Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I've been advised by another LJ user (who's been in the academic game longer than I have) that I shouldn't be quite so free and open with my dissertation research notes, just in case some other scholar mistakes my notes for material in the public domain, rather than regarding them as part of a dissertation I still need and fully intend to write.

I've made sure to add all those who've commented so far to my friends list, so they'll still have access to those entries, and I'd be happy to add anyone else who'd like to take part in this discussion or enjoy all the wonderful ideas people have contributed in their comments, or just take a quick look around (and you can always ask to have your name removed from my list, afterwards, if you decide this isn't something you're interested in after all).

I'm happy to have people read, even if they don't comment, so this is not an attempt to apply pressure to anyone -- I've just been strongly advised to make access to LJ entries which talk about my research-in-progress a tad less public.

So, I'm trying to make sure that these entries remain "within the LJ family," as I'd intended when I posted them (my substitute for a RL dissertation-writing support group, since nobody else within my program shares my interests or could be as helpful as the LJ community has been in hashing out ideas or telling me when I'm getting off-track and irrelevant), rather than showing up on any random Google search and perhaps being borrowed without my knowledge.

Sorry for the annoyance and any inconvenience. And please let me know if there are other ways to handle this (potential) problem that I simply don't know about.

Just a few (cut for spoilers) thoughts, after seeing The Chronicles of Riddick last night for the second time.

The first time around, I didn't catch the significance of Riddick being referred to by Dame Vaako as a "breeder" (except for the pleasurably salacious images that word conjured in my mind, in conjunction with Riddick/Vin Diesel's impressive physique). I didn't connect that with the phrase which (I think) both the Lord Marshal and 'the Purifier' used in making their appeal for converts on Helion Prime: "We all [or 'Every Necromonger'] began as something else!" [exact wording uncertain, but that was the gist of the line]

The point, of course, was that the Necromongers reproduced or propagated themselves only through converting other people, leaving it to the as-yet-unconverted portions of humanity (like Riddick) to propagate the old-fashioned way, through breeding (thus producing more human fodder to be either converted or killed by the Necromongers in their crusade to the Underverse). Nobody was born a Necromonger, and so every Necromonger had some memories, somewhere, of who and what they had been before the Necromongers messed with their minds. The implication for those they defeated was supposed to be, "We converted, and you're no better than we were (as evidenced by the fact that we so easily defeated you), so there's no reason why you shouldn't convert, too, or your deaths will be on your own heads."

But the point for the character of Riddick was something a little different.( Read more... )