The Laurie Penny Chronicles
Following a number of enquiries as to why I don’t have a specific tag for items involving the cartoonish Laurie Penny, I thought I’d compile a few of my posts on the British left’s foremost unreliable narrator. It’s necessarily incomplete – there are several short posts and endless, lengthy comments I haven’t included – but it should convey a flavour of Laurie’s intermittent relationship with reality, her ongoing struggles with logic, and her delightful personality.
The Penny Hasn’t Dropped. Laurie’s world is a heteronormative police state that’s brutal, intolerant and also on fire.
Sparkly Bits. Laurie rails against the menace of pubic glitter.
Worth Every Penny. Arts Council-funded dirt relocation is, we’re told, vital for “social progress.”
Don’t Be So Mean To The Titans Of Tomorrow. Laurie hearts Occupy. It’s a “new world order.”
Architects of Tomorrow. Ms Penny succumbs to brain fever. Huge chunks of rhetoric fall from the sky.
It’s A Fascist Groove Thang. Leftist students indulge in thuggery. Laurie lies about it.
Flatter, Mythologize, Rinse, Repeat. In which we learn that Laurie is marginalised, “marked as other,” and also a cyborg.
Never Knowingly Understated. Expectations of coherence are “a great way of shutting down dissent,” says Laurie.
She Leans. Laurie tells us that she “leans towards anarcho-communism.” And so your money is actually hers.
Lifestyle Advice. Laurie shares her deep knowledge of marriage. You may want to bite down on something.
Think of it as a snapshot, a psychological profile, a cautionary tale.
Thank you. 🙂
There’s more, of course, should you want it. But for that, you can use the search widget on the left, above the category tags.
You’ll find things like that.
Ew.
May I suggest the tag “Penny Dreadful” for when/if you get around to creating one?
Looking at the image search for Laurie Penny it is hard to say what sort of shape she is in. The working theory is that the transition from precocious ingénue to chunky renders a certain type feminist, but she appears to break the mould. Probably just a natural.
Laurie shares her deep knowledge of marriage.
One of my favourites.
Looking at the image search for Laurie Penny…
Speaking of which and just because every Laurie Penny thread deserves a classic…
There’s a woke take in there somewhere.
One of my favourites.
Along with the subsequent thread, I think that one captures the degree to which Laurie’s ‘feminist’ advice seems designed to degrade, even ruin, the lives of anyone foolish enough to heed it. Not least the working-class women she pretends to care about.
Let’s see. Following her example, we should whine about how remembering a partner’s allergies and birthdays is some unendurable imposition. We should announce that any partner is ultimately unimportant and ranks somewhere below our inexpensive possessions. And above all, we should shun and actively scorn marriage and conventional coupling, the stable family unit, in favour of a world of absent fathers, single motherhood and chronic state dependency – a cash-strapped dependency that Laurie defines as liberation. Because the family unit, on which so much of our world ultimately depends, is just something to be “rejected” and “dismantled” in order to seem cool among pretentious idiots.
As a recipe for a satisfying life, it leaves something to be desired.
And right on cue…
And right on cue…
Er, wut?
And we mustn’t forget Laurie’s belief that businesses don’t need to be competitive and that therefore it’s “not that hard” for any business to pay its employees whatever sum she deems a “decent” salary.
“I don’t pretend to be a global economist,” says Laurie.
Clinical depression in females is a form of oppression by The Patriarchy. It teaches women that they are “weak”, “moody”, “incapable of self-help” thus reinforcing the oppression cycle.
It cannot be a coincidence that Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist.
If you don’t believe you are depressed you are no longer oppressed! Smash the Oppressor Rapist Father!
See how easy this is, and I have only had 1 cup of coffee today.
Er, wut?
Don’t frown, it’s empowering.
I’d pay $250 to have dinner with Laurie. My post-prandial expectation would be for her to STFU for 1 hour and not pick at herself. I just want to watch her explode.
Don’t frown, it’s empowering.
And for a grand a pop you can wash and iron my undercrackers.
What?
I know I haven’t been clamoring for a Penny tag so much as more entries for the Giant Vaginas list.
more entries for the Giant Vaginas list.
Hey, I’m amazed how much mileage we’ve gotten out of that one.
Don’t frown, it’s empowering.
Political escort? At least the Clintons know to acquire positions of political pull first, so they can tack a few extra zeroes onto the price tag.
At least the Clintons know to acquire positions of political pull first, so they can tack a few extra zeroes onto the price tag.
Of course, all while granting such being rather utterly standard and quite done in quite a few instances by rather a variety of people . . .
Your point, Hal? If enough people do it, it’s OK?
I’m pretty sure Hal will happily pay top dollar to hear Obama give a $750,000 speech about how at a certain point, you just have to accept that you’ve made enough money.
DFTT, IYKWIM
“Political pull” as in what Ayn Rand called the “politics of pull”, not merely being famous.
If enough people do it, it’s OK?
…what Ayn Rand called the “politics of pull”, not merely being famous.
If enough political power brokers indulge in influence peddling, it’s perfectly legit, see? Clinton, Inc. has refined it to an art form, that’s all.
Your point, Hal? If enough people do it, it’s OK?
Well, what is your point?
The established fact is that all sorts of people, all across the right to left political spectrum, have been doing this for decades . . .
Sure Hal.
And plenty haven’t ridden the gravy train. Did you notice that Jimmy Carter gives his fees to charity?
I don’t judge my ethics on the frequency of the practices of others. There’s plenty of murders out there too, some by people of my political persuasion, but I won’t be condoning murder any time soon.
It is noticeable that the worst offenders are not of the Left or Right. Instead it is the most pious (Jimmy Carter, as always being an exception). I’ll lay big money that Justin Trudeau will take up the lucrative end of the market, and that Angela Merkel will not.
Ms Penny succumbs to brain fever. Huge chunks of rhetoric fall from the sky.
She sounds like she needs to be on medication.
She sounds like she needs to be on medication.
She does, I think, and by her own admission, have certain mental health issues. But what’s entertaining is how frequently and confidently she assumes, based on nothing, that her own psychological problems are the Universal State Of Womanhood, shared by all women everywhere, and therefore proof of being oppressed. As if the destruction of masculinity, bourgeois values and “heteronormative capitalism” would somehow stop the moodswings and the buzzing in her head.
And don’t forget that Ms Penny, our mistress of the made-up factoid, the incoherent sentence and the unearned conclusion, was in 2012 shortlisted for Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards. Before being invited to Harvard to become a “leader in journalism.”
Jimmy Carter whitewashed a couple of Hugo Chavez’s elections as I recall. It doesn’t matter what he did with the fees after that.
And plenty haven’t ridden the gravy train.
And, as still established, plenty have . . .
It is noticeable that the worst offenders are not of the Left or Right.
And Thaaaaaat’s where the fun continues, one does have to assess the individual . . . but then again that also serves as a reminder that the empty ideology and theory remains irrelevant—left wing or right—and one will always focus on the practice and how well whatever the practice works.
What’s most amusing about Laurie is she has this habit of pissing off the people she spends half her time sucking up to. A few days ago she pissed off the Irish feminists by jumping on the “repeal the 8th” bandwagon and making a catalogue of errors when writing about it; and now this:
https://twitter.com/ladymctampon/status/1002620382019387392?s=21
What’s most amusing about Laurie is she has this habit of pissing off the people she spends half her time sucking up to.
I suppose that’s the problem of trying to win the approval of people whose status and self-image depend almost entirely on never-ending umbrage and the finding of microscopic faults. The indignation gets quite competitive and at times faintly surreal.
Above, Melissa Fabello, standing firmly.
Flatter, Mythologize, Rinse, Repeat.
I remember that. I had to wake up to her annoying squeaky voice.
These people live in a fantasy world.
These people live in a fantasy world.
Well, indeed. See also this gathering here, recorded for posterity, and which was afterwards described by participants as a “debate” and “a very good discussion.” Which is odd, really, as no debate or discussion as such actually took place. As you’ll see, if you can endure the achingly tedious hour-long video, the alleged “discussion” is just a series of rambling pronouncements, unrelated pontifications and general status signalling by people who expect to be indulged and deferred to, i.e., not debated.
Apparently, they were too busy describing themselves “an insurgent movement.”
And the whole thing has a weirdly co-dependent air, like a gathering of UFO nuts, and in which no statement, however self-flattering and ludicrous, including the fantasy of being an insurgent movement, is ever challenged, or questioned, or laughed at.