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fruitsofhell · 2 months ago

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Why is "Magical Mental Illness" ft. Spamton G. Spamton

It's honestly a shame that my delay in playing Deltarune has led to me not making an essay about Spamton already. There are so many things to be said about that wretched little man on every level from character writing to the narrative and gameplay mechanics. And while I would love to be an expert on most of these in order to give a great opinion, I am only a semi-expert in one thing - and that is Psychology in character writing. Even with finally playing the game, it took a few things beyond pure brainrot to get this essay out of me that are important to keep in mind. One, was a video essay I was watching about this very topic which was not sitting well with me. At times the essayist seemed to deliberately negate the in-universe readings of Spamton in order to blunt force certain labels onto him, and at others they hastily stepped over grounds for interesting psychological insights. This then reminded me of the other important aspect, that being some advice my Abnormal Psychology teacher gave my class on what can only be described as an actual blorbo diagnosis roleplay assignment. She advised us to avoid characters from stories too stepped in fantasy because it can at times be near impossible to seriously put a scientific label on that which was meant to be magical through and through. We're not playing Matpat here.

As an avid lover of both fantasy fiction and psychology, I have run into this paradox plenty, to the point I even once had a name for it - "Magical Mental Illness". It is just a fact of the medium that you will often run into characters who express traits discernable as real psychological dysfunctions, but with entirely magical logic behind them. Spamton, in all his spastic glory is a perfect example of this, to the point it is barely even worth pointing out. But what is worth pointing out is how that line between the clinical and magical does not have to be the end of the conversation. My gripe with that essayist is not that they chose an incorrect, haphazard way to look at Spamton, but that it did not provide the most satisfying synthesis. Especially with a game like Deltarune which subtly revels in blurring the line between the real and imaginary for characters and players alike. It is very concerned with how we relate to fiction through how its fiction relates to its own meta-fiction, creating new layers of meaning to explore. Humans have been relying on stories as windows to our souls as long as we've been writing them, and especially as reference for when our souls become troubled. It's only natural that in that legacy, we begin to read about what it even means to read a story.

Kris and the Player: Hand in Unlovable Hand

Before getting too thick into the weeds, it's important to explain what I mean by this double layer of fiction and how it connects to us. In almost all popular stories you have a perspective character or presence to serve as the audience's middle man, and for Deltarune that character is Kris. But Kris is not as passive as the usual protagonist, as they appear to be acutely aware of and tormented by their role as the player's vessel for peering into their world from outside the game. Somehow, this poor 14 year old within their own world has fallen victim to some sort of possession facilitated by a third party beyond them and the player, and the mystery surrounding this predicament and what meaning the story will find in it is one of the pillars of the narrative intrigue. One that ironically draws us into being active participants in this torment of Kris as we seek to understand how to break it for them.

I was actually watching a different video on Kris' backstory when I stumbled across another magical mental illness blunder in analysis that also inspired this essay. The essayist was explaining a part of Kris' backstory told by an estranged friend, Noelle, who describes how Kris used to have a habit of suddenly freezing and staring off into space for some time before coming to again and quietly reorienting themself. As someone watching the video to comprehend the in-universe and meta-narrative implications of this, I was very surprised when the essayist interjected by declaring this evidence of Kris suffering from absence seizures. Unlike the dramatic spastic seizures that typically come to our mind, absence seizures are as Noelle described, where people lose consciousness and freeze in place for periods of time. This interpretation was not useless. It did hint that Kris may have suffered extreme stress during that time in their life, and more importantly, it was a comfort to the essayist who made the connection from their own experience with the trait, but it does cut off discussion on its own. At best absence seizures may have been an active reference Toby Fox used to write the behavior, especially to make it something that people around Kris could attribute to a non-magical source, but in this world of possessions and mysteries that cannot be an answer in itself. Kris is a magical character in a magical context, and no matter what their behavior looks right now, it is more than likely magical mental illness.

Frustrating as those two essayists' reasoning can be, I can't fault the instinct. Honestly as I was watching that video beforehand I was sussing out in my mind a headcanon diagnosis of Kris that could contain the metaphorical strengths of their character and maybe speak some spiritual truth to that disorder and its humanity. One of my first instincts was Dissociative Identity Disorder, but I cringed away from it aware that it is a negative trope to portray alters as adversarial or invasive. But that trope, or more the language of it without the direct clinical label - magical DID - has never stopped being attractive to me, because even if it doesn't align with the psychological truth of the disorder, it does still with a broader metaphor. Maybe its selfish, but when I read of DID, an inevitable theme or story of it arises in my mind that reminds of my personal struggles with identity. How parts of me sometimes felt foreign and cancerous, and how learning to carve parts of those out of me was a silent triumph I longed to express or see expressed in stories around me. In Kris, I see my own middle school age self who lost the superficial childish dreams which defined her and moved through life in a daze as she tried to understand what truly ran her before finding it and taking back control. That thinking can come off as medieval or psychoanalytical, but as a writer I think it can be important to recognize it as a tool of empathy as well. A way for an unafflicted soul to find a root in themselves that at least emotionally blurs the line between themself and this clinically defined "other".

As we'll see with Spamton, this exercise in relatability between players and Kris goes deeper than just the initial experience of struggle, but into that wish to see oneself reflected elsewhere. Deltarune is not a story that needs to have specific discernible labels to its characters' internal struggles, because its not about the answer as much as it is about carrying a question with oneself into another realm. As I or another player may carry insecurities about control of the self into Deltarune, Kris carries their own into the dubiously metaphorical Dark World. As of right now, it is somewhat hard to say whether the Dark Worlds are as real as the life of Kris and their fellow lightners in the Light World, and I doubt this boundary will cease to be toyed with anytime soon. At the end of the first chapter we can see the hint that the card and board game themed Dark World was related to a closet of alike toys, and the connection was made explicit when Kris is told to bring the characters - the darkners - of that previous session into a new ground established in chapter 2's computer lab. But, at the end of each chapter, just as the player could begin to say to themself it may have all been a dream, Kris tears the player's will out of their body and reminds them how willing this game is to confuse the borders of reality inside fiction and out. Making Deltarune a rather inappropriate choice for attempting to draw clean borders between a clinical and magical character psychology.

Spamton Don't Seem Too Well, Does He?

Exploring the Dark World with a focus on Kris is what finally leads us to the one and only, collective delight of millions, Spamton G. Spamton. He is beloved for being a masterclass in how to lead players into the depths of a stories machinations (1). From pithy lore to fundamental existential questions, Spamton's rich character arc encompasses it all brilliantly, but it's not where to begin, as it is not where Kris nor the player begins. First impressions are critical after all, and Toby Fox has pretty much never let looming implications get in the way of a damn funny character. From his very first textbox after bursting out of a garbage dumpster, Spamton is equal parts incomprehensible and memetic. Players will literally freeze up in utter bafflement as they take whole seconds to comprehend the gaping blank space in his dialogue, with may just giving up on understanding its intention and filling in the gaps either way (2). Uniformly capitalized text, keyboard smash-esque grammatical errors, odd meter, and most famously, randomly bracketed text abound. Yet somehow by the end of the first bossfight, most players walk away thoroughly engaged in trying to translate his quirks into YTP impressions or an otherwise stilted and manic tone. He disappears after this first encounter till the final area of the game, but its nearly impossible for a player to not be thinking about him after.

(1) See a great, and highly inspiring breakdown of his character construction in Designing For's video on him!

(2) For examples of what I mean...

These unique mannerisms of Spamton's are where we find Toby Fox's employment and mastery of one of the most common tropes used to convey insanity and instability in a character. It is a tell-tale example of disorganized speech, specifically through a pattern resembling loose association where the words of the subject are strung along by superficial rather than descriptive content. Usually loose associations sends oblivious sufferers on a chain of associations far beyond what anyone but them can understand, but Spamton's writing seems to marry the idea with concentrated dialogue by way of the system of bracketed text. Spamton will splice tangentially related sales-themed slogans and phrases directly into his sentences before picking back up. Trying to say something along the lines of, "Why be a little whelp who hates its pathetic life," becomes --

> "WHY BE THE [[Little Sponge]] WHO HATES ITS [[$4.99]] LIFE"

-- A real life loose association phrase meanwhile would likely have taken "little sponge" and began starting a string of words related to the kitchen sink. The genius on display here, is that Spamton succeeds in getting his very important deal-making scheme across while also reading as utterly insane to the player. It's a careful balance of chaos and conscientious use of the player's time, which adds a character-rich twist to this common cliche. As players acclimate and move on from the encounter, they will likely begin to put together more and more patterns in Spamton's speech which fuels the intrigue.

By the time players return to Spamton's shop and spend even more time delighted and/or terrified by his erratic personality, it begins to become clear that 'crazy' in its more dismissive reading is not the whole picture for him. Really it started with his referencing of Kris' "[[HeartShapedObject]]" in the first scene, which may have been lost on disoriented players, but not on the character themself who visibly, autonomously flinched away from Spamton at the mention of this device which binds them to us. But these revelations are still for a time buried under another mountain of equally well-written quirks that have players continuing to second guess Spamton's legitimacy. At his shop, away from the eyes of Kris' fellow party members or surrounding darkners who have already declared him crazy, Spamton unveils the roots of his madness to them and the player. His catchphrase "[[BIG SHOT]]" begins to take form as an analogy for some kind of higher state of being related to Kris' world, or possibly even the player's, and it is self-evident why he seemingly can't shut up about it --

"> I'LL GET SO. > I'LL GET SO. > I'LL GET SO. > I'LL GET SO. > I'LL GET SO. > I'LL GET SO. > [[Hyperlink blocked.]]"

-- he sputters like a broken, creepily aware toy. What would in a clinical sense be a delusion is the main drive behind Spamton's entire character, a delusion of control that something or someone above him is pulling the strings of the world, and perhaps one of grandeur at his unflinching certainty in his ability to rise above it.

A new quirk in his disorganized speech also emerges in his shop dialogue which goes from a diet loose association, to abrupt breaks in tone and subject mid sentence. One of the chilling examples is triggered when Spamton tries to discuss some "knight" character - a focal point of fan theorizing - but breaks into frantic apology as soon as the words leave his mouth. Before a player could even suspect if this was a reaction to Kris, he screams --

> TOO MANY EXCESS VACATION DAYS?? TAKE A GOD DAMN VACATION STRAIGHT TO HELL

-- Most definitely alluding to some other confrontation. In another, bringing up your fears (which could be related toward God knows how many aspects of this sidequest) leads Spamton to a sudden departure from his unending award-winning grimace, as he solemnly asks, "… can anyone hear me? Help…", before immediately springing back to life--

"> HUH??? WHAT?? NO, I DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING JUST NOW!!! > … BUT IT SOUNDED LIKE THEY WERE TALKING TO YOU."

-- Both can be read as a new flavor of break-down in speech content, and the first one especially as some sort of traumatic flashback, but to keep consistent I believe they could be best read as hints of otherwise unreferenced hallucinations. Perhaps trying to speak of something forbidden triggered accusations in his ears causing him to panic and lose his train of thought, or he accidentally parroted a line out loud (echolalia) and tried to deflect as in the last case.

Leaving the shop, as with the first bossfight, is another crucial point where Spamton has sold a second layer of himself to the players as a personality and character^1^. While the full glory of the former won't crystallize until his final confrontation, the latter has been established well enough by now players are choosing to buy tickets to however all this insanity comes together. That insanity is very clinically and unsurprisingly diagnosable as Schizophrenia. Disorganized speech, paranoid delusions, and possible hallucinations are all hallmarks of the disorder and especially its archetype in fiction. His constant smiling affect could even be lumped in with motor dysfunction too if it weren't for the fact that his kin, the adisons display this naturally too. From the backstory the adisons tell of him as an easter egg, a broader picture of Spamton's life as this living corrupted computer ad comes into focus, in a way which could thematically be read as mood disturbances. A life of never-ending career failures perhaps the result of a persistent depression, only to be broken by a psychotic mania in which brute force of personality and ideas - hallucinated from phone static - sent him soaring into the heights of unsustainable success. But that requires more assumptions about him than are necessary, and in the end the core takeaway here is that Spamton presents with highly readable psychotic symptoms.

So there you have it. A clinical, psycho-pathological reading of Spamton G. Spamton from Deltarune. Satisfied? Hopefully not, because I ignored nearly everything about him that is relevant to the story being told. As Spamton becomes more psychotic to the player, he also becomes more comprehensible in parallel. At the same time players can begin to read him as a paranoid schizophrenic, they realize that his paranoia in all its bracketed glory is directly on the money. He recognizes a power dynamic between the worlds of this story that most others are oblivious or apathetic to, and accurately implicates Kris' role within it while soliciting their favor. His associations are less loose and more censorious, and from their syntax-breaking nature, likely not by the volition of him or anything related to his plane of reality. Even his grossly broken text I attributed to hallucinations may be displays of the raw power some of these characters carry in the narrative, and the fear and disorientation they strike in its subjects. While he is doubtlessly still mentally unstable, he is by no means out of touch with reality as the diagnosis of Schizophrenia defines. Spamton is explicitly speaking arcane truths, not the psychological noise that makes up the real disorder of Schizophrenia, no matter how much his mind is struggling to carry that truth's weight.

Garbage Noise

One of the connections that always chilled me in the Spamton story was the notion of the "garbage noise" which the adisons report coming from the speaker of Spamton's phone. I was sure to make this period in Spamton's life where he communicated with a mysterious benefactor over the phone a psychotic one in the mood disorder model for that fact. It is on very purposefully ignorant surface-level evidence that a player could say Spamton's insanity came from nothing, but there is a very fun detail in how they themselves can come to hear this garbage noise. If a player opens Kris' phone and tries to make a call, a shrill mechanical tone tears through the receiver instead of a simple text-description of static. Toby Fox wanted the player to understand what "garbage noise" was, but he also wanted the player to understand exactly where it comes from - any line from the Dark World into Kris' Light World. I can't get enough of obfuscations like this in storycrafting, especially here where it simultaneously combines two ideas at once. We only know of nonsense coming through the phones of the Dark World, but we have heard that it is a divine, higher plane nonsense for Spamton. Whether it once gave way to a clear voice or not does not change its deeper content, and in a way, as much as it may invalidate Spamton as a rational subject, the idea it never sounded any different is revealing and chilling.

Why is it that Spamton presents so bluntly as psychotic when we know he is truthful? Even the source of his madness or genius can't be determined as of now as anything but the darkner equivalent of cosmic background radiation! Well, this is because Toby Fox, deliberately or subconsciously, is drawing on centuries to millennia of fictional ideas to shape this character, not our beloved scientific labels. Without a doubt the most modern framework applicable is that of lovecraftian knowledge and memetic hazards, where the world hides are cosmic facts to be learned that tear the psyche of its learner asunder. I could write an entire other essay on how Spamton is quite possibly the most creative and delightful take on this trope ever created, but sadly, claims like that require substantiation. But, with my pre-existing knowledge of psychology and capacity to wax philosophic, I would like to go beyond that thesis as a historical statement, and more so as a theme or story. The story Deltarune is getting out of this reference to the Schizophrenic archetype, the way I could infer the story of DID out of Kris. What the platonic ideal of this human experience means to Deltarune for Toby Fox to write Spamton as such, and what Deltarune intends it to mean for us.

Throughout human history, we have, frankly speaking, not understood a damn thing about what was happening to or around us. When humans saw the subset of ourselves who ranted and raved about things no one else could see, hear, feel, nor touch, there was a natural mix of apprehension and fascination towards them. We are pattern-seeking animals, nonsensically so even at our healthiest, so of course when our kin passionately speak of patterns found in that which we cannot begin to comprehend, we are drawn to the idea of novel and potentially revolutionary knowledge. But routinely, even in superstitious societies, many have tried to follow the patterns drawn by them only to come to naught. Even those afflicted, once in better health, may reflect and find nothing but psychic noise. But every now and then the pattern leads to something, whether that be a religion, a theory, or just a spark of imagination. Imagination for a world where we create the patterns, and tell the characters within and ourselves which to see and which to ignore. For as harmful as many portrayals of schizophrenic and psychotic behavior based on this fossil of reasoning can be, like those distortions of DID, I can't help but see an attempt for empathy in them. A wish to create a world where the disorientation, isolation, and exhaustion of the psychotic mind we see can find a form of radical acceptance.

The product of this story holds true for Kris and Spamton within the broader narrative of Deltarune, with its open look into how reality becomes fantasy and how that fantasy reinforces reality. Spamton is a character with a shocking amount of impact on Kris, despite them being more aware than any other lightner of the falseness of the Dark World. It is more than just the flinch at Spamton's mention of the player's soul inside them, but their desperate striking of the shell in the basement during the Spamton fight fakeout, and being so emotional after Spamton's defeat that it elicits concern from their party-mates no matter what words the player puts in their mouth. To Kris, Spamton - this ridiculous embodiment of a spam email thrown in the trash - should be no more than an overly interactable and self-aware cartoon. Spamton's words, his actions, and his ambitions have no reason to matter to them, most of the insights he gives are into Kris' own vision. But they nonetheless highlight something in it that shakes Kris to their core, and causes them to look down on this speck of a man from their higher plane, and squirm in empathetic agony. Spamton's struggles speak to their own; speak to freedom, captivity, choice, autonomy. Things that Kris has been struggling with silently since the player opened a save files, and which Kris is for the first time hearing put into words. Passionate, direct yet censored words. Coming from a 3ft tall spam email, but coming from something nonetheless.

Spamton's struggles do not fall on deaf ears for players either, no more than Kris' do, drawing them deeper into every moment of every interaction between these scheming characters. When a man in the real world speaks of being tied to metaphysical strings and reaching a new plane, others in their superegos understand this to be baseless, but still feel something metaphorical to hold on to. All of us feel patterns which cannot be measured as materially as we would wish on a daily basis. Ones we can connect partially to tried and true philosophies of science, even religious doctrines, but which we strain not to turn into something too cosmic, for fear of chaining ourselves to unreason. An abstracted, diffuse lack of control in life has inspired everything about the human condition down to the delusions of that hypothetical man. But when this intangible captivity is molded and sculpted into a lower reality, into a story, it can become more real, it can become comprehensible and acceptable. So when we are insecure about feigning more knowledge than we could ever truly know about our own cosmos, we create miniatures and have them discourse with us about the patterns we have brought into pseudo-existence. And crucially, for all the pity or fear we cast upon those sick with societal and psychological superstition, we imagine a world where people like them can speak a real truth. Where listening to them and indulging in their passion through all the insanity is not just unashamed but objectively correct. Where the story - not the reality - of psychosis makes sense.

Watch Me Fly [[Mama]]!

But at the same time, knowing that we cannot truly grasp past our own cosmos anymore than a fictional seer can be rewarded with realness for his insights, we often can't help but write a bitter ending. Deltraune puts Spamton within a unique position, where by being from a world within a world, there was at least that one plane for him to jump to. There is a version of Deltraune where Spamton became a "[[BIG SHOT]]" and entered the Light World. But that is not the version of Deltarune that Toby Fox wanted to tell, because that would be about a hypothetical less real, less true to existence for the player than a spam email coming to life and begging them for money. If Spamton's schemes had succeeded, it likely would have been too unreal for that anyone to even consider trying to diagnose him with a real world sickness, because his failure is what gives him that tangibility. That fantastical caricature based in a true story of human existence allows us to explore our dreams and to blur the lines between ourselves and those we deem a simultaneously wretched and idealized other.

Like Kris cutting the strings of Spamton's big but not "[[BIG]]" enough body, we cut the strings of these dreams to allow sobriety to wash over us, reminded that no character nor person can move past their dedicated realities. Spamton then resigns himself to being an aspect for Kris to carry throughout their adventure, offering: "Let me become your strength." A silent passion once again, after the bombast of his performance that reminds us that it was a truth at one point, spoken by something, by someone. Spamton's lust for freedom, control, and understanding will stay in Kris' heart throughout their own character arc, and once they have succeeded or been cut down in parallel, we, the players, will have an aspect of them with us as well. A reminder that someone out there, some artist named Toby Fox, recognized a truth that we resonated with for all its potential absurdity, and spoke it long enough for us to dream and wake again. Hopefully with a clearer image of the world around us, in all its utter incomprehensibility and infinite meanings. A few of those meanings we hold in our back pocket just became a bit clearer thereafter.

That is why we have magical mental illness. Some of it is ableism and people wishing to assert an arbitrary boundary between sanity and reason, some of it is patronizing misplaced sympathy for struggling people, some of it is a profound meditation on the power of knowledge. It all gets a bit jumbled together after so many years, so many iterations, so many countless voices contributing to the noise that forms into what we would call a trope. But that history of meaning-making is beautiful and it is present in Deltarune. In amazing crystal clarity before the game is even a third of the way finished, may I add. The piecemeal nature of this story is perfect for letting ideas like those of Spamton get as much room to breathe as they can, as I can only imagine the game has more knockouts like him in store, but it would be a crying shame for them to all drown each other out in one single release window. Perhaps because Deltarune is a story about characters digesting stories, it makes most sense too for there to be delays - no matter how asynchronous - between adventures. If people want an excuse to understand why Kris reopened a Dark Fountain at the end of Chapter 2, just think about how hungry we all are to get another bite out of this game and its resonant characters this June!

#spamton #utdr #deltarune analysis #shut the heck up #media analysis #im tired of being normal its time for another 4000+ word essay on cartoon guys #this one was really really rotisserie-ing in my head since a bit ago #it started as a misunderstanding of someone elses thesis (that video i mention at the start) but became very beautiful to me #i have a lot of opinions on this all if you cant tell #also tumblr deleted all my damn whitespace-indents grrr #now i had to clumsily add hyphens between blockquotes so you can tell im not ending paragraphs #this will be up on my site eveeeeentually #and im gonna bring the kirby essay here too maybe this weekend #tag talking

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girl-in-the-mirrorbluenight · 2 years ago

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Okay I've been thinking about this pretty much all day since I saw the hbomberguy and then todd in the shadows video i just have so many thoughts. While I wouldn't necessarily call myself a Video Essayist™ (I've only made a few over the years) as a youtuber and someone who has made video essays i definitely have more experience than the average person. There are so many things that stand out to me about this whole debacle i dont even know where to start.

First I want to just give a little insight into the process for making video essays from people who've never given it a shot and just how absurd it is to do the type of plagiarizing James has done. Video essays take a fuckton of research, even for pretty simple topics, but on top that you also have to make them with the medium of video in mind. it's really not enough to just take an essay you would write for a class and read it out loud. the flow is different, you have to have accompanying visuals, often background music, etc. They're a beast to make. My Twisted video for which i used literally two sources for my research (Sondheim's books and the musical Twisted) still took days of thorough reading, note taking, watching the musical, watching the musical again, watching the musical and taking notes, cross-referencing my notes, etc. For videos that synthesize multiple sources or are covering multiple pieces of media, that time goes up exponentially. Then there's writing, recording, gathering clips (often one of the most difficult parts depending on how obscure what you're talking about is), and editing. Even for a silly video like my Glee video, I still had to do a ton of research to make sure I was getting things correct, and that was a funny tier list about freaking Glee! There is just no way you could come up with a thorough analysis by just copying and pasting. Which brings me to my next point.

I think James may have thought (or more likely rationalized) what he was doing as analysis based on like the vaguest definition. When you do any kind of analysis, what you're doing is taking research from multiple different places (news articles, primary sources, existing analysis, etc.) and coming to your own conclusions, whether that's a synthesis of those different sources, or applying it to a specific thing like a movie. Really simple example is my Twisted video where I take Sondheim's writing and apply it to a specific piece of media (in this case Twisted). I'm using existing work but coming to my own conclusion. In the Spies Are Forever video, I took existing research about the Lavender Scare and the Hays Code, including primary sources from the time period, and applied it to the musical Spies are Forever. What James seem to do is take a bunch of existing scholarship, copy and paste it all together and then come to a "conclusion" that was not actually his own original thoughts but either "facts" he completely made up or something that didn't do anything to actually link his other "sources" together. I can see why it has the veneer of analysis, but making up a random "fact" you think might be true is not the same as a drawing a conclusion based on research.

I also think Todd made a really good point in the part about England's propaganda campaign against Italy around 9:30 that it's just really bad video making to not include examples of images from this so called propaganda campaign. I have a ton of examples of news clips, government reports, etc. in my SaF video about the Lavender Scare because...it was a real historic thing that happened! If something was supposedly so widespread and not even that long ago, you can probably find evidence of it somewhere. Kaz Rowe (who is also linked in the queer creators playlist on hbomberguy's vid) talked about this a lot in their video about tiktok misinfo where people often make these outrageous claims but the thing is if something so outrageous happened (like people constantly shitting on the floors of versailles), other people at the time would probably be talking about it somewhere. It's a big red flag when someone makes such bold claims and has no evidence to back it up.

Putting this last section under the cut because I go talk about WWII, Nazis, and HIV/AIDS a bit (watch Todd's video for some more context) so if you don't want to see that post is over here.

Lastly I wanted to talk about something else Kaz brings up in a lot of their videos when talking about historical topics and that is the tendency to dehumanize people of the past, often as unwashed, unintelligent masses who would just do any ridiculous disgusting thing because they were so stupid and disgusting. There are a lot of things to criticize about the people of the past and their actions obviously, but we cannot forgot that they were in fact, people. Real individual people with their own lives and dreams and ambitions and individual opinions and they have never been and never will be a monolith. Claiming anything is broadly true of "the victorians" or "the ancient egyptians" or whatever other vague historical group you want to talk about is usually a lot more nuanced than "they all thought or acted in this one particular way". I'm certainly not a historian and i've only done one history focused video but James Somerton seemed to make a lot of broad historical claims in his videos that I think fall into this trap.

The one that stood out most to me in Todd's video was the claim about Nazi body standards which is a whole mess in general that Todd goes into for a while, but the way he talks about WWII soldiers was just like...weird. Besides the fact that a lot of his claims about Nazis seem to be bordering on glorifying them and their aesthetics (gross), I think we should remember that WWII was less than a century ago. There are still over 100,000 surviving WWII vets in the US. My grandfather who was in the Army during WWII (he didn't serve overseas but he was an enlisted soldier I can literally look up his enlistment records in the national archives online) was a real person who I obviously knew personally and who died fairly recently. To think he enlisted because he was jealous of German fitness or whatever and wanted to prove how tough Americans are is an absolutely hilarious thing to think if you knew him. I'm sure there are as many reasons for enlisting as there were enlisted soldiers. When James talks about even as relatively narrow of a group as "WWII American soldiers," he's still talking about a very large group of real and diverse people and to make such broad claims that "most" or even "a lot" of them were just so taken in by strong german physiques or whatever is frankly insulting. I haven't watched the entirety of James video so maybe he does address this at some point, but from the clips I've seen it seems very generalized and implies some level of racism when WWII soldiers in fact included a lot of racially diverse people. IDK, i think if you're a supposed historical researcher and you're making a video about WWII and you don't know about groups like the Tuskegee Airmen or the Navajo Code Talkers, that's on you. I don't want to discount some of the really horrible shit that American (and obviously other countries) soldier's did in the war and how many of them held disgusting views (even my grandpa who I love dearly was not the most politically correct person to put it lightly) but Jame's claims are not criticizing any real ideology or the consequences of them, they're oversimplifying complex and harmful historical ideas and attributing them to something he pretty much made up. I'll also give you a little hint about something. When people fall into Nazi ideology, it's because they ultimately agree with the ideology, not for some surface level aesthetic reason of "fitness" or whatever. They are antisemitic, they are racist, they are eugenicists, plain and simple. They don't just think the Nazis are cool except for all their beliefs. I also think (and again I could be missing a part of the video here) the hyper focus on the Germans and the Soviets and not mentioning Italy is at the very least an oversight too. Mussolini, like Hitler and Stalin, had a pretty big campaign of promoting an ideal strong race which he tied to ancient Romans. Like this was also a country controlled by a fascist dictator that American soldiers fought in idk it just seems weird to me to leave it out. (okay edit i looked up the transcript and he does talk about Italian fascism a little bit but only about how Mussolini rose to power, nothing about his ideologies or anything really related to the main topic of body image).

And one more thing on that note that bothered me a lot. I think his claims about HIV/AIDS is probably the most well-known here on tumblr and has been pretty thoroughly destroyed by this point, but I do just want to say one more thing about it which is that AIDS isn't gone! I feel like they way he talks about it from what I've seen of this video makes HIV/AIDS sound like a problem of the past now that we have drugs for it, but that is just not the truth. There are still tens of thousands of new infections in the US each year and way more globally and yes, people do still die from it. I just don't like when people talk about AIDS as if it's this problem of the distant past, a separate era that people went through in the 80s rather than an ongoing epidemic that still does not have a cure. Safer sex, clean needle usage, and getting tested are just as important now as they were in the 80s and 90s and don't forget that.

#hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #james somerton #youtube

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simonalkenmayer · 2 years ago

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Did you know that “analysis” isn’t the only way of comprehending new things?

Analysis is a process of breaking things down into constituent elements; for example, let’s say you are trying to understand the meaning of a poem. If you “analyze” it, you are breaking it into pieces, like meter, rhyme structure, allusions made, word usage, even spelling or punctuation become elements. All these pieces and the exploration of each, helps to give you an overall comprehension of the potential meanings behind that poem.

Synthesis is construction. Each thing is built on the former until a truth is exposed. A good example would be an essay. Let’s say you’re trying to connect five sources by various themes, into a cohesive idea worth more study. If you read a historical figure’s diary, a biography, other contemporary works about them, and so on, you’ll have a better idea of who that person is.

Synthesis often overlaps persuasive arguments. Arguing often relies on synthesis.

In other words, rhetorical arguing can induce synthesis of specific ideas. Synthesis sometimes cannot stand up to analysis. Same the other way around.

The difficulty in modern political communication is due to two groups thinking about information differently and conflict when one undoes the other.

Interesting thoughts about psychology.

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year ago

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By: Robert F. Graboyes

Published: Feb 28, 2024

Egalitarianism vs Who-Knows-What

The titanic social struggle of our era pits those favoring equality (in its traditional sense) against those demanding “equity” (in a sense far from its traditional meaning). One who advocates equality is an egalitarian, and his philosophy is egalitarianism. One who advocates “equity” has no name—or has scores of names; the same is true of his philosophy. This asymmetry of nomenclature and the divergent meanings of “equity” put egalitarians at a powerful rhetorical disadvantage. For effective argumentation, egalitarians need to level the rhetorical playing field, and I believe the most efficient way of doing so is to refer to anti-egalitarians as “equitists” and to their philosophy as “equitism”—as we’ll do here.

Following is an excellent example of how equitists themselves distinguish egalitarianism from equitism:

“Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.”

Egalitarians aspire to equalize individual rights and opportunities, and perhaps to equalize ex post outcomes across individuals via social safety nets. Equitists, well-intentioned though they may be, pigeonhole people by immutable characteristics (race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, disability, etc.) and then seek to equalize average outcomes across groups. Someone in charge (an equitist, naturally) must devise a taxonomy of mankind, assign every individual to some cell in that taxonomy, rank each cell along something like an oppressor/oppressed spectrum, and then allocate rights, privileges, opportunities, and wealth among these cells.

Generally, egalitarians seek to define “equal” objectively (e.g., equal rights, opportunities, access to education, income), whereas equitism’s definitions of “equal” are subjective. Equitism is largely an outgrowth of Frankfurt School critical theory, which rejects the very notion of objectivity. (My “Equity-toonz: One Meme Is Worth a Thousand Pictures” explores how explanatory memes that equitists often employ can mislead readers—intentionally or not.)

The subjectivity of equitism can be seen in “antiracism” guru Ibram X. Kendi’s prescription:

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

In Kendi’s formulation, no metric can ever signal that equality (between groups) has arrived. Instead, there is never-ending retribution for ancestral sins, subjectively administered via an authoritarian “antiracist constitutional amendment.”

And yet, as odious as Kendi’s ideas may be, the absence of a word like “equitism” leaves egalitarians flailing. Kendi calls his version of equitism “antiracism,” allowing his enthusiasts to declare that if one is not antiracist, then logic dictates that one must be proracist. This false dichotomy forces egalitarians into convoluted, never-satisfying rebuttals. Declaring one’s opposition to “Kendian Equitism” would present no equivalent difficulties.

And “antiracism” is only one of many names an egalitarian must battle. As the artwork atop this essay shows, these interconnected doctrines have been called antiracism; wokeness; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); critical race theory (CRT); environmental, social, and governance (ESG); postcolonialism; anticolonialism; social and emotional learning (SEL); safetyism; intersectionality; oppressor/oppressed; white fragility; identity Marxism; identity politics; fighting white privilege; postmodernism; identity synthesis; social justice; critical social justice; political correctness; progressivism; and more. All are closely related, but just different enough to sow confusion, accidentally or deliberately—e.g., “Antiracism is not the same thing as critical race theory, which is not the same as DEI.”

Sun Tzu said, “He who occupies the high ground will fight to advantage.” The absence of an umbrella term for these highly interrelated philosophies hands equitists the rhetorical high ground. The key to cleaning this Augean Stable of lexicon is recognizing that the revisionist definition of “equity” is the one common thread running through every one of these movements or concepts. This simple trio of terms—equity, equitist, equitism—can level that battlefield of ideas.

Name the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It

Many have commented on the absence or multiplicity of names for this anti-egalitarian tendency—and the rhetorical mire this shortcoming imposes on the whole egalitarianism-versus-whatever-you-happen-to-call-it-on-a-given-day debate. On the political right, Thomas Klingenstein said, “Rhetorically, our side is getting absolutely murdered … We have not even come up with an agreed-on name for the enemy.” In the center, Bari Weiss said, “[T]his new ideology doesn’t even like to be named.” On the left, Freddie DeBoer titled an essay (without asterisks), “Please Just F***ing Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Political Changes You Demand,” adding, “You don't get to insist that no one talks about your political project and it's weak and pathetic that you think you do.”

Many have suggested names, but none has caught on. This is because an effective name must meet seven separate criteria—and no previously suggested options have checked all or even most of the seven boxes. Here are (1) the criteria; (2) examples of why current terms fail; and (3) why equity-equitist-equitism could succeed.

[1] FLEXIBILITY: There must be a trio of terms naming the aspiration, the advocate, and the philosophy.

If you call the philosophy “wokeness,” then who advocates it? Wokesters? Woke folk? Persons of the woke persuasion? They have no name.

With equity-equitist-equitism, one can say, “Someone who supports equity over equality is an equitist, and his philosophy is equitism.” All grammatical forms are available, and their interconnections are logical and intuitive.

[2] BREVITY: The trio must consist of simple, single, clearly related words.

“Critical race theory” demands three words and seven clunky syllables. Who is its advocate? “Critical race theorist” might describe academicians, but not activists. “Someone who subscribes to critical race theory” entails a mind-numbing seven words and thirteen syllables. “CRT” is brief but obscure.

In contrast, one can easily say, “He is an equitist,” rather than ponderous phrases like, “He is someone who supports the idea of equity over equality,” or the audience-euthanizing, “He is someone who supports equity, but I’m talking about the modern anti-egalitarian definition of equity, not the traditional definition.”

[3] BREADTH: The terms must be applicable to a broad swath of the many allied movements comprising this philosophy.

Enthusiasts swear (sometimes) that CRT is only a legal doctrine and not, say, the clearly derivative concepts taught in K-12 settings. ESG applies only to business investment. You need a term that covers all these related doctrines.

The re-engineered definition of “equity” is the common thread that connects all 21 movements listed above (along with others), and equitist-equitism follow suit. Does any other word fill this niche?

[4] COHESION: The quest for breadth must be offset by parameters that limit the philosophy to a focused topical range.

“Political correctness” may cover many equity doctrines, but it also incorporates lots of barely related concepts—etiquette, scientific doctrines, etc. Maybe SEL derives from postcolonialism, but applying the latter label to the former would likely stall the speaker in a futile argument over arcane lexical points.

Using equity-equitist-equitism limits the conversation to the notion of allocating rights, privileges, resources, and wealth across groups rather than across individuals. It leaves cultural tics and attitudes to other days.

[5] CLARITY: The trio must be sufficiently novel to insulate egalitarians from both innocent confusion and deliberate shenanigans.

To naive listeners, “I oppose Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (the doctrine) sounds exactly like “I oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion” (three separate, benign ideals). This can lead to confusion among thoughtful, well-intentioned listeners and speakers—and it allows some disingenuous “equity” enthusiasts to frustrate meaningful debate by means of motte-and-bailey rhetorical tactics (i.e., using a term that has two meanings—one controversial, and one not).

Equity-equitist-equitism quashes the motte-and-bailey problem. “Equitist” and “equitism” have no familiar, traditional meanings with which they can be easily confused—accidentally or purposefully. The word “equity” remains a problem, but one easily dealt with via scare quotes or quick clarifications like “equity, in the equitist sense.”

[6] FAMILIARITY: The trio must not be so novel as to be incomprehensible to those hearing them for the first time.

Yascha Mounk suggests that these doctrines be referred to together as, “identity synthesis.” But one would need a fairly comprehensive explanation before using such an expression. Terminology, like iPhones, should be usable without requiring an instruction booklet.

Someone who has never heard the terms equitist or equitism can intuitively sense their meanings by thinking about the obvious root word—equity.

[7] RESPECTABILITY: The terms must not be patently frivolous or insulting.

“Wokeness” is widely viewed as an insult and, to be honest, the word is usually invoked specifically to deliver scorn or insult. Yes, “woke” was once a self-description that seems to have originated with blues musician Huddie Ledbetter (a.k.a., Lead Belly), but there is always danger in outsiders trying to co-opt in-group slang.

“Equitist” and “equitism” have a staid, neutral vibe. Equity-equitist-equitism is precisely analogous to equality-egalitarian-egalitarianism. While some equitists will object to being called equitists, their complaint will seem more petty and unreasonable than their current objections to “wokeness” or “political correctness.”

Equity-equitist-equitism has an additional bonus virtue. Google Translate is able to translate all three into at least some other languages. (e.g., Equidad-equitista-equitismo for Spanish; Equité-equitiste-equitisme for French). Since these doctrines are debated internationally, this multilingual flexibility is important. This brings us to the following.

Equity-Equitist-Equitism as Self Description

Interestingly, one can find some (obscure) equitists on the Internet who have suggested calling their philosophy “equitism.” Billionaire entrepreneur Marc Lore aspires to build a visionary city (“Telosa”) based on a somewhat-related concept of “equitism;” Telosa’s website says, “Equitism is inclusive growth,” and speaks of the project’s “commitment to DEI” to be administered by a municipal DEI department. A group calling itself the Atlas Movement (of whom I know nothing) wrote:

“Equitism is the political, social, and economic doctrine promoting the idea that to maximize peoples’ well-being, society must ensure equitable rights and opportunities for all. In short, we want to systematically improve society by applying the value of Equity (from Aequitas, justice & fairness) to all its areas.”

There was also a 2022 opinion column in Ecuador’s El Heraldo: “La filosofía del equitismo” (“The Philosophy of Equitism”). Written by Guillermo Tapia Nicola, who calls himself a legal and political advisor to Ecuador’s National Assembly, here are some relevant passages (translated from Spanish):

“This endeavor … the result of everything that has happened in recent decades, is what has been called ‘Equitism,’ conceptualizing it as a new ideology for a new stage, which is supposed to guide political and social work. ... Then, talking about democratic equity, equity in vaccines, institutional equity, climate equity, or equity in matters of rights, and verifying the actions that are actually taking place on these issues, will no longer sound strange to the ears ... Ultimately, the effort and determination put in by those agents of change, promoters of equitism, could well give us a spark of hope, two years after the pandemic ... In short, it is about maintaining the audacity of those actions that provide balance, and it is only matched by the audacity of that new vision and philosophy. Equitism.”

I agree with these writers. The movement they describe should have a name, acceptable to honorable advocates and adversaries alike, and I believe the best option lies in equity-equitist-equitism.” Apply these words to the proponents of “equity” and to their philosophy, and let the real debates begin—on level ground, at last.

#Robert F. Graboyes #equity #equality #equity vs equality #equality vs equity #equitist #equitism #egalitarianism #DEI #diversity equity and inclusion #DEI bureaucracy #religion is a mental illness

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orthodoxydaily · 2 years ago

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Saints&Reading: Sunday, November 20, 2023

november 6_ november 20th

St ELIAS FONDAMINSKY OF PARIS (1942)

Blessed Martyr Elias (Fondaminsky), honoured on the New Calendar today, also known under the nom de guerre of Bunakov, was a close associate and co-martyr of Righteous Martyr Maria (Skobtsova) of Paris, her family and the Paris circle through which she operated the Orthodox Action social charity. A Jew by birth, he was drawn by his ill-fated elder brother Matthew into the same vein of revolutionary politics that Mother Maria was, and felt the same attachment to the narodnichestvo of the Social Revolutionary Party that Mother Maria had, soon becoming one of its leaders. Elias wed his childhood friend, Emily Gavronskiy, in 1903, whose inclinations toward Orthodox Christianity almost certainly influenced him later in his life. In 1906, however, he found himself fleeing - as many left-wing intellectuals of that era did - to France, where he joined the circle of Orthodox activists, clerics and philosophers that included Archimandrite Lev (Gillet), Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, Nicolas Berdyaev and the notorious terrorist-turned-counter-revolutionary Boris Savinkov. He returned to Russia in 1917, barely escaped capture by the Bolsheviks, and took part in the conference at Iași to overthrow the Bolsheviks.

However, in spite of his disillusionment with revolutionary politics, Elias never gave up his commitment to radical politics nor his social service to the poor and disenfranchised. He saw a hope for Russia’s national salvation in what Constantine Skorkin calls, in his brief essay The saintly Eser, an ‘original synthesis of Christianity, socialism and autocracy’. (God bless all such syntheses! Solzhenitsyn’s was just another such, as was that of Saint John of Kronstadt, as was that, albeit in a more amorphous form, of the Slavophils he followed. And not for nothing was Official Nationality founded on a similar three-legged stool!) Maria Skobtsova came to Paris in 1923 with her husband and children and soon immersed herself in charitable work and in the Paris community of Russian émigrés and exiles; she soon befriended Elias Fondaminsky, who shared her politics and religious convictions. Of them their mutual friend Theodore Pianov said: ‘It is difficult to say who had the greater influence on whom, Mother Maria on him or him on Mother Maria.’ He played an active role in the founding of Maria Skobtsova’s Orthodox Action, though the declining health of his wife toward the end of the 1920’s, and her death in 1935, prevented him from doing much active social work.

Given the opportunity to flee for a third time, this time from the advance of the Nazis in 1941, he chose to stay and share the fate of his fellow Jews. This choice meant a life of poverty and eventually his death. Lay theologian George Fedotov remarked about this choice: ‘In his last days he wished to live with the Christians and die with the Jews’;...CONTINUE READING

St Leonard of Noblac was born to the Frankish nobility. He was part of the court of the pagan King Clovis I. He was converted to Christianity by Saint Remigius, Bishop of Reims. During a certain invasion that they were losing, the Queen suggested to Leonard that he invoke the help of God to repel the invading army. He did, and the tide of battle turned, naming Clovis victorious. Saint Remigius, bishop of Rheims, then used this miracle to convert the King, Leonard, and a thousand of their followers to Christianity. Following his conversion, St. Leonard refused the offer of a See from his grandfather, King Clovis I. He then began a life of austerity, sanctification, and preaching. His desire to know God grew so strong that he entered the Orleans monastery. His brother, Saint Lifiard, followed his example and, leaving the King's court, built a monastery at Meun, and lived there. It is said that while King Clovis was hunting nearby, his wife Clothilde went into labor. St Leonard was called to her bedside. He prayed with the King through the night, and through the intercession of his prayers, the Queen and the child were saved. Following the safe delivery, Clovis offered him as much land as he could ride around in one day on a donkey. St Leonard used the land to establish a monastery at Noblac near Limoges, where he became Abbot.

Born: 19 May, Died: 559 AD, Venerated in Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Church, HE IS Depicted as an Abbot holding chains, fetters or locks, or manacles.He is the patron saint of women in labour, barrel makers, coopers, blacksmiths, captives, prisoners, childbirth, coal miners, coppersmiths, farmers, greengrocers, grocers, horses, locksmiths, miners, and porters, and against burglaries and against robberies or robbers.

EPHESIANS 2:14-22

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. 19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Commentary of the Church Fathers: John Chrysostom AD 407 : Some say that the wall between them is that of the Jews against the Greeks, because it does not allow them to mix. I do not think so. Rather I think that the wall between them is common within both. It is the hostility proceeding within the flesh. This was the midwall cutting them off, as the prophet says, “Do not your sins stand in the midst between you and me?” The midwall was the enmity that God had both toward Jews and toward Greeks. But when the law came this enmity was not dissolved; rather it increased. “For the law,” he says, “works wrath.” .

Tertullian of Carthage AD 220 : For the Creator's righteousness no less than His peace was announced in Christ, as we have often shown already. Therefore he says: "He is our peace, who hath made both one"

LUKE 8:41-56

41 And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to his house, 42 for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. 43 Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, 44 came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. 45 And Jesus said, "Who touched Me?" When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, "Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?' " 46 But Jesus said, "Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me." 47 Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. 48 And He said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace." 49 While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher." 50 But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." 51 When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. 52 Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, "Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping." 53 And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Little girl, arise." 55 Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. 56 And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.

#orthodoxy #orthodoxchristianity #easternorthodoxchurch #originofchristianity #spirituality #holyscriptures #gospel #bible #wisdom #saints

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literaturereviewhelp · 2 months ago

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To excel in literature review writing, start by developing a strong outline of a reviewed paper. It is essential to not just summarize the sources, but involve analyzing and synthesizing the materials on a chosen topic. Focus on academic research and build a foundation for your further study. Using our literature review outline example can help you structure your work efficiently. You will learn how to: - Identify and examine all relevant scholarly sources on your topic - Overview the current research trends - Highlight gaps or unresolved questions. - Organize your findings coherently, from introduction to conclusion. Additionally, we recommend you fully understand the types of literature review: narrative, integrative, and others. In this article, our experts provide actionable tips, a clear RRL outline, and topic suggestions to help you succeed. Whether you’re drafting your first review or refining your skills, this guide will ensure you produce a comprehensive and insightful paper. Table of Contents What Is a Literature Review? Let’s start with the literature review definition. Literature review outlooks the existing sources on a given topic. Its primary goal is to provide an overall picture of the study object. It clears up the context and showcases the analysis of the paper’s theoretical methodology. In case you want to see the examples of this type of work, check out our collection of free student essays. Importance of Literature Review In most cases, you need to write a literature review as a part of an academic project. Those can be dissertations, theses, or research papers. Why is it important? Imagine your final research as a 100% bar. Let’s recall Pareto law: 20% of efforts make 80% of the result. In our case, 20% is preparing a literature review. Writing itself is less important than an in-depth analysis of current literature. Do you want to avoid possible frustration in academic writing? Make a confident start with a literature review. Sure, it’s impossible to find a topic that hasn’t been discussed or cited. That is why we cannot but use the works of other authors. You don’t have to agree with them. Discuss, criticize, analyze, and debate. So, the purpose of the literature review is to give the knowledge foundation for the topic and establish its understanding. Abstracting from personal opinions and judgments is a crucial attribute. Types of Literature Review You can reach the purpose we have discussed above in several ways, which means there are several types of literature review. What sets them apart? In short, it’s their research methods and structure. Let’s break down each type: - Systematic literature review is the most precise and well-defined type. It identifies, evaluates, and appraises the studied topic. The purpose is to get the lay of the land in a given research area. It falls into meta-analysis and meta-synthesis. They differ in the undertaken approach: deductive or inductive. - Meta-analysis implies the deductive approach. At first, you gather several related research papers. Then, you carry out its statistical analysis. As a result, you answer a formulated question. - Meta-synthesis goes along with the inductive approach. It bases qualitative data assessment. - Theoretical literature review implies gathering theories. Those theories apply to studied ideas or concepts. Links between theories become more explicit and clear. Why is it useful? It confirms that the theoretical framework is valid. On top of that, it assists in new hypothesis-making. - Argumentative literature review starts with a problem statement. Then, you select and study the topic-related literature to confirm or deny the stated question. There is one sufficient problem in this type, by the way. The author may write the text with a grain of bias. - Narrative literature review focuses on literature mismatches. It indicates possible gaps and concludes the body of literature. The primary step here is stating a focused research question. Another name for this type — a traditional literature review. - Integrative literature review drives scientific novelty. It generates new statements around the existing research. The primary tool for that is secondary data. The thing you need is to review and criticize it. When is the best option to write an integrative literature review? It’s when you lack primary data analysis. Remember: before writing a literature review, specify its type. Another step you should take is to argue your choice. Make sure it fits the research framework. It will save your time as you won’t need to figure out fitting strategies and methods. Annotated Bibliography vs. Literature Review Some would ask: isn’t what you are writing about is just an annotated bibliography? Sure, both annotated bibliography and literature review list the research topic-related sources. But no more than that. Such contextual attributes as goal, structure, and components differ a lot. For a more visual illustration of its difference, we made a table: Attribute Annotated Bibliography Literature Review Purpose Informative nature. Listing additional sources for a reader is possible. Analyzes the top research sources to get the most of a topic. Content Proofs of sources’ relevance and credibility. The complete picture of the study object. Structure requirements - Alphabetical sorting - Clear separation of entries - Easy navigation - Advanced representation of sources in the text - Sources can appear several times Components List formatted in the formal citation styles (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). Introduction, main body, and conclusion. To sum up: an annotated bibliography is more referral. It does not require reading all the sources in the list. On the contrary, you won’t reach the literature review purpose without examining all the sources cited. Share to FacebookPin ItCopy Image URL Literature Review: Step-by-Step Strategy Now it’s time for a step-by-step guide. We are getting closer to a perfect literature review! Step 1. Select the Topic Selecting a topic requires looking from two perspectives. They are the following: - Stand-alone paper. Choose an engaging topic and state a central problem. Then, investigate the trusted literature sources in scholarly databases. - Part of a dissertation or thesis. In this case, you should dig around the thesis topic, research objectives, and purpose. Regardless of the situation, you should not just list several literature items. On the contrary, build a decent logical connection and analysis. Only that way, you’ll answer the research question. Step 2. Identify the Review Scope One more essential thing to do is to define the research boundaries: don’t make them too broad or too narrow. Push back on the chosen topic and define the number and level of comprehensiveness of your paper. Define the historical period as well. After that, select a pool of credible sources for further synthesis and analysis. Step 3. Work with Sources Investigate each chosen source. Note each important insight you come across. Learn how to cite a literature review to avoid plagiarism. Step 4. Write a Literature Review Outline No matter what the writing purpose is: research, informative, promotional, etc. The power of your future text is in the proper planning. If you start with a well-defined structure, there’s a much higher chance that you’ll reach exceptional results. Step 5. Review the Literature Once you’ve outlined your literature review, you’re ready for a writing part. While writing, try to be selective, thinking critically, and don’t forget to stay to the point. In the end, make a compelling literature review conclusion. What Are the 5 C’s of Writing a Literature Review? Don’t forget about these five C’s to make things easier in writing a literature review: Cite. Make a list of references for research you’ve used and apply proper citation rules. Use Google Scholar for this. Compare. Make a comparison of such literature attributes as theories, insights, trends, arguments, etc. It’s better to use tables or diagrams to make your content visual. Contrast. Use listings to categorize particular approaches, themes, and so on. Critique. Critical thinking is a must in any scientific research. Don’t take individual formulations as truth. Explore controversial points of view. Connect. Find a place of your research between existing studies. Propose new possible areas to dig further. Read the full article

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thellawtoknow · 2 months ago

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The Doctrine of Unclean Hands: A Pillar of Equity and Its Modern Relevance

I. Historical and Philosophical OriginsII. Legal Definition and Doctrinal ScopeA. The Requirement of a Direct Nexus B. Nature and Scope of Misconduct C. Judicial Discretion and the Balancing of Equities D. Procedural and Evidentiary Considerations III. Contemporary Application in U.S. LawA. Leading Judicial Precedents B. Contract and Commercial Law C. Intellectual Property and the Public Interest D. Corporate Governance and Fiduciary Duty E. Family Law and Domestic Equity F. Procedural Constraints and Evidentiary Burden The Doctrine of Unclean Hands: A Pillar of Equity and Its Modern Relevance The legal doctrine of unclean hands—often encapsulated in the maxim "he who comes into equity must come with clean hands"—stands as a testament to the moral underpinnings of equitable jurisprudence. Though not codified in statutory law, this doctrine serves as a powerful reminder that justice, when administered through equitable remedies, demands not only a valid claim but a blameless conscience. Rooted in equity courts and refined over centuries, the doctrine functions as a gatekeeper, preventing the judicial system from becoming a tool for those who have themselves acted in bad faith or moral turpitude. This essay explores the historical evolution, legal foundations, practical applications, and critical reflections on the doctrine of unclean hands in both common law and contemporary legal contexts.

I. Historical and Philosophical Origins

The doctrine of unclean hands emerged from English chancery courts, which developed as a parallel system to the common law in order to deliver justice in cases where rigid application of law proved insufficient. The Chancellor, often a clergyman, exercised discretion guided by conscience and Christian ethics. Thus, equity became not merely a supplement to law, but a guardian of moral integrity within legal transactions. The maxim itself echoes deeper philosophical notions of justice: from Aristotle’s theory of epieikeia—equity as the correction of legal generalities in the name of fairness—to the Christian ethical imperative that one must not seek divine or legal favor while engaged in wrongdoing. The integration of morality into procedural and substantive rights is what distinguishes equity, and the doctrine of unclean hands exemplifies this synthesis. II. Legal Definition and Doctrinal Scope At its core, the doctrine of unclean hands operates as an equitable defense, barring a party—typically the plaintiff—from obtaining equitable relief when that party has engaged in unethical, deceitful, or otherwise morally objectionable conduct in relation to the subject matter of the claim. It is not a punishment per se; rather, it is a protective mechanism aimed at preserving the integrity of the judiciary and ensuring that equity does not become an accomplice to injustice. The doctrine is premised on a foundational principle of equity: "equity will not assist a wrongdoer." Unlike legal doctrines that tend to focus on formal rights, equity introduces a normative dimension—one that is sensitive to conscience, context, and fairness. Thus, the availability of equitable remedies, such as injunctions, specific performance, or rescission, is conditioned not only on the strength of the plaintiff’s legal case but also on their moral posture in the matter. A. The Requirement of a Direct Nexus An essential limitation to the doctrine's reach lies in the requirement of nexus—that is, the misconduct must be directly related to the transaction or dispute in question. Courts will not disqualify a plaintiff from equitable relief for having “unclean hands” in a general or abstract sense; the misconduct must “infect” the equitable claim itself. For example, if a plaintiff seeks to enforce a contract while having induced its formation through fraud, or if they seek equitable relief in a land dispute after having falsified documentation, the doctrine may properly apply. Conversely, if the plaintiff has committed unrelated wrongdoing—even serious moral failings—those acts will not bar relief unless they bear a direct and substantial relationship to the claim before the court. This requirement of a direct connection serves to prevent the doctrine from becoming an instrument of character assassination. Courts are not in the business of dispensing moral judgment on a litigant’s entire life history; they are concerned with whether the conduct in question undermines the equitable process and the legitimacy of the remedy sought. B. Nature and Scope of Misconduct The type of conduct that may trigger the application of unclean hands spans a wide moral and legal spectrum. It can include fraud, deceit, coercion, misrepresentation, concealment of material facts, abuse of fiduciary duty, unfair dealing, or violations of legal or regulatory standards. Importantly, the misconduct need not be criminal or even actionable in its own right; it is sufficient that it offends the court’s sense of fairness and integrity. A famous formulation of this idea comes from Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U.S. 240 (1933), where the U.S. Supreme Court emphasized that “ federal court may refuse to aid the unclean litigant in any way, leaving him to whatever remedies he may have at law, and refusing equitable relief.” This reflects a judicial preference to withhold the extraordinary privileges of equity when those privileges would otherwise serve to legitimize wrongful conduct. C. Judicial Discretion and the Balancing of Equities Unlike rules of law that operate categorically, equitable doctrines like unclean hands are inherently discretionary. The court must exercise sound judgment in determining whether the plaintiff’s misconduct, though real, warrants denial of relief. Minor or technical infractions may not suffice; the wrongdoing must be substantial, intentional, and inequitably connected to the claim. This discretion allows the judiciary to perform a kind of moral balancing: it weighs the plaintiff’s conduct against the hardship to the defendant, the nature of the remedy sought, the public interest, and the broader goal of justice. In this sense, equity is not merely reactive but deliberative—it aims not just to resolve disputes but to do so in a way that maintains the moral coherence of the legal order. For instance, in intellectual property cases, where plaintiffs often seek injunctions against alleged infringers, courts have used the doctrine to deny relief where the plaintiff obtained their own IP rights through deceit or coercion. Yet in other contexts—such as family law or trust disputes—courts may decline to invoke the doctrine strictly, particularly where doing so would harm innocent third parties or violate public policy. D. Procedural and Evidentiary Considerations From a procedural standpoint, the defense of unclean hands is typically raised affirmatively, meaning the burden lies with the defendant to plead and prove the plaintiff’s misconduct. The evidentiary threshold is significant: allegations must be substantiated with credible and relevant evidence. Courts are wary of the doctrine being misused as a tactical weapon to distract from the merits of the case or to burden the plaintiff with irrelevant accusations. Moreover, because the doctrine arises within the framework of equity, it generally does not preclude concurrent legal remedies. That is, a plaintiff may still succeed on a legal claim for damages even if they are barred from equitable relief, unless their conduct also invalidates the legal foundation of the claim itself (as in cases of fraud in contract formation). In sum, the doctrine of unclean hands illustrates the unique moral and discretionary qualities of equity. It demands more than legal correctness; it requires ethical consistency. By conditioning relief on the claimant's good faith and fair dealing, the doctrine reinforces the notion that equity is not an entitlement but a privilege—one that cannot be claimed by those who seek to benefit from their own wrongful conduct. Far from being a relic of a more moralistic legal past, unclean hands remains a living doctrine, flexibly applied to ensure that the administration of justice does not serve to perpetuate injustice. III. Contemporary Application in U.S. Law The doctrine of unclean hands remains a potent feature of American equity jurisprudence, especially in areas where judicial discretion and moral evaluation are integral to remedy. While its medieval roots are firmly embedded in the tradition of chancery courts, the doctrine has evolved into a modern legal instrument for safeguarding the integrity of the court and preventing the exploitation of equitable relief by those whose conduct is tainted. Contemporary U.S. courts employ unclean hands with both reverence and restraint. It is most often raised in disputes involving intellectual property, contract enforcement, corporate fiduciary relationships, and domestic equity matters. What unites these domains is their reliance on equitable principles where remedy is not automatic, but contingent upon fairness. A. Leading Judicial Precedents A landmark case illustrating the doctrine’s scope is Precision Instrument Manufacturing Co. v. Automotive Maintenance Machinery Co., 324 U.S. 806 (1945). In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court barred the enforcement of patent rights by a company that had knowingly allowed false information to be submitted to the U.S. Patent Office. The Court held that the public interest in maintaining the integrity of the patent system justified withholding equitable relief. Chief Justice Murphy wrote with unequivocal force: “He who comes into equity must come with clean hands. The equitable powers of this court can never be exerted in behalf of one who has acted fraudulently or who by deceit or any unfair means has gained an advantage.” This case not only underscores the moral dimension of the doctrine but also highlights its instrumental role in protecting the public interest, particularly in regulatory frameworks such as intellectual property law. Here, unclean hands transcends the binary dispute between parties and functions as a guardian of systemic legitimacy. Conversely, the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Republic Molding Corp. v. BW Photo Utilities, 319 F.2d 347 (9th Cir. 1963), reflects the doctrine’s limiting principle. The court warned against the overzealous application of unclean hands in response to insignificant misdeeds, noting: “The doctrine of unclean hands does not deny a plaintiff relief for any and all misconduct, no matter how unrelated to the claims at issue or how trivial.” This tension—between protecting the court’s moral authority and ensuring that justice is not denied for marginal infractions—illustrates the careful balancing that characterizes modern application. The doctrine is thus more scalpel than cudgel: precise, fact-sensitive, and sensitive to context. B. Contract and Commercial Law In contract disputes, especially those involving specific performance or rescission, courts may invoke the doctrine to deny equitable enforcement to parties who have themselves breached the agreement in bad faith or manipulated its terms to gain unjust advantage. For example, a party seeking specific performance of a real estate transaction might be denied relief if they withheld material facts or engaged in sharp dealing to depress the contract price. Still, courts typically require material misconduct—that is, conduct that goes to the heart of the contractual relationship. A trivial delay or breach will not suffice. The doctrine thus operates less as a punitive measure and more as a qualifier for moral entitlement to relief. C. Intellectual Property and the Public Interest As illustrated in Precision Instrument, the intellectual property domain is especially receptive to unclean hands, particularly because rights like patents and trademarks are granted by the state. Fraud in the procurement of a patent, false statements made during litigation, or deceptive enforcement practices can all trigger the doctrine. The rationale here is dual: to protect not only the defendant but also the public from the enforcement of rights that were fraudulently or unjustly obtained. For example, in trademark disputes, plaintiffs may be barred if they have used the mark deceptively or in bad faith—such as by creating consumer confusion or misrepresenting the nature of their goods. The doctrine here acts as a bulwark against opportunism, reinforcing fair competition and transparency. D. Corporate Governance and Fiduciary Duty In corporate law, unclean hands can surface in shareholder disputes, cases involving breach of fiduciary duty, or challenges to corporate control. A director seeking injunctive relief against other board members may be denied if they themselves have violated duties of loyalty or good faith. Courts view such disputes through the prism of equitable conscience, especially where control over corporate assets or governance is sought. Yet, again, the application is not automatic: the doctrine is invoked where the plaintiff's behavior directly subverts the fiduciary norms they seek to enforce, not where the misconduct is merely peripheral or strategic. E. Family Law and Domestic Equity In family law, where courts are already heavily invested in equitable determinations (e.g., custody, support, property division), unclean hands is invoked more cautiously but still with effect. A parent seeking custody might be denied if they have engaged in conduct harmful to the child, concealed assets, or manipulated proceedings. However, courts often temper the doctrine to protect innocent third parties—especially children—underscoring the point that equity is not merely about fairness between parties but also about broader situational justice. F. Procedural Constraints and Evidentiary Burden As an affirmative defense, unclean hands must be raised explicitly and substantiated with evidence. Courts require not mere allegations but credible proof of misconduct, especially in federal litigation where pleading standards are stringent. The timing and procedural posture of the defense also matter—raising the doctrine too late in litigation, or without sufficient connection to the claim at issue, may lead to its rejection. Moreover, courts are sensitive to the risk that the doctrine might be weaponized by defendants to avoid liability, especially in highly contested commercial or IP litigation. The doctrine is not meant to provide a windfall to the undeserving but to preserve the ethical integrity of the judicial forum. The modern application of unclean hands in American law illustrates a dynamic interplay between morality and law, discretion and principle, fairness and finality. While its roots are ancient, the doctrine remains agile, adapting to the complexities of contemporary legal disputes while maintaining fidelity to its central ethical imperative: that no party should profit from their own wrongdoing under the banner of justice. U.S. courts approach this doctrine not as a rigid formula but as a flexible tool—one that reflects the enduring truth that the pursuit of equity must itself be equitable. IV. Limitations and Criticisms Despite its noble origins, the doctrine of unclean hands is not without critique. Critics argue that it may invite judicial subjectivity, moral bias, and selective enforcement. Because the application relies heavily on the judge’s discretion, it can be vulnerable to inconsistency and abuse, particularly in politically or socially charged cases. Moreover, the requirement of a direct connection between the plaintiff’s misconduct and the relief sought can be difficult to ascertain, especially in complex commercial disputes. Some scholars have also raised concerns about the doctrine's potential to reintroduce moralism into legal analysis at the expense of predictability and neutrality. Yet, proponents of the doctrine insist that its flexibility is a virtue, not a vice. By allowing courts to respond to the nuanced moral dimensions of individual cases, unclean hands prevents legal formalism from overriding the higher demands of fairness and public conscience. V. Comparative Reflections While the doctrine is most clearly developed in Anglo-American law, similar principles exist in other legal traditions. In Roman law, concepts of bona fides (good faith) played a crucial role in equitable dealings. In civil law jurisdictions today, though equity is not separated from law as it is in the common law tradition, doctrines of abuse of rights (abus de droit) or bad faith enforcement exist that serve similar functions. In international law and arbitration, the doctrine also appears in varied forms, ensuring that states or corporations do not benefit from illegal or unethical conduct while seeking judicial or arbitral redress. Conclusion The doctrine of unclean hands, with its roots in equitable conscience and moral rectitude, remains a vital mechanism for ensuring the integrity of the legal process. Though flexible and subject to judicial interpretation, its core principle—that one must not seek justice while acting unjustly—resonates with the enduring aspiration of law to uphold fairness, dignity, and truth. In an era of increasing legal complexity and moral ambiguity, this doctrine offers a rare but indispensable reminder: the ends of justice cannot be pursued by unclean means. Read the full article

#uncleanhands

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decadentkingdomdefendor · 4 months ago

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How Fermented Foods Affect the Gut and Immune Response

Introduction: Fermented foods are part of a very old human diet. They have been valued hundreds of years ago not only for their rich flavors but especially for the nutritional benefits of the products. More sophisticated science digs deeper into gut health and immunity, and it seems that, increasingly, it is discernible that such intakes of fermented foods are indeed very potent on the guts and immune functions. Eventually, it leads to hydrolysis, which leads to further production of probiotics along with other useful, for general purposes, bioactive compounds. The essay will explore how the improvement of fermented food enhances digestive functions as well as immunological ones. READ ALSO: WHY IS TALKING ABOUT INFERTILITY IS NECESSARY?

1. Probiotics in Fermented Foods

Probiotics is probably the best known aspect of fermented food:. Probiotics are living bacteria and yeasts that are beneficial to health, especially in the gut. Some examples of fermented foods include kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, and kimchi. As they are full of good microbes, the count may be used to rebalance the gut microbiota. This carries trillions of bacteria residing in the gastrointestinal tract; thus, balance in that place guarantees good digestion and proper uptake of nutrients along with good functioning of the immune system. A human body needs to digest food and thereby requires an apt balance of gut microbiota. This balance has been associated with causing many digestive disorders including bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. This balance in the gut is achieved through fermented foods, which introduce beneficial bacteria. Probiotics enhance gut motility, aid in lactose digestion by people who are lactose intolerant, and can prevent and treat gastrointestinal infections by competing for space and nutrients with harmful pathogens.

2. Immunity Stimulation

The gut and immune system are closely related sites. Perhaps as much as 70% of all immunocompetent cells are found in the intestine, and GALT is an important component of the functioning of the immunity. Balanced gut microbiota favors immunity since the system assists it in the removal of microbes and proper advancement of inflammation. Since these fermented foods take such importance in the body, their possible use comes as immune modulators.

From a broader sense of understanding, the probiotics of the fermented food increase the potential of an enhanced immune response by improving the synthesis of specific antibodies besides augmenting the reactivity of the macrophage and T lymphocytes. Consequently, this leads to the organism responding appropriately upon invasion; therefore, better handling of invasion, differentiation of pathogenic or disease-causing microbes from others; harmless and inapparent in nature. Probiotics can also control inflammation. This eventually becomes chronic in nature if the inflammation is not tackled, and thus, diseases like autoimmune diseases, allergic reactions, and IBD surface. It can prevent and even help manage such types of diseases since fermented foods portray a better and more balanced reaction of immunity.

3. Digestive Enzymes and Bioactive Compounds

Other than including probiotics, fermented foods hold numerous bioactive compounds and digestive enzymes which enhance digestion. It breaks down the complex carbohydrates, proteins, and fats into the easy to digest form, so that it is easy to uptake the nutrients from them for their easy digestion within the body. For instance, the fermented food products, which include kefir and yoghurt make gut efficiency, carrying lactase that breaks lactose hence becoming easy to digest such milkly products especially between individuals allergic towards lactose.

All the effective SCFAs are butyrate, acetate, and propionate, which come from fermented foods. These SCFAs are the byproducts of the fermentation process. But it comes with a few great responsibilities to health. For example, butyrate is established as an important fuel for cells in the colon and even inhibit inflammatory responses that may protect the inner lining of the gut from further infections, possibly even colorectal cancers. All these active substances yielding healthiness in one's digestive tract system together have expanded the benefits other than all other benefits, including cardiovascular wellness and psychological comfort for the people.

4. Effects on Gut-Brain Axis

This recent research shown that the gut microbiota plays an important role in the gut-brain axis. This is just a talk between the gut and the brain. The gut microbiota might even influence mood, cognitive function, or behavior. Since fermented foods create a healthy gut microbiome, it can also support the mental health system as well. Probiotics and bioactive compounds from the sources of fermented foods reduce anxiety, depression, and stress via gut-brain connections.

5. Common Fermented Foods and What They Offer

Yogurt is among the best fermented foods for digestive and immune health since it contains highly varied probiotics like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium that work to create the balance in gut bacteria, aiding digestion properly. Kefir is a milk-based fermented beverage; kefir has several varieties of different probiotics so fortifies the gut system, the immune system, and can break down lactose.

Kimchi: It is fermented Korean vegetables and is very rich in probiotics and antioxidants. This makes digestive functions enhance and improve the responses of immunity.

Sauerkraut: It is a big quantity of probiotics, vitamins, and fiber in fermented cabbage to help support gut health and digestion.

Miso: Fermented soybean paste is used widely by many people in Japanese food, and it holds lots of probiotics that help in the digestive process and also in the immune response. Many fantastic benefits are offered by fermented foods to the digestive and immune system. The probiotics, bioactive compounds, and digestive enzymes feed the gut, which improves the absorption of nutrients and enhances the immune response. There is nothing as dramatic as what addition of yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut can do with general wellbeing of a human being. It could be maintenance of gut bacteria or healthiness of the immune system or proper digestion, which is unique to these foods. Though many studies have been attributed to the discovery of how these foods affect health, it cannot miss its role which it acts and provides premium digestive and immunological functions.

#gut health #healthy living #nutrition #healthy lifestyle #vitamins #fermented foods #fermentation

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cringearenachamp · 2 months ago

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For the Love of Genderfuckery: FTLOSM, The Stage Show, and Camp

It's giving "Steve Perry"

The early 90s seemed to be a particularly creative and open time in Steve's life. He'd kicked coke and booze, grew his hair out down to his ass (also shaved the sides... I'm like is this a mullet or an undercut. either way it's fun and funky!), and didn't seem nearly as afraid of being a little queeny with it just in general. The Reagan years were over, the Clinton era had just begun, and there was an uneasy coexistence between a reactive/paranoid hypermasculinity (especially in mainstream straight guy culture) and an increasing recognition of gay people. Celebrities and musicians were beginning to publicly come out, and certain kinds of openly gay music were even mainstream to a degree (Melissa Etheridge and KD Lang, for example). This, too, was uneasy, and there were still many professionally closeted queer people in music/literature/celebrity circles (ex: Michael Stipe, Donna Tartt, Paul Reubens, Tracy Chapman, etc): people who may have been open with themselves and their immediate social circles, but didn't feel the need to "come out" to the general public.

With this context, it was as good a time as any for Steve to explore himself more and have fun without having to worry about homophobes breathing down his neck. For the Love of Strange Medicine, as I talked about earlier, displayed a willingness to experiment thematically and sonically, and some of the promotional material for it had Steve talking about getting "honest with himself", accepting what he is as opposed to "what [he] should be", etc. Those things were definitely about getting a healthier relationship with alcohol, but also likely about having a healthier relationship to his own self, his gender expression, and his sexuality: things that had become extremely difficult, stressful, and even dangerous to address while in Journey.

Some songs on FTLOSM are easy to read with this in mind, like I Am, but even ones like Donna Please, which is at surface glance a straight love song. But the first verse itself troubles that reading-- "You're here in my voice/inside of me/am I wrong to resist?" In my essay about Steve's voice I mentioned that he sounded a lot like Donna Summer when he was younger. There's also that little part of Young Hearts Forever that I mentioned in my FTLOSM essay: "here in the darkness/she dances alone", etc. The darkness, in a lot of Steve's songs, is a place where *he* (or the narrator) is, where the core of his self resides. Femininity is something that Steve felt he basically had to extinguish (or at the very least hide) in the 80s: for acceptance among his peers, acceptance from fans, for acceptance within his straight relationship, and safety in/from society. Lyrics like the ones I mentioned above, to me, seem to hint at him trying to accept the femininity within himself, including within his own voice, despite the various risks involved in doing so.

In other words, this was a big time for self-actualization in his professional life and probably his personal life as well.

This, of course, also applied to the stage show for the FTLOSM tour. His main outfit-- form-fitting black shirt, belted slim-cut jeans (with various rips around the crotch hehehe), hiking boots-- was a synthesis between style and comfort; most of it as a uniform wouldn't be uncommon to find among gay men at the time but it was still on the masc side and similar to his leatherman look years earlier, wouldn't have made straight people think or look twice. His super long hair was tied up. He walked on stage wearing a flannel over that usually (for the Toronto show he had a gorgeous purple satin or silk shirt instead)-- even more unassuming. But the flannel would only last for a couple songs or so before he went to the general black-shirt-and-jeans outfit. Eventually he'd break out the tux and literally let his hair down, and this was a moment that was adored by the women in the audience, but was also camp as FUCK.

you better werk betch

Basically, the tux would be hanging from the ceiling on a big white hanger and Steve would queen the fuck out in a skit talking to it like an ex-boyfriend before the sassiness and performed reluctance would turn to flirtation, which would end with him basically doing a reverse-striptease. It's almost like a drag performance. He's serving Steve Perry lewks! The whole thing (and before the "drag" show, how he played with his girlies during "I'll be Alright Without You") showed a willingness to poke fun at himself and the "Steve Perry" character he had to perform while he was with Journey. He was putting it in a different context to make it more comfortable for him, and arguably making a statement of sorts: that the self he had to perform with Journey was just as much "drag" as dressing in women's clothes would be.

Straight guys were SO confused by this, girls loved it, and Steve was extremely amused by the entire thing. Steve always had his girlies even when he was at his most femme, and that's something straight guys also get confused by I think, lol. Typical straight masculinity isn't an affect that's built to appeal to women: it's built to appeal to other men, but in a non-sexual sense. It's a way to signal belonging to the in-group, and the in-group in this case is at the top of the patriarchal totem pole, so there's a lot of incentive to fit in. To paraphrase Marilyn Frye, straight men are heterosexual but homosocial.

The way Steve performed femininity in the 70s was particularly appealing to young women and teenage girls: while there was a sexuality to it, his youthful appearance, physical and vocal androgyny, and sweet-lil-angel-boy affect made him a "safe" guy to project fantasies onto. Steve's gender expression in the 90s was different: he looked good for his age but was still obviously more mature, synthesized various kinds of masculinity and femininity within himself, and was a bit more comfortably sexual than he often was with Journey (the '80 and '86 tours were also horny as fuck tho lol). He also had that long hair, still, and girlies LOVE that lol. So he was able to appeal to the girlies *and* the gayboys, and used his appeal with the girlies to get away with appealing to the gayboys! While I wish he didn't have to work so hard to find a middle ground that he was comfortable with, it was cool that he could have that for a little while.

....UNTIL.

(hello darkness my old friend)

#Serious Yakking

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jcmarchi · 5 months ago

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The Sequence Radar #472: Remember this Name: Ndea

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-sequence-radar-472-remember-this-name-ndea/

The Sequence Radar #472: Remember this Name: Ndea

A new AI lab with legendary founders and unique ideas.

Created Using Midjourney

Next Week in The Sequence:

Our series about RAG continues exploring the different types of RAG methods. The Sequence Engineering dives into the ultra popular Eliza agentic framework which is breaking GitHub records. In our weekly essay we dive into something we have come to name: The DeepSeek Effect. I will let you speculate abou the details. We will publish an interview with one of the best early stage investors in the world. The research edition will dive into Large Action Models.

How is that for a single week?

You can subscribe to The Sequence below:

TheSequence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

📝 Editorial: Remember this Name: Ndea

The days of a new AI lab emerging every month are long gone. It has become increasingly clear that building anything even remotely competitive with the industry leaders requires a rare combination of skills and engineering talent. Even heavily funded startups like Character.ai, Inflection, and Adept have struggled, and the market seems overly focused on transformer-based architectures. Meanwhile, even alternative approaches like structured state-space models (SSMs) appear to have reached a plateau. How many AI labs will pursue genuinely original ideas for foundation model architectures? Enter Ndea.

Francois Chollet, a renowned figure in AI—best known for his contributions to Keras—has set his sights on a new frontier with Ndea, an AI research and science lab dedicated to creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) for scientific advancement. Chollet’s vision is driven by his belief that the current AI trajectory, dominated by deep learning, has inherent limitations. While acknowledging its successes, he highlights its dependency on massive datasets and its lack of abstract reasoning, arguing that these shortcomings impede true progress.

Ndea seeks to transcend these limitations by pioneering a novel approach: guided program synthesis. Unlike deep learning, which interpolates between data points, program synthesis generates discrete programs that precisely encapsulate the observed data. This method promises superior generalization with significantly greater data efficiency, enabling models to learn from minimal examples. Though program synthesis is still in its infancy—comparable to the early stages of deep learning in 2012—Ndea believes in its transformative potential. The lab is committed to integrating program synthesis with deep learning, creating a synergistic system that combines intuitive pattern recognition with rigorous reasoning.

This approach sets Ndea apart in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. While some frontier AI labs are beginning to explore program synthesis, they often treat it as a supplementary tool. Ndea, on the other hand, positions program synthesis and deep learning as equally critical pillars for achieving AGI. Their bold vision is embodied in their goal of building a “factory for rapid scientific advancement” capable of driving groundbreaking discoveries across diverse fields. Ndea envisions AGI addressing not only known challenges like autonomous vehicles and drug discovery but also unlocking entirely new scientific frontiers, paving the way for advancements beyond current human comprehension.

To achieve these ambitious goals, Ndea is assembling a world-class team of program synthesis experts. Their emphasis on talent density is unwavering, aiming to foster an environment where innovation and rapid progress thrive. They believe that the success of their mission hinges on the collective brilliance of their team, fostering a collaborative culture where transformative ideas can take root. While acknowledging the risks inherent in such an ambitious endeavor, Ndea remains steadfast in its conviction that AGI holds the key to unparalleled scientific progress and, ultimately, human flourishing.

This version ensures grammatical accuracy, improves readability, and maintains a professional yet engaging tone.

🔎 AI Research

Transformer^2

In the paper “TRANSFORMER2: SELF-ADAPTIVE LLMS,” researchers from Sakana AI and the Institute of Science Tokyo introduce Transformer2, a novel self-adaptation framework designed to improve the adaptability and task-specific performance of LLMs. Transformer2 employs a two-pass mechanism: a dispatch system identifies task properties, and task-specific “expert” vectors are dynamically mixed to achieve targeted behavior for incoming prompts12.

Process Reward Models

In the paper“The Lessons of Developing Process Reward Models in Mathematical Reasoning,” researchers from the Qwen Team at Alibaba Group investigate Process Reward Models (PRMs) for enhancing the mathematical reasoning abilities of LLMs. They highlight the limitations of Monte Carlo estimation-based data synthesis for PRMs and propose a consensus filtering mechanism that integrates this method with LLM-as-a-judge for improved performance and data efficiency34.

HALOGEN

In the paper“HALOGEN: Fantastic LLM Hallucinations and Where to Find Them,” researchers from the University of Washington, Google, and NVIDIA introduce HALOGEN, a benchmark designed to measure and identify hallucinations in LLM-generated text. They evaluate various LLMs across nine domains, finding a high prevalence of hallucinations and proposing a classification schema for different types of hallucination errors56.

PokerBench

In the paper PokerBench: Training Large Language Models to become Professional Poker Players, researchers from University of California, Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology explore the use of LLMs as poker solvers, evaluating their performance on a new benchmark called POKERBENCH. They find that existing LLMs struggle with optimal poker play but demonstrate significant improvement after fine-tuning.

MiniMax-01

In the paper “MiniMax-01: Scaling Foundation Models with Lightning Attention“, researchers from MiniMax introduce the MiniMax-01 series of models, including MiniMax-Text-01 and MiniMax-VL-01. The key contribution is the implementation of lightning attention, a type of linear attention that allows these models to handle much longer context lengths (up to 4 million tokens) while maintaining performance comparable to state-of-the-art models like GPT-4 and Claude.123.

AI in TEEs

In the paper “Trusted Machine Learning Models Unlock Private Inference for Problems Currently Infeasible with Cryptography“, researchers from Google explore the use of trusted machine learning models (TCME) within trusted execution environments (TEE) to address privacy concerns in collaborative tasks involving large language models (LLMs). The paper proposes a system where multiple parties can jointly query LLMs without revealing their private data, leveraging the security features of TEEs and the capabilities of TCMEs for tasks like competition analysis.

🤖 AI Tech Releases

AutoGen 0.4

Microsoft released a new version of its popular agentic framework.

Sky-T1

UC Berkeley researchers released Sky-T1 32B, a reasoning model that matches GPT-o1 performance and was trained with less than $450.

Devin 1.2

Cognition released Devin 1.2, the new iteration of its AI engineering agent.

📡AI Radar

AI legend François Chollet is launching Ndea, a new startup to build frontier AI systems.

Video AI platform Synthesia raised $180 million in new funding.

AI orchestration startup Nexos.ai emerged from stealth with $8 million in funding.

Bioptimus, a startup building a GPT for biology, raised $76 million.

Axios and OpenAI announced a strategic partnership.

Google and Associated Press signed a partnership to bring up-to-date news to Gemini.

AI accounting startup Open Ledger raised $3 million in funding.

Microsoft launched a new AI engineering division.

Rasperry AI raised $24 million for its AI platform for fashion brands.

AI legal startup Harvey raised a new round at a $3 billion valuation.

Perplexity acquired the team behind Read.cv, a social network for professionals.

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paperhelpwritingservice · 8 months ago

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How to Write Good Academic Papers: A Comprehensive Guide

Writing academic papers is an essential skill for students and researchers alike. It requires a clear understanding of the topic, a structured approach, and strong writing skills. In this guide, I’ll cover everything you need to know about writing high-quality academic papers that meet academic standards and effectively communicate your ideas.

1. Introduction

Academic writing is a critical skill for students and professionals in various fields. A well-written academic paper not only reflects the depth of your understanding but also your ability to communicate complex ideas effectively. Whether you’re writing a research paper, an essay, or a thesis, following a structured approach is key to achieving success.

2. Understanding Different Types of Academic Papers

Academic papers come in various forms, each with a specific purpose and style. Understanding these types will help you approach each assignment with the right mindset.

Research Papers

Research papers involve in-depth exploration of a topic, supported by primary and secondary sources. They require a well-defined thesis and present an argument based on evidence.

Essays

Essays are shorter pieces of writing that usually focus on a specific question or prompt. They can be argumentative, descriptive, or analytical, depending on the assignment.

Theses and Dissertations

These are lengthy, detailed documents that showcase original research or comprehensive analysis. Theses are typically for master’s programs, while dissertations are required for doctoral degrees.

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews summarize and evaluate existing research on a topic. They don’t present new research but rather provide a synthesis of current knowledge.

Case Studies

Case studies analyze specific events, individuals, or groups in detail. They are common in fields like psychology, business, and medicine.

Book Reviews

Book reviews assess a book's content, strengths, and weaknesses. They are often subjective but should be backed by specific examples from the text.

3. Selecting a Suitable Topic

Choosing the right topic is fundamental to your success. A well-selected topic will align with your interests, meet assignment guidelines, and have enough research material available.

Importance of Choosing the Right Topic

Selecting a relevant topic can make or break your paper. A topic you’re passionate about can keep you engaged and motivated throughout the writing process.

How to Narrow Down a Broad Topic

If your topic is too broad, you may struggle to cover it in detail. Narrow it down by focusing on a specific aspect or question within the broader subject area.

Tips for Selecting a Relevant and Interesting Topic

Choose a topic that interests you.

Make sure the topic is relevant to the course or field.

Check if there’s enough research material available.

4. Conducting Thorough Research

Good research underpins every strong academic paper. Without solid evidence, even the most well-written paper will lack credibility.

Importance of Research in Academic Writing

Research provides the foundation for your arguments, allowing you to back up your claims with facts and insights from experts in the field.

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original materials, such as experiments, surveys, or historical documents.

Secondary sources interpret or analyze primary sources, such as review articles or textbooks.

Using Academic Databases

Academic databases like JSTOR, PubMed, and Google Scholar provide access to peer-reviewed journals, articles, and books. These resources are often more credible than general internet sources.

Evaluating Sources for Credibility

Check the author’s credentials, publication date, and whether the source has been peer-reviewed. Avoid using outdated or biased sources unless they’re necessary for a historical perspective.

5. Developing a Strong Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is the core of your paper. It should clearly state your main argument and guide the reader on what to expect.

What Is a Thesis Statement?

A thesis statement is a concise sentence or two that summarizes the main point or claim of your paper.

Characteristics of a Strong Thesis Statement

Specific and clear

Arguable and not a statement of fact

Focused and relevant to your paper’s content

Examples of Effective Thesis Statements

“The rise of social media has significantly impacted the political landscape by increasing both misinformation and civic engagement.”

“Climate change poses a serious threat to biodiversity, and immediate actions are necessary to prevent irreversible damage.”

6. Structuring Your Academic Paper

A well-structured paper makes it easy for the reader to follow your arguments. Most academic papers follow a similar structure, consisting of an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Understanding the Basic Structure

Each section of your paper serves a specific purpose:

Introduction: Introduces the topic and thesis.

Body: Presents and supports your arguments.

Conclusion: Summarizes the findings and reiterates the thesis.

Outlining Your Paper

An outline serves as a roadmap for your paper, helping you organize your thoughts and ensure that each point logically flows into the next.

Creating a Coherent Flow of Ideas

Transitions between paragraphs are essential for readability. Make sure each paragraph naturally leads into the next, reinforcing your thesis throughout.

7. Writing the Introduction

The introduction should engage the reader’s interest and provide a preview of what the paper will cover.

Hooking the Reader

Start with an interesting fact, a rhetorical question, or a brief anecdote related to your topic. This helps grab the reader’s attention right from the start.

Providing Background Information

Give the reader enough context to understand the importance of your topic. Avoid going into too much detail, as this will be covered in the body.

Stating the Thesis and Purpose

End the introduction with your thesis statement and a brief outline of the paper’s structure.

8. Crafting the Body of the Paper

The body is where you present your arguments, backed by evidence from your research. Each paragraph should focus on a single point that supports your thesis.

Organizing Ideas Logically

Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that introduces the point, followed by evidence and examples.

Writing Clear and Concise Paragraphs

Avoid long, convoluted sentences. Aim for clarity and brevity, ensuring each sentence adds value to your argument.

Using Evidence and Examples

Support your points with evidence from credible sources, such as statistics, quotes, and examples. This adds weight to your arguments.

Citing Sources Correctly

Use in-text citations according to your style guide. Proper citation not only gives credit to the original authors but also strengthens your credibility.

9. Writing the Conclusion

The conclusion wraps up your paper by summarizing your main points and reinforcing the thesis.

Summarizing Key Points

Briefly restate the main points of your paper, highlighting how they support your thesis.

Restating the Thesis

Rephrase your thesis statement, showing how your arguments have proven it to be true.

Providing a Closing Thought

End with a thought-provoking statement, a call to action, or a suggestion for further research.

10. Editing and Revising Your Paper

Revision is essential to producing a polished final product. Don’t skip this step!

The Importance of Revising and Editing

Editing allows you to catch errors, improve clarity, and ensure your paper meets academic standards.

Common Errors to Look Out For

Grammatical mistakes

Unclear arguments

Inconsistent citation format

Using Peer Review

A fresh pair of eyes can catch errors you might miss. Ask a friend, classmate, or mentor to review your paper.

11. Formatting and Style Guides

Different disciplines have different formatting requirements. Make sure you know which style guide to use.

APA, MLA, and Chicago Styles Explained

APA: Common in psychology and social sciences.

MLA: Used in humanities, especially literature.

Chicago: Preferred in history and some social sciences.

How to Apply Formatting Guidelines Correctly

Refer to the official style guide for specific formatting rules on citations, headings, and references.

12. Using Citations and Avoiding Plagiarism

Proper citation is crucial in academic writing. Not only does it give credit, but it also strengthens your credibility.

Why Citations Are Important

Citations acknowledge the work of others and allow readers to verify your sources.

Common Citation Mistakes

Avoid incorrect formatting, missing citations, and over-reliance on one source.

Tools for Managing References

Consider using reference management tools like Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley to organize your sources and create citations.

13. Academic Writing Tips for Success

To produce a high-quality paper, follow these tips:

Maintaining a Formal Tone

Academic papers require a formal, objective tone. Avoid slang, contractions, and colloquial language.

Using Precise Language

Be specific and avoid vague terms. Clarity is essential to convey your message effectively.

Tips for Improving Clarity

Use short sentences, active voice, and direct language to enhance readability.

14. Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Writing academic papers can be challenging, but with practice, you’ll improve over time.

Dealing with Writer’s Block

Take breaks, brainstorm ideas, and set small goals to overcome writer’s block.

Managing Time Effectively

Create a writing schedule, break the work into manageable chunks, and stick to your deadlines.

Handling Feedback and Criticism

Embrace constructive criticism as an opportunity to improve. Learn from feedback and apply it to future assignments.

15. Conclusion

Writing good academic papers takes time, practice, and a methodical approach. By following this guide, you’ll be well on your way to producing high-quality academic papers that communicate your ideas effectively and meet academic standards. Remember, every great writer started somewhere—keep practicing, and you’ll continue to improve.

FAQs

1. What makes a good academic paper? A good academic paper is clear, well-organized, and thoroughly researched. It has a strong thesis, uses credible sources, and adheres to formatting guidelines.

2. How can I improve my academic writing skills? Practice regularly, read academic journals, seek feedback, and pay attention to style guides to improve your skills.

3. What are the most common mistakes in academic writing? Common mistakes include vague thesis statements, lack of structure, improper citations, and failure to follow formatting guidelines.

4. How do I know if my sources are credible? Look for peer-reviewed articles, reputable authors, recent publications, and information from academic databases.

5. How long does it take to write an academic paper? The time varies based on the paper’s length and complexity. A well-planned schedule and disciplined approach can make the process more manageable.

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