Trigger warning
It’s hard to even read this news story here. Even the politically correct UK Independent newspaper – well known for political correctness – appears to find it too much.
It’s worse than this: it is unhinged. This is the result of 30 years of Postmodernist charlatanry, extreme identity politics, political correctness and that peculiar sub-species of Postmodernism called Postcolonialism.
People are laughing their asses off at the left, and with good reason.
The left is just turning itself into a laughing stock with its infantile, idiotic, whining, hysterical, endless victimology.
To add to the mix, we read that university students in America are protesting against… “culturally insensitive” Halloween costumes – of all the things in the world to protest against.
One wonders what sort of bubble these people live in, and how the poor things are going to survive in the real world. Another thing that amazes me: isn’t this the same generation that grew up watching Borat and Bruno, movies which contain some extreme politically incorrect material?
The next time a major financial crisis or global recession hits the world, I fully expect some people on the left will be too busy with their “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to even pay any attention whatsoever to the real world.
Anyway, my message to the poor dears: you should listen to as much politically incorrect humour as possible and f**#ing grow up.
Start with this one below.
Trigger warning: politically incorrect humour follows!
Friday 2 April 1982.
ReplyDeleteI am not just making a joke. That is the day the Falklands war started. The very day before I was discussing with left wing friends Jacobo Timerman and the horrors of the Argentine junta. Then on that Friday they all flipped, as neatly as American communists did in 1939 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The generals might be murdering, torturing despots, but the real enemy was a now evident: from the wrong class with the wrong education, and the wrong policies on unions and tuition.
That opened my eyes.
Were they Marxists?
DeleteNo. Garden variety left wingers and liberals.
DeleteI was naive enough to be surprised. Of course I was very foolish when young; I supported Carter in 1980.
While that is idiotic I could say the same for prominent right-wingers (as in ones with a platform, not some random people I knew in school) who started fawning over Putin just because he was opposed to Obama and was seen as upholding Christian conservatism (ala Patrick Buchanan and Fox News). The "enemy of my enemy" mindset can happen to any political group.
DeleteOh no doubt; there are toads everywhere. But the uniformity of the response was striking. There were two things in the early 80s that affected my thinking mightily. This was one, but more important was the witch hunt against E O Wilson and sociobiology. That was where I saw clearly how I had misjudged so many people. I remember one book "exposing" sociobiology that was so bad, as bad as the Pomo shit LK rails against here, by Kitcher, I was stunned. He presented an obvious mathematical error as if it were a brilliant refutation, in the most snide and overtly partisan way. An education in intellectual dishonesty even Bob Murphy can't rival.
DeleteWill's favourite, Ann Althouse, is daft on this too. http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/11/this-is-not-just-some-oddity-from.html
ReplyDeleteShe's geting mocked though. http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/11/this-is-not-just-some-oddity-from.html?showComment=1448225269157#c5475953337250753869
Now do you believe me that she's gibberingly crazy? Ann Althouse is what happens when you marry the crazy right (neocon right mostly) and the crazy left. She has no ideology beyond being generally confused and creating bizarre (though, to her credit, oddly specific) conspiracy theories.
DeleteTo be honest, I think they were too busy in the last financial crisis (what else explains unthinking support for the EU by most of the "left" in the face of shocking youth unemployment).
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteA supposed "leftist" who loves racist jokes.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure you're not a Zizek fan?
And why do you assume that a leftist must *love* something when they are merely in favour of free speech?
DeleteSince you asked, it's because of this: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/01/10/when-satire-cuts-both-ways/in-unequal-an-world-mocking-all-serves-the-powerful
Delete(A touch dated on subject matter but the principle is the same.)
So, even if you don't support racism notionally, your position lends it support on a substantive basis, given real power differences in society.
First, the author of that article is calling for self-censorship, not government censorship, if people personally choose to self-censor. Different issue.
DeleteSecondly, the idea that satire that can mock everything "equally ends up serving the powerful" is plainly B.S.
Did you have an argument to support your verdict of "plainly B.S.", or will the assertion do?
DeleteOr, from a different angle: Are you just saying there is no structural basis of privilege and disadvantage in society? (Because when he says "the question ... is not whether we ought to limit ourselves, but how we already limit ourselves," that's exactly the notion he's getting at. It's pretty much Leftism 101.)
"Are you just saying there is no structural basis of privilege and disadvantage in society?"
DeleteNo.
And nice way to use the shifting the goalposts fallacy.
So, just the assertion, then. Got it.
Deleteoh, and if you think the goalposts moved, then you never understood where they were in the first place
Assuming that "serving the interests of the powerful" is necessarily wrong is a reflexive leftist position without foundation. It is good that the police are more powerful than criminals, and law-abiding citizens should be happy to serve their interests in that particular conflict. It is equally good that the armed forces of Nato are more powerful than those of the ISIS or North Korea.
DeleteWhether making jokes about ISIS or North Korea serves the interests of Nato is debatable, but I'd be happy to do it if it provided their service personnel with some small degree of moral support.
You're against content labeling, and you don't believe culturally embedded racism is worth fighting. Cool.
ReplyDeleteThanks for regurgitating Murdoch media talking points. With leftists like you, who needs a right wing?
Tell it to Uncle Joe, Hedlund. I'm sure he fix it right up with mass murder and gulags.
DeleteBut then no doubt like other authoritarians you loath free speech, don't you?
Why would my uncle care? He can be a touch racist at times, himself.
DeleteJoking aside, am I allowed to post here again, or was this a one-time allowance? Because I got some stuff to say about a bunch of things you've been writing of late. Might make a weekend of it.
Because vetting comments in the comments section of a blog is no free speech issue in the great American tradition of free speech. You can get your own blog.
DeleteViolation of free speech happens when the **government** prosecutes you for saying an opinion or makes a law violating free speech or in a public institution or government-financed institution to violate free speech.
However, there is no reason why Jews must be unreasonably forced to have neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers to speak at their synagogues. This is a private property rights issue. Neo-Nazis are free to rave at street corners or in their homes, but not trespass and spew forth their B.S on others' private property.
Same with the comments section here. This is under private control and just as I would not let you vandalise my house with quotations from Karl Marx there is no reason I should post Marxist spam or trolling.
I wasn't talking about free speech, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up. I was asking a question re: YOUR policy (vis-a-vis your blog) regarding ME posting comments. Could you please answer it?
DeleteI don't "spam" or "vandalize" you; I've only ever quoted Marx during discussions about what Marx said. I'm not sure many people would find this objectionable.
Anyway, you've been "vetting" 100% of my posts since August, most of which had nothing to do with Marx -- such as when I tried to answer your question on how Kant relates to Critical Realism, etc. So I don't think you've been very consistent on that point, or at least not in the way you suggest.
I've never trolled you (at least that I can recall), and at several points I've said that if you simply tell me "don't come around here anymore," I'll respect your wishes. Is it unreasonable of me to expect such a level of courtesy be reciprocated? Because if I'm being unreasonable, I hope I can count on you to let me know.
Headlined, your very first post on this thread is at least close to trolling, being a slanted and foolish false accusation. Courtesy? You call names. And many of your responses are non responsive.
DeleteHi Ken. I am not sure what you mean about me calling names, unless this is your way of saying you're peeved about the time I called you out for behaving like a rude, insulting bully. Still waiting on an apology for that, btw. I'm certain that whomever reared you would have instilled this as a value.
DeleteOtherwise, please don't address me, let alone with accusations taking liberties with the truth. Thanks.
Hedlund,
DeleteKen B is too lenient with you.
You don't know why people accuse you of name calling? Take a look at your first comment on this tread, where you clearly imply I am a racist because I (allegedly) "don't believe culturally embedded racism is worth fighting."
I have said no such thing; I just dispute that doing yoga is in any sense "racist". Nor do I think that a person wearing a Mexican outfit as a Halloween costume is doing anything inherently racist, since the person in question may well love Mexican culture.
On other comments which I have simply deleted you accuse me of being "fascist" for not publishing your apologetics for the Soviet Union. And don't waste my time by denying this.
However, I have a tolerant and forgiving spirit.
I am planning to return to my reviews of Marx's Capital soon, and if your comments are sensible I will publish them if I think they really do add to the discussion.
If we're defining "name calling" to include an "implication" (really more of an inference, the likes of which I would dispute), then I would urge you to engage in a little self-criticism, seeing as you've called me everything from "imbecile" to "wanker" this year. I won't go digging for it, but you know as well as I do that there have been points where we'd both have been well served by reining it in a bit. I'll start fresh if you will.
DeleteI am planning to return to my reviews of Marx's Capital soon, and if your comments are sensible I will publish them if I think they really do add to the discussion.
We'll see.
On other comments which I have simply deleted you accuse me of being "fascist" for not publishing your apologetics for the Soviet Union. And don't waste my time by denying this.
Of course I won't deny it. That was one time, and it was long after you'd stopped publishing me. Not my most diplomatic moment, I'll agree. FWIW, there was actually a theoretical basis behind the remark pertinent to the context in which it was offered, which we can discuss later if you wish. Though I'd just as soon not.
LK
DeleteHedlund, after some other insulting remarks, also called me "low" and other names. He's full of sh*t on this "I'm Mr Courtesy you rude pigs!" schtick of his.
Also, I might be able to shed a little light on the Halloween costume issue. The point draws upon the generality of representation. That is, if you're dressing up as a particular Mexican -- say, Emiliano Zapata -- I doubt anyone would object.
DeleteHowever, the more general the "cultural" costume concept, the more it subjects that entire culture to an increasingly narrow set of tropes, and said tropes are usually only easily culturally communicable because they have their origins in racist representation -- the "generic Mexican" with a sombrero, poncho, and bandoliers taking a siesta against a building, or what have you.
Generally speaking, one might hope someone who loves Mexican culture will be sensitive to such concerns.
Pretty sure I called your *behavior* low, Ken, not you as a person. If you can prove me wrong, then I'll gladly apologize.
DeleteIt bears repeating: Of the three of us (me, LK, Ken), I remain the only one to have offered apologies -- often without prompting -- when I have overstepped.
I don't understand why some people make these very basic courtesies into something controversial. If one steps on another's foot, whether one means to or not, one ought apologize. It's that simple.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/05/karl-popper-on-labour-theory-of-value.html?showComment=1433440754142#c2401404912305830087
DeleteFirst of all, thanks for following up on that. You're right; I could have expressed the same sentiment much less rudely, e.g., with "that's" instead of "you're."
DeleteSorry about that. Mea culpa.
Anyway, as long as we're clearing the air:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/05/karl-popper-on-labour-theory-of-value.html?showComment=1433385533158#c4879997006096059704
Or, to jump back to the start of our less-than-pleasant dealings:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/05/debunking-marxism-101.html?showComment=1430864836209#c3814184083371298751
Shall we turn a new leaf?
Sup guys, is this the place where leftists come to talk rot about issues that matter to disadvantaged people, and punch left during a time of historic regression?
ReplyDeleteSign me up!
If you think “culturally insensitive” Halloween costumes are an issue to cry tears about, what are you going to do when you are confronted with *really* evil people?
DeleteCry and have a tantrum?
That's pretty much what I've been thinking the more I keep hearing about this nonsense in the news. There's one YouTube video I watched by this young woman made me cringe when I saw it and I've been dealing with gold pumpers and right-libertarian idiots for years and hadn't come across stupidity this bad. She didn't bother to cite any kind of peer reviewed study or citation for any of what she was saying and she's only a college student and has around 20,000 subscribers on her channel and some people actually take her seriously instead of denouncing such a clown. If you want to see the video, here's what I saw the other day.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtsHv7iUZSE
This is what we're up against and I didn't think that this kind of mentality would spread to the part of the left wing atheist community on YouTube but it has. I did do some Googling and there are sources that are saying the same thing but I'm not sure if they are credible or not and there was one link on this where the article was saying that conservatives are misunderstanding what Foucault was trying to say. Maybe you might have more insight on this topic than I do.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/03/04/sexuality_as_social_construct_foucault_is_misunderstood_by_conservatives.html
What are your thoughts on modern day feminism and do you think postmodernism has partially influenced some of the branches of thinking in that movement? It's a topic that I feel that organizations like the American Enterprise Institute have been seeing a huge opportunity to recruit people over their side even though as you have been saying, this sort of stuff is making the left look bad now. It's handing MRAs, conservative groups, and a lot of that crowd that I don't agree with a huge plate of ammunition against these kinds of people. Essentially, it's one of the big "debates" on the site now and it's distracting a lot of people from economic issues and other things that actually matter the most in the end. Several years ago, I never thought this would happen at all, but I don't know how to come to terms with it.
(1) pointing to a minority of people who have genetic abnormalities or deformities or infertility does not refute biological determinism. She needs to learn some Darwinian evolution, where you learn that sexually-reproducing species have individual variation, genetic mutation or disease. E.g., Klinefelter Syndrome only affects 1 in 500 to 1,000 newborn males.
DeleteNone of this refutes the fact that in a normal healthy person genes determine your sex and your genitalia and physiology.
(2) as for human sexuality as with many aspects of human behaviour, it is likely to be a complex mixture of both genes and environment.
That actually doesn't rule out that in some cases sexual activity can also be entirely environmental in limited cases (e.g., occasional prevalence of experimentation with homosexuality in heavily gender segregated societies).
I'd be wary of everything that charlatan Foucault said.
I'd
I remember when a few leftists got mad about dressing like a homeless person during Halloween. I had to wonder how many of those people had put in even the minimal effort to actually do something to help homeless people. Heck even something like signing an online petition to get them housing. Yes it's probably a meaningless gesture but it would have taken thirty seconds of their time and might have a CHANCE of helping the homeless in the real world, but I bet the majority of the complainers didn't even do that much.
ReplyDeleteThese people are useless as leftists. They are actually less than useless because they help create social conservatives from people who get annoyed with their bullshit. They aren't helping the poor and they aren't helping minorites.
Insightful stuff.
DeleteI seem unable to reply in the correct place. To Will on Althouse: assumes facts not in evidence. I find AA often very insightful but also sometimes puzzlingly daft. Anyway, if you scan the comments for my name you will find I am usually a caustic critic. BUT she often catches things of interest, so I read her.
ReplyDeleteWill wrote: "Yes it's probably a meaningless gesture but it would have taken thirty seconds of their time and might have a CHANCE of helping the homeless in the real world"
ReplyDeleteNo. this is 100% wrong. That is pure 100% signalling. We have too much of that. It makes things worse. Don't sign a petition, don't pretend you are making the world better thereby. That's what the "yoga is cultural appropriation" people are doing. Give some money.
My point was that while it's next to meaningless to sign an online petition or something like that it would still be more than what they are doing now by just complaining, and it requires truly minimal effort to do it. It was the most minimal thing I could think of.
DeleteIt gets better LK, it gets better.
ReplyDeletehttp://everydayfeminism.com/2015/11/foodie-without-appropriation/
For christ's sake, will the stupidity ever end?
DeleteHow many people seriously think you can understand a whole culture merely by having "a bite of food"? (an actual claim in that post). This is the left inventing imaginary thought crimes and then screaming and crying tears over nothing at all.
For years we've been told how foreign food enriches our Western cultures, but now even this idea is "racist" or "colonialist"?
I blame Postcolonialism for much of this, which is just another branch of Postmodernist insanity.
I can't help but note you blame the seemingly endless series of leftist folly on ... anything but leftism.
DeleteMost of the pathology of the Austrians can be blamed on their bizarre fundamental notions, such as "action", or their blind form of "methodological individualism". A certain type of mind takes these ideas and runs amok. Most of the follies we see from the left stem from a few fundamental ideas too, in some sense the mirror image of the Austrians: that groups are what is real, and persons merely instances, the mirror of the Austrian position; that there is no cohesive mind only the accumulation of influences, the mirror of "action". This is the foundation of the Left. A certain type of mind takes these ideas and runs amok.
Hofstaeder named the type 50 years ago in his book on anti-intellectualism in American life: the 100% mind. No uncertainty, no loose ends, mo maybes permitted. All answers tie together, everything fits. His examples were mostly the religious fundies, but they ain't the only ones.
But only some sets of ideas seem to lend themselves to this nonsense. They should not be so easily exonerated.
And she can have my green curry chicken when she pries it from my cold, dead, appropriating hands.
DeleteThis really has less to do with the American postmodernists who sort of poach poststructuralist stuff to a large extent.
ReplyDeleteBut it goes way further back than that. It starts in the late-19th century in... America:
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Radicalism-America-1889-1963/dp/0393316963
This is a distinctly American phenomenon. And has a lot more to do with the American mindset -- most specifically the rampant individualism and penchant for litigation -- than it has to do with Foucault.
The cultural movement that developed out of that work can more so be seen as the restructuring of laws in places like Amsterdam. Personally I think that most of this was a disaster. But its a very different type of disaster.
Well, Illusionist, I think the link with early 20th century American Progressivism might be real but still very tenuous. Parts of the American Progressive left were taken over by French Poststructuralist/Postmodernist thinking after the 1970s and this, frankly, was the sine qua non of the present nonsense.
DeleteIf that had not happened American progressivism would have taken a different course.
"This is a distinctly American phenomenon."
I disagree. It is all over the Western world. Maybe not to the same extent, but it is there.
Read the book. Lasch spent his life documenting this movement. It is from America. It was born out of a weird narcissistic, highly individualistic intellectual bourgeoisie in the US in the late-19th and early-20th century. Most of these people were probably mentally ill. Probably also true of most of the weird stuff you hear about on campuses today.
DeleteIf you want the real history of this... read the histories written. Don't joust with windmills and attack strawmen.
From a review:
Delete"His thesis is that around the turn of the century the "radical" developed a new self-consciousness, and that this posture manifested itself in "cultural" radicalism whose politics was no longer confined to political economy, but which psychologized social issues and personal "artistic" experience."
This happened WAY before the 1960s. If you want to discuss this do the work and learn the history.
And yet, as I just told you, this same extreme political correctness exists **all over the Western world.**
DeleteThis clearly refutes your view that
(1) it is a "distinctly American phenomenon" (not true!), and
(2) that American progressivism is the major cause of it. Well, American progressivism was never a dominant force in Germany or Sweden, but you will find PC nonsense just as bad in these countries.
It has spread from America to the rest of the world! Duh! Just like American culture, rock music, rap music, and violent movies have spread. Come on. This is obvious.
ReplyDeleteLasch could write a HISTORY of this in 1965. This is NOT new. It has just taken on weirder and weirder guises as time goes on.
Oh, god, first you say it is a "distinctly American phenomenon", but now you have just blatantly contradicted yourself, but saying it is actually everywhere (but spread from America).
DeleteEven if one were willing to accept your thesis that American progressivism is a major source if it, it is blatantly obviously that Postmodernism and Postcolonialism and all their related ideas are also very major causes of this. They have their roots in French Poststructuralism, not American progressivism.
Also, Frankfurt school cultural Marxism must share part of the blame, though I as I have also argued it is sometimes a bit overrated.
You have an idea in your head. You will not listen to conflicting ideas. This is because the original idea is held for emotional reasons. That is your vice.
DeleteThat paragraph applies to all of us on some issues. You certainly, and me too. I think it describes LK on some issues, but it's a weird response on this topic considering he just named some undeniable influences right above your comment.
DeletePolitical correctness is a serious issue, have seen that its difficult to talk about important men issues like high suicide rate etc n not being accused of chauvinist . Btw do you think that feminism is a important today in western world or its issues like wage gap etc appear because it's difficult to criticize them due to political correctness?
ReplyDeleteIt's weird to me that just saying "Men have a high suicide rate we should lower it" would cause somebody to be upset with you, even the PC crowd.
DeleteHowever in my experience having people raise eyebrows when you talk about men's issues is not actually the fault of the PC crowd but of the "Men's rights activists", many of whom seem to be downright conspiracy nuts when it comes to feminism and tend to lapse into outright misogyny. I think that group being so dysfuntional has hurt the credibility of people who want to talk about men's issues.
Remember that the advocates for a cause can do more damage to it than its critics can.
Hey, look for many people it is difficult to fathom that men are suffering and falling behind n raising this is enough for some ad hominen attack.Btw men rights issue isn't getting much attention or sympathy although that deserve attention. Also politicians aren't serious [What so funny about a men rights debate-The Telegraph]. Political correctness no doubt a serious obstacle , see -Warren Farrell protest at university of Toronto -YouTube and and Feminist film maker criticised for making a balanced men right documentary-The Guardian.
DeleteI agree that there are some elements in M.R.A that are overtly misogynist but such issue shouldn't be a obstacle for important debates if we truly want gender equality.
Will, these people demand apologies for saying all lives matter. You are surprised at the suicide thing? I ask again, you don't live in America I take it? :)
DeleteKen B, I asked those questions because I was reading about that stuff lately n agree with some views.If you have strong arguments against questions fell free to express. I don't demand any apologies for saying all lives matter.
DeleteA nice summary of some demands. https://storify.com/walterolson/getting-started
ReplyDeleteI read the entire UNC list. Well worth hunting down, for the sardonically inclined.