Happy Thanksgiving, to everyone who celebrates it! And a very merry Thursday to everyone who doesn’t.
Because I haven’t provided a health update in a while (outside of the comments) I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still here, and still trying to sort through a bunch of medical issues with the help of assorted doctors, some very competent and others not so much.
The issues I’m facing aren’t lifethreatening, but they are still debilitating enough to keep me from regular posting here. Sorry to be so vague; I’ll offer more details once some of these issues are sorted out a bit more. I’ll return to posting as soon as I am able but I cannot predict when that will be.
I appreciate everyone’s patience and continued support. Thanks!
@ Haise
I don’t know why you’re surprised. If there’s anything that either a study of history or paying attention to U.S. news for the past ten years teaches us…it’s that the Anglins and Spencers and Trumps and McConnells of this world don’t have a solid core of “principles” or “beliefs” or “morals”. They’ll just take whatever opportunity they can get to hold power over other human beings, and then justify it with whatever excuse happens to be at hand. Trickle-down economics, Social Darwinism, race-realism, Illuminati lizard-men…it doesn’t matter; it’s all the same.
(See also Aesop, “The Wolf and the Lamb” —
http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/2.html )
It’s not incompatible with white supremacy for white men to buy access to the bodies of poor women of color for sexual and/or marital slavery. It’s simply another part of colonialism and always has been.
When white supremacists say whites should only breed with whites to keep the race pure, what they really mean is that the object to healthy and consensual interracial relationships. Particularly when the woman is the white one. That’s threatening to white supremacy. White men colonizing the bodies of women of color isn’t.
It’s gross, but not surprising.
Funnily enough, just found this delightful takedown of that odious twerp Ben Shapiro on Ghazi: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher
Best byline ever:
Thumbnail sketch: he has no consistency, but talks fast and throws a ten dollar word in occasionally so he sounds smart.
The Tax Plan looks like it’s going to pass. Call your Senators!
I love it. Flynn is singing like Caruso (or rather, has already sung… usually the proffer comes first, then the indictment/plea). The only bigger fish than him are Pence and Trump.
…Meanwhile, the Senate looks set to pass this POS tax bill that will upend the economy and destroy the lower and middle classes. Except they keep stalling the vote, regrouping to strong-arm whoever’s on the fence, adding more horrible things to the bill, delaying the vote again, keeping us all in horrible suspense.
They’re like the Dread Pirate Roberts. “Good night. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”
Supposedly the tax plan will cut Medicare by $25 billion. If that won’t get old white people to stop voting Republican, nothing will. Of course, it’s possible nothing will.
Besides, even from the pseudoscientific racist point of view, you”d think that if ever a family desperately needed an influx of “foreign” genes, it would be the British royal family…
Surplus:
The chieftain who orders the temple to be built also needs to be at least capable of authoritarian thinking, to obtain that kind of authority in the first place. Most likely he’ll be a separate person from the architect, and the one who tells the bricklayers that the temple is necessary to protect the tribe from the evil magic of foreign-tribesmen.
Although, ideally, he’d also have some idea on how to organize the building of a temple, and some idea on how to pay the bricklayers other than “Foreign Tribe will pay”.
@Artic Ape, @Surplus:
I know it were just an analogy, but I’m guessing neither of you have worked on a building site. Brickies taking orders from some guy in a suit? Ha! 😛
Laying bricks is an art – not a simple and mindless task that requires only strong backs and no brains.
Sorry – classism makes me grumpy.
@weirwoodtreehugger
It’ll be a very effective way of stopping those old white people voting for anyone.
@WWTH:
@Arctic Ape:
Are we talking about a temple here, or a wall? 🙂
@Shadowplay:
No classism intended here. RWAs can still think, reason, and be artistic and creative in aspects of their jobs, they just don’t extend that from the “tactical to strategic”, so when it comes to life plans, or how the temple as a whole is to be constructed, or (unfortunately) who to hate, they look for an outside authority, some person or book (and typically person interpreting said book) to tell them what to do, or to give them a limited menu of options at least. Ask them to architect something from scratch, be it a worldview, a building, or their own life plans, and they’re at sea.
This is a function of upbringing, education, and other “nurture” stuff, largely, as well, so changing how people are brought up and educated will change these things. The “fordist” model of classrooms and workplaces is tuned to turn out lots of RWAs, and it’s no coincidence that when that model reached its apex is shortly before WWII.
Again, also, RWAs are not evil per se, but morally they can be like empty vessels anything can be poured into. So they act evil or not depending on how evil or not is the leader they follow. Evil leaders, though, often combine high social dominance with high right wing authoritarianism: having no core worldview to feel the need to consistently hew to lets them believe whatever’s most convenient to their own personal interests from moment to moment, and this transfers to the followers they accrete. Without leaders willing to use (or command) violence or otherwise behave evilly, the followers are comparatively harmless.
At the same time, without followers the leaders would be largely harmless.
It’s a mess, with no single thing or person to blame and not necessarily any simple “silver bullet” fix. But such, it seems, is life, and especially, social structures and politics.
The research by Altemeyer, and also that by Turchin I’ve mentioned in the past, at least help us to better understand the forces at work underpinning the messy system in question. Without understanding, there’s little hope of us muddling through any better than we have in the past (and meanwhile the WMDs get more powerful, the environment is trashed, the climate changes … raising the stakes).
Speaking of The Room, everybody pumped for the Disaster Artist opening?
@Surplus
(Rewritten this half a dozen times – hopefully it’s clear and not even more muddled).
I get what you’re saying, I really do, and I don’t disagree. Just … think a bit about how you say it? Uncomfortable making a fuss, since I’m fairly new, but going to give you one example
Change one word in that – the first one – and it is almost word for word from the colonial DO’s orientation (District Officer – the Empire’s representative in the various African territories up until the 50’s). Not a good look. It’s also not you in the slightest, from all I’ve read from you.
You’re effectively saying there that, OK, they’re people, but they need to be told how to live by their betters as they are incapable of doing so on their own. No, not those betters, my group of betters. That is classism. Full stop.
Why should they listen to you then? What’s in it for them, other than meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Because if you persuade them that their current thought leaders are taking advantage of them – they’ll naturally assume you want to as well. People are like that. Internalise negatives easily, positives after a hell of a fight.
It seems to me people become neo-nazis mostly because their life is a failure. When you have no real achievements, naturally you concentrate on pseudo “achievements” like being a white male.
Didn’t the “reptilian” conspiracy theory start with David Icke, a man who seems to be truly mentally ill? Or did it have an earlier genesis and he just adopted it? You’d think it would be the type of view that would not find many adherents.
Won’t someone think of the prince!
Belgian Prince Claims His Human Rights Are Being Violated After Allowance Is Cut
https://jezebel.com/work-in-progress-1819885421
Nah, way older than Icke. The theosophists were wittering on about them around 1885 – 1890. Poor Icke just grabbed bits and bats from them, fiction, and assfax and strung it all together into an incoherent whole.
Edited out a bit of an ableist phrase.
@Anonymous
Comments policy.
Long one, sorry. Don’t feel obligated.
Here is one of my big ethical conflicts that contributes to my writer’s and it has to do with fear and my chosen community. The creating of a plan for a group of to people to enter hostile social territory on the internet for social activist purposes.
I think I can do this with help because I now sure I can choose what I feel when I’m responding to multiple aggressive respondents. The next bit is some of the experiences that I’m trying to reconcile with this and whaI even think I can do this. The Tourette’s Syndrome stuff is fun but that’s more nature than nurture.
The recent experiment challenging people nitpicking at a rape accuser was partially meant to think about this. I speculated about how many sexual predators were among the respondents to the blog about an accusation of a beloved social figure. Lots of “where’s the evidence” when the communication of the accuser were evidence. And I did it while being relevant to the subject and supportive of the accuser.
I enjoyed seeing who took the ‘bait”. Things are coming into shape but some input would help.
My experience of my social justice related socialization is decidedly conflict oriented and contains a lot of negative feeling because of my past. My experience in the brony fandom resulted in me confronting people in similar ways at the same time. They made me the Twilight Sparkle mod and I was responsible for /dis/, the serious discussion board at ponychan, where I repeatedly challenged what I can only call anti-feminist gossipers. And every flavor of bigot posting with little avatars of the show I had just fallen in love with.
Ever since someone asked me about going to places like 4chan it’s been part of what I choose to think about while I work. It is scary and I know there will be strong feelings about this. Every reply is valuable. There is more than one way to do this. There is no one way. To make positive ways I’m thinking of first trying to define variables by breaking down negative examples and determining options.
The harassment raids that I saw planned at places like 4chan are negative example #1. I read from people who were the victims of that, let’s calls it a macroaggression swarm(s). Identical behavior occurred in the skeptic/athiest community and that is what compelled me to start defensive aggression of fellow commentators at freethought blogs. I’m thinking about how to categorize that history in my mind.
And that’s where I am. The places where I am privileged make me pause. My therapy and introspection about my wife, job, health and sessions with two therapists are higher on my list and my brain gets full even with the extra time as a janitor. But I’ve been feeling better lately so I had the energy to post this. The pot helps too. It’s a good day so far.
This is from the Forward, a venerable Jewish newspaper:
‘I Won’t Show You My Penis’ — Jewish Candidate’s Campaign Ad Goes Viral
November 30, 2017 By Jenny Singer
As 2017 runs towards its inevitable conclusion, it seems that the hardest (hardest?) lesson for men to learn this year was a simple one: nobody is interested in seeing your penis. The hardest lesson for women this year was that it is extremely difficult to be a woman (this is the lesson for women every year).
Meet Dana Nessel, the Jewish democratic candidate for Michigan’s attorney general in 2018, who says one great way to keep exposed penises out of professional environments is to elect women into office. In a video for her campaign, the gloriously tough-talking Nessel sits in front of a crackling fire and posits this:
If the last few weeks has taught us anything, it’s that we need more women in positions of power, not less. So when you’re choosing Michigan’s next attorney general, ask yourself this: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis? I’d say so.
Read more: https://forward.com/schmooze/388734/i-wont-show-you-my-penis-jewish-candidates-campaign-ad-goes-viral/
@Brony
That takes courage. That takes stamina. Thanks, Brony!
@Shadowplay:
Unlike those colonialists, I don’t think that it’s certain people’s inherent nature to need an outside authority organizing their lives. Rather, I think (and research supports) that a subset of people have been raised and educated in a way that, basically, atrophies their “far mode” thinking, or perhaps leads to an aversion to using that mode much. Authoritarian followers tend to seek out an outside authority and then abdicate their own belief systems, as well as moralities, to one because it’s how they were raised to behave, essentially.
The point being, its nurture, not nature, and people can learn (especially if still young) to think for themselves in such matters.
We all agree here that people should be raised to be non-racist, or better yet anti-racist, and that boys should be raised in a way that doesn’t inculcate toxic masculinity in them. I’m saying basically that, beyond that, people should be raised to question authority and, essentially, not to be authoritarian followers.
That’s quite different from a colonialist, who would say “this race of brown people here are naturally, genetically authoritarian followers, and what we should do is rule them well” rather than “this group of people of every color has, sadly, not only not been taught to think for themselves, but has been taught to avoid thinking for themselves; we should endeavor to correct that. At minimum, we must at least raise the next generation to be more autonomous in their decision making, so they won’t just seek to be led like some in our current generation do, and perhaps sometime in the future nobody will be ruled by anybody anymore.”
@Brony:
I saw a very similar discussion in a Usenet group not long ago. This wasn’t written by you, by any chance, was it?
Or is this coincidence?
Whoa!
Miss Peru contestants subvert tradition to highlight violence against women
https://youtu.be/5nrepXB0c1U
Contestants in the Miss Peru 2017 beauty pageant read out facts and statistics about violence against women in Peru instead of the traditional measurements of bust and hip sizes in an effort to draw attention to the mistreatment of women