moni

In other words, these were seriously unorthodox people. The impression one gets from the literature is that any Nuer settlement of pre-colonial times was likely to be complemented by a minor penumbra of what might be termed extreme individuals; ones who in our own society would likely be classified as anything from highly eccentric or defiantly queer to neurodivergent or mentally ill. Normally, prophets were treated with bemused respect. They were ill; but the illness was a direct consequence of being touched by God. As a result, when great calamities or unprecedented events occurred – a plague, a foreign invasion – it was among this penumbra that everyone looked for a charismatic leader appropriate to the occasion. As a result, a person who might otherwise have spent his life as something analogous to the village idiot would suddenly be found to have remarkable powers of foresight and persuasion; even to be capable of inspiring new social movements among the youth or co-ordinating elders across Nuerland to put aside their differences and mobilize around some common goal; even, sometimes, to propose entirely different visions of what Nuer society might be like.

(cont.)

There is every reason to believe that sceptics and non-conformists exist in every human society; what varies is how others react to them.32 Radin was interested in the intellectual consequences, the kind of speculative systems of thought such out-of-sync characters might create. Others have noted the political implications. It’s often people who are just slightly odd who become leaders; the truly odd can become spiritual figures, but, even more, they can and often do serve as a kind of reserve of potential talent and insight that can be called on in the event of a crisis or unprecedented turn of affairs. Thomas Beidelman, for instance, observes that among the early-twentieth-century Nuer – a cattle-keeping people of South Sudan, famous for their rejection of anything that resembled government – there were politicians and village ‘bulls’ (‘operator types’ we’d now call them) who played fast and loose with the rules, but also ‘earth priests’ who mediated local disputes, and finally prophets. The politicians were often unconventional: for instance, it was not uncommon for the local ‘bull’ actually to be a woman whose parents had declared her a man for social purposes; the priests were always outsiders to the region; but the prophet was an altogether more extreme kind of figure. He might dribble, drool, maintain a vacant stare, act like an epileptic; or engage in long but pointless tasks such as spending hours arranging shells into designs on the ground in the bush; or long periods in the wilderness; or he may even eat excrement or ashes. Prophets, as Beidelman notes, ‘may speak in tongues, go into trances, fast, balance on their head, wear feathers in their hair, be active by night rather than by day, and may perch on rooftops. Some sit with tethering pegs up their anuses.’33 Many, too, were physically deformed. Some were cross-dressers, or given to unconventional sexual practices.

[ricky jay voice] these people are my friends

Photo of Mother 2's new game screen. All names are default but my favorite food is stamina bowl and my coolest thing is communism

よしっ ゲームスタート!!!

nobody posted the clip anywhere so i went and dug the whole episode up

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

maslows hierarchy of needs filled in with “slime, goop, sludge, muck, and ooze”

im thinking about women in their late 30s pinning me against the wall and forcing whimpers out of me #realtalk

yaaay ty

the gay 27 year old moni

just reread it and i think it's ok for something i vomited out in like 5 minutes

i wrote this the other day whilea watching technology connections and i have now forgotten what it said. posting before i reread for Bravery Points

Crusty compressed jpeg screenshot of 6 Facebook groups called “Bro, We Are Teens” with a few variations

me and all the other 30+ year olds in our discord servers after none of us give them our IDs and face scans

Ikoku Nikki is the best anime this season and it's not close. shame the lady is straight tho

Hikaru Utada reveals in recent interview they identify as “tri-bi”: “Bisexual, bilingual and non-binary.”

Icon

I'm in Chile right now visiting family, and this is the type of shit I love about latin america.

perhaps the real communism was the friends we made along the way

what goes missing is a mutual recognition, an understanding that others have agency and that the best way to work out problems between people is to talk it out. anyway that's why im a communist

trouble is, in societies like ours, it's easy to convince yourself that domination and authority are belonging, and coerced servility is caring, especially as a beneficiary for such arrangements.

i think the greatest motivation people have is a desire to belong to a community which cares for them. i don't think there are many people for whom this isn't the case.

Sometimes you just have sudden realizations many years later. Like it just yesterday it dawned on me that the game f-zero is called that because of Formula car racing rankings (F3 -> F2 -> F1 -> F-Zero)

I love all genders🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈
Because I have no gender.
Especially right now, transgender people are living with a lot of anxiety.

Why are transgender people not allowed to freely love the people they want to love?
Why can't transgender individuals live their lives with the soul they prefer?

every xenoblade 1 cutscene

☕¯◻¯

akari giving a lil coffee toast w a dopey blushy smile on her face and one of those ✦-shaped wink-like glints by her head

cropped frame from aria the natural where a crudely-chibi mizunashi akari makes an awkward smile

mood

05.春の Listen to 05.春の by XiaoBiYao96 #np on #SoundCloud

for me it was my favorite song. because it was soothing and because i like playing that song during big life events soundcloud.com/xiaobiyao96/...

via wiktionary