#slavery vs. freedom

[the-far-bright-center]

Dystopian themes in the Prequels

“Looking back is helpful in understanding his work. Lucas started out in the 1960’s as an experimental filmmaker heavily influenced by the avant-garde films of the San Francisco art scene. Initially interested in painting, he became an editor and visualist who made abstract tone poems. His first feature, THX 1138 (1971) was an experimental science fiction film that presented a surreal, underground world where a dictatorial state controls a docile population using drugs. Love and sex are outlawed, procreation is controlled through machines, and human beings shuffle meaninglessly around the system.”

—Anthony Parisi, 'Revisiting the Star Wars Prequels'

The bolded parts in this description correspond with the Coruscant Underworld, the Jedi Order’s code, and the creation of the clone troopers, respectively.

Notably, in THX 1138's setting, emotions such as love and the concept of family are taboo:

I’ve always found it so interesting that Lucas incorporated the dystopian elements of his earlier sci-fi into the Prequels, taking place as they do in the context of the final years of the Repubic, with all its colourful and sumptuous visual spendour. In comparison, the post-apocalyptic ‘Dark Times’ of the Original Trilogy would seem on the surface to be the more outwardly ‘dystopian’ setting of the two—however, the actual story of the OT is a mythic hero's journey and fairytale, complete with an uplifting and transcendent happy ending. The OT's setting may be drained of colour, and its characters may be living under the shadow of the Empire, but as a story it is far from bleak or dystopian in tone. Rather, fascinatingly, it is the pre-apocalyptic era of the Prequels that is presented as the more dystopian storyline:

“On the surface, [The Phantom Menace] is an optimistic, colorful fantasy of a couple of swashbuckling samurai rescuing a child Queen and meeting a gifted slave boy who can help save the galaxy from the slimy Trade Federation and its Sith leaders. But beneath that cheerful facade is a sweatshop of horrors.” —Michael O'Connor, 'Moral Ambiguity: Beyond Good and Evil in the Prequels'

This is referring to the state of the galaxy during the Prequels era, including the fact that slavery is known to exist, but is largely ignored by the Republic and the Jedi alike due to being too economically inconvenient to combat. It also refers to how the Jedi of the Old Order come across as cold and distant atop their ivory tower on the artificial world of Coruscant, far removed not only from the natural world but also from the true realities of the people they claim to serve. And then there is the additional revelation in Attack of the Clones that love and family are 'outlawed' within the Jedi Order, creating an environment in which their own 'Chosen One' is unable to flourish, leaving him vulnerable to the Dark Side. Finally, there's the fact that the characters end up so distracted by fighting a civil war (something that goes against their own principles and involves the use of a slave clone army in the process), that they are blinded to the entity of pure evil that is guiding their every move...until it is too late.

“Without a clear enemy, the Jedi Order, the Galactic Senate, the whole of the Star Wars galaxy bickers and backstabs and slides around the moral scales. But there is one benefit to Palpatine’s pure evil crashing down upon the galaxy; against its oppressive darkness, only the purest light can shine through.” —Michael O'Connor, 'Moral Ambiguity: Beyond Good and Evil in the Prequels'

If anything, the Dark Times allows for the OT generation's acts of courage and heroism to flourish and succeed, because they are not hampered by the Old Jedi Order's restrictive rules, nor by its servitude to the whims of an increasingly corrupt Republic—so corrupt, in fact, that by the time of RotS, it is practically the Empire in all but name. Indeed, one of the key features of the Prequels, and what makes them so tragic, is that the characters are already living in a dystopia...they just don't know it.

There is, paradoxically, a level of freedom to be found in the midst of the Dark Times which had not been possible during the Twilight era, which allows Original Trio to rise above the tragedy that befell their predecessors. They are able to act as free agents (not as slaves of a corrupt government), serving only the fight for the liberation of all the peoples of the galaxy (not just citizens of the Republic), and are likewise free to live (and love!) on their own terms. Free to act on their positive attachments to one another, without having to hide the truth of their feelings. It's particularly telling that *this* is, above all, what makes the Prequels era so dystopian—the characters' inability to freely and openly participate in normal familial human relationships.

[mlbullsportfolio]

Novel Blurb:

One slave master's daughter … One intriguing violinist ...One chance of a lifetime...

In July of 1852, almost two years since the Compromise of 1850, Mildred "Millie" Crabtree is the friendly daughter of the mean-spirited, plantation owner Master Wade Crabtree. Having opposing views on slavery and seeing it as a sin against God, she dreams of leaving the horrors of the South and becoming a children's literature author in the North. During her eighteenth birthday, she encounters Noah Shepherd, a vibrant, redhead violinist who plays classical music during the celebration with two other musicians. Her Mama, Missus Charlotte, dies suddenly at the party.

Now she's forced against her will to fulfill her mother's role as missus in Crabtree mansion and sever ties with her closest friend Pearl, a mulatto house slave. Conditions worsen when she learns her Papa is in debt, plans to sell some of his slaves, and has exchanged her into an arranged marriage to the young, arrogant Chauncey McMillian, the wealthiest plantation owner in town. But after discovering Noah and his musical comrades are secretly abolitionists, things look up and Millie and her slave friends embark on a risky, adventurous chance of a lifetime:

A journey to the Promised Land.

COMING SOON!

Link: COMING SOON

[the-far-bright-center]

#baby ani having to use dark humor to cope with his trauma (@sithaari)

Yeah, it’d be a pity if you had to pay for me.

[lesb0]

a concept that's really difficult to communicate to my students is that American women weren't working 19th century factories because the conditions or hours or pay were good. in fact they were all hard drinking every night just to cope with the horrific body breaking and poisonous conditions. 20¢/hr for 12+ hours was technically slavery.

even still, factory labor was HIGHLY preferable to getting raped, beaten, financially controlled, and enslaved to do chores and raise your 12 children 24/7 like they would be under a typical male household, pregnant every year until menopause. that's why the first wave feminists advocated that you go to work first and foremost to earn your own life, even a life that sucks is still yours.

the alternative they're now calling "tradwife" was/is really a lifetime of endless domestic abuse and rape and pregnancies vs hard paid labor in shifts. 12 daily hrs of freedom with your own money.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

I've now seen a few posts saying Neve is just nicer Vivienne and they're the same and I...guys Neve has ENTIRELY different motivations and reasons for doing her things and a different personality. Neve is a disillusioned detective working for a group who is trying to end slavery in Tevinter, Viv was a court mage constructing her own freedoms within a system that didn't want her but that she actively liked and wanted to uphold. Viv was shaped by southern Thedas and it's systematic abuse of mages, Neve was raised where mages are the elite class and deemed 'better' than others because of their magic. Presumably they have different religious views coming from countries that have completely schismed chantries. They have very different jobs (court mage/pope vs. detective). Yes they're both high fashion beautiful black woman and yes they're both really interesting characters but they're not the same anymore than like....Carver and Blackwall who both have angry openings and are warriors are the same. Or anymore than Aveline and Cassandra who are both sword and shield no nonsense warriors who secretly have a romantic side are the same. Or Solas and Morrigan. Etc. etc. Just. Think about why you are reducing them to the same person after spending less than 10 mins with Neve maybe?

[alpaca-clouds]

Castlevania and the Messy Politics of Personhood

There is a theme in the Castlevania show that is brought in both the original show, and Nocturne, and that I have seen barely discussed within the fandom. So I wanted to discuss it for a bit. The fact that this theme is reiterated on again and again to me reads as it being there on purpose, rather than being incidental.

The theme is of course personhood. And it is quite interesting.

Within the original series, we have this brought up several times. Because throughout Castlevania personhood is something that is often in doubt.

The most obvious example of this is of course humans vs. vampires.

We see several times that vampires in this universe do not consider humans to be persons. Instead humans will in the vampire language usually be reduced to animals. At times literally, with vampires calling humans animals, at times more through the word "livestock", that is especially frequently used by Carmilla and her court.

Meanwhile several of the humans in the show also will use similar language to doubt the personhood of vampires. Of course this is mostly done by our Belmont characters. Trevor in the original series quite often describes vampires as animals and monsters. Richter in Nocturne also uses the same language. Ironically, though, in the original series there is another character who uses the same language: Hector over the course of the series also will often compare vampires to animals, which is especially interesting in his case as yes, he uses this language to doubt the personhood of vampires, he means this as a positive attribute, given that he fears animals (and therefore vampires) less than humans.

Of course, though, this is not the only times the personhood of people is discussed. After all, slavery plays a large role in both series - though of course this is very much more elaborated in Nocturne (where through the historical context the topic is more important) than in the original series.

Isaac of course is mainly motivated by the fact that he had his humanity and personhood stripped away by being enslaved at a young age. This is what fills his anger and hatred against humanity, which makes him want to kill all humans.

Same with Hector, who obviously ends up getting stripped of his personhood by Lenore. This, obviously, is not fully explored the way it could have been through the rushed manner in which season 4 was put out. But it was another time this these was picked up.

There are some hints dropped here and there, that both Carmilla and Lenore in their respective pasts had their personhood stripped from them as well. Though this is never spelled out.

We see it too, a bit, in how the Speakers are of course verbally stripped of their personhood during the pogrom during the first season/prelude to the show.

Nocturne obviously leads into this theme a lot more, given how through playing around with the theme of colonization and class so much, it has ample opportunity to bring this up.

If you look into the anthropology of slavery, you will find that this is always a core principle of slavery. I know especially Americans are always tempted to think of slavery only as chattle slavery as it was done in the US history. But of course slavery was a thing long, long before this. In fact, we do know that slavery predates history - it was already an established concept in some ways even before humans started to write down stuff.

And a central thing about slavery as long as it was around was, that slaves were stripped of their personhood and were considered objects. While of course during most times slaves were capable of regaining their personhood (usually people were made slaves by depts, which they could pay off, or could earn their freedom in other ways), this was a concept that was core to slavery from the beginning.

Nocturne, of course, references chattle slavery specifically, as it is set in this time. Annette was enslaved in this, and she was stripped of her personhood not just by being made a slave, but also by people deciding that her race made her a non-person. This very much brings in something that is an important point in this discussion: The acceptance of someone's personhood is a thing, that often works rather randomly.

And yes, by making Annette and Edouard come from Haiti, they managed to bring this in rather well. Because Haiti was one of the places, where the part-white off-spring were considered people - unlike the fully white people. (In other places, like the US, everyone who had just "one drop of Black blood" was a Black and therefore a non-person and a slave.)

However, Castlevania the show also brings in one additional aspect, that it is very clearly interested in discussing especially during seasons 3 and 4 and then in Nocturne: The night creatures.

The night creatures are obviously based on the monster encounters in the game. In the game these creatures for the most part are not really explained in great detail. For the first almost 20 years of the franchise the franchise was never really interested in those creatures. They were just monsters that lived in the castle and served Dracula, because reasons. Curse of Darkness of course then explained that at least some of those "innocent devils" were created by the forgemasters, though even with this the games never have any interest in exploring these creatures as characters in one way or another.

In season 3 and especially season 4 Isaac starts to realize, that indeed at least some of the night creatures - who are created with human souls - retain indeed their personhood in some way. And he starts to wonder (undoubtedly after knowing what it is to be stripped of personhood) if it would be better if he allowed them to live as people.

Nocturne absolutely picks this theme up afterwards, by giving Edouard an entire story of being turned into a night creature, and through this being stripped of his personhood.

So far Nocturne Season 1 very well sets up the theme of the night creatures trying to regain their personhood and getting it recognized by other characters. We will see, where that theme ends up going during season 2, I assume.

I admittedly feel that - maybe mainly due to the rushed season 4 of the original series - this theme is never quite fully explored in a way that really goes into this. I have high hopes that Nocturne does it in the end, but of course that will largely depent on whether or not the creators get to actually make all the seasons they want to make. The crew (most of whom sadly have been let go, because so far no season 3 was ordered by Netflix) have been very vague about how many seasons they would have liked, though Sam and Adam Deats have spoken online about at least wanting a third season. But... I mean, we all know Netflix, right?

I personally would have loved to see that theme a bit more explored in a potentially differently paced seasons 4 and 5 of the original show, as because of the very breakneck spead of season 4, it never fully gets to resolve the issue. Which is too bad, because the fact that it is not resolved greatly dampens the outcome of the Styria arc, that built much more clearly on this theme than the stuff going on with the main trio.

It is probably one of the main reason why as a fanfic writer, I ended up writing so much based around the Styrian storyline, that explores this theme centrally. With both Striga and Morana needing to accept that Isaac and Hector are people (something especially Morana struggles with), while the same is true the other way around. While also the night creatures need to explore their own personhood and humanity, given they are literally monsters. My current multichapter in the series - The Angel of Silence - obviously is the story that most clearly challenges this idea, with Abel, whose personhood additionally gets doubted on the basis that not only he is a monster, but he is also disabled, having to deal with a vampire, who does not want to accept him as a person. While also dealing with the fact that he himself often does not fully recognize people as such.

[the-far-bright-center]

While I have some issues with this comic version of the scene as well, the 'alternative' conversation that made it into the TCW series is one of the most 'wtf' moments in what is already an exceedingly cruel and traumatising arc. Mainly because of how out-of-character it is for Anakin—yes, even for TCW's uber snarky, braggadocio version of him. Having Anakin complain about not being a 'Jedi master' as part of his banter with Obi-Wan is one thing, but making him joke about being a 'master' in the context of slavery is way too OOC for ANY version of his character, and I think the writers fucked up big time there. They missed an opportunity to treat the topic of slavery as it relates to Anakin specifically with more nuance than just 'it's yet another part of Anakin's past that makes him go into rageful Dark Side mode so we can play the Imperial March as a joke at his expense'. I think part of the issue is that the version of events that ended up on-screen has Anakin being very taciturn about his past—to the point that he'd supposedly never even brought up the fact he'd once been a slave to Ahsoka before that fateful Zygerrian mission. I don't 'buy' that version of events, personally. I think it would have been common knowledge about his origins (to some extent anyway—he's shown to have a poster of the Boonta Eve race where he won his freedom hanging in his room at the Temple, ffs!), so it's always struck me as a little...unbelieveable that Ahsoka is only just hearing this 'in the moment'. The TCW scene then has Obi-Wan tell Ahsoka a confusing version of Anakin's actual canonical backstory (saying he and his mom were sold into slavery when in actuality Anakin was born into slavery). It's never clear whether Obi-Wan is simply under the wrong impression or if it was indeed an oversight by the writers, because later on there's another scene where Anakin (correctly) says that his mother was sold at a slave market 'like this one' (aka, before he was born).

While I grant that the TCW version of the scene is more dramatic and impactful from Ahsoka's POV (seeing just how furious Anakin is at the slaver no doubt *does* make a deep impression on her about how serious this issue is for him), it's still incredibly frustrating as an Anakin fan. Anakin's history as a slave is HUGELY important to his character, and not just because of the ways it 'makes him angry' and thus feeds his dark side tendencies. It's depressing to me when the other, more nuanced ways it affects him are overlooked. Now, in all fairness, I do think the TCW version had Ahsoka be more resistant to the idea of going undercover as the 'slave girl' because they wanted her character to come across as both strong-willed and sympathetic in that moment, and they likely thought her not taking slavery more seriously would not be conducive to that. But having Anakin boast that he 'wasn't any good' at being slave makes no sense, because canonically Anakin in TPM is shown to be very adept at surviving as a slave. Sure, he hates it, but he has developed numerous coping mechanisms—including secrecy and the ability to go behind the back of authority to do what he feels is right...qualities that serve him well during the Clone Wars and which he imparts to Ahsoka! Qualities that eventually save her life.

So yeah...the TCW dialogue in that episode is OOC on *many* levels. But ultimately, both this scene in the comic as well as the on-screen dialogue are meant to be ironic anway, since it soon becomes clear that ALL the characters—no matter what false 'roles' they've taken on as part of the mission—are, in fact, slaves of the Republic at this point. Even so, I can't help but feel frustrated whenever the TCW writers make Anakin say or do OOC things just so one of the other characters comes across better, especially when there are alternative ways of handling such interactions.

While TCW means a great deal to me for personal and nostalgic reasons (and thus I normally refrain from being overly critical of it), I've always felt that some of the writing gets a little too dark and twisted in the later seasons, and all-too often it's at Anakin's expense. This is mainly because the writers seemed to have approached the show largely as a meta-commentary on the overall saga and/or as a dramatic-irony take on Anakin's storyline, rather than as a 'literal' incarnation of the character who the audiences are meant to take totally seriously. Hence why we get the sometimes jarring blend of serious themes with flippant humour and ooc behaviour/dialogue.

This short scene from “Slaves of the Republic” give an interesting insight about Anakin & Jedi Order:

despite living in Jedi Order by ~10 years, Anakin is still traumatized by slavery

looking how Obi-Wan is willing to take a child on dangerous mission and let Ahsoka play the role of slave raises a question about Jedi’s altruism. As much as Obi-Wan’s acceptance for her plan was born from pragmatism (”If you can’t produce a prize valuable enough to bid on you might not even gain admittance to the auction”) there is a little concern for Ahsoka’s safety and how the experience of being / playing slave will affect her afterwards. She may be promising padawan, but she is still a 14? 15? years old kid.

Ahsoka is willing to risk her own safety for people in need but the same as Obi-Wan, she doesn’t really understand slavery and its effect on person so her attitude could sound quite dismissive. That’s why Anakin snapped at her (later, Kenobi admitted his lack of understanding and even said though he was subjected to slavery for a brief time, he can’t imagine living with it everyday)

The fact that Ahsoka thought that playing the role of slave could be seen as similar to being bossed around by her master and how Skywalker reacted [that’s NOT FUNNY] raises a question how young Anakin felt about calling his mentor and other Jedi as [his] masters? Did it bring some traumatic memories? Did anyone explain him it was a way to show a respect toward older person, not some sign of slavery? Was there someone who helped him to adjust into Jedi Order by really understanding his life experiences and not just telling him “let it go”?

I get the feeling that both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan - and probably most of Jedi - didn’t understand slavery and its extremaly traumatic effect on people what at least for me implies that Anakin by ~10 years struggled with his past without much of real support…

[localcuttlefish]

A Theoretical Lore Bible of Caesar’s Legion as a Nation

Hello good citizens of Tumblr! I’ve been on a Fallout: New Vegas kick lately, and I recently graduated college with a bachelors degree (major illustration, minor history of art and western civilization). So now that I’m certified to draw dick AND talk about Ancient Rome, I have things to yap about.

Have you ever looked at Caesar’s Legion and wondered how the more intricate aspects of their society model after the Roman Empire? Because I have! And because of those very musings, I have come up with a little dumb idiot theoretical lore Bible on how The Legion might function as a more developed nation, using my back knowledge of western civ and Roman art and culture. Nomenclature, societal structure, industries, imports and exports, the whole nine yards!

DISCLAIMERS: I have not looked through the writers’/directors’ social media accounts thoroughly enough yet to confirm if any of the information I’m bringing to the table is already solidly canonical or solidly non-canonical in the lore of Fallout: New Vegas. There is a nonzero chance I may say something that someone in charge has already said, or something that’s already been disproven or denied. If you catch something I don’t, let me know! I like worldbuilding for fun like this, and I want to keep everything as lore-cohesive as possible to challenge myself. I’ll come back to edit this every now and then if I come up with more cohesive lore pieces, or if you guys have any suggestions that would tie in the lore better. In addition, Caesar’s Legion is an inherently totalitarian nation that supports itself on some pretty sexist and bigoted social structures. There is no universe in which I support, condone, or otherwise encourage any of the ideologies of Caesar’s Legion in real life. Don’t become a tyrant dictator of a military slave nation, kids!

CONTENT WARNINGS: Discussion of slavery, sexism, physical and verbal violence, unsafe medical practices, brainwashing/psychological abuse, and death.

Without further ado, the absolute wall of text that is the theoretical lore Bible of Caesar’s Legion. Enjoyyyyy!!

CHAPTERS:

I: Citizenship

- How To Become a Citizen

- Social Castes

- Names

II: Everyday Life

- Common Social Customs

- Household Structure

- Settlement/Town Structure

- Clothing, Hair, and Accessories

- Languages

III: Industry

- Jobs

- Imports and Exports

IV: Politics, Education, and Religion

- What Senate?

- In The Unlikely Event of a Transfer of Power

- Common Political Beliefs

- Male vs Female Education Standards

Walk and talk with me about the ways The Legion mirrors, juxtaposes, and takes inspiration from Ancient Roman society in a post-apocalyptic setting.

The first time I encountered Caesar’s Legion in game, my initial thought was “What about the American West makes these people think this is the perfect spot to reinvent Italy?” it’s a barren, land-locked desert with only one or two significant water access points. Italy is a peninsula in a temperate climate with high mountain ranges and verdant forests. Most of this was a jokey thought, but then it struck me that a phalanx would actually be an insanely powerful force in a flat landscape. It all started coming together from there in a most dreadful shape

I: Citizenship

- How to Become a Citizen

Caesar’s Legion is a colonialist nation. They gain land through conquest, typically, and have a tendency to try and homogenize the culture to their liking. Generally speaking, after a town has been conquered, people who willingly surrender or submit to The Legion are given an opportunity for citizenship. Any survivors of conquest that aren’t willing to surrender are either executed or sold into slavery. Slaves are not considered citizens, because the rights and freedoms of a slave do not reflect the rights and freedoms that The Legion offers to those who can be put to better use or are complacent with the mission of The Legion.

Once one is offered a chance for citizenship, the highest ranking general in whatever battalion just took over that person’s land will evaluate if the person can be put to work, put on the battlefield, or is generally useless. Remember, an offer isn’t a guarantee. There is a chance someone who is offered citizenship may be evaluated as useless and sold into slavery regardless of their complacency. Protesting the verdict typically increases the chance of spontaneously being executed, or, if one doesn’t like their proposed role of worker or soldier, being demoted from potential citizen to slave.

If the general regards one as fit to work or fit for the battlefield, these “half-citizens” (media populi for plural, and media persona for singular) will be assigned a new legal name after a record of all new media populi is sent from the general to the regional Vilicus (overseer ;) we’ll elaborate more on this in chapter II), and given the task of minimum 400 hours of what we would understand as “community service” before the Vilicus confirms their citizenship. This “community service” is called pentimento, or repentance. It’s a form of brainwashing in which The Legion is in a position to repeatedly reaffirm that the media persona has more value here helping The Legion than they ever did as a free settler in New Vegas before, and instills dynamics that empower and encourage violence against people of “lower status” (slaves and women, usually). Kinda like a Stanford Prison Experiment that’s purposely designed to cause power dynamics instead of accidentally stumbling to the conclusion. Pentimento may include anything from helping re-pave and clear trade routes in Legion territory, to catching runaway slaves. Each media persona is given a number of tasks to complete per month, and each failed task results in more hours being added onto the total pentimento before citizenship is granted. The number of initial hours of pentimento a media persona needs to do may vary depending on the whims of the Vilicus, how much they resisted Legion control in the past, how many tasks of pentimento they leave incomplete per month, and whether they are masculine or feminine presenting, but is never less than 400 to start. Most media populi end up with starting numbers in the 600s or 700s.

Once the pentimento hours are complete and approved by the Vilicus, the media persona becomes a citizen and is expected to continue the service to the growing empire through either the trade they work in, or through service in the army. However, there is a several-month-long window of time in which spies occasionally visit the new citizens’ homes to monitor them for suspicious activity. In this window of time, spies may be looking for signs that indicate the new citizen is an agent from a rival faction sent to infiltrate The Legion. Only high-ranking officials know about this window. One can lose their citizenship and be returned back to status of media persona if they show suspicious behavior during this time, or worse, be demoted from citizen to slave. In cases where there is undeniable evidence that a new citizen is an agent for a rival faction, the citizen is immediately put to death, and their citizenship is revoked (though revoking the citizenship of someone being put to death is a little redundant).

A baby born into a family of two Legion citizens is automatically also a citizen, and must be given a name in line with Legion naming conventions (which will be discussed next segment). A baby born into a family in which the mother is not a citizen and the father is a citizen will also be considered a citizen. A baby born into a family in which the mother is a citizen and the father is not a citizen will not be considered a citizen at birth. A baby born to a family of two media populi or two slaves will not be considered a citizen at birth.

A person who willingly enters Legion territory and requests citizenship will follow the same steps as how a person from a conquered land would be evaluated for citizenship.

- Social Castes

Social Castes in Caesar’s Legion are determined by how useful one is to the empire, and whether one is male or female. The more sexist aspects of the caste system stem from the fact that women in The Legion can’t serve in the military, and the military is a notably higher status than most other castes since Caesar’s Legion is a military state.

Of course, Caesar is the highest on the social pyramid, followed by his chosen officials (take Lanius for example), then chosen guards (praetorian guard). The military comes next, with the social hierarchy of the military following that which was established in the Roman Empire in the early establishment of Caligula’s reign. After that, religious officials (which act as pseudo-indoctrinators into The Legion, and therefore are pretty essential to brainwashing the next generation of Legionnaires). Then, the Vilici, the overseers of each region/settlement. Next, the average male citizen and then, the average female citizen. Media populi come next, and following that social caste is performers (which serve very little purpose in the eyes of Caesar and the goal of conquest), with male performers having marginally more respect among the populous than female performers. Second to last is slaves, once again with males being just a little more respected than females, but what does that matter when both are going to be abused by the upper castes anyways. At the very bottom of the social ladder is outsiders and criminals, which need to be broken before earning even a sliver of humanity in the eyes of The Legion.

Caesar > Chosen Officials > Chosen Guard > Military (with sub-hierarchy of Ancient Roman military) > Religious Officials > Vilici > Average Citizen > Media Populi > Performers > Slaves > Outsiders and Criminals

- Names

The average citizen in Legion territory wouldn’t need to immediately use their new assigned name (since there’s not enough force immediately available to actually push that, the nation is still growing), but The Legion will give them a “legal” name that they’ll be addressed by formally, and in the best case scenario, the original name will be effectively waned out because it simply doesn’t matter in comparison to the new one.

A praenomen acts effectively as a first name one uses around close friends and family, while a nomen (while acting as a last name) becomes what one is more commonly known by in public. The average citizen will usually have a nomen at least, and a male citizen will have a praenomen and nomen.

- MASCULINE: A classical Latin praenomen will be assigned equivalent to the meaning or phonetics of the new citizen’s first name. The nomen will be determined based on either phonetic/meaning equivalent of the last name, or based on the new citizen’s occupation.

- FEMININE: No praenomen will be assigned. The citizen’s title will be a feminized variation of their father’s nomen, differentiated in generation by number nomenclature (Major, Minor, Tertia, etc). If they have no father, they will assume the feminized nomen of a living male partner that is already a Legion citizen. If they have no living Legion family, they will be assigned the name “Romana” and likely be either sold into slavery or auctioned to a bachelor to gain a proper nomen.

For example: Marcus Gaius has two daughters. The eldest daughter is Gaia Major. The youngest daughter is Gaia Minor. Gaia Minor meets Decimus Junius, and they get married. Now Gaia Minor is named Junia. Gaia Major remains unchanged.

Legion soldiers have more dignity in society, and therefore have all the previous conventions, plus a cognomen. Since all Legion soldiers are masculine, differentiation between masc and fem naming conventions is irrelevant from this point forward. The nomen of a soldier may be akin to the structure of how an average citizen’s would be given, or if the soldier shows exceptional prestige and has no remaining male family, a nomen referencing warfare or combat will be assigned to them (Marcus, Augustus, Drusus, etc.).

A Legion cognomen acts effectively as a Roman military callsign. Cognomens follow classical Roman conventions. The cognomen will be used most frequently in a military setting.

II: Everyday Life

- Common Social Customs

Many Roman social customs are adopted into Legion life. For example, the entertainment at the colosseum is mimicked in the tourneys in the various arenas scattered throughout Legion territory. However, because of the key difference in that The Legion isn’t even pretending not to be a totalitarian dictatorship, there are a number of drastic differences between Roman social customs and Legion social customs.

Because of how respected the military is in Legion society, it is commonplace to show soldiers with utmost reverence. It’s customary to allow soldiers to stay in a citizen’s place of residence if the soldier requests it, and it’s customary to refer to the soldier by their military rank, not their nomen or cognomen (especially if the soldier in question is on duty). It’s considered rude or inappropriate to question the motives of a soldier, or prevent a soldier from accessing areas of a citizen’s property. Such transgressions can potentially be met with violence.

One may frequently see slaves struggling to keep up with workloads. It’s taboo, but not punishable to help them, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the productivity of one’s own work. After all, The Legion gains nothing from incomplete work. If helping a slave means increasing efficiency, then it’s appropriate, but a citizen may get strange looks from others for doing so.

Utilitarianism is the ideal philosophy under which everyone should function in an ideal Legion society, but this is clearly not the case nor the environment to foster it. Social norms are based strongly on class, and in most cases, selfishness prevails because selflessness can be seen as weak (or worse, suspicious) by trigger-happy soldiers and spies.

But hey, at least sex isn’t considered a super taboo topic or activity in Legion society. Got that much going for them. Granted, it’s seen more like a conquest, but at least it’s not seen as a sin. Woohoo? Lets go? Kinda? One step forward two steps back.

- Household Structure

A household in Legion territory for a citizen of average means will likely be similar to any other household in New Vegas (with the addition of slaves in wealthier households). Where things start to get confusing is the aforementioned situation of soldiers being allowed to invade households at will. Psychologically, these soldiers are deprived of a lot of comforts the average citizen may have. There is a decidedly nonzero chance that soldiers can show up like stray cats and keep coming back in the event that a citizen is interesting enough to them. Soldiers sometimes “claim” houses or small patches of territory they frequent as a substitute for the emotional interaction they lack. Humans are social creatures. The soldiers might not know why they want to keep coming back, but they do keep coming back. Parasocial.

Generally, a woman’s domain is the household in Legion territory. While the society is by no means matriarchal, it’s customary for a woman to maintain control over most happenings within a household. This often means a woman will need to interact with stray soldiers more frequently. Among female citizens in Legion territory, these soldiers are called catuli (singular catulus) for their presence and tendencies, though this is always in secret due to the harsh punishment of misrepresenting a soldier’s status to his face. A household can sometimes have up to three catuli claim it before fights start to break out among them about perceived territory.

It is expected for a couple in a household to have children. Cultivating multiple generations of soldiers is part of how The Legion grows most efficiently, because children are impressionable enough to instill Legion values without struggle. If a household does not have a child after several years of partnership, it is considered suspicious and the male of the partnership is encouraged to be unfaithful or open the relationship. While there are no consequences for not having children, there is intense pressure to do so.

- Settlement/Town Structure

As mentioned before, the equivalent of a mayor in each region is called a Vilicus, or an overseer. The Vilicus is responsible for tallying the census, assigning names to media populi, approving the pentimento of media populi, keeping track of production rates of resources from citizens, keeping a lookout for disease outbreak so a region can be quarantined if needed, and monitoring the citizens in each region for minor suspicious activity to report to those higher in status. Each town is also occupied by a heavy military presence, to intimidate citizens into productivity and complacency.

Most of the time, Legion towns are made of the previously conquered settlements now added to Legion territories. Building more houses is an avoidable expenditure if they just repurpose the structures already there with a few modifications. Despite the multiple depictions in-game of Caesar’s Legion showing little to no care about what damage they cause, it would make sense that the depictions in the gameplay are actually the outliers in the situation, since it’s far more efficient to leave the settlements intact and just gut and reconfigure the purpose.

There are also multitudes of mobile scout settlements, mostly made of fabric, tarp, and hide tents that can be easily condensed and moved in the event that the camp is compromised. In many cases, these camps are set up as a base to return to in order to stage an invasion of new territories. If possible, The Legion sets them up close to large landmasses like plateaus or mountains for additional cover in the event of an ambush. If that’s not available, The Legion makes settlements like this close to preexisting towns in order to make the wordless threat of “push us back, and innocents die”. Generally, very few citizens are taken on these excursions, but if the plan is to stay out longer, citizens who are medics may be involuntarily drafted into going with the scout team.

- Clothing, Hair, and Accessories

The Legion isn’t a necessarily materialistic society that allows a lot of room for personal expression. Since the goal is to create a homogenous society and culture, self expression through visual cues is often muted at best and absent at normal. Makeup, perfumes, and hair styling products are prohibited if they have any synthetic qualities or materials. In many cases, beauty products are exclusively reserved for performers, and even still, only natural pigments and materials would be permitted. Think the same pigments Ancient Egyptians would make for their makeup.

Protective updo hairstyles are common for long hair, both for practical purposes and for purposes of keeping hair out of reach and harder to pull. Efficiency is key, so in the event of a raid or a threat, everyone is expected to be able to hold their own to some extent. Part of that standard is remaining on guard, so keeping hair up while out of the house is customary.

In the military, hair is expected to be cut short, again, for efficiency. Any soldiers with long hair are expected to keep it in tight braids or cornrows to maintain the same level of efficiency. As long as it stays out of the face.

Most clothing is dull, salvaged from the wastelands. The only exception is clothing reserved for high ranking officials and Caesar, which is quite literally dyed in blood of enemies. Because blood fades to a blackish-red hue over time, high ranking officials will often appear to be wearing darker colors, when in actuality they’re wearing clothes that were soaked in blood as a symbol of power and debt paid to the gods (namely Mars).

Widows are permitted to wear part of their fallen husband’s bloodsoaked clothes through the mourning process, if The Legion can recover and identity the body. With this in mind, as soon as the widow finds a new husband, the bloodsoaked garment piece is burned.

Slaves are deprived of all aspects of individuality, given rags or scraps to wear and marked with red paint. A citizen may give finer clothes to a slave voluntarily, but those clothes must also be marked with red paint.

Jewelry, while rare, is often made of scrap metal salvaged and re-forged from battlefields or old weapons without any further use. Which is why jewelry is so rare. There is seldom ever an instance in which metal can’t become a weapon, so making jewelry is a waste of time and energy.

- Languages

Basically any language can be spoken in Legion territory as it stands, because as The Legion is currently, it doesn’t have enough power or force to totally instill a whole new language system. With that in mind, the groundwork is being laid for an eventual push to make Latin the official language of Caesar’s Legion. Between the commonly used Latin terminology to address people and the Roman theming of The Legion, it’s primed to eventually enforce Latin as the primary language. Highly educated citizens may be fluent in Latin, and most soldiers know commands and codes in Latin.

III: Industry

- Jobs

There are two types of jobs in The Legion, excluding military and slavery. One can either be a worker or a performer. Medics and nurses are highly valued, both on the battlefield and off, since chemical substances are prohibited in The Legion. Carpenters, metalworkers and blacksmiths, engineers, and tanners are some of the more important standard worker jobs, since all of them play directly into expanding the empire more efficiently, making more weapons and armor, or repurposing old material to make new. Tailors, glassworkers, weavers, technicians, and chemists are less valuable to The Legion to some extent because they either involve industries less geared towards conquest, or involve industries beyond the scope of what The Legion finds socially acceptable. Despite the amount of emphasis Roman polytheism puts on naturalistic sculpture, The Legion actually doesn’t find the arts very useful in the immediate future of the empire. What’s most important is conquest, not expression.

On the topic of the arts, performers were seen in a very poor light in The Legion, often oversexualized into objectification or framed as clowns. Most performance art is often seen as a waste of time or an avoidable expense, but it does keep soldier morale up since it gives them something to target that isn’t their fellow man. Being a performer in The Legion is marginally better than slavery, because one can at least have a house as a performer, but the physical and verbal abuse is often daily and unrelenting.

- Imports and Exports

The Legion is definitely not known for being friendly to neighboring factions, so any concept of import and export is often very loosely based in barter (namely, The Legion demanding tithe to barter for leaving a region alone, similar to how some mafias demand payment in exchange for protection from themselves). The Legion has a semi-steady stream of imports from their commonwealths which they pressure into helping them in trade for leaving their towns unburned and their people free from enslavement. However, this is decidedly not a permanent arrangement. This is a way to bide time to grow the nation a bit more before making moves on settlements and regions with more useful resources.

They export nothing unless it’s a strategic play. They pressure neighboring regions into paying them, even though they honestly don’t need it as much as they want the general population of other factions to think they do. Middle school bully nation.

IV: Politics, Education, and Religion

- What Senate?

The big difference between Rome and The Legion is that The Legion doesn’t try to pretend it’s not a dictatorship. There is no senate, there is no board of people to vote, no forum. The only voice that matters is Caesar’s, and it shows in every aspect of how the society is structured, from the strict rules on self expression, to the patriarchal hierarchy of Legion society. Ultimately, this makes the nation weaker, because in the event of Caesar’s death, it creates a power vacuum. No, I don’t think there’s a secret senate. No, I don’t think there is a solid backup plan. I think the closest thing there was to a senate was the two-man power-team that was Edward Sallow and Joshua Graham. We all know how well that worked out. And I think Caesar’s been running on fumes ever since that point, taking this as a sign to expand the nation faster before anyone sees him bleed. Hubristic in nature.

The closest thing there is to a senate are higher officials (such as Lanius) that Caesar hand-picked from Legion ranks to be his personal cabinet that all agrees with him. There is a distinct instability of power when recreating Rome without a senate, and there is the distinct air of trying to hide that open wound.

- In the Unlikely Event of a Transfer of Power

Let’s say, hypothetically, Caesar, the praetorian guard, and all his higher officials suddenly died. The role of Caesar would be up for grabs. In the event that there is no clear successor to Caesar, there is no real backup plan aside from an arena battle between the generals that could potentially succeed Caesar. A simple solution that will clearly show who can spill the most blood for Mars without hesitation or question.

With this in mind, there is one thing distinctly Roman about the potential of a transfer of power. There is always a nonzero chance that Caesar’s killer, be they foreigner or Legion, could become the next emperor. All that matters is who can devote themself to Mars in a way that would honor the fallen Caesar.

- Common Political Beliefs

Politics and religion go hand in hand for Caesar’s Legion because of the cultish way Caesar built the nation. The idea of Mars being the patron deity of The Legion instills a level of gratuitous and overzealous love of warfare among the people. Military expenditures are met with great support, and very little infrastructure on public service is supported as adamantly because of the instilled value of “we are all independent cogs working in a well oiled machine, we don’t need help”. Then again, it’s not like any other voice mattered anyways, since Caesar is the be all end all of political power.

There is a generally nationwide extremism when it comes to dealing with criminals, however. Criminal activity in The Legion is more often than not punished by torture and death, and nobody seems to really protest it to the degree that other factions do. As many of the travelers and traders in Fallout: New Vegas have said, the roads in Legion territories are incredibly safe. There is a level of patriotism in The Legion specifically regarding how safe their lands are, but in exchange, those lands also have an active military presence.

Conquest is also a pretty intrinsic pillar of Legion political beliefs, since the motivation to create a homogeneous society and usher in a new era of perceived piece may make some people accept the totalitarian power for what it is and hope it pans out right.

- Male vs Female Education Standards

Due to the intrinsic divide between male and female Legion citizens, the education of male and female Legion children is vastly different with the only exception being the uniform brainwashing. Male and female children are not only educated on different topics, they are also educated in different locations.

Similar to Spartan men, most male children (even including orphans from freshly raided towns) are give combat training just about as soon as they can hold a stick and swing it. The male children that show combat proficiency continue to become soldiers, and the male children who aren’t strong, but are intelligent are instead divided into training as either spies or medics, depending on the specifics of their skill sets. Male children who aren’t good at any of that end up becoming armigeri (singular armiger), the people who sharpen weapons and tend to the needs of more proficient soldiers. It’s a social tragedy to become what is essentially a pathetic sidekick to some far better soldier. Thankfully, since most of these children are trained from an incredibly young age to be strong, cunning, fast, and durable, very few people end up becoming armigeri. Generally speaking, no boy in The Legion goes without military training. The Legion can capture their blacksmiths and carpenters, there’s no need to train them in-house.

Female Legion children are not given formal education. They are expected to grow up to be housekeepers and produce the next generation of warlords. However, a family still has the liberty to educate a daughter at home with a tutor so long as it doesn’t interfere with the family’s productivity. Usually, female children are given medical teachings more oriented towards patching the injuries of their future husbands. However, girls aren’t left entirely defenseless. Girls are taught how to use ranged weapons and how to escape grapples in the event of an emergency. In addition, girls are given more of an education on finances and practical skills that tie into long-term survival, such as how to use every part of a killed animal for resources, how to patch clothes, and how to cultivate plants.

A Thank You And Some Concluding Comments

Hello hello to anyone who’s made it this far through my ludicrous ramblings! Thank you for reading! This is really just me throwing nonsense in the air and seeing what floats, and most of what I’ve written here will probably be subject to edits every now and then to keep building up what I’ve already put down.

Feel free to use this lore for any fan fictions, fan art, original characters, or whatever else! Please keep building on it!

I hope y’all enjoyed my insane chattering!

[eugenedebs1920]

How did we get here? How did we get to a place where everything is a conspiracy theory? A place where experts are discredited. A place where the press is seen by many as the enemy of the people. A place where science is disputed. A place where women aren’t trusted with their own bodily autonomy. A place where the labor force is every day having safety protocols removed. A place where it isn’t safe to love who you love without fear of reprimand. Is this our country? Does the Constitution still stand? Are we the United States of America?

The results of the 2020 election gave rise to the fact that almost 8 million more

People voted for Biden over Trump. The 2016 election showed that 3.5 million more people voted for Hilary over Trump. In 2012 Obama got 5 million more votes than Romney, and 10 million more than McCain in 2008!

What does this tell us? It tells us, by and large the population is more liberal, more open minded, more inclusive, more willing to listen to ideas and opinions different from their own. Thats damn near the definition! Liberal: inclined to be open to ideas and ways of behaving that are not conventional or traditional : BROAD-MINDED, TOLERANT That’s Webster definition.

So why then are we at a place where women’s rights are taken from them? Why are we eliminating the scientists and experts who’ve worked at their agencies for years? Why are we stripping regulations away and allowing industries to pollute as much as they want? Why are labor rights being gutted? Why are lgbtq rights being denied? Why are banks allowed to prey on consumers? Why do corporations not have to pay their share in taxes into our nation?

It’s complicated. Yet it comes down to a few things. Greed, slavery, and Republicans.

Greed is an addiction. Studies have shown the same reward centers in your brain release dopamine and serotonin in the same fashion when you use cocaine as when you receive money. So these oligarchs, these CEO’s, these Wall Street billionaires, they’re all looking for the same fix as the guy on the corner asking you for change. They’re junkies. The big difference between the guy in the corner and Elon Musk is, that the guy on the corner doesn’t have government contracts, the guy on the corner isn’t in constant contact with Putin, the guy on the corner isn’t trying to buy an election. He just wants a hit.

When our nation was founded it was a time of upheaval and uncertainty for the 13 colonies. We were embattled with the most powerful military in the world of that time, England. The Spanish were in Florida, the French in Louisiana, and we had the natives whose land we were actively taking. Thats a whole lot of conflict for an emerging nation to endure. The survival of our country depended upon our ability to be a unified front against the aggression coming at us. If it was thirteen different countries fighting their own little wars, there was no way we could have defended against such perilous forces.

There was one little problem though. Although the north did have slaves the numbers paled in comparison to that of the south. The whole labor force of the south was a slave labor force. There were many who saw the unethical concept of slavery and wanted it abolished in the new world. Alas this was not the time for battles of morality.

Due to the smaller population sizes of the south, due in large part to the slave labor force vs the plantation owners, a compromise was made. An electoral process that would eventually be known as the electoral college.

What does this have to do with Republicans? Weren’t they the party of Lincoln? Yes. I’m getting to that. Fast forward a couple hundred years ish to the early 1960’s. All those people who were brought here as slaves, freed but never given freedom. It was time to end the segregation and oppression. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1964 by Lindon Johnson. There was a mass exodus of the Democratic Party from those in the southern states. The CRA was an affront on their entire belief structure. Now, black Americans, whose loyalty had lied with the Republican Party, due to Lincoln’s affiliation, now sided with the Democrats. All the white southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) jumped ship and went Republican.

As this country progresses the diversity goes along with it. The ideas of old, the highly religious, dogmatic principles have had their margins slimmed. Instead of adapting with the culture, instead of representing that in which their constituency evolved to, they devised a plan. A plan of obstruction and cheating, of making it so that the minority could rule over the majority.

There have been more calls to abolish the electoral college (article II of the U.S. Constitution) than any other ratifications to the constitution, 700 times it has been proposed. In the later part of the twentieth century (1969-1970 congress) was the closest it’s gotten to abolishment. Those who oppose its removal claim the “one person one vote” concept leaves smaller state populations less represented. Yea. Your point?! Why are we lessening the voice of millions to appease a couple hundred thousand?! Because Republicans would lose their power to control even without the numbers.

I could go on and on, showing statistics and giving examples but the election is near and I can’t write a novel right now. I can post a link to my Substack where I dive deeper into the subject. Let’s move on.

The representation in the senate, population wise, is a joke! There’s senators from states whose population isn’t a third of others who stand in the way of progress. Who obstruct the changing of the times. The House of Representatives has had their districts so gerrymandered that they can disenfranchise tens of thousands to retain their seats (this is not only Republicans who do this, just for transparency, but it’s a much higher percentage than Democrats). Think about Kentucky. Kentucky’s 4.5 million residents stole two Supreme Court appointments through Mitch (the turtle) McConnell. California has over 39.5 million residents, New York has almost 21 million, Illinois nearly 12 million all Democratic senators. Yet the Republican state of f*ckin Kentucky, with its 4.5 million residents was able to dictate laws in the whole of our country for the next 30 years!!! That’s not how democracy works!!

Now it’s gotten to the point where there are 7-9 states that dictate the future for the nation at large. This minoritarian rule is not democracy. This is reaching a tipping points towards authoritarianism.

I thought Obama did some great things, got us out of the Republican made Great Recession, and the housing crisis Bush’ deregulation caused. The thing that he did that irritates me, is he left roughly 200 open federal judge appointments unfilled. I don’t know if it was arrogance, thinking Hillary would win or why he didn’t fill them.

Trumps not a smart man. He’s an actor. Not a good one at that, but let’s call him a showman. The religious right, in the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society had, for decades been waiting for the proper stooge to do their bidding. Harlan Crow and others got the most ideologically backward, extreme right wing judges on the courts. Mind you these are lifetime appointments. Now the high courts will take up absurd cases to throw them up to the Supreme Court and it’s 6-3 MAGA super majority (thanks Kentucky!) and have those partisan hacks work it out to be the least favorable decision for a majority of the population.

It is 70% of representation is controlled by 30% of the population. This is absurd. That means that every Republican vote is worth nearly 2 Democratic votes. Republicans are well aware of this (maybe not the voters but the leadership). This is a beginning step towards autocratic rule. When a minority dictates law for the majority. Unacceptable.

What can we do? Nothing right now. Yet we put pressure on our senators and representatives, the governors of our state and contact the White House. I write my senators to bitch about one thing or the other monthly and about quarterly I contact the White House. Hey! They work for us! Tell your employees what you want from them. Vote! Vote early, vote often. Vote in your local elections, they mean more than you may think. Get your friends and family, neighbors and acquaintances out to vote, offer riders to the polls. Stay informed and educate yourself. The future is yours. Who do you want making the decisions?

[fanyeline]

maybe i just have f@tt exhaustion & need a break but most of palisade has been incredibly bleak & idk if this post credits ending is going to fix that. let's take a look at where the characters started and "ended" this season

Kalvin Brnine: started unable to talk abt their feelings & with hope that millenium break could change lives. ended unable to talk abt their feelings, estranged 3 important relationships & with a death wish.

Thisbe: started w the idea that they have no freedom. ended with the realization that they have freedom, but also they have an energy thing in them that prevents them from relaxing

The Figure in Bismuth: started w wanting to break free from slavery. Ended up dead.

Phrygian: started w wanting to fight the good fight & end the war. Ended up dead.

Coriolis Sunset: started idealistic & naive. ended up grizzled, chased from planet to planet & having forcibly lost their girlfriend to a contract with a God

from my point of view, if the idea was that they wanted to make a corny, hopeful season, they picked the wrong game from the start. armor astir's pillars are practically undefeatable, that is part of the game.

secondly, the cause VS principality gameplay where the team was split into two groups didn't really work for me. it felt like it created aggression between groups, where both groups wanted to win instead of creating a collaborative story. you can hear austin struggling with this in early episodes of the game against jack & art, and eventually it felt like they just leaned into the opposition between the two groups. This is maybe "fun", but in the end it creates this feeling that there's always a losing side.

secondly part 2, the inclusion of the stellar combuster arc towards the beginning of the season felt super weird, pacing wise. i know we can't always control these things, but overall that whole arc only felt stressful, never fun or rewarding. even when brnine killed the princept, i was just kind of stressed out!

third, i'm not sure the final questlandia game was a great ending game, especially when so many of the character beats couldn't really explored in a system that's talking about kingdom level activities. Besides that, I found the choice of characters to be a little disappointing. Bringing in Levi after figure's death didn't feel like a breath of fresh air, it just felt like 'well who is this guy?'. I felt the same way about Jack's character, August Righteousness. I think either could have played a character we already had a strong connection with. What about Gucci? What about Jesset? How about Mustard Red? Keith bringing back Leap was the right choice, not only bc leap is someone we already cared about but because he's like this incredible force as a character. He is someone who generates change.

fourth, I felt the treatment of Clem as a character was absolutely ridiculous. the immediate dislike and rejection by the cast of an extremely popular character after art brought up playing her felt like it was both disrespecting art as a player and his ability to do a villain justice, and towards the listeners who have been invested in Clem's story since she was a player character in Partizan. It felt like after a certain point, Art had to give up caring about what Clem did or face backlash from the other players! In the last few kingdom episodes, art was going "I mean, whatever, I don't really care" half the time they asked him about what he felt clem would do. And I also found it to be a huge bummer to listen to the players have discourse over Clem.

There's a big difference to me over fandom discourse and players taking part in that discourse. First and foremost, Clem is a character in a story, and while their "what should we do about Clem" discussion should have revolved around how to give her a satisfying character arc, it felt more like they were trying to figure out how to wash their hands of her. I don't really understand how or why the friends soured on Clem so much, and you know what? I get being sick of a character. But having a public discussion about it was really weird, & as a fan, a total bummer to hear.

So yeah, over all I feel really burned out by this season and the decisions they've made. I think it's been a sad time. I don't think it's been fun or goofy for awhile.

Obviously as creators they have a right to do whatever they want with their art, but I can't help but find it disappointing. It feels really different to what they've put out before & I'm having a hard time enjoying this gritty, sad and stressful season.

[ptseti]

BLACK IN CHINA VS USA

Julian McCall moved from the United States to China when he was 15. He was expecting police to pull him over while running, wearing a hoodie, but he was pleasantly surprised at the freedom he experienced. According to him, Chinese people and their government don’t associate Africans with criminal activity.

Being an African in the United States, or any country involved in the European Slave Trade of African peoples, forces one to grapple with the legacies of slavery and colonialism, day in and day out. Living like this conditions people to believe prejudice and white supremacist policies are universal.

As he said in his Miami Herald opinion piece, ‘While slavery’s oppressive shadow still shapes American society 150 years after its dissolution, it simply never existed in China. Black people are not a fixture in Chinese history, so my skin generated genuine curiosity rather than suspicion. My Blackness was certainly still Othering but in a much more benign and tolerable way than in America.’

For more on his perspective, please read his 2022 article, ‘Sanctuary: Black in Beijing’ in the Miami Herald.

[the-far-bright-center]

Anakin's goodness and positive influence outlasts him and reverberates around the galaxy. I wish more people would realise that, despite everything, he DOES leave a positive legacy behind.

“You have brought hope to those who have none”

Shmi told that Anakin, after he won the podrace. She meant their new friends who could buy now the needed parts for ship and finally go back to home / Republic. But Padme and Jinn - and by extension people of Naboo -  weren’t the only one “freed” by Anakin’s victory.

Remember Anakin’s two friends, who were part of his “pit crew”?

In additional sources, like Tatooine Ghost, we learn that winning Boonta Eva Classic brought hope to his childhood friends as well.

Kitster (the human boy) was the best friend of Anakin. They grew up together in slavery under Gardulla’s regime and kept in touch even after Anakin & Shmi were brought by Watto. Before young Skywalker left Tatooine, he gave Kitster some of his prize credits. Kitster bought Par Ontham’s Guide to Etiquette, a book that helped him to get good job and earned enough to buy his own freedom by the time he had grown up. The book was one of the most precious things of Kitster, who strongly believed it was thanks to Anakin (who won the race and shared money with him) that he finally was a free man.

After Anakin’s departure, Wald (the rodian boy) remainded close friend with both Kitster and Shmi. At some point Shmi found in Anakin’s room his old design of swoop bike and gave it to Kitster and Wald. Using it, boys together  built machine “nearly as fast as a Podracer”. Thanks to such swoop bike, Wald won important race and with that, his own freedom.

Anakin brought hope to those who had none - it’s his victory that inspirated other slave children to dream of freedom. It’s Anakin (and Shmi’s) kindness - the act of sharing, giving something valuable (like money or design/ a reminder of son) with those in need put both boys into the path for their own freedom. It’s shame that Anakin never had a chance to learn that his closest friends freed themselves from slavery, never had a chance to meet them at least one more time before war spread for good through the galaxy.

[gremlines]

today i'm thinking abt black sails and its portrayal of The Other

the way flit has always been other, either by society's design or his own. a working class naval lieutenant surrounded by the sons of landed gentry. the way he holds himself as other from the rest of nassau & the pirates, even from those like hornigold who (to my memory) are also ex-navy (or at least ex-navy coded??)

the way madi, miranda, eleanor, max, and anne are all Other for being women in a male-dominated space, but how eleanor is less Other for her whiteness and wealth vs madi (and to a different degree, max) who are on the other end of the spectrum as being enitrely othered by the dominant culture. versus miranda who COULD be like eleanor but chooses to hold herself as other.

the otherness even of those you'd expect to NOT be other, like vane - very traditionally masculine, but still other for his anti-slavery stance.

that one scene where rackham is in boston talking to socialites and you can FEEL how OTHER he is. the way the people in boston talk abt pirates as distant and different and Other. an intentional separation - an intentional Othering - by so-called civilization toward those they deem dangerous. the Othering of flint & vane at charlestown, where only abigail ashe sees them as people and not as Other

something something civilization wants you to cling to its light, but there is freedom in the darkness!!

[drconstellation]

Liberty versus the Tree of Life

TW: Discussion of death and grief

I received a question from @lickthecowhappy the other day on one of my metas that I'm going to try and address in this post. This is going to wander into some pretty heavy areas, and discuss some implications for S3.

They asked:

"What do you think about comparing "give me liberty (coffee) or give me death" with gaining free will via the tree of knowledge but losing access to the tree of life in the process?"

On one hand this might look like a simple choice between two things, but its not - there are shades of grey, of course. Can the two (liberty/death vs. knowledge/life) be compared? Yes - in a way. But we need to unpack the question in its entirety first.

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"

This famous quote that forms the basis of the name of Nina's coffee shop is from a reconstructed speech given by the American politician Patrick Henry in 1775, as the colonists prepared to fight against the British Empire. It is worth us having a look at the extended excerpt of the speech quoted from Wikipedia in context of what we know is coming in S3:

If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

If the mention of Boston wasn't there, you could almost read that as a crazy synopsis of S2 and S3. The Great War, that wasn't considered concluded satisfactorily and must be restarted and finished once and for all, has begun again, and is on its inexorable way. There will be storms. Some see the outcome in black and white - you either win or die; there is no other option, because they do not dare entertain it.

The fandom seems quite settled with the analogy of liberty and freedom = coffee, and six shots of espresso is Crowley's coffee preference, because he loves and protects his freedom with a passion. Crowley is that coffee, in a way - long, dark and richly intense. He is a champion of free will. Even as a demon he still gives those he tempts the choice to make their own mistakes. So how do we apply this to the coffee the Metatron offers Aziraphale, and the other option, death?

The coffee the Metatron orders and forces on Aziraphale is a message, and a warning, to the angel - "I know all about you and your demon partner." The shot of coffee in it is Crowley, the oat milk is to say Aziraphale has maybe gone a bit too far with things with Crowley while on Earth, and the almond syrup is to say they have been watched and observed do so. This is confirmed when the Metatron mentions that he knows that Aziraphale and Crowley have formed a de facto partnership.

And where would Aziraphale get his Crowley from if he went back to Heaven?

What about death? Is it a real option? What does the option of death mean anyway?

If you are not familiar with the Tarot deck, the Death card can seem quite alarming. A skeleton in black armour strides over a fallen king - death does not care for rank or position. Death cares not for riches, they will not hold it at bay. Nor will prayers. Death does not care what age you are, either. But the small, kneeling child holds a posy of flowers up as if in greeting, the only one prepared to face the rider on the pale horse; this is because children are not as always as set in their ways as adults are, and can adapt to change more easily.

Experienced Tarot users know that is what the Death card signifies when it appears: Change. Something is coming to and end, but something else is about to start as well. It's not a physical death, its a spiritual or metaphorical death. It should be a welcomed card, as it indicates there is a promise renewal and new beginnings on the horizon (see the dawning sun between the two pillars in the top right of the card?) and all one has to do is surrender to the inevitable change. But like death, making changes can sometime be a hard, fearful thing to face. Facing death, either your own or someone else's, is ultimately about accepting change.

Surrender to the British is not what Patrick Henry wanted to do. He wanted to keep the liberty he had in the new world.

But death was the only viable option Aziraphale had.

"So predictable," remarked the Metatron to Nina, when she told him people don't ever ask for death in response to his question. Death is present in Nina's coffee shop - it's the green colour on the inside walls.

I haven't done much colour meta lately but I have been doing a lot of research on them, as I realized the original meta I wrote needed a major revision, which I plan to do soon. Green was one of those colours that needed more work.

The green on the inside walls actually has two meanings, which are both specifically tied to the coffee shop, but the first one is Death, with the capital D. This is one of the Four Horsepeople lurking in the background of S2, as Armageddon prepares to ramp up again. War is on the label of the wine bottle Crowley has in S2E5, Famine is the Marley Horse statue that Crowley puts his sunglasses on inside the bookshop, and where the stone-shaped Eccles cakes are placed in offering. Death is waiting inside the coffee shop, right next to the constraining sky-blue moral lawfulness of Heaven.

Death rides a pale horse, but the word used to describe it, "chloros," actually translates to a "pale greenish-yellow." That would have looked a bit sickly inside the coffee shop, I think, so they used a more complimentary shade of green, and one that would double up with a second meaning. Green is also the colour associated with new beginnings and the resurrection. That's why the outside of The Resurrectionist pub is dark green - it's got nothing to do with Hell (at least, I don't think it does, in this case!)

The Second Coming is in progress. Armageddon is underway again. Someone in Heaven is determined to see the supposed Great Plan come to fruition.

The Riddle of the Sphinx

In Sophocles play Oedipus Rex the titular character meets the Sphinx on a hill outside of Thebes. The monster has been devouring travelers who do not answer her riddle correctly.

"What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"

Clever Oedipus replies with "Man," and defeated, the Sphinx departs, removing her curse from the city.

A baby crawls on four limbs into childhood, then two legs into adulthood, then on three legs with a cane for an aid into old age. This is the natural progression of life. You would not want to remain an infant forever, and similarly if you have children wouldn't you wish to see them progress from childhood to adulthood and have children of their own?

Remember Momento mori? It's a major theme in the series. Remember that you die. It's a reminder that cycles must end and restart, and that death is an important part of life. We saw the Starmaker set up a star factory, but even stars die eventually, and need to die, to make new stars. The universe recycles itself, that is how it keeps going. Sometimes we need a reminder that life is short, although sometimes it seems too long as well.

I think we too easily forget that our ineffable duo, as angel and demon, are entities that can effortlessly travel between these two worlds of life and death, as we humans see it. It's their business to do so, after all. As supernatural beings, they are eternally alive, and death has a different meaning to them - it's destruction that they fear.

The Tree of Knowledge & The Tree of Life

Aziraphale's role as Guardian of the Eastern Gate was to prevent humans returning to the Garden of Eden to access the Tree of Life after they had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

The Tree of Knowledge gave us questioning, curiosity and imagination. We learned, we created and in doing so made choices - we used free will. But in taking this liberty it gave us the responsibility for ourselves. It supposedly gave us the concept of sin and doing wrong, and also shorter lives to help us deal with the "agony" of this.

And the other option, the Tree of Life, that is apparently so dangerous we must be kept away from it? Is it death? No, quite the opposite - it offers eternal life, and redemption from sin. In short - a state of no change - and no choice.

To access the Tree of Life now the choice is made for you before you can arrive in front of it, in the Book of Life. If your name is in the Book on Judgement Day, you get to enter Paradise. If it is not, you will be cast down into a lake of burning sulfur (hmm, sounds familiar...) And that's it, forever and ever.

Is that really the ideal of Paradise? Yet we're made to fear the cyclic change and new growth that death brings, and want to yearn so much for the stagnation of Eternity that we rigidly structure our lives around a possible promise of it as a goal.

Eternal Life, Eternal Youth

Eternal life is not the same as eternal youth. In a cautionary tale from Ovid's Metamorphoses we have the Cumaean Sybil who lived a thousand years. She was the priestess of the oracle of Apollo at Cumae, near Naples, and apparently Apollo offered to grant her a wish in exchange for her virginity. She scooped up a handful of sand, and asked to be given as many years of life as there were grains of sand that she held. Later, she refused to sleep with the god, so he let her physical body wither away, because she had failed to ask for eternal youth as well. Her body shrunk as the years went by, and grew smaller and smaller, and eventually only her voice was left, kept contained in a jar. (And here is a link to one of the books on Jim's bookshelf - Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar is named after the ampulla that the Sybil's voice was said to have been kept in.)

Searching for a Fountain of Youth, or creating a Philosopher's Stone for immortality has a common theme in stories through history, even from earliest times. It can be seen as a blessing, or a curse, or a fool's errand. It's a quest that is still prevalent in our modern thinking - going to the gym to build muscle, cosmetic surgery for looks only etc Queer culture has long had an emphasis on youth and beauty and growing old is anathema; freezing the body in time like in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is an aim, but our fragile mortal frames just aren't made for that. Isn't it what is inside us that counts, not the label we have applied to it?

Choices, Choices...

The time has come to make a choice: will it be the stimulating coffee of free will, or the painful change and rebirth of death, that might lead to something even better?

Perhaps you want to try the other combination: Having control and responsibility over your own short life in exchange for having to live your life to a strict set of rules so that you can then exist forever in somebody else's idea of a static ideal afterwards.

I find I'm a bit biased. But you chose what you will.

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” T. S. Eliot

[reasoningdaily]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article278582149.html

Tallahassee

When Florida rejected a new Advanced Placement course on African American Studies, state officials said they objected to the study of several concepts — like reparations, the Black Lives Matter movement and “queer theory.”

But the state did not say that in many instances, its reviewers also made objections in the state’s attempt to sanitize aspects of slavery and the plight of African Americans throughout history, according to a Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times review of internal state comments.

For example, a lesson in the Advanced Placement course focused on how Europeans benefited from trading enslaved people and the materials enslaved laborers produced. The state objected to the content, saying the instructional approach “may lead to a viewpoint of an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ based solely on race or ethnicity.”

In another lesson about the beginnings of slavery, the course delved into how tens of thousands of enslaved Africans had been “removed from the continent to work on Portuguese-colonized Atlantic islands and in Europe” and how those “plantations became a model for slave-based economy in the Americans.”

READ MORE: DeSantis says AP African-American studies class was ‘pushing an agenda’

In response, the state raised concerns that the unit “may not address the internal slave trade/system within Africa” and that it “may only present one side of this issue and may not offer any opposing viewpoints or other perspectives on the subject.”

“There is no other perspective on slavery other than it was brutal,” said Mary Pattillo, a sociology professor and the department chair of Black Studies at Northwestern University. Pattillo is one of several scholars the Herald/Times interviewed during its review of the state’s comments about the AP African American Studies curriculum.

“It was exploitative, it dehumanized Black people, it expropriated their labor and wealth for generations to come. There is no other side to that in African American studies. If there’s another side, it may be in some other field. I don’t know what field that is because I would argue there is no other side to that in higher education,” Pattillo said.

Alexander Weheliye, African American studies professor at Brown University, said the evaluators’ comments on the units about slavery were a “complete distortion” and “whitewashing” of what happened historically.

“It’s really trying to go back to an earlier historical moment, where slavery was mainly depicted by white historians through a white perspective. So to say that the enslaved and the sister African nations and kingdoms and white colonizers and enslavers were the same really misrecognizes the fundamentals of the situation,” Weheliye said.

DeSantis’ efforts to transform education in Florida

The commentary is also an example of how Gov. Ron DeSantis has transformed the state’s education system in his quest to end what he calls “wokeism” and “liberal indoctrination” in schools — a fight that began in the aftermath of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed the high-profile murder of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota.

“It’s not really about the course right? It’s kind of about putting down Black struggles for equality and freedom that have been going on for centuries at this point in time and making them into something that they are not through this kind of distorted rightist lens,” Weheliye said.

When asked about the findings of the previously unreported internal reviews, the Florida Department of Education said the course was rejected after state officials “found that several parts of the course were unsuitable for Florida students.”

Cailey Myers, a spokesperson for the agency, cited the work of many Black writers and scholars associated with the academic concepts of critical race theory, queerness and intersectionality — a term that she said “ranks people based on their race, wealth, gender and sexual orientation.” The term, however, refers to the way different social categorizations can interact with discrimination.

Brandi Waters, the executive director of the AP African American Studies course, said it is hard to understand the Florida Department of Education’s critiques on the content because state officials have not directly shared their internal reviews with the College Board. The state and the College Board, however, were in communication about the course for several months before it was rejected.

Waters maintains the coursework submitted to the state was the most holistic introduction to African American Studies.

A deeper look at Florida’s objections

The course materials provided by the College Board were reviewed by Florida Department of Education’s Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support and the decision to reject the course was made by “FDOE senior leadership,” records show.

John Duebel, the director of the state agency’s social studies department, and Kevin Hoeft, a former state agency official who now works at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, were identified as the two evaluators in the review. Hoeft is listed as an “expert consultant” to the Civics Alliance, a national conservative group that aims to focus social studies instruction in the Western canon and eliminate “woke” standards. His wife is a member of the conservative group Moms for Liberty.

Duebel declined to comment on the story and referred questions to the Department of Education, which did not respond. Hoeft did not respond to a request seeking comment. While the documents say that Duebel and Hoeft led the state reviews, much of the comments included in the state review are not attributed, making it hard to tell who said what.

The documents reviewed were provided to the Herald/Times by American Oversight, a left-leaning research organization that sued the state Department of Education for the records.

“We sued the Florida Department of Education to shed light on the DeSantis administration’s efforts to whitewash American history and turn classrooms into political battlegrounds,” American Oversight Deputy Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement. “The records obtained by American Oversight from Florida’s internal review of the AP African American Studies course expose the dangers of Gov. DeSantis’ sweeping changes to public education in Florida, including preventing students from learning history free from partisan spin.”

READ MORE: How a small, conservative Michigan college is helping DeSantis reshape education in Florida

The documents offer more detail into the state’s reasoning for rejecting the pilot course from being offered to high school students in Florida — and how topics related to racism, identity and gender were continually flagged out of concern that lessons were biased, misleading or “inappropriate” for students.

And, in cases where state officials did not find a violation of a state law or rule, concerns were often raised about how educators would teach the content, underscoring the growing distrust between state officials and educators as disputes over social issues engulf local school politics.

For example, the state worried educators teaching about how the 1960s Black is Beautiful movement helped lay a foundation for multicultural and ethnic studies movements, could “possibly teach that rejecting cultural assimilation, and promoting multiculturalism and ethnic studies are current worthy objectives for African Americans today.”

“This type of instruction tends to divide Americans rather than unify Americans around the universal principles in the Declaration of Independence,”the state officials wrote about a lesson in the course.

Records also show how some of the comments made by the state evaluators contained contradictions, such as advocating for primary sources and then later writing that certain primary sources contained “factual misrepresentations.” Many comments from the state pushed for the material to include perspectives from “the other side” but failed to elaborate whose perspective they wanted to be added.

Slavery

One of the lessons in the course, for example, set out to teach students how slavery set back Black people’s ability to build wealth.

“Enslaved African Americans had no wages to pass down to descendants, no legal right to accumulate property, and individual exceptions depended on their enslavers’ whims,” the College Board’s lesson plan said.

When reviewing the content, however, state reviewers said the lesson plan might violate state laws and rules because it “supposes that no slaves or their descendants accumulated any wealth.”

“This is not true and may be promoting the critical race theory idea of reparations,” state officials wrote in documents reviewed by the Herald/Times. “This topic presents one side of this issue and does not offer any opposing viewpoints or other perspectives on the subject.”

While there were scattered instances where enslaved people were given the chance to earn money to pay for their freedom, the wealth they accumulated still did not belong to them, said Paul Finkelman, the editor-in-chief of Oxford University Press’ “Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895.”

“Under the law of every slave state, including Florida, no slave could own anything. That is, slaves did not own the clothes on their back. They did not own the shoes on their feet,” said Finkelman. “So for the Florida Education Department to question whether slaves accumulated property is to not understand that slaves owned no property. In fact, they were property belonging to slave owners.”

Even in cases where slaves were allowed to make money, Finkelman argued, it would be a stretch to say they were able to accumulate wealth.

Black middle class

Evaluators also objected to a lesson plan that taught how Black Americans, even after slavery, continue to experience wealth disparities due to ongoing discrimination.

The coursework included the following statement: “Despite the growth of the Black middle class, substantial disparities in wealth along racial lines remain. Discrimination and racial disparities in housing and employment stemming from the early 20th century limited Black communities accumulation of generational wealth in the second half of the 20th century.”

State reviewers, however, said the unit could potentially violate state rules because it failed to offer other reasons outside of systemic racism and discrimination for the wealth disparity between Black Americans and other racial groups.

“The only required resource in this topic cites ‘systemic racism,’ ‘discrimination,’ ‘systemic barriers,’ ‘structural barriers,’ and ‘structural racism’ as a primary or significant causative factor explaining this disparity of wealth,” wrote one evaluator. “This topic appears to be one-sided as non-critical perspectives or competing opinions are cited to explain this wealth disparity.”

Pattillo said that while many of the comments made by the state in the review claimed that they wanted to see more balance of perspectives in the course materials, she felt state officials largely tried to minimize the topics of discrimination.

Abolitionist Movement

When it came to teaching students about the movement to end slavery, the College Board highlighted some of the prominent activists who led that abolitionist movement and the ways the government tried to stop those who resisted slavery.

“Due to the high number of African Americans who fled enslavement, Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, authorizing local governments to legally kidnap and return escaped refugees to their enslavers,” the lesson plan stated.

Primary sources were scrutinized

When the College Board addressed the resistance to slavery, it wanted to teach students how to “describe the features of 19th-century radical resistance strategies promoted by Black activists to demand change.” In that unit, the state objected to two primary sources: “The Appeal” by David Walker and “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” by Henry Highland Garnet.

State reviewers said that “The Appeal” included “content prohibited under Florida law,” but does not offer more details; and that “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” contains “factual mis-representations” and potential violations of state rules.

“They complain that this primary source is not historically accurate. Well, of course it’s not historically accurate because it’s a political speech. It is not a piece of history, but it’s a perfectly historically accurate primary source to understand the anger of a Black abolitionist,” Finkelman said.

However, earlier in the review, the evaluators applauded the College Board for stating that “anchoring the AP course in primary sources fosters an evidence-based learning environment” and that the course will be focused on the works and documents of African American studies rather than “extraneous political opinions or perspectives.”

“This is exactly how all courses are to be taught in the state of Florida and we commend [the] College Board on this position,” wrote the state reviewer .

Scholars’ political leanings questioned

In one review, one of the state evaluators questioned the balance of the content because of the individuals the College Board picked to develop the coursework.

But one of the evaluators had a gripe: they claimed that there were no conservative Black scholars. This was a concern because, as the state evaluator put it, there may not be an “adequate level of intellectual balance.”

“Conservative and traditional liberal members may need to be added to the committees to bring balance and ensure compliance with Florida statutes, rules, and policies,” the state evaluator wrote.

Waters said the College Board is focused on having scholars on their committees who are the leaders in the field of African American studies and that their political background isn’t something they take into consideration.

“In terms of the scholars, we never really asked them ‘what is your political background?’,” Waters said. “I don’t assume that is a characteristic that remains static in a person’s life over time.”

“What we do is look for scholars who represent the expertise needed for the course. So who is leading the field in how we understand the origins of the African diaspora? Who is leading the field in cutting edge research on unearthing new perspectives of the civil rights movement? We look for their expertise and also the different backgrounds that they represent,” she added.

How did we get to this point?

While Florida law requires the study of African American history, the state reviews of the AP course show how the DeSantis administration and Republican policymakers are implementing changes to how schools can teach about race, slavery and other aspects of Black history.

In 2021, Florida barred lessons that deal with critical race theory, a 1980s legal concept that holds that racial disparities are systemic in the United States and not just a collection of individual prejudices. Critical race theory was not being taught in Florida schools. The state also barred lessons about “The 1619 Project,” a New York Times project that reexamines U.S. history by placing the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans at the center.

A year later, the Republican-led Legislature approved a new law, known as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibited instruction that could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, ethnicity, sex or national origin.

To DeSantis, the restrictions are a necessary effort to protect students from what he sees as a cultural threat that, as he puts it, teaches “kids to hate this country.” But the policies have been widely criticized by Democrats, educators, historians and even a few Republican lawmakers who see the laws as an attempt to distort historic events.

State officials’ interpretation of these policies collided with many of the learning objectives outlined in the A.P. courses. This collision, some scholars say, is emblematic of the chilling effect the state’s vague laws can foster in academia.

“I think this is the point that many people have been saying,” Pattillo said. “That the misguided blanket use of this term critical race theory, and in the absence of some definition of what that means or what they think it means, makes any teaching of racism questionable per that vagueness...”

Based on the state reviews the Herald/Times provided to him, Finkelman said it appeared the state was “hunting for bias.”

“And if you hunt long enough, you can find bias anywhere,” Finkelman said, noting that “anyone can find faults, and even small mistakes with any scholarly enterprise.”

To do the job right, Finkelman said, the state should ensure the course is reviewed by historians, with expertise in the specific subject area — not political scientists or state bureaucrats. He questioned whether the state prioritized reviewers’ credentials after seeing the state’s comments on the topics of slavery, or subjects that took into account the issue of racism and identity.

Based on Finkelman’s review of the content, he said, the state reviewers were more interested in correcting content based on their reading of the material over “scholarly accuracy.”

Read more: Only 3 reviewers said Florida math textbooks violated CRT rules. Yet state rejected dozens

Since Florida rejected the pilot course in January, students in other parts of the country have been taking part in the pilot program. Education officials in only one other state — Arkansas — are disputing whether to make the AP course eligible for credit. The Arkansas Department of Education — led by Florida’s former K-12 Chancellor Jacob Oliva — recently removed the class from its course code listing.

In November, the College Board plans to submit the final version of the course’s curriculum for approval. But with Florida’s laws still in place, the fate of the course remains in limbo — and the outcome could potentially make Florida students in public high schools less likely to have access to the course. If approved, parents and students can choose to enroll in the course.

College Board officials are aware of this possibility, but remain hopeful.

“We certainly hope that Florida students will have the opportunity to take this course,” said Holly Stepp, a spokesperson with the College Board.

Myers, the Florida Department of Education spokesperson, said the College Board is welcome to resubmit the course for review in November.

But, Myers said, “at this point, it is inappropriate to comment on what the future could hold – it is just speculation.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2023, 5:30 AM.

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.3.5 What is Anarcha-Feminism?

Although opposition to the state and all forms of authority had a strong voice among the early feminists of the 19th century, the more recent feminist movement which began in the 1960’s was founded upon anarchist practice. This is where the term anarcha-feminism came from, referring to women anarchists who act within the larger feminist and anarchist movements to remind them of their principles.

The modern anarcha-feminists built upon the feminist ideas of previous anarchists, both male and female. Indeed, anarchism and feminism have always been closely linked. Many outstanding feminists have also been anarchists, including the pioneering Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman), the Communard Louise Michel, and the American anarchists (and tireless champions of women’s freedom) Voltairine de Cleyre and Emma Goldman (for the former, see her essays “Sex Slavery”, “Gates of Freedom”, “The Case of Woman vs. Orthodoxy”, “Those Who Marry Do Ill”; for the latter see “The Traffic in Women”, “Woman Suffrage”, “The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation”, “Marriage and Love” and “Victims of Morality”, for example). Freedom, the world’s oldest anarchist newspaper, was founded by Charlotte Wilson in 1886. Anarchist women like Virgilia D’Andrea and Rose Pesota played important roles in both the libertarian and labour movements. The “Mujeres Libres” (“Free Women”) movement in Spain during the Spanish revolution is a classic example of women anarchists organising themselves to defend their basic freedoms and create a society based on women’s freedom and equality (see Free Women of Spain by Martha Ackelsberg for more details on this important organisation). In addition, all the male major anarchist thinkers (bar Proudhon) were firm supporters of women’s equality. For example, Bakunin opposed patriarchy and how the law “subjects [women] to the absolute domination of the man.” He argued that ”[e]qual rights must belong to men and women” so that women can “become independent and be free to forge their own way of life.” He looked forward to the end of “the authoritarian juridical family” and “the full sexual freedom of women.” [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 396 and p. 397]

Thus anarchism has since the 1860s combined a radical critique of capitalism and the state with an equally powerful critique of patriarchy (rule by men). Anarchists, particularly female ones, recognised that modern society was dominated by men. As Ana Maria Mozzoni (an Italian anarchist immigrant in Buenos Aires) put it, women “will find that the priest who damns you is a man; that the legislator who oppresses you is a man, that the husband who reduces you to an object is a man; that the libertine who harasses you is a man; that the capitalist who enriches himself with your ill-paid work and the speculator who calmly pockets the price of your body, are men.” Little has changed since then. Patriarchy still exists and, to quote the anarchist paper La Questione Sociale, it is still usually the case that women “are slaves both in social and private life. If you are a proletarian, you have two tyrants: the man and the boss. If bourgeois, the only sovereignty left to you is that of frivolity and coquetry.” [quoted by Jose Moya, Italians in Buenos Aires’s Anarchist Movement, pp. 197–8 and p. 200]

Anarchism, therefore, is based on an awareness that fighting patriarchy is as important as fighting against the state or capitalism. For ”[y]ou can have no free, or just, or equal society, nor anything approaching it, so long as womanhood is bought, sold, housed, clothed, fed, and protected, as a chattel.” [Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Gates of Freedom”, pp. 235–250, Eugenia C. Delamotte, Gates of Freedom, p. 242] To quote Louise Michel:

“The first thing that must change is the relationship between the sexes. Humanity has two parts, men and women, and we ought to be walking hand in hand; instead there is antagonism, and it will last as long as the ‘stronger’ half controls, or think its controls, the ‘weaker’ half.” [The Red Virgin: Memoirs of Louise Michel, p. 139]

Thus anarchism, like feminism, fights patriarchy and for women’s equality. Both share much common history and a concern about individual freedom, equality and dignity for members of the female sex (although, as we will explain in more depth below, anarchists have always been very critical of mainstream/liberal feminism as not going far enough). Therefore, it is unsurprising that the new wave of feminism of the sixties expressed itself in an anarchistic manner and drew much inspiration from anarchist figures such as Emma Goldman. Cathy Levine points out that, during this time, “independent groups of women began functioning without the structure, leaders, and other factotums of the male left, creating, independently and simultaneously, organisations similar to those of anarchists of many decades and regions. No accident, either.” [“The Tyranny of Tyranny,” Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader, p. 66] It is no accident because, as feminist scholars have noted, women were among the first victims of hierarchical society, which is thought to have begun with the rise of patriarchy and ideologies of domination during the late Neolithic era. Marilyn French argues (in Beyond Power) that the first major social stratification of the human race occurred when men began dominating women, with women becoming in effect a “lower” and “inferior” social class.

The links between anarchism and modern feminism exist in both ideas and action. Leading feminist thinker Carole Pateman notes that her “discussion [on contract theory and its authoritarian and patriarchal basis] owes something to” libertarian ideas, that is the “anarchist wing of the socialist movement.” [The Sexual Contract, p. 14] Moreover, she noted in the 1980s how the “major locus of criticism of authoritarian, hierarchical, undemocratic forms of organisation for the last twenty years has been the women’s movement … After Marx defeated Bakunin in the First International, the prevailing form of organisation in the labour movement, the nationalised industries and in the left sects has mimicked the hierarchy of the state … The women’s movement has rescued and put into practice the long-submerged idea [of anarchists like Bakunin] that movements for, and experiments in, social change must ‘prefigure’ the future form of social organisation.” [The Disorder of Women, p. 201]

Peggy Kornegger has drawn attention to these strong connections between feminism and anarchism, both in theory and practice. “The radical feminist perspective is almost pure anarchism,” she writes. “The basic theory postulates the nuclear family as the basis of all authoritarian systems. The lesson the child learns, from father to teacher to boss to god, is to obey the great anonymous voice of Authority. To graduate from childhood to adulthood is to become a full-fledged automaton, incapable of questioning or even of thinking clearly.” [“Anarchism: The Feminist Connection,” Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader, p. 26] Similarly, the Zero Collective argues that Anarcha-feminism “consists in recognising the anarchism of feminism and consciously developing it.” [“Anarchism/Feminism,” pp. 3–7, The Raven, no. 21, p. 6]

Anarcha-feminists point out that authoritarian traits and values, for example, domination, exploitation, aggressiveness, competitiveness, desensitisation etc., are highly valued in hierarchical civilisations and are traditionally referred to as “masculine.” In contrast, non-authoritarian traits and values such as co-operation, sharing, compassion, sensitivity, warmth, etc., are traditionally regarded as “feminine” and are devalued. Feminist scholars have traced this phenomenon back to the growth of patriarchal societies during the early Bronze Age and their conquest of co-operatively based “organic” societies in which “feminine” traits and values were prevalent and respected. Following these conquests, however, such values came to be regarded as “inferior,” especially for a man, since men were in charge of domination and exploitation under patriarchy. (See e.g. Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade; Elise Boulding, The Underside of History). Hence anarcha-feminists have referred to the creation of a non-authoritarian, anarchist society based on co-operation, sharing, mutual aid, etc. as the “feminisation of society.”

Anarcha-feminists have noted that “feminising” society cannot be achieved without both self-management and decentralisation. This is because the patriarchal-authoritarian values and traditions they wish to overthrow are embodied and reproduced in hierarchies. Thus feminism implies decentralisation, which in turn implies self-management. Many feminists have recognised this, as reflected in their experiments with collective forms of feminist organisations that eliminate hierarchical structure and competitive forms of decision making. Some feminists have even argued that directly democratic organisations are specifically female political forms. [see e.g. Nancy Hartsock “Feminist Theory and the Development of Revolutionary Strategy,” in Zeila Eisenstein, ed., Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, pp. 56–77] Like all anarchists, anarcha-feminists recognise that self-liberation is the key to women’s equality and thus, freedom. Thus Emma Goldman:

“Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right of anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them, by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities; by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation.” [Anarchism and Other Essays, p. 211]

Anarcha-feminism tries to keep feminism from becoming influenced and dominated by authoritarian ideologies of either the right or left. It proposes direct action and self-help instead of the mass reformist campaigns favoured by the “official” feminist movement, with its creation of hierarchical and centralist organisations and its illusion that having more women bosses, politicians, and soldiers is a move towards “equality.” Anarcha-feminists would point out that the so-called “management science” which women have to learn in order to become mangers in capitalist companies is essentially a set of techniques for controlling and exploiting wage workers in corporate hierarchies, whereas “feminising” society requires the elimination of capitalist wage-slavery and managerial domination altogether. Anarcha-feminists realise that learning how to become an effective exploiter or oppressor is not the path to equality (as one member of the Mujeres Libres put it, ”[w]e did not want to substitute a feminist hierarchy for a masculine one” [quoted by Martha A. Ackelsberg, Free Women of Spain, pp. 22–3] — also see section B.1.4 for a further discussion on patriarchy and hierarchy).

Hence anarchism’s traditional hostility to liberal (or mainstream) feminism, while supporting women’s liberation and equality. Federica Montseny (a leading figure in the Spanish Anarchist movement) argued that such feminism advocated equality for women, but did not challenge existing institutions. She argued that (mainstream) feminism’s only ambition is to give to women of a particular class the opportunity to participate more fully in the existing system of privilege and if these institutions “are unjust when men take advantage of them, they will still be unjust if women take advantage of them.” [quoted by Martha A. Ackelsberg, Op. Cit., p. 119] Thus, for anarchists, women’s freedom did not mean an equal chance to become a boss or a wage slave, a voter or a politician, but rather to be a free and equal individual co-operating as equals in free associations. “Feminism,” stressed Peggy Kornegger, “doesn’t mean female corporate power or a woman President; it means no corporate power and no Presidents. The Equal Rights Amendment will not transform society; it only gives women the ‘right’ to plug into a hierarchical economy. Challenging sexism means challenging all hierarchy — economic, political, and personal. And that means an anarcha-feminist revolution.” [Op. Cit., p. 27]

Anarchism, as can be seen, included a class and economic analysis which is missing from mainstream feminism while, at the same time, showing an awareness to domestic and sex-based power relations which eluded the mainstream socialist movement. This flows from our hatred of hierarchy. As Mozzoni put it, “Anarchy defends the cause of all the oppressed, and because of this, and in a special way, it defends your [women’s] cause, oh! women, doubly oppressed by present society in both the social and private spheres.” [quoted by Moya, Op. Cit., p. 203] This means that, to quote a Chinese anarchist, what anarchists “mean by equality between the sexes is not just that the men will no longer oppress women. We also want men to no longer to be oppressed by other men, and women no longer to be oppressed by other women.” Thus women should “completely overthrow rulership, force men to abandon all their special privileges and become equal to women, and make a world with neither the oppression of women nor the oppression of men.” [He Zhen, quoted by Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, p. 147]

So, in the historic anarchist movement, as Martha Ackelsberg notes, liberal/mainstream feminism was considered as being “too narrowly focused as a strategy for women’s emancipation; sexual struggle could not be separated from class struggle or from the anarchist project as a whole.” [Op. Cit., p. 119] Anarcha-feminism continues this tradition by arguing that all forms of hierarchy are wrong, not just patriarchy, and that feminism is in conflict with its own ideals if it desires simply to allow women to have the same chance of being a boss as a man does. They simply state the obvious, namely that they “do not believe that power in the hands of women could possibly lead to a non-coercive society” nor do they “believe that anything good can come out of a mass movement with a leadership elite.” The “central issues are always power and social hierarchy” and so people “are free only when they have power over their own lives.” [Carole Ehrlich, “Socialism, Anarchism and Feminism”, Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader, p. 44] For if, as Louise Michel put it, “a proletarian is a slave; the wife of a proletarian is even more a slave” ensuring that the wife experiences an equal level of oppression as the husband misses the point. [Op. Cit., p. 141]

Anarcha-feminists, therefore, like all anarchists oppose capitalism as a denial of liberty. Their critique of hierarchy in the society does not start and end with patriarchy. It is a case of wanting freedom everywhere, of wanting to ”[b]reak up … every home that rests in slavery! Every marriage that represents the sale and transfer of the individuality of one of its parties to the other! Every institution, social or civil, that stands between man and his right; every tie that renders one a master, another a serf.” [Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Economic Tendency of Freethought”, The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader, p. 72] The ideal that an “equal opportunity” capitalism would free women ignores the fact that any such system would still see working class women oppressed by bosses (be they male or female). For anarcha-feminists, the struggle for women’s liberation cannot be separated from the struggle against hierarchy as such. As L. Susan Brown puts it:

“Anarchist-feminism, as an expression of the anarchist sensibility applied to feminist concerns, takes the individual as its starting point and, in opposition to relations of domination and subordination, argues for non-instrumental economic forms that preserve individual existential freedom, for both men and women.” [The Politics of Individualism, p. 144]

Anarcha-feminists have much to contribute to our understanding of the origins of the ecological crisis in the authoritarian values of hierarchical civilisation. For example, a number of feminist scholars have argued that the domination of nature has paralleled the domination of women, who have been identified with nature throughout history (See, for example, Caroline Merchant, The Death of Nature, 1980). Both women and nature are victims of the obsession with control that characterises the authoritarian personality. For this reason, a growing number of both radical ecologists and feminists are recognising that hierarchies must be dismantled in order to achieve their respective goals.

In addition, anarcha-feminism reminds us of the importance of treating women equally with men while, at the same time, respecting women’s differences from men. In other words, that recognising and respecting diversity includes women as well as men. Too often many male anarchists assume that, because they are (in theory) opposed to sexism, they are not sexist in practice. Such an assumption is false. Anarcha-feminism brings the question of consistency between theory and practice to the front of social activism and reminds us all that we must fight not only external constraints but also internal ones.

This means that anarcha-feminism urges us to practice what we preach. As Voltairine de Cleyre argued, “I never expect men to give us liberty. No, Women, we are not worth it, until we take it.” This involves “insisting on a new code of ethics founded on the law of equal freedom: a code recognising the complete individuality of woman. By making rebels wherever we can. By ourselves living our beliefs . … We are revolutionists. And we shall use propaganda by speech, deed, and most of all life — being what we teach.” Thus anarcha-feminists, like all anarchists, see the struggle against patriarchy as being a struggle of the oppressed for their own self-liberation, for ”as a class I have nothing to hope from men . .. No tyrant ever renounced his tyranny until he had to. If history ever teaches us anything it teaches this. Therefore my hope lies in creating rebellion in the breasts of women.” [“The Gates of Freedom”, pp. 235–250, Eugenia C. Delamotte, Gates of Freedom, p. 249 and p. 239] This was sadly as applicable within the anarchist movement as it was outside it in patriarchal society.

Faced with the sexism of male anarchists who spoke of sexual equality, women anarchists in Spain organised themselves into the Mujeres Libres organisation to combat it. They did not believe in leaving their liberation to some day after the revolution. Their liberation was a integral part of that revolution and had to be started today. In this they repeated the conclusions of anarchist women in Illinois Coal towns who grew tried of hearing their male comrades “shout in favour” of sexual equality “in the future society” while doing nothing about it in the here and now. They used a particularly insulting analogy, comparing their male comrades to priests who “make false promises to the starving masses … [that] there will be rewards in paradise.” The argued that mothers should make their daughters “understand that the difference in sex does not imply inequality in rights” and that as well as being “rebels against the social system of today,” they “should fight especially against the oppression of men who would like to retain women as their moral and material inferior.” [Ersilia Grandi, quoted by Caroline Waldron Merithew, Anarchist Motherhood, p. 227] They formed the “Luisa Michel” group to fight against capitalism and patriarchy in the upper Illinois valley coal towns over three decades before their Spanish comrades organised themselves.

For anarcha-feminists, combating sexism is a key aspect of the struggle for freedom. It is not, as many Marxist socialists argued before the rise of feminism, a diversion from the “real” struggle against capitalism which would somehow be automatically solved after the revolution. It is an essential part of the struggle:

“We do not need any of your titles … We want none of them. What we do want is knowledge and education and liberty. We know what our rights are and we demand them. Are we not standing next to you fighting the supreme fight? Are you not strong enough, men, to make part of that supreme fight a struggle for the rights of women? And then men and women together will gain the rights of all humanity.” [Louise Michel, Op. Cit., p. 142]

A key part of this revolutionising modern society is the transformation of the current relationship between the sexes. Marriage is a particular evil for “the old form of marriage, based on the Bible, ‘till death doth part,’ … [is] an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the women, of her complete submission to his whims and commands.” Women are reduced “to the function of man’s servant and bearer of his children.” [Goldman, Op. Cit., pp. 220–1] Instead of this, anarchists proposed “free love,” that is couples and families based on free agreement between equals than one partner being in authority and the other simply obeying. Such unions would be without sanction of church or state for “two beings who love each other do not need permission from a third to go to bed.” [Mozzoni, quoted by Moya, Op. Cit., p. 200]

Equality and freedom apply to more than just relationships. For “if social progress consists in a constant tendency towards the equalisation of the liberties of social units, then the demands of progress are not satisfied so long as half society, Women, is in subjection… . Woman … is beginning to feel her servitude; that there is a requisite acknowledgement to be won from her master before he is put down and she exalted to — Equality. This acknowledgement is, the freedom to control her own person. “ [Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Gates of Freedom”, Op. Cit., p. 242] Neither men nor state nor church should say what a woman does with her body. A logical extension of this is that women must have control over their own reproductive organs. Thus anarcha-feminists, like anarchists in general, are pro-choice and pro-reproductive rights (i.e. the right of a woman to control her own reproductive decisions). This is a long standing position. Emma Goldman was persecuted and incarcerated because of her public advocacy of birth control methods and the extremist notion that women should decide when they become pregnant (as feminist writer Margaret Anderson put it, “In 1916, Emma Goldman was sent to prison for advocating that ‘women need not always keep their mouth shut and their wombs open.’”).

Anarcha-feminism does not stop there. Like anarchism in general, it aims at changing all aspects of society not just what happens in the home. For, as Goldman asked, “how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office?” Thus women’s equality and freedom had to be fought everywhere and defended against all forms of hierarchy. Nor can they be achieved by voting. Real liberation, argue anarcha-feminists, is only possible by direct action and anarcha-feminism is based on women’s self-activity and self-liberation for while the “right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands … true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in the courts. It begins in woman’s soul … her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve freedom reaches.” [Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 216 and p. 224]

The history of the women’s movement proves this. Every gain has come from below, by the action of women themselves. As Louise Michel put it, ”[w]e women are not bad revolutionaries. Without begging anyone, we are taking our place in the struggles; otherwise, we could go ahead and pass motions until the world ends and gain nothing.” [Op. Cit., p. 139] If women waited for others to act for them their social position would never have changed. This includes getting the vote in the first place. Faced with the militant suffrage movement for women’s votes, British anarchist Rose Witcop recognised that it was “true that this movement shows us that women who so far have been so submissive to their masters, the men, are beginning to wake up at last to the fact they are not inferior to those masters.” Yet she argued that women would not be freed by votes but “by their own strength.” [quoted by Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History, pp. 100–1 and p. 101] The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s showed the truth of that analysis. In spite of equal voting rights, women’s social place had remained unchanged since the 1920s.

Ultimately, as Anarchist Lily Gair Wilkinson stressed, the “call for ‘votes’ can never be a call to freedom. For what is it to vote? To vote is to register assent to being ruled by one legislator or another?” [quoted by Sheila Rowbotham, Op. Cit., p. 102] It does not get to the heart of the problem, namely hierarchy and the authoritarian social relationships it creates of which patriarchy is only a subset of. Only by getting rid of all bosses, political, economic, social and sexual can genuine freedom for women be achieved and “make it possible for women to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery.” [Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 214]