He’s Being Rugged, And We Can’t Have That
In the pages of the Guardian, masculinity is once again being piously disdained. This time by Mr Grayson Perry, a part-time transvestite and maker of unattractive pottery:
The Turner prize-winning artist has turned his sights on the survivalist [Bear Grylls] and his exceptionally rugged version of masculinity, arguing that it isn’t fit for the 21st century. “He celebrates a masculinity that is useless,” Perry said… Perry said that the masculine ideal presented by shows such as The Island, in which Grylls is currently putting a third group of hapless contestants through survivalist hell, is making it harder for men to successfully negotiate modern life. “Men might be good at taking the risk of stabbing someone or driving a car very fast, but when it comes to opening up, men are useless,” Perry told the Radio Times in an interview to promote his new series, All Man.
And then, because we haven’t had one in a while, a classic Guardian sentence:
“Masculinity is a decorative feature that is essentially counter-productive.”
Well, it’s true that rafting skills and urine-drinking may be niche concerns and of obvious practical use only to explorers, hardy outdoors types, and people whose package holidays have gone catastrophically wrong. But – and it’s quite a big one – there’s something to be said for seeing people in unfamiliar and rather trying circumstances achieving more – sometimes much more – than they thought they ever could. Which is both the premise and appeal of Mr Grylls’ various, quite popular TV programmes. However, showing people that they may be much more capable than they previously believed, resulting in a sense of great personal satisfaction, is apparently unimportant, a mere “hangover” from more primitive, less Guardian-friendly times.
Regarding the claim that masculinity is functionally obsolete and is now merely decorative, and at risk of seeming unkind, readers are invited to compare the mugshots of Mr Perry and Mr Grylls, these two contrasting expressions of modern masculinity, and ponder which is likely to attract the more widespread and vigorous sexual attention. Or indeed which of them might be more likely to prevail in a more hazardous physical exchange – say, an attempted mugging. And on the supposed uselessness of archetypal masculine skills, Mr Grylls’ lengthy television career, his extensive property portfolio, and his estimated annual earnings from UK merchandising alone of £3.3 million, rather speaks for itself.
It’s psychodrama.
I’m trying to think of what else comes to mind, but working from that picture, all I’m getting is glasses stuck onto either the guides or one of the guests.
Re the young woman pictured above – the one constantly interrupting, screaming “fuck you!” and waving her big arms about – our budding intellectual – I very much doubt her passion is driven by the finer points of free speech or social equity or whatever. I don’t think she’s trying to articulate a political argument, or make anyone change their mind on any particular subject. She doesn’t seem awfully clued-up on the subject she’s supposedly angry about and certainly isn’t keen to engage with contrary viewpoints, or even let them be heard by others. She is, however, angry and resentful, wallowing in emotion, and presumably her “social justice” circle gives some outlet for that, a pretext to indulge whatever personal demons and resentments rattle around her mind.
On campuses, “social justice” activism tends to attract an awful lot of people quite like this, people who want a license to be angry and obnoxious, to impose themselves on others, to enjoy the thrill of power, albeit temporarily and in anti-social ways. And their anger and obnoxiousness may not in fact be driven by the ostensible grievance, which is often ludicrous. Maybe they just want to make the world pay.
It’s psychodrama.
It’s the embodiment of a (very) round peg stuck in a square hole. She doesn’t belong in any type of post-statutory education.
Not so long ago such a person would have left school functionally literate, capable of basic arithmetic, prepared for a low-level job (cue catty speculation). And would have been happy.
Now, having marinated for a couple of decades in child-centred education, self-esteem, self-pity and political correctness, what is she good for?
what is she good for?
Loosehead prop?
She doesn’t belong in any type of post-statutory education.
Actually I think that, or something like it, may be a big part of the phenomenon, at least on campus. Much of the “social justice” contingent is centred around the Angry Studies departments, which tend to attract students with quite low SAT scores, relative to, say, engineering or physics. And of course beneficiaries of “affirmative action,” whereby mediocre students are steered towards an environment they’re really not suited for, even in pseudo-subjects with very low intellectual standards. And many of these students will soon start to struggle, and fail, and feel uncomfortable and resentful.
Happily, there are plenty of ready-made excuses for these feelings. And so their failure is due to racism or sexism or “white privilege,” or “triggering,” or “microaggressions,” or the all-powerful Patriarchy.
After the muslim/north african grabfest at new year’s eve in Cologne, the question arose in the press where all the german boyfriends wer when their girls were robbed, grabbed and raped? Well, after 40 years of being bombarded with ideas like that violence does not lead anywhere, violence comes in spirals, and so forth, one can answer, yes, they were there, but they behaved like their female educators wanted.
We will hear a lot more of this.
I don’t think she’s trying to articulate a political argument, or make anyone change their mind on any particular subject.
Yes to that and all your other points, but, this particular one’s psychopathology aside, I am still amazed at how such a crop got this way. Were she an isolated case it would be easy just to write her off as her steamboat having gwine round the bend, but the hall obviously had several, e.g. the neck beard in the Q&A whose contribution was “Fu#k Trump, BLM”, or the moslima who failed to grasp that in any of the 11 countries to which Crowder alluded, she would not be in anything other than a segregated auditorium if even allowed to be in a university. How bereft of reality and possessed of a sense of entitlement does one really have to be to sit there yelling “You don’t belong here”, and, “We don’t want you here”, when it is obvious that most of the “we” in the audience do ?
Having been in college during the later Vietnam (1A, number 226, they got me later for other reasons) and other protests, this sort of carp rarely went on, nor was it, as Dr. Sommers pointed out, tolerated even by their own ilk.
What’s amazing to me is how quickly these types wish to jettison all of society’s little conventions of behavior, i.e. don’t interrupt when someone else is talking, as if there are no long-term consequences to the well-functioning commonweal. Do any of these people contemplate what happens when people stop being polite and engaging in respectful discussion? What is the alternative, unless it’s a fistfight?
Loosehead prop?
Tighthead. No concerns about loss of cognitive ability from repeated bilateral cranial pressure. Alternatively, hooker (non-American sense) if height-deficient. She does bear a passing resemblance to Brian Moore.
This is a fat, plain, rather stupid girl letting us know how resentful she is, how much she dislikes the world.
She’s a gigantic, angry toddler throwing a tantrum. I’d send her to bed without any supper.
She’s a gigantic, angry toddler throwing a tantrum. I’d send her to bed without any supper.
She could manage without breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper *and* snacks for quite some months.
Alternatively, hooker (non-American sense)…
Good thing you clarified that term…
Alternatively, hooker (non-American sense)…
Good thing you clarified that term…
It would be a niche market…..
She could be a Gainer…
“It would be a niche market…..”
There are plenty of people out there with “interesting” sexual tastes.
There are plenty of people out there with “interesting” sexual tastes.
I believe so, yes.
After much deliberation it has to be Oliver Hardy in drag……………..
She’s a gigantic, angry toddler throwing a tantrum.
It surely can’t be long now before Milo (or someone similar) is confronted with a mob of protestors soiling themselves, smearing, and throwing…
it seems to me that what Mr Grayson is disdaining – and by extension, what we are expected to disdain – is a general air of competence, of practical application (wilderness or not), and of being able and willing to give daunting things a go.
That.
> but when it comes to opening up, men are useless
I’m not surprised. Men don’t have the parts, do they?
Photo caption: “Free Speech Discussion Shut Down By Student’s Enraged Mooing”
What’s amazing to me is how quickly these types wish to jettison all of society’s little conventions of behavior
RAH had something to say about this, to wit “A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”
Enraged Mooing
That.
In other news, Britain is fixin’ to have another Obsolete Snowfall: http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/663931/Britain-freezing-temperatures-winds-snow-cold-blast-April-May
In other news, Britain is fixin’ to have another Obsolete Snowfall
I’m looking out at snow right now. Today has randomly and repeatedly alternated between ‘fairly warm Spring day’ and ‘instant blizzard’.
Somewhere (Brazil, most likely), Dr. Mengele is producing clones of Andrea Dworkin, I’d say.
What’s amazing to me is how quickly these types wish to jettison all of society’s little conventions of behaviour
What’s also interesting is how often and widely this is being allowed to happen on campuses – with utter impunity. Even as a stroppy 20-year-old, it didn’t occur to me that I could repeatedly disrupt someone’s lecture, insulting everyone who’d turned up to listen, and scream obscenities at invited guests, all with no expectation of consequences. But Little Miss Cliché Mountain rants endlessly before any hint of official disapproval. Dr Sommers asks for someone to intervene… and nothing happens. Eventually, the Indignant Land Whale is warned, half-heatedly, emptily… and again, nothing happens. And so she resumes her screeching and arm-flapping as if these were things that young intellectuals do.
If staff and administrators aren’t willing to enforce norms of civilised behaviour, and the standards of behaviour to which students sign agreement as a condition of their stay, if it’s simply too much effort, or too uncool, then quite a few people will seize the opportunity to misbehave.
Little Miss Cliché Mountain
…is Cora Miriam, a senior at Hampshire College.
http://turtleboysports.com/turns-out-the-obnoxious-lardo-sjw-from-umass-triggering-event-is-a-hampshire-college-senior-named-cora-miriam/
Re the young woman pictured above – the one constantly interrupting, screaming “fuck you!” and waving her big arms about – our budding intellectual – I very much doubt her passion is driven by the finer points of free speech or social equity or whatever.
Little Miss Cliché Mountain
Well, the Tumblr Tank got the attention she was so desperately seeking…
Yes! The internet has made me so lazy. All i have to do is think of something that should exist and then there it is…
https://twitter.com/RetroFuturRonin/status/725152976545964036?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
All i have to do is think of something that should exist and then there it is…
Heh.
If you’re going to be a potter, be this kind of potter, thereby maintaining your masculinity intact and preventing the rest of us from wanting to slap you silly.
Everything that makes Grayson Perry’s world livable, from the sidewalks to the HVAC, to the public sanitation, to the roof over his head is the result of that which he detests.
I’d say that he detests it precisely because he senses (or knows) that Better Men Than He created it all, and knows that he could never measure up to such men.
Instead of harnessing the humiliation to make something better of himself, Salieri sets about trying to destroy Mozart.
::spit::
I would think that sort of tantrum was physically dangerous for her, she might just drop over. You never know.
Why does Gibbon seem relevant just now? Oh, yes, something about a descent into narcissism. I wonder what the modern day barbarians might have to say about Perry?
Lord, I think I heard, actually heard, the flapping of flesh when Miss Cliche Mountain flailed wildly whilst shrieking “Fuck you,” over and over like an addlepated third grader. And she’s at least 21, huh? Wow.
At some previous point in history, before everybody got to go to college, she’d have ended up as a cranky lunchlady at the local public high school.
I would think that sort of tantrum was physically dangerous for her, she might just drop over.
That would be even more dangerous for all those within 20 feet of her
A.
B.
but when it comes to opening up, men are useless
No. We don’t do it in public, and we make it brief. As it should be IMO. I can’t stand extended public wailing.
I’m not having any of this assumption that the women’s way is better. It’s just different.
(Actually I know a fair number of women who are more inclined to the men’s version of opening up. It’s one of the features I like about my wife.)
A.
B.
Heh. Quite. It did rather suggest diabolical possession.
Bear is the best thing to come out of the UK since Thatcher. It is so pathetic to watch the West denigrate what makes us great: Masculinity. And Canada’s Les Stroud, the master of masculinity (even though I suspect he voted for Zoolander). With men like these walking the earth, I’m confident procreation will continue, inventions will be discovered and someone will know how to fix my internet connection.
Thank God for men and masculinity.
“…and waving her big arms about…”
Those aren’t arms. They’re hams.
It did rather suggest diabolical possession.
Ibert:
That’s a left ventricle.
Adam:
It’s part of the heart of a child.
Barre:
Sacrificed at a witches’ Sabbath, no doubt. Look! A consecrated wafer!
Adam:
Yeah. Blood, thick blood. The blood of a man.
Barre:
Yeah, Grandier.
Ibert:
That slimy stuff could only be semen.
Barre: pointing excitedly:
And what’s that??!!
Adam:
Ehn, that’s a carrot.
—Ken Russell, The Devils
Now, having marinated for a couple of decades in child-centred education, self-esteem, self-pity and political correctness, what is she good for?
———————
Revolutionary cannon fodder. This is, of course, by design.
“what is she good for?
Loosehead prop?”
I was thinking more along the lines of an anchor.
Meanwhile, outside the UMass event where Ms Bingo Wings got so upset… this was happening.
Step aside, peasants. Make way for the new intellectual elite.
Please note the fetching lass at 0:35 and again at 1:40
A
B
I have only just now seen this video – Sweet merciful Heaven! – and as a consequence, have just read the top comment under the ‘low-bar, which is a gem:
SHE ACTUALLY GOT TIRED. FUCK. she’s going to be dead soon. this beautiful living meme will be dead soon.
I have only just now seen this video – Sweet merciful Heaven!
Sometimes the internet hive mind is a pleasure to behold. We went from lecture hall footage to pithy gifs, Trigglypuff hashtags and detailed biographical info in the space of a few hours.
“… but when it comes to opening up, men are useless.”
His problem is that he doesn’t have the tools necessary. I find that a Kukri is well-suited for the job of opening up.
Cheers
Now she’s big in Australia, as it were.
I’m trying to imagine what it must be like to have no apparent inkling of how your own behaviour undermines your pretensions and reveals them as ludicrous. I mean, Ms Cora Miriam has handed the world a near-perfect distillation of why she and her peers are contemptible and absurd. As Glenn Reynolds puts it, she’s the new face of campus activism.