humour: media / politics

[nomadologist]

*Chokes on biscuit*

Fucking hell! Maybe it's good to live under tyrants then, yes? At least our "art" means something...

What a load of facile sub-TAZ nonsense.

Did anyone say that it was "good" to live under tyrants? Gavin was talking about the much more vital and "revolutionary" potential art has under political tyranny. What's the big deal about that?

Jesus, some people act like these Sociology and Philosophy 101 level conversations elude the fuck out of them, don't they?

 

[nomadologist]

You're just spoiling for a fight, aren't you.

Saying that people can bear an aversion to the mundane, humdrum and commonplace isn't exactly controversial.

If you had read my post carefully, you would have noticed that I do not privilege one kind of explanation over the other. All that I want is to get to the truth. It's just that my truth-finding algorithm is this:

CONFUSION -> CHECK ALL AVAILABLE MUNDANE (ie probable) EXPLANATIONS -> CHECK LESS MUNDANE (less probable) EXPLANATIONS -> END

whereas others' can be this:

CONFUSION -> ATTEMPT TO APPLY OUTLANDISH EXPLANATION WOT I HAVE READ ABOUT IN CRITICAL THEORY -> END

You really do have the IQ of a gnat. It's official.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Yes, "mundane" explanations are always more "probable" explanations for things, right Mr. Tea? Isn't that what they taught you in particle physics? That things work exactly the way they appear to work. That's why the earth is at the center of the universe. And all of that.

That's a fair point, but probable and true explanations can still be more mundane and dull by virtue of their familiarity than more exotic explanations.

And in any case, you haven't explained how my mundane 'tabloid story = Greek tragedy' angle is wrong.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

And who's "confused" here? I'm not.

No, you're just angry.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Did anyone say that it was "good" to live under tyrants? Gavin was talking about the much more vital and "revolutionary" potential art has under political tyranny. What's the big deal about that?

Jesus, some people act like these Sociology and Philosophy 101 level conversations elude the fuck out of them, don't they?

I think it's more that the banality of the points (by virtue of their being 101 level) annoys the fuck out of them.

 

[nomadologist]

Angry about what? I'm not angry, I just think you're dumb.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

You really do have the IQ of a gnat. It's official.

I wield a terrifying logic, have a wit that can turn on a die and carry the equivalent of the Bodleian library in my head. That's somewhat closer to the truth.

 

[nomadologist]

I think it's more that the banality of the points (by virtue of their being 101 level) annoys the fuck out of them.

Then why don't you regale us with your obviously superior points? I've never seen you come up with a more well-read and informed post than, say, one of Gavin's. If you ever do, then I will take your "criticism" of a perfectly reasonable discussion seriously.

 

[nomadologist]

That's a fair point, but probable and true explanations can still be more mundane and dull by virtue of their familiarity than more exotic explanations.

And in any case, you haven't explained how my mundane 'tabloid story = Greek tragedy' angle is wrong.

Exotic? What's "exotic" about obvious points about the political history of the West?

Everyone knows that in Course Work 101, tabloids are "inverted archetypes", DUH.

tabloid story=Greek tragedy

THIS is your brilliant explanation that is somehow not as facile and sophomoric as the rest of the discussion here?

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Then why don't you regale us with your obviously superior points? I've never seen you come up with a more well-read and informed post than, say, one of Gavin's. If you ever do, then I will take your "criticism" of a perfectly reasonable discussion seriously.

Don't hold your breath!

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Exotic? What's "exotic" about obvious points about the political history of the West?

Everyone knows that in Course Work 101, tabloids are "inverted archetypes", DUH.

THIS is your brilliant explanation that is somehow not as facile and sophomoric as the rest of the discussion here?

It's not a brilliant explanation - it's just an obvious, boring one that is far more likely than the others. That has been my whole point.

Keeping to a boring explanation for reasons of its being more likely than a more interesting one is not even itself brilliant - it's just sensible. Don't expect any fireworks. ;-)

Anyway, what's your angle?

 

[Slothrop]

Did anyone say that it was "good" to live under tyrants? Gavin was talking about the much more vital and "revolutionary" potential art has under political tyranny.

He was talking about "the lack of any political sway the citizenry has in the west". Which presumably means that citizenry in non western-capitalist-democratic[1] countries have more political sway, otherwise what's the point in the comparison?


[1] I'm assuming "in the west" means "under capitalist democracy." Random aside - isn't it time someone came up with a better word than 'western' - I mean, since it presumably includes Japan and Russia, Australia and quite a bit of SE asia these days and is therefore completely innacurate in a geographical sense, couldn't people use something that smacks a bit less of sixties "of course they're so much more spiritual in the east maaaaan" orientalism?

 

[nomadologist]

It's not a brilliant explanation - it's just an obvious, boring one that is far more likely than the others. That has been my whole point.

Keeping to a boring explanation for reasons of its being more likely than a more interesting one is not even itself brilliant - it's just sensible. Don't expect any fireworks. ;-)

Anyway, what's your angle?

Trust me, I don't expect any fireworks from your posts.

Why is your explanation "far more likely" than any others here?

It would take me hours that I don't have to explain what I think about why in general people look at tabloids, and my explanation would refer to all kinds of theorists you haven't read and don't want to.

 

[nomadologist]

He was talking about how little political sway people have under western[1] capitalist democracy. Which presumably means that people in non western-capitalist-democratic countries have more political sway, otherwise what's the point in the comparison?


[1] random aside - isn't it time someone came up with a better word than 'western' - I mean, since it presumably includes Japan and Russia, Australia and quite a bit of SE asia these days and is therefore completely innacurate in a geographical sense, couldn't people use something that smacks a bit less of sixties "of course they're so much more spiritual in the east maaaaan" orientalism?

"Western" doesn't include Japan these days, and even if you do include Russia and Australia, the "Western" or occidental has never really been a properly geographical notion. If you're reading 60s ideas about spirituality in the east to the use of "Western", it's because you haven't read much that was written about it since the 60s (or maybe you know too many people who think like that)

Of course, the "Western" has continued to become the dominant global values/economic/every other kind of system as we've continued to globalize in the past couple of hundred years.

EDIT: "Western" of course doesn't simply mean "under capitalist democracy" at all, it's a much more specific set of shared social and cultural values .

 

[Guybrush]

Vimothy and Mr. Tea: the ‘if you prefer dictatorship to democracy why don’t you pack your things and move?’ shtick (and its variations) is starting to get really tiresome. It’s like trying to have a constructive argument over the merits of the 1950s and having some feminist go ‘but what about how they treated women, and blacks, and ...’ every 5 minutes. Valid point, sure, but pretty damn grating after a while. Especially when made as a lame one-liner instead of being woven into a coherent argument.

In places without democracy, you still have the possibility for an outside challenge -- the sense that things can change, this dictator will fall eventually, we can work for it. Our art is dangerous, we can go to prison for it, be beaten for it, die for it. Unlike in "democracies" where, election to election, nothing changes except the faces of the people in power.

Yes, this is pretty much on the mark.

 

[nomadologist]

Like I said before, the nature of celebrity "worship" today is such that it's much more in line with an inversion of Greek mythology (Greek tragedy and Greek myth are not the exact same thing, and the differences are important in this discussion) than it is a substitute for Greek tragedy.

In Greek myth, gods and goddesses were held up and esteemed for their traits--the Pantheon is where the stage was set, and very important social values played themselves out there. Athena was worshiped for her wisdom, Ares for his warlike traits, etc. The interactions of the gods and goddesses made up an entire oral tradition of stories that held valuable lessons and were considered wise parables that should be applied to everyday life.

In contemporary Hollywood, celebrities (analogous to Greek gods and goddesses) are no longer held up and worshiped for their glamorous screen personae, but instead, people are fascinated with the everyday, unglamorous, all too flawed and ugly traits of celebrities. Instead of looking to them for wisdom and inspiration, we look to them as cautionary tales. What we look to in our pantheon is an INVERSION of what the Greeks did theirs.

Greek tragedy is another story.

 

[nomadologist]

It’s like trying to have a constructive argument over the merits of the 1950s and having some feminist go ‘but what about how they treated women, and blacks, and ...’ every 5 minutes.

People think there were merits to the 50s? haha

 

[nomadologist]

some Jungian stuff i found on a website about inversion and myth

It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such effective spiritual aid. We remain fixated to the unexorcised images of our infancy, and hence disinclined to the necessary passages of our adulthood. In the United States there is even a pathos of inverted emphasis: the goal is not to grow old, but to remain young; not to mature away from Mother, but to cleave to her. And so, while husbands are worshiping at their boyhood shrines, being the lawyers, merchants, or masterminds their parents wanted them to be, their wives, even after fourteen years of marriage and two fine children produced and raised, are still on the search for love—which can come to them only from the centaurs, sileni, satyrs, and other concupiscent incubi of the rout of Pan, either as in the second of the above-recited dreams, or as in our popular, vanilla-frosted temples of the venereal goddess, under the make-up of the latest heroes of the screen. The psychoanalyst has to come along, at last, to assert again the tried wisdom of the older, forward-looking teachings of the masked medicine dancers and the witch-doctor-circumcisers; whereupon we find, as in the dream of the serpent bite, that the ageless initiation symbolism is produced spontaneously by the patient himself at the moment of the release. Apparently, there is something in these initiatory images so necessary to the psyche that if they are not supplied from without, through myth and ritual, they will have to be announced again, through dream, from within—lest our energies should remain locked in a banal, long-outmoded toy-room, at the bottom of the sea.

 

[Slothrop]

"Western" doesn't include Japan these days,

Oh right, I'd assumed it was just used as a shorthand for comparatively rich capitalist-democratic countries.

and even if you do include Russia and Australia, the "Western" or occidental has never really been a properly geographical notion.

That was what I was getting at, though.

If you're reading 60s ideas about spirituality in the east to the use of "Western", it's because you haven't read much that was written about it since the 60s (or maybe you know too many people who think like that)

I'm reading those ideas into the choice of term rather than the way people use the concept in reputable writing. The word does have those overtones, so using it even though it has no geographical significance is liable to put people on the wrong track. Anyway, this was an irrelevant aside - I'm not really suggesting that everyone suddenly start using some other word.

EDIT: "Western" of course doesn't simply mean "under capitalist democracy" at all, it's a much more specific set of shared social and cultural values .

The point still stands though - it's pretty hard to point out many places where normal people have more political sway than western europe and the US, even if the amount that most people have here is pretty pathetic.

 

[Guybrush]

People think there were merits to the 50s? haha

In architecture/literature/whatever — loads of things. My point is that such should be able to be discussed without someone constantly interupting the discussion with facts that are a matter of course.