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pyroclastic727 · 4 years ago

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Owl House said fuck capitalism

So this episode was interesting. Lilith pretty much killed her sister. Why the fuck would she do that?

Even more interesting: why is Belos like that? How did Hooty put his head through one of those guards? Who the fuck is the Titan, and why does everyone like him? And how are these all tied together?

This episode was a metaphor for capitalism

...and another delicious step towards radicalizing the youth into dismantling this fucked-up neo-feudal system.

We’ll start with Belos.

Emperor Belos is a weird name, don’t you think? We all thought it was spelled “Bellows,” but it wasn’t. In fact, it’s five letters, starts with Be, ends with os, and describes a megalomaniac emperor that restricts people’s freedom in order to accumulate wealth for himself.

Sound familiar?

Emperor Bezos Belos created capitalism. He saw the beauty of magic and decided to make himself the most powerful.

Belos created a system that destroys the masses and boosts his power.

I’m dipping into fan theory a little, because the fan theory fits. We know that people get branded with coven magic that makes it so they can only specialize in one area. We know that Belos is the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles. We know that the excess magic, magic created by restrictions, has to go somewhere.

It’s the same system that many viewers see all the time. A job takes up all your day and tires you for the night, so you can only do one skill for the rest of your life. Jeff Bezos is the most powerful man in the United States. Excess money, money taken by restrictions, has to go somewhere.

The magic goes to Belos, like how the money goes to Bezos. Belos created capitalism, and he won it.

The guards aren’t real.

Look, we’ve never seen their faces. They’re all the same. Why would you work so hard to get to the top, just to become a nameless, faceless killing machine?

Oh, also Hooty stuck his face through one. There is nothing under the armor.

Why? Well, it’s the same reason you see all those celebrities going around flaunting their wealth and bragging about how hard they worked. Like all those songs about how they grind every day and work harder than everyone else while you’re out clubbing, and that makes them dope. And then you take a closer look at them and see that they had a small loan of a million dollars fueling them, or an entire talent agency behind them, or their dad was a famous country star in the 80′s.

They’re fake. They’re hollow. They’re a ploy created by the capitalist emperor to try to delude you into working harder.

Let me put this into perspective. I guarantee that every single one of you has heard stuff like this: “Hard work makes you successful.” “I put in the work, and that’s why I’m successful.” “If you work hard enough, then you can be as successful as Mark Zuckerberg.”

And unless you’re a robot or really lucky, I’m sure all of you have failed at this. Maybe they told you that hard work would make you good at math, so you spent 22 hours a week working on calculus, only to pass it by 3 percentage points and have it destroy your perfect 4.0 GPA. Maybe they told you that if you talked to people enough, then you would make friends, so you spent a lot of time talking to people, only to end up lonely and friendless. Maybe they told you that if you did well in school, you would get a good job, so you spent all your time working hard to be a good student, and then ended up in a soulless, dead-end job.

The guards are there to delude you. Look, who really gains from you being productive? The answer is the ruling class, the CEOs, the government, the bourgeoisie. It has always been that. All you get from working is a paycheck that lets you survive. They get a paycheck that lets them get rich. Just like Belos gets the magic and productivity of the specialized coven witches.

The guards are there to trick you. The truth is that nobody can join the Emperor’s Coven. It’s just there to make you think that hard work will make you successful. Then you spend your entire life working hard, trying to prove to the person in charge that you’re worthwhile. You give your whole life to the Coven, and they give you nothing.

Magic is supposed to be something you pursue for fun. Being skilled at things, being good at something beautiful...that’s supposed to be something you do because you want to. But they took that and made it into a source of productivity. It doesn’t matter if you make good content. All people fucking care about is if you upload the day of premiere, if you make a lot of content quickly, if you maintain a million different conversations with strangers who expect you to be the most interesting person in the room. They don’t care how it hurts you. They don’t care how you crack from the stress. How you cry when you think no one can see you, and then you check your phone and someone can see you, someone did see you, and you have to put on your face and be the charming, magnetic person they want you to be. (oh by the way that’s why I wasn’t online much last week)

And it ruins it. Suddenly you can’t watch The Owl House without being stressed. You can’t make any content. You can’t make spells as powerfully as you want to. Your passion is replaced by perfectionism and insecurity, a voice telling you to keep being the best at what you do, or else they’ll forget you and let you die.

There’s also the Titan.

So nobody has mentioned him before, because in addition to the Boiling Isles being a hellscape full of witchcraft and queerness, it’s also full of atheists.

But suddenly we have people saying all this shit about him? Shit like, he gave witches the gift of magic, and then they learned to use it in a civilized manner, since being uncivilized was disrespectful?

I mean, first off, that’s fucking wrong. The island gives people magic. The island, which just so happened to be shaped like a titan-sized human. But the island/titan gives everyone all types of magic. Hell, even Luz gets to use magic, and she’s human.

It sounds really fucking familiar. (tw for discussion of homophobia and colonialism and misogyny). It sounds like when the news is on and they show some Tr*mp supporter talking about how fetuses have more rights than people and it is their holy duty to take away a woman’s control over her body and force her through unbearable pain and into an 18-year commitment she didn’t want to make. It sounds like all the times people tried to say homosexuality should be illegal, citing a single line in a book written two thousand years ago and heavily edited by a European king. It sounds like all the times people said God wanted them to conquer, to own the entire earth, to force the other races into pain to support them.

This is that bullshit thing people do where they commit awful sins and justify it by citing the will of God.

Or, it’s the Coven using religion as an excuse for evil.

Look, the Emperor’s Coven is clearly colonizer-coded. Saying that people’s original form of magic was wild (and showing a picture with the same joyous, rowdy energy of an 18th or 19th -century Black or indigenous party), and that it was God’s will for them to be “civilized?” Sounds like that thing that powerful white people did where they went and murdered people and forced them into their twisted capitalist system. God, gold, and glory, is what they said, because history books just love to omit the gore.

Lilith is passing the abuse cycle along.

You know, like a good little colonizer. God I fucking hate her. She’s a MILF, in the sense that she’s a Mother I’d Like to Fling off a cliff.

Ah, enough screaming about how much I want to drown Lilith in a tub of Hooty’s mucus. Let’s go into why I want to do that, and how she took the evils of capitalism and just...adopted those.

So, Lilith is sick and twisted for what she did to her sister. But, uhh, that’s the point. You see, there are so many other people out there like Lilith who would do the exact same thing, if given the chance. These are the people who do mean things when the teacher isn’t looking, and then act nice and try to frame you. These are the people who will hate you if you’re better than them. These are people who would do anything to bring you down, if you dare outperform them.

It’s greed, my friends. The mental illness that capitalism blesses us all with.

Lilith herself said it: she dedicated her entire life to the Coven. What she wanted was to be the best. And she almost was...except for her own sister. Someone who lived with her, annoyed her at home, bested her at school. Someone she could never beat, no matter how hard she worked. And her sister was younger than her, too! How insulting was that? Lilith wanted to be the best, and someone in her exact situation did better than her.

Lilith was insecure. And it consumed her.

But why? Why does insecurity consume her? I mean, no one can be motivated by insecurity forever. Well, not unless someone conditions it into you.

The lovely thing about the capitalist system is the morals it teaches you. Things like: “You’re only useful if you’re the best.” “Being school smart makes you smart, while being social smart or sports smart or creative smart or fandom smart is worthless.” “Your worth can be quantified by numbers and is based off arbitrary measures like your income or your grades.” Things that can and will drive us crazy if we let ourselves believe them.

And it did drive Lilith crazy. She got so twisted by a society that said being good at magic is her only worth. Look, Lilith used to be good at things, probably. She was good at sports. At times, she slips up and does an okay job of being Eda’s sister. She has a powerful presence when she’s in a room. And she’s wicked good at manipulating people.

But that didn’t matter. Lilith bought into the lies. She let herself believe that magical skill was the only way to measure her worth. And since she needed to be the best, she hurt Eda for it.

The beautiful thing is, Eda didn’t buy that. "It’s my power, kid. And before you showed up, I spent my whole life wasting it.” Is what Eda said, as she used up the last of her power, the last of her life, to save Luz. In her final moments, she proved that she’s not like them. She’s stronger than them.

None of this matters. Not magical prowess. Not the hierarchy. Not the promise of joining the Coven and having more power than anyone else.

The only thing that matters to Eda is her family. Her real family. Her Luz, King, and Hooty. And by extension, Willow, Gus, and Amity. Those are Eda’s real reason for fighting, for dying: to protect them. Look, there’s no way she would’ve come out of that fight alive. She has a family, and her love for them is stronger than greed or jealousy or capitalism.

Lilith never understood that. She thought the water of the womb was thicker than the blood of the covenant. Or, that the water of the womb and the blood of the covenant are stronger than the bonds of found family. She thought it didn’t matter if Eda loved, her, only if the Emperor loved her. Fucking bitch.

And now, a little something to worry about, before we go. Amity Blight. The girl who wanted to join the Emperor’s Coven more than anything, who dedicated her whole life to doing well in school, to being the best, to being perfect.

And then she met Luz. She fell for Luz. Now she’s in a tricky place, where habit and conditioning want her to join the Emperor’s Coven, but her heart wants her to do the impossible and destroy capitalism.

She wasn’t in this episode. Funny that being injured and unable to work ended up saving her from watching her future mother-in-law die. So she bought some time.

But Luz’s true mom is dead. This is the second mom she has lost, and she’s only fourteen. As powerful as King and Hooty are, Luz needs Amity. Luz needs Amity to support her and help her get back her mom.

So Amity has to make a choice. Fear and insecurity, or love and a high chance of death?

She’ll probably choose death. Because that’s the message that this family-friendly show is giving us kids. Fuck capitalism. All you need in life is to do what makes you happy and be with the ones you love.

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7ven-devils · 4 years ago

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A really long overanlysis of minecraft servers.

This will be my only warning, this shit is really long.

I promised this to @ivi-prism 2 weeks ago (hi, i am Svetla) but university said no and then i feel my notes were incomplete so i have to do more research.

So let's talk about anarchism and capitalism. As a future political scientist, really bugs me how the fandom and some content creators (im looking at you techno) misinterpret both theories.

Yeah this will be a overanalysis about the political, social and economic system of two minecraft servers. Why? Cause i like analysis things like this and finally i can solved what is the system of hermitcraft and thats make me happy.

Things to consider:

First im not native english speaker and im lazy so im not often write or talk in english so my typos can make Doc really proud.

Second i don't watch Dsmp i only know things about the server by the animatics, the constant information wich pop up here on tumblr, the crossover fanfics and the tiny vods that youtube insist play when i have activate automatic reproduction.

Third i tried to simplified this much as i can because this analysis i maded talking with my friends (also political scientists) and a former professor, so it got quite technical while i was writing it.

And finally don't take this seriously, I'm not trying to insult anyone, I only started this because the hermitfandom started saying that hermitcraft was capitalist and then everyone started comparing the Dsmp with hermitcraft saying anarchism vs capitalism, that's why the dsmp entered into this analysis.

Guys, seriously chaos isn't anarchism and "sucefully economic" isn't capitalism, even paid with "money" (diamonds in this case) isnt necessary capitalism.

First, mini glossary:

I understand a server like a Society/State (country) with Mr Weber definition. In really vague words a State is anyone that has a territory and has legal control of violence (the laws, no the abuse of authority).

I understand the private property as the hermits bases and/or shops (i suppose only base in dsmp? Idk)

I understand the mass production as the farms and resources.

Capitalism is a economic, politic and social theory, wich it considers private property essential and tends to monopolize the resources 'cause this it also considered private property.

Anarchy means "without government" it has its origin in the Ancient Greece. And Anarchism theory is just a society free from any political authority, but respecting the liberties of the others.

A Failed State is which one lose control of the legal violence, and can't provide the peace, essential human rights and the basics for a normal lifestyle to its people.

I think thats all the bored shit (i hope so). Now the interesting shit.

Why hermitcraft isnt capitalist?

Short answer, their idea of private property is not the same as capitalism has.

Long answer, even if they have their own stuff, they had a really strong sense of community and dont really care if someone take things from them.

We can see this in the beginning of season when Iskall take some mini blocks from Etho and he didn't really care (yeah, iskall "paid" him, but later i will explain this) or the multiple times Grian "borrow" things from Iskall and Mumbo in season 6 or Scar in season 7, the team ZIT constantly take things from each other and i can go on and on with examples, but the point here is this couldn't happen if they had a capitalist society because this would break the "private" part of private property and mass production.

Basically their friendship made so strong their sense of community that they are basically inmune to capitalism, Uncle Marx would be proud of them (not really, but would be funny). So they are communist? Nope, communist don't believe in private property and the hermits does.

But you just said-? I said they dont has the SAME idea of private property as capitalism does. They still have their bases, farms and shops, but for them their private property isnt sacred like in a capitalism system would be.

They're respect each other things because they appreciated the effort and values the time the person puts on their buildings and not only because doesn't belongs to them (and obviously cause theyre frends, but shush, this is a overanalysis, the obvious things doesn't have place here) i mean even for the shenanigans they are really polite and try to cause the least damage possible not because is not of them but because they valued the person.

Basically the famous honor code of hermitcraft.

What about the economic system and the shopping district?

Lets talk about the elephant in the room.

If Hermitcraft isnt a capitalist system, why they have a economic system based in diamonds?

Well, despite the exchange based in money for resources or services is a principal characteristic of capitalism, it isnt exclusive of that theory.

The money is a social consensus, cause barter has becomes obsolete and gold isnt cheap or infinite to use as payment. And basically, this is why we use money on this days (if you want to know the history of money ask to your trusted historian or Wikipedia).

What does this remind us? Yep, diamonds and iou's are a consensus too. When the 1.16 came out some hermits tried to change to netherite as payment and didn't suit, so they ignored it and continued with their current payment system.

And as much as Mr Smith likes to say that this is how the free market (and his stupid invisible hand) works, capitalism needs the monopoly of resources and people who works to pay for those resources.

But in Hermitcraft nobody really controlled the resources, anyone can go and collect their materials or made a farm. They just decided don't do it and go and buy it, because they save the time to go and collect for themselves, in other words they paid for the time.

Various hermits say they saved so much time go and buy the materials instead to collect themself or trade with the villagers (cause theyre the worst and all of us know it) thats why the barge and lookie lookie at my bookie are so profitable.

The shopping district it wasn't a thing before season 4, i dont really sure how it worked before, because i started watch in season six and sadly i have a boring adult life to saw the old seasons, but i assume it works in the same way that the trades the hermits does between them to accord a discount or a collab, and speak directly with the interested hermit or directly take it and pays what's considered it was fair, like iskall did with etho.

Like i said all what's happen in hermitcraft is a consensus, even the shopping district.

So yeah, that isnt a thing that would happen in a capitalism system, probably you would be dead, because "how are you dare to entered to my property", or in the jail, "because thats not yours".

So, what is hermitcraft?

For the surprise from much of you, Hermitcraft has an anarchist system.

What?! But their server is so peaceful, they don't steal from each other, they doesn't griefing, hows that possible?!

Well, the anarchism isn't really a violent political theory, at least in its beginning, actually anarchism is one of the most peaceful theories i studied, thats why i dont really thing it will worked in our society, but work in a server of 24 friends. Its too idealist.

I don't really study all of the thoughts corrents of anarchism because they are a lot. But the one we are interested is one of original thought corrent, The Mutualism, this in contrast with their cousin Communism doesn't believes the private property was something bad and considered like one of the rights from the individual, but different as capitalism because like i said before it wasn't sacred and communal things will exist to help others to start or recover.

Proudhon, one of it intellectuals, considered not paid for the work of the other it was a form to violate their liberties and feel horrofied with Marx when he said we have to abolish the private property.

The mutualists believes that each person should possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, and the products obtained would be trade in the market for the amount equivalent of their work.

This sound familiar, isnt it? Hermitcraft works in this way.

The thing with anarchism is they don't believes in a government over the people. And the hermits doesn't have one, yeah there's Scar being the mayor, but he isnt have a power over the rest and only is in charge of the "cowmercial district" even aquatown isn't part of his jurisdiction, his function is more of organization, like when we put a friend in charge to organizing part of a roadtrip.

It's the same with Xisuma figure, we all put him in a position of the admin of hermitcraft, but the truth is he isnt the only one with admin commands (but apparently some or all of them losed their admin status, at least in one of the last tango's streams, he hasnt it anymore) and various hermits said that he is more like an ambassador of them in the legal things of the server.

The hermits take all of they decisions in group and in the majority of things all of them needs to be agreed with the decision or they simple doesn't do it. And this is a characteristic of the mutualism because for them anyone are over the other.

And if you aren't already bored at this point and you put attention to what i wrote of the concept of private property in the mutualism, you would see it is practically the way hermitcraft works. They make their bases and farms, recolect resources and sell what they don't will use, buy mostly to save time and paid for the price what they considered fair. Yeah i know sometimes they do some farm specifically for one shop, but this is more "yeah, this is my thing" (Tango and Iron; Ren and wood) or a division of activities "if you do that, i do this".

The perfect utopia.

What about the Dsmp?

If you do it to here, congratulations.

So what about the Dsmp, i entered here because i want to read of them and the only thing i read was about hermitcraft.

Well, the Dsmp only entered in the equation because much of you said they were an anarchist server, but i see it more like a "failed state" and when i was talked with an exprofessor he agreed with me.

I know the term of failed state is controversial and is almost obsolete, but is the best way to describe the server and stop said it is anarchist.

So why failed state and not an anarchist state? Because they have a government (or apparently multiples) a failed one, but is there, if it were an anarchist server wouldn't have one.

Usually the failed states are known for being violent and volatile places in which ones their governments can't provides the basics to their people to live, normally are places with ethnics conflicts, civil wars, authoritarian governments or states in wars. The most common examples are Haití, Somalia or Syria.

And i am sure you can see the similarities with the Dsmp, so yeah, theyre chaotic but not anarchist.

The wars ruined the stability from the server, have a multiple sides and a megalomaniac for admin, but the goverment still there and they are fighting for the power wich wouldn't happen if the server were anarchist because anarchism don't believe the power should be possess for someone.

The server simply is failed state wich struggles under a violent fight for power.

--------------------------------------------------

If you read this far, you're a hero and had my gratitude for read my useless thoughts. Maybe some day i do it other overanalysis of this servers. I hope you enjoyed and dont confused so much.

Thanks for read.

And if there are some angry economist with me for "misrepresent" the capitalist i am completely open to a debate, my only condition is it would be in chilean spanish ;)

#hc x dsmp #hermitcraft #dream smp #mcytblr #long post #reaaaally long #estupido sobreanalisis de cosas que no necesitan una segunda lectura #this post is edited cause apparently it author doesnt know how to use tumblr eve if she's here since 2010

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cobaltsage · 2 years ago

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I’ve been in the workforce 12 years. After a move to a place with an admittedly higher minimum wage, I now make… less than $3 more than minimum wage. At my highest wage ever. That’s when I was a market analyst for an e-commerce company deciding the prices you pay for your iPhone. I make 20 cents less now as a security guard. Before i got this gig i worked at a UPS and got Covid, which as an hourly employee, was not covered under any sort of paid sick leave. It’s not uncommon that I live paycheck to paycheck, and after a long run of my good will being taken advantage of, I now have to decide between paying my rent and getting my car ready for an emissions test due next month. I am surviving off 10 boxes of pasta I got as a free gift from my job since they bought them as part of an arts and crafts project that never happened - or at least so I am told. I owe thousands in back taxes I wasn’t able to pay or keep track of and now have no idea how to handle, but it’s still not a priority because I can’t afford to. Last week my boyfriend bought me shoes because I was too stubborn to let go of the pair I had been wearing nearly a decade, and I was so moved by the gesture I almost cried.

I’m not asking for money or handouts, but it’s clear that what I’m doing is not sustainable. Every week I send out a slew of resumes to opportunities that pay more, and half of who I hear back from are turn out to be skeevy as hell. 100% commission jobs that want you to put in the work but won’t even give you a wage while you’re on your feet, and reek of Multi Level Marketing by talking about recruitment processes and how much money you *can* make instead of being realistic, often run by the most unprofessional people you’ve ever interviewed with. Group interviews that have an industry plant that answers questions so cookie cutter of what they think all their applicants are, some Mid 20’s - 30’s woman with an MBA and 5-10 years of experience in a high level field looking for an entry position as a matter of opportunity. I don’t have a degree, but considering the array of skills and the minimal gaps in employment I have, I would hope it meant something to someone, but as of yet, there’s not a single opportunity I can trust more than I do my current position, and I can’t take such a big risk that I’d make both me and my partner homeless because I took a shot in the dark with something unreliable. I certainly can’t go back to school with my current salary, so the question is how long can I survive, and can I even do so? Kids are obviously out of the question.

Our system is unsustainable, and there’s no reason to try and pretend it isn’t. Half of it is about minimum wage, and half of it is about the air of greed that permeates our capitalistic society, every time minimum wage is raised, despite it being due to inflation in the first place, every company out there immediately lifts up prices to see if they can squeeze just a little more blood out of our dried corpses. I once could get a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese for 10 cents, I didn’t complain seeing it at a dollar a box, but this past year I watched it hit $1.25 and immediately felt a bloodlust I never have before. Cuts of meat are being reduced down to keep the price the same, or are just more expensive than ever. I watch as soda prices rise while the size of cans shrink, knowing full well the aluminum costs more than the drink in the first place, and that by reducing size, they’re selling more aluminum per drink. There is plastic in my blood and every human alive’s blood.

If you managed to escape this in any way, then count yourself lucky, and understand that luck can change at any moment. I was lucky to work early on in life, to save up, to have a normal home and family, to go to college - even at my own expense, to not be kicked out at 18 and to have my mother’s support well into adulthood. And yet I’m still here where I am now, wondering if I’m going to be able to afford to get my car’s oil changed or if I’m going to find myself halting that for a more important issue like breaking a bone or developing a condition. If I ever have to pay for meds, if I get Covid again and lose too many days at work paid or not. People like us deserve to have vacations, to have days we can just breathe, and that’s been stolen from us by unchecked commercial greed vying for every cent we own.

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ablednt · 3 years ago

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No but the nuclear family model is so dystopian when you think about it.

Your born into a family and cannot leave them for at minimum 18 years. Nothing is done to assure your parents can emotionally or financially provide for you. You cannot do anything without their permission, they are encouraged and allowed to control every aspect of your life and your identity.

If you're in a (Christian) traditional home you have a dad who can if he wants be a tyrant and take out all his problems on you. He's supposed to be emotionless and he's Not Your Friend. You're supposed to treat him like you'll treat your bosses in the future even though you're a child without the mental capacity for those levels of maturity cause did I mention all of this is a trial run of unethical capitalist models?

Moving on! Your mom has unbelievable amounts of trauma because she's the subordinate in this relationship and expected to do everything whether or not she thinks she's empowered by this or not is irrelevant. As her child you're the only thing she's ever had power over in her life... if you're lucky she tries her best to actually recognize your autonomy and realize she's not playing dolls anymore. A lot of people aren't lucky! She's expected to do whatever your dad wants but she can take all of this out at you and/or make you take care of her to make up for the affection she's not getting now and because she was told having children would fix her childhood trauma and so good luck being a therapist as a child without pay or training.

Most likely you attend school on top of this to hear colonialist propaganda and prepare to work far too many hours for far too little pay you're punished for the slightest mistep, your peers all take out their problems on each other, etc. Your parents are expected to punish you for struggling in school even though schools do very little to actually teach you so you eventually give up unless you happen to be naturally good at studying. Everyone in your life is so angry at you all the time.

The media is consistently sending messages that you're either a cute object with no real features other than obedience or a raging monster who's disgusting and needy with no in between. You're taught to apologize and beg for forgiveness for crying, to know how much money your parents have before you can do basic maths so you don't bother them by asking for too many things (marketers advertize things to you instead of your parents because they know you have no idea how money works and are easily hyped up by things. If your parents scream at or hit you for this it's not their problem.) Doctors and psychiatrists all tell your parents not to listen when you're in mental or physical distress and you're mocked by adults for being suicidal or self harming. If your parents are especially "worried" they'll scream at you until you break and act like they fixed everything or they'll lock you up in a glorified prison where you will be traumatized into submission using physical force and drugs under the guise of "treatment"

And even then you're probably luckier than the kids who either lost their parents or were taken away from them probably not because of the actual abuse that may or may not have occurred and more likely because more middle class white couples want more kids in their home for aesthetics so the government wants their money. They suffer all the same things but at the hands of the state and they're stigmatized because why not! Most people subconsciously think they're broken, because they're vulnerable and no other reasons. Maybe your parents say at least you're not one of them, maybe sometimes you think you'd be better off that way but logic wins out and you know better. No system exists that will actually help children, because they're seen as a nonhuman class and are always at someone's mercy. In fact animals are more protected than you!

If your parents want they can find ways to monetize you and make money, both legally and illegally. No one cares and no one talks about it. You're now being treated like cattle but it's fine try not to think about it.

Then after everything, after 18 years where you're not seen as human, you're immediately expected to become an adult and keep up with them. Maybe you still live with your parents. Maybe they kick you out because they can do that too now. You desperately try to find ways to help the children in your life, or any children at all, without feeding into the system that dehumanizes them. Meanwhile people a few years older than you start to forget the past, forget the way they were treated or how it felt. They start to say children are the problem actually for being needy and messy and annoying. Some of them start having kids.

You sit helplessly with all of this and realize that you're unable to change a goddamn thing.

Obviously not everyone lives in a nuclear family or experiences this and not all parents are like this but that's the way society is setup to operate, that's the system that we've all normalized and take for granted as an unquestionable foundation of human societ and it's fucking horrifying.

#abuse tw #long post #ok to rb #negative #whats the opposite of unreality njsjsjdd #anyway everything is a little too real rn lol might dissociate ✌

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bondsmagii · 4 years ago

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I'm on chapter 5 and I hate this man. Rich people don't have souls.

the fact that this book is supposed to be anti-capitalist, yet the whole book seems to be desperately trying to make us feel sorry for a man who is a literal trillionaire, heir to the company who invented the drugs used to keep slaves in line*, and quite literally does not see anything wrong with this and doesn’t really even recognise poor people as people? it’s actually laughable. I get that Alex is supposed to be One Of The Good Ones but it’s like what I said before -- in the same way all cops are bastards because even if they’re “one of the good ones” they’re still not good enough to grab themselves by the balls and leave an institution that they know is corrupt from the ground up, all rich people are also bastards. you don’t have to be that rich. if you’re super rich, and you stay super rich, you’re a bastard. if you cared that much you would redistribute your wealth. if you were truly a decent person concerned with the plight of the poor, you would feel disgusted at the mere idea of being counted among the super-rich. I have always maintained that if for whatever reason I started earning extreme amounts of money, I would never let myself become a millionaire. as a decent human being I’m morally opposed to being a millionaire. I don’t need that much money; I will never need that much money. it’s my moral duty to see that this money, instead of coming to me and sitting there doing nothing, goes to people and causes that can actually use it and put it back into society in a meaningful way.

if, like Alex, your super rich character isn’t doing that shit, and he’s just sitting around torturing and raping his slave that he purchased for appearance’s sake, and is whining about the local anti-slavery revolutionary group because boo hoo when I was in third grade they attacked a car I was in, what evil child abusers these people are :(, I really cannot feel any sympathy at all lmao. for a book that’s supposed to be anti-capitalist, it really does love the taste of bespoke designer boot rubber.

(*it should be noted that one of the Woke parts of this book is that the slaves have rights, including the right to vote, to have their health taken care of, etc. one of these rights is the right to request or refuse the drug, called Dociline, which makes slaves compliant and also prevents them from making long-term memories (presumably so they don’t remember their years of rape and torture). this seems woke on the surface, if you’re smoothbrained enough to think that any part of this book is actually revolutionary activism and representation here, but if you think that slaves aren’t being abused by their owners into taking/not taking the drug against their will, you’re wrong. these owners have literally bought their lives. they have purchased humans. you really think nobody is being threatened, coerced, or outright tortured into doing things they don’t want to do? please.)

#i gaze upon a wretched thing #anon #asks

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red-sector-rivendell · 4 years ago

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media reccs? 👀 since apparently you are a man of good taste?

Wow thank you 😏 I have a masterlist of movies that have changed me I often recommend to people, I'll just copy and paste here with quick synopses lol, it's kinda long. I'm not super great at writing synopses tho so bear with me

Dead Poets Society (1989)

One of my favorite movies of all time and a total classic. It's about a group of boys at a strict boarding school who are inspired by their new English teacher (played by Robin Williams) to think for themselves and chase their dreams. This movie literally changed my life lol

Quadrophenia (1979)

This movie is based off of the story behind the concept album by The Who of the same name. It follow the life of a young man named Jimmy who is in a gang called the Mods. Theres this huge gang war between them and the Rockers (I think that's their name, it's been a while since i watched it) and Jimmy questions his beliefs about coming-of-age and his values in life throughout the film

Cabaret (1972)

Based off of the Broadway musical of the same name, this movie is about a British man who moves to Germany during the beginning of the rise of Nazis. He meets a woman who basically turns his world upside down, and it follows their love affair and sexuality and anti-semitism, and it's hilarious and heart wrenching and a beautiful movie

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This is a super trippy romance film. Basically in the universe of this movie, theres a technology that is developed that can delete memories of an entire person from your mind while you are in a dream-like state, and the main character of this movie (played by Jim Carrey) decides to undergo the procedure after a bad breakup. Its soooo good I highly recommend this movie

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

This is an animated film about a man named Bill who is going through brain cancer. Its told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator essentially communicating everything Bill sees, hears, and experiences. This is the movie that got me into film and it is still a complete masterpiece and one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen

The Dirties (2013)

Loved this one a lot back in high school, it's been a while since I watched it. This is a film made in Canada about a high schooler named Matt Johnson and his friend Owen who decide to make a short film for their class about them killing the gang at their school that bullies them, and things take a dark turn. It's a hilarious movie and hits pretty close to home for me in a lot of ways haha

Logan's Run (1976)

Great movie, pretty cheesy though so be warned. This is based off a book with the same name, and it takes place in the future where most of humanity is wiped out except for a small society that lives under a domed structure. No one is allowed to leave the dome, and to control overpopulation, no one is allowed to live past the age of 30. It's really bizarre but I love this movie

Donnie Darko (2001)

Pretty sure this was Jake Gyllenhaal's first big hit when he was super young (I think he was like 19 in this movie but I'm not sure) basically about this kid, Donnie Darko, who is somewhat schizophrenic and has a habit of sleepwalking. After one particular incident he has a near-death experience and starts seeing a man in a bunny costume everywhere who makes him do weird stuff. Another pretty trippy movie with a crazy ending

American Psycho (2000)

Honestly I'm sure a few on this list you've probably seen (most likely this one included) but I didnt wanna leave any out because they're all so good. If you haven't seen this, it's about a Wall Street executive named Patrick Bateman who is a materialistic phony by day and a serial killer by night. I tried to read the book but the inner dialogue was really hard to get through lmao. Awesome movie though huge recommend.

Clockwork Orange (1971)

Yet another trippy one. And fuck it's been a long time since I've seen it so I might get some stuff wrong here. But it's basically about this serial rapist guy who hangs out with this group of goons and they all like to go beat up homeless people and shit, but the main character gets captured and has to go through reformation therapy to make him a better person. It's an extremely bizarre movie but soooo good and kind of hilarious lol

Creep (2014)

Of course this is on my list haha. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a horror movie about this freelance film guy who answers an ad on craigslist to help a man with cancer film a movie for his unborn son. And shit gets weird real fast. One of my favorite horror movies ever, I wouldnt say it's super scary but it's fun as fuck

Hereditary (2018)

If I'm being honest, I don't like a lot of big movies made in super recent years and especially not horror movies (mostly because they're all cheap cash grabs with no substance) but this one is an exception for me. Hereditary is fucking masterful in my opinion, legitimately creepy as hell and well-produced and well written. To put the plot as vaguely as possible without spoiling anything, it's about a family (mostly the mother) who go through some crazy fucked up shit. That's literally all I can say without giving anything away. Super good flick, big recommend

Gattaca (1997)

This list isn't in any particular order, and I love all these movies to death, but if I had to rank them this would probably be on the lower end. It's not a bad movie, it's still great but it's just not as life-changing as the other ones lmao. This takes place in the future where genetic modifications have progressed to a point where you can modify your unborn child's DNA to have the perfect baby. This has led to, essentially racial bias against those who never had that procedure when they were born. The main character was not one of these "special" children, but he wants an extremely prestigious job which requires that of the employee. Through the film, he is trying to fake his identity and fool the company into thinking he is one of these perfect people. Still a great film

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Johnny Depp, man, he is something else. I LOVE this movie. Based off a true story and a book written by the man who lived it, Hunter S. Thompson, this follows the adventure of the writer and his attorney as they go on a drugged-out, psychedelic romp through Las Vegas with the original intention being to cover a story on a motorcycle race, but things go off the rails as they both terrorize the entire city in a way. Just a fun ride the whole way, a great movie

The Truman Show (1998)

God I'm realizing this list is long as fuck. Don't watch all of these movies, it might take you a lifetime lmao. Anyway, this is a classic Jim Carrey movie and another one you've probably seen. But again, if you haven't, this movie is about a man whose entire life has been fabricated and shot for television without him knowing. Super great, super moving, fantastic film 10 outta 10 I gotta wrap this shit up

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

A lesser known Keanu Reeves movie, but fuck I wish more people have seen this. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it's based off a book which is just as amazing. This movie takes place in the near future, where facial recognition technology has progressed wayyy too far, and drugs have gotten to the point of no return. The plot follows a detective who is undercover in a junkie house trying to figure out who is the top of the drug dealing totem pole, but ends up wrapped in the junkie lifestyle a little too deeply. Seriously, I recommend this movie to everyone who asks, it's so damn good

Fight Club (1999)

Another popular one. If you havent seen it, it's based off a book by Chuck Palahniuk following the story of a man (the main character actually doesnt have a name lol) who meets a guy named Tyler Durden who changes his entire perspective on how the world works. They start an underground boxing club together to help themselves and other men blow off steam and get away from the capitalist consumer-centric lifestyle they are forced into. Big twist at the end, great movie five stars on yelp

Harold and Maude (1971)

This is a weird one. Gotta say. It's about a guy in his 20s who meets an old woman at a funeral and falls in love with her. Sounds pretty ok at face value but theres a lot of really strange subplots and a huuuuge twist at the end (one of the subplots being the guy compulsively fakes his suicide to get his mother's attention) big recommend

Polyester (1981)

This one I cant even explain u just have to watch it its fucking bizarre

Fargo (1996)

Ok lightning round on the synopses, this movie is about a man who wants to commit fraud by hiring guys to kidnap his wife so her father can pay them ransom and instead the husband gets the money but everything goes wrong it's really good

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Another modern movie I actually like, last time I watched this I was on shrooms and it was crazy but it's about this hotel right on the border of california and (Nevada I think?) And all these weird people are staying at it and there are twists at every turn and chris hemsworth is a cult leader in it its great

Memento (2000)

GREAT MOVIE GOD PLEASE WATCH THIS ONE it's about a man who develops short term memory loss after witnessing the rape and murder of his wife AND WHEN I SAY THERE ARE TWISTS LIKE EVERY TEN MINUTES I MEAN IT. The film is chronologically backwards, in that the first scene takes place at the end of the story and works back from there in increments of like 5 minutes. Basically each scene is a segment of time that this guy remembers before his memory loss kicks in and he forgets and FUCK it's so good please god watch it

Almost Famous (2000)

This is another one that would probably be low on my ranking but still a great and fun movie, it's about this kid that wants to write articles about rock stars for the rolling stone (based off a true story btw) and he ends up running away to go ride on a tour bus with some band and gets into all types of shenanigans and its great and sad

Parasite (2019)

Another modern movie I love, fuck this is getting too long lmao. Poor family wants to make money and they hatch a scheme to pretend to be bougie and work for this rich family but shit gets weird and everything goes wrong and it's so good (also literally the only film ever that made me speechless afterwards)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pretty much lives up to the hype, I totally forgot the plot but it's pretty damn good I remember that lmao

The Warriors (1979)

Fun movie, theres a bunch of teen gangs in New York and the leader of all of em is like "hey we should rally all the gangs together and fuck up the cops so we can rule this city" but then he gets shot by someone in the crowd and the gang The Warriors gets blamed so the whole movie is them running from all the other gangs so they can get back to home base and it's just an all around fun time movie

12 Monkeys (1995)

THIS MOVJE IS CRAZY it takes place in the future where a virus has almost completely wiped humans off the face of the earth so these scientists send this guy back in time to figure out where it came from so they can stop it from ever happening but obviously everything goes wrong and yadda yadda yadda it's amazing

Waking Life (2001)

Gonna preface this by saying this film is definitely not for entertainment, it's kind of an arthouse-type flick. It's the type of movie you have to think really really hard about to watch. The basic plot is the main character is stuck inside his own lucid dream, and is walking around listening to all these characters in his dream talk to him about, idk like the meaning of life and consciousness and shit. It's really good if you're in the mood for that type of thing.

Okay I'm finally done, you probably didnt expect this but I've been meaning to put my movie recommendations on this blog anyway haha. I deleted some just cause it was getting wayyyy too long. If u want a shorter list I can just give u like a top 5 in DMs but there u go have at it, every movie on that list is a banger I swear

#long post #movies #film #cinema #cinephile #ask #movie recommendations #you have no obligation to read all that #really shows how bored i am that i wrote out this whole fuckin thing on my phone lmao #youre welcome?

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faithfromanewperspective · 1 year ago

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listened to permanent vacation for the first time since writing this post (properly at least) and realised how on the surface it seems almost to contradict all this but it doesn’t, it really doesn’t, how it perfectly captures the disparity, the giving up on standards and work and everything but survival (debatable but let me have my take) and the often inevitable need to know how to do this if you grow up like we did. In fact I could say the same about skh and really a lot of sgfg. We all worked our fingers down to the bone (metaphorically, mostly, but you see what I did there, fellow string musicians?) and got used to working to earn connection didn’t we? love me like you did, I’ll give you anything.

tagging @ghost-of-you before I forget, you might find this interesting. I’m trying to find words on the way: the impossible sense of hope I find in this album, maybe these Australians can’t fix the listeners in your inbox but there’s something about the narrative thread going through this album that lights up the stepping stone in front of you until you reach a sense of calm and self acceptance like you’ve made it to the eye of the storm with enough time to gather your raincoat, fog light, boots, and a path to higher ground. from Money, which is about finding connection with people you guess are just as unhinged as you are (okay it is a little bit about sex. but sex is just a form of connection right?) and to me is one of the rare songs that shows the humanness but also loneliness of being famous, how it’s one thing to connect with people on stage with your songs all over the world but sometimes you just want that person who gets you to be sitting in the passenger seat of your car, on a late night maccas run (that’s McDonald’s btw). Not as untouchable among many in the crowd you only get to spend a couple of hours with as celebrities themselves are to those of us in the crowd. You resort to narrowing them down to who’s looking the most punk tonight.

she’s kinda hot is an anthem and a masterpiece and as an environmental scientist, a source of a surprising number of geology references I’ve got tucked away for the next climate protest. It speaks for itself: criticisms of you and yours. criticisms from people who are meant to encourage you. but we’re alright though. we might be the living embodiment of the newbrokenscene (newbrokencene??) but we’re the kings and the queens of it. there’s a nation of us, a race, a legacy, none of us are alone if we’re a deadbeat to our partners (it happens when you’re burnt out, when you’re in accommodated and neurodivergent, when you’re depressed and the criticism is cementing that feeling of inability), a slob to our parents, not making progress in therapy and feeling angsty about it, an embarrassment to our neighbours who are trying to climb the social/economic class ladder and as a result of their unprocessed insecurities very ableist towards their neighbours kid who is already starting to embody the traits of those at the bottom of society they’re trying not to associate with: the addicts, the unemployed, the unhoused. we are a nation that’s a found family and we can see the good in things even if that’s just because we’re horny and that’s something we can hold onto like a fucking lifeline. Is it the motivation behind everything I do as I know my privilege? Maybe.

hey everybody with it’s almost definitely deliberate repeated riff and working class version of socialism (which is funny to me because in the music video they get successful in a very capitalist way but you can’t argue away the meaning of ‘we can all get some, we can all get paid’. I could do a whole essay on this: this is why many of us from backgrounds where we’ve seen people suffer for not having much work so hard. Because what we get from our work we can feed back into the community: we all get some. We all get paid. The detached upper classes have lost this, and it sucks because that’s a really valuable attitude to have). And permanent vacation. You know the attitude that those loser kids in your school had who seemed to have given up already by age 10? (I’m talking to my younger self, the judgemental bitch) you’re going to hear this song and you’re going to finally realise they are you too. You’ll realise this time and again in high school even when the evidence (hard work and resulting grades) say the opposite. You’ll realise it when you get diagnosed with ADHD at 19, the age they were when they released this song, and everything you ever intuitively felt makes sense. The systems in the gutter and we’re all so proud. 9-5 is overrated. Why do I still work one? Because we can all get some, we can all get paid. Because I’m recovering from the kind of burnout this song depicts underneath the longing to fuck around and not have to work. Because I am able to recover as only letting going of my standards and any kind of expectations were able to let me do anything at all. It comes right after ‘we can’t afford to give up, we gotta make out or… worked every weekend so we can get out of town’ because we do have to do both. Work for what’s important when no one believes in you, but also let go of every expectation anyone has. This is how you take back your life after burnout.

and it does a number on your self worth doesnt it? now that I’m broken, and now that you know it. Yet sometimes you take a chance at love anyway. sometimes you find someone like you and you take that chance, you feel better with the connection, even though nothing conventional has ever worked for either of you. We’ll safety pin the pieces of our broken hearts back together.

I skipped catch fire, I’ll get to it now, because the flip side of when someone gets you like that is sometimes it isn’t all a happy relationship. Sometimes that desperation has us going ‘I can’t change the world, but maybe I’ll change your mind’. The irony is that sometimes it’s easier to change the world. All your life you dream of it. The easier one. Washing like sunshine over your loved one when they’re down, you get it, but now I’m lost in the swirling sea of your sorry eyes. Sometimes (and I don’t know where story of another us or tsbaraahp goes in the album versions it’s in so it’s going here) the surprise ending (I’m) depending on doesn’t eventuate. You’re a catch 22: I’ve been chasing your sick little heart becau we get each other but it gets toxic but I need that connection, I’m back, here we go again. It’s the risk you run when you look for connection in this statebut it’s something you still need to do. Sometimes it’s good and you learn to live in the moment, I don’t wanna waste it, I don’t wanna waste tonight. Sometimes it’s like an addiction. I just need another hit, you’re the thing that I can’t quit. I want to breathe you in like a vapour. Make it sound so sweet, when you lie to me. Late night conversations led to complications. How’d we get so far away from where we were yesterday? I’m lonely like a castaway. It’s harder to cope when there’s no ever after. Something in you was set on that, maybe if it was you could forget everything else.

maybe that’s why you can see the truth and the real insecurity beneath everything, all the threats of leaving, in the girl who cried wolf. Empathy for whatever she’s going through, she’s barely been present but unlike many you don’t take it personally but understand and tell her I’m not leaving. You get it and there’s a kindness there, seeking the deeper truth, or maybe you’re wishing someone would have this same kindness for you when you’re the one thinking of running away simply because the people around you aren’t meeting your needs but you’d stay if they did. This song gives a lot of parallels with nitsw you say go, I won’t leave and neither is objectively the saddest song on the album but they’re both the one that just gets me.

then there’s broken home, we don’t really know who it’s about but it fits, similar themes to tgwcw and invisible and all the songs about running away and feeling lonely and unseen and she mightn’t be a castaway out at sea but in a home that might as well be a stormy ocean where no one remembers you’re still there? If that’s you this album is for you. empathy for the caregivers that are failing you, you’re mature enough for that, hey mum hey dad where did this end, where did you lose your happiness? Because this album is for them too, in the breakdown of a decades-long relationship they’re not doing too well either. But it’s still the child’s story. They’re grown enough to hear it and get their heads out of their own hurt. I’m stuck in between a nightmare and lost dream (is this what makes the name of the catch 22 song fit in?)

the last five songs kind of tell a story of their own imo within this whole picture. They’re just as emotional if not more but you know when you’ve finally processed most of what you’ve been feeling and didn’t understand? You’ve hit rock bottom but now everything is laid out in front of you and when you start looking for hope now you’re not doing so on a foundation of false positivity. It’s raw and it’s hope for the first time, this is all laid out in front of you in beautiful but sad art. to me, fly away and san francisco are two sides to the same coin as are invisible and airplanes. In fly away you’re feeling uncomfortable where you are and brainstorming where could be better, taking initiative to take back your own life for the first time. we’ve been castaways and now we look at the open ocean differently, with hope. of course there are morbid interpretations of this song but either way: there’s a choice being made amid the angst, there is a sense of regained autonomy. and it can definitely be channeled into something hopeful.

and before I get into the songs sandwiched between them, sf is about getting away from where you are too but focusing on a more exact place, even a memory, even if it’s about escaping into the memory or accepting the good memories of the place where something good that’s over happened—it’s nostalgic, it’s kinda sad but sounds happy and optimistic and I guess that makes sense when it’s after airplanes. I don’t really know where I’m going with this. but like—leaves fall from the tallest trees, even mountains crumble into the sea—whatever this memory is, it’s majestic, even if it ended badly looking back at something and being able to see good in it can be revolutionary, we’re going baby steps here. Or it could be a deluded fantasy BUT IT SOUNDS SO HAPPY and idk I’m tired but like. don’t both these songs together paint a picture full of making choices for once when you’ve previously felt like you can’t? And trying things, that might end up resulting in feeling better?? so onto what’s between them that I guess sets the scene:

invisible, the saddest song on the album (?) right in theme, you’re unseen, existing in a family or home where you aren’t seen for yourself, how can you make an identity for yourself when what you do makes no difference? Stuck in the passing of the days where nothing feels really real in the monotony, don’t know who’s life this is, it isn’t yours, who am I when I don’t know myself? stuck, time wasted, regretting choices, everything fading, but as the story goes on—I just walked away,, all of my regrets become all of your regrets, there was someone who cared too little too late maybe? Still don’t know who I am. I’ve applied this song to so many things—growing up neurodivergent and masking so much that you don’t know if there’s a real you underneath the act everyone sees that definitely isn’t you. It’s the perfect story of the way educational institutions contribute to burnout to anyone who can mask their neurodivergence, saying we won’t do anything while they’re still functioning, and then act surprised when you can’t function anymore and be like ‘oh what could I have done let me do it now’ when it’s far far too late. It’s too late, the walls I’ve built to keep me safe I can’t escape. That’s one of many applications for it but if that’s you, this album is for you. And that’s why its positioning is crucial. because airplanes, most of my life I sat on my hands, I won’t make a sound. getting it right, I made all my plans, lost never found. All of this time, I questioned myself, I never could wait. Looking for signs, not asking for help, I know it’s too late. That’s describing the exact same thing isn’t it, a quiet neurodivergent kid? The exact same thing invisible is about, except this time it’s triumphant, sure it was too late for whoever there was around you in invisible, but this time, make believe walls make us all feel alive. Boundaries. A subtle difference between feeling trapped and free and that’s why I find the way these four songs have themes of the need for autonomy, the need to express yourself and feel free, make choices and boundaries that make you feel alive not that trap you. It’s a very pda profile thing but I think it’s applicable to any kind of neurodivergent who’s made themselves miserable and burnt out (themes for the whole album as I’ve mentioned) masking. So I guess this is my neurodivergent liberation album! Even if it is a sad one. This is why I consider it filled with hope. We’ll never die. Silence cut through the night like screams set on fire, rising up higher. Choosing not to wait. Doing what you’re made for. Finding yourself in what you love, music perhaps? Gonna see the end of this story. I can see it now, the burnt out kid, all the hundreds of them like me I apply invisible to. Finding what they love and are good at and not having to pretend to be like anyone else anymore, like how others say they’re supposed to be. However you interpret San Francisco after this, you know that they’re going to be alright. Maybe I have low standards for being alright. But maybe it’s because I have to. I have to find optimism somewhere, and I can see that they did! Nothing to lose in this city.

then there’s OS/CO, the rock anthem, the timeless masterpiece from the album that still feels like being transported into another dimension outside space and time when I listen to it. that creates new magic every time it’s played, that ties together all the themes of the album perfectly. I can still taste you like it was yesterday becomes I can still taste the ocean like it was today. open ocean themes from fly away. we were castaways, now it’s if I were an island in search of castaways maybe I’d find you, finding you like in safety pin and catch fire and airplanes even.

you said please keep on holding your hands and the rain it came too soon I will wait for you to love me again (tgwcw themes) I was/I’m still running back to you (sf again), the sad note if you could love me again, I could let go of everything, the longing for that relationship. The darkest night never felt so bright with you by my side and your eyes your smile can light up the night. especially after all of life’s colours seem to fade to grey. The same longing for someone you see in castaways and catch fire and story of another us. I’ll give you anything (and we got swallowed by the storm again).

but then carry on, let the good times roll. Sail on, let your path unfold, won’t be long, you know it’s gonna get better, say a prayer…

who cares about broken bones when we’re all going home and you know it’s gonna get better? like sometimes that’s the attitude you gotta have. themes from skh and permanent vacation and we can carry on, outlast the ignorance and survive the innocence (maybe because when you’re a child you often have no autonomy to meet your needs and express yourself in any way that deviates from the norm?)

realising you’ve (finally) got one foot in the golden life after the choices you made these last four songs that were scary and you can let the good times roll (literally one of three times in the album the title makes sense) even though you’ve also got one foot in the gutter

won’t be long, won’t be long. you know it’s gonna get better.

and that’s how you go on living when there are expectations all around especially your own and your culture’s you just gotta survive and be yourself and that’s the only way you can do it.

Something profound was taken back here. foundations for a resilient adulthood where you can thrive even amid all the pressures in the world. and if that’s what we had to go through (it feels like it’s always happening doesn’t it?) it’s more than worth it isn’t it? it’s more than worth it to go through this desperate process of self discovery. it’s a skill some of us were forced to learn young. It’s a skill and an experience that you can absorb through these songs at any time and honestly I don’t know any albums that give us what sgfg does.

the western sydney work ethic, mental health, burnout, inequality and ableism

inspired by ashton irwin on artist friendly with joel madden and 17902 sustainable urban development at the university of technology sydney

I’ve teased the idea of writing this post for a while now, and now I’m sitting in my borrowed bed in Sydney with the graphs and maps from my course still at the back of my eyelids and still processing the Vibes of catching up with my childhood friends and wondering if it’s too early to go to bed if the sun’s still up—it’s time to let it out. Because I found a bunch of seemingly unrelated things and put them together in a way that helped me process my upbringing and the way it’s positioned me as I go through life even now.

For background of this post, the Greater Sydney metropolis has a very stark rich/poor divide, where a large strip from the west going to the south of the city have been left behind in a variety of ways. In my uni course I see the maps on income, education level, job overqualification, crime, violence… they’re nice and set out, and they validate what I already intuitively knew—just like everyone who grew up in the area I’m going to refer to vaguely as Western Sydney. These graphs put words to something I’ve lived when I was too young to process it, something I hear the impacts of in 5 seconds of summer’s songs like I’ve never seen in any other art ever.

I know many people relate too and I don’t want to say you have to be from Western Sydney to get it. There are plenty of other places with similar trends, but this strip of suburbs, half a city, is where I grew up and the case study I’m going to use for the phenomenon I’m going to describe in this post.

Having spent the last decade and a bit in a more conservative, more sheltered area of suburban Brisbane, where people take it slow and at least attempt to have fun without getting completely wasted; where people have high expectations for their lives and livelihoods they never quite meet and where they’re the kind of emotionally aware that you hear all about how stressful that experience is: this was the backdrop of my teens and young adult years to this point. It’s where I learned about mental health and neurodivergence and ableism and where I really explored what faith and spirituality is to me. It’s where I never quite felt comfortable when people were too polite, where I poured all the belief they had in me as a gifted kid plonked into that environment I wasn’t native to into the delusion that I could deconstruct the unequal education system of their own creation if I only worked harder than anyone had ever worked before. Then they would finally listen. It’s where I tried and tried to get help for my mental health and wasn’t listened to either, not when I presented so well and was simply unable to unmask until I was unable to mask at all. Where the slightest bit of hope caused me to forget everything that was hurting me, making it a struggle to work through even to this day. where I wondered if I was some superhuman for the fact that I can work my ass off without even realising it’s hard work, a smile on my face and arms open for connection as always (the mark of health they say) while being desperately unwell, hurting, thinking I had it good compared to some of the people I’d see crumple under the pressure, I should be kind to them (not understanding why I found them so, so relatable).

I am not a freak of nature, or superhuman, though I am neurodivergent and twice-exceptional. I am the product of my upbringing and my ancestors. I carry generations of culture from hectares of foreign lands my ancestors made their homes on (ethically questionably in some cases I do acknowledge) and became part of the ecosystem of. It is, like most difference, a gift and a curse. Something that makes certain measures of ableism not apply to me, but creates others in their place. I’ll get into this more later.

in the strip of suburbs united by demographics we call Western Sydney, farmers from the notoriously difficult land of the Murray-Darling and immigrants from everywhere on the planet, some Indigenous but few Indigenous to Australia, make up classrooms, neighbourhoods, workplaces. Think I Am Australian by The Seekers, but just the verses, as a snapshot of some of the stories representative of the people. Interwoven in the landscape. We celebrated Harmony Day on the 21st of March in my primary school. Everyone had a different cultural background. We heard different languages spoken on the street. There were stereotypes. There were scared people trying to find their tribe, build a life in Australia, away from the larger scale farms, get their kids a good education to do a trade or go to university. Fear and angst and hurt coexisting with an appreciation of the juxtaposition of others you’d never head admitted out loud. But the second verse of the Australian national anthem was written just for us, or might as well have been. Beneath our radiant southern cross, we’ll toil with hearts and hands… google the lyrics, you’ll get it, you’ll see why I wish the rest of Australia did too: for those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share, with courage let us all combine to advance Australia fair…

No one with the power to acknowledge this I interact with these days remembers the second verse. Except 5 Seconds Of Summer, in their ridiculous little promo videos, who I’d bet the rubble that’s left of my parents’ old house as the new owners turn it into a mansion because Gentrification, have no idea of what a meaningful gesture that is.

I can feel the wounds of being torn from the good parts of that experience closing over. And so it’s time to give the often forgotten stories on an often forgotten piece of land that made me and also these four wonderful humans who we are today, the credit it deserves. Start by telling our stories.

One thing I love about Artist Friendly is it cuts straight to it. Joel Madden is just incredible like that—in a world coming out of the 2010s pop decade of dancing while the room is on fire (bloodhound, 5sos) put your rose coloured glasses on and party on (Katy Perry’s chained to the rhythm) (these I would consider more analytical quotes of the era, one whose vibe was ‘forget all the pain in the world, let’s party and sing about how horny we are’ which for all my cynicism I did find fun)—he kept up his punk edge, kept investing in new musicians, searching for and investing in what’s real. He also really loves Australia, and when you put our underdog-supporting attitude next to Good Charlotte’s songs you understand why. Anyway, the episode pretty much opens by him asking Ashton about his background, and relating from the perspective of working-class-emotionally-unavailable/immature-parents-who-showed-their-love-through-provision-and-really-did-try-to-be-there-but-had-none-of-the-resources. I like the positive take. It’s high time we stop being classist and ableist towards the people who’ve met our needs as much as they were able, but it still wasn’t enough. Who taught us how to take opportunities, work to prove our worth, and through it all couldn’t even afford therapy.

I used to think my family was rich because we lived in Australia and my parents had gone to university. Never mind the fact that I was born when they were barely older than I am now. Never mind the mould in the walls or sneaky Tuesday night washing of the school uniforms in the summer when we got sweaty and there weren’t any spares or the mismatched bargain bin clothes we wore or the bedroom I shared with my sisters. I knew the people I compared us to. And now I do really believe if I’d grown up a bit less frugal or even a few k’s out of the area I did I wouldn’t be who I am. I wouldn’t have the perspectives I have, nor would this podcast episode have me feeling so seen. Like, yes I lived a bit further into the city than these guys, close to the train line without any farmland where the house values shot up seemingly overnight and meant the area I grew up in is experiencing a very weird disparity as two cities collide within it today. But we grew up in the same era in western sydney, we grew up loved and knowing that was a privilege and we grew up knowing from a very young age we had to spend our whole lives working hard if we wanted life to be manageable and we better be polite and better not ask for too much.

yet we also grew up with hurt. From the trauma we inherited from our caregivers as we encountered the attitudes and fears with which they faces the world. From what we saw our peers go through much too young to be able to draw boundaries with the empathy we felt too much of and understood nothing of. From broken family relationships that were all too common. From religion that hurting people used to cause or at least stagnate hurt instead of healing.

when I was burning out and struggling as an unrecognised neurodivergent I used to wonder why my father would place such value on the Protestant work ethic when Jesus died exactly so we wouldn’t have to strive. And I acknowledge that the PWE is harmful to many disabled folk or literally anyone who has experienced the demands of life and had their stress invalidated for it. Including myself. But never having the expectation of a life of ease and luxury? I do appreciate that. It’s given me a whole different metric for how I view life, one none of my friends except those who are from those years of my life understand. No one in Brisbane or my online international friends seem to get it. But I’m sure when you see yourself in this post, that some of you will (we might be the largely unheard minority but I’m sure we exist. Joel Madden is proof of that). It’s given me a differently calibrated emotional pain scale in many ways. Different standards for when the warning lights come on (and I’m very perceptive of angst and disappointment and always see them in others to be worse than they are because of it). And when I look at everything this band has accomplished, I know it’s the same for them.

I have spent a lot of time these last years advocating for neurodivergent acceptance. I’ve done so in a way that made sense of the decade previous, of existing in a world of inequality I’ve always been so sensitive to and of expectations that I took on as opportunities (because what else have I been trained to do)? And yet so much of it is about funding and resources. And when there isn’t that? You make room for my favourite thing ever: grassroots, unofficial but beautifully organic loving neurodivergent affirmation. Plenty of rural folks, my grandparents included, hate labels, prefer focusing on strengths and equipping young people based on those than accommodating difficulties. They’re often seen as conservative, bigoted, ableist, and some of them are. But they bring with them an important lesson about how to live with the realities of the economy that they struggle in too, too much to support someone else. They don’t have the same impossible expectations of their neurodivergent progeny and protegees and community members that many who hold in their heads an idea of perfection they hope to bring to their families do (the kind of things sometimes only a diagnosis can free someone from, and nothing from the memory and shame of) and that—that is an important attitude for all of us to have.

Some people are unconventionally neurodivergent affirming while knowing none of the terms, or maybe trying to hold off using them because of the same economic and confidence reasons I’ve tried to unpack. Some rely on simple kindnesses and explanations that centre around possibility, and go nowhere near deficit. Some people know intuitively or through hard life lessons themselves (usually the latter) the value of stripping all but essentials from the functionality of everyday life. Not making it any harder than it is.

Of course you can drum on the tables in math class. My son is a musician, I get how it is.

Liz Hemmings is the only valid neurodivergence parent—I’ll say no more, it is how it is

Sometimes when we advocate for things we have to be aware that the way the dominant in-power often wealthy culture has figured it out isn’t always the best way to do things. Environmentalism is a prime example of this. This is why we need brown environmentalism and to decolonise and listen to our Indigenous stewards and share power.

You can take a lot of lessons from a place that’s as culturally diverse as Western Sydney. And you can see how a work ethic is facilitated, rather than gatekept. You can see why Ash, when asked by Joel if he’s scared of every getting back to that life (ref to poverty) his attitude is actually one of gratitude and almost reverence for the place that shaped him, that brought the band together and everything that came from that point forwards. That shaped their attitude and birthed the grit that got them through being on tour with one direction and I don’t think he said it but in Ash’s case I bet the empathy he has for the fans and the way he just wants to connect and create a fun experience but also one where we’re deeply seen by moving songs is because he knows what it’s like for so many people. You can’t not if you grew up like we did. You can see why Luke at any chance will say ‘we’re from Sydney Australia’. It has a way of sticking to you, the rich culture that’s a patchwork of orphaned cultures, the way everyday life is like one of those adventures you emerge from with strong bonds usually only found in fantasy novels. You can see that the band is proof that those bonds exist in real life.

after a decade and a bit pretending I know what leisure is and how to have fun without Bad Angst I’m glad that this proof is still in my life. I’ve still got close friends from primary school and few can boast that (we might not quite be Calum and Michael in that regard, but they still have other friends from primary who they’ve kept in touch with despite geographical separation as I have).

Now I’ve acknowledged this and traced the strings that are much easier to see when my own life is mirrored in a podcast episode, maybe I can find the good among the cultural dysphoria in the circles I do have in Brisbane, and do value still for what they are even if they’re not quite the same. Now that I can see how a world of too many opportunities and not enough freedom can burn someone out who came from this background, with the type of brain that flourishes on being a latchkey kid and sketchy hangouts with deep conversations and questionable substances but crumples under expectation and too much choice and politeness, I can put my life back together in a way that validates who I am and where I come from, rather than what those around me tell me should be good for me.

as, I can tell by this interview, these guys have. I want to be able to talk about suffering without people acting like it shouldn’t be something we can comfortably say out loud, as Ashton does here and through music. My art isn’t quite the same, but the purpose behind it is so, so similar. I relate a lot to the importance he places on spirituality, even if I’ve tried to do something with Christianity that it, in the mainstream at least, isn’t built for and probably can only partially do on its own. Maybe the epitome of humility is being able to learn from other religions and see them as gifts from God even as, and I include Christianity here as well, anything can be dangerous if used in a way that it wasn’t meant for: anything with power to heal has power or hurt too. I’ve got so much respect for how Ash does it. I think this episode really cemented for me that, and I feel like it’s something we as a fandom don’t talk about enough because of their characterisation (and fair enough, if you’re famous you don’t want people dissecting every part of you, and I’m not going to do that just give a generalised compliment): these guys are so incredibly resilient and intelligent and invested in creating healing and they’re really fucking good at it. They might present themselves as goofs with one braincell that create bops and fan over other celebrities as if they themselves aren’t famous too, but so much of that is humility and them baring themselves in ways that are sustainable and really emotionally mature (for the most part) to be relatable to us as fans and invest in making that connection genuine. They’re not pretending, because they understand how it is to be human.

and you don’t get there by being some sort of Untouchable Philosophical Genius Figure. you get there because you’ve lived in community and you’ve survived hard things because of other people who’ve done similar and created authentic art too. You get there often because you have to: because putting on a fake show and doing stuff for likes and popularity was never going to work and will only screw you up in the long run and you’re worldly enough to see that from a young age and learn from your own intuition and empathy and experiences. You get there because you lived your whole life being resourceful and being street smart and doing what it takes to make good decisions and invest in yourself (who else do you have who’s worth more than that) and your future. Doing what it takes to make sure you’re alive to learn how to do better at things you’re behind in that might keep food on the table in the future, because there’s none of that oh-it-won’t-happen-to-me attitude. That part is very sustainable which I love. I also really really relate to it and have found it something I would get complimented on when I was younger, too young to be so mature. But I never attributed it to myself. I knew somehow, abstractly, I was disabled and nearing my limit and everything I do I did so I could survive. It’s the western Sydney work ethic.

and yet this often beautiful phenomenon has its ugly side. If you know you’re neurodivergent even without the words—more often than not the only people you see who you relate to are those who didn’t make it, who fell off the horse of functionality and into things like addiction and other things that exacerbate the inability to empower yourself. You figure that when you’re honest with yourself you’ll be dead by 25. Sometimes you give up on trying to prevent that and wonder if it’s even worth it to attempt to keep going: is your life really worth that effort?? What I’ve described is a combination of the experiences of many people I know, aspects of it are mine, and aspects mirror things I know these guys have mentioned about themselves (I’m going to leave it at that vague level of detail). You wonder why people believe in you, is it only because any other option is unmentionable? But what if you let them down like you know (fear) you will? And burnout is the epitome of this: the need to let go of trying. And without a decent amount of privilege it’s impossible to return from.

I’ve been there and scrounged at straws of privilege I do have, pretending I’m doing my job to the level that others expect while letting go of every expectation I have on myself. Still problem solving outside every box on how to get back on my feet because I know nothing else, radically accepting that I might not and whittling down all my needs in life to the most essential, that I might still survive even at my limited and diminishing capacity. While always relating to those our society sees as failures. I’ve borrowed from other cultures that aren’t my own to have a stubborn sense of worth while trying to keep afloat in a society and economy that says it’s conditional. My spirituality comes in here, as do my problem-solving skills: again, maybe this culture fears burnout more than anything, but maybe it has half a toolkit on how to get out of it. Only half. I have to pair it with what I learn from others too.

and even through that, I’m immensely privileged to have savant skills and a generally able body. Just like when you make it big as a musician you’re privileged by that. Against a backdrop of I’m-nothing-special. I’ve always struggled with questions of my felt worth, because I’m so conscious of my privilege and ability that sometimes I get the two muddled (though I know my ability doesn’t define my worth in things I do poorly at, and my persistence technically doesn’t either but I’ll be damned if I don’t try and try and actually find doing badly more validating of how I see myself than when I do well, so I chase it again and again, my dad is the same, it’s what makes us so adventurous). I understand the consciousness of things that are going well not lasting, and pouring creativity for new ventures into things like selling candles. Instead of letting achievements make me believe I’m someone more important than I am, using them as ways of giving myself space to do whatever’s next, dial off the pressure a little bit.

I understand appreciating others’ sensitivity and the social capital they bring everywhere rather than their material wealth or achievement and when Ash praised Calum for that and said it made him look bad I felt that. Both the experience of being that counter-cultural person who doesn’t give a shit about money but values connection so, so much more (and from all I’ve written, you can see why, can’t you) to still never being able to be as good a person as I see the need for in the world.

I understand missing family and constantly grieving that, as I weigh up the city of my childhood with the friends and culture I love versus the city of my youth with my feathered family who are my children and who I hate to miss birthdays of and the like, same goes for my sisters and parents and grandparents, the way Ashton, the only band member with younger siblings, hates missing all their milestones too. I feel privileged that Brisbane and Sydney are so close to each other and nothing in my life is as far as Los Angeles. I understand the nostalgia for Sydney. This whole post is proof of it.

I understand the unbreakable bonds between people who make this kind of art together. I understand putting disagreements on the back burner and realising the connection through writing is so much bigger and the connection can overcome whatever is going wrong. Heck, I feel privileged to understand and relate to how such brilliant brains work (nature: neurodivergence I won’t go any further into as well as nurture) as well as the environment that made them what they are.

all my life I’ve longed for that kind of community and connection I’ve seen largely in fiction, sometimes between people in real life. And I think having written this analysis (it’s taken me til my bedtime or later) I do have all the ingredients there. All the ability to make it, both in the practical way I relate to and am there for my friends and whatever I do in my silver bridges tag. In the neighbourhoods I eventually design that foster communities with all the good parts I’ve described but without the inequality and minimal poverty and hurt and violence. To everyone who’s shown me these things in myself that are so worth working for and I know I’m not savantly immediately good at, I am so so incredibly grateful. the city as a whole. My family and friends. The celebrities I grew up nearby and those who invest in people like them. People like me. May I keep investing in people: people like you. because what is humility but knowing there’s always something to learn, and what will bring all of us forward but learning it and putting it into practice in love and empathy that drives a grit that no amount of striving for striving’s sake can manufacture?

#idk what I’m going on about here but it’s something #neurodivergent liberation #every time I listen to sgfg I see how relevant it is to this more #especially if you’re from a hardworking striving struggling background #and I’m really really grateful for this album in case you can’t tell #5 seconds of summer #5sos #sgfg #sounds good feels good

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eganantiquus · 4 years ago

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Capitalism: Its Effects on Heaven, Hell, and a Few Others // A Good Omens Meta

I think the discussion about capitalism in Good Omens is a very interesting one to have- specifically in how it relates to Heaven and Hell. I saw a post about it recently, about the Quartermaster saying Heaven would “take the sword out of [Aziraphale’s] celestial wages,” which begs the question: does Heaven have money? A system of checks and balances on the Angels’ miracles, perhaps? Heaven is, after all, the original monopoly. But how does that affect them? Or affect Hell, for that matter? (Keep in mind, I will primarily be discussing events and dialogue from the TV show, as that’s the canon I’m most familiar and comfortable with extrapolating on.) So let’s move out a bit to take stock of the bigger picture. First of all in this discussion, let’s remember that the entire structure of Heaven and Hell blatantly showcases the shittiest parts of capitalism. As a reminder, the cons of capitalism can include: a monopoly on trade, goods, or services; social/emotional necessities ignored in the pursuit of profit; lack of concern for the environment; driving need for exponentially increased profit, allowing no space for slip-ups or less-profitable cycles; Inherited wealth, and big gaps in economic equality, which creates social divisions, which cause people to resent their fellow citizens. Let’s first take a look at something we’re all familiar with. Heaven’s and Hell’s relationship with Crowley and Aziraphale. Both Heaven and Hell have an inherent monopoly on basically everything, which is something we see both Crowley and Aziraphale struggling with in different ways throughout history. They want to exist outside of the hierarchy, but there literally isn’t any outside. In terms of social/emotional needs… do I need to go into the trauma and anxiety that Heaven and Hell instill in Crowley and Aziraphale? A post for another time. And it’s apparent, however much they try to hide it, that both of them fear authority, and would do practically anything to get away from it. So, they wiggle out from under it in whatever ways they can. (See: the “arrangement,” Crowley’s “there’s more to evil than killing people, eh?” and Aziraphale’s “Well, if you put it that way, Heaven couldn’t actually object… ”) Lack of concern for the environment can be extrapolated to Heaven and Hell’s lack of care for humanity. (See also, uh, nuclear Armageddon.) Inherited wealth/prestige is definitely a thing: see the Archangels lording their power over the lower Principalities. There’s a bit more room for mobility in Hell, where doing more evil deeds = more prestige & (...dis)honor? Anyway, this is where Hell begins to deviate. Exponential need for profit in Heaven and Hell translates to their increasing intolerance of Aziraphale’s *ahem* lies. Hell is more lenient in this area too- perhaps because of their disorganization. So Heaven and Hell are capitalistic. But in what capacity, and what is the effect on their respective denizens? In practice, who’s the winner in this capitalistic structure? Hell isn’t, no matter how inherently hellish capitalism might be. They’re clearly the losers in this situation- they’ve got terrible service, (see: Hastur having to “[wait] for maintenance to come and fix another bloody pipe,”* and the Demon Eric’s “we don’t get this view down in the basement.”) lack the organization to rise up against Heaven, (see: the frankly concerning lack of organized preparation for The Great War) and are constantly put down. They all have to fight for their positions, and are intimately familiar with what the failure to succeed in this “business” means. Not to mention that their entire hierarchy is performance driven, showing the capitalistic values they, for lack of a better term, grew up in, are still ingrained in all their practices. Heaven is at the top of an office building, has views of the entire world, is clean and obviously well organized. It’s clear what the hierarchy is there- everyone walks in lines, Gabriel always stands slightly in front of Michael and Uriel and Sandalphon, all of the higher Angels we see interact with Aziraphale treat him like he’s less than them. Heaven clearly benefits from the organization and driving force that capitalism provides, while Hell is just getting by.

To dive further into what the effects of capitalism are on Heaven and Hell, let’s go into depth more about Heaven and Hell’s respective war preparation to analyze their motivations.

Hell’s war preparations are disorganized, at best. All the Demons of Hell, gathered around two ‘generals,’ getting ready to hear a pep talk best described as being far from premeditated or sophisticated. On top of this, the second something goes wrong, Beelzebub says it. Just like that, to all the Demons. It makes me cringe every time I watch it, to see the rest of the Demons turn to each other and wonder if they’re following the right leader. The thing about this, though, is that they don’t have another option for a leader. This is the place for the people who couldn’t make it in Heaven, the outcasts and Fallen, so they don’t care. There’s nowhere else for anyone to go. Hell is far more transparent about their hate, their evil, but also about their vulnerability. Perhaps not individual vulnerability, (see: Crowley needing to be Cool and Collected at every moment) but in their overall anxieties and problems, Hell is very transparent. There is no need to hide the problems Hell has, because there’s no worse place to go. In this way, Hell has accepted their fate at the bottom of the totem pole.

Now let’s talk about Heaven’s war preparations. When Aziraphale arrives prematurely in Heaven, his “whole platoon” is “waiting” for him. So, Heaven has an organized war effort. They have uniforms. They have someone checking everyone in, putting them into place. (Where do they all line up to go to war? Where does the war Occur?? Questions for another time.) However, here is the interesting part: Heaven’s whole spiel to get everyone motivated, unlike Hell, is based on fear. While Hell brings up the actual motive for fighting, saying “we lost” and “we have had thousands of years to… get smarter,” Heaven tells Aziraphale that he’s a “coward” if he doesn’t fight, while not providing any reason besides ‘he’s supposed to.’

Here lies the beginning of the difference between Heaven and Hell: their motivators. Now let’s talk about how they carry out justice, and how that is an indicator of the effects of capitalism on them both.

Hell’s trial for Crowley is a mockery of the word, let’s be perfectly clear. They don’t provide him with a defense, and have an implicitly biased jury. However, it is a trial. A trial with evidence presented against him, a prosecutor, and a judge, and everything. What’s so interesting to me, about this, is that they don’t think for a minute that there wouldn’t be a trial. If they had thought such a thing was possible, they would have taken the opportunity. But they didn’t think of it. And that is what is so important here. Hell is the one that carries out a just trial. And I think that really speaks to their experiences as the Fallen. They know what no mercy looks like, what it is to be cut off from God’s love, with no hope for recompense. And, however evil they are, they know how much that hurts. Hell is just because they were given no justice.

Heaven, on the other hand? There’s no preamble to Aziraphale’s “trial.” There isn’t even a trial. There’s just the characteristic fake-niceties boiled down to their basest component: a complete lack of empathy for anyone who deviates from the norm. (See Gabriel’s “into the flames,” and “don’t talk to me about the ‘greater good,’ sunshine.”). And, oh yeah by the way, what kind of good and just society uses capital punishment? Isn’t that the exact sort of thing Heaven should be above? I should sure hope so! Their believed moral code, the idea that because they’re Angels, divinely Chosen by God, that whatever they do is predestined to be right, has all the flavor of a strong dictatorship. So convinced are they of their superiority that even outright capital punishment is not below them. This is an interesting contrast to their motivation of fear that we looked at in the previous section. Perhaps higher Angels use fear to keep Angels in line, but feel exempt from the process itself. Very similar to the way big CEO's in the human business world accumulate wealth and power while their workers work paycheck to paycheck.

So Heaven is fundamentally bad, and Hell is fundamentally… good?

Not quite.

Both Heaven and Hell are operating under the millennia of repressed trauma and baggage that came with the first war. For example, let’s look at their refusal to see nuance in the issue of war Take a look at Gabriel’s “We can fight! And we can win!” to Aziraphale and Beezlebub’s “Don’t you want to rule the world?” to Adam. They can’t comprehend that someone would want to, or, for that matter, could look at the structure of The Way Things Are and go, ‘No, this is not for me, I think I’ll just do this quietly over her instead.’ Heaven and Hell have each been indoctrinated in their own ways, by God and by Heaven and by their own inability to look past their instructions.

So, Heaven and Hell operate under the guidelines of a capitalistic system because of their respective experiences with authority and punishment.

What does this say about Crowley and Aziraphale? That they’ve managed to dodge this system (mostly) altogether, and made one of their own… based purely on joy, mutual respect, and They still have their issues, (See: Being unable to communicate effectively. When? Oh, just for all of history) but for the most part, they’re living their own lives. It takes an especially strong will to stand up to a faulty administration, even if the standing up part consists of drinking a lot of wine, sliding around killing people, and consorting with an enemy who’s actually quite nice. It takes what a lot of Angels and Demons, simply put, don’t have. Like Hastur, who doesn’t have an “imagination.” Crowley invented one for himself. Crowley and Aziraphale practically invented free will for themselves, too. Part of their ability to so wholly reject their ‘upbringing,’ if you will, must be connected to the fact that they spend so much time around humans. If we go with TV show canon, they’re practically the only ethereal/occult entities that are on Earth for any long period of time. Of course they’re going to catch on from the humans. So Crowley and Aziraphale are the only celestial beings who have been able to get free of this terrible system, and so are able to better ‘guide’ the humans, which inevitably leads them to attempting to stop armageddon. (And of course, the apocalypse, according to Aziraphale, is something no “reasonable person would permit!”)

This brings us to the humans. Specifically, how Heaven is supposed to guide them. Heaven doesn’t, insofar as we are aware, care about the humans. Perhaps other Angels do, ones who have walked among them. But for the most part, especially with Gabriel, Michael, Sandalphon- the people in charge- the humans are an afterthought. They’re one knight on the chessboard, easily moved, taken, and discarded- perhaps with a bit of regret, but dispensable all the same. In this way, the exponential growth mindset that Heaven has goes to show just how far they’ve deviated from God’s design. Now, far be it from me to speculate on the nature of the Ineffable Plan, but as far as I’m aware, the Angels were created to love humanity, and to nurture them. Doesn’t sound like what they’re doing at all, does it?

So in this way, we can see that both Heaven and Hell have gotten the short end of the metaphorical capitalism stick. Hell, at the bottom of the ranks, desperate to climb back up and regain their glory, but unable to do so because of the weight of their Falling trauma; Heaven, in all its Jeff Bezos glory, unable to see the consequences of their actions close up because of their disassociation with “reality.”

Capitalism and economics in general are incredibly nuanced things, and I do not at all pretend to fully understand them. However, I fully enjoy imagining how the complex dynamics of Good Omens universe Heaven and Hell deal with the repercussions of existence and their own actions through the lens of capitalism.

*side note from paragraph seven: I think maintenance work would be a more fitting job for Crowley and Aziraphale, and frankly, I would love to read a fic about that.

#good omens #good omens meta #capitalism #meta essay #i did this ages ago and forgot to post it here lol #also can be found on my ao3!#go #go meta

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ylisseanvalheru · 3 years ago

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Spicy Squid Game take

Anti-capitalist, totalitarian and whatever media is really important, we all know about 1984 and all that vaguely Nazi, Soviet Union inspired media is a great way to critique, to show awareness, to scare, to make ya think and feel. It’s good is what I’m saying, I don’t need to throw another deep dive into 1984 or V for Vendetta out there. This kinda media is always around.

First some praise, the idea of poor, desperate people hurting themselves, putting themselves into dangerous situations is totally a worthwhile idea to show. Manyyyyyyyyy homeless people I know have the choice of visiting a doctor or eating today. It’s horrid, utterly awful, absolutely fuck any society that gives people choices like that, and Squid game really does capture that. Putting yourself in situation where you could easily suffer or die is genuinely something that happens when you’re desperate and up until about episode 4-5 that’s kinda what the show is going for.

The ~Spice~ comes in now, “desperate people turn into murderous monsters under capitalism, watch them kill each other for the rich peoples entertainment” Is garbo, total garbo. I know many a homeless person who will choose to skip a doctor’s visit, no matter how much pain they’re in, how life threatening it is, for a meal or some money. But I don’t know a single one who’d actively kill or harm other people for the same. Squid Game, Black Mirror, etc. try and say that poor, homeless people would knife fight in the street if you offered them enough money but , they just won’t. They have dignity, they have morals, no matter how desperate they are, you can’t make them into monsters and it’s kinda fucked up if you think you can, that’s a very awful opinion of marginalized people. I could walk into the tent city near me, plop down a mountain of money, and tell them to fight to the death for it and they’ll kick me out, they aren’t murderous monsters just because they’re desperate. It’s saying “Look at the fucked up shit poor people would do, a bank account is all that stands between us and bloody violence” But honestly, fuck that message, it’s such a bleak look at humanity. The homeless person you pass in the street isn’t one fucked up game show away from being a murderer. Marginalized, abused people don’t tend to brutalize their own community, no matter how much people fantasize about it. P.S. fuck black mirror for basically the same reason

#squid game #please come and tell me how you'd murder people for a million dollars

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missfay49 · 4 years ago

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Who is Orange?

Disclaimer: Please enjoy? Accept? Beware? This… Thing that started out as character analysis and turned into a deranged fanfic, because I experienced a literal revelation mid-way through free writing. I did not clean this up much because I’m still reeling from the theory implications myself. I cursed a lot.

What does Orange Side represent?

What do we know?

Orange is a “Dark Side”, defined as being one of the Sides hidden from C!Thomas.

The other Hidden Sides were Janus, Remus, and Virgil.

All the Hidden Sides were hidden due to a key aspect of their character that C!Thomas had to first acknowledge and then accept. Virgil required C!Thomas to acknowledge that he had heightened anxiety and accept that anxiety isn’t inherently wrong, just a different form of information that can be processed. Remus required C!Thomas to acknowledge that he had intrusive thoughts and accept that those thoughts don’t make him evil; they’re just thoughts. Janus required C!Thomas to acknowledge that he was capable of lying and accept that acting “selfishly” sometimes isn’t just okay, but actually critically important to managing stress.

What are the common themes here?

Confronting the reality about ourselves instead of pretending some traits don’t exist.

Understanding ourselves to be more complex than ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

Addressing mental health.

Orange Side is still hidden, but we can expect him to be something C!Thomas doesn’t want to (or isn’t ready to) acknowledge. Something that would be difficult to accept about oneself. All Hidden Sides fall under the jurisdiction of Janus, so let’s take another look at him.

In “Can Lying Be Good?” we get a lot of information about what Janus’ purpose is:

Roman: It you really don’t want to know something, he… can keep our mouths shut.

Logan: You don’t want to believe it. That’s where his power comes from. Things that you want to believe. Things that you wish were true. And things that you wish weren’t.

Deceit: What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

This all means that Orange Side is something that would cause C!Thomas distress to learn and something he subconsciously wishes weren’t true. This is not new information to most of you: the spin-off interpretations of Apathy and Pride are widely popular fandom theories, traits that are typically viewed as negative in large doses.

But the Hidden Sides being seen as something negative isn’t their only defining characteristic. They typically involve an aspect a mental health, involve societal expectations, and... what is it...

Janus is the umbrella over all the other Hidden Sides, sheltering and obscuring them from view. He is the gatekeeper in a very literal sense. What is he gatekeeping?

What is it? What is it what is it, why? What does he do? What seems bad but isn’t? What can he do? What issue is actually useful? What’s useful what’s useful WHATS USEFUL WHATS USEFUL?! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO USEFUL?

shitshitSHITSHISTHISTSTs

I KEPT ASKING MYSELF, WHAT’S USEFUL? WHAT TRAIT COULD IT BE THAT APPEARS BAD, BUT ISN’T BAD, IS ACTUALLY USEFUL. ANIEXTY WAS OKAY BECAUSE HE WAS JUST LOOKING OUT FOR US. LYING WAS OKAY BECAUSE HE JUST WANTED TO PUT C!THOMAS FIRST. INTRUSIVE CREATIVITY WAS OKAY BECAUSE DARK IDEAS OPEN UP NEW PATHS.

But the whole GODDAMN POINT is ACCEPTANCE!

You don’t HAVE to be useful to be accepted. You – yuo just BE. YOU BE!

PEOPLE don’t have to prove their Usefulness to you before you can treat them with respect. Our WORTH does not depend on what we PRODUCE. YE GODS, THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE I JUST BROKE-

~~~

C!Thomas comes back from his self-care stay-cation. He’s ready to start production, he is rested and refreshed. BUT JUST LIKE EVERY PREVIOUS DILEMMA, it isn’t Good enough, Original enough, Fast enough. He’s done everything right, why is it still wrong? He’s accepted his anxiety, he’s accepted that things aren’t just black and white, he’s Accepted That It’s OKAY to have Dark Thoughts, he Has ACCEPTED SELF_CARE. Why Isn’t IT ENOUGH?!

“Fuck it.”

C!Thomas spins in his chair, looking at a man that looks just like him, but not quite.

“What?”

“Fuck it. Fuck them.”

“You sound like Remus,” Thomas jokes. He’s lying, of course. He’s nervous. The Side looks like a normal guy, but something about him is unsettling. The unidentified Side just presses his lips together, unimpressed.

“Um, ef w-who, exactly?” Thomas asks, but part of him already knows.

“All of them. Every person who isn’t you. Every person who expects something from you.”

“Now, you sound like Janus.” Thomas looks back at the computer screen, but the Side’s retort has him spinning around again.

“Janus is a short-sighted pseudo-rebellious minion of a capitalistic society, just like the rest of them.”

“Uh, excuse me?!”

“Isn’t it obvious? They’re all obsessed with Success. Whether they want to play by the rules, or manipulate them, or break them, whether it’s making money or pumping out good deeds, they’re still just trying to make you be successful within the framework of a system that prioritizes production over a human life.”

Thomas just stares for a moment before he can find his voice.

“Who are you?”

“Dude, seriously?” He waves his hands, palms up and presenting himself. “I’m Achilleus. I’m your motivation.”

~~~

Take a deep breath and follow me down the research black hole, where every topic I looked up was more and more terrifyingly appropriate:

Freedom

noun

the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

Self-Determination

noun

the process by which a person controls their own life.

Autonomy

noun

(in Kantian moral philosophy) the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires.

Autonomic Nervous System (because i believe each Hidden Side is closer to the subconscious)

noun

the part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed, such as breathing, the heartbeat, and digestive processes.

Inherent Value

“inherent value in the case of animal ethics can be described as the value an animal possesses in its own right, as an end-in-itself” – Animal Rights – Inherent Value, by Saahil Papar

Intrinsic Value

“Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of ethics. Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.”” – Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value, by Michael J. Zimmerman and Ben Bradley

“Finally, his sense of respect for the intrinsic value of entities, including the non-sentient, is the Kantian notion of the inherent value of all Being. This is based on the notion that a universe without moral evaluators (e.g. humans) would still be morally valuable, and there is no reason not to regard Being as inherently morally good.” – Technology and the Trajectory of Myth, by David Grant, Lyria Bennett Moses

Motivation

“Another way to conceptualize motivation is through Self-Determination Theory … which is concerned with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation happens when someone does something for its inherent satisfaction.” – Second Language Acquisition Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching, by Steven Brown, Jenifer Larson-Hall

Capitalism

“The flowery language of the United States Declaration of Independence would have you believe that human life has an inherent value, one that includes inalienable rights such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But in America, a major indicator of value is actually placed on being a productive member of society, which typically means working a job that creates monetary revenue (especially if the end result is accumulated wealth and suffering was inherently involved in the process).” – The Diminished Value of Human Life in a Capitalistic Society, by Seren Sensei

Religion

“At the heart of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism lay the insurmountable chasm between God’s sovereign election versus human self-determination.” – Sovereignty vs. Self-determination: Two Versions of Ephesians 1:3-14, by Reformed Theology

Mythology

“In Classical Greece, Achilles was widely admired as a paragon of male excellence and virtue. Later, during the height of the Roman Empire, his name became synonymous with uncontrollable rage and barbarism… He chooses kleos (glory) over life itself, and he owes his heroic identity to this kleos. He achieves the major goal of the hero: to have his identity put permanently on record through kleos…

“But is this really an accurate characterization of Achilles' pivotal decision? Is he really driven to sacrifice his life by an obsessive quest for honor and glory? One scene in the Iliad suggests the answer to both questions is no.

“When Achilles leaves the battlefield after his dispute with Agamemnon, the Trojans gain the upper hand on the Greeks. Desperate to convince their best warrior to return, Agamemnon sends an envoy of Achilles' closest friends to his tent to persuade him to reconsider his decision. During this scene, Achilles calmly informs his friends that he is no longer interested in giving up his life for the sake of heroic ideals. His exact words are below:

“The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death, the fighter who shirks, the one who works to exhaustion (IX 386-388)…

“Not only does Achilles reject the envoy's offers of material reward, but he rejects the entire premise that glory is worth a man's life.” – making sense of a hero’s motivation, by Patrick Garvey

Achilles (/əˈkɪliːz/ ə-KIL-eez) or Achilleus (Ancient Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς, [a.kʰilˈleu̯s])

Achilles realizes his own inherent self-worth, thereby freeing himself from the expectations of others; societal or otherwise. Only once we are free can we find the balance between our own needs and the needs of others in a way that breeds neither anger nor resentment in either.

~~~

But that’s... that’s just... a theory. Huh.

#sanders sides theory #orange side #orange side theory #sanders sides #character thomas #cursing tw #swearing tw #dark sides #the others #janus sanders #virgil sanders #remus sanders #orange sanders #caps tw #name theory #long post #missfay #my writing

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greylunar · 4 years ago

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Hey!! I'm a hot mess right now who cant enjoy art anymore so if you could help me solve this out I would appreciate but i understand if you can't so here's the deal: Is being rich while people are starving unethical? And if so how can I enjoy my favorite artists, rich people, knowing this? I mean it's obvious you want you and your loved ones to live comfortably but there's a point where is just too much, right? And all these big artists that I love they are way above the threshold of too much.

This is probably my favorite ask I’ve ever gotten only because I wasn’t really expecting anyone to ask me about this particular political and philosophical question, and I, an anarcho-socialist English major, have some thoughts on the subject, to say the least. Let me preface this by saying there’s no right answer to this question, as much as I wish there was one, and I can only give my opinion and how I’ve chosen to go about my life. That said the majority of people on this site are still pretty young. I’d encourage you to take my opinion with a grain of salt and ask other people you trust and read more theory so you can form what you think is the right way of going about consuming art for yourself! Regardless, I’m really proud of you for asking this and interrogating these sorts of topics within yourself, it can be hard to maintain the balance of keeping hope while attempting to live ethically within capitalist society, but the fact that you are trying is commendable, and it’s my hope that more people asking questions like this will bring about the change we wish to see in the world c:

Alright, answer under the break!

For starters, yes, I do believe being rich is unethical. While there is a multitude of reasons for this being the case, the one you brought up (hunger) is more than enough reason on its own. Now, no one rich person could end hunger, or at least not permanently. Estimates on how much it would cost to end world hunger range from 7 billion to 265 billion USD annually according to the IFPRI, which sounds wild right off the bat, since those are two unfathomably different numbers, but basically the difference boils down to the 7 billion dollar approach aiming to reduce malnutrition to World Health Assembly goals in about 15 years, and the 265 billion plan aiming to actually end world hunger (reach a “zero hunger target”) within about 20 years by targeting the sources of hunger, mainly being poverty and agricultural infrastructure.

So when you hear people say things like “why doesn’t Bezos end world hunger” one short answer is that he can’t. But the fact that he can’t doesn’t really matter because what really matters is he’s not trying. Without getting into liquidizing stocks and all that nonsense, if the ten richest people in the world made a one-time donation of 60 billion each, we would have enough and then some for the first two years of that zero hunger target plan by that alone. And the “poorest” of those ten billionaires would still have a net worth of 15 billion, which is still an unfathomable amount of money.

I say all of this to point out why it still matters to say the rich aren’t doing enough to end world hunger, and not to say that this is my ideal plan for solving it (which involves a lot more social restructuring and abolishing the value-form). I think if someone wakes up with billions in assets it a capitalist society in which the median “living wage” (which includes covering basic expenses, building savings, and having “fun money”) in my country is roughly $67,700, they must have woken up on one of those days and thought “oh hey what if I ended hunger in my home town” or “oh hey what if I funded a food co-op in a food desert nearby” or maybe even “what if I fucked around and tried to end world hunger” and then they didn’t. They turned around and went back to sleep, or went to a business meeting where they continued to exploit their workers or did whatever it is they do that I will never understand. And I think that is unethical.

Here’s the thing, and I’m sure some people will disagree with me on this one (I’m more than happy to read anyone’s replies and take them into account going forward) there’s a difference between corporate wealth and celebrity wealth. Do I fucking hate looking at pictures of Drake’s mansion? Yes, completely. Do I think that, like Mark Zuckerberg, he should be tried for crimes not limited to aiding and abetting ethnic violence in Ethiopia and failing to remove a militia event in Kenosha in which people planned to kill BLM protesters and then did, proceeding to lie about it in order to continue to profit off of the traffic and internet buzz white supremacists provide his site with? No, because Drake is not Mark Zuckerberg and there is a difference between what crimes it takes to make and uphold a 170 million dollar net worth versus a 98 billion dollar one. While I’m not jazzed to say the least about millionaire celebrities lounging in their wealth, in a way they are a very successful worker being rewarded by a capitalist society in exchange for a service they provide. So yeah, I feel more comfortable cheering on John Boyega for succeeding in a system set against him than I do any corporate capitalist.

That said, there are ways to support the art you love and strive to consume art more ethically. Support local artists, black artists and other creators of color, artists who support sustainable printmaking or give part of their proceeds to charities you care about. In terms of music, for every band you like that has problematic views there are thirty small bands with similar sounds you can support if you go looking. If you find a band you think is doing great work, support them on Bandcamp or buy a CD, and if you really want to listen to Kanye’s Power because its just that kind of day, listen to him on Spotify, where they’re literally paying people jack shit for it. If you’re going to participate in a capitalist society (and if you’re not, let me know how since I haven't figured that one out yet haha), reward the people you feel good about supporting.

Speaking of which! One of my favorite rappers noname has an online bookclub that uplifts POC voices by featuring two books a month. It’s awesome, noname is awesome, and I feel good whenever I listen to their album for the thirtieth time because telefone is the best. There’s art out there for you to feel good about loving. Sometimes it just takes a little digging to find.

I think my last note is going to be this: art is human. Art isn’t capitalist. People have been making art before capitalism and they’ll be making art after, art is an expression of the pain and hope and past and future of us, and we need it. To try and cut yourself off from consuming art to distance yourself from capitalism won’t work, because we need art to be human, and it was never capitalist in the first place. You aren’t evil or unethical for wanting to consume art, that’s the most natural urge in the world. It is a sign that our system is unethical if it makes us feel guilty for the things that make us human. So consume art, love it, love the people who make it, because its the good stuff. It’s the stuff that makes the rest of this more hopeful and more worth it. I know this can all feel like so much sometimes. But you’re not alone. There so many people out there working to make the world better and brighter, and making art to get us through it. I love you, and I hoped this helped even a little bit and I’m sorry its so long haha. I hope today is a little better for you than yesterday, and tomorrow’s even better than today c:

#long post #like longest fucking post sorry #tal asks #noahvincent33 #cw violence #cw death #what else do people blacklist #capitalism #bezos #cw hunger #cw food #ask to tag #taliesin blathers

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sparksinthenight · 4 years ago

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Advice for Little Me

This is advice that I have for my twelve-year-old self. If I’d known all this at twelve my life would be a whole lot better.

1) Capitalists are horrible, manipulative, lying, selfish, apathetic, overwhelmingly dangerous, incredibly bad for society, wrong, and deeply disturbed.

2) Anyone who ever says or insinuates that they earned the wealth they have are the worst types of people.

3) Anyone who goes around measuring the value of a human being by how fancy their job is incredibly shallow, materialistic, lacking in understanding, and not worth your time.

4) No. No people did not "earn" anything through hard work. They got it through privilege, privilege, privilege, and privilege. The fact that they could afford a decent quality highschool education is already a huge privilege. And no, being poor when they were in college absolutely does not count as not having privilege. They got to go to college. That’s a privilege so many don’t get.

5) You know who's actually working hard? The people in the sweatshops, the mines, the agricultural plantations, the warehouses, etc. The people getting paid poverty wages as they work themselves to death. Have some fucking respect for them you’re not above them just because you were born in a rich family.

6) All humans have equal value.

7) And the value of a human being is inherent.

8) If you have a house and fancy furniture and a flatscreen TV and a car and a closet full of clothes and enough money to go to restaurants and golfing and shit and then you turn around and say you're oppressed I fucking hate you so goddamn much.

9) The voices of the poor people are fucking ALWAYS silenced in this world, all over the world.

10) There's men in suits somewhere defending capitalism and our centrist dads are defending them while most of the world are wage slaves.

11) The poor are always ignored, pushed to the side, and silenced.

12) Hi. Hello person reading this. Check out the Red Deal. It's fucking awesome. Please read it. It will save your soul and change your life.

13) Also my Wattpad account is here please check it out https://www.wattpad.com/user/Balladoad it won't save your soul and change your life but I write communist stories.

14) Your value is inherent. Child. Darling. Your value is inherent. You are alive. That is enough. You don't need a fancy job or a big income or a fancy degree or something. You're a human being trying to do the best you personally can with the resources and knowledge you have and in the situation you're in. Your value is inherent. Baby.

15) Check out the Red Deal.

16) Nobody is liberated. None of us are liberated. Especially under capitalism none of us are liberated. We are all equal. We are all capable of being free. Of having an equal amount of power. Of making decisions equally and democratically where everyone has a seat at the round table. Seperation is a myth. Wow that sounds like a fucking hippie thing to say but I mean it in the most practical, tangible way. We are all equal and we should be treated equally and under capitalism we are not. Not even close. We can all be together, all be comrades, all help and support each other, all protect and provide for each other, all listen to and understand each other, and all create a world where finally, finally people are free.

17) True freedom does not and should not feel forced. Corporate capitalists tell us that freedom is the ability to be successful in the capitalist framework. That is not what true freedom is. True freedom comes from within. It does not feel forced. It feels good and right and beautiful and true. It's not forced upon you it's something that sparks to life inside your own soul.

18) Sucess as a human being is about the kindness and compassion you show other people. Which is actually rather inversely proportional to how much money you make from what I've seen. At every step of your life seek out people who need help and help them.

19) Children should all be treated with equal respect, reverance, affection, and love.

20) Your value is inherent. Human value is inherent. Valuing human life does mean valuing the continuation of human life but not just that. It means valuing the quality of human life too. It means valuing human happiness.

21) Take every opportunity you have to learn. Not learn trivial "knowledge" about string theory or CRISPR or valence orbitals. Real, important knowledge about how to be kind to other people. How to be respectful towards other people. How to uplift the downtrodden. How to be in solidarity with the oppressed. How to live in harmony with other people. How to tear down the walls that divide us. How to live in harmony with nature. How to have respect and reverence for nature. How to protect and defend the Land and Water. How to be brave to put the needs of others before your own. How to think for yourself and be your own person. How to live your life in accordance to the truth and intangible mystic forces behind everything that guide us all. Wow that sounded hippie.

22) People are exploited and oppressed. So many people are exploited and oppressed. They deserve better than this.

23) You shouldn’t go after power. Seeking power is the way to corruption. You should seek to destroy the unequal distribution of power itself so that all people can have equal power.

24) Absolutely power corrupts absolutely. Power corrupts whenever it’s not equally shared.

25) Money is power. It always has been, it always will be. It’s what determines if people are able to eat or not. It’s what makes us spend most of our time at our jobs working for our bosses and doing what they want us to do.

26) Learn history. Please.

27) Read books about the Holocaust. About slavery. About all the types of slavery that have happened in various societies not just the Transatlantic Slave Trade though definitely you should learn about that too. About the Irish Potato Famine, the Armenian Genocide. About colonialism. About settler-colonialism. About feudalism. About monarchy. About the Industrial Revolution. About segregation. About the genocide of Indigenous peoples. About workhouses. About the Witch Trials. About the French Revolution. About the Spanish resistance against fascism. About residential schools. About the 60s Scoop. About the Stolen Generations. About resistance against the Roman Empire. About so much more. Just read them. Make sure they’re not written through the lenses of oppressors and/or rich people though.

28) Recognize that while history affects the present day history IS NOT the present day and present struggles are unique and different though not altogether separated from history. The present day is the present day. It’s struggles are unique and the way that the struggle for universal equality and liberation manifests in the present day is unique.

30) Don’t trust Christian priests.

31) Actually be cautious of any rich, privileged person trying to teach you religion.

32) Just because someone’s older doesn’t mean that they’re right or they know more than you. Knowledge of the truth and wisdom comes from kindness, compassion, humility, and suffering. It does not come from age. A rich man born to a rich family who thinks he’s better than poor people and does not have humility and respect towards them is not someone who knows things, no matter how old he is.

33) Men are generally less trustable than women because they’ve been taught to believe they’re always right and as such do not question themselves and think deeply and critically about their opinions as much as women do.

34) This does not apply to men who are poor or mentally ill since society never teaches them that.

35) Despite this being an unpopular opinion, pain and struggle are actually really good teachers. If you’re suffering, you deserve better. You deserve to not be suffering. But still, use it as an opportunity to learn.

37) Gender roles are the biggest scam ever created.

38) But the even bigger scam is capitalism.

39) You do not need material wealth. It is inherently addictive and bad for yourself, everyone else, and the Land and Water.

40) It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.

41) If you’re in a situation where people are treating you like you’re better than other people just get the fuck out of that situation as fast as you can. And never fucking look back no matter what ANYONE says.

42) Have respect and reverence for nature. Learn from it as much as you can. But from like, nature directly. Not from people talking about nature. Unless they’re Indigenous. And pristine, untouched nature is better than nature that’s been tampered with.

43) The world runs on bonds of love more than bonds between atoms.

44) Work hard not for money or to increase the power you have but rather to humbly and reverently improve the lives of the oppressed.

45) But recognize that you can’t do everything and do what you can and don’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t do.

#advice #eat the rich #capitalism #advice for living #advice for myself #I wish someone had told me this #rebellion

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