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Bakker XXIV: To Be Human is to Be Damned


lokisnow

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I think the idea that criticism of the text should be read as means of self-aggrandizement or obsessive PC-ness on the part of male-feminists or whatever is a futile way to conduct arguments.



It basically casts opposition to Bakker as damned for daring to disagree. It's that whole "by complaining you only reveal your conditioning" stuff that has never served Bakker well.


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Calibandar -

1) As Sci kindly pointed out I am a woman, so your crack about male feminists while quoting me is ridiculous. I wouldn't just be bothered for feminist reasons but because I would personally be very disappointed and disgusted by that being where he takes Serwa.

2) I wasn't even fucking criticising Banker or the books, as has also been pointed out I was discussing my aversion to a theory put forward by madness, as several other people had already done without being jumped on

3) Criticising Bakker is not a fun or popular thing to do in this thread, Kalbear does talk about such things at times and others will discuss certain specifics, but every single time I've brought it up (and one of them was in a gen chat thread so I wasn't profaning this holy ground) I've been attacked. I wasn't doing it to be cool, I would have genuine problems with that theory coming true (which for the record is unlikely).

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Is number of believers thought to be a metric of veracity in feminism?

As in most things, yes. Obviously those with different views of what feminism is believe themselves to be in the right. I tend to just look at the commonalities of most of the views and work from there.

I'm sure there are nuances i'm not getting that make your statement about feminism correct and mine immature (looked up sophomoric) you state more people believe your interpetation

Here's one way in which my statement is different than yours: the rights of a man vs. a woman when it comes to child custody in divorce cases. Right now overwhelmingly courts favor women in the US. This is often brought up as a 'see, men have it bad too' argument when arguing against feminism. But feminists (in a general way) rarely are against changing this. It tends to be lower on the totem pole of feminist's fights compared to, say, sexual assault, but it's not the case that feminists want only the rights of women to be equal to men - they also want the rights of men to be equal to women. They are fighting (again, in general) for equal rights. Now, you can find some schools of feminist thought that disagree with all sorts of parts of that sentence, which is why I'm talking in generalities. Feminism is a pretty hard movement to pin down, as it turns out.

In any case, here's the part that is sophomoric - that feminists do not want to distinguish between male and female or men and women (most feminist schools want the rights to be equal but the sexes and/or genders to be appreciated as distinct) and that women should have the same rights as men (but men should not have the same rights as women). Only a few schools of feminism think that there should be no difference at all between men and women, though more think that women should have special rights that men do not.

Also keep this in mind - this is just my opinion. Others are likely to disagree. In particular, i tend to view myself as a feminist ally but not a feminist because of my privilege. Probably the best thing to do about more questions on feminism is to go over to the GC and ask there.

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Holy shit balls. I guess I came back into this topic at the wrong time.



I'm not sure if people are being sarcastic or not about the Bakker sock puppet incident? IT did really happen and I can search back through really, really old threads if you want but I know a lot of you were here for it, so, I don't even know what the issue with that one is.



I also want to state that I don't think Bakker started the ROH, Valente, Etc shitstorm a while back, but he handled it, very, very, very badly. Shit, has that even ended yet? I stopped going to like 5 or 6 sites because of that.



Random aside, are we actually accusing someone in here of being a Bakker sock? Or is that just the old joke coming up again?



I'm so confused.



@Rhom Caps Lock dragon IS awesome!


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As in most things, yes. Obviously those with different views of what feminism is believe themselves to be in the right. I tend to just look at the commonalities of most of the views and work from there.

Here's one way in which my statement is different than yours: the rights of a man vs. a woman when it comes to child custody in divorce cases. Right now overwhelmingly courts favor women in the US. This is often brought up as a 'see, men have it bad too' argument when arguing against feminism. But feminists (in a general way) rarely are against changing this. It tends to be lower on the totem pole of feminist's fights compared to, say, sexual assault, but it's not the case that feminists want only the rights of women to be equal to men - they also want the rights of men to be equal to women. They are fighting (again, in general) for equal rights. Now, you can find some schools of feminist thought that disagree with all sorts of parts of that sentence, which is why I'm talking in generalities. Feminism is a pretty hard movement to pin down, as it turns out.

In any case, here's the part that is sophomoric - that feminists do not want to distinguish between male and female or men and women (most feminist schools want the rights to be equal but the sexes and/or genders to be appreciated as distinct) and that women should have the same rights as men (but men should not have the same rights as women). Only a few schools of feminism think that there should be no difference at all between men and women, though more think that women should have special rights that men do not.

Also keep this in mind - this is just my opinion. Others are likely to disagree. In particular, i tend to view myself as a feminist ally but not a feminist because of my privilege. Probably the best thing to do about more questions on feminism is to go over to the GC and ask there.

Yeah, gay rights folk might want to have marriage as an option, but of course they dont want to have sex with a penis and a vagina.We want our rights to be the same but not defined by what straight folk do. Not going to put a man and woman above the cake.

That's what i was meaning

"For woman to have full and equal rights with men? Not to be distinguished by their gender."" Could be "for LGBT to have full and equal rights with heterosexuals? Not to be distinguished by their sexuality. with "their" meaning heterosexuals.

.

I'll certainly give the site a look, My questions were more designed to see where you were coming from so i could see how/why we were disagreeing.

and to see if it was possible that some feminist goals could actually mirror gay rights goals, we had some overlap with people being in both camps.

As usual one normally finds one doesn't know as much as you first thought. Thats me saying it about me, just in case.

As always more reading required.

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Also themerchant - Why do you assume that advocating for political/legal changes is the only legitimate form of advocacy? My advocacy in posting on this specific forum has had major impact on 2-3 lives, and substantial impact on the attitudes of many more than that, it's small scale, but a meaningful impact (particularly for those 2-3) nonetheless, I don't feel the need to only look at the big picture and that's not even talking about feminism advocacy there. When we are talking feminism specifically I feel that, at least in Australia, legal equality has surged ahead of societal equality - by which I mean that the amount of inequality entrenched in the legal system is substantially less than there is entrenched in societal attitudes. Having the laws in place to support equality do help with changing attitudes over time, and I'd never say that chasing that legal equality first was the wrong thing to do as it was the more important fight, but I do think at this point that individuals challenging sexism (both on the personal level and those with a higher profile in the media) is a very important part of influencing societal attitudes and as such things like influencing authors to have better portrayals of women in their books (ditto for tv shows, movies and video games) is a worthwhile endeavor.

Now as a matter of strategy there are effective ways of having this conversation and less effective ones, but there are also people for whom any attempt at having that conversation isn't going to be effective and sometimes in those cases you are arguing for the benefit of the audience, not the person with the opposing entrenched position.

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Also themerchant - Why do you assume that advocating for political/legal changes is the only legitimate form of advocacy?

Sorry the board is mucking up for me a lot, so just going to do little bites.

Can you point out where i say adovcating political/legal changes is the only legitimate form of advocacy, I have no recollection of doing this. I talk about political advocacy and talking about midlist fantasy authors, i don't even discuss the hundreds of other ways. Let alone comment on their legitimacy.

I'm sorry with the board mucking up i just don't have the time.

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Asking the extent to which anyone in contact with Kellhus is conditioned is like trying to figure out if Leo still in a dream at the end of Inception.

It's the kind of problem Bakker is found fond of examining both in and out of his fantasy works.

Indeed. The ambiguity is deliberate and incapable of resolution absent authorial decision.

One of the challenging things about reading TSA is that as a lawyer I look for my close reading of the text to be rewarded, and it is to an extent, but the true insights accrue only to those who grasp the underlying ideas in the work.

That's why I was surprised by Mark Lawrence's review (IIRC anyway) where he stated that he didn't find much philosophy in the TDTCB. I think as a casual reader of the series that would strike me as untrue, as a careful reader that would strike me mostly true (and when I read it the first trilogy over a period of months the books struck me more for the similarities with the First Crusade than anything philosophical) but if you obtain a panoramic view of the series and the story, then it becomes quite clear that the TSA can legitimately be described as a philosophical project.

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Also themerchant - Why do you assume that advocating for political/legal changes is the only legitimate form of advocacy? My advocacy in posting on this specific forum has had major impact on 2-3 lives, and substantial impact on the attitudes of many more than that, it's small scale, but a meaningful impact (particularly for those 2-3) nonetheless, I don't feel the need to only look at the big picture and that's not even talking about feminism advocacy there. When we are talking feminism specifically I feel that, at least in Australia, legal equality has surged ahead of societal equality - by which I mean that the amount of inequality entrenched in the legal system is substantially less than there is entrenched in societal attitudes. Having the laws in place to support equality do help with changing attitudes over time, and I'd never say that chasing that legal equality first was the wrong thing to do as it was the more important fight, but I do think at this point that individuals challenging sexism (both on the personal level and those with a higher profile in the media) is a very important part of influencing societal attitudes and as such things like influencing authors to have better portrayals of women in their books (ditto for tv shows, movies and video games) is a worthwhile endeavor.

Now as a matter of strategy there are effective ways of having this conversation and less effective ones, but there are also people for whom any attempt at having that conversation isn't going to be effective and sometimes in those cases you are arguing for the benefit of the audience, not the person with the opposing entrenched position.

So you're saying bakker is a sexist that needs challanged?

Sorry i have read the rest and i agree with challenging social attitudes , we thought changing the law would change attitudes the most, however , you make salient points about when legislation over-takes society. For that we were contacting publishing companies and TV execs.

I'm not disagreeing that you've affected 2-3 lives in a profound way. We've been talking about bakker on here for years, using many hundreds of hours and you have 3 folk, which is great. I'm just saying in my experience if you had spent that time writing to politicians and large companies etc in my experience you'll affect more people for the same amount of work. and from my point of view Bakker wasn't even a sexxist(insert word you think he is) so the validity of debating him was in question.

The way you thought it was a waste of time made it seem like you thought it wasn't legitimate, if that was a misread on my part then my bad, the rest of my post stands.

No i said "spend so much time fighting for it by way of writing criticisms of a mid-level authors fantasy books in which there is no consensus on the charge of my misogyny" i had no idea that people thought that Bakker actually was a sexist(beyond the author of ROH, and some of the folk in comments). I thought they were saying his books portray a sexist world. misogynist whatever the term people use.

Obviously if you consider him to be a bonafide misogynist/sexist then challenge him, i just didn't know he was thought to be one.I just thought he wrote about folk who were. I knew the lady that wrote ROH thought he was, but i went there and she hadn't read the books and she was censoring debate etc.

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Where is this "magic womb as plot device" in the first place?

I think this extends from two conditions:

1. There are only two women in the world in the first trilogy and Kellhus gets them both, which he does after mind/soul raping them first--aka Dunyain seduction.

2. Esmenet, in the second trilogy, is under the impression that Kellhus cannot have children with anyone else, and that she is a unique and super special snowflake and that only she can bear his mighty divine blessed semen, and that's why she has to keep having babies until menopause even with all the miscarriages.

So given that Kellhus gets to fuck everyone and that Esmenet has given birth to half a dozen children in the second trilogy the only logical conclusion is that all women are brood mares and Esmenet has a magic womb.

***

In all likelyhood, in regards to 1. Kellhus was the one manipulated by Serwe and her divine innocence, the entire world turned when he witnessed her rape, so it seems Serwe's power manipulated Kellhus into acting against his own interests by rescuing her. If this is true, it would also mean that all of Serwe's seemingly naive starry eyed observations of Kellhus are not a result of Kellhus' manipulations of a weak minded fool, but are dead accurate divine visions, and since Kellhus knows Serwe sees him as divine and thinks this is ridiculous it also means Kellhus is the blind naif and Serwe is the enlightened one.

2. As for two, I figured Esmenet's internalized story that only she can bear his seed is exactly the genre of deception Kellhus was always using on people. Whether or not Kellhus has any other viable children is irrelevant--he almost certainly does--what's relevant is Esmenet believes she is the best and most special. The problem here is it shows that Esmenet is not the divinely blessed innocent Serwe and she fell for all of Kellhus' tricks. which just suggests that the smarter you are, the easier you are to deceive with tricks like Kellhus' (which, btw, is what all the real world research says happens, people who are smart are the easiest to deceive, or the most likely to self-deceive, because they lack doubt in their own intelligence).

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Indeed. The ambiguity is deliberate and incapable of resolution absent authorial decision.

I think it's like the conversation between Inrialtas and Maitha. Once you start thinking about thoughts you can easily - if not inevitably - fall into infinite regression.

Personally I think the No God is a being who simply is painfully aware of this inability to close the circle with respect to consciousness, and thus is the God trapped in time.

That's why I was surprised by Mark Lawrence's review (IIRC anyway) where he stated that he didn't find much philosophy in the TDTCB. I think as a casual reader of the series that would strike me as untrue, as a careful reader that would strike me mostly true (and when I read it the first trilogy over a period of months the books struck me more for the similarities with the First Crusade than anything philosophical) but if you obtain a panoramic view of the series and the story, then it becomes quite clear that the TSA can legitimately be described as a philosophical project.

I think the first book deals with some philosophic considerations, but I'm not sure how deep they go and it's easier to disregard it. I've read people can think of Kellhus and Cnauir as types of Nietzchean ubermensch, but I don't think one has to do this.

I do think knowing about philosophy does help with the series as a whole though a lot of that relates to theology and metaphysics.

But I've found most of the philosophy and theories of consciousness ultimately figure into speculation rather than evaluation of the actual story.

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***

In all likelyhood, in regards to 1. Kellhus was the one manipulated by Serwe and her divine innocence, the entire world turned when he witnessed her rape, so it seems Serwe's power manipulated Kellhus into acting against his own interests by rescuing her. If this is true, it would also mean that all of Serwe's seemingly naive starry eyed observations of Kellhus are not a result of Kellhus' manipulations of a weak minded fool, but are dead accurate divine visions, and since Kellhus knows Serwe sees him as divine and thinks this is ridiculous it also means Kellhus is the blind naif and Serwe is the enlightened one.

The impression i've always got with that Serwe rape seen is Kellhus witnesses "an other" experiencing outrage, as opposed to just not recognising it in himself. I've never thought past that really though, but it does tie in with your reasoning.

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As for two, I figured Esmenet's internalized story that only she can bear his seed is exactly the genre of deception Kellhus was always using on people. Whether or not Kellhus has any other viable children is irrelevant--he almost certainly does--what's relevant is Esmenet believes she is the best and most special
This directly conflicts the 'what has come before' speech at the start of TTT as well as the evidence we have from both Maithanet and Kellhus directly. Esmenet didn't even want to have this, and that's very clear; she hates having his kids and sought out innumerable concubines to have his kids. All failed.


It's possible that there are others. But the text directly indicates that she is special for being able to have his kids and it's quite unusual. That she can have kids well past 40 in a premodern world without germ theory indicates she's pretty special too, for that matter (though that just might be god-defined luck).



There's very little to support the notion that this is just a claim by Esmenet that Kellhus allows her to believe.


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So you're saying bakker is a sexist that needs challanged?

Sorry i have read the rest and i agree with challenging social attitudes , we thought changing the law would change attitudes the most, however , you make salient points about when legislation over-takes society. For that we were contacting publishing companies and TV execs.

I'm not disagreeing that you've affected 2-3 lives in a profound way. We've been talking about bakker on here for years, using many hundreds of hours and you have 3 folk, which is great. I'm just saying in my experience if you had spent that time writing to politicians and large companies etc in my experience you'll affect more people for the same amount of work. and from my point of view Bakker wasn't even a sexxist(insert word you think he is) so the validity of debating him was in question.

First to the bolded, reread what I said - "things like influencing authors to have better portrayals of women in their books" - they don't have to be sexist to have a less than perfect poprtrayal. I think Bakker comes across as a complete jerkwad in his interactions online, his femtard comment in particular really cooled my feelings towards him, and there are things in his work and things he has said online that cause doubt as to how he really feels contrary to how he states he feels. But I don't know him, and I'm not going to act like my judgement without knowing him can be remotely definitive.

What I do know is that his portrayal of women is problematic and makes plenty of women uncomfortable, and this aspect of his stories could be improved, and I would like him to improve in this aspect in the future.

As to the non bolded, actually writing to politicians wouldn't have had this kind of impact on those people and this is exactly what I meant by your comment making out that it's not a legitimate form of advocacy. BOTH things need to be done, and dismissing one kind of advocacy as a waste of time is arrogant and short sighted. Feel free to disagree but I don't think it's particularly fruitful to continue this discussion in this thread as it's way OT.

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No one dismissed anything as a waste of time, merely ranked the efficiency of two seperate methods.



Do you think you have influenced Bakker to write women in a way that resembles your definition of the perfect portrayal?



Do you agree with his portrayal of men in the story?



I agree with all you say about his online persona



Agreed will keep the discussion centered arounf Bakker as opposed to my previous experiences.


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I think this extends from two conditions:

1. There are only two women in the world in the first trilogy and Kellhus gets them both, which he does after mind/soul raping them first--aka Dunyain seduction.

2. Esmenet, in the second trilogy, is under the impression that Kellhus cannot have children with anyone else, and that she is a unique and super special snowflake and that only she can bear his mighty divine blessed semen, and that's why she has to keep having babies until menopause even with all the miscarriages.

So given that Kellhus gets to fuck everyone and that Esmenet has given birth to half a dozen children in the second trilogy the only logical conclusion is that all women are brood mares and Esmenet has a magic womb.

That Esmenet may be special is certainly established, yes. The other point just comes out of nowhere and makes no sense.

Beyond that, Esmenet is not initially valued for her ability to procreate with Kellhus since he doesn't know that when he seduces her.

Mostly I fail to see how someone can be so tired of a "plot device" that has shown up all of once and hasn't been a terribly big deal beyond explaining why Kellhus only has the so many children.

***

In all likelyhood, in regards to 1. Kellhus was the one manipulated by Serwe and her divine innocence, the entire world turned when he witnessed her rape, so it seems Serwe's power manipulated Kellhus into acting against his own interests by rescuing her. If this is true, it would also mean that all of Serwe's seemingly naive starry eyed observations of Kellhus are not a result of Kellhus' manipulations of a weak minded fool, but are dead accurate divine visions, and since Kellhus knows Serwe sees him as divine and thinks this is ridiculous it also means Kellhus is the blind naif and Serwe is the enlightened one.

2. As for two, I figured Esmenet's internalized story that only she can bear his seed is exactly the genre of deception Kellhus was always using on people. Whether or not Kellhus has any other viable children is irrelevant--he almost certainly does--what's relevant is Esmenet believes she is the best and most special. The problem here is it shows that Esmenet is not the divinely blessed innocent Serwe and she fell for all of Kellhus' tricks. which just suggests that the smarter you are, the easier you are to deceive with tricks like Kellhus' (which, btw, is what all the real world research says happens, people who are smart are the easiest to deceive, or the most likely to self-deceive, because they lack doubt in their own intelligence).

It would be interesting if Kellhus had other hidden children. How would it come up?

Given Mimara and her prominence I think perhaps there is ultimately something special about Esmenet and her bloodline.

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That Esmenet may be special is certainly established, yes. The other point just comes out of nowhere and makes no sense.

Beyond that, Esmenet is not initially valued for her ability to procreate with Kellhus since he doesn't know that when he seduces her.

Doesn't he stare at her and sees her history right down to her womb, might be near end of a chapter. I think that occurs before he seduces her.

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Doesn't he stare at her and sees her history right down to her womb, might be near end of a chapter. I think that occurs before he seduces her.

I think it's after seduction. She's sleeping and he ruminates on her native intellect.

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