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Welcome to...The Desert of the ...

The Assignment

Monitor your world for subtle ideologies. Write about them, roughly 250 words (which is about one page, times new roman font, 12pt, double spaced)
Then, in-class next week, I'll be asking you this question about one or more of those that you wrote about:
- Who benefited from that ideology's creation, and who benefits now with the continuaton of that ideology?

What is a unspoken, universal rule all males know?
- More subtle: That there are rules for sets of people, even if framed as humorous.
Countering that making mistakes is bad
- More subtle: the superior importance of perfect process.
Longing for the past/regretting the present.
- When life wasn't harsh
- Not hindsight is 20/20, but that past is a narrative that can be controlled and given meaningfullness
Stay in your lane
Forcing people to stay the same
- Control? stability? reflective of personal identity (if you can change, oh no, what about me, who I am, or might I be; will I still be able to control/play you if you are not so knowable?) [Connect with #6
NGL...well, I didn't think you would until you put the word "lie" in my head
Won't believe what happened... then why tell me
Simulated reality narrative of anti-empathy
Human goodness?
News Supercut

(Doctors do not look for the disease, they look for symptoms which indicate the appropriate disease.)

"Everything you are able to do should be more useful to other people than to yourself "
Those three phrases are the rallying cries of the exploited attempting to make others exploitable.
No. A skill. An activity. Learning. All of those do NOT need to be useful to anyone but you. If you enjoy something, if it enhances what in life YOU want enhanced (and hurts no others), you are morally free and to enjoin in that skill, or activity, or learning.
"A tool is practical; are you a tool?"
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

"I have no idea what I am talking about, so I am just gonna say 'Back in the Day' to convince you"
Means the person is now about to cite some alleged historical example as a means of persuading you of the legitimacy of their point; however, they don't actually know when in history (or really, if in history) such an event occurred; the event just allegedly occurred "back on some day in some past time and I don't really know when, or if, because I'm not intellectually curious enough to actually research history; all I want right now is for you to agree with me based on my 'proof'"
When someone says "back in the day" immediately interrupt and say "Excuse me, when was that?"

"I am the judge of who is the moral authority here, and it's me"
This is a pure power play that assumes the person's authority over the subject and over you. By saying "respect," the person means that "you must kow-tow, bend down, lower yourself before me because I am more powerful than you." The utterance of the word "respect" is to say "I am now going to be the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong, moral or immoral, and thus you must be subservient to me"
If the person does not mean "respect" in the aforementioned way; the person should be easily able to say the same statement but without using the word respect
When someone says "respect" immediately ask for a re-phrase without the word respect.
- You need to respect this car I gave you.
- You need to properly maintain this car I gave you.

"I am the judge of morals, and my morals are based on how I feel, and immoral people or acts are less than human."
Often the term is used in "moral" arguments to suggest something that doesn't match that person's moral view. By using a visceral term such as disgusting, they are able to remove the discussion from the realm of discussion and into the realm of visceral body experience to the point of being anti-intellectual. If you think of a food that makes you immediately recoil (due to smell or sight), you'll realize that no depth of intellection will grant you acceptance of that food; at best, you'll be able to fake a stoicism. The person using the word disgusting in relation to moral views aims for you to have their same gut response.
People who utilize this word in relation to morals often use the word in relation to anything else they dislike.