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Oh come on, there's more to it than that! You also get to bolt forms of the word "dialectic" onto other words, and make all kinds of brain-throbbing hyphenated neologisms.
Twenty-Four Words
Peter Risdon: Marxism is, in general, cleverness for stupid people. You get to use words like ‘hegemony’ and analyse the world, albeit in unusually fatuous terms. Readers may wish to alternate the word ‘stupid’ with ‘pathologically unrealistic’, or ‘vain and sadistic’, or some suggestion of the...
I'd like to follow him to wherever it is he buys his leftist hairshirts, and ask if he knows where they come from. Or not, as possibly his head may explode.
Scenes of Extended Fretting
It all began for me more than a decade ago, with the “mangetout moment”; a passing conversation with my editor at the Guardian about those pangs of consumer guilt that wash over us, but upon which we rarely act. Ah, consumer guilt. I bet you’re feeling its sting right now. Those moments when, ...
Oh, that's definitely the Tweet of the day!
Pith
Following this tweet and this one, and many others like them, here’s a contender for Tweet of the Day: Via Martin Durkin. Thanks to dicentra.
I once dated a woman from Minnesota. Where do I go to atone for this, seeing as how her Viking ancestors brutalized my English ancestors a millennium ago?
Lovely, Lovely Guilt
The Guardian’s Natalie Hanman - who edits Comment Is Free, where the party never stops - urges us to cultivate some pretentious guilt. Boldly, she asks: Should Benedict Cumberbatch say sorry for the slave owners in his family? Not current family members, you understand. So far as I’m aware, Mr C...
A modest admin suggestion: Next time, instead of images, use Twitter's embed tool, located under the More link, to insert the actual tweets into your blog post. That way your readers can inflict their privileged, patriarchal hetero-supremacist opinions about the linguistic construction of these nascent normative values.
Even Her Buttocks Feel Guilty (and Other Agonies)
Yes, yes, I know. It’s beneath me. Beneath her too. Only his thoughts will be heard. And then utopia. His guilt may be pretentious but it makes him better than us. Economics 101. Because there’s no difference between microscopic bacteria and a nascent human being. Because they know s...
"Microaggression" is the whiniest neologism of the millennium so far.
The Year Reheated
In which we revisit the towers of academia, the intellectual boiler-room of contemporary art and various lamentations from the pages of the Guardian. In January we marvelled at the inventive ways in which the Arts Council sets fire to our earnings: One might have thought that buskers got their ...
(Cut & pasted from an old post at my place)
The fine arts in any society throughout history usually require patronage. The Renaissance geniuses had to be funded by various popes and nobility, for example. The Dutch Masters are an exception, mostly making their own way in the bourgeois markets of 17th century Holland. And there have been artists such as Pablo Picasso, John Singer Sargent and Andrew Wyeth who were both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. But for the most part the arts require sponsorship, and in a democracy (especially one with a leftover 1930s ideal of democratic art) the sponsor is the government. People need art, no doubt about it, but in a pure market environment the job of the artist too often turns into trying to prove that people need his art.
“Art happens - no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.”
-- James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Sure, but the rent ain't gonna pay itself. It's to be hoped that the directors of the endowing bodies have enough acumen and taste to weed imposters and charlatans, of course. And we've all heard of artworks that the public wasn't ready for at the time they premiered. But it is through such thickets and blind alleys as those, that art gropes its way forward--given the funding.
No Refunds, No Credit Note
Those of you with artistic leanings may want to catch up with this ongoing thread at Artblog, in which I trade views with a couple of artists, chiefly on the subject of public funding. It’s informative and fun, if you like that kind of thing. I learned, for instance, that, Art is for the people...
I sometimes wish I was a college student for a day. When I would be called upon to stand and confess my original sin before the gathered multi-culti proggs, I'd simply say "Without the democratic, Christian, scientific West, you lot wouldn't even have the vocabulary to bewail your imagined wrongs. Indeed, you would likely never have even been born."
Diversity and Inclusion
To be cultivated, obviously, with racial segregation: In order to create a safe space, this programme is open to people of colour only. A similar conversation for white students, faculty and staff is planned for the spring semester. You see, it’s a “conversation,” one that’s all about “healing...
The whole incident was a horrible misunderstanding.
the verdict
by russell hey, what the hell, i'll go there. i'm not, remotely, surprised by the verdict. i'm also not particularly sure it should have gone any other way. murder, of whatever degree, is a heavy charge, and really deserves ironclad proof. when the evidence is one person's word against anoth...
Always disquieting to listen to the ragings of a powerless deity.
Because Socialism is Never About Envy and Spite
It has long since past the time [sic] when aggressive redistribution of wealth were [sic] government policy. So writes Guardian reader StevenMD, fuming on cue to a tale of sin and woe told by the paper’s Michele Hanson. Ms Hanson is upset because, Manchester’s stunningly beautiful Victoria Baths...
Re your final paragraph: Leftism is the bargain by which people can cease being responsible for themselves, by pretending to be responsible for everything else.
Everybody Hates A Level Playing Field
This is an argument for class and against equality. Imagine that you were introduced to basketball by Michael Jordan. He teaches you how to dribble, to shoot, to block, to assist. You get pretty good. And then he starts playing. Every day you are playing against Michael Jordan; every day you ...
As for green grass, I put down a layer of fescue seed on my lawn several weeks ago. But as I was going, I saw that the spinner on my broadcaster wasn't turning, and the seed was just plopping out in a stream. I tried to rake the seeds around, but nevertheless I now have a narrow fairy path of bright green fescue seedlings, snaking around the yard.
The green earth
by Doctor Science Well, today has certainly sucked. I'm not going to write about the Boston Marathon bombing specifically, though if you Bostonites use the comments to check in we'd all appreciate it. Spring is proceeding apace here in central NJ, with visible changes every day. Driving with Spro...
I once thought that the stupidest possible hair style was middle-aged bald guys with little rattails in back. Pathetic, and so 90s. But one day I saw a style even stupider than that: A bald guy with dreadlocks. Dude looked like the monster from the Predator movies.
Racist Hair
Via reddit’s SRSsucks forum, comes this stern correction regarding countercultural coiffure: This is the post about white people with dreadlocks. This is the post about white people who just don’t get the possibility that they could be doing something colonialist. The author of the piece, a se...
Happy blogoversary!
The Random Blofeld
Incidentally, this blog is six years old today. So cake for everyone.
I am eternally grateful to my parents for setting me up as a child with some DRIP investments. I don't know how I managed to keep my hands off of them when I was younger, but they will be a godsend if Social Security goes TU by the time I retire.
We Had To Tax The Retirement Plan In Order To Save It
Duncan (He can't be Sirius) Black, the econ degree holder formerly known as Atrios, explains in USA Today that baby boomers face a retirement crisis which can only be solved by raising both taxes and Social Security benefits. Really: Recent and near-retirees, the first major cohort of the 401(k)...
“Tax revenue has been falling despite a sharp increase in the rate.” Despite?
#Unexpectedly
Elsewhere (81)
Matt Welch on Obama’s fantasy economics: Democrats are in denial about the true cost of their ideological commitments. If we taxed Americans enough to cover the cost (or even 90 percent of the cost) of what Democrats consider the minimal level of government, the result would be recession. That ...
Type alert: His name is Matt Welch.
Elsewhere (81)
Matt Welch on Obama’s fantasy economics: Democrats are in denial about the true cost of their ideological commitments. If we taxed Americans enough to cover the cost (or even 90 percent of the cost) of what Democrats consider the minimal level of government, the result would be recession. That ...
Do you have family there? That helps smooth things, I've found.
The Two Koreas
You have a choice when living in Korea as a liberal-minded Westerner. and that choice will define your life here, as you interact with the Two Koreas. But they're not the ones you think.... One "Korea" is a place full of warm-hearted, friendly people who are steeped in a Confucian way of unders...
As for meritocracies, what constitutes merit in, say, broadcast news? A square jaw and fab hair, and what else?
Paradoxes of Democracy
This afternoon I had a passing thought that struck me about the paradox of American democracy as we go through the melodrama of red and blue states. It is how identity politics and class warfare, two social phenomenon that I find particularly nauseating, are both the inevitable result of democra...
The vulgar nouveau riche have been rising, and assimilating, for far longer than Snoop Dogg's been around.
But yes, it's too bad that everyone's scattered to their gated communities, suburbs and ghettos. I grew up middle class, but the neighbor across the street could have bought and sold us out of his jam jar money. I never encounter such people in daily life anymore, away from work.
Paradoxes of Democracy
This afternoon I had a passing thought that struck me about the paradox of American democracy as we go through the melodrama of red and blue states. It is how identity politics and class warfare, two social phenomenon that I find particularly nauseating, are both the inevitable result of democra...
It's too bad there were no viable conservative candidates this time around. I can't think of much of anything that Romney would have done differently from Obama, good or bad. Not much of a choice...It's like Aristotle said, that in public life great men come like bumper harvests, and then comes a period of barrenness.
Personal Values, Political Choices (KingShamus)
A personal observation taken from the post-election wreckage. On Election Night, I sat in a coffee house reading Twitter and scanning the Fox News website for the vote tallies. I couldn't sit in my cold dark place without power. I didn't feel like just listening to the radio for the returns to...
This blog post did not make me feel all affirmed and completed inside. I'm afraid I'll have to sue you under Britain's generous libel tourism laws. Sorry David!
Dealing with Impurities
Or, Correcting Wrongthought. Bill Whittle on campus censorship and the narrowing of minds: 65% of the 392 top colleges surveyed maintain speech codes and other restrictions on expression that violate First Amendment principles… No wonder a study of 24,000 students conducted by the Association ...
"Yes luv, we know: people need art. Your job is to sell us on the idea that we need your art."
Because I’m Glorious, Goddammit
Rummaging through my images files, I found this. It’s one of the less baffling signs from Zombie’s report on Occupy LA, May 1st, 2012. Zombie’s caption reads, “Narcissistic personality disorder, coupled with delusions of grandeur.” Which seems fair enough. I suppose the placard might have be...
Unrewarded genius and educated failures are proverbial, not a violation of the natural order of things at all. A students work for B students, and C students work for the government, as a forthcoming book asserts.
Superior Beings
Victor Davis Hanson ponders a certain, quite common kind of leftist mindset. Among its attributes, this: For some, especially those who are well-educated and well-spoken, a sort of irrational furore at “the system” governs their political make-up. Why don’t degrees and vocabulary always transla...
How clever!
I Fear There’s Been an Accident in the Lab
Skip to 1 minute in. Projections by Friedrich van Schoor.
More...
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