#the woes of modern society

[starcrossedandstupid]

Need more situations where I can pull out my inner slutty flamboyant morally gray villain personality tbh

Like it isn’t a personality but deep inside me I would do so well as that archetype and there just isn’t a time do use that almost ever

[rocketbirdie]

playstation network has been down for 17 hours now 🫠

[elizabethrobertajones]

Good choice for an upstanding roegadyn husband for Frog to bring home to her parents to impress them: Rammbroes

Hilarious choice for bringing home an upstanding roegadyn husband to alarm and frighten her parents: Rasho the captain of the confederacy in the Ruby Sea.

[kiame-sama]

Hello, I have some questions for Humans are Extinct au that kept me up last night. Tw. Teeth and oral surgery

Is Sebek’s dad still a dentist in your au? And what if human needs their wisdom teeth removed? What would be the laws and regulations of disposing human teeth in this context? If human asked, would they let them keep their teeth? I once asked my dentist if when they remove mine if I could keep them and they said sure so I’m kinda curious if they would let reader keep theirs

Who is offering to buy reader’s wisdom teeth if they are allowed to keep them? Or are they gonna be put in a museum bc hey, modern human teeth?

Yes, he will remove them, there are complex laws regarding Human teeth, yes, they all would try to buy them, and yes museums will fight for those teeth.

- Sebek's father is still a dentist and is likely the only dentist Malleus will allow near his Human as he is the father of one of Malleus' Hoard members. Naturally, Sebek's dad will be sweating bullets and very nervous to be the only dentist allowed to operate on an extinct species. Those nerves and stress will begin to fade as he realizes the Human has teeth like that of many Fae- duller and less sturdy, but still close enough- and his own professional confidence will return.

- He will likely be the only one who can remove the Human's wisdom teeth and will genuinely feel badly for the Human when their face gets all swollen and painful after surgery. He will want to keep the teeth- because Human teeth are good luck and these are Premium Human Teeth- but will happily let the Human keep them should they want them. He may ask to keep one just because of the Fae's proclivity towards Human teeth and he is excited to show he is trusted enough to work on a Human (literally a trophy to him that other Fae would be exceeding jealous over).

- There are laws about the buying, selling, and trading of Human artifacts and many Historical societies demand all Human artifacts be taken and put on display/studied but most Fae will not part easily with remnants of their Humans. Human teeth are Fae family heirlooms and are considered good luck, often passed down through generations from Fae who raised their own Humans and gathered the baby teeth. Some places such as the Queendom of Roses and the Coral Sea also have family heirloom Human artifacts that they hold tightly to. (Crowley has a full collection of Human artifacts, from baby toys to several sets of teeth, the crow loves the shiny things Humans made and loved Humans in general)

- Malleus and Lilia both desperately want those teeth to keep but they won't push for the teeth if the Human wants to keep them. Leona may offer to buy one or two just for the hell of it. Riddle will honestly cry if he is given one of these teeth and he will literally put it on a pedestal to show it off. Rook wants one and will wear it as a necklace ornament for the remainder of his life. Vil will add it to his collection of beautiful things and won't let anyone take it from him. Malleus, Ortho, and Idia would get the teeth to gift to their respective ancestor. Malleus would give a tooth to Maleficent who will be pleased as punch with the offering. Ortho and Idia would give a tooth to Hades (who has literal hundreds of Human teeth already due to his genuine love for the Humans he kept on the Isle of Woe) but he would treasure it all the same.

- Museums can try to push to get those teeth, but they would have to go to the Human directly about it as Malleus will burn them and none of the others would willingly give up such a gift. If the Museum wants the teeth, they will have to fight for them and there is no one who would win against Malleus in a fight other than Hades or Maleficent.

[generallemarc]

TvTropes got a key part of Metaphor Refantazio wrong.

More's novel isn't supposed to be an overly rosy interpretation of our world for the sake of casting him as being too idealistic from the past. In fact, writing off the novel like that shoots down the central theme of the entire story in how powerful fantasy is. To a feudalistic monarchy where what little potential for social/economic mobility(which are always one and the same) exists is decided nearly entirely at birth by a person's race, is a 21st century first-world democracy not a utopia of boundless freedom and possibility? Democracy, trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press-forget Euchronia, even in our world such things would have been borderline incomprehensible to someone living in feudal Japan or Europe, and those societies didn't have a race-based caste system that puts even India(well, modern India anyway) to shame on top of all the other feudalistic woes. Our world is objectively better than that of the game and MAJOR GAME SPOILERS BELOW

because our world is the past of Euchronia, this means that, regardless of how hard the people who wrote this tvtropes page want to push their weird agenda of liking the past being bad or whatever, the past that More wrote about is objectively better than the present day situation in Euchronia, and almost everything the protagonist and the party do after defeating Louis is in service to bringing Euchronica closer and closer to the way the world was before it ended, where people could govern themselves, slavery was considered abominable, and all were equal under the law. Yeah, More's version of our world is utopic in the sense that he leaves out, intentionally or otherwise, the fact that we still have problems, that just because we don't have the caste system from hell that Euchronia does doesn't mean that we have literally zero discrimination whatsoever. But this feeds into, again, the central point of the whole story: the power of fantasy. More's idealized version of our world isn't just meant to inspire the readers of his novel, it's meant to inspire us, the true seekers. It's meant to show us how amazing our world would look to someone in a world like Euchronia, to help us see how many things we take for granted, and how many things can still be improved.

Tl;dr-in Metaphor Refantazio the past was objectively better than the present and TvTropes is dumb for trying to twist things to portray More's flaw as being that he puts too much value on the past instead of his real flaw which is the exact opposite-that he gave up on his ideals of bringing back all the wonderful things we in the present, and their past, had, and that later he tried to escape into a lotus-eater-construct version of the past that didn't actually exist rather than commit to trying to bring it back for real because that commitment comes with risk and fear.

[transmutationisms]

i think you do a really impressive job balancing comprehensive/concise while referencing a lot of complex frameworks(contexts? schools of thought? lol idk what to call that. big brain ideas) but if you have any readings specifically on the institution of psychiatry topic that you would recommend/think are relevant, I'd be interested. it's absolutely not a conversation that's being had enough and I want to be able to articulate myself around it

yes i have readings >:)

first of all, the anti-psychiatry bibliography and resource guide is a great place to start getting oriented in this literature. it's split by sub-topic, and there are paragraphs interspersed throughout that give summaries of major thinkers' positions and short intros to key texts.

it's from 1979, though, so here are some recs from the last 4 decades:

overview critiques

mind fixers: psychiatry's troubled search for the biology of mental illness, by anne harrington

psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, by bruce m z cohen

desperate remedies: psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness, by andrew scull

psychiatry and its discontents, by andrew scull

madness is civilization: when the diagnosis was social, 1948–1980, by michael e staub

contesting psychiatry: social movements in mental health, by nick crossley

the dsm & pharmacy

dsm: a history of psychiatry's bible, by allan v horwitz

the dsm-5 in perspective: philosophical reflections on the psychiatric babel, by steeves demazeux & patrick singy

pharmageddon, by david healy

pillaged: psychiatric medications and suicide risk, by ronald w maris

the making of dsm-iii: a diagnostic manual's conquest of american psychiatry, by hannah s decker

the myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment, by joanna moncrieff

the book of woe: the dsm and the unmaking of psychiatry, by gary greenberg

prozac on the couch: prescribing gender in the era of wonder drugs, by jonathan metzl

the creation of psychopharmacology, by david healy

the bitterest pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs, by joanna moncrieff

psychiatry & race

the protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease, by jonathan metzl

administrations of lunacy: racism and the haunting of american psychiatry at the milledgeville asylum, by mab segrest

the peculiar institution and the making of modern psychiatry, 1840–1880, by wendy gonaver

what's wrong with the poor? psychiatry, race, and the war on poverty, by mical raz

national and cross-national contexts

mad by the millions: mental disorders and the early years of the world health organization, by harry yi-jui wu

psychiatry and empire, by sloan mahone & megan vaughan

ʿaṣfūriyyeh: a history of madness, modernity, and war in the middle east, by joelle m abi-rached

surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial zimbabwe, 1908–1968, by lynette jackson

the british anti-psychiatrists: from institutional psychiatry to the counter-culture, 1960–1971, by oisín wall

crime, madness, and politics in modern france: the medical concept of national decline, by robert a nye

reasoning against madness: psychiatry and the state in rio de janeiro, 1830–1944, by manuella meyer

colonial madness: psychiatry in french north africa, by richard keller

madhouse: psychiatry and politics in cuban history, by jennifer lynn lambe

depression in japan: psychiatric cures for a society in distress, by junko kitanaka

inheriting madness: professionalization and psychiatric knowledge in 19th century france, by ian r dowbiggin

mad in america: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill, by robert whitaker

[galleryofart]

The Song of the Shirt

Artist: Anna Elizabeth Blunden (English, 1829–1915

Date: 1854

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, United States

Description

Anna Blunden worked as a governess but quit to attend art school after reading the first volume of John Ruskin’s seminal Modern Painters (1843). She became a devotee of Ruskin, who was a trenchant critic of the new industrial capitalism and inspired Victorians as diverse as Cardinal Henry Edward Manning and Oscar Wilde. Blunden echoed Ruskin’s opinions about the dehumanizing effects of modern urbanism in this painting, which dramatizes the plight of workers who came to London seeking employment but found the pollution and poverty of the early Industrial Revolution. It was the first picture Blunden exhibited publicly at the Society of British Artists in 1854, where it was accompanied by a quotation from Thomas Hood’s poem “The Song of the Shirt” that gives voice to a “weary and worn” seamstress as she longs for her youth in the countryside: “For only one short hour / To feel as I used to feel, / Before I knew the woes of want, / And the walk that costs a meal!”

[centrally-unplanned]

I think the US vs Europe performance is one of those things that really suggests to me non-economic explanations for bigger societal shifts. the US post-2008 just did much better, along every quintile of the economic spectrum, than Europe did economically. Within Europe, France is doing better than the UK, Germany has always been the richest, etc etc. But meanwhile America has a had a far larger surge in intense anti-liberal extremism, vis a vis the metric of gaining power over governments. And France is fighting off far-right insurgencies just as much as Greece has had to.

These events correlate with economic woes, with crises, but an analysis of Trump's ardent supporters overwhelmingly does not show a class of people at the bottom rungs of society. He is replete with middle class and upper-middle class backers. And meanwhile, did Trump win because Americans are "suffering more" than Frenchmen, who beat the far right? Or does ranked choice run-offs and multi-party electoral systems allow for more effective elite coordination against fringe insurgencies? The latter rings far truer than the former to me.

The story of modernity is imo primarily the story of a deep cultural shift, the death of elites, an era of inchoate institutional skepticism, etc. And the story of America is all of that, stacked on top of a truly decrepit governance structure that only functioned due to reliance on those old cultural forces that are precisely the ones being undone, opening the door to capture by motivated extreme wings. I weight those factors much more heavily (it isn't like the US didn't have recessions in the past! Far worse ones, actually).

[novankenn]

Jaune Arc of Orleans

Almost two centuries ago, an insidious and virulent illness swept through the kingdoms and hamlets of Remnant. In the beginning it ravaged all. It saw no difference in between the lower and upper classes. Sowing death to all... then something changed. The plague changed. Women while growing ill began to survive it in greater and greater numbers, while their male counterparts continued succumb.

It was only in the last fifty years that modern medical sciences unraveled the disease. Finding effective treatments to halt its progress. But the decimation of the male population was irreversible.

From a population demographic of nearly 50/50 the male contingent fell to a measly 20%. Causing the now prominently female population to enact steps to preserve what was now considered the weaker, gentler sex.

Jaune Arc, the only male child of the Arc family, wanted more than what his sheltered life promised. He wanted to share in the storied linage of his family. But it was not to be... until one night as he knelt beside his bed, a voice reached out to him.

With dire visions of calamities yet to come. Warnings of hidden dangers yet to be revealed, Jaune struggled against the future his family, and society in general dictated for him. Caregiver, father, homemaker, and while in his heart he believed those were noble pursuits... he was determined to be something more.

It was during a bandit attack, that his uniqueness was revealed to his family. His warnings of the attack hadn't been headed, and the militia of Orleans even with the assistance of his mighty family was about to suffer a rout, and faced a prolonged siege of their hamlet.

That was until a young blond man, more a boy in reality raced out through the gates, clad in stolen armor, and bearing a flagstaff that displayed the crest of his family he rode through the fleeing masses.

"Follow me and I will give you VICTORY!" he screamed over and over, his words sinking into the hearts of the disheartened defenders and sparking a renewed purpose.

The battle had still ended in a route, but it was the decimated overzealous bandit tribes that suffered it. That event was but the start of his journey. The bare beginnings of his tale...

==> Original Proposal Post <==

o=}==> Chapters <=={=o

Correspondence & Considerations An Uncomfortable Journey Words of Woe Tidings Land-Train... Waylaid

[love-toxin]

perhaps the allure of mr. leatherface is indeed the prospect of being taken away from modern society & the woes of life under suffocating capitalism to the raw and heartlessly pure natural world.......where you can see the stars at night and hear crickets in the grasses and the smell of manure and upturned dirt baking in the heat.....and a man with big hands and 0 daily showers wants to kiss you

[gemsofgreece]

Homeric moment of empathy towards women

Once Patroclus has been grieved by Achilles and the rest of the soldiers, his body is carried to Achilles' tent, to be grieved by the women slaves there. Meanwhile, Achilles and Agamemnon reconcile, Agamemnon vows he has not touched Briseis and sends her back to Achilles. When Briseis enters the tent, despite technically belonging to the opposite side, she spontaneously weeps for him. She reminisces that Patroclus consoled her when Achilles killed her kin and was promising to her that he would convince Achilles to take her back to Phthia with him and marry her properly. She calls Patroclus "sweet".

This is a very informative excerpt for the early Archaic period or, even, the late Bronze Age if it's accurate to it. What would seem outrageous nowadays, seems to effectively console Briseis and give her hope. It would be crazy to consider marrying the killer of your kin with hope or receive it as consolation. However, we should remember the disadvantageous position of women at the time. Briseis had no family anymore, thanks to Achilles, and not a husband anymore, also thanks to Achilles. If Achilles left her behind before leaving for Greece, there were most likely only two possibilities for her: death or prostitution. This means that despite essentially being her enemy, Briseis depended on Achilles for her well-being and survival. Therefore it really made a difference that Patroclus promised her to talk Achilles into marrying her - thus improving her status drastically to being a queen consort of his.

But I found what follows even more interesting:

Translation in English:

"So she said, weeping, then the women were sorrowful, supposedly for Patroclus, but actually for their own woes."

We see how Homer (or the ancient rhapsodoi - bards anyway) acknowledges the face women are forced to put on in front of the repressive society and he acknowledges how they use this as an opportunity to freely release their own pain, contemplate their own problems, while justifiedly lacking in genuine regard for the soldiers they have to serve.

BTW irrelevant but I have said before how I prefer as faithful translations as possible, in all languages but even more so when it comes to interpretation of Ancient Greek into Modern, so here's a closer one by me, seperated with colours to make it easier for you to follow through:

Ancient Greek:

Ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ᾽, ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γυναῖκες, Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν, σφῶν δ᾽ αὐτῶν κήδε᾽ ἑκάστη.

Modern Greek:

Ούτως είπε κλαίουσ', έπειτα δε, στεναχωριόνταν ο�� γυναίκες, με τον Πάτροκλο πρόφαση, γι' αυτών τους κηδευμένους έκαστη.

[paragonrobits]

"everything bad in human society is only because of capitalism, if we got rid of it everything would be perfect and good forever"

capitalism, as an economic system, only dates back to the 16th century. Even that is debatable, since there's a lot of evidence to suggest its being conflated in some ways with mercantilism, which did date back to roughly around that time period and seems to have started a lot of the social elements we associate with capitalism.

capitalism as economic system AND the source of many modern woes and human evil is not an old thing; it is fairly new. There are many countries significantly younger than the concept of capitalism.

human evil is significantly older than capitalism. There have been mass graves being filled with the mutilated bodies of men, women and children (often times with evidence of their bodies having been cannibalized) for just about any reason you'd care to name. Chattel slavery, wars of invasion and genocide, ancient conflicts over grudges or resource wars or any other reason you'd care to name is very, VERY old indeed.

So old, capitalism is barely a blink in the eye of history. People have been dying horrible for awful reasons long before it ever existed.

And they will continue to do so long after it ceases to be a relevant concept.

One of the oldest evidences of human atrocity is a site in what is now Sudan; a mass grave containing around 27 bodies, with a fair number of them having been children, and most of them showing graphic and brutal signs of violent death. A pregnant woman with signs of her feet having been bound, almost all the skulls horribly maimed.

The dig site is at least 10,000 years or so old, possibly older; this is ridiculously old. This is older than any surviving stories in human history, older than all written languages, and even older than agriculture itself, it seems. This dig site was older than all those things, but it's not older than the human capacity to be cruel to one another.

Let us, also, consider Rome. Rome isn't really that long ago to us; many nations in the modern day consider themselves to be descendants of Rome in some way, often culturally. It was still a long time ago in mundane terms; roughly around a thousand years or two thousand, depending on how you consider what we now call the Byzantine empire.

Rome predates capitalism by at least a thousand years, depending on how you look at it. Capitalism had no capacity to influence the country of Rome, because capitalism wouldn't be invented for a long time.

Rome was a slave state. It was, arguably, THE slave state, in that it literally could not have functioned without slave labor on a truly massive scale. And in some respects, Rome could be said to revel in its own cruelty; of note are the arches of triumph, usually made to commorate notable military victories. One notable example being the Arch of Triumph, created after the first Roman-Jewish war when the people of the area (then called Judea) rebelled against Roman conquest, and after their defeat, the destruction of the second temple and looting of sacred religious artifacts was commorated and bragged upon for all history to see on that arch, with the artifacts and slaves taken shown very prominently.

And so on, and so forth.

Capitalism wasn't needed for these things to happen, or for countless other acts of warfare, bloodshed and anything else you care to name.

Human nature won't magically change when capitalism ceases to exist. Capitalism exists because those trends are already present.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 3

Propaganda why Victor Frankenstein is insufferable:

"Victor Frankenstein is so pathetic not even tumblr could love him. The best parts of Frankenstein are the ones where your blessedly saved from being in his whiny, self deprecating, self centered pov. He’s so conceited that when his creation tells him directly “In revenge for killing the wife you were making for me I’m going to kill YOUR wife to see how YOU like it!”, Victor Frankenstein thinks that the creation is going to kill him and *only* him. (A decision And on top of it, he’s a shitty dad. Truly the worst.c

"this fucker has zero self awareness, which could maybe be fun to read about! except that 3/4 of the book consists of him constantly woe-is-me-ing about his own mistakes and how he shouldn't be responsible for any of his own actions."

"He's not irredeemable, but his refusal to take accountability til it's too late is irritating"

"The man has never one in his life taken responsibility for his own actions. He's always surprised when the things he does have consequences for him and the people around him.

"It's not my fault I spent months grave robbing for spare body parts, sewing them together, and giving life to the results. How could I have ever predicted that that creature wouldn't look quite right? How could I have known that it was wildly irresponsible to abandon the grown man sized newborn that I created?"

Man acts like he is a completely innocent victim when, in reality he's the cause of every one of the problems in the book."

Propaganda why Clary Frey/Fairchild is insufferable:

"Here we go again: She found out she was part of a race that opresses pretty much every magical being ever and immediately jumped onto being as racist as people that were raised in that cultist lifestyle. She calls a man ""Warlock"" the way people say slurs.

Terrible friend. Poor Simon never gets a break. And she's an even worse girlfriend to him. He is understandably upset when he finds out the person she most wants to kiss isn't him and asks for some space, but no, not on her fucking watch. She won't stay away from his place all of a sudden. Despite never really having time for him prior.

Goes up to a closeted gay man and tells him all smugly she knows about his sexuality and acts like he's the problem for not owning it. He lives in a homophobic society where violent punishment and exile is normal.

Speaking of exile, almost gets a woman that was nice to her exiled so she can break the law.

Demands aforementioned warlock do necromancy and when he tells her about his trauma, she throws a tantrum. She never apologises. That and, she and her friend always go to him for their problems, and are never grateful when he helps.

Has the ability to wish for one thing only once ever, wishes for a shitty man to come back to life.

The incest thing. She wanted to fuck a man while thinking they were fully biologically related. Yeah. And technically they're still adoptive siblings. True love.

Her cringe evil arc.

Apparently she's worse in the books. Great to hear."

"I don’t remember much from the books but she was kind of annoying"

"She finds out about a magical world she's been unaware of her whole life and it takes her five seconds to jump onto the fantasy racism train. Constantly demands people do dangerous stuff for her. Causes so many problems and when someone points out that she's going to hurt someone they're treated like they're an asshole. Walks up to a closeted man like "I know what you are". Is a terrible friend to her childhood 'bestie'. Falls in love with her brother, one the worst men alive."

"Worst case of Main Character Syndrome you'll ever see."

[alpaca-clouds]

I hate the "kink at pride" discourse

Let me just say this: I hate the "kink at pride" discourse each and every year again. I hate it, because it mostly is really this thing coming from often white queers, who wanna cuddle up to fucking evangelicals. And the arguments? The arguments are frankly just stupid.

I hate it even more, because that entire thing still comes from how sex negative our society is. People make such a big deal out of sex and of protecting children from the mere knowledge that sex is something that a lot of people have and enjoy.

And while this is a general modern thing, but a lot of it originates with the US. Because I can tell you: When I look at older European media for example this was not that bad. (But let's not get distracted.) Especially when it just comes to the depiction of sexuality in media.

You know what I mean? You can get blood and violence for a PG-13 shipping, but woe you, if somehow a "female presenting nipple" escaped your editing process. That will at least an R-Rating.

But what does that have to do with "kink at pride?"

Everything. Because this originates with this idea as well. A lot of people who do not want anything kinky at pride want to ban anything explicitly sexual from pride parades and events. They want to appear tame for the straights to not alienate them. But what they don't understand is, that those straights, who do think that queer folks are always inherently sexual will not ever care.

Those folks, who then want to ban kink at pride, do not realize that to a lot of those straights they want to appease any trans person existing publicy and openly is also inherenly sexual. Same of course for drag queens and drag kings. And those are the people the "no kink at pride" folks want to cuddle up to.

And let's make this clear: "kink at pride" normally involves people wearing just a bit of leather and costuming, like puppy play masks. Which is just... It is fine. There is nothing more inherently sexual about that than a lot of other clothes.

I mean, all sorts of people run around out there in super sexy clothes, that are revealing. You wanna ban them too? Would you want to ban them, if you knew they actually had some fetish about it?

And again, just this idea of banning sexual stuff from the public in general is shitty. Why would you want that? Why would you think that is a good thing?

It is just another part of the purity culture.

I mean, no, we should not have orgies at fucking open pride event! (Though maybe we should have pride themes orgies at sex clubs ;D) But let people wear their leather gear at the fucking events. Who fucking cares?

[haggishlyhagging]

While in the past the legal wrongs of woman in the marriage relation, in which she is robbed of name, personality, earnings [and] children, had a tendency to drive her to live with man outside of the authority of church or state. The occupations recently opened to her, whereby she can gain a reputable livelihood by her own exertions, [have] greatly increased the ranks of single women. No longer compelled to marry for a home or position, the number of young girls who voluntarily refrain from marriage, by choice living single, increases each year. No longer driven to immorality for bread, a great diminution has taken place in the ranks of "public women." No longer forced by want into this life, the lessening number of such women not meeting the requirements of patrons of vice, resulted in the organization of a regular system for the abduction, imprisonment, sale and exportation of young girls. England and Germany most largely [control] this business, although Belgium, Holland and France, Switzerland, several counties of South America, Canada and the United States are, to some extent, also engaged in this most infamous traffic.

Foreign traffic in young English girls was known to exist long before the revelation of the Pall Mall Gazette made English people aware of the extent of the same system under the home government. It was this widely extended and thoroughly organized commerce in girl-children which roused a few people to earnest effort against it, and secured the formation of a society called "Prevention of Traffic in English Girls." To the chairman of this society, Mr. Benjamin Scott, was the first official suggestion due that terminated in that investigation by Editor Stead, which for a moment shook the civilized world and held Christian England to light as a center of the vilest, most odious, most criminal slave traffic the world ever knew.

London, the great metropolis of Christian England (the largest city of ancient or modern times) is acknowledged by statisticians and sociologists to be the point where crime, vice, despair and misery are found in their deepest depth and greatest diversity. Not Babylon of old, whose name is the synonym of all that is vile; not Rome, "mother of harlots"; not Corinth, in whose temple a thousand women were kept for prostitution in service of the god; not the most savage lands in all their barbarity have ever shown a thousandth part of the human woe to be found in the city of London, that culmination of modern Christian civilization. The nameless crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah—the vileness of ancient Greece which garnered its most heroic men, its most profound philosophers—are but amusements among young men of the highest rank in England—West End, the home of rank and wealth, of university education, being the central hell of this extended radius of vice.

-Matilda Joslyn Gage, Woman, Church and State

[gordonengineswifenirmal]

About the election and modern society’s woes -

First off, I don’t really know what to think about Joe Biden dropping out of the election. His speech was lackluster, n I wasn’t blown away by but it didn’t feel like it made the world crash around me either.

Sadly, so many folks out there can only think two ways u either love or hate something. This goes for Biden too. They think if I hate trump, i sump to automatically worship Biden. There’s no in between. It floors me that this lack of logic exists. These folks cannot fathom that u can simply be ok with a person. He’s ok to me. He didn’t do anything super mind blowing impressive, but he’s not bad either.

Now, getting back to the election - so many others thought differently. Ok, fine. Whatever. The next problem is, what will u replace him with? Will that be enough to save us from another 4 years of the tyrant? This is our REAL concern. I’ve heard folks celebrating Biden dropping out, but they celebrate too early. I’m not going to celebrate Biden dropping out, because that doesn’t concern me. I do feel he was forced, but I also wish him well. Whatever, this is less important to me.

IM AFRAID OF WHAT WE MAY WIND UP WITH.

At the same time, society (especially on the left admittedly - and I say this being a liberal, because godforbid ur critical of ur own….wing or whatever - ) is filled with -

And whilst this is definitely true, for most folks, that’s it. That’s all they can comprehend, all they can see in the argument, and it becomes a competition. If only it were that simple. Sadly these generalisations are equally dangerous. They employ the same attitude as the ‘there’s no in between’. This is the excuse folks apply when u r uncomfortable with immodesty. They right away think that u want folks covered head to toe in a burqua. (They’d b shocked to learn that some of us r fine with sleeveless tops n shorts, as long as they r like 6 inches above the knee, n tits, bellies, n genitals r covered!) There’s no asking or clarify, no willingness to listen to ur explanation. I get branded racist, misogynist, homophobic, or even worse, because they need to project. U hit a sore spot that they can’t handle. This goes for either side - not just liberal, not just conservative. The truth is that there is often more to the story. Not all women are innocent. Not all r guilty. Not all men r innocent, nor are all guilty either. I’m going to say this louder for those in the back -

ANY GENDER CAN COME INTO POWER AND ABUSE IT.

There has been in increase in a certain petty completion between sexes for ages now, n I’ve seen in for several decades already. One side is like ‘we’re the best n that’s it. They give flimsy, misguided, or sometimes no reasoning behind this. The other then reacts with the same tactics. It makes everyone look foolish. Neither side thinks of common sense nor respect. It’s a very entitled, privileged, and damn right delusional way to think. It’s sadly also an increasing sign of the times. It’s not new, but it’s definitely not going away, and becomes a more mainstream way to think. We ALL need to change for the better. Thank you for coming to me ted talk. Here’s Gordon lol