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

[frogwoman]

if somebody wants to get a tattoo then i personally couldn't give a fuck at best it can look really nice, at worst it can provide a source of amusement for people on the internet

 

[frogwoman]

the downfall of rome etc

 

[LLETSA]

the downfall of rome etc

There may be parallels. After all, this socio-economic system will come crashing down at some point, probably when we're not looking.

 

[Orang Utan]

So paying through the nose for somebody to pain a daft picture on a limb, which looks from a distance like a nasty burn of something else you'd pay even more for to have removed if acquired by accident, is self-expression?

Are we really that culturally impoverished?

No, you are just prejudiced and ignorant of any culture beyond your tiny little world

 

[LLETSA]

at worst it can provide a source of amusement for people on the internet

Isn't this part of the problem? The world economy is on life support and we're all looking at each others' tattoos on the internet.

 

[Orang Utan]

There may be parallels. After all, tise socio-economic system will come crashing down at some point, probably when we're not looking.

Yeah, and it's people with tattoos who are responsible for the mess we're in

 

[frogwoman]

Isn't this part of the problem. The world economy is on life support and we're all looking at each others' tattoos on the internet.

 

[LLETSA]

No, you are just prejudiced and ignorant of any culture beyond your tiny little world

Definitely prejudiced but I'd dispute ignorant. Been to places you'll never go, sunshine.

 

[LLETSA]

Yeah, and it's people with tattoos who are responsible for the mess we're in

They're a product of it. Children are easy to manipulate.

 

[frogwoman]

There may be parallels. After all, this socio-economic system will come crashing down at some point, probably when we're not looking.

dotty posting:

Were the thousands of ancient cultures which were covered in tattoos as culturally bereft as us or is there something special about our tattoos that makes them less valid in your eyes?

 

[Orang Utan]

Definitely prejudiced but I'd dispute ignorant. Been to places you'll never go, sunshine.

And obviously have not learnt a thing

 

[LLETSA]

And obviously have not learnt a thing

I've totally failed to absorb sham tolerance and the cult of permanent teenagerdom.

 

[Orang Utan]

You don't half talk some rot. Sham tolerance? Permanent teenagerdom? Are you Tony Parsons?

 

[LLETSA]

dotty posting:

Were the thousands of ancient cultures which were covered in tattoos as culturally bereft as us or is there something special about our tattoos that makes them less valid in your eyes?

I don't know. But the current fashion for tattoos is just that: mere fashion, driven by an all-pervasive media and commerce. Bored and frustrated by any chance? Have another big fuck off tattoo to show your dickhead mates. They probably won't be able to tell what it actually is, but having to repeatedly explain it will kill another few hours, especially as they won't actually listen, necessitating your having to keep repeating yourself. Whole evenings can pass like this.

On the whole, speaking of today's society, tattoos=empty head.

 

[frogwoman]

I don't know. But the current fashion for tattoos ia mere fashion, driven by an all-pervasive media and commerce. Bored and frustrated by any chance? Have another big fuck off tattoo to show your dickhead mates. They probably won't be able to tell what it actually is, but having to repeatedly explain it will kill another few hours, especially as they won't actually listen, necessitaing your having to keep repeating yourself. Whole evenings can pass like this.

On the whole, speaking of today's society, tattoos=empty head.

 

[LLETSA]

You don't half talk some rot. Sham tolerance? Permanent teenagerdom? Are you Tony Parsons?

No, although I wouldn't mind his bank account.

What you can say about Parsons is that he became wise enough to grow up and realise he spent much of his younger years talking a load of old shit.

 

[Orang Utan]

What a huge hornet you have in your helmet.
One spawned from ignorance and bitterness.

 

[LLETSA]

What a huge hornet you have in your helmet.
One spawned from ignorance and bitterness.

A life without cynicism is a life only half lived.

 

[frogwoman]

I don't know. But the current fashion for tattoos is mere fashion, driven by an all-pervasive media and commerce. Bored and frustrated by any chance? Have another big fuck off tattoo to show your dickhead mates. They probably won't be able to tell what it actually is, but having to repeatedly explain it will kill another few hours, especially as they won't actually listen, necessitaing your having to keep repeating yourself. Whole evenings can pass like this.

On the whole, speaking of today's society, tattoos=empty head.

dotty:

so the aztecs, the polynesians, the p-celts presumably had a village elder/eeyore who would look scornfully upon designs worked in woad and scoff that it is all distraction and vapidity for a generation of empty-headed fools.

 

[LLETSA]

dotty:

so the aztecs, the polynesians, the p-celts presumably had a village elder/eeyore who would look scornfully upon designs worked in woad and scoff that it is all distraction and vapidity for a generation of empty-headed fools.

I have no idea. But they didn't have Posh Spice or Jedward as 'positive role models' (itself a concept arising from a thoroughly infantilised society.)

 

[Orang Utan]

There's enough material here for a sitcom.

 

[frogwoman]

I have no idea. But they didn't have Posh Spice or Jedward as 'positive role models' (itself a concept arising from a thoroughly infantilised society.)

anyone who thinks that jedward and posh spice are positive role models is a fucking idiot tbf.

 

[LLETSA]

There's enough material here for a sitcom.

Hancock's Half Hour.

 

[love detective]

Which means what?

which means he doesn't seem to have been caught up in the fad of getting forearm tattoos like a whole load of others have

 

[LLETSA]

At the very moment that, to use Hobsbawm's words, the individual triumphed over society, individualism disappeared. Its rotting corpse is a hideous spectacle to behold.

 

[frogwoman]

froggy posting

i bet if you actually meet lletsa in real life he's covered in tattoos

 

[LLETSA]

froggy posting

i bet if you actually meet lletsa in real life he's covered in tattoos

I'm full of self-hatred but not that full.

 

[Orang Utan]

Oh so now tattooees hate themselves

 

[LLETSA]

Sham tolerance? Permanent teenagerdom?

Tolerance these days usually means imposing the absurd, commercially driven cult of eternal youth and phoney individualism on the rest of society.

It's why political protest*, for instance, now so often resembles a teenage temper tantrum writ large. Last summer's riots were one big trashing of your own bedroom and a refusal to clean the away the pubes after a bath.


*And impotent protest is, politically, all there is left-in itself a result of today's sham tolerance.

 

[frogwoman]

dotty:

I dread to think what lletsa would have to say on the matter of henna tatooes. By their transient nature and hennas association with that cult of individualism 'hippydom' henna tatts would surely rank as even more annoying to the man.