Creatively Advancing into Novelty
“To be clear, toxic masculinity is not the demonization of all traits deemed quintessentially male or masculine.138 Rather, toxic masculinity is the combination of a few masculine traits taken to their extremes: at its base, toxic masculinity is predicated on dominance and control.139 It stands for the idea that gender constructs for men require them…
“If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him” – Donald Trump The above statement was one of the first gut responses from Donald Trump when he was asked about the horrific, terroristic hate crime that occurred Saturday, October 27th, which resulted in the death of eleven…
In all of my conversations with men who own guns for “self-defense” (the vast majority of them being white men, btw) every single one of them comes out at some point trying to save face (presumably not wanting to sound like a complete monster) by saying something like, “I’d never want to kill anyone, it’s…
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be…
“Faith in this God means trust in our own capacities…This faith will not morph into the guarantee. The end, from the perspective of the infinite, is endless and thus cannot be secured, predicted, or determined in advance. Each end will fade into its perspectival infinity. We won’t take certainty from this cloud of refuge, even…
“Richard Hill, history professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, explains that New Zealand police were disarmed for routine work in 1886, following the principle of the British police that: “Constables are placed in authority to protect, not to oppress, the public.” For officers to carry guns would not just be unnecessary, he…
“Either God is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes God’s experience, or God is a God of racism.” —James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation I’ve recently been thinking about the connections between beliefs about God, guns/killing, and privilege/power. My views on guns/non-violence/killing humans have changed quite a bit over…
“The American youth who open fire on their peers, neighbors, classmates, and teachers offer us the opportunity and the impetus to grapple with a contradiction at the heart of the USA. For what are these “mad” youth doing but applying the approved and honored teachings and techniques of American society…just in the ‘wrong place’ and…
“Contrary to what many gun advocates argue, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data reveals that having a gun provides no statistically significant benefit to a would-be victim during a criminal confrontation.” The above quote comes from an article written for The Trace by Evan Defilippis and Devin Hughes. The two writers cite recent research…
Every problem in the world can be understood, at least partially, as a problem of consciousness. So it follows that the solutions to seemingly intractable problems, such as environmental degradation and climate change, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, hunger and overpopulation, unregulated globalization and gross inequality, can all be effectively ameliorated by raising or changing the…