Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

how do you figure? do you think the world of twitter rage is carefully considered attempts to improve communal behavior through the feigning of anger?

i think that you can't tell the difference between whether someone is angry in the instinctive lashing out sense vs. 'impersonating an angry man' or that impersonation would be failing

the toast list is just baiting humorless notallmen types, I mean one of the tags on the post is "i own most of these books myself"

― anonanon, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 4:08 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kind of a more boring post this way tho no? who wants to write idiot flypaper

i think the impersonation of anger he is talking about looks quite different from 'instinctively lashing out.'

Maimonides is obviously priveleging rationality above all else there, with anger to be deployed as a rhetorical tactic in service of a rational goal

idk I don't have much to add here, carry on

not least of which bc it's quite obv which angry statements could possibly help improve behavior (specifically addressed w/ specific prescriptions for new behavior) and which ones are just bitter, hateful, etc

idk shakey, i think the rambam does privilege more 'virtuous' emotions that would take precedence over rationality (tho you're right that he privileges rationality to an extraordinary degree) for example awe at God, or trust in God, or love for fellow man, etc - these are all very good attributes tho i don't remember off-hand whether he says you can go to the extreme in their direction i'll have to look that up to see if he discusses taking positive expressions in an extreme direction.

my reading is that Maimonides is saying anger should be goal-oriented, that the vocal venting of anger as an emotional release is not valid/useful.

which is mostly true when it comes to figuring out public policy or any other group decision-making process imo. A bunch of people shouting out shit doesn't really accomplish anything besides making the shouter temporarily feel better.

i think the rambam does privilege more 'virtuous' emotions that would take precedence over rationality

you would know better than I, I was just talking about that specific quote

he does say here:

[Our Sages] taught [the following] explanation of this mitzvah:
Just as He is called "Gracious," you shall be gracious;
Just as He is called "Merciful," you shall be merciful;
Just as He is called "Holy," you shall be holy;

In a similar manner, the prophets called God by other titles: "Slow to anger," "Abundant in kindness," "Righteous," "Just," "Perfect," "Almighty," "Powerful," and the like. [They did so] to inform us that these are good and just paths. A person is obligated to accustom himself to these paths and [to try to] resemble Him to the extent of his ability.

xps idk man I wouldn't overthink it

I think the white dude reaction to very gentle teasing about books I openly admit to owning as well speaks for itself, so I will not bother to add to it. I will say that I had not really meant to make much of a point about anything, just goofin’ on the books dudes tend to enjoy, but now I think I might have…accidentally made a point? A very threatening one, apparently!

http://the-toast.net/2015/05/13/my-favourite-deleted-comments-from-the-white-dude-book-list/

The point being it is easier to c&p some Facebook reading lists and then c&p some outrageous internet comments then it is to, I dunno, actually write something.

what do u think writing is i mean

all art is borrowing and theft

all language is reference and collage

I think you are confusing writing with duplicating.

nice we've gotten to 'what is art' portion of the convo

xps idk man I wouldn't overthink it

I think the white dude reaction to very gentle teasing about books I openly admit to owning as well speaks for itself, so I will not bother to add to it. I will say that I had not really meant to make much of a point about anything, just goofin’ on the books dudes tend to enjoy, but now I think I might have…accidentally made a point? A very threatening one, apparently!
http://the-toast.net/2015/05/13/my-favourite-deleted-comments-from-the-white-dude-book-list/

― anonanon, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 4:36 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean...that's kinda clickbaity...like i wish she'd realized she was making a point & just gone all in with that...but whatever, lol internet

that list is a great list. its not about what's in the books. its about what the books mean in the context of owning the books and, a sort of notion of implicit canon.

its a gag sort of like the "12 cd" character we used to talk about on ilx -- ppl who only own 12 cds, what are those cds. its an avenue into a discussion. and, also, it turns out, an amazing prank.

amazing prank? not hardly. you could probably write any kind of pointless "gentle teasing" of white men and provoke a bunch of white guys on the internet to post similar comments. it's disingenuous to call out "white men" in the article's title and then say that, gee whiz, my point was that I didn't have any point -- but isn't it funny that when I jabbed white men with a dull pointless thing they acted like I jabbed them with a pointy thing, the fools!

atlas shrugged & the tin drum & shogun & lolita & tuesdays with morrie

this is what is called an incoherent list

this seems like a weird thing to get made about but... angry white guys

omg you know i wish so much there weren't a need for the tribal signaling present in things like the toast book list, but reactions like this to it

atlas shrugged & the tin drum & shogun & lolita & tuesdays with morrie

this is what is called an incoherent list

― Vic Perry, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 6:26 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

make me want to scream, so i guess we're not there yet

Why does it make you want to scream, exactly.

I will double down. The headline says "literally." Okay, let's add the Daily Show book. Now:

Literally NO human owns all six of these books.

(Doesn't count if they passed through your hands at one point or your family members had them. Either it should make sense or it doesn't, and I'm not even insisting on the 70+ books nonsense here)

Would also like to ref my argument of about a month ago that such lists are insanely insensitive to non-whites who happen to like any of this stuff.

"You like that book? Hey you are acting white, did you know that?" is one not-unlikely result, and people shouldn't dilly around with it to make cheap points.

Many xp

Visiting the past is like visiting another country, and you know who I really don't want to go visit another country with? Tourists whose first response to every cultural difference is "YOU PEOPLE ARE DOING IT WRONG."

^ This is good true I think so as long we are definitely visiting (as opposed to being shipwrecked) and are tourists (as opposed to being paraded as POWs) etc etc

thanks, but just sticking with America, who exactly is ever forced to do more than visit the canon?

Whereas I'd say in schools, with the whole business-community-approved discourse around "success" "achievement" etc., all students are POWs with that stuff.

https://24.media.tumblr.com/19177eba80e2b84b0531f1ffad78e8ad/tumblr_n1xwonc0Ad1qedb29o1_500.gif

vic perry is . . . doubling down

I keep seeing references to "the canon" in regard to that list of books. They certainly didn't comprise any canon I am familiar with. About the only book I recall from it that could conceivably fit into a canonical list of literature would be Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Surely no one is inserting Tuesdays with Morrie into the canon of western lit. If they are, I want to die a hermit.

i was just sort of assuming it was a mix of things ppl think they're supposed to read to be well-rounded humans, not nec. entirely made up of english class approved books or whatever, but with that element—didn't see tues with morrie, don't even really have cultural associations with that book

but apparently it was pretty random so nm i take it all back i hope they crowdsourced enough idiots to keep the lights on

by 'ppl' i mean 'white-man-ppl,' obv, lol

reactions like this to it

atlas shrugged & the tin drum & shogun & lolita & tuesdays with morrie

this is what is called an incoherent list

make me want to scream

Instead of screaming, can you explain its coherence in terms a non-tribal member might understand?

it's high school classics (hemingway, salinger, nabokov) + neolib propaganda (gladwell, friedman, clancy) + ambitious pulp (king, jordan, rand). middlebrow boys ask you if you've read these books, or they start telling you about them regardless. as with most of this sort of stuff it rings true but also can be written one-handed while asleep and being converted into fuel.

oh ok nm then i think i was otm itt

tho nb tucker max seemed like a weird outlier to me and i've never been sure what tuesdays with morrie is.

no one is sure

i don't mind the list in itself but so many of the friendly comments seem to be along the lines of "PHEW I ONLY OWN TWO!" or "I FEEL SO GUILTY FOR OWNING [X]" and that makes me :( because a lot of these books are rly good and the post didn't say they weren't and policing your own identity is kinda lame

that list is good for a knowing, slightly bitter chuckle or two as you read it. obvs the point is not to self-flagellate for liking the great gatsby.

the thing about the list is it was clearly thrown together in about 5 minutes without much thought; only now that it's blown up and the reactions are what they are are people trying to scrutinize every pick.

i mean the author is probably laughing at all this now. nabokov would be proud

DFW estate must be happy that literally every white man bought a copy of Infinite Jest (probably last week)

list also functions well as "Books Often Seen at Goodwill Stores"

the month dfw died i remember literally every copy of anything disappearing from his shelf at powell's except for about 25 untouched copies of mccain's promise

the biggest laugh for me was ayn rand because i had a masculinist english teacher in high school who taught a senior elective on political lit, which i took because i thought it was going to be what it said it was. the only female author he assigned in years, nay decades, of teaching "political lit" was ayn rand. he never, to my knowledge, assigned a black writer, but he did assign a bunch of cultural criticism gobbledygook about how multiculturalism is the real menace.

the list isn't coherent. it's meant to elicit a knowing chuckle amongst those of us who've wryly noted what literature it's okay for serious men to enjoy. you encounter these men across different social cohorts, though. some of them talk about nabokov, some about tucker max. (i will never forget the moment a seemingly nice, much younger than me guy hit on me and then asked me if i'd read any tucker max. i was like, have you? why would you ask a woman you wanted to like you that?)

(i will never forget the moment a seemingly nice, much younger than me guy hit on me and then asked me if i'd read any tucker max. i was like, have you? why would you ask a woman you wanted to like you that?)

ha see this is exactly the scenario i couldn't conceive

some things are still tribal

my tribe prefers large books, especially Rand and DFW--better to use as missiles

those of us who've wryly noted what literature it's okay for serious men to enjoy

Oh god, so now I'm not a serious man!

Da Vinci Code certainly serious lit /s

i dunno, being that I've invested a lot of energy in certain areas of music over the past decade or whatever, and thought a lot about why I like things and what I like about them, I find it hard to judge ppl for being kinda "entry level" about certain stuff. Bc I certainly recognize my own ignorance when I'm at a bar with, like, someone knowledgeable about craft beer or whatever, and I have friends for whom this list would completely go over their head who are not, like, dumb people! And read. So if I have any issue with it its just along those lines I guess, i dunno though, Ive certainly gone on dates where someone's cultural choices made me eye bug. but not thaaat often to notice trends

On the other hand I'm sure women get hit on with book discussions esp in like grad school more often than I'm dating so

Nb speaking more to ppl reading the list who don't get it than dudes who are super enthusiastic about like tucker max