This is my microblog, a place for me to jot down random thoughts that I want to keep, but are too small enough to constitute a real article/post.
Is freedom of speech absolute? Why do we traditionally see it as a fundamental right? Is it really inalienable?
I think a grea portion of this lies upon the dangers to democracy when censoring political speech. Is that a sufficient reason to accept freedom of speech as a universal right, that protects e.g. hate speech and inciting violence?
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An illusion in a dream overpowers reality. &
Hypocrisy is bad. I know, but I'm still complicit in it. &
Continental liberalism and modern populist democracy eliminate the ruling class external to the people being ruled, leading to self-governance, preventing tyranny. However, the `people' who exercise the power are not always the same people who are affected by the power. The `will of the people', in practice, is the will of the most numerous or active subset of the people. Democracy is, on these grounds, often used as a utility for the tyranny of the majority. &
I think my experience of gender dysphoria has became inconsistent in what I actually think about gender. My belief, in theory, is that gender should be eradicated (see “Postgenderism”) altogether, as it’s an unnecessary construct that limits people, imposes cisnormativity, etc.
I try to think along the terms of “gender doesn’t matter, at all”. But my experience says otherwise: I found myself, perhaps “strangely”, more comfortable with she/her pronouns than with they/them. So when interacting with people online, who don’t know me IRL, I just declare she/her pronouns and… well, it’s a glaring inconsistency in my theory of gender and society and INCONCISTENCIES BUG ME. I started feeling like a hypocrite.
If gender really doesn’t matter to me, why do I have gender dysphoria??.
To make myself feel better perhaps I could explain it as “I wouldn’t feel gender dysphoria if society doesn’t impose gender as a socially significant construct altogether”. And I can, only, hope so.
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I myself live in a string of characters, through emotionless computers, running some old protocols. The me of appearance is dead. &
Democracy is the protection of negative freedom and civil liberties, not the enforcement of general will. &
Reading 雷雨 and thinking about A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie There's a commonality in these plays—and perhaps many more—that struck me: The presentation of femininity as dependence.
I've always tried to fight against such interpretations as I found them to be, perhaps a bit sexist. Yet looking at my own manifestation of femininity, I find shocking ressemblence with my dependence on peopole (and occasionally also abstract entities like knowledge).
Perhaps it depends on what we mean by the word “femininity”. Is it the quality of being female? Or is it the behavioral norms traditionally associated with the female gender?
(Or perhaps this experience is limited by my perception of my own trans femininity and isn't a common theme upon modern cis femininity?)
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I kinda think faith is something we all struggle with, and doesn't seem to be too relevant to whether we are religious in the traditional sense. For me there're things like faith in logic, faith in knowledge, faith in properties of humankind, etc. They seem to be so ungrounded, founded upon beliefs that I cannot support with my own weight. &
As much as I believe in determinism, I do not believe that humans have capacity to pre-determine their own fate. &
My world is still of metaphorical illusions. I need to learn to be afraid of romanticized narratives and perspectives. However, it is apparently hard to do so—I sink into romantic words that create a color filter in my perception, they make reality look so beautiful, so... “sweet”, moving me further away from what reality really is. &
I'm probably not the only one who has these dangerous/harmful/unhelpful thoughts:
How different, or perhaps “better' could my life be, if I could go back to the start of Year 9, and make different decisions? Perhaps that would mean choosing something other than IGCSE History. Or perhaps that means... when that was still possible, let my yearn and longing for intimacy with trusted people to discuss philosophy and science with, stay undeveloped.
Perhaps I could have became a happy person. The me of the present could never know.
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To what extent is "it sets a precedent" a concern that justifies or warrants declining a request that is on its own, appropriate? &
I hereby discard the structuralist view that people are composed of the opposing parts "benign" and "malicious". These simple and perhaps judgemental concepts are insufficient in face of the complexity of the human condition. &