This town throws pennies at people. They hurt.
youtu.be
The Honiton Hot Pennies ceremony is the result of 800 years of tradition: from when rich people would entertain themselves by throwing scalding-hot pennies o...

You don’t need to watch the video. Tom Scott/None of the interview subjects ever point out how fucked this is, but basically the story is rich sadists would put coins in boiling water and then throw them at poor children to watch them endure injury for small amounts of money as a form of entertainment.

    • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
      181·
      1 year ago

      i don’t think it’d take very long at all for us to single out something you like & engage in with problematic origins. everyone’s all for complete cultural revolution until someone correctly associates something useful, harmless, or personally fond of with the bourgeois/feudal culture.

      a lot can and should be critically examined, reinterpreted, and rejected, but this is a democratic process. the greatest argument for hot pennies is the voluntary perpetuation and participation in the event.

        • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
          15·
          1 year ago

          what materially does hot pennies reinforce? are the people throwing pennies nobles? are the people catching them doing so to avoid starvation? what is being normalized that is so offensive to our sensibilities here?

          • Neptium@lemmygrad.ml
            111·
            1 year ago

            This is exactly my thought process. I really don’t see a big deal here.

            I didn’t put forward an argument in my original comment because I genuinely thought there was nothing much to argue about.

            It’s so trivial.

            Let the people have fun and participate in community events.

            It is, from what I gather, a small town anyways. It will affect like, what, 0.0001% of the entire population?

            • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
              161·
              1 year ago

              the idea of the nobles

              it clearly isn’t, the elected mayor and citizens are distributing the coins

              The idea of money

              no-one’s eliminated that one yet, you’ll need to be a bit more patient on expecting people to not put cultural purchase on the medium for modern life, even in AES

              We shouldn’t do things that started as a nobel activity

              turn over your keyboard comrade. writing was invented for the noble class’ record-keeping and taxes. <—specious but i want to illustrate why we need to exercise restraint on stuff like this, especially before it gets to points like ‘urbanism and intellectualism are bourgeois’

                • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  41·
                  1 year ago

                  writing absolutely encourages past ideas, when people have access to those old ideas written down, or advocate them through writing.

                  and is the transformation of this ritual not a sign of encouraging ideas of the present? a female mayor, the ceasing of the heating of the coins, the lack of noble participation, couldn’t i argue that this festival has been ‘reclaimed’ and embraces democratic values now?