almost a diary

Ok, let’s face it. Mating, human mating in particular, is a complex communication process involving all sorts of biological and cultural codes that no one will ever really understand – except with hindsight, when we call it evolution, because that sounds much nicer than ignorance. Hence the proliferation of experts and (particularly paid for) advice on the matter – when no one actually knows anything, then everyone can contribute without ever really being wrong about what codes to use when.

Case in point, tonight I saw a poster ad for a singles’ party at the local university this Friday. Now I suppose some people may live under the impression that studying as a whole isn’t much more than a singles’ party, but apparently, that’s no longer the case – evolution, remember? But it wasn’t the party itself that I found interesting – apparently, the organisers are going to hand out differently coloured ribbons indicating a particular person’s willingness to flirt. While I understand that coloured ribbons or other signs have long played a certain role in identifying potential partners in particular, often sexual, subcultures, where colours are usually codes for the person’s specific preferences, I am a tad bit confused about colours indicating willingness to flirt at a singles’ party for students?

Seriously, how many different kinds of flirting are there that can be usefully differentiated? Well,  I guess I have to go and see evolution with my own eyes to find out…

Spiegel Online (German) apparently followed up on the “ugly duckling” Mont Isa, Queensland, story I recently wrote about and comes up with some interesting figures regarding the Australian gender balance. When I was told by an Australian friend late last year that “there are hardly any good men in Sydney these days” I did not think she was talking statistics. But it turns out she was. Apparently, the borough of Annandale is the best place for men to meet women in Sydney, as there are 1.48 of them for each male inhabitant. Unfortunately, they did not add age brackets to the raw numbers, which would have added some more interesting information. The problem is only slightly less pronounced in most other parts of Sydney and other coastal areas in Australia.

In general, the article explains, there are more women living in the coastal cities, and more men in the Outback – like in Mount Isa, or in Glenden, where there are apparently 23 men for every woman. It’s a geographic imbalance exacerbated by the economic boom in raw materials (which is driving men to mostly male mining cities in the Outback) that is adding to Australia’s apparent overall lack of about 100,000 men, most of whom are apparently working abroad nowadays.

Given such an imbalance  – 100.000 is significant for a population of only 21m – one has to wonder what keeps driving Australian men abroad and Australian women from rural areas to the Australian coast.

Dani Rodrik with an Asian update of Robert Putnam’s theory about Italian democrary – what states are for, and why a monopoly of power is a good idea when it comes to governance structures.

“When the state does not enforce property rights… the Mafia–or, as happens in this case, the Taliban–will.”

Angesichts des neuesten Ausfalls des französischen Präsidenten, der einem unliebsamen Passanten auf der Pariser Landwirtschaftsmesse eine unschöne Aufforderung zum Wechsel seines Aufenthaltsorts an Kopf warf, beschäftigt sich Andreas Schepers auf Spreeblick mit der wohl bedeutendsten Frage der politischen Kommunikation in der neuen medialen Realität:

Welche Konsequenzen wird es haben, wenn jede halböffentliche Bemerkung eines Politikers aufgezeichnet und per Internet verbreitet werden kann?

Niemand weiß es. Das Problem sind dabei vermutlich auch weniger Ausraster wie die Sarkozys – wenn dieser Auftritt nicht in ein zunehmend von den präsidentiellen Eskapaden genervtes (europäisches!) Umfeld gefallen wäre, wäre das Video nicht mal halb so interessant – sondern die Unmöglichkeit unterschiedliche Zielgruppen mit spezifischen Botschaften anzusprechen, ohne dabei komplett kryptisch zu werden. Bestes Beispiel hierfür ist doch die Tatsache, daß der amerikanische Präsident in Texas kein “texanisch” mehr reden kann, wenn er darauf achten muß, daß seine Äußerungen in Crawford keine Probleme in New York oder in Brüssel kreieren.

Vielleicht finden sich Hinweise darauf in der Forschung von Kommunikationswissenschaftlern wie Danah Boyd (papers, blog) aus Berkeley, deren Vortrag zum Privatsphäeren-Management von Teenagern ich vor einiger Zeit in Paris hören konnte.

Erklären Teenager auf facebook die Zukunft politischer Kommunikation? On verra…

Interessante Artikelsammlung der ZEIT über die zunehmend öffentlich geführte Debatte über die “neue Männlichkeit”. Via genderblog.