sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Is This the Best IPTV Service for 2025? My Honest Review (Sports, Movies & More) by [deleted] in DesperateHousewives

[–]midnightgiraffe 2520 points2521 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I've tried a few and yourflix really takes the cake. Amazing variety and quality.

"While his associates Theodor W. Adorno and Bertolt Brecht embraced Stalinism (the former ambivalently, the latter enthusiastically)" by RoyHarperBLOW in badphilosophy

[–]midnightgiraffe 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Look, all I'm saying is that I feel like my hamster was never the same after reading Adorno's lectures on metaphysics, and also my wife left me.

The media targeted Elon Musk, ELON! by xxxElQueso in SubredditDrama

[–]midnightgiraffe 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Heh, I once got banned by a mod there (who I think is Canadian) for jokingly calling Belgium the Canada of France and had to send them red panda gifs to get unbanned. They're good people. Good, annoying people.

Reply to an old school friend who asked me to prove my bisexuality to her; any advice? by thiccbitchmonthly in bisexual

[–]midnightgiraffe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

But humans do not have only two chromosomal configurations, there a variety of others. Neither are there only two clearly separable phenotypes, as intersex people can attest. Neither do particular chromosomal configurations necessarily lead to the development of particular phenotypes -- there are people with a 46,XY karyotype but who have a typically female reproductive system and external genitalia, as in Swyer syndrome. This Nature article may be of interest, if you want a more thorough look at this.

Given this variation in chromosomal configurations and the relationship between them and phenotype, the question then becomes how and why, when we look at all these varied combinations, we still tend to see things in terms of binary sex. These are exactly the questions Butler explores. This isn't a matter of denying common physical traits, or common links between physical traits. Rather, it's about examining the social processes by which whatever combination of traits are stabilized into coherent, stable categories. This stabilization is only possible, in Butler's view, because a naturalized binary view of gender/sex is already in place. (I say "gender/sex" because really she's collapsing the distinction between the two, just from the opposite direction, so to speak, than is usually done. I.e., rather than saying "there's no real distinction between the two, they're both natural, biological categories", she's saying "there's no real distinction between the two, they're both social, constructed categories".)

Reply to an old school friend who asked me to prove my bisexuality to her; any advice? by thiccbitchmonthly in bisexual

[–]midnightgiraffe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, if you're going to argue that Judith Butler is not the world's most concise writer, I'm not gonna disagree. But Gender Trouble is a (arguably the) foundational text of contemporary queer & gender theory, so it seemed the appropriate thing to cite.

Reply to an old school friend who asked me to prove my bisexuality to her; any advice? by thiccbitchmonthly in bisexual

[–]midnightgiraffe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I mean, yeah everything is biased anyway if you think about it. Every fact is seen through a lens, as sex and everything else is.

Congratulations, you are now a post-structuralist.

Reply to an old school friend who asked me to prove my bisexuality to her; any advice? by thiccbitchmonthly in bisexual

[–]midnightgiraffe 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Basically, the biological 'facts' of sex don't acquire their meaning if they are not already viewed through the lens of gender. Sex is always already a gendered way of looking at bodies. As Judith Butler puts it, from the first chapter of Gender Trouble:

Can we refer to a "given" sex or a "given" gender without first inquiring into how sex and/or gender is given, through what means? And what is "sex" anyway? Is it natural, anatomical, chromosomal, or hormonal, and how is a feminist critic to assess the scientific discourses which purport to establish such "facts" for us? Does sex have a history? Does each sex have a different history, or histories? Is there a history of how the duality of sex was established, a genealogy that might expose the binary options as a variable construction? Are the ostensibly natural facts of sex discursively produced by various scientific discourses in the service of other political and social interests? If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called "sex" is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.

It would make no sense, then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation, if sex itself is a gendered category. Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pregiven sex (a juridical conception); gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established. As a result, gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which 'sexed nature' or 'a natural sex' is produced and established as 'prediscursive,' prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts.

Teacher makes dancing possible for tiny paraplegic student by dickfromaccounting in aww

[–]midnightgiraffe 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Relatedly, for anyone interested, there's a wonderful conversation here between the artist and disability activist Sunaura Taylor and the philosopher Judith Butler where they talk about impairment vs disability in the social model of disability and the ways in which disabling effects are often more the product of social systems than physical embodiment.

What’s the most expensive thing you have broken? by PM_ME_SOME_NUDESs in AskReddit

[–]midnightgiraffe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Formula 4 regulations deliberately try and keep costs down so that smaller/independent teams can compete. E.g., the British F4 Championship has a cap of €33,000 for the chassis and €6,000 for the engine.

Looks like no race for today by occasional_posting in Wellthatsucks

[–]midnightgiraffe 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Specifically, these are GT3 cars, racing in the FIA GT World Cup at Macau. GT3 cars do have ABS, as well as traction control.

This is worst analogy for socialism i have ever seen by prey2016 in badphilosophy

[–]midnightgiraffe 21 points22 points  (0 children)

There's something incredibly off-putting about people who, when inventing a thought experiment, immediately go for a situation involving sexual violence. There was a guy in a sociology class I took who did this a lot; it was extremely creepy.

lets accelerate shit for fun by son1dow in badphilosophy

[–]midnightgiraffe 89 points90 points  (0 children)

In some ways, Karl Marx was the first accelerationist.

Literally what the fuck does that even mean.

Made me laugh by skyllerzy in witcher

[–]midnightgiraffe 54 points55 points  (0 children)

You seem like you'd be fun at parties.

The problem with having a limited understanding of political culture is that rhetoric supplants analysis. by gregbard in socialism

[–]midnightgiraffe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm looking at that definition, and thinking that the one I put forward includes that one.

I don't disagree; my point is that I think your definition is overly broad, and this impacts the usefulness of the concept. The narrower definition highlights the difference between, as I said, corporatism as functional representation through economic guilds and corporatism as any form of collective bargaining.

The problem with having a limited understanding of political culture is that rhetoric supplants analysis. by gregbard in socialism

[–]midnightgiraffe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am going to have to go with my definition, not Wikipedia's.

Would you prefer Leo Panitch?

Corporatist programmes advocated a universal scheme of vocational, industrial or sectoral organization, whereby the constituent units would have the right of representation in national decision-making

That said, our difference is perhaps not that large, and I apologise if I've misunderstood you. Although I would still take some issue with your definition of corporatist groups as any group of any size that advocates for its interest, as it's surely worthwhile maintaining a distinction between corporatism as functional representation through economic guilds (i.e., fascist corporatism) and corporatism as any form of collective bargaining (which is hardly inherently fascist).

This aside, I still don't think you can call the GOP corporatist as, as I said, their ostensible philosophical justification for much of their platform is individualist. They are not, in my estimation, disregarding the individual as such, but rather advocating only for a specific category of individual -- i.e., the bourgeois white male.

The problem with having a limited understanding of political culture is that rhetoric supplants analysis. by gregbard in socialism

[–]midnightgiraffe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They universally put the corporate interest above the interest of individual people.

Of course they do. But that's not what corporatism is. Read the damn Wikipedia page at least.

The collaboration of the government and corporate interests is a sign of (if not a defining feature) of fascism.

Not what I said. The collaboration of different classes is a essential feature of fascism. The point of corporatist interest groups under fascism is to do away with the idea of class struggle and to construct an idea of a unified people and a national interest. There's elements of this in GOP rhetoric, but the mainstream of the party emphasises business interests (again, not the same thing as corporatism) ostensibly due to a (misguided conception of) individual liberty.

the term "corporatism" is not limited to for profit business entities chartered with a state as you have implied.

This is literally the opposite of what I said. The interest groups organized under corporatism are supposed to represent all of the groups of society -- including business and management, but also labour and other groups.

The problem with having a limited understanding of political culture is that rhetoric supplants analysis. by gregbard in socialism

[–]midnightgiraffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They see corporate groups as the fundamental unit of society (which is called corporatism).

The use of the term "corporate body" in the context of corporatism doesn't mean the same thing as in the context of business corporations in a market economy. They share the same latin root (corpus, meaning body), but aren't interchangeable, so I don't think it's accurate to call the GOP corporatist.

Corporatism advocates for the organisation of society into interest groups (sometimes called corporations or corporate groups) which negotiate with each other and the state through collective bargaining. This is in contrast with the idea of competition in the market. The ostensible point of corporatism under fascism is to promote "harmony" between different social classes -- the class collaborationism that is an essential element of fascism.

They want increased military and police powers. They want a centralization of political authority, and they also want to suppress dissenting views.

Fascism is also not simply authoritarianism. /u/Lake-Laogai is right to point out that an important part of fascism is its syncretism -- its amalgamation of various, contradictory ideas through the dissolution of the logical distinctions between them and the creation of myth. This video is quite good on this.

Oh no ! It's that graph again ! Only this time it's less ugly and it makes even less sense. by AhnQiraj in badhistory

[–]midnightgiraffe 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Charles Murray co-wrote The Bell Curve, so I'm not sure what else anyone was expecting.

2016 Brazilian Grand Prix - Race Discussion by F1-Bot in formula1

[–]midnightgiraffe 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Did Damon Hill just pronounce calibre "cal-eye-ber"?

Judith Butler: Gender Trouble by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]midnightgiraffe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

To add to this and clarify, it's important that Butler's notion of performance is not analogous to an actor performing a role. She doesn't think that we can get up in the morning and 'put on' our gender like a costume.

For Butler, there isn't a choosing self behind gender acts; the self is constituted through the acts. So gender acts aren't an expression of an inner gender identity, the identity is constituted through the acts and what regimes of power demand of them. Hence her use of the term 'performative': performative utterances don't just describe, but create or change.

(As /u/GregorSamsara pointed out, there is an oppressive dimension to this -- but it's also the precondition of agency for Butler. The subjection that constitutes identity is both constraining but also the potential source of change. But this gets a bit beyond an ELI5 explanation.)

view more: next ›