Will Shetterly's Blog, page 145

Reclaiming Civility

My momma taught me me some manners. So did my daddy. I’ll always be sorry that when disagreeing with people who reject civility, I sometimes followed their lead. I rationalized it by saying that going by the house rules is just being polite, but I knew that wasn’t so. The Golden Rule has nothing to do with how people treat you. The Golden Rule is only about being true to yourself.
Manners are about more than philosophy; they’re about tactics, too. Every diplomat knows that—in a better world, w...

How to teach your daughter that books which offend you should be banned

Author Constance Cooper explains How my 8-year-old daughter got some sexist kids' books yanked from the bookstore.

Emma noted that by yanking those sexist books, other parents and children have been deprived of the opportunity to talk about books and sexism.

For people who say only governments can censor: the First Amendment protects private censorship, but opposing free speech is still wrong: a few points from the ACLU, Popehat, Salman Rushdie, and others.

outrage culture and privilege theory are about to implode at Gawker, Salon, and the Daily Banter

It's Gawker's  vs. Salon's  with sniping from The Daily Banter's . There can be no winners.

ETA: I have to stop sharing outrage news. Being outraged about outrage culture is just the meta way to be part of it.

two gods of fanatics

A few years ago, I noticed that "fanatic" comes from fanaticus: "inspired by a deity, frenzied, from fanum temple" and wondered who the god of fanatics might be. Bill Colsher left this comment:

Of course there's a goddess of fanatics! Two of 'em: 

Juvenal uses fanaticus in Satire 4 with reference to Bellona and in the 2nd (along with Livy) with regards to the priests of Cybele. The word is actually pretty rare - Perseus showed only 18 instances, mostly in Livy and those mostly re...

Loving grids: I'm an agnostic atheist left libertarian (if you trust grids)

ETA: Lines are one-dimensional, grids are two-dimensional, reality is multi-dimensional. So don't put too much faith in any model of human behavior.

Socialist Bible verses: Proverbs 14:31

As usual, the KJV is pretty:

He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.

But the NIV is clear:

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

Brother Will says: Nothing. How do you improve on that?

A spoiler-free observation about this week's Breaking Bad, subtext, why Walter White's a great tragic hero, and good endings

1. A surprising number of people took the final speech in this week's episode at face value. I didn't expect that because two great performances—by the speaker and especially by the primary listener—should've told everyone that more was being said than the speaker's words implied.

But subtext is often missed.

2. Walter White's a great tragic hero because he never stops believing that he can fix everything if he just tries hard enough.

3. Most stories have one possible emotionally right ending. T...

My socialism is democratic socialism

Continuing my thoughts in My socialism:

My socialism is Democratic socialism. Like most political terms, it encompasses competing ideas; I don't pick one because my stress stays on "democratic". I look at history and trust people to work things out as best they can.

Two quotes by democratic socialists:

Rosa Luxemburg:"Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a me...

How much puts you in the US's Top 1% by Wealth and Income?

Measuring the Top 1% by Wealth, Not Income - NYTimes.com: "The Times had estimated the threshold for being in the top 1 percent in household income at about $380,000, 7.5 times median household income, using census data from 2008 through 2010. But for net worth, the 1 percent threshold for net worth in the Fed data was nearly $8.4 million, or 69 times the median household’s net holdings of $121,000."

If U.S. Land Were Divided Like U.S. Wealth