I think we are seeing a cultural shift even now but only time will tell. If only more people were aware of political philosophy, the reasons FOR their political, um, reasoning? it would make determinations more reasonable. I think that is the problem; reason or lack of it, specifically what constitutes living life well. With consumerism and the national drive for growth (simply growth doesn’t necessitate an essential good) it would do people well to consider that happiness borne on the fleeting doesn’t instill in them a sense of self accomplishment because all these things are susceptible to being taken away at any time. Only that knowledge which is self acquired and which allows someone to weather all circumstances will lead to their true happiness. In the mean time, the majority that fixate on the false happiness of “things,” the expense of which they forgo the social contract, will continue to live on the tipping point of ruin and a return to the heightened possibility of a short life and a violent and brutal death in the Natural State, as mentioned by Thomas Hobbes.
So not all bad then.
Considering whose definition of sane. The sad thing is that, it could be argued that very few of these murderous, misogynist, racist scumbags are actually mentally ill. Indeed it (the insanity plea defense) probably does as much a grave disservice to the genuinely mad as it does to the ability to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.
Crazy people cannot be held accountable for their actions. Every civilised person recognises that mental illness requires care. The people who perpetrate these horrific crimes, constituted against specific communities, are not crazy and should not be treated as such. They are terrorists of a new form that creates it’s own grievances as it goes along, modulating these chimerae according to circumstance.There are no need for ‘cells’ in this connected age.
Strife for it’s own sake. To create fear among the civility and the love of the whip and the hand that wields it.
That’s just Racism and Sexism glued together.
How seriously do the cops and media take those groups?
Neo-Nazis: nope, the US cops only ever investigate those guys extremely reluctantly. They do spend a lot of time guarding their rallies, though.
KKK: see above. Cops and Klan work hand in hand.
Daesh: inconsistent. Hysterical opposition at some times, tacit support at others.
There are some underlying problems to address before the reformist approaches have a chance to work.
Except with literal nazis and people who want to murder women for not having sex with them, and also guys who feel that they can’t compete with everyone else who isn’t exactly like themselves.
I… Just… Wow. I mean… Fuck.
They’ve always been glued together, at least in the US. Part of the reason for slavery and then segregation was the “protection” of white womanhood, and keeping white women in their “proper” places. They’ve long gone hand in hand with white masculinity and the need to preserve that order that gives them control over the rest of us.
Not disagreeing at all, rather reminded that, historically, White Guys are SO insecure…
Y’know, a lot of history can be attributed to the insecurity of White Guys. Even the Gallic Wars go back to a White Guy Roman politician being so insecure about losing influence that he exploited the insecurities of White Guy Gallic chieftains. All of them on both sides with armies of White Guys who wanted to look manly so they took risky jobs as soldiers…
I see the makings of a series of satirical blog posts.
Also, this exchange in the comments section was too funny/apt not to share:
People really like to “other” those that do horrible things instead of seeing them on a spectrum of behaviour that they themselves fall on. A van attack like the one in Toronto is not alien, it’s five to six standard deviations out. Sexually assaulting multiple women is probably only two standard deviations out. Like if you walk down the street, even time you pass a man who is 6’3" you can guess you have also passed a man who has sexually assaulted more than one woman.
(Newpaper headline: Men over 6’3" are rapists, study shows)
I know this is maybe more of a pet peeve than the real problem, but something that personally drives me nuts is how people are willing to buy into the veil of rationality that these guys have put on their views. When someone says that space programs fell apart because they started hiring women, that’s not a rational argument, it’s rational malware. It’s function is to engage your rational mind in a pointless exercise of refuting rational-seeming claims because when you are using your rational mind to consider something, it reduces your emotional engagement. It’s a mechanical attack on people’s brain chemistry to reduce the degree to which they feel outrage about the insane shit these people say. This is how Kevin Williamson got hired by the Atlantic.
On a related theme, this thread:
https://twitter.com/robinbfoss/status/993203171940958208?s=21
Where do you think all our mythological ‘monsters’ come from? They’re all psychological projections of the worst aspects of humanity, which we are loathe to accept as an unpleasant of part of our reality.
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