1. notleia says:
    August 24, 2021 at 5:33 pm

    Welp, how exactly do you adequately redeem a genocide-ist? Was Hero McManly actually redeemed in the story or was his “redemption” just having his tears wiped away by Lovely Heroine? Did he actually do eff-all to make some kind of amends to the Sioux/Lakota?

    I know that’s there’s not much an individual can realistically do to make up for frikkin genocide, but maybe there’s a kernel in the idea that the earnest effort is better than frikkin nothing.

    It’s certainly a question whether it’s an overstatement whether “romanticizing” or “glamorizing” the genocidal scheiss, but from the excerpt I’ve read, the preface is definitely white supremacist in tone and gross.

    Also seems like some of the Christian culture-warrior brigade don’t actually understand why the preface was bad in the first place. I mean, most of them are still attached to the white-savior missionary stories (and ignore ALL the dead bodies found at missionary boarding schools for the Indigenous) who are saving the immodest-savages-who-don’t-wear-underwear from themselves. And like their forebears, don’t

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    • notleia says:
      August 24, 2021 at 5:40 pm

      *oops premature posting

      don’t seem to understand the distinction between Christianity and Western/white people culture in general. (You know I’m thinking about the kind of pundit who makes it their job to conflates the two because socialism or whatever.)

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  2. notleia says:
    August 24, 2021 at 6:39 pm

    Oooooh, listening further in to the part about anger. You think Christians don’t project their anger onto a more socially acceptable (to their in-group) target? LOL.

    But it’s an interesting, if disturbing phenomenon, how people who aren’t allowed to express anger really go whole-hog in the limited instances where they are allowed to. This is a huuuuuuge problem with Southern-type women, who get slapped with the label “bitter” when they are angry for 0.5 seconds longer than is palatable for someone else. So often Southern-type women as a group are more likely go nuclear on their social “lessers:” i.e. to beat their children and pull a Karen in a retail situation.
    (Being in retail, the Karen phenomenon is near and dear to my amygdala.)
    Men are arguably worse about this, because they usually go to jail over their actings out.

    Also, Somewhere On the internet, I read that we as a society might need those big-fish-in-little-ponds positions, like President of the local Rotary, Church Board Member, et al, for soothing the feelings of the insecure fulfilling the social need for status.

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  3. Andrew D Meredith says:
    August 26, 2021 at 3:08 pm

    Thank you for the insightful episode. It is a good reminder that we ought to, just like this episode, listen to the whole thing, and not just the intro, as those who called for the book’s cancellation did. I found it interesting that the author even covered the point that this protagonist did not take place in the violence, but lived with the guilt of being culpably adjacent. Just as we all work through the actions of our past, before or after salvation, we continually fall and do that which we do not wish to do. (Rm. 7:19) –yet there is continually salvation.

    I am reminded of the parallels of the rising Cancel Culture and old Christian “Puritanism.” (Not the original puritanism as a belief system, but the culture that outpoured from that).
    The fact is, regardless of how believing that culture really was, all society members of prerevolutionary America were encouraged to be a part of that society,declaring themselves as Christian in order to partake in trade, fellowship, and subsequently taking part in/not condemn mobs forming in witch hunts.

    Today we see the same, Christian and non-Christian alike, seeking to be approved “Blue Check” members of the culture. But, we are in this world, and not of it. The Corinthians did not take part in Corinthian Culture (after admonishment from Paul) and we should not take part in the Woke culture when it completely misaligns with our Faith. And as you said, Zack, we have nothing to fear. We do not fear death, in this life, nor eternal.

    I bring up the early Puritan America as an example of how we can learn from the past and act upon that knowledge. We do not need to run alongside the mob. We can act in love, being patient, and considering the whole situation, and as many people in our day to day, only read the first line of the email, book, or news clip. We owe it to ourselves, and to each other.

    I rest in the words of Romans 12:2

    Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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What say you?