where will you go when you cant afford london?

[droid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm always fascinated by what grinds Mr teas gears. This lad writes a lot like you tea so perhaps baboon is right

This thought was bubbling through my mind as I wrote the above posts. However it's the implied ideology (or delusions thereof) that bother me, not the style. The pose, as Luke puts it. I'm all for daft flowery fanciness.

edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences

Ahahaha, I can imagine your face lighting up with glee as you posted that.

 

[droid]

Its still glowing as we speak.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I cant find anything wrong with this, which is pretty much miraculous:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/sam-kriss-tube-strike-july-2015-633

Hmm, some reasonable points in that, although there's a pretty chasmic gulf between "fifty grand a year" and "outright penury", clearly.

The apocalyptic image of whole carriages of passengers dying as the result of an error made by a sleep-deprived tube driver is kind of negated by the fact that the entire network very easily could - and in fact already partly has - been automated, no? The "driver" on a Northern Line train could be comatose with a needle in his arm and the train would safely continue on its merry way, while the DLR has managed perfectly well without drivers since it opened nearly 30 years ago.

In other news: taking a day off is fun! Thanks for the tip bro, I might try it some time.

Oh, and the idea most travellers would nonetheless voluntarily pay out of a sense of civic duty if TfL staff ran an open-gates strike is just beyond risible. This twat really does fancy himself as a lone Neo striving against a world of Matrix-enslaved myrmidons. Honestly, he's a hair's breadth away from using the word "sheeple".

 

[comelately]

The apocalyptic image of whole carriages of passengers dying as the result of an error made by a sleep-deprived tube driver is kind of negated by the fact that the entire network very easily could - and in fact already partly has - been automated, no? The "driver" on a Northern Line train could be comatose with a needle in his arm and the train would safely continue on its merry way, while the DLR has managed perfectly well without drivers since it opened nearly 30 years ago.

There is some weight to these points, though there are a number of reasons why you want people able to manually drive these trains on the trains.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Oh, and the idea most travellers would nonetheless voluntarily pay out of a sense of civic duty if TfL staff ran an open-gates strike is just beyond risible. This twat really does fancy himself as a lone Neo striving against a world of Matrix-enslaved myrmidons. Honestly, he's a hair's breadth away from using the word "sheeple".

And on top of all that, there's his assertion that those who make Herculean efforts to get work despite the strike - rather than joyfully bunking off and spending the day getting drunk in the nearest park - do so because they're miserably downtrodden, conformist, braindead (etc. etc. etc.) capitalist drones, and not because they don't want to get the sack or anything like that. Or, for those who work as teachers, lecturers, nurses, doctors or social workers, out of any sense of obligation to the people who depend on their services.

Frankly he gives the impression of being a spoilt rich kid with unlimited leisure time to write these nonsensical, self-aggrandizing screeds and sneer at anyone sad enough to have a regular job, because he has no financial need for one himself.

 

[droid]

I think you're laying it on a bit thick there. Its pretty clear that hes attacking those who are criticising the strikers and the pervasive anti-union stance of hordes of young 'liberals'.

 

[baboon2004]

You see, this is one of those seductive little ideas that sounds like it should be true, but - I think - actually isn't. Maybe in the case of some instances of severe bigotry or prejudice, but not generally. If you find Mumford And Sons contemptible - and I hope it's a safe bet that you do - does that mean you're afraid you might secretly like them? That you recognize something of yourself in who they are and what they stand for? I dunno, maybe you do. I hope not, for your sake!

Apols for stream of consciousness:

But that's just a particular instance of the shame/contempt phenomenon, where Mumford & Sons arouses feelings of attraction that a person can't handle, and therefore they disguise the attraction as contempt for Mumford & Sons. While I think this is way more common than you believe (for objects other than Mumford & Sons), far from the only option.

Another: the object (i.e. person) has said something/behaved in a way that you find wounding/threatening/shaming on a very basic level, and you're hitting back at them because of this perceived wound (usually unintelligible to observers).

Or, nothing to do with the person/object's features, but one feels a need to 'offload' uncomfortable feelings about oneself (shame etc) onto something/someone else through contempt, simply because it's a convenient object for their scorn (maybe perceived as weak/easy target, or maybe because the contempt can be disguised as 'moral' in some way). I call bullshit on anyone who says they've not acted in a contemptuous way towards others when/because they've felt vulnerable.

Obviously you come across as contemptuous of the author in turn - fair enough. But I'm completely confused as to why this guy has got under your skin so much (rather than you just finding him mildly annoying, that is)! I'm contemptuous of things/people all the time, often for one of the above reasons, and you'd usually have no idea why I felt that contempt either.

People love to rationalise their contempts according to a supposed objective list of things that are wrong with their object of scorn, but it's never as rational as claimed. It's like the EU talking about Greece.


PS The way people hate on hipsters is a great example of all of the above. You could (a) be secretly jealous of the fun they seem to be having; (b) hate them because they remind you of people at school who ostracised you, opening up an old wound, or (c) just use them as a socially-acceptable punching bag to get rid of some unwanted feelings... I've definitely been guilty of ...all of the above. In any case, the contemptuous vitirol is often totally out of proportion to any 'rational' social-level explanation of 'why hipsters are objectively bad'. (Obviously they are scum though)

PPS I'd never knowingly listened to Mumford & Sons before today. Thanks a lot

 

[baboon2004]

As to the Vice piece, it's annoying if you feel he's implicating everyone as drones. On the other hand I've had to listen to so many people (mostly colleagues), criticise the strike on the basis that tube drivers that money-grabbing, thoughtless arseholes, when those people certainly wouldn't get the sack for staying at home, that I have sympathy with the author's viewpoint.

 

[droid]

Its endemic. Mention the word 'union' or 'strike' to even the most anti-imperialist, pro-choice, anti-racist, pro-equality feminist and their inner contra appears. Its particularly bad in the under 30's. No labour consciousness at all.

 

[luka]

It's true. I gave a lot of stern talking tos to coffee customers about this its crazy

 

[luka]

The funniest thing is there was always a great atmosphere on tube strike days. Like a carnival

Anything that forces a break from routine being hugely invigorating

 

[Mr. Tea]

Apols for stream of consciousness:

Cheers for that post, I found it illuminating and I daresay what you've described might well be more common than I've allowed. I think perhaps what bugs me so much about this Kriss guy (gal, whatever) is not only the enormous sanctimoniousness, but the fact that it's hipsterish (ha, yes!) second-order sanctimoniousness, aimed mainly at people who are, or who he perceives to be, sanctimonious in a more straightforward way. A bit like how the right-wing press in this country specializes in moral outrage, while the left-wing press specializes in moral outrage at the right-wing press's moral outrage.

PPS I'd never knowingly listened to Mumford & Sons before today. Thanks a lot

Haha, my secret evil plan has worked IT WORKED! MWUHAHAHA!!!

 

[luka]

You knoe it's a he. Benw said he went school with him

 

[Mr. Tea]

You knoe it's a he. Benw said he went school with him

All that proves is that he was a he then.

 

[Mr. Tea]

And while we're playing Pretentious Lefty Internet Dickhead bingo, you'll notice the absolutely de rigeur inverted nationalism that makes a certain sort of middle-class Englishman swell with pride and insist that, out of all the nations on Earth, his own countrymen are uniquely awful and embarrassing in every possible way.

(I mean, even if he only means Brits are exceptionally obedient and punctilious, that's still a bizarre claim - I can only assume he's never been to Germany.

OK, I think I'm done now.)

 

[IdleRich]

"The funniest thing is there was always a great atmosphere on tube strike days. Like a carnival
Anything that forces a break from routine being hugely invigorating"

We had a strike at school, it was fantastic. Still got up early and went on the picket lines for an hour or two shouting (well, saying) slogans, then the union took us all to a greasy spoon and paid for us to have a fry-up.
On the newsletter for the union's summer meal and talks and stuff they put a picture of the picket line on the front - I guess that our school striking for one day was the most exciting thing that happened this year for the union.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I've been watching the first series of House Of Cards (great show, if you haven't seen it) and a major plot point is a long-running nationwide strike called by the teachers' unions. Kevin Spacey's character is trying to break the strike and one of his tactics is to exploit the news story of a young kid shot dead as a bystander in a gang shoot-out, on the basis that if there hadn't been a strike, he'd have been at school and (probably...) would therefore not have been shot.

It reminded me of the time a girl was killed by a branch falling from a tree and the Daily Mail couldn't help but link it to the teacher's strike that was going on that day: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-13-killed-falling-branch-school-closed.html

You'll see they've got the word 'strike' in the headline, in the URL for the page, twice in the body of the text and twice in photo captions. Also several of the commentators haven't been slow in putting two and two together (even if they do come up with 7.65 x 10^46).

 

[IdleRich]

Ha. Sadly none of mine died during the holi... strike and they were all back as annoying as ever next day.
I am joking here by the way. In all honesty the strike was a really good thing wherein we were able to defeat a pointless and time-wasting initiative from the management cos everyone stuck together and we were well-organised. Not sure we'd be able to get away with something so... good and fair in a bigger company though, I reckon much more force would have been brought to bear on us if it had been more visible.
I'm not totally sure what the kids thought about it, some were curious to have it explained and some just went "Wahey, day off school!" - but of those who did have it explained I'm not sure how much they agreed with us. As many have pointed out, most people are completely apathetic to most political debate etc until a tube strike happens and then they are suddenly apoplectic with rage, I fear that most of our kids are similarly apolitical.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Ha. Sadly none of mine died during the holi... strike and they were all back as annoying as ever next day.
I am joking here by the way. In all honesty the strike was a really good thing wherein we were able to defeat a pointless and time-wasting initiative from the management cos everyone stuck together and we were well-organised. Not sure we'd be able to get away with something so... good and fair in a bigger company though, I reckon much more force would have been brought to bear on us if it had been more visible.
I'm not totally sure what the kids thought about it, some were curious to have it explained and some just went "Wahey, day off school!" - but of those who did have it explained I'm not sure how much they agreed with us. As many have pointed out, most people are completely apathetic to most political debate etc until a tube strike happens and then they are suddenly apoplectic with rage, I fear that most of our kids are similarly apolitical.

So tempted to forward your first sentence - by itself - to the Daily Mail as evidence of what a typical modern teacher thinks of his students...