Scienceguru / Texts
Order by: date ↑ - rating ↑Darn. Last I heard the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions were um... taught in history class. I think one or two people may've even written a term paper on them. You shoulda gone with the original idea. Not guts, no glory. (Such as glory is).
"But also, you can bet that we're being set up to flag and harass a fake n00b, for reasons that I hope are sound"
You gotta be kidding. Can't get much more evidence than that. You must be starting to bore yourselves.
And hiding negative comments? On an open source site?
Okay. But only because I like the cats :>
No biggie, but the 10th of May is a Saturday, not a Sunday.
Might want to fix that :>
Person stealing my sign-in name - lol, you don't need to take what I wrote, and re-post it to the same thread three days later. It's already there.
And sadly it will take a honking lot of text to address, but there are a few things that need to be said. I'll try to be as brief as I can, but may fail :>
I'm not going to debate that there were a lot of conversations going on: there were. But there's something a little disingenous about posting something in a public place and then expressing total disinterest in the comments about it. Why post it if you don't want anybody to see it? I don't seriously believe you or anybody else here is *that* obsessed with points or getting to level 8. There is a bit of a game being played with regards to tremendous interest in hearing about how awesome praxes are and feigned indifference to hearing about how not-awesome they are. It strikes me as a false note, FWIW.
In terms of assessing people by your own standards: isn't life a process of figuring out that everyone else *isn't* just like you? Not at all. People have totally different experiences that make them react to things in totally different ways. So it isn't going to work to act as if everyone is just like you. That's where the golden rule falls down as an operating module. You may not mind at all being treated in a way that really upsets someone else. Does that make them crazy? Does that mean you can dismiss them out of hand?
If you don't know them very well, that's what you do. That's what we all do. Because dealing with difference is exhausting. But as you put it, when it was someone you *knew* - you paid more attention.
But you can't have a community unless you treat everyone in that community as if they are someone you *know* - i.e. someone whose differences from you will be acknowledged. I think you got the reaction you got because you acted as if members of your on-line community (it's not mine, but it is yours) were not acknowledged as such.
And theoretically if this some advanced model of enlightenment and community and collaboration and free, unfettered activity, it shouldn't be dismissing human differences as too trivial to be paid attention to: as that's the model of the oppressive, difference-hating, lemming society.
I'm gonna skip the art definition part as other people have addressed it in detail and go on the "hardest subject" as it's more compelling to me.
First of all, I'm not a fan of prefacing an answer by saying "now I'm a dickhead and I'm going to seem like a misogynist fucktard". If that's the direction that you're going with an argument, it's a pretty good indication that you ought to STOP RIGHT THERE. Because misogynist fucktardness is not, ever, the truth. It's prejudice, bias, discrimination and falsehood. Is there ever a good answer to a question that makes you seem like a racist bigot? Or a queer-hater? Of course not. it's a pretty big indicator that you're on the wrong track. Misogyny means the belief that women by category are inferior to men. If you're saying something that "sounds that way" - it's not a good thing that you're saying. And more to the point, it's not a true thing that you are saying because the truth is that women are not inferior to men.
Of course women have used their sexual power over het men. They're not stupid, after all. Any entity that makes .79 on the dollar needs all the help they can get and is gonna use whatever they got to try to even out that built-in disadvantage. Since we're talking about the *history of art*, lets be a little more real. Women were chattel. They belonged to their husband like cows. They couldn't vote. 25% of them died in childbirth before their 30th birthday, often perishing in the delivery of their rapist's child. And *that* was in civilized Europe.
So you say what's wrong with objectifying women's bodies as a category and saying complimentary things like how beautiful their sexual parts are when they're young and nubile? They like that. Look how they pose and preen for us. How is it different than saying "all cats are graceful?". I'm gonna argue it isn't different at all - it's the same frigging thing.
Besides the obvious point that not all cats are graceful (some are klutzes, some are old and sick and deformed) and if the cats could talk, I'm betting they'd kinda prefer to be appreciated as individuals rather than as a species: the reality is that no matter how graceful their idealized form might be: they die by the millions every year in nightmarish shelters because nobody will give them a home. And living creatures need individual nurture and care, not idealized objectivity that doesn't save them from the gas chamber. So all these vague compliments - don't do them any good.
Women needed health care, a vote, their personal freedom, a room of their own, a way to earn a living, the autonomy of their own bodies from rape and unwanted childbirth. Alot of them still do. And they all need to earn the same damn dollar for a dollar's work. Need that a lot more than odes to their breasts. You can't eat an ode to your breast.
So these paens to parts: is it any wonder women read them as a re-affirmation of a damnable deal: lame compliments instead of meeting actual needs? Worshipping the ideal form while kicking to the curb the real women who stands in front of you? Not only kicking her to curb and neglecting her needs or actively abusing her, but having the frigging audacity to do it while singing the praises of "her" species and holding the mantle of a lover and admirer of women?
I'm not saying this praxis did that, but it sure brought up some bad societal memories.
Which brings us to preening and posing: if you're smart and you've got a bad deal, there isn't anything to do but play the angles you got. And that's what any self-respecting human being does under rotten circumstances: use the weapons at hand. And male lust is a weapon pretty women have. It's dumb as a rock though to confuse the angry, cynical use of sexual appeal to climb to a slightly better position in life as anything but what it is. Rage. Rage is not power. Rage is a reaction to lack of power.
What's repulsive is the lack of recognition of what all that preening and posing is about. Sure it's a choice. Sure it's a route to empowerment. It's an angry, hopeless, desperate, cynical and bitter choice. That's what women see. And they see the stupidity of the men that fall for it and say "how beautiful". Its the exact opposite of freely given sexuality that is a positive choice and not about lack of power. Which is what women find greatness and beauty and art in the exalted sense in.
So it's a difference in narrative. When you define as great images of objectified powerlessness that represent bad choices, you negate the difference between the two. Which negates the female experience. Which makes the "compliment" a decidedly uncomfortable one at best.
Wow, a lame impersonator, lol.
I'm flattered.
Not my post, I'm afraid :>
What a contrite wasted used of time. I think that this is drivel. I mean frigging dumb. Really what we need to be doing is changing the world. First I'm going to go and read all the other praxes.
Doties atpakaļ uz to, kur jums sākās no un izcelt tekstu. Ziņa būs tur starp līnijām.