gusthemagnificent.bsky.social

A picture of a green area surrounded by trees in fall colors, with a horse sculpture in the foreground.

Love love love fall weather

coates is genuinely a generational writer

MAGA 3 days ago: Chicago is about to find out the meaning of WAR

MAGA today: the left needs to stop condoning violence

Callie, a tortie cat, lays on a bed and looks (sorta) into the camera. A couple of seconds after taking this photo, the photographer (me) acquired several new scratches.

Callie, who cannot decide whether she wants cuddles or kills

It’s all an attitude of being fine with authoritarianism, just not in their preferred cities. High crime rates in Republican-led states isn’t a gotcha! It’s a tragedy and a canary in a coal mine about what systemic racism and poverty beget. Do better, y’all. Not one city should be occupied.

Just a photo of a very orange cat being an orange cat.

Totally agree!

Agree there! We can totally resist the things that influence us and things influence different people to different degrees.

…differently though!

But art (stories and the like) are part of the systematic things that make up our childhoods. I was raised on Mr Roger’s, Sesame Street, Sunday School stories, RL Stine books, CS Lewis novels, etc. They’re part of my upbringing and helped shape my values. I def agree that people can read art…

Oh yeah! I totally agree that we can and should. All I’m saying is that art is moral just like art is political and that as something moral (infused with values about the world) it can have a moral impact on our lives. Art can make us better or worse people.

….whether we’re aware of that influence or not. Which is why I’m wary when I read something from someone who I know to be a bad person IRL. (I may still read it, but I’m more conscious of what the story is trying to say/do.)

I definitely didn’t mean to say that. I just meant to take issue with the claim that good art has no moral bearing on our lives. I think it does which is why art has such power. And artists (particularly authors given the nature of the written word) often create works that shape who we are…

….our characters and the moral decisions we make. So art absolutely has moral bearing on our lives. I think that some wretched people have made beautiful art, and frankly if I know someone is a bad person I *am* more wary in consuming their art (much less financially supporting them by buying it).

No. But just as art is political, so too is it moral in that it is infused with values. And as we consume art, we are at great risk of being shaped by it. And part of the power (and danger) of art is that it can grip us in a way that leads us to come to value (or devalue) things that influence…

Your first line is that good art has no bearing on your morality. I’m not sure how that doesn’t have bearing on my reply.

…art can result in financial support to the artist who can then use that money for bad ends. (See: JK Rowling, OS Card)

I disagree for two reasons. First, art is laden with values and sometimes we are seduced by the aesthetic appeal of the art to accepting the values that underpin that art. (See: many forms of propaganda). Second, for living artists, supporting the art can result in financial support of the artist…

Arnold, a super lovely orange cat, is curled up in a cat bed in a sunbeam. The cat bed is a cool dome made of reeds.

Sleeping in a sunbeam

Jane, a very timid brown and white tabby, looks up at the camera.

Sweet Jane

Ada, a grey cat who looks far more innocent than she is, looks up at the camera.

Ada darling

There’s a pretty fantastic Indiana Jones video game that was released last year. Within 30 minutes you’re wandering the Vatican punching fascists. It is 10/10, do recommend.

You cannot be so much of an institutionalist that you let the institutions bring us fascism. What was the value of the insitutions supposed to be in the first place?

I just finished it and loved it!! I remember giggling like a fool at the cat antics in Ancestral Night and was so happy to have fun cats-in-space adventures in this novel, too!

Nothin but the facts

The craziest thing about this fight between Trump and Elon Musk is that Republicans are trying to take away health care from 16 million people to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.

Ada, a grey cat, sits and looks at the camera. At her feet is a grey ceramic cat that looks curled up in sleep.

Creation and muse

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

Millie, an orange and white calico cat, is curled up asleep on an orange chair.

This may look like just a cute cat photo. However it in fact represents an on-going feud between me (human, with opposable thumbs and a PhD) and Millie (6 lb cat whose nose hasn’t worked a day in her life) over who gets to use that chair.

Two cats sit in a window looking out. They are silhouettes from backlighting, you can see a bright pink dogwood tree in full bloom in the background.

Backlit by spring.