@12thRITS Okay, well, it's not a literary text. But for the subject matter, it is very coherent and fluent.

If I don't let nature determine my fate in terms of disease, or physical disability, or access to food or shelter, why the fuck would I let nature be the determinant of my ideological beliefs?

True, nature is not kind. Nature allows for obscene levels of suffering.

The incoherence of the right with their embrace of social darwinism is that they constantly do everything in their power as white, male, christians to inure themselves from the cruelty of nature while demanding others endure it.

@DrorBedrack Understood. Look, the author is Canadian and the north American definition of liberal is very different from the European one.

That being said, the book is excellent.

Honestly, I don't need to appeal to some shadowy big other, nature or science or religion, to justify my passionate belief in equality and diversity.

Because I have morals.

I also have concrete proof of concept: hundreds of massive, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial cities that are the most prosperous, culturally rich and diverse places on earth, where people have lived together for hundreds of years without, for most of their existences, slaughtering each other.

His conclusion is that 'liberals/libertarians' take fundamental issue with the principle of equality in society and rely on some very dodgy science to confirm their own sense of genetic superiority.
How did greedy fuckery ever gain the status of 'ideology'? But it certainly is accepted as such.

However, I have never made the argument that equality is a natural truth. Equality is an idea to embrace, to MAKE a truth, because it allows for the organisation of more ethical social systems.

RE: https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl/117177735508773011

So, I finished the book. It is exceptionally well-written. Super accessible. It does suffer from being an academic text in that the author over-supplies examples to make his argument. I was persuaded of his central thesis about half-way through.

However, he chooses a very specific and, for Europeans, a quite unfamiliar definition of liberalism. He conflates it with libertarianism, and makes a robust argument for why he does so.

@itsfoss Which is why I use it, and give them money.

The movie 9-5 did more to promote feminism that 99% of the intellectual texts on the topic.

I remember watching it with my mother who said - something I didn’t understand at the time - that Dolly Parton was ‘a woman’s woman’

RE: https://texasobserver.social/@TexasObserver/117106268063592160

The only thing that will appease extremist Republicans is a poor and ignorant population to act as a slave class.

Meanwhile, I'm really glad I don't hold my doctorate from the University of Houston. Once a university does shit like this, what are its degrees actually worth? How does a degree from that institution attest to a standard of knowledge?

@apenkop hahaha

@apenkop @rozeboosje @Rubelicious THIS is the best eclipse photo on my feed

RE: https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl/117083900281350138

Sadly, there was no absence of gravity. In fact, maybe a slight increase after dinner

@Rubelicious I live to disappoint

Fuck that building #Eclipse

@Natasha_Jay @cstross

That is the most apt and all encompassing metaphor for the US I have ever seen

@Elizafox
In many countries, life has become much better for women in some ways.

I'm not saying it's perfect, or problem solved. But I am heartily glad I was born in the 20th C and not in the 15th.

If all we do is say that everything has gotten worse, then there is no response but to shrug our shoulders and suffer.

When we recognize where things have gotten better, we can point to that and say I'll have more of that please.

@Jonricha if only governments and billionaire tech bros were as benevolent

@paulk exactly

Dora, kiln firing supervisor (retired ) #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

Supervisor of lunch preparation #Cats #CatsOfMastodon