#Manichean

[nicklloydnow]

"Tragedy is only possible to a mind which is for the moment agnostic or Manichean. The least touch of any theology which has a compensating Heaven to offer to the tragic hero is fatal." - I. A. Richards, ‘Principles of Literary Criticism’ (1924)

[purringbookworm97]

"oooh X deity is evil!" "buuuuut nO X deity is good!" "how dare you, they're a sweet loving baby!" "but they're a raging bastard!"

what about, "deities are depicted in their myth with a nature that we mortals can't judge, precisely because they're bigger than us and not bound to morals the way we are" and "they're the embodiment of the rawest parts of humanity in all their excess because they are what humanity can and should never achieve" and "deities represent the humanity that can only be forgiven and strived for on the pov of the watcher because they are models and warnings for those who made and believed in their myths."

[mali-umkin]

French History book for middle school students from 1937, found in an old normand attic

[eileenleahy]

shaping your politics and ideology around opposition to conservatism/the right wing is so unreal. theres no way you think like that. i dont mean anti-fascism i mean stuff like "if it makes a right winger mad, it's probably good" and "agreement with a right-winger is bad and means your position is a conservative one" . you are the embodiment of political inauthenticity

[lucyfishwife]

New washing machine went into its first spin cycle and threw itself around the kitchen with such violence that it nearly left the building. I have now got such vast and clenched anxiety that I'm not even hungry

BUT sometimes I have to be allowed to be the panicker so my permanently-panicking husband will step up and be the coper because, like little weather-house people, we can only be one or the other at any given time, light and dark, yin and yang, Troy and Abed

ALTHOUGH "get a plumber get a fucking plumber just ring a fucking PLUMBER" could be seen as helpful suggestion rather than panicking, let's say that's what I was doing

[atiglain]

The funniest and and most interesting central character trait of Chane is that she’s essentially right about most things and has probably the most sensible belief system of the cast of characters, but her reasons for believing what she believes are so batshit idiosyncratic insane that it kind of calls into question the whole operation (or does it?).

[nerianasims]

I want them to straight up give Lizzo that crystal flute in exchange for her playing a full concert with the National Philharmonic using it. And I want her to release as many flute records as she releases pop records. She is a great flautist and I want more flute music in the world.

[thebusylilbee]

neither a northerner nor a southerner but a secret third thing (a non-binary middle earther if you will)

[hiv-live-laugh-love]

good lord does tiktok autocaption suck

[bijoumikhawal]

Not to mention ur og posts?? I like kind of forgot that u write the posts on Coptic history until I sent the ask and saw ur profile again, but they’re so interesting and they open my eyes to a whole world of non-secular Coptic history. Crazy…

thank you! And yeah I like talking about Coptic art and material culture a lot- it can be dicey because of. Various academic nonsenses, but I still really enjoy it

[thepotentialof2007]

always eye-opening to pass through a nearby au

[inlovewithaspiderguy]

Neither a “Miguel is right” stan nor a “Miles is right” stan but a secret third thing (someone who knows better than to choose in a dichotomy)

[nostalgicmiscellaneous]

I think the Polin fandom is so interesting to me, and Penelope and Colin, because quite frankly, Penelope is the most complex female character in Bridgerton. She's interesting, contradicting, someone who was victimized but refuses to stay a victim, she's sweet and kind but can be very cunning. She loves deeply but never lost her sense of self in that love. She's brave but has many fears. She can be hard but not cruel. She challenged the limited walls of society she lived in the ways she could and found a voice to use and to secure her future. And i find fascinating how the fans embrace her qualities and flaws. I just truly enjoy how how her character is not sold nor performed in a manichean manner and the majority of fans are able to grasp that and love her.

[nycteris-g]

You want examples of anti-Manicheanism in Tolkien?

Take Maedhros - he who performed "deeds of surpassing valor" and stood against the darkness and armies of Morgoth for centuries. He who swore a blasphemous oath, condemning himself to damnation. He who murdered his kin not once, not twice, but four times. And he who, finally holding the very object that symbolized his damnation, realizes the futility of all the evil he committed and throws himself into the fire.

Is he bad? Is he good? He swore a blasphemous oath - by Tolkien's standards, that alone would make him 'bad.' And then, of course, there are, you know, the murders. But is he absolutely evil? Born to be a murderous thing? Beyond any redemption or pity? How can someone who so fearlessly resisted The Evil be an entirely lost case? Can absolute evil even recognize the horror of its own deeds?

Tolkien, far more insightful than those who try to divide humankind into simple categories of good and bad, masterfully depicted the complexity of human nature (the Children of Ilúvatar). Humanity is not inherently evil, nor is it doomed to fall - yet it does, and still holds the potential to rise again: to see, to believe, to choose to do good.

[natalieironside]

Mormons wish they had even a single iota of Manichean swag

[odesofmeddea]

when i point out things like manipulation coercion emotional abuse etc etc. in samdean purview i don't imply a condemning connotation behind these terms, by the way, and i don't see the mutual abuse that both sam and dean occasionally enact upon each other as something that contorts the situated power dynamic.

i.e. when dean controls sam or robs him of his agency i don't immediately insinuate sam's position to be that of the unilateral victim - although he technically is, in some ways, dean's victim, there's always a spatial permit in letting him construe and reciprocate the damage received in his own way. when he abuses dean and is objectively verbally cruel or denigrating towards him, he's as much of a wounder and a manipulator and a jealous appropriator - in cases where he wants dean entirely and only to himself. the appropriation and possessiveness go as far as torturing other beings or corrupting a human soul, planning on murdering benny or killing dean's biological daughter from another woman, the daughter and benny being a threat to his position of the primal importance in his brother's life, thus robbing dean of any alternative. sam does, in fact, have this sadistic faculty reared and nurtured in him, the very faculty that s1-9 he would often resort to when forced or provoked and is otherwise rendered defenseless.

it's different from when i say that john ruined dean and mean it not in a neutral uncritical way, because john as a father was omnipotent in relation to his sons, and he abused that power ghastly for his own convenience. it's different from when i assert that lucifer mentally and sexually tortured sam for eons and has broke and rebroke his extant already-whacked personality, adding trauma on trauma, simply because he enjoyed demolishing him. with sam and dean, however detriment, there's always another basis of evaluation because there's a different nucleus of emotional input and intent that in its provenance is not manichean but instead very deeply human and therefore must be a panoply of manifestations, moral or not, logical or inadequate, often irrationally both. oh. they're also in love with each other, so the question of split-up is factually out of the equation and is not a desirable solution for their ongoing conflict.