DannyL

Wild Horses
It'd be interesting to know how deliberate this was of that (from trawling interviews perhaps?) It seems a bit too easy to say that he couldn't give voice to affect due to trauma - it has that hallmarks of that kind of reaction but as you say, he must've been conscious of this.
 

droid

Well-known member
Id be shocked if it wasn't quite purposeful. He was super clever, widely read and knew psychoanalysis inside out. But of course, just because he understood the dynamic doesn't mean it wasn't a compulsion.

There's also a very aesthetically pleasing symmetrical depth about the whole thing. Art mirroring life, mirroring art...

 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
There seems to be a line from what you're saying about Ballard to someone like Bret Easton Ellis
there definitely is. the flat, affectless, lack of emotional resonance. the endless literal lists of physical objects, clothing brands, etc.

I think the difference is the unreliability of narrators. the threat in Ballard is usually from without - society, technology, climate

in Easton Ellis the threat is from within - ennui, cruelty, psychosis (maybe)

Ballard's protagonists are usually engineers or doctors (right?), something practical. Patrick Bateman is a Wall Street bro, others are writers, models, film producers.

there's a difference of wealth too. Ballard characters are upper-middle class professionals. EE characters are monstrous idle rich.

they're both delineating the same heart of darkness tho, for sure
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Ballard protagonists descend from a Heinlein type competent man, a deeply reactionary trope for sure

Easton Ellis characters are grotesque monsters made outwardly beautiful by wealth + privilege

it obviates the need for apocalyptic fantasy if the center can't hold b/c there is no center

i.e. the entire "I simply am not there" face mask monologue
 

version

Well-known member
DeLillo's somewhere in the mix too but there's something different about him. He seems less frantic and hysterical than the other two, colder.
 

version

Well-known member
I think the difference is the unreliability of narrators. the threat in Ballard is usually from without - society, technology, climate

in Easton Ellis the threat is from within - ennui, cruelty, psychosis (maybe)

I'd say one of the key distinctions is that Ballard presents a world subject to sudden and drastic change whereas Ellis presents a world which never changes.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Also, isn't there another explanation (to the original question) in there about being proved right. Imagine if humanity carries on the same and the environmental apocalypse never arrives, will be kinda… embarrassing no? It's like Brexit - suppose there is a No Deal Brexit and it's fine and Britain really does become Great again, I'm gonna look like a total dickhead. Now obviously I hope that it's fine and my friends and family (or anyone really) don't lose their jobs or houses or die cos they can't get insulin or whatever but it does feel as though I'm personally invested in No Deal being a disaster. And especially now I live abroad it will be quite easy for me to sit back and laugh if there are immediate food and medicine shortages and loads of Brexiters moaning about how the EU has sabotaged it from being the roaring success it should have been.
But in general any movement based on a prediction can only sustain itself so long if the prediction doesn't arrive, at least in part. So surely there is another explanation for people (not so) secretly wanting bad thing to happen.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
But yeah I agree we do get a thrill from bad things happening or almost happening or whatever as long as we survive. There was a bit about that in Black Mirror I seem to remember but I can't find the clip I'm afraid.
 

version

Well-known member
Also, isn't there another explanation (to the original question) in there about being proved right. Imagine if humanity carries on the same and the environmental apocalypse never arrives, will be kinda… embarrassing no? It's like Brexit - suppose there is a No Deal Brexit and it's fine and Britain really does become Great again, I'm gonna look like a total dickhead. Now obviously I hope that it's fine and my friends and family (or anyone really) don't lose their jobs or houses or die cos they can't get insulin or whatever but it does feel as though I'm personally invested in No Deal being a disaster. And especially now I live abroad it will be quite easy for me to sit back and laugh if there are immediate food and medicine shortages and loads of Brexiters moaning about how the EU has sabotaged it from being the roaring success it should have been.
But in general any movement based on a prediction can only sustain itself so long if the prediction doesn't arrive, at least in part. So surely there is another explanation for people (not so) secretly wanting bad thing to happen.


Whichever way it ends up going somebody's going to look foolish: remainers if it goes well, leavers if it goes poorly and everyone if it's just sort of middling and nothing really changes.
 

droid

Well-known member
n85re.So.79.jpg
 

comelately

Wild Horses
Whichever way it ends up going somebody's going to look foolish: remainers if it goes well, leavers if it goes poorly and everyone if it's just sort of middling and nothing really changes.

It's increasingly looking like there will be a global recession which will muddy the waters anyway.

The chances of nothing going wrong are tiny, but the chances of it going so wrong that significant numbers of Brexiteers come to regret it are, I think, equally as tiny.

The problem in any no deal scenario is getting anything less than a British capitulation through an EU Article 218 process. There are countries in the EU not that much affected by Brexit, or at least not much effected by whether there's a trading arrangement or not (i.e. Bulgaria/Romania will miss FoM with UK, but SM for goods not so much), but they do have an interest in not seeing smaller nations like Ireland thrown under the bus. The amount of horse-trading involved would potentially be quite extensive.

The US Presidential Elections are an underlying background variable. I think in our heart of hearts, most of us live in hope rather than expectation regarding Trump not winning a second term but the bookies do have the Dems has 10/11 favourites (though the possibility of Trump becoming ill or getting impeached and the GOP having to field someone else is obviously priced into that). If the next US President decides to have 'the talk' with Boris, then Britain finds itself in an extraordinarily difficult position. If Ireland has exceptional problems next year, then that could even potentially leak into the campaign (The swing states all have significant Irish-American communities iirc). There is a strong Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress, I don't believe Britain has such a caucus.
 

droid

Well-known member
The precautionary principle applies. How many of us would embark on a course of action that has a 10% chance of death or serious injury? 20? 50? 90?
 

version

Well-known member
The US Presidential Elections are an underlying background variable. I think in our heart of hearts, most of us live in hope rather than expectation regarding Trump not winning a second term but the bookies do have the Dems has 10/11 favourites (though the possibility of Trump becoming ill or getting impeached and the GOP having to field someone else is obviously priced into that). If the next US President decides to have 'the talk' with Boris, then Britain finds itself in an extraordinarily difficult position. If Ireland has exceptional problems next year, then that could even potentially leak into the campaign (The swing states all have significant Irish-American communities iirc). There is a strong Friends of Ireland caucus in Congress, I don't believe Britain has such a caucus.

I think a Republican win with any candidate would be bad news for the UK and the rest of the world. The party is rotten from top to bottom and completely nuts.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
I think a Republican win with any candidate would be bad news for the UK and the rest of the world. The party is rotten from top to bottom and completely nuts.

Of course, but Boris has clearly hitched himself to the Trump wagon and it's even clearer today than most days that Trump has his wagon hitched to Putin's.

On a related note, a friend of mine was telling me the other day that he has read stuff that indicates the Christian Right are a lot more embedded in the Torys than may appear obvious sometimes.
 

version

Well-known member
One of the most concerning things about Trump is that the people who support him aren't going anywhere and certainly don't seem to be softening.
 

Leo

Well-known member
One of the most concerning things about Trump is that the people who support him aren't going anywhere and certainly don't seem to be softening.

this is the wrong thread for this discussion but...

trump's base is high 30s/low 40s, and it's been that way his entire term. every poll reflects those numbers, never above 42%. he won in 2016 because a lot of people in a handful of swing states a) hated hillary, b) were disgusted by both trump and hillary and didn't bother to vote, or c) felt Washington establishment wasn't working and "what the hell let's give an outsider a shot, what have we got to lose?"

fast forward to the present: hillary's not running this year (which takes care of a and b), and c) many of those "ah, what the hell why not?" votes have now seen what's happened and what they have to lose.

trump needed more than his high 30s/low 40s base last year, and he got it with the combination of a, b and c. those three aren't factors for 2020.
 
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version

Well-known member
I hope you're right but I sometimes feel that those people are too locked into the Fox News mindset and what with social media working as it is there are millions of people being repeatedly prodded and manipulated and goaded. Perhaps they'll start to soften due to exhaustion. I don't think anyone can or really wants to sustain perpetual outrage.
 
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