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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

username checks out

It's actually a C.S. Lewis reference, the Screwtape Letters, which is more along the lines of a Christian exegesis or apologia. That is part of why I chose that username. I was also considering Wormwood, but he does not fit my character as well. Too often, though, I am the patient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEf7sdiohjk

The Screwtape Letters is a Christian apologetic novel by C. S. Lewis and dedicated to J. R. R. Tolkien. It is written in a satirical, epistolary style and while it is fictional in format, the plot and characters are used to address Christian theological issues, primarily those to do with temptation and resistance to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters

I think it is fitting because we increasingly dismiss the teaching of Christianity and many of the sociological woes we are contending with are humorously illustrated in the book. Much of our condemnation of Christianity and western values that were somehow tied with it can be seen in our general attitudes towards ethics and morality. My stance on pornography is not to bring more lewdness to this world, which it certainly does not need, but to try to be morally consistent with our values of free speech we ostensibly proclaim.

What happened on Gab?

It seemed that Andrew Torba, its CEO, got increasingly power hungry and was imposing his own morality on the site. He was pretty outspoken against Hentai and especially material with younger characters. The letter might be understandable, but he increasingly seemed like some priest on a mission and he wanted to transform his Gab clique into some sort of commune. One of the reasons he refrained from downright implementing speech restrictions on Gab was more because it would hurt the initial growth on Gab, not because he viewed it as inconsistent with his stance of free speech absolutism. I am very wary of people like that, because those places usually start out with proclaiming the values and virtues of free speech only for the administrators and other stuff to become increasingly vindictive, until we are back to having little Napoleons ruling over their imagined online empire. All these sites, Twitter, YouTube, Gab, Minds -- they always start out drawing users in with lures of freedom of expression, only to later clamp down when they are no longer reliant on the initial support. I would much prefer a site that is anti-authoritarian, free speech absolutist by design because I do not want to be reliant on the good will of staff and admins, which change over time. That is precisely how these places get reindeer kin and other such characters, as in the case of Twitch, who then ruin the site because it did not have something of the sort of a strong constitution, a founding document, that ensured that the user base could dispose of tyrants, similar to how the US Constitution made provisions to rid themselves of corruption and combat the loss of liberty.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yes I recognized that it was a reference to "The Screwtape Letters," though it's been a long time since I read that. Screwtape was one of the demons trying to tempt humans into sin... perhaps by putting a bunch of pornography on their site ... no?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Oh, I was wondering if that was the reason for your comment. I explained it anyway, in case someone else reads it who is not familiar with it. Yes, he was one of the tempters, which would have fit with my comment. Well put.

But, as in the original book, it is not straightforward, sometimes, what leads to salvation and what leads to damnation. There, as in the culture war, many who seem to have good intentions and proclaim themselves to be on the side of virtue end up doing reprehensible things. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Hypocrisy, though, is a sure path that strays.

Glubose has this old woman well in hand. She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile “Oh please, please . .. all want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast”. You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. At the very moment of indulging her appetite she believes that she is practising temperance. In a crowded restaurant she gives a little scream at the plate which some overworked waitress has set before her and says, “Oh, that’s far, far too much! Take it away and bring me about a quarter of it”. If challenged, she would say she was doing this to avoid waste ; in reality she does it because the particular shade of delicacy to which we have enslaved her is offended by the sight of more food than she happens to want.

We often try to present ourselves in ways that seem virtuous, for the sake of signaling virtue alone. We avoid doing what is truly virtuous, ethical, and moral as soon as it becomes inconvenient.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I can see your argument about principles of true free speech being something we need to not betray. It's just difficult not to read it as "this comment is an example of how the devil tricks in into believing sinning is virtuous" with that username!

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

True, I can see that.