#if you refuse to take questions about an entirely hypothetical scenario where someone might be trans in good faith

[chronotopes]

sorry to still be on those polls but genuinely some of those responses are so distressing to me. the belief that trans people should go through that self discovery process in monastic self isolation and never receive input from the people who love them Until They're Ready is so genuinely bleak and indefensible, regardless of whether or not you're ideologically consistent about which audiences you think the suggestion is "appropriate" for. and furthermore the idea that a cis person getting erroneously told theyre trans by One Person is somehow equivalent to a trans person getting coercively held to agab standards by The Whole World...... like come on. come on.

[shadowfae]

Harmony, Chaos, RuneScape and Quoilunetary Nonhumanity

[Crossposted to National Nonhuman Park, and requested by @dzamie.]

I forgot to do this for like three days, but. I wanted to do a post on understanding past experiences and the differing perspectives people can have on the same experiences and how that can lead to radically different understandings and why there will never be a clear-cut border between alterhuman terminology, and I think I finally found a way to articulate that point. Commentary and responses welcome.

The very simplest way of explaining this concept is the following sentence: "I never said that I owed her money." Seems a simple statement, yeah? Place emphasis on one word, read it again, and then place emphasis on a different word and read it. "I never said that I owed her money," implies a flat-out denial of the concept. However, "I never said that I owed her money," is a clear 'I implied it but never said it, and you can't hold me to that'. And emphasis on other words brings the exact meaning of those emphasized words into question, and so forth.

But while that concept is universal, it's difficult to see as it stands how that applies to alterhuman experiences. So we're going to delve into the source of one of my current linktypes, RuneScape, and we're going to explain things the way a warpriest does, using the setting's available godly philosophies to explain a past experience.

The two we'll be looking at today are Serenist and Zamorakian philosophies, particularly the Elven questline, and we're choosing this because Seren's ingame dialogue includes her explaining why Zamorakianism doesn't fit the questline. I, however, say it does, so let's compare and contrast how they both fit, and why they're both valid, and why if you're determined enough you can be absolutely convinced that the other's an idiot.

Seren is the crystal goddess of light; associated heavily with integrity, harmony, prudence, wisdom, and tranquility. Simply put, she is a pacifist who believes that if two parties can meet in the middle and find harmony, the best possible result can be achieved.

This is contrasted heavily with Zamorakian philosophy. Zamorak is known best as the god of chaos, although his philosophy heavily centres strength through personal strife. He believes that almost all obstacles and challenges in life can be beaten if one just never gives up, and that through surviving those obstacles, one is made a better person. He also believes that order brings stagnation: with no reason or need to do something different, people will do what they have always done, thus, chaos is necessary for improvement and achievement.

When Seren left the elves, her main followers, scrambled to put together a leadership that might replace her. Modelling the humans, they chose a monarchy, which was undercut in short order by Clan Iorwerth. (Iorwerth is one of the two military elven clans.) Iorwerth, following a dark power, overthrew the monarchy and shut down the elven kingdom entirely, forcing every elf that wasn't trapped to flee or swear allegiance to them. They were later overthrown by the remains of the other seven clans and the player character, the kingdom was restored as a republic, and eventually Seren came back.

When asked about Zamorak's philosophy, Seren references this: ["Order only brings stagnation."] "Perhaps, but there is also imagination and community. When sharing with others, we can learn to see the world differently. Look at all my elves accomplished. It was undone for a time because of chaos. It was harmony that restored them." [Post- The Light Within dialogue.]

Note the emphasis on harmony, and how she looks down upon this. However, she does agree that the elves are stronger without her, evidenced by her refusal to lead them again after her return: "I will not leave you, not again, but I will not lead you. Let me, here and now, recognise this council as the true leadership of the elven people." [The Light Within quest dialogue.]

Zamorak ingame has never spoken about this event, it's on the other side of the continent and he doesn't much care about what Seren does so long as she stays away from him. However, speaking as my linktype, a son of Zamorak, and a warpriest of Zamorakian philosophy and religion, I feel qualified to explain what his philosophy does say about this event, and how it differs.

Zamorakian philosophy places emphasis on the chaos, and how through it, one becomes stronger. Seren says that she recognizes the clan council of the elven republic to be its true leadership. This council did not exist until after she left and left her followers to deal with the aftermath. Even so, their first attempt at fixing the situation was to create a monarchy, which was overthrown almost immediately.

Arguably, their first attempt via wisdom and harmony – modelling their new government after a human form of government that evidently worked, and by choosing their monarchs to represent them best – failed miserably. However, Iorwerth's assault forced the remaining elves to think of another solution that there was no historic precedence for. The clan leaders chose to go into hiding until someone else had overthrown Iorwerth, which didn't happen until the player character did so, over two thousand years later. Those elves who did not go fully into hiding instead created a resistance, aiming first to stop Clan Iorwerth from obtaining death magic that would have cemented its rule perhaps permanently, and then by taking it down once it was properly destabilized.

Their second attempt at a form of government, truly equal across all eight clans, is evidently better than their first attempt: it withstood the next upheaval of Seren's return and refusal to govern them again, and she gave the council her blessing. The solution they found through harmony and tranquility failed. The solution they found through chaos succeeded.

Seren places her emphasis on the fact that through the Iorwerth domination, the remaining elves worked together to find a solution. Zamorakian philosophy states that they never would have found that solution or learned to work together had their lives not been thrown into utter chaos.

Seren focuses on the harmony that is the method of survival, Zamorak focuses on the chaos that caused invention of an improved method of survival. Seren disavows chaos, disregarding that it is anything but an obstacle that needs to be overcome, refusing to see it as something worth seeking out. Zamorak disavows order, arguably incredibly similar to the Serenist ideal of harmony, and states that it only brings stagnation and is incredibly fragile and meaningless. Through this, the two philosophies are radically opposed, both disavowing what the other praises.

Compare this scenario to one more personal and recognizable to those who may read this: any scenario in which someone is put to their limits, any scenario potentially traumatizing. Serenist philosophy asks for integrity, that one stays true to oneself throughout it all, and harmony, to seek a peaceful solution. This is easily taken down by any situation in which one needs to change in order to survive, however, it also is best represented by the growth of the aftermath when it is time to rebuild. Zamorakian philosophy asks for strength, to find a way through no matter the cost, and celebration of strife, to recognize that there is a point to the pain. This is easily taken down by any sort of emotional trauma that leaves scars, however, it also is best represented by the ability to take any punches thrown and to recognize the good of recovery and what that means for the future.

Thus, in a situation of aftermath, both celebrate the growth and the strength necessary to survive, and meet up perfectly in the middle in any situation in which one is honest with themself, survives the ordeal, and recognizes that they are better than they were before.

Radically opposed, and when you tilt your head and squint, they lead to the same conclusion of a better tomorrow than yesterday was.

As my last point, the question of 'and what exactly does this have to do with gray areas of the alterhuman community?' requires an answer. Not all cases will fall under this, but here's a couple scenarios to think on. Someone who has a parallel life in another world: are they otherkin, or are they otherhearted? Someone who places emphasis on the differences between themself and their parallel life may recognize the other as their counterpart, but not quite them, too similar to be anything but family but too different to be the same person, like twins separated at birth. But someone who places emphasis on the similarities, recognizing the other as a reflection of themself, may say that they're otherkin, not so separate as to be family but too similar to be anything but the same person, if in two different situations.

Take further something psychological. Someone with executive dysfunction, an uncontrollable focus mechanism, emotional dysregulation, ostracization from their peers, and a lack of understanding of metaphors or half-truths may go to a pediatrician and be diagnosed as autistic. If they never go to that hypothetical pediatrician, but instead find themself online and hunting for answers, they may discover the otherkin community and come to the conclusion that they are Fair. Where one reads the apparent difference between themself and others as recognizing that they do not psychologically think the way others do, and thus being othered; one recognizes it as others having a gut feeling that they are simply not human, akin to an uncanny valley effect.

Lastly, consider someone who takes up believing themself to be a unicorn as a child, to deal with ostracization from their peers. Something along the lines of the last scenario. Years later, after growing up and discovering a friend group and no longer facing any ostracization, they determine that they still identify as a unicorn. They do research and understand that if they put in the effort over several decades and ego alteration, they may be capable of releasing that coping mechanism turned integral part of them, and letting it go.

Are they otherkin, or a copinglinker?

If they consider themself otherkin, then one can assume they would be disinterested in using ego alteration over a course of decades to let go. If they consider themself a copinglinker, then they may be interested, or they may not, but it would be more likely that they would at least consider the option before deciding either way. And if they do decide against it, does that make it otherkin? As the difference between the two is defined and largely accepted that otherkin is involuntary and copinglinking is, one might argue that they would still be a 'linker, as one cannot choose to be otherkin.

But are they keeping a linktype that they chose and are still choosing, or are they choosing to embrace a kintype that already exists?

I suppose which one it is depends on how you want to look at it, and where you want to place your emphasis of the experience. And no matter how someone else may look at it, the only one with final say is the one who experiences it in the first place.

Both conclusions lead to the same place, in the end: an alterhuman identity, and an experience worth exploring and talking about. No matter how one understands it, or what they ultimately decide to call it.

[portraitoftheoddity]

So like I really like Steve and all and he's definitely got the right heart and that's what fandom likes about him, how he stood up to bullies and injustice with his fist raised. But recently I've rewatched avatar and Aang got me thinking, is going against the world fist ready really the right thing. Like Aang was no coward he still stopped Ozai but in most of his battles he tries for peace first. In fact Avatar as a whole talks about change in people.

Like Sokka turned from misogynistic to respecting women, and Iroh's love and patience redeemed Zuko. As much as I love Steve Rogers, fist fighting bullies and getting your ass handed to you or successfully beating them to a pulp isn't going to change them, and it sends a wrong message of fighting fire with fire and bullies don't learn when you punch them usually they get pettier. I agree Steve is right at not letting injustice go be it canon or fandom but Iove that scene in avatar when Aang got into a fire nation school and when a guy tried to fight him he was just like nooope but still managed to be on top as opposed to Steve (maybe just fan fic ver) who would try a punch. I mean I can see Steve screaming at the lies of the fire nation school instead of calmly informing the truth and throwing a dance party. Like Aang might be too pacific sometimes but is charging against people really a good lesson. Stand for what's right, but like in a chill way. And I'm not sure if this is just the fandom version of Steve but in TFS we did kinda see him in an alley fight against a just a ride guy. Sorry about the long rant but what do you think about Steve's fight me attitude being completely glorified in his fandom.

I apologize that I’m gonna gonna get a little long-winded here!

I agree with you that peaceful solutions are great to try first, but when it comes to this punch-happy version of Steve you reference, I think you’re kinda looking at a strawman version of the character, anon --  maybe from poorly-written fic or memes, but not exactly the Steve of film or comics.

Now, the respective approaches of both Aang and Steve are in part a product of the media they originated in. A show aimed at kids with a single overall plotline and arc is often going to aim for a peaceful solution and allow for linear character growth -- while comics, movies and shows developed around a character specifically designed to punch Hitler as a statement during WWII are less likely to have a core message of pacifism, and their structure and circular timelines make growth arcs more difficult to sustain. This doesn’t mean one character’s approach or the other is superior, just that they come from different contexts, narratively and in terms of medium. Plus, there are different kinds of fights, and not all are going to offer us the same options as solutions. Looking for ideological purity -- only ever opting for the ‘right’ solution -- can often lead to doing nothing when no ‘right’ solution presents itself, which can result in more harm than taking a less-than-perfect action.

Let us not forget that when an authoritarian army showed up to kill everyone and wipe out the North Pole, Aang does go all Koizilla with the ocean spirit and wipes out the Fire Nation fleet. Aang has fought people. Aang, albeit with the alibi of “a spirit was in charge”, indirectly kills people (Zhao ends up pretty dead as a direct result of Aang’s spirit rampage). This isn’t particularly glorified, but at the time there isn’t a better outcome presented. Doing nothing would have led to the massacre of the Northern Water Tribe.

That said, I LOVE ATLA and its messages of growth and compassion and I think it’s great to have a protagonist who opts to give people a way out.

...Which is what Steve does. 

We see Steve do this more than once. In CA:TWS, Steve recognizes Bucky and tried to get through to him, to avoid a fight. One ensues, but Steve then refuses to fight him anymore once he’s disabled the helicarrier and saved everyone else, willingly putting his own life on the line to gamble on some part of Bucky’s inner self being in there and worth saving. He isn’t willing to put the lives of other innocents and noncombatants on the line -- protecting them is a priority, even if it means fighting Bucky -- but once that factor is out of the equation, he drops his shield and tries to reach him.

In the same movie, a few scenes earlier, Steve appeals to the personnel of SHIELD -- an organization that has labeled him a terrorist and been hunting him -- and paints out the reality of the situation, giving the good people within the opportunity to react and rebel against the element of HYDRA that has infiltrated -- which they do! But there isn’t a magical lionturtle showing up to tell him how to stop the helicarriers from taking off and murdering millions of people without any casualties, so, yanno. He does what he can. 

Heck, Steve is occasionally teased by other characters for his speechifying -- not just to give pep talks, but to try to get through to people. He does this in the comics a lot. You’ve probably seen this page going around:

It doesn’t always work out. But he tries.

You suggest Steve would punch someone who was wrong in Aang’s Fire Nation School, but I don’t agree with that reading on the character based on what we see Steve do. Steve very rarely is the one to completely initiate a fight. Usually he is reactive. He sees a situation where someone is being a jerk, points out the injustice, and if the person is insisting on hurting someone, Steve inserts himself to make sure it’s him instead of anyone else. Whether the jerk in question is a single bully or an entire army.

You bring this scene up, but when Steve confronts the guy heckling in the movie theater (who is making a woman cry, I’ll add), it’s clear from the man’s posture when he stands up and Steve’s look of dread that while Steve has spoken up, the escalation to violence is not his choice. When we see him a moment later in the alley, he’s fighting defensively -- drawing the man’s ire, keeping him distracted. Steve is reactive in this entire scenario -- not the instigator. (and I think if Steve had Aang’s airbending, he’d love to dodge more punches instead of getting his ass kicked!)

The fact that Steve’s primary weapon is a shield -- a symbol of defense, not offense -- speaks to the fact his entire MO is protection. Violence not for violence’s sake, but to intervene in existing violence when there is no other recourse.

But Steve also admittedly has a stronger sense of responsibility than Aang does at the series’ start. Aang dodges, but he also gets called out by other characters for running away from a lot of his problems instead of confronting them. Steve, if he were a bender, I think would likely be an Earthbender like Toph; solid, stubborn, listening and reacting (though ironically, he would lose his shit over the willful obliviousness and apathy of Ba Sing Se’s leadership). Steve feels a deep personal duty to always be in the thick of it where things are already at their worst. 

If there had been no deus ex machina energybending option presented at the eleventh hour, would it have been better for Aang to die and doom the world than to compromise his morals and kill the Fire Lord? It’s a question of hypothetical principles vs reality of harm in that instance. Aang as a character is allowed by the story to adhere to his principles and get a happy ending. Steve as a character does his best, but ultimately has to compromise with reality when he has to, when it’s not just his life at stake, but many others should he fail to act in time. In those high-stakes scenarios, his cards are often limited.

Steve as a character doesn’t arbitrarily start fights. But he goes to where the status quo is untenable, or where a fight is already raging, and he takes a stand. If he can convince someone to step down peacefully? That’s ideal! But usually by the time Captain America has shown up, there are megaweapons primed and loaded and fascists already hurting people or robots trying to destroy the planet or a Titan about to wipe everyone out, so the ideal option is rarely still on the table. No dance party is gonna be enough to change Red Skull’s crazy nazi mind about killing everyone (which is too bad, because I’d love to watch Steve do the lindy hop). There is no ‘chill way’ to stand for what’s right at that point. 

And ultimately, I think we need both kinds of characters! I think it’s important to encourage diplomacy and compassion, to urge people to find common ground and to find nonviolent ways of diffusing and deescalating situations. To look at things from other perspectives, and to give people the option to learn and grow and be better than they were. I love a good rehabilitation arc, and think ATLA does this beautifully and has incredibly important messaging and philosophies.

But I also think we need stories that say, hey, when those options aren’t on the table? When no one is listening no matter what you try to say, when you’ve looked for a way around it and no lionturtles have showed up to save your ass? Sometimes, you have to put yourself in front of the guy swinging punches and raise you shield and stop him. Sometimes you don’t get the nice options that make you feel good; sometimes the world is messy and ugly; but sometimes, even if we can’t do the ideal thing, we can still do the right thing. Take action and put an end to the perpetuation of violence in the moment to protect the helpless. (Then work on rehabilitation and communication.)

[hahanoiwont]

a concept

Virgil in his Angsty Villain Phase still trying to help people.

Patton’s pretending not to have a bad day. No one notices bc he’s really good at that but Virgil happens to enter the kitchen right as he does that thing, you know, where you wipe your eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath and paste on a smile and keep going.

And he owes this guy nothing, okay, Patton never wants him around any more than anyone else, but Virgil is remembering Patton being nice to him a time or two and he wants to help. So he goes to Logan and Roman and gives a spooky monologue that strongly implies that he’s done something terrible to Morality, all part of his grand plan to uh,,, hurt Thomas? keep him from having fun and realizing his dreams? or whatever everyone thinks he wants out of his life. muahahahaha. It is clearly too late to save Morality. Don’t even try.

So Logan and Roman, of course, go to see what the fuck Anxiety did to Morality. And they catch him in a stressbaking crying jag and Anxiety is largely forgotten while they help him to recover. With the support of his friends, Patton feels a lot better.

Logan gets frustrated another day because no one will listen to him and they keep shutting him out in pursuit of wild fancy. He is TRYING his BEST but everyone just seems to want to pretend that Logic isn’t necessary! No one even cares what he has to say! And maybe someone goes a little far and says that he isn’t helping, and what would he know about how to keep Thomas happy, anyway? And Logan is just SO FRUSTRATED, but no one is LISTENING and no one CARES and he is just about ready to sink out and leave them to their devices.

So Virgil, who popped up as soon as sides started fighting each other, just starts spouting random bullshit. No, Roman, we will never be successful. We’re not learning to be adult. Everything we have ever done has had no effect on the world and we will die alone. No one cares about us. Like some of it is stuff Virgil actually worries about but most of it is stuff he knows Logan can and will fight him on. And he just fucking refuses to listen to anyone else until Logan steps in and outlines, point by point, exactly why everything he says makes no logical sense and how, although they can always stand to improve, they’re doing pretty darned well.

Virgil, being kind of a dramatic little shit, does a whole overblown villain speech about how he’s been bested by the strong hand of Logic and his plans have been ~~foiled~~ but hE WILL BE BACK, so just WATCH AND WAIT, because ONE DAY YOU WON’T HAVE LOGIC TO SAVE YOU

And Roman says that actually, Logan can be kind of a hero, too, as Anxiety makes his ‘escape.’ Logan gets a win in and now he’s feeling valued. score. (also virgil had so much fun just shutting Roman down every time he tried to speak)

When Roman has his bad day, that’s the hardest. What the fuck do you do for him? He has a literal goddamned sword, Virgil isn’t gonna play his bad guy any harder than he has to for fear of ending up skewered. But Roman is feeling useless and discouraged and yeah, he doesn’t deserve to feel that way, even if he can be obnoxious. So Virgil’s Plan A is to summon spiders in front of Patton so Roman can vanquish them, but Patton fucking murders them in a way that is deeply frightening for both Roman and Virgil to see, so Virgil has to try again. He needs someone in distress for Roman to ‘save.’

Logan doesn’t play a very good damsel (and can kick Virgil’s ass), and the indignity of having Roman save him would mean Virgil just has to help him out of a bad day again, and in the confrontation he might hurt Roman’s feelings, so the problem doesn’t even get solved. He’s out. And the other darker sides might possibly be able to help, but Virgil either doesn’t trust their good intentions or doesn’t trust their acting abilities, and if Roman figures out it’s a trick he’ll probably stab first and ask questions never. They’re all out. So clearly it’s up to Virgil to need Roman’s ‘help.’

He makes this whole plan to ask Roman for help on something creative, with explanations for every part of the scenario, and approaches Roman with just enough guarded hostility and humiliation that he buys it. But as soon as he hears “I need your help with--” Roman immediately goes to the recent Valentine’s video. Clearly, since Anxiety’s wooing idea was never played out, he must be asking for help with how to ask someone out!

So poor Virgil has to sit through an entire afternoon of Roman explaining how to make Hypothetical Valerie think he’s awesome and feel appreciated, with copious examples of grand gestures and heroic acts from Roman. But at the end of it Roman seems to have recovered somewhat, and he expresses that he’s always happy to offer inspiration to the ‘romantically hopeless and frankly kind of depressing.’ So Virgil chalks that one up to a success and goes home and screams into his pillow. why does he bother.

Now, in classic 3-to-1 format, this may end in Virgil having his own bad day (or in my wildest dreams, 3 bad days, one with each side offering their own ideas of ‘help’), or it could just be these three interactions, but guys I just love Virgil being a good bad guy. Just using his Definite Malice which Totally Exists, Yo to make things better for his counterparts. Just. “evil” virgil doing good things badly. He doesn’t know what he’s doing but he’s doing his best. Please guys I need it

@stella-scriptor I feel like you would appreciate this

[gimmesumsuga]

STS Ask My Muse - Namjoon

Word Count: 2.1K

Asks highlighted in bold  

The Ask My Muse interviews: Hobi & Sam / Tae & Jungkook / Jin / Namjoon / Jimin, Yoongi & Reader

***

“Are you sure you’re going to be ok in there?”  Jin asks as I climb out of the car, leaning back through the open door in order to reply.  

The eldest vampire had offered to give me a lift to the twenty-four-hour cafe in which Namjoon had agreed to meet me, following the end of our interview, and to be honest I’d leapt at the chance.  It’s reassuring to know he’ll be sat right outside; I’ve no idea what state of mind the ex-leader will be in since his exile from the house, so I’d rather have a quick get-away available as a just-in-case rather than go in blind.  

“I picked a public place on purpose; I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I answer, and even I’m not oblivious to the fact that it sounds as though I’m trying to convince myself just as much as I am him.  

“Ok,” he answers unsurely, fingers gripped tight around the steering wheel,  “Well, I’ll be right out here if you need me.”  

“Thanks, Jin.”  I flash him a parting smile before straightening up and shutting the car door with a firm ‘thunk’, turning on the spot with my handbag clutched nervously to the side.  I’d be lying if I said I’m not a little anxious about this, but I reassure myself by remembering that trepidation is probably an appropriate response considering who I’m about to meet.  

I busy myself with ordered a coffee before I even set about trying to find Namjoon amongst the cafe’s tables, hoping that clutching a warm beverage between my hands might provide some comfort when sat face to face with him.  It’s funny, but I can almost pinpoint the exact moment when Namjoon catches me in his sights.  I may not be looking at his way, but the way all the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stand on end for no reason at all is enough for me to know, without a doubt, that there’s no turning back now.  

Sure enough, when I turn from the counter with a caramel latte - extra hot - in hand, his eyes are the first I meet.  He’s dressed all in black - a long black coat, black polo neck and pants - and when he raises one singular hand to wave me over to the corner booth in which he sits  I find myself momentarily rooted to the spot for just a few, brief seconds of panic.  

I can do this.  I know I can do this.  

“Namjoon,” I greet with a slight nod of my head as I reach the side of his the table, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the seat in which I intend to sit rather than on him, “Thank you for meeting me.”  

“The pleasure’s mine,” he replies, and I can hear the sly smile in his voice without even having to look up, “Please, sit.”  Nodding again, I slide into the booth, making myself as comfortable as I possibly can when I feel anything but.  “Did you find your way he-”

“I thought we’d just get right to it,” I interrupt, not wanting to drag this out for any longer than absolutely necessary, or risk letting it slip that Jin is so nearby, and when I finally do look upward and meet Namjoon’s gaze I find him smirking back at me, seemingly amused by my slightly terse tone.  

“As you like.”  I take out his cards, feeling glad that for once I’ve pre-planned the order in which they’ll be read.  

“Namjoon, which of the six others were you closest with after you all turned, and why?”  Taking a sip of my drink, I’m relieved to see my hands aren’t shaking as I lift the cup from the table, though I’ve no doubt he can hear the nervous racing of my heart.  

“Yoongi-hyung,” he answers after a beat or two of thought, leaning back in his seat, “He was the only one who ever really seemed to share my disdain for these creatures that we are.”

“If being a vampire is really so loathsome, why did you convince them all to turn with you?  Why didn’t you just leave them be?”  Infuriatingly enough, all Namjoon does is shrug.  

“Misery loves company.”  Clearly, I’m not getting any more out of him on that topic than that.  He extends an arm across the back of the booth, breathing deep as his head tilts to the side, smiling again at the annoyance that must be so plainly written across my face.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I blurt out before I lose my nerve, and Namjoon lets out a short bark of a laugh, banging his palm against the faux leather seat just once, just hard enough to make me jump.  

“Is that your question, or someone else’s?” he asks, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Someone else’s,” I murmur back, and suddenly I’m rather glad it is.  Under the weight of his gaze I nervously shift, picking at the lid of my coffee as I wait for the answer that he seems in no hurry to provide.  

“I don’t think you have the time nor the inclination for me to do that question justice.  It might’ve been simpler to ask ‘what isn’t wrong with me’,” he finally answers, and part of me is pleased to hear that at least Namjoon - however twisted he might be - seems well aware of his multitude of flaws.  When he neglects to say anything further I take the hint, switching the order of the cards that are clutched tight between my clammy hands.  

“Well… whatever is or isn’t, it seems as though not everyone’s against you,” I muse, eyes shifting over the two cards I lay out across the table in front of me, both of which contain a similar message.  “There’s someone who’s asked for a kiss - someone professing their love and asking for you to marry them instead of pining for ___…”

“Some of you humans really don’t have any kind of self-preservation instinct, do you?” he asks with a roll of his eyes and a tired sigh, as if all of this was so very boring.  I suppose for someone of his IQ it very likely is.   “Call me cruel, but I have absolutely no desire to spend my time in the company of those who seem to have some ridiculous, romantic notion about my kind and what we are or what we do.”  

“Fair enough.”  I take a deep sip from my coffee, wincing when I almost burn my tongue in my haste to moisten the inside of my mouth.  It’s suddenly gone dry at the prospect of asking this next question, but bracing myself, I forge ahead.

“One of the readers would like to know whether you usually like your sex so rough, and was wondering whether you killing that red-head was just for show, or something you genuinely enjoy doing?”  Namjoon smirks, biting his lip as he observes the light blush that’s coloured my cheeks, and god, this would be so much easier if he wasn’t so devilishly handsome.  What has happened to all the movies of my childhood, where the villains were so easy to spot by their long, hooked noses, or dull, greasy hair?  

“The rougher the better,” he answers in a timbre that’s very close to a growl, “The more intense the better; the messier, the bloodier.  I would’ve ended that miserable girls life whether ___ had been watching or not, and yes, I would’ve still very much enjoyed it.”  

I can’t think of anything to say to that.  Subconsciously, I find myself leaning backwards into my seat in order to put some distance between myself and Namjoon, who now has his elbows on the table, hands clasped tightly in front of him.  He may still be smirking but now I look closer, past all the menace behind his smile, Namjoon actually appears to look rather tired - worn, almost - as though he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days.  

I decide to move on, unwilling to linger any more on that particular event or the dangerous glint it’s added to the darkness of his eyes.

“How do you feel about what you did to ___, now you’ve had the chance to calm down?”  Namjoon sighs heavily, breaking eye contact with me for the first time to look down at the table as his shoulders rise and fall.  

“What happened back at the house was… regrettable.  I never… I never intended to take it so far,” he admits, his voice softer than before, eyebrows drawn down into a frown as he begins to play with the silver ring that rests on his index finger, turning it round and round the digit,  “I wish she had listened to me - I wish she’d been able to see that everything I did, I did for us - but she refused to see reason.  She left me with no other choice.”  

It’s useless arguing with Namjoon, I know that.  Maybe given time he’ll be able to see the error of his ways, but not now.  Not yet.  

“I know you say you love her,” I begin, feeling slightly more at ease now that he seems less intent on looking at me.  He’s listening, I can tell that, but it almost looks as though his mind is elsewhere, cogs twisting and turning on other matters inside his head, “So hypothetically, if ___ were to come back to you… what would your next plans be?  Would you leave her human?  And what would you do about the others?”  

“I would do exactly as I’ve always promised her; treat her as my queen, keep her close at my side.”  His answer seems to come easily, as if he’s spent a lot of time already thinking about what would happen if the scenario I’ve given him ever came true. “We’d leave this place, just us two, so none of the others could find us.”  Namjoon pauses, looking me directly in the eyes with a serious expression, his full lips set in a firm line.  

“Contrary to what you might think, I don’t relish the thought of killing my brothers.  I would rather avoid them entirely, and have ___ join me in undeath only when she asks it of me.  It would be a waste to turn someone with blood so sweet until absolutely necessary.”  

“You almost made it sound as though you’d hold back on making ___ a vampire for her benefit, at first, but I get the feeling it’s for your own gain, more than anything,” I accuse, quickly regretting speaking so boldy when his eyes narrow at me from across the table, jaw clenching.  

“You’d understand if you’d ever have had a taste of her.”  

Let’s just get this over and done with…

“If you could go back and change one thing… what would it be?”  

For a long time, Namjoon just sits and stares at me - for so long, in fact, that I start to think he isn’t going to answer at all - but when he does, he says something entirely different from what I’m expecting.

“I’d go back right to the beginning when my sister first became ill,” he says quietly, looking away, “I wouldn’t waste so much time looking for a cure that never existed… I’d just try to spend as much time as I could with her in those last days - like I should’ve done to begin with.”  

Again, I’m a loss for what to say.  I’d expected him to say something sinister; go back and kill Jimin himself or formulate some other plot for ensuring ___ had ended up with him but… no.  All I can do is sit in the uncomfortable silence that grows between us, feeling my coffee slowly cool beneath my fingers.  

After a couple of minutes or so, Namjoon remains so lost in thought that I realise I’ll have to draw this to a close.  I’m glad I’d left that question until last, because even if it hadn’t have been I doubt I’d get anything more from him now.  

“Thank you for answering so honestly,” I say as I place the question cards back in my bag and rise from my seat, Namjoon’s attention suddenly snapping back to me when he registers my movement.  He nods, still vaguely distracted, and just as I’m about to leave he suddenly reaches out and grabs a hold of the jacket I’m wearing.  

The sudden physical contact makes me panic, very nearly throwing my coffee in his face before I realise that there’s no aggression in the way in which he’s holding onto me, or in the look that’s in his eyes.  He looks desperate if anything, and it leaves me feeling more conflicted than the whole time in which I’ve been sat opposite him.  

“If you see her… will you tell her…” Namjoon hesitates, gripping my jacket all the tighter for a moment, “WIll you tell her… that I’m sorry?”  

[oumakokichi]

I've been reading your metas and I want to say that they're really well thought and impressively intensive! Got a question that I'm not sure if you've answered however: if Ouma was meant to be a "pawn of the mastermind" and had despair imbued into his talent, do you think his amazing intellect might have come from actually having the SHSL Analyst talent along with his Leader talent?

I think it’s a distinct possibility! Ouma’s despair role isinteresting, because clearly it’s something he himself wasn’t the most awareof. Or rather, while he suspected himself of having been the intendedfigurehead for the real mastermind, and he knew he clearly had things abouthimself that were fitting for an “evil Supreme Leader,” etc., he didn’t knowabout hope vs. despair terminology, because those things weren’t something thatTsumugi actually busted out as her trump card until Chapter 5.

So while Ouma definitely seems to have been someone Tsumugiwanted to manipulate and use as a pawn the entire way through, I don’t think heactually was supposed to know or think of himself as SHSL Despair until thevery end. Had everything gone according to Tsumugi’s plans (meaning if Oumahadn’t been nearly as big of a pain in her ass as he was), she probably plannedto corner Ouma with a remember light specifically designed and entailed forhim, to make him “remember” about how he was “the successor of Junko Enoshima”and encourage him to go full Remants of Despair Leader, claim credit foreverything, and ultimately be “defeated and talked down by students of Hope’sPeak Academy,” only to kill himself in a fit of despair just like Junko did.

I’d bet that that’s quite literally how the script waswritten, if you will, not least of all because Tsumugi and the other charactersmake plenty of allusions to expecting “Ouma” (meaning Momota in the Exisal) tokill himself just like Junko at the end of their discussion.

Of course, it’s doubtful that the brainwashing ever workedon Ouma in the first place the same as it did among his classmates, precisely because he was twisted so far from hisoriginal character and the original state of things. As someone whose “evil organization”was actually ten kids running around, with a motto like “we don’t kill people,”pulling “laughable crimes” that got nobody hurt, it’s clear that trying toactually turn him into a sadistic, horrible mastermind character was mostlikely intended as some kind of message, or punishment.

Ouma’s clothing and treatment, the location of his lab, andthe entire role planned for him in the game went above and beyond what wasplanned for or expected of any of the other characters. As smart as he is, hewas bound to notice the discrepancy between his real memories and the things he“remembered” only because the remember lights told him they were real. So evenif Tsumugi had actually gotten this far, it’s an interesting question ofwhether it would’ve worked or not. Either way, that was clearly just her idealscenario, because she felt Ouma would have played the role of Junko-likevillain so perfectly.

And if he actually had been given some kind of SHSL Analysttalent or something very similar as a “surefire way” to try and make himdespair, because that’s exactly what happened to characters like Junko andKamukura…well, that would explain a lotactually. If the innate ability to see ahead and predict things and knoweverything leads to boredom, and boredom inevitably leads to despair, then thatwould perhaps have been Ouma’s “given talent.” I could see him having been apretty smart and perceptive kid even pre-game, but this kind of talent woulddefinitely take things to the next level, and explain why he’s able to predictjust as much as he is, to the point that it’s actually a little terrifying.

It wouldn’t be the first time ndrv3 had a lot of imagerywith “dual talents,” either. Ryouma quite literally has two talents at once,and two labs to embody them. As the survivor of a previous killing game show,Amami is speculated to have been “given” the SHSL Adventure title his firsttime around, and he earned “SHSL Survivor” as his talent for entry into thesecond one. Kiibo is clearly meant to have been “a SHSL Robot” by virtue of hisexistence, which is perhaps the closest thing to Naegi’s uncontrollable andun-asked for SHSL Good Luck, and he was supposed to become SHSL Hope later onin the game the way Tsumugi planned for Ouma to be SHSL Despair.

Ouma having “two talents,” or at least the fact that hisfirst talent was more of a cover for something else we can’t quite know about,seems like it wouldn’t be very far from the mark at all. After all, Junko, whowas known as a SHSL Gyaru, and who actually introduces herself as SHSL Despair,honestly does trace all the way back to being a SHSL Analyst, and that itselfis the cause of her despair.

There seem to be quite a lot of hints too that while Ouma iscertainly good at leading, and can and will do so from the shadows ratheraggressively, his SHSL Supreme Leader title is blatantly a lie of some sort.Kaede questions as much within his first two FTEs, and I believe even in thedemo and in his introduction, Naegi mentioned that the only information he hadaccess to about Ouma was just what were on the entry-level files available toall students. Saihara also brings up not being able to find any clues orinformation on Ouma being a real-life “evil Supreme Leader” of anything—and ifthe detective can’t find clues to the mystery, it likely means they don’t exist,because clues have to be presented.

Even in additional bonus content meant mostly for humor, Komaeda of all people can’t find asingle thing on Ouma being a Supreme Leader, or on any kind of actual secret,evil organization. The interaction between Komaeda and Ouma was likely meantfor comic relief, to some degree, but I think it was a valuable hint that therereally is no way Ouma could be leading any kind of actual crime organization orbe any kind of Supreme Leader in real life, because if there were anyinformation at all, Komaeda would be able to find it. Komaeda’s luck works insuch a way that he finds absolutely anything and everything he wants, as longas it exists to be found. So the logical conclusion is…it doesn’t exist.

All of this tells us that him having an actual hidden talentis extremely likely, and that this talent itself was likely how he was “imbuedwith despair” and meant to be turned into Tsumugi’s “pawn.” SHSL Analyst is alikely one, although given that Ouma is still considerably nerfed down comparedto Junko and Kamukura, I’d like to think perhaps he was given a slightvariation of this.

Which is how I present to you my own theory, which of courseis tentative, but I think it would fit: SHSL Chessmaster.

Where Junko’s analysis (and Kamukura’s) works largely bybeing able to take in absolutely every single bit of information in the hereand now, and being constantly, continuously aware of what almost every singleperson is planning and thinking and doing and therefore “knowing” what’s goingto happen to them as a result, Ouma works much more with hypotheticals. Hesticks to chessboard theory, treats everything around him as a game to be won,and predicts according to future “moves,” always having to look at hisclassmates as though they are pieces to be moved around or avoided depending ontheir most likely set of actions.

This means that sometimes he’s looking so far ahead at the “nextmoves” that he actually gets a little distracted in the here and now. Helegitimately just gets way too far ahead of himself and has to remind himselfconstantly that the other characters aren’t quite following him, and thenbacktracks and tries to bait them into realizing something or other (usuallyvery impatiently).

A perfect example of this was in Chapter 4, when it wasalready so obvious to him that he couldn’t have murdered Miu right from thestart of the trial that he seems legitimately just caught off guard and blankfor a second when Himiko reminds him that of course he has reason to lie tothem about it, because he’s a suspect. He pauses quite a long time in thatmoment before kind of forcing himself to rewind and come down to their levelfor a bit, because he was so far off in his own plans that it’s hard to go atwhat must seem like such a slower pace.

SHSL Chessmaster would make perfect sense in my own opinion,considering his black and white imagery, the checkered scarf looking like agameboard, and the fact that his name references two chess pieces, the King andthe Knight. The part of him that is extremely cold and calculating existsprecisely because this kind of cold, hard logic is what he excels at—and in themeantime, the fact that he can only really excel when he’s playing things “as agame” would explain why he tries so hard to counteract the boredom by spicingthings up and making everything fun, because lighthearted pranks are so essential to his character.

If Ouma were a chessmaster, and I personally think he was,he was a fascinating one, because despite how easy it would have been to “winthe game” from the perspective of Tsumugi’s and the usual killing game rules,he wanted to play by his own rules. He snatched control of Tsumugi’s game farbeyond what he was supposed to do, tried to grind the game to a halt, andultimately refused to play the part of any pawn. And when he had everyopportunity to “remove pieces” that might have made his life easier, like Maki,he stopped, because he had done that kind of thing before with Gonta and Miu,and was no longer finding the game worth playing. Resorting to those kinds oftactics was unforgivable to him, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it again,and that’s why he took his own piece off the chessboard at the very endinstead.

Anyway, I’m getting super long with this so I’ll go aheadand stop, but this was so much fun to write about, and I really enjoyed it! Ifeel like SHSL Chessmaster is very, very close to what Kodaka at least intendedfor players to get out of Ouma, or at least understand that it’s a talent thatis supposed to be “like Junko’s but different,” because Ouma went so far offthe rails of what any other character in DR has done before, and intentionallytried to fight the killing game and the mastermind every step of the wayinstead of just doing what they wanted him to do. Thank you so much for givingme a chance to write about this, anon!

[atlasleadershipresearch]

Campus Incivility and Free  Speech: A Contemporary Dilemma

by Robert E. Cipriano and Jeffrey L. Buller

Reprinted with permission from Academic Leader https://www.academic-leader.com/topics/institutional-culture/campus-incivility-and-free-speech-a-contemporary-dilemma. For subscription information to Academic Leader, see https://www.magnapubs.com/product/subscription/academic-leader/

“Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every manpresent his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entirepopulation. Such an ideal of external liberty can never be fully attained but mustbe sought unremittingly if scientific thought, and philosophical and creativethinking in general are to be advanced as far as possible.”

—Albert Einstein (1950, p. 13)

Imagine this scenario. Dr. Upton O. Goode, chair of the Department of Organic Astral Therapyat Dicey Incline State University (DISU), has invited Ms. Stuckin D’Past, the founder of agroup that’s widely perceived as advocating white nationalism, to deliver a campus addresson current challenges facing society. Dr. Goode has required all students majoring in organic astral therapy to attend, opened his own courses to Ms. D’Past for further discussion, and invited all other students to attend the public lecture.

The title that Ms. D’Past has chosen for her speech, “The Crime of Diversity,” has attracted concern from students, faculty, and administrators alike. A large majority of those on campus believe that the speech will support the agenda for white nationalism and encourage violence. The League of Students for Diversity (LSD)has planned a massive protest at the event and reached out to DISU students, employees, and members ofthe community to join them. LSD has stated in emails that it intends to disrupt the event—by any and allmeans possible—to stop Ms. D’Past from speaking.

Mr. Barry D. Hatchett, the president of DISU, is afraid that if the speech is allowed to proceed, violence will erupt that his campus’s security service will be unable to contain. The rhetoric around Ms. D’Past’s appearance has so become strident that the local mayor and town council believe public safety may be at risk. Several outside groups, both supportive of and opposed to Ms. D’Past’s group, have threatened to appear at the public event and advocate for their causes. President Hatchett is on the verge of canceling the presentation entirely when he receives an email from Dr. Goode indicating that any attempt by the administration to block Ms. D’Past from speaking would be regarded as violating the First Amendment and its guarantees of free speech as well as Dr. Goode’s own academic freedom.

An official statement by Ms. D’Past said that she hoped all “right thinking” members of the community wouldcome to the event and demonstrate their support of her right to speak and opposition to the “fascist tactics” of groups like LSD. Hearing the responses to this statement from listeners to call-in radio, Mr. Hatchettbecomes even more concerned about what might happen at the public event.

President Hatchett knows that he must act quickly since the day of Ms. D’Past’s arrival is rapidly approaching. He calls his cabinet into a joint session with his governing board and tries to work out a plan for how to proceed. The group makes the following accommodations. DISU will

budget an additional $250,000 (taken from funds originally set aside for staff bonuses) for police to

attend and monitor the public event and do what they can to prevent violence;

offer Ms. D’Past a “safe space” to deliver her presentation;

publicize the fact that the First Amendment does not provide anyone with the right to disrupt campus activities;

establish bias response teams (BRTs) to monitor this event and similar activities in the future that have the potential for resulting in violence; and

take a public stance that freedom of speech allows people to state their opinions without interference, retaliation, or punishment from the government.

Questions

1.  What is your opinion of this proposed solution?

2.  What would you do if you were the following people?

a.  President Hatchett b.Dr. Goode

c.  The president of DISU’s faculty senate

d. The president of the LSD

e.  The chair of the governing board

f.  The director of campus safety at DISU

g.  The mayor of the city where DISU is located

h. The chief of police of the city where DISU is located

Background

We’ll suggest a few possible answers to these questions, but first let’s look at some background for ourhypothetical case study. What is now known as the Free Speech Movement (FSM) began in 1964 as a series of protests at the University of California, Berkeley. These protests reached their climax on December 2,1964, when, after a rally featuring the folk singer and activist Joan Baez, students occupied the administration building. This sit-in led to the arrest of 773 people. Many faculty members at the university supported the students and provided them with bail money. Clark Kerr, president of the University of California during these protests, refused to expel the student activists, arguing, “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy” (Berdahl, 2004). Kerr was fired three weeks afterRonald Reagan took office as the governor of California.

The issue of free speech on college and university campuses is as old as education itself and as current as today’s news. Institutions of higher education often find themselves torn between their desire to create environments where students and professors remain physically safe and their mission to protect academic freedom and the right of free speech. What can academic leaders do to increase the likelihood that constructive conflicts between ideas don’t escalate into destructive, violent acts?

Hate speech

One place to begin is with an understanding of what hate speech is and what it isn’t. Some people use the expression hate speech to label any ideas they find difficult, troubling, controversial, or offensive. But there isno such thing as a right, either constitutional or academic, not to be offended. Legally, hate

speech refers to expressions that insult or demean a person or a group of people on the basis of such attributes as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, and gender. But hate speech is not required to be speech per se. Nonverbal symbols may also be used to express hatred. For example, althoughthe United States Supreme Court has ruled that burning the American flag (Texas v. Johnson, 491

U.S. 397 1989) and wearing armbands as an act of protest (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 1969) are examples of protected speech, destruction of private property or theuse of these same nonverbal symbols to threaten someone is not. As a result, painting a swastika on the interior wall of your home library is permitted, but painting a swastika on the wall of your public library is not. Free speech also does not protect those who engage in defamation of character, child pornography, harassment, invasion of privacy, and other types of expression already restricted by law. In addition, colleges and universities retain the right to establish the time, place, and manner in which protests or other potentiallydisruptive expressions of free speech may occur.

In US law, hate speech is not regarded as a separate category of speech. Whether one likes it or not, mosthate speech is protected under the First Amendment as a variety of “unpopular speech.” A number of countries (including Germany) do have laws prohibiting incitement to racial or ethnic hatred, but the United States isn’t one of them. The rationale for protecting unpopular speech is that there is simply no practicalway to regulate hate speech without censoring ideas, and censoring ideas should be particularly

offensive to everyone, especially those who work in higher education. Gresham’s Law in economics states that “bad money drives out good.” But a type of Reverse Gresham’s Law applies to higher education: good ideas drive out bad ideas. As the Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis established in the case

of Whitney v. California, “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avertthe evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence”(Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 1927). In other words, the solution to “bad speech” is not less speech butmore.

It is important to remember, too, that in the United States, speech protections under the First Amendment apply only to governmental speech. So the law works differently for public than it does for private universities. A religious college or seminar is legally entitled to restrict what is said or taught on its campus. But if a privateschool advertises itself as an environment that is open to all ideas or where opinions may be freely exchanged,it has then provided a contractual obligation to permit free speech. So if someone

violates the right of free speech at a public university, it could become a federal matter. If, on the other hand, someone violates the right of free speech at a private university, it could become a civil matter. Theuniversity is sued, not prosecuted. (See, for example, “First Amendment on Private Campuses,” 2015, and Dynia & Hudson, 2017.)

Conclusions

Readers will undoubtedly have their own ideas about how they would handle the hypothetical situation atDISU. We all approach challenges differently, based on our own experience and the traditions at our universities. But here is one possible way of proceeding. First, it’s important to identify where the central issue in this case study lies. People merely believe that Ms. D’Past’s speech will support the agenda for whitenationalism and encourage violence, but the LSD has explicitly threatened in emails that it intends to disruptthe event by any and all means possible. Canceling the public event would thus involve prior restraint of freespeech, which is illegal, but LSD’s documented incitement of others to violence or lawless action is notprotected free speech and may suitably be investigated by the police.

Second, while President Hatchett is suitably concerned about the safety of his faculty and students, many of the solutions proposed by his cabinet and governing board take only a short-term approach. With the exception of creating Bias Response Teams (themselves questionable since they appear to be designed forprior restraint of free speech), none of the proposed actions involve substantive, long-

term approaches. DISU should also consider developing publications or web pages that explain what free speech is, what “time, place, and manner” restrictions are, and how the institution will both protect free speech and address expressions that are deemed threats or incitements to violence. In other words, DISU should make this challenge a teachable moment. A good example of an institution that has created this typeof website is North Carolina State University (Free Speech, 2020).

Third, President Hatchett should consider launching a program that educates students—as well as facultymembers and administrators—on how differences of opinion can be expressed constructively and how todiscuss sensitive or contentious issues. Excellent examples of this approach are Widener University’s Common Ground Initiative (Common Ground, n.d.), the University of Alaska at Anchorage’s programs Start Talking(Landis, 2008) and Toxic Friday (Roderick, 2016), and Florida Atlantic University’s Agora Project (The FAU Agora Project, n.d.).

Free speech on college and university campuses will continue to present significant challenges to academic leaders. As with so many of today’s issues, there is no “one size fits all” strategy that can bring about a perfectaccommodation between campus civility and free speech. Addressing the challenges we all face as

academic leaders will require a great deal of effort, compromise, and mutual understanding on the part of students, faculty members, and administrators alike if we want to promote truly free scholarly inquiry whilesimultaneously creating a culture of respect for those who oppose other people’s ideas.

References

Berdahl, R. M. (2004). Clark Kerr memorial. Retrieved

from https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/chancellors/berdahl/speeches/clark-kerr-memorial

Common Ground: Widener University. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.widener.edu/about/points-pride/common-ground

Dynia, P. A., & Hudson, D. L. (2017, September). Rights of students. The First Amendment

Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/931/rights-of-students

Einstein, A. (1950). Albert Einstein: Out of my later years. New York, NY: Philosophical Library.

The FAU Agora Project: Florida Atlantic University. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.fau.edu/agora

First Amendment on private campuses. (2015, December 1). Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Retrieved from https://harvardcrcl.org/first-amendment-on-private-campuses

Free Speech: North Carolina State University. Retrieved from https://www.ncsu.edu/free-speech

Landis, K. (Ed.) (2008). Start talking: A handbook for engaging difficult dialogues in higher education. Anchorage, AK: The University of Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University.

Roderick, L. (Ed.) (2016). Toxic Friday: Resources for addressing faculty bullying in higher education. Anchorage, AK: The University of Alaska Anchorage.

Robert E. Cipriano, EdD, and Jeffrey L. Buller, PhD, are senior partners with ATLAS—Academic Training, Leadership, & Assessment Services. Reach them at rcipriano@atlasleadership.com and jbuller@atlasleadership.com, respectively.

[archivezosia]

As the World Shifts /// Flashback ( About 10 years ago )

Juxtaposed to the erratic behavior of her heartbeat, Annika’s gaze that settled upon Zosia remained inexorable. You might say that her eyes’s were almost addicted to the image of the reader —- it certainly wouldn’t be an exaggeration. No matter the subject of which they spoke, she was sure that the urge to stare would be impossible to overcome. Should they lapse into a comfortable silence, still, upon the other her eyes would stay. So she watched and wondered what might be happening inside that seemingly beautiful and riveting mind. “If we find ourselves unsatisfied, as I predict we will, we can always jump on a plane to my homeland. It’s only an 11 hour flight.” Spreading her tone with a thick layer of sarcasm, Annika bit her lip and cocked an eyebrow as if to say ‘how about it?’. It was a ridiculous idea, but one that played regularly in the reel of idealistic scenarios in Annika’s imagination. To take Zosia, who had kindled her affections so brightly, to the place she theoretically kept her heart —- as cliche as it was, really would be a dream come true. The suggestion of becoming a painter too set Anni’s heart fluttering. It might have been a fleeting comment from Zosia but of course, the poet naturally read into it and saw it as the kind of suggestion she would follow with ‘you’d do that for me…?’. She bit back the hopeless hopefulness and instead possessed a sheepish and daft grin. “My Godfather was a proper advocate for Plaid Cymru so being around his political rants naturally inspired me. Don’t let it frighten you though —- I’m pretty passive about it. I don’t really know how that works, but it’s how I chose to play it. Opinionated but chilled about it.” The redolent hope that lingered in her coaster themed sentence was left hanging in the air. Annika felt her stomach flip. Something had changed, but layers down, buried deep beneath their perceptible connection. A pea had been lodged underneath the hundreds of mattresses that was their desire for conversation and contact. Except it wasn’t a pea, and it certainly wasn’t something insignificant to their budding relationship. To Annika’s horror, Zosia held in her hands a scrap of paper she had trusted to the wind to carry somewhere safe. And it had found her. Was this fate? That she had discarded it somewhere so rural, so distant to where they were now —- but it had made it’s way to the very subject herself? Millions upon millions of questions percolated her conscience, her ability to see clear. “This…where did you get this from?” Quietened to a whisper, sheer anxiety lurked in Anni’s shaky voice. The embarrassment of it all. These were not just words. This piece of paper had the poets very soul bared upon it. She could lie —- the idea flashed in her head and she winced at it’s interference with her ability to think straight. The poem did not name anyone. Rapid plans of fibs scrabbled her sense and she was blinking so fast her eyes were beginning to water. It was useless. She could not lie at the best of times, let alone to the face of her deepest desire. Yet, it took everything she had to compose herself and admit that those words were, in fact, about the woman before her. “I didn’t want you to find it. I threw it to the wind, Zosia. On the camping trip… It was supposed to fly away and be lost. It was supposed to be cathartic, for me and only me…but it found you. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not.” Completely clueless as to where to take her words, which of the many emotions beating behind her forehead to expose, Annika’s fingernails nipped lightly at the skin upon her opposite hand, gaze refusing to plant anywhere in the room. “I don’t know what to say. What do I say? I confirm that I wrote it about you. I’m not sure whether it was right or wrong or what. You could call it self preservation —- it’s like a coping mechanism. It’s how I come to terms with things. I needed to figure it all out, get it into words, what I was —- am feeling.” Flickering emerald eyes hazily drifted to meet Zosia’s, alight with so many embers of sentiments. “That’s what it translated as. That’s how it is. …Is that okay?”

”Hypothetically,” making sure to heavily precursor the adjoining sentiment with a solid foundation of that plain and uncommitted nonchalance she had mastered so well to accommodate the upheaval of emotion Annika dredged up within her, Zosia allowed herself to sneak in a bona fide nod of affirmation, “I think I’d like that.” The agreement resonated with a sincere sense of hope she could only hope was overshadowed by how it was presented; in a place built on a city of fables, populated with streets named ‘what if’ and ‘maybe someday’. Impossible and improbable universes that neither of them had the blessed fortune to occupy together. The idea of such a spontaneous adventure preyed upon the reader’s suppressed passion for the pastime of travel. To visit the land Annika hailed from, where cement and plastic clutter were not part of the daily sight-seeing routine, was a suggestion she struggled to find a sane reason to refuse —- theoretically or not. Speaking with crystal clarity was easy around someone such as the woman she sat by. It made Zosia daring enough to let secrets less noticeably slip into speech, with a simple turn of phrase, that could be a double edged sword of truths or open up a pandora’s box of misunderstandings. Around anyone else in her peer group, she would have done it with confidence, knowing certain inflections and references would fly over most of their heads. Under the discerning reception of Annika’s intelligent ear, the line was a much finer one to walk. Giving too much credit to the poet seemed an oxymoron. Frankly, Zosia was more at risk of giving too little. “Ah, of course. I should’ve guessed your bloodline was enriched with spirit.” An entire thesaurus’ worth of terms could have been substituted in the place of ‘spirit’. Holding this belief more like a fact, she momentarily needed to carefully study the Annika’s features to ensure she hadn’t accidentally voiced a more intimately-sourced adjective. With her voluminous thoughts trafficking so noisily inside her skull, it grew increasingly difficult to tell what she verbally let out into the ethers anymore. To posses an intense deep affection for another was to love. For a word so strong, linked to how humans often haphazardly threw it around like bullets, it felt as though shrapnel ought to have littered the earth’s surface. Surely, it would have littered the floor in a perfect circle around where Zosia sat. Was she so foolish to try and convince herself that a particular sensation of ‘deep affection’ was not the exact summary that described her inner disposition? Would it really have been so preposterous to suggest that the very mention of Annika’s name had the reader’s brain instantaneously linking along a poem [ it was love that had me and held so fast, I was trapped like a moth to the flame, wise men have said true love never lasts, when in love you’ll burn again and again. ] which had kept those three syllables company for over above a fortnight? Gripped by infatuation, that was for certain, but were the depths of these feelings fleeting —- like a pool in the heat of Summer doomed to be emptied by the end of the season —- or as unprecedented and unpredictable as the bottomless ocean? Placing the letter in her lap, Zosia nearly held her breath as she sat silently to listen to what reasoning she would hear from the other woman. Palms pressed together, lifted with the sides of her index fingers pressed to her lips, she was caught somewhere between willing herself not to say anything, and trying to summon some cursed higher power to alleviate her shackled mind. Staring at Annika with a mixture of trepidation, admiration, and loss, she quietly mumbled, “I was given it.” Despite purposefully omitting details of identification, she could practically hear Maya’s voice ringing in her eardrums; imagine an expression of disdain; and the brutal disapproval of even the reader’s quietest consideration of entertaining the dreams she had pertaining to Annika. The terms between Zosia and her supposed ex were unclear, murky as the waters of a lagoon —- however, in comparison ( which did nothing to ease the stress on her conscience ), Annika presented no more clarity. Though, one factor was for certain: the pier of safety the music maker represented was far more anchored than it’s hurricane counterpart. A hopeless ache chipped away at Zosia’s heart like a hammer and chisel took to stone, leaving behind a cave of wonder and insecurity that waves of Annika’s touching sentiments gently lapped up against. “You didn’t want me to see it.” Emptily echoing the impression she had absorbed from the tone of the writer’s elaboration, the literary aficionado failed to ward off the indignant sense that arose when confronted with such a notion. Fingers protectively tightened their hold on the flimsy letter as she imagined a scenario where the discarding of it had being successful, disheartened by the possibility of the note never seeing the light of day, consumed by the forest forever. How could she dare do such a thing? To deliberately keep Zosia blinded from a truth so mockingly blatant she had actually needed to read it on paper before she’d understood the muted refrain of her interest was not a one sided arrangement. They were singing a duet, of coasters and teacups, no less. Of course, it made absurd sense. Nothing quite permeated the reader’s daydreamy grasp on the world other than the physical presence of the written world —- a place her mind could escape to forever, even if the outcome of their meeting mounted insignificantly. Annika could have downright laid a kiss onto Zosia and she likely still would’ve internalized it, analyzed the hell out of it, and then brushed it off as accidental. A rare and situationally dependent gesture, at best. Too good to be true. “Why would it not be a good thing?” Because who was Zosia to receive the gift of this enchantment’s attention? “Why hide it? It was —- it is… beautiful, Annika. I didn’t… I wouldn’t have imagined you saw me in such a light. I…” A defeated sigh escaped her lungs, briefly preceding a rapidly spoken line of French she was grateful wouldn’t be understood, “Vous êtes comme un rayon de lumière sur mon horizon. Mon c��ur souffre pour vous , ma chérie. Comment pouvez-vous pas savoir…” Shaking her head, poignant hazel eyes escaped the vibrant green shade of their captor’s to avert to the nearest wall; being able to truly concentrate depended on it. “First of all, you must understand that is okay. More than…” Trailing off, she felt suddenly concerned and self conscious with how much that she said or did when it would be permanently on the record. “It’s just… inconvenient.” A strained thread of pent up frustration lined her tone, eloquence uncharacteristically escaping her as she struggled in more ways than one, “It’s welcomed and it’s inconvenient. I feel it matters little what I want to really say, as in no reality could I say that this is impeccable timing, Annika.“

To be continued…

[usnewsaggregator-blog]

How <i>The Good Place</i> Goes Beyond ‘The Trolley Problem’

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/how-the-good-place-goes-beyond-the-trolley-problem/

How The Good Place Goes Beyond ‘The Trolley Problem’

Last month, the NBC sitcom The Good Place returned for its second year after a first season that was widely praised as “surreal and high-concept” and “ambitious and uniquely satisfying.” In the two-part pilot, the show introduced a woman named Eleanor (Kristen Bell) who dies and finds herself in a non-denominational heaven by mistake—and who decides to learn how to become a better person in order to earn her spot in the afterlife. With that premise, The Good Place revealed what would eventually become the show’s most important theme: ethics. To avoid being sent to The Bad Place, Eleanor enlists her assigned “soul mate,” a former professor of moral philosophy named Chidi (William Jackson Harper), to teach her how to change her selfish ways.

Many TV critics have acknowledged the show’s unconventional embrace of ethics. But few have delved into what makes The Good Place’s depiction of the discipline so refreshing, yet effective, as both comedy and an informal educational tool. As a bioethicist who teaches a class on ethics and pop culture at Fordham University, I’ve integrated clips from the series into my lectures for a few reasons. While other shows have discussed moral principles, The Good Place stands out for dramatizing actual ethics classes onscreen, without watering down the concepts being described, and while still managing to be entertaining. By spending multiple episodes building on the subject, the sitcom offers a thoughtful and humorous survey of a wide range of concepts that rarely get explored before a mainstream audience.

Related Story

The Good Place Is Still TV Heaven

Most episodes in Season 1 feature, at some point, Chidi rolling out a chalkboard. He breaks down complex ethical frameworks for Eleanor, gives her reading assignments about Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative and Thomas Scanlon’s book on contractualism, What We Owe to Each Other, and encourages her to take the needs of others, instead of just her own, into account. Fortunately, the show has only grown more confident in Season 2. After the twist in the Season 1 finale—where Eleanor and Chidi find out they’re actually in a version of The Bad Place cleverly designed by the celestial architect, Michael (Ted Danson)—it seemed like the ethics lessons might wane, if not stop altogether.

In fact, the opposite happened, and Chidi finds himself with a new student: Michael, the immortal demon whose goal is to find creative ways to torture “bad” souls, but who claims he now wants to help his victims get into the real Good Place. The newest episode, which aired Thursday, may be the most revealing example yet of how The Good Place keeps deepening the way ethics gets portrayed in pop culture. Despite its emphasis on morality, The Good Place waited until its second year to even address the most famous, and perhaps overused, thought experiment in the field: the trolley problem.

* * *

You don’t have to be an ethicist to have heard of the following hypothetical conundrum: You’re riding a trolley that’s barreling toward five people on the tracks. Doing nothing will result in their deaths. Alternatively, you could pull a lever, diverting the vehicle to another set of tracks, killing one person instead of five. What do you do? As Lauren Cassani Davis wrote for The Atlantic in 2015, “Puzzling, ridiculous, and oddly irresistible, this imaginary scenario has profoundly shaped our understanding of right and wrong” over the last 40 years.

It’s no surprise the trolley problem has become a fixture in ethics intro classes. The experiment helps newcomers to the field examine two important ethical theories: utilitarianism (taking the action that results in the greatest amount of good for the largest number of people) and deontology (trying to do as much good as possible, though the actions you take to get there matter more than the actual results). But the trolley problem and its spinoffs work on a more intuitive level; they don’t require you to dig into more abstract concepts like what it actually means to do the “most good” or weighing “intrinsic versus instrumental” value.

Netflix is particularly fond of the trolley experiment, which was featured in the most recent seasons of two of its original shows this past summer. In the penultimate episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s third season, the protagonist Kimmy takes a college philosophy class, learns about the trolley problem, and becomes obsessed with utilitarianism. Similarly, in a Season 5 episode of Orange Is the New Black—not so subtly titled “Tied to the Tracks”—a character uses the trolley problem to explain the “classic deontological dilemma” of whether to sacrifice one woman for the greater good.

Where other shows’ direct discussion of ethics might begin and end with the trolley problem, The Good Place notably refrained from using this pedagogical crutch for the entire first season. After the finale aired, Maureen Ryan at Variety suggested that the show’s first 13 episodes comprise an extended exploration of the thought experiment. This may be an oversimplification of the series, but Ryan’s observation demonstrates how the dilemma has become virtually synonymous with ethics as a whole.

In Thursday’s episode, “The Trolley Problem,” The Good Place finally did tackle the famous scenario. As usual, Chidi is at a blackboard explaining the experiment to his students, citing the work of the philosopher Philippa Foot, along with a few variations. Less predictably, Michael later transports Eleanor and Chidi onto an actual trolley careening toward humans on the tracks to see how Chidi would react in real time. At another point, Michael takes the duo on a trip to an operating theater, where Chidi lives out the so-called “transplant thought experiment” (in which a doctor has to determine whether to kill one person—in this case, Eleanor—in order to use her organs to save the lives of five other people). Michael insists the aim of these simulations is to help him relate to humans’ ethical decision-making, but Eleanor realizes he’s just manipulating Chidi, finding new ways to torture him.

“The Trolley Problem” allows the experiment to surface in multiple forms, helpfully reinforcing the notion that there is, in fact, no single correct answer, and many ways of thinking through the question. The episode starts with the classroom scene, complete with a model trolley, before literalizing the experiment and making Chidi steer an actual trolley to hilariously bloody effect. But the episode references the problem in more subtle ways, too. In true Good Place fashion, a split-second visual gag during a real-trolley scene involves a movie marquee that reads “Strangers Under a Train” and “Bend It Like Bentham.” Eventually, Chidi is faced with another conflict: After learning Michael might not really care about ethics, Chidi realizes he’ll be tortured whatever decision he makes. He can continue to teach Michael and keep participating in distressing scenarios, or refuse and be sent to the real Bad Place. Chidi ultimately chooses to suffer at Michael’s hand rather than select that outcome himself—essentially deciding not to take action and pull the metaphorical trolley lever.

While the trolley experiment isn’t novel or inherently funny, it would be unthinkable for a show like The Good Place to ignore it completely. So the episode opts to squeeze the basics of the dilemma into a two-minute cold open padded with some jokes about Michael’s total lack of humanity (by way of a solution, he proposes an elaborate method to kill everyone on the tracks). In fact, “The Trolley Problem” gets plenty of comedic mileage out of Michael’s obtuseness. In an assigned essay about the ethics of Les Misérables, Michael rambles about how everyone in the novel is terrible, and that he knows Victor Hugo ends up in The Bad Place, like most French people do. With Michael playing the role of a more depraved Eleanor from Season 1, Chidi doubles down on his beleaguered, nerdy professor persona, forcing Michael to repeatedly scrawl “People=Good,” Bart Simpson-style, on the chalkboard. Early on, Eleanor mocks Chidi for writing a Hamilton-esque rap musical about the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard to teach in class (“My name is Kierkegaard, and my writing is impeccable / check out my teleological suspension of the ethical”).

Much of what makes The Good Place’s lessons so realistic is the interplay between a completely inexperienced student and a teacher who has devoted his life to the discipline. Chidi attempts to break down difficult concepts into morsels Eleanor and her classmates can wrap their heads around, prompting responses the audience may find relatable. The show’s creator, Michael Schur, told me he envisioned Eleanor as a stand-in for viewers, who can process these new ideas alongside her. Schur even drew on his own experience when crafting Eleanor’s initial reaction to learning about utilitarianism in Season 1. She’s immediately satisfied by the approach, questioning why anyone would bother with the other theories—something my students tend to think as well.

A sitcom may seem like an unlikely vehicle for serious discussions about moral philosophy, which viewers might expect to find in medical and legal dramas (albeit in less literal, didactic forms). But the subject and medium are surprisingly compatible. A comedy can broach otherwise tedious-sounding ideas with levity and self-awareness, and has more leeway to use contrived or exaggerated scenarios to bring concepts to life (like showing Chidi’s terror at repeatedly allowing the trolley to kill someone on the tracks, spraying their blood in his face and mouth). In The Good Place, the classroom scenes are not there to be preachy; they’re plot devices, sandwiched between jokes. When Chidi is discussing Aristotle in Season 1, Eleanor asks facetiously, “Who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics?” “Plato!” a frustrated Chidi yells, pointing to the philosophy family tree on the board behind him.

There are practical upsides to a well-crafted, ethically curious show like The Good Place being on network TV. As The Atlantic’s Julie Beck pointed out last December, morality has become a justification fueling seemingly intractable divides between groups—a dynamic that’s especially visible in today’s polarized American political climate. Part of the appeal of “ethics classroom” episodes may be that people are interested in getting back to basics, to try and figure out how others think and reach decisions that may be very different from their own.

In this light, bringing digestible ethics lessons to the masses can be seen as a moral act, ensuring that those who don’t spend hours poring over Kant and Judith Jarvis Thomson are also privy to what’s gained from understanding how people think. If consuming the works of moral philosophers were the key to living a good life, “then the only nice, thoughtful people would be these hermitic, obsessive readers,” The Good Place’s Kristen Bell told me. “We can’t have that—we have to make it accessible. If you’re making people laugh while you’re teaching them, it’s the best way to do it.”

Indeed, The Good Place’s focus on ethics wouldn’t mean as much if it weren’t also remarkable in other ways—the performances, the top-notch writing, the wordplay and pun-laden jokes, the willingness to formally experiment with the sitcom genre. “I don’t expect or necessarily even believe that the average person is as interested in [ethics] as I am,” Schur told me. “While we’re discussing the issues that I want to discuss, I also know that I have a responsibility to the audience to tell a story. The goal is not to change the world; the goal of this is to make a high-quality, entertaining show that has good-quality acting.” On that front, Season 2 has certainly succeeded—but Schur still promised I’ll have plenty of new clips to show my students this semester.

Original Article:

Click here

[nothingman]

Senate Democrats have a lot of reasons to reject Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee.

He is a down-the-line conservative. He was appointed to a federal appeals court by George W. Bush, wrote a book arguing that judges should embrace an absolute right-to-life principle in assisted suicide cases, and has backed religious challenges to the Affordable Care Act (including in the Hobby Lobby case). He sided with corporations and against workers in a variety of cases, including one in which a Kansas State professor was fired for requesting more leave after a cancer diagnosis, and one involving a truck driver who was fired for abandoning his malfunctioning truck after waiting in a freezing, unheated cabin for three hours.

There’s more: Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, who has attacked the federal judiciary repeatedly, and whose actions — restricting immigration from some Muslim countries, cracking down on undocumented immigrants, and rolling back environmental regulation — are certain to draw legal challenge after legal challenge. Some of those challenges will almost certainly come before the Supreme Court.

If that weren’t enough, Gorsuch is nominated for the same seat that Merrick Garland was, and Senate Republicans’ refusal to so much as hold hearings for Garland still, understandably, enrages Senate Democrats, who feel the seat was stolen.

Democrats are essentially helpless to stop many of Trump’s decisions. But not this one: Senate Democrats have the ability to block Gorsuch from joining the Court by filibustering. Unless Republicans can peel off eight Democrats to break that filibuster, Gorsuch won’t be able to join the Court.

And yet the conventional wisdom in Washington is that Gorsuch — whose confirmation hearings began Monday and are schedule to end Thursday — is a sure thing, and will coast to a confirmation vote without much controversy. Politico's Burgess Everett reports that Democrats are weighing a deal that would see Gorsuch confirmed in exchange for "a commitment from Republicans not to kill the filibuster for a subsequent vacancy during President Donald Trump’s term."

How such a promise could be made binding, I don't know. But even without that promise there’s a strategic story Democrats can tell themselves about why letting Gorsuch slide would be a good idea. Whether or not that story makes any sense is a good question.

The big unknown: when do Democrats want Republicans to go nuclear?

The biggest reason Democrats might want to go easy on Gorsuch is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell really does have a way to force the nomination through. He can change the filibuster rule so that it only takes 51 votes, not 60, to invoke cloture on a Supreme Court nominee, just as Senate Democrats did for non-Supreme Court judicial nominees and all executive nominees in November 2013.

The precedent has been set for that change, and Republican senators like Mike Lee and Lamar Alexander have been calling for it since Republicans recaptured the Senate in early 2015. McConnell himself has signaled that if Democrats filibuster Gorsuch, he’s willing to go nuclear, telling reporters, “Gorsuch will be confirmed; I just can't tell you exactly how that will happen, yet.”

This presents a dilemma for Democrats. If the nuclear option is invoked, that doesn’t just confirm Gorsuch. It means that if a liberal or swing justice dies or retires while Republicans have a Senate majority, giving Trump the power to truly reshape the Court, there will be nothing they can do to stop him. The 5-4 majority that has upheld reproductive rights, struck down same-sex marriage bans, and generally prevented total conservative domination of the nation’s highest court would be replaced by a permanent conservative majority.

Without the filibuster, Republicans could confirm a replacement with a simple majority. They could put in someone like 11th Circuit Judge Bill Pryor, who has called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law,” and Democrats would not be able to block him.

So when it comes to Gorsuch, two scenarios could play out for Democrats:

Full obstruction: Democrats filibuster Gorsuch. McConnell invokes the nuclear option. Unless enough Republicans oppose the rule change, Gorsuch is confirmed. Republicans keep or gain Senate seats in 2018. Then a liberal justice or swing vote retires or dies. Trump nominates someone conservative (a crony, a hard-right ideologue, or a mainstream pick with little paper trail) to replace them. Democrats have no way to stop Trump from replacing a liberal or moderate vote with a conservative one: With a 51-vote threshold for nominees, most nominees have a good shot at getting confirmed.

Strategic surrender: Democrats decline to filibuster Gorsuch, allowing at least eight members of the caucus to vote for cloture. Then they save their ammunition for the (hypothetical) next fight: filibustering anyone whom Trump picks to replace Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Stephen Breyer, the three oldest justices. Because of the higher ideological stakes for the Court, this strategy bets that less conservative Senate Republicans such as Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Cory Gardner, or Susan Collins might be less willing to go nuclear — forcing Trump to moderate his choices.

How Democrats will figure out which of these strategies would work best

Allison Shelley/Getty Images

Which strategy is least likely to get Ruth Bader Ginsburg replaced with a conservative?

The reasoning behind strategic surrender is at least somewhat compelling. But whether or not it makes sense depends on a number of factors:

Are there Republicans who’d vote for a conservative replacement to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but not go nuclear for them? This is the big variable. Suppose Ginsburg dies or retires in the next four years and Trump nominates Bill Pryor or another hard-line conservative to replace her. If three or more less conservative Republicans come out against the nomination entirely, then it doesn’t really matter whether the threshold to confirm them is 60 votes or 51. If the filibuster were destroyed by the Gorsuch fight, then the nomination would just fail normally in an up-or-down vote.

Strategic surrender then only makes sense if you think Gardner, Portman, Murkowski, or Collins would vote for a nominee like that in an up-or-down vote, but wouldn’t go so far as to change the rules of the Senate to put them on the Court.

How long could you keep up blocking a conservative replacement? Let’s say Trump nominates a Gorsuch clone — a hard conservative who says the right things and charms senators and doesn’t seem like an ideologue — for Ginsburg’s seat. And a sufficient number of Republicans oppose going nuclear that Democrats successfully block the pick. Now let’s suppose the nomination just sits there for months and months.

At some point, do the anti-nuclear Republicans break and come around to the nuclear option? Or does Trump fold first, pull the nominee, and pick someone more moderate? If you think the latter is likely, then surrender on Gorsuch makes sense. If you think the former is more likely, then it doesn’t.

How likely do you think Republicans successfully going nuclear over Gorsuch is? If you doubt that less far-right GOPers like Collins or Murkowski are willing to blow up Senate rules for someone who almost certainly would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, then full obstruction starts to make more sense. If the nuclear option isn’t possible in this case, then Democrats really can prevent Gorsuch from taking his seat indefinitely.

Is it important to punish Republicans for obstructing Merrick Garland? I hate to say this, but I’m afraid it’s time for some game theory. In the 1980s, the game theorists Anatol Rapoport and Robert Axelrod found that if you play the famous prisoner's dilemma game (where cooperation helps both parties but they face strong incentives to defect) again and again, one of the best strategies you can use is "tit for tat": do whatever your opponent did the last time.

As political scientist Seth Masket points out, in the case of the Supreme Court, this implies that Democrats should respond to the obstruction of Garland by obstructing Gorsuch. In the long run, tit for tat produces more cooperation than the alternatives, and showing Republicans that Democrats won't tolerate that kind of obstruction could have some long-term benefits for the party.

Will there even be a next fight? Maybe Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer are all still on the court in four to eight years when Trump leaves office — or maybe Democrats retake the US Senate in 2018 (despite a very tough map) or 2020, before any of the justices retires or dies. In those cases, all of this is moot. What happens to Gorsuch and the filibuster rule won’t affect the “next fight” at all, because Democrats will be able to either nominate a liberal justice or use a Senate majority to block conservative ones.

The fact of the matter is that Trump is going to get a lot of judges Democrats don’t like on courts

The answers to those questions depend a lot on probabilities that are inherently impossible to know with any certainty. Will Murkowski kill the filibuster for Scalia’s replacement, but not Ginsburg’s? Will she keep not killing the filibuster for Ginsburg’s replacement month after month? Can the nuclear option succeed for Gorsuch? Will blocking Gorsuch to punish Republican obstruction of Garland change Republicans’ behavior and make them more cooperative going forward?

But the basic fact of the matter is that replacing Antonin Scalia is Donald Trump’s job, as infuriating as that is for Democrats after the Garland situation. And if Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away or Anthony Kennedy retires or Elena Kagan decides to quit and sail around the world, Trump will be able to name a replacement too, with much greater consequences for the Court.

Democrats are trying to figure out how best to play a set of very bad cards. They can do everything they can to keep Collins, Murkowski, and Gardner equivocating. But ultimately, it’s the least conservative Republicans in the Senate (people who are by no means moderate) who will decide if Gorsuch and a hypothetical conservative replacement to Ginsburg or Kennedy go through.

Democrats can try to affect their thinking, but their tools are limited.

Unless Democrats overcome a very tough Senate map in 2018 to regain a majority, the fact of the matter is that Republicans, on their own, can use the nuclear option to confirm anyone they want for the Supreme Court for the next four years. And that will almost certainly mean the Court moves to the right.

via Vox - All