The Unlovely

Imagine the “emotional labour” required to endure a lifetime with Laurie Penny.

You have to marvel at the insistence that one of the most basic and universal of human feelings is merely an elaborate ruse “designed” by some unspecified patriarchal cabal. And you have to wonder how this “systemic lie” would explain the romantic feelings of gay couples.

I wonder what caused the butterflies? Watching a hooded thug kick a pensioner half to death in the name of social justice? Or a hefty tax rise?

all the centuries of men financially and emotionally supporting women
My understanding was that all that support was for the purpose of producing and raising the mens children. “Romantic love” as a justification for pair-bonding was a 17th Century innovation. Prior to that, again AIUI, love was seen as orthogonal to the pair-bond, and generally expected to grow *from*, rather than lead *to*, said bond.
I haven’t investigated the matter deeply though, so if historical citations to the contrary are available, they’d be a welcome addition to the conversation.

So when I married my husband I was only being ‘manipulated into lifelong emotional labour’?
She’s a silly cow.

It’s a very sad tweet. Her remark of butterflies is indicative of experiencing something special and quintessentially human.
Instead, she tries to banish it. For some reason, I picture Dr. Doom at a control panel being exhorted by someone (probably Susan) to not fire the Death-O-Ray. There’s that moment where Doom considers, then the writers understandably (because he’s evil) explicitly have him re-reject himself, and it’s up to the heroes to be the heroes.

As so often with Laurie (and her peers), it’s not entirely clear whether this is what she actually believes or it’s just something she feels obliged to say for effect, to appear cleverly non-conformist, and thereby conform with the expectations of her leftist peer group. Though I suppose the level of sincerity barely matters. In either case, she would have to be a fool.

Hypothesis: Every school of leftist theory is a fancy theory to justify a psychological or moral defect.

Hypothesis
There’s an essay by Thomas Sowell on Marx’s personal life, published in The Thomas Sowell Reader. As you dig through Marx’s vanities, tantrums and chronic parasitism, it’s hard not entertain the possibility that much of his “theorising” was an attempt to justify his own exploitative, infantile and deeply unpleasant behaviour.

Chuffing hell, dicentra. Your Pinterest account now has almost 100,000 items, all scrupulously categorised. I’m tempted to sign up for an account just so I can marvel at the full extent of it.

Don’t worry, Laurie. I think your personality works well as a natural contraceptive.

In writing after the remarkable Gosling affair, Penny called for “a little self awareness” on the issue and its repercussions. Well, she has as little self awareness as anyone I’ve ever come acoss or heard of.

Back to arranged marriages, then. Maybe it’s for the best.

He has said more than once that most of the doctors are crazier than the patients.
A) I know a, so to speak, mid level shrink who just recently changed job locations. Her rather emphatic observation is that in both locations, the bosses are more bonkers than the patients.
B) Mount Misery

On rounds at Mount Misery, it’s not always easy for Basch to tell the patients from the doctors: Errol Cabot, the drug cowboy whose practice provides him with guinea pigs for his imaginative prescription cocktails . . . Blair Heiler, the world expert on borderlines (a diagnosis that applies to just about everybody) . . . A. K. Lowell, née Aliyah K. Lowenschteiner, whose Freudian analytic technique is so razor sharp it prohibits her from actually speaking to patients . . . And Schlomo Dove, the loony, outlandish shrink accused of having sex with a beautiful, well-to-do female patient.

—Just on general principles, see also The House of God, albeit noting that THOG is about medical doctors being bonkers, where thirty years later, it remained such a 2400 lb gorilla of recommended reading that it got it’s own collection of supporting essays.

I was under the impression that one of the benefits of a lifelong loving relationship is that the occasional foul mood can be aired, accommodated and ultimately forgiven . . . . .
A recurring comment I’ve run into over time is I married my best friend, and . . .
What I’m more particularly reminded of is a comment of a friend of mine regarding another friend of mine, her husband. She told me one time of going to one of his company parties and having a very puzzled co-worker tell her that some people kept complaining about the husband, but the co-worker never had any problems at all. And his wife replied something to the effect of Oh, so you’re intelligent, competent, and capable, and you do your job and do it well, so that someone else doesn’t have to do your job for you . . . . and this is speaking of someone where my knowing him hardly even began to approach being as involved with him as his wife, and he would also matter-of-factly comment to me of having to deal with idiots that needed to be nuked from orbit . . . .
Rather by contrast, there was the ex of mine who vehemently attempted to insist that the paying of bills, our then shared rent, etc., was emphatically to be considered an option, not a parameter . . . . In time, she was the one who moved out, I’m the one the landlord was fond of while I was living there . . .

Oops, messed up that link.

Sad really
Well, it’s the kind of presumptuous, dogmatic assertion that a pretentious teenager might air in the hope of scandalising elderly relatives.

OK, so perhaps I’m the last to discover this but there’s a Laura Penny who seems to be Penny Red’s exact opposite. She’s even an expert on bullshit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Penny

Feminism was started by fat and or ugly women, some lesbian. Since ugly is the majority, it didn’t take long to bully many hot, but left leaning babes into the insanity.
Conservative women are still sane and decent, many are hot …. check them out before you get a Walmart special.

OK, upon further reading it appears I was very mistaken. Cannadian LP is essentially a Cannadian version of UK LP. The title of her book about how awful our colleges are, along with her association with Harry Frankfurt, indicated to me something much different.

it doesn’t suck
Thanks, di … got tickets to the 9:20 am show today.

Given that as a result of the Patriarchy’s nefarious deception about romantic love, I have agreed within the last two weeks to remodel the bathroom and buy new living room furniture for my wife of thirty years, I would say the Patriarchy is doing it wrong.
I think this should be discussed at the Patriarchy’s annual New Year’s Eve smoker to be held at the AMVETS Hall in Benkelmann,Nebraska. (BTW, someone needs to sign up to bring the always-loved crockpot of cocktail weenies in BBQ sauce.)

btw … I don’t believe Penny is insane, she’s evil
The sum of her ideas is certainly evil.
A few times I flicked through her twitter entries, for a laugh. Unfortunately the effect of such exposure time is after some time is not laughter, but despair.
I would like to think that her utterings are the narcissism of youth- but I suspect not.

Nemo:
An unsupported assertion of fact is also a lie
No, by definition, a lie involves the intention to deceive.
“Theophrastus is just a small-minded suburbanite” uttered without the intention to deceive is (a) true or (b) fair comment (even if untrue) or abuse or a mistake (you have got the name wrong and are thinking of someone else. It’s only a lie when uttered with the intention to deceive.

I’m new here. David refers to “The Other Half” with a masculine pronoun. Pray tell.
Give it a minute. You’ll figure it out. 🙂

To be fair, she’s not only very young, but she has grown up in the spotlight–rather like a pseudo-academic version of a child TV star.

Thanks, “Chris”.
Are you the “Better Two Thirds”?

Don’t want to figure it out. Want to be told.
Stamping your foot like that rocks the tables round here. And, as my mother used to say, “‘Iwant…’never gets”.

Stamping your foot like that rocks the tables round here.
Ain’t stampin’. Just askin’.

[waves at dicentra]
Just got back from the movie. Totally agree.

I’ve said it before: it has to be absolutely exhausting being Laurie Penny. Unless it’s a pose, constantly filtering everything through her tedious right-on prejudices must be very wearing. It’s a bit like being one of the more tiresome sorts of religious zealot who needs to know whether each and every thing is in accordance with dogma, like those mad Muslims who write to celebrity Imams asking if toothpaste is haram because Mo didn’t use it. One would almost feel sorry for her were it not for how baleful her prescriptions for the rest of us would prove to be if she ever got to enact them.
And Geezer, don’t be so importunate. If you are still in the dark then silly you. Besides, fussing about pronouns is something we make fun of round here.

If you are still in the dark then silly you.
Oh, dear! I didn’t intend to be importunate.
I visit this place because I admire David Thompson’s intelligence and sense of humor.
I didn’t realize that some questions are not to be asked here.

the answer is very obvious and is not a mystery around here
As I said at the beginning, I’m new here. I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Is that too much to ask?

Just to be, you know, clear and stuff, I’m quite certain I have the Santa Claus thing nailed. I was just saying, in the grand scheme of things, with all the probabilities of all of what we know at this time about quantum physics, I could be wrong about Santa Claus. The thing is though, also in the grand scheme of things, I’m fine with that tinsey bit of uncertainty. What I’m not fine with is how spell check f’s with changing odd words like “tinsey” into “tinsel” but still has no problem with, apparently, any number of n’s I wanna put in the word Canadian. But sometimes, as the song from Frozen says, you just gotta let it go.

Feminism was started by fat and or ugly women.
I am fat and ugly and as anti-Feminist as it comes.
But thanks for assuming I’m hot. My avatar is a pretty pink flower, after all.

Oh, fer the sake of Pete: David is gay, as is his Other Half.
Not a secret; not a problem.

… and simultaneously.
Cheers

Feminism was started by fat and or ugly women.
http://henrymakow.com/upload_images/steinem.jpg
uh…no

Laurie’s latest pronouncement:

You see, when people mock Laurie, and they do, apparently it’s only because they’re fearful and angry at her insights, which, being brilliant, burn men to the bone. And no-one is ever laughing because she flatters herself continually and uses hugely tendentious terms in question-begging ways. As so many in the Indignant Sisterhood do. Often comically.
In Laurie’s world, one shouldn’t be amused by, or dismissive of, claims that (for instance) not being stroppy with customers and managing not to have daily meltdowns is a form of gendered oppression and therefore deserving of extra compensation. “I didn’t burst into tears in front of that difficult customer. I demand an extra £40.”
Saner people would, I think, tend to realise that being, say, a flight attendant entails putting up with a lot of minor irritations from bored and sometimes demanding passengers, and nonetheless being reassuring and polite. That’s pretty much the job and is widely understood. Patience and emotional self-possession are some of the skills it requires. In Laurie’s world, however, this is some kind of patriarchal outrage.
But again, I’m not convinced that Laurie actually believes any of the bollocks she mouths. Her pronouncements are reliably dissonant with her own behaviour, which suggests an instinctive hypocrisy on almost every issue she brings up. To take an obvious example, one of many, are we to believe that Laurie is deeply concerned by the “emotional labour” of polite male security staff – the ones who get randomly abused by Laurie’s sister, whom she then congratulates for her radicalism? Or does the “emotional labour” of polite men not count?

You should be a shrink, David. 🙂
God, no. I don’t have the patience. I’d probably get fired on the first afternoon.

To be fair, she’s not only very young, but she has grown up in the spotlight–rather like a pseudo-academic version of a child TV star.
Very young? She’s 29. Jeez, I knew guys who were troop commanders in Iraq when they were 23. I was the general manager of a company in Russia when I was 29. She’s not 17 FFS.

It was to me.
I’ve wheeled in a comfy chair in case you need to sit down.

Theo: I’m on a mobile so won’t quote your response, but will just take my original unsupported assertion with a tweak to the subject: “Theophrastus is a paedophile who raped a small boy last night.” I maintain it’s a lie, and you say otherwise. Ho hum.

I’ve obviously been reading too much Laurie Penny. And not enough Grammar.

But again, I’m not convinced that Laurie actually believes any of the bollocks she mouths.
Let’s not forget that she has managed to parlay her drivel into a nice little earner. Some people will believe anything if it keeps the cheques rolling in. The existence of Laurie Penny doesn’t bother me, but the fact that she evidently has an audience is more of a worry.
And another thing: isn’t it odd that man-haters should spend so much of their time mouthing bollocks? Subconsciously acting out, perhaps?

How many oblique quips does it take to reach a straightforward answer?
Quite a few, it seems.
[David just nods and smiles.]
—————————
“So, who is the husband, and who is the wife?”
“What do you mean? We’re both guys.”
“If you get divorced, who will pay the alimony, and who will collect it?”

Theo: “End of.” Well now you’ve put it like that what choice do I have? It’s no lie that you’re a paedophile and bizarre relativist honesty isn’t the wonky-wheeled bicycle that the clown quarter of academia rides round on.
Apologies too if anyone thinks the paedo tag unnecessarily belligerent – I thought using it once would be enough, and never imagined that anyone called such would insist it’s not a lie!

“…mouthing bollocks…
Ummm, I don’t think that means what I think it means in this context.

@Theo and Nemo.
There has to be a moral component to what we call, “lying.” As Theo points out, people make innocent mistakes all the time in asserting things as true which are not. The moral problem arises when one makes an assertion with knowledge of its falsity (or willful ignorance as to whether the assertion is true or false) for the purpose of causing the recipient to accept the assertion as true and rely upon its truth.

A yes, I remember the post now. But didn’t know about Milo then, I’ve since seen the debate. I hope he does some more, his speech at the end of that one was stirring stuff.