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#and the cultural suppression and all that
sugar-crash · 2 days
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🍬King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph) x (gn) Reader👑
(Beginning Relationship Pt. I Edition!)
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(I thought this song would be fitting considering King Candy’s voice is based on the vocal performance Ed Wynn did for the Mad Hatter… That and its… Nostalgic🔑 [I saw the animation meme culture rise and fall.] lol)
- So, as we all know, the more unpleasant parts of his personality (which could tie him to Turbo) are suppressed, and hidden, though they can still peak out when he’s feeling particularly malicious.
- He’s a slime, a real manipulative rat who’s so sure he can keep everyone in the dark, who takes it slow with you at first to try to maintain his hard work.
- There’s a clear wall between what he displays in front of others and how he is, just the way he likes it, but honestly— If you mean so much to him, you get a weird mix of the two (well, more than usual), a kind of sweet goofiness that’s followed up with a snide remark about being the most skilled in some specific topic.
- Again he’s not the best lover, though from his previous indiscretions he has learned to be more open to others feelings— But only for your sake, mostly cause he can’t stand anyone else besides you…. And Sour Bill sometimes, but he’s mostly the personification of a minimum wage worker.
- Spending time together after hours is a must, though he’s more understanding now than he was before, not demanding every moment of your time but relishing whenever you do.
- I think all that time alone before Sugar Rush got plugged in made him lonely, and less stubborn to admit that he wants that comfort from someone else.
- I don’t think it’s much of a far reach when I say maintaining the King Candy persona is something he is very fluid in, but it’s exhausting at times.
- When he gets that seldom time alone without any of his kingly duties he finds himself yearning for your comforting touch, that stubbornness making way as he makes Sour Bill retrieve you.
- I can see moments between the two of you to be on the tamer side, not as many arguments like Pre-RoadBlasters, little to none really, but there are these tense moments where you ask him something a little too close to home and he becomes stiff in your arms if only for a brief moment.
- As much as he wants to be, not only for himself but maybe even you— He isn’t perfect, he isn’t the person he tries so hard to be, that gleeful and peppy voice going flat the second he isn’t feeling it anymore.
- It becomes apparent the more you know him he’s far more serious than he lets on, puffing his chest up slightly when things don’t go his way and he has to play dirty, which he’s certainly no stranger to...
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- In comparison to himself when the arcade first ever opened, he’s certainly grown from that childish hatred, for better and for worse.
- He’s more affectionate for one, providing you with comfort fitting to how you are feeling at that moment, little compliments, and gestures of affection to quell your anger and anxiety in a matter of seconds.
- Quick to learn every little thing about you to make sure he’s able to relate to you, though his intentions with this information go back and forth.
- He wants everything on a silver platter, not only for himself but also for you, making the other subjects of Sugar Rush bend over backward for you, even when you object to all the attention.
- I think one of the ways he dotes on you in a way is date planning, various areas in Sugar Rush vary which can be very nice date spots… He seems like the picnic blanket and tea liker as King Candy, as stereotypical as that is lol.
- Though if that isn’t your style, he can always do dates at the castle, like baking— chatting the night away, it’s the simple things in life <3
- Even with his character growth he is far from a good person, which we all know and love for the most part. He’s fully aware that the things he does to bar you, Venallope, the Sugar Rush inhabitants, and even the arcade entirely is cruel, spiteful even. But what could he have done? Let himself fade into obscurity and be characterized after one of his biggest mistakes?
- No, no, not when he still has so much to provide— He’s a person, just like everyone else, better yet he was programmed to be better. Why should he stand aside and let the world spin without him? Why should he look at you from afar when he has every right to want you?
- That’s part of the reason why he’s so adamant about keeping his spot as the monarch of Sugar Rush, he’s the rightful ruler after all.
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(Cr cqh’r lncp, hjw cq cr?)
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ouroboobos · 2 years
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being american is sucks as hell. it genuinely pains me to think about the customs and language i could have grown up with if my family had stayed in ireland or scotland or norway however many generations ago. and it really bothers me to consider what the evolution was like for my family from whatever they were before to what they are now. like were they always this bad, or is it partly the result of growing up in a conservative american environment?
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smoshingatut · 4 months
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I'm kinda tired of dungeon meshi fans blatantly misinterpreting Kabru's goals, motivations, and character so they can ship him with Laios...like obviously it's awesome if you enjoy Laikabu but can you nooot twist Kabru's intentions for involving himself with the guy who constantly triggers his monster trauma and pisses him off so bad he gets brain damage so that he turns into "the guy who wants to suck Laios's dick" as his entire character? I've even seen people cut off Kabru's words to make it seem like he is admiring Laios because it would disrupt that narrative
#how can you think marcille hates laios and kabru wants to fuck him that's not.......canon.....#every time I see stuff of them it’s people being like 'oh kabru loves it so much when laios reminds him of his traumatic past'#be it his eyes/monsters/or the succubus thing 'he just HAS to fuck laios'#kui was noooooot intending for kabru to be lusting after that man!!!#i love laios but come ON why dont you actually care about KABRU tooooo#for l4bru to actually work one of them would have to suppress a big part of themselves and its ALWAYS on kabru it’s so insufferable#it's just like how some people misconstrued fem!toshiro blushing about laios to be her crushing on him when it was obv the same discomfort#but it made the microaggressions even worse because of the gender difference AS WELL as the culture difference#SIGH#i prommis ryoko kui did not create kabru so he can think about sucking laioss humungous donger all day fhsdkfhskjh#L4ikabu is the worst case I’ve seen of people twisting things for their ship because it’s literally just not true…#blatant misreading of the text goes crazy!!!!#like sure they're foils but what about the actual dynamic...w8 don't think about that actually cuz yoikes lol#obviously not threatening anyone who ships them please just stop saying it's canon oh my g#pwease actually read what kabru says he lays it out really clearly and has a super interesting backstory that drives his actions 🥲#i dont expect anyone to read this because im not using a tag but if u do then...🫢😯#i dont understand y ppl like it so much when laios ignores kabru so hard KABRU DESERVES BETTER#I’ve never felt like this about any ship before wow it just makes me 🫷
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isfjmel-phleg · 5 months
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It has taken me this long to realize that yes, the fact that Tamett is from a country that has been conquered and subjugated and had its culture and language suppressed and been expected to assimilate and to be glad and grateful to be part of--but never truly one with or accepted by--the conquering nation until many of its people conclude that the safest thing they can do is keep silent and keep their heads down and try to appease....that's a parallel for his situation as Josiah's companion.
If I ever write anything thoughtful, it is entirely by accident.
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frankensteincest · 10 months
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reading about historical rape laws is so maddening bc most of them require the raped woman to make her appeal immediately after the event (blood and torn garments and all), prove that she is no longer a virgin with a physical exam, and never deviate from any details of her initial testimony no matter how many times she has to give it over the course of the case. and it would still be her word against the man’s, as judged by men. this was of course only for virgins of sufficient rank, with women of other statuses having even less hope of a coherent case. and it’s so maddening bc very little has changed with this process to this day. it goes beyond burden of proof, it’s just extended torture.
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roboticutie · 12 days
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Being a useful tool makes you no more human in the eyes of the one holding the toolbox
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dunadaan · 4 months
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I’ve been feeling Créa creep up on me as of late and today I went back and reread my little document where I type up random ideas for scenes/fics and I was like. Wow who wrote this. This is really good. Why isn’t there more of this damn. But also wow I really put miss créa through the blender and she is a fine red mist a lot. But that is the life of a ranger…and even when she’s not a ranger anymore I press blend on high and she is sadly used to that
#(I forgot what made me think of it but I had this fantastic idea post war where Créa has tried to keep herself together)#(and it’s one specific incident that really makes her crack- I wrote a really compelling idea of her having PTSD and it unexpectedly)#(manifesting in a place where she didn’t anticipate it. and ofc it’s medieval medicine so they don’t know what PTSD is exactly but they)#(not like we know ptsd anyways. so it’s a really interesting exploration of grief and suppression and dealing with it- or not dealing with)#(it in this case. bc she’s avoided it for years and she’s like. god I fucking miss being a ranger so much. that was ME.)#(now I’m not a ranger anymore and I lost my entire identity)#(she can’t return to Evendim for a long time and desperately misses it. most of her friends are dead)#(or gone up north or treat her differently)#(she feels really isolated and alone even though she’s aware she’s not but it’s a lot to deal with!!! and I didn’t quite have an ending)#(but it was really compelling and I need to return to it one day)#(the other one I wrote ideas for and wrote a small scene was crea’s first experience meeting rangers)#(back when the angle was new. sighs. the potential…crea interacting with and learning ranger culture for the first time)#(after being alienated and kept away not of her own will. and her having a scene with faeron and standing on the bridge with him)#(but also of her thinking of what her life might’ve been like had she not been lied to about her heritage or had it hidden)#(she’s at a huge disadvantage-she barely knows dúnedain/elf history or sindarin etc. she could’ve had a whole different life)#(and AGAIN the theme of GRIEF- grieving smth that was kept from you. a life you’ll never have but could’ve)#(anyways. that probably all could’ve been in a post LOL and not in tags)#(but yeah damn!!! I was writing some good stuff!!!)#(now I wanna replay all the LOTRO areas again..)
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ljf613 · 2 years
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Been rereading the Pendragon series. (Oh look, it's my childhood!)
Third Earth freaks me out. Bobby describes it like some kind of perfect utopia, but all I see is a disturbing dystopia.
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resentful-reads · 1 year
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Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
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stairset · 2 years
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Maybe it's just because of where I live, but the whole "Satine didn't like that her people were a bunch of warmongering imperialist assholes and told them to knock it off and implemented gun control and made the Jedi Torture Boxes illegal so that her people could rebuild and move on from their violent history of civil wars that reduced their planet into a nearly uninhabitable wasteland in favor of focusing on more productive things like art and education and this is literally cultural genocide and she's erasing history and she should've been a villain blah blah blah" take has always been so weird to me. Like I have absolutely seen people say things like that in real life all the time and about 90% of them have confederate flags on the back of their pickup trucks so. Yeah.
#''but the new mandos are mostly white in tcw!'' despite what many claim mandos were always mostly white even before tcw#i know people wanna act like they're The Single Most Diverse Culture In The Entire Galaxy but that was always largely an informed attribute#i mean star wars in general wasn't as diverse before the disney era that's why rebels and tcw season 7 have more non-white mandalorians#also the whole idea that she only took over cause of republic backing and made her people ''assimilate'' to republic culture#which first of all the republic doesn't have one culture it's made up thousands of planets with different cultures#contrary to popular belief the republic isn't really Space America it's more Space United Nations#and second of all her ENTIRE INTRODUCTORY ARC is about her being against republic overreach#and not wanting them to intervene in internal mandalorian affairs#but yeah clearly she's a puppet for the republic that's definitely consistent with what we actually see onscreen#and don't bother with the ''the republic glassed mandalore'' thing#that's legends and is never mentioned anywhere in tcw at all#as far as lucas and disney canon are concerned it's a wasteland because of centuries of civil wars#which sabine confirms in rebels#the whole erasing culture thing doesn't hold much weight either#when you consider satine is one of only two characters to actually speak mando'a onscreen (the other being sabine)#which. again. she did In Her Introductory Episode#and you can see mando'a writing all around new mandalore#in sharp contrast to the fanon idea that she suppressed the language or whatever#and like there's TONS of uniquely mandalorian artwork and architecture and stuff like that#those things are culture too she just focuses on the parts of the culture that aren't about killing people you don't like#also when pre vizsla starts his whole smear campaign against her and gains the favor of the people#she stands down because the people are on his side now#which shows she believes in the will of the people and thus it's safe to assume that the majority supported her favor when she took over#anyway i'm gonna go watch avatar and day zuko committed cultural genocide#cause imperialism is fire nation culture and he told them to knock it off#shut up tristan
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pepprs · 2 years
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ok. it’s election day. i worked until like 11:30 last night and slept horribly and now it’s 7 and im going to be on campus working from like 9am-12:30am tonight. i wish i could say let’s do this thing but i just feel defeated and exhausted. but hopefully it’ll be a good day and i’ll get some strength
#purrs#i don’t even know what to say axtually. like i wish i felt good about this and proud of all the work we’ve done etc etc and like i am im not#saying im not. but im just so tired and sad bc what is on my mind this morning is how everyone let us down including ourselves and whatever#happens tonight is going to be a result of that. which is horrible of me. like omg i need to be strong and positive and hopeful bc ppl are#going to need to look to me as a beacon of hope but i don’t feel hopeful and i don’t feel unhopeful i just feel all consuming exhaustion#i love my job. i really do. but the last few weeks and months since redacted left have been so fucking hard and ive been suppressing it all.#and just plowing forward and taking on whatever i can and working so late. and im at a breaking point but i can’t take a break and i won’t l#let myself which i know is ‘Toxic Grind Culture™️’ but im not going let any of this drop if i have the power not to do it. idk. and i trust#myself not to burn out but like i wish we had a weekend day tomorrow so i could just sleep. idk. and there is SO much for me to do outside o#of work too that i have been neglecting for months and in some cases literal years and all i want to do is sleep.#delete later#this is one of those posts where i type so much but ultimately say nothing at all like im not articulating myself clearly. im just so#depleted. not redacted depleted to the point where i would redacted but just… depleted. lol
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looniecartooni · 2 years
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I just saw a Tik Tok saying that Classical music was essentially made by straight white dudes and someone reacting to that Tik Tok saying that most cultures didn’t write down their music, they just spoke about it. Both are not wrong but also... very wrong. There were plenty of female and colored composers throughout the centuries that composed classical music and I’m pretty sure a good portion of them were not straight. However, they definitely do not get as much credit as Bach or Mozart (who are still great composers in their own right- unless we really want to talk about Mozart overshowing his older sister who was violinist) because of well- the times were a bit racist and sexist.
Nonetheless- there were (and possibly still are) female and colored composers so in spite of these two girls and because I’ve kind of listened out of curiosity to some of these composers a while back, here’s a list of a bunch of female composers and some of people of different ethnicities. If someone well versed in Classical music much more than me wants to add on to anything, feel free.
https://parkersymphony.org/women-composers#:~:text=A%20Look%20At%20Female%20Classical%20Music%20Composers%201,Chaminade%20...%208%20Ethel%20Smyth%20...%20More%20items
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/great-women-composers/barbara-strozzi/
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/black-composers-who-made-classical-music-history/#:~:text=10%20Black%20composers%20who%20changed%20the%20course%20of,8%20George%20Walker%20%281922%20%E2%80%93%202018%29%20More%20items
https://www.thegilmore.org/blog/composers-of-color-you-should-know/
And also- to that girl that said many cultures didn’t write down their music and instead passed it by word, yes there were many cultures that did that. But we also do still have a lot of written records of music and art that survived to this day or got destroyed by another one or lost to time itself. And there are still cultures that had originally passed on their stories, songs, and art techniques by word of mouth and still do, but many have also gone on to write them down as a means of preservation. 
I encourage people to research more into this rather than listen to a white college student ranting from the top of their head what they remember from what little they’ve researched, but I hope this encourages people to look into this stuff more because it’s cool and interesting.
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Stephenie Meyer's sci-fi novel The Host is like. it's almost so much. the alien bodysnatchers at the center of the plot are like Animorph's yeerks if they got really into cottagecore. no, they don't want intergalactic war and domination! they want intergalactic peace and domination! they make every planet they visit a peaceful socialist utopia and like, okay, yes, they have to violently take over the bodies of a planet's native inhabitants to do it. yes, they have to suppress the unwilling minds of their host bodies. yes they are for all intents and purposes committing a genocide of their chosen planets' initial inhabitants and then puppeting their husks around playing at homogeneous, sanitized versions of the cultures they destroyed. the alien main character mentions that even episodes of the Brady Bunch were scrubbed because they were deemed too violent. and they call themselves souls, which is so loaded on so many levels. impossible not to read into the spiritual connotations, especially when written by an author coming from the mormon church which so highly values mission trips. just by sympathizing with humans who don't want to be possessed, by helping them hide out and stay free, our protagonist becomes a pariah, an outlaw from her own society. peace is valued above all else but not peace for the colonized, who are meat to be processed. it's better this way. they had so much potential but squandered it with foolish violence so now we have the right to overtake them and make them live correctly. isn't it beautiful now? isn't everything perfect? there's like almost so much happening in this story except Stephenie's a fucking mormon so she never draws any meaningful connections to anything and the happy ending is that the alien brain parasite protag is gifted the body of a beautiful coma patient that she can "ethically" puppet around, easy peasy problem solved. also there's a fucking love triangle.
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deception-united · 4 months
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Worldbuilding: Questions to Consider
Government & authority:
Types of government: What type of government exists (monarchy, democracy, theocracy, etc.)? Is it centralised or decentralised?
Leadership: Who holds power and how is it acquired (inheritance, election, divine right, conquest)?
Law enforcement: Who enforces the laws (military, police, magical entities)?
Legal system: How are laws made, interpreted, and enforced? Are there courts, judges, or councils?
Laws:
Criminal laws: What constitutes a crime? What are the punishments?
Civil laws: How are disputes between individuals resolved?
Cultural norms: How do customs and traditions influence the laws?
Magic/supernatural: Are there laws governing the use of magic or interaction with supernatural beings?
Social structure:
Class/status: How is society divided (nobility, commoners, slaves)? Are there caste systems or social mobility?
Rights & freedoms: What rights do individuals have (speech, religion, property)?
Discrimination: Are there laws that protect or discriminate against certain groups (race, gender, species, culture)?
Economy & trade:
Currency: What is used as currency? Is it standardised?
Trade laws: Are there regulations on trade, tariffs, or embargoes?
Property laws: How is ownership determined and transferred? Are there inheritance laws?
Religion/belief systems:
Religious authority: What role does religion play in governance? Are religious leaders also political leaders?
Freedom of religion: Are citizens free to practice different religions? If not, which are taboo?
Holy laws: Are there laws based on religious texts or teachings?
Military & defense:
Standing army: Is there a professional military or a militia? Who serves, and how are they recruited?
War & peace: What are the laws regarding war, peace treaties, and diplomacy?
Weapons: Are there restrictions or laws regarding weapons for civilians? What is used as a weapon? Who has access to them?
Technology & magic:
Technological advancements: How advanced is the technology (medieval, steampunk, futuristic, etc.)?
Magical laws: Are there regulations on the use of magic, magical creatures, or artifacts?
Innovation & research: How are inventors and researchers treated? Are there laws protecting intellectual property?
Environmental/resource management:
Natural resources: How are resources like water, minerals, and forests managed and protected, if at all?
Environmental laws: Are there protections for the environment? How are they enforced? Are there consequences for violations?
Cultural & ethical considerations:
Cultural diversity: How does the law accommodate or suppress cultural diversity?
Ethics: What are the ethical foundations of the laws? Are there philosophical or moral principles that underpin them?
Traditions vs. change: Does the society balance tradition with progress? How?
Happy writing ❤
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gothhabiba · 11 months
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Hi, this is very ignorant. I'm trying to read as much as I can on Palestine and Zionism but there is one point I cannot find an answer for. Given that Zionism is not Judaism, given that at the beginning most Jewish people did not share this view and was actually supported by christians with antisemitic views, given that it was conceptualized as a colonial project that could only be actualized by ethnically cleanse Palestine, one thing I don't know how to disagree with Zionists is the idea that Jewish people do come from that land. Even if European jews are probably not genetically related to the Jewish people from there, I think Jewishness is something that can be constructed as related to that land. This of course does not mean that Palestinians are not natives too and they have every right to their land. However I don't really know how to answer when Jewish (Zionists) tell me that Jewish people fled that land during the diaspora. Other than "yeah but the people that stayed are native that underwent christianization before, arabization later, grew a sense of nationhood in the 19th century and are Palestinians now"
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what "indigeneity" is to believe that it means "whoever has the oldest claim to the land." Rather, to describe a people as "indigenous" is a reference to their current relationship to the government and to the land—namely that they have been or are being dispossessed from that land in favour of other private owners (settlers); they have a separate, inferior status to settlers according to the law, explicitly; they are shut out of institutions created by the settler state, explicitly; they are targeted implicitly by the laws of the settler state (e.g. Israeli prohibitions against harvesting wild thyme or using donkeys or horses for transportation); the settler state does not punish violence against them; &c. &c.
It is a settler-colonialist state that creates indigeneity; without one, it is perfectly possible for immigrants to move to and live in a new location without becoming settlers, with the superior cultural and legal status and suppression of a legally inferior population that that entails.
If all that were going on were some Jewish people feeling a personal or religious connexion to this land and wanting to move there, accepting the existing people and culture and living with them, not expelling and killing local populations and creating a settler-colonialist state that privileges them at the expense of extant populations, that would be a completely different situation. But any assertion of the land's fundamental Jewish-ness (really they mean white or European Jewishness—the Jewish Arabs who were already in Palestine never seem to figure in these arguments) is a canard that distracts from the fundamental issue, which is a people's right to resist dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
Decolonize Palestine lays out some of the ethnic and cultural history of the region, but follows it up with:
So, what does this all mean for Palestine? Absolutely nothing. Although the argument has many ahistorical assumptions and claims, it is not these which form its greatest weakness. The whole argument is a trap. The basic implication of this line of argumentation is as follows: If the Jewish people were in Palestine before the Arabs, then the land belongs to them. Therefore, the creation of Israel would be justified. From my experience, whenever this argument is used, the automatic response of Palestinians is to say that their ancestors were there first. These ancestors being the Canaanites. The idea that Palestinians are the descendants of only one particular group in a region with mass migrations and dozens of different empires and peoples is not only ahistorical, but this line of thought indirectly legitimizes the original argument they are fighting against. This is because it implies that the only reason Israel’s creation is unjustified is because their Palestinian ancestors were there first. It implies that the problem with the argument lies in the details, not that the argument as a whole is absolute nonsense and shouldn’t even be entertained. The ethnic cleansing, massacres and colonialism needed to establish Israel can never be justified, regardless of who was there first. It’s a moot point. Even if we follow the argument that Palestinians have only been there for 1300 years, does this suddenly legitimize the expulsion of hundreds of thousands? Of course not. There is no possible scenario where it is excusable to ethnically cleanse a people and colonize their lands. Human rights apply to people universally, regardless of whether they have lived in an area for a year or ten thousand years. If we reject the “we were there first” argument, and not treat it as a legitimizing factor for Israel’s creation, then we can focus on the real history, without any ideological agendas. We could trace how our pasts intersected throughout the centuries. After all, there is indeed Jewish history in Palestine. This history forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does. We must stop viewing Palestinian and Jewish histories as competing, mutually exclusive entities, because for most of history they have not been. These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism. After all, this ideologically driven impulse to imagine our ancestors as some closed, well defined, unchanging homogenous group having exclusive ownership over lands corresponding to modern day borders has nothing to do with the actual history of the area, and everything to do with modern notions of ethnic nationalism and colonialism.
I would also be careful about mentioning a sense of "nationhood" or "national identity" in this context, as it could seem to imply that people need a "national" identity (a very specific and very new idea) in order not to deserve genocide. Actually the idea that Palestinians lacked a national identity (of the kind that developed in 19th-century Europe) is commonly used to justify Zionism. Again from Decolonize Palestine:
This slogan ["A land without a people for a people without a land"] persists to this day because it was never meant to be literal, but colonial and ideological. This phrase is yet another formulation of the concept of Terra Nullius meaning “nobody’s land”. In one form or the other, this concept played a significant role in legitimizing the erasure of the native population in virtually every settler colony, and laying down the ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ basis for seizing native land. According to this principle, any lands not managed in a ‘modern’ fashion were considered empty by the colonists, and therefore up for grabs. Essentially, yes there are people there but no people that mattered or were worth considering. There is no doubt that Zionism is a settler colonial movement intent on replacing the natives. As a matter of fact, this was a point of pride for the early Zionists, as they saw the inhabitants of the land as backwards and barbaric, and that a positive aspect of Zionism would be the establishment of a modern nation state there to act as a bulwark against these ‘regressive’ forces in the east [You can read more about this here]. A characteristic feature of early Zionist political discourse is pretending that Palestinians exist only as individuals or sometimes communities, but never as constituting a people or a nation. This was accompanied by the typical arrogance and condescension towards the natives seen in virtually every settler colonial movement. That the early settlers interacted with the natives while simultaneously claiming the land was empty was not seen as contradictory to them. According to these colonists, even if some scattered, disorganized people did exist, they were not worthy of the land they inhabited. They were unable to transform the land into a modern functioning nation state, extract resources efficiently and contribute to ‘civilization’ through the free market, unlike the settlers. Patrick Wolfe’s scholarship on Australia illustrates this dynamic and how it was exploited to establish the settler colony.
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tanadrin · 1 year
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by far the most interesting part of the latest You’re Wrong About on homosexuality in the animal kingdom is the account of how science missed it for so long. the guest, lulu miller (of radiolab fame) basically divides the reasons into three categories: ignorance, self-suppression, and what you might call “official” suppression.
essentially, since the days of thomas aquinas when it had been simply declared that homosexuality was inherently against nature, you had a lot of observers of the natural world, even once the enlightenment got underway, who simply didn’t know what they were looking at. many animal species are very sexually dimorphic and thus easy to sex; but many more are not, and if your background assumption (because the background assumption of society in general) is that homosexuality does not occur in nature, if you see two animals of unidentified sex mating, you will assume one is male and one is female. or you might simply assume what you are seeing is an aberration, with no real systemic significance, and not pointing to any kind of underlying phenomenon, and simply fail to note it down--or talk to any other naturalists about it.
and this blends into self-suppression, which includes all researchers who might have noticed homosexuality among animals in the wild, but didn’t write about it. this includes researchers who might not have thought it was significant, or who might have thought nobody was interested in it--miller offers the example of a guy who died relatively recently who spent his life studying mountain rams, who omitted mentioning from his quite detailed survey of their behavior that about one in twelve males mate exclusively with other males, because it seemed to him (at the time of writing) an aberrant and unpleasant fact about an otherwise majestic creature.
“official” suppression we might apply to any time a researcher noticed and wanted to write about the phenomenon, but who simply couldn’t get their data published, including researchers who might have pressed the scientific community at large to recognize this phenomenon, only to be greeted with hostility and suspicion--i.e., what kind of pervert is so obsessed with this topic?
and out of a combination of all these factors you get centuries of a bias being confirmed, because anybody who might care to ask, “well, homosexuality clearly occurs in humans, have we observed it in other animals?” would have been confronted with a vast lacuna in the scientific literature, not because it did not occur, but because multiple intersecting cultural biases prevented anybody from actually talking about it. and it makes it hard to have a conversation about natural phenomena from an empirical and rational perspective when a bias that irrational runs that deep! and i cannot help but wonder what other biases we have in our culture, that might be producing similarly irrational lacunae in our apprehension of the world.
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