#moral myopia

[gameguy20100]

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Felix fans can be reasoned with at all. When people harp so much on "complexity", it reminds anon of Andrew Ketterley from C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew. Uncle Andrew has just tricked Polly into an experiment that sent her to another world alone, and when Digory calls him on it, Uncle Andrew insists that because he has "hidden wisdom", he's above good and evil. But as Digory muses, that just means Andrew can do anything he likes to get anything he wants.

This is what's often called "moral myopia."

Regardless of the actions of a character, people take the side of who they like. And never change, regardless of morality and facts.

It's how Sylvanas stans can say Genn Greymane can be in the wrong for hating her, despite the fact she used chemical weapons on his country and killed his son right before his eyes.

#miraculous ladybug #ml discussion #world of warcraft #Ml fandom salt #fandoms ruin everything #moral myopia #Anti Sylvanas #Pro Genn greymane #ask and answer #anonymous

[llycaons]

so-called leftists when - okay no I jest but hc's popularity in adjacent circles is honestly kind of bizarre considering he controls and profits from what I can only describe as human trafficking. like he knowingly did this. he intentionally set out to take control of and run a business like that

#you can bring up the fact that he offers shelter to abused ghosts but you can't ignore his enabling AND PROFITING from men gambling #their literal children's lives away like how is that not unambiguously evil...parents selling their children in ANY other context would #be recognized as evil #ugh I hate the moral myopia of tgcf so much bc it could be really good its just infuriatingly unwilling to address or resolve #any inconvenient morality #tgcf donghua lb

[ambafaerie]

Need her to suffer and end so badly.

#trese #the writers got her moral myopia down pat #never wanted to strangle someone in a comic so bad until now

[singing-swan]

The dramatic irony of Garleans calling the Eorzeans invaders.... Delicious but slightly infuriating

#there's probably something really intelligent to be said about propaganda and the moral myopia that follows #but i am not intelligent enough to articulate it #mai plays ffxiv #endwalker spoilers #ffxiv spoilers

[artbyblastweave]

An interesting thing about the Monarch is that while obviously the entire gag is that he’s enmeshed in this postmodern weirdly formalized etiquette-and-code-of-conduct-based form of super-villainy, this notably does not translate to him being a Megamind-style functionally-benign-showman kind of villain-in-name-only. He kills innocent people constantly. There’s a running gag where he kills cabbies to get out of paying fare. This doesn't really seem to be a salient factor in the other character's assessment of him as a threat or moral agent-his ability, or lack thereof, to tow the Guild line and keep pace with the inside baseball is what actually makes waves, draws scrutiny. There's the comedy of that Season 1 episode where they basically call a time-out mid-death trap in compliance with Guild Law, but this doesn't translate to anyone outside the game receiving similar protections or considerations. He lets Dr. Venture leave midway through an arch to see his shrink and then murders the shrink so that those interruptions will stop happening.

And to me this feels like it’s gesturing at a very real thing that can happen in cape comics, where even the nominally harmless bit-villains aren't actually harmless even if they fail to kill the hero specifically, where even the really overtly silly ones have in fact likely whacked at least a few unnamed characters over the course of their 60-year publication history- only for this to sort of get sanded away as a morally salient feature of the character unless they become specifically known as One Of The Ones Who Constantly Kills People (Joker, Bullseye, Carnage, etc.) because security guards and people trapped in collapsing buildings aren't really real. The show is also attentive to the analogous thing that happens with superheroes with the weird moral myopias they suffer from, in the way that basically every hero has some insane instance of superdickery rattling around in their closet that's still technically canon but hardly relevant. The show is very very clear that as long as you correctly couch your behavior within the idiom, color within the lines, you're entitled to a certain level of carnage and collateral. Which is demonstrated in the second episode with the Revenge Society, where Phantom Limb and company are genuinely freaked out when a nameless slasher shows up to the try-outs. Phantom Limb constantly brutally kills people, but this guy in a bear costume with a kitchen knife? He's killing them in an off-genre way.

#the venture bros #venture brothers #I was partway through season 5 when I wrote this #seasons six and seven reinforced it #the venture brothers #thoughts #meta #the monarch

[kujakumai]

I want to write thiefshipping but what I want to do is write actual thiefshipping without making an extensive AU and without toning down at all what Yami Bakura is and how he works. I want to see Marik Ishtar attempt to have his inevitably disastrous first ever teenage dream romance with a technically-incorporeal facet of an elder god whose morality and version of affection is only sort of recognizably human. All of the weird bodily autonomy stuff. The clash of their mutual myopias and the post-battle-city breakdown of Marik's god complex while Yami Bakura's remains impervious. A fleeting caricature of inexperienced romance followed by a breakup with a body count. The works.

#''would ryou bakura allow yb to have a boyfriend'' - questions that are fandom jokes but i want to take deathly serious for a moment

[captain-azoren]

I want someone to tell me what "non-evil" thing Azula was supposed to do when Aang was going into the Avatar State that wouldn't have been incredibly incompetent or out of character or made no sense in general.

How would you have written Azula in a way that makes her less evil but keeps the story the same? Just make her smirk less?

I see a lot of talk about Azula's agency and the choices she makes, but if she's trying to win, why would anyone expect her to anything differently?

And before anyone starts, this is not making excuses, this is trying to understand where the character is coming from.

Azula sees Iroh as a traitor and a disgrace. She legitimately hates him. Of course she's going to do a lethal sneak attack on him. Zuko betrayed her, their family and their nation. He also hates her. Azula had no reason to like him, so why is it so hard to fathom she wants him dead by the end of the series?

Azula isn't going to feel remorse because she believes she is the good guy, or at least that the Fire Nation winning is for the greater good. And newsflash, so does the vast majority of the FN. If any other loyal soldier in the FN had to make those choices, they likely would have done the same.

Nearly every single FN soldier had been trying to kill these kids. That includes Zuko. Zuko was literally RIGHT THERE fighting Aang and Katara in the crystal catacombs, but he doesn't get called evil or heartless all because he was too incompetent to strike a killing blow on Aang while he was powering up and then later expressed regret.

Except Zuko only regretted betraying Iroh. Need I remind people Zuko hires a damn ASSASSIN to kill a 12 year old in the next season? If you think Azula coming the closest to killing Aang somehow puts her at a higher grade of evil than 99% of the villains who attacked the Gaang, you have moral myopia and are full of shit.

Azula isn't going to bat an eye at killing Aang because Aang being a child is secondary to Aang being the single greatest threat to her goal. You cannot reasonably expect her, within the circumstances, to politely ask Aang to surrender. You cannot expect her to just lay down and accept defeat when her level of skill, her tactical cunning, and her upbringing under Ozai all point her towards shooting Aang in the back.

Why shouldn't she try to kill Zuko and Katara? She's the enemy and he's a traitor. She hates them and she's pissed. This isn't some moral event horizon.

Azula hates Ursa because she felt neglected and that Zuko getting more attention was unfair. It might be a misunderstanding, but as a child it isn't Azula's responsibility to sort things out.

Azula has arguably the least agency due to her age and having the most oversight by a powerful adult, so yeah I'm not letting that go.

I'm not saying Azula isn't bad. She has a pretty unpleasant personality and dies some shitty stuff. But it's only some, and on the whole she isn't even particularly bad compared to the other villains in the franchise. Is the smirking bad? It is only if you consider having nasty thoughts to be a crime. A bad sign, but just a sign.

But that's all it really ever boiled down to, isn't it? That damn smile of Azula's that shows you just how much she enjoys hurting people. Well the fact is, no matter how much Azula seems to enjoy her actions, no matter how little remorse she shows, it doesn't make her actions any worse than if she had a cold, emotionless or angry frown. It makes her unpleasant, yes, but ultimately you have to judge people on their actions and less on their thoughts and feelings.

No matter how conflicted Zuko was, he still stole that girl's horse when he could have kept walking, hard as it was. No matter how jolly or enlightened Iroh was, he still waged war for decades.

If you expect me to forgive Zuko and Iroh for all their wrongdoings just because they turned things around, then I'm going to hold Azula to that same standard and say that, smirk or no smirk, her actions are, not excusable, but forgivable.

And yes, I do sincerely believe that Azula caused less harm to the world than Zuko and Iroh in the months she was actually active. I understand that conquering BSS was bad and burning down the EK would have been an actual atrocity, but I also understand that conquering BSS was something the FN as a whole was aiming for and burning the land have zero objections by any of the FN military.

Azula also suggests it to keep Zuko from saying something stupid and to get on Ozai's good side. I do not believe she suggested burning the land because she sadistically wanted to kill thousands of people. Azula probably thought it was a brilliant tactic for stampings out the last few rebellions for good.

Is it bad? Yes, it's very fucking bad, because Azula doesn't understand the sheer gravity of what she's saying or the devastation of Ozai's escalation. But that's true for everyone in that room but Zuko. It isn't JUST Azula, it's the whole damn Nation.

You know what Azula does that's just plain mean? Destroying a sand castle. Taunting Zuko about Ozai going to kill him is pretty cruel. Azula probably could have found a nicer way to get Ty Lee on her team.

But don't give me any bullshit about Zuko being Azula's abuse victim. It was a toxic rivalry. And I guarantee you if Zuko had gotten the upper hand on Azula sooner he would have done what he could to humiliate her, because he hates her out if envy, not just because she's mean.

And why should Azula be nice to Zuko, who is always belligerent and angry towards her for being better? That is how she sees him, in her eyes Zuko is the bad sibling who needs to be humiliated and taught a lesson because he's stubborn and entitled and spoiled by their mother who loved him even when he failed, unlike their father who gave attention when it was deserved and earned.

Yes, that's a fucked up way of seeing things, but that's how Azula sees it, that's what she believes is right, and you shouldn't expect her to know otherwise because she IS 14 and has no exposure to anything else.

Azula DOES regret some things, she regrets always having to use fear to control people, but as the series itself spells things out, it's literally all she knows, it's all that she thinks she's even capable of from her failed attempts at being normal in the Beach.

Azula doesn't think she has a choice,band if you don't think you have a choice, then THERE IS NO CHOICE. There is NO opportunity or chsnce to change without guidance, and what so many dumb casuals and antis just don't GET is that Azula really doesn't know right from wrong. That these supposed second chances she's getting to change her ways are utterly pointless if she lacks the wisdom to see them as choices.

None of us are excusing Azula, because that would defeat the purpose of wanting her to finally understand for herself what she did wrong and to get better, but we can't blame her for everything either.

Just because what she did wasn't right doesn't put her beyond forgiveness. The right thing to do would be to trying and actually guide her and help her, not just throw second chances at her and be shocked when she makes another bad decision.

This is a hard pill to swallow for some of you, but a victim is a victim, and no matter how bad or abusive they are, a victim NEEDS HELP. So get over your hangup and do something useful, and if you can't do that, then stay out of the way and let someone else help.

I'm sick of people trying to convince me to forsake a kid, no matter how cruel or messed up she is. Stop telling me to give up hope, stop telling me to keep fighting to save that one little kernel of goodness buried deep down.

I've been doing this shit since I was a teenager, both for myself and for actual people who made bad choices. Even if Azula laughed at Zuko's pain or was willing to kill, she deserves to heal from her abuse as much as she needs to right her wrongs. Fuck anyone who thinks it's okay for her to suffer.

#azula #rant

[eretzyisrael]

by Brendan O'Neill

So let me get this right. If Israel bombs Hamas targets in Gaza, it is recklessly endangering civilian life. But if it gives civilians fair warning to move away from certain areas, it is engaging in ethnic cleansing. If it drops bombs in built-up suburbs, it is committing a war crime. But if it advises civilians to leave those built-up suburbs before the bombs come, it is also committing a war crime. If it attacks northern Gaza, that’s genocide. Yet when it tells the civilians of northern Gaza to leave first, that’s ‘forced transfer’, which is to say: genocide.

Everything Israel does is a war crime. Everything. Killing civilians – war crime. Trying not to kill civilians – war crime. Bombing populated areas – war crime. Giving a population time to leave before dropping bombs – war crime. The surrealism of these screams of ‘genocide!’ every time an Israeli soldier so much as picks up his gun was brought home by two headlines in the Independent last week, published just 10 hours apart. Israel is engaged in ‘collective punishment in Gaza’, claimed the first. ‘Israel accused of “trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza Strip” as one million ordered to evacuate’, said the second.

Got that, Israel? ‘Punish’ Palestinians and you’re a criminal. Do everything in your power to avoid ‘punishing’ Palestinians and you’re still a criminal. I’m starting to wish the Israel-haters would just say what they mean with their entire chest: ‘Let yourselves be killed, Jews. Don’t fight back. Don’t do anything at all.’

The twists in the public discussion of Israel’s military response to Hamas’s recent act of unspeakable barbarism have been extraordinary. It was predictable, given the Israelophobic myopia of the West’s cultural elites, that Israel would be damned the minute it took action against the neo-fascists who had just executed the worst act of anti-Semitic savagery since the Holocaust. All the usual accusations were made. Israel’s missile strikes add up to ‘collective punishment’. Israel is using ‘genocidal language’. It is committing ‘war crimes’. It is ‘breaking international law’. Etc etc. One is forced to wonder what kind of messed-up law prevents the victims of racist slaughter from pursuing their killers.

This time, what’s been most striking is that even Israel’s efforts not to hit civilians, not to ‘collectively punish’ Gazans, have been rebranded as war crimes. 

#jews #israel #hamas #gaza #war crimes

[familyabolisher]

my two cents here is that it's wild how determined people in this discussion are to wrestle judaism into a discursive position exempt from any and all criticism & able to behave as an effective moral directive (and to say otherwise would be antisemitism + xtian myopia) considering how often the writings of jewish communists in the 20th century will discuss atheism or at least a distance from organised religious communities as a necessary tenet of their communism lol

#.txt #so much of what u could term 'communism v zionism' (or like 'bundism v zionism. doykeyt v zionism.' etc) #is playing out on that stage! #rip to isaac deutscher and his tzadik grave yom kippur ham sandwich

[cliozaur]

The one, in which Marius attempts to make sense of what Jean Valjean told him but fails. Marius mirrors his entire social class with all its prejudices, myopia, and resultant callousness. Hugo is showing how it works in minute details. He refrains from judgment while suggesting that Marius will eventually grasp the truth and alter his perspective toward outcasts like Valjean. (In doing so, Hugo assumes a somewhat guru-like role.)

[Now it’s me lecturing.] The acquisition of empathy was a challenging lesson. Historically, people often felt empathy for their equals. Yet, it was the Enlightenment, with its sensitivities, novels, moral philosophies, and debates about the abolition of torture and the death sentence, that began to instil a degree of sympathy within the higher classes toward those socially beneath them. Adam Smith wrote about empathy, noting how it allows us to sense the agony of a criminal facing torture. However, it didn't suffice to generate sympathy toward social outcasts and criminals among the upper echelons of society. Thus, Hugo continued to advocate for this cause in the second half of the nineteenth century. [End of lecture.]

However, even knowing this context, it is hard to read about Marius’ reasoning and the erroneous conclusions he draws about Jean Valjean. Marius didn't even listen to Valjean's story—there were numerous points that could have facilitated better understanding, empathy, and connection. Yet, for Marius, Valjean isn't even human; he is a wolf, a night, a nettle. The only aspect that made Marius a bit doubtful is Valjean's ability to raise someone as perfect and kind as Cosette. Regrettably, Marius fails to draw the right conclusions from this observation. Oh, Marius, Marius…

#les mis letters #lm 5.7.2 #les miserables #marius pontmercy #jean valjean #cosette

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

These Stans Are Really So Naive

Just because someone says they support something doesn't mean they actually practice it, for years Billy Cosby was supporting black efforts while being a rapist does that negate everything. A person can do bad stuff while in public do good stuff to make themselves look good or in some cases it's a case of moral myopia where they do good deeds while also be horrible pos to others. Also petiteprincess still tries to play it as allegations when tons of evidence has come out with even screencaps. At this point he is in denial of the obvious that Vivziepop is a horrible asshole to those. These people do not think and just prove even more how far up the cult mindset they are.

#vivziepop critical #vivziepop #vivziepop criticsim #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #hazbin hotel fandom #helluva boss fandom #anti-hazbin hotel fandom #anti-helluva boss fandom #anti-vivziepop #anti-helluva boss #anti-hazbin hotel #helluva boss critical #hazbin hotel critical

[therwriter]

Some spoilers for Come Catastrophe or Wake of Vultures

I enjoyed this event as a character study and portrait of poverty and pride and such, but think they really dropped the ball in the second half by not committing to the strongly implied set up that Blacksteel was about to do some heinous PMC bullshit, and thereby letting Jessica make a genuinely significant choice to sacrifice everything to oppose them, as opposed to effectively slumming it to find herself. The frontier sucks! Dorothy goes insane over it! Going to live with the people who got deported there is not a happy ending Jessica! Most of them won't survive the winter and the people responsible get away with it! Arknights loves its moral myopia and refuses to have any actual societal change but I think showing the PMC as Secretly Cool TM who lets them get away wasn't the right move here.

The scene where Franka and Liskarm refused to fire on the crowd would likewise be more meaningful imo if a) the crowd was actually rioting and b) it was an order from the top. Basically I wanted the BS crew to have to confront the fact that they work for a PMC and what that means, and take a stand.

....Also they didn't go with cowboy Jessica and that is an even greater crime.

#Arknights

[swearyshera]

No she's not

Welcome to favoritism and moral myopia

"It's so unfair!"

(One for the 90s kids there)

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

You know, for a fandom that claims to love and want more moral complexity, the people in it sure love to make a bad guy in a situation where there isn't any. So many people are trying to demonize WBY for not noticing the issues that Ruby actively refuses to communicate. Why are so many people like this?

Fourth wall myopia. They assume that things that are obvious to them because they've been right next to Ruby seeing them (Ruby's visit to the Herbalist, Ruby's visit to the Blacksmith, Ruby's hallucinations, etc), and forget that the other characters haven't seen those things or had those things emphasized to them like we have. Also we had a two year gap to process Atlas and WBY has had none of that time, they've got a lot to go.

Moral complexity is only fun when it means "I get to do whatever I want and still be called the hero for it". Not when it means that people you don't like or even hate are as human as you are.

#rwby #rwby volume 9 #team rwby #rwby spoilers

[transmutationisms]

what do you think of the idea that deriving pleasure from something like alcohol has negative externalities whereas deriving pleasure from something like reading has positive externalities?

i mean, the fact that people have historically fear-mongered in the exact opposite way about novel-reading and used alcohol medicinally should already tell us a lot about how culturally determined and fluid these designations of health & morality are. but sure i'll play.

positive externalities of drinking one million fluid ounces of alcohol every single night for like 8 years on end:

✅ only effective insomnia treatment

✅ fun

✅ made lots of cool new friends and constantly impressed them with my verbosity and social acuity

✅ urban exploration hours

✅ didn't kill myself

negative externalities of reading lots of books:

❌ severe myopia

❌ spend all day sitting alone in a room, 0 grass touched

❌ shitty cheap desk chair ergonomics

❌ habitual pirate

❌ joyless pedant

thanks! join me next time as i tackle pros & cons of snorting hydrocodone vs eating carrots

[grendelsmilf]

ur post was abt physical illness alone so maybe this is over the line or irrelevant but would u say dementia also falls under that category of illnesses young ppl r glib about bc it wont affect them anyways. also i agree w u so much on the lack of imagination bit ive been thinking a lot abt it also since i was diagnosed w lupus n imo most healthy / young ppl technically know that they will age and their bodies will ‘fail’ them (they think it will happen later rather than sooner as u said) n they will die but they dont really believe it / cant imagine it. ig nothing makes death a concrete reality like being told u have substantially less time than everyone else😭 (so sorry btw for how long this got)

yes i think this is a very salient point/response to my post. just as people cannot truly envision a certain kind of pain unless they have experienced themselves, it is difficult to confront your own mortality, as ubiquitous as it may be for us, without actually having to concretely confront it. the ephemerality of the body and of the soul is both universal and omnipresent, and completely foreign to us as we try to avoid and/or transcend it in our society. even when it is blatant and unavoidable, such as during a global pandemic, people who are not overtly affected by health and morality risks still attempt to skirt around the issue for their own comfort. the disabled and/or elderly are categories that, unless you belong to them, can be discarded for the sake of insulating oneself in a happy little bubble, because their proximity to this terrifying ephemerality is discomforting, and should thus be shunned to the fringes of society, dichotomized in a false binary that posits the young and healthy as ontologically opposed to the old and sick, as if these distinctions are not simply traits that all affect the same body.

at the end of the day, everyone wants to be spared the suffering that is almost surely inevitable as a consequence of being human. everyone foolishly dreams that against all odds they will be the one to live forever, to achieve eternity (as they say in utena). and the knowledge that this is simply not possible, that we are bound to suffer and die even if we have yet to, haunts us, because how could it not? those privileged few who can still bury their ghosts out of their field of vision are understandable in their myopia, because what lies beyond their safe little room is a gaping maw beckoning to swallow them whole, just as we have been consumed. but they do not know that with time, we too learn to find comfort as we navigate the gory innards of this cold, uncaring animal. we learn to make a room for ourselves all over again, perhaps less safe, but certainly wider.

#il faut imaginer sisyphe heureux <3 #ask #anon #o #also dont apologize to ME about length are you kidding!!!!!!!!