josef k
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- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa argument by tag seems like an odd hobby at least we can spell clever you bellend autistic foreplay autoflatular narcosis barty's entertainment bell end pantomime cancelled concerned parent craner's aggressive gargling lounge act den of despair disgusting old men erectile dysfunction finger wagging i blame twitter i've got mates intervention john's mates josef and his technicoloured meme coat josef k's sick burns kanye without the talent meritless thread no wonder brits sneeked into ira centcom north london house mafia not angry just disappointed not what john was hoping for orange penguin bars paying dress up piety as surrogate sexual dominance sebastian semantic apocalypse now she's not going to fuck you!!! sid viscous vs robocock such bloody awful poetry the evola virus trying to shag a lecturer half my age turd reich vanquishing the goblin nonce vim's sensual meringue hostility group vimothy killed jungle vimothy's hectoring wait till dad gets home we're not going to shag her joe what are you trying to achieve? what is the end goal? what is the point of this thread? who cares? world's worst dinner party you lot aren't as cleaver as you think z haterzzzzzzz
luka
Well-known member
You've done well Vim. Got all the old boys talking for the first time in ages and even got our favourite celebrity philosopher to make a dashing cameo, hello Nina.
I think dissensus operates on a pretty human level still, not many hysterical denunciations get flung around. I talk amicably and reasonably to my far right mates vim and craner, no one punches each other. No one gets cancelled.
I think dissensus operates on a pretty human level still, not many hysterical denunciations get flung around. I talk amicably and reasonably to my far right mates vim and craner, no one punches each other. No one gets cancelled.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's generally fine as long as you can stay off the sauce.
vimothy
yurp
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I got u bro
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
not gonna read thru 12 pages + idk all the josef k etc backstory but unsurprised to see john eden (+ droid) talking sense
version's Sartre quote in re anti-Semites (the socialism of fools) etc is also good
there are people you can talk to and people you can't. engaging people isn't without cost.
it's a victory for alt-right etc or whoever to get into "hear out both sides" territory, move the Overton window, endow their bullshit with legitimacy
think of the battles that have been waged to banish Holocaust denial to the vilest margins where it belongs, for example
those mfers were emboldened like no one's business the last couple years. punching some of them in the face isn't the only thing that helped ofc, but it definitely helped
hell ya you should be judicious with the use of violence, and there's always gonna be gray areas and blurry lines
but when it comes down to it, don't give them their freedom cos they're not give give you (or POC or immigrants or queer people or etc etc) yours
if you wanna be a Nazi, you should live in fear of your physical safety until the day you renounce that bullshit
Hello Luke! Not merely a cameo I hope, though I was busy giving a talk on women and AI yesterday and now on the train to Brussels to give two talks today, so I suppose that might be described as dashing heh heh, or perhaps just overwork hmm...I agree re Dissensus and respect/lack of denunciations/not cancelling. I also remember the 90s and what seemed to me to be a distinct openness to discussion/disagreement, a recognition of difference and an image of a world that was unified in difference, not smashed to pieces and torn apart by it, and filled with people trying to get you to lose your job and calling you a Nazi for asking questions (perhaps it was all the drugs and philosophy, and I'm not saying there weren't mad arguments - there really were - but they were within a different frame somehow, like even if I call you a c*nt for five hours because of your reading of Spinoza, we are still friends tomorrow).
I do wonder what has happened - parts of the left are just unrecognisable to me now. I have never been a fan of people telling me what I can and can't read, think, or who I can and can't be friends with - who would agree to these terms? I just really can't stand bullies of any political persuasion, and it seems like there are loads on the left now. Perhaps I have been overly damaged by various things, personal and political, but I still wonder what we are doing when we run around calling everybody 'FASH' and threatening to punch them, or actually punching them, because we think that changing their mind is impossible, that dialogue is impossible, that some people are just irredeemable. Everybody is capable of changing their views, surely - I certainly don't think the same things as I did at 4, 12, 21, 36 etc. I've changed my mind on things as a result of listening to different positions. As for engagement - yeah, perhaps the publicity right guys are unapproachable, but what about people around us? Some of the left seem to think the only option is to 'cancel' everyone, even your parents for example, if they don't share your politics or immediately approve of everything you want to do (often out of extreme love and care). I am not saying there aren't sometimes good reasons to stop seeing people (including parents), but this cutting people off without even talking to them about why thing is just completely brutal and inhumane, and seems to be more about performing one's belonging to the in-group online rather than anything to do with trust and friendship and dealing with difficulties and disagreement.
We are not 'good' just because we think and desire to be 'good', which seems to be some of the basis for the weird left moralism at work (I am good because the other is evil). We are all capable of aggression and violence and negative feeling. It is important to work out why we feels these things, why and against who. Perhaps I am overly committed to a kind of collective psychoanalysis or something like this, and perhaps politics isn't the place for it, or it is impossible there, but I wonder about some parts of the left who feel so eager to suggest, for example, that women should be beaten up (with baseball bats even) for wondering about how changes to the law and to fundamental definitions of terms might affect life for everyone, or that men who are accused of being badly behaved on dates, for example, should lose all their friends and employment and be essentially excluded from writing for the rest of their life, or whatever. It seems to me that friendship is most needed when someone is in trouble, or acting out, or accused of causing harm, or expressing 'terrible' things, that this is exactly *not* the moment to publicly shun them for the sake of appearing to have 'the right line'.
luka
Well-known member
I've always assumed that this stuff doesn't exist in the real world, that these outcomes were only applicable to people who agreed to the rules of that particular game, that people who claim to have 'principles' and put those phantoms before friendships are constantly denouncing one another and falling out with one another, making and breaking alliances, backbiting and double crossing, in a vituperative and exhausting game of musical chairs.
Maybe that's complacent of me. The '90s were a very different time for sure, but I also think there was a much broader consensus then, some cosmic rave vibration that bonded people at a level beyond the reach of mere politics. The further we get from that mdma Revelation the nastier and stupider everything gets.
I didn't even do mdma I'm not even part of that generation, this is possibly just a fantasy of mine.
Maybe that's complacent of me. The '90s were a very different time for sure, but I also think there was a much broader consensus then, some cosmic rave vibration that bonded people at a level beyond the reach of mere politics. The further we get from that mdma Revelation the nastier and stupider everything gets.
I didn't even do mdma I'm not even part of that generation, this is possibly just a fantasy of mine.
john eden
male pale and stale
Cancelling
People did used to get "cancelled" in the 80s and 90s.
I know someone who had to leave London because he fell out with the anarchist group he was in.
There were quite a few people who were heavily invested in trot groups who fell out with them and lost their entire social group overnight.
Sometimes these differences were political and sometimes someone shagged the wrong person.
This is one of many reasons why it is good to have friends who are normal, or perhaps weird in different ways.
The performative call out culture "intersectional olympics" seems mainly to be an issue for the student left. Many of these people are tomorrow's bosses and government ministers - and this, terrifyingly, is their apprenticeship.
There is no mass movement in the UK now, so what you end up with is a bunch of different sects and cults which most people rightly avoid.
Questions
There is not much distance at all from "just asking questions" to "questioning something's validity". This is my problem with "plausible deniability" - "only asking questions" is a rhetorical trick which is used by holocaust revisionists and 9/11 truthers alike. Their questions are not in good faith. And I think this is also the case with the more rabid end of the anti-trans movement at the moment. The beauty of it is of course that there are people asking questions in good faith too and it is often hard to tell the difference.
People have perhaps understandably lost patience with a lot of this stuff especially when it plays out on social media. The trans/radfem issue is further exacerbated because significant numbers of people at both poles have been traumatised by the patriarchy and now see the opposition as symptoms of this. It is going to get much much worse in the short term.
People did used to get "cancelled" in the 80s and 90s.
I know someone who had to leave London because he fell out with the anarchist group he was in.
There were quite a few people who were heavily invested in trot groups who fell out with them and lost their entire social group overnight.
Sometimes these differences were political and sometimes someone shagged the wrong person.
This is one of many reasons why it is good to have friends who are normal, or perhaps weird in different ways.
The performative call out culture "intersectional olympics" seems mainly to be an issue for the student left. Many of these people are tomorrow's bosses and government ministers - and this, terrifyingly, is their apprenticeship.
There is no mass movement in the UK now, so what you end up with is a bunch of different sects and cults which most people rightly avoid.
Questions
There is not much distance at all from "just asking questions" to "questioning something's validity". This is my problem with "plausible deniability" - "only asking questions" is a rhetorical trick which is used by holocaust revisionists and 9/11 truthers alike. Their questions are not in good faith. And I think this is also the case with the more rabid end of the anti-trans movement at the moment. The beauty of it is of course that there are people asking questions in good faith too and it is often hard to tell the difference.
People have perhaps understandably lost patience with a lot of this stuff especially when it plays out on social media. The trans/radfem issue is further exacerbated because significant numbers of people at both poles have been traumatised by the patriarchy and now see the opposition as symptoms of this. It is going to get much much worse in the short term.
luka
Well-known member
When I wrote this I had you in mind John, because you came from the last political generation before this one. A much more polarised time than the one I grew up in. I remember the hysteria of it.
john eden
male pale and stale
No it's cool. We are cool.
I've been reading this recently - http://libcom.org/history/poll-tax-rebellion-danny-burns
Arguably the last time there was a mass movement in this country of any significance. When something like that happens (or the miner's strike which was before my time) all this micro-feuding is marginalised.
It seems incredible now that millions of people breaking the law was normal. I went to a mass meeting in Tottenham Town hall and normal people were volunteering to be the anti-poll tax contact for their street. I went to court in Wood Green for non-payment and there were hundreds of people there supporting each other trying to clog up the justice system. Everyone was talking about it.
Bailiffs came round our house, but we still didn't pay. Millions of people didn't pay. Tens of thousands of people smashed up London. We brought down Thatcher while the Labour party stuttered.
Maybe that won't happen again but it shows what is possible.
What I know from this is that one person talking to their neighbours and workmates is worth 10,000 people arguing the toss on the internet. My politics is based on what people have in common.
john eden
male pale and stale
I take the piss out of Danny for being so into Wilhelm Reich but he was onto something about breaking down character armour.
There are a lot of damaged people about and I'd be reluctant to say that everyone getting off their nuts is the solution to that, but possibly psychedelia + the kind of collective psychotherapy Nina was talking about would do that.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Someone does need to do that.