naraburns
nihil supernum
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User ID: 100
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Boise Pride cancels "Drag Kids" event after a number of sponsors withdrew, with a predictable dose of corporate doublespeak.
I have a lot of thoughts about this, but what is actually bothering me most right now is the coverage. Particularly this gem:
Several opponents of the festival on social media repeatedly referred to supporters as “groomers” – a nod to the unfounded QAnon conspiracy theory that Democrats and the elite run an underground pedophilic, satanic, sex cult.
As far as I can tell, this is a publicly-funded news organization actively spreading outright disinformation--FUD, really--about the term "groomer." It reminds me of when "cultural Marxism" became an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" practically overnight (no big deal, the term "critical theory" recaptured the energy). It reminds me of the sudden fluidity of online dictionary definitions every time a Democrat politician tells an obvious lie. It reminds me of Clarence Thomas being referred to by Harry Reid as a white man.
"Groomer" is effective rhetoric, so I can understand why certain groups want it killed. But like... how is "Drag Kids" even remotely plausibly not grooming? Some of the talking points I see floating on Twitter are, like, "What about child beauty pageants?" But this moves me not a single iota--I hate child beauty pageants for exactly the same reason. It's weird! It's creepy! Or to put it in less emotionally-charged terms: it's not something kids do, when they grow up in loving, healthy, stable environments. At best it's a symptom of deeper troubles; at worst, it's a direct cause of some of those troubles. I mean, yes, emotional and physical and sexual abuse, but also just long term psychological problems. Have you seen the stats on child movie stars? Olympic athletes? I don't think it's necessarily fair to insist that we strip away the culture war angles entirely, but if I'm steelmanning "Drag Kids" the best I can come up with is "this is a new manifestation of an old and widespread form of child abuse, namely, using children for adult entertainment, often by putting inappropriate pressure on them to participate." Are we really going to say Hollywood isn't rife with child abuse? (Hmm, they're also mostly Democrats...) And when someone says "Drag Kids is sexualizing children" only to be met with "no, you're making it sexual, you right-wing pervert, we're just having silly fun"--it's maddening. Like, really? I'm supposed to believe that you're putting your kid in a leather thong for silly fun? Be serious. If that's not grooming, nothing is.
Am I ranting? This feels pretty ranty. But I do have a serious question. What's the appropriate mistake-theory response to strategic abuses of language? How should I react, if not with ranting, to a transparent attempt to tar people who clearly want to protect children from manifest harms as mere conspiracy theorists? I am a bit old school, I learned to hate the phrase "think of the children" before many of you were born, but surely sometimes we do, in fact, need to protect children. Not incorporating child-sexualizing events into our civic religion seems like a pretty obvious way to do that.
And, I suppose, someone will point out that Boise Pride's "Drag Kids" grooming hour did indeed get canceled! The system works! The subtext there being--what am I complaining about? Well, in brief, I'm still complaining about the news coverage, which has very big "Republicans pounce" energy. I would like to be able to seriously criticize that sort of thing without actively culture warring, but I don't feel like I have a lot of good mistake-theory tools to respond with. Maybe that's the point, I guess--to try to maneuver people into a position where they feel sheepish for acting like an "aggressor" in the face of kids having "silly fun." Which seems, to me, like an especially evil way of being a conflict theorist.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
How do you feel about the Catholic church?
Well... I'm not Catholic, so you could say I have some disagreements with them for sure.
I'm confident Catholicism has resulted in more child sex abuse than any "Drag Kids" event. I think quite likely more than Hollywood!
In raw numbers, maybe. Per capita? I doubt it. It's astonishingly difficult to get reliable numbers on this sort of thing, of course, but every time I've tried, I've failed to find any evidence that the Catholic church leads to child abuse at greater rates than, say, public schools.
Anyway this feels like a similar gotcha to the child beauty pageants. Yes, there are other forms of child abuse--that justifies this one?
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Celebrities, rich people may have fucked up personal lives, but so do plenty of normal people, too.
Totally! But why? Are you suggesting it's all just a toss of the dice? Or do you think it's possible to identify patterns of behavior that correlate with undesirable outcomes? In this case there is no control group, partly because wide scale human experimentation is impracticable, immoral, or both. Unless we decide to tacitly approve of it for whatever reason... as we appear to have done in this case, in spite of what seem to me clear risks.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
You think it's more likely that this many parents are abusing their children than that they genuinely have bought the meme that this is a totally harmless opportunity for their children to explore their indentities in a a manner they've been assured is harmless.
I should maybe have been clearer that it was the organizer's and advocate's positions I was thinking of, there. I mean, it's not like we haven't seen this in other cultures. Sure, some credulous fool is always going to be a True Believer. I'm just not sure it counts as a steelman to say "oh, I understand--those people are just stupid."
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
It isn't grooming in the sense of manipulating a child into being sexually available.
Sure it is--the act itself makes the child sexually available, not for intercourse per se but for lewd interactions with the adult audience. You might as well say that strip bars aren't sexual. The act of Drag Kids itself is sex abuse per se--the same way that exposing children to pornography is sex abuse per se, even if you never lay a hand on them. I think I could probably have been a bit clearer about the way I framed this, but your problem here is you're engaging in amphiboly between participants, parents, and organizers. Do the kids think they're being made sexually available? Likely they don't understand the full implications of what they're involved in, which is an alarm bell all on its own. Do some parents think it's just silly fun? Probably--people are stupid like that. But Pride events have always, until recently, been chock full of sexualization. Wrapping kids up into that is sexualization per se, whether or not anyone gets physically assaulted.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
To discard mistake theory as erroneous.
It's not about being right or wrong, it's about finding a way to live in the world with others. I don't want to discard mistake theory; life is more pleasant when I can find ways to make it work.
But I admit my aspirational thinking doesn't necessarily make you wrong.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
The standard interpretation of "grooming", as I understand it, is gradual manipulation of the underage and otherwise mentally inadequate with the purpose of normalising the idea that they will be sexually abused or exploited by their adult handlers
I commented on this a bit up the chain, but it bears repeating--I regard putting children in skimpy clothing and throwing money at them while they dance as sexual exploitation per se. You don't have to touch a child to sexually abuse them; in most jurisdictions, just exposing them to pornography counts. Participation in "family friendly" Drag Kids is grooming toward participation in more sexualized drag events. To my eyes, this is a comfortable fit for the term "grooming."
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Well, but this is the very question I'm asking. What's the appropriate approach, when the truth itself is a memetic superweapon? "Taboo your words" is supposed to be a way to increase clarity--to say, "alright, that word is clearly a sticking point, what if we describe it another way?" If dropping the word "groomer" would get us closer to putting an end to grooming behaviors, I'd be on board with that. But it doesn't seem like dropping "groomer" would win a single step forward in that battle. Rather, it seems like the attempt to tar "groomer" as conspiratorial thinking is an attack on some people's ability to express the problem clearly.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
It's also worth worth noting that (1) the University of South Carolina canceled a two game women's basketball series in response to these accusations and (2) South Carolina lawmakers are asking why. So this has already gone further than just "did it happen or not"--there have been direct consequences of people drawing their own conclusions concerning unproven allegations.
While researching this story I was intrigued to see how much bigotry is directed at BYU athletes. If BYU canceled games over bigotry and slurs directed at Mormons, they might not have any games left. If they're now to have games canceled by others over hate hoaxes, maybe they should just get on with it and end their athletics program entirely.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Right, well--and to be clear, I don't necessarily find polygamy jokes to be super objectionable speech; "fuck the Mormons" does seem a bit much for a public event (sub in Jews, blacks, etc. and see how well it sits, I guess) but even then, I have never known sports fans to be especially gentle in their trash-talking (so something like "fuck the Red Sox" seems less objectionable, if still not exactly polite).
Brian Leiter (philosopher of law) reblogged something just this week about the directness with which H.L. Mencken once took the religious to task in newspaper columns--this seemed somewhat relevant to me. I'd like for people to feel free to level the criticisms they feel warranted in leveling. But this case seems to show how "intersectionality" is just code for "bigotry is permitted encouraged against politically approved targets."
Criticizing Mormons is playing the social game on easy mode.
Among the juvenilia of Scott Alexander is a piece called Mormonism: The Control Group For Christianity. (There are other hints scattered across his blog that his father lives or lived at some point in Salt Lake City, and that Scott visited him there. Beyond that it's unclear to me what SA's connection with Mormonism is.) This particular case makes me wonder if Mormonism is also a suitable "control group," or at least a bellwether, for religious toleration.
Actually, Google tells me that there are approximately 15 million Jews in the world, and maybe 16 million Mormons. Judaism is a much older religion, has a dedicated ethnostate, boasts numerous special interest NGOs dedicated to defending it against anti-Semitism, and so forth. Mormons have not been subjected to a Holocaust, but were apparently subjected to a surprising amount of murder in their early days. Mormons did not trek through the wilderness for 40 years, but they did follow a bearded prophet into the desert and then settle in a not-that-pleasant place (sorry, the mountains are lovely but the fact is, inland from the Pacific coast the western United States is a barely habitable wasteland, and if you post a picture of the Grand Tetons I will respond with a picture of the Salt Flats). Is there an ADL for Mormons? (Google suggests no!) Are Mormons subjected to employment discrimination, etc.? (Google suggests yes!) Like Jews, Mormons punch above their weight politically, but again--not with the same oomph as Jews. Lists of "famous Mormons" have some interesting entries, as do lists of famous ex-Mormons (actress Amy Adams? New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Adern?), not quite to the degree that we see famous Jews in, say, Hollywood but certainly to an unusual extent considering the size of the sect.
And here it looks like Jewish universities are also culture war targets. I feel like I need an image macro along the lines of: "Mom, can we stop and get some Jews?--We have Jews at home!--The Jews at home:" [insert picture of Donny and Marie Osmond having dinner with Mitt Romney].
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
This is... rather a lot more attention than I have paid to collegiate sports in, well, ever, but it just continues to boggle! The USC coach who canceled games with BYU now has this to say
“I continue to stand by my position. After my personal research, I made a decision for the well-being of my team. I regret that my university, my athletics director Ray Tanner and others got drawn into the criticism of a choice that I made.”
Like... really? We're on to "personal research" now? That is one hell of a way to double down.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Were they?
No, no--I posted her entire response verbatim.
If not that's a decent signal that the "personal research" was more "personally hopping on the bandwagon without having conducted any research."
Yeah, in my experience people use "personal research" as a stand-in for "I'm not going to make any further attempt to justify my beliefs to you." Like taking a "personal day" or leaving a job for "personal reasons."
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
This comment, and this one, are really uncharitable. In particular, the idea that it is "racist" to "care that Amazon hired black actors" requires a great deal more discussion (an in particular, a clear definition of "racist") given that race was not at all the focus of the comment to which you replied. Rather, the criticism was that people are using accusations of racism to defend the show; you've dispensed with the defending of the show, but kept the unproven accusation of racism.
Don't do that.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Someone said that black casting in LoTR is unnatural. How else am i supposed to disagree with it?
Literally no one said that but you.
One person (not the one you replied to here, but in the other link I mentioned) referred to certain casting choices as "natural," which (charitably) seems like an obvious reference to fitting the lore Tolkien wrote. There are races in the original Middle Earth; different people from different regions are described as having varied skin tones etc. Just like in the real world. Nobody said it was unnatural to cast black people, unless you uncharitably modify the words they used in a separate context.
A lot of people are criticizing LoTR for casting black and minority actors
In roles where it doesn't make sense--not unlike casting a black child as the natural offspring of a Norse father and a Japanese mother. Maybe these people are wrong or mistaken or even racist, but if you're going to make that argument, you have to actually argue against what their real position is--not the naked one you (or Amazon) invented for maximum pearl-clutching.
saying that Amazon only did this so they couldn't criticize the show at all
Sure, I'd be surprised if this was Amazon's reason for casting that way (I assume they're just on the "maximum skintone diversity" train like everyone else in the movie business outside of Bollywood). But if people think Amazon does seem to be responding to real criticism by deflecting to "you're racist," that's an argument that seems plausible, too, and it's not racist to point that out.
Why does the casting matter if both sides say it doesn't matter?
Er... you were just telling me about people on both sides of the casting issue who think the casting matters, so I don't understand this question.
I think calling the casting unnatural is racist and there's no other way to put it.
Then don't call it unnatural, as you're, again, literally the only one who has done so. But even if that's the only way to put it, you still have to actually explain yourself. Why is it racist to think that characters shouldn't be skin-tone-swapped from their author's visions in film adaptations? Like, if the next Black Panther movie had the king of Wakanda played by Tom Hanks, I assume some people would be upset--would they have a point? I've seen tons of people get annoyed at originally-Asian characters being played by white actors, so it seems to me that movie watchers are pretty consistent about being annoyed by this, and Hollywood is pretty consistent about telling them to fuck off, since they're gonna buy the movie tickets anyway.
Calling people "racist" is a serious accusation, certainly an inflammatory one, and so if you're going to do it you have to do it with lots of evidence and clear reasoning. You can't just be like "y'all racist" without putting in some work. Define your terms, or better yet, taboo your words. If you literally can't explain your problem without using the word "racist," then you don't actually understand your own problem.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Christians too dream of utopia, but of course since we know that the Kingdom of God is fiction, the Christian position is tantamount to the claim that utopia is impossible and not worth striving for in actuality.
This technically violates the rule against consensus-building--"we know" is too strong. More subtly, I know "Christians" (in the sense that they identify with Christianity while doubting the metaphysics of it) who see the Kingdom of God as unattainable but worth striving for as an ideal, so you need to be careful about making assertions regarding what "we" know, as well as what the "Christian position" is.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
You're on the wrong forum.
No, you need to write like you want everyone included in the conversation. The comment you're replying to is perhaps objectionably low effort, but charitably it can at least pass as an honest question. Your response does not inform, enlighten, or even especially engage. Don't do this.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
my comment was more of an explainer
This would require your comment to have explained something.
If anything, the person he's replying to...
This is not relevant to the current conversation. I just want to do what I can to ensure that you understand how you broke the rules, so you can avoid doing it again in the future.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Name-calling breaks several of our rules. User banned for a week.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Write like you want to include everyone in the conversation. More generally, don't be a troll. Your offense is arguably more subtle than the name-calling you get downthread, but no less a violation of the rules. Banned for a week.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Yeah, becoming a skeptic (which happened gradually, but I think I noticed really happening around my second year of grad school) made it very hard for me to accept the death penalty, for basically the same reason. I am not opposed to it, in principle, for murder. I expect it is probably warranted in some cases of military misbehavior. But in a modern jury system? I just can't bring myself to endorse its actual implementation. We know that some innocent people get executed, and evidence that the death penalty discourages murder in other cases is too thin and dubious to support the occasional death of an innocent.
I enjoy reading insights from the various criminal lawyers who occasionally post here, because that is a job I could never do. In practical terms, I can't handle the sausage making. I'm too attached to my ideals. Sometimes this is to my benefit, but I think it makes me a poor politician, and an even worse trial attorney.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Why does the death penalty have to be about deterrence as opposed to revenge/justice?
It doesn't. That's just one justification sometimes given.
If it’s a bad enough crime, anything short of killing him feels wrong.
Sure, if we know they're guilty. I'm agreeing with the OP--too often that's not the case.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1yr ago
Interesting! Given the year on the Fraser source, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is what Etymonline and Wiktionary are referencing. This strengthens my suspicion that Leiter was mistaken to attribute the term to Lukacs, who apparently only applied it to Marxism. The concept Leiter has in mind indeed appears to be only one kind of reification, so his suppressed complaint re: people using the term incorrectly seems unjustified.
Thanks for the insight!
First off you need to write like you want to include everyone in the conversation, which... shibboleths like this aren't an egregious violation, but they are still a violation of that rule.
The more serious violation, though, is that you're deliberately picking on a very general group, here. The real point of your post is not, it seems, to explain Rick & Morty--which would be fine!--but to dunk on "spergs" because they don't enjoy it on as many levels as you do.
So, don't do that.
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