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Reheated (84)

November 13, 2023 35 Comments

Because you deserve no less, some items from the archives:

Their Happiness Hurt My Feelings.

When your Zoom-meeting décor is deemed oppressive.

It turns out that the reckless visibility of a wedding photo may be crushing the self-esteem out of the touchily unwed. You see, the mere sight of a photo of someone’s happy day can “crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities,” albeit in ways never quite explained. Other taboos include references to “simple activities like family dance parties,” which are apparently a thing, and “gardening with a spouse.”

Curiously, given the stated importance of “sensitivity” and being mindful of what things might mean, we aren’t invited to ponder the kind of person who would resent someone else’s wedding photo. And then complain about it. Or whether such neurotic affectations, these unhappy mental habits, are something to be actively encouraged. In the name of progress. At a university.

Their Fevered Brows.

Let’s visit the pages of Salon, where the delusional hyperventilate.

Dr Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a lecturer in Italian Studies, is of course on-message: “I’m very upset that there are in fact Trump supporters and I have zero sympathy towards them.” This is followed by pointed references to Hitler and Mussolini – because hey, why not? – and whisperings of a cowed and fearful media: “Many people in the news media are afraid to really engage the fact that Trump is an authoritarian because if they do so then reality becomes too threatening, and therefore they would have to take a different stance publicly.”

Readers are invited to take a moment to reflect on Mr Trump’s famously warm and not at all fractious relationship with the mainstream media, which never, ever calls him names. Like “proto-fascist,” for instance. Or when MSNBC’s Niccole Wallace breathlessly announced that the President was genocidal and, for reasons left to the imagination, clearly bent on “exterminating Latinos.” Or when the same broadcaster’s Frank Figliuzzi suggested that Trump’s lowering of flags following a shooting tragedy was actually a coded salute to Adolf Hitler.

Apparently, these things never happened, are not in fact bizarrely routine, and the pundits at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, NBC, Salon, etc., are just too terrified and deferential to admit, as Dr Ben-Ghiat puts it, that “they are living in the middle of a fascist, authoritarian takeover.”

But Why Aren’t People Rushing To Buy My Art?

Deep thoughts, shifting paradigms, and heads wrapped in meat.

For those who may be confounded by the profundity of the piece, a handy walk-through guide is available. Said guide points out that the performance will encourage among onlookers “a deeper level of critical thought.” Of the many ruminations that will doubtless be inspired is the following: “After seeing someone wrap their head in meat twice, does it still hold the same weight as it did the first time?”

The guide notes, rather earnestly, that the first attempt, by Mr Carvalho – to envelop his head in bread, string, and assorted meat products – prompted more amusement from the tiny audience than the subsequent repetition of it by Ms Cochrane. This is presented as an invitation to “a fundamental shift in paradigm” and some allegedly profound insight into gender politics. Or, how “different actions are read on different bodies.” Our artistic deep thinkers are seemingly unaware of the concepts of novelty and diminishing returns. 

Other feats of head-wrapping are also available.

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Written by: David
Ephemera

Friday Ephemera (700)

November 10, 2023 104 Comments

The thrill of smoking cannabis. (h/t, Dr W) || The thrill of boxing fragile objects. || Man explains lesbianism. || Helpful instructions. || The hunt for optimal toasting. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || Artistic license. || Maybe the rattling is a good sign. || She may be a little bit racist. || Road users of note. || The North-South divide, 1970. || Villains falling to their deaths, parts 1-30. || DETRANS, a documentary. || His periods make him feel sad and fatigued, but also “kinda nice.” || “The pull of gravity here is much weaker than anywhere else on Earth.” || The progressive retail experience, parts 512, 513, 514, 515, and 516. || She wants to “be safe” while she does it. || “You’re being a white man.” || Missing keys. || The machine uprising, day 7. || Today’s word is pursuit. || When you’re all prepped for Disney World. || Tastes like perfume. || And finally, the thrill of podcasting.

If tempted, you can follow me on X / Twitter.

To register with the blog and thereby enable extra commenting options – including @username mentions and live notifications – scroll down to the black ‘Meta’ box at the very bottom of the page. It’s free and quite painless.

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Anthropology Politics Those Poor Darling Thieves

I Know, Let’s All Pretend That Behaviour Doesn’t Matter

November 8, 2023 30 Comments

Lifted from the comments, a difference of opinion:

This is the easiest bullet to bite: yes, I value my stuff more than I value the life of a thief I’ve never even met. https://t.co/h4QVDNz2xX

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) November 7, 2023

As I posted in reply,

Flattening values, such that the criminal and their victims are somehow equal in moral worth, is a staple of progressive schtick. But it seems to me that the decision to try to steal someone’s dog is precisely how you know that that person’s wellbeing is of very low importance.

A slightly different perspective:

The better way to understand this is that the thief himself values your stuff more than his life. He’s the one who made that decision.

If an example of the aforementioned schtick is needed, this comes to mind:

To recap. According to Mr Ford, our “proud SJW,” the lone woman being attacked at a bus stop on her way to work shouldn’t have defended herself – because, we’re told, “If she had let him rob her, even at gunpoint, both likely would have survived.” And apparently, the well-being of the mugger – who was mugging while on probation – trumps any desire for self-defence, even if the victim fears for her life.

At which point, I think one has to ask an obvious question. In the case of the mugger, survived to do what? Continue mugging women, presumably. Which, in turn, raises the question of exactly how many assaults and armed muggings, or worse, a mugger’s survival is worth.

Answers on a postcard, please.

In the archives, you’ll find many variations on this theme. As when we were told – by Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender – that a dislike of having your home invaded by feral, malevolent predators, and having the lives of your family put in mortal danger, “comes from a place of privilege.”

Or, this rather nightmarish example of antisocial liveliness:

What would you do in this case?

https://t.co/w2joaaDoSx

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 4, 2023

Following which, I added:

It’s perhaps worth noting that egalitarian assumptions don’t exactly help on this front – say, the belief that such creatures are just like us, only more oppressed, and that their wellbeing is somehow a matter of great importance. A conceit that is not only wrong, and insulting, but which is often disabling when it really matters.

If, for instance, someone with a big, shiny knife is breaking into your home in the middle of the night, you should not, ideally, be distracted by any great concern for whether or not your attempt at self-defence results in them getting injured or ceasing to be. Not least because their ceasing-to-be would be a very good thing. A gift to the world.

Among our betters, however, all manner of contortions can be performed:

Readers may wish to ponder the implicit conceit that the burglars – the ones brandishing carving knives – are the real victims and should therefore be spared any meaningful consequence of their own chosen actions, their own sociopathy. Because, apparently, one should sympathise with the people breaking into one’s home and driving off with one’s stuff. In one’s own car. 

Though perhaps these are skills only available to more elevated beings, including, obviously, Guardian columnists.

Update, via the comments:

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Free-For-All Pronouns Or Else

Not Really Worth The Effort, Love

November 6, 2023 42 Comments

And in never-happy news:

You are not an ally to the TQ+ unless you affirm every single delusion.

Even if a person goes by all pronouns… using ones that align with their sex is still going to be wrong. pic.twitter.com/7xWXu44v4L

— L G B (@L__G__B) November 6, 2023

She’s “genderfluid,” you see, and “goes by all pronouns.” But if insufficiently pretentious people refer to her as she – i.e., accurately – this simply won’t do and scolding will ensue. And your “ally” status, which you’re supposed to crave and be willing to beg for, will be downgraded to merely “performative.” Despite the claim that she’s, like, you know, totally fine with “all pronouns.”

Because the scolding must never end. The scolding being the point.

Update, via the comments, where Jen adds,

Easier not to be a sucker “ally”.

It does seem to be more of a commitment than self-respect – or indeed sanity – would allow. What with the round-the-clock monitoring of pronoun earrings and pronoun bracelets, and double-sided pronoun lanyards, which can of course change, or be combined in absurdly complicated ways, at any point during the day, based on a whim, a mood swing, or a slight change in air pressure.

It would, I think, be simpler to just find some better friends.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

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Anthropology Free-For-All You Can't Afford My Radical Life

Rules For Thee

November 4, 2023 44 Comments

Lifted from the comments, an item you may have missed.

In our discussion about The Activist-Wanker Caste and its signature disdain for reciprocation, I wrote:

I suppose some people are all but destined to join apocalyptic cults. It isn’t too hard to see the appeal of the fervour and license of a new-found religion – conveniently stripped of those annoying restrictions on one’s own behaviour. Only the behaviour of others.

Well, sometimes an example of what you’re talking about comes along that seems almost too on-the-nose. Specifically,

A judge has refused to delay the trial of Just Stop Oil protesters charged with storming a West End performance of Les Misérables after one of the defendants said she was flying to India.

No, really.

It turns out that Ms Lydia Gribbin, one of the five protestors, had assumed that only other people’s lifestyles should be curtailed, that only other people’s plans can be thwarted with impunity.

Update, via the comments:

I was reminded of this post from deep in the archives, in which former Guardian columnist Mr Sunny Hundal boasted of his support for Plane Stupid, an activist group whose members vandalised airports and obstructed runways, disrupting the journeys of thousands of would-be passengers. A group whose pronouncements included “Aviation is mostly unnecessary.”

Mr Hundal wanted us to know that,

Environmental issues is one area where I don’t yield much, and frankly when people snort angrily about Plane Stupid that gives me even more pleasure.

Though not, I suspect, quite as much pleasure as his own extensive air travel adventures – flying halfway around the planet, twice, to India then California – adventures that were excitedly announced shortly before his declaration of support for Plane Stupid: “Honestly, I love these guys.”

FredTheFourth adds,

They clearly can’t be shamed.

Well, it helps to bear in mind that such ostentatious pieties are very often a kind of camouflage for quite vain and obnoxious people. People whose own hypocrisies and dishonesties, however glaring, do not appear to embarrass them, or alter their behaviour. Consequently, yes, they’re difficult to shame.

They’re the kind of unspanked little tossers who gleefully vandalise petrol stations, rendering them unusable, while applauding themselves, and who conflate “not being heard” with not being obeyed. The kind of preening dolts who film themselves pouring oil onto busy roads, an act morally analogous to sabotaging the brakes of random cars and motorbikes.

This is who they are.

These are people for whom vandalising art galleries, with hammers, and physically obstructing thousands of people, including emergency vehicles, for hours, and doing it over and over again – is somehow “peaceful,” benign, and terribly high-minded.

From here, it looks more like a narcissist’s power game, a kind of recreational sociopathy. I mean, if someone gets their jollies from screwing over random people and watching their victims’ exasperation and pleading – if that’s what makes our mighty warriors feel powerful and important – then the term recreational sociopathy does not seem inapt.

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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.