Urban v's the Commentariat

[J Ed]

It's not like she hasn't committed actual crimes, like..

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I still rate "What The Hell".

 

[Theisticle]

http://www.varsity.co.uk/culture/7107

Hannah Wilkinson talks to Laurie Penny about the lack of opportunities young people are facing today, and what we can do about it

In Varsity.

Utterly hilarious. Lack of self-awareness personified.

“I could do, but I’d be a shit writer” she says. “I need to be listening and engaged. The last thing I need is a thick skin.”

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I nearly gave myself a hernia through wincing at that final paragraph.

 

[killer b]

why would anyone dance ironically (or semi-unironically) to sean paul?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

why would anyone dance ironically (or semi-unironically) to sean paul?

Complex navigation of hipster territory.

Perhaps you can't just dance to Sean Paul because you used to like him when you were in your early twenties and are a bit embarrassed about it now.

But you definitely can't dance to Sean Paul ironically because that might be construed as taking the piss out of Jamaicans (albeit relatively middle class ones).

So you have to do it "semi-unironically".

Which also raises the issue of cultural appropriation of reggae by white people. Clearly skinheads shouldn't have enjoyed dancing to ska in the sixties and it was much better when their racist offspring the boneheads danced to Skrewdriver in the 80s.

 

[DotCommunist]

campaigned for the lib dems semi ironically

 

[el-ahrairah]

why would anyone dance ironically (or semi-unironically) to sean paul?

that bit confused me too.

 

[chilango]

Half a black fly in your chardonnay?

 

[equationgirl]

Lordy me that Varsity article is excruciating. It reads as if LP has given up arguing about youth issues because it's just too hard.

But using Varsity to talk about the opportunities young people don't have access to is a bit

 

[DotCommunist]

tbf it reads like she has stopped doing so because as at the venerable age of 27 she is no longer yoot. Which is true. It's three years away from when you have to hand in your badge and your shades and admit that you are no longer having your finger on the youth zietgiest pulse

 

[DaveCinzano]

Why did no one send me the memo about ‘youth issues’ being a ‘genre’? Or is that purely a private school-Oxbridge-meejah hipster thing?

 

[el-ahrairah]

Why did no one send me the memo about ‘youth issues’ being a ‘genre’? Or is that purely a private school-Oxbridge-meejah hipster thing?

you didn't get it? obviously you're no-one in the world of the commentariat. i hear sunny got it twice.

 

[DaveCinzano]

you didn't get it? obviously you're no-one in the world of the commentariat. i hear sunny got it twice.

No, Will Self is no one in the world of the commentariat.

 

[treelover]

The Free University of Sheffield is a grass-roots organisation of loosely associated students and staff based in Sheffield concerned by the current state of higher education.

On May 1 we will be opening a temporary learning space in the University of Sheffield where people from all works of life can come together as e...quals and share skills, resources and ideas. Our intention is to embody a practical expression of how we think universities should be structured, and what they should be here to do, which includes the provision of a free education for all in an institution that is non-hierarchical and directly-democratic, and run in the interests of society as a whole rather than the profit of the few.

We will be hosting a wide range of activities, likely ranging from workshops, discussions, lectures, skill shares, resource pools and entertainment (etc.). Confirmed events include:
- Academic repression and the neoliberal university
- Mindfulness
- Consent workshop (Sheffield Anti Sexual Harassment Campaign)
- Radical environmentalism and direct action
- Feminism and nature in the 21st century
- Critical animal studies
- Intersectionality
- Free software and why you should care
- Sewing workshop
- Industrial Workers of the World
- Freeganism
- Sheffield Student Housing Cooperative
- Conclusory open discussion: (e.g.) What was the point? What could have been done better? Where do we go from here?

- And more to follow
- We will also be providing time and space for spontaneous events to be organised on the day

Saw the title and thought, wow, then saw all the programme..

 

[Bakunin]

How long before speaking a foreign language is considered 'cultural appropriation' by these knownothing dickheads?

So, when I go over to France and have the common courtesy to use basic French instead of assuming that everybody speaks English and I'm there to enjoy a global sporting event that's geographically located in France, is that cultural appropriation as well?

If I should happen to have a glass of cognac, or eat local food, or buy local souvenirs and bring them home with me, should I be ticking off my big list of sins and displaying appropriate penitence for having ever been there at all?

Just so I know, like.

 

[tbtommyb]

Or perhaps it's due to some people making a decision that class is no longer relevant, and allowing all their arguments to proceed from that assumption?

And why shouldn't they? We might disagree with them but that doesn't make their position invalid.

People's responses to me have been illuminating, thanks. I think what is at the root of my lack of understanding is this 'either-or' attitude. I don't see why it is necessarily a problem that intersectionalists relegate class to one of many factors. Its proponents seem to spend most of their time debating on Twitter and a few blogs. It has very little general recognition. Plenty of other people are having debates in terms that reject the premise of intersectionality.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And why shouldn't they? We might disagree with them but that doesn't make their position invalid.

People's responses to me have been illuminating, thanks. I think what is at the root of my lack of understanding is this 'either-or' attitude. I don't see why it is necessarily a problem that intersectionalists relegate class to one of many factors. Its proponents seem to spend most of their time debating on Twitter and a few blogs. It has very little general recognition. Plenty of other people are having debates in terms that reject the premise of intersectionality.

It's a problem because any social analysis that even attempts to be inclusive, but that doesn't place the most basic cleavage of all as the one from which all other cleavages proceed, entirely misses the point of social analysis, which is to analyse society, not just the bits of it you feel most comfortable with.

 

[tbtommyb]

Avril Lavigne getting it from the intersectionalistas. New video is cultural appropriation. Having a few words of forrin in your tune is racist - official.

I'm going to see Shonen Knife in a couple of weeks. What happens there? I might have to protest against myself.

And what's that got to do with intersectionality? Guardianistas were getting high and mighty about cultural appropriation long before intersectionality became a buzzword (leading to my favourite ever Guardian headline: 'Is afro-house demeaning to world music?').

 

[tbtommyb]

It's a problem because any social analysis that even attempts to be inclusive, but that doesn't place the most basic cleavage of all as the one from which all other cleavages proceed, entirely misses the point of social analysis, which is to analyse society, not just the bits of it you feel most comfortable with.

But they disagree with your assertion that class is the most basic cleavage of all, and that all of the other ones come from that.

 

[rekil]

And what's that got to do with intersectionality?

You'd have to ask them really but I reckon it's a particularly odd extrapolation of the logic of identity politics. They're saying Lavigne is exercising white privilege and faffing about as a kind of faux pop punk supersexist Al Jolson just for the fuck of it, ignoring that she's popular in Japan and that musicians rarely have much to do with the creation of their own videos.

The women included in the "Hello Kitty" video are not part of the story. They do not seem to have any agency, emotions or purpose beyond playing Lavigne's backdrop and representing a watered-down version of Japanese culture, palatable for a white American audience.

With these weirdos, concern about cultural appropriation centres exclusively around notions of crude racial separatism, rather than class.

Anyway here's Shonen Knife with a new song about cats.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But they disagree with your assertion that class is the most basic cleavage of all, and that all of the other ones come from that.

Yes, they do disagree.
What none of them do do, though, is put forward a coherent (or even semi-coherent) argument as to why that's the case. The best you get is "because racism!" or similar.
And before you ask whether I've put forward a coherent argument in support of my assertion, yes I have, on the Laurie Penny thread. Feel free to scoot across and plough through the whole shebang!

 

[DotCommunist]

a herculean labour at 300 pages plus!

 

[tbtommyb]

Yes, they do disagree.
What none of them do do, though, is put forward a coherent (or even semi-coherent) argument as to why that's the case. The best you get is "because racism!" or similar.
And before you ask whether I've put forward a coherent argument in support of my assertion, yes I have, on the Laurie Penny thread. Feel free to scoot across and plough through the whole shebang!

I followed that for a while but then got out while the going was still good. I will try and find your post but if you happen to have a link I'd be grateful. In the meantime I'll have a go:

50 men and 50 women spawn on to God's green land. All else being equal, the men will tend to dominance because they, as a rule, are stronger and can physically force the women to do what they want. I contend that this will hold true regardless of cultural preconditions of the people. That is, whether they are a group of people plucked from 1990s Britain or a pre-agrarian, pre-capitalist tribe.

 

[smokedout]

oh dear

 

[equationgirl]

I followed that for a while but then got out while the going was still good. I will try and find your post but if you happen to have a link I'd be grateful. In the meantime I'll have a go:

50 men and 50 women spawn on to God's green land. All else being equal, the men will tend to dominance because they, as a rule, are stronger and can physically force the women to do what they want. I contend that this will hold true regardless of cultural preconditions of the people. That is, whether they are a group of people plucked from 1990s Britain or a pre-agrarian, pre-capitalist tribe.

Um, what????

Force the women to do what they want? What the fuck are you advocating here?

 

[el-ahrairah]

50 men and 50 women spawn on to God's green land. All else being equal, the men will tend to dominance because they, as a rule, are stronger and can physically force the women to do what they want. I contend that this will hold true regardless of cultural preconditions of the people. That is, whether they are a group of people plucked from 1990s Britain or a pre-agrarian, pre-capitalist tribe.

hmmmmm. i've seen that argument before somewhere.

 

[tbtommyb]

Um, what????

Force the women to do what they want? What the fuck are you advocating here?

I'm not advocating anything.

I'm saying that men have historically dominated women through the threat of physical violence.

 

[equationgirl]

I'm not advocating anything.

I'm saying that men have historically dominated women through the threat of physical violence.

Bit of a generalisation that. Some men have done that yes, but not every single man ever has dominated all women he knows through the threat of physical violence.

 

[Red Cat]

I'm not advocating anything.

I'm saying that men have historically dominated women through the threat of physical violence.

Have they?