this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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That's a reaction to bad teaching methods that teach that there is a single critical read to any piece of media. Sometimes it's a good read, sometimes it's isn't. No matter, grading young people on the content of their read, rather than how they got their is bound to make many of them resentful.
This is actually a person engaging critically with a text (the media analysis). Maybe there is a lack of education, maybe they just enjoy being argumentative.
Engaging critical with critical texts is not only important but also transferable to other texts.
I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying here and it might be that I didn't do a good job of explaining myself in the example but there's an attitude or approach to media analysis where, purely hypothetically, you can lay out a case for why the Hitler-insert elf seized power after the burning down of Dorianeth tower and started vilifying and persecuting the half-elves is literally a play-by-play recounting of Hitler's rise to power and how it's a commentary on elven ethnonationalism in fantasy and how the fantasy genre lends itself directly to aristocratic beliefs that ultimately end in fascism (or something. I think I'm getting carried away here lol.)
But then a person will do a sort of poisoned, critical semi-engagement where they are responding but instead of genuine engagement with it they just seek to frustrate and shut down this analysis by saying something like "There's no Germany in the story, wtf are you even talking about??" as a way of kind putting up a roadblock to the analysis rather than exploring where it goes, either by contributing to it or by critiquing it.
Not to be a dick about it but saying that the curtains are just blue is technically also a critical engagement with a text but generally I'd expect something more than that, although that's not to say that it's wrong; sometimes the curtains really are just blue and if you can make a convincing case for that then I'm on board with it even if I ultimately disagree. But I'm not gonna hold someone's hand through articulating this position because I've got better things to do, especially if it's being done as an alternative way of saying "shut up".
I guess what I'm driving at is the anti-intellectual weaponizing of critical engagement to try and stymie deeper critical engagement here.
I mostly agree. I just think it's useful to engage with people a lot more often than is appearant.
People oftentimes won't tell you when you changed their mind even in small ways, because they have their pride.
I don't think that recognizing something like a Nazi allegory is that trivial, as antifascists, we are just very practiced at it.
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
I think the cumulative effect of a lot of small discussions like this amount to qualitative change in people's values and you're right in that you don't often see it. I believe that the person themselves often doesn't even notice it, especially when it's small, but over time if there's enough of these moments then it can often set them down a different path or it can even bring on an epiphany.
I know for me, I was an anarchist for a very long time. I often say that finally reading Lenin's What Is To Be Done? is what brought about the watershed moment for me but there's a series of smaller events and experiences I had that led up to that point as well, and that's only of the ones that I can definitely identify. I'm certain there are other ones that made an impact that I wouldn't be able to recall that shifted my outlook in subtle ways too.