TruXta
tired
No worries, just had a moment of confusion there.
New age cosmic hippies and the far right
- Thread starter Blagsta
- Start date
No worries, just had a moment of confusion there.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
This, folks, is what is known as a 'non sequitur'.
So: is red squirrel the new name for Nino Savate?
crusty bloomer
Active Member
Just reading through this and I have a couple of questions for LLETSA
1) Do you not think that this 'dropping out' can be seen as an understandable reaction to post-industrial society? I mean you talk about doctors and nurses and so on, but we aren't all destined to be doctors and nurses. A massive proportion of jobs noone would notice if you dropped out, say if were a bank clerk or worked in a call centre.
2) The sexual revolution thing don't you think Houllebeq overdoes it a bit? This idea of the 1950s model which they rejected as the 'last bastion of communism' is a pretty ludicrous one. Marriage and family was always a primarily economic institution. I do agree with the point about individualism but to suggest that 'the sexual revolution' caused that is a bit closed minded
Maybe I misunderstood you..
1) Do you not think that this 'dropping out' can be seen as an understandable reaction to post-industrial society? I mean you talk about doctors and nurses and so on, but we aren't all destined to be doctors and nurses. A massive proportion of jobs noone would notice if you dropped out, say if were a bank clerk or worked in a call centre.
2) The sexual revolution thing don't you think Houllebeq overdoes it a bit? This idea of the 1950s model which they rejected as the 'last bastion of communism' is a pretty ludicrous one. Marriage and family was always a primarily economic institution. I do agree with the point about individualism but to suggest that 'the sexual revolution' caused that is a bit closed minded
Maybe I misunderstood you..
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I was talking to my uncle once, back then, trying to impress him with tales of my sexually liberated generation, so much better than those before.
He told me there was a lot of premarital and extramarital fucking going on, even back in the Fifties.
crusty bloomer
Active Member
I imagine even more so during the war....
And of course before the 'sexual revolution' there were much more bordellos etc
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Then have a look at what you alleged I wrote. See the difference?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I take issue with a contention that hippies in north america were mostly middle class, and mostly students. You appear to be saying both.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Oh fuck off.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
No it isn't. Anyone familiar with your history will understand the point I was making.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
taking the members of the manson family as an example, they seem to have been middle class but not students, although such a small sample is not statistically significant
They are/were rejecting values maybe - but at the same time relying on the very products of those values - which is fair enough as it goes but does nothing to transform society, and those ways in which they did transform society were as a result of taking positions in public sector organisations, or setting up businesses and "charitable" trusts that were fundementally embeded in the society and the values they initially claimed to reject - and in many ways did transform it in a way that encouraged marketisation and fragmentation.
It may be an understandable reaction, but it isn't one that's open to everybody. After all, if everybody were to 'drop out', society as we know it would grind to a halt. The outcome wouldn't be pretty.
Houellebecq is primarily a novelist, so what he writes will always be tinged with irony. He also enjoys winding up the 1968-er liberal left, of which he was once part. I don't see that he lauds any '1950s model' anywhere in that quote (or anywhere else) though. The point he is making is that whereas the couple and the family were once private and largely co-operative units, the sexual revolution and the cult of youth and attractiveness was to pressure everybody into putting themselves 'in the shop window,' so to speak. It may have been liberating in one sense, but in another it just heaped another load of misery on ordinary people.
Gosh, who'd have thought it?!
Idaho
blah blah blah
JC - you are forgetting that only Blagsta and butchersapron are allowed to:
1) Beseech people to "read the thread"
2) Quote people their own words and ask them to justify them
3) Ask people to back their statements up with proof
This is hilarious. Not only did he know them, but he was one. And yet this is less important to you than the combination of your assumptions and the texts you choose to read to support those assumptions.
1) Beseech people to "read the thread"
2) Quote people their own words and ask them to justify them
3) Ask people to back their statements up with proof
This is hilarious. Not only did he know them, but he was one. And yet this is less important to you than the combination of your assumptions and the texts you choose to read to support those assumptions.butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Another great and useful post ape-man.
crusty bloomer
Active Member
But don't you think that you are imagining a scenario just as ridiculous as anything the hippies thought up?
I think what I'm getting at is that it's kind of unfair to lay the blame at the door of the hippies for that. As western society has become less and less industrial more and more people are dropping out, by choice or not, without turning on or tuning in. If you look at the rich countries now and there isn't even an option for a lot of young people to participate in society (I think unemployment is near 50% for under 25 year olds in South Europe and some parts of North Europe, not including people on pointless training schemes. Japan is the same) Surely it's a good idea to try to find an alternative approach to life than the industrial one?
'You don't need a weatherman, to see which was the wind blows' maaan
I understand that Houllebecq is on a bit of a wind-up, but like I said I think he goes a bit far. It's a bit of a fiction to say that 'the couple and the family were once largely private and co-operative units'. I can't think of any time in history where you couldn't say that attitudes towards sex and relationships just heaped a load of misery on people if you wanted to argue that point
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
JC - you are forgetting that only Blagsta and butchersapron are allowed to:
1) Beseech people to "read the thread"
2) Quote people their own words and ask them to justify them
3) Ask people to back their statements up with proof
Fuck off hippy.
It might be a good idea to 'find an alternative lifestyle to the industrial one,' but as some people don't seem to be able to grasp, all such 'lifestyles' rest on the platform of the industrial society and would be impossible without it (by industrial society, I don't mean a society of factories, iron foundries and mines, by the way.)
What Houellebecq is getting at is all contained in the quote I posted: the promotion of the cult of youth and sexuality in a mass media society is another aspect of the triumph of individual desire over collective well-being. Whereas individuals once only had to compete for sexual partners among a small pool of people, nowadays they're under pressure to compete with the 'beautiful people,' compared to whom their small group of personal associates seem dull and unglamorous.
sunnysidedown
caput mortuum
Chin up, keep working.
In the middle of the working day, I'm on here, you're on here. And?
sunnysidedown
caput mortuum
Actually I'm in the pub.
And?
sunnysidedown
caput mortuum
And?
And history didn't start 2000 years ago.
And society didn't start with the industrial revolution.
TruXta
tired
It's an interesting POV, but I can't help thinking that it's way overblown. Of course there is a mass mediated cult of youth, but IMO most people couldn't care less. There's also a cult of health, but that doesn't stop people from doing stuff that's bad for them. My point being that IMO this framing, discourse, whatever you wanna call it is not as strong and hegemonizing as Houellebecq and perhaps you seem to think it is. As for the sexual revolution, I can't see that that's been a bad thing.
It's been a struggle, but the revolt against industrial slavery culminated in you, posting on the internet from a pub in the middle of the day while the mugs that keep you are at work. Is that what you're trying to say in your own supercilious way?
Idaho
blah blah blah
I suppose the question is whether "non-industrial" activity is at odds, or complimentary to "industrial" activity. Art, leisure, sport, recreational drug-use can all be industrialised (for the purpose of commodification) but they can also be local, personal and non-industrial. Are these activities necessarily condemning the industrial platform because they aren't participating in it?
It's an interesting point, and one that can be extended to the massive gap in our society between the expectations of people, and their economic and political power to acheive those expectations. Advertising and media lead us to believe we can all be rich, successful, attractive and high status, and the truth that we can't is masked by debt, drugs and immersion in tv or computer game fantasy.
As I say, it was liberating in one sense but a source of pressure and, inevitably, more misery in another. And relates to the mass industries of worry and vanity that the 'cult of health' you point to forms a part of. (Of course people obsess about their health at the same time as doing things which are bad for them. It's because people are constantly bombarded with the message that you can have it all ways. Profit on fags and booze, profit on 'health products.' This is the new capitalism; it's win-win.)
sunnysidedown
caput mortuum
It's 10.56pm here.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
You're being a dick.JC - you are forgetting that only Blagsta and butchersapron are allowed to:
1) Beseech people to "read the thread"
2) Quote people their own words and ask them to justify them
3) Ask people to back their statements up with proof
If it wasn't for industrial society there'd be little time for leisure as we'd be working for our subsistence.
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