4 ms·

Let's try your formulation in a different context and see if it works. Imagine someone saying this in the '50s: > There's a lot of media that uses caricatures

by gwd 6y ago

Let's try your formulation in a different context and see if it works. Imagine someone saying this in the '50s: > There's a lot of media that uses caricatures to vilify [Blacks], but there is relatively little uproar from [Blacks] about it. They don't seem to be very sensitive apart from a small handful... I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. "Representation matters" -- indeed it does; and I'm not sure I've seen anyone on TV or in movies that looks like me or the people in my church. Even when they're trying to put people in a positive light, you can tell that it's someone trying to guess what it's like from the outside, not someone who understands it from the inside.

teachrdan 6y ago
The actual lived conditions matter, too. In the 1950s, Black Americans were harassed, beaten and killed for registering to vote; no such discrimination against Christians has ever existed in the US, or even in North America or Europe, where the games we're talking about are largely developed and marketed. I agree that Christians are sometimes treated more critically in popular culture. But this is simply criticizing those in positions of power. It's hard to argue that ethnic or other minorities enjoy those levels of power in any of the places these games are made or marketed. To quote a certain comedian: "Christians won the world. The Christians won everything. If you don't believe me, let me ask you a question. What year is it?" https://vimeo.com/215910765 https://vimeo.com/215910765
- coredog64 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania Or, if we want more recent history, the Bosnian war or even the currently ongoing dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. If you squint, you might even be able to include sect-on-sect violence which seems like several hundred years of European history, to the point that a group of religious practitioners crossed an ocean to escape it.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > The actual lived conditions matter, too. In the 1950s, Black Americans were harassed, beaten and killed for registering to vote; no such discrimination against Christians has ever existed in the US, or even in North America or Europe, where the games we're talking about are largely developed and marketed. I quite agree. There can be no meaningful comparison between Blacks in the 50's and Christians in recent history. > no such discrimination against Christians has ever existed in ... Europe Well, it hasn't for a very long time, but it was pretty bad for quite a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_t... Mostly I share this as an interesting historical tidbit; not to refute any of your points. > I agree that Christians are sometimes treated more critically in popular culture. But this is simply criticizing those in positions of power. Of course, like all groups (be they religious, racial, ethnic, gender, etc), Christians are incredibly diverse such that there are no real criticisms that generalizes well, and all of these criticisms depend on caricature and stereotype which are (by definition) inaccurate and hateful. Moreover, to target a group for being "powerful" when that power is merely "numerousness in a democracratic context"--without any sort of evidence that the group behaves as a class, conspiring to increase or preserve the power of the group and to distribute that power throughout the group (to give privileges to constituents merely for being part of the group)--is lazy at best and hateful at worst (theories of a Jewish conspiracies spring to mind). > To quote a certain comedian: "Christians won the world. The Christians won everything. If you don't believe me, let me ask you a question. What year is it?" Maybe this is an amusing joke, but I don't think it supports your point very well. Lots of different cultures have given us different conventions and standards. We tell time using a Babylonian counting system, but we wouldn't say "Babylonians won the world". Similarly, we use a semitic alphabet but we wouldn't say "Semites won the world". We use Arabic numerals but we wouldn't say Arabs won the world. I could go on and on and on.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Germanic paganism won. Don't believe me? Let me ask you, what day of the week is it?
mcphage 6y ago
> I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. "I don't like how I'm portrayed, so I'll validate their criticisms through my actions" doesn't seem the best solution. If they don't like their portrayal, it seems they would be better off to make the portrayal better instead of making themselves worse.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  People lash out at their bullies for catharsis, not for prudence. In any case, Christians are very charitable people by any metric, and that didn't spare them any bullying or earn them any favor, so why be surprised when some people behave according to the incentive structure we put around them? It's also worth noting that Christians as a collective didn't vote for Trump, rather they were pretty evenly split.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    > so why be surprised when some people behave according to the incentive structure we put around them? I guess a basic level of self-respect? It's one thing to be criticized, but one could say "that's not who I am". And it's not like Jesus didn't warn them they'd be prosecuted for him; there are many, many verses about this very thing. But once they start performing destructive behaviors themselves, suddenly: that is who they are.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Jesus also said there would be a lot of people who called themselves Christian but few who actually lived the life. As far as political polls go, they are happy to consider anyone a Christian irrespective of whether they practice any of the traditions or aspire toward the ethics, so we probably shouldn't expect generalizations about "Christians" to be very useful or intuitive. Anyway, I try not to criticize the bullied for how they manifest their scars--it doesn't help them and anyone whose opinion matters is only going to think less of me for it.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> Let's try your formulation in a different context and see if it works. Imagine someone saying this in the '50s There are a number of enormous, relevant differences between these two groups, but more importantly I don't see any good, enlightening dialog coming out of a comparison between the plights of Jim Crow era Blacks and anyone else. It's like the converse of Godwin's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law). > I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. I don't think they're "happy" about it, per se, but rather they're not offended enough to object publicly to it. And to be clear, I'm merely observing that Christians aren't as offended (or don't express offense as much) as I think other groups would be. I'm leaving it up to the readers to interpret this as thick-skin or weak-will or something else (I'm certainly not intending to imply any particular interpretation).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mike_d 6y ago
> Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. Christians are facing the same problem Muslims had to face post 9/11. Some of the people in your religion are so absolutely terrible you become hated as a whole for it. Is that fair or right? Of course not. But like any other community with rotten apples, you need to work on shunning and expelling these people... not voting for them.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I don't know what good can come from comparing Christian "bad apples" (presumably the 'judgmental hypocrite' caricature) to brutal mass murderers. Similarly, this reads like you're suggesting Christians are uniquely bad at shunning/expelling their "bad apples" or perhaps that they are unique in that they are actively voting them into some office, and perhaps even suggesting that this discrepancy justifies their mistreatment: > But like any other community with rotten apples, you need to work on shunning and expelling these people... not voting for them. I'm sure you didn't mean any of those things, but it might be good to clarify.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it I assure you that Christians are not, as a rule, unfavorably portrayed in the media, and many Christians are excessively tired of those members of the single most favored, and socially and politically powerful, subset of America's dominant religion pretending to be persecuted whenever they experience the slightest criticism or restriction in imposing their ideology on others. > It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. Probably not significantly; it's more likely the reason that white evangelical protestants overwhelmingly supported Trump and white Catholics and white non-evangelical protestants also did so, though less overwhelmingly (whereas Hispanic Catholics supported, and Black evangelical protestants overwhelmingly supported, Biden) is that white Christians consistently have more to do with the correlation between views on race and religious affiliation. It's perhaps telling that the share of White Evangelical Protestant (78%) and, White non-evangelical Protestants (52%), and White Catholics (53%) that supported Trump (in an October survey, [0]) are very similar to the share of each (72%, 56%, and 53%, respectively, in an August survey [1]) that believed “police killings of Black men are isolated incidents”. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/13/white-christians-continue-to-favor-trump-over-biden-but-support-has-slipped/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/13/white-chris... [1] https://www.prri.org/research/racial-justice-2020-george-floyd/ https://www.prri.org/research/racial-justice-2020-george-flo...

by gwd 6y ago

teachrdan 6y ago

The actual lived conditions matter, too. In the 1950s, Black Americans were harassed, beaten and killed for registering to vote; no such discrimination against Christians has ever existed in the US, or even in North America or Europe, where the games we're talking about are largely developed and marketed. I agree that Christians are sometimes treated more critically in popular culture. But this is simply criticizing those in positions of power. It's hard to argue that ethnic or other minorities enjoy those levels of power in any of the places these games are made or marketed. To quote a certain comedian: "Christians won the world. The Christians won everything. If you don't believe me, let me ask you a question. What year is it?" https://vimeo.com/215910765 https://vimeo.com/215910765

coredog64 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania Or, if we want more recent history, the Bosnian war or even the currently ongoing dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. If you squint, you might even be able to include sect-on-sect violence which seems like several hundred years of European history, to the point that a group of religious practitioners crossed an ocean to escape it.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> The actual lived conditions matter, too. In the 1950s, Black Americans were harassed, beaten and killed for registering to vote; no such discrimination against Christians has ever existed in the US, or even in North America or Europe, where the games we're talking about are largely developed and marketed. I quite agree. There can be no meaningful comparison between Blacks in the 50's and Christians in recent history. > no such discrimination against Christians has ever existed in ... Europe Well, it hasn't for a very long time, but it was pretty bad for quite a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_t... Mostly I share this as an interesting historical tidbit; not to refute any of your points. > I agree that Christians are sometimes treated more critically in popular culture. But this is simply criticizing those in positions of power. Of course, like all groups (be they religious, racial, ethnic, gender, etc), Christians are incredibly diverse such that there are no real criticisms that generalizes well, and all of these criticisms depend on caricature and stereotype which are (by definition) inaccurate and hateful. Moreover, to target a group for being "powerful" when that power is merely "numerousness in a democracratic context"--without any sort of evidence that the group behaves as a class, conspiring to increase or preserve the power of the group and to distribute that power throughout the group (to give privileges to constituents merely for being part of the group)--is lazy at best and hateful at worst (theories of a Jewish conspiracies spring to mind). > To quote a certain comedian: "Christians won the world. The Christians won everything. If you don't believe me, let me ask you a question. What year is it?" Maybe this is an amusing joke, but I don't think it supports your point very well. Lots of different cultures have given us different conventions and standards. We tell time using a Babylonian counting system, but we wouldn't say "Babylonians won the world". Similarly, we use a semitic alphabet but we wouldn't say "Semites won the world". We use Arabic numerals but we wouldn't say Arabs won the world. I could go on and on and on.
bigbubba 6y ago
Germanic paganism won. Don't believe me? Let me ask you, what day of the week is it?

mcphage 6y ago

> I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. "I don't like how I'm portrayed, so I'll validate their criticisms through my actions" doesn't seem the best solution. If they don't like their portrayal, it seems they would be better off to make the portrayal better instead of making themselves worse.

throwaway894345 6y ago
People lash out at their bullies for catharsis, not for prudence. In any case, Christians are very charitable people by any metric, and that didn't spare them any bullying or earn them any favor, so why be surprised when some people behave according to the incentive structure we put around them? It's also worth noting that Christians as a collective didn't vote for Trump, rather they were pretty evenly split.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > so why be surprised when some people behave according to the incentive structure we put around them? I guess a basic level of self-respect? It's one thing to be criticized, but one could say "that's not who I am". And it's not like Jesus didn't warn them they'd be prosecuted for him; there are many, many verses about this very thing. But once they start performing destructive behaviors themselves, suddenly: that is who they are.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Jesus also said there would be a lot of people who called themselves Christian but few who actually lived the life. As far as political polls go, they are happy to consider anyone a Christian irrespective of whether they practice any of the traditions or aspire toward the ethics, so we probably shouldn't expect generalizations about "Christians" to be very useful or intuitive. Anyway, I try not to criticize the bullied for how they manifest their scars--it doesn't help them and anyone whose opinion matters is only going to think less of me for it.

throwaway894345 6y ago

> Let's try your formulation in a different context and see if it works. Imagine someone saying this in the '50s There are a number of enormous, relevant differences between these two groups, but more importantly I don't see any good, enlightening dialog coming out of a comparison between the plights of Jim Crow era Blacks and anyone else. It's like the converse of Godwin's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law). > I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. I don't think they're "happy" about it, per se, but rather they're not offended enough to object publicly to it. And to be clear, I'm merely observing that Christians aren't as offended (or don't express offense as much) as I think other groups would be. I'm leaving it up to the readers to interpret this as thick-skin or weak-will or something else (I'm certainly not intending to imply any particular interpretation).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mike_d 6y ago

> Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it. It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. Christians are facing the same problem Muslims had to face post 9/11. Some of the people in your religion are so absolutely terrible you become hated as a whole for it. Is that fair or right? Of course not. But like any other community with rotten apples, you need to work on shunning and expelling these people... not voting for them.

throwaway894345 6y ago
I don't know what good can come from comparing Christian "bad apples" (presumably the 'judgmental hypocrite' caricature) to brutal mass murderers. Similarly, this reads like you're suggesting Christians are uniquely bad at shunning/expelling their "bad apples" or perhaps that they are unique in that they are actively voting them into some office, and perhaps even suggesting that this discrepancy justifies their mistreatment: > But like any other community with rotten apples, you need to work on shunning and expelling these people... not voting for them. I'm sure you didn't mean any of those things, but it might be good to clarify.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> I assure you, Christians are aware of how poorly they're portrayed by the media, and aren't happy about it I assure you that Christians are not, as a rule, unfavorably portrayed in the media, and many Christians are excessively tired of those members of the single most favored, and socially and politically powerful, subset of America's dominant religion pretending to be persecuted whenever they experience the slightest criticism or restriction in imposing their ideology on others. > It seems to me that this is one of many factors that led many Christians to support Trump. Probably not significantly; it's more likely the reason that white evangelical protestants overwhelmingly supported Trump and white Catholics and white non-evangelical protestants also did so, though less overwhelmingly (whereas Hispanic Catholics supported, and Black evangelical protestants overwhelmingly supported, Biden) is that white Christians consistently have more to do with the correlation between views on race and religious affiliation. It's perhaps telling that the share of White Evangelical Protestant (78%) and, White non-evangelical Protestants (52%), and White Catholics (53%) that supported Trump (in an October survey, [0]) are very similar to the share of each (72%, 56%, and 53%, respectively, in an August survey [1]) that believed “police killings of Black men are isolated incidents”. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/13/white-christians-continue-to-favor-trump-over-biden-but-support-has-slipped/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/13/white-chris... [1] https://www.prri.org/research/racial-justice-2020-george-floyd/ https://www.prri.org/research/racial-justice-2020-george-flo...