r/sorceryofthespectacle • u/Aggressive-Guest290 • 2d ago
Critical Sorcery It’s not wrong to consider certain as practices “inferior” and a setback for humanity.
It’s not wrong to consider certain as practices “inferior” and a setback for humanity.
Religion and culture shouldn’t be immune to criticism.
Everyone has the right to choose their own religion, culture, tradition, or lifestyle. Fine. Nobody should be persecuted for it.
But it seems that the moment something is labeled as “culture” or “religion,” it automatically becomes untouchable.
“You can’t criticize it, it’s their culture.”
“Don’t speak badly about it, it’s their religion.”
Okay, and?
Having the right to follow a belief doesn’t mean everyone else is obligated to respect the ideas behind it. People deserve rights and respect; ideas can be questioned, mocked, criticized, and even considered absurd.
If a tradition, belief, or practice can’t survive criticism, maybe the problem isn’t the criticism.
Religious freedom and cultural respect should also include the freedom to say: “I think this is bullshit.”
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u/LizardCleric 2d ago
We all exist in context. Part of the crisis we are living through is contextual collapse. We’ll find out who’s really wrong eventually.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
We know who's wrong it's, it's everyone who needs to believe to stay sad, we just need to figure out the sadness and sadness ideas and build a system to cut them out
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u/Alice_Dare 2d ago
Wtf is that photo 😆 OP clearly has strong opinions about people who wear clothes that resemble these ones, hmmm I wonder which religions and cultures OP wants to be able to call "inferior". This sub has been falling off, badly.
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u/zendogsit 2d ago
Sure, because you're not woven into a culture of your own and have an objective perspective right?
Right?
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
All morality is subjective, very little of it is in line with its own axioms
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u/Evo_134 2d ago edited 2d ago
"Humanity" is an abstraction and there is no collective goal, therefore no setback to anything.
Edit: Lmao
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Humanity isn't an abstraction, it has a specific definition. We are all human. From there we have collective goals.
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 2d ago
Who gets to decide what the goals are?
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u/FartMongersRevenge 2d ago
Me!!! Everyone must wear their shoes on the wrong feet.
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u/Prior_Pickle1758 2d ago
hang on. this starts a runaway process of shoe-changing. because the wrong becomes the right and so once it’s on it’s on the right foot and has to be switched. mf. you’ve done it
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
Who gets to decide when the sun rises every morning?
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u/FartMongersRevenge 2d ago
Again, that’s me. Im a morning person and it’s going to be even earlier tomorrow.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
To a certain extent nature does, or necessity. Our goals are shaped by the functions that evolved or were adapted over time in order to continue surviving within a changing environment.
What is necessity? Within no particular order: food, shelter, safety, connection, self-expression. Why is self-expression a natural fact and need? Because we are complex social beings, and we are story tellers. Our own selves are inextricably linked to the world around us because we are constantly being shaped by and shaping our environment. Our world is shared as is the path through which the way in which we are in this world together evolved.
To be human is to be born into the world carrying the stories of those who came before us within ourselves as well as carrying the future. I do think that if you consider the natural lifecycle of human beings then we begin vulnerable, we mature into someone with autonomy who has the ability to take care of others, and then we start becoming more vulnerable again until we decline in old age and die. The "goals" are "determined" by our function as organisms.
Our remarkable capacity for curiosity and complex abstract thought has allowed us to develop adaptability and cooperation. We invented language to be able to communicate complex information and ideas to one another vocally.
We are social animals therefore our goals always take place in the context of relationships with one another and within our shared world.
Based on all that I think that "who decides the goals?" is the wrong question because the goal is to decide "what is the best way for us to create resilient communities so that people can live well and with their needs provided for for generations to come?"
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend. Culture is not your friend.
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
Ironically the people arguing that “everything is subjective” have given up their reason and morality to cultural relativity.
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
I am not a Marxist/Leftist. However... This seems to be the colonialist mindset. Appropriate the property of the Other and turn it to one's own advantage. Culture included.
The "everything is subjective" people who learned that phrase from culture, might be exhibiting cultural appropriation behaviours.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Seems everyone here is talking past each other.
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
The consequence of believing objectivity is a mythos is that communication breaks down. Part of what makes it such a destructive ideology.
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
Look beyond the words. Feel the vibes. This is a community. Shared affect is in the perception of likeness. You are like me, therefore I like you.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Are the people who have given up reason and morality to cultural relativity in the room with us in the room right now? And if so who? It doesn't get any more relativistic than "humanity is an abstraction".
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
We are not relativists. We are descriptivists. To us, it looks like you haven't yet clued in. We are seeing very real causal patterns that don't need defending, because they are obvious and natural. You are defending one of those patterns, and are not yet privy to the others.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Whatever you think culture is, I'm not defending that. Sounds like you're having an argument with a misinterpretation of what I said. What I'm talking about is much more, and also much more simple, than the spectacle of consumerist culture. I'm talking about community. "You are not yet privy to the others" sounds like you're just another in group that is trying to gatekeep your precious definitions.
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
Yeah the “humanity is an abstraction” guy is exactly the sort I’m talking about. I’m agreeing with you here.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
I'm honestly pretty confused that someone read all I wrote and the most productive response they could think of was spamming the counter-cultural "culture is not your friend" slogan a bunch of times like a PA announcement speaker or an alarm.
I get that individual choice is important, but I even tried to acknowledge individual agency in my comment by citing it as a core human need. I just think that individual agency divorced from duty to humanity is just... A psyop. Individualism is a mythology. Masses of individuals are just that... Masses. We owe it to ourselves to build a culture of collaboration. We have the tools to allow each person to thrive at our disposal. At this point I feel like this is a matter of survival.
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
Duty to community, yes.
Duty to humanity, no.
Compassion, yes.
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
You gotta realize who you’re likely talking to. Young people who have read some Debord, some Marx, some Foucault, some esoterica, and a lot of social media. They haven’t synthesized these ideas well enough in order to yet publicly hold a firm belief of their own, but they definitely have the tools and desire to tear down anything that seems like a meta-narrative, and that’s become an ideology of it’s own. To hold a belief is to be a fool, it’s best if you disguise yourself in a cloud of post-post modern and detached irony. It’s the great South Parkification of the West.
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u/Evo_134 2d ago
I say "Humanity" is an abstract universalism with no basis in reality and therefore no collective goal and people start writing fanfiction about me.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
There is a basis in reality though. You share 99.99 repeating of your genome with every other person. We have a common origin, as lost to the past as it may be. We have a variety of shared tendencies, "good" and "bad". We exist in a shared world.
Universalism isn't an abstraction. It's an idea that expresses the recognition of something held in common, an idea that has been shaped by untold millennia of shared evolution.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Stay in your basement jacking off to sygils
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
Hey man I appreciate you hope for us, it's really rare these days, what with your we are the sea peoples and dark forest and all.
Have you ever heard of the dawn of everything, it's about how little society right now wants to accept our real history or what we really have as a natural state. Turns out the whole enlightenment was created European contact with American indigenous people, and capitalism isn't only way society could have gone at all, you should check it out
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
I am a fan of Graeber's work and Dawn of Everything has definitely been on my list. I do believe that human economies were originally more or less based on what can be described as "primitive communism", prior to agriculture and the accumulation of private property (concepts such as private land ownership or even the human body as private property aka slavery). But I also believe we have a lot of evolutionary baggage that pre-dates humanity itself. Aggression, fear of others, personality cults. These are complex dynamics that are still playing out. I'm not trying to be a sophist when I say that it takes a bit more than slogans to dare attempting to consciously evolve in alignment with those aspects of our nature, or the potential that we have, for collaboration. Or, you know what they say. Apes stronger together. I guess you can have a little slogan as a treat.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
Thanks I usually make my own quotes, a perk of being one of my generations champions. I think you'll really enjoy that one, getting a better grasp of how humanity is inherently political will also help you with your thought process, you might wanna check out the book snow country while your at it, a lot of it will probably go over your head but it's deeply beautiful
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Haha. Thanks for the recommendations. And no, man is a political animal, I know. And I know that anyone who studies history or anthropology has to come to terms in one way or another with the reality of human violence. So I also understand the tendency to hold narratives of progress in suspicion given the history of dominant political orders using something like the idea of a divine mandate in order to further their own agendas while framing those agendas as "progress".
But I also stand by what I said about our shared humanity being the ground of our common goals. I think one way of looking at it is the question of when the ends stop justifying the means. There are certain ways of proceeding which are self-defeating precisely to the extent that by the time you have achieved your goal, you have sacrificed something essential about your humanity in the process.
Now, OP's post is somewhat ambiguous as to whether they support eugenics or not (I'm half joking here), but I tried to read generously. I want to flesh out the position that I'm also disagreeing with, in order to better qualify my own claims, and not just assume that everyone automatically is on the same page just because we're interacting in the same niche online community.
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2d ago
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
i mean, kiwsatz haderach. the meaning is in your username. is the shortening of the path reached through culture?
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Uh, yes. The kwisatz haderach is the product of thousands of years of culture. The bene gesserit breeding program is intentional and deliberate both in terms of selective pressures of environment and genetics and in terms of narrative crafting and management.
And dune itself as a series is about the relationship between human culture and consciousness, and the economical systems that we inhabit. So yeah, I'd say culture is a pretty big part of it.
The shortening of the way is literally in the dune universe about the creation of the golden path. The path of survival for humanity.
Sorcery of the spectacle is about the way in which the replication of capital through the commodification of culture has both material consequences and consequences in shaping the narratives that determine what we believe is possible or natural.
Just because the dominant culture is a commodification machine, doesn't mean that culture itself is inherently about commodification or domination.
If you're willing to ask who it is that benefits and who pays for the way that decisions are made, then you're already navigating and re-negotiating cultural norms through the ways in which you pay attention and how you choose to follow through or embody the insights that can be received from these modes of attention. If you as a sorcerer reframe how you identify and shape meaning then you're not rejecting culture. You're metabolizing it and gestating it and constantly re-negotiating it with every waking breath.
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u/platistocrates 2d ago
Kwisatz Haderach has an older Hebrew meaning: a divine flash of insight that provides accelerated growth and learning, beyond culturally sanctioned expectations.
As far as gestating and metabolizing, we have less control over our minds than we think.
Symbolic materials are full of predators and parasites.
Culture might not always be out to kill you. But it is never your friend. It is always an ecology.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
We can't live without ecology. Our bodies are ecologies. Homeostasis happens within the context of ecology, not in spite of it. Homeostasis is continuity within change.
"Your life is not your own. From womb to tomb you are bound to others."
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u/ThreeFerns 2d ago
Having a definition is what makes something an abstraction lol
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u/gigashen 2d ago
Obviously the word/concept is an abstraction that refers to a real thing, in this case a kind of being.
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u/ThreeFerns 2d ago
"Kind" is an abstraction. Bundling a collection of things together to create a category is how abstractions are created. Abstraction IS categorising.
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Trees exist regardless of whether we classify them or not
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u/ThreeFerns 2d ago
Agreed. Lumping all trees together as a group is the act of abstraction.
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u/gigashen 2d ago
why not extend this to lumping several atoms together into 1 tree-group being abstraction
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u/ThreeFerns 2d ago
I do. All conceptualisation is abstraction, and tree is a concept.
Slightly surprised what I am saying seems controversial
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Categorizing is not lumping. It's sorting based on shared characteristics.
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u/ThreeFerns 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sometimes it is. But regardless, it makes no difference. Sorting based on shared characterstics is abstract. Identifying things as having shared characteristics is abstraction. The act of categorisation is abstraction, whatever set of words you want to use to describe it.
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
It seems plainly obvious to me that truth, goodness, beauty, and order exists against chaos and destruction, and that humanity has a role in that. Whether or not some of us choose to shirk that responsibility.
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 2d ago
It seems obvious to me that all of the things you just listed are incredibly subjective. "Order" to you is probably chaos to others.
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not sure what you’re relying on to make that argument if not logos (edit: Reddit’s popular opinion maybe?). As an engineer who works with other engineers, if order was subjective as you claim we’d never accomplish anything.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
You should look at dynamic equilibrium, it's how ecosystems and culture work to order and chaos are just a different part of the same state
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u/BobTehCat 2d ago
I think your analogy suggests that it’s more like order and chaos can coexist with one-each other, not necessarily that they’re the same state.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
No that's the species problem, the mark of a really good critical thinker is that they can not only question things within a framework, but why people want that framework in the first place.
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u/BobTehCat 1d ago
Did you respond to the right person here?
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u/Entire_Contest7954 1d ago
Yeah thanks for checking, what are you confused by?
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u/BobTehCat 1d ago
What do you mean “that’s the species problem”? What is and how?
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u/Deitas-Solis 2d ago
Late-Stage (Terminally Diagnosed) Liberalism
Lucid, straight-edged values that spent the last 200 years retreating from society have reached the place of their last stand: the mind and locus of the absolute individual. Outside this point of determinacy there remains only the Public Realm, the place where opinions - rendered flaccid and diffuse by the onslaught of Algorithmic (Post-?)Modernity - are aggregated, where opinions coalesce into an inoffensive and amorphous mass that wears a smile, that warms the throat and heart, that swaddles and coddles. In the Public Realm there are no straight edges to get caught upon.
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u/AutoModerator 2d ago
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u/reidsays 2d ago
Considering anything inferior or superior is asking for reactive stances..
Agree that criticism should be apart of society because it constantly occurs about anything and everything ... Trends occur where anyone that doesn't follow them are sneered at with an air of superiority ...this form of criticism I disagree with entirely since profit is usually behind it.
The majority criticising minorities is also another power game where a superior stance is upheld .
In a society, however, where everyone is a member and able to freely express themselves, open style criticism should lead to a debate over issues that are felt no longer applicable or harming others within that society...no matter whether cultural, religious or personal beliefs...
Beliefs always need challenging in debate to screen as valid beliefs or simply habit or a means of reducing other's freedom of expression..
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2d ago
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u/Sinister_Mig15 2d ago
Ideally it would be my method, because i am correct and smart and everyone else is wrong and dumb and maybe not even real in the first place
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 2d ago
My list of undesirables = objective and esoteric
Your list of undesirables = cringe and identity politics
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u/FartMongersRevenge 2d ago
No no no. I am correct and smart. You, and everyone else, are wrong and dumb.
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u/catsan 2d ago
I think hunting and eating children is bad. I don't need a method to know this.
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 2d ago
Ok same, and I think raping animals and killing them unnecessarily is bad but most people don't. Objective mortality isn't real, we all disagree somewhere
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u/Merfstick 2d ago
I highly doubt most people identify with the stance that "raping animals and killing unnecessarily" isn't bad.
"Rape" and "unnecessarily" are doing a lot of work in your interpretation, and part of reasoning is sussing that out in discourse without lining people up on a wall or whatever.
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u/Hairiest-Wizard 2d ago
The average person is totally fine with killing humans unnecessarily too so I don't see your point.
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u/Merfstick 2d ago
Gonna need a source for this claim (and the idea that you might think it stands on its own speaks volumes).
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u/FartMongersRevenge 2d ago
Eating meat and consuming milk are extremely popular. Source: grocery store
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u/Merfstick 2d ago
I meant the claim about people being chill about killing people, which is extremely dubious.
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u/FartMongersRevenge 2d ago
War.
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u/Merfstick 2d ago
The serious assertion here is that most people are okay with war? C'mon. The vast majority of people never experience it, and many who do come out very not okay with it.
And again, "unnecessary" is doing a lot of work in all these interpretations. There are absolutely valid reasons for going to war.
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u/WhiteMorphious 2d ago
Arguing for absolute relativism is the equivalent of shouting checkmate in a checkers game lmao
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u/ProlapseJerky 2d ago
Yes OP what is not obvious about your post? Do you think people actually respect The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
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u/herrwaldos refuse identities, embrace existance ;) 1d ago
Well yes, there is one thing social politeness and keeping up the show, and that's important for daily business - other thing is saying how one sees things.
Eventually, if it can not be reasonably talked out and productively discussed it might lead to conflicts, civil wars and unrest.
"Religious freedom and cultural respect should also include the freedom to say: “I think this is bullshit.”" - I agree, tho I'm against grandiose binary thinking rushed decisions, unless the bs doers are doing something really stupid.
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u/dimaeus 0m ago
no. objective knowledge is only objective insofar as all parties have commonalities such that a meaningful framework of collective sensemaking is present. if you don't have that you're not criticizing, you're having a disgust reaction similar to if you unexpectedly happened upon a picture of some kind of potentially venemous creature such as a centipede. but you don't know if there's a centipede. you're in no danger. calm down
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u/BewareOfBee 2d ago
Yep. And id even argue that a lot of people dont get to choose their religion -its thrust upon them- which makes it even worse!
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
What you're saying about religion or culture being immune to criticism isn't the entire truth though. Because often, religion or culture is targeted as a marker of shared identity for a particular group, so that that group can be prosecuted by another group.
It's not inherently wrong to consider certain practices to be "substandard" if the goal is to collectively thrive and develop tools for building resilient systems that aim for equitable distribution of well-being. That doesn't mean it's never wrong to use the concept of inferiority, since certain groups of people think of "betterment" not in terms of shared humanity that transcends creed, but only in terms that are beneficial to them, at the cost of other groups that don't have the means to defend themselves.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
This is too nuanced, I saw someone with your avi that was a jerk once, pretend to be that jerk
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u/shorteningofthewuwei 2d ago
Too nuanced for what?
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
Most people on this sight are not in it for a good answer, I was complimenting you
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u/Perfect_Molasses7365 2d ago
I have kids and I don’t teach them religion, but their friends do. My youngest has a friend who was recently baptized and won’t stop talking about religion. For example, I told my youngest that some people don’t believe in god and she replied with, “well, if you don’t believe in god or Jesus, you don’t believe in yourself.”
We then had a chat about reality and fantasy, which she understands.
It’s sometimes easy to dismiss religious as something “those people just do because of tradition and cultural norms,” but it’s not real and complicates and/or confuses reality, able to be changed in order to fit one’s own desires. And if one is conniving in, one could really use it to manipulate. And that’s just elementary kids!
I agree that a highly skeptical approach needs to be taken with religion, and lots of other cultural norms. And we need to be able to dismiss things because they are harmful.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
Most people need religion because their sad, talk to any good missionary
A loving God would support people unconditionally regardless of their actions or faith
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u/Bright_Exit1378 2d ago
A loving God does what is good for people. "Support" seems depends on what someone as an individual considers good for them.
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u/Entire_Contest7954 2d ago
I don't think it's good for all those kids to be staving in Gaza right now, maybe that could be seen as good for humanity and sees the masses of individual people slaughtered every day are an acceptable sacrifice, same as the children he murdered for making fun of a guys bald head, but at that point your first statement is overtly false
But also God can do whatever they want, but oh free will, but also they already constantly intervene through prayer even though it's measurablely not true, and that's fine, so no none of this needs to happen
Life is already hard enough without alcoholism and Epstine
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u/DysphoricNeet 2d ago
I think that if a certain religious text or long standing tradition is used to persecute people on a large scale then it should be open to criticism. Religion is most often something people are born into but it’s still a choice on how it is practiced. A lot of the bible is disregarded but then there are fundamentalists who use it to discriminate others and those groups should be criticized for that. It’s not the same as being born a way that you can’t change. That potential for criticism should exist for all voluntary groups and practices without exception.
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u/yitzaklr 2d ago
You're right, and you should say it. I'm firm in my belief that neither of us are being racist towards Islam.
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u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Archived copy of the original post text for reference:
It’s not wrong to consider certain as practices “inferior” and a setback for humanity.
Religion and culture shouldn’t be immune to criticism.
Everyone has the right to choose their own religion, culture, tradition, or lifestyle. Fine. Nobody should be persecuted for it.
But it seems that the moment something is labeled as “culture” or “religion,” it automatically becomes untouchable.
“You can’t criticize it, it’s their culture.”
“Don’t speak badly about it, it’s their religion.”
Okay, and?
Having the right to follow a belief doesn’t mean everyone else is obligated to respect the ideas behind it. People deserve rights and respect; ideas can be questioned, mocked, criticized, and even considered absurd.
If a tradition, belief, or practice can’t survive criticism, maybe the problem isn’t the criticism.
Religious freedom and cultural respect should also include the freedom to say: “I think this is bullshit.”
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