Hell in a Handcart: Music as a Symptom of Moral Decay

I explained all of this to you on twitter. heed my truths first you impudent kafir.

the point is not whether music is a symptom of moral decay, but what a world without moral decay would look like. and I doubt even the most utopian of socialists would want to engage in such flights of fancy given that without the satanic archetype (i'm not talking about a literal being called iblis here but a psychological representation) we would totally be subject to an automaton logic. even the class struggle in a sense springs out of degradation, especially not for justice, but to push that degradation to its absolute limits so that the new can be born within the bosom of the old. many people find it hard to accept that all progressive and good things quite literally spring out of apocalypse (quite literally in the greek sense.)

ive managed to push myself into a semi hallucinogenic state whilst sober and i misread the op as Helena Handcart. ignore the slightly scathing tone of the previous message.

Isn't this related to the decline of deference as well? The way that what was once unsayable due to manners, morality etc can now just all be said.

Kinda related - was watching to Michelle Wolf stand up on Netflix last night, and she was doing a routine about her abortion. Part of me was totally horrified. The reflex of this comedy is to breach even our residual taboos, that's part of where its power comes from.

Jonathon Haidt's ideas are interesting here. He writes about what he call moral foundations theory and explores cultures that have a moral idea of disgust what's right and what isn't. (he includes Christian republican communities in the US in this) and goes pretty deeo into representation of what might be going on for some people and cultures when these moral boundaries are breached. He goes fairly deep into physiology, taboos etc. He quote a great line from an Arab cab driver who says something like "I'm moving back to the Gulf, because I never want to hear my son tell me to fuck myself". People would say to express reservations about those jokes just marks you out as an old fashioned conservatives and dismiss you. But Haidt's work shows its a bit deeper than that.

Anyway, this has like nothing to do with the thread.

Also worth noting the impact emotional states have on political viewpoints. There's been a bunch of studies that show 'disgust' as being a precursor for more right wing politics. If you can induce that feeling in constituents then even those on the left are more likely to swing right. So conservative backlashes to permissiveness are at some level, unconscious.

DannyL said:

Jonathon Haidt's ideas are interesting here. He writes about what he call moral foundations theory and explores cultures that have a moral idea of disgust what's right and what isn't. (he includes Christian republican communities in the US in this) and goes pretty deeo into representation of what might be going on for some people and cultures when these moral boundaries are breached. He goes fairly deep into physiology, taboos etc. He quote a great line from an Arab cab driver who says something like "I'm moving back to the Gulf, because I never want to hear my son tell me to fuck myself". People would say to express reservations about those jokes just marks you out as an old fashioned conservatives and dismiss you. But Haidt's work shows its a bit deeper than that.

Click to expand...

is that so? middle eastern cussing makes English cussing look like childsplay. there are jokes/insults/swears that literally go along the lines of I'll r*pe your ancestral family tree, obviously the R word R is not used but fuck is, but I'm sure you get the drift!


These aren't just insults used in the western part of TR btw, my 6 year old cousin in the east knows most of them.

But the cuss draws it's power from the violation of taboo right? And also there's the idea of what's performed in a public space (i.e. TV/Netflix for entertainment) - would the same insults be employed freely in the public realm?

Would we hear jokes like this on Turkish TV is what I'm saying? Or jokes about abortion?

Happy to accept Haidt is doing the white man usual of projecting shit onto other cultures but I found his ideas interesting. There's somehow performative about Western liberal taboo busting that's worth thinking about.

DannyL said:

But the cuss draws it's power from the violation of taboo right? And also there's the idea of what's performed in a public space (i.e. TV/Netflix for entertainment) - would the same insults be employed freely in the public realm?

Click to expand...

no, the insults are precisely employed in the public realm and not on TV. well in TR anyway!

DannyL said:

Would we hear jokes like this on Turkish TV is what I'm saying? Or jokes about abortion?

Happy to accept Haidt is doing the white man usual of projecting shit onto other cultures but I found his ideas interesting. There's somehow performative about Western liberal taboo busting that's worth thinking about.

Click to expand...

you'll hear anything on turkish tv if you have the money. It just happens the islamists have the money at the moment.

If I were to think of a European parallel, social moral fabric in Turkey are somewhat similar to those of Southern Italy. I.E: heavy protection rackets for where the state can't step in. not much different to Naples and Callabria in that regard. and then of course these rackets then become gangster state capitalists like Berlusconi. the OG trump!

some people use their conservativism as a mechanism for avoiding trauma in the freudian sense. like my dad, he'll always go to turkey and say oh, it's not different to England son, those days are past, then when he's back in the UK he'll be going on about how at least there's morals in TR. I'm sure he recognises the split perspective here but capitalism forces people to be schizophrenics, and so on.

Interesting perspective cheers. I'lldig Haidt's book out tonight and see how balls it sounds. IIRC he spent time in India so some of his ideas were shaped by Hindu ideas about purity and pollution he encountered in temples there.

luka said:

People felt the same about jungle. That this was a terrible and portentous wrong turn away from the rave ideals of lockjaw and drooling positivity. Grime was a fall from the dancefloor camaraderie of garage. Drill, we don't even need to talk about drill...

Click to expand...

rave = yay, thatcher is gone, rejoice!
jungle = fuck, john major won the f-ing election, really?
garage = Blair has come to save us!
grime = Omg, Anthony Blair!
drill = Tory rule will last til the skies turn red

uk funky= gordon brown?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">When people say there is no difference between a Labour Government and a Conservative one... <a href="https://t.co/wBMSyP2DrR">pic.twitter.com/wBMSyP2DrR</a></p>— Tides Of History (@labour_history) <a href="">August 7, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

with this woke capitalism, maybe music is taking exile in the amoral

people seeing morals as co-opted, corrupt, rotten and unleverageable through art.

I like these sweeping society scale one-liners

sadmanbarty said:

uk funky= gordon brown?

Click to expand...

That is a beautiful statement of propositional logic.

Dubstep = This is the most privileged decade in human history but I still live in Croydon