Here’s what bothers me: the devotion to the Good Guys, and the adulation of the Good Guys, coupled with the refusal to sympathize or empathize with the Bad Guys.
It’s the thing I dislike about that one gif- the one that’s that guy going “Cool motive- still murder”.
I don’t think that anyone is obliged to emotionally care about or empathize with anyone else.
But I think that that’s not what’s happening here.
It seems like people notice that they are feeling sympathetic/empathetic towards Kylo Ren, then they specifically decide that he isn’t worthy of being sympathetic/empathetic towards because he’s a bad guy. That’s… a poor decision based on faulty ideas.
You don’t avoid evil or counter evil by Othering the bad guys. There is potential for evil within everyone, and there is too potential for good. Those who do evil things deserve to be cared for; and naturally arising feelings of care or relation or empathy shouldn’t be ignored.
Deliberately ignoring resonances with the Bad Guys prevents you from (1) exploring your own potential for darkness, managing it, determining whether it is truly evil, and drawing strength from it and (2) accurately viewing them as a full and actual person rather than as a standup strawman.
So much of it feels performative: I hate Kylo Ren and think he doesn’t “deserve” to be empathized with and therefore I’m a good person! I don’t feel connected to him in any way and would never make that kind of mistake!
That’s great. Really great. I’m glad that you’re perfect.
I’ve seen this before.
There’s a much bigger danger here then missing out on some fun media experience: not understanding how people do bad things, and worse, considering yourself someone who categorically cannot do bad things, is a set-up for doing bad things yourself.
Fiction, with the possibility of exploring characters who are labeled as “the bad guy” who still have understandable motives, are sympathetic, maybe even have Tragic Backstories of their own, helps us learn how to avoid repeating these mistakes, how to tell good ideas from ideas that in retrospect, will be “it seemed like a good idea at the time” ideas.
And yes, performance and purity are absolutely part of this.
(Lewis’s Law states that the comments on any article about feminism will justify the need for feminism.)
So today someone posts a thing about how it’s hard to talk to men about issues that affect primarily women.
And this dude responds saying he doesn’t think this is a real problem that women experience:
Apparently without irony. So of course he gets the response:
Not getting it:
STILL NOT GETTING IT:
Does he get it yet? Nope:
He goes through this ENTIRE EXCHANGE without realizing that he is demonstrating the exact issue being discussed. I’m still not sure he understands what’s going on, despite multiple people trying to explain it to him. It’s just… this is a work of art. It’s mansplaining all the way down.
And two more reasons not to say ‘why don’t you have kids’ or ‘you’ll want them later’ are 1) having a genetic illness (either recessive or not) and don’t want to pass it on* and 2) really wanting kids and not able to have them**.
*yes, I know someone like this. She and her partner adopted a child.
**cause everyone enjoys having lemon juice poured on a paper cut, or on an open, bleeding wound, so yeah, go ahead and ask.
Glass Gem is a unique strain of
corn with kernels that look like
pieces of rainbow-colored glass. Source
Carl Barnes, an Oklahoma farmer, started growing older corn varieties to connect with his Cherokee heritage.
He isolated ancestral strains Native American tribes lost in the 1800s when they were relocated to Oklahoma.
Soon he began exchanging ancient corn seed with growers from all over the country, while simultaneously saving and replanting seeds from the most colorful cobs.
This eventually resulted in rainbow-colored corn.
When the rainbow corn mixed with the traditional varieties it created new strains, displaying more vibrant colors and patterns over time.
Glass Gem is a flint corn, so it isn’t really eaten off the cob. It’s usually ground into cornmeal and used in tortillas or grits, but it can also be used to make popcorn.
Loki is the Philosopher King 