I realize this, my question is was more general. A lot of people are devoted to both the Electoral College and indirect election of Senators. They feel that the direct election of Senators was a big mistake and that abolishing the Electoral College and having direct election of the Senate was even worse. My problem is that neither the Electoral College or indirect election of Senators worked even close to as envisioned.
The people who wrote the Constitution believed that the states would elect Electors and that the Electors would decide who would be the best person for President amongst themselves. It didn't turn out this way from the first real contested election, which gave us our current system of Electors just nominating who ever got the most votes in their states. The indirect election of Senators never worked as envisioned either. So why the devotion?
Isn't this kind of the scenario in the Diamond Age where nano-machines could provide things cheap, practically free? The solution in the Diamond Age was that there was a base minimal life that everybody was entitled to but if you wanted more you needed to work. This solution should be acceptable to nearly everybody except the harshest reactionaries.
Why? When the States legislatures elected Senators, the election was very prone to corruption and you usually ended up with Senators who represented corporate interests rather than states. Direct election of Senators isn't necessarily much of an improvement but at least it helps a little.
I'd keep the First Amendement because it creates one of the necessities of our democracy. I'd keep the 5th and the 14th to protect people's rights and ensure at least theoretical equal justice under the law. I'd also keep the 13th Amendment and one the giving women the right to vote because we have too many reactionaries and I want guarantees against slavery and for female sufferage/equality.
Burt, I agree with you that there should be something resembling a public culture so that we can have a commonality of identity and that its bad when too many people and groups isolate themselves from the public culture. My issue is that whether its really popular to have a true mass culture anymore because of the diversity of our society and becasue of technology. Even without getting into the intricacies of race and religion, most Western societies are incredibly diverse in their tates. You have the various nerd fandoms like anime, comic book, and video games fans, and more. You have the fans of Mad Men and other premium TV television shows. You have opera fans and pop fans, etc. Modern technology allows each access to their own cultural preferences more than in previous times. During the Golden Age of American mass culture (roughly from the 1890s to the Vietnam War), people with different tastes where forced into niches with limited access to thier forms of entertainment. This isn't the case anymore.
How do you determine what should be common knowledge and what should be part of the mass culture canon? What should people be expected to know. I'm a dork and really don't like a lot of pop culture but I still try to know whats kind of popular. I've been shocked at people who are much more mainstream than I am being unaware of things like who Pink Floyd are. I wouldn't expect people to know eveything about Pink Floyd but the Wall made enough of a cultural impact that I'd expect them to know it, especially since they knew who the Talking Heads were.
Some of my lawyer friends and I occasionally try to come up with polygamy laws as an intellectual exercise. We can't think of any legislation that is both equitable and workable. The real problem comes with the dissolution of marriage and the resulting division of property and custody battles. Determining if their any limits is also a problem.
Dolphins might be sapient but if recent observations are right, lots of them seem to be what humans would call psychopaths. Scientists found evidence that dolphins engage in what we would call gang rape and murder for fun.
Elephants are giving us an example of evolution in actions. The number and percentage of elephants born without tusks are increasing because of poaching. Being a tusk-less elephant is now a desirable trait that gets selected for.
Spice and Wolf shows the advantages and disadvantages of an analytical protagonist in visual media. Lawrence is basically useless in a fist fight. He has to solve every problem using his brains and sometimes the solution is long to get to. The good part of this is that plots can get really complex. The bad part is that the story often flows very slowly and can be frustrating for viewers who want a more face paced show.
I think one reason why we see more aggressive women and fewer gentle men in media, besides what you mentioned above, is that gentle protagonists have the same problems are cerebral protagonists in that its kind of hard to portray both in visual media. In the recent Sherlock Holmes movies, the ones with Robert Downey, Jr., they had to turn Holmes from a more cerebral hero into an action hero because it worked better on screen. Showing Holmes intellect at work, his ability to scan and deduce things, required special effects. Watching an entire movie like that would be annoying. Holmes the action hero works a bit better in visual media.
In Japan, for better or worse, they know that teeange boys are going to play porn games and don't mind exposing them to sex for good or ill. In America, they know that teenage boys are going to play porn games, and don't want to to deal with the parents complaining so they keep the sex as low as possible.
The might makes right criticism would make sense if a lot of fantasy media takes place in a might makes right world. The problem is that most of it doesn't. Its not unusual for the villains in fantasy to possess more outright power than the heroes and believe in might makes right. A lot of fantasy media also takes place in a world at least at medieval levels of development. The Medieval period was a bit more brutal than our own but more civilized than might makes right.
See Irving Berlin, great and witty song-writer but horrible singer if you listen to a recording of him singing his own songs. Rock music, particular the Beatles but the trend started before them, really changed what a lot of people expceted in pop music. Artistis became expected to write and perform their own material, the material was expected to be true to their experience. In short, they had to be authentic. Before rock, nobody expected authenticity in pop music. Whether Frank Sinatra experienced what he sung about was irrelevant to enjoying him. In many other countries, this expectation of authenticity doesn't exist.
Isn't this called Rune Soldier Louis in English? Louis is a boisterous, hard-drinking womanzier prone to solving things by beating them up and thinking with his genitals. This doesn't seem like much of an inverted gender sterostype to me. An inverted wizard sterostype yes but not a gender one.
I find that outside of the Anglosphere, people tend to be more forgiving of manufactured pop music, think Back Street Boys. I never heard any Russian pop but J-Pop, K-Pop, and C-Pop are similar in their apparent manufactured pop music. Before rock, Americans used to be more forgiving of manufactured pop to. Elijah Wald covers this a lot. Its why we used to refer to certain pop songs as being standard, meaning that everybody from Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday to the band you hired for your wedding, was expected to know them. Rock music changed this. Songs became closer identified with a particular artist, artists were expected to write their own material for the most part (before the Beatles the concept of the cover song would make no sense to people), and have their own voice.
Coincidentally, widespread knowledge of how to dance while touching somebody else, collapsed during the transition period between traditional pop and rock music. The decline began very swiftly after the end of WWII and was complete by the hippie era.
Mulan was from an aristocratic family, so she was at least nobility. Pocohantas was the cultural equivalent of a Princess, the daughter of somethnig close to a King.
In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup never takes on or want to the traditional violence, rowdy elements of warrior culture. He starts out and remains, a gentle nerd. Its more of a nerd rising to the top in jock culture story.
I can't think of any current story aimed at young male children where the main character is a boy who is or wants to be a knight. The closest example is Disney's attempt to make the Black Cauldron into a movie and thats from the 1980s.
Most boys fantasies are of them being wizards or superheroes or nerdy boys who get the girl or similar things.
Yuu never actual struck me as particularly androgynous, especially compared to thep protagonist from Persona 3, who is shorter and more slight. In contrast, Yuu from Persona 4 is much taller and has more obvious musculature. Part of this is that Japanese beauty standards lean towards the androgynous for men. I'm pretty sure that most Japansee would see Yuu as only being a man.
Were the Hasmoneans really that reactionary compared to the Selucids? Selucid culture was more hedonistic than Jewish culture but it wasn't that much better on things like gender equality or equal rights as we understand them today. Both were very patriarchal. The Selucids were in some ways more unfriendly towards women than Jewish culture. Infanticide, especially of unwanted female children, was practiced by practically every culture but Jews and Persians at the time. Women arguably had more rights in marriage and property under Jewish law than Selucid Greek law and Jewish law was more human towards the poor, widows, and orphans. Its really a stretch to call the Hasmoneans reactionary. Prudes yes, reactionaries no. Its kind of like a more ancient version of the Round-heads and the Cavaliers in the English Civil War.
There is just something about princess culture that seems so anti-small-d democratic to me even without getting into the feminist issues. Even if the princess is an action princess she is stil a princess with everything about aristocracy that it applies. What is it about princesses that draws girls to them whether they be traditional or action? Its not like boys fantasize about being knights of daring do. Can we not find a more appropriate in a small-r republican friendly thing for girls to fantasize about. I have political issues with princess culture.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Thursday Night Bar Fight #5: Brother, Can You Spare an Amendment?”
I realize this, my question is was more general. A lot of people are devoted to both the Electoral College and indirect election of Senators. They feel that the direct election of Senators was a big mistake and that abolishing the Electoral College and having direct election of the Senate was even worse. My problem is that neither the Electoral College or indirect election of Senators worked even close to as envisioned.
The people who wrote the Constitution believed that the states would elect Electors and that the Electors would decide who would be the best person for President amongst themselves. It didn't turn out this way from the first real contested election, which gave us our current system of Electors just nominating who ever got the most votes in their states. The indirect election of Senators never worked as envisioned either. So why the devotion?
On “A Thing I Do Not Understand about Libertarians”
Isn't this kind of the scenario in the Diamond Age where nano-machines could provide things cheap, practically free? The solution in the Diamond Age was that there was a base minimal life that everybody was entitled to but if you wanted more you needed to work. This solution should be acceptable to nearly everybody except the harshest reactionaries.
On “Thursday Night Bar Fight #5: Brother, Can You Spare an Amendment?”
Why? When the States legislatures elected Senators, the election was very prone to corruption and you usually ended up with Senators who represented corporate interests rather than states. Direct election of Senators isn't necessarily much of an improvement but at least it helps a little.
"
I'd keep the First Amendement because it creates one of the necessities of our democracy. I'd keep the 5th and the 14th to protect people's rights and ensure at least theoretical equal justice under the law. I'd also keep the 13th Amendment and one the giving women the right to vote because we have too many reactionaries and I want guarantees against slavery and for female sufferage/equality.
On “The Good Tube: The History Channel Does the Bible”
Burt, I agree with you that there should be something resembling a public culture so that we can have a commonality of identity and that its bad when too many people and groups isolate themselves from the public culture. My issue is that whether its really popular to have a true mass culture anymore because of the diversity of our society and becasue of technology. Even without getting into the intricacies of race and religion, most Western societies are incredibly diverse in their tates. You have the various nerd fandoms like anime, comic book, and video games fans, and more. You have the fans of Mad Men and other premium TV television shows. You have opera fans and pop fans, etc. Modern technology allows each access to their own cultural preferences more than in previous times. During the Golden Age of American mass culture (roughly from the 1890s to the Vietnam War), people with different tastes where forced into niches with limited access to thier forms of entertainment. This isn't the case anymore.
How do you determine what should be common knowledge and what should be part of the mass culture canon? What should people be expected to know. I'm a dork and really don't like a lot of pop culture but I still try to know whats kind of popular. I've been shocked at people who are much more mainstream than I am being unaware of things like who Pink Floyd are. I wouldn't expect people to know eveything about Pink Floyd but the Wall made enough of a cultural impact that I'd expect them to know it, especially since they knew who the Talking Heads were.
On “The Problem with Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage”
Some of my lawyer friends and I occasionally try to come up with polygamy laws as an intellectual exercise. We can't think of any legislation that is both equitable and workable. The real problem comes with the dissolution of marriage and the resulting division of property and custody battles. Determining if their any limits is also a problem.
On “A Republican Conspiracy”
With Eddie Murphy's voice? I don't think so.
"
Dolphins might be sapient but if recent observations are right, lots of them seem to be what humans would call psychopaths. Scientists found evidence that dolphins engage in what we would call gang rape and murder for fun.
Elephants are giving us an example of evolution in actions. The number and percentage of elephants born without tusks are increasing because of poaching. Being a tusk-less elephant is now a desirable trait that gets selected for.
"
Thats one of the most adorable things I ever saw in my life.
On “Anita Sarkeesian and the Damsel in Distress Trope”
I think a study revealed that not only is the Japanese birth rate low but that many Japanese aren't even interested in recreational sex.
"
Spice and Wolf shows the advantages and disadvantages of an analytical protagonist in visual media. Lawrence is basically useless in a fist fight. He has to solve every problem using his brains and sometimes the solution is long to get to. The good part of this is that plots can get really complex. The bad part is that the story often flows very slowly and can be frustrating for viewers who want a more face paced show.
"
Seinfeld?
"
I think one reason why we see more aggressive women and fewer gentle men in media, besides what you mentioned above, is that gentle protagonists have the same problems are cerebral protagonists in that its kind of hard to portray both in visual media. In the recent Sherlock Holmes movies, the ones with Robert Downey, Jr., they had to turn Holmes from a more cerebral hero into an action hero because it worked better on screen. Showing Holmes intellect at work, his ability to scan and deduce things, required special effects. Watching an entire movie like that would be annoying. Holmes the action hero works a bit better in visual media.
"
In Japan, for better or worse, they know that teeange boys are going to play porn games and don't mind exposing them to sex for good or ill. In America, they know that teenage boys are going to play porn games, and don't want to to deal with the parents complaining so they keep the sex as low as possible.
"
The might makes right criticism would make sense if a lot of fantasy media takes place in a might makes right world. The problem is that most of it doesn't. Its not unusual for the villains in fantasy to possess more outright power than the heroes and believe in might makes right. A lot of fantasy media also takes place in a world at least at medieval levels of development. The Medieval period was a bit more brutal than our own but more civilized than might makes right.
On “Friday Jukebox: Drinking with Jesus”
See Irving Berlin, great and witty song-writer but horrible singer if you listen to a recording of him singing his own songs. Rock music, particular the Beatles but the trend started before them, really changed what a lot of people expceted in pop music. Artistis became expected to write and perform their own material, the material was expected to be true to their experience. In short, they had to be authentic. Before rock, nobody expected authenticity in pop music. Whether Frank Sinatra experienced what he sung about was irrelevant to enjoying him. In many other countries, this expectation of authenticity doesn't exist.
On “Anita Sarkeesian and the Damsel in Distress Trope”
Isn't this called Rune Soldier Louis in English? Louis is a boisterous, hard-drinking womanzier prone to solving things by beating them up and thinking with his genitals. This doesn't seem like much of an inverted gender sterostype to me. An inverted wizard sterostype yes but not a gender one.
On “Friday Jukebox: Drinking with Jesus”
I find that outside of the Anglosphere, people tend to be more forgiving of manufactured pop music, think Back Street Boys. I never heard any Russian pop but J-Pop, K-Pop, and C-Pop are similar in their apparent manufactured pop music. Before rock, Americans used to be more forgiving of manufactured pop to. Elijah Wald covers this a lot. Its why we used to refer to certain pop songs as being standard, meaning that everybody from Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday to the band you hired for your wedding, was expected to know them. Rock music changed this. Songs became closer identified with a particular artist, artists were expected to write their own material for the most part (before the Beatles the concept of the cover song would make no sense to people), and have their own voice.
Coincidentally, widespread knowledge of how to dance while touching somebody else, collapsed during the transition period between traditional pop and rock music. The decline began very swiftly after the end of WWII and was complete by the hippie era.
On “Anita Sarkeesian and the Damsel in Distress Trope”
Mulan was from an aristocratic family, so she was at least nobility. Pocohantas was the cultural equivalent of a Princess, the daughter of somethnig close to a King.
In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup never takes on or want to the traditional violence, rowdy elements of warrior culture. He starts out and remains, a gentle nerd. Its more of a nerd rising to the top in jock culture story.
"
I can't think of any current story aimed at young male children where the main character is a boy who is or wants to be a knight. The closest example is Disney's attempt to make the Black Cauldron into a movie and thats from the 1980s.
Most boys fantasies are of them being wizards or superheroes or nerdy boys who get the girl or similar things.
"
Your welcome Burt.
"
Yuu never actual struck me as particularly androgynous, especially compared to thep protagonist from Persona 3, who is shorter and more slight. In contrast, Yuu from Persona 4 is much taller and has more obvious musculature. Part of this is that Japanese beauty standards lean towards the androgynous for men. I'm pretty sure that most Japansee would see Yuu as only being a man.
On “The Sun Will Rise Again…”
Nothing much brother. Please email me your flight information.
"
Were the Hasmoneans really that reactionary compared to the Selucids? Selucid culture was more hedonistic than Jewish culture but it wasn't that much better on things like gender equality or equal rights as we understand them today. Both were very patriarchal. The Selucids were in some ways more unfriendly towards women than Jewish culture. Infanticide, especially of unwanted female children, was practiced by practically every culture but Jews and Persians at the time. Women arguably had more rights in marriage and property under Jewish law than Selucid Greek law and Jewish law was more human towards the poor, widows, and orphans. Its really a stretch to call the Hasmoneans reactionary. Prudes yes, reactionaries no. Its kind of like a more ancient version of the Round-heads and the Cavaliers in the English Civil War.
On “Anita Sarkeesian and the Damsel in Distress Trope”
There is just something about princess culture that seems so anti-small-d democratic to me even without getting into the feminist issues. Even if the princess is an action princess she is stil a princess with everything about aristocracy that it applies. What is it about princesses that draws girls to them whether they be traditional or action? Its not like boys fantasize about being knights of daring do. Can we not find a more appropriate in a small-r republican friendly thing for girls to fantasize about. I have political issues with princess culture.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.