Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

Uncool conservative belief: the more I decipher this, the less I wish I had

so here are some thoughts about "online discourse" / "free speech"

something that continues to be chronically under-examined is that speech itself has been radically transformed through the displacement and fragmentation of traditional subjectivity, the fracturing / proliferation of discursive methods, and an almost total lack of clarity of what we mean by "public" in terms of where, exactly, speech acts occur. our increasing inter-connectedness and the rapid transmission of information mask a deeply dehumanizing estrangement. our notions of liberty and self-determination are increasingly unhelpful, and not merely because we've learned to be complicit in de-historicizing and mythologizing eighteenth-century ideology. it's also because the majority of our conversations — and in the case of some, the majority of lived experience — occur online, in commons which were long ago enclosed; the reasons for our existence there, and what we may have to say, are largely irrelevant to the people who facilitate our interactions. what it means to stick up for our "values" and fight for "liberty" is, in this sense, an increasingly fraught problem: every step forward entails further entrenchment in a dizzying entanglement of permissions and prohibitions, asymmetrical power relations, new and hidden modes of subjugation and coercion — all while we pretend that our online personas and statements merely refer back to a world which in fact longer exists.

it's worth remembering re: social media platforms that the user experience itself is designed to emphasize and reinforce precisely those aspects of our personality / humanity that devalue contemplation, empathy, even honesty. they replicate patterns of behavior that ensure continued engagement, then monitor those behaviors and sell the data to people who further manipulate us. this is the central power dynamic of almost all online discourse. meanwhile free speech, and the broader notion of liberalism, aren't just ideas; it's ideology and a continually reiterated (and updated) foundational myth with a history fraught with racism and violent subjugation that continue to inform and / or preclude, at a structural level, the very possibilities for speech and community.

the unifying aspect of liberal speech is hysteria, the continual need to reiterate the delusion that favored institutions and positions of leadership are not largely symbolic. the very notion of a culture war seeks to affirm this, to displace our energy into an arena where nothing has any real political consequence. even purportedly leftist notions of intersectionality and "centering" e.g. black or trans voices seem to fail to take into account a basic psycho-political geography, as if a recognition of problematic elements is sufficient for their removal and some sort of nebulous substitution of more humane models for radical liberation and solidarity. what's ignored is that we've been taught, and encouraged, to regard increased visibility as a concomitant component of social and political progress. the commodification and endless replication / dispersion of categories of identity reinforces the notion that the real battleground is the sphere of legislation, court rulings, and other mechanisms of power that only ever seem to replicate the same mechanisms of repression that we ought to seek to undermine, bypass, and ultimately overcome through collective political destabilization.

while recognizing the importance of language for projects of self-determination — for the affirmation of underrepresented categories and for a sincere fight to craft a world in which our differential existences can be lived in hospitable conditions — do we not wish to consider that the conversations which are most amplified are almost always re-framed as projects which, in some way, "complete" a mythical project of liberation that was flawed, incomplete, but for some reason still worth sticking up for ? why do we continue to fetishize outmoded conceptualizations of liberation while seemingly ignoring the fact that this sort of discourse is inherently a source of violence itself ? and finally, how do we re-claim political autonomy when our avenues of "self-expression" have been cynically marginalized and perverted in such a way that dissent only ever entails a new, novel category for marketing the same old bullshit ?

these thoughts are not complete or fully thought through — just wanted to raise some questions i haven't heard being asked elsewhere. i'm open to suggestions for further reading.

― budo jeru, Friday, 10 July 2020 23:34 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

18th century ideology contained some dope ass ideas tho

Here's a hot take: the culture of calling out "Karens" is actually all about being a Karen -- delighting in tattling on others

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/04/17/USAT/7620a49d-39e9-4db9-a96c-89f3d1deb1ae-facebookreact2.png

I mean...I don't think the appropriate response to someone who is videoing their neighbor call the cops on them and reporting a fake assault is "STOP SNITCHIN'", but ymmv

No I agree these people should be called out, I’m more speaking about what the phenomenon does for its participants than whether it should be done.

it's kinda like 17th century ideology, that the 18th century was like ... wtf is wrong with you petty ass people and your puritanical bullshit?!

I think the problem is that the truly "karen" behavior (i.e. putting a person of color's safety and even life potentially at risk by calling cops for nothing or for petty bullshit) doesn't really have any existing mechanism to deter it or punish it -- there's no criminal statute that would be adequate, even if such a statute would be enforced, which it likely wouldn't. So there's a case for internet vigilante justice, but at some point it seems like it just turns into delight at throwing rotten fruit at someone, not to mention that by embodying systemic racism in "Karen" we can kind of make a human sacrifice to cleanse our sins.

scarlet K

The first time a Black female friend called a white coworker "Karen" or "Brenda" anecdotally I was in gales of laughter about it. I didn't realize (two years ago!) that it was already a term that referred to something specific, I just thought she was deliciously sassing her coworker.

it was definitely a good zing for a while

cleaning your ears with cotton swabs is fine unless you’re being a terrible clumsy doofus and trying to actually jam it in the canal.

-bob marley

I will join your uncool conservative party, because otm.

xp

i'm a little paranoid about sticking cotton swabs in my ear, so i wrap a bit of extra-soft, natural cotton around the tip of the swab just to soften it up a little before going in

When a hill is died upon so passionately it suggests a paraphilia

(That’s amore)

proper bants

cargo pants

mambo dance

right wing rants

Like I use cotton swabs to clean electronics but only because they're already here because otherwise I would just use something else, so I don't understand why people are buying cotton swabs or why they exist at all if people aren't generally using them to clean out their ear holes. Which I admittedly do. Mostly to own the libs.

why are you using cotton swabs to clean electronics? ... unless you are talking about the sound heads on a reel to reel tape machine ... not ideal if you are working in a tight space as sometimes bits of the swabs will come off and then you may have clean surfaces but you have bits of white fluff in your electronics which creates other problems.

I use them all the time to clean up solder flux, etc. There are fancy ones that leave less fluff, but the regular ones work fine, for the most part.

Yes, I spring for the premium swabs (premaswabs, as I call them) so swab dander is never an issue.

Swab Dander is my porn name

that is so hot

just wrapped My Uncool Conservative Beliefs 8

excellent work in (C)ANAL ADVENTURES btw

this is the quality ilx content that makes me a satisfied gold subscriber

Big fan of Just the Q-Tip

https://youtu.be/H-5fknNjH0M

http://youtu.be/H-5fknNjH0M

whatever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-5fknNjH0M

ta

oh that's not Eddie Money ...

A man covered his face with tattoos and turned his eyes black. He says it cost him his kindergarten teaching job

This man is an idiot and an attention whore (and also CNN is, as always, a complete garbage 'news' organization burying the lede on this non-story about someone who remains employed as a teacher for all other grades but was only transitioned away from the five-year-olds that he seems to have gone out of his way to scare the shit out of).

tbh i would've likely loved having him as a kindergarten teacher

I hate him

He said he hoped to show his pupils that they should accept people who are different from the norm.

wait how is anybody supposed to make out his pupils anymore

Old Lunch otm on both points.

On the other hand, the guy looks pretty cool/terrifying and should definitely pursue a career as an extreme music front man.

From a customer service standpoint, every single interaction I have ever had with someone who works in government has landed on a spectrum from grossly disappointing to enraging. Social security, inspections & permits, police, department of transportation, traffic engineering, dept of natural resources. All utterly useless stupid clods when not actively deceptive and evil. I am definitely beginning to understand why someone would want to do away with the whole thing. Like, maybe my faith in the power of strong government is magical thinking. Something I want to be true to salve my horror at being ineffective at changing anything by myself.

I’m sorry Peace,Man that you had those experiences. As a lifelong local government official I have tried to treat every citizen seriously and with the highest professionalism.

Whenever someone rants to me about incompetence in government, it fuels my belief that it comes down to a lack of funding.

I envy that you are able to sustain this belief and have not had numerous experiences to the contrary. There are definitely departments and agencies where this is the case, though. There are others that have plenty of funding but are driven by incompetence, laziness, and a culture of buck-passing. Somewhere there has to be City Building Departments that actually work to encourage building, as opposed to, delaying and preventing building, and even repairing of existing buildings !!! Maybe this is my penchant for championing the underdog and not living in places where things work well because maybe those places are also boring? Idk

people should definitely be paid to make things harder tho. j/k. maybe it's lack of funding but i think the bigger problem is that most people are forced to work and they could not care less nor should they.

yes, I think apathy is related to perceived laziness. otm

I find it hard to believe that female candidates actually get interrupted more than male candidates during debates. We just watched Trump literally not let Biden get a complete sentence in for much of the debate. But even removing that outlier I’d bet that Harris didn’t get interrupted more than the average national candidate in a debate.

Dunno about that, but it certainly feels like Democratic candidates get interrupted more often.