This is my answer to the @ecotrain question of the week. It started as a response to @mountainjewel's response, and just got so big that here it is...

I agree that it's quite interesting how so many who respond basically make the same point, but arrive at it from different lanes of thought... I'm in agreement with what you've said... but the thing is... I've found, much to my dismay, that as it turns out... more often than not... the "other side", by which I mean the people who I have been taught are horrid, detestable, close minded monsters who practice what might be termed "authoritarian judgement"... aren't anything of the sort.

To clarify that term...

We have judgement, an absolutely essential behavioural trait that -FAR- predates the evolution of mankind, or even vertabrates. Virtually every living thing in existence, both animal and (believe it or not, plant) exercises judgement on a constant basis. The plants and fungi do it in a somewhat different method than us beasties do, but they still make decisions based on their perceptions and local prejudices (yes, really... some plants are so territorial as to be considered quasi-racist); just like cats, cows, dogs, skunks, opposums, bees, spiders, octopusses (screw you, @grammarnazi!), haunts, spirits, angels, devils, gods, cryptids and everyone else you might meet on a daily basis.

And then there is "authoritarian judgement" wherein a person or institution declares that their opinion (often rooted in deep cultural prejudices and scripts that are so heavily internalized as to be considered "common sense") override the personal sovereignty of others. A few examples:

I'm a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft, a name which most of you are likely quite familiar nowadays. Back when I first heard of him in '90, simply knowing the word Cthulhu automatically placed you in the camp of "nerd-ally" much in the same way that wearing a Nine-Inch-Nails shirt automatically placed you in the camp of "Industrial Fan"... These terms were so far outside of mainstream culture back then that you could almost use them as a form of "Thieve's Cant"... If you dropped a NIN reference in passing, and somebody got it, you automatically knew they were cool... Us freaks, goths, and weirdos could basically carry-on conversations in a hidden language if we wanted to. Good times... <3

Lovecraft often comes under criticism for being incredibly racist... and he was. But the thing is... in the environment which he lived, the concept of White Superiority was considered roughly as controversial as the wetness of water, or the fact that rocks sit still... It was blatantly common knowledge, to the point that being "non-racist" would have been considered a sure sign of mental illness, atheism, communism, or probably all of the above.

Racial equality was seen as an existential threat to human civilization itself; and the "common sense" reaction to the concept was appropriately virulent... ie:

This is by no means an attempt to apologize for the hideous crimes carried out during that era, but remember... writing a science-fiction story is not a crime.

But wait, there's more...

Another example of this is the infamous "date-rape" song:

If you haven't watched that video, do so now... Because when viewed from the social context of its time, that song is about quad-nine consent.

It is a satire, and even a celebration, of the linguistic mating dance that people of that time engaged in so a lady (or man) could stay overnight at the home of someone they weren't married to, without being considered a slut/fuckboy.

It was a simple social nicety, a paper-thin excuse manufactured on-the-fly, that absolutely NOBODY would either believe, nor question.

"What's this in my drink?" was a widdershins way of saying "Jeez this is a weak drink, if you keep skimping on the liqour; how the bloody hell am I going to say I was too tipsy to make it home?"

And if you watch the video, you can see that it's an absolute delight... Audiences -loved- the double-entedres... the in-jokes, the references to weak drinks, everything...

In fact, the only people who would be offended by this, were judgemental self-righteous shitheads that couldn't mind own their damned business...

Fast forward 70 years, and now everyone is screaming that it should be banned because RAPE-CULTURE!!!!!

This is why I consider it completely unfair to judge artists and their works based on a political, cultural and scientific paradigm that DID NOT EXIST when they were creating their art. To do so is no less self-righteous and horrid than the Christian missionaries who destroyed paleolithic cave art that depicted phalluses and vulvas...

It is the erasure of another persons life and agency, just because you say so... ie... Authoritarian Judgment.

But wait, there's less...

I made these examples because my own paradigm has recently taken a major blow... Things which I took completely for granted have been revealed to be, at best, a distortion and at worst, flat-out lies in the service of a political agenda very intentionally designed as justification for oppression...

I think, however, that I'm going to just leave this post as is for now. I've answered the question, and I want to do a bit more research before I go off half-cocked and cause a needless stir.

So we'll leave it at that...

Love to loving,

Silas Danois