About 'Alpha+Good'

Alpha+Good (a bad wordplay on Orwell's "double plus good" and old machismo - I'm the realest after all) is a side project that belongs to 'Onklare taal' ('Unclear' or 'Unripe language'), the umbrella of several literary projects in Dutch.

This section is almost exclusively in English and comprises my ongoing thoughts on progress, gender, politics and various other social themes. Why is this in English why everything else in Dutch? Because I want to gun for a much wider audience here. Also, my literary English isn't good enough, otherwise I would always write in English. In 2020, I released my debut novel 'Fragmentariërs' (it's written in Dutch, though who knows I may one day make an English translation).

Are you a little lost? This link will take you right back to my home page.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Progress 101

Recently, I found myself grappling a little with all the new and changed functionalities of PowerPoint in Windows 7. I'd been very familiar with the presentation software in an XP environment, when the dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, but I had plenty of new stuff to learn. So, I decided to use my learning experience for a good cause, and made a presentation that attempts to explain (with examples!):
  • What privilege is
  • How power structures (patriarchy, plutocracy, imperialism and superstition) manifest themselves
  • How people can be both oppressors and the oppressed simultaneously
  • How power structures intersect with one another
  • What typical defense and derail tactics of those power structures entail
I largely made this thing to help explain things to the uninitiated, especially fellow men who often seem to have difficulty grasping some elementary background concepts of social progress. It's a version 0.9, meaning it's still in a sort of bèta phase. I might do a version with voice-over later. Got feedback? Let me know.