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

[el-ahrairah]

i love the lord of the rings. it's awesome. but, you know, problematic

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm not running some vendetta against escapist nonsense. But I do think that the kind of places people like to escape to are interesting.

I also think that the contrast between the relatively varied politics of SF and the almost always reactionary politics of (post-Tolkein) fantasy is interesting. I say almost always because, of course, the genre assumptions have always produced hostile reactions from some writers.

sci fi is not that varied either tbh, a hell of a lot is swashbuckling or hard science.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Better the godforsaken hovel that is Galway than the filthy open sewer that is Dublin (a stinking shitpit that is unfit to be capital of any republic).

There's nothing in Galway apart from state funded hippy art and its hangers on. The whole place's economy is based on grants for smug Celto-gobshitery. Like Belfast except you get funding to produce official culture instead of to stop kneecapping kids.

There must be some way to get the UVF to deal with Macnas.

 

[sihhi]

i wear flatcaps and keep whippets. i've been wearing flatcaps and keeping whippets since i was a boy

Are you doing the flat caps the right way though?

Is this the right way?

 

[Idris2002]

That's what they sound like what i think they should sound like! Big howling moon pre-packed romanticism and the great free life with a hat on.

I thought the woman who played Catelyn Stark must have been one of the Cusack family, but apparently not. . .

 

[el-ahrairah]

i'm afraid i do it like number one. he looks a bit like my grandad. except my grandad avoided the countryside.

 

[Idris2002]

There's nothing in Galway apart from state funded hippy art and its hangers on. The whole place's economy is based on grants for smug Celto-gobshitery. Like Belfast except you get funding to produce official culture instead of to stop kneecapping kids.

There must be some way to get the UVF to deal with Macnas.

Yeah, nothing but state funded hippy art - and the medical equipment factory (unionised - well SIPTU, anyway) that my brother works in.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

sci fi is not that varied either tbh, a hell of a lot is swashbuckling or hard science.

Yes, but you'll find mainstream SF with political assumptions that range from the the further reaches of the far left at one end to demi-fascist right wing militaria at the other and covering most points in between.

 

[Idris2002]

Sci fi is a dying genre, though - it will go the way of the western in our lifetime. And from what I see on sale in the shops, right wing milSF seems to predominate.

 

[butchersapron]

right wing milSF

Have they made #9?

 

[DotCommunist]

Sci fi is a dying genre, though - it will go the way of the western in our lifetime. And from what I see on sale in the shops, right wing milSF seems to predominate.

bollocks, theres still good stuff out there. Its just like it ever was though, you have to kiss a lot of frogs

 

[Idris2002]

3.14159

(in response to butchersapron)

 

[DotCommunist]

Yes, but you'll find mainstream SF with political assumptions that range from the the further reaches of the far left at one end to demi-fascist right wing militaria at the other and covering most points in between.

you'll get the same with fantasy if you wade through the crap and learn to avoid the dead giveaway signals contained in first chapter, cover design and blurb.

cover design is not always a great indicator though. The most thoughtful anti-genre piece can oft have some publisher go 'pic of bigboobed lady in armour holding a wand' as cover art

 

[weepiper]

Are you doing the flat caps the right way though?

Is this the right way?

That's not a leather jacket, it's a Barbour.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Yeah, nothing but state funded hippy art - and the medical equipment factory (unionised - well SIPTU, anyway) that my brother works in.

I think you might be taking a post that ends with a call for Loyalist goon squads to be unleashed on harmless hippies with giant puppets a little too seriously.

I do find Galway's immense smugness rather obnoxious, and really fucking hate "official culture" Celto-art and hippies, the two pillars on which rest much of Galway's culture and the two things that most obviously distinguish the place from any other small Irish town to the visitor.

 

[Idris2002]

That's not a leather jacket, it's a Barbour.

And now the FASHION NERDS want in on the action.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

you'll get the same with fantasy if you wade through the crap and learn to avoid the dead giveaway signals contained in first chapter, cover design and blurb.

Well, yes, in the sense that books reacting to the genre's political assumptions exist. But as you've noted yourself, those assumptions are overwhelmingly dominant.

 

[Idris2002]

I think you might be taking a post that ends with a call for Loyalist goon squads to be unleashed on harmless hippies with giant puppets a little too seriously.

Damn, and I thought the SP was once again leading the way in innovative Marxist theorising.

I do find Galway's immense smugness rather obnoxious, and really fucking hate "official culture" Celto-art and hippies, the two pillars on which rest much of Galway's culture and the two things that most obviously distinguish the place from any other small Irish town to the visitor.

Better a second rate imitation of Celto-Irish culture, than the third-rate imitation of America that most of Ireland has become.

 

[butchersapron]

Time to stop anyway, too many people jumping back on the flat cap wagon. If hastily made caps on local market are anything to go by.

 

[sihhi]

Celto-art

What's the relationship between that and Celtic art?

 

[DotCommunist]

Someday the backwards flatcap by kangol as sported by me and samuel l jackson for most of the late 90s will make a comeback and I will be seen as a prophet before my time

 

[agricola]

you'll get the same with fantasy if you wade through the crap and learn to avoid the dead giveaway signals contained in first chapter, cover design and blurb.

cover design is not always a great indicator though. The most thoughtful anti-genre piece can oft have some publisher go 'pic of bigboobed lady in armour holding a wand' as cover art

Its a shame that there isnt a book to go with this, then.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What's the relationship between that and Celtic art?

Celtic art was art made by Celts. Celto-Art is Ireland's official state backed cultural export industry, heavily concentrated in Galway and largely produced by ruthless hippies in a style suffused with stage Oirishry and confused mysticism. Think of a Waterboys record that never stops playing.

 

[DotCommunist]

Its a shame that there isnt a book to go with this, then.

Not read Discordia then?

 

[butchersapron]

Not read Discordia then?

Who has?

Paul Mason and i think that's it.

 

[el-ahrairah]

bollocks, theres still good stuff out there. Its just like it ever was though, you have to kiss a lot of frogs

this.

 

[el-ahrairah]

Someday the backwards flatcap by kangol as sported by me and samuel l jackson for most of the late 90s will make a comeback and I will be seen as a prophet before my time

before it was popular?

 

[DotCommunist]

Who has?

Paul Mason and i think that's it.

looked at the pictures ftw

 

[weepiper]

And now the FASHION NERDS want in on the action.

Not something I've ever been called before!

 

[DotCommunist]

before it was popular?

I had shaved sides and proper cheek length braids to go with it so I don't think popular is ever or was ever going to come into it