Reheated (64)
For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:
Please Update Your Files And Lifestyles Accordingly.
Natan Last is a “fitful poet,” a Brooklynite, and a graduate of Columbia. Also, he will save us.
The world of woke crossword-puzzlers – because that’s a thing that exists – is one in which enthusiasts, via social media, grumble about white men, bemoan the insufficient prominence of “queer or POC colloquialisms,” share “off-colour jokes about hypothetical titles for a Melania Trump memoir,” and fret about the exact ratio of male and female names used as clues. Because a lack of “gender parity” in crossword puzzle clues constitutes one of “the systemic forces that threaten women.” Crossword puzzles can do that, apparently.
A woe is invented. A solution is discovered.
Gratuitous drama and “drenching guilt” aside, I’m not entirely sure why hiring a cleaner should obviously be more fraught than hiring, say, a gardener or roofer… But for the kind of middle-class feminist who as recreation writes for the Observer, life is apparently an endless moral torture inflicted by minor, everyday events, or at least an exhausting theatre of pretending to be tortured by minor, everyday events. Which of the two constitutes a more harrowing and nightmarish existence, I leave to the reader.
And somewhat related,
Telepathy Not A Thing, Women Hardest Hit.
Feminist titan Gemma Hartley bemoans the chore of getting her multiple bathrooms cleaned by someone else.
It’s been said, here at least, that when someone uses the term “emotional labour” unironically, the person doing the mouthing is most likely a bit of a nightmare. Say, the kind of woman who complains about the “emotional labour” of hiring a domestic cleaner. Or the kind who bitches about her husband and his shortcomings in the pages of a national magazine, where friends and colleagues of said husband, and perhaps his own children, can read on with amusement…
We’re invited to weep at the “emotional and mental energy” expended while remembering birthdays and writing shopping lists. Even brushing a daughter’s hair. Truly, feminists are heroic, undaunted and indestructible. Goddesses walking among us. And in the face of such crushing odds: “Even having a conversation about the imbalance of emotional labour becomes emotional labour.”
Should you want more, by all means click here, or poke through the greatest hits.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
I plan to have already eaten for the next ten years.
Human beings, possibly even social animals in general, have a fundamental, evolutionary desire to contribute to the betterment of their society.
I’m not sure about that. A four-year-old is a human being in its natural state: self-centered, greedy, impulsive, impatient, prone to fits of violence when frustrated, and endlessly demanding. It takes a dozen years of relentless training to turn a man into a gentle-man. When you raise five generations on electronics and neglect, you shouldn’t be surprised if the result is a few million people with no perception of the social contract.
As you observe, it’s only possible due to the absurd levels of wealth generated by those who have come before. When the momentum runs out and the bills come due, I feel there will be a lot of people meeting the Gods of the Copybook Headings for the first time. And boy howdy, won’t they be surprised!
desire to contribute to the betterment of their society.
Possibly. But then I suppose my question is – “which comes first, the desire or the need?”
And if you remove the need. Would you still have the desire?
They looted every store but the bookstore.
A four-year-old is a human being in its natural state: self-centered, greedy, impulsive, impatient, prone to fits of violence when frustrated, and endlessly demanding. It takes a dozen years of relentless training to turn a man into a gentle-man.
My experience with four year olds is limited mostly to having been one. Though I have had experience with a certain six year old who needed to be given “helping” tasks so that his uncle and Papop could get the BBQ grill assembled. That he didn’t grow up to become the most ambitious young man I attribute to his disinterested father. But yes, discipline is a huge factor which weighs into the process. This factor I would give very little biological evolutionary credit. I do not believe discipline is innate. The desire to be a valuable part of the group however, is the potential that is being wasted.
Also, you’re missing my point about their efforts being misguided. Though to my fault, “betterment” in an absolute sense is the wrong word. Perhaps “advancement” or “dominance” would be better choices of words.
my question is – “which comes first, the desire or the need?”
The chicken is coming from inside the egg…ok, douchebag humor aside, with welfare we have removed the need. And what do we get for it? Riots, burning, looting, torn down statues, and on a more “civilized” level, social justice warriors, CRT, feminazis, etc. The desire is and always will be there. They key is how it gets channeled and by whom.
They looted every store but the bookstore.
There’s a joke about Abbie Hoffman in that story somewhere. Probably not worth the effort though.
I think you’re right: Abbie Hoffman is largely and deservedly forgotten.
They’ll taste like chitterlings.
And the people gathered in these rooms…are unable to reconcile their professed desire to reach out to the Average Joe, whom they appear to disdain, with a compulsion to assert their own status and ideological credentials, their own superiority…And while referring to themselves as “insurgents.”
That.
They looted every store but the bookstore.
Not entirely unrelated:
Basic literacy among South African adults is now in decline.
There’s a joke about Abbie Hoffman in that story
Ha – synchronicity!
I was just watching a Blackpilled video which features Michael Shamberg who interviewed Hoffman for In Hiding: A Conversation with Abbie Hoffman.
Blackpilled does interesting work.
Hmmm. Seems the spam filter dislikes bit shoot?
Freed.
Basic literacy among South African adults is now in decline.
I’m surprised that basic literacy was ever as high as 90%: After the ANC’s terror war against education, burning to death kids who went to school, I expected a much lower number.
with welfare we have removed the need
An old mentor of mine once quipped “Being stupid has to hurt. Otherwise, people won’t stop being stupid.”
Granted, he was talking about network users, but still. It has greater applicability.
It has greater applicability.
Indeed. Very, very wide applicability.
“Petrona (I believe Malaysian for “oil and gas company”)”
Heh. That’s what I get for reading the threads backwards. I could have saved ten minutes writing a comment about that and looking up amusing links for it.
Heh. That’s what I get for reading the threads backwards.
If you read David’s earliest threads backwards, you get “I buried Paul” and “Praise Cthulhu”. Later threads, when David had reached a mellowed-out middle age, merely tell you “Eat more hump fat”.
And yet, no clear evidence that readers of David’s blog exhibit greater than
normalaverage interest in tentacles and camel byproducts.