No, I'm not talking about theocracy (a system in which those who claim to speak for God rule directly). I'm talking about the fact that the reign of God, as it comes to be expressed in human life, will of necessity change systems as well as individuals.
Yes but Gods reign expressed in human life is in conflict with the current secular system way of doing things, of achieving a equal and fair society. The philosophical basis is completely different, it rejects Gods law and Truth and replaces it with Humanism and Materialism.
It's both. People don't exist independently of the systems we structure and inhabit.
Yes they do if your a Christian. We are in this world but not of it. So we can exist within a system but not be part of it in belief. Give unto Ceasar what is Ceasars and to God what is Gods. But Christ was not saying that the secular system is the system of God. One was earthly and the other Gods Kingdom on earth. So individuals can exist independently of worldly systems and will express their belief in different ways to secularist.
If God could use Cyrus, then why can't God use contemporary thinkers and leaders, despite their unbelief?
Yes God can but I think these are stepping stones to a greater and different outcome than what secularist believe and today we can determine if an idea is in step God and Christian truths or not. Remembering that the Bible tells us that the beliefs and ideas of this world are basically opposed to God.
Every single one, about every single issue? I don't believe that. There are many real and pressing issues being addressed, and this is good.
If we are talking about the philosophical basis for how inequality and injustice are caused and the remedy to create a better society in that regard then yes most of what is the basis for law and policy is based on ideological assumptions and beliefs that have little scientific or rational basis. Just because we think inequality and other real issues as you say are being addressed doesn't mean they are being addressed.
Its how they are being addressed that is the important destinction. Whether the basis we use for this is actually going to achieve a better society. For example the left/progressive/liberal has a completely different philosophical basis than the Righttraditional/conservative. Fundementally Christians have a different basis than non Christians or atheists.
Only if it's really badly misunderstood.
See this I think is an example of the blinkered and narrow thinking inherent in ideologues thinking. Rather than acknowledge that it may at least be a bit of both, both the message missing its target audience and the recievers inability to understand the assumption is if anyone objects they must be badly misunderstaning things. There cannot possibly be any issue with the message of the ideologues because its Holy Writ and never wrong. They would not dare acknowledge that the percieved oppressors may be right in their feelings of being stigmatised or castigated.
But it doesn't tar anyone. Again, having privilege isn't some kind of wrong or accusation. I am privileged in a variety of ways; by being white, by having reasonably good health, by speaking the majority language of the country I live in, by being educated, by being employed, by having social capital, and so on. None of this is an accusation; it's a description of the ways in which I don't face the same disadvantages as someone else.
The idea of 'white priviledge' comes from Critical race Theory which is an unfounded and divisive idea. Just the word white attached to priviledge or fragility is racist because it attaches skin colour. It actually magnifies racial differences in attaching skin colour to issues. It creates an unreal lens of the world where everything is about race or gender or sex and the cause of all inequality and injustices. It generalizes certain right or wrong moral behaviours and dispositions to race (priviledge as opposed to disadvantage) rather than seeing the individual which is anti Western aned anti Christian.
For example that the dominant culture speaks the majority language is not white priviledge but rather the natural evolution that majority cultures will live by their own culture and that minorities who come in will not. There is nothing racist about this, its just a fact of life. If Westerners go to China they will be disadvantaged as far as language is concerned. The difference is we don't turn that into something racist. That is what ideologues do with just about all differences. Thats why I say its a narrow view of the worlde based on belief rather than fact or reality.
I don't find that to be an accurate description of the discourse.
That is the discourse. CRT and Social Justice Theory are Postmodernist ideas which primarily are about discourse, dismantling the existing percieved racist, sexist, gender normative discourse and replacing it with a new narrative based on the tenets of Critical theories. These ideas form the basis for much of academia, education, law and health policy and law. That is why we are having so much coinflict with words, meanings and language today.
Recognising that privilege (or disadvantage) might occur across multiple axes is exactly what intersectionality is.
Yes but taking that and then claiming that those differences in priviledge and disadvantage are caused by a systemic racist system is an assumption and belief. Those differences are not just because of systemic rasism.
Really? Coming from a rich family is a matter of hard work and merit? I don't think so!
See this is the narrow view I am talking about. That you choose by default to highlight inherited wealth rather than acknowledge that the majority of situations involves hard work ethic which is a basic principle of the West (you get what you put in) supports what I have been saying about these ideologies being based on assumptions and beliefs about how society and the world is. They undermine individuality and make people feel guilty for achievement.
Intersectionality is part of Critical Race and Social Justice Theory and forms the basis for Identity politics by breaking communities down to identity groups primarily by race, gender, ethnics and sex and other identities as independent and intersecting based on relations of powered/disempower and priviledge/disadvantage. That is all it was invented for.
The problem for many is that this is an unsupported subjective idea. It reduces all differences in equality down to power differences of individuals and systems and overlooks the many other factors that cause and influence these differences. In fact taking Intersectionality to its logical conclusion actually brings us back to Individuality because by the time we exhaust all the intersecting differences we have so many that it shows we cannot measure people by their intersecting differences.
The question is why do ideologues highlight and place much greater importance on certain intersecting differences like race, ethnics, sex and gender and not others. Because if they do it will undermine the assumption that all differences are based on oppression. Intersectionality is Identity politics.
But it's the attitude and ideology being labelled as "toxic," not people. I don't know why this very basic point seems to keep being lost.
Its a bit like religion and how Christianity says its the sin and not the sinner. Except this can be easily manipulated which activists usually do in radicalizing things. Though I think the basic idea of dividing society into identity groups for analysis of oppressor and oppressed is deivisive and antagonistic and can naturally lead to people going on the defence.
Again, that's misrepresenting the discourse.
I disagree. If you look at the language today in academia, what narrative ideologues use and policy unpinning our Institutions CRT and Social Justice theory are prominent.
No. No, it doesn't. That's just flat-out wrong.
Tell that to men. It seems that the Critical Postmodernist view of the world and reality is personal and group experiences and story telling as truth in the world. We have to take seriously the expressed narratives of minority idenity groups as truth and real. Yet when the so called oppressors express their lived experience its not believed and is dismissed as whinging. We can see the effect it has had on males by the high rates of poor self worth, confused identity and suicide.
This is part of the ideology that feeds into moralising or what we call Wokism today. That somehow minority lived experiences are Holy and pure and never wrong and Whites and espcially males are somehow less valuable.
No, again this is a misunderstanding. It's not talking about normal or healthy masculinity; it's talking about distorted ideologies of masculinity which are harmful for men, and harmful to society.
I think this is an unreal take on what is actually happening in society. Its a very blurring line that is being pushed. No one says "hey I want to clarify that we are not talking about normal or healthy muscullinity but rather a distorted belief". No the narrative is 'Toxic Masscullinity' fullstop. It leaves open interpretation. Thats because implicitly that is what is meant that men are toxic espcially among the radeical feminist who happen to deeictate the narrative because they shout the loudest.
It's ironic that you're talking about the need for a "bit of education" when you're making completely and obviously false statements about something as basic as the concept of toxic masculinity.
But education aned Praix are different. What may be a ideal in practice becomes asomething else. That seems to be the common theme of these ideas like CRT and SJT. This is evdienced in that instead of achieving some DEI Utopia society has become progressively more polarized aned deivided over identity politics now where race, gender and sex is emphasied more than ever rather than individuality or common identity.
