Meaning you’re fully onboard with conservative branding?



That’s Viktor Orbán, btw. He was a rockstar at CPAC.

That’s brand infringement, dude.

Ya feel? — DifferentiatingEgg

No, but I’m only on chapter 7 of Zarath so I’m not fluent in uber-speak.

It seems that Nietzschean values place power (self-overcoming) on a pedestal, perhaps slavishly.

Gotta take the “uber” out of it - too inequitable. “Trans-uber” isn’t woke.
“Trans-ber-mensch”, is better. Maybe go “she-ber-mensch” for the female/male hybrid version. — Fire Ologist

I don’t get DifferentiatingEgg‘s woke as lived experience thing, but the culture war is fully last man standing in a puddle of piss. That I get.

“I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves. Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the frenzy with which you should be inoculated? Behold, I give you the Trans-Übermensch. They are this lightning. They are this frenzy.”

My view hasn’t changed, though it might have if you didn’t ignore the following the first time I posted it.

"…the woke see advertising beer as a perfectly reasonable place to teach their ideological lessons." This phrasing, which conflates ‘the woke,’ corporate advertising, and the political left more generally, collapses distinct ideas into a single caricature and reflects partisan rhetoric more than independent analysis.

It’s a simple point that I think is true about wokeness, and is at the heart of why the anti-woke dislike wokeness. — Fire Ologist

I agree that anti-woke rhetoric has been very influential.

Show a little wokeism self-reflection. — Fire Ologist

Now you’re saying that I’m not showing reflection. You’ve been claiming that I haven’t reflected.

But you are not really talking about the content of what I’m saying either, you are just saying things like I “must be influenced by MAGA.” — Fire Ologist

Not true. I quoted you directly and analyzed the substance and phrasing, pointing out how it reflects partisan rhetoric. I’ve reflected partisan rhetoric in this thread as well. I don’t know why it would be difficult for anyone to admit doing this.

Do you think the marketing team conversations were really all about sales? Is that your serious analysis? You don’t think the Anheuser Team, or the Bud Light division wasn’t taking an ideological stand? You really think they were only selling beer? Of course they convinced themselves it would make them money and it would be good for the brand - but they were total idiots then. More likely they were blinded by ideological preaching and thought they were preaching to enough choir to feel good all around. — Fire Ologist

You said you agreed with AmadeusD’s view that Bud Light’s campaign was "a cynical attempt at identity politics for sales point percentage," even though I had pointed out that your stance on this seemed different.

Anyway, not important of course, just a curiosity.

Again, you are not reflecting on wokeism. — Fire Ologist

I know you've said that before and I've ignored it—your meaning wasn’t clear. You have my attention now if you'd like to explain how I'm failing to reflect on Wokeism. What have I said that shows a lack of reflection?

unobservant — Fire Ologist

You’ve engaged extensively with this topic, and the influence on your perspective is quite apparent. Take your most recent post, for example, where you wrote, "the woke see advertising beer as a perfectly reasonable place to teach their ideological lessons." This phrasing, which conflates ‘the woke,’ corporate advertising, and the political left more generally, collapses distinct ideas into a single caricature and reflects partisan rhetoric more than independent analysis.

Anheuser-Busch is in the business of selling beer to make money, not of teaching ideological lessons—casting its marketing decisions as ideologically motivated is a partisan rhetorical move, not a serious analysis.

The 2016 “Bud Light Party” featured a trans man in the ad campaign. That was before the anti-woke MAGA moment was in full swing however so the ad drew little backlash.

I wonder if @Fire Ologist and others will acknowledge how much they’ve been influenced by the MAGA anti-woke movement.

You two seem to not be in agreement. AmadeusD claims the campaign was criticized because people believed the company was using Dylan Mulvaney’s trans identity as a marketing gimmick—a calculated play for sales—rather than an authentic show of support. You're claiming it was criticized for being preachy.

Better, although you were starting from a rather low bar.

Your essay, which is related to the topic, is interesting and I’m glad to have read it. Thanks for sending.

Saying 'he' instead of 'she' when someone is demonstrably male is a hate crime, if reported as such. Its "woke" writ large. — AmadeusD

In 2023 nearly 97% of these hate crimes were violent (assaults, aggravated assaults, even attempted murder).

Assault in California is legally defined as “an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another.” This means three things must be present:

• A willful act that would likely result in the application of force,
• The person acted knowing a reasonable person would realize such force could result, and
• The person had the ability to actually carry out the force at the time.

Verbal abuse doesn’t qualify as assault. You’ll have to try harder to downplay violence against trans people.

His recent discussion was a copypasta from elsewhere on the internet and has been removed. — Baden

He would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!

The issue, for many, is that any time one of these group do something vaguely noteworthy, they are praised as some kind of supernatural Hero. Literally: — AmadeusD

Before each trans characteristic he repeatedly say “like superheroes” which is simile. A clever rhetorical device isn’t meant to be taken literally, obviously. To Mijin’s point, the first superhero-like characteristic mentioned is the need to stay hidden.

The monologue was informative as well as entertaining and persuasive. I didn’t realize that hate crimes against the trans community had spiked so sharply in LA over the last few years. Thanks anti-wokesters? :confused:

There is good dogma we can agree on. — Fire Ologist

The problem with dogma is that no one but the absolute authority can disagree with it.

Dogma is a belief held to be absolutely true regardless of evidence, often defended without question and resistant to challenge. A well-founded principle, by contrast, rests on reasoning, evidence, or lived experience, and remains open to revision if better information arises. Where dogma closes inquiry by demanding acceptance, a principle encourages ongoing testing and refinement, making it more flexible and adaptable to new circumstances.

Why would you advocate for dogma instead of well-founded principles? It’s as though you want our moral reasoning stifled and fixed on external control (punishment, approval, laws) rather than developing internal principles (justice, fairness, human rights).

You asked the following:

Are you both equating the values we happen to choose with our feelings, or saying we make our choices out of gut feelings, and random “cultural influences” and “innate traits” that we don’t choose? — Fire Ologist

I’m saying we all share the same basic gut feelings or intuitions, but we prioritize them differently—shaped not by randomness, but by cultural trends or intentional personal development, and perhaps our personal innate traits like introversion or extroversion.

Overtly woke means being openly and deliberately aligned with “woke” values.

Earlier in the topic we discussed the Bud Light/Mulveney ad campaign and unlike the AE campaign’s subtlety (which may or may not have been intentionally provocative), the Mulveney campaign was overtly woke. In your opinion, was the Mulveney campaign humble or self-aggrandizing? Did it respect diversity or demean gender?

To be clear, are you now saying that thought can’t be given, only words can be given?

I PM'd my email address where you could kindly send your essay. Thanks for the offer.

This suggests a conservative backlash disproportionate to the extent of the liberal position being used to present the left as radicalized. — Hanover

Well, I’m sure this is an isolated incident and not something MAGA does on a daily basis or anything.

It's also possible the left took the bait by refusing to downplay the ad and instead chose to adopt the 12% minority as its official position. — Hanover

No Democrat officeholder has publicly commented on the campaign. As for leftists personalities, Lizzo modified one of her songs or something and Colbert devoted around a minute of one of his monologues to joke about it and ridicule the wokesters for overreacting.

I think progressives need to understand that being conservative doesn’t mean having no heart or empathy or feelings.
And conservatives need to understand that being liberal doesn’t mean having no common sense.

These are both simply not true. Generalizations are not helpful. — Fire Ologist

Those are rather odd and extreme generalizations. I recall someone in the discussion saying it ultimately comes down to values. People prioritize their values differently, shaped by cultural influences and, perhaps, innate personal traits.

I'm interested enough to read your essay but don't want to link my phone, from fear of spamage.

At this point I'm primarily interested in how you separate thought and meaning.

I'm sure you realize that thoughts can be incommensurable.

If I'm following correctly you're saying:

• Offense can't be given.
• Thought can be given.
• Meaning can't be given.

Is that right?

If you packaged your thoughts and sent them to me did you send their meaning as well?

I cannot package your emotions and send them over to you. — AmadeusD

Is this my thinking that you sent over to me?

Offense can be given in many ways—through direct insults, indirect or implied slights, a condescending tone or delivery, hurtful humor, acts of disrespect, deliberate provocation, or insensitivity to someone’s circumstances. Claiming that offense is only taken is a weak attempt to dodge responsibility.

Offense is taken, not given. — AmadeusD

This doesn't negate the fact that it's impolite to offer offense to others.

Indeed. And by extension we would imagine that the values held by 'woke' activism would be strongest amongst this cohort. — Tom Storm

My wife has been a high school English teacher for many years and I briefly asked her about this. Her insights were generally what you might expect—kids in more conservative communities tend to have conservative views and kids in more liberal communities tend to have more liberal views.

Incidentally, my father was a staunch conservative and mentioned the aphorism about shifting values when I was a kid, so for a long time I expected to turn conservative when I grew up. I cleverly avoided this fate by never growing up.

Had to drop the newest Murakami after reading 30% of the book — Manuel

It doesn’t get any better after 30% so you’re not missing anything.

If you've only skimmed them, bugger off and read them properly. That might explain why you're saying unreasonable things. — AmadeusD

I might be saying unreasonable things because I haven’t read everything you’ve written to me? You know that sounds crazy, right?

No, they just are not relevant to what I'm pointing out. I've bene over why some of your responses are unreasonable at the time i responded to them. It doesn't seem to bare repeating.. You can review if you'd like to. — AmadeusD

I’ve only skimmed your trollish responses so I don’t know what you’re talking about. I guess it will remain a mystery.

Youngsters can be led by conservative values. I suppose you mean that youths may have a slight tendency to lean liberal. That appears to be statistically true according to recent surveys.

Right. So people like you (and me) are either racist due to our biases and we don’t know it (so, asleep), or we are way above the fray and just color blind to race. (But that is probably a dream I’m having because I’m actually sleeping. Like Martin Luther King Jr apparently was.) — Fire Ologist

It’s funny you put it that way, because if King had been more “woke” in the original sense of the word, he might have lived longer—the idea being that the marginalized simply need to be more awake out of necessity.

I would have thought the younger, the more values led, with a tendency to be turned off by these sorts of campaigns. Interesting what you say about younger people. — Tom Storm

I'm curious what you mean by the younger being more values led.

Several things — AmadeusD

It sounds like you feel that I've said several unreasonable things but are unable to articulate the source of those feelings. That's fine.

AE's plan, if there was one, was to get you to do exactly what you're doing. — AmadeusD

Mission accomplished then. :clap:

James by Percival Everett

A retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s viewpoint. In the first chapter, Jim is on Miss Watson’s porch paying close attention to Tom and Huck’s shenanigans. They believe Jim is asleep but of course he needs to stay woke.

Just so it's not missed on anyone, there is a large part of the country that would have had no inkling the ad was offensive (me, for example) had offense not been expressed, and so what is newsworthy is that someone would be offended by it. — Hanover

What good would woke folks be if they didn’t notice things that most people are oblivious to. :lol:

Do you not see that what Fireologist is outlining is exactly the situation which would lead you to say this? Obviously, that doesn't close any books but I do genuinely think you're not reflecting in a reasonable way here. — AmadeusD

What have I said that is unreasonable?

'Aryan' looking girl and her 'genes' would be unappealing to a wide variety of younger customers who are more mindful about their values than some others. What are the other nuances of this ad? — Tom Storm

I read a branding expert talking about how AE jeans demographic is teens and the campaign may appeal to a teens rebellious nature—defiantly anti-woke or whatever.