|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 15, 2016 10:53:37 GMT -5
I really don't know why this keeps happening or how the world can stop it. Just ugh. There's a culture war going on. The cultures at odds are those of tolerance and enlightenment vs intolerance and willful ignorance. Paradoxically, these events are more likely to happen because the very idea of tolerance extends to a large degree to intolerant ideas. I have no idea how to stop it. "Education is the answer" is a nice saying and I'd love to believe it was true, but I doubt it's 100% proof. Even highly educated people can be seduced by intolerant and violent agendas. My gut feeling is that there are several things we can try, many of which are already being done. First, "do not become your enemy". If we become intolerant too, if we give in to the provocation, the terrorists win. We must however also affirm that we like "our" society better than we do others, and that we refuse to see it changed to accommodate the mores of other societies, other credos, other philosophies. In the "Us vs Them" discourse, we must not give in to nationalist jingosim and do things like blaming immigrants or the sons of immigrants every time a madman kills our citizens; we must however defend the core values of our society, even if it means making some people unhappy. For example, I absolutely refuse to see things like the equality between men and women be challenged, or see homo- and heterosexuals be treated differently from one another. I also think that going around rules that should apply to all in order to accommodate members of certain religions is an abomination that really helps break our society into little parts that do not trust each other. Insisting that there's one set of rules for everyone, I believe, will help make us one people (no matter where we come from, what we eat or how we dress). Our prime minister with nice hair likes to tout "Canadian multi-culturalism" and compare it favourably to the "American melting pot". Well, he could very well shut up as far as I'm concerned, for it is precisely the melting pot model that is the way to go. As soon as you start to hyphenate things, trouble starts brewing. A society must consist of one people. One people with different origins, one people with many individual differences and even different cultures, but first and foremost one people with a common set of values. In the case of western society : tolerance, equality, secularism. Those of us who do not share these values can't be put in jail, of course, because that would be a betrayal of those very values. However we can certainly refrain from encouraging them, and that's something we could do better.
|
|
|
Post by Rob Allen on Jul 15, 2016 11:32:34 GMT -5
There's a culture war going on. The cultures at odds are those of tolerance and enlightenment vs intolerance and willful ignorance. You used an important word there. People refer to "The Enlightenment" as something that happened in the 1700s, but it's still ongoing, and has a lot of enemies.
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Jul 15, 2016 12:30:51 GMT -5
There's a culture war going on. The cultures at odds are those of tolerance and enlightenment vs intolerance and willful ignorance. Paradoxically, these events are more likely to happen because the very idea of tolerance extends to a large degree to intolerant ideas. I have no idea how to stop it. "Education is the answer" is a nice saying and I'd love to believe it was true, but I doubt it's 100% proof. Even highly educated people can be seduced by intolerant and violent agendas. I know which two groups you're referring to here, but that description also fits the two cultures at war in the United States, and neither of the opposing sides is made up of Muslims. The deference, acceptance, and indifference not just to the Trump candidacy, but to the vile brew of bigotry,willful ignorance, selfishness and hatred that he stirs is even more frightening to me than the Wallace candidacy was back in 1968. And that was frightening. Wallace, we consoled ourselves, was the fringe canddiate; he would attract the axe-handle-wielders and the stupid rednecks, but we knew their days were numbered... Or so we thought. Trump has let the Id monster out of its closet. I'm not going to go all Godwin here, but when we watch day after day of the Big Lie being trumpeted from behind the protection of his inner sanctum of Twitter and royal retainers (or brood of vipers, if you prefer your metaphors purply) that are his offspring, without any opposition, it's scary. Really scary.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 15, 2016 12:50:45 GMT -5
There's a culture war going on. The cultures at odds are those of tolerance and enlightenment vs intolerance and willful ignorance. Paradoxically, these events are more likely to happen because the very idea of tolerance extends to a large degree to intolerant ideas. I have no idea how to stop it. "Education is the answer" is a nice saying and I'd love to believe it was true, but I doubt it's 100% proof. Even highly educated people can be seduced by intolerant and violent agendas. I know which two groups you're referring to here, but that description also fits the two cultures at war in the United States, and neither of the opposing sides is made up of Muslims. . (I actually worded it in a vague enough fashion that it could be applied to science deniers, KKK members and Orange-haired wall builders. I view them all as enemies of what our society is about). I can't claim to have paid attention to US politics in those days, but I agree that bigotry knows no border, geographical or cultural; it can be found anywhere. And it has to be fought.
|
|
|
Post by Bronze Age Brian on Jul 15, 2016 12:59:52 GMT -5
Nevermind. Just broke down and cried. Same here. The image of a baby doll next to a small bodybag shook me hard. Religion, politics, race, hate. Whatever it is that drives people to commit such acts I will never understand.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2016 14:30:48 GMT -5
I had a professor back in grad school who used to explain the Age of Religious Wars after the Reformation this way:
There's a deep seated need in some people for their truth to be The Truth (with a capital T) and if it is The Truth, it cannot be questioned, cannot be denied and cannot abide competing truths. So they will fight, kill, die, suffer or persecute any who hold to a truth that is different from theirs because it's mere existence makes their Truth simply a truth, and that cannot be allowed. It destroys their world view and invalidates them. There is no reasoning with this viewpoint, no compromise, anything that does not fit "The Truth" as they see it will not be tolerated and must be obliterated because anything less will destroy their Truth as they see it. So we had centuries of war over niggling points of doctrine because no competing truth could be allowed. Politics, economics, cultural clashes all played their parts, but the core of the conflict was the inability to allow competing truths to exist.
The Age of Religious Wars petered out not so much because of a change in attitude or greater acceptance of competing views, but because the resources for making war were depleted over decades of intermittent warfare and people controlling those resources found other things to fight about.
The deep seated need for some to have a monolithic Truth and inability to allow competing truths to exist is still there, but the access to resources to make war is far more widespread now. As the Age of Information makes the existence of competing truths undeniable, and the resources to act on the desires to destroy these competing truths are accessible, you will continue to see these kinds of conflicts occur, over and over again.
Reason, education, compromise, these are just things that challenge some of those monolithic truths and only further incite the need to eliminate them when presented to this type of thinker. They cannot accept them because doing so invalidates their Truth and destroys their world, and they would rather die fighting than see their world destroyed that way.
-M
|
|
|
Post by BigPapaJoe on Jul 15, 2016 18:09:43 GMT -5
First day as an expat. Feels weird as I sit in Hong Kong airport now at 7:15am. Maybe part of that is the sleep deprivation and no shower in cramped conditions as a result of a 12 plus hour economy class flight.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 15, 2016 18:14:48 GMT -5
First day as an expat. Feels weird as I sit in Hong Kong airport now at 7:15am. Maybe part of that is the sleep deprivation and no shower in cramped conditions as a result of a 12 plus hour economy class flight. Yay! ADVENTURE! Congrats, PapaShogun! I hope you'll have a grand time on the other side of the world!
|
|
|
Post by BigPapaJoe on Jul 15, 2016 18:44:10 GMT -5
First day as an expat. Feels weird as I sit in Hong Kong airport now at 7:15am. Maybe part of that is the sleep deprivation and no shower in cramped conditions as a result of a 12 plus hour economy class flight. Yay! ADVENTURE! Congrats, PapaShogun! I hope you'll have a grand time on the other side of the world! Thank you. This is already familiar territory. This is I think my fifth time coming to Macau. Maybe sixth. This time though it's indefinitely. The transition will be interesting. I wonder if I'll get used to being here year around. Can't think of a better time to take a break from the USA though. Still a lot of red tape to take care of like renting out our house, applying for residency here in Macau, dealing with taxes and health insurance bullshit as an expat. Just the way of the world. Unless you're rich and have someone to take care of life's annoyances like that. Too bad that ain't me. By the way I watched two movies back to back on the plane ride. Essentially the exact same American film and both were released in 2015. One is called "It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong" and the other is "Before We Go". It's a two person cast for most of the films also. "It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong" has Bryan Greenberg and Jamie Chung. Two performers I've seen in various things in the past and liked what they've done. This film takes place in Hong Kong. It involves a white expat (Greenberg) who runs into a Chinese American visiting Hong Kong for work (Chung). They hit it off, take two long walks in Hong Kong the entire duration of the movie separated by a year apart. Relationship drama ensues between the two strangers, but that is as far as I'll go. "Before We Go" stars Chris Evans (who also directed) and Alice Eve. I'm sure you folks already know Evans from Captain America fame and Alice Eve from Star Trek Into Darkness. Same set up here. Two strangers meet in a big city (this time New York) and roam around for an hour and a half because of unfortunate circumstances that bring the two together. Interestingly enough Evans and Greeberg both were in the 2004 film "The Perfect Score" which is where I think I first saw both actors. Both movies are quite simple, but sometimes that is enough to at least get a spark of a nice narrative going. The unfortunate thing to me is probably the payoff in the final act that just doesn't have enough power to leave a viewer satisfied. Perhaps because of the lack of substance throughout the first couple of acts. I don't know, maybe it's hard to find that balance. I don't think you need to necessarily have a morality play or story that makes you think super hard about the choices people should make in their lives. Like Gene Rodenberry once said "Sometimes you have to have fun". Overall that is what these movies were for me. It did make me think of what I was talking about earlier in regards to green grass in another post. I felt like I could relate to the escapism these flicks provided.
|
|
|
Post by Gene on Jul 17, 2016 18:25:14 GMT -5
My dog's not a fan of Pokémon Go. He doesn't understand why nobody's paying attention to him when we go on a walk anymore.
|
|
|
Post by BigPapaJoe on Jul 17, 2016 20:27:33 GMT -5
My dog's not a fan of Pokémon Go. He doesn't understand why nobody's paying attention to him when we go on a walk anymore. ![](https://s31.postimg.org/kocmcssq3/13613577_1146136788762012_8005970265908812395_o.jpg)
|
|
|
Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 18, 2016 7:47:14 GMT -5
For those of you who are married or in a serious relationship, how important is it to you that your significant other shares your love of comics and all things geek?
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 18, 2016 8:33:23 GMT -5
For those of you who are married or in a serious relationship, how important is it to you that your significant other shares your love of comics and all things geek? Not at all, as long as it is kindly tolerated! (The same goes for my opinion of what colour the dinner plates should be).
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,716
|
Post by Confessor on Jul 18, 2016 10:45:39 GMT -5
For those of you who are married or in a serious relationship, how important is it to you that your significant other shares your love of comics and all things geek? It's not really important to me at all, as long as they aren't critical of my love for it. My fiancée is a big fan of things like the Harry Potter books & films and the Twilight books & films, while also enjoying Tolkien and a lot of the superhero movies that have come out over the last decade or so. But she's in no way into geeky stuff or the geeky side of things. That is to say that she hasn't got a head full of Harry Potter trivia or anything; she just enjoys the books or films for the fantasy fiction that they are and that's that. She's a voracious reader of fiction generally though and gets really absorbed by books, so she totally understands why I like to immerse myself in the fictional world of '60s Spider-Man comics or '80s Star Wars comics, even if they're not really her cup of tea. Why do you ask?
|
|
|
Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 18, 2016 10:54:57 GMT -5
For those of you who are married or in a serious relationship, how important is it to you that your significant other shares your love of comics and all things geek? It's not really important to me at all, as long as they aren't critical of my love for it. My fiancée is a big fan of things like the Harry Potter books & films and the Twilight books & films, while also enjoying Tolkien and a lot of the superhero movies that have come out over the last decade or so. But she's in no way into geeky stuff or the geeky side of things. That is to say that she hasn't got a head full of Harry Potter trivia or anything; she just enjoys the books or films for the fantasy fiction that they are and that's that. She's a voracious reader of fiction generally though and gets really absorbed by books, so she totally understands why I like to immerse myself in the fictional world of '60s Spider-Man comics or '80s Star Wars comics, even if they're not really her cup of tea. Why do you ask? I suppose because I've never met anyone who shares similar interests and I think it's affecting my relationships. I just sort of find people who aren't into fantasy at all kinda...boring. It doesn't have to be the be-all-end-all to life, but on occasion it would be fun to talk about this stuff with a significant other. They don't have to be into comics, mind you, but something similar to your fiancee who loves fantasy and reading.
|
|