Polish/Canadian, 70, currently in Ecuador. Fanfic, fanart, CDrama, KDrama, several Chinese and Korean actors who should have an Oscar or two, books, movies, animals, art, living abroad, rants
I naively thought that this is OBVIOUS to, let's say, 95% of people?
I'm gonna say it.
It's unhinged to assume that someone's taste in fiction equates to what they believe is moral or good, or is something they want to see or experience in real life.
That is a bonkers assumption to make.
I'm tired of humoring people with long arguments about it when the simple fact is it is a totally fucking absurd reach to accuse someone who enjoys something in fiction of being in favor of it in real life.
I'm tired of pretending like this is a legitimate position to hold-- that they should be afraid of fiction's dire influence on a reader's moral decay or that it's a sign of what the author secretly wants for realsies in real life.
As a person living in a Communist country until the age of 38, couldn't agree more. I see Americans laughing at the North Korean (forced? real?) adoration of the Supreme Leader. Watch out what you are laughing at.
“Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule. Why not a dictator who will get things done? I lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were fresh. I have visited regions in Ukraine where Russia imposed its occupation regime. I have spent decades reading testimonies of people who lived under Nazi or Stalinist rule. I have seen death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under authoritarian regimes, including political prisoners and survivors of torture. Some of the people I trusted most have been assassinated. So I think that there is an answer to this question. Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman. He won’t. In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents. We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing. We get abused and we get used to it.”
If all my feelings were "valid" I'd be dead like a doorknob. Thankfully, I realized on time that it's the heartbreak and depression speaking, and got help.
From "Guardian": A group of students at McGill University have spent more than three weeks on hunger strike in an effort to force the college to divest from “companies supporting the Israeli military”.
The move follows months of protests and sit-ins at McGill and at universities around the world, as students and faculty members have protested against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza,