Lacewing wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 1:35 pm
A more balanced and truer perspective would include considerations such as these:
- What is appropriate for the real world that children TODAY understand and are living in?
- What is appropriate based on the age groups?
- Which books/materials are actually inappropriate rather than simply being what religion opposes?
- Are we keeping in mind what children are exposed to all the time in movies and video games and online media?
- Is the broader book banning an extreme reaction to a few inappropriate books?
- Is the book banning being used for a political agenda?
In other words, this isn't just a black-and-white case deserving outrage and extreme reactions. What is actually going on... and are we willing to ask more questions and address it appropriately, all things considered?
Common sense over agendas.
First, and I believe that you do not have the self-circumspection to notice this, you are putting forward what you call an *agenda*. The propositions that you are working with here are undergirded by ideological commitments. I am not so much bothered by that as I am aware that
you do not recognize the intrusion of your own ideological commitments into your arguments and assertions. Therefore, I focus on you as an exponent of value-commitments of that *radical* sort which I believe can be recognized and described.
Simply doing that, without drama and explosive emotionalism, is my object. Seeing clearly and stating things clearly.
Common sense I take, coming from you, as a code-word. Whose *common sense*? Your common sense does not coincide with the value-definitions of those who oppose your radicalism, the radicalism that you cannot recognize because of a lack of self-introspection.
- What is appropriate for the real world that children TODAY understand and are living in?
This in my view is a very tricky and rhetorically-infused statement. Again, you seem unaware of the
intrusion of your ideological predicates. What are you implying here? That those children themselves -- 5 year olds, 8 year olds, 15 year olds -- shall formulate their own *agendas* about these issues of sexual identity and sexual activity? How do you propose that a 5-10 year old child will do that? What you are proposing is darkly ignorant.
What is this *real world* that you refer to as if it is a *real thing*? Do you determine what part of this World is real and then explain or state what is *unreal*? In fact you do. And this is why I say that your commitments are linked to radicalism, and this radicalism can be seen and exposed. Simply to
see it, to
understand it.
Who determines this notion you express of *appropriateness*? You are making value-declarations but based in what exactly? Who has determined them as valid or good? You?
The notion that children have the capability of sorting through an extremely complex media world of ideas, images, and identifications and that they have the adult capability of making sense of all of this and then choosing what is right, proper and good in a philosophical sense, is in my view ridiculous Lacewing. Yet you actually are saying something like this without awareness of the implications and ramifications of what you say.
- Which books/materials are actually inappropriate rather than simply being what religion opposes?
Another statement driven, it seems, by
unconsciously determined value-declarations (and prejudices). All value-systems in all cultures, and certainly our own, have been influenced and determined by religious philosophy. To say "what religion opposes" is a statement that reveals your own limitations Lacewing. I certainly grasp that you are opposed to the impositions of religion because of your own (religious) upbringing which, as you say, you have to get free of, but religious values are here and are part of the social body. The more you look into this the more it presents itself as true.
But you are largely -- largely but not wholly -- ignorant in this area. You have not studied the issue. You have no sources to refer to. Therefore your opposition to *religiously determined* or religiously influenced values is a manifestation of your own ideological commitments. That is fine as far as it goes except that you cannot see your won predicates nor notice how they insert themselves. You are also driven by value-definitions just as much as those you oppose and those you condemn. But you do not have enough self-introspection to
see yourself.
Again is it you that will determine *appropriateness*? You and the Democratic Party? Some assembled board of cultural commissars? Who will do this work of determining what is appropriate? On what basis? According to what values? With what ends in (ultimate) view? Do you recognize the problematical nature of the sort of statements that you make? No. Because you cannot and won't self-introspect.
- Are we keeping in mind what children are exposed to all the time in movies and video games and online media?
Do you mean am
I keeping this in mind? I am aware that our entire culture has been ultra-influenced by ideological and market brokers who engineer and re-engineer value-sets often in order to be able to sell products. The notion of The Marketing of Evil (a title of a book) in which a value-centered perspective is contrasted with one that has no actual value-base except in making money and selling products is a perspective that you Lacewing are unfamiliar with. You have not studied this issue. You have not dedicated proper time to it.
Becoming aware of what has happened in a culture of Social Engineering is therefore the prime consideration. And who will establish what is right, proper and good for children? And in accordance with what value-base?
You Lacewing?
You will do this?
- Is the broader book banning an extreme reaction to a few inappropriate books?
Again, you are insufficiently informed Lacewing. You do not show that you have a proper or sufficient interest in the actual questions. An answer -- one possible one to your question -- is that the issue of the sexualization of children, and the use of sexuality as a tool of political control, is actually what isat the core of the issue and the conversation. But you, ignorant woman, are unfamiliar with the issue. Yet you open your giant yap and spout all sorts of stuff that reveals your own ignorance of the problems that are being examined! That is my view of your generally superficial stance. Deal with it, reject it, bark at the moon if it serves you. That is what I notice when I read your vain posts.
In order to understand how Conservatives, who are versed in these issues, see the sexualization as a tool of political control you would have to read, study and consider. That is why I say that getting familiar with the arguments of those on the other side
is crucial.
If only to be able to have a fair and upstanding conversation.
- Is the book banning being used for a political agenda?
What an idiotic statement. Do you have any understanding of the parameters of what is described as The Culture Wars? Duh! Of course these social and cultural issue sof value dovetail with politics. Politics being downstream from culture.
We are in times of profound ideological, political, cultural and social battles. Just to be able to see and understand this is a task all to itself. This is what I recently stated: to stop merely bickering over partisan positions in a never-ending rehearsal and to do the work to define what the value-definitions that are at stake
actually are.
Far more appropriate for a philosophically-oriented forum than the inane bickering.
Now, please critique what I have written here and tell me if it is *skewed* and unbalanced and why you believe this is so. Correct me and show me the right way.