#the weaponization of language

[jarredlharris]

Live-threading my thoughts while listening to the Thereafter podcast episode where Benjamin Fay discusses the corruption and weaponization of terms like "DEI"

The following is a transcript of the live-thread I did while listening to Thereafter podcast episode 106.

I've had a very busy (and productive) day. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get to the new episode of @thereafterpodcast. But I'm free and it's roughly lunchtime, so time to listen and live-thread my thoughts. Let do this!

Oh, Benjamin "Benji" Fay is joining them for the whole episode. Cool! Benji isn't on Threads, but you can go check him out on Instagram. @thereafterpodcast

https://www.instagram.com/heytherebenji/

Wait, someone over on Insta has a terrible take on "church hurt?" Must be a day ending in Y. @thereafterpodcast

I hope @thepursuinglife, @cortlandcoffey, and Benji touch on how trivializing the phrase "church hurt" comes across. I mean, for a lot of people, that hurt would be more accurate called "abuse" and/or "trauma." @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey is kind of saying that, but isn't specifically calling out the language. @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "Anyone who thinks deconstruction is easy has never actually experienced deconstruction." Preach! @thereafterpodcast

Benji is giving an excellent explanation of the difference between reconciliation and suppression and how the two are sometimes conflated. @thereafterpodcast

Okay, there's something delightful about hearing Benji saying something "gives him the ick." @thereafterpodcast

Listening to this discussion of framing and language suddenly makes me want to see an analysis of how the talk about deconstruction by certain evangelicals would line up with @amanda_montell's discussion of thought terminating phrases and other elements of Cultish (the language of cults). @thereafterpodcast

. @cortlandcoffey: "Nothing is more uncomfortable than deconverting." I'm not sure that's 100% objectively true, but it's sure up there. Preach! @thereafterpodcast

I appreciate that @thepursuinglife is pointing out that some of the trauma comes from the theology itself. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife is now tackling the recent Twitter discourse over the whole concept of "The Bible clearly says..." @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "So many thoughts." Hey, I have time! @thereafterpodcast

Benji is pointing out that the idea that there is a single, knowable, and objective interpretation of the Bible is rooted in colonial thought and it's a powerful point. @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey is commenting on how people tend to claim that their modern interpretations of the Bible and their theology was shared by early Christians and it's so good. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife: "Adam and Eve were reading the ESV..." Wait, not the KJV???? Heretics! No wonder they ate the fruit! @thereafterpodcast

I think Benji is ultimately touching on the fact that a lot of Christian preaching and apologetics (especially on social media) is more about demonstrating one's piety/membership in the "in-group" than anything else. At least that's my take. But I may be biased toward that opinion and am reading it into what others say. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife is talking about how people defend their interpretation by saying the Holy Spirit told them what the Bible means while still insisting that doesn't make it an interpretation. Kind of reminds me of the argument that if morality is determined by the dictates of God, that actually makes it subjective. @thereafterpodcast

They're now shifting into the main topic, which is about the Right's tendency to demonize certain words, like "DEI," "woke," and "CRT." @thereafterpodcast

Benji is doing a great job explaining what these terms actually mean and how conservatives demonize this word once they start showing positive impacts (they don't like). @thereafterpodcast

Benji is also doing a great job of underlying how the demonization of these terms is clearly done in an attempt to maintain privilege and power. @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "There's a tendency among bigoted white people to blame Black people for the byproduct of things they created." 🔥 @thereafterpodcast

Benji on people calling to see Obama's and Harris's "papers:" "I'd be everything I own that if Melania decided to run, nobody would check for her papers." Boom! @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey: "I don't see how people don't connect the dots...." My personal, ungenerous opinion: They do. They just choose to ignore or deny it. (What can I say? Cortland is nicer than me.) @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey is calling out people who condemn Hip Hop for "being all about crime" while loving movies like "The Godfather" and "Scarface." I mean, he's not wrong. @thereafterpodcast

Benji is talking about the history of country music and some of the racist influences there. Interesting and horrifying. @thereafterpodcast

Benji is now talking about how much of Gen Z slang is appropriated AAVE that has been around for years. @thereafterpodcast

. @cortlandcoffey is discussing how white (mostly cis) gay men are pretty adept at oppressing others (particular Black trans women) and I'm here for it. We gotta clean our own house here, fellow gays. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife uttered the phrase "this fucking election" and I feel that in the depths of my soul. @thereafterpodcast

.@cortlandcoffey, @thepursuinglife, and Benji are talking abut how old Biden is and how drastically the country has changed over those years. @thereafterpodcast

The political discussion that @cortlandcoffey, @thepursuinglife, and Benji are having is wonderful and needed. I don't have much comment because I'm still trying to work through some things there myself. @thereafterpodcast

Wait, did Benji just diss "School House Rock?" 🤣 (Not exactly.) @thereafterpodcast

This is your reminder that Trump has actually advocated for nullifying the Constitution over on Truth Social. @thereafterpodcast

Benji is talking about the importance of pushing for progress is, since it's not just going to happen. I'm having flashbacks (though in a pleasant way) to @theandrehenry's book. @thereafterpodcast

And just like that, @cortlandcoffey also mentioned @theandrehenry's book too! 🤣 @thereafterpodcast

Benji is pointing out that we need to expand our understanding of violence beyond physical violence. @thereafterpodcast

.@thepursuinglife is asking Benji about what helps him continue to have hope. @thereafterpodcast

Benji's answer to that question is incredible. What is it, you ask? Guess you'll have to listen to find out. 😝 @thereafterpodcast

Benji: "People are seeing each other as human again." YES! May that trend continue and grow. @thereafterpodcast

Another great episode! @thereafterpodcast

[binomech]

a small delight in this sea of tragedy: the words were literally all monosyllabic

[non-un-topo]

POV: You're a tavern owner who just turned away a raccoon and an owl

[bruciemilf]

I think Harvey has Bruce’s name tattooed on his neck. Bruce has Harvey’s name tattooed on his thigh. He also has the Judge in italic letters, carved into his spine, and Two Face, just on his ass. Even better if the other has absolutely no idea

[whump-thoughts]

Chat is it too much to ask for angel or knight whumpee stuff. I am a simple man! I just want pious, otherworldly and heroic characters to be completely destroyed by enemies that they could not defeat, to be throughly and violently stripped of their strength, of their status and perception as protectors and come out of the other side of their torture as sub-human beings who can only continue existing if they are of use to someone else.

And then they are selflessly taken in and looked after Caretaker, yet, being protected by someone they would have been the one looking after... isn't that so degrading? Such a painful reminder as to how far they have fallen from their former glory?.

Chat please talk to me about this type of whumpee, I am going to go crazy /j

[mhaikkun]

the foxes hunt the hounds

[polarpasteque]

Simpatico short fic

“Did you make this gun ?” Perceptor roughly asks a startled Brainstorm as the door to the lab closes with a loud thunk.

“… depends on if it worked well ?” the engineer hesitates, not knowing how to interpret Perceptor’s screaming fans and erratic arrival.

Perceptor marches towards him and for a split second Brainstorm feels like he’s being cornered, like he’s about to be eaten alive. Perceptor doesn’t stop until he encroaches straight into Brainstorm’s personal space, forcing him to step back until his jetpack meets the bench with a screech of metal on tile. The rifle demagnetises from Perceptor’s back with a click, and he swiftly catches it without even looking, propping it against the table.

“Was it good ?” Brainstorm squeaks out, desperately trying to distract himself from the shameful fact that all the deadly attention is making his processor swim with thrill.

Perceptor does not answer. Instead, he grabs Brainstorm’s left hand, the one he knows from discreetly observing Brainstorm at work hides a multitude of precision tools, lifts it up to his face and kisses the plating of the fingers that built and calibrated his gun.

“Bullseye at 2500 metres,” Perceptor says lowly as his lips brush the words onto Brainstorm’s hand.

It takes all of Brainstorm’s willpower to stop his fans from turning up three notches. What does not go unnoticed by Perceptor though, is the hitch in the low hum of his jet engines. But Brainstorm doesn’t even dare move an aileron. He would build a thousand guns, each an augmented, deadlier version of the last, if it would bring him Perceptor’s undivided attention like this.

The sniper shoots him one last devastating, satisfied smile before letting go of him. Brainstorm narrowly avoids a full CPU crash at the sight, and motionlessly follows him with his optics when the scientist casually walks into the decontamination unit to get the battle ash off his armour. He knows he did not imagine the way Perceptor’s fingers lingered on his palm when he let go of his hand, just like Perceptor knows that gun was made just for him, an exact copy in body yet more lethal version of his old sniper rifle.

[serpentface]

Do you have any information on the root scholars that you can share? They’ve always been a cool cult/organization to me

Ok it’s a facet of the Eterhimhamdli religion, which is The most widespread single belief system east of the inner seaway (which isn't saying much in terms of scale but it's still pretty significant) and also one I've barely introduced so I'll go over it a bit here.

Eterhimhamdli has spread past its initial sphere of old (~500 years BP) southern Lowlands Yuroma kingdoms, has many folk practices, and has schismed a few times, so there's a good deal of cultural variation. But its basic tenants/tendencies are:

-Creator deities are wholly rejected, the universe is an interplay between non-personified dualistic forces of Body(evil)/Mind(good). In one schism, the interplay of these two forces is the Dream, in others dreaming is an aspect of Mind.

-Deities in general are not wholly at odds with Eterhimhamdli, but their importance is de-emphasized and worship is usually discouraged in favor of making them objects of contemplation and/or tutelary figures.

-The Mind of the universe exists as a collective soul from which human souls emanate

-every person has two souls: an egoistic soul that animates the body and an ethereal soul that animates the mind. The latter is conceptualized as a single drop from a greater sea of the collective soul.

-belief that true wisdom is derived through access to this collective soul.

-belief that the trappings of the the ego-soul and the body's demands inhibits access to said collective soul.

-belief in the concept of enlightened beings who gain full experiential knowledge of the collective soul while remaining in a body, thus becoming capable of directly communicating aspects of their wisdom to the masses.

the biggest schism in this religion is over whether enlightenment just means experiencing full knowledge of the collective before you die, or whether it means transcending the limits of the body entirely and functionally becoming an immortal, godlike being.

deities of older/other religions absorbed by Eterhimhamdli are often reframed as enlightened mortals.

-most sects believe that only sophont life (or sometimes Only humans) have a etherial-soul along with the ego-soul, while animals exclusively have the ego-soul. Plants and inanimate objects Usually aren't ascribed souls outsides of heavily syncretic folk practices.

-belief in a fundamental good-evil cosmic dualism, though in a fairly complex way (evil is a necessity for life that is to be tempered and grappled with, rather than outright vanquished from the world entirely). The notion of 'evil' here is most associated with bodily desires (this includes all bodily needs like hunger and thirst, necessary to support life but viewed dangerous in excess, and being the root of conflict and pain).

the evil nature of bodily desire is not About sex, but does translate to non-procreative sex being frowned upon to varying extents.

-belief that life is a state of internal warfare between the evil ego-soul and the good ethereal-soul, with the former being more powerful and influential. To lead a good life is to bring the ego-soul into equilibrium with the ethereal soul. To live a wise and venerable life is to fully tip the balance in the latter's favor (this is not an expectation for lay followers, as it is considered profoundly difficult and requires separation from worldly life).

-lay followers practice forms of temperance to bring these forces into equilibrium, priests practice forms of asceticism to subdue the ego-soul and gain experiential wisdom in the process.

-The way you balance your life has consequences for the afterlife. An evil life causes an eternal death (this is usually posited as an underworld), a life in equilibrium causes one to be reborn into a new human body (a neutral fate), and a good life results in full return to the collective soul (this is a state of complete peace and contentedness and access to infinite wisdom).

-A selection of hallucinogenic plants are central to the monastic/priestly aspects of the religion, being seen as the key method through which the body can be transcended and the ego-soul can be quieted in order to tap into the collective. Lay followers do not participate in this facet on a regular basis.

-Priests also participate in self-flagellation, as the struggle with physical pain is a key microcosm of the broader internal war with the ego-soul, and can be a source of wisdom and contemplation. They are extensively tattooed for partly related purposes. Laymen are not expected to flagellate as a practice but rather to apply teachings to/learn from struggles with everyday pain.

-Very complicated relations with violence as a concept. Some strains of Eterhimhamdli philosophy see violence as an exclusive result of evil to be avoided whenever possible (usually more completely by priesthoods than the wider societies they live in), others see it as a neutral tool in of itself that Can be a force for good when used wisely. (Large scale 'wise usages of violence for the sake of good', shockingly, tend to favor the in-group's position in preexisting ethnic/religious/territorial conflicts).

-Most sects are proselytizing and see conversion as a necessity to create a better world, and have broadly unfavorable views of other religious practices.

This does not extend to seeing all societies that practice Eterhimhamdli or even The Same Schism Of Eterhimhamdli in a positive light (the birthplace of this religion is currently about 60 semi independent city-states organized into leagues that are frequently at war with each other)

-Highly favors education, literacy, rhetoric, debate, and the acquisition of material knowledge along with deeper spiritual wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are venerable traits and societies should be led by the learned, or at least by people under their guidance.

---

The Scholarly Order of the Root is one order of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli monastics, functioning as a closed cult/mystery religion. They’re based out of Suurota (one of the biggest Yuroma city-states and dominant member of its league). They're at the top of the league's hierarchy of monastics, very wealthy, and have some involvement in governance (being an advisory body to the magistrate).

The Scholars primarily interact with the general public by hosting many of the league's institutions of scholarship and philosophy, and some of the biggest libraries in this part of the world. Their institutions are used by laymen Suurota citizens and members of government for study, and they host monks and priests (uninitiated to the inner cult) in their halls.

Actual membership to the Scholars cult is limited, they neither expect nor want associates to participate in their rituals. Rather, they position themselves as teachers- revealing small aspects of their secret knowledge to laymen and the lesser monastics as a form of guidance, while keeping dangerous knowledge for only the trusted inner circle.

Their baseline belief system aligns with the general schema of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli (one of three major schisms of this belief system), but their closed cult practices revolve around fairly unique interpretations, understood to be the ultimate underlying truths of this worldview.

The Scholars focus on an extention the Mind-Body model of the universe where their synthesis is the Dream (this itself is not unique to this cult, but the depths of their focus is). Under this model, the world is the dream of the collective consciousness, and achieving enlightenment or even temporary lucidity can allow the dream to be shaped to one's will.

One of their most secretive practices is god-building, in which they utilize altered mental states to shape the fabric of the dream into entities they can use as personal teachers of secret knowledge (also as a type of magic in general, they use it to 'build' guardians and curses and the like).

The process involves using mild doses of Ur-Root brew (mostly derived from roots of the clonal Ur-Wood colony, whose bark has notable concentrations of dimethyltryptamine and also hosts milder fungal hallucinogens) while maintaining an object and concept as a focal point of concentration. The altered state provided by the Root allows the user some access to the wisdom of the collective soul, and they will experience secret knowledge and revelations about this object, how it can best be used (this will be supplemented by material knowledge about the subject). This process is repeated until the user experiences a sense of Presence in the object, which must be interacted with, given a name and a face. Through more repetition, the object is believed to be shaped into a sort of thoughtform god which has come into material existence via manipulation of the dream.

This is considered to take immense time and effort to come to completion, god-building projects can last for years and be the combined effort of multiple Scholars. In the end, you have shaped an entity to your will that can operate independently of you.

The Ur-Wood itself is the center of Scholar cult practice, as it is both the purveyor of their most important hallucinogen and believed to have been the first god ever shaped by this form of lucid dreaming (it's a pilgrimage site for Eterhimhamdli where thousands of followers have undergone Ur-Root trips over the past four centuries, using the woods as an object of contemplation). To them the Ur-Tree is the ultimate teacher of their cult, an extremely powerful built-god that has been involved in almost every journey to enlightenment and contains all these journeys within its substance.

They believe that communing with the tree via Ur-Root can grant access to all enlightened mortals- full trips (with a DMT breakthrough type experience) will often involve sensations of encountering entities, which they interpret to be these historical figures. Within their religious framework, they're kind of speedrunning enlightenment. Under most conventional frameworks, the teachings of wise and/or enlightened people are conveyed in writing or speech as things to Contemplate on one's own journey- you might be able to understand them Conceptually but true understanding is Experiential, a process that can take a lifetime. In their framework, they're both receiving these teachings directly AND embodying states in which they can experientially comprehend them.

That summarizes most of their secret practices, and the rest of their practice is pretty standard for devout Lowlands Eterhimhamdlist priests. They live a partly ascetic lifestyle, they bear extensive tattoos as a contemplation of pain and marker of their journeys, they flagellate, they use tutelary hallucinogens, they refine their non-experiential body of knowledge through debate and rhetoric, they work to accumulate both worldly and spiritual knowledge, they work as scribes, etc.

[chocolatepot]

While I'm ranting about fandom, I have really mixed feelings about posts that are like "back in the day, we never cared about what anyone else was doing and you could write/draw/ship whatever you wanted with no backlash."

Because on the one hand, yeah, there was a much higher tolerance for dark content 10+ years ago, and I do miss that. Antis are bad, sui-baiting people for drawing cute art on one account and NSFW on another is bad, whump is excellent and I wish there were more of it.

On the other, said tolerance didn't exist everywhere and you're kidding yourself if you think it was a fandom-wide virtue. Ship wars were vicious and frequently involved judging female characters as sluts unworthy of $hero because they'd kissed another guy onscreen one time. There were plenty of places you weren't allowed to write anything but fluffy canon het or get judged. I think it mainly feels like there was some golden time of everyone being Okay With Anything just because we didn't have these massive sites where you were rubbing shoulders with everybody. On LJ, it was very easy to just interact with the other people who liked the same stuff as you.

And also on the other, the rise of antis/criticism of dark stuff/etc. went hand-in-hand with the rise of social justice awareness in fandom, and I have strong memories of people really resisting any analysis or discussion relating to bigotry or subconscious bias in canon or fanon because get out of here SJW! It's all made up and meaningless! Pretty much everyone was sorted into either the social-justice-aware camp or the called-people-SJW-unironically camp, and the former was going to be critical of what message your fic or fandom participation was carrying (in terms of sexist tropes, ship statistics, and so on) while the latter was going to be hostile to you saying you were offended or disturbed by anything at all.

I remember one time toward the end of Fandom_Wank (after UnfunnyBusiness had been split off to talk about conflicts involving -isms because people had come to recognize that not all drama is equal) when someone brought up an old wank involving people upset that in a particular fandom's AUs, the characters of color would frequently be turned into literal animals while the white characters were still human. Originally, they had been mocked because this was obviously trivial and not racist, it was just random chance which characters got turned into animals, etc. But at that time, post-RaceFail, everyone agreed that it was really messed up. And that's what I think about every time the "people used to not care about what you wrote" topic comes up.

[chicago-geniza]

Conquering the Fear of Purim (it's an echolalic tag but it is also quite literal and superstitious) by assigning myself all the tasks I've been procrastinating on for the past month-ish. Apprehensive about the state of the world, apprehensive about the lunar eclipse as an omen because I am, as noted above, superstitious to a fault. Friend asked if I had any Purim plans and I said something insane about fear of celebrations attracting the evil eye under a blood moon (like in Tog un nakht by S. An-sky) (too much of my warped cosmology was influenced by S. An-sky).

[just-want-comfort]

exam session with friends

[prontaentrega]

theres a situation ive observed multiple times where a person whos used to being the only/most neurodivergent person other people have to accomodate for (not a bad thing) interacts with another neurodivergent person who also needs accomodations/considerstion and they get really mean about it

[256kbps]

Monday, 27 January Got knocked out by a nasty cold last week and didn't get anything done, but hey, at least my Obsidian sidebar is looking good!! Plus, I got a lot done today, so I think I've made up for it 😌

Tasks

Polish lesson

Trig revision

Write article for work

Outline next article draft

Plus, I'm in the Emerald League on Duolingo this week! Fingers crossed I'm able to advance >:3

[whiskingskin]

The real science happening at Talon

[wishfulsketching]

The dads and teenage Long Min, bonding and becoming a family

[makoredeyes]

Seventh Seraph Officer's Revolver :: Damien-14

Damien's treasured hand cannon, dragged all the way from his days of the flesh working (voluntarily) as a security man at Braytech Exoscience. This thing's ruined a lot of people's lives, but it was hard earned, and a relic of some bad decisions he won't quite let go of.

The Bouquet is not a pleasant one:

Narcissus - Egotism

Marigolds - death, pain of loss & remembrance

Anemone - Abandonment & the forsaken

Scabiosa - "I have lost all"