He doesn’t necessarily have to be in on it. He can just be the kind of guy who views “leadership” as a sort of aura you have where you make issues about yourself personally and therefore by doing so you are demonstrating “leadership qualities.” Every CEO on the planet acts like this.
yeah the kind of assertions they offer are NOT good
and they speak in this kind of fashion precisely BECAUSE they are not good
they’re MANTRIC @-@
a good argument is something you really have to hear only ONCE — if you can deconstruct it, make sense of the moving parts, internalize it, tell it to a friend and they also understand it, that’s how you know it’s solid and can stand on it’s own, that’s how you know you’ve understood it
a bad argument by contrast cannot convince you on it’s own merits, so it will rely on affect. Commonly delivered are typical thought terminating clichés and of course the long-winded sermon which FEELS like it makes sense when you’re listening to it and exposed to the speaker’s charismatic “””aura”””, but later on will draw a blank when you try to recall what they were actually ABOUT.
“leadership is… aaaaah here just listen to these TED talks on facebook and it will all make sense”
point being, as convincing as this mode of argument is, it just doesn’t STICK with you the same way a coherent line of reasoning does — it NEEDS to be droned out and repeated over and over by these suits, the “””AAAURRAAA”””” (god replenished, because the words being spoken have just about ZERO power to convince you outside their delivery and tailor-made, charismatic packaging
there NEEDS to be a steady stream of confident voices all saying in succession, “we got this all figured out, and everyone else is naïve and stupid”, or else the followers are gonna notice the flaws
I feel like it’s more leaning towards this. Their stunt definitely isn’t what a good leader would do, but it did “inspire” others (fellow students in this strip, though that might be more due to his influence), it drew attention to themselves, and painted themselves as important. What they did is directly extremely harmful, but in terms of political science and leadership, well…that’s kind of the norm, isn’t it?
I tend to agree with the patreonistas that the upper strip is important. It makes the difference between O’ryan doing a bit and having some kind of coherent argument. It isn’t necessarily a good argument, but it’s also kind of hard to completely dismiss. What moves and inspires people isn’t necessarily directly related to what they’re motivated to do. It’s like the difference between politics and policy.
I think more than anything, the point of the strip in context is Dorothy coming to terms with the fact that being a Leader™ is not necessarily a shortcut to doing a lot of good.
I think you’re right. Leadership, as a skill, does not have moral value intrinsic to itself, and I think Dorothy hasn’t yet fully internalized that this is so. Dorothy seems to have kind of assumed that if she Leads properly, good will necessarily follow, and it won’t.
Patreon was right. Also, these work great together as a single piece, not just better than just the second would’ve by itself, though that’s also true. It’s got way more depth this way and good job Patreonistas.
I mean, it wasn’t really a stunt, they weren’t there for the protest, they were there to find Jocelyne, who was there for the protest, then they made a series of dumb, impulsive decisions that simply happened to take place at the protest but otherwise had nothing to do with it but were rather deeply personal matters that happened to be taking place in public, and that public setting happened to be the protest, and someone happened to take a picture of this deeply personal culmination of dumb, impulsive decisions and post it on the front page of the student newspaper.
None of that is a stunt, except maybe the decision to put the picture on the front page of the newspaper, depending on the motives of everyone involved in that decision. Knowing the editor lady, unless there were motives other than hers, that probably wasn’t a stunt either, she just likes the idea of two girls kissing and wishes one of them was her.
Leadership is others getting you. And not getting you as in “understanding you”, but getting you as in “that’s what they get whether they like it or not”.
Is it really Dorothy and Joyce’s fault? It’s not like they wanted the attention. I’d argue it’s more the fault of people signal-boosting it, like Daisy and this professor here. They were doing their jobs, acting deliberately, and really should know better.
He proceeds to spend the next 45 minutes listing other things that are not leadership, alphabetically. Makes it as far as “Abalone” then dismisses them until next time, reminding them that this WILL be on the final.
I’m not sure this class is a good thing for anyone. Also, I’m glad we’re getting a double strip today. It’s a nice bonus for the first day of December.
Leadership isn’t the subject for the course, it’s the subject for this section of the course, as for what this section of the course is, I don’t think we’ve been informed.
I had to take a leadership seminar at uni for scholarship reasons. Fortunately we weren’t graded on whether we were “good” leaders. We talked about the purpose and function of leaders and did exercises on skills related to leadership. Communication, organization, negotiation.
What I love is that Dorothy is bein forced to see what being a politician is gonna be like for he. She’s seeing what talking heads, the median voter, and pundits are gonna say about her every action.
Whatever gets publicized is gonna be scrutinized and analyzed, and made to fit a narrative or agenda. And worst of all, she’s seeing in real time what these kind of people like the professor will do when you challenge the narrative, and is being ignored for the better of the narrative.
Unfortunately we live in a society where the behaviors that are rewarded and the behaviors that would benefit society as a whole are pretty much two separated circles. If you’re explaining, you’re losing – etcetera.
Idk, I took a mandatory leadership class at a uni so far up corpo business rear that it shut down and sold its land for drilling rights and it was nothing like this dude lol. Neither did the profs at any of my other unis, and they literally were teaching us to commit actual white collar crimes and not to whistleblow (when I was a business major) lol. Even they would answer simple questions lol.
Yeah, I’ve been deep into corporate white collar american nonsense – it’s not like this guy at all. Like for real I nearly failed a professional skills course because I was joking and gesticulating during my presentation – who knew? You’re supposed to be dry and monotone! It conveys a sense of authority!
I get what was trying to be accomplished here with this set of strips – I don’t agree that this would hit anywhere the way it’s being described though. I can’t imagine someone obsessed with leadership calling this leadership, I can imagine the left eating itself, either over intersectionality (“the kiss took away from the protest”/”it’s okay to support both the protest and the kiss because it’s gay and we’re still fighting for acceptance of that”/”the protest was gauche culturally West-aligned babies pretending to be political, the kiss was the only authentic part of it”), or the conversation devolving into whether it’s okay to dislike Islam actually because gay people are haram, etc.
Yes, this is mainly what I look at on Reddit, and yes that’s why I avoid social media in general.
This explains so many of the problems the US are facing. It could be solved through education, but that would take more time than the US has left, probably.
Leadership means you do anything it takes to be in charge, and then you’re in charge, so whatever you do from that point is, necessarily, leadership! /s
Leaders can fall into one of several groups:
– Statesmen (and stateswomen): the ideal that story books talk about. They work for the common interest of their nation and their people. In reality, they do not exist; or rather, they are not permitted to reach power at a national level.
– Politicians. One rung below. Although they still keep the interests of their nation in mind, they also follow personal and partisan interests.
– Politickers. Yet one rung lower. Those are purely partisan creatures, interested in power only for their own ends and not for the common good of the country.
– Communicants. The very lowest rung. They’re like politickers, except they’re not even good at politicking; they’re only good at making the masses believe they are.
This teacher is teaching the class how to be a communicant.
Fascinating to see Dorothy in a polo-sci class at this stage of her deconstruction. It’s fun to see the class drawing so many conclusions entirely out of Dorothy’s control. A microcosm of how actually being in the public eye would feel.
Also fascinating to see a double-update. Live-updating webcomics are weird like that!
For reasons I don’t feel like articulating when it is already after midnight there is a high chance this professor holds a lot of fascistic beliefs. Symbols over substance, act without questioning, etc.
Maybe it’s bad to judge based on appearance but he also just doesn’t look that friendly design wise. Sharper angles on his face, the beard and the stern facial expression. He kind of looks like a villain. What would that be in DoA? Yeah a bad teacher/adult of some sort.
FWIW, I don’t think that anybody should judge you for using the theory behind character design, to make predictions about a fictional character. This is, in fact, a fiction; so, I struggle to comprehend how anybody should have a problem with you using literary tools to dissect a literary work.
It’s not always necessarily curves=good, straight lines=bad. In O’Ryan’s case yes his hard edges help add to his sense of danger but other characters like Joe also have a blockier design which for Joe implies stability and strength. I think this guy’s eyes and expression do a lot to skew him more toward’s antagonism. The smaller eyes and slicked back and neat hair. You might notice a lot of the men in the main don’t have neater hair. Even Joe lost his as he evolved as a character. Fluffy hair adds more of those softer lines to the head.
Patreon email, maybe? Willis had a post about unused strips, but discussion got him to use them anyway, thus the double strips plus changes to yesterday’s.
Yooooooo a two row strip! Also, I would absolutely skip as many of this prof’s classes as the uni would let me get away with. Or drop and find a new section.
Bro reminds me of the “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome” meme for some reason.
Wow! It’s been long enough that I forgot double strips were a thing.
In other news, this is one of the most interesting ways Dorothy could be treated narratively for this – “Oh, now you believe something is wrong about how y’all acted and how it was framed by the paper? Well plenty of other people don’t, which means now you have to question *them* their assumptions, and your own assumptions about them too! Oh btw, remember that earth-shattering breakdown you were in the middle of before you got like a day or two with Joyce? Hope you enjoyed the brief reprieve!”
i immediately got a bad vibe from this guy when he said “never apologize, that is leadership” but no… i was not being paranoid. this is exactly the kind of prick he first struck me as.
Yeah this man’s takes are… Insane and bear no resemblance to anything any leadership scholar I’ve ever met would endorse. I’m sure people like him are real but. That still isn’t what leadership is.
To the contrary. Rocks are essential to the development of biology because they provided the necessary chemical building blocks for early life, acted as catalysts and a source of nutrients for life’s emergence, and continue to form the physical and mineral foundation for all ecosystems today. The geological cycle, including the weathering of rocks, provides essential minerals that become nutrients, while the rocks themselves offer habitats and a record of life’s history. Rocks is biology!!!
Bro’s too stupid to even stay in the frame when he’s talking. Brainless fucklet can’t manage the bare minimum of comic panel composition, he’s just wandering off like he saw an interesting piece of lint on the floor.
Knock knock who’s there not this fucking idiot,
Why did the chicken cross the road lookin’ ass,
Dude was born premature because he forgot he was still gestating,
One two buckle the fuck up this class is goin’ on a wild ride and this guy never got his driver’s license,
This guy thinks the Wild West is a real direction and he’s gonna head east until he finds it
Nice to feel a small shred of validation that Daisy’s justification for running that photo was actually self serving bullshit. No one seeing that picture is thinking about the protest or that school labeled its students as criminals to let police brutalize them. Very annoying.
I feel like the general point of this whole segment is more “you CAN’T control how the public will react to your choices” than whether or not those specific reactions are good or bad.
And that, therefore, Dorothy is gonna need to learn to be savvy and prepared for that if she wants to keep working in some sort of public role.
Daisy’s rationale wasn’t bullshit at all. She said it was the best picture because reader engagement has never been higher, and the first part of that is a value judgement, while the second is straightforwardly true. Daisy never tried to justify her choice by saying it would bring attention to the protest, she justified it by sating she liked it and that it was popular with readers. You can disagree with that choice, but she was in no way being dishonest about her reasons for making it.
You’re right. I misremembered. She did never imply that she expected anyone to read the article or think about the protest. It was purely for “reader engagement” which I guess in this case is defined more by the act of purchasing a paper over reading the contents of it. Still annoying but my original statement was inaccurate.
I do find it pretty distasteful that there are convenient excuses for pure exploitation motivated solely by profit and sensationalism without ant accountability but that’s another argument entirely.
The Indiana Daily Student is free, and Daisy doesn’t get paid in accordance with readership. There is no profit motive. Generally speaking, when you make or curate content, engagement is the only objective measure you have of how well you are doing your job, which is why everyone converges on it.
By “Reader engagement has never been higher”, she means that the papers just flew off the racks in Read Hall. Because Joyce and Dorothy stole them all. And also Joyce and Dorothy are engaged now apparently.
That is not established. Gauging reader engagement by seeing how many physical copies have been taken requires someone to go out there and count, but it was still morning. Additionally, despite Jo-Do’s efforts, lots of people read it anyway, as these last comics have emphasized. I think Daisy was basing her assessment on the hits she was getting to the online edition.
I mean, he’s a professor; they aren’t all terrible teachers, but being good teachers isn’t always in their actual job description, and so quite a lot of them do not give two shits about the effectiveness of their classes.
He’s old enough and white enough that he’s either got tenure or this is a part-time for-fun thing (one of my college profs taught one class per term for funsies, so that apparently happens) and in either case he certainly doesn’t give two shits about how good the class is – he’s being paid and/or enjoying himself regardless.
The way O’Ryan covertly leads the students away from radicalization by emphasizing individual emotional responses while shutting down any larger systemic questions really puts the “lib” in liberal arts
I mean, it’s Dorothy. She’s probably been the first person in the class, every session this year, and probably sits in the very front, and probably speaks up frequently during lectures. She’s way more interested in academics than the average student in this school. She was, up until like two days ago, actually trying to get into Yale.
IDK what class sizes are actually like at this school, but there could easily be 300+ students in there. As freshmen go, Dorothy is likely more memorable to all of her professors, than 99% of all the students they teach.
I am waiting for someone to suggest that clearly they must throw Bulmeria under the bus to win elections for Pro-LGBTA rights as those are more important–and then someone say the reverse.
(I literally heard both arguments before the last election and was suitably disgusted)
For me it wasn’t more important, just more possible. Neither candidate wanted to help Bulmeria but one candidate wanted to roll back rights for marginalized groups and do mass deportations.
It’s very important to show voters you are ready to throw someone’s rights under the bus, they love knowing politicians will only stand up for people when it’s convenient. Leadership!
The impression I get is that this class isn’t going to talk about the ends leadership serves at all, but rather fetishizes leadership as its own thing.
Dorothy, I like the way you brain works. But if that kind of questioning isn’t leadership (according to bullshitters), you would do the world a service by exposing that these emperors have no clothes. Switch your major to journalism.
I mean, that’s actually a way this could go. Dorothy already works as a journalist, and has proven herself to be quite good at it too. And it would also mean she’d interact with Billifer more, which is always a blast.
Do I remember right that this class was competitive to get into? I’m wondering if O’Ryan is some big name with no real qualifications that the school hired just to brag about in marketing to prospective students, it kind of reminds me of a generic media power player thinking they’re an expert/genius and writing a book that one side eagerly laps up. (Spoofed by Geiss Cubes in 30 Rock for example)
One of my best history teachers was also a coach… but admittedly the coach thing was more of a side gig than the other way around. Dude actually had credentials to be a history teacher.
People mentioned that the most notable thing he did in the Other Universe was debate Bill O’Reilly, so its distinctly possible that he got his job for being some kind of media pundit, and not from actually studying political science at any real institution. Like, this fucking school hired *Robin* as a professor. There are clearly near-zero standards.
This man’s idea of leadership seems to boil down to be a jerk who doesn’t do any self-reflection or think about how things work to best steer the course of the ship, so sadly like way too many of our politicians these days.
Maybe this is a weird question but is leadership something that can be taught? When I hear today’s lesson is on leadership that just sounds like a red flag to me. I’m sure leadership qualities aren’t inherently bad and can be learned it just feels like anyone trying to teach that in a paid curriculum might be conning me with bullshit. What exactly am I supposed to be learning? Maybe professional management techniques? Persuasive and public speaking? What?
Leadership can be taught and nurtured as a skill but sometimes the difference between being an asshole and being a leader can be a bit hard to differentiate. That’s how dictators happen, after all. I think what people look for in a leader helps to cut the difference between becoming a leader and becoming a professional asshole.
For example, do people want a leader who assesses the skills of their fellows and divvies up responsibilities to nurture those skills? Listening to feedback and implementing it as needed? Doing their best to do as much good for as many people as possible? Or do they want someone who is loud, throws their weight around, and just dictates what people do while doing minimal work themselves? I do think saying ‘asking questions isn’t leadership’ is a sign that this guy’s kind of a dick. I’ve always felt that asking questions is a sign of intellect and I would rather have an intelligent leader.
I had an entire course on leadership in my educational leadership masters. We studied different philosophies and approaches to leadership (think hierarchical vs. service vs transformational), their pros and cons, how to address gender and multiculturalism in leadership, etc. Just Google types/styles/philosophies of leadership.
It’s a legit subject for a lesson or a course.
This guy’s approach, though, absolutely STINKS, based on what we’ve seen so far.
All the people who I know in life who are the best leaders now, weren’t capable of leading anybody 10 years ago. So it’s totally a learnable collection of skills.
Leadership skills and strategies can be taught. However, this guy’s an asshole, his idea of leadership is garbage, and he is ineffective at teaching it besides.
Leadership is absolutely something that can be taught, and the idea that it CAN’T be taught is one of the reason there are so many bad leaders and managers – nobody ever bothered teaching them or developing their skills because it’s assumed it’s innate.
Broadly speaking (not a professional, just my own observations), leadership is a matter of being able to read and then successfully channel group social dynamics in a direction of your choosing. Understanding what your group values, wants, and respects, and then presenting them with enough of it to convince them to not only do what you want, but to put in extra effort to make it happen because you’ve successfully convinced them that your goal is their goal. There’s a ton of ways to do this, some ethical, some less so, and you need to adjust the specific methods you use both for the group you’re working with and for yourself – a group culture that values consensus is going to do poorly with a leader operating on a “I’m in charge, I make the rules and that’s all there is to it” principle, and someone who likes setting an example and diving headfirst into the fray will probably have a hard time adapting to a leadership style based more on delegation and rear echelon instruction.
I’d argue that one of the most basic and fundamental lessons of leadership is something that seems pretty obvious when you say it out loud but which most untrained leaders don’t really take into consideration, to wit: People are different and nobody can read minds. Most people inherently tend to assume that everyone else is going to be like them, think like them, want the same things as them, and value the same things as them. That leads to them not actually communicating anything because they incorrectly assume that if something is obvious to them it’s obvious to everyone else, offering incentives that they consider rewarding but which everyone else regards as nearly a punishment, and treating people in a way that they personally would enjoy done to them, but which others might regard as annoying or even offensive. Taking the time and effort to actually observe your team and communicate with them to make sure everyone is actually on the same page while taking a steady, neutral hand until you’ve got a grip on the situation can, by itself, dramatically improve a lot of untrained leaders.
I’d also argue that another important fundamental lesson is what the role of a leader actually IS. There are way too many people who assume that being a leader means that you ARE the organization, and everyone else in it is simply an extension of your will, and that effective leadership means making sure everyone does what you want the way you want it every single time. I would argue that a more accurate and effective definition of a leader is that you are the directing organ of a much larger organism, and it is that organism that actually accomplishes anything, often without your direct input. Your role is to help direct that organism and make sure it functions smoothly, but fundamentally you are every bit a member of the team as much as everyone else on the team, as opposed to being the embodiment of the team whom all must serve. Yes, it’s an important part to play, and yes, you’re most likely going to get more socially and materially rewarded for playing that part, but at heart you serve the greater needs of the organization just like everyone else does. Once you start understanding that you can start acting a lot more effectively than those who think leadership is just a matter of feeding your ego until it bursts and playing stupid games to buoy your sense of dominance.
There’s a lot more to say about it (I’m actually in the middle of writing a book on the subject!) but yeah, there’s a lot that goes into leadership that one can go into.
This guy’s just one of those dumb idiots who think leadership is entirely a matter of attitude though, and his entire class is snake oil.
As someone with a management degree who occasionally does train leadership, lesson one is “leadership and management are two entirely different skills”.
Okay he needs to be served with a pitcher of salt to the side, this needs listing on the syllabus.
Those who cannot do, teach, ID BET.
Well, 3rd ISH ever comic with him in it, we know not to trust this white male teacher guy. That’s pretty quick. Now, we get to play the game of “is it internalized or intentional wrongthink?”
Bets on the latter, as in deliberate edgelord territory. “It’s provocative! It’s powerful! It’s sexy and that’s definitely what I want to think of in a woman politician! It’s all too soulless in this day and age, let’s have a HOT PRESIDENT!”
Ugh even trying to see things from that viewpoint makes me feel greasy… sorry that I wrote that, but I know the type. It just depends on if he would actually say it out loud, because I’m actually getting that vibe off him rn. The “hetero activated” mode.
I doubt it’s really got anything to do with views on women per se, it feels much more like this idiot subscribes to the all-too-common view of high-level leadership that leadership is one-for-one equivalent with confidence and all you need to be an effective leader is to ignore all criticism and stride dick-first into every meeting like you own it, because you do, because you’re a leader and that means you’re the front of every pack.
He’d probably say the same thing about gay men making out as well. It doesn’t really matter WHAT you’re doing as long as you’re doing it loudly and confidently without any concern for consequences. Take no prisoners, cede no ground, your will is the one that must manifest itself upon and shape the world.
Look, I completely understand all the miserable little pile of secrets votes, but no matter how big the pile gets, you just can’t deny that Oscar Isaac is the Man.
I get the feeling that this is some reference to a meme I missed… for me Oscar Isaac is just “that dude who played Duke Leto Atreides to absolute perfection” and had a line that made me cry.
“A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.”
— George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
I feel like a professor dedicating a lecture to “Look how hot these student lesbians are” is perhaps crossing the line from “wacky sitcom hijinx” into “Dorothy could plausibly sue the school for sexual harassment”.
I bet that guy who kept linking kisses at protest with a very self important “erm all kissing at protests are fine actually and there is never an instance where it might be inappropriate or rude to center the plight of the protest on an unrelated kiss instead” is feeling really good right now.
I mean, bringing attention to a genocide is an example of being an influencer of political discourse, so obviously you can’t do it without reaching influencer status.
Why everybody are just object but Dorothy is Keener.
why leadership is a subject taught at university anyway? The only lesson on leadership you need is “Everything is your fault”
I have a master’s degree in leadership! What I learned from those classes is that I don’t like capitalism. I already knew that, but it really cemented that.
I knew he was unqualified from last strip. “Leaders never apologize” is a TERRIBLE philosophy. And good leaders ALWAYS question.
There is actually a study that show that the most highly intelligent people always hesitate and question themselves while the dumb ones always believe their solution is the right one and plow full steam ahead. I think it was called the Dunning Kruger Effect
I think he’s less an idiot and more doing damage control for the university. He probably wants to make sure this particular class doesn’t become a serious discussion about why the protest happened, so instead it’s going to be about how Yuri is Leadership.
He would be an amazing solo act if true. It may be a fallacy to think that the same university that couldn’t see how badly they were handling a simple protest now has the ability to deliver God-tier social engineering to clean up afterwards.
It’s simpler to conclude that systems that deliver moronic actions are probably staffed by morons.
professors in a university don’t have to avoid criticizing the university in class. They are allowed to talk about protesting as much as they like, as long as they don’t actually do it.
Once again I would like to express my utter disdain for cargo-cult leadership techniques where the only thing necessary to be a leader is to ape the outward mannerisms of effective people without taking into account things like personality-juggling, loyalty-building, effective team communication, the development of shared values, actual follow-through on promises, actually having a genuine, coherent, well-thought-out plan for the future, or having the first idea what the hell it is you’re doing.
No, as long as you stride boldly into every situation giant swinging ballsack first you too can be the next Steve Jobs, no brains or charisma required! All these secrets and more in my new book for only $29.99!
Honestly, it’s a pretty fair description of Jobs. If it weren’t for Steve Wozniak, Jobs probably would have wound up as the best car salesman in the greater San Francisco area.
Good leadership can be used to center back the attention to the actual issue. If all the attention is drawn to this picture, then then good leadership could use that already created attention back to what actually matter.
Dorothy did something brave and selfish for once in her life and now she gets to find out the rippling effects of that and how quickly it can be folded into the political machinations of others.
I’m not really surprised that Bart O’Ryan is talking a bunch of nonsense, since that was what he was like in the other comic universe too, if I remember correctly. I don’t think two women kissing at an anti-genocide protest that was not even remotely about them should really be considered leadership. Nice to see that Dorothy is starting to realize these sorts of things now, though I worry that she’ll forget about this when she meets up with Joyce again after class.
Why would she forget it? Because she’d be happy to see Joyce and that would be insufficiently self-flagellating? It’s been pretty clear that Dorothy believes they screwed up at the protest. That was the reasoning behind the ill-concieved apology to Asma.
I think Joyce would agree with the professor, given that she declared she’s “heroically gay” and deserves an award. I don’t think she understands that the kiss being photographed completely negated the purpose of the protest and now everyone thinks it was for gay rights, not anti-genocide.
It’s so weird that all of the poli sci classes shown seem to be about how to be a politician rather than the study of political systems. That was not my experience taking poli sci classes!
Yep, same. As a former political scientist, I have to skim a lot of these as stand-ins for awkward student-teacher interactions and just move on. I’m hoping this arc comes to a more mature conclusion, but right now it’s a bit too bluesky-leftist for me.
Sure, but they usually do a good job of not presenting caricatures.
Though, to be fair, I can accept Robin being really incompetent and having no idea what to teach about the systems, so just relying on personal anecdotes and cynicism. It’s Robin, she shouldn’t be there at all.
I’m a little more bothered that so much of audience here seemed to think she was doing a good job – telling it like it is.
As for this guy, based on first impressions, there’s no excuse.
It’s not a realistic reflection of a robust political science curriculum, but that would be less effective at communicating the necessary narrative beats, and harder to write if you’ve never experienced that kind of class. You make some compromises for the sake of a good story sometimes.
It’s like how every university lecture in a movie always ends at the exact moment the lecturer gives some information that will be important to the narrative later (honestly, movie lecturers have no sense how to structure a lesson)
I taught political science, mostly comparative politics and international relations. In my experience, political science teaches you about systems. Many professors I worked with disliked politicians, myself included. I also did a form of leadership training: I hosted Model Congress, Model Parliament, Model UN, and Model WTO as part of the curriculum. However, this was mainly to show how these systems function in practice. I served as the parliamentarian and advised students on procedure, while the students themselves ran the sessions.
Yeah, she is showing leadership. The couple in the photo are not. Also, leadership does in fact question, often more than any other thing it does. Not that I’ve experience. Or actual training. But, I’ll never claim to have been good at it or am good at it. I even have a squeaky voice.
I have a friend who taught a class on project management, which is a kind of leadership I guess, using Robert Oppenheimer and The Bomb as a case study. He was big on questions. Can’t do anything important without them.
Believe me, I appreciate that the original plan was always to have this sort of dilemma for Dorothy, and I also appreciate a good strawman when I see one.
But there are two reasons it really falls flat for me. For one, given the juxtaposition of panels 1 and 2, it’s hard to believe that no one there actually recognizes Dorothy. But we can chalk this one up to artistic license and leave it at that.
The bigger reason is that, in all honesty, continuing to have this photo be A Thing is pretty much always going to make my issue with it worse, not better.
I could spew words at you, but it really comes down to the fact that the issue is Doylist, not Watsonian, and so long as Dorothy & Joyce are our leads, it’s basically impossible for the comic to avoid doing what Dorothy is lampshading up there. To do otherwise would require us, basically, to be reading a different comic.
So TL;DR: I think I’d much prefer that the IDS photo be memory holed and we all move on from this.
I’ve got less than zero problem with “Dorothy Keener and the Institutional Abuse of Power” being a plot arc- it’s not my cup of tea but that’s not something I’ll ever comment on beyond “yeah this really isn’t my cup of tea”- but doing so with the IDS photo is *never* going to work, sadly.
I feel similarly. “Using a protest against a real-world inspired genocide as a backdrop for two characters having a romantic breakthrough” is a different issue than “kissed someone as we were being told to leave an anti-genocide protest.” I’m not a particular fan of either, but my issue is more with the first. And in-universe criticism can’t really touch that because… it’s in-universe. It doesn’t land.
It doesn’t help that the kiss was a direct result of Joyce trying to drag Dorothy away from the protest as the latter attempted to make a pointless stand in a fit of self-destructive anger for a cause that she did not seem to care at all about until that very moment.
The whole scene, in retrospect, felt a lot like that thing in It’s Walky where characters would suddenly start explosively fighting or beating the shit out of each other at the drop of a hat. Or the removal of a hat, as the case may be.
Everything leading up to and surrounding the kiss was DRENCHED in selfishness from our two leading ladies, that was sort of the entire point, and the fact that more time in the five months since has been spent trying to criticize having had that story moment at all instead of consequences for the characters who participated in that moment is kind of grating?
Sorry, wait, everything leading up to and surrounding the kiss was drenched in selfishness?
It was selfishness when they went into a dangerous area to warn Jocelyn? It was selfish of Joyce to go rescue Dorothy from throwing herself into harm’s way in a post traumatic breakdown? Those do not feel like selfish acts to me.
I mean, going to the protest to warn Jocelyne wasn’t what led to the kiss. Joyce and Dorothy were past the gate after having warned Jocelyne, about to leave, when Dorothy made the decision to storm back in and get herself deliberately arrested. A superhero had to kick a cop in the face for them to get back out.
Not for nothing, but both characters were also talking about how their then-partners were either working hard to be a good boyfriend (Joyce) or how they’ve been selfish in their treatment of their boyfriend (Walky). That selfishness is what led to the kiss happening seemed like the entire point, no?
The comic cannot possibly do what Dorothy fears she did because it exists in its own space and that are engaging with voluntarily for the purpose of recreation. Consequently, Willis using a genocide protest as a background element in his story is incapable of distracting from real life genocide. Obviously you don’t like that he did it, and you don’t like being reminded that he did it, but your personal displeasure does not with the photo does bot make it any more a distraction from real world issues than the rest of the comic.
I mean, yes. That’s the whole thrust of the Doylist vs Watsonian problem.
The fact that a protest against (a stand-in for) Palestinian genocide was used as a framing device for two blonde white women to suck face has been recognized as not having been a good look. It was a writing decision that feels yucky in retrospect. The trouble is that the characters in the story can’t break the fourth wall and say, as Willis has on social media, “Hey, the original plan was not to do the kiss at this moment and I/the author changed my/their mind, and in retrospect making the kiss the most important part of this webcomic’s representation of a real anti-genocide protest at the real Indiana University was not great.” When Raidah or Dorothy criticizes the choice of cover photo used to represent the protest, what they’re really criticizing is the choice of the story they’re in to have chosen the kiss and the interpersonal turmoil of two characters who came to the protest for unrelated reasons (preventing Jocelyne from being outed as trans to her family).
A superhero had to KICK A COP IN THE FACE to enable framing the protest around forbidden lesbian romance!
I forgot where I was going with this but the whole thing’s sort of a mess is the bottom line, and having this criticism levied in universe so soon after the story being criticized was published (it only happened last July) continues to not work out super well in my entirely pointless and unnecessary opinion
Yucky in retrospect, yucky in the moment. The whole sequence from the moment dotty started her tantrum was a deeply uncomfortable read and not in a way that felt intentional. It was just bad. Desperately wishing for a time machine so we can go back and tell Willis that trying to keep spoilers from their sensitivity reader is a terrible idea
“In retrospect” was intended as “in retrospect from when it was written and put into the buffer a year ago to when it was published and the audience saw it” but in retrospect what I actually wrote doesn’t give that impression at all WHOOPS
Dorothy is worried that her kiss making front page news is distracting from the issue that the protest was about. There may be people in-universe who might have learned something about Bulmeria and/or authoritarianism, but will not because the Daisy prioritized quantity of reader engagement over quality of engagement.
Rogue7 said that he feels the comic is doing the same thing every time the picture comes up. I am countering that the comic is incapable of doing that. Nobody has been distracted from real world genocide by Willis’s decision, nobody can be. The marginal person who would have learned more about Palestine but didn’t because of this storyline does not exist
Instead, what we have is that some people think it is tasteless to bring up a sensitive real world issue only to use it a background element. Which is fine, I get that people don’t like it. I am objecting to equating that Dorothy’s concerns, which are about doing real harm not having a lack of decorum.
And I’m saying that you’re interpreting this too literally, because Dorothy and the world she inhabits do not exist, but their pretend fake make-believe world can be commentary on our real world, and the webcomic that she is a starring character in is one of those things that exists in our for actual no kidding is actually a thing world.
The criticism of the webcomic Dumbing of Age that Dorothy’s dialog here represents is literally more real than the in-universe justification for that dialog because the universe she’s in is not and will never be real, and so even though the in-universe critique doesn’t line up 1/1 with the real world critique, the real world critique is still the more important part of it.
I’ll be honest, Dave, while I’m glad you agree with me I can’t really parse exactly what you’re saying beyond that.
But Lys, I don’t think you get what I’m saying. Fundamentally, DoA is a romantic comedy. I don’t want that to change! But in my experience, the only way for a romantic comedy to effectively communicate serious topics is for said serious topics to affect our main characters in some way. I think back to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s episode on racial profiling, which only worked because Will and Carlton, you know, actually got racially profiled.
So a lot of the LGBT+ issues the comic has brought attention to have worked really well- the cast has had to deal with homophobia, homelessness, attempts at forced conversion, etc.
By contrast, Becky being Robin’s campaign manager was an arc that I *don’t* think worked well, except when it got personal. Becky hijacking Robin’s twitter feed with progressive policies somehow made her numbers go up? When Robin was running as a Republican? It never landed well. But Becky confronting Robin with “why would you vote to let my dad do that to me?”, more or less, landed really well. Again, because there were deep personal connections.
And Joyce and Dorothy don’t organically have those connections to the protests. They’re two white girls from Indiana and their major conflicts center around their relationships, not protests.
Two black teenagers in the 90s dealing with racial profiling? Yeah, that makes sense. An LGBT+ youth from a fundamentalist household having her dad kidnap her at gunpoint to “fix” her? Yeah, I see where that’s coming from. But two white girls deep in New Relationship Energy suddenly becoming the face of a protest movement about a genocide in another country? Where did that come from?
Excellent comment and I’ll add, it stands to reason that this plotline would be difficult to do *even for an author that has a lot of experience telling this type of story*, let alone someone who doesn’t, like Willis. Their wheelhouse has been largely in other areas, and while I don’t want to discourage exploration outside of that wheelhouse (the opposite, in fact!), going from 0 to 100 this way with little to no experience about one of the most politically sensitive issues of not just our time, but of all time, was perhaps ill advised.
These are textual problems, which I have no argument with other than to shrug and say, “Works for me.” My issue is with the supposed metatextual problems. The author putting in something that happened in real life in his alma matter as a background element, there’s nothing wrong with that.. It’s no different than classes being a background element, it’s a thing that happens at Indiana University. Walky didn’t need a personal connection to his math class, beyond attending it, for us to have a story of him dealing with the consequences of struggling with it. That story was never about the math. Same thing here, the only connection Dorothy and Joyce need to the Bulmeria protest is to have been there.
Except for the part of the comic that uses a protest about said real-life issues as a backdrop for the relationship upgrade of the two leads. The part where the tech billionaire’s daughter is on a path to confront her parents about divestment.
The issue is not that leads in a romantic comedy acted like and continue to act like leads in a romantic comedy. That would be like if I opened up an issue of One Piece and complained that there are pirates.
I actually *liked* when the protests were a background element of the story, when their sole source of narrative importance was a way to bring Jocelyne back. I thought it worked very well as a way to touch on something real and important in the context of a 4-panel romantic comedy.
It didn’t work as a central plot element, precisely because this is romantic comedy. And it still doesn’t here.
Neighbor, I’m bloody well certain that Willis has acknowledged that the protests in the strip were meant to represent the real-life protests that happened/are happening on the IU campus, protests that are about the genocide in Gaza.
If Willis had wanted to make the protests about Gaza, then it would have been very easy to use that name instead of Bulmeria. That was not the choice that was made. You’re free to read into it what you want, but you’re not free to force other people into doing so.
People in authority have been freaking out about student protests and over-reacting to them for some time now; sometimes tragically so, resulting in actual deaths. The use of Bulmeria allows a bit of distance and universality without tying it to the specifics of a particular protest.
I agree that using Bulmeria instead of Gaza allows for, as you said, a bit of distance and universality. When that sort of trope (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FictionalCountry) is used well (as it was, like I said, back when the protests were background radiation), it does exactly that. For the longest time, because the closest real-life country name to Bulmeria that I know of is, in fact, BulGARia, I always pictured the country as Eastern European, usually a former part of Yugoslavia. That such a country might be in the midst of a civil war with a USA-supported faction on one side and a Muslim minority on the other is eminently believable- there were elements of that in the Bosnian war, abso-fucking-lutely, to my layman’s knowledge.
But given the *direct* parallels made- police snipers on roofs, the university changing rules arbitrarily, and that the protests were specifically about divestment- not to mention what Willis themself has said in their metacommentary on the comic- it’s hard for me to see how I’m “forcing other people into doing so” as opposed to “reading the text as it is intended.”
But this whole argument is a distraction from my core point. There are numerous issues one could draw parallels to Bulmeria on. And in precisely none of them is the core issue “there aren’t enough white women kissing”. Willis took whichever issue you care to relate the protests to and said “do you know what this needs? White girls making out!”
I should clarify that I know this was unintentional, that issues like this are enormously complex and thorny and that I believe Willis’s intentions were and are the best. They tried to walk a very fine tightrope and fell off. But from my perspective, here they are taking another shot at walking that tightrope when I’d really just prefer they move on to the sword-swallowing act I know they can do perfectly.
Damn, Rogue 7 with the death threats. “I want David Willis to swallow a sword in real life”, like that’s not a legally actionable statement of your intent to stab David Willis with a real sword. You murderer.
I get it and it’s not going to be something that you’re going to like plot wise. We all have our issues there. Still, I think its something that is going to be an important idea.
That Dorothy needs to understand what she wants to actively do campus wise and politics wise.
That’s pretty much what I meant with the whole “Dorothy Keener and the Institutional Abuse of Power” bit.
I don’t have a problem with “Dorothy needs to understand what she wants to do actively campus-wise and politics-wise” as an arc. It’s not my cup of tea, but there have been *so* many well-written arcs in this comic that I haven’t much vibed with.
But I think this arc, “Dorothy & Joyce face repercussions of their kiss going viral”, is riddled with too many problems, both within the text and metatextually, that it’s never going to fall into that category of “cool but not for me”. If that was what this arc was I wouldn’t be here.
i’m not sure this is about leadership. it seems to be a class on how to be an alpha male of any gender. That’s not the same thing. I am convinced good leaders ask good questions and LISTEN to voices they aren’t already catering to.
It is funny since he clearly does not know the other students’ names, but to be fair Dorothy is the sort of student to introduce herself to the teacher, so… He probably knows her name.
“Leadership is understanding that Bulmeria protests threatens our funding from the government. Anyway, look at the pretty gay girls and accept this distraction.”
There’s a critical distinction between being able to lead people (ie, getting them to follow your lead)…
… and having the first clue about the right direction to lead them.
Maybe that class is next semester.
(No, I have no examples of people who illustrate this distinction. None whatsoever. Our present political leadership is completely devoid of any such individuals.)
He just likes seeing two chicks kiss… and that’s kind of a problem in his position, to be bringing that up in class.
That is absolutely not leadership… but this is probably accurate to many people’s attitudes *about* leadership. Mainly, the ones who say that they themselves have “leadership skills”.
And one thing I’ve learned in life… someone who emphasizes that they have “leadership skills”, absolutely does not have leadership skills. They just like bossing people around. That’s not the same thing.
Weirdly, sometimes yes. My mom has, I think, exceptionally good leadership skills, and she spent a hefty chunk of her career hiring a team that meant she could ask them what’s going on because she never knew (that’s what THEY were for) and mostly she went to meetings and wrangled other leaders/workgroups so they stayed out of the way.
That’s a good example of someone who supports others. That’s different than “just do this and don’t question me”. So yeah, it sounds like she was a very good leader.
There is something so frustrating about comments today and yesterday calling it a lesbian kiss, etc, when at the same time Joyce can’t call actually herself gay without a bunch of people accusing her of bi-erasure.
And policing which slurs bi women have access to as a fun bonus I guess. Because as we all know, queer phones always make sure to stop and get a full list of your micro labels as well as your pronouns before they call you names.
Gawd if I knew. I have an iPhone 13 mini because I have small hands but Google is so bad now that I don’t think there’s a better option for phones. It’s just all bad now.
It’s incredibly exhausting, and throwing my voice behind Donovan about it being background radiation for months. There was so much other stuff going on that I was able to ignore it, but now it’s coming out of the woods to the forefront.
I can overlook a certain amount of it as umbrella terms or casual speech.
But then Joyce actually tries to USE it as an umbrella term and suddenly everyone is so concerned about bi erasure. It really throws the hypocrisy into sharp relief.
Genuinely only for the last like fifty years or so, though. That’s when lesbian was suddenly aggressively redefined from “woman who loves women” to “woman who doesn’t love men” and bi women got kicked out.
That first comic sheds more light in what totally other people see in that photo in-universe…
and who could have known????
It’s exactly as what happens with thousands of other real-life photos of kisses in protests/riots. Mind blowing!!!
Who could have expected this exactly happening?
“Oh noeeeees , they are white stupid chicks, they should not even be there!!!” – Yeeeeee whatever specific commenters, your moral compass is really showing there. Good job. 😉
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of frickin course he doesn’t understand (or care) why that stunt of theirs really wasn’t okay
is an expected but nonetheless unfortunate response (-_-)
*sighs heavily*
He works for the university. If the university can kill the story about Bulmeria, they will.
Puddinghead is in on it.
ding ding ding
much easier to use the kiss as a way to distract from them being the ones letting the tear gas fly.
He doesn’t necessarily have to be in on it. He can just be the kind of guy who views “leadership” as a sort of aura you have where you make issues about yourself personally and therefore by doing so you are demonstrating “leadership qualities.” Every CEO on the planet acts like this.
yeah the kind of assertions they offer are NOT good
and they speak in this kind of fashion precisely BECAUSE they are not good
they’re MANTRIC @-@
a good argument is something you really have to hear only ONCE — if you can deconstruct it, make sense of the moving parts, internalize it, tell it to a friend and they also understand it, that’s how you know it’s solid and can stand on it’s own, that’s how you know you’ve understood it
a bad argument by contrast cannot convince you on it’s own merits, so it will rely on affect. Commonly delivered are typical thought terminating clichés and of course the long-winded sermon which FEELS like it makes sense when you’re listening to it and exposed to the speaker’s charismatic “””aura”””, but later on will draw a blank when you try to recall what they were actually ABOUT.
“leadership is… aaaaah here just listen to these TED talks on facebook and it will all make sense”
point being, as convincing as this mode of argument is, it just doesn’t STICK with you the same way a coherent line of reasoning does — it NEEDS to be droned out and repeated over and over by these suits, the “””AAAURRAAA”””” (god replenished, because the words being spoken have just about ZERO power to convince you outside their delivery and tailor-made, charismatic packaging
there NEEDS to be a steady stream of confident voices all saying in succession, “we got this all figured out, and everyone else is naïve and stupid”, or else the followers are gonna notice the flaws
they are NOT well-hidden
re: “AAAURRAAAA”
god i fucking hate that word in this context, aaaaaaaa
That was honestly my read of it, too.
I feel like it’s more leaning towards this. Their stunt definitely isn’t what a good leader would do, but it did “inspire” others (fellow students in this strip, though that might be more due to his influence), it drew attention to themselves, and painted themselves as important. What they did is directly extremely harmful, but in terms of political science and leadership, well…that’s kind of the norm, isn’t it?
What does Chloe have to do with it?
/j
Agh, apologies for accidental report!
Oh my, no, faculty aren’t usually that aligned with the university. This guy is just a jerk.
Yes, professors and lecturers obediently follow the party line set down by university administration. You’ve described the internal politics to a T.
Good one.
I mean, Les and Robin work for the university and were both *at the protest*.
I tend to agree with the patreonistas that the upper strip is important. It makes the difference between O’ryan doing a bit and having some kind of coherent argument. It isn’t necessarily a good argument, but it’s also kind of hard to completely dismiss. What moves and inspires people isn’t necessarily directly related to what they’re motivated to do. It’s like the difference between politics and policy.
I think more than anything, the point of the strip in context is Dorothy coming to terms with the fact that being a Leader™ is not necessarily a shortcut to doing a lot of good.
I think you’re right. Leadership, as a skill, does not have moral value intrinsic to itself, and I think Dorothy hasn’t yet fully internalized that this is so. Dorothy seems to have kind of assumed that if she Leads properly, good will necessarily follow, and it won’t.
Patreon was right. Also, these work great together as a single piece, not just better than just the second would’ve by itself, though that’s also true. It’s got way more depth this way and good job Patreonistas.
seconded
I mean, it wasn’t really a stunt, they weren’t there for the protest, they were there to find Jocelyne, who was there for the protest, then they made a series of dumb, impulsive decisions that simply happened to take place at the protest but otherwise had nothing to do with it but were rather deeply personal matters that happened to be taking place in public, and that public setting happened to be the protest, and someone happened to take a picture of this deeply personal culmination of dumb, impulsive decisions and post it on the front page of the student newspaper.
None of that is a stunt, except maybe the decision to put the picture on the front page of the newspaper, depending on the motives of everyone involved in that decision. Knowing the editor lady, unless there were motives other than hers, that probably wasn’t a stunt either, she just likes the idea of two girls kissing and wishes one of them was her.
Nah Dorothy going back, and Joyce chasing her was definitely a stunt.
I suspect people are using different definitions of “stunt” here.
You know that, and I know that, but this “Leadership” prof hasn’t got a clue what was going through their heads at the time.
Dorothy running back in specifically to hold a sign very publicly on a rises of ground was absolutely a stunt.
He really, really does not get it.
Getting it is not leadership.
Leadership is others getting you. And not getting you as in “understanding you”, but getting you as in “that’s what they get whether they like it or not”.
Getting it isn’t leadership.
This teacher is a turd. Withdraw from class, get full refund.
He’s teaching “Leadership” Or how to be a strongman. Bad Teacher. Good lesson if you spot it, but that’s not what he want’s out of you.
Is it really Dorothy and Joyce’s fault? It’s not like they wanted the attention. I’d argue it’s more the fault of people signal-boosting it, like Daisy and this professor here. They were doing their jobs, acting deliberately, and really should know better.
He proceeds to spend the next 45 minutes listing other things that are not leadership, alphabetically. Makes it as far as “Abalone” then dismisses them until next time, reminding them that this WILL be on the final.
sort of equivalent to laughing at something just before mike runs up and kicks it
ah.
…so in the end, she’s the only one he knows by name
That’s LEADERSHIP!
It is.
have an A!
oooooooh good noticing
I’m not sure this class is a good thing for anyone. Also, I’m glad we’re getting a double strip today. It’s a nice bonus for the first day of December.
Not sure what class this is exactly, but if it’s poli-sci then I think I might actually prefer Robin’s lessons.
Is “Leadership” a valid subject for a course? And if it is, how the fuck do you qualify that?
If you aren’t assertive enough to get out of the class, obviously you need it.
First day of class, the professor demands each student to get out of his class as they enter, anyone who does immediately fails.
But aren’t those the ones who need the class the most? Seems counterproductive.
good question! good questions aren’t leadership.
Leadership isn’t the subject for the course, it’s the subject for this section of the course, as for what this section of the course is, I don’t think we’ve been informed.
I had to take a leadership seminar at uni for scholarship reasons. Fortunately we weren’t graded on whether we were “good” leaders. We talked about the purpose and function of leaders and did exercises on skills related to leadership. Communication, organization, negotiation.
My grad school had a “Leadership and [School Focus]” class in its core.
I’m pretty sure he’s a Law professor?
I like this strip. Glad these criticisms are being acknowledged and internalized. I’ll always give credit where it is due.
It’s a great strip and I can’t wait to see more.
What I love is that Dorothy is bein forced to see what being a politician is gonna be like for he. She’s seeing what talking heads, the median voter, and pundits are gonna say about her every action.
Whatever gets publicized is gonna be scrutinized and analyzed, and made to fit a narrative or agenda. And worst of all, she’s seeing in real time what these kind of people like the professor will do when you challenge the narrative, and is being ignored for the better of the narrative.
Yep. Actual morality isn’t the point, the job is about repurposing headlines and stories into whatever helps your career.
In that sense, she’s learning a lot in this lesson! Good job, Professor O’Ryan?
I like it as well. The story finally got to the interesting part for me.
Joyce and Dorothy swooning over each other was cloying (again, to me), but this is actually interesting, and much more complex.
What is this class? how to be insufferable??
Unfortunately we live in a society where the behaviors that are rewarded and the behaviors that would benefit society as a whole are pretty much two separated circles. If you’re explaining, you’re losing – etcetera.
Idk, I took a mandatory leadership class at a uni so far up corpo business rear that it shut down and sold its land for drilling rights and it was nothing like this dude lol. Neither did the profs at any of my other unis, and they literally were teaching us to commit actual white collar crimes and not to whistleblow (when I was a business major) lol. Even they would answer simple questions lol.
They answered the simple questions, and look what happened? Now they’re out of their jobs, but that would never happen to Professor O’Ryan.
Yeah, I’ve been deep into corporate white collar american nonsense – it’s not like this guy at all. Like for real I nearly failed a professional skills course because I was joking and gesticulating during my presentation – who knew? You’re supposed to be dry and monotone! It conveys a sense of authority!
I get what was trying to be accomplished here with this set of strips – I don’t agree that this would hit anywhere the way it’s being described though. I can’t imagine someone obsessed with leadership calling this leadership, I can imagine the left eating itself, either over intersectionality (“the kiss took away from the protest”/”it’s okay to support both the protest and the kiss because it’s gay and we’re still fighting for acceptance of that”/”the protest was gauche culturally West-aligned babies pretending to be political, the kiss was the only authentic part of it”), or the conversation devolving into whether it’s okay to dislike Islam actually because gay people are haram, etc.
Yes, this is mainly what I look at on Reddit, and yes that’s why I avoid social media in general.
Dorothy’s not asking a simple question, she’s shutting down his lesson plan.
This explains so many of the problems the US are facing. It could be solved through education, but that would take more time than the US has left, probably.
Isn’t running roughshod over people with BS the essence of practical politics?
Good question – but not leadership.
Leadership means you do anything it takes to be in charge, and then you’re in charge, so whatever you do from that point is, necessarily, leadership! /s
An Intro To Poli-“Sci” course. How to get and keep power. Not at all about ethics, morality, or progress.
I’m pretty sure this is “Making A Strawman So Your Protagnost Can Have A Moment of Self Reflection” 101
Or maybe 102 seeing as it’s second semester now
Yes, basically it is how to be insufferable.
Leaders can fall into one of several groups:
– Statesmen (and stateswomen): the ideal that story books talk about. They work for the common interest of their nation and their people. In reality, they do not exist; or rather, they are not permitted to reach power at a national level.
– Politicians. One rung below. Although they still keep the interests of their nation in mind, they also follow personal and partisan interests.
– Politickers. Yet one rung lower. Those are purely partisan creatures, interested in power only for their own ends and not for the common good of the country.
– Communicants. The very lowest rung. They’re like politickers, except they’re not even good at politicking; they’re only good at making the masses believe they are.
This teacher is teaching the class how to be a communicant.
To quote Opus’ reflection from one Bloom County strip: “A statesman… is a dead politician. Lord knows we need more statesmen.”
Fascinating to see Dorothy in a polo-sci class at this stage of her deconstruction. It’s fun to see the class drawing so many conclusions entirely out of Dorothy’s control. A microcosm of how actually being in the public eye would feel.
Also fascinating to see a double-update. Live-updating webcomics are weird like that!
The Polo-sci class is out at the horse track…
They’re pretty rare in DoA; there was a triple-update a little under four years ago and a double-strip-height splash page waaay back in 2011, but I think that’s it IIRC.
That splash page was glorious. Thank you for the reminder.
Half expecting tomorrow’s strip to be him going “it’s GREAT leadership!”.
Yeah I’ve seen enough. You know the deal. Don’t trust Professor O’Ryan.
right?
Brian Griffin, eat your frickin heart out 9-9
For reasons I don’t feel like articulating when it is already after midnight there is a high chance this professor holds a lot of fascistic beliefs. Symbols over substance, act without questioning, etc.
That’s kind of the vibe I’ve been getting as well.
Maybe it’s bad to judge based on appearance but he also just doesn’t look that friendly design wise. Sharper angles on his face, the beard and the stern facial expression. He kind of looks like a villain. What would that be in DoA? Yeah a bad teacher/adult of some sort.
The biggest villain we had (so far) wore a mask and costume; still a bad adult, but he at least looked the part.
What’s the difference between a villain and a supervillain? Presentation!
The biggest difference between a villain and supervillain is Leadership. Aren’t you paying attention to the professor?
FWIW, I don’t think that anybody should judge you for using the theory behind character design, to make predictions about a fictional character. This is, in fact, a fiction; so, I struggle to comprehend how anybody should have a problem with you using literary tools to dissect a literary work.
Wasn’t Becky’s evil dad literally just a square?
Curves = good. Straight lines = bad
It’s not always necessarily curves=good, straight lines=bad. In O’Ryan’s case yes his hard edges help add to his sense of danger but other characters like Joe also have a blockier design which for Joe implies stability and strength. I think this guy’s eyes and expression do a lot to skew him more toward’s antagonism. The smaller eyes and slicked back and neat hair. You might notice a lot of the men in the main don’t have neater hair. Even Joe lost his as he evolved as a character. Fluffy hair adds more of those softer lines to the head.
Now, see. Somehow, I feel the emphasis on O’Ryan is a red herring. The authentic Sirksome response I expect and demand is “Don’t trust Leadership!”
Clif: So you’re saying don’t trust Sirksome?
No, I’m saying don’t trust entitled Clifs.
I mean he start out as a Bill O’Reilly type
It’s worth looking at the tag to see how Prof O’Ryan was first introduced.
Gotta say, that Walky strip was pure leadership.
Oh, he updated it.
Yesterday that strip was still tagged with “Bart”
Read the email first. Now… anticlimax.
Still, I guess process is interesting.
What email?
Patreon email, maybe? Willis had a post about unused strips, but discussion got him to use them anyway, thus the double strips plus changes to yesterday’s.
Changes to yesterday’s? Now I need to go back to check it.
There was a Patreon post explaining Willis’s thinking in more detail. Due to the wonky site clock, it came out before today’s strip appeared.
DYW sent out a Patreon email out right before the update with the history and earlier versions of the strips.
He’s never led a single thing in his life.
Not true, he’s leading his class to some terrible conclusions right now!
LEADERSHIP!
oshit DOUBLE STRIP!
Is DoA doing Sundays now??
*checks title text*
awww…
Yooooooo a two row strip! Also, I would absolutely skip as many of this prof’s classes as the uni would let me get away with. Or drop and find a new section.
Bro reminds me of the “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome” meme for some reason.
He clearly loves the smell of his own farts, so I wouldn’t put it past him to sip his own piss.
“Sir, the kiss wasn’t leadership.”
“It clearly is.”
“Sir, that is me. We were just horny and finally realized it.”
“Sounds like leadership.”
horniness by example
Smells like… leadershit.
Wow! It’s been long enough that I forgot double strips were a thing.
In other news, this is one of the most interesting ways Dorothy could be treated narratively for this – “Oh, now you believe something is wrong about how y’all acted and how it was framed by the paper? Well plenty of other people don’t, which means now you have to question *them* their assumptions, and your own assumptions about them too! Oh btw, remember that earth-shattering breakdown you were in the middle of before you got like a day or two with Joyce? Hope you enjoyed the brief reprieve!”
I really, REALLY, hope we get back to the breakdown now.
i immediately got a bad vibe from this guy when he said “never apologize, that is leadership” but no… i was not being paranoid. this is exactly the kind of prick he first struck me as.
I’d be like walking in a biology class and hearing “Rocks is biology”. That’s…you shouldn’t be teaching this subject!
Yeah this man’s takes are… Insane and bear no resemblance to anything any leadership scholar I’ve ever met would endorse. I’m sure people like him are real but. That still isn’t what leadership is.
To the contrary. Rocks are essential to the development of biology because they provided the necessary chemical building blocks for early life, acted as catalysts and a source of nutrients for life’s emergence, and continue to form the physical and mineral foundation for all ecosystems today. The geological cycle, including the weathering of rocks, provides essential minerals that become nutrients, while the rocks themselves offer habitats and a record of life’s history. Rocks is biology!!!
See, the difference is, you’re making an argument in good faith. That is not something I think Mr. Buzzword up there is doing.
“Never apologize, Never explain.” – Julia Childs
Pretty sure Julia Childs would kick O’Ryan’s arse like she did in Epic Rap Battles.
This guy’s an actual moron. And he looks fucking ridiculous.
Bro’s too stupid to even stay in the frame when he’s talking. Brainless fucklet can’t manage the bare minimum of comic panel composition, he’s just wandering off like he saw an interesting piece of lint on the floor.
Knock knock who’s there not this fucking idiot,
Why did the chicken cross the road lookin’ ass,
Dude was born premature because he forgot he was still gestating,
One two buckle the fuck up this class is goin’ on a wild ride and this guy never got his driver’s license,
This guy thinks the Wild West is a real direction and he’s gonna head east until he finds it
Lol
Come on, Taffy. You can tell us what you really think.
Good point about the frame tho.
Nice to feel a small shred of validation that Daisy’s justification for running that photo was actually self serving bullshit. No one seeing that picture is thinking about the protest or that school labeled its students as criminals to let police brutalize them. Very annoying.
[citation needed] that this dude, or even the people in that class, are a representative sample of people encountering that article in the wild
I feel like the general point of this whole segment is more “you CAN’T control how the public will react to your choices” than whether or not those specific reactions are good or bad.
And that, therefore, Dorothy is gonna need to learn to be savvy and prepared for that if she wants to keep working in some sort of public role.
Daisy’s rationale wasn’t bullshit at all. She said it was the best picture because reader engagement has never been higher, and the first part of that is a value judgement, while the second is straightforwardly true. Daisy never tried to justify her choice by saying it would bring attention to the protest, she justified it by sating she liked it and that it was popular with readers. You can disagree with that choice, but she was in no way being dishonest about her reasons for making it.
You’re right. I misremembered. She did never imply that she expected anyone to read the article or think about the protest. It was purely for “reader engagement” which I guess in this case is defined more by the act of purchasing a paper over reading the contents of it. Still annoying but my original statement was inaccurate.
I do find it pretty distasteful that there are convenient excuses for pure exploitation motivated solely by profit and sensationalism without ant accountability but that’s another argument entirely.
The Indiana Daily Student is free, and Daisy doesn’t get paid in accordance with readership. There is no profit motive. Generally speaking, when you make or curate content, engagement is the only objective measure you have of how well you are doing your job, which is why everyone converges on it.
By “Reader engagement has never been higher”, she means that the papers just flew off the racks in Read Hall. Because Joyce and Dorothy stole them all. And also Joyce and Dorothy are engaged now apparently.
That is not established. Gauging reader engagement by seeing how many physical copies have been taken requires someone to go out there and count, but it was still morning. Additionally, despite Jo-Do’s efforts, lots of people read it anyway, as these last comics have emphasized. I think Daisy was basing her assessment on the hits she was getting to the online edition.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Leaving aside this guys probably terrible views, he’s a shitty teacher.
I mean, he’s a professor; they aren’t all terrible teachers, but being good teachers isn’t always in their actual job description, and so quite a lot of them do not give two shits about the effectiveness of their classes.
He’s old enough and white enough that he’s either got tenure or this is a part-time for-fun thing (one of my college profs taught one class per term for funsies, so that apparently happens) and in either case he certainly doesn’t give two shits about how good the class is – he’s being paid and/or enjoying himself regardless.
“Use a sex scandal to distract the public from a political issue” is, depressingly, a realistic political strategy.
He’s a professor. Destroying the protest via distraction is probably his job.
He’s a professor. He has tenure.
The way O’Ryan covertly leads the students away from radicalization by emphasizing individual emotional responses while shutting down any larger systemic questions really puts the “lib” in liberal arts
Oof… that hurts. It hurts because it’s so true.
Dorothy’s the only one he even remembers the name of?
I mean, it’s Dorothy. She’s probably been the first person in the class, every session this year, and probably sits in the very front, and probably speaks up frequently during lectures. She’s way more interested in academics than the average student in this school. She was, up until like two days ago, actually trying to get into Yale.
IDK what class sizes are actually like at this school, but there could easily be 300+ students in there. As freshmen go, Dorothy is likely more memorable to all of her professors, than 99% of all the students they teach.
I am waiting for someone to suggest that clearly they must throw Bulmeria under the bus to win elections for Pro-LGBTA rights as those are more important–and then someone say the reverse.
(I literally heard both arguments before the last election and was suitably disgusted)
For me it wasn’t more important, just more possible. Neither candidate wanted to help Bulmeria but one candidate wanted to roll back rights for marginalized groups and do mass deportations.
It’s very important to show voters you are ready to throw someone’s rights under the bus, they love knowing politicians will only stand up for people when it’s convenient. Leadership!
The impression I get is that this class isn’t going to talk about the ends leadership serves at all, but rather fetishizes leadership as its own thing.
Thank you Patreon supporters!
Seconded.
you’re welcome (just returned 5 hours ago from the wild, without internet access)
Christ, what an asshole.
Dorothy, I like the way you brain works. But if that kind of questioning isn’t leadership (according to bullshitters), you would do the world a service by exposing that these emperors have no clothes. Switch your major to journalism.
I mean, that’s actually a way this could go. Dorothy already works as a journalist, and has proven herself to be quite good at it too. And it would also mean she’d interact with Billifer more, which is always a blast.
Do I remember right that this class was competitive to get into? I’m wondering if O’Ryan is some big name with no real qualifications that the school hired just to brag about in marketing to prospective students, it kind of reminds me of a generic media power player thinking they’re an expert/genius and writing a book that one side eagerly laps up. (Spoofed by Geiss Cubes in 30 Rock for example)
Watch him be a literal former coach.
A former *life* coach even
One of my best history teachers was also a coach… but admittedly the coach thing was more of a side gig than the other way around. Dude actually had credentials to be a history teacher.
People mentioned that the most notable thing he did in the Other Universe was debate Bill O’Reilly, so its distinctly possible that he got his job for being some kind of media pundit, and not from actually studying political science at any real institution. Like, this fucking school hired *Robin* as a professor. There are clearly near-zero standards.
I think it was the class Robyn taught that was competitive to get into, at least when it was taught by the previous professor that retired.
Yeah, this. I think these strips are the first we’ve heard or seen of Dorothy’s class.
I have the odd feeling that he may not know what good leadership is
Leadership he can teach.
Using it for good? That’s outside the class.
He might know a few things about evil leadership. But definitely nothing about good leadership.
Legit cackled. What a fantasically worthless teacher. Love it, -11/10, no notes.
This man’s idea of leadership seems to boil down to be a jerk who doesn’t do any self-reflection or think about how things work to best steer the course of the ship, so sadly like way too many of our politicians these days.
Maybe this is a weird question but is leadership something that can be taught? When I hear today’s lesson is on leadership that just sounds like a red flag to me. I’m sure leadership qualities aren’t inherently bad and can be learned it just feels like anyone trying to teach that in a paid curriculum might be conning me with bullshit. What exactly am I supposed to be learning? Maybe professional management techniques? Persuasive and public speaking? What?
Like just convince me that today’s lesson isn’t just how to be a professional asshole.
Leadership can be taught and nurtured as a skill but sometimes the difference between being an asshole and being a leader can be a bit hard to differentiate. That’s how dictators happen, after all. I think what people look for in a leader helps to cut the difference between becoming a leader and becoming a professional asshole.
For example, do people want a leader who assesses the skills of their fellows and divvies up responsibilities to nurture those skills? Listening to feedback and implementing it as needed? Doing their best to do as much good for as many people as possible? Or do they want someone who is loud, throws their weight around, and just dictates what people do while doing minimal work themselves? I do think saying ‘asking questions isn’t leadership’ is a sign that this guy’s kind of a dick. I’ve always felt that asking questions is a sign of intellect and I would rather have an intelligent leader.
Worse! He says good questions aren’t leadership! Manipulative questions very well might be.
I had an entire course on leadership in my educational leadership masters. We studied different philosophies and approaches to leadership (think hierarchical vs. service vs transformational), their pros and cons, how to address gender and multiculturalism in leadership, etc. Just Google types/styles/philosophies of leadership.
It’s a legit subject for a lesson or a course.
This guy’s approach, though, absolutely STINKS, based on what we’ve seen so far.
All the people who I know in life who are the best leaders now, weren’t capable of leading anybody 10 years ago. So it’s totally a learnable collection of skills.
Leadership skills and strategies can be taught. However, this guy’s an asshole, his idea of leadership is garbage, and he is ineffective at teaching it besides.
Leadership is absolutely something that can be taught, and the idea that it CAN’T be taught is one of the reason there are so many bad leaders and managers – nobody ever bothered teaching them or developing their skills because it’s assumed it’s innate.
Broadly speaking (not a professional, just my own observations), leadership is a matter of being able to read and then successfully channel group social dynamics in a direction of your choosing. Understanding what your group values, wants, and respects, and then presenting them with enough of it to convince them to not only do what you want, but to put in extra effort to make it happen because you’ve successfully convinced them that your goal is their goal. There’s a ton of ways to do this, some ethical, some less so, and you need to adjust the specific methods you use both for the group you’re working with and for yourself – a group culture that values consensus is going to do poorly with a leader operating on a “I’m in charge, I make the rules and that’s all there is to it” principle, and someone who likes setting an example and diving headfirst into the fray will probably have a hard time adapting to a leadership style based more on delegation and rear echelon instruction.
I’d argue that one of the most basic and fundamental lessons of leadership is something that seems pretty obvious when you say it out loud but which most untrained leaders don’t really take into consideration, to wit: People are different and nobody can read minds. Most people inherently tend to assume that everyone else is going to be like them, think like them, want the same things as them, and value the same things as them. That leads to them not actually communicating anything because they incorrectly assume that if something is obvious to them it’s obvious to everyone else, offering incentives that they consider rewarding but which everyone else regards as nearly a punishment, and treating people in a way that they personally would enjoy done to them, but which others might regard as annoying or even offensive. Taking the time and effort to actually observe your team and communicate with them to make sure everyone is actually on the same page while taking a steady, neutral hand until you’ve got a grip on the situation can, by itself, dramatically improve a lot of untrained leaders.
I’d also argue that another important fundamental lesson is what the role of a leader actually IS. There are way too many people who assume that being a leader means that you ARE the organization, and everyone else in it is simply an extension of your will, and that effective leadership means making sure everyone does what you want the way you want it every single time. I would argue that a more accurate and effective definition of a leader is that you are the directing organ of a much larger organism, and it is that organism that actually accomplishes anything, often without your direct input. Your role is to help direct that organism and make sure it functions smoothly, but fundamentally you are every bit a member of the team as much as everyone else on the team, as opposed to being the embodiment of the team whom all must serve. Yes, it’s an important part to play, and yes, you’re most likely going to get more socially and materially rewarded for playing that part, but at heart you serve the greater needs of the organization just like everyone else does. Once you start understanding that you can start acting a lot more effectively than those who think leadership is just a matter of feeding your ego until it bursts and playing stupid games to buoy your sense of dominance.
There’s a lot more to say about it (I’m actually in the middle of writing a book on the subject!) but yeah, there’s a lot that goes into leadership that one can go into.
This guy’s just one of those dumb idiots who think leadership is entirely a matter of attitude though, and his entire class is snake oil.
As someone with a management degree who occasionally does train leadership, lesson one is “leadership and management are two entirely different skills”.
What is this class? This guy talks like someone from a path to success seminar or a pretentious podcaster.
oh he DEFINITELY has a podcast
I mean, it makes sense. People are mentioning he’s from Joyce and Walky, but that was so long ago I don’t remember him.
Okay he needs to be served with a pitcher of salt to the side, this needs listing on the syllabus.
Those who cannot do, teach, ID BET.
Well, 3rd ISH ever comic with him in it, we know not to trust this white male teacher guy. That’s pretty quick. Now, we get to play the game of “is it internalized or intentional wrongthink?”
Bets on the latter, as in deliberate edgelord territory. “It’s provocative! It’s powerful! It’s sexy and that’s definitely what I want to think of in a woman politician! It’s all too soulless in this day and age, let’s have a HOT PRESIDENT!”
Ugh even trying to see things from that viewpoint makes me feel greasy… sorry that I wrote that, but I know the type. It just depends on if he would actually say it out loud, because I’m actually getting that vibe off him rn. The “hetero activated” mode.
I doubt it’s really got anything to do with views on women per se, it feels much more like this idiot subscribes to the all-too-common view of high-level leadership that leadership is one-for-one equivalent with confidence and all you need to be an effective leader is to ignore all criticism and stride dick-first into every meeting like you own it, because you do, because you’re a leader and that means you’re the front of every pack.
He’d probably say the same thing about gay men making out as well. It doesn’t really matter WHAT you’re doing as long as you’re doing it loudly and confidently without any concern for consequences. Take no prisoners, cede no ground, your will is the one that must manifest itself upon and shape the world.
“Move fast, break stuff”?
The fuck they aren’t!
Look, I completely understand all the miserable little pile of secrets votes, but no matter how big the pile gets, you just can’t deny that Oscar Isaac is the Man.
What is Oscar Isaac?
Yes I know i can.
I did.
By why that particular one?
There are lots and lots.
Why that one? One I’ve never even heard of?
I get the feeling that this is some reference to a meme I missed… for me Oscar Isaac is just “that dude who played Duke Leto Atreides to absolute perfection” and had a line that made me cry.
Is O’Ryan a robot? His eyes are freaking my out.
“A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.”
— George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
But wait what phraseology was he talking about, I want to edit it out of my coding
I feel like a professor dedicating a lecture to “Look how hot these student lesbians are” is perhaps crossing the line from “wacky sitcom hijinx” into “Dorothy could plausibly sue the school for sexual harassment”.
Then she’d have to prove herself to be the woman in the picture and that the teacher knew.
And they will DRAG it out.
Lmaooooooooo ahh he’s just as bad as we feared! Lovely
I bet that guy who kept linking kisses at protest with a very self important “erm all kissing at protests are fine actually and there is never an instance where it might be inappropriate or rude to center the plight of the protest on an unrelated kiss instead” is feeling really good right now.
“They made the protest about themselves. This is leadership, because as the leader of this class, I also want more things to be about me.”
“Listen, Dorothy, what is more important? Bringing attention to a genocide or setting yourself up as a future influencer of political discourse?”
“The genocide?”
“Wrong.”
I mean, bringing attention to a genocide is an example of being an influencer of political discourse, so obviously you can’t do it without reaching influencer status.
This guy is a terrible teacher. He’d probably be a decent motivational speaker though.
He’s Robin’s polar opposites when it comes to teaching this sh*t. On the surface he seems legit and serious but at his core he’s a bit of a joke.
Oh, so he’s not a massive asshole, he’s just an idiot.
…
Why does that not feel like its better?
I’m getting distinct “Why not both?” vibes, honestly.
Regrettably, being a symbol on accident never seems to actually be a great time for the person involved.
…does he not recognize that it’s dorothy in the photo or…?
He calls them unknown individuals, so I’m guessing not. Daisy didn’t recognise her star cartoonist until they told her, either.
The photo does just seem to be of maybe a quarter of Dorothy’s face and most of that is beanie
Double strips? This better not awaken anything in me even if we’ve already had a triple stack
Good questions aren’t leadership. Good questions defy the leader.
Oh YES!
PREACH!!!!
Why everybody are just object but Dorothy is Keener.
why leadership is a subject taught at university anyway? The only lesson on leadership you need is “Everything is your fault”
I have a master’s degree in leadership! What I learned from those classes is that I don’t like capitalism. I already knew that, but it really cemented that.
Welp there is only one place not corrupted by capitalism
SPACE
Bless you for this reference.
I knew he was unqualified from last strip. “Leaders never apologize” is a TERRIBLE philosophy. And good leaders ALWAYS question.
There is actually a study that show that the most highly intelligent people always hesitate and question themselves while the dumb ones always believe their solution is the right one and plow full steam ahead. I think it was called the Dunning Kruger Effect
Yes. There are actually known problems with that study, and it’s by Kruger and Dunning, not by Dunning and Kruger, but other than that…
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russel
We’ve only had this guy for two strips, but I can’t help noticing that (so far) Robin DeSanto fits his definition of “leadership” to a T ^^
leadership is saying what the teacher wants you to say
Glad to see that O’ryan outside of Walkyverse can maintain his ability to take himself completely serious despite being a whole clown show.
Ah, there’s the Bart we all love to hate.
“You will never be a good leader, Keener. Neener-neener!”
Dorothy now has the monstrous task of getting an A in a class where the teacher reveals himself as an idiot on day one.
I think he’s less an idiot and more doing damage control for the university. He probably wants to make sure this particular class doesn’t become a serious discussion about why the protest happened, so instead it’s going to be about how Yuri is Leadership.
He would be an amazing solo act if true. It may be a fallacy to think that the same university that couldn’t see how badly they were handling a simple protest now has the ability to deliver God-tier social engineering to clean up afterwards.
It’s simpler to conclude that systems that deliver moronic actions are probably staffed by morons.
professors in a university don’t have to avoid criticizing the university in class. They are allowed to talk about protesting as much as they like, as long as they don’t actually do it.
I don’t quite understand the authors comment in the hover text.
What is the ”middle one”?
The first of these two strips was the “middle one” – it wasn’t going to be published originally
Cheers. I also figured it out from the conversation soon after posting this.
Once again I would like to express my utter disdain for cargo-cult leadership techniques where the only thing necessary to be a leader is to ape the outward mannerisms of effective people without taking into account things like personality-juggling, loyalty-building, effective team communication, the development of shared values, actual follow-through on promises, actually having a genuine, coherent, well-thought-out plan for the future, or having the first idea what the hell it is you’re doing.
No, as long as you stride boldly into every situation giant swinging ballsack first you too can be the next Steve Jobs, no brains or charisma required! All these secrets and more in my new book for only $29.99!
Honestly, it’s a pretty fair description of Jobs. If it weren’t for Steve Wozniak, Jobs probably would have wound up as the best car salesman in the greater San Francisco area.
Good leadership can be used to center back the attention to the actual issue. If all the attention is drawn to this picture, then then good leadership could use that already created attention back to what actually matter.
Dorothy did something brave and selfish for once in her life and now she gets to find out the rippling effects of that and how quickly it can be folded into the political machinations of others.
I’m not really surprised that Bart O’Ryan is talking a bunch of nonsense, since that was what he was like in the other comic universe too, if I remember correctly. I don’t think two women kissing at an anti-genocide protest that was not even remotely about them should really be considered leadership. Nice to see that Dorothy is starting to realize these sorts of things now, though I worry that she’ll forget about this when she meets up with Joyce again after class.
Why would she forget it? Because she’d be happy to see Joyce and that would be insufficiently self-flagellating? It’s been pretty clear that Dorothy believes they screwed up at the protest. That was the reasoning behind the ill-concieved apology to Asma.
I think Joyce would agree with the professor, given that she declared she’s “heroically gay” and deserves an award. I don’t think she understands that the kiss being photographed completely negated the purpose of the protest and now everyone thinks it was for gay rights, not anti-genocide.
I like how so many people are going “this isn’t leadership AT ALL” when I’m pretty sure this class might be appropriately called “POTUS 101”.
It’s so weird that all of the poli sci classes shown seem to be about how to be a politician rather than the study of political systems. That was not my experience taking poli sci classes!
I’m starting to think this professional cartoonist has not taken any political sciences classes
Yep, same. As a former political scientist, I have to skim a lot of these as stand-ins for awkward student-teacher interactions and just move on. I’m hoping this arc comes to a more mature conclusion, but right now it’s a bit too bluesky-leftist for me.
Sure, but they usually do a good job of not presenting caricatures.
Though, to be fair, I can accept Robin being really incompetent and having no idea what to teach about the systems, so just relying on personal anecdotes and cynicism. It’s Robin, she shouldn’t be there at all.
I’m a little more bothered that so much of audience here seemed to think she was doing a good job – telling it like it is.
As for this guy, based on first impressions, there’s no excuse.
It’s not a realistic reflection of a robust political science curriculum, but that would be less effective at communicating the necessary narrative beats, and harder to write if you’ve never experienced that kind of class. You make some compromises for the sake of a good story sometimes.
It’s like how every university lecture in a movie always ends at the exact moment the lecturer gives some information that will be important to the narrative later (honestly, movie lecturers have no sense how to structure a lesson)
120% this. I have science-loving friends who get in knots over inaccuracies in fantasy movies and I’m like… dawg. You are missing the point.
Political arts instead of political science . . .
I taught political science, mostly comparative politics and international relations. In my experience, political science teaches you about systems. Many professors I worked with disliked politicians, myself included. I also did a form of leadership training: I hosted Model Congress, Model Parliament, Model UN, and Model WTO as part of the curriculum. However, this was mainly to show how these systems function in practice. I served as the parliamentarian and advised students on procedure, while the students themselves ran the sessions.
Yeah, she is showing leadership. The couple in the photo are not. Also, leadership does in fact question, often more than any other thing it does. Not that I’ve experience. Or actual training. But, I’ll never claim to have been good at it or am good at it. I even have a squeaky voice.
This attitude toward leadership is like 93% of what’s wrong with the world.
SCREAMING
I hate college lecturers so much bro this man probably has tenure
“Good questions aren’t leadership”. I wasn’t sure before, but now I know I don’t like him.
I have a friend who taught a class on project management, which is a kind of leadership I guess, using Robert Oppenheimer and The Bomb as a case study. He was big on questions. Can’t do anything important without them.
I’m not feeling it, sorry.
Believe me, I appreciate that the original plan was always to have this sort of dilemma for Dorothy, and I also appreciate a good strawman when I see one.
But there are two reasons it really falls flat for me. For one, given the juxtaposition of panels 1 and 2, it’s hard to believe that no one there actually recognizes Dorothy. But we can chalk this one up to artistic license and leave it at that.
The bigger reason is that, in all honesty, continuing to have this photo be A Thing is pretty much always going to make my issue with it worse, not better.
I could spew words at you, but it really comes down to the fact that the issue is Doylist, not Watsonian, and so long as Dorothy & Joyce are our leads, it’s basically impossible for the comic to avoid doing what Dorothy is lampshading up there. To do otherwise would require us, basically, to be reading a different comic.
So TL;DR: I think I’d much prefer that the IDS photo be memory holed and we all move on from this.
I’ve got less than zero problem with “Dorothy Keener and the Institutional Abuse of Power” being a plot arc- it’s not my cup of tea but that’s not something I’ll ever comment on beyond “yeah this really isn’t my cup of tea”- but doing so with the IDS photo is *never* going to work, sadly.
I feel similarly. “Using a protest against a real-world inspired genocide as a backdrop for two characters having a romantic breakthrough” is a different issue than “kissed someone as we were being told to leave an anti-genocide protest.” I’m not a particular fan of either, but my issue is more with the first. And in-universe criticism can’t really touch that because… it’s in-universe. It doesn’t land.
It doesn’t help that the kiss was a direct result of Joyce trying to drag Dorothy away from the protest as the latter attempted to make a pointless stand in a fit of self-destructive anger for a cause that she did not seem to care at all about until that very moment.
The whole scene, in retrospect, felt a lot like that thing in It’s Walky where characters would suddenly start explosively fighting or beating the shit out of each other at the drop of a hat. Or the removal of a hat, as the case may be.
Everything leading up to and surrounding the kiss was DRENCHED in selfishness from our two leading ladies, that was sort of the entire point, and the fact that more time in the five months since has been spent trying to criticize having had that story moment at all instead of consequences for the characters who participated in that moment is kind of grating?
Sorry, wait, everything leading up to and surrounding the kiss was drenched in selfishness?
It was selfishness when they went into a dangerous area to warn Jocelyn? It was selfish of Joyce to go rescue Dorothy from throwing herself into harm’s way in a post traumatic breakdown? Those do not feel like selfish acts to me.
I mean, going to the protest to warn Jocelyne wasn’t what led to the kiss. Joyce and Dorothy were past the gate after having warned Jocelyne, about to leave, when Dorothy made the decision to storm back in and get herself deliberately arrested. A superhero had to kick a cop in the face for them to get back out.
Not for nothing, but both characters were also talking about how their then-partners were either working hard to be a good boyfriend (Joyce) or how they’ve been selfish in their treatment of their boyfriend (Walky). That selfishness is what led to the kiss happening seemed like the entire point, no?
(Joyce) and (Dorothy) rather, or I guess you could do (Joe) and (Walky) and it’d have the same meaning, listen I’m sorry it’s been a hell of a morning
@Annaphylaxis Shhhhhhhhh.
Don’t use the literal facts and logic.
Let them act morally better. It just gets them sleep better at nights.
Not…quite where I was going?
Ultimately it’s kind of irrelevant what Joyce and Dorothy’s intent was. Because again, that’s a Watsonian perspective.
The comic cannot possibly do what Dorothy fears she did because it exists in its own space and that are engaging with voluntarily for the purpose of recreation. Consequently, Willis using a genocide protest as a background element in his story is incapable of distracting from real life genocide. Obviously you don’t like that he did it, and you don’t like being reminded that he did it, but your personal displeasure does not with the photo does bot make it any more a distraction from real world issues than the rest of the comic.
I mean, yes. That’s the whole thrust of the Doylist vs Watsonian problem.
The fact that a protest against (a stand-in for) Palestinian genocide was used as a framing device for two blonde white women to suck face has been recognized as not having been a good look. It was a writing decision that feels yucky in retrospect. The trouble is that the characters in the story can’t break the fourth wall and say, as Willis has on social media, “Hey, the original plan was not to do the kiss at this moment and I/the author changed my/their mind, and in retrospect making the kiss the most important part of this webcomic’s representation of a real anti-genocide protest at the real Indiana University was not great.” When Raidah or Dorothy criticizes the choice of cover photo used to represent the protest, what they’re really criticizing is the choice of the story they’re in to have chosen the kiss and the interpersonal turmoil of two characters who came to the protest for unrelated reasons (preventing Jocelyne from being outed as trans to her family).
A superhero had to KICK A COP IN THE FACE to enable framing the protest around forbidden lesbian romance!
I forgot where I was going with this but the whole thing’s sort of a mess is the bottom line, and having this criticism levied in universe so soon after the story being criticized was published (it only happened last July) continues to not work out super well in my entirely pointless and unnecessary opinion
Yucky in retrospect, yucky in the moment. The whole sequence from the moment dotty started her tantrum was a deeply uncomfortable read and not in a way that felt intentional. It was just bad. Desperately wishing for a time machine so we can go back and tell Willis that trying to keep spoilers from their sensitivity reader is a terrible idea
“In retrospect” was intended as “in retrospect from when it was written and put into the buffer a year ago to when it was published and the audience saw it” but in retrospect what I actually wrote doesn’t give that impression at all WHOOPS
Dorothy is worried that her kiss making front page news is distracting from the issue that the protest was about. There may be people in-universe who might have learned something about Bulmeria and/or authoritarianism, but will not because the Daisy prioritized quantity of reader engagement over quality of engagement.
Rogue7 said that he feels the comic is doing the same thing every time the picture comes up. I am countering that the comic is incapable of doing that. Nobody has been distracted from real world genocide by Willis’s decision, nobody can be. The marginal person who would have learned more about Palestine but didn’t because of this storyline does not exist
Instead, what we have is that some people think it is tasteless to bring up a sensitive real world issue only to use it a background element. Which is fine, I get that people don’t like it. I am objecting to equating that Dorothy’s concerns, which are about doing real harm not having a lack of decorum.
And I’m saying that you’re interpreting this too literally, because Dorothy and the world she inhabits do not exist, but their pretend fake make-believe world can be commentary on our real world, and the webcomic that she is a starring character in is one of those things that exists in our for actual no kidding is actually a thing world.
The criticism of the webcomic Dumbing of Age that Dorothy’s dialog here represents is literally more real than the in-universe justification for that dialog because the universe she’s in is not and will never be real, and so even though the in-universe critique doesn’t line up 1/1 with the real world critique, the real world critique is still the more important part of it.
I’ll be honest, Dave, while I’m glad you agree with me I can’t really parse exactly what you’re saying beyond that.
But Lys, I don’t think you get what I’m saying. Fundamentally, DoA is a romantic comedy. I don’t want that to change! But in my experience, the only way for a romantic comedy to effectively communicate serious topics is for said serious topics to affect our main characters in some way. I think back to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s episode on racial profiling, which only worked because Will and Carlton, you know, actually got racially profiled.
So a lot of the LGBT+ issues the comic has brought attention to have worked really well- the cast has had to deal with homophobia, homelessness, attempts at forced conversion, etc.
By contrast, Becky being Robin’s campaign manager was an arc that I *don’t* think worked well, except when it got personal. Becky hijacking Robin’s twitter feed with progressive policies somehow made her numbers go up? When Robin was running as a Republican? It never landed well. But Becky confronting Robin with “why would you vote to let my dad do that to me?”, more or less, landed really well. Again, because there were deep personal connections.
And Joyce and Dorothy don’t organically have those connections to the protests. They’re two white girls from Indiana and their major conflicts center around their relationships, not protests.
Two black teenagers in the 90s dealing with racial profiling? Yeah, that makes sense. An LGBT+ youth from a fundamentalist household having her dad kidnap her at gunpoint to “fix” her? Yeah, I see where that’s coming from. But two white girls deep in New Relationship Energy suddenly becoming the face of a protest movement about a genocide in another country? Where did that come from?
Excellent comment and I’ll add, it stands to reason that this plotline would be difficult to do *even for an author that has a lot of experience telling this type of story*, let alone someone who doesn’t, like Willis. Their wheelhouse has been largely in other areas, and while I don’t want to discourage exploration outside of that wheelhouse (the opposite, in fact!), going from 0 to 100 this way with little to no experience about one of the most politically sensitive issues of not just our time, but of all time, was perhaps ill advised.
These are textual problems, which I have no argument with other than to shrug and say, “Works for me.” My issue is with the supposed metatextual problems. The author putting in something that happened in real life in his alma matter as a background element, there’s nothing wrong with that.. It’s no different than classes being a background element, it’s a thing that happens at Indiana University. Walky didn’t need a personal connection to his math class, beyond attending it, for us to have a story of him dealing with the consequences of struggling with it. That story was never about the math. Same thing here, the only connection Dorothy and Joyce need to the Bulmeria protest is to have been there.
Except for the part of the comic that uses a protest about said real-life issues as a backdrop for the relationship upgrade of the two leads. The part where the tech billionaire’s daughter is on a path to confront her parents about divestment.
The issue is not that leads in a romantic comedy acted like and continue to act like leads in a romantic comedy. That would be like if I opened up an issue of One Piece and complained that there are pirates.
I actually *liked* when the protests were a background element of the story, when their sole source of narrative importance was a way to bring Jocelyne back. I thought it worked very well as a way to touch on something real and important in the context of a 4-panel romantic comedy.
It didn’t work as a central plot element, precisely because this is romantic comedy. And it still doesn’t here.
“Real-life issues”? Where, exactly, is Bulmeria? Can you find it on a globe? Do they have trade relations with Wakanda and Latveria?
Neighbor, I’m bloody well certain that Willis has acknowledged that the protests in the strip were meant to represent the real-life protests that happened/are happening on the IU campus, protests that are about the genocide in Gaza.
Miss me with this bullshit.
If Willis had wanted to make the protests about Gaza, then it would have been very easy to use that name instead of Bulmeria. That was not the choice that was made. You’re free to read into it what you want, but you’re not free to force other people into doing so.
People in authority have been freaking out about student protests and over-reacting to them for some time now; sometimes tragically so, resulting in actual deaths. The use of Bulmeria allows a bit of distance and universality without tying it to the specifics of a particular protest.
I agree that using Bulmeria instead of Gaza allows for, as you said, a bit of distance and universality. When that sort of trope (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FictionalCountry) is used well (as it was, like I said, back when the protests were background radiation), it does exactly that. For the longest time, because the closest real-life country name to Bulmeria that I know of is, in fact, BulGARia, I always pictured the country as Eastern European, usually a former part of Yugoslavia. That such a country might be in the midst of a civil war with a USA-supported faction on one side and a Muslim minority on the other is eminently believable- there were elements of that in the Bosnian war, abso-fucking-lutely, to my layman’s knowledge.
But given the *direct* parallels made- police snipers on roofs, the university changing rules arbitrarily, and that the protests were specifically about divestment- not to mention what Willis themself has said in their metacommentary on the comic- it’s hard for me to see how I’m “forcing other people into doing so” as opposed to “reading the text as it is intended.”
But this whole argument is a distraction from my core point. There are numerous issues one could draw parallels to Bulmeria on. And in precisely none of them is the core issue “there aren’t enough white women kissing”. Willis took whichever issue you care to relate the protests to and said “do you know what this needs? White girls making out!”
I should clarify that I know this was unintentional, that issues like this are enormously complex and thorny and that I believe Willis’s intentions were and are the best. They tried to walk a very fine tightrope and fell off. But from my perspective, here they are taking another shot at walking that tightrope when I’d really just prefer they move on to the sword-swallowing act I know they can do perfectly.
+1
+1
Damn, Rogue 7 with the death threats. “I want David Willis to swallow a sword in real life”, like that’s not a legally actionable statement of your intent to stab David Willis with a real sword. You murderer.
Yeah, this does feel like it finally puts words to the particular way in which stuff feels weird. Big kudos for that.
Meh!
Bulmeria is Korea.
Everyone knows it.
@Rogue7
I get it and it’s not going to be something that you’re going to like plot wise. We all have our issues there. Still, I think its something that is going to be an important idea.
That Dorothy needs to understand what she wants to actively do campus wise and politics wise.
That’s pretty much what I meant with the whole “Dorothy Keener and the Institutional Abuse of Power” bit.
I don’t have a problem with “Dorothy needs to understand what she wants to do actively campus-wise and politics-wise” as an arc. It’s not my cup of tea, but there have been *so* many well-written arcs in this comic that I haven’t much vibed with.
But I think this arc, “Dorothy & Joyce face repercussions of their kiss going viral”, is riddled with too many problems, both within the text and metatextually, that it’s never going to fall into that category of “cool but not for me”. If that was what this arc was I wouldn’t be here.
Gotcha.
i’m not sure this is about leadership. it seems to be a class on how to be an alpha male of any gender. That’s not the same thing. I am convinced good leaders ask good questions and LISTEN to voices they aren’t already catering to.
Leadership shouldn’t be about “i do whatever the fuck i want to do“, it needs to be for the benefit of the people you lead.
Which means that if anyone, Joyce should be taking this class, so as to realize her dreams of becoming an “alpha bongo.”
Yup, this teacher probably sucks.
Confusing leadership with avarice.
Wait, does he know her last name is Keener or is that his pet name for her because she is a keen student?
It is funny since he clearly does not know the other students’ names, but to be fair Dorothy is the sort of student to introduce herself to the teacher, so… He probably knows her name.
Knowing names of unnamed characters is not leadership, I guess.
You’re correct, Professor. Good questions aren’t leadership; answering good questions with “Quiet, piggie” is leadership.
I can only hear this man with the voice of Hoss Delgado from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
“Leadership is understanding that Bulmeria protests threatens our funding from the government. Anyway, look at the pretty gay girls and accept this distraction.”
There’s a critical distinction between being able to lead people (ie, getting them to follow your lead)…
… and having the first clue about the right direction to lead them.
Maybe that class is next semester.
(No, I have no examples of people who illustrate this distinction. None whatsoever. Our present political leadership is completely devoid of any such individuals.)
Mmm.
“You’re thinking, Keener. True leaders don’t think. They act.”
“…Isn’t ‘action over thought’ a principle touted by fascist leaders, specifically? In Eco’s 1995 essay, Ur-Fascism, he -”
“They don’t ask questions, either.”
He just likes seeing two chicks kiss… and that’s kind of a problem in his position, to be bringing that up in class.
That is absolutely not leadership… but this is probably accurate to many people’s attitudes *about* leadership. Mainly, the ones who say that they themselves have “leadership skills”.
And one thing I’ve learned in life… someone who emphasizes that they have “leadership skills”, absolutely does not have leadership skills. They just like bossing people around. That’s not the same thing.
Hey I like bossing people around.
They never pay any attention to me though. Since I seldom have any idea what’s going on and they usually do, does that make it effective leadership?
Weirdly, sometimes yes. My mom has, I think, exceptionally good leadership skills, and she spent a hefty chunk of her career hiring a team that meant she could ask them what’s going on because she never knew (that’s what THEY were for) and mostly she went to meetings and wrangled other leaders/workgroups so they stayed out of the way.
That’s a good example of someone who supports others. That’s different than “just do this and don’t question me”. So yeah, it sounds like she was a very good leader.
My toxic trait is that I am immediately attracted to this man.
My condolences.
…O’Ryan is totally the one who wrote Dorothy’s letter of recommendation to Yale.
Remember that only social causes that can be briefed in 10 seconds or less get social impact
A 2 fer? Oh Willis you spoil us
There is something so frustrating about comments today and yesterday calling it a lesbian kiss, etc, when at the same time Joyce can’t call actually herself gay without a bunch of people accusing her of bi-erasure.
And policing which slurs bi women have access to as a fun bonus I guess. Because as we all know, queer phones always make sure to stop and get a full list of your micro labels as well as your pronouns before they call you names.
Mmmmm tired.
*queerphobes
Thanks autocorrect! Always a pal.
I was about to ask you where I get some of those queer phones, I’m doing my holiday shopping for the fam.
Gawd if I knew. I have an iPhone 13 mini because I have small hands but Google is so bad now that I don’t think there’s a better option for phones. It’s just all bad now.
(You made me smile tho!)
Re: your opening statement Its been a constant background radiation for months
We aren’t allowed to call ourselves gay! Only OTHER people are allowed to call us gay lol.
I don’t think we’re allowed to do anything 🙃
It’s incredibly exhausting, and throwing my voice behind Donovan about it being background radiation for months. There was so much other stuff going on that I was able to ignore it, but now it’s coming out of the woods to the forefront.
I stopped calling it out because its like a fuckin’ hydra
I can overlook a certain amount of it as umbrella terms or casual speech.
But then Joyce actually tries to USE it as an umbrella term and suddenly everyone is so concerned about bi erasure. It really throws the hypocrisy into sharp relief.
Tbh saying ‘gay’ is one thing, ‘cos its used as a catch-all often enough, but ‘lesbian’ has a more specific connotation!
Genuinely only for the last like fifty years or so, though. That’s when lesbian was suddenly aggressively redefined from “woman who loves women” to “woman who doesn’t love men” and bi women got kicked out.
I mean i won’t argue that, but fifty-ish years is still longer than I’ve been *alive* by a signifigant margin.
Me too, but I’ve decided those old jerks who were also generally very transphobic don’t get to be the gatekeepers of lesbianism.
Identity words are personal. People should call themselves what makes sense to them.
okay update,
I am heading to the ER to further examine the inflammation still happening in my lower leg
really praying it ain’t infected or anything
may not be able to comment at all for a while
wish me luck in getting past this,.
….
aaaaaah im so SCARED TT~TT
Sending good vibes!!
Best of luck. Here’s hoping it’s not too serious.
thank you two so much T~T
update, they want me to go in for an MRI scan tomorrow, possibly a blood test
they already took a skin sample from the ankle, in 5-7 days this will confirm whether or not there’s an infection
thus far it seems like the same Erythema nodosum and arthritis getting bad like it did in high school
glass half full ;-;
Wishing you well.
Soooo…did Willis just have unrelentingly bad college professors?
I like his design. Red hair and white beard looks cool.
The Patreon seems to have been very correct here.
That first comic sheds more light in what totally other people see in that photo in-universe…
and who could have known????
It’s exactly as what happens with thousands of other real-life photos of kisses in protests/riots. Mind blowing!!!
Who could have expected this exactly happening?
“Oh noeeeees , they are white stupid chicks, they should not even be there!!!” – Yeeeeee whatever specific commenters, your moral compass is really showing there. Good job. 😉
“Good questions aren’t leadership.”
He’s clearly completely internalized the idea that confidence = leadership, even if the confidence is unearned and false.
That isn’t leadership.