Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Dina Hornreich <hornreichdina AT gmail.com>]

Dear Friends, Family, & Other Pertinent Constituencies:

As I continue to unravel the implications of Trump’s unsurprising return to the Oval Office next year, I start to get queasy. While I fully understand the intent of Project 2025, its language and approach seem more than a little counterproductive  – and I keep having flashbacks to nightmarish outcomes from the Gore vs. Bush election in 2000. (Even though, at its heart: I think Project 2025 also recognizes that greed, violence, and misogyny are very problematic but from another angle entirely.)

As an advocate for communicative competencies that support success in school, at work, with family, and for fun; I know that accommodating lifelong learners’ orientations, modalities, preferences, styles, & aptitudes is crucial to ensure inclusive equitability and overall achievement. Relying on contentious demographic measurements has often backfired; meanwhile, America’s history of slavery and genocide stains the soul of the US Constitution. I was reminded of these facts when I saw the cracks in the Liberty Bell back in Philly 2 years ago. These “smirches” should keep us humble as a culture and in our peoplehood.

My librarian credentials have had me rethinking our professional role as “the gatekeepers of lore.” While public safety relies on concrete laws and brute force to police our communities; I view the educators’ role more as “meta-literacy counselors” who strive to help our constituencies negotiate the ways in which we use information, media, and technology artefacts to satisfy our fundamental needs, wants, and desires. Invoking the paradigm which Abraham Maslow often gets the credit for disseminating, my feeling persists that our fundamental composition as mortal or sentient beings basically remains basically unchanged; yet, as a culture, we have adapted our norms and habits to rely on their unique capabilities.

In doing so, we have clearly validated their utility as a viable form of “cultural capital” and Shoshana Zuboff has noticed the emergence of “surveillance capitalism” as a result. While IMT artefactual usage serves many purposes: fulfilling current informational needs, providing entertaining diversions (and other escapist distractions), affording new and different social interactions across time and space, solidifying notions of group identity and belonging through character identification (i.e. role models); the dominance of its utility as a tool for surveillance makes me feel somewhat beholden to the “big tech” industry. <Consider Jane Hoffman’s book: Your data, their billions: Unraveling and simplifying big tech>

I continue to ponder this usage involving collections of organic, analog, and digital resources which offer myriad ways for consumers to access music, books, films, games, social networks, and other kinds of content. I tend to hope that a “conceptual age” is emerging, but my goal would be for it to validate aspects that afford us more open, communal, innovative, and collaborative engagements. This would make their value more nourishing to consumers who honestly need better safeguards in this “age of insecurity.“ <Consider Astra Taylor’s book of the same title> 

Web 3.0 offers promises of decentralization through Blockchain advancements which are clearly for addressing these security factors, but I remain devoted to the noteworthy benefits that Web 2.0 afforded us as Yochai Benkler had observed with his optimistic ideas surrounding the Networked Information Economy (NIE) as a "technological-economic feasibility space.” I prefer making IMT artefacts accessible to all consumers and not just another elitist playground which fostered a “digital divide.” Otherwise, post-COVID economic recovery could become increasingly challenging in the immediate years ahead of us.

If we are trying to move into a conceptual age, then what do we need to systematically rethink, redistribute, or repair in order to ensure we promote healthy values for personal and communal recovery and overall wellness? Not just for financial gratification but also for intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual fulfillment? Anything can become toxic, but everything has its utility.

The most gratifying way to pursue our goals as lifelong learners involves choosing wisely. Can we lobby together as consumers who use our valuable dollars to support goods and services that will shift those suppliers into rewarding values that are “nutritious” not just for our bodies, but also for our minds and souls too? Having the freedom of choice just isn’t enough; as Eleanor Roosevelt has often said: “With freedom comes great responsibility.”

When push comes to shove, we will simply have to become more vocal with leadership in order to prevent the continued exploitation of our psycho-physiological fallibilities and vulnerabilities from furthering unwanted effects such as media pollution, information disorder, and technolust.

Some Reading Recommendations for Further Consideration of these Topics:

Phyllis Chesler <https://phyllis-chesler.com/>

David Shields <https://www.davidshields.com/>

Judy Chicago <https://judychicago.com/>

Janier Lanier <https://www.jaronlanier.com/>

Aaron Swartz <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz>

Have a wonderful winter season!

-D

Dina L. Hornreich, MS, MLIS (she/they)

MISSION:

• Promoting communicative competencies for success in school, at work, with family, and for fun
• Accommodating lifelong learners’ orientations, modalities, preferences, styles, & aptitudes to ensure inclusive equitability.

VISION:

• HumanifestX: In solidarity for an informed, engaged, & wise global citizenry and participatory transnational democracy.

CONTACT INFO:

• linkedin.com/in/dina-hornreich-113a79283
• medium.com/@dina-hornreich
• hornreichdina AT gmail.com
• 413-315-0485
• 37 Bridge Street #1144, Northampton, MA 01060

WRITING SAMPLES:

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HumanifestX: Sex and gender activism in post-RBG America

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The medium is the lesson: An urgent need for restoring arts education as we transition into the post-COVID era

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No, I didn’t do THAT with my student! Our shifting role in problem solving.

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An informed, engaged, and wise citizenry: The emerging role for librarians as meta-literacy counselors (conference paper presented at The Library Collective's LibCon 2021 or read the listography instead)

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Review of NYC's Other Music Record Store Documentary Film (courtesy of Dagger Zine)

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The Elephant 6 Recording Co. Documentary Film (courtesy of Dagger Zine)

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Press Release for ArtHyve's "Record to Record" Series (courtesy of The Vinyl District)

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CLOSING QUOTATION:

"If I am not for myself, who is?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

And if not now, when?" - Rabbi Hillel