#have different political views than their conservative father? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qqueenofhades · 2 years

Note

I hope this doesn’t sound too ignorant, but as a non-American (South African here!), everyone is saying that this election is very incredible and different than others? Something about how the democrats have managed to hang on to power and it’s very close? What makes that so unique, and why is it so surprising that the democrats still (likely) have the senate? Shouldn’t you have a democratic congress because you have a democratic president? Here we do have a bunch of different parties, we don’t really have to main ones that always win, except the same corrupt party keeps getting elected again and again because it’s a very unfair system. While I do personally view Nelson Mandela as a hero to our country, his party has fallen so far from his beliefs and everyone is still so obsessed with him, and that seems to be much the case with America and the founding fathers, if I’m not mistaken?

I’m really sorry and I hope this doesn’t come across as sarcastic or dumb, I just don’t fully understand American politics and am a bit confused about your elections, and are they genuinely as bad and messed up as ours? Thank you so much!

Oh Jesus. Asking for a beginner-level crash course on American politics is a bit like asking for a beginner-level crash course on nuclear physics, but I'll do my best. Short answer: yes, American elections are fucked up to such a cosmic degree that it's truly astonishing that they still work at all, and yes, as many of my recent posts have discussed, it's shocking that the midterms went as well for the Democrats as they did. Because:

There are 50 states. Every single state has a considerable degree of autonomy over their own voting laws, voter eligibility, whether voters can register online, vote absentee, etc etc. Thus, the states run by Republicans have been rushing to enact as many restrictive voting laws as possible, meaning that this impacts who is able to actually cast a ballot (and indeed, have that ballot counted).

Each state is also very often "gerrymandered," aka divided into districts where one party has a better chance of winning than the other. Republicans, because they suck, also draw districts that erase or severely reduce Black voting power. For example, if you have District 1 that is 80% Black and therefore something like 80% Democratic, you cut little bits off the edges and put those in red districts, so you turn one safe-Democratic seat into multiple swing or Republican-leaning seats. It sucks.

The Supreme Court, after Trump got three picks with lifetime appointments, has 6 conservatives and 3 liberals, which means that if the conservatives vote as a bloc (as they often do), they can overrule pretty much anything they please (as long as it is a pending case before them). This has been especially notable with voting-rights cases this cycle, and was also the reason that Roe vs. Wade (the right to an abortion in all 50 states) was overturned this summer, capping 50 years of Republican efforts to do just that.

Every election, with the big exception of one, is won the old-fashioned way (whoever gets the most votes wins). The exception is the presidential election. There, it doesn't matter if you win the popular vote, as long as you win the Electoral College. Because of racism, each state in America has a certain number of electoral votes that reflect its population. California, with 40 million people, has 55 electoral votes; Wyoming, with 300,000, has 3. (And yet, they both also get two senators! This seems fair). Therefore, winning the popular vote in blue California is more important than winning the popular vote in red Wyoming.

This is also where we get the term "swing states." These states don't consistently vote Republican or Democratic, so whoever can win those has a better chance of winning the presidency. For example, Pennsylvania voted for Trump (red) in 2016 and for Biden (blue) in 2020, by relatively small margins each time. Yes, the Electoral College is a horrible system and we all know it. It's why Trump became president in 2016 despite losing the nationwide popular vote; he eked out just enough votes in key states to win the Electoral College (you need 270 electoral college votes to win; there are 538 up for grabs overall).

Likewise, the midterm elections are, almost without exception since 1934, used to punish the incumbent president's party for the perceived fuckups of the last two years. So if the president is Republican, the midterms lean Democratic; if the president is Democratic, the midterms lean Republican. The reason that everyone is so surprised at the Democrats doing well is because of 80+ years of historical precedent dictating that they would take a beating. But because Republicans have gotten so crazy, people shied away from voting for them. The Republicans were projected to win up to 5 Senate seats and up to 40+ House seats. As of this writing, they have won... zero and 8, or thereabouts, and it's still not clear who will secure 218 of the 435 seats in the House, which is the amount needed for a majority. Some of those House wins are also offset by the Democrats winning Republican seats back from them, hence why overall control is still up in the air.

So in other words, Congress is LESS likely to be Democratic when the president is Democratic, rather than the same party.

Trump's big thing after he lost in 2020 was to yell to the high heavens about imagined "voter fraud," which was clearly the only reason he could possibly have lost. This is why he tried to launch a coup and sent the January 6 mob to attack the Capitol during Congress's certification of the 2020 election results.

There are probably a ton of other factors I am forgetting, but yes, once again: I cannot possibly emphasize enough what a shitshow it is, and the fact that despite all of the above, the Democrats are guaranteed to keep the Senate and are still in the running for House control. Even if the Republicans do win the House, it will be by such a tiny margin that they will have trouble doing anything except wasting everyone's time with pointless revenge investigations. Democrats will still control the Senate and the Presidency until 2024, and thus can block House GOP nonsense and continue to confirm judges, which is very important after the number of unqualified right-wing hacks that Trump stuffed onto the bench with lifetime appointments.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #america: 50 small countries in a trenchcoat etc

85 notes · View notes

scifigeneration · 5 months

Text

The curious joy of being wrong – intellectual humility means being open to new information and willing to change your mind

by Daryl Van Tongeren, Associate Professor of Psychology at Hope College

Mark Twain apocryphally said, “I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.” This quote pithily underscores the human tendency to desire growth while also harboring strong resistance to the hard work that comes with it. I can certainly resonate with this sentiment.

I was raised in a conservative evangelical home. Like many who grew up in a similar environment, I learned a set of religious beliefs that framed how I understood myself and the world around me. I was taught that God is loving and powerful, and God’s faithful followers are protected. I was taught that the world is fair and that God is good. The world seemed simple and predictable – and most of all, safe.

These beliefs were shattered when my brother unexpectedly passed away when I was 27 years old. His death at 34 with three young children shocked our family and community. In addition to reeling with grief, some of my deepest assumptions were challenged. Was God not good or not powerful? Why didn’t God save my brother, who was a kind and loving father and husband? And how unfair, uncaring and random is the universe?

This deep loss started a period where I questioned all of my beliefs in light of the evidence of my own experiences. Over a considerable amount of time, and thanks to an exemplary therapist, I was able to revise my worldview in a way that felt authentic. I changed my mind, about a lot things. The process sure wasn’t pleasant. It took more sleepless nights than I care to recall, but I was able to revise some of my core beliefs.

I didn’t realize it then, but this experience falls under what social science researchers call intellectual humility. And honestly, it is probably a large part of why, as a psychology professor, I am so interested in studying it. Intellectual humility has been gaining more attention, and it seems critically important for our cultural moment, when it’s more common to defend your position than change your mind.

What it means to be intellectually humble

Intellectual humility is a particular kind of humility that has to do with beliefs, ideas or worldviews. This is not only about religious beliefs; it can show up in political views, various social attitudes, areas of knowledge or expertise or any other strong convictions. It has both internal- and external-facing dimensions.

Within yourself, intellectual humility involves awareness and ownership of the limitations and biases in what you know and how you know it. It requires a willingness to revise your views in light of strong evidence.

Interpersonally, it means keeping your ego in check so you can present your ideas in a modest and respectful manner. It calls for presenting your beliefs in ways that are not defensive and admitting when you’re wrong. It involves showing that you care more about learning and preserving relationships than about being “right” or demonstrating intellectual superiority.

Another way of thinking about humility, intellectual or otherwise, is being the right size in any given situation: not too big (which is arrogance), but also not too small (which is self-deprecation).Having confidence in your area of expertise is different than thinking you know it all about everything.

Morsa Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images

I know a fair amount about psychology, but not much about opera. When I’m in professional settings, I can embrace the expertise that I’ve earned over the years. But when visiting the opera house with more cultured friends, I should listen and ask more questions, rather than confidently assert my highly uninformed opinion.

Four main aspects of intellectual humility include being:

Open-minded, avoiding dogmatism and being willing to revise your beliefs.

Curious, seeking new ideas, ways to expand and grow, and changing your mind to align with strong evidence.

Realistic, owning and admitting your flaws and limitations, seeing the world as it is rather than as you wish it to be.

Teachable, responding nondefensively and changing your behavior to align with new knowledge.

Intellectual humility is often hard work, especially when the stakes are high.

Starting with the admission that you, like everyone else, have cognitive biases and flaws that limit how much you know, intellectual humility might look like taking genuine interest in learning about your relative’s beliefs during a conversation at a family get-together, rather than waiting for them to finish so you can prove them wrong by sharing your – superior – opinion.

It could look like considering the merits of an alternative viewpoint on a hot-button political issue and why respectable, intelligent people might disagree with you. When you approach these challenging discussions with curiosity and humility, they become opportunities to learn and grow.

Why intellectual humility is an asset

Though I’ve been studying humility for years, I’ve not yet mastered it personally. It’s hard to swim against cultural norms that reward being right and punish mistakes. It takes constant work to develop, but psychological science has documented numerous benefits.

First, there are social, cultural and technological advances to consider. Any significant breakthrough in medicine, technology or culture has come from someone admitting they didn’t know something – and then passionately pursuing knowledge with curiosity and humility. Progress requires admitting what you don’t know and seeking to learn something new.Intellectual humility can make conversations less adversarial.

Compassionate Eye Foundation/Gary Burchell/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Relationships improve when people are intellectually humble. Research has found that intellectual humility is associated with greater tolerance toward people with whom you disagree.

For example, intellectually humble people are more accepting of people who hold differing religious and political views. A central part of it is an openness to new ideas, so folks are less defensive to potentially challenging perspectives. They’re more likely to forgive, which can help repair and maintain relationships.

Finally, humility helps facilitate personal growth. Being intellectually humble allows you to have a more accurate view of yourself.

When you can admit and take ownership of your limitations, you can seek help in areas where you have room to grow, and you’re more responsive to information. When you limit yourself to only doing things the way you’ve always done them, you miss out on countless opportunities for growth, expansion and novelty – things that strike you with awe, fill you with wonder and make life worth living.

Humility can unlock authenticity and personal development.

Humility doesn’t mean being a pushover

Despite these benefits, sometimes humility gets a bad rap. People can have misconceptions about intellectual humility, so it’s important to dispel some myths.

Intellectual humility isn’t lacking conviction; you can believe something strongly until your mind is changed and you believe something else. It also isn’t being wishy-washy. You should have a high bar for what evidence you require to change your mind. It also doesn’t mean being self-deprecating or always agreeing with others. Remember, it’s being the right size, not too small.

Researchers are working hard to validate reliable ways to cultivate intellectual humility. I’m part of a team that is overseeing a set of projects designed to test different interventions to develop intellectual humility.

Some scholars are examining different ways to engage in discussions, and some are exploring the role of enhancing listening. Others are testing educational programs, and still others are looking at whether different kinds of feedback and exposure to diverse social networks might boost intellectual humility.

Prior work in this area suggests that humility can be cultivated, so we’re excited to see what emerges as the most promising avenues from this new endeavor.

There was one other thing that religion taught me that was slightly askew. I was told that too much learning could be ruinous; after all, you wouldn’t want to learn so much that you might lose your faith.

But in my experience, what I learned through loss may have salvaged a version of my faith that I can genuinely endorse and feels authentic to my experiences. The sooner we can open our minds and stop resisting change, the sooner we’ll find the freedom offered by humility.

#science #psychology #beliefs

12 notes · View notes

glittter-vamp · 3 months

Note

My dad works at a gun and ammo store on the weekends, and a lot of the workers there are right wing nutters (“foreigners are taking our jobs” “border walls!” “Thin blue line” And all that jazz). But I still talk to and have conversations with them because my dad works there (he is economically conservative and socially liberal not that I agree with any conservatism). Sometimes you have to interact with those who believe extremely differently than you, and if they enjoy your interaction, you may slowly bring them to your side btw.

My own father is black Hispanic conservative male but weirdly enough he supports his two gay children and even my best friend who is trans and has gone far enough to call her his kid when my friends parents disowned him for that. He believes in a woman’s rights to choose & supports strong women in male dominated fields. (He’s literally shown me all about cars and motorcycles)

He’s a gun owner (as am I). Has many friends in the military and police so it’s crazy to me that people think it’s so black and white when dealing with people whose political views don’t align with your own. Like I understand this country is divided but open mindedness can lead to some crazy progress as you pointed out that you can make them see from your POV!

#asks #kurlyteuvo

4 notes · View notes

mejomonster · 4 months

Text

Huai Dao: chapter 5. An Yuning has 2 fathers. Chief Mo and Professor An

1 oh i wonder if thats a particular trait template priest thought would be fun to use again (Chief Zhao and Professor Shen as makeshift parents of SID)

2 i always very much appreciate when people of different sexualities are sprinkled in novels. Priest did that in the stories ive read so far. In Modu it was especially nice because well how to say it - in some danmei (and bl and gl and queer novels period) there is the decision to avoid How sexuality and experiencing it in our own Biased society affects our personality and relationship To society.

Think 2Gether thai bl (where sexuality barely factors in regard to value of politics or rights or fears) versus thai bl like Not Me (political activism is tied to human rights the leads have intimate concern with and loved ones friends family lovers affected by) or The Eclipse (where lgbt cafes and mentors are santuaries and the default in the conservative school is to Closet out of fear of danger/punishment/isolation and how the queer kids are more likely to overlap with the schools protestors in part because their identity already makes it Critical they improve their world since they lose more by closeting and remain at risk if the status quo goes unchanged).

Well in modu, luo wenzhou's sexuality actually influences superiors views of him, he lives in a world where his sexuality prevents him from easy dating like Tao Ran or trying to start a family when he does crave that, makes supervisors view him differently and requires he rely on his status as a person with family connections to avoid consequences of discrimination, means how he understands fei dus sexuality and his own biases about fei du being bisexual not gay like him but Also them both being Playboys and therefore luo wenzhou able to empathize with why someone might handle their life that way. Its all shaped by luo wenzhou being gay in a society Like ours. The politics of his existence being treated certain ways by society and therefore Shaping him are present. Its both acknowledged he has a sexuality (gay rather than With an Exception like some old school bl) and also that it influences his relationship to the world (being gay Does affect him socially politically and in relating to other people like straight colleagues vs queer ones) in a way NOT all romance bl care to touch on. Which i understand - romance is an escape or you want it to be an escape sometimes, want to have a story where someone gay isnt treated differently by straight people and isnt isolated by their difference in experience and straight people magically fully relate with zero difficulty or adjustment or consideration to How it is different (including things like universes with gay marriage already and gay majorities in story unlike real life so the straight characters have no commentary to even make regarding a difference in experiejce because discrimination does not exist in this escapism romance or its not something u want to focus on).

Well i like when stories do mention it though, for my preference in enjoying stories, most of the time. Because my life just wasnt like a straight persons. I had fears admitting my first crush, ignorance in figuring out what i even felt, terror at who found out what i figured out about myself, accepting if what i felt could be embraced and why and how much, realizing what id have to do to help myself and people like me to be safe... things some straight people just did not experience (some did! Many kinds of relationship types and people), at least not straight cis people who fit the Hallmark expectation of Ideal romance in how it should work. I dont relate to a character who just never has considered even a little some yhings ive had to be aware of freuqently and navigate. So i appreciate when a story does touch on it, even if its not the focus.

Shout out to In The Dark for this btw. I mean im only 1/6 through the story. But while its mentioned some sexualities realistically how they might actyally get brought up in a workplace, the writing also mentioned overweight women as beautiful. Which i have not run into happening before in like Any other danmei i read or bl i watched (except Maybe not me with Gram flirting with his ex). Also shout out to In The Dark and Huai Dao for having some characters from out of country (fuck it Modu too) which isnt like hyper important, but it does create a sense that these stories take place in a realistic kind of world. Where people do travel, where lives may be lived in more than one area, where you often run into people from other areas eventually who dont have the same one to one frame of the world.

#huai dao #lb #modu

2 notes · View notes

communistkenobi · 2 years

Text

another interesting finding is that the authors found that participants’ scores on the ethnocentrism (E) scale (which measured agreement with various bigoted statements) correlated positively but imperfectly with participants’ scores on the fascism (F) scale (which measured their susceptibility to fascist sentiments). In certain groups of union men, for example, who had been forced to take anti-discrimination programmes by their union, had higher average F scores than E scores - meaning that they knew not to agree with explicitly bigoted statements, but could still be persuaded by fascistic sentiments. By contrast, there was a group of women that they surveyed who scored higher on E than on F, which the authors explained by saying that the women they surveyed lived in a more socially conservative area, so while they were more accustomed to overt bigotry, that did not necessarily translate into susceptibility to fascism. (Also to note that this is not a gendered difference - men and women consistently score similarly to one another across groups, although higher scorers for both E and F tend to be men.)

What is still not explained is if this susceptibility to fascism is a learned behaviour or not. Like is the anti-discrimination programme the union ran to blame for not being comprehensive enough, or is this beyond the scope of education? I posted about this earlier, but one of the more interesting results from this research was that if you have an affiliation to a different political party than your father, regardless of what that political party is, that is a strong indicator you will resist fascist propaganda. But like, is that a choice per se? Is rebelling against your parents a choice? Like I can’t really couch my political and moral disagreements with my parents in the language of choice. My reaching different conclusions than they did about the world felt inevitable. Like, obviously I make informed choices about what my politics are, but I don’t view it as a “choice” in the sense that I decided one day to stop agreeing with my mother about politics. It was not a function of my education, either; I had to actively seek out my own political education, which in many ways runs counter to the liberal orthodoxy of the university to which I’m accustomed.

What it seems to me is that resistance to authority (particularly non-democratic authority) is a good measure of someone’s resistance to fascism. But can that resistance be taught? Or, by virtue of being an educational authority, is it even possible to teach your students the skills necessary to question your own legitimacy? Again I feel like we end up back at the beginning, where some people “naturally” feel the impulse to resist authority while others embrace it - which means we are just constructing new essential categories of human beings, which is what this fucking research is trying to get away from!

#the authoritarian personality

23 notes · View notes

alasse-earfalas · 1 year

Text

It’s very interesting and strange to be a conservative who deals with gender dysphoria on a fairly regular basis.

If you don’t want to hear my frank views on the subject, feel free to keep scrolling. It wouldn’t surprise me given the current cultural climate if my “lived experience” gets tossed out the window or metaphorically burned by the mob because it doesn’t match the rhetoric. But if you want to hear my unique views on all this, feel free to keep reading.

To understand where my beliefs start with this whole thing, I need to go into religion a bit. I believe that everyone has a spirit, that God is the omniscient, omnipotent, and infinitely loving Father of our spirits, and that our spirits have a specific gender, either male or female, which is matched to our bodies upon birth. God does not make mistakes, and though our bodies may be imperfect, we are never placed in a body that is the wrong gender. I also believe, very strongly, that our bodies are sacred gifts from God, that their many imperfections will be overcome one day thanks to the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Any challenges we face with regards to our bodies now will not be permanent.

Now that I’ve gone over all of that, let me explain how this all fits into my experiences with gender dysphoria.

I don’t blame anyone of my political persuasion for not understanding how distressing and absolutely gut-wrenchingly real gender dysphoria is. The closest my male alts can approximate the experience is as follows:

“Imagine looking in the mirror one morning and seeing Barney’s face staring back at you. That’s mirror dysphoria. Now imagine moving around and realizing that your fingers are purple and three of them are fused together, and then your feet are all weird and you have a fetching tail with nerve endings that brushes against and bumps into things as you go about your day. You have this clear mental image of yourself and your body, but it’s not that. It’s that level of unsettling.” — Turo

I’ve been a mental fly on the wall to witness the distress this causes, and I would not wish that on anyone. What’s especially curious about this experience, to me, is that there is a very powerful sense of “I am male / female”, not “I am masculine / feminine”.

“Based on our own experiences, we (or several of us) suspect that the unconscious framework of how the mind defines ‘male’ and ‘female’ may well have to do with how parental figures treat the child in early infancy. In our case, ‘male’ is steady, reliable, safe, grounded, while ‘female’ is hyper-emotive, unstable, powerful, and often (but not always) unsafe.” — Rye

However, no matter how the unconscious mind of an individual defines male and female, we as fellow human beings all need a common term to describe certain physical realities, such as reproductive roles and the chromosome makeups that distinguish those roles. The role of language is communication. If a word means something different to you than it does to me, and we don’t realize it, we can hardly have a discussion using that word without causing massive confusion. Simply replace the meanings of the words “red” and “blue” and you’ll start to understand what I mean.

Though each individual may have their own unconscious ideas of what the words “male” and “female” mean, it is much more helpful in conversation to use the definitions of those words that are tied to physical reality: with the extremely rare exceptions of certain chromosomal disorders, male, boy, or man, means a human being with X and Y chromosomes, and female, girl, or woman, means someone with two X chromosomes. Those who don’t fall into either category are intersex. Every single human being ever born fits into one of these three categories, without exception, and each of these categories share a physical reality that the others lack. That is why these categories were defined to begin with: to describe a shared difference in physical reality. Societal norms and expectations attached to those categories were tacked on later, and can be wholly discarded without degrading the original definitions in the slightest.

This leads me to the subject of “body positivity”, which I’ve touched on before. Previously, I was writing under the assumption that “body positivity” meant “loving your body”. I now realize that this is not the case at all. “Body positivity” is about praising every kind of body, not about loving the body you’re in.

As someone who believes that the body is a sacred gift from God, and who believes that people should love their bodies in spite of the imperfections and hardships that they can present, this is especially disgusting to me. Your body is beautiful. Your body is a gift. Your body is something you should cherish, love, and take care of. Your body deserves love because it is a part of you. This applies whether or not you experience gender dysphoria. One of my male alts is very in tune with the needs of the body we have, and has recently forced his way out to the front several times, specifically in order to take care of it.

I’ve heard so many people spout “body positivity” while in the same breath saying that they hate their bodies so much that they want to mutilate themselves. You cannot love yourself if you do not love your body, and you cannot love your body if you want to chemically or surgically harm it. Believe me, I understand the discomfort and distress that comes along with gender dysphoria, but harming your beautiful body is not the answer. Taking care of your body is the answer. The alt I mentioned earlier, he deals with the dysphoria by viewing the body as an elderly patient that he needs to take care of. Yes it might be uncomfortable, but it’s fulfilling when the task is approached in a spirit of compassion and care.

I can’t think of anything else to say about the issue right now. I don’t know whether I’m going to get crickets or air raid sirens for this, but I haven’t seen a perspective like mine shared anywhere before. I’m open to any honest, good faith questions anyone may have on this issue or on anything I’ve shared. Feel free to send an ask or a dm or a comment or whatever means of communication you feel the most comfortable with.

Take care everyone.

#gender dysphoria #conservative #trans community #trans issues #gender ideology #dissociative identity disorder #alassë rambles

10 notes · View notes

liskantope · 8 months

Note

Do you every criticize the kinds of things republicans say on Facebook? Or is it a think where you never see them, therefore they must not exist, and anyone who talks about the power conservatives wield in American life must clearly be exaggerating or just lying?

Okay, so you're upset that (at least when I talk about social media posts, but also arguably on this blog in general) I clearly spend more time criticizing progressive viewpoints than conservative ones. But I feel this tone is pretty uncalled for in how aggressive and presumptive you're being by assuming I'm unaware or don't care that conservative views exist and have power.

I post from time to time about things I see on social media that annoy me. Why are they 100% of the time progressive viewpoints? Because (as you've clearly guessed), something like 99% of my Facebook newsfeed is politically liberal and progressive friends. There is no further sinister explanation required for the skew in my complaining-about-Facebook-posts posting.

I've had occasional Facebook friends over my many years there who are ultra-conservative and post conservative commentary or memes, which I start to see in maybe one- or two-year periods before I unfollow them out of irritation or they fade from my radar. Usually I just find these posts and memes completely idiotic, contrary to basic facts, and boring to engage with (e.g. one I recall is from someone upset with the move to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on money and justifying with "Andrew Jackson was a Founding Father"). I actually have occasionally bothered arguing with some of them on Facebook, at a higher rate than I have with liberal posts (which I feel the need to be much more cautious around, lest I get dogpiled into an exhausting debate and/or create awkwardness/risks for me professionally -- no, this is not a way of implying that only progressivism has power in the country as a whole, just that I belong to a bubble where progressivism clearly has the cultural upper hand!). The most memorable time that I did this -- in which I argued that the Democratic party's support of affirmative action is not in fact just a continuation of it being the Southern white racist party in the first half of the 20th century -- I wound up getting told repeatedly to go kill myself, so that was fun. (Not to mention I felt silly to have wasted time trying to have a reasonable, nuanced discussion with someone who, unlike many of my friends, was visibly intellectually incapable of this.) I unfollowed my Facebook friend who had posted the meme that instigated the comment thread, mainly because I resented the fact that he didn't step in when his friend suicide-baited me. Unfollowing that one guy cut my conservative Facebook post content down by like 50% or so.

I have openly admitted (more than just ultra-briefly in this link) in the context of serious, broad-reaching political discussions on here that I probably have a tendency to underestimate the power of Christian conservatism in the US because I no longer am exposed to much of it.

But that is different from holding myself to apportioning my blog content according to which ideology in the broad picture has more power or is more harmful/dangerous. That is not what my blog is for, and I resent implications that my blog (or anyone's blog) should obligatorily be calculated to reflect that. If I'm making sweeping general statements that make it sound as if I think the bad ideas floating around are mainly from progressives or implying that the greatest danger to society is progressivism or something, then you have the right to suggest that I may be deluded into thinking conservatism doesn't exist because I don't see it. If I'm just complaining about two Facebook posts that I happened to see on the same day with blue-tribe-ish outlooks that I object to, then you do not.

#facebook #political discourse #andrew jackson #suicide baiting

5 notes · View notes

chounaifu · 1 year

Text

𝐕𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬: 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐞

His family name is Kojima. Proton does not recall his first name.

Both of his parents practiced the Pokémon universe’s equivalent of Shintoism; Johto as a whole, especially Ecruteak City, are steeped in the old traditions of the continent.

Because of this, his household was extremely superstitious, and old tales and legends were taken very seriously. Proton, to a degree, is still a pretty superstitious man, though not to the degree he was in his childhood.

Ho-oh, of course, was the center of most of his family’s offerings, rituals and prayers. Tending to the shrine was always important. (Tiny Proton in particular enjoyed trying to wait and see whether or not a spirit or legend would actually appear and run off with the food offerings, sometimes crouching behind a bush and staring for hours. Of course, he never saw anything.)

He grew up with a “pet Hoothoot” that lived in the ginkgo tree outside of his tree.

He wore traditional yukata in various different patterns with the Kojima family name sewn into the sash.

Proton’s birth was not a happy occasion for everybody in the family; his grandparents on his paternal side were far more strict, conservative and traditional than the ones on the maternal side, and did not approve of the woman his son married and chose to have children with (the two families had feuded before over political reasons). Additionally, the grandfather was uneasy with several different omens that surrounded the mother’s pregnancy; most unnerving to him, Proton was born at 4 am, a very unlucky time. (The number 4 is pronounced very similarly to the word ‘death’ in Japanese/Johtoese.)

Proton’s grandfather pressured the boy’s father to be very involved in his son’s spiritual upbringing, in order to assure that the “bad omens” surrounding him did not spoil his future. And of course, Proton as a child knew no differently, and went along with the traditions that his parents raised him with.

Yet, the “bad omens” never seemed to leave Proton. Spiders (Spinaraks) appearing in or near the house at night were surely a sign that oni were present. Whistling in the evening (which Proton had a habit of doing, and still does at any given time) would call snakes (Ekans) and invite the presence of Orochi. By the time the boy was six, his grandfather was certain that his grandson was only going to bring misfortune and sorrow to the Kojima name— and that, perhaps, Proton’s birth was a punishment by the kami, because of his son marrying a woman that was not approved of.

When Proton turned 9 (another “unlucky” number, it is pronounced similarly to the word for “suffering”), illness struck his parents, and both passed away in their family home. Proton would be sent to live with his paternal grandparents; the maternal grandparents were not in a financial position to raise a child.

From that point, Proton was treated very harshly. His grandfather found every reason to associate unlucky or demonic traits to him: Proton’s habit of ‘staring’ was especially unnerving to both of his grandparents, as was his bad habit of jabbing his food with chopsticks, and choosing to write with red ink whenever possible (The boy just happened to like the color, it reminded him of the red maple leaves). It wasn’t uncommon for Proton’s living space to be littered with spirit tags and other objects meant to counteract negative spirits, and bring in fortune from the kami.

Though Proton eventually grew to resent his paternal grandparents, and became cynical of the family’s spiritual beliefs, he began to view many of the figures in ghost stories and urban legends rather fondly. He felt like he could relate to these horrific creatures more closely than he could his own family; after all, they were feared as demons, and Proton was treated like a bad omen upon his household. In particular, he grew a mental kinship with Kuchisake-Onna, and by the time he became a pre-teen, it spawned an interest in blades and weaponry.

#TW: Death Mention #tw: family problems #➤ 《 𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐨 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐞 》 Headcanon

6 notes · View notes

musingsofmyown · 2 years

Text

Hey babbbessss

I just gotta get this off my chest- thaanks

fair warning its v bad and deals with politics from my conservative step-father and contains his transphobic/political idiocy.

everything is tagged and you cant reblog

👍

Step-father when I call myself stupid: No no, you're so smart!! You're probably smarter than me!

Step-father when I explain transgender people and how gender is completely different than sex: WRONG YOU FUCKING IDIOT!! YOU'RE JUST BEING BIASED BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU SAW ON THE INTERNET!

Me, internally: No, I just had a college-level biology class that I passed with a 98. Not to mention I am a part of the transgender community, but you'll never know because you have these bigoted view, oh and, you only watch Newsmax (conservative talkshow, probably satire/entertainment). Oh, also my morals dont come from politics and religion, they come from my own mind and guess what; Im a decent human being who doesn't impede on peoples' lives because of my views. Otherwise, you would have been roasted alive, I know more than you ever have because I actually apply myself to critical thinking and ethical standpoints regarding my own life and my effect on others. Also, you calling me a dyke and telling me I was a fucking idiot "with your lesbian shit" for the whole breakup was the absolute worst thing you could have ever done, we will never speak again once I move away, I have no obligation to you. Also may I add that you throw tantrums like a three year old when you dont get what you want when you want it, not a very good way to express your anger when I literally just said "I dont want to talk to your daughter for you, and Im not being friends with her so I can be in the middle again" I dont care if she's family, she's a shitty person and by default, not someone I want to interact with. So please, by all means, keep watching your show with nothing but biased op-eds and I'll be living in the real world and interacting with humans who go through the issues your show chastises. Kindly, never reproduce ever again, and stop telling my little brother (8) that two girls kissing is bad. Yours truly- the child who hated you from the start- Aspen.

P.S. maybe your daughter left you because you're the problem. Just a thought.

P.P.S. And yes, I am biased from the internet because I found people who think like I do.

PPPS stop picking political fights with me, you would fucking lose every time if I actually spoke my mind. Be lucky I love my mom enough to not outwardly hate you and your bullshit.

Me, externally: This is why I can't talk to you about these things.

Him, every. single. fucking. time: I promise I'll listen, I just want to know your standpoint *doesnt listen and corrects me when I say that gender is different from sex and transgender people arent a problem AT ALL*

#proooobably gonna delete this sometime #but like. I fuckin drag him in this post #But not out loud because he would bitch and moan at my mom #and she's tired of us fighting so I just stop talking to him as a whole sometimes #politics tw #transphobia tw #cursing tw #rant tw #venting tw

9 notes · View notes

lemonhemlock · 1 year

Note

Where is the complexity and "nuance" in show!Alicent ? Is it complex to remove all of her agency? All of her intelligence? Is it "complex" to have her an eternal victim? A forever child bride that has literally no braincells nor dignity of her own. The fact Alicent never think of her self , she has no opinions and believes of her own other than what her *sooo evil* father tells her to do or to believe in , and the only way that she could be seen as a good person by the narrative is when she is kissing rhaenyra's feet and saying how miss maegor with tits is actually jaehaerys reborn again. she is basically a parody of modern conservative American woman. Ryan is so wild to interpret book! Alicent as a woman for trump lmao. Like if Alicen is a woman for trump, wouldn't that make all women from many different cultures/lands during medieval times women for trump as well? Like the medieval times got different cultures , values, morals , social structures and governing systems than what we have in the modern time. So trying so hard forcing the American politics into a story inspired by medieval Europe is so silly. Europe is not America , actually the world doesn't revolve around America . And most American showrunners got trump brainrot because they can't write a female character who is ambitious and wants her blood on the throne without making her a karen and a voter of the bad orange man lmao . And what funny is that they think they slayed with this and it's CrEATiVE . Alicent in the book is no evil stepmother, the only reason she is widely viewed in this light is because Targs stans wanted to see her like this because she is standing in the way of a targaryen woman. Don't forget that they compared Sansa in the show to trump and even saying that she is bitch and deserved what happened to her at the hands of ramsay and joffery. While they said something similar about young griff that he is joffery come again because there is a possibility of him going to become a beloved king by westros . Calling Rhaenys a rotten dead toddler , being hella racist and misogynistic toward Elia. It doesn't matter what these stans say because all what truly matters to them is their fave albino - inbred tyrannical family. Alicent obviously is one dimensional in the book but that's because F&B is a historical book so all the characters are one dimensional because the we don't have the povs of any of them

i made this post on show!alicent earlier today where i addressed similar points. also this post on alicent-the-trump-voter.

Alicent in the book is no evil stepmother, the only reason she is widely viewed in this light is because Targs stans wanted to see her like this because she is standing in the way of a targaryen woman.

to be fair, alicent in the books is bitchier and more antagonistic to rhaenyra, who starts off as a literal child - there's a 9-year difference between them. around 110 AC she insinuates 13-year-old rhaenyra and ser criston are having an affair in order to discredit her. also let's not forget the iconic "mayhaps the whore will die in childbirth"

Don't forget that they compared Sansa in the show to trump and even saying that she is bitch and deserved what happened to her at the hands of ramsay and joffery.

i am aware sansa got and still gets a lot of hate and blame and glee whenever she is abused, but i confess i never heard anyone compare her to trump

While they said something similar about young griff that he is joffery come again because there is a possibility of him going to become a beloved king by westros .

i haven't heard this take, that young griff = joffrey, i'll be honest

being hella racist and misogynistic toward Elia.

yes, the fandom's treatment of Elia leaves a lot to be desired

Calling Rhaenys a rotten dead toddler

who said this? it's downright vile

#ask #anon #hotd critical [alicent]

2 notes · View notes

religion-is-a-mental-illness · 12 days

Text

By: Helen Pluckrose

Published: May 11, 2024

Today, somewhat belatedly, I came across a piece by Julie Bindel entitled: “The arrogance of (not all) men: Peter Boghossian appears to think he knows better than female experts in the field about how to prevent and avoid male violence.” I was disappointed to read such a piece because it was riddled with errors and sloppy thinking, not only about Peter (whom after all, Bindel does not know well), but about what constitutes knowledge. It confuses Socratic questioning with a claim to knowledge and using a form of standpoint epistemology that does not work even on its own terms. Unfortunately, and despite its “(not all),” running through the entire piece as well as many of the comments, there was a clear prejudice against men and an assumption of negative traits of arrogance, entitlement, ignorance, misogyny and so much more with the sex by default.

This form of misandry has always undermined the radical branch of the feminist movement. It is not only that it risks alienating the male half of the population to whom, in the vast majority of cases, it does an injustice and whom women need to support their rights. It also undermines its own credibility with most of the other half whose observations of social reality (not to mention their own partners, fathers, sons, brothers and friends) reveal it to be unfounded in truth.

This attitude has long been a point of contention between the liberal feminists (like me) and the radical feminists. My mother left the radical branch of the movement in 1978 after being berated for having left four-year-old me with my father to attend a feminist retreat and thus, allegedly, practically ensuring that I would be sexually and or physically abused. The idea that my father rearranged his own demanding work schedule to care for me and enable her to attend the week-long retreat (as he should), not to mention the fact that he married a highly politically-active second-wave feminist in the first place because he genuinely cared about the rights of women did not seem to occur to any of them. My mother’s feminism was ultimately liberal and this is the tradition in which she raised me. She felt, as do I, that the dividing of the species into people who want women to be respected and valued and to thrive in every sphere of society (and are defined by having XX chromosomes) versus people who want women to be subordinated as lesser beings and confined to narrow spheres of domesticity (and are defined by having XY chromosomes) to be somewhat lacking in the social reality department.

Instead, the battle we have always had on this score is between people who believe in highly socially conservative gender roles and stereotypes and seek to uphold them as a social norm using both political and social pressure and people who oppose such unethical (not to mention unrealistic) restrictions as oppressive and bad for both sexes as well as society. These different sets of people do not break down into “men” and “women.” Attempts to ascertain the views of women and men on the rights of women have become somewhat confused in recent years due to the rise of Critical Social Justice and associated confusion about what a woman is and the allegedly dangerous nature of white women, which I discuss here. However, a sizable survey in 2016 on the attitudes of British men and women found that:

When split out by gender, women were more likely to identify as feminist, with nine per cent using the label compared to four per cent of men. But men were more supportive generally of equality between the sexes - 86 per cent wanted it for the women in their lives - compared to 74 per cent of women.

That most people of both sexes want equality for women certainly matches my observations and progress on this score since I entered the workforce as a baby feminist in 1993 has been equally apparent to me. Nevertheless, people who do not want this continue to exist and there is reason to fear that authoritarian forms of social conservatism are on the rise again. Feminist arguments that the reason that some of the drivers of this are women is because they have been brainwashed by men rather than because women have their own minds and views on society has always struck me as distinctly misogynistic. I’m afraid we have to accept that some of the people who use their own minds to form their own ideas and come up with terrible ones will be women. We then have to do those women the respect of recognising them as autonomous human beings with the same power of ethical reasoning as men and try to convince them to change their ideas on the roles of men and women or, at least, apply them to their own lives while leaving everybody else alone.

This largely encapsulates the core difference between liberal feminist thought and radical feminist thought. Liberal feminists tend to believe we are dealing with bad ideas held by individuals and groups defined by political, religious or philosophical beliefs while radical feminists tend to see society through the lens of class interests with men and women as sex classes and women fighting for their interests as a class against men defending their own class interests which require the subordination of women.

So, what does any of this have to do with the accusations against Peter Boghossian? It’s necessary to understand that it is the liberal position that I will address them from. That is, I will be considering Peter as an individual with ideas and not a representative of the oppressive sex class - men. Full disclosure: I know Pete very well and have spent considerable time staying with him and his family. Is Pete an individual who has bad ideas? God, yes, hundreds of them. I tell him I think so often, at which point he generally gets quite excited and wants to discuss this at length, often publicly. There are few things Pete likes more than people disagreeing with him. There’s a reason he became a Socratic philosopher. This is why he travels the world seeking people to disagree with, invites people who disagree with anything he’s said to ask questions first at events and has been known to do some really inadvisable things like try to initiate conversation with a frankly terrifying Antifa activist until the latter explained “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to hurt you.”

But is Pete guilty of the bad ideas he is being accused of by Julie Bindel and the feminists in her replies. Not remotely, no. I’ll take three of them and address them on my admittedly anecdotal but nevertheless deep knowledge of Peter Boghossian but, more importantly, on the level of fallacious knowledge claims:

-- 1) Peter Boghossian is sexist and assumes his knowledge to be superior to women’s.

Bindel wrote:

The moral of this story is that sexists come in all shapes and sizes, political persuasions, and all it requires to fit the bill is to be a bloke who thinks he knows better than a woman who TRULY does.

and

Peter Boghossian appears to think he knows better than female experts in the field about how to prevent and avoid male violence.

Firstly, if Peter is sexist and assumes men know better than women about everything, he hides it exceptionally well. My first meeting with him was when he called me out of the blue requesting my assistance with the Grievance Studies Project on the grounds that I was the person he considered most knowledgeable of the relevant theories. He continues to defer to me on subjects on which I am more knowledgeable as I do to him on subjects on which he is and this is his modus operandi generally. On my first stay with him, we were preparing for a panel which included Heather Heying. During the first discussion of this, somebody referred to her as “Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein’s wife” at which point Peter immediately intervened with “No, Heather Heying, the evolutionary biologist” before just continuing with the conversation. I remember this well, because at this point, I was still assessing Peter and that struck me favourably. Pete has no memory of having said this, because he was not consciously making a political/feminist point. He was just giving a scientist her due recognition. It is possible that he has some sexist beliefs lurking somewhere in his psyche that I have never seen despite working closely with him for three years, staying in his home for weeks at a time and speaking to him at least once a week ever since, but I’ve met a lot of men with sexist assumptions and if Pete were one, I am pretty sure I would have noticed.

Secondly, the matter of whether Peter knows better on any area of expertise than anybody else has nothing to do with his sex and everything to do with how much time he has spent studying it rigorously. Standpoint epistemology might work in some limited ways - e.g., I definitely know better than him about what giving birth feels like - but not on matters of professional expertise where objective truth exists. I don’t think he’d consider himself an expert on self-defence or martial arts but he certainly has a strong interest in this subject and reads and speaks to many experts in the field to learn from them. Why does Bindel seem to assume that none of them are women? They certainly are. Female martial artists, self-defence experts, fitness trainers, body-builders etc. absolutely exist and are part of Peter’s network in this area. Women are among the people who have trained him in self-defence and martial arts and also beaten him in contest which he has openly posted about, extremely non-sexistly. You can find an interview with ex-professional bodybuilder, Cindy, at the bottom of this post which demonstrates both this reality and also offers some challenge to perceptions of him not caring about women. I suspect that Bindel wishes Peter to defer to the female experts in the field or in different (feminist) fields who agree with her rather than the female experts in the field of self-defence and martial arts who agree with him. Therein lies the problem with standpoint epistemology. Women stubbornly insist on having their own minds, own areas of expertise, own opinions on pretty much everything. Anybody who wants to argue that one woman’s stance on an issue is more worthy of respect than another’s opposing view will ultimately have to justify this on the grounds of her arguments and the evidence for them and not her sex.

2) Peter’s fascination with ideas is “faux” and motivated, in this case, by a victim blaming mentality.

I will have to assume that this is what Bindel meant as she actually said,

I am not going to hit you over the head with why many women found his style of interrogation offensive and inappropriate.

This did seem to be why some feminists found the question of why those who fear themselves to be in constant danger of male violence did not take self-defence classes offensive.

On a personal level, I can confirm that there is nothing “faux” at all in Peter’s fascination with understanding why people think the way they do. He didn’t spend years becoming a Socratic philosopher on a whim. He is forever asking questions and people are forever reading agendas into this. Overwhelmingly, however, the reason that he asks any question persistently is because he is interested to know the answer. “Help me understand…” is a particularly common Boghossian refrain. This can be rather trying at times. I doubt I’m his only friend who sometimes feels like they understand why Socrates got poisoned. He also doesn’t tend to care if people find his questions offensive or inappropriate. (Remember, he came to public attention for questioning religion). That is on a public level, though. On an individual one, you can simply say “I am not interested in answering this question” and he will go away and ask someone else. He wasn’t trying any kind of ‘gotcha’ with Kara Dansky. He reassured her they could edit that part of the conversation out. He just really wanted to understand her thinking.

On the level of knowledge, it is fundamentally wrong to confuse Socratic questioning with knowledge claims. Someone asking questions may well think they know the answer, but the act of asking them is not a claim to do so. They are seeking to understand a different answer. Even the sentence cited which is not literally a question, “The fact that you have not taken steps means that you must think…” is still a request for an explanation of why a certain fact does not, in fact, indicate a certain belief. This is clear from the context of the surrounding sentences. It is not a claim of greater knowledge that one’s interlocutor. It’s setting out a difference in reasoning and seeking to understand the other one. Of course, one can be annoyed that somebody would ask any question in the first place and think it denotes ignorance or insensitivity, but this is a different claim to the question being insincere or that asking the question is a claim to ‘know better.” This error, I think, comes from ideological blinkeredness. In some radical feminist circles, it is firmly believed that to suggest ways in which women can protect themselves from violent men is to blame women for being attacked instead of the male attacker. Someone who accepts this as true may well have difficulty recognising that anyone else could ask a question that breaks that rule sincerely. (Note again that Bindel does not tell us why the questions were offensive as she assumes we all know). As “it is known” that asking such questions is victim blaming, the questioner must be insincere and really be making an alternative knowledge claim. In reality, it indicates no such thing. People can legitimately hold different views on whether or not it is acceptable to discuss ways in which women can protect themselves from violent men and both of them think the only person to blame for the violence was the person who committed it. I’m sure everybody involved in this conversation does think that.*

Radical feminists are completely within their right to find ‘this style of interrogation” (the Socratic method) offensive and inappropriate but those who do cannot reasonably expect Socratic philosophers to agree and just accept that some things are known and that questions should not be asked about them. That is not how they understand knowledge to work.

3) “Peter, like other men, fundamentally do not understand what it is like to be under constant threat of violence.” (Commenter)

On a personal level, I can confirm this to be utterly untrue of Peter. At no other time in my life have I had to take such stringent security measures as when staying with Peter. Threats of violence are something that all of us who criticise Critical Social Justice publicly face, but doing so while being someone who asks all those “offensive and inappropriate” questions at Portland State University puts them on another level altogether. During my visits, threats we needed to discuss with the police included everything from beating him to death with a brick to blowing him up with grenades. Police escorts and bodyguards were required to have a conversation about whether men and women differ in any way. Peter was frequently threatened directly with violence on a regular day and walking about his own university campus or even his town was fraught with risk.

Aside from Peter as an individual, however, the belief that men don’t know what it is like to be under constant threat of violence is another false truth claim. This error, I suspect, is result of viewing the world only through an “own sex class interests” lens. Feminists who view social reality only through the lens of what poses a threat to women risk having no understanding of what the other sex experiences at all or of crime statistics showing which sex is at most risk of violence. Some feminists who regard the world this way do know how much more likely men are to become a victim of violence but respond by pointing out that perpetrators are also nearly all men as though this cancels out male victims of male violence. This is another problem with regarding men and women purely as sex classes rather than as individuals. The vast majority of violent criminals are men, but the vast majority of men are not violent criminals. Any ethical and practical way of addressing the problem of violence needs to take in both those sets of statistical realities. We cannot hope to reduce violence if we stop analysis of who is most likely to commit it at “men.” We need to know which men are most likely to commit violence and what risk factors increase a boy’s likelihood of becoming a violent man if we are to have any hope of detecting and intervening on offenders. It is in the interests of both sexes to acknowledge this reality because members of both sexes become the victims of violent men, albeit different kinds of violence and in different scenarios.

Julie Bindel’s accusations against Peter Boghossian were an unjust assessment of him as a person and of his mode of engagement. I care about that because I care about him but I also care about what is true and how we determine what is true. Collective blame, standpoint epistemology, unquestionable “knowns” and blinkered ideological thinking do not help us determine what is true. Feminists who take this stance shoot themselves in the foot, and advocacy for women suffers. Absolutely zero women were made safer by calling Peter Boghossian a misogynist for asking the wrong kind of questions in the wrong kind of tone about women using self-defence. This is not how to “know better.”

*(I personally would argue that victim blaming of women who have been sexually assaulted is something that happens and often involves invoking what she was wearing or whether she had been drinking as though either of those can possibly justify sexual violence. It does not include practical information/advice/opinions on ways to minimise one’s risk of becoming a victim of violence and I consider feminists who make it taboo to discuss how to protect oneself if female extremely misguided).

Julie Bindel has never had to explain her ideology in detail, nor defend it from basic questioning. Like all woke ideologies - not to mention religious dogmas - it simply asserts that it's true, insists you have some moral failing for not believing it, and then is held entirely with faith. Mostly because it can't stand up on its own (lack of) merits.

So when someone like Peter Boghossian asks straightforward questions, that's a form of heresy. In a religion, it's termed "blaphemy" or "sin"; in feminism, it's "misogyny." She can then claim she won by default because a "sinner" is inherently wrong and can be ignored.

1 Peter 3:15

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear

Xians are lectured by their bible to be able to explain their beliefs to anyone who asks. It should be even easier for someone like Bindel to do likewise.

"Lived experience" is not expertise.

#Helen Pluckrose #Peter Boghossian #liberal feminism #radical feminism #radfems #Julie Bindel #epistemology #faith based beliefs #standpoint epistemology #corruption of knowledge #lived experience

1 note · View note