Being 'into politics '

[germaphobian]

I think you have a point, but I don't think people have a limitless capacity for outrage. The majority of us eventually become numb to things and burnout, interest waxes and wanes. The media's handling of Trump this time around's clearly having an impact, but he's also a known quantity and we've seen it all before so he doesn't have the same energy around him.

That's something I've been thinking about - that maybe there is some sort of threshold for media saturation where it get's so intense that it actually stops having any effect, nullifies itself. But that's sort of eschatological idea, meaning - it's probably too hopeful.

 

[version]

That's something I've been thinking about - that maybe there is some sort of threshold for media saturation where it get's so intense that it actually stops having any effect, nullifies itself. But that's sort of eschatological idea, meaning - it's probably too hopeful.

I suppose I'm thinking on an individual level of someone getting fed up with news and politics and switching off for a while. If everyone collectively loses interest at the same time then we're perhaps in the territory you're talking about of something top down occurring.

 

[WashYourHands]

That's something I've been thinking about - that maybe there is some sort of threshold for media saturation where it get's so intense that it actually stops having any effect, nullifies itself. But that's sort of eschatological idea, meaning - it's probably too hopeful.

aye but imagine a new norm where people actually stop engaging with McNews

too hopeful? maybe but what a boost to mental health

 

[craner]

I suspect that the decent common sense of Ian and Dorian’s podcast has calmed the nation’s nerves.

 

[germaphobian]

I don't know how it works, but whenever I hear the voice of Norman Finkkelstein I actually want to commit genocide? That normal? Very annoying voice

 

[mixed_biscuits]

more animus/tension between afro-americans and african immigrants

Please, tell us more.

 

[luka]

they don't like each other hes just told you. what else is there to know?

 

[other_life]

i mean its being mediated by how the two groups imagine each other as occupying certain class positions, living in different neighborhoods, carrying themselves differently in public and belonging to different religions

to risk it and schematise -

afro-american : east african : west african

labor aristocratic : subaltern gig class : aspirational towards middle class

americo-protestant atheism : islam and eastern orthodoxy : pentecostal/-aligned church revival

a lot of it is coming from black americans towards africans and is patterned on/expressing the same general anti-immigrant and anti-muslim sentiment. but there's also a religiously coded disdain on the part of africans towards black americans as somehow dissolute.
but it's quieter/more implicit. things like backbiting in the breakroom ("this person is using the muslim prayer rite to shirk their work duties"/"the muslim student assoc. are imposing on the public, why can't we do that as christians?") and tirades on the bus ("why are you pressing me for my busfare? you need to go back to africa") are on the part of americans

 

[other_life]

i probably spend too much mental energy thinking about it because of a certain investment in perhaps romantic [derogatory] ideas of pan-africanism (black athena, the black atlantic and black secret technology) that feel problematised by seeing these tensions play out ~in the real~.

if anything those investments were intensified by the floyd riots - so it's this sense of anticlimax that these elements could not unify.

it's also something i feel outside of, spectating - like it would be grossly inappropriate socially to agitate/consciousness raise. as a pasty quiet jew

 

[version]

I don't know how it works, but whenever I hear the voice of Norman Finkkelstein I actually want to commit genocide? That normal? Very annoying voice

After his debate the other day, people have been tweeting their own versions of him hurling insults and it's impossible not to read them in his voice.

 

[other_life]

idk what everyone is on about finkelstein is in my eyes unimpeachable and Based

 

[version]

I like him, certainly more than that Destiny idiot.

 

[version]

This is legendary.

 

[germaphobian]

I like him, certainly more than that Destiny idiot.

What really got me is when he said that Ukraine belongs to Russia. Unjustifiable in my book. Chomsky is another one who sez loads of stupid crap like that. Basically it comes down to - everyone who opposes West, no matter how barbaric, is somewhat moral and good. Like Chomsky used to defend Khmer Rouge and serbs. I'm totally against that line of "thinking" of which Finkelstein is the main embodiment. That's why Palestinians are suffering so much, they have the worst defenders, just bad optics essentially - means a lot. And the voice is truly terrible, like lefty version on Jordan Peterson with that awful whine.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

This is legendary.

I don't get Frankelstein's drift: if he disallows emotion then he's only left with logic and there's no logical compulsion to be unbiased towards your heritage based on past events.

 

[Mr. Tea]

What really got me is when he said that Ukraine belongs to Russia. Unjustifiable in my book. Chomsky is another one who sez loads of stupid crap like that. Basically it comes down to - everyone who opposes West, no matter how barbaric, is somewhat moral and good. Like Chomsky used to defend Khmer Rouge and serbs. I'm totally against that line of "thinking" of which Finkelstein is the main embodiment. That's why Palestinians are suffering so much, they have the worst defenders, just bad optics essentially - means a lot. And the voice is truly terrible, like lefty version on Jordan Peterson with that awful whine.

The key to understanding this sort of thinking is that it relies on using performative collective self-loathing as a vehicle for personal narcissism.

What's it's saying, basically, is "My people are evil, but I hate my people and love all our enemies, which makes me, personally, good."

 

[Mr. Tea]

The truth is, these people don't really give a flying fuck about Palestinians, or Iraqis, or whoever it may be. If they did, they'd have had something to say about the thousands of Palestinians killed in the Syrian civil war, mainly by Syrian government forces, which until the start of the present war in Gaza outnumbered Palestinians killed by Israel over the same period.

But those Palestinians had the poor judgement to be killed by a client state of Russia, not the US, so the tankies couldn't give a flying fuck about them. Nor the countless other victims of the Syrian government, or Russia, etc. etc.

 

[germaphobian]

The truth is, these people don't really give a flying fuck about Palestinians, or Iraqis, or whoever it may be. If they did, they'd have had something to say about the thousands of Palestinians killed in the Syrian civil war, mainly by Syrian government forces, which until the start of the present war in Gaza outnumbered Palestinians killed by Israel over the same period.

But those Palestinians had the poor judgement to be killed by a client state of Russia, not the US, so the tankies couldn't give a flying fuck about them. Nor the countless other victims of the Syrian government, or Russia, etc. etc.

You're getting there

 

[luka]

mr tea has always been this way you're not converting him. don't flatter yourself.

 

[dilbert1]

I like him, certainly more than that Destiny idiot.