Reality Is An Inherent Problem
I paraphrase, but not by much:
It started, since you ask, with chappie being annoyed by the existence of a cruise ship. Says he,
Readers will note that the word wasted is doing some heavy lifting there. That the building of said cruise ship paid the wages of thousands of people, in several cities, for years, and that the crewing and maintenance of said ship pays the wages of thousands more, and that the thousands of passengers aboard it at any given time will be spending large sums of money in any number of tourist destinations, making lives better across the globe, seems to have escaped our indignant chappie’s attention.
But still, he has “he/they” pronouns in his bio. So some markers of status are totally okay, apparently. Chappie tells us that he’s a “Black communicator,” whose podcast “paints a multi-faceted picture of the Black, brown, and Native American experience through story-telling.”
Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading, of course.
Update:
In the comments, EmC quotes this,
And adds,
Or an owner of slaves, perhaps. Some arrangement in which he, Our Obvious Better, doesn’t have to do things that others find of value. Something non-reciprocal.
It’s certainly a mindset that’s quite telling. For instance, this came to mind:
So, for some, the very idea that a grown-up person should pay their debts – or keep their word, or honour their promises – is something to be “defeated.”
Or, adulthood is such a drag.
Update 2:
It’s curious how often such complaints boil down to, “Other people, less fabulous people, should labour for free, for my benefit, until I say otherwise.” Which, it has to be said, is an odd construal of righteousness.
We’ve been here before, of course. As when an unhappy young madam realised, belatedly and with some annoyance, that bills have to be paid, and livings have to be earned. A seemingly overlooked detail that prompted much umbrage and baffled indignation, on grounds that cars and food and houses are things “which we should just be able to have.”
As I said in reply,
Children who, as adults, may then make TikTok videos of themselves bemoaning the fact that they aren’t simply being given a free house, and free food, and a free car, and free petrol for the free car. Children who, as adults, may then seem genuinely bewildered by the prospect of being responsible for the feeding and clothing of any children that they, in turn, might have.
Another thing occurs to me. If pretty much everything you need, or want, should just somehow be there anyway, on an indefinite basis, via some oddly unarticulated rearrangement of the universe, then it’s not obvious how gratitude might fit into such a mindset.
Answers on a postcard, please.
So the socialist wants to be an aristocrat?
The ratio tho
Or an owner of slaves, perhaps. Some arrangement in which he, Our Obvious Better, doesn’t have to do things that others find of value.
Not entirely unrelated:
It’s certainly a mindset that’s quite telling, inadvertently, and often impervious to argument. For instance:
Apparently, the very idea that a grown-up person should pay their debts – or keep their word, or honour their promises – is something to be “defeated.”
Or, adulthood is such a drag.
[ Post updated. ]
That.
As someone noted a while ago, in reply to much the same lamentation:
Or, “Reality should be arranged in such a way that I don’t have to lift a finger, or pay for anything, or do any of those smelly adult things. I should just be fabulous at someone else’s expense.”
and:
You can almost hear the battle cry of the entitled hood rat, “I am a queen!” (or king).
They don’t exactly say that they are themselves scientists, only “communicators”, or even that they have real degrees in real sciences, but I have known some who were just as clueless about life.
EDIT: See this Sierra Club article about him and Allison.
It typically boils down to, “Other people, less fabulous people, should labour for free, for my benefit.”
Which is an odd construal of righteousness.
We’ve been here before, of course:
In the months since, I still haven’t resolved that one.
[ Post updated again. ]
Commies should be parachuted onto remote desert islands to live their dream of a worker’s paradise.
Allison Jones and I (Alexi Grousis)…
To connect with people who looked like him? Ignoring for a moment the utter inanity that one can only connect with People of Pantone Color Matching, one has to wonder as a zookeeper in New Orleans whether he has ever been to New Orleans.
Commies should be parachuted onto remote desert islands to live their dream of a worker’s paradise.
Speaking of which, Bluto is never around when you need him.
That. And yet it’s mouthed as a credential, a basis for applause.
“And that after all this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins,
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
Unlike almost all other animals, animals in a zoo also don’t have to work to eat. The guy is a zookeeper. I think he is missing some connections here.
That is how socialism always turns out–as we all know and as socialists know but won’t publicly admit.
In the examples above, there’s quite a bit of evasion and rather sly euphemism. A lot of Not Following Through On The Thought. To a degree that suggests practice, or at least motivation.
And so, we get an extensive list of desired things that should apparently be “free,” or just there. By some oddly unspecified means. And which, in the real world, generally means that some other sucker will be forced to pick up your tab, over and over again, in perpetuity. The houses and cars and fuel, and the care and clothing of your own children. Oh, and the food, “which we should just be able to have.“
There’s something to be said for giving socialists a taste of real socialism. Gulag?
Heh.
[ Applies moisturiser. ]
Oh, and that thing that never happens has happened again.
It’s like a contest to see which can be the most vile – the child rapist or the ‘trans activists’.
I’m guessing we aren’t supposed to notice the not insignificant overlap of the two groups.
Seen in the responses:
I live in a condo with about 70 adults and it’s hard to get even 4 people to volunteer for condo board jobs that are far from dirty.
Would it be unfair to label ‘trans activists’ ‘uncaught child rapists’?
Yes, socialism can work because people will volunteer to do the hard and dirty jobs.
Slight correction.
I’m not implying that people are lazy: Most of these people are working, some have children, others are caring for elderly parents. Many of the elderly ones just don’t have the energy. Others worry that they don’t have the knowledge and skills to make good decisions. My attempt at a solution is to find ways to make it easier to be a board member–collecting the information they need for easy reference, documenting things that need to be done to reduce the learning curve, and so on. The result, I hope, will be to greatly reduce the fear factor for prospective volunteers.
“So the socialist wants to be an aristocrat?”
Pst314
I also have experience with volunteer-run organizations. It sums up to: the healthy functioning of such groups depends entirely on the free labor of a few dedicated, interested members. When they tire, or age out, the group flounders, then fails.
Sometimes the founding members are reluctant to cede control to capable newcomers. Mostly the newcomers have no clear idea of how much slog labor is needed. And sometimes the group is hijacked by members with a grossly different agenda.
19th Century Marxist: Seize the means of production!
21st Century Marxist: Assume the means of production!
Funny how things don’t change:
Judas Iscariot: “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?”
Progressive: “Why was the budget for this cruise ship not redirected to the poor?”
Don’t be Judas.
Of course, the building, operation and maintenance of that ship provides jobs for literally thousands of people.
Socialism/communism is a cargo cult.
Somewhat related:
Being so pious, our Guardian columnist goes on to wish misery upon people about whom she knows nothing at all, beyond the fact they have a nice house with an indoor swimming pool. She can’t wait for these people, these strangers, to be made “not so happy.”
Re the above:
Note, too, that Ms Hanson’s posturing starts with her own sourness and spite, her own bad personality, onto which an unconvincing, inaccurate, and wildly misleading argument is precariously balanced.
And Guardian readers applaud her.
“Chappie tells us that he’s a “Black communicator,”
But who is it he thinks he’s communicating with? It’s not us, and I very much doubt it’s his fellow Black community either, too busy making a living to listen to this effete child…
You do have a professional community management person I hope. Some of that effort should be offloaded onto (likely) her.
Sounds like she has some serious chips on her shoulder.
And Ms Hanson’s readers were so in tune with her sourness and presumption, they got quite competitive – trying to out-do each other with claims of how much they “abhor the rich,” and “detest” them, and telling us that anyone they deem too wealthy should be “hammered” for being “parasitical,” because wealth can only ever come from “exploitation,” apparently.
“Rich people are shits,” we’re told, and so the well-off should have their earnings “redistributed” – “aggressively” – to ease the fever dreams of Guardian readers, who care so very much, you see. One Guardian reader insisted “we need compassion and kindness to our planet and its beautiful creatures” and therefore – therefore – people deemed too well-off (by some unspecified measure) are “selfish morons” who will have to be dealt with by – wait for it – “revolution.”
As rational, factual statements, these outpourings leave something to be desired. But as expressions of an emotional attitude, a psychology, they communicate quite effectively.
Yes, although they haven’t been doing a very good job and we’re interviewing another one. A vital service.
Yeah, but what’s his face can’t take credit for that now can he?
Calls to mind a situation a few years ago, in which some neighbours decided to form a ladies’ gardening club. A handful of retired and middle-aged women doing a spot of recreational gardening sounds pretty genteel, you might think. But within two hours of starting, literally two hours, the rancour was peaking in the red, people had stopped speaking with each other, and the actual gardener, a man of some experience, was threatening to quit.
Juggling egos is not an insignificant skill.
Or maybe a religion…
“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
Fries!
See this Sierra Club article about him and Allison.
This stuff gets through the editorial process as racially progressive, and what it consists of is people saying unashamedly that interacting with other races makes them uncomfortable, introduces friction and misunderstanding, makes them long for single racial spaces where things are implicitly understood and there’s no need to walk on eggshells. And then being hypervigilant about whites maybe sometimes having some of the same feelings. If you were to take it on principle, it would be as confusing as a vegetarian conference where most of the speakers brag about looking forward to their steak dinner.
Also: Figuring out how to divvy up the tasks to suit the skills and comfort levels of the volunteers. And to make it known that this will be done so as to not overburden nervous potential volunteers.
Indeed. It’s hardly universal, but it manifests disturbingly often. I have found that little things which get a reciprocal response from random whites and Asians and Hispanics (such as a smile or nod when passing on the sidewalk) get a blank look or even sometimes a frozen face from blacks. Reaching out helpfully (“did you notice that your rear tires are dangerously underinflated?”) is likely to get no words in response just that blank or cold look. Things are much better in the suburbs but in the city I have learned that it is prudent to maintain neutral body language and not interact even with eye contact.
Is there any paranoia more damaging than black paranoia?
In summation, “I am forever fabulous, forever brilliant, forever flawless, forever incapable of error, and forever unhappy, because you people suck!!”