#also propaganda is a word that could be used to describe most of what children are taught in schools

[musicfranchisetournament]

propaganda under the cut !!

paradox live :

ive seen my friends talk about it and also theres this really pretty girl i thibk her name is anne? i wanna kiss her mwah

The world is set in the future where the hip hop artists have these cool Phantom Metals that produce cool illusions as they perform with the downside of the performers reliving their worst trauma after using it. Every group has their own theme, aesthetic, and music style Every character has canon trauma which perfect for angst Found family It's still going on They do April Fools on the fandom every year (2024 being an ad for a cat game)

charisma house :

genuinely what the fuck. i don't think i've seen a song franchise as bonkers as charisma house and i doubt i ever will. it's so entertaining and the characters are all unhinged in the best way possible. none of them are 100% good people at the end of the day and i think this just makes the whole ordeal even funnier. are you kidding me you have some random 19 yo who invites people to go live in a random house one day and they just go. the songs are so so good (most of the time. stares at my two exceptions) and whenever it's a full group song? they're always parodies of another common popular song which is so funny to me every time i hear them. i love charisma house and will defend it to the days end

It's so silly and entertaining:) the songs are sick and super catchy . The visuals are super unique .. and the concept of these eccentric crazy guys all living in a house together with the power of charisma has some super hilarious interactions.  Also charisma is the power that can save the world.. and if these guys get too overpowered with their charisma they go through yugioh style transformations and break out into song... so there is that little detail<3

they're just ordinary guys. music part aside the story is funny until it gets serious and then it's funny AND heartwrenching. music part?? group songs are based on nursery rhymes and they fucking suck but also go so hard. their solo songs all have their own genres and they're so. Aodhajhfhdhfbd Stream viva la liberation. 

Funny gay people living in a house together and all their songs parody children's songs, and all their music videos are like Cocomelon on crack. They're funny and they have a lovely found family dynamic. Very silly guys, I'm so normal about them.

Never in my life have i seen a piece of media change me this much as a person while doing the bare minimum. Perhaps the fact that it is the bare minimum and i still fell for it regardless says more about its power than any words could ever begin to describe. So utterly ridiculous in the most perfect way possible and so weirdly deep in also the best way possible but without forgetting its still fucking ridiculous. The appeal of Charisma House is that its Charisma House, and that same thing manages to be both its strength and its weakness, but its weakness is so grand it ends up becoming a strength, and perhaps its biggest strength by far. Talking about Charisma House makes me feel insane emotions because you cant describe it as good but you still know fully well its not bad either despite that being the easiest way to describe it. Sooner than later after so many episodes you'll end up realizing you have fell in its trap. Once you start caring. Once you start analyzing the miniscule tid bits of plot. Once all of that starts occurring you will soon come to realize you have been another victim of the mystical power Charisma House has on every single person that watches it. Or perhaps you just dont fucking care after 5 episodes and you leave it at that. This is perhaps the best option for everyone in the world. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but the fact that i still do from time to time is because i want everyone else in the world to experience the unknown horrors of this media project until each and every one of them realize they have fallen down a hole they will never be able to escape. also Awwwww ohsebso cute i like ohse aaawwwww so cute 😍

[laundry3taxes]

Hey I’ll be the first to tell Brits to stfu about the U.S. education system. If he was one of those crumpet munching dumbasses making fun of children who die in school shooting I’d be with you. If you’re not the one facing the noose it’s not gallows humor, you’re just a prick. But Gaiman has lived in the states since ‘92. All of his children were educated here. If there’s a Brit who gets to have an opinion about it, it’s someone with his experiences. Doesn’t mean anyone has to agree with him, but he does get to have an opinion on it.

I think we’ll agree to disagree on whether or not proper funding could reform schools, but it seems like you agree that there are oppressive aspects to schools currently, which makes the statement “schools are oppressive tools of the state” accurate. I know you didn’t mean to start A Discourse™️ and I know it feels like an attack on teachers. Trust me, I’ve known enough disillusioned, burned out teachers to understand why you feel that way. Y’all are doing your best.

Still, I’ll never buy into the idea that we shouldn’t criticize institutions if they’re being targeted by conservatives. And I’m surprised that you as a teacher don’t think the U.S. education system wouldn’t benefit from being rebuilt from the ground up, considering how terrible that institution is at teaching children things that aren’t being obedient and working for 8 hours.

I was that child from a poor, non-white family that benefited from free food and a safe place to express myself, but those things came at the cost of internalized racism. You think my teachers treated everyone equally? No, their implicit biases meant that the kids who were less “hood” got more attention. That felt pretty oppressive to me, whether it was intentional or not, and I don’t think it’s a problem that would be fixed simply by throwing money at it.

Anyway I know this was just a quippy line you wrote cause you felt defensive as a teacher, but I don’t see it so much as an attack on teachers as it is an attack on the institutions that reinforce systemic oppression.

i don’t think we clown on neil enough for writing “schools are oppressive tools of the state” like babe that’s not schools. that’s cops. that’s the justice system. schools aren’t oppressive they’re just underfunded xoxo

[intersexbookclub]

Discussion summary: Trans-Intersex studies

On 2023-09-29 we met to discuss our first foray into academic intersex studies! We read three chapters from Transgender and intersex: Theoretical, practical, and artistic perspectives, edited by Stefan Horlacher (2016).

Overall reactions:

Dimitri: I liked there were perspectives I don't normally think about or see

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): I found the Costello chapter really useful because I've wondered why there isn't more trans and intersex connections and this explained it for me

Michelle (@scifimagpie): it tapped into and articulated a larger strain in the queer community “the people who want to have a gender” vs “the people who want to destroy gender, there is a fundamental struggle in that can only be dealt with through tolerance and acceptance

vic: multiple chapters make clear that intersex is made by doctors. This thing happens when you give birth and you don't know what to do and conveniently there’s someone confidently giving you a (usually really bad) answer…  we're foisting off this thing that doctors aren't trained to deal with it properly plus have medical arrogance

Connections to Disability Studies

Though the book was intended to get intersex studies and trans studies in dialogue, we made many connections to disability studies throughout the discussion.

Elizabeth: The book talks about the dynamic that the doctors are the ones who socially construct intersex, which is similar to how doctors contribute to the social construction of disability. 

Elizabeth: And also how in our society, when it comes to who is listened to most on disability/intersex, doctors come first, followed by parents, and it's those of us actually affected who come last (disability/intersex)

Michelle: it was interesting to see the arguments against eugenic abortion… The amount of eugenicist propaganda that's still around in our society, the text addressing the fact that people would abort an intersex foetus didn't surprise me but did alarm me

Elizabeth: Coming from disability studies I felt the question of who is/isn't intersex isn't actually a productive question, in DS we posed those questions for a minute before realizing it's not productive, to instead focus on ableism

Dimitri spoke about the idea of seeing your body as a garden that you tend to, rather than a machine to be fixed, and how it’s been a helpful framing

Michelle: one thing about accepting my intersex identity is that my body isn't broken for having a hormonal imbalance and it's just a way of being

The social and medical models of disability were invoked by Costello in chapter 4, to show contrasting models of intersex (social vs medical) and transness (social vs medical).

-=-=-

Chapter 1: Introduction by Stefan Horlacher, Pages 1-27. 

This chapter gave a brief overview of the state of trans studies and intersex studies, and the motivation for putting these two research areas into dialogue. 

We didn’t talk much about this chapter.

Elizabeth: I personally learnt a new word, repronormativity, from this chapter! Per Wiktionary, it refers to the “assumption that all humans want to have children, especially within the context of a monogamous heterosexual relationship”

vic rather aptly described it as “so GERMAN”

-=-=-

Chapter 4: Intersex and Trans* Communities: Commonalities and Tensions by Cary Gabriel Costello, Pages 83-113

This chapter reports on a sociological study of trans and intersex communities on Second Life, noting commonalities as well as tensions between and within the communities. 

Everybody found this the easiest chapter of the three to read lol 😅

vic: “I really appreciated the breadth of voices that were included. The author clearly has an argument, but still lets people speak. Like with the person who said ‘I'm not intersex’ and the author was like ‘this could come from fragile masculinity’, it was neat.”

Costello’s conceptual framework

To understand both intersex and trans communities, Costello employs a framework which differentiates a:

Medical framework, in which being intersex/trans is framed as “as a biological problem: a physical lack, superfluity, or malfunction” (p98). While Costello doesn’t use the word “truscum”, this is how many of us are used to referring to people who understand transness through this lens.

Identity framework, in which being intersex/trans is “framed as social in nature: social stigma is directed toward those who are in some way physically variant.”

An important insight of this study was that to understand the relationship between the trans and intersex communities, you have to realize there are four communities at play, not two:

Medical framework trans people (truscum)

Identity framework trans people

Medical framework intersex people 

Identity framework intersex people (who are the only ones who use DSD)

And as Dimitri summarized, “the tensions [between the communities] arise in the disorder framework, a lot of the problems lie in the disorder framework, and it's pretty important to make that separation”

In Costello’s study, anti-trans sentiment was linked to the intersex-as-disorder framework 

Costello writes about how the majority of intersex people are trained from birth to employ the disorder framework, which can easily result in anti-trans sentiment. Many intersex people are raised in a way where the slightest gender deviance is punished, and feel threatened by gender deviance. 

Multiple people noted how the intersex participant “Anna” from Costello’s study had misplaced anger at trans people, that it’s unfair to blame trans people for trans fetish porn when trans people have such difficulty getting conventional employment, and that the demand by cis & perisex people is more at issue

Elizabeth: so many intersex people are told they're intersex by a doctor and that they're disordered and the doctor will fix them so they're not given any community because the doctor is like "I'll fix you" and people are just used to the disorder framework because that's what they've only ever seen.

vic: Yeah, being born visibly intersex getting framed as a medical emergency

Elizabeth: really liked the dig that the shame of the parent comes above everything else

Dimitri: many parents don't know what's going on when their intersex baby is born and they're kinda pressured into the surgeries…  the parents might have veered to a more neutral stance on their own, maybe they have some hesitance about having a kid being different, that the surgeries are such a pile-on by everyone around them.... the parents of the kids need their own support, what do the parents need or could have had to make them not make those choices

Similarly, intersexism from trans people was linked to the trans-as-disorder framework

Costello discusses how many disorder-framework trans participants made statements along the lines of wanting to be intersex, or have an “intersex variation of the mind”, mistakenly thinking that this means they may be entitled to free gender affirming therapy (it actually makes it harder to access gender affirming therapy).

Costello explains why this sort of sentiment from trans people is poorly received by intersex people: “It alienates intersex people employing the identity framework by working against their mission to recast physical sex variance as diversity rather than disorder. It alienates intersex people employing the disorder framework by implying that trans-identification [...or] gender-confusion should characterize the intersex person. And the stories told by some trans* people employing the disorder framework about having an impossible intersex history angels intersex people of all camps.” (p107)

Michelle: To be intersex is to have a medicalized gender, and how any gender nonconformity is medicalized… it makes sense why so many trans people would cling onto a misunderstanding of intersex

Michelle: the medicalization of being transgender and you need surgery to fix a flaw in your brain, and the medicalization of intersex, they both need an anti-eugenics approach of let people be a little broken/different

Elizabeth: as a disabled intersex person it's been confusing that trans people would want medicalization like they don't know how terribly medicalized ppl are treated, and the chapter helped me realize they are already medicalized and they're trying to get a more "legitimate" medicalization rather than realizing they’re trying to play a rigged game

vic: transness is medicalized, too–the diagnosis is gender dysphoria and the treatment is transitioning. Also transitioning is only seen as a viable treatment because literally everything else doctors did to “cure” trans people didn’t work (they tried *so* many things). Trans people treating medicalization as something that’s desirable sucks, but I feel so deeply for anyone who was put in a place where that seems like their only option–people who feel like their only way forward is to claim things that don't make any sense. They're like “please, I'll do anything, I'll lie out of my ass, help me”. Those poor people!! And, of course, they also cause harm. It's all so sad. 

Criticisms of Costello’s chapter:

Elizabeth: I felt a weakness was not talking about the hypervisibility of trans people vs the invisibility of intersex people. Like trans people who have huge platforms to talk about gender stuff and should know better than to perpetuate perinormative ideas about sex.

vic: transmascs tend to really minimize our own difficulties. We're not well studied, and when we are, the data consistently shows we have the worst outcomes of any gender (in things like health, mental health, employment…). Disheartening to see Costello buy into it at times.

-=-=-

Chapter 5: Transgender and Intersex: Unavoidable Essentialism and the Normative Struggle for Recognition by Sebastian Jansen, Pages 115-140

High level notes

This chapter makes the argument that it’s impractical, if not impossible, to avoid essentialism of some form when theorizing about sex/gender, and so academic gender studies scholars should spend less time trying to avoid essentialism and focus more on improving the material circumstances for intersex, trans & LGBA+ individuals.

vic: I think they were saying that we can't do it because it can't be done without throwing trans & intersex people under the bus

Elizabeth: ch5 was how I realized that in the social [identity] model of intersex where we see intersex as a natural variation it is essentialism and I'm okay with it thanks to this chapter

We all agreed this was a challenging read. As vic put it: “it was very ‘as you know’ and I didn't know”, and that the author was probably nervous about writing it.

Jansen’s chapter got us talking about the nature of gender

Michelle and vic talked about how finding out truth about gender is building houses on shifting sand

Michelle: I liked the stairwell metaphor [that female is one level of a building, male is another level, and there’s a stairwell in between]... I don't like the idea of female and male in opposition, they are categories, you can be both/neither/change

Elizabeth: I did like how ch5 talked about how gender isn't just a thing in your brain, it's made through interactions of people interpreting your gender in interactions and they didn't talk about euphoria and I think gender euphoria is that feeling of people seeing you for the gender you are

Michelle: [Judith Butler’s]  gender as conversation reminded me of how art and research are forms of conversation... is gender a form of art?? [we then spent some time talking about this]

Elizabeth: I like the idea that gender should be like hair colour - it's there, you can change/experiment with it, it affects how people see you, but we don't organize society around it and I agree that's a good goal

vic: my gender is contextual - it's different depending on whether in an arts context vs. in interacting with landlord, etc

vic: in War & Peace there are four pages spent describing the beauty of a woman with a moustache–Tolstoy waxes quite poetic about how beautiful & beauty-enhancing her moustache is.

Elizabeth: yeah so many cultures see women's mustaches and/or unibrows as beautiful and hate how current Western culture hates hair

Elizabeth: yeah it's SO RECENT the idea that women shave legs, the Gillette company had saturated the men's market and convinced women that their hair is bad

A main critique of Jansen’s chapter was how it only considered Western perspectives

Elizabeth: ch5 was so Western, based on a mind/body dualism and I wanted there to be a discussion of other cultural constructions, like in cultures without mind/body dualism from what I can tell it's often that trans and intersex are not separated. 

We then spent some time talking about different cultural ideas about sex/gender such as Two-Spirit and hijra, and the intense medicalization of transness in Russia

Dimitri described how Russian/Slavic culture is big on repressing any kind of sexuality, and being queer is deeply tied to perversion, which kicked off a discussion of Left Hand of Darkness

Elizabeth: another reason I wanted postcolonial stuff was it'd be useful to have strategic essentialism discussed (Spivak), which seems really relevant to a discussion of essentialism.

Overall we were all glad we got to give our brains some exercise, and we’ll be reading more intersex studies in November! 😅 Join us for a discussion of Holmes’ Critical Intersex on Nov 24.

[marcescet]

all i see every time i open my social media accounts is pictures and videos of murdered, wounded, terrified innocent children of Palestine.

but i can log out and forget about it, i have the luxury to do so, but they can’t. this is the reality they live in. kids in Gaza are writing their names on their arms in case something happens to them so that they can be identified. do you realize how bad it has to be for kids to do this?

50,000 pregnant women in Gaza cannot access health services what with the hospitals being bombed & evacuated because they’re going to get bombed, 5,500 of them are due to give birth, are they not worth fighting for, marching for, because they’re arab?

Palestinian men are heroes, pulling dead bodies from under the rubble, helping the wounded, treating them, documenting everything so we can see the truth with our own eyes, and still they’re being dehumanised at every turn. imagine if it were you, pulling your cousin, your niece, your nephew, your kid, your sibling, your parents from under the rubble of your own home, or masjid (mosque), or church, or hospital, a place you turned to because you thought it was safe, only to wake up to the smell of death and chaos? and although this man’s feet are bare, he’s giving his shirt for a woman to use as hijab (something most muslim women use, we are not forced to wear it but it is the teachings of our beautiful religion) https://x.com/yamarhaba_/status/1716031379174203737?s=46

i speak arabic, i live in an arabic country, i urge you if you see any video that’s in arabic to go and ask anyone who’s arab to translate it to you, there are many accents in arabic, some are hard for non-arabs to understand, i’ve seen a virla video of Hamas taking hostages, and although i am against doing this, but they’re turning a girl back and the translation is literally “she’s a young girl, do not take her” but of course the israelis have translated it as “this is not a prisoner, this is for rape.” which is a lie, a complete lie. so if you see any videos that’s in arabic, although i have not stumbled upon many, as they’re trying to use english as much as possible so their struggle can be understood by majority of people, go on and ask any arab person you know, they’ll tell you the truth, do not trust any israel claim. this is the video i am talking about. https://x.com/davidpgoldman/status/1716068086649139340?s=46

also, asking for the freedom of Palestine from the terrorist occupation of Israel is in no way against Jewish people, it does not mean we wish death upon Jewish people at all. we are simply asking for the freedom of Palestine and Palestinians whose land got stolen, who are being bombed essentially for as long as i could remember. and you’ll find that some Jewish people are actually pro-Palestine.

i urge you to watch this, even though it’s vile and i had to physically force myself to keep watching until the end, and by the end of it maybe you’ll understand why israel is terrorist, why your tax money should not be given for them to keep bombing the innocent, see how he is smiling throughout the video while he’s describing what they’re doing to innocent people, i don’t even want you to imagine if it was you, i just need you to realize that this has been done to an actual human being, with hopes and dreams, with so much love to give out to the world. https://x.com/one_dawah/status/1710765784765485446?s=46

i can shut up about this and go on about my day, but i will not. because i’ll have failed them, and i can’t live with myself if my words could help even if it’s so little, i’ll keep writing about them, and spreading what’s happening to them, i’ll keep help expose the lies of israel and its’ propaganda. what more proof do you need to realize that what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, they’re wiping them out, ethnic cleansing. https://x.com/timesofgaza/status/1715783997358293378?s=46

[someoneinjersey]

I know you said you aren’t looking for debates but how else do people learn and broaden their perspective, especially for those who follow you who might be confused as to where to stand especially after your post.

This situation is black and white, if you know the history then it is black and white. I’m not talking about it starting on October 7th but 75 years ago when a part of Palestine was taken away to give to people to make the country of Israel.

And thats when the occupation, terrorizing and dehumanization of Palestinian people began. Can you imagine 75 years of oppression, not being able to leave your own country because they took away the airport, having to request from another country to leave.

Not being allowed to walk on certain streets , not belong allowed to go certain places, being forced out your homes for them to be given to citizens of Israel.

You’re right I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a Jewish person anywhere right now as this conflict continues. I can however imagine how it might feel as a black person.

You can say it I don’t know what their people went through with the holocaust. And I’m not even going bring up slavery, but the fact that black people were in the holocaust. It’s very hard to find records and picture but they’re out there.

Black people was also forced to leave their homes and go the concentration camps, they were even forced in the beginning to get sterilized so they couldn’t reproduce either with each other or when the nazi soldiers graped them.

I understand what it’s like for hundreds on years to be hated for no reason, I understand what it’s like to be discriminated and oppressed personally as a black women. I share and can understand the pain that Jewish people go through everyday.

But at the end of the day if my people was doing something that I know what bad I would have no choice but to speak up against it.

What Israels government is doing is horrific, bombing hospitals on purpose, blowing up food and medical supplies, playground. Having their drones play sounds of babies crying and women in distress so that they can lure people out to kill them. There’s honestly no word that exist that describes how horrible that is.

Israel’s government saying out their mouths for years (theres video documentation) about how much they hate Palestine, that they don’t even see them as human and they’re not going to stop till they complete their ethnic cleanse of Israel.

I could honestly gone on and on all day about the crimes that Israel’s committing, the propaganda that their spread, the death toll of children. I’m not but if you want to say you support Jon Bernthal because you just don’t give a fuck, then ok . But don’t say people aren’t thinking critically because you want to read and write fic about this man without feeling guilt.

By supporting him your supporting his message

And you can ignore this that’s you privilege as a white person.

But not all of us can live blissfully in ignorance.

Okay I guess I wasn't clear enough when I flat out laid out the boundary of "I'm not looking for arguments or debates" so good on you for ignoring that.

I suppose I wasn't clear enough in stating my personal stance on the situation although I did say Israel is committing genocide.

THE POINT I WAS MAKING is that Jewish people outside of Israel are in a tough place regarding how they feel because of how they've been raised and taught and all the misinformation and correct information being presented from all sides. That's what I said. I wasn't talking about Israelis or Palestinians, I was talking about Jewish people particularly in the US.

Thank you for the lecture and your announcement that you can empathize with the victims of atrocities but not the innocent people caught up in the mess of their "home country's" government and most of their peers supporting the war and committing said atrocities.

The situation is black and white but individuals aren't. That's my fucking point. Goodbye.

[creature-wizard]

Is there a specific word/concept for "dogwhistles, only positive?" Because between hearing about TERFs plotting to put "terfs don't interact" on their own damn posts, and the Theosophical Society having a literal "Freedom of Thought Statement" claiming that "we don't consider Blavatsky or anyone else our sole authority, so we really do want you to think for yourself! Honest!!!1", I've realized I'm pretty damn susceptible to bigots repackaging my moral compass into bait for their propaganda.

I can't think of one that's specific to this exact thing, but I can think of a few things that could be related to the kind of thing you're doing.

The term "bait and switch" is used to describe when someone dishonestly offers a product they don't actually have; then when they have the customer's attention, try to sell them something else. Maybe something like "value baiting" could describe what you're seeing?

There's also the motte-and-bailey defense (also called the "motte-and-bailey fallacy," but I find that it's very often just part of DARVO) where people proposing or advocating something objectionable pretend they just want something that sounds fairly harmless, even reasonable. For example, "we want to eliminate all [insert minority here]" is the kind of sentiment that turns most people off and attracts a lot of criticism, so when it inevitably does you'll often see the people who hold it "retreat" to a more defensible position such as "we just want to protect the children!", "we just want to protect our culture!", or "we just want to worship God in peace!"

There are some cases where something that might appear to be value baiting is genuinely what someone believes. For example, many conspiracy theorists often believe that they are the only free thinkers in the world, and believe that if everyone else was set free from manipulation and mind control, they would believe exactly as the conspiracy theorists do. There's usually a lot of Dunning-Kruger effect at work here, because they often just don't know enough to really comprehend why anyone would or could disagree with them unless they were brainwashed, or a brainwasher.

This is all I've got. Maybe some of my followers have suggestions?

[learnfromhistoryorrepeatit]

January 29, 2023, 10:15 AM

Inside a US Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members | David Gilbert, Vice News

An Ohio couple has been unmasked as leaders of the neo-Nazi “Dissident Homeschool” Telegram channel that distributes lesson plans to 2,400 members.

There are may sources within this article I will be referencing and most are listed below. We need to be aware of the reality of the situation of how Nazism has become more public accepted and followed (gaining followers from birth as it is described in this specific discussion) AGAIN (yes it has been here before & has origins here that I will talk later about on this blog).

“”Dissident Homeschool” network opened a lesson plan and were greeted with the words: ‘“As Adolf Hitler wrote…”’”on the platform Telegram. VICE investigative journalists “joined the group simply by clicking on a link, though the list of members was not publicly visible.”

“Since the group began in October 2021 it has openly embraced Nazi ideology and promoted white supremacy, while proudly discouraging parents from letting their white children play with or have any contact with people of any other race. Admins and members use racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs without shame, and quote Hitler and other Nazi leaders daily in a channel open to the public.”

“What’s even more disturbing, however, is that the couple who run the channel are not only teaching parents how to indoctrinate their children into this fascist ideology, they’re also encouraging them to meet up in real life and join even more radical groups, which could further reinforce their beliefs and potentially push them toward violent action.”

The faces behind the curriculum and programming of this telegram homeschooling collective have recently been identified by an “antifascist research group” called “Anonymous Comrades Collective. They “published a detailed report that unmasked the Saxons as Logan and Katja Lawrence, who live in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, with their four young children.” Whose recent public contributions include their local sheriffs public website.

“The researchers were able to identify the Lawrences through biographical details they shared in the Telegram channel’s group chat and on podcast appearances. One of the key clues to identifying them came when they revealed that they owned a German Shepherd called Blondi—the same name as Hitler’s dog.”

A question to be asked is; are we seeing non-direct evidence that reflects this growing and/or growingly accepted ideology and values? Is this isolated Telegram channel or is this an obvious “sign of the times” and potentially future? Well..

March 23, 2023 10:09 AM

Report: Antisemitic Incidents Soared to 'Historic Levels’ in 2022 | Masood Farivar, VOA News

According to the Anti-Defamation League “reported incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment targeting Jews in the United States rose to new “historic levels””. In an annual report, Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, “the Jewish civil rights organization said it documented 3,697 such incidents in 2022, up 36% from 2021, and the highest level since the group started keeping records in 1979.”

“This was the third time in the past five years during which antisemitic incidents have set a record high, the ADL said,” also elaborating it has been a “part of a five-year climb that has seen a doubling of antisemitic incidents since 2018, when a white supremacist killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest attack on the American Jewish community in U.S. history.”

“ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt said while no single element accounted for last year’s surge in antisemitism, a number of contributing factors were at play.”

“Among them: an increase in white supremacist propaganda activity, attacks on Orthodox Jews, a spike in bomb threats made to Jewish institutions and significant increases of anti-Jewish incidents in schools and on college campuses.”

“This data confirms what Jewish communities across the country have felt and seen firsthand — and corresponds with the rise in antisemitic attitudes,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “From white nationalists to religious fanatics to radical anti-Zionists, Jewish people see a range of very real threats. It’s time to stop the surge of hate once and for all.”

#hatecrimes #learnfromhistoryorrepeatit Learn outside your curriculum and be informed. I will be live streaming discussions, sharing current events and recirculating history. #tumblrlive #tumblrvlogging #live #tumblrdiscussion #news

[inkrunsdeep]

Rights of Humanity Vindicated

For the sake of the reader, and this being Tumblr, I have the cut the original 10 page essay down. You can read the whole thing on my WordPress.

October 28, 2021

“How differently would one deal with youth if one could more clearly see the remote effects of the usual method of treatment, which is employed always, without discrimination, frequently without discretion!” “Tolerance never led to civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with carnage.” Whether Jean-Jacques Rousseau is writing his Confessions or François-Marie Arouet is philosophizing in his Treatise on Tolerance, the messages, when deeply considered, are the same; equality cannot be equal if intolerance is one’s second language. This brings forward the importance of Mary Wollstonecraft. A female writer/philosopher in a ‘man’s world.’ A Vindication of the Rights of Woman should be read; It is not specifically meant to be feminist propaganda, but words of wisdom and a demand for people to be who they can be without regard to their gender.

We are all of sound mind if we are given the freedom to be. Mary Wollstonecraft was a visionary that managed to send a message about the potential of women by first stroking the male ego, then appealing to their logic. She implies that men are the reason women are the way they are- if men were to change the way they think about women as people, they have the power improve the world. Her predecessors Thomas Paine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire agree with the idea and have their own thoughts on the functionality of humankind without a proper, or strong, society.

Concerns and Discourses

The most debatable argument Wollstonecraft makes is her opinion on submissive women. She comes off a bit hostile to the idea that there are women okay with taking a more submissive role. The Routledge Guidebook to Wollstonecraft's a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, (and inspiration for this section) tells its readers Mary Wollstonecraft believes most of her contemporary peers are “slaves to their husband, father, or society in general” because they could not choose how to live their lives, whom to live with, or have the capability to leave a terrible relationship (Berges 90). She accuses woman of being enslaved to their own senses.

She describes upper-class women as ‘enervated’ beings who ‘seek for pleasure as the main purpose of their existence.’ This is both because it is judged to be good for them, as women are supposed to be ‘made to feel’ in the same way that men are ‘made to reason’ but also, conveniently, it panders to men’s desires, leaving women with little to do but make themselves attractive to men, as if they were in a harem (Berges 90).

Any modern television show will show us the necessity of the choices of women. We see the career oriented, power-suit wearing, woman that may or may not have children of her own (but is content if she does not) who is best friends with the happy and thriving stay-at-home mom. Then we see the super moms that manage both a career and full-time motherhood. We must also account for Mr. Mom- the men that are both father and mother to their children. What would Mary Wollstonecraft say about them? Would she be disappointed and express her disdain in the same manner she has with Vindication? Or would she depose them, as she has done with the other submissives?

Speaking further on submissive women brings us to her notion that historically women have either been a slave or a despot (Wollstonecraft 85). ‘Slave or despot’ is not the issue here, the issue is her comparison of the severity to a specific civil rights movement. In a way, Wollstonecraft is degrading women below slaves as there are former slaves that became free and self-educated. Is she assuming women will not educate themselves, regardless of the standards of society? She writes that pleasure is the business of a woman’s life… inheriting a lineal descent from the first fair defect in nature. The sovereign beauty and the power they must maintain causes them to resign, or at least rein in, their natural rights. They would rather have a short-lived lavish life than seek out the challenges of equality (Wollstonecraft 86). This too, highlights the distasteful nature of her thought as this implies that women do not care about their rights. The point is made, but it is insensitively made. Although we can assume her point is the offense, the controversy of the situation demands face time.

Her description manages to crack the foundation of her full message to our contemporary society, and though she never flat out wrote it, there is a negative connotation to this thought. All the ego stroking she has done becomes a modicum less. She went from ‘okay men, if you want to change the word, blindly seek out potential’ to ‘well, if I’m honest, you men are stunted and too dumb to realize that if you don’t seek out opinions other than your own, you will grant yourself an early death.’ This is the equivalent to archaic dress code rules that a few schools still follow in this contemporary world. The context of those codes (and Wollstonecraft’s thought) implies little to no faith in the male gender. There is, fortunately, an upside to her contradiction. The creation of the necessity of commentary on the subject, turbulent as it may become, and historical context.

She finalizes that pitch by saying reason is the simple power of improvement and dissertation of truth. The nature of reason works best when it is the same for all. There should be no gender or class recognition. A Discourse on Inequality takes a more compassionate and enthusiastic stance on the same issue:

O man, whatever country you may belong to, whatever your opinions may be, attend to my words; you shall hear your history such as I think I have read it, not in books composed by those like you, for they are liars, but in the book of nature which never lies. All that I shall repeat after her, must be true, without any intermixture of falsehood, but where I may happen, without intending it, to introduce my own conceits…How much you are changed from what you once were! 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau ends his Discourse (Upon Origin) chapter with a bit of persuasion akin to Mary Wollstonecraft. ‘A manner of life’ he calls it; from which there are received qualities where education (and one’s personal habits) depraves us of identifying. However, if one cares to look deeply enough, they will discover the hidden pocket where the qualities are hidden. Deprived of affection, but not destroyed. That offers hope for change.

However, as anyone who studies philosophy- and history- knows, forcing a society, or person, breeds discourse. Making everyone the same does not leave room for improvement; it is counterproductive at best, emulsifying at worst. Voltaire takes a more violent stance when discussing discourse within the religious sector. He says anyone who acts out against the church will get snatched up and have no contact with the outside world (and we can assume their family) but promised favors if they succumb, only to be condemned when they do by one of a variety of tortures. This pious idea helps us see the error of expecting every being to have the same mindset.

Philosophy is a fickle thing- it promotes one’s attempt to question everything, while answering just a few of life’s major questions. As we seek answers, we find more questions. Sometimes those questions spark more ideas. There is no wrong or right answer to philosophy, just the absurdity of spending one’s life seeking the truth of humanity. Standing atop Mt. Everest seems like an easier venture. This is also why philosophers are likened to heroes. Not in the ‘pulled one out of a burning building’ sense, but in the sense that they are willing to take on an impossible task to help humanity become the best version of itself.

[penisbrigade]

okay this is either going to be a super long post or a confusing short one, so either way, it'll be a struggle because there's just so much to get into and I don't know if I can do it all (also my computer takes weird screenshots so my cited sources might be hideous)

the main point about these themes and references is that they are ridiculing something akin to organized religion while not being anti-religious. in the she-ra Wikipedia article, when discussing themes of the show, it is written that "Horde Prime's regime in Season 5 contains elements reminiscent of fundamentalist Christianity". the director of the show, ND Stevenson, says it was not meant to be a criticism of religion itself, but of "leadership in extremist, cult-like organizations" (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. (2024, March 13). In Wikipedia.)

I read the Wikipedia article before watching season 5, so it was completely on accident that I came across this information, but the way Horde Prime speaks and acts is so reminiscent of the way I've heard pastors and churchgoers speak, I don't doubt I would've figured it out on my own.

I think it's relevant to mention the "nicknames" given to those under horde primes power. all of them are little brothers or little sisters. prime himself is called Big Brother by those in his regime, which could also be a reference to 1984 by George Orwell, but reminds me strongly of the nuns and monks of catholicism. in fact, most of the religious themes seem largely related to catholicism (which, from what I'm aware of though tell me if I'm wrong, was the largest influence during colonization, so it makes sense) including reactions from those under his influence as well as those falling away from it. Wrong Hordak, upon realizing Horde Prime has a weakness and has been lying to them, experiences an existential crisis, unable to come to terms with this information and what it means to him. As someone who lost their religion through realizing all the faulty logic and lies within it, I can attest to this being a pretty solid example of that experience. Wrong Hordak struggles with figuring out who he really is and what he can and cannot do, telling Entrapta he cannot wink because only prime is allowed facial expressions, to which Entrapta responds that is exactly why he should try doing it. he finds freedom in this simple act of rebellion against what he's been taught, like I did when I said a swear word for the first time.

other soldiers and clones of prime experience something I can only describe as "Catholic guilt", looking lost and guilty whenever they are shown to have thoughts contrary to primes teachings, dare i say having thoughts that are not exactly the same as primes own. disconnected from the hivemind, they become anxious and terrified of themselves, longing only to go back to the safety of having no independent thought

the people who have been "chipped" speak in a way eerily similar to recruiting Christians, saying things like "i have found peace with him" or "horde prime has brought be joy" blah blah blah, and gross and terrible propaganda for the lord. in elberon, the princesses, Micah, and swift wind find the people after a distress call but there seems to be nothing wrong and they are invited in for dinner. the people seem to have been stripped of all emotion, though, oddly like a scene from A Wrinkle in Time by madeline l'engle, where everything is so symmetrical and perfect and the children play is such an organized matter its unnerving. everyone in elberon stares soullessly around as they provide the princesses with food, though they dance and clap and play like normal, but in a slow and orderly fashion. once the princesses decide its time to leave, the people reveal they have been chipped by horde prime and start to fight.

[first photo: a person, presumably some leader of elberon, says "stay, and join us in the light of Horde Prime. second photo: the people converge on the group, and in the third photo, they are surrounded. together, they say "come to lord primes light, and you will find peace"] the diction in these examples if very common to hear from religious people trying to convince others to join them. the people of elberon try to convince the group that they will be at peace in horde primes hivemind, referring to it as the "light", implying people not in it are living in darkness and sin. often, cults and religious groups use this kind of disguised "fear tactic" to get you to join them, implying you will face something horrible and your life is so much worse without religion. they try to convince you that you're suffering so much more outside of the religion than you would in it.

they use that same sort of thing when spinerella has been chipped and is interrogating a townsperson who came into contact with adora while the horde was searching for her.

[in both photos, spinerella is holding a woman in a mini tornado. she says "prime rewards honesty from his children. tell me where she is and you will be absolved". season 5 episode 9, time stamp 16:15-16:18] spinerella tells the woman that if she betrays adoras hiding place, she will be absolved of guilt and forgiven for the crime. there is, of course, no crime. the woman didn't do anything wrong and was unaware she was speaking to She-Ra, but if you tell someone who is afraid of you and sees you as a higher power that they are guilty of something, they will feel they must be guilty and they will be more apt to do your bidding. crazy what being gaslit will do to you. this is quite common in churches as well, especially catholic churches i think. you are told if you do bad things you will have to make up for it, usually for the rest of your life or by suffering an eternity in hell or whatever. problem is, the bad things tend to include enjoying yourself, doing fun things without making sure everyone in the world is happier than you, being unhappy or ungrateful, thinking negatively about anything ever especially god, or liking someone you shouldn't/ disliking someone you shouldn't. oh and also by being alive you're sinning. so you have to make up for it by always confessing and doing your best to be a rat and snitch on everyone because you're trying to macrodose on honesty and goodness.

there is a scene in which something like a baptism takes place, where catra and hordak are taken into a large chamber with a wading pool of some green liquid in the middle, and clones circling the room. hordak confesses a "sin", which prime prompts him to do (furthering the belief of his omniscience), and begs to be cleansed of it. he is sent into the pool while the clones chant unnervingly to "cast out the shadows". prime looks down on hordak in the pool and tells him he is sorry that hordak must suffer, which reminded me immediately of god making humanity suffer as punishment for a sin that was not committed by them (eve eating the apple, catra giving hordak a name) to become pure and holy. the clones begin chanting "all beings must suffer to become pure" as hordak screams in pain, undergoing some sort of electrocution that strips him of all being and he exits the pool with no expression and empty eyes. prime tells the clones hordak is to be praised and he is now purest among them (quite like Christians trying to beat the sin out of people lol) and the clones break into praises and exaltations. its quite horrifying to watch, but it shows how every clone is being brainwashed to believe suffering is what will make you pure and good, just like the catholics.

[first photo: catra watching hordak being taken, while clones in the background chant "chase out the shadows". second photo: prime looks down at hordak, sparks from the acid pool flying around. he says "i am sorry that you must suffer" and catra looks on, horrified. third photo: clones are lined up, chanting "all beings must suffer to become pure". fourth photo: prime reaches out to hordak, gesturing to him as he tells the crowd "behold the purest among you". season 5 episode 3, time stamp 10:10-10:52] this scene, i think, really set in stone for me the belief that prime was either supposed to be a representation of god or thought of himself as one, like a religious leader.

now lets get into prime being a symbol of religion, not unlike a priest or pastor. i saw a post, though i don't remember from where, talking about prime being essentially nameless, simply being called Horde Prime, prime of the horde, just like The Pope. his way of speaking is especially recognizable to those who have been in a church service many times before, specifically using terms such as exalted and being made pure, though many other phrases simply have the cadence of one preaching.

[lord prime, season 5 episode 3, time stamp 15:10, "go now in peace"] here is one such example, that affected me so strongly I had to go walk around because this is what one of my pastors would say at the end of every sermon. absolutely terrifying to see.

he also speaks to the people of etheria of remaking them in his image or remaking etheria in his image, like how the bible describes us as being made in the image of god and so on and so forth. listening to him talk about it made me so frustrated. it was like a horrible colonization, a forcing of religion.

[first photo: a man runs from adora, whimpering in fear, saying "glory be to horde prime" twice. second photo: a clone walks by the window of a shop in which adora, glimmer, and bow are hiding, saying "glory be to horde prime" as a parting phrase.] in season 5, episode 9, the people in a small town are shown after experiencing this encounter with "missionaries" of prime, afraid of outsiders hurting them, and reciting primes slogan "glory be to horde prime" out of fear. real followers of prime recite this slogan as well and often, when they meet each other or simply during conversation. sounds similar to another phrase i know....."praise be to god"........very interesting.

prime also seems to see himself as some type of thanos, a cleanser of imperfections. often, he reminded me of frollo from the hunchback of notre dame. its as though he believes his destiny is to free the universe from anything he believes is evil (which is just....anyone who disagrees with him in any way or isn't him). he is the epitome of a religious colonizer. he talks about the rebels as though they are so far beneath him and he pities them for it and for disagreeing with him. it's condescending and it reeks of false humility.

[prime is sitting, flanked by soldiers, having just heard news about the rebels and those who follow them. he says "my heart aches for these misguided children". season 5 episode 9, time stamp 3:00] he refers to them as children, implying they are immature and stupid, as though he is wiser and in such a higher plane of intelligence that he sees them as little kids. he expresses sympathy for their "misguided" beliefs. if i had a penny for every time a pastor spewed some sort of nonsensical spiel about how sorry they felt for everyone not of our religion, using these exact words, me and elon musk would be competing for ownership of the same island. pastors and prime both feel a sense of superiority and convince themselves that their beliefs are the correct ones and everyone who doesn't hold those beliefs must be painfully obtuse to reality. in some sense, they delude themselves into believing what they are doing is GOOD, and it is what MUST be done.

i also think prime sees adora as his own lucifer of some sort. his anti-christ, if you will. in season 5, episode 12, he finds adora speaking to mara and they have a short confrontation in which he tells her he has some recognition of mara but admits he's fought so many people over the years they meld together. he then says goodbye, and refers to her as his oldest enemy, someone he has fought transcending time, a battle passed down through generations.

in the end, when everything is done and She-Ra emerges victorious, prime still tries to fight back, saying no matter what, he will be back, a resurrection of sorts. he also is known to pass his consciousness down through different bodies, perhaps like how leaders of religion are seen as having the spirit of christ inhabiting them in some way. gross!

[in both pictures, horde prime, in the body of hordak, looks up at She-Ra after he was knocked to the ground, saying "though all is reduced to rubble, prime shall rise again. so it has been, and so it always shall be". season 5 episode 13, time stamp 19:35-19:43] now these are words that sound exactly like something i'd hear from the bible, especially the "so it has been and so it always shall be" part. now im not saying everything he says is based on the bible or something a pastor would say but also yes i am. he believes himself to be omnipotent and omniscient. in the earlier episodes of the season he was always reminding glimmer and catra that he knows everything and sees everything. he makes people afraid to go against him for fear he will see and punish them. how very catholic of him again. he believes that no matter what they do, none of them will ever be more powerful than him, even still condescending to She-Ra after she destroyed everything he worked for. many religious leaders have this same ideation. that they are martyred and will be avenged or their plan will come back in some way through someone else. unfortunately, that is not true and it is just a god complex.

now here are a few details and screencaps i didn't fit into the rest of this or forgot to add earlier

[hordak, after seeing entrapta and turning away from her as she leaves, saying "maybe then these memories, these imperfections, will leave me". season 5 episode 11, time stamp 13:11] another example of that catholic guilt from the clones. hordak encourages entrapta to leave after he recognizes her, in hopes that he will stop yearning for her friendship. my favorite part of this was entraptas response, which was to tell him that his imperfections are what make him beautiful as she ran away.

[first photo: season 5 episode 12, prime stands watching a screen playing out etherias destruction, saying "cast out the shadows, bring the universe into prime's light. second photo: season 5 episode 13, prime, now in hordaks body, says "and so we shall die in cleansing flame together"] and another example of prime referring to his regime as the light and implying he is cleansing these people of their faults and sins. classic colonizer move.

also, when they chipped catra, they chopped all her hair off, which was a huge part of her identity and her character design, something she'd had her entire life. remind you of anything? (*cough* natives in America forcibly having their hair cut by colonists and forced into religion *cough*). although is not a huge plot point or anything, i just think its an interesting detail.

i think its important to note as well hordak and wrong hordaks differences in falling out of primes regime. hordak is cast out, carrying the weight of primes disapproval with him through most of the show, doing everything he can to win prime back and make him see he's worthy. in the end he starts to realize he no longer desires primes approval, and even though he did everything for prime, his life is better without him. wrong hordak leaves under the impression he is helping people in primes good graces. once he is gone, he is faced with the reality that prime is a liar and manipulator and weak which he realizes on his own through his own connections. he then has a crisis, which he gets over fairly quickly and then immediately decides he must assist in primes downfall. its such an interesting example of two people turning away from their religion in different ways but ending with the same conclusion.

so, although the religious themes are not ones like we would usually see, with a metaphor for jesus and god as the good guys or whatever, i think this difference makes the themes all the more interesting and such a great piece of social commentary. i don't mean any of my long-winded dissection to be hate towards any religion, only connecting the story to what I've experienced in my life with religion, much like how the director made it in the first place. also sorry this took me forever to do and sorry its so long, im just really passionate about this and i hope this explains it well enough (if it doesn't, i would be happy to elaborate further, but im sure you could tell that)

tl;dr She-Ra season 5 is a criticism to organized religions and cults, as well as colonization and genocide in the name of some higher being.

nobody understands the religious themes in she-ra like i do

[samwisethewitch]

Cults? In my life? It’s more likely than you think.

In my last post, I talked about how the Law of Attraction and Christian prosperity gospel both use the same thought control techniques as cults. I’ve received several public and private replies to that post: some expressing contempt for “sheeple” who can be lead astray by cults, and others who say my post made them scared that they might be part of a cult without knowing it.

I want to address both of those types of replies in this post. I want to talk about what a cult really looks like, and how you can know if you’re dealing with one.

If you type the word “cult” into Google Images, it will bring up lots of photos of people with long hair, wearing all white, with their hands raised in an expression of ecstasy.

Most modern cults do not look anything like this.

Modern cultists look a lot like everyone else. One of the primary goals of most cults is recruitment, and it’s hard to get people to join your cause if they think you and your group are all Kool-Aid-drinking weirdos. The cults that last are the ones that manage to convince people that they’re just like everyone else — a little weird maybe, but certainly not dangerous.

In the book The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, author Jeff Guinn says, “In years to come, Jim Jones would frequently be compared to murderous demagogues such as Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. These comparisons completely misinterpret, and historically misrepresent, the initial appeal of Jim Jones to members of Peoples Temple. Jones attracted followers by appealing to their better instincts.”

You might not know Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple by name, but you’ve probably heard their story. They’re the Kool-Aid drinkers I mentioned earlier. Jones and over 900 of his followers, including children, committed mass suicide by drinking Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide.

In a way, the cartoonish image of cults in popular media has helped real-life cults to stay under the radar and slip through people’s defenses.

In her book Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control, Luna Lindsey says: “These groups use a legion of persuasive techniques in unison, techniques that strip away the personality to build up a new group pseudopersonality. New members know very little about the group’s purpose, and most expectations remain unrevealed. People become deeply involved, sacrificing vast amounts of time and money, and investing emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and socially.”

Let’s address some more common myths about cults:

Myth #1: All cults are Satanic or occult in nature. This mostly comes from conservative Christians, who may believe that all non-Christian religions are inherently cultish in nature and are in league with the Devil. This is not the case — most non-Christians don’t even believe in the Devil, much less want to sign away their souls to him. Many cults use Christian theology to recruit members, and some of these groups (Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.) have become popular enough to be recognized as legitimate religions. Most cults have nothing to do with magic or the occult.

Myth #2: All cults are religious. This is also false. While some cults do use religion to recruit members or push an agenda, many cults have no religious or spiritual element. Political cults are those founded around a specific political ideology. Author and cult researcher Janja Lalich is a former member of an American political cult founded on the principles of Marxism. There are also “cults of personality” built around political figures and celebrities, such as Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Donald Trump. In these cases, the cult is built around hero worship of the leader — it doesn’t really matter what the leader believes or does.

Myth #3: All cults are small fringe groups. Cults can be any size. Some cults have only a handful of members — it’s even possible for parents to use thought control techniques on their children, essentially creating a cult that consists of a single family.  There are some cults that have millions of members (see previous note about Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses).

Myth #4: All cults live on isolated compounds away from mainstream society. While it is true that all cults isolate their members from the outside world, very few modern cults use physical isolation. Many cults employ social isolation, which makes members feel separate from mainstream society. Some cults do this by encouraging their followers to be “In the world but not of the world,” or encouraging them to keep themselves “pure.”

Myth #5: Only stupid, gullible, and/or mentally ill people join cults. Actually, according to Luna Lindsey, the average cult member is of above-average intelligence. As cult expert Steven Hassan points out, “Cults intentionally recruit ‘valuable’ people—they go after those who are intelligent, caring, and motivated. Most cults do not want to be burdened by unintelligent people with serious emotional or physical problems.” The idea that only stupid or gullible people fall for thought control is very dangerous, because it reinforces the idea that “it could never happen to me.” This actually prevents intelligent people from thinking critically about the information they’re consuming and the groups they’re associating with, which makes them easier targets for cult recruitment.

So, now that we have a better idea of what a cult actually looks like, how do you know if you or someone you know is in one?

A good rule of thumb is to compare the group’s actions and teachings to Steven Hassan’s BITE Model. Steven Hassan is an expert on cult psychology, and most cult researchers stand by this model. From Hassan’s website, freedomofmind.com: “Based on research and theory by Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Singer, Edgar Schein, Louis Jolyon West, and others who studied brainwashing in Maoist China as well as cognitive dissonance theory by Leon Festinger, Steven Hassan developed the BITE Model to describe the specific methods that cults use to recruit and maintain control over people. ‘BITE’ stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control.”

Behavior Control may include…

Telling you how to behave, and enforcing behavior with rewards and punishments. (Rewards may be nonphysical concepts like “salvation” or “enlightenment,” or social rewards like group acceptance or an elevated status within the group. Punishments may also be nonphysical, like “damnation,” or may be social punishments like judgement from peers or removal from the group.)

Dictating where and with whom you live. (This includes pressure to move closer to other group members, even if you will be living separately.)

Controlling or restricting your sexuality. (Includes enforcing chastity or abstinence and/or coercion into non-consensual sex acts.)

Controlling your clothing or hairstyle. (Even if no one explicitly tells you, you may feel subtle pressure to look like the rest of the group.)

Restricting leisure time and activities. (This includes both demanding participation in frequent group activities and telling you how you should spend your free time.)

Requiring you to seek permission for major decisions. (Again, even if you don’t “need” permission, you may feel pressure to make decisions that will be accepted by the group.)

And more.

Information Control may include…

Withholding or distorting information. (This may manifest as levels of initiation, with only the “inner circle” or upper initiates being taught certain information.)

Forbidding members from speaking with ex-members or other critics.

Discouraging members from trusting any source of information that isn’t approved by the group’s leadership.

Forbidding members from sharing certain details of the group’s beliefs or practice with outsiders.

Using propaganda. (This includes “feel good” media that exists only to enforce the group’s message.)

Using information gained in confession or private conversation against you.

Gaslighting to make members doubt their own memory. (“I never said that,” “You’re remembering that wrong,” “You’re confused,” etc.)

Requiring you to report your thoughts, feelings, and activities to group leaders or superiors.

Encouraging you to spy on other group members and report their “misconduct.”

And more.

Thought Control may include…

Black and White, Us vs. Them, or Good vs. Evil thinking.

Requiring you to change part of your identity or take on a new name. (This includes only using last names, as well as titles like “Brother,” “Sister,” and “Elder.”)

Using loaded languages and cliches to stop complex thought. (This is the difference between calling someone a “former member” and calling the same person an “apostate” or “covenant breaker.”)

Inducing hypnotic or trance states including prayer, meditation, singing hymns, etc.

Using thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thinking. (“If you ever find yourself doubting, say a prayer to distract yourself!”)

Allowing only positive thoughts or speech.

Rejecting rational analysis and criticism both from members and from those outside the group.

And more.

Emotional Control may include…

Inducing irrational fears and phobias, especially in connection with leaving the group. (This includes fear of damnation, fear of losing personal value, fear of persecution, etc.)

Labeling some emotions as evil, worldly, sinful, low-vibrational, or wrong.

Teaching techniques to keep yourself from feeling certain emotions like anger or sadness.

Promoting feelings of guilt, shame, and unworthiness. (This is often done by holding group members to impossible standards, such as being spiritually “pure” or being 100% happy all the time.)

Showering members and new recruits with positive attention — this is called “love bombing.” (This can be anything from expensive gifts to sexual favors to simply being really nice to newcomers.)

Shunning members who disobey orders or disbelieve the group’s teachings.

Teaching members that there is no happiness, peace, comfort, etc. outside of the group.

And more.

If a group ticks most or all of the boxes in any one of these categories, you need to do some serious thinking about whether or not that group is good for your mental health. If a group is doing all four of these, you’re definitely dealing with a cult and need to get out as soon as possible.

These techniques can also be used by individual people in one-on-one relationships. A relationship or friendship where someone tries to control your behavior, thoughts, or emotions is not healthy and, again, you need to get out as soon as possible.

Obviously, not all of these things are inherently bad. Meditation and prayer can be helpful on their own, and being nice to new people is common courtesy. The problem is when these acts become part of a bigger pattern, which enforces someone else’s control over your life.

A group that tries to tell you how to think or who to be is bad for your mental health, your personal relationships, and your sense of self. When in doubt, do what you think is best for you — and always be suspicious of people or groups who refuse to be criticized.

[the-shared-brain-in-retrograde]

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Or, What if Clint Barton had Magical Diabetes?

a joint review...

Well, well, fuck me, well (as our good friend Sebastian would say). A series of choices were made bringing this film into fruition, and we suppose we will discuss them now.

The spirit of this week's review is summed up in the wise words of @cassandrafey who said last night, while discussing our feelings on the movie we'd just endured, "let’s not get too bogged down in the fine details...", so we won't, because the writers and director didn't seem to either.

Firstly we didn't know MTV made films, and in hindsight this is probably why. They gave it a go, good for them, but perhaps they should stick to terrible car crash tv instead.

Shall we start at the beginning when two children are told to stay put and instead break into a poor woman's house, and begin to eat it. Don't do that. We don't like to victim blame in this house, but also you sort of brought this on yourselves kids. But to share equal disgust with the witch, that oven was not suitable for cooking in. Too flamey, that's a burning oven, and no one wants burnt food. Shame on everyone involved.

We then get quite the animated montage of anti witch propaganda. Boo, but it brings us up to speed with the story we guess, and then straight into town where a man is shouting utter rot. He's accusing a woman of being a witch (haven't we all been there ladies...) but obvs she can't be a witch (as expert Hansel helpfully points out) as she is far too pretty, and witches are terribly ugly and dress as if they're from Norwegian Death Metal bands that went to Camden Market in the 00s to buy their entire wardrobe.

Can you hear the bitterness yet?

We should point out this is the first of many times Hansel doesn't know his arse from his elbow. It’s not even himbo energy, it’s just stupidity. Becks described our Hansel in her notes as 'Poundland Dean Winchester', which made Cass raise an eyebrow in question, and Becks now sees (after completing the film) that she was being far too optimistic. Also, a choice was made or maybe a hand forced, with getting the pair to use American accents in what we presume to be medieval Europe (although who the fuck knows with outfits and the weapons). Becks has decided it was down to dear Gemma to step up as we're pretty sure we've never heard Jeremy Renner do a non-american accent. Perhaps that's slander, but until proven otherwise it’s the side we're on. Come on Jezza, let’s hear it!

Cass really took to Gretel from the start. She liked it when she nutted that man, she saw it coming and loved it a lot. She also liked Gretel's hair and she thought she was also quite clever. Although Becks pointed out that, with Hansel seeming pretty dim, it’s all relative isn’t it?

They then go break into another witch's house and kill her. Turns out she had nothing to do with them missing kids, and the only crime she'd committed was identity theft, Noel Fielding to be precise. Then they nicked her stuff and talked shit about once in a generation blood moons. Factually incorrect, but go on.

We're then treated to the most horrific scene of the movie, enough to make any person stomach turn. A beer trough. A fucking beer trough. WERP. That can't be a thing surely?! Just an open trough of beer that any old fucker can stick their dirty hand (or other appendages) in and get a drink. DISGUSTING. Becks felt very strongly about this, and missed some key plot points that followed due to the rage now simmering. Cass however was on the ball, and we got to meet a weirdo kid with a scrap book, who had collected down all manner of stalkerish clippings, thoughts and feelings about his absolute faves, and put them all together in a neat book that he could keep forever. What a fucking weirdo. We definitely think that's weird and would never do anything like that...

Meanwhile a band of stupid men go into the woods at night to go hunt down a witch, where they meet a woman alone in the woods, and don't realise she's a witch, because they are fucking idiots, and as such die terrible deaths. We love to see it.

The next day we're introduced to a plot point that Cass declares dances on the line between stupidity and genius. We are of course talking about the magical diabetes. After eating too much of the witch's house and then being forced to eat more of it, Hansel now has magical diabetes, which he says he needs to take medicine for regularly after COLLAPSING (fucking takes your meds before it gets to that point you tit) but we don't really hear any more about it until the end of the film. Such good storytelling. He also does a bit of painful flirting with the white witch they saved earlier. Hansel is the worst at flirting we have ever seen. Ever. Ever. Stop talking about witches' piss. We don't like to talk on behalf of women everywhere but, come on now.

Then he buys some kids clothes, and builds a pumpkin child in the woods with a medieval gramophone, and lures in a hedgehog headed dumb dumb of a witch. Who shouts ‘help I’m alone in the woods’ honestly? It was clearly a trap, hedgehog head.

Becks has just had a small break whilst trying to write this.

The more I think about this film the more I hate it. Good gods...

Anyway, they capture the witch, who tells them the witches' plan, nice one idiot, so they are away to go find the only child born in April in the whole town (how convenient). Becks' favourite head witch rocks up though, which is nice, comes to be a bit menacing, but Cass takes it all the wrong way and loses her mind (clearly thoughts of Noel Fielding still lurking about towards the forefront…)

"I go by many names..."

Cass: Some call me Secret Peter!

"None of which you are worthy of pronouncing."

Becks loved it none the less. There was also some storytelling here, where Gretel, and her family, clearly are more linked to the witches than they thought.

Meanwhile, the other witch has Hansel by the dick, which elicited quite the response from both of us. Surprise from Cass, thrilled encouragement from Becks. She really went for it. Good for her. He did get his own back with a swift stab to the eye though, and then hitched a ride as she flew off on her broom.

Gretel then wakes up being molested by Goldilocks, as she ties to figure out the events and consequences of the night before. Becks would like to have seen Gretel give that kid a sharp smack at this point, and Cass would like to have seen her smack all types of people. That's the problem with this film, men.

Clint then shows through a little, as we find him hung upside down from a tree, moaning and generally exuding old man energy. But we don't like to compare Clint to Hansel. Because no.

As Gretel is beaten, bites a man's nose off, and is threatened with rape, Hansel gets his end off with the white witch in the pond. Quite different storylines right? It does lead us swiftly into another favourite part of the film for Cass, the part were we are introduced to the feminist troll. And what is this trolls name, we hear you ask? Well we’ll tell you. It’s Edward. Edward the troll. Who gave off creepy Ludo vibes, but out of all the men in the film seemed like one of the better ones.

Then we get told more important plot points.

"Once upon a time, near a shitty little town..." and everyone turns out to be a witch, apart from Hansel who has fucked one, so it’s sort of the same.

We'd like to say that we had sort of given up by this point in the film, although because we are professional women we did keep going until the bitter end, but our hearts and minds were not in it, so we apologise for the vagueness.

Gretel gets kidnapped again, and all the other witches turn up in their cool outfits and batman voices, then Hansel rocks up talking shit like any woman is going to listen to him, and then there are machine guns. It was a lot, and yet at the same time, somehow disappointing.

For supposedly very powerful women, they all seemed very easy to kill, and the male director really showed through with exploding heads and tits just suspended there.

Then we had the cheese wire trap. We really don't understand, if you're going to trap someone who can fly, surely you need to make your trap bigger then a few meters high? Surely just fly over it?!

@cassandrafey: What is this, We're Going on a fucking Bear Hunt?

@becksxoxo: Oooh, literary reference.

Anyway, most of them didn't just fly over, they flew through and got sliced the fuck up. Apart from the Head Witch, obvs, as she was the only one with a pissing brain in the whole coven.

Then we go back to the start, back to where it all began, the gingerbread house.

Hansel chooses to enter the building using a forward roll (and you all know how much we love a forward roll, it’s our favourite thing ever, and may have even redeemed the whole film for us.) It has inspired Cass to do this for each new place she enters, but without getting smacked in the face with a spade on completion.

We honestly don't know what happens next. There's a fight, and they managed to kill the Head Witch with the spade she smacked him in the face with. But they don't burn her, which we think will come bite them in the arse should a second film ever be made (gods we hope not).

Also look at that gif up there, alongside the context of a man saying to a woman "who did this to you?" and tell me you're confused if they're brother and sister or not. Neither of us have siblings, but we're pretty sure this is straying into Game of Thrones territory.

In conclusion, this movie was terrible.

We don't think this has been our best review ever, and we really are blaming it on the film we were working with. There is very little to comment on as the film is just so bleh. There is no substance, and very little style. We've read other people's reviews, and we just don't get it. It’s got over 6 stars on IMBD, and some high scoring reviews on Letterboxd. So many people have it down as a guilty pleasure, but we just don't get it. But if it has made you happy go for it. However, we will be enquiring as to who we need to contact to get all the time we have wasted on this film back.

Next week will be better. We're taking on Zodiac for our Bruce Banner film, with extra points as we also have dear Tony and fart helmet Quentin Beck. We shall see you then.

love becks and cass

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.

(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.

Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:

Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.

Katara: Are you all right?

Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]

Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.

Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!

Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.

Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤

This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.

This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.

This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.

Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.

Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world

In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).

So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.

If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.

In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.

So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!

And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.

With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!

Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…

His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.

And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.

To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?

Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?

[eldritch-bf]

Re: Blood of Zeus

First of all, this is pro-Zeus propaganda

They kept “city” in the original Greek yet decided to use the word “demon”, (while originally a Greek word, only has Christian connotations these days) to describe these creatures?

You could’ve used the Erinyes in place of demons ffs.

The pacing and structure of this story is very weird. There isn’t any time to breathe or process what happened before we are thrust into another thing.

Heron spent so little time with his “friends” I barely care about them and neither should he.

I enjoy the gore and nudity since it actually makes sense for what Greek mythology is.

Having the show be TV-MA actually allows them to keep all the rape, cuckolding, incest, etc. that is usually glossed over or ignored in most adaptions. There’s nothing I hate more than revisionist Greek mythology adaptions.

I enjoyed that they brought in an explicitly Black character and acknowledged the Greeks being racist and didn’t lie about it.

Alexia being an Amazon makes sense why she would have command bc let’s not forget how terrible terrible terrible the Greeks were to women. If she was just human then there would be no way.

This being said I also like how some of the various armies have women fighting bc I can understand it from a perspective of “we were all captives so all of us are going to fight back now” ie for the Thebans that escaped. But when the city was initially attacked, they called for the men to come out and fight and the women went inside which is what would happen.

I enjoyed seeing pomegranates, figs, wine, etc actual ancient Greek foods as well as their oil cruzes and boats. The clothing is good as well. Although I don’t know if Heron’s puny small town (with only one noble?) would have any carved marble and not just be a community of hovels but maybe it was abandoned once and repopulated by poor people.

Hera is right to be angry however she should just castrate Zeus and be done with it already. But her going after the women and/or children of Zeus’s affairs is who she is in Greek mythology so go off I guess.

We gotta spend more time with the other gods okay. Half of them I don’t even know their names because they weren’t identified by name in the show, I had to look them up online.

Apollo & Hermes *chefs kisses*

Apparently women can give birth two (fraternal) “twins” each one of different fathers but just having different placentas happens with twins usually and doesn’t indicate different fathers. It could’ve just been Hera going “if you have a child with blue eyes your wife’s a ho”

Mad respect and sympathy for Electra man I could not imagine how awful that was guessing when her husband would beat and rape her or be kind and loving (until she figured it out I mean.) not to mention all the bullshit

How many moms can they brutally murder in front of their sons/adopted sons for character development and revenge motivation? We shall see.

Heron and Seraphim being allies is the end game of the series I know it and I’m here for it

I’m gonna pretend the use of “Seraphim” as a name, “demons”, and “convert or die” is a allegory for Christianization of Hellenistic Europe and the pagan world in general. Yeah it’s anachronistic and ahistorical but I’m gonna enjoy it.

Don’t make Hades evil I beg of you.

Also iirc there’s only one three-headed dog and he’s busy guarding the gates of the underworld not a species of demon dogs for you to use as bloodhounds.

[door]

CHRISTMAS EFFECTS

by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

from Tendencies (1993)

What’s “queer”? Here’s one tram of thought about it. The depressing thing about the Christmas season—isn’t it? —is that it’s the time when all the institutions are speaking with one voice. The Church says what the Church says. But the State says the same thing: maybe not (in some ways it hardly matters) in the language of theology, but in the language the State talks: legal holidays, long school hiatus, special postage stamps, and all. And the language of commerce more than chimes in, as consumer purchasing is organized ever more narrowly around the final weeks of the calendar year, the Dow Jones aquiver over Americans’ “holiday mood.” The media, in turn, fall in triumphally behind the Christmas phalanx: ad-swollen magazines have oozing turkeys on the cover, while for the news industry every question turns into the Christmas question—Will hostages be free for Christmas? What did that flash flood or mass murder (umpty-ump people killed and maimed) do to those families’ Christmas? And meanwhile, the pairing “families/Christmas” becomes increasingly tautological, as families more and more constitute themselves according to the schedule, and in the endlessly iterated image, of the holiday itself constituted in the image of “the” family.

The thing hasn’t, finally, so much to do with propaganda for Christianity as with propaganda for Christmas itself. They all—religion, state, capital, ideology, domesticity, the discourses of power and legitimacy—line up with each other so neatly once a year, and the monolith so created is a thing one can come to view with unhappy eyes. What if instead there were a practice of valuing the ways in which meanings and institutions can be at loose ends with each other? What if the richest junctures weren’t the ones where everything means the same thing? Think of that entity “the family,” an impacted social space in which all of the following are meant to line up perfectly with each other:

a surname a sexual dyad a legal unit based on state-regulated marriage a circuit of blood relationships a system of companionship and succor a building a proscenium between “private” and “public” an economic unit of earning and taxation the prime site of economic consumption the prime site of cultural consumption a mechanism to produce, care for, and acculturate children a mechanism for accumulating material goods over several generations a daily routine a unit in a community of worship a site of patriotic formation

and of course the list could go on. Looking at my own life, I see that— probably like most people—I have valued and pursued these various elements of family identity to quite differing degrees (e.g., no use at all for worship, much need of companionship). But what’s been consistent in this particular life is an interest in not letting very many of these dimensions line up directly with each other at one time. I see it’s been a ruling intuition for me that the most productive strategy (intellectually, emotionally) might be, whenever possible, to disarticulate them one from another, to disengage them—the bonds of blood, of law, of habitation, of privacy, of companionship and succor—from the lockstep of their unanimity in the system called “family.”

Or think of all the elements that are condensed in the notion of sexual identity, something that the common sense of our time presents as a unitary category. Yet, exerting any pressure at all on “sexual identity,” you see that its elements include

your biological (e.g., chromosomal) sex, male or female; your self-perceived gender assignment, male or female (supposed to be the same as your biological sex); the preponderance of your traits of personality and appearance, masculine or feminine (supposed to correspond to your sex and gender); the biological sex of your preferred partner; the gender assignment of your preferred partner (supposed to be the same as her/his biological sex); the masculinity or femininity of your preferred partner (supposed to be the opposite of your own); your self-perception as gay or straight (supposed to correspond to whether your preferred partner is your sex or the opposite); your preferred partner’s self-perception as gay or straight (supposed to be the same as yours); your procreative choice (supposed to be yes if straight, no if gay); your preferred sexual act(s) (supposed to be insertive if you are male or masculine, receptive if you are female or feminine); your most eroticized sexual organs (supposed to correspond to the procreative capabilities of your sex, and to your insertive/receptive assignment); your sexual fantasies (supposed to be highly congruent with your sexual practice, but stronger in intensity); your main locus of emotional bonds (supposed to reside in your preferred sexual partner); your enjoyment of power in sexual relations (supposed to be low if you are female or feminine, high if male or masculine); the people from whom you learn about your own gender and sex (supposed to correspond to yourself in both respects); your community of cultural and political identification (supposed to correspond to your own identity);

and—again—many more. Even this list is remarkable for the silent presumptions it has to make about a given person’s sexuality, presumptions that are true only to varying degrees, and for many people not true at all: that everyone “has a sexuality,” for instance, and that it is implicated with each person’s sense of overall identity in similar ways; that each person’s most characteristic erotic expression will be oriented toward another person and not autoerotic; that if it is alloerotic, it will be oriented toward a single partner or kind of partner at a time; that its orientation will not change over time. Normatively, as the parenthetical prescriptions in the list above suggest, it should be possible to deduce anybody’s entire set of specs from the initial datum of biological sex alone—if one adds only the normative assumption that “the biological sex of your preferred partner” will be the opposite of one’s own. With or without that heterosexist assumption, though, what’s striking is the number and difference of the dimensions that “sexual identity” is supposed to organize into a seamless and univocal whole.

And if it doesn’t?

That’s one of the things that “queer” can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically. The experimental linguistic, epistemological, representational, political adventures attaching to the very many of us who may at times be moved to describe ourselves as (among many other possibilities) pushy femmes, radical faeries, fantasists, drags, clones, leatherfolk, ladies in tuxedoes, feminist women or feminist men, masturbators, bulldaggers, divas, Snap! queens, butch bottoms, storytellers, transsexuals, aunties, wannabes, lesbian-identified men or lesbians who sleep with men, or…people able to relish, learn from, or identify with such.

Again, “queer” can mean something different: a lot of the way I have used it so far in this dossier is to denote, almost simply, same-sex sexual object choice, lesbian or gay, whether or not it is organized around multiple criss-crossings of definitional lines. And given the historical and contemporary force of the prohibitions against every same-sex sexual expression, for anyone to disavow those meanings, or to displace them from the term’s definitional center, would be to dematerialize any possibility of queerness itself.

At the same time, a lot of the most exciting recent work around “queer” spins the term outward along dimensions that can’t be subsumed under gender and sexuality at all: the ways that race, ethnicity, postcolonial nationality criss-cross with these and other identity-constituting, identityfracturing discourses, for example. Intellectuals and artists of color whose sexual self-definition includes “queer”—I think of an Isaac Julien, a Gloria Anzaldúa, a Richard Fung—are using the leverage of “queer” to do a new kind of justice to the fractal intricacies of language, skin, migration, state. Thereby, the gravity (I mean the gravitas, the meaning, but also the center of gravity) of the term “queer” itself deepens and shifts.

Another telling representational effect. A word so fraught as “queer” is— fraught with so many social and personal histories of exclusion, violence, defiance, excitement—never can only denote; nor even can it only connote; a part of its experimental force as a speech act is the way in which it dramatizes locutionary position itself. Anyone’s use of “queer” about themselves means differently from their use of it about someone else. This is true (as it might also be true of “lesbian” or “gay”) because of the violently different connotative evaluations that seem to cluster around the category. But “gay” and “lesbian” still present themselves (however delusively) as objective, empirical categories governed by empirical rules of evidence (however contested). “Queer” seems to hinge much more radically and explicitly on a person’s undertaking particular, performative acts of experimental self-perception and filiation. A hypothesis worth making explicit: that there are important senses in which “queer” can signify only when attached to the first person. One possible corollary: that what it takes —all it takes—to make the description “queer” a true one is the impulsion to use it in the first person.

[tipsycad147]

Samlesbury witches

The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most famous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.

The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the same assizes, who included the Pendle witches, were accused of maleficium – causing harm by witchcraft.[4] The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when the chief prosecution witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was exposed by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest"

Many historians, notably Hugh Trevor-Roper, have suggested that the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were a consequence of the religious struggles of the period, with both the Catholic and Protestant Churches determined to stamp out what they regarded as heresy. The trial of the Samlesbury witches is perhaps one clear example of that trend; it has been described as "largely a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda", and even as a show-trial, to demonstrate that Lancashire, considered at that time to be a wild and lawless region, was being purged not only of witches but also of "popish plotters" (i.e., recusant Catholics).

Background

King James I, who came to the English throne from Scotland in 1603, had a keen interest in witchcraft. By the early 1590s, he was convinced that Scottish witches were plotting against him. His 1597 book, Daemonologie, instructed his followers that they must denounce and prosecute any supporters or practitioners of witchcraft. In 1604, the year following James's accession to the English throne, a new witchcraft law was enacted, "An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits", imposing the death penalty for causing harm by the use of magic or the exhumation of corpses for magical purposes. James was, however, sceptical of the evidence presented in witch trials, even to the extent of personally exposing discrepancies in the testimonies presented against some accused witches.

The accused witches lived in Lancashire, an English county which, at the end of the 16th century, was regarded by the authorities as a wild and lawless region, "fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity, where the church was honoured without much understanding of its doctrines by the common people". Since the death of Queen Mary and the accession to the throne of her half-sister Elizabeth in 1558, Catholic priests had been forced into hiding, but in remote areas like Lancashire they continued to celebrate mass in secret. In early 1612, the year of the trials, each justice of the peace (JP) in Lancashire was ordered to compile a list of the recusants in their area – those who refused to attend the services of the Church of England, a criminal offence at that time

Samlesbury Hall, family home of the Southworths.

Southworth family

The 16th-century English Reformation, during which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church, split the Southworth family of Samlesbury Hall. Sir John Southworth, head of the family, was a leading recusant who had been arrested several times for refusing to abandon his Catholic faith. His eldest son, also called John, did convert to the Church of England, for which he was disinherited, but the rest of the family remained staunchly Catholic

One of the accused witches, Jane Southworth, was the widow of the disinherited son, John. Relations between John and his father do not seem to have been amicable; according to a statement made by John Singleton, in which he referred to Sir John as his "old Master", Sir John refused even to pass his son's house if he could avoid it, and believed that Jane would probably kill her husband. Jane Southworth (née Sherburne) and John were married in about 1598, and the couple lived in Samlesbury Lower Hall. Jane had been widowed only a few months before her trial for witchcraft in 1612, and had seven children.

Investigations

On 21 March 1612, Alizon Device, who lived just outside the Lancashire village of Fence, near Pendle Hill, encountered John Law, a pedlar from Halifax. She asked him for some pins, which he refused to give to her, and a few minutes later Law suffered a stroke, for which he blamed Alizon. Along with her mother Elizabeth and her brother James, Alizon was summoned to appear before local magistrate Roger Nowell on 30 March 1612. Based on the evidence and confessions he obtained, Nowell committed Alizon and ten others to Lancaster Gaol to be tried at the next assizes for maleficium, causing harm by witchcraft.

Other Lancashire magistrates learned of Nowell's discovery of witchcraft in the county, and on 15 April 1612 JP Robert Holden began investigations in his own area of Samlesbury. As a result, eight individuals were committed to Lancaster Assizes, three of whom – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – were accused of practising witchcraft on Grace Sowerbutts, Jennet's granddaughter and Ellen's niece

Trial

The trial was held on 19 August 1612 before Sir Edward Bromley, a judge seeking promotion to a circuit nearer London, and who might therefore have been keen to impress King James, the head of the judiciary. Before the trial began, Bromley ordered the release of five of the eight defendants from Samlesbury, with a warning about their future conduct. The remainder – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – were accused of using "diverse devillish and wicked Arts, called Witchcrafts, Inchauntments, Charmes, and Sorceries, in and upon one Grace Sowerbutts", to which they pleaded not guilty. Fourteen-year-old Grace was the chief prosecution witness.

Grace was the first to give evidence. In her statement she claimed that both her grandmother and aunt, Jennet and Ellen Bierley, were able to transform themselves into dogs and that they had "haunted and vexed her" for years She further alleged that they had transported her to the top of a hayrick by her hair, and on another occasion had tried to persuade her to drown herself. According to Grace, her relatives had taken her to the house of Thomas Walshman and his wife, from whom they had stolen a baby to suck its blood. Grace claimed that the child died the following night, and that after its burial at Samlesbury Church Ellen and Jennet dug up the body and took it home, where they cooked and ate some of it and used the rest to make an ointment that enabled them to change themselves into other shapes

Grace also alleged that her grandmother and aunt, with Jane Southworth, attended sabbats held every Thursday and Sunday night at Red Bank, on the north shore of the River Ribble. At those secret meetings they met with "foure black things, going upright, and yet not like men in the face", with whom they ate, danced, and had sex.

Thomas Walshman, the father of the baby allegedly killed and eaten by the accused, was the next to give evidence. He confirmed that his child had died of unknown causes at about one year old. He added that Grace Sowerbutts was discovered lying as if dead in his father's barn on about 15 April, and did not recover until the following day. Two other witnesses, John Singleton and William Alker, confirmed that Sir John Southworth, Jane Southworth's father-in-law, had been reluctant to pass the house where his son lived, as he believed Jane to be an "evil woman, and a Witch

Examinations

Thomas Potts, the clerk to the Lancaster Assizes, records that after hearing the evidence many of those in court were persuaded of the accused's guilt. On being asked by the judge what answer they could make to the charges laid against them, Potts reports that they "humbly fell upon their knees with weeping teares", and "desired him [Bromley] for Gods cause to examine Grace Sowerbutts". Immediately "the countenance of this Grace Sowerbutts changed"; the witnesses "began to quarrel and accuse one another", and eventually admitted that Grace had been coached in her story by a Catholic priest they called Thompson. Bromley then committed the girl to be examined by two JPs, William Leigh and Edward Chisnal. Under questioning Grace readily admitted that her story was untrue, and said she had been told what to say by Jane Southworth's uncle, Christopher Southworth aka Thompson, a Jesuit priest who was in hiding in the Samlesbury area; Southworth was the chaplain at Samlesbury Hall, and Jane Southworth's uncle by marriage. Leigh and Chisnal questioned the three accused women in an attempt to discover why Southworth might have fabricated evidence against them, but none could offer any reason other than that each of them "goeth to the [Anglican] Church

After the statements had been read out in court Bromley ordered the jury to find the defendants not guilty, stating that:

God hath delivered you beyond expectation, I pray God you may use this mercie and favour well; and take heed you fall not hereafter: And so the court doth order that you shall be delivered.

Potts concludes his account of the trial with the words: "Thus were these poore Innocent creatures, by the great care and paines of this honourable Judge, delivered from the danger of this Conspiracie; this bloudie practise of the Priest laid open"

https://www.wikiwand.com/

[potteresque-ire]

Is Cho Chang a Racist Stereotype? - [2] Her House

Another very long post (this time Confucius comes to say hello). My thoughts are under the cut.

Once again, this isn’t a JKR discussion. This is my 2nd post on whether I think it’s fair to call Cho Chang a racist stereotype. The 1st one is here.

My short answer is still no.

Another critique I’ve seen of Cho Chang’s portrayal is that she was a Ravenclaw, which fit into the “smart Asian” stereotype.

But what, exactly, is “Ravenclaw smart” and “Asian smart”? I think it’s worth investigating. Intelligence comes in many forms, and the allegation would only be valid if the two kinds of “smart” are equivalent.

Here’s what the books and JKR, via Pottermore, have said about “Ravenclaw smart”:

“if you've a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind;”

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

“…our people are the most individual – some might even call them eccentrics. But geniuses are often out of step with ordinary folk…” 

"Most of the greatest wizarding inventors and innovators were in our house…”

The day-to-day illustration of “Ravenclaw smart” was the answering of riddles to enter the common room. A good answer was “well-reasoned”, and it was known that the door would refuse to open until such an answer was provided, which sometimes led to long discussions outside the common room by the locked-out students. Another manifestation of “Ravenclaw smart” was described as going “full-nerd” on a subject that wasn’t necessarily practical or popular (ovomancy was the example given on Pottermore).

Since “wit” was such a heavily used word in Ravenclaw’s description, I looked up its definition as well.

* Intelligence and the ability to think quickly (Cambridge dictionary) * Mental sharpness and inventiveness; keen intelligence; a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humour (Google) * The ability to relate seemingly disparate things so as to illuminate or amuse (Merriam Webster) * Wit is the ability to use words or ideas in an amusing, clever, and imaginative way. (Collins)

My understanding of “Ravenclaw smart” from this info is: the ability to connect dots freely and nimbly. Social norms and expectations are noted, but happily disregarded if they get in the way. “Ravenclaw smart” is by nature argumentative and open-ended. It expects the dot-connecting to lead to places, but doesn’t have a specific place in mind; all endpoints are valid and welcomed as long as they’re logically sound. The strength of “Ravenclaw smart” is it leads to revolutionary innovations; its tendency to unbridle itself from social needs and expectations, however, can lead to amoral/immoral behaviour (Lockhart). The wisdom from “Ravenclaw smart” is also in danger of being ignored or misunderstood when its owner makes insufficient effort to make it comprehensible, or accessible to others (Luna, and likely, Rowena Ravenclaw.)

Those who’ve studied under an East Asian education system (especially in the 90s), or those who’re familiar with those systems, probably know by now where this discussion is leading to.

“Ravenclaw smart” isn’t “Asian smart”. It’s … about the opposite of Asian smart.

What is “Asian smart”? Outside this discussion, any kind of intelligence. But here, I’ll restrict it to the kind of smartness that leads to the racist allegation, the kind of Westerners typically associate with East Asian students (such as Cho Chang, who, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll assume is Chinese from this point on; however, the arguments will likely still stand if she was, for example, Korean, for reasons that will be clear later on). The kind of smartness that is good at math, that gets the highest scores in exams and seems to understand everything. Never asks questions, never makes trouble.

"Asian smart” sounds great. But what if I suggest the following “dark sides” to it?

1) Good at math: with practice, lower level maths are likely to require the least reasoning among school subjects, with their unambiguous, close-ended answers. A child who has done 7x9 enough times no longer need to calculate or think through the logic of their answer. They write down what they’ve memorised by repetition — 63 — and get full score.

2) High scorer: does everything as told. Prioritise the wishes of authority (teachers, parents) above everything else.

3) Seems to understand everything, never asks questions: views knowledge as “model answers” to be regurgitated in exams. Whether it makes sense doesn’t matter.

These are very cynical takes, aren’t they? I’ve cast in these students in a very negative light.

But what if this negative light isn’t negative at all if these students have stayed in the land of their ancestors? What if these “cynical takes” were considered virtues for the budding Chinese scholars of old?

What if “Asian smart” is purely a consequence of history and culture?

First of all, if you ask “Asian smart” students and they’re honest with you, most would tell you that their smartness isn’t the product of miracles or extra brain juice. Some would say it’s not even intelligence. It is the direct result of extra hours spent at the desk.

What is their motivation? Are Chinese children simply born to be extra hardworking?

Perhaps it’s their so-called “tiger moms”? If then, are Chinese moms born more … feline?

The answers, as you may expect, are no, Chinese aren’t born any different from other races. Their drive to study can largely be explained by an ancient, nation-wide exam system known as the imperial examination system (Ke-Ju, 科舉), plus a dude with a name of Confucius.

Many are aware that Chinese have long considered scholastic aptitude as important. But how long is long? The answer: 1.4 millennia. The imperial examination system, or Ke-Ju, began in 605 AD and while the system had evolved over time, the gist of it was this: students participated in locals exams and the “winners” moved up to the county, then provincial levels etc, until the students who’d won all previous exams sat for the final one in the capital palace, at times proctored by the Emperor, where the grand winners would be decided. The Ke-Ju system was essential in shaping Chinese’s attitude towards academic achievements, because the final top 3 winners, regardless of birth, would be hired by the Imperial Court (+ in some cases, get to marry a princess!).

Ancient Chinese studied and studied and studied for that reason; Ke-Ju was one of the very few social ladders available to commoners, who mostly lived in poverty. The Chinese folklore-scape has therefore been filled with “inspirational” stories about how people overcame exceptionally challenging studying conditions (like this one) to become successful in some way.

How, exactly, does Ke-Ju shape the traditional Chinese view towards studying and education?

1) Historically, Chinese views studying as a means to a better life. The pursuit of knowledge was secondary. The modern analogy to studying hard in ancient China is working three part-time jobs to pay the mortgage for a house, and there is, in fact, a famous Chinese idiom that reflects this: 書中自有黃金屋 (“In the books, there is a golden house”). According to the poem (勸學詩) where the idiom came from (written by an Emperor, by the way: 宋真宗, ~ 1000 BCE), other things found in books included high wages paid in food, beauties, chariots and horses. All practical stuff.

2) Because of 1), getting high scores, or “winning” the exams, was seen as the paramount goal of studying. Far less emphasis was put on understanding the exam material. The teachers of ancient Chinese schools (私塾) were known for doing little explaining; instead, they made recite passages and expected them to figure out the meanings by themselves later. The attitude that scores are everything was further fuelled by the fact that the Emperor had the final say on the result of Ke-Ju — the Emperor who’d most probably claimed the throne by genetics and was not always the most intelligent or knowledgable. While the ability to formulate well-researched and well-reasoned answers helped tremendously, the most important skill for the final Ke-Ju winner was, therefore, the ability to guess what the Emperor wanted to hear, and sometimes, what they wanted to see (there were instances where the Emperor swapped the rankings because they found the original victor too ugly).  

ie. The most important skill was to know the Emperor’s Answer, and to be able to frame it as the winner’s own perspective even if the winner didn’t, in reality, believe in a single word of it.

3) The tradition of having an “Emperor’s Answer” means its modern equivalent, having an “one and only” model answer, have remained the norm in education systems in many Chinese-speaking communities. Many educators have asked for reforms, argued that model answers discourage independent thinking and creativity, but teachers have also been trained on model answers and they’re often unsure of their own opinions, and at times, fearful that they’ll pass on a “wrong” perspective to their students. The latter is especially true in places under authoritarian rule, where school lessons must follow closely the regime’s propaganda (which can be vastly different from year to year).

You may wonder then: but certainly, the students would revolt. How could children learn in such a stifling environment for so long?

This is where Confucius (孔丘, 551-478 BC) comes in. The education system is only a slice of a culture where authority is not to be questioned, where silence is seen as a virtue even among the youngest of children.

Many may know Confucius to be a philosopher, but he was also a political advisor and not a very popular one. I’ve half-jokingly summed up his slogan as “Make China Great Again”, as he lamented his era for having lost the social etiquette and order of several centuries before, and he was set on bringing them back. He researched on rites and rituals that were already old for his time, postulating that every detail of how people behaved around each other would affect social harmony. Social order, he believed, could be achieved by people respecting and obeying their elders, not only in their thoughts but also in their day-to-day behaviour, which was to be bound with a set of intricate rules that dictated their word choices, actions and even postures according to the situation and kinship between the interacting individuals (a fun video here showing a Confucian rite, including the sheer variety of Confucian bows). The elders would, in return, take care of those with less authority than they had, share with them their wisdom.

Confucius also believed that harmony of the world could be achieved by self-discipline from the base level of the society to the top. In this “discipline pyramid”, individuals sat at the bottom. The discipline of families came above it, in which elder generations of each family reined in the rebellious younger ones, made each family a true unit where its members were unified in thoughts and actions. The nation (government) then exerted its authority on families and cured their conflicts — to drive this point home, the term 父母官 has remained in use in China today, which likens the government officials (官) to parents (父母) and constituents to children who should listen to their parents (imagine someone likening Boris Johnson, or Donald Trump, as your father). Finally, the world, with the Emperor as its ruler, smothers the insurgences among nations to achieve the ultimate order and harmony. (修身、齊家、治國、平天下).

Confucius did put a big asterisk in his theory. For this “discipline pyramid” to work, the asterisk said, the Emperor who’d establish the final world order must be a good one. The problem was: most Emperors thought they were pretty good. Confucius’ philosophy appealed to them because the Emperor sat at the pinnacle of this power structure, and as each level ruled over the one below, the lowest level — the individual commoners — had so many constraints piled on them that their individuality was stripped. This made governing much easier.

And so, while Confucius’ political theories were not particularly popular during his lifetime, Confucianism became the official school of philosophy for Chinese imperial courts after ~100 BC. China’s immense power in the ancient world meant Confucianism also became the prominent school of philosophy in its sphere of influence, which included, among others, the modern nations of Japan, S. Korea and Vietnam, all of which also held their own versions of Ke-Ju.

(Hence, this post would very likely remain valid if Cho Chang was Korean.)

In addition to locating talents among commoners, the Ke-Ju system further cemented Confucianism as the “proper” school of thought because it required the students to learn Confucian texts. These students, who would also become disseminators of knowledge outside the Imperial Court, would bring Confucianism to the commoners who’d practise it as well, as a display of cultured upbringing, in the hopes that their descendants would one day know it well enough to enter the Imperial Court. The discipline pyramid soon infiltrated every aspect of Chinese culture, and Confucianism became Imperial China’s tool for reinforcing social hierarchy and a social stabilizer. It remained revered in all levels of the Chinese society until, during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the Red Guards, with the blessings of Mao Ze-Dong, made an all out-attack on Confucian values and while remnants of them have survived in China’s social fabric, they’re largely in tatters (As a result, the best places to observe the legacy of Confucianism nowadays are in Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan.)

Back to the “Asian smart”. “Asian smart” was an impression built from students who were (children of) recent immigrants from Confucianism-influenced communities. Students who’d been educated in the tradition of those who’d sat in the ancient schools, their backs ramrod straight and spoken only when called, their mouths opening only to satisfy the teachers’ requests because teachers were the authority in the classroom and never to be questioned. Students who’d expected an Emperor’s Answer to every exam question, the answer that was, always, the final word. Students who’d studied hard because golden houses could be found in the books.

This “Asian smart” is as different as can be from “Ravenclaw smart”. Asian smart is quiet and unquestioning, while Ravenclaw smart challenges and argues. Asian smart views knowledge as a servant of society, while Ravenclaw smart sees knowledge, and the pursuit thereof, as lording over social expectations. Asian smart is about reinforcing social order while Ravenclaw smart is about breaking the mould. Asian smart has groomed the establishment for over a thousand years while Ravenclaw smart has nurtured eccentrics.

Of note, this disparity between the two “smarts” doesn’t mean one is superior to another. Our current pandemic has made a case for Confucian collectivism; individuals in E. Asian countries have shown themselves to be more willing to sacrifice personal freedoms and aesthetics for the sake of their communities, more comfortable at obeying new rules despite the questions of their need have yet be answered satisfactorily by science, and the benefits of these attitudes have been reflected in the case and death counts. The pandemic has also reminded us of the importance of knowledge that serves society (for example, epidemiological research, vaccine development, contact tracing), even if it’s not always the most exciting. Healthcare is a discipline that requires a “no ifs and buts, no matter how well-reasoned” attitude towards certain rules (how to put on and remove PPEs, for example).

Anyway, I digressed! The conclusion I have, after so many words, is this: Cho Chang being assigned Ravenclaw isn’t racist stereotyping, as some have alleged. I can appreciate where the allegation comes from. The common association with intelligence aside, many sorting tests have also tied academic achievements to Ravenclaw, even though Ravenclaws were never described as book smart in the series. But the allegation doesn’t hold up well after an investigation into the way Ravenclaw House was written, and the kind of smartness Cho Chang was expected to have if it was, indeed, race-based.

It doesn’t mean, I’d like to note, that some Asians aren’t being unfairly judged because parts of our society still hold the false impression that our racial group are somehow born to excel in academics or any work where maths are involved. I understand—I truly do—the frustrations of having one’s accomplishments belittled, attributed to a quirk in the DNA that doesn’t exist. I’ve, too, had to certify that my Mom is 100% human, free of the tiger too many times.

But the HP books cannot be blamed for that, and the longer the blame is placed on something that doesn’t deserve it, the longer the focus, and effort is shifted away from the actual problem and its potential solutions. The time and words spent on such “call-outs” can be better spent, I believe, by explaining how the misconception of “smart Asians” can affect real people like you and me.

And like Cho Chang, perhaps, if we love to think about the HP world. If her classmates wondered why she wasn’t the top of her class for her year, why she wasn’t famously book-smart like Hermione Granger to win them some house points. Why did she sign up for Quidditch? Why would any Asian, never mind a tiny, fragile E. Asian girl like her, even think about touching sports? Shouldn’t she be studying? Learning advanced arithmancy even though their OWLS were still a year away?

And Cho would come back to the common room hours later, flushed with sweat and smiling, and announced that she’d made seeker.