#inculturation

[roxannepolice]

This is so true, but I think there is also a level at which the declared non-interference (and I think the non-interference is a major thing, even the fact they keep their interferences hidden already says a lot) of the Time Lords just... rubs both the Master and the Doctor the wrong way, except in different ways.

I ranted about the power issue at the heart of Doctor-Master dialectic some time ago and I guess I'm still stuck on it. The good ol'd sentence of Knowledge is power (France is bacon!) is usually taken in the sense of how through knowledge a human acheives control of the rest of the world (harnessing the power of Sun to charge my phone so I can watch gay aliens) or how through manipulating what other people know one can control their beliefs (Foucalt speaking). But there's more. This is more of a theoretical situation for humans, bot precisely the kind of thing scifi should explore. There is the point where it is impossible to escape power if enough knowledge is gained. Suppose if you know everything that ever was or ever could be - doesn't all of this become your resposibility? My OCD aside, but if I know there's a volcano about to explode, don't I also express my power in NOT acting to prevent it or at least save everyone in its vicinity? There is a pilatism to the TL non-interference (something something The Master and Margarita and Pilate as the metaphor of everyone who just wants a normal life in abnormal circumstances). And yet could it be any other way? Can I, a random TL, a being of near perfect knowledge of past and future but still a slave to my opinions and passions, decide how to shape all histories?

Something something me being an actual random human being shaped by ethics tacitly or not relying on the existence of an Entity which is omnipowerful omnipresent omniscient and omniLOVING that lets all of human atrocities take place something something the same limitation applies to BBC writers.

But that's precisely the moral dilemma of the character of the Doctor - they do have deep compassion for every being, yet they still have to decide to act - or not - to shape capital H history. Seeing the universe, not ruling it, but you are always confronted with the knowledge not just of the events, but of the FEELINGS of everyone involved in them, is bound to lead to this thought experiment omniLOVE of compassion. Yet is this not a defiance of individual will? Is this not the whole point of Adelaide Brooke killing herself to defy the Time Lord Victorious, who thought he can just save one very historically important life (purely out of compassion!) and harness a civilization's future (purely because he knows his actions' consequences)?

The Master is once again the reverse of the Doctor's stance, not its negation. Yes, they are more incultured into the TL society (sth sth John Smith being a conformist and Yana being a helpful genius), yet is not the very rejection of the power inherent in near omniscience a hipocrisy (the price the Doctor keeps paying for avoiding the pilatism)? If one is raised in the ongoing awareness of all pasts and futures is not the rejection of control of it an abomination against nature (keep in mind the Master watched the TL try to end all of the universe and was like let me ascend into harmony of the spheres or wtv)?

The answer is: NO! It IS possible to help people without superimposing yoru will on them, even if you do have the knowledge of all of these very peoples' histories. But that would require viewing the universe as composed of so much more than just power relations. Which is so so hard when your counterpoint follows the compassionate route. Or when you do follow the compassionate route but your conterpoint is gone.

do love stuff that demonstrates that the master is waaay more in line with the whole gallifreyan ethos than the doctor. he like, just fits on gallifrey, you know? even his desire for control, his love of pomp and ceremony, his ambivalence edging to cruelty towards the suffering of lesser species, his conviction that things are owed to him through birthright — aren't those all just aspects of a good time lord? i like to think he could've easily stayed on gallifrey, had a truly successful and lauded life there, if something hadn't happened. and, yes, as a child, he dreamed of escape with the doctor, of seeing every star in the universe together — but was that really about leaving gallifrey to him, or being by the doctor's side? in a reality where the doctor never left gallifrey, the master wouldn't have. in a way, he sacrificed his whole rightful life for the doctor.

[jonnywaistcoat]

When writing, did you ever suffer from a fear or underdelivering or misrepresenting a topic? If you did, how did you overcome it? I enjoy writing but rarely bring it to the public out of fear that I am either not doing good enough or badly portraying the themes or aspects of what I write.

Absolutely, and on the one hand it's a very healthy fear - it prompts you to do your research and be thoughtful in how you write. On the other hand you've just got to accept that occasionally it will happen. Inculturation is a hell of a thing, and leaves us all with a thousand kneejerk preconceptions and perceptions of the world, some benign and some downright awful. And sometimes they crop up no matter how thoughtful you try to be. And you gotta understand that when it happens and people call you on it, you just have to take your lumps and learn what you can from it.

It doesn't help, of course, that the words you write are only ever half of what your audience reads: five people reading the same book are reading five different books, each filtering the text through a lifetime of psychology and experience. And they will find themes and problems in there you never even considered, and they will also find resonances and beauty in your work that you could never have foreseen.

At the end of the day, writing stuff thats meaningful to you (hell, writing anything at all) is a messy, bruising business, and anybody who tells you there are simple solutions or clear rules to follow is either lying to you or to themselves.

But you can't let it paralyse you. Its like if you're playing football and you're worried about falling over. It's a reasonable fear and you should do your best to avoid it, but occasionally it's gonna happen, and unless you want to spend the whole game just standing still in a field, you've kinda just got to get on with it. Just try not to be one of those writers who's always taking dives and... screaming for the ref to get a free kick? Hm. That analogy may have gotten away from me. I don't actually know much about football.

Point is, I'm aware that this isn't the most reassuring writing advice I've ever given, but yeah, its a messy, scary business. Just do your best. Be thoughtful. Be kind. And always do your research.

[drdemonprince]

Hey Doc,

It’s reunion season. As someone who works in Academia I’m curious as to what your thoughts are about these things. My tiny liberal arts college just had their reunion and I didn’t go because I assumed they were just after my money. Is there any value to these things generally? I’m curious as to why certain folks get so hyped about these things.

ha. reunions, honor's societies, and hell even most conferences and networking events are just a big revenue generating jack-off fest. if you enjoy that stuff, which some people apparently do because they are so socially driven that even just hanging out with coworkers feels both productive and meaningful, go nuts. but they make me wanna kms. there's no way in hell i'm going to be in the workplace any more than i have to, least of not for some artificial fun social event where i have to remain in professional mode the entire time AND i have to pay for the privilege of enduring. ridiculous. this entire model of event is based on the assumption that a person is making academia/their profession their entire LIFE and have no other meaningful social connections nor any ability to prioritize other things, and therefore their relational and socioemotional needs have to be met under the guise of it being work. it's the same kind of thinking that grooms academics to be willing to leave their entire social networks behind to move anywhere in the country where a decent job will have them, regardless of how that might impede their life as a queer person or person of color. it's very subtly isolating, inculturating stuff that takes an academic person away from their home culture, hobbies, non-elite social connections, and so on to make them better agents of their particular class position. people who go to events like these too much cease being able to hang out with wide swathes of humanity or have any interests outside of work, i find, and it gives me the heebies and the jeebies.

[eucatastrophicblues]

Christianity is a colonizer religion.

it’s simply true that the reason my family doesn’t practice our traditional religion is because about three generations back we converted.

I know when it happened, and I know that the people involved weren’t forced to convert, and I know that they communicated to their children and grandchildren that they were happy as Christians, and I know that in at least one case someone practiced a syncretism of Baptist Protestantism and our traditional beliefs.

I personally believe Christianity to be true, even in the face of the ideological and religious abuse I’ve suffered from white Protestants, but that wasn’t a painless series of reckonings to endure, you know? it doesn’t erase the reality of what happened to my family and my people. and a large part of my positive feelings come from my family and our relationship with our faith; another large part comes from other indigenous and colonized Christians who find ways to inculturate their faith and to preserve their culture despite European incursion. none of that is easy, none of that is fun, and it’s also a closed conversation. if your ancestors weren’t colonized by Europeans and your faith doesn’t come from that colonization I don’t want to hear your opinions on how I or anybody else should feel! I also don’t want you using colonized Christians as weapons to further your point!

it’s so painful and so rude and so disgusting. I expect better of people but maybe I think too highly of settlers.

[argentumcor]

Luce and her little crew are quite cute. People who are saying- I'm not kidding- that her name is short for Lucifer, and also other bad things, have got their wires crossed. Just worlds of bad Latin going on. Inculturation also means 20th century culture, brothers and sisters. Not all things new are bad.

Also, today I learned there were mascot images for other jubilee years. You want to see the last one?

So it could be worse. And yes, that is worse. Even if you hate anime. I know what it's going for but it did it badly.

[theshipsong]

astrology and tarot are entwined to me because i got into them when it was trendy, 2017-18, which was absolutely a result of content creators and urban outfitters preying on panic and helplessness among a certain demographic (college educated young women) with trump's first election. of course some of these content creators had been at the game for years beforehand, some simply had client practices and hopped onto digital media best they could, but there was certainly a Boom that i think reemerged in 2020 with COVID

but besides market factors, it all stuck with me because 1) it felt like a natural exploration for a lapsed catholic who'd been an atheist since i was 15 and 2) i did my level best to do it all spending the least money. i bought one mass market deck, the centennial waite-smith, and learned to read tarot with friends who still read tarot to this day. i bought used astrology books published before this boom and learned everything else online. what maintains my interest is the community i've found, like any other hobby. but.

i've ultimately been consistent in believing in free will. so the disclaimer that astrology is "just for fun" before putting on the language of someone who believes that planets have influence on us, or that the same force that moves planets moves us or what have you, felt dishonest to me and still does, which is why i mostly do astrology for fictional characters now. i still love astrology. i like medieval astrology and see it as proto-astronomy like alchemy is proto-chemistry. but actually applying it to life? following transits closely and planning around them? that's a lot of work for something i don't believe in

whereas tarot feels more humble. astrology's gravitas is from its age, of course; we've always looked at the sky, and in the west it's bound up in hellenistic mythology, which feels universal while in reality being extremely provincial. tarot cannot predate the printing press by much, and its persistent imagery in french and italian decks is late medieval to early modern and distinctly catholic (the high priestess and hierophant are the popess and pope), while the very recent rider waite-smith deck with its iconic illustrations is a british invention that seems to obfuscate its own origins with no distinctive culture in its figures besides "the (european, occasionally oriental) past," besides appropriating kabbalah to further confuse things.

i find it easier to be honest about tarot's smallness because we have a print archive of how contextual it is, how it varies between countries and centuries consistent with increased literacy and multiculturalism. western astrologers have to try very hard to get away from venus/aphrodite and mars/ares and end up with nonspecific, generalized mush, whereas the proliferation of indie tarot decks is something very beautiful to me. i may not jive with some or even most of them—i've bought three total and only use one—but tarot has always been inculturated. both mediums have PR about fate and the supposedly ancient/transcendent wisdom of their crafts that only a minority of us care about challenging, and astrology has a worse go of it by being so damn old

but tarot is unique to its context and, if done honestly, claims to be no more than that, whereas astrology makes bolder claims by involving the planets. the anarchist emma goldman (yes i know she's racist): "i do not believe in god because i believe in man," and man made the tarot wholesale. man also made astrology in that humans imbued natural phenomena with meaning, but nature is the closest thing we have to god, so i'd rather not.

[aurevoirmonty]

Le Moyen Âge a mauvaise réputation. Ne dit-on pas "moyenâgeux" pour dénoncer un archaïsme, pointer une médiocrité dépassée ? Mal connu, on l'assimile à l'obscurantisme, la barbarie ou l'appauvrissement. L'historien Martin Aurell prend la hallebarde pour voler au secours de ces siècles calomniés, démontant les poncifs avec une érudition joyeuse. Fanatisme, haine des femmes, inculture, violence… Il apparaît qu'à bien des égards, le Moyen Âge n'a rien à envier à d'autres périodes, et qu'il est parfois plus moderne que notre XXIᵉ siècle !

[basilepesso]

J'avais reposté celui qui suivait avant celui-ci. Je le reposterai ensuite. 1e diffusion de Camisole : 16 juin 2 024 (Tumblr 2, maintenant effacé).

Camisole

Voici mon texte 4 contre les haters susnommés dans mes 3 précédents textes. "De vrais photographes pourraient vous aider à mieux choisir vos sujets" : La notion de "sujet" est une notion de l'ancien monde, du photographe beauf, de celui qui n'a aucune envie d'aller plus loin que "prendre des trucs", et des gens qui n'y connaissent rien. C'est, justement, très précisément ce dont je parlais implicitement ou directement quant aux différences entre Tumblr, Instagram et Flickr...hier. J'ai expliqué dans des nombreuses analyses sous les sélections de YWAMag depuis 2 014 ce genre de points. Le about du mag montre que le mag a une orientation différente. Il suffisait de lire au lieu de te ruer sur tes pavés de haine, taré. Et/ou de regarder le niveau hallucinant du mag, et/ou mes textes sous certaines photos.

Nos interviewés donnent leur avis sur le mag. Mais 1 comme ton énergie de cafard est dirigée vers le Mal, tu n'as pas vu - 2 Tu aurais encore eu une réponse ad hoc, genre "ils veulent me flatter car ils savent que je suis mégalomane", ou "je les encule". Non, David Gibb Smeaton n'est pas payé pour me dorer la pilule, c'est un créateur, pas un plumitif. Il a écrit ce texte, dont "very very rarely one finds in this wall a gleaming vein produced by an original vision, a burning insight of pure flammable intensity. Living Gold. This shimmering pulsating auric vein is the inspirational, insightful visionary work of Basile Pesso." car il est fan de mon travail depuis 10 ans.

Il est très, très, très loin d'être le seul. Le boycott d'ultra-gauche qui a bousillé notre carrière, plus un autre type de boycott dont j'ai déjà parlé et dont je ne parlerai pas dans ce texte, permettent à des ordures comme toi de contrer les seuls textes et articles sur mon travail, car quelques textes et articles ne suffisent pas face à une ordure comme toi, et mon CV n'est pas encore assez fourni pour un cinglé comme toi, d'autant qu'il n'y en a plus en ligne qu'une très petite partie, notamment à cause d'une étrange coupe faite par Lens Culture.

Il n'est absolument pas dans mes priorités de remettre quelque part mon CV complet, d'autant que je ne présente jamais mon CV d'agent d'artises et curator d'expositions (2 008 - 2 013, Paris), juste celui de mes carrières actuelles, sans mes postes de collaborateur d'Anne pour lui éviter le boycott autant que possible.

Je n'ai aucun problème avec les auteurs qui se contentent de "sujets". Je suis fan de plein de gens, et connais parfaitement le travail de centaines de photographes (pas "parfaitement pour des milliers", mais j'aime leur travail). Simplement, moi, je vais ailleurs. Plus loin. Et les incultes comme toi (tu ne l'es pas en général mais sur certains points) n'y comprennent rien et osent dire que "je prends mes photos AU HASARD". L'hallu. La camisole. BP. P.S : il s'agit d'une vison morale des choses, en plus de l'incapacité à comprendre la composition. J'en ai déjà parlé et je le referai. C'est la weltanschauung de droite (la tienne, et celle que Conversano diffuse depuis 8 ans sur "l'art content pour rien", drainant des masses de beaufs, souvent des "mascus" complètement frustrés, n'ayant pas vu une chatte à part sur écran depuis des années, et donc, comme toi, traitant une superbe femme de thon).

[azspot]

Where does the Church stand now on these liturgical questions? Francis’s decisions regarding liturgy in some cases are enshrined in canon law, but the attitudinal adjustments needed to make these gains durable are still a work in progress. The American bishops are in no hurry to admit women to the instituted ministries, and they have resisted revisiting their troubled liturgical translations, though some other English-speaking conferences have called for a comprehensive re-evaluation. Traditionalist Catholics are biding their time, hoping that the next pope will overturn Francis’s limitations on the celebration of the older rites, and opponents of inculturation remain skeptical. The resistance to Pope Francis’s leadership in liturgy echoes what we have seen on other fronts—such as care for creation, honoring the humanity of migrants, and solidarity with the poor. It will be critical therefore for the next pope to take up these issues where Francis left off, with the same courage and confidence he displayed.

Francis’s Liturgical Legacy

[claudehenrion]

Samuel Huntington ( II ) : Le choc des incultures.

Lorsque le livre de Samuel Huntington ''le Choc des civilisations'' est paru, en 1993, une immense levée de boucliers a secoué la Gauche française (beaucoup plus encore que celles des autres pays, sans doute moins stupides et moins bornées que la nôtre) : il sortait complètement des chemins obligés, et proposait une hypothèse nouvelle : la culture ! Devant ce crime de lèse-pensée-clônée, tous les progressistes se sont précipités : il fallait détruire ce brûlot et son auteur, ''quoi qu'il en coûte'' ! Trente ans plus tard... on sait qu'il ne s'agissait pas d'hypothèses, mais d'une vraie ''vision''.

Car ce premier quart du XXI ème siècle a vu un nouveau paradigme, le choc des civilisations, balayer son prédécesseur, celui qui rêvait à voix haute d'une mondialisation heureuse... qui semblait possible, en ces temps révolus. Et Samuel Huntington, le premier (et longtemps le seul) a osé énoncer cette vérité incontournable : la mondialisation des échanges, loin d'effacer les différences entre les civilisations –qui, tant bien que mal, arrivaient à coexister sans elle-- les a exacerbées. Cette évolution vers le pire est soulignée dans ou par l'actuel conflit israélo-palestinien, si différent des précédents qui étaient entre des personnes, donc relativement limités. Plus rien de tout cela : l'horreur est désormais exposée au grand jour, ce qui la rend ''hollywoodienne'' dans son atrocité, et elle n'est plus dictée par des choix rationnels (voire idéologiques), mais par des considérations liées à des appartenances religieuses ou culturelles. Finies les trêves olympiques, les Eurovisions, les matches de foot ou le respect malgré la guerre : c'est ta violence contre ma violence, et mon dieu contre le tien. Seul Huntington l'avait deviné.

Il avait également prévu la guerre en Ukraine, avec 30 ans d'avance, ce que, paradoxalement, ses détracteurs ont retourné contre lui : à les entendre, il avait tort, puisque deux pays pratiquement mono-culturels se faisaient la guerre... S'ils avaient lu (et pourquoi pas, relu, comme je l'ai fait et refait !), ils auraient remarqué que Huntington expliquait clairement que ''la frontière civilisationnelle entre l'Occident et l'orthodoxie passe en plein cœur de l'Ukraine, depuis des siècles'', et que le conflit à venir ne serait donc pas entre ''le monde libre et un tyran'', mais entre une partie d'une Ukraine occidentalisée et le monde russe ''qui n'a presque jamais été exposé aux constituants de la civilisation occidentale (i.e. le catholicisme romain, la féodalité, la Renaissance, la Réforme, l'expansion coloniale, les Lumières et la victoire de l'Etat-Nation'' --puis sa chute, dans l'Europe dévoreuse... Et le scénario qu'il voyait le plus probable était ''une division en deux de l'Ukraine, avec une partie Est revenue à la Russie''... Question : combien avons-nous été à clamer cette évidence depuis le premier jour (NDLR-- Sans pour autant excuser les attaques unilatérales russes des 20 février 2014 ‎et 24 février 2022) et à avoir droit à des noms d'oiseaux ? La ''vista'' et la prémonition de Samuel Huntington sont presque incroyables !

Mais ce n'est rien en comparaison de ce qu'il écrivait sur l'islam, et sur l'invasion non-déguisée que nos aveugles-par-décision et nos doctrinaires enrégimentés s'entêtent à appeler ''migration'' : vingt ans avant les tristes ''printemps arabes'' (2011 -2012) où tant de bobards nous ont été racontées, il avait déjà prévu les flots, les torrents ''d'eau de boudin'' qui allaient nous tomber dessus (et que les plus obtus de nos malvoyants continuent à refuser de voir) … ''Certains dirigeants occidentaux, comme Bill Clinton (NB : il écrit ça en 1993), ne voient aucun problème avec l'Islam, mais seulement avec quelques extrémistes violents... Quatorze cent ans d'histoire démontrent le contraire. Nos conflits actuels entre la démocratie libérale et le marxisme léninisme ne sont que des phénomènes superficiels si on les compare aux combats millénaires entre le christianisme et l'islam...''. Mais nos cuistres incultes ne veulent rien voir...

Il a d'ailleurs prédit que ceux-ci vont s'accentuer avec le temps, à cause de la fabrication d'un besoin de revanche post-coloniale des musulmans, et de l'arrogance des prétentions universalistes de l'Occident où l'aveuglement naïf et puéril de nos fausses ''élites'' devant la dimension planétaire de notre conflit avec l'islam –encore nié par la majorité des myopes malfaisants-- risque chaque jour de dégénérer en conflit planétaire avec la Russie : l'Occident est si satisfait de ses absurdités ''sociétales'' --dites moralo-politico-économiques, mais majoritairement mauvaises, perverses et dépassées--, qu'il ne veut pas voir que le monde entier les rejette, toutes, en bloc... et il persiste dans son harcèlement à ne juger les autres (qui n'en veulent à aucun prix) qu'à travers elles. Huntington constate que ''la croyance occidentale dans la vocation universelle de sa culture a trois défauts majeurs : elle est fausse, elle est immorale et elle est dangereuse.. '' Que ne l'a-t-on écouté ! On aurait évité les erreurs catastrophiques en cours des Macron, von der Leyen... et autres cuistres, oublieux de toutes les leçons de l'Histoire !

L'immigration est une autre ''prédiction'' clairement exprimée dans ce livre (rappel : qui, écrit en 1993, n'a jamais été ''retouché'') : Huntington écrit : '' La démographie et les mouvements de population sont les moteurs de l'Histoire'' (ce que m'enseignait mon Maître Alfred Sauvy à l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, en 1959, déjà !). Au lieu du problème que nous posons si mal : ''l'Europe sera-t-elle islamisée et l'Amérique hispanisée puis islamisée à son tour'', Sam Huntington propose la réflexion suivante : ''Ces deux sociétés vont-elles être déchirées entre deux communautés distinctes voire opposées, se recommandant de deux civilisations que tout oppose'' Et il conclut ''Une immigration importante ne peut produire que des pays divisés entre musulmans et chrétiens même résiduels ou déculturés...''.

Sa conclusion est, pour le moins, ''décoiffante'' :''En des temps où tous les peuples sont à la recherche des racines culturelles qu'on leur a volées ou qu'on leur refuse, quelle place peut prétendre occuper une société qui a perdu son fond culturel commun et croit pouvoir se définir par des principes politiques ou philosophiques totalement inadaptés au monde de demain, comme le fait l'Occident, qui n'a plus que le mortel multiculturalisme pour remplacer l'ancienne identité européenne fondée sur le christianisme, donc sur la séparation du spirituel et du temporel et la force de la Loi''. Parcourons tous les médias, et revisitons notre ''quotidien'', quel que soit le jour : tout ce que nous y lisons avait été annoncé il y a 30 ans... et nous n'avons rien fait pour ''corriger le tir''. Que de regrets nous devons avoir !

H-Cl.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT AUGUSTINE ZHAO RONG AND COMPANIONS Feast Day: July 9

Augustine Zhao Rong and his companions, also known as the Martyrs of China, are the priests, religious, and laity, either foreigners or Chinese nationals, who were killed between 1650 and 1930 because of their Christian faith. The protomartyr of China was Francisco Fernández de Capillas, a Dominican priest and a missionary to Asia, who was beheaded in 1648.

In 1724, the practice of Christianity was banned under the punishment of death. Many Catholics and missionaries fled to foreign countries, but others remained secretly behind; and those who were captured were executed. After some years of tolerance, the persecution resumed more violently in 1805.

Prominent among the martyrs of this period, was St. Augustine Zhao Rong, a Chinese diocesan priest. He was previously a soldier, but after witnessing the heroic death of the martyrs, especially that of Bishop Gabriel-Taurin Dufresse of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, whom he escorted to Beijing, he converted to the Catholic faith and became a priest. In 1815, he was arrested, brutally tortured, and strangled to death.

In 1846, the anti-Christian laws were abolished, but a deep distrust for Christian missionaries, who were association with foreign imperialistic nations, remained among the people. Moreover, many of them failed to inculturate the Gospel in the Chinese tradition.

A new wave of persecution began in 1900, in connection with the Boxer Rebellion. In the next three decades (30 years), there were thousands of martyrs, including the 119 who were executed in 1930 at Li-Thau-Tseul. The Communist regime, that came to power in 1949, continued to persecute Christianity, which is still legally outlawed till the present times. The Martyrs of China were collectively canonized in the year 2000.

The Martyrs of China were beatified two times: Pope Leo XIII on May 27, 1900 and Pope Pius XII on November 24, 1946. The martyrs are canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.

[drdemonprince]

do you consider exorsexism to be an accurate/coherent concept in terms of describing structural discrimination against nonbinary people?

when i first encountered the term i thought it made sense, but now i’m wondering how it potential could tie into the ways transmisogynists use “binary trans woman” as a kind of dogwhistle. i have certainly encountered interpersonal bigotry from fellow trans people over my being nonbinary… but none of them had any structural power over me, so i tend to not feel particularly threatened by whatever “binary” trans people may feel about me. on the other hand, i do face a lot of structural barriers in a cis-binary world; but is that experience actually distinct enough from transphobia or cissexism to warrant its own term?

There is definitely a structural oppression of nonbinary people that exists and we need better tools to talk about. To this day a nonbinary identity is not legible to basically ANY government ID office, insurance provider, employer, school, hospital, or other large institution, that gender neutral or unisex restrooms and locker rooms seldom exist, and so many other public spaces & institutions are so rigidly gendered, such that nonbinary people are not allowed to functionally exist in society.

And speaking as someone who has inhabited both nonbinary and more binary trans identities, people absolutely do comprehend and honor the familiar binary options more, gender you correctly more often if you are binary, include you more often in social spaces and events, and are flat out more comfortable around you if you are easier for them to parse. It infuriates me when trans people shit on nonbinary folks as being self-centered and fake oppressed. This stuff is so clear.

And none of that erases the fact that TME nonbinary people often harbor deeply transmisogynistic views -- we live in a transmisogynistic society! all people are inculturated into those views and anyone who is not a trans woman does not get targeted by systems of transmisogyny. trans men are just as bad or worse wrt to all of this, so if anything the singling out of nonbinary people as fake, entitled not-really-oppressed trans people who are somehow uniquely bad to trans femmes is itself a manifestation of anti-nonbinary prejudice. theres nothing the "theyfabs" are doing thats any worse or an different from what you see from just about every trans man and cis woman.

Trans men often DO hold power over our nonbinary siblings, because we are men, often with many of the privileges attendant -- but also a group does not need to be positioned below another group on some straightforward hierarchy in order to experience a genuine and distinct loci of oppression. (see for example the differing experiences of bisexuals and gay and lesbian people). Lateral aggression is a thing, cissexism and coercive gender assignment at birth is to blame for virtually ALL of this, and of course, a lot of nonbinary people do in fact transition in some way (not just medically) and so moves to exclude them from discussions of trans oppression are a bad move.

[eucatastrophicblues]

Queer Indigenous person here-

I’ve been looking into Catholicism for a while but due to its role in colonization and my fear of people being homophobic/transphobic to me I’ve been hesitant to actually join. I wanted to know if you had any advice for someone potentially wanting to join and if you had any good resources you would recommend looking into? Especially those surrounding anti-colonial and anti-queerphobia. Thank you!

Hi!!

I’ll be honest, I sat on this one for a while, because I wanted to try and pray on it and give the right answers. These are topics that are really dear to my heart, and I want to represent them well.

I’ll start with the Catholicism question. I’m far from the first indigenous person to wrestle with the question of what to do with Christianity, and how to deal with the fact that we only believe these things because of violent colonization.

The trouble is that there isn’t a lot of writing about this question. A lot of devout indigenous Christians are completely unconcerned with what could be called the blogosphere/social media, and don’t care very much about gaining prominence as cultural commentators. They might attend some academic conferences or powwows or other in-person meetups, but you’re unlikely to see them on Bluesky dropping hot takes. (A lot of specifically North American indigenous people who post on social media are anti-Christian to the point of being explosively prejudiced against their own communities, and are very good at cultivating an echo chamber of other anti-Christian ndn voices to the point that if you as an indigenous person go looking for commentary and discussion on this issue you’re most likely to find a lot of pain, anger, and bitterness and nothing else. Christian Natives are essentially invisible in these spaces in much the same way that queer Christians are often invisible in queer spaces.) Possibly you might find some solace in the inculturated Catholicism of places like Mexico and the Philippines, but the same issue rises up - indigenous people (and the descendants of indigenous people) who are satisfied by and fulfilled by their faiths and don’t perceive a conflict between their own culture and their religion are unlikely to write about this except as orthodox Christians or Catholics. The indigenous-identity-focused kind of nonfiction writing that actively digs into questions of identity is more likely to be about wrestling with Christianity’s legacy of violence than about finding fulfillment in it as a colonized person.

I was really fortunate, because my family have been Christian for about a hundred years at least. My grandfather and his family were mixed and lived in the segregated part of their town and went to the Black church along with their neighbors; my paternal great-great grandmother was not assimilated but practiced a syncretism of traditional religion and Christianity that heavily focused on invoking the Christian God. My maternal side was also Christian and much more assimilated into middle-class white settler society, though a great aunt preserved some traditional knowledge. As a result, my experience with Christianity is as an authentic expression of my mixed indigenous identity, and I’ve come to value the knowledge that I can be authentically indigenous and authentically Christian.

My best advice on that point therefore is kind of to get offline and talk to people, either in your community or in other indigenous communities. You’re likely to find understanding voices, and more balanced critical ones, in person. I struggled with this a lot and found solace in things like my tribe’s annual gathering featuring gospel music (because most of us are Protestants, as we were colonized by Protestants) and seeing Plains Catholic altars incorporating bison skulls alongside the rosary.

Ultimately, if you believe that this is true, if you really believe that God did all that, you have to ask yourself if you’ll be able to ignore that belief when you turn away. That’s what’s kept me here. Even if I were to lapse, I wouldn’t be able to stop believing in the Trinity, or believing in the Resurrection, and so, this is where I am.

I’m going to reblog this with more about queer issues specifically, because this post is getting long, but I also want to invite my followers to give their own feedback on the question of readings re: homophobia and transphobia in the Church and finding supportive community regardless - this is a discussion with a thousand different faces, and I’m only one of them.

[loborundas]

Thinking about the people that ignored me when I told them to boycott eurovision long years ago, when the allowed israel in, and are acting all high and mighty NOW

Your political inculture and unwillingness to learn until something BIG happens disqualifies you from acting like you were in the right all this time, I remember

(not like you weren't already horrid people due to [actions taken by the group of people in the past], but still, one more log to the fire I guess)

[newhistorybooks]

"Timothy Keegan’s book offers a comprehensive assessment of the dynamic interactionsbetween the Xhosa chiefdoms and the European colonial and missionary enterprise during the first half of the nineteenth century. It explores more fully the Xhosa side of this complex history—how they encountered, rejected, or inculturated Christianity in the rapidly changing world created by European colonial and capitalist expansion. Minutely researched and written in highly accessible prose, the book is a welcome addition to the historiography of South Africa’s coastal belt and should be read eagerly by specialists and non-specialists alike."

[aurevoirmonty]

« J’en suis arrivé à la conclusion que le multiculturalisme impliquait la grande déculturation, soit qu’il l’entraîne, soit qu’il ne puisse fleurir que sur elle. Il l’exige et il l’impose. La culture c’est d’abord ne serait-ce que chronologiquement la voix des ancêtres. Or, le multiculturalisme ne veut pas d’ancêtres, et le nivellement social non plus : les ancêtres sont un privilège, les ancêtres sont une vanité, les ancêtres ont un instrument de ségrégagation sociale, les ancêtres en société pluriethnique et multiculturelle, sont une perpétuelle source de conflits possibles. Le mutlculturalisme est une inculture. Il l’est nécessairement, car il rabat tout sur le présent, tandis que la culture est le relief du temps, un jeu, une distance, une ironie à l’endroit de ce qui survient, le sourire aristocratique des morts. »

Renaud Camus