Why do you wish it was less accessible? I was in the same boat but I feel it was largely a source of sexual satisfaction and even education in some cases. And today I have many and very healthy relationships with women, just to preempt those questions.
Despite decades-long moral panic around this topic, I haven’t found much evidence for pornography harming young people, maybe aside from some niche issues that are not well-addressed with this type of legislation.
Interesting points but I think you’re conflating fascism with what I would call authoritarianism. If you define fascism as any system where a minority clique takes control of society then you’re going to have to call nations like the USSR or China fascist. Which, while I agree they have similar features, are getting pretty far from the colloquial and academic definitions of fascism.
But you’re absolutely right that no modern society has had universally equal rights. We still have many groups that don’t have much legal protection including felons, children, immigrants, even animals could be viewed through this lens as well. But I don’t think that makes any societies that don’t meet this very high standard fascist.
I completely agree. But to be clear, not all nations go down this path of increasing authoritarianism, and not all of those who do end up at fascism.
It might seem like a small distinction but this idea of the inevitable course of history is such a common thought terminating cliche and it leads to all sorts of wrong ideas and wrong political strategies that I feel a need to call it out. Even though my own position is not completely dissimilar.
It’s just a hilariously apt example of the overly simplistic narratives I’m criticizing. If you’re willing to label all capitalism as fascism then perhaps the narrative becomes true, just as falsely labeling all causes of death in the elderly old age makes your analogy work.
I am trying to defend meaning from people who are willing to distort words to mean anything that matches their current political agenda.
If you had approached this conversation with more authentic curiosity I might have been willing to explain the widely understood difference between moderate liberals and progressives which is important to understand the point I was making. But at this point you don’t seem very genuinely interested in what I’m trying to explain. So I recommend using Google to understand the basic terms here before proceeding.
Ironically, your unquestioned assumption that liberals and conservatives are two mutually exclusive and opposing ideologies rather than adjacent and even overlapping ones is, itself, a product of the tribalist thinking you’ve criticized.
I largely agree. Authoritarian systems tend to support one another over the long term, even as they compete in other ways. So capitalism, being a system where economic power is concentrated in the hands of the few can also encourage the establishment of similar state structures. But this is not necessarily fascism. We can see similar trends happening in historically socialist countries today. But fascism is one possible manifestation of this process.
Absolutely. This is a thought pattern I find very annoying. Just because you’re opposed to capitalism doesn’t make every critique of it correct. Defeating it means understanding and identifying its real features, not some caricature.
Old age isn’t even a thing you can die from. This analogy fails on multiple fronts.
Capitalism has existed for centuries and usually did not end in fascism. There’s no historical support for this claim. It’s simply an invention of authoritarian leftists because it’s useful to convince people they need to choose one brand of authoritarianism or the other.
I didn’t say it would be easy, just that fascism is not inevitable.
Can you elaborate on how liberalism could have prevented this? This seems in contradiction to your overall point that fascism is inevitable under liberal governments.
First, all humans are tribal, not merely conservatives, so I don’t think this observation is very astute or relevant. Secondly, I definitely didn’t say progressives are conservative, so I have no idea where you got that from.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19339040
Not a local but sharing the word since this is highly needed.
Not a local but sharing the word since this is highly needed.
Based on my reading, porn addiction isn’t a real medical condition and is largely driven by internalized or external stigma around porn usage. Usually, but not always stemming from a religious worldview that shames people for masturbating or having an interest in sex outside of the context of heterosexual marital procreation.
There could be small numbers of people who truly have an unhealthy relationship with porn, but if so, they are greatly outnumbered by the people I described above, such that I haven’t found research on their experiences.