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boyfridged · 1 year

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i’ve been thinking a lot about what is so unique and appealing about 80s robin jay’s moral standing that got completely lost in plot later on. and i think a huge part of it is that in a genre so focused on crime-fighting, his motivations and approach don’t focus on the category of crime at all. in fact, he doesn’t seem to believe in any moral dogma; and it’s not motivated by nihilism, but rather his open-heartedness and relational ethical outlook.

we first meet (post-crisis) jay when he is stealing. when confronted about his actions by bruce he’s confident that he didn’t do anything wrong – he’s not apologetic, he doesn’t seem to think that he has morally failed on any account. later on, when confronted by batman again, jay says that he’s no “crook.” at this point, the reader might assume that jay has no concept of wrong-doing, or that stealing is just not one of the deeds that he considers wrong-doing. yet, later on we see jay so intent on stopping ma gunn and her students, refusing to be implicit in their actions. there are, of course, lots of reasons for which we can assume he was against stealing in this specific instance (an authority figure being involved, the target, the motivations, the school itself being an abusive environment etc.), but what we gather is that jay has an extremely strong sense of justice and is committed to moral duty. that's all typical for characters in superhero comics, isn't it? however, what remains distinctive is that this moral duty is not dictated by any dogma – he trusts his moral instincts. this attitude – his distrust toward power structures, confidence in his moral compass, and situational approach, is something that is maintained throughout his robin run. it is also evident in how he evaluates other people – we never see him condemning his parents, for example, and that includes willis, who was a petty criminal. i think from there arises the potential for a rift between bruce and jay that could be, have jay lived, far more utilised in batman comics than it was within his short robin run.

after all, while bruce’s approach is often called a ‘philosophy of love and care,’ he doesn’t ascribe to the ethics of care [eoc] (as defined in modern scholarship btw) in the same way that jay does. ethics of care ‘deny that morality consists in obedience to a universal law’ and focus on the ideals of caring for other people and non-institutionalized justice. bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime. meanwhile, for jay there is no despite; jay doesn't think that engaging in crime says anything about a person's moral personality at all. morality, for him, is more of an emotional practice, grounded in empathy and the question of what he can do for people ‘here and now.’ he doesn’t ascribe to maxims nor utilitarian calculations. for jay, in morality, there’s no place for impartiality that bruce believes in; moral decisions are embedded within a net of interpersonal relationships and social structures that cannot be generalised like the law or even a “moral code” does it. it’s all about responsiveness.

to sum up, jay's moral compass is relative and passionate in a way that doesn't fit batman's philosophy. this is mostly because bruce wants to avoid the sort of arbitrariness that seems to guide eoc. also, both for vigilantism, and jay, eoc poses a challenge in the sense that it doesn't create a certain 'intellectualised' distance from both the victims and the perpetrators; there's no proximity in the judgment; it's emotional.

all of this is of course hardly relevant post-2004. there might be minimal space for accommodating some of it within the canon progression (for example, the fact that eoc typically emphasises the responsibility that comes with pre-existing familial relationships and allows for prioritizing them, as well as the flexibility regarding moral deliberations), but the utilitarian framework and the question of stopping the crime vs controlling the underworld is not something that can be easily reconciled with jay’s previous lack of interest in labeling crime.

#fyi i'm ignoring a single panel in which jay says 'evil wins. he chose the life of crime' because i think there's much more nuance to that #as in: choosing a life of crime to deliberately cause harm is a whole another matter #also: inb4 this post is not bruce slander. please do not read it as such #as i said eoc is highly criticised for being arbitrary which is something that bruce seeks to avoid #also ethics of care are highly controversial esp that their early iterations are gender essentialist and ascribe this attitude to women #wow look at me accidentally girl-coding jay #but also on the topic of post-res jay.#it's typically assumed that ethics of care take a family model and extend it into morality as a whole #'the ethics of care considers the family as the primary sphere in which to understand ethical behavior'#so #an over-simplification: you are allowed to care for your family over everything else #re: jay's lack of understanding of bruce's conflict in duty as batman vs father #for jay there's no dilemma. how you conduct yourself in the familial context determines who you are as a person #also if you are interested in eoc feel free to ask because googling will only confuse you...#as a term it's used in many weird ways. but i'm thinking about a general line of thought that evolves into slote's philosophy #look at me giving in and bringing philosophy into comics. sorry. i tried to simplify it as much as possible #i didn't even say anything on criminology and the label and the strain theories.#i'm so brave for not info-dumping #i said even though i just info-dumped #jay.zip #jay.txt #dc #fatal flaw #core texts #robin days

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burningtheroots · 8 months

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Men always find ways to conceal & justify their abusive and predatory mentalities and behaviors, and convince everyone that the women who reject their "ideals" and begin to call out & look down on their literal oppressors are the "real problem".

For example, men masturbating to porn categories titled "women crying" is sexual freedom and what not, but women joking about drinking the tears of men who they simply told "No!" to or kicked from their high horses is evil.

Patriarchal brainwashing has achieved that men AND women alike defend and normalize this — and unfortunately, it prevents women who get wronged by men (on different levels) from recognizing it, and even if they recognize it, it still prevents them from unapologetically advocating for themselves in most cases.

Women make excuses for men to FEEL safer and better, perhaps even protected, and because they don’t want to believe that these men‘s evilness (e.g. porn consumption, older men looking out for young women, exploitation of women’s bodies and labour both in public and in private etc.) is REAL, and runs DEEP. Even if it only pops up on the surface, occasionally. The typical "accidentally sexist" comment or action.

Men make excuses for each other to BECOME more untouchable, less prone to getting held accountable and because they KNOW and WANT the atrocities they commit against women to remain powerful and prevalent. Because that‘s what they build their own fulfillment and accomplishments on.

Men benefit when women are aware of their suffering and the dangers imposed upon them, and they also benefit when women remain ignorant towards them. The mixture of both keeps patriarchy going. While women are fighting for their survival, men can continue to make it harder for us — but we get punished either way. Even when it seems like patriarchy "rewards" a woman for being complicit or too afraid to speak up, it only reinforces itself and manifests women‘s collective (& individual) abuse further.

Also, most people gloss over the fact that smaller injustices fuel larger ones. For example, the power imbalances men create in their relationships (which is one of the main reasons they love huge age differences, and society does the same because our male-centered society thrives when women are the butt of the joke) are one of the pillars of patriarchy, since patriarchy gets fueled when "the personal becomes political".

That‘s also why a woman disliking or joking about her oppressor class gets scrutinized, ridiculed & harassed whereas a man who jokes about women‘s brutalization and suffering, and non-chalantly embraces his privilege, is merely a victim and misunderstood, or "not a big deal". People extend this apologist mentality to rape jokes and worse, even.

A woman who speaks up about her oppression needs to be closely examined and checked for the privileges she may or may not have, while a man who oppresses (directly or indirectly), is seen as a misunderstood victim of his privileges who doesn’t know better or just needs some grace.

A woman being oppressed doesn’t matter to these people because she‘s not the perfect victim. She‘s merely entitled or whiny or vengeful.

And a man being oppressive doesn’t matter to these people because he‘s both the perfect perpetrator and the perfect victim at once, in their minds. He‘s merely trying.

That‘s why I‘m prioritizing women, and am unashamed of my criticism and skepticism of men, both as a class and as individuals.

#women deserve better #radfem #radblr #radical feminism #male violence #sex class consciousness #fight patriarchy #women for women #male socialization #female socialization

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ballades-meurtrieres · 10 months

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Head of “Franky” by Armin Meiwes, the cannibal of Rotenburg.

A known fact that has been recounted many times: In his loneliness, as a child, Armin Meiwes had created an imaginary friend by the name of Franck. Later, as an adult, in the grip of his fantasies, driven by the desire to find himself a companion, and an ideal sexual partner who would never leave him, like Jeffrey Dahmer, he made mannequins to project his fantasies and feel less alone. Here is a remnant of it, a head made up with felt-tip pen with a beard, eyes, eyebrows, etc. It's cold in the back. At the heart of a man's delirium led to the unimaginable: Eating a consenting victim.

Armin Meiwes, born December 1, 1961 in Essen, is a German computer scientist who became known for the 2001 murder of Bernd Jürgen Brandes. Perpetrated on a consenting victim, the murder is preceded and followed by acts of cannibalism. Nicknamed Der Metzgermeister (“the master butcher” in French) or even the “cannibal of Rotenburg”, Meiwes was sentenced in 2004 to 8 and a half years in prison, then, during a second trial, held in 2006, to the life imprisonment. Rammstein's song "Mein Teil" is dedicated to the case. Director Marian Dora made Cannibal, a film about the story of Armin Meiwes. Meiwes is Germany's most famous cannibal. Many books and documentaries exist on his case. source: wikipedia

#armin meiwes #canibal of rotenburg

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morebedsidebooks · 20 days

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Musings of April 2024

A little bit of a different wrap up post this month. For many different reasons it has been a period of again processing (bad) experiences in various communities and acknowledging the lingering effects. Which also has made me recall repeated conversations I have been involved in where two sayings were put forth that are apt.

‘But the wheel what squeaks the loudest is the one what gets the grease.’

‘The nail that sticks up is hammered down the most.’

These axioms are in reality a bit disparate in wisdom. But they share the good/bad in drawing attention. (The wheel quote comes after the lines ‘I don’t believe in kickin’, It ain’t apt to bring one peace;’. Also, if tracing that expression be aware the performer as a child started their career done up in blackface among other racist material. On the other hand, the nail expression has enumerable variations.) A lot is left implied too on exactly why either is sticking out or making noise, only that there will be action taken. Even consider whether it is the appropriate action. After all hammering on a nail could damage it or what it is a part of instead of correcting a hazard and holding things together. A little lubrication of a wheel may quiet it but is that all to it or a warning there is more to do to ensure things roll on smoothly. (There is even a little illicit interpretation one might take since ‘grease’ also has slang meanings.)

One can think then about the most noticeable thing being the one to receive focus. Which can create a problem when there are other issues going on too. There is a need to think through whether a response is not attentive enough, overly attentive, or balanced. So that everything is being properly looked at and taken care of in an equitable manner. In addition, when it comes to manipulation, abuse etc. this often hides under the surface or is ignored or dismissed. What is more likely to be perceived, importantly for what they are? The facade and actions of a perpetrator, those they have influenced, or their injured target(s) and reaction?

Also, apparently it needs to be said— there aren’t perfect victims. The ideas around the ideal victim, even what constitutes a victim, intricate in addition to having a host of implications. Furthermore, reactions to victimization are often messy. If people truly want communities that are diverse and safer, then people must be able to feel they can be in spaces, can speak up, can be listened to, and that these are worthwhile choices. That this helps enable better things, better outcomes.

Some conformity and sacrifice can be beneficial, even necessary at times. Yet complying with certain expectations can become something insidious too. Particularly when the matter is someone trying to navigate harm they have experienced, or a desire to not see it repeated in a community. Especially while being treated as the only or primary problem instead. At its worst another method of gaslighting, demonization, and again at a higher-level reinforcing hierarchy and the status quo while covering failure, lack of focus, and ability to handle the issues. Which too will let thrive and exacerbate those issues.

I do not write out a bunch of this to make out like its easy, or simple. People grapple with this stuff every day and will keep doing so. It is uncomfortable. It is not black and white. Nor does one thing being true automatically make others false or a free pass from accountability. But I am so tired.

Many a place again feels like somewhere optics come over ethics. Where shutting up and silence are more valued. Where identities become a shield and weapon. Where the multifaceted hurt and hurting cannot be addressed. Where the bar is impossibly high. Where any failing makes one as bad as the other. Where repeated failures and patterns prevail.

Therefore, I am taking a break. Hopefully be back later to resume posting about (queer) books.

#april 2024 #musings #culture #squeaky wheel #nail and hammer #hiatus

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junow-honours · 8 months

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Oral Presentation Feedback:

Trying to remember everything..

Unfortunately when under the pressure of orals I didn’t do the best job of answering these questions, so I thought about it further and am writing my responses here

Gender roles- Stereotypes: Reason for archetypes being all male, and the Watcher representing the ‘Father’?

I think it was Noel who asked this? Thank you 👍 I made the decision last year to address specifically ‘male’ archetypes and stereotypes. At the time I was interested in fan bases surrounding male idols, specifically within anime or K-pop because the fan bases are massive and often involved in a lot controversy and toxic behaviours (otherwise being an impressively dedicated type of fanbase.) I also was very interested in Greek myth depictions of the problematic male hero, reminding me of my other interest in film noir ‘anti-heroes’. Then I was interested in men being the dominant gender present in gore media and crime, as both the perpetrators, victims, and watchers. Also interested in male serial killers, and why people tend to romanticise and create fan bases for them.

I am interested in this dynamic between the ‘male idol’ and the ‘female fan’. It is more accepted for females to express their adoration and obsession for male celebrities and idols, it is seen as ‘cute’ and is a stereotypical behaviour for young girls. On the other hand, it isn’t as accepted for men to express their adoration and obsession for female idols- it may come across as predatory or unhealthy- I’m guessing that pornography and the male gaze plays a large role in this.

Within this, I am interested in the Japanese archetype ‘yandere’, which describes a fan whose love, admiration, and devotion is so strong that it is expressed as an excessive obsession and possessiveness. How are the male and female versions of the ‘yandere’ different, and why is it more accepted for one gender?

Conventional attractiveness and unattractiveness playing a role in this. If a serial killer or criminal is conventionally attractive then they are more likely to be deemed as innocent. If an obsessive fan is unattractive then they are labelled as predatory, if they are attractive then they are no longer predatory. Violent and predatory behaviour being ignored in favour of attraction, women being naturally attracted to men with personality traits in the Dark Triad. Good boy vs Bad boy trope.

Without any explicit intention of being controversial, I wanted to utilise stereotypes of men to discuss my field of enquiry. Also, in a way, by viewing certain things through a ‘masculine’ lense (stereotypically logically and ‘without emotion’). The stereotypes of men cover the many aspects of the human condition that I am interested in; violence, desire/ lust, war, anti-hero, anger etc.. Also referring to the idea of ‘men’ encompassing all of humanity, my characters are men but the personalities/ ideals they represent can be applied to anyone.

As for the ‘father figure’ of the Watcher, I was interested in the symbolism of the ‘father’ representing the concept of God and paternal influences. The ‘Father’ as the one inflicting judgment and punishment.

Finally, also interested in the current world’s understanding of ‘masculinity’, and how the notion of masculinity has shifted in our current generation. What are masculine traits, why are some of these traits deemed as oppressive? Why are certain ideologies (liberalism) influencing men to become more feminine?

Is there room for a fourth archetypal character encompassing the idea of ‘Enchantment’?

Thank you Glen, surprisingly this is something I hadn’t even thought about so I’m glad it was brought up. This needs more thought but I can see that a fourth archetype would be necessary. Originally the Victim was supposed to represent this concept in some way, as he was supposed to be the opposite of the Aggressor, so good vs bad. However, after further development of the Victim character I realised that the ideals I wanted him to represent actually weren’t morally ‘good’ or ‘enchanting’. Will think about this more, most definitely.

This statement did remind me however, that I am entirely convinced that there needs to be more realms, ones that aren’t occupied by either god. The roles of my realms have gradually changed from what they were initially supposed to represent. Initially the Overworld was supposed to represent some sort of Utopia, which could be tied to my idea of ‘Enchantment’. However, over the year I have developed these realms further and Glen’s comment made me aware that any sign of ‘Enchantment’ was no longer evident. The Overworld now represents the manifestation of artificial perfection, instant gratification, and the concept of “grass not always being greener on the other side”. The grass is greener in the Overworld, but it is because the grass is plastic.

#notes #discussions #critiques #feedback #oral presentation

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theexistentiallyqueer · 4 years

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It’s been a while, what with me being being more active on Twitter these days, but I had some thoughts churning around in my brain and this felt like a better place to post them rather than threading them over there.

This is a post about Persona 5 and restorative justice. Before I go any further, though, a note: this is meta about restorative justice and prison abolition as ethical philosophies only, how it can be expressed/structured in works of fiction, i.e., Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and what the importance of doing so is.

I should also note that I am not a philosopher, a legal scholar, or an activist, I just like to read, and I strongly encourage you to look into the topics I’m discussing in this essay. If you want specific recommendations you can DM me; again, this being meta about a video game, I think linking those titles here would diminish their importance regarding what they’re actually about.

Ready? Okay. Let’s get started.

what is restorative justice?

‘Restorative justice’ is a concept in ethical and legal philosophy that holds itself in contrast to two other kinds of justice: punitive and carceral. Punitive justice is justice as punishment, i.e., an eye for an eye, while carceral justice involves justice as the confinement of criminal offenders. While both have heavy overlaps with one another, they’re distinct in the generality vs the specificity of their outcome: punitive justice can involve the death penalty, property seizure, permanent loss of rights, etc., carceral justice refers strictly just to the incarceration of criminal offenders in institutional facilities (jails, prisons, etc.).

Restorative justice, in contrast, roots itself in the understanding of closing a circle: the best and most holistic way to heal harm one person inflicts on another is to have the person who inflicted the harm make reparations to the person they hurt in a tangible and meaningful way. This can take many forms, and if you’re passingly familiar with restorative justice already, you may have heard about it involving the offender and the victim meeting face-to-face. This does happen sometimes. Personal acknowledgement of the harm you’ve inflicted on someone is important, and direct apologies are important, but these need to also be coupled with actions. The person behind a drunk hit-and-run of a parent could help put their orphaned child through school, or a domestic abuser could be made to take counseling and go on to help deter domestic violence in other households, and so on.

The vast majority of states across the world use punitive/carceral models, though small-scale community trials of restorative justice have been attempted, to varying degrees of success. No one is going to argue that it would be easy to implement, but it is important. Restorative justice is about recognizing that crime, specifically crimes against other people, are fundamentally still about two people: the perpetrator and the victim. And we have to look beyond the words perpetrator and victim to recognize that they are both human beings and challenge ourselves to build a society where our concept of justice means healing hurts instead of retaliation.

It’s not easy, but it is possible. It requires changing your own perceptions of justice and humanity and society and the big wide entire world to have the kind of mindset that allows it to be possible. But it is possible, and I know that from personal experience, because it’s my own mindset and I’ve been through trauma too.

prison abolition and the god of control

Persona 5 has an authority problem. By which I mean, Persona 5 has a problem challenging authority in any way that functionally matters.

The game is drenched in heavy-handed prison imagery, from jail cells to wardens to striped jumpsuits to cuffs and chains to an electric chair. Throughout the long build-up of the main storyline we’re treated to a confectionery delight of punitive justice, stick-it-to-the-man justice: the Thieves find a bad guy who coincidentally has personally hurt or is actively hurting one of their members, and they take it upon themselves to make the bad guy miserable and then send him off to jail. By the end of the arc you’re meant to feel like you accomplished something heroic, that by locking someone up you’re balancing the scales of justice. In the Kamoshida arc Ann even frames this in restorative justice terms, telling him he doesn’t deserve the easy way out of ending his own life and needs to live with his mistakes and repent, but he’s still sent off to jail regardless and Ann and Shiho are left to struggle through the trauma he put them through without anyone to really support them. This repeats itself, over and over: Madarame, Kaneshiro, Okumura, Shido--expose the bad guy, bring him low, publicly shame him, and then send him away (or, in Okumura’s case, watch him die on live TV to riotous cheers from the public).

And what does this all accomplish, in the end? You get to the Depths of Mementos on Christmas Eve to find the souls of humanity locked away in apathy, surrendered willingly to the control of the state, and your targets right there with them, thanking you for helping them return to a place where they don’t have to think of other people as people any more than they did before. In prison, they can forget that they are human beings and that all of the rest of the people in the world are too. The Phantom Thieves march upstairs and defeat the Gnostic manifestation of social control, that being that masquerades itself with lies as the true Biblical god. And then you go back home and the adults tell you that everything is okay now, the system itself isn’t rotten, and you just have to sit back, stop actively participating in the world, and let them take the reins.

It’s one of Persona 5′s most ironic conceits. “Prison abolition....good?” the player asks, and Atlus swats you on the hand and says, “Silly kids, prison abolition completely unnecessary because you can trust the state to not fuck up anyone’s lives anymore ever.” All while using prison imagery to present prisons as institutions inherently divorced from what might constitute actual justice.

Prisons exist because hierarchies exist, and so long as hierarchies exist, inequality will exist and people will commit harm who otherwise likely would not. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Atlus. You can’t frame prisons as an inherently unjust institution used to control people because you didn’t do anything to get rid of the hierarchy. You just gave the hydra a few new heads.

restorative justice and rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is Persona 5′s favorite buzz word, and for all that it’s used the game never really clearly defines what it’s supposed to mean. Yaldabaoth uses it as a euphemism to describe the process by which he creates his ideal puppet, but Yaldabaoth bad, and by the end of the game, Yaldabaoth dead. We get barely any time with Igor after that for Igor to define rehabilitation properly on his terms, which is notable in that Igor is the one who’s supposed to be the spiritual mentor of the wild card within the Persona universe.

We can only infer from that that it’s the player who’s meant to define what rehabilitation is by the end of the game, but because the game fails to take any concrete stance on its themes that could in any way undermine the idea that society isn’t functionally broken, it’s hard to figure out what conclusion we’re supposed to draw. As I stated above, the game immediately walks back any insinuations that it’s the institutions themselves that are rotten by having Sae and Sojiro step in and assume responsibility for making the world just by continuing to operate within the rules society itself has created. If you can’t beat them....join them?

If anything the closest we can get to coming up with a definitive understanding of what the game wants us to understand rehabilitation as is when the protagonist is in juvie. During those months we’re treated to an extended cutscene of all of your maxed out confidants taking action to get you out of jail, but because you can trigger this scene even if you haven’t maxed out all of your confidants, and because the outcome (getting out of juvie) is the same even if you haven’t maxed out any besides Sae, then we’re right back where we started.

But that cutscene still has a sliver of meaning to it despite it being largely window-dressing, because the game does push, over and over, the argument that it’s through your bonds with others, through building a community, that you’ll rehabilitate yourself and find true justice.

And that’s what restorative justice is about: community.

the truth: uncovering it vs deciding it

I can’t find enough words to convey how infuriating it is that Atlus comes so close to telling a restorative justice narrative and then completely drops the ball on displaying it at all in Goro’s character arc.

Goro’s concept of justice is fundamentally punitive, the textbook “you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you back.” In doing so he goes on to hurt a whole bunch of other people: orphaning Futaba, orphaning Haru, triggering a mental shutdown in Ohya’s partner Kayo, and also killing countless millions other instances of mental shutdowns, psychotic breakdowns, bribery, and scandal that caused people material harm and, in a handful of cases, killed them.

Yes, Shido gave him the gun, but Goro pulled the trigger. And in a restorative justice framework, you don’t bypass that fact: you actively interrogate it.

There’s been a lot of really great meta about what the circumstances of Goro’s life were like, including the Japanese foster care system, the social stigma of bastardy in Japan and the impact it has on an illegitimate child’s outcomes, and the ways in which Shido groomed and manipulated Goro into being the tool of violence he made him into. These things aren’t excuses for what Goro does, however: they’re explanations for it. They are the complex social issues that create a situation where a child feels his best choice, indeed maybe his only choice, is to take the gun being offered to him and use it on other people. If you want to prevent more kids from slipping through cracks into those kinds of situations, you need to understand the social ills that made those cracks appear in the first place and you need to fix them. Otherwise there will always be another kid, and another recruiter, and another bad choice, and another gun. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

Even so, none of that bypasses the fact that it was Goro’s hand on that gun, that it was Goro who performed the physical action of killing Wakaba’s and Okumura’s shadows, and that, as a result of Goro’s direct actions, Wakaba and Okumura died. You can say Okumura deserved it all you like, but Haru doesn’t deserve to be an orphan. Haru deserved to repair her relationship with her father. Okumura deserved the chance to learn and make direct, material amends to the employees he hurt and the families of those who died on his watch, and they deserved to have him give them a better way to heal.

But this isn’t about the loss of Okumura making amends to his family or his victims: this is about Goro Akechi, and the fact that even in Royal his fraught relationship with Haru and Futaba is never explored, barely even addressed. There’s not even any personal, direct acknowledgement from him of the pain he put them through.

You can say he doesn’t care, and that’s fine that he doesn’t care. And it is. He’s a fictional character, this is a video game, they are anime characters.

But Persona 5 flirts with the idea of restorative justice and never fully explores it, and it’s a weaker game for that.

the thin place, the veil between worlds, the line in the sand

This is the last part, I promise, and I’ll be short and brief here, because the truth is that none of this matters, at least not in the way that you think. Persona 5 is a story. It’s a lie that we buy. It’s all zeroes and ones and electrical signals and optical images on a blank black screen.

But art can be powerful. Art is like magic, the deepest magic, the oldest kind. We human beings are creatures of art and poetry, of images and patterns, of music and words. Good art, really good art, can allow us to explore new ideas and critique our internal assumptions about how the world works.

No, fiction doesn’t affect reality, not the way that you think it does.

But if you’ve gotten this far, I just got you to read an essay on restorative justice and prison abolition in regards to a Japanese role-playing game, and that is something to think about.

How do you define rehabilitation? What kind of justice do you believe in? Is the way you conceive those things really the best way?

And how much more interesting could a story that challenges those concepts be?

#persona #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #goro akechi #akira kurusu #meta #words

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arieso226 · 4 years

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Mean World Syndrome

NO. 1

Mean World Syndrome is a theory the sociologist George Gerbner, creator of the Cultural Indicator’s Project, where three quarters of Americans believe in high level of crime, even though statistics show it is low. In the media, there is too much sex and violence, more so than the average person will ever see a day in their lives, and it has become repetitive, too routine, as the storytelling of violence seem ‘normal’. Since 1995, the demand for guns to ‘protect themselves’ has been at an all time high, and so is the fear, fear that everyone in the world is a suspect. But most importantly, is the image of the bad guys coming to get them. 2/3 of Americans get their information from the media, mostly the news, which creates negative stereotypes of minorities, who are seen as violent and aggressive.

NO. 2 Take for instance, Latina’s, who make up 15% in population in America, are portrayed by the media as aggressors, seen as ‘rapists and gangbangers’ or ‘murderers’. They are also the subject of illegal immigration, which all together creates dehumanizing effects. Then, there’s the vilification of Arabs and Muslims, as bloodthirsty terrorists, that are linked to violence and terror, and the subject of torture/ing of these people is ‘okay as long as it’s a good guy doing it’’. 39% of Americans actually believes that American-born Muslims are not loyal to the country’s ideals, and so not loyal to them. And finally, African-Americans are twice as likely to be seen as perpetrators. In the media, it is harmful showing black people as great middle/class, successful people, then as violent and aggressive in the next slide, as if to say some people choose that type of lifestyle, that they are simply a product of their environment. White people are five times more than likely to be criminalized by whites than black people, yet it’s not white people being shown almost everyday on the news for braking crimes.

The result of all this is the active fear in everyday Americans that makes us less likely to be compassionate, and more hardened to anyone and everyone. It also increases a high demand for national security, and believing that we have to lock these ‘criminals in cages where they belong.’

Cultivation Theory is the examination of the long term effects of television. Media cultivates a set of values, meanings, expectations, understanding, etc. which is the culture now in the modern century. Mass media replacement of community-based storytellers, it advances corporate interests (increasing profits and sales) since Americans spend a lot of time with the media. The effects are becoming more systemic and all encompassing. We need to start asking questions, like who is being represented in the media, who is the victim, and who is in the cast, and what are their fates. Who is generally casted as the good guy, and who is casted as the bad guy. We can look to the Media Database (IMDb) to see who is making the cultural object, and what is the main subject. Mean World Syndrome relates to this theory, through intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, criminal justice and the international border. We need to understand who is creating these TV shows/films, since America has such a global reach, it attracts the largest audience. Sociologists are not condemning media, but the constant repetition of ‘happy violence’—where in the film, show, or media, the good guy faces has a challenge, fights and action and explosions reoccurs, he stops the evil doer, saves the damsel, and the day is saved! It’s boring, cliché and the same story over and over again— and the various franchises and storylines springing from these corporations because it slows down progress and keeps negative stereotypes alive, some of them extremely damaging.

#media #violence #happy violence #aggressors #sociology

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theculturedmarxist · 4 years

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badfems

some chud posted:

people who are not female that insist they need access to female-only spaces for their safety need to think about what makes those spaces safe in the first place

The implication being that those spaces are “safe” because they exclude “people who are not female,” which when you strip away their self-serving doublespeak, they in a pointedly anti-transsexual way mean “males.”

So there we go, problem solved! Just remove males from the equation and you have utopia. Thanks Valerie Solanas, you’re a true hero.

But in reality we know that things aren’t so neat. Yes, you will of course have transsexuals of any identification that behave in predatory, exploitative, or otherwise abuse ways. A fact that has entered common currency is that previous abuse tends to be a major comorbid factor in perpetrating future acts of abuse, and we know that acts of abuse tend to be common in early lives of young people that group up to be transgender. By this simple (reductively so) reasoning, it makes sense to treat transgender individuals escaping abusive situations with a certain circumspection—it isn’t unlikely that they’ve been victimized throughout their lives, and that has the unfortunate correlation with internalizing and perpetrating abusive behavior.

It’s here that we uncover the heteronormative assumption underlying the above post: that these females are driven to these spaces exclusively by the behavior of males—wives fleeing abusive husbands, girlfriends escaping predatory boyfriends, daughters running away from tyrannical patriarchs, etc. If we’re assuming that it’s males and maleness at the root of and sole source of abuse, this can be the only assumption.

This of course ignores the reality. From just a cursory search, lesbian partner violence is absolutely endemic, with as many as 90% of lesbians experiencing some form of psychological abuse from their partner. This is without even taking into account rates of child abuse among children that would go on to identify as LGBT&c.

Obviously then, simply being female and/or non-heterosexual isn’t enough to stop abusive behavior or the cycle of abuse. In fact, simply assuming that it does would be putting females at risk by assuming a priori that an all-female environment necessarily implies a safe one. It fails to create environments hostile to abuse and abusers, but actually where they thrive.

So, what is the secret then to alleged safety of these “female-only” spaces? The linked fact sheet goes on to give us this most salient clue:

Battered women’s agencies also may not be open to serving lesbians (2,3).

Ah, yes, the root of the matter: exclusion.

Any kind of induction process for any sort of exclusive space is going to by its nature be discriminatory. This is both natural and desirable. Ideally, in a space for victims of abuse, those with a history of perpetrating it are hopefully kept absent. Yet we know that those who are victimized may just as well have been or will go on to be abusers themselves, regardless of their physically attributes or personal characteristics.

What we’re left with then are two possibilities. The first is that these spaces are safe not because they are “female only,” but because they have robust methods for gauging those that they take into them and for regulating the behavior of its membership while in them, whatever they might be, so that harmful personalities are kept away from the beginning, those with tendencies towards harming themselves and others are rehabilitated, and those at risk of being victimized are placed into such circumstances that minimize those risks.

If this is the case, then the gender of the individual really doesn’t matter either to a greater or lesser extent in regards to the relative safety of a space. It’s just one in a vast sea of factors at play, and of no more importance than taking into account someone’s blood type or astrological sign.

The second is that safety is maintained by severely limiting the access to these services or spaces. Only the “safest bets” are allowed in—in this instance heterosexual females—which creates the illusion of inherent “female-only” safety. Those most troubled and most likely to offend—and inversely, those most in need of help—are excluded. In essence it’s the creation of a gendered, sexist, homophobic gated community, whose apparent safety is maintained not by helping those in need, but in mercilessly renouncing them.

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shellofaretard · 5 years

Link

Private Minassian has done it again. You have to listen to the words he’s “not saying”. He was given yet another chance at an "epic" "meaningful" bad guy monologue, yet, much like his first, now-legendary statement, he has chosen to share nothing but the most minimal, vague, impersonal assemblage of memes possible. You aren't getting the "story" of why he did what he did. You don't get to "learn" anything about him. The negative space lingers for a while, then dissipates.

His initial statement was the perfect anti-manifesto: a deconstruction of the manifesto, if you will. A common thread with incel/whiteboy terrorism is that the perpetrator has to explain what he did through a narrative of self-actualization. Omega chrysalis to wounded bad boy killer butterfly etc. That is how "relatability" is created. My Twisted World is one of the defining works of 21st century Relatable literature. I walk its dark corridors and hallways with the damp familiarity of one's very own secret hiding place.

But Private Minassian just slams the door in your face. His project is one of self-dissolution. His terse writing, comprising a mixture of basic 4chan memes and intense military metaphors, leaves no room for narrative or emotional connection. It is dispatches from the remains of a self that is no longer there. His allegiance is to what I call heroic anonymity. The military is the symbol and reality (Private Minassian was, in fact, briefly in the Canadian army) of the perfect group abolishing and dissolving the individual through formation and affective reprogramming. The motive of Private Minassian to be rid of his name (and self) is all but spelled out right there in his statement. Private Minassian is departing: from here on out, C23249161 is all there is.

Because only victims have names. Having a name is, after all, a languishing in barren isolation; a passive, feminine condition. Where those who embody the female spirit of our time would say "LMAO that fake ass hoe just bought 50000 bot subscribers!4!4!!!!!", Incel Man would stoically respond with, "I want to be a bot subscriber". Of course, this loss of self has an erotic element: especially with the deprivation of erotic experience being the central concern of Incel thought.

Furthermore, there is no military metaphor without the presence of a transcendental Source justifying its hierarchy. And ‘Sgt’ is definitely not the highest ranking official in whatever chain of command it is that made Private Minassian do this. Who does ‘Sgt 4chan’ report to?

So much of the history of internet culture is that of talented and sensitive young men choosing heroic anonymity. Of all responses to the present crisis of the humanist paradigm, celebrating and exploring the possibilities of online anonymity is clearly the most masculine. Imageboard culture is the post-modern equivalent of army logic: names and identities gone, strategic movements acted out in formation, affective group reprogramming (memes), boundaries between individuals vanished and downright ridiculed. These are men with a deep genetic memory of their forefathers dying for Christ in nameless mass graves.

While we may never really know how much of a talented or sensitive “individual” Private Minassian was, with respect to the depth of his commitment to the ideal of heroic anonymity, as well as his intuitive arriving at such a perfect metaphor, I would propose (as much as he wants to be forgotten) that he one day be the model for the statue of the Nameless Soldier of the internet wars.

#incel #incel theory #alek minassian

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so-shiny-so-chrome · 5 years

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Witness: Battle_Cat

Creator name (AO3): battle_cat

Creator name (Tumblr): fuckyeahisawthat

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/works

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: Fury Road blew my goddamn mind. I like action movies and female action protagonists, but nothing has ever quite hit me like Fury Road. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had never written fanfic and didn't know what ao3 was, but the characters just wouldn't leave my head. I started seeking out meta on Tumblr, and many of the people who were writing and sharing great meta were also writing fic, and at some point I started thinking, hey, this is a thing I can do. And then I did it, A LOT.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: Smut smut and more smut, lol! And sometimes action. I really like writing about intense physical experiences and the emotions they generate. I come from a screenwriting background, so I tend to be terse and am always thinking about how to say the most with the fewest words possible. I love writing characters who find it very hard to talk about their feelings, so Max and Furiosa are pretty much perfect for me.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: Ahhh I can't pick between all of my children! AO3 statistics says Zero to Sixty, my Max-and-Furiosa-get-together fic, is my most popular by hits, kudos and bookmarks, which is not surprising given that it was written early in the fandom. I don't think I can pick a favorite but I have a lot of love for: Desperate Measures, Her Reputation Precedes Her, Hard Run, Tough to be Tender, and Scarf Thing. The only fic I'm still slightly unhappy with: Equinox. I feel like I set up some great tension and then wrapped it up too quickly.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?

A: Hard but with some humanity left still.

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: Most of my short pieces are really just a single scene, sometimes with setup and aftermath. Sometimes I'll start with an image (like one of @youkaiyume's excellent smut drawings) or a concept or idea for the scene. Something short, like under 2,000 words, I will ideally sit down and write in one draft, maybe in a day or two. I don't do a lot of drafts, although I do somewhat edit as I go. Something longer like a multi-chapter fic, I usually have a separate Word document with notes and a very rough outline. I usually have the ending or the big climactic scene in my head before I've got everything in the middle figured out. If I'm struggling with something, I'll usually step away and just let my brain chew on it for a while, until I figure out what about it isn't working for me. I learned in grad school that your brain can be doing a lot of creative heavy lifting while you're off doing other things.

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: I'm not much of a music person, tbh. I have gotten inspiration from fanart, Tumblr submissions and kinkmeme prompts, though.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Finding enough time and energy to write. I'm someone who needs big chunks of time to let my brain get into the creative state and this whole having to have a job thing is a real drag.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: When I saw Fury Road, I had been in a serious writing drought for the better part of a year. I was frustrated and feeling very hopeless about the filmmaking world. Even under the best of conditions, filmmaking is an incredibly slow process with a lot of gatekeepers. Being able to just write something, put it on ao3 and get instant feedback was an incredible breath of fresh air. I remembered my love of writing and found a whole new creative community. I started exploring a new genre, erotica, and learned that I love it. I started writing prose again after a long period of focusing on screenwriting, and gained a new appreciation for what can be done in the short story format.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: Furiosa is the character who lives in my head most vividly. She has a lot of characteristics I tend to put in my original female characters: a certain ruthlessness and hardness; hypercompetence combined with standoffishness punctuated by a few key moments of vulnerability.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: I don't really like talking about characters as self-inserts. I think every character has some part of you in them whether you're aware of it or not.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: Maxiosa for sure. I already had a pattern before Fury Road of writing hard women and caring men, so Furiosa and Max fit right into that. They are both incredibly damaged people who have been the victims and the perpetrators of violence, have a lot of self-loathing, have been isolated in various ways for a long time, and are used to having no one to trust. Bringing those two people together and watching them slowly allow themselves to trust each other is very powerful.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: Fury Road is an incredibly rich text and there are so many things that are only hinted at, left unexplained or implied. I've lost count of how many times I've watched it at this point, but there are always more details to notice and spin headcanons about.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: For MMFR, I started out writing mostly short smutty one-shots. At a certain point it made sense to start stringing them together, and the ones that take place in the same timeline are now roughly in order in the series Together. It happened organically, though - I tend to write my longer stories non-chronologically anyway, so at some point I realized I was constructing a giant smut novel.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: Ehn, I am pretty agnostic on this. Sometimes sticking to canon can be a fun limitation you impose on your story. Other times, ignoring it can be a fun what-if.

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: Ace definitely lived. Nux definitely died historic. Valkyrie is alive in some of my stories and not in others. Dag's baby is a girl and she names her Angharad. Max comes and goes from the Citadel, staying for increasingly longer periods of time. Furiosa often wants to leave, but feels too much responsibility to the new Citadel to ever let herself.

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: I haven't created a lot of OCs in the Mad Max world because the canon characters are just so interesting to explore. But when I do they just kind of pop up. Biltong from the story Her Reputation Precedes Her is a personal favorite.

Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?

A: My original works are mostly on the action/thriller/horror spectrum. I had never written smut before MMFR, but to me, it's very similar to writing action. You're telling a story through high-intensity physicality and the emotions surrounding it. In my original works, I mostly write female protagonists in high-intensity situations, so it made sense that MMFR would catch my attention.

Q: What are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: @primarybufferpanel 's Orbit was my fandom gateway drug. @primarybufferpanel, @sacrificethemtothesquid, @lurkinghistoric, @v8roadworrier, @thebyrchentwigges, @thatonezombiecosplayer, @youkaiyume, @ecouter-bien , @bethagain, @fadagaski and @yohunny have all created things that I find inspiring, epic, thrilling, heartbreaking, hot, funny or all of the above. And I'm lucky that I've gotten to know many of them online and in meatspace!

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?

A: Stop and ask yourself: What does this character want? Why are they doing what they're doing right now? Concretely, what are they trying to achieve? What are the obstacles? What are the consequences if they don't get what they want? If a scene or story isn't working for me, usually it's because I don't know the answer to one of these questions.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: I've been to Wasteland Weekend 3 times (2016, '17, '18) with Clan of the Boltcutters, and plan to go again in 2019. It's been so cool watching our camp and the festival grow and change each year. I had never been to anything remotely like Wasteland before I got involved in the Mad Max fandom, and now I can't imagine it not being part of my year. Australia...maybe someday.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: While I've been writing in the Venom fandom lately, I do plan to come back at some point and finish Closer, a story I really liked writing that I just haven't gotten time to get back to. I also have a few lingering MMFR projects that will hopefully be completed later this year.

Thank you @fuckyeahisawthat

#Mad Max Fandom Creator Spotlight #Mad Max Fandom Spotlight #fury road fandom #Mad max fandom #mad max fanfic author spotlight #mad max fic #fury road fic

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socialmeidamarketing4restaurants · 5 years

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CCTV use in hospitals

Technology and service, a healthy alliance

The security in hospitals and clinical infrastructures in Latin America faces daily challenges in which the acquisition and intelligent management of technological resources to protect their physical and human capital are decisive.

CCTV systems constitute a technological leap necessary to move towards security policies and service quality at a time when the health sector requires the best administrative and managerial decisions to overcome the challenges and challenges of the hospital industry.

Undoubtedly, CCTV security camera functions aimed at preventing difficulties present in risk situations and generating fast and adequate responses; and thanks to the development of new technologies, it has the potential to integrate with other organization's systems to control, monitor, streamline and improve processes.

Why use CCTV?

Medical facilities serve as a source of data, being key in the collection of information to generate different indicators and rates that go beyond their corporate name. But, in turn, they are susceptible to various crimes being carried out within them and live realities such as confrontations between victims and perpetrators, drug theft, extortion, attacks on employees, patients and the infrastructure itself, etc., altering the Security at all levels.

Other less dramatic aspects related to the daily operation of hospitals, such as handling intolerant people, controlling the entry and exit of patients and visitors, monitoring staff shifts, monitoring parking lots, following suspicious movements, avoiding loss of forgotten objects, Observe access to restricted places, etc., are part of the range of circumstances that a public and private health sector entity faces daily. And to meet these challenges, institutions take precautions based on the technology currently offered by the market.

It is important to note that the CCTV system is continuously articulated in organizations with other tools such as those related to fire detection and alarms, access control, etc. And although each one works independently, its synchrony allows the entity to have a global management not only of its safety but also of its quality processes in terms of the service provided to patients and the public in general, thus complying with better attention and respecting internal policies.

However, although they are increasingly versatile, intelligent and intuitive, these technological aids require, to achieve success and maximize their potential, trained personnel to handle them and processes consistent with the entire organization to support and act accordingly with the different standards and programs of the entity.

The main objective of the hospital sector in this area is to identify and assess the needs it has within its different areas. And the challenge of the security companies is to provide the ideal advice that allows them to choose solid systems for optimal operation, guaranteeing an environment free of risks and threats.

And this is how aimed at delivering total satisfaction to the final customer, companies that manufacture security systems focus their efforts on creating a technology according to the type of business and budget available to each company

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whatisaccesscontrol · 5 years

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CCTV use in hospitals

Technology and service, a healthy alliance

Why use CCTV?

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restaurantandideas · 5 years

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CCTV use in hospitals

Technology and service, a healthy alliance

Why use CCTV?

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pushtoexitbutton · 5 years

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CCTV use in hospitals

Technology and service, a healthy alliance

Why use CCTV?

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myfood-yourfood · 5 years

Text

CCTV use in hospitals

Technology and service, a healthy alliance

Why use CCTV?

0 notes