Politics of the Free - It’s because Democrats, stupid. - The Bear and Badger

GooberTheHat

Tempy wrote:

All of this stuff gets the gut reaction of "egalitarianism!" and "it shouldn't matter!" that can only come from the inculcated beliefs we have from our position of incredible cultural privilege. As ever, equity not equality is the way forward, and feeling a little resistant or uncomfortable is fine. It's 50 years since radicals were demanding the canon of Western literature be torn down and diversified and everyone is still studying the same books. We just get a bit of Achebe on the side now. It's why the attack on Western culture propagated by the right is so pathetic, there's been almost no change.

I can understand the fear of another culture encroaching on yours if you are a minority, as it could extinguish yours. But surely if you're culture is being (appropriately) adopted by others that is a good thing, as it ensures the survival of your culture.

If for some reason people decided that Morris dancing was cool again would the Morris dancing societies be upset?

Yossarian

There would certainly be a hard core of lifetime Morris dancers complaining about the yoof failing to understand it like they do.

Tempy

I think it's different and needs someone smarter than me to explain why

djchump

RedDave2 wrote:

My wife just summed up my problem after ibgave her a brief run down on the conversation here. Not sure if it's just me or a white thing but her response was: "Yeah but you don't need an opinion on everything. Sometimes it might be better to listen and nothing more" *mutters*

djchump wrote:

Not giving a shit about Kanye West is still an option though, right?

djchump wrote:

Plus, the general idea that I should be able to give my opinion to anyone on anything seems kind of entitled IMHO

Skerret

Tempy wrote:

I think it's different and needs someone smarter than me to explain why

Temps I'm very busy right now

I_R

Yossarian wrote:

WTAF https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/991357054030897153

Remember that big fuck off bomb they dropped on Afghanistan soon after he took over? The Pentagon definitely know how to push his buttons.

Facewon

Tempy wrote:

All of this stuff gets the gut reaction of "egalitarianism!" and "it shouldn't matter!" that can only come from the inculcated beliefs we have from our position of incredible cultural privilege. As ever, equity not equality is the way forward, and feeling a little resistant or uncomfortable is fine. It's 50 years since radicals were demanding the canon of Western literature be torn down and diversified and everyone is still studying the same books. We just get a bit of Achebe on the side now. It's why the attack on Western culture propagated by the right is so pathetic, there's been almost no change.

Tempy fucking killing it in here.

Tempy

i've missed a word there though, whoops.

Should be something like myth or lie or narrative after attack on Western culture. I found a good video dismantling Paul Joseph Watson's position on modern art/culture last night too, that shows how lazy his arguments are.

Facewon

RedDave2 wrote:

@facewon - sorry meant to get back to you. i very much realize I am pushing myself into a camp with Harris etc. and it's not one I wish to be in. But regarding your point on history and being able to move on, you are right it's not easy but living in the past is not going to get anyone anywhere.

I realise you're not trying to do it, and you're genuine and doing a great job of taking through this, but phrases like the above are loaded these days.

I think of the stolen generation out here. It's not living in the past for indigenous Australians to keep talking about it, because there's a large minority of asshole historians and right wing fucksticks who deny it happened.

And the condescending paternal behaviour of white Australia that meant that indigenous kids were taken away from their families continues now in miriad ways.

(and, on the subject of white folks talking about black issues, local morning telly out here thought they'd get a bunch of white folks to talk about whether indigenous kids should be removed from their families now, this year.)

This, in a time when the government has ignored repeated requests and recommendations from indigenous groups about numerous issues, including treaties and constitutional recognition.

Anyhoo, I so don't have mental space to do this thread properly right now.

Diluted Dante

Can you please share that with me Temps?

Diluted Dante

Was the answer from everyone "No, are you insane?"

Yossarian

PJW makes me chuckle. The man is such a fuckstick.

Diluted Dante

No, he's a Soyboy.

RedDave2

Facewon wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

@facewon - sorry meant to get back to you. i very much realize I am pushing myself into a camp with Harris etc. and it's not one I wish to be in. But regarding your point on history and being able to move on, you are right it's not easy but living in the past is not going to get anyone anywhere.

I realise you're not trying to do it, and you're genuine and doing a great job of taking through this, but phrases like the above are loaded these days.

I think of the stolen generation out here. It's not living in the past for indigenous Australians to keep talking about it, because there's a large minority of asshole historians and right wing fucksticks who deny it happened.

And the condescending paternal behaviour of white Australia that meant that indigenous kids were taken away from their families continues now in miriad ways.

(and, on the subject of white folks talking about black issues, local morning telly out here thought they'd get a bunch of white folks to talk about whether indigenous kids should be removed from their families now, this year.)

This, in a time when the government has ignored repeated requests and recommendations from indigenous groups about numerous issues, including treaties and constitutional recognition.

Anyhoo, I so don't have mental space to do this thread properly right now.

Maybe park this for later but I wasn't saying history should be forgotten or made irrelevant. I can only speak for the Irish situation but what we have in some parts of Dublin (and elsewhere but that's where I am so I'll keep it to my own experience) is many Irish who will tell you they absolutely hate the British (specifically the english) for the famine, the North and the general subgegation of Ireland. I am not saying we just forget these things happened or gloss over them but I feel that not confronting this attitude is not good for the these people's mindset. At some point we have to accept that the people living in both countries have changed and moved on. And that's not easy especially as the troubles is till pretty recent but I guarantee that holding onto the bitterness of the past has created a tinderbox that the border situation of brexit could easily catch fire on.

Gremill

Yossarian wrote:

PJW makes me chuckle. The man is such a fuckstick.

You can’t imagine my disappointment when a very close friend of mine shared a video with me by a Canadian bellend called Dan Dicks (who runs a website called ‘Press For Truth’) who, on a quick investigation by me, seems to be close with both PJW and Alex Jones.

My friend is quite a clever and very liberal bloke, but he’s recently been sucked into a pit of bullshit about the NWO, illuminati and ‘the truth’ (dun dun DUUUUUNNN!) about how the world really works.

Very frustrating to agree with the fundamentals of what he’s saying (eg. capitalism is a destructive moral dead-end, the world is set up to service corporations and the billionaires that own them, The Israeli government is a shower of shite etc) but have my eyebrows fly off the top of my head whenever he starts crapping on about ‘the truth’ and his ‘sources’.

The internet is a shit-show.

Tempy

Diluted Dante wrote:

Can you please share that with me Temps?

RedDave2

Excellent placing of the YouTube play button there. Pure clown college

GooberTheHat

Tempy wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

Can you please share that with me Temps?

Cheers temps, that should be an enjoyable watch.

Stopharage

GooberTheHat wrote:

Possibly not the right thread, but it's the closest I could think of. How Non-Black People Can Talk About Kanye While Staying in their Lane Am I wrong to find it odd that America is so racially divided?

Way behind on this but I've had a shocking week at work and only just finished bloody Parents' Evening.

From an educationalist (rather than an educational) point of view, I find articles like this create more problems than they solve. A few caveats - it's US-centric, it's pitched way beyond the audience I'm talking about and they don't necessarily understand the nuances behind it and the general points being made. But, I'm constantly amazed at how well-read a great deal of my 14 year+ students are, especially around issues of identity politics.

They read things like this and wonder why they're being told to keep their thoughts to themselves whilst being amongst the most enlightened humans in history. We teach them about human rights and the inalienable right to free speech and they wonder how on earth this can be when 'safe spaces' exist. The vast majority understand that Rees-Mogg is an utter bell-end but find it hard to reconcile his right to free speech with the 'no-platform' protests he's faced in recent months.

I just find the article is echo chamber journalism. You either buy into her argument already, or you don't. The abrasiveness of the text neither convinces or compels readers to shift their perspective. Often, it has the impact of annoying moderates (which most of my students tend to be).

Fuck it, I've effectively been teaching for 10 hours today and I'm wired but this kind of approach often leads to an increase in division in classes, which surely isn't a palatable by-product.

Brooks

Prison Paul deserves exactly that. Wot a unit.

Brooks

That stated, someone earnestly making a half-hour video tackling his piss troubles me too.

Gremill

Brooks wrote:

That stated, someone earnestly making a half-hour video tackling his piss troubles me too.

Yeah, as good as it is having someone dismantle him I’m left, after the 6mins I watched, with a deep seated feeling of ‘was that really necessary?’

What not just ignore the cunt? That’s actually the first time I’ve heard his voice and it’s phenomenally annoying.

Diluted Dante

Gremill wrote:

What not just ignore the cunt?

Because people actually listen to him.

Tempy

He's got 1.2m subs, and video is a very convincing format.

Having people take apart these arguments is fine. Taxxon is very passionate about art, and so seeing his perspective is enjoyable at the very least. Sure, I could have just watched a video about modern out, but instead I get to see a video that takes an approach to common misgivings about modern art from a vocal portion of the internet AND see some passion about art. It's why essays that argue are more exciting than those that simply interpret.

GooberTheHat

Paul Watson is a vile individual, and like DD and temps say, people listen to him and somehow find him convincing.

Facewon

RedDave2 wrote:

Facewon wrote:

RedDave2 wrote:

@facewon - sorry meant to get back to you. i very much realize I am pushing myself into a camp with Harris etc. and it's not one I wish to be in. But regarding your point on history and being able to move on, you are right it's not easy but living in the past is not going to get anyone anywhere.

I realise you're not trying to do it, and you're genuine and doing a great job of taking through this, but phrases like the above are loaded these days.

I think of the stolen generation out here. It's not living in the past for indigenous Australians to keep talking about it, because there's a large minority of asshole historians and right wing fucksticks who deny it happened.

And the condescending paternal behaviour of white Australia that meant that indigenous kids were taken away from their families continues now in miriad ways.

(and, on the subject of white folks talking about black issues, local morning telly out here thought they'd get a bunch of white folks to talk about whether indigenous kids should be removed from their families now, this year.)

This, in a time when the government has ignored repeated requests and recommendations from indigenous groups about numerous issues, including treaties and constitutional recognition.

Anyhoo, I so don't have mental space to do this thread properly right now.

Maybe park this for later but I wasn't saying history should be forgotten or made irrelevant. I can only speak for the Irish situation but what we have in some parts of Dublin (and elsewhere but that's where I am so I'll keep it to my own experience) is many Irish who will tell you they absolutely hate the British (specifically the english) for the famine, the North and the general subgegation of Ireland. I am not saying we just forget these things happened or gloss over them but I feel that not confronting this attitude is not good for the these people's mindset. At some point we have to accept that the people living in both countries have changed and moved on. And that's not easy especially as the troubles is till pretty recent but I guarantee that holding onto the bitterness of the past has created a tinderbox that the border situation of brexit could easily catch fire on.

Fair. I don't know enough about Irish English history and it's flow on to comment. And I think we're only disagreeing, if that, over degrees.

I guess the only thing I would add re above is that within the groups we're talking about both camps already exist. Ie indigenous communities, there's those who talk about not living in the past, and there's those who focus on the past, and then there's the best of both worlds, those that put all the pieces together and understand systemic and endemic issues and how they flow through history to the present.

(see also the sth Sudanese community here. It's a new country (2011) but the dynamic is still roughly the same as far as past vs present arguments.)

Anyhoo.

Facewon

http://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/fuck-up-kanye/

Gremill

GooberTheHat wrote:

Paul Watson is a vile individual, and like DD and temps say, people listen to him and somehow find him convincing.

Yeah, I do understand that but I’m not convinced that anyone is listening to the counterpoints except the choir. Essentially I think it’s too late for us as a species and we should probably just get it over with and accelerate our descent into full on dystopian hellscape.

Too many intractable idiots in the world for it to work long term - where’s Thanos when you need him, eh?

hunk

Facewon wrote:

http://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/fuck-up-kanye/

Everybody wants to be a winner, no? And if you want to be a winner ye gotsta have that Trump killah mentality, right? Right? Especially so in today's Americah....

Truth be told African Americans (north and south) have a long way to go before coming to terms with their troubled past, slavery in particular. Some, like Kanye, hate being reminded of it as deep down inside they're still ashamed and want to renounce their past, distance themselves from it. They can't identify with their ancestors, nor do they want to (cuz; Slave ancestor=Loser who couldn't even fend for himself, why?). Which is a shame because to heal means to accept and to embrace your history and past, painful as it may be.

djchump

Heh

“Stupid Watergate” still trucking along.

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