#social rules dictate that they conform to class

[hey-its-sybarite]

That’s… not how class works

As a kid, when your parents are poor, you're poor. If they don't have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone's parents are rich, that doesn't necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples' kids aren't rich kids, they're just some rich freak's exotic pets that can talk but aren't allowed to.

[intothedysphoria]

Stranger Things has a serious problem with the way it portrays working class men.

In Eddie Munson’s first real introduction in the show, he is established as intense, cynical and somewhat of a societal dropout. None of these characteristics are particularly new in the world of Stranger Things but one thing Eddie says really sticks in my mind.

“Forced conformity. That’s what’s killing the kids.”

In the Duffers eyes I’m sure that’s just a way to establish Eddie as an outcast but what he ends up eluding to is an extremely depoliticised explanation of cultural hegemony. Established by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, cultural hegemony is the ruling class dictating cultural ideology and behaviour via institutional and social messaging. (In this case, the media creating a Satanic Panic around Dungeons and Dragons and encouraging parents to force their children to conform.)

Ironic, seeing as the privately educated Duffer’s are dictating what they allow to be seen as working class culture but I digress.

The Duffer’s have an extremely rigid view of what a working class man acts like and despite a show that preaches about the right to be different, that right is ultimately only given to the middle class characters. Working class characters are always fulfilling some kind of classist stereotype.

Take four examples here. Billy, Eddie, Jonathan and Argyle. On the surface, four distinctive and different characters. But once you start noticing the similarities, it’s hard to stop.

All of them are either confirmed to be from an unconventional family unit or don’t have family at all. There’s nothing wrong with coming from a non nuclear family but the way the Duffers portray them, there is always something “wrong.”

Billy has an abusive father and his mother left him at a young age, Jonathan has an abusive father and his mother has mental health difficulties, Eddie is living with his uncle and it’s implied that his father is incarcerated, Argyles parents aren’t there at all. Notice how the middle class families rarely have this level of domestic discord (especially with the point the Duffers make about all working class fathers being shitty parents. The only exceptions seem to be Wayne and Hop and Hop REALLY has his moments.)

There’s also some stereotypical hegemonic working class male value that Billy, Eddie, Argyle and Jonathan hold that makes them either antagonist (either in the narrative or in the fandom) or isn’t a good trait to have. Billy is aggressive, all of them are addicts (which is also racist stereotyping in Argyles case), Jonathan and Billy are sexually deviant (never mind the distinction that Jonathan committed a sex crime and Billy was just groomed, the Duffers certainly don’t.)

It’s also important to note the distinct lack of working class male characters who aren’t white at this point, this show has zero understanding of intersectionality.

In some areas I’m almost glad the Duffers at least understand that working class men have a culture, because all of the working class women on the show have no real attempts to be assigned any working class female attributes. On the other hand, I already know it would just be fucking misogyny yet again.

Just like the shows blatant misogyny, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, abuse apologia and holocaust denialism, the Duffers show no real care about the discriminatory nature of the way they portray the working class. Or the classism that the wider fandom regularly espouses against working class people and culture.

If Billy, Eddie, Jonathan and Argyle had been from a show created by working class writers, I probably would have significantly less problems with the way their characters are handled. Both because the clunky, stereotypical characterisation would have been erased and also because it would have been portrayals of a real life working class experience. Abuse, addiction, racism and violence are all real problems in working class communities.

But the Duffers don’t give a shit about that. All they do is create an upper middle class view of working class values.

There’s obviously something deeper lurking under what is seemingly just a nostalgia bait sci fi show, something that speaks to the way the media industry as a whole reinforces these attitudes towards marginalised and lower class communities, but that’s a conversation that I don’t yet feel qualified enough to initiate. So, I’ll leave it at this for now.

The Duffer Brothers are absolute fucking wankers.

[simonalkenmayer]

Scientific method:

Self-checking, self-refining, reliance on data, seeking truth that already exists. Dusting away misconceptions.

Religion?

Belief, often handed to you by someone who governed you. Passed through families, indoctrinating without consent. Reliance on opinion, reliance on feeling, ancient texts in long dead languages translated who knows how, leaders and politics, social rules governing groups and group collapse, social psychology, hierarchies, class structures, concepts of sin, shame, purity, abuse and how it is dealt, shunning, ostracization, and so forth. Reliant on other systems of control for survival, see white supremacy and American Protestantism, the caste system in Hinduism, the nationalistic leanings of damn near every faith in earth. Buddhists? Ha! Look up the hood Buddhist of Thailand putting drug dealers up against a wall and machine gunning them down. Religion is a system that controls through the conformity of a shared understanding of how reality emerged, who runs it, how to die well, and where you go. Religion dictates countless facets of your lives even without you realizing it. No testing. No data. No method by which to understand, only conceptualize. No self-refining, self-checking. Just sermonizing. Metaphors. Stories. Not a fact to be seen.

It doesn’t uncover truth.

It pretends to be it.

[hivearchive]

From Streets to Symbols: Unveiling the Power of Graffiti, Art, Music, and Culture in Protest Movements – A Spotlight on the Sudanese Revolution

Have you ever found yourself associating a dance move with a particular era or linking a pose to a significant cultural moment? Such connections often transcend the boundaries of the physical, seeping into the realms of art, music, and cultural symbols. In Sudan, the evolution of symbols during the revolution was nothing short of poetic. The Sudanese revolution of 2019 serves as a compelling canvas where these forms of expression converged, giving rise to the Kandaka with the white toub—a powerful symbol of resistance that echoed the collective voices of a nation yearning for change.

Graffiti and Street Art as Voices on Walls

During Sudan’s 2019 revolution, as people mobilized across the country with sit-ins, marches, boycotts, and strikes, artists helped capture the country’s discontent and solidify protesters’ resolve (How Art Helped Propel Sudan’s Revolution, n.d.). What started as protests against rising food and fuel costs turned into a coup where millions marched to overthrow al-Bashir after 30 years in power.

Artists became an integral part of the months-long sit-in at the military headquarters in Khartoum, known as the heart of the revolution. This expression of creativity was both a result of loosening restrictions on freedom of expression and a catalyst for further change.

Artists throughout Sudan used graffiti to spur conversations about the trajectory of the country and also used murals to share information about dates and times of protests. Jonathan Pinckney, program officer and research lead for USIP’s program on nonviolent action, pointed out that art has played a role in many major nonviolent struggles to create a shared vocabulary (How Art Helped Propel Sudan’s Revolution, n.d.).

Hussein Merghani’s watercolor of hundreds of people from Atbara traveling to join the sit-in at the military headquarters in Khartoum in April 2019.

A mural by Galal Yousif near the sit-in site reads “you were born free, so live free.” (Sari Ahmed Awad)

Visual Arts and Popular Culture: The Kandaka and the White Toub:

In a society where patriarchy and male dominance prevail, it's quite surprising that a woman emerged as a symbol of protest. The kandake, breaking stereotypes, became an iconic figure, showcasing the resilience of Sudanese women who have long been leaders in the country’s revolutions. Since 1989, when Omar al-Bashir seized power, women faced curtailed rights under vaguely defined moral and penal codes, notably the 1991 Public Order Laws dictating women's public conduct, movement, and even clothing. Despite these oppressive measures, women persisted in their fight against al-Bashir's rule, playing a pivotal role in mobilizing protests.

This resilience found a remarkable face in a young student named Alaa Salah, captured in a moment of protest wearing a white toub and traditional jewelry. Standing atop a car, she passionately chanted revolutionary poetry, expressing the collective frustrations: “They imprisoned us in the name of religion, burned us in the name of religion … killed us in the name of religion,” met with the resounding response of “revolution” from the crowd (Ismail and Elamin 2019). This powerful image swiftly went viral in Sudan, becoming a catalyst for countless Sudanese artworks, ranging from political caricatures to paintings to graffiti on Khartoum's streets.

What makes this image truly iconic is the symbolism embedded in the white toub—a garment worn by women of all classes, considered a democratic attire that doesn't conform to strict piety rules promoted by Islamists. Urban upper- and middle-class women, by embracing the toub, transcended ethnic and social differences, actively promoting unity. The resonance of this image extended beyond its visual impact, inspiring a wave of artistic expressions that echoed the collective call for change on the streets of Khartoum.

The Digital Canvas: Social Media as the New Protest Wall

When delving into the role of digital communities and social media in amplifying protests, particularly within Sudan, one cannot overlook the pivotal role online communication played during the revolution. However, these efforts faced substantial hurdles due to government-initiated internet outages and blockages targeting key sites.

Despite these challenges, the #SudanUprising hashtag emerged as a crucial tool, enabling people to stay connected with the diaspora and providing a real-time feed of events. This hashtag echoed resoundingly across various digital platforms, effectively transforming cyberspace into a dynamic virtual protest ground.

As the Kandaka and the white toub began to capture hearts on social media, the digital realm evolved into a powerful conduit for spreading awareness and mobilizing global support. The viral nature of these symbols transcended geographical boundaries, forging a united global community in solidarity with Sudan's impassioned fight for justice. Journalists, activists, and human rights groups closely followed #SudanUprising, receiving updates in English, while international organizations such as the UN and Amnesty unequivocally condemned the attacks on the protesters.

During the persisting blackout, more details about the tragic June 3 attack unfolded, revealing a grim toll – over 100 lives lost, including 26-year-old engineer Mohamed Mattar. In a poignant tribute, Mattar’s family and friends changed their profile pictures to blue, his favorite color. This simple yet powerful act evolved into #BlueForSudan, swiftly transforming into a global movement to honor and stand in solidarity with all the victims.

Renowned figures such as American singer and actress Rihanna and Nigerian artist Davido joined the chorus of celebrities and high-profile artists who utilized their platforms to shed light on the crisis, further propelling the momentum of awareness online. This vividly underscores the profound impact of virality in shaping public opinion and underscores the critical importance of social media in enhancing visibility and fostering global support for protests. The viral image of the Kandaka served as a catalyst, creating a wave that stirred widespread calls to action.

Navigating Change and Resilience Through the Digital Evolution of Expression

Looking back at how graffiti, art, music, and culture unfolded during the Sudanese revolution, it's clear these expressions aren't confined to physical spaces – they evolve and echo on digital stages. The Kandaka in the white toub isn't just an image; it's a powerful symbol, showing how art and culture shape stories and bring people together. In today's world, hashtags become anthems, and digital communities amplify calls for change. The Sudanese revolution teaches us about the enduring strength of creativity in tough times. The Kandaka's journey from streets to screens, from local to global, shows us how art can spark change and resilience in the face of challenges.

References

How art helped propel Sudan’s revolution. (n.d.). United States Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/blog/2020/11/how-art-helped-propel-sudans-revolution

Roussi, A., & Lonardi, M. (2021, July 6). Art on the front lines of a changing Sudan. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/6/30/art-on-the-front-lines-of-a-changing-sudan

From white Teyab to pink Kandakat: Gender and the 2018-2019 Sudanese Revolution. (n.d.). Journal of Public and International Affairs. https://jpia.princeton.edu/news/white-teyab-pink-kandakat-gender-and-2018-2019-sudanese-revolution

[amanda172]

May 9, 2023: What's Your Problem

A defining trait of the melodrama is the transgression of women attempting to leave the domestic space and/or deviate from social norm. It is this transgression that causes the conflict in the narrative as everyone around the woman tries to tame her and put her in her place. But are these women really so heinous and evil for wanting more than what society has deemed acceptable for them? Is it wrong for a woman to find love with someone younger, or to want to run her own business? Is it even the woman who is causing the problem?

In Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, middle aged and widowed Cary pursues a May-September romance with gardener Ron. And while they fall madly in love with each other and genuinely enjoy each other’s company, it is the world around them (specifically Cary’s upper middle class world) that tears them apart. It is the disapproval of Cary’s children and her country club “friends” that worries Cary and drives her to end the relationship, causing great emotional distress on both parties. But without the interference from outside forces, Cary and Ron would hypothetically be happy, given that they end up together at the end of the film, making the obstacles in their way throughout the narrative all but moot, surmounting to nothing.

The melodramatic narrative of the woman transgressing is rooted in the gendered ideology of the 1950s, where women were pushed to return to the domestic sphere exclusively following World War II. Women’s pictures were a way to show the lives of women, but also in a way to socially punish and ridicule the women who refused to conform to this new, but antiquated social rule dictating how women should behave. But the beauty of the melodramatic narrative is in how it can explicitly show the punishment of these female characters, but also reveal the hypocrisy and cruelty of society towards women.

[rainbowriderjt]

That is Googles Definition! It's NOT Right Wing At ALL!

The REAL one Is: A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition!!.........Notice the words "Centralized & Autocratic"??

The right wing never "Centralizes" anything!! Our founding fathers were 90% far right because they had installed the minimalist government on the planet! At 100% right you get NO government AT ALL!!

The Origins of Fascism & the detailed meaning:

a political movement that employs the principles and methods of fascism, especially the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43. created by Giovanni Gentile Individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the state Fascists are Socialists with a National Identity( Only Italians in Italy. Only Germans in Germany etc.

Mussolini adopted it "All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state"

1."Everything in the state". The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompassing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator.

2."Nothing outside the state". The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government.

3."Nothing against the state". Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens. The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line.

This was a "new & Improved" socialism based on national identity rather that "class" but Nazis were never Capitalists nor Christians!

The propaganda that they were right wing started a year after Hitler tried to screw Stalin in June of 1941. It was the Communist Directive in 1943 that tried to validate this BS!! It was designed to brow beat the right in the future.

Fascism

Political ideology

Description

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition

Take the 'far-right' and 'ultranationalist' crap out of this definition and it's fairly close.

Just fucking look at what the potatohead currently ensconced in the White House is doing and tell me this definition doesn't exactly describe this regime.

I'm assuming you're not far-right, but you're a fucking fascist if you see and are okay with what is happening under Joe 'Tater' Biden.

[respectthepetty]

All this is about hats?!

The classroom discussion about hats is a lasagna discussion; it has layers.

When Kan gets upset at Akk for not supporting Wat, Wat argues that both Akk and Ayan were trying to help Wat, but both boys took different approaches. Akk never makes this argument for himself even though he is standing right there and actually looks as if he truly wasn’t trying to help, but…*put a pin in this*

The lesson:

Teacher Waree’s lesson focuses on Field Marshall P. aka Phibun who was Thailand’s Prime Minster for a little over 15 years after he studied in France and came back to lead a revolution in the 30s. His reign saw the biggest cultural shift in Thailand and had the greatest lasting effects: Thailand officially changing its name from Siam to Thai, the dissolution of the monarchy (one family ruling over the country) into a constitutional monarchy (where the family works with a government and within a constitution), the westernization of the country through cultural mandates such as outlawing native dress and languages, and nationalism (everyone was Thai. Period). He died in Japan as a Buddhist monk.

The argument: “Hats Lead the Nation” (mala nam thai)

- Wat argues that one of the cultural mandates (wearing specific clothing items such as hats) was to promote equality.

- Teacher Waree’s says that clothing can’t make everyone equal and actually demonstrates inequality since the hats of different social classes were made with different materials. She argues this was simply an act to align Phibun and Thailand with western society since it outlawed native clothing.

- Ayan argues that uniforms directly stem from Phibun’s policies, so if Teacher Waree believes that Phibun was a dictator and Phibun’s clothing mandate was merely a ruse to follow western ideals rather than promote equality yet believes that the students should wear uniforms to promote orderliness while claiming the school is within its rights to mandate such a rule, she is being a hypocrite.

- Akk simply states that he agrees with Teacher Waree about the hats being symbolic of western thinking rather than about equality.

*pause*

This holds weight. Colonialism brought with it many harmful beliefs that the western world imposed on the countries and people it colonialized who never had such beliefs prior to their encounter with colonialism. For example, anti-sodomy laws and structural gender roles directly stem from the western world, and it would punish those who did not conform. Now, in the 21st century, the same countries who imposed those beliefs on these people are changing course and openly embracing concepts they once punished (marriage equality, gender-neutral policies, etc.) while punishing countries that don’t convert to this new understanding, which means all the countries they conquered are struggling to switch their thinking now that they were punished for years for thinking those ideas in the first place. Very gaslight-y. Very European (Britain, I’m looking at you!). Note that Phibun received support from the USA during his second reign even though Thailand sided with Japan during WWII because if anything, the USA must stay in other countries' business and impose its ideals on others.

*back to the regularly scheduled post*

Textbooks:

Textbooks are written by people; therefore, textbooks can have biases. Most American textbooks did not mention slavery until the 1980s, and even now, some refer to enslaved people as immigrants, which implies they voluntarily came to the States rather than being forced through human trafficking. American textbooks also referred to and still refer to the genocide of indigenous peoples as merely an expansion of European populations into “undiscovered” or “hostile” territory.

- Teacher Waree argues that the textbook clearly declares that Phibun was a dictator, and students need to abide by what the textbook states.

- Ayan argues textbooks are not law, so there needs to be an open dialogue about events and people rather than a one-sided perspective because the textbook overlooks the overall contributions of the People’s Party, which was led by Phibun, such as the dissolution of the monarchy.

Real-life connection – Monuments dedicated to the People’s Party and Phibun’s ruling era have slowly and anonymously disappeared throughout Thailand over the past three decades as a form of historical cleansing has taken shape. Textbooks also do not mention the cultural revolution that the People’s Party created, simply painting them as an overzealous and failed governing body.

TLDR: So What?

Teacher Waree states that this isn’t a conversation about whom is wrong or right because life isn’t black and white.

Yet she refuses to back down from her point. Wat states that she, like most people in power, “doesn’t want to lose face” or admit that other possibilities exist other than theirs.

Uniforms do promote equality in theory, but they also rip people of individuality and only allow for conformity.

Textbooks and education as a whole should encourage free thinking rather than indoctrination of long-standing traditions and beliefs.

The dichotomy between Kan and Akk is clearly displayed.  

*take out that pin from earlier* Kan is upset that Akk didn’t side with Wat and chastises Akk for being a teacher’s pet. Kan tried to ease the tension Wat’s response elicited from Teacher Waree by making a joke, but Akk openly agrees with Teacher Waree. Both boys were trying to ease the tension, but while Kan deflects (one of his defense mechanisms), Akk blindly accepts Teacher Waree’s truth. This is reflective of their identities as well. Kan knows he is gay but deflects while Akk is unaware of what falsehoods he has accepted as truths about him and the world. Then, there is Ayan who is very aware and open about his resistance to labels and frames.

Much like the overall arguments that many perspectives exist, and we can’t judge who is right or wrong, we can’t judge how the boys respond because none are right nor wrong regarding the truth of their queerness: Kan deflects. Akk denies. Ayan defends.

And that's how we make lasagna!

[nothorses]

[IMAGE: a diagram of the “trans gender umbrella”, which encompasses, from left to right: masculine women, androgynous persons, feminine men, Hijra, transsexuals: male to female and female to male, two spirit, intersex persons, bigender, third gender, eunuchs, drag kings and queens, crossdressers, transvestites, intergender, gender queers, and agendered. The rain above the umbrella is labeled “feminine women”, “masculine men”, and “cisgender”. Below the umbrella is a silhouette of a crowd, and the text “encompasses any individual who crosses over or challenges their society’s tranditional gender roles and/or expressions.” There is a small parenthesis that reads “graphic adapted from Josephine Tittsworth by Mel Reiff Hill”. /END]

This is what I’m talking about when I say the word “transgender” has changed, by the way. It’s a good visualization of an idea expressed separately in Transgender Warriors:

Today the word transgender has at least two colloquial meanings. It has been used as an umbrella term to include everyone who challenges the boundaries of sex and gender. It is also used to draw a distinction between those who reassign the sex they were labeled at birth, and those of us whose gender expression is considered inappropriate for our sex. [...]

I asked many self-identified transgender activists [...] who they believed were included under the umbrella term. Those polled named: transsexuals, transgenders, transvestites, transgenderists, bigenders, drag queens, drag kings, cross-dressers, masculine women, feminine men, intersexuals [...], androgynes, cross-genders, shape-shifters, passing women, passing men, gender-benders, gender-blenders, bearded women, and women bodybuilders who have crossed the line of what is considered socially acceptable for a female body.

(Leslie Feinburg, Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. 1996)

My point here is not that we need to change the way we think about the word “transgender”; I think the modern understanding is definitely an improvement on words like “transsexual” and any reliance on a “sex/gender” distinction. Words evolve, and understandings evolve, and it’s important that they reflect each other well.

My point is that when we forget this history, we forget the parts of this theory that were working for us.

Cissexism and transphobia do not target people based exclusively on their internal experiences of gender. There are different ways in which they impact those of us who are, in fact, transgender the way we think of it today. But when we only see trans people as the targets, we misunderstand what this system is, what it is built to do, and who it serves.

Cissexism is a form of gender-based oppression, an arm of the patriarchy, and a weapon of oppression that seeks to divide the people in order to pit us against each other. Historically,  along with lived gender experiences that we think of as trans today, these "trans" gender expressions have been a form of rebellion against oppressive systems and ruling classes.

Cissexism isn't targeting us because we're "broken", it's targeting us because by the nature of our existence, we're rebelling against a system that was built to control everyone. Controlling the ways in which we are allowed to express gender, and dictating value and stripping power based on how well we conform to those expressions, are ways of controlling people. The punishment for nonconformity- transphobia- is a way of controlling all of us.

It doesn't take anything away from trans people to acknowledge this. If anything, it protects us.

Everyone should understand the systems they're being controlled by. Everyone should understand that trans people are not being punished for a crime that cis people would never commit; we're just being punished for a crime that it would kill us not to commit. Considering it less of a crime because we got a doctor's note saying as much just gives the system a new way to control us.

What we need is to look at the system and ask why this is a crime in the first place. We need to remove this tool of oppression altogether- for everyone. And we can’t do that if we refuse to understand what it is.

[a-book-dragon]

A.2.17 Aren’t most people too stupid for a free society to work?

- Anarchy Works, FAQ

We are sorry to have to include this question in an anarchist FAQ, but we know that many political ideologies explicitly assume that ordinary people are too stupid to be able to manage their own lives and run society. All aspects of the capitalist political agenda, from Left to Right, contain people who make this claim.

Be it Leninists, fascists, Fabians or Objectivists, it is assumed that only a select few are creative and intelligent and that these people should govern others.Usually, this elitism is masked by fine, flowing rhetoric about “freedom,” “democracy” and other platitudes with which the ideologues attempt to dull people’s critical thought by telling them what they want to hear.It is, of course, also no surprise that those who believe in “natural” elites always class them-selves at the top. We have yet to discover an “objectivist”, for example, who considers themselves part of the great mass of “second-handers” (it is always amusing to hear people who simply par-rot the ideas of Ayn Rand dismissing other people so!) or who will be a toilet cleaner in the unknown “ideal” of “real” capitalism.

Everybody reading an elitist text will consider him or her-self to be part of the “select few.” It’s “natural” in an elitist society to consider elites to be natural and yourself a potential member of one!Examination of history shows that there is a basic elitist ideology which has been the essential rationalisation of all states and ruling classes since their emergence at the beginning of the Bronze Age

(“if the legacy of domination had had any broader purpose than the support of hierarchical and class interests, it has been the attemp to exorcise the belief in public competence from social discourse itself.”[Bookchin,The Ecology of Freedom, p. 206]).

This ideology merely changes its outer garments, not its basic inner content over time.

During the Dark Ages, for example, it was coloured by Christianity, being adapted to the needs of the Church hierarchy. The most useful “divinely revealed” dogma to the priestly elite was“original sin”: the notion that human beings are basically depraved and incompetent creatures who need “direction from above,” with priests as the conveniently necessary mediators between ordinary humans and “God.” The idea that average people are basically stupid and thus incapable of governing themselves is a carry over from this doctrine, a relic of the Dark Ages.

In reply to all those who claim that most people are “second-handers” or cannot develop any-thing more than “trade union consciousness,” all we can say is that it is an absurdity that cannot withstand even a superficial look at history, particularly the labour movement. The creative powers of those struggling for freedom is often truly amazing, and if this intellectual power and inspiration is not seen in “normal” society, this is the clearest indictment possible of the deadening effects of hierarchy and the conformity produced by authority. (See also section B.1 for more on the effects of hierarchy). As Bob Black points outs:

“You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you’ll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creep-ing cretinisation all around us than even such significant moronising mechanisms astelevision and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed to workfrom school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home in theend, are habituated to hierarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for auton-omy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally groundedphobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the familiestheystart, thusreproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everythingelse. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they’ll likely submit to hierarchyand expertise in everything. They’re used to it.”[The Abolition of Work and other essays, pp. 21–2]92

When elitists try to conceive of liberation, they can only think of it beinggivento the oppressed by kind (for Leninists) or stupid (for Objectivists) elites. It is hardly surprising, then, that it fails. Only self-liberation can produce a free society. The crushing and distorting effects of authority can only be overcome by self-activity. The few examples of such self-liberation prove that most people, once considered incapable of freedom by others, are more than up for the task.Those who proclaim their “superiority” often do so out of fear that their authority and power will be destroyed once people free themselves from the debilitating hands of authority and come to realise that, in the words of Max Stirner,“the great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise”

As Emma Goldman remarks about women’s equality,“[t]he extraordinary achievements of women in every walk of life have silenced forever the loose talk of women’s inferiority. Those who still cling to this fetish do so because they hate nothing so much as to see their authority challenged.This is the characteristic of all authority, whether the master over his economic slaves or man over women. However, everywhere woman is escaping her cage, everywhere she is going ahead with free,large strides.”[Vision on Fire, p. 256]

The same comments are applicable, for example, to thevery successful experiments in workers’ self-management during the Spanish Revolution.Then, of course, the notion that people are too stupid for anarchism to work also backfires on those who argue it.

Take, for example, those who use this argument to advocate democratic government rather than anarchy. Democracy, as Luigi Galleani noted, means “acknowledging the right and the competence of the people to select their rulers.”

However,“whoever has the political competence to choose his [or her] own rulers is, by implication, also competent to do without them,especially when the causes of economic enmity are uprooted.”[The End of Anarchism?, p. 37]

Thus the argument for democracy against anarchism undermines itself, for “if you consider these worthy electors as unable to look after their own interests themselves, how is it that they know howto choose for themselves the shepherds who must guide them? And how will they be able to solve this problem of social alchemy, of producing the election of a genius from the votes of a mass of fools?”[Malatesta,Anarchy, pp. 53–4]

As for those who consider dictatorship as the solution to human stupidity, the question arises why are these dictators immune to this apparently universal human trait? And, as Malatesta noted,“who are the best? And who will recognise these qualities in them?”[Op. Cit., p. 53]

If they impose themselves on the “stupid” masses, why assume they will not exploit and oppress the many for their own benefit? Or, for that matter, that they are any more intelligent than the masses? The history of dictatorial and monarchical government suggests a clear answer to those questions.

A similar argument applies for other non-democratic systems, such as those based on limited suffrage. For example, the Lockean (i.e. classical liberal or right-wing libertarian) ideal of a state based on the rule of property owners is doomed to be little more than a regime which oppresses the majority to maintain the power and privilege of the wealthy few.

Equally, the idea of near universal stupidity bar an elite of capitalists (the “objectivist” vision) implies a system somewhat less ideal than the perfect system presented in the literature. This is because most people would tolerate oppressive bosses who treat them as means to an end rather than an end in themselves. For how can you expect people to recognise and pursue their own self-interest if you consider them fundamentally as the“uncivilised hordes”? You cannot have it both ways and the“unknown ideal”of pure capitalism would be as grubby, oppressive and alienating as “actually existing” capitalism.

As such, anarchists are firmly convinced that arguments against anarchy based on the lack of ability of the mass of people are inherently self-contradictory (when not blatantly self-servicing). If people are too stupid for anarchism then they are too stupid for any system you care to mention.

Ultimately, anarchists argue that such a perspective simply reflects the servile mentality produced by a hierarchical society rather than a genuine analysis of humanity and our history as a species. To quote Rousseau:“when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behove slaves to reason about freedom.”[quoted by Noam Chomsky,Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 780]

[rametarin]

TERFs are wrong. But, so are social constructionist Gender Theorists

You know it is not a question of one extreme or the other. As much as both like to think they are morally right and have “the science” on their side, they don’t. Both are god damned annoying, totalitarian, and are interpreting reality and what that means in order to browbeat and push others, both socially and legally, towards doing things based on what those mean.

Both are trying to control the parameters of all things based on the fundamentals by their interpretation of reality, not by the objective facts. Both are wrong.

TERFs are not wrong in that someone that is born with XY chromosomes and a standard male sex conforming body is male, and you need dysphoria in order to be trans. They are not wrong that your gender is not just a wily nily purely social construct.

They are, however, wrong about absolutely everything else regarding what those genders MEAN, where they’re derived from and why they were derived that way.

And the social constructionists aren’t wrong in that we should make exceptions to the biological rule for people with transgenderist disorders of the mind and brain. But, they are wrong in that so many are totalitarian. They do not want these exceptions to be exceptions, they want the very basis and fundamental understanding, how we define gender and sex, to change to be based not on biological empiricism, facts or truth, but by legal and social oughts and things they argue “should be held true else it demoralizes and oppresses a minority.”

There are not, “millions of genders.” There’s your basic standard assed functioning, and then there’s a disorder we otherwise can’t do anything with or about right now where it’d simply more healthy for everybody around if we let them live with the identity that is in their minds and body.

Furthermore, the nonbinarist movement needs to stop being such a cowardly little bitch and argue for itself outside the umbrella of trans rights, because it sits there demanding changes and exceptions and validations be made for it on the basis of bowing to trans rights, when it itself hasn’t stepped out of its parasitic sphere to fight for any on its own. Strategically using trans rights as a platform for both offensive and defensive purposes.

TERFs, up to now, have been virtually unchallengable because, “you must be a horrible right wing fundamentalist religious monster to oppose EQUALITY for WOMEN!” And they’ve just skirted on that since the 60s. Which was absolute hell trying to convince anybody that radical feminism was nonsense and harbored deep, authoritarian bends on takes with social ramifications. Yall were in their corner when they were talking about how, “society” needed to give women, exclusively, help to go to college because of past oppressions. But when someone tried to tell you they had weird obsessions with vaginas and using them as rubber stamps for whom gets special treatment and privileges and exceptions to defaults that make men do dirty work and women get clean pay? Deafening silence.

But the minute TERFs don’t want transwomen in their magical witch girl’s clubs, fucking with the cosmology? Ohho they’re visible now. You can see their bullshit now. They’re weirdos drawing female symbols and self-portraits with menstrual blood and making hacky poems about their uterus, now. They’re bad people now. You can actually see they weren’t, “being hyperbolic” or “just venting about the evil MEN around them” now. Hahahahaa. Hilarious.

TERFs are wrong. Point blank. But so are the social constructionist extremists and postmodernists behind the appropriated bandwagon of what calls itself the trans rights and nonbinarist rights movement in the west. The basis for which they’ve defined their norms is not one of reality, but “oughts” and “should be’s” and “must bes” and “or else”s. To the point where they invented a slur specifically to denounce those that do not share their view. “Bioessentialist.”

That makes as much sense as calling someone a dirty, “bioessentialist” because they say you need to be an elephant, to be an elephant. Yes, you do need the physical, biological characteristics to really BE that which you aspire to be. No, you don’t get to redefine what an elephant is to force the elephant to “identify” as an elephant so something that is not an elephant can also be an elephant.

If misgendering someone is triggering for a minority, it’s just as triggering when you deny someone’s sexuality or gender when they’re hetero and cis. And many are repulsed by the idea that the reason they’re compatible with their sex and gender conformation is because they, “made a choice.” For that matter, if you’re actually transgendered and not some bandwagoneering asshole, being trans isn’t a choice either. It’s a psychological and neurological impossibility to be anything else, not a lifestyle, not a hobby, not a “preferred state of mind.” Arguing anything else is arguing not for trans rights, but for psycho-social dominance in law.

And if you think misgendering someone that’s transgendered is bad, people that make up at MOST, 0.7% of the human species, and some say as few as 0.3% of the human species (people with cleft lips, born missing limbs and more are born more often) then what the FUCK do you think it is, redefining the identities and realities of 99.3% to 99.7% of the human animal, not to mention how every other animal works? (not counting some exceptions like clownfish.)

Gender is not, wholly, a social construct. It’s a derivative and pluto’s shadow from SEX. SEX is not psychological. Sex is not negotiable. Sex is biological and disease can make it express incorrectly or correctly to function as intended by natural selection. Gender is only a social construct in that some cultures have assigned thoughts and characteristics and responsibilities for people on the basis of said sexual role. That’s it.

But people that try to live purely in the psychological sphere or argue that sphere belongs in the dominant position for mankind try to argue it’s the only one that really matters, and while we’re at it, lets let the minority dictate what is normal and rational and good. So their believe gender as feelings supersedes sex as reality.

And why would they argue this? Because they’re, “just such big fans of trans rights?” No. Because they hate disparity and immutable, biological difference. And so want to use the arbitration of human law and culture to marginalize it and pretend it doesn’t exist- to where using technology to circumvent it and the penal system to enforce that view seems like a reasonable, moral thing to strive for. Trans rights for these people have always just been a nice coat of paint to put their real activism under.

And the biggest bitch of it all is, Radical Feminists and Trans Inclusive Radical Feminists and Social Constructionists all receive their marching orders from the same ideology. The same stupid take that says bugger reality, live in a communal fantasy and enforce everybody else to live in it, too. Else they’re a bad person. Else they’re a fascist. They merely differ in the rules and the fundamental parameters.

Know the difference between, “this person is bad and they should be shamed for their beliefs because they are bad,” and, “This person is bad because they’re sitting on a throne that I want to sit on as is rightfully mine.” TIRFs don’t hate TERFs because they’re wrong, they hate them because they’re in the middle of a power grab.

But we have the opportunity to end this “Critical Lens” shitshow forever. Both sides are exposed and showing their true colors as terrible ideologies and people. Both sides are showing their totalitarianism in the form of competitive propaganda and using the legal system to get their way based on past manipulations and exploitations they got from lying to a public that didn’t want to be misogynistic or prejudiced against the transgender.

All it takes is connecting the dots and understanding just how and why it’s not a matter of “bitter evil borderline-conservative Karens Vs. noble oppressed transgenders.”

TERFs are fucking NOT conservatives. They’re typically the same far-left assholes as the TIRFs. They differ ONLY in that they believe critical theory fucking STOPS at the immutable reality of biological sex, because they stand to lose dominance if it’s not immutable- so they demand it be CONSIDERED immutable. Their status as oppressed inherently, hinges on it.

So that’s it then. You’re left with no real heroes in this fight. But if you take anything away from what I’m telling you today, it’s that you can argue legally for trans rights. Just, on the basis as exception to the biological basis, as has been proven. Asterisks. Hyphens. Acknowledging the reality that the existence of the transgendered does not negate the reality of biological sex, nor those whose genders are a direct result of their biological sex as the norm.

It’s not bigotry to sexually discriminate to some degrees. When dealing with subjectives, it’s a matter of argument. When dealing with biological realities and imperatives, opinion is irrelevant to the self-evident realities, and interpretation matters less than the reality.

But to those that believe any discrimination based on physical differences or state is inherently wrong, just the idea of male and female being two different, named things, (”classes”, if you will) with different, “unequal” functions and capacity, fills them with rage.

Your moralism stops where nature begins. Period.

[canchewread]

Editor’s Note: our Book Blog feature combines a shareable quote from, and a short review of, an important left wing or left-leaning work of nonfiction I’ve read and would like to share or expound on.

Terminal Point

A little while ago, I published a lengthy piece about how corporate media coverage of the so-called “migrant crisis at the U.S. border” uniformly conformed to the dictates of the Chomsky-Herman propaganda model; regardless of the ideological bent of the outlet publishing that coverage. Towards the end of that essay, I discussed the difference between describing how America created the crises driving migration, and what is actually happening on the ground in relation to those crises; before recommending readers who wanted to know more, check out “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the mind of America” by Greg Grandin.

As longtime readers of this blog may remember, I’ve always been a big fan of Grandin’s work; in particular his scholarship on U.S. imperialism in Latin America is absolutely first rate. Given these factors, today I’d like to return to that portion of the discussion by offering a quote from (see above,) and a brief review of “The End of the Myth” here on Can’t You Read. 

Frankly, for a guy whose writing is so accessible, Greg Grandin remains an extraordinarily complex thinker whose historical analysis explores a sometimes overwhelming number of “variations on a theme” in the larger scope of his primary thesis. Given the sad state of the term intellectual in our society, I won’t burden professor Grandin with the title, but as scholars go this guy genuinely fulfills his obligation to present the facts, and challenge established assumptions vigorously where warranted. 

In that vein, the author opens The End of the Myth with a fundamentally sound, but deceptively simple thesis; that America has always resolved the staggering contradictions between its stated ideals, and its horrifying practices by projecting its identity, and even its very conception of the term “freedom” through the lens of an endless expansion across a wholly mythical, and ultimately metaphysical, frontier. Indeed, as Grandin notes quite early on in The End of the Myth, the contradiction between the colonial enterprise that eventually became America, and escaping the crushing poverty and violence of the old world was resolved by a genocidal project to claim the frontier before early-American settlers even had a word for the frontier. The story outpaced reality, right from the beginning.

Tracing the line of history from the foundation of the colonies, through the American Civil War, and into the modern era of Pig Empire dominated globalized trade, Grandin demonstrates that at each phase American society resolved the deferred promise of freedom inherent in its foundational mythos, by projecting the violence and conflict inherent to its settler-colonial, hyper-capitalist nature, outward and against a constantly-shifting “other.” From Manifest Destiny, to the Monroe Doctrine and on through our modern War on Terror, the solution to America’s problems has always been found in the destruction of an external enemy, and the expansion of the mythical “frontier.” 

Where Grandin’s work really starts to get interesting however, is when he meticulously dissects the internal conflicts a settler colonial project of genocide and slavery created; conflicts that a romanticized vision of endless frontier expansion both rationalized, and reinforced. It is in this analysis that the author exposes the myth of freedom for those who can claim it on an endless frontier, as the skeleton key for understanding the increasingly critical flaws in Pig Empire society. After all, all wars, even an endless war based on the myth of infinite growth, have casualties, and the unrelenting legacy of violence, dehumanization, and ruthless exploitation of the eternal other have fundamentally altered American society in ways no idealized frontier could ever heal. In a wholly disturbing way then, the very existence of marginalized nonwhites inside “the nation” becomes a taunting reminder of a faltering white supremacist legacy the Pig Empire has never made any attempts to reconcile with, let alone end.

These consequences are the dark, unspoken truths of both American history and America’s present; and they are rarely if ever exposed to the public eye. In doing so, Grandin lays bare the roots of American imperialism, white supremacy, colonial exploitation, and even U.S. dominated “borderless capitalism” in the modern era. Like a cancerous tumor, the myth of the American frontier has fueled the endless growth of a Pig Empire capitalist class that threatens to unleash fascist violence to maintain control now that the frontier thesis has run into the hard walls of both history, and reality. By exposing the catastrophic fallout of worshipping frontier mythology in America’s past, Grandin does much to reveal how “the land of the free” has never really stopped being “the home of the slave.”

Importantly however the author does not remain entirely in the past. Grandin also draws stark attention to the fact that although the myth of the frontier has lost its power to obscure America’s horrifying contradictions, it has done nothing to satiate the greed and arrogance of the primary beneficiaries of those contradictions in modern life:

“The fantasies of the super-rich, no less than their capital, have free range. They imagine themselves sea-steaders, setting out to create floating villages beyond government control, or they fund life-extension research hoping to escape death or to upload their consciousness into the cloud. Mars, says one, will very soon be humanity’s “new frontier.” A hedge-fund billionaire backer of Trump who believes “human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make” and that people on public assistance have “negative value,” a man so anti-social he doesn’t look people in the eye and whistles when others try to talk with him, gets to play volunteer sheriff in an old New Mexico mining town and is thereby allowed to carry a gun in all fifty states. Never before has a ruling class been as free - so completely emancipated from the people it rules - as ours.”

Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth.

Of course, given that The End of the Myth was published in 2019, a certain percentage of the book is focused on specifically what Trump, Trumpism, and Trump’s promise to build a border wall mean for modern American politics. Even this seemingly contemporary discussion however, offers timeless insights on both the past and future of an America that continues to embrace nativist ideas and ideology. Although Grandin never uses the term, he subtly notes that in many ways Trumpism itself represents an explicit ideological rejection of endless growth along an infinite frontier, and even offers a horrifying “solution” to our present day climate crisis - white nationalist infused eco-fascism.

Look, you probably don’t need me to convince you a Pulitzer-prize winning book by a celebrated American historian is “a good read.” What I’d like to add here however is that Grandin’s book isn’t just a guide to understanding American nativism, immigration policy, and right wing fantasies of migrant invasions; this book is a guide to understanding both American political thought, and rising Pig Empire fascism - which in a lot of ways, are very much the same thing.

I don’t know if this is the best American history book ever published, but frankly I suspect it’s in the running. Even though I don’t agree with everything Grandin says in The End of the Myth, I’d still ultimately give it an enthusiastic five star rating. More importantly, I would strongly suggest this work as a must-read volume for folks looking to understand why the Pig Empire works the way it does.

Additional Resources:

Infinite Frontier (The Nation review)

America can no longer run from its past (Guardian review)

A Monument to Disenchantment (Jacobin review)

Slavery, and American Racism, Were Born in Genocide

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

[nomanwalksalone]

ON LASTING THINGS

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

A great achievement of the classes that rule us is making us love our chains.  I had this (almost certainly not original) thought reading the estimable Bruce Boyer’s recent essay “Dress Up” on the faith-oriented website First Things, and remembered it again as I struggle to restore one of my chains, my badly worn briefcase bought new 16 years ago from the heavily fetishized English whipmaker Swaine Adeney Brigg.

I can say, with all of the ecumenism worthy of a site like First Things, that Boyer is a mensch, perhaps the most respected English-language men’s clothing writer, and has personally become one of the kindest voices about my own writing and attempts to bring my own book to publication.  So “Dress Up” showcases his splendid knowledge of clothing history, enlivened with his usual verve.

“Dress Up”’s thesis is that we have lost a sense of occasion, a socially shared sense of ritual that inspires us as a group to dress better (Freudianly, I just typed “bitter” and then “butter”), and to know how to dress better to appropriately fit the occasion.  Casualization of clothing is a false democratization; an old order of codes is destroyed and a new surfeit of variety bedevils us: would-be #steezinistas lose their way, unsure how to coordinate their clothes given all the different colors, styles, and changing fashion seasons.  In other words, losing the shared sense of occasion means loss of commonality, community, and “humility,” to be replaced by a society that “gives more leeway to the strong than it does support to the weak.”

Change from a supposed settled and calm order that leads to aimlessness, confusion and indulgence.  I can see why this piece was of publishing interest to First Things.  Nostalgia for a time of less, or more repressed, questioning is rampant in many religious outlets today.

Clothing is a social tool, a manner of expression. Dress codes, including and especially those that “Dress Up” mentions like entire stadiums wearing suits to ballgames, are a method of enforcing social order. The idea of wearing nicer clothing as a sign of mutual respect is profoundly bourgeois, one of many incentives to the middle class to conform to this sense of order. Others include modesty (the wearing of suits means wearing far more layers than, say, today’s T-shirt) and the ideal of quality, the lie of longevity that convinced me so long ago that my briefcase, my leather lunch pail as Tom Wolfe snarkily and observantly called it, would really be a lifetime quote investment unquote.

I got pumped and dumped, in both the investment and the Trumpian senses of the terms.

Things do not last, things do not make you you. It’s a lesson I had to learn over time. Like, I suspect, most iGents, my favorite superhero as a little kid was Batman, because he always had the right accessory. With his utility belt and quick thinking, he had the response to every occasion. (Today, it’s probably Green Arrow, Batman as a bleeding heart liberal.) His things made him him. I admit his deep and twisted repression also made him a natural identification for us iGents too.

Unfortunately, the nature of capitalist society is the privilege of the strong at the expense of the weak.  At best, social support is an afterthought. The creation of a sense of occasion to which we must respond and conform means that the few who are not required to do so enjoy and outwardly signal their power.  Power to transgress the norms they have set down, in dress as in other forms of conduct. (That, incidentally, was prep, in all of its worn-down, bizarrely-colored and patterned glory, a reality far from the idealizations of the Internet creeps who idolize it, a set of strange codes to penalize outsiders, strange codes set by an upper-class and upper-middle-class ability to transgress against norms of good taste and restraint that supposedly dictated how everyone dressed 60 years ago.)  

I selected my briefcase in conformity with the old norms of taste: tastefully anonymous, unlogoed, made by hand by Englishmen guaranteed to treat most non-Sloaney visitors to their St. James’s shop like utter garbage, unwieldily heavy brass fittings on thick, thick bridle hide leather that not only had that forelock-tugging equestrian heritage but supposedly would last forever.

As usual, Ferry was right. Nothing lasts forever. The lies to manage us, though, are the Same Old Scene.  Luxury, as always, is what almost none of us can have. In the rosy-tinted past of First Things, it was casualness, freedom from strictures, suits, codes of professionalism.  Today, as Boyer correctly notes, we have been given freedom to be as casual as we wish by our corporate overlords, a false freedom since now what almost none of us can have is peace of mind, personal time, sleep, job and personal security, perhaps even any kind of future – all things those corporate overlords, and their owners, have in various ways taken away through labor-saving devices that make us available around the clock, donations to think tanks to create deregulatory lies, newly charitable contributions to help elect the most venal leaders.  It was not a change in clothes that created this environment, even if my reaction against the false freedom of casualness was to dress as I liked – well, if I daresay – and to embrace my chains, like my briefcase.  

Welcome the freedom to dress as well as you like, to be individual, rather than as a subject of spoken and unspoken codes of dress. And if you believe in community and shared social support, fight for it on your own terms, rather than ingesting the politically conservative pablum too many mouthpieces of organized religion like to serve up.

Quality content, like quality clothing, ages well. This post first appeared on the No Man blog in October 2017.

[theunitedblackpeople]

We can start in the year 1619 with the arrival of twenty African prisoners of war in Point Comfort, Virginia but that would take far too long. Instead let us fast forward through the horrific murders, rampant rapings, brutal beatings, planned starvations and all other inhumanities inflicted upon these “Slaves” and their descendants at the hands of slave masters, slave drivers, and patty rollers to the year 1775. The true beginning of American hypocrisy, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were words spoken by white men pursuing freedom from servitude even as they denied it to their captives and profited from their suffering. This hasn't been overlooked by historians, nor has it gone unnoticed by the descendants of these Africans. Who as a people, have not only been aware of the duality of this society but have rebelled against its fraudulent existence from the very beginning. The slave revolt was the first form of protest and revolution.  



Fueled by the inhumane treatment of human beings in America, in the colonies, and on the colonized Continent, the fire of this revolution has never stopped! Altered maybe, forms and fashions may vary from boycotts to guerilla warfare attacks on police officers, but without question as we begin to analyze the persistence and perseverance of our people in a collective effort to achieve the rights and freedoms granted to us by God and later spoken of their constitution we begin to understand very simple truths. 

There can be no peace without justice and for every action there is a reaction. As basic as these concepts appear, one glance into a small window of our history allows us to clearly see just how much blood continues to be shed by the actual complexity of these truths. Nat Turner, our revered ancestor, reacted in the only available response. Before him our brothers and sisters that participated in the Stono Rebellion and Gabriel’s Conspiracy reacted, murdered and died. Since then, there have been many movements, riots, protests, and even strategic wars fought, all in reaction to America's failure to live up to its claimed founding principles of equality, freedom, and justice for all! 



The civil war, according to American school books, was a military solution to the blatant discrepancies that existed between the ideals of American liberty and the actual reality of enslaved Africans. Viewed as a way of life for many, violence would be the only option of ending a society and system that was designed to terrorize humans for profit. 

Slavery was after all a way of life many intended to keep, as Abraham Lincoln himself put it: “The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves”. He stated this knowing that slavery in general was in direct opposition to the principles America was founded upon and that a weak foundation will soon crumble anything built upon it. He knew that one never addressed hypocrisy could, would, and should be the cause of civil unrest in America for decades to come. If fact, this martyred President was very aware of Americas true nature, saying: “The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes”. Few people caught on to that simple truth then, and even fewer are aware of it now although we continue to revolt against this small minority today. The 20% of society consisting of racists, seperatist, and supremacist who harass and terrorize people of African ancestory through laws, discrimination, petty tyranny, and direct violence. The so-called 1% responsible for the social and educational systems that breed modern slaves and the corporations that trade their labor, but this is a topic for another discussion and for now we are talking about war. A war in which African People fought with brave honor for our freedom. Comprising 10% of the union army and motivated by the opportunity to claim their rights and freedoms in this concept called America, our ancestors killed and died as warriors. The same way their ancestors did fighting in the War of Independence that brought what would be called the U.S.A. into existence. The truth is history only repeated itself regarding the plight of African Americans. Before the war was even over, any thought of Black People finally enjoying the benefits of a country built on our backs, by our sweat and blood, was nothing more than a fantasy. Although the war’s conclusion did abolish the legal institution of slavery and later resulted in the recontruction of the southern United States however briefly, it also ushered in a new era called Jim Crow and gave rise to the Klu Klux Klan. Both created to perpetuate the subjugation and destruction of Black People. Basically, as state sanctioned white supremacy attacked African Americans with petty laws and designed ordinances, white terrorists lynched and sabotaged those of us succeeding in the American dream. A long recurring nightmare of ours, us being gored at every turn by the two vicious horns of the same sacred bull called capitalism or democracy.



This can be seen simply by analyzing the 1921 Tulsa race riot. After the white mob bombed and burned the wealthy and successful Greenwood district, city officials put restrictions in place to ensure Blacks could not rebuild Black Wall street and would never be compensated for their losses. This is the first time as a people we began to understand that our inclusion into their society was never the plan. In reaction to this reality, Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association of the early 1920’s founded the Black Star Line in order to aid the return of the African Diaspora to our homeland. The opportunity for this exodus was immediately countered by the federal government who used agent provocateurs to stop our repatriation to Africa due to the economic impact America would suffer without the presence of American Africans. Strategically, Marcus Garvey was criminalized and deported, not murdered and made a martyr of for Black People to relic. The overseers only had him removed in the hopes that our ambitions of escape from this constitutionalized plantation would be abandoned and our conformity to a racist system that ensures we are both brutalized and monetized, would continue. Expectations for our future were set high. We were  expected to participate in American society economically as workers, consumers, taxpayers, court fine payers and warehoused inmates. We were also expected to accept the fact that the rules governing American society do not apply to African Americans.                   This presented us with a choice: Accept second class citizenship or bring about change through revolutionary movements that focused on the concept of self determination.



We of course chose to continue the rebellion, resisting injustice and racism in solidarity during an era that we would term as the “Struggle” and voice loudly with calls for “Black Power'' while using phases that would rewrite the meaning of freedom or death like the infamous “Ride and Die”! The Civil Rights era of the 1960’s proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the extent to which the attempt at the reconstruction of this country’s political power to be more fair and equal following the civil war failed. If Blacks were really citizens and were truly as free as the constitution claims it’s citizens are, why was there a need to ask for civil rights, the right to be treated in a civilized manner by uncivilized people? This question has never been answered. In fact, as Black People began to persistently ask for our humanity the only honest answer that we received was assasination. Fred Hampton, Patrice Lamumba, Malcolm, Martin, James Earl Chaney and his honorable associates, a list of our losses too long to continue here. Killed by governments, killed by “recently escaped convicts'', killed by our manipulated own, killed by police, or killed by the white mob after being handed over by the police, they were all slaughtered without remorse actively pursuing the right to be treated like humans.



 The irony of this is in reality (Genetically, Archeologically, Historically) the African is the first human being, the only human group still existing on this planet today who has not interbred with non human species such as the neanderthal and the denisovan.   Understanding this, we can see that all of our past and present revolutions can be translated into a simple request from a people who should want ruthless revenge. Having been enslaved, freed without reparations, subjugated economically and socially thru maliciously designed laws, and oppressed thru systematic racism, surprisingly, we only ask that White America confront it’s hypocrisy. A revolutionary request, only in the context of asking the white power structure, to explain how they expect two concepts of justice to exist in this world without continued social disorder. We have been aware of how racism has been maintained in America through legislation from the state and federal government for decades. We know all about police sponsored brutality and murder which is a direct result of this racist legislation. We are being openly attacked by militias, hate groups, cowards, and pawns. Randomly targeted for termination by police and white terrorists who the media politely refers to as “troubled individuals''. Sadly, it has been made very clear to Black people through court precedents and rulings that very few of these savages will be prosecuted for committing crimes against us.

This is why the revolution still continues in the year 2020. There has never been an actual effort to right these wrongs. 401 years after the first African slaves arrived chained on American shores. 155 Years after slavery supposedly ended. 55 years after civil rights were granted to African Americans by law and integration occurred. 3 years after the first Black President. And as you are reading this now probably less than 1 day since the murder of a Black Man in America by a police officer openly or by a race soldier in secret. We have tried to reason with the government, the corporate elite, the scholars, and their uneducated citizens concerning our oppression only to have the narrative of our conversations changed from their hidden hand in our destruction to topics like Black on Black Crime. We have burned our property, their property, looted their stores, and robbed their banks in rebellion. We’ve marched more miles than any other people to bring attention to injustices we suffer while carrying signs advertising our grief and expressing our demands. We have now begun to carry assault rifles. 



The time of White supremacy is over. The advantage of surprise and a monopoly on weapons is over. The ability to pretend to be righteous while using division and deception to conquer and control unnoticed is over. The tactic of being the aggressor while simultaneously playing the victim is over. The ability to manipulate the minds of the masses to see African people as inferior, ignorant, and dangerous thru biased news coverage and stereotypical movie and television portrayals is over. The malicious deflection of all qualities, traits, and innate desires of our colonizers upon Black people is over. It is known that the very men incapable of constraining themselves in the act of murder, rape, and robbery have been attaching these very characteristics to the poeple they have been and currently are robbing, raping, and murdering. We are all aware that when it comes to “Western” history, culture, religion, knowledge, and identity the #1 world exploiter is a liar. A burner of books. A suppressor of truth. A thief of other peoples creations and accomplishments. A “race” prone to unimaginable and unnecessary violence. Knowing exactly who the enemy is our revolution continues. Until now we have done most of the dying and endured all of the suffering in America but this has only strengthened us. This strength makes us despised even more. Today it still remains that for every 10 Black People who assert their right to life and liberty there are 15 selfish and soulless individuals who pursue their happiness attempting to deny us ours. Until this conflict is resolved we can not and will not stop revolting in an unjust, corrupt, and racist system designed to maximize our exploitation. This is a revolution described by our ancestor Malcolm X as being “ by any means necessary” because he knew back then what many of us are just beginning to learn now. You can only speak to violent people in the language they understand: Violence. We have exhausted all of the non-violent methods of negotiation with those who oppose our liberation and self determination. For all of our marching and petitioning at best we have been given token positions and symbolic street signs to distract and deflect us from the fact that we have not achieved true freedom and actually remain slaves without natural rights. This is unacceptable! The time for revolutionary change is now. Our real community activists like Willie D repeat with the same tone the deepest feelings in the American African community that there will be “No Mo’ Talk”, I agree. We’ve waited long enough. The revolution in progress  continues but the generation to end it is this one. Umshini wami!

[grayjing]

Anarchist FAQ/What is Anarchism?/2.17<

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A.2.17 Aren't most people too stupid for a free society to work?

We are sorry to have to include this question in an anarchist FAQ, but we know that many political ideologies explicitly assume that ordinary people are too stupid to be able to manage their own lives and run society. All aspects of the capitalist political agenda, from Left to Right, contain people who make this claim. Be it Leninists, fascists, Fabians or Objectivists, it is assumed that only a select few are creative and intelligent and that these people should govern others. Usually, this elitism is masked by fine, flowing rhetoric about "freedom," "democracy" and other platitudes with which the ideologues attempt to dull people's critical thought by telling them want they want to hear.

It is, of course, also no surprise that those who believe in "natural" elites always class themselves at the top. We have yet to discover an "objectivist", for example, who considers themselves part of the great mass of "second-handers" (it is always amusing to hear people who simply parrot the ideas of Ayn Rand dismissing other people so!) or who will be a toilet cleaner in the unknown "ideal" of "real" capitalism. Everybody reading an elitist text will consider him or herself to be part of the "select few." It's "natural" in an elitist society to consider elites to be natural and yourself a potential member of one!

Examination of history shows that there is a basic elitist ideology which has been the essential rationalisation of all states and ruling classes since their emergence at the beginning of the Bronze Age ("if the legacy of domination had had any broader purpose than the support of hierarchical and class interests, it has been the attemp to exorcise the belief in public competence from social discourse itself." [Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, p. 206]). This ideology merely changes its outer garments, not its basic inner content over time.

During the Dark Ages, for example, it was coloured by Christianity, being adapted to the needs of the Church hierarchy. The most useful "divinely revealed" dogma to the priestly elite was "original sin": the notion that human beings are basically depraved and incompetent creatures who need "direction from above," with priests as the conveniently necessary mediators between ordinary humans and "God." The idea that average people are basically stupid and thus incapable of governing themselves is a carry over from this doctrine, a relic of the Dark Ages.

In reply to all those who claim that most people are "second-handers" or cannot develop anything more than "trade union consciousness," all we can say is that it is an absurdity that cannot withstand even a superficial look at history, particularly the labour movement. The creative powers of those struggling for freedom is often truly amazing, and if this intellectual power and inspiration is not seen in "normal" society, this is the clearest indictment possible of the deadening effects of hierarchy and the conformity produced by authority. (See also section B.1 for more on the effects of hierarchy). As Bob Black points outs:

"You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinisation all around us than even such significant moronising mechanisms as television and education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed to work from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the nursing home in the end, are habituated to hierarchy and psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to hierarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it."—Bob Black, The Abolition of Work and other essays, pp. 21-2

When elitists try to conceive of liberation, they can only think of it being given to the oppressed by kind (for Leninists) or stupid (for Objectivists) elites. It is hardly surprising, then, that it fails. Only self-liberation can produce a free society. The crushing and distorting effects of authority can only be overcome by self-activity. The few examples of such self-liberation prove that most people, once considered incapable of freedom by others, are more than up for the task.

Those who proclaim their "superiority" often do so out of fear that their authority and power will be destroyed once people free themselves from the debilitating hands of authority and come to realise that, in the words of Max Stirner, "the great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise"

As Emma Goldman remarks about women's equality, "[t]he extraordinary achievements of women in every walk of life have silenced forever the loose talk of women's inferiority. Those who still cling to this fetish do so because they hate nothing so much as to see their authority challenged. This is the characteristic of all authority, whether the master over his economic slaves or man over women. However, everywhere woman is escaping her cage, everywhere she is going ahead with free, large strides." [Vision on Fire, p. 256] The same comments are applicable, for example, to the very successful experiments in workers' self-management during the Spanish Revolution.

Then, of course, the notion that people are too stupid for anarchism to work also backfires on those who argue it. Take, for example, those who use this argument to advocate democratic government rather than anarchy. Democracy, as Luigi Galleani noted, means "acknowledging the right and the competence of the people to select their rulers." However, "whoever has the political competence to choose his [or her] own rulers is, by implication, also competent to do without them, especially when the causes of economic enmity are uprooted." [The End of Anarchism?, p. 37] Thus the argument for democracy against anarchism undermines itself, for "if you consider these worthy electors as unable to look after their own interests themselves, how is it that they know how to choose for themselves the shepherds who must guide them? And how will they be able to solve this problem of social alchemy, of producing the election of a genius from the votes of a mass of fools?" [Malatesta, Anarchy, pp. 53–4]

As for those who consider dictatorship as the solution to human stupidity, the question arises why are these dictators immune to this apparently universal human trait? And, as Malatesta noted, "who are the best? And who will recognise these qualities in them?" [Op. Cit., p. 53] If they impose themselves on the "stupid" masses, why assume they will not exploit and oppress the many for their own benefit? Or, for that matter, that they are any more intelligent than the masses? The history of dictatorial and monarchical government suggests a clear answer to those questions. A similar argument applies for other non-democratic systems, such as those based on limited suffrage. For example, the Lockean (i.e. classical liberal or right-wing libertarian) ideal of a state based on the rule of property owners is doomed to be little more than a regime which oppresses the majority to maintain the power and privilege of the wealthy few. Equally, the idea of near universal stupidity bar an elite of capitalists (the "objectivist" vision) implies a system somewhat less ideal than the perfect system presented in the literature. This is because most people would tolerate oppressive bosses who treat them as means to an end rather than an end in themselves. For how can you expect people to recognise and pursue their own self-interest if you consider them fundamentally as the "uncivilised hordes"? You cannot have it both ways and the "unknown ideal" of pure capitalism would be as grubby, oppressive and alienating as "actually existing" capitalism.

As such, anarchists are firmly convinced that arguments against anarchy based on the lack of ability of the mass of people are inherently self-contradictory (when not blatantly self-servicing). If people are too stupid for anarchism then they are too stupid for any system you care to mention. Ultimately, anarchists argue that such a perspective simply reflects the servile mentality produced by a hierarchical society rather than a genuine analysis of humanity and our history as a species. To quote Rousseau:

"when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behove slaves to reason about freedom."—Rousseau, quoted by Noam Chomsky, Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 780

[thesswrites]

The Professionals

Dungeons and Dragons has enjoyed a surge in popularity over the last few years, and one of the reasons that we can point to for its increased market appeal is the internet stream programme Critical Role. With Geek and Sundry as a springboard, Critical Role is now its own entity, producing livestreams of tabletop roleplay for the entertainment of the masses.

While its online presence and player roster of professional voice actors gained the attention of the general public, that was not what made Critical Role as popular as it has turned out to be. Critical Role is an innovative take on what has up until 5e been a far less story-driven tabletop system than, for instance, the World of Darkness. Dungeons and Dragons has been largely known for dungeon crawls and tactical combat; a series of numbers designed to create a tactical team. While story is necessary to a point, character interaction was less the focus. The fifth edition and Critical Role both took great pains to change that. Focus shifted away from the numbers as the sole arbiter of storytelling and success; the variety of classes and focus on background enabled a richer story than what could be created with a series of dungeon crawls. However, while 5e provided the framework, it was Matt Mercer's storytelling, and that of Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Rey, Sam Riegel and Ashley Johnson that turned a collection of stats and encounters into a rich, compelling story with relatable characters and significant emotional investment.

The more story-focused approach to the game inspired a lot of people to try Dungeons and Dragons who might not necessarily have considered it in the days of THAC0. A significant number of people who might not identify with a series of numbers and a spell list came flocking, eager to try creating their own tale of adventure in whatever Dungeons and Dragons world they could find or devise. They sought to capture the magic they saw on the stream every Thursday, and they all succeeded in their own ways - which is how it should be, as no person will ever tell 100% the same story. Wizards of the Coast responded by giving players more toys to throw into their personal sandboxes, and while those who were more invested in the number-crunching elements of D&D tend to complain, their number is more than made up for in terms of sales by a tide of fans looking to create rather than add up.

Unfortunately, Critical Role had one more effect that no one expected: it created the concept of the 'professional dungeon master' - someone who makes a living, or at least part of a living, at the art of running a tabletop roleplaying game. While not a problem in and of itself, the concept of being a professional DM has had implications for roleplaying as a hobby far beyond what the good people at Geek and Sundry might have expected at the first.

The quieter issue with DMing as a profession is unfair comparisons, as a lot of players and DMs compare themselves to the people they see on the screen every week and get depressed over falling short. It's easy to forget that the players aren't professional players but professional actors, more likely to be able to do credible accents, stay in character through nearly anything people can throw at them, and generally use their training in improv to enhance their own experiences in the game and make it look seamless. It's just as easy to forget that they are still just people playing a game; that it’s the players’ experience both in their day-to-day careers and their hobbies that makes their story beats and dialogue smooth enough to seem pre-planned, that everyone brings their own experience to the table, and that while most players aren't coming to the table with a career history full of voice acting jobs, everyone will bring something to the table that no one else can. When watching Critical Role and other shows of its ilk, it's important for any player or DM to remember that every story is unique, every gaming experience is likewise unique, and that it always looks different from the outside in any case. So long as everyone at any specific table is having fun, comparison with other DMs and players shouldn't matter, even if those DMs and players are making money out of it.

The other more vocal issue is the pressure a 'professional' D&D player or DM takes from outside sources. Like most hobbies and fandoms, D&D attracts a wide variety of passionate people, and passion breeds strong opinions. That's generally a good thing, but as with everything else, the internet allows strong opinions to turn to vitriol spewed at anyone who does not share that opinion, or acts against it in some way. A 'professional' D&D player and DM has their every action scrutinised, and this whole fandom of passionate, enthusiastic people are granted access to those players and that DM by the grace of the internet. The easy access to the creators of our favourite media is at once the boon and bane of the internet; it allows us to praise our favourites, but it also allows the outspoken and vitriolic to attack anyone who does not conform to their wishes and standards. Thus does the professional DM take a variety of abuse - their every decision at the table criticised, their homebrews and house-rules lambasted, their story ideas panned. The aggressive tone these judgement calls take become yet more work for people who, despite 'being on TV', so to speak, are only in it to play a game and have some fun, and once upon a time thought it would be a neat idea to share their fun with others.

At the end of the day, it's important for players and fans to remember that there is no such thing as a 'professional' D&D player. Anyone can set up cameras at their table and stream their session, and they can even become affiliated and make money off it, but that does not make them 'professionals'. They're not following a studio's whims. They're not in it for ratings. They're not machines producing stories by rote. They're human beings who are trying to have fun and tell a story with friends. They will make mistakes. They will forget things. Their characters will live and die at the whims of the role of a twenty-sided die. It's best not to forget that they're as human, as attached to their characters, as invested in the world they're making, as any other player.

It's also best not to forget that it's their game, and that its airing on the internet does not give anyone any rights to dictate the course their game will take. So, keeping all that in mind, remember that just because they’re accessible on a social media platform doesn’t give you the right to come to their virtual back porch and complain. If their game makes you love your game less, maybe you need to look at your own campaign in a kinder light.

[things-that-make-me-slytherin]

Whoop, another Slyth pride blog!! 🐍💚💛 #moreSlythlove Which of the Slyth Ilvermony hybrids do you think is most common to least common? And your interpretation of the types of personalities with each of the Slyth-Ilvermony combos?

I think it’s spread fairly evenly across the Slyth-Ilvermony hybrids to be honest, maybe less wampus-slytherins? And maybe the most is Thunderbird-Slytherins? 

To be honest a lot of my answers have taken info from everywhere but the best source for slytherin mbti types comes from the lovely @fictionalcharactermbti

this is directly from their blog and I reckon it’s pretty spot on!

ISTJ [The Underestimated]

Withdominant Introverted Sensing an ISTJ is extremely resourceful. They will usewhat concrete things they have to accomplish any goal. They are reliable toimplement what their Introverted Sensing dictates because of their secondaryfunction, Extraverted Thinking. This shows an ability to have dedication. AnISTJ takes authority very seriously and could be perceived therefore as a moretraditional type. ISTJs could find Slytherin beneficial for their inferiorfunction of Extraverted Intuition. In this house of excellence they will beexposed to new ideas and view points. The ISTJ would like the pride and loyaltySlytherins have in their house, but most importantly their dedication to dotheir best…at all costs sometimes. An ISTJ Slytherin will have a fierce loyaltyto their house and all who are in it. They will come to their defense in frontof other people, but in private if they disagree with a Slytherin’s behaviorthe ISTJ will address it. The ISTJ is consistent if nothing else and will tyepeople together in their stabilizing nature.

ISTP [The Brilliant Loner]

ISTPsare another resourceful bunch. A huge part of ISTPs that may find themselveswanting to be in Slytherin, is the fact that they are always in or out. Theydon’t have much in between and with Extraverted Feeling as an inferior functionthey can be quite gruff when telling people they aren’t “into” a certainactivity or situation. It is also a great house to work on their inferiorfunction as there is a strong sense of community within Slytherin. An ISTPcould find themselves developing their Fe by seeing themselves in the eyes ofothers, as part of a community. The ISTP being very independent will surprisetheir Slytherin peers in their loyalty to the house as they grow fonder andgrow bonds with their peers. The ISTP Slytherin will be difficult to predict.Always seen as the loner who surprises everyone when they intervene to helptheir fellow Slytherin. The ISTP Slytherin will also be great at whatever magiccraft interests them. Whether it be charms, music, care of magical creatures,herbology, etc, they will be one with the craft surprising everyone with theirpassion despite their more common aloof nature. 

ESTP [The Cool One]

Slytherin’sare notorious for being a more collected bunch in any situation. ESP types areknown for jumping in before thinking. People would be surprised that not allESPs are like this and have qualities that would have them not only fit in atSlytherin house, but want to be in the house. Their secondary function ofIntroverted Thinking makes them a very strategic lot. They are great atanalyzing a crisis situation. They can be very cunning and resourceful in theirways. Their dominant Se and tertiary Fe makes them observe and alert to otherswhile being able to negotiate favorable ends for themselves. This seems like avery appealing ability for a Slytherin student. They would add some risktaking, thrill seeking adventure, and meld well in Slytherin house. Inaddition, ESTPs can care too much about appearances and where they standsocially. Those more concerned about this in the wizarding world could findthemselves wanting to be in Slytherin for status sake. The ESTP has a naturalcharisma that will attract other Slytherin’s to them and their Se (over Ne)gives them a more classically cool nature that other Slytherin’s will want tobe. 

ESTJ [The Representative]

ESTJsare known for being fans of hierarchy. Of knowing their place in that hierarchyand hoping others know theirs and fulfill their duties in their position. ESTJslike representing whatever system they are apart of. So if they are interestedin Slytherin house you can bet they will want to represent your house inanything that they can. They will advocate for the fair and un-bias treatmentof the Slytherin quidditch team in incidents such as Gryffindors taking thefield to practice when Slytherins were clearly signed up for that day. Peoplemay have the wrong idea about Slytherin, but your ESTJ Slytherin will set thoseignorant people straight…while at the same time proving them right if theycan’t be suave about it…Slytherins are known for having fun and ESTJs oftendeny themselves their secondary function Introverted Sensation, theirsubjective inner world function. They find acting on personal impulse to be anegative thing and perhaps their Slytherin comrades can help them let go andhave a bit more fun with a fire whiskey drinking game in the common room.

ISFJ [The Avenger]

ISFJ issimilar to the ISTJ. Depending on what the ISFJ specializes in and consumeswith their Si they may be attracted to the promise of excelling in that area inSlytherin. Some ISFJs could be attracted to social traditionalism in Slytherin.Their Fe would fit well in Slytherin in protecting other Slytherins. They wouldalways be there for their fellow house members. An ISFJ Slytherin will haveyour back. They may be under estimated by their fellow Slytherin members, butISFJ Slytherins would play this to their advantage surprising their peers intheir talents, academics, or whatever they find to be their main focus ofinterest. An ISFJ is very caring, but if you cross them or another Slytherinthey will never forget and will get their revenge. Don’t cross an ISFJSlytherin.

ISFP [The Sleeper-Cell]

ISFPsare all about honing their Fi through their Se. Whatever they find to be theirskill they may want to hone it to be the best in Slytherin. These Slytherinswon’t be in your face or too into competition with Gryffindor, but they willhelp Slytherin get house points. Their dominant Fi makes them largely selffocused in the sense of discipline for their art, whatever that art may be. TheISFP Slytherin in class is fairly quiet, but will surprise their fellowstudents with their skill and physical ability. Although ISFPs are called theArtist they can be attracted to more logically driven specialties. An ISFPSlytherin could excel in healing or herbology. They may surprise their peerswith their sensitive exterior, but underneath the ISFP is a rock. The ISFPSlytherin could also help push other Slytherin’s away from trying to fit into abox and conforming to blind following of the way Slytherin does things. This ismore through their actions than any sort of discussion directly taking place.The ISFP would be a walking reminder of what all Slytherin’s can be and to notlose themselves blindly to house rhetoric and traditionalism.

ESFP [The Popular One]

ASlytherin ESFP is one of the most likely to start a fight with a Gryffindor.They will act before thinking (dominant Se) and have a fierce loyalty to theirSlytherin friends (secondary Fi). They may be the face of their class orSlytherin house because of their natural sociability. They will help any otherSlytherin not expecting anything in return. It is just what any Slytherin woulddo for another. Other Slytherins will have a lot of fun with the ESFPSlytherin, but they will also be surprised. Slytherins are naturallycompetitive against one another and may dismiss the ESFP Slytherin finding themirresponsible and unintelligent. However, the ESFP will prove them wrong everytime. Their tertiary Te will surprise their peers as they eloquently and reasonablycommunicate when they want to. ESFPs will also be the trend setter of Slytherinhouse, no matter what others say about the ESFP, the Slytherins will be copyingthe ESFP in fashion and attitude.

ESFJ [The Successful One]

TheESFJ will be the most involved student in the house. They will make sure thatSlytherin is going to win the House Cup and is behaving themselves…at least infront of the teachers. They will probably be working hard to be a housePrefect. They will want appreciation for their efforts from their teachers andpeers. For an ESFJ with a high bar they will want solid appreciation for theirefforts of trying to be the best in Slytherin house and for Slytherin house toexcel and be the best. The ESFJ Slytherin will be an amazing networker witholder witches and wizards trying to get a leg up on other students. They willprobably have a rapport with all of their professors. For the ESFJ what housethey are in is very important as they like to surround themselves with manylike-minded people. If Slytherins are those like-minded people (striving to bethe very best), then the ESFJ will be determined to have the sorting hat placethem in Slytherin.

INFJ [The Snob]

DominantNi is prone to questioning things. As much as Slytherin can be a sign of statusquo to some, it is actually very pro breaking rules for the sake of advancementand progress. Such things are needed in order to move forward and be the best.The INFJ is all about this view and Slytherin is a good place for those who do.In Slytherin they can hone their vision for change and polish it. They will bein an academic environment that fuels their need to perfect their ideas. INFJslove the unknown and in Slytherin they can explore this with their mates. Anunhealthy INFJ can be so sucked into their own romantic world feeling uniqueand like no one understands them that they create a superiority complexthinking they ARE unique and better than others. No one else around themfulfills their ideals. Such an INFJ would fuel negative stereotypes ofSlytherins. This kind of INFJ would come off as a Wizarding World culture snob,looking down on those that don’t know a certain wizard scholar or a certainwitch artist. This kind of INFJ could want to be in Slytherin, because onlythere do people understand the finer parts of Wizarding Culture.

INFP [The DeterminedQuester]

INFPshave a drive to find their place in the world that their Fi dictates. Their Fiis close, personal, and idealistic and combined with their Ne they look for agreat meaning for it all. An INFP may be attracted to Slytherin because itpromises greatness. Wherever their seeking takes them it could be Slytherin,their idealism could have them picture themselves as the person bound to suchgreatness that Slytherin promises them. Many INFPs place themselves in existingsocial systems to find their place and Slytherin could be the place they findthemselves in, in order to find their role to better the world in some way.INFPs with a good grasp on their Te are great at managing resources and couldbe embodying the Slytherin ideal of resourcefulness at their best. An unhealthyINFP could be Slytherin because they are too introverted and in a functionalloop. In that case it will be the world against the INFP’s views. The INFP willshock those around them with extremely self-assertive statements and reducingpeople of the other houses to stereotypes. The INFP Slytherin can be theunexpected nice Slytherin who is determined to understand meaning in life andfeels that Slytherin determination is the best place to do that or the INFPSlytherin could be the biggest house bigot who talks down to all the otherhouses.

ENFP [The Aloof Mentor]

Asa dominant Ne, the ENFP Slytherin would find Slytherin to be the best house fortheir visionary abilities. They like to think big and Slytherin would help themenact their dreams and visions in the best way. In fact, Slytherin might helpthem concentrate and implement their great ideas when they would have otherwisegotten bored and moved on. While Slytherin can often have a pessimistic feel toit, the ENFP would help lift the spirits of their peers and get them excitedabout the house’s many possibilities. The Slytherin ENFP upper classmates maybe one of the first (along with the ENFJ) to help the younger classmates findtheir place in the house and help hone the younger classmates’ talents. TheENFP would be a popular mentor figure within Slytherin that the younger oneslook up to, the older ones roll their eyes at, and the Slytherin’s in the sameyears as the ENFP want to party with. The unhealthy ENFP may personify some ofthe negative aspects of Slytherin and be incredibly self serving. They may growto hate the other houses and take the rivalry between Slytherin and otherhouses (especially, Gryffindor) too seriously. 

ENFJ [The Mediator]

TheENFJ may find Slytherin to be the perfect place for them. Their dominant Femakes them interested in rational social systems while their secondary Nipushes them to strive to improve and understand that social system and thepeople apart of it. This need for understanding and improving on a socialsystem could attract an ENFJ to Slytherin because Slytherin is focused onimprovement and honing one’s skills to be the best. For the ENFJ who wants tofocus on this part of themselves they will blend well into this house. Justlike the ENFP they may have a taking to helping others in the house strive toimprove themselves and contribute to the house as a whole. Unlike the looserENFP, the ENFJ might take their job as a “teacher” or “guide” very seriously,trying to help others in the house on their personal journeys to success. Theirinterest in helping and people as a whole will help make them the glue forkeeping Slytherins together and strive to forget one’s personal guffs with oneanother in order to do things like win the House Cup. 

INTJ [The MagicalTheoretician]

Anambitious and academic INTJ can find themselves best helped in Slytherin. TheirNi makes them strive for innovation and the abstract while their Te makes themfocus on what can actually be utilized in the real world (if they are using Teproperly). The INTJ who wants to focus on creating a new magical theory orcoming up with something to simply shake the Wizarding World can find comfortin Slytherin pushing them to implement their ideas into something real andconstructive. The INTJ no matter what house they are in will have a harder timethan most any other type feeling welcomed and apart of their house. INTJs areprone to isolating themselves and being observers of life rather than playersin it. Slytherin may exacerbate that feeling, especially if the INTJ does notuse their Te sufficiently. The Slytherin INTJ has to watch out for this kind ofbehavior, of being in their own minds and thinking themselves better than notjust other houses, but their fellow Slytherins. An INTJ Slytherin at their bestwill go on to great things reinventing what magic means and what being a wizardin this new world means, but an unhealthy INTJ Slytherin can hoard theirknowledge never sharing it with us “lessers” spiraling into behavior makingthem forever unhappy (*cough* Snape *cough*).

INTP [The Acclaimed Genius]

Manyassume that an INTP will always be in Ravenclaw and the assumption isn’t offbase. But not everyone fits into a perfect box and not all INTPs areRavenclaws. INTPs whose inferior Fe is escaping them could find themselves inSlytherin. When an INTP’s inferior Fe gets away from them their primary focuswhether they want to admit it or not is approval from society, from others. Asthe INTP is focusing on whatever structure of thought interests them (Ti) andthey explore the many possibilities this structure has in the outside world(Ne) they can grow competitive looking for appreciation for all of their work,needing people to affirm how genius they really are. An INTP looking forgreatness, for that approval, can find themselves easily in Slytherin. Allowedout of hand this can be a negative thing, but like many things about Slytherinit is all about perspective. The INTP who avoids all possibility of beingjudged out of fear of rejection or criticism is much more unhealthy than theINTP who lets this need for approval guide them. This Fe push can catalyst theINTP into a house like Slytherin where their ideas can actually be implementedin the outside world for something. That is something INTPs can struggle alltheir lives to accomplish. But Slytherin can help the INTP with a drive toprove their greatness and show the world what they are made of. 

ENTP [The Obnoxious One]

TheENTP Slytherin may just be the most bothersome Slytherin to the INTJ and INTP.The ENTP Slytherin has the same tendency as the ENFP to help their fellowSlytherin’s achieve greatness, but instead of helping on a person-to-personlevel like the ENFP (Fi), their focus is met with Ti interests: competition,strategy, critical examination of thoughts, etc. As the INTJ and INTP areworking on things the ENTP will be critical of their work constantly pokingholes in their work in order to help. The INTJ and INTP may be the mostreceptive to this, but when the ENTP is unleashed on their fellow Slytherinsnot of these types they may find their way of helping, of sticking their noseand critiquing their peer’s work isn’t always wanted. The ENTP Slytherin willalso irk their SJ Slytherins in their ability to grasp almost all subjectsquickly and gaining enough fluency to get by rather nicely in all their classeswithout the need to truly study and keep their nose in a book. While the SJshave been hard at work tisking that the ENTP Slytherin should be doing theirwork, looking down at the ENTP. The next day in class they find themselvesinfuriated as the ENTP wings it and gets if not top marks, pretty damn close.Once the ENTP has grabbed onto a single idea with their Ne and has found theirpassion, the ENTP Slytherin will blend well with their peers focusing inwardinstead of outward, and working hard and diligently on their given passion,being consumed by it, probably being stupidly mistaken for an INTJ by thatpoint. 

ENTJ [The Improver]

Likethe ENFJ, the ENTJ has secondary Ni and is focused on improvement. But theirattention is not on people or social systems. Their focus in much more onobjective principles and logical systems themselves. The INTJ will question amagical theory, while the ENTJ will work on improving on the theory thatalready exists. The ENTJ is all about making systems, even theoretical ones,more efficient in the real world. The ENTJ may not be the top of the class, butthey will certainty be the loudest one on top. With their charisma they oftencan get what they want done, but their coldness at times can turn others off oftheir plans for success. The drive fore improvement can lead ENTJs to want tobe the best, their Te makes them think of the whole over their sense of self aswell. The ENTJ will try to take command of Slytherin and make it the absolutebest. An ENTJ Slytherin will make sure that the house is organized and a tightship. Unlike the ESTJ, the ENTJ won’t come to the defense and negotiate betweensystems and people, but they will improve upon every aspect of how Slytherin isorganized and functions. This is something all ENTJs will do no matter whathouse they are in, but in Slytherin their need for improvement and efficient,to be the best, would be best honed.