Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags
- Thread starter Prince Rhyus
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I don't think you can separate the two, she certainly doesn't.
discokermit
Well-Known Member
it's no surprise to see the people trained to lead end up leading. the labour movement is a product of capitalism. tainted by it to the very core. we'll only get rid of the oxbridge cunts after we get rid of oxbridge and the economic system that supports it.
revol68
what, fucking what?
I wouldn't give a fuck about Laurie's background if she wasn't such a superficial prick of little writing ability, desperately trying to climb the social ladder on the back of working class struggle.
As it is I've more respect for Callinicos, he might be a posh old trot twat but I think it's obvious he's sincere and certainly less superficial than Laurie Penny.
As it is I've more respect for Callinicos, he might be a posh old trot twat but I think it's obvious he's sincere and certainly less superficial than Laurie Penny.
revol68
what, fucking what?
also Laurie Penny is the kind of twat middle class, middle brow pseuds love (being one herself), a quick read of her, coupled with their deluded sense of intellectual superiority and that's them equipped to talk shit for the next year.
I don't think the same can be said for old Alex's books.
I don't think the same can be said for old Alex's books.
newbie
undisambiguated
that does sound a bit as though you're attacking her simply for the crime of being young and applauding him because he's spent longer at it.
Youth is an excuse, at least in my mind, for pontificating without substance, for exploring ability, for being superficial. How would a vast chunk of the posts on urban be read without that excuse- especially those hectoring us about 'working class struggle' without a trace of depth or humility?
Face it, all she's doing is being a twenty-something who's caught the public eye. Would you deny a public voice to the twenty-somethings? Of course not, yet when one achieves prominence she makes for a very easy target.
fwiw, personally I've never read anything of hers except to skim a few of the links from this thread, a discussion which gives her a prominence she personally clearly doesn't deserve- except as a cipher for a wider malaise. But then I don't read posh old trots either and I think a lot of urban is very funny indeed
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Newbie- she can write. Occasionally. But the reams of made up bullshit and pose-striking bourgeois lib left cliches and banalities. They ache upon my eye
JHE
.
She doesn't speak for 20-somethings, does she?
The one thing I have against her is her extraordinary success at presenting herself as some sort of spokesperson for youth/protest/radicalism. (I really don't understand how she achieved it.)
revol68
what, fucking what?
that does sound a bit as though you're attacking her simply for the crime of being young and applauding him because he's spent longer at it.
Youth is an excuse, at least in my mind, for pontificating without substance, for exploring ability, for being superficial. How would a vast chunk of the posts on urban be read without that excuse- especially those hectoring us about 'the working class' without a trace of depth or humility?
Face it, all she's doing is being a twenty-something who's caught the public eye. Would you deny a public voice to the twenty-somethings? Of course not, yet when one achieves prominence she makes for a very easy target.
fwiw, personally I've never read anything of hers except to skim a few of the links from this thread, a discussion which gives her a prominence she personally clearly doesn't deserve- except as a cipher for a wider malaise. But the i don't read posh old trots weither and I think a lot of urban is very funny indeed
Yes but why is it her banal superficial voice that get's chosen to speak for twenty somethings? You don't think it's got to do with an oxbridge education and the social capital that goes with it?
There are thousands of more articulate and intelligent young people out there involved in and around anti cuts stuff and they don't get the mainstream media fan fare Laurie does.
How anyone can fail to see the shallow, grasping nature of Penny is beyond me, it drips from her every utterance, she's a charlatan and social climber, which itself could be a bit more forgivable if she had one iota of self awareness. It's the potent mixture of affected earnest, pen of the people posturing, intellectual inanity and oxbridge privilege that makes her a particularly contemptible cunt.
revol68
what, fucking what?
Her writing is cliched, affected piss.
Good for A Level English Lit but fuck all else, and especially jarring when it's as the voice of the young precarious working class.
It really does carry the rugged birthmarks of it's formation in the raging proletarian furnaces of a home counties private school...
newbie
undisambiguated
dc, don't read her, it really is that simple.
does she paint herself, or do threads like this paint her? I really don't know. But someone was bound to be in the right place at the right time to write insider articles about the student protests, about the sit-ins and the occupations and so on. The newspapers needed a columnist to explain it to those of us who weren't part of it. How that came to be her is faintly interesting, but also mundane. It was always going to be someone pushy, someone with confidence and contacts, someone personable and presentable, someone who went to oxbridge.
Revol, of course it's to do with oxbridge and social capital, but that wasn't the point I was after. There may be a lot (thousands?) of her contemporaries who write blogs and aspire to journalism covering the protests with a better eye, a better style, more articulacy etc. Those people haven't pushed themselves to such prominence (that may well be because they lack the social capital, I don't know, I don't read their writings) but if they had, they'd be torn to pieces in exactly the same way. Whatever their background. Because they somehow seek, or are seen, to speak for a generation, a movement, a cohort.
does she paint herself, or do threads like this paint her? I really don't know. But someone was bound to be in the right place at the right time to write insider articles about the student protests, about the sit-ins and the occupations and so on. The newspapers needed a columnist to explain it to those of us who weren't part of it. How that came to be her is faintly interesting, but also mundane. It was always going to be someone pushy, someone with confidence and contacts, someone personable and presentable, someone who went to oxbridge.
Revol, of course it's to do with oxbridge and social capital, but that wasn't the point I was after. There may be a lot (thousands?) of her contemporaries who write blogs and aspire to journalism covering the protests with a better eye, a better style, more articulacy etc. Those people haven't pushed themselves to such prominence (that may well be because they lack the social capital, I don't know, I don't read their writings) but if they had, they'd be torn to pieces in exactly the same way. Whatever their background. Because they somehow seek, or are seen, to speak for a generation, a movement, a cohort.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Taaffe speaks at Oxford Union (did he wear black tie? Does footage exist?):
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ar...ls-the-poor-accept-oxford-university-students
Madsen Pirie - the cunt's cunt.
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ar...ls-the-poor-accept-oxford-university-students
Madsen Pirie - the cunt's cunt.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
She's used the term 'my generation' on more than one occasion which can be interpreted as positioning to be the spokesperson or at least the go to person for young people etc.
newbie
undisambiguated
that makes an assumption that she's not simply naive- that she knows and understands how her words will be interpreted. She young enough to have not really been able to observe the lifecycle of a youth culture, and certainly young enough to not really appreciate how she'll be seen by people older than her.
That's an argument as to why her views are not worth too much consideration, she's too young to have anything rounded to say. The absurdity of that is blatantly obvious.
Somebody has to write from her generation, or at least from the cohort involved in the protests where they've been so prominent. Just as someone had to write from the generations that produced hippies, punk or raves. A misplaced word here or there blurs the line between writing from and writing for.
I'm sure others also write from her cohort- revol claims thousands- yet they are not given the attention of a thread on urban. That's partially because they're not columnists in mainstream publications- but how many here actually read her in the print version? Mostly, surely, she's read on the screen where she's competing for eyeball time with her contemporaries. As I said the dc, if you don't like what she writes don't read her, and more to the point, if there really is someone with a better view, though less social capital, then read them and publicise them.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Wtf point are you actually trying to make? Because the above doesn't actually seem to say anything at all - unless that last sentence banality is it? That you don't have to read her. Cheers for that if so.
He goes through her used knickers.
Steel Icarus
we move
She's just left the New Statesman and got a full-time job with the Independent. That's all these people really want, isn't it?
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Steel Icarus
we move
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Yep, cheers.
The perfect replacement for Hari
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Independent is an interesting choice, I'd thought the Guardian would've snapped her up by now?
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Yeah but that's a blip aint it? I mean it's not like she has a long history of provable fabrication when it comes to her articles is it.
Steel Icarus
we move
"Seriously though, thank you everyone for the congratulations. Onwards and upwards!"
That's it, in a nutshell.
That's it, in a nutshell.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
perfect home really, liberal hector goes to liberal, hectoring rag.
kavenism
Progressive misanthrope
What with Julie Burchill leaving the paper last October they did have an opening. She's surpassed my expectations, I thought she would at least have to go through the ‘write for Guardian – find god – accuse Guardian of anti-Semitism – write for Murdoch press’ sequence before she reached the Inde.
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