Our Betters In Distress
From the Times, a tale of evil seen, if you tilt your head and squint:
The three wise monkeys have been a cultural trope throughout the world for centuries as a symbol of seeing, hearing and speaking no evil. Academics at the University of York have decided that they could be seen as an oppressive racial stereotype, and pulled an image of the animals from their website to avoid offence.
Organisers of a forthcoming art history conference apologised for using the picture in their call for submissions. “Upon reflection, we strongly believe that our first poster is not appropriate as its iconology promulgates a longstanding visual legacy of oppression and exploits racist stereotypes,” they wrote. “We bring this to your attention, so that we may be held accountable for our actions and, in our privileges, do and be better.”
I doubt that doing better is on the cards, somehow. Just more of the same.
The fretful academics – who deploy the words “Orality, Aurality, Opticality and Hapticity” and then applaud themselves – claim to be concerned for the feelings of others – others who may, hypothetically, be offended, indeed oppressed, by a seventeenth century Buddhist figurine showing three helpers of the divine, and whose monkey form is a phonetic pun to speakers of Japanese.
Readers may note that the agonising – in which any depiction of a monkey immediately conjures thoughts of black people – does rather speak to the weirdly dogmatic assumptions of the agonised, rather than the object being agonised about, or how said object is generally understood. It must be those intersectional lenses we hear so much about. Which is to say, lefties project.
Via Mr Muldoon.
It must be those intersectional lenses we hear so much about.
That.
Remind me who the racists are again.
Remind me who the racists are again.
Well, quite. I must’ve seen the three wise monkeys more times than I could count, but I don’t recall ever construing them as a caricature of black people.
Because, well, that would be slightly weird.
Remind me who the racists are again.
Dear White people …
Oh, no …
What are you doing to make sure that you’re raising children who won’t kill mine?
There is a certain skill in leveraging the simple lie stated boldly, with which the more complex discussion struggles to compete for attention.
That much of the force of such brazen untruths relies on the material body of the person who speaks them is depressing to the point of despair.
The responses, incidentally, are just as remarkable – this being just one of many examples in the same tone.
While the idea of having “ongoing discussions” with a four year-old about the death of George Floyd lack credibility, you do have to ponder what such a conversation might have looked like if actually attempted.
“We bring this to your attention, so that we may be held accountable for our actions…”
I suspect that to be a lie of sorts
Heh. For some people, it’s like breathing.
What are you doing to make sure that you’re raising children who won’t kill mine?
Trying to discourage your children from taking Fentanyl.
Trying to discourage your children from taking Fentanyl.
[ Rolls crudely-shaped ball of pâté across bar to Karl. Fluff accumulates. ]
What are you doing to make sure that you’re raising children who won’t kill mine?
An enquiry more appropriately addressed to the questioner, methinks.
It seems to me that universities would be better run, and would do a better job of educating, if those with the power to hire and fire and punish were high school graduates–carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, electricians, gardeners.
[ Rolls crudely-shaped ball of pâté across bar to Karl. Fluff accumulates. ]
Is this pâté the inverted pork rectums from the previous thread?
Is this pâté the inverted pork rectums from the previous thread?
[ Whistles nonchalantly, wipes bar. ]
crudely-shaped ball of pâté
Got you covered:
Got you covered:
[replaces mouse with worn out scroll wheel]
Ahem:
So, Karl, have you considered converting the vacant massage parlor next door into a restaurant?
What are you doing to make sure that you’re raising children who won’t kill mine?
Statistically speaking, your children are more likely to be the murderers. And of children who look like them.
What are you therefore doing, Madam, about your homicidal little goblins ?
What are you therefore doing, Madam, about your homicidal little goblins?
“Orc” is more commonly used to refer to these feral creatures, as it has greater more one-syllable verbal punch and because with Peter Jackson’s adaptations of the Lord of the Rings everybody has a gut feeling for just how repulsively evil orcs are.
But have you seen the SJW satires in which orcs are portrayed as innocent victims of a racist conspiracy by elves, dwarves, and the very-white Men of the West?
So, Karl, have you considered converting the vacant massage parlor next door into a restaurant?
Hmmm, as you can see perhaps I could cater to the same, er, discerning clientele?
Ahem
What, you didn’t really need to see it in its full-sized glory?
What, you didn’t really need to see it in its full-sized glory?
I knew I should’ve done a food-porn blog instead.
[ Fondles cheesecake. ]
What, you didn’t really need to see it in its full-sized glory?
Thanks. I can’t keep the cat away from the computer screen now.
Got you covered:
Ah yes, I see them. Inverted pork rectums. Many, many, many inverted pork rectums.
On the other hand, it does look freshly made. That’s a step up from the usual fare here.
Many, many, many inverted pork rectums.
From reference.com:
I’ll never be able to eat calamari again.
Does this mean the York University sees black people as monkeys? I believe they are finally seeing “truth to power” in real time. Thank you for your wisdom academia.
What are you doing to make sure that you’re raising children who won’t kill mine?
I raised my children the same way my great-grandparents raised my grandfathers, who went and risked their lives to confront _real_ fascists, so that people of all creeds can live together as equals, because that’s what they believed in.
As you were asking …
Lord of the Rings
Orc and goblin are interchangeable in Tolkien fantasy.
Orcs are Elves corrupted by Morgorth, so it’s really about whether you see them as separate races or not.
Orc and goblin are interchangeable in Tolkien fantasy.
Yes, but as I said “orc”, having only one syllable and ending with a strong consonant, has more punch than does “goblin”. Thus “orc” is preferable in that context.
And to get really geeky, I vaguely recall Tolkien saying that “goblin” and “orc” were not truly interchangeable–maybe that goblins were the older, less fearsome variety and orcs were later, bigger, more deadly varieties–but I am relying on decades-old memories.
Orcs are Elves corrupted by Morgorth
Ah, I’d forgotten that and thought it was Sauron. But maybe Sauron created some later varieties of orc? And there seemed to be some differences in the variety that served Saruman.
What are you doing to make sure that you’re raising children who won’t kill mine?
Another notable response. How those kids feel in about ten years about mom is pretty predictable.
Better to autodenounce and have some control over it than to give their so-called friends or academic colleagues an easy shot.
I didn’t know the three monkeys was Japanese. I thought it might have been popularized by the badthinker Kipling to reinforce the trope of oriental inscrutability. Then again in the current game, nothing is permitted to be scrutable to whites, not even their own internal life and motivations.
Via Tim Newman, a thread about trans athletes in prairies, canyons or other sublime and oppressive landscapes.
The trans athletes issue will almost certainly be the first of many car crashes we will be encouraged to believe aren’t actually happening,
The “She believes” cup, so beloved by the bbc, may prove to have been aptly named. Recent political events have shown the way forward. If you believe you have been cheated them you’re the problem,
The trans athletes issue will almost certainly be the first of many car crashes we will be encouraged to believe aren’t actually happening,
https://twitter.com/whitesundesert/status/1352980634399109125
Nothing to see here.
The trans athletes issue…
Either an apt name, or trolling…
The return of Soviet psychiatry.
The return of Soviet psychiatry.
It was never far away, if you pay close attention to what Progressive Bien Pensants have said to each other.
I’m old enough to remember when Scientific American was about science.
The return of Soviet psychiatry.
Christ on a bike. The Scientific American used to be a weighty intellectual tome bringing a wonder and joy of science in articles that impressed the hell out of me.
Now look at it. “How Science Explains Trump’s Grip on White Males”. “Twitter Bots Are a Major Source of Climate Disinformation”. “When Our Gaze Is a Physical Force”. “The Science of Spiritual Narcissism”. And of course “The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists”
It’s a fucking clown show. What the hell happened?
I’m old enough to remember when Scientific American was about science.
As am I. It is terrible to see what a degraded Pravda it has become. But the left cannot allow anything–especially anything good–to remain uncorrupted.
What the hell happened?
We were excessively tolerant of Marxists?
Well… SciAm was always a science popularizer, more than an intellectual tome, but it was serious. The rot goes back quite a ways, though – at least 30 years, and maybe close to 40. The went all-in on global warming: any questioning of “the science” (such as it was) let alone the policy response was beyond the pale. I let my 16-year subscription lapse in 1986, and honestly haven’t missed it.
OT: I’m surprised nobody reacted to my comment in the previous thread about a film adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge, as I have seen many comments here indicating a liking for his stories. I just found out that at least two biographies of Terry have been published: Terry Pratchett by Craig Cabell, and The Magic of Terry Pratchett by Marc Burrows. I do not know their quality but thought it worth a mention.
The went all-in on global warming…
They treated Nuclear Winter and antimissile defense the same way.
I’m old enough to remember when Scientific American was about science.
You guys must be mighty f’ng old. Or not been paying attention for decades,
You guys must be mighty f’ng old. Or not been paying attention for decades,
They are not mutually exclusive, many of us can remember when it was about science, and then quit paying attention to it when it ceased to be.
The author of the linked dog’s breakfast, which falls under the heading of “Ivy League grade stupidity”, evidently has been called out by the APA for her armchair shrinkology, so one must consider the source.
I’m surprised nobody reacted to my comment in the previous thread about a film adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge, as I have seen many comments here indicating a liking for his stories.
I did watch it. I don’t know Terry Pratchett from my dead cat, so I am as close to an uninvolved viewer as you might get.
It was OK. Not great. Not horrible. Not mind-blowing. Not I-saw-THAT-a-mile-away.
In my case, it was unworthy of comment without your puzzled comment that nobody commented.
I let my 16-year subscription lapse in 1986,
Well, let’s see – SA was sold off in … 1986! Now we know who to blame!
Heh.
I don’t know Terry Pratchett from my dead cat
It was a nice slice of the Terry universe, one tiny glimpse of one of the many themes running through his stories, but Terry’s words are better than any dramatization.
Oh, I stuck with it into the early 1990’s but the leftism was there going back into the early 80’s (when I first encountered it) at the least. Sure there were real science articles,but the social science and the “silent spring” slant were there even then. I liked their physics and math stuff and there was the occasional social science article, usually of dubious sources, that may have been light on the politics, but it was there.
Not a cult, nope, nosireebob.
I’m surprised nobody reacted to my comment in the previous thread about a film adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge
Hal was the biggest and most vocal fan, so perhaps that accounts for your perception.
I find Pratchett pretentious and smug, myself, and not terribly original even for a satirist. But chacun son gout and all that.
Also my posts are still getting eaten somewhere along the line. I’ve had three go missing from this thread alone. They show up in my browser after I post. Perhaps Brave is breaking something on the client side?
Not a cult, nope, nosireebob.
https://twitter.com/HollyBriden/status/1353503819322118144?s=20
@ Felicity: Not a pretty sight, but most ‘humans’ of the Antifa/BLM/Alphabet/socialist persuasion seem to be lacking when it comes to looking even half decent and clean.