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jflaxman In reply to Blitzgob [2025-06-15 22:25:41 +0000 UTC]

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Cosmic--Chaos In reply to KitsuneDzelda [2015-01-23 08:48:31 +0000 UTC]

You nailed it!

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jflaxman In reply to Danubium [2014-10-01 23:56:44 +0000 UTC]

True enough. All good things in moderation....

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Danubium In reply to jflaxman [2014-10-02 08:46:38 +0000 UTC]

“Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me also remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
- Barry Goldwater


Moderation is meaningless without convictions of length and measure, about which you cannot be moderate.

It's all shades of pure black and white.

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jflaxman In reply to Danubium [2014-10-03 02:22:41 +0000 UTC]

Okay, I've had some sleep now, and feel I owe you a proper reply. 

Respecting great thinkers, demagogues, and revolutionaries is fine. Giving them messianic status - whether it's through personality cults or believing they speak for an actual god - is unhealthy. The millions who were killed, displaced, or oppressed under all-too-fallible human leaders would have appreciated some moderation.

Discrimination has a bad name these days, though we all exercise it at times - I'd personally rather associate with people who believe in evolution than those who say I'm damned if I do. When it goes too far it's dangerous. Long before the Western Enlightenment, the exclusionist nature of the early Jewish faith encouraged the first historically recorded acts of genocide, as described in the Book of Joshua. Later monotheistic faiths, such as Christianity and Islam, were generally more inclusive but share common bigotries. Long after Joshua conquered Canaan, another famous messianic leader inspired a self-described "chosen race" to seek "living space" east of Germany, with no consideration for the "subhumans" already there. Had his views not been so exclusionist, he might not have alienated other oppressed ethnic groups who initially viewed him as a saviour, or driven away scientists who helped to build the atom bomb, and history would be very different.

I'd argue apocalyptic themes are the most dangerous of all. Positive change can be achieved without destruction; in most cases large-scale destruction hinders attempts to build better societies. Under George Bush 2 we saw a disturbing rise in "end times" talk, which is not condusive to long-term planning; and the same administration's destruction of a secular Arab dictatorship led to a less liberal and less stable society. Democracy alone is little help if a Shi'ite majority, resentful of the oppression they faced from their Sunni overlords, are more religiously conservative and vengefully exclusionist. Religious notions of apocalypse are more dangerous again. Communists and capitalists might adhere to different world views but neither want the world destroyed. On that level they can co-exist and in some cases negotiate. Religious extremists who believe the end will come soon, and look forward to it, believing they will be rewarded with eternal paradise, are far more likely to be reckless, uncompromising, aggressive, even suicidal. For a real-world example compare the unhappy but stable state of Korea with the turmoil of the Middle East.

Utopian dreams aren't so common these days, though they were very much in vogue in the early 20th century. Nazism and Stalinism were two expressions of these dreams. Both made some positive achievements at a tremendous human cost. Human "gods" have proved too fallible to have so much appeal today, but more traditional gods - who can never be killed or deposed so long as they have followers - still promise utopian afterlives, and I'd argue these can diminish and devalue our short lives on Earth. I don't have any problem with what people believe in private, but when a lack of moderation drives them to kill themselves and others in the hope of reaching heaven I have a right to be disgusted. A bit more moderation - accepting imperfection, in this world or some hypothetical next - serves us better than an extremism that seeks to excise imperfection or claim it will not exist in a perfect future that is always one more massacre of one more infidel away.

I'd post more, but I have to go - my net access is limited. I hope this has made things clearer.

 

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jflaxman In reply to Cherardon [2014-01-02 08:10:06 +0000 UTC]

This one's gone through a few manifestations, and responses to each have been mixed. When you say the original, do you mean the other colour version or the even older monochrome?

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Cherardon In reply to jflaxman [2014-01-02 09:28:46 +0000 UTC]

The grim one, with the naked bald guy dispensing purely religious symbols (which I figured was both ballsy and absolutely spot on).
It also looked more like a real painting -with a perhaps message- than a hissy fit from an teenage boy listening to Iron Maiden all day long.

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Cherardon In reply to Cherardon [2014-01-02 09:30:06 +0000 UTC]

My, those typos. Sheesh... -_-
Need sleep.

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jflaxman In reply to Cherardon [2014-01-04 07:16:22 +0000 UTC]

No need to apologise. The first version featured a robed figure and dates from late high school (I listened to a lot of Maiden, so your comment cracked me up). Most of my friends preferred the robed figure so I went back to it the third time round. 

I've got mixed thoughts about this piece. I don't normally use such lurid colours but I wanted to try something new.

The first version also dated from a time when I felt all religion was evil, but these days that seems a little simplistic (indeed adolescent hissy fit). My conscience compelled me to add other symbols. The monotheistic faiths have historically been the most divisive, but secular ideologies that share some of their worst attributes have also done the world great harm. If National Socialism and Communism (for example) have been less durable than Christianity, Islam, etc. it's because the very human failings of their equally human "gods" are more evident. Traditional gods only have to deliver their promises in a presumed afterlife and will always be infallible in the minds of their followers.

The strength of all these ideologies - religious and otherwise - is their ability to unite and inspire people of a given race, class or faith; but all tend to demonise outsiders, often to their detriment. I've touched on the four main factors above; removing one or more from any doctrine would make it less dangerous. Two non-exclusionist religions could peacefully coexist (as often happened in pre-Christian Europe, where different pantheons were merged) while an intensely nationalistic, but non-expansionist dictator, might prove more successful than one whose popularity depended on repeated military victories (compare the histories of Pinochet, Franco, Napoleon and Mussolini). 

On a purely aesthetic note, everyone's got their own ideas, and I think this concept's strong enough to revisit yet again. You may see another version some day!

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Cherardon In reply to Nosvertu [2013-12-30 19:54:54 +0000 UTC]

Yesterday I killed a salad.

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Nosvertu In reply to Cherardon [2013-12-30 22:07:19 +0000 UTC]

You are truly a monster.

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Cherardon In reply to Nosvertu [2014-01-02 09:35:03 +0000 UTC]

I know and I wheep at night.
I only walk on pavement so I don't kill grass.

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Nosvertu In reply to Cherardon [2014-01-02 23:34:59 +0000 UTC]

Pavement is lain upon the tombs of countless blades of grass.

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Cherardon In reply to Nosvertu [2014-01-06 01:16:47 +0000 UTC]

Oh noooo, I see what you're trying to pull me into, you most naïve tree-hugger. But be assured that I won't fall victim to that thinly veiled guilt trip of yours! Never.
This is so preposterous. What you can't realize is that it was wildlife! Nothing more but the most absolutely wild, savage and untamed life. Barbarians! Green barbarians, even!
We brought civilization to those rough and chaotic lands. Yes, CIVILIZATION! And what do we get served with these days in return for all that ungrateful hard labour?
Greenies. Damn vocal greenies who protest on the behalf of an irrirating fraction of the grass community, just to look away and conveniently ignore how the rude and uneducated filthy moss literally dares to invade our cities and proliferate anywhere, without asking.
Some people like you say we should let them do, according to some broken argument that finds its roots (haha) in some old lingering unsettled grief, supposedly going to back to times when our ancestors might have killed theirs, or some nonsense like that.
Well do you see grass in Nevada? Do you? Didn't we actually HELP vast acres of grass to flourish at peace in the middle of exceptionally arid environments?
Do you know how much we spend each year just to get those water stations running at full? Oh yes, I guess you didn't know that it was rounded up some millions. Millions of dollards through those water pipes.
Straight for the grass healtcare. Oh gracious Lord, isn't that harsh to those plants?
I tell you, I'm a proud citizen and I brush my teeth every single day. I also like my pavements and my city clean. Above all, I do eat vegs, and I have such a right to kill them because God damn well told me I could.
My opinion is simple: I say we remove the illegal moss and let those mouthful squares of grass be thankful that we walk on pavements out of dear kindness.
We have the right to live that way, I'd go as far to say that it should be in our Constitution.
Thank God moss does not vote! Neither salad!

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Nosvertu In reply to Cherardon [2014-01-06 03:13:59 +0000 UTC]

I'm actually allergic to grass pollen tbh. Fuck those little bastards.

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SnailPropulsionLabs In reply to Nosvertu [2013-10-14 19:54:24 +0000 UTC]

Elegantly stated.

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