drawingdetail:
Leonardo da Vinci, Drapery for a Seated Figure. Brush and grey-brown distemper on primed grey linen canvas, 31.9 x 21.8 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
18brumaire:
nydwracu:
To say that the Ivy League etc. are full of dirty commies is an oversimplification, and one lacking in explanatory power. More accurately, prestigious schools, at least in fields for which advancement by merit alone is necessarily impossible (i.e. everything outside STEM, especially the political fields), are full of people who really want power.
Becoming a dirty commie is an excellent way to get power; most political change originates within the ivory tower, and that fucker’s been painted redder than Mao after a night at the bar. The bureaucracy and professoriate are run and staffed mostly by dirty comm—um, progressives; this much is obvious to anyone who has, in the last ten or fifteen years, heard the word “diversity” in its natural habitat. But on the other hand, there’s quite a market out there for power-hungry lunatics of a more neoliberal bent, and that path offers the added benefit that it offers much more formal power than the straight progressive path, making the paramilitary-waving mad-dog posture and bloodthirsty crocodilism so characteristic of progressivism unnecessary.
(Speaking of paths, one could reasonably term the neoliberal path the right-hand path, founded as it is on the worship of the head god Mammon, leaving progressivism, the path of sex-crazed arch-rebels shouting “we shall be as gods”, to be the left-hand path. Which works for reasons both intuitively obvious and somewhat obscure, although, to be fair, they’re both terrible. But I digress.)
The problem with the Ivy League, then, isn’t that it’s explicitly sociali—erm, progressive; it’s that it attracts the power-hungry and the crocodilian like a dead druggie in a Detroit sewer attracts crack-fiend flies, and those sorts are terrible people who break things. Some of them follow the left-hand path and start shouting about cultural issues from a progressive perspective, but others follow the right-hand path and shout about economic issues from a neoliberal perspective, leading to a brilliant example of the definition my public policy professor (the only person I’ve ever met more cynical than I am) gave of mutual partisan adjustment: each group plugs away at their own thing in their own corner of the room, and tries never to run into any other group. Which is why you never see leftists talking economics except the ones who obviously aren’t going to be getting the memos.
i know people from ivies, and trust me, most of them are not left. some are liberals, but most are centre-right conservatives. they are too much of ‘good breeding’ (the ones from connecticut and the environs of new england) or too metropolitan (new yorkers) to be the garden variety bible thumper, though.
these people do not seek being or want to be power hungry, they are born into power. the only true political agenda most of them are interested in is keeping their families’ wealth going and their education is tailored around making them hard-working and cultured enough to do so. they have access to many connexions and build them up as they go along. and why wouldn’t they? they don’t have to view any of the damage of neoliberalism up front. america is a society that is very good at convincing people that they share an equal share of the blame in the world’s problems or country’s problems (or credit for good things in respect to both) in spite of their class.
the majority of leftists in america who you call crocodilians are idiots who are viewed as an abstraction by ivy types. people like savage are useful in a media context only to generate more marketing and money around a brand (in his case, ‘gay’). they overwhelmingly come from schools that are mediocre and the hand-wringing is necessary to elevate them above that mediocrity. hence why it was very easy for a harvard-type like obama to galvanise the democratic party because he is the type of person most sensible liberals in the united states respect and can rely on to advance their interests, in spite of whatever feeble democratic socialist inclinations he himself possesses. (the alternatives being batshit insane)
The Ivy Leaguers I’ve run across tend to be dogmatic Stali—er, progressives, but the ones I’ve run across aren’t old money. They’re Brahmins, not Optimates like the ones you’re talking about. Optimates tend toward neoliberalism; Brahmins, the younger ones at least, aren’t likely to be to the right of, say, Kucinich, unless they’re in STEM or economics, and a lot of them do take people like Dan Savage seriously, and share that general attitude, that [white] people who disagree with them are evil and should be gotten out of the way somehow.
“The situation in Germany had come up for discussion in the bar parlour of the Angler’s Rest, and it was generally agreed that Hitler was standing at the crossroads and would soon be compelled to do something definite. His present policy, said a Whisky and Splash, was mere shilly-shallying. “He’ll have to let it grow or shave it off,” said the Whisky and Splash. “He can’t go on sitting on the fence like this. Either a man has a moustache, or he has not. There can be no middle course.”
P. G. Wodehouse, Buried Treasure
“Power corrupts not by repression, but by seduction. It cocks an ear and says: that’s wonderful, of course I agree, but don’t you want to be effective?”
“When I read [“liberaltarian” Brink] Lindsey, what I hear is a message tuned to an audience. What I hear is a very smart and thoughtful person who has come up with what may well be the optimal solution to the age-old problem of “how do we sell libertarianism?”
The problem is that (a) in my opinion, and it seems yours as well, Lindsey’s solution is not effective, so its very optimality damns the entire problem; and (b) it is very clear to any intelligent person that what they are reading is spin, a sugar pill.
I have a very different approach. If I think democracy is shite, I say democracy is shite. It may not work, either, but at least it doesn’t leave me feeling soiled.
”
max payne 3
lordgrifflish:
requires 30 gigabytes of storage space.
this is the funniest thing i’ve heard all week.
Back in my day, games could fit on a few floppy disks.
…It’s times like this that make me glad I’ve never played anything newer than Quake. Really, what the hell are they doing putting all that whatever-it-is in there?
lordgrifflish:
Depression.
Depression is the state of feeling holes in what you are.
Sorrow.
Sorrow is letting of fluid from a body that does not bring joy, but freedom from pain.
Rage.
Rage is the desire to kill, to cause pain where no pain is needed, but also to cleanse the planet of infection.
…
Linguists have fun with their example sentences.
To say that the Ivy League etc. are full of dirty commies is an oversimplification, and one lacking in explanatory power. More accurately, prestigious schools, at least in fields for which advancement by merit alone is necessarily impossible (i.e. everything outside STEM, especially the political fields), are full of people who really want power.
Becoming a dirty commie is an excellent way to get power; most political change originates within the ivory tower, and that fucker’s been painted redder than Mao after a night at the bar. The bureaucracy and professoriate are run and staffed mostly by dirty comm—um, progressives; this much is obvious to anyone who has, in the last ten or fifteen years, heard the word “diversity” in its natural habitat. But on the other hand, there’s quite a market out there for power-hungry lunatics of a more neoliberal bent, and that path offers the added benefit that it offers much more formal power than the straight progressive path, making the paramilitary-waving mad-dog posture and bloodthirsty crocodilism so characteristic of progressivism unnecessary.
(Speaking of paths, one could reasonably term the neoliberal path the right-hand path, founded as it is on the worship of the head god Mammon, leaving progressivism, the path of sex-crazed arch-rebels shouting “we shall be as gods”, to be the left-hand path. Which works for reasons both intuitively obvious and somewhat obscure, although, to be fair, they’re both terrible. But I digress.)
The problem with the Ivy League, then, isn’t that it’s explicitly sociali—erm, progressive; it’s that it attracts the power-hungry and the crocodilian like a dead druggie in a Detroit sewer attracts crack-fiend flies, and those sorts are terrible people who break things. Some of them follow the left-hand path and start shouting about cultural issues from a progressive perspective, but others follow the right-hand path and shout about economic issues from a neoliberal perspective, leading to a brilliant example of the definition my public policy professor (the only person I’ve ever met more cynical than I am) gave of mutual partisan adjustment: each group plugs away at their own thing in their own corner of the room, and tries never to run into any other group. Which is why you never see leftists talking economics except the ones who obviously aren’t going to be getting the memos.
Wow, leftists are really backwards. They believe that parents “forcing” their children to do things is always wrong, but they think the government forcing adults to do things is fine!
crunchberrymessiah:
nydwracu:
communismkills:
What a bunch of hypocrites.
That’s another part of it: the ends always justify the means. They don’t worry at all about that power being used by anyone who fundamentally disagrees with them, but then again, they don’t have to.
People should ask themselves: “Would I want my neighbor doing this to me?” If no, then they probably shouldn’t want the government to do it to them either.
Side note: In an ideal world there would be a caste dedicated solely to raising children in cases when their parents weren’t deemed fit for it.
People should also ask themselves: “If Robotic Intergalactic Space Hitler came down to Earth and installed himself as High Holy Arch-Vogon of the relevant bit of USG, what could he do with this?” And if they don’t want Prostetnic Vogon Space Hitler to be able to work his Nazi Vogon magic with the power at hand, the government shouldn’t have that power at all.
But in practice, they won’t, because the worst outcome for the progressives is Fred Phelps being able to get a job as a professional troll, and if conservatives had the slightest bit of sense, they’d be Jacobites.
(Needless to say, for someone like me, who regards USG as only a few short steps above NSVAPistan, it’s quite a useful test. But people like me are, of course, crazy, and not to be listened to.)
Wow, leftists are really backwards. They believe that parents “forcing” their children to do things is always wrong, but they think the government forcing adults to do things is fine!
communismkills:
What a bunch of hypocrites.
That’s another part of it: the ends always justify the means. They don’t worry at all about that power being used by anyone who fundamentally disagrees with them, but then again, they don’t have to.
The entire point is moot, however. I will never have a “transexual” child.
communismkills:
psychodavesays:
rachelrantsandschtuff:
communismkills:
It will not happen in my household.
Funny thing about another person’s gender: YOU DON’T GET TO CHOOSE IT FOR THEM.
To have a child, your partner must at one point become aroused, CK.
Pretty sure if your face doesn’t do it, your horrid morals will.
I wonder if those leftists are going to freak out about this “you don’t look good” stuff.
Yeah, I thought the Correct position was that there’s no such thing as being more or less attractive?
…Oh right, I forgot, in practice it’s just that attractiveness, along with all other measures of worth progressives might support (see: progressive psychopundits), at the very least correlates necessarily with adherence to progressivism.
Note also the implicit assumption that everyone shares Psycho Dave’s definition of “horrid morals”. Is this not, erm, just a bit creepy? Any belief system that claims to have all right-thinking people on its side certainly sets my guts in a knot… am I the only one?
