#hermeneutic

[cyeayt]

I get that finding language to write about something as finicky as society and public understandings is probably hard but I’m convinced that some of these words were made up on the spot and added to the dictionary afterwards

[charliefooks]

Heidegger's hermeneutic iteration

"Heidegger saw the hermeneutic process as cycles of self-reference that situated our understanding in a priori prejudices"

[jayther]

Professional Oaths

Subtext: "Interpretations of the Hermeneutic Oath differ."

[normfields]

The Postmodern Attack on Biblical Ethics

It is not possible to live the faithful Christian life while compromising with the Postmodern ideology. Postmodernism is explicitly opposed the biblical ethics. https://rumble.com/v3oclxg-the-postmodern-attack-on-biblical-ethics.html

[taliabhattwrites]

The most widespread form of transmisogyny within the queer community is denying trans women epistemic authority.

Which means: people do not believe us on our own experiences. They frequently assume any and all oppression we face must be mild or must simply be anti-effeminacy instead of "real misogyny". We are considered to be exaggerating the material consequences of bigotry on us and assumed to not experience various harms that we in fact do, including medical misogyny, sexual violence, CSA, being infantilized and dismissed, being inadequately represented (since most popular depictions of us are cissexist caricatures and do not authentically portray our lived realities!), and more besides.

Perhaps the most hysteria inducing aspect of this is being told that our testimony is not frequently dismissed, BY PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTIVELY DISMISSING OUR TESTIMONY ON HOW MUCH MISOGYNY AND DEGENDERING AND VIOLENCE WE EXPERIENCE.

We are not "new to oppression". We do not have to be taught what it is like to be feminized and dehumanized under patriarchy. We are painfully familiar with how misogyny operates and experience it regularly, in addition to having to justify even to "our" communities that we do in fact experience it!

That, my friends, is the core of transmisogyny: being dehumanized while being denied the right to even name one's oppression or have it be acknowledged as such!

[eesirachs]

what are your thoughts on liberation theology?

“the catholic who is not a revolutionary is living in mortal sin”

[todays-xkcd]

Interpretations of the Hermeneutic Oath differ.

Professional Oaths [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[8 Panels in a grid.]

Hippocratic Oath [Ponytail in a doctor's coat with her arm raised in pledge.] First, do no harm

Hyperbaric Oath [Cueball shaking.] First, acclimate to the pressure

Holographic Oath [A hologram of Ponytail fitzing in parts.] First, shimmer intangibly

Histrionic Oath [White Hat yelling, fists upraised.] First, whine and complain

Hydroelectric Oath [Megan sat in the cut-out wall for a giant turbine.] First, maintain your turbines

Hippodromic Oath [Ponytail in a chariot pulled by a horse.] First, race your chariot well

Hypnagogic Oath [Cueball, half-risen from bed in shock.] First, jolt awake just as you're drifting off

Hypergolic Oath [Cueball on fire.] First, burst into flame

[jennelikejennay]

Why Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a (very good) fanfic

I like SNW, for the most part. I enjoy the characters and it's nice to see largely episodic Trek again. But the idea that it fits into the existing canon is pretty easy to debunk.

Honestly, Paramount is promoting an illusion when it presents canon as a singular thing which runs from series to series as an unbroken continuity. It's not just a matter of minor glitches; those happen within episodes. It's that each show is written by different people with a different idea of how the universe even works.

Memory Alpha is partly to blame for this. Instead of actually recording what happens in the show, they construct timelines and smooth over inconsistencies to give the impression that the number of moons Vulcan does or doesn't have is a matter of simple canonical record, which it isn't. (This is an attitude that bugs me in Bible scholarship too. We can't just say "John says Jesus was crucified sometime after noon and the synoptics say nine am," oh no. They fiddle with it and explain it away and then tell us Jesus was on the cross from noon to three like that is an established historical fact.)

Anyway, if we approach Star Trek like atheist scripture scholars, we should be taking each series as a separate account with its own slightly different worldview. This was obvious by the time Enterprise came out. TOS takes place in a time not long after the invention of the warp drive, where the Enterprise is one of only twelve starships and sent on a long-range mission far beyond where humans had traveled before. Their technology is new and clunky and there's an obvious frontier feel. You really gonna tell me the NX-01 had virtually all the same tech and the warp drive a hundred years earlier?

No, and if we want to play it Watsonianly (as I prefer to) we should say that all the time travel monkeyed irreparably with the timeline, such that the Eugenics Wars happened in the 90s but then, after many different time travel events, it has been moved back to the 2040s or so. First Contact moved earlier, maybe WWIII won't happen at all. And so on.

Therefore, when you're dealing with TOS there shouldn't be this pressure to try to fit SNW events into it. You shouldn't feel the need to make Spock a guy with a long heterosexual history in a TOS fic—you can simply read him as the gay or ace guy he is clearly written as.

This is clear from the very first episode of SNW, where T'Pring proposes to Spock. In TOS they've been more than betrothed since the age of seven. There's never any sign that those two had an actual relationship. If they did, why is the only picture Spock has of her, of her as a child? That would be pretty weird!

"Charades" made this even more obvious as T'Pring's mother objects to their relationship. She set it up! In arranged marriage cultures, you don't have to impress your mother-in-law, you have to impress your betrothed!

The Chapel thing, too, is an issue. First off, her reason for being on the Enterprise in TOS is to search for her fiance, Roger Korby. If she'd been on the Enterprise before, under Pike, that would be a really odd thing to say.

But her relationship with Spock is of course the really odd part. The creators were trying to make a reason for why she pines after him in TOS. But she doesn't pine for him like an ex, she pines for him like she's curious. It's very apparent that she hasn't had sex with him before:

CHAPEL: Mister Spock.

SPOCK: What is it, Nurse?

CHAPEL: Mister Spock, (takes his hand) the men from Vulcan treat their women strangely. At least, people say that, but you're part human too. I know you don't, you couldn't, hurt me, would you? I'm in love with you, Mister Spock. You, the human Mister Spock, the Vulcan Mister Spock.

SPOCK: Nurse, you should—

CHAPEL: Christine, please. I see things, how honest you are. I know how you feel. You hide it, but you do have feeling. Oh, how we must hurt you, torture you.

SPOCK: I'm in control of my emotions.

CHAPEL: The others believe that. I don't. I love you. I don't know why, but I love you. I do love you just as you are. Oh, I love you.

SPOCK: I'm sorry.

These two straight up haven't dated before.

Taking points like this, it's clear that we don't really need to worry about the fact that Spock's character is a little bit off. They're not rewriting his character; they can't, his character is a finished project between Nimoy and the TOS writers. They are writing their version of his character, which is different from mine. I daresay mine is a little more consistent with the source material than theirs, but not all fics are trying to be exact, and they're riffing off the idea in their own way.

As a fanfic writer, my conclusion is this: when I write a TOS fic, it uses TOS canon. Anything I steal from SNW is simply because it's cool, the way I borrow from other fics or from the novels. I needn't feel obliged to put Michael in every single fic about his childhood. I can write him as a virgin before Kirk if I want to.

Meanwhile I can also write an SNW fic where he leans into his human side and experiments with women and waxes his chest if I want to. And if I push his characterization more toward what I think it should be rather than what is on the screen, well, that's my business!

I hope I do not see a trend in fic toward so much respect for paramount's official universe canon that everyone feels like they have to stay consistent with SNW all the time. TOS isn't so why should your TOS fic be?

[cosmicportal]

Ancient Egyptian statue of Pa-Maj. The basalt torso is entirely covered in ‘magical’ hieroglyphic texts and images of gods. 350-300 BC.

The engraved texts are incantations to be recited out loud for healing and protection against harmful creatures such as snakes and scorpions. Similar protective spells are written on ‘Horus stelae’.

[heresylog]

I'm really curious, obviously most catholics believe that the pope speaks for god (that's at least the teaching), but what is the reasoning when the current teachings don't agree with previous ones? In the past there have been rifts where there are two "popes," and obvs there are some people who think the modern popes are all fake, but for your average catholic is it assumed that the previous teachings were mistaken? Or that God gives different teachings based on what is needed at the time?

This is such a difficult question to answer. This is where the idea of "Hermeneutic of Continuity" vs "Hermeneutic of Rupture" comes in. The idea being that there are different interpretations (to scripture) and what is "received." Not from one's own mind, but what is gotten from the spirit.

It's not that other past interpretations are "wrong" but a new development of the interpretation.

When Vatican II happened in the 1960s, it was a very long process. Further lengthened by the rule still in place that all official discussion must take place in Latin. There were still many priests that were almost fluent in Latin and some that only spoke it during Mass. Every "change" must have theological backing. Almost every cardinal during the council brought their priest secretaries and attended all the additional theological lectures. Theologians were shipped to Italy to teach the cardinals about their faith so that each change made was an informed one.

I think the general consensus is that God illumines things at the right time. This is one such topic that people study for years. Exegesis is not easy for me to wrap my brain around. That's why I'm a Franciscan.

[jules-ln]

So, because I already said that Viktor is art nouveau, I was looking through my book of Mucha's paintings to see if I could find something that might've inspired Viktor's Jesus look (Also fun fact, Mucha was born in what today would be the Czech Republic)

And the closest ones I found was the series The months, look

Or maybe I'm just losing my mind lmao

[theexodvs]

Matthew 22:39

If you don't love yourself, you don't love your neighbor.

Connor, I know that's you.

The first person who interpreted this verse to command what you want me to believe it does was Erich Fromm in the 1970s, and if you don't believe me, I'd recommend you pick pick up The Danger of Self-Love by Brownback. I don't consider a 20th-century humanist to be the final authority on Biblical hermeneutics.

This verse is a single command, second to the Shema, as the context demonstrates. Nothing in the wording directly implies that it is a command to love oneself, but rather it is for listeners to love other people as they are already loved.

[weil-weil-lautre]

For as triumphant as the march of modern science has been, and as obvious as it is to everyone today that their awareness of existence is permeated by the scientific presuppositions of our culture, human thought is nonetheless continually dominated by questions for which science promises no answer.

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, 107

[sarasade]

Claudia, Viren & The Very Real Parent-Child Dynamics of The Dragon Prince

Sometimes I wonder if I come across like I try to defend Claudia too much. That's not my intent at all. I just think she deserves more and better critique.

The Point I guess

Personally, I really connect with Claudia's brand of messy, unflattering and even pathetic rage and grief much more than the dignified and mature ways Callum and Ezran handle things (More on that later). Maybe this sounds unflattering but Claudia being also kind of an asshole really speaks to me. Like that's the kind of teenage girl I'm the most familiar with and we don't have enough media that has nuanced takes on this sort of troubled character. Exploring negative or even anti-social traits and impulses in fiction, especially in women, is kind of undervalued in my opinion. Those are part of humanity and therefore part of us and this impulse to completely reject them doesn't benefit anyone really.

Finally, some wholesome father-daughter relationship rep in media!

My way to view fantasy media is about how it can artistically portray something true to real life. That's why I'm the most invested in this kind of reading of the text. Fantasy media is often dismissed as mere escapism even by the fantasy fans themselves (*side eyes the dude bro Witcher fandom*) which ignores the emotional depths it can reach by approaching difficult subject matter more metaphorically.

Inject Viren & Claudia's Father-Daughter Dynamic Straight into My Veins

There is something viscerally real about Claudia and Viren's relationship. I've seen this kind of father-daughter dynamic play out in real life many times where the child gives and gives and gives yet the parent takes it all for granted until it's too late and the parent-child relationship is just a mangled corpse of its former self, way too damaged to ever be truly repaired.

Like if you've had a difficult relationship with your parents it can feel similar to how s4-5 Claudia struggles to keep Viren alive while Viren hesitates. The child is the one who tries to fix things in the relationship while the parent is in denial or completely oblivious. Viren doesn't really try to connect with Claudia further in s4-5. It almost seems like he's completely emotionally unprepared to have that conversation and oh boy if you know any boomer parents that's pretty damn realistic. He just sort of gives up and acts completely passive because he's so out of touch with his emotions.

There is also this aspect of your parent aging and then one day you realise that you, the child, are the one who has more power in the relationship. It's a universal experience. These are just some of the ways I can see Viren and Claudia's relationship in seasons 4 and 5 metaphorically portray real life parent-child dynamics. There is a lot of emotional truth to how TDP approaches these relationships even when the story itself is an over the top fantasy romp.

How much Viren relies on Claudia is revealed little by little: She got the unicorn horn for the spell that killed Avizandum, she got the dragon horn that helped them cross the lava to Xadia in s3. It's set up really subtly how there is almost this parentification of Claudia like she's the one who took her mother's place as the emotional center and caregiver of the family after Viren and Lissa divorced. It's a lot of pressure to put one a child to say the least. This extends to Soren and how he is treated as the scapegoat of the family when Claudia is the Golden Child. This sort of treatment of Claudia and Soren by Viren is probably the most common analysis of their family dynamic as far as I can tell.

You ever heard of the thing called "eldest daughter syndrome"?

Eventually Claudia's most admirable and positive traits get corrupted (insert here an analysis of the corruptive nature of the dark magic as a plot device). It's like this perversion of feminine nurturing instinct society values and enforces in girls. Claudia's love is not domesticated but something that's so all consuming it destroys everything in its way. In s 4 she insists Viren has to live. She does everything in her power to keep her family together even against the wishes of her loved ones; first it was healing Soren in and then it was bringing Viren back to life in s3. Claudia has fully internalised her role as the caregiver to the point of self-imposed victimhood.

All The Characters Have a Part to Play

Since TDP is meant for an all-age audience (And later for teens and up since they hiked up the age rating) all the younger characters Callum, Ezran, Rayla, Claudia and Soren collectively represent the kind of different and difficult feelings parental abandonment and neglect can cause. A real person most likely feels all of these emotions at some point of their life but in fiction they need to be spread out among different characters or the story wouldn't work as, well, a story.

"she was a mage girl committing warcrimes, he was an elf boy vibing in the woods, can I make it anymore obvious"

I'd gladly read some more critical takes on Claudia's character. There is something very interesting there about Claudia and Terry's relationship for example. Terry is clearly very enamored with Claudia whom he perceives as someone very vulnerable and in need of help. Terry isn't wrong exactly but it does get problematic when he goes to great lengths to protect Claudia to the detriment of his own wellbeing. While TDP itself doesn't draw attention to it there are also the racial and gendered elements, both implicit and explicit, because of Claudia's fantasy racism and because of Terry being a non-white trans boy character as well. Claudia is the most powerful dark mage in Xadia when Terry is just a normal guy. Given the context of the show there is a power imbalance there.

tHÖ END

Why I'm laying this all out is that I think the Internet would be a better place if people didn't try to constantly find an objective "right" way to view a piece of media but instead were somewhat transparent about what they personally got out of it. I think this Viravos meta is the most popular thing I've written so far and I tried to explain my approach in detail because I don't want people to go "look this person says Viravos is canon!". Jokes are fine of course but taking it too objectively ignores the fact that analysing subtext is valuable on its own.

Idk how to end this. Here, have this meme.

[taliabhattwrites]

My critique of cultural anthropology and academic transmisogyny, "The Third Sex", will be published in a few days. Here's the introduction.

This Machine Builds Fascists

Consider a mechanism whose sole function is to classify all inputs it receives as one of two categories: One and Zero. The inputs, it must be said, vary greatly in temperament, expression, embodiment, internality, and so on, but that isn’t as much of a hurdle for the machine as it seems. It has been programmed with a few simple lines of code that enable it to differentiate between Ones and Zeroes within acceptable margins of tolerance. Ones tend to look and behave like this, Zeroes tend to be like that. These truisms are crude, simplistic, and even reductive, true, but they work. As such, the machine chugs on, happily reducing complex inputs to a blunt binary classification, its delivery-day code having been deemed “good enough”.

Of course, there is still the matter of how the machine should behave when its schema fails, when it is presented with inputs that do indeed prove to be too ambiguous to easily classify. For however high the correlation between traits, sometimes a specimen that simply defies easy categorization will confound its decision-making, often enough to pose a problem. Does the code need to be updated? Almost certainly, but legacy code is a stubborn thing, mired in dependencies and versioning faff, deeply resistant to the most perfunctory of edits. Too many now rely on this iteration of the machine, on this particular instantiation of its logic, and it is almost universally agreed that any changes are best handled downstream—at least, among those with the power to change it.

The machine and its users are thus forced to consider: In the case of an “error”, a “mistake”, so to speak, is it better to classify something as a One or a Zero?

Well, that’s an easy enough decision. The Ones, you see, are quite important, are believed to play a rather critical role in the affairs the machine oversees. The Zeroes … sure, they’re certainly important too, in their own way, in the way everything worth categorizing is—but the Ones! It’s really all about the Ones. You can’t quite go around just calling anything a One, you have to be certain.

So the module is attached and business proceeds without interruption. The machine spits out Ones and Zeroes like it’s supposed to, like it always has and supposedly always will, a binary system choosing between two options. Yet, anyone who knows a little too much about its inner workings is perfectly aware that the machine’s neat bifurcation isn’t all that neat. Truthfully, the machine has three outputs: One, Zero (with a degree of confidence), and “NULL”. It’s just that the exceptions are caught and sorted into the Zero-category, because that method of handling the machine’s limitations still keeps things running smoothly. It’s not much of an issue at all, and there’s no real need to examine the machine any further.

No need to pay attention to the way its NULL exceptions keep rising in volume.

No need to examine it for any shortcomings, oversights … or any weaknesses.

[apesoformythoughts]

‘Thus when one man says to me, “Moses meant what I think,” and another “Not at all, he meant what I think,” it seems to me the truly religious thing to say, “Why should he not have meant both, if both are true; and if in the same words some should see a third and a fourth and any other number of true meanings, why should we not believe that Moses saw them all, since by him the one God tempered Sacred Scripture to the minds of many who should see truths in it yet not all the same truths?”

Certainly—and I say this fearlessly and from my heart—if I had to write with such vast authority I should prefer so to write that my words should mean whatever truth anyone could find upon these matters, rather than express one true meaning so clearly as to exclude all others, though these contain no falsehood to offend me. This being so, I would not be so rash, O my God, as to believe that so great a man did not merit this gift at Your hands. When he was writing these words he wholly saw and realised whatever truth we have been able to find in them—and much beside that we have not been able to find, or have not yet been able to find, though it is there in them to be found.’

— St. Augustine’s Confessions (XII, xxxi)