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Hallelujah.
We shall overcome.
We shall overcome.
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Wolf
Size 700 x 2000px
File Size 473.6 kB
Listed in Folders
shugo-wolf
sickeleye
So if there's now a hypothetical submission created that is so very clearly a "lulz Sonderjen got pwned" in-joke with stacking of back-slapping comments (heck, let's spread it around a few other drama sites, even though those don't count for FA purposes), you'd be more than happy with that?
OK, maybe you would... I'd be fully expecting the administration to be doing something about that, though. Especially if that person had a history of deliberately laughing at other's expense without realising that FA is a safe-haven for RL people to enjoy, not a political pressure cooker where everyone is "fair game" for whatever cutting satire one cares to throw around. Is that not a clear enough distinction?
OK, maybe you would... I'd be fully expecting the administration to be doing something about that, though. Especially if that person had a history of deliberately laughing at other's expense without realising that FA is a safe-haven for RL people to enjoy, not a political pressure cooker where everyone is "fair game" for whatever cutting satire one cares to throw around. Is that not a clear enough distinction?
The enemies of intellectual liberty always try to present their case as a plea for discipline versus individualism. The issue truth-versus-untruth is as far as possible kept in the background. Although the point of emphasis may vary, the writer who refuses to sell his opinions is always branded as a mere egoist. He is accused, that is, of either wanting to shut himself up in an ivory tower, or of making an exhibitionist display of his own personality, or of resisting the inevitable current of history in an attempt to cling to unjustified privilege.
"Mr Sonderjen is ultimately harmless and no actual threat to the Establishment; he presents no danger beyond mild sarcasm. The Ministry reserves its ire for those, like you, who willingly and disruptively quote subversive writers. Ideas, not images, are ultimately the greatest danger, as the architects of Newspeak have long understood. This way, please."
Mark
Mark
"Here in the Ministry, we have heard it said that Hell is a shopping mall: a locale of infinite promise and miniscule reward; a boulevard of pointless dreams, where one might wander endlessly in Escherian circles with no boundary in sight... and no purpose, either. The authors you have quoted, here and elsewhere, would have understood these concepts and their political-economic-societal implications; they would have struggled to make such implications clear. That is the source of true rebellion, true subversion, true danger. And that source must be corrected through the gentle guidance of the ministry.
"But never with Amway; that would be nasty nasty nasty."
Mark
"But never with Amway; that would be nasty nasty nasty."
Mark
"'Make'? One does not 'make' that which 'is'.
"But we jest... a Ministerial vice, if you must know. We do what we can to suppress it.
"Rand, of course, was a minor devil, Our Lady of Schoolboy Fantasies, a figure of major importance on that most minor of media, the Internet. No, Mr or Ms ElSeven, true wickedness lies elsewhere, just as opposition to that wickedness lies elsewhere. Rebellion within the limits of the Internet, while amusing and often witty, carries no weight in the greater world; and the imagery of rebellion comes easily: it brings no cost, no martyrdom, no ultimate price to be paid in blood or in sweat or in life. Any victories there are purely ephemeral and purely ineffective, no matter how gaily festooned with the tinsel of religious inconography and the tang of cartoon sarcasm.
"If Hell does indeed exist -- and here at the Ministry, we do our best to create the closest possible analogue! -- at its very least, at its most minuscule and personal, it might constitute nothing more than Internet recognition gained for false achievement (false bravado, false rebellion, false resurrection), instead of for the very small yet very genuine, very undeniable, very memorable things that a person can do, and do very well.
Cartoons, for example: excellent cartoons. Cartoons that can speak for themselves, on their own terms. Cartoons that carry greater value than any temporary bad-boy reputation could provide: a value that should remain secure, long after the shouting and distractions have faded. Or so we can always hope, in all sincerity (a word whose definition we had to look up on a Web search engine).
"But enough! Room 101 awaits. Would you care to see our latest line of... products?"
Mark
"But we jest... a Ministerial vice, if you must know. We do what we can to suppress it.
"Rand, of course, was a minor devil, Our Lady of Schoolboy Fantasies, a figure of major importance on that most minor of media, the Internet. No, Mr or Ms ElSeven, true wickedness lies elsewhere, just as opposition to that wickedness lies elsewhere. Rebellion within the limits of the Internet, while amusing and often witty, carries no weight in the greater world; and the imagery of rebellion comes easily: it brings no cost, no martyrdom, no ultimate price to be paid in blood or in sweat or in life. Any victories there are purely ephemeral and purely ineffective, no matter how gaily festooned with the tinsel of religious inconography and the tang of cartoon sarcasm.
"If Hell does indeed exist -- and here at the Ministry, we do our best to create the closest possible analogue! -- at its very least, at its most minuscule and personal, it might constitute nothing more than Internet recognition gained for false achievement (false bravado, false rebellion, false resurrection), instead of for the very small yet very genuine, very undeniable, very memorable things that a person can do, and do very well.
Cartoons, for example: excellent cartoons. Cartoons that can speak for themselves, on their own terms. Cartoons that carry greater value than any temporary bad-boy reputation could provide: a value that should remain secure, long after the shouting and distractions have faded. Or so we can always hope, in all sincerity (a word whose definition we had to look up on a Web search engine).
"But enough! Room 101 awaits. Would you care to see our latest line of... products?"
Mark
After all this build up, how can I refuse to see what lies behind the above mentioned door? Lead on, to my Monty Hall-esque doom!
Though, I beg one more answer, vis a vie said doom, if you don't mind? Forgive me if I've missed something, but why me? I mean, certainly there are those more deserving of this doom qua room then I? (spouter of platitudes and egg-headed grumpiness that I am) Is it these platitudes that have spouted, which have brought me low, or, the familiarity with their sources, no matter how imperfect my understanding? Certainly the self-righteous and self important are better left alone, so as to better obscure these genuine and sincere things behind clouds of rhetoric and scholastic haze?
Though, I beg one more answer, vis a vie said doom, if you don't mind? Forgive me if I've missed something, but why me? I mean, certainly there are those more deserving of this doom qua room then I? (spouter of platitudes and egg-headed grumpiness that I am) Is it these platitudes that have spouted, which have brought me low, or, the familiarity with their sources, no matter how imperfect my understanding? Certainly the self-righteous and self important are better left alone, so as to better obscure these genuine and sincere things behind clouds of rhetoric and scholastic haze?
I'm not sure if your just playing along or if you aren't realizing what dq405 is referencing the book 1984. If you haven't read it, you should. It will make you hate all modern day politicians, regardless of party.
The comparison is being made between the the suppression of ideas on FA to the suppression of free thought in the society depicted in 1984.
The comparison is being made between the the suppression of ideas on FA to the suppression of free thought in the society depicted in 1984.
Yes. Yes I know this. While it has been many years since the reading of that thin volume drew aside the mystic curtain from the cruel face of Truth, I still managed to read the clues that pointed towards Mr. Orwell's oeuvre.
But, the fact that his first response comes in response to my copypaste from Mr. Orwell's The Prevention of Literature, (which you might find interesting in its entirety, if you're interested in the way that extant societies suppress free thought) was a pretty big tip off as well.
Thanks for the heads-up though.
But, the fact that his first response comes in response to my copypaste from Mr. Orwell's The Prevention of Literature, (which you might find interesting in its entirety, if you're interested in the way that extant societies suppress free thought) was a pretty big tip off as well.
Thanks for the heads-up though.
The point that I was attempting to make -- and failed to make -- was that FA is hardly Airstrip One, the admins are hardly Preventers of Literature, the banned and resurrected are hardly Winston Smith... or, for that matter, Eric Arthur Blair.
We're neither Big Brothers nor Underground Rebels, Dictators nor Martyrs, Monsters nor Heroes; the metaphors valid in the larger world of politics really don't apply here. We're just members of a fucked-up Website, and we're all making those typically fucked-up mistakes that characterize life on the Internet.
That's all.
Mark
We're neither Big Brothers nor Underground Rebels, Dictators nor Martyrs, Monsters nor Heroes; the metaphors valid in the larger world of politics really don't apply here. We're just members of a fucked-up Website, and we're all making those typically fucked-up mistakes that characterize life on the Internet.
That's all.
Mark
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