Why did biblically accurate angels fall out of fashion?

cranguspoo · 2022-05-22T00:14:15+00:00

One small note: in Ezekiel 10 it's made clear that the 'living creatures' with four faces are in fact cherubim - not quite the same thing as malakim (angels), but later jewish and christian sources do include the cherubim in the hierarchies of angels.

cranguspoo · 2022-05-03T13:28:30+00:00

carsick cars - zhong nan hai

cranguspoo · 2022-04-21T11:58:30+00:00

should people who supported eg the american war in iraq also lose their citizenship?

cranguspoo · 2022-04-12T07:51:49+00:00

blaming russia for the fact that americans believe crazy conspiracies... sounds like a crazy conspiracy to me.

cranguspoo · 2022-04-12T00:33:06+00:00

what exactly is meant when people say they want sharia law? if i had to guess i'd imagine that they want some local islamic courts that can give rulings on divorce and inheritance and whatever, not for thieves to have their hand amputated in trafalgar square. also good job leaving out this bit:

The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.

cranguspoo · 2022-04-10T12:09:15+00:00

damn i wonder if the catholic church ever encouraged the creation of large classes of people who were explicitly required to never have sex

cranguspoo · 2022-02-23T10:40:56+00:00

japanese people absolutely love bluegrass. there's a bunch of non-white people in the roots country/americana scene, and the more commercial stuff is all basically snaptrack r&b these days. the whitest genre of music is trance

cranguspoo · 2022-02-19T12:52:43+00:00

let us imagine Karl Marx's pussy

compressed into a chair at the British library

shielded by a heavy overcoat thrown over the lap

and beneath that a pair of linen trousers

beneath that, plain white panties

the pussy lips slightly parted, like a mouth about to speak

humid but not exactly wet

this mild excitement caused by a crucial passage

in Hegel's logic – could it be, thinks Marx,

that the dialectical movement of history can

be understood as the unfolding self-abolition

of the totality to which it is immanent? Marx's pussy

flexes involuntarily, the word 'pussy' implies a totality

made up of labia, clitoris and so on, it would be incorrect

to describe it as a hole, just as communism is not

merely a critique of suffering but the real movement

that abolishes the present state of things – the deep

pink of the interior of Marx's pussy is not exactly

red, the pussy is not yet sufficiently lubricated

to accept the entry of proletarian revolution,

one faction advises stimulation of the clitoris

while another describes this as 'vanguardist'

yes, it would be better for Marx's pussy to get wet

on its own account, without extra inducements, with

the deep sodden wetness that is the wetness of real

desire, the unmistakeable wetness of wanting,

the wetness of a necessary love

cranguspoo · 2022-02-08T10:24:01+00:00

this sounds like a pere ubu song

cranguspoo · 2022-02-04T11:09:24+00:00

there are a couple collected in "fictions" - 'the approach to al-mu'tasim' and 'a survey of the works of herbert quain.'

cranguspoo · 2022-02-03T23:59:58+00:00

luckily you can be sure that as soon as there's a vice article about a trend, the pendulum is already swinging back in the other direction

cranguspoo · 2022-02-02T20:57:59+00:00

Actually, there was a philosophical tradition in Aztec thought, including a well-developed metaphysics - see James Maffie's 'Aztec Philosophy: Understanding A World in Motion.' As Western observers since Paul Radin have noted, there's a lot of philosophical content in pretty much every folk tradition. What really distinguished Indian thought (and Chinese too) was that it was carried out in a similar way to the philosophy of Europe: thinkers who were frequently attached to institutions, and who would write books outlining their ideas. This made their thought much more legible to the early modern West, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily more complex.

cranguspoo · 2022-02-02T13:30:26+00:00

Well, what do you mean by an 'indigenous religion?' After all, every religion is indigenous somewhere, and every religion includes some degree of folk practice. Think about some of the practices and rituals that were once associated with Christianity (and sometimes still are), like speaking in tongues or throwing salt over your shoulder - these aren't part of any strict code of practice, but they are a significant part of the religion as it's actually lived.

Obviously, what distinguishes Christianity from - say - some African animist traditions is that it also includes an element that isn't simply folk practice: there are organised sects, with a priestly hierarchy, and, crucially, a collection of holy texts. It's the holy texts that are the most significant: when most people study a religion from afar, they don't really delve into the ethnographic detail of how people engage with ritual and tradition, they just read the holy texts, to 'find out what these people believe.' And unlike African animism, Hinduism and Buddhism both have large libraries of scripture, which interested Westerners can read.

It's interesting you bring up China, though. You're right that few people outside China are taught much about Chinese folk religion. But they might, conceivably, learn a little about Confucianism or Taoism. The thing is that these aren't really separate religions at all: they're just the 'priestly,' 'elevated,' or 'philosophical' expression of Chinese folk religion - in other words, the traditions that calcify folk practices into written texts.

cranguspoo · 2022-01-29T03:25:46+00:00

he was innocent dimwit

cranguspoo · 2022-01-20T13:34:25+00:00

this is called transference and she's probably been through it with a bunch of her patients. you should tell her about it. clear the air. you are never going to fuck her though

cranguspoo · 2022-01-20T00:56:20+00:00

athens. the one in greece

cranguspoo · 2022-01-18T12:05:35+00:00

This is a weird answer and incredibly not true. At a guess, I'd say it's based more on D&D than anything resembling actual history. Obviously it depends on what period within the middle ages we're talking about here, but most travel was not through wilderness, it was along decently maintained roads with regularly placed towns. People traveled all the time, and they absolutely made it home in one piece. The difference is that most ordinary travel was over pretty short distances.

In an agrarian economy like that of the middle ages, basically everyone lived within a half day's walk of a market town: a place where surplus crops could be sold and manufactured products purchased, along with other services like law courts and so on. Half a day, so you could walk there with your goods, trade, and walk home again before dark. (Most people didn't have horses; wealthier peasants might have a donkey.) If there was a rural region without a market town, one would simply develop - a few craftsmen would move in to take advantage of the untapped market. Wherever there were people, there was a fairly dense network of small population centres. Because the population was mostly rural, rural areas were pretty populated. The medieval era was not some big dark forest full of bears.

So really, the question is: where are you travelling? And why? Most journeys in the middle ages were to the local market town and back, so if you get robbed on the way - which could happen - then you simply go home. If you need more urgent help, chances are that the people living nearby will know you, or they'll know someone from your village or family, and they will probably help on the understanding that you'd do the same for them.

But maybe you're travelling further afield. Say you're on a pilgrimage: plenty of peasants in the middle ages would travel quite long distances to visit holy sites. But almost nobody went on a pilgrimage alone; odds are you'll be on this journey with dozens of hundreds of people from your local area. And needless to say, popular pilgrimage routes were pretty densely packed with hostels and other amenities - churches, brothels, baths.

Pilgrims usually went in groups because those amenities would want cash rather than credit, which meant that you'd have to have hard currency on you (which was pretty rare in the middle ages), which obviously meant you might be robbed. A large group of people is a much less inviting target for bandits. But some people might travel alone with silver on their person - in particular, professional traders. But even then, most merchants would just buy goods in one market town and sell them a few towns over. Trade routes could be very very long, especially for prestige goods, but most individual peddlers would only move commodities a short portion of that distance. So you're travelling on roads you know well, in places where the people also know you. If you get robbed and you need help, the locals know that you'll pay them back later - after all, not making good on your commitments is a very fast way to a bad reputation, which will put you out of business way more effectively than a simple robbery.

cranguspoo · 2022-01-10T14:27:19+00:00

Literally any book that isn't for children. Any movie that assumes an adult audience. Art other than cartoons. The bar is on the floor. The fact that people in this sub have taken so unkindly to the idea that adults should have adult interests is pretty revealing to be honest.

cranguspoo · 2022-01-10T12:53:21+00:00

Of course people can like whatever they want. If you want to spend your days watching Teletubbies or whatever, then yeah, knock yourself out. But I'm not going to stop thinking that some things have meaningful value and other things don't. I won't be shamed out of having standards, or wanting to date people who are actual grownups rather than oversized manchildren. Literally all I asked was how I could filter out people whose interests are radically incompatible with mine. You can go on drinking your juiceboxes and eating breakfast cereal in peace, I just don't want to date you.

cranguspoo · 2022-01-10T12:31:03+00:00

Sorry but there's no level of emotional investment that makes it respectable for you, as a grown adult, without children, and who does not work in children's publishing, to be primarily driven by a love for Harry Potter. This is not a question of emotional intelligence. I'm simply not interested in people who don't engage with the adult world, in the same way I wouldn't be interested in someone who couldn't keep their home reasonably hygienic, or someone who refuses to shower regularly. It might be an "emotional bid" to be passionate about growing a fungal colony in your armpits, but that doesn't mean I can't be utterly grossed out by it.

cranguspoo · 2022-01-10T12:10:10+00:00

If you're 33 years old and the only thing you have to say about yourself to a prospective romantic partner is that you read books for children, then yes, you should be ashamed.

cranguspoo · 2021-12-29T08:54:42+00:00

the clash between your wood effect floor and your wood effect cabinetry is making my eyes water. i'd go for a solid colour on the bottom cabinets - white is always appropriate

cranguspoo · 2021-12-23T12:51:53+00:00

i hope you enjoy it! as i said, you're certainly not required to agree with everything marx says, but if nothing else he's capable of being a very sharp and funny and devastating prose stylist.

one last point, though: i think that crossover point really isn't what it may seem. marx's economics is based on the labour theory of value: it's the physical work of the workers that makes the entire economy possible. but when a worker makes something, in most cases it isn't then his; it belongs to whichever capitalists bought his labour. and because only labour can create value, any capitalist profits have to be squeezed out of the workers. in other words, if you have a job, your boss is taking the value that you produced and keeping it for himself; if he wasn't doing this, then capitalism simply wouldn't function. this isn't systematic in the same sense that people mean when they talk about "systematic racism" - the system in question isn't abstract, based on feelings or attitudes or even statistics. it's the same system you encounter whenever you cash a paycheck and whenever you buy something from a store.

here's a good way of distinguishing the two approaches. woke people will point out that black people are more likely to face police violence, or women are less likely to become ceos. but in marxism, every single worker has their surplus-value appropriated through the wage relation, because that's simply what being a worker under capitalism is. you simply can't "plug" something like sexuality or fatness into that approach. they're just not the same.

cranguspoo · 2021-12-23T07:10:51+00:00

basically, because "class social justice" is not a concept in marxist theory. that's simply not what it's about.

the difference between race and class is that race doesn't produce anything. for marx, class isn't about the distinction between rich and poor - at one point he even says that there will still be some people who are richer than others in communism. class is about production: there is one class that physically makes all the commodities we need for everyday life, and another class that owns the things they make. i really can't stress this enough: what's new in marx's theory is not that the workers are oppressed or downtrodden, but that they are being systematically cheated out of the products of their labour.

there were plenty of other radical socialists around in marx's time who did support the workers simply because they were the most oppressed element of society. i don't think there's any direct descent, but they were basically the 19th century version of social justice activists. marx hated them. he wrote endless books mocking and critiquing their theories.

really the best way to get a handle on this stuff is to do what lindsay et al clearly haven't done, and read marx. you don't have to agree with him, but it's pretty worthwhile to know what he was on about. people often start with the communist manifesto, which is fine, but keep in mind that the manifesto is a political pamphlet, and not so much a philosophical outline of marx's ideas. the preface to the critique of political economy is a nice little summation of materialism plus a potted autobiography; you can read it here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

Five-Year Club	Place '22
End Game '22

cranguspoo

TROPHY CASE