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Why must season five be so full of feels!? This season finale was just amazing. I think I know more about friendship in Equestria than I did when I started watching this show and how making friends can change the future of others more than you think.
Today's issue was titled "Ban the Burka". Sounds like something the real world is doing.
Well yes, most NationStates issues are based on real-life politics. You only noticed that now?
Oh my god, I love this season finale. The plot was fascinating, the writing was fantastic, and the moral was something I really needed to hear. I've gone all this time afraid to make friends, just because every friendship I've had ended with me being backstabbed.
It's kind of backwards. I watch a show about friendship, but have been too afraid to make friends.
Quiet you. The timber wolves will find us!
The real fun is figuring out how the issues apply to your nation. What's the pony equivalent of a burqa, and why would ponies want to ban it?
Hm... if Harmonism would be comparable to Christianity, then would Equalism be the equivalent of Islam?
In that case the equivalent of a Burqa would be one of those garish Our Townian scarfs, and it'd be banned for the same reason that some Americans want to ban it.
Or possibly the pony's "burqa" is designed to cover her cutie mark, because some cultures consider it indecent for a pony to show off her cutie mark to strangers.
These are pretty horrible comparisons. The reason burkas aren't very accepted is not due to religion, but due to the face being covered. It creates problems when identifying people if the face cannot be seen. Also from what I've seen, there isn't too much of a difference between Christianity and Islam in many cases. As for Harmonism? Well I just don't see any similarities with it and Christianity other than the message of peace, of which one of these handles better than the other.
I didn't mean to create a debate of religion, but this needed to be said.
And many Equestrians find it indecent to hide their cutie marks. That makes sense.
One final note: The majority reason among most of Europe and other rational people for banning the burka is due to what I said about issues with identifying others. The Americans and others who have prejudice against Islam is pretty much to spite their religion.
Since when?
I didn't mean that Harmonism and Christianity are similar in any of their tenets, I meant that they're similar in that they're the dominant religions in Equestria and America respectively.
And I honestly didn't know why people think Burqas should be banned.
I must have been spending too much time on NS; I've started confusing Trotterdam's fanon with canon.
But it would make sense. Since cutie marks are a major way of identifying a pony, it being hidden would have the same effect as a human hiding their face.
No, not really. Also identifying a pony by their flank rather than their face can be interpreted very wrongly...
Or very rightly, depending on your opinions on fanservice. :)
Well there are only so many colors to choose from, and in a crowded environment there may be several ponies that have similar color schemes.
And I just in general can't tell anyone apart except by hairstyles or clothes, so I assume that everyone has that problem.
I don't think Christianity and Islam are that different, other than the fact that they both hate each other. Both have conservative fundamentalists who want to ban many of the same things, and both have virtuous who claim God is love and tolerance, and both preach that people who disagree with them are evil heathens (except when they're fellow human beings you should treat with respect regardless of their mistaken beliefs, or poor misguided souls who need to be shown the truth).
I don't recall Christians having ever gone quite to the extreme of burqas (though it wouldn't surprise me if some sect did), but many conservative Christians still strongly preach modesty and covering up most of your body.
And that's exactly why cutie marks play much of the same role for ponies as faces do for humans. They're the most defining part of your visual "identity". Concealing them implies you have something to hide.
You know how some works have all the evil soldiers wearing gas masks in order to "dehumanize" them by making them into literally faceless mooks? Concealing the cutie mark would have a similar effect for ponies.
However, faces do have some of the importance for ponies that they do for humans, since ponies have humanlike facial expressions. The difference is that a cutie mark is static, showing your timeless self, while your face is dynamic, showing your mood at the current moment rather than who you are in the grand scheme of things. Both are important for social interactions.
Like I said, pretty much any major real-life religion has adherents that preach peace. Pretty much every major real-life religion also has (or at least had, in the past) adherents that then denounce the previous as heretics and murder them.
Currently it's Islam (particularly ISIS) that's leading the world in the heretic-murdering business, but I hold no illusion that this is a permanent state of affairs.
This is canon in my nation because I really like the concept (for the reason previously explained), but I don't recall the show itself ever showing anypony having such sensibilities. Rarity's dresses/skirts often rather casually cover the cutie mark simply because it's hard to make a "skirt" that looks convincingly feminine by European standards without doing so.
Do note that, at the very least, Starlight Glimmer painting over her cutie mark (not only concealing it, but also concealing the fact that she's concealing it) was treated in the show as a horrible thing to do, that was more effective in turning her ponies against her than any of the other flaws in her philosophy.
I don't really like burqas, but that's more because I like being able to see sexy women (you know, the exact same thing they're supposed to prevent). I still believe people should have a right to wear one if they want to. (Which is different, note, from if their families want them to.)
Wow, that's actually where you got it from!?
Thanks, I'm flattered.
Woo, you pointed out that too. At least I went into more detail, I guess?
Personally I really like it when the show has ponies identifying each other by their cutie marks (such as in Sisterhooves Social when Sweetie Belle starts suspecting "Applejack" is actually Rarity the first thing she does is wipe her flank clean to look at her cutie mark, or in The Mane Attraction where Pinkie Pie tests whether the Coloratura Applejack was friends with is the same one as the famous pop star by asking her to describe Rara's cutie mark), not because of any fanservice or lack thereof, but because it explores pony culture as its own thing, interestingly different from ours for logical reasons.
Post self-deleted by Bulkan.
Post self-deleted by Our town renewed.
But the funny thing is, Harmonism and Equalism have a similar relationship. They both try to promote harmony and friendship, and their philosophies are actually quite similar (the basic concepts are, at least, but Starlight's would be one of the more extremist sects), but yet the details are different in ways that make them hate each other.
I'd imagine that if Equalism were actually a religion in Equestria, then it wouldn't be the cultish thing that Starlight had. It would be more covering up your cutie mark and not showing it off than actually removing it altogether.
No.
What would be the point in intentionally covering up a cutie mark like that? (Aside from Trotterdam's previous points.) The whole purpose of a cutie mark is to represent a pony's talents or achievements. Nobody would hide something like that unless they've done something really bad, as was the case with Starlight Glimmer when she pretended to be equal like the others. Again, the comparisons are weak. Equalism was never about making friends, but rather Starlight Glimmer having greater power by taking away the talents of other ponies and tricking them into thinking they were "equal." In other words, Equalism is just a sham religion.
It would be really great if we could get all the brony regions to meet. But alas the Solar reign is no longer with us. With that said, I think we should strive for that.
One thing I always like pointing out is how Harmony's symbol is a rainbow, which contains multiple colors combining into an aesthetically-pleasing whole. Differences are to be celebrated, not suppressed.
I could conceivably see an alternate worldview where you're expected to cover up what you're good at because it's considered immodest to "brag" (like the Calvinist idea that you're not supposed to let people know that you're rich - or I've been told this is a Calvinist idea, I can't find it on Wikipedia's article on Calvinism). However, I don't think simply making it less obvious what your special talent is, while still having one, would make you any less likely to get into arguments (the alleged purpose of Starlight's philosophy). It hasn't worked for humans, which naturally don't have cutie marks.
I also don't think that avoiding all arguments, ever, is necessarily something to be desired. Sometimes you need to debate a subject in order to improve both your understandings of it. Sometimes you need to stand up for your beliefs in order to force an acceptable resolution. (In Over a Barrel, if either side had simply backed down and let the other side have its way, both sides would have ended up worse off than what actually happened in the episode. Neither side actually wanted a war, but the fact that it was still a credible threat, because they were both willing to risk it if they had to, forced them to work harder on finding a mutually-acceptable compromise rather than just ignoring what the other side wants. ...I liked that a lot more than The Hooffields and McColts' "this whole thing is stupid" approach to war.)
Cosmic Dust walks in and throws snow balls at everyone.
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