody!


So let’s continue to “manifest the x (chromosome)” as posited by these HumanifestX endeavors; because we all have at least one! 


gofund.me/42ba6d296 

linkedin.com/in/dina-hornreich-113a79283

medium.com/@dina-hornreich

hornreichdina AT gmail.com





  • [TypicalGirls] June 2026 HumanifestX update: Asset or Liability (Can we agree to share accountability?!), Dina Hornreich, 06/01/2026

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