BC SOCIETY
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

The phrase that popped into my head was: we raised an army to fight nothing

 And when I say "we" I mean white Christian patriarchal American culture. The same kind of martial "manhood" culture that Kristen Kobes du Mez talks about in Jesus and John Wayne.
In that book she's talking about the specifically evangelical version of the culture, but one of the things that's happened there, is that mainstream patriarchal culture is often pretty much identical to evangelical patriarchal culture with the serial numbers (slightly) filed off
But that book helped clarify what the leaders of that movement thought they were doing, and they thought they were raising warriors, men who would fight for God and Country (& the honor of pure womanhood) in the coming war.

WHAT coming war? Never mind. THE war. You know.
THE war is against communism, or against terrorists, or against Muslims, or against Foreign Devils of Unspecified Origin.

It's against Urban Violence and Liberal Traitors and Lizard People, the apocalyptic fighting in the street which is surely coming.
There was this thread a while back, I don't remember who wrote it, but was about how a certain kind of man loves to shout to the heavens how he's willing to lay down his life for his kids! Except he won't wear a goddamn mask to the grocery store.
But part of that is because the same people who raised him to be a WARRIOR also told him not to wear a mask. I mean, if they told him TO wear a mask, he'd do it, he's pretty obedient to the "proper" authorities.
And if you look at the men who were leaders in this movement, the ones IN the book Jesus and John Wayne, they were obviously, in their own twisted way, entirely sincere.
They really did believe that the strength of our nation rests on the strength of a nation full of a certain kind of man leading all their little nuclear families in a certain kind of way, and that everything from godless communism to liberal pansyism was a serious threat.
They really believed that unless our nation was led by that certain kind of man at every level, it would crumble from within and then get attacked from without.
The church had been constantly refining the image of True God's Manly Man over the past 40 years, always contrasting him against a devil (a foreigner, an urban "thug") or a sissy (a "sensitive man" or a "pajama boy" or what have you)
Within the church, there have been debates and conflicts, and after every conflict (should the Good Christian Man be a "tender warrior" or is "tender" too sissy?) the ideal of the Good Christian Man emerged as MORE of a toxic asshole (yes, "tender" is FAR too sissy!)
The Real Man loves guns and hates feelings! Because he is a warrior! He must be always at the ready! Ready to fight!

Fight what, though?

Fight who?

Fight where?

Where is this battlefront that we need all these warriors for?
Most of our real problems, from global warming to the pandemic, are not problems that can be solved by shooting at something. A gun will not feed your family (unless you have a very rural lifestyle). A gun won't get you a job (unless you make guns or something, I guess)
There's almost no threat these "warriors" actually face, for themselves or their families, that can actually be solved in any practical way by, uh, warrioring.
So they invent battlefields.
Manufacture places where they can waddle down the street draped with guns and believe, deep in their hearts, that they are truly warriors for God and Country and the Honor of Pure Womanhood.
In a way, it makes sense. They were TOLD they were needed to fight a war, after all. Then the war never came.
These men were honed as weapons -- that's what they think they are, and that's what the men who created thought they would be -- but the men who created them didn't know what they were doing either. They created bad weapons for a foul purpose.
They haven't been "honed" in the way they like to imagine, like Batman at the end of a training montage or whatever. They're not hard and fast and highly skilled.
In this culture, being "honed" as a warrior means that's your only mode of interaction & only avenue for self-worth. You are a warrior, so your only emotions are rage and lust. You are at war, so everyone is either on your side, or fighting for the enemy.
So you get a bunch of guys and you train them to be "warriors" and you give them nothing real to fight, they become like an autoimmune disease & start to attack their host. Their own country, their own communities. Family, friends, fellow citizens.
It explodes into racism, white nationalism, Trumpism, murderous misogyny, mass shooters, think of any extravagantly terrible thing a white man has done in the past 40 years and you can trace it back to this culture, of being a warrior for nothing.
That's where purely religious evangelical Trumpism and "warrior culture" white male rage Trumpism collide, with this culture that always had a hole in the center of it, that Trump was the first person to deliberately try to fill.
White evangelicals spent years becoming more and more cultlike, but they were a cult with no cult leader -- until Donald Trump. https://t.co/poqU8hpWeM
And white "warrior" manhood spent years being schooled as soldiers with nothing to fight, a war that didn't exist until Trump came along and said, "this is it, I am the war, fight for me"
They're going to lose, although who knows how much damage they'll manage to do before they do.

But, unless we change our culture in a significant way, those guys will still be out there. Warriors for nothing, just LOOKING to pick a fight with somebody.
I guess that's the end of the thread. Happy Mardi Gras Season everybody, and here's to a better future.
Addendum: that thread I was looking for earlier. https://t.co/O2i2mFWzDq
Addendum: also, this is why I say they will lose. 10,000 people is a lot of people! But this is people coming from all over. BLM could get 10,000 people to show up *in Seattle alone*
https://t.co/Mr45T7m7tL
I'm sorry, I was underselling it. 60,000 people in Seattle alone. And that wasn't even everybody! @paulcarp13 and I had cold symptoms and stayed away.
https://t.co/BI5WhTnpNW

More from Society

Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

(end)
SOCIETY
Kate Julian
Kate Julian
@katejulian
1/ Something strange is happening with people’s sex lives. 20-somethings are having sex later and less frequently than previous generations. I spent several months digging into this for @theatlantic. https://t.co/5ehzmWY9wi


2/ This phenomenon—I’m calling it a Sex Recession—really surprised me. It seemed improbable in the age of Tinder, digital porn, and attitudes that are generally permissive and sex-positive.

3/ What’s happening isn’t exclusively American: Similar trends are being observed in other countries, including Japan, Australia, the U.K., Finland, and the Netherlands.


4/ One cause is obvious: Adults under 35 are less likely to be living with a partner than in recent decades, and more likely to be living with their parents—which, it’s safe to say, isn’t great for one’s sex life.

5/ But I also found other explanations, each with profound implications. The first, unsurprisingly, has to do with internet enticements. Netflix and other online entertainment may be substituting for sex.
SOCIETY
Advertisement
Brianne Kimmel \U0001f4ac
Brianne Kimmel 💬...
@briannekimmel
Shocking fact: Millennial men are less likely to work than any other age and gender demographic in America.

Today, there are 500,000 young men missing from the U.S. workforce.

Research suggests video games & improved leisure tech plays a role in the problem. 👇 Thread:

Following the 2007 to 2009 recession, 25 to 34 year old men exited high school with fewer middle-skill job opportunities than years prior.

During this time, we saw an increased number of men living with parents & choosing unemployment over lower paying jobs.

It's estimated that 24M millennials live w/ their parents.

1 in 4 living in their parents’ home neither go to school nor work.

What's more surprising? 9 in 10 who lived with their parents a year ago are still living there w/ no plans to leave.

Economists are calling millennial men a lost generation.

According to economist David Dorn:

“If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point.”

Economists suggest this choosiness is a generational trait.

Forbes interview w/ a high school educated man:

"I’m very quick to get frustrated when people refuse to pay me what I’m worth."
“People feel that they have choice nowadays, and they
SOCIETY
Celeste Williams
Celeste Williams
@CelesteforAR
As a mom of 4 I have spent a significant amount of my time discussing the virtues of truth telling and the consequences of telling a lie, at this moment one of the kids is writing me an essay on using self-control to ensure her words are true.

On Monday @TuckerCarlson said, “The Green New Deal has come, believe it or not, to the state of Texas. How’s it working out so far?”

First GND is a resolution, second it hasn’t even been past, 3rd, we’re talking about TX. This is objectively false.

He went on to say, “Not a single major American city is prettier or more functional than it was in 1950. The parks that previous generations so lovingly built are filled with vagrants and junkies."

"The monuments they constructed are covered with spray paint. Public transportation is a disgrace. It’s filthy, the streets are dangerous. Are you really surprised that Cory Booker was once the mayor of Newark, New Jersey? You shouldn’t be.”

Wow, that’s a lot to unpack and has little to do with the lack of power in TX. For myself I believe the best is yet to come. I see the dog whistles there, and it’s an excellent example of racist demagoguery and a sure path towards the destruction of our democracy.
SOCIETY
Miss iCy Cold
Miss iCy Cold
@Credible_Intel
OK winger wonderland story time boys & girls.

1. Sleet stops, it's warming up, neighbor decides get out & drive, probably after seeing some truck drive down our residential road (4-wheel drive). Neighbor has new SUV push button start, 2-wheel drive, which is NOT THE SAME THING.

2. So anyway, they back out of their garage & then pull forward down their driveway. The driveway is flat, but it's also a really really long driveway that goes from the back of the house down the side of the house. This will be important later.

3. They make it down the driveway just fine, so now super confident this will go well.

They pull out on our little residential road and start driving.

Mother nature is laughing her ass off right about now.

4. I should mention the roads through our little subdivision don't have curbs or sewers. We're basically out in the country so they just slope roads so the run-off goes into a ditch at the side of the road.

5. So anyways, their SUV starts to slightly fishtail. They haven't gone far at this point. So, they stop, and the SUV, although stopped, just ever so slowly slides to the side of the road and ends up half way in the ditch & almost tipped over.
SOCIETY

You May Also Like

Enigma
Enigma
@ainittomai
The Eye of Horus. 1/*


I believe that @ripple_crippler and @looP_rM311_7211 are the same person. I know, nobody believes that. 2/*

Today I want to prove that Mr Pool smile faces mean XRP and price increase. In Ripple_Crippler, previous to Mr Pool existence, smile faces were frequent. They were very similar to the ones Mr Pool posts. The eyes also were usually a couple of "x", in fact, XRP logo. 3/*


The smile XRP-eyed face also appears related to the Moon. XRP going to the Moon. 4/*


And smile XRP-eyed faces also appear related to Egypt. In particular, to the Eye of Horus. https://t.co/i4rRzuQ0gZ 5/*
CULTURE
Kentaur Wolf2
Kentaur Wolf2
@fragma_dia2
Хајде да направимо мали осврт на случај Мика Алексић .

Алексић је жртва енглеске освете преко Оливере Иванчић .
Мика је одбио да снима филм о блаћењу Срба и мењању историје Срба , иза целокупног пројекта стоји дипломатски кор Британаца у Београду и Оливера Иванчић


Оливера Илинчић је иначе мајка једне од његових ученица .
Која је претила да ће се осветити .

Мика се налази у притвору због наводних оптужби глумице Милене Радуловић да ју је наводно силовао човек од 70 година , са три бајпаса и извађеном простатом пре пет година

Иста персона је и обезбедила финансије за филм преко Беча а филм је требао да се бави животом Десанке Максимовић .
А сетите се и ко је иницирао да се Десанка Максимовић избаци из уџбеника и школства у Србији .

И тако уместо романсиране верзије Десанке Максимовић утицај Британаца

У Србији стави на пиједестал и да се Британци у Србији позитивно афирмишу како би се на тај начин усмерила будућност али и мењао ток историје .
Зато Мика са гнушањем и поносно одбија да снима такав филм тада и почиње хајка и претње која потиче из британских дипломатских кругова

Најгоре од свега што је то Мика Алексић изговорио у присуству високих дипломатских представника , а одговор је био да се све неће на томе завршити и да ће га то скупо коштати .
Нашта им је Мика рекао да је он свој живот проживео и да могу да му раде шта хоће и силно их извређао
ALL
Advertisement
Temitope Badejo
Temitope Badejo
@TemitopeBadejo1
It's another day to expose Peter Alabi @pastorpeealabi of @HoFChurchNG & @ChristTribe. More victims have reached out to us. Unknown to many, Peter Alabi is actually an unrepentant serial sexual abuser. We know that he's been lying that he has repented and that the stories...

... we have put out so far are only with reference to what happened years back. But we can also confirm that he continued to prey on more victims even after he left Ife in 2016. We also know that Peter Alabi made serious attempts to sleep with some ladies during the lockdown...

A victim, who was one of those Peter Alabi tried to sleep with during the Covid-19 lockdown has shared with us some of the chats between her and Peter Alabi, which were initiated by Peter Alabi. According to the victim, when Peter Alabi's intentions became obvious, she decided...

... to play along and act like she was in concert with him. This eventually made Peter Alabi to reveal his covert intentions to sleep with her. The chat began on Instagram in March 2020 and continued on WhatsApp till June 2020. We will be sharing screenshots of the Instagram...

... chats below. Later today, we will share the WhatsApp chats which are more revealing and expository. Please see the screenshots of the Instagram chats between Peter Alabi (peterayoalabi) and the victim below👇🏾 @oauchristians @HoFChurchNG @peterayoalabi @funlola_alabi
CRIME , PASTOR , ALL
SK
SK
@sk_diary1
#sculpture #story -

Chandesha-Anugraha Murti - One of the Sculpture in Brihadeshwara Temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram - built by Raja Rajendra Chola I

This Sculpture depicts Bhagwan Shiva along with Devi Paravathi blessing Chandeshwara - one of the 63 Nayanmars.

#Thread


Chandeshwara/Chandikeshwara is regarded as custodian of Shiva Temple's wealth&most of Shiva temples in South India has separate sannathi for him.

His bhakti for Bhagwan Shiva elevated him as one of foremost among Nayanmars.
He gave importance to Shiva Pooja&protection of cows.


There are series of paintings, illustrating the #story of Chandikeshwar in the premises of
Sri Sathiyagireeswarar #Temple at Seinganur,near Kumbakonam,TN

Chandikeshwara's birth name
is Vichara sarman.He was born in the village of Senganur on the banks of River Manni.


His Parent names were Yajnathatan and Pavithrai.
Vichara Sarman was a gifted child and he learnt Vedas and Agamas at a very young age.
He was very devout and would always think about Bhagwan Shiva.

One day he saw a cowherd man brutally assaulting a cow,Vichara Sarman could not tolerate this. He spoke to cowherd: ‘Do you not know that the cow is worshipful & divine? All gods & Devas reside in https://t.co/ElLcI5ppsK it is our duty to protect cows &we should not to harm them.
ALL
Simon DeDeo
Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo
So, today, for the first time in 25 (!) years of Apple, I downgraded. From the 2016 MacBook Pro to my 2013, which I had kept in a drawer...


It was pretty simple to do—Apple Time Machine backups let me do it with one click.

That first tweet captures, in two pictures, how badly Apple has “lost the plot” (to quote @wylieprof). On the right is the Apple MagSafe adapter, from 2013. On the left, what I had “upgraded” to.

Thanks, Apple! I really was nostalgic for worrying about yanking my computer off the table.

Oh and I really appreciated not knowing if my computer was charging. What was great was the little whoop sound you used, so that the speaker before me could be informed I was charging my laptop.
TECH