dandelion

It is religion ...

Yes, the Christians I am talking about believe in predestination, and they disagree with, for example, Baptists about whether people can save other people or whether people can save themselves. Instead they believe God predetermines who ends up being saved or not, through the grace of God alone.

And to answer your question about what is the ultimate point if there is no motivation through free-will, their answer is usually either "it's a mystery" or "to glorify God".

They still believe in a kind of free-will, but only within the confines of God's pre-determined choices. God chose for you, but it was you that did the choosing and are responsible. One explanation I was given is that you make the choice out of free-will, and then God observes your choice and then goes back in time and determines it from the beginning. It's not a coherent view, as far as I can tell - there is no compelling logical or reasonable compatibilist account they offer, it just sounds like contradiction and fantastic thinking.

Also, their view is that our nature is fallen (total depravity), and the only good is from God and God chooses who receives the gift of salvation and thus who will become cured of their evil nature. They believe they should do good things and proselytize to convert others to Christianity because God commands them to, not because those things will save themselves or anyone else. Obedience is very important to this mindset.

I don't agree that it is doomed to fail, but I also don't believe humans are inherently Fallen, and especially not in the particular soteriological sense that Christians believe (i.e. all later generations have inherited the guilt from the single act of disobedience by Adam & Eve dooming all of humanity to endless toil and suffering, as well as an evil nature).

That said, I do think humans behave in sometimes predictable ways, and it might be useful to look at what kinds of choices about society might alleviate suffering and promote well-being and fairness in society.

That said, I don't think that's going to happen without significant social upheaval, and that itself seems to bring about a lot of violence and the kinds of suffering I think we should all avoid ... so, yeah - these are hard problems.

Caitlyn Jenner didn't get arrested in an act of civil disobedience tho 👀

EDIT: Marcy Rheintgen, despite being a conservative, listed Dorothy Day as an influence ...

Relevant facts:

• she self identifies as a "moderate conservative", also identifying as a "centrist" who cares about "family values"
• she is a devout Catholic
• she lives in Illinois and traveled to Florida just to do this
• before going to Florida, she sent letters to lawmakers stating her intention to break the law, including when and where she would and a photo of herself
• she explicitly identifies as not a "political activist"
• she is breaking the law because she thinks it is wrong (she is engaging in civil disobedience), though she did not expect to actually be arrested
• she didn't consult any legal or advocacy groups before doing this
• she was arrested upon going into the restroom and washing her hands, after cops posted at the bathroom told her not to; she was held in the men's ward of the Leon County Detention Facility overnight, and she faces 60 days of incarceration if convicted
• she is back in Illinois but will have to fly back to Florida for hearings
• she didn't expect to be arrested and regrets doing it

source: Tampa Bay Times (archive.ph link)

There is no escape.

accurate 😭

Even the more devout Christians I know (who actually have opinions about different theological positions) believe Earth and human society should not be modeled on heaven and attempts to do so will fail due to humans being inherently / essentially Fallen. This is part of how they rationalize their resistance / apathy towards movements for justice, at the very least they believe it is futile to seek justice in this life.

I do think some men try to understand, but it's hard without lived experience - they essentially have to trust others accounts, but the emotional impact is just not the same. But then I don't think this is special to men - there are women who are victimized and despite having those experiences they reject feminism and embrace those oppressive attitudes.

And this issue of empathy and lived experience is true of so many other forms of oppression - it's hard to know what it's like to be Black in America if you're perceived as white. It's hard to know what it's like to be poor or living in a third world country if you have economic privilege. I might read about the history of slavery and accounts about police brutality, but that doesn't give me the same experience and emotional understanding as lived experience does.

I might visit a third world country and meet kids who are growing up in a place that has no schools, has no colleges, has no jobs or opportunities - kids who watch the same TV shows as you, and who dress like you, but are working as cheap manual labor on farms owned by major U.S. ag companies and have no future outside that. What would make middle class Americans recognize and understand that oppression and align with them?

In my experience, emotional appeals can help. TikTok videos showing the genocide of Palestinians radicalized a lot of middle class Americans. But it's a lot easier to radicalize people when you have videos of those kinds of acts - it's harder to capture all the ways oppression changes you. Even so, discussions about microaggressions and implicit bias have entered the mainstream discussion, just not always with the desired impact of raising consciousness. Alliances have to be formed sometimes with compromise and mutual cooperation and understanding, and that can be difficult between a privileged group and an oppressed group, especially when men are typically viewed as the oppressors.

Seems to me like everything you eat has microplastics:

https://www.cnet.com/health/nutrition/how-many-microplastics-are-you-eating-10-foods-with-more-than-you-think/

• salt & sugar
• sea food
• tea bags (even the paper ones)
• rice
• bottled water
• honey (even in glass jars, bees exposed to microplastics deposit them in the honey)
• fruits and vegetables
• meat & plant-based alternatives

I think generally speaking the whole of Western society (and many other societies in the world) is sexist and misogynist, it's not just judges who are not going to be impartial because of their social values, but everyone: employers, police officers, politicians, doctors, journalists, and so on.

All people, including women, have been acculturated to have unjust and essentialising views about women (and men) - people are more likely to be dismissive to women and not take them seriously; more likely to view women as inherently sexual compared to men; more likely to view women as dishonest or manipulative; more likely to commit violence against women as they are viewed as weak and passive; more likely to pay women less than male employees as women are viewed as less intelligent, serious, or loyal; and so on.

It's not a surprise one in three women in the world have experienced beatings, rape, or other forms of abuse, usually at the hands of someone they know (not from strangers).

I consider this a situation of systemic oppression, and yes - misogynist judges are absolutely part of the problem.

EDIT:

Patriarchy may privilege men in many ways, but it is not just perpetuated by men, nor is it actually a good thing for men. Women participate in their oppression, extreme examples may include GOP U.S. Congress women like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, or Lauren Boebert - who enable a misogynistic GOP political agenda. But in more mundane ways, women police one another in their femininity and are not different from men in their misogynistic views - I have heard so many stories of women who hate themselves for being women (e.g. JK Rowling).

Meanwhile, men under this state of affairs are viewed as unsafe and suspect, as predators - whether they are actually violent or not. Men should be motivated as anyone else to end the alienation they experience and injustice to both men and women under patriarchy. Too often feminism is thought of in terms of women vs men, as men as the oppressors and women the victims. I think this simplifies the situation in a way that makes potential alliances with men difficult, and makes it harder to acknowledge the way patriarchy actually functions and exists in society.

the Freaks remix of Comme Un Enfant by Yelle

bottom right, as much as I love the top left flaring bootcut, I'm just not a huge fan of jeans and I feel better in my skin when accentuating curves.