#meta discourse

If you can identify and explain the flaws and biases in media, you are less likely to passively absorb them. Also, it helps you understand the media instead of just looking at it. Also, it's fun and interesting.

But most people believe you can't (or shouldn't) criticize for its own sake. They seem to believe that criticism inherently contains a moral component; that whatever's being criticized must either be or cause evil.

And it's not impossible to justify criticizing a piece of fiction from that angle. Collectively, the media someone consumes plays a part in shaping their worldview and values; Hollywood as a whole consistently depicting white action dudes who solve most of their problems with violence (often against scary brown men) and the rest by annoying his love interest is one of many influences on American cultural norms.

But trying to apply that logic to any individual movie, when trying to implicitly justify condemning that specific movie as somehow immoral, leads to the conclusion that any movie with jingoistic/racist/sexist/whatever undertones will corrupt its audience.

You have a point, but the way you are saying it is hurting your cause.

You have a point, but it isn't a good point.

You don't have a point, but you are hurt or scared, which is understandable, but you might still need to shut the fuck up for the sake of yourself and others.

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At least one of these applies to most discourse I read here. I'm not always sure which.

Posting on tumblr is not necessarily better than nothing, for you or the people you are talking to.

🃏 luckysixes Follow

I'm so sick of people being gross! And Bad! And Evil! If you do things, you're fucked up!

[long meandering diatribe on the many reasons why If You Do Things You're Bad]

.....

[tangent]

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[diatribe continues]

🃏 luckysixes Follow

Oh yeah! People who stand back and do nothing! And let people do things! They're! Just! As! Bad!

[three full-screen lengths of diatribe about how people shouldn't just be let to do things]

🔞 kinkcourse Follow

look op, stop trying to pretend your bullshit is an actual attempt to help people, a good half the posts on your blog are varying forms of religious apologia, which! Includes Doing Things! Like you're rallying against here! Really, what's your plan?

🟢 me

(wow i fucking love seeing ten pages of someone being an asshole before figuring out why i got this reblogged. oh, look, no tags, guess i'll just block the person who reblogged it)

582 notes

(fakeblr ends here)

I was a high school and college debater.  Lincoln-Douglas, parli, humorous interpretation, extemp.  I was on one of the top teams in the country.  (I was not one of the top debaters personally, I was just okay, but just-okay at a high level.  If you get me.)  I’ve got trophies in being an “um, actually” dude.

And this is why I don’t believe in the power of debate for settling serious issues.  Because teams alternate positions over the course of a tournament, but teams with better preparation and training tend to win no matter which position they take.  The whole sport wouldn’t work if the morally right side of an issue was always the one with the strongest arguments.

(In fact, being personally invested in the rightness of your argument is sometimes a detriment, because you can get flustered and emotional while the other guy is projecting nothing but calm confidence.)

I learned to speak passionately about why the US needs to retain nuclear supremacy for world peace, and also to speak passionately about why the US needs to lead the world in nuclear disarmament.  I can’t say “I can convince you of both,” because your own preconceptions are such a huge factor, but if you agree to be an impartial judge, I can absolutely convince you of both.  The “but in the end the truth wins out” factor is so much smaller than you’d like to think.

 This isn’t to say you shouldn’t ever engage in debate.  If you think you can win, go in and kick some ass.  It’s a valid way to present and defend your beliefs.  But don’t trust debate as a truth-finding process.  Don’t leave human welfare up to “whoever wins the debate.”  Don’t get sucked into believing debate is somehow a morally superior tactic to deplatforming or protest.  There’s so much style and technique involved in debate, it’s little better than saying “we’ll agree the truth is on the side of whoever wins this arm-wrestling match.”