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hylaversicolor · 6 months

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the big eva and ocelot meta, or: how to use religious iconography and symbolism in a godforsaken, cunt serving, and incredibly transgender way

this meta started out as a way for me to learn more about ocelot by looking at eva. and then it turned into the opposite, i guess. because ocelot never, ever speaks directly about his motivation, except for one time at the beginning of mgs2 when he says he’s glad sergei noticed that he’s abandoned mother russia, and even then he hides through ambiguous wording and camera angles. (x) everything else we learn about ocelot is from other characters or is obfuscated by conflicting personas or both. we know why he does what he does (he was obsessed with big boss, eva says) yet he doesn’t state this in his own words. but you can use eva to analyze ocelot, and vice versa. during mgs3 they are both mysterious philosopher agents with ties to the book of genesis sent to help snake on his mission, often with nearly identical dialogue. (x, x) so in mgs3 when eva says “snake, huh. well, i’m eva… are you here to tempt me?” we can assume ocelot feels something similar. when eva says “don’t die on me” at rassvet, we’re meant to remember that moment when ocelot says the same thing to snake in the sewers, many scenes later. and when eva says “when i’m riding, the wind hits me so hard that it hurts. that pain keeps my mind off the pain of having to be someone else. it's not easy always fooling myself like this. it's only when i’m on the bike that i’m free to be the real me.” it’s in the back of our minds when ocelot also rides a bike later on. of course they are not exactly alike; the bike means something different to eva than it does to ocelot, and besides, ocelot is younger, less experienced, more hotheaded. eva, for all her cleavage, is reserved.

taking a detour for a moment to address the ocelot drag king thing that went around twitter recently. shinkawa and kojima noted that mgsv ocelot’s design was meant to inspire such questions from the player “like ‘is that a man or a woman, a woman dressing as a man’ kind of thing,” or “something like takarazuka” (x), japanese western-style theater “with all-female performers” (x). here’s a passage from jennifer robertson’s “the politics of androgyny in Japan: sexuality and subversion in the theater and beyond,” describing tarakazuka:

The femininity embodied and enacted by the musumeyaku serves as a foil for the masculinity of the otokoyaku. Much of the training of the Revue actors involves learning a vocabulary of gendered gestures, movements, intonations, speech patterns, and the like. An otokoyaku, for example, must stride forthrightly across the stage, her arms held stiffly away from her body, her fingers curled around her thumbs. In contrast, a musumeyaku pivots her forearms from the elbows, which are kept pinned against her side, constraining her freedom of movement and consequently making her appear more "feminine." In keeping with the patriarchal values informing the Takarazuka Revue, musumeyaku have represented the fictional Woman with little if any connection to the actual experiences of females. The otokoyaku, however, have been actively encouraged to study the behavior and actions of men offstage (as well as in films) in order to more effectively idealize men on stage, be they samurai or cowboys. Personal or contrary motivations and desires aside, both musumeyaku and otokoyaku are the products of a masculinist imagination in their official stage roles. (American Ethnologist, August 1992, vol. 19, issue 3, pg 423)

if, like all things with ocelot, we take this concept and run with it to eva, then ocelot is the takarazuka otokoyaku and eva is the musumeyaku. it’s all a performance. it’s all camp.

ocelot performs masculinity. he is (arguably) a gay character who lives and breathes his own interpretation, informed by the spaghetti westerns he watched and absorbed as a teenager, of the most idealized embodiment of western masculinity in existence: the american cowboy. his movements, his bravado, his persona are all exaggerated in mgs3. but his performance is also a mask behind which he hides his true self. ocelot physically conceals his whole body; his red gloves are his trademark. eva, by contrast, shows off her body. but while ocelot hides himself by hiding his skin, eva hides herself - crucially - by showing skin. and while ocelot's whole Cowboy Thing is him performing a fantasy version of masculinity, the opposite is true for eva. she is performing femininity just as much as ocelot is performing masculinity, only instead of playing a western cowboy dandy, she’s doing an over-exaggerated femme fatale. they are both acting. they are both camp. ocelot’s masculinity is rooted in westerns; eva’s femininity is, presumably, rooted in whatever charm school training the philosophers must have given her.

this juxtaposition informs the way their roles play out throughout the course of snake eater. ocelot can go off and do whatever; he has more freedom by taking on the persona of a man. eva is more limited in her performance, confined to a pseudo-caregiver role. she must support snake, care for him, give him food items. during the interrogation scene she is the one who is forced to step in and intervene, because out of all the players in the room, the personality she’s crafted for her role is most suited to sensitivity to snake’s torture. (x) she uses her vulnerability to exploit her enemies, turns people’s preconceived notions about her against them. ocelot and volgin both underestimate her; when she successfully evades volgin on the bike, and bests ocelot in hand to hand combat, these are not traditionally feminine activities, yet they are the things she truly excels at. also ocelot has had everything put together for him, even if he doesn’t see this. (x) he has been given incredible privilege at a terrible price. eva doesn’t even have that privilege. she is working to support snake completely on her own.

yet even though eva is unfailingly on snake’s side throughout the game, helping him, giving him items, often physically close to him, seducing him, etc., she betrays him in the end. ocelot is the opposite. he is farther away; he often watches rather than intervenes when snake is in trouble. it’s not obvious that he’s been on snake’s side the whole time. and yet by the end of the game, where eva (who had gotten the closest to him) betrays snake, ocelot (who had been farther away) does not. this speaks to mgs3’s theme of “there is no such thing as a timeless enemy” - also because after the events of the game, snake and eva (though parting ways as enemies) end up as allies again, and eva and ocelot, who had been enemies in the game, become allies as well, and remain allied for life.

ultimately, due to eva’s role being confined to a traditionally feminine one in mgs3, ocelot emerges as a more compelling character. behind that femme fatale persona, though, there is a lot going on. a lot of it, i think, relates to the way eva was raised as a charm agent. as a result of her philosopher training, she can only think of human relationships in absolutes. she equates sex and love in her mind and cannot conceptualize ambiguity:

eva: do you love her? snake: no, nothing like that. eva: do you hate her? snake: does it have to be one or the other - love or hate? eva: between a man and a woman? you bet. […] eva: you were interested in the boss. snake: she was different. eva: really? how do you feel about me? snake: i should be asking you the same question. eva: me? i can fall in love - if it's part of the mission. even with you.

this is meant to be a callback to mgs1, but it’s also eva in her element, in action, working. she unzips her top as she says these lines, revealing her breasts. there’s some meta commentary here about eva fooling or charming the player, using her own sexuality as a weapon, but still being objectified nonetheless because kojima wrote her to do this. in the context of the game, yes this is eva acting of her own accord, molding her appearance and mannerisms to appeal to her target, but she is doing so as a result of philosopher training. this isn’t eva’s true self, not really. the only place she feels free to be her true self is when she’s on her bike, with the wind hitting her so hard “that it hurts.” we see eva performing increasingly risky bike stunts as mgs3 goes on. i think the stress of playing her role only continue to increase as time went on throughout operation snake eater. but not because of being forced to fool john: i think she took some pleasure in that. rather:

eva: the boss was the only one i couldn't fool. she was the only one who knew i was a fake. she told me everything. why did she open her heart to me like that? at the time, i couldn't understand it. but now I think I do. snake, she wanted you to know the truth. she chose me to tell you. that's why she saved my life. i’ve lied to you so many times, but not this time. my orders from the government were to obtain the legacy and to eliminate everyone who knew the truth about what happened. in other words, I'm supposed to kill you. but i can't do it. not because we loved each other. and not because you saved my life. but because i made a promise to the boss… and i intend to keep it. i just wanted you to know. and… you have to live.

because the boss was the one person to understand her, to look at her and see that at her core, she, like ocelot, is the embodiment of a 404 error. but this lack of self, or lack of recognition of the self, ironically, is what makes her human. the boss looks at her and instantly sees that the only way she can feel anything at all is to ride her bike so hard that the wind hurts her. she sees the pain of having been transformed into a blank slate by the philosophers, ready and willing for anyone’s preconceived notions of femininity to be projected onto her, because the boss went through the same ordeal - but unlike eva, whose earliest memories are presumably of philosopher charm schools, the boss did not start as a blank slate. she had a life, a personality, a family first, and had all that taken away in order for higher powers to reduce her to something malleable and ready to be manipulated for the sake of nations and empires. the boss is eva’s connection, her lifeline from the sterile, casually cruel world inhabited by the children of the philosophers, to the emotions and the messiness and the nuance embodied by the rest of humanity. and this connection goes doubly deep because the boss probably encountered eva in one of the philosopher charm schools while searching for her own son, who she knew had to be at a philosopher facility too.

and by choosing eva as the one to pass on her message to snake, the boss gives eva’s life new meaning, a renewed sense of humanity. in eva’s mind now the boss and snake are connected. she is part of that love the boss had felt for snake, and she inherits it by proxy. i don’t think she loved john as a human being, at least not during mgs3. even after mgs3, i don’t think she comes to understand this connection that the boss and snake had, but she still clings to it. and i think that, just like ocelot who was far away and fixated on snake, once eva is the farthest away that she’s ever been from snake at the end of mgs3, now she becomes fixated on him too. just like ocelot, snake represents humanity to her. their connection is less about love and more about trying to make sense of her own emotions, her personhood. the boss endures and haunts eva into perpetuity because i think she is a reminder of what eva could have had.

big mama: your father never wanted you. i’m sorry. human life isn’t meant to be manipulated like that. i knew that. but—i wanted you.

eva allows her own pursuit of humanity to convince her to do inhumane acts. we know ocelot joined the patriots to stay close to john (the same reason he eventually joined foxhound). eva joined the patriots, i think, because staying close to john brought her closer to the boss. that, i believe, is the reason she wanted the kids so badly. eva in mgs4 is motivated by guilt. we can see that she takes in war orphans as the leader of the paradise lost army (ironically facilitating the creation of more child soldiers, and perpetuating the vision of the philosophers even as she’s trying to dismantle their legacy). in mgs3, eva and ocelot are a pair of young philosopher spies aiding naked snake. in mgs4, eva and ocelot are a pair of aging ex-patriot spies from another time forcibly dragging the past along with them into the present. they both mistake solid snake for naked snake in semi-lucid moments; they share similar last words; they both are ultimately killed by foxdie. they kill and steal and lie and torture and maim, but in their minds it’s all out of necessity. take this analysis of paradise lost by john leonard:

The hostility of Chaos raises troubling questions about God. If God is good, all-powerful, and the ultimate source of matter […] how can we account for the existence of an evil Chaos? An evil Chaos would suggest either that God is not good or that he is not all-powerful. Many critics try to get around this problem by arguing that Milton’s Chaos (despite appearances) is not evil but good. (Introduction, Paradise Lost, Penguin, 2003)

zero, by mgs4, is the alpha and the omega. he has surpassed the limitations of his moral body and become an all-seeing, all-knowing system of AIs: in the metaphor of adam, eve, and the snake, zero is god. we can see that eva feels somewhat complicit in this transformation: “zero created the patriots to manage and control the american state […] but i am partly to blame. i bear some of the guilt for creating the organization.” ocelot’s feelings are less apparent.

back to the beginning of this essay: ocelot only explains himself once throughout the entire game series, and while he does, the camera conceals his face. importantly, his red gloves are gone in mgs4. his black gloves show us that this isn’t ocelot anymore. but since his fingers are uncovered, we can infer that ocelot is in there somewhere and he is speaking his truth. so when liquid says “cigars… father's favorite.” that’s really ocelot (with the cigar blocking his face…there’s so much in that) saying “cigars…john’s favorite.” when liquid says, “snake, we were created by the patriots. we're not men: we're shadows in the shape of men. […] the patriots saw fit to create us, and in doing so became our only raison d'etre […] so long as we both live, the world will not know an age of light […] the only choice left to us is death." that is ocelot saying “when i saw what the patriots had done, my only reason to exist became to take them down.” when liquid screams “do you see this, zero?” that is 100% ocelot saying, “watch us, zero, we’re going to undo everything you did to john.” and when liquid gives this odd, regretful glance after the confrontation at the river, (x) i think that is ocelot reacting (albeit late) to eva saying, “adam…” a scene prior.

john: ocelot and eva wanted two things…to bring me back to life, and to end the patriots. […] for me, and for them […] nothing was more important.

in the words of steak bentley, mgs4 shouldn’t have been about big boss. (x) i agree. forcing everything to connect back to big boss and to zero shrinks the universe, imbues the story with this weird predestination, makes everybody’s contributions to the plot feel less significant, weakens both mgs4 and mgs3 in hindsight by showing the writers’ lack of faith in their new material.

but you can also look at it in a meta sense of ocelot and eva saying “this story’s not done yet, i’m still going to get revenge on big boss’s behalf. this is going to be about big boss whether you all like it or not.” metal gear solid 4 is really the story of two people who loved big boss so much and carried so much guilt over the part they played in zero’s betrayal that they created this entire overly convoluted plot to make john relevant again. the irony of it is that if they had just let him fade into obscurity (the first time, after snake eater) the LET project might not have even happened at all. by mgs4 i think they both recognized this. and yet they continued to drag it out - understanding, i think, on some level, that they were doing it all essentially for nothing. and through eva and ocelot’s actions, john ends up getting….not exactly a redemption, but at least closure. i don’t know if it’s warranted or even deserved, but he gets it nonetheless. and still eva and ocelot spend most of their time away from big boss and die without seeing him again. the thought that john would be able to survive, that he would endure and live and reconcile with solid, get one final moment of “i understand.” at the boss’s grave - this kept eva and ocelot going for decades.

by the start of mgs4, for eva and ocelot, everyone else is gone. john is out of their reach, the boss has been dead for fifty years, they killed the rest of the patriots themselves after zero betrayed john. the kids that eva had wanted, too, are no good, since liquid is already gone and solid needs to die in order to bring the cycle to a close. the only way they can access their own humanity (that ocelot had found in snake and eva had found in the boss) is through clinging to each other.

big mama: naturally, ocelot and i planned to free [john] from zero's prison. we enlisted naomi hunter, an authority in the field of nanomachine research, into our organization. and we used frank jaeger to kill dr. clark. ocelot tortured the DARPA chief, donald anderson - also known as sigint - to death…and made it look like an accident. […] with para-medic and sigint dead, zero was the only one left. but we, too, paid a price. i lost ocelot. ocelot wasn't fighting for the pentagon, or the russians. and certainly not for zero. he was fighting for big boss. he idolized him.

#adam and eve in the garden of hrt. if you will.#txt #mgs #revolver ocelot #eva #meta #calling all besties #anyway. i didn't proofread this. but (guys its fine voice) guys its fine

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botanicalsword · 10 months

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Indicators for “knowing” / foresee future • Asteroid edition

openness to spiritual energies, intuition and divination - can bring wisdom, insight and even healing to oneself and others

prophetic / divinatory power :

A felt sense of knowing

Attracted to symbolic or metaphorical language

Sensitivity to energies

Ability to "read" people and situations intuitively

Drawn to the mystical, spiritual or occult

Frequent déjà vu experiences or feelings of synchronicity

Ability to sense or foresee the future

ASTEROID :

[ embed keys: 131, 423, 870 ]

Vala 131

Diotima 423

Manto 870

✧ Exclusive interpretation on Patreon

photo credit @le.sinex

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Vala

More details : If Vala conjuncts your personal planet

symbols: prophetic, divinatory powers intuition, the chosen one, seer-like qualities, sixth sense, higher consciousness, divine inspiration, inner knowing

You can receive sudden visions or messages and have a unique insight that sets you apart

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Diotima

More details : Diotima in a chart represents & related asteroid

symbols: spiritual love, spiritual, philosophical pursuit, loveable souls, self worth, divine connection, inner beauty, self-love, spiritual growth, personal enlightenment, truth-seeking

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Manto

More details : If Manto conjuncts your personal planet

symbols : obsession, prophetic ability, seer, transformation, endings and rebirth

The name Manto derives from Ancient Greek Mantis, "seer, prophets

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Symbolic language is often utilized in art, literature, and mythology to delve into profound themes and implications.

If an asteroid conjuncts your personal planets - Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Ascendant, Imum Coeli, Descendant, Midheaven, or Vertex, it may carry significant meaning in the specific area.

Masterlist @botanicalsword

#astrology #astro community #astro posts #astro #overlays #astro observations #astrology placement #synastry observations #asteroid #asteroid astrology #astrology placements #personal observations #Astro observation #synastry #patreon #diotoma #Manto #vala

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acti-veg · 3 months

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Hunted to extinction in the wild in the 1960s, today there are nearly 1,000 Przewalski’s horses at three sites in Mongolia, with more in China and Kazakhstan. The biggest population – numbering 423 – is in central Mongolia’s Hustai national park, the descendants of 84 animals airlifted from European zoos in the 1990s.

Each year they attract tens of thousands of visitors to this small patch of pristine mountain steppe just 100km from the capital, Ulaanbaatar.

“Before the reintroduction, nobody believed we could save this species,” says Dashpurev, who runs Hustai national park. Since then, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has downgraded the risk status of Przewalski’s horse twice: “Our biggest achievement,” he says.

The success stands in stark contrast to other parts of Mongolia. Over the past three decades, the country’s wildlife has been decimated by a combination of hunting, the climate crisis and overgrazing, with creeping desertification turning huge tracts of its vast grasslands into dust.

“Mongolia’s wildlife is in crisis,” says Tungaa Ulambayar, the local representative of the Zoological Society of London. “It is in real danger of being wiped out.”

#conservation #mongolia #articles #horses

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 9 months

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By: Allan Stratton

Published: Jul 23, 2023

Toronto is one of the most tolerant, multicultural cities in the world. And yet, according to many of its progressive journalists, academics, and politicians, it’s actually a den of systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Unless you’re a straight white man, daily life is supposedly an exhausting and dangerous struggle. If you live in the United States, the UK, Australia, or elsewhere in Canada, I’m guessing you’ve been told similar things about your own society.

I’m a gay man for whom these reports bear no relationship to the real world. Certainly, hate-crime statistics show a sharp increase in physical and verbal abuse against specific demographics, including my own. And there are even rare incidents of murder and arson. But to suggest that minorities live under constant threat from a bigoted majority is apocalyptic nonsense. This is especially true of Canada, an especially open, diverse, and welcoming country. Western nations, more generally, are incontrovertibly the most tolerant on the planet.

My heretical view (among fellow progressives, at least) may be due to my “positionality” (this being a faddishly woke jargon term that most English speakers would call “perspective”). The Holocaust and the internment of Japanese North Americans ended a mere six years before I was born. The pass system that turned Canadian Indigenous reservations into open-air prison camps was still in force. The United States was segregated by Jim Crow and redlining. Cross burnings and lynchings went unpunished. Marital rape was legal. Spousal abuse and unequal pay were commonplace. Gay sex and cross-dressing were criminalized, with outed individuals losing their jobs and children. “Fag bashing” was treated as public entertainment.

In the relatively few decades since, western governments have implemented universal civil and human rights protections for racial and sexual minorities. The speed and depth of this transformation has been so remarkable that it seems inconceivable that we ever lived as we once did. Has any other culture critiqued its failings and set about reforming itself so quickly?

This is not to suggest that everything is sunshine and lollipops. Human nature has not been repealed. Police departments without effective civilian oversight, for instance, continue to invite corruption and abuse. Nonetheless, we now have the tools to press for accountability, such as human rights tribunals and whistleblower protections.

It’s also important to acknowledge that while the relative increase in reported hate crimes may seem shocking, that rise is based on a remarkably low baseline. For instance, 2021 saw a 65 per cent increase in incidents (over 50 per cent of these comprising verbal slurs) targeting Canada’s LGB and T communities. But that still represents just 423 cases in a country of 40-million people. That’s hardly a “tsunami of hate.” The number is infinitesimal compared to the 114,132 domestic assaults and 34,242 sexual assaults recorded against women.

One often hears that a reversion to the backward ways of the past is just around the corner. And it is true that abortion rights now hang in the balance in many conservative U.S. states. But the idea that any Western country (especially Canada) is on the cusp of a wholesale rejection of liberal principles is absurd. Women will never again need their husband’s signature to open a bank account. Racial segregation is unthinkable (except, ironically, in certain progressive institutions). Marriage equality for same-sex couples is constitutionally protected in North America, and enjoys a historic 70 per cent level of support in the United States.

So, unlike those on the left who came of age in the 90s and the decades that followed, I don’t see an intolerant society destroying civil rights and minority safety. Rather, what I am now witnessing is a period of progressive overreach, led by ideologues with no (apparent) historical memory or understanding of how our liberal social contract evolved. They have turned language inside out so as to render words such as “woman,” “safety,” and “genocide” essentially meaningless; pursued policies that lock one-time progressive allies in a zero-sum culture-war conflict; recast free speech as hate speech; confused wishes (and, in some cases, fantasies) with rights; and punished dissenters from their Borg-think with social exclusion, “re-education,” and firing.

This radical attempt to unilaterally impose a new social order based on race and gender essentialism has ignited a widespread public backlash, which has been weaponized by the far right, destroyed public goodwill, and done more damage to the progressive cause than anything its reactionary enemies have done in recent years.

The civil-rights movements of the last century won victories by liberal means based on liberal values. This included an insistence on free speech and civil liberties; and an appeal to the universal values of dignity and equality, which in turn underpin the case for protecting individual human rights and freedoms.

In part, this was because we liberals understood math. We needed white, straight, male legislators to support our causes, a project that could only be engaged through free and open debate. Empathy-based co-operation enabled us to create bridges among our diverse groups: The Gay Liberation Front raised money for the Black Panthers. In turn, its leader, Huey Newton, supported the gay liberation and women’s liberation movements. Meanwhile, Jewish groups applied their historical understanding of discrimination to help lead the fights for women’s rights (Betty Friedan), gay rights (Larry Kramer), and black voting rights, with some even giving their lives as Freedom Riders

By contrast, today’s illiberal left explicitly rejects the principles of free speech and universality. It ignores the lessons of past civil-rights successes, often denying that such successes even took place. After all, how can one insist on the dismantling (or “decolonization”) of a system that has shown itself capable of self-correction and continuous improvement? The only framework that validates the progressive narrative of ongoing oppression and white supremacy is one that ahistorically presents mainstream liberal values as a failure.

The switch in social-justice circles from liberal to authoritarian ends and means has at least three major causes. The first is structural: As (originally) liberal rights groups such as the ACLU achieved their objectives, they were required to rewrite their mission statements and pretend away their past successes — this being the only way to justify their ongoing existence.

Far from seeking to “burn it all down,” most of us within the original LGB and T movements simply wanted equality within existing social structures. We used liberal “respectability politics” to make our case, and (for the most part) folded our tents when we achieved our goal. The unwitting effect of this was to leave our old organizations to the radicals, who had long condemned us as sellouts to the patriarchy. Their goal is nothing less than the remaking — or “queering” — of society, a vaguely defined project infused with a deep suspicion of, or even hostility to, capitalism and the nuclear family. The liberal LGB and T wish to live and let live is now the authoritarian “live as we live.”

The second factor is generational change. Just as children separate from their parents in their passage to adulthood, so does each generation define itself in contradistinction to its immediate predecessor. Without personal memory of past struggles, present conditions are taken for granted. And so the battle against current injustices (real or otherwise) is seen as humanity’s defining and timeless struggle.

My generation mocked our parents’ conformity and stoic, suck-it-up ethos, forgetting that these traits had been necessary social adaptations during the Great Depression and World War II. Similarly, activists of this generation attack our commitment to free speech and integration within society, forgetting that these strategies were necessary for us to be heard during the Cold War, when outsiders were suspected as potential fifth columnists.

But perhaps the most significant factor has been the academic trend toward postmodernism, which instructs adherents that neither objective reality nor human nature exist in any certain, provable way. Reason, logic, and objective facts are rejected — or at least put in scare quotes — as are appeals to history and science. These are all held to be mere artifacts of language, which is itself presented as a reflection of existing power structures. And since these structures are presumed to systematically oppress the powerless, they must be deconstructed, dismantled, and decolonized, root and branch.

This kind of thinking isn’t just claptrap that flies in the face of day-to-day human experience. It also encourages a kind of intellectual nihilism that precludes amelioration of the injustices and power imbalances that supposedly concern many postmodern thinkers: After all, what could possibly replace our current power-based intellectual constructs except new power-based intellectual constructs?

Nonetheless, postmodern habits of mind (often flying under the banner of “critical” studies of one kind or another) have infected academic humanities and social science departments all over the west, much like the fungal parasite on The Last of Us. Its professorial hosts now work to dismantle their own institutions, attacking the “colonial” concepts of science and empiricism in favour of undefined and unfalsifiable “ways of knowing.” Meanwhile, their students have incubated its spores and spread them into the wider society, including corporate human-rights offices.

Progressives (rightly) have denounced Donald Trump and his supporters for their paranoid belief that the 2020 U.S. election was “stolen.” But these right-wing conspiracy theorists are not so different from campus leftists when it comes to their à la carte approach to accepting or rejecting reality according to passing ideological convenience

In particular, the idea that pronouns serve as magic spells that can turn a man into a (literal) women is no less ridiculous than anything Trump has ever said. The same goes for the mantra that while girls who cut themselves need therapy, girls seeking a double mastectomy require “affirmation.” Likewise: Racial segregation is a bigoted practice … except when it represents the very acme of progressive enlightenment. “Defund the police” doesn’t mean abolish the police, except when it means exactly that.

And then there’s Schrödinger’s Antifa, which presents these street thugs either as a very real force that rose up as a morally laudable reaction to fascism … or as something that exists only in Tucker Carlson’s fever dreams, depending on context.

But postmodernism and critical theory have done more than just damage our societies’ intellectual cohesion. Their denial of universal human nature eliminates empathy as a tool to bridge differences among groups, which are instead presented as warring sects prosecuting unbridgeable race (or gender) feuds. Since power is presented as the singular currency of the realm, the ability to shut the other side up is valued more than the ability to persuade it.

Gay men such as Andrew Sullivan and Andrew Doyle have been among the most prominent dissenters against wokeism — in part because we instinctively recognize the destructive nature of this power-fixated mindset. Our experience suggests that empathy and reason are far more important than threats and cultural power plays.

Dave Chappelle has said that the LGBT movement won public support more quickly than its black counterpart because of racism. But I believe the truth is different: Unlike racial and ethnic minorities, we exist in every demographic, every family, every ethnic category. When we gay men came out en masse during the 1980s AIDS pandemic, all communities realized that we were among its children, parents, and siblings. People have a harder time discriminating against their own than against outsiders.

Traditionally, the left has appealed to a sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. The resulting project of alliance-building has entailed negotiation among different groups, all of which may have different priorities and perspectives. But that alliance-building project becomes impossible when one sect or another demands that disagreement be treated as a form of thoughtcrime. Deplatforming doesn’t just hurt the target; it also hurts the movement, since the summary excommunication of dissidents means that adherents never need to acknowledge or address counterarguments, internal logical inconsistencies, or the off-putting nature of their message.

Indeed, ideologues such as Nikole Hannah-Jones claim that politics has a colour: Blacks who aren’t “politically black” are traitors who collaborate with “whiteness.” As seen through this lens, Asian-Americans who fight anti-Asian discrimination in the context of affirmative action are supposedly puppets of white supremacists, and the LGB Alliance, by standing up for same-sex attraction, is smeared as a transphobic hate group. (For asserting that biology is real, Stonewall UK even tried to destroy the career of one of the LGB Alliance’s founders, Allison Bailey, a lifelong social justice advocate who happens to be a black, working-class lesbian, and the child of immigrant parents. Thankfully, Stonewall did not prevail.)

Opponents of cancel culture often focus on its negative effects on conservatives. But it’s often woke organizations that end up imploding under its strains, typically due to internal battles over victimhood status and linguistic control. In recent years, many of these groups have been driven off the rails by single-issue gender activists who are willing to support misogyny and homophobia in the name of trans rights; or BLM activists willing to permit racism directed at “model minorities.” Even antisemites have been allowed to infiltrate left-wing political parties, the arts establishment, and anti-racist education initiatives. No wonder everyone involved with this movement is always complaining about how emotionally “exhausted” they are: They’re surrounded by toxic fellow travellers who gaslight them as right-stooges if they dare raise a complaint.

Another notable feature of militant social-justice movements is the sheer joylessness of their leaders and supporters, a condition that often seems to blur into a collectively embraced state of clinical depression and paranoia. This posture flows from their presupposition that they suffer endlessly due to the malignant primordial character of “whiteness” and heteronormativity (or, yet worse, cisheteronormativity). The language of individual agency and hope, which animates liberalism, is replaced with a soul-dead idiom by which the activist presents as a self-pitying victim of oppression, constantly at risk of suicidal ideation, erasure, and genocide.

Even privileged “allies” are encouraged to dwell on their whiteness, straightness, cisness, “settler” status, and other marks of intersectional Cain. By erasing the possibility of redemption, the movement alienates liberal allies who are seeking to build bridges with others en route to living successful and fulfilling lives in a way that escapes the politics of identity. The social-justice puritan, being primarily concerned with advancing his status within a cultish inward-seeking subculture that’s constantly inventing new grievances, on the other hand, finds such a goal unthinkable.

The use of words such as “harm” and “violence” to describe the microaggressions known to the rest of us as “daily life” is a particularly unattractive feature of social-justice culture. In the 1980s, gays and lesbians responded to daily discrimination with the chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” Today, the children and grandchildren of that generation, now enjoying full civil rights and perches within elites sectors of government, culture, and high society, instead tell us, “We’re here, we’re queer, and … we’re terrified to step outside.” As a gay man, it’s humiliating to hear this kind of maudlin rhetoric uttered in my name.

The broad public, long sympathetic and accommodating, has had it. People have no time for hysterical activists who whine, bully, and hector them about things they didn’t do and over which they have no control. This is particularly true when those same activists demand the elimination of women’s sex-based rights, the medical sterilization of children and teens, and the explicit exclusion of job applicants by race. The more that ordinary men and women came to learn about gay marriage, the more they accepted it. By contrast, the more that ordinary men and women come to learn about trans-activist demands and critical race theory, the more they’ve become repulsed.

Support for Black Lives Matter collapsed when the woke trivialized the arson and looting that accompanied the George Floyd protests. The public was completely onside with the left’s demand for police reform, but horrified by the extremist push to dismantle public security, and enraged that the left justified breaking pandemic restrictions for protests while insisting that grieving families be kept from their dying relatives in hospitals.

Likewise, Lia Thomas tanked support on gender radicalism. The public had long welcomed trans civil rights, sympathized with those suffering dysphoria, and accepted that even non-dysphoric trans-identified individuals should be able to live and present as they wished. But the sight of a strapping, butch male taking women’s prizes and opportunities was a breaststroke too far.

Facing resistance, the woke doubled down, insisting on automatic gender affirmation for everyone, including rapists and children. The result gifted social conservatives an issue of concern to majorities across the political spectrum. Now, progressives in the U.S. face a raft of bills that, among other things, resurrect false charges of Alphabet paedophilia. No wonder LGB groups are jettisoning the T: In the space of just a few years, trans activists have undone the good work that gay activists did over multiple generations.

The progressive movement must stand up to its extremists. We must restore the liberal social compact that won our civil and human rights. That means we should root our claims in areas of common ground, demanding fair treatment, but not the right to dictate what others think.

The most intense theatres of culture-war combat involve the education of children, an area in which liberal attitudes must be allowed to hold sway. Popular free speech principles should be applied to school libraries and curricula — which means opposing campaigns to root out books demonized by both the left and the right alike. In classrooms, an open exploration of history can provide a context for kids to discuss how injustices were overcome in the past and how they might be handled in the present. Students can be taught to brainstorm how to use their advantages to help the less fortunate, and how others in their situation have dealt with adversity. But they should never be taught that personal relationships and moral hierarchies are determined by the colour of one’s skin.

Likewise, boys and girls should be allowed to play and dress free of gender stereotypes, with a no-bullying policy strictly enforced. They should learn who they are by themselves, and be taught that they are more than the sum of their parts. They should not be labelled by ideological adults consumed by a mania for gender theory. In school, I skipped with the girls, had a lisp, and liked to play with china elves. That didn’t make me a girl, just as dressing butch and dreading the effects of a puberty doesn’t turn a lesbian into a boy. (I shudder to think what might have happened were I a child today.)

We should also return to the left’s traditional focus on class. Diversty, equity, and inclusion initiatives enrich the small group of well-educated profiteers who proselytize the DEI faith, but they’re actually worse than useless when it comes to workplaces, exacerbating intolerance among the hapless workers forced to submit to tedious seminars and questionnaires. Resources from the DEI industry’s rapidly metastasizing bureaucracies should be redirected to programs that materially help the poor: Unlike affirmative action programs, investments in deprived neighbourhoods disproportionately assist minorities without the creation of double-standards and racial left-behinds that serve to energize white nationalists. They also support social mobility and economic inclusion.

“I just want to say—you know—can we, can we all get along?” is how Rodney King put it in 1991. While many of us might read the underlying sentiment as self-evident, the militant social-justice left now treats it as a forbidden lie, since the entire movement is based on the conceit that peaceful and harmonious coexistence is impossible within a pluralistic liberal society that doesn’t forcibly “queer” itself, endlessly hector citizens about their bigotry, and segregate workers and students by skin colour.

I believe we can all get along. As a progressive, a gay man, a Canadian, and a liberal, I want no part of any movement — whatever it calls itself — that insists we can’t.

[ Mirror: https://archive.is/es3Q4 ]

To the extent that liberal principles are actually being rejected, it's coming from both the authoritarian reactionary right, and the authoritarian postmodern left.

#Allan Stratton #liberal ethics #liberal values #liberalism #illiberalism #antiliberalism #anti liberal #critical social justice #social justice #wokeism #cult of woke #wokeness as religion #woke #toxic wokeness #religion is a mental illness

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gatsby-system-folks · 2 months

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if you live in Tennessee, here's some people you can call 🍉

I'm by no means an expert, and am always open to constructive criticism, especially at times like this, but this is who I'm calling to ask for support of Palestine. These are a list of representatives and senators from TN, and you can find which one specifically represents you here (also if you're not in TN you can find your rep on this website)

U. S. senate:

Marsha Blackburn- (901)527-9199

Bill Hagerty- (202)224-4944

representatives:

Diana Harshbarger- (202)225-6356

Tim Burchett- (865)523-3772

Charles Fleischmann- (423)745-4671

Scott DesJarlais- (202)225-6831

Andrew Ogles- (202)225-4311

John W. Rose- (202)255- 4231

Mark E. Green- (629)223-6050

David Kustoff- (731)412-1037

Steve Cohen- (901)544-4131

short v Hello, I'm calling to ask you to support the palestinian people, and condem Israel's atrocious actions against them on the gaza strip, which by providing weapons to israel, the U.S. is complicit in. if you don't support the palestinian people, i cannot support you in the next election. Thank you

long v Hello. I'm calling to ask you to support Palestinians, and stop the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, which the U.S. is complicit in. Israel is committing genocide according to the Merriam-Webster definition of the word. from CNN and Vox, the U.S. provides most of Israel's weapons, making the U.S. complicit to this horrific act. Israel has claimed that they are trying to eliminate Hamas, however according to imeu.org, Israel is breaking the Geneva convention with its actions in Gaza, and is holding the Gaza strip in Apartheid. Reporters such as Bisan Owda describe the horrific bombings happening all over the strip, killing thousands, including thousands of children. from NPR and the Washington post, Rafah was considered the last safe place for over a million Palestinian refugees, and now Israel is bombing it. At least 67 people are now dead in Rafah because of this bombing. I once again ask you to support the Palestinian people and condemn the horrific actions of Israel, I cannot support you in the next election if you don't. Thank you.

I included two incase somebody asks for elaboration, but as somebody else on here said, when calling a rep quantity over quality (when it's reasonable, still be polite and give accurate info etc). Also somebody else else on here said that calling is more effective than emails because emails are easier to ignore and a ringtone is audible, meaning anyone in the office can hear them not answering their phone.

Blackburn I know supports Israel. Cohen is the only Democrat among all of them afaik. Wish I had more insight to give here, I need to do more research.

Anyway free Palestine 🍉

#ill say it again please criticize me if ive got any info wrong or anything but please know i have good intentions and am not trying #to spread misinformation. i humbly request that you're gentle with me lol #also yes a lot of the letter is oversimplified because its meant to be read outloud in summary over the phone #listen to palestinian voices. journalists and others. the palestine tag on here has a lot of good information.#palestine #free palestine #gaza #tennessee #palestine tag #rafah #call your reps #call your senators

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womenofnoise · 1 year

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Alicen Grey AKA When Humans Had wings - experimental music from Chattanooga, TN.

#when humans had wings #experimental music #electronic music #women in electronic music #woc in electronic music #423 represent!

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catenaaurea · 1 year

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The Baltimore Catechism

Part Three: The Sacraments and Prayer

Lesson Thirty-One: Confession

408. What is confession?

Confession is the telling of our sins to an authorized priest for the purpose of obtaining forgiveness. (Proverbs 28:13)

409. Why must we confess our sins?

We must confess our sins because Jesus Christ obliges us to do so in these words, spoken to the apostles and to their successors in the priesthood: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." (John 20:22-23)

410. How do these words of Christ oblige us to confess our sins?

These words of Christ oblige us to confess our sins because the priest cannot know whether he should forgive or retain our sins unless we tell them to him.

411. Is it necessary to confess every sin?

It is necessary to confess every mortal sin which has not yet been confessed and forgiven; it is not necessary to confess our venial sins, but it is better to do so. (Proverbs 28:13)

412. What are the chief qualities of a good confession?

The chief qualities of a good confession are three: it must be humble, sincere, and entire.

413. When is our confession humble?

Our confession is humble when we accuse ourselves of our sins with a conviction of guilt for having offended God. (Luke 18:13)

414. When is our confession sincere?

Our confession is sincere when we tell our sins honestly and frankly.

415. When is our confession entire?

Our confession is entire when we confess at least all our mortal sins, telling their kind, the number of times we have committed each sin, and any circumstances changing their nature. (Numbers 5:6-7)

416. What are we to do if without our fault we forget to confess a mortal sin?

If without our fault we forget to confess a mortal sin, we may receive Holy Communion, because we have made a good confession and the sin is forgiven; but we must tell the sin in confession if it again comes to our mind.

417. What happens if we knowingly conceal a mortal sin in confession?

If we knowingly conceal a mortal sin in confession, the sins we confess are not forgiven; moreover, we commit a mortal sin of sacrilege.

418. What must a person do who has knowingly concealed a mortal sin in confession?

A person who has knowingly concealed a mortal sin in confession must confess that he has made a bad confession, tell the sin he has concealed, mention the sacraments he has received since that time, and confess all the mortal sins he has committed since his last good confession.

419. Why should a sense of shame and fear of telling our sins to the priest never lead us to conceal a mortal sin in confession?

A sense of shame and fear of telling our sins to the priest should never lead us to conceal a mortal sin in confession because this is a grave sacrilege, and also because the priest, who represents Christ Himself, is bound by the seal of the sacrament of Penance never to reveal anything that has been confessed to him. (Ecclesiasticus 4:31)

420. Why does the priest give us a penance after confession?

The priest gives us a penance after confession that we may make some atonement to God for our sins, receive help to avoid them in the future, and make some satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to them.

421. What kinds of punishment are due to sin?

Two kinds of punishment are due to sin: the eternal punishment of hell, due to unforgiven mortal sins, and temporal punishment, lasting only for a time, due to venial sins and also to mortal sins after they have been forgiven. (John 15:6)

422. Does the sacrament of Penance, worthily received, always take away all punishment?

The sacrament of Penance, worthily received, always takes away all eternal punishment; but it does not always take away all temporal punishment. (John 20:22-23)

423. Why does God require temporal punishment for sin?

God requires temporal punishment for sin to satisfy His justice, to teach us the great evil of sin, and to warn us not to sin again.

424. Where do we pay the debt of our temporal punishment?

We pay the debt of our temporal punishment either in this life or in purgatory. (I Corinthians 3:13-15)

425. What are the chief means of satisfying the debt of our temporal punishment, besides the penance imposed after confession?

Besides the penance imposed after confession, the chief means of satisfying the debt of our temporal punishment are: prayer, attending Mass, fasting, almsgiving, the works of mercy, the patient endurance of sufferings, and indulgences. (Tobias 12:8)

#Baltimore Catechism #The Sacraments part 9 #Catholic #Christian

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apenitentialprayer · 2 years

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Okay, re: human sacrifice in A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s pretty clear that human sacrifice is not something that the faith of R’hllor shies away from; it’s not simply a punishment inflicted on non-believers, but something that can be seen as efficacious for the party burning the unbeliever; we see this when Stannis’s men suggest burning a non-believer may appease R’hllor enough that he will grant them an easy journey to Winterfell (ADwD, 614). The Drowned God also seems to like human sacrifices; when Theon takes over Winterfell, he allows the local representative of the Faith of the Seven to be drowned because “he had to give someone to the Drowned God, his men expected it” (ACoK, 722). It seems conquest and human sacrifice may be connected in the thoughts of the ironborn. After the red priest Moqorro heals Victarion’s sepsis-ridden hand, the red priest shows him visions in the flames; afterwards, Victarion commands his crew to slice the throat of his maester and toss the body into the sea, so that “the winds will favor [them] all the way to Meereen” (ADwD, 824). This doesn’t seem to be the normative form of human sacrifice for either religion; which god does Victarion believe promised quick passage in exchange for the lifeblood of a maester? My first thought is the Drowned God because he commanded the body be thrown into the ocean, but he saw that it would help through the use of Moqorro’s fire divination. Adherents of the old gods performed human sacrifice in the distant past; it’s mentioned that freedmen who were given their former masters to punish as they pleased had hung those master’s entrails in the branches of heart-trees as a form of sacrifice (ADwD, 423-424). This doesn’t seem to be common knowledge to those who don’t worship those gods - perhaps it is just a tradition that is limited to the people who lived around White Harbor. But it seems that, so far, the only religion in Westeros that doesn’t appear to have a tradition of human sacrifice is the Faith of the Seven.

#Game of Thrones #immolation #human sacrifice #Faith of the Seven

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greaterbayarea · 1 day

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youtube

Through Reading, Dongguan Builds Bridges Connecting the World

Global Relay of 23 Cities Celebrates, "Fragrance of Books Dongguan · World Walk and Read+" Public Reading Festival Unfolds

Dongguan, April 23, 2024 — Today marks the 29th "World Book Day" and coincides with the National Public Library Service Promotion Week. The grand opening of the "Fragrance of Books Dongguan · World Walk and Read+" public reading festival was held at the 423-meter tall Min Ying·Guo Mao Center in Dongguan. This event, jointly hosted by the Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department, the Municipal Culture, Radio, Film, Tourism and Sports Bureau, the Dongguan "Hundreds, Thousands, Millions Project" Command Office, and the Dongcheng Sub-district Office, simultaneously kicked off over 500 activities related to World Book Day, aiming to create an atmosphere of "universal sharing, full coverage, industry integration, and multi-media broadcasting."

This reading festival, themed "Fragrance of Books Dongguan · World Walk and Read+," uniquely featured the "4·23 City Reading Relay." This innovative "Advocacy + Walk and Read" format issued a heartfelt invitation to read to cities worldwide under the name of Dongguan. Special guests including Dongguan’s overseas Chinese, students studying abroad, employees of Dongguan-based enterprises overseas, and representatives from sister cities and partner cities, collaborated with partners from 23 cities around the globe to engage in synchronized reading activities, pushing the "Fragrance of Books Dongguan" brand onto a broader international stage.

Internationally, friendly cities like Baesa in Spain, Paksé in Laos, and Holon in Israel actively participated. By using reading as a common language, these cities bridged geographical and cultural divides, radiating positive energy through reading. Furthermore, cities such as Tumxuk in Xinjiang and Tongren in Guizhou, which Dongguan supports, also joined, showcasing Dongguan’s open and inclusive city image to the nation and the world.

Several renowned personalities with deep ties to Dongguan also participated in the event. Among them, Lun Zhiqing, a descendant of the famous book collector Lun Ming, issued a reading call from Beijing. Zhao Heng, daughter of the famed translator Yang Yi and contributor to "Easy Read," shared her connection with the bookish charm of Dongguan city. Chen Bei’er, a popular TV host from Hong Kong's TVB, energetically promoted the "Fragrance of Books Dongguan" brand. Chen Jiayi, a young violinist and representative of overseas students who won the 10th China Music Golden Bell Awards, played a beautiful melody on her violin in Austria, echoing the elegant chapter of "Fragrance of Books Dongguan." Other overseas Chinese such as Lee Yuh Ping, founding chairman of the Chinese Librarians Association Asia-Pacific Branch in Singapore, and Zhong Yayi in Fiji, supported and promoted the "Fragrance of Books Dongguan" brand through their actions and words. Employees of Kuaiyi Elevator in Dubai showcased the strength and cultural charm of Dongguan manufacturing through their reading and sharing activities.

Distinguished guests such as Wang Weihua, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the Songshan Lake Materials Lab, and Zhao Gansen, a National May 1st Labor Medalist and well-known professor at South China Normal University's School of Computer Science, among others, cheered on the "World Book Day" event series. The launch ceremony was graced by Wang Yuguang, professor and doctoral supervisor from the Department of Information Management at Peking University, and Liu Zhimeng, a European Academy of Natural Sciences academician and professor at Dongguan University of Technology, who shared their reading insights with attendees, affirming the efforts of Dongguan in recent years in building the "Fragrance of Books Dongguan" brand.

Through such events, Dongguan not only demonstrates its cultural openness and inclusiveness to the world but also communicates the positive message of promoting cultural exchange and knowledge sharing through reading. Dongguan’s efforts and achievements undoubtedly set a new standard for global cultural exchange, showcasing the city’s growing significance on the global cultural map.

#youtube

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georgeshutcheson · 2 months

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UK Money Statistics 2023

New Post has been published on https://www.fastaccountant.co.uk/uk-money-statistics-2023/

UK Money Statistics 2023

In today’s ever-changing financial landscape, it is crucial to stay informed about the state of money and debt in the UK. By analysing key figures such as credit card debt, inflation rates, and average household debt, this article aims to shed light on the current state of personal finances in the UK and offer valuable insights into financial trends. Whether you are a student, employed, self-employed, unemployed, a homeowner, or a renter, understanding these statistics can help you make informed decisions about your own financial situation.

UK Money Statistics 2023

UK Personal Debt

People in the UK owed £1,846.5 billion at the end of October 2023. This represented an increase of £22.5 billion from the previous year, with each UK adult accumulating an additional £423 of debt. The average total debt per household, including mortgages, stood at £65,756, while the average debt per adult was £34,716. This amount of debt accounted for approximately 100.7% of average earnings. However, it is important to note that this figure had actually decreased from the previous month’s revised value of £34,698.

Total Personal Debt

The total personal debt in the UK reached £1,846.5 billion in October 2023, reflecting an increase of £22.5 billion from the previous year. This trend of increasing debt is expected to continue, with household debt forecasted to rise to £2,429 billion by 2025, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s November 2023 forecast. This forecast implies that the average total household debt would reach £85,274 assuming household numbers align with the Office for National Statistics‘ population projections.

Average Total Debt per Household

The average total debt per household in the UK was £65,756 in September 2023. This amount saw a decrease from the previous month’s value. The decreasing trend in average household debt suggests that individuals are taking steps to manage their debt levels and reduce their financial burden.

Average Total Debt per UK Adult

On an individual level, the average total debt per UK adult in October 2023 was £34,716. This amount represented approximately 100.7% of average earnings. While it is encouraging to see a decrease in average household debt, it is important to continue promoting financial literacy and responsible borrowing practices.

UK’s Total Interest Payments on Personal Debt

Based on October 2023 numbers, the UK’s total interest payments on personal debt over a 12-month period would have been £70,173 million, with an average of £192 million paid per day. The average annual interest per household would have amounted to £2,499, while per person it would have been £1,319. These figures indicate that interest payments consume a significant portion of individuals’ disposable income, equating to approximately 3.83% of average earnings.

Household Debt Forecast

The forecast for household debt in the UK, including all types of debt, predicts an increase from £2,259 billion in 2023 to £2,429 billion in 2025. This forecast suggests that the average total household debt would amount to £85,274. This projection emphasizes the need for individuals to manage their debt effectively and adopt responsible borrowing practices to avoid financial strain.

Outstanding Consumer Credit Lending

In October 2023, outstanding consumer credit lending in the UK amounted to £219.4 billion. This represented an increase of £962 million from the previous month’s total. Within this total, outstanding credit card debt accounted for £67.9 billion, reflecting an 8.5% increase in the year leading up to October 2023. On average, credit card debt per household was £2,417, while per adult it stood at £1,276.

Outstanding Credit Card Debt

At the end of October 2023, the total outstanding credit card debt in the UK was £67.9 billion. This figure indicates a significant financial burden for individuals with credit card debt. Furthermore, the average credit card debt per household was £2,417, and per adult, it was £1,276. When considering the average interest rate, it would take approximately 26 years and 6 months to fully repay this debt if only minimum monthly payments were made.

Credit Card Repayment Time

To fully repay the average credit card debt of £2,417, assuming the minimum monthly repayments are made, it would take 26 years and 6 months. However, if an individual consistently pays £68 each month towards their credit card debt, the debt could be cleared within 5 years.

Net Lending to Individuals and Housing Associations

In October 2023, net lending to individuals and housing associations by UK banks and building societies increased by £969 million compared to September 2023 figures. This increase equates to a daily average of £31.3 million. Net mortgage lending increased by £7 million, while net consumer credit lending increased by £315 million during this period.

Everyday in the UK

The daily dynamics of the UK population and economic activities provide insights into the country’s financial landscape. The population of the UK decreased by an estimated 151 people per day between 2020 and 2021. On average, a UK household spent £4.17 per day on water, electricity, and gas.

In terms of insolvencies, 279 people per day were declared insolvent or bankrupt in England or Wales between August and October 2023. This equated to one person every 5 minutes and 9 seconds. In Northern Ireland, there were 4.0 insolvencies reported per day in October 2023, while in Scotland, there were 22.3 insolvencies recorded per day in the three months leading up to June 2023.

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with 1,083 debt issues every day throughout the year until November 2023. This indicates the prevalence of debt-related challenges faced by individuals in the UK. Additionally, an average of 6.8 properties were repossessed every day in the UK between July and September 2023.

The number of UK mortgages with arrears exceeding 2.5% of the remaining balance increased by 37.0 per day in the year leading up to September 2023. Furthermore, the number of unemployed individuals in the UK increased by 658 per day over the same period.

The daily statistics also revealed that 1,109 people reported becoming redundant per day between May and July 2023. Moreover, the government debt increased by £442 million per day in the three months leading up to October 2023.

Interest payments constituted a significant financial burden, with borrowers paying £192 million in interest per day in October 2023. Additionally, it costs an average of £24.44 per day for a couple to raise a child from birth to the age of 18, while for a lone parent family, the daily cost amounts to £29.50.

In summary, the UK money statistics provide a comprehensive overview of personal debt, total debt, interest payments, and various aspects of everyday life. Analysing these figures allows for a deeper understanding of the financial challenges faced by individuals and the collective impact on the UK’s economy. It highlights the importance of financial literacy, responsible borrowing, and effective debt management to promote financial well-being for individuals and households.

#Money Statistics #UK Money Statistics

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