"I wasn’t aware of Satan’s need for a defense team." Brilliant sparkle that I may use one day.
"No that's not true" is my default position which kind souls have pointed out that sometimes "that" is true.
I loved this essay then & enjoy it again now.
In the 80's we lesbian feminists got obsessed with language only to be mocked by the media. "Politically Correct" as I understand it was a term invented by the media.
Post feminist - an invention then taken up.
Thanks for grist to the mill. What does that phrase mean I wonder?
There's a good completely baffling film about Wittgenstein floating around. This article & the film is the closest I've got to him. 🙏
Need to get out my copy of your book to read the rest now!
I have hated the phrase 'culture war' for as long as I have heard it... For a long time I was very involved in the conservative evangelical Christian scene in Aus and the UK and it was always -and still is- connected to so much concern and panic and false victim complexes about how people hate Christians and Christianity, and we were being oppressed.
I saw first hand how words get weaponised in that community and ultimately cause suspicion and othering of those termed 'woke' and how even things like empathy has been turned into a sin in recent years because it doesn't serve the agenda of the 'culture war' to have people empathising with people who are seen as on the other side.
A lot of this rhetoric comes from US evangelicalism and I had always distanced myself from that and insisted that evangelicalism in Aus and the UK was different, not as politically driven. But I don't know how true that is anymore.
It's interesting to me how the cultures of the UK, Aus and US influence each other and I am concerned but interested to see how this steep descent to fascism in the US will flow on...
Must read the rest of this essay and see what you had to say!
Yassmin, I only just found your Substack and I'm so glad! I just want to say this Aussie has always stood by you and am so ashamed at how we treated you. Please know, your words are always important no matter how others twist their meaning.
The bad faith questions of people who frame everything in terms of a culture war are an endless source of frustration. I welcome genuine discussions about ethics, about what we should be and do as a society, about what it means to be good. But the media framing, for the most part, is an obfuscation of anything meaty, like those weird mists they have in fancy restaurants around your food. (It might be dry ice?) The worst offender is The Moral Maze. The bad faith density in a single program of that show could kickstart a black hole. It takes us all (as per your Benjamin quote) away from material reality, from what actually makes a difference to human lives. Words do mean things and when we forget the thingness of it all we're just waffling into the void. It's like people who frame trans lives in terms of "debate". It's not a debate. It's people, trying to live.
"I wasn’t aware of Satan’s need for a defense team." Brilliant sparkle that I may use one day.
"No that's not true" is my default position which kind souls have pointed out that sometimes "that" is true.
I loved this essay then & enjoy it again now.
In the 80's we lesbian feminists got obsessed with language only to be mocked by the media. "Politically Correct" as I understand it was a term invented by the media.
Post feminist - an invention then taken up.
Thanks for grist to the mill. What does that phrase mean I wonder?
There's a good completely baffling film about Wittgenstein floating around. This article & the film is the closest I've got to him. 🙏
Need to get out my copy of your book to read the rest now!
I have hated the phrase 'culture war' for as long as I have heard it... For a long time I was very involved in the conservative evangelical Christian scene in Aus and the UK and it was always -and still is- connected to so much concern and panic and false victim complexes about how people hate Christians and Christianity, and we were being oppressed.
I saw first hand how words get weaponised in that community and ultimately cause suspicion and othering of those termed 'woke' and how even things like empathy has been turned into a sin in recent years because it doesn't serve the agenda of the 'culture war' to have people empathising with people who are seen as on the other side.
A lot of this rhetoric comes from US evangelicalism and I had always distanced myself from that and insisted that evangelicalism in Aus and the UK was different, not as politically driven. But I don't know how true that is anymore.
It's interesting to me how the cultures of the UK, Aus and US influence each other and I am concerned but interested to see how this steep descent to fascism in the US will flow on...
Must read the rest of this essay and see what you had to say!
I wish there was a ‘love!’ button! Spot on as always.
Yassmin, I only just found your Substack and I'm so glad! I just want to say this Aussie has always stood by you and am so ashamed at how we treated you. Please know, your words are always important no matter how others twist their meaning.
#notalltrumps
As I suspected the late great Derek Jarman wrote & directed the film Wittgenstein. Worth a look if you can find it.
Anything by Derek Jarman is worth a look.
This is so poetic. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Everything you do is, MashaaAllah.
I want to pitch something. I shall muster up the courage and organization skills to drop a ✉ soon InshaaAllah.
The bad faith questions of people who frame everything in terms of a culture war are an endless source of frustration. I welcome genuine discussions about ethics, about what we should be and do as a society, about what it means to be good. But the media framing, for the most part, is an obfuscation of anything meaty, like those weird mists they have in fancy restaurants around your food. (It might be dry ice?) The worst offender is The Moral Maze. The bad faith density in a single program of that show could kickstart a black hole. It takes us all (as per your Benjamin quote) away from material reality, from what actually makes a difference to human lives. Words do mean things and when we forget the thingness of it all we're just waffling into the void. It's like people who frame trans lives in terms of "debate". It's not a debate. It's people, trying to live.