A Dull Hum of Distant Agony
You see, those bitchy women are only bitchy because of capitalism.
Saddened by the happiness of children. Because the Shard is “a function of late capitalism” and “a symbol of unjustifiable luxury.”
“Fuck rich white men.” But black totalitarian wannabes who charge $20,000 an hour – they’re super-awesome.
Goddamn white folk, everywhere.
It’s an “online magazine of feminist, queer and multicultural science fiction.”
If we don’t call it violence it doesn’t count, remember?
An intersectionality fuck-up. The worst kind.
The lowest difficulty setting. What, you didn’t know?
He didn’t know and now he’s being told.
An ongoing series. Previous instalments can be found here.
Hitting the tip jar will only encourage me.
Well, Penny Dreadful does get one thing right — male gender stereotypes cause me great agony. I live near a college, you see, and . . . .
Hmmm. For Penny and her ilk and demands that all must conform, here’s an interesting experiment—at least in the US, which gets inflicted with frats and that ilk—
For all unis, the gender and such studies departments and all related housing are located with the frats and such kind. History, literature, performing arts, and STEM courses and their housing are very evenly blended together. In between these two quite separate locations and serving as a complete separator are all the uni administration offices, any uni stadiums, large meeting halls, Etc . . . .
“men on *average* are advantaged, and as a man he is therefore inherently better off than if he were a woman”
Are you referring to penises?
First-world discontents tend to dissipate rather quickly in light of those two facts.
If only certain other discontents could be made to disappear in the same way. No one would be the wiser.
In other news, the mask slips even farther, and Halloween’s not even over:
As per usual, conservatives on Twitter pwn the pants off him: http://twitchy.com/2013/10/29/elitist-primal-scream-josh-barro-declares-that-father-government-knows-best/
Funny if it weren’t dangerous, etc…
as a man he is therefore inherently better off than if he were a woman “Are you referring to penises?”
When camping, hiking, or otherwise alienated from said indoor plumbing, yes, yes I am referring to that particular advantage.
‘The flipside of course is illustrated by Polly Toynbee, who took delight in correcting a random stranger’s choice of newspaper. She seemed quite pleased at having interfered because the unenlightened must be spared from reading rival publications, what with them containing views and facts of which Ms Toynbee doesn’t approve. You see, muttering at strangers and berating their choice of newspaper is what a sane person does’.
Oh please, God. Please. Be so kind as to allow me a similar encounter with Ms Toynbee, whereupon I can engage her with a conversation about how she managed to get a place at Oxford despite her piss-poor academic credentials, and about how she got a £120,000 gig with the ‘Guardian’ despite dropping out of Oxford. I could also have a good, fun chat with her about how she gloats over the death of people she hates, and about how she castigates the Daily Heil for cheap smears on politicians whilst doing the same herself. Oh please, God. Let me have that opportunity. I will fucking let rip.
‘Can’t agree more with the ‘FUCK MICHAEL MANSFIELD’ sentiment, even if it is for the wrong reasons.
So lovely to see his client base turn on him. Parasite’.
The words ‘poetic justice’ spring to mind.
‘Also, how would the old Soviet paymasters of the 1960s-1980s have reacted to all this decadent preening?
I reckon Penny et al would, however, have enjoyed their “holidays” to Moscow’.
Now I’m not so sure here. Idiot that Penny is, I don’t think she would have been a useful one, and I suspect that like the ‘New Leftists’ she would have had a ‘plague on both your houses’ attitude had she been contemplating the West and the Soviet Union in the 1960s. I am absolutely no fan of hers at all, but unless I’ve missed something I don’t see her as an apologist for totalitarians. I am happy to be corrected, of course.
In the meantime, David, I guess you would enjoy Owen Jones’ latest Twitter disaster. The great one clearly is miffed that his genius is not appreciated even by his own kind:
http://www.trendingcentral.com/owen-jones-slapped-lefties-offer-support/
“Next question please.”
Translation: Because shut up, that’s why.
Idiot that Penny is, I don’t think she would have been a useful one… I don’t see her as an apologist for totalitarians.
It’s hard to be sure exactly what kind of idiot Laurie is – or would be, given the chance. She talks of freedom but demands “full communism now.” She claims to fight against oppression but delights in Occupy’s tactics of coercion, vandalism and mob intimidation, which she then sanitised and romanticised, repeatedly and at length. You see, Laurie has “no problem with thought-through political violence.” A term she defines in such a way as to give license to all manner of exciting thuggery. “Violence,” she tells us adamantly, “is rarely ever mindless” and opportunist theft is “a political statement.”
She describes the UK as a “police state,” one that “brutally represses” dissent, yet she polices language, imagery and behaviour with a zeal that’s somewhere between hilarious and sinister. She wishes to purge the world of whatever she disapproves of. She doesn’t seem to have any awareness of how actual communism – communism with power – plays out, has always played out, or what it takes to maintain it; yet she says she wants it anyway and spends an awful lot of time with people who say the same thing. Because, despite her ignorance of history, she just knows what’s good for us. In some respects she reminds me of this young woman, another Occupier, who doesn’t seem aware of her own sign’s historical connotations.
By any measure, Laurie’s worldview is incoherent. Irretrievably so. But as with so many of her peers, you can’t help wondering what she’d insist on, given certain opportunities.
If someone is being publicly scolded for their improper spelling of “trans person” or because they use the term “fishy” (as in “a bit suspect”), then I think we can assume the berating isn’t about its ostensible pretext. Especially when the supposed grievance is that the term “fishy” must refer to vaginas as being pungent and evil, regardless of context, etymology or intent, and must therefore also be a slight against people who think of themselves as women but who don’t have a vagina.
My only question is will that fit on a t-shirt? ;-D
My only question is will that fit on a t-shirt?
It’s perhaps a bit wordy. It’s why I don’t use twitter.
But it’s a common enough pattern. I’ve had several exchanges with graduate feminists who seemed to believe that if a man disagrees with some sweeping claim of “patriarchy” and “male privilege,” then this must be because the man is either ignorant, in denial or threatened by its truth. His motive must be unkind and any laughter must be nervous laughter. It’s immensely self-flattering, which is presumably the point. To ask for evidence or explication is to risk theatrical exasperation or simply being denounced, thus short-circuiting the debate and thereby providing cover for any lack of evidence. (“I don’t need to explain. Everybody knows this. You’re not worth talking to. Troll. Blocked.”)
Again, note the tone of the exchange with Mr Jackson. Despite his civility and attempts to find common ground, he’s quickly accused of various sins – that his disagreement is complicity, that he feels “entitled,” that he’s “a cissexist piece of shit” – and when he asks for evidence, he’s told, rather haughtily, to “Google it.” Not only is he a sinner – he just is, okay – but he’s a sinner who doesn’t keep up with the latest language of victimology. Why, it’s an outrage. Proof of evildoing. And you’ll find variations of this manoeuvre in all branches of identity politics. If you dare to question the premise, which must always be deferred to, the balkanised thinking tends to kick in pretty quickly. And of course you don’t have to explain your thinking to Those Beyond The Pale™. An incidental benefit, I’m sure.
‘feminists who seemed to believe that if a man disagrees with some sweeping claim of “patriarchy” and “male privilege,” then this must be because the man is either ignorant, in denial or threatened by its truth’
They have another variety of this treatment for the increasing number of women moving away from the version of feminism that they are being told to accept today. The BBC current affairs programme Newsnight is currently enjoying a swift decent into farce, and last week included a discussion on feminism. No men were present, just Emily Maitliss and 3 women, including the irritating Mary Beard.
However, one of the women, Angela Epstein, opined there and later in print:
“Rather than campaigning to help women, feminists today are more likely to be picking fights on Twitter, or dressing up petty grievances as proof of rampant ‘sexism’ [these days they are more likely to shout ‘misogyny’ on the flimsiest pretext] …these devotees of ‘equality’ believe you can’t be a feminist unless you’re Left-wing. Spoiling for a fight is the default position of today’s chippy feminists. They’ve turned nit-picking into an art form”
The response from the ‘hash-tag sisterhood’ on Twitter?
“I was accused of espousing views which are ‘poisonous to society’, and called ‘sad’, ‘ignorant’ and ‘stupid’.
Someone bitterly declared I must have enjoyed a ‘charmed life’ – a lazy generalisation by a socialist grudge-bearer who assumes my convictions have been created from a position of privilege. In fact, my parents were of modest means”
This is hardly a one-off I’ve seen female YouTubers and bloggers getting threats and spiteful ridicule for criticising feminism
Henry,
picking fights on Twitter
But being instantly captious and quarrelsome and jumping the gun is how many devotees of identity politics establish their credentials, if only to themselves. I think those are the rules. (See Mr Jackson’s experience, above.)
dressing up petty grievances as proof of rampant ‘sexism’
I’ve mentioned before a discussion with a woman who remembered registering surprise on someone’s face when she announced an interest in physics while at school. This was offered as evidence of patriarchy and proof that more must be done for women today. But assuming such surprise still persists to any significant degree, which seems rather unlikely, I’m not sure one can legislate against an occasional surprised expression. And yet this was offered as a justification for ever more intrusive and overbearing measures, to be indulged at any cost. Someone, somewhere may be Having The Wrong Thoughts™ and this simply won’t do. WrongThought™ must be punished and every molecule must be purged. And as we’ve seen, a great deal of “academic” feminism deserves every bit of ridicule it gets, and then some. What’s struck me, many times, is a disinclination to keep things in proportion or to weigh a problem, or supposed problem, against whatever authoritarian measures its ‘fixing’ would entail. But if imbibed for long enough, that’s what identity politics does. It leads to tribalism, unrealism and in time a kind of madness.
“Like so much of what Laurie says, it’s not an argument or a statement that refers to reality; it’s a display, an incantation.”
If it is all display and incantation, she’s effectively devoted her life to pointless, empty posturing in front of her hipster pals.
If she’s being sincere, she genuinely belives that a necessary prerequisite of an economy where the value of goods is determined by supply, demand and cost of production is that women make catty remarks about the size of each other’s bottoms.
Neither scenario reflects very well on her. I’m not sure which is worse.
“Someone bitterly declared I must have enjoyed a ‘charmed life’ -”
In my experience, a charmed life (or at least a privileged background) is a good description of what most lefty activist types enjoyed in their early years. Ms Penny, for example, did not exactly grow up in destitute poverty. And a cynic may deduce that the multiple media gigs she lands has more to do with having the right politics and with her going to the same super-liberal college as many of her media buddies, than with her ingenious observations about economics.
Not me, of course.
a kind of madness.
Oh. My. God.
They’re shameless.
They’re shameless.
And indulged.
So far as I can make out, none of the people present dared to acknowledge the absurdity. Nor did the subsequent news report. Why were these delusional hustlers being taken so seriously? Why did no-one in the room start laughing at the obvious deception taking place right in front of them? And so the absurd becomes just a little sinister.