#ahistoricism

[burnitalldownism]

The dismissal of past and present cultures that acknowledge(d) identities outside the gender binary as “they were wrong” is so fecking lazy, because that’s not possible. But even if they were “wrong”, the simple fact they did/do acknowledge them disproves one of the transphobes’ biggest argument.

It proves that different concepts of gender were constructed by different societies, because gender is a………

#trans history #TERFs #gender binary #ahistoricism #social construct #gender is a social construct #gender identity

[inversionimpulse]

There are a lot of fanon explanations for why Mokou’s Perfect Memento is so blatantly misinformative, but I think an underappreciated possibility is that Mokou just showed up to the Hieda manor and went “Hey, it would be totally badass if you made people think I was some kind of ninja!” and Akyuu, being the good(?) parent(?) that she is(?) said “Sure, dear” and wrote that in even though it made no sense.

#touhou #touhou project #fujiwara no mokou #hieda no akyuu #perfect memento in strict sense #the ''parent(?)'' bit is in reference to the Hieda no Are = Fujiwara no Fuhito hypothesis #which as far as I know is really poorly supported and not seriously considered by actual academics #but it is an interesting potential character dynamic and I like the motif of immortal daughter - reincarnating parent #so I will simply ignore the ahistoricalness in favour of Drama

[fictionkinfessions]

(Warning: this post contains mentions of homophobia, transphobia, bullying, and emotional neglect, as well as general issues with ahistoricism and cultural ignorance within the fictionkin community. Also, this only applies to sources that are meant to take place in a relatively realistic setting or are based on a real-world reigon/time period! If that's not you, feel free to ignore this.)

Hm... I was scrolling around and saw an ask from a really long time ago, and it made me want to say something.

Obviously I'm okay with people using whatever labels and pronouns they want for their kins! It's their kintype, so it's their business, sure, fine, all cool with me. However, even if you do remember being LGBTQ+, you have to take the time period and location into account.

For example, hello, I'm Kennith. I was born in 1969 in an average suburban town in Michigan. Nowadays, in this life, I'd say that I was demigreyromantic, gay, genderfluid, transmasc, and generally gnc, and I would've used he/they pronouns.

However, back when I was still alive as a teenager in the 80s, I knew the word gay and... yeah, that really was about it. If you had asked me then, I would've described the rest of that stuff as "I'm not really that much of a romance guy" and "I'm a guy who was born as a girl and hated it, but I still don't mind looking like a girl sometimes", and I used strictly he/him back then since "I'm a guy and that's what you call guys", because again, I was a teenager in the 80s, and I had no idea any of this stuff was even an option.

And, quick reminder, this is a relatively modern time frame, and it's in the United States. You may have all of these really cool microlabels and neopronouns to describe yourself now, and there's nothing wrong with that! It's never too late to discover who you truly are/were. However, you have to realize that you sure as hell weren't using those labels as, say, a member of ancient Japanese royalty. In terms of both the time frame and the language itself, that's just not how that would've worked.

Also, not to get overly negative, but chances are, if you are from sometime back in the day, even if it's as relatively recent as I was, people would most likely have not been accepting of you. I know people weren't accepting of me. I was bullied ruthlessly in school by nearly everyone for being gay and presenting myself femininely despite being transmasc. "Pretty Boy" was actually the tamest of the awful names they would call me, and it didn't even stop at insults. They would deliberately misgender and deadname me at every opportunity, bump me into walls and shit like that, and I even remember them beating me up a few times. My teachers and counselor did absolute jack-shit, and basically told me that I deserved it since I was so "different" (which is the word they used instead of calling me slurs! fun!). My parents were never much help either since A: I wasn't out to them, and B: they never gave a shit about literally anything else. The only people who respected me at all during that time were Stephanie and Greg, but I was barely able to see Greg outside of the gas station he worked at, and I've already gone into what ended up happening with fucking Stephanie... ugh.

Anyways, once again I say, this was in the United States in the 1980s. If people didn't accept me there and then, the chances of people accepting you for who you in another place and/or an earlier time are next to nothing. I'm sorry, it fucking sucks that it had to be that way, but it's true. I'm obviously not saying that you're not valid if you did have people who accepted you, I'm just saying that it's highly unlikely, given historical context.

I'm sorry for ranting once again, and I'm sorry if I said anything hurtful. The last thing I want to do is invalidate anyone. This is just something to consider, I guess... Ah well, who am I to tell you guys what you can and can't do? If I was still alive I'd be like 54 years old. Old Man Yells at Cloud.

-Kennith Simmons

#fictionkinfessions #fictionkin #kennithsimmonskin #communicationskin #homophobia cw #transphobia cw #bullying cw #emotional abuse cw #ahistoricism cw #racism cw #community issue #memories issue #deadnaming cw #misgendering cw #schools cw #victim blaming cw #slurs #ish #mod party cat #if this topic get ressurected i will have a heavy paw

[hellenic-reconstructionism]

Sorry but what the fuck is this racist misogynistic bullshit?

Anyway report and block this user. Do not interact with them.

#I am not censoring folkist names fuck you #Someone pointed out that this is likely the Japanese media is all bad because ahistoricism guy which kinda tracks

[dailyanarchistposts]

Always Falling

Life on this planet is unsatisfactory. Yet we are not resigned to it. We refuse to be fooled. We fear nothing: being misunderstood, being criticized, being labelled ‘jokers’ or ‘insane’, suffering, life or death – nothing. We are neither dreamers nor idealists nor unrealistic… The AAA is an attitude of reaction, defiance, and distrust. A distrust of the illusory philosophies at the level of the naïve, a distrust of unctuous and sonorous morals…

No galaxy is obscure… So as not to be overloaded with rhetoric or cloying sincerity, the astronaut’s message is no less a song in which emotion’s modesty dismisses fine transports.

When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. And yet, it finds corners and crevices to build its place of rest, its source of nourishment. So it is with the AAA; before us is continually an empty space, and we are propelled by the conditions that lie behind us. What is going to happen? What will the future bring? I do not know, I offer no presentiment.

Those who consider our goals impossible to achieve will necessarily find our methods impossible to think. Trapped in the false permanency and ahistoricism of the spectacle, these “realistic” pro-revolutionaries are quick to assure our naivety and imploring failure. But why not fail?

Is the guarantee of dying from boredom recourse from the risk of dying from spaghettification?

Perhaps knowing there is no future is our greatest freedom.

#association of autonomous astronauts #intentional communities #outer space #space #astronauts #autonomous zones #autonomy #anarchism #revolution #climate crisis #ecology #climate change #resistance #community building #practical anarchy #practical anarchism #anarchist society #practical #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #organization #grassroots #grass roots #anarchists #libraries #leftism #social issues

[sivavakkiyar]

well I’m being flippant. there’s an obvious way in which the Bengal Renaissance Hindus wanted to reconcile ‘Hindu’ belief and practice with Christian ideals. Even when I was a kid a lot of Hindu Americans would say ‘well, technically we’re monotheistic; because all the gods are avatars’ as though simply being monotheistic was a superior and desireable quality. You can see this (this is my pet thing right now, can you tell?) in Weil also. But the idea has clearly been actually ahistoricized

[jewfrogs]

i am unabashedly in favor of transgender anachronisms and ahistoricisms they are so much more interesting and gen(d)erative. there were trans people here (everywhere)

#ribbits

[berniesrevolution]

MONEY ON THE LEFT

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 touched a dormant but significant fault line on the left. On the one hand, much of the left was outraged by the invasion, believing it to be an illegal and genocidal land grab. On the other hand, a cadre of the left, especially in the US and the UK, took the opposing position. They blame the US for NATO’s eastward expansion for provoking Russia’s invasion to defend its “legitimate security interests.” This second group, given voice by Noam Chomsky and by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has consistently demanded Ukrainian capitulation to Putin’s demands. These voices combine an economistic definition of capitalism with the offensive realist IR theory (mainly John Mearsheimer‘s) of international relations as driven by the politics of power projection. Thus, they attribute Ukrainian unwillingness to capitulate to an American capitalist Realpolitik that perpetually threatens Russian security and not as an authentic defense of their nation.

However, this argument suffers from a poverty of theory. It views the world as a mechanistic body driven solely by predetermined (capitalist) instincts and denies human agency to affect the world. It also suffers from acute ahistoricism. Mearsheimer’s formulation of an anarchic “security competition” is a tautology that self-consciously excludes factors that contradict his theories as outside the scope of international relations. He does not explain how this anarchy developed, what specific social property relations it expresses, or how those social relations evolved. Thus, while it is necessary to question NATO’s continued relevance in the 21st century, the critiques by Chomsky and the DSA rely on a theory of international relations that is divorced from the material realities of the actual historical process. A leftist IR theory must be firmly rooted in the specificities of history and must account for the development of the social relations buttressing the international order. If Western capitalism is to be blamed for the war, then capitalism should be defined. The theory must also understand the evolution of internationalism as a complex and sometimes contradictory ideology, which implies a complete understanding of its revolutionary origins. Finally, a left IR theory must consider how militant worker action impacts the creation of world systems and their tensions.

The Head and the Heart

The DSA position is that the US is uniformly responsible for capitalist expansion and exploitation. It is easy to dismiss this as typical left-reactionary anti-Americanism, but this proposition is critical to DSA’s analysis of capitalism. For example, its original NATO statement argues that provocation from NATO’s expansion is the sole reason for Russia’s militarization. The International Committee’s opening statement proceeds from the organization’s 2021 platform, which states “DSA operates in the heart of a global capitalist empire” and later says, “as socialists living in the heart of the American empire.” The conflation of the US with the totality of an empire of Capital suggests that they view the two as indistinguishable. It is not just a rhetorical posture; it is a philosophical disposition.

From a moral standpoint, the DSA statement is correct. As the sole remaining superpower, the US is responsible for many atrocities and horrors, disproportionately targeting people of color and developing nations. These horrors have been committed – sometimes justified – as necessary actions to spread democratic values, protect human rights, and above all, capitalist social relations. The DSA is right to call out these hypocrisies, and they stand on firm moral ground. However, as a critique of the current imperial order and an analysis of the specific social relations that comprise the existing order, they present a reductive and mechanistic theory of history that ultimately undermines their moral capital.

Consider DSA’s description of an individual’s relationship to the system of Capital. The system is a body, the US, the body’s heart. Humans living “within the heart” are individualistic cells encoded by DNA for specific functions. Cells have no agency – they can only do what they were programmed to do. A single cell cannot change the direction the body moves and does not exist apart from the body. The body is intrinsic to the cell’s identity and existence. Not only do people have agency that goes beyond the orchestrations of a univocal political “body”, but this agency is social and linked to other relations of affiliation and dependence.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #money on the left #foreign policy #geopolitics #imperialism #DSA #noam chomsky #russia #ukraine

[skaruresonic]

All of this discourse reminds me of something I recently read about Captain N: allegedly, the reason it looks nothing like the games it includes is because Nintendo of America simply gave the showrunners a couple of titles and character names (and forbade them from using Mario and Samus, the former because they had another show in mind and the latter to not reveal the twist of her identity), and basically refused to contact them further, leaving them to scramble to come up with everything.

The reason Megaman is green in the show instead of blue? The lead animator had to describe him on the phone how he looked on his shitty TV. Yeah, he actually bothered to play the game. Didn't work out, but I appreciate the effort.

So I do believe Flynn when he says that back in the day there was little communication between East and West, and adaptations were done with little care from the higher-ups. But a few months ago we had proof that the SatAM creators received official concept art from SOJ, and apparently ignored it. Also Captain N is remembered to this day as being a silly cheap cartoon while SatAM still has hordes of devoted fans.

Exactly. Someone tried. There was an attempt. That is a situation where they really did have to work with the little they had, and yet people want to pretend like Yamaguchi giving SatAM's creators sketches of Tails that they then ignored is the same thing.

It's not. Again: they had a choice, and they chose not to. Anything else is revisionism and ad hoc justification bordering on ahistoricism. It's also a Freudian slip of the "Sega sucks" kind.

#asks

[fiercynn]

really powerful piece with perspectives from all over the world. quotes from each author:

“netanyahu and his war cabinet have pressed forward with a ground invasion. the hope, apparently, is that with enough violence, the status quo ante can be salvaged. but this is a fantasy underwritten by vengeance and bloodlust.” – dylan saba

“as algorithmically determined precision strikes give way to a policy of widespread destruction in gaza with no end in sight, the bloodshed simply highlights the obvious: investments in violence will always yield more violence, no matter how advanced an army’s technological arsenal.” – sophia goodfriend

“we are in this for the long haul, because we are motivated by deep, endless love for our families and communities. we believe that jews and palestinians must stay on the land. long before October 7, apartheid made Israel a dangerous place for us all.” – hadas binyamini

“yet palestinians in gaza, across palestine, and in the diaspora refuse to accept this. the international movement in solidarity with palestine has a responsibility, in the face of genocide, to speak out and righteously confront the consequences of dissent.” – nasreen abd elal

“in the book produced by the tamer institute, a child remembered going out to get bread and seeing a warplane above: ‘i kept looking behind me and above my head, debating whether i should bring war-flavored bread home to my family, or let the warplane end my dream of returning home.’” – mariam barghouti

“casting anti-semitism as a foreign threat in germany is flagrant ahistoricism, of course…as one policeman, who threatened to arrest me if i didn’t stow away my palestinian flag, explained, he treated the flag the same way he would a swastika.” – bobuq sayed

“during the seventies, israel was known as america’s “cops on the beat,” guarding u.s. interests in the middle east; we can insist on defunding those police, too.” – natan last

#free palestine #genocide #anti zionism

[40ouncesandamule]

I say this a nuclear power advocate, specifically as someone who believes that the incipient apocalypse can only be survived by the mass adoption of gen iv liquid fluoride thorium reactors:

Nuclear advocates must grapple with the realities of nuclear proliferation, the petrodollar, neocolonialism, and empire if we are to convince anyone else to adopt nuclear

While it is easy to make fun of the bravery, temerity, and self-awareness of the German people, fresh off of committing the Holocaust, to say that their government could not be trusted with the ability to create atomwaffen or to protect their lands from becoming fallout zones if the Cold War went hot as "lol dumb krauts are burning brown coal lol", such sentiments belie a fundamental arrogance, ahistoricism, ignorance, and naivete.

Bluntly put: Nuclear advocates are going to need to learn history and to learn politics if we are to convince anyone else. And we must. And we should.

[gaysoftheagenda]

Introduction to QueerCrit pt.1

First off I want to start by familiarizing yall with Queer Critical Theory aka. QueerCrit. There has been lots flying around recently about Critical Race Theory, which is kinda a sister theory to QueerCrit since they both originate from the same larger parent theory called Critical Theory. QueerCrit is a lens that theorists use to communicate ideas. The central points of QueerCrit can be summarized as follows:

“1) the centrality of the intersection of race and racism with sexual orientation and homophobia 2) the challenge to mainstream ideologies

3) confrontations with ahistoricism (which is the idea of a narrative ignoring historical context)

4) the centrality of experiential knowledge

5) multidisciplinary aspects

6) social justice perspective” (Misawa, 5)

[gothicprep]

frankly, I think ahistoricism is just baked into american culture. we’re a country of people with invented cultural heritages, which informs a hell of a lot more than we’re willing to admit. i’ve always believed that the widespread idea that we can write our own stories at all creates rachel dolezals, not “wokeness.”

and it goes a lot deeper than made-up heritage, too. if somebody whose great-great-great grandfather emigrated to the united states from italy can claim that being italian is salient to their identity, then isn’t it obvious why we get dolezals?

[rf-times]

I don't know why people think that a place or culture that shows Goddess worship is matriarchal. As an Indian, worshipping Goddesses and celebrating fertility of women are very common here. There are plenty of rituals here that celebrate the first time a girl has her period(I myself have experienced this), where we are gifted with new clothes, gold, sweets, etc. None of this means that the culture is in anyway matriarchal. In hindu temples, you can see images and sculptures of warrior goddesses who are slaying demons(who are always men) yet it is still a very misogynistic society.

I have actually read the book that anon took the passage from. It's called Philosophical trends in the feminist movement by an Indian Maoist named Anuradha Ghandy. It's strange how the author makes such claims despite knowing that Goddess worship and all exist even now in our culture.

I've mainly seen this book recommended as a valid criticism against radical feminism but the truth is the author would've been called a "swerf" or "terf" by them if they read the entire book. At one point, she makes the mistake of assuming radical feminists support prostitution and criticize them -"The radi­cal trend by supporting pornography and giving the abstract argument of free choice has taken a reac­tionary turn providing justification and support to the sex tourism industry promoted by the imperial­ists which is subjecting lakhs (100.000s) of women from oppressed ethnic communities and from the third world countries to sexual exploitation and untold suffering."

However, her criticism of liberal and post-modern feminism is spot on.For eg:" In effect post-modernism is extremely divisive because it pro­motes fragmentation between people and gives rela­tive importance to identities without any theoretical framework to understand the historical reasons for identity formation and to link the various identities." So I'd say it's a good reading for those who want to know why liberal feminism and postmodernism are problematic.

Interesting, I'd never heard of this book before. I wonder when it was written because there were strands of second wave feminists who did support porn and the "sexual revolution" (i.e. Ellen Willis) but surely not enough to constitute referring to supporting porn as a tenet of radical feminism. I think there's so much ahistoricism in regards to prehistory because so many feminsits operate under the assumption that matriarchies prove that patriarchy is unnatural and evil and therefore go to ridiculous lengths to interpret anything as being matriarchal. By the same token, many misogynists love to see matriarchies as proving the opposite, that there were these primitive backwards "nature based" societies run by women that had to be defeated for society to progress. So there's no wonder the idea of prehistorical matriarchy is so prevalent. And like you say, we are so much more skeptical and realistic when it comes to putting women on a pedestal in our modern societies and cultures being indicative of how women are treated, but put these same artefacts or ideas a few thousand years ago and suddenly it's proof of matriarchy!

I like her passage on postmodernism.

[aurazoo]

I cannot tell a lie: I hate that lesbian woodcutting ticktock person. honestly, I think it's way too much a persona presentation of "rugged individualism," but it also rings so much is ahistoricism (using a "viking woodsplitter sword" which is insane and useless [and honestly feels like part of the cultural "this is good white people history" that so many trad people latch onto in regards to the "Nordic past"] compared to a fucking axe, which is what vikings actually fucking used)

#i see her on my dash like weekly and i always get these vibes

[beguines]

The text's animus is mostly against moralising. The elision of moral and moralising arguments is common, but the two aren't coterminous. It's perfectly reasonable to be sceptical of the latter, the toxic and/or sentimental deployment of, say, shame, to segment people into worthy and unworthy, rather than attempting a grounded analysis of abilities, constraints and concomitant ethics of behaviour. Moralising is also the clearest articulation of the ahistoricism implicit in any recourse to timeless moral precepts. Such a practice is always ideological, and its honoured 'morality' is rarely congenial to radical change.

Stressing the 'freedom' of the 'individual', for example, as Steven Lukes puts it, overwhelmingly tends to assume market relationships, and 'the very concept of the "individual" can be given a truncated meaning' implying 'self-ownership' and 'possessive individualism'. Fundamental to the communist project is the opposite approach, the denaturalisation of capitalism, the insistence that things can be other than they are. Hence the authors' critique of the supposedly 'eternal truths' of 'Freedom, Justice, etc.' as an expression of, and thrown up by, class society.

China Miéville, A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto

#china miéville #a spectre haunting