Culture Political Correctness in Popular Media

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
You know, I fucking hate political correctness.



"The problem with lyrics stems from a primitive belief in this country that there are certain words in our language that will corrupt you instantaneously the moment they are uttered into the atmosphere. I mean, come on. Let's be reasonable about this. I mean, that's like animism, you know? I mean, it's so stupid that an idea like that persists in an industrial society. And because of these attitudes and because people have spent money to build agencies to make sure that there's this whole hierarchy of people waiting for these magic words to occur on the airwaves. They're just, y'know, they're hovering - you can't see 'em but they're all around here, you know? They're - they've got snipers up in all these things up here that shoot a mask over your mouth if you say anything. They have 'em in radio stations, they have 'em in all television stations, they have 'em everywhere." -Frank Zappa

Back in the old days, political correctness was the domain of conservatives. It really is funny how that completely fucking flip-flopped. SJWs lack the self-awareness to realize that they sound exactly like little moral watchdog grandmas from back in the day. There's a great article on this from six years back.


When I told them that at the fag-end of the last millennium I had spent my student days arguing against the very ideas they were now spouting — against the claim that gangsta rap turned black men into murderers or that Tarantino flicks made teens go wild and criminal — not so much as a flicker of reflection crossed their faces. ‘Back then, the people who were making those censorious, misanthropic arguments about culture determining behaviour weren’t youngsters like you,’ I said. ‘They were older, more conservative people, with blue rinses.’ A moment’s silence. Then one of the Stepfords piped up. ‘Maybe those people were right,’ he said. My mind filled with a vision of Mary Whitehouse cackling to herself in some corner of the cosmos.

Pretty much all this crap comes from the idea that fiction is more than just entertainment. SJWs have this notion that fiction strongly affects our belief systems, and therefore, we should strive to create fiction that depicts an ideal future in the hopes that a utopia will materialize as a result, or something along those lines. There's actually a word for this sort of thinking, and it's called didacticism. This debate over whether or not prose and narrative fiction should be art for the sake of art, or whether or not it should instruct people and coach them on their values is older than dirt.

I'll let Edgar Allan Poe explain, since he thought didacticism was trash:


It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea; and we Bostonians, very especially, have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true Poetic dignity and force:—but the simple fact is, that, would we permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified—more supremely noble than this very poem—this poem per se—this poem which is a poem and nothing more—this poem written solely for the poem's sake.

SJWs will whine and complain that everything is intrinsically political, you know? In their conception of the cosmos, even the refusal to make a political statement is, in itself, a political statement. If you were to write a story about the life and times of a Zen rock garden, I'm sure you could find an SJW critic who was willing to assign each stone their own race and gender. So, that's the first rule of SJW club. Everything has to be political. Everything is a political statement, no matter what. There's no such thing as art for the sake of artistic freedom, or narrative for the sake of narrative consistency.

In SJW-land, everything in a story is merely a reflection of the author's intentions. If a story contains a positive depiction of a character who's a bigot, then the author is a bigot. If a story contains a positive depiction of a character who's a fascist, then the author is a fascist. If a story contains a bunch of orcs that kidnap and rape fair maidens, then that means the author tacitly supports rape or is depicting a stereotypical version of swarthy barbarian hordes through the lens of colonialism or something. They have this kind of weird, superstitious idea that not only are authors incapable of depicting anything that goes against their belief system or personal experiences, but that the values expressed in fiction are a form of thought contagion.

You see where this is going? If you're a pacifist, then according to an SJW, you can't write about war. If you're white, you can't write about what it's like to be black. If you're a man, you can't write about the experiences of women, and so on and so forth. Basically, SJWs not only assume that people are so shallow that they believe literally every single thing they read, fictional or not, they also assume that people are incapable of imagining experiences that they've never had, or entertaining thoughts that they disagree with. They never really follow that logic to its conclusion, however. If a white person can't write about what it's like to be black, or a man can't write about what it's like to be a woman, then how can Tolkien write about what it's like to live in Middle-earth, given that he'd never actually lived there, because it doesn't exist? "Lived experiences" aren't necessary if someone has a little thing called an imagination.

SJWs have this very reductive idea of narrative as an art form where they view each narrative device and each trope as being intrinsically divisible into "good germs" and "bad germs", and this is where it really starts to get into magical thinking. When an SJW writes a story and they include some trope or another, they generally include it in the hope that it will teach the audience some form of moral lesson. Or, more to the point, the reason why people like Neil Druckmann write characters like Abby is because they hope that by some miracle, the simple fact of them writing this character will cause people like Abby to spontaneously appear in real life.

It's not even about role models. They just want their fantasies to come true, by osmosis. This is also why they dislike politically-incorrect things in fiction, like bigotry, gendered violence, et cetera, because those are "bad germs" and the more of those we have in fiction, the more those things will spontaneously appear in reality, apparently. This is what SJWs mean when they say "narratives do not exist in a void". What they mean to say is that we're all impressionable children and we copy every single thing we see in fictional contexts.

Well, I watched Terminator 2, but I didn't morph my mimetic polyalloy hands into blades and start stabbing people, and I watched Aliens and I didn't try sticking a facehugger on somebody and impregnating them with a chestburster to smuggle a Xenomorph off LV-426, and I watched American History X and I never curbstomped an African-American to death. Funny how that works.

See also, Dan Olson and the Thermian Argument, if you can stand to listen to this soy-addled moron speak for more than a minute.



Harold Bloom had to contend with Proto-SJW ass-monkeys back in the 70s and 80s, and he coined the term "School of Resentment" to describe them. Very fitting, if you ask me.


When, however, over the course of the 1980s a younger generation of professors aligned the humanities with identity politics (“No more Dead White Males!”), he couldn’t stand it. He called them the School of Resentment, a judgment derived from Nietzsche that attributed the values of the race-class-gender critics to the envy and anger of the mediocre when in the presence of greatness. They had replaced Emerson on the syllabus with a second-rate feminist novelist, he implied, because they couldn’t stand the fact of unequal talents in the world.

Back then, you had all these pseudo-Marxist morons going around, just like today, lamenting that the most treasured authors were people like Shakespeare and Goethe, who they denigrated as "dead white men", and they were trying to promote authors who wrote stuff in Swahili or whatever as an alternative.

And today, just like back then, they're the same preachy morons pushing the same stupid propaganda in place of actual artistic merit.

Most SJWs are, ironically, white, affluent, and college-educated. Whenever you confront them and suggest they were indoctrinated by their college professors in this nonsense, they always wheedle and prevaricate and try and claim that they came by their ideology rightly. Well, you know what? Google Trends shows otherwise.

This is what the term Social Justice looks like, since 2004:


It's like a heartbeat. The spikes coincide perfectly with the start of every semester.

And, just like the Proto-SJWs of the early 19th century who pestered Edgar Allan Poe with their didacticism, they're mostly concentrated in states full of prancing simps, like Vermont and Massachusetts.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
@Reveille
This reminds me of my previous talks or understanding of SJW's, kinda because I used to be a Proto-SJW type

Thing is, when it comes to entertainment, people have this feeling or idea that something has to do "More Than Entertainment"

It has to be something "relevant" to modern day, teach people "morals" via themes and "change the world"

"The Last of Us" has to be MORE than a game, it has to be something "relevant", something you can spend some time over-analyzing like that Wisecrack guy on Youtube

And for the things they want to censor or downgrade? Well, it's in part because they are "ashamed" of pandering to "baser instincts" whilst sacrificing "realism"

m11Ppe30t1sDWGgXXwEK3Nn8lw2zYK3zl0uxG4p0urk.jpg

And "reality" is below such ridiculous stuff like the "beauty" people love

Just look at that character who's based off an actual human female, said actual human female's boobs are too big and thus "unrealistic" or simply put "Above Average"

If what you say about "Reality Imitating Fiction" is true, then they want people to lower their standards or be ashamed of expecting stuff like women who are this "unrealistic" and to change beauty standards as well
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Back in the old days, political correctness was the domain of conservatives. It really is funny how that completely fucking flip-flopped. SJWs lack the self-awareness to realize that they sound exactly like little moral watchdog grandmas from back in the day. There's a great article on this from six years back.
OK, let's step back a bit.

"Political correctness" has never been an aspect of the Conservatives. "Political correctness" as a term has always referred to leftist ideological policing of the expression of ideas and, as a term, originated in discussions surrounding Soviet political purges. Political correctness has always involved the policing of political ideas and while one could argue that the various Red Scares were a form of Right wing political correctness you're conflating political correctness with two different, but not quite the same, things: media gatekeeping and moral panics.

Firstly, let's be frank, most everyone agrees to a degree of media gatekeeping. Do you think that children should be allowed to watch porn of a heavily violent movie? Likely not, that's gatekeeping media due to viewer maturity and is a widely accepted idea. Much of the concern with music, television violence, and portrayals of sex that have come from the right in the 80s and 90s was more focused on gatekeeping and concerns that children were being exposed to ideas in media that they were not really mature enough to handle. The push back against "gangsta rap" wasn't due to adults listening to it, it was due to children and teens listening to it and parents being unhappy that while a theater wouldn't let their kids into see a movie that used language like those songs used, a store had no qualms with selling them an album.

This leads us to the second idea of the "moral panic". Despite what the media has told you, moral panics in the 80s and 90s were widely bipartisan and often pushed by the media themselves, not by the religious right or those terrible conservatives. I've broken down how the three best remember moral panics of the 80s and 90s were bipartisan before. And always remember, more people watched the 60s minutes anti-DnD special than likely ever saw the Chick comic before the internet.

Now yes, moral panics came from both sides, but it's purely revisionist history to claim that the moral gatekeeping and panics of the 80s and 90s were the domain of the Right. They weren't, they were bipartisan affairs that has been historically revised to have been pushed by the right in order to demonize them.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
OK, let's step back a bit.

"Political correctness" has never been an aspect of the Conservatives. "Political correctness" as a term has always referred to leftist ideological policing of the expression of ideas and, as a term, originated in discussions surrounding Soviet political purges. Political correctness has always involved the policing of political ideas and while one could argue that the various Red Scares were a form of Right wing political correctness you're conflating political correctness with two different, but not quite the same, things: media gatekeeping and moral panics.

Firstly, let's be frank, most everyone agrees to a degree of media gatekeeping. Do you think that children should be allowed to watch porn of a heavily violent movie? Likely not, that's gatekeeping media due to viewer maturity and is a widely accepted idea. Much of the concern with music, television violence, and portrayals of sex that have come from the right in the 80s and 90s was more focused on gatekeeping and concerns that children were being exposed to ideas in media that they were not really mature enough to handle. The push back against "gangsta rap" wasn't due to adults listening to it, it was due to children and teens listening to it and parents being unhappy that while a theater wouldn't let their kids into see a movie that used language like those songs used, a store had no qualms with selling them an album.

This leads us to the second idea of the "moral panic". Despite what the media has told you, moral panics in the 80s and 90s were widely bipartisan and often pushed by the media themselves, not by the religious right or those terrible conservatives. I've broken down how the three best remember moral panics of the 80s and 90s were bipartisan before. And always remember, more people watched the 60s minutes anti-DnD special than likely ever saw the Chick comic before the internet.

Now yes, moral panics came from both sides, but it's purely revisionist history to claim that the moral gatekeeping and panics of the 80s and 90s were the domain of the Right. They weren't, they were bipartisan affairs that has been historically revised to have been pushed by the right in order to demonize them.
In short, political correctness has nothing to do with the traditional left versus right, or liberal versus conservative political paradigms. Rather, it has to do with libertarian versus authoritarian, and is specifically the aim of the latter.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
OK, let's step back a bit.

"Political correctness" has never been an aspect of the Conservatives. "Political correctness" as a term has always referred to leftist ideological policing of the expression of ideas and, as a term, originated in discussions surrounding Soviet political purges. Political correctness has always involved the policing of political ideas and while one could argue that the various Red Scares were a form of Right wing political correctness you're conflating political correctness with two different, but not quite the same, things: media gatekeeping and moral panics.

Firstly, let's be frank, most everyone agrees to a degree of media gatekeeping. Do you think that children should be allowed to watch porn of a heavily violent movie? Likely not, that's gatekeeping media due to viewer maturity and is a widely accepted idea. Much of the concern with music, television violence, and portrayals of sex that have come from the right in the 80s and 90s was more focused on gatekeeping and concerns that children were being exposed to ideas in media that they were not really mature enough to handle. The push back against "gangsta rap" wasn't due to adults listening to it, it was due to children and teens listening to it and parents being unhappy that while a theater wouldn't let their kids into see a movie that used language like those songs used, a store had no qualms with selling them an album.

This leads us to the second idea of the "moral panic". Despite what the media has told you, moral panics in the 80s and 90s were widely bipartisan and often pushed by the media themselves, not by the religious right or those terrible conservatives. I've broken down how the three best remember moral panics of the 80s and 90s were bipartisan before. And always remember, more people watched the 60s minutes anti-DnD special than likely ever saw the Chick comic before the internet.

Now yes, moral panics came from both sides, but it's purely revisionist history to claim that the moral gatekeeping and panics of the 80s and 90s were the domain of the Right. They weren't, they were bipartisan affairs that has been historically revised to have been pushed by the right in order to demonize them.

I could go on a long spiel about this, but I'm going to keep this simple, instead.

What I want to know is, how in the fuck did we get from here:



To here:



Where's the "Transgressive Left" that I remember from a couple decades ago? Or was that just an illusion?

See, the way I remember it, the Right had Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh, and the Left had Bill Hicks and George Carlin.

Did I hallucinate all that? Was it just some fever dream? Because now, the weird, authoritarian squares are on the Left, and the Right is transgressive and radical.

I want a straight answer, for god's sake. What the fuck happened?
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
I could go on a long spiel about this, but I'm going to keep this simple, instead.

What I want to know is, how in the fuck did we get from here:



To here:



Where's the "Transgressive Left" that I remember from a couple decades ago? Or was that just an illusion?

See, the way I remember it, the Right had Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh, and the Left had Bill Hicks and George Carlin.

Did I hallucinate all that? Was it just some fever dream? Because now, the weird, authoritarian squares are on the Left, and the Right is transgressive and radical.

I want a straight answer, for god's sake. What the fuck happened?

The mask came off the left.

Yes Kicks and Carlin existed, they were useful patsies for the authoritarian left to push people to vote for them over the nasty mean right wingers.

The modern left in the US with its authoritarian goals of elitist domination over the plebs goes back to Woodrow Wilson for goodness sake. Originally it tried to usurp the religious impulse of the US to forward it's goals (see the alliance between the Progressives and the Teetotalers in the push to pass Prohibition). This alliance fell apart under prohibition when it became obvious that the elites were basically ignoring prohibition while enforcing it on others. What was discovered then is that the moralists, and just about everyone else who wasn't an elite, didn't like double standards of morality between the common people and the elite. Thus the authoritarian elites changed tactics and who they aligned with, jettisoning the religious moralists as soon as they could and instead embracing the libertines.

The transgressive left, as you call them, the libertines who basically just wanted sex, drugs, and rock and roll and didn't want to deal with social condemnation for those pursuits were always just patsies for the authoritarians on the left. Remember, there's long been connections between the Democrats and Communists in ways you really cannot fathom. It was not until irrefutable proof came out that Democrats finally began condemning Alger Hiss for instance, and before then they defended him and held him up as a champion of the left. The Democrats have, throughout the 20th century, ALWAYS had an authoritarian bend. Always remember, the greatest Democrat of the 20th century (FDR) practiced central planning, put people in concentration camps, and mandated what farmers could grown on their own farms for their own private use.

The only area of "liberty" that the Democrats embraced in the 2nd half of the 20th century is that of sexual libertineness. In all other areas of freedom, they have, when they have power, pushed for limitations. On free speech you saw it all the way back with Wilson, the ur-Progressive of the 20th century, famously and shamelessly pushed propaganda and jailed anti-war protesters, and Democrats were as involved in the House Committee on Un-American Activities as Republicans, using it to go after Facists or anything they thought was adjacent to fascist, as well as altering the structure of tax exempt status for religious organizations to silence them in regards to politics, and, as I noted with earlier links, Kennedy silencing the first wave of right wing radio that was critical of his policies.

The authoritarian left likes no competition for social power, and used the sexual revolution and the resulting libertine culture to attack the social power of the Christian Church in the US. Why do you think all the "gay rights" stuff didn't effectively end with same-sex marriage and instead you now have the left trying to force Christians to bake cakes, pay for abortions and birth control, and a slew of other things which are clearly against their conscious and individual liberties. It's because it is about making those groups bend the knee and be silent.

Long story short, the transgressive left were nothing but unknowing patsies for the progressive authoritarians, and now that the progressive left thinks it is in the dominate social power position, they are no longer needed and are being discarded in order to finish off the religious right and other social systems that may stand counter to authoritarian progressivism.
 

Lanmandragon

Well-known member
In short, political correctness has nothing to do with the traditional left versus right, or liberal versus conservative political paradigms. Rather, it has to do with libertarian versus authoritarian, and is specifically the aim of the latter.
It's explicitly left wing is what he's saying. Now thier is right wing cenorship and such. "PC" has always specifically referred to left cenorship though. Is the meat of his post personally I don't see the difference cenorship is cenorship. Being precise is his point I think.
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
I want a straight answer, for god's sake. What the fuck happened?

The right has a timeless set of principles and when the world has inverted itself and transgressed beyond those, remaining true to them is inherently itself transgressive. This is the absolute beauty of the Endeavour of Fiume. It was an absolutely transgressive act because it was a stroke against the international liberal consensus then being formed by the international elites of America, Britain and France in the wake of the First World War, and it provides a model for how the right-wing objects to the normalisation of the liberal values and ethos. Likewise, Mishima's return of militarism as an acceptable subject in Japanese society by the 25 November Incident was another one of those strokes against normalisation (The Mishima Incident was particularly brilliant because nobody was harmed except for members of the Shield Society themselves). So I dispute the idea that it's somehow "new" for the right to be transgressive. The glorious decadence of the 1922 Modern Art Week giving rise to the Brasilian Integralists is another example of the fundamental spontaneity of right-wing intellectualism.

So it isn't the right-wing that changed, it's the United States that changed, since you're really focused on a primarily American discourse. I regard it as a fundamental change because this kind of spiritual passion is strongly rooted in a sense of nationalism which the United States long did not have, but the process of "enculturation" of the settler immigrant population is now proceeding to the point that a real American "nation" in the ethno-national sense is beginning to form, and the continuation of this process, if not interrupted by the left, will complete the integration of the culture of the Euro-origin majority in this country (which is presently, culturally, the leader of the world) with its ecological imperatives in the Americas. So, from American conservatives, you are beginning to see behaviour more like of conservatives in other countries who have a preestablished ethnonationalism, and a reduced commitment to a civic consensus in the United States which is now being used to actively harm their sense of community, family and self.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
It's explicitly left wing is what he's saying. Now thier is right wing cenorship and such. "PC" has always specifically referred to left cenorship though. Is the meat of his post personally I don't see the difference cenorship is cenorship. Being precise is his point I think.
That's not exactly right.

"Censorship" is, specifically, saying that something cannot be said. It merely bans ideas from being spoken about.

"Political Correctness" is actually more than just that. Not only does it prohibit the expression of certain ideas, it also mandates the expression of other ideas. It goes further than mere Censorship, as it's founded on the idea language controls thought and thus if you control how people speak about an idea you control how they will act. I mean, look, Orwell's 1984 was published in explicit reaction to the rising tide of political correctness in the International Left in the 1930s and 40s (in part inspired by what Orwell had observed among the Anarchic Communists in the Spanish Civil War).

My other point is also that the Right wing, in the US, is much MUCH less censorious than the Left, despite what everyone seems to think.
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
I would...perhaps add, perhaps distract, but I feel it worth mention...that the search for 'proper' portrayal and representation is fully-capable of rounding back around to being infantilizing or insulting in its own, unique way. The stereotypical example perhaps being 'Dances with Wolves' both for being emblematic of the 'white person who does [x] as good (or better) than the culture they're in' (see: Last Samurai for a more modern rendition, or Avatar for it INNNN SPACCCEEEE!), as well as for in the process twisting things to suit a new narrative that's...also inaccurate and insulting (specifically to Dances with Wolves you have the presentation of other native tribes as somehow the peculiarly brutal and violent ones that are aggressors in comparison to the Sioux. Which is...uh...some creative fiction).

Of course, there is point that 'it's fiction' and one of course does not have to take that didactic presentation as their own--and spurring interest in previously unexplored or lesser-known cultures or historical periods and whatnot has a value of its own--but the point being that even within a presentation aiming for a 'correctness' you're going to have simplification and biased narrative simply by the natural demands of writing a story, and whenever you simplify a culture or historical tale, you'll lose nuance and depth.

For a modern instance somewhat reflective of such?


To describe: A Muslim woman who is part of a...fire department, I believe...Loses her hijab in the course of her duties. Her coworkers yell to 'form a wall' in front of her to block her from public view until she can put her covering back on.

Now, ignoring realism issues because its fiction, you still have, from a correctness standpoint, the twin problem of 'These other people coming to her 'rescue' are coming off as incredibly patronizing--especially in an American context' (at least...that's my reaction, maybe that's off-mark), and particularly when combined with the other detail that 'Islamic hijab requirements are debated-over within Islam'.
Pair that with there being another strain of thought that would hold both the 'rescue' and the 'hijab' as demeaning to women alongside the fact that it can have the 'white savior' criticism thrown at it (well...'American savior', since the firefighters aren't all white, but point stands) and...How, precisely, are these attempts at 'correctness' and enforcing the right thought-patterns and ideas supposed to work in practice when there's legit disagreement concerning what those are?

From there and perhaps more relevant to the discussion...You could probably get into how (as others have) cultural power-structures like Hollywood are dominated by the left-of-center and stuff like the Hays Code was just an earlier attempt at enforcing the 'right' values and ideas by people with different ideas of what those were. Similarly in the 90s you had the Tipper Gore variant of leftward-leaning action that was looking at rock'n'roll and rap for their naughty lyrics...One could argue expression itself contesting those power structures ideas of morality at any time have been more the 'line-crossing' contest--and where before violence and fighting the power were the things crossing that line, the modern era has weirdly circled-back to some old things to present--but also created NEW lines on both ends of things. Sexuality can't be portrayed too positively in dress, for instance, because it's demeaning and what-have-you. At the same time, a character who is abstinent until marriage or very modest in dress will be near-invariably portrayed negatively as prudish and puritan (with some religious exceptions, perhaps...*looks up*...if the writers feel like patting themselves on the back about their portrayal of Islamic women, for instance).
It's...such a narrow lane of acceptability in some places that transgressing on it from left or right has become easier to do (Dawkins, for instance, does this in religion nowadays the same way he did in the 00s, the religion just changed).
 
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Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
I want a straight answer, for god's sake. What the fuck happened?
That's very simple. Back when the left was a relatively small revolutionary movement on the rise, if was all for "transgressing the cultural norms" and "unlimited freedom of expression", because in practical terms that meant transgressing upon the other side's norms, while it wasn't the traditional culture that needed the protection of idealist freedom of expression, it was them. So overall, it was no skin off their backs, just benefits for them.

But now that they have accumulated some degree of support and power, these statements are no longer strictly true. Sure, they were transgressive, but it was only a half truth - just because they were for transgressing the norms of their despised enemy, doesn't mean that they don't have a set of their own norms, and that they will not zealously guard these norms and impose them on others whenever they have the power to do so - something they obviously didn't have back when they were tolerant and transgressive.
Some people may have gotten persuaded that this was truly something the "transgressives" of the day truly believed in rather than a tactical one with a set of exceptions in fine print, but now everyone knows.

And it gets better - that's just 2 sets of cultural guidelines we are talking about here, while there exist many more, and variations that can change with region and time. Islamic norms are probably the most well known yet strikingly different set from the other two i could bring up.

The third aspect to this is that through being somewhat true and most often involved in notable historical cases of heavy handed action for enforcement of such cultural norms, in USA especially such action is associated with religious Christian morality of common local varieties (prohibition, satanic panic, debates around homosexuals and abortion).

This in turn made it harder for people to notice and recognize a non-religious (at least technically) movement doing exactly the same thing. In reality, its hardly unique to "typical" religions - there are non-theistic religions in Asia that have performed the same social function for millenia, and going into further extreme, completely secular communism and its variations like Juche each have a clear set of their own norms too. What is commonly called progressivism or cultural marxism is also one of such movements, regardless of its lack of clear (though some sections of the ideologically adjecent and tightly allied green movement do get disturbingly close) incorporation of divine or otherwise supernatural elements in its worldview and justification of its norms.
 

*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
That's very simple. Back when the left was a relatively small revolutionary movement on the rise, if was all for "transgressing the cultural norms" and "unlimited freedom of expression", because in practical terms that meant transgressing upon the other side's norms, while it wasn't the traditional culture that needed the protection of idealist freedom of expression, it was them. So overall, it was no skin off their backs, just benefits for them.

But now that they have accumulated some degree of support and power, these statements are no longer strictly true. Sure, they were transgressive, but it was only a half truth - just because they were for transgressing the norms of their despised enemy, doesn't mean that they don't have a set of their own norms, and that they will not zealously guard these norms and impose them on others whenever they have the power to do so - something they obviously didn't have back when they were tolerant and transgressive.
Some people may have gotten persuaded that this was truly something the "transgressives" of the day truly believed in rather than a tactical one with a set of exceptions in fine print, but now everyone knows.

And it gets better - that's just 2 sets of cultural guidelines we are talking about here, while there exist many more, and variations that can change with region and time. Islamic norms are probably the most well known yet strikingly different set from the other two i could bring up.

The third aspect to this is that through being somewhat true and most often involved in notable historical cases of heavy handed action for enforcement of such cultural norms, in USA especially such action is associated with religious Christian morality of common local varieties (prohibition, satanic panic, debates around homosexuals and abortion).

This in turn made it harder for people to notice and recognize a non-religious (at least technically) movement doing exactly the same thing. In reality, its hardly unique to "typical" religions - there are non-theistic religions in Asia that have performed the same social function for millenia, and going into further extreme, completely secular communism and its variations like Juche each have a clear set of their own norms too. What is commonly called progressivism or cultural marxism is also one of such movements, regardless of its lack of clear (though some sections of the ideologically adjecent and tightly allied green movement do get disturbingly close) incorporation of divine or otherwise supernatural elements in its worldview and justification of its norms.

Isn’t that just another way of saying that the Left has grown more conservative now that they have something to actually conserve?

I remember how people thought D&D was satanic and a gateway into the occult. Now, SJWs think D&D is racist and Orcs are a stereotypical depiction of black people.

I remember when Tipper Gore said our music needed warning labels because it was obscene. Now, SJWs are trying to take over metal because they don’t like the anti-humanist message.

I remember when Jack Thompson said all our games were violent and corrupting the youth. Now, I have to put up with the likes of Anita Sarkeesian calling them sexist.

Back in the day, as Republicans and Democrats alike tried censoring "filth", the Left was there, supporting sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Well, where are the people who championed transgression back then? Where are they now?
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
Isn’t that just another way of saying that the Left has grown more conservative now that they have something to actually conserve?

I remember how people thought D&D was satanic and a gateway into the occult. Now, SJWs think D&D is racist and Orcs are a stereotypical depiction of black people.
Kinda. Though put in that context, its less conservative, as in defensive action, and more of leaning in onto a so far apolitical subculture that does not follow nor advertise their norms\values\virtues close enough for their liking.
Classic case of "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. "
Back in the day, as Republicans and Democrats alike tried censoring "filth", the Left was there, supporting sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Well, where are the people who championed transgression back then? Where are they now?
Does anyone ever support transgression in general? Usually it just turns out to be support of transgression against some specific norm(s), while having no interest in transgressing against others, and being against transgression of own ones - all this typically rooted in their own cultural background, preferences and political goals or sympathies if they have such.
 

LifeisTiresome

Well-known member
Isn’t that just another way of saying that the Left has grown more conservative now that they have something to actually conserve?
So conserving something is bad and progress is always good?

I have seen progressives say to change anime and video games and that this is good and if you oppose them, you are someone who wants to preserve the status quo at all costs.

As for the rest of your comment,

Let me show you something. Something a feminist aka a left winger has said.


Sally Miller Gearhart (born April 15, 1931) is an American teacher, feminist, science-fiction writer, and political activist.[1] In 1973, she became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women and gender study programs in the country.[2] She later became a nationally known gay rights activist.[2]

Gearhart has made a variety of inflammatory statements, including one suggesting that "the proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race", made in her speech essay "The Future-If There is One-Is Female".[3]

In her early career, Gearhart took part in a series of seminars at San Francisco State University, where feminist scholars were critically discussed issues of rape, slavery, and the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Gearhart outlines a three-step proposal for female-led social change:

I) Every culture must begin to affirm a female future.

II) Species responsibility must be returned to women in every culture.

III) The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.

Gearhart does not base this radical proposal on the idea that men are innately violent or oppressive, but rather on the "real danger is in the phenomenon of male-bonding, that commitment of groups of men to each other whether in an army, a gang, a service club, a lodge, a monastic order, a corporation, or a competitive sport." Gearhart identifies the self-perpetuating, male-exclusive reinforcement of power within these groups as corrosive to female-led social change. Thus, if "men were reduced in number, the threat would not be so great and the placement of species responsibility with the female would be assured."

Gearhart, a dedicated pacifist, recognized that this kind of change could not be achieved through mass violence. On the critical question of how women could achieve this, Gearhart argues that it is by women's own capacity for reproduction that the ratio of men to women can be changed though the technologies of cloning or ovular merging, both of which would only produce female births. She argues that as women take advantage of these reproductive technologies, the sex ratio would change over generations.
[15]

Well look at this. Lets eugenics until only men are 10% of the population and everything is owned and controlled by women and even better, men only groups are bad and must be destroyed which is exactly what feminism has done. Funny that.

Isn't it possible that the leftists/feminists who fucking rule Academia and media have been fucking lying to us all these years?!

And better yet, I have seen a reddit post where a guy talks about how on a feminist subreddit, people he was debating against talked about masturbating to him getting raped.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
Isn’t that just another way of saying that the Left has grown more conservative now that they have something to actually conserve?

I remember how people thought D&D was satanic and a gateway into the occult. Now, SJWs think D&D is racist and Orcs are a stereotypical depiction of black people.

I remember when Tipper Gore said our music needed warning labels because it was obscene. Now, SJWs are trying to take over metal because they don’t like the anti-humanist message.

I remember when Jack Thompson said all our games were violent and corrupting the youth. Now, I have to put up with the likes of Anita Sarkeesian calling them sexist.

Back in the day, as Republicans and Democrats alike tried censoring "filth", the Left was there, supporting sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Well, where are the people who championed transgression back then? Where are they now?

Slight difference, as pointed out before, Political Correctness doesn't just censor, it actively enforces certain changes

And so, it maintains the illusion of being "fellow fans" and they just want you all to "grow up" and realize how you are supposed to do MORE than entertaining people

You're supposed to "inspire" them and "teach" them

It just so happens what they want to inspire and teach people to be isn't really so nice and heroic, if anything

ERgW5NjWkAEJl7f.jpg

She almost got that driver killed, she's lucky that he's not dead. And she destroyed something a criminal wasn't using for fucks sake

Zao1LLoWwMxPsl81hdv7eYj1OuyH9B8lMyNKETWpgzBP7_qiTaXptor_D4qUfnKxKmA3xdGGi627vjup2p27YpVpTXhUYsVqKoP1xn3IlRZlatW6iRocMGjrH0glsazDbTcNhey-bQ=s0


v6kfXjLvphXp1Ru23PGZS5_7DeRQJoKcru8_kGUXJh3ntsJLI775V6AJjvmFQIbJiqt_WF9UTslnPw7m1xmoaOcTP_gubBbVFIZDXhB-aoF8oxJ9JMcKYKh_hsVgbVsx1w6m5-tM2Q=s0

The latter is their wet dream

And yeah, she's depicted as going "evil" but the stuff she's done is something you're supposed to definitely root for

If you disagree with this stuff and point out whatever terrible side-effects or how people need stuff like those guns, you're a fucking racist

That's how far we've come. They're redefining heroism.
 
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*THASF*

The Halo and Sonic Fan
Obozny
That's how far we've come. They're redefining heroism.

That's not so much redefining heroism as it is lazily ripping one's plot from the headlines. This is how you write a very, very dated story.

Timeless fiction is about principles, not about specific events. I could write a story about slavery in the Congo, or I could write a story about slavery on the planet Snorglox in the year 3133. One is a real place with a real and ongoing event, while the other is the general idea behind it. One will be forgotten in the fullness of time, while the other will always be current and relevant.

This is why Aldous Huxley and George Orwell are still readable to this day, and why so many of their contemporaries are laughable, forgotten bores.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
That's not so much redefining heroism as it is lazily ripping one's plot from the headlines. This is how you write a very, very dated story.

Timeless fiction is about principles, not about specific events.

What about how it seems I see guys repeatedly comparing the Stormcloaks from Elder Scrolls V Skyrim to NeoNazi's or Alt-Right types?

Not exactly from the headlines but they keep making a big deal about Nords disliking Dunmer & Argonians. Probably to do with the term "Nord" to begin with and being white and sorta xenophobic

Surprised not many make a big deal about Dunmer enslaving Argonians these days

Part of the possible problem is that when people think of slavery and racism, it's mostly just Whites doing it. Doubt many are gonna make a big deal about the fucking Romans doing it.
 

Lanmandragon

Well-known member
What about how it seems I see guys repeatedly comparing the Stormcloaks from Elder Scrolls V Skyrim to NeoNazi's or Alt-Right types?

Not exactly from the headlines but they keep making a big deal about Nords disliking Dunmer & Argonians. Probably to do with the term "Nord" to begin with and being white and sorta xenophobic

Surprised not many make a big deal about Dunmer enslaving Argonians these days
The thalmor are Nazis not the Nords. The Nords could be argued and in.my opinion are pretty racist. This doesn'tave anything to do with "PC" rather just playing the game. The Nords own words and actions are why people think they're racist. That being said anyone sincerely using the term "alt-right". Should be ignored as an ideologue because they're gojng to call pretty much anything bigotry. Sometimes a spade is just a spade and not propaganda.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
The thalmor are Nazis not the Nords. The Nords could be argued and in.my opinion are pretty racist. This doesn'tave anything to do with "PC" rather just playing the game. The Nords own words and actions are why people think they're racist. That being said anyone sincerely using the term "alt-right". Should be ignored as an ideologue because they're gojng to call pretty much anything bigotry. Sometimes a spade is just a spade and not propaganda.

Funny you should say that about the Thalmor, I think people forget how the Nazi's worked with Italians, Japanese and people of Middle-Eastern descent and Hitler liked Islam

The Thalmor have Bosmer and Khajiit as part of the Aldmeri Dominion, the latter is even more "impure" or a divergence from Aldmeris

That said, aside from some xenophobia, most Nords look to be pretty apathetic and even the openly racist aren't advocating genocide or doing much effort to make their lives hell

Plus, Dunmer and Nords from the TES-Lore I remember, don't really get along to begin with, and had border problems before
 

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