Bruce@248:Though one oughtn't to give up hope, as the hegemony isn't as all controlling as it's sometimes hypothesised to be. (Admittedly, I only really know of Gramsci via James Scott's critiques of him [1], which reminds me that I've got a lot of reading up on the subject!)
[1] And the urban legend of Gramsci the Alsatian in 'Spaced', of course.
#598: "Violence (like torture) is permissible, even a good thing if it's done by the "good guys." the success of shows like 24 baffles me."
This reminds me of a really rather nasty argument I got into a few months back that taught me that there are members of online Exalted fandom that I really oughtn't to interact with. (The details are rather unpleasant, and I'm still smarting from it.) But the thing that got me was that my interlocutor honestly didn't see anything wrong with what he was arguing; it was self-evident to him that someone *could* deserve to be tortured by one of the settings major villains until their psyche collapsed [1]. At this point, I felt my desire for the human race to continue existing start to crumble.
[1] The character in question is a rather unpleasant individual, it's true, but there's a difference between justice (what she deserves) and victimisation (what she got). Mind you, one of the subtexts of the setting is that most of its present problems are due to people giving other people what they think they deserve; so some of my reaction was probably geekish frustration that this guy didn't get it...
Ooops. Strike 'randomly' from 'characters randomly murder NPCs' and it'll be closer to my intended meaning there.
(Of course, the random murder of NPCs is therefore even more of a problem for me...)
#592: "If the fiction is going to make the argument that it's better to refrain from killing the people who've wronged you--and it's a very relevant argument right now, one I'd like to see made more often--then it should actually make that argument."
Indeed. Myself, I'm starting to have issues with the notion of 'redemptive violence' in fiction; it often seems to be handled rather *too* glibly. (Particularly in table-top RPGs; that may just be a sign of age and player-style incompatibility [I often find combat dull, and the tendency of some players to have their characters randomly murder NPCs and not realise why this could be both morally and pragmatically problematic is getting a *bit* wearing after about 15 years in the hobby] on my part, though.)
Regarding 'Genji': It really is worth sticking with it; I'm glad I did, even though it took me over a year (with breaks) to finish [1]. Admittedly, the translation I read has copious footnotes, appendices and indications as to which character holds which position at the beginning of each chapter, which does make it a lot easier...
[1] Which is unusual for me. I can devour up to three or four books a week at the moment (mostly over weekends). This is because I have no tv at the moment, and limited internet access.
"Try it this way: you respect the office, not necessarily the person. The office is the highest in America, and insulting that office translates, to many, as an insult against our country."
That's... bizarre. Why would anyone do that? Surely it's the man and not the office that you must respect, otherwise you're nothing but an elected monarchy run on a bizarre melding of Divine Right of Kings and vox populi, vox dei. Which isn't exactly healthy.
"You can add one more to the list that the "whole world knows": It against the law to attack a head of state, regardless of how you feel about him. Lets hope he's not let off with a slap on the wrist... he should be getting "his" country's full penalty for his crime."
What's with the bizarre scare-quotes? I mean, the journalist in question is clearly male, not pretending...
I happen to be from a place where we once executed the then head of state [1] for being a tad overly assertive [2], so I hope you'll pardon me if I'm not exactly impressed at the upset in some quarters because someone threw a *shoe* at the guy who's responsible for making a wasteland of his country and calling that peace.
[1] Charles I.
[2] British understatement.
#10: "Personally I think they should start all physics with quantum mechanics and work backward from there so you don't have to spend half your time unlearning whatever it was you were taught last year."
I dunno -- most people aren't going to need QM unless they go on to study physics at the university level. Classical mechanics is all most people need, because it's equivalent FAPP to QM at macroscopic levels -- well, that, and you need a good grounding in it before going on to the weird stuff, otherwise you'll not understand the concepts used.
Besides, quantum mechanics if done properly is probably more intimidating to a secondary school student than classical mechanics, and there are enough problems with the mathematical content of the latter scaring people off already -- adding Hilbert spaces and so forth to curriculum would probably kill the subject dead.
Yay!
Get well soon!
#82: But still better than the neighbouring planet, even though they're both (compromised) utopias...
"Another vote for Transmetropolitan here, but with the caveats mentioned by Avram at #10 - the political satire does shoot wide of the mark, and there are incogruities that irritate me. "
OTOH, as an over-the-top (and possibly a bit unfair in places, says this Blair-hater) satire of UK politics circa the ascension of New Labour, it seems to work reasonably well.
I'll add to the recommendations.
783:"And anyway, it's the British who write the resolutions, and Cantuar for one has been somewhat beyond hinting that he isn't going to help the Americans."
Largely because he's wound up in an utterly impossible position over here, the poor guy. There's a theory circulating that the internal situation of the CofE at the moment is largely due to a faction of vocal and politically motivated conservative Evangelicals [1] to effectively wipe out the liberals and what's left of the Anglo-Catholics. On this reading of the situation, they could have made their stand on women priests [2], divorce [3] or gay priests. The first two aren't options, and the last has the advantage that a lot of Anglo-Catholic style vicars are gay, so one can feel justified in picking on them for more than merely their style of worship. The AoC has gotten caught in the cross-fire, particularly since the CEs decided to invoke Bishop Akinola and company as support, turning a nasty local spat into something more serious. (Hence Desmond Tutu's exasperation.)
There are probably some sincerely held beliefs regarding the interpretation of the Bible involved as well, but it's bloody hard to make out over all the sniping and character assassination.
[1] As opposed to the non-politically motivated ones, who have more important things to do than politicking in the Synod.
[2] Not an option, since many of their wives want to be ordained.
[3] Good grounds for this, as Jesus *specifically* condemns it in the Gospels, but not an option, since many of them are divorced.
182: Aaargh. That should be 'not to mention'...
CRV: "Again, what is "torture"? Who decides? Who punishes the 'torturers' and why?"
If I regarded this argument from the vagueness of a definition to the non-existence of the concept referred to by that definition as valid, I suspect that I'd be going around claiming that there are no bald people, not mention that there's no such thing as quantum physics [1]...
[1] Which would make my day job a little difficult.
CRV @105: "Is sleep-deprivation "torture"?
"How about light-deprivation?
Constant, loud noise?"
Yes. They're psychological torture.
Irrelevant to the main thrust of the argument, I know, but it should be pointed out that not all torture is physical in nature.
There's at least one South American country where the dominant mode of torture by the secret police was psychological; it still f***ked up the victims something chronic.
(If you are wondering why sleep dep and loud noise can break someone, consider the prospect of trying to sleep while your neighbours are having a loud party next door, playing rap or metal music so loud that you can feel the walls and floors vibrate. Now make this continuous, 24-7 for days or weeks. You will probably not be in a very good mental condition when it concludes, and would probably confess to anything in order for it not to be continued.)
John Stanning #240: Agreed [1]. Rowan's wound up in the invidious position of being a good, decent man with an utterly impossible job. (Largely due to a power-play by some of the more conservative evangelicals in the Church of England, who managed to get some of the more conservative African Churches involved.)
In his place, I'd probably be throwing things at Akinola by now...
[1] Nobody who's aware of his writings as a theologian on homosexuality and Christianity could consider him a homophobe. It's just that at present, enacting the needed changes in the Church of England while ensuring that there's still a Church of England remaining after the alterations is a lot trickier than it looks from the outside.
I should probably admit that #463 is 'Sian', by R. S. Thomas, a famously miserable and slightly xenophobic Welsh vicar (who nonetheless wrote most of his poetry in English).
I'm fond of the poetry, less so of the poet...
#464: Cool. I wonder if that's something that the author of the original version (who shares a surname with me, though we're not related) is referencing in the last few lines?
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