#marcuse liked it so that's all that matters!

[slashesotron]

@puppy-kitten‘s Esmee having a time ❤

[frankieispunkk]

Sweet mornings

Marcus pike x plus sized reader 💜

Warnings:none apart from a smige of insecurity from reader<3

You wake up to the sound of birds tweeting and the crisp autumn breeze coming in through the window,the soft snores of your now husband sleeping next to you, a familiar and comforting sound,rolling over in bed to admire the sleeping beauty that is Marcus you wonder how you got so lucky,his soft brown hair settled at the top of his head,sitting just above his eyebrows,his stuble that has grown in the last few weeks,his soft skin littered with freckles and goosebumps from the cold breeze,the little closed up piercing scar on his right ear. Everything about him was perfect,and above all that he loved you for you,all of your curves and rolls,your thick thighs that he “loves to get lost between” your cellulite which he constantly runs his fingers over telling you how beautiful it is. Marcus has taught you selflove,and being his wife was the best thing to ever happen to you.

You are pulled out your thoughts by a strong hand wrapping around your waist. “Morning sweetheart” Marcus says into your hair. “Morning handsome,how did you sleep” “mmm good,ya know you are like..the best hot water bottle ever right” you laugh “I am?” “Yep” Marcus chuckles and kisses you sweetly on the lips. “I’m glad you don’t have work today” you say into his chest. “Mmm me to babygirl,get to spend all day with my beautiful wife” Marcus traces the curves of your body with his fingers. “That tickles mr pike!” You giggle tiredly “supposed to Mrs pike” Marcus grins “still can’t get enough of saying that,Mrs pike” Marcus says sweetly. “Well you better get used to it babe”

“Oh I sure will,till the day I die” marcus chuckles and rolls on top of you “now where’s my morning cuddle”? Marcus laughs while giving you a passionate kiss.

You cuddle into Marcuses neck “right here bossy”

You and marcus spend almost all day like that,cuddling in bed or on the sofa watching a movie,it’s days like these that you really appreciate your time with him and everything about the outside world doesn’t matter,as long as you’ve got your marcus 💜

[branded-perceptions]

Our aspirations tend to PUFF🎈 into fantasy space when we like a mental brothe(l/r) (german "PUFF")

entrain via PUFFERING

of like SMURFS chasing, hyping, commodifying, promoting and focusing on our fictional mental constructs, ideologies, concepts, explanatory definitions, social rewards etc. on their own

loosing touch with care for the most basic causal life needs we all share all around the world

(🎵SAGT MAL VON WO KOMMT IHR DENN HER?)

no matter which location

(🎵AUS SCHLUMPFHAUSEN BITTE SEHR)

ethnicity or "type of human"

(🎵SEHEN ALLE DA SO AUS WIE IHR? JA WIR SEHEN SO AUS WIE WIR)

as we all via our Neurochemistry have quite similar biological hardware whose software we can calibrate via music

(🎵SOLL ICH EUCH EIN LIED BEIBRINGEN?)

to make understandable and raise awareness about the inevitable group-effects of all type of group identity chorus

(🎵ICH KENNE EIN LIED MIT EINEM SCHÖNEN CHOR)

that spring from our entrained psychological ID whistles

(🎵DER FLÖTENDE SCHLUMPF FÄNGT AN)

that manifest via the by "diverse" psychological symbols created linguistics and communications

(🎵NUN SINGT MAL MIT)

that inevitably carry the above mentioned psychic energies of us

(🎵LALALALA)

that distract us from the simple little joys of daily life

(🎵WARUM SEID IHR SCHLÜMPFE KLEIN? WIR WOLLEN GAR NICHT GRÖßER SEIN)

of us all "one dimensional man Herbert Marcuse" blindly chasing our "passions" of habits, symbols🎅, occupations & topics we conditioned our psychological ID whistles' subjective pleasure motivations upon

(🎵WAS MÖCHTET IHR AM LIEBSTEN TUN? SCHLÜMPFEN OHNE AUSZURUHEN)

without caring much about how it actually helps all the other humans around the world

(🎵GIBT ES EIGENTLICH VIELE SCHLÜMPFE)

that blindly chase social reward streams🐟🐟🐟

(🎵HEY, WIR SIND HIER NICHT IN DER BADEWANNE)

of diverse stories, grouped symbols and identity constructs felt in-group "positivites"

(🎵LALALALA)

without pondering about boundaries (🎵DU, MUSS DAS WIRKLICH SEIN?)

like PAPA SMURF's (🔍Meister Langbart) reality testing🥜 ego functions systems thinking calibrating direction of motivations of smurf reductionism via goofy irony

🎶DAS LIED DER SCHLÜMPFE - VADER ABRAHAM

[determinate-negation]

Bourgeois political economy, as criticized here, does not regard alienation and estrangement as such as a fact (the circumstances to which these words refer are covered in the bourgeois theory under quite different headings); for socialist political economy this fact will only ‘exist’ if and in so far as the theory is placed on the foundation which Marx worked out in the context of the studies we are discussing. We must therefore ask what sort of fact this is (since it is essentially different from all other facts in political economy), and on what basis it becomes visible and can be described as such.

The description of the circumstance of alienation and estrangement seems initially to proceed completely on the ground of traditional political economy and its theorems. Marx significantly starts by dividing his investigation into the three traditional concepts of political economy: ‘The Wages of Labour’, ‘The Profit of Capital’ and ‘The Rent of Land’. But more important, and a sign pointing in a completely new direction, is the fact that this division into three is soon exploded and abandoned. […]

The development of the concept of labour thus breaks through the traditional framework for dealing with problems; the discussion continues with this concept and discovers the new ‘fact’ which then becomes the basis for the science of the communist revolution. Our interpretation must therefore set out from Marx’s concept of labour. When Marx depicts the manner of labour and the form of existence of the worker in capitalist society – complete separation from the means of production and from the product of his labour which has become a commodity, the balancing of wages around the minimum for mere physical survival, the severance of the worker’s labour (performed as ‘forced labour’ in the capitalist’s service) from his ‘human reality’ – all these features can in themselves still denote simple economic facts. This impression seems to be confirmed by the fact that Marx, ‘by analysis from the concept of alienated labour’, reaches the concept of ‘private property (p.117) and thus the basic concept of traditional political economy.

But if we look more closely at the description of alienated labour we make a remarkable discovery: what is here described is not merely an economic matter. It is the alienation of man, the devaluation of life, the perversion and loss of human reality. In the relevant passage Marx identifies it as follows: ‘the concept of alienated labour, i.e. of alienated man, of estranged labour, of estranged life, of estranged man’ (p. 117).

It is thus a matter of man as man (and not just as worker, economic subject and the like), and of a process not only in economic history but in the history of man and his reality.

The Foundations of Historical Materialism, Hebert Marcuse (1932)

[pascalpanic]

Here for the sentence starters!! "I can’t get over how a few months ago I wanted to learn your name and now you’re having breakfast with me in my sweater" and "I’m so in love with her/him, I don’t know what do do." Feel free to do both or either or whatever you prefer with either of the Marcuses! I'm in such a fluffy mood rn and these will make my day :)) (PS I adore you and I hope you have a good day xx)

Making Moves (Marcus Moreno x f!Reader)

Summary: Your neighborhood superhero, Marcus Moreno, is being nagged by his daughter to find love. Lucky for him, just the right woman moves in down the street.

W/C: 2.7k

Warnings: language, brief talks of death (just to refer to Marcus’s wife who passed away), brief mentions of sexual stuff. it’s tame.

A/N: THIS WAS SO FUN. I love some good Marcus Moreno. He’s such a cutie and these prompts made it so fun! You can still send me prompts from this list with a character, just mind the taken ones! p.s. my emotional support Brit @maxlordsgf see how I used patio/backyard??

The Moreno household was cozy. You wondered if it was Marcus who’d decorated the beautiful home, or if his late wife. You supposed it didn’t matter. You would’ve liked the former Mrs. Moreno, if Marcus could love her like he did. 

He lived a few houses down from you. You’d moved in a couple of months ago, into the nice Craftsman style home you currently rented. The best thing about the house was the beautiful front porch, which exposed the lovely suburban neighborhood. The porch had come with a swing, and you’d decided that it’d have to be your new morning coffee spot. After all, this is California, where the sun was plentiful and the air was just cold enough to be refreshing in the mornings.

The time that you drank your coffee on the porch also happened to be the time that your neighborhood Heroic, Marcus, went for his morning runs. He’d been excited to see that the house was sold, and Missy was too. They planned on bringing over some sweets once you were settled. Several weeks after the sold sign went up, he saw you for the first time. 

You looked like an angel, he thought. You wore a fuzzy robe with patterned capri pajama pants peeking from beneath it. Your glasses rested on the bridge of your nose, slightly fogged from the steam of your coffee. You sat on your porch swing, knees pulled to your chest, reading from your tablet. He was immediately caught off-guard. Your new home was at the beginning of his running path, but his breath was already gone from his lungs from your beauty. 

Pushing his own glasses up his nose, he gave you a little wave as you looked up. You’d smiled at him, a grin with your teeth visible. The man was handsome, you’d noticed. Dark hair, a little scruff, eyes that scrunched when he smiled at you. He was fit, too, his muscles evident beneath his tight t-shirt and running shorts. He kept running, unsure what he could say to you. 

Marcus returned home some thirty minutes later to find Missy awake. “Hey, the new neighbor moved in,” he told her as he walked to the counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Ooh, tell me all about them.”

“Well, we didn’t talk. I still don’t know if it’s a family or anything,” he admitted. “But there was a woman sitting on the porch.”

Missy’s eyes lit up. “How old?”

Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know, muñeca,” he told her and kissed her head as he walked past her to sit at the table. 

“Old enough to date?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and stuffing her mouth full of cereal. “Did she seem single?”

“Stay out of it,” he teased her and poked her forehead, right between the eyes. 

She flinched back a bit but laughed. “Dad, come on.”

He shook his head. “We can bring over a housewarming gift tonight, huh? Then we can see.” -

Well, it turned out that night was too busy to do so for the Morenos.

You saw him the next morning as he ran past again. You wore different pajamas but sat in the same position. You’d waved back.

That’s how the next couple mornings went for the two of you. Every day, Marcus could swear you looked prettier. With you looking like that in your pajamas, he couldn’t imagine how beautiful you’d be at any other time. 

Finally, Friday night, he and Missy put on some music and got to baking.

“What does she look like?” Missy asked curiously as she cracked an egg into the bowl- she’d learned the hard way that her father was not to be trusted with egg duty.

Marcus described you to his daughter, his eyes far off and a small smile on his face. “She’s very pretty.”

“Well, duh. You’re simping over her, of course she is.”

“What’s a simp?” He’d asked, brow furrowing.

-

The knock came an hour or two later. You’d gotten home from work an hour or so earlier, so you were in relaxed clothing, the remnants of your makeup on your face. 

Behind the door stood the handsome runner you saw every morning, and a miniature, carbon-copied version of him with longer hair and more feminine features. “Hi! We’re the Morenos. We live in the blue house down the street. I’m Missy, and this is my dad, Marcus,” she introduced herself cheerfully. She held a tray of brownies. He held a bouquet.

“We just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood,” the man- Marcus- says with a warm smile on his face.

“Oh, thank you!” You grinned and took the tray Missy held out. “Well, come in, please,” you invite them. “Do you drink, Marcus? I was just having some wine. Oh, and Missy, I have some soda if you’d like that.”

The three of you sat in your half-constructed living room for a while and chatted. You learned about the former Mrs. Moreno and how she’d passed a few years ago. You shared that you were living alone and single, due to a bad breakup that led you to move here. The two were good company, you learned quickly, bantering back and forth more like siblings than a father and daughter.

As they stood up to leave, you apologized for the mess. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to hook up my TV lately, and I haven’t done anything else yet. I want to get the TV up first, but I’m practically useless with electronic stuff,” you admitted with a chuckle.

“Oh, Dad is great with electronics,” Missy told you with a grin.

“Not great. Competent would be a better word,” he chuckled. “I could help you set it up, if you’d like that.”

“I would, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all. Here, we can exchange numbers, you can text me when you’d like me to come over,” he offered and pulled out his phone.

“Sure,” you said and told him your number, which he enters into his phone and sends you a text. “Perfect,” you nodded and saved his phone number. “I’ll see you two soon, hopefully.”

They said goodbye and you heard Missy giggling as the door shut behind him. It’s muffled, but you thought you can hear Missy anyway: “That was smooth, Dad!”

-

That was months ago now. You’d developed a relationship with the both of them, visiting each others’ houses often for dinner or just to chat. 

When summer rolled around, Missy invited you over for days at their pool. You two had enjoyed yourselves, Marcus playing the role of your butler for the day, serving you mocktails and teasing his daughter. It became a common occurrence during the summer. You even had a reverse day on Marcus’s birthday (July 12th) where Missy served the two of you. It was almost like a date. That was the day you both realized you’d fallen hard for the other.

As much as you spent time with Marcus, the girl positively adored you, and always sent you texts from her father’s phone.

We’re having pizza tonight! Wanna come over?

Dad says he sucks at math. Can you help me with my homework?

My friends canceled on me. Are you free to eat Ben and Jerry’s and watch Mamma Mia with me? 

You’d become like a mother figure to her, helping her when she got her first period, taking her shopping for middle-school dances, giving her boy advice.

Marcus liked you just as much, if not more. You liked him too. He was a funny man, kindhearted and warm. He’d listen to you talk when you’d had a shitty day, bring over a bottle of wine when he needed some comfort, cook dinner for the two of you when Missy was at Anita’s.

One night, you’re eating dinner with them on their patio. It’s nice, overlooking their backyard and their pool. Missy is going to a friend’s later, to sleep over, but Marcus had cooked food for the three of you on the grill, something you’d learned he was fantastic at, and you’re inside getting more food. The door is slightly cracked, and you can hear the two of them talking. 

“Dad. You have to make your move, and you gotta do it tonight! Otherwise, she’ll go for Kent a couple doors down. You don’t want that, do you?” she asks in a hushed voice.

“It’s not that easy, muñeca. I’m so in love with her I don’t know what to do.”

Your heart catches in your chest, fluttering. Marcus likes you. Not only that, he’s in love with you. The past few months race through your head, and you hyper-analyze every little interaction the two of you have had. It’s clear now, in hindsight. You swallow hard, putting back down the skewer of vegetables.

He’s been the only thing on your mind the past few weeks, you have to admit. Your visits to each others’ homes had increased, with you spending more and more nights a week at the Morenos’. His laugh makes your stomach flutter as Missy says something else to him outside. You bite your lip. Tonight’s the night. If he doesn’t make his move like Missy insisted, you’ll do it first.

The conversation is light for the rest of dinner, and you’re a bit detached. Marcus can tell, but he doesn’t comment on it. You simply stare out into their pool, listening to Missy ramble on about the plans that she and her friends have for tonight.

A while later, her friends’ parents pick her up. You stand in the driveway and wave a thank-you to the girl’s parents as they drive off with Missy and her friend in tow. “Love you guys,” she shouts out of the window. You grin and shout it back, in sync with Marcus.

The two of you return to the backyard. You walk a little farther apart from Marcus than normal. “Hey,” he says and stands right next to you, his shoulder nudging yours. “What’s wrong? You’ve been off all night,” he mumbles softly.

You shake your head. “It’s nothing, really,” you chuckle, looking down at your feet. 

Marcus is oblivious to the fact that you heard the two of them earlier. You and Marcus have always had a playful relationship, and the idea strikes him to help cheer you up. “Hey, vecina.”

“What- ah!” You squeal as Marcus lifts you in his strong arms. He walks the two of you to the side of the pool as you wriggle in his grip, laughing. “Goddamnit, Marcus! Let go of me!” You screech as he holds you over the pool, though you’re giggling the whole time.

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” he laughs, your feet kicking as they dangle over the chlorinated water. 

“No, you asshole!” You laugh, wriggling. “Put me down, Moreno, or God help your poor soul when I-” 

He sets you down on the edge, backing up a bit. “There, fine. Just trying to help,” he teases. He did, he thinks to himself. You’re smiling again. 

You’re painfully close to him. Your hands find his hips and he looks down at your hands in confusion as you pat the pockets of his shorts. No phone. Perfect. There’s a devilish grin as you wrap him in a bear hug and fall backwards into the pool, taking him with you.

You let go once you’re underwater, shooting up to the surface from under him and laughing. He comes up moments later, wiping his eyes and pushing his hair back. Your laugh is maniacal and loud, completely content and proud of yourself. “There, I cheered you up at least,” he shakes his head and smiles. He walks to the shallower end of the pool, and you follow.

“I wasn’t in a bad mood,” you shoot back.

“Well, something was off. Will you tell me now?” He asks, your eyes wandering to his- oh, he’s ripped, goddamn- abs beneath his wet t-shirt. His eyes remained trained on yours, ever the gentleman.

Swallowing hard, you nod and walk closer to him with a smile. “I heard you and Missy when I was inside getting more food,” you tell him, biting on your lip to hold back an excited giggle.

His brows furrow in confusion then lift in surprise as it hits him. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” you nod, wading a little closer and then even closer. You can hear his heavy breathing and look into those big brown eyes with a grin. 

“Well, I-” he starts stammering, unsure of what to say, until you place your hands on his shoulders.

“It’s okay, Marcus,” you mumble soothingly, your arms wrapping around his neck. “I know you said it’s not that easy. Why don’t you let me take the reins then, hm?” You ask teasingly, bringing your face close to his. 

He grins, taking the opportunity as he sees it. His lips crash to yours happily, his hands finding your waist over your sopping wet clothing. You smile softly against his lips. They’re so soft and warm, the very lips you’ve been staring at for a long time, imagining this. He’s gentle but loving and you deepen it. He follows immediately, parting his lips against yours and he sighs into your mouth. 

The two of you stand there, in his pool, making out, for quite a while. Finally, when he breaks away, looking at you through his water-drop-stained glasses, you grin. “This is your fault, you know. I’m gonna have to go home and change into dry clothing.”

“Or you could borrow some of mine,” he offers with a shy smile, and you grin.

“That works too.”

He kisses you one more time. “Will you stay the night? We don’t even have to… to do anything. I don’t even really want to yet. I just want to keep holding on to you.”

You nod and kiss him softly, for just a moment. “Of course I will.” -

You awaken in the morning to the smell of cooking. You live alone, and it makes your brow furrow in confusion, eyes still shut, until they open and you find yourself in Marcus’ home. His bed, specifically. 

You smell like chlorine and your hair is damp still, but you’re wearing a big black sweater that smells like detergent and cologne and sleep. It’s Marcus’s, you realize with a smile. 

Last night was truly perfect. No, you didn’t sleep with him yet, but it was still perfectly intimate, the way you held each other and whispered sweet words and pressed soft kisses all over each others’ faces and torsos. You’d made out for a fair amount of time too, just like teenagers again, but it was meaningful. 

You pad down the stairs, wearing just your underwear and one of Marcus’s big sweaters. He’s cooking breakfast in the kitchen, and your heart melts as you see him. “Good morning, superhero,” you coo as you wrap your arms around him from behind and press a kiss into his neck.

His body warms and melts into your touch. “Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?”

“Amazing. Your bed is insanely comfortable,” you chuckle and snuggle in against him, resting your head against his back. 

“I’m glad. Go sit down, breakfast will be ready in a bit.”

You nod and do exactly that, sitting across the kitchen island from him. He puts some pancakes on a plate, drizzles them with syrup, and slides it to you. “Bon appetit.”

“Thank you,” you grin and waste no time in cutting into them with a fork and taking a bite.

You sigh happily and Marcus’s heart can barely take the sight of it. “I can’t get over how a few months ago I wanted to learn your name and now you’re having breakfast with me in my sweater.”

“I can’t get over how cute you are,” you tease and pop another bite in your mouth. “The good news is that you can get over it, because I’m coming over here for breakfast in your clothes every day now.”

“Or you could live here.”

The proposal is so quiet, so sudden and nonchalant that it takes you aback for a minute. “What?”

He shrugs. “I know we’ve only been together for, what, 10 hours now, but Missy and I both adore you. You’re over here all the time anyway. Why don’t you? Save us both some money, too.”

You bite your lip to hold back a grin. “I might have to think about it.”

He nods. “I get that, I-“

“Done thinking. I’ll do it,” you grin happily. 

“Really?”

“Really,” you nod, giggling excitedly. 

Marcus leans across the kitchen counter and kisses you softly. “Be prepared for a lot of Moreno loving. Missy’s a cuddler.”

“I think I can take it,” you smile and press another kiss to his lips, with all of the love in your heart. 

-

translations:

vecina- neighbor (female)

muñeca- in this context, doll

-

hey taglist, come get y’all’s juice

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @softly-sad @blo0dangel @luxurybeskar @binarydanvvers @sleep-tight1

[mxndoscyarika]

Honeydew (Marcus Pike/Moreno x OC) | Chapter 3

Summary: Erin He moves to DC after working for the FBI in Texas and runs into a hero in disguise; Marcus Moreno. Something about him is familiar, too familiar, yet different in a way that she can’t quite place. Although confused, she can’t deny her feelings for him; perhaps, after years of regret, she finally found the one.

Warnings: food/drink, death mention, mention of politics

Ao3

Honeydew masterlist

Like my writing? Here’s my masterlist.

Author’s Note: Happy New Year, everyone! We made it! To celebrate, here’s the next chapter of Honeydew. I’d like to mention that this story takes place a few years BEFORE the events of We Can Be Heroes, so that’s why some things are a bit different from canon. If we make it far enough, there might be some allusions to the movie, but for now you can think of this as being set 3-5 years before the movie. Wishing you all a safe and healthy new year!

Erin locked her car and walked down the sidewalk to the entrance of the restaurant. She felt just a little bit overdressed with her pencil skirt and ruffled blouse, but it was a day full of meetings and she didn’t have extra time to change. Hopefully she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

When she walked in, she spotted Marcus sitting by a window, gazing out into the street. The daylight highlighted the curve of his nose beautifully, almost like a painting. His glasses framed his eyes perfectly, drawing attention to the warm brown of his irises and accentuating his strong jawline. The short beard on his cheek looked soft and kissable, though shorter than her Marcus kept his.

Her heart fluttered as she stepped into the dining area. Each step towards Marcus Moreno felt like one step further away from the past, from her Marcus.

But wouldn't her Marcus want her to be happy?

Stop getting your hopes up, she scolded herself. This isn’t a date.

Part of her wished it was. It was the same part of her that gravitated towards him after they met at Sachi’s party and filled her with warmth when he texted her for the first time.

She knew it was silly to develop feelings for him; he was probably too busy for relationships. After all, he had to take care of his daughter, Missy.

What if he already had a wife, too?

Her heart sank as she glanced down at his hands, which were clasped together on the table. Shining on his left hand was a ring.

Definitely not a date, then.

“Hi,” he greeted, his face lighting up when she approached. He rose to his feet to give her a hug. When they pulled apart, he took in her outfit. “Wow, you look...great.”

She blushed, hands still resting on his arms. “Thanks, you too. I must say, a suit looks good on you.”

“Oh this? It’s nothing,” he said, beaming. Before she could stop him, he pulled out her chair so she could sit. “I, uh, ordered you a coffee; you sounded tired on the phone when you called, so I figured you would want a little pick-me-up.”

In front of her was a mug filled with steaming coffee. It was a cappuccino–one of her go-to orders. When she wasn’t surviving off of plain coffee, she loved the warmth and luxury of the more elaborate form of caffeine. Sitting down, she asked, “Thank you. How do you know my coffee order?”

Marcus laughed softly, his cheeks flushed. “Lucky guess?”

“Very lucky, indeed,” she hummed, taking a sip. As she did, memories of a certain agent and cup of coffee raced back to her. It was such a lovely coincidence that both Marcuses managed to give her coffee in the sweetest way possible. Admiring his dress shirt and tie, she asked, “Are you coming from work, or do you always dress like this for lunch dates?”

She let out a breath of relief when he explained it was for work. The man sitting across from her was already beautiful–she wasn’t sure how she’d cope if he also wore suits every day.

Marcus explained that he worked for a group called the Heroics, which was the organization responsible for coordinating superpowered individuals to protect the world. There was a dress code for those working in the offices, though sometimes the heroes staying behind could be ready in their super attire.

The Heroics were a fairly new group, one that the government had seemed interested in working with. However, most of the information was classified and only relayed to those working at the Pentagon. With the rising concerns of police brutality and the acceleration of technology, the world was searching for a newer, better, way to keep civilians safe.

When she asked him what position he had, he groaned playfully. Even after all this time, his honeydew never rested. He tried to ignore what that meant for her during the past few years. “Isn’t this supposed to be our break from work, honey?”

“What, can’t a girl be curious?” she teased, tilting her head.

Marcus chuckled, heat rushing up to his face when he realized his eyes had fallen to her red lips. Without thinking, he reached across the table to take her hand into his. “How about this: I’ll tell you later if you can make it through lunch without talking about work.”

She huffed playfully. “Alright, you win.” Rubbing her thumb along his fingers, she asked, “What do you want to talk about, Mr. Moreno?”

Everything. He wanted to talk about everything. Yet at the same time, he wanted to talk about nothing; he just wanted to spend time with his best friend.

But he was Marcus Moreno, not Marcus Pike. Even if she was his best friend, he wasn’t hers.

“I guess I just want to get to know you better,” he said, shrugging. The corners of his mouth curved up in a soft smile. “What does Erin He, the FBI’s Operational Technologies Supervisor, do in her free time?”

“Not that I have much free time these days,” she began, “but, I like making things. Food and art, mostly. There’s a new art gallery opening nearby. I’ve been meaning to go but work has taken up a lot of time. That, and most of my friends aren’t really into that kind of stuff.”

Back in Texas, Marcus had introduced her to the prospect of viewing and enjoying art, not just creating it. At first she’d been hesitant–she never really enjoyed walking through museums or galleries–but listening to Marcus’s interpretations of the artwork, and then offering her own, made her reconsider it. Maybe it was the art; maybe it was the company and quality time that used to come with it. It became a part of her life, a treat to herself amidst the bright screens and headaches. It was her escape from the world, even if it was short-lived.

She just wished Marcus could’ve been there in her years after moving to DC.

Marcus smiled. “Well, I’d love to go with you someday. Maybe not during the week, but one day when Missy’s over at a friend’s house.”

At the mention of his daughter, Erin remembered his wedding ring. Her stomach churned at the thought of keeping him away from his family. Retracting her hand, she said, “Oh, right. Of course…. But wouldn’t you want to spend time with your wife?”

His brows furrowed with confusion, then he followed her eyes to his ring. He smiled sadly. “Oh, right. I forgot to tell you…my wife passed away a few years ago.” He tapped on the metal band. “I used to see this as a symbol of my marriage, but now I like to consider it a reminder of my daughter. A reminder that I have someone waiting for me to come home and provide for.”

There were days when he missed his wife more than others, like whenever Missy would come home from school with an art project made for Mother’s Day. Or when she’d want to try new hairstyles or try on clothes at the mall. It had been years, but there were just some things he couldn’t be no matter how much he tried.

“I’m sorry,” Erin said. Offering him a small smile, she added, “For what it’s worth, I’m sure you’re a great dad.”

She always knew what to say, always a step ahead. He’d missed that about her. “I don’t have the best track record with relationships,” he replied, letting out a huff of laughter. “Let’s just say that.”

“You’re not alone in that camp,” Erin replied. She played with the corner of her napkin. “Though I must say I’ve never made it far enough to have a kid of my own, so you’ve got that going for you.”

“Why not?” He knew dating while working for the FBI was always a tricky situation, but he never thought that she, of all people, would have trouble finding someone. She was sweet, hardworking, and smarter than everyone he knew. She was....everything he ever looked for in a partner. Having lunch with her, getting to relearn what it felt like to be her friend, was everything.

But he also knew her. He understood her dedication to her work, and why she worked long hours at the office. He did the same, too. Well, until he met his wife and had Missy.

Did Erin ever get to experience that feeling? The feeling of being home and content and loved? Did he take that feeling with him when he erased his identity from the world?

She was about to answer when a waitress came up to the table to take their orders. Once the waitress left, she turned back to Marcus. “Let’s just say there was an old friend, one that I can’t ever replace.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, so quiet that she almost missed it.

Why did it sound like an apology?

Taking a deep breath, she changed the subject. “Well, it was a long time ago, anyways. I’m just happy that I met you. Tell me, Marcus: what do you like to do in your free time?”

They talked about everything they could think of, basking in comfortable silences once the food arrived. It was all easy; almost too easy. But Erin couldn’t help but let it wash over her. It had been a long, long time since she felt at peace with everything. There was just something about the way Marcus smiled that was comforting, like a hug from an old friend. His humble–almost shy–demeanor only served to draw her in. She quickly realized that, at the end of the day, he was just a man trying to do right by his daughter.

When the bill arrived, he didn’t hesitate to slip in his card and give it back to the waitress. “Don’t worry about it, honey. It’s my treat.” Winking at Erin, he said, “Maybe next time.”

---

After lunch with Marcus, the day passed in a blur. The meetings were long, but not as unbearable as she expected. Even the piles of feedback on her desk didn’t feel as daunting as they usually did. When she left the office, the weight of the folders in her arms weren’t as heavy.

Erin had just finished cleaning up the kitchen when her phone rang, buzzing against the counter. She didn’t even need to glance at the screen to know it was him; she had a special ringtone set up.

Putting the call on speaker, she answered, “Hi Marcus!”

“Hey Erin!”

Warmth filled her chest as he thanked her for having lunch with him. His voice was as soothing as ever, even through the phone. She could have listened to him talk all night.

“I had a great time, too,” she replied, beaming. Sitting on her kitchen counter, she must’ve looked ridiculous with her hair in damp tendrils. Thankfully, Marcus hadn’t decided to do a video call. “I mean it. I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in a while.”

A soft chuckle. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t bore you too much.”

She scoffed. “You could never.” Maybe to some he would be boring, but to her? He was everything. His late wife was a lucky woman, and Missy was a lucky girl. Marcus was everything she ever wanted; he was kind, thoughtful, secure. And although they’d parted ways with nothing more than a promised call, she never felt so happy.

“Actually, I was wondering–”

He stopped as a little voice piped up near him. It must’ve been Missy, his little girl. Erin could just barely hear her ask, “Who is that?”

Biting her lip, she listened on as Marcus chuckled softly and bashfully answered, “She’s, uh, a friend of mine.”

“Is she a girlfriend?”

“N-no,” he stammered, laughing nervously. “She’s just a friend.”

“Is she pretty?”

His answer made her cover her face and fight to contain a squeal. “Yes, she’s very pretty.” A pause. “Shouldn’t you be in bed, sweetie? Why don’t you get in first, I’ll be right there.”

Erin waited patiently as silence settled in the kitchen once again. Her cheeks were hurting from smiling, and she was sure she’d feel it the next morning. He thought she was pretty!

Marcus returned with a sigh. “Sorry about that, Missy can get a little curious sometimes.”

“It’s alright,” she replied, hoping she didn’t sound too giddy. “She’s cute. What were you going to ask me?”

Silence. Then, he said, “Oh, right. I was wondering if, maybe, you wanted to get dinner sometime later this week?”

Her heart raced as she realized what he wanted. It had been so long; what would she wear? Did he already have a restaurant in mind? Did he really want to take her out to dinner?

Was it a date?

Already deep into the whirlwind of questions, she realized she hadn’t responded yet. Without thinking, she said, “Yes. It’s a date!”

You couldn’t have been more subtle?

She braced herself for the rejection, but it never came.

“It’s a date,” Marcus repeated softly, almost as if he were saying it to himself. A soft laugh. “I should probably, uh, go check on Missy. We can figure out the details of our date later, alright?” His voice somehow turned even softer, like velvet. “Goodnight, honeydew.”

Erin yawned, the day’s exhaustion finally setting in. Maybe those files could wait until the morning.

“Goodnight, Marcus.”

< previous chapter | next chapter >

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[self-preservation-fic]

hello. i just miss these two. any ideas what they're up to? <3

I sure do! I’m pretty busy with the other fandom I’m in at the moment, but I keep going back and working on the second part of this fic because it’s been my baby for forever and I’m not about to let it go :’) 

Where the sequel begins, the guys are on Christmas break, Marcus is with his parents + sister, Oliver is off with his own family. The second fic is going to have a darker tone with some family drama. (And some Oliver POV  👀) The main plot will centre around Marcus making his decision on what to do after her graduates and whether he wants to help the Order of the Phoenix out or not have any part in the conflict to come. 

Here’s a snippet from the beginning of the fic, I’m rating it M for some not-explicit sexual content. Please forgive any grammar/spelling errors, it’s still rough! 

+++

Marcus let his door swing open on silent hinges. His room was way cleaner than Marcus had ever kept it. All of his personal belongings tucked neatly away and the covers pulled taut across so taut across the bed he wondered if they were meant to pin him there. He felt like an adult stuck in a dollhouse and this room wasn’t his anymore. Everything of value he’d brought with him to Hogwarts, he didn’t trust it here alone.

Marcus was careful to hang up his suit before pulling on sweats and rifling through his drawers for a shirt. All of his pent up worrying from the train ride here had manifested itself in a nearly compulsive need to run. He had to dig into the bowels of his drawers to find an appropriately ratty t-shirt.

As he searched, he could pick out the careful tread of his mother’s footsteps down the hall. Drafty old houses with minimal insulation were perfect for eavesdropping and terrible for keeping secrets.

“Come in,” he called, snagging a t-shirt when he heard the wrap of her knuckles against the door. He made sure to raise his voice just loud enough for her to hear, not more.

The door creaked on its hinges. “I just want to know--” her voice was cut off by a sharp intake of breath. Marcus froze, shirt halfway on, he was about to hall it over his head when his mother’s voice stopped him.

“Marcus, honey, what happened?”

Shit, he knew what she saw and couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t pretty, the round pink scar on his right shoulder, the skin raised and puckered like a muggle bullet wound. Magic always leaves a mark, Marcus thought ruefully.

“What did you do?” she asked and Marcus could feel the prickle of heat creeping down his back.

“It’s nothing Mom, it was stupid.” He assured, tugging his shirt the rest of the way down and turning to meet her gaze.

Her eyes stuck to his shoulder as if she could see right through him. “That doesn’t look like nothing to me.”

“I was protecting a friend,” he settled, knowing she wouldn’t drop it until he gave her something.

That pricked her interests. “Do I know this friend?”

“No--I don’t know--maybe.” He turned back around and busied himself with grabbing random items of clothing from his luggage for her to give the house elf to wash. No matter where you lived and who you descended from, everyone knew everyone else's business at Hogwarts. He wondered if he told her Oliver’s name if she’d remember going to school with his mother. He wondered how long she’d try to pretend it was okay that they talked.

“Okay,” she acquiesced, quietly, and he let out a nearly restrained sigh of quiet relief.

He handed her the messy bundle he’d collected, and when she took it from him her hands trapped his, holding him tight and forcing him to look her in the eyes for the first time since he’d arrived. Their warm hazel had turned watery. “You know you can always talk to me, I love you so much.” Her bottom lip wobbled slightly and Marcus sighed.

“Mom--” Detaching her hands gently from where they gripped him, he pulled her in over the laundry. She was a tall woman, but even with the bundle pressed between them she still felt small. “Of course I know,” he said, trying his best not to ruffle her perfectly waved hair.

“I just wish you’d write more,” She whispered and he swallowed, sometimes he forgot how long it must be for her in between visits. Time always flew by at Hogwarts and Marcus had always been shit at writing, like he was shit at reading, and it was just easier not to do it most of the time even if he did have something to say. He was blanking now. Lips glued shut.

“I know, I’m sorry.” was all that he could say. It felt lame out in the air between him. All that worry had transformed into leaden guilty in his stomach. There had hardly been any room left to breathe this year between school quidditch, his father--Oliver-- somehow between all of that part of him had forgotten about his mom. “Sorry,” he repeated, and it still doesn't feel like enough.

When she pulled away she waved her hand as if she could dispel her own emotion. Her voice was still thin when she spoke. “Don’t worry about me, I’m just being silly.”

He gripped her shoulders, giving them a squeeze as if he could instill in her the confidence he himself didn’t feel. “Mom, you're not being silly. I should have written, I’m sorry. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said with a nod and he let her shoulders go. The hand not clutching the bundle drifted up to brush his hair back and down the side of his face. “Oh, sweetheart wish you’d talk to me.”

Marcus clenched his eyes shut. He was really not prepared to do this now.  “Mom--”

“Estelle!” Marcus felt her fingers reflexively tense against his cheek at his father’s voice calling from bellow-stairs. He opened his eyes, standing up straighter, not realizing that he’d sagged into her palm.

Stepping back her lip caught between her teeth and he gave her a smile, saying in the most reassuring voice he could muster. “It's alright, I’m okay.”

With a hesitant nod, she turned, stepping from the room and closing the door softly between them. He waited until he heard her heels clicking back down the hall.

Sagging against the door, Marcus let his head thump back against the door. Pinching his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his now, he suppressed the quelling frustration and anger under his skin, picturing instead a pair of deft arms holding him up. He let out a shuddering breath. He couldn’t leave, he couldn’t and it made him nauseous.

Fishing a flimsy chain out of the pocket of his sweats, Marcus inspected the transfigured metal chain with a small lion gangling from it once again as if he hadn't spent the entire train ride doing so when he thought nobody was watching. It had meant to be a joke, Oliver had produced it from seemingly nowhere and presented it to him with a wry smile. It was the sort of trinket you’d find in Hogsmead shops selling quidditch memorabilia.

“So you don’t forget me,” Oliver had said with an undercurrent of hopeful honesty. He was laid out on Marcus’ bed in his dormitory, looking very at home there, Marcus sat cross-legged on the mattress beside him.

“You shouldn't have,” Marcus had said drily, eyeing the lion as it gave a soundless roar. He put it on anyways, because it made Oliver smile. “And I didn’t get you anything?” Marcus had said, bending over to crowd him against the mattress to press a quick succession of messy kisses to Oliver's face as he had half-heartedly tried to escape.

Eventually, he had stopped the assault, keeping close so that he could more easily study Oliver’s face. It was only Christmas, but he didn’t want to forget a single thing about it. Slowly the smile Marcus had put there slipped from Olver’s face. A warm, square hand reached up to smooth the hair from his face. Marcus allowed himself to melt into the touch, knowing that soon it wouldn’t be there at all. “No, really, you shouldn’t have,” he had said, whispering even though no one was around. He wanted Oliver to know the words were only for him. “Could never forget you.”

The hand in his hair brought him down until his face was pressed to the hinge of Oliver’s jaw, breathing in the comforting scent of his body and trying to pretend he wasn’t about to fall apart.

Fingers carded through his hair as his breath caught and held in his throat. Wrapping one hand around Oliver’s waist the other wormed up under his sweater to feel the warm skin and smooth planes of muscle that hid there. He knew he wasn’t making any noises--he was barely breathing as it was--and yet Oliver was still murmuring shhh noises into his hair.

“Marc, hey, look at me.” Marcuse reluctantly pulled back, just enough to do so while still keeping Oliver close as they lay on their sides. Oliver worried at his lip, his fingers continuing their trail from his brow, down the uneven line of his nose, to the thin set of his lips and the dip in his chin before Marcus caught it and tangled it in his own.

“Hey,” Oliver repeated, looking hesitant and apprehension welled up in Marcus’ chest before he finally stopped worrying at his lip and squeezed Marcus’ hand hard enough to almost be painful. “I love you.”

The rushing sound in his head was so loud he barely heard the pained noise that ripped from his chest. Bending down to press his mouth firmly against Oliver’s own, his brain hazy with want, he repeated I love you, I love you, I love you--over and over in his head. Oliver opened for him willingly, making soft noises against his mouth, his fingers tightening and tugging lightly in Marcus’ hair. Tilted his head, he let himself sink into the soft warmth of his mouth, pushing his hands up further to feel Oliver’s ribs expand and contract tightly under his fingers.

Pulling back he gasped. “I--I--” the words getting trapped in his throat.

“Shhh,” Oliver said, sweeping his thumb over the swell of his bottom lip, then up over the arch of his cheeks. “It’s okay I know.”

Kissing wetly over his jaw and down his neck in apology. He has so many things to apologize for. Rucking his hands up to brush a thumb over his nipple, Oliver’s breath hitched and he full body tensed before relaxing boneless into the bed with a sigh. Pressing a line of kisses down his breast bone, Oliver arched into his touch as he reached the soft dip of his stomach nosing at the fine line of hair there.

Marcus wished it didn’t have to be like this, he wondered how long Oliver would put up with it, how far his patience would stretch. Tugging on his hair, Marcus looked up and this time Oliver’s eyes weren't hesitant, but fierce. “I love you,” Oliver said and Marcus felt it burn hot and quick in his chest. Overwhelmed, he gripped Oliver’s hand tighter before pulling it away to make quick work of his belt.

Mouthing a wet spot into the fabric of his boxers, Marcus lingered there before hooking his fingers in and tugging it down. He sucked a possessive bruise into the soft skin of Oliver’s abdomen as he panted wetly above him. Marcus comes with Oliver’s hands wound in his hair, his body curled taught over him and a hand down the front of his pants. He let Oliver come in his mouth, breathing “I love you’s” in a mantra around shaky moans. Marcus squeezed his eyes through the wetness prickling at the corners and moaned in turn.

Marcus blinked back to the present, thumbing the lion in consideration. Everything about it was just so achingly Oliver. Moving over to the mirror over his dresser, he fastened it around his neck. The chain was short but just long enough to tuck under the collar of his shit, hidden away and safe. The metal was cold against his skin, pressing his palm over it, he felt the indentation through the fabric as it slowly grew skin-warm, a heavy comfort against the hollow of his throat.

[angelatiwi]

【literature and art Commentary】See clearly the face of the "dangai drama" By National Radio and Television Zhiku

Guide : Not long ago, "Dangai Drama" and "Shanhe Ling" became a hit and attracted social attention. "Dangai Opera" became a hot topic for a while. Many production organizations have heard the news. According to relevant information, there are more than 80 Danchang dramas to be broadcast this year, already started, and in preparation. In 2021, they were dubbed "Dangai 101" by netizens. Why this niche subculture became a film A new outlet for the show? Is there really a market need or a capital marketing effect?

One, Capital is acting an increasingly important role in the development of Dangai dramas Tanmei, originally meaning "wonderful, aestheticism", Tanmei culture mainly refers to cultural works that express the love between two men and target women as the audience. Since it was introduced to Mainland China via the Internet in the late 1990s, it was first popular with comics and online novels. Since 2014, the web drama "Counterattack" has been adapted from online texts, and the development of Chinese dramas has been on the fast track. Among them, there are several iconic dramas. 

For example, in 2016, "Addicted", this youthful campus-themed drama, was taken off the shelves due to its overly explicit content and obvious violation of online audiovisual-related policies. However, its spread was rapid, breaking through 10 million in 24 hours before it was released, and 100 million before it was removed. In 2017, "Guardian" embodies a strong desire to survive in its creation. For the first time, the male love in the original work was changed to brotherhood, and the final broadcast volume exceeded 3.2 billion. The overall production of the drama is not excellent, even slightly rough in special effects, but for the first time it became popular with two top stars. In 2018, "Chen Qing Ling" was a purely commercial creation after capital intervention. From planning, production, dissemination, and even peripheral product development, the entire process and the entire industry chain were firmly controlled by commercial capital, becoming a phenomenon-level network of the year. Drama, a single episode has 113 million views, and the total number of views currently exceeds 9.1 billion. The 2021 "Shanhe Ling" is a reprint similar to "Chen Qingling", with more than 1.27 billion broadcasts.

From the perspective of the development process of Dangai drama, there are two notable features : First, from the content point of view, under the background of increasingly strict policy supervision, the desire to survive is becoming stronger and stronger. The male love component in Danmei literature is weakening, and it is basically transformed into brotherhood and confidant love, gradually move closer to mainstream values; Second, with the intervention of commercial capital, Dangai drama has long been not only a special film and television drama theme, but has become a new format that is more and more closely integrated with capital and fan economy. It is like a new industry investment outlet, and it is also a fast Star-making tools have an increasing impact on young people, but they are also prone to proliferation of themes, causing problems such as chasing stars and excessive entertainment.

two,

Why did the drama come out?

First of all, from the perspective of subject matter, due to policy restrictions, Danmei culture has always been in a relatively recessive subcultural position, a taboo place for industry creation, and the Internet is a flexible, The free "heterotopia" provides the soil for the prosperity of Danmei literature, and fully releases the "audience's eros creativity" (Marcuse language). Through their own participation, Internet audiences, such as writing fanarts, in turn promote Danmei literature The development of online literature, and as the commercialization mechanism of online literature becomes more and more mature, the influence of Danmei literature is also growing, forming a huge fan group, which has become the most important soil for the prosperity of Dangai drama.

Secondly, it is also related to the homogenization of the current love genre drama series. Looking at some of the current romantic dramas, whether it is a modern sweet pet drama or an ancient costume fantasy drama, there is a core creative mode that allows the hero and heroine to "sprinkle sugar" anytime, anywhere, In addition, there are some romantic dramas that do not respect the rules of artistic creation. They create emotional conflicts through sadomasochism, triangle love and even polygamy between men and women, which are easy to be assimilated and routine, and love such as "the domineering president falls in love with me" drama, There is also the suspicion of dwarfing and objectifying women. On the other hand, Dangai drama does not deny the masculine and rough part of men, but at the same time removes the overly feminine part of men, providing a relatively novel emotional model. Just as netizens commented, "When the audience watch Dangai drama, they just want to see the emotions of evenness and detachment from gender. This is an important reason for delaying the change of the drama to get out of the circle." 

From a deeper reason, it is because with the economic and social development, the improvement of women’s economic status has brought about the awakening of women’s consciousness and the tremendous increase in spending power. Few works actively cater to women’s preferences, including consumption of male sex. Many Danmei dramas are typical popular cultures written by women, presupposed with female audiences, and women as the absolute main consumer. Looking at the dramas that are out of the circle, the biggest feature is that the appearance of the two male protagonists must be high, and their behavior interaction must also meet the aesthetic expectations of women.

three,

What problems will the prosperous creation of Dangai drama bring?

Dangai drama originated from Danmei culture. Although it is constantly evolving under the dual drive of policy pressure and commercial interests, it shows marginal values after all, and is a subculture that is more suitable for enclosing self-initiation. Once Danmei's text was adapted into a Dangai drama, it has a larger audience, and its dissemination and influence are also greater. If it is allowed to over-market, large-scale follow-up creation and other bad tendencies, it will not only have an impact on mainstream culture and mainstream value, but also on the industry trend. It will also bring adverse effects, and we must pay attention to it. 

First, it has an impact on the values of young people "Ban Yue Tan" once pointed out that "Dangai drama enters the field of mass entertainment, and you need to beware of its adverse effects, especially on young people who are not deeply involved in the world. Research has shown that the motivation for many young people to first come into contact with danmei culture is that they are influenced by their peers, and then they "enter into the pit" under the attitude of being curious. In a survey of female audiences aged 15-23, in the question "What factors make you start reading Danmei literature", the second-ranked option is "Affected by CP orientation in animation, film and television, and variety shows". The establishment and broadcasting of so many delay-change dramas will objectively stimulate the soil of "corrupt culture", which may confuse young people who are in the critical period of shaping their outlook on life and values, and their aesthetics will be biased. As the article "Guang Ming Daily" stated, "When Danmei culture has stepped onto the cultural front and is known and obsessed by more and more people, the problem is not that simple when it even has an impact on mainstream values." 

Second, the marketing chaos of delayed reform dramas will damage the industry's trend

With the rise of Danmei culture, excessive marketing has acted a role in fueling the flames, and these marketing platforms are often inextricably linked with production agencies, and they will take the initiative to set up issues, such as in the Weibo Chaohua community, movies, TV series, and animation In the ranking list, the topic of "male and male CP" in some Danmei-themed works not only appears on the list, but also often occupies the top rankings. In addition, although some dramas have reduced the affection between men and men in content, they have strengthened or even extreme in marketing. They are ubiquitously hyping up the ambiguous emotions and behaviors of men and men, promote marginal values and emotional views, impact the mainstream value sentiment, and disrupt the network environment. And order is more likely to overwhelm and obscure mainstream voices. As some media publications pointed out, "We should not be wary of Danmei culture itself, but after some companies have tasted the sweetness, they have bottomless hype and excessive consumption of "corrupt culture" in order to cater to market demand."

Third, Dangai dramas cannot carry serious and heavy mainstream value expressions 

The characteristic of Dangai literature is that it is mostly confined to the overhead world, exaggerating the sorrows and joys of the individual. Its characteristics determine that this subject is difficult to carry an epic and heavy narrative, and some Dangai dramas highlight the male on the screen in order to attract attention. The ambiguous teasing of body language, some can't bear to look directly, show a tendency to be vulgar and low. The competent authority has repeatedly emphasized that the creation of TV dramas must follow the requirements of "finding the right topic, telling the story, and making a good shot", and fulfilling its duties and mission, the first is to find the right topic. Literary and artistic creation advocates a hundred flowers blooming, but realism must be the mainstream of the topic selection and the mainstream of creation, because fundamentally speaking, socialist literature and art are essentially people’s literature and art, which must reflect the most mainstream life and promote the most mainstream values. From the creations in recent years, we can also see that only by adhering to a realistic attitude, describing the characteristics of the times, and showing the spirit of the people, can we resonate with the audience and give full eduction to the spiritual inspiration of literature and art. 

Fourth, the creation of Dangai dramas can easily lead to a utilitarian mentality. 

The appearance of Dangai drama can make the starring famous quickly and become a shortcut to fame and wealth. As a result, many young actors are eager to appear in dramas, and there are even mature actors who want to take the opportunity to become popular. Netizens ridiculed them as "too utilitarian and ugly to eat." "If young actors don't want to sink down to hone their acting skills, but are rushing to shoot and change dramas to become traffic stars, who would be willing to act in reality-themed TV dramas in a down-to-earth manner? In fact, in recent years, under the control of the national authorities, the problems of star chasing and excessive entertainment have been brought under control. Many real acting actors have ushered in the spring, and the industry atmosphere has been invigorated. This is countless down-to-earth. The actor's hard work is hard-won If the opening of the Dangai drama is opened, there will be a resurgence of problems such as traffic fraud, exaggerated acting skills, and even sky-high pay.

It can be seen that the large-scale follow-up of the drama is not as simple as the theme of overheating, but also involves the issue of value orientation. If it is not properly guided, on the one hand, it may have a negative impact on the values and aesthetics of young people. On the other hand, it may make industry creation move toward utilitarianism and speculation, and it may be in line with the core socialist values. There are conflicts in the socialist views on literature and art. How to supervise this new form of literature and art is a test of the wisdom of the competent authorities.

Literature and art is the clarion call for the advancement of the times. It can best represent the style of an era and can best lead the trend of an era. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized :”Chinese writers and artists should be the forerunners, pioneers, and pioneers of the times, and write and record the great practices of the people and the progress requirements of the times through more muscular, moral, and warm literary works, and demonstrate the beauty and nobility of faith. The beauty of China promotes the Chinese spirit and gathers Chinese power.” Literary and artistic creation must firmly grasp the correct orientation, insist on putting social benefits in the first place, and unifying social and economic benefits. "Dangai 101" phenomenon urgently needs to be strengthened by all parties concerned to conduct fine management, especially in the face of large-scale project establishment and broadcasting of delay dramas. It is also necessary to consider the establishment of an early warning mechanism for themes, and the industry value orientation and creative wind direction. In addition, it requires the joint efforts of the entire industry, especially the major creative communication agencies, to further enhance cultural awareness and responsibility, adhere to the people-centered approach, and actively invest the most advantageous resources in realistic themes. The majority of actors should sink their bodies, hone their acting skills down-to-earth, and use more profound thoughts, exquisite art, and well-made excellent works to create a biography for the people, statues for the times, and souls for the nation.

(Author's unit: Development Research Center of the State Administration of Radio and Television) 

 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Ub89VUIqXFMSY8pDdbdZHQ

[olreid]

Would high key read the three thousand words you wrote if you ever felt like posting it. How would you have ended the show/rewritten the last season? If that’s too broad, would love more of your thoughts on the maroon storyline and madi

omg... i mean if i were to do s4 over it would be like. we spend 90% less screentime on the romantic lives of imperialists and give all that screentime to the maroons and/or julius’s people once they rebel, less pointless torture e.g. teach’s death onscreen and more emphasis on like. the political organizing both billy and the maroons/flint and silver were doing to try and win back nassau.... 

if i were just rewriting the finale i think this person does a pretty good job of giving a coherent ending but i honestly barely even know where 2 BEGIN because the finale is really just the most extreme manifestation of recurring ~bad political takes that i think were avoidable, and which more than how any one character’s storyline ended is really my issue with black sails as a show. 

bc basically for the finale or really any of season 4 to work, you have to buy in to silver’s framing of the war on england as just a big ‘cycle of violence’ with little difference between violence done by england and violence done by pirates or maroons. (silver’s not the only character to put forward this framing -- eleanor and max also have s4 monologues about how they want an end to violence no matter what.) flint and jack/anne/max’s endings are framed as wins because they have achieved “peace” and left violence behind them, bolstering the implicit claim that all violence is essentially the same. to [sorry] quote marcuse, “we should have the theoretical courage not to identify the violence of liberation with the violence of oppression”!!! and what’s so frustrating is we DO see that distinction being made at other points in the show! flint says he will do GREAT violence to england, and that is seen as a justifiable position within the narrative. and so for them to go back on that by THROUGHOUT season 4 having max, eleanor, and silver be giving these monologues about how the most important thing is not who triumphs in the england vs. rebels conflict but the fact that the violence ends.... like CLEARLY you failed to contend with the political stakes of the conflict that YOU SET UP, because that conflict -- which is at the root of imperialism -- cannot and WILL NOT go away just because a couple people decide that they’re tired of getting hurt ! that violence doesn’t go away because one pirate says so... there IS no walking away from that fundamental struggle between oppression and liberation; either you see it passed down to those who come after you or you turn your back on it at the expense of others. and instead of showing in any way that the struggle against england continued on -- which it DID in real life with more maroon wars, revolts on plantations, etc. -- they elected to show all the main characters walking away and calling it a day. and not with any reckoning as to what it would mean to choose one’s own freedom knowing that others are still in bondage, but this wasn't really given any consideration or airtime. i certainly think there’s space to reckon with the huge losses that come with revolutionary struggle, and i think there was a place for it in the show, but to do it in a way that falsely equates the violence of anti-imperial struggle with the violence of imperial oppression is i think really irresponsible, and ultimately just made me not buy any of the ~wrap-up they tried to do in the finale. even as a tragic ending i think it falls short, because they're trying to tell me that the stakes are something different than what they are.

re: madi and the maroons,, i just think it sucks that madi was basically brought on to be this love interest for silver because we really didn’t get to see much of the maroons’ story or politics outside of that, especially in s4... and the parts we did see didn’t come until after silver “died” in the bay of nassau... like literally madi’s best scenes are when she thinks silver is dead and is like negotiating with billy and flint and then when she’s talking with the governor first in prison in the fort and then on his ship... any time silver’s with her it’s just like about how scared he is of losing her or about whether she or flint is closer to silver and like if it was a different character okay, but the fact that she is the only representative of the maroons on the show and she was just essentially someone for silver to project his fears of loss onto... insulting... and that his posture to her all season is just like i know better than you what this war will cost and i’m not going to let you pay that price... even if i have to manipulate you into having to give up the war... HELLO? i just think they could have done a lot more with her and with adding the maroon alliance in -- which was a twist i was super excited about !! but it just ended up being like Silver Finds a Wife featuring 2 really cool monologues. hard 2 watch.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Cultural Marxism is at the Heart of Our Moral Disintegration

I had thought Jennifer Roback Morse was getting to the heart of the matter when she pivoted to a focus on the victims of the Sexual Revolution. Her undoubtedly correct view is that gay so-called “marriage” did not start with the gays; rather, the Sexual Revolution prepared the ground beginning in the 1960s.

In The Devil’s Pleasure Palace (Encounter Books), Michael Walsh explains there is something even more fundamental at the heart of the matter, and the Sexual Revolution is only part of it. What lay at the heart of the matter are Cultural Marxism, Critical Theory and the institute that spawned them, the Institute for Social Research, commonly known as the Frankfurt School.

You know these better than you think. In fact, their ideas are coursing not only through all of society, but through your own veins whether you know it or not.

Consider first psychiatrist William Reich, the man who, in 1936, coined the term “sexual revolution” in a book of the same name. Reich was a crackpot of the first order. Eventually even his Freudian colleagues avoided him like the plague. All his books had to be privately published. Quite simply, Reich was sex-mad and very likely insane. Even his photograph in Wikipedia makes him look like an inveterate masturbator. He massaged his nude patients and in 1920s Catholic Vienna advocated contraceptives, abortion, and divorce.

Reich wanted to reconcile psychoanalysis with Marxism and believed that economic Marxism would fail because of the repressed sexuality of the proletariat.

Reich was a paid up member of the Frankfurt School who eventually made his way to the United States, where he invented an orgasm machine later mocked as the “orgasmitron” by sex-mad Woody Allen in his movie Sleeper. He later died in prison after conning people into buying his hilarious machine. The Food and Drug Administration actually burned several tons of his books.

According to Michael Walsh, Reich was one of the most influential members of the Frankfurt School. How influential? During the student riots of 1968 in Paris and Berlin, students threw copies of his book The Mass Psychology of Fascism at the cops. They scrawled his name on walls. But, more than that, the Sexual Revolution he theorized is now the common currency, the lingua franca of our age.

The Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School believed economic Marxism would fail because of the resistance of the working classes. They believed Marxism could only ever be achieved by undermining the institutions, all of them. They began what they called the long march through the institutions. Who would have thought even a few years ago that the Boy Scouts would go gay? The Frankfurt School would have.

Critical Theory is central to their plan. More than likely, whether you knew it or not, this is what you got in college and probably even in high school. This will sound familiar to you, as familiar as the bromides you now hear from the students at the University of Missouri. Critical Theory seeks societal transformation through the emancipation of mankind from all forms of slavery. The slavers happen to be the Church, the family, and the free market.

When you hear someone badmouthing American history that is Critical Theory. The incessant intonations against the Crusades? Critical Theory. The patriarchal family, rape culture, multiculturalism, political correctness, speech codes; all Critical Theory. The idea is to make you question everything, and in the questioning, institutions fall.

You can even hear Critical Theory in the mouth of our president, When he sneers about orthodox Christians, it comes not from his supposed love of Islam, but his training in Critical Theory and Cultural Marxism, which he learned from his own father’s bitterness, from Communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, from his professors, and from Saul Alinsky. Obama truly is the most radical person ever to occupy the White House for he wants to tear down the institutions that have made and protected our country.

You may never have heard of some of them: Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, who were inspired by Antonio Gramsci. You may know a few of their names: Herbert Marcuse, and Eric Fromm. They were wicked men who hated Western Civilization. Most brought their poison to the United States during the Second World War, or shortly thereafter.

It is astonishing to think that this overtly Marxist institute founded to undermine Western Civilization was actually invited to move its operation to Columbia University in 1935. From this lofty perch, these men began the drip of poison into American culture.

Michael Walsh tells a highly readable tale of these men, though he does not begin in the twentieth century, and he does not focus on sociology, psychology, or the other soft sciences, but rather on art, specifically opera. He shows how the ground was prepared for the Cultural Marxists by the artistic nihilists of the nineteenth century.

Walsh was the longtime classical music critic for Time Magazine and before that the San Francisco Examiner. He has written novels, biographies, and screen plays that have been made into movies. He began writing about politics in 2007 at National Review under the name David Kahane, and under that name published a counter to Saul Alinsky called Rules for Radical Conservatives.

In case you were wondering, Walsh is a faithful Catholic who is ardently pro-life and pro-marriage, both of which he addresses in The Devil’s Pleasure Palace. He is overtly religious in this book, arguing that our struggle against Cultural Marxism is a fight against Satan himself.

Walsh understands that the US may have defeated an empire, but we did not defeat the idea. Marxism is alive and well, hale and hearty, and practically everywhere; down at the community college, the town hall, even at the Elks’ Club. It is in the air we breathe.

Walsh is not pessimistic, however. He believes Cultural Marxism is spent, but, just like the fingernails on a cadaver, may still grow, and that these people and their evil theory will continue to do damage and harm souls, and it is up to us first to recognize what is truly at the heart of the matter, and then to stop it.

BY: AUSTIN RUSE

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

[antoine-roquentin]

this is very funny because

Let me begin, then, by acknowledging that the loony right-wing conspiracy theory to which Moyn refers in his article definitely does exist. It is out there. There are certain people—likely those who have never read more than a few words of the 20th century Marxist and Marx-inspired thinkers of whom they speak—who have argued there was an intentional, conspiratorial plot by, inter alia, members of what was known as the “Frankfurt School” to subvert and destroy Western high culture, dumb it down and corrupt it from the inside out in order to seed the ground for the coming Communist revolution. 

okay, sure, so the respectable right uses cultural marxism as something other than a belief that the frankfurt school uses the weapon of critique to undermine the sacred cows (hierarchy) that underpin western civilization and should thus remain above reproach. so what exactly does it really mean?

So what is cultural Marxism? In brief, it is a belief that cultural productions (books, institutions, etc.) and ideas are emanations of underlying power structures, so we must scrutinize and judge all culture and ideas based on their relation to power. Following from this premise, advocates for the persecuted and oppressed must attack forms of culture that reinscribe the values of the ruling class, and disseminate culture and ideas that support “oppressed” groups and “progressive” causes....

Cultural Marxism was no conspiracy, but it is also no mere right-wing “phantasmagoria.” It was and remains a coherent intellectual program, a constellation of dangerous ideas. Aspects of these ideas, to their credit, brought the West’s dirty laundry into the limelight and inaugurated a period of necessary housecleaning that was, indeed, overdue. But their obsessive focus on our societal dirt—real and perceived “injustice,” “oppression,” “privilege,” “marginalization” and the like—quickly became a pathological compulsion. We started to see dirt everywhere. We cleansed and continue to cleanse ourselves tirelessly but are never satisfied, always eager to uncover more dirty deeds and historical sins and stage more ritualized purges. We end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And all our hard-won collective attainments and achievements, all that is great and good and glorious in our midst, gets swept up, spat on and discarded with the rest of the trash.

oh, so like, the frankfurt school notion of critical theory, which threatens to bring down western civilization because it critiques the sacred cows (hierarchy) that underpin it and should remain above reproach. BUT,

Nor, in fact, is there even any special connection between cultural Marxism and Judaism or Jewishness. I am not in the habit of keeping tabs on who is or isn’t Jewish — which I view as crude for the same reason I despise all our reductive racial classifications — but, of the thinkers I listed as most complicit in erecting the foundation of cultural Marxism, only Lukács and Marcuse were Jewish. Gramsci was not. Althusser was not. The resolutely anti-Israel Palestinian-American Edward Said was not. I see, in short, no compelling basis to identify cultural Marxism with Jewishness or talk of cultural Marxism with anti-Semitism. 

so basically, the only difference is that you don’t think there’s a jewish conspiracy behind it, and thus your usage shouldn’t be condemned as anti-semitic no matter what the actual history of the term’s use in public discourse is.

because, to be frank, the key thing that underpins right and left is the degree to which you believe the status quo should be questioned and critiqued. the people who sat on the furthest right side of the french national assembly in 1792 believed that nothing the king did should be criticized in any way and it was the criticizers who were in the wrong for doing so, while the people who sat on the furthest left were the ones willing to go the farthest in criticizing the present state of things, including the status of women and the continued existence of a french nation. that’s why critique is viewed as a threat. the right’s policy program doesn’t tend to be popular because it’s easily critiqued, but for it to be wrong would make right wingers wrong, so they tend to just attack the notion of criticism as endangering to the underpinnings of modern society, the health and wealth of every human being as it now stands, in other words, the status quo. they believe that without what they hold dear, we’d all be cavemen or dead. consequently, it’s easier for them to view criticism of their ideals as a conspiracy than as something popular because it might improve the lot of the majority, so they come up with notions like “criticism is embedded in jewishness and thus jews are pushing cultural marxism on us”. it’s easier for them to believe in a wide-ranging conspiracy persecuting them, the most powerful people on earth, than to admit that they’re wrong.

[statetalks]

Are There More Democrats Or Republicans In The Usa

If A Party Gets What It Wants In The Pursuit Of Delivering Something Most People Want Most Of The Time So Be It

This mayor joining the GOP says theres no Democratic Party anymore’

Theres nothing morally wrong with being the party of corporate interests. Theres nothing wrong, for that matter, with viewing politics as the preserve of the few, not the many. Whats wrong is lying about it. Whats wrong is treating the opposition as if it does not have a legitimate claim. Whats wrong is setting off a conflagration of white-power fury that consumes nearly everything, even the republic itself, in order to slake a thirst for power. The day Joe Biden decided to run for president was the day this white-power fury burned through Charlottesville, screaming, Jews will not replace us. That day, according to published reports, is the day Biden chose to fight to restore the soul of America.

Maybe hes full of it. Maybe Biden and the Democrats dont really believe what they say when they talk about everyone being in this together. Thats certainly what the Republicans and their media allies believe. A critic said Thursday that we can expect to see from Biden lofty rhetoric about unity, while acting below the radar to smash norms to implement the Left-wing agenda. The same day, a Times reporter asked the White House press secretary why the administration has not offered a bipartisan fig leaf to the Republicans, given the president putting so much emphasis on unity. Maybe the Democrats dont mean what they say. Maybe its just politics-as-usual.

Investor George Marcus And His Wife Judith Gave $9610125 Mostly To Democrats

Total donations: $9,610,125

Net worth: $1.5 billion

George Marcus is the founder of real-estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap Company, according to the companys website. Marcus is also the chairman of Essex Property Trust, a multi-family real-estate investment trust, and he serves on the board of California-based commercial bank Greater Bay Bancorp.

The Marcuses gave $10,400 to Republicans in 2018, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The rest went to Democrats.

Republican Presidents Of The 20th Century

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th, 19011909: The “Trust Buster” is considered one of America’s greatest presidents. He was charismatic and larger than life. He was also the youngest of all the presidents, entering office at age 42. In contrast to later Republican presidents, Roosevelt fought hard to limit the powers of large oil and railroad companies.

William H. Taft, 27th, 19091913: Taft may be best known for supporting “Dollar Diplomacy,” the idea that US foreign policy should provide stability with the ultimate goal of promoting American commercial ventures. He was the only president who served as a justice of the Supreme Court .

Warren G. Harding, 29th, 19211923: Harding served just one day shy of three years, dying of a heart attack while in office. His presidency saw the end of World War I but was marked by scandals involving bribery, fraud, and conspiracy.

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If There Are P Republicans Then In Terms Of P What Percentage Of Wheeling County

There are one or more reasons why you chose that person to be your friend. While democrats believe in supporting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, republicans in a little more than 50 years there will be no majority race in the us. Not one nra member, tea party member, nor republican conservative was involved in these shootings and. There is a good reason for this asymmetry, write grossmann and hopkins. Republicans are more skeptical of the theory of evolution, though by a surprisingly slim margin with 39 percent of them rejecting it as compared to 30 percent of democrats.

There should a strong federal government. The supreme court should have jurisdiction over the legislative branch. There was almost no partisan imbalance among in terms of dollar value, less than a third of individual donations went to democrats. What republican and democrats believe. There are many benefits to timing your practice, including

On the other hand, the republican party is pretty much younger than the democratic party. Instead, they’ve told a lie to people they stiffed on education and have bled them dry just a bit more. Clearly, there is a problem with democrats and guns. Since 1945, democratic presidents have put forward 39 percent more policy proposals than republican presidents, and 62 percent more domestic policy proposals. Who can tell from this story?

Widest Perception Gap At Political Extremes

In one of the largest national studies of Americas polarization ever conducted, More in Commons Hidden Tribes report identified seven political tribes:

The Hidden Tribes of America

The Perception Gap study builds on these insights. It finds that the most partisan, politically active Americans a group we call the Wings have deeply distorted perceptions of the other side. The two groups with the widest Perception Gaps are the Progressive Activists and the Devoted Conservativesthe most ideological and committed groups of Democrats and Republicans.

And which is the most accurate segment? Surprisingly, its the Politically Disengaged. They are fully three times more accurate in their estimates of political opponents than members of either of these Wing groups. The V-shaped Perception Gap shows that the less invested you are in politics today, the less distorted your perception of politics.

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At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

Are There More Democrats Than Republicans In The United States

I have been thinking about the Democratic Party and whether or not its members are more numerous than the opposing faction.

Evidence to suggest this is the case:

This party is expected to win the popular vote for president seven out of eight times since 1992. Please don’t say “this hasn’t happened yet”. If this bothers you, say 6 out of 7. The party has received 51.9 percent of the votes cast in presidential elections from 1992 to 2016 for it or its opponent, the Republican Party. This shows that 2012 was the mean election in popular vote as of 2016. Party registration in states that register by party says this same thing. Trump’s approval has not gone above 50 percent ever as president on 538. A plurality of Americans consistently supported impeachment by 2 to 5 points while it was happening.

This suggests that the partisan lean the American electorate is about D+4. I believe that it might be closer to D+5 now for various reasons and the fact that 2012 was the mean result. This can get a little bit fuzzy because of independents.

If we look at opinion polling, Gallup has collated party affiliation polls back to 2004. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a D+11 advantage. Looking just at the net Republican/Democrat advantage, ignoring Independents, we can create the graph below – with positive percentages representing a Democrat lead, and negative percentages representing a Republican lead.

To give a theoretical perspective on this:

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The Republican Party General Policy And Political Values

The Republican Party is often referred to as the GOP. This abbreviation stands for Grand Old Party. Its logo is an elephant. The Republican Party is known to support right-leaning ideologies of conservatism, social conservatism, and economic libertarianism, among other -isms. Thus, Republicans broadly advocate for traditional values, a low degree of government interference, and large support of the private sector.

One main standpoint of the Republican Party platform is a strong focus on the family and individual freedom. Generally, the Republican Party therefore often tends to promote states and local rights. That means that they often wish for federal regulations to play a lesser role in policymaking. Furthermore, the GOP has a pro-business-oriented platform. Thus, the party advocates for businesses to exist in a free market instead of being impacted by tight government regulations.

Chart 1 And Table 2: Nationwide Party Registration Trends Since 2000

More Republicans registered to vote than Democrats

Since 2000, the nationwide proportion of registered Democratic and Republican voters in party registration states have both gone down, while the percentage of registered independents has steadily grown. The latter has nearly reached the nationwide percentage of registered Republicans, which has long been second nationally to the Democrats. Altogether, the combined number of registered Democrats and Republicans, which was 77% in October 2000, is now down to 69%, while the proportion of registered independents over the same period has increased from 22% to 28%.

Note: Based on active registered voters in states where the number of active and inactive registrants is listed. In the election-eve 2000, 2008, and 2016 entries, Independents include a comparatively small number of registered miscellaneous voters who do not fit into a particular category. Percentages do not add to 100 since the small percentage of registered third party voters is not included.

Richard Wingers monthly newsletter, Ballot Access News, for election-eve party registration numbers in 2000, 2008, and 2016; the websites of state election offices for July 2018.

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Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

“I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison said on The Daily Beast‘s latest New Abnormal podcast. Gallup reported Wednesday that, at least relatively speaking, the Democratic brand is doing pretty good.

In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. “The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points.”

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

That’s the largest gap since 2012:

Greg Sargent

Party identification, polled on every Gallup survey, is “something that we think is important to track to give a sense to the relevant strength of the two parties at any one point in time and how party preferences are responding to events,”Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told USA Today.

More stories from theweek.com

More Than Half Of Young Americans Are Going Through An Extended Period Of Feeling Down Depressed Or Hopeless In Recent Weeks; 28% Have Had Thoughts That They Would Be Better Off Dead Or Of Hurting Themself In Some Way

Fifty-one percent of young Americans say that at least several days in the last two weeks they have felt down, depressed, or hopeless19% say they feel this way more than half of the time. In addition, 68% have little energy, 59% say they have trouble with sleep, 52% find little pleasure in doing things. 49% have a poor appetite or are over-eating, 48% cite trouble concentrating, 32% are moving so slowly, or are fidgety to the point that others notice and 28% have had thoughts of self-harm

Among those most likely to experience bouts of severe depression triggering thoughts that they would be better off dead or hurting themself are young people of color , whites without a college experience , rural Americans , and young Americans not registered to vote .

In the last two weeks, 53% of college students have said that their mental health has been negatively impacted by school or work-related issues; overall 34% have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus, 29% self-image, 29% personal relationships, 28% social isolation, 25% economic concerns, 22% health concernsand 21% politics .

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Past Jumps In Party Affiliations

The bump in Democratic affiliation following Biden’s inauguration mirrors that of former President Barack Obama’s first term, Jones said.

“That was really the high point that we’ve seen; kind of the 2006-2009 period, when really the majority of Americans either identified as Democrats outright or were independents but they leaned toward the party,” he said. “Our data on this only goes back to the ’90s, but it’s pretty much the only time we consistently had one party with the majority of Americans on their side.”

Republican advantages, though rarer and more short-lived, followed the Gulf War in 1991 when George H.W. Bush was in office and the 9/11 terrorist attacks during President George W. Bush’s term, according to Gallup. More people also reported GOP affiliation after the 1994, 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.

Whether the Republican Party can regain advantage during the 2022 midterm elections may rely on the successes of the Biden administration, according to Jones.

“A lot of it is going to depend on how things go over the course of the year. If things get better with the coronavirus and the economy bounces back and a lot of people expect Biden can keep relatively strong approval ratings, then that will be better for the Democrats,” Jones said. “But if things start to get worse unemployment goes up or coronavirus gets worse  then his approval is going to go down. It’s going to make things a lot better for the Republican Party for the midterm next year.”

They Deliberately Destroy Moral Standards To Consolidate Power

Yale historian Timothy Snyder argues compellingly in The Road to Unfreedom, as well as in many talks, that oligarchs consolidating power and wealth benefit from creating an atmosphere of uncertainty, disbelief in facts, making it seem like political parties and leaders are uniformly corrupt, so there is nothing that can be done. It is what it is. If this was not so relevant for previous administrations, now we must admit that this is what it is. An administration that surpasses previous ones in corruption is possible because of a groundwork laid over decades of practices that make democracy, equity, and social good far secondary to wealth and power.

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Where Republicans And Democrats Differ The Most

But a more telling metric may be the difference between Democrats’ and Republicans ratings. How much more did one party favor a state than the other party? The graphic below shows how much higher the win percentage was among people of that party.  

For example, Californias win percentage was 79% among Democrats, but 24% among Republicans, a difference of 55 percentage points. Likewise, Kentuckys win percentage was 68% among Republicans, only 34% among Democrats, for a difference in 35 points . 

See the difference in scores for Republicans and Democrats for all 50 states below:

Histories Of The Parties

The Democratic party started in 1828 as anti-federalist sentiments began to form. The Republican party formed a few decades later, in 1854, with the formation of the party to stopping slavery, which they viewed to be unconstitutional.

The difference between a democrat and a republican has changed many, many times throughout history. Democrats used to be considered more conservative, while the republican party fought for more progressive ideas. These ideals have switched over time.

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Florida Vs California: How Two States Tackled Covid

The researchers theorized that one reason for the change is that Democrats were in charge of states where people who had the virus first arrived in the country but Republicans were less stringent about safeguards, which could have contributed to their states’ ultimately higher incidence and death rates.

“The early trends could be explained by high Covid-19 cases and deaths among Democratic-led states that are home to initial ports of entry for the virus in early 2020,” the researchers wrote. “However, the subsequent reversal in trends, particularly with respect to testing, may reflect policy differences that could have facilitated the spread of the virus.”

The study, which which was published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Preventive Medicine, examined Covid-19 “incidence, death, testing, and test positivity rates from March 15 through December 15, 2020,” when there were 16 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and 300,000 deaths. It focused on per-capita infection and death rates in the 26 GOP-led states and 24 Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., and made statistical adjustments for issues such as population density.

But “policy differences” between the Republican and Democratic leaders emerged as a big factor for the reversal of the states’ fortunes, the study suggests.

One of the most concerning things last year is the politicization of public health restrictions,” Lee said. “Theyre not opinions, theyre based on evidence.

In Her New Book Congress And Us Veterans: From The Gi Bill To The Va Crisis Stevens Assistant Professor Lindsey Cormack Evaluates How The Parties Legislate And Communicate Veterans Policies

Gravitas: US Election 2020 | How Republicans & Democrats are wooing Indian Americans

More than 18 million veterans live in the United States today, according to the latest census, and with worldwide presence and ongoing wars, the military enlists 1.2 million active and 800,000 reserve military personnel across the branches. As a nation, we look up to those who serve. Its a uniting opinion, and 95% of Americans believe its the duty of government to support veterans when they return to the homefront.

The role of devising policies that benefit former soldiers now falls to Congress, and so the creation and communication of veterans policies, like most things in Washington, is subject to the realities of party politics. Republicans are viewed as the party of veterans, public opinion and voting data says so. But in her new book, Stevens Assistant Professor Lindsey Cormack questions how that came to be, as her research shows that congressional Democrats, more often than not, are the ones working to enhance veteran benefits.

On a continuum of legislative behavior, we have one end populated by the dedicated workhorses who draft legislation, hammer out compromises, and get into the weeds of complicated policy questions, Cormack writes in her book. On the other end, there are show ponies that care more about pumping out media sound bites or trying to get the next viral video on YouTube.

Moreover, there is a difference between Republican members of Congress expressing support for veterans benefits and actively legislating to accomplish it.

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Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Donated Over $95 Million Nearly All Of It To Democrats

Total donations: $95,098,168

Net worth: $52.4 billion

Michael Bloomberg, 77, is the founder and CEO of financial media company Bloomberg LP.

Bloomberg will spend $500 million on the 2020 election in hopes of defeating Trump, Politico reported in February. On November 7, The New York Times reported that he was actively preparing to enter the Democratic primary.

Americas Top 10 Richest Families

Walton Republican  The family owns the Walmart corporation. The Walton family fortune is estimated to be about $130 billion. Koch Republican  Businessmen, owners of Koch Industries, a manufacturing company. Koch brothers have a net worth of about $41 billion each .  Republican  Own the Mars candy company. The three children of founder Forrest Mars are worth about $78 billion together. Cargill-MacMillan Republican  The Cargill-MacMillan family owns 90 percent of the largest privately-owned corporation in the U.S. The family, as a whole, is worth about $49 billion. Cox Democrat  The Cox family owns a number of auto consumer sites and services . They have an estimated net worth of $41 billion. Johnson  Republican  The Johnson family is known for their cleaning products and hygiene products. They are valued at $30 billion. Pritzker Both  Founders of Hyatt. The family has a combined value of $29 billion in 2017. Johnson  Republican  Overseers at Fidelity, ensuring the cash of millions of Americans. The family has a combined net worth of $28.5 billion. Hearst Republican  The Hearst family owns one of Americas largest media companies. The family is valued at $28 billion. Duncan Republican  The Duncan family works mostly with oil and pipelines. The family is valued at about $21.5 billion.

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Democrats Got Millions More Votes So How Did Republicans Win The Senate

Senate electoral process means although Democrats received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, that does not translate to more seats

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The 2018 midterm elections brought significant gains for Democrats, who retook the House of Representatives and snatched several governorships from the grip of Republicans.

But some were left questioning why Democrats suffered a series of setbacks that prevented the party from picking up even more seats and, perhaps most consequentially, left the US Senate in Republican hands.

Among the most eye-catching was a statistic showing Democrats led Republicans by more than 12 million votes in Senate races, and yet still suffered losses on the night and failed to win a majority of seats in the chamber.

Constitutional experts said the discrepancy between votes cast and seats won was the result of misplaced ire that ignored the Senate electoral process.

Because each state gets two senators, irrespective of population, states such as Wyoming have as many seats as California, despite the latter having more than 60 times the population. The smaller states also tend to be the more rural, and rural areas traditionally favor Republicans.

This year, because Democrats were defending more seats, including California, they received more overall votes for the Senate than Republicans, but that does not translate to more seats.

The rise of minority rule in America is now unmistakable

Origins Of The Color Scheme

The colors red and blue are also featured on the United States flag. Traditional political mapmakers, at least throughout the 20th century, had used blue to represent the modern-day Republicans, as well as the earlier Federalist Party. This may have been a holdover from the Civil War, during which the predominantly Republican north was considered “blue”. However, at that time, a maker of widely-sold maps accompanied them with blue pencils in order to mark Confederate force movements, while red was for the union.

Later, in the 1888 presidential election, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the color perceived to represent the Union and “Lincoln‘s Party”, and red for the Democrats. The parties themselves had no official colors, with candidates variously using either or both of the national color palette of red and blue .

Also Check: Who Is More Educated Democrats Or Republicans

Reality Check #4: The Electoral College And The Senate Are Profoundly Undemocraticand Were Stuck With Them

Because the Constitution set up a state-by-state system for picking presidents, the massive Democratic majorities we now see in California and New York often mislead us about the partys national electoral prospects. In 2016, Hillary Clintons 3-million-vote plurality came entirely from California. In 2020, Bidens 7-million-vote edge came entirely from California and New York. These are largely what election experts call wasted votesDemocratic votes that dont, ultimately, help the Democrat to win. That imbalance explains why Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 and came within a handful of votes in three states from doing the same last November, despite his decisive popular-vote losses.

The response from aggrieved Democrats? Abolish the Electoral College! In practice, theyd need to get two-thirds of the House and Senate, and three-fourths of the state legislatures, to ditch the process that gives Republicans their only plausible chance these days to win the White House. Shortly after the 2016 election, Gallup found that Republican support for abolishing the electoral college had dropped to 19 percent. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a state-by-state scheme to effectively abolish the Electoral College without changing the Constitution, hasnt seen support from a single red or purple state.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/are-there-more-democrats-or-republicans-in-the-usa/

[branded-perceptions]

Our aspirations tend to PUFF🎈 into fantasy space when we like a mental brothe(l/r) (german "PUFF")

entrain via PUFFERING

of like SMURFS chasing, hyping, commodifying, promoting and focusing on our fictional mental constructs, ideologies, concepts, explanatory definitions, social rewards etc. on their own

loosing touch with care for the most basic causal life needs we all share all around the world

(🎵SAGT MAL VON WO KOMMT IHR DENN HER?)

no matter which location

(🎵AUS SCHLUMPFHAUSEN BITTE SEHR)

ethnicity or "type of human"

(🎵SEHEN ALLE DA SO AUS WIE IHR? JA WIR SEHEN SO AUS WIE WIR)

as we all via our Neurochemistry have quite similar biological hardware whose software we can calibrate via music

(🎵SOLL ICH EUCH EIN LIED BEIBRINGEN?)

to make understandable and raise awareness about the inevitable group-effects of all type of group identity chorus

(🎵ICH KENNE EIN LIED MIT EINEM SCHÖNEN CHOR)

that spring from our entrained psychological ID whistles

(🎵DER FLÖTENDE SCHLUMPF FÄNGT AN)

that manifest via the by "diverse" psychological symbols created linguistics and communications

(🎵NUN SINGT MAL MIT)

that inevitably carry the above mentioned psychic energies of us

(🎵LALALALA)

that distract us from the simple little joys of daily life

(🎵WARUM SEID IHR SCHLÜMPFE KLEIN? WIR WOLLEN GAR NICHT GRÖßER SEIN)

of us all "one dimensional man Herbert Marcuse" blindly chasing our "passions" of habits, symbols🎅, occupations & topics we conditioned our psychological ID whistles' subjective pleasure motivations upon

(🎵WAS MÖCHTET IHR AM LIEBSTEN TUN? SCHLÜMPFEN OHNE AUSZURUHEN)

without caring much about how it actually helps all the other humans around the world

(🎵GIBT ES EIGENTLICH VIELE SCHLÜMPFE)

that blindly chase social reward streams🐟🐟🐟

(🎵HEY, WIR SIND HIER NICHT IN DER BADEWANNE)

of diverse stories, grouped symbols and identity constructs felt in-group "positivites"

(🎵LALALALA)

without pondering about boundaries (🎵DU, MUSS DAS WIRKLICH SEIN?)

like PAPA SMURF's (🔍Meister Langbart) reality testing🥜 ego functions systems thinking calibrating direction of motivations of smurf reductionism via goofy irony

🎶DAS LIED DER SCHLÜMPFE - VADER ABRAHAM

[multipleservicelisting]

Missouri diversity session tells teachers ‘colorblindness,’ ‘all lives matter’ are forms of white supremacy

Newly released materials shed light on a training session in which Missouri middle school teachers were pressured to endorse certain ideas about race and told that “covert” white supremacy included things like “colorblindness.”

Handouts leaked to Discovery Institute researcher Chris Rufo showed an “oppression matrix” with an effective hierarchy of social groups, along with a handout delineating between various forms of white supremacy. Under “covert,” the handout listed “all lives matter,” “white silence,” “claiming reverse-racism,” “calling the police on Black people,” and “treating kids of color as adults.” It seems to compare these things to “lynching,” “hate crimes,” and “burning crosses” which it classified as overt and socially unacceptable forms of white supremacy.

The event, reported by Rufo on Wednesday, was hosted by Springfield Public School employees who indicated that not speaking out about these issues was problematic. Leaked audio reviewed by Fox News includes one of the trainers, Jeremy Sullivan, saying that it wasn’t okay for someone to just be against racism. When one man said he was afraid to say anything, Sullivan asked: “What might an underrepresented or underresourced student say in regards to our fear of speaking up?”

TRUMP ENDS ‘CRITICAL RACE THEORY’ TRAINING FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, CALLS IT A ‘SICKNESS’

The audio featured a female voice referencing the idea that “silence is violence” and not speaking up as allies for Black Lives Matter meant you were against the movement.

“So, there’s a saying — go back with me to high school — I was a high school debater,” Sullivan responded. “We had a saying, if someone dropped one of your arguments, like you would always say, well silence is compliance, because if someone doesn’t address, then they must be actually going along with it. And truth be told, right now, the stance of Springfield Public Schools is we do address it. We don’t stay silent when we see underrepresented or underresourced students or staff members experiencing any of this stuff.”

“And it’s going to be uncomfortable, and we’re going to get into a little bit more of that here in a little bit when we talk about what does it mean to be an anti-racist educator, but Springfield is taking the stance that it’s no longer okay to just be against racism. We have to all actively be working to take a stand against racism within our schools and within our communities.”

At one point in the audio, a man asks whether the goal of the training was to make teachers “Marxists.”

BIDEN EDUCATION NOMINEE TOUTED DIVERSITY SPEAKER WHO CLAIMED SCHOOLS ‘SPIRIT MURDER’ BLACK CHILDREN

“Is the district saying that we should be Marxists?” he asked. “And the reason I’m asking is that while I think there’s not a person in the room that doesn’t agree that this is an important topic and should be dealt with, the way that it is being framed comes from Herbert Marcuse who took and stripped all of the economic policies out of Marxist theory and turned it into critical race theory.” 

The problem with that is that it silences anybody who has any kind of disagreement or other ideas. It pushes a narrative that like, for example, you said that this country was founded on racism. That’s not true,” he told another trainer Myki Williamson. “It was founded on religious freedoms from the pilgrims … and then racism was a part of it.”

The man went on to claim that he “grew up the son of a black man. He raised me to believe in Dr. King’s teachings” — an apparent reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Dr. King did not teach the kind of vitriol that we see out of Marxism. Marxism has a long replete history of countries being bigoted and prejudiced against others and then murdering millions as a result of it.”

Williamson and Sullivan denied the district’s goal was to embrace Marxism.

The event started with a “land acknowledgment,” which focused on honoring “the Native and Indigenous Peoples whose land we currently gather on.”

It added that “in doing social justice work, it is important we acknowledge the dark history and violence against Native and Indigenous People across the world. In this work, we are committed to promoting, supporting and affirming all communities, especially those that are marginalized.”

Neither the school district, Sullivan, nor Williamson responded to Fox News’ requests for comment.

News of the training came on the same day that President Biden rolled backed his predecessor’s executive order opposing critical race theory. Rufo responded by announcing a legal coalition with the aim of bringing a lawsuit before the Supreme Court.

LEGAL COALITION FORMING TO STOP CRITICAL RACE THEORY TRAINING AROUND THE COUNTRY

Schools and governments across the nation have reportedly seen training like these in the wake of Floyd’s death last year. Fox News reported earlier this week on how one of Biden’s education nominees hosted a training with a speaker who claimed schools “spirit murder” Black children.

During the Missouri training, participants viewed an 8 minute and 46-second silent video of George Floyd in memory of the amount of time a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on Floyd’s neck. The video closed with some of Floyd’s last words calling out for his mother.

When a participant suggested parents might complain about the words being taken out of context in a video like that, Sullivan pushed back.

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“I want to push back a little bit against something that you just said because you said they’re only going to see the words like they did in the video as opposed to the content. George Floyd gave a cashier a $20 counterfeit bill … there is no death penalty in the United States for using a counterfeit $20 bill. That’s the context there.”

Others have noted the context included Floyd resisting arrest, something that was revealed in bodycam footage released after his death.

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[bonpourlorient]

What I Learned From Reading Simondon’s On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects

The short of it: Instead of attempting to reign supreme over technology, or have it reign over us, Simondon allows us to seek to undo the techno-psycho-political conditions of possibility in which “reigning” becomes possible in the first place.

Our idea of reign and mastery originates from a false image of technicity; that of man as the bearer of tools. This false image is itself based on a historical experience of hierarchy and command over labor, that is, slavery. The reason why we still obsess over ruling machines or having them rule over us is because our politics is still constructed through modes of reign, mastery and enslavement.

Like contemporary thinking on materiality, Simondon rejects the idea of matter as a substance that is completely inert and devoid of becoming (2012, 184). His thought is materialist. However emphasizing the materiality of technology is not enough for identifying what characterizes technical individuation. Simondon conceives of technology as an aspect of human culture, which has thus far been ignored, “the machine is the stranger…inside which something human is locked up, misunderstood, materialized, enslaved, and yet which nevertheless remains human all the same (2012, 16).” Simondon’s work is positioned against two attitudes in cultural depictions of technology. On the one hand the tendency to confuse technical individuals with “pure assemblages of matter, devoid of true signification, and merely presenting a utility.” On the other hand, the tendency to “suppose(s) that these objects are also robots and that they are animated by hostile intentions towards man, or that they present a permanent danger of aggression and insurrection (2016, 17).” Thus Simondon criticizes the overriding cultural tendency to relate to technical individuals either as potential rivals or mere executioners of human intentions. We are niether masters of technology, nor soon to start serving some self-intelligent robot. “When humans look at their relationship to machines in terms of slavery and freedom, they merely repeat these conditions, striving either to liberate themselves from machines or to enslave machines for once and for all.”

Instead, Simondon’s work can be understood in a long line of authors like Raymond Ruyer and Georges Canguilhem who understood technology as nothing other than the continuation of life by other means. The machine, like the living being, is a work of organization and information that resist the degradation of energy (2016, 21). In this sense technology has as its ground a metastable state that is associated with life (2016, 51). Crucially however, the two are not the same. Instead, technology fundamentally depends on life processes. “There is no pure automatism excluding man and aping the living (2016, xvi).” There are no robots. Thus Simondon deploys a host of evolutionary terms such as “ontogeny” and “phylogeny” to talk about technology while also acknowledging that technicity starts a new series that isn’t entirely reducible to life. Life in other words, is the necessary but not sufficient condition of technicity.  

Such a series emerges when Simondon distinguishes between technical elements, technical individuals and technical ensembles. Technical elements resemble the “organs” of the living being in that they do not carry their own milieus with them. Springs, boards, hot-cathode lamps, tubes are all examples (2012, 67). The technical ensemble is composed of “a certain number of technical individuals that are positioned in relation to one another (2012, 66).” The factory, for example, is composed of technical ensembles. A technical element may represent a crystallization of a previous technical milieu and its associated ensemble. In this way Simondon can begin to complicate the “passage of causality proceeding from prior ensembles to subsequent elements (2012, 67)” to individuals and so forth. In other words, this distinction between element, individual and ensemble allows for a much more nuanced view of technical evolution, inserting all kinds of nonlinearity into the process. The line of causality “is not rectilinear but serrated (2012, 68)” existing at different levels at the same time.

If elements are like organs does this mean the technical individual is an organism? Once again, Simondon’s theory should not be confused with the flattening gesture that is associated with cybernetics, where biological bodies are now conceived in machine terms. Simondon clarifies that “one must avoid the improper identification of the technical object with the natural object and more specifically the living being (2012, 50).” Drawing external analogies between living and technical beings is ultimately misleading, for these distract us from analyzing how they are individuated. Instead the technical individual is understood as the result of what Simondon calls a “phase-shift,” existing somewhere between living and physical being. What does this mean? Briefly, unlike a physical individual (say a rock), the technical individual carries its associated milieu alongside it. The idea here is that a technical individual such as an engine is concretized through an internal milieu of recurrent causalities (2012, 59), several redundancies and mutual dependencies between technical elements that reinforce a certain diagram of actions. As the engine goes from an abstract idea to a concrete individual the battery, the pistons, the cooling system begin to enter into a relation of mutual presupposition, each determining one another, so that the engine can travel from one context to another while retaining its functions.[1] As the engine concretizes, it loses its “artificial” character and depends less on the intervention of humans to operate (2012, 49). Joining this internal milieu is an external milieu of geophysical surroundings. In other words, the engine relates something of its technical conditions of inception to its geographical surroundings, creating an associated milieu to operate.[2] Yet this concretization does not therefore mean the technical individual is more perfect or rational. For Simondon the true measure of technicity isn’t automatism– independence form human intervention- but rather the ability of technical individuals to deal with a greater margin of indeterminacy and exhibit sensitivity to information (2012, 15).[3]

In this sense, Simondon’s thought is novel. A number of thinkers on my list, especially Larkin (2008, 61), have emphasized how in their moments of introduction, disruption and failure, the meanings of technology becomes open for political contestation. The underlying assumption here is that technology imposes a certain rational order, which then becomes troubled only in moments of breakdown. For Simondon, this is not necessarily the case. If technologies are used to establish political rule, this isn’t due to an underlying and monolithic “technological rationality”, as it was say, with Marcuse. If contemporary society experiences automation as enslavement, this is because the master-slave analytics remains the dominant cultural mode in which we relate to technology.

“The machine is only a means; the end is the conquest of nature, the domestication of natural forces by means of a first act of enslavement: the machine is a slave whose purpose is to make other slaves. Such a dominating and enslaving inspiration can coincide with the quest for man’s freedom. But it is difficult to free oneself by transferring slavery onto other beings, men, animals, or machines; to reign over a people of machines that enslave the entire world is still to reign, and every reign presupposes the acceptance of the schemas of enslavement (2012, 141).”

Thus, while it is possible to relate to machines through the master-slave analytic, this will only create more enslavement. Most crucially, the type of master-slave imaginary that is installed in our relation to technology is directly related to the idea of “reign” as such. In that sense a true reimagining of our relation to technology is immediately political, forcing us to abandon models of political rule that are technocratic themselves. Counter intuitively, to abandon technocratic rule, we need to establish a better cultural understanding of technologies, becoming familiar with their operation.

                 This point about mastery and reign is important since it cuts to a very political point in Simondon’s thought. Our idea of reign and mastery originates from a false image of technicity, that is itself premised on slavery; that of man as the bearer of tools. And this idea of man as the bearer of tools shapes both Western thought and modern society. For example, a lot of writers for example have invoked Simondon’s critique of hylomorphism, a form of thought that treats matter as passive material to be shaped and form as active intelligence shaping it from above. Yet for Simondon, the tendency towards hylomorphism is premised on a division of labor that is itself hierarchical.

“In this view, the hylomorphic schema represents the transposition into philosophical thought of the technical operation drawn from labor and taken as the universal paradigm for the genesis of beings…The active character of form, the passive character of matter, respond to … a social order that assumes hierarchy. Thus, form is the depository for the order expressed by he one who commands labor.” (72)

The same relation of master vs. slave also persists in the way in which we relate to machines.

“When humans look at their relationship to machines in terms of slavery and freedom, they merely repeat these conditions, striving either to liberate themselves from machines or to enslave machines for once and for all.” (91)

In other words, our relation to machines is also divided in two orientations either as engineer/designer or as worker.  All of this is premised on the idea of man as the bearer of tools and the origin of forms.

In short, this image is simultaneously a social relation, a mode of thought and a mode of relating to technology. Therefor to break away from narratives of mastery over machines, the social conditions of labor need to be revised. (71) “The alienation of the worker results in a rupture between technical knowledge and its conditions of use.” To replace it humans need to discover, “a social and economic mode in which the user of the technical object would be not only the owner of the machine but also the one who chooses and maintains it.” (71)

[1] For example, an engine that relies on water-cooling is less concrete than one that relies on air, since the engine already produces air, whereas water-cooling requires humans to refill the water tank with the right kind of anti-freeze water (2012, 30)

[2] “The technical object is thus its own condition, as a condition of existence of this mixed milieu which is simultaneously both technical and geographical. This phenomenon of self-conditioning defines the principle according to which the development of technical objects is made possible (2012, 58).”

[3] I think this insight might be interesting for thinking about something like machine learning.

[environmentalissueessay759]

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