Sunday, April 12, 2015

[zsnsfdwz] Dance, monkey, dance!

Each class of society employs the social classes below themselves to provide entertainment, everything from sports to music.

Who then do the lowest classes employ for entertainment?  Hypothesize animals.  This provides a model that can predict for whom animal-based entertainment such as dogfighting and cockfighting will be popular.

Thus, movements to ban such entertainment are not actually about preventing cruelty to animals but are instead class warfare in action: those who have enough wealth or status to purchase and enjoy entertainment from lower classes are committing oppression against those who aren't, attempting to deny them entertainment.

Of course, the interesting paradox is that those who strongly advocate against animal cruelty in entertainment, stereotypically the bleeding-heart liberals, also tend to feel strongly and be vocal about not committing cultural oppression on others.  Why do they not see the paradox in their own behavior?  (Doublethink.)

One possibility is believing the fallacy that what I find entertaining you will also, so there is no harm in eliminating your favorite genre of entertainment: substitutes will be equally or sufficiently satisfying.  But this seems naive: everyone can look around them and see people enjoy different things (but never questioning why there are such differences).

Another possibility is that a set of beliefs, even if paradoxical, defines a social identity, and social group membership depends on continuing to believe the paradox.

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