03-01-2019, 10:45 PM
(03-01-2019, 08:28 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: Culture Wars? Always remember, "War doesn't decide who is right, war only decides who is left." If the nazis had won WW2, people would have to believe that a mix of hypernationalism, Nordic paganism, and führer kult were "right".
Oh, and @Eric: "feminists have never been in favor of porn"? Google "sex-positive feminists" - if you dare.
Basically correct. If the Nazis had won the war we might still be debating how evil the Jews that Hitler (in that scenario, rightfully exterminated in the service of Aryan people) were, and how they would oppose the restoration of chattel slavery of the plantation order (blacks not accepting it being killed). Or feeding Christians to sharks or crocodiles in anaquarium (should bears and Big Cats be 'pedestrian' because the mere Romans did that*) as entertainment? Evil or supremely evil? Merely entities masquerading in human form unable to live honorably, or literal demons?
I have seen several arguments that the Axis powers lost the war because of their cruelty. Such ensured that the peoples of the Soviet Union could never long see the Nazis as liberators from Bolshevism. In the final two years of the war, Americans and Brits in liberated Europe had trouble with extended supply lines, but not with partisans derailing trains, ambushing trucks or troops, or bombing harbors to sink supply ships. If there is any one lesson of World War II, it is that giving people who come under one's control no cause to strike back creates victory in its own right.
...As for porn, we have a big disparity between comparatively gentle erotica and the brutal and dehumanizing sexuality in some pornography. People can do sex with dignity, and some people might be able to describe such. Much of the pornography out there has a man humiliating a woman or perhaps a man humiliating a man by making a cuckold of her husband. I am not going to delve into the variations. Sex at its best uplifts both participants, and if it devolves into the abuse and humiliation of one one participant for the gratification of the other it is wrong. And, yes, the unclothed female body at its best is a marvel to behold -- if one is a straight male or a lesbian. I can't speak for straight women or gay men. I never thought my genitals in any way beautiful.
*The rabbis of the time determined that it was improper for any Jew to deal bears, tigers, or lions to the Romans; those rabbis knew what was going on, and they thought it an abomination. Dealing them to the Persians was not such a problem.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.