Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
The “ban the flag” campaign is as overpowering as it is speedy, and it is as overpowering & speedy as it is nonsensical. There are some people who like that, of course: Those who have honestly and sincerely thought of the flag as offensive, for whatever reason, and the persons & groups who think of themselves as emerging from this with greater political power than they had before, should the flag fall. Which seems quite likely.
So of course they have their reasons for wanting it all to go down this way. But that doesn’t change the fact that society can’t endure like this. We’ve already had the spectacle of gay marriage, in which an idea that was okay in one year, became not-okay a year or two later. Oh what’s that, you thought that had to do with an expansion of freedom? Silly you. But now, even a year is too long, the “okay/not-okay” axis is flipped in a matter of days. With society’s “don’t you dare think otherwise” taboos being churned around like this, society can’t stand. You’re no longer demanding better behavior out of people when that happens; what you’re doing then is just manufacturing new classes of wrongdoers. Worse yet, the churning is becoming a routine matter. You don’t know what’s okay today that will be not-okay next year — and, I can’t tell you, you can’t tell me. Nobody knows.
How did we get here? If you’ve ever had to attend sexual harassment training, you know, because they repeat it over and over to the point you have to memorize it: “It’s important to remember that the intent of the accused is entirely irrelevant in these matters, it is the perception of the offended party that determines everything.” Frustratingly, it seems they never stop to explain who exactly it was who decided it works that way. Because it can’t work that way. When things work that way, you get silly things like this:
Texan Keith White was furious to hear what he interpreted as a racial slur in a 1984 episode of the Jim Henson series Fraggle Rock while watching the show with his two-year-old daughter. “I heard him say Jigaboo,” said White. “My reaction was to keep replaying to see if that’s what I really heard, and that’s what I heard, and that’s what I hear.”
:
According to a copy of the script sent to The CW33, which broke the story, the character accused of racial insensitivity is actually saying “Gee, Gobo” — Gobo being the name of the main character. The Jim Henson Company has backed up The Hub’s explanation. Hey, absurd controversies over non-issues in children’s entertainment aren’t exactly unheard of either.The Hub has since edited Gobo’s name out of the line in an effort to avoid similar incidents in the future, but to White, that’s just further confirmation that he was in the right. “Why would you edit, if it`s a mistake?” he asked. “Why are you going to edit it out? Are you hearing the same thing?”
Silly twit. They’re editing it out, obviously, because they’re tired of dealing with your crap, just as you’re generating the crap because you know people will tire of dealing with it. This story dominated the news cycle at the time it was a thing — now, even with our wonderful Internet with all its search engines, it’s pretty darn hard to scrape together even fragments of it. And that speaks volumes: Over the long haul, none of this matters. The offended dad got what he wanted, he moved on, we moved on — and, we don’t have our sparkling, shining, non-offensive citadel. We’re still just getting offended one thing at a time.
As was the case with Fraggle Rock, on the “flag thing” there is another plausible story about what is meant. Although those who insist “the perception of the offended determines everything” won’t know the first thing about it:
Ben Jones, who played Cooter in the (Dukes of Hazzard) series, runs a chain of “Cooter’s Place” stores in Tennessee and serves as the unofficial head of Hazzard fandom, organizing festivals and making public appearances with his copy of the General Lee. In a Facebook message[,] Jones said the Confederate battle flag was a “symbol of independence,” and vowed his stores would keep selling them until a chilly day in hell.
As for the flag on the General Lee:
That flag on top of the General Lee made a statement that the values of the rural South were the values of courage and family and good times.
Our beloved symbol is now being attacked in a wave of political correctness that is unprecedented in our nation of free speech and free expression. Activists and politicians are villifying [sic] southern culture and our heritage as being bigoted and racist. We know that this is not the case. And we know that in Hazzard county there was never any racism…
We are not racists. We despise racism and bigotry. And we think the people who are creating this “cultural cleansing” are the real bigots in this story.
When we say our flag stands for “heritage, not hate” and “pride, not prejudice”, we mean it. And we believe that old saying, “you can’t know where you are going if you forget where you came from.”
But, don’t we become a better people if we identify these articles of offense, and then take civil and cultural steps to eliminate them? No. It is obvious we aren’t creating a placid and peaceful future out of a tumultuous past when we do that because, well, here we are. And we’ve seen this play out so many times, we don’t even have an excuse left to us for not noticing. My own Thing I Know #52 states it succinctly:
52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.
I’m pretty sure Fraggle Rock dad is still pissed, wherever he is. And as the “Fa La La Your La” episode of South Park vividly showed through mockery, openly bragging about having the whatever-it-was, “most non-offensive, non-denominational Christmas ever!” just makes you sound stupid. This particular effort isn’t removing anything truly offensive; at least one of the victims of the shooting certainly didn’t think so.
So we are not improving our society by repeatedly churning-around our societal taboos like this. Quite to the contrary, not-offending is a great strategy for not getting anything done. It is a perfect recipe for blandness, as one of my Facebook friends noted:
This bland world we are creating where everyone thinks alike, acts alike and has the same thing. Flavorless and without texture, it is filled with questions such as “what is your pronoun preference?”
Because using the wrong pronoun is a micro[-aggression] that must be punished.
We cannot stray from the narrative, even in comedy or novels.
Classics are labeled with trigger warnings.
No one has the ‘right’ to practice their religion in public but everyone has a ‘right’ to the products of their neighbor’s labor.
We are all one family. We all live the same way. Wear the same thing. Our history is expunged. Our thoughts are controlled with our speech.
We are politically correct. Our betters will explain the rules and move the bar as we work toward perfect homogeneity.
The question that still remains is: Who are those betters? Because it’s actually worse than this — we’re not only becoming “flavorless and without texture,” we’re becoming intractably addicted to the perils of passive voice. We’re transforming into a gelding-place in which nobody actually does anything.
It’s so bad by now, we actually have a “ballsy” way of showing your cowardice about this issue. Of course, a lot of that has to do with not showing anything, treading very, very quietly. But at least you can say this for Alabama’s Governor…
Alabama’s governor on Wednesday ordered the removal of four Confederate flags from the state capitol, the latest move to remove the controversial image from public places.
Gov. Robert Bentley’s decision comes two days after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia. The drive to remove the flag from public places and from store shelves has accelerated since then and comes after nine African-Americans were killed last week in what was allegedly a racially motivated attack in a historically black church in Charleston.
I hate to say it, being as I am a Seattle boy who really doesn’t have a dog in the Stars-n-Bars hunt. But, if I have to see that much more cowardliness about this thing, I wish I saw more of the kind Gov. Bentley showed. Make a fucking goddamn decision. It’s sad when I have to ask: Remember decisions? Remember those? “I can’t take the heat on this; the flag goes.” Or, “Fuck all of you people, the flag stays, and if you don’t like it vote me out of office.” The sadness is that either one of those exclamations would be as welcome as the other.
We’ve lost so much testosterone over the years, that we can’t have either one. We’ve got a “flag debate.” Why? WHY?? That’s the part that’s most silly, to me: Take it down, leave it up, but one way or another wrap it up and move on to the next thing. We’ve got murderous prison inmate escapees on the loose — still haven’t been caught, were you following that?
As Rush Limbaugh noticed, none of the backsplash is hitting the democrat party — as it should:
The whole thing in South Carolina, the Confederate flag, it’s not to identify hypocrites or racists. That’s what it’s made to look like. This is nothing more than the latest technique from the Democrat Party to advance their political agenda, with, of course, the media as willing accomplices.
So you can show me all of the Hillary paraphernalia you want with her loving the Confederate flag and kissing the Confederate flag and the Confederate flag all over her campaign operative posters, and Bill Clinton, too, it isn’t gonna matter, folks. It just isn’t going to matter. It isn’t gonna disqualify Hillary. It’s not gonna get Hillary thrown in the same pot with all these. I mean, what Republican had anything to do with what happened in South Carolina anyway? How did this all of a sudden become a Republican Party problem? But it is, isn’t it?
It is, because & only because perception is reality. People are more sensitive to the political currents — but, we’re not becoming more considerate of each other. Information flows so much more quickly, and we get more of it, but in the long run we become dumber because we’re not selecting it accurately, not choosing it, not using it. Our ammunition is more devastating but our aim is lousy.
This is not a party thing, it’s a culture thing. Liberals don’t like the V-8 engines or the pretty girls or the plaid shirts or the meat or the barbecue sauce or the beer or the the “yeehaw.” But if you were to attach that culture to one political party or the other, the democrat party is the one that actually has roots there. On the other hand, speaking of history, why are we talking about the flag all of a sudden? Right, because of the church shooting; we’re supposed to be concerned about shootings. Well, is this going to prevent any? Nevermind the answer — we’ve forgotten to ask the question. We don’t care.
So we know this is not going to do anything to improve the way our society functions, because we know there isn’t anything virtuous about it. Virtue didn’t pick our path for us. What got us down this road was hatred, violence and murder. Is there something I can do, as a hard-working taxpaying homeowning guy who works his tushie off every day, to start a movement that packs this much influence, that up-ends what’s right vs. what’s wrong so quickly and so dramatically? And keeps us all talking about it day after day after day? Something you can do like that? Something any law-abiding citizen can do that’s like that?
So the real problem is not our cultural canvas, or what’s written on it; the problem is who among us gets to make the markings. We’re in the mode right now of allowing evil to make a lasting impression in indelible ink, and good can’t even bring finger painting pots from a Kindergarten class. With that discrepancy in place, it really doesn’t matter what images make it onto the cloth, in the long run they aren’t going to be good. Things will keep deteriorating as long as we allocate greater influence to evil, than to good. Things won’t get any better, anywhere until we change that.
And then once we do, they will.
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Never have such mis-educated fools had so much influence. They don’t know jack shit about the Civil War, and don’t care to know, and will actually refuse to listen if you try to tell them, because Narrative.
In any halfway rational society, this would be considered an honest-to-God mental illness. You want to ban what? For everyone? Everywhere? And yet, you know nothing about it, and refuse all efforts at education? In the 19th century, they’d have you fucking committed for that.
- Severian | 06/25/2015 @ 07:00As a proud Yankee I can tell you what I think of the Confederate (*cough*) flag when I see it – Redneck racist. It that fair, maybe not. But let’s exam what the Confederate (*cough*) flag was and is – a symbol of what…??? The Confederacy. And what was the Confederacy? Well, I need not go on, you get the picture.
Now, Morgan, you make some excellent points, per usual, and I won’t argue them. This whole thing, this rush to eliminate, to alter, to change without so much as a conversation bothers me EVEN more that than that flag. This crap of rush to censorship we are now witnessing is beyond frightening.
We’re seeing the fundamental transformation of this country and it’s totally fucked up, for so many reasons. Sorry for the lack of articulation but seriously, let’s cut to the chase. We can’t go back, this train only goes one way. So long America it was good to know ya’.
Sev,
“They don’t know jack shit about the Civil War, and don’t care to know, and will actually refuse to listen if you try to tell them…”
Please explain.
- tim | 06/26/2015 @ 09:32tim,
I’ll try to explain, in itty bitty words even a Yankee can understand. 🙂
Saying “the Civil War was about slavery” is like saying “World War I was about Belgian neutrality.” True enough as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far at all — ask any of almost a million British mothers if they sacrificed their sons for the glorious cause of Belgian neutrality.
The vast majority — approximately 75% — of Southerners didn’t own slaves, and never could. In fact, slavery was economically harmful to them, and everybody knew it — the Republican Party’s “free soil, free labor, free men” slogan was designed to remind the voters of this. The poor of all sections felt they were being squeezed out economically by slave labor.
So: How many of those didn’t-own-slaves-and-never-could, economically-harmed-by-slavery folks do you think signed up for the Confederate army? How many of them continued fighting for four extremely bloody years, in the sure knowledge that their commanders were huge slaveholders, reaping enormous profits? For that matter, how many Union boys do you think were willing to fight and die for abolition? (hint: the Union started drafting men in 1862).
In other words, the best way to look at slavery’s relationship to the Civil War is to liken it to taxation’s relationship to the Revolutionary War — a low, mean, money-grubbing, but vital part of a much larger and more sophisticated argument about the nature of government, and the relationship of citizen to state.
When I fly the American flag, I’m not obviously and unambiguously telling the world I want to tar and feather tax collectors, am I?
- Severian | 06/26/2015 @ 10:49We could go on and on about cause and effect and what men fight for but that obviously doesn’t get to the matter at hand. Once men identify with any particular cause, be it secession, “the South”, individual States rights” for whatever reason, they will fight and die for it.
Conversely to your point, to say that the civil war WASN’T about slavery is like saying Global Warming isn’t about control. Of course it is, and the war was about slavery. Doesn’t matter how men come to believe in that cause and signed up to fight for it knowing or unknowingly. Example, I’ve never heard a recent vet say he went to Iraq because of WMD’s. Love of country, he fellow warriors, etc. sure but not that.
You parse out all subjective talking points you want, get nuanced like a liberal, talk about what the Civil was “really” about but the heart of the matter it all comes back to slavery. Don’t believe me, what about the people who were there, who made it happen? (From an America Digest thread, that I will copy but you should head over to read all the comments with some really insightful information.)
“You don’t have to guess why Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia seceded from the United States. They appointed Commissioners to present their case(s) to other sympathetic States, and the texts of the addresses and plaidoyers of their Commissioners to Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Texas are available on-line.
Take a look: http://www.civilwarcauses.org/commish.htm
They presented quite openly and specifically their reasons for declaring their independence, and used the arguments that they thought would be most convincing.
As Colonel John S Mosby, the commander of the 43rd Battalion, First Virginia Cavalry, wrote in 1907, “The South went to war on account of Slavery.”
Posted by Punditarian at June 25, 2015 1:14 PM
“Why did the South decide to secede? Primarily it was about their right to continue to make slavery legal. For details about each state’s bill of secession and charts detailing the reasons for secession see this: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/secession/
There were a few states (Primarily Mississippi and Georgia)that made the case that the South’s economy could not succeed without slaves.
There are still disagreements among experts as to why the war occurred, but there can be no doubt that slavery was the biggest issue.
Today’s disputes between some States and the Federales is primarily about States rights. It hasn’t come to shooting yet. With a rogue President and an activist SOTUS the conditions are moving in the direction of revolt. ”
Posted by Jimmy J. at June 25, 2015 4:32 PM
http://www.americandigest.org/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=30624
But back to the issue at hand – the Confederate flag. Again, one cannot separate that flag from which it represents – the South during the civil war. And slavery.
Sev, at the best the Confederate flag still represents the worst of times for this country. As a Northerner it represents a onetime enemy (even if my ancestors were nowhere near this continent at that time). That being, states that wanted to tear this country apart. No matter what you believe the war was about those are the hard truths of the matter
Same, same with the swastika. I read some conservatives blog post a year ago, before this crapola, about how it’s silly to equate that symbol with Nazis because it’s actually an ancient Japanese blah, blah, blah…yea, no. Not gonn’a work. It is what is – the Nazi flag. An evil entity. Full stop.
And speaking of symbols and such, in relation to your comment –“When I fly the American flag, I’m not obviously and unambiguously telling the world I want to tar and feather tax collectors, am I? Not in 2015 but it stood for that, and more obviously, in the beginning. Do you know the history of the Pledge of Allegiance? Surly no one who recites it is identifying themselves as a socialist. Or for that matter a Nazi. Of course not.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/22/opinion/greene-pledge-of-allegiance-salute/index.html
- tim | 06/26/2015 @ 11:52Do you know the history of the Pledge of Allegiance? Surly no one who recites it is identifying themselves as a socialist. Or for that matter a Nazi. Of course not.
Then, what’s the difference?
The more the argument goes back and forth, the more it looks like the distinguishing and unique reason the Confederate flag is to be regarded as evil, is not so much the ideas that are or were behind it, but simple right-of-conquest.
It would be dishonest of me to say I don’t find that bothersome. There’s an awful lot of conflict and violence in history. Is there now an unwritten rule that says, we have to let a couple centuries roll on past before we can say “The wrong side won that particular war” without becoming terrible people? I can certainly see someone saying that about the Civil War, or World War II, or the American Revolution. What about the Roundheads’ victory over the Monarchists that ended the reign of King Charles I? Peter The Great’s victory in the Great Northern War? Fall of La Rochelle?
As a reminder, the flag debate I’ve seen is not one of “Should the South have won the Civil War?” but rather, “Are you some sort of terrible person for not joining our crusade to vanish the flag?” It’s a dicey thing to allow victory & defeat of such conflicts that occurred so long ago, to determine present questions involving ethics and morality.
- mkfreeberg | 06/27/2015 @ 00:04Do you know the history of the Pledge of Allegiance? Surly no one who recites it is identifying themselves as a socialist. Or for that matter a Nazi. Of course not.
Hmmm….. symbols divorced from their context. No, that never happens…. says any bong warrior in a Che Guevara t-shirt on any college campus in America.
As Colonel John S Mosby, the commander of the 43rd Battalion, First Virginia Cavalry, wrote in 1907, “The South went to war on account of Slavery.”
Right. And as George Washington said, the American colonies rebelled on account of they didn’t want to pay their taxes. Again, this is true as far as it goes…. but it doesn’t go all that far.
As Morgan says, a lot of this seems to boil down to right of conquest. We should be able to acknowledge that John C. Calhoun’s ideas were intimately tied up with slavery, while still having a discussion of his ideas. Just as we — the Right, that is — are perfectly capable of discussing The Founders’ idea of representative government while acknowledging that by “citizens” they meant “white male property holders.”
Symbols, meanwhile, take on a life of their own. Sorry for the snark up there, but my point about Che t-shirts stands. His biography isn’t a secret, but that doesn’t stop kids from thinking an image of Che = rebellion. You just watch — it’s a pretty short step from SJWs screaming about “the Confederate flag equals slavery!” to lots of white folks, north and south, saying “well, if the only options are that, or the some-animals-are-more-equal-than-others PC bullshit you keep shoving down our throats, well, I guess I’m with General Lee.”
Or, shorter version: If I’m gonna be accused, I wanna be guilty. We can debate the causes and consequences of the Civil War all day, but in the meantime, people who couldn’t guess the date of Gettysburg within half a century are deciding what the symbol means for themselves.
- Severian | 06/27/2015 @ 07:34[…] interesting discussion going on over at Morgan’s. I want to expand a bit on a point I made there. I’m sure […]
- The Confederate Flag, Slavery’s Role in the Civil War, and Why Historical Literacy Doesn’t Mean a Thing | Rotten Chestnuts | 06/27/2015 @ 08:14[…] House Of Eratosthenes has some Southern babe’s and thoughts […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 06/28/2015 @ 06:17My two cents: One of the greatest mistakes the Republican party ever made was to let the south keep the symbol of the confederacy as part of reconstruction. Reconstruction to bring the nation back together was one thing, but why let defeated racists keep the symbol they fought under? Yes, I love my southern brothers as I love all true Americans (true means anyone not a freak-show liberal). No I don’t believe that most southerners are racists. The confederate flag shouldn’t fly anywhere in the world except maybe under the British navy where it originated.
- P_Ang | 06/28/2015 @ 09:47Sorry guys, don’t blog on weekends and been busy.
Morgan,
My point, obviously I should have explained better, about the Pledge of Allegiance, and also the Swastika, is that things take on different meanings and contexts over time. Nobody gives the straight arm salute anymore during the PoA because of the Nazi salute. Nobody in their right mind would decorate their house with Swastikas because their down with Buddism.
Same with the Confederate (there’s that word again) flag. Is it fair that it’s now symbolized as a banner of slavery? Maybe, maybe not but there it is.
As far as your “right-of-conquest.” I’ll say this – well yea. If the South won would we being having this discussion? Of course not. And that flag would be flying on your flag pole.
Not really understanding your point. Of course right of conquest as everything thing to do with this and other issues. Do you fly the flag of Imperial Japan? Why not? Is it only because you’re not Japanese? What about the Nazi flag? No German blood in ya’? C’mon, surly there is some flag you must want to fly even though your neighbors would give you the stink eye? Shit, that ISIS flag is rad, hoist it up.
Hell, you took issue with people watching the British royal wedding. Why would that be? No right of conquest feeling there, correct?
“Is there now an unwritten rule that says, we have to let a couple centuries roll on past before we can say “The wrong side won that particular war” without becoming terrible people? I can certainly see someone saying that about the Civil War, or World War II, or the American Revolution.”
You can certainly see someone saying that? That sound an awful lot like you can sympathize with that particular feeling. Am I reading that wrong?
But no, you’re not a terrible person for thinking the wrong side won in those wars, you’re a lunatic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sev,
You can nuance the Civil War all you want, especially since you’re a Southerner I can understand. And abortion is about women’s reproductive rights.
Noticed you minimized the debate about that once presented with a decent amount of evidence that contradicted your views. Don’t really expect that from a conservative but oh well.
You can also get all uppity about how educated you are and recite the exact date of such and such battle naturally gives your opinion much more credence. I mean, how dare I voice my beliefs in the Second Amendment rights when I haven’t, supposedly, memorized the dates of the significant battles of the Revolutionary War. You sound like one of the elitist snobs you frequently attack.
Lastly, to both of you, as I said initially – “Now, Morgan, you make some excellent points, per usual, and I won’t argue them. This whole thing, this rush to eliminate, to alter, to change without so much as a conversation bothers me EVEN more that than that flag. This crap of rush to censorship we are now witnessing is beyond frightening.”
But that doesn’t change how I or others feel about the Confederate (there that word again) flag.
- tim | 07/01/2015 @ 08:06Noticed you minimized the debate about that once presented with a decent amount of evidence that contradicted your views
And what views are those, pray tell? That slavery was the proximate cause — but far from the only cause — of the Civil War?
That’s just a basic historical fact. To argue otherwise — using your example — would be like saying “WMDs had nothing whatsoever to do with the Iraq War.” WMDs were the proximate cause — they (and a few other things) are what got the UN resolution, which got the Congressional resolution, which sent the troops.
Unless you’re seriously suggesting that the Civil War was about nothing but slavery….?
You can also get all uppity about how educated you are and recite the exact date of such and such battle naturally gives your opinion much more credence.
Please show me where I have done this. Again, I don’t consider “the Civil War was about more than slavery” to be an esoteric statement.
Nor do I consider “symbols’ meanings often change over time” to be an esoteric statement. Again, that’s a basic historical fact. As you yourself pointed out, the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance has changed fairly dramatically. The color pink used to represent boys (and blue represented girls). The gay pride movement co-opted the pink triangle, which was used in concentration camps. Wearing a fedora used to mean “I’m a competent dresser;” now it means “I’m a hipster douchebag.” Etc. etc.
I’m not saying “you, tim, must love the Confederate flag.”
I’m not saying “you, tim, must accept my interpretation of Civil War history.”
And I’m certainly not saying “you, tim, must bow down before my superior historical knowledge” (how would I even know?)
What I AM saying is that Confederate flag is rapidly coming to mean “rebellion,” full stop. Lots of people are saying “if you wear it, you are a redneck racist.” And lots of other folks are saying “well, ok, if the choice is between ‘racist redneck’ and ‘social justice warrior,’ well, then, go ahead and call me a racist redneck.” The symbol, in other words, is completely divorced from its historical context.
And that’s BAD, because we don’t use symbols to make sophisticated, nuanced, informed arguments. We use them to rally troops.
- Severian | 07/01/2015 @ 11:41[…] Time…or…Is It? It’s That Defining-Things Thing, Yet Again Memo For File CXCVII Now, About This Flag That Makes People Want to Shoot Other People, or Something… And It’s All Your Fault For Believing Them, or Something… “Those People” […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 07/03/2015 @ 06:59[…] in a “flag debate” about the confederate flag, which is something I find to be very silly. And I don’t mean silly in a “ha ha you’re being silly” kind of a way, more […]
- Recent Hairpin Turns in Our Nationalized Moral Reasoning | H2o Positivo | 07/11/2015 @ 00:35