Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

I have only read the Neapolitan novels, the first of which is My Brilliant Friend. I'm trying to think of other novels I've read recently that I would recommend--it's so vulnerable! With stuff written pre-1945, I can feel confident that many smart people have pored over it and found it pearlescently perfect, which is not a feeling I often have reading new stuff. But I have read plenty of baggy, messy things I enjoy. Also I let my ninth graders read whatever they want one day a week, which is my favorite day because I get to read whatever I want with them, and the last time we did that I read a pearlescently perfect short story by Alice Munro, "Comfort," which I also recommend, and which might specifically appeal to you, Mordy.

She's pretty New Yorker-y, i guess.

alice munro? yeah, definitely. she's among the reasons i got so turned off to reading new literature but i've never read "Comfort" (i don't think? tho it does sound familiar...) and i'd be willing to give her another try on your say-so.

i don't know; if you don't like her other stuff, you might hate it. i would give it maybe five pages to appeal to you?

I suspect that pornography actually is psychically harmful, and I dislike the extremes to which sexuality has been commodified in our society (although the second part is more from a Marxist than conservative POV).

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, September 2, 2016 2:51 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not conservative imo

wager Mordy would like The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

New Yorker fiction doesn't look much like Alice Munro's tbh

i don't think so either, but they have published a bunch of her stories.

so does a Mordy not like Pynchon?

one of my fav contemporary writers of fiction who write in english is Rivka Galchen who i could also really see you liking BUT she sometimes has short stories in the nyorker :-/

i liked V a lot and sometimes (in light of fiction i write) probably too much. i think probably he has a bad influence on a lot of writers maybe a few of whom post to ilx.

also the Ferrante i recommend is Days of Abandonment, a boiling fever of a book

^^ agreed. I wasn't crazy about the novel sequence -- at least the two volumes I read.

that's crazy talk

I'm currently having my windows broken while i watch by a group of local kids and guess what I'd like my taxes to contribute to their incarceration and/or deaths

have you read DOA horseshoe?

lmao darragh

who is most conservative ilxor poster btwn me flopson + deems

take your shirts off and we'll see

Not crazy talk about DOA, flopson. I haven't read it. Alfred is crazy talking about the Neapolitan novels.

Don't think flopson is v conservative tbh. Mordy and darraghmac differently (complementarily?) conservative

my impression is flopson is pretty bullish on capitalism

Hi horseshoe obv

Mordy'a political alignment is roughly "stoner Commentary"

hi darraghmac!

i'm more religious than commentary

I'm more grumbly and arguey but I'm quite nice rly iirc

I do mean that i was sat there watching them do this while typing that post. I asked them not to fwiw

I am very lenient on criminal offenses against property unless they're against my property, and then I wish caning was allowed

i am sorry those kids broke your windows, darraghmac.

I'll try not to let it inform my views in the longer run :#

Someone else work up a fenestra/final straw joke, I'm indisposed

who is most conservative ilxor poster btwn me flopson + deems

You're not conservative, Mordy.

what about aesthetically?

lol. i enjoy this thread. sarahell is terrifying in it, though.

― horseshoe, Sunday, April 2, 2017 7:23 AM (five hours ago)

the first couple posts are examples based on the source of the image that starts the thread, not my personal beliefs

ok except for the one about there being too many lazy people, which I do sincerely believe.

who is most conservative ilxor poster btwn me flopson + deems

― Mordy, Sunday, April 2, 2017 2:02 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not familiar with either of your political opinions but my impression was that neither of you were remotely conservative (although in d's case i am so rarely able to parse his posts)

my impression is flopson is pretty bullish on capitalism

― Mordy, Sunday, April 2, 2017 2:10 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i'm a pretty plain vanilla lib(eral)/socdem. twitter made me hate Socialists more than i otherwise would and sometimes it is 'necessary' to 'defend' liberal democracy from the idiotic heights reached in the puritanical arms race by its most idealistic critics. i definitely draw a line somewhere far before Actual Communism (which a lot of leftists prefer to leave intentionally blurred until pressed), and moreover think marxism and other systematic analyses of capitalism or neoliberalism are often an evasive tactic or abdication of intellectual and political responsibility; a cynical way to adopt a lackadaisical position on the particulars of feasible/pragmatic (if imperfect) solutions to social problems by saying, ah, well to really solve that you'd need to take down Capitalism. Marx had some great bars but the labor theory of value and historical materialism are crap. i do kind of wish everyone would accept that we are quibbling over the details of the mixed economy (details which are hugely important!), preferably sometime before graduating from college, stop the grandstanding about Capitalism, and just say what they want

i'm not giving up on the Neapolitan series yet but there was nothing remotely approaching the fire and brimstone of Days of Abandonment in volume 1

...you know that scene in 30 Rock where Liz and Jenna are hashing out their issues in front of Jack Donaghy, and he's like "This is boring. I'm bored now"? I wonder if that phenomenon explains men being bored by the Neapolitan novels. sorry if that makes me an asshole to wonder; i do genuinely wonder it.

Dmac what u do w those thugs is u put them in some dirty/trashy/poor neighbourhood or somewhere where the murder rate is high and they do community service (pick up trash/sweep)

Second attempt and u incarcerate them

Third attempt and u give em the death penalty

Theyre already a burden to the tax system as it is, might as well make them work for the glorious prison food they so eagerly want

ouch! i wasn't bored by My Brilliant Friend, far from it. but DoA was one of the best reading experiences i've had; stayed up all night to read the final scene, felt it reverberate for days. never read anything so dripping with rage and frustration, i can only imagine what it's like in the original italian! so naturally that's the one i would recommend to Mordy (or anyone)

It was unfair of me to speculate. I don't doubt that Days of Abandonment is great! The neapolitan novels are the most remarkable recent fiction I have read. But female friendship is intrinsically fascinating to me.

who is most conservative ilxor poster btwn me flopson + deems

― Mordy, Sunday, April 2, 2017 2:02 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

deems > you > flopson

poll

Ya but who is most conservative

poll

― flopson, Sunday, April 2, 2017 1:50 PM (forty minutes ago)

^ classic neo-liberal response

the correct answer is "duel"

Markets will decide

The word "truel" was introduced in Martin Shubik's 1964 book Game Theory and Related Approaches to Social Behavior, page 43, and independently in Richard Epstein's 1967 book Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, page 343.

Disappointed that's not a cruel truth tbb

How does Game Theory and Related Approaches to Social Behavior compare to those Ferrante books?

Maybe this would be better for "controversial opinion" thread than here, but since we're talking fidelity/infidelity: I think people mostly don't cheat from healthy relationships.

Nobody "steals" anybody's man, or woman. If you got "stolen," it's because you were stealable. If you're monogamously minded and your relationship is working for you, you can generally resist temptation. If you're not monogamously minded, you probably shouldn't enter into monogamous situations.

idk. sometimes people lose sight of their priorities and do selfish things.