Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 8h

Basil Fawlty saying “We are all friends now, eh?”

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 8h

Intriguing! I haven’t watched Question Time for at least 15 years: the psychic damage had become too much for me even then. How did it manage to be better this time??

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 18h

Deleted my post about the Internet Archive not working. Looks like it may be related to either my ISP or my work laptop

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 18h

I'm wondering if it's an EE thing. Apparently they did block archive dot org at some previous point

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1d

God bless The Church Times for their ongoing insistence on responding moderately but forcefully to the Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar’s nonsense. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Even given all that Biggar writes about the universality of slavery and the complicity of Africans, three things might be said. First, Britain played a key part and, however others may want to respond to their own history, it is morally responsible to face up to our own heritage. Second, as a Tory, he might have made more of Burke’s view that society is a partnership not just between the living, but between the living, the dead, and those still to be born. Third, guilt is not the only spur to action. There are the obligations that we owe one another irrespective of any personal responsibility for atrocities in the past.

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Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 22h

Works fine for me.

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

But that’s always the problem with these “one big idea that explains EVERYTHING” cultural theories: they can end up being used to support whatever political agenda you like. A bit like how the Catholic concept of “the common good” can be applied as either social democracy or fascism

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Wisdom of r/religion @reddit-religion.bsky.social · 1d

r/religion
Is the dead sea a result of soddom and gamorah
0 upvotes • 58 comments
SendThisVoidAway18 • 1d
Agnostic
No
•••
rinel521 OP • 1d
elaborate
• • •
SendThisVoidAway18 • 1d
Agnostic
No

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

One practical problem with Girard’s theory – and I’ve read quite a bit of Girard in the past – is that, while he intended it as a solemn warning of the dangers of scapegoating, grifters like Thiel and Vance can treat it as a how-to guide:

It's possible that Vance may have genuinely misunderstood the scapegoat mechanism. Or he may have been familiar enough with Girardian mimetic theory to recognize that, while the old sacred rituals might not work perfectly, they aren't entirely broken yet. Collective acts of violence still bind people together somewhat – perhaps enough to win an election. "They feel relieved of their tensions and they coalesce into a more harmonious group," Girard wrote. "They now have a single purpose, which is to prevent the scapegoat from harming them by expelling and destroying him."

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

Great article on Peter Thiel’s obsession with (a highly mangled misinterpretation of) the theories of René Girard archive.li/2025.10.04-0...

archive.li

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Noah Brand @noahbrand.bsky.social · 1d

When you look at the fascist project, starting from Fox News' debut, it's all about the primacy of emotions over reality. Sure, crime is down, but it doesn't FEEL that way! If I'm not oppressed as a white man, then why am I still unhappy? I want a news channel that's about fear and anger, not facts!

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

The reason why KPop Demon Hunters is the most important film of 2025 is that it understands fascism to be fundamentally an *emotional*, rather than an intellectual or political, phenomenon. In this essay I shall

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Christine Kooi @christinekooi.bsky.social · 1d

I often tell students that one of the major differences between modernity and pre-modernity is that pre-modernity regarded "innovation" as a very bad thing.

Carl Hendrick @carlhendrick.substack.com · 2d

The Innovation Illusion: Most of what’s worth knowing in education isn’t new, and most of what’s new isn’t worth knowing.

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

Pop quiz! Would abolishing stamp duty (a) “help millions buy a home”, or (b) push house prices up by the amount of the stamp duty saved? Place your bets! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Conservatives would scrap stamp duty, Kemi Badenoch announces

The Tory leader says the move would help millions buy a home, in her annual conference speech.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

“100%!” as our children used to say

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Gretchen Felker-Martin 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 6d

stumbled across real lyrics to an actual new Taylor Swift song and boy, that's a bold strategy, Cotton. let's see if it pays off.

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The B-Movie Vault @thebmovievault.bsky.social · 5d

I'm not a fan of these new Taylor Swift lyrics.

Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 5d

Two of you have posted art of Clippy being pregnant at me

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Ben Lamb @bennyfactor.bsky.social · 1d

but Fra Angelico was someone special, his work is something special. Something transcendent in a way that neither late Gothic nor Renaissance painting really was.

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Ben Lamb @bennyfactor.bsky.social · 1d

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

I'm only half way through, but this week's choral evensong on Radio 3 is a *belter*. A really fresh and dynamic sound to the music. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Choral Evensong - St Peter, Bolton-le-Moors - BBC Sounds

From St Peter, Bolton-le-Moors with the Diocese of Manchester Choral Scholars.

www.bbc.co.uk

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

Please do!

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

I appreciate that calling KPop Demon Hunters the most important film of a year that also saw the release of The Accountant² is a bold claim

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed.

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

I’m actually being quite serious here. Fascism is about keeping people emotionally dysregulated, especially through the reinforcement of shame, and offering them relief through mass conformity. That’s why fascism is so opposed to empathy, authenticity and queerness

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 1d

The reason why KPop Demon Hunters is the most important film of 2025 is that it understands fascism to be fundamentally an *emotional*, rather than an intellectual or political, phenomenon. In this essay I shall

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Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · 2d

Next time I’m watching some utter garbage and someone asks me why, I’m going to say to them: “The poet must not avert their eyes.”

Ideally, he would be out on a shoot right now. Until then there are books. Herzog reads voraciously; he says that all the good directors do. It doesn't even have to be great literature. His friend, the documentary maker Errol Morris, recently recommended that he read a real piece of crap. "It was a bad book by a failed lion tamer. His arm was bitten off by a lion. He wrote with the other arm. And it's a wonderful book to read because you have to comb the content against the texture and it gives you fabulous insights into human nature. It is the same with trash movies, trash TV. WrestleMania. The Kardashians. I'm fascinated by it. So I don't say read Tolstoy and nothing else. Read everything. See everything. The poet must not avert his eyes."

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