Technolandy

Day 122 Ouch – even family dinners perpetuate some less than positives… interpretation vs intention

Connections or reinforcing hierarchy… how about school lunch times… connections but with systemic rules…

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS5sP2ru2/

(From the share) 

1. Bourdieu studied how power hides in everyday rituals*. His conclusion: the family table isn’t neutral ground — it’s a stage where roles are rehearsed and reinforced. Who sits where. Who speaks first. Who gets interrupted. Every dinner repeats the script that tells you exactly where you rank.

2. The same topics cycle endlessly. Your sibling’s success. Your questionable choices. Your parents’ sacrifices. These aren’t conversations — they’re positioning moves. Each dinner reminds you who’s above, who’s below, and what you’re still failing to become.

3. Connection requires equality. But family dinners are designed around debt: you owe gratitude, explanation, attendance. You perform the role assigned in childhood while adults pretend everyone has grown. The table hasn’t changed since you were ten — and neither has your seat.

4. Bourdieu called it “symbolic violence” — domination so normalized it feels like love. You leave dinners drained, not nourished. You call it family time. But what you experienced was a system maintenance meeting where your autonomy was quietly audited.

5. One camp keeps attending, performing, and wondering why they feel small every time they drive home. The other recognizes the ritual for what it is — and chooses presence only where respect exists. One eats guilt disguised as gravy. The other refuses seats at tables that shrink them. Which dinner is still costing you your power?

Hitchikers Restaurant at the End of the Universe reminds me to think of the real stages of civilization:

How do we eat

Why do we eat

Where shall we have lunch

Which links into some work that had been done on socioeconomic scales that focus on:

Poor/poverty: quantity (did you get enough to eat? Let me overcompensate by having LOTs of food available – sometimes even lots of choices!)

Middle class-ish: quality (did you enjoy what you ate? Is what you’re eating good for you? Health wise and/or comforting)

Upper class: experience (did you appreciate what you ate? 

Even routines, which get reinforced as ‘things good families do’ reinforce systemic discrimination under the guise of ‘its a good thing, and anything else is bad for the family unit’… 

Ergo… a sometimes uncomfortable reminder:

power hides in everyday rituals* 

where does this exhibit itself in our schools…? Who gets to sit/eat/play where? When can each talk? We focus often on ‘quantity’ (of food, resources, etc) while we aim for the middle class biased ‘quality – under the appearance of healthy/appropriate-choices from which to choose’

*everyday rituals – what else hides in plain sight that feels like it ought to be positive, but may be toxicly positive…