Yes, he got my ass by acknowledging it in the final tweet, "hmm curious that this is liberal and reductive, almost like I meant it that way"

I like his videos, but his Twitter takes, not so much. Is this a me problem?

  • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    In his recent video about 300 and its fashy overtones, he generally has a decent understanding of what he's talking about but then he had an additional point tacked on like "I like Lord of the Rings and would be really sad if someone pointed out the things bad in it and calling it fashy. I would not like it if someone showed me legitimate criticism because it would inevitably ruin this thing I cherish and I suppose I've just done that to all the people that have different interpretations of 300 and in a way I'm kinda happy with that because you should look more critically at media."

    It feels like without a coherent ideology he's just kinda left treading water. I get the fear of having a deeply rooted connection with a story becoming this problematic thing, but as much as I love Steven Universe for talking about trans people and being a positive thing for queer kids to see themselves in, it also does a lot of imperial apologia. Lord of the Rings does the Asiatic hordes trope. With a more coherent ideology you're able to call this stuff out and recognize it for what it is without having to be like "I'm sorry but it is kinda problematic."

    I think his media critique is hit or miss in general, his God's not Dead series really misses the mark with Christian cinema having this awakening or whatever. His stuff on Dr. Phil is generally pretty fine. The very vague platitudes he offers as an ideology fall apart though since he has no concrete beliefs.

    I want people to be healthy with relative ease.

    What does this mean? You could argue our current system is exactly this. People can get healthy relatively easily, if they're relatively wealthy. You could say instead "All people have a right to healthcare" which implies that anything standing in the way of that is at its core unjust and immoral.

    I want a society where no human is seen as exterior to the overall political project

    I get what he means with this, but again it's just vague good vibes stuff. I don't want to live in a society where the people that want to kill me are just as valued to the political project as people that want me to have human rights. Nobody should be excluded based on any intrinsic details to their being, but their beliefs can and should disqualify them should them be an active threat to a just society or a group of people.

    I know I'm being pedantic, but I feel like if you want to have general good vibes platitudes you're ignoring intrinsic flaws in the system you've never come up against. I don't think he's a particularly bad person or anything, he doesn't strike me as an obnoxious centrist like Boogie2988 and I could see him swayed with decent arguments, but at best he's a succdem and a :LIB:

    • Sandinband
      ·
      2 years ago

      I really like the way you explain your thoughts comrade :blob-no-thoughts: very organized and easy to understand

      Also good points obvs

    • TrashCompact [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      What does this mean? You could argue our current system is exactly this. People can get healthy relatively easily, if they’re relatively wealthy. You could say instead “All people have a right to healthcare” which implies that anything standing in the way of that is at its core unjust and immoral.

      I'm losing my mind. I feel like this entire website has Natural Rights Theory brainworms. His formulation is not great, but it is clearly superior to yours.

      If being wealthy is a necessary element to being healthy in a given society, then in any such society where it is also the case that social mobility even vaguely resembles ours conceptually (or is much worse, like in a caste system), it logically follows that not everyone can easily be healthy in such a society because the existence of a populous, downtrodden underclass is a necessity of that system and therefore lack of access to health resources is a necessity of that system.

      His, uh, axiom, wish, whatever you want to call it is worded in an overly soft and potentially game-able way, but talking about "rights" independent of material reality is completely useless.

      Now, if you mean a legal right to free healthcare, that's something else, but the rest of your statement implies a moral prescription which, by itself, is worthless.