luka

Well-known member
You haven't thought this through and you haven't read the thread so it's a waste of time engaging with your reactionary snorting and harrumphing.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I don't remember mine being full of so many snotty wet blankets, though. The Islamists were quite happy in the Leeds societies making their case for religious imperialism and the girls would've kicked your face in or just laughed at you if you'd suggested they need to go to a "safe space" or ban Germaine Greer. If it was a different time, it was much better.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
You're conceding ground to exactly the psychological type you actually despise. It's weird to watch.
 

luka

Well-known member
Ours was a nihilistic generation it's true. Better tunes etc. Politics is for losers at the end of the day. But because you haven't read the thread you don't know what I'm arguing in favour of. It's not types of people.
 

luka

Well-known member
I'm also not conceding anything because it's not my generation. It's their experiment. Let them get on with it and learn from it.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I would also suggest that it's a weirdly decadent, Western political phenomenon. In many non-Western countries women are still trying to break into the workplace and academia, not to then create exclusionary zones but to fully participate in the cut and thrust of active intellectual or physical life.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Fundamentally, if this is what identity politics has boiled down to, it's a pathetic travesty of original ideals or intentions.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Not really, I know it is and has been weak. I have complained for years about the fact that more of my literature degree was spent studying Marx, Freud and Foucault than Shakespeare. It's an old problem that has led directly to this pathetic, shrill snivelling. You could have seen it coming for sure, but this end-point - censorship, extreme sectarianism, self-segregation - cannot in any way be supported. It's sad and is actually feeding fully into the rise of populism that now threatens all of us.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I guess you're right in some ways, though, I still remember the story of Nine Power and Alberto Toscano's trip to Tehran University where they were treated like heroes.
 

luka

Well-known member
I posted goldsmiths safe space policy a few pages back. Find it and tell me what you object to.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
But that was a university captive of a regime. All dissident voices had been expelled or where in exile.
 

luka

Well-known member
The house of parliament has rules governing how debate is conducted. It's hardly radical.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
You see, I don't think that the academics or students in Tehran University where particularly interested in safe spaces or no platforms, they just didn't want to be sacked, or expelled or thrown into prison for talking or writing against the regime, its ideology or theology. Or maybe the university itself was a particularly fine example of a "safe space", "no platform" institution.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
It's sad and is actually feeding fully into the rise of populism that now threatens all of us.

The interpretation I get from the above is that this 'rise of populism' couldn't have happened if it wasn't for safe spaces. Even if that was true, I'd personally be more inclined to hold the actual populists responsible but I find it really hard to believe. Populists definitely snack on this kind of thing; it's like a can of Red Bull or a power bar or something - but I don't think it brought them into being or is really sustaining them. I'd like to see the argument behind the assertion you are making.
 
Last edited:

luka

Well-known member
Craner, like a lot of people on here, has degenerated into a kind of malfunctioning bot with only about three lines of script which are regurgitated more or less randomly.

There's no argument behind the bluster. I think it's the stress of his job. He did promise me he'd start thinking again in the new year though and I believe him.
 

vimothy

yurp
It's obvious that they're two sides of the same coin, isn't it? The man-babies of the alt-right feed on this sort of nonsense, just as narcissistic SJWs are sustained by Breitbart and Milo Yiannopoulos or whoever. It's a mutually self-reinforcing spiral.
 

luka

Well-known member
One of the ways in which my views vary from those of oliver is that I don't think democracy is a particularly natural state of affairs. I don't think you can just dump it on people and let them get on with it. I think you need to work very hard at creating the conditions for it and one of those conditions is participation.
 
Top