#I will ALWAYS resent this countries language culture for that

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Me learning Norwegian: okay, a few new letters, I can figure it out alright… I think.

Me trying out a Swedish lesson while not being fluent in Norwegian yet (still working on it): oh no, new alphabet just dropped (actually English just got rid of a bunch of letters, but still! New to me!) and I keep using the Norwegian spelling

Me glancing at the Icelandic to English dictionary my grandma (who’s parents were bilingual) let me borrow: oh no. Oh man. Even MORE new letters! No wonder it’s rated so high on lists of languages that are hard for English speakers to learn 😳 (growing resentment at my great grandparents for not teaching their kids how to speak both languages)

[backwzzds]

ೃ⁀➷ no sabo kid, puerto rican!zoro

thinking about puerto rican!zoro who just has an unbearable family. well, maybe not unbearable to other people, especially his mother. many people would kill for a mother like his. bus in general, his family was just a pain in his ass.

born in puerto rico but immigrating when they were just teenagers, it’s been a long time since zoro’s parents were in the states, so over time, they just lost their touch and need to embed their culture into their son. the only time his parents spoke spanish was to each other, yet, in the few times they referred to him, it was always in english.

ironically, zoro’s mother did feel the need to at least give birth to her first child back in her homeland. being born in puerto rico and living there for only two years before coming back to the states, zoro couldn’t help but resent his parents for that bold move. why not teach him his culture when he’s able to remember it? of course he can’t remember the full first two years of his life where he was surrounded by so much boricua love.

“we just don’t feel like it’s important for you to know spanish, baby,” his mother would tell him. “we came to this country to give you a better life. that includes learning english before spanish.”

yet, even though he didn’t speak it well, zoro’s first language was spanish, all learned from his first two years of life.

see why he’d always be frustrated with his parents? the older he got, the deeper his resentment with them had gotten. sure, as soon as he was old enough he ventured out and tried to learn spanish on his own. but it was hard for him. he felt like it wasn’t right; that he’ll never learn spanish and instead always be a no sabo kid.

he looked at his best friend luffy and couldn’t help but feel jealous that he knew his roots, even though luffy was mexican, with spanish being his first (and main) language.

or even his close friend usopp, who’s native language was haitian creole. sanji spoke french fluently, robin spoke russian, nami spoke german—almost all of his friends were in touch with their native language and culture except for him.

as an outlet, zoro took up fencing. it was something about the art of swords—no matter the size or sharpness of it, that just relieved him. he liked staring his target down, locking them in, and charging toward them to victory.

zoro didn’t like to lose. i guess that was something he’d inherited from his shitty father.

[panlight]

Hi,

Just a question I wanted to ask about. How do you head-cannon the familial(or perhaps lack thereof) dynamics of the other major covens in twilight? eg. Egyptians, Denali, Irish etc

I was thinking about this the other day like with the Denali - Carmen and Eleazar are physically older and perhaps frozen at a more mature age but physically younger members like Kate have been around for longer and I was just intrigued by how these factors might affect their dynamic. Also with the Egyptian coven and how with them ‘generation gap’ literally takes on a whole new definition that makes one wonder if they genuinely do have a unique rapport with each other after being in close proximity for so long.

Feel free to ignore - just my little brain dump lmao. Love reading your posts and hope you keep writing!

Have a great day!

I conceptualize Eleazar and Carmen as the 'Alice and Jasper' of the Denali coven. They are a couple who join an established, venom-linked couple sometime later. The Denali sisters had their 'mother' for presumably centuries, and then existed as a trio for a long time before Eleazar and Carmen show up, so while I'm certain they did shift the dynamics somewhat, I don't see them as 'parental' in any real way. They are similar to Esme and Carlisle in personality, but that's where it ends for me. The sisters are very loyal to the memory of their mother, and they've been around too long to let anyone 'parent' them. To be fair, I feel similarly about Jasper; I don't think Esme and Carlisle 'parent' him; he's old enough to be Esme's grandfather, for one thing, but I also think he doesn't need or want the parental stuff. Affection, friendship, companionship, mentorship (re: vegetarianism), sure! "Jasper honey wash your face and put on your boots it's time for school! Did you finish all your homework?" I can't see it.

I think Eleazar is also like 'the Jasper' in the sense that he has some useful skills and knowledge from his time with the Volturi. He's not the leader -- Tanya is -- but she may rely on him for certain things, just like Carlisle can turn to Jasper for his knowledge of newborns and vampire warfare.

Beyond that I see them as adopted siblings of the original sisters and probably each have unique relationships within that framework. Maybe Irina was closer to Carmen while Tanya is closer to Eleazar or whatever.

With the Egyptians I think there is a more parental role for Amun and to a lesser extent, Kebi. Amun is Benjamin's creator and while that bond doesn't always become parental, given how young Benjamin was (15) it seems like it most naturally would in this case. I don't think Kebi necessarily sees him as a 'son' in quite the same way . . . maybe more like a step-son. He's Amun's son and she loves Amun so okay, this kid is here to stay, but I think she resents on some level that she has to 'share' Amun's affection with him. Tia is definitely IMO a daughter-in-law rather than a daughter. Amun puts up with it because it makes Benjamin happy and he wants to keep Benjamin around. But with Amun there's always that overlay of what he REALLY cares about is the power. I think he does have a lot of affection for Benjamin but it's hard to separate that from his pride at having this amazingly powerful vampiric offspring.

There is a huge generation gap though! Amun and Kebi are literally from Ancient Egypt and Benjamin and Tia are from like, early 1800s Egypt. Completely different religion, culture, language, etc. I remember finding it a little strange in that short film that they were talking about Benjamin stealing fire from Ra; it's the 1800s, Egypt had been a Muslim-majority country for several hundred years by that point. (Also 'Ra' was probably some dude Amun knew back in the day!) Interestingly, 'Tia' was a name used in Ancient Egypt. Not sure how common it was in the late 1700s/early 1800s though.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

no because I spent less than a third of my school years in Brazil and yet whenever I do maths in my head I still always resort back to Portuguese

no because I always speak Portuguese with my mom and we almost exclusively listen to Brazilian music at home but the first time we went back to Brazil after covid just listening to all the people around me casually speak in Portuguese almost made me burst into tears

no because one time I was sleeping at my grandma's and I still hadn't completely woken up and the birds were singing (we used to have australian budgies) and for a moment I thought I was still living there, at my old apartment. I don't even know how many years ago this day happened and my memory is absolute shit but I still remember the feeling of bittersweet grief when I woke up properly

no because I always get so hyped whenever I hear someone casually speaking Brazilian Portuguese like even if I don't outwardly acknowledge them just hearing it always fills me with so much joy

no because whenever I forget another word in Portuguese my heart breaks a little

no because even if I do my hair the exact same way here and there it still comes out with a completely different texture (it looks better over there in case you were wondering btw)

no because I mostly speak Portuguese with my mom and I didn't even realize that some of the words I use are actually super outdated

the point being: I really appreciate that there are so many characters that come from different countries in Stormlight Archive, and that Sanderson has clearly thought a lot about their different cultures and religions and politics and worldbuilding in general. however. i don't think he quite realizes how personal a place and a language can be. like obviously my experiences are far from universal, not to mention very different from theirs (much much less trauma for one lol), but especially when we get a pov from one of those characters I can't help but think that there is always something.... lacking? missing?

let shallan complain about her hair and skin routine not working the same anymore ever since she moved away from her home. let lunamor be a bit resentful of his new family for not even trying to learn his real name. let The Lopen forget more words in alethi now that he's surrounded by his herdasian cousins again. let shallan not be able to properly talk about her drawings in the way she wants to whenever adolin asks because she learnt all the proper words in her vadan art book. let there be foreign members of bridge four who adore alethkar and those who hate it and those who feel a bit of both at the same time.

dunno. i know these are just small details, but i noticed that these are small details that matter to me (and I can imagine that many people with a foreign background may feel similarly?)

[beylinine]

eddsworld headcanons go!!!

remembered this is my blog and i can post whatever i want

why is this so much, i even tried to condense it ToT

i love these guys idc idc

linking to this doodle i made of them for visuals

For age sake in this, post- The End

Edward 'Edd' Golbey (27, 187cm/ 6'1, unlabelled-demisexual) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Mexican heritage, knows a little bit of culture from maternal grandpa

-few holiday traditions, simple spanish (Swears, as well ofc), music

Has lived in the same area in North London all of his life

School subjects would be like Art (ofc), Media Studies, and Maths (idk how GCSEs worked in the early 2000s but wtv)

Middle child. Older sister Lucielle and younger brother Oliver

Met Matt in primary. Met Tord in sixth form. Met Tom in uni.

Divorce, clean break. Single mum Clara, double christmas dad Charles

Family home, people moved out, mum went to live with new husband in the West Country.

-Edd last man standing, with Ringo

Rescued Ringo after he left school

Degree in Mathematics, worked private sector for a few years before quitting and focusing on art

will help family and friends with taxes for money

relationships and friendships mean a lot to him

was a lowkey menace as a kid, matt can confirm, but has become a gentle giant

Likes coins, appreciating their designs, but can't collect them because he will spend them

Loves, LOVES Halloween (Mainly bc it's also his birthday)

Competitive with racing games

he's just a lad

.

Internally, absolutely devastated over what Tord did.

he thought that they were...he though that they were friends

Doesn't believe it actually happened, he tells himself as he takes the trash down to the building's bin room

Matthew McLloyd (27, 181cm/ 5'11, asexual panromantic)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇮🇪

Was born in Ireland but moved closer to mum's family when he was young.

Only child, pampered for real

Messy divorce when he was a teen, single mam Louise & resentment for dad

Focus on English and language in school, but has always been fascinated by hair salons which led to him getting certified after school

Doesn't trust anyone else with his own hair, lets be real

Edd's teacher appointed best friend

Low-key mean boy during his teens but learns to hide his attitude as he gets older

Did not really like Tord or Tom when they started hanging out around Edd, but learned to tolerate and sometimes enjoy their friendship

Works at a local hair salon and loves to gossips like its no ones business

Dislikes ketchup

.

tries to keep a level head and high spirits after everything, knowing edd and tom went through a lot

Thomas Jack Pinnell (24, 171cm/ 5'7, bi-demiromantic)

🇺🇸🇹🇷🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Grew up in Oxford

English Ama, Lina Pinnell. American Dad, Vincent Namli. Were together but not married.

-RIP dad when he was young

Older sister Maya, fighting yet got his interests from her (helping his sister dye her hair in their bathroom in exchange for staying up past bedtime)

Mum started seeing an old boyfriend of hers, William, after being a widow for a few years

-Awkward but chill stepdad-stepchildren situation

Focused on Music (ofc), geography, and home-economics in school

Was made fun of for height (and home-ec) but fought back. lots of detention and visits to the nurse as a teen

-yet he also was also a bully for a bit

Went to uni for technology, got a local job as a bartender for free drinks

-got his bartending certification

Dropped out after a year, but stayed around in a dingy flat, still working at the bar and doing odd jobs here and there

Kept hanging out with Edd, Matt, and Tord for the vibes

Played bass in his spare time, got better at cooking

Collects pins/badges of his favourite bands, shows, movies, and random ones

a bit scared of horses, there's just something about them

Friendship with Tord goes down after about a year or two, physical fights sours a lot of their meetings, so they don't talk to each other when possible

Moves in with Edd only after another year or so go by because he can't stand the idea of living with Tord, but for a cut back on rent and bigger room some sacrifices must be made

the two manage to tolerate one another, but after more years, it goes back to shit

Gets a job as a bartender at a popular music venue, free drinks and music? yes

.

terrified of death. will wake up screaming at night from memories of the house crumbling around him

Tord Vicente Nilsen (25, 177cm/ 5'9, pansexual)

��🇱 🇳🇴

Ama, Violeta Sepúlveda. Papp, Espen Nilsen.

Two sisters, Andrea and younger Elise. Older Cousin, Nilo.

-Papp fell in love with Ma while on a trip to Santiago. Wrote to her for two years before going back to marry her. Violeta was raising her dead sister’s son, Nilo, as her own, Espen didnt mind and welcomed him.

-Lived with her for two years in Chile, had Andrea there, moved everyone to Norway later and had Tord and Elise there.

When Tord was 14, the family moved to England for a change.

-Focused on technology, science, and art in school

Was very welcomed by Edd at school, even though the year differences, they both liked drawing and the same games

Spanish, Norwegian, and English speaker

Football lad, F1 enjoyer, overall competitive

loser in his early adult years,

-Goes to school for engineering

Kept talking and hanging out with Edd, and Matt was there too

Losing a game to Tom domino effect to take over the world?

-not quite but it was start of the frenemies.

-he was shorter and younger, add the anger issues, it was so easy for Tord to poke fun

Partakes in protests about issues he cares about and enjoyed making the occasional political cartoon

Tinkerbell more like TinkerTord, always tinkering away in his room as he moves in with Edd at the end of uni since his parents had moved back to Norway

-one of his sisters and cousin moved across the isles.

Picked up smoking during uni but only does it once in a while

A very proud man (though he do be a loser still)

.

yeah thats it for now, i'll update and change this around for my own reference but eee

[sonnycrsi]

A little rant about culture and family dynamics

Am I the only one who do not like the wording of this particular scene. I understand and can appreciate the main point Andrea was going with. That what Carlos current perception of his father was slightly inaccurate and how his Dad actually has been trying to break within the system. (I don’t want to talk about the whole hypocrisy of Carlos regarding APD/Ranger because ACAB as always).

The things that left a really bad taste in my mouth is how this scene (before the last line Andrea delivered on how he is entitled to feel whatever) and the one following where Carlos went to his parent house somehow makes me (as the viewer) perceived that Carlos has to be the bigger person. That Carlos is the only one to blame for the communication problem that ended up on both of them having false perception of each other and how his at-the-moment perception of his Dad as the cause of those communication problem is invalid, because it is not true.

I guess that it might be because I relate a little bit too much to their family dynamics and communication style (unfortunately). For background I come from SEASIAN countries that was colonized and one of them was by Portugal. When I was writing my thesis, I found that there was a lot of Portugal’s culture integrated to the country (like any other colonized countries). Even our languages are actually very similar !

The collective identity and combined that with being a very religious country (not in the way that is biblically accurate just in the way that people will indoctrinate the major religion teaching into other people’s personal life). It leaves the notion that no matter what happens family is a very important. Which is not actually a bad thing but it also can be lead to legitimate respond to dangerous and/or horrible situation to be painted as “hallmark of the pious life”.

It might be hitting a little close to home because for so many times when I complained to my mom she gives her perspective of what she experienced and painted to as what I said was wrong and not at all what I went through. It always makes me feel like she was always on his said and what I said is invalid. And how I always have to forgive my parents no matter what because that is what the preacher for so many years have taught us.

Just as with Carlos, I wish we can see in the show, Andrea acknowledges that what she knows/ her perception of Gabriel and what Carlos knows/ his perception of Gabriel can be very different and both are valid. It is valid for Carlos to have whatever feeling/ resentment/ awkward relationship based off what his mind was conscious of. It is very valid for him to feel that his father did not like him/ was proud of him albeit Gabriel being very sweet when he was a kid.

Don’t give me wrong I really like their redemption arc, between Carlos and Gabriel but I wish it came actively and directly from the two sides rather than just one, yes not just passively mentioning your guilt to an outsider (Owen). Because for so long the notion in my culture has always been the children to be the one that is forgiving, and even then most of time the parent doesn’t even acknowledge the hurt and the wrongdoing.

In the hope that I’m not projecting too much, I would very much love to hear from people who has the same background and culture as Carlos or similar enough or even the opposite about this particular scene and/or arc or just how they experience arc of forgiveness between families, especially between children and parents

[rahleeyah]

1.0 anon here. You encouraged me to keep checking in with my thoughts as I go.

Just started "Prodigy" (s3e13) and kinda swooned when Benson says "I speak a little Spanish and French. I can Mirandize in three others."

Love me a strong, brave, smart, skilled female lead character who's also got damage and baggage. YES. (Also love that they most likely gave Benson these language skills bc Mariska's got 'em. I hope we get to hear her use them eventually).

And unrelated, but in the previous episode (set in Dec 2001, aired Jan 2002) Cragen mentions "the attacks" in passing and it was kind of stunning that a show about NYPD cops let THAT be the so-far-only treatment of 9/11. I mean, The West Wing interrupted their whole episode flow to air a completely OOC script to allow their characters to process adjacent topics with a bunch of high school students, for a quasi public therapy process...

I know everyone had artistic decisions to make and it wouldn't have worked to make SVU swerve off track and become a terrorism show, but surely (1) SVU detectives would've at least known some of the cops who died in the towers, (2) even if they didn't they'd be traumatized and deeply saddened by all of it, (3) like just about everyone in NYC and the country at that point, they'd be talking and thinking about it??

Maybe this is just the difference between shooting and airing schedules and "the attacks" will have more visibility in coming episodes?

Oh I am very excited about this thank you lol

I find it interesting that while we do hear Liv speak a little Spanish in 1.0 we don't hear her speak Italian until 2.0, and Mariska was fluent in Italian the whole time, having spent time there growing up. But yes!!!! Love that they incorporated that into Olivia's character and I love too the insight it gives maybe not just into Olivia but into her mother; was Serena the one pushing Olivia to learn different languages? Did Serena want her to learn French and Italian, did Serena have books in those languages on the shelves at home, was it important to Serena that her dark haired little fae child be educated, be cultured, be sophisticated? Was Olivia ever enough of those things to make her mother happy?

Iirc the shows don't ever address a personal connection between our mains and 9/11 with the exception of the late reveal that Tucker worked the cleanup and got cancer from it. And personally, I'm kinda glad that they didn't, bc I don't think the show has the skill to handle that topic well. The national conversation about police, and religion, and war and the state, was so deeply, deeply toxic post 9/11 that I shudder to think what a police procedural might have done in that moment in time. Sorkin is a playwright and a man whose work has always had a sharply (white) liberal political bent, and he presented a one hour bottle episode homily that was moving, true, but also deeply informed by his personal beliefs. His audience wasn't lowest common denominator middle America; a lot of middle America hated tww. Some people resent the episode in question, think it's patronizing or over simplifying. L&O was supposed to be for Everyman. Gently teaching middle America about the concept of consent and shyly saying "maybe solitary confinement is bad actually", but even then doing it carefully. Presenting issues as conversations between characters who take up opposing sides, instead of preaching one view point (in 1.0; later when 💡 came on board the show became more preachy). At the time of the attacks SVU didn't have an especially political bent, and given how high tensions were, how emotionally raw the city of New York was, given that everyone involved in making the show lived in NYC (tww was filmed mostly in LA and DC) and how many layers there were to people's feelings.... that's a really delicate line to walk, and the ramifications of doing it badly would be a show killer. Sometimes no response is better than a bad response.

So while I'm interested in the idea of how Liv and Elliot felt as cops working in Manhattan during 9/11, I am glad we don't have Dick Wolf's personal take on it entered in the record, and can instead save this for personal musing, fic, meta and the like. There is a lot to unpack there.

[very-grownup]

Book 12, 2024

God I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia. "Gods of Jade and Shadow" is the third book of hers I've read and it did not let me down, while reinforcing that one of the things I love about Moreno-Garcia's writing is how uninterested she is in marrying herself to genre. She has themes and motifs she is interested in and revisits, but recognizes that the space she has to explore them is infinite.

Set in 1920s Mexico, teenaged Casiopea, resented and treated like a servant by most of her family, accidentally frees a Mayan death god whose bones were being kept in a chest in her grandfather's room. Inadvertently bound to the resurrected but depowered god, Casiopea seizes the unlikely opportunity for freedom and sets out to help Hun-Kamé find the pieces of him that are still missing and restore him to the throne taken from him by his twin brother.

The friend who was recommending it compared it to Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and that is a good reference point, always being ware of how imprecision and marketing language can make that slide into "POPULAR THING BUT X" (my friend was not doing this, she is very wise and good of taste). A human in a tough spot becomes the guide/ally of a god on a road novel quest in a (comparatively) modern setting. But of course, Gaiman was not doing anything unique in placing figures from mythology into a contemporary setting, nor in his fundamental linking of human belief to mythology its shaping our gods (it's a recurring idea in the work of Terry Pratchett and probably stretches back to James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough", at least in the context of Euro-centric works).

Besides, it's understood that "American Gods" was essentially fanfic of Diana Wynne Jones' "Eight Days of Luke".

In some ways, the "American Gods" comparison undersells what "Gods of Jade and Shadow" is, because one of Moreno-Garcia's strengths is the sense of identity and drive and longing in her protagonists (Gaiman's Shadow is passive, witnessing and experiencing, but rarely doing). There's a ravenous hunger to Casiopea that I recognize from "Untamed Shore" and "Mexican Gothic", and I doubt it's coincidence that Moreno-Garcia, with her interest in colonialism in Mexico, sets all three of those novels in a time and place where the country and people are trying to shape themselves around historical European and contemporary American presences. It's a coming of age story and a story about identity, about how to adapt to change without losing what made you (and how you can share blood with someone while being fundamentally different and opposed). It's a hero's story (not in the Hero's Journey Call Reject the Call and all that), a questing story, a fairy tale.

It's really a perfect road novel buddy adventure with Casiopea and Kun-Kamé relying on each other and learning and growing together as they go from Casiopea's small town, eventually crossing the border into America. They encounter a few other mythological figures, including KAMAZOTZ THE GIANT DEATH BAT. Moreno-Garcia commits to the blood and bone and death of her chosen focus, complete with throat slicing and human sacrifices, without making a moral fuss about it, or indeed dwelling excessively on filling the reader in. There's a little glossary in the back, but Moreno-Garcia isn't interested in holding your hand and teaching you while she's trying to tell you a story. Imagine if you had to sit through an explanation of the Persephone myth every time it showed up in something fantasy adjacent.

Two things in particular caught my attention, distinguishing "Gods of Jade and Shadow" from similar books. The first is that the gods and myths present are entirely Mayan in nature, with one exception - Loray, a French demon, who came to Mexico with French colonialists and couldn't find his way back. There's otherwise no mention of other gods, other stories. Mexico is a country that has been colonized, its indigenous peoples suppressed by Europeans and their culture, but little of what they bring truly takes root in the new world.

The second is the matter of belief. In his Discworld novels, Pratchett presents gods being created and sustained by mortal beliefs. Gaiman similarly ties the vitality of gods and similar forces to their presence and relevance for humanity, in multiple works. Moreno-Garcia's gods are something deeper than their relationship with humanity, sustained by something deep in the earth of the country. Kun-Kamé is not weak because he is no longer worshipped in the Mexico of the 1920s, he's weak because he's had pieces of himself severed and scattered. He does not need Casiopea to believe to find them or to reassemble them; they're physical items and once found are part of him once more. That's not to say the gods are severed from humanity, but there's a sense of choice. Kun-Kamé's conflict with his brother is partially because of disagreement over how they should exist with and alongside the mortal realm, with Kun-Kamé seeing their time as being at an end, while Vucub-Kamé wants to flex their divine powers again and guide humanity back to the glory days of blood sacrifices. It doesn't even seem to be, necessarily, that this will materially change things for the gods. It's just something Vucub-Kamé wants. The divine conflict of the novel is ultimately a question with an answer balanced carefully between acknowledging the the truth of the past while also recognizing the futility in trying to return to it.

A lot of things are lost in the course of "Gods of Jade and Shadow" and Moreno-Garcia acknowledges those losses, but never restores things to the way they were. It makes for a beautiful, engaging novel that is never soft. The grit and pain are important.

[halfseoulco]

Everything is Our: An essay on Korean Culture

Published Friday, October 13th, 2023 — In Charlotte Cho’s The Little Book of Jeong, she shares an anecdote I’ve thought about often since I first read it: “A few months earlier, during the 2010 Winter Olympics, Kim Yuna, known as ‘the nation’s daughter’, had executed a triple lutz-triple toe loop combination, a triple, and a double axel for the short program, which not only won her the gold medal, it broke records. […] At that time, my jeong for Korea was still growing, but theirs was overflowing. Tears streamed down their faces, and they held their breaths in anticipation and awe, as every movement was executed to perfection.”

I don’t know how to explain to non-Korean people the connection that we as Koreans feel to our culture. To me, that short passage from Cho’s second publication strikes me in the same place that I imagine it would strike in other Koreans—a place where community, pride, and love intersect tightly, so tightly that the slightest tremble would cause the entire thing to tip over and pour out. From the soft underbellies of our souls to the sturdy ribcages of our psyches, I think that all Koreans carry within them something that only Koreans truly understand. The foundation of Korean culture is a war-riddled history as a tiny country surrounded by enemies, but it is also layers of jeong—strong, intimate relationships—and a stone well brimming with han—a complex cocktail of deeply rooted emotions such as grief and resentment.

But above all, the strongest pillar of Korean culture is the unabashedly overflowing love that Koreans have for Korea and other Koreans.

As Korea has grown into a thriving tourist destination and a point of interest around the globe, it’s easy to pick out what other people think is Korean culture. Of course, the cornerstones of any culture are often the things we can most easily identify: the food, the historic buildings, the art, the lifestyle. But I think the most defining element of Korean culture is the unyielding defense of our—our country, our people—not my but our—and the shared responsibility to uphold this defense connects one Korean to another like a silken golden thread that only we can see. And because everything is our, that means everything is shared: joy, anger, sorrow, pride. Everything that can be shared is shared in the clink of two glasses after long hours at the office, in the heat of the overhead lights of Seoul Olympic Stadium, and in the salted air of the sea between Incheon and Jeju where the MV Sewol sank in 2014.

Korean culture is being able to trace your roots backwards through generations and finding everyone’s places in time via designated syllables in given names—always being aware of who came before you, who will come after you, and who is walking the same path with you now but also being aware of your own significance as told through the name your parents picked for you. It’s a language that knows no gender but instead knows your elders from your peers and more than one way to say thank you and sorry. It’s a society where everyone gives what they can without expecting anything in return, where people fight to be the one who pays the check at the end of the night, and where birthdays are opportunities for giving gifts as much as they are for receiving them.

But Korean culture is also the way I always leave the ends of the soondae for my mother because that’s the part she likes the most, the norigae hanging in my room to bring me good fortune, my order of rice cake soup every new year from the nearby Korean restaurant if the holiday falls on a weekday and I can’t go home to my parents. It's the way I cry when I see KPOP artists perform versions of their songs with traditional Korean instruments while wearing hanboks in front of significant historic landmarks like Gyeongbok or Kyunghee Palace; or when I watched ATEEZ perform “Wonderland” in Sungnyemun for Korea’s 77th Liberation Day on stage last year. It’s the way I only watch the World Cup when Korea plays while wearing my red tiger T-shirt from Korelimited, the water I pour into my parents’ drinking glasses before my own, the pendant with my Korean name around my neck, and the ink on my skin. It’s all of our dogs having Korean names as well as English names, and my mother writing all of them down in a notebook like it’s our very own jokbo for our pets—a genealogy book recorded through the generations—and it’s all of our dogs understanding Korean as well as English. It’s speaking to another Korean person in Korean and them wanting to help me immediately and the oftentimes long conversation that follows. It’s always choosing Pepero over Pocky—always—and it’s knowing that Korean food is and always will be the best-tasting food, the food I always want to eat because it tastes like home. It’s learning the fan dance and the mask dance and playing traditional Korean buk drums in elementary school, it’s the jar of yuzu tea in my fridge, it’s taking the black-and-white photo of my halmeoni that sat on the mantel above the fireplace in my childhood home—my halmeoni who survived a Japan-occupied Korea and then raised four children by herself post-liberation—and connecting it with my memory of her on her deathbed when I went to Korea in 1998. It’s proudly giving a presentation in my college Korean class about my most famous ancestor, Empress Min Myeongseong, and being upset that I never got to see the musical about her called The Last Empress.

It’s a profound longing for Korea after having not gone back for twenty-five years.

Moving from place to place, the comforting hand of our culture remains on my shoulder. It waves at me with sincerity and warmth wherever I put down roots, winks at me from the flag painted in red, blue, white, and black in its place by my bedroom door. It makes me pause whenever I pass the white silken scroll with my Korean name in hanja, adorned with ink paintings of a palace, a rabbit, and a crane that my parents had done for me in Korea when we last visited. I taste it in the meat my parents marinate for me before packing it up and sending it home with me. I see it in the shot-on-film photograph of my first birthday, my parents holding me between them, me dressed in a fuchsia and green hanbok, having just picked the money during my dol ceremony. I hear it when my parents sing “our Youkyung” when they sing “happy birthday” to me in Korean; or when we sing “our appa” or “our eomma” when it’s my stepfather’s birthday or my mother’s birthday. Not my but our.

My joy is our joy, my grief is our grief, my triumph is our triumph. Everything is our and hibiscus petals line the way to our home from wherever we are in the world.

[atlasisntdead]

I did something bold, maybe more bold than I thought. I painted my nails black again after some time, except this time I made the ring finger on my left hand a trans flag, and on the right hand a bi flag. Figured, most people don't even know those flags here, except the ones that are also queer or accepting. Well some girl that was at work for a few days for an event, ending with today, was talking to me, and she was like "I saw your nails, do you have another name perhaps?" and I was like "oh shit, gotta talk about it now". Well at least she's an ally, but damn even still it felt so awkward and unfamiliar and not great. Thankfully I don't ever have to see her again... but it just reminds me how unconventional I am. Even for a trans person. How do I explain why I didn't pick a name in my language?

I am just resentful towards this place. It always felt hostile and now ik why. I just wanna leave eventually and have a fresh start with my girlfriend in another country, where I can be whoever I want. I won't ever deny my country of origin, sure, if anything I'll gladly share it, but that's all it is to me: a country of origin. I wanna leave and never look back. If it was up to this place and culture I wouldn't be alive rn. No amount of individual allies will make up for the culture being hostile and violent towards queer people. Don't get me started on the general attitude towards mental health. I will never forgive and forget how miserable it made me to grow up here. So yeah, my name is Atlas. Enduring. Holding the weight of the world. Very fitting. And cool honestly. I wish I was able to be someone more normal but I don't think that'll ever be possible again. Maybe that's for the best. I used to try being more normal until I went through hell repeatedly and I'm just really so done. I want a new life without erasing the hell that will never not be a part of me. Atlas. Enduring. But it's kinda more like a past life. I want a new life. I want to actually live this time. I reached out for help here and no one helped me. Some made things worse. Overall this place did nothing but remind me why I always keep to myself. I have to look elsewhere. And I will.

[lesser-mook]

She Said: Hollywood's Humiliating #metoo Disaster

28:00 Absolute Ego-trip, you get rid of powerful men, only for men to still build the skyscrapers you work in anyway, soooooo where’s the W when men are still carrying the team anyway. 

And why is it always W “for women”, like you lovable chumps are a different species or some shit. A W for women is W for everyone lmfao. 

Be careful of divisionary language.  (which I will mention later)

You wanna get more women working in sewers or in Power Plants or Welding? Or the only W for women is when sitting their tush in comfy office seats while men are still one’s actually making the country function on mass doing jobs we don’t even know exist. Hold men accountable at their worst, and we all really need to remember what a Man is at his best while the country’s lights are still on & various other securities have been maintained because of those creatures called “males”, you’re fucking welcome btw.

Better start counting those blessings and be humble, all of us. 

God’s greatest curses to women were the womb and the attention of men, his greatest gift to this day is the honor to deliver life and the fact that men give a single shit about women at the expense of men (Yes I basically said the same thing twice, that’s the point). 

And the fact that that fuck to give is 100% involuntary so even when dealing with women is logically counterproductive in every way, men can’t turn it off and want to want women anyway. 

And you want to know the tragic sick part of that statement/divisionary language I just asserted “ even when dealing with women is logically counterproductive in every way”, that’s only the case- because on a cultural level- You guessed it:

The disconnect is all manufactured/forced/unnatural tension meant to drive you apart and plant the seed to resent resent resent, and you don’t even know why, but the things you read and see tells you that you should. 

(When in reality in a lot of workplaces: it’s chill when people allow themselves to just let the social process flow naturally, and stop second guessing everything.)

When men aren’t having as many families because they’re weighing the risk vs reward of even dealing with the women of their own homeland, that IS  A SERIOUS PROBLEM. And that’s not Men or women’s fault, you point the finger at your culture, society, the village. Why are men walking away? And please list a reason that doesn’t involve disrespecting men or insinuating men are lacking in some way & women are just ahead (came out the womb at 99LVL) because that attitude is part of what got you here, gaslighting around the goddamn issue, making men the issue 24/7, division division division.

The division It’s not natural family, it’s orchestrated. That’s part of the plan baby. 

Women in nature are not counterproductive to a man, you better believe it.

All of this negativity, coaching women to reject advances, be spooked if a man so much as say good morning and planting seeds of resentment in men because women seem entitled while providing next to nothing and ungrateful for shit they don’t even know men die doing on a daily basis.

It’s all orchestrated, it’s not natural. Men and women together is the design, it’s what builds a country to begin with.

This corrosive culture is what you get when people on top controlling what you read and watch- are trying their goddamn hardest to go against the intended design of the universe.

I repeat, that’s the beauty of this film:

  26:25 Before we ask "What If women ran the world-", Look at MeToo's body count, look at the anti-human responses, and see how some women can't handle authority on a small scale. 

Hell look at cancel mobs, Witch Hunts of old victimized women, cancel culture is the creation of women and simulates witch hunts, like what the hell.

A cancel mob is a form of social authority, if you can’t even handle that, why the hell do we think we wouldn’t end up in a war with women in charge? 

So imagine that shit on a National level but you wanna tell me if women were in charge we’d be all Kumbaya? Oh fuuuuuck all the way off, if you think women are these pacifists out the womb you’ve never had to live with more than one woman at the same time in your life.

Strife & ego is a human thing, not a man thing. Women are often just way more subtle about it than men which is why men get reported more on mass.

It’s not that female pedo’s don’t exist for Chris Hansen to catch, they’re just smarter than the male pedo’s lmfao.

36:10 Again, the disconnect in the workplace it's not an accident, that’s the point. The division is the entire point. Not talking to each other, women are being weaponized against men, breaking men like dogs, making men distant from women, that's the entire fucking point. Wake up. A movement for justice became an egotrip, to serve only disconnect. Which hurts women anyway.

That's the punchline.

Social-Engineering, watch those birthrates plummet baby.

Down down down, weaker and weaker country. Weaker superpower, weaker, rival. Awfully convenient for any who’d love to see your land crumble.

Surprised after 50 years your Gov. doesn’t take more steps to encourage more stronger family units & fix the sex disconnect (Because better culture mean better sex relations, means one more step toward better national prosperity), hmm almost as if-.

[bookoformon]

Ether 15: 12-15. "The Ethnos."

The struggle between innocence, Coriantumr, and Shiz, guilt continues as Ether "the place" shudders in between. Nothing so far has permanently resolved the differences between the two. Even though there are Christian churches on every corner of every town and city in this country, still a bunch of scoundrels are being allowed to run things.

That is because we think our ethos, the basis of the word for Ether is to be a violent, ruthless, corrupt, out of control, narcisstic, worthless culture.

"The familiar noun εθνος (ethnos; hence our word "ethnic"), describes a group of humans with a singular identifying culture, a nation: a human ecosystem with its own signature concerns and financial currency. In translations of the New Testament this word is often rendered as pagans, gentiles or even heathens, but this is a mistake. Our word serves as synonym of the Hebrew word גוי (goy), meaning people or nation, which was also applied to Israel (Exodus 19:6, see JOHN 11:51-52).

Our noun εθνος (ethnos) means "nation" but with a very strong emphasis on the language that's spoken (rather than some arbitrary lines on a map, and an arbitrary capital were a gang of violent men collect taxes). A "nation" is language basin: a non-centralized collective of people who speak the same language and exchange the same stories. This important word is used 165 times in the New Testament."

As mentioned in a prior frame, our National Basin has chunks and clumps of turds floating in it. Even though the whole house smells like shit, finding someone to push the button and flush them has been impossible. Baffling.

So the wars will come and go but America will go on. What will change its face? Read on:

12 And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether.

13 And it came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who were for Coriantumr were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz were gathered together to the army of Shiz.

14 Wherefore, they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive.

15 And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children—both men, women and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war—they did march forth one against another to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not.

A fight will not change the face of the nation. Nor would it change if President Biden said he was going to enforce all the laws the country has been neglecting to enforce and put all the turd under their headstones where they belong. There would be resentment and rebellion and righteousness would not prevail.

The Prophet says even if we cover our hearts and heads with the Words of God, if we cannot recognize how unhappy our politics make us and desire to be happy once again, our politics will always fail us.

Happy persons do not become troubled at the thought of being good and kind. This is the way of the wicked. So the only way to conquer the army of unhappiness is to perform the Sacraments and listen to every word, especially the Benediction, found in Numbers 6:

‘“The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 12: And it came to pass they gathered together all who had not been slain. The Number is 6453, ו‎ד‎הג, "and so on."

v. 13: And the people were gathered for the army. The Number is 10405, י‎דאֶפֶסה‎, "I will print a printer." Every religion teaches when the world cannot rightly guide itself a prophet will appear and warn it.

Humanity has decided not to obey God and has become lawless, violent, and corrupt. We are violating the Law and the laws with reckless abandon, billions are suffering as a result, and their cries are going unheard.

The Book of Revelation says when too many martyrs cry out for justice, God will become angry with us and seek His retribution:

Fifth Seal: The Cry of the Martyrs, from Revelation 5:

9 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

For every hair on every Jewish, Ukrainian, Iraqi, Iranian, African gay or female head those fucking Republicans and Mormons have harmed, there needs to be a recompense. And it must be a horrible recompense. They have to pay for what they have done.

v. 14: The Prophet says we shall not enter the Fourth Year, the Age of Reason as a country while the shitty people live. So they have to go. The Number is 13032, יגאֶפֶסגב‎‎ ‎, yagafesgave, "a limb that will back you up."

=

The Constitution, the UN Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights etc. documents that support freedom and the pursuit of happiness are the real prophets in our word. Infractions within these must be taken seriously. The RVW overturn was a big mistake. This ruined many lives and will do so again today because we have no pride or dignity in this nation, we have shown it by allowing chimpanzees to run things, and it would have been so easy to stop them from causing harm but no one wanted to bother.

When the Secret Service called me during my visit to the Horror Hotel and asked me why I was threatening Mike Pence's life I nearly ripped the asshole's head off.

Lindsey Graham, who saw me on the street said, "for what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to go through that" but did he go to the police or is he helping rid us of Donald Trump, no. Not a word has he uttered.

The DC MPD, after I complained said, "nyeahhhh!" Meaning "just because we understand doesn't mean we care."

= October 7, 2023.

President Trump has a history with an international terrorist regime cannot partake in another election. His relationships with domestic organized criminals like the Mormons and Evangelicals exclude him from participating in another election. This must be acknowleged immediately by the American people...why has this not happened?

v. 15: They did march forth but conquer, they did not.

The Number is 16233, י״וב‎גג, "the roof."

Love, not like conquers hate. If you are a politician and you don't have sufficient a soft spot for humanity to actually do your job, go jerk coffee somewhere instead.

"But me and my true love, we will never meet again."

-Edmund White.

Our leaders have lately been speaking of threats to Democracy except it is the Democracy that is the problem. So long as people and their countries are incapable of being just governmnet by the people has no value. The reason we have decided to be just has to do with our desire to comply with the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. Obeying these are how we show God His love in return. If this love can't be felt through justice within Democracy, then surely God, the roof over our heads is not there.

[darth-rainbow]

Some points were made but that is such a Western/European (and honestly coming judgemental) point of view.

Not all of us have the privilege to go into museums and see their culture represented.

Not all of all have the opportunity to talk to elders, not necessarily ours but some who know of our culture.

Not all of us even have the chance to know of our mother tongue. (And then how do you communicate with the people who only speak that language?)

Children of immigrants have been taught to fit in, we've been raised to blend into a society where people don't look like us or sound like we naturally would in our home country. Our parents didn't leave for no reason, the past there isn't always recalled fondly, the family still there is one they can both miss and feel resentment, ire or have to deal with the trauma that was created still. And our parents came to make a better life, so we would have a better life. They expected of us to learn the codes of the new world/country and adapt so that we could make that life for ourselves.

My God, so what if I consume English content, what if I speak English, what if I have assimilated the English cultured and feel estranged from mine? Western colonisers went out of their way to impose their way of living, their language, their culture on the rest of the world and it worked. It's in every parcel of our existence. We shouldn't have to apologize for trying to fit in.

Am I not allowed to feel confused and estranged from my roots? Am I not allowed to see it as foreign when it is foreign? Am I not allowed to feel negative emotions when I think of those roots when they were stolen, hidden or estranged from me by the world we live in? Some aspects might feel ludicrous or cringey because of the way I was raised, yes it is something I need to unlearn but boy, if someone were to make me feel bad for feeling that way it wouldn't help me process my emotions.

It's a process to learn who you are. It's even harder for those who were uprooted. I didn't choose the English tongue, it was forced in my mouth the moment I had to partake in society. Because if I want to be heard by the widest audience I have to use it.

I am French, not by roots but by upbringing. French is my 'mother tongue' when I fill in papers, but it's still the coloniser's tongue. I know it as a black beninese woman. Yet, I do choose to identify as French too, when you ask that will come first. But when I am here on Tumblr, it isn't French I use, is it? Why? Because English is the standard. It's already hard enough to learn and accept the codes of the international society, don't blame people already exhausted by living for not going out of the way for doing more.

Yes, there are words to explore out there and it's never wrong to learn more about the culture of your country of origin. But neither is it wrong to assimilate to the country you live in and feel detached from your roots. There is also inherently are divides between who you feel you are, who society tells you you are or should aspire to be, who you family wants you to be/become. It is difficult to find that balance and sometimes self-hatred has to be unlearned.

Don't be the judging voice in someone's life. Be the encouraging one. We already are our own judgemental little voyeurs. The world don't need more of those.

Aaaaanyways, maybe I was just waffling.

"i don't feel connected to my culture"

You spend all of your time online speaking in english, only reading books in english and watching tv shows in english. You don't go to museums or visit historical buildings in your town, you don't question people older about their lives about how they used to live. You dislike the folk clothing of your people because you do not educate yourself about it. You find tradition "cringy" or gross.

At some point you have to realize that no one will teach you about your culture if you do not seek that knowledge out.

[nicklloydnow]

“Although Améry was not religious and had no connection to Israeli culture or language, the existence of the State of Israel was for him ‘more important than any other’ (Améry 2005a: 134). For him, Israel meant that Jews, wherever they lived, could find shelter from antisemitism, which was crucial after the experience of Auschwitz. He defines being a Jew not by religion or race, but by the common threat of antisemitism. It is a distinctively negative definition.

In Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne Améry described the unbearable tension between what he calls the compulsion and the impossibility of being a Jew. Not seeing oneself as a Jew, yet being made one ‘from the outside’, so to speak, constitutes the tension. It was not until the anti-Jewish racial laws enacted by the Nazis in 1935 that Améry fully understood that it was not his choice to define who is and who is not Jewish, but rather the choice of the antisemite. This reversal was not new, but the Nuremberg Laws gave an alarming new dimension to it. After the experience of the Shoah Améry never again trusted promises to protect the Jews. He remained wide-awake and could not cast off his seismographic sensitivity to the continued, if disguised, existence of antisemitism.

Améry offered two reasons for the ‘existential binding’ every Jew has to the State of Israel, whether he believes in Zionism or not (Améry 2005d: 165). First, Israel allows Jews not to depend on the external image imprinted on them. ‘It is the country where the Jew may be a farmer not loan shark, soldier not pale scribe, craftsman and not agent.’ (Améry 2005d: 165). This also implies for all Jews in the diaspora. Israel is the reason that enables them to be equally humans like their fellow citizens. Second, antisemitism, and threat of death it carried, did not disappear when the allies defeated the German death machinery in 1945. Améry did not suggest that every Jew should leave their native country and emigrate to Israel. His concern is the ‘possibility to find shelter’ (Améry 2005d: 166). If the Jewish State perished it would ‘leave her inhabitants nothing left but the butcher knife of the enemy’ (Améry 2005d: 167).

I have already noted that Améry wrote in 1969 that ‘Anti-Zionism contains antisemitism like a cloud contains a storm’ (Améry 2005a: 133). Anti-Zionism was the new ‘honorable antisemitism’ that was now turned against Israel as the object of the same old and dangerous resentments (Améry 2005a: 133). The ‘emotional infrastructure’ and the psychological mechanisms of the antisemites remained the same (Améry 2005a: 133f). Antisemitism, to Améry, had nothing to do with the Jews and everything to do with the antisemites who were engaged in psychological projection.

Améry observes that the victim of antisemitism suffers, while the antisemite, the one with the actual psychological ‘disorder’, does not feel psychological strain: ‘I know that what oppresses me is no neurosis, but rather, precisely, reflected reality.’ (Améry 1980: 96) In psychoanalytic terms, antisemitism may be understood as an illness. And yet, it is no actual disorder because the antisemite is never impaired by it. It is modern society itself, which dialectically brings the antisemitic mindset forward. For the potential victim of antisemitism the choice is either an accommodation with or a revolt against this reality. However, he or she always has to expect what lies in the wait. Hence Améry writes his warning: ‘But since the sentence passed on me by the madmen can, after all, be carried out at any moment, it is totally binding, and my own mental lucidity is entirely irrelevant.’ (Améry 1980: 96)

After the Shoah, Jew-hatred changed its constitution. While physical attacks on Jews still existed, and are even increasing in recent years, it’s most virulent form today is anti-Zionism. It is not as easy to recognise, although the motives and even the stereotypes remain the same. Adapted to present-day circumstances and articulated in ways that are socially acceptable, at least in certain circles, antisemitism today is often the storm contained within the cloud of anti-Zionism. While open hostility to Jews remains on the far right and Islamic parts of the political spectrum, anti-Zionist resentment in Western countries is widespread. The new antisemite refuses to see himself as an antisemite. He proudly identifies as an anti-Zionist and thinks that thereby he has preserved his honor. But Améry points out that ‘the classical phenomenon of antisemitism takes a new shape. The old continues to exist. That is what I call co-existence’ (Améry 2005a: 131). Furthermore, he sees the new antisemitism today as more dangerous than the old, right-wing antisemitism that was and still is, easy to identify. In the 1960s Améry was reminded of National Socialist Europe: the call for the death of Jews, this time Zionists, was getting louder. He doubted that historical education could help abolish antisemitic prejudice because ‘anti-Zionism is nothing else than the update of the age-old, ineradicable, completely irrational Jew hatred’ (Améry 2005d: 162).

(…)

In modern antisemitic ideology, the moral mantra of the Left – to always be on the side of the weak against the mighty – gets upended. The antisemitic delusion attributes enormous power to the Jews, and the new antisemitism repeats the delusion for Israel. While Israel is faced with annihilation at the hands of hostile neighbours that outnumber her, Israel is imagined by the Left to be an almighty oppressor and is therefore seen as its natural enemy (see Améry 2005a: 137f). Améry does not euphemise the suffering of the Palestinians but stresses Israel’s fight is for survival and a ‘safe bunker for the Jews outside of Israel’ (Améry 2005b: 147). The Jews from the Arab countries would long have been ‘tragically drowned’ if it was not for the Jewish State they escaped to in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Améry 2005b: 147). And yet, the Left today does not mobilise when it comes to actual crimes against humanity in Syria, Iraq or Iran, but when the Israeli army strikes back against rockets from Gaza, the Left-led demonstrations are huge.

Left-wing antisemitism pained Améry: ‘How did it come about that Marxist-dialectical thinking gives itself away to prepare the genocide of tomorrow?’ (Améry 2005b: 142) He tried to find answers. He thought there was a ‘generation problem’ (Améry 2005b: 143). The New Left was young not only on a theoretical field but also as people. Most had not witnessed the Nazi-past. Therefore, argued Améry, they failed to see what was specific to National Socialism: eliminationist antisemitism (see Améry 2005b: 143). Instead, the New Left falsely subsumed National Socialism under the heading of fascism and ignored the eliminatory antisemitism. In short, the vast majority of the Left does not make the Shoah, the irrational extermination of Jews, a point of reference for their social theory. They do not see the inherent threat of death carried by antisemitism and its differences to racism and other forms of group-related enmity. They view Israel as an aggressor against the Palestinian Arabs and they declare solidarity with the allegedly weak against the strong. Antisemitism in the shape of anti-Zionism becomes acceptable, or in Améry’s words ‘honorable’.

(…)

Améry brings to mind what it means to translate Theodor W. Adorno’s categorical imperative – ‘Mankind has to arrange their thoughts and actions so that Auschwitz will not repeat itself, so that nothing similar will happen’ – into concrete terms (Adorno 2003: 358). The Shoah is the brutal manifestation of a society in which we can trust neither reason nor the self-preservation drive of perpetrators. Eliminationist antisemitism constituted the core of Nazi ideology, which is why even when the tide of the Second World War turned against Germany, it remained the regime’s priority. The mania went so far that even when the war was foreseeably lost, the killing of Jews did not stop until the total defeat of the Germans. The Nazis were willing to sacrifice themselves in order to eliminate what they saw as ‘world Judaism’. In contrast to other horrible and cruel genocides, the Shoah is unprecedented because of this absence of instrumental reason. That is why a new categorical imperative after Auschwitz is required. Kant’s and at a later date Marx’s categorical imperative are no longer sufficient. Today, we also need Adorno’s.

History has shown that Jews cannot rely on others to come to their rescue and that the existence of a Jewish State is essential to prevent a new Shoah. Because of this, Israel differs from every other state in the world. Today, believed Jean Améry, ‘Who questions Israel’s right to exist is either too stupid to see that he engages in the realisation of a new Auschwitz or he consciously aims at this new Auschwitz.’”

“According to Dr. Roy Ben-Shai, who teaches philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and has studied Améry’s works, what is exceptional about Améry’s work is his integration of philosophical and literary writing and personal testimony.

“There is added value to a philosophical examination of traditional values and concepts in light of personal experience in a limit situation, such as incarceration in a concentration camp,” Ben-Shai observes. “Améry uses his experience as a victim to check and revise philosophical values and ideas, hence his importance not only as a Holocaust survivor writing testimony but also as a philosopher.”

Améry did not strive to offer an objective analysis that would explain the Nazi regime. In fact, as he maintains in “At the Mind’s Limits,” the Nazi regime as such did not especially interest him. “I can do no more than give testimony,” he wrote. His interest lay in the victims of the Third Reich. The book, as he explains in the preface, is a phenomenological description of the existence of the victim. Central to that existence was the Nazi regime’s striving to deprive the victims of their human dignity. “Dignity” is not a self-evident term, and Améry’s understanding of the concept changed during the writing of the book.

“I don’t know if the person who is beaten by the police loses human dignity,” he writes in the essay entitled “Torture,” adding, “Yet I am certain that with the very first blow that descends on him he loses something we will perhaps temporarily call ‘trust in the world.’”

(…)

According to Améry, human dignity is an essential ethical value that the Nazi project sought to eradicate. Its negation is manifested first and foremost by the threat of death, which he himself felt for the first time with complete clarity in 1935, when the Nuremberg Laws took effect in Germany. The ultimate denial of human dignity is the knowledge that your life, as a persecuted person, is constantly at risk. Améry, who was not raised as a Jew, only discovered his Jewishness following the anti-Semitic incidents he was subjected to. Twenty years later, he draws a straight line between the Nuremberg Laws and the Final Solution, but the humiliation of the Jews, according to Améry, began long before Auschwitz. For him, the loss of human dignity was expressed in his expulsion from his community, his culture and his state, and the experience of being homeless. After enduring arbitrary detentions, severe torture and, finally, for a year, life in Auschwitz, Améry grasped that one needs a homeland – precisely so that he will not be in need of one. A homeland, he explains, confers security, protection and belonging, the same familiarity that is conferred by use of one’s mother tongue.

One of Améry’s central arguments is that in order to be human beings we need the consent and recognition of society: Being a human being entails being a member of a particular nation, a member of an “identifiable social group,” as he writes. The Jews, however, had become a foreign element in their own country, and their faces and figures had become hideous loathsome and repugnant to those around them. “We were not worthy of love and thus also not of life,” he adds in an essay called “On the Necessity and Impossibility of Being a Jew.”

The meaning of human dignity can be gleaned by inverting the identification formulated by Améry: If the deprivation of human dignity is the deprivation of life (that is, the threat of death), then human dignity is the right to life. One’s dignity can be bestowed only by society. At the same time, Améry believes that a person who has been deprived of his human dignity and who faces the danger of death, “can convince society of his dignity by taking his fate upon himself and at the same time rising in revolt against it.”

(…)

“Améry presents a very analytical picture of torture, but it stems from his very personal experience,” says Dr. Rachel Stroumsa, the director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. “Even though it’s been more than 50 years since the essay was written, I don’t know of any other work that penetrates the essence of torture so precisely and sharply. And especially in light of the insight that torture is not only a matter of physical pain, but that it breaks and crushes fundamentally and irreparably a person’s trust in himself and in the framework of our life. This is the insight that the first slap – though from the outside it doesn’t look to us like the worst thing – causes irreparable damage. There is no enlightened torture.”

(…)

Although Améry’s message is universal, his Jewishness is evident on every page of “At the Mind’s Limits.” Like that of many European Jews who grew up in assimilated or mixed families, his Jewishness was based on his experience of being persecuted during the Holocaust. His Jewish identity, he admits, was imposed on him by an elemental force. That identity is defined by a negation: “Every day anew I lose my trust in the world. The Jew without positive determinants, the Catastrophe Jew… must get along without trust in the world.” For him, his identity as a Jew manifests as infinite existential fear. “[B]eing a Jew,” he writes, “not only means that I bear within me a catastrophe that occurred yesterday and cannot be ruled out for tomorrow” – in other words, it follows that to be a Jew is to know fear.

Two decades after the end of World War II, Améry writes about the number tattooed on his arm, “On my left forearm I bear the Auschwitz number; it reads more briefly than the Pentateuch or the Talmud and yet provides more thorough information. It is also more binding than basic formulas of Jewish existence. If to myself and the world… I say: I am a Jew, then I mean by that those realities and possibilities that are summed up in the Auschwitz number… Every morning when I get up I can read the Auschwitz number on my forearm, something that touches the deepest and most closely intertwined roots of my existence; indeed I am not even sure that this is not my entire existence.”

During his incarceration in Auschwitz, Améry succeeded, even if only for a moment, in regaining his human dignity by rebelling against the existing order, in which Jewish inmates were on the lowest rung of the camp’s hierarchy. A year before his suicide, he still defined himself as a rebel, but his revolt could not heal the pain. He wrote this in 1976, in the preface to a new edition of “At the Mind’s Limits”: “I rebel: against my past, against history, and against a present that places the incomprehensible in the cold storage of history and thus falsifies it in a revolting way. Nothing has healed, and what was already on the point of healing in 1964 is bursting open again as an infected wound.”

Like Tadeusz Borowski and Paul Celan before him, and like Primo Levi after him, Jean Améry, too, could not bear the burden of the past. He lost his homeland and remained lost; his trust in the world decimated, he was fated to live within his alienation. Despite his attempts to overcome the defeat – through confession and by bearing testimony – he remained a defeated person. In 1978, two years after publishing the book “On Suicide,” in which he wrote about the act of suicide as a choice that expressed one’s free will, he put an end to his life.”

“At the Mind’s Limits is titled in German Jenseits von Schuld und Sühne, “Beyond Guilt and Atonement,” a play on Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. The book contains an essay in praise of ressentiment, the feeling that Nietzsche found poisonous, since it was the key to the “slave morality” he abhorred.

Nietzsche savages ressentiment, while Améry clings to it. Ressentiment, Améry writes, “nails every one of us onto the cross of his ruined past ... it desires two impossible things: regression into the past and nullification of what happened.” Améry knew that ressentiment “blocks the exit to the genuine human dimension, the future.” Yet he could not break away from it. In an essay on Améry, W.G Sebald remarked that “for the victims of persecution” like Améry, “the thread of chronological time is broken, background and foreground merge, the victim’s logical means of support in his existence are suspended.” Ressentiment is the height of illogic, since it both insists on and rebels against the one terrible fact, one’s “ruined past.”

Améry was a sensitive and ambivalent reader of Nietzsche, who, he said in another essay, “still excites us today ... but also irritates us.” Nietzsche’s “powerful, suggestive eloquence,” he argued,

constantly runs the risk of becoming mere loquaciousness; his inclination to megalomania; the intensity of his style, which always borders on a sometimes rather dubious lyricism; his polemical force, which all too easily obscures the actual meaning of the statement; the specifically Nietzschean misanthropy, which the psychologist may trace to a lack of love (since Nietzsche’s love for others went unrequited); the verbal excess that still today fascinates some thinkers, while others are struck with fear and trembling when they contemplate such intemperateness.

Améry’s characterizations of Nietzsche apply spectacularly well to himself. Like Nietzsche, Améry had polished Old World manners. One friend said he could picture him in a powdered wig, a man of the Enlightenment. But the charm was a cover for the loneliness that haunted Améry as it did Nietzsche. Like Nietzsche, Améry’s eloquence is constantly on the verge of loquaciousness. He is intemperate by nature, and he knows it.

Yet Nietzsche’s case was utterly different from Améry’s. Améry was sentenced to death because he was a Jew. Nietzsche never imagined such a fate, neither for the Jews nor for anyone else. In the camps, death was a banal fact, Améry insisted. There was no place for the yearning, alienated soul championed by German Romanticism.

A self-described man of the left, Améry was appalled that young Germans of the 1970s were taking sides with the Arab forces intent on erasing Israel’s Jews from the face of the Earth. In 1969 Améry wrote about the left’s “virtuous antisemitism,” cloaked (then as now) in the false postcolonial colors of anti-Zionism. “Antisemitism resides in anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism as the thunderstorm does in the cloud, and it has become respectable again,” he commented.

Améry described his own “virtually nonexistent,” yet all-important, relation to Israel thus:

I have never been there. I do not speak its language, how little I know of its culture borders on the embarrassing, and its religion is not mine. And yet, the existence of no other state means more to me.

Every Jew, Améry stressed, “lives off this achievement,” the existence of Israel. “It gives him a proper place in the world, whether he admits this to himself or not,” even if he thinks himself “wholly French or wholly American.” Three months before the Six-Day War, in June 1967, Améry said about himself, “Since there is talk of driving the Israelis into the sea, he is no longer a leftist intellectual but merely a Jew. For Auschwitz lies behind him, and the hoped-for Auschwitz II on the Mediterranean may well lie ahead ...”

Améry would visit Israel once, in 1976. In that year, he argued that the Arab-Israeli conflict “no longer bears the slightest resemblance to “normal” territorial disputes. It is pure Streicher. ... If Israel were destroyed, he asserted, “The world would again react as it did after 1933, when underpopulated states like Canada and Australia closed their doors to the Jews as if they were carriers of the plague.”

Améry’s reminder is timely these days. Anti-Zionism is once again acceptable cover for antisemitism. For strategic reasons, the Biden administration is again pursuing a deal with Iran that will leave that country on the brink of fielding nuclear weapons—making the threat to Israel’s existence greater than at any time since 1948.

(…)

In 1976 Améry published On Suicide, his most disturbing book, and his most self-contradictory. He argues against efforts to prevent suicide, which for him is a legitimate choice. He frequently uses the German term Freitod (free death) rather than Selbstmord (self-murder), the usual term for suicide. Killing oneself, he insists, is not just escape, but liberation. The illogic of suicide, like that of ressentiment, lures Améry, and his writing becomes excited, even manic.

(…)

Améry wrote in On Suicide that killing oneself is a fact “much too horrible to be lamented.” The horror, he added, resides in a contradiction: The suicide seems to be saying I die, therefore I am. On Oct. 10, 1978, in a Salzburg hotel room, Améry took his own life. He left a farewell letter to his wife saying “I am on the way to freedom.” “I feel, like poor Charles, ‘terrible’ when I think of you, and am wretched,” Améry wrote. “But you have always understood me ...”

Ending his own existence was Améry’s most decisive blow against what the Nazis inflicted on him, since it released him from that trauma, but it was also a blow against himself. His tombstone in Vienna bears only his name, his dates of birth and death, and the number tattooed on his forearm—Auschwitz Nr.172364.”

[beautifularcadehottub]

queer and foreign in your own country

When I was 6, my parents made the decision to leave the country and move to another country. We never really talked about the decision after settlling down and i have always struggled with finding my identity since then.  In two days i am returning to my home citiy warsaw and i already know that i never want to leave again. All these years living in Germany i have been so grateful for this turn of events, looking at the current state of my home country  And as a Queer person it is definitely safer for me to be where i am today, But I still miss being among people who speak the same language as I do, who share the same culture, who know all the dishes I love to eat at Christmas with my younger sibling. 

When I listen to polish music there is always a part of me feeling like somehow i am not enough to be part of my culture. Like i am an imposter in my own country despite living my culture every single day.

I am very grateful for the life I have but I yearn for the life i couldn’t have. I am proud of what my parents endured to make life easier for me and my sister. But at the same time I resent them for doing it.

[melanywrites]

Chapter 4: “El Privilegio of my Life”

I googled “best education system in the world” and the first thing that popped up was an article by “usnews.com” stating the United States as the first. I beg to differ, although, I will admit to my own privilege: being born American. I have to acknowledge this privilege before attempting to dissect the education system in the United States. What does it mean to be American? One click lead me to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website. So, “what are the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship?” according to their official website, the first benefit is voting, directly after; bringing family members to the United States and providing citizenship for children born abroad, traveling around the world, obtaining federal job, becoming an official, and "showing your patriotism". They directly advertise what many immigrants dream of doing, “the American dream”, obtaining a life in the US and eventually helping their families abroad or bringing them to the US as well. They don’t speak about the hurdles you have to jump, the applications, the lawyers, the years of waiting, and all the money spent for that affirming piece of paper. My mother waited 12 years for it, my father 8, more than $40,000 in combined expenses. I never had a college fund.

I was pressured to do well in school, whipped when I failed, never rewarded for small accomplishments because my only job was to “get good grades so you can be someone that doesn’t have to work as hard as me” and I don’t blame my parents or hold resentments. I’ve learned that the problem with our education system runs deeper than the demand for good grades to “make it”, in fact, without money or connections your grades and degrees mean nothing at all. My parent’s purpose, like many other parents who left their lives behind, was to allow us the privilege of education that perhaps they did not have. My mother never finished middle school, she got here when she was 14 years old, by herself. My father never started college, he was 18 when he arrived and lived with 10 roomates in a two bedroom apartment. When I was 14 years old, I got my first golden honor roll for good grades and no absences. When I was 18 I started college and now I’m about to graduate with my bachlor’s degee in English and Literature. Ironically, mi primer idioma es el Español. 

Being bilingual has its own set of privileges. My parents tried to erase their accents, the ones that tie them back to their land. I don’t have a Spanish accent, and I fell in love with the sound of my adopted tongue, so I made it a mission to pratice the melody of both. At first, the purpose of my English degree was to help family members and loved ones who don’t speak English translate what they wanted to say. Later, it became something deeper, a passion, and my target audience grew, I wanted to help other students, I wanted to educate, I wanted to help the world, I decided I wanted to become a professor and published author. I was only allowed to come this far because God blessed me with the privilege of being born American and speaking two languages. God also blessed my parents on their trip here, and perhaps by extension I can return those blessings back to them.

Not everyone has this basic privilege. Mi prima Mari pays 6 grand every semester for tuition towards her degree. She’s forced to take breaks in between because she has to save most of her check to pay off that debt. No one said it was impossible but they sure do make it harder. She has never missed a day, and always gets the As, but she was not born here. She cannot travel with her friends for spring break, she cannot work a federal job, and she gets rejected because of her status so our education system fails her but still takes her money. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website says “America becomes stronger when all of its citizens respect the different opinions, cultures, ethnic groups, and religions found in this country. Tolerance for differences is also a responsibility of citizenship” but the United States of America doesn't seem to tolerate differences or support the progress of those working towards that citizenship or a future here. El privilegio of my life is being able to express these thoughts openly, it is your job to acknowledge your own privilege and to redefine it by using the tools life gives you to better the world, be a good person, and above all. love God, yourself, humanity, nature, and each other.