josef k

luka

luka

Well-known member
john eden said:
I take the piss out of Danny for being so into Wilhelm Reich but he was onto something about breaking down character armour.

There are a lot of damaged people about and I'd be reluctant to say that everyone getting off their nuts is the solution to that, but possibly psychedelia + the kind of collective psychotherapy Nina was talking about would do that.
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People are bored out of their minds. Im bored out of my mind. Brutally oppressively bored.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
luka said:
People are bored out of their minds. Im bored out of my mind. Brutally oppressively bored.
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Is this why you love psychedelics so much?

A bit like how Sherlock Holmes can't live without mental stimulation, so he shoots cocaine when he hasn't got any cases on. Only with you it's acid or whatever.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I've got some on a few wine gums in my freezer. Strongly tempted to take them and embarrass myself at a colossally middle-class West Country music festival this spring.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
I feel bad about posting this here, but here it is for completeness:

Open Letter Concerning Nina Power - Anti-Reaction Research Group (ARRG)

https://write.as/7v8fbjq9ekoaxl3z.md

Some of the criticisms are similar to ones I raised earlier in the thread. I don't agree with it all by any means.

I know nothing about Justin Murphy and have not seen the allegedly transphobic comments that Nina has made. Quite why people think they can post anonymous accusations of such a serious nature without any evidence is beyond me.

I think Josef K / Daniel “DC” Miller is increasingly dodgy. As Droid said, he has shown appalling political judgement. Nina's friendship with him is troubling. Perhaps that's the whole point though?

I don't think Nina is a fascist. I think the attempts to link the video with Third Position / Order of Nine Angles stuff is quite a stretch. Parts of it did reek of alt-right smugness though.

There is a well worn track of people with a public profile being criticised by shrill student lefties and jettisoning the entire emancipatory project of communism because of it in a spectacular baby/bathwater strop. The point I have tried to make repeatedly on this thread is that shrill student lefties are not actually "the left".

Nina, all of these people (Josef, Murphy, the authors of the open letter - whatever side they are on and whatever their real agenda is) need you more than you need them. I'm sorry for posting the link. I think part of you is excited about this controversy and part of you is fearful, both of which worry me.

Do you want to grab a coffee/beer when you are back in London? You can PM me on here or [deleted 17/11/2020] still works.
 
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john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Nina, people are already suggesting that blog post attacking you was written by your new friends for a laugh:

I don't know or care either way, but you should.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
version said:
Mark's idea of left-wing Twitter as the 'Vampires' Castle' strikes me as being fairly accurate - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/

The Vampires’ Castle specialises in propagating guilt. It is driven by a priest’s desire to excommunicate and condemn, an academic-pedant’s desire to be the first to be seen to spot a mistake, and a hipster’s desire to be one of the in-crowd. The danger in attacking the Vampires’ Castle is that it can look as if – and it will do everything it can to reinforce this thought – that one is also attacking the struggles against racism, sexism, heterosexism. But, far from being the only legitimate expression of such struggles, the Vampires’ Castle is best understood as a bourgeois-liberal perversion and appropriation of the energy of these movements. The Vampires’ Castle was born the moment when the struggle not to be defined by identitarian categories became the quest to have ‘identities’ recognised by a bourgeois big Other.
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This is the recent dominant paradigm on the 'left', in a paragraph; so useful to have a handy phrase for it, so thanks K-Punk.

I think this paradigm has always been around, though it took the total victory of social media to insert it at the centre of experience. People have always used shaming-masquerading-as-good-politics as a tactic to simultaneously (i) enforce group loyalty/groupthink, and (ii) reinforce their own sense of having an identity through adherence to dogma and feeling superior to others, because deep down they fear that they are simply. not. there.

Oh, and (iii) because their superego is out of control. So they are often likely (in private) to be as harsh on themselves as they are on others. As so often, the way society behaves is shaped by the parental experiences of the masses (and why wouldn't it be).

I say 'they', but I know the pattern.

PS I presume Josef K is the person on the left in the original video. He looks like a non-Dissensian's idea of what a Dissensian looks like. And, what can I say? They're largely right.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
PS I presume Josef K is the person on the left in the original video. He looks like a non-Dissensian's idea of what a Dissensian looks like. And, what can I say? They're largely right.
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No way man! Who looks like that?
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
version said:
There's a Sartre quote about antisemitism that's been doing the rounds, and, from what I've seen and encountered, it certainly rings true:

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
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Never seen this quote before, but - yes. It's often - tho def not always - precisely about playfulness and engaging in an unfair fight for kicks, where the other person has to tread super-carefully in order to win. I believe that the very intention, whether conscious or unconscious, is to make others mad. And it makes sense that this comes from somewhere - often perhaps from a history of having been on the other side of that equation, of being in the role of person-being-gaslighted. I really got that impression with Milo Yiannopoulos, for example - can't prove it, but I'm 90% sure I'm right.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
baboon2004 said:
PS I presume Josef K is the person on the left in the original video. He looks like a non-Dissensian's idea of what a Dissensian looks like. And, what can I say? They're largely right.
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I'm just tickled by the idea that there are non-Dissensians who know what Dissensus is. Outside of our respective partners and maybe a few of our more long-suffering real-life friends, I mean.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I think there used to be people on other websites such as I Love Music who slated Dissensus for being too up its own arse, didn't there? Mind you, they were probably ex-Dissensians too, dejected and jilted.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
"despite them having no real ideas or positions beyond whatever keeps the clicks coming and grows their brand" - definitely, most MPs/ministers are similar, but without the entertainment factor. In a bizarre way, Teresa May is the ideal PM for this era, as there is nothing there when you scratch the surface (ugh) - no ideas, no overarching ideology, nothing at all. And she is a dancefloor entertainer.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
vimothy said:
why would anyone suggest that? why would anyone believe it?
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Probably because of the suspiciously vehement yet ridiculous anonymous anti-fascist social media accounts that appeared during the LD50 debacle and then vanished again?
 
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