drmanhattan16

drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Specifically when they say "democratic", one should of course not interpret that to mean "what the people want". Whether something is democratic needs to be judged by the properly educated few. "Democratic" here refers to the post-WWII first world system as opposed to fascism and Nazism. "Without nostalgia" means rejection of national romanticism which is seen to have led to Nazism and fascism.

How do you know that?

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

I notice that all your examples don't affect you. Just to be clear, would you tell yourself to act the same if you were the victim of those things?

It's easy to point to greater suffering in quantity and magnitude in Ukraine or Niger, and I'm not sure what's the point of thinking about that either.

The point is to do better. It is to insist that those with the power to affect change do better. I understand that you personally cannot alter the course of events in Ukraine. But an ocean is a trillion drops of water, an avalanche is a trillion snowflakes, and likewise, the world gets better with each successful individual act of doing better.

I'll go one step further. A great many things would improve if people didn't try to insist on some "nature" equivalent of the just world hypothesis. Humans have remarkable ability to not only learn morality, but to implement it in their own lives. The fact that some have a predisposition towards doing unjust things is not a defense, because if your urges to act immorally are so strong, then you have forsaken some claim of being a wholly reasonable person who is due the rights privileges given by default.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Hypothetically, if the people of Poland disliked the Lincoln Memorial and liked the MLK statue on aesthetic grounds, would you care? Would you let their preferences shape the statues and symbols of your land? I don't think you would.

Maybe you are from D.C, I don't know. But it seems to me that much of the tension is resolved if people stop expecting a nation of 4-5 different cultures to have any kind of unified aesthetic vision. I recognize the inherent problems with doing so. For example, you pay taxes to the concept of a singular American nation, not just your particular cultural one, so by God you had best make sure to voice your approval or disapproval for things. But I'm increasingly convinced that people who complain about ugly public art are doing so in a cross-cultural manner i.e like a Christian accusing a Jew or Muslim of making shoddy cultural products.

If a Texan finds the art of California insufficiently beautiful because it glorifies homosexuality instead of God, or vice versa, these should be seen in the same light as debates over which country has the best food: fun to engage in, pointless to take seriously.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

She gets caught, and the friend is not injured. Naturally the authorities want to throw the book at her, but because nobody was injured a lot of the juicy charges are hard to prove.

Why is "attempted to cause serious harm/murder to another person intentionally" not good enough?

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The Case for Ignoring Race

drmanhattan16 2yr ago

You can predict vastly more about a person based on their religion/religiousity, their job, their cultural background, and many other factors before race. I've met churchgoers of all races that were tailor-made for conservative ads about "real Americans".

A black military officer tells you more about himself by his profession and standing than his race.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

That would explain it. It's just worded so weirdly, imo.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

I have, just wasn't clear on what you were referring to.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

That said, Elysium in particular does not seem at all coy about agenda-pushing in other ways

What makes you say that?

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

black people are criminals more often

More often compared to what? In general? Do black people constitute more than half of all criminals?

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

and it takes for granted the idea that racism being bad is a forgone conclusion.

I am really confused by this. Is the poster arguing that racism might not actually be bad? It reads so easily into "progressives are just as racist as everyone else" rhetoric.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Yeah, Nybbler has it correct. Spiderman's whole story is about a young man who has a great deal of frustrations and bad times to deal with in his civilian life, but takes it upon himself to be a hero regardless, even when the latter contributes to the former. He's not Tony Stark or Reed Richards.

His whole idea is to make sacrifice a virtue.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

drmanhattan16 2yr ago

I know what you're saying. I understood it since I first responded to you. But you did some drive-by culture warring in the process, I'm calling you out on that.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

drmanhattan16 2yr ago

I didn't say anything about where the final right over a child's development lay. If you want to pivot to that instead of defending your use of "grooming" to make your emotional response to trans people completely obvious, then go ahead. But that's a boring conversation to be had here.

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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Do you think this transgender person has a right to groom other people's children into outcomes that they believe are beneficial?

Before you can even talk about this right, you have to establish that this is what they actually want. They would never use the word "groom", and this is important because they do not see themselves as changing the child's disposition, only revealing what was always there.

"Expose kids to the idea, the ones who are serious will take it on, those who aren't won't" is precisely the reasoning they use, not "we want as many as trans kids, regardless of how seriously trans they may be".

I don't care about groomer logic, do whatever you want to your own disgusting body as an adult but stay away from children or face the chipper

Oh, you're not actually interested in the nuance, never mind.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Is it? 15 years ago a Pride flag flown on government buildings would've been strange, now the Progress flag makes it to the White House. 15 years from now, who knows what flag it might be.

I can't really think of another movement that's going to be in a position to do that. Pride has been a thing since the 70s and won overall acceptance (at least for its LGB side) through the population. I won't say you need to have that much support and history, but I don't think we're going to be getting some other flag over a government building any time soon.

I think it's inherent to the brittle detente of liberalism that sometimes this must be done, or else that detente starts to crack. To ban the Pride flag alone would be illiberal, but so is the colonization thereby.

That's...fair. I suppose, given that we react to the problems as they come, that some kind of pre-emptive flag law wasn't likely to be forthcoming.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Is "this" here meaning the flag restriction, or the death of the author "intent doesn't matter" part?

I didn't say the death of the author was good

The latter, and I'm sorry for implying you thought it was good. It seemed to me that you were trying to defend it as okay. Like, yeah, I get that it's inevitable, but it should not be tolerated here.

Would you be satisfied if someone tried to both/and it: this is almost certainly intended an anti-Pride action, but performed in a manner that is actually a healthier expression of liberalism?

I'm not certain that it is. The odds of another flag being flown on government buildings is slim. I suspect the Muslims of the city are not as upset if they see a flag for Ukraine. They might get more offended by a BLM flag, but I don't know.

Banning lots of things that won't happen anyways strikes me as irrelevant to any kind of redemption of the law itself.

It helps this position that Petes Thiel and Buttigieg get treated poorly for not toeing every line.

What are you referring to?

"here" being the Motte, yes? I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple conservatives and conservative Christians who might take that stance, though they might try to thread one of the needles like "having homosexual attraction is inherent; it's acting upon it that's disordered and bad."

I'm not certain the stance is exactly the same. My understanding of the religious conservative standpoint is that they think it's a test by God, whereas progressives are overwhelming secular in originating their arguments. But I grasp your point.

Is there anywhere anyone still has that argument? I do think it's interesting, but there's nowhere I know of it can be had where it wouldn't devolve into chaos. Maybe the schism, maybe, depending who shows up that's not one of the main regulars.

It was on the old subreddit once, brought up by naraburns, I believe.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

More to the point, I think it's very valid to describe "cis" and "cisgender" as a slur, insofar as a slur is something you call a group of people who don't want to be called that (similar to the "'TERF' is a slur" debate).

Not wanting to be called something is a weaker categorization, I think intention makes for a stronger one, because the behavior we are interested in correcting is that of the offender.

I think it's because labeling the vast majority of the population (something like 99%) and making them have to use a qualifier to describe themselves is a systematic effort to make them seem more different from the norm than they really are.

I legitimately don't get this impression. It seems to me that the intention is precisely to illustrate that the category can be bigger that it currently is. I'm sure there are people who unironically think that Trans women are the ONLY women, but that's an absurdly rare position, one that is hardly endorsed even by the most "woke".

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

They are slurs when people use them with the intention of a put-down, not because they inherently denigrate "normal people", whatever that means.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Death of the author at play- the actual motivations don't matter, and there could be multiple overlapping motivations anyways; what gets talked about is, as you point out, whatever gets traction and I would add satisfies the biases of the loudest people.

Why is this in any way good? I sincerely hope that people here, even if they are totally anti-LGBT, would correct the record if the more accurate interpretation is that this is an anti-Pride action. I expect I'll be disappointed, unfortunately.

Talking about bigots emulating bigots hinges on who gets to define bigots; Mottezans like to fuss a lot about progressive bigotry but that never really gets traction elsewhere. Or slightly more historically, "Democrats are the real racists" is pointing at a serious phenomenon, even moreso now than in its heyday, but never really 'worked' because the people saying it don't have the privilege of defining racist.

I think that if people here were to set aside their partisan politics, they would agree with me that it is bigotry to hate someone for that which they cannot control. The defenses of anti-LGBT sentiment I see here fall into 2 categories of justification, though I'm sure I've missed at least one:

There is a controllable element to being LGBT i.e schools and media are encouraging kids to identify as gay.
Pride and progressive activism are so tightly wrapped together that when someone waves the latest Pride flag, they're signaling their support of many non-related beliefs as well (more cynically, each Pride flag is being virtually planted to demonstrate areas of control)

In other words, no one is out here saying that progressive orthodoxy on the inherent nature of being LGBT+ is correct, but it is still okay to hate those people.

There is a more interesting argument to be had about the etiology of being not-straight or not-gender-conforming, but only because the people interested in discussing it tend to be less interested in describing the left as a Cordyceps.

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Let's ask a different question: if it applies broadly, does it matter to you why it was passed?

It recontextualizes the event. "Muslims ban Pride flag from their city" is a tailor-made headline for those who are anti-LGBT and find it acceptable to support Muslims when, in many cases, they would have openly reviled the religion only few years ago. "Muslims ban all flags except US flag from being displayed on government buildings" gets far less traction.

Moreover, suppose other cities across the US start doing this - are we going to be talking about the wave of liberalism sweeping rural conservative towns, or are we going to talk about bigots emulating other bigots?

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drmanhattan16 2yr ago

Okay, that's fair. I think my overall point stands, however - they're not particularly worried about those flags.

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