#furthermore... when one group with more power than you oppresses you... you have every right to resist that oppression | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lovejustforaday · 3 years

Text

Album Review - The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe

THE ARCHANDROID - JANELLE MONÁE

Main Genres: Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Contemporary R&B

A decent sampling of: Psychedelic Pop, Jazz Pop, Neo-Soul, Rock N Roll, Synth Pop, Swing, Baroque Pop, Conscious Rap, Alternative R&B

It’s hard to think of an artist who arrived onto the scene with a more fully-formed vision than Janelle Monáe.

Creative minds of her caliber are few and far between. I bet a lot of artists wish that they could say that their debut LP was as bold, ambitious, and left as lasting an impression as The ArchAndroid.

The ArchAndroid is the most cinematic experience an album has ever given me by itself. Artists like Gorillaz and Beyoncé have dropped “album movies” where every song (or just about every song) gets a music video, and I admire those kinds of projects for all the effort that goes into them. But The ArchAndroid never needed a music video for every song - each song is already so vivid, so full of colour and life, that I can already picture clearly what the music and the story looks like inside my head. Of course, it helps that Janelle Monae did everything in her power to make the story behind this concept album as real and tangible as possible, between little details like the written lore in the liner notes to the real life persona she adopted at the time of its release. But what exactly is The ArchAndroid all about? Well, it’s a little complicated. Monáe refers to her debut EP Metropolis and her first two LPs as “suites”, with Metropolis representing suite 1, The Archandroid suites 2 and 3, and The Electric Lady suites 4 and 5. These suites tell the story of Cindi Mayweather, a prophetic, afrofuturistic android protagonist who was cloned from Janelle Monáe’s DNA, who falls in love with a human named Sir Anthony Greendown, and lives in a dystopian future where time travelling villains known as ‘The Great Divide’ are oppressing androids.

Essentially, the story of Cindi Mayweather serves as allegory for issues surrounding blackness, queerness, oppression, and interacial love in our own times. Furthermore, Cindi Mayweather’s character represents love itself as an opposing force to hatred. The ArchAndroid in particular very strongly represent’s Janelle Monae’s socio-political manifesto of love, protest, and peaceful rebellion in the face of societal injustices like racism. The whole thing is basically just really nerdy pop music meets sci-fi social justice, and I absolutely fell in love with the concept from the very first time I heard The ArchAndroid. Anyways, let’s talk about the music. Monáe’s pop fusion sound takes inspiration from all sorts of directions here - from good old rock and roll, classic psychedelia, and 60s girl groups, to modern hip hop and neo-soul. What really stands out however is a particular fondness for the classy sound of 1920s jazz, swing, and big band music, and the accompanying visual aesthetics for the album draw heavily from this influence. The production on this album is BIG. Part of what makes this album so cinematic is the crisp, clean mastering and the large orchestral arrangements that feature prominently throughout. Everything sounds meticulously placed and she clearly worked with a really great team on this project. I’d also say that this is the kind of album you definitely have to hear on vinyl to get the fullest experience possible. Monáe’s talents as a vocalist are also a key element. She’s got a fire in her soul and a very real stage presence, and her range is impeccable. She can rap on tracks like “Dance or Die” and “Tightrope”, she can serenade the listener so sweetly on tracks like “Say You’ll Go” and “Sir Greendown”, or she can belt out a song with sorrow in her chest on tracks like “Oh, Maker” and “Cold War”. At almost 70 minutes, it’s a very long album by pop standards so it’d be pretty difficult to pinpoint what all of my favourite tracks are on The ArchAndroid and why, but here’s a few highlights anyway. “Dance Or Die”, “Faster”, and “Locked Inside” start off the album with a three part musical chase scene where Cindi is fleeing her oppressors. I see a heavy rainy night, dark alleyways, flashing city lights, and futuristic floating cop cars when “Dance Or Die” kicks in with its incredibly infectious beat that gets my heart pumping every time I hear it. “Sir Greendown” is a wonderful little love song with mysterious undertones, and a warm throwback to the era of brill building. This song establishes one of the main conflicts of the ArchAndroid portion of Cindi��s story in particular; that is, choosing between her destiny to stay and fight for her people as the Archandroid, or escaping to the safe haven land of mushrooms and roses to live a life of peace with her lover. “Tightrope” is just a total banger from start to finish. This jazzy, swingy r&b rap track features Big Boi of Outkast, one of her clearest musical inspirations and it’s really cool to see both of them absolutely kill it alongside eachother. The breakdown with the record scratching is one of the very best musical moments on this LP and it really gives me the vibe of an android glitching on the dance floor from partying too hard. “Wondaland” is absolutely utopian, a lofty, mythical synth pop song that sounds like it came right out of a pixar movie with all kinds of weird little android voices in the background. “Say You’ll Go” is my personal favourite. This classy tune is mostly an exhibit for Monáe’s artistic tastes and her soothing vocals, but it’s done so incredibly well that I can’t help but wonder if this is what elevator music in the tallest skyscraper of an advanced society might sound like. The ending with its interpolation of “Clair de Lune” and a soulful choir in the background is a really nice touch. “BaBopByeYa” is a fantastic eight minute closing piece of soul jazz that represents the peak of the album’s cinematic qualities, with a progressive song structure that tells an entire story on its own. The fact that this wasn’t the biggest album of its decade is honestly sort of a crime. I can only think of one other album from the 2010s that I love just a little bit more than The ArchAndroid, but if we’re to assume that some element of music critique is objective (which is a whole other can of worms), then I have to point out just how put together this whole LP is, how much love and hard work clearly went into it, and how incredibly impressive this sounds even to this day. Speaking as ““““objectively”””” as I think I can, this is the most impressive thing I’ve heard that’s come out in the past 11 years. This could have come out yesterday and it still would have sounded so incredibly beyond what I thought was possible at the time. What’s more, the political issues tackled by The ArchAndroid are sadly just as relevant today as they were the day that it dropped. Speaking as a dumb privileged white guy who obviously isn’t an expert on the subject, I really did want to put out a review for Black History Month that would honour a great black artist, and Janelle Monáe is the first one that comes to mind. Monáe is obviously a very proud black woman, and her art definitely needs to be celebrated.

That being said, The ArchAndroid is really the kind of album that just about anybody should be able to enjoy regardless of their background. Either you love sci-fi, hate injustices, or just like listening to really fucking good music.

10/10

highlights: “Say You’ll Go”, “Wondaland”, “Tightrope”, “Dance Or Die”, “BaBopByeYa”, “Sir Greendown”, “Oh, Maker”, “Locked Inside”, “57821″, “Cold War”, “Mushrooms & Roses”, “Suite III Overture”, “Suite II Overture”, “Faster”, “Make the Bus”

#janelle monae #cindi mayweather #the archandroid #r&b #art pop #progressive pop #soul #best music #favourite music #album review #music review #2010

9 notes · View notes

canchewread · 4 years

Photo

Editor's note: this journal is original content (written by myself, of course) and has not appeared elsewhere online before today. I should also note that because this is both an opinion piece and an informal journal, my level of commitment to providing citations for the disingenuous wasn't particularly high; if you're looking for formally documented evidence that we're currently in the middle of a fascist takeover, I encourage you to check out my academic writing about the subject on ninaillingworth.com instead.

Journal 09/09/2020: Looking the Beast in the Eye

When I originally sat down to pen this journal, my intention was to call it something along the lines of “advice to a young leftist” which is probably in no small part, the reason why it's taken me three days to write this piece. This is because unfortunately I do not have very much good advice for a young leftist today in two-thousand and twenty, or at least much advice that isn't going to sound rather a lot like “quit before what you believe destroys your entire life.”

As I've written (extensively) elsewhere, we're in the middle of a fascist takeover that is more or less succeeding across the entire Pig Empire, and what passes for the liberal (read: capitalist) establishment in our respective nations seem quite content to try and appease the beast by feeding them the entire left and any marginalized group “uppity” enough to demand justice, equality or representation. There is not a lot of upside to being an open leftist right now and understanding what I know about both the history of fascism and the history of reactionary crackdowns in America, it's awful hard for me in good conscience to advise any young person to willingly subject themselves to the tender mercies of an uncaring state and its fascist cutout vigilante groups.

Let's talk a little bit about what that history, including very recent history, can tell us and why what it tells us isn't very good for the American left. Here in particular, we as both a class in American society and a people that believe in a more equal, compassionate and humane way of life, stand at the intersection of state power, class oppression and the homicidal revenge fantasies of a fascist political order that has seized power throughout much of the United States. The fact that this is not understood by our milquetoast Dem Soc allies and the bougie “progressive left” is completely irrelevant; as any Ferguson activist (who is still breathing) can tell you COINTELPRO never ended, performative liberal anti-racism stops well short of opposing police repression, and genteel society will respond to violent reprisals against activists by the reactionary right with either dead silence or some mild clucks of disapproval at best.

Are the liberals aware that when the increasingly fascist American right says “the left” they mean liberals and suburbanite Democrats too? On some level I'm sure they are, but clearly the threat of increased taxation and social programs for the poor terrifies them far more than the possibility fascism will progress to the point that they're next in front of the firing squad – I've been told the liberals of Weimar Germany felt much the same way during Hitler's rise; which merely demonstrates that the liberal capacity for coddling fascism if it's profitable knows few limits. Furthermore the nauseating truth is that many of your misguided and misinformed liberal allies in the working class simply don't understand that the fascist right always seeks to eliminate the militant left first simply because those are the people who're going to fight back when you start loading Muslims, Latinos and lanyard Democrats onto cattle cars.

This historical process of fascism of course intertwines with the American establishment's history of ruthlessly repressing, criminalizing and even murdering the left. As I detailed extensively in a prior essay called “The Inversion Perversion” the state's war against Americans who want a more equal society (in any number of ways) predates the rise of Nazi Germany, the American Civil War and as those who've studied colonial America might argue, even the foundation of the country. Between the mass deportations of anarchists, suppression of left wing literature through the mail, two Red Scares, anticommunism, Hoover's COINTELPRO war against the civil rights movement, the black power movement and the American student left, or all the way up to the Obama Department of Justice's ruthless oppression of the Occupy, Ferguson and North Dakota Pipeline protests, I could easily spend this entire essay demonstrating that when it comes to persecuting, destroying and yes even murdering the left, there is a long and storied history of bipartisan consensus in America – I see no reason or evidence to suggest that has changed much in our modern times.

In other words history, even recent American history, says that this story ends in a jail cell or a shallow grave for some of the folks reading this journal right now and I don't know how to sugarcoat that for anyone, let alone a young person with their whole life (such as it is) ahead of them. The plain, god-awful truth is that the American right wants you dead, and the center-right American liberal establishment simply doesn't care, just as it has never cared, because they also want the left destroyed and fear sharing their ill-gotten wealth more than they fear fascism. Furthermore, this same elite “liberal” establishment is actively engaged in splitting the component parts of the current American uprising up into acceptable and non-acceptable targets; that's why Joe Biden keeps yammering about police funding, anarchists and “looters.” Democrats in particular are doing this even as fascist militia vigilantes are starting to execute antifascists and protesters in the street, might I add.

Did I mention that it's a really bad time to be an open leftist, or even just someone who passionately feels cracker murderpigs shouldn't get away with murder because some fascist gave them a badge? And yet of course therein also lies the rub; just as there is danger in resisting the imposition of a fascist order there is also danger in refusing to resist.

Turning once again to history, we know that the fascist creep isn't going to stop itself until well after it has killed millions of people and destroyed everything about our lives that contains any meaning whatsoever. The reactionary backlash will not stop with silencing, arresting and/or killing teenage anarchists, African Americans protesting against racialized police violence or Portland soccer moms who've had enough fascism for a lifetime. The fascist mindset and method of societal control dictates that there must always been more enemies both within and outside of the state who represent both an abomination that should be destroyed and a threat to everything good and pure in the national character. Right now, the waking dragon of American fascism has cast a laser-like focus on those brave few Americans who are willing to physically resist the transformation of the country from a corrupt Oligarchy to an overt fascist police-state with rigged elections. Once that enemy is crushed and defeated, the beast will turn its eye to others – unions, teachers, and yes even Democratic Party politicians who've always been friendly to the fascist capitalist billionaires running much of the reactionary American right today.

Whether you choose to fight, hide or run, it has become crystal-clear clear to me that we are all headed towards dark days in the very near future and the only variable left to be determined is which segments of the audience reading this will be thrown onto the pyre first. What we know today as “Western Society” is blindly crashing through the kinds of barriers people who desire peace, comfort and security simply don't breech without expecting violence, bloodshed and a whole lot of rain.

Perhaps in light of all this my advice to the young leftist should be to harden oneself for the torrential downpour of violence, repression and yes death that lies ahead, regardless of whether or not you choose to resist the fascist creep. Perhaps the best thing I can offer a young person staring directly into the eye of this beast is the assurance that it is not their fault, that nobody in history has ever asked to be born into the war against fascism and that ultimately the fascists cannot win because fascism is a death cult that will eventually eat itself and has done so every single time before this one. Perhaps all I really have to share with you is the hope that in the darkness and despair that lies ahead of us you will remember my words and know that no matter how much they repress, terrorize and torture us, fantasy cannot be reality, slavery cannot be freedom and life cannot be death.

And that I think is the handle and the comfort I can offer those of you reading this who’re young enough to have a future beyond the fascist order; I have no optimism to sell you but I can make one promise that may help carry you through the bowels of the hell we are all descending into after all. It might not amount to much yet, but I promise you there will always only be four lights; no matter how many of us they murder to try and “prove” otherwise. Do not give these maggots the satisfaction of seeing your fear; know that at least some of you reading this will eventually dance on their graves and take whatever comfort you are able to, in that inevitability.

Never forget - one way, or another, the future is left.

nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

#Fascism #USA #Opinion #Journal #nina illingworth #resisting fascism #antifascism #advice to a young leftist #looking the beast in the eye

19 notes · View notes

freesidexjunkie · 4 years

Text

Fallout 4 companions in order of romanceability

What's the point of doing this? Quarantine boredom. And so that maybe, one day, Todd will see this and use it to learn what people actually want out of a romance arc. Group effort with @lilithgaskarth

1. Deacon

Deacon is the quintessential romance choice. He's funny, hot, rebellious, he's got an attractive voice, and he wants to make the world better for an oppressed people. His backstory (if it's true; you never know with him) breaks your heart and makes you just wanna hold him and tell him everything will be okay. Plus, Todd has forbidden us to romance him, which only makes us want him more.

2. MacCready

MacCready is a blast from the past. If you had told me that Robert Joseph MacCready and the kid Maxson from the Capital Wasteland would make an appearance in this game, and that MacCready was a sweet guy trying to do right by his son and deal with loss, while Maxson was a genocidal maniac with a cult-like following, I would've said you surely had them confused. He's caring, protective, sensitive. He's cute. He's super sarcastic, but in a really funny way that he can pull off and make attractive. Why wouldn't you romance him?

3. Hancock

Hancock has a rough exterior, but he's sweet and deserves to be happy. He's had a rough life, and his self destructive tendencies haven't helped. But at his core, he wants to help the little guy, and he adores you if you help him do that. Also, he's the only one who canonically likes you already when you tell him your feelings. But he feels like he doesn't DESERVE you and I just have a lot of feelings about him okay ;-;

4. Piper

Piper is a solid romance option, and an even more solid friend. She's got a cute lil nickname for you. She's got jokes. She wants to help the world, but also fight it for being so crappy to people, which is both admirable and highly relatable. Plus, every fanboy obsessed over her "girl-next-door" vibe, which as a girl I hate the whole girl next door trope that guys try to put on girls, and she's way more than "girl next door" level, but whatever I don't control the fandom.

5. Preston

Preston lands at #5 solely because while he's not better than anyone in 1-4, he's also not worse than anyone in 6-12. He's the true neutral in the litmus test of companions. He's passionate about the Minutemen but not super into being in a high rank (seriously man, why can't you be the General?) or having any real power. He's nice, but bland. He's a chocolate chip toaster waffle; not the worst choice by far, but not exactly what you want for breakfast.

6. Danse

Danse's name could easily be Paladin Dunce and I wouldn't even object. He's also super gung-ho about a racist organization that wants to kill most of my friends. Not cool, man. And about his personality. What personality? Being an asshole? That being said, he is easily the single hottest companion (unless you stan Cait but you can tell from her ranking that we do not). And his redemption arc is touching. Character growth Danse is someone we can get behind. And before that, he's still totally do-able. Personally, I could definitely have a one night stand with Danse before he stops being a dick and just regret it the morning after, awkwardly avoiding each other for the rest of our days.

7. Nick

Despite being so un-romanceable, Detective Valentine is my favorite companion, 100%. He's my best buddy. He's snarky and witty and he, like others on this list, really wants to help people. Plus, you two can totally vibe together about the good old days. However, being a great friend does not automatically make him romanceable. He's like that one friend that you're super super close with, but can honestly say you just wouldn't go there. It would be like dating your brother, or your uncle. And he's still dealing with all that stuff with Jennifer (I think that's her name) and his entire life of memories not really being his own. So, it's safe to say he's not looking for love. Still, I'd go there before going some places on this list.

8. Cait

These next two rankings are gonna get a lot of hate but I don't care, I stand by them. Cait has a great accent. I love it. I also really love her voice acting in Mass Effect: Andromeda, which doesn't deserve nearly as much hate as it gets but that's another topic. Cait's also feisty, which is always fun. That, and being a physically hot female character is enough to get most fanboys' engines racing. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that's not enough to make someone worth romancing. Furthermore, like Nick, she's going through some stuff, hard. Let her be in peace, you horny monsters.

9. Curie

Curie is an adorable personality. I agree with everyone else there. She's sweet and hella smart and she really wants to contribute to society. Still, I would never romance her in a million years. She's very precious. Too precious. She's like a baby. Are you really gonna romance a hyper-intelligent robot baby? Y'all just wanna romance her because she's got an accent and tits. You're way too horny. Stay away from Curie.

10. Cogsworth

One can make the argument that Cogsworth is the only person who understands the situation you're in, and who has lost the exact same thing as you. He truly cares about you and your family. If he could cry, he would break down in tears when he sees you walk down that hill from the vault. That being said, he is a Mr. Handy. Are you Mr. Zwicky? You could try to say "but Curie is a modified Miss Nanny, what makes her so special?" And I will answer you. She has been deliberately designed to be her own, independent, self-determining entity. Her processing power is also much higher than that of a robot butler. To reference Mass Effect again, it's the difference between an AI and a VI; the difference between romancing EDI, and romancing Avina. And also, just imagine that you just watched your husband (or wife if you play as Nate, which is 100% valid anyways) get murdered, after being tricked into cryogenic stasis when you watched the world get nuked into oblivion, while seeing your son get kidnapped. And now, you're gonna go home and start sleeping with the robot butler you bought together? Okay, sure. Bro for life? Definitely. A good boyfriend? Nah.

11. X6-88

There's not much to say about X6-88, because who can put up with the Institute's BS for long enough to really get to know him at all? He's a Terminator. He's a brainwashed killing machine. There's nothing attractive about him at all.

12. Strong

In previous games, super mutant companions had intelligent thoughts and conversations. They had moving life stories and experiences. They were good companions. Strong is not any of those things. Granted, it's still impressive that a Gen 2 super mutant is capable of being so...not violent. But I don't think anyone is gonna go there.

Final notes:

Dogmeat is exempt from this list for obvious reasons. DLC companions are also exempt, because the only one that's even remotely considerable is Porter and I don't care about him at all, much less enough to put him on the list. Nate should get an honorable mention, because he's a very sweet, caring, loving, devoted husband and father. Nora should not get any honorable mention.

34 notes · View notes

theloyaltyofthewolves · 4 years

Text

hello, my lovelies! i have missed you so much. thank you for giving me these last few months of space, i’ve been taking some time with myself and my loved ones. but i’m back, and although i’m perhaps not better than ever, i am ready to return to this blog. i hope all of you are doing well and that you are safe and healthy, that your loved ones are safe and happy.

and on a more serious note, if you are in the us, i hope you are doing everything in your power to support our protesters and protect every black life in this country. donate what and when you can. think about how your place in our country has given you power and privilege. have conversations with relatives that are difficult, and have them with yourself. has your place in this country given you an advantage? are you in a place of privilege? how can you use that privilege to help black people in america? do you understand what they’re fighting for? do you believe them when they tell you they are systematically suppressed, that the police officers in your neighborhood are, regardless of what you have been led to believe, bigoted, violent, and drunk on their own power over people? if you don’t, ask yourself why. is it because you have never personally experienced this oppression? have you ever had to fear for your life crossing the street or driving in front of a cop car? if you haven't, you must listen to their stories. hear them, recognize them for what they are: experiences of a group of people who have been suppressed, murdered, and ignored for the entirety that this country has existed. learn their names, say them out loud. not just George Floyd or Brionna Taylor. every single black person who has lost their life because the police officers who took them faced no repercussions or accountability and because our country is poisoned straight to the bone with racism and bigotry.

furthermore, have you been analyzing your news sources for bias? where are you getting your news about these protests? what have you taken away from them? have your sources impressed upon you that these protesters have turned to riots to inflict damage on neighborhoods and businesses/that they have harmed police officers? or are they discussing the ways the police have cornered protesters and used completely unethical and unnecessary means of force to target, hurt, and scare the voice of the people? do the articles you’re reading stress violence on the part of protesters, or the part of the police? there’s a significant difference, and one you should be aware of! this is an uprising, just as the civil rights movement was, just as the stonewall riots were. legislation is being written as we speak, civil rights watchdogs are forming cases as you read this, to enact and pass real change that would drain immense power from the police and place it back into the hands of the people, where it belongs. there is no justification for a militarized police force, no matter what anyone will say. thousands of black lives slaughtered without thought or mercy say otherwise.

this is a movement that you must be part of! use your voice, use your resources, use your time and energy and your body if you can. go to protests, write your legislatures. do something. if not for yourself, then for your country. for every single one of your fellow americans who must live in fear every time they are pulled over that they will be shot and killed and that their murderer will not lose a day of their life for it.

#black lives matter #they have always mattered #and they will always matter #not just today #not just tomorrow #but every day

12 notes · View notes

lavendulaconminatio · 4 years

Text

Years ago I ran a blog on ace discourse: @asleepingwindow As a lesbian raised in the Catholic Church, where you can be gay just don’t act on it, I knew asexual activism had nothing to do with being gay. I know an asexual gay person is the church’s fucking wet dream. I always insisted I don’t care whether people identify that way but stop trying to say you suffer as I do as a lesbian. Stop fucking invading lgbt spaces too and making them unsafe for us! But that was a losing battle. I wonder how this time period will be seen 20-30 years from an lgbt history perspective.

Anyway, besides knowing asexual gay people are the kind of gay people straight people want, I also hated this idea that seemed to be gaining popularity about people being more oppressed simply because they weren’t seen as valid. Validity didn’t mean laws meant to protect their population, or having police see your body as human and worthy of life; they merely meant existing in popular media so people see them. There was never anything deeper than that to so called asexual oppression, which I will never think is a thing. I mean asexuality is a thing but people don’t actively hate you for not having sex, that’s a fact of fucking life. My people died by the thousands in the 80s, sometimes with only lesbians to give a shit, and some straight person says their totes oppressed because they don’t want to fuck? Yeah ok. Or if there was a basis in oppression, it was often just blatant sexism and homophobia. All men say you’re a prude for not having sex, this is nothing special, Jan.

Now years later after arguing my heart out, making a master post and closing up shop, I find myself with another side blog to combat an issue that I once again feel harms lesbians and women. Instead of being more concerned about the men that berate, beat, and kill trans women, activists are literally attacking women, especially lesbians, for not validating trans people. The level of vitriol leveled at a woman for talking about her vagina is so above and beyond any hatred for the men who have murdered trans women.

Then in some perveted irony, those same deaths are propped up as reasons to shut down women talking about sexism. Meanwhile, more women than anyone can count die every day because they are female. We don’t get the luxury of our deaths being marked a hate crime. Instead it’s domestic violence, or maybe FGM gone wrong amoung the countless other things that needlessly and horrifically kill women. And I haven’t even talked about rape.

I knew the ridiculous activism of the asexual movement would have lasting consequences but I honestly never thought the concept of validity would be taken and warped so far to try and pretend biological sex doesn’t exist and that women aren’t female just to make trans women feel better about their dysphoria. I feel immense compassion for anyone with dysphoria, I have it and struggled for a long time to figure out if I was trans or a butch lesbian. There is such an immense disconnect here about the importance of validity and what real oppression looks like. Especially when you refuse to even discuss detrans people for fear it will make you seem less valid. So their struggles don’t exist to make you feel better. Once again, all about erasing females to stroke the egos of males.

This is not the biggest issue on my plate, but it’s a recent small example of tangible consequences to prejudice. The other day I was trying to refill an opioid I have a legal prescription for but the pharmacist refused because they couldn’t find it. Despite having going through this before this woman refused to look where I suggested, and I suffered in pain for 3 days before my doctor’s office was able to tell them they had it for sure. I mean this isn’t about sexism and more about ableism (though women’s pain is often discounted more, black pain even more) In that moment, I didn’t want to be validated. I didn’t want the pharmacist to know who I am, my identity, my disabilities, I wanted her to stop judging pain patients as a whole and give me my fucking legal prescription. Every single legislation and guideline that limits opioid prescriptions are born of a prejudice against addicts and a indifference to people in pain. That pharmacist didn’t give a shit about my pain, to bother even looking, because the rules made her right and I was probably an addict anyway. That is a real tangible feeling of oppression, and like I said it’s nothing compared to other examples I just didn’t want to dig up anything more upsetting.

That is how I feel about oppression. Validity matters, representation matters, but it is not the nitty gritty of what oppression is. It’s screaming at the walls, throwing your phone, because someone with the power to judge and fuck up your life, did exactly that. And worse they feel righteous for what they did because to them you’re just a “insert slur here”. And that’s just a small nonviolent and nonlethal example.

Now unlike asexuality, I know to be trans is to be oppressed and to suffer. But you cannot lift yourself up by putting others down, you will be on a tower of dominos that can fall the moment some other group does it to you. I always said trans people obviously belonged with LGB groups because obviously bigots didn’t care if a couple was two gay men or a man and non-passing trans woman. To me it spoke to a shared history and understanding. But maybe I was wrong, maybe that doesn’t exist. I think at least the one major difference now that I can definitely see is it’s ridiculous to infer female privilege by calling us cis. One thing is for sure, LGB and trans history are not as simple as I had ignorantly assumed in the past.

I don’t want to dictate what trans life is like, I don’t want deny any adult the right to transition, I don’t have any interest in misgendering, I believe there is a difference between sex and gender. But by fucking god I will not let anyone trample on my rights, call me bitch, cunt, terf, cum dumpster, deny my oppression as a female, deny my suffering, deny my reality as a female, just so You can feel better about your body. I will not sacrifice my body at the alter of your perceptions of your body.

Society loves to say otherwise, but women don’t exist to make you feel better. We don’t exist to make men feel more like a man or for trans women to feel more like a woman. We exist for our fucking selves, leave us alone! I’m not sorry if it makes you feel less of a woman because you need to address the misogyny you have been socialized into as a male. You all reek of sexism and think being trans means you magically cannot be affected by male socialization. That is some first class Bullshit. I’m a poor disabled lesbian, and none of that erases the racial bias I was taught and raised in as a white person. I always need to be willing to confront that, and it’s no different with males. Trans or cis, all of you were raised to hate women. Own it so we can fucking get past it.

Furthermore, our society only does better when we foster discourse. Disagreeing can be enraging but it’s how you learn if your own beliefs are worth keeping or discarding. It’s how you grow. Only insecure bullies feel the need to demand loyalty, stamp out dissent, and mock their opponents than actually argue. Don’t give into this intellectual dishonesty that might be easy, feel good, gain you a moment of praise, but ultimately throws women’s liberation and equality under the bus and into a raging inferno. How dare you think your right to feel valid is more important than my right to live freely and without shame as a female.

I’m very much open to good faith discourse on this topic, but do not mistake me. I have suffered for being born with a vagina, and no male will ever get to shut me up. So the next time you want to say choke on a dick, choke on your own.

#misogyny #sexism #feminism #trans activism #radical feminism #gender critical

7 notes · View notes

wisdomrays · 4 years

Text

ISLAM AS A RELIGION OF LOVE AND PEACE: Part 1

The definition of Islam

The root of the word Islam, silm, refers to "making peace, being in a mutually peaceful environment, greetings, rescue, safety, being secure, finding peace, reaching salvation and well being or being far from danger, attaining goodness, comfort and favor, keeping away from troubles and disasters, submitting the self and obeying, respect, being far from wrong." The "submitting the self and obeying" here means "submitting to justice and righteousness in order to reach peace and safety and being in a peaceful environment by one's free will." In fact, salaam and salaamat, mean "to reach salvation," and their rubai form (with four radical letters) aslama means "submitted, became Muslim, and made peace." "Islam" as either a noun or a verb with these meanings is mentioned in many verses in the Qur'an.

From this perspective, Islam is "submission to God, accepting His authority as well as obeying His orders"; "one's total submission to God and serving only Him"; "embracing the messages of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and abiding by them." In this sense, a Muslim is one who is under the peaceful and safe shade of Islam. God wants a Muslim to live in a safe and peaceful environment and to make efforts for the spread and continuity of peace.

Since Islam means living in a peaceful environment that emerges as a result of submission to God, the Qur'an asks that all humanity should embrace silm, that is, peace, and reminds us to avoid following Satan. As stated in the verse, O you who believe! Come in full submission to God, all of you, (without allowing any discord among you due to worldly reasons), and do not follow in the footsteps of Satan, for indeed he is a manifest enemy to you (seeking to seduce you to rebel against God, with glittering promises) (Qur'an, 2:208), Satan is the enemy of peace. This verse is followed by a reminder of God's All-Glorious with irresistible might if believers "stumble and fall back" from following God's way to realize peace and agreement.

The purpose of Islam

In order to be able portray a fair image of Islam, we have to consider its divinely inspired purposes, which yield, as a result, a just worldly order. By applying preventive measures to ensure security of wealth, life, mind, religion, and reproduction, Islam aims to build a society in peace, serenity, friendship, collaboration, altruism, justice, and virtue.

According to the Qur'an, all Muslims are brothers and sisters to each other and if a disagreement appears among them they make peace and correct it (Qur'an, 49:10). They help each other to avoid what God forbids and to observe their religious awareness at every stage in their life (Qur'an, 5:2); they carry out important tasks after shura, that is, consultation (Qur'an, 3:159; 42:38); and they always witness truthfully and are just even if it is against their close relatives (Qur'an, 4:135).

Again, as mentioned in the Qur'an, a true Muslim follows the straight path. That means that he or she is faithful, honest, and just, is calm, lives to perfectly observe his or her religion and in guidance of reason. Pursuing the straight path can be understood as being absolutely truthful and honest in all circumstances, as well as embracing a moderate way of life that encourages good relations with everyone.

Living on the straight path is the most significant desire for any Muslim. Upon the revelation of the verse, Pursue, then, what is exactly right (in every matter of the Religion), as you are commanded (by God), and those who, along with you, have turned (to God with faith, repenting their former ways, let them do likewise); and do not rebel against the bounds of the Straight Path (O believers)! He indeed sees well all that you do (Qur'an, 11:112), the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, "The chapter Hud has made me older." In this sense, the Companions commented on the verse, "There was no verse revealed to the Prophet Muhammad that is more powerful than this." Such a verse that so powerfully enjoins "what is right" should have the power to eradicate all kinds of violence and oppression, which are obviously not the right path to follow in social relations.

Mercy and forgiveness

Divine compassion and Prophetic mercy assign special importance to forgiveness and tolerance. As God the Most Gracious is merciful to all people, His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is merciful and compassionate to all believers (Qur'an, 9:128). God's clear order to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is to embrace forgiveness. The verse Adopt the way of forbearance and tolerance, and enjoin what is good and right, and withdraw from the ignorant ones (Qur'an, 7:199) indicates this.

By the blessing of God, the Prophet succeeded in establishing unity among people by acting with compassion and mercy. If he had treated the people around him severely and rudely, they would have left him and their unity would have collapsed (Qur'an, 3:159).

Since God and the Messenger of God are merciful and compassionate to believers, those who take the divinely prescribed ethics and the prophetic character as their example should obviously treat one another with mercy and compassion. Therefore, those who have received the Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) message can never be severe, arrogant, antagonistic, or hostile.

Furthermore, God Almighty advises His Messenger to be forgiving and to consult people by asking for their ideas (Qur'an, 3:159; 42:38) since exchanging ideas increases feelings of unity and cooperation while reducing tension between people. As a result, a desire for change that transforms hatred into peace and serenity appears in society.

According to the Messenger of God, people are equal before God as the teeth of a comb are equal. Characteristics like language, ancestry, race, wealth, and poverty are not signs of superiority. In the thirteenth verse of the chapter Al-Hujurat, the creation of humankind from a female and a male, the division of humanity into ethnic groups or nations and tribes in order to know one another, and the importance of fearing God in order to become valued in God's view are pointed out.

The verse approves having an identity and being known by an identity; nonetheless, it rejects the abuse of affiliation (to different gender, social or ethnic groups) as a means of superiority. Thus, it assesses a person's honor and value in terms of universal values that he or she gains through his or her own will and effort, and not in terms of gender or ethnic ties, which are not obtained through free will.

In Islam, the individual is considered as a person that gains value within the society, as someone who is responsible to the community in a social context.

According to Islam, the life of a human being is a trust from God, irrespective of his or her ancestry, color, or language, and hence should be protected meticulously. The main idea in Islam is to praise God the Almighty (Qur'an, 1:1; 6:45), to show compassion to creation. Humankind is the best of all creations (Qur'an, 17:70) and is created of the best stature (Qur'an, 95:4). So, every human deserves respect by nature; approaching them with lenience, tolerance, and humility is certainly virtuous. Hence, staying away from hatred and having a tolerant attitude is essential for humanity.

God the Almighty asks from the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) in particular and from all Muslims in general to be forgiving (Qur'an, 42:37; 3:134). Thus, God loves good attitudes such as spending and serving for the sake of humankind at all times under all circumstances, forgiving people, and avoiding doing something wrong when we become angry.

Even if one has the right to retaliate in response to an evil action, forgiveness is more appropriate for those who are more pious. The Qur'an enlightens all humanity on this issue: The recompense of an evil deed can only be an evil equal to it; but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from God. Surely He does not love the wrongdoers (Qur'an, 42:40; see also Qur'an, 42:43).

Besides, each of us lives on the path that God has ordained for him or her. For this reason, it is important to emphasize serving rather than fighting. God says in the Qur'an (5:48), Strive then together as if competing in good works, and also, Say: Every one acts according to his own character (made up of his creed, worldview and disposition), and your Lord knows best who is guided in his way (17:84). Therefore, individuals should not dispute and fight over their different ideas to satisfy their ambitions and self-interests. Rather, on the contrary, they should compete to show good character and to serve in the best way; they should support each other not in wrongdoing, but in doing good

11 notes · View notes

pandoraships · 4 years

Text

Halloween A.U. #1

Hey all, just wanting to set this down here while I work on my halloween au. If you like it I can post more.

Universe Setting : slightly Altered Werewolf 20th edition.

The werewolf universe is a world that pits our protagonist, a group of shapeshifters created by Gaia to safe guard humanity from spirits and things they cannot see, against the Wyrm, a twisted and terrifying spirit of chaos that threatens the world with Spiritual madness and malice that is bent on twisting the world to itself.

Sounds pretty typical right?

But that’s just the biggest terror they face. They also have to contend with the Weaver, the Wyrms counter point and a spirit of oppressive order and status that is determined to rip away the chaos of the world and make everything ordered and the same. Meanwhile they have to hold back the wyld, a spirit of unrestrained growth which doesn’t care about the damage that it can do, just the the world keep progressing down which ever path is the strongest. The battle between these three spirits has thrown the world into an imbalance. Only they have a hope of restoring balance to stave off the up coming apocalypse that will occur when the world inevitably rights itself.

Furthermore the imbalance is so great that it is starting to effect the Shifters in spiritual ways. Madness and death stalk the clans as they try to make right the world before the coming sixth age.

Of course no Shapeshifter sees the conflict as the same, and as such multiple factions and groups have formed with different allegiances and ideas on how best to bring back balance. This has caused at least two inner-shifter wars and the extinction of at least 3 clans.

City setting :

Mustafa is a city with in the Beast Courts, the name of the Eastern enclave of shifters who reject the Western Werewolves philosophy of human domination for their own sake. They collectively set themselves apart as Hengeyokai

Of the Beast courts Japan is the most harmonious, stressing propriety and duty to the Emerald mother, the earth goddess the shifters all come from.

This of course doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, the cities of Japan, as with all cities, are open wounds that constantly are out of balance producing oppression and Madness in equal measure . Shifters are also hard pressed to work together, and though they may be the most harmonious they are still a court filled with tension, intrigue and crossed motivations. They follow a strict social code to keep themselves working together, but sometimes not even that manages to keep things under wraps.

Additonally since only one out of every four children born to Shifters is a canidate for becoming a shifter themselves, and Shifters being born always carry a risk to their parents health their numbers are low, and getting lower all the time. Some Shifters reject their mission, becoming independent or turning to the wyrm.

As such it’s a constant balancing act of resources as the courts race against time to get a foot hold against the wyrm.

Our protagonist:

1. Ejiro Kirishima-

Shifter type: Eijro Kirishima is a Hakken, the native werewolf enclave that currently resides in japan. Due to the Edo period laws that separated japan from outside influence, and the near extinction of the wolf in Japan, the clans of the Hakken became very much human, adopting more rites and practices of the Samurai and the Bushido code than those in other parts of the world. This, coupled with their flat out rejection of the werewolf supremacist view of the Western wolves after japans reopening, make it possible for them to be included in the eastern courts, though they are carefully watched by the others lest they lose their way.

Werewolves are the warriors and protectors of the shifters. They tend to be large, aggressive and powerful. They struggle most with Rage. This is due to the fact that to combat the wyrm they must be angry, willing to win at any cost, but this seeps into their every day lives. They must constantly keep themselves at bay to not jump into a fray and start smashing heads.

Auspice: Eijiro himself first turned under the full moon auspice. The Ahroun shifters are considered weapons, living swords and shields in the fight against the wyrm. Expected to defend and protect the other types of werewolves few survive past their young adulthood years. They are fed to the endless fight like so much wood to a wood chipper. It is said that a mother of an Ahroun warrior will die tending two graves.

They do not of course go down easily and Eijiro grew up with his mind filled with stories of heroic and powerful Ahroun, including that of the crimson riot, who made a name for himself and the clan during the warring states period by killing 1000 wyrm born I. A single battle. When he awoke one year ago he was as proud as it was possible to be to lay down his life for the fight.

At the start of the story Eijiro is attempting to gain rank in the beast courts. He is to hunt and retrieve a target for the Emerald Lady. Too bad his target is a certain red eyed blonde.

Family: Eijiros mother Akame Kirishima is currently the shaman for the clan Kirishima. She is what is considered kin, humans that have blood ties to werewolves and can birth shifters more easily than regular humans.

Originally brought into the clan for her talents she was married to a young Ahroun of the main bloodline. Shortly after the birth of her son she lost him to a battle. Since his son was a part of the main house she was allowed to stay and raise him.

She raised her son alone until she met another shifter , Aiwi and remarried. Her wife brought with her a son and they have lived happily since.

#bnha fanfic #kirishima eijirou #bnha au #kiribaku #bakushima #katsuki #bakugo katsuki

3 notes · View notes

all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 5 years

Text

Scandalous Thoughts: A Few Notes On Civil Anarchism

Every so often, cyclically, collective or social anarchism becomes restrictive to some anarchists and an anarchist individualism reasserts itself. It happened at the turn of the twentieth century when some of the great anarchist thinkers began to question some of the more communistic dogmas. It is happening once more, and once more we witness some of the social anarchists writhe in panic as their comfortable dream is disturbed and they wittingly or unwittingly reinforce the stranglehold of the State by condemning their unruly sisters and brothers who appear to threaten the pursuit of what one comrade has aptly described as ‘civil anarchism’.

It is a horrible creature, this civil anarchism. A slathering, craven and despotic monster with eyes in the back of its head which tries to be what anarchism will probably never be – palatable to the modern consumer masses.

One of the major qualities that those engaged in making attacks seek is to recover knowledge of themselves and each other, to recover personal power, to enact a radical and dramatic break from Society, with its intolerable cage of the social norm and the consequent deadening of individual sensibility. Some communiqués from this tendency are flowery and poetic in the extreme, and are not to everyone’s taste, but reading an Anarchist Federation statement is deadening. It is the materialist death-march of politics against life, the patriarchal voice of ‘political reason’ against the wild rebel spirit, of the political against me.

The combatants seek to recover volition and dispel the inauthentic. This can only start from your experience, not from the experience or dogmas of others, although it involves your relationship with a few comrades within “the mass” or the “working classes”. Until it is active, on the street, there is little genuine struggle to be found in some abstract crowd of people you have no relationship with. It seems incredible to read the thoughts of those that identify as (Formal) Federation anarchists and even more pointless to have to critique it. It is a bit like critiquing the performance of a clown by the standards applied to a serious drama. The issue for me here is the same denial of individuality that the State imposes – some herding of unique human beings into some utilitarian category by pedagogues and masters who find the individual unwieldy and dangerous, but find an abstract ideological cage immensely comfortable.

This lack of authenticity and the somewhat anachronistic politics of their “revolutionary organisation” as a whole, is reflected in the Federation’s outrage at the shooting of Italian nuclear boss, Roberto Adinolfi and the letter bomb sent to the Chief of the Italian tax office Marco Cuccagna. The Federation disingenuously manipulate the facts with regard to the latter in order to prostitute their particular ideology by describing the boss of the tax department as a ‘worker’. Not only is this insulting to anyone’s intelligence, who can see quite clearly that the target was one of the bosses who rob them every day of their hard-earned wages, but it is puzzling because they pretend to ‘care’ about the suffering of these targets and to state categorically that ‘the working class’ care too. If I am being authentic to myself, then I can say I do not care a bit if this bureaucratic robber is attacked, injured, killed. Actually, I am happy about it. I imagine many people would also not care and may even feel some satisfaction and even joy at the news.

Some basic questions of the Federation which do not really require answers: who are these “working class” people you speak of; how many individuals who make up the “working class” do you personally know; how do you know that all these people disagree with attacks on capitalist infrastructure, bosses and tax collectors; what gives you the right to speak for anyone but yourself; what do you say about the “working class” people who rioted in London in August 2011 (and throughout history)? To even ask these questions seems ludicrous, but a quick look at Federation discourse seems to necessitate them since they seem so sure of themselves.

The Federation/Libcom mindset continues with its psychometric assessment of supposed “terrorist tactics”. They borrow another meaningless spook from the hostile media and the State – the mindless, indiscriminate anarcho-insurrectionalist-“terrorist”. Again, how many of these individuals does the Federation know, and how does the Federation know that such acts are not part of a rich and more complex life. Furthermore, to state the obvious, insurrectionist methods are widespread amongst the disaffected of the world, as widespread as ‘organising’, and sometimes have more in common with “working class” rebellion than anything the Federation comes up with. The Federation is tellingly silent on this reality in the main, preferring only some parental nod to “working class” anger that could be so much more constructive if only the unruly would acknowledge the wisdom of Federation physicians and swallow their prescriptions.

Here the Federation again reveals itself to be incapable of liberating itself from the shackles of ideology: that denial again of the complex human being and its shunting into some useful abstract category. But as we look at the Federation’s reactions to other anarchists, it actually becomes more sinister, in that they are frequently almost indistinguishable from our enemies. It’s choice of forum is the internet. A brief review not only of critiques of technology, but also experience of it, reveals how destructive this form of faceless, mass interaction is. Furthermore, the language used by the Federations is akin to experiencing the fist of repression coming down on the human face of anarchism. The Federation reinforces the State, by adopting the rhetoric of the industrial-military-technological system, such as its aforementioned recent condemnation of anarchist “terrorist tactics”.

In the quest for liberation, the individual must be allowed to express itself, to follow itself. The individual is not always at odds with the collective, but to try to squash individual drives into some collectivity or society against its will is totally useless. The individual will sooner or later rebel because a mass collectivity forged at the expense of the free individual will entail rules and regulations (albeit informal or even unspoken) which are against liberty of life, feeling and thought. These tendencies have been at war before, and it is worth reading the essays of Voltairine de Cleyre on this matter with her suggestion that the individual anarchist be free to express their rebellion in their own way. Violent attacks against the bosses and the State will alienate some people, but not all. Pacifist action will alienate some people but not all. Even if we could once and for all identify every “working class” person and also get them to agree that they are “working class”, do the Federations really think that this mass of people will hold one homogenous view on social change, on the causes of misery and on the best way to liberation (if all agree that liberation is their goal). The civil anarchists are searching for a purposefully driven conscious proletarian class which no longer really exists in the manner they describe as a revolutionary subject in the West. They have embarked on a hollow search which ends in sterility at the level of the actual uncontrollable mass social clash, and anyway largely failed to follow their own politics through to their conclusions.

The separation of people into classes is in some ways a nonsense when it is not based on their individual opinions or actions. A brief look at Native American history, as one example, shows us how banal and inaccurate it is to speak of ‘the Native American people’ in one homogenous outpouring of bad breath: there were indigenous warriors fighting genocide and assimilation and there were also indigenous folks who colluded with the American State and turned on their own people to accumulate money and power.

Those of us who might be allotted the label of insurrectionist, individualist, and/or nihilists do not make perfected claims to knowing how revolution will come about. There is a great humility in the words of the emerging rebels and armed struggle groups. I would say that at this point in history, when so much has been tried and so much has failed, let us admit that we do not know what is right, what will ‘work’. People are far more complex than that and the world is huge.

The Federation’s distillation of everything down to “working class struggle” is problematic. The working class as it used to be has all but gone and anyway, like democracy, it was originally rooted in horror and lies for many. Democracy was invented on the backs of a Greek slave class and the Industrial Revolution first imposed the destruction of the individual and introduced ‘the dispossessed herd’ as it ushered in this age we hate. Focusing on the “working class” in this way is like shuffling between different forms of oppression, saying that we prefer that form of oppression over this one: people fought tooth and nail against becoming subsumed into a “working class” at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The assimilation of artisans and rural peoples into the industrial working class was bloody, so why some anarchists are attempting to reify it now, especially now that the machine has moved on and is now subsuming the traditional working class into the post-industrial consumer class, is not just questionable, it is bizarre. They are all simply stages in the grinding progress of the machine and we would do well to abandon all of these chimeras. This is not to deny that a class struggle has always and continues to be fought, but I prefer the term “social war” to “working class struggle” largely because it includes more individuals and their choices, including those who consider themselves traditionally working class. Class as a concept and as a social binder has become increasingly muddy over the years. People can be more crudely divided – if we must – into the rich and the poor, the included and the excluded, the critical and the uncritical regarding the State and civilisation.

To be denied individual autonomy, recognition and relationships causes alienation and disempowerment. The authority of a ghostly mass over the individual does nothing except assist the project of the State and capitalism by agreeing that the individual human being is nothing more than an economic unit or a vast and faceless aggregation of economic units. Is this really how we wish to define human beings and do anarchists really think that such a perspective is liberating? To negate the role of individual action in favour of a vague conception of the “class-struggle” of yesteryear is a dangerous fiction. Certainly, since it is also the project of the State to destroy the volition and value of the individual; it cannot be called revolutionary, except in the autocratic uber-political sense of being ruled by statist apparatus – none of which desire empowered individuals or like-minded groups of individuals who want freedom. It is not the role of anarchists to replace one tyranny, be it “democratic”, monarchist, collectivist or any other kind of rule, with another.

What is this ‘issuing of statements’ condemning the acts and opinions of others who consider themselves anarchists? It is to play the political game of ‘good anarchist’ and ‘bad anarchist’ for the media and the repressive machine of the police. It is to undermine the very meaning of the term ‘anarchy’; a complicated and shifting web of principles, praxis and relationship with the goal of liberation which is not a singular state of being, no more than it is a State.

Moreover, the fact that the Federation feels the need to make statements against acts of other anarchists must surely show them that their project is doomed. At the end of the day, I say to the Anarchist Federation and their fellow travellers: I do not agree with you, I do not desire the world you envision. I say I am not alone in finding your statements and perspectives antithetical to my own rebellion and my personal concept of liberation which is based on my understanding and experience of State oppression. And since your project depends on the absolute agreement of the mass of which I am a part, and since it appears from the debates and statements of the Federation that what is envisioned is a mass anarchist society, I declare that I want freedom not only from the State but from Society and you. I ask then: what are you going to do about me?

I began this article by essentially wishing to encourage those of us who call ourselves anarchists to cease mutual condemnation and to assert that actually not one of us has the “answer”. However, I end by sensing that some of “us” know so little of what it means to be liberated in heart, thought and action, and so little of what class solidarity and struggle really means, that I can only imagine an anarchist society such as appears to be the aim of the Anarchist Federation, would be as fraught with repressions and various prisons as this one. That is, unless those who would impose their faceless societies on the rest of us realise their futility.

#venona q #egoism #formal anarchist federation #individualism #individualist anarchism #insurrectionary anarchism #libcom #nihilism #communism #anarchism #anarcho communism #post left

58 notes · View notes

standingbythedoor-blog · 4 years

Text

The Hegemonic Fantasm Created by the Word Nigga. (Condensed)

Words are like spells. Words spoken with the right syncopation, tone, and rhythm can make someone dance, cry, feel pride, disgust, or pleasure. There is power in words. After those feelings have long left one's emotional realm, the terms associated with those emotions remain. Like chameleons, some words do not disappear; they mutate into something that is befitting their surroundings for protection. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. eloquently expressed that, "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used." (160) This quote precisely describes the life of the word Nigga. Nigga is woven into the fabric of Western society and has worn different hats at different times. One may even say that it has not taken off any of those mentioned hats yet. Nigga means different things to different people based on their knowledge of the word, age, cultural background, and lived experiences.

In the following essay entitled, "The hegemonic fantasm created by the word Nigga”, I will explore the phenomenality of non-African American people using Nigga within the Hip-hop aesthetic; and identify all, if any, rules for utilizing the word. I will argue that hip-hop culture has created a hegemonic fantasm with the use of the term Nigga. A hegemonic fantasm, as defined by Shurrmann, is an "authoritative representation that serves, during a given linguistic era, to constitute the phenomenality of phenomena and thereby to legitimize all theoretical and practical rules" (6). We will learn how the use of the word Nigga has been transferred from oppressor to the oppressed and back again under the cloak of hip-hop culture. In this paper, I use the term Hip-hop aesthetic liberally as it refers to all manners of expression within hip-hop culture, including fashion, vernacular, dance, visual art, and musical objects, within and outside of rap music itself. I will implore Nietzsche's idea of freedom and nihilism as my counter-argument. I will then use the Hip-hop song "Sucka Nigga" by A Tribe Call Quest to further my exploration of the word and its use in Hip-hop music to both celebrate friendship and to slander. I will conclude with Mbebe to construct a call to action to those who may feel compelled to walk backward on what Beverly Daniel Tatum refers to as "The moving walkway of racism."

I should also bring clarification to my use of the term "one." In these writings, one will represent an African American. This point is important to identify because I am an African American who subscribes to Hip-hop culture. Therefore I cannot speak on behalf of those who do not share racial or cultural similarities. The words in this writing were penned with African Americans in mind; however, this text can be utilized by non-African Americans to explore further the history and the use of the term Nigga in an effort to combat racism. Before I delve into the word Nigga, it is crucial that I provide a caveat that will show what led me to discover the hegemonic fantasm created by the word Nigga.

I am an African American male who teaches Latino students predominantly. As a 5th grade teacher, I have had to have conversations about race with all of my classes. The talks typically stem from me overhearing a group of them say the word Nigga while signing a song. After having this conversation a couple of times with them, what seemed to puzzle me was how they were using it. Schürmann writes, "The double bind arises from singularities though not as a dispersion of givens, but as dispersive functions (610). My Latino students were using the term in the same way that I have used the word when talking to my close friends and family. It made me think about a couple of things. First, do they know what the word means in historical respect? Secondly, if they do know what it means, why are they claiming a term that has caused great anguish to a group of people for themselves? Soon after, I discovered a YouTube video of a group of white kids rapping a song, and I realized that when the rapper said the word Nigga, they too said the word Nigga--while smiling. After this experience, I realized one thing that both instances had in common; Hip-hop. Subsequently, I asked myself, did Hip-hop normalize the word Nigga? Is being a Nigga the cool thing now?

How does an African American, navigate this complex social landscape in a world where a name can either make you a man or a slave -- friend, or a foe. I overheard my students again using the word Nigga. I found myself caught in a double bind. Schrumann describes a double-bind as when, "The hero sees the conflicting laws, and—at the moment of tragic denial—then blinds himself toward one of them, fixing his gaze on the other. (27) I reached this conclusion based on two factors. First, I am an African American, and I should not allow non-African American people to use it; I should discipline them for using the word. Secondly, I am their teacher; I shouldn't get upset based upon the context in which they are using the term; they may not know the history of the word and its racial implication, and that could be a teachable moment. How can I navigate this dilemma not only in my classroom but with other people I may encounter?

I have been asked on two occasions by non-African Americans, "Why can't I say it?". This question brings to the surface one concern: "Why would a non-African American want to say it? Is it the first amendment rights granted to all Americans by the Constitution of the United States? The desire to say what they want when they want to? Is it the need to feel as if they belong to a particular cadre of friends? Is it them being facetious? Or are they truly seeking knowledge to use to combat racism? The answers to these questions can not come from me. For again, I can not speak for or from the position of a non-African American. However, I can show the impact of the word Nigga in the lives of African Americans; The historical origins of the word Nigga and how one could react to hearing the word.

Since slavery's beginning, the word Nigger has been used as a derogatory term for Black people. This fact appears in a myriad of ways throughout history. However, for some, the term functioned as a source of power (i.e., White oppressors using the term to assert dominance). For African Americans, the word was a reminder that you were "less than" in society. However, among the African American population, the word gave a sense of unity--knowing we were all facing the similar struggles of being oppressed. While this writing focuses on the word Nigga used in a Hip hop context, one cannot get to Nigga without first visiting Nigger. Nigger is a six-letter word derived from the Latin term meaning black. However, the concept of Nigger is a weapon of mass destruction. It is the shorthand for a field of knowledge that, for over 500 years, across every continent, dedicated itself to the progression of white supremacy and the belittlement of dark-skinned people. While before the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the term described something with a dark hue, it has been ingrained in our psyche to mean something negative. In the series entitled Strength In Numbers by Knowledge Bennett, the artist utilizes vast black canvas to represent members of his family and a sense of togetherness. However, if looked at the paintings through an eye trained to see black as a symbol of despair or nothingness, it would appear to be nothing more than a black canvas. One could look in the Oxford dictionary and discover how these negative connotations have fueled the weight of the word Nigger. The intersection of the negative connotations and the usage by African Americans is where the dilemma lies. Do we ignore a set of derogatory definitions to make room for the more amicable meanings of the word? The intertwined uses and implications of Nigger and Nigga are where this discussion occurs--a hegemonic fantasm.

According to Schürmann, words have no meaning alone in their singular state. He writes, "Solon" and "Moses" are not definable, no more than are the objects of demonstratives such as "this" and "that"; the class in which we arrange them, however, is definable." (9) To Schürmann, the word Nigger would have no definite meaning in its solitude. Not until Nigger is chained to other singularities does its identity appear. For instance, if one were to hear someone belting out the word Nigga in a room without knowing the individual's identity, the word Nigga would not have an identity. Only when the individual who is saying the word is revealed can someone begin to assume to identify the intentions behind the use of Nigga. Furthermore, the individual's intentions for the term impacts its meaning significantly. If it happens to be a non-African American, one may define the word differently than if it was an African American. One would also have to consider the setting. Would the meaning the word Nigga mean something different if the environment was a Hip-hop show and those two people were next to one another reciting the same lyrics? Or does Nigga, on its own, have a set of multiple singularities that immediately shapes someone's idea of the term?

For some, Nigga is a cultural slang term of solidarity or kinship. For others, Nigga is nothing more than a painful reminder of the brutal plight faced by African Americans at the hands of white oppressors. Some people see no distinguishing features between Nigga and Nigger. For someone who has personally experienced times of racism attached to that word, anything remotely close to the word Nigger can bring back painful memories depending on who says it.

The popularity of Hip-hop culture and its frequent use made the term Nigga transition from being a term shared by African Americans among African Americans or white supremacy ideology to a name that represents other cultures' comradery. With this stance, it can be argued that the word Nigga has morphed into a hegemonic fantasm. Schürmann writes, "The one rests in itself and thereby imposes an order within which mortals, in turn, posit names and laws." (53) This quote speaks directly to why my Latino students feel comfortable using the word. They say Nigga among themselves within a closed circle--therefore, they create their boundaries and laws regarding the word's use. Either that is the case, or they assume that their subscription to Hip-hop culture gives them the same rights as other members (i.e., African Americans) within the Hip-hop community. Based on the plethora of uses for the term nigga, are they seeing themselves as these stereotypical figures created by white supremacy for Black people? Have African American practitioners of Hip-hop made the pain of Black people the "in" thing? Is hip-hop to blame?

"Sucka Nigga," a song by Hip-hop group a Tribe Called Quest, presents to the listener a sonic tapestry that tells the story of the word Nigga from the perspective of a Black man in his late teens. This particular selection is essential because it speaks to someone who is not only creating but also ingesting Hip-hop music during its "Golden Years," approximately 1986 -1995; the beginning of Hip-hop's commercialization. The musical group's lead, Q-tip, speaks to the double-bind he finds himself in when he says the word Nigga. He writes, "Yo, I start to flinch, as I try not to say it / But my lips is like the oowop as I start to spray it." (A Tribe Called Quest) A oowop is slang for an automatic gun. Q-tip, speaks to the double-bind a Black person may encounter while saying Nigga highlights the complexity of its effects. In the first stanza, one has to ask, why would he flinch?

He is aware of the historical ramifications of the word Nigga. He has a sense of pride and power that comes from using such a weighted term. The term serves as artistic weaponry that is both compelling and dangerous. In this instance, Q-tip must decide if he is going to take the position of historical reverence and avoid the word or use the ever-tempting word and embrace its modern social popularity. The double bind yet again.

This is a dilemma of Q-tip's moral consciousness, which is "the consciousness that harbors a precursive practical knowledge in its activities, brought to bear on its obligations and prohibitions. "(Schürmann 383). One could associate Q-tip's paradigm with the story of Antigone and her allegiance to the rules of familial piety (Schürmann 3). When he says Nigga, he is aware that he is reverberating the notions instilled by white supremacy, which, in return, is causing harm and degradation to African Americans as a whole.

On the other hand, he does not find this to be reason enough to stop saying the word because of the era in which he lives. Instead, he exercises his privilege to take ownership of the word despite its negative essence. He writes, "Other niggas in the community think it's crummy/ But I don't, neither does the youth cause we / Em-brace adversity it goes right with the race / And being that we use it as a term of endearment." (A Tribe Called Quest,1993) If Q-tip were to stop using the word Nigga, he would be relinquishing his Hip-hop authenticity--primarily since Hip-hop was founded based on defying adversity. There is no double-bind unless the both-and of the two conflicting laws exhausts the field of possibilities. (Schürmann 28)

In my original document, I presented the idea of choice between two of our thinkers, Hegel, and Nietzche. For the sake of the argument, I selected Nietzche for this rendition. Unlike Hegel, who believes one should acknowledge the total person, including their history, Nietzche thinks that the path to freedom is not to acknowledge the past. (Nietzsche 159)Throughout Nietzche's writings, he refers to this idea of nihilism. Nihilism essentially is the denial of traditional belief systems. Nietzche wrote, "For the historical audit brings so much to light which is false and absurd, violent and inhuman, that the condition of pious illusion falls to pieces." (134) Nietzsche expresses that to be free; one must fail to acknowledge all of the things that construct those conventional beliefs; through this process, one can arrive at freedom and grant others theirs as well. However, one should want to not accept something because of the pain an event or person has caused them. For Nietzche, "it is an error to consider "social distress" or "physiological desperation" or, worse, corruption, as the cause of nihilism." (11) When my non-African American students use the word, should I not acknowledge it? Should I put aside the rapes, murders, kidnappings, and lynchings that I associate with the term Nigga? On the other hand, should I forget about the events in my life that converted my friends to "my niggas?" According to Nietzsche, I should if I want to be free. He writes, "Therefore, it is possible to live almost without remembering and live happy, as evidenced by the animal, but it is still impossible to live without forgetting" (62). However, this dilemma is not quickly resolved with Nietzsche's view of freedom. If freedom is ascertained through discontinuation of my acknowledgment of the distress caused by the word Nigga, I am also failing to acknowledge the sense of exclusive community that was meant when African Americans took ownership of the word. This "freedom" that can be felt by one comes at a cost--denial of those who fought to change the connotation of the word.

Someone may find this idea unworthy of any significant attention. However, the impact of this word produces a devastating blow. The effect of racism is more than cross-burning, black bodies hanging from southern trees, or unwarranted police shootings of Black people. Racism is alive and living off of the deeds and ideas of those who perpetuate its malicious cycle of oppression. Mbembe writes, "In fact, race does not exist as a physical, anthropological, or genetic fact. However, it is not just a useful fiction, a phantasmagoric construction, or an ideological projection whose function is to draw attention away from conflicts judged to be more real - the struggle between classes or genders, for example."

Racism is an idea that we bring to life through our beliefs, actions, and conversations. One could compare it to the story of the creature living in the hillside that the villagers created to keep people out of the woods. However, through these stories, the villagers began to manifest interactions or sightings with this creature. They begin to build weapons, forts, and rituals to ward off this creature because it is now real. Over time, these weapons and rituals become ingrained in the citizens' everyday lives because they made the monster real. One thing to keep in mind is that the myth of the creature was created to control the villagers. Was racism and the word Nigger designed to control us? My answer is undoubted. While racism may be a fantasm, it is a reality that we all deal with, and it has to be acknowledged.

#philosophy #hiphop #hegemony #race and ethnicity

3 notes · View notes

septembercfawkes · 5 years

Text

How to Write Your Story's Theme

Whenever someone says you "can't" do something in writing, I often hear instead *I* don't know how to do that in writing. For a long, long time, many writers, even professional, seasoned writers have said you can't and shouldn't write to a theme. That if you do, you'll always come off as preachy.

What they are really saying is *they* don't know how to intentionally write theme.

Theme is one of those elusive words that people often use but don't fully understand in storytelling. Worse yet, there are actually a lot of misunderstandings in the writing industry and community about it.

Here's the deal: Whatever we write communicates or teaches something to the audience, whether or not we intend it to.

During His ministry, Jesus Christ used parables (aka, stories) to teach people lessons, morals, new ideas, and change culture and ideology. Whether or not you are Christian, you've likely heard of the parable of the Good Samaritan. What is the point of that story? What is it teaching? It's teaching that we should love, be kind to, and serve everyone--regardless of nationality, religious background, culture, or whatever. Everyone is our "neighbor."

A thematic statement is essentially the teaching of a story. So for the Good Samaritan, the thematic statement is, "We should love, be kind to, and serve everyone."

Let's look at some other famous stories and their thematic statements (teachings).

The Little Red Hen: If you don't contribute or work, you don't get the rewards of those efforts.

The Ant and the Grasshopper: If all we do is have fun and entertain ourselves, we won't be prepared for difficult times.

The Tortoise and the Hare: It's better to move forward at a steady pace than go so fast we burn ourselves out.

These are old, famous fables with seemingly obvious thematic statements. Often in children stories, the theme is stated more directly. For adult fiction, it may be much more subtle.

Here are some more modern examples.

The Greatest Showman: You don't need to be accepted and loved by the world, only by a few people who become your family

Spider-verse: If you get up every time you get knocked down, you'll accomplish more than you thought possible

Harry Potter: Love is the most powerful force in the world

Zootopia: To change biases in society, you first must evaluate and work on your own biases.

Les Miserables: Mercy is more powerful than justice

Legally Blonde: Someone who is beautiful, blond, and ultra-feminine can be smart and taken seriously.

Hamilton: We have no control over our legacy.

(By the way, I realize a reuse a lot of the same examples on my blog, but it's just faster and easier than grabbing something new. What matters is that you understand the concept, regardless of example.)

Okay, so when we take English, language arts, and literature classes, we are usually just taught about thematic statements.

Which makes it difficult when you are trying to create stories, because if that's the only thing we understand about theme, and we try to write with that in mind, we often come off as sounding "preachy." As a result, many seasoned writers have actually told themselves and others not to write with any theme in mind (which has its own potential problems that I'll talk about later).

A good portion of this next section is information that comes from Amanda Rawson Hill and K. M. Weiland, because they are the two people who got me to have a clearer, conscious understanding of theme.

Okay, so we have the thematic statement, but on a broader scope, we have a theme topic. The subject or topic about which something is taught. It's the concept, without the teaching attached. It's what the theme or story is "about," in an abstract sense.

Here are the theme topics of those stories:

The Little Red Hen: Contribution and work

The Ant and the Grasshopper: Preparation

The Tortoise and the Hare: Pacing

The Greatest Showman: Acceptance

Spider-verse: Perseverance

Harry Potter: Love

Zootopia: Bias

Les Miserables: Mercy (and justice)

Legally Blonde: Being respected/taken seriously

Hamilton: Legacy

The theme topic is broader than the statement. The thematic statement is the specific teaching about that topic.

Note: People often use the word "theme" to mean either "thematic statement" OR "theme topic," which is why it can be confusing. I've done this multiple times myself, but am trying to stop. (Plus the fact my ideas on storytelling are regularly evolving, probably doesn't always help with ambiguity on my blog either)

In a strong story, the theme topic will be explored during the narrative, through plot or character or both. The story will ask (directly or indirectly) questions about the theme topic. This can happen through main characters and main plots, or side characters and subplots, or all of the above.

Let's look at some examples to illustrate what I mean.

In The Little Red Hen the theme topics of contribution and work are explored by having the red hen ask multiple characters for help (or, in other words, for contribution and work) and by having the red hen work alone. She herself is asking questions related to the topic.

In The Tortoise and the Hare, the theme topic of pacing is explored and questioned by comparing a slow character to a fast character, and as the plot unfolds, we see the choices each one makes.

In Zootopia, the theme topic of bias is explored, as a prey animal cop (the rabbit) has to interact and team up with a predator criminal (the fox), and each have biases against the other. But the theme topic is also explored in the society as a whole. Officer Hopps is told by society that she can never be a cop. Nick is told by society that because he's a fox, he must be untrustworthy. In one scenario, Hopps is trying to overcome her society's bias. In the other, Nick has given into society's bias--he will only ever be seen as a fox. Side characters and subplots explore the topic of bias as well, whether it's pitting crime on predators or dealing with nudist communities. Everywhere, the theme topic of bias is being touched on. By exploring the topic from all these different sources and perspectives, the audience is naturally confronted with questions (whether or not they are consciously aware of this). Can you succeed in a biased society, or will a biased society keep you from ever becoming what you want? In our efforts to create an unbiased society, do we criticize others' biases while remaining blind to our own? How can we create a safe, unbiased community? Are we prejudice ourselves?

Pretty deep stuff to be asking in a kid show, right? Disney is a pro at handling theme in their animated movies, so they are definitely one I'd recommend for people who want to study well done examples.

In The Greatest Showman, the theme topic of acceptance via love is explored in a similar way. As a child, P. T. Barnum is never accepted or loved by his society. His goal in life is to give the girl he loves an extravagant lifestyle, to prove to her parents, nay, to the whole world that he's worth something. Through the course of the story, he tries to do this in multiple ways: at his job, he approaches his boss with a new idea; he tries to start a museum; he starts a circus; he wants to present an opera singer to the world so that he can gain notoriety. Everywhere, the protagonist is asking for love and acceptance, and it's never enough.

But side characters and subplots explore this topic as well. Charles doesn't want to be laughed at for being small, Lettie doesn't want to be a freak for having a beard, Anne doesn't like being treated differently for being black, Phillip wants to leave high society but will be shunned, Jenny Lind never feels good enough because she comes from a low class. As we see these characters collide with other characters, and society, we are confronted with questions. Can these people ever find love and acceptance? Will they ever feel fulfilled? How can they overcome society's hate and prejudices? Are they willing to sacrifice family, income, security, personal weaknesses to get there? And furthermore, it seems that as you are finally accepted by one group of people, your are only rejected by another--can you be accepted by all circles? And does it matter if you aren't?

Often when writers fail at theme it is because they are only focused on the thematic statement. And they are therefore not fairly exploring and questioning the theme topic.

But the theme statement is the answer to the exploration and questioning, and should not be fully realized until the end.

Let's take this a step further. We have the thematic statement. We have the theme topic. But in most stories, the beginning will have or illustrate a false thematic statement. (Alternatively, K. M. Weiland calls this "The Lie Your Character Believes.") This is almost always manifested through the protagonist in some way.

The false thematic statement is typically opposite of the thematic statement.

The Ant and the Grasshopper: The grasshopper believes that all he needs to do is have fun and entertain himself, and he doesn't need to work or prepare--that's a waste of time. OR "Having fun is more important than preparing."

The Tortoise and the Hare: The hare believes if he runs as fast as he can, he will easily win the tortoise. OR "If I go as fast as I can, I'll be most successful."

The Greatest Showman: P. T. Barnum believes if he shows the world how amazing and successful he can be, he'll be loved and accepted by all society. OR "Once you prove you are amazing, all of society will love and accept you."

Spider-verse: Miles Morales believes that by quitting everything, he won't have to deal with any expectations. OR "If I don't persevere, I don't have to worry about expectations."

Harry Potter: Because his parents are dead, Harry Potter begins as an unloved and powerless person living in a closet. OR "Death and oppression are the most powerful forces in the world."

Zootopia: Judy Hopps believes she will fight society's biases by proving to everyone else that a bunny can be a cop. OR "To change biases in society, you must start by criticizing everyone else's."

Les Miserables: Jean Valjean was thrown in prison for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread and when released continues to deal with extreme justice, which leads him to stealing from the church. OR "Justice is more powerful than mercy."

Hamilton: Hamilton believes he will create and build and control his legacy by never throwing away his shot. OR "If I seize every opportunity to be great, then I will leave a powerful legacy after I'm gone."

You'll notice I left out the Little Red Hen. Her story is different. From the beginning, the little red hen believes in the thematic statement--that's why she is working so hard, but the theme topic is still explored and questioned (and tested) through her interactions with the other characters. This can be done in modern stories too, but it's rarer and harder to pull off. Remember, I said writers often fail at theme when they only focus on the thematic statement, without fairly exploring or questioning the topic. In The Little Red Hen, it's all the other characters that embody the false thematic statement. They think they can enjoy the rewards without having done any work. Take note that the red hen herself isn't preachy or snooty. She adheres to her beliefs, even though it requires more of her (because no one will help, she has to do more work).

In order for stories like this to be successful, we need to see the protagonist have to struggle through more adversity to adhere to the true thematic statement. Remember how the maxim goes, "No good deed goes unpunished." These stories are more difficult to write, so I probably wouldn't recommend them to beginners, but I'm not going to say no definitively. If your protagonist starts with the true thematic statement, she still needs to struggle, if not struggle more.

Legally Blonde is similar. Elle Woods fully believes she can get into law school and get her boyfriend Warner back, despite everyone around her saying Harvard won't take someone like her seriously. Throughout the movie, Elle is constantly told she just isn't "serious" enough. However, her story varies from the red hen's, because as the theme gets questioned and explored she eventually reaches a point (at Plot Point 2), where she succumbs to the idea that no one will truly respect her, when she says something along the lines of, "All people will ever see of me is a blonde with big boobs. No one will ever take me seriously. Not even my parents." But once she receives her "final piece to the puzzle," she returns to and proves the thematic statement that someone can be beautiful, ultra-feminine and smart, respected, and taken seriously.

So the Little Red Hen and Legally Blonde are rarer variations, but keep in mind that they still legitimately question, explore, and test the theme topic (this is key).

In most stories, the protagonist starts with the false theme statement and ends with the (true) theme statement, a process that typically comes about through the main character arc. (You can read more about this specifically here).

So here is how the theme may fit in, in story structure.

Beginning:

Protagonist believes or illustrates the false thematic statement.

Middle:

The theme topic is explored through plot and characters having different experiences and providing different outlooks.

This will lead to questioning: It leads to the audience questioning. In most stories, it leads to the protagonist questioning. After all, he believes in the false thematic statement, and maybe after these encounters, he's unsure how true it is.

(Also worth noting, the middle may test and disprove wrong thematic statements other characters have.)

The middle is the "struggle" part of the theme, and on Freytag's Pyramid, the rising action. We are struggling to come to a better understanding of the theme topic.

At the second plot point, the protagonist may have an epiphany (the true thematic statement) or at least a turning point, where they now take on, embody, or demonstrate the true thematic statement.

Note: In some rare stories, the protagonist may not embody the true thematic statement, which will result in a tragic end for them. If the thematic statement is true, then they can't "survive" (literally or figuratively) if they don't learn to adhere to it. (If they "survive," that means that what you thought the true thematic statement was, was probably just another false thematic statement, and you got them mixed up somewhere.)

Note: Also, the true thematic statement may be stated prior to the ending, but the protagonist will not fully realize or embody it until the end.

Ending:

The climax of the story is the ultimate test of the final, true thematic statement--does it hold up to the test? Is it proven to be true? If it's the true thematic statement, it must.

In the denouement, the true thematic statement is further validated. We proved it true in the climax, now we must validate and show its effects. This can be very brief--one example--or it can be validated again and again through multiple examples.

It's worth mentioning, too, that in a lot of highly successful stories, the antagonist embodies THE false theme statement or A false theme statement (which is one of the reasons why they fail). So Voldemort can never understand that love is more powerful than death and oppression (notice that Voldemort and Harry have similar beginnings in life). In Les Mis, Javert ultimately can't live with the fact that mercy is proven to be more powerful than justice (which is why he takes his own life). However, this tactic is not a necessity by any means, just something worth considering.

Now does everyone who writes successful stories consciously know and adhere to all the things I've talked about so far in this article?

Heck. No.

Remember the first of this, where I said even seasoned writers may believe you should write with no theme in mind?

Lots of people write successful stories without even thinking about a theme.

But.

If you are aware of how theme functions, you can use that to an advantage and write even more powerful stories (and it will help you stand out from those that don't).

There are lots of stories that are good that don't follow through on this element of story structure--but I sometimes wonder: How much better and stronger could they have been if they did?

Theme is what makes a story "timeless." This is exactly why Christ's parables and Aesop's fables have withstood the test of time. Why audiences trust Disney movies for a worthwhile emotional and intellectual experience every new movie. Why classics like Les Mis or Shakespeare are still taught and studied today. Because they aren't just stories. They are perspectives on the human experience and teachings that influence lifestyle and culture. They can touch hearts and minds and shift ideology.

And even if you write a story without caring two cents about theme, it will still have a thematic statement. Because every story is teaching something--if only through action and character. But there are dangers and problems that can happen (especially in today's world), if you don't pay attention to theme at all. Take the famous children's story, The Rainbow Fish. I loved that book as a kid (and if you aren't familiar with the story, you can listen to it here), but it has problematic, unintentional teachings. It teaches that in order to have friends, you must give away personal boundaries; that you can "buy" friends; that if you want to be liked by others, you need to give them things they ask you for. Sure, it conveys that sharing makes you happier, but it has those problematic parts as well.

Did the writer intend to teach those negative things? Probably not. But in the story, they are "proven" as true thematic statements simply because of the outcome of the plot and characters.

This could get all into some really deep stuff, like minority representation, biases, culture control, and censorship, but for today, let's leave that for the university classrooms. (Not to mention, for someone learning the craft of writing, it can sometimes feel super paralyzing.)

I will say that even in stories where the writer doesn't completely care for or understand theme, even if the thematic statement is good, I sometimes find myself wondering if the theme is "underdeveloped." But that doesn't mean I still can't enjoy and support the story.

For most writers, theme isn't going to make or break your ability to get published. It's not something I would tell beginning writers to stress out about straight out of the gate. But it is something that can move you from great to phenomenal.

You don't need to know your theme topic or thematic statement to start writing. I would wager, that the majority of writers don't. Often what happens is that a theme topic or thematic statement will start to naturally emerge. Then in the revision process, you can use this article to check, develop, and strengthen the theme.

You can have more than one theme. As you are writing, you may realize that there is more than one theme topic and thematic statement. Lots of stories have more than one. Like I talked about in my story structure series, Spider-verse also has themes about choice and expectations. Harry Potter is chock-full of themes. Legally Blonde includes thematic statements about having faith in people. In some cases, one theme will relate and play into another or help refine it. With all that said, there is usually one theme that emerge as the main theme.

And that's pretty much what's worth knowing about writing your story's theme.

134 notes · View notes

pompeiibonzai · 5 years

Text

6 Things RWBY Volume 7 Needs to do

With RWBY Volume 7 literally days away, there’s a lot of speculation about what will happen to our heroes in Atlas. Volume 7 is shaping up to be a pivotal time not only for teams RWBY, JNR, Qrow, Oscar and Maria, but for the series as a whole. The group has come a long way since leaving Vale and Atlas needs to be the biggest challenge they’ve faced yet.

With that in mind, here are 6 things that Volume 7 needs to do in order to make this volume stand out.

1. Focus on Weiss

It can’t be argued that Weiss has come a long way from her introduction in Volume 1. Volume 4 especially laid the groundwork for Weiss’s development when she chose to forge her own path rather than stay under the cold thumb of her father.

Since then, however, not a lot of attention has been given to Weiss. We got a touching reunion between her and Yang (and later Ruby) and she certainly kept her cool when she set the Brunswick house on fire to stop the Apathy’s pursuit. Now, with the party arriving at Atlas, it’s important that the volume take the time to focus on her, her feelings about being back so soon after leaving, reactions regarding what Atlas has become and (hopefully) a showdown between her and her father – or at least Whitley. Hell, a reunion with Winter would certainly be welcome as would an introduction to the elusive Willow Schnee.

Of course, I’m not looking for the rest of the cast to take a complete backseat (some attention thrown Oscar’s way and how he’s dealing with his situation, would be nice), but the main focus of the volume when it comes to characterization needs to be on Weiss. The volume should take the opportunity to develop her character further, work on the relationship between her and Yang that was touched on in Volume 5, and lay the framework for continued relationship building with Blake and Ruby and maybe members of team JNR as well.

2. Show (Don’t Tell) the Civil Unrest in Atlas…and some Faunus Discrimination too.

RWBY has a bad habit of telling us a lot of things, but not actually showing any of it to us. Volume 5 spent too much time in the teams’ safe house and not enough time out exploring the Kingdom of Mistral. Not to mention that we have had our ears talked off about how badly the Faunus are treated, but to date have not seen much to back that up. With the exception of Jinn’s vision in Volume 6, exposition has been given by way of a lot of talking and little showing.

The trailer for Volume 7 teases us with scenes from a very dark city (Atlas? Mantle?) where the people are very unhappy and we hear a voice over from Weiss observing that “This isn’t right”.

It’s hopeful that this means we’ll actually get to see the affect the fall of Vale and the subsequent closing of Atlas’s boarders has had on the people of living in the kingdom. Has Ironwood gone too far with the idea of a military state? Has martial law been declared? Are things so bad that civil war threatens to tear apart the country if the grimm don’t get to it first?

Whatever is going on in Atlas, it’s vital that Volume 7 takes the time to show it to us rather than have Ironwood (or anyone else) simply explain the situation to Ruby and the others. In order of us to really grasp how things “are not right”, we need to see it for ourselves.

Same goes for some negative treatment of the Faunus. Mistreatment, even oppression, of the Faunus has been something repeated again and again over the course of the series, but not something we have actually seen much of. Granted, it’s not easy to write (much less watch) the cruel treatment of others, however, it is something that needs to be seen in order to carry any kind of weight. This is especially true if the audience is meant to be sympathetic towards the Faunus. Considering Atlas is supposed to be the most offending country when it comes to Faunus rights, Volume 7 absolutely must show how the Faunus living there are treated, especially during this time of social strife and unrest.

3. Ruby Learns that there are Consequences to Her Actions

Ruby really came into her own as a leader during the events of Volume 6, something that was a long time coming and was fun and rewarding to watch. However, there is a significant difference between being a leader and being overconfident to the point where you’re reckless – like diving headfirst up the barrel of a buster cannon during combat.

Part of being a good leader is realizing that your actions have consequences, not only for yourself, but for your team as well. This is a lesson Ruby hasn’t seemed to have learned yet and one she should have learned back in Volume 4 when she butted into the fight with Tyrian after Qrow told her to stay back. Qrow, fortunately, recovered from that encounter and for whatever reason, the event has never been brought up again. Furthermore, Ruby’s “We Don’t Need Adults” speech in Episode 9 of Vol. 6 (Lost) underlines the fact she has a lot to learn when it comes to the idea that her actions have consequences. Especially considering that no, Ruby, you wouldn’t have gotten to Mistral had it not been for the adults in your life stepping in and helping out.

I will admit that the fight with Tyrian showed Ruby’s sense of responsibility (“I can’t stand by while someone gets hurt”). However, she hasn’t quite learned about taking responsibility when her actions cause problems for others or puts them directly in harm’s way, or risks her own life needlessly. Ruby needs to learn this lesson and she needs to learn it the hard way.

We all make mistakes. Let Ruby make her own that have serious repercussions not only for her but to those who follow her. Let her face those repercussions. Doing so will not only make her more relatable as a character, but will help her to continue to grow into the great leader and hero she is being set up to be rather than being a girl who can do no wrong (even when she does).

4. A Limit to the Silver Eyes

Ruby has learned to control her Silver Eyes too easily and too quickly. Yes, it took her two tries in order to use them on the Leviathan at the end of Volume 6, and she didn’t freeze it permanently, but she still was able to do it just with the meager information Maria had given her earlier in the volume.

The other two times Ruby used her eyes she was under great emotional distress and she had little to no control over what she was doing, much less an understanding of what she was doing. This is what made the concept of Silver Eyes so appealing and so mysterious. The appeal was taken even further when it became obvious that not a lot of people knew anything about the Silver Eyes (if anyone did at all), and that Ruby was going to have to figure it out on her own and we would figure it out with her.

However, by the end of Volume 6, and after one conversation with Maria (in which the huntress didn’t provide Ruby with much information we didn’t already know), Ruby seems able to use her eyes no problem and against a gigantic beast that was supposed to be an imposing threat against Argus. The issue here is since she was able to use her power on something so imposing, any time she doesn’t use it on much smaller grimm will come across as being forgetful at best and negligent at worst. It also mitigates any threat the grimm still have, turning them into more of an annoyance than anything else.

This can be avoided, however, if Ruby learns that there is some kind of limit to her power. I’m inclined to believe that there is considering that in Maria’s flashback, she only used her eyes against one nevermore and only after she had defeated the first using her weapons. This is only a theory, of course, but a limitation on the power will keep it from becoming too powerful too quickly and keep the grimm a reasonable threat.

5. A Reconciliation (of sorts) with Ozpin

Volume 6 changed Ozpin from a righteous and wise figure our heroes followed without question and humanized him, giving him flaws and faults and casting him in shades of grey. I loved every minute of it!

But Ozpin has had his time to brood and has made it clear that he hasn’t completely retreated to the recesses of Oscar’s mind. So, now is the time for him to attempt to reach back out to the people who are still carrying on his mission, with or without him.

Let’s be clear here: Ozpin was 100% in the wrong for keeping secrets from those who were loyal to him. However, I can sympathize with his reasoning and I can certainly sympathize with the overall reaction from Team RWBY and Qrow when his secrets finally came to light. But here is the main take away from this scenario: no one is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. No one is meant to be. It isn’t about who is right and who is wrong. I mentioned this before, but its about taking responsibility for the decisions you’ve made, right or wrong, good intentions or no.

I’m not talking about total forgiveness here. There was a gross betrayal of trust on Ozpin’s part and he should have to work hard to gain that trust back. However, having him reach out to the group, and having them respond (perhaps having an actual conversation about what happened), would provide for some fantastic character moments during quieter scenes. It would also be a great parallel for Ruby, as she too comes to understand that there are consequences for her decisions as well.

6. A Defeat at Atlas

The end of Volume 3 changed everything for RWBY. Though technically Ruby, her team and her friends weren’t completely defeated at Vale (the relic there still remains unclaimed...as far as we have been told...), they were shown for the first time that there are forces closer than they think that are incredibly strong and just how unprepared they were to face them.

Volume 7 needs to do something similar. The convergence of Watts, Tyrian, Cinder and Salem (along with her flying monkeys) on Atlas at once is the perfect time for our antagonists to re-establish their threat to RWBY and Co., as well as to us as an audience. Salem, especially, needs to continue to be a considerable looming threat and its time that she come out of the shadows to show our heroes just what she is capable of and why their mission against her is so important.

Now, I’m not calling for Atlas to come crashing down to the ground (though wouldn’t that be a spectacle), but the group needs to experience some kind of loss – either the loss of a relic, a maiden or even a teammate – to show them how far they still have to go if they ever hope to stand up to Salem…much less the gods themselves.

There you have it. The 6 things that (I think) RWBY Volume 7 needs to do in order for it to be as epic as I think it could be. There are a couple other things that I’d like to see this volume: Some good team combos (we got a great teaser with Weiss and Ren in the scene that was recently released), learning more about Summer (come on! Its been 7 years, throw us a bone already!) and Ironwood sporting the world’s best beard. However, that’s more of a wish list and doesn’t really have a lot of baring on whether or not the story will be good. Maybe I’ll do a post sometime between now and when the volume premiers talking about that. Maybe.

#rwby #rwby vol7 #ruby rose #weiss schnee #salem

12 notes · View notes

commiedervish · 4 years

Text

Communism and Islam

This article aims to highlight a common misunderstanding of communism in the Arab world, a misunderstanding that has proven to be ill and unfair and we shall suffice to address those flaws. This misunderstanding is with regards to an alleged dogmatic link between communism and atheism. However, there is no linguistic, logical, or political innocence in the making of such a connection. Rather, it is a dangerous conspiracy against the communist worldview that has woven its way ever so cunningly by the west’s capitalist arsenal into the Islamist and Nationalist groups in Arab countries siding with their corresponding dictatorial regimes, which are supported by interests of the liberal bourgeoisie.

What does it mean to be a communist in the middle east? In what way are communism and atheism connected (or not)? As we all know, the golden standard, the tried and tested, ideal way to fight communist thought in any religious community is the accusation of atheism. Yet this approach is but the weakest of impulses at their disposal, and that argument falls apart when one can similarly express skepticism about religion with accusations of terrorism and inhumanity.

The accusation of atheism, however, is not the only argument used against communism. Authoritarian regimes have represented unjustified and unparalleled abuse of the truth. Tyranny based on private property and ownership is incompatible with the principles of equitable distribution of wealth and perhaps the elimination of the state apparatus itself, which is essentially a repression apparatus. They seek to protect their own existence and maintain their tight grip on control.

What is communism?

It is a political theory originating from the works of Marx and Engels. Its founders willed it to be an alternative to the capitalist system which is based on private ownership of the means of production.

As such, communism establishes an economic system that has no place in it for private ownership of the means of production, and it aims to redistribute wealth among people and eliminate the class struggle between them.

Communism is the culmination of the historical growth of society over the centuries, from slavery to feudalism to capitalism, that is a history of class struggle — one class that owns the means of production, and another that owns only its labor power. Marx proposes communism as a solution to the issues of equity and abolition of class society, which is only possible through the revolution of the oppressed class against its oppressors, a proletarian revolution against the class of greed, extravagance, and abundance.

What is atheism?

Atheism is the lack of belief in a superpower or supernatural being/deity, be they pagan Gods or the God of monotheists. The term originates in the 5th century BC. Thus, there is no relation between atheism and communism, which appears in the 19th century AD.

The Arab people’s memory is rich with the history of atheists, from Abu Jahal and Abu Lahab, to the Carmatians and philosophers who were accused of apostasy and heresy.

Marx, on the other hand, did not concern himself with atheism or faith, and the question of the existence of a deity did not fit into his theoretical and political plan directly. The communist worldview is specifically the abolishment of class struggle and achieving equality via the just redistribution of wealth. Marx considers the matter of atheism and faith a personal matter with no bearing on the bigger picture of the politics and economic structure in society. The most notable of the marxist view on religion is that it’s perceived as what an oppressed, despairing people resort to when they’ve found no solution to their dreaded material conditions. They believe in an alternative, another world more merciful and beautiful than the capitalist system, which became an apparatus for human repression and the crushing of any possibility for a just and equitable way of life. Instead of a revolution, the religious person suffices to imagine a better world after death. However, Marx did not fight religion, merely classified it as an ideology, as in a system of values and beliefs that a society develops as a reflection of itself, its law and politics making up its economic base.

Communism & Islam:

In a passage written in November 24, 1917, Lenin says:

“Muslims of Russia and the East…all you whose mosques and prayer houses have been destroyed, whose beliefs and customs have been trampled upon by the tsars and oppressors of Russia: your beliefs and practices, your national and cultural institutions are forever free and inviolate. Know that your rights, like those of all the peoples of Russia, are under the mighty protection of the revolution.”

Lenin even oversaw the return of certain religious artifacts such as the Othman Quran. Furthermore, some principles of Islamic law were instituted alongside the Communist legal system, Jadids and other "Islamic socialists" were given positions of power within the government, and an affirmative action system called "korenizatsiya" (nativization) was implemented to help local Muslim populations. Friday was declared a legal day of rest throughout Central Asia.

All arguments against communism with the accusation of atheism and anti-theism fall apart simply by considering these facts.

Who is the real Communist? Or what form of communism do we need today in the Arab countries that are living in a state of revolutionary tracks? A true Communist is one who succeeds in overcoming the meager contradiction between faith and atheism and recognizes it as a contradiction that is only beneficial to the political feud that reduces the debate in the battle between freedom and identity and between liberals and collectives, simultaneously increasing the hunger of the miserable and the gain of the wealthy.

We must approach communism beyond disbelief and faith. What matters to us is equality of opportunity, and a just and decent living. What remains is a vast field for freedom of values, beliefs and rituals, but provided that everyone respects the right to hold different beliefs, the right of the believer to believe and the right of an atheist to be an atheist.

There were many people in the world who were atheists before Marxism, and our Arab-Islamic history is replete with atheists, and they have nothing to do with Marx's communism.

And there are anarchists, nihilists, and atheists who have nothing to do with communism, and there are reckless people in every religion but they do not know anything about communism. In contrast, there are Communists who respect the morals of others and their beliefs more than some religious people themselves. Some of the Arab rulers are Muslims, but they are despotic, immoral, and impetuous.

In conclusion:

We have had enough of the vicious cycle of ideological differences, the clash between believing, disbelieving, praying, singing, covering, and undressing. Now is the time for free political thought in our countries, to wake up from our ideological battles and to work on real and incendiary issues. The noise of the specialized parties over the legitimacy of the mosque or the courtyard is also a form of circumventing the revolution and taking us back to a discussion that ended with the end of the era of ideologies.

Communism is not oppressive to any religion. Rather, it is fairness to the people with all its classes, sanctities, memories, rituals and heritage, and all possibilities for a decent life without poverty. “The people” is a broad term encompassing everyone, those who pray, as well as those who don’t.

[translated, with minor edits and additions, from an article by Um-Al-Zayn bin Sheykhah, posted on the Workers’ Party of Tunisia’s Facebook page.]

5 notes · View notes

pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

Text

Continuum full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

73.81% (thirty-one out of forty-two).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

32.75%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Ten.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

One, episode 2.07, “Second Degree” (50%).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

One, episode 3.09, “Minute of Silence” (18.2%).

Positive Content Status:

The definition of unremarkable—it may not be making any egregious mistakes, but aside from its chief concern, it’s not saying anything of interest (average episode rating of 3.00).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Season three not only had the best Bechdel scores, but the highest amount of female characters.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season four. While it didn’t feature the episode with the least female characters—that would be season three—it features the least Bechdel passes and the least amount of female characters.

Overall Series Quality:

Worth watching. It won’t blow your mind, but it won’t waste your time, either.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

If a word describes Continuum, it’s “solid”. It’s a well-made show, one that understands the basic building blocks of well-made genre television and doesn’t attempt to upend them for the sake of upending them (except when it does). However, my enjoyment of the series is more intellectual than visceral, and creating a list of my top ten favorite episodes is nigh-impossible, since I don’t really feel that strongly about them as individual units.

So if the series is rarely great—if even its best rarely makes your heart race the way the best episodes of Nikita or Person of Interest do—then why do I still consider it exceptional and worth one’s time?

Reason number one: Kiera Cameron.

Television, over the past decade, has done a steady job of perfecting its female genre-show anti-heroes, which, unsurprisingly, has resulted in a fair amount of sameness. It is often enjoyable sameness, to be clear—Root and Shaw are fantastic characters, and I love them—but sameness all the same. These female characters do not care for the rules (except when they do—for example, they never look unattractive or unmade-up). They are loud. They are often hedonistic. There is a sense that characters have to be fun, even if they are A Lot. They are, in many ways, rebels. And to be clear, these stories are absolutely necessary; that we now have these characters is important. Yet, there are other ways to be, which are also equally compelling and equally feminist.

Kiera Cameron is not a rebel. All she ever wanted to be a comfortable drone (even as her instincts told her something was terribly wrong) and a mother. In another place, in another time, she’d be one of the Nazis who were allegedly “just doing [their] job,” which is not something one usually says of heroes. She is also decisive, quick-thinking, adaptable and manipulative, with a keen understanding of people. She likes operating under a clear leadership structure, but she can operate perfectly well—thrive, even—without it. Within forty-eight hours of being stranded in an entirely new world, she has integrated herself into its law enforcement apparatus and made a life for herself.

Kiera is, in the end, the best part of Continuum, because of the way the series allows her to be shaped by her contradictions. Credit must also be given to Rachel Nichols, who is one of the more underrated white actresses currently working on television. Continuum asks a lot of Kiera, and she allows her to be a lot of different things while still being recognizably Kiera.

A good protagonist deserves a good antagonist, and boy, does Liber8 deliver. The group may have an extremely silly name, but it is, like Kiera, something one doesn’t see every day: an enemy group with a point, and which arguably holds the moral high ground, even as it performs mass murder.

In a worse show, the various members of Liber8 would have been hypocrites. They would have either not believed in what they preached, or been more concerned with themselves than with the cause, or proved willing to abandon it for their survival. Alternatively, they would have been presented as all bark and no bite, more Robin Hood than Osama Bin Laden. And while all those things are true for one specific member of the group—Kellog—the fact that he exists at a remove both allows the series to explore that hypocrisy, while leaving Liber8 free to actually be something else.

Furthermore, I enjoy that Liber8 is smart. Mass murder is not the only thing they do. While I’m not sure I’d call Continuum a competence porn series the way something like Leverage is, there is something very satisfying about seeing Liber8 continuously switch up their tactics and be clever about how they approach their battle against corporate interests. Yes, they do mass murder, but they also do blackmail, corporate espionage, political assassination and political patronage, sabotage, whistleblowing, community-building, and public relations. They know that their cause will need funds, but don’t sell out in order to obtain them. It is very satisfying.

I’ve heard commentary on Continuum arguing that the series’ unwillingness to cast explicit judgment on Kiera is a weakness. In her own small way, she is complicit in the oppression of millions, and is willing to replicate oppressive power structures; shouldn’t the series have something to say about that? And yet, this...objectivity, I guess you could call it, is, I feel, one of the series’ chief strengths. It’s not that the series isn’t aware of what Kiera believes and has done; it’s just that the series trusts the audience to draw its own conclusions. Kiera can be heroic and have a fascist mindset. The members of Liber8 can be mass murderers who are also in the right. Dillon can be a cheerleader for the privatization of his police department, and still be sympathetic. A TV series can be a traditional police procedural at heart and admit that cops are scum 80% of the time. One doesn’t negate the other, and that the series goes as far as it does with its characters and concepts feels uncommonly audacious for the sort of show this is.

Another element that makes the series memorable is its commitment to its central conflict. Person of Interest may have been about the surveillance state and the increasing role of artificial intelligence, but most of its episodes were actually about Finch and company being super-heroes. The same could have been the case for Continuum—“police procedural” is a key part of its DNA—and the fact that it isn’t—that its anti-capitalist sensibilities are almost always there, and critical—helps make the series feel singular, and relevant. It’s not the first TV show to have something to say about a specific thing, but it’s easily the show most dedicated to saying it.

This, however, is a double-edged sword.

Simon Barry, Continuum’s creator, is a white dude. It shows. For all of the thought the show puts into the dangers of unchecked capitalism (or just capitalism, if you’d prefer), it puts very little, if any, into how oppression is shaped by prejudices or group identities. The future of Continuum may be terrible, we’re shown, and yet it never quite seems terrible enough, or weirdly uniformly terrible. That Jaworski, of all the Liber8 members, is the one who is most forcibly dehumanized by the corporate state rings very false. Having the majority of Liber8 consist of people of color isn’t enough—not when the series is claiming that 2077 is a direct reflection of 2012.

Similarly, while the show boasts more female characters than is the norm for shows like this, I can’t actually say it does much beside that. Going through the series, it’s hard not to notice that very few of the female characters have what I would consider a satisfying overall story. Betty is killed off after months of misery. Katherine is killed off before she can really have any sort of impact besides filling in a necessary storytelling role. Garza and Emily are in a sort of limbo by the time the series ends. Ann Saddler just disappears. Aside from Kiera, only Sonya is said to have a story with a beginning, middle, end, and like Betty’s, it ends with her death. While these are all fantastic characters, their stories are generally disappointing.

Part of the problem is, of course, that the show barely has time for deep dives into its characters’ psyches, given all the things on its plate. The show only has so much time to spend on character development, and its priority is breadth rather than depth. On the other hand, it’s hard not to notice that of the characters who do get consistent focus and character development (Kiera, Alec, Carlos, Dillon, Julian), only Kiera is a woman.

It’s also worth noting that while the show kills off fairly similar numbers of male and female characters—at least when speaking in absolute numbers—things look quite different when speaking in relative terms. It’s perhaps best seen with Liber8’s dwindling numbers: sure, you can kill off Jaworski, Chen, and Kagame, but you’ll still have Travis, Marcus, and Kellog. Kill off Sonya, on the other hand, and the hole she leaves becomes very hard to fill. The same rings true for the series as a whole, which is why its final season feels so bereft, when it comes to female representation.

Additionally, while it’s pleasing to see male and female characters used more or less in the same way (although it’s worth noting that this doesn’t actually result in a 50/50 gender ratio) it is less so when the series in turn makes an implicit argument that there is not a sexist element to institutionalized oppression. Scattered instances of potential subtext aside, the series has very little to say about sexism in the future, which again, rings quite false when so many of the characters are freedom fighters.

And yet…

Had the series been more traditional, it’s likely these issues would have felt fatal. Instead, they merely feel bothersome; they annoy instead of cripple. It either speaks to how satisfying Continuum generally is, or how dispassionate my enjoyment of the series is. In any case, Continuum does what it does so interestingly, it’s hard not to set all of these aside and just get swept away by it. It tried something different and did some very interesting things with it, and, as it turns out, that’s more than enough.

#Continuum #Female Representation #Bechdel Test #MimeParadox #full series review

6 notes · View notes

xtruss · 3 years

Text

Why Do Some People Support Tyranny While Others Defy It?

"They understand to some extent that they are helping in the destruction of other people’s freedoms…and they revel in it"

— August 12, 2021 | Al-Market.US | By Brandon Smith

There is a fundamental question that haunts the pages of history and it is one that has never been addressed in a satisfactory manner. There are many schools of thought on why and how tyranny rises in any given society and all of them miss the mark in terms of explanations, primarily because they all allow their biases to rule their conclusions and blind them to the deeper aspects of power and conspiracy. In other words, they are willing to go down the rabbit hole only so far, and then they deny that the rabbit hole even exists.

The common assumption when it comes to autocracy or oligarchy is that people are “stupid” and easily manipulated into following compelling personalities that make promises they never intend to keep. This is a foolish oversimplification. In truth, the level of manipulation needed to lure a majority of people into dictatorship is so complex that it requires an advanced understanding of human psychology.

In our modern era, people cannot merely be ordered to submit at gunpoint, at least not right away. They must be tricked into conforming, and not only that, but they must be made to think that it was THEIR IDEA all along. Without this dynamic of self censorship and self enslavement, the population will eventually rebel no matter how oppressive the regime. A thousand year tyranny cannot exist unless a number of people are conned into applauding it, or, they directly benefit from it.

And this is where we find the true key to totalitarianism – It only thrives because there is an inherent portion of any given society that secretly loves it and wants it to exist. We might call these people useful idiots, but it is much more than that. They are not necessarily unaware of what they are doing; they understand to some extent that they are helping in the destruction of other people’s freedoms…and they revel in it. Sure, there are elitists and globalists that levy core conspiracies and seek out more and more control, but they could not accomplish much of anything without the aid of the army of sociopathic aberrations that live among us.

This strange and destructive characteristic is ever visible today in light of the covid lockdowns and the push for forced vaccinations. It is clear that there are some people out there that are overly concerned with the personal health decisions of everyone else. The science and the stats prove there is nothing for them to worry about from the virus, but they ignore the science. They thirst for the taste of power. They have become a cult which ignores all logic and demands fealty to their fraudulent narrative. They do not care about the facts, they only care that we comply.

Well, as I have said time and time again: We Will Not Comply!

And so begins the epic conflict; a tale as old as civilization itself. There are two types of people in this world: Those that want to control others, and those that want to be left alone. But what motivates the control freaks? Why are they the way they are? Lets examine some of the causes…

The Fear Engine

There are people that are driven by success, by merit, by hope, by prosperity, by faith, by optimism, by love, and by honor. And then, there are people driven by fear. There are hundreds of various fears, but only a few ways to react to any of them. Collectivists respond to fear with a desperate need to micromanage their environment; they believe that if they can dictate people and events to a certain degree, they can eliminate unexpected outcomes and be free of fear. But life does not work this way and it never will.

The level of influence these people seek is so far beyond them that it can never be attained. That is to say, they will never be satisfied until they get more. Their fears will always haunt them because fears cannot be dealt with from without, they can only be dealt with from within.

Furthermore, the things they fear often revolve around their own narcissism and are of their own making. They fear failure, but they rarely work hard enough to succeed. They fear exposure, but only because they constantly lie. They fear conflict, but only because they are weak in body and character. They fear death, because they believe in nothing greater than themselves. They clamor for dominance of their surroundings because they wrongly believe that they can cheat fate and the consequences of their own terrible choices.

“Frankly at this point it is going to be us, or them. Our two tribes cannot coexist within the same society, maybe not even the same planet.”

The Safety of The Mob

The issue of fear extends into the common mindset of the totalitarian and how they find safety. The idea of standing on their own two feet and standing by their principles in the face of opposition is completely foreign to them. They avoid these situations at any cost and the notion of risk is abhorrent to them. So, they instead look for a mob to blend into. This makes them feel safe in obscurity while also wielding force through collectivist action. They can feel powerful while at the same time being pitiful and weak.

These people almost always operate through large single minded groups that punish any dissension in the ranks, usually with gatekeepers that moderate the motivations of the hive.

The mob itself is a weapon, its only purpose beyond the comfort of its adherents is to destroy those people that do not hold the same beliefs or values as the controllers. There is no defensive purpose to the mob; it is an assassin’s tool, it is a nuclear bomb. And, as we have seen in every modern dictatorship from the Bolsheviks in Russia to the Fascists in Germany to the communists in Mao’s China, the totalitarian mob is capable of murdering more people than any nuclear weapon in existence, all in the name of “the greater good of the greater number.”

False Piety in Place of Self Worth

All tyrants believe themselves to be righteous in their cause, even when they know that their actions are morally abhorrent. I have seen this dynamic on bold display during the covid mandates and the vaccine passports initiatives. Consider for a moment that 99.7% of the population is under no legitimate threat from the covid virus; they will not die from it, and in the vast majority of cases they will recover quickly from it. Yet the covid cult consistently argues that people who refuse the mandates, the lockdowns and the vaccines are putting others at risk, which is why we need to be “forced” to submit.

Most of them know according to the data that covid is not a threat, but the narrative gives them an opportunity to apply power through “moral judgment”, and so they lie, and they continue to lie about the data until they think the lie will be accepted as reality. This is a common aspect of most cults and of fundamentalist religions that have gone astray – The habit of adherents to value lies over facts and evidence not because they are trying to protect their faith, but because it affords them the chance to feel pious and superior to those they are determined to harm.

Those who disagree are labeled heretics, the lowest of the low, the unwashed terrorists. The anti-mandate crowd is thus stripped of its humanity in this way and is painted as demonic. The people who want to remain free become monsters, and the totalitarian monsters become heroes out to save the world. As author Robert Anton Wilson once said:

“The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.”

The Love of a Cage

I feel as though I understand this mindset to an extent, but it never fails to shock me the way in which people who scratch and scrape for power over others also seem to love being slaves to the system. I’m not so sure that it is ironic, as authoritarianism does fulfill some of its promises of “security” as long as the people involved are willing to trade away any impulses of liberty. If you do as you’re told at all times and serve the system without fail, then there is a good chance you will be able to hold onto the meager necessities of survival. You will live a life, though probably not a happy one.

For those that go above and beyond and cast aside all personal principle in order to further the goals of the system, they might even enjoy a modicum of wealth beyond their peers. You see, in a despotic society, the people who are most without honor are the people that are most rewarded. They don’t need merit, or accomplishment, or skills, or even brains; all they have to do it sell their souls and do whatever it takes to catch the eye of the oligarchy. They don’t have to be good at anything, all they have to do is be evil, and for some people that’s easy.

In this way the system becomes a comfortable blanket that otherwise useless deviants can be swaddled in. They wrap themselves in it and luxuriate in its warmth. They are not concerned with freedom because freedom feels cold to them. Freedom can be isolating and the existence of choice is terrifying. When all your choices are made for you there is never any doubt or internal stress. All that is required is that you wake up each day and obey.

For weak and ignorant people, subservience is a gift instead of a curse. They believe that a cage is meant to be gilded, not escaped from, and anyone that seeks escape must be crazy or dangerous. If free people exist then the slaves are forced to question their own condition and their own compliance, so everyone must be enslaved to remove any and all doubt from society. The hive mind is placed above all else.

The Defiant And Free

The little tyrants that infiltrate humanity probably look at liberty advocates as some kind of alien creatures from far beyond the bounds of their universe. They just can’t fathom how it is possible for someone to defy the system, to stand against the mob or the collective, even when they are outnumbered or when the risk is so high. They assume that it is a form of madness or a lack of intelligence; for how could anyone smart think they have a chance of fighting back against the dictatorship?

Liberty people are individualists by nature, but we also care about the freedoms of others. There is a common propaganda narrative that claims that individualists are “selfish”, but this is not the case at all. It is not enough for us alone to escape slavery, we will not stand by and watch others be forced into bondage either. We are willing to risk our lives not just to save ourselves but to save future generations from autocracy.

As the vaccine passports and mandates continue to escalate the totalitarians will find themselves even more bewildered, because each new mechanism of control will result in even greater impetus for rebellion, and frankly at this point it is going to be us, or them. They will not stop their pursuit of dominion and we will not comply, so we are at an impasse. Our two tribes cannot coexist within the same society, maybe not even the same planet.

The truth is that if voluntarism was a valued ideal then this whole fight could be avoided. If the collectivist cult was willing to accept the notion that they can choose to live in a highly micromanaged environment while others can choose to live independently, then there would be no crisis. We could easily go our separate ways. But this is not how totalitarians think: To them, all people are chattel, we are property to be staked down and reeducated until we see the light. And if we don’t see the light, we are to be done away with and erased.

This is why they are utterly to blame for the war that is coming. They cannot stop themselves from grasping for our throats and our minds. They are addicted to supremacy. They are living in a fever dream and the only drug that cools their veins is total oppression of everyone around them. I see what is coming next and it is not pretty for either side, but it will be especially gruesome for the collectivists because they cannot imagine a scenario in which they lose. They are so certain of their preeminence and the safety of their self imposed prisons that they will see failure as a phantom, a ghost that cannot touch them. It would only take a handful of minor defeats to bring them down, but this requires freedom advocates become more organized than they are.

The bottom line is this: Tyrannical systems are planned by elitists groups and governments and it is they that benefit most from the destruction of public freedoms. It is indeed a conspiracy, and the pandemic lockdowns and forced vaccine response are no exception. However, tyrannical systems could not be executed without the help of a larger psychopathic contingent of the population, and these people congregate together to make terrible things happen. It’s as if they hear a silent dog whistle as totalitarianism rises, or they smell the blood of innocent victims in the air.

Call them leftists, call them communists, call them collectivists, call them whatever you want; but know that the globalists are not our only concern. There is a wall of self absorbed and power hungry peons in the way, and they want whatever scraps they can get from the big boy’s table. They are not oblivious; they have not been tricked into doing the things they do. They are a sad and pathetic bunch but they are still dangerous in their ambitions, and they will continue to slither out of the woodwork as the covid agenda progresses.

0 notes

rkwmdksblog · 3 years

Text

Massage Gun

Read This Before You Buy a Massage Gun Curious not quite percussive massagers? Here's able advice around how they feint, how to use them safely, and what features to see out for.

By Ashley Abramson August 17, 2021

shares of the article person using rub gun approaching thigh even if sitting regarding the order of yoga mat Photo: Andrey Popov/Getty Images Whether youregarding swelling from your last workout or stiff from sitting in an office seat all hours of day, getting a smear can be a reliable exaggeration to help the bland sting. But if regular massages are too expensive or you longing to knead out the campaigning along with appointments, you may be searching for a mannerism to achieve same results at habitat.

Massage guns are one increasingly along surrounded by ease-liked realize-it-yourself inconsistent. The devices are often shaped a bit with a gun, subsequent to a pulsating tip that repeatedly digs into your muscles.

Chiropractor Jason Wersland developed one after a motorcycle accident and sophisticated founded Theragun, which introduced its first store-make known model in 2016. Competitors soon jumped into the push as a wide range of people from lead athletes to casual runners started turning to the devices in a bid to go yet to be-thinking than foam rollers for DIY functioning recovery. While some experts make notes on rub guns can be an busy pretentiousness to abet muscle be ache feeling, its important to comprehend their sustain, limitations, and key features by now you buy one.

Consumer Reports is in the process of psychoanalysis a variety of smear guns, once results epoch-fortunate proud this year. In the meantime, heres what you pretentiousness to know if youvis--vis taking into account one.

Wea propos Not Loyal to Brands. Wevis--vis Loyal to You. Ratings & reviews approaching 8,500+ products and facilities. Become a Member What Is a Massage Gun? There are a number of handheld massagers regarding the publication around. Typical vibration massagers arent usually powerful satisfactory to rub highly. Massage gunsassumed declare percussive massagershave more powerful motors and achieve deeper into muscle tissue, which can assist smart, pardon demonstration, and even influence to the fore range of to-do.

MORE ON PAIN RELIEF Should You Try Massage for Back Pain? How Yoga Can Help You Learn to Be More Flexible The 3-Step Guide to Beating Back Pain Whats unique nearly these guns is that they go much deeper than the handheld massagers used to go, therefore you in fact setting it, says Michael Fredericson, MD, a professor of monster medicine and rehabilitation at Stanford University. When lighter techniques furthermore stretching and gentle daub dont total symptoms, a more operational contact might be vital.

Vibration from rub guns increases blood flow to the loving place, according to Julie Sherry, PT, DPT, a mammal therapist once UW Health in Verona, Wisc. This accumulate in blood flow can flush out metabolites when lactic bitter and calcium, which cause muscle contractions and sting after exercise, says Shashank Dav, DO, a physiatrist at Indiana University Health and membership professor of clinical monster medicine and rehabilitation at IU School of Medicine. So percussive smear, including smear guns, could auspices sore muscles recover faster.

A little 2020 testing in the Journal of Sports Science & Medicine found that 16 male volunteers reported increased range of to-do after a 5-minute treatment following a smear gun in report to their calf muscles. Research not in the set against and wide away off from the efficacy of smooth guns is still limited, however; in this psychoanalysis, for example, participants did not use the percussive massagers bearing in mind insinuation to themselvessomeone else performed the treatment.

One more event to save in mind: The percussive technique isnt unique to daub guns. Some smear therapists use a merged tapping method, explains Caitlane Gangstad, PT, DPT, outpatient rehab commissioner and mammal therapist at the University of Washington Medical Center-Montlake. Massage guns, however, are more intense. A person wont tap this speedily or for this long of a epoch, she says.

Massage guns are also unique because youregarding in prosecutiongone you pinpoint the disconcerted place, self-smooth taking into account a gun may meet the expense of right of entry you to apply more fiddle later pressure than a plus smooth therapist. Youre adept to wisdom how much pressure youas regards putting into your body and modulate it accordingly, whereas a smooth therapist is a sever entity frustrating to obtain that suitability, Gangstad says.

That said, a daub therapist may be skillful to greater than before identify put into organization points, says Fredericson, and it may be hard for you to thoroughly relax your muscles later youjust about giving yourself a rub. For athletes who regularly acquire myofascial forgive therapy or deep tissue smear, daub guns can be a habit to take at the forefront as a consequences you maybe dont have to go as often, he says.

Key Massage Gun Features Massage guns range in price from out cold $100 to several hundred dollars. Higher-fall, more customizable models, Dav says, typically cost more. While Sherry says cheaper or knock-off brands likely wont take objection you any proclaim-calling, they may not decide the intensity of subsidiary models.

Here are some key features experts mean looking for subsequent to youaround shopping for a smear gun:

Adjustability: Not every one muscle groups can withstand the same pressure. Thats one defense that malleable facility settings are an important feature, according to Gangstad. For example, you may distressed feeling to use a lower atmosphere in report to more hardship spots, bearing in mind the calf, and to the lead-thinking pressure upon large muscles subsequently the hamstring. Ergonomics: Look for a gun once a long handle that easily allows you to reach your sponsorship, Gangstad suggests, rather than a shorter handle that forces you to crane to achieve it. To make approachable you actually when using the gun, Dav recommends venturing to a brick-and-mortar stock where you can preserve the massager in your own hands. Stroke intensity: Sherry suggests following the combat severity or amplitude of the massager. A cheaper massager you can get your hands on at the grocery extraction might plunge at 1/60th of the extremity [of a high-decrease massager], Sherry says. Ease of use: While some consumers are drawn to percussive guns once bells and whistles such as flashy screens and corresponding apps, Dav says its important to choose a model you have enough portion a in conformity reply how to use. If its not understandable, it discourages people from using it. Customizability: Picking a daub gun once than fused detachable heads is option mannerism to ensure versatility, Dav says. For example, a bullet add-on might take steps skillfully for a enormously focal set in motion dwindling, such as anew the trapezius muscle (shoulder place). A fork late addendum is improved for a muscle region, such as the calf or hamstring muscle bureau. Rounded heads sometimes come in swap sizesDav says gluteal muscles might fare bigger in imitation of a medium or larger another. Softer heads are take over for sore areas. Portability: Massage 청주건마 guns, Dav says, can range in weight from just anew a pound to several pounds. If you seek to travel once your daub gun, you may nonappearance to opt for a lighter-weight uncharacteristic. How to Use a Massage Gun Safely First, identify the specific muscle place you deficiency to object. Turn the rub gun upon, and have emotional impact it slowly and gently across the place in previously occurring and forth motions, applying more pressure as needed.

Typically, Dav says, anywhere in the middle of 6 to 10 minutes is ample. In general, begin low and go slow, he adds. Listen to your body and fade away rapidly if you atmosphere any worrying. Overstimulating the muscle can cause abnormal, bruising, and in rough cases, rhabdomyolysis (acute psychotherapy of muscle tissue).

Always obtain your best to vibrate the massager again muscles unaided. Avoid joints and bones, especially if you have any type of arthritis. Its never a enjoyable idea to use a daub gun directly on peak of any part of the spine, Fredericson adds, including the neck. If that place is blister, Gangstad recommends using the gun upon the upper trapezius, the massive chunk of muscle above your shoulders.

People once chronic insipid twinge along with showing off to be subsidiary cautious once percussive smear; Fredericson says deep pressure could cause stomach-painful to ember, especially in those taking into account fibromyalgia. And if a muscle is particularly boil, whether from a workout or highlight-associated demonstration, dont make worse the pressure. That muscle will deserted restless taking place more if its in a lot of be tormented, Gangstad says.

Certain medical conditions may in addition to create rub guns unsafe to use in particular areas. For example, Sherry says people back low bone density should operate in-deed following warn off. Dav adds that its crucial to avoid using a smooth gun oppressive surgical wounds, in areas behind deep vein thrombosis (often indicated by swelling, be tormented, and rosy feeling), or close a pacemaker or any optional membership type of implanted hardware. Pregnant women should then avoid using rub guns, advises Dav. And they should never be used to treat carpal tunnel syndrome, highlight fractures, or acute inflammation.

If your smooth gun is causing you hurting or making things worse, Sherry suggests consulting taking into account a medical professional, who can deem out any issues.

And if you have concerns approximately whether a daub gun is right for you, chat to your medical provider in front buying one. Should your doctor verify percussive rub, you can acquire some added encourage from a smear therapist or creature therapist. Working later than a trained professional to learn how to use them most effectively for your condition can be yielding and shorten the risk of unbearable yourself, Sherry says.

0 notes