Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

Play a brass instrument

Regarding the Pence approach to staying faithful, it seems a little extreme/presumptuous to me. I think the reality of possible infidelity is that you know who the people in your life are that you might stray with. You have a responsibility not to deceive yourself about this and to guard against situations that make it easier to fuck up. The idea, in my case, that this would apply to all the men I know, or even all the men I am friends with, is sort of hilarious. My initial response to that Pence quote was, relax, nobody's sweating you.

Like, maybe Mike Pence is really afraid he might fuck literally any woman in the world, but the women of the world do not reciprocate that fear. That seems not to have occurred to him. Shocker.

No good literature has been produced since WW2.

― Mordy, Wednesday, August 3, 2016 12:48 AM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mordy, do you actually believe this???

*fires up .xls* mordy rates isaac b singer iirc

i didn't mean that question to sound accusatory; i was just genuinely surprised.

Mordy's first post in thread reminds me of this exchange in Last Days of Disco

Departmental Dan:...occasionally I get reactionary thoughts, too
Chloe Sevigny: I'm not reactionary!
Departmental Dan: I meant, aesthetically
Chloe Sevigny: Oh, aesthetically

Benny was the protagonist in Rent

― Neanderthal, Wednesday, August 17, 2016 11:53 PM (seven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

i am kind of a fan of repression, i think.

^^^that's my contribution to the thread, i mean

Mordy, do you actually believe this???

there is lit published after 1945 that i like. but it seems like a useful cut-off date bc i think it does mark a dramatic decline in quality. and over the last decade or so i'm totally turned off to all new literature. there's too much of it, it all seems very samey, none of it seems to have anything new or useful to say, etc. </curmudgeon> happy to see u in this thread horseshoe. :)

repression can be good! ppl are too self-expressed.

i identify with that, to some extent, but isn't it just that the historical processes of selection and canonization haven't happened yet for stuff that's just come out? i feel like market forces dictate what gets presented as literary fiction more than thoughtful criticism. maybe the super-good stuff hasn't even been published and will be discovered years hence, you know? but also, i like plenty of recent stuff. the Ferrante novels are as good as anything ever written. well, maybe not King Lear, but what is? liking King Lear as much as i do is kind of conservative, i guess?

hi Mordy! it's nice to see you, too.

also genre fiction that is v v good is a welcome respite from the saminess of "literary fiction"

my investment in evaluating literature is conservative, i guess.

i've even read new fiction i like but generally not as much as older fiction i've liked and lately i've found that i'm drawn more and more to pre-1945 literature and less and less interested in what ppl have to say about /our times/ which contemp authors seem consistently unable to address in any kind of novel or valuable way. certainly the whole cadre of new yorker fiction is a total wasteland in my eyes. i haven't read any ferrante but i'm pretty much willing to try any recommendation if there's a particular one you think i should read?

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.