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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35053 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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It is performative and the reaction was way more negative than they expected - even the Queen gave them shit!

I don't see how you say it is performative if they, as you argue, believe what they are doing something moral. It's not performative for me to do X if I think it is a moral thing to do, even if I don't necessarily think about it fully when I do it.

Sure it is. Goodwife Hetty sees young Henry and Constance canoodling by the river, even though Constance is betrothed to Matthew, the ostler's son. She tells her priest about it out of moral concern, but she tells everyone else about it performatively - the moral concern is just an excuse to raise her own standing in the community.

She tells her priest about it out of moral concern, but she tells everyone else about it performatively - the moral concern is just an excuse to raise her own standing in the community.

You're assuming these are different. Why does telling everyone else raise her social standing? Because she is doing an act the community sees to be pro-social, blowing the whistle on people breaking social norms.

Raising her social standing is the INCENTIVE to get her to behave morally in the first place. That's not performative, it's the core of our social programming.

That's possible. It's also possible Hetty is zealous is enforcing the morality of her community, and informing everyone she's seen a bad thing happen would be her way of ensuring everyone knew of Henry and Constance's immoral actions.

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