domain:doyourownresearch.substack.com
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9m ago
"Scapegoating" itself as a word comes from Jewish tradition where the sins of the entire nation would be laid on a single literal goat who was then released into the wilderness (practically, pushed off a cliff outside town), while another 'innocent' goat would be sacrificed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. Jesus literally and symbolically took the role of both being innocent and being sacrificed, and it's quite literal in Christianity that he took on him the sins of the world there, which sins would otherwise prevent us individually from reaching heaven. Reasons for why exactly he was capable of doing this differ across sects but usually are some variant of him being innocent or of godly nature.
In modern discourse being scapegoated is seen as a bad thing (i.e. avoiding responsibility) but Christians would agree that you need some action yourself to obtain this absolution, though it's "free" in a more general sense. Here is the key point where the various sects differ greatly, what action? Some believe that you need to follow some kind of true regret/restitution/prayer process, others that you need to confess to a priest, others that you actually don't have to do anything other than once in your whole life ask for forgiveness and that's it.
aldomilyar
12m ago
I just felt like it should have been brought into the vampire climax somehow and felt like it just kinda weirdly floated above the rest of the movie just to tick the 'racial oppression themes' mentioned box moreso than really contributing to the plot perse. Also like the only two real white person interactions of the movie are 'The Local Klan is ready to go on 24 hours notice for the grave crime of selling an old barn' and 'Old drunkard's friend is mass lynched for the crime of having $20' which is a pretty insane setup.
If it had tied into the vampire plot with say the Vampiric mulatto woman going to the local town and making up a rape or something to galvanize the Klan into action to get the vampires into the barn I'd buy that, or if it somehow tied into the source of the Chicago money with organized crime contacts using the Klan to try and get revenge. Otherwise it's just a child's understanding of the South where mass lynchings were a daily occurence in every locality.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
20m ago
It depends on what parts of the Bible. Some, absolutely. My very-atheist hometown of Portland, OR (suburbs but still) had a "Bible as Literature" English elective class in high school! No, I didn't take it, sadly.
Not all chapters are equal, and it also depends on the translation. KJV has a pretty famous poetic style, though the NRSV keeps a good bit of the charm while updating the language somewhat. Read some famous passages in the ESV though and you might feel like a toddler, it's pretty bad. There's some of the Psalms, of course, parts of Isaiah with nice imagery, the start of Genesis is a bit of a classic. In the New Testament, it's a little more parceled out into particular chapters, though John and Luke are definitely more literary than the other Gospels.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
29m ago
It's definitely true that most Spanish-only-speakers have developed coping strategies already, or are bilingual to an acceptable extent, so the returns aren't as starkly defined as with other languages. However, it does expand your ability to vacation in most all of the hemisphere, allows you to be a better "neighbor", and furthermore allows you to communicate somewhat acceptably with those who speak Italian or Portuguese (French to a more limited extent), so there's that extra marginal effect too. I just yesterday had a whole conversation with someone from Brazil, cross-language with him in Portuguese and me in Spanish, and it was pretty effective. So you kind of get 1 + 2 * (1/2) languages for the price of one. On top of that, since the linguistic roots are so similar, learning Spanish also has the effect of boosting English vocabulary (and vice-versa)! It's extremely common for regular-use Spanish words to have less-used English equivalents. As a trivial example, the word for "to chew" in Spanish is "masticar", which you might recognize as related to the more archaic English word "masticate" with an identical meaning. By contrast, Chinese offers practically zero cross-over knowledge in vocabulary, the script itself, and some intonation.
Again Chinese is definitely #2 on that list of most-useful languages, though. It's just hard to argue with the numbers. Most people rarely leave the country, and even if your Spanish is functionally decorative with 80% of all Spanish-speakers, there's still twice as many Spanish-speakers where it would be useful as there are Chinese speakers domestically (for which similar arguments could be made anyways). Sure, there are still 2-3 times as many global speakers of Chinese, but IMO you really need to weight that heavily by exposure chance. An unused language is still vaguely helpful developmentally as I mentioned above, or as a hobby, and might get you some attention from women, but overall it would still be a poor investment to learn a language never used.
Status-wise, there's no doubt Spanish has a lower socioeconomic association, so if you're trying to raise your kid to me a major climber, Chinese might be better if that's your primary goal. However, Spanish is the kinder and more practical option. So it might come down to values/priorities in some sense.
HereAndGone
36m ago
Because he made it into a brand that elevated it from "seedy porn" to something daring, sexy, naughty but in keeping with the spirit of the times, when Sexual Liberation was all the rage. Now women too could explore their sexuality openly! Being a Playboy bunny may seem ridiculous today, and it wasn't without criticism back then, but a lot of jobs for young women advertised an image of glamour and sexiness, e.g. airline attendants or trolly dollies, because air travel still had the air of being something luxurious and not commonplace.
These kinds of careers were presented as something more than the conventional "be a secretary or teacher and then get married and settle down to being a housewife" path for attractive young women. They did rely on sex appeal but there was a crucial distinction established between that and being the pole dancer or stripper or prostitute or porn actress: no expectation of having to have sex with the customers. The fantasy on both sides was: you are a hot young woman who, through working this job, may meet a desirable well-off man/you are a young man in a white collar job who can meet a glamourous girl not like the girls-next-door for mutual fun.
HereAndGone
44m ago
t's a moral, emotional, and physical cripple incapable of basic human functioning.
See, here is where our opinions sharply diverge. I don't want to fucky-fucky like a rabbit in spring? Well gosh, then I'm not a real human! Asexuality does not mean incapacity to have emotional and relational bonds with others, it just means 'no sex'. It doesn't even mean 'no romantic love', that's aromanticism!
Taking a look at the news pages about the people who do experience sexual arousal and so are not 'moral, emotional and physical cripples incapable of basic human functioning', what do I see about these paragons who have the fullness of erotic desire?
Serial killer couple from decades past. They were in love and sexually functional, you know!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39x1ggj3e3o
Man murders his daughter by deliberately running over her. If he had a wife and family, he had normal sexual and romantic human relationships, unlike those soulless asexuals!
Female prison officer attempted to get pregnant by convict. They're so in love, your honour! Okay, the guy is a convicted rapist, but that just means he is so overflowing with normal human attraction to potential sexual partners that he shares the love vigorously!
I can find a lot of stories of that type, if we want to argue about moral cripples.
HereAndGone
55m ago
Yeah, the money-making empire was the brand but the magazine was what brought it to mainstream attention. Maybe you'd never be that guy going to a Playboy club or casino, but the magazine allowed you to participate in the dream. That's what porn is about - selling fantasy in a way that tries to persuade the consumer 'this is attainable for you'.
HereAndGone
58m ago
it sounds bonkers that they planned a project like this, and when it came to "how do we pay for it?", their answer was the equivalent of "uh, look down the back of the sofa for some spare change".
What? Who believes that? It's my understanding that a strong majority people across all political sides think [European] WWII was preventable, it's just that the reasons vary. I think there are, broadly speaking, about three camps that conveniently tend to align with modern political positions:
The people of Germany should have been better at fighting back and denouncing Nazism when it was rising and/or after Hitler took control (Left)
The other nations around Germany should have been better at drawing firm lines in the sand for what was allowed and what was not, it was appeasement that let Hitler get out of control (Right)
The winners of WWI shouldn't have imposed such an overly strict and emasculating treaty of Versailles which led to German resentment and decline creating an environment of radicalism and lawlessness (Center)
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