#as a political philosophy

[rustchild]

one of the wild things about people’s stubborn insistence on misunderstanding The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is that the narrator anticipates an audience that won’t engage with the text, just in the opposite direction. Throughout the story are little asides asking what the reader is willing to believe in. Can you believe in a utopia? What if I told you this? What about this? Can you believe in the festivals? The towers by the sea? Can we believe that they have no king? Can we believe that they are joyful? Does your utopia have technology, luxury, sex, temples, drugs? The story is consulting you as it’s being told, framed as a dialogue. It literally asks you directly: do you only believe joy is possible with suffering? And, implicitly, why?

the question isn’t just “what would you personally do about the kid.” It isn’t just an intricate trolley problem. It’s an interrogation of the limits of imagination. How do we make suffering compulsory? Why? What futures (or pasts) are we capable of imagining? How do we rationalize suffering as necessary? And so on. In all of the conversations I’ve seen or had about this story, no one has mentioned the fact that it’s actively breaking the fourth wall. The narrator is building a world in front of your eyes and challenging you to participate. “I would free the kid” and then what? What does the Omelas you’ve constructed look like, and why? And what does that say about the worlds you’re building in real life?

[sailing-ever-west]

the trolley problem vs. systemic oppression: a comic.

[typhlonectes]

[the-cybersmith]

I think we're all being rather too blasé about the fact that most of the anglophonic population doesn't seem to believe in democracy.

I'm not using "believe in" as a synonym for "endorse", to be clear.

I mean the general sentiment is that the nominally democratic institutions of our societies do not represent the will of anyone but a small, ideologically captured elite who do not share our interests, and who do not respect the values important to us.

Democracy has been elevated to a near-sacred status. It is preached in th schools, and the voting booths, and the civic offices, and in the courts, and in the town halls, and in the hallowed halls of legislatures.

It is the value upon which our system of rule justifies and legitimises itself.

In some sense, it replaced the divine right of kings. That failed when people ceased to believe in God.

What happens to our modern civilisation when we no longer believe in democracy?

Neitzche saw the downfall of the old order in Apostasy.

A new Apostasy is upon us. An Apostasy fuelled by increasing evidence that the god of the public will is illusion, and that the heavenly throne of electoralism is empty.

We are carried forward by momentum, not fuel.

The world as it has been suffered a bevy of wounds, and soon it will bleed to death. I know not what will be born from the carrion of Democracy, but I think we are all being unreasonably calm about it.

[quote-bomber]

[kafkasapartment]

[liberatingreality]

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.

Rollo May

[philosophybits]

Cold water added to cold water, makes no disturbance. Error added to error causes no jar. Selfishness and selfishness walk together in peace, because they are agreed; but when fire is brought in direct contact with water, when flaming truth grapples with some loathsome error, when the clear and sweet current of benevolence sets against the foul and bitter stream of selfishness, when mercy and humanity confront iron-hearted cruelty, and ignorant brutality, there cannot fail to be agitation and excitement.

Frederick Douglass, "The American Apocalypse (1861)"

[serpentface]

Faiza performing the Kagnoma Odo (pretty literally 'lion dance'), a weapons dance and one of the more important ritual duties of Odonii priestesses. A relatively new addition to this traditional dance involves the musket as the primary weapon, which is fired mid-twirl into the ground at the climax of the dance. Faiza is experiencing an 'oh fuck' moment because her shot is more than ideally diagonal, but she’s being so cool with it.

This is a wholly ceremonial performance at the onset of the pilgrimage, performed in full regalia and lion skin (of the small, semi-domesticated strain) but no armor. It’s also distinctly a display of political allegiance between the powerful and beloved Odonii priesthood (and its loyal military) with the increasingly reviled and destabilized imperial family, with Faiza prominently wearing a bracelet of the royal serpent, which was gifted (along with the musket) by the usoma Stavis Amanti himself (Usoma is the Wardi word for king, which has been retained in the context of emperors).

The Kagnoma Odo is the ultimate demonstration of the Odonii as an embodiment of the Lion Face of God and living vessel of military might and sovereignty, demonstrating her fitness and proficiency with weapons and as a spiritual unifier for soldiers. It is accompanied by drumming and occurs in stages, running through the three keymost weapons used in war- the spear, the sword, and the musket. The musket is of the most significance, given the weapon has developed a particular esteem as the ultimate embodiment of might and superiority. Assistants (almost always other priestesses, occasionally high ranking soldiers) load and prime the musket to be fired at the climax of the dance, where it is shot into the ground as the priestess leaps out of range of the shot. The firing signals the end of the dance and the rite itself.

While not the utmost exemplar of trigger discipline, only fully inducted and senior (and therefore very thoroughly trained) Odonii are permitted to perform the dance, and injuries during actual performances are quite rare (though are known to occur during training, more than a few Odonii have burns and wounds on their feet).

The most important renditions of this dance are performed upon declarations of war and before battles (in this case, generally done in full armor along with the lion pelt). It is also done during some trainings (while a dance, it is carefully choreographed to include naturalistic maneuvers of the weapons involved and helps soldiers limber up and learn to move their weapons). It is regarded as an impressive and motivating sight and a morale booster, and, seen at a distance, potentially intimidating to enemies.

A special variant of this dance is performed as means of fully incarnating the Odomache, which is done in full nudity with the body covered in the blood of the freshly sacrificed lion and cloaked in its raw pelt (the lion has become the corpse of Odomache in the moment of death, as part of its recreation of God's sacrifice). Her public, full nude appearance once (and only once) in this act is what allows the Lion Face of God to incarnate within her. Those in attendance see the spiritually vulnerable, naked human body obscured with the sanctified and deified blood and cloaked in the sanctified and deified skin. It is a merger of the contradictions of mortality and divinity, the boundaries between the two indistinct in flickering firelight and the flash of musketfire. She is witnessed by her people, dangling in between humanity and divinity and leading them in dance, and and is thus transformed.

[a-typical]

— On Palestine: Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé (2015)

[diaruchann]

Odysseus is stronger than me bc the moment a cyclops killed my best friend I would've dropped his "greet the world with opens arms" philosophy real quick

[queercodedangel]

Some Lugones posting because she's pretty underrated 🧡

[typhlonectes]

[the-cybersmith]

All the wokescold lefty communists (such as @autisticexpression2 and probably @tanadrin) acting offended by this should shut their hypocritical mouths.

This is the world you made.

Or, to be more precise, this is the world you returned us to.

For most of history; stone, bronze, and iron age alike, this was normal and acceptable behaviour.

Until a few hundred years ago, this was the standard all over the planet except for a few places in Europe and Ethiopia.

The victorious warriors of a premodern conflict would select attractive young specimens from amongst the captured fighting men of a defeated enemy tribe and bring them home to be castrated and used for pleasure.

They all had different words for it, "thrall", "slave", etc... but it was essentially the same practice.

What put an end to this practice was the advent and spread of Universalist Christian Morality, or UCM. According to UCM, the victor was obliged to be merciful, and moderate, and restrained.

However, you got rid of UCM. You got rid of it because you found its rules inconvenient. Rules like "don't shoot your political opponent in the head whilst he's in the middle of a speech".

Well, congratulations. You have what you wanted. No more UCM. Just old-fashioned might makes right Nietzchean master morality (I think @loving-n0t-heyting can give a better explanation of this than I can) as far as the eye can see.

You openly bragged on X about how you were going to lock people up if you won. You said you would bankrupt Elon Musk, and take away his businesses. Well... you lost!

These soon-to-be catamites are combatants. They admit to being adults, to having voted. They are active participants in a campaign that would see men like Robert J. O'Neil disenfranchised and humiliated. They cannot claim innocence.

They would have sent him and his friends to dei training sessions and sexism awareness lessons. They would have taxed him, and locked up his heroes, and censored him on social media.

If they won.

Instead, they lost.

And now, like many losers throughout history, they shall be subject to the unrestained whims of those who defeated them.

Harry Sisson should take some progesterone, put on a dress, and report for Harem duty.

He's a concubine now.

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Road (Alan Clarke, 1987)

[kafkasapartment]

The reason facts don't change most people's opinions is because most people don't use facts to form their opinions. They use their opinions to form their "facts."

Neil Strauss