With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Gnolls don't breathe fire. And are hyena people.

 

Well....from my personal experience it generally goes "Fuck you. I ate a whole god damn cheese wheel and now I'm going to bash your skull in with my warhammer, which may or may not be made out of the bones of the last one of you annoying bastards I squished."

 

No, but I am not someone like Paul who has made a habit of tanking stuff instead of dodging it.

 

Have to argue that pacifism is a belief rather than an action. Not just the actual lack of use of violence in a given situation - though that stems from the belief. Rather than being a one time action of “don’t use violence”, it’s a consistent belief in never using violence and that violence should never be used and that it should never have been used. “I hate pacifists” doesn’t specify that you hate people who don’t use violence on a specific occasion, but that you hate the type of people who believe that violence is never justifiable. Therefore, it’s a type of bigotry, since it’s a hatred and intolerance of a specific belief, rather than a hatred for people who take a specific lack of action.

 

Spoiler: Young Justice Outsiders

Earlier in the thread, or maybe on SV, people said that the Light were idiots to ally with Darkseid. But in canon, Vandal didn't much of a choice in the XIIIth century. Earth didn't have the justice League, the Justice Society or the old alliance with the first Black Adams. So, yes, Darkseid is inevitably going to betray the Light but I'd say the Light is more trying desperatly to keep the partnership as long lasting as possible since a war now would crush Earth

 

I am not sure what you are talking about here. What information do you that indicates that the alliance with Darkseid was formed in the 13th century or at any point significantly earlier than the present time? Was there even any indication that Vandal Savage had any meaningful contact with aliens prior to the 20th century?

 

But if you say that it's never right to use violence, and then you use it, are you a pacifist?

The only reason I can think of for Darkseid to 'ally' with the Light is that it was marginally easier for him to get someone else to study metahumans for him than to do it himself. Either that, or he was concerned about what New Genesis would do in retaliation if his forces stuck around. Given Earth's technology at the time I'm not sure why he was willing to wait so long when DeSaad could have started dissecting metahumans for data right away.

There was an episode where his now-senile daughter recounted parts of his history to her younger half-sister. Part of that concerned his meeting with Darkseid.

 

I gotta ask, because I actually don't know, or have ever read any comics to the effect of but....can New Genesis actually match Darkseid? Like, Highfather V Darkseid isn't just a stomp in the gray one's favor?

Because I have literally never see them do shit other then say that they aren't doing shit.

 

Yes, by definition. You are also a hypocrite in that scenario. Also, saying isn’t the same as actually believing. And believing isn’t the same as acting. A theoretical ideal pacifist would never use violence no matter what. People who still qualify as pacifists don’t necessarily. Or they would believe that they were doing wrong. Some considerations might go before pacifism. A thief might steal something to survive despite knowing and believing it was always wrong. They would feel bad, but they would do it. They would still believe that they did wrong - but morals don’t stand up to survival. Things change when you apply an ideal/ belief to real life situations (obviously). It’s a belief - not a specific action.

A pacifist might believe war is wrong. They might believe it is never justified. However, they might also believe it is necessary to preserve a way of life. Sometimes unjustified evil must be done to preserve good/ for survival. Unlike say, theft, the idea wat is wrong, even if justified, is fairly new, and not always shared by everyone.

 

Does this count?

A pacifist is someone who believes that violence is always wrong. Thus, a person who claims to be a pacifist either would use violence (and thus is a hypocrite) or wouldn't (and thus is a pacifist). There is no additional meaning to the word other than how it relates to violence. A person who hated both hypocrites and those who are not prepared to use violence could thus hate them purely for the content of their belief without any other information.

 

If I had to guess, the comics do such a bad job at making Highfather a "good" counterpart to Darkseid that by Zoat's reckoning he's basically just a tyrant that provides marginally better living conditions. Anyone else have opinions on this?

 

No. Reverse universe Shenanigans.

Did enjoy Granny Goodness getting it under the chin though.

Also, how did the guy holding on to Orion there not get god-shocked?

 

mutant's

Jewish-the-religion, Jewish-the-ethnicity, and Jewish-the-race are not the same thing. It's unfortunate that we don't really have distinct words for the three concepts.

There is indisputably a Jewish religion; the word "Judaism" refers exclusively to this, so you're not wrong, but the other two things do exist.

There is certainly a Jewish ethnicity, because there is certainly a social group that shares a common and distinctive traditional culture and language.

There is also, slightly less certainly, a Jewish race (definition 2.3.c), because there is a group of people related to each other by ancestry who often share physical characteristics.

 

Yes, they would also be, by definition, bigoted against pacifists, based purely on their belief.

Bigotry isn’t necessarily wrong. For example, almost everyone is bigoted against Nazis simply from the content of their beliefs. Does not mean they are unjustified in doing so. Also does not necessarily mean, from an objective standpoint, that an individual Nazi’s ideas not related to Nazism / human rights / being a good person are not worth listening to, despite the justified intolerance towards them. A good deal of medical knowledge comes from Nazis doing reprehensible and unethical experiments or due to them having unethical ideals. For example, Nazis were against smoking and drinking from a eugenics standpoint and linked smoking and breathing asbestos to cancer and therefore dna corruption, and drinking to poisonous things like DDT. From the standpoint of a eugenicist, cancer is the ultimate insult from nature. Does not mean their ideas were wrong - just that they came from a bad opinion/ learned from unethical experiments. Source. As an aside, should we hate Nazi doctors, who did research for the Nazis, and believed in certain Nazi ideals, and yet happened to not do anything unethical - and never heard of the unethical things being done to others until after the war/ near the end? Anyways - off that (fairly dangerous) tangent.

Should any opinion - even a morally reprehensible one - cause hatred of a person - or should we save that for a person’s actions in service of that opinion? Is bigotry - hatred of a person based purely on their opinions, and not their actions in service of those opinions - ever - even in the most extreme conditions - justified? If we hate people who believe they are better than everyone else and act like it, and believe that no one else is equal to them, and we hate hypocrites, should we hate someone who believes they are better than everyone else, and yet pities those lesser than them, gives to charity, and yet genuinely considers it their public duty to help those less well of than them, despite not being respectful? That is itself questionable.

The other question is: are people bigoted against pacifists justified in doing so? In my opinion, we should ideally judge people on an individual basis based on a lot of characteristics - mainly how they act.
For a more satisfying answer: Do you think people are justified in hating those who are not prepared to use violence? Is being hypocritical always bad? Disagreement can happen without hate. A person who hates those not prepared for violence - as opposed to being indifferent / disagreeing - would be - by definition - bigoted against those not prepared for violence. Is this justified?

The original correction a few comments ago before we got into this discussion on pacifism was to point out that one couldn’t hate pacifists without being bigoted against them - by definition. This is true. I believe we are agreed on that at least. After that, I fail to grasp your point.

 

The argument against there being a Jewish race, is that anyone can join the religion/ ethnicity. You are not necessariy related by ancestry. And you can stop being Jewish by dropping the religion and claiming you are not of the Jewish religion. However, if you consider the 3 as separate and not necessarily related, then yes, you can have people who are not of Jewish race, but religion and ethnicity, or of Jewish ethnicity and religion, but not race.

However, Jewish characteristics are fairly varied, especially with them letting anyone join, and with being so spread out historically, so it’s questionable whether it could actually be considered a race. It’s also considered rude among Jews to consider it a Jewish race - this brings up the holocaust. Most Jews apparently consider it solely an ethnicity, and consider the religion part of that.

 

In the comics, at least pre-flashpoint, as far as I'm aware, Apokalips has been at war with New Genesis for hundreds if not thousands of years, and has accomplished nothing in all in that time.

Of course, in the comics, at least pre-flashpoint, Apokalips never conquered shit as far as I'm aware, so Apokalips has just achieved nada all in general.

In the comics, pre-flashpoint, Apokalips isn't a military power in the universe, but an insignificant shithole in the armpit of the universe that just isn't worth the time and effort it would take to fix. That's how the GLC Apokalips War ends in the comics, the Guardians decided that it wasn't worth their effort to kill Darkseid and fix the shithole of a planet. Rakar was literally in the process of beating Darkseid to death with a shovel when the Guardians decided it was time to make a truce.

So in the comics the question isn't "Why haven't New Genesis stopped Apokalips?" but "What do you want them to stop, Apokalips has never accomplished anything to stop?"

DC doesn't use Darkseid because he's actually ever accomplished anything, but because the DC writers are in general too chicken to make a new cosmic villain. He's basically the Joker of outer space.

 

Do the Reach have a leader? They seem like a bigger threat.

 

I did say that the validity of a Jewish race wasn't quite so certain. Anthropologically speaking, it could plausibly exist, but since race is more of a social construct than an anthropological one, the fact that modern Jews don't identify as a Jewish race is fairly broadly a sign that it is at least no longer relevant.

A hundred years ago I wouldn't have said the same. In the late 19th century / early 20th century, if you had Jewish facial features, you were at risk of the same kind of discrimination as the ethnically Jewish. This is, in fact, entirely relevant to the Holocaust, as the Nazis put a huge focus on racial value. This supports the notion that modern Jews (whether ethnic or religious) would want to distance themselves from the notion of a Jewish race post-WW2.

The Jewish ethnicity is far bigger than the Jewish religion. If your last name is "Goldberg", you're probably ethnically Jewish even if you aren't religiously Jewish.

 

Mods, can we please stop this shit before we start arguing over the Jewish race are Unter or Ubermenschen?

 

I'm not arguing about anything...? I'm not trying to praise or belittle any group here. If I came off as doing either of those, I wholeheartedly apologize. I thought this was a calm, civil, value-neutral academic discussion. Not even political, as far as I can tell, certainly not politics within my own lifetime.

 

I mean, how many actual metahumans (as in people with active metagenes) would have been around back then? You've got Savage who might count, but then who else? Most of the ancient superhumans are magic users, blessed by gods, or otherwise deriving their powers from sources common throughout the universe. Whereas the metagene might only recently have become common enough to give a meaningful sample size worth studying.

After all, making Desaad spend a few years poking the only handful of metahumans to exist and not getting anywhere because there aren't enough to really see trends form is a waste of time when he could be working on a new flavor of agony ray that makes you sneeze out your tongue.

That may be, but it's not even remotely related to this thread and should be taken to PMs or a new thread devoted to that topic.

 

There is a superhero webcomic called Lightbringer that has a very interesting take on this exact subject. The protagonist is a moral man who considers himself a pacifist and was raised by extremist pacifists. His heroic journey shows him wrestling with his moral beliefs on the use of violence and the practical reality of him only being able to save people through violent use of his superpowers.

 

Considering how bug like they are, I'd imagine they have a Queen somewhere or other. I don't recall it ever being shown though.

As for threat, that depends on what you mean. Darkseid is a grander threat, in that he'll conquer the universe when he gets the ALE, or takes the power of the Olympians, or harvests the souls of his fellow New Gods, or steals the power of Heaven, or makes an army of Doomsdays, but without his power up, he basically sits on his throne playing king of the mountain.

The Reach is a non universal threat, but they're more immediate in that they are out there actively assimilating planets.

Or at least in the comics pre-flashpoint.

Now I understand that in Season 3 they showed that Apokalypse is a military threat to the universe in YJ just as Zoat made them a threat here, so Darkseid isn't just sitting around waiting for a plan for a power up to reach fruition.

 

Right. Sorry if what I said was insulting.

 

I'd rather suspect the Reach have not a Queen or a President, but a Chairman.

 

I think that should be "mushrooms".

 

Zatanna, you're going to have to settle for an OT3 if you want a piece of Paul. You need to either come to terms with that or move on.

Sticking on it like you have been just isn't healthy.

 

So, my hopes that Zatanna talked to Jade already and worked out a mututally satisfactory arrangement behind Paul's back are dashed. Shame. Plus side - Paul was actually aware of it.

Potentially worrying sign - Zatanna is sensitive to star saphire color in other's words. I am assuming she is running Predator's Ears (analog of Ophidian's eyes) constantly.

This ends with enlightenment and mantlng Predator, does it not?