Elsewhere (279)
Michael Jones on the Clown Quarter’s approximation of scholarship:
In her paper, How to Write as Felt: Touching Transmaterialities and More-Than-Human Intimacies, University of Toronto scholar Stephanie Springgay suggests that felt, a “dense material of permanently interlocking fibres,” can be linked to racism and capitalism.
It’s those “cis-heteronormative White supremacist settler colonial logics,” you see. And the “queer self-touching,” obviously.
Charles Cooke on the latest young titan of US socialism:
Speaking to a friendly Trevor Noah, [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she does not know the difference between a one-year and a ten-year budget; confused the recent increase in defence spending with the entire annual cost of the military; implied that the population of the United States was around 800 million strong; and, having been asked to defend her coveted $15 minimum wage, launched into a rambling and inscrutable diatribe about “private equity” firms that would have been a touch too harsh as a parody on South Park.
Charlotte Allen on “healthy masculinity,” as defined by campus woke-lings:
In May, the University of Texas-Austin hastily pulled back a programme on “healthy masculinity” that its counselling staff had devised – amid a flood of ridicule over such aspects of the programme as posters depicting young men wearing pencilled-in dresses (complete with bust-lines) and encouraging UT’s male students to try nail polish and makeup. The programme, titled “MasculinUT” and devised in 2015, had been originally marketed as a means of reducing campus sexual assault and domestic violence. Instead, as even UT administrators ultimately conceded, it mainly consisted of promoting “gender fluidity” and the treatment of traditional masculine roles and goals — such as focusing on career “success,” becoming the family “breadwinner,” and being told to “act like a man” — as inherently pathological.
And Jonah Goldberg on Sarah Jeong and racism as a credential at the New York Times:
You can run similar thought experiments about virtually any group. If all you need to know about Oscar Wilde is that he was a gay dude, just like Richard Simmons or Milo what’s-his-name, you’re a bigot. If Meyer Lansky and Albert Einstein are merely two Jews to you, you’re an anti-Semite. If Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc, and Lizzie Borden are just three chicks, you’re a sexist. But for some bizarre reason, for many people, this idea evaporates like water off a hot skillet when you replace any of these categories with “white” or, very often, “male.”
Suddenly fancy words and phrases fly like sawdust from a wood chipper: “structures of oppression!” “decontextualized!” “ahistoricized!” etc. It’s all so clever and complicated. The same people who take to the streets at the slightest suggestion that Muslims can be judged by the evil deeds of other Muslims will lecture and harangue you for hours, mob you on Twitter, or condescendingly dismiss you for not understanding that all white people have it coming.
If the cleverness and complication mentioned above seems incoherent – and if the selectivity with which the New Rules Of Victimhood are applied suggests bad faith on the part of those mouthing them – it may help to bear in mind the kinds of evasion, projection and preening spite that intersectional voodoo makes possible. And hence the kinds of personalities most strongly drawn to it. For instance, the aforementioned cleverness has enabled Ms Rani Molla, a graduate of Oberlin and Columbia, to know which members of the lower classes she can sneer at with impunity while expecting applause and in-group kudos. Because, thanks to intersectional calculus, they, not she, “have every advantage.” Which is why they’re working in a chicken rendering plant and being sneered at as “privileged,” and therefore inherently contemptible, by an Ivy League graduate who writes for the Wall Street Journal.
Such is wokeness.
For some background on Ms Jeong and her history of dementedly racist outpourings, see this thread here.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
the Clown Quarter’s approximation of scholarship
*backs away slowly*
*fetches medication*
Evidently Prof Springgay (really?) had to pick a new dissertation topic at the last minute when someone else beat her to the punch (or was it pulp?) with a breakthrough dissertation on the intersectionality of cheesecloth. Five minutes of panic ensued before Springgay’s dissertation chair suggested simply replacing “cheesecloth” with “felt” in the manuscript, thereby opening up new horizons of scholarship, and founding a new academic discipline. A team of writers is at work on a screenplay telling the harrowing story of Springgay’s research and discoveries. Working title: Felt Up!
*backs away slowly*
*fetches medication*
The ripened pretension is quite a thing. And when the mangled blather about quantum mechanics kicks in, she’s veering into Carolyn Guertin territory, where logic goes to die, and where words can be piled randomly, in no particular order, and with no regard whatsoever for what they actually mean.
Tim Newman shares some thoughts on the Sarah Jeong saga.
For some background on Ms Jeong and her history of dementedly racist outpourings…
Yet another thing she does not cotton to…
The NY Times believes this too was caused by wypipo.
“American society is fast approaching a tipping point where arguing about racism is simply no longer credible. The arguments have become trite and all of them are used disingenuously—as cudgels—to simply extract concessions from other tribes.”
“Felting as a posthuman proposition demands that we stop thinking broadly about … education. Instead we need to consider intimate transmaterial touching relations that do not intensify settler colonial mastery over human and nonhuman life.”
And now, for some inexplicable reason, I have Blur’s ‘Parklife’ as an earworm…
for some inexplicable reason, I have Blur’s ‘Parklife’ as an earworm…
Heh.
The programme, titled “MasculinUT” and devised in 2015, had been originally marketed as a means of reducing campus sexual assault and domestic violence. Instead, as even UT administrators ultimately conceded, it mainly consisted of promoting “gender fluidity” and the treatment of traditional masculine roles and goals — such as focusing on career “success,” becoming the family “breadwinner,” and being told to “act like a man” — as inherently pathological.
Curious. Any Texans ‘round these parts? Do Longhorns still rip on Aggies? I vaguely recall Baylor as being ridiculed for being sissified as well.
traditional masculine roles and goals — such as focusing on career “success,” becoming the family “breadwinner,” and being told to “act like a man” — as inherently pathological.
Yes, those well-known pathologies of hoping to be successful and well-rewarded, and wanting to support your family, and trying to be stoical in the face of petty torments.
“Furiously Felting”, in public no less. She’s going to go blind.
that would have been a touch too harsh as a parody on South Park.
Chairman Mao Say: Buy My Doll
I hope she keeps talking.
Thanks, Darleen. We’ll sleep well tonight.
“Any Texans ‘round these parts? Do Longhorns still rip on Aggies?”
I lived in the Dallas area from 1980 to 1990 and heard numerous Aggie jokes. As it was long ago, I only recall one now however.
Aggie research: Do crickets hear? (abbreviated version)
Aggies researchers tested their hearing theory by ripping off a crickets legs one by one. After each leg was removed, they yelled “Jump” at the cricket. And each time the cricket jumped until there was only one leg left. After removing the last leg and yelling “Jump”, the cricket did not move. They concluded that “If you remove a cricket’s legs it can not hear you.”
Such was the nature of Aggie jokes.
Love weaves its own tapestry, spins its own golden thread, with its own sweet breath breathes into being its mysteries–bucolic, lusty, gentle as the eyes of daisies or thick with pain. And out of its own music creates the flesh of our lives. If the birds sing, the nudes are not far off. Even the dialogue of the frogs is rapturous.
As for me, since late boyhood and early manhood, and throughout the more than eighteen years of my nearly perfect marriage, I always allowed myself to assume whatever shape was destined to be my own in the silken weave of Love’s pink panorama. I always went where the thread wound…
A lovely metaphor and passage, is it not? It’s John Hawkes in “The Blood Oranges.”
Now take it and shove it through the feminist/deconstructionist meat-grinder, and that’s how you wind up with the leaden, incomprehensible “How to Write As Felt:”
“In felting, wool fibres co-mingle and enmesh and evoke what Barad (2012) refers to as a queer self-touching. When we touch ourselves, she writes, we encounter an uncanny sense of the stranger or otherness within the self. Using quantum theory to shape a theory of self-touching, Barad explains how a particle touches itself, and then that touching subsequently touches itself, releasing an infinite chain of touching touches.”
We’ve come so far!
Sarah at Harvard
…and not just men, but white men … see the world.
For an Asian, I am guessing she is unfamiliar with the geographical concept of Asia (SE & SW), not to mention Africa, and South America (no to bring up the point of tendency towards genuine suckiness in those places for the average Joe and Jane).
“American society is fast approaching a tipping point where arguing about racism is simply no longer credible. The arguments have become trite and all of them are used disingenuously—as cudgels—to simply extract concessions from other tribes.”
On a (slight) tangent, Stormfront’s mouth-breathing readership has completely annexed Breitbart’s comment section, and are now waging a full-frontal assault on Instapundit. Did you know I’m a “SJW jackboot”, and have “a reading comprehension disability that is quite typical among the NeoNazis that comprise the left” (both replies in the same thread by a couple of the resident “white nationalists” (don’t you dare call them neo-nazis or you be denounced as a “cultural Marxist”) for having the temerity of jokingly commenting that a post about Sarah Jeong was bait for the white nationalists (which did indeed attract scores of them – and comments claiming the Jews are “enemies of the white race” seemed to appear at random).
It’s always nice when they strive to live up to the stereotype, just like our RadFem friends.
Did you know I’m a “SJW jackboot”,
It started with a bit of henna, just as an experiment, and then came the piercings…
The tat was probably just the confirmation… (o_O)
There’s a song from the early 80’s that keeps popping up in my head more and more frequently. It’s manifesting itself about once a week now…
https://youtu.be/IasCZL072fQ
Ah,yes. Missing Persons. Wonder whatever happened to them.
Such was the nature of Aggie jokes.
Two Aggie Forestry Grads go to a job fair looking for employment. The first Aggie enters a small interview room and comes back to his friend within five minutes. “How did it go,” his friend asked. “Great! He asked me what I did. I told him and he hired me on the spot.” The second Aggie, fortified with confidence from his friend’s story, enters the interview room. The interviewer asks him what he does. The Aggie says, “I’m a wood cutter.” The interviewer tells him, “I’m sorry but we don’t have any need for wood cutters.” The Aggie replies, “But you hired my friend.” The interviewer tells him, “That’s true, but your friend is a Pilot.” The second Aggie is incredulous and says, “Just how do think he’s going to be able to pile it if I don’t cut it first?”
Such is the nature of Aggie jokes.
Such is the nature of Aggie jokes.
Heh. Please tell me this is a commonly stated thing. There are sooo many lame jokes that I think of but are too embarrassed by their lameness to say out loud that could be very useful around a couple Texans I know if I finished them with “such is the nature of Aggie jokes”. Might take some work to lure them in for the kill though.
Christina’s response of note.
Such is the nature of Aggie jokes.
On the other hand, the only way an Aggie can get a tea-sip off his porch is to pay for the pizza.
An Aggie and a tea-sip are walking down the road, the Aggie stops, picks up a rock, and hands it to the tea-sip, “Here”, he says, “you dropped your ID.”
How many freshman tea-sips does it take to screw in a light bulb ? None, that is a course for seniors.
Such is the nature of Longhorn jokes…
As I’ve said on two other threads, this business of Asians jumping on the “POC Bandwagon” is hilarious to me. East Asian societies are the most insular, jingoistic and racist societies on the planet. They all hate each other and hate non-Asians worse. Trying to scream about systemic White Supremacist oppression with a CV that has lines for UC-Berkeley, Harvard Law and The New York Times smacks of adolescent desperation to be accepted by the “cool kids.”
Further, I noted a tweet where she announces unironically that she is a member of the “Left Wing Elite.” I read that and immediately thought of Fredo in Godfather II.
Christina’s response of note.
I seem to have spent quite a bit of time over the past few months deleting publications from my news feeds on Google and Flipboard, etc. Entirely unrelated, I’m sure.
Trying to scream about systemic White Supremacist oppression with a CV that has lines for UC-Berkeley, Harvard Law and The New York Times…
It’s odd how this mannered and ostentatious language of victimhood has been embraced largely by upper-middle-class students at expensive and statusful universities, chiefly upper-middle-class women, many of whom have been beneficiaries of overt and institutional racial favouritism. A favouritism denied to those they deem privileged. For such creatures to feign downtrodden status, and expect to be applauded for it, and deferred to, suggests a learned unrealism and a pathological vanity.
One that results in a kind of triumphant obnoxiousness.
Meanwhile in the wold of cultural appropriation, skinny eyebrows are “problematic”.
Famed chola Myrna Loy was unavailable for comment.
Neither were Marlene Dietrich (real name Maria Elena de Tricio), nor Fay Wray (Faibrica Raimundo).
Apropos of absolutely nothing, bird vs. fastball.
bird vs. fastball.
It’s tricky to do, but it saves a lot of plucking.
…but it saves a lot of plucking.
That, and tenderizing.
The programme, titled “MasculinUT”
Sounds like it should be titled “MescalineUT.”
“Ah,yes. Missing Persons. Wonder whatever happened to them.”
The clue is in the name, shurely?
And in celebrity news.
Via Obnoxio.
The clue is in the name, shurely?
Yeah…ummm..Shirley had to leave town unexpectedly. Roger?
“Christina’s response of note.”
So, er… when do they start?
Warning sign of note: https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/1026134924057870336
Damn it, meant to put that in the Ephemera thread. Sorry.
Damn it, meant to put that in the Ephemera thread. Sorry.
Distracted by the tentacles, obviously.
Wiki-war of note.
Possibly. It was either the tentacles or the weird and highly disturbing Diane Abbott/Ed Miliband mash-up thing Darleen posted above.
Wiki-war of note.
Now there’s a rabbit hole. But there are foxes in the garden, so bugger that.
*fetches medication*
Methinks you mispelled ‘tranquilizer gun’
Curious. Any Texans ‘round these parts? Do Longhorns still rip on Aggies? I vaguely recall Baylor as being ridiculed for being sissified as well.
I graduated from UT first in ’93 (BS Geology) and again in ’00 (MS Library “Science”). Aggie jokes were fairly common, but I haven’t lived there in over ten years now, so I can’t comment on the current state of Aggie-related humor in Berkeley-on-the-Colorado. Whenever I go visit (less and less often for some reason) the place is busier, more crowded, and more stultifying than the last time.
“…a string of words…”
Re Ms Jeong and her dementedly racist outpourings, a Guardian contributor engages excuse-making mode:
“Voicy and brash,” says she. Via sk60.
Seth Barron on the same:
As any parent of small children ought to know, if you repeatedly indulge an assumption of impunity, of unearned exemptions and non-reciprocal standards, what follows is rarely edifying. And yet here we are.
Also, this.
Combine the attitude demonstrated in my “string of words” link above, that all human activities must be regulated by a self-selected (and undoubtedly progressive) elite with the attitude that Caucasians cannot be the victims of racism and you have a recipe for civil war. Or Trump in 2020 in the best, non-violent case.