Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[LLETSA]

Frotty French Trans-Humanism? Doesn't really seem your style.

He's spot on about the stupidity and pointlessness of contemporary society and its roots in the convergence of hippydom and liberal capitalism.

 

[love detective]

So she'll be you? No wonder they say there's no future for this generation.

bastard beat me to it!

 

[articul8]

bastard beat me to it!

what is it they say...fools seldom differ?

 

[love detective]

angels rarely bleed

 

[love detective]

thing is, you did accurately describe yourself there, so that makes three of us

 

[butchersapron]

what is it they say...fools seldom differ?

I quite agree.

 

[articul8]

There's a difference between straight down the line reformist pragmatism and a socialist politics which engages tactically with reformist pragmatism to move beyond it.

 

[butchersapron]

There's a difference between straight down the line reformist pragmatism and a socialist politics which engages tactically with reformist pragmatism to move beyond it.

Exactly what Penny will say.

 

[articul8]

She's moving right and making lots of money, I'm moving leftwards and losing it

 

[butchersapron]

You're moving left from the socialist party to labour. Yes, that's correct.

 

[Fedayn]

It happens on here time and time again, not just on the issue of tattooing/piercing. As I said, I find it quite strange that people seem to see no wider significance in the fact that whereas a small minority of people might once have had large, garish tattoos, they have now moved into the mainstream and in a grotesque and overblown fashion. What goes through the mind of an individual who has no long association with a subculture like yours but who thinks that repeatedly having pictures painted on him/herself, covering ever wider areas of the body, is some kind of answer to something? A growing purposelessness and sheeplike stupidity seems to have seized the stage at the moment when technology has transformed our world but the socio-economic system on which it rests has begun to eat itself.

But who says it's the answerr? Some might, some might simply like the tattoo, the getting it done, the whole aesthetic. Some might I agree, watch London/LA/Miami Ink and see that some twat has a tattoo and gets one done. It's a mixture of things....
Who says their life is purposeless without the tattoos?
It has no new significance though in reality. It's the same old same old, the old being treated as new and re-sold to us. That some people think it gives them an 'edge' or an answer is not my, or your worry really.

Maybe it's just what happens when, physically, life has never been softer but all sense of direction and purpose has been lost and a converging glut of insoluble crises moves into view. A widespread, unacknowledged sense of unease prevails, and pure irrationality seizes the reins.

Who says those people you refer to so glibly have no sense of purpose or direction? How can you possibly know this?

 

[articul8]

You're moving left from the socialist party to labour. Yes, that's correct.

from left of Compass type Labour to LRC. (differences with the SP are mostly on whether it's possible to build a significant electoral force to the left of Labour in the present period. I don't think that Labour work is the most important sphere in terms of building and mobilising an alternative though, far from it).

 

[butchersapron]

So from pathetic labour-left to pathetic labour left. You might join the fabians by next week at this rate. Never have i seen such a whirlwind radicalisation.

 

[love detective]

Exactly what Penny will say.

and again

 

[LLETSA]

But who says it's the answerr? Some might, some might simply like the tattoo, the getting it done, the whole aesthetic. Some might I agree, watch London/LA/Miami Ink and see that some twat has a tattoo and gets one done. It's a mixture of things....
Who says their life is purposeless without the tattoos?
It has no new significance though in reality. It's the same old same old, the old being treated as new and re-sold to us. That some people think it gives them an 'edge' or an answer is not my, or your worry really.



Who says those people you refer to so glibly have no sense of purpose or direction? How can you possibly know this?

Once again: all I am saying is that the fashion for tattoos has moved into the mainstream for a reason-and tried to offer some possible reasons.

I'm not saying anybody's life is purposeless; I just get the feeling that there is a widespread sense of purposelessness and directionlessness at large, arising out of the nature of the times we're living through (I tried to touch on this above.) I feel it myself.

 

[Fruitloop]

Have you read any Theodore Dalrymple?

 

[butchersapron]

Have you read any Theodore Dalrymple?

The prison doctor who signed off on my mate who the screws had beaten black and blue for a few hours as being perfectly fine.

 

[Fedayn]

Once again: all I am saying is that the fashion for tattoos has moved into the mainstream for a reason-and tried to offer some possible reasons.

I certainly think that with the advent of satellite tv/www/new media the ability to see more and watch more aspects of a culture previously seen as 'underground' and 'rough' has certainly helped move it towards the mainstream. I don't think it is as yet totally mainstream. Especially as there's often still an almost audible exclamation mark after news of someone getting a tattoo. I agree it's boring and utterly un-newsworthy aswell.

I'm not saying anybody's life is purposeless; I just get the feeling that there is a widespread sense of purposelessness and directionlessness at large, arising out of the nature of the times we're living through (I tried to touch on this above.) I feel it myself.

I think that's related more to the changing nature of work and the shifting of 'roles'. Especially with regards to working-class me who traditionally had a very siolidly outlined and 'm,apped' role ie as the worker who 'provided'. The recent economic changes, ie attacks, have certainly played into this.

 

[Fruitloop]

The prison doctor who signed off on my mate who the screws had beaten black and blue for a few hours as being perfectly fine.

Nice. Figures.

ETA: The literary pseudonym paints a picture of an amiable curmudgeon, not entirely suprising to find something altogether less pleasant lurking behind it though.

 

[LLETSA]

Have you read any Theodore Dalrymple?

No. It's typical of what I've been saying about U75, though, for you to try and paint every criticism of contemporary culture that doesn't come from a hackneyed, juvenile liberalism-disguised-as-leftism direction as right wing.

 

[Fruitloop]

This was what I was thinking of:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_4_oh_to_be.html

 

[DaveCinzano]

#mollywatch

Spotted following an innocent tweet by an unwitting bystander...

Molly Crabapple is...the founder of Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School, a cabaret life-drawing class with nearly fifty branches around the world...Crabapple learned to draw in a Parisian bookstore...She now wields her pen for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Playgirl and Marvel Comics...

http://mollycrabappleart.com/?p=820

 

[Fruitloop]

No. It's typical of what I've been saying about U75, though, for you to try and paint every criticism of contemporary culture that doesn't come from a hackneyed, juvenile liberalism-disguised-as-leftism direction as right wing.

It really wasn't intended as some kind of slight. He's occasionally quite good at the symptomology of late capitalist society. Obviously he has this massive Oedipal issue with left thinking in general and communism in particular (about both which he has anyway only the most rudimentary idea), but he's not uninteresting for all that.

 

[LLETSA]

I certainly think that with the advent of satellite tv/www/new media the ability to see more and watch more aspects of a culture previously seen as 'underground' and 'rough' has certainly helped move it towards the mainstream. I don't think it is as yet totally mainstream. Especially as there's often still an almost audible exclamation mark after news of someone getting a tattoo. I agree it's boring and utterly un-newsworthy aswell.



I think that's related more to the changing nature of work and the shifting of 'roles'. Especially with regards to working-class me who traditionally had a very siolidly outlined and 'm,apped' role ie as the worker who 'provided'. The recent economic changes, ie attacks, have certainly played into this.

I don't think most people with tattoos-people of the kind who wouldn't have had them in the past-get them because they want to think it's 'underground' or 'rough'; I think they genuinely believe they're stylish and chic. It's the degradation of taste under the imposed pleb culture that contemorary capitalism thrives on. Talking about inner-city M/C above reminded me how working class women of my mother's generation wouldn't have been seen dead with a tattoo, or a nose piercing.

I agree that your second point make be a major factor in this sense of purposelessness, but I think there are also a lot of relatively intangible factors as well. After all, present society, with its all pervasive media and information overload, is unlike any other that's ever existed.

 

[LLETSA]

It really wasn't intended as some kind of slight. He's occasionally quite good at the symptomology of late capitalist society. Obviously he has this massive Oedipal issue with left thinking in general and communism in particular (about both which he has anyway only the most rudimentary idea), but he's not uninteresting for all that.

Fair enough then. Certain right wingers (ie those who have managed to grasp the fact that capitalism undermines social conservatism*) sometimes can see things that the left are deliberately blind to.


*As well as undermining the social solidarity that the working class movement relied on and thus making it impotent, as we see today.

 

[Fruitloop]

Indeed. John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education is an excellent survey of the ongoing project for the stupidification of society.

I'll stop derailing now.

 

[LLETSA]

Indeed. John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education is an excellent survey of the ongoing project for the stupidification of society.

I'll stop derailing now.

It isn't a derail-if you trace it all back we're still talking about the crisis of Laura's haircut.

 

[Blagsta]

The prison doctor who signed off on my mate who the screws had beaten black and blue for a few hours as being perfectly fine.

The man is a scumbag.

 

[Blagsta]

Nice. Figures.

ETA: The literary pseudonym paints a picture of an amiable curmudgeon, not entirely suprising to find something altogether less pleasant lurking behind it though.

He describes heroin withdrawal as "trivial" and has advocated against methadone px in prison.

 

[Fedayn]

I don't think most people with tattoos-people of the kind who wouldn't have had them in the past-get them because they want to think it's 'underground' or 'rough'; I think they genuinely believe they're stylis and chic. It's the degradation of taste under the imposed pleb culture that contemorary capitalism thrives on.

Some do some don't i'd think. A mate at work is training to be a tattooist and he gets 'both', ie the 'posher' types who've seen a celeb with some new tattoo and think they're cool and those who think it's a wee nod at 'rough trade culture'. There's certainly sill an element of 'hard' associated with it and the repeated 'doesn't hurt' it's easy, etc etc. In my own humble experience it hurts at times alright alright, uncomfy at others, easy at others. That 'rough/edgy' thing is still there for some..... Daft sods.

Talking about inner-city M/C above reminded me how working class women of my mother's generation wouldn't have been seen dead with a tattoo, or a nose piercing.

But that's not necessarily a good thing they felt that way to be fair. Just the 'limits' of the time and world they lived in. As you know many things have changed as regards what w/c women feel able to do. Most for the good i'd argue. Some for the bad a la Laurie Penny.

I agree that your second point make be a major factor in this sense of purposelessness, but I think there are also a lot of relatively intangible factors as well. After all, present society, with its all pervasive media and information overload, is unlike any other that's ever existed.

I'd agree with that