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U-Know! Forum » January drudion & I've had it with the Drude's xenophobic insinuations |
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 15:27
Jan 07, 2008, 11:42
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The debate is always worth having but having been guilty of over-reacting spectacularly to the pre-release brouhaha around YGAPWM I shall step lightly this time. Natural wonders aside, whatever it is that this country has going for it is built on immigration, conquest, absorbing difference and expanding the parameters of common knowledge through tolerance. Centres of capital, of ideas and of influence move inexorably west and the US is as certain to overtaken by SE Asia as we in Europe were destined to be usurped by the New World. We have gone from being a culture that throws its weight around (for better or for worse) to one that is taking stock and redefining itself. An autumnal adjustment so to speak. It is a huge over-simplifcation but we do have a happy knack of being able to take on board the best of whatever wave of ideas is sweeping from east to west and putting the pernicious and the downright poisonous out with the trash but that takes self confidence and vigour on the one side and flexibility on the other. Things which seem to be in short supply at the moment. If what we value is not strong enough to resist the block-headed and the black-hearted as these waves of influence sweep in from the east (or rebound in echo from the west) then that's cultural evolution I'm afraid. The alternative is to shut the door to everything, repel all that is new - the good, the cruel and the unusual - and take our chances. Not a strategy that has served other cultures all that well in the past. I have no interest in living in an Anglo-Celtic Albania or some Brit-nationalist warm beer and skittles bushido cult - three parts Mishima to two parts Ealing Comedy and one part Robert Bly. I imagine I am not alone in that. One thing that is getting kind of tiresome is the use of "poltical correctness" as a synonym for "liberal" and the use of both as insults. Two things here .... 1) I abhor the headlong rush of many from the Old Left into the arms of all kinds of repressive, backwards thinking crackpots and this is hardly the first time, eh comrades? However it would serve us well to remember that Liberalism (as opposed to the Liberal Party) has, in this culture, been responsible for more social good and less social evil than any faith group or any of the extreme philosophies of either left or right 2) The cry of "Political correctness gone mad" has been firmly established as part of the lingua franca of the closet bigot, misogynist and misanthrope. However much some of the folks on the socially conscious left wind us up with their self-hate and tokenism, our adopting the language of Clarkson, of The Sun and of every late night phone-in crack-pot on earth is not going to to help us keep to the the path of the enlightened and the forward thinking. And don't kid yourself that this is a case of defeating the enemy by singing his song!
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shanshee_allures 2563 posts |
Jan 07, 2008, 12:56
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Bonzo the Cat wrote: ... furthermore he seems to see His Course as A Mission To Bring Us Some Real Head-On Motherfuckerness Hehe. That's partly why I curtail my enjoyment of all things Cope to Fried, WSYM, and a few other wonderful things. I try to make my own mind up in this world, and take guidance from where I need to. I'm no good at having a leader. Phew. Thing is though, it might have been more useful if you yourself could point out where Cope went wrong. To say it's no good to 'generalise' (which seems to be the main gist of your resopnse) is basically generalising also. Correct some of his statements for him (and us!). There lies also the danger of becoming Invertedly pro Islam without a clue the same way as many seem to becoming anti Islam without a clue. As bad as each other methinks. Anyway, a well written piece fer sure. x
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 13:24
Jan 07, 2008, 13:20
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shanshee_allures wrote: Bonzo the Cat wrote: ... furthermore he seems to see His Course as A Mission To Bring Us Some Real Head-On Motherfuckerness Hehe. That's partly why I curtail my enjoyment of all things Cope to Fried, WSYM, and a few other wonderful things. I try to make my own mind up in this world, and take guidance from where I need to. I'm no good at having a leader. Phew. Well said. I think it is very possible to love some or all of an artist's output and disagree with them on every other issue. It's kind of bizarre when people do intellectual cartwheels trying to square their love of some rock and rollers' music with chalk-and-cheese social / politcal views. Worse still when people adjust their views in order to be more in tune with the object of their rocking affection. I love rock and roll (put another dime etc) in all its bastard hyrbid forms but any spiritual or political guidance I am getting is coming at me on a purely sub-conscious level and listening to the opening bars of Parsifal does not have me reaching for the nearest cross and bed sheet.
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dodge one 1242 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 13:37
Jan 07, 2008, 13:30
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Mole wrote: You are in no position to condem or criticise the middle east for their culture or way of life however extreme it may appear to you. Then who is? Would it have been wrong to criticize the holocaust while it was happening? Even if it was popular at the time amongst your fellow countryman. My recollection of history is such that no islamic countrys thought it was worth pitching into that fray.But then the jews allways were a problem for them too. Perhaps it was just fine that people practiced cannibalism in the south sea islands until relatively recently. Benazir bhutto's method of demise ring a recent bell? Ad Infintum.... George bush's handling of anything he's touched{King Midas in reverse}. I myself am more than a blogger. I've been the one you've seen on T.V. dragged off too jail with my wrist's bound with tie wraps protesting what i thought was wrong. I have made the only differences possible i'm capable of in this world by protesting,Actually getting out and voting, instead of watching the fucking "Simpsons" that evening,Travelling the world over and asking indigenous opinions, instead of insisting on my own. Ya know what i've found? Were all just HOMO SAPIENS baby.Were all travellin upwards at 45 degrees or not! Through out history its been the poets and artisans that have been the soul of mankind. Certainly one reason Julian has resonated with me. I'm a New Yorker, a culture of folks well known for pipeing up, Not to mention takin a SUCKER punch{911} and gettin back on with life. Yeah, I'll take a stand. Peace on ya. |
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 14:10
Jan 07, 2008, 13:34
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Broadly agree but what's 9/11 got to do with JC's views on unchecked immigration from certain parts of the world? Also as far as holocaust goes "we" (the US and UK) knew what was going on and did nothing. The US entry into the war in Dec 41 had absolutely nothing to do with the start of the industrialised extermination of Europe's Jewish population. Harry Truman it was who believed entry into the war should be delayed until the Soviets and Germans had bloodied eachother to a stand still before coming in on the WEAKER side. Not much by way of moral authority there then for either of us!
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dodge one 1242 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 14:02
Jan 07, 2008, 13:40
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O.K. fine, in the interest in sticking with 1 topic at a time. I'll weigh in on immagration feelings another time. I certainly am in no position to save the world or to offer infallible solutions to the tough questions. Regarding the U.S.'s and Englands tardy entry into ww2, i can only offer this, I lost a grandfather to that conflict. Were it not for his and many other's sacrifices i do believe that instead of an open media such as this we'd all be practicing our goose stepin'. Also 1 other thing, i doubt Julian would claim to be right about everything{who is?}. But i find his outlook on life to be the sort that i look to in a friend.
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Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 14:33
Jan 07, 2008, 14:27
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http://www.unicef.de/foto/2007/english/index.htm "According to UNICEF, there are about 60 million young women worldwide who were married before they came of age, half of them in South Asia." ...which is not principally a Muslim area of the world. This issue is poverty-driven, not religiously bound up with Islam. Girls from severely poor families are being married off like this, where the boys are being sold into child labour slavery (see photo below on linked page above of child labourers in Bangladesh.) And I agree with Bonzo in that it also looked very much to me that Cope was using this as an example to support his well-documented position on Islam. And he may well accuse us of hiding behind 'political correctness' again, when actually we're seeing more of the wider reality behind this than how it helps us grind a particular political axe.
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Bonzo the Cat 138 posts |
Jan 07, 2008, 14:43
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Hey shanshee, shanshee_allures wrote: Thing is though, it might have been more useful if you yourself could point out where Cope went wrong. To say it's no good to 'generalise' (which seems to be the main gist of your resopnse) is basically generalising also. Correct some of his statements for him (and us!). I see your point, but it was in the heat of the moment and I've been reading his drudions and hearing/seeing other rants for some considerable time now, and there was at several points something that disturbed me but I couldn't quite put the finger on... but which somehow reminded me both of sloganesque reasoning when I was still spraying protest on walls with the stalinists, as well as the new "let's be really critical of our own leftwing thought" attitude of many young intellectuals (who end up right). Like I said however, assuming everybody here knowes Cope's drudions, I thought I might just as well take this example and make the point, rather than going through all his drudions and picking out insinuations. Still, even then I fail to see how I generalise in the same way, as (a) I do not generalise over people; (b) I do not generalise over Cope. In fact, I'm not judging Cope at all as a person; I'm just judging certain of his actions, as actions are the only basis for morality. I'm just making a point that, whereas his rants are probably always well-meant, when he oversteps the line of generalisation it's always in the same direction: by taking on islam and by referring to a "society" or a "culture" - i.o.w. by condemning an entire label. While this makes for forceful language and an occasionally funny read, that kind of systematic display of very subtle bias is onworthy of any free- or forward-thinking motherfucker, as he claims to be. shanshee_allures wrote: There lies also the danger of becoming Invertedly pro Islam without a clue the same way as many seem to becoming anti Islam without a clue. Well, I'm not pro - I'm not contra either, related to the above idea that it's impossible to create morality judgements on anything but actions and their consequences. What I mean is, there's no point in being pro or contra islam, as we're talking about a label here, the judgement of which is only relevant in as far as we use it in terms of "I'm anti religion". However, being a label it is useless as a general tag carrying judgment applying to any group of people, since they're very heterogenous. What I mean is, it becomes a bit foul when you start judging any person who dares to adhere to islam just *because* he does that - and this only on the basis on some theoretical assumption based on a skewed vision on world history (and a complete blindness to -unsexy- economic processe). I'll say more: even though I am probably one of the most anti-religious people I know, I'm still not sure whether that does me any real good. I mean, if religion didn't "work" on some level, people would have stopped believing long ago. Arf! & thanks for the compliment
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Bonzo the Cat 138 posts |
Edited Jan 07, 2008, 15:09
Jan 07, 2008, 14:54
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Lord Lucan wrote: This issue is poverty-driven, not religiously bound up with Islam. This is indeed a very succinct way of putting my overly verbose text in 11 words. Thanks. I indeed seem to spot a profound lack of any economic angle in Cope's point of view on religion and women rights. While it is true that not all is explainable in that way, one cannot be blind to the fact that it is easy to play the morally just when you're sitting at the top of the world. Probably his passions make that Cope feels more at home on the battlefield of religious concepts, but one has to be wary of such abstract reasoning, as I recall Nietzsche once deployed the same strategy to formulate some very strong anti-semitic theory in Der Antichrist, where he takes some early devolopment of polytheist to monotheist god-on-a-pedestal society in ancient Judea as a reason to condemn The Jew in general. But you don't have to look so far... on the eastern borders of Europe, in economic desaster areas, parents sell their kids for a night to pedophiles from the richer west. Cope does not use this... probably because he can't condemn "that kind of society" - because *what* kind of society exactly? When it's closer to home it's less clear. Or on the contrary, even clearer: it's economy, not culture.
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neighbourofthedrude 1555 posts |
Jan 07, 2008, 15:07
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Thanks Moley. Now I have to go and play NMA !!! Cock On :o)
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