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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   10418 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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It is depressing. The student really does need a rap over the knuckles for "the assignment was read the paper, you never read the paper". But giving zero for a topic that is relevant to the tutor/TA/whatever the position, is also going to look like bias. If, as claimed, other students have turned in equally crappy papers and not gotten zero grades, then it is unjustified. But I do think the student wants to be a martyr and now she has achieved her fifteen minutes of fame for "they persecuted me for being a Christian".

But to quote St. Clement of Alexandria, rashly running out to be persecuted is not true martyrdom, it is vainglory:

Now we, too, say that those who have rushed on death (for there are some, not belonging to us, but sharing the name merely, who are in haste to give themselves up, the poor wretches dying through hatred to the Creator )— these, we say, banish themselves without being martyrs, even though they are punished publicly. For they do not preserve the characteristic mark of believing martyrdom, inasmuch as they have not known the only true God, but give themselves up to a vain death, as the Gymnosophists of the Indians to useless fire.

...When, again, He says, When they persecute you in this city, flee to the other, He does not advise flight, as if persecution were an evil thing; nor does He enjoin them by flight to avoid death, as if in dread of it, but wishes us neither to be the authors nor abettors of any evil to any one, either to ourselves or the persecutor and murderer. For He, in a way, bids us take care of ourselves. But he who disobeys is rash and foolhardy. If he who kills a man of God sins against God, he also who presents himself before the judgment-seat becomes guilty of his death. And such is also the case with him who does not avoid persecution, but out of daring presents himself for capture. Such a one, as far as in him lies, becomes an accomplice in the crime of the persecutor. And if he also uses provocation, he is wholly guilty, challenging the wild beast. And similarly, if he afford any cause for conflict or punishment, or retribution or enmity, he gives occasion for persecution. Wherefore, then, we are enjoined not to cling to anything that belongs to this life; but to him that takes our cloak to give our coat, not only that we may continue destitute of inordinate affection, but that we may not by retaliating make our persecutors savage against ourselves, and stir them up to blaspheme the name.

So, deliberately provoking the university authorities is not standing up for your principles, it is causing them to offend.

She didn't want to be a martyr, the whole thing is a staged political stunt to get the TPUSA more influence. I daresay I have a better insight into the priorities of the politically active core red tribe in the south central United States than the average motteizean; the TPUSA is a big part of their 'theory of victory' and this kind of stunt is exactly what somebody trying to exploit it would dream up- and some state legislators were peripherally involved, but involved enough to be an implied threat.

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