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jackWhich things are not import about #piggate
I was completely unable to resist spending about 12 hours making puns about this. But I was probably wrong in that.
Which things are import about #piggate
The idea that the book was written by Ashcroft as an attack for not acceding to more of his influence over the conservative party. This seems likely, I hope it will quickly become apparent how certain it is, and who is to blame for the influence-peddling. But "not giving in to blackmail" is generally a good thing: even if I condemn Cameron for lots of other things, this isn't something I should criticise him for.
Which things are not important about #piggate
I think raising animals to be slaughtered is a bad thing AT ALL. But once the animal is ALREADY DEAD, I don't think it's harmed any more by being used for sexual purposes than for food purposes, it's just a matter of which penis goes in which mouth.
We should be critical of things that are harmful, not things we personally are disgusted by[1]. It can be hard to do that, our instincts often encourage us to be judgemental based on personal disgust, maybe for good reason. But we should avoid that. Lots of people object to being anything-other-than-straight mostly based on their "ugh" factor, even though they try to come up with good justifications for it. And for many other issues. And we don't accept that. But it's harder to accept things that we personally haven't emotionally accepted, or to say "I'll never personally like it, but I'll fight for other people's right to do it." And why shouldn't that extend to dead animals -- it shouldn't be a maybe, it should be a definite.
And that's not because I care about Cameron, it's because the accusation hurts other people who might be accused of it.
I don't know if that actually applies to many people! But shouldn't we practice being accepting whether we need to or not, so when we do need to, we're on the right side?
Except that, my argument sounds intellectually convincing, but I'm not sure I'm actually convinced by it. Surely there have to be SOME things we can mock people for? Or don't there? Am I right?
[1] Insert humorous exception here :)
I was completely unable to resist spending about 12 hours making puns about this. But I was probably wrong in that.
Which things are import about #piggate
The idea that the book was written by Ashcroft as an attack for not acceding to more of his influence over the conservative party. This seems likely, I hope it will quickly become apparent how certain it is, and who is to blame for the influence-peddling. But "not giving in to blackmail" is generally a good thing: even if I condemn Cameron for lots of other things, this isn't something I should criticise him for.
Which things are not important about #piggate
I think raising animals to be slaughtered is a bad thing AT ALL. But once the animal is ALREADY DEAD, I don't think it's harmed any more by being used for sexual purposes than for food purposes, it's just a matter of which penis goes in which mouth.
We should be critical of things that are harmful, not things we personally are disgusted by[1]. It can be hard to do that, our instincts often encourage us to be judgemental based on personal disgust, maybe for good reason. But we should avoid that. Lots of people object to being anything-other-than-straight mostly based on their "ugh" factor, even though they try to come up with good justifications for it. And for many other issues. And we don't accept that. But it's harder to accept things that we personally haven't emotionally accepted, or to say "I'll never personally like it, but I'll fight for other people's right to do it." And why shouldn't that extend to dead animals -- it shouldn't be a maybe, it should be a definite.
And that's not because I care about Cameron, it's because the accusation hurts other people who might be accused of it.
I don't know if that actually applies to many people! But shouldn't we practice being accepting whether we need to or not, so when we do need to, we're on the right side?
Except that, my argument sounds intellectually convincing, but I'm not sure I'm actually convinced by it. Surely there have to be SOME things we can mock people for? Or don't there? Am I right?
[1] Insert humorous exception here :)
no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 09:33 pm (UTC)Some reasons why you might engage in compromising behaviour in the context of an exclusive society:
(i) You're drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Not great judgement (especially if you're planning to be a politician) but mine wasn't perfect at that age either; then again I never got as far as buying pigs heads just on the offchance, ditto the people I drank with.
(ii) It's an unpleasant bit of hazing but you think you'll get something out of it in the short term (reliable drinking buddies or whatever) so you go along with it. I don't think I'd have gone for it even had the possibility arisen.
(iii) It's an unpleasant bit of hazing but you think you'll get something out of it in the long term. I don't think I'd have gone for it but the question never arose.
(iv) Mostly a special case of (iii), it's an informed precommitment to other members of the same organisation not to tread on their toes in your expected high-flying future public career (because they subsequently have juicy blackmail material), and they do the same as a quid pro quo [and now one has reason to believe retaliation will not happen/will be ineffective/is an acceptable loss]. Again I don't think I'd have gone for it but in the event the question also never arose.
(v) Something I haven't thought of.
The subtext, which is really a bit too blatant to deserve the 'sub', to (iii) and (iv) is that most of us never get the opportunity to make deals involving disgusting and/or embarrassing activities and life-long elite support, but by this point the argument has very little to do with pigs.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 09:34 pm (UTC)