#do you know HOW HARD it is to write genuine ideological conflict that also feels deeply personal?? and they did it SO WELL

[fuckyeahisawthat]

“I don’t think that is what God wants. And I don’t think you want it either.”

This line of Aziraphale’s in the Job minisode keeps sticking out to me. Because this is the heart of the problem, right? This is how Aziraphale can see Crowley so completely and also not at all.

Because yes they suck at open communication and yes it’s because they had to hide their relationship for thousands of years and have so so so much trauma and fear to work through. But ALSO they actually do have a profound difference in how they see the world that keeps coming between them, and it’s not just theoretical but deeply personal to both of them.

Because Aziraphale still wants to believe that God is good. He can’t let go of that because his whole identity is wrapped up in being an angel of the Lord, and if God’s not good then what has he been doing for his entire existence?

And so when bad things are happening he falls back on This cannot be what God wants. The whole of season one, he refuses to believe that God could really want the world to end—even though we now know he knew this was a possibility before the world even started. He keeps going up the chain of command, trying to find someone to intervene. “That’s why I’m going to have a word with the Almighty and then the Almighty will fix it.” As if God doesn’t have all the information or hasn’t been paying attention.

And really, the events of season one reinforce this worldview for him. Because if the Archangel Fucking Gabriel isn’t sure what God wants, then maybe God did want them to stop Armageddon. Maybe it was Aziraphale and Crowley who were doing God’s work after all.

He’s gotten as far as realizing that Heaven’s orders are not the same thing as God’s will, but he still hasn’t detached the concepts of Good and Right from God in his worldview.

Crowley is a good person who does the right thing so he must still be an angel deep down. “I know the angel you were.” The only way Aziraphale can conceptualize Crowley saving Job’s children is, “Come on, you’re a little bit on our [God’s] side.” So Crowley’s fall was a mistake; Crowley belongs in Heaven, where he was so happy before the Fall. Why wouldn’t he want to be an angel again? And yeah maybe Heaven sucks now but God is still good, so there’s hope that the system can be reformed with a change of leadership, and Heaven can be made to actually do good, the way God always intended.

But that’s not how Crowley sees the world at all. He is operating with an entirely different understanding of reality. Because he figured out a long time ago (at least by the time of the Job job, but probably long before that) that you can’t base your sense of morality on what you think God wants. Not just because you don’t know for sure, but because sometimes God’s plans are fucking awful. God in Good Omens is not kind to Her creations. She doesn’t tolerate questions or doubts or disobedience. She’s capricious, turning on the creatures She made and killing a bunch of them when She’s in a bad mood. She punishes indiscriminately and disproportionately. She wagers human lives like gambling chips. The kids were supposed to be dead no matter who won the bet.

I think it’s interesting that Crowley is the one who introduces the idea in season one of “What if the Almighty planned it like this all along? From the very beginning.” That’s probably a comforting thought to Aziraphale, soothing his anxieties about going against Heaven right when he is feeling acute distress at the idea of no longer having a side. (And, in that particular moment, no longer even having a bookshop.)

But it’s not a comforting thought to Crowley. Have you seen what happens when God has a plan for you? It fucking sucks. Woe betide you if you’re the Barbie God decides to play with today. (At bare minimum, you’re coming back with some burn marks and a weird haircut.)

I’ve brought up the line “There are no right people. There’s just God, moving in mysterious ways and not talking to any of us” before, and I tend to focus on the “there are no right people” part. But also, there’s just God.

Aziraphale tends to draw a distinction between God’s will and Heaven’s orders when it suits him, and collapse that distinction when it doesn’t. Crowley almost never differentiates between God and Heaven. There’s just God, and She’s not going to explain why this is happening or listen to pleas for mercy (although Crowley still tries). You can’t trust Heaven or Hell, and you can’t count on God to show up and make everything all right. Sometimes God is in fact the reason that things are not all right. You’re on your own.

(And. Look. Crowley is right on this one. There are certainly aspects of their relationship where they’re both equally responsible for things being a shitshow, but the text is pretty unambiguous about Crowley, a demon, having the most accurate read on the nature of God in the world of Good Omens out of any of the metaphysical characters.)

Crowley rebuilt his entire sense of self, alone, after the Fall. He created himself anew and developed his own moral compass and sense of identity independent of both Heaven and Hell. “The angel you knew is not me.” When Crowley does the right thing, that’s not his angel-ness shining through; that’s just Crowley.

And from a like, trauma recovery point of view, it’s actually very healthy for him to have the realization that sometimes God’s just kind of a dick. He didn’t do anything to deserve getting kicked out of Heaven. None of them did. Just God messing them about because She didn’t like being questioned, or She wanted to see what would happen, or She needed two sides for Reasons and didn’t much care who was on one or the other, or She’s playing some fucked up little game for Her own amusement. (And if there was some Great Plan that required Crowley to fall…well, that is also fucked up. Because it doesn’t matter if there was a reason. It still hurt.)

And while Crowley in general is extremely patient with Aziraphale and his slow, halting journey away from Heaven…it’s gotta sting, every time Aziraphale doesn’t want to believe that God could be cruel, when Crowley is standing right fucking there. It’s gotta hurt when Aziraphale refuses to see something that Crowley knows to be true through his own lived experience. Because it should be enough. What happened to him should be enough to make someone who loves him walk away from Heaven and never look back. And it isn’t.

But of course Crowley is one hundred percent not going to talk about this, if he is even fully self-aware about having these thoughts, because it’s far too painful and vulnerable. (He talks to plants, goats, God, and no one in a bar at the end of the world, but never to Aziraphale.) And so he says “Tell me you said no” and “I think I understand a lot better than you do” because he can’t say Choose me. Just this once, choose me and he can’t say Believe me.

And Aziraphale is not going to think about all this and work it out for himself, because he has a massive lump of denial centered around exactly this thing, that sometimes God hurts people who didn’t do anything to deserve it. I’m sure he’s thought about the Fall in abstract terms, enough to be afraid of it, but not in terms of this is a thing that happened to a person I love. And he has certainly not allowed himself to draw any conclusions about the nature of God from it, because that is far too scary a prospect.

And so they’re stuck. Until they can figure out how to remove this massive landmine from the center of their relationship, they are going to keep having the same fight over and over again, and they’re going to keep hurting each other without fully understanding why.

#do you know HOW HARD it is to write genuine ideological conflict that also feels deeply personal?? and they did it SO WELL #i am in awe tbh #good omens #good omens s2 #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #heaven #hell #god #the god in good omens is not nice and you can’t convince me otherwise #is a tag i have from s1 and i’m sticking with it #fall thoughts

[night-will-fall]

ok i have a quick rant on the Darkling/Darklina/Shadow and Bone trilogy i have to get out. i genuinely feel she let down his character, alina’s character, and in general the whole arc of the narrative.

**i want to clarify first that I am not anti Leigh. i’ve tagged that per someone’s request, but the truth is i simply feel that anybody who decides to put a story out there in the world, or any kind of writing, will be subject to criticism. that’s part of writing, it’s part of art, and it’s just part of creation and the real world, no matter your intentions or motivations for your piece. just like this post—it should be subject to criticism, too. that’s how discussion happens and people learn. it’s not an attack on the original writer because the writer is not their work. i love Leigh and her choice to put her stories out in the world, even if i disagree with some of the choices she made. it’s only because of her that we get to have these conversations about our favorite characters in the first place. (I also don’t think it’s fair to her and all the work she put into SEVEN novels to reduce the decisions she made about her characters and plots to ‘coping’ — just my two cents. I’m sure her trauma influenced her work, it’s hard to imagine otherwise. but I doubt she or anyone else would vouch for people refusing to critique their work because of something she went through that does not define her.)**

the problem i have with Leigh’s writing of the Darkling is that after Shadow & Bone, it was so forced. she wrote him doing all of these implausibly horrible things after the fans started to like him to force it down our throats that he was the irredeemable villain. and yet when he was first introduced, i was so hopeful that this character called ‘the Darkling’, a shadow summoner and master of darkness, wouldn’t fall into the predictably, disappointingly easy trope of evil as darkness and good as light. so when she did exactly that, it felt like a betrayal of the character after he had already begun to take on a life and heart of his own. we connected to him. and she did her very best to sever that connection in favor of an emotionally manipulative boy who did almost nothing to help alina grow. Mal actually hindered and harmed her growth, constantly guilting her for having wants, desires, and feelings of her own that didn’t revolve around him, whereas the Darkling never wanted her to be anything but herself. he, like her, was capable of seeing the bigger picture, whereas Mal was an absurdly selfish and bizarre character that cared about none of that (and didn’t even “want” alina until she was famous and desired ?!! like come on). i sincerely can’t believe he was intended to be the love interest we connected with and rooted for.

and i know she likely had personal reasons for characterizing Aleksander the way she did, possibly attempting to embody anecdotal experiences with a specific person who did her harm in her own life, but with this character it felt unnatural and forced. she basically ignored of all of his character’s potential as a complex, nuanced human tortured by watching generations of his people’s pain, trauma, exploitation, murder, etc. (even if it was true that he had eroded morally/emotionally because of the mervost and centuries of standing witness to these atrocities), ironically dismissing his potential to grow in a story that was supposed to be all about growth (another narrative failure i won’t get into here). not to mention that his mission’s intent wasn’t even inherently evil (morally grey at worst, which is so much more compelling than pure evil anyway, which makes it extra disappointing that she bungled this), and by the end of the series all of his completely valid points just went unaddressed and people continued to suffer for it. his attempts to solve that problem were simplistically reduced and deemed as plain ‘evil’, with very few people recognizing the deep empathy and collective pain that drove his actions—something that alina actually did understand. 

i feel bad for him. that’s why i like him and that’s why i like Darklina. he deserved better, and so did alina. their chemistry was so eloquently written (and portrayed in the show) and i truly believe they could’ve helped each other grow. but we never got a chance to see or explore that because of how Bardugo’s personal feelings obscured the natural direction of her characters’ development, ultimately doing a serious disservice to her narrative (she does this a few times — prioritizes certain plotlines and actions that she wants to include even if they don’t align with the natural progression of the story). she tries to make us believe certain things and feel certain ways about her characters and plot points in opposition of the simple truth that they just don’t fit. alina’s character essentially ends up right where she started with only a few slight differences, one of them being the loss of power, which was something that made her uniquely, intrinsically her, and was cruelly ripped away in a nonsensical punishment for what? daring to trust? daring to break away from the insecure hold Mal had over her, and constantly used against her? daring to grow and learn? daring to delve deeper into her own power as a Grisha? daring to connect with the Darkling and the nobility of his motives? it was all around just a sad and disappointing direction to take a story that had so much potential to be powerful and different.

[not to mention all of the beautiful balance in the light/shadow trope, the star-crossed lovers torn apart by situational and ideological conflict, the novelty of their powers and their mirroring inabilities to “fit in” or find others like them, like. come ON, that could have been so great. ugh. just to abandon it all for dusty, insecure Malware. pls.]

ok end rant. thank you if you read my heated word vomit.

#rant #shadow and bone #sab #darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #the darkling x alina #the darkling x alina starkov #thats why i spend so much time writing him emotionally in my own fics #and i try to give alina more agency and more room to grow #because theyre just OWED that #in my opinion #ok im done #anti Mal #anti Malina #anti Leigh Bardugo

[sleepymarmot]

Trying to write something down about SF50 while “completely speechless” has already turned into “dull shock” but not yet settled into blankness

Not me deciding to look at the content warnings during the discussion early in the episode and seeing “premeditated act of violence” and “murder” and my heart dropping at the confirmation... I didn’t even notice “major character death” but I got the point without it.

I’m completely drained, and I’ve never even felt strongly about Chine. My condolences to those who did.

It’s not even the fact of the death itself that gets me, but how brutal and entirely unnecessary it was. The “Well I guess that’s how it is now, nothing to be done about it :/” energy from all characters involved. That one of the main characters murdered his friend and didn’t even sound particularly conflicted about it. (Are these characters even friends? Or just coworkers?) That it was specifically Lyke, who had put so much hope and goodwill into Aterika’kaal and its redemption, but refused to do the same for Chine.

And that the group fell apart so quickly and completely. And that Marn didn’t even say goodbye.

When the discussion was still happening, for a while I was thinking that Chine has become a foil to Alaway, not only ideologically but now also in modus operandi, and how cool it would be for the two of them to have a confrontation instead... Imagine a three-way standoff between Chine, Alaway & Aterika’kaal, and Lyke...

When the epilogues started I was like “Will they address the painting now” and was nodding along when they did, but Austin saying this counted as a zenith beat caught me completely off guard. That’s it?? Is he not going to be in the next season? That would be so anticlimactic. I’ve made my peace with the idea of Chine being gone by the end of the season (though not the way it actually happened), but I’m absolutely not ready to lose Duvall at this point.

Me before: Huh none of the Junk Mage zenith abilities seem relevant to Lyke’s story Me right now: Oh shit 😬 When I heard Lyke’s epilogue I thought this was a good sequel hook for the next season and felt relieved, but now I’m afraid. They aren’t going to wrap it up in the next episode, right? 

And I really don’t want Lyke to leave, and not only because his arc has been one of my favorites and has enough power to be a part of the premise of the entire next season. But this horrible development and the hypocrisy of it bring new potential to the character. He stood there and couldn’t come up with anything better than executing his own damn friend. A part of his job indeed has been to kill people who pose a threat like that. Is this the situation where for a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail? Is Lyke capable of self-reflecting on that and realizing that has become someone he doesn’t want to be? And then maybe temporarily or permanently retiring from adventuring like Marn did. (And then finding Aterika’kaal and [horrible prediction I don’t want to post because I am genuinely afraid it happens next week].) Or there is a path in the opposite direction, a darker one. His denial can get stronger and feed into self-righteousness. It could end with a Lyke who is causing more and more death, directly or not, and then looking back at it and going “I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life” — and wholeheartedly meaning every word.

I’m going to be real with you: it’s hard for me to muster any kind of excitement about any of this. Or about the continuation next week and next year. The best I can do right now is to make peace with it. Which is a shame, because I’ve felt so enthusiastic about this season. Sure, I didn’t love the last few arcs the way I loved some of the others, but I didn’t expect the ending to sour my feelings in general like this. I don’t know what I expected, really. I’m not new here, I know how their season finales go and that I’m statistically more likely to be dissatisfied than not. Better luck next time?

#friends at the table #sangfielle #sangfielle spoilers #blah blah blah #you can guess my emotions from the paragraph so uhh don't read if you don't want to see grumbling and sadness #i think it's not negative enough to hide from the tags on purpose but who knows if the rest of the fandom agrees #idk i think it's fair to express sadness about an episode where sad shit happens

[dwellordream]

“Because informal camaraderie between the sexes was an unfamiliar phenomenon, figuring out how to relate to each other was a complicated matter for both men and women. As one young man noted in 1924, "Nowadays when a woman goes everywhere and does everything, it is very difficult for a man to figure out how to treat her." "How is a man to know how to treat a woman anymore?" asked another bewildered soul. Obviously, these and other young men were at a loss when it came to relating to women as friends and companions. Did female companionship mean, they wondered, that men had to be courteous and gentlemanly at all times? 

Would they have to refine their language and manners in order not to offend female sensibilities? Or should young women simply be treated as men would each other? Most often they found no clear answers to these questions, and they had a hard time imagining new ways of behaving. "No matter what I do," grumbled one young man, "I never seem to do the right [thing]." Young women seemed equally unsure about how to interact with the opposite sex. On the one hand, they longed for frank conversations and easy rapport. On the other, they did not need advice columnists and etiquette experts, or their mothers, to remind them that "nothing is as delicate as a woman's reputation."

As they well knew, simply seeming too anxious for male companionship or too careless in selecting one's company was sufficient to cast doubt on a woman's moral rectitude. Yet, showing too much reserve might mean missing out on having fun. Their concerns were therefore of a different kind than young men's. Was it really true, they wanted to know, that men found women who went out at night by themselves to be "cheap"? Did men approve of women who wore lipstick? And under which circumstances could a woman allow a young man to walk her home? "I don't want to be prudish, but I don't know what is appropriate," one nineteen-year-old woman wrote, summarizing the dilemma she and many other young women faced.

In public discourse, the uncertainty over new codes of behavior came to a head in discussions over the seemingly trivial issue of male chivalry. Throughout the 1920s, young men and women debated this matter with an astonishing passion, and for that reason alone it is worth examining. What were these discussions about? What caused them? What was it about this issue that triggered such intense feelings? And what does this tell us about the difficulties associated with establishing cross-gender camaraderie? On the surface, the lines of conflict were clear enough. Over and over again, young women complained about what they perceived as rudeness among men. "Why are Danish men so ill-mannered?" "Femme" wanted to know in 1923.

"Girlie" was convinced that "chivalry and courtesy disappeared along with the crinoline." Writing from Italy, another woman was sure that Scandinavian men would "die of embarrassment" if they saw the gallantry with which "even lowly dock workers on the Arno River treat a woman." Adding insult to injury, one of the few Langelinie girls to speak out in public claimed that her interest in the visiting sailors stemmed solely from the fact that the foreigners were "considerate," "gentlemanly," and "chivalrous" companions who did not try to take advantage of "a decent and well-behaved young girl" like herself.

"A Copenhagen Girl" agreed. Since "you can use a very strong magnifying glass and still not discover even the tiniest trace of chivalry" among Danish men, she didn't find it surprising that nice girls like herself preferred the company of men like "Pierre and Giovanni, Tom and Jack." In most cases, young men declared themselves guilty as charged, but, they argued, this was only because chivalry was an outdated form of conduct entirely incompatible with the kind of camaraderie women seemed to desire. "What is it that determines that a man must always be chivalrous toward a woman?" a self-described "nonattentive gentleman" thus asked.

Another young man who defiantly labeled himself "nongallant" wanted to know whether "a young woman has any right to be offended because I do not pick her up before a dance but ask her to meet me at a trolley stop?" "Mack and Jack" were equally annoyed by what they saw as unreasonable demands on the part of female companions. "We are two young men," they wrote to an advice columnist in 1923, "who would like to hear your opinion about the behavior of two young ladies. The other night after we had been out dancing together, the young ladies wanted us to escort them home, but we live at the opposite end of town and escorting them home would have taken more than an hour out of our night's sleep, so we refused. Now they don't want to see us again."

The unmistakable tone of anger, resentment, and indignation that runs through this discourse suggests that more than etiquette was at stake in the controversies over chivalry. When young people debated whether men ought to open doors, assist with overcoats, carry packages, offer cigarette lighters, give up their seats in trolley cars, and walk companions home, they were, of course, trying to determine what constituted proper behavior in an era when gender norms were being redefined. That in itself was fraught with difficulty, and the confusion they expressed was genuine. 

But because both men and women perceived chivalry as a source of power and control, their "conversations" are therefore best understood as part of a much larger struggle over the relative status of men and women in a changing cultural context. For that reason it became such an intensely contested issue. Certainly, women's insistence on male chivalry was not merely motivated by a desire to indulge in the pleasures that spring from a companion's service and attentiveness. In their eyes, chivalrous behavior indicated, among other things, a certain level of male regard. After all, it had in the past only been disreputable women who could not legitimately demand such treatment. 

Insufficient male chivalry was therefore seen, even among many self-proclaimed "modern" young women, as an insulting sign of disrespect. More importantly, young women also perceived chivalry as a sort of sexual safety mechanism. At the heart of the ideology of chivalry lay the notion that men were responsible for serving and protecting women. Therefore, as long as women could hold men to a code of behavior that emphasized courtesy and (sexual) self-control, their ability to protect themselves from physical and moral danger seemed all the greater. And if this potentially greater degree of safety came at the expense of what seemed more egalitarian companionship, that was a price worth paying for most women. 

Besides, despite their modernity, young women were not out to eradicate gender-differentiated forms of behavior. While they were eager to assert their independence from older patterns of social interaction and to develop new forms of camaraderie with men, they still insisted on their femininity and on having that femininity acknowledged by male companions. "It might well be," one women poignantly argued, "that women in this country have reached their goal in terms of equality with men, but that does not mean that they have stopped being women."

That sexual equality and continued male chivalry were demands not incongruous with each other was a claim many men found hard to accept. "We don't understand how young girls can demand to be equals and at the same time demand to be treated as ladies," two male friends explained. "Women have by now for many years sought equality with men," another man elaborated, "and it is therefore my infallible [sicl] opinion that the ladies must either be entirely independent in all matters and renounce gentlemanly gallantry, or they must relinquish their equality with men." With such comments, young men laid bare what was for them at the heart of this matter. 

Clearly, they expected women to reciprocate for the favors and attentions they received with a certain degree of modesty and deference. As Karen Dubinsky has pointed out, the flip side of chivalry and protection is power and control. When men no longer felt they had power and control over women, they were, as they repeatedly stressed, no longer willing to respect a code of conduct that endowed them with a specific set of duties and responsibilities. Underlying the controversies over the issue of chivalry were therefore much more profound conflicts, most of which derived from young men's resentment over losing a set of gendered privileges and an authority over women that older generations of men had been able to claim. 

Even though many young men were attracted, at least in principle, to the idea of having fun and enjoying themselves in the company of female peers, they were also deeply ambivalent about young women's entry into what had previously been male territory and their encroachment on what had traditionally been male prerogatives. As one newspaper columnist complained in 1921, "Women have forced their way through every door—into the labor market, into politics, and into entertainment. They are getting more and more rights—rights to this and rights to that—but what about us men? We don't seem to be getting any more rights."

Many young men also took offense at women's relative independence in public arenas. As long as young women had money of their own, they did not have to depend on male companions in order to partake in public entertainment. Although most men had greater earnings and more spending money than their female peers, even those women with the most limited funds were usually able to afford a movie ticket, the admission to an amusement park, or a cup of coffee in a restaurant, and unlike in the United States, for example, young Danish women typically paid their own way when they went out with male companions, at least as long as they were not engaged or going steady.

 "Of course, we paid for ourselves when we went out," insisted Stine Petersen. "Yes, naturally! Naturally, we paid for ourselves," exclaimed Netta Nielsen, seemingly surprised at the suggestion that men might pay for female companions. While hard on their pocket books, such financial self-reliance had several advantages for young women. First, it allowed them, as Michael Curtin has pointed out, to signal that "the relation between themselves and [male companions] were of a public and egalitarian nature, not romantic as between lovers." Perhaps more importantly, it released them from any obligation to male peers and from the moral suspicion that surrounded any woman who accepted gifts and treats from men who were relative strangers. 

Besides, paying one's own way also protected young women from ending up, as Nikoline Sorensen phrased it, in an "awkward position" where men "might expect things" in return for their generosity. But rather than appreciating the potential for egalitarian friendships that such practices produced, most young men resented the self-reliance of their female peers, perceiving it as a challenge to male initiative and a lessening of their power. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, much of young men's resentment grew from their sense that women were in fact not only becoming less dependent, but were also acquiring a whole new kind of power over men. 

"What are men to do? How can they protect themselves against these attractive, scantily dressed young girls? We are under their spell," a twenty-two-year old man complained in a statement that interwove two of the most common strands in male discourse on postwar gender relations. First, men of all classes and ages spoke of young women as increasingly bewitching and seductive. Whether it was their short skirts, deep necklines, freer body language, or seeming flirtatiousness that led men to this conclusion, they generally agreed that the new generation of women possessed an unprecedented degree of sexual allure. 

Second, they constantly complained that women were using their wiles, their charms and their bodies as unfair means to gain control over men, who were ill-equipped to withstand such an onslaught. "This is the last and final battle in the war between the sexes," one observer declared in 1924. "After suffrage and all the other rights women have obtained, they are now plotting their final assault. With their physical allure, they are striving to master men who are, after all, only men." In this light, young men's unwillingness to behave chivalrously begins to take on its deeper meaning. In a situation in which many young men believed that women were gaining the upper hand, they were less than eager to engage in behavior that smacked of servitude to women. 

In earlier generations, a man who fetched a woman's coat or carried her packages had discreetly underlined his own masculinity through a show of physical ability. By the 1920s, the very same gestures seemed to many young men simply to demonstrate service and subordination to a new generation of women who already possessed too much power over them. Quite understandably, they therefore resisted any involvement in such behavior. Although the debates over chivalry are revealing of the underlying conflicts that seriously circumscribed any effort to create more frank and egalitarian relationships between young men and young women, they may ultimately be read as fairly innocuous. 

After all, having to fetch one's own coat is at most an inconvenience, and while ungentlemanly behavior might offend a woman's sensibilities it hardly impairs her autonomy or her freedom of movement. But because (sexual) self-control was a central component of the ideology of chivalry, young men's increasing unwillingness to adhere to this long-standing code of conduct had more serious consequences. Predictably, although unfortunately, it led to an unprecedented level of physical and sexual danger for all women who ventured into public arena.”

- Birgitte Soland, “Beauties and Boyfriends, Bitches and Brutes.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#becoming modern #birgitte soland #history #1920s #gender

[bthump]

Do you think there is anything Griffith could do at this point to stop Guts from his revenge quest? It's highly unlikely that it would happen in the context of the story, but I'm just curious if there could be another way. Would Guts be capable to forget Griffith at this point?

lol ngl I legit think that NGriff showing up and just saying “Hey so turns out I actually failed my feelings test on the Hill of Swords, I’m still in love with you after all, wanna join the Hawks again?” would do it. Guts would spend 2 seconds wondering if he’s fucking with his head and then Griffith would Look at him and Guts would be like, “yeah.”

Or yk, just “I realized I still want you, Guts.” boom, friendship ended with revenge, now Griffith is my best friend again.

I actually completely think that Guts’ revenge campaign was like, half-assed at best, not something he’s ever been genuinely committed to, and pretty much just a way to get Griffith’s attention again. I have some posts that get into that point further, but basically it’s in the way Guts can’t finish his “when I see him again I’ll-” thought most of the time, it’s in how he still sees Femto/NGriff as a True Light, it’s in how he forgets his urge to kill, it’s in how the moments that really upset Guts post-Eclipse are when he sees Femto and NGriff again and they say “lol idc about you anymore,” how Guts fucking moped about Griffith abandoning him after the Hill of Swords, like, this is not a dude who is actually committed to killing this guy.

Like Guts is not ideologically or morally opposed to NGriff. He doesn’t care about Falconia or Fantasia, he’s not out to protect people from evil overlord Griffith or w/e lol. And he’s not even avenging Casca and the rest of the Hawks - he tells himself he is, but in chapter 130 he pretty much admits to himself that he’s just lashing out.

Guts wants 2 things in his life: to kill shit when he’s mad and for Griffith to look at him, and his revenge campaign was his attempt to get both.

SO BASICALLY YEAH I think Griffith admitting Guts still has his attention would completely derail the revenge thing.

I mean to be perfectly fair I think to make it work in fic or something Guts would still have like, a lot of inner conflict lol. You could make a p good argument that the “get Griffith’s positive attention” ship has sailed thanks to the eclipse rape as well as NGriff saying he has no regrets (tho considering how easily Miura ignores it when it comes to eg the aforementioned Guts moping when NGriff takes off it’s also easy to argue the opposite imo), and now the only attention Guts wants is for Griff to look into his eyes as Guts stabs him or w/e. Personally if I was writing this scenario I’d take an extra step and make Guts go beast of darkness and do something unforgiveable like murder Isidro before this happens so he can go “fuck it I’m a monster too now we might as well be monsters together.” Just because I think it would be easier to justify as in character lol. Miura seems to ignore the eclipse rape half the time while writing the post-eclipse story but fandom doesn’t really so, yeah.

But yeah idk it’s not a hard sell for me that if Griffith admitted he’s still hung up on Guts then Guts’ urge to kill him would disappear, never to be seen again.

BUT ALL THAT SAID re: that last bit, no I don’t think Guts could actually get over Griffith and forget him. My answer so far is only shifting Guts’ obsession back to wanting to be Griffith’s bff/fuck him, because I don’t think there’s a single thing Griffith could do to make Guts like, lose interest in him and move on.

He’s been obsessing over a single glance across a vast plain since he got on the boat. Maybe if he’d never laid eyes on him again after Griffith’s “I am over you, and that, my friend, is what they call closure” moment on the Hill of Swords he’d have had a tiny chance of moving on eventually, but imo Griffith looking at him intently is a one hit KO for Guts’ chances of getting over him. Like idk maybe if he encountered Griffith one more time only for Griffith to reiterate being totally over him for real and then they never saw each other again and also Casca ran away with Farnese and he never saw her again either eventually Guts would fuck Serpico and start to move on? But even then he’d still know Griffith is out there in the world doing stuff ~where his sword can reach~ and he’d probably hear about him occasionally since he’s now ruler of remaining civilization so...

Mmmaybe if NGriff went back to being Femto on the astral plane out of sight and out of mind and inhuman and unreachable? Or if he, like, died and Guts could maybe finally start to mourn the human version of him since he’s fully gone now? Even then it would take years and years and a lot of positive influences around him imo, and I still wouldn’t bet on Guts moving on lol, he’d be more likely to go back to aimlessly fighting monsters to cope with his feelings til something killed him.

#ty for the ask! it's an interesting question #ask #b #a #character: guts #theme: revenge #theme: true light #Anonymous #ship: griffguts #headcanons #character thoughts

[hellowkatey]

post-finale thoughts on the bad batch below the cut

[I'm specifically focusing on story and characters. this doesn't even begin to address the issues with their animation design, coloring, and the whole lot of racial, stereotypical, and ableist themes that show up, they are important to be aware of and speak out against. resources that I have found helpful are linked.]

@revenge-of-the-shit has a great compendium with lots of resources for both TBB and SW as a whole | change.org petition

okay.

As a SW fan, I am no stranger to putting up with meh writing because of my love for the characters. I love found family and I love the protective space dad trope with all my being, so TBB caught me by the hyperfixation... but not until the last few episodes of the season.

I loved Echo and Tech from the beginning. As someone who is neurodivergent, I relate to Tech a lot. And I've had a soft spot for Echo since TCW. Wrecker and Omega are more neutral for me. I like them but don't connect to them as much. My like for Hunter decreased as the season progressed, and I disliked Crosshair until episode 15. After part 1 of the finale, I went back and rewatched TCW backdoor pilot and actually began to understand Crosshair.

Coming into the 2nd part of the finale, I sort of expected them to discover Crosshair still had his chip despite claiming to already have it removed, remove it, and they fly off in the Marauder into the sunset, brothers again.

Obviously that is not what happened. But I'm not mad about that. I'm actually glad this didn't happen, though it hurt to see that wide shot of Crosshair standing alone on the platform as his brothers flew away.

I do think Crosshair still has his chip. I think the Empire tricked him into thinking they removed it. It's a mind game. Because Crosshair thinks he had the chip removed, he stops fighting the impulses to support the Empire over his team. He genuinely believes he has chosen this.

And, because Crosshair by nature is severe and unyielding (as Tech says), his natural personality is not far off from the aggression and standoffish shift that chipped clones display. But compared to how Crosshair was in TCW and the first episode, he's definitely not all there imo. The fact he remained loyal to the Empire after they destroyed Kamino with him on it (and the scenes of him still having headaches-- I mean, hello, how did the boys miss that??) is why I believe he is still chipped.

But I am glad Crosshair did not go with them even though it messes up the premise of a fic I wrote between ep. 15 and 16 (rip). The finale was important for bringing the boys back together so they can see they all still care about one another, but there's a difference in ideology. And there's a breach of trust on both sides.

Crosshair needs to see for himself that the Empire has been manipulating him and he needs to come to that conclusion on his own. The Bad Batch, mainly Hunter, needs to realize that they did abandon their brother because as soon as they figured out about the inhibitor chips their primary mission should have been getting Crosshair out of there.

In terms of the conflict between Crosshair & himself and Crosshair & The Bad Batch, I think the show did a good job. It's an extremely complex issue, and they depicted the characters as true humans that make mistakes and have to atone for them. I hope season 2 focuses on what they need to work on individually to be ready to come back together as a team.

That is why I think I watched the show but didn't really connect to it until we actually got back to the main conflict from the first episode.

But this was a 16-episode season. They filled half a season with cameos and odd-jobs which were hardly used it to advance the characters' arcs. (At least when the Mandalorian S2 did this, the cameos contributed to the journey in some way.)

Tech, Echo, and Wrecker basically got no development when there were lots of opportunities to explore this-- I mean, we have Echo who was a POW, the last of his squad, pretty well acquainted with the Jedi, and the only "reg" among them. Before he was taken by the Techno Union, he was a huge advocate of following orders and doing things by the books. I feel like he would have had a hard time with learning about the chips and Fives' death amongst other things. Tech and Crosshair were depicted working together a lot in TCW, and he is one of the few that (sort of) defends Crosshair in the finale, but that dynamic isn't explored much either. And Wrecker's chip actually activated and he hurts his brothers. Yet, there's not really any sort of fallout there either. I also feel like they alluded to Omega having some sort of special ability at the beginning and then we just never touched on it again.

I point out these things not just as a fan, but as someone who studied writing and storytelling in college. You can have your round and flat, dynamic and static characters, but they still should have a complete arc. And they all can't be flat. Especially as being part of the main cast. I think they focused mainly on external struggles and forgot about the internal ones, which would have been much more profound. If The Bad Batch was an anthology of their missions during TCW I would be a little more forgiving of the mission-to-mission episode format, but this immediately following Order 66. One of the most emotional moments in the SW franchise.

Don't get me wrong, I loved moments of the show. It's inspired me enough to read (and write) fic for it. And I've read some really kick ass writing that has fulfilled a lot of the desires I had for the show in terms of addressing internal conflict and character development. I'm well acquainted with the fandom by this point to know emotional depth is not often a priority in SW. But I did not expect the show to lack basic character development for main characters. I've browsed The Bad Batch AO3 tag a few times now, and a very large portion has to do with creating character development and backstory that doesn't exist in canon yet. I think that says a lot on its own.

This is long so I'll stop but my overall opinion of the show is bittersweet. If someone asked me what I thought of it in one sentence, I would say "it has potential". But since S2 is confirmed, it sounds like they should have time to see fan responses, take the valid criticisms to heart, and I think TBB has the potential to join the club of a beloved SW show with a rough first season.

#the bad batch spoilers #below the cut #feel free to slide into my inbox/DMs to chat about the show #also remember these are my ~opinions~ #and though this is a #long post #I did not address all of my thoughts on the show

[ardenttheories]

Homestuck's always been antagonistic and insensitive, but I don't recall seeing any of you try to dox Hussie? But please, continue to rationalise how cyberbullying lgbt people for not being nice enough and having opinions about a fictional character you disagree with puts you in the right. A story doesn't go the way you'd like and this is how you respond? You COULD have just not bothered reading it instead of CHOOSING to make your online life about something you hate like a toxic weirdo.

Hi, Kate. I’m so glad you could find my blog. (Edit: that was a joke. Apparently, some anons find it impossible to tell that I don’t actually think you’re Kate). It’s clear to me that you didn’t take the time to read through any of the content that’s actually on here, since you’re throwing around rather wild accusations, so let me take this down step by step.

Homestuck has only rarely been antagonistic and insensitive. Things like the Alpha Trolls - which were clear criticisms of fandom culture - were relatively few and far between, and when we complained about them, they actually stopped. Remind me, for instance, how relevant the Alpha Trolls were to the plot? How long they stayed as mockeries towards the fandom? Yeah, not long. I actually have talked about this before on the blog - alongside other things I thought were negative towards the fandom from the original comic - but the difference here is that... in the entirety of Homestuck, these things were outliers and inconsistencies. They stuck out because they were in stark contrast to the otherwise wonderfully handled content Homestuck went over.

For instance, Homesuck is critical of abuse - especially in terms of relationships. We see through a critical lense the shit normalisation of parental abuse can do to a child - with actual talk of triggers and of the mental and emotional scarring left behind, and the complexities of the child’s feelings towards the parent’s death through Dave - and we see how self destructive relationships can be, how harmful they are, and how hard it can be to leave them - such as Terezi’s very toxic blackrom with Gamzee, which was always portrayed as something negative and harmful especially with how worried Karkat was for her and how withdrawn she became during its run, and Dirk’s relationship with Jake, which goes very much over how communication can cause a deterioration in romantic relationships especially when the two participants have conflicting mental illnesses. 

It also goes over how men, though they can be mired in toxic masculinity, can choose to be good. How sometimes we’re not born as good people, but we can become good people through the love we have for the people around us, through frequent attempts to check what we’re doing, through the sheer willpower to be good. Dirk’s entire arc, knowing that he could very easily become Bro but deciding he doesn’t want to be, that it’s something he wants to work on, is so important and incredibly powerful. Mental illness in men is often just given as an excuse to make them violent with no attempts at betterment - so Dirk actually existed as proof that you don’t have to be that stereotype. 

In contrast, Homestuck^2 completely uncritically gave Jade, who was cis, a dog dick, made her, a bisexual woman, a sex maniac and the yaoi “woman who gets in the way of the gays” trope, made her a cheater and someone who forced her partner into the relationship to begin with, and made her a neglectful mother after having cheated with her best lesbian friend in something that has incredible recall to just about every futanari video ever - and they tried to claim that this was good representation of trans women, actually, and that the only reason we didn’t like it is that Jade is “a woman” who “has sex”.

Likewise completely uncritically, they made Gamzee, an anti-black stereotype, enter a relationship with Jane, a fascist, and then made the entire thing into a cuck joke wherein Jake being frequently drunk and sexually assaulted was funny because he wasn’t “man enough”. They then forced him to go back to his abuser after he left her in a scene that read very much like, “ridiculous man thinks woman is abusing him, go back and do your manly job”. 

This, of course, doesn’t even go into the travesty that is any form of trans representation in the comic. Roxy, a trans man, is barely even focused on as trans; they make no attempt to enforce in the fandom that he’s a trans man the way they do that June is a trans woman, and even then, they seem to think that just saying someone is a trans woman is actually good representation. Not, like, bringing it into the comic - just saying that it’s a thing. And of course, that’s not even going into the completely uncritical lense they have of Vriska, wherein her being a trans woman completely frees her of any and all blame for the past abuses she has comitted, and once again she becomes an amazing character to save the day without a single flaw - which in turn inherently associates trans women with abuse apologism, abusers, and the ideology that just because we’re trans we can get away with anything scott free. 

I honestly cannot think of one instance of good and genuine representation in Homesuck^2, nor can I think of any scene where negative content was actually treated as the negative thing it actually is. There’s no critical lense at all, not like we have in Homestuck; there’s just no fucking comparison. And this isn’t a one-off situation, either. Whereas Homestuck does do fuck ups - isn’t perfect - in between the otherwise brilliant content, Homestuck^2 is just founded upon these horrific takes. There’s almost no good content in between, and what is left is a slog to get through when surrounded by the thick slurry of shit that compromises futa Jade, abuse apologism Vriska, and victim blaming Jake. 

Of course, we didn’t “doxx” Hussie. Hussie actually listened to our complaints, for the most part, and worked with us to create something that worked well. The way Homestuck^2 was touted to work. You know, since it was meant to be written with the fandom in mind, influenced by the things we suggest and react to. We went into Homestuck^2 with the explicit idea that we were going to be listened to and taken into consideration when it was being written - the way we were with old Homestuck. I’m very sorry to say that, when you make these expectations, people are going to be a titchy bit upset when you then commandeer the entire thing and exclude the fandom from any of the process that you said they were going to be part of.

Additionally, it’s rather funny, isn’t it, that what you call doxxing is actually just people upset with how triggering content is being handled, and going to the people who actually wrote the content in order to voice their complaints? It’s almost as if social media exists to allow this communication between reader and author, which is a fundamental thing you’ll learn in any creative writing course, such as the one I’m on currently, wherein you’re actually taught how to respond to social media and to build up your image with your fans. 

Homestuck^2 is an ongoing piece of media. We’re well aware that we have a potential to change these uncritical takes and the horrific way they’re being handled if the writers will just listen to genuine criticism. This is, frankly, no different to the people who go to J. K. Rowling’s Twitter to tell her how harmful her transphobic comments are; because if she believes these things, they will work their way into her texts and will perpetuate harmful ideologies. 

The literal same thing is happening in Homestuck^2 - again, such as futa Jade, which normalises the point of view that bisexuals are cheaters and completely trivialises what it means to be trans, or Gamzee, which perpetuates just about every anti-black stereotype possible. Media does have a very powerful impact on what people see in the real world. This is why, for instance, positive black characters are so important in media; if they’re always portrayed as villains, then people will see real world black people as villains as the ideology is perpetuated to the point of fact. This is especially true if the people already believe in the ideology.

Fiction is one of the best ways that we can counteract this cycle. If you make a character that they like, and they happen to be positive representation, and then they watch more media that is likewise positive representation, it’s more likely to stick that these positive representations are the actual experiences of minority groups. Also? It’s important TO those minority groups. A black person, especially right now, doesn’t want to see an anti-black stereotype fuck a fascist, engage in sexual assult, and then enact pedophilia - only to die at the hands of a hero and be laughed at for the death. Surprisingly, shit like this is why we need to tell the writers that what they’re doing is harmful, that they’re perpetuating phobic ideologies, and that we need better representation - especially in a comic that is this widely read, and also has a very large minor fanbase. 

I shouldn’t need to explain why exposing minors to anti-black stereotypes, transphobic, homophobic, biphobic, abuse apologism, victim blaming, and the trivialisation of rape and sexual assault (especially towards men), might be a federal fucking issue. 

So, no, we’re not actually cyberbullying LGBT+ people. We’re trying to hold shitty writers accountable for the incredibly toxic and harmful ideologies they’re forcing into a text that has always been written with critical thought in mind. 

I should also point out how funny it is that you’re focusing on how some of the writers are LGBT+ - as if we’re not? I’m trans, I’m gay, and I’m ace. Yes, I can actually be these things and absolutely furious that a trans women is writing some of the most transphobic shit I’ve seen in a while into characters she then claims to be completely free of blame. We can be furious that people within our own community are enforcing negative stereotypes.

Being LGBT+ does not make them free from blame. We cannot give them a free pass to be racist, to be transphobic, to be homophobic, biphobic, to be abuse apologists, just because they’re LGBT+. Not only because that’s just a terrible fucking idea to begin with, but because it also reflects so, so badly on the community as a whole. As if being part of the community instantly means that you can do no wrong? As if there can be no toxicity within our own community, despite the fact that there very much is and it is still an issue to this day?

That is such an issue, one of the biggest issues even shown just in Vriska and the way Kate handles her as a whole - and, once again, is WHY we need to get them looking at this shit more critically. This view that LGBT+ people can do no wrong and cannot be criticised is shoved into Homestuck^2 and, once again, perpetuates the ideology. This isn’t something to be proud of. This isn’t something that’s actually okay.

Also, your point that the writers aren’t nice enough and that we disagree on fictional characters - well, I’ve already been over the second part. But for the first part, I would like to remind you that they aren’t just random LGBT+ people on the internet that we’re going to because we think their takes are a little shitty. They’re actual writers working on a piece of media. They are official content creators. 

Again, one of the first things you learn on any creative writing course is that when you become a writer, you gain a significant amount of responsibility for your interactions with the fandom. This is something that you genuinely have to expect, and if you don’t, then, unfortunately you just don’t know what it means to write something that thousands of people have a potential to read. As a writer, it is your responsibility to portray your image online; it is your responsibility to engage with the fans in a meaningful way; it is your responsibility to not cause drama and to listen when criticism is brought up, to have genuine discussion and not to perpetuate hatred - especially towards your own fanbase.

Consider, for instance, the way I’m talking to you right now. This is the sort of tone that someone should take when talking to a fan about genuine criticism. When things are brought up, you go over them step by step, you listen, you write back - you don’t go on a flurry of “fuck yous” to a minor who asked you why your team didn’t post anything about the BLM movement on the official Twitter, and you definitely don’t respond to every comment with genuine criticism with the word “pigshit”. You almost definitely don’t tell your trans masculine and masculine-aligned nonbinary fans that their opinions don’t matter.

As a writer, Kate and the rest of the team have a responsibility with their interactions with their fans. They aren’t just normal fandom voices anymore; they’re official fandom voices, voices that have more weight behind them than anyone else. They’re who people are going to turn to when it comes to anything regarding Homestuck^2. Their words now reflect literally everything about Homestuck^2, the future of Homestuck as an expanded universe, and the opinions of the group as a whole. They have to be careful with what they say. They have to be held to the same standards as industry voices because that’s essentially what they are - especially now that Homestuck is something you pay for. 

Also, this isn’t a point of the story not going the way I want. This is a point of many of people in the fandom being upset with how content is being handled, upset that their voices are being shut down, upset that triggering content is being laughed at or used flippantly and without care or respect. This is people being upset that trigger warnings were removed specifically to make the comic unsafe for them as a punishment for daring to say that something was wrong. This is people being upset that a piece of media that used to be so fucking good at portraying sensitive content in a critical light, that used to be so good at normalising LGBT+ identities and healthy representations of those identities, has suddenly turned to this. 

The story can go whatever way it wants - and frankly, that’s fine be my. What isn’t fine is that content is being used specifically to hurt and to incite.

And, of course, that final piece; nothing will improve if we don’t say that it’s wrong to begin with. Someone needs to voice the complaints of the fanbase, othrewise these toxic ideologies are going to go unchecked. One of the biggest things I’ve come to understand while making these posts is that a significant portion of the fandom feels isolated in their hurt; they don’t think other people feel the same way they do, and several people have mentioned feeling like they were going crazy because they were upset with things that the text and writers are normalising. It’s so important to make sure that these people know they’re not alone. It’s so important to make sure that our voices are heard. It’s so important to try and create critical discussion and debate over something that so many people still fucking love. 

The thing is, I don’t hate Homestuck^2. I actually really, desperately wish I could enjoy it. I wish I could read through it and theorise, could go in depth about how amazing the characters are, could write long and extensive posts on how creative and engaging it is - could even just go on about how interesting the Meat-Candy divide is, and all the points they’re trying to make about canonicity. But I genuinely fucking can’t. There is just so, so much wrong in the text that is completely unrelated to plot and to the overarching Point that makes it impossible for me to read, to want to read, to try to encourage other people to read. They’re things that literally don’t need to be in there, either; stereotypes and toxic ideologies and uncritical or badly handled sensitive topics that could be rectified so, so easily. 

Homestuck^2 could be amazing for a lot of the fandom. It could be something that we all rally around the same way we did for the original comic. For for a lot of people, it has ruined their fandom experience, has ruined their desire to want to read anything more to do with Homestuck, and has caused a significant portion of the fandom to just drop out entirely. That in and of itself should be a sign that this isn’t just a little fandom drama. That this is something much bigger and much more serious that, just maybe, needs to be looked into, talked about, understood - and, potentially, changed. 

#homestuck^2 #homestuck^2 critical #long post// #ardenttheories #Apologies for how long this is. I wasn't going to finish it until I got every point across #And that ended up being... uh. Several thousand words I suspect #Anonymous

[plays-the-thing]

The Mandalorian S2: Style Over Substance – A Companion Piece

This is a companion piece to this video where I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. It’s a collection of ideas and evidence that were cut for time or focus reasons from the main video. I’ve included both timestamps and quotes of what section of the video each idea refers to. Under a cut for length.

[1:48] Akira Kurosawa, whose movies would be very important in the western genre was very big on complete and realistic sets and effects because it helps the quality of an actors’ performance.

“The quality of the set influences the quality of the actors' performances. If the plan of a house and the design of the rooms are done properly, the actors can move about in them naturally. If I have to tell an actor, 'Don't think about where this room is in relation to the rest of the house,' that natural ease cannot be achieved. For this reason, I have the sets made exactly like the real thing. It restricts the shooting but encourages that feeling of authenticity." – Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

 [2:27] Like the original trilogy, The Mandalorian has its fair share of humor. The sequel trilogy also had a lot of humor, and was criticized for it, but it wasn’t the humor itself that I think people had a problem with, it was how the humor was done. See, in the original trilogy humor never changed or undercut the overall tone of a scene. If a scene is tense humor might lighten or even break the tension but never undercut it. The original trilogy would never, ever, make fun of the plot, character, or scenes in its own movie. The Mandalorian follows this mold of lightening or breaking tension without undercutting the scene itself which also helps it feel like the OT.

Just Writes video on Bathos is a good expansion on this idea. Personally, I find that particular brand of humor, popularized by the Marvel movies, extremely off-putting because it just screams at me to not take the story seriously and that makes it pretty hard for me to stay immersed in it. My three favorite marvel movies are Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, and Thor Ragnarok because Black Panther doesn’t really do that kind of humor and Guardians and Ragnarok manage to make it seem natural by genuinely being comedies.

 [7:18] This brings us to Episode 4. Last time I criticized this episode, but I wasn’t very specific, I just mentioned that we were starting to get away from showing and towards telling. Let’s take a closer look.

The first part of this scene, where the kid was being a nuisance, was actually really good. It kind of seemed like it was going to lead into some genuine frustration with him being a nuisance and therefore maybe some drama in their relationship. 

[9:51] Cowboy Bebop is another space western with a strong style and a mix of vignettes and episodes which advance a characters story. But every single episode builds up the themes of the overall story even if the plot has nothing to do with it.

To be fair, not every episode builds up *Spike’s* story and themes, but Cowboy Bebop has four main characters and every episode works towards at least one of the characters’ stories, characterization, or relationships.

[12:20] Mando’s mistrust of IG, when they really have quite a lot in common, speaks to something about his character.

What does it speak to exactly? Well, everyone might have their own opinion about that but here’s mine:

 IG-11 used to be a hunter, but now Queel has reprogrammed him. Mando still sees the droid as the hunter and is adamant that it can’t be trusted no matter how much Queel insists that Mando must trust his work reprogramming the droid as an extension of trusting Queel himself.

Now, why does Mando hate droids so much, and particularly this droid? Well, that’s an open question, but I have my theories. Part of it is the trauma he experienced when he was young, but I think it runs deeper than that. You know how sometimes the traits that really bother you the most in other people are the things that you don’t like about yourself? The IG-11 that Mando met is a lot like the part of Mando that I’ve been calling “The Professional.” IG is efficient and ruthless, just like Mando on a job. They are deaf to moral and personal appeals in the face of a contract. This is also the part of Mando that took the kid to the Imperials in the first place, the part that he conquered and redeemed by the end of the third episode.

But IG has been reprogrammed. Just like Mando, he has changed and now cares for the child over himself. IG even develops a personality, and at one point attempts to tell a joke. But because IG reminds Mando so much of that part of him he had to defeat, he can’t bring himself to trust him. The tension between them persists pretty much up until IG fully demonstrates to Mando that he is there both to care for the child, and for Mando. In this moment Mando begins to really see how similar they are.

This connection makes it hard for him to let IG make his sacrifice, and he even appeals to this by telling IG that he thought his old core functionality was gone. But by reactivating his old functionality as a part of his new core function, IG is also giving Mando a template to incorporate his Professional self into his new self. He shows Mando that those two halves of his self that came into conflict back in the beginning can be synthesized into one new whole. He doesn’t need to reject any part of his identity.

Then the newly synthesized Mando dons his jetpack, fulfilling his only stated desire in the entire season, and defeats a scenery chewing villain to win the day.

But that’s just my interpretation, and I’m willing to haggle over what exact interpretation the evidence best supports.

[15:29] Speaking of Luke, let’s talk about fanservice. Now to be clear, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with fanservice, what matters is what always matters: how you use it.

This also applies to the other two “Trademarked Star Wars Problems” I mentioned in the last video: repetitiveness and hamfisted merchandizing. These things are not necessarily bad. For example:

I would bet Baby Yoda is the most successfully merchandized product since the OT, but there’s nothing wrong with that because they’re part of the story being told. Baby Yoda doesn’t distract from the story, they are part of the story. On the other hand you have Ewoks, which were originally going to be Wookies. I would bet they went with Ewoks at least in part to sell more cute toys…but at least they still sort of work with the story. In TLJ the penguin things are there for no other reason than to be cute and sell toys. Same with the crystal dog. They have literally no purpose in the story, and their obvious and prominent inclusion only to sell toys distracts from my immersion.

Obviously repetition is part of stories. That’s why we have tropes, and the Hero’s journey, as tools for a writer to communicate information quickly. Just from his outfit we know a lot about Han before he ever opens his mouth, same with Obi-Wan. In RotJ, the heroes need to blow up the Death Star again. It’s kind of annoying that we’re literally doing the same thing we did two movies ago, but at least it’s a little different. In TFA Han Solo reassures us that the Starkiller Base isn’t that big of a deal by saying “don’t worry, there’s always a way to blow it up.” This is an example of a character reaching out from the script and telling the writer to change their story because the repetition is getting ridiculous.

[18:32] So…why is it here? Yeah, I know who Thrawn is. I don’t know why Ahsoka does, or why she cares, or why I should care. If the writer had cared about that they would have made her talk to Mando about it so she could give some sort of story or character-based explanation for why she cares, instead of just dramatically saying his name.

I mean I know the most likely reason it was here: to build hype for her solo show, but they could have done that without punching my immersion in the kidney.

[20:20] So it was no surprise that in the end the Expanded Universe’s greatest hit of all piloted his X-Wing into the show. But, I didn’t mind this. They had been seeding that a Jedi would be coming to collect Groghu for a while now, and if you had been running through the timeline in your head you were probably at least half expecting this. It’s foreshadowed well, it’s part of the story, and it triggers our emotional climax.

The reveal is quite well done too. First it’s an X-Wing, then we see a Jedi dressed in Luke’s RoTJ gear but it’s over the security cameras so there’s no color, then we see it’s a green lightsaber, then they clearly show that it’s Luke’s lightsaber hilt, then they finally have him peel his hood back. Each small reveal builds up the suspicion in your mind that it’s Luke until it’s confirmed.

That being said I would totally understand if someone thought it was obnoxious and hamfisted to shove Luke into another story, even though it did work for me.

[29:12] Parts of it even connect back to Mando’s story and character, though not in a new way because it’s mostly a redo of Mando’s relationship with IG last season.

I understand that Mando breaks his rules a little bit more here, but it’s still a riff on the same theme of: Mando has a conflict with a character, the he sees the similarities between between them, and then circumstances force Mando to take his helmet off in front of the character.

However if his arc with the other Mandalorians was functioning properly than this could work as a synthesis of a change in ideology and a reassertion of his willingness to bend the rules, but instead it just comes across as another redo of stuff in the last season. It’s still halfway functional because by this point it’s easy to forget that Mando had a character arc last season and it reminds us of that right before they pull the trigger on his and Groghu’s separation…but redoing the development from last season doesn’t count as a real character arc.

[31:08] There is so much more I could say about all of the bad writing, plotting, and characterization in this season. There are so many things that just don’t make sense, waste our time, or just plain don’t work.

I’m still confused over what the writer was trying to do with the snow planet. Like they crash land there and Mando decides to go to sleep inside his hull-breached freezing ship and the fish chick is like “Mando this is dumb you should fix your ship” and then he just fixes it. What was even the point of handing Mando the Idiot Ball there? Why not just have him fix the ship without trying to commit suicide by hypothermia first? Like…what?

[31:27] Why are you just listing off a bunch of names that mean nothing to us like she’s a video game character telling us where we need to go next?

I want to point out that even though I’m using this footage of Delphine as a reference she’s actually managing to tell you something about Malborn and why he is trustworthy, so it’s actually better than what Bo is doing. Though to be fair the tidbit about “the forest planet” is cute since it will be a deforested planet when we show up, that line needed some character connection to not sound so weird.

[33:13] That’s what the point of Show Don’t Tell *really* is, it’s not about how much dialogue you use or whether a character is explaining something. It’s about using exposition to tell us something about a character at the same time. It’s about putting the camera in a place that shows us something about the character or the action, not just what’s happening. It’s about packing as much of the story as possible into every choice you make.

In Avatar, the way that Zhao tells us about Zuko’s banishment tells us a lot about both Zhao and Zuko. The camera angle here emphasizes Katara standing encouragingly over Aang’s back as he stares dejectedly at the ground (contrasted with Toph’s angry stare) and tells us about the nature of Katara’s relationship to Aang as his teacher and friend as opposed to Toph’s. In the opening shot of A New Hope, the low angle of the camera implies dominance and the length of the Star Destroyer shows us the long reach of the Empire. Every single time Zuko is on screen it is worth paying attention to which side of his face is dominating the shot: scarred or unscarred. Exactly what each side represents is up for debate: I tend to think of it not as good Zuko vs. bad Zuko but more as Zuko’s feelings of obligation to his family and people and Zuko’s obligations to his own sense of what he believes is right and what he needs to self-actualize.

Show Don’t Tell is just a saying. It’s a saying to encourage writers, particularly new or inexperienced ones, to focus on the *art* of telling the story instead of focusing solely on the plot and facts. I am using it somewhat liberally here to say it’s about “using exposition to tell us something about a character at the same time” but since that is about the art of telling stories, and not just a recitation of facts, it does technically count.

[34:32] With television shows and the way they can go on forever, and with how much money there is in going on forever, it seems like they always become a sagging mess at some point. Some of them manage to bring the quality back, but some of them don’t. So to a certain extent, these problems with the Mandalorian are kind of normal for television shows.

I can’t remember exactly where I stopped watching How I Met Your Mother, the last thing I remember is Ted dating some crazy girl and swearing off relationships. I abandoned The Expanse midway through season 2 earlier this year…maybe I’ll go back but boy was I bored. I made it all the way through the Wire. Season 2 had its problems but eventually got back on the right foot midway through or so, but the problems came roaring back in season 5 which it took me almost a year to finish because it was so agonizing.

Avatar is probably the most controversial choice here of a show in which the quality slipped but I firmly believe that if they cut out the second half of season 2 and the first half of season 3 the show would have been much, much better. Most everything in Ba Sing Se is tonally weird and the whole idea of a city with too many rules and bureaucracy is way too complex an idea for this show to tackle. Avatar does tackle incredibly complicated and adult themes for a kids show but in my view this was one step too far. They get Zuko to a place where he’s ready to join the Aang Gang but then have him backslide temporarily. There’s this whole idea of an invasion on the Day of the Black Sun but it would be such a story cheat to allow Aang to beat the Firelord without actually mastering the four elements and so obviously isn’t going to work. All of these things together just make it feel like wheel spinning where the story and characters aren’t actually growing or developing but just being padded out.

Except for “The Tales of Ba Sing Se” and “Appa’s Lost Days” obviously, those are great.

It’s actually pretty funny because the episode before Aang is supposed to fight the Firelord the first time (the Black Sun time) he’s a nervous wreck and everyone is trying out different psychological techniques to try and make him feel better which is…I guess sort of valuable for kids to see that nervousness is normal. But when you compare it to the second time he’s going to fight the Firelord, for real, it’s *so obviously* for real this time because Aang is having a *character* based crisis about the conflict between his pacifism and his duty to stop the Firelord. The comparison of the two is telling in terms of what was going on in the story of each.

[35:03] Now they are spinning it out into not one, not two, not three, but FOUR different shows all based on the Mandalorian. It’s almost gross how hard they are milking this.

Okay apparently they fired Gina Carano so I guess it’s not four anymore. Or maybe it is who knows. Listen, the point is they *intended* to make four shows okay.

[35:06] Thanks for watching all the way through to the end. These videos take a ton of time and effort so that means a lot. Even though I’ve reset my subscriber count to zero now that I’ve criticized the Mandalorian, I will continue to work on the channel as much as I can, so subscribe if you want to see more videos like this.

I promise to always give you my honest opinion.

Also I know I was shooting for one video a month and, well, I still am but these videos are really time-consuming. I want to make sure I maintain a really high level of quality and so sometimes I get halfway through a video, realize it’s no good and have to start over with something else. Sometimes it takes months of rewrites to get it to a place where I’m happy with it. This one came out pretty quickly, it was about 6 weeks from when I started the script to when I uploaded. Hopefully I’ll only get better and more efficient at it as I get more practice.

#star wars #the mandalorian #plays the thing #video companions

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Senator Armstrong

(WARNING! This analysis contains MAJOR SPOILERS! Hell, just knowing Armstrong is the ultimate final boss is kind of a spoiler.)

The Metal Gear series is known for quite a few things: ridiculous over-the-top characters, complex and entertaining villains, awesome boss battles, and just generally being absolutely insane while also being very philosophical and deep. Now imagine, if you will, if all of those things congealed together into a single character. That, my friends, is Senator Armstrong, the final boss of Metal Gear Rising and easily one of the greatest characters in the entire franchise. He only has the cutscenes prior to his boss fight to establish himself, but I guarantee that you will never forget this man after you’ve beaten him.

Actor: Armstrong is portrayed by Alastair Duncan, who you may know as Alfred Pennyworth from The Batman, Mimir from the 2018 God of War, or Councilor Sparatus from Mass Effect. To say he does an incredible job is an understatement; his performance is easily the most hilariously quotable one in a franchise where nearly every single character is hilariously quotable.

Motivation/Goals: For a villain who comes almost entirely out of nowhere, he sure does deliver a very well thought out speech about his true motives:

"'I have a dream.' That one day every person in this nation will control their own destiny. A nation of the truly free, dammit. A nation of action, not words, ruled by strength, not committee! Where the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the people! Where every man is free to think — to act — for himself! Fuck all these limp-dick lawyers and chickenshit bureaucrats. Fuck this 24-hour Internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit! Fuck American pride! Fuck the media! FUCK ALL OF IT! America is diseased. Rotten to the core. There's no saving it — we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The weak will be purged and the strongest will thrive — free to live as they see fit, they'll make America great again! ... In my new America, people will die and kill for what they BELIEVE! Not for money. not for oil! Not for what they're told is right. Every man will be free to fight his own wars!"

Now, for those who don’t quite understand, let me explain: Armstrong wishes to end war as a business and create a Social Darwinist utopia, where all the citizens of America fight their own battles and the strong survive while the weak perish. From a certain point of view, his arguments actually do make sense, and considering America, and by extension the world, were until recently controlled by the whims of the Patriot AI, it’s not hard to see where he’s coming from. For what it’s worth, he very much despises the Patriots; in fact, Armstrong is ideologically quite similar to fellow Patriot-hating politician George Sears, AKA Solidus Snake, who coincidentally Raiden also fought. Hell, much like Solidus, Armstrong also has some connection to the creation of child soldiers.

Of course, it needs to be noted that while Armstrong definitely makes a good case, he is also a bonafide anti-villain. For those who need clarification, TVTropes describes an anti-villain as “a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately villainous. Their desired ends are mostly good, but their means of getting there are evil. Alternatively, their desired ends are evil, but on a personal level they are far more ethical or moral than most villains and they thus use fairly benign means to achieve it, and can be heroic on occasion. They could also be someone or something whose desired ends or means are not necessarily ‘evil’ at all, but their actions simply conflict with that of whoever seems to be the protagonist.” While he does have good intentions and seems to genuinely want to better his country, the fact he resorts to terrorist actions, child soldiers, and ridiculous levels of violence makes him clearly the bad guy.

Personality: Armstrong’s personality is very, very intense. He is a man capable of delivering the most impassioned, honest speeches you will ever hear from a politician… and according to him, he doesn’t even write his own speeches! He is loud, he’s brash, he’s proud, he curses up a storm, but he also has lines he won’t cross and shows nothing but respect for those he fights, and when he beats Sam in the DLC storyline and when Raiden defeats him, he has nothing but respect for the men. It’s honestly impressive how they could cram so much nuanced personality into a man that is maybe onscreen for twenty minutes tops.

Final Fate: Of course, as is the fate of any politician who thinks he can beat Raiden, he is not only killed, but has his heart ripped out by Raiden and crushed in his hands.

Best Scene: The entirety of his speech to Raiden, where he explains his entire plan. Mostly for the fact that Raiden is likely as stunned by all of this as any first-time player.

Best Quote: Literally everything out of this man’s mouth is golden; there’s a reason he’s one of the most quoted, meme-worthy characters in one of the most quotable, meme-worthy games of all time. But credit where credit is due, his immortal words to Raiden as he kicks him like a football and apparently rips a hole in the fourth wall that lets in the cheering of a stadium crowd stand out:

“Don’t fuck with this senator!”

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: Armstrong is an easy 10/10. But why is that? Well, beyond his personality, which basically consumes your attention, there’s a lot of symbolism to his final match with Raiden.

Firstly, there is the fact his philosophy is very similar to Raiden’s mentor’s philosophy. Much like Solid Snake, Armstrong sees a world where soldiers fight and die for causes they don’t believe in, and citizens being suppressed by meaningless, trivial garbage. The philosophies fork from there: Snake wished for a world of peace, where there would be no need for fighting anymore, while Armstrong wishes for a world of freedom, where all people choose to fight the battles that they want, where they decide what is worth fighting for and what isn’t. Armstrong knows he could never end all war; he just wants those who put their lives at stake to be doing it for good reasons, and not to line the pockets of bureaucrats. As Raiden carries on Snake’s philosophy in his own way, this is sort of a test of Armstrong’s ideologies, to see whose vision is truly worth upholding in this world.

This brings us into the symbolism of the fight itself, which is set up like a political debate, though of course one tailored to Armstrong’s “Might Makes Right” philosophy. Armstrong is running for president in 2020, so is it not fitting that he defend his viewpoints the way he believes they ought to be defended as the final great debate on the way to the presidency? There’s also the inherent symbolism in the weak vs. the strong, with Raiden representing all the long-suffering American people and Armstrong representing the politicians who prey on the weak. He is still a politician, and his philosophy outright values the strong over the weak, so Raiden is something for a voice for the voiceless, a hero to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. Raiden in the battle represents what true strength should be: a tool of justice, used to protect those who cannot protect themselves, while Armstrong of course represents his own philosophies.

And of course, there is the fact that in the end, Armstrong s very much the shadow archetype to Raiden, a dark reflection of what he could be. As you may have noted, ultimately Raiden and Armstrong’s philosophies aren’t entirely different from each other. This is even pointed out in the song that plays over his battle, the epic “It Has To Be This Way.” The lyrics are as follows:

Standing here, I realize

You were just like me, trying to make history.

But who's to judge the right from wrong?

When our guard is down, I think we'll both agree

That violence breeds violence,

But in the end it has to be this way.

I've carved my own path, you've followed your wrath,

But maybe we're both the same.

The world has turned, and so many have burned,

But nobody is to blame.

Yet staring across this barren wasted land

I feel new life will be born beneath the bloodstained sand.

Beneath the bloodstained sand!

Armstrong isn’t just brilliant because he’s a hardcore badass whose every line is quotable and who is souped up on NANOMACHINES, SON! Armstrong is brilliant because of how he symbolically contrasts Raiden’s own philosophy and, even if he is ultimately defeated, has passed on some of his philosophy to Raiden in a way. Did Raiden not prove his philosophy was the correct one by killing Armstrong? Did Raiden not just fight for what he believed in, fought a war to prove the superiority of what he believed in?

Alongside Ocelot, the antagonizing forces of the Metal Gear series just didn’t get better than this.

#Psycho Analysis #Senator Armstrong #Metal Gear Rising #Revengeance #Spoilers #Speelers

[werevulvi]

At this point I feel like I'm just floating between two identities. Like what does it really matter what I decide to call myself? Says the desperate and jaded. I feel like I need to juggle my two different perspectives for a while. I will mostly use tumblr for it when I lean more gender critical, and probably use fb instead when I lean more towards trans thinking, until I figure this shit out for sure. Thus, I will keep being a dysphoric woman here on tumblr, and nonbinary on my fb account. That way I can juggle my two conflicting sides without feeling too much pressure to "just make sense already."

To clarify, my views are mainly gender critical, but it wouldn't be wrong to say that I'm still flirting with TRA views on gender, dysphoria and transition. Essentially, bio sex is the only actually scientifically proven and tangible thing about this all. Laws etc should be based on sex. Sexual attraction is based on sex. Then dysphoria is also a real medical condition, like it's an actual distress and I don't think it's solely caused by social factors. There are lots of different types of dysphoria, alright. As for gender, however... I don't believe in it, but... basically I just respect that other people have an inner sense of gender (like that's their interpretation of their feelings) while I'm still highly critical of WHY they have that interpretation. And I can’t fit myself into my old thinking of gender at all anymore. It is completely alien to me. The spell has broken and I cannot cast it again.

As for my dysphoria, basically what I'm dealing with is (a probably very rare kind of) atypical dysphoria. I like some aspects of female on my body, but not all. I like some aspects of male on my body, but not all. I feel like I should look like a hybrid of male and female, and I feel both belonging and disconnect to/from womanhood and manhood. It is a constant push and pull in both directions, uncomfortably kneading me into a serene middle-ground. That middle-ground is not a compromise; it is a very peaceful and harmonic place for me to be. It's where I'm relieved of my dysphoria. I used to avoid it my whole life, until I finally stopped fighting myself. There is tranquility here, at this inbetween, that I didn't know existed. I'm clearly dysphoric, but I am not FtM - I'm FtX. I do not give a single fuck if you think nonbinary is real or not. What I'm telling you now is: this is my dysphoria and it simply is what it is. Then what you wish to call it and what I wish to call it does not matter.

Anyhow. I just wanted to give that little debrief of my dysphoria so that you'd hopefully understand why I'm struggling so much with labels, because it's not so straight-forward. Another thing I very much want to clarify is that labels are means of communication for me - NOT identity. Just like I use the label lesbian to communicate what my sexual orientation is. That has a clear purpose. For the same reason we call ourselves men or women: it has a clear purpose. Then my question to myself, my oh so eternal question, is: what is the best label for me to communicate to others what I am and/or how I wish to be perceived?

Problem 1: What I wish to communicate (that I'm a bio female person who's happily transitioned) is not the same as what I wish to be seen as (person of indeterminate gender.)

I don't know how to feel about that what I'm mostly assumed to be a male who identifies as a woman. Do I feel bad, ashamed or guilty, for looking like a bad stereotype of trans women? Yes. I think I fear that I will come across as mocking trans women, because my looks are deliberate. I feel bad for copying gnc men. My affinity for feminine stuff like lipstick and dresses, and my absolute refusal to let go of those things, makes me feel guilty in a feminist sense. I don't believe that the way I use femininity is harmful for myself, because I've adapted it to fit my needs of comfort as well as my social goals with it. It is not sexual, it is not restraining or hindering. It is not adhering to societal standards of beauty - if anything it's mocking that.

Yes, I am mocking femininity, but I also use it because it makes me feel less naked, and more expressive. I'm always accompanying my femininity with strong masculine features such as deliberately visible facial hair and body hair, etc. My femininity is not my womanhood, but it is a highly important way for me to express my personality, symbolically. I do not want for people to oogle my naked body, or a careless sack of clothing that I've rushed into - I want for them to see my personality, so that they'll get an idea of who I am before talking to me. But despite all that... I still feel guilty for being genuinely feminine. How can I be authentic, if no matter where I turn, I feel guilt, shame, or fear?

Problem 2: As soon as I claim the nonbinary label I miss calling myself a woman, and as soon as I claim myself as a woman, I miss calling myself nonbinary.

Do I have a gender? Yes and no. It depends on how I look at it. Do I need to have a gender? Not really, but it's easier in most aspects of socialising if I do, because of my appearance. Do I want to have a gender? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

I feel like I went into the gender store and bought too many. Now I sit here with a useless pile of trash that cost a fortune. I am terrified to get rid of it. There will be consequences if I do. I've been building up to this moment for almost two years. I am still building up to it. The pile is stinking and I need to take it out to the garbage disposal, but I can't make myself do it. What if I'll need it later? I'm too nostalgic for my own good.

Problem 3: When I don't want to have a gender I'm a proud woman based on my sex, but when I do want a gender, nonbinary feels more right. I can't really make a gender in my brain and then stick to it. I keep picking it up, then tossing it away, then picking it up, then tossing it away, and so on. I want to have the gender cake and eat it at the same time. Sometimes I feel proud to be woman, who takes testosterone and loves her lesbian pussy. But then it gets increasingly uncomfortable and I'd just rather not be anything specific. Then I flip to view myself as a hybrid of man and woman and that feels comfortable and uplifting. Until it doesn't anymore and I miss taking pride in being a woman, and I just don't know what the fuck is up with that.

Perhaps my "identity" is split off from my dysphoria? I dunno what I meant with that thought. Perhaps it came from my lack of social dysphoria. It's just social anxiety over looking weird.

Oh I wish I could try living in a perfect society with no sexism, and see if I'd then always be comfortable with calling myself a woman and freely be this bearded, deep-voiced, charming lady in a gothy dress, wine red lipstick and a pearl necklace, with no need to beat myself up for not being "woman enough." Because I worry that is why I keep reaching for the nonbinary label. Maybe it is out of fear? Maybe the reason I feel good about calling myself nonbinary is rooted in just wanting to be left alone to be a beautifully virilized woman, because I'm never given the chance to be that kinda woman.

It breaks my heart. You know that? You should.

No matter how much testosterone I take and no matter how much I love the effects of it... I am forever female and I love that too. No way in this despicable hell... would I ever want my sex erased. It's profoundly important to me, and such is my transition. I think that is why I stand with one foot in self-loving and the other in the medical result of dysphoria. My body is a cocktail of this and that, a little bit tit for tat, and I revel in its strange combination of exquisite flavours.

I feel like I have transcended the concept of gender, but as a happily transitioned, dysphoric woman, I have a very hard time conveying that to the rest of my little world, and the world at large. What is a woman who is happily transitioned to a goal that falsely mimmics the visual effects of certain intersex and hormonal conditions? Who am I to glorify the visual results of others' suffering? Oh I dunno, but I probably have more respect for them than I do for myself, if that counts as an excuse.

What am I? And how do I move forward in society, as honestly as possible?

What I am... is in the eye of the beholder. Depending on your ideology, you will have a different opinion (boldly assuming that you'd even care at all) but what I think is... there is no one correct answer. Thus, in my desperate search for that one true answer, I cannot win. All I can do is pick whatever makes me the most comfortable, but the only thing that would soothe me is the ultimate truth. (No, that's not it. Keep scrambling.)

I have become a biologist obsessed with finding the truth of God with a microscope. No wonder people are beginning to question my sanity.

("Are you okay?" Uhm no, I don't think so.)

What I need to figure out, is if gender serves me, and if "woman" serves me. But they both do, and I have to make a choice. There I stand, finding that they both serve me, unable to make a choice.

(Somewhere around here, I started going off on a tangent and lost myself in the endless whirls of my heart and mind. So I rolled back the tape, and here I am again. The rest in an over-write.)

How do I see myself? I see myself both as a woman and as nonbinary. Sometimes I need my gender, sometimes I don't. What I am is still the same, but there are many different ways to label me correctly, and THAT is what chafes at me.

Problem 4: I do not want to have a politically charged label. Woman has become a political statement for me, because of my appearance contradicting that statement, and the statement contradicts my dysphoria. It being so politically charged makes me uncomfortable. I wish to just exist as a woman, not declare myself as one. Nonbinary is equally a political statement, of rejecting gender norms which are harmful to everyone. Nonbinary strips the bearer of their sex, and releases the pressure on them to conform. There is the catch. Woman, instead strips the bearer of the freedom to not conform, but releases the pressure of gender. And there I think I've hit the nail on the head. What I wish for... is a label which does not strip me of my sex, nor forces me into conformity to look like my sex. Woman should be that label, but the only way it can ever be... is to put on that armour and fight for it, which I don't want to.

The label woman is too heavy for me, as a male-passing female, to bear in this gender-obsessed world - while nonbinary feels like a betrayal, both to myself and all other women. Nonbinary feels like a happy fantasy, until it shatters upon my realisation that it is not real. Woman feels like the powerful authenticity from the bottom of my chromosomes, until reality hits that it's a very difficult label for me to wear. Then I run away scared into my happy fantasy, but I am tired of continuously shattering and rebuilding myself.

What I want is to fully embrace my womanhood, without running back to the trans community again and again, to cry about how cruel reality is, and please validate my special trans feelings, which of course... the zombies do. I feel like I have Stockholm Syndrome for the trans community. I feel hurt by its sexism and homophobia, which is aimed directly at me as a gender-breaking woman and as a female-exclusive lesbian, yet I keep running back to it, pleading for validation as the utter coward I am! Because I am terrified of being a woman and a lesbian in the real world... while looking like this. I love the way I look, but I am scared and I am ashamed of facing my reflection with pride, as a woman. Because that means something more. It doesn't "just" mean that I'm female, it also means that when I with pride call myself a woman... I am reclaiming the one thing which I ought not to. No one shames a trans man or dysphoric enby for wanting a beard and loving taking testosterone... but the second a "cis" woman does? You know that is different. Cis is a lie, but I am real. I'm a woman, and I love testosterone flowing through my veins. My true beliefs... lie with radfem, and I'm only "making space" for gender in those beliefs to not hurt my loved ones' feelings.

How am I supposed to handle and move beyond this? Will it ever get easier?

Problem 5: It's not the nonbinary bush I have been beating around... it's the radfem bush. I have not been honest about my sense of self, anywhere else than here on tumblr. I do not want a gender label on my feelings. Gender is so harmful and I need to stop being its martyr. Can I accept and respect other people for having genders? Sure, whatever, I don't particularly care what people choose to call their feelings, as long as laws aren't being built around those feelings. But I can't for the life of me stop squirming at the idea of ME having a gender again. It is uncomfortable. Get the fucking parasite off me! Gender has been poisoning me again lately. It was a mistake to look into it again. It has been clouding my vision, because I forgot what truly matters: To look like whichever gender expression I wish, to act out whichever gender role I want, to treat my dysphoria however I see fit for myself, but not to lie about what I am: female=woman.

Problem 6: I am free without gender, but I am also incredibly vulnerable. As if I was completely naked before the whole world. Then even wearing a clown suit feels better in comparison.

Solution: I need to break up with the trans community. That toxic relationship has been going on for way too long now. I don't care if I lose all of my friends over it. I need to break free, and liberate my womanhood, because I have been shackling her. No matter how hard it is. I need to face my fear, guilt and shame. I need to tell myself that it's okay to hurt, but that it will get better. I need to stop reaching for nonbinary whenever I feel scared and ashamed to be a woman. I can cry about how hard it is... but never give up.

My dysphoria does not define me, and I refuse to let it.

#gender critical #gnc female #reclaiming womanhood #gender dysphoria #battling the nonbinary label #i ended up tumbling down into some deep thinking again #i cried several times writing and editing this #if only i could just get my shit together #radfem #transition #former trans man

[revoevokukil]

On the character writing of  Captain Marvel’s antagonists

How is Captain Marvel’s villain game?

The MCU’s story of how Carol Danvers comes to realise what gives her the capacity to do heroic things is rooted in an intimate tale of self-discovery, knowing oneself, and embracing oneself as one is. It is not a classic story of confrontation between good and evil and therefore the classic hero’s journey formula does not apply. Carol is exactly the same personality at the end of the film as she is at the beginning of the film, with the crucial difference that by the end, she is in a position to control and honestly evaluate her own life narrative – she has regained solid ground under her feet without which no one can pass moral judgments or make decisions that affect the lives of other people.

Carol’s origin story is not about punching someone into remorse and submission, but about finding herself (almost literally) – which means that the antagonists of the film are the friends she makes along the way. The opposing force is a deeply personal one and climbs into the protagonist’s soul rather than threatens their life. That makes Yon-Rogg not as one-dimensional as people seem to think. He’s more of a foil than an outright antagonist to Carol on a personal level, but it’s hard to say whether he is overall meant to be represented as a misguided Kree patriot or a hammy villain because the former gets too vague a development and the latter just does not work – war is war, they’re all dirty, and Supreme Intelligence takes the cake here. Since Yon-Rogg’s motivations are strongly informed by his role as the poster boy of the Kree military, the Kree-Skrull plotline actually should be elaborated upon if they wanted to convey him as “the guilty party” in both storylines that push the story forward.

I’ve tried to identify with the villains of the film in order to write the following; consider that it is not a pleasant exercise but an intriguing one nonetheless.

Storylines

There are two storylines that intersect in the film and push the plot onwards: Carol’s unfolding quest to make sense of her past, and the Kree-Skrull war. The twist in Carol’s personal storyline results in a change up in regard to how to view the Kree-Skrull war, but it’s not ground-breakingly illuminating, since the war between these races is never sufficiently elaborated upon and it is not the main emotional centre of the film – how Carol feels about the Kree and her mentor is! Therefore, the antagonists’ character development unfolds in layers.

Consider for a minute, the Kree ideology. Collectivist, imperialist, hyper-militaristic, superior in technology and culture. Roman Empire seems like an appropriate comparison. They see themselves as the rightful rulers by conquest who have a duty to maintain order, safety, and stability within their empire. Realpolitiks of empires. Hyper-militaristic inclinations translate onto the individual level as well where the collective interest is set before one’s individual interests. And it translates into Yon-Rogg’s motivations and outlook very clearly, though with some interesting exceptions that add to his character writing.

·         He is a devout warrior, unshakably loyal to the Kree’s cause and their claims of superiority.

Yet     he is not fond of the scorched earth tactics of the overly zealous     Accusers.

He     avoids entangling civilians in the Kree-Skrull conflict to the very last     second (he also avoids shooting Carol outright in their very first     meeting).

He     genuinely cares about his soldiers’ lives, and they trust him a lot in     return, even when he is misleading other high-ranking officers in the Kree     army (Ronan).

He     prioritises the good of all Kree above all else (instead of, notably, personal power).

He     genuinely believes in what he is trying to teach Vers (emotions should not     rule your good judgment in a conflict situation; the Kree’s enlightened     rule is for the better for all); it is not only part of     their cover-up scheme.

He     views the Skrulls’ means of fighting as dishonourable because of their     penchant for subterfuge rather than direct combat. In another context that     would be called being “honourable” in combat.

So, as a Kree, an authoritarian space fascist, he is pretty reasonable and a more rounded than your standard evil for evil’s sake goon.

What to make of him in relation to Carol?

It’s twisted from its very beginning, since Yon-Rogg effectively saves Carol’s life by stealing it from her. He hesitates to kill Carol outright by the lake. Then, ironically, saves her life by abducting her as she verges between life and death. And then, metaphorically, the Kree kill Carol Danvers anyway. Only to “bring her back to life” through the blood transfusion from Yon-Rogg and through the presumed genetic meddling to make it stick (her entire blood supply and blood reproduction has to get replaced). A “rebirth” with no memory of past life, but with cosmic powers and superior physiology to contain it. It’s as messy as they come.

That bit of writing also establishes how unnervingly intimate a bond they share (something that comes to underlie a sense of possessiveness and ownership on his part, and confirms that this is not healthy). To see Carol succeed strokes Yon-Rogg’s ego – he made the right call as a soldier, he is part of the origins of her powers, and he is a good teacher. It also makes you think, was it (stupid) curiosity, principles, or admiration that stopped him from shooting Carol? She had almost brought him down in a plane fight, after all. And while he acts under orders from SI, I doubt Yon-Rogg protests its wisdom too much – it is highly likely the Kree see themselves as genuinely benevolent for saving this human and giving her so much by making her one of them (see their sense of superiority, again). If anything, I would expect an AI (not Yon-Rogg) not to want to risk leaving Carol alive and liable to turn against them.

It is said in interviews that Yon-Rogg both appreciates and is irritated by Carol’s “humanity” and quirks. He also seems to me as perfectly aware that what he is doing is wrong on a personal level. Over six years, he and Carol grow close – he is her crutch in Kree culture, Carol trusts him a lot (coming to him after her nightmares) and looks up to him/wants to prove herself to him, and there is even some implicit flirtation between them at the beginning of the film (“it’s me you see, isn’t it?”). That level of friendship entails some empathy. He may be ruthless, but he is not a psychopath (or is only a psychopath to the extent all devout patriotic soldiers are). For despite all that happens to Carol, she is not aware of any of it, and she ends up liking her life with the Kree by the time the film starts. She has military background, she likes to prove herself and be good at things, and the Kree never treat her badly (minus the grand deception part, ofc). From Yon-Rogg’s perspective then, as long as the lie is not found out, it is not objectively a bad life, is it? He has a soft spot for his favourite student (their relationship has been described as “tender” among other things). He has faith in her (“She’s stronger than you think!”), is (over-)protective of her, but wants to genuinely see her succeed - albeit on the Kree’s terms and not her own. He is trying to do his best as a mentor to a soldier and as a soldier to his people, and sincerely believes it will make everything easier for Carol, but because of the manner in which Carol has come to be his pupil, all of what is happening here can only become one huge poisoned chalice. However, you can see how someone like him can justify lying to a person for 6 years - longer still, had Carol not happened to crash on C53.

The truth of the matter is, of course, that Carol due to her amnesia does not have a choice regarding the narrative into which she is thrust, and that is the inherent evil that she overcomes in the film – taking back control over her life’s narrative and thus also gaining the necessary faith in oneself that comes with knowing oneself. The Kree have given her plenty, making up a big part of her (literally), but by infringing on her right to self-determination most horribly in the process. “The best version she could be” can ever only be pushed upon her in this state, like it happens so often in overly controlling families and partnerships.

Consider seriously that while Yon-Rogg’s advice to “control emotions and not let them cloud your judgment” may echo the belittling gender dynamics of our world, it is only an analogy – the Kree are not putting Carol in this situation in the film because she is a woman (they’re arguably rather progressive about their gender and sexual politics by the looks of it). It is not inherently a wrong or bad advice to drill into a soldier, and that is what Carol is – a soldier. However, as it happens, autobiographical long term memory triggers most strongly based on emotions, so suppressing them also counteracts the possibility that Carol might regain her memories. The Kree may well not even know what Carol could do if she was more in touch with herself and her powers – their foremost concern is winning “her heart and mind” so that she doesn’t turn against them. Again, they are personal, psychological villains. So, by tying her more strongly to Kree culture and ways, as well as training her according to that dictum, Yon-Rogg’s hitting two birds with one stone, really. I do not doubt that his orders from SI were, and his mind is set on, ensuring her loyalty by any means necessary. However, in comparison to, for instance, Bucky, the Kree do not literally constantly torture and brainwash her to turn her into a vegetable. It’s a “golden cage” type situation from the perspective of these “benevolent” aliens.

In that sense, the ‘enemy’ of the film is not so much the meme of a “debate me guy” or your ordinary our world chauvinist, or patriarchy (they are analogies, but not inherent to the conflict of the film), but the insidious disregard the Kree show toward individuals and their right to self-determination. As a culture, that is not their thing. And as other cultures are seen as lesser than them, they see their ways as backwards. Arguably that disregard underlies and precedes gendered readings because it applies universally (would they have done anything differently if Carol had been a man? I don’t think so) (also, it underlies the war ideology behind subjugating other races). And war justifies everything, of course, which is the second strongest ‘evil’ motif in the film. That’s pretty good, layered writing, in truth.

Both ‘evils’ are represented in Yon-Rogg’s and Supreme Intelligence’s characterisations, but only the latter remains abstract enough to be the literal representation of it whereas Yon-Rogg is still written with some “humanity” for the lack of a better word. He is very much conveyed as a product of his society, but not even a one-dimensional caricature of that. Sure, we do not get any insight into his inner thoughts, but not once did the details I have written out here give me the impression that Carol is as upset as she is because of betrayal by a lump of evil with no moving parts inside. I can appreciate that in an antagonistic force, because it adds to the hero’s internal confusion if their starting out premise is “friends with my enemy”. There is extreme pragmatism more than there is cruelty in the villain’s intentions. But cruelty follows anyway, because freedom and predetermination cannot not be in conflict, and very rarely does cruelty not follow when ends justify the means quite as brutally as in the case of sacrificing someone’s freedoms for another’s greater cause.

For Yon-Rogg that is not an issue, though he himself is as deprived of freedom under this ideology as Carol is. But Carol’s moral system hails from a different place.

I can relate to it and find it interesting, and not at all one-dimensional. Best of all, it is possible to build upon it.

#captain marvel #carol danvers #yon-rogg #supreme intelligence #kree #character analysis #plot analysis #story deconstruction #brie larson #jude law

[izzyovercoffee]

@thesummerstorms​ replied to your post:“to be honest I was not expecting to ship it and now I’m really sitting...”:

You know, a large part of my problem with Bardan Jusik is my anger at how as "Gotab" he completely supplants both Darman and Etain as Kad's parent (Kad even calls him buir in LotF which is incredibly ironic given how long Etain had to put up with shit from Kal under the veneer of 'I get to do this because Darman is the dad and that trumps your role in your son's life) and Etain as Kad's teacher of the Force. But honestly this is making me realize (remember? Idk?) that 

the other reason is probably because in books 1-3 we NEVER see him struggle; he just makes radical decisions that are automatically shown to be "right" by the narrative and heaped with disproportionate praise. He does have one brief scene of conflict in O66, but how different would the character have been if we ever actually had to watch him process the aftermath of his decisions as a human... Or even struggle to reach his decisions

aside from the ... really obvious internalized misogyny that’s going on in KT’s thought process when writing all of this, I feel like Bardan’s entire character is so aggressively internal in the way he works through things, processes things, experiences things, that unless he’s given the actual POV opportunity that some other characters (Kal) are given, we don’t actually... get to relate, or even care, about him in the same way.

it’s also kind of weird in that, in a large sense, Bardan is always the odd one out. with other characters, like Mereel or Ordo, other characters comment on how those two have affected them in some way, or might reference something they might have said or done in the same situation. 

but I never got that impression when it came to Bardan. he was just there, almost as set dressing, and the characters never referenced him in the same way---and in the beginning I felt like that could have been intentional, really highlighting how Bardan’s alienated and isolated from “both sides” (as it were), and trying too hard to fit into one community versus another.

as the series progresses though, it’s like you said---the narrative just tells us he’s “right”, and Bardan somehow magically possesses author or audience knowledge about things that, even with the force, he just genuinely should not know---as if KT forgot that Bardan can’t know everything, while she goes out of her way to absolutely make sure we know Etain can’t know everything.

there’s such a vast discrepancy between Etain and Bardan’s treatment, and it hurts more than helps Bardan’s characterization. Instead of being a multifaceted character, faced with struggles and issues that the narrative expects us to simply impose on him with no foundation to see it, he comes off as this malicious tool KT uses to replace all the important people in Kad’s life and justifies it by making him “right” and others “wrong.” 

like most of Republic Commando, there was so much potential here and it was all wasted in favor of propping up and drilling in an ideology that genuinely should have no place in the series and KT doesn’t seem to realize is even there.

#thesummerstorms #izzy talks repcomm #replies.txt

[afterourhearts]

RETWEEEEEEET.

I didn’t like this movie at all. She’s half-Korean but there’s basically no difference between her and a full Caucasian girl besides that one scene where she drinks some Yakult... otherwise, no acknowledgement of her Korean heritage whatsoever. Granted, her Korean mom had passed away, but an Asian girl who completely disregards her Asian identity and only crushes on white guys (and one black guy) is a character who annoys me on so many levels. 

Couldn’t help but notice that my friends who are obsessed with this movie are the ones who are probably more whitewashed and themselves say stuff like, “I never like Asian men!” etc. etc. 

Look, I’m not saying that if you’re an Asian girl, you HAVE to like Asian men. We are allowed to have our own preferences. But I am saying that we should take a moment to consider why our preferences are what they are. It’s not inherently bad to think white guys are cuter or have better personalities or whatever else might draw you to consistently choose white guys first, but there IS a fine line between preferences and flat out racism that probably gets crossed more than we realize. Inadvertent racism is still racism.

Growing up, I admittedly only liked white guys. My elementary school journals are filled with details about crushes I had on solely white boys. I used to think my Asian-ness was ugly, which made me think Asian-ness in general is ugly, and of course that meant Asian guys are ugly. It wasn’t until late middle school/early high school that I started to reclaim my Asian identity and realize the horrifying brainwashing that had been happening as a direct result of growing up in a white-dominated nation where racism is not only real but thriving. And what came after this realization? Genuine crushes on ASIAN MEN and not just because “we can understand each other better” but also because of physical attractiveness. It’s like as I started to love myself more, I started to find beauty in other Asians as well, girls and guys. 

I would argue that many Asian girls who only pursue white guys/can’t find ANY Asian guys “cute” have a problem with finding Asian features beautiful which stems from a place of finding herself not beautiful enough. And that is heartbreaking. Will you be truly happy in a relationship where you get to date a white boy whose features you envy (consciously or subconsciously) while at the same time fail to resolve your own shame of the lesser attractive Asian features you possess? His fascination with your “exotic” ness might mitigate some of your insecurities for a moment, but will that really be enough? Is that a good marriage?

Not trying to make sweeping generalizations here or point fingers at interracial couples, especially when I’m in one myself. But very few of my friends in interracial relationships are the, “I exclusively date ___ race” types, which is so refreshing to me. We don’t discount a guy because he isn’t a certain race, and we don’t think white status is better than another racial status. But there are a few exceptions, and it’s these ones I’m concerned about. 

Maybe one or two people popped up in your head while you were reading this. Can you imagine trying to have a conversation with that person where y’all confront this issue? It’s hard to have that conversation and not offend the person somehow. You can’t exactly point a finger and be like, “I’ve got you all figured out. You self-hate and you white worship and that’s WRONG.” You’re making assumptions on so many levels and you will only hurt your friend by bringing all of this up. So what do you do? Accept that this is how they have chosen to live and make peace with that, even when this mentality is toxic and something you can’t make yourself respect?

If I knew the clear cut answer, I wouldn’t be here writing this and being confused. 

I have friends like this and it makes me sad. Friends who think white people are better even if they don’t outwardly admit it although some of them actually DO outwardly admit it.

I remember a jarring moment in 10th grade when I was sitting with 2 Asian girls and 1 White girl at lunch. This white girl was good friends with the other 2 Asian girls but I wasn’t very close to her. We started talking about how this one white guy only dated Asian girls, and the white girl chimes in and is like, “Well that’s because he can’t get any white girls so he has to resort to Asians. No offense. Haven’t you noticed all the white guys who date Asians are the weird and ugly ones that white girls would’t go for ever?” and then I watched in horror as the other 2 Asian girls laughed in agreement. One of the Asian girls was adopted by white parents. The other was fully Asian, and I don’t know why she laughed. Peer pressure, or true agreement? Either way, it made me sick to my stomach.

And there was another incident a couple years back where I met this white guy on Tinder and he asked me if I had ever been with a white guy [sexually] before and I said no and then he literally told me, “You’ll like my d*ck better, trust me.” 

Situations like these have made me realize that it’s not “harmless” for an Asian girl to express very strongly that she only likes white men. There is harm. There is harm to Asian men. There is harm to Asian women. And there is harm to the girl herself. A cycle of shame and hatred of others and of oneself. So on the one hand the part of me that hates conflict wants to just sit back and let people live their lives and be chill with it but on the other hand, it’s a disgusting ideology and I lose respect for those who live that way. I know I should be feeling empathy but I find myself irritated. I try to see where it comes from but it doesn’t justify the end results. 

I think ... we need to have these conversations, however difficult. Not in a let’s point fingers and name-call kind of way, but at least in a “broadly speaking” kind of context. Because even though many Asian girls have been able to find beauty in their own heritage, others are still embarrassed and ashamed, and that manifests itself in even more ugliness that not only harms themselves but others. You might not reach them via these conversations, but it might trigger some much needed self-reflection. And you might be able to find yourself capable of more empathy. I know I’ve had at least 2 Asian female friends who confessed to me that they DO realize they hate their Asian-ness and that it IS a struggle for them to find beauty in being Asian. Healing begins with recognition, right?

At the end of the day, I’m thankful that I grew out of my “white boys are dom” phase. I’m also thankful that things aren’t the other way around where I can ONLY consider Asian men as viable life partner options, because for a brief period in my life I was totally anti-non-Asian guys. If I had still remained in that mentality, I would’ve overlooked the most amazing guy ever - the one I’m with now :) It’s a learning process that I’m still actively engaged in. What my preferences are and more importantly, why they are my preferences. 

Lots to think about.

#to all the boys i've loved before #whitewashed? #identity #asian american

[arcticdementor]

Handle has a new blogpost up for the first time in almost a year, a detailed review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option. And it’s a doozy:

The book is an extended exposition of what is at heart a very simple thesis and message.

That premise: “Genuine, traditional Christianity is quickly dying throughout the West, as it has been for a long time. But now things are getting to a critically bad stage. If committed Christians don’t appreciate this, and aren’t ready, willing, and able to make radical changes in the way they live their lives, then The Faith will surely die out soon, perhaps carried forward in name only by what will have become little more than an imposter. Many Christians don’t appreciate this state of affairs, either through ignorance on the one hand, or willful denial and obtuse blindness on the other. The war is lost, and so it’s well past time for Christians to start thinking seriously about the strategic requirements of cultural survival. Hopefully it’s not too late, but it very well might be, especially if Christians don’t stop sleepwalking off the cliff. They will need to come to grips with the sheer precariousness of their situation, and figure this all out, pronto.”

…

On occasion I will also go a little hard on Dreher when he engages in double-mindedness. He sometimes lacks consistency regarding how concerned one ought to be about respectability and normalcy. Dreher also tends to switch modes between writing as if this is an urgent and dire struggle for survival, but then denies advocating for exactly the kind of extreme measures that would be warranted were the situation as dire as he claims. Maybe there’s no one right position on those matters and so Dreher’s style merely reflects a judicious balance between competing interpretations. Whether that’s right or not, I’ll be pointing those occasions out, so that you can judge for yourself.

Now, Dreher’s focuses almost exclusively on the situation for Christians, which is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it allows him to keep a narrow focus on something about which he is more well-informed per the maxim “write what you know”. On the other hand, that exclusivity tends to obscure the real nature of what is going on, as if it were a strictly and peculiarly Christian issue.

It’s not: the premise clearly extends to any kind of traditionalism. That’s true whether it is tied to a particular religion or ideology, or whether it is merely a passively acquired collection of informal elements of social capital and culturally-embedded folkways. Regardless, any form of traditionalism stands no chance against the ‘ideological rectifications’ which characterize the contemporary forces of social change.

For example, there are plenty of secular atheists who want the sex segregation of toilets to continue to be the default cultural practice, and who aren’t on board with the latest PC crusade to impose this innovation on everyone, like it or not.

Eventually, these people are either going to get on board, or they are going to find themselves mixed in with the Christians and all the others in a bigger set of “Culture War Losers”.

…

Reading Dreher can be frustrating in that he so frequently crawls all the way up to an important insight and then … disappointingly chokes on the social undesirability of the conclusion at the last minute. (He may be doing this as part of a strategy to stay above the minimum threshold of public respectability, and there are a few times I suspect that, but my impression is that he’s almost always being sincere.) He’s like one of those sports teams which one can’t stop rooting for because it always gets so close to a win, but which just keeps breaking one’s heart.

But at least he chokes in an ironically predictable way. It is always the direction of “Mainstream, Respectable, Literate, American Christian Nice.” The kind of Nice oblivious to the way it is having its usually noble, pro-social sentiments abused and exploited by its sworn enemies. In this sense, if he has not transcended the very error he is begging his co-confessionists to overcome, then at least he is writing as one who knows them so well from being one of them, in a way that no one else can.

(I have to very much second Handle’s view here.)

…

First, at times, on certain subjects, he seems like the infamous fish that doesn’t know it swims in water, and he lacks conscious awareness that he’s committed to some concept or moral notion that owes more to modern progressivism than anything with an authentic Christian heritage.

And second, despite frequently covering instances of their latest ideological excesses, he still tends to get the tenets and character of current progressivism wrong. Mostly, he is out of date. He buys into the neutrality narrative spun by the old liberal public intellectuals (many of whom are now also balking at the latest developments) for today’s real thing: the bullying power games of contemporary PC and the Social Justice Warriors

This causes him to repeatedly make an error, which is to say that ‘religion’ is being eroded by a neutral, empty, nothing of relativism with an ultimate form of individualist secularism as the end point. Instead, it is simply being replaced by a new ideology that fills the vacuum with its own mythologies, orthodoxies, and an endless efflorescence of sacred norms, rules, and regulated status relations.

This puts someone like me in an odd and unique position. Almost all Dreher’s critics accuse him of crying wolf or being a chicken-little at best, and more usually a looney-tunes-level alarmist kook or worse. Meanwhile, I’m saying that Dreher is underestimating his enemy, painting an overly rosy picture, and not being nearly alarmist enough.

…

Dreher opens the book by saying he experienced the very common kind of political transformation that happens when a man becomes a father and tries to take a shot at traditionalist, wholesome child rearing in the current American scene. The responsibilities and interests of that role tends to lead to a new perspective on social affairs with different areas of emphasis and concern. When one starts to grasp the problems one faces, it is indeed a rude awakening.

It’s a political awakening in the “mugged by reality” sense, when someone in that position realizes just how ideologically naive they’ve been (often in a libertarian direction), and how the deck has been stacked against them, and in so many ways beyond their control and power to mitigate.

Shared public spaces – and the official and informal social rules which govern them – have a character that either supports wholesome families or repels them and forces them into a self-imposed house-arrest. The situation is a zero-sum conflict of interest.

…

He wondered whether the Republican Party was still a political coalition able and willing to defend the interests of religious families, and he concluded that it wasn’t.

Within the GOP, there had long been tension between traditionalist. social conservatives on the one hand, and those who were more interested in resisting leftist economics and statism from a libertarian, individualist, and market-based perspective on the other. The latter group was indifferent or neutral to the social requirements of families, and over time, they seem to have won out.

What about the churches? Worthless. They had become culturally impotent, inert, and beleaguered. But worse, they were now mostly uninterested in counter-culturally challenging the ideological zeitgeist. The Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis seems intent on surrendering to it almost entirely, And Dreher – once a Catholic himself – has blogged in a way that leaves little doubt that regards Pope Francis the same way that Dante judged Pope Boniface VIII – “a wicked man who leads his flock astray.”

But it’s by no means only a Catholic problem, and Dreher is not shy about insisting that all denominations of “his people” suffer from the same malady. He writes:

Even though conservative Christians were said to be fighting a culture war, with the exception of the abortion and gay marriage issues, it was hard to see my people putting up much of a fight. We seemed content to be the chaplaincy to a consumerist culture that was fast losing a sense of what it meant to be Christian.

Well, ok, but what kind of “fight” did Dreher want or expect? What would he have liked to have seen? More sermons? I have a feeling that if counter-culturalists of any stripe organized to put up real fights, Dreher would recoil in outrage.

…

Few want to admit what is plainly true: full participation and the social integration of ‘normalcy’ is now deeply incompatible with a traditional lifestyle. And, like it or not, there is no alternative but to surrender on the one hand, or retreat and withdraw on the other. If you want your kids to grow up a certain way, believe in and cherish certain things, then there is no other option but to separate them from general society and surround them with a highly-selective peer group – really an entire sub-society – which will give you the support you need.

…

No one wants to admit to the embarrassment of being on the losing side of a power and status conflict. It is humiliating to concede that one is being shoved-out and compelled to leave by stronger, higher-status victors. And the opposition is likely to encourage the delusion to keep down their adversary’s guard and avoid triggering their early warning detection systems.

That’s all understandable, but if it doesn’t change, it’s going to be why 99% of Christians are going to fade away.

…

Dreher’s best contribution to the modern conceptual toolkit is his “Law of Merited Impossibility”: “It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.”

It began as a description of the untrustworthy rhetorical style by which elite progressive public intellectuals would argue for some social reform. It’s a slippery slope argument. Opponents would reasonably and accurately point out that the reform logically belonged to a class containing much more objectionable measures, and would open the door to them. All of those measures are bound together by a similar ideological value, but one that admits no articulable limiting principle, or provides any line of demarcation between the arguable and the awful. Thus, acquiescing to the nose in the tent would sooner or later mean letting in the whole filthy camel.

Which is what principled progressives really wanted, or at least found unobjectionable. They knew there was no such limiting principle, and that disliked subsequent changed would follow. But they understood that admitting as much honestly and publicly would be politically foolish, as the camel’s filth remained too unpopular, at least, for the moment.

…

So they misled and tried to forestall these arguments by claiming their opponents were avoiding the merits of the narrow issue at hand. They then switched rhetorical gears, mocking those rivals mercilessly for fear-mongering and concocting absurd scenarios. They would say that all sensible people knew those scenarios were extreme exaggerations, which would never come about, and which were something the progressives weren’t even arguing for and, besides, everyone understood those things to be politically “impossible.”

Then, the minute the narrow reform was implemented or some political or judicial victory was won, it was suddenly ok to start publicly working on accomplishing those impossibilities without skipping a single beat.

…

In the final part of the introduction, Dreher outlines the structure of the book, and lets the reader know he isn’t going to get behind any specific proposal or suggestion. He is going to continue to raise the alarm, present some examples of Christians giving it a shot, and hope that it inspires people to get together and try to solve the problem.

Like, say, cutting themselves off from the mainstream and running for the hills.

Oh, whoops, Dreher doesn’t want to say that. That’s because it is one of two major ‘critiques’ of his thesis which are made by nominal Christians who really don’t want to admit they’re now going to have to choose between their Christianity and comfortable lifestyles. “Dreher says run for the hills!” is an interesting kind of argumentative fallacy. It is a sneaky way of trying to dismiss Dreher’s basic premise. If (1) a conclusion follows from Dreher’s statements, and (2) is so undesirable that my brain won’t accept it, then (3) it must be wrong and absurd, thus (4) Dreher is nuts and everything he says can be ignored. So (5) Whew, what a relief! Now we can ignore the problem and just go back to whatever we were doing. QED.

…

It’s true that Dreher insists over and over that he isn’t saying run for the hills. But unfortunately, he can’t show that the solution set for the problem includes anything less drastic or radical He would be more honest to say, “I might be saying run for the hills. I’m not sure yet; nobody is. It’s not something I’ve worked out or could work out. I really hope I’m not saying that, but it’s possible I am. To be even more gloomy and frank about it, it may turn out in the final analysis that even running for the hills wouldn’t be enough. Hills are much protection anymore.”

I suspect that everyone, Dreher and his critics, grasps all that, but that the rhetorical games dance around it. Both Dreher and his critics may suspect it to be true, but have to pretend it’s false, for different reasons.

The critics pretend RFTH is false because that implies they don’t have to get off their asses to do anything: the most comfortable and pleasant possibility.

Dreher has to pretend RFTH is false because he doesn’t want it to scare away readers before even having a chance to make his case.

But again, how do we know that Christians won’t need to RFTH? How do we know that Dreher’s historical examples of Christian survival despite oppression and adversity are relevant to the modern age?

Modern religion faces a different kind of enemy: the metaphysical revolution of empiricism and eliminative materialism. One is contending not with superstitious pagans or even someone like Celsus but with a set of ideas altogether (and durably) antithetical to all serious theological sensibilities. And it is a set which has solidly owned the perch atop all the hierarchies of our intellectual life for centuries, with every sign of being irreversible so long as advanced civilization persists.

The other major criticism from these types is the claim that separating from mainstream society can’t preserve Christianity because it is inherently anti-Christian. All Christians, these critics say, are commanded to evangelize and proselytize on behalf of the faith. They are to be the salt of the earth and a light unto nations. That, at a minimum, requires them to remain integrated with the heathens in order to be ambassadors for Christianity and winsome examples projecting the noble virtuousness of the Christian character. By such example and good works, and by routine display of courage and the strength of their commitments, they will generate such a positive impression that it will open the hearts and minds of the heathens, and make them receptive to the gospels.

This argument has even more rhetorical strength and emotional resonance than the previous one. Religious commandments are not easy to counter by rational explanation of exceptional circumstance in which injudicious obedience would be self-destructive. When the pragmatic mode of cognition turned off, the counterargument – that there is no sustainable strategy if converting one man come at the cost of losing two – simply doesn’t resonate. “Will the last convert please turn out the cemetery lights.”

…

I understand why he can’t be more blunt, but I sometimes wish he would break down just once and hit them with a 2×4 of frankness, like this:

It’s completely unethical of you to abuse the duty to evangelism as an excuse to do nothing except put your head in the sand, deny the crisis, and avoid reality. It’s not like you’re some full-time missionary, converting and baptizing people left and right, and I’m asking you to stop all that and give up your important, holy works. You just don’t want to make the sacrifices that would follow from disengagement and separation from mainstream society. And you’re so desperate to avoid them that you’ll disgustingly pretend it would be anti-Christian to do so, which is perverse. And also, frankly, blasphemous, since the result of your counsel would mean a continuation of the status quo which is, obviously, the suicide of Christianity. “Passive evangelism” goes both ways, and you don’t look winsome to the abyss without it looking winsome back to you, or, more importantly, to your kids. It’s so winsome, in fact, that you can’t bear the thought of leaving it, even if means the death of your Faith for your family. That allure is why you’re making all these excuses in the first place. You can’t bullshit your way out of this one, so get you head out of your ass. Jesus commands you to tend to the survival of Christianity, and isolation or insulation of one kind or another is only the bare minimum of what it’s going to take. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Once we could play offense. Now we must play defense. Or perish. So buck up, it’s time to get with the program.

…

It is of course usually good to have an allergy to fighting dirty. But that’s not the case when you are innocent and your life depends on it. Prison gangs are every bit worthy of everyone’s condemnation and disgust. But in the special context of prison, one joins or one perishes.

…

But what he seems to share with those Northeast fellow travelers is a common desire for disaffiliation and social distancing. Nearly all prominent right wing writers want desperately to be taken seriously and to be seen as special cases worthy of civility, respect, and thoughtful consideration in the eyes of liberals and progressive elites. They want to be friends, not enemies. They want to be seen as distinct: more principled, sophisticated, and nuanced than those straight-ticket-voter-for-life hoi polloi fundamentalists. They don’t want to be presumptively dismissed, reflexively disposed of, and ostracized from polite society. They abhor being found guilty by association.

…

And, to be blunt, there is just something pathologically suicidal about modern American Christianity un-tempered by a commitment to a superseding principle of the survival of the things one claims to care about.

There is something that craves the self-righteous satisfaction of taking a conspicuously public stand for collective martyrdom for the sake of ‘principle’ – one that is hard to distinguish from generic, progressivism-compatible ‘niceness’ – no matter how futile, impotent, unreasonable, or counterproductive. These performances overflow with displays of sanctimonious indignation, but at the end of the show it’s clear that they don’t take the danger of failure seriously. That’s someone else’s problem.

Absent the special circumstance of a solid track-record transforming this kind of commitment into net increase and propagation, any beleaguered group whose members care about something more than survival, won’t survive. We cannot all be the priests in the French Carmelite Convent, or the holdouts on top of Masada, or there will be no one left to honor the martyrs and be inspired by their example.

Either you’re willing to accept the end of something, or you’re not. Well then, what if you’re not?

…

All of this seems consistent with common sense and normal moral intuitions, so why is the commentary so lopsided, and why do American Christian public intellectual commentators so often stick with advocating naively idealistic policies even when they are clearly counterproductive? There’s just no incentive for them to do otherwise. That’s what virtue signaling is all about. When one doesn’t actually bear any responsibility for consequences, one is judged only on what one says, not on the bad results which follow. That why the focus on things like ‘reputation’ instead of consequences.

At any rate, the “preserve our reputation” line relies on a myth. With perhaps the exception of a few high-status Christian commentators, Progressives have already believed that about all religious conservatives for a long time: either they were brainwashed idiots or Elmer Gantrys at best. Nothing but evil liars paying lip service to religious sentiments they didn’t share, and scriptures they had never read, merely as means of suckering the brainwashed idiots as a road to power. The minute a principled man of character steps into the limelight and emerges as a potential threat, the progressives give that individual zero credit and their media apparatus spares no time at all in smearing the man as evil incarnate, whether that individual lived a scandalous life that gives them plenty of ammunition to do so, or whether he’s been a spotlessly clean boy scout from birth. E.g., Mitt Romney. (Though they are happy to emphasize all those positive traits and rehabilitate all the beautiful losers the minute after they no longer pose any political threat, and prove useful for other purposes.)

…

At this point one might well ask what “coming to terms” means after transcending mere denial. But judging from many of the reactions to Dreher’s message to date, it seems that dealing with denial alone is such a major front in the war that one needs to focus on that, and ease them into it as gently as possible. Thus it’s best to be vague about next steps. And there is some value to letting people think it through for themselves.

But then again, maybe they already have on some level, and this frame has the direction of causation reversed. Perhaps it is a protective reaction that is downstream from already having faced – on some psychological level – some uncomfortable implications about the hard requirements of the near future.

…

People are going to have make the hard choice about how much they are willing to sacrifice. On the one hand, there is fidelity to faith but cultural withdrawal and separation. On the other, a normal, successful life, integrated into mainstream society and culture, and able to interact and socialize in general with one’s reputation and status intact, able to get into the good schools and good jobs.

“I’m not saying run for the hills!” – “Yeah, I know you’re not saying it. But … it kind of sounds like … we’re going to have to run for the hills. At least, that’s the level of sacrifice we’re talking about. And, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not the run for the hills type. So, though I don’t like to admit it, I’ll probably just cave.”

No one wants to admit that. And one doesn’t have to: the only thing one has to do is pretend and deny the problem exists at all.

…

After all, the “being salt and light …” rebuttal is like trying to plead with the lions in the arena, or ‘inspire’ the spectators who only came to see you become a fun, fancy feast. If it ever worked, it doesn’t any longer. The fact is, everybody knows this strategy has been tried for our entire lives, and it has failed, utterly.

…

But while Benedict dose indeed have a special and important role in the history of Christianity, it’s worth asking before even getting started whether the example is a good analogy for our time or not. Have we actually been here before, or are modern technological times simply too different, too ‘disenchanted’, and too unique?

If we aren’t sure, then how do we know if we can actually learn anything of practical and spiritual use from Benedict’s example? After all, if the book is called The Benedict Option, and spends a lot of time on Benedict and his monastery, then and now, then if we even suspect that the answer to that question is negative, why even bother?

Rome’s fall left behind a staggering degree of material poverty, the result of both the disintegration of Rome’s complex trade network and the loss of intellectual and technical sophistication.

That was Benedict’s context, but consider just how different that description is from today’s conditions in which, if anything, it is our wealth and material prosperity and government welfare expenditures that make us much less dependent on neighbors or community.

…

MacIntyre, Dreher, Deneen, and many other non-progressive Public Intellectuals of a certain age are still stuck in the ‘Relativist’ frame (cf: “Relativism and the Study of Man” – 1961) which goes back well over a century but which started to fade away during the early “New Left” era. They are beating a distracting dead horse, when there is a live one running around, winning the race.

Ask whether it makes sense that virtue is being undermined to critically low levels at the same time that “virtue signaling” is exploding in frequency of usage. It is being used as a legitimate complaint about an increasingly intense social phenomenon of sanctimonious conspicuously displays of critical and judgy-condemnations. One can’t signal arbitrary, individualized virtues. It’s only possible when there a dominant ideology emphasized by nearly all high status people has social currency.

Furthermore, does it make sense to say that it’s still all about choice and self-interest – the emancipation and liberation of individuals from authority – when ‘liberals’ are completely eager for state authority to impose various behavioral and speech rules on everybody, according to their moral vision?

All the relativism and principled (as opposed to boutique) multiculturalism talk occurred during what we can now appreciate to have been merely an intermediate phase of our political evolution. It characterized an early stage of the diffusion of a minority elite ideology into the cultural mainstream, until that ideology established sufficient levels of adoption and dominance to encourage its proponents to switch gears.

One argues for ‘relativism’ when one is trying to tear down an established moral order to make space for something new. And one drops that effort the moment one achieves the upper hand, then works to consolidate one’s gains and eliminate all rivals.

This evolution is entirely analogous to the evolution of progressive positions from free speech absolutists to ruthless speech police during the same time-frame.

The truth is, we’re not ‘after’ virtue at all. We’re just after the old set of virtues, which have been replaced by a new, progressive set.

…

Actually, I think Dreher already knows that leftism / progressivism is not ‘after virtue’ but consists of ‘different virtue’ than the set handed down in the West’s Great Tradition, with its substantial Christian inheritance and influence.

Just like the critics of older Socialist movements and keen observers of the ‘sociology of Marxism’, Dreher has an instinctive recognition of the religious mindset, even when directed towards secular ends. He finds it intuitive to use religious terminology to explain the social psychology of contemporary progressivism. Terms like zealot, fanatic, Puritan, blasphemy, heresy, excommunication, etc., all seem to flow naturally and cut the nature of common and instinctive norm-policing behaviors at the joints.

…

So why all the emphasis on relativism and unlimited liberation then?

I think it’s two things:

1. People just can’t get past the “‘Religion’ Requires A Supernatural Deity” frame. They will say things like, “Without God, and without a fixed moral revelation, how can there be any basis for asserting moral claims? And the immediate logical implication of the absence of such a tether is obviously moral nihilism.”

This is made more difficult by the fact that secular progressives also operate within the same epistemic framework, and would reject any identification of their ideology with a ‘religion’. They certainly wouldn’t go even further and recognize that is effectively our “state religion”.

But that’s not how the social psychology of ideological cognition works. For better or worse, God is not a necessary ingredient.

The human moral mental architecture is able to accommodate, latch onto, and implement other, secular systems. And so long as enough high-status people signal their belief in that system, then the vast majority of adherents will be untroubled by any logical contradictions or other intellectual problems deriving from alternative, trans-objective metaphysical constructs taking the place of God.

2. The erroneous obsession with a purported “unlimited liberation of the individual” derives from the traditionalist social conservatives focus on sexuality and the family. If one maintains this cynosure, then the past 60 years look like

… a cutting asunder of straps and ties, wherever you might find them; pretty indiscriminate of choice in the matter: a general repeal of old regulations, fetters, and restrictions …

New rights to contraception, abortion, no-fault divorce, the moral welter of modern family law, a right to sodomy and to gay-marriage, normalization and commercialization of promiscuity, cohabitation, voluntary single-motherhood, all the new pronoun-Nazi and socially-contagious sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) stuff, ‘toxic’ masculinity, etc. The list goes on and on.

…

One can see how someone of a traditionalist bent would view all that as almost morally nihilistic and libertine ultra-individualism. It seems to be heading inevitably towards unrestricted license to do almost anything with anyone or anything, like Bartol’s Alamut: “Nothing is true; everything is permitted,” or Crowley’s Thelema, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

But all that is in error. Progressive sexual morality gives with one hand but takes away with the other, and can be obnoxiously and inhumanely strict in new ways depending on who is trying to what to whom.

…

When progressives propose some social reforms, traditionalists get worried. Some reforms are bigger deals that others. Some cross long-established lines that underpin important social compromises and hold back a flood of other measures. When the reform looks to be a crack in that dam, traditionalists figure out that new moral and legal principles would be established, the implications of which would include changing a lot of things they strongly care about. So they bring up the examples of those implied, undesirable consequences as an argument against implementing the reform.

Progressives don’t assuage such concerns by credibly committing to forswear the enactment of these potentially aggravating policies. If they were willing to do so, there are plenty of clever ways they could try to accomplish it. For example, they could do so by explicitly prohibiting them in the law, or perhaps by placing huge public bets against the prospect. Instead, progressives prefer to deploy an alternative, rhetorical strategy by saying that traditionalists are either lying to cover up their bigotry and/or being literally crazy, hysterical, and paranoid about what ‘everybody knows’ will never come to pass.

And then, when all that was predicted in fact comes to pass, and usually in just the blink of an eye, the progressives not only refuse to admit they were deceitful or even just innocently wrong, but say that of course it should be this way, because it’s a clear and obvious logical implication of a (now sacred and established) moral principle!

Since this keeps happening the same way, over and over again, in practical terms, Dreher’s Law translates as, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, or a thousand times in a row, shame on me. So don’t trust them again. They’ll ask for an inch, but when you give it to them, they’ll take a mile, call it justice, and still ask for more and more again. Either insist on rock solid assurances, or fight them to the end.”

…

(For some historical perspective: remember that a Mayflower full of Puritans left Plymouth over 20 years before Newton was even born, and would set up a strict theocracy on a new continent.)

…

Whether Dreher’s telling actual makes sense as a sufficiently, causally explanatory historical narrative could be the basic of endless debate. But we should ask to what extent is all of this explanation even necessary to Dreher’s thesis? Dreher writes:

For our purposes, the Enlightenment matters because it was a decisive break with the Christian legacy of the West. God, if He was mentioned at all, was not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the nondescript divinity of the Deists.

Well, that says most of it rather concisely. It was an irreversible metaphysical upheaval. When Science, reason, and empirical thinking – the Enlightenment state of mind – became high status and intellectually fashionable among European elites, then received traditional theology came to be doubted as unfounded superstitions suitable only for children and simple, low-status commoners.

…

One must note here that it is impossible, or at least incredibly unstable, for a government run by human beings to have no effective substitute for an “ultimate conception of the good”. Civilizations cannot be governed well without a set of ideas which provides both the popular legitimization of coercive power and a moral and practical guide for how to make all kinds of decisions which necessarily involve countless value judgments.

Whether recognized as such or not, all states have an effective state religion, with or without a supernatural Deity, and America is no different. If the state does not collapse, and when the old religions fade in importance and influence, then the state religion persists, evolves, and adapts to fill any vacuum left behind.

…

There are a few quotes about Eros and the liberation of an individual’s carnal desire becoming a cult that … doesn’t quite jive with the #MeToo era and cries of #ToxicMasculinity. Again, Dreher starts to go off track when the subject is progressive sexual morality:

The Romantic ideal of the self-created man finds its fulfillment in the newest vanguards of the Sexual Revolution, transgendered people. They refuse to be bound by biology and have behind them an elite movement teaching new generations that gender is whatever the choosing individual wants it to be.

That doesn’t sound right. For instance, most LGBT advocacy rejects Foucault’s framework in his The History of Sexuality and insists on “Baby I was born that way.” That is, these identities have nothing to do with “choice” and are “real and authentic,” innate and immutable characteristics that therefore deserve the same special legal protection as other discrete and insular minorities.

…

Everyone has a right to develop their own forms of life, grounded on their own sense of what is really important or of value. People are called upon to be true to themselves and to seek their own self-fulfillment. What this consists of, each much, in the last instance, determine for him- or herself. No one else can or should try to dictate its content.

No way does that describe out current culture. There is zero tolerance of ‘bigots’. No one is allowed to be racist or sexist, to discriminate or segregate or hate. Taylor’s description was the rhetoric and spin used by the Old Liberals when it was socially expedient to do so. That era was over long ago.

The church, a community that authoritatively teaches and disciplines its members, cannot withstand a revolution in which each member becomes, in effect, his own pope.

But each person is not his own pope. We have whole institutions dedicated to forming culture and shaping public opinion, that can broadcast to everyone on earth simultaneously at zero marginal cost. And humans are social animals who have a spontaneous desire towards mimicry of high status elites, which includes conspicuous adherence to the same beliefs in their attempts to signal affiliation.

It’s like the magnetic field at the North Pole, and all the compass needles all around the world respond to the field in the air and point toward it. That’s our new pope. That’s everybody’s pope, if not already, then soon enough. Even the actual Pope now follows that pope.

…

I realize Dreher is using it metaphorically, but one must appreciate how bizarre, exaggerated, and even absurd, the use of “Dark Age” must seem to a typical progressive looking around at what he or she perceives as the richest, most technologically sophisticated, and most ‘just’ society that has ever existed.

Furthermore, they are unlikely to agree that they have failed to replace God with ‘reason’. For one, they have replaced God. And they imagine their secular system of morality and conception of social justice to be objectively reasonable and vastly superior to anything which came before, the best that could be said about which is that they were grasping towards the current understanding. Serious thinking Christians do themselves no favors by using language that betrays a failure to pass the Intellectual Turing Test on this point.

Dreher doesn’t want to give progressives any more ammunition to pick the fight they want to have with him, and that’s prudent. But if one is going to survive a war one really has to know how his adversaries think.

…

Dreher has written the book from what he calls the small-o orthodox Christian perspective. After all, even though it’s a little light on actual strategy, the subtitle is, “A Strategy For Christians in a Post-Christian World.” Emphasis on the Christian, and did I mention Christian?

That’s fine, and it confers several advantages.

He sticks to his areas of expertise, stays focused without overly broadening the scope of his effort, and retains the ability to talk to a selective audience in a language they already understand, and use symbols and stories with which they are already familiar.

He also avoids picking a fight and provoking the progressives to rabid, bloodlust-level rage by saying he’s only writing about Christians. That’s instead of for a potentially larger (and thus more dangerous) coalition of the religiously-minded, traditionalists, and social conservatives. Also non-progressives of all stripes who may also be just as interested in carving out a different vision of community and a sustainable alternative to the progressive cultural hegemony.

…

When facing severe cultural and political pressure, there is an obvious temptation to engage in complete political withdrawal and quietism in the hopes that the powers that be will leave one alone. The Napoleonic example shows that this is a foolhardy hope and an exercise in wishful thinking.

So, if the Benedictines offer a glimpse of the Christian future, then how can we know whether that future isn’t susceptible to being snuffed out in an instant by new or revived anti-Christian attitudes and movements? Why are the members of the current ideological vanguard and their allied enforcer agents of the state not the proper inheritors of the French revolutionaries? After all, consider their clearly allergic reaction to quite mild claims of The Benedict Option itself.

The problem is that no institution based on values at odds with state law or modern mainstream society can long survive without being selective as to its membership and associations. And that necessarily implies some degree of discrimination which will run afoul of the absolutist egalitarianism and anti-discrimination tenets of contemporary progressive ideology. That’s what’s so pernicious about the principle of anti-discrimination when taken to extremes: there is simply no end to the obnoxious interventions in intimate human affairs that it can justify, no private sphere immune from molestation.

…

The brain is clearly always performing some specialized cognitive function of socially-relevant “intelligence collection”, and then calculating not just the optimal response, but instead constantly reprogramming the self. At least, to the extent it can, given its hardwired genetic constraints and other limitations (e.g., the familiar decrease in flexibility resulting from age).

It is a process that flies under the radar of conscious awareness, and for which the executive function mostly serves to concoct cover stories and rationalizations. People can always try to put up a conscious and deceptive act – to merely pretend they are conforming – but most people simply aren’t very good at lying. On the other hand, they are often intuitively good at detecting lies, at least at the gut-feeling level. So a better approach is to self-brainwash and really come to believe what it is socially expedient and useful to believe.

This is how most acculturation and assimilation really works, and it is also the basis of Rene Girard’s insight into “acquisitive desires” and “mimetic preferences”. We are constantly trying to show off: to seem cool and impressive, but without seeming as if we’re trying to look impressive. But that requires that we know what everyone else will find to be impressive.

…

Most everyone grasps that this is the way things work for kids and especially teens who, in modern times, spend most of their waking hours away from parents. And it is why their peers and popular media have such a strong influence on their whole personality. They are more reluctant to admit that it works in the same way for adults and throughout our lives. Indeed, most advanced and sophisticated attempts at influence people are trying to leverage these mechanisms, and to give one an impression of new common knowledge, of what all the other people are thinking and doing. Especially the cool people.

And while most people don’t realize it, this is what the culture war is really all about.

It’s a kind of “mental environmentalism.” No man is an island, and no countercultural (and fading) set of beliefs or traditions can expect to long survive if its members are thoroughly integrated and regularly exposed to the distinct values and habits of mainstream society.

If one isn’t going to reject, withdraw, and separate from mainstream society to a substantial degree, then one needs the normal, everyday social and mental environment to continuously support and buttress that desired worldview, for oneself and one’s children.

…

So traditionalists need to shape the whole mental environment not just for their kids, but for themselves. There is pent-up, desperate demand from parents for help in this regard, for when and where their influence reaches its limits. And many of our political debates have this ‘postmodern’ insight lurking in the background as context. But if one can’t rely on the whole of society, then one needs the liberty to construct a separate, micro-society that accomplishes as much of the same functions as possible.

In his blogging, Dreher tends to both emphasize parental culpability, while also providing plenty of personal stories undermining that impact of that blameworthiness.

He is quick to blame lazy and weak parents for not doing enough at home, for not choosing Christian schools or homeschooling, for not going to church enough or living Christian-enough lives, and for allowing their kids access to popular culture and social media technologies.

But then he posts letter after letter from people whose parents did pretty much everything possible along those lines, or sometimes from the parents themselves about their lost kids, as projects that ended in complete failure. Usually the very minute the kids left home and joined mainstream society.

The lesson is that it’s impossible to do it alone, but it’s easy if the elites, law, and culture have your back. The public square has private impact, and so everyone has a stake in it. A hands-off strategy just means being at the mercy of whoever owns the megaphones. And if you can’t control the public square, all that’s left is exit of some kind or other, to your own private village where you can make your own square.

…

And so the fact is that everyone has a huge stake in what the social environment feels like, what messages it sends and influences it has. Taking a hands-off and free-market’ approach – a legacy of enlightenment values – is unilateral disarmament in the never-ending war for our souls.

…

But here’s the thing: the culture war is lost.

Or, at the very least, a lost cause. It’s far too late for any more “mainstream shaping and influence operations,” in order that the world “be made safe for” Christianity. One must accept the ugly truth that if Christians, or traditionalist social conservatives in general, ever get the mainstream culture back, it won’t be for many generations.

It is no longer possible for there to be a cohesive, coherent, and unified American popular culture in which the religious enjoy sufficient status with enough respect and perceived normalcy that they and their children can remain fully integrated into ordinary life while keeping their faith from imploding. The excruciatingly hard choice is either capitulation or strategic withdrawal with increased insularity. There is no alternative.

If religion survives in the West, it will be in deeply fragmented societies. And despite all the talk about multiculturalism, most Western countries have not had to maintain peace and order amidst such serious divisions for a long time. If it is to be done at all, it will require some substantial institutional innovation, both at the level of the state, and the level of independent, value-based communities.

A hopelessly incohesive and low-trust society requires different institutions than the society which gave birth to our inherited ones that are groaning under the pressure of a new, polarized context. These will not necessarily be “new” institutions, perhaps they will look like some updated version of old ones such as the Ottoman system of millets, or Chinese special areas. But the old ways will not persist, so new ways must be discovered.

And this is what the Option is really all about. But in the meantime, it’s going to get tougher.

The closure of certain professions to faithful orthodox Christians will be difficult to accept. In fact, it’s hard for contemporary believers to imagine, in part because as Americans, we are unaccustomed to accepting limits on our ambitions. Yet the day is coming when the kind of thing that has happened to Christian bakers, florists, and wedding photographers will be much more widespread. And many of us are nor prepared to suffer deprivation for our faith.

The “certain” professions are likely to become “all” of them, at least, if one doesn’t hide, lie, pay lip-service, and either compromise one’s integrity or one’s theological principles. The progressives will insist on measures that force the bigots to out themselves, or accept the humiliation of silent heresy. What happens when the company wants everyone to attend the pride event, or to wear rainbow apparel, or to use forms of address inconsistent with traditional scruples?

How much of the labor force could really be immune to such trends and pressures? Christians trying to withdraw economically from all the sectors that might put their values at risk would be doomed to even lower status by means of lower status work, and lower overall life success. They would be poor, which by itself is no insufferable condition. But today, that poverty would imply an inability to afford to separate from the American underclass whose lives are defined by constant familial and sexual chaos, dysfunction, disorder, and sin. Which is not exactly Mayberry on the “wholesome environment in which to raise your kids” scale. A Christian-flavored gypsy subculture cannot be the goal.

People might think about withdrawal and dropping out of normal society to be better Christians, but their Social Calculus Module is sounding off the loudest alarms anticipating what a drop in status such a move would entail. And it will drive them with irresistible compulsion to invent some excuse rationalizing why they can’t do it, or why it need not, or even must not, be done.

…

Dreher compares this to a “fast”, but what is implied here is a permanent lifestyle fast. We can all admire and be inspired the examples of extraordinary martyrs and saints who kept the faith despite incredible trials and hardships. But, realistically, a faith that requires a life of constant suffering is not a “test” most people can pass.

At the very least, people are going to need tight-knit and geographically proximate local communities to protect their interests and their faith. But our nations are still urbanizing, leading to a hollowing out the smaller locales where such communities ones existed. We are quickly moving to an increasingly atomized society and a point where nobody knows how to live in that old fashion anymore, let alone form them in sustainable and enduring ways.

…

Today, one doesn’t care to know his neighbors in part because one can’t want what is irrelevant to one’s interests. The combination of modern prosperity and state subsidies means that people are more independent and don’t need to rely on each other the way they used to.

And modern technological and economic developments continue to make us more independent from each other every day as the trend is to try to unbundle and transactionally substitute for the services we used to barter with each other.

For example, one can view marriage as incorporating a kind of economic “deal” into the overall relationship. Maybe the wife does housework while the husband does yardwork, and after all, the cleanliness of the house and the beauty of the yard are things they enjoy in common. But if the couple is wealthier, maybe they just pay for maid service and landscaping, which frees up time to pursue their individual interests. Their marriage has gained something in an obvious sense. But it has probably also lost something in a more subtle sense.

We want power and freedom and independence but we also want community and belonging and lasting friendships. We are human and we want it all, even if all means a bundle of mutually exclusive contradictions. But for a community of deep and durable relationships, we need to need.

…

Dreher says that with the loss of the culture war, the era of religious right “values voters” having any kind of significant influence and sway over the GOP and state policy is over. That is, if they ever actually did have any influence above the lip-service payment level, which is debatable.

And so, traditionalists will have to abandon those pursuits as impotent, futile, and often counterproductive, and adjust their perspective and tactics to the new reality of permanent defense.

…

Dreher is again trying to convince Christians to give up on normal politics, to give up on fighting a lost cause, and to focus as much as possible on building and maintaining their own “thick communities”, and strengthening their own faith and pious practices. He especially wants them to stop rationalizing exceptions and making excuses for themselves. They need to both withdraw and also to stop fooling themselves that current levels of “engagement” with the fallen mainstream culture are sustainable. Christians are to mind their own proper business and, “tend one’s own garden,” in Voltaire’s terms.

But the trouble with appeals to quietism or an ill-defined ‘localism’ is that while you may decide to not be interested in politics, politics can still be interested in you.

And relying on the good graces of adversaries so that they will not dissolve your monasteries is simply not a workable strategy.

The truly revealing thing about those infamous florist, cake decorator, and other cases is just how incredibly nice, pleasant, charitable, good, and friendly the defendants were in those cases were. How they had lived lives indistinguishable from the ‘Mr. Rogers’ ideal advised by all those commentators going on about reputation and ‘winsomeness’. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some of them even voted for Obama. None of that made a lick of difference for them, and there is certainly no reason to think it would in the decreasingly Christian future.

…

Now, it may not be their dream house, or anything more than an “any port in a storm” refuge, but at 81 percent, it kind of sounds like at least some American Christians have a political shelter of necessity after all. Again, most Christian public intellectuals are much more likely to be Democrats or progressives. They have nothing but disdain for Trump which spills over into deeply bitter resentment for the support he enjoys among their fellow confessionists.

But support for Trump derives from the pragmatic political necessity of making the best of a tough situation, and dancing with the one that brought you when nobody else would.

Dreher warns this will ruin their reputation, but that’s trying to close the barn door after the horse has already bolted. Once a group is thought to consist of occasionally nice people, but who are still, fundamentally, “refusnik bigots” and loyalists of a “Homophobe Confederacy”, then in the words of the other candidate, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

…

Dreher gets real again, in a good transition to the next section, “Traditional Politics: What Can Still Be Done”

The best that Orthodox Christians today can hope for from politics is that it can open a space for the church to do the work of charity, culture building, and conversion.

This line is extremely important, but it goes by fast if you’re not careful to stop and appreciate its full implications.

So, at the risk of going off on the kind of provocative and triggering sidetrack that – judging by nearly all of the critics of TBO – will make everyone forget everything else in this discussion, let me put that a little differently.

The best orthodox Christians, traditionalists, or rejectionists of all types can do is try to enable and protect the members, subcultures, and institutions of Benedict Option Communities, so that, in whatever form they may take, they won’t be dissolved by the state like so many monasteries before them.

Following from the logic of Perpetuationism, the existential considerations of cultural continuation and political survival necessarily take precedence over other matters, because those other matters could not otherwise be addressed at all.

And so, for social conservatives of all stripes, this goal ought to be become the primary purpose of traditional, non-local politics. This is nothing more that the result of it being the last goal left when all the other, grander objectives are taken off the table, as no longer feasible.

…

Which leads one to ask, “Well, OK, if religious liberty legislation can’t get passed by ordinary methods even in a situation like that – in as ideal circumstances as one can hope for these days – then to the extent one views these legal protections as essential, what would it take to get them?”

After the failure in his own state, former Kansas legislator Lance Kinzer who spearheaded the original effort just keeps banging his head against the same wall.

Yet Kinzer has not left politics entirely. The first goal of Benedict Option Christians in the world of conventional politics is to secure and expand the space within which we can be ourselves and build our own institutions. To the end, he travels around the country advocating for religious liberty legislation in state legislatures. Over and over he sees Republican legislators who are inclined to support religious liberty taking a terrible pounding from the business lobby. … Pastors and lay Christian leaders need to prepare their congregations for hard times.

Well then, as a purely logical matter, it looks like it’s either “game over”, or, else, something will have to be done about that business lobby.

So, if those Christian leaders are not to simply capitulate on the matter of engaging in traditional politics to expand their religious liberty and rights to community autonomy, and if it is not yet practically impossible, then it seems that they have no alternative but to play political hardball. With the business lobby, with Democrats, and even with the country at large, to whatever extent that proves necessary.

Which in turn raises the question: what would nonviolent, civil, and legal “political hardball” look like?

…

So, getting back to hardball, for one, it would require sufficient organization and coordination such that most sympathizers vote as a reliable bloc – a “votebank” – according to leadership endorsements of Republican primary candidates who can be trusted to pursue a religious liberty agenda.

True, previous efforts at such counter-establishment organization on the right have not had promising results, to put it mildly. And in general this kind of coordination and level of commitment is extremely hard to pull off.

…

One example of a non-mainstream American religious group which has already operated in this manner for decades – and to enviable levels of success – are the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish communities of the Northeast. The power of the Satmar bloc in New York is legendary (or infamous, depending on your perspective). When the heads of those communities tell a candidate that they have the ability to get every adult to the polls and have them all vote the same way, they mean it, and they deliver. They are the ultimate “community organizers,” in that sense. Though in truth the community is already extremely organized by its very nature, and the leaders are merely riding that way to play the democracy game. Benedict Option Communities will surely be so as well.

Despite their minority status and relatively small numbers, by and large, these ultra-orthodox Jews punch well above their weight, and so they tend to get what they want. And, in addition to as much public subsidy as possible (which is what any “organized community as special interest group” seeks), what they want is to maximize their autonomy: to be left alone and to manage their own affairs according to their own rules, with as little interference and oversight as politically and legally possible.

It’s a form of clientalist group solidarity which is a very pared down version of the old “machine” politics. And, for them, it works. It works really, really well.

Many contemporary American Christians – especially white ones – have been acculturated to bristle at that approach to democratic politics, just as they have nothing but contempt for the left’s constant agitation for identity politics and ceaseless denigration of ‘privileged’ class enemies. But seeing as those Christians have no other workable alternative, they’ll get over it, and the fact is, they’re already headed down that road.

Because, like it or not, clientalism based on group solidarity works. There is no stable equilibrium in a two-party democratic system – especially in an era of shifting demographics – in which only own party makes use of this potent weapon while the other maintains a policy of neutrality and unilateral disarmament

…

Now, if something like that could be done – to be sure, an astronomical if – then how would those elected politicians actually go about playing hardball?

Well, if “hardball” is to mean anything it all, then when someone lacks carrots, that only leaves sticks. And, to be blunt about it, that means deterrence by a credible threat against something your opponents care about. A legal and non-violent threat – this isn’t antifa – but a compelling one nevertheless. So, what does the business lobby care about?

Now, in the US at least, due to a combination of historical contingencies, the geographic distribution of the population, and the founders’ intentionally frustrating vision of state political organization – in which ‘ungovernable’ was a feature, not a bug – it turns out there is a way for a steadfastly determined minority to get its way.

And everybody already knows what it is: Shutdown. Or, in the words of Internet inventor and nearly-President Al Gore, “Political Terrorism“.

…

Except, it’s never worked before, which is why the idea always gets such weary eye rolls from the commentariat at even the faintest whisper of floating the idea. “Oh brother, here we go again. This never works, and worse, it’s always counterproductive, resulting in nothing but completely pointless hassle for ordinary, innocent people.”

But ‘never’ isn’t right. That claim rests on thinking that the future will keep on looking like the recent past. But for Christians and traditionalists, it won’t.

There’s a simple explanation for why shutdown warnings have not worked so far, which weighs against believing that will continue to be the case in the future.

Brinksmanship threats don’t work if they’re both bluffs, and known by one’s opponents to be bluffs. They can’t work if your opponent is sure that you aren’t serious and, at best, merely going through the performative motions of signaling by means of frustrating political theater.

A nuclear option is worthless if your opponents knows ahead of time you’ll never actually press the button, as if they were able to read your instructions in your letters of last resort and learn that you ordered your commanders to just lie back and think of England. You can’t win a game a chicken if your counterpart can see you are sure to swerve away. Where’s the fear? If there isn’t any, then it’s all just a show.

And this is the charade which has characterized every single shutdown in modern history. It has always been an exercise in crying wolf, since nobody really means it.

But, it’s just a matter of time until someone comes along who does really means it. And they’ll really mean it, and everyone else will know they really mean it, because they will believe they have absolutely no other choice left but to really mean it.

…

Dreher channels Havel and describes the political consequences of refusing to “live within a lie” and put the sign in the window:

His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth” – and it’s going to cost him plenty. He will lose his job and his position in society. His kids may not be allowed to go to the college they want to, or to any college at all. People will bully him or ostracize him. But by bearing witness to the truth, he has accomplish something potentially powerful.

He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. …

Because they are public, the greengrocer’s deeds are inescapably political. He bears witness to the truth of his convictions by being willing to suffer for them. He becomes a threat to the system – but he has preserved his humanity.

Or … he’s dismissed by all right-thinking and respectable people as some bigoted and hateful crank or delusional troublemaker who deserves everything he’s going to get before everybody forgets about him forever. Hoping for Havel’s outcome, as hard as his journey was, is naively optimistic in our present situation.

Imagine the typical progressive’s reaction to hearing someone got fired for refusing to wear a company rainbow pin during pride month. Are they moved by his “bearing witness”? Do they really think he’s a “threat to the system”? Or is it just, “good riddance to bad rubbish.” The image of George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door. In this way, the story of the naked emperor is inapt. Half the people – and nearly all the educated and elite ones – see him clothed. They react to any claim of nakedness by concluding there is someone seriously wrong with the claimant.

So while Havel is a hero, and his essay inspiring, the story isn’t exactly reliable. One has to remember that details about life in the West had penetrated enough into the consciousness of people under the Soviet system that it had gone a long way towards undermining faith in and commitment to that system, and any optimism and true belief had long given way to widespread cynicism. When the West was widely perceived to have higher status, the writing was on the wall, and any failure of will to meet any sign of resistance with an immediate, brutal crackdown would spell the beginning of the end. And just so, it ended. But the West has no West.

…

Any anyway, what exactly is so bad about retreating into ghettos? And is there really a clear distinction between a ‘ghetto’ and a Benedict Option?

It’s fairly clear from the history of the Jews in Europe that the existence of ghettos, whatever their other drawbacks, was likely instrumental in preserving the continuity and traditions of local Jewish communities. When the Jews were liberated and emancipated and dispersed themselves out of their formal enclaves, it only took a few generations for most of them to assimilate and integrate into the cultural mainstream and watch their distinctive faith and practices gradually become watered down and fade away. Meanwhile, the ultra-orthodox, penned in by their eruv wires into modern, voluntary ‘ghettos’, and with their higher fecundity, are probably what the future of Judaism in the West will look like. Ghettos work.

…

When faith becomes weird, embracing the weirdness will set one free.

It’s not about losing respectability so much as it is about the members of the church putting themselves in a position where they are no longer so sensitive to the typical human impulses to care so deeply about perceptions of normalcy and broad respectability in general society.

The gap between churchgoers and secular infidels can grow so wide that it goes past a “point of no return”. Or, perhaps more precisely, past any point of remaining ambiguity where it would still be feasible to keep a foot in both worlds without marking yourself clearly as a “different other”.

Once that tether to mainstream secular culture is cut, it no longer pulls members into heretical or weaker forms of faith. If it pulls, it pulls out completely, and so those who remain become ‘free’ from the pressures to conform and compromise. In the alternative, they have intentionally been made (or purposefully made themselves) simply too incompatible with the mainstream to ever integrate easily, and too exclusively dependent on their coreligionists for social, spiritual, and even ordinary transactional needs.

Many traditionalist religious groups require conspicuously distinctive habits of dress and patterns of life which by design do not allow one to blend in with mainstream society. Members of future churches will need to be metaphorically and psychologically ‘branded’ with costly signals of commitment in a similar, hard-to-reverse fashion.

…

Part of the problem is that, especially in the US – and as a longstanding feature of American history – many Christians – and especially Protestants – are not effectively a ‘captive audience’ of any particular sect.

This means in part that they have the social right to exit and only suffer comparably minor social penalties and negative consequences from switching denominations. Furthermore, this is generally viewed as a common occurrence and personal matter which ought not to warrant harsh reproach, or raise any great deal of consternation or opprobrium. Indeed, sects optimistic about their own growth opportunities obviously see it as their theological mission to swipe members from other denominations as ‘fair game’, and are thus eager to engage in the ‘conversion contest’ while fishing for souls.

The trouble is that this state of affairs turns “churching” into a mere economic sector and competitive marketplace, with typical competitive pressures leading to a ‘customer service’ mentality of indulgent and obsequious unobtrusiveness. The attitude of “the customer is always right,” (or else he’ll leave) reverses the typical relations of authority and status. It also leads to gimmicks of low-brow appeal which are by their nature fragile and ephemeral when exposed to the fickle and discursive whims of the masses.

Indeed, such pressures weigh hard on those who cater to any minority, refined, or ‘elite’ tastes, which can increasingly only be done in the largest or most cultured cities with a critical mass of these rare patrons. Nevertheless, one might try to counter with the fact that, however diminished, the market still manages to supply these few, special consumers with products in their niche interests. So why should devout Christians worry about competition all-but-eliminating non-mass-appeal churches?

Because unlike all those other goods and services and entertainments, churches cannot be trying to please consumers. Instead, churches and religions must make difficult demands on the individual, teach the individual that it is he who ought to work hard to try to please God. It is very much a “no pain, no gain” message. And just like with strenuous physical exertion, people can train themselves to maintain the right perspective and attitude, and learn to enjoy and even love the process. As with exercise, it’s easier to get into, and near-effortless to maintain, if everyone else you like is also doing it, and it’s equally difficult if you are all alone while you’re friends are out at the bar.

But there is no question that members of households are told to give up their time, money, convenience, pleasure, every spare mental ‘clock cycle’, and many other life opportunities. That’s in order to fulfill their religious duties, and so the congregation functions all day, every day, as a constantly exercised social organism: the primary community of one’s entire life. Churches insist that instead of trying to indulge their impulses, congregants abstain from feeding and yielding to their desires. Churches may claim that a faithful life is ‘liberating’ in a certain, counter-intuitive sense, but such ’emancipation’ is still occurring under a system that emphasizes obligation, submission and one’s duty to obey holy authority.

…

Churches also offer a ‘service’ that has no close analogy in a competitive marketplace. Companies are trying to tempt you with ever more intense ways to feel good. Churches place at least some emphasis on making one feel bad. The concept of sin and the emotions of shame, embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, remorse, contrition, repentance and atonement are all part of the natural and instinctive arsenal ordering human group behavior. The proper channeling of those moral impulses makes the higher forms of civilization characterized by strong religious community possible.

Yes, there is the upside of release and salvation via purification and forgiveness, but in the necessary moments of emotional discomfort those upsides lack salience. One perhaps need not go all the way to Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God every day. But give people plenty of choices, and the market will eventually weed out all the hectoring, which will throw some very important babies out with the bathwater.

…

This is a key line:

A church that looks and talks and sounds just like the world has no reason to exist.

Exactly right, and this is the precise reason why most Mainline Protestant denominations continue to implode.

…

Parents, teachers, and other adult authority figures like to believe they are key influences in their kids’ lives and the main molders of their character and worldview. Alas, a lot of that is wishful thinking. As a salutary corrective to such thinking, Judith Rich Harris’s The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do remains one of the most important books of the last half century and required reading for any intelligent parent.

It’s important your kids have a good peer group. By “good,” I mean one in which its members, or at least most of them, share the same strong moral beliefs. Though parental influence is critical, research shows that nothing forms a young person’s character like their peers. The culture of the group of which your child is a part growing up will be the culture he or she adopts as their own.

Engaged parents can’t outsource the moral and spiritual formation of their kids to their church or parachurch organization. Interviewing a wide variety of Christians for this book, I often heard complaints that church-affiliated youth groups were about keeping kids entertained more than disciplines.

At times like this in the book I begin to suspect that even many devout and pious parents start to secretly think to themselves, “Good grief, who has time, energy, and persistence for all that? My faith is deeply important to me and I believe it to be the cornerstone of my life and existence. But honestly, I’m not a saint. I’m just an ordinary person who has to work late and comes home tired and sometimes it’s a struggle to just get dinner on the table. I can’t supervise everything all the time. Nor would I want to even if I could. I just don’t know if I’m up to handling being that “engaged” all the time. I’m going to need a whole lot of help.”

In other words, “It takes a village.” But one at culture-peace, not embroiled in culture-war, the battles of which parents are likely to lose.

…

First, while teenagers are often portrayed in popular culture as being naturally “rebellious”, they are in fact incredibly conformist and hypersensitive to matters regarding social opinion and approval. This may seem unbelievable to any parent who has experienced the struggle with surly and disobedient adolescents, probing for opportunities to reset the boundaries of dominance and power in the relationship. But that ‘rebellion’ is merely the manifestation of the teenager’s status radars switching targets away from their parents and locking instead to the worldview and attitudes of their peers and that of the general mainstream culture.

Second, “social contagion” is a real, powerful, and extremely important phenomenon. The young mind’s flexibility and tendency to self-reprogram in response to environmental cues about socially important matters has almost limitless potential, for good or ill. In certain circumstances, one bad apple really can spoil the bunch, and in contemporary society what happens during times of peer-interaction are particularly hard for parents to supervise. We are already at the end of the era where it is possible to discuss the truth of this matter as relates to matters of sexual orientation and gender identity without being reflexively accused of bigotry by the people who relish the role of making such accusations. But any educated person can acquaint themselves with the history of diverse cultural approaches to sexual matters to arrive at the conclusion that “baby I was born that way” is hardly the full story.

And third, at some level most parents already understand the importance of peer groups. But when “good peers” are a scarce resource, in the American system, parents start to compete with each other in a zero-sum price war for rights to attend the “best” local schools. Parents collectively pretend that this has something to do with the ‘quality’ of the education at those schools. But they nearly all secretly know what makes a “good school” is a high concentration of “good students”, and there just aren’t enough of those to go around. If parents find themselves unable to pay the prices in that bidding war either by money, grueling commutes, or other lifestyle sacrifices, then they’ll need another way to be selective about their kids’ friends.

…

Dreher seems inconsistent and conflicted about the ideas of ‘extremism’ and ‘fanaticism’. On the one hand, he knows that he and many people of similar levels of Christian piety and devotion are regarded as akin to extremist fanatics by mainstream culture. Dreher in particular is accused of being so when he is perceived to be calling for the self-exile of Christians away from normal society.

But then, instead of concluding that there’s something fundamentally wrong at root with the idea of this kind of judgment, he tacitly concludes that it’s just wrong for him. He looks a little past where he happens to be and seems willing to turn that same artillery on others. He knows friends like him who lost their children to the faith, and thinks it’s because of “the culture”, but when it happens to people more strict or alarmed than he is, it’s the parents fault, having “sheltered” them and “driven the children away.”

Aren’t the monks in the monasteries “fanatically religious”? Won’t the people in their Benedict Option communities be called “fanatics” and “cultists”, and indeed, with justice? Isn’t a ‘cloister’ a sheltering enclosure separate from the outside world? But if that’s what living the faith means, then what’s wrong with any of that?

My provisional conclusion is that because Dreher is a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing here, which is once again have to throw normals and the idea of ‘normalcy’ an occasional bone. That avoids the kind of triggers that make those normal people put up their mental shields and give themselves an easy out as a convenient justification to disengage from the whole uncomfortable topic.

Still, he’s doing the overall message of the book a disservice by using the same disparaging terms. Ask a typical European what he or she thinks about American Christians withdrawing from morally corrupting public schools and choosing to home-school. “Weird” and “Cult” and “Creepy” and “Fanatics” is exactly what you’ll hear. If that’s wrong – which it is – then what’s wrong with it that isn’t also wrong with Dreher’s vague prescriptions?

…

First of all, as above, parents don’t make teens into ‘rebels’. Teens ‘rebel’ because they are conforming to new sources of ‘social authority’ which are displacing familial authority. If anything, it just reinforces the above point that Ellen’s parents failed because they lacked a village.

Second of all, for every story of ‘fanatical strictness’ that goes this way, there’s another that goes the other way, with children brought up to love and cherish their faith, keep it throughout their lives, and pass it on to their own children.

And finally, the real problem here is the lack of a full-life plan. That is, a place in the village for children, for students, for adults with young families, for the retired, and for everybody at every stage. What even the most devout Christians – especially Americans – have been doing instead is just “raise and release”. As with domesticated animals, this is a perfect recipe for quick feralization.

The Anglo-Saxon tradition of having children move away from home and establish their own distinct lives at relatively young ages could only work to preserve family traditions in a cultural environment in which the fact that those traditions were widely shared could be taken for granted. But, for the social influence reasons explained above, that practice has always been counterproductive for counterculturalists, which Christians now are. So “raise and release” will have to change too.

…

But for any Benedict Option to be viable, matters of real estate and concentration will have to have central importance to the overall plan. When done intentionally or inadvertently, such actions will have the effect of a kind of local development plan which resembles the process of gentrification, especially if the land started out cheap. Members of these communities will have to find ways to accomplish these ends without upsetting other neighbors or local civil authorities. And political experience teaches us that people can be quite passionate and determined when fighting over ‘turf’ like this.

…

Related to religious real-estate development plans, in the Eastern Orthodox Community in Eagle River, Alaska:

A number of cathedral families live within walking distance of the cathedral, on land purchased by church members decades ago, when it was affordable.

“When it was affordable.” Could that work elsewhere too?

Paul and Rachel’s parents were among the early settlers of a distressed neighborhood in Augusta, Georgia where the new community’s members could afford housing. They helped each other fix up their places and began life in common. Today the Alleluia Community has around eight hundred members, many of whom remain in Faith Village, which is what they call the original settlement.

A pattern emerges. The same was true for the early Catholic families trying to concentrate themselves in Hyattsville, Maryland. They got in while the getting was good, but part of the reason that particular neighborhood is no longer as affordable today is because by their very presence they made it a more desirable place to live, especially for each other.

…

“If you isolate yourself, you will become weird.” … The idea of community itself should not be allowed to become an idol. A community is a living organism that must change and grow and adapt.”

This is just dead wrong. It’s not coming out of his own mouth, but including this quote at all was Dreher’s biggest error in drafting the book. I’m not saying he should be wearing “Make Christianity Weird Again” baseball caps necessarily, but warning Christians to be wary of forging their own path because they might seem strange from some other perspective is antithetical to the rest of his premise.

First, that’s almost the exact same rhetoric used to advocate for a series of liberalizations that end in the dissolution of the original faith. The ‘idol’ language is meant to be a warning not to take anything to an inappropriate extreme, but that includes throwing around idol language every time someone wants to merely insinuate that they are on the ‘moderate’ side of a debate, but without actually making an argument. “Don’t idolize warnings not to idolize.”

And while it’s not Dreher saying it, ‘weird’ is a particularly daft word. As explained above, devout Christians of all stripes don’t just seem weird to secular types. Like it or not, and whether they want to admit it or not, Christians are indeed weird now.

Warnings about weirdness are faulty at root and play right into the pressure towards secularization. It is completely at odds with Moore’s statement that, “by losing its cultural respectability, the church is freer to be radically faithful.” Worrying about being ‘weird’ means worrying about losing cultural respectability, which, in effect, means the prohibition of radical faithfulness.

…

Some Mormon practices are seen as ‘weird’, and generate a lot of mean-spirited mockery, but laugh all you want, the Mormons are winning and probably in better shape than any other Christian group. Ultra Orthodox Jews seem really bizarre, especially with their unconventional costumes. But outside of Israel, and going by current demographic trends, in a generation or two, nearly all observant Jews will be Orthodox. Speaking of Israel, the story of that country and Zionism fits so well with Dreher’s premise that its absence comes off as a conspicuous omission from his book. After all, Israel is like a Benedict Option writ large – all the way up to national sovereignty.

The point of Israel in the classical Zionist conception is precisely to serve a place of refuge and sanctuary for the people of a particular faith, to be a Jewish state, and one in which, almost anywhere one goes, one can’t help but breathe in Judaism with the air. That is, to be the easiest place on earth to be authentically Jewish. I understand that if Dreher even mentioned Israel it would open up a completely distracting can of worms, and that he was wise to avoid it. Still, what Benedict Option Christians want and need are their own little Zions.

And speaking of foreign places, the past, too, “… is a foreign country; they do things different there.” Weird things. At least, to modern eyes. But if we are going to look backwards for inspiration and examples of how to live in a new, harder age, then we are going to have to recognize that ‘weird’ is a bogus group insult.

…

Part of the hesitation is the instinct that any such project presents a massive coordination / “Aumann common knowledge” problem that, by its inherent social nature, requires a lot of people to sign on all at once. Which they won’t do, unless they feel certain that everyone else will too. One needs to gauge real levels of interest and commitment, but you can’t really obtain reliable information leading to accurate predictions by merely asking people to provide a costless and riskless indication of interest.

Fortunately, commitment vouching and threshold-triggering techniques like the crowdfunding approach used by Kickstarter are emerging to help solve these coordination problems. Those who wish to form new Benedict Option communities would be advised to learn more about them.

…

Two observations worth pointing out. First, Czechia, while an astoundingly impressive economic recovery case and an increasingly prosperous nation, has not recovered culturally, at least insofar as levels of fertility and religiosity are concerned. There are few large and devoutly Catholic families like the Bendas left. But while the Communist tyranny undoubtedly played some role, in these matters Czechia does not seem all that different from other prosperous European countries, and so it seems clear that Benda was fighting a phenomenon of cultural transformation even bigger than the influence of Communist totalitarianism.

And second, while it’s easy to overplay the role and exaggerate the influence of education, everyone still recognizes how important it can be. This obviously includes the state, as demonstrated in this case even while it was relaxing controls on everything else. Any attempt to wrest control over education that the state perceives is opposed and threatening to its interests will clearly be met whatever legal and political measures are thought necessary to neutralize that threat. It will be either in hard forms like outlawing homeschooling (as many other countries do), or softer forms such as curriculum control, ideologically problematic mandates, exclusion from competitions and other opportunities to demonstrate talent and merit, disqualification for grants or scholarships, or refusal to accredit, certify, or grant certain credentials, which are de facto requirements for many careers.

The state is likely content with an outcome such that the choice of non-state-sanctioned educational options means a loss of respectability and recognition so severe that it effectively means sacrificing any chance of a normal, successful life for any talented student. This creates a heart-wrenching situation for his or her parents who are forced to decide between their faith and their duty to improve the welfare of their children.

Benedict Option communities will have to stay out of politics whenever possible, but it seems likely that in the particular matter of education, broad autonomy and near immunity from state intervention and oversight must be fought for as a non-negotiable priority. It’s so important that it’s even be worth the cost of some inevitable unfortunate cases of incompetent and inadequate instruction. For if those are to be regulated, supervised, and made to conform with the state’s will, everything will be.

…

Don’t be too sad for the Catholic Poles in losing the dark night that inspired them to keep a candle lit, because it turns out they are in luck. Fortunately for them, the European Union seems determined to offer a soft and bureaucratic substitute for foreign domination by a totalitarian menace. And, at least at the moment, it seems like Poles are reacting with their characteristic failure to submit.

Meanwhile, in America, the fact that we are our own enemies in the Cold Civil War fails to trigger similar reactive impulses.

…

Progressives are not used to arguing for the value of public education with the same terms that the military uses to describe its goal of creating camaraderie and esprit de corps. That is, of inculcating a homogeneity of outlook that helps foster shared experiences and group consciousness, of common dedication to higher ideals, of national coherence and cohesion and collective patriotism instead of segregated insularity, and so forth. But watch the progressives turn on a dime and wrap themselves in the flag when it’s Christians talking about withdrawing from public schools en masse. That’s a trigger as effective as a matador’s cape is to a raging bull.

…

At any rate, if Benedict Optioners need a higher education plan, then when does the Christian learning stop after that? The answer is clear: it doesn’t.

The obvious implication of all this emphasis on education is the need for an institutional arrangement that insists upon a perpetual, lifetime of learning, and of staying together with one’s ‘classmates’ for as much of one’s life as feasible. This is the kind of attitude toward constant religious learning that is behind the use of the Yiddish terms shul (“school”) and batei midrash (“houses of studying”) for synagogues.

If we start to pull all of Dreher’s suggestions into a synthesis we get something approaching a residential college campus. Once again see that universities are the most reliable guide for how to preserve and adapt traditional religious institutions like monasteries and project them into the modern age while maintaining their function. Like military bases abroad, residents would likely spend most of their time and social interactions with each other, living in ‘base housing’ or barracks, dormitories, faculty quarters, or fraternity group arrangements, and with everything revolving around the primary mission of the community.

And, conveniently, with just a few exceptions so far, universities are granted a legal status that affords them a remarkably broad degree of autonomy, selectivity, and the right to police up the behavior of all members of the campus community. Children and young students would go to school full time, but even working adults can come together and take a night class every semester, according to their availability and intellectual capability, and for the rest of their lives.

Such a community is more like a village or shtetl that can adapt and expand its capacity to deal with all the various needs of its members. They may even find ways to network with each other for the sake of employment opportunities. And, as has been known to happen on campuses on occasion, they may even be able to fall in love with each other, and then form their families in the warm supporting embrace and cultural consistency of their fellow residents.

The setup could be one of clear physical enclosure like a ‘gated community’, or an informal amalgamation combining a lot of small and close properties together. But either way, some sort of ‘religious campus’ is the only sort of thing that has any hope of solving all the big problems at once.

…

Some disturbing quotes from professors at religious colleges.

“You would be surprised by how many of our students come here knowing next to nothing about the Bible,” he said sadly. “A lot of our students come here from some of the most highly regarded Catholic schools in this region,” said one professor. “They don’t know anything about their faith and don’t see the problem. They’ve had it drummed into their heads that Catholicism is anything they want it to be.”

That raises the question of how did such utter failure of religious instruction come about at these supposedly Catholic schools. But the broader point is that widespread ignorance is a real problem even in the best of circumstances. Religious scripture, doctrine, commentary, and history cannot be an optional sideshow or mere elective; it must be part of the daily life of study.

Again, we can learn from Jewish education here. Charles Chaput, the Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia, witnessed the power of Orthodox Jewish education on a 2012 visit to Yeshiva University. After observing students studying Torah as part of the university’s basic coursework, Chaput wrote how impressed he was by “the power of Scripture to create new life.”

Imagine multiple generations of entire families living at and attending a lifetime version of their religion’s approach to Yeshiva University together.

…

Dreher’s appeal is to connect people of the present to their deep heritage and to honor and carry on the memory of the entire long chain of their predecessors. Notice how opposite this spirit is from the recent trend of the Great Erasure, the PC-based implementation of damnatio memoriae which involves blotting out every public trace of each and every historical figure who would not be found perfectly compliant with today’s dyspathetic sensibilities. The effect of all of which is to alienate moderns from their history, focus on condemnation instead of respect, insist on the past’s irrelevance instead of the idea of that history containing insights worthy of modern consideration. To break any sense of continuity or commonality, gratitude or duty.

We have already come a long way in that direction.

…

This section will probably strike the average reader as the most radical and personally burdensome element of Dreher’s counsel.

Because public education in America is neither rightly ordered, not religiously informed, nor able to form an imagination devoted to Western civilization, it is time for all Christians to pull their children out of the public school system.

There’s the matter of ideological conflict as well.

Plus, public schools by nature are on the front lines of the latest and worst trends in popular culture. For example, under pressure from the federal government and LGBT activists, many school systems are now welcoming and normalizing transgenderism – with the support of many parents.

Or, just as often, without the support of many parents. Or even the knowledge of many parents, who either aren’t informed about these matters, or, sometimes, and even in the cases of their own children, are simply lied to by school staff as implementations of official policy, when such lying is deemed to be more fully consistent with being an ‘ally’ to those children, in the name of an Orwellian version of “safety”

There’s not much hope in fixing the public schools in this regard.

…

Many American Christian schools are hardly Christian in anything more than name only, as a mere carryover from more religiously serious origins. Many of them gradually succumbed to the various competitive and market pressures to be little more than another typical private prep school, and a means to non-religious ends.

The principal of one Christian high school told me that he and his faculty are constantly battling parents who find the serious moral and theological content of the curriculum too burdensome for their children. “All they think about is getting their kids into a top university and launching them into a good career,” he said. Another principal, this one at a pricey Christian academy in the Deep South, said, “Our parents think if they’ve paid their seventeen-thousand-dollar tuition bill, they’ve done all that’s expected of them about their child’s religious education.”

…

As mentioned above, we live in an era of specialization, which includes the compartmentalization and disaggregation of the ‘trades’ underlying many social interactions. An individual these days, especially as enabled by new technologies, may have different and non-overlapping sets of ‘friends’ specific to the contexts of work, sports, studies, games, intellectual conversations, and so forth.

That’s completely different than doing everything with the same set of friends, even if it’s by necessity, and when it often means as least one person in the group isn’t particular interested in the event of the moment. That not very ‘efficient’ in a technical sense, though sticking with the same group of friends in a variety of contexts has a value all its own.

The former situation allows for a variety of context-specific ‘identities’, whereas the latter scenario of being a ‘known quantity’ compels a static personality from context to context. Scott Adams has a famous and controversial blog post about the potential to disaggregate marriage itself. That current flows against the kind of deep, multi-contextual human relationships needed to form the foundation of a strong and durable religious community. Such communities will need to focus intently on pulling the fraying strands back in and weaving them together in a sustained effort at reaggregation.

…

The trouble is that homeschooling comes at the opportunity cost of one spouse’s potential income. In a society in which most households are supported by one breadwinner, that wouldn’t present an insupportable burden. But dual-income households have constituted a majority of families for nearly half a century. The economic logic of the two-income trap means that failing to keep up with the rat race can yield a substantial drop in one’s standard of living and ability to afford a home in a quality neighborhood.

But it is possible for some, provided they are willing to live ascetically. Maggie added that she and her fellow homeschooling moms are surrendering careers, success, and given the local cost of living, significant material wealth for the sake of their children.

The deeply faithful will of course give up nearly everything for God, but as a purely practical matter, encouraging the marginal cases to ramp up their pious observance at life-altering cost is an awfully hard sell.

…

The specter of persecution in the name of ‘antidiscrimination’ now persistently looms over the roofs of religious institutions. The trouble is that advocates had long tried to convince the jurisprudential community that the analogy between racial matters and those like sexuality – which touch on the core of religious convictions – is legally isomorphic. That process is now nearly complete, to the point where it will inevitably be deemed to justify any action which was ever judged permissible in the fight against racial discrimination. The precedent of the Bob Jones case extending to non-racial matters is now what animates most of the justified fear.

…

Now is the time for Christians whose livelihoods may be endangered to start thinking and acting creatively in professional fields still open to us without risk of compromise. The goal is to create business and career opportunities for Christians who have been driven out of other industries and professions.

Yeah, sounds good. But talk about having to deal with the problem of antidiscrimination lawsuits. Dreher says one outlet for entrepreneurial energies will be satisfying the demands of other Christians for specifically Christian goods and services. For example, for wholesome entertainment content and modest clothing.

An example of the potential market for these products, could be several Mormon companies including CleanFlicks and VidAngel (the latter claiming to operate under the ‘filtering’ provisions of 2005 Familiy Movie Act). These specialized for a time in Bowdlerizing popular films to remove all morally objectionable and inappropriate material, and then distributing those edited version to the pent-up demand of a large market particularly sensitive to those matters. The demand was there, proving the potential. But in these particular cases the major movie studios were not cooperative with the project, to put it mildly.

…

People used to be able to make a living as farmers, but now they can’t. If industrialism is the new agrarianism, the risk is that the same thing is coming for our die-setters and tradesmen. How long until all die-setting is done by robots? It’s not that far away; it’s going to happen in our own lifetimes. Elk County will adapt, but whether there will be enough manufacturing jobs left to go around remains an open question.

…

But more generally, the traditionalist conception of social organization is one in which the fundamental and culturally prioritized unit is the family, not the individual. As Milton Friedman once said regarding the role of inheritance in the human motivation to work and save, “We are really a family society, not an individualist society.”

If one takes that seriously, not just as a description but a prescription, then one arrives at the perspective of familialism. Raising that concept to a fundamental principle and purpose of the civilized social order naturally implies a whole framework and constellation of norms, policies, and folkways that sustain that order against the entropy and chaos of primitive human impulses.

And of course Christian norms also emphasize a particular, traditional vision of family life such that its doctrines regarding sexuality build upon this common familiastic foundation. In other words, any ideology that focuses on the family cannot help but be “stuck on sex” as the most fundamental matter to regulate and tame, and the most fundamental impulse to be channeled and elevated to sacred importance. In an ideologically-stable family-based society, everything necessarily orbits around a particular ideal enjoying the highest status and level of social (and divine) approval.

This necessarily comes at the expense and exclusion of all deviations from this ideal, which is unfortunate. But that’s part of the tragedy of the human condition, for status is always a zero sum game, and for there to be winners, there will also be losers. Winners should of course treat losers with as much charity, compassion, and generosity of spirit as is compatible with the maintenance of the effectiveness of the mental environment. That is in exchange for the pro-social sacrifice that is being thrust upon them, and in the past this has been managed with some hypocritical leniency and tolerance so long as matters are kept private and discrete. But none of that implies that the system should be abolished, in a naïve and futile attempt to end the tragedy. It’s built into who we are; there’s no getting rid of it.

Nothing but the whole arsenal of social institutions and pressures can hope to contain impulses as powerful, volcanic, and potentially dangerous as those surrounding the evolutionary imperative of sexual reproduction.

Social conservatives have been warning for generations that traditional moral institutions are indispensable to this hard project, and that human sexual nature being what it is means that tearing down these institutions in the name of other values thinking that these reforms will be ‘harmless’ will yield results that are anything but. They will come mostly at the expense of the social normalcy of strong and healthy family life, especially for the lower classes. And that’s exactly the collapse we watched happen over the past several generations.

…

This gets back to the point about ideological messages needing to be able to be expressed with multiple layers of depth, suitable for different personalities, needs, and levels of sophistication and maturity. Sometimes detailed, rational explanations are just the ticket. But sometimes they can be counterproductive, even undermining other hard demands when someone falls into the conceit of thinking that no rule can be legitimate or worthy without a rational explanation, but being unable themselves to articulate such a justification.

Generals must sometimes provide their subordinate officers with detailed explanations so that they can understand the big picture. These lower ranking officers then exercise their independent judgment and use their delegated authorities to improvise and help accomplish the overall mission when the situation’s complexity and uncertainty overwhelms any prior attempt at planning. But the junior enlistedmen need just the opposite. That is, a spirit of faith and trust even in the absence of explanations, and a readiness to simply follow orders, submit, and obey, as suits their role and purpose. And by such reliable obedience, they deliver a better outcome for everyone involved.

…

Dreher’s sympathies with singles is understandable and compassionate. But social nudges are usually as uncomfortable as they are necessary. And there’s nothing wrong with that nudge, quite the contrary. Progressives have a long tradition of arguing against the ‘stigma’ that traditional social institutions place on anti-social behaviors. But that stigma, emotionally difficult as it may be to bear, serves a vital social function.

And in contemporary America, it’s remarkable to what extent life in high status circles -where intense working conditions are common – is dominated and run by singles. Or by people who relegate their family life to such minor important they might as well be single. That’s because people who have to devote any percentage of their potential working time to the needs of family or church are at an obvious competitive disadvantage when it comes to maximizing productivity, availability, and flexibility. They will either not be selected to fill those top roles, or they will not even try in the first place.

These incentives are highly discouraging of family formation. At these levels, the scales of the secular world are already out of balance in favor of singles, and it is entirely appropriate for religions to push them in the other direction, to say that it is the duty of singles to join the social order of family life, or to serve it in prescribed ways, but not to stand apart from it.

…

One should be cautious in using the results of convenient empirical studies to try to bolster a religious point, for fear of sawing off the branch one is sitting on. This grants a higher magisterial authority to Science, which is the metaphysical break that led to the modern condition.

…

Technology as a general term includes pretty much any tool or technique that humans developed since the origin of their distinction from animals. Not just “since the stone age”, but including the stones. Discoveries, innovative inventions, and other technological progress – to include items we now regard as simple like pots and wheels – are essential elements of civilization and any state of human existence that can even approach a condition of prosperity. Even cultural institutions are “social technologies” in a way, and ones necessary to sustain civilized communities.

Technological development occurred all over the world and long before Jesus was born, and there is little evidence that the metaphysical applecart was overturned by the ideology of technology every time someone create a new, better tool. Dreher says we don’t have to go Amish (and even the Amish are using plenty of technology), which implies there might be some way to approach technological use with enlightened awareness, discipline, and moderation. He will make some suggestions in this regard, but it’s hard to know whether anything could really work.

A more likely story would be that our use and development of tools does not displace traditional philosophy with a “technological ideology”, but that instead the wealth, capabilities, and social changes that are the consequences of technological progress produce conditions and incentives that enable new concepts to flourish which were once prohibitive or infeasible. These influence the ideas people use to make sense of and navigate these new and very different worlds. That is, it may not the “ideology of technology” but “ideology after technology.” The really pessimistic view is that if one doesn’t like the bathwater of that modern ideology, one has little choice but to throw out the baby as well, but no one knows for sure.

…

For the sake of both convenience and maintaining amicable relations with their children, parents are sorely tempted to want to trust their kids to make good – or at least innocent – choices with digital technology. But that is profoundly naïve wishful thinking.

Moms and dad who would never leave their kids unattended in a room full of pornographic DVDs think nothing of handing them smartphones. This is morally insane. No adolescent or young teenager should be expected to have the self-control on his own to say no.

Another useful supplement to the “no smartphones” policy is a “no screens in bedrooms” rule. The only way to deal with the risks of digital connectivity while preserving some of the benefits is to make the use of such devices as public as possible.

Additionally, this problem once again illustrates the need for widespread social support and reinforcement for a “wholesome commons”, because one either makes the public world safe for children or has to keep them sheltered from it. This is impossible without widely shared agreement as to fundamental values. For example, there are products available that provide filtering or monitoring capabilities, but what kinds of things will be filtered out in our contentious environment? It’s likely that any company with a product that even offered the option of an “LGBT filter and monitor” would immediately bring the entire force of progressive ire on top of them like a ton of bricks.

…

It’s now a common joke for non-millennials to say that they thank God they made their mistakes before the advent of Facebook and Twitter and so forth. But young people will have no such luck. The danger is that they do not have the cautious instincts and norms needed to preserve their future reputations in an increasingly digital world. The Onion headline, “Report: Every Potential 2040 President Already Unelectable Due to Facebook,” is funny precisely because it expresses the disturbing truth of the matter.

Dreher says ban it all, even though your kids will hate it, and hate you for it. At least until they grow up to appreciate the wisdom and necessity of the action. They’ll hate much less, and think it’s normal, if you are able to surround them with peers who all face the same rules instead of all being free of them. Yet another reason we need Benedict Options.

In another example of his conflicted inconsistency regarding cult-like weirdos and control freaks:

Yes, you will be thought of as a weirdo and a control freak. So what? These are your children

“So what” indeed.

#handle #handle's haus #long article #rod dreher #benedict option #book review #read the whole thing

[revchainsaw]

Demolition Man (1993)

I am by no means an Action Movie guy. I have however time and time again found myself surprised by the genre when it has found its way into my viewing habits. The first Action Movie that really impressed me was Die Hard. I watched it one Christmas as I searched for more unusual holiday fare and was utterly blown away. I felt as if I should seek out more of these films. I got as far as Lethal Weapon 2 before I retreated back to the world of absurd horror and sci-fi. If not for the power of cultural osmosis and the question of the 3 shells i might not have worked up the interest to check out 1993's Demolitions Man. I was expecting a typical cop vs criminal action flick starring Stallone, but what I found was an absolutely delightful Science Fiction Comedy.

The Message

Released in 1993 Demolition man starts right out of the gate with a hilariously pessimistic prediction that by the year 1996 every city in America will be Gotham on crack. The Joker of this film is Simon Phoenix and though he lacks the circus act accoutrement he is absolutely a clown prince of crime. I would not be surprised to discover Heath Ledger took inspiration from Snipes for his turn as an agent of chaos. Phoenix is an unstoppable force and in Stallone he finds his immoveable object, John Spartan (God I love these action movie names), a cop who will walk through hell itself to see this mad man brought to justice. However in his blind pursuit of his greatest enemy Spartan is easily coaxed into making reckless decisions, resulting in unnecessary fatalities. Both Spartan and Phoenix are thus sentenced to cryogenic prison sentences.

In 2032, Phoenix is thawed out for a parole hearing and of course things go as you might expect. Phoenix finds that he has changed, someone has used scifi shenanigans on him while he was frozen giving him abilities both mental and physical that he had not had before, hinting at some kind of conspiracy, he also finds that this was overkill as even the unmodified Phoenix would not have had any trouble conquering the world of 2032. Society has become utopian and nobody has a concept of using physical force to resolve issues. This leads the police of the time to make the controversial decision to thaw out Spartan to bring down the villain.

Hilarity ensues as Sandra Bullocks character, Lenina Huxley (awesome name once again; named after the author of Brave New World), is tasked with keeping the primitive 90s action hero in line with the moral imperatives of the time. This includes avoiding violence, not using naughty words, a vegetarian diet, and socially distanced sexual intercourse (a gag at the time but in the real life 2020's may have been a welcome invention).

Without giving too much more away, this future peace comes at a great cost to personal freedom and expression and there is a society of free people living in the fringes of society known as Scraps lead by a civil rights leader of sorts named Friendly. There is a sinister conspiracy to wipe them out that is the central plot contrivance that brought our forces of Good and Evil to face off. The Super Phoenix betrays his handlers, seeks to turn this utopia into his personal playground and is eventually defeated by Spartan in the final showdown. Sylvester Stallone eagerly eats a rat burger and Sandra Bullock says a cuss word at one point.

The Benediction

Best Character: Phoenix Rises

Everyone loves a villain. I had mostly known Wesley Snipes from the Blade films and did not know he had this kind of range. I expected very stoic boring bad ass action dialogue from both Stallone and Snipes in this movie, and believed the sci-fi elements would simply be space cars and laser guns but was I wrong. I'm so happy to be wrong. This film just surprised me and Snipes performance as Phoenix was by far the most enjoyable. I loved his menace and the threat that he presented. I don't think there had been such a loveable bastard force of nature character like this portrayed in film so well until this time. He is such a believable threat that I really doubted there was going to be a way to bring him down. It was great to see the other characters underestimate him and to see him not only physically dominate his obstacles but to also out smart and out class his 'puppet masters' was just a pleasure the whole time.

Best Actor: Bullock in the Chamber

I know that Sandra Bullock stars in a ton of comedy films but I've never been able to say that I found her to be particularly funny. She also strangely plays a cop in a lot of these comedies. I may think of Lilina Huxley every time I think of Sandra Bullock from now on. She was absolutely hilarious, deadpan and dedicated to this character in a way that sold the world of 2032 America. I really don't think that the overly sensitive utopic world would have felt like a genuine place where human beings lived and not just a cartoonish backdrop without the honesty that Bullock brought to the role. It's hard to find actors who can inhabit a comedic world as seriously as a Middle Earth. And maybe that's not what she'd like to be remembered for, but I think she deserves that credit.

Best Aspect: a Genre/Genre/Genre Classic

Demolition Man is such a pleasant surprise. No one in this movie seems to begrudge it's wackiness and it lends itself to the humor in a way that lets the audience rest in the assurance that this was a pleasure for the cast and crew as much as it is a pleasure for us. It doesn't sacrifice it's action to be to screwball, and it doesn't sacrifice it's world building to be to absurd. It's a comedy that takes it's self seriously. I can not stress enough that this movie nails several genre's at once. It's a funny comedy, an ideologically committed satire, an exciting action flick, a hard science fiction tale that explores the high concept of the consequences of utopia, and a fantasy that sells it's goofy future world.

Worst Aspect: If Only Cops Were More Violent

I am not a fan of the implications of the film. In the 90s it seemed that PC culture was the big enemy of personal freedom and that giving a shit about other peoples feelings was going to turn our civilization into a bunch of overly sensitive weaklings. This narrative has imbedded itself in our culture and produced a generation of selfish assholes who feel completely justified in their every callous action. Demolition Man is a Libertarian science fiction film, but I find that it's central fiction is just that. I do not believe that committing to non-violent conflict resolutions, considering the feelings of others, and not eating meat will 'neuter' our abilities to live individually free and fulfilling lives. It's a caricature, that while funny, i think is inaccurate. If you are of the mindset that Personal Freedom is at odds with social justice then you may find yourself enjoying the idea that it takes a violent police reaction to save society from it's own worst impulses, but I find that idea fairly fantastical. I think seeing the community stand firm in their convictions and still overcome evil may have been a more ideologically realistic interpretation of how the day can be saved, but instead we are given a lone wolf renegade cop killing the bad guy will reform the world, and in todays world, that just seems like a profoundly stupid message.

Best Scene: Fight at the Museum

Demolition Man boasts several ass kicking confrontations between Spartan and Phoenix. The opening Escape from L.A. backdrop that establishes these deadly foes, and the fall out that an interaction between the two can have is considered extreme even when the world is seemingly at the brink of collapse. It really sets a high stake for our squeaky clean future. The final battle in the Cryo-lab is also iconic and features a pretty excellent practical effect. However, I'd have to give the best scene to the fight at the weapons exhibit. The fact that Spartan knows his enemy so well is on display as he predicts that the Weapons exhibit will be an irresistible draw, we get to see Phoenix at his chaotic best, great one liners, and it's just a toy box for both Hero and Villain to let lose and deliver on that fall out I was just mentioning had been set up in the first act. While I loved the comedic take on this rivalry, I'd like to see Snipes and Stallone take up their beef again in a more seriously violent film. They make for great arch-rivals.

Best Gag: Potty Mouth

When I was a kid I remember my father hauling ass down our residential road and getting pulled over just a block away from our driveway. I think he was doing 55 in a 35. It was his fault but as the proud small government southern man he was, he felt it was absolutely overreach on behalf of the police department to give him a ticket on the road that he lived on. Stupid, I know. But our car was full of groceries and the officer let our ice cream melt while the whole time we sat in the truck with our home in view. My father was so enraged about this ticket that he got revenge on the mean old government by writing the check to pay his ticket, and then using said check to wipe sweat from his ass crack after mowing the lawn the next day. He mailed it in and I as an 11 year old knew that it was not going to effect the offending officer in the least, but that some poor old county clerk was going to probably get pink eye. Anyway, if you handle money or checks, you should always wear gloves, or wash your hands regularly before touching your face or eating. All that to say, I really enjoyed that after being frustrated with the 3 shell system Stallone racks up a series of fines for profanity. These fines are issued via an automated ticket dispenser on the wall in the police department. Stallone lets out a string of hilarious expletives that I hope to God were adlibbed, before he is satisfied with a nice pile of paper in his hand. He implies that he is going to the bathroom to do a little paperwork, and the scene is over. Even if you don't want to watch the whole movie, go ahead and YouTube this scene. Stallone has a surprising talent for comedy on display here.

Summary

To Begin with, I would say not to take this film too seriously: It is a comedy, after all, and I am not certain that the political implications of the movie were meant to be thought out as much as I have above. Unlike Judge Dredd, which Stallone would star in 2 years after this, (tragically deciding to bring Rob Schneider along with him) Demolition Man does not openly advocate for fascism. It's funny, it's a tight story with a satisfying conclusion, it's got great action choreography and it may be Snipes, Bullock and Stallone at their absolute best.

Overall Grade: B

#Demolition Man #Action #Science Fiction #Comedy #Sci Fi #Hard SciFi #snipes #1987 #Stallone #Sandra Bullock #Bullock #Cop #1993 #90s #B #Grade B #Grade: B #wesley snipes #sylvester stallone #(B)