Western culture does not regard children as human beings. the values of "the West"—the values instilled by authoritarian #Christianity—do not permit children to be respected as human beings who deserve to have their feelings and wishes respected, like any other person.
(1/x)
no better example of the general Western *contempt* for children can be imagined than the "gender critical" cult—the @bindelj / @Docstock / #JKRowling brigade—which functions almost entirely as a kind of support group for abusive parents who loathe their LGBTQ+ children.
(2/x)
they cling to the faded celebrity of @jk_rowling as a shield against the charge that they despise children—after all, #JKRowling is the Best Fantasy Writer in the Universe, according to the @HJoyceGender / @AbigailShrier gender theorists. she's the friend to all children!
(3/x)
it's a lie, of course, all of it: #JKRowling was a hack writer who got lucky by selling out to Hollywood, and her celebrity is entirely similar to any other Hollywood celebrity's. she's famous because @wbpictures / @wbshop public-relations people want her to be famous.
(4/x)
and her work *seethes* with contempt for children. #JKRowling in her #HarryPotter books loves nothing more than describing children as horrible ugly brats who eat like pigs—Rowling takes an unhealthy glee in her lovingly detailed descriptions of the children she *hates*.
(5/x)
my own speculation—based admittedly on not much—is that Rowling from the first considered herself to be *above* mere children's literature, and wrote "#HarryPotter and the Philosopher's Stone" out of pure spite, just to prove that she could write that sort of kiddie slop.
(6/x)
at any rate the #HarryPotter books do not feel to me like they're labours of love.
I think that the *cynicism* with which Rowling wrote them explains the shoddy worldbuilding, gimmicky plots, and stereotyped characters. I don't think #JKRowling *cared*. it was "for kids".
(7/x)
which brings me back to my central point: Western culture, on the whole, treats children with *zero* respect.
they're routinely treated like mere random behavior generators—one is reminded of how right-wing #STEM Lord culture loves to pretend that human beings are "NPCs".
(8/x)
the abusive parents that swarm about the @Docstockk / @jk_rowling GC cult do the same thing with their own children. to the typical @bindelj fan, children are horrible ungrateful stupid little monsters who talk pure nonsense and need to be *told what to do*, without fail.
(9/x)
the GC fanatics who have children (and despise them) hang out in various places and swap tales about what rotten evil snots they've been cursed with—that's another commonplace of Western culture, parents who make a *profession* of posing as martyrs to their own children.
(10/x)
that's not just a GC parent thing. #Autism moms are a huge social-media industry—if you see any parent on @Twitter who puts "Autism" in their bio along with *other* words like #Christian or #conservative, you can be sure that their life's work is exploiting their kids.
(11/x)
#Christian parents—the sort who *advertise* themselves as "Christian" or "Biblical" on social media, you understand, the ones who make it their personality—are highly likely to treat their children in this abusive fashion: as villains in the parents' private psychodrama.
(12/x)
"they're such miserable ill-behaved monsters and they have such *stupid* ideas about everything! but I am a forgiving #Christian parent, uwu 😇"
needless to say the children never consented to being paraded on social media—but such parents do not believe in the concept.
(13/x)
to someone like @MattWalshBlog or @dalepartridge, children are like *animals* in a way, or robots—less than fully human, anyway, and incapable of having desires or thoughts or opinions that deserve even a moment's respect. therefore, to them, children can't consent.
(14/x)
(consider this well, and then *also* consider that @MattWalshBlog tried propping up @joshduggar in public—and he raped his own siblings. to Walsh, it's *not even a crime*. #Christian parents get to do those things! not anyone else, though. just the Good People™.)
(15/x)
I could go on in this vein but do I *need* to?
Western civilization—the apple of @pegobry's and @EPoe187's eye—is, in so many ways, a mere assemblage of barbarians and bandits. and it's *especially* obvious in the way that Western parents habitually abuse their children.
(16/x)
they're supposed to endure an infinite amount of mistreatment at their parents' hands—to *toughen them up*, you see. taking beatings (emotional or physical) builds #character and #discipline.
"buck up, Timmy! don't you want to grow up as disciplined as @MattWalshBlog?"
(17/x)
Western culture is fatally obsessed with *war* and soldiering, so the ideal upbringing for children in this antic society is the _military boot camp_. #Christians especially adore "boot camps" and have built untold thousands of them—little imitations of Camp Pendleton.
(18/x)
it's like Western parents (not to mention #media and #journalism intended for parents) can't imagine how to raise a child *without* abusing them. and there's come into existence an entire industry of warped #psychology that says _it's okay to abuse your children_.
(19/x)
@jordanbpeterson surely belongs to this school of thought; so does anyone who claims the label of "Christian psychologist", or who advertises #ABA "treatment" for their neurodivergent children. "Applied Behavioral Analysis" is pseudointellectual rationale for child abuse.
(20/x)
"I was abused and I came out fine!" @MattWalshBlog or @dalepartridge or @elonmusk might say. after all—they advertise themselves as the cream of humanity. tough manly men who Get Things Done™.
but...just *look* at them. do they look like they came out fine?
I ask my few readers to consider the following possibility: ALL "#conservative" ideology these days—whether it's from @GOP ideologues or the @Conservatives' ideologues or #Christian ideologues or "gender critical" ideologues of the @bindelj sort—has a very specific motive.
(1/x)
not the motive you might be thinking!
I suggest that ALL these people—@DouthatNYT, @realchrisrufo, @Docstockk, @michaelshermer, whoever—adapt their ideology specifically according to who humiliates them in arguments the most reliably. because these people *can't argue*.
(2/x)
right-wing ideology can't be supported *logically*, because the core and center of "movement #conservatism" is irrational and emotional: they like old beliefs and old concepts, old ways of wielding power and regulating human beings, and they don't want anything to change.
yes, @HistoryBoomer, it's entirely credible for @Yascha_Mounk and @conor64 and @bariweiss (who likes trying to get professors fired, if they're insufficiently deferential towards @Israel's genocidal tendencies) to want to ban books. it's almost _necessary_ for them to want that.
why do I say that? because the political beliefs of @bariweiss &c. are intellectually absurd, indefensible except via suppression of competing ideas. Weiss, for example, subscribes to "gender criticism", which pretends that masculinity is a scientific trait of the human penis.
the *only way* to preserve the ideologies of @bariweiss (and @conor64 and the rest of that gang) is through *cheating*.
and they all do compare notes, @HistoryBoomer; I rather hope you're not clinging to some illusion that these propagandists are independent of one another.
wow, I "love" how @elonmusk is such a contemptibly *cowardly* man-child that he's convinced himself that only "bots" hate him. @mtaibbi's bestest buddy really is THAT gutless—he's so scared of being hated, that he's forced to pretend that the people who hate him aren't "real".
@Twitter / @TwitterDev bot functionality was legitimately useful—and now @elonmusk's taking it away from us because he and his wretched fanbase have all been daydreaming that "bots" are why Musk's name is mud on #Twitter.
no, Elon—that's just you. you're a turd of a person.
you're a human turd, @elonmusk, a turd with lots of money so you've been able to buy yourself some chums who tell you day and night that you're the saviour of the world. but it's not true. @mtaibbi and @stillgray and @lhfang and the rest of them are *using* you.
we've said it before but we really like the #KamenRider Build theme: "Be the One", by Pandora.
🎵 be the light / be the light
we'll take darkness into brightness, yeah
leading you into the light
be the light
oh, you'll be alive
be the one / be the one 🎵
#KamenRider Build and its overflowing heroic anguish served as emotional counterpoint to some of the most painful months of our lives—working in the slippery and dangerous biodiesel factory, then having to drop everything to go to San Diego and be with our dying father.
~Chara
Evolt was gearing up yet another diabolical plan (he had so many of them!) about the time that we were watching our father expire.
a lot of #KamenRider (and #SuperSentai) has chanced to line up with our life's worst moments—tokusatsu is woven into the fabric of our life.
I've been talking about how Western culture tends to loathe its children, and how a large subset of the West thinks that the best way to raise children is by hurling abuse and threats at them, military boot-camp style.
that reminds me of this poor guy: Todd Marinovich.
(1/x)
he's one of those sad sacks who ends up on "NFL's Greatest Bust" lists. his pro football career followed a rather familiar trajectory: he'd been schooled into a star football player, seemed really impressive (if erratic) in college, and then bombed on the national stage.
(2/x)
and then decades later people laugh over amusing #sports#journalism pieces about what a massive flop he was, and maybe search YouTube for some amusing clips of old games in which Marinovich threw an interception, or whatever. (I didn't find any myself.)
the possibility of someone like Tetsuo existing is the inevitable result of humanity's intersection with the numinous. if this sort of thing is *possible at all*—if it's possible for an ordinary human being to acquire godlike powers over matter and energy—then Tetsuo is possible.
magic doesn't exist, so the #Christians and @michaelshermer both say (curious how they always agree in almost every way) but the human _fiction_ about magic seems to grasp this fundamental truth: magic + humanity = world-shaking catastrophe, with appalling ease.
~Chara
it's not clear that humanity *can* safely wield "true magic", which for the sake of discussion I'll define roughly as "magic capable of causing objectively measurable changes on matter and energy". casting a fireball ought to be *measurable*—producing real heat and flame.