Note: The following excerpt is from The Weekly Vine, a TOI newsletter for LinkedIn.
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excerpt → note → LinkedIn
You can also get it in your inbox.
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You → get → inbox
Jean Paul Sartre once said – and I am guilty of repeating this ad nauseam (pun intended) – that freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
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what → say → you
He was wrong or misinformed because he was never married.
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he → marry → ?
Freedom is actually what you do with what’s been done to you till you get married, after which your wife tells you what to do.
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wife → do → what
I learnt that recently after a little man-scaping of my face and was told in uncertain terms that I would be in the dog house – proverbial, not the streets of urban India – till it grew back.
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it → learn → India
Apparently only Messrs Cavill, Hamm and Bomer have the jawlines to keep beard-free.
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Cavill → have → jawlines
All other jawlines must be graced with shrubbery or be ridiculed.
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jawlines → grace → shrubbery
One came along recently when the wife asked: Who is
Sydney Sweeney?
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Sweeney → come → ?
why is everyone talking about her?
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everyone → talk → her
It’s as loaded an ontological question as one gets, and getting it wrong can turn one’s marital life martial.
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it → ’ → life
“I don’t know” doesn’t work because it’s highly unlikely that any man doesn’t know the Helen of the digital age.
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man → know → age
If Helen’s face launched a thousand ships, Sweeney’s has launched a thousand outrages, the latest being over a gambling ad which has become, as Twitter user @stepfanie put it, the “funniest stress test feminism has encountered”.
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feminism → launch → it
Feminism’s basic premise – from the first wave of feminism of Ganga – shorn of any embellishment, is that it is a movement that advocates for social, political and economic equality.
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that → shorn → equality
At least that’s what one was told, but now somehow it has become about thousands of folks policing what a woman ought to do with it.
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woman → ’ → it
That Sydney’s body had taken on deeper meaning beyond its corporeal form and become a political battleground was evident in 2022 when she threw her mother a 60th birthday party where one guest wore a Blue Lives Matter T-shirt and others wore red caps that said “Make Sixty Great Again”.
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Sixty → take → caps
That was enough for Sweeney to be cast out of the proverbial liberal heaven by some imaginary association with the Orange One.
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Sweeney → cast → One
That was the first instance of what we can call the Sydney Sweeney Rule: what Sydney Sweeney actually says is considerably less important than what everybody decides Sydney Sweeney represents.
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Sweeney → call → what
This happened with her tongue-in-cheek “I have great jeans” ad that some saw as Nazi propaganda – to be fair, liberals see Nazi-coded propaganda the way tech bros see AGI in everything – and now in a Novig ad, a sports betting company in which she owns equity and a stake.
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she → happen → equity
To paraphrase Phoebe Buffay: A single woman deciding to take her own calls about what she does with her own body and money?
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she → paraphrase → body
We must inform the church elders.
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We → inform → elders
Now normally, all Sweeney outrages are limited to liberal outlets, but this time female athletes decided to join in, with Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus calling it “infuriating” and a “kick in the teeth”; British sprinter Amy Hunt telling Sweeney: “This is what women in sport look like” after winning a race.
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women → limit → race
Hunt went on to argue that Sweeney’s campaign could become a “barrier” to girls entering or remaining in sport and that role models ought to show young women “what your body can do, not so much what it looks like”.
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it → go → what
All fine arguments except for the fact that none of them quite explains why a female athlete will decide to discontinue her passion because an actor did an ad for a company.
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actor → explain → company
One commenter even accused Sweeney of “setting women back 100 years”, which is quite a lot of civilisational damage for 60 seconds of strategically placed sporting equipment.
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which → accuse → equipment
Sweeney’s response was rather more economical: she simply posted nude pictures of Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Caroline Wozniacki and assorted male athletes from ESPN’s
Body Issue.
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she → post → Issue
The curious thing here is how puritanical hang-ups have swapped political alliances.
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ups → swap → alliances
There was a time when complaining about how women dressed was the preserve of Conservatives.
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women → be → Conservatives
Now it’s MAGA that’s pro-Sweeney while liberals are frothing at the mouth over a young woman choosing whatever she wants to do with her own body.
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she → ’ → body
Thomas Shelby, the protagonist of
Peaky Blinders, gave us a fantastic peek into the philosophical and ontological reason capitalism remains undefeated when he pointed out: “Everyone's a w***** Grace.
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Everyone → give → reason
We just sell different parts of ourselves.”
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We → sell → ourselves
The Vine sells engagement so my bosses know that I am not wasting hours in the office.
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I → sell → office
A daily labourer sells his body by picking up objects or smashing them or whatever angers Karl Marx.
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whatever → sell → Marx
An athlete throws something, jumps over something, runs or tries to put a ball somewhere.
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athlete → throw → ball
A surgeon and carpenter do the same thing – when the latter isn’t discovering a religion – but are paid vastly differently because their canvases are different.
And yet the athlete is paid far more than the labourer.
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athlete → do → labourer
The doctor is paid more than the carpenter, while a global athlete is probably paid a lot more than the doctor too.
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athlete → pay → doctor
Now one could easily argue that the doctor, carpenter or labourer does tasks that are far more important for human existence than what the athlete does, but the latter is paid top dollar simply because, at the highest level, that skillset is extremely rare.
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skillset → argue → level
It boils down to how many people can build homes vis-à-vis how many people can make a ball dance to their tunes.
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ball → boil → tunes
Capitalism, unlike your mother, has never pretended to reward people according to how useful they are to society.
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they → pretend → society
It rewards scarcity, demand and the amount someone else is willing to pay.
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someone → reward → scarcity
…and 31 more, not listed.
The Aporia
