The Actual Threat to Democracy

[tstorm823]

Name two things that happen that aren't these two specific things you always bring up

Hell, point out the point of that singular bubble of dialogue you get mad at

Banning shit because you think it might be bad without you knowing what it actually *is* is bullshit. You're raising fragile adults with zero critical thinking skills

The author is raised by weird hippies without electricity, likes Lord of the Rings, and complains at the end about having the wardrobe of a teenage boy, which was an entirely personal decision that nobody else forced or encouraged at any point.

Similarly, the end result of the blowjob scene is disappointment by the author, because how else does pursuing lesbian blowjobs end, another decision by the author that was at no point forced or encouraged by anyone else. The book is the life's story of someone whose parents did not help to understand anyone else, who consequently deliberately fled social norms, only to repeatedly end up miserable, while at no point noticing the pattern that normal things were leading to joy and contrarianism was leading to conflict with others and self-loathing.

Reading this book doesn't give someone critical thinking skills. Reading books in general doesn't give people critical thinking skills. You need critical thinking skills in advance of reading a book like this, because the author isn't going to tell them that the whole book is self-inflicted and easily avoidable pain, a person reading has to be able to identify that pattern and reach that conclusion for themselves. A child without critical thinking skills can't do that. Children don't critique, they imitate. That's the point of age-restricting things.

 

[Absent]

Unlike the bible, which produces super well-balanced, reflexive and critically thinking tstorms.

 

[Silvanus]

The book is the life's story of someone whose parents did not help to understand anyone else, who consequently deliberately fled social norms, only to repeatedly end up miserable, while at no point noticing the pattern that normal things were leading to joy and contrarianism was leading to conflict with others and self-loathing.

This paragraph is quite incredible in what it shows about the mindset. If someone has a near-axiomatic assumption that their own experience should be universal, as well as a judgemental dismissiveness and unwillingness to understand anything that deviates, this is what follows: zero ability to actually engage with a simple confessional story, completely ignoring the person's own testimony about their own lived experience, and straightforward condemnation and insistence that they'd be happier if they just conformed and was like me.

More than anything else its just staggering self absorption.

 

[Cicada 5]

And yet, here we are, you having done just that

Why not? Middle schoolers are entering puberty, where something like Gender Queer can help some of them put names to feelings. And Animorphs will "mess with a kid's mind" way more than that will. Let them read Crime and Punishment, if they want. That's about the time I read The Stand. You're raising fragile adults

No cis straight kid is gonna read Gender Queer and go "Wow! Being queer is awesome! I wish I was trans and gay!"

As a kid of the 90s and 2000s, I am amazed at what passed as children's entertainment and why people think including trans, gay or bisexual characters in kids media would be more corrupting than this:


Did I mention that in Jen's first appearance on the show, Bruce, who is her cousin, refers to her as his soulmate?

 

[tstorm823]

This paragraph is quite incredible in what it shows about the mindset. If someone has a near-axiomatic assumption that their own experience should be universal, as well as a judgemental dismissiveness and unwillingness to understand anything that deviates, this is what follows: zero ability to actually engage with a simple confessional story, completely ignoring the person's own testimony about their own lived experience, and straightforward condemnation and insistence that they'd be happier if they just conformed and was like me.

More than anything else its just staggering self absorption.

If you do things to deliberately not conform, you are just as much spiting yourself as someone who acts specifically to conform. You say I'm unwilling to understand anything that deviates, but we are discussing an author who made no effort to understand anyone else. The author repeatedly responds with fear or resentment in any situation of uncertainty. I don't know why I have to swim with a shirt on: resentment. I don't know if that club will welcome me: fear. My parents can't figure out neo-pronouns: badgering. Joy only shows up when someone else caters to the author's desires, and even that sometimes ends with "I didn't really like that either."

A true confession by this person would be "I cause all my own problems."

 

[Absent]

Concealed subtext: obedience to god is happiness, disobedience to god is mankind's self-harm. Everybody would be happy if they followed god's rule, and everybody can, because the world is designed to that effect.

Also being fanatized since birth around these precepts is healthy critical learning. Having access to any discourse deviating from it is self-destructive propaganda and grooming.

Also you're hitting yourself lol why are you hitting yourself lol.

 

[Silvanus]

If you do things to deliberately not conform, you are just as much spiting yourself as someone who acts specifically to conform.

Nope, neither are necessarily "spiting oneself". Both can have myriad motives. This is pushing your own circumstances and experiences onto others again.

You say I'm unwilling to understand anything that deviates, but we are discussing an author who made no effort to understand anyone else. The author repeatedly responds with fear or resentment in any situation of uncertainty. I don't know why I have to swim with a shirt on: resentment.

Or, if one is actually making an effort to understand: why does one sex arbitrarily have to follow this rule, and the other doesn't? What does this say about me and my comfort in my own skin?

I don't know if that club will welcome me: fear.

And from you: ignorance and dismissiveness, and a failure to understand social pressures people experience when they ain't you.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Nope, neither are necessarily "spiting oneself". Both can have myriad motives. This is pushing your own circumstances and experiences onto others again.

Or, if one is actually making an effort to understand: why does one sex arbitrarily have to follow this rule, and the other doesn't? What does this say about me and my comfort in my own skin?

And from you: ignorance and dismissiveness, and a failure to understand social pressures people experience when they ain't you.

Imagine being, like, "the eight year old didn't understand why they had to wear a shirt but the boys didn't, and the teen was anxious about joining the club for queer kids in the 2000's, they brought all of their problems upon themselves." Honestly explains the conservative mindset regarding conversion therapy: these people are deliberately choosing to be unhappy and must be made to conform. If the therapy attempt fails, they must be made to conform *harder*. Backhand the child if they complain about wearing the shirt so they learn

Glad tstorm finally read the wiki though.

 

[tstorm823]

And from you: ignorance and dismissiveness, and a failure to understand social pressures people experience when they ain't you.

It's not social pressure when its entirely internal.

Glad tstorm finally read the wiki though.

Oh, I didn't know there was a wiki. If that where you're getting your almost no knowledge of the contents from?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

It's not social pressure when its entirely internal.

Wait, but you said the problem was that ey refused to conform to societal expectations. To somewhat tie this back into the actual topic, assuming that societal expectations are immutable and that being dissatisfied with them is a personal failing is a stagnant death to a society

Oh, I didn't know there was a wiki. If that where you're getting your almost no knowledge of the contents from?

"No U! (Heh, got 'em)"

 

[Silvanus]

It's not social pressure when its entirely internal.

Which it isn't. Even the examples you brought up relate to interaction with others, and others' gender expectations alongside the person's own understanding. I mean, you yourself brought up conformity vs nonconformity, both of which only exist in relation to outside norms.

The issue here is that you've read the book, but you clearly did so with an approach of, "let's see what this foolish confused sinner is wrong about". Reading it with a bolt-shut mind and a pre-determined dismissiveness of the author is going to affect how you interpret the content.

 

[tstorm823]

Wait, but you said the problem was that ey refused to conform to societal expectations.

No, it can be fine to not conform to societal expectations if that brings joy to your life. The author goes beyond that, going against social expectations even when it deprives them of joy, i.e. "society expects girls to wear flowery stuff, so I'll avoid that and dress like men are expected to... [20 years later] wait why is my wardrobe so bland, I love flowers and rainbows!"

Never changing or adapting may be a slow death to society, but deliberately doing the opposite of the norm even when it makes you unhappy will kill society a lot faster.

The issue here is that you've read the book, but you clearly did so with an approach of, "let's see what this foolish confused sinner is wrong about". Reading it with a bolt-shut mind and a pre-determined dismissiveness of the author is going to affect how you interpret the content.

You're not entirely wrong, but your bias going into it is almost certainly heavier than mine. All things considered, I'd rather something be innocuous and just be overblown for politics sake. If I read either of these books and thought "nah, these are fine for kids", that would be a good outcome to me, even if I disagree with the perspective of the authors, I would prefer a version of reality where people aren't corrupting children.

You have no motivation to see my perspective here. You agree with the worldview of the authors, so you go in wanting the content to be good for its own sake, and you have the political interest in defending it because you want right-wingers to be unreasonable hateful people trying to deprive children of reasonable educational materials.

 

[Silvanus]

You're not entirely wrong, but your bias going into it is almost certainly heavier than mine. All things considered, I'd rather something be innocuous and just be overblown for politics sake. If I read either of these books and thought "nah, these are fine for kids", that would be a good outcome to me, even if I disagree with the perspective of the authors, I would prefer a version of reality where people aren't corrupting children.

I'm sure you would, but your bar for 'corrupting children' is so low as to encompass pretty harmless depictions of experiences that differ from yours. That's the impact the bias has had, and any book that deals with queer life was always going to have a harder time passing your bar.

So yeah, you'd absolutely prefer the book to be innocuous. But your definition for 'innocuous' is prejudicial against experiences different to yours, nonconformity in general, and queer people in particular.

You have no motivation to see my perspective here. You agree with the worldview of the authors, so you go in wanting the content to be good for its own sake, and you have the political interest in defending it because you want right-wingers to be unreasonable hateful people trying to deprive children of reasonable educational materials.

Nope. Much like you said you'd prefer a world in which people aren't corrupting children, I can honestly say i would prefer a world in which right-wingers weren't trying to create barriers to reading about queer experiences.

I find it quite telling, though, that you'll not extend the same courtesy to me that you did to yourself. "I want things to be good, I'm only objecting when they're not; but you need things to be awful". And then you complain that I won't see your perspective...? You've abjectly refused to see mine in that very approach, by inventing that irrationally negative perspective and then telling me i hold it, rather than listening to what I'm actually saying.

 

[tstorm823]

Nope. Much like you said you'd prefer a world in which people aren't corrupting children, I can honestly say i would prefer a world in which right-wingers weren't trying to create barriers to reading about queer experiences.

I find it quite telling, though, that you'll not extend the same courtesy to me that you did to yourself. "I want things to be good, I'm only objecting when they're not; but you need things to be awful". And then you complain that I won't see your perspective...? You've abjectly refused to see mine in that very approach, by inventing that irrationally negative perspective and then telling me i hold it, rather than listening to what I'm actually saying.

I do extend the same thing to you, though maybe it's not a courtesy. I think we agree on a point here, I think both of us would prefer to find that all the books are fine material. We would both be happy to find that nobody is showing inappropriate things to minors. The difference is that for me, that desire is counter to my political interests, because that makes the right wing reactions against misplaced, and I'd rather the people I usually agree with not be idiots. In that way, I have competing interests within myself forming my biases. For you, in this instance, your political interests and care for the well-being of the kids are in alignment. If the materials are bad, you have to accept both that people are showing wrong things to kids and that it is coming from people you would otherwise support. Outside of the independent desire for truth, everything within you prefers the books to be fine, and that leads to heavier bias.

 

[Silvanus]

I do extend the same thing to you, though maybe it's not a courtesy. I think we agree on a point here, I think both of us would prefer to find that all the books are fine material.
We would both be happy to find that nobody is showing inappropriate things to minors. The difference is that for me, that desire is counter to my political interests, because that makes the right wing reactions against misplaced, and I'd rather the people I usually agree with not be idiots. In that way, I have competing interests within myself forming my biases. For you, in this instance, your political interests and care for the well-being of the kids are in alignment. If the materials are bad, you have to accept both that people are showing wrong things to kids and that it is coming from people you would otherwise support. Outside of the independent desire for truth, everything within you prefers the books to be fine, and that leads to heavier bias.

No, you've deliberately changed the intent of what I said.

Believing I want the books to be fine is not extending the same courtesy. When you said that I "need right wingers to be hateful", you ascribed to me the thought process that I'd rather the situation were worse if it reinforced my biases. That is the refusal to acknowledge the opponent's perspective. That Is the refusal of a basic courtesy you've given yourself.

 

[Bedinsis]

The explicit intent of the author was a book for people 16 and older.

Also, an adult talking about the types of porn they like may not be pornography itself, but it's definitely not child appropriate material.

Any book covering the same subjects that you consider appropriate?

 

[tstorm823]

you ascribed to me the thought process that I'd rather the situation were worse if it reinforced my biases.

No I didn't. I ascribed to you the thought process that you'd rather the situation were better. The books being reasonable and appropriate is the better possibility. That the option is aligned with your political preference doesn't somehow make it wanting a worse outcome.

Any book covering the same subjects that you consider appropriate?

Depends which subject you're talking about. Are there books addressing adolescence I would consider appropriate? Yes. Are there books teaching sex education that are appropriate? Yes. Are there books teaching people how to get attention on Grindr or talking about erotic fanfiction that I would consider appropriate for middle school? No, absolutely not.

 

[davidmc1158]

Depends which subject you're talking about. Are there books addressing adolescence I would consider appropriate? Yes. Are there books teaching sex education that are appropriate? Yes. Are there books teaching people how to get attention on Grindr or talking about erotic fanfiction that I would consider appropriate for middle school? No, absolutely not.

What books would you consider appropriate to teach children reaching adolescence that being gay is not inherently evil/sinful and that the other people who are attempting to force them to be something other than what God created them to be are wrong?

 

[tstorm823]

What books would you consider appropriate to teach children reaching adolescence that being gay is not inherently evil/sinful and that the other people who are attempting to force them to be something other than what God created them to be are wrong?

None, because you phrased that highly aggressively at the end. The book you're asking me to find is one that will teach children that others are trying to force them to be something, and now you've included fearmongering.

I can concede, I'm not an expert on children's educational literature. I've just read the ones that become controversies, I couldn't name you the normal ones. I'm a genuine fan of plenty of media that carries the morals you want, for example Steven Universe is great and addresses some of these topics in a combination of both subtle and direct ways, but that's child friendly entertainment, it's not the same thing as school books.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

No, it can be fine to not conform to societal expectations if that brings joy to your life. The author goes beyond that, going against social expectations even when it deprives them of joy, i.e. "society expects girls to wear flowery stuff, so I'll avoid that and dress like men are expected to... [20 years later] wait why is my wardrobe so bland, I love flowers and rainbows!"

Never changing or adapting may be a slow death to society, but deliberately doing the opposite of the norm even when it makes you unhappy will kill society a lot faster.

He says, despite quoting the part of the book where the author changes and adapts. Sorry the queer child didn't have perfect knowledge, I guess?

Like, do you think liking flowers and rainbows is inherently feminine, committing the same error as the author did as a literal child?