#i know all about criticism of a religion being racism because french people do it all the time with islam because they just hate north | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vesora · 1 year

Text

is law of assumption real? yeah

i have come across an individual vilifying the loa community and i find their statements kinda funny and stupid but i love having my beliefs challenged bc i can know why i believe in this. please also read my response to this other girl who thought loa ppl were crazy. it is ok to think if it’s crazy. ur welcome to criticize it. also, i am using aesthetic pictures bc of my ocd, i need things to be divided.

this is for the people who want to listen whether LOA is real from MY perspective:

firstly, i was primed for law of assumption from a young age. this means that i experienced many and i mean MANY spiritual things from a young age. i saw spirits (not hallucinations, it was my dead grandma who i had never seen and i described her down to her ring to my dad and he started crying because it was her), started speaking french at random points without ever having consciously learned the language, heard random piano compositions in my ear which i had never heard before, had visions which protected me/warned me about the future/informed me about the future and many manyyy more things. this proves to me the power of the subconscious mind.

the difference between someone who was born with their third eye awakened versus someone who has no spiritual experiences + is not open-minded to it, is that they will view spiritual phenomena from a materialistic practical sense.

this is saddening, because humans before being impacted by materialism were so spiritual and we were the ones who created the pyramids and all the structures you see on earth. we did that.

anyways,

is it real?

my opinion: yes.

no i am not in a cult waiting to pounce on the next vulnerable piece of meat. in fact, my future career is removing people out of cults and helping trafficking victims but anyways.

i have manifested things far beyond logic. you know how and why? because manifestation is the most basic human trait. and awakening to the fact that you are the creator of your reality is the most liberating amazing feeling and practice. i manifested one of my dying cats becoming free of cancer. that is not luck. that is manifestation. i manifested bad circumstances away. not luck, manifestation. i manifested all my exes leaving me the SAME way because i had assumed they would. not a coincidence, manifestation. there is definitely a lot we don’t know about the universe. i can’t say with certainty that all things are attributed to us which is also why i hate any form of victim blaming. but one thing is for sure is that humans have more control over our lives than we think. we don’t need a divine presence outside of us to dictate us the circumstances in OUR lives.

also, law of assumption is not law of attraction. law of attraction is “AHHH DONT THINK BAD THOUGHTS OR U WILL GET BAD JUJU” very fear-based, also seen in dogmatic religions. law of assumption uses a CBT based approach to change assumptions and therefore, influence reality. you have every right to not believe in this and even chastise me for it, i understand. however, i know this is real for me.

i was a victim of many racist attacks, however, as soon as i decided that the outside world is safe for me, i never had ONE negative experience. is this a coincidence? not for me, no. this is a human taking control of their life. this is a human not bound by societal expectations and leaning into divine energy and expressing the truest essence of one’s self. i am not blaming myself for being a victim, it is the racist’s fault. i am not blaming other victims, it is the perpetrators’ fault. however, if there is any fucking chance i can help a victim, i will take it, i do NOT care.

things i manifested regarding other people towards me:

1. no more racism towards me, family and friends.

2. parents being emotionally available with me

3. my friends expressing affection the way i want them to

4. my mum making me the exact food i visualised many times

5. my professor saying the exact words to me as i visualised

6. my friends saying to me the exact words i visualised

7. this guy flirting with me out of nowhere because i visualised it

8. and many more stuff this shit is too easy so

maybe i feel this strongly because i am a fighter for the working class. my main goal in life is to help liberate all oppressed people. if there is any chance that it can be done by mind, i would take it. would you not? would you not help people by the means you have helped yourself?

how can you so strongly and with such conviction without ever practising the law come to a conclusion that is a harmful new age ideology when the maxim prevalent in so many esoteric practices (yes, non-white too) have preached that reality is made by the mind? will we ignore the science behind it too? will we ignore the cia declassified documents? will we ignore ancient accounts of reality shifting? will we ignore hermes trismegistus? will we ignore rumi? will we ignore plato?

you can ignore this. i won’t, however. this is the liberation of the human soul. having said this, anyone is welcome to criticise the LOA community, look at us as vultures, think we are crazy. i value all opinions (even if they’re wrong HAHA sorry).

how is loa different from dogmatic religion?

well for one, there is evidence for conscious manifestation (e.g. dr joe dispenza’s books). i personally do not like religion. i have religious trauma so if you are religious, id advise you to not read this section. abrahamic religion is based on fear to oppress minorities, trap human potential and it also makes you rely on luck and wishful thinking (this view is only if the holy books were to be taken in the literal sense and abused by ministers etc) whereas the human is able to decide its own fate. law of assumption liberates the human by putting the human from an us vs them view to an us AND them view, meaning everyone is one and the same. this is not a christian thing, this is a well documented thing featured in asian philosophy. consciousness is the thing that unites us all. it is within you and it is within me. religion (abrahamic) forces you to look at the people who are not like you, aka dont believe what you do, as these other creatures who have defied the will of God and ahhh will face wrath. LOA instead empowers the individual and promotes free will. i understand if you think this is dangerous, the woo-woo stuff, just dont practise it.

how is loa not a cult?

loa CAN be misused in a cult but on its own it is not a cult. no one in the loa community is forcing the individual to join this practice which lowkey is just manifestation. however, i get your concerns and i advise you to read this reply: x

i wish i took pics of my cat when she was sick so i could provide u guys evidence but of course i didnt take any pics.

anyone is welcome to leave. anyone is welcome to adjust loa to their lives the way they see fit.

the void state

i doubt that so many people are lying about manifesting in the void state. i do think it’s not a big deal but i definitely don’t think it’s fake. besides, whats the harm in trying?

thing is right, if you are not garnering results or whatever, u dont need to stay. i stayed regardless of whether i manifested my shit instantly or not (which in the beginning was hard for me) because i believed in the philosophy, it resonated with me and it didn’t make me alienate my fellow man. however, if you feel you have a chance of being manipulated here or idk what, don’t join this practice. seriously, it’s okay. i am not being sarcastic or anything, because you are welcome to stay or leave. you are welcome to compliment me or insult me. i will love you either way for you are my fellow man.

also this is so random and a general thing but only psychoanalytic/psychodynamic psychologists use the subconsciously thing.

#loa #law of assumption #manifesting #manifestation #neville #neville goddard

463 notes · View notes

simonalkenmayer · 1 year

Text

The Right: the Radical Left think government exists to give you things like food and education and medical care and housing and wage controls and equal treatment beneath the law!

The Left: … it does.

The Right: …

The Left: … why else do we need a government?

The Right: well…to control your behavior and say what rights you don’t have.

The Left: but we can do bad by ourselves. Shouldn’t our organizing system organize us in the best way possible and make our collective lives better?

The Right: No! The government is bad and tries to control you!

The Left: but only because you keep making it that way…

The Right: The Radical Left is socialist!

The Left: so?

The Right: that’s bad!

The Left: Why?

The Right: because….Hitler called himself that.

The Left: doesn’t mean he was one, and besides, we thought you liked Hitler.

The Right: He had some good ideas though.

The Left: The Right are Nazis

The Right: now that’s not fair. There were good people on both sides. What’s wrong with pride in “white culture”

The Left: what does “white culture” mean outside the context of racism? Which white? Italian? German? French?

The Right: Yes

The Left: Jewish?

The Right: No.

The Left: so you’re Nazis?

The Right: The Radical Left is being mean!

The Left: … fuck this guy!

The Right: *clutches pearls* Such a policy of division!!!!

The Left: Does government exist to help white people?

The Right: only if they’re rich.

The Left: Black people?

The Right: No.

The Left: so you’re racist

The Right: Nope.

The Left: … but—

The Right: we have black friends. See?

The Left: This one seems….not alright. Is he okay?

The Right: That’s just how black people do.

The Left: … so… Racists?

The Right: Do you hear that black people? The Radical Left has you locked on an ideological plantation!

The Left: is there something wrong with you? I mean besides the Nazi part? Are you alright? Do you need help?

The Right: We are the prime specimen! We do not feel feelings unless we are being criticized. We know all about your alien sex cult in which you drain babies of the essence you need to stay alive.

The Left: Is that why you want to force us to have babies?

The Right: We don’t know what you’re talking about. Roe Vs Wade is the law of the land and we’d never touch it.

The Left: I’m not sure I—

The Right: the government exists to make you have babies, but only the ones that would have existed, we promise.

The Left: So then…the government exists to protect its citizens and through collective pooling and management of resources, provide everyone with a basic quality of life experience—

The Right: No. See we talked about this. The Government is there just to make sure you have babies and guns. Lots of guns.

The Left: Why do we need so many guns?

The Right: To fight off the government tyranny!

The Left: But…why is the government tyrannical if—

The Right: FUCK YOU LIBTARD

The Left: Is that “white culture”?

The Right: White people are under attack!

The Left: Jesus Christ, dude

The Right: Jesus is under attack. Second amendment remedies!

The Left: Is this why you keep spending on the military even though we aren’t involved in any wars currently? You know with literally one tenth the money spent on the military we could solve hunger and homelessness in the USA

The Right: Charity is gross

The Left: didn’t you say you were Christian?

The Right: The government doesn’t exist to legislate my religion

The Left: so then we should definitely tax churches if they try to steer their members to vote a certain—

The Right The Radical Left wants to tax churches!

The Left: Alright.

The Right: We don’t need to tax churches! Just stop eating so many avocados.

The Left: I can’t eat avocados because they’re too expensive.

The Right: INFLATION!

The Left: So let’s increase the minimum wage and cap prices to prevent corporate greed—

The Right: SOCIALISM

The Left: …

The Right; The Gay Agenda! Trans people in bathrooms!

The Left: What the hell does this have to do—

The Right: what if the woman next to you in the bathroom doing her makeup ISN’T *gasp* physically female????????

The Left: does she wash her hands?

The Right: The government doesn’t exist to legislate public health.

The Left: Isn’t there…a department of—

The Right: We don’t like it so we pretend it doesn’t exist. We fired all the disease people anyway.

The Left: why?

The Right: needed more money for weapons

The Left: maybe if you gave people what they need, you wouldn’t need guns.

The Right: We like guns though.

The Left: Yes we know you like your guns but, maybe we don’t need so many—

The Right: Now they want our guns! YOULL PRY THEM FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

The Left: They’re really causing problems. We should really regulate them because like you said, government exists to tell you what rights you don’t have, and killing people with guns is not a right that—

The Right: Sorry what did you say? We couldn’t hear you because we were blowing up a tool shed for an election commercial

The Left: you don’t think that sends an impression that you’re encouraging political violence?

The Right: How dare you accuse us of plotting against you!

The Left: But…you think we eat babies.

The Right: you do. Babies are a precious resource.

The Left: so then less guns? To protect kids?

The Right: No. Less doors.

The Left: so the government exists to tell you how many doors you can have but not how many guns you can have.

The Right: yes

The Left: —and how many children you must have, but won’t give those kids anything to survive.

The Right: we like babies, but we don’t adopt any. They’re too expensive.

The Left: and you guys say you like cops and veterans—

The Right: We do! Because they get to hold guns, and we really like guns. We like anyone holding a gun. Even if they use that gun to kill black people.

The Left: …so…you’ll find veteran healthcare and make sure cops have the training to—

The Right: You’re trying to get rid of cops!

The Left: look…I understand we won’t agree about everything but can we at least agree that it’s gotten ten degrees hotter on the planet and maybe look into that?

The Right: the temperature is a hoax

The Left: Shouldn’t the government study this problem and come up with a solution before—

The Right: THE RADICAL LEFT THINKS THE GOVERNMENT EXISTS TO GIVE YOU THINGS!

#this is the conversation #it feels like watching a comedy sketch #but it is unfortunately real life

96 notes · View notes

paperandsong · 3 years

Photo

There is Phantom of the Opera, and then there is PotO-adjacent. If Hades & Persephone and Orpheus & Eurydice are PotO-adjacent, then the 1959 film Orfeu Negro is PotO-adjacent adjacent. I’ve already written about the link between Carnaval and Erik and the Red Death. I see all of these stories as tapping into a similar theme of the ephemeral nature of life and love and of the place for death among the living.

Review of Orfeu Negro

Orfeu Negro is a film of many layers. It is the retelling of the ancient Greek story of Orpheus & Eurydice, told by French director Marcel Camus, and set in a Brazilian favela. It was considered ground-breaking in its time simply for having an entirely black cast.

I’ve seen Orfeu Negro countless times. It was part of the Portuguese curriculum at my university and I watch it once a year around Carnaval. After reading Obama’s criticism of the film, I really had to sit and contemplate how I could continue to love a film that someone I deeply respect found so racist. Can I still love Orfeu Negro and still consider myself anti-racist?

The story centers on Orfeu, his fiancée Mira (a muse), his neighbor Serafina (another muse), and her cousin Euridice. Euridice is being pursued by a masked man who stalks her in an otherwise ordinary Carnaval costume: a skeleton. They live in a favela high above the city and are removed from it in every way. An airplane passes over the favela to remind you that no, they are not slaves on a fazenda, they are living in Rio de Janeiro, in the 20th century. The isolation is important. While racist institutions may influence their lives, white people, as individuals, do not play an important role in this story. Black people have lives, communities and stories independent of white people - and that may have been a fairly revolutionary idea on film in 1959. But the movie can, at times, fetishize this culture that would be foreign not only to non-Brazilians, but to white Brazilians as well. And there is an entire scene involving watermelon that is irredeemably racist.

Are myths universal? There is the implication that Orfeu and Euridice are reincarnated as modern lovers. That they should be reincarnated as Brazilians of African descent as opposed to say, modern day Greeks, implies love and tragedy are elements to be experienced and understood in all cultures.

Conversely, racism may be experienced in all cultures, but its manifestations aren’t universal. There are images in Orfeu Negro that would strike Americans as overtly racist because we lack the context to understand the cultural references. We like to think Greek myths hold universal truths about the human condition, but what myth speaks to the universal truths of racism?

After a long opening scene of a multi-cultural Rio celebrating Carnaval, we see a white clerk at the office where Orfeu and Mira apply for a marriage license. He is the one who starts the tension by assuming Mira´s name must be Euridice, as her fiancé´s name is Orfeu. (Just as a man named Romeo might hear jokes about his Juliet.) Not familiar with the ancient story, Mira thinks Orfeu has cheated on her with another woman. This scene is important for plot development – but you could also understand it to mean that Orfeu and Mira are uneducated. Even a lowly government clerk knows about Greek mythology, and they do not. This scene also draws a line between those who live in the favela and those who live in the city, and work at government institutions.

The Macumba scene was one that really moved me when I first saw it. I loved how it merged Greek mythology with Afro-Brazilian religion. However, even my professors pointed out its problematic aspects. For example, in the scene before Orfeu arrives at the ceremony, we see him descending a spiral staircase, at the bottom of which there is a red light. My professors suggested the spirals were suggestive of Dante´s rings of hell. If in the very next scene he attends a Macumba ceremony, complete with a barking Cerberus, it seems to imply that Macumba is Hell and therefore evil. I don´t necessarily agree with this association. Neither ancient Greek religion, nor Afro-Brazilian religions are greatly concerned with good and evil in the Christian sense of those words. Hell is not the equivalent of Hades. Euridice was not in Hell, she was in the Underworld. Macumba was a way to reach her. I found the use of spirit possession (a very real aspect of several Afro-Brazilian religions) as a fitting way to fulfill the myth and allow Orfeu to find Euridice again, if only for a fleeting moment. But I can see how others might be uncomfortable with the imagery. It was up to the director to be sensitive to how viewers would interpret the scene. While some may understand that Hell and Hades are not the same and therefore Camus is not saying Macumba is Hell, the images of spirit possession would have been shocking to white audiences, especially of that era. It probably did reinforce negative ideas about black spirituality rather than teach anything real about Macumba. It was a fairly sensational scene. But it was also real, filmed at an actual ceremony.

At the end of the movie we again see Orfeu wander through the bureaucracy of the modern world. After so many scenes set in the favela, in homes without running water, with farm animals in every corner, it is jarring to see Orfeu, still in his Carnaval costume, walk into office buildings with file cabinets, temples of the most mundane aspects of modern life. White people exist in these places: in offices overflowing with paper and in morgues with men in suits and sign-in sheets. Orfeus’ wandering through them is dream-like and anachronistic.

You could interpret the film’s message in several ways. That black people are not part of the modern world; that they live only in the white imagination, dancing and singing and being passionate. Or, as criticism of the white world and its banality and meaninglessness in the face of Orfeu’s harrowing loss. I think the director was probably demonstrating a mix of the two ideas. He may have loved black people. He was married to the lead actress, Marpessa Dawn, at the time of filming. His greatest work was this film, which is entirely about black Brazilians. But loving something does not erase racism. If Camus valued black culture over white, was it because he found in black culture something missing in his own? This is exactly what Obama criticized his own mother for.

The frenetic energy of the film is cause of both the highest praise and the harshest criticism. Does the constant singing and dancing distract from the reality that life in the favela is a life of poverty? Is it a minstrel show? This is also a criticism of Carnaval in general. Carnaval is a distraction. But I don´t think the film ignores this. The opening song, A Felicidade by António Carlos Jobim, is a philosophical reflection on just this fact. Happiness is a drop of dew on the petal of a flower...the happiness of the people is the great illusion of Carnaval. And it all ends on Ash Wednesday. The point of Carnaval is that it ends. All the singing and dancing will end. It is all ephemeral, just as love and life are ephemeral. Orpheus and Eurydice had each other for only a moment, and then it was all lost.

Of course this film is racist. Of course this film needs context. It is more nuanced that Obama could have known when he first saw it with his mother. For me, I can recognize the faults yet still take from it life-long lessons. It is still worth watching.

#orfeu negro #film review #racism in film #marcel camus #orpheus and eurydice #poto-adjacent #carnaval #carnival #obama #dreams of my father #macumba

19 notes · View notes

giftofshewbread · 3 years

Text

World Government is Rising In America!

By Daymond Duck Published on: May 9, 2021

Here are some recent events that seem to indicate that world government is rising in America.

One, concerning hyper-inflation, economic collapse, and famine: on Apr. 29, 2021, it was reported that the price of food is soaring in Asia, a region that contains more than half of the world’s population, and history shows that soaring food prices eventually lead to social unrest (The French Revolution of 1789, Europe’s Revolutions in 1848, and a revolution in Russia in 1917).

Concerning the signs of His coming: Jesus said there will be “upon the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25).

This is usually interpreted in one of two ways: the waves and seas roaring represent an increase in cyclones, hurricanes, etc., at sea; and roaring (social unrest, rioting, demonstrating, etc.) in the sea of humanity (Rev. 17:15).

Two, also concerning hyper-inflation and an economic collapse: it is being reported that the Biden administration is planning to spend 6 trillion dollars just in the next 6 months alone.

Some economists say America’s debt-to-GDP ratio is higher than it has been since the end of WWII, and another 6 trillion dollars will destroy the U.S. dollar.

Three, concerning world government: on Apr. 28, 2021, Pres. Biden addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress.

As expected, he accused America of “systemic racism,” a vague term that many say means because of slavery and segregation in America, black people do not get fair treatment at school, at work, in elections, in housing, in anything; and everyone in America, especially white Republicans, is guilty.

Using the death of George Floyd as an illustration, Biden said, the “knee of injustice [is] on the neck of black America.”

In response, the black Senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott, said, “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” and he added, “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different discrimination.”

Aside from wondering how this black man got elected to the U.S. Senate if America is so racist, and aside from noting that this black man pointed out that Democrats want to fight racism by discriminating against all white people, U.S. citizens need to understand that the purpose of portraying America as a bad nation is to restructure America and bring it into a godless world government.

According to the Bible, America will be subjected to a godless world government that is far worse than what we have today; and billions of people, including multitudes of the black people, will regret the day it happened.

Four, concerning world government: on Apr. 30, 2021, Dr. Andy Woods and Jim McGowan discussed the U.S.-Mexico Border Crisis on Pastors’ Point of View #163.

The Biden administration has delegated authority over the crisis to Vice-Pres. Kamala Harris, but she has not even visited the border.

For whatever it is worth, she says she is working with the radical U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to get the international community’s help.

Notice this!

Kamala Harris is delegating control of the U.S. border with Mexico to unelected foreigners instead of the U.S. Border Patrol, building a wall, etc.

The fact is, according to the Migration Policy Institute, during his first 100 days in office, Biden issued 94 Executive Orders that have dismantled America’s immigration policies and throw the border wide open.

Five, concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: Pres. Biden is now involved in indirect talks with Iran over that terrorist nation’s quest for nuclear weapons.

This prompted Israel’s Intelligence Minister, Eli Cohen, to warn that “a bad deal will send the region spiraling into war.”

Cohen said, “Israel will not allow Iran to attain nuclear arms. Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East.”

An Israeli attack on Iran would almost surely result in Iran attacking Israel, a war that the Bible says will happen in the latter years and latter days (Ezek. 38:8, 16).

Six, concerning the Mark of the Beast: on May 1, 2021, Dave Hodges reported on The Common Sense Show that New Zealand has just made Covid vaccinations mandatory without public notice, discussion, etc.

Seven, concerning persecution: Evangelist, Mike Gendron, bought a round-trip ticket from Texas to Green Bay on A.A. to speak at a conference.

Gendron said the only time he did not wear a mask was while he was drinking a cup of water, and no flight attendant ever asked him to put his mask on.

Two days later, when Gendron checked in at the airport to return to Texas, he was told he was banned from flying on A.A. for not wearing a mask on his trip to Green Bay.

An overnight hotel room and a ticket on another airline cost him another $600, and none of the money he paid A.A. for a round-trip ticket was refunded.

After a week of trying to straighten this out, A.A. stopped taking Gendron’s calls.

Why he was reportedly falsely banned for not wearing a mask is a matter of speculation.

Persecution of those that object to what is happening to America is intensifying almost daily.

Eight, A reader sent an e-mail reminding me that some past prophecy teachers have suggested that world leaders might use the Rapture to deceive people.

Several highly respected prophecy teachers speculated for years that globalists might promote the Rapture as an alien abduction to scare people into uniting against a threat from outer space and thereby accept a one-world government.

I consulted with a friend, and we agreed that it is time to remind people of this.

My friend even sent a link to an Apr. 30, 2021, article titled, “Pentagon whistleblower warns of UFO intelligence failure on ‘level of 911.'”

The whistleblower, a former Pentagon investigator, said there is something out there and U.S. citizens need to be told.

As it turns out, the U.S. government will release files on the subject in June.

Just know this: The Church will be removed from planet Earth by Jesus, not UFOs from outer space.

This is not to say that UFOs don’t exist or that people don’t need to know about them, but it is to say that people shouldn’t allow themselves to be deceived and scared into a world government because leaders have decided to admit that UFOs are not a conspiracy theory or because they have made up lies to convince people that a world government is needed to defend the planet.

The rise of the Antichrist over a Satanic world government is a greater threat than aliens from outer space.

Christians oppose a godless world government, but they support the coming world government of Jesus during the Millennium.

Christians oppose the false peace on earth that the Antichrist will promote, but they support the peace on earth that the Prince of Peace (Jesus) will establish.

Christians oppose the false religions of Mother Earth, the Green New Deal, Chrislam, etc., but they support the true teachings and worship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as recorded in the Bible (God’s will).

Nine, concerning godless world government: the fact that the Democrat Party left God out of their Party Platform is now old news, and so is the fact that on Feb. 26, 2021, Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, said, “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”

It has now been reported that the National Day of Prayer will not be allowed at the U.S. Capitol for the first time in 70 years.

There was a request for prayer at the Capitol, but it was denied supposedly because the Capitol is closed due to the January 6 protests.

This writer believes prayer is badly needed, and the truth is that those that have taken over the Capitol support a godless world government.

The America that was based on Judeo-Christian values no longer exists.

Jesus said the day of His coming will be like the days of Noah (Matt: 24:37).

In the days of Noah, God saw that the wickedness of man was great. He was grieved and decided to destroy man with a Flood (Gen. 6:5-7).

Ten, on May 2, 2021, it was reported that California plans to release at least 76,000 inmates.

63,000 of them have been imprisoned for violent crimes and repeat felonies.

20,000 of them have been given life sentences with the possibility of parole.

10,000 of them have been imprisoned twice.

About 2,900 of them have been imprisoned 3 times under the state’s “three strikes law.”

Critics say putting thousands of criminals back on the streets will increase wickedness and criminal activity in California.

To make matters worse, police are retiring or quitting in record numbers all over the U.S. because of the “Defund the Police” movement, the liability, and the abuse and hatred that is being directed toward them.

Finally, if you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

#sports #recipe #guns #ammo #archery #football #baseball #bowling #horse #shoes #ping pong #soccer #footy #national #day #of #prayer #in #dc #cancelled #1st #time #n #70 #years #biden #omits #god #from #his

1 note · View note

sworntoprotect · 4 years

Text

THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat. Long post!

MUN NAME: Pie AGE: +25 CONTACT: IM, Ask, Discord (mutuals only, by request)

CHARACTER(S): Cullen

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Dragon Age

FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: I have a modern verse for everything not Dragon Age, but I might add some actual alt verses for other fandoms

MY LANGUAGE(S): English (native), Spanish (intermediate), Korean (baby lol beginner), bits and bobs of other languages (namely French and French Patois)

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / SCIENCE FICTION / HORROR / WESTERN / ROMANCE / THRILLER / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / EROTIC / CRIME / MYTHOLOGY / CLASSIC / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / ANCIENT / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / SPORT / MUSIC / SCIENCE / FIGHTS / ANGST / SMUT / DRAMA / ETC. (I started this and realised I’d be bolding almost everything, so: EVERYTHING)

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: ONE-LINER / 1 PARA / 2 PARA / 3+ PARA / NOVELLA. / ALL

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES / NO / OCCASIONALLY - only by Mutuals?: YES / NO

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / CASUAL / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK. / ALL

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?: YES / NO.

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. (after my paper is submitted, yeah sure)

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. (irl makes coping difficult sometimes)

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ WEEKS / MONTHS / YEARS. / DEPENDS ON MOOD AND INSPIRATION, AND IF I’M BUSY

I’M OKAY INTERACTING WITH: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / A RELATIVE OF MY CHARACTER (AN OC) / DUPLICATES / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / SELF-INSERTS / PEOPLE WITH NO AU VERSE FOR MY FANDOM / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC. (I strive for more IC over OOC, but my queue does a lot of work too)

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING: Talk with me over IM, asks, or Disco. I’m down for almost anything as long as I see it’s feasible.

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: Transparency. If you have an idea, let me know! If you’re stuck, let me know! If you want to start something new or scrap something or whatever...LET ME KNOW! I promise I don’t bite and I understand.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: I’m not very good with coming up with plots myself, so I’m typically the weak link when it comes to that. Sorry! But you bet I’ll pull up a plot generator and start throwing things down to see what sticks haha.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?: I’m all about equal opportunity, so I try not to leave the plotting work to my partner. Let’s negotiate and find something that makes both of us happy. That’s the point after all.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - AND WHY?: If you want to drop a thread, I’m completely fine with it. I want to know so that I don’t end up replying to something you have no interest in anymore. Saves both of us the time.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: If drafts eat it (as they are wont to do these days) or if I feel it has reached a natural conclusion. I rarely, if ever, drop a thread in the middle. I’ll just let you know I’m going to finish it on my side and allow you a chance to finish on yours if you’d like.

WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO. - AND WHY?: You don’t need to chat with me every minute of every day, but I like knowing the people I’m writing with. Discerning your personality and your approach to your muse gives me a much stronger understanding of how to write with you, and what vibes between us. Plus, it’s easier to remember different people’s boundaries if I talk with them a lot, too.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: I am all for constructive criticism. Even if you think it’s nitpicky, it’s going to be a great help. Good crit allows us grow as writers and as people in general. However, I am not for baseless accusations, childish name-calling, or outright insults under the name of “constructive crit”. Remember the “constructive” part: we need to build each other up.

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: I love a good story. While I don’t agree with everything Cullen does (and no one should, for anyone real or imagined), his story is intriguing. He’s a deeply flawed, deeply broken man. I love to take on a character, toss them in every situation I can think of, and watch them evolve and grow.

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS: A real redemption arc, for one. A realistic struggle with substance abuse and recovery. A future of happiness.

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: Rape or sexual assault, unless being spoken about as a past event (as I truly believe that Cullen was sexually assaulted at Kinloch along with the other psychological and physical torture he endured). In-game racism is baked in, unfortunately, but it’s not something I seek out to roleplay as a PoC myself. Finally, while I play Cullen as canon-straight, I will not play out homophobia and most definitely not transphobia. If he rejects your muse for hitting on him, it’s not because he’s being homophobic: he’s just not interested. That also doesn’t mean he’ll never be interested; people can and do change, and I ship chemistry overall. He doesn’t hate your muse for their gender, orientation, or sexual preferences. I feel like I really have to spell this out for people who don’t understand. If you feel personally insulted by this somehow, feel free to address me directly, off anon. It’s probably an issue of fuzzy wording that I’m 500% willing to fix and talk about.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: I love starters that set the scene and provide plenty to work with, be it in terms of interacting with the environment or with the other person. If your muse shows immediate disinterest in communicating (and I don’t mean argumentative, which is perfectly fine), I am not going to respond. I might politely ask for more if I feel like it’s a salvageable interaction.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?: Stoic soldier types, bubbly short girls, and semi-mad scientists.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: Characters that come across as Mary-Sue / Gary-Stu types. No flaws and barely any room to grow.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I'm very easy-going and I have an unearthly level of tolerance for almost everything. I try to provide partners with as much to work with as possible IC, and will pretty much support your very existence OOC. I believe in open communication so you’ll know what’s going on with me and/or our threads. Also, I typically reply within a week or two. Currently I’m tethered to finishing a big paper so I’m not a good example of that right now.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I can get overwhelmed by too much which slows my pace down considerably. I’m also a bit distant and do shut down on occasion; that’s usually no fault of my partners, though. Just my brain being a dick.

DO YOU RP SMUT?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. (the closer we are OOC, the easier getting here will be)

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. (it’s not going to be XXX but it will be descriptive)

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN, FADE TO BLACK?: YES / NO.

WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: I prefer to write smut for character development and to mark a progression in a relationship. Plus Cullen is not a “one and done” guy so getting to the smut stage will take a bit of build-up.

ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?: Hmmm things that he personally wouldn’t go for I guess? Honestly I don’t know. And obviously, no rape/animal abuse/predator nonsense.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO Ships are a great way to further explore a character and their motivations. People do not exist in pure isolation, so I don’t believe characters should, either.

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. I bolded both because the focus of the blog isn’t ships, but this thirst trap guy is really easy to ship with other people I tell ya hwat. I am severely picky with romantic ships for Reasons, but I don’t eschew any other types of ships. I encourage them!

DO YOU USE READ MORE?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU: MULTI-SHIP / SINGLE-SHIP / DUAL-SHIP — MULTIVERSE / SINGLEVERSE.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: Characters who challenge Cullen into revising his point of view and force him to be a better person. Also, characters who understand his past and they are in no ways obligated to forgive it, but do recognise that he’s struggling very hard to mend whatever mistakes he can and is willing to pay the price for his decisions.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - Be a good salesperson and I might buy it.

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: Cullen is a massive stick in the mud, which means it’s incredibly easy to taunt him and get him flustered all at the same time. He’s loyal, he’s intelligent, and he’s largely self-aware. He likes swords and using them. Anything your character hates about him, he most likely hates about himself 100 times more.

WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?: Those from the start that show absolutely no interest in speaking with/interacting with him. Mun and muse are going to struggle to stick around. I’m not going to fight for attention and neither is he.

WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, WHAT IS THEIR GOAL?: Redemption. He wants to be a better person and make up for the past as much as he can.

WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?: He can sniff out a fellow Templar a mile away (or several miles, in the case of Samson).

WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?: Honesty, a strong will, devotion (not necessarily to the Maker or the Chantry, but to a just cause that focuses on protecting others).

WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?: War stuff, chess, books, trebuchets, dogs.

WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: Lectures about anything. He did his time in Azkaban in the Circles. No more. Please no more.

DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?: His parents died trying to escape the Blight, he was tortured for weeks/months on end by blood mages, almost all of his friends died because of it, he was manipulated and brainwashed by his superior, he was forced into a near-debilitating substance addiction by his workplace... yeah just a few things.

WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?: Darkspawn and abominations.

IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?: Darkspawn and abominations. Blood mages on principle. Regular mages (but he’s working hard to remedy this extremely bad and prejudiced thinking). Himself.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - BEST WAY TO APPROACH THEM?: Just be polite and he won’t turn you away. He’s guarded, yes, but not impossible to talk to.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: You’ll find out by writing together! ;D

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ��

tagged by: pirated tagging: anyone who actually read this

#a quiet inquiry (memes)#// long post #// very long post

6 notes · View notes

khalilhumam · 3 years

Text

Can secularism be compatible with Islam?

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/can-secularism-be-compatible-with-islam/

Can secularism be compatible with Islam?

World of confusion between secularism, free speech, and civil liberties

Anti-terror demonstration in Vienna, Austria, on November 6, 2020. Photo by Michael Gubi/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

< p class="p1">This article by Samee Alhwash was originally published on The Battleground and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Whether in the boycott-French-products campaign on social media or through conversations with friends, Muslims I know feel conflicted about the recent terrorist attacks in Vienna and Nice.

While they condemn violence, there is also a sense that it is to be expected. Their conflict gets expressed like this:

“We don't condone killing, and those who kill have nothing to do with Islam. But when provocation is disguised as free speech, (for example, Charlie Hebdo), a reaction should be expected.”

Or this:

“Why is it that it's only attacks by Muslims which are branded “terrorist?” Why is French secularism, ‘Laïcité’, applied only to Muslims? Why is it illegal to question the Holocaust but okay to criticize the most sacred elements in Islam?”

Of course, some clear Muslim voices do denounce this confusion between secularism, free speech, and civil liberties. But this conflict is widespread. It seems to come from feelings of disenfranchisement framed in the language of contemporary political Islam.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY6Mux1NKvc?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

Where does this rationalization of violence come from? Is it really something innate to Islam, dooming the religion to be incompatible with key components of democracy, particularly freedom of speech and secularism?

These are important questions as terrorist attacks produce trauma that brings out equally reactionary arguments within European societies, raising questions about cultural diversity, integration, and assimilation.

Anything sounding like an apology for terrorism risks handing political victories to far-right groups, wrongly stereotyping Islam as backward and violent.

We have been here before. In 2005 I watched something that seemed beyond imagination on TV in my small living room in Syria: mass protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) against offensive depictions of Prophet Muhammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The protests were tolerated by oppressive regimes that would otherwise crack down on any form of protest. The demonstrations were the only ones of their kind until the Arab Spring in 2010.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOiKQ7rnHSU?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

Thinking about them now, I cannot help but question why other incidents didn’t spark the same outcry from Muslims.

The killing of Rohingya Muslims was condemned but it didn't produce the same public outrage. Nor have the Uyghur camps in China.

There was even a widely circulated YouTube video in 2012, one of many to come, of Syrian government thugs forcing an anti-government demonstrator at gunpoint to kneel on a portrait of Bashar Al Assad, in the place of a sajjāda (Muslim prayer rug).

One thug shouted at him, “Pray to your god, Bashar!” True, the actions of the Syrian regime attracted jihadists from all over the world. But this didn’t spark public protests at Syrian embassies like the Danish cartoons did.

This duplicity was intriguing. It tells us something about the nationalistic nature of political Islam today.

It's not a matter of incompatibility between Islam and free speech. Rather, Islam has become an insecure identity that is always undermined by criticism from the Christian or godless, but always colonial, West.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL5P_sB_6Ug?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

Muslims adhering to moderate schools of thought, and non-practising Muslims, share this sentiment with conservative elements within Islam. Even secular nationalists view Western criticisms of Islam as an attack on their own culture.

Whether they are Muslim or nationalist, most people in MENA countries are poor, uneducated, and have no political representation. Prolonged stagnation makes them more susceptible to destructive narratives that fuel identity politics and exacerbate social issues. The success of Europe is not viewed as a result of humanist philosophy and a bloody fight against nationalism, such as WWII. To many Muslims, secularism is just a Western colonial scheme to strip away Islamic identity and culture.

Many people in the Middle East and North Africa only see Christian imperial Europe and become slaves to their own inherited colonial traumas. Demagogues, kings, and dictators across the Islamic world reinforce this narrative to legitimize their existence. This feeds into a divisive, nationalistic identity politics that negates any positive intercultural relations with Europe.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkn6R4tUzl0?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

The problem gets even more complex inside Europe, as immigrant communities find themselves in an alien and often racist environment. They cope by embracing shallow and dogmatic versions of political Islam.

Colonialism exacerbated social problems that Muslim societies already had. It didn't create them. We were unequal, hierarchical, and sectarian even before European colonisation and the Ottoman Empire. European colonialism simply reinforced existing hierarchical political structures and used sectarianism to divide and rule. The dictatorships we suffer under today are a continuation of those structures. That means it’s up to us to lead an intellectual revolution that blocks demagogues from using our worst instincts against ourselves. That involves being self-critical about everything, including fundamental reform of our identity and religion.

I’m not saying communities who suffered under colonialism should just forget about the past and move on. On the contrary, we need to see the legacy of colonialism as a big part of the problem, but not the only one. Colonialism inflicted profound scars on the psychology and politics of MENA cultures, which were not healed The racism that immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa experience only reinforces that.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnkqCyyy72g?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

This is why the legitimate sense of being victimised by colonialism must not be applied to every social ailment.

On the other hand, because of the history of colonialism, Europe has the responsibility to create a politically correct public discourse, respectful of Muslims, aimed at facilitating their integration, as equals. This must coincide with supportive initiatives abroad, in international development and security policy. And in turn, it’s the responsibility of Muslim communities to understand that there is no alternative to reform in today's political Islamic discourse.

Moderate voices within Islam have to make it clear that nothing is sacred in a democracy, and that we must reject political violence without fail.

To initiate this reform, Muslim communities need to look nowhere else but their own history for messages of tolerance, reason, and most importantly shared values with Europe.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWFrQx29NB0?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

There have been many scholars, philosophers, and even military leaders in our history who testify to the rich potential of Islamic culture, and its tolerance of free speech.

One example is the medieval Arab philosopher and poet Al-Ma'arri. In one of his roughly translated poems, he writes “There's a commotion in Latakia between Ahmed and Issa. One rings the bell and the other shouts from a minaret. Each glorifies their religion. Oh my poetry, who is right?”

In Risalat al-Gufran, Al-Ma’arri adds, “There is but one Imam, the mind,” and “Two inhabit the earth: one with brains but no religion and another with religion but no brains.”

This is a philosopher who lived during the Abbasid Caliphate over 1,000 years ago. He was neither beheaded nor prosecuted. On the contrary, he was praised as one of the great Arabic philosophers and poets.

A statue commemorating Al-Ma'arri stood in his hometown in Syria till 2013, only to be destroyed by Al Nusra Front, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.

On the issue of incompatibility with secularism, the development of the Muʿtazila school of thought brings out similarities with renaissance humanism from which secular humanism emerged.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3qA6hJYZGI?feature=oembed&w=650&h=366]

The Muʿtazila movement came into being following the translation and interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics and neo-Platonism. It rejected the idea that the Quran is “uncreated,” which dominated mainstream Sunni and Shia doctrines, arguing that the world can be explained through rational thought alongside scripture. It’s not quite secularism as we understand it today, as it doesn’t separate state and religion. But it opens the door for critical and scientific thought, potentially paving the way for secularism.

Secularism is compatible with Islam. It is just incompatible with the current version of political Islam.

Secularism needs reform as well, as it was often used to discriminate against minorities, whose religiosity is far different from the faith it was supposed to restrain.

Written by The Battleground

1 note · View note

qqueenofhades · 5 years

Note

Do you think society as a whole understands and values history? I don’t think they do. And I don’t understand why.

HoooooWEEEEEE, anon. What follows is a good old Hilary History Rant ™, but let me hasten to assure you that none of it is directed at you. It just means that this is a topic on which I have many feelings, and a lot of frustration, and it gets at the heart of many things which are wrong with our society, and the way in which I try to deal with this as an academic and a teacher. So…. yeah.

In short: you’re absolutely right. Society as a whole could give exactly dick about understanding and valuing history, especially right now. Though let me rephrase that: they could give exactly dick about understanding and valuing any history that does not reinforce and pander to their preferred worldview, belief system, or conception of reality. The human race has always had an amazing ability to not give a shit about huge problems as long as they won’t kill us right now (see: climate change) and in one sense, that has allowed us to survive and evolve and become an advanced species. You have to compartmentalize and solve one problem at a time rather than get stuck in abstracts, so in that way, it is a positive trait. However, we are faced with a 21st century where the planet is actively burning alive, late-stage capitalism has become so functionally embedded in every facet of our society that our public values, civic religion, and moral compass (or lack thereof) is structured around consumerism and who it benefits (the 1% of billionaire CEOs), and any comfortable myths of historical progress have been blown apart by the worldwide backslide into right-wing authoritarianism, xenophobia, nationalism, racism, and other such things. In a way, this was a reaction to 9/11, which changed the complacent late-20th century mindset of the West in ways that we really cannot fathom or overstate. But it’s also a clarion call that something is very, very wrong here, and the structural and systemic explanations that historians provide for these kinds of events are never what anyone wants to hear.

Think about it this way. The world is currently, objectively speaking, producing more material resources, wealth, food, etc than at any point before, thanks to the effects of globalism, the industrial and information revolutions, mass mechanizing, and so on. There really isn’t a “shortage” of things. Except for the fact that the distribution of these resources is so insanely unequal, and wildly disproportionate amounts of wealth have been concentrated in a few private hands, which then use the law (and the law is a tool of the powerful to protect power) to make sure that it’s never redistributed. This is why Reaganism and “supply-side”, aka “trickle-down” economics, is such bullshit: it presupposes that billionaires will, if you enable them to make as many billions as possible without regulation, altruistically sow that largess among the working class. This never happens, because obviously. (Sidenote: remember those extravagant pledges of billions of euros to repair Notre Dame from like 3 or 4 French billionaires? Apparently they have paid… exactly not one cent toward renovations, and the money has come instead from the Friends of Notre Dame funded by private individuals. Yep, not even for the goddamn cause célèbre of the “we don’t give a shit about history” architectural casualties could they actually pay up. Eat! The! Rich!…. anyway.)

However, the fact is that you need to produce narratives to justify this kind of exploitation and inequality, and make them convincing enough that the people who are being fucked over will actively repeat and promote these narratives and be fiercely vested in their protection. Think of the way white American working-class voters will happily blame minorities, immigrants, Non-Murkan People, etc for their struggles, rather than the fact of said rampant economic cronyism and oligarchy. These working-class voters will love the politicians who give them someone to blame (see: Trump), especially when that someone is an Other around whom collective systems of discrimination and oppression have historically operated. Women, people of color, religious minorities/non-Western religions, LGBT people, immigrants, etc, etc…. all these have historically not had such a great time in the capitalist Christian West, which is the predominant paradigm organizing society today. You can’t understand why society doesn’t value history until you realize that the people who benefit from this system aren’t keen on having its flaws pointed out. They don’t want the masses to have a historical education if that historical education is going to actually be used. They would rather teach them the simplistic rah-rah quasi-fictional narrative of the past that makes everyone feel good, and call it a day.

The classic liberal belief has always been that if you can just teach someone that their facts are wrong, or supply them with better facts, they’ll change their mind. This is not how it works and never has, and that is why in an age with, again, more knowledge of science than ever before and the collected wisdom of humanity available via your smartphone, we have substantial portions of people who believe that vaccines are evil, the Earth is flat, and climate change (and 87 million other things) are fake and/or government conspiracies. As a medievalist, I get really tetchy when the idiocy of modern people is blamed on the stereotypical “Dark Ages!” medieval era (I have written many posts ranting about that, so we’ll keep it to a minimum here), or when everything bad, backward, or wrong is considered to be “medieval” in nature. Trust me, on several things, they were doing a lot better than we are. Other things are not nearly as wildly caricatured as they have been made out to be. Because once again, history is complicated and people are flawed in any era, do good and bad things, but that isn’t as useful as a narrative that flattens out into simplistic black and white.

Basically, people don’t want their identities, comfortable notions, and other ideas about the past challenged, especially since that is directly relevant to how they perceive themselves (and everyone else) in the present. The thing about history, obviously, is that it’s past, it’s done, and until we invent a time machine, which pray God we never fucking do, within a few generations, the entire population of the earth has been replaced. That means it’s awfully fragile as a concept. Before the modern era and the invention of technology and the countless mediums (book, TV, radio, newspaper, internet, etc etc) that serve as sources, it’s only available in a relatively limited corpus of documents. History does not speak for itself. That’s where you get into historiography, or writing history. Even if you have a book or document that serves as a primary source material, you have to do a shit-ton of things with it to turn it into recognizable scholarship. You have to learn the language it’s in. You have to understand the context in which it was produced. You have to figure out what it ignores, forgets, omits, or simply does not know as well as what it does, and recognize it as a limited text produced from a certain perspective or for a social reason that may or may not be explicitly articulated. The training of a historian is to teach you how to do this accurately and more or less fairly, but that is up to the personal ethic of the historian to ensure. When you’re reading a history book, you’re not reading an unmediated, Pure, This Was Definitely How Things Happened The End information download. You are reading something by someone who has made their best guess and has been equipped with the interpretive tools to be reasonably confident in their analysis, but sometimes just doesn’t know, sometimes has an agenda in pushing one opinion over another, or anything else.

History, in other words, is a system of flawed and self-serving collective memory, and power wants only the memory that ensures its survival and replication. You’ve heard of the “history is written by the winners” quote, which basically encapsulates the fact that what we learn and what we take as fact is largely or entirely structured by the narrative of those who can control it. If you’ve heard of the 1970s French philosopher Michel Foucault, his work is basically foundational in understanding how power produces knowledge in each era (what he calls epistemes) and the way in which historical “fact” is subject to the needs of these eras. Foucault has a lot of critics and his work particularly in the history of sexuality has now become dated (plus he can be a slog to read), but I do suggest familiarizing yourself with some of his ideas.

This is also present in the constant refrain heard by anybody who has ever studied the arts and humanities: “oh, don’t do liberal arts, you’ll never get a job, study something worthwhile,” etc. It’s funny how the “worthwhile” subjects always seem to be science and engineering/software/anything that can support the capitalist military industrial complex, while science is otherwise completely useless to them. It’s also always funny how the humanities are relentlessly de- or under- funded. By labeling these subjects as “worthless,” when they often focus on deep investigation of varied topics, independent critical thought, complex analysis, and otherwise teaching you to think for yourself, we therefore decrease the amount of people who feel compelled to go into them. Since (see again, late-stage capitalism is a nightmare) most people are going to prefer some kind of paycheck to stringing it along on a miniscule arts budget, they will leave those fields and their inherent social criticism behind. Of course, we do have some people – academics, social scientists, artists, creatives, activists, etc – who do this kind of work and dedicate themselves to it, but we (and I include myself in this group) have not reached critical mass and do not have the power to effect actual drastic change on this unfair system. I can guarantee that they will ensure we never will, and the deliberate and chronic underfunding of the humanities is just one of the mechanisms by which late-stage capitalism replicates and protects itself.

I realize that I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud/going off on my paranoid rant, but…. this is just the way we’ve all gotten used to living, and it’s both amazing and horrifying. As long as the underclasses are all beholden to their own Ideas of History, and as long as most people are content to exist within the current ludicrous ideas that we have received down the ages as inherited wisdom and enforced on ourselves and others, there’s not much we can do about it. You are never going to reach agreement on some sweeping Platonic ideal of universal history, since my point throughout this whole screed has always been that history is particular, localized, conditioned by specific factors, and produced to suit the purposes of a very particular set of goals. History doesn’t repeat itself, per se (though it can be Very Fucking Close), but as long as access to a specific set of resources, i.e. power, money, sex, food, land, technology, jobs, etc are at stake, the inherent nature of human beings means that they will always be choosing from within a similar matrix of actions, producing the same kind of justifications for those actions, and transmitting it to the next generation in a way that relatively few people learn how to challenge. We have not figured out how to break that cycle yet. We are an advanced species beyond any doubt, but we’re also still hairless apes on a spinning blue ball on the outer arm of a rural galaxy, and oftentimes we act like it.

I don’t know. I think it’s obvious why society doesn’t understand and value history, because historians are so often the ones pointing out the previous pattern of mistakes and how well that went last time. Power does not want to be dismantled or criticized, and has no interest in empowering the citizens to consider the mechanisms by which they collaborate in its perpetuation. White supremacists don’t want to be educated into an “actual” version of history, even if their view of things is, objectively speaking, wildly inaccurate. They want the version of history which upholds their beliefs and their way of life. Even non-insane people tend to prefer history that validates what they think they already know, and especially in the West, a certain mindset and system of belief is already so well ingrained that it has become almost omniscient. Acquiring the tools to work with this is, as noted, blocked by social disapproval and financial shortfall. Plus it’s a lot of goddamn work. I’m 30 years old and just finished my PhD, representing 12 years of higher education, thousands of dollars, countless hours of work, and so on. This is also why they’ve jacked the price of college through the roof and made it so inaccessible for people who just cannot make that kind of commitment. I’ve worked my ass off, for sure, but I also had support systems that not everyone does. I can’t say I got here All On My Own ™, that enduring myth of pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps. I know I didn’t. I had a lot of help, and again, a lot of people don’t. The academy is weird and cliquish and underpaid as a career. Why would you do that?

I wish I had more overall answers for you about how to fix this. I think about this a lot. I’ll just have to go back to doing what I can, as should we all, since that is really all that is ultimately in our control.

#history #rant #long post #i'm sure i have more to say #but that's enough for now #anonymous #ask

52 notes · View notes

yuwhala · 5 years

Text

Trying to read a lot of post right now and trying to be open minded (which is, I'm ashamed of it, not my forte) because I'm confused about a lot of things and why we (Tumblr) didn't like this season. Just a heads-up before you read the rest : this is not sarcasm, my writing is not the best and I'm sorry about it, I'm not trying to say that you should love this season or feel comfortable with it, I just wish to share how I feel about it all and wish to know why we do not agree on others things. I also mostly write because it helps me sort out my thoughts and see things more clearly. I wish not to offend anyone and please let me know if I did.

There are some things I really didn't like :

- The thing I wish happened (like apparently everyone else) was the girls apologising. Because right now it feels like they never did any wrong when ......they did. And that's bad, because the only one that is pointed out as the bad person by the show is Ingrid. When she's not the only one who behaved badly. But that's what the problem is. The show doesn't even show us that the girls not supporting Imane is a Bad thing. None of them said anything when Ingrid was saying obvious bullshit or when Daphné is saying her usual shit. It's always Imane doing it. And no one going her way either. The only time someone other than Imane was being angry at a racist comment was Manon back in season 1 when she stormed out of the room after Daphné was being (once again) racist af and she told her that she didn't understood how she could say so much bullshit. But that's all. So yeah I wish they would have made the white girls apologize for not being here for Imane. Ever. The fact that we got that amazing clip of Manon and Imane talking about how Imane never feels like she belongs and that we never ever got a following consequence of that discussion is ridiculous.

- Manon and Charles going back together. For obvious reasons. Like ? Urgh. No.

- Jamila talking back to Imane on pure coïncidence like she never abandoned her when Imane entered highschool with no explanation other than "sorry I don't think that we should talk anymore" ????? What ??????? And now they're BFF ????? When Jamila never apologized either ????

- That's a really small complaint that is nothing near as terrible as the other things I pointed out but there is a lot of small time mistakes. Some clips were clearly supposed to be aired on other days than the days we got them.

- Another small complaint but one of the things I liked the most about Sana's season was seeing her praying and the whole process that went with it. I feel a little robbed here. Those were moments that felt utterly beautiful and mesmerising to me when I first watched Sana's season.

But there is a lot of things I liked and I think are important to show on a french TV show mainly directed for a young audience :

- They adresses a LOT the day to day racism a black Muslim woman can get, they voiced the fact that it was racism a lot too and that Imane had all the rights to be angry at that kind of comments. They made it real too : Imane had to stop dancing because the teacher didn't want her to wear her hijab in the lesson. That's an actual debate in everyday life in france : we're living in an "secular country" (lol not really but that's what politicians like to say whenever they want to be islamophobic. Funny how our joke of a president actually said we had to reconnect with our catholic roots. Lol. Secular country indeed. ANYWAY) and that's why Imane doesn't wear hijab at school, because “no one” should wear signs of religion in public school (but hey guess little crosses or Mary’s face for catholic folks around their necks or David’s star for jewish kids around their neck is not a sign of religion right ? Because I’ve seen them more than once in school) . Perhaps you know that not too long ago there was a polemic about a french store for sports equipment announced that they wanted to start selling sports hijab for hijabi women and well our country went NUTS and the company had to abandon that project because they were sent death threats and whatnot by racist people. And the show addressing that issue (that is french people being racist) is important. The show showing us that wearing the hijab is Imane's choice is important. Imane voicing that being a black women who is muslim in France is making her life difficult is important. And they showed us that many time. With ordinary racism. With Ingrid being afraid of black girls for no reason other that they're black. They've showed us a lot of hardship that comes with it : people being ignorant and racist, people being racist because they're racist, people judging and assuming things because they heard that thing somewhere but never checked the facts. And the fact that Imane said on many occasion 'this is racism' was important. They give us an explanation on why in the first seasons Imane seemed harsh and that being linked with the racism she has to face everyday was really nice. They made Imane tell that she was not feeling like she belonged anywhere.

- I know a lot of people hated this but I'm glad she apologized whenever she did a bad thing. This is showing her growing up and be a mature teenager. This is showing up that she knows when to apologize but she also knows when she doesn't have to. I'm glad that Imane messed up. I'm glad she had a lot of communication issue. I was sad with her, I was ashamed with her but in the end I think we could all understand why she was acting the way she did. You can make mistake, you can realise that you made a mistake and still apologize.For me the drama was necessary. There was drama in every season of Skam and that’s kind of the goal of the show, to show that you’re allowed to make mistakes. The thing that was not handled well was the outcome of the drama.

- The family interactions and clips were incredible. Her mom being the 'bad cop' and her dad being more of the laid down dad type was perfect. Put Idriss on this and have them talk about why they think they're making their parents disappointed in themselves, why it's difficult to live as a Muslim in France, how they can talk to each other and understand multiple points of view too. How it's ok to be angry to feel emotions but to take them out on people who just wish for you to be happy is not the way to do it.

-The Lucas's talk. Again this is going with my first point but the fact that they added Imane saying that she's not the one who should have to be patient with racist people because they're ignorant was nice.

- The first four episodes were incredible and I think we all agreed on that. It was just Imane day to day life + her falling in love and enjoying life.

- Three of my favourite clips of the show : The bus clip, the chair clip and the mom clip. The bus was such an important scene where Imane was also asking questions to herself + all the cinematography that went into a simple bus ride was so great. The chair clip showing four very different Muslim girls talking about Ramadan and rules and how they're hungry, and love and sex and random things was so nice. They all had they're own way of talking, one reminded me of Emma because she had the same kind of vocabulary and way of saying things, one was more uptight etc. They all wear their hijab in different way they all say on different chair it was so nice. The mom clip, well, seeing a parent apologizing is not something I'm used to on TV show. Well they do apologize when they did extreme horrible things like killing someone but they never apologize for simple things like Imane mom did. The music in general used in the show is really nice and since season 3 Skam France outdid themselves on the cinematography part of the show.

That's all the things I can think about for now so what's the conclusion of all that ? I don't really know. As you may have understood I'm a white girl, I'm a part of some 'minority' groups (what's the word when it's not really a minority but still a group that is being pointed out as 'bad' by media and a large group of people ? The more I write the more I'm losing my English) like I'm a Bi girl, I have depression and I'm fat but I'm aware that's nothing to compare with being a woman of color and being a muslim woman. So yes, I think there is a lot of things that I did not understandd in why people hated this season and I should just accept WoC European Muslim critics and not try to say 'you're wrong' so I hope I'm not doing that here. I just wish to share my likes and dislikes of the season. Sometimes I have to think about an issue for a whole week to just kind of understand something I didn't agreed on before, so I'll be patient . Perhaps in two weeks I will just see the whole season on a different way. Perhaps I'm being too kind on the compliments (The other day I read that you shouldn't praise someone because they're being against racism because racism shouldn't exist in the first place. I'm still debating on that subject but I'm wondering if that applies here).

The thing is I'm still glad that this season exist. Yes it's really not perfect and yes the whole 'the girls never apologized or stand by Imane' is awful. I'm glad in the sense that I wished I could have seen this on TV when I was myself in highschool. When I was as ignorant as Daphné (...yeah... That sucks....I don't really understand how I managed to have friends). Because seeing that show, seeing all of what Imane had to go through would really made me oppened my eyes. It would have been a slap to the face and a needed wake up call. But yes, I agree, it was far from enough. So I'm a little on both sides. But as the same time I’m saying that this is an important season to see as a white ignorant woman, but perhaps that’s the whole issue ? That Imane’s season shouldn’t be made for white woman like a POV on a WOC every day life but just a story for Imane to live herself ?

#skam france #some thoughts

45 notes · View notes

famous-aces · 5 years

Text

Simone Weil

Who: Simone Adolphine Weil

What: Philosopher, Mystic, and Political Activist

Where: French-Jewish (active largely in France, Spain, and UK)

When: February 3, 1909 - August 24, 1943

(Image Description: a black and white photo of Weil in the 1940s on the street in Marseilles. She is a pale woman with an oval face and big round glasses. Her hair is short and dark and fluffy. She is wearing a beret and a cap. She is in her early thirties but I would have thought she was older. Behind her are buses, sidewalk [with trees] and curb. There are some other people on the street behind her. End ID)

There isn't much about Simone Weil that isn't odd and often contradictory. A pacifist who went to war, a Christian mystic who refused baptism, a writer whose most important works were not published until after her death, a religious humanist, intelligent but perpetually naïve, an ethnically Jewish woman utterly disconnected from her heritage, despite embracing the questioning and intellectualism that characterize much of the Jewish faith.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls her "a philosopher of margins and paradoxes" and André Gide called her “the patron saint of all outsiders.". Today she an important left-leaning philosopher, but her real influence did not come until after her death. But between 1995 and 2012, more than half a century after her death, over 2,500 newly scholarly articles about her were published. She inspired the likes of Albert Camus, Jean-Luc Godard, Pankaj Mishra, Flannery O'Connor, and Pope Paul VI. Camus said she was "the only great spirit of our times." But her legacy is extremely mixed (with good reason) and some claim she was insane or unbalanced. Even people who greatly admired her say she was a bit odd. Susan Sontag calls her "one of the most uncompromising and troubling witnesses to the modern travail of the spirit." Which may be an accurate description. She was strange, often contrary, sadly comedic, and, indeed, sometimes deeply troubling. Which is odd, considering that her heart was almost certainly in the right place; regardless of her naïveté and occasional hypocrisy her goal was truth and justice. And as mixed as her legacy was there is a lot to admire in Weil's steadfastness and dedication to others. Indeed her uniqueness of character almost makes her worthy of study even without her influence.

Weil's heart was in the right place (she had a darker side that I will get to). She was extremely dedicated to the workers, the poor, and the otherwise less fortunate, and was critical of both capitalism and communism. Eventually this dedication extended to God, not necessarily religion, but an Abrahamic God.

She wrote extensively on a number of subjects including labor, management, politics, war, peace, religion and spirituality, among other subjects throughout her life. She was an activist who threw herself into the fray, mind, soul, and body. This last despite being in quite poor physical health for all her life, including suffering from tuberculosis. Her intellectualism and dedication to others began in early childhood. She was always reading and forming opinions. At age five Weil refused to eat sugar to be in solidarity with French soldiers in World War I (then raging). Her activism often got her in trouble at school, something that didn't change when she went from student to teacher. She was always something of an outsider among her peers.

She was extremely political, altruistic, self-sacrificing, and warm hearted throughout her life. As an adult she worked largely as a writer and teacher, inturupted to spend time incognito working in an automobile factory to get first hand experience/accounts of the plight of workers and the psychological damages caused by industrialization. She was involved in the 1933 general strike in France. Ultimately she was booted from several teaching gigs because of her politics, activism, and contributions to leftist journals.

She briefly fought against the Fascists in Spain (1936) but was very clumsy and a poor shot due to her terrible eyesight. No one really knew what to do with her, but she was dedicated. Weil ultimately ended up injuring herself with hot oil and her parents came and took her away.

Around this time she became very interested in Catholicism. She was never baptized, however, because her religious interests were far broader than one faith, extending to numerous religious traditions of the East and West, and she disagreed with some of the more brutal moments in the Bible. She had sort of her own conception of God and faith, she called it fundamentally Christian, but it was really her own philosophy with a grounding in the Abrahamic concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and above all omnibenevolent God.

It is important to note that despite being ethnically Jewish Weil was in no way religiously Jewish and has been criticized as downright antisemetic. Having barely read anything of hers beyond a little for this project I cannot say without a doubt if she was, but what I have heard described certainly worrisome. This is obviously not exhaustive and she may have said far worse but she was critical of the Torah (without realizing a lot of the things she loved about Christianity actually came from it), critical of the cruelty of the "Old Testament"/Talmudic God (as if Christianity didn't embrace those actions perhaps more than the Jewish faith), claimed that Hitler was no worse than any other colonizer, while comparing Judaism/Jewish people to the Roman Empire/Romans (she hated the Roman Empire). So be aware of that, especially given the era -- both the one Weil was writing in and our own. Her family was secular, she never interacted with Judaism on any real level, so it is possible -- given the political climate at the time and France's history of antisemitism -- Weil was misled, but given the fact that her political views changed throughout her life (starting as a communist and ultimately abandoning it) and the fact that she was so open hearted elsewhere is saddening and negates the ignorance argument. It does seem she failed to understand the weight and reality of what she was saying/critiquing. She was vehemently against racism in other forms, but never seemed to make the connection. According to some sources she was always shocked to be called out on hypocrisy (which she was, more than once). So maybe there is something to be said for her just not getting it. This is not an excuse for hatred, but ignorance might be a huge part of the problem.

After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Weil and her parents fled and began a life in exile, first in the US, then in England. In England Weil wrote her best known work, L'Enracinement, prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l'être humain (The Need for Roots: Prelude Towards a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind) (written 1943, but it wasn't published until 1949). During this time she worked for the French Resistance, although exactly in what capacity seems to be unknown. But her punishing work against the Nazis and penchant for self-denial ultimately ended up costing her her life at age 34 of either heart failure from malnutrition or tuberculosis.

(Image Description: the cover of one of Weil's many notebooks. On it she has written "3 (1941)" in the top left corner. She has covered the rest of it in writing in a bunch of different languages including Greek and Sanskrit [maybe?]. All of it is written in squares/rectangles with one rectangle in the middle with shapes/writing in it. End ID)

Like The Need for Roots most of her work was printed posthumously. Her ouevre has been translated into other languages, including English, Arabic, and German as she reached international acclaim. During her life only a few of her works were published of the 20-some volumes that survive today. Her most important works include (French / English) L'Iliade ou le poème de la force / The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (1940), La Pesanteur et la grâce / Gravity and Grace (1947), Attente de Dieu / Waiting for God (1950), Lettre à un religieux / Letter to a Priest (1951), Oppression et Liberté / Oppression and Liberty (1955) among others, including a lot of eccentric, esoteric, and diverse notebooks kept throughout her life, like the one above.

Probable Orientation: Aroace

As is probably obvious I do not quite know what to make of Weil, but one thing I can tell you is she was definitely asexual.

Weil's sexlessness (and by extension asexuality) has long been part of the narrative oddness of her life. The fact that she shunned physical and romantic relationships is often thought of as part of the pathetic humor as her personality. Clumsy, naïve, downright weird, sexless has become part of that persona, that cloak of oddity.

People love to claim political reasons for others chastity and Weil is no exception. There has to be some reason beyond natural disinterest. The alternative is too foreign or strange for allos to fathom. All of these suppositions are equally aphobic. The idea that asexuality must be a conscious choice rather than a natural part of a person is extremely damaging as is the idea that not feeling sexual/romantic attraction/desiring sex/romance is unnatural. There have been people who try to explain away Weil's lack of sexual desire as well: some Christian writers say she was devoting herself to God years before she found the church (Weil herself says the idea of pursuing what she calls "purity" struck her at 16, she would not find Catholicism for more than a decade), to certain subgroups of feminists her sexlessness a conscious choice to escape the patriarchy. But really it seems much more to be her sexual orientation than a political statement. Weil was a woman who made a lot of political statements, constantly, but the avoidance of sexual contact seemed natural rather than put on.

For one thing she spurned physical contact, but only that with sexual intent. She didn't spurn friendly contact and she would kiss her friends in a platonic way more common in her era. Weil wasn't prudish nor offended by the idea of sex. When she was asked if she was seeing anyone she laughed, but was unbothered, it was more like she thought the idea of her dating was ridiculous rather than looking down on the idea. She had many friends both male and female.

In her teen years Weil started dressing oddly so that no one would find her physically attractive. She had a reputation from youth as being a weirdo in part due to her asexuality, but an attractive one. Although it seems that people, especially boys, had a mixed response to her attempts to mask her beauty. Some of them said it was a shame, others said she was never attractive in the first place.

Many of her critics in the modern day claim her odd traits and behaviors can be explained away by extreme sexual repression, once again giving into that belief that sex makes us normal and whole.

Also like many aroaces it seems that Weil put her love and attention into someone or something other than a significant other/partner. For many of them it is a specific friend or family member, for others it is a passion or cause. These are the historical figures dubbed to be "married to their work". This includes the likes of Erdős, Rankin, Franklin, Santos-Dumont, Nightingale, Wang, Woodson, and Tesla. This is not to say they were friendless, indeed some of them have extremely close relationships but overall these are people who dedicate themselves utterly and completely to their passion and their work. People with more than drive. People who are happiest not in a romantic/sexual relationship, but when doing what they love. I think Weil is part of that category. Her love was not for one person but for nearly the whole of the world.

(Image Description: a photo of Weil as a young woman/teenager. She is a pretty and pale woman with fluffy dark hair, dark eyes, and full lips. She is not yet wearing her glasses. She is shown from the neck up. End ID)

Quotes:

"The idea of purity, with all that this word can imply for a Christian [so, virginity], took possession of me at the age of sixteen, after a period of several months during which I had been going through the emotional unrest natural in adolescence. This idea came upon me while I was contemplating a mountain landscape and little by little it was imposed upon me in an irresistible manner."

-Simone Weil, letter sent to a priest friend on May 15, 1942. (Years after the fact Weil attributed her lack of interest in sex to an inclination to Christianity, but it sounds as if she herself is trying to explain away her lack of sexual attraction or interest. This is something a lot of baby aspecs still do, try to explain away why they aren't interested in sex or romance. I know I did.)

"The Red Virgin"

-The taunting nickname given to Weil by her classmates due to her chasteness and lack of romantic interest. She was also referred to as "the Martian" for being "inhuman" and was widely mocked for being aspec.

"As for her death, whatever explanation one may give of it will amount in the end to saying that she died of love.”

-Sir Richard Reeds (due to the fact that, despite being chronically ill with a fatal disease she continued to work for the French Resistance while also not eating anything above the French ration to show her solidarity.)

(Image Description: a colorized photo of Weil from 1936 when she was fighting in Spain. She is wearing a dark military uniform with a dark bandana around her neck. Her dark hair is even darker than usual. She has a rifle on her back. There are some men behind her on a fairly quiet street. End ID)

#queer #lgbtq #asexual #ace #history #aromantic #aro #20th century #authors #europe #activists #academics #jewish #France #French #philosophers #Simone Weil #bio

32 notes · View notes

reomanet · 5 years

Text

Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued

Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued Dorothy Porter challenged the racial bias in the Dewey Decimal System, putting black scholars alongside white colleagues Dorothy Porter in 1939, at her desk in the Carnegie Library at Howard University. (Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Manuscript Division, Howard University) smithsonian.com November 26, 2018 In a 1995 interview with Linton Weeks of the Washington Post , the Howard University librarian, collector and self-described “bibliomaniac” Dorothy Porter reflected on the focus of her 43-year career: “The only rewarding thing for me is to bring to light information that no one knows. What’s the point of rehashing the same old thing?” For Porter, this mission involved not only collecting and preserving a wide range of materials related to the global black experience, but also addressing how these works demanded new and specific qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to collect, assess, and catalog them. As some librarians today contemplate ways to decolonize libraries—for example, to make them less reflective of Eurocentric ways of organizing knowledge—it is instructive to look to Porter as a progenitor of the movement. Starting with little, she used her tenacious curiosity to build one of the world’s leading repositories for black history and culture: Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center . But she also brought critical acumen to bear on the way the center’s materials were cataloged, rejecting commonly taught methods as too reflective of the way whites thought of the world. Working without a large budget, Porter used unconventional means to build the research center. She developed relationships with other book lovers and remained alert to any opportunity to acquire material. As Porter told Avril Johnson Madison in an oral history interview, “I think one of the best things I could have done was to become friends with book dealers… . I had no money, but I became friendly with them. I got their catalogs, and I remember many of them giving me books, you see. I appealed to publishers, ‘We have no money, but will you give us this book?’” Porter’s network extended to Brazil, England, France, Mexico—anywhere that she or one of her friends, including Alain Locke, Rayford Logan, Dorothy Peterson, Langston Hughes and Amy Spingarn, would travel. She also introduced to Howard leading figures like the historian Edison Carneiro of Brazil and pan-Africanist philosophers and statesmen Kwame Nkrumah and Eric Williams. As early as 1930, when she was appointed, Porter insisted that bringing Africana scholars and their works to campus was crucial not only to counter Eurocentric notions about blacks but also because, as she told Madison, “at that time . . . students weren’t interested in their African heritage. They weren’t interested in Africa or the Caribbean. They were really more interested in being like the white person.” Howard’s initial collections, which focused mainly on slavery and abolitionism, were substantially expanded through the 1915 gift of over 3,000 items from the personal library of the Reverend Jesse E. Moorland, a Howard alumnus and secretary of the Washington, DC, branch of the YMCA. In 1946, the university acquired the private library of Arthur B. Spingarn, a lawyer and longtime chair of the NAACP’s legal committee, as well as a confirmed bibliophile. He was particularly interested in the global black experience, and his collection included works by and about Black people in the Caribbean and South and Central America; rare materials in Latin from the early modern period; and works in Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, and many African languages, including Swahili, Kikuyu, Zulu, Yoruba, Vai, Ewe, Luganda, Ga, Sotho, Amharic, Hausa, Xhosa, and Luo. These two acquisitions formed the backbone of the Moorland-Spingarn collections. Porter was concerned about assigning value to the materials she collected—their intellectual and political value, certainly, but also their monetary value, since at the time other libraries had no expertise in pricing works by black authors. When Spingarn agreed to sell his collection to Howard, the university’s treasurer insisted that it be appraised externally. Since he did not want to rely on her assessment, Porter explained in her oral history, she turned to the Library of Congress’s appraiser. The appraiser took one look and said, “I cannot evaluate the collection. I do not know anything about black books. Will you write the report? . . . I’ll send it back to the treasurer.” The treasurer, thinking it the work of a white colleague, accepted it. This was not the only time that Porter had to create a workaround for a collection so as not to re-impose stereotyped ideas of black culture and Black scholarship. As Thomas C. Battle writes in a 1988 essay on the history of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, the breadth of the two collections showed the Howard librarians that “no American library had a suitable classification scheme for Black materials.” An “initial development of a satisfactory classification scheme,” writes Battle, was first undertaken by four women on the staff of the Howard University Library: Lula V. Allen, Edith Brown, Lula E. Conner and Rosa C. Hershaw. The idea was to prioritize the scholarly and intellectual significance and coherence of materials that had been marginalized by Eurocentric conceptions of knowledge and knowledge production. These women paved the way for Dorothy Porter’s new system, which departed from the prevailing catalog classifications in important ways. All of the libraries that Porter consulted for guidance relied on the Dewey Decimal Classification. “Now in [that] system, they had one number—326—that meant slavery, and they had one other number—325, as I recall it—that meant colonization,” she explained in her oral history. In many “white libraries,” she continued, “every book, whether it was a book of poems by James Weldon Johnson, who everyone knew was a black poet, went under 325. And that was stupid to me.” Consequently, instead of using the Dewey system, Porter classified works by genre and author to highlight the foundational role of black people in all subject areas, which she identified as art, anthropology, communications, demography, economics, education, geography, history, health, international relations, linguistics, literature, medicine, music, political science, sociology, sports, and religion. This Africana approach to cataloging was very much in line with the priorities of the Harlem Renaissance, as described by Howard University professor Alain Locke in his period-defining essay of 1925, “ Enter the New Negro .” Heralding the death of the “Old Negro” as an object of study and a problem for whites to manage, Locke proclaimed, “It is time to scrap the fictions, garret the bogeys and settle down to a realistic facing of facts.” Scholarship from a black perspective, Locke argued, would combat racist stereotypes and false narratives while celebrating the advent of black self-representation in art and politics. Porter’s classification system challenged racism where it was produced by centering work by and about black people within scholarly conversations around the world. The multi-lingual Porter, furthermore, anticipated an important current direction in African-American and African Diaspora studies: analyzing global circuits and historical entanglements and seeking to recover understudied archives throughout the world. In Porter’s spirit, this current work combats the effects of segmenting research on Black people along lines of nation and language, and it fights the gatekeeping function of many colonial archives. The results of Porter’s ambitions include rare and unusual items. The Howard music collections contain compositions by the likes of Antônio Carlos Gomes and José Mauricio Nunes Garcia of Brazil; Justin Elie of Haiti; Amadeo Roldán of Cuba; and Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges of Guadeloupe. The linguistics subject area includes a character chart created by Thomas Narven Lewis, a Liberian medical doctor, who adapted the basic script of the Bassa language into one that could be accommodated by a printing machine. (This project threatened British authorities in Liberia, who had authorized only the English language to be taught in an attempt to quell anti-colonial activism.) Among the works available in African languages is the rare Otieno Jarieko , an illustrated book on sustainable agriculture by Barack H. Obama, father of the former U.S. president. Porter must be acknowledged for her efforts to address the marginalization of writing by and about black people through her revision of the Dewey system as well as for her promotion of those writings though a collection at an institution dedicated to highlighting its value by showing the centrality of that knowledge to all fields. Porter’s groundbreaking work provides a crucial backdrop for the work of contemporary scholars who explore the aftereffects of the segregation of knowledge through projects that decolonize, repatriate and redefine historical archives.

The post Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued appeared first on TBNT Have The Solution.

from TBNT Have The Solution https://ift.tt/2Q1QbV1 via Article Source

#TBNT Have The Solution

2 notes · View notes

nicklloydnow · 4 years

Link

"In my country today there are people who are wondering if the Resistance had a real military impact on the course of the war. For my generation this question is irrelevant: we immediately understood the moral and psychological meaning of the Resistance. For us it was a point of pride to know that we Europeans did not wait passively for liberation. And for the young Americans who were paying with their blood for our restored freedom it meant something to know that behind the firing lines there were Europeans paying their own debt in advance.

In my country today there are those who are saying that the myth of the Resistance was a Communist lie. It is true that the Communists exploited the Resistance as if it were their personal property, since they played a prime role in it; but I remember partisans with kerchiefs of different colors. Sticking close to the radio, I spent my nights—the windows closed, the blackout making the small space around the set a lone luminous halo—listening to the messages sent by the Voice of London to the partisans. They were cryptic and poetic at the same time (The sun also rises, The roses will bloom) and most of them were “messaggi per la Franchi.” Somebody whispered to me that Franchi was the leader of the most powerful clandestine network in northwestern Italy, a man of legendary courage. Franchi became my hero. Franchi (whose real name was Edgardo Sogno) was a monarchist, so strongly anti-Communist that after the war he joined very right-wing groups, and was charged with collaborating in a project for a reactionary coup d’état. Who cares? Sogno still remains the dream hero of my childhood. Liberation was a common deed for people of different colors.

In my country today there are some who say that the War of Liberation was a tragic period of division, and that all we need is national reconciliation. The memory of those terrible years should be repressed, refoulée, verdrängt. But Verdrängung causes neurosis. If reconciliation means compassion and respect for all those who fought their own war in good faith, to forgive does not mean to forget. I can even admit that Eichmann sincerely believed in his mission, but I cannot say, “OK, come back and do it again.” We are here to remember what happened and solemnly say that “They” must not do it again.

But who are They?

If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini’s fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement.

Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)?

(...)

During World War II, the Americans who took part in the Spanish war were called “premature anti-fascists”—meaning that fighting against Hitler in the Forties was a moral duty for every good American, but fighting against Franco too early, in the Thirties, smelled sour because it was mainly done by Communists and other leftists. … Why was an expression like fascist pig used by American radicals thirty years later to refer to a cop who did not approve of their smoking habits? Why didn’t they say: Cagoulard pig, Falangist pig, Ustashe pig, Quisling pig, Nazi pig?

Mein Kampf is a manifesto of a complete political program. Nazism had a theory of racism and of the Aryan chosen people, a precise notion of degenerate art, entartete Kunst, a philosophy of the will to power and of the Ubermensch. Nazism was decidedly anti-Christian and neo-pagan, while Stalin’s Diamat (the official version of Soviet Marxism) was blatantly materialistic and atheistic. If by totalitarianism one means a regime that subordinates every act of the individual to the state and to its ideology, then both Nazism and Stalinism were true totalitarian regimes.

(...)

But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counter-revolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of them indulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages—in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little known religions of Asia.

(...)

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson’s The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Falangists was Viva la Muerte (in English it should be translated as “Long Live Death!”). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

(...)

We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” Freedom and liberation are an unending task."

#umberto eco #fascism #nazism #communism #anarchy #liberation #italy #germany #spain #america #trump

0 notes

glittergummicandypeach · 4 years

Text

Why ‘Respectable’ Evangelicals Can’t Rein in Evangelical Conspiracy Theorists | Religion Dispatches

According to a recent blog post by David French, former staff writer for the National Review,* there’s a simple solution to the problem of conservative, mostly white evangelicals spreading wild and harmful conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic, Bill Gates, and “the deep state.”

In his view, evangelicals’ single-minded impulse toward winning at any cost in politics isn’t reflected in other aspects of their lives. “If you’re a church-going American Christian,” French tells us, “you tend to build up a reasonably robust theology of Christianity in your marriage, in your workplace, or in your school.” I don’t buy this distinction, but it is a key premise in French’s argument.

When it comes to politics, French maintains that “the theological ‘training’ consists mainly of education about issues and controversies that Christians should be aware of and concerned about.” That is, voting for candidates who are anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ equality, etc.

The solution, therefore, is for evangelicals to develop a robust “political theology,” a term with a developed presence in academic literature that French does not reference, but which he links primarily to an expanded understanding of the ninth commandment: “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Christianity Today’s Ed Stetzer has invoked the same verse in opposition to the same problem of evangelical susceptibility to conspiracy theory.

It’s easy enough for these high-profile, “civil” and “respectable” evangelicals to scold their followers for “gullibility”—which, according to Stetzer is “not a spiritual gift”—or, similarly, to raise concerns about evangelicals’ “witness,” that is, how their reputation in society may bear on their ability to convert others. Not that they will listen—a solid majority of white evangelicals don’t see their support for Donald Trump as harming their witness at all.

It seems to be much more difficult, however, for these men to dig deeper into the theological roots of evangelical authoritarianism and abuse. Doing so would mean they would have to become aware of their own complicity in the very real physical and psychological harm done to those of us “raised up” to “take back this country for Christ” in the thick of the culture wars.

Take French’s reference to schools. Early last year, I sparked a media firestorm by launching the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools in order to highlight the extent to which evangelical and fundamentalist schools in particular, like the ones I attended as a child, perpetuate abuse, racism, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ animus as they indoctrinate children in “alternative facts.” It was Vice President Mike Pence’s and David French’s defense of Second Lady Karen Pence’s return to one such anti-LGBTQ Christian school to work as an art teacher that inspired me to create the hashtag, which accumulated over 200,000 tweets within a couple of days.

Clearly, many children of the culture wars, who have insight into why evangelicals are prone to believing in conspiracy theories, would like to be heard. And clearly, David French has little interest in listening.

I know this, because during the #ExposeChristianSchools hubbub, French took to the pages of National Review to denounce me (though not by name) as “an activist” pushing an “anti-Christian ideology.” In fact I advocate pluralism and regularly engage with Christians who support social justice and separation of church and state, for example through institutions like the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the Center for Interfaith Cooperation and Christian Theological Seminary in my native Indianapolis, as well as via podcasts and programs like Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy’s State of Belief Radio.

But there’s little room to find common ground with right-wing Christians like French, who oppose my equal rights as a queer American, and who defend not just the right to teach children that I’m an abomination, but the supposed goodness of doing so.

And herein lies the rub. How can a man who bears false witness against people like me, which has very real consequences in terms of LGBTQ youth homelessness and suicide, insist with any credibility to his less “genteel” coreligionists that they must stop bearing false witness?

Furthermore, how can you expect evangelicals to listen to your exhortation to stop believing and spreading conspiracy theories when you simultaneously defend the very institutions that teach evangelical children to be suspicious of any and all experts from outside the evangelical community (at least on matters like evolution, psychology, gender and sexuality, abortion, and climate science), which would, of course, mean the majority of genuine experts in most fields? And yet this is precisely what evangelical schools (which usually brand themselves Christian schools or Christian academies) do, along with promoting a heavy dose of Christian nationalism.

With a Christian school education, it’s quite natural to conclude that most of the scientific community is essentially an anti-Christian conspiracy. If you need evidence for this claim, search the #ExposeChristianSchools hashtag on Twitter for numerous examples, and read this groundbreaking report by Huffington Post education reporter Rebecca Klein, from which we can extrapolate that there are roughly 2000 non-Catholic Christian elementary and secondary schools in the United States that receive public voucher funding to teach “alternative facts.” French’s hypocrisy in this regard is glaring.

As an ex-evangelical commentator on religion and politics, watching evangelical critics of Donald Trump twist themselves into contortions in attempts to explain and exhort their coreligionists has been one of the stranger phenomena of this nightmarish presidential term. We’ve seen the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, Russell Moore, forced to apologize for criticizing evangelical Trump voters in order to save his job, while his fellow SBC leader Al Mohler recently repudiated his own refusal to vote for Trump in 2016, explaining that he regrets the decision. The capitulation of such institutional leaders is of course unsurprising; their positions depend directly on Trump’s most enthusiastic base: the people who fill SBC pews.

But #NeverTrump evangelicalism has survived among conservative writers and commentators like French and Stetzer, as well as Peter Wehner and Michael Gerson, both of whom played influential roles in previous Republican presidential administrations. As Trump has failed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and done himself no favors by using brutal authoritarian tactics in response to protests for racial justice, these men have truly begun to flail as they almost literally plead with their fellow right-wing evangelicals to consider their “witness” and to stop spreading baseless and harmful conspiracy theories.

While the position they’re in is unenviable, I cannot feel sorry for these men, who are deeply invested in maintaining undeserved “respectability” for their extremist faith tradition, even as they process their loss of control over the national conversation around evangelicalism. Indeed, I’ve been working hard over the last few years to dismantle their longstanding de facto monopoly on major media representation of evangelicals, advocating for the representation of civic-minded critical researchers and former conservative Christians in discussions, which our status as stakeholders demands.

It’s unclear to me the extent to which the Wehners and Stetzers and Frenches of these United States sincerely hope to see white evangelical subculture change for the better as opposed to being concerned primarily with appearances. That is, hoping that the spotlight will go away so that the American public may once again forget about the authoritarianism and abuse that pervades evangelical communities and institutions.

But we must be clear: these horrors characterize evangelicalism precisely because they’re grounded in a (usually unspoken) white supremacist and (often explicit) patriarchal theology and concomitant hierarchical and paternalistic ethos. Prominent “respectable” evangelicals, who often tout their anti-choice credentials, share this basic theology and ethos.

The avatars of respectable evangelicalism offer us hand-wringing, prescriptive scolding, empathy for their coreligionists’ clearly bigoted fears of demographic decline (often couched in the coded language of “religious liberty”), and simple but obviously hopeless “solutions” to the problem of evangelical Trumpism.

It seems they’re willing to try anything but a long, hard look in the mirror, which is what it would take for them to criticize evangelical subculture in a credible way—though their cries would almost certainly still fall on deaf ears, as they’re clearly unable to contain the monster they helped create. “Respectable” conservative evangelicalism has always been a fig leaf. If there is one good thing to come out of the current moment, it’s that the failure of this ideological project has been laid bare for all who have eyes to see.

*Correction: David French is no longer a staff writer for the National Review, as originally stated. He left in 2019 to be senior editor of The Dispatch, a conservative news website.

This content was originally published here.

0 notes

united-we-stand-politics · 4 years

Text

The Partisan Crisis

There are two major political parties in American Politics: Republican and Democrat. There are other, or third, parties in American Politics as well, however, these candidates seldom win elections.

I am Unaffiliated, better known as an "Independent". I don't believe in Partisan Politics as I believe it creates friction between people in the two major political parties. I have some ideas that may some day make the political process better here in the United States and re-unite us citizens. Even with our major differences we ALL have more in common than we realize. If we had a completely Independent political process, this country would be a better place for everyone. When a Democrat is elected, half of the country's needs aren't met. When a Republican is elected, the other half of the country's needs aren't met. This pattern continues like a never-ending, vicious cycle. At what point do we stand up as citizens and say enough is enough! At what point do we create a United Front and put a stop to this?

Let us first look at one major crisis here in The United States: Partisanship. Partisanship is dividing America. There are only two major political factions in our Nation, who's opinions and views drastically differ. These differences are so vast that they can't even come to an agreement at the dinner table. People are losing friendships. Even families are being torn apart because the Partisan Crisis has gotten so bad in recent years. This is completely unnecessary and it's been going on for three centuries! Luckily, there is a much better way to do things. Unfortunately, it won't be easy trying to incorporate these simple changes into our current political system.

With the election of President Donald Trump, these opposing factions have become much more distant. The farther the distance, the more dangerous the Partisan Crisis becomes. Partisanship is literally KILLING America and it will cause more serious damage and issues for our future if we don't do something about it right now. In my opinion, we are on the brink of a possible Civil War. This is a TERRIFYING prospect.

Life shouldn't be about black & white anymore. We have come way too far for all of that! It is 2019. We ALL should be able to get along by now and for the most part we have, but the age of the Trump Presidency has brought with it a DISGUSTING and alarming amount of racism, systemic racism, and hatred and both factions are participating. This is NOT good. The Trump Presidency is not entirely to blame, either. First of all, he didn't elect himself!! The Donald, (who I wonder may be the Nostradamus and Bible predicted "Third Anti-Christ" simply called "the trumpet"), has scared many people regardless of color, race, creed, religion or sexual orientation. Many are intimidated by his greedy, racist, sexist, philandering, lying and disrespectful nature and what it is doing and could do to our country and it's image. For a small percentage, it has given them the courage to come out of their racist closet. He spouts racism at his rallies in a way I have never witnessed in my life, other than seeing racist rallies from history in school or on TV. We are backsliding as a country. Make America Great Again? America IS great!

The GOP definitely has to do something. They either need to disconnect themselves from the Trumpets and say, we are Republican, but we do not believe in the Trump White Nationalist agenda OR rebuild itself an entirely new party. They no longer hold the "moral high ground". We have people voting Republican against their own benefit because they don't exactly understand what a Republican government means. (Money for the rich pretty much narrows it down.) They only understand that Trump has promised to, "get rid of illegal immigrants" and "put a stop to the refugee crisis coming to America". They literally voted against their OWN individual benefit on behalf of racism. (Not ALL of them, but 89% of them, based on the most recent Republican approval rating of Trump.) Many of them are on welfare, uneducated and the ones that work have lower than average paying jobs. With 89% of Republicans approving of his racist, White Nationalist agenda, the rest of us are looking at that. This is what Trump has done to the GOP. People who are good people, the other 11% of Republicans, are lumped into this category as well due to their remarkably high approval rating. Trump isn't to blame for being a jackass. They KNEW who they were voting for and they KNOW what they're supporting regardless of the plethora of evidence before them. Best thing that could happen for the GOP would be to vote him out in the 2020 Presidential Primary. It's not unheard of, it has happened before. Trump has lost between 8-10% of his base. His current Independent approval rating is down to 38% and his current Democratic approval rating is down to just 9%. (These numbers are as of May 20, 2018, just a few days before posting this.)

It's a year and a half later and the only thing Trump has "accomplished" was undo many things Obama did, piss off Kim Jong Un and fall for a summit meeting that everyone BUT him & his politically uneducated base KNEW was not going to happen, write a "break-up letter" to Kim Jong Un "cancelling" a meeting Kim had pretty much already cancelled because he finally figured out what everyone else knew. (That there would be no meeting and didn't want Kim to cancel it first. He's like a child). He has also managed to play more golf in his first year than Obama did in his entire Presidency, even after criticizing the man for playing golf. Let's also not forget the fact that he's spent much more money. He has snowed the American people into believing that he works for no salary. Check out his website!!! He's got all kinds of things for sale! "President Trump" memorabilia. One Christmas tree ornament for FORTY DOLLARS.... MADE IN CHINA. Why would anyone think he would bring jobs back to the States when his own workers are overseas? He has outsourced THOUSANDS of American jobs to Mexico and China. (Just ask the coal miners he lied to in order to secure their vote. They won't be voting for him again.) His designer imposter daughter's clothes are also made in China. The "Ivanka Trump" brand that sells cheap knock offs of very expensive French & Italian designers are made in sweat shops. She's had a series of lawsuits from said designers. There's no telling how many times The Trumpet, himself, has been sued. I know it's been several times. He's declared bankruptcy on several properties in Atlantic City and other areas so that he wouldn't have to pay back his investors. (One of them had ties to the Hard Rock Cafe who also sued him.) He's a crook who rips people off! We have a CROOK in the White House!!! This whole country is going down the toilet.....FAST! It doesn't get any worse than this. This is the worst Presidential behavior in American History. It's like a horror movie!

So, what do we do about this horror story called Partisanship?! Well, I have an idea! END Partisanship! Unite ALL Americans. The average politician doesn't care about what the average American NEEDS. So what exactly ARE the NEEDS of the average American?! According to those I have interviewed, we ALL have many similar needs, irregardless of political identity. Everyone I have interviewed is concerned about healthcare in some way, education, homelessness, veterans' needs, smaller government, unneeded child services being put in place regardless of there being any exigent circumstances, children needing services not getting any due to the backlog of unwarranted cases based on "revenge calls". Then we have local, state & federal income taxes, the cost of living in certain states, the heroin & crack epidemic, and overcrowded jails and prisons. The United States is a "free country", yet we have more people in jail than any other country on the planet and we're the only democratic country without free healthcare. Racial profiling was mentioned in my interviews and that's a huge problem in this country today. Police brutality is a concern for all races I have interviewed. Addiction and alcoholism, disability, social security, the rights of felons after a longer period of good behavior, felons not being able to get a job, illegal immigration, and concerns for the DACA citizens because children can't help that they were forced to cross the border by irresponsible parents. Everything down to ridiculous fees on hotel prices in NJ beyond the 12% sales tax is a concern for some. We have homeless citizens all over the place. No one should be homeless here. Some feel that business grants are being distributed unfairly. We need to feel that ALL of our needs are being met no matter WHO is in office and no matter our identity. We have so many similar basic needs that it's an embarrassment of riches! We don't need parties... we need TRUE freedom!

How do we ensure these needs get met? We either create a NO party system OR open up more factions. So, instead of having two major factions like we have now, we have more like eight because many Americans aren't having these needs met by either Political Party and identify in different areas of the scale. When I take a political identity quiz I come up Market Skeptic Republican even though I'm an Independent. This is all a result of having two political parties even though MOST Americans ALL have the same basic needs.

The other change would be to stop political campaign Super PACs. There should be a cap on how much money a person, business, corporation, etc., should be allowed to donate or gift to any politicians regardless of whether or not it is during a political campaign. It's safe to say that VP Pence, as an example, is pretty much owned by the Koch Bros. who have donated in excess of one million dollars to his political campaigns and interests. Politicians should no longer be capable of being bought. This would ensure that the extremely small upper .1% of the population won't be controlling the other 99.9% of us via paying off politicians.

I believe it best if we also got rid of ALL parties. No one has to feel like they need to be "loyal to their party" anymore. With an Independent, literally FREE, "No Party System", (not to be confused with a one party system), all candidates can bring their own ideas to the table without any outside influence. Everything would still work exactly the same. The only difference would be that every candidate is an Independent along with every voter and billionaires can't buy them off with their big bags of money. Without a "base", politicians can start listening to everyone's needs as opposed to one TYPE of person.

So, regarding those American needs I mentioned earlier? What would this new generation of politicians do for these needs of ours? They would get a general sense of everyone's needs and combine them to create something where everyone is happy. A political compromise, if you will. Will there be some sacrifices down the line? Of course their would, but political compromises will ensure that everyone gets their basic needs met and that one "side" isn't being ignored. There would be more than two candidates in every election for all levels from assemblyperson all the way up to the Presidential election. We would have all kinds of candidates running in one general election.

We will never agree with each other on every issue, but we can sure do a much better job of making compromises. With a couple new changes to the political process we can make a better future for ourselves and our children, our grandchildren and many generations to come. Let's work TOGETHER! We can start small by voting for Independent candidates and becoming Unaffiliated or Independent on our voter registration cards. After a period of time, others will follow suit and will do the same. The change starts with me writing this article. It starts with you sharing it with your friends. It starts with one person doing the right thing and passing the message along to the next person. Before we know it, we will have created that positive change that we so desperately need. Thank you for taking the time to read this article regarding this very important issue and may the best candidates win!!! 💘💘💘

*This article is a product of my personal long term investigative journalism, several interviews, reading & research. I'm just starting out as an investigative journalist and I hope you all enjoy my writings, even if you don't always agree with it.

**Sources:

Gallup Polls; The Pew Research Center; CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBS, ABC; The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer; Public Interviews of Anonymous Citizens; https://www.snopes.com; Axios; http://www.shop.donaldjtrump.com

**Addendum

I wrote this article over a year ago. Concerning my statement regarding the GOP doing something to help us is currently out of the question considering what's been going on with the Impeachment Inquiry.

0 notes

filmista · 7 years

Text

Get Out (2017)

“If I could, I would have voted for Obama for a third term.”

Meeting the parents of your significant other for the first time is often enough of a nerve wracking experience in itself.

You know your partner likes you, but you want his or her family to like you as well. So you want to cause a good impression obviously.

And now while some of us might have unconventional interests and hobbies, that we’re worried they might find well, unconventional and not in an endearing way.

But sometimes matters become even more complicated: your partner may not be from the same country and same culture as you. Or in the case of Chris and Rose, they may not have the same skin color.

Chris and Rose are the deeply in love new couple, all is going well so now it’s time to meet the parents, it’s a logical next step in any romantic relationship that is blossoming in a good direction.

But as I mentioned in the case of Chris and Rose matters are more complex, you see she is white, he is black.

And the situation that is making Chris so nervous, is not entirely that he’s going to be meeting her parents for the first time, but that they don’t know he is black.

Chris and Rose are packing together, Rose asks Chris “babe have you got your toothbrush?” A normal question, on Chris’s part, eventually followed by do they already know I’m black?

And apparently, they don’t, because Rose has neglected to mention it because it’s not something she’s nervous about it.

She quickly reassures him her dear parents are not at all racist, no certainly not, since they would have voted for Obama a third time if they could, certainly that says it all…

No, the Armitages are absolutely not racist, absolutely not, you’re crazy…

They love other cultures, can't you just tell from the souvenirs that they’ve got all over their, what shall I call it “modern imperialist/plantation chic mansion?”

The fact that they’ve got black servants makes them uncomfortable as well, and well Obama is thrown into the conversation a few times again as well, so you see absolutely nothing wrong here.

The Armitages mean well, but still, this somewhat excessively friendly welcome makes Chris uncomfortable, and while you’re watching it you feel some sort of displaced embarrassment, these people are simply trying much too hard to be nice!

The Armitages are trying so hard to be lovely people, likable people and they’re trying so hard to treat Chris as one of their own, and are trying so hard to impress and to create the image that they’re not racist, that one thing in their approach is clearly failing:

They are in this approach already treating Chris as someone who is different, someone who requires special treatment.

You see I believe if you truly were not racist, you would treat the person in question truly like you would anyone else, without even having to give it any moment’s thought.

But it’s not this somewhat excessive friendliness, that seems well placed enough. No, it’s something more sinister entirely, it’s the black servants that seem to do their work with an unnatural cheer.

And then there’s, of course, the fact that the basement can’t be opened because of fungus. Basements that can’t be opened and entered are of course a horror staple, and the viewer immediately feels an unease. And from there on it turns into a nightmare for Chris, but I won’t give that away, you have to see the nightmare for yourself.

The first thing that’s unsettling is their house really, the fact that it looks like a modern kind of plantation and that they’ve got black servants, it reminds of what? Slavery you say, well you would be correct.

My first impression of the house was the only thing that’s missing here is cotton plants and that they’d serve sweet tea, which they later on do, they’re all happily sitting on a great porch, delicately sipping sweet tea, an unsettling image in itself…

But the Armitages still claim they’re not racist and that they love black people and all that, even that they hate racism, there’s an interesting allegory to Nazism in there as well.

And well they’re not exactly lying, the Armitages do love black people, but not exactly in a way that’s healthy.

Like I said it’s initially not all that obvious that something is wrong, these people are being friendly so what is the matter then?

Well, their friendliness hides an inherent racism. Using so called positive discrimination, which is what the Armitages do, is entirely wrong.

Under all those nice words and good intentions is still the core of the most rampant and gross discrimination, which is refusing to understand once and for fucking all!!, that all of us are equal, no matter what our race, gender, birthplace, social rank or religion.

It shouldn’t be anything that we’ve literally had no say over that’s going to define us, it should be our words, our acts, our deeds, that’s going to make us into good persons, jerks, criminals or straight up into a monster.

And what’s perhaps most painful about Get Out, because the film truly is like an open wound sometimes, and sometimes it really does like to throw salt onto the wound to make it hurt more.

Is that all of us have perhaps been guilty of this, I am reviewing this as a white female, I’ve got absolutely no idea what it is like to be black, I have no idea what it is like to be differentiated, to be judged based on my skin colour and I entirely admit that. I will never know what’s it like to pass certain people and be afraid of them, just because of my skin color.

I’ve never considered myself to be racist and I would find myself entirely disgusting if someone did think I was.

And that’s where Get Out does something incredibly brave, it dares to directly confront its audience, in a way that will at times make you incredibly uncomfortable or that might even make you feel ashamed if you’re watching it as someone that’s not black.

Because it makes you realize that it’s giving a mere hint of an idea what it is like to be in their place, and it’s also quite casually saying: hey maybe you’ve been racist a few times without realizing it.

And now that’s something that quite frankly isn’t all that uplifting, maybe it’s happened when you met a black person and you kept ushering that they needn’t be worried about you because you are not racist.

There are two genres that work particularly well for criticizing society and it’s comedy and horror. In his debut director and scenario writer, Jordan Peele combines the two.

It’s not easy to notice, rampant racism that he criticizes rather it’s an inherent racism that he criticizes, a kind of unintentional racism that might be somewhat present in those of us that really don't consider ourselves racist and that would feel shame to be labeled with that term.

He shows us what it is like to be black in a predominantly white society: the result is a trip that’s astonishing, sharp, funny and especially confronting.

The Armitages are to make his point and explore the film’s many layers about racism (although I’d have to say it’s primarily about inherent racism), dream characters:

They are not hate mongering, bible crazed, pitchfork swinging hillbillies, nor are they stereotypical rednecks. No, they’re about as liberal as you could be, the kind of people that claim believe in openness and tolerance.

And that’s what makes it especially frightening when we discover that their front of tolerance and white smiles, hide cores that are rotten. They might be anyone, minus some scarier stuff that I’m not gonna give away.

Get Out is truly genuinely frightening, funny and at times even painful to watch, it’s as I’ve mentioned confronting, it might at times make you feel bad, but luckily it’s not gonna be an altogether unpleasant experience because you’re rewarded to great laughs as well.

The figuratively and literally speaking black and white of this script, could, of course, apply to any country, but in this case, it applies especially, to American society, American society post-Obama that is.

Maybe I as a European focused more on something less profound than harsh digs about racism and discrimination in American society, maybe I especially sought out to be entertained. And let me tell you that entertainment is what you get in its purest form.

There are truly brilliant dialogues! And the characters feel well developed and alive, and all the actors do a tremendous job! Every single one, Daniel Kaluuya is the embodiment of fear and paranoia.

And especially Allison Williams from Girls had me entirely fooled. Her Rose has to be one of the scariest villains I’ve personally encountered in a film.

And it’s because I’m usually quite good at identifying the villain, but she had me completely fooled, I might have missed any indication that her intentions towards Chris were not good. I was utterly shocked when I learned her true nature.

I mean just look at her (I know, difficult to ignore that utterly cute dog) she looks completely harmless:

(Pardon my french but I’ve got to vent a bit: Rose you fucking fake bitch! I thought you were a good person. I was expecting you were going to walk away without blood on your hands… )

Catherine Keener and her cup of tea are one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while! This is probably a good time to mention all the symbolism in the film:

As I’ve always quite liked to do after watching a film, I like to dig deep into the internet and see other’s people vision on it, and you know learn some stuff I didn’t know beforehand, get smarter.

And so I learned that the cup of tea, that Keener’s character a psychiatrist uses to hypnotize patients, represents something far more sinister, than just a means of therapy.

Back in the heydays of slavery in America, there was a technique with which to call a slave: it was ticking with a spoon again a cup of tea if the slave heard or saw this gesture, they were expected to go up to their master or mistress.

Get Out is simply chock full of these kinds of symbolism and allegories, about racism and about slavery, for instance at one point there is a bingo game that’s actually an auction, a slave auction to be more precise.

Get Out as well as being about internalized racism, is about “modern slavery” as well. The Armitages love black people you see, but not entirely in a way that’s encouraged and healthy.

They look up to certain qualities of black people and they have an unnatural interest in these qualities, you see they view black not entirely as human, but rather as animals, that you’d observe with a genuine, scientific interest at a zoo.

For them black people serve a purpose, they are something they exploit for their own benefit, so when they admire qualities that black people are said to have traditionally, it’s not so much as that they truly genuinely admire these qualities.

It’s more about wanting these qualities for themselves, anyone that has seen the film, will see what sinister thing I’m referring to here.

And to benefit and exploit, they create a front of impeccable manners and flashy smiles, and good, liberal, tolerant morals.

What’s even scarier, is that it’s never clear whether the Armitages actually see themselves as bad, no, no, they might be so brainwashed by their own bullshit that they seem to actually believe they are doing a good thing as they put it “we treat them like family.”

Now, of course, it’s not entirely without its flaws, but ultimately they are entirely forgivable.

Peele knows how to mix his themes with the plot until the very last scene - when you watch the film several times you will discover more and more. Also, it's a creepy mirror for white and black, that sets to thinking about relevant issues still present in society.

But it's also because Get Out is just a well-made film, conceived by someone who seems to know the laws of cinema to perfection. Peele, comedian, and actor, cleverly uses music, gets the best of his actors, times the jokes and scares perfectly and makes the most effective use of the camera.

Even if you struggle a bit with how the plot progresses towards the very end - and after all that inventiveness it's a bit of a disappointment a tiny disappointment, however - it still keeps going strong because it’s been almost flawlessly worked out in all of its aspects.

Last thing I will say: Believe the hype for once! Watch it! When you can and want of course :) It will be like nothing you’ve seen before, even if it may use some familiar horror elements, it’s also entirely original and unique in how it ultimately works them out.

“You know what I say? I say one down, a couple hundred thousand to go. I don't mean to get on my high horse, but I'm telling you I do not like the deer, I'm sick of it, they're taking over, they're like rats, they're destroying the ecosystem. I see a dead deer on the side of the road and I think 'That's a start'.”

17 notes · View notes

stopkingobama · 7 years

Text

Bernie Sanders Shows the Left’s Refusal to Coexist With Traditional Believers

Photo Credit: Pixabay, PublicDomainPictures, CC0 Public Domain, https://pixabay.com/en/anger-angry-bad-burn-dangerous-18658/

Religious tests for holding public office are banned in the Constitution and go against the very core of the American tradition.

But you wouldn’t have learned that listening Wednesday to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as he questioned Russ Vought, the nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

His questioning of Vought was nothing less than theological interrogation, and in the end, excoriation.

Here’s what unfolded when Sanders took the mic.

youtube

In a disjointed line of questioning that had nothing to do with budgetary issues, Sanders veered into the theology of salvation, singling out an article Vought had written for a conservative publication in 2015 that outlined basic Christian doctrine about God in contrast to the Islamic view.

Here’s the heart of the exchange (transcript courtesy David French of National Review):

Sanders: You wrote, “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.” Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?

Vought: Absolutely not, senator. I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith. That post, as I stated in the questionnaire to this committee, was to defend my alma mater, Wheaton College, a Christian school that has a statement of faith that includes the centrality of Jesus Christ for salvation, and—

Sanders: I apologize. Forgive me, we just don’t have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?

Vought: Again, senator, I’m a Christian, and I wrote that piece in accordance with the statement of faith at Wheaton College.

Sanders: I understand that. I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that all those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?

Vought: Senator, I’m a Christian—

Sanders (shouting): I understand you are a Christian, but this country are made of people who are not just—I understand that Christianity is the majority religion, but there are other people of different religions in this country and around the world. In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?

Vought: Thank you for probing on that question. As a Christian, I believe that all individuals are made in the image of God and are worthy of dignity and respect regardless of their religious beliefs. I believe that as a Christian that’s how I should treat all individuals—

Sanders: You think your statement that you put into that publication, they do not know God because they rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned, do you think that’s respectful of other religions?

Vought: Senator, I wrote a post based on being a Christian and attending a Christian school that has a statement of faith that speaks clearly in regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation.

Sanders: I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.

This exchange spotlights comprehensive ignorance on the part of Sanders—ignorance of the American tradition, of religious toleration, and even of what religion is.

It’s unlikely that Sanders doesn’t realize religious tests for public office are banned in the Constitution. I suspect he would applaud that ban as much as the next person, at least in the abstract.

Yet his line of questioning seems to show an ignorance of Article VI of the Constitution, which states that “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Traditional Believers Need Not Apply

The implications of Sanders’ questioning are far-reaching.

If taken to its logical conclusion, Sanders’ view would exclude all orthodox followers of an Abrahamic faith from holding public office.

Every Abrahamic religion—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, in their historic forms—believes that some people either will, or may be, condemned in eternity. This is Abrahamic Religion 101.

But for Sanders, such mainstream beliefs demonstrate bigotry and racism. Just read the statement his office released after his exchange with Vought:

In a democratic society, founded on the principle of religious freedom, we can all disagree over issues, but racism and bigotry—condemning an entire group of people because of their faith—cannot be part of any public policy.

This statement crystalizes the problem. Sanders wants public officials to have religious freedom, except when their religious views contain something he might consider bigoted, such as a view of hell or condemnation.

What Sanders is really pushing for, whether he knows it or not, is a “Universalists Only” policy for those who would serve in public office. You can believe what you want, as long as your theology doesn’t teach that others might one day be judged.

And with that brush stroke, Sanders excludes historic Christianity, Judaism, and Islam from the public square. Ironically, his view of religion makes little room for some of the most devout followers of religion.

What’s at stake here is meaningful diversity in the public square. As Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., noted in a statement:

We have diverse political perspectives, we can also have diverse faith perspectives. Many faith traditions have complex and exclusive theological beliefs, and whether we agree with them or not, those diverse beliefs are protected by the Constitution.

Such beliefs have always been part of the fabric of American public life.

But that doesn’t deter Sanders. Religion that is pure and undefiled in the eyes of Bernie Sanders is progressive, nonjudgmental—in a word, unorthodox.

Instead of a government that is truly of and by the people, Sanders’ logic would give us government of and by the unorthodox—a kind of theocracy of the heretical.

Have an Imagination, Bernie

But what is perhaps most tragic here is Sanders’ complete lack of imagination for how people with deep differences in worldview can coexist with each other.

In Sanders’ view, if you think others will be condemned in eternity, you cannot possibly love or respect them, let alone live in peace with them. Your belief that they might be condemned is proof enough that you hate them.

But how is that logical? That’s as absurd as saying Joe sees a man in the street who is going to get hit by a bus, and therefore, Joe hates him.

Perhaps Sanders has only encountered hateful examples of religion in his 75 years of life. Perhaps the reason he can’t fathom true religious coexistence in the midst of deep disagreement is that he’s never seen it happen.

Yet it does happen, all the time.

To see a beautiful picture of this, Sanders need look no further than the conservative movement.

Conservatives are a diverse smattering of evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and secular Americans. We believe all kinds of things about each other’s eternal fate that Sanders would probably find abhorrent—yet here we are, arm in arm, working for a common political cause.

Sanders’ total lack of imagination here is tragic at a time when America’s ideological center is splintering. We’ve reached a critical time of polarization in which coexistence in the midst of profound disagreement is becoming more necessary than ever.

Yet it seems that only conservatives are prepared to deliver that kind of tolerance. The American left pays lip service to diversity, yet in practice routinely shuns the most important kind of diversity: diversity of viewpoint.

The left is very good at respecting diversity at the level of externals: skin color, religious tradition, ethnicity, etc. But when it comes to actual viewpoints, the left is a seamless monolith and wishes to stay that way.

Sanders is proof of this. He seemingly couldn’t care less whether Vought identified as Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, or Hindu. Those are just externals.

What he really cares about is the substance of Vought’s views. That’s the deep level of disagreement that the American left has not learned to coexist with.

Learning to Practice Actual Tolerance

Sanders’ line of questioning shows an alarming disregard for the Constitution’s ban on religious tests, but it also highlights the deeper problem of our cultural moment.

Chiefly, it shows that the left needs to develop a greater imagination for how people with stark differences in worldview—including about other people’s eternal fate—might actually respect one another and live in harmony.

Until the secular left soaks this in, its lip service to diversity and tolerance will remain hollow and vacuous, constantly undermined by its own actions. Commentary by Daniel Davis. Originally published at The Daily Signal.

#Bernie Sanders Christian #Bernie Sanders religion #Religious Freedom

1 note · View note