#pluralistic ignorance

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Pluralistic Ignorance

Pluralistic Ignorance - a social psychology concept that revolves around the idea people misjudge how large groups of people feel about various issues.

Example: Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a classic case of pluralistic ignorance.

As the emperor parades through the streets, everyone watching him thinks every other person believes he’s wearing clothes. This leads them to doubt their own sensory and rational faculties out of peer pressure.

Eventually, a child points out the emperor wears no clothes, proving pluralistic ignorance dissipates in the light of confidence and common sense.

Some Causes of Pluralistic Ignorance

When it comes to pluralistic ignorance, various different causes deserve attribution. Consider these three common sources of the phenomenon:

Fear: Each member of a group feels anxiety about the rest of the group stereotyping or excluding them. As such, fear is one of the key reasons pluralistic ignorance is so common. If you believe everyone around you believes something different than you do, you’ll feel outnumbered and intimidated to share your own thoughts. This fear can metastasize throughout an entire society to the point a majority of people believe they’re in the minority for holding the beliefs they do.

Lack of communication: In personal relationships, pluralistic ignorance often crops up due to a lack of effective communication. When people communicate openly, there’s no room for this sort of ignorance to take root in the first place. If there’s a climate of distrust, however, it’s likely people will play their cards close to the chest.

Misunderstandings: Pluralistic ignorance is a form of cognitive dissonance writ large. In many cases, a simple misunderstanding can grow into a deeply held conviction about society as a whole. For instance, studies show men generally feel uncomfortable when other men talk explicitly about their sexual behavior, but they refuse to speak up about it because they think they would be in the minority for vocalizing such discomfort.

Examples of Pluralistic Ignorance

Misperceptions fuel pluralistic ignorance in a vast array of different scenarios. Here are 3 examples to consider:

Alcohol consumption in college: Multiple studies show college students believe their peers expect them to engage in excessive alcohol use. Ironically, the same studies indicate these students don’t want to drink such large quantities themselves. Regardless, this misperception fuels a culture of alcohol abuse on many different campuses.

Lack of action in crowds: The bystander effect—an offshoot of pluralistic ignorance in general—refers to how people in crowds often won’t act because they believe someone else will. They experience a diffusion of responsibility, a belief someone else will take the lead and put the onus of ethical behavior on themselves. The murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City, watched by multiple onlookers, is an oft-cited example of this.

Political beliefs: Various studies indicate many people hold a majority political viewpoint yet believe they’re in the minority. For instance, in the Jim Crow South, racial segregation persisted at least in part because people believed they were in the minority to believe it was unjust. Once it became clear public opinion was against these racist policies, a resultant attitude change followed.

How to Overcome Pluralistic Ignorance

Everyone can fall prey to cognitive biases. Keep these tips in mind as you try to keep pluralistic ignorance from influencing your own behavior:

Ask people what they think. Reach out to people and earnestly inquire about what they believe. Remember it’s okay to disagree with someone or an entire group of people. You may all stand to gain from such open dialogue, as it becomes clear perceived norms are less ironclad than you thought prior to your conversation.

Stick to your principles. Even if you confirm group norms go against your conscience, stay true to yourself. It can be scary to feel like your social identity is at risk, but public support for all sorts of issues can change. When you stick to your value set, you’ll be better able to remain confident in yourself over time.

Understand how common pluralistic ignorance is. People misperceive what other people believe constantly. This gives rise to a false consensus on all sorts of different issues, potentially leading to the rise of social norms a majority of people disagree with in the first place.

Floyd H. Allport, considered the father of experimental social psychology, pioneered this field of research with help from two of his students (Daniel Katz and Richard Schanck) in the early to mid-20th century. Since then, social psychologists like Cathy McFarland, Dale T. Miller, and Hubert J. O’Gorman have made substantial contributions to how and why pluralistic ignorance operates as well.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[wat3rm370n]

Dear people in "blue states", Yes, your vote counts. The system isn't fair, but if y'all who've been voting stopped voting blue because you think it doesn't matter, your state would be red. Sincerely, a voter in Pennsylvania.

[halalchampagnesocialist]

When Palestinians advocate for a one-state solution and a right of return, we advocate for a better future for Jews too, a pluralistic state with equal rights for both peoples and other minorities. Instead, it’s spun by Zionists that “from the river to the sea” is a genocidal call to drive Jews out, which is nothing more than mere hysteria that ignores that Palestinians are already being removed from their homelands as we speak, even if it’s in a subtle and slow manner.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (daily updates)

From September but still relevant.

By Jessica wildfire

The science of not helping.

In 1913, an engineer named Max Ringelmann noticed something weird about human behavior. When you told one person to do something like pull a rope, they tried really hard. When you put them into groups, they didn't try as hard.

They slacked.

Psychologists have identified this behavior as social loafing. Sometimes they also call it diffusion of responsibility, defined as "the idea that the presence of others changes the behavior of the individual by making them feel less responsible for the consequences of their actions," leading to "moral disengagement."

A 2005 study confirmed that when you put people into teams, each person does less, with the exception of highly motivated individuals, who wind up doing most of the work. If you were ever the team leader or facilitator, you know all about social loafing.

It happens online, too.

A 2022 review on diffusion of responsibility revealed that it happens all the time, in situations ranging from donations to tipping. It even happens in online communication. If you email one person, they're more likely to respond. They also give longer, more detailed responses. If you email a bunch of people, and they see each other copied on the message, they don't respond at all or they send shorter, less helpful replies.

Groups also make riskier decisions than individuals.

A team of psychologists asked a bunch of adults to play with marbles. They put them into pairs. Each pair's job was to stop the marble from sliding down a ramp. They won points if they stopped the marble before it hit the bottom. They got more points if their partner stopped it before they did. As predicted, both players got worse over time. As the study concludes, "The co-player's presence led participants to act later, reduced their subjective sense of agency, and also attenuated the neural processing of action outcomes." Basically, it made them slower and dumber.

In 1968, two psychologists wanted to see what adults would do in an emergency when they were alone, versus when they were in a group. They started pumping fake smoke into a room while people filled out a questionnaire. When they were on their own, 75 percent of participants did something. When they were in a group, the dynamic almost completely reversed. More than 60 percent of them did nothing. They just kept working on the questionnaire.

When the researchers asked why, participants said they didn't want to look stressed or anxious. They figured if nobody else was doing anything, then there was nothing wrong. They figured they were just overreacting. They cared more about looking weird than letting the building burn down.

That's called pluralistic ignorance.

You see similar results in studies over the last several decades. On their own, people generally take more responsibility.

There's nobody else to do it.

When you put them into groups, they start acting selfish and stupid. They look to each other for validation first. If they don't get any signals to act, then they'll ignore what their own eyes are telling them. The more people you add to a situation, the more passive they become, the less likely they jump into action.

About a decade after the smoke study, another team of psychologists ran a similar experiment, but this time it was a man beating a woman in public. Participants intervened when they thought the man was a stranger. When they thought the man was her husband, they didn't do anything. That's called confusion of responsibility, when bystanders think it's not their place to step in or step up to help, or they're afraid helping will get them into trouble with some kind of authority figure.

A 2018 study looked at the brain's natural response to emergencies. They observed a significant drop in the central gyrus and the prefrontal cortex, the parts of your brain associated with helping. A person's first reaction is to preserve themselves. Their brain has to cross an empathy or compassion threshold in order to risk their own safety and security by helping someone. Basically, they have to care more about the person in danger than themselves.

A 2019 study in Aggressive Behavior found that friends and family members help each other when strangers don't. In fact, knowing the person makes you roughly 20 times more likely to help. Flip that, and you see that if someone doesn't know you, they're 20 times less likely to get involved.

Saturation also plays a role.

When you add more people to a situation, there's less for them to do. At least, that's what they usually think. If someone's already helping, then bystanders are less likely to get involved.

The gravity of an emergency also makes a difference. Basically, an emergency has to look bad enough to get someone's attention, but not so bad that it triggers their self-protection instincts.

You can see why this setup poses a problem when it comes to a crisis that falls way above or way below that threshold.

The climate crisis and the pandemicene hit us right in the middle of the bystander effect, exploiting pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. It's exactly the kind of problem everyone wants someone else to do something about.

The super rich grasp this vulnerability, at least intuitively.

So do politicians.

They're perfectly happy to profit off our deaths and the destruction of our future while everyone stands around waiting for someone else to make the hard decisions, for someone else to make the personal sacrifices, for someone else to deal with the problem. Even worse, they use the inaction they see as an excuse for them to do nothing. After all, why should Monica give up her carbon bomb vacation when Heather is going to Italy?

As we've observed time and again, everyone reinforces each other's anxiety about looking weird if they're the only ones doing the right thing. They would rather sabotage their own health than violate social codes.

Some research has pushed back on the bystander effect, showing that people do tend to offer help even when they're in a crowd. However, the Aggressive Behavior study shows this likely happens because of accountability cues. In other words, they act because there's a camera present of some kind or some other indication that there's going to be consequences for not helping. That's why they help.

They don't want to look bad.

Here's the strangest part:

Most people know about the diffusion of social responsibility, along with terms like social loafing and pluralistic ignorance. If they don't, they've heard the story of Kitty Genovese, even if it's exaggerated. We have countless examples of societies allowing moral crime and social murder to happen right in front of them, simply because their membership in society itself encouraged their silence and complicity.

They know all this, but they still decide to stay silent and complicit when it's happening right in front of them.

Maybe psychologists should study that.

Even when people know about these psychological and sociological hangups, they still choose to dwell in denial and wishful thinking. They tell themselves it's different this time, or there's some kind of exception to excuse it. They still choose to stand around and wait for someone else to do the right thing, until it's too late. They're really good at admitting fault and promising to do better after the fact, especially when they can fall back on a diffusion of responsibility as the reason.

Then they wait for everyone to forget.

Rinse and repeat.

It's ironic that we keep talking about society and community as something that calls on us to summon our better selves and help each other, when our actions continue to prove that group behavior often leads us to making bad decisions and indulging in our worst selves.

Simply being in a community isn't enough.

You have to do something.

[girls--complex]

What does the "Quaker" in your pinned refer to?

The religious society of friends.

But announcing an allegiance to the religious society of friends is kind of ironic because it's a worship community defined in negative, no forms, no quirks, no special identity, no ignorance, no end to ignorance, no death and dying, no end to death and dying, etc.

I include it because I want to give people context of the kind of pluralistic, contemplative protestant Christ bhakti that exists inside of my mind. It's also true that it's my primary worship community supplemented with several diffuse covens of variously ritualistically inclined individuals. It's also-also true that I still have a liturgy brain despite it all and don't really think unprogrammed worship has some particular supremacy over ritualistic worship (not that this is a belief of quakers generally). Actually I think they should be next door to each other and take communion together and I hope they will in future centuries.

Oh, it also means that I allow God to make me physically vibrate at times.

[lexithewulf]

Discussions about religion

When it comes to discussions about Islam—or any religion, really—there’s a serious lack of nuance in how people approach it. It’s not just about “misunderstanding” the religion; it’s about recognizing the ways in which it has been interpreted, manipulated, and politicized.

To study God—to study Allah—is to study the world itself. Religion is not a monolith, nor is it static. Its meaning shifts, its texts are read and re-read through different lenses, and yet, time and time again, the dominant interpretations are the ones wielded by conservative factions, whether we’re talking about Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. Wahhabism and other extremist offshoots don’t define Islam any more than Christian fundamentalism defines Christianity. But because these conservative interpretations align with systems of power, they are the ones that get amplified, while progressive, pluralistic religious perspectives are ignored. This is one of the major sources of religious trauma—people aren’t necessarily harmed by faith itself, but by the rigid, authoritarian structures that weaponize it.

And that brings me to a broader issue: the failure of atheistic secularism as a political framework. There’s this idea that in order to work with religious communities, we need a purely secular approach, as if detaching completely from religion will somehow create an environment of fairness. But in practice, secularism often bends toward conservatism. It doesn’t erase power structures—it reinforces them. It creates an exclusive hierarchy where one belief system (or lack thereof) dominates, rather than fostering a space where religious pluralism can thrive.

Socialist movements that understand this—those that champion religious pluralism and multiculturalism—are the ones that succeed in actually uniting people. The religious socialists of the world already figured this out. If you ignore religion entirely, you’re not just neutral; you end up in the same category as those who claim to be “non-racist” instead of anti-racist. There’s a difference between passively tolerating something and actively working to dismantle harmful structures. Atheistic secularism often pretends it’s doing the latter, when in reality, it’s just setting the stage for a new dominant ideology to take over—one that’s just as exclusionary and reactionary as the ones it claims to oppose.

And let’s not even get started on how people dismiss the importance of dreams, of introspection, of looking inward to understand not just themselves but the systems they exist within. Dreams aren’t just random nonsense—they’re windows into the subconscious, into the patterns we overlook, into the ways we’ve been conditioned to think and act. If you never dream—never allow yourself to reflect, to analyze, to explore—you’ll never be able to break free from the limitations imposed on you. You’ll just keep cycling through the same thought processes, the same failures, the same missteps.

So maybe, just maybe, it’s time to wake up to that.

[33-108]

ABHINAVAGUPTA AND THE CONCEPT OF IGNORANCE IN KASHMIR SHAIVISM

Ignorance is a truth that all human beings perceive in their life in this world. All schools of Indian philosophical thought take cognizance of its existence in man and discuss its nature as they see it, recognizing that ignorance is universally perceived to be the cause of man’s bondage in his mundane life. A brief survey of the conceptualization of ignorance by some representative orthodox schools of Indian philosophy on the nature of ignorance will help in assessing the unique contribution made to the subject by the most illustrious exponent of Kashmir Shaivism, Abhinavagupta.

We shall begin our study with an examination of how the Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika schools conceived it, because these two schools have been assigned the lowest position in the hierarchy of the schools of Indian philosophy by a well-known Advaita Shaiva writer, Kshemaraja, in his Pratyabhijñahṛdayam (Sutra 8), where he says: tadbhūmikaḥ sarvadarśana sthitayaḥ, ‘the positions of the various systems of philosophy are only that’.

The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika writers conceptualise ignorance to be merely negation or absence of knowledge in the percipient subject. Thus, ignorance is, in their view, a negative concept which can be eliminated by acquisition of knowledge: duḥkha-janma-pravrtti-doṣa mityajñānānam uttarāpaye (Nyāya sūtra 1.1.2, and the Nyāya bhāṣya thereon, 15). The Sāṁkhya and the Patañjali Yoga schools look upon ignorance as the resultant of the lack of discriminatory wisdom (viveka-jñāna) in the percipient subject between the sentient (chetana) Puruṣa and the insentient material (jaḍa) Prakṛti (cf. SK vs. 64, p. 476 ff, and Vachasapati Misra’s commentary thereon).

The lack of discriminatory knowledge between these two ultimate components of creation, spirit and matter produces confusion in the mind of the percipient subject, culminating in the false superimposition of the characteristics of the material Prakṛiti on the spiritual Puruṣa. It is obvious that the dualistic Sāṁkhya-Yoga School’s theory of ignorance is positive in character, as opposed to the pluralistic Nyāya-Vaiṣeśika viewpoint, and that ignorance can be destroyed by developing its opposite, discriminatory wisdom, between the two, Puruṣa and Prakṛti. The Shankara Vedāntins conceive of two forms of ignorance, namely, cosmic ignorance (samaṣṭi or mūla ajñāna), and individual ignorance (vyaṣṭi or tūla ajñāna), though their nature and content are held to be identical in essence: idamajñānam samṣṭi-vyaṣti abhiprāyena ekamanekam ca vyavahryate (VS 76).

Cosmic ignorance plays a crucial role in the manifestation of the phenomenal world, while individual ignorance leads to a distorted vision of Reality, thereby causing bondage. Ignorance has been described by the Advaita Vedantins as neither existent (sat) on account of its being sublated by the dawn of true knowledge in the individual being, nor non-existent (asat), as it is experienced by all individuals on the mundane plane; it, therefore, is indescribable (anirvacanīya) in positive or negative terms: ajñānam sadasadbhyam nirvacanīyam triguṇātmakam jñāna-virodhī bhāva-rūpam (ibid 73). Ignorance here has only a phenomenal existence; as soon as one succeeds in elevating oneself to the trans-phenomenal level, ignorance disappears from the experiential horizon of the individual being once and for all.

Against this background of the views of the other orthodox schools, let us now examine the Advaita Shaiva concept of ignorance as conceived by the Advaita Shaiva writers of Kashmir. The earliest references to the concept of ignorance are the two aphorisms in the Śivasūtra revealed to Vasugupta, the founder of the Advaita Shaiva School in Kashmir. The two identically worded sūtras read thus: jñānam bandhaḥ (Śivasūtra 3.2). Kshemaraja, Abhinavagupta’s foremost disciple, says that the word jñānam actually signifies in this context vitiated, or limited, knowledge, which is tantamount to ignorance (ajñāna) (Śivasūtra Vimarśinī 3.2).

This ignorance lies at the root of the bondage of the individual being. When he is enveloped by defilement (mala), technically called āṇavamala (i.e. mala caused by the limitation imposed on the self by the Supreme Lord), then the individual does not experience his true divine nature on account of his being limited and contracted by this self-created limitation or āṇavamala. This lack of knowledge about his true nature is labeled ignorance. Kshemaraja interprets the word jñānam as occurs in the Śivasūtra (3.2) as signifying the knowledge of the self-produced in the citta (internal sense organ, equivalent to antaḥkaraṇa) in the form of its modification (citta-vritti) (SSV 128). Since the citta is universally acknowledged as of the nature of the three guṇas, pleasure (sattva), pain (rajas) and stupefaction (tamas), the knowledge produced in it bears all the characteristics of empirical knowledge. For instance, it implies the experience of duality between subject and object, as also infinite multiplicity.

The knowledge arising in the citta involving two distinct poles of experience, the knower and the known, is instrumental in the experient’s bondage. He is then subject to transmigration in the world. Kshemaraja quotes a verse from the Tantrasadbhāva, now lost, in his commentary, the Śivasutra-vimarśinī: “Confined to sattva, rajas and tamas (the three guṇas), and knowing only that (object of knowledge) which the senses can seize, the embodied being wanders about in the world, moving from one body to another” (ibid).

Abhinavagupta adds another dimension to the Advaita Shaiva conception of ignorance by postulating two distinct kinds of ignorance as existing on two different levels in the personality of embodied beings. These are spiritual ignorance and intellectual ignorance, or pauruṣa ajñāna and bauddha ajñāna respectively. He describes the salient features in the Tantrāloka (Sadānanda in VS 1.22-23) and the Tantrasāra (āhnika I).

According to him, as the Supreme Lord Paramashiva imposes limitations (sañkoca) on Himself of His free will (svecchaya) to become the universe consisting of an infinite number of subjects (pramāta), objects of experience (prameya), etc., which indeed are only His self-manifest forms on the mundane plane. His self-experience of His absolute nature (viṣvvottīrṇa rūpa), in the form of absolute I- experience, or pūrṇahantā, ceases.

This self-experience of the Supreme Lord is thus named because it expresses his fullest nature (paripūrṇa svabhāva). When the Supreme Lord is said to voluntarily assume limitation (sañkoca) to become the world, a split is created, as it were, in his self-experience (svātma-parāmarśa) as a result of which he begins experiencing Himself in the first instance as the exponent or subject symbolized by aham (I-experience), and the void (śūnya), and then subsequently as the exponent or the subject (aham) and the object of experience (idam, or not-self appearing to fill up the void or śūnya, as it were). All this happens in the course of the Supreme Lord’s involution (avaroha) as the universe.

It is held that the notion of not-self (idam) appears for the first time in His self-experience (parāmarśa), which then is experienced by him only as His self-extended form (sphāra), not different from him. His ‘truncated’ self-experience, as aham (I-experience) instead of pūrṇahanta (integral I-experience), caused by His voluntary act of self-limitation (ātma-sañkoca) resulting in the appearance of idam or not-self in the background of I-experience, Abhinavagupta designates by the term pauruṣa ajñāna (spiritual ignorance).

Abhinava defines pauruṣa ajñāna as atmani anātmabodha, or the experience of not-self (anātma uridam) in the self (ātma). The locus of this self-experience is the percipient subject’s mirror of consciousness (citta-darpaṇa), with the consciousness serving as the reflecting medium for all his self-experiences. Since this self-experience is produced prior to the creation of citta or intellect, during the manifestation of the world, it is held to be beyond the reach of the citta or the intellect. Abhinavagupta, therefore, posits that pauruṣa ajañāna, or spiritual ignorance, being an offshoot of the Supreme Lord’s act of assuming limitation in the course of His self-manifestation as the universe, cannot be eradicated by a limited embodied individual through his personal efforts in the form of practice of spiritual discipline (sādhana).

Ignorance can be destroyed only by the Supreme Lord through the infusion of His grace into His form of the embodied individual, technically called śaktipāta.

The second kind of ignorance, bauddha ajñāna (intellectual ignorance), is created in the intellect or buddhi upon the Supreme Lord’s being enveloped by māyā, and residual impressions of karma floating in the sphere of māyā, called māyīyamala and kārmamala, in the course of His self-manifestation as the universe.

Abhinavagupta describes bauddha ajñāna as experience in the form of self in the not-self (anātmani-ātmabodha). It is said that the Supreme Lord, existing on the mundane level in the form of a spiritual monad following His act of self-limitation, is enveloped by māyīyamala (defilement in the form of māyā), with his self-experience as pure subject (aham) becoming completely concealed, allowing only his experience of not-self (idam) to remain unaffected by the veil of māyā (māyīyamala). This happens on the level just below the śuddha vidyā tattva in the sphere of māyā. A vacuum is created in the self-experience of the subject once again after eclipse of the I-experience (aham).

Since worldly transactions are not possible in the absence of a subject or agent, the Supreme Lord, in the course of his self-manifestation as the universe, creates the experience of the subject by superposing the experience of the empirical subject on the not-self (idam or anātma). As a consequence of this super-imposition, ego-experience (ahaṁkāra) is created, which takes place in the intellect of the embodied individual. Since the ego-experience is created on the mundane level solely for carrying out worldly transactions, Abhinavagupta treats it as a conceptual one (vaikalpika), with the intellect of the individual being its locus.

Abhinavagupta therefore holds intellectual ignorance responsible for the creation of ego-experience. As such, it cannot be gotten rid of until and unless the experience of the self in the real self (ātmani ātmabodha) arises in the intellect of the individual being. He calls this experience the spiritual knowledge (pauruṣa jñāna) that arises in the spiritual seeker with the annihilation of āṇavamala as a consequence of infusion of Divine Grace, śaktipāta, in the embodied individual. The practice of spiritual discipline cannot accomplish this task. Hence, śaktipāta, or the descent of Divine Grace, is invested with so much importance by Advaita Shaiva writers, especially Abhinavagupta.

[Courtesy : Quarterly Malini published by Ishwar Ashram Trust ]

- Prof. Debabrata Sensharma

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

TFG :: Sign of the Day... this billboard on a highway in Michigan... the swingiest of swing states...

Mary Elaine LeBey

* * * *

What’s at stake in 2024

At least once a week, I receive a note from a parent telling me that their son or daughter will not vote for Biden because he supports Israel. Many (but not all) of those letters ask me to articulate reasons why their son or daughter should vote for Biden, notwithstanding his ongoing support for Israel.

I wrote the following note today in response to a reader who sent a email about his son. I thought it might be helpful to other readers having conversations with adult children who are considering not voting for Biden.

I do not recommend forwarding this list to a son or daughter with a note saying, “Read this.” Conversations about the war in Gaza and support for Biden are difficult and should be approached with caution, respect, deference, and due regard for timing. Consider this list as a resource when the opportunity presents itself for such a discussion.

Here it is:

Trump has threatened to cancel the visas of students protesting in support of Palestinians and “send them home” immediately.

Trump is a much stronger supporter of Netanyahu than Biden and will not put any pressure on Netanyahu to end civilian casualties, while Biden has been putting significant pressure on Netanyahu to avoid civilian casualties.

Trump has promised to round up, imprison, and deport ten million immigrants using the US military, which will cause a humanitarian and civil rights disaster in the US, including the deportation of US citizens based on their surnames, language preference, and ethnicity.

Moreover, supporting Trump increases the likelihood that

Your son’s sisters, girlfriend, and female friends will be demoted to second-class citizens by being denied access to abortions, contraception, and IVF; they and their doctors will face ruinous criminal and civil penalties, even for miscarriages that seem “suspicious” to the fundamentalist police.

Your son’s LGBTQ friends will lose their right to marry and can be legally discriminated against by anyone who claims a religious basis for doing so.

Your son’s Black and Hispanic friends will see their right to vote diluted or denied entirely.

Trump will pull out of the Paris Climate Accords, threatening your son’s health, safety, and economic security and that of his children.

Trump will weaken NATO, increasing the likelihood that your son and his friends will be sent to fight in conflicts in Europe to stop Russia’s advances against former USSR republics.

Your son’s friends will continue to be saddled with crushing student debt.

Your son and his friends will lose guaranteed access to healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

Your son’s parents’ economic security will be threatened by cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

Rights to free speech on social media will be suppressed when they do not comport with MAGA ideology.

The DOJ and FBI will turn into the equivalent of the German Stasi—the personal guard of a despotic ruler.

The Supreme Court will be further stacked with reactionary justices who will reign during most of your son’s lifetime, implementing white Christian nationalism in place of an open, tolerant, pluralistic democracy that maintains the separation between church and state.

If your son is still pursuing an education, his academic curriculum will be determined by the likes of Moms for Liberty, the Federalist Society, Steven Miller, Ron DeSantis, and Marjorie Taylor Green

The Civil Service will be replaced with MAGA loyalists who will ignore the Constitution and laws of the US to implement Trump's policies of revenge and hate

Your son should lobby Joe Biden to change policy, protest the administration’s policy, and organize resistance to that policy all he wants. But threatening to withhold his vote is wrong and self-destructive. It will encourage others to abandon Biden by giving legitimacy to the idea that there is an equivalency between Biden’s support for Israel and the multitude of deprivations and injuries Trump will inflict on hundreds of millions of Americans during a second Trump term.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[wat3rm370n]

Not the worst pandemic takes, but why do people seem to miss the experience of entire segments of the population?

And it's not that I'm alone or unique because I know many many people who are in similar situations to me.

Marketplace - Make Me Smart Unpacking our collective COVID-19 trauma, five years on Episode 1347 Mar 11, 2025

David Wallace-Wells was on Marketplace podcast talking about the covid pandemic declaration anniversary and was surprisingly realistic about it, including pointing out that there were more covid deaths under Biden than Trump, despite him saying the deaths under Trump were unacceptable. And they talked about how forcing normal was bad. And how people became more individualistic and caustic and selfish. But then he made it sound like everyone got selfish. And then he started saying the schools shouldn’t have been closed so long. But then he said 4 times as many kids die from covid since they reopened schools than in the first 1-1/2 years of the pandemic. Ok so first off schools weren’t closed for 1-1/2 years. This is pandemic lockdown revisionist history. He’s equating masks in schools as the same as school closure. Schools weren’t closed. I remember seeing the school buses in my neighborhood full of kids with masks on looking out the windows in 2020-2021 school year. But why would you think they should’ve gone back to normal in schools earlier if you know more kids died after that? That sounds like he’s almost saying that more kids ought to have died! And then he made the point that kids got the vaccines later so they were safer later, but um, most kids were not vaccinated for covid, ever, and now only about 12% are up to date on covid vaccination. He also described eugenics, that people came to embrace eugenics, but without actually mentioning the actual word eugenics. The one host had mentioned it more specifically, in saying that she heard on some podcast that people have become more cruel and the pandemic taught people to see others as disposable. But still didn't mention eugenics either. I think leadership gave the signals over and over again that it was appropriate to treat others as disposable, especially people "with underlying conditions" – not just the Great Barrington Declaration people and Trump's guy Scott Atlas, but it continued with Biden's CDC director Rochelle Walensky. And it's continued ever since, culminating in the ultimate open eugenicists now making public health decisions. We've fully embraced the outlook of the guy early on had about the old people just being sacrificed to the economy. On the podcast when they talked about the economy, and the host asks if the pandemic explains why the economy looked great but people didn’t feel it. And they completely ignored the fact that many of us were forced into retirement, were forced out of high-exposure jobs, or were forced out of work because of long covid disability or other covid complications, or just losing jobs because of needing more sick time than allowed when forced into getting covid over and over again. He was actually talking about people getting into crypto, meme stocks, sports gambling, and day trading with their stimulus checks and getting all risky. Something’s off about that take for me. I do think people went into those things, but I think it was more out of desperation and getting duped by online profiteering marketing probably.

[hicapacity]

„Megfelelési kényszer” (angolul: need for approval, need for social conformity, vagy social desirability bias) egy pszichológiai és szociológiai fogalom, amely a személy azon hajlandóságát vagy késztetését írja le, hogy viselkedését, véleményét, vagy akár identitását mások – különösen tekintélyszemélyek, csoportok vagy társadalmi normák – elvárásaihoz igazítsa.

📚 A szakirodalom szempontjából a megfelelési kényszer fő aspektusai:

⸻

1. Pszichológiai alapok

a. Társas elutasítástól való félelem (social rejection sensitivity)

• Az emberek alapvető szükséglete, hogy elfogadják őket (Maslow: szeretet és valahová tartozás szükséglete).

• A megfelelési kényszer gyakran az elutasítástól vagy kritikától való félelemből fakad.

b. Szociális szorongás és önértékelés

• Az alacsony önértékelésű emberek nagyobb valószínűséggel próbálnak másoknak megfelelni.

• A megfelelési kényszer szorosan összefügg az önmonitorozással (Snyder, 1974): egyes emberek folyamatosan figyelik, hogyan hatnak másokra, és ehhez igazítják viselkedésüket.

⸻

2. Klasszikus kísérletek

a. Asch-konformitási kísérlet (1951)

• Résztvevők egyértelműen helytelen választ is adtak, ha a csoport többsége ezt tette.

• Kimutatta: az emberek hajlamosak igazodni a csoporthoz még akkor is, ha az nyilvánvalóan téved.

b. Milgram-kísérlet (1963)

• A tekintélynek való engedelmesség témája, de szorosan kapcsolódik: az emberek hajlandók erkölcsileg kétes dolgokat tenni, ha úgy érzik, “meg kell felelniük” egy hatalomnak.

⸻

3. Társadalmi beágyazottság

a. Normakövetés

• A társadalmi normák belsővé válása gyakran a megfelelési kényszerrel függ össze.

• Durkheim és Parsons szerint a társadalmi kohéziót részben ez tartja fenn.

b. Kollektív kultúrák vs individualista kultúrák

• A kollektív kultúrákban (pl. Japán, Dél-Korea) magasabb a megfelelési kényszer, mert a „harmónia” értéke dominál.

• Individualista kultúrákban (pl. USA, Nyugat-Európa) elvileg kisebb a nyomás, de rejtetten ott is erős (pl. fogyasztói elvárások, közösségi média).

⸻

4. Modern kontextusok

a. Közösségi média és megfelelés

• Instagram, TikTok, Facebook: folyamatos „láthatóság” és visszajelzés nyomása.

• A lájkok és követők száma kvázi társadalmi értékmérő lett.

b. Munkahelyi megfelelési kényszer

• Impression management elméletek (Goffman): a dolgozók gyakran szerepeket játszanak, hogy megfeleljenek a szervezeti kultúrának vagy főnöki elvárásoknak.

• „Kulturális illeszkedés” mint kimondatlan elvárás – gyakran a sokszínűség kárára.

⸻

5. Negatív következmények

• Szorongás, kiégés, depresszió – állandó belső konfliktus önmagunk és az elvárások között.

• Identitásvesztés – ha túl hosszú ideig tartjuk fenn a nem-őszinte önképet.

• Etikai kompromisszumok – ha a megfelelés a morális elvek rovására megy.

⸻

6. Kapcsolódó elméletek és fogalmak

Rövid leírás

Authenticity A valódi önkifejezés fontossága (Rogers, humanisztikus pszichológia)

Cognitive dissonance Feszültség, amikor viselkedésünk nem egyezik értékeinkkel (Festinger)

Pluralistic ignorance Mindenki azt hiszi, hogy mások elfogadnak egy normát, miközben senki sem ért vele egyet

False consensus effect Hajlam arra, hogy túlbecsüljük, mennyire osztják mások a véleményünket

Social desirability bias Kérdőívekben az a jelenség, hogy az emberek a “társadalmilag kívánatos” választ adják

⸻

7. Mit lehet tenni ellene?

• Önreflexió és pszichológiai tudatosság növelése

• Támogató közeg keresése, ahol önazonos viselkedés megengedett

• Határhúzás gyakorlása (assertivitás tréningek)

• Kritikai gondolkodás fejlesztése – különösen a médiafogyasztás és társadalmi normák kapcsán

⸻

[there-are-4-lights]

new game

I've made a game out of saying borderline terfy things to people when we're one on one

I was with my guy friend's girlfriend and we were talking about virtue signaling companies like how every store has a rainbow flag in the window.

I said something about how weird it was when like corporations were posting stuff about black lives matter, like , idk i dont really want to know what starbucks is doing to fight racism.

And she agreed and said she thought it was annoying those times when everyone changes their Facebook picture to a French flag,or a Ukrainian flag, etc etc because The Current Thing has happened

And i was just like "heh like when ppl put pronouns in their zoom screennames".

On the walk back from the show i did the same thing again; she was talking about a documentary she'd seen about cults so we were talking about cult documentaries and the dynamic in high control groups

And i was like "hey that reminds me of that one documentary about detransition and how she described the dynamic in her former community" and then i went back to recommending some other cult documentaries.

so let's make a game! take baby steps to counter pluralistic ignorance in your circle.

This is easiest if the conversation isn't about trans/lgbtq. (Literally any other topic is better- social media, cults, mental health, whatever- trans is just the issue around which things behave strangely).

And don't bring it up out of nowhere, make it be a logical example of what you're talking about. this isn't "friend who makes everything about pronouns", this is "friend who models logical thinking in a world where otherwise smart people turn their brains off for this one thing".

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

hm

obviously ignoring the fact that the bible openly acknowledges the existence of other gods and even ignoring things like saints and angels and demons and even the devil, i think christianity still has a pretty obvious polymorphic divine ontology.

i think that the christians choosing the trinity was kind of arbitrary. there are so many different divine attributes or powers described in the bible that are personified. there's no obvious reason why they had to choose to only give three of them divine personhood (the father, son, holy spirit). why couldn't they pick four? the father, the son, the daughter (sophia), the holy spirit? or five? the father, the mother, the son, the daughter, the holy spirit? or just two? just the father and the son? or six? the father, mother, son, daughter, spirit, and glory? and i know many christians conflate jesus with the angel of the lord but does that necessarily have to be the case? why couldn't the angel of the lord be his own person in his own right? or even why not actually just stick with one, the father and just give the son and the holy spirit the same treatment as all of the other powers and attributes of god described in the bible? what about the seven spirits of god which appear to be totally separate from the holy spirit?

obviously the answer is because early christians were basically pagans but they wanted to pretend to be monotheists but like paganism is so natural but also they don't want things to get too messy and triads are natural too (paganism is full of them as well) and aesthetically pleasing....

i'm just saying. the trinity wasn't inevitable. it wasn't a metaphysical necessity. it was a politically convenient theological homeostasis that felt familiar to pagans but was abstract enough to feel superior to polytheists and gnostics. because there were gnostics sects that did embrace a more pluralistic theology. but can you blame them? the bible (and other non-biblical texts -- gotta keep in mind gnostics were mostly around before the bible was even canonized) is a buffet full of potential divine persons. no reason why the christians had to focus on just the three.

and again this is even without getting into mary, the saints, the angels, the demons, the devil, etc.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

The idea of Polygamy being automatically misogynistic evil is rooted in monoamory

CW: Light mention of the existence of child marriage.

So again, Anthropology BA here.

I was listening to a video on youtube and I'm not going to give the context to make it harder to find so no one can harass them.

But it loosely went like this:

Polyamory==good

Polygamy is the practice of one man with many women.

Polygamy therefore is anti-feminist.

Therefore Polygamy==evil

Polygamy in the past always==evil

Huh???

Let's get some definitions up in here so we are on the same page.

Polyamory- the practice of loving more than one person in an ethical manner. This is under the bigger definition of Ethical non-monogamy (though I still think monoamory should be a word)

[]-gamy -marriage

poly- many

[]-gyny- women

[]-andry- men

mono-(in this case one) For example, Monorail, one rail. mono, the disease refers to Infectious mononucleosis. or infectious one nucleosis, referring to the central body in the cell.

Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse—they can be of ANY gender. Bisexual and Pansexual and omnisexual and polysexuals and multisexuals, knock yourself out.

Sometimes it's in harem formation:

One person of one gender

a bunch of people of the so-called opposite gender.

(Say man x women).

So the sultanate of the Mughal empire.

If it's 1 man with a bunch of women, then it's considered Polygyny.

If it's 1 woman with a bunch of men, then it's polyandry.

Notice here, that the "gamy" is dropped. Humans. amirite?

There are societies where 1 man marries a bunch of sisters.

This is in the Bible, for example with Jacob marrying Leah and then Rachel.

This in the case of sisters or brothers is called sibling marriage.

An active case of this is in the mountains of Tibet where 1 woman marries a group of brothers. This is a polyandry sibling marriage. The men rotate with their wife via signaling with their staff.

Most monogamy-centric societies in FICTION love to say, welp, it's only ONE OR THE OTHER. The entire society HAS to be polyandry or polygyny.

But this ignores the fact that there are societies where there were cases of women having a harem full of men at the same time that there were men with a harem full of women.

China, dudes, China. Yeah, yeah, China gets complicated once you get into how the marriages worked and all of that and if you could call it really a marriage. (Japan somewhat too, though narrower cases). And so on.

I suspect that if Europe had allowed multiple marriages after Christianity, people like Catherine the Great might have amassed a harem. She was rumored to have several lovers.

The main problem with polygamy societies are a few things (and not, not inherent anti-feminism):

The person amassing the spouses has to have a fair amount of wealth and/or status because of this the age gap might rise as the person amassing the wealth will take a long time to gain that wealth-prestige, especially in polygyny societies.

If the marriages are limited to only polygyny or polyandry, usually someone is left out. (even if you went polyenby) The women might not have enough men, or the men might not have enough women. It's usually the gender that is expected to gather the spouses in question. So Polygyny—who gets left out—the men. In Polyandry--who gets left out? the women.

Lack of consent isn't always an issue. In some systems the existing wives have to give permission in order for a new wife to be added.

In Monogamous societies, they often assume that the women are suffering the most in the system. It's true there are arranged marriages, but one could also be in a loose pluralistic system as well. But the truth is that in polygyny, often the people that suffer the most are the single men who cannot amass a fortune enough to get a wife because in that system the men are expected to provide a bride price.

Bride Price is where the husband, usually, is paying the family compensation for the loss of their daughter.

Dowry is where the family she comes from is paying the family for her upkeep in her husband's family.

BTW, this can be bilateral as a system so you get both. Where? China, Korea and Japan. (slightly different as systems). The emphasis here, is on the exchange of gifts. (AKA reciprocity)

Because humans are complicated creatures, none of this inherently means there is absolutely no consent. Sometimes there is an sometimes there isn't.

But the same is true of monogamy as well. There are child marriages still within the US, which does not pass the basic part of informed consent. A child cannot consent to being married.

And inherently monogamy had a lot of the same issues within Europe: of a lack of consent.

Because monogamy in the past had no consent among the ruling class, does that mean that therefore monogamy is also broken?

I mean, look at King Henry the VIII. Maybe if he could have done polygyny he could have just ignored some of his wives for a while instead of deposing them, chopping off their heads and declaring them his sister. He could have gotten an heir by raising his mistresses with sons up the ranks in the Korean/Japanese/Chinese system.

It wouldn't have helped with his anger, or his gangrene leg, but dude needed medical intervention, surgery and some serious therapy.

Would you hold up King Henry VIII as a typical example of how monogamy is supposed to go?

Usually when people talk about how "evil" polygamy is they go straight to "Mormons" "Cults" and "The violent sultanate"

They aren't thinking about how much fun the Masai women are having marrying their crusty old husband and then going off to have trysts with those sexy-same-age group warriors.

They aren't thinking of the implicit open marriages before the 19th century.

No. It has to be this uncharacterized "evil" anti-women version with all this conflict. Because you know what colonizing countries like to say about conflict. We won, you didn't therefore something is wrong with your culture.

Which is why Spanish lost their crap when they found out indigenous women in North America upon first contact could have multiple men in a consensual marriage. I mean, how dare they overturn the social order of one man. one woman. with the man running everything in the household. She's having too much fun.

What I'm pointing out without all of the he said she said they said, and the back and forth propaganda, is that inherently both monogamy (as in the marriage, not the monoamory) and polygamy aren't inherently "good" or "evil". You can lose your shit on both. Like you can be a screw up at both monoamory and polyamory if you're an asshole who doesn't listen or is going around trying to hunt for people more than half your age... in your 40's. 60 year old man hunting on a 20 year old woman. Elew. Just elew.

It's not the invention (in the anthropological sense it is a kind of technology, but getting into this part is a chore) of marriage as either plural or to one person as inherently superior or inferior. There is no such thing. Both are equally disgustingly abused, but sometimes people use this system for the better and end up unbelievably happy despite it.

If there's one huge take away from all of this: Consent and communication is key to any good relationship. And often fiction does a crap job of communicating these key points to a good relationship. If they are screaming at each other at the end of Act 2 over stupid crap, I am cheering for their break up, no matter their poly-mono-gamy-amory-platonic situation there. Just fucking break up because it's clear you couldn't communicate well. Same with removal of all consent. Break up now.

Romance writers get on my case for asking them to actually put in some aspect of responsible conflict resolution and being able to sit down and talk out things calmly.

"But it's boring" But really... your love of conflict is how we got this whole mess of misunderstanding on what these different things are. Can't we have Iunno a plot driver based on love and consent?

So, no. Polygamy is tricky as polyamory can be tricky because of the communication issues, but inherently there is no superiority or inferiority with monogamy v. polygamy. Just like some people can do polyamory and some can't. Some are serial monoamorous. And some people can do both. And whatever you are, monoamorous or polyamorous, or a mix of both, you do you. Just don't be the person who thinks polygamy is inherently evil and anti-feminist. It gets complicated in the weeds.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Project Coyote:

Results of a national public survey published today by the Animal-Human Policy Center at Colorado State University, in collaboration with Project Coyote, show broad public support among U.S. citizens for addressing animal protection issues, including for policy solutions aimed at protecting wildlife.

The survey examined public perceptions of key animal welfare policies that are currently being discussed by policy-makers and stakeholders nationwide, including multiple issues related to wildlife and wild carnivore killing. Results show the following levels of support for proposed federal and state policies related to wildlife:

85.8% would support a federal law specifying cruelty towards wildlife is a criminal violation

80.2% would support banning purposefully running carnivores over with vehicles

78.2% would support a federal law banning wildlife killing contests

81.7% would support a state law banning wildlife killing contests

81.7% support for a state law restricting hunting season length for wild carnivores

77.5% would support a federal law requiring states to limit the number of carnivores that can be killed by a hunter in a year

Survey results also showed strong evidence of pluralistic ignorance toward animal protection policy in the United States for all animal issues examined. Specifically, actual public support for policy was higher than perceptions of others’ support, with an approximately 20-30% gap in actual support and perceived public support. This general underestimation of public support for animal protection in the United States may be reducing the amount of civic and policy action occurring in the country on these issues. 

[dailyanarchistposts]

B.7.3 Why is the existence of classes denied?

It is clear, then, that classes do exist, and equally clear that individuals can rise and fall within the class structure — though, of course, it’s easier to become rich if you’re born in a rich family than a poor one. Thus James W. Loewen reports that “ninety-five percent of the executives and financiers in America around the turn of the century came from upper-class or upper-middle-class backgrounds. Fewer than 3 percent started as poor immigrants or farm children. Throughout the nineteenth century, just 2 percent of American industrialists came from working-class origins” [in “Lies My Teacher Told Me” citing William Miller, “American Historians and the Business Elite,” in Men in Business, pp. 326–28; cf. David Montgomery, Beyond Equality, pg. 15] And this was at the height of USA “free market” capitalism. According to a survey done by C. Wright Mills and reported in his book The Power Elite, about 65% of the highest-earning CEOs in American corporations come from wealthy families. Meritocracy, after all, does not imply a “classless” society, only that some mobility exists between classes. Yet we continually hear that class is an outmoded concept; that classes don’t exist any more, just atomised individuals who all enjoy “equal opportunity,” “equality before the law,” and so forth. So what’s going on?

The fact that the capitalist media are the biggest promoters of the “end-of-class” idea should make us wonder exactly why they do it. Whose interest is being served by denying the existence of classes? Clearly it is those who run the class system, who gain the most from it, who want everyone to think we are all “equal.” Those who control the major media don’t want the idea of class to spread because they themselves are members of the ruling class, with all the privileges that implies. Hence they use the media as propaganda organs to mould public opinion and distract the middle and working classes from the crucial issue, i.e., their own subordinate status. This is why the mainstream news sources give us nothing but superficial analyses, biased and selective reporting, outright lies, and an endless barrage of yellow journalism, titillation, and “entertainment,” rather than talking about the class nature of capitalist society (see section D.3 — “How does wealth influence the mass media?”)

The universities, think tanks, and private research foundations are also important propaganda tools of the ruling class. This is why it is virtually taboo in mainstream academic circles to suggest that anything like a ruling class even exists in the United States. Students are instead indoctrinated with the myth of a “pluralist” and “democratic” society — a Never-Never Land where all laws and public policies supposedly get determined only by the amount of “public support” they have — certainly not by any small faction wielding power in disproportion to its size.

To deny the existence of class is a powerful tool in the hands of the powerful. As Alexander Berkman points out, ”[o]ur social institutions are founded on certain ideas; so long as the latter are generally believed, the institutions built on them are safe. Government remains strong because people think political authority and legal compulsion necessary. Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just. The weakening of the ideas which support the evil and oppressive present day conditions means the ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism.” [“Author’s Foreword,” What is Anarchism?, p. xii]

Unsurprisingly, to deny the existence of classes is an important means of bolstering capitalism, to undercut social criticism of inequality and oppression. It presents a picture of a system in which only individuals exist, ignoring the differences between one set of people (the ruling class) and the others (the working class) in terms of social position, power and interests. This obviously helps those in power maintain it by focusing analysis away from that power and its sources (wealth, hierarchy, etc.).

It also helps maintain the class system by undermining collective struggle. To admit class exists means to admit that working people share common interests due to their common position in the social hierarchy. And common interests can lead to common action to change that position. Isolated consumers, however, are in no position to act for themselves. One individual standing alone is easily defeated, whereas a union of individuals supporting each other is not. Throughout the history of capitalism there have been attempts by the ruling class — often successful — to destroy working class organisations. Why? Because in union there is power — power which can destroy the class system as well as the state and create a new world.

That’s why the very existence of class is denied by the elite. It’s part of their strategy for winning the battle of ideas and ensuring that people remain as atomised individuals. By “manufacturing consent” (to use Walter Lipman’s expression for the function of the media), force need not be used. By limiting the public’s sources of information to propaganda organs controlled by state and corporate elites, all debate can be confined within a narrow conceptual framework of capitalist terminology and assumptions, and anything premised on a different conceptual framework can be marginalised. Thus the average person is brought to accept current society as “fair” and “just,” or at least as “the best available,” because no alternatives are ever allowed to be discussed.

[rametarin]

Another internal struggle between the World of Darkness of the past, and World of Darkness of today.

Past World of Darkness was considered to be in the, "Screw you, hippie" school of game design. Which is, I think, a label applied most by screwed hippies with sour grapes.

In truth, World of Darkness was a celebration of horror, pop culture and folklore. And sometimes, culture and folklore is not politically correct. It just isn't. You may take umbrige with the idea of some ghost of an aborted or stillborn fetus angry at its mother or other women as some sort of misogynistic or patriarchal phantom of guilt meant to make women feel bad, but you don't get to disinclude it from the big list of adult fables and folklore we get to add to our edgy tabletop game featuring horror and unsavory macabre superstitions.

Culture does not care about your modern day ideas of what is right or wrong or just. It's history, and it is tradition, and it is origin. To censor that because you don't like it is merely to do what Maoist China does; trying to edit shit like the Bible to conform to modern, more socialist ideas about what is right by having Jesus spit out a line like, "No man is perfect and no man can be free of sin. Not even me." You know, the guy who was sent to be sacrificed as the ultimate sinless person. Anyway..

In those years, the big struggle was against domestic religious ubiquity of Christianity that was rallying itself to culture up because it felt like all these non-Christians moving in would change the pluralistic and defacto supremacy of the cultural outlook of the US along with other parts of Europe. So, naturally, the punk and anarch and liberal youth response was to take the real life annoyances of televangelists and those jealous, out of touch middle aged people from the 60s to 90s and depict them as enablers of baby-eating, child raping priests and clandestine abusive religious institutions.

What was en vogue at the time was putting neo-paganism on a pedestal, and that meant whether you liked and vibed with that or not, you trusted the Odinists and the neo-pagans of other cultural "faiths" (that were really just excuses to wear horns and go to concerts and engage in good ole fashioned orgies) more than you trusted or tolerated your everyday milquetoast religious population. That of course meant an eclectic and often shallow mishmash of misc. European, African and Asian cultural icon traditions, as only ill informed but arguably well intentioned children withj limited access to information and sources will do.

It was WELL known at the time that Odinist or similar European neo-Paganism was often affiliated with white nationalists, but they understood you didn't just throw all that shit under the rug just because some cultural identityless stormfuckers adopted the symbols. It was understood that those symbols didn't belong to the fascists and neo-Nazis, they were appropriated and didn't belong to them. Nobody thought Norse mythology was inherently just a whistle blown for neo-Nazis, it was considered something they illegimately held and were ignored for doing it. Unlike today, where any viking or European Paganist symbols or traditions are considered to be violently subversive white supremacist symbols. Because, didn't you know, WhItE PeOpLe dOn'T hAvE CuLtUrE. It was cringy, but you could at least run games with elements of old elements of folklore and myths played as having a kernel of truth. Now they treat that shit like you want to be a Nazi but just aren't following through.

And it was more liberal, in that you could have figures such as the wendigo chilling and real alongside the damned, demons and the possessed. Something that certain overcompensating people will say is a social no-no, because the icon is "sacred." Well, guess what? To literal billions of people on earth, not a few million, depicting demons is also sacriligious and disrespectful, but the naysayers will scream about how it shouldn't be permitted because it, "trivializes the beliefs of the aboriginal Americas."

I wonder what percent of those aboriginal americans are Christian, today. Anyway..

However, there has ALWAYS been a progressive-to-the-point-of wet blanket element to World of Darkness' writing overtones that contradicted the more liberal narrative and openness for adult subject matter. A grey space where the forces trying to make everything politically correct and "healthy" Vs. realizing the real world is not. And, unfortunately, sometimes this internal strife compromises the game.

So on the one hand you have encouragement to talk about "serious adult subjects and black subject matter," but then on the other, reprimends if you talk about it in a certain way, or contradict someone at the table that doesn't like something depicted any way but one.

And I kind of feel like the writer's room for WoD must just be this uncomfortable minefield of walking on eggshells between the Problem Glasses that don't compromise for anything and have the power to dial up the HR department if they decide disagreement with them is, "lichurally calling for the deaths of LGBT and persons of color" on if red curtains on a canopy bed are sexist or something.

90s WoD acknowledged that there existed a nonpartisan middle America that was neither their avowed enemies or Nazis, and conservatives weren't actually Nazis just because they were conservative. At least, they knew it was a nonstarter and not tolerated to say that aloud, and they didn't want to destroy social capital of people that weren't ideological side choosers by doing that. There were always partisan ideologicals that were more radical anarcho-communist or anarchists that occassionally would get drunk (or some other kind of intoxicated) and decide to use WoD or the social circles to push and platform narrative, but the older guard largely told them to shove off.

Well. Time passes, old guard stop playing or die off. Social circles add new people and lose old ones. This is inevitable. The older culture gets replaced naturally, as well as unnaturally.

But the thing is, World of Darkness as a franchise and the companies behind it tend to grow as these positions are argued to the point of numbness. When WoD first began it was a bunch of drunken cynical goths all over the place, politically incorrect in certain ways, violently volatile against one another, with contradictory schools and factions that wouldn't tolerate one another while preaching that they were tolerant, unlike the conservatives.

As time passed and the game advanced, elements that were introduced that were passe or painfully examples of their time changed, too. Werewolf: the Apocalypse can best be characterized as if the misanthrope psycho that always wears three wolf paw print shirts wrote a game. In it, an entire tribe of Greek amazons called the Black Furies was created just to give the second and third wave feminists something that resonated to anti-male womanness woman dominated culture and space that platformed much of the shit feminist academics were saying.

But as the editions matured, it became less an anti-technology and cowardly hidden anti-capitalist "but don't accuse me of that, you red scare McCarthyist!", anti-industrialist, pro-aboriginal spiritualist messages, and became more a story about how insanity itself has warped the world to self-destruction. It became less an episode of Captain Planet starring jaded goth protagonists.

The meta changes and improves if the writers and spirit behind the game change over time. Here's hoping V5 experiences the same maturation. First edition had may of the same growing pains of overcompensation and hilariously unintentional racism by people that were trying to be anti-racist according to shitty definitions of what it is, at the time.