#but that’s ‘communist’ like if anything the most communist thing would be having term limits like that’s LITERAL ‘community’ commitment

[bibleofficial]

this is so fucking funny like ONLY DFW WOULD REELECT THIS 😭😭😭

[psychotrenny]

I don't think "Fascist" is a very useful or accurate thing to call Caesar and his Legion (from Fallout: New Vegas) in the context of the game world itself. Like there are a lot of aesthetic similarities and basically all of their unironic real world fans are some sort of Nazi Nerd, but when talking about their place within the context of fictional post-nuclear Nevada it just doesn't work. Like Caesar's whole deal is that he's a Social Scientist who, living in a world that's been "blasted back to the Stone Age", figures that society must evolve through the same stages if it wants to properly return to modernity. The Legion is basically comprised of "Primitive Communists"* who've been forced into a Slave Society. His criticisms of the NCR boil down to them being a moribund remnant of/reversion to Old World Capitalism rather than something organically adapted to the post-Nuclear world. He repeatedly talks about how the Legion isn't meant to represent an ideal society but simply a stepping stone onto something better (the thesis that will clash with it's antithesis and evolve into a superior synthesis). His interactions with the Courier heavily imply that the Legion's Misogyny, Homophobia, Tech aversion etc. are much more tools of social organisation and control than values that Caesar personally holds. The Legion isn't just some band of mindlessly violent reactionaries but the product of very deliberate Social Engineering; a peculiarly post-nuclear sort of scientifically planned society

Now I'm not defending the Legion as a "good" choice or anything; Caesar's plan has a lot of problems, it's not hard to poke holes into and in terms of unadulterated cruelty The Legion is easily the most morally repugnant of the main factions. But the thing I really love about The Legion is how, within the specific context of Fallout's setting, it makes sense. Like once you really think about it you can understand why someone in Edward Sallow's position would arrive at these conclusions, and there are good reasons why (if you take your roleplaying seriously and don't treat the Player Character as an extension of yourself) someone living in this world might chose to side with him. The Legion may be terrible but it's not evil for the sake of evil; there's genuinely a compelling ideology behind it.

It's why I get sad when I see so many people dismiss them as the "dum dum fascist slavers" because there's so much more to them than that. Like I think the best part about The Legion is how ridiculous they first appear ("These raiders dress like Ben-Hur extras?????) but once you find out more about them then it all starts to click ("Oh I see their leader is trying to assimilate them into a distinct and alien culture in order to maintain their loyalty; severing their previous connections and giving them a whole new identity"). So it sucks to see so many people get caught up in the first part and never make enough connections to reach the second. Like in general, Fallout: New Vegas is very messy and flawed and yet it's full of all these interesting little nuances and I think that's worth appreciating it. It's why, time and time again, I keep walking down that dusty road

*in the very broad sense that Fallouts "Tribals" are meant to represent people who have reverted back to some sort of pre-state society; of course there are countless problems with how Fallout treats this matter (including but not limited to incredible amounts of racism) but in order to understand Caesar we're forced to meet the game on it's terms

[mesetacadre]

Is the belief at all valid that ultimately there is nothing much we in the imperial core can do for the global south (i.e palestine) and that liberation is largely in their hands only? Was there any time historically where that wasn't the case?

Maybe I am just doom and glooming but it really doesn't feel like there is much we can affect (though I still attend protest and do whatever my party tells me to, I don't air out these thoughts because I don't think they are productive)

Primarly I feel like building a base here for when shit goes south is the only thing we can do

My friend, we can't forget that, while imperialism is committed outside of our reach, it is fueled, supported, and justified in our countries. National liberation movements fight in their own frontlines, and we fight in the rearguard. If you have the impression that any real progress is impossible from our position, that is a product of the very limited development of the subjective conditions in your country. You and I have seen a myriad of protests and encampments this last year, which have had overwhelmingly no material effects on the genocide, but this is not inescapable.

In Greece, where the KKE is a legitimate communist party in the eyes of a significant portion of the Greek working class, their organization in and out of the workplace is very capable. In the 17th of October they, co-organizing with the relevant union and other entities (small note because when this happened some tumblr users seemed to misspeak, this action would have been impossible without the help and involvement of the KKE, take a look at the US to see what trade unions do without communist influence), blocked a shipment of bullets to Israel:

And merely a week ago, they blocked another shipment of ammunition meant to further fuel the imperialist war in Ukraine:

The differentiating factor in Greece that is not present arguably anywhere else in Europe and North America is their strong and established communist party, even their presence exerts an indirect influence in the broader working class, communist or not.

So are the rest of us meant to sit in our milquetoast protests and watch on with envy at the Greeks? No, because these are subjective conditions, and we have control over them. Even if most actions we do don't achieve anything materially, we gain experience, and the base for a proper organization of our class is built up. It's not just building that base for when something goes wrong in our countries, it's building a better base for the very next mobilization, the next action, the next imperialist aggression. The student movement of the imperial core is better off now in terms of lessons to be learned after the encampments than if they hadn't done anything (and the utility of the encampments wasn't completely null anyway, some unis in Spain have ceased all economic and academic relations with Israel).

[venticuliao]

Thoughts on Arcane

Arcane's writing is built on a basis ideologically opposite to mine, as every work of American fiction is by design.

I like it on its own terms, without projecting my beliefs into it. All American media is held back by ideological constraints, this one has great writing within these limitations which I don't see often, so I like it a lot. Doesn't represent any ideal for me, is all.

I don't know why that is, if every American creative director just happens to be a loyal imperialist dog or if executives in the corporations that own the product share a guidelines of what has to be portrayed by the narratives. Every villain with a reasonable goal has to be morally antagonized in some way, Killmonger wants to be the head of the new power structure, Magneto wants to return the violence, so on and so forth, for whatever reason.

What I know is it's inescapable, even biopics of real life people have their beliefs trivialized or sidelined, even when the directors behind them sympathize with it. Oppenheimer defined his role in the creation and use of the bomb through Hindu beliefs that he was very serious about, yet the movie trivializes it with a scene where he recites the Vedas during sex; Fred Hampton was openly a communist yet Jesus and the Black Messiah gets away with mentioning it only once.

This is just how American media is allowed to exist, I've never had the luck to encounter any exception. When I started Arcane I didn't have any different expectations, regardless of what was presented to me on the screen. Anything that has the remote appearance of a reflection of my ideals can only be a mirage that sooner or later will show its real face, that's more or less how I interact with American media, and I've learned to not resent it. I don't compromise my ideals in watching and enjoying how the enemy makes art, something like that. Everything can be appreciated within its own terms.

Such is the case of Arcane, although only explicit in the second season at the very least. I think fans in general attribute what they consider flaws in the writing to a lack of skill or a failure, but just from my perspective drawing from what I described before, these are deliberate choices.

The optics of having rioters, especially black rioters, willingly join armed forces against the threat of war is pretty incriminating on itself. When the country demands duty from its citizens even the most rebellious ones will attend.

On the other hand, for every act of violence against the people of Zaun there is a reasonable justification, although parts of a larger conflict between the two cities.

This story was never about rebellion to me, that much I can vouch for. It seemed to me that it was rather about powerlessness. I think just most people are used to dystopian YA novels where the teenage protagonist overthrows their corrupted government at the end, but that's not usually how dystopia genre works. Outside of YA you're more likely to see pessimistic stories where the characters are beaten down by the system into submission. This isn't a bad thing, fiction that produces negative feelings like this or tragedy aren't bad media, they're good, it's good to experience these bad feelings in this context. And Arcane never seemed to me like it would build up into a grand rebellion that would serve satisfactory justice, it starts with a failed one after all. Vi has a rebellious spirit when she's a teenager because she doesn't understand the consequences of impulsive acts, even when these impulsive acts have justified rage. Vader tries to teach her that the potential losses aren't worth the risk, it's his fault her parents are dead after all. Hence....... the powerlessness..

I felt that's mostly the vibe of season 1, following the characters through their struggles in this realistic approach to dystopia. I wasn't paying a lot of attention then, so maybe there was something I didn't catch, but that's how I feel right now.

I do however have some notes on season 2, beyond the fact that the sociopolitical conflict between the two cities was sidelined, and this is mainly a confirmation that it all stems from deliberate choices and not careless or rushed writing: the narrative of the hextech.

I, uh, appreciate how it was written, and I enjoyed it a lot, like I said I can enjoy fiction that's rooted in ideology or philosophy I disagree with. And I think it was well written in its own terms too, under its own rules and themes.

How do I put it..

Themes of individuality and identity in western philosophy tend to be contrasted by the equality of socialism and the unity or denial of ego from eastern philosophy. The threat is a collective force that takes your identity away from you and to which you have to stand up to as an individual. Philosophers like Nietzsche specifically identified dharmic religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) and social changes that sought equality like liberalism (of that time period), socialism and even democracy as culprits of producing mediocre culture, anything that subordinated the individual's will to the will of a majority or sought to control the individual's will was understood as a threat in this type of western philosophy.

In Arcane Viktor attempts to absorb every individual into a collective consciousness where they become everything and nothing at the same time through a violent process. The peaceful commune formed by his cult that works on the basis of mutual aid and collectivism is framed as the first stage for this authoritative resolution. By Viktor's own admission, this pursuit ends up being meaningless.

Socialism is framed with similar threats: the leaders are authoritarian, it deprives you from your own individuality, followers are cult like believers.. and so on.

Another thing that called my attention is that Viktor is seen mediating in a pose that resembles that of eastern religions and he remains isolated. Another enemy of Nietzsche's was the figure of the ascetic that he mostly associated with the dharmic religions, someone who by western standards denies their own self to live in isolation. Dharmic religions are rooted in beliefs of unity with the world, universal consciousness, a concern with unavoidable suffering, and the separation of or control over one's ego, all which stand in conflict with western ideals of power.

Like I said, these are elements that already make up parts of the western sci fi genre in and of itself, precisely because the pursuit of technological advance acts as an affirmation of power over the environment and others. Imperialism but through creative lenses, and of course the beliefs of unity and self restraint stand in its way.

Like I also said, they wrote this in such compelling ways! If they're gonna write imperialist western values, at least make it interesting, y'kno.

The resolution between Viktor and Jayce is incredibly moving too, it has made me feel things I hadn't felt in years, but in perspective it seems more like an enforcing of the status quo.

Anyway, I don't know if the creators or the writers are to blame, it's not the first time a popular franchise suddenly asserts this kind of ideology (see Korra or superhero movies), singling out individuals for what seems like a problem in the industry (dare I say the country) doesn't seem useful. Perhaps Netflix executives had their hand in this, who knows.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The limits of ideology

In this sense, Ashanti Alston suggests that the problem is not about displacing Marxism-Leninism or Maoism with an anarchist ideology; the problem is ideology as such, and all the baggage that comes with it:

Ideology … comes out of having a set of answers for something. So even for me with my anarchism, I don’t think it’s classical. I don’t call myself an anarcho-communist or none of the others. There’s definitely anarchism that’s open to being in tune with always-changing realities. For me, anarcho-communists got good points about certain things, primitivists have good points about certain things. Them two don’t get along, but I get something from both of them. I like some aspects of anarcho-individualism, and Tolstoy’s spiritualism. For most of my folks, my people are Christians or Muslims and increasingly Yoruba, Kemetic, and other African religions that they’re recovering and using. I don’t want to be categorized as a particular school because I know if I do, the world I would hope to be created won’t have room for all kinds of tendencies of anarchism, or all kinds of tendencies of people living their lives according to their own terms.[150]

From this perspective, ideology is a screen that limits the possibility of open-ended encounters where mutual learning and transformation can take place. Its inducement of conformity tends towards closed, stagnant little enclaves. Ideological and sectarian tendencies offer the comfort of being able to pin things down, the pleasure of feeling that one is above or ahead of others, and the somber ability to sort new encounters into neat categories so that one is never too unsettled or affected by anything.

[madamepestilence]

I live in TN, which is an almost guaranteed Red State. Is there anything I can do in the leadup to the election?

At the moment, Dr. Jill Stein is still working on gaining ballot access in Tennessee, but she is rather close, with 150/275 ballot petition signatures, meaning you can help get into contact with more people in Tennessee to sign ballot petitions

As the state of Tennessee doesn't allow photocopies, the Green Party recommends you contact Beth Dachowski directly at edachowski@bellsouth.net or (615) 500-8026

She has a Tennessee ballot access website here

You can find Tennessee volunteer information and donation information here

She also provides a website detailing how to register to vote in Tennessee

There is also an official Green Party of Tennessee website

Given that your state is a Republican state, people in Tennessee fighting for a free Palestine and a better US have multiple tasks:

Convert existing Democrats to vote for Dr. Stein instead. In the event that she doesn't gain direct ballot access, use mail-in written votes to bypass polling centre restrictions, which are generally exclusively Republican and Democrat

Your single most important task is the spread of information to and spurring to action of people who normally don't vote. Convince non-voters to actually vote in this election, teach them that their votes are not useless (worst case scenario, these votes will show up in the popular vote, voicing that there is in fact demand for someone other than current dominant parties), and directly assist them in voting

If you have the capability, especially given the SCOTUS just ruled that arresting homeless people isn't cruel or unusual punishment somehow, do your best to grant homeless people housing (while 70% of homeless people are employed, you need an address to get a job, a bank account, voting access, etc.) and help them vote for Stein. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE HOUSING AS LEVERAGE AND THREATEN TO REMOVE IT. ENCOURAGE AND TEACH BUT DO NOT THREATEN. WE DO NOT NEED AND WILL NOT USE THE WEAPONS OF FASCISTS.

Additionally, if you work in a public space where you frequently interact with customers, you can leverage your position as a point of rapid spread of information. Customers will generally be upset about something - how little they make, how expensive things are now, car-dependent infrastructure, pollution, climate change, etc.

Republicans are also not unconvertable. I personally come from a place where I've seen multiple people with alt-right tattoos (remember y'all, they use more than just swastikas), but that's certainly not all of them.

Bigots are the base of both major parties now, but many are just moderate white people that don't want to come to terms with internalized racism.

Use politically charged language that appeals to them, like discussing how Biden and Trump's policies are an attack on traditional values or damaging the economy.

They suffer under capitalism just like the rest of us, and ironically I've seen a lot of Republicans that actually just want socialism, they just don't have the education (and that's not an insult, I just mean they've been misled and are missing crucial context) or experience to understand the root of the problem is the socioeconomic system, not minorities.

Most importantly, after this election, do not give up here. Keep fighting. If protests suit you, then protest. Make sure to participate in gubernatorial (state governor) and local elections and convince others to do the same.

Spur socialists to run for gubernatorial and local positions (many of them literally just have an age restriction and I've seen multiple states with no gubernatorial term limits).

Read the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and help learn what class consciousness is. I personally recommend the all-time classic The Communist Manifesto. Das Kapital is a bit obtuse to understand and is broken into multiple parts so I would recommend a clif's notes of it.

I also recommend studying the later actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. (he may have been homophobic but his contributions to black rights are undeniable, and he was assassinated because his later contributions were literally advocating for socialism) and Malcolm X.

If you're looking for some socialist YouTubers, I recommend Balkan Odyssey (a Balkan Communist),

Hakim (an Iraqi socialist),

NonCompete (an American(?) anti-fascist),

and Yugopnik (a Slavic socialist).

If you'd like more general BreadTube (leftist YouTube) that isn't entirely focused on socialism, I recommend Any Austin (doesn't explicitly mention socialism, but his choice of words and analysis of video games shows a strong leftist influence),

Folding Ideas (an Albertan documentarian who appears to have taken an interest in internet activities recently)

hbomberguy (a self-described gaming YouTuber who may be the only man on the planet eligible for the title of world-famous detective),

Innuendo Studios (responsible for the series teaching how the alt-right works and recruits people, The Alt-Right Playbook),

Jacob Geller (a Jewish video essayist often covering existential topics with socioeconomic context),

Philosophy Tube (a transfem professional political philosopher),

Shanspeare (a video essayist who breaks down the spread of fascist ideologies, especially in internet spheres),

and Tom Nicholas (a British political, historical, and cultural video essayist)

Education of class consciousness, the spread of information, and working class solidarity and organization are the key pillars to improving ourselves

We can do this

[dancerfelix]

Thoughts on the 'scientific theory ' things in general, as a physicist:

1. It is important to be skeptical of science as a thing to be aimed for. Science is not objective, it is generally a pretty specific set of methodologies viewed as correct within 'western' thought (not that others don't follow some objective practices of learning about the world, or even use western science, but that the canonized Science delegitimizes non western practices). Sometimes it feels like social sciences and humanities fields try to emulate science not because these methods are actually useful, but because stem is taken more seriously. I think this tends to be quite bad. It feels like an admission that actually things that cannot be directly quantified within Science are less important, which I think is pretty awful actually. Philosophy and art are still lovely and important even if they cannot be 'objective'.

2. Ignoring the flaws with science- it's really hard to fulfil the requirements for useful experimentation when it comes to people, and especially on the massive scale of Society™. We can't really run 10 Cuban revolutions with controlled variables and independent variables to figure out if we could have had the same revolution with black or indigenous or female or black+ female Castro equivalent or something. We can't know if him being a more explicit communist at the time of the revolution would have changed anything. We can't even definitely prove that the revolution wouldn't have been more successful if he had been a vocal capitalist instead. We can sometimes run trial runs of policy, ie Finland's UBI experiment. But we really cannot meaningfully test or experiment within the context of broader social theory.

3. Obviously we can make evidenced claims and extrapolations with the 'data' available to us. I'm not going to deny that, going back to Cuba, Cuba is better off than most other Caribbean nations, and we could make a solid case for communism contributing to that. But there's a lot of guessing involved in ways that are a bit incompatible with Science™. Part of why I think social sciences are softer sciences is because they do rely on a lot more personal interpretation and parsing through situations with a lot of entirely uncontrollable variables to try to eke out a coherent argument. The data is limited (can't exactly redo the cuban revolution at will to see if x changes y), the information on the data is limited (biased sources, can't repeat things to make sure x is better documented, much harder to have things translated, lost languages, different perspectives highlighted). These are actually challenges that physics gives very few solutions to, and I would go truly insane trying to learn anything about the world in those conditions. Social sciences have a lot of tools to deal with this (still bad at not projecting global northern bullshit onto global south but still), and while there are 'hard science' things I don't know (couldn't tell you what chemists are up to lol), the fundamental structures for processing and obtaining data remain pretty consistent across stem but not so in say, anthropology, or economic studies. Maybe theoretical math and theoretical physics are a little closer, they spend more time guessing, but even then, it's a lot easier for them to isolate things.

4. I do think you can do meaningful analysis of social systems and make theories from that. Materialism is useful even if it's not "science". If you are taking information about observable reality, discussing it in a grounded way, you can spit out analysis and projections that are useful. I don't think so called soft sciences / theory / whatever term you use for 'trying to understand Society™" is just wand waving magic or just people spouting bullshit (that'd be psychology). I also think a lot of so called science, especially when it comes to stuff with people, suffers the experimentation issue to some extent + medicine especially is built on shoddy foundations.

5. Some of this is just going to depend on how one defines science. I define science vaguely with the "experimentation and analysis" definition. This is why I struggle to say a field that mostly cannot experiment is probably not "science". But if we want to change how we define science, or move towards towards something that better includes 'non academic' knowledges, or even abolish the current scientific systems and replace them with something free of the historical baggage of Science™ with more broadly inclusive understandings of knowledge acquisition, that would be cool.

Political theory is actually not comparable to math or physics

It is, actually - the unscientific approach to human society and history taken by bourgeois academia is necessitated by any real extension of scientific analysis to the field of human society revealing fairly plainly the basis of bourgeois society on the exploitation of the proletariat; the further notion that human society and history are simply inexplicable by science, driven instead by great men and driving ideas, is the ideological justification within liberal enlightenment philosophy for this unscientific approach. What makes human society above the purview of science - the Soul?

[potteresque-ire]

This is a response to @rainbowsky​ ‘s questions about BJYX, as the original post got too long for reblogging (I hope this is okay!). 1) Should we be worried about GG and DD being outed? I often think about what it’s like to be in the closet and I know how it feels to need to be SEEN. But I also understand the reasons why that might not be an option for them. Still, I worry about them being involuntarily outed. There are so many antis after them.

 2) What would you speculate is the likelihood of this ever happening, and what might be the consequences if it happened?Is leaving an option for them, even as a distant goal years from now?

3)Does their fame and popularity hold any protective power in the situation (i.e. if they were to come out or be outed, would public opinion about what might happen to them have any impact on the outcome given the nature of the regime)? To what degree would that depend on how much money they are still able to make for interested parties?

My response is under the cut, as it got long, as usual ~

@rainbowsky, you’re among the first BXGs I followed! I’d like to thank you for your insightful posts as well!

Your questions ~ I don’t think I’m qualified to speculate because I’m still a very new turtle and also because of the volatility as well as inconsistencies of China’s sociopolitical policies. I do have a better sense of China’s politics than most international fans, but I also don’t live there and the only way to truly understand how things work at the ground level in a non-transparent country like China is to be there.

(For example, China has officially banned Christmas celebrations  for the last several years, but as we saw last week, commercials remain very “Christmas-sy” and Chinese fans happily said Merry Christmas to each other. It takes someone who lives inside to know where to draw the line — what is permitted by the state and what isn’t — when the line shifts and adjusts accordingly.)

Here’re my thoughts, as of today (2020/12/31): if the perpetrator is only some segment of the fandom and the purpose is merely to knock them off the popularity pedestal, outing isn’t a particularly effective way to do so. Homosexuality, being a highly regulated subject in Chinese news and social media, is likely to mean limit transmission of the accusations. The accuser also has to run to risk of being banned themselves first. Also, with BJYX + ZSWW + LSFY being the sizes they are, the people who will most consider turning against gg and dd, ie, the solo fans, have probably already heard something. Some will leave, but the news won’t be a bombshell to them.

The next possibility is if a legal case becomes possible, ie. if China suddenly outlaws homosexuality. This scenario may seem the most dire on the surface but is also one that I least worry about, because with China’s judiciary system being very biased to those in power, if someone wants to frame gg and dd, they do not need to use sexuality as the accusation and subject themselves to the same restrictions as mentioned above. Tax evasion, as @peekbackstage has mentioned with the actress Fan Bing Bing, is far easier, because it tends the turn the audience against the defendant: these stars are making so much money and yet they’re not contributing their share! And as long as the accusers have sufficient power — remembering that commercial and political power are married in the country — the accuser can make up any evidence to suit their needs for any crime.

The third possibility is what I see as the worst case scenario: that the government decides they don’t want their major stars / entertainment industry to be *perceived* as queer — whether the stars are officially out doesn’t matter — and signals the media and commercial companies to stop using any “suspect” star altogether. (Chinese term: 封殺). This is the case of career murder without blood —  laws aren’t changed; all the fans will hear are rumours confirmed by nobody. I see this as a possibility because of the Xi regime’s view of The Ideal Men , and my admittedly limited experience with dealing with older generations of Chinese, who I’ve found tend to confuse perceived femininity in men with queerness. I think, and this is only my opinion, that the sheer amount of adapted BL dramas in production (the so-called “dangai 耽改 101” phenomenon) and the heated discussions of them on Weibo will at some point trigger the government (which is made mostly of older generations Chinese). Even if gg and dd don’t do anything, should the government decide these adapted BL dramas, even after the elimination of their queer element, are “non mainstream socialist core values”, all the major people involved with the Untamed—arguably the classic and the drama whose success all these follow-ups are trying to imitate—can be cast as the culprit. If the same officials become aware of BJYX and if they’re somehow convinced that BJYXSZD, it can be easy be used as evidence of the bad influence these dramas can do—“they can turn people gay”—and it doesn’t help that according to reports, gg, at least, used to have a girlfriend.

Something more to consider: Gg and dd are also in a very special position now, in that not only are they immensely popular in China, no other native mainland Chinese stars have achieved this level of international fame with a native mainland Chinese production (ie, not a production from Hollywood, Hong Kong or Taiwan, or with a Kpop band). As such, they are likely subjected to high levels of scrutiny from the state. Depending on who’s in charge in the appropriate department, they may decide gg and dd have to be China’s image; they may have a set idea of what image it is and most likely, it won’t be queer. 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 are special times for China, image wise, both at home and abroad. 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, and gg and dd are both starring in its propaganda productions (dd as a police in BAH and gg as an army officer in AT). CCTV, the state-controlled TV station, is already promoting these shows. So, for 2021, gg and dd are slated to not only be the faces of Chinese entertainment, but also the image of Chinese uniformed forces. If gg and dd come out or are outed, their allowing themselves to be being perceived as queer while donning uniforms will most likely to be viewed by the current regime as an embarrassment; a career murder, then, is an apt response to such transgression. 2022 is the year of Beijing’s Winter Olympics, so again, it’s the time where image matters.

You may have noticed a pattern, as I have as I write this up: them being outed is something to worry about, but also ... nothing more than anything else. If someone wants to tear gg and dd down — and there will be, given their massive commercial power right now and the increasing evidence that they’re working more like collaborators than competitors (ie, they aren’t about to tear each other down any time soon) — they do not need their sexuality as a reason.

(And if these accusers really want to use homosexuality as a reason, the unofficial BTS is, IMO, more than enough, as long as the accusers have sufficient power.)

Your other question ~ can gg and dd’s fame, popularity, and ability to draw consumers protect them? My (slightly) educated guess of the answer, then, is that it’s very much a double-edged sword. Indeed, the one major thing that may be going for these adapted BL dramas, and for those who come to superstardom to it — with gg and dd being the prime examples — is the economic health of China, which, by some reports that can no way be verified, are far worse than what has been reported. This is the thing about countries lack transparency; without reliable news, there’s no way to get the facts. Reports on China outside the country tend to be either propaganda or demonising / filled with conspiracy theories, and the truth is probably somewhere in between. If the reports of poor economy are true, the commercial sector — which, again, is tied to those with political power; ie the money made in the former goes into the pockets of the latter — desperately needs stars like gg and dd to move products (based on those recent consumer reports!) and with that, it will want to keep gg and dd and these dramas that can potentially make more gg and dd around. This *seems* to be what’s happening so far, with the the state-run media happy to show gg and dd’s dramas (when it should know, at least, that they got to the height of their fame playing lovers-not-lovers) and gg and dd’s sponsors not-so-subtly wooing the BJYX segment of fandom, so I’m tentatively optimistic. However, the current regime has also shown a willingness to sacrifice the economy for the sake of political ideology, so it’s not something to be taken for granted. (What’s going on in Hong Kong is a good example of that.)

(I always think, eat each candy like it can be the last one. With this regime, it can be. We can wake up tomorrow and gg and dd have to break up BJYX to protect the fans.)

(I always think, treasure, treasure, treasure. Ask for more dy and lz and Weibo posts, but never anymore from gg and dd when it comes to insights of their relationship, even without considering it’s actually their private lives and they’re under no obligation to share.)

(They’ve shared with us far more than enough.)

There’s really no precedence for us to predict the future of an outed gg and dd from, as far as I know. Confirmed queer stars in Chinese entertainment (those with sufficient followers to make news) have all been from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries. The successful BL dramas before The Untamed — Addicted (2016) and The Guardian (2018) — didn’t have a real-person cp that truly took off. Addicted, a true BL drama (ie, it retained the queer elements), was banned before it finished its broadcast. The two actors were also banned from appearing together afterwards, and this “signal” from the government almost cost the two actors their career. Bai Yu from The Guardian, meanwhile, already had a girlfriend as he filmed, so there was never a Weibo supertopic dedicated to him and Zhu Yilong. gg and dd, along with their millions of turtles, are treading untrodden ground.

Something I should clarify ~ all the things I said above may sound very scary to international fans, but to those who live in the country, they understand it as the way things are, and they strategise and move accordingly. This is their way of life. What I wanted to say, in my first reblog, is that we who’re outside may not understand why they do things the way they do, why they don’t, for example, come out with all the candies they are spending so much effort to give out, but I do believe that gg and dd have a plan, not in the sense that they’re scheming or trying to trick anyone, but that they are moving things along at the pace necessary to meet the pre-requisites for the outcome they want. What this outcome is is anyone’s guess, mine being that they have the freedom to work together, not necessary in lover’s capacity — most of us are not required to perform our day jobs carrying our identity as so-and-so’s significant other and gg and dd shouldn’t be exceptions — but as colleagues, professionals and friends (lovers are friends). 

To some international fans, this may sound implausible, ridiculous: why do they need a multi year campaign for something as simple as this? As working together again? And I suppose, all these words I’ve typed so far is my attempt to answer this question, to ease the … unease, the frustration of those who may not understand. True to its marxist root, perhaps, many things that are considered mindless, effortless tasks elsewhere somehow become battles, grand struggles of sorts in China. That sea of sea lights on the night of Tencent awards, for example? It was the result of gg’s fans fighting, strategising in real time to smuggle those LED banners in when they realised the venue had forbidden their entry. They wrapped the banners around their bodies under their underwear because they were patted down by security at the underwear level; they hid batteries in their shoes. They ran batteries from one zone in the stadium to another during the whole show for whose who only managed to smuggle in banners or batteries. They fought the security guards inside the stadium, who continued to snatch away their banners even after seeing they were merely support material for the idols. They fought and fought, despite their identities were recorded by their COVID pass and facial recognition. Many confessed they had no idea what gg was singing during the show; they were too busy. They were there, some paying scalpers > 10x the ticket price, just because they promised the sea of red would be there for gg when he returned. When some realised dd’s banners were confiscated in high numbers because his fans happened to have seats right by the strictest security, they improvised, found an image of a green block to show on their cell phones to make makeshift green support lights for dd. They used Weibo to spread this trick to fellow fans. All these trouble, all these effort, all these planning and scheming and sweat and tears — all for one night, one concert and they laughed about it, called it a wonderful day.

(There are many ways for lives to be hard.)

The very first thing gg and dd need to accomplish, therefore, isn’t to announce what they do in the bedroom—the very first thing they need, for their plan to come to fruition, is to stay on top of the industry. How can they be on the same stage for the yearly Tencent Awards if either of them fails to make VIP? What’s their negotiation chip for a future collaboration, when the current norm is against cps like them working together again, if they cannot draw enough viewers and consumers, or if they offend Tencent and other media companies by refusing to see to the needs of the other side (for example, the need to promote new dramas)? So far, the two of them have accomplished this in flying colours. The other thing they need right now, the way I see it, is for their fans to get along. I think part of the reason they’ve made BJYXSZD so easy to believe in and love, in addition to their very human need to be seen when their careers may be safer otherwise (yes, I think they know what they’re doing, the candies they’re throwing), is because they want their fans to unite, as they have united. To make sure something like 227 cannot happen again, or at least, if it does happen again, their fans cannot be used as an excuse, as scapegoats. And this union is happening — slowly, but it’s happening. The size of BJYX (>2.8 million as of now, on Weibo supertopic) is a powerful indicator; I also had a wonderful time reading the comments of gg’s solo fans who went to purchase dd’s new song. This is the part gg and dd need their fan’s help. This is the one of the fews things we, as overseas fans who have limited access to their products, can help.

Your final question — sorry, this is getting so long again — about leaving. Of course, it’s always up to the government and It’s impossible to say what can happen so far ahead. But my perception, right now at least, is that gg and dd have no intention to leave, no intention to sacrifice their career for their personal lives and vice versa. After all, this is a pair who has answered those A vs B choice questions with a straight-faced “I want both” and “so annoying” without a follow-up reply. They’re right to want both. I like them for wanting both. And maybe, with their intelligence, charisma and hardwork and ambition and personalities that seem to clash but somehow complements each other’s, they will figure out a way. Maybe they are, as the Chinese turtles call them, the Chosen Pair, and they will be the ones who’ll change the perception fo queer artists in China, and we’ll one day get a biography about them and laugh at the candies we get right, laugh harder at those candies we get totally wrong.

(Dd ~ I want your honest opinion, in your own words, on the ones we get wrong.)

(Gg ~ videos of your expressions while reading the crazy theories the first time will be very much appreciated. By me.)

It’s a good day to look forward to.

[baohouse]

bánh mì, grand-père & the multiverse

Bánh mì is a Vietnamese term for wheat bread, as well as the sandwich derived from them. As a sandwich, in its most popular form, it uses a loaf of baguette, chicken liver pâté spread, deli meats (especially chả lụa ham, char siu BBQ pork, and/or grilled pork), topped with julienned pickled daikon and carrot, a sprig of cilantro for aromatics, and a few slices of fresh jalapeño peppers.

There is a similar food, bò né, which is essentially Vietnamese steak & eggs, often served with pâté, sometimes grilled onions, and with a side of baguette. I jokingly call it deconstructed bánh mì, a sandwich that you eat off the plate. The day before my grandfather's funeral, I took my father out to eat some "deconstructed bánh mì".

"Did grandpa ever had to go to reeducation camp like you did Dad?"

I wasn't very close to my grandfather. I met him enough times to count on two hands, perhaps. And even during those times, it was difficult to communicate with him because of my limited Vietnamese language proficiency. Or maybe I was just very shy and didn't know what to say to him. It turns out he was more fluent in English than I gave him credit for. It was not until I was already in college that I first learned he was a poet, about anything interesting about him.

Dad said no; ông nội had already left the Republic of Vietnam's War Psychology Department, having served in the early 1960s for three years, about a decade before the end of the war between North and South Vietnam. He served as a battlefield journalist (aka war correspondent), reporting events from the front lines. I was curious whether grandpa—having served for an institution connected to the South Vietnam government that opposed the victorious communist political class—would have been incarcerated into reeducation camps following the end of the war. They were prisons with the purpose of de-radicalizing any possible insurgent elements loyal to the former South Vietnam. My father spent 3 years in one as a low rank-and-file soldier; and that was considered short and for good behavior. I asked that question wondering if grandpa had to endure that kind of hardship, on top of the fact that postwar Vietnam had to face difficulty in reconstruction while getting embargoed by America and by China due to Cold War politics. And although grandpa wasn't detained into one, I can only imagine what he felt knowing he had friends and relatives (my dad among them) who disappeared from his life for years.

Bò né as deconstructed bánh mì is a somewhat silly (and delicious) way of describing how I have this tendency to take things apart, appreciate the pieces, and then recombining them again. And so over the few years that I had a chance to try to understand grandpa, I placed his life in front of me, deconstructed it, and examined the moments of his life. There are many details to everyone's life, his included. But what I think stood out to me, as soon as I examined his life, was this inexplicable parallels to my own life.

Born Ngô Đa Thiện in 1923 in Quảng Trị, Việt-Nam, then part of the Indochinese Union as a French colony, he was the son of a Chinese immigrant from the nearby island of Hainan who married into a local Vietnamese family. Dad told me how grandpa was kind of the black sheep among his siblings. He grew up taking an interest in literature, especially foreign literature, while his siblings made their living through trade and business. In his youth he would participate in poetry recitals. By 1943, during the time of Imperial Japanese occupation, he would earn his Diplôme d'Étude Primaire Supérieurs Franco-Indigène as proof of his French fluency, and continued to learn English himself. Shortly thereafter, he would move to Saigon, work for a French commercial company as an accountant, marry my paternal grandmother, and have their first child in the late 1940s. My father would become their third child in 1949, whereupon my grandfather would move back to Quảng Trị to open up a portrait photography studio and operate it for ten years while becoming a father to more children (my aunts and uncles). By the end of his life, he would have 13 children; 11 with his wife, and adopting another 2. In 1960, he moved back to Saigon and served for three years as a war correspondent. In 1966, he would go work for an American financial company for three years. When my father sponsored the entire family over to the United States through the Orderly Departure Program, my grandfather would continue to hone his translation skills by taking courses in Japanese at a local community college, as well as helping translate news articles and poems among Vietnamese, English, French, and Chinese.

If I could speak to grandpa, I would tell him—despite not having grown up around him all that much—I grew up reading the English dictionary, and in my middle school years, started composing poetry. I learned French and Spanish in high school. Parlez-vous français pépère? I entered university UCLA and, rather than focusing on my computer science major—selected as the sensible thing to choose given many of my aunts and uncles on my mother's side had a career in the technology industry—I instead developed my photography and graphic design sensibilities. I dropped out of UCLA's computer science program, trying to pursue and survive on a graphic design career. Thinking that I had to try to get back into a "real career", I tried to pursue accounting. I could not get past the second quarter in it. And yet within the past 3 years, I would join my best friend Duy to help him create a financial technology company. And now I am married to my beloved Thuy. (As she was reading this paragraph noting the parallels between my and my grandfather's lives, she insisted on not having 13 children.)

Even my father has a creative streak: a singer-songwriter, musician, and three degrees in Buddhist philosophy, Vietnamese literature, and radio telecommunications.

And so there is a part of me that is in awe and wonder of the parallels of creative men of three generations. It is a mysterious coincidence, that perhaps there is some kind of underlying order in the universe that gives rise to this kind of repetition. My dad would say it is karma or that it runs in the blood. I don't know about karma. However I concede that there are still things about the universe human beings only have the faintest glimpses of understanding. Maybe our souls are mathematically divine states of quantum wave functions, vibrating like music along cosmic strings.

But the idea of human behavior running in the blood, or rather our DNA, has some merit. Consider that when kittens are born and begin to grow up, they instinctively know to use a litter box. There is plenty we do not know about human epigenetics, little "programs" within our DNA that facilitate certain behaviors. And then I had a rather interesting thought about my relationship to my grandfather and to my extended family on my father's side of 12 aunts/uncles and ~30 first cousins. Me and every single one of my first cousins have about 25% of each of our DNA shared with our grandfather. Each of us is literally 25% Ngô Đa Thiện. I felt like each us are an alternate reality of his DNA. I, Ngô Thiên Bảo, am the manifestation of his genetics living as a male Vietnamese American doing software engineering. My cousin Catherine Ngo is the manifestation of his genetics living as a female Vietnamese American learning animation. Christie Ngo is the expression of his genetics living as a female Vietnamese American studying statistics/informatics. And Richard Ngo is the manifestation of his DNA as a Vietnamese American aspiring to be a computer scientist.

There are times when I dream of alternate realities and alter egos, like a role-playing video game where you assume the life of another person. And yet, my family are the very physical, real, manifestations of my own genes played out in different lives in different ways. And when you deconstruct their lives, and then "replay" their lives to understand where each one is coming from, you not only build empathy, but start to become aware of your own possibilities. Family is the manifestation of your own personal multiverse. (I am aware of the multiverse connection to the recently debuted film Everything Everywhere All at Once.) Like it or not, they are what you are if you were born as another person. If that is not reason enough to state why family is important, then I don't know what is.

And so after understanding glimpses of grandpa's life, what is my possibility? What I see from his life, is a life filled with love and compassion (I mean... with 13 children and his wife, my grandmother, that is impossible to refute). I see a life filled with awe and wonder of the deep mysteries and patterns of the universe. I see a life of creativity, and the courage to take the road less traveled (one of the poems he translated in his book was "The road not taken" by Robert Frost). And it fills me with warmth and hope that that legacy that my grandfather has bestowed upon our family will carry on into my as-yet-born child who will draw breath this autumn.

Rest in peace grandpa. You're not only with me in spirit. You are me.

Ngô Đa Thiện (1923 Quảng Trị, Việt-Nam–2022 San Jose, California)

[wxlfbites]

The Church of Satan

I can only imagine the amount of criticism and hate I'm going to get for this, so I just want to preface this post by saying that in 2015 I considered myself a LaVeyan Satanist for a while. I was a teenager and felt like what I was reading was exactly how I felt, it gave me a sense of justification for the views I had. I am not just some random, misinformed individual who only read anti-satanism propaganda. In fact, I've still actually never read anti-satanism propaganda. My opinions have been formed based exclusively on what I've read on the Church of Satan's own website. These are of course, my own opinions and people are allowed to disagree... I just think it might be something to think about if you're considering becoming a satanist.

THIS WILL BE AN EXTREMELY LONG POST

Firstly, I'm addressing the membership the Church of Satan is now implementing. ~ While the Church of Satan says that you do not need to become a member in order to consider yourself a satanist, it is clear that they encourage you to do so. It has registration and payment based memberships that allow you access to confidential information, rituals, and online chat groups you are otherwise not entitled to. Their website claims these memberships have always been in place, but I do not remember any such kind in 2015. ~ It is their policy that affiliated members are discouraged from exchanging member-exclusive information with non-members. They also express that if you are a non-member of the church, you should not expect members to keep up extended exchanges or promotion of your wares. Further, your membership is subject to rejection and retraction at their discretion and they openly state that when you apply for a membership, they gather information on you to ensure you are someone safe and trustworthy to allow in. ~ Whether or not it is intentional, they use guilt tactics in order to persuade people into becoming members. To quote some of these phrases on their own website: "Those who proudly carry our red cards identifying themselves as members have the strength and dedication to implement the tools traditionally associated with Satan". "Look to your other possessions and expenses (most people spend far more than this on general entertainment) and we’re certain you can do this if it means something to you to become a member." "We’ve discovered that most individuals can muster these funds if membership is something they truly desire." ~ They describe your membership card as a key that you must show and scan to other members to prove your affiliation. They make a few references to the underground secrecy that members may or may not choose to maintain, and so to protect their identities as members, these... calling cards if you will.. are used to discretely confirm ones membership in the Church. ~ They do not tell you where the money for your registration fee goes. In fact, they say: "That is up to the administration. It will be applied to whatever is most required at the time it is received. If you feel the need to know in more detail, then don’t join." Implying you don't have the right to know exactly where your money goes? ~ Their membership application includes inappropriate questions that no organization, religious or otherwise, should ever ask. These include: " Are you satisfied with your sex life? Describe your ideal of a physically attractive sex partner." "How many years would you like to live?" "In what organizations do you hold membership?" "Are you a smoker? If so, to what extent." "Do you drink alcoholic beverages? If so, to what extent? State preferences." " Secondly, how does satanism compare themselves to other religions and philosophies? ~ The Church of Satan declares themselves to be "a formidable threat to those who would halt progress in the name of spirituality and theism of any sort." "We are a group of dynamic individuals who stand forth as the ultimate underground alternative, the “Alien Elite.” ~ They state things like "Our members and officials will not serve as teachers nor as entertainers—we have neither the time nor the inclination.", "It is our policy not to spoon-feed information to students who are too lazy to do research." and "Your schedule is of no importance to us." so it's no surprise that the satanic texts they do not provide in full on their website, including the Satanic Bible, - which is there main text and one they highly encourage you to read - cost money. ~ They believe themselves to be the only form of satanism, stating: "People who believe in some Devilish supernatural being and worship him are Devil-worshippers, not Satanists.", "Anton LaVey was the first to define Satanism as a philosophy, and it is an atheist perspective." and “Theistic Satanism” is an oxymoronic term and thus absurd." ~ Statements like: "we stand in opposition to theist religions and their

inherent hypocrisy.", [regarding the word Shemhamforash] - "So, Satanists use it for traditional blasphemy’s sake.", [regarding someones question about their experiences with demons] - "Satanists do not believe in demons or other supernatural beings, nor do we believe in spells. Seek help from local mental health professionals to assist you to get over these delusions.", "We Satanists are all anthropologists to some degree and can find that not upsetting people who think in such simplistic and erroneous terms of “belief equals goodness and truthfulness” might be worthwhile to smooth the proceedings in which one is involved. Trying to teach them that they are mistaken in such a belief may not be worth one’s efforts." are pretty much self explanatory as to the lack of consideration satanism has for other religions as being true for others.

~ This statement: "Knowing this, if you choose to affiliate with any pseudo-Satanic or anti-Satanic groups, you may well find yourself disaffiliated from the Church of Satan. Forewarned is forearmed." might sound harmless at first glance, but this kind of reminds me of an isolation tactic where cults discourage their followers to read or engage with opposing or differing opinions because it might open their eyes to the truth of things?

Finally, here are some statements that I personally don't find are morally or ethically okay?

~ In terms of kids worrying about their parents approval the Church says: "Satanism teaches that, so long as you live with your parents, you are in “their lair” and must show them respect". Which... is literally the same shit abuse victims hear all the time..... (example "you live in their house, they're your parents and you should love and respect them no matter what")...

~ "There can be no more myth of “equality” for all—it only translates to “mediocrity” and supports the weak at the expense of the strong." is a statement I just .... wish I were making up at this point.

~"The emotional drive to “change the world” is a common stage of early adult development typically beginning around age 16 and lasting until around age 24. Usually, individuals who become aware as to how the world actually functions—rather than being lost in a fantasy wherein they will be some sort of savior figure—come to realize that idealism (such as changing the world) is less important than the principle of getting what you want for yourself.",

Also! Um.. they are fully aware and okay with people who uphold discriminatory political views....

To quote their website regarding politics: "Our members span an amazing political spectrum, which includes but is not limited to: Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Reform Party members, Independents, Capitalists, Socialists, Communists, Stalinists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Zionists, Monarchists, Fascists, Anarchists, and just about anything else you could possibly imagine."

And to justify this, they say: "Members who demand conformity from other members to their particular political fetish are welcomed to depart.”, "For a Satanist to expect, much less demand, consensus on any given issue, beyond basic advocacy of individual liberty within local laws, is an enterprise which is probably as masochistic as it is insane.", "Some naïve idealists seem to think that the Church of Satan as an organization risks irrelevancy if it does not become an advocate of certain political positions—usually their own pet issues which are assumed “must” be shared by other Satanists. This fear is based upon the assumption that the Church of Satan needs to change the world or risk “fading into obscurity.”

Again, all of this information comes directly from the Church of Satan website itself. It it not "propaganda". It comes from their own mouths. You're free to disagree with my interpretation and views of the above. But if you do agree, I'd love to know.

The things above make me uneasy. They give me huge cult vibes and are actually disappointing to read as someone who once considered themselves a satanist. As an omnistic pagan now, I do believe that all religions hold truths within them and can say that there are certain things within satanism I do agree with. But overall, I feel like calling satanism a religion is a stretch and should be joined with caution if it's something you are really interested in. I am only one person, I can't tell anyone what to do. But if you were considering becoming a satanist but hold values and views that the things in this post opposed or were opposite to, then maybe satanism isn't right for you. It's definitely not right for me.

I hope this post was educational at the very least. I hope that it might help people make a decision either way if they were interested in joining the Church.

[dangermousie]

My problem with the 40 ep rule isn’t the rule per se (I too remember days when few cdramas went over 35 eps) but how it’s emblematic of insanity of various regulations. The blanket rule to a varied situation is annoying enough (no modern romcom needs more than 25 eps and it’s going to be bloated with 40; good luck adapting Romance of the Three Kingdoms or similar within 40 eps) but what really causes me heartburn is the fact that this rule (and every other procedural rule, like rules about seasons or w/e) applies suddenly and immediately with no grandfathering even for dramas that have already received licenses. I can understand why “but I already have a license” won’t work in terms of content restrictions - if censors decide topic X is taboo, that’s curtains. But for something that is not done for ideological reasons, that’s basically nuts.

Because sure, you can make plenty of great stories that fit within 40 eps. But not if those stories were written and filmed for more eps, amounts of eps allowed when they were made and even licensed, and now have to be shredded. That way you get genuine incoherence and nothing worth watching. 

This leads me to the second thing which is it’s one thing if they picked a rule and stuck to it, but they keep changing them so frequently - I remember when only a couple of years ago it was 49 (or was it 46? I can’t even keep track any more) episodes and only for TV productions, or when recently it was 3 months between seasons. Nobody can create anything watchable when the rules keep constantly changing and you are playing whack-a-mole against an opponent that can rig it any way he wants. 

I mean, would it surprise me that just as the makers got used to it we get hit with a 35 ep limit? Nope. 

But that really is emblematic of your other point I think - CCP’s greater and greater meddling. The censorship office has obviously always existed but it’s startling to think that most of my favorite dramas from 2011 or earlier or even 2019 and earlier would not be able to get approval now. The ep number control really is to me part of all that meddling and all the tightening of the screws. When nothing but the blandest of the bland is certain to get through, that is what you are going to get. 

It’s a huge pity because when cdramas are good, nothing hits as much as they do, it’s a pure shot of joy to the veins. But it is what it is. I grew up in a different communist dictatorship, and having irrational censorship or periods of thaw and repression over and over, is sadly a typical pattern.

My unpopular opinion about the current state of cdrama is that the episode limit (40) is the least of its problems. I’m old enough to remember when 30-40 episodes were the norm and anything 50+ was saved for true epics, like the Legend of Zhen Huan. Modern dramas (especially the idol ones) were 20-30 episodes and that was perfect. I actually think a lot of dramas could still get done and get done well in less than 40 episodes.

For me, the real issue is CCP’s content censorship and the increasingly idol led nature of dramas. Most dramas just feel so … empty, for a lack of better word.

(I miss BBJX)

[valeriatimbalari]

ART, ART, ART : What is at the heart of art ?

It has always baffled me how the human being must define, and therefore set limits and contraints, to almost everything that comes it’s way. We just can’t leave anything be, can we? Faith, nature, love , art. Dividing it. Categorizing. Dissecting. Separating. Naming. Nothing and no one is free under our sun. I’ve always thought that the way we went on about defining art was very similar to defining some mysterious disease. Such hurry and ridiculous fuss, and for what?

There exist forms of energy that are simply bigger than life , and attempting to pin them down and reducing them to a couple of fancy statements would be a waste of time. But so be it, let’s define art. Art is the translation of any emotion to any medium that allows it to take a physical form. Art can be ugly, rotten, despicable. Whatever comes from the heart is so, always. Beauty is optional. Any artist and any work of art he produces must have a muse. The muse is fluid in form. It may be a beautiful woman, it may be the shape and texture of an old scar, it may be the faint smell of baby powder and Indian cigarettes. An artist is a whole good bunch of nothing without the muse. For the muse is the pillar of the work of art, it’s bones and flesh. I prefer Danto’s definition much more than Dickie’s (Barrett, pg.4) because it resonates largely more with my own beliefs.

The presence of a subject within the universe of the work (the muse), and a distinct attitude or point of view in relation to it. I love the use of the term “attitude”. Just like beauty, I do think that interpretation is optional. Something of lethal and great beauty can simply exist freely, without being condemned to the interpretation of strangers. I must say that the way Dickie describes the artist is almost shallow, if not dissapointing. “An artist is a person who participates with understanding in making a work of art.” (Barrett, pg.4) An artist is an exhibitionist who hangs and frames his sorrow on the wall. He doesn’t “understand” his art, it just comes roaring out of him. Once again, another factor that makes me appreciate Danto’s definition more is his mention of a requirement of an art-historical context. We all come from somewhere, and our environment and the cultural and historical circumstances we’ve been imposed do impact our art.

 One of my very favorite artists, Zdzisław Beksiński, a Polish painter, produces outstanding pieces that respond to all of my criteria, and to those of Danto’s as well. Most of his works originate from the period of time following World War 2. As if being brought up in the times of Communist Poland wasn’t enough, the poor thing had to suffer through the death of his wife and the suicide of his son. It is very easy to situate his influences in his work, for they are so obvious. From the political and social commentaries, to the visual representations of grief and sorrow, it is all there. There is a lot of death in his art, and not much else really. And isn’t it such a tragedy that towards the end of his life, he got stabbed by his neighbour for the 20$ he owned him? Fate can be a funny thing sometimes.

(Untitled, 1988)

(Untitled, 1988)

Bibliography

Barrette, Terry. Why Is That Art? Aesthetics and Criticism of Cotemporary Art. Oxford University Press USA, Third Edition, February 2017.

https://www.wikiart.org/en/zdislav-beksinski/untitled-158

[arcticdementor]

Why don't we look where this has actually happened: Israel. Israel hit a nadir of TFR of 2.7 back in 1992 and slowly, but sustainably rose back to 3.1. How? Part of this was having some highly religious groups who were able to keep up birth rates and naturally increase their share of the population. Part of this was subsidizing assisted reproduction healthcare (to the tune of 1.5% of the budget). Part of it is tax and transfer policies. Mothers get cash from the government after a birth. Tax exemptions are granted for having children. Part of it is social policy. The highly fecund are prioritized for public housing, they are granted exemption from some military service, and a few other perks. Part of it is cultural. Some Israelis like to have kids to stick it to Hitler. Some do so as part of their patriotic duties. Some are actively engaged in a race with the Arabs of the area to preserve the Jewish character of Israel. Most importantly, when you grow up among a high fertility culture, you are more likely to increase your fertility as well. Even secular Israelis have outsized TFRs compared to their European or American counterparts. For the developed world I suspect that eventually some highly religious population will keep having more children (e.g. like the Haredi in Israel), the government will subsidize them (and anyone else) as more workers is a large net cash benefit on generational timescales (and likely to be highly effective politics for at least one party), in time those who grow up with their closest friends marrying young and having more than two children will themselves become more likely to have more than two children, and eventually the net present value of raising children will equilibrate towards the long term value of more future taxpayers to the government (and even if the majority of these kids are net negatives, increasing the pool leads to more extreme outliers who will more than pay back for the rest). Trends likely to help this along: The rise of remote work. The preferred economic arrangement in the US is for dad to work full time and for mom to work part time (or not at all). This is hard to manage. Living within easy commutes of the good jobs gets pricey quickly and finding part-time work that makes sense given the logistics of commuting (e.g. needing an extra car), childcare, and end wage has drastically limited the ability of families to fulfill this preference. Moving online gets rid of many commuting concerns, and even for those who don't get freed from them, the decreased demand should make it easier to get space near the office and to do more work from home. Cash for kids. Romney has a quite impressive child benefit program. He and other conservatives are now arguing for direct cash transfers (if only in place of government services); these are by far the most popular policy for parents to receive any such assistance. The poor hate the intrusiveness and inflexibility of other measures, the middle class want to be able to dial back mom's hours or pay for parochial school, and even the upper class would not mind being able to use such monies to procure childcare that might otherwise be just out of reach. Frankly, the only opponents seem to be high status dual-income families (who prefer subsidized childcare), the credentialed administrators and educators who manage the current system, and a few brave tax hawks. Absent some change in political dynamics or a debt crisis, I expect that there will be a bidding war and we are setup for the Democrats to be the ones low balling. I suspect that before the decade is out we will have more direct transfers to families and women will have more freedom to pursue both their desired career goals (or lack thereof) and their desired fertility goals. Lastly, I suspect future generations will not be as kind to the moral changes wrought by the 60s liberation. We have been promised untold number of beneficial outcomes from social change, but they keep failing to pan out. Divorce has not lead to happier children nor to increased adult life satisfaction. Drug use has lead to drastic decreases in life expectancy among using populations with exceedingly few of the promised benefits of the psychonauts. Even the sexual bacchanals promised have turned into litigious affairs regarding consent, regret, and, if self-reported data is true, rather lackluster. This will be particularly true if any of the doom prophets are correct and the Boomers leave us with a massive bill for the debt/climate/geopolitics/etc. that future generations view as being run up by the "me generation" demanding its freedom without consequences. Things not in the cards that might be helpful: 1. Banning the use of degrees in job hiring. Allow employers to measure any skill or knowledge one gains during the degree process, but ban the use of degree requirements as such. Freeing young people from needing to dump 4 years into education for ever more menial jobs would allow for them to start their adult lives sooner, perhaps before fertility concerns hit (e.g. the average woman needs to actively start her childbearing efforts in her late 20s if she wishes to have the average number of kids desired with reasonable odds of not needing ART). 2. Normalization of larger families. How often do we see any modern families with even four kids in television shows? People tend to adjust their expectations to what is shown around them. If fewer of our cultural narratives were about the single woman slaying Goliath or the mother fiercely devoted to her one (or two) children things might go further. As a student of history, it always amazes me that so many period pieces rarely feature families of historical sizes and how modern casts rarely have anyone with fertility in the top standard deviation of the population depicted. 3. Religious revival. I am highly doubtful I will live to see this, but we have seen many places (Israel, the former communist states of Eastern Europe, parts of China) undergo religious revival. And if the 1930s were anything to go by, it is quite possible that a lot of the folks who get disillusioned by the current secular fad religions may revert to something more robust for family formations (e.g. Sunni Islam, Catholicism, Mormonism). 4. Polygamy. Right now, men who desire more children have to marry one spouse who has similar desires. While men can have children out-of-wedlock, it comes with large social costs. It is quite possible that as polygamy becomes normalized, the minority of men who want more children will be able to make socially acceptable arrangements with multiple women to arrange that (certainly the FLDS do well enough here). I still doubt that polygamy will play out like this (and it has historically been associated with lower TFR), but it is at least possible.

Sure

[southeastasianists]

It was 22 years ago this month when racial violence against Chinese Indonesians broke out in Indonesia. Amid the violence, over 1,000 died and thousands were more bankrupted or fled the country.

People who had not been born then – Generation Z or Gen-Zers — are highly aware of this side of history despite having no direct experience with the event. Supported by their tech savviness and influenced by global movements, young Chinese Indonesians are forming new social alliances and building their own narratives.

They no longer only see race as their sole identity. They are becoming more and more critical of intersectional identity, incorporating class, privilege, gender, and sexual orientation.

Older conversations about racism and discrimination against Chinese Indonesians tend to avoid the class issue, mainly because of the prevalent stereotype that all Chinese Indonesians are wealthy.

But to make the case of their own discrimination, young Chinese Indonesians today will have to break the taboo and talk about class and privilege, researchers say. To beat the ghost, don’t run away; run towards it.

After the fall of Indonesia’s first president Sukarno and his leftist allies, right-wing Chinese Indonesians moved closer to General Suharto, who rose to power following the 1965 communist purge. Suharto then utilized Chinese Indonesian businesses to execute his economic development programs, while actively distinguishing their ethnicity from the so-called “native Indonesians,” or pribumis.

The businesses grew into conglomerations — the likes of Salim Group, Astra International, the Sinar Mas Group, Gudang Garam, Sampoerna and the Lippo Group — all owned by ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs.

Indonesia’s economy grew, but inequality deepened.

When the economic crisis hit in 1998, food shortages and mass unemployment triggered riots that targeted ethnic Chinese throughout Indonesia, mainly in Medan, Jakarta, and Solo. Property and businesses were looted and burned with men, women and children still inside, while over a hundred of women were raped and thrown into the fires. Casualties included both Chinese and non-Chinese.

The memories are painful. Outside of Indonesia, there have been efforts to preserve these memories through art, such as Rani Pramesti’s Chinese Whispers graphic novel, performance, and installations in Australia. Back home, the whispers are far more quiet.

The Diplomat spoke to about a dozen Chinese Indonesians between the ages of 16 and 22 years old in Indonesia, and found that they were aware of the events of May 1998. They, too, felt the sting when stories were passed down in a hushed manner by parents and teachers.

When asked about what to do about the unresolved cases, they are divided. Some strongly believed in pressuring the government for justice; others took a more pessimistic view.

Today, the middle class and the wealthy Chinese Indonesians living in the cities remain segregated. They live in different neighborhoods and go to different schools from the so-called pribumis. They have limited interaction with people outside of their own ethnicity.

Some still experience being called “Cina” (Chinese), a derogatory racist term. Many understand that they belong to a different ethnicity and class than most Indonesians, but are unsure what to do with that knowledge. They do not speak Mandarin and feel out of touch with their ancestors’ culture.

At the highest level, wealthy Chinese Indonesian business elite are again assisting President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ambition to attract investments and build infrastructure. The conglomerates formed during the Suharto era are alive and well. They remain at the top and are positioning themselves as “the bridge” in contemporary Indonesia-China relations.

As the result, Jokowi’s administration has forged closer ties with Xi Jinping’s China, which the president’s critics claim is giving more advantages to Chinese investors and businesses.

“Those outside of this exclusive group (of business elite) have expressed discontent over the direction of Chinese Indonesian identity politics, and these internal divisions may widen even further in the future,” Indonesian scholar Charlotte Setijadi wrote in a 2016 research paper.

Now with Gen Z in the picture, it does not seem that younger Chinese Indonesians would, or should, stay passive and let their identity be directed by a handful of their older, wealthy counterparts — again.

Thung Ju Lan, a researcher at Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), pointed out that the main gap in Indonesian society now is less about race than it is about class.

“If you compare with the politics in the ‘60s, today’s gap is no longer a divide between the Chinese and the non-Chinese, but between social classes. The wealthy are friends with each other regardless of race; they hang out together in Singapore and whatnot,” Thung said.

Human rights groups have strongly criticized Jokowi’s administration as favoring large businesses — Chinese owned or not — over the people’s welfare.

Hoon Chang Yau, researcher at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, affirmed this view. He said if the average young Indonesian of any ethnicity were to learn anything from the New Order era, it’s that conversations about race and ethnicity must include rejections of economic inequality and of the oppression of other minorities.

“If we want to talk about race, we cannot pretend there is no class issue, because actually a lot of problems are rooted in socioeconomic problems,” he said.

A growing number of Gen-Zers are starting to realize this. Not only they are critical of discrimination they face themselves, but they are also building solidarity with people from other intersections of marginalization.

Kai Mata, 23, is a Chinese Indonesian who has been generating media buzz lately for being the first openly gay musician in Indonesia. In 1998, along with her parents she left Indonesia as a baby for the United States. She came back to Indonesia at 13 years old.

Kai uses music and social media to promote acceptance of gayness. Her Instagram and Twitter accounts are adorned by rainbows. When it comes to her ethnicity, she said she never fully understood it while growing up. When she asked around about the May 1998 riots, she received an underwhelming response.

“A lot of Chinese Indonesians survive in the past because they are quiet and stayed hidden, and a lot of them still moved forward with that rather than speaking up, and we don’t raise our voices for the people in the past that have died,” Kai said.

“From that aspect I think that’s why I’m quite vocal about all aspects of me being Indonesian,” Kai added.

Kevin Ng, 20, coordinates the Aksi Kamisan protest in Perth, Australia, while being a student. Kamisan is a silent protest held every Thursday urging the government to resolve cases of past human rights abuses.

Active in various youth and nonprofit organizations, Ng believed that the issues of class, racism and discrimination cannot be separated from one another.

“Class struggles is one of the factors creating that (social) friction… Our main enemy right now is capitalism, where Chinese Indonesians are not the only capitalists,” Ng said.

Meanwhile, Jesslyn Tan, 18, busies herself in womens empowerment activism and theater. For her, the most important thing is to start over and build up her heritage again, starting from her generation.

Moving forward, the responsibility for the future is with both sides, Hoon said.

Hoon strongly recommended the education sector be activated to promote multicultural citizenship.

He also pointed at the gaps. While Islamic boarding schools, or pesantren, are scrutinized and expected to foster tolerant teachings, little attention is paid to expensive, private Christian schools.

“They (Christian schools) seem to want Indonesia only for the privilege. They don’t see poverty, they are blinded to differences. They think Indonesia is heaven because they go to Singapore, Bali, and Australia. So (the kids) are being prepared for cosmopolitan lifestyle, and that’s problematic because it doesn’t match the reality of Indonesia,” Hoon said.

To give the past any meaning, young Chinese Indonesians must stand with their non-ethnic Chinese friends, the underprivileged, and all other minorities, and set the course of their own journey. Only then will walls and boxes disappear.

[thevividgreenmoss]

Let’s get back to the question of organization. What is the difference between the Shia theocracy that you have described and a communist movement that you would support? Is the form of these movements identical in both of those cases even though they are marked by very different political content?

I don’t know what one means by form, because form can’t be distinguished from the social relations within which it is embedded. It can’t be a disembodied form. The particular brand of Iranian Shiaism had a ready-made hierarchy of a religious nature. For example, every mosque and every imam has employees who draw their salaries from the establishment. It is a hierarchy of belief and faith and all of that. Communists have no such advantage. Communists actually have to build their bases and it is in the process of building them that they gain allegiances and legitimacy among the masses.

It is a matter of practical work, not only one of setting up organizations. Organizations don’t function unless they deliver something to people. Trade unions are just one form of this dynamic. It was always the “social work” of the communists that gave them grounding amongst the masses. Communists have always done what the social movements say that they do: sanitation and sewers, women’s organizations, solving the problems of the people at the base. That was not something discovered by the so called “new” social movements. That is what communists always did. That is what Gandhi did. Any movement that takes strong root among the masses rises on this basis.

When Pakistan came into being and this migrant proletariat came from the north, there were no trade unions in Karachi. One great fear the workers had was that they would die and be buried away from home. The first communist organization that arose in Karachi was a “coffins and burial committee.” This was the first communist organization. So it is out of these kinds of activities that you build your legitimacy. In any country that is what you have to do. Now, you have to have forms that are rooted in the realities of your lives. So a Canadian is not much concerned about where he will die and be buried. The issues will be different, but we have to do similar work.

That is the kind of thing that most social movements are doing. I entirely support them because it’s a very familiar kind of work. Where I part company with most of them is in their very narrow ideology of micro-politics, where one assumes that you will progress from these activities to yearly congresses and social forums where some coordination might happen and somehow society will change. That exclusive emphasis on micro-politics is populism of the highest order, and I don’t find it very convincing.

[...]

Fundamentally, social democracy was committed to the idea that the transformation of capitalism could come about through a series of step by step reforms achieved by building a welfare state. Building and deepening the welfare state was seen as the project of social democracy. And that project reached its limits with the crisis of Keynesianism. Indian Marxism is under no illusion that it will ever be able to even build a proper welfare state. That’s one difference.

In this respect, once it broke with Marxism during the early 1950s (at the latest), I do not see social democracy as ever having been an anti-capitalist force. Indian parliamentary communism actually thinks of itself as an anti-capitalist force. Again, the question of reform cannot be looked at abstractly. You work for reforms if you win elections in a certain state, as they keep doing in West Bengal. But the illusion is never put forward that this is how we will build socialism. That illusion is not there.

What they are saying is that, since you have elected us, we will do for you the best we can. So what they do in practice in that situation is not very different from social democratic reform in a largely peasant society. The difference is that it is not seen as the fundamental building block. They are clear about the fact that you can’t build socialism in a province of a state, and that you have to build mass revolutionary organizations. It is revolutionary in the sense that parliamentary work is seen as only one kind of work, and you’re constantly organizing for completely extra-parliamentary confrontations with the state.

It is a matter of building the mass movements out of which will come, on the one hand, beneficial effects on parliamentary politics and the kind of elections the masses go through, but on the other hand it is actually about building organs of popular political power at the base. More broadly, it is a question of building what Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch have called, very vaguely, “capabilities.” For example, you have a women’s movement that addresses all kinds of things, from electricity to power to housing and it is not simply subordinated to the electoral machine. So there is a very different conception in India from that in Europe.

Returning to your question about periodization and forms of organization: the fact of the matter is that, in their organizing efforts within the working class in the United States, Communists’ words have fallen on deaf ears, with the exception of the 1930s when they did become a fairly prominent political force. The reasons for that are diverse, but it is not a matter of periodization, of Fordism and so on.

Something that does need to be said, however, is that there has been a shift in the very composition of classes that requires a shift in our understanding of organization. Classical Marxism was based on the notion that the majority of the population would become proletarianized and at the heart of that process would be the great industrial working class. If you use the term “proletarian” or “working class” to connote the very precise relationship between wage labour and capital, then yes the great majority, certainly in the advanced capitalist countries, has become working class in that sense. But the weight of the industrial working class is, if anything, on the decline with automation, etc. So the great bulk of the working class in the advanced capitalist countries is not the industrial proletariat. In fact, at no point did the industrial working class come to constitute much more than 30% of the population. It was never a majority.

What does constitute a majority is the category of wage work, and varieties of wage work have proliferated – in the service sector in general, but even within the service sector the varieties of wage work have proliferated. This has consequences for forms of organization. There are negative consequences for traditional forms of working class organization but it is also true that, as I keep saying, the number and variety of potentially revolutionary agents has multiplied. Indigenous people are now demanding their rights in the Americas, and are entering the political field in a way that they never did in the past. That is a question that must be correctly addressed by the left on a very large scale. Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat the past. For example, part of the failure of the Communist Party in the USA was based on not correctly addressing the race question in the days of CLR James.

Throughout the world, women have entered into the political field within the last 30 years in a way that they never did before. Consequently, our understanding of women as autonomous agents itself has had to change. Women have always done the majority of the productive and not just the reproductive work. The hardest work in peasant societies is done by women, which was something we never took into account when we thought of the peasantry. We thought of the male peasant who goes out to work in the fields. Our understanding of the proletariat has changed and needs to change.

Issues of that kind are tangentially connected with periods of capitalism. However, if we look at the question of periodization in the context of the two great economies in terms of demographic weight, India and China are in the midst of a period of massive proletarianization on a scale unknown in the history of humankind. Precisely at the moment when there is a kind of “post-modernization” of work in the United States, there is an immense proletarianization going on. So, if there are periods, they are clearly not synchronic. In India, something like 78 percent of the population is still in the villages. They no longer do subsistence farming and the great bulk of them are joining the rural proletariat and the lumpenproletariat. Mike Davis’ brilliant book Planet of Slums documents what is happening with global urbanization. Today, entire patterns of social life cannot be understood in the same way that we once thought of cities, for example.

The Anti-Imperialism of Our Times: An Interview with Aijaz Ahmad

[potteresque-ire]

Hi :) Are you following the zheng shuang scandal? Would you say that her career is pretty much over now? The rate the news has been unfolding is so crazy to me. It’s only been 3-4 days. Was wondering if the gov would handle her matters personally.

Hello Anon! Yes, I’ve followed the news about the actress, primarily because it offers insight on how the current administration deals with stars exhibiting what it deems as “immoral” behaviour. As of today (2021/01/26), it’s difficult to imagine her career will survive at all. While she isn’t the first to be categorised as a “bad-history entertainer” (劣迹藝人), she’s the first to be explicitly banned by the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA; 國家廣播電視總局), the department that controls—and censors—content of all radio, television, satellite, and Internet broadcasts in the country. Before, the NRTA didn’t publicise the names of the entertainers the government no longer wishes to see, which allows a possibility for reversal in a few year’s time if the “bad-history” wasn’t too damaging, and production companies are willing to take a risk and produce shows with the entertainers that may be difficult to pass the censorship board. But with such a high profile announcement, the government’s stance is unlikely to turn around in a foreseeable future.

Hmm. Let’s backpedal a little to get everyone on track. Before, I’ve shared some info re: the censoring of books, of audiovisual media. What if the government decides to “cancel” an entertainer instead? How does it do it? What are the standards?

The actress’s downfall is a (sad) example.

I shall skip names, the gossipy elements. Whether she made mistakes or not, no one deserves having their private matters exposed and sensationalised like this; no one should have to undergo such a humiliating, public trial. Essentially, the heart of the story goes as follows: the actress, a romantic-lead type who has been popular for several years, secretly got married. On 2021/01/18, her estranged husband claimed on Weibo that the couple had two children using US-based surrogate mothers, and the actress had abandoned the children in the US under his care. Meanwhile, his friend provided an audio from approximately the 7th month of the surrogate pregnancies, at which time the marriage was already falling apart. In the audio, the actress expressed dismay that abortion was no longer possible; her family talked about abandoning the newborns at the hospital or giving them up for adoption.

The next day (2021/01/19), the actress responded. She didn’t deny the existence of her surrogate children and claimed that she had been extorted. More importantly, she said the following: 

“身為藝人我深知我國疫情的防控與重視。** 在中國國土之上我沒有違背國家的指示，在境外我也更是尊重一切的法律法規。”

“Being an artist, I deeply understand the attention my country (China) has placed on controlling the epidemic. On China’s soil, I didn’t do anything that violates the directives by the government. Outside the country, I’ve been even more respectful of all laws and regulations.”

This apparently hit a nerve of the administration. On the same day (2021/01/19), the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (CPLAC; 中央政法委) — one of the most powerful commissions that oversees the entire legal enforcement system of the government —  published an opinion piece , in which it said:

但[女星姓名]的回应，却通篇强调自己没有违法，丝毫没有任何悔过、道歉的意思。…

But the response of (name of the actress) insists that she didn’t violate any laws, doesn’t show a hint of remorse, regret…

要知道，在我国代孕行为是被明确禁止的。… 作为中国公民，因为代孕在中国被禁止，就钻法律空子就跑去美国，这绝不是遵纪守法。…

It should be known, that in our country, surrogacy is explicitly prohibited … as a PRC (People’s Republic of China) citizen, to use a legislative loophole and go to the US due to the ban of surrogacy in China is absolutely not obeying the law…

要知道，没有营养的炒作带不来长久流量。公众人物的魅力，来自其高尚的职业操守、良好的社会形象、文质兼美的优秀作品，而不是疯疯癫癫、任性胡闹、缺爱卖惨的“人设”。作为公众人物，几度疯狂游走在法律边缘，把这样错乱的世界观、价值观、人生观，置于众目睽睽之下，贻害世风，这绝不是无辜！

It should be known, that hype devoid of significance will not bring in traffic (click rates). The charisma of public figures comes from their noble professionalism, good social image, high quality works in character and content, and not from “personalities” rooting in craziness, petulance, mischief, the selling of one’s lack-of-love and misfortunes. As a public figure, to wildly roam at the edge of the law, to place such wrong and chaotic world views, values and life perspectives in the public eye, to cause harm to the morals of society — that is definitely not innocence!

Things to note here:

1) The CPLAC reacting within a day of the actress’s statement ~  unlikely enough time for teasing out / verifying the facts or truth of the matter.

2) The implication that Chinese citizens must follow Chinese laws, even when they’re overseas. (What about, for example, same-sex marriages?)

3) These words that, IMO, bordered on insult: “craziness, petulance, mischief, the selling of one’s lack-of-love and misfortunes”.

The actress’s career was hanging by a thread with this opinion piece. State-controlled agencies chimed in, many of which echoing CPLAC’s stance that surrogacy is explicitly prohibited in China. By night time of 2021/01/19, rumours abounded that multiple media companies had already listed the actress as a “bad-history entertainer” and would be shelving all her works and cancelling all her scheduled appearances. Prada terminated her endorsement.

The final drop of the hammer happened a day later, in the evening of 2021/01/20. The NRTA issued a statement that explicitly named the actress and contained the following lines:

代孕不是私事，与法不合，有违社会主义公德。…

Surrogacy isn’t a private matter. It doesn’t agree with the law, violates the civility of socialism…

从事广播电视和网络视听的演艺人员尤其是知名艺人，作为公众人物，有很大的社会影响力和示范作用，应当自觉践行行业自律准则，严格律己修身，严私德，讲大德，守公德。

Artists who work in TV and web audiovisual productions, especially famous entertainers, have significant social influence and demonstrative roles as public figures. They should be conscious about the self-discipline required for their industry, be strict in their behaviour and personal virtues, speak of great kindness and defend civility.

行业主管部门的相关政策要求是明确的，严格的。广大人民群众不愿意、不接受、也不允许丑闻劣迹者污染我们的社会公德和公序良俗。

Policies regarding the management of the industry is clear and strict. The public does not want, does not accept, does not allow those with scandals and poor history pollute the civility, the good order and customs of our society.

我们不会为丑闻劣迹者提供发声露脸的机会和平台，一如既往，坚决为广大人民群众提供健康向上荧屏声频。

We will not supply opportunities and platforms for those with scandals and poor history to sound their opinions, to show their faces. Just as before, we are determined to provide audiovisual content that is healthy above all.

And just like this, less than 72 hours after the estranged husband posted on his Weibo, the actress’s career is over. The NRTA, which has The Say on who and what get exposure time on screen, has spoken. The actress had no way of self-defence. Her 11 million followers on Weibo didn’t get to decide whether she’d stay or she’d go.

This is a brutal punishment but for what, exactly? Some netizens have whispered while the others shout their condemnations ~ but I thought…. surrogacy isn’t illegal?

And they’re correct: surrogacy isn’t explicitly outlawed in China, despite what CPLAC and other state agencies has claimed. In 2001, the Ministry of Health banned medical institutions and health care workers from "practicing any form of surrogate technology". However, no laws have ever passed that prohibit individuals from commissioning or providing surrogacy services—especially when the services are overseas.

The actress, therefore, wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t do anything that violates the directives by the government on China’s soil. Her “crime” of using surrogate mothers was, at worst, a legally grey area. For years, China has had a booming, semi-underground surrogacy market, their client base including older parents who wish to have another child after the country relaxed its birth limit (the so-called “one-child policy”) in 2015, infertile couples, and to a lesser extent, the LGBT+ community. Blued, China’s most popular gay social networking/dating app, has offered overseas surrogate services for several years that connect their clients with US-based surrogates. It pulled the services after the actress’s incident.

But all that doesn’t matter. People in China understands this: the law book is there, but those in power at the moment always have the final word ~ and that word doesn’t have to match the legal codes, or the previous final words of their predecessors. As for the moral outcry re: the actress having wished to abort / give up her unborn children, it’s worth mentioning abortion has long been used to to enforce the country’s decades-long birth limit policies, and forced, violent late-term abortions were not unheard of. Many people in China are also aware of that.

But again, it doesn’t matter.

I’ve described the government’s reactions in detail because they put in words the expectations it has of its entertainers. Entertainers in China are expected to not only obey the laws, but also have proper world views, (moral) values and life perspectives (collectively called 三觀, literally, “three views”) as defined by the government. The state has also made clear that such expectations grow with the fame of the entertainers.

Entertainers at the top of the c-ent industry, especially the idol types with many young fans, are therefore expected to get things right. These opinion pieces are reminders that the administration keeps a close eye on them, can “cancel” them with a few words if they fail.

The term for “canceling” an entertainer is 封殺 (literally, “seal and kill”).

The actress isn’t the first to be “cancelled” by the government. The first time the NRTA issued a directive regarding “poor-history entertainers” (劣迹藝人) was in 2014, which essentially called for shutting out any entertainer with a history of bad behaviours. It demanded all production companies, TV stations, online media companies and theatres to stop producing / broadcasting audiovisual content with these people, citing that TV and film media should be used for “spreading the progressive culture of socialism and promoting socialist core values” (”传播社会主义先进文化、弘扬社会主义核心价值观”). As these entertainers will no longer be exposed to an audience, these directives effectively kill the career of most who are affected.

What makes up the “poor-history” of “poor-history entertainers” then?

- The 2014 edition named drug use and prostitution (including hiring a prostitute) specifically.

- The 2018 edition, an announcement made by a top NRTA official, stated that audiovisual programmes should adhere to the “Four Never-Use” guidelines when inviting guests for their shows. Those guidelines were vague but for the last line: “In addition, the NRTA explicitly requests that programmes should not use entertainers with tattoos; (those associated with) hip-hop culture, sub-cultures (non-mainstream cultures), decadent cultures.” (”另外，总局明确要求节目中纹身艺人、嘻哈文化、亚文化（非主流文化）、丧文化（颓废文化）不用。”)

Some may be asking: wait … hip-hop?

Yes.

It was believed that hip-hop artists were targeted due to a scandal at the time, in which (another) well-known actress had an extra-marital affair with a rapper. Analysis of the rapper’s lyrics found sexism and suggestions of drug use (the rapper later apologised and claimed his “core values” had been distorted due to influence from “black music”.) 

As this guideline hasn’t been retracted under any formal capacity, it can still be used to axe any show, shut out any entertainer.

If you’re wondering about SDOC, for example, this again illustrates the need for some … mind-reading skills to navigate life in China. A good way to achieve that without superpowers is to have the right connections to higher-ups, who can offer hints on what can get away at the moment and what cannot (this is true not only for c-ent, but for most business practices in the country; building 關係 guanxi— literally, “relationship”— is a must for those who wants a  piece of the Chinese market).

- In 2020, NRTA expanded the “no exposure” rule to live-stream shows on the internet as well as on- and offline charity events, where previously “cancelled” artists had started to find jobs in to make a living. While that notice didn’t further elaborate on what makes “bad history”, the accompanying article in People’s Daily (The State-controlled Newspaper) went into more details. In addition to drug use and prostitution specified in 2014, the article named tax evasion; lying about education levels; *suspected* (涉嫌) extramarital affairs, domestic violence and inappropriate speech.

It’s worth emphasising that many of these activities are not illegal. “Suspected” also means these activities do not have to have happened ~ it’s the impression that they’ve happened that counts. Hence, back to the actress who had surrogate children, not only did it not matter whether surrogacy is actually illegal, it didn’t matter whether the leaked audio was real or taken out of context, or that the babies didn’t end up being aborted / adopted. The article once again stresses that private matters are no longer private for entertainers who are in the public eye as social influencers, and these directives on “poor-history entertainers” — colloquially called “封殺令”, with 封殺 meaning the “seal-and-kill” and 令 meaning command (as in Chen Qing Ling 陳情令) — are there to set the standards, the bottom-line for c-ent. It did call for more specifics in future directives: more guidance on what makes “bad history”, the ways these entertainers can redeem themselves. As of today, however, such specifics have not been provided. As a result, to avoid crossing the NRTA, the media has ended up “overachieving” in certain cases, wiping out the screen time of entertainers who only have a remote chance of being viewed as having “bad history” to play it safe. Last October, for example, a young singer was briefly edited out of all his recorded shows because his parents (not him) was revealed to be deadbeats owing millions in debt.

And so, without a known way out yet, “bad-history” entertainers such as the actress will likely remain “sealed and killed” for a long time. Entertainers recently caught with extramarital affairs ~ a relatively minor “offence” ~ have been missing on screen for 2-3 years, and the heavy-handed treatment by the government this time is likely to put a pause on any companies considering using these people again. Even if they’re finally allowed some degree of comeback, their career prime will be over and and their NRTA “sentence” will likely follow them everywhere they go, which makes their getting face time in any high-profile (high-investment) projects unlikely. Those who must work to make their ends meet will probably end up like so many entertainers who never made it big, or are at the very tail end of their career ~ drifting from city to city singing in local clubs, getting paid poorly and harassed by rude customers...

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** A side note: In case anyone wonders why she brought up COVID, it’s a similar idea as Gg apologising for “佔用了一些社會公共資源” “occupying social resources” in his first team post after 227 (2020/03/01). For an authoritarian regime that has placed the most attention on maintaining social stability (ie. quelling dissent), disrupting the government’s narrative re: current events and potentially reversing the overall tone the administration is trying to reach in public discourse can be a greater offence than any actual “wrongdoing”. 227, as an incident, was guilty of that.

(And I’m bringing this up because I find this relevant to the safety asks I have in my inbox. Arguments among fans do not themselves render Gg and Dd unsafe, but can become a significant issue if they “occupy social resources”, disrupt the government’s narratives and/or its political machinery in some ways. IMO, 227 took a dangerous turn not because the fans were arguing over a piece of fanfic, but because a group of fans took over the reporting machinery intended to rat out dissidents. It was a mistake that I hope no fans ~ regardless of who they support ~ will repeat again.)