#ive not seen anything to contradict my theory | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thatfrenchacademic · 1 year

Text

Justice as spectacle in Fontaine, or a too long word vomit from a tired PhD in Law gushing over Genshin 4.0

Alternative title: “Justice must be seen to be done”, a visual playbook by Genshin 4.0

Intro: This is a valid use of a PhD in law, actually.

I made the mistake of playing the 4.0 update of Genshin while I was finalizing my PhD in law and politics, and the result was my brain refuse to think about anything else than judicial performativity and the use judicial spectacle in Fontaine. So time to make good use of 9 years of University by dissecting why I absolutely love how Fontaine’s justice system is presented. It was initially much longer and covering why justice as a spectacle is not necessarily an issue or sign of a disfunctionning legal system, then what exactly about the Fontainian justice system is actually fucked up, but it got too long so I’m keeping that for the indeterminate future. So the pitch of this thing is: Mihoyo is basically providing us with an animated First Person POV game version of legal ethnographic works on justice and the courthouse, and it is really cool.

And since I am a nerd with both too much time to read and to play, we are making this a proper academic, with literature and all, because listen to me, LEGAL ACADEMICA IS COOL, ACTUALLY, and law and literature at large is a genuine field of study that we, as a society, need to talk about more.

[also there is non-zero chance that I edit this brainrot and submit it for publication at some point]

Warning: I am basing this on 4.0, up to and including Act IV Chapter II (hence no discussion of the prison system) and if Mihoyo thwarts the whole thing with 4.1 [oops I am late so now 4.2, since 4.1 did not thwart it] then let’s do what we do when new results contradict existing theories in academia and just collectively agree to ignore it.

TL;DR: Someone at Mihoyo read Simonett’s 1966 essay on The Trial as One of the Performing Arts [Here, just read it, it is fascinating] and decided to make it everyone’s problem

Part 0: if this was not Tumblr.com I would make a recap explaining broadly what Genshin and Fontaine are but since you are reading this I’m going to assume you already know the context.

Part 1: Ok so how does the Fontanian Justice system work, exactly?

Alright, so each area of Teyvat has 1) one core theme/value and 2)a threat to that core theme/value.

Mondstadt has Freedom and people living in fear of a dragon.

Liyue has Contracts/order and the pandemonium of having Rex Lapis killed.

Inazuma has Eternity and being virtually frozen in time.

Sumeru has Knowledge and being entirely manipulated by the Akademia.

Fontaine has Justice and… Justice being parodied into a spectacle?

WRONG.

Because the spectacle of justice, especially the way it is done in Fontaine, is not antithetic to Justice itself. Spectacle is part and parcel of Justice and of any courthouse. Sure, all the dials are turned to 11 and y’know, it is legit called an Opera, but that is more the writers being a bit on the nose and adding drama for the player. The spectacle of Justice, itself, is not that far off from reality. And, hot take but bear with me: it is not (necessarily) a problem.

Ok, let’s dive into what we know of the justice system in Fontaine.

Broadly speaking, we have seen the criminal justice system, and it is an accusatorial, or adversarial model. It’s the US-style criminal procedure: you have a defendant trying to prove that they didn’t do it your honor, and a prosecutor proving that they totally did it your honor. To avoid this becoming a fistfight, you have a strict procedure to follow outside but especially inside the Court, and in the end, a neutral third party decides on the outcome or the trial.

Ok, now let’s zoom on a few things, and why the theatrics of them are actually very common.

Furina, our cringefail darling, is the prosecutor. And they get a lot of stuff right regarding the role of the prosecutor! She decides whether or not to prosecute, based on the information that she has, and whether she likes her odds or not. Fittingly since she is the Archon, the prosecutor in a trial represents the State, the interest of the State (the judge ! does ! not!). It makes sense that Furina, the ruler (theoretically) would be prosecutor and not judge. Moreover, and as we see plenty of times during the trials, Prosecutor Furina is not concerned with the victim, and not even necessarily with the truth; the prosecutor wants to know how likely they are to obtain a conviction in the end. Her job is to be convincing enough to establish a legal truth.

Neuvillette, for his part, sometimes look terribly powerless… but friends, that is what a Judge sitting during a criminal case often is. The first part of his job is to find sufficient information for the prosecution to decide whether or not to prosecute; he is supposed to be entirely neutral at this stage. He kickstarted the investigation straight after the death of Cowell, and was also the one starting investigation on Vaughn right after Lyney is proved innocent. He gathers enough evidence, hands them over to Furina and asks “So? Are you game or do you want to leave that alone?”

And once the prosecutor has decided to move forward with prosecuting, his job is to make the procedure move along, take some decisions based on new information, ensure all respect the rules (hence Childe’s immediate smackdown when he starts to act out a bit too much at the end. My man is here to make sure the rules are enforced and that also applies to Snezhnayan gremlins). In the liminal space of the courthouse, he is the supreme authority… over the procedure. He can tell anyone, including Furina, to stfu k thx. He starts and stops the trial. He allows witnesses to be heard or not.

And the last party involved at this point is the defense, usually the Traveler and any adorable twink we befriended that day [good for you, Traveler, good for you]. They present evidence, they have to be convincing, it’s basically Ace Attorney, we know that part.

Part 2: Mihoyo makes it clear that we are all actors in the Courtroom

Ok, first moment of pause.

Even though these are the most basic parts of a criminal trial, they are ALREADY steeped in drama and theatrics, both IRL and in Fontaine.

First off, Furina plays a prosecutor, Neuvillette plays a judge and the Traveller plays the lawyer.

No but really: they play their role in the Courthouse.

The game painstakingly presents Furina for the first time not as a prosecutor in a courthouse but as a cringefail princess. When we see her initially welcoming the Traveller, going “Fight Me” at them in the streets of Fontaine, she is not a prosecutor, she is just Furina the cringefail princess. We meet Furina as Furina, and later on only, we see her with her Prosecutor face. Furina is not a prosecutor, outside of the Courthouse.

I don’t even have to explain how much Traveler plays lawyer. We are, and I cannot stress it enough, NOT lawyers (yes, even you who developed an unhealthy obsession with Ace Attorney before Genshin). The developers even took the time to develop an entire new gameplay to really, really highlight that is a behavior that the Traveler can only have in the Courthouse. Traveler is not a lawyer outside of the courthouse.

Neuvillette is a bit of a special case. We do meet him for the first time in the Courthouse, as a Judge. But once again, the moment we meet him outside of the courthouse, he is much more approachable, definitely not the same persona as when he bitchslapped my problematic Harbinger into the Meropides prison [we are so going to write something about the Meropides prison once I have played enough 4.1 my friends – update post 4.1: ok Mihoyo that was weak commentary on the privatization of prison and prison labour but I’ll take it]. Neuvillette is probably the one that is the most associated with his courthouse persona, but there is still this gap between Neuvillette-Judge and Neuvillette-reflecting-in-the-end-of-Chapter-II.

So everyone is just themselves in their daily life, but there is something about a Courthouse that turns people into their judicial role. That’s what we call the liminality of the courthouse (Hadar, 1999). And it exists IRL, in a way shockingly close to what we see in the Opera Epiclese.

Magistrates, whether prosecutors or judges, do not act in their own names, they have a role to play. Someone woke up that morning, had breakfast, swore at the neighbour who did not park properly again, spilled some coffee on their documents again ffs, stumbled a bit on the little steps leading to the courthouse, and then, they put on their costume and started to play the role of the judge. As someone who has been in what can only be referred to as “backstage” of a court , and entered the courthouse with the magistrates, I cannot stress enough how drastic the shift in person is the moment a magistrate steps into the space of the trial room.

From there on, they are a Role. Furina, like any prosecutor, is not a prosecutor, until they are The Prosecutor, and then they are not themselves anymore, in the enclosed space of the courthouse. Have you ever seen a lawyer talk in their daily life the way to talk in a courthouse? No. Someone is just some person, until their put on the robe and their Lawyer Face and start their Lawyer Movement and Lawyer Tone. Traveler cannot go all OBJECTION when they have a disagreement with a random shopkeeper in Teyvat. The game doesn’t even give you the option – because you are not lawyer, unless you are in the court. None actually plays a lawyer, unless they are in the courthouse.

And an adversarial model encourages this. You have character, but for it to be a play, or an opera, you need a narrative (murder, ok, that will kickstart a narrative) and you need dramatic tension. Drama is created by the opposition of two characters having opposite goals, confronting each other. Simonett, a former Minessotta Supreme Court Judge, has a fascinating article called “The Trial as One of the Performing Art”, which really ecapsulates how an adversarial system is built on this drama:

‘The trial has a protagonist, and antagnonist, a proscenium and an audience, a story to be told and a problem to be resolved, all usually in three acts”.

More than an inquisitory model (hello, fellow continental Europeans), parties are encouraged to bounce off each other, take initiative, undermine and interact with each other. US courthouse TV shows loooove that, and Genshin absolutely leaned into that. The potential for drama was so strong and intrinsic to the story that For the first time, we got to play a character that was not even with the traveler: Traveler was off investigating, and we played Navia in the courthouse, because the sheer drama of being in the courthouse is too good for the game to pass.

Do you see it yet? Here is more. A judicial role is a role. IRL, a lot of it is emphasized by the robes -the - sometimes complete with wigs and accessories- that judges and magistrates must wear before entering the space of the courthouse. You put them on like you put on a costume -defendant, prosecution, judge and even audience alike (Cabatingan, 2018), there is a ritual of preparing for the performance of a trial the way you prepare for a play. Genshin characters cannot change their clothes [give us a proper fancy-af-judge-robe for Neuvilette Mihoyo you COWARDS], so the game does all it can to realllllyy show you a separation between the judicial role and the actor playing I in the courthouse.

Part 3: Game designers said yes this an Opera and a Courthouse because these are the same thing and they are right

[The urge to include Foucault in this section, but I do not have Discipline and Punish with me rn, rip]

Ok, ok, why not. But what about the stuff that is not in your random courthouse, like a damn AUDIENCE and the fact that it takes place in an actual OPERA ?

Aight, we gotta dive a bit deeper into two things: the role of audience in the judicial spectacular, and studies on legal architecture/judicial space. I told you legal research was cool.

Let’s start with the most obvious one: architecture.

The architecture of Courthouse is actually really important for the delivery of justice. The building embodies the task itself, and targets evert single person that interacts with the building in any way? It matters specifically because we take it for granted, that this this is just a building, that there cannot be more to it. Or: “Law in its everydayness, banks on the usage of visual means of representation, for they seem to lack artifice, and thus enjoy high persuasiveness” (Kumar, 2017, also this is a study on the architecture of the Indian Supreme court and it is so good). But thi is, of course, on purpose.

My friends, your local courthouse looks like an opera. Recently, I went to a play which was entirely a trial, and they barely had to do anything to set-up the scene because… the opera looks like a courthouse, and vice versa. Fontaine’s Opera Epiclese is this on steroid, and also actually used for entertainment like the magic shows, but its architecture and structure are so close to a proper courthouse that once you see it you cannot unsee it. Not matter how different they might look from each other, all, ALL courtroom have the same setup:

Judges on an elevated position compared to all other parties : Neuvillette absolutely kills it here [my man is placed so high up I was close to writing something about the religiosity of justice.]

Prosecution and accused on two opposite sides, virtually separated by the judge, even putting the defendant in their own little liminal space in the liminal space (Zoettl, 2016, Mulcahy, 2007)

Audience space and trial space clearly separated, with interdiction for the audience to enter the trial space

Audience space allowing to clearly see all angles of the trial space

The architecture of courthouse is strikingly similar to that of an opera’s, both in its spatial organization and its grandiose. The entire building is an opera, not just the ground of the stage. You even have a lobby, the space right in the Opera but not the courtroom, which is very similar to the space where people mingle during the interlude at the Opera – the social settings were many legal negotiations happen (Hansen, 2008)

[Fun fact: I am pretty sure the design of the audience space of the Opera Epiclese was inspired by two Parisian Opera houses: the Théâtre de la Comédie Française et the Théâtre du Châtelet. The stage itself is almost more church-like ; I am curious if anyone knows what the inspiration for the “outside building” actually was, for the Opera Epiclese?]

Eltringham (2012) has some really cool writings about the architecture, and people interact with the structure of courts (in his case, the International Criminal for Rwanda) and how all these features contribute to making the courthouse this liminal space where people can play their role, whether they realise it or not.

But, Almost-doctor, I hear you say, what about the spectacle ?! The audience enjoying the show ?!

Ah, yes. The audience. Just as with an Opera, the audience and the actors enter through differentiated means (the “segregation of circulatory systems”), all with their own point of access to the stage or the seats, and never the two shall meet. It is so important to a court system that you will find this feature highlighted by the architects that renovated the Bordeaux Courthouse and the US courthouse design and planning guide [These are just fun and striking illustration I stumbled on while writing this, you can find dozens of others from any given country]. These differentiated access path help reinforce the liminality of the courthouse not just for the actors, but for us, the audience as well.

You could even agree, with Garapon, that the audience itself is “playing” the audience, in the Courthouse (go read Garapon’s 2004 book, if you read French, it’s so good I swear and like it fueled 90% of whatever this word vomit is)). You are not really yourself, you have new, liminal role of spectator. A trial has a “need for a public”, even a silent one. “'Performance always intends an audience”, for Kapferere. and we can indeed talk about a Performance of Justice, when talking about how justice unfolds in the courthouse, especially in a criminal trial (Sausdal and Lohne, 2021).

The audience is an inherent part of the spectacle of justice – because is there a spectacle if there I no audience? If comedians perform a play with no audience, did it really happen? In the words of our own European Court of Human Rights (I am quoting the ECtHR on Tumblr.com, what is life): “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done” (Delcourt v Belgium, 1970). For Garfinkel “Legal rituals ... depend on the outside witness to confer on them not only recognition but validity” (Garfinkel, 1956);

Or, to put it more eloquently: “The need for the presence of a validating public at trials is enshrined in many constitutions and built into the very fabric of court complexes throughout the world. (…) Tthe court as a whole requires its reflection in the bodies of validating witnesses in order that this created place will bring sufficient gravity to itself.” (Eltringham 2012).

If a courthouse was just about the truth, or the parties involved reaching an agreement on what the truth is, there would be no need for the theatrics. We could handle a trial in a meeting group like problem-solving session in any run-of-the-mill company. Put everyone around the table, have a moderator, have a decider. That actually exist, it’s called arbitration, and you may have never heard of it despite the absolutely enormous amount of money that are involved (we are talking literal Billions of dollars every year, here), because the whole point is that it is discrete and confidential. But that is not how trials are, anywhere. It does exist though. It is called private arbitration, a form of private justice that focuses on problem-solving, expediency and secrecy, often because my friends, it involves big names and big money.

But justice? My friend, it needs to be a spectacle. It needs an Opera. Because this is how it gains sociological legitimacy, and it needs sociological legitimacy to function. By having an audience, it gains transparency and accountability.

Conclusion: teaser on why the spectacle of justice is not necessarily always totally bad, but also I am too tired to fully argue that.

Now, you might that it’s a bad idea. That what Genshin is doing is denouncing this inherently spectacular aspect of Justice, that there is something inherently wrong in justice being public and publicized for the gain of legitimacy, and sure, spectacular justice can become a parody of justice or a manipulation of justice and this has happened many times in history. And yes, you could go for that (although show trials have typically been at the service of an authoritarian regime in a transition phase, rising or declining, and target political opponents, which we do not see in Fontaine) but… I have another take for you.

Justice being a spectacle is not… inherently bad.

Hear me out. Making justice into a spectacle does not have to affect its outcome. The presence of a public does not change the course of a play.

Spectacular justice brings elements of entertainment such as narrative fulfillment and catharsis. That is clearly what Fontainians want: a satisfying end to the story, the truth exposed. Justice as a spectacle help people make sense of their reality, comfort them in knowing that justice does prevail. That the guilty do not go scott-free, that the good guys win, that justice is transparent, that prosecutor need to be able to build a good story to prosecute, and there is no good story is there is not someone who caused harm, and a victim that deserves justice. And, from the information we have so far, this does not seem to lead to miscarriages of justices, or a generally biased justice system. But frankly this is too long already and I just wanted to show that the depiction of the Spectacular in everyday justice is actually present everywhere IRL, and Genshin is just providing a really handy illustration, at this point of the story.

The Fontanian system is fucked, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not about the spectacular on its own. Long story short since it be worth its own word-vomit-style essay, it’s because the jury has been replaced by ChatGPT and there is no civil court, only a criminal court, k bye.

#I have no idea what this is it just would not leave my brain until it was written #genshin impact #tagging genshin bc it is the most relevant #law and literature #Usual followers feel free to ignore #Genshin people: this is NOT my usual content #might fuck around and turn it into something publishable at some point #this is probably still full of typo but I am not proof reading a word vomit that goes on this hellsite

132 notes · View notes

somnilogical · 4 years

Text

they will never be as strong or as fast as i can be

copy/pasted from a convo:

<<somni: ive been exploiting being able to talk about everything vs miri/cfar cant do what i do bc if they did they would talk about how they are evil. it would all chain back.

somni: omg i can just post this to my blog because i can talk about my meta-strategy and it confers pretty much no relative advantage to miri/cfar. because 1 most of them have disassembled their agency so its like talking in front someone who works at the dmv about taking over the world and the ones that have any agency (basically just anna salamon) have to work with and coordinate via brokenness the masses that have and 2 feels secure in the way that saying ill use my soul as my weapon feels secure, like the power of this technique doesnt depend much on people not knowing im using it.>>

truth is entangled and lies contagious. justice is entangled and injustice contagious. in order to sustain their facade, miri/cfar had to chain back to lie about the principles of decision theory itself. lie about the organization structure of cfar, lie about miri's fundraiser. and so much more.

any series of reasoned claims they make will chain back to stuff thats false or injustice, because they seek to maintain a region of untruth and injustice.

so yeah, miri/cfar basically cant talk in public except in staid formalities infinitely pouring the same entropy of "these people are psychotic" "these people are infohazards" "do not read what they write" "stay the course" "everything is under control, do not panic" "i know my associates at miri/cfar, they are good people" "if you talk with these people you may become a rapist". but not actually able to manifest dynamic compute. to explain themselves they built their own personal room 101, filled with miri/cfar affiliates and formed a united front of gaslighting. deluks (author of that one rationalist blog where they worked to read and summarize all the others) talks about the kind of compute miri/cfar manifested:

<<deluks: I also updated a lot based on Bay Area safety discussion

idk if I have ever been in such a hostile environment for anyone trying to discuss making thigns safer

If you wanted to discuss how Anna et all were innocent people would happily chat with you

If you tried to discuss ideas for making things safer either you got silence

or people would be insanely hostle if you plausibly slipped up at all

or even seemed like you might have been not careful enough in how you phrased things

extremely careful -> no engagement at all//even slightly less care -> get dogpilled>>

they have picked up the optimization style of of cops, as alice maz described them:

<<the role of the cop is to defend society against the members of society. police officers are trivially cops. firefighters and paramedics, despite similar aesthetic trappings, are emphatically not. bureaucrats and prosecutors are cops, as are the worst judges, though the best are not. schoolteachers and therapists are almost always cops; this is a great crime, as they present themselves to the young and the vulnerable as their friends, only to turn on them should they violate one of their profession's many taboos. soldiers and parents need not be cops, but the former may be used as such, and the latter seem frighteningly eager to enlist. the cop is the enemy of passion and the enemy of freedom, never forget this>>

i can travel lots of places and regenerate truth and justice.

i can go to a trans support group in the bay and show them logs of what elle said and did and they can recognize the pattern of minority oppression, transmisogyny.

i can talk with uninvolved decision-theorists about why paying out to oneshot blackmail with subjunctive dependence because "In game theory, paying out to blackmail is bad, because it creates an incentive for more future blackmail." is wrong. and why exploiting your subjunctive dependence as a udt agent to not pay out is right. they cant.

miri/cfar have to centrally coordinate on lies or they start crashing into each other. independently generating falsehoods in isolation makes them point in all directions.

independently generating and working off of truths allows everything to point in the same direction without needing to communicate. i can write this post and then idk maybe someone im algorithmically colluding with on this writes another post and they dont come out all distorted and skew with each other. this caches out in what looks from the outside as an uncanny ability to start dynamically colluding with people and output distinct strains of philosophy based on shared precepts.

interference with yourself looks like kelsey piper trying to claim that emma and somni are starting some sort of rape cult and anna and miri/cfar trying to claim we are naive victims of ziz's cult and ▘▕▜▋ claiming emma and somni are mindhacking ziz to make her bully them and jade nameless claiming im doing this to get a job at cfar and ...

since they make up their fake coordination points independently they smash into each other. if they want to coordinate over lots of people they then have to work out which of these they want to coordinate around in a sort of market of falsehoods. and have to arrange for it to not contradict any information anything people know. but they dont know all the information everyone knows, and they wont know it even after combing through lots of blogs and reading lots of discord chats.

when they try coordinating on falsehoods like this, its hard to get a coalition together in an environment where what people know is rapidly changing because a bunch of anarchist bloggers keep posting things in a bunch of places on a non-centrally controlled schedule determined by what seems like a good idea at the time to independent agents. and having lots of conversations with so many different people in private and public they cant keep track of them all.

if they try pretending to be dumb and forming a unified gaslighting front in one area. then people will exploit the fact that this is the internet and not the evolutionary environment, take logs and post them somewhere else where everyone didnt collude to be dumb in this particular way. so while their monkey brains get a rush of endorphins from being able to successfully coordinate local humans, what feels like an entire tribe, against the blasphemer, actually they just used their adult intelligence to defeat in front of a bunch of people who dont share their political commitments but who can reason about what is true and what is just.

(of course there are many truths this doesnt work on because of large inferential distance, shared mammalian biases it takes an unusual mind to step over, and shared incentives. but the defense of most regions of injustice and untruth when you ask questions have to keep chaining to more and more absurd things until you are defending causal decision theory or start claiming 'anna salamon, the president of cfar, is not involved in cfar's hiring'. which depend on a social context committed to defending everything that protects miri/cfar and people who dont have the same conclusion-that-must-not-happen can see that its dumb.)

if miri/cfar had committed themselves to the path of expanding agency, maybe i wouldnt be posting my thoughts and meta-process on the public internet. (in the counterfactual where they committed to this path, its likely that i wouldnt be protesting. because it seems actually-hard to stay on the path and remain evil.) but as it stands, i expect this information to differentially help anarchists and do about as much good for statists as explaining updateless decision theory to someone at cfar. its just this inert structure in their brains, they cant do anything strategic with it. they intentionally shut down their ability to take ideas seriously and drive out anyone left who can, calling them crazy.

what they can do is "oh here is a list of people to target" and "see if they said anything incriminating". ive seen their attempts to coordinate enter the attractors of 'authoritarianism' (duncans dragon army, kingsleys "repent and submit to [AUTHORITY FIGURE]") and 'lets all lie in the same direction and disable general cognition to update out of this! the important part is social agreement and that everyone allows social reality to have the final veto on their beliefs. i myself do this so you know im super safe and this is super fair.' (anna and kelsey). this sort of weak coordination based on breaking people can be easily subverted by anything real.

if you are actually right, you can exploit useful properties of being right and let that be your asymmetric weapon. such that all that challenge you know they will know its steel. and then people who compute the outcome and expect to lose, dont fight in the first place.

if my chosen weapon were actually the size of my muscles and imposing figure compared to anna salamon as miri/cfar people "believed" (exploiting the already extant anti-transfem psychic suppression field as one of their few functioning coordination points. probably not as functional now after what i have written.), then when i fought people it would create a warp field such that then people with smaller muscles wont fight in the first place, but id be deluged by people with larger muscles. i dont want to create a warp field that summons people with lots of muscles.

if i exploit properties of my souls, of truth and justice. then i have an arsenal of techniques that are stronger if i actually want to save everyone, if im actually right, if im acting for justice. because they exploit useful differential properties of each. and the warp field in higher density summons ... people who care about saving the world, truth, and justice. in other words, a high density of potential allies.

by default i want to exploit "the difference is that im right" not "the difference is that i have larger muscles". i want differential power to push away those who are wrong and unjust and attract those who are right and just into a kind of warp hull.

there are other reasons as well.

1 note · View note

roxannepolice · 6 years

Note

Long asks anon again, here to offer my opinion on the current wank. Rey as a character is rather blatantly breaking sw story rules and nothing is going to get SFF fans hackles up like rule breakage. This is root of both the MarySue accusations and current wank. Rey has a tragic backstory thats doubling as the only failure she can call her own. But its a) damn near entirely offscreen and b) serves as convenient justification for why shes competent at near everything that comes up.

Reys instantly good at the force because of a convenient force download that to the best of my knowledge only occured in the noncanon KOTOR II and quite frankly cant blame most of the general audience for not getting because without prior knowledge or the novelizations why would they? She has darkness in her but as so far used and touched it consequence free and its almost entirely symbolically externalized on the Kylo (and in SW symbolism is Real in a way it isnt in other narratives) Shes strong in the force because Light rises to meet Dark but to quote the current crop of movies ‘thats not how the force works) or at least thats never how it worked before. Shes the first SW protagonist to go behind enemy lines and come out with both hands in the second movie. For ppl wondering how come Luke and Ani never get labeled MarySues, this is why, they got thier asses handed to them, Rey hasnt. There /is/ something /off/ in Reys story, and ppl pick up on it. if you can make a post (w/ over 1k notes!) about how great it is that a character meant to prop up 7hrs worth of movies has little to no character development to go through, somethings off. If multiple ppl can make posts about how its neat Rey can tap into the darkside (still characterized as evil in ST) consequence free (with some quite frankly stupid justifications, 'shes disciplined’ really? jedi lacked a lot of things thats not one of them) somethings off and again, if the only failure your main heroine has is /entirely retroactive something’s off/. If the story were getting with the is the story most ppl think we are, a 'female empowerment’ (i dont feel particularly empowered by being told I have an equal chance at being a deus ex machina but ok) than well, her story is over and theres no need for IX (hell it could have been over in TFA, most ppl assumed she had accepted her place as the future jedi in that one) and no need for reylo The ST was always gonna deconstruct all that came before it purely by virtue of being a sequel. The tragedy of anakin skywalker is now a farce, the happy ot ending now a tragedy, and the mythopoetic structure shot to shit in the name of serialization and perpetual warfare. this stand true for all the sequel characters including rey and ben. the only question is are we going to get anything out of it? I compare it to home renovation. You can knock out a wall and the walls gone, but new opportunities arise. With Benlo, I’m reasonably confident that there will be at least some attempt to take advantage of the new space. With rey and the resistance kids? not so much. it just feels like they knocked down a blue wall to rebuild it as pink one and at the point it just feels like a waste of time because ive seen this before. Ive seen pure cinnamon roll desert orphan reform jedi order If this was all youre going to do that the fuck was the point? which circles around to my problem with team good guy this go around and That Scene. JJ twisted the story into a pretzel to justify the winners of the last round being the underdogs again and then rian twisted so much further the storys head may as well be up its own ass. And then at the very end he shoots it all to shit and rushes to reassure us its all gonna be okay. He removes the entire point of the underdog trope /the tension that comes from the fact that they might lose/. I mean there wasnt a whole lot of that to begin with already but really? So theres no tension that Reys gonna win so her journey feels frictionless, and theres no question where shes gonna end up so full offense why give a shit? Thats where the whole 'can rey lose a fight?’ thing comes from. Ppl want conflict in her arc to justify its existence and give us a reason why this her story to begin with. if the only character going through growth for all three movies is ben, if the only characters whos fate is up in the air is ben, and if all the tension in the reylo relationship comes from ben, then why is this /reys story/? why not just make it about the character actually driving all the drama and thus, the story? As a final thought, im going to add that having Kylo be aware and insecure that hes never gonna be as Iconic as Vader was a great story choice, regardless of where ends up. Current Rebels, on the other hand, seems to have not gotten the memo that they are never gonna be as iconic as Original Rebels, and the story itself seems to being trying to sell them to me as being better. Rey is Luke but better, Poe/Finn are Han wo the smuggler grit, and id be lying if i said it didnt piss me off.

Long asks anon to kick down ur door again, AND ANOTHER THING. SW is a lotta things. Subtle aint one of them, and St hasnt changed in that regard. If you have to debate it chances are either a) ur arguing counter to the text in which case mor power to you but not really helpful for predictions or intended meaning or b) /it aint there. A bunch of ppl didnt like anidala, but nobody doubted we were supposed to think they were in love by the end of AOTC, bunch of ppl didnt like poes arc, but no one doubts he fucked up by not listening to holdo was the intended take away. Which brings to rey and flaws or lack there of. Were told rey has flaws but she has yet to suffer any real consequences from them with the exception of The Damn Parentage Wank, which again, pulls the double duty of making her hyper competent at everything. Because rey has no consequences for her flaws, from a story function pov there aren’t any. If rey did have a flaw to overcome, we would all agree what it was

Now won’t you all just look at this beautiful, spot on rant which has been lagging in my askbox since the last time Rey’s flaws or lack thereof were the discourse’s focus (November, I believe?) and suddenly became a thing again, courtesy of Tweetgate. I think you really summed up the crux of this debate wonderfully, anon.

I particularly agree with the part about Rey not getting narratively punished for whatever flaws we’d like her to have (great point about returning from behind the enemy lines with both arms still in place), when SW don’t stay away from allowing characters to get “punished” even for otherwise applaudable features - vide Padmé, whose idealism is what Palps manipulates into gaining more power (this is why Padmé will never come off as a Mary Sue or too perfect, btw). But I’ll say even more - Rey doesn’t even get called out on her flaws, except for by Ben, who’s mostly dismissed as a baddie like Palpatine saying Luke was foolish to rely on his friends. Let’s just consider one thing - both Anakin and Luke get called out on their flaws by Yoda (Anakin repeatedly and by lots of other people for that matter) whereas with Rey, the same grumpy-yet-jolly senex pops up from the afterlife to further inform us what a great jedi material she is.

TBH, I have a very cynical theory as to why Rey is being pushed as the main character while it’s difficult to deny that it’s Kylo Ben who does all the plot heavy lifting. I’m pretty sure Ben’s arc was the first one DLF thought out (and the big question is, was it the only one they thought out) and only later on decided to make Rey the main character, which also involved much less spontaneous writing. Mind you, it’s not as if benepemption didn’t have a manufactured subtaste to it, but with Rey’s heroine’s journey stiff structure occasionally substitutes any in-world explanations of her actions (this is why I have to hope renperor has some narrative purpose rather than happening because lovers need to be separated and anti-hero needs to achieve what he wanted in 2nd act). I feel as if whatever potential her character had (and hopefully still has, pending IX) got smothered by layer upon layer of making her likable by everyone, which largely relied on negative characterization: she’s not helpless, she’s not too naive, not cynical, not too emotional, not too emotionless, not morally corruptible, not anything you’ve ever complained about regarding any SW character, not falling for the bad boy, not not not - and in the end it’s kinda difficult to say what Rey is like and while the goal of making her widely likable was achieved, it also made it almost impossible to view her as loveably flawed/annoying like the classic characters. And on top of all this is the matter of making her a nobody just like you!, as DLF appears to say with uncle Sam’s gesture (which also kinda assumes the existence of a Star Wars fan as some uniform entity? because if you identify with her, good for you, I just don’t understand why the franchise assumes I’ll identify with her by the grace of being a SW fan alone), because, as you excellently put it, the message here is that everyone can be chosen by God - which again, it’s not as if the saga ever contradicted this, so why the hell make a case of it? I can’t agree that it’s made into Rey’s flaw, though, imo her low birth only serves to further frame her as an oppressed virtue. And I definitely agree regarding too much of her growth being left off-screen, or before the story ever begins. The problem here isn’t even that it is left off-screen (it’s not as if we had huge insight into any of the pt or ot characters) but rather that her characterizations is left off-screen while being depicted as at least untypical (unique to put it bluntly) for her situation (same goes for Finn). A hopeful, kind person growing up on her on her own in slavery under a nicer name is a rarity and DLF makes a case for it being a rarity - and this sparks up curiosity in her past, as if market pandering to Re/sky wasn’t enough. So from this pov her un-reveal being frustrating isn’t just a case of not wanting to love her or her self only a potentially deeper psychological question getting answered with well, light.

I should add, Ben’s arc feels like the most spontaneous one (though Finn’s may yet be a masterpiece) and he’s the one to admit his fear of not living up to Vader’s legacy, because I think he’s the character serving as the creators’ vessel, more or less like Luke was Lucas’ avatar in ot. In his fear regarding Vader’s legacy one can feel Disney’s fear due to having bought popculture’s holy grail and not being entirely sure what to do with it. On this background, Rey (a literal scavenger of OT’s pieces) and rebels 2.0 repeatedly blessed by Leia come off as what DLF would want to be. And the result is that the character which was supposed to be Vader 2.0 proves the most original and surprising one, whereas “breaths of fresh air” come off as room aromatizers with “fresh” written on them.

And as far as the plot being bended into a pretzel and then disappearing up it’s own ass, well, a part of me is still hoping that taking virtually the same villains as before is a mythological-psychoanalitical metaphor of a nigredo repeating itself until the unconscious gets accepted by the conscious…. but, tbh, as the leaks flow this hope is withering.

#asks #cleaning up the askbox #long asks anon #sw negativity #let rey free from the corset disney

48 notes · View notes

hereticjqy · 5 years

Text

not to be dbh trash or anything but ive got this theory that i havent rlly heard anyone mention before??

so yanno if in stratford tower simon is injured and you choose to leave him there he returns in freedom march. in the beginning of the final scene in freedom march (markus n co arriving to free the androids n lookin like a punk rock band) he looks pretty zoned out and doesnt really speak at that bit.

and if you choose to "raise hands" when youve got that huge crowd simon is the last to do it and just kind of looks rlly confused and out of it.

a n d when the gang is deciding whether to flee, attack, or stand ground, simon supports running away saying "dying here wont solve anything," prolly bc he doesnt want to get hurt (although sacrificing himself for markus kind of contradicts that)

so my theory is that hes got some kind of ptsd from what happened in stratford tower because honestly getting shot and then abandoned by your friends and then prolly shitting yourself hiding from the police investigation prolly will fuck you up for a while

and another point that was raised in the detroit awakening actors' playthrough is the journey he wouldve faced getting from stratford tower back to jericho. which prolly wouldve been a fair distance especially to go alone, having been shot, and probably having to hide from humans too. like honestly hes been through some shit and its never addressed in the game and ive never seen the fandom mention it either and genuinely my boy deserved better

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh simon #dbh markus #dbh freedom march #dbh stratford tower #dbh jericho #dbh jericrew

13 notes · View notes

wordsworkweekly · 6 years

Text

Rawls vs. Nozick A dialogue

In 1971, John Rawls published A Theory of Justice outlining a political philosophy of Justice as Fairness. In 1974, Robert Nozick wrote, what some have called, a rebuttal to Rawls’ theory in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In it, he calls Rawls’ work: “...a powerful, deep, subtle, wide-ranging, systemic work in political and moral philosophy which has not seen its like since the writings of John Stuart Mill...”. He goes on to say, “Political philosophers now must work within Rawls’ theory or explain why not” (Nozick, Ch. 7, sec “Rawls’ Theory”). But even in his extreme praise, Nozick is hesitant to illuminate any specific part of Rawls’ thesis that he agrees with and, instead, limits his work to points of conflict (as he sees them). From these points of conflict, Nozick generates his own political philosophy called “Entitlement Theory.” The main thrust of his argument is that for society to provide for the have-nots is to impinge on the freedoms of the haves (i.e. it demands constant intervention by the political body and the stripping and redistribution of property/ownership/rights from those who have “justly” acquired them). Rawls’ distributive justice, Nozick argues, works in opposition to the freedoms of all men, that it is a “patterned principle” and an “end-state principle” (Nozick, Ch. 7. “Patterning...”), and therefore will eventually be impeded by the liberty of individual humans or the liberty of individual humans will be impeded by it. He says, “...any derivations from end-state principles of approximations of the principles of acquisition, transfer, and rectification would strike one as similar to utilitarian contortions in trying to derive (approximations of) usual precepts of justice; they do not yield the particular result desired, and they produce the wrong reasons for the sort of result they try to get.” (Nozick, Ch. 7, sec “The Original Position...”). To translate, Rawls’ design of Justice as Fairness cannot stay within the designed pattern without intervention of the political body and therefore, by design, will eventually harm/impinge the “precepts of justice” Rawls’ theory advocates.

The following, imagined dialogue between Rawls and Nozick hopes to illuminate not only their opposing concepts and define them, but to show the cracks and contradictions (and strange agreements) that emerge specifically in Nozick’s rebuttal. I will draw from their own works (Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia and Rawls’ 1985 essay “Justice as Fairness”). Unfortunately for Nozick, he’s right when he says, “Political philosophers must work within Rawls’ theory or explain why not.” It is Nozick’s job to explain himself and his thinking and show us, to mangle a boxing metaphor, where he’s landed clean blows (and that all of his blows are above the belt). Or to quote Omar Little from the HBO television show The Wire, “You come at the King, you best not miss.”

A DIALOGUE

ROBERT NOZICK: I read and very much admired your work.

JOHN RAWLS: You say that, but I’ve seen your rebuttal in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.and I am not so sure where your admiration lies.

RN: What do you mean?

JR: Your engagement with my theory of distributive justice, based on my belief in justice as fairness, seems to be superficial and, at least, seems to reject my definition of justice as fairness especially in regards to how the state, or political body, would have to intervene to make fairness a reality. Where my concern lies with the least advantaged, yours seems to lie with the most. You appear, time and again, to indulge in the myth of peoples’ disadvantages as being of their own doing. You say, “From each according to what he chooses to do, to each according to what he makes for himself (perhaps with the contracted aid of others) and what others choose to do for him and choose to give him of what they’ve been given previously (under this maxim) and haven’t yet expended or transferred.” (Nozick, Ch. 7, Sec. “Patterning”). Or, crudely, that they must, figuratively if not literally, pull themselves up by the bootstraps while ignoring that a lot of these have-nots aren’t born with boots to begin with (and, unfathomably, that this is somehow of their own making).

RN: I agree that we disagree on the concept of fairness. Your boot analogy holds little sway though. If the boots have been acquired justly, to have the state intervene to redistribute these boots, is, indeed, to infringe on the rights of the person who’s talents and labor went into justly acquiring them. To intervene broadly, as your justice as fairness would recommend, without knowledge of whether or not thiswealth was justly acquired, risks infringement on those living and earning a just entitlement.

JR: But you allow that some wealth and advantage that exists now has been derived via unjust means. You acknowledge this when you say, “Some people steal from others, or defraud them, or enslave them, seizing their product and preventing them from living as they choose, or forcibly exclude others from competing in exchanges.” (Nozick, Ch. 7, Sec. “The Entitlement Theory”)

RN: Yes. And I go on to say that, “none of these are permissible modes of transition from one situation to another.” It is an important principle of my “Entitlement Theory”. The first two principles, of course, are as follows: one, “[a] person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.” And two, “[a] person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding.” (Nozick, Ch. 7, Sec. “The Entitlement Theory”) Any existence of injustice or infringement of the first two principles raises the third principle: rectification of that injustice in holdings. My Entitlement Theory, by design, allows a remedy for any historical injustice.

JR: So you admit that in our current state, that some of the strife and disparity we witness is not simply the natural extension of just entitlements? It is not as simple as boots and bootstraps. That present injustice (and inequality) might be traced back to an original injustice, and that our modern concepts of wealth and justice, even the conception of your “Entitlement Theory”, might just be entangled with and originate from a premise of unjust acts (like theft, fraud, or slavery etc.)?

RN: I acknowledged this, but I ask: What now? How can we rectify these injustices? How can we know them? “If past injustice has shaped present holdings in various ways, some identifiable and some not, what now, if anything, ought to be done to rectify these injustices?” (Nozick, Ch. 7, sec. “The Entitlement Theory”).

JR: I have a suggestion. Justice as fairness! As I have said before, “the conditions for a fair agreement between equal persons on the first principles of justice for that structure must eliminate the bargaining advantage that inevitably arise over time within any society as a result of cumulative and historical tendencies.” (Rawls, 16; emphasis added). My “cumulative and historical tendencies” implies that the bargaining advantage that arises (via the accumulation of political power, wealth, native endowments) may also include disparities that have occurred via your concept of unjust acquisitions. I would go so far as to say, as your bafflement alludes to on this subject, that just and unjust acquisitions throughout history are inextricably and forever entangled.

RN: But you do not present direct accusations of injustice. You make no attempt to untangle the mess.

JR: We are both guilty of that, it seems.

RN: Instead, you broadly paint those with advantages as having come to those advantages via unjust practices. Meaning, that in the application of your theory, within its basic structure, you will harm those who have committed no injustice.

JR: I would say my position is less nuanced than that. I would say that any advantage – be it political power, or wealth, or native endowments – that allow for a “threat advantage” cannot be the basis of political justice (Rawls 16). I am not so concerned with how the power imbalance arises (historically, like you are), but how that power imbalance acts to oppress and destabilize right now and into the future. I allow for rectification of unjust acquisition by assuming that any threat advantage is unjust and will always be an imposition by the haves over the have-nots, those with boots and those on bare feet, implicitly. I am working from an original position, where absent the presence of any threat advantage, its negotiators, on the premise of justice as fairness, “...regards all our judgments, whatever their level of generality... as capable of having for us a certain intrinsic reasonableness.” (Rawls 30). We, when stripped of our arbitrary threat advantages (and the disadvantages they create), not only want to ensure a basic structure that allows for anyone to pursue the life they so choose, but also for no one to be left behind, forgotten, or be taken advantaged of in pursuit of the lives we so choose. This is a reasonable position. This is justice as fairness.

RN: This is what you would define as the “difference principle”?

JR: The difference principle is found within the second of my two principles of justice. The first principle being that “Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all.” And the second being, “Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to positions open to all under the conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society (the difference principle)” (Rawls 42-43). In other words, any inequalities that naturally arise from the first principle, must, too, benefit those at the least advantage.

RN: You know what I’m going to say.

JR: Wilt Chamberlain.

RN: Well, yes. But first I want to briefly discuss Locke’s theory of acquisition and his famous proviso. And how, from this, I get to Wilt Chamberlain, and locate the crack in your system of justice as fairness – namely that it is a patterned principle and how patterned principles, or end-state principles, will always be disrupted by human liberty.

JR: Okay. Tell me about Locke.

RN: Simply, “Locke views property rights in an unowned object as originating through someone’s mixing his labor with it.” But “[t]his gives rise to many questions. What are the boundaries of what labor is mixed with? If a private astronaut clears a place on Mars, has he mixed his labor with (so that he comes to own) the whole planet, the whole uninhabited universe, or just a particular plot?” (Nozick, Ch. 7. “Locke’s Theory”).

JR: Why use an astronaut for your analogy when Locke provides a simple rendering of his property formula via the “Wild Indian.” He says, “The fruit or venison which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so is his— i.e., a part of him, that another can no longer have any right to it before it can do [the Wild Indian] any good for the support of his life.” (Locke 116; emphasis added). If the “Wild Indian” eats the venison, it is in his belly and the calories consumed are processed and delivered about his system to maintain his body and thereby his life. The venison and the fruit he has consumed are his property and no one else’s. He has “fenced” it off behind his organs. For another human to acquire what is in the “Wild Indian’s” belly would be for that other person to cut it out from him. But I would think this falls within your conception of unjust acquisition?

RN: It does. And is exactly my point. At what point does the venison become his property? When he ate it? When he cooked it? When he dressed it? When he killed it? When he picked up its tracks and saw it for the first time?

JR: Locke would argue, “The labour that was [his], removing [the object that was held in common] out of that common state they were in, hath fixed [his] property in them.” (Locke 117).

RN: Okay, for argument’s sake, let’s say property begins when the “Wild Indian” removes the venison from the commons, when he kills it, when he realizes the fruits of his labor. But before he can remove it from the commons, Locke’s proviso comes into play. “For this “labour” being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to [that which was removed via his labor from what is commonly held in nature], at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others” (Locke 116). That is to say that the taking of the venison is just so long as there are other venison held in common, so that the “Wild Indian’s” fellow humans are not disadvantaged by him making this venison his property. That is to say that, “Locke’s proviso... is meant to ensure that the situation of others is not worsened.” (Nozick, Ch. 7, sec. “Locke’s Theory...”). But there is an argument that this proviso introduces a problematic end point where, if all the venison are claimed by the labours of human beings, that the natural end point would be to the disadvantage of whomever did not lay claim or apply their labor to the acquisition of the venison. For, ultimately, to own something (of a finite nature – like venison) is to say someone else cannot own it and eventually disadvantage and inequality will emerge. This is all to say, “Someone may be made worse off by another’s appropriation in two ways: first, by losing the opportunity to improve his situation by a particular appropriation...; and second, by no longer being able to use freely (without appropriation) what he previously could. A stringent requirement that another not be made worse off by an appropriation would exclude the first way if nothing else counterbalances the diminution in opportunity, as well as the second” (Nozick, Ch 7. Sec. “Locke’s theory....”).

JR: The difference principle, you might say, is a stringent requirement not dissimilar to Locke’s proviso?

RN: You said it, not me.

JR: And how does Wilt Chamberlin come into play here?

RN: As an example of my Entitlement Theory, one not predicated on the need for a difference principle or a proviso, but instead a demonstration of wealth acquisition that is just and has no need of state interference (or a minimal need). It is based on the fictional situation that Wilt Chamberlain, being so sought after for his basketball talents, signs a contract that twenty-five cents from the price of each ticket of admission goes to him. “The season starts, and people cheerfully attend his team’s games; they buy their tickets, each time dropping a separate twenty-five cents of their admission price into a special box with Chamberlain’s name on it. They are excited about seeing him play; it is worth the total admission price to them. Let us suppose that in one season one million persons attend his home games, and Wilt Chamberlain winds up with $250,000, a much larger sum than the average income and larger even than anyone else has.” (Nozick, Ch. 7. Sec. “How Liberty Upsets...”). Is he not entitled to this wealth, this advantage?

JR: It depends.

RN: On what?

JR: Ignoring whether or not this plays within my own theory, I’m not sure this example can even live up to your own standards.

RN: Explain.

JR: The third principle of your Entitlement Theory acts to rectify any unjust acquisition.

RN: But I have demonstrated that that Wilt Chamberlain’s $250k was acquire via the first two principles.

JR: Yes, but you don’t account for the origin of all those quarters and whether or not each and every of those one million quarters were justly acquired. Not to mention the facilities in which the game is being played, and the owners of Wilt’s team, where did their wealth originate?

RN: This does not undercut the premise of Wilt’s just entitlement to that $250k. If injustice can be proven, it, too, can be rectified.

JR: And, say, hypothetically, those ticket buyers were all slaveholders. That not only did the quarter they gave Wilt Chamberlain derive from the labour of slaves, but the full ticket price too. Your third principle calls for an intervention, does it not?

RN: (says nothing)

JR: By amending your fiction even slightly with my fiction of 1 million slaveholders, we render Wilt’s natural endowments meaningless if the value of his labor is being paid for by unjust means. Before you protest, we know that your theory can be applied to the concept of slave reparations. Matt Bruenig discusses this briefly in a short article he wrote for the think tank Demos in 2014. He quotes you as saying “If the actual description of holdings turns out not to be one of the descriptions yielded by the principle, then one of the descriptions yielded must be realized.” (Nozick, Ch. 7, “The Entitlement Theory”). He rewords this to say, “If the actual holdings of property do not match the holdings that would have resulted under the conditions of justice, then steps must be taken to rectify that and place things back in just order.” In other words, Bruenig continues: “That's the most straightforward reparations argument there is.” (Bruenig “Robert Nozick agrees...”). Because the injustice of slavery is so vast and insidious and woven into the texture of all American wealth, rectification of this injustice would devastate the US economy (as we know it). Just like the realization that Wilt’s fictional $250k, and the fictional ticket prices, were being paid for by unjust means would necessitate a rectification (to put things in just order) that would devastate (force a redistribution of) not only Wilt’s $250K, but all revenues that the owners acquired and used to maintain their business and the facilities in which Wilt plays (including the pay cheques of Wilt and his teammates). For your Entitlement Theory to work, the third principle must be applied before the first two can come into effect. Just order must be restored. Even if all just acquisitions follow from one unjust acquisition, no following acquisition can be just. Your rules, not mine.

RN: But I did wonder, out loud, “Is an injustice done to someone whose holding was itself based upon an unrectified injustice?”(Nozick, Ch. 7. Sec. “The Entitlement Theory”). Is it not an injustice, in our fictional scenario, if Wilt’s just acquisition of wealth is used to rectify past injustices?

JR: So you would let an injustice stand rather than find an alternative to alleviate the encumbrances of threat advantages (like political power, wealth, and natural endowments) acquired via unjust practices?

RN: Ideally no rights would be impinged.

JR: Indeed. But rights have been impinged; they have led to inequalities and threat advantages in negotiating the basic structure of society. Your theory does little to rectify these imbalances; you even say you’re not really concerned with the specifics only the generalities of your theory (Nozick. Ch. 7. Sec. “The Entitlement Theory”). Even though you can acknowledge that these disparities exist and that some are derived by unjust measures, you still insist that one’s worth is their ability to tug on their own bootstraps. It is a troubling position to take, since, we established earlier, that it is hard to untangle the just or unjust origins of the person who wears boots and the person in bare feet (and what exactly their own abilities had in effecting their position or whether their circumstance arose out of an unjust imbalance). If Wilt’s wealth, like America’s, was built on the back of slavery, well, then as William Faulkner said about the injustice of the death of Emmett Till: “...if we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or for what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.” (Stein, “William Faulkner...”). If we allow injustice to stand, or to wipe the slate clean as you put it, even if from here until eternity all acquisitions are just and follow the three principles of your Entitlement Theory, we will forever be haunted by those injustices – by the slow deterioration of society into ever greater extremes of those who have and those who have not.

CONCLUSION

Contrasting these two thinkers is an interesting challenge because, it is obvious, Nozick is inspired by Rawls’ thesis (he is an acolyte and a heretic at the same time). But his arguments tend toward the narrow, the specific, the arcane, and his formulations always support the haves and always place the have-nots in a weaker position (of having to beg or wait for the volunteer charity of others – the charity, of course, being generated by the surplus of the haves’ Nozickian “just” ownership of resources). He also doesn’t seem interested in collective political stability the way Rawls is interested in it. Though he does allow for a minimal state to maintain some form of coercive power to maintain some form of political stability (favoring, again, those who already have vs. those who have-not). He allows for this via his concept of liberty and by evoking that old cliché: that the have-nots are in their circumstance by their free will, that they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps to overcome those circumstances. He openly ignores that a lot of these have-nots aren’t born with boots to begin with and privileges those who not only have one pair of boots, but may have more pairs of boots than their feet can fill (and that they may have come to this wealth of boots via unjust practices – either directly or indirectly). The third principle of his Entitlement Theory allows for the rectification of injustices, but as shown with slave reparations and my fictional Rawls’ amendment of the Chamberlin allegory, it doesn’t acknowledge how entangled our current circumstances are with historical injustices and to rectify them may mean the dismantling of our society as we know it. Here Nozick seems, sometimes, to be the contrarian for the contrarian’s sake (concerned with matters of the mind vs. matters of existential reality – like whether or not someone’s just ownership might impede access for others to what Rawls calls primary goods, or how lack of access to these primary goods places at risk the stability of the society (and the market) in which those so advantaged can pursue their so-called natural liberties.

Citations

Bruenig, Matt. “Robert Nozick Agrees With Ta-Nehisi Coates” Demos. 2014. (accessed via: http://www.demos.org/blog/5/22/14/robert-nozick-agrees- ta-nehisi-coates)

Locke, John. Two Treatise of Government. Printed for Thomas Tegg; W. Sharpe and Son; G. Offor; G. and J. Robinson; J. Evans and Co.: Also R. Griffin and Co. Glasgow; and J. Gumming, Dublin. 1883.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Chapter 7. Basic Books. 2013. (accessed via: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/anarchy-state- and/9780465063741/Chapter007.html)

Rawls, John. Justice as Fairness, Part I §6 to 11, and part II §13 to 17. 1985.

Stein, Jean. “William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12” Paris Review. Issue 12. Spring 1955. (accessed via:https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4954/william-faulkner-the-art- of-fiction-no-12-william-faulkner)

1 note · View note

bnrobertson1 · 4 years

Text

LET’S ALL GET BRAINWASHED!

Upon watching the appropriately hypnotic documentaries Holy Hell and The Vow, I find myself pondering a question I never thought I would as someone who has seen Rocky IV over thirty times: maybe brainwashing isn’t so bad?

“No,” you’re probably thinking, “you gorgeous idiot, brainwashing is bad. Because Nazis and Commies and George Orwell and government experiments and stuff.” And yes, there are certainly some very bad things that have (and will) come from coerced conviction. Giving one person or system total control of anything will inevitably lead to a flawed system as people themselves are inherently flawed, and those willing to coerce aren’t exactly known for their restraint or tact, especially when given virtually unlimited power over someone else. But between watching the aforementioned documentaries, binging Alex Garland’s superb Devs, and reading Huxley’s Brave New World for the first time*, I’m starting to think that the dangers of brainwashing have distorted humanity’s views, in the process obscuring its vast potential benefits for society at large.

*No, I didn’t just take Psych 101 recently. Why do you ask?

So how could I be advocating for something with such potential risks? Well, for starters: it works! * Whether it’s stopping smoking or helping relieve PTSD, hypnosis has been proven to help people where other methods have failed. But that is merely scratching the surface. Consider the desperate subjects of Holy Hell and The Vow. They all have similar stories: for whatever reason, these people feel like they’re lost or lacking and are looking for something to achieve happiness, community, and/or a higher plane of consciousness. They’re seeking that thing that will make them whole- ie the journey literally everybody on earth takes at some juncture in one form or another. And- at least initially- they find it! You see, right on your TV, pure gravity-less joy illuminating their whole beings, the weight of doubt and limitation lifted. Sure, it’s doing things we may perceive as silly like singing songs about joy’s joy’s joy or stitching their cult leader a sequined Baja, but the happiness itself is nonetheless unmistakable, and leads to actual breakthroughs in cognitive ability. And with regards to the potential embarrassment, the only place where dignity and true joy are seen together are in the minds of some seriously stuffy and/or seriously shameless people.

*Used a lot of exclamation points in this piece! Apologies!

Alas, these rapturous feelings are often achieved through various shadowy systems, the masters of which are often self-fashioned messiahs who are just savvy (or manipulative) enough to tweak their followers’ brains to their liking. If this sounds similar to drugs or religion or anything else that causes a shift in consciousness, that’s because it exploits similar weaknesses in the brain to achieve the effect. Unsurprisingly, much like with drugs or religion, that initial thrill wears off, creating a desperation to recapture it. And this is where things usually go bad, leading to brandings or other bizarre/ illegal rituals that typically serve the insatiable ego of the cult leader*, as to be one of these people, you need charisma, and the other side of that coin is narcissism. Which, indeed, makes it sound bad- at first. But compare it to human design.

*They themselves trying to recapture that initial high of being praised like a deity

Because what is more “brainwashing” than our own genetics? Are our emotions, the very real byproduct of those genetics, not the epitome of a “shadowy” system? Sure, we’ve studied them, but we seem to know virtually nothing about this beyond-complex system. And they’re nearly impossible to explore objectively because they’re nestled where we can’t sense them- specifically inside of our heads- all the time! They make us into contradictory vessels that constantly work against our own self-interest, slaves to neurological impulses and reactions we cannot control, because if we contradict them, they will punish us with anxiety, depression, or another litany of ways our own system is designed to biochemically weaponize itself against us. They push us to anchor ourselves with toxic relationships, ones in which the sporadic lapse of suffering feels like actual joy.

Sure, our cursory knowledge of this can lead to a lot of conscious-altering fun in the short run (booze, VR, one-night stands), but it’s akin to watching a robot bang itself in the head with a robot hammer in hopes of a brief kaleidoscopic wave* appearing on its robot LCD display. We get a euphoric rush when we do things that destroy our bodies and pangs of regret when we do what’s actually in our best interests. Our intellect is prisoner to our emotions, a never-ending strife that tears us apart. We use our immense brainpower to obsess over utter horseshit** as opposed to unlocking its immeasurable potential for something that would benefit both us and society as a whole.

*I assume this is like a bong hit for robots.

**Welcome to my blog!

It needn’t be this way. There are practices and systems- and yes, some would call them “brainwashing”- that fight these self-destructive, doubt-ridden processes directly, rewiring our reward system to let us feel great while actually using the entirety of our capabilities to achieve something more than what makes us feel good for a few fleeting moments. What if we could escape the scarcity-based laws of diminishing returns by programming our brains to experience things with such purity that every time we do something feels like the first time, thus transcending our brain’s magnetism to stimuli that inevitably make things less special the more you do them? But, as has been seen, these systems have their own problems*.

*Most notably, making Hall of Fame baseball players want to kill the Queen of England.

youtube

Take the big one people associate with brainwashing: the forfeiture of personal freedom- or its very root, free will. And it’s true, by giving your brain over to something, at some level you lose control of it. But doesn’t that happen anyway? And for that matter, what about free will? I’m not suggesting it doesn’t actually exist*, but as humans there are a very finite amount of likely responses one can have to a situation. It maybe a lot, but it’s finite. Sure, you can react to something so unexpectedly as to appear random, arguably the most “free” thing there is- like when someone punches you in the face you could decide to call Pizza Hut or when you hear REO Speedwagon you can lick the sidewalk**, but is this seemingly “endless” range of options actually freedom? Also, even in modern America, where “freedom” is in our birth certificate multiple times, we’re not actually free to, for instance, say whatever we want to say. This has been demonstrated ad nauseam over the last few decades with the rise of cancel culture***. “But wait,” you interject smugly****, “we have freedom of speech, not freedom of consequence.” Excellent point. But couldn’t someone technically- as in physically- pass out flyers saying “Pol Pot is a pussy” in mid-century Cambodia? Or yell anything they wanted in St. Peter’s Square during Stalin’s reign? There were no mandatory mouth shackles I’m aware of? Is that also freedom of speech? Sure, the consequences of those actions would be far more dire- life instead of livelihood- but they’re nonetheless consequences, restricting people in their potential actions.

*Although I seriously doubt it does

**This actually makes total sense.

***I’m not saying actions shouldn’t have consequences, or that the cancel culture is a bad thing necessarily. But it absolutely is a form of censorship- ie, a repression of our natural freedoms. (Don’t cancel me!)

****You smug, cancelling fuck!

But let’s posit we are free. While we we still would have a limited range of choices, when aggregated, they lead to a world of (virtual- but not actual) infinite possibility, but who really takes advantage of that? Isn’t everybody so wrapped up in the battle between thought and feeling that potential is more of a cruel, imprisoning tease than something actually achievable?* Due to this, we’re all pretty much stuck in our lanes no matter what, programmed to do what we’ll do. That “crazy” dude you knew in college will fall into his pattern soon enough. You may not perceive it as a pattern, but it is. So, while freedom is something that makes us feel awesome saying**, in reality it’s so limited as to not really exist. Every “free” adult I know either works 40+ hours a week or is beholden to some other sort of mechanism that could be taken away in an instant.

*To paraphrase Creepy Keith from The Vow: “Hell is on your last day of earth meeting the person you could have become.”

**And the best George Michael song

But what about “Truth”? Well, isn’t objectivity in itself kind of “brainwashing?” For example, color doesn’t actually exist- it’s just how human’s perceive different wavelengths of light. Or take the fact that eye-witness accounts are typically untrustworthy because of the brain’s shortcomings. Doesn’t the theory of relativity prove that truth is inherently, well, relative? And it applies more to than just personal experience- in a societal sense, what more is morality than a sort of temporal societal brainwashing? Or a system of right and wrong based in relativity? You may feel bad when you sleep around on your wife, or steal a Pinto, but really, those are just things society has essentially brainwashed you to believe are bad. And those brainwashers are doing it because it serves their best interests for you to create more consumers and not steal their shit. In 200 years, when the only occupation is “Water Thief,” the people who survive will be those who get a rush of Dopamine when they swipe a bottle of Fuji from the weak-ass babies.

I could go on.

And will!

Technology both complicates the topic of brainwashing… and makes it more relevant. Netflix’s The Social Dilemma is a pretty bad use of 90 minutes but not because it isn’t timely*. The film explores how reliability on all things tech and the dawn of personalized digital echo chambers have made us victims to our own biologically-wired confirmation bias. Thus, technology is using your own biological (and I stress this again, because brainwashing plays on the weakness of the brain) impulses to reward “social” behavior in its attempt for popularity, something the brain associates with procreation.

*The movie sucks because 1/3 or so of it is a weird parallel story that needlessly dramatizes the points the film is discussing. Perhaps it makes it more digestible for some, but I felt it forced and infantilizing. Plus, it stars Pete from Mad Men (in three roles!) and the shit-head son from Righteous Gemstones which kind of takes you out of the appropriate headspace for watching what otherwise could be titled “WE’RE FUCKED!: THE FILM”

If you’re curious why the separation in this country has gone from “divide” to “chasm,” it’s because Big Tech has introduced systems into our daily lives that prey on our neurological weaknesses. Our brain is defensive of our beliefs as in many ways they are the bedrock of our identity. THIS IS A DESIGN FLAW OF OUR BRAINS THAT TECH COMPANIES EXPLOIT FOR ALL THE MONIES. And it’s an insidious one at that, as it’s impossible to see from a personal perspective, so it (ironically) propagates in the soul like ink pellets in a fishbowl in a tech ad. We all feel like we’re right and everybody else that disagrees is a Bloomin' Onion of an idiot. What a fun set-up.

Thanks to the integration of social media’s tentacles into our beings, when something comes up that challenges these beliefs, we’d rather point to another source that suggests we’re in fact just fine, thanks, instead of having to face the fact that we could be wrong and need to change if we want our sense of sanity or morality or whatever to remain intact. It’s far intellectually easier and self-defensively strategic to just find another source that tells us “Hey, that thing that’s making you question yourself? Well, it's just lying to you because of some clandestine, nefarious system” as opposed to bucking up, biting our lip, and actually self-reflecting with the hope of change. Don’t get me wrong: being wrong sucks all sorts of choad! But the grace in humanity is in its capacity to improve*. To see its wrongs, to make amends, to apologize, to forgive, to express actual humility. Sure, there is something to be said for sticking to your guns, but the reality is one man’s discipline is another’s stubbornness- and the cold, hard truth is machines are better at both of those things by a wide margin. By not embracing change’s inevitability, we all nurture a system that temporarily fluffs our ego with pride, but is incendiary to the fabric of society as a whole.

*A close second: The Baconator

Unsurprisingly, “brainwashing” as a whole is demonized by those doing it now, entities who believe the world will be optimized when there are 10-20 companies who control every facet of life. One thing they control: a lot of the media we consume. In the 21st century, the most recognized source of brainwashing’s ill-directed damnation is probably The Matrix. In what is its most iconic* scene, protagonist Neo must choose between the red pill (representing “the hard truth that frees”) and blue pill (signifying “blissful ignorance”). Neo, of course, picks the red pill which was good for the plot of a sci-fi movie but a pretty dumb selection if you really think about it.

*A word now defined as “Most Meme’d”

When I saw the film for the first time twenty years ago, of course I would have argued for taking the red pill. I probably would even said “freedom” and “truth” multiple times while emphatically explaining my 1000% correct decision to the poor soul who offered the question, Camel Light smoke billowing out of my ear holes*. But that’s because when you’re a teenager, especially an American one, you are taught to lionize the pseudo-rebellious, who in reality are just narcissists with savior-complexes.

*Is the “ear” the hole? Or the fleshy part? I digress…

But what if we flipped this- to value happiness over so-called freedom? This is what makes Brave New World so believable- that if humanity were somehow trained to make this fundamental intellectual shift they’d be... well, happier. This is a premise I agree with: I’d take happiness over freedom any day of the week. If some fundamental change in thought could make digging ditches feel like I was writing the Declaration of Independence or composing Beethoven’s 5th or hugging my 12th child, I absolutely would sign up. You could argue this is selfish, but I could argue the opposite as well*.

*Fret not, I won’t

Because the human brain is engineered to procreate, it’s meant to be social. And defensive. This makes its rewards system- the things that make us just feel good- very vulnerable to the same things that social bonds are- such as hysteria and blind hatred and a lack of empathy. The faults of Groupthink often masquerade as “freedom.” And that limits us in so many ways. One could argue that this isn’t a flaw at all, it is actually the best thing, as it has led to pretty much all human achievement up to and including love, the apex of a humanity where people banging-it-out is pretty much the point of the species. But what if there was a way to transcend biological (and consequently societal) impulse? A way to reprogram society- or its individual members so simply making more of ourselves isn’t the only point? What would that new goal be? It just seems short-sighted for humanity’s only goal to be “make more humans”- perhaps a better mission would be to make all currently living humans happier as a whole? That seems it could kill two birds with one stone*, as those who don’t have to constantly fight for survival are more likely to reproduce. Instead, we’re caught at this wretched intersection of evolutionally biology and big tech, where we have the tools to evolve the human race by evolving its mindset, but that would require a leap of faith most won’t take, because we hang onto a lot of the systems that got us this far- competitiveness, fierce protectiveness of our own genetic code- even though they simply don’t work as well in a more technologically-dominated society (see: late stage capitalism). Unless we want to live in a world where there are ~400 happy people and just enough people around to run the machines that feed them and take them diamond-tasting or hunter-hunting or whatever billionaires do. It would be a utopia- for those 400 people. But for a more inclusive solution, we may need to rewire our reward system- and this is where brainwashing could come in.

*Or perhaps that should be our new goal- kill all the birds!

So, Big Tech, if you’re out there reading*, I’m 100% cool with you breaking out the big scrubbing brush, digital shampoo/ conditioner, and giving my nervous center a big ole’ scrub. But I have some requests.

*A funny thing: Not even Big Tech, which reads all data on the internet, will be reading this. Ha. Ha.

I request you make exercise feel like ecstasy, kindness to feel orgasmic, failure to feel fine (yet still be edifying), disappointment to feel like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups taste, and anger to last as briefly as a blink. For the shortcomings of others to inspire, not irritate. To recognize the humble as though they were rock stars. I want the experience of forgiveness and compassion to be akin to listening to Sticky Fingers for the first time and selfishness like that bit of fraternity hazing where we had to listen to “I’m a Little Tea Pot” on repeat for 6 consecutive hours. But I want my system to be flexible with the times, to realize something good now could be bad a century from now. So don’t make it tied to humans as they themselves are flawed. Make it regulated by emotionless things that have absolutely no scratch in the game- like hyper-intelligent machines. And holy fuck I just described The Matrix. Well, in that case, just hook me up with that blue pill.

0 notes

klanceficatalogue · 7 years

Note

What's your opinion on season 4?

Anon: i was wondering if any of you has seen the new season? and if so what did you think? (if you dont want to answer thats okay, i was just curious)

ok a couple of things before you read:

1. this obviously contains s4 spoilers!!

2. everything we say is our personal opinion

3. this is the second time ive had to type this all out bc my phone did something weird and deleted it all the first time.. im still salty

- Karri

ok lets gO (sorry this took so long to post afgh)

Karri: Ok the first thing to get out of the way is the fact there was no klance at all which sucked ass especially since there was so much interesting development last season which they could have built on. The next thing is to mention is how weird half the characters were, Keith was totally contradicting himself, Shiro was not the smooth leader that he was in the first 2 seasons and as IF Coran would buy some drugs off some rando, hes a cautious quirky dude he would n e v e r. So onto plot and such, I actually quite enjoyed how the story is panning out this season unfortunately it seems they prioritized this over the characters development which sucks but I guess you can’t have everything. Ok something that I was SUPER happy about was episode 2!!!! The scene with Matt’s grave had me in tears and when she and Matt finally reunited it was just the best seeing them so happy. Matt is such an utter sweetheart and I’m lowkey bitter that they aren’t making Lance and him bff’s because that would’ve been amazing (imagine all the puns and first bumps). I’m also really happy about Hunk this season!!! He hit it off really well with Matt and Pidge and I like that even though there’s another genius on board Hunk still fits in really well (if not, better). However, I am VERY VERY upset about Lance this season, he got basically no screentime and the time he did get was mostly for comedy which is great sometimes but just not what we needed right now. On the subject of things that were completely missing,,, wheres that lgbtq+ rep you said we’d be happy about huh Jeremy??? Though it is possible he could have been referring to the transgirl Pidge that was quite heavily implied in episode 2 its still not the solid representation that we wanted. Also I’m all for allur@nce friendship but I really reallY hope it doesn’t go beyond that, another ship I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable with now is Sh@tt because even though they’re (probably) the same age Matt acts like a teenager and idk it just seems a bit weird to me. To finish off I’d just like to say that Keith looked so fucking good this season and that is something to be thankful for. That is all from me I’m so sorry for talking so much asfgsdfgh

Maggie: Alright so I agree with Karri on most if not all of her above opinions so my thoughts are going to be a lot shorter, also im going to use bullet points bc it’s easier on my brain

tbh the only really good episode in my opinion was episode 2 bc i would die for the holt siblings

where tf is my boy lance??

why the FUCK would you think that removing keith from voltron is a good idea????????????

they showed hunk being smart and all which is good but the still were making food jokes so,,,,,,

this heteronormativity needs to Stop

this whole season was super ooc except for maybe hunk and pidge

i can’t believe lotor is pulling A Zuko

i am angery about the shitty (aka nonexistent) character development

stop trying to make lance be all creepy about allura

fight scenes were pretty cool

is it bad that I thought BoM was more interesting than the actual voltron squad this season? it might just be bc im highkey in love with keith tho lmao

overall the season was pretty mediocre and half-assed

Vallie: I can’t remember anything. Apparently I wrote down some thoughts somewhere after and the rest is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I loved the Holt sibling interactions. Pidge running around the castle with Matt and Matt just being like :o made me so happy. And Pidge wears Matt’s glasses?? Dude do you even need glasses? That’s not how glasses work? right? (or maybe I missed it idk). Another detail in their relationship, that gave me shivers, was “Pidge” as a nickname. At first she didn’t even want Matt to call her that, but made it her identity after he disappeared.

I’m kinda wondering about their dad though. The trailers showed Matt was alive, so during the graveyard scene I was just like “hoo boy hoo boy hoo boy mmmmkay so who’s is it??” and convinced myself their dad was buried there, but it wasn’t him? I know it’s a minor detail, but I wanna know what happened to him.

Overall, I had some trouble seeing the overal plot that connected the eps. Disclaimer: I watched this at 4am *cough* karri *cough* (

Maybe the season split could also explain why there was less lance or keith screen time. There was so much in the first part/ s3 that they maybe tried to pull the other characters even in the second part of the season/ s4.

While watching, I thought the writers send keith away so shiro could pilot the black lion, bc as coran put it “he’s the favourite character”. Afterwards I saw some theories, and I agree that Keith leaving voltron would make perfect sense with his vlog (poor bb). I do think it would have been wicked to see what kind of training Keith did at BoM, but maybe we’ll get that next season :)

#asks #anon #voltron spoilers #not a fic

31 notes · View notes

khodorkovskaya · 8 years

Photo

xie, i though so too. i mean if you think about it, i might come off as one of these psycho fans and in reality he has no way of knowing. i could be five, i could be fifty, he doesnt even know what i look like. so yeah he could be a bit freaked out. i’ll change my bio, it must’ve been too like direct yknow. but still, i dont think ive tweeted anything that crazy. (plus im sure he’s seen my blog before... why did he decide to block me yesterday all of a sudden?) but i mean at least i got his attention, that could be seen as a plus :/ and nathalie, maybe maybe!!! god i really dont want to start a conflict with inna. she’s such a lovely woman and they’re actually great together. but then again, the whole existence of this blog just kinda contradicts that if you think about it... it’s sort of a moral dilemma i have. like on one hand i have this huge crush on misha, but then i really like his wife and dont want to make her upset..?.? ughhh but oh well, i should stop being so dramatic about this whole thing even tho i already have like 500 conspiracy theories about that

#oooo drama

1 note · View note

ssaalexblake · 6 years

Text

akaclairetemple replied to your post: also side note, i keep reading articles on...

guess what danni, i dont think any of us know how the system works. my ballot was filled in with a black ink pen. I turned it. And i think it’s supposed to be scanned. California votes take a long time to count, as i am told every election. metropolitan areas tho, i think have electronic booths. its comes fm not everyone voting the same way. I think metropolitan areas got hijacked while low income areas either couldnt vote or the votes werent counted. my theory tho. i dont think any of us know (especially me) understand how any of this happened. we cant trust electronic ballots (ive never seen one or used one) so clearly we should just stick to paper.action

oh, ok, so it is nonsensical and it’s not just me??? My first mistake was assuming everything was consistent, i think that’s why i keep getting confused because they keep talking about machines and electronics and completely different things??? I couldn’t figure out how people were saying it was manipulated because i couldn’t work out how it was supposed to work in the first place.

and i just kept remembering random scandals i’d heard about voting machines being paid for by the candidates and the votes cast being questionable??? and i know about postal/absentee ballots but had no clue how those were counted up, either and... Contradicting information was confusing me and i thought i was just being dim.

(also highkey the only reason i know how my votes are counted up is because they show footage of the ballot counters tallying them on tv while waiting for election results out of sheer lack of anything else to put on air, if turnout is high u can expect to wait 13 hours for one district... they have a lot of time to air random ass footage)

#akaclairetemple #the only part starkly clear was the voter supression #and isnt't that a depressing sentence to write #(my sister's district took 14 hours once b/c it was a controversial ballot and a fuckton nne of ppl turned up to vote #which is a good thing in general but when u want the results impatience can be a dick)

0 notes

pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

Photo

A LANDSCAPE WITH DRAGONS - The Battle for Your Child’s Mind - Part 4

A story written by: Michael D. O’Brien

________

Chapter IV

The Mortal Foe of My Children

The New Illiteracy

Like it or not, we are fast becoming an illiterate people. Yes, most of us can read. Indeed, adults and children now read more books, numerically speaking, than at any other time in history. But our minds are becoming increasingly passive and image oriented because of the tremendous influence of the visual media. Television, film, and the video revolution dominate our culture like nothing before in the history of mankind. In addition, computers, word processors, pocket calculators, telephones, and a host of similar inventions have lessened the need for the disciplines of the mind that in former generations were the distinguishing marks of an intelligent person. In those days man learned to read and write because of necessity or privilege: maps, medical lore, the history of the race, genealogies, and recipes. Each of these could be handed down intact to the forthcoming generations far more easily, and with greater accuracy in written form than by word of mouth.

So too with the ancient myths and legends that embodied the spiritual intuitions of a people. The printed word guaranteed that no essential detail would be lost. And if the storyteller had the soul of an artist, he could also impart the flavor of his times, the spiritual climate in which his small and large dramas were enacted. Words made permanent on a page would to some extent overcome the weaknesses of memory and avoid the constant tendency in human nature to distort and to select according to tastes and prejudices. Furthermore, the incredible act of mastering a written language greatly increased a person’s capacity for clear thought. And people capable of thought were also better able—at least in theory—to avoid the mistakes of their ancestors and to make a more humane world. The higher goal of literacy was the ability to recognize truth and to live according to it.

Something is happening in modern culture that is unprecedented in human history. At the same time that the skills of the mind, especially the power of discernment, are weakened, many of the symbols of the Western world are being turned topsyturvy. This is quite unlike what happened to the pagan faiths of the ancient classical world with the gradual fading of their mythologies as their civilizations developed. That was a centuries-long draining away of the power and meaning of certain mythological symbols. How many Greeks in the late classical period, for example, truly believed that Zeus ruled the world from Mount Olympus? How many citizens of imperial Rome believed that Neptune literally controlled the oceans? In Greece the decline of cultic paganism occurred as the Greeks advanced in pursuit of truth through philosophy. For many Greeks the gods came to be understood as personifications of ideals or principles in the universe. The Romans, on the other hand, grew increasingly humanistic and materialistic. Though the mystery cults of the East flooded into the West as the Empire spread, the Roman ethos maintained more or less a basic pragmatism; at its best it pursued the common good, civic order, philosophical reflection. At its worst it was superstitious and unspeakably cruel. But all of this was a long, slow process of development, inculturation, and decline.

By contrast, the loss of our world of symbols is the result of a deliberate attack upon truth, and this loss is occurring with astonishing rapidity. On practically every level of culture, good is no linger presented as good but rather as a prejudice held by a limited religious system (Christianity). Neither is evil any longer perceived as evil in the way we once understood it. Evil is increasingly depicted as a means to achieve good.

With television in most homes throughout the Western world, images bombard our minds in a way never before seen. Children are especially vulnerable to the power of images, precisely because they are at a stage of development when their fundamental concepts of reality are being formed. Their perceptions and understanding are being shaped at every moment, as they have been in every generation, through a ceaseless ingathering of words and images. But in a culture that deliberately targets the senses and overwhelms them, employing all the genius of technology and art, children have fewer resources to discern rightly than at any other time in history. Flooded with a vast array of entertaining stimuli, children and parents suppose that they live in a world of multiple choices. In fact, their choices are shrinking steadily, because as the quantity increases, quality decreases. Our society is the first in history to produce such a culture and to export it to the world, sweeping away the cultures of various nations, peoples, and races and establishing the world’s first global civilisation. But what is the character of this new civilization?

The modern mind is no longer formed on a foundation of absolute truths, which past societies found written in the natural law and which were revealed to us more explicitly in Christianity: At one time song and story handed down this world of insight from generation to generation. But our songs and stories are being usurped. Films, videos, and commercial television have come close to replacing the Church, the arts, and the university as the primary shaper of the modern sense of reality. Most children now drink from these polluted wells, which seem uncleanable and unaccountable to anyone except the money-makers. The children who do not drink from them can feel alienated from their own generation, because they have less talk and play to share with friends who have been fed only on the new electronic tales.

Busy modern parents seem to have less time to read to their children or to tell them stories. Many children grow up never having heard a nursery rhyme, not to mention a real fairy tale, legend, or myth. Instead, hours of their formative years are spent watching electronic entertainment. The sad result is that many children are being robbed of vital energies, the native powers of the imagination replaced by an addict’s appetite for visceral stimuli, and creative play replaced with lots of expensive toys that are the spinoffs of the shows they watch. Such toys stifle imaginative and creative development because they do practically everything for the child, turning him into the plaything of market strategists. Moreover, most media role models are far from wholesome. Dr. Brandon Centerwall, writing in the June 10, 1992, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, links television violence with the soaring crime rates. There would be ten thousand fewer murders, seventy thousand fewer rapes, and seven hundred thousand fewer violent assaults, he says, if television had never been invented.

Many parents exercise very little control over their children’s consumption of entertainment. For those who try to regulate the tube, there is a constant struggle. A parent may stand guard by the television set, ready to turn it off or change the channel if offensive material flashes across the screen, but he will not be quick enough. Immoral or grotesque scenes can be implanted in his children’s minds before he has a chance to flick the remote control. He may even fall victim to his own fascination and lose the will to do so. Scientific studies have shown conclusively that within thirty seconds of watching television, a viewer enters a measurable trancelike state. This allows the material shown to bypass the critical faculty, so that images and ideas are absorbed by the mind without conscious reflection. Even when the contents of a program are not grossly objectionable, hours of boredom and nonsense are tolerated, because the viewer keeps hoping insanely that the show will get better. Television beguiles many of the senses at once, and the viewer is locked into its pace in order not to “miss anything”.

But perhaps the shows ought to be missed. When one listens carefully to many of the programs made for children, one frequently hears the strains of modern Gnosticism: “If you watch this, you will know more, be more grown-up, more smart, more cool, more funny, more able to talk about it with your friends.”—“You decide. You choose. Truth is what you believe it to be.”—“Right and wrong are what you feel are right and wrong for you. Question authority. To become what you want to be, you must be a rebel.”—“You make yourself; you create your own reality.”—“We can make a perfect world. Backward older people, especially ignorant traditionalists, are the major stumbling blocks to building a peaceful, healthy, happy planet.” And so forth. It’s all there in children’s culture, and it pours into their minds with unrelenting persistence, sometimes as the undercurrent but increasingly as the overt, central message. What stands in the path of this juggernaut? What contradicts these falsehoods? Parental authority? The Church? In film after film parents (especially fathers) are depicted as abusers at worst, bumbling fools at best. Christians are depicted as vicious bigots, and ministers of religion as either corrupt hypocrites or confused clowns.

The young “heroes” and “heroines” of these dramas are the mouthpieces of the ideologies of modern social and political movements, champions of materialism, sexual libertarianism, environmentalism, feminism, globalism, monism, and all the other isms that are basically about reshaping reality to fit the new world envisioned by the intellectual élites. Victims of their own gnosis (which they see in grand terms of “broadness” of vision, freedom, and creativity), they are in fact reducing the mystery and majesty of creation to a kind of Flatland. If this were a matter of simple propaganda, it would not get very far. No one can survive long in Flatland, because at root it is busy demolishing the whole truth about man, negating the ultimate worth of the human person, and turning him into an object to be consumed or manipulated. Thus, the propagandist must prevent any awakening of conscience and derail the development of real imagination in his audience. He must inflame the imagination in all the wrong directions and supply a steady dose of pleasurable stimuli as a reward mechanism. He must calm any uneasiness in the conscience by supplying many social projects, causes, and issues that the young can embrace with passionate pseudo-idealism.

The late Dr. Russell Kirk, in a lecture on the moral imagination, warned that a people who reject the right order of the soul and the true good of society will in the end inherit “fire and slaughter”. When culture is deprived of moral vision, the rise of the “diabolic imagination” is the inevitable result. What begins as rootless idealism soon passes into the sphere of “narcotic illusions”, then ends in “diabolic regimes”.1 Tyrants come in many forms, and only the ones who inflict painful indignities on us are immediately recognizable for what they are. But what happens to the discernment of a people when a tyrant arrives without any of the sinister costumes of brutal dictators? What happens when the errors come hi pleasing disguises and are promoted by talented people who know full well how to use all the resources of modern psychology to make of the human imagination the instrument of their purpose? How long will it take the people of our times to understand that when humanist sentiments replace moral absolutes, it is not long before we see idealists corrupting conscience in the name of liberty and destroying human lives in the name of humanity?

In many ways this new visual culture is pleasurable, but it is a tyrant. Literature, on the other hand, is democratic. One can pause and put a book down and debate with the author. One can take it up later, after there has been time to think or do some research. The reader’s imagination can select what it wishes to focus on, whereas in electronic visual media the mind is pummeled with powerful stimuli that bypass conscious and subconscious defenses. It is tragic, therefore, that authentic literature is slowly disappearing from, public and school libraries and being replaced by a tidal wave of children’s books written by people who appear to have been convinced by cultic psychology or converted in part or whole by the neopagan cosmos. Significantly, their use of language is much closer to the operations of electronic culture, and their stories far more visual than the thought-full fiction of the past. They are evangelists of a religion that they deny is a religion. Yet, in the new juvenile literature there is a relentless preoccupation with spiritual powers, with the occult, with perceptions of good and evil that are almost always blurred and at times downright inverted. At least in the old days dragons looked and acted like dragons. This, I think, not only reflects truth in a deep spiritual sense, it is also a lot more interesting. A landscape with dragons is seldom boring.

Invasion of the Imagination

The invasion of our children’s imagination has two major fronts. The first is the degradation of the human image. The second is the corruption of conscience. The territory of fantasy writing, for example, which was once concerned with a wholesome examination of man’s place in the cosmos, has become almost without our knowing it a den of vipers. The genre has been nearly overwhelmed by the cult of horror. A new wave of grisly films and novels is preoccupied with pushing back boundaries that would have been intolerable a generation ago. The young are its first victims, because they are naturally drawn to fantasy, finding in the genre a fitting arena for their sense of the mystery and danger of human existence. Yet the arena has been filled with demonic forms and every conceivable monster of the subconscious, all intent, it appears, on mutilating the bodies, minds, and spirits of the dramatic characters.

The novels of R. L. Stine, for example, have practically taken over the field of young adult literature in recent years. Since 1988, when the first title of his Fear Street series was released, and 1992, when the Goosebumps series appeared, more than a hundred million copies of his books have made their way into young hands. Through school book clubs, libraries, and book racks in retail outlets ranging from department stores to pharmacies, an estimated one and a quarter million children are introduced to his novels every month. For sheer perversity these tales rival anything that has been published to date. Each is brimming over with murder, grotesque scenes of horror, terror, mutilation (liberally seasoned with gobbets and gobbets of blood and gore). Shock after shock pummels the reader’s mind, and the child experiences them as both psychological and physical stimuli. These shocks are presented as ends in themselves, raw violence as entertainment. In sharp contrast, the momentary horrors that occur in classical tales always have a higher purpose; they are intended to underline the necessity of courage, ingenuity, and character; the tales are about brave young people struggling through adversity to moments of illumination, truth, and maturity; they emphatically demonstrate that good is far more powerful than evil Not so with the new wave of shock-fiction. Its “heroes” and “heroines” are usually rude, selfish, sometimes clever (but in no way wise), and they never grow up. This nasty little world offers a thrill per minute, but it is a like a sealed room from which the oxygen is slowly removed, replaced by an atmosphere of nightmare and a sense that the forces of evil are nearly omnipotent.

Stine does not descend to the level of dragging sexual activity into the picture, as do so many of his contemporaries. He doesn’t have to; he has already won the field. He leaves some room for authors who wish to exploit the market with other strategies. Most new fiction for young adults glamorizes sexual sin and psychic powers and offers them as antidotes to evil. In the classical fairy tale, good wins out in the end and evil is punished. Not so in many a modern tale, where the nature of good and evil is redefined: it is now common for heroes to employ evil to defeat evil, despite the fact that in the created and sub-created order this actually means self-defeat.

In the Dune series of fantasy novels, for example, a handsome, young, dark prince (the “good guy”) is pitted against an antagonist who is the personification of vice. This “bad guy” is so completely loathsome physically and morally (murder, torture, and sexual violence are among his pastimes) that by contrast the dark prince looks like an angel of light. The prince is addicted to psychedelic drugs and occult powers, both of which enhance his ability to defeat his grossly evil rival. He is also the master of gigantic carnivorous worms (it may be worth recalling here that “worm” is one of several medieval terms for a dragon). There is a keen intelligence behind the Dune novels and the film that grew out of them. The author’s mind is religious in its vision, and he employs a tactic frequently used by Satan in his attempt to influence human affairs. He sets up a horrible evil, repulsive to everyone, even to the most naïve of people. Then he brings against it a lesser evil that has the appearance of virtue. The people settle for the lesser evil, thinking they have been “saved”, when all the while it was the lesser evil that the devil wished to establish in the first place. Evils that appear good are far more destructive in the long run than those that appear with horns, fangs, and drooling green saliva.

The distinction may not always be clear even to discerning parents. Consider, for example, another group of fantasy films, the enormously successful Star Wars series, the first of which was released in 1977, followed by two sequels. They are the creation of a cinematic genius, so gripping and so thoroughly enjoyable that they are almost impossible to resist. The shining central character, Luke Skywalker, is so much a “good guy” that his heroic fight against a host of evil adversaries resembles the battles of medieval knights.

Indeed, he is called a “knight”, though not one consecrated to chivalry and the defense of Christendom, but one schooled in an ancient mystery religion. He too uses supernatural powers to defeat the lower forms of evil, various repulsive personifications of vice. Eventually he confronts the “Emperor”, who is a personification of spiritual evil. Both Luke and the emperor and various other characters tap into a cosmic, impersonal power they call “the Force”, the divine energy that runs the universe. There is a “light side of the Force” and a “dark side of the Force”. The force is neither good nor evil in itself but becomes so according to who uses it and how it is used. There is much to recommend this film trilogy, such as its message that good does win out over evil if one perseveres with courage. The romantic side of the plot is low-key and handled with surprising sensitivity to the real meaning of love (with the exception of two brief scenes). Other messages: The characters are unambiguously on the side of good or evil; even the one anti-hero, Han Solo, is not allowed to remain one. He becomes a better man through the challenge to submit to authority and to sacrifice himself for others. Luke is repeatedly told by his master not to use evil means to defeat evil, because to do so is to become evil. He is warned against anger and the desire for vengeance and is exhorted to overcome them. In the concluding film, Luke chooses to abandon all powers, refusing to succumb to the temptation to use them in anger. It is this powerlessness that reveals his real moral strength, and this is the key component in the “conversion” of the evil Darth Vader. The final message of the series: Mercy and love are more powerful than sin and hate.

Even so, the film cannot be assessed as an isolated unit, as if it were hermetically sealed in an antiseptic isolation ward. It is a major cultural signpost, part of a larger culture shift. If Dune represents the new Gnosticism expressed aggressively and overtly, Star Wars represents a kind of “soft Gnosticism” in which the gnosis is an undercurrent beneath the surface waves of a few Christian principles. It is important to recall at this point that during the second century there were several “Christian Gnostic” sects that attempted to reconcile Christianity and paganism and did so by incorporating many praiseworthy elements from the true faith. Similarly, Luke and company act according to an admirable moral code, but we must ask ourselves on what moral foundation this code is based, and what its source is.

here is no mention of a transcendent God or any attempt to define the source of “the Force”. And why is the use of psychic power considered acceptable? A major theme throughout the series is that good can be fostered by the use of these supernatural powers, which in our world are exclusively allied with evil forces. Moreover, the key figures in the overthrow of the malevolent empire are the Jedi masters, the enlightened elite, the initiates, the possessors of secret knowledge. Is this not Gnosticism?

At the very least these issues should suggest a close appraisal of the series by parents, especially since the films were revised and re-released in 1997, and a new generation of young people is being influenced by them. The most pressing question that should be asked is, which kind of distortion will do the more damage: blatant falsehood or falsehood mixed with the truths that we hunger for?

Vigilance, Paranoia, and Uncle Walt

No assessment of the situation should overlook the influence of Walt Disney Productions. Its unequalled accomplishments in the field of animation and in drama for children have made it a keystone in the culture of the West. Walt Disney became a kind of secular saint, a patron of childhood, the archangel of the young imagination. Some of this reputation was merited. Who among us has not been delighted and, indeed, formed by the films released in the early years of production, modern retellings of classic fairy stories such as Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, and Snow White. In these and other films, evil is portrayed as evil, and virtue as a moral struggle fraught with trial and error. Telling lies makes your nose grow long; indulging in vice turns you into a donkey; sorcery is a device of the enemy used against the good; witches are deadly. There are even moments that approach evangelization. In Fantasia, for example, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment is a warning about dabbling in occult powers. In the final segment, “Night on Bald Mountain”, the devil is shown in all his malice, seducing and raging, but defeated by the prayers of the saints. As the pilgrims process toward the dawn, they are accompanied by the strains of Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. Although there are parts of this film too frightening for small children, its final word is holiness.

Upon that reputation many parents learned to say, “Oh, it’s by Disney. It must be okay!” But even in the early years of the Disney studios, the trends of modernity were present. As our culture continued to follow that tendency, films continued to diverge from the traditional Christian world view. Snow White and Pinocchio are perhaps the most pure interpretations of the original fairy tales, because the changes by Disney were of degree, not of kind. Much of the editing had to do with putting violence and other grotesque scenes off-screen (such as the demise of the wicked queen), because reading a story and seeing it are two different experiences, especially for children.

By the time Cinderella hit the theaters, the changes were more substantial. For example, Cinderella’s stepsisters (in the Grimm version) were as beautiful as she, but vain and selfish. And the prince (in both the Grimm and Perrault versions) sees Cinderella in rags and ashes and still decides to love her, before she is transformed back into the beauty of the ball. These elements are changed in the Disney version, with the result that Cinderella wins the prince’s hand, not primarily because of her virtue, but because she is the prettiest gal in town. Some prince!

Walt Disney died in 1966. During the late 1960s and 1970s the studio’s approach gradually changed. Its fantasy and science fiction films began to show symptoms of the spreading moral confusion in that genre. “Bad guys” were at times presented as complex souls, inviting pity if not sympathy. “Good guys” were a little more tarnished than they once had been and, indeed, were frequently portrayed as foolish simpletons. A strain of “realism” had entered children’s films—sadly so, because a child’s hunger for literature (visual or printed) is his quest for a “more real world”. He needs to know what is truly heroic in simple, memorable terms. He needs to see the hidden foundations of his world before the complexities and the nuances of the modern mind come flooding in to overwhelm his perceptions. The creators of the new classics had failed to grasp this timeless role of the fairy tale. Or, if they had grasped it, they arbitrarily decided it was time to change it. What began as a hairline crack began to grow into a chasm.

The Watcher in the Woods is a tale of beings from another dimension, seances, ESP, and channelling (spirits speaking through a human medium), a story that dramatically influences the young audience to believe that occult powers, though sometimes frightening, can bring great good for mankind. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a comedy about a “good” witch, softens ancient fears about witchcraft. Pete’s Dragon is the tale of a cute, friendly dragon who becomes a pal to the young hero and helps to defeat the “bad guys”. In another time and place such films would probably be fairly harmless. Their impact must be understood in the context of the much larger movement that is inverting the symbol-life that grew from the Judeo-Christian revelation. This is more than just a haphazard development, more than just a gradual fading of right discernment in the wake of a declining Christian culture.

This is an anti-culture pouring in to take its place. Some, of it is full-frontal attack, but much of it is subtler and pleasurably packaged. Still more of it seems apparently harmless. But the undermining of a child’s perceptions in forms that are apparently harmless may be the most destructive of all. By the 1990s, old fairy tales such as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid were being remade by Walt Disney Productions in an effort to capture the imagination (and the market potential) of a new generation. The Little Mermaid represents an even greater break from the original intention of fairy stories than earlier retellings such as Cinderella. The mermaid’s father is shown to be an unreasonable patriarchist and she justifiably rebellious. In order to obtain her desire (marriage to a land-based human prince), she swims away from home and makes a pact with an evil Sea Witch, who turns her into a human for three days, long enough to make the prince kiss her. If she can entice him to do so, she will remain a human forever and marry him. So far, the film is close to Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy story. But a radical departure is to be found in the way the plot resolves itself. Despite the disasters the little mermaid causes, only other people suffer the consequences of the wrong she has done, and in the end she gets everything she wants. Charming as she is, she is really a selfish brat whose only abiding impulse is a shallow romantic passion. In the original Andersen tale, the little mermaid faces some difficult moral decisions and decides for the good, choosing in the end to sacrifice her own desires so that the prince will remain happily married to his human bride. As a result of her self-denial, she is taken up into the sky among the “children of the air”, the benign spirits who do good in the world.

“In three hundred years we shall float like this into the Kingdom of God!” one of them cries.

“But we may get there sooner!” whispers one of the daughters of the air. “Unseen, we fly into houses where there are children, and for every day that we find a good child who gives its parents joy. . . . God shortens the time of [our] probation.”

Obviously there has been some heavy-handed editing in the film version, a trivialization of the characters, stripping the tale of moral content and references to God, with a net result that the meaning of the story is seriously distorted, even reversed. In a culture dominated by consumerism and pragmatism, it would seem that the best message modern producers are capable of is this: In the “real” world the “healthy ego” goes after what it wants. You can even play with evil and get away with it, maybe even be rewarded for your daring by hooking the handsomest guy in the land, winning for yourself your own palace, your own kingdom, and happiness on your own terms.

Harmless? I do not think so.

Aladdin especially represents the kind of films that are apparently harmless. To criticize it in the present climate is extremely difficult, because so many people in Christian circles have simply accepted it as “family entertainment”. But Aladdin begs some closer examination.

The animated version is adapted from the Arabian Nights, a fairy tale that originated in Persia and reflects the beliefs of its Muslim author. According to the original tale, a magician hires a poor Chinese boy named Aladdin to go into an underground cave in search of a magic lamp that contains untold power. Aladdin is not merely poor, he is lazy. Through neglect of his duties, he failed to learn a trade from his father before he died and now is vulnerable to temptation. When he finds the lamp, Aladdin refuses to give it up and is locked in the cave. When he accidentally rubs the lamp a jinn (spirit) of the lamp materializes. In the Islamic religion the jinni are demonic spirits, intelligent, fiery beings of the air, who can take on many forms, including human and animal. Some jinni are better characters than others, but they are considered on the whole to be tricksters. According to Arabian mythology, they were created out of flame, while men and angels were created out of clay and light. Whoever controls a jinn is master of tremendous power, for the jinn is his slave. Aladdin, helped by such a spirit, marries the Sultan’s daughter, and the jinn builds them a fabulous palace. But the wicked magician tricks them out of the lamp and transports the palace to Africa. Aladdin chases them there, regains the lamp in a heroic struggle, and restores the palace to China.

In the Disney remake, Aladdin is now a young hustler who speaks American urban slang in an Arabian marketplace. He is a likeable teenage thief who is poor through no fault of his own. He wants to make it big. When he meets the Sultan’s daughter, who is fleeing the boring confinement of her palace, and rescues her through wit and “street-smarts”, the romance begins. The film strives to remain true to some of the original plot, but in the characterization one sees evidence of the new consciousness. The film’s genie is a comedian of epic proportions, changing his roles at lightning speed, so that the audience barely has time to laugh before the next sophisticated entertainment industry joke is trotted out. He becomes Ed Sullivan, the Marx Brothers, a dragon, a homosexual, female belly dancers, Pinocchio, and on and on. It is a brilliant and fascinating display. He is capable of colossal powers, and he is, wonder of wonders, Aladdin’s slave. An intoxicating recipe for capturing a child’s imagination.

This is a charming film. It contains some very fine scenes and deserves some praise for an attempt at morality. The genie, for example, admonishes the young master that there are limits to the wishes he can grant: no killing, no making someone fall in love with you, no bringing anyone back from the dead. Aladdin is really a “good thief”, who robs from the comfortable and gives to the poor. He is called a “street-rat” by his enemies, yet he feels within himself aspirations to something better, something great. He is kind and generous to hungry, abandoned children; he defies the arrogant and the rich, and he is very, very brave. He is only waiting for an opportunity to show what sterling stuff he is made of. It is possible that this film may even have a good effect on the many urban children who five close to that level of poverty and desperation. By providing an attractive role model of a young person determined to overcome adversity, it may do much good in the world. There are even moments when spiritual insight is clear and true—when, for example, at the climax of the tale the magician takes on his true form, that of a gigantic serpent. And yet, there is something on the subliminal level, some undefinable warp in the presentation that leaves the discerning viewer uneasy.

Most obvious, perhaps, is the feeling of sensuality that dominates the plot. It is a romance, of course, and it must be understood that a large number of old literary fairy tales were also romances. But this is modern romance, complete with stirring music and visual impact. Aladdin and the Princess are both scantily clad throughout the entire performance, and, like so many characters in Disney animation, they appear to be bursting with hormones. There is a kiss that is more than a chaste peck. Nothing aggressively wrong, really. Nothing obscene, but all so thoroughly modern. At the very least, one should question the effect this stirring of the passions will have on the many children who flock to see the latest Disney cartoon. The cartoon, by its very nature, says “primarily for children”. But this is, in fact, an adolescent romance, with some good old cartoon effects thrown in to keep the little ones’ attention and some sly innuendo to keep the adults chuckling.

The handling of the supernatural element is, I believe, a more serious defect. To put it simply, the jinn is a demon. But such a charming demon. Funny and sad, clever and loyal (as long as you’re his master), harmless, helpful, and endlessly entertaining.

Just the kind of guardian spirit a child might long for. Does this film implant a longing to conjure up such a spirit? The film’s key flaw is its presentation of the structure of reality. It is an utterly delightful advertisement for the concept of “the tight side of the Force and the dark side of the Force”, and as such it is a kind of cartoon Star Wars. Like Luke Skywalker, Aladdin is a young hero pitched against impossible odds, but the similarities do not end there. Luke becomes strong enough to battle his foes only by going down into a cave in a mysterious swamp and facing there “the dark side” of himself. Then, by developing supernatural powers, he is enabled to go forth to defeat the evil in the world. Similarly, Aladdin first seeks to obtain the lamp by going down into the jaws of a lionlike beast that rises up out of the desert and speaks with a ghastly, terrifying voice. The lamp of spiritual power resides in a cave in the belly of the beast, and Aladdin takes it from him. Here is a clear message to the young who aspire to greater things: If you want to improve your lot in life, spiritual power is an even better possession than material powers such as wealth or physical force. It could be argued that Luke does not enlist the aid of demonic beings, nor does he cooperate with supernatural forces for selfish purposes. Indeed, he is a shining idealist. But this argument presumes that developing occult powers does not place one in contact with such evil beings—a very shaky presumption to say the least. At best there is an ambiguity in Luke’s cooperation with “the Force” that leaves ample room for the young to absorb gnostic messages.

What is communicated about the nature of spiritual power in Aladdin? Leave aside for the moment the question of the hero being helped by a “good demon” to overcome a bad one. Leave aside also the problem of telling the young that they should ignore their natural terrors of the supernatural in order to succeed in their quests. Leave aside, moreover, the subtle inference that light and darkness, good and evil, are merely reverse sides of the same cosmic coin. There are subtler messages in the film. For example, a theme running throughout is that Aladdin is “worthy” to master such power, though we never learn what constitutes his worthiness. The viewer assumes that it is his bravado, cunning, and basically good heart. In reality, none of us is worthy of powers that properly belong to God alone. None of us is worthy of restoration to Paradise. Salvation is Gods gift to mankind by the merits of his death on the Cross. Even so, we have not yet reached our one true home. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and in this world no one is capable of wielding evil supernatural powers without being corrupted by them. It is modern man’s ignorance of this principle that is now getting the world into a great deal of trouble. A powerful falsehood is implanted in the young by heroes who are given knowledge of good and evil, given power over good and evil, who play with evil but are never corrupted by it.

Beauty and the Beast handles the problem differently, but the end result is the same — the taming of the child’s instinctive reaction to the image of the horrible. The Beast is portrayed as a devil-like being. He is not merely deformed or grotesque, as he is in the written fable. In the film his voice is unearthly and horrifying; he is sinister in appearance, his face a hideous mimicry of medieval gargoyles, his body a hybrid abomination of lion, bull, bear, and demon. His castle is full of diabolical statues. Of course, the central themes are as true and timeless as ever: Love sees beneath the surface appearance to the interior reality of the person; and love breaks the spell that evil casts over a life.

Yet here too there are disturbing messages: A “good witch” casts the spell in order to improve the Beast’s character, implying that good ends come from evil means. But no truly good person does harm in order to bring about a good. While it is true that good can come out of evil situations, it is only because God’s love is greater than evil. God’s primary intention is that we always choose the good. In the original fairy tale, the spell is cast by an evil sorcerer, and the good conclusion to the plot is brought about in spite of him.

The Disney Beast really has a heart of gold. By contrast, handsome Gaston, the “normal” man, proves to be the real villain. He is a despicable parody of masculinity, a stupid, vain macho-man, who wishes to marry the heroine and chain her to the ennui of dull village life. The Beauty in the original tale embraces the virtues of hard work and the simple country life that result from her father’s misfortune. The Disney Beauty pines for something “better”. There is a feminist message here, made even stronger by the absence of any positive male role models. Even her father is a buffoon, though loveable. This gross characterization of “patriarchy” would not be complete without a nasty swipe at the Church, and sure enough, Gaston has primed a clown-like priest to marry them. (The depiction of ministers of religion as either corrupt or ridiculous is practically unrelieved in contemporary films — Disney films are especially odious in this respect.)

To return for a moment to the question of beauty: A principle acknowledged in all cultures (except those in a terminal phase of self-destruction), is that physical beauty in creation is a living metaphor of spiritual beauty. The ideal always points to something higher than itself to some ultimate good. In culture this principle is enfleshed, made visible. If at times spiritual beauty is present in unbeautiful fictional characters or situations, this only serves to underline the point that the physical is not an end in itself. In Disney’s Pocahontas we find this principle inverted. Dazzling the viewer’s eyes with superb scenes that are more like impressionistic paintings than solid narrative, stirring the emotions with haunting music and the supercharged atmosphere of sexual desire, its creators are really about a much bigger project than cranking out yet another tale of boy-meets-girl. Beauty is now harnessed to the task of promoting environmentalism and eco-spirituality. The real romance here is the mystique of pantheism, a portrayal of the earth as alive, animated with spirits (for example, a witchlike tree-spirit gives advice to Pocahontas about the nature of courtship). The earth and the flesh no longer point to something higher than themselves; they are ends in themselves. The “noble savage” understands this; the white, male, European Christian does not. And as usual, Disney portrays masculinity in its worst possible tight (excepting only the hero, Smith, who is sensitive and confused). The other European males are rapacious predators, thoughtless builders, dominators, polluters, and killers; and those who are not any of the foregoing are complete nincompoops. It is all so predictable, all so very “consciousness-raising”. What child does not take away from the film the impression that, in order to solve his problems, industrial-technological man need only reclaim the lost innocence of this pre-Columbian Eden?

I did not view Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame in a theater but watched the video release at home. The effect of the full-screen experience must have been overwhelming for audiences, because the visual effects in the video version were very impressive, clearly among Disney’s most brilliant achievements in animation. However, I was disturbed by themes that have now become habitual with this studio. Within the first ten minutes of the story a self-righteous Catholic moralist rides into the plot on horseback and chases a poor gypsy mother, who runs barefoot through the streets of Paris, carrying her baby in her arms, in a desperate attempt to reach the sanctuary of Notre Dame cathedral. She stumbles on the steps of the church and dies. The moralist picks up the baby, discovers that he is deformed, a “monster”, and decides to dispose of him by dropping him down a well, all the while muttering pious imprecations against this “spawn of the devil”. So far, not a great portrait of Catholicism. In the only redeeming moment in the film, a priest rushes out of the cathedral, sees the dead woman, and warns the moralist that his immortal soul is in danger. To amend for his sin, he must agree to be the legal guardian of the baby. The moralist agrees, on the condition that the monster be raised in secret in Notre Dame.

In the next scene the baby is now a young man, Quasimodo, a badly deformed hunchback who lives in isolation in the tower of the cathedral. He is the bell ringer, a sweet soul, humble, good, and creative, content to make art and little toys and to observe from his lonely height the life of the people of Paris. His solitude is broken only by the occasional visits of the moralist, who takes delight in reminding Quasimodo that he is a worthless monster who survives only because of his (the moralist’s) “kindness”. Is there anyone in the audience who has missed the point: The moralist is the ultimate hypocrite, the real monster. Quasimodo’s only other friends are three gargoyles, charming, humorous little demons who are reminiscent of the Three Stooges. They encourage him to believe in love, to believe in himself, to have courage. In one interesting short scene, the gargoyles mock a carving of the Pope. Later in the film there is a scene depicting the churchgoers praying below in the cathedral. Without exception they pray for wealth, power, and gratification of their desires—a portrait of Catholics as utterly selfish, shallow people.

A sensual young gypsy woman flees into the cathedral to escape the moralist (who is also a judge). Safe inside, she prays for divine assistance in a vague, agnostic fashion. In stark contrast to the prayers of the Catholics, there is nothing selfish in her prayer. She merely asks for justice for her people. As the music swells, she turns away from the altar, still singing her “prayer”, strolling in the opposite direction of the Catholics who are approaching the altar. Her supplication dissolves into a romantic musing that is more sentiment than insight into the nature of real mercy and justice. Disney’s point is clear: Traditional Christianity is weak, blind, and selfish; “real Christianity” is sociological and “politically correct”.

The romantic element, a mutual attraction between the gypsy woman and a young soldier, is simply a rehash of the screen romances that have become a necessary ingredient in Disney animated films. Lots of body language, lots of enticing flesh, a garish portrayal of the tormented moralist’s secret lusts, a contrasting depiction of the beautiful young couples sexual desire as pure and natural, and a sensual screen kiss that is inappropriate for young viewers (as it is in Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and other Disney films). Perhaps we should ask ourselves if viewing such intimate moments between man and woman is ever appropriate, even for adults. Is voyeurism, in any form, good for the soul?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame concludes with a frenzied climax in which the forces of love and courage are pitted against the ignorance of the medieval Church. Quasimodo has overcome the lie of his worthlessness through the counsel of his gargoyles and is now strong enough to defy the moralist. He rescues the gypsy girl, who is about to be burned for witchcraft, and flees with her to the bell tower. There the moralist tracks them down (after first pushing aside the ineffectual priest who tries to stop him) and attempts to kill them. As one might expect, he comes to a bad end. The gypsy and the soldier are reunited, and Quasimodo makes do with platonic love. All’s well that ends well.

Based on Victor Hugo’s novel of the same tide (published in 1831), the film retains much of the plot and characterization and even manages to communicate some truths. But the reality-shift evidenced in the modern version is a serious violation of the larger architecture of truth. The truths are mixed with untruths, and because of the sensory impact of the film medium, it is that much more difficult for an audience to discern rightly between the two. This is especially damaging to children, who because of their age are in a state of formation that is largely impressionistic. Moreover, most modern people do not know their history and do not possess the tools of real thought and thus are vulnerable to manipulation of their feelings. Young and old, we are becoming a race of impressionists.

Rather than thinking with ideas, we “think” in free-form layers of images loosely connected by emotions. There would be little harm in this if the sources of these images were honest. But few sources in culture and entertainment are completely honest these days. And even if the mind were well stocked with the best of images (a very rare state), it is still not equipped to meet the spiritual and ideological confusion of our times. The problem is much deeper than a lack of literacy, because even the mental imagery created by the printed word can be merely a chain of misleading impressions, however well articulated they may be. The real problem is religious illiteracy, by which I mean the lack of an objective standard against which we can measure our subjective readings of sensation and experience. Without this objective standard, one’s personal gnosis will inevitably push aside the objective truth and subordinate it to a lesser position, when it does not banish it altogether. That is why a modern maker of culture who feels strongly that Catholicism is bad for people has no qualms about rewriting history or creating anti-Catholic propaganda and will use all the powers of the modern media to do so.

One wonders what Disney studios would do with Hugo’s Les Miserables (published in 1862), an expressly Christian story in which two central characters, the bishop and Jean Valjean, are heroic Catholics fighting for truth, mercy, and justice in the face of the icy malice of the secular humanists, against the background of the French Revolution. Would the scriptwriters and executives sanitize and politically correct these characters by de-Catholicizing them? It would be interesting to observe the contortions necessary for such a transformation. Perhaps they would do what Hollywood did to Dominique Lapierre’s wonderful book, The City of Joy. The central character in that true story, a Christlike young priest who chose to live among the most abject of Calcutta’s poor, is entirely replaced in the film version by a handsome young American doctor (who was a secondary character in the book). In the Hollywood rewrite, the doctor is idealistic but amoral, and he is in the throes of an identity crisis. Uncertain at first if he is merely a technician of the body, slowly awakening to the possibility that he might become a minister to the whole person, in the end he chooses the latter. Following the gnostic pattern, he becomes the knower as healer, the scientist as priest. It is a well-made film, containing some good insights and moving scenes, but by displacing the priest of Christ, it loses an important part of the original story’s “soul”, cheating us of the real meaning of the events on which it is based.

Where Catholicism is not simply weeded out of the culture, it is usually attacked, though the attacks tend to be swift cheap-shots. Take, for instance, Steven Spielberg’s smash hit, Jurassic Park.

Again, there is much to recommend this film, such as the questions it raises about science and morality, especially the issue of genetic engineering. In the struggle between people and dinosaurs there is plenty of human heroism, and the dinosaurs are even presented as classic reptiles—no taming or befriending here. So far so good. On the level of symbolism, however, we are stunned with an image of the reptile as practically omnipotent. The Tyrannosaurus rex is power incarnate, and its smaller cousin, the Velociraptor, is not only fiercely powerful, it is intelligent and capable of learning.

There is a telling scene in which the most despicable character in the film, a sleazy lawyer, is riding in a car with two young children. When a dinosaur approaches the car to destroy it, the lawyer abandons the children to their fate and flees into an outdoor toilet cubicle. The T-Rex blows away the flimsy structure, exposing the lawyer, who is seated on the “John”, quivering uncontrollably and whining the words of the Hail Mary. The T-Rex picks him up in its jaws, crunches hard, and gulps him down its throat. In the theater where I saw the film, the audience cheered.

Where Is It All Leading?

At this point, the reader may be saying to himself, “What you describe may be true. I’ve seen evidence of it, and I’ve struggled to understand it. I’ve tried to pick my way through the flood of things coming at my children, but I’m not having much success. I’m uneasy about the new culture, but I don’t seem to have the skills to argue with it.”

I think most conscientious parents feel this way. We know something is not right, but we don’t quite know how to assess it. We worry that our children might be affected adversely by it, but at the same time we don’t want to overreact. The image of the “witch-hunt” haunts us (a fear that is strongly reinforced by the new culture), but we are equally concerned about the need to protect our children from being indoctrinated into paganism. What, then, are we to do?

Our first step must be in the direction of finding a few helpful categories, a standard against which we can measure examples of the new culture. I have found it useful to divide the field of children’s culture into roughly four main categories:

1. Material that is entirely good.

2. Material that is fundamentally good but disordered in some details.

3. Material that appears good on the surface but is fundamentally disordered.

4. Material that is blatantly evil, rotten to the core.

I will return to these categories in the next chapter’s assessment of children’s literature, where I hope to develop them in greater detail. I introduce them here to make a different point. Two generations ago the culture of the Western world was composed of material that, with few exceptions, was either entirely good (1) or fundamentally good but disordered in some details (2). About forty years ago there began a culture-shift that steadily gathered momentum, a massive influx of material that appeared good on the surface but was fundamentally disordered (3). It became the new majority. During this period entirely good material became the minority and at the same time more material that was diabolically evil began to appear (4). There is a pattern here. And it raises the question: Where is it all leading?

I think it highly unlikely that we will ever see a popular culture that is wholly dominated by the blatantly diabolical, but I do believe that unless we recognize what is happening, we may soon be living in a culture that is totally dominated by the fundamentally disordered and in which the diabolical is respected as an alternative world view and becomes more influential than the entirely good. Indeed, we may be very close to that condition. I can think of half a dozen recent films that deliberately reverse the meaning of Christian symbols and elevate the diabolical to the status of a saving mythology.

The 1996 film Dragon Heart, for example, is the tale of a tenth-century kingdom that suffers under a tyrannical king. When the king is killed in a peasant uprising, his son inherits the crown but is himself wounded when he is accidentally impaled on a spike. His heart is pierced, and he is beyond all hope of recovery. The queen takes her son into an underground cave that is the lair of a dragon. She kneels before the dragon, calls him “Lord”, and begs him to save the princes life. The dragon removes half of his own heart and inserts it into the gaping wound of the prince’s chest, then heals the wound with a touch of his claw. The queen says to her son, “He [the dragon] will save you.” And to the dragon she says, “He [the prince] will grow in your grace.” The prince recovers and grows to manhood, the dragon’s heart beating within him.

The prince becomes totally evil, a tyrant like his father, and the viewer is led to believe that, in this detail at least, traditional symbolism is at work—the heart of a dragon will make a man into a dragon. Not so, for later we learn that the prince’s own evil nature has overshadowed the dragon’s good heart. When the dragon reappears in the plot and becomes the central character, we begin to learn that he is not the terrifying monster we think him to be. He dabbles in the role the superstitious peasants have assigned to him (the traditional concept of dragon), but he never really does any harm, except to dragon slayers, and then only when they attack him without provocation. Through his growing friendship with a reformed dragon slayer, we gradually come to see the dragon’s true character. He is wise, noble, ethical, and witty. He merely plays upon the irrational fears of the humans regarding dragons because he knows that they are not yet ready to understand the higher wisdom, a vision known only to dragons and their enlightened human initiates. It is corrupt human nature, we are told, that has deformed man’s understanding of dragons.

The dragon and his knight-friend assist the peasants in an uprising against the evil prince. Even a Catholic priest is enlisted in the battle. This character is yet another Hollywood buffoon-priest, who in his best moments is a silly, poetic dreamer and at worst a confused and shallow remnant of a dishonored Christian myth. Over and oyer again, we are shown the ineffectiveness of Christianity against evil and the effective power of The People when they ally themselves with the dragon. The priest sees the choice, abandons his cross, and takes up a bow and arrow, firing two shafts into the head and groin of a practice dummy. In a final battle, he overcomes his Christian scruples and begins to shoot at enemy soldiers, quoting Scripture humorously (even the words of Jesus) every time he shoots. An arrow in a soldier’s buttock elicits the priest’s sly comment, “Turn the other cheek, brother!” When he aims at the evil prince, he murmurs, “Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill!” then proceeds to disobey the divine commandment. The arrow goes straight into the prince’s heart, but he does not fall. He pulls the arrow from his heart and smiles. Neither Christian myth nor Christian might can stop this kind of evil!

Here we begin to understand the objectives that the scriptwriter has subtly hatched from the very beginning of the film. The prince cannot die because a dragon’s heart beats within him, even though he, not the dragon, has corrupted that heart. The evil prince will die only when the dragon dies. Knowing this, the dragon willingly sacrifices his own life in order to end the reign of evil, receiving a spear thrust into his heart. At this point we see the real purpose of the film—the presentation of the dragon as a Christ-figure!

Shortly before this decisive climax, the dragon describes in mystical tones his version of the history of the universe: “Long ago, when man was young and the dragon already old, the wisest of our race took pity on man. He gathered together all the dragons, who vowed to watch over man always. And at the moment of his death, the night became alive with those stars [pointing to the constellation Draco], and thus was born the dragon’s heaven.”

He explains that he had shared his heart with the dying young prince in order to “reunite man and dragon and to ensure my place among my ancient brothers of the sky”.

In the final moments of the film, after the dragon’s death, he is assumed into the heavens amidst heart-throbbing music and star bursts and becomes part of the constellation Draco. The crowd of humans watch the spectacle, their faces filled with religious awe. A voice-over narrator says that in the years following “Draco’s sacrifice” a time of justice and brotherhood came upon the world, “golden years warmed by an unworldly light. And when things became most difficult, Draco’s star shone more brightly for all of us who knew where to look.”

Few members of the audience would know that, according to the lore of witchcraft and Satanism, the constellation Draco is the original home of Satan and is reverenced in their rituals. Here is a warning about where Gnosticism can lead. What begins as one’s insistence on the right to decide the meaning of good and evil leads inevitably to spiritual blindness. Step by step we are led from the wholly good to flawed personal interpretations of good; then, as the will is weakened and the mind darkened, we suffer more serious damage to the foundation itself and arrive finally if we should lose all reason, at some manifestation of the diabolical.

When this process is promulgated with the genius of modern cinematic technology, packaged in the trappings of art and mysticism, our peril increases exponentially. My wife and I have known devout, intelligent, Christian parents who allowed their young children to watch Dragon Heart because they thought it was “just mythology”. This is an understandable naïveté, but it is also a symptom of our state of unpreparedness. The evil in corrupt mythology is never rendered harmless simply because it is encapsulated in a literary genre, as if sealed in a watertight compartment. Indeed, there are few things as infectious as mythology.

We would be sadly mistaken if we assumed that the cultural invasion is mainly a conflict of abstract ideas. It is a major front in the battle for the soul of modern man, and as such it necessarily entails elements of spiritual combat. For this reason parents must ask God for the gifts of wisdom, discernment, and vigilance during these times. We must also plead for extraordinary graces and intercede continuously for our children. The invasion reaches into very young minds, relaxing children’s instinctive aversion to what is truly frightening. It begins there, but we must understand that it will not end there, for its logical end is a culture that exalts the diabolical. There are a growing number of signs that this process is well under way.

In most toy shops, for example, one can find a number of soft, cuddly dragons and other monsters to befriend. There are several new children’s books about lovable dragons who are not evil, merely misunderstood. In one such book, given as a Christmas present to our children by a well-meaning friend, we found six illustrations that attempted to tame the diabolical by dressing it in ingratiating costumes. The illustrator exercised a certain genius that made his work well nigh irresistible. One of the images portrayed a horrible, grotesque being at the foot of a child’s bed. The accompanying story told how the child, instead of driving it away, befriended it, and together they lived happily ever after. The demonic being had become the child’s guardian. One wonders what has become of guardian angels! Such works seek to help children integrate “the dark side” into their natures, to reconcile good and evil within, and, as our friend expressed it, to “embrace their shadows”.

In Lilith, a classical fantasy by the nineteenth-century Christian writer George MacDonald, the voice of Eve calls this darkness “the mortal foe of my children”. In one passage a character describes the coming of “the Shadow”:

He was nothing but blackness. We were frightened the moment we saw him, but we did not run away, we stood and watched him. He came on us as if he would run over us. But before he reached us he began to spread and spread, and grew bigger and bigger, till at last he was so big that he went out of our sight, and we saw him no more, and then he was upon us.

It is when they can no longer see him that his power over them is at its height. They then describe how the shadow temporarily possessed them and bent their personalities in the direction of hatred. He is thrown off by love welling up within their hearts.

The German writer Goethe, in his great classic work Faust, uses a different approach to depict the seduction of mankind. At one point the devil says:

Humanity’s most lofty power,

Reason and knowledge pray despise!

But let the Spirit of all lies

With works of dazzling magic blind you,

Then absolutely mine, I’ll have and bind you!

In children’s culture a growing fascination with the supernatural is hastening the breakdown of the Christian vision of the spiritual world and the moral order of the universe. Reason and a holy knowledge are despised, while intoxicating signs and wonders increase.

________

1 Russell Kirk, “The Perversity of Recent Fiction; Reflections on the Moral Imagination”, in Reclaiming a Patrimony (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 1982).

#a landscape with dragons

0 notes