A notable excerpt · 10:29pm Jul 7th, 2020
Daedalus Aegle just wrote a very good blog post about current events. He claims it is long-winded and rambly, but I would humbly disagree. Though I would urge you to read the whole thing, if you feel you don't have the time or stomach for three thousand rather circumspect words, please at least look below the break and read the short excerpt I have lifted wholesale from it.
Then go back and read the rest.
It’s easy to spot things that come at you from outside your field of cultural reference. Whether it’s behaviors, clothing, languages, or narrative devices. They stand out as abnormal, and draw attention to themselves, inviting critical scrutiny. Whereas things that come at you from within your own culture can easily escape notice, because your own culture feels natural and neutral, just part of life.
And, here’s an ugly reality, bigotry is always part of the dominant culture while the fight against bigotry is always part of marginalized outsider culture.
So if a culture war erupts between some part of your culture (even a terrible part) and an outside culture (even a sensible part) it’s easy to see the outsider as the aggressor creating conflict where there was no conflict before, and the thing they’re fighting against as just part of normal life, even if an unpleasant part. Even if you agree with the cause in principle it can still be very easy to think that they’re doing it wrong, or that the negative response it provokes is natural.
Because breaches of normality are more shocking, even if the normal situation is horrifying. Anything that the dominant culture does is defended, while everything marginalized culture does is condemned, almost regardless of the specifics.
Everything is political but one side’s politics are challenged immediately, while the other is ignored until it can’t be ignored any longer.
That is a good blog!
The dude is brilliant, there's no denying it. His piece is more thoughtful and incisive than anything I've seen in major media.
This is one of the best arguments I’ve read that clearly lays out the rational for why democracies that want to endure need to protect their minorities from the tyranny of the majority. In a democracy, all the citizens vote and agree to abide by the winning party, under the social contract that the winner understands and governs to the benefit of ALL the people, not just the ones that voted it in.
It also lays bare the uncomfortable fact that democracy can be compromised - and even lost - if that country has the misfortune of even one administration forgetting that it rules for ALL its citizens, and turning against its minorities. Of course there are benefits to winning such as setting policy, but these policies must be fair to all citizens, and can’t be even seen as tipping the balance in favor of one group at the expense of another and thus compromising the equality of ALL members of the electorate.
TLDR: democracies don’t elect kings, and those that think that way don’t stay democracies.
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It's humbling in the most basic sense and enlightening in all the other senses.
Thanks for the signal boost on this, PP. You tend to be my news guy for fandom-related stuff nowadays, so please keep on keeping on.