Beware! Colossal spoilers for "Black Sails."

Among the many irritating traits of the SJW is obtuseness. She really doesn't understand your objections to her antics. She believes that all she is doing is providing representation to the Blessed Marginalized. Her face shrunken in petulance, she shrieks: "I'm just putting a gay man in this TV show! What do you have against gays, you hateful homophobe?" 

Well, against their behavior, my dear, a few things; but that is not the issue.

I have no objection to the fictional depiction of a man who is attracted to men. I have no objection even to the sympathetic depiction of such a man. Such men exist, such men are human, such men are fodder for literature.

What I object to is your haranguing me on their behalf. What I object to is your sour attempt to disseminate the moralistic shibboleths of your ilk.

Consider the TV show Black Sails.

I love this show. Yeah, whatever, I have my complaints about it; but not one of my complaints is that the central motive of the central character is his love for another man. Indeed, I would argue that Black Sails is so well written, so humanly written, that I would not even want the writers to have done otherwise.

I wish, however, that they hadn't been woke.

Note I am about to make a distinction between telling a tale about a homosexual and being woke. This is what the SJW cannot fathom: That there is a distinction.

There is a book that was given by Thomas Hamilton to Captain Flint. Hamilton and Flint were lovers. Flint's piratical rage was born from the fatal mistreatment of Hamilton. The book is an important prop in the narrative.

There is an inscription in the book. Here it is.

The name of him to whom this love is directed is, as you can see, obscured; earlier, the viewer supposes it says "Miranda," the name of Hamilton's (public) wife, but in fact it says "James," Flint's true first name.

This inscription is a great example of intrusive wokeness.

If it had said only, "James, My truest love, T.H.", it would have been powerful. With that line, "Know no shame," it becomes propaganda. We hear in it all the bleating about pride and escaping closets; we see the fingers wagging at us — we who might shame the homosexual — telling us to eat our unbigoted spinach.

This is not the only woke moment in the show. The "shame" motif comes up several times. But this example is so stark and compact! One little line. Keep it, and the moment is woke. Remove it, and the moment is human.

Which do you prefer?

P.S. Yes, the very fact that they made Flint a homosexual at all is rather typical of woke approaches to fiction. It's the usual erasure of the hetero. I think we can be confident that Robert Louis Stevenson did not imagine Flint that way. Still, it's a fair change, considering Black Sails only toys with Treasure Island. And it is merited by the good narrative use made of it.

P.P.S. Huh. With that attitude, I should probably return my membership card for the He-Man Poofter-Haters Club.

Having finished Cyberpunk 2077, I fell into a replay of Fallout: New Vegas. Then, having finished FNV, I suddenly had an urge to resume playing Guild Wars 2. I stopped playing GW2 about three or four years ago because I was sick of it. I had played it to death. But this past month I decided to play the narrative chapters that have been steadily released in my absence. (I regularly logged in, these past years, just to keep my game up to date.)

Good God, the gynarchy has conquered GW2. 

Yes, it's been woke for a few years. The writers did what the SJWs usually do, supplanting an original heroic cast with a Burger King Club of Diversity — and this in a game that was only a few years old! But GW2 had the misfortune of being released just before the Great Awokening and so succumbed early in its life.

Every character you meet is female. Generals, scientists, researchers, pirate captains, heads of councils, leaders of refugee bands, trivial fodder NPCs... The central dragon, your heroic pal, is female. As is the dragon mount you hatch and raise! There is not an admixture of women; there is a domination. What especially killed me is that I came upon an ancient Dwarven Forge, one used to craft the weapons of the gods, and the forge master is — well, you know. Is there anything more masculine than hammering steel in fire? Ah, but every lass has it in herself to be a blacksmith, if only the men get out of the way!

And of course when there are males, they are mostly villains, comic relief, or pathetic soyboys. There's clearly an effort to create dudels in distress and to ensure that no female is other than fierce and confident. Sure, there are a couple of token males who are not utter weenies (notably those who have the requisite excess of melanin). But again, the entire command structure of this world is female. It is unnatural — and off-putting.

And for a land awash in estrogen, it is decidedly bereft of the feminine. Every girl is LARPing as a boy.

Good thing I like killing monsters and grinding for rewards. The combat is fun, at least.

P.S. I forgot to mention the priest — a killer with a sniper rifle — whose god was killed by you, the player character. Here was an opportunity for depicting a bitter, nearly ruined soul, in a way that actually resonates with a normal person. Picture the rage in every 1,000-yard shot. Now picture the priest's lack of a penis. You go girl-sniper-priest! Just another dissonant note...

Warning: Contains rhetorical employment of naughty words.
A scientist should be clear-eyed. Unfortunately, a human cannot interpret without bias. Especially nowadays, when ideologies demand things contrary to common sense, not a few scientists skew what they see to advance what they want.

I saw a lecture on YouTube in which a scientist, rather preciously, winked and nudged at the audience as he talked, expecting us to discover, in his animals stories, the usual current-year shibboleths: that homosexuality is not unnatural and that females are just better than males. 

First, giraffes. What is the point of that ridiculous neck? Why, male giraffes use it to thwock each other, as with great and flexible clubs. But here's the twist. When males fight they become — ahem — tumescent. When one male wins he sodomizes the other. Since male and female giraffes do not live together, ninety-four percent of a male giraffe's genital experiences are with another male. Sex, our scientist slyly says, is not only for reproduction.

Wink wink; nudge nudge. Gay is good. The giraffes agree!

Silly scientist. He infers a slapfight in a bathhouse and a coda of passionate man-luv. What has actually happened, of course, is that the victorious giraffe is humiliating the loser. He is treating the loser as a female. "Take that, motherfucker." It may be a kind of sexual release, but it is not a sexual act. There is no gay. There is only an assertion of dominance. Indeed, it affirms the natural male-female paradigm of sex.

Second, dolphins. It seems the greatest goal of modern science is to diminish mankind; and one favorite tactic is to point out that man is not the only maker of tools. Why, look at that orangutan, who spearfishes with a denuded branch! Yeah, yeah. I get your point. Call me when an orangutan lands on the Moon.

But fair enough, a very few animals do make tools. Consider one community of bottle-nosed dolphins. They have taken to encasing their snouts in sponges. Why? Because, when foraging and feeding, these dolpins are attacked on the snouts by crabs. The sponges are an armor contrived from the environment. A tool, as it were. Intriguingly, this trick is taught to little dolphins, and has become generational knowledge.

Among the females, that is. Only the female dolphins wear this armor. Only the females learn to use it. I can't imagine why this is sex-specific, our scientist slyly says, trying to solicit giggles about the dum-dum males.

Wink wink; nudge nudge. Girls are bright; boys are dull. The dolphins agree!

Or perhaps: Girls are sissies; boys are tough. "Ow, ow, my nose!" "Look, girlfriend, use this sponge!" "Ooh, ooh! That's so much nicer!" Meanwhile the male dolphins don't give a shit. They're males. So what if some crab scratches you up? And why would any male mimic a female? "Dude, you're wearing a sponge! What are you, a fag?" And don't think the females would be any less dismissive of a male so weak that he can't even face the world.

Or, sure, okay, males are simply dull-witted. That's how they got to the Moon.

Yes, in the end, I am saying the animals agree with me. And yes, my ideology is showing, too. But my ideology begins in nature. You can judge whether I am clear-eyed or not.

Outlander is a TV series about Claire Randall, former war nurse, who is living in Britain in 1946 when she is magically transported to the Scottish Highlands of 1743. Outlander supposes Claire to be our heroine. But Claire is not a heroine; and there are three things that confirm this. 

Note as a preliminary that, thinking herself trapped in 1743, Claire consents to marry the sexy Scotsman Jamie, even though, back in 1946, she is already married to bookish Frank. This bigamy is not in itself the problem. There are good narrative reasons for it.

First Thing. Jamie and party are off to find a British deserter. Claire has come along because she has demonstrated (with her superior 20th-century learning) her utility as a nurse. But fearing a trap, Jamie tells Claire to hang back. He wants her safe. She promises to stay put. Once he is gone, she wanders off. She is captured by the British. Jamie and party rescue her. Once rescued, she is upbraided by Jamie for wandering off. She endangered everyone. The clan has now exposed itself to British retribution. The British commander has learned that Jamie, who is a fugitive, is hiding amongst that clan. Jamie is furious with Claire for disobeying him and breaking her promise. And what does she do? She rants about not being his property; that he can't order her around. Claire is a Strong Woman, after all. No husband, no man, can dictate to her!

Now, Claire wandered off because she sensed Craigh na Dun nearby. The standing stones of Craigh na Dun were the point of her transition to 1743 — and she wants to transit back to 1946. In other words, her reasons for disobeying Jamie were profound. Yet, instead of getting an honest character conflict (wherein Claire recognizes the enormity of her disobedience but cannot admit the time-displacement thing), we get that shrewish feminist cry "I AM NOT YOUR PROPERTY!" — as if heeding Jamie's solicitous authority and keeping her promise are equivalent to chattel enslavement. Her response is unbecoming and adolescent — as feminism be — and, what's worse, Outlander believes Claire has responded appropriately to Jamie's fury.

Second Thing. Claire has made friends with Geillis, a sassy woman who dabbles in potions and is married to a flatulent buffoon. Geillis, wanting to be with her lover, poisons her husband. Jamie tells Claire to stay away from Geillis, given the murder, the scandal, the danger from the law, and other such petty things. Again Claire promises to stay put. Then Claire gets a note from Geillis and immediately goes to see her. Does Claire ever once shrink from Geillis the murderess, the poisoner of husbands? Does she tell Geillis that maybe poisoning was a bad idea? No. Claire is only concerned for her friend. Screw the men, after all. What matters most is the happiness of Geillis, who is Claire's bestest bestie.

Outlander has no problem with Claire's myopic behavior. The sisterhood is what matters, right through the inevitable trial for witchcraft (and its attendant Christophobia).

Third Thing. Jamie, having learned that Claire is from 1946, nobly takes her to Craigh na Dun so that she might return home and reunite with Frank. At this point Jamie and Claire are in full-on monkey-sex love. As she approaches the stones it is clear that she can indeed return; the forces are calling her through. Frank, of course, is desperately unhappy in her absence; and although she can't know this, what else would he be? He's also just her husband, her proper husband, her original husband. She has some vows to uphold, I'd say. However, she stays in 1743 because, of course, it's Sexy Highlander she wants inside her.

And Outlander tells you: It's so romantic!

These three things were so off-putting that I could not accept Claire as a heroine. I kept waiting for Outlander to be honest about Claire. It never was. So never mind.

Outlander is a highbrow Harlequin Romance. It is a bodice-ripping woman's fantasy and Claire Randall is the avatar of irresponsible feminine self-centeredness.

I've got better things to watch.

I don't normally blog about social or political issues; not directly, in any event. This is meant to be a blog about art and philosophy, science fiction and writing. But today I'm really annoyed. 

So I caught this YouTube video by Tim Pool talking about how Terry Crews, the actor, is in trouble for saying that a child who grows up without a parent — most pointedly, without a father — will be "malnourished." Of course our gynarchy, recognizing this as a defense of the distinctive necessity of men, is now condemning Crews.

One of my favorite tweets against Crews said this:

I was adopted by two moms. And when I was 12, I came out as a trans guy. I didn't have a "father figure," but I had many examples of positive and healthy masculinity from people [of] all genders.

Remember. This tweeter means somehow to counter Crews. Having been raised by Two Moms, the tweeter now longs to be the sex he is not, and is no doubt working towards mutilating his body to remove his genitals. See? There is nothing wrong with our tweeter! Father-free, he received exactly the upbringing he needed to become a perfectly normal man.

Our tweeter claims he had many examples of "positive and healthy masculinity." If he did, he ignored them. He did not develop into a man; the disorder in his mind prevailed. There were probably no genuine examples anyhow. Most likely he is using "positive masculinity" in the feminist sense: i.e., soyboy submission to female aggrandizement.

The other absurdity is that he thinks there can be examples of masculinity from "all" genders. First, it's cute that he says "all" rather than "both." The madness of this world! Second, masculinity cannot be exemplified by women. Masculinity is what men are. A woman may exhibit one or another trait that is normally exhibited by men; but should she embody so many such traits that one might call her "masculine," then she has simply failed as a woman. She is an example of nothing but disorder.

Try to explain this to our tweeter. It won't work. I'm sure he thinks "masculine" and "feminine" are things we humans just made up. Masks available to anyone! He can't even see that his being a "trans guy" proves Crews's point. Our tweeter is too busy affirming himself to face himself.

I haven't read anything about the President's initiative for a Space Force. I don't even know if it was more than a rhetorical wish. That, and some rumblings about finally going to Mars, could make a person hopeful, however.

To think we once walked on the Moon! And now we must fret over trannies in bathrooms.

It occurs to me, though, that the last thing we want is to head to Mars under the current social regime. You know as well as I that the most pressing issue will be: Should the first human to step foot on Mars be a woman, a black, or a black woman? What should be an achievement of the species will instead be a fight for diversity points. Without question the success of the mission will be subordinated to the satisfaction of SJW feelz.

Therefore I think it best that we whose heads are clear not wish for a Mars landing soon. Let us wait for a restoration of civilization; for a renewal, frankly, of patriarchy. Our current gynarchy would make a farce of any Mars mission.

Now, being a sourpuss, I think we will have a collapse long before there is a restoration of anything sane; and it will be some unknown descendant civilization that finally makes it to Mars. So be it. The first men on Mars should be men, plain and simple. Men are the explorers and conquerors. Modern America has forgotten that.

P.S. So should I be cheering on China? Or Russia? It makes an American sad.

So, on Netflix, I'm watching The Blacklist, that show starring James Spader. Generally it's just cool and outrageous. Like most modern TV, though, it can't merely deliver its clever plot but must also deliver an Approved Point of View.

It is particularly annoying when Reddington, an amoral killer, goes on some dogmatic rant about, oh, religious intolerance of sodomy. The writers, in their own real lives, hate (or at least must seem to hate) such intolerance, and so they can't help but depict their "hero" as doing the same — even if it makes him, at least briefly, a mouthpiece instead of a person.

Sadly, though, I experienced a more dispiriting moment in the show. Dogmatic rants at least indicate the writers are aware that they are taking positions. What happens when the rot is utterly unconscious? 

In one episode, children who are retarded and mentally afflicted are being given, by their parents, to a loony witch-like woman. The parents are essentially disposing of their children. A member of the FBI task force, speaking of Ethan (one of the children) and his mother Jeanne (who disposed of him), says:

Ethan apparently requires around-the-clock care, medical therapy, speech and language therapy. In fact Jeanne quit her job to be Ethan's full-time caregiver.

Notice the feminist worldview. Ethan required so much care that Jeanne had to quit her job. And for what? To become Ethan's "full-time caregiver."

Or as we used to say: his "mother."

The writers find it obviously tragic that Jeanne had to prioritize being a mother over being a wage slave. A woman is defined by having a job, after all; and caregiving is just an assignable task. There was no rant; no speech. Just a remark — almost casual — by a character explaining the situation.

Indeed, the rot has settled in.