You know this is more embrarrasing than just admitting you were wrong or not answering at all. A desperate plea to feel smarter than someone who is very obviously more educated than you on a topic just comes off as childish and uncomfortable. You need to find other avenues for validation, I won’t be responding to anything else from you.

Refer to my other comment for an explanation on why this comparison is drawn. But, because I get the impression that you seem to think you’re an expert on this topic even though there is fundamental knowledge gaps in what you’ve said throughout this thread, could you explain to me the functional, affective difference between what is explicitly and implicitly Christian in these images?

That “secularism” is a reproduction of Christian values is not a new or even challenging argument, it has been a common understanding of this period since the 1950s and especially so after decolonial scholars and post structuralists started writing about it. I’m excited to see how you disagree, I’m sure it is very well-informed.

Wow, I’m not going to lie, I’m surprised I have to explain this particular element of this. So, the thing is, people can say something and mean something different.

I picked social Darwinsism as an example both because it was “secular,” was proliferated through the US largely through Christian proselytization, and happened to legitimise preexisting settler-colonial notions of race and class. When people say it isn’t Christian, they are doing so to salvage those settler values (inextricably linked to Christianity both ideogically and historically), not actually transition away from them. In the same way liberals today will often speak of anti-racism and anti-transphobia, but never about how those movements are fundamentally opposed to a liberal system.

Also, this may be a result of the difference in Christian architecture through much of the US today, but the painting of Washington in the clouds with angels on the inside of a dome is nearly triggering for me in its familiarity as someone who has been subjected to Christian and Catholic churches for much of my life. Even if that wasn’t so, and this was meant to evoke some vague sense of divinity, I’m afraid that would still be religious, and the fact that it is in a neoclassical building further demonstrates the attempted continuity between ancient Roman and Greek imperialism through the evocation of their religious iconography, which is where much of the Christian imagery in Euro-imperialist countries developed from.

You know why JFK used Winthrop? Anxiety over his identity as a Catholic in a majority Protestant country.

If you don’t actually analyze what people say, and only take them at face value, you are going to be taken advantage of very often. Now, before you respond, you worded this comment as though you think youre some authority on the topic (stating your views as fact), so I hope you can at least stop and reconsider how you know what you think in light of this.

Edit: oh, also, look up what Apotheosis means.

There is a direct trajectory of abstraction between these sorts of cartoons and the chad/soy meme, including the white supremacy that is so popular with people who use it unironically.

Mhm, now you’re recognizing the cultural and historical contexts, which is good, but you’re doing it as though it is insulated from religiosity. Yes, they are likely drawing on the neoclassical architecture that the US was and is obsessed with, have you considered why that is and specifically why it is popular in a culturally Christian country? Ever seen the inside of the capitol building’s dome constructed in 1865 (literally called The Apotheosis of Washington?)

Yes, liberals have and continue to act religiously about their ideology, and “objectivity” is a major element in how they legitimised it in response to secularism. Social darwinism, something that has never been scientifically substantiated but none the less has had tremendous influence on “secular” thinkers, emerged in the US for the same reason in the mid- to late-nineteenth century.

The image you posted draws on the imagery it draws on exactly because it is legible to Christians and draws on Christian values.

(Edit: also just really quick, Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill” is itself an example of the application of this imagery, not the creation of it. That Winthrop made this analogy that applies in this image as well as in JFK’s use is once again a good example of how consistently Christian the US is.)

Edit: for those interested, there is a further explanation below both on the connection in historical development between these images as well as how they emblemize a consistent settler-colonial framework. Both commentors who tried to spread misinformation just abandoned the thread when it was clear they were wrong, so they might be useful for people who aren’t clear on this.

Which means we should erase the experiences of people who are literally being thrown into camps on the basis of race, legal citizenship, and class? Like, you don’t seem to realise that the talking point you just used is common in discourses that seek to minimize the harm of these groups.

White women suffragests insisted all women had a shared experience while obviously disregarding black women’s oppression, gay men were infamously uncooperative with lesbians and gender queer people in their activism even while claiming to speak for us all on the basis of a commonly “gay” sexuality, respectable middle-class queer people today dominate queer activism and have effectively disarmed its material and social critiques of settler-colonialism exactly because they identify their needs as universal.

Okay, but they experience oppression in a very different way that also normalizes racialization and classism, which racialized trans women who disproportionately experience material insecurity obviously experience. If the point of the post is to demonstrate that these rights are interdependent, then all vectors of oppression must be acknowledged and challenged.

That’s the point. They’re trying to construct more favourable routes of “progress” that can leave particular groups vulnerable as liberals secure their position in a post-Trumo regime. You never see them talk about Land Back either.

Is a shining beacon on the hill meant to be like, not religious?

Edit: this commentor realized they were wrong and does not appear to have updated their comment, in case anyone comes across this and falls for this misinformation.

“Democracy,” “modernity.” Yup, there’s the liberalism. They want to defend “rights” because they know that civil protections legitimise their legal system; which is fundamentally oriented toward capital and private property. Civil rights are a negotiation that utilizes the state monopoly of violence to hold vulnerable groups hostage.

“Modernity,” being associated with the moral right of human recognition carries with it a fundamentally settler-colonial conception of time that naturalizes this system by positioning it as the inevitable consequence of human organizing (“progress”).

They’re manoeuvring criticism of fascism into support of liberalism, which is not oppositional to fascism and is the only real thing that keeps these groups vulnerable in the first place. fuck me dude so tired of this shit.

Fetishization is a reassertion of power under settler-colonialism.

I see my magnet beam has been making waves today.