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I started buying HiFi News and Record Reviews instead, because it gave each album a review based on its actual merits as a recording. That would have been in the 1970’s…
And that children is why punk had to happen.
I've never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week - and often to stimulate controversy?
Possibly jealousy as I was working on the relatively underpaid news side, but I still don't really get it.
I’ve never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week – and often to stimulate controversy?
Possibly jealousy as I was working on the relatively underpaid news side, but I still don’t really get it.
Petty, nasty (but also insecure) little people looking for affirmation that they are 'not alone' in wanting to 'say the unsayable'.
It's the progressive nudge-nudging of society towards a more self-centred, rats fighting each other in a sack, model that helps populists.
So long as you're seen to be hating on some 'others' the dead-eyed masses will follow...
Total sidetrack but Jimmy Page was mentioned up there - this is a mental read.
https://www.vintag.es/2018/06/jimmy-page-lori-maddox.html
I’ve never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week – and often to stimulate controversy?
Possibly jealousy as I was working on the relatively underpaid news side, but I still don’t really get it.
It cuts both ways though (even if the salaries don't). Recall Burchill weighing in to stuff like the Iraq war and Israel v Palestine and it was just Nah. Didn't really work, no one's interested - you can't pivot into the great issues of the day after spending 20 years spitefully taking the piss out of celebrities.
Proust managed it, mind. Perhaps 'Welcome to the Woke Trials' will be the great introspective book of our times?
I just don’t understand how anyone can write or say the things she did and then manage to sleep at night
Drink. Drink before, during and after? The self-styled existential punk pensmiths became self-hating park-bench drunks shouting random abuse at passers-by. For as long as the coins continue to clatter on their heads, for as long as they can hear the resultant hubbub and the sound of their own names - then that bench will stay warm. Because arses.
The self-styled existential punk pensmiths became self-hating park-bench drunks shouting random abuse at passers-by
And don't forget powdering ones nose. It's astounding how many of these folk recall their time "Holding court at the Groucho" when the wait-staff (i.e. the ones that weren't off their tits on booze and drugs) remember all off them as "That fat bird/bloke slurring incoherently to him/herself in the corner"
Actually being a vile, bitter person and taking it out on other people.
Or
Pretending to be a vile, bitter person to earn money.
There is the existentialist ‘middle’?
Or, ‘Schrodinger’s ****’.
I’ve never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week – and often to stimulate controversy?
The music industry has thrived on manufactured controversy for decades - teenage girls fawning over Frank Sinatra were referred to as Bobby Soxers and were portrayed in some sectors of the media as a threat to public morality - the marketing men loved this and exploited accordingly.
Petty, nasty (but also insecure) little people looking for affirmation that they are ‘not alone’ in wanting to ‘say the unsayable’.
It’s the progressive nudge-nudging of society towards a more self-centred, rats fighting each other in a sack, model that helps populists.
So long as you’re seen to be hating on some ‘others’ the dead-eyed masses will follow…
Dannyh has nailed this, I don't have anything constructive to add.
I just don’t understand how anyone can write or say the things she did and then manage to sleep at night
Because controversy sells - Burchill's revelation in 2008 that she "skived" from attending film screenings did not deter her from writing reviews about movies she'd never actually seen kinds of sums up how seriously she takes her own work.
Burchill's helium voiced, bitchy acerbism might have been edgy when she was seventeen, but forty-odd years later her "my friends won't talk to me in the playground because I voted Leave" schtick is cringeworthy in the extreme:
"they're all filthy remain-urs"
"I think a lot of it is parasexual..."
The self-proclaimed "Chistian Zionist" Burchill's short-lived new best mate has been unmasked as an anti-semite, so she's had to cancel her own work about "cancel culture". It's fair to say that her own career is likely to implode and no doubt her current employer will try to extract maximum mileage out of this, while simultaneously hanging her out to dry.
The next media gremlin will be along in a week or so.
I’ve never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week – and often to stimulate controversy?
Similar to this, I have to turn over when TV news insists on interview random members of the public in the street.
When I watch the 10pm news and they are talking about post covid economic recovery, I want to hear opinions of academics, historians, politicians, statisticians etc. I really don't care what unemployed Bob says on his way to Greggs for a steak bake.
It’s astounding how many of these folk recall their time “Holding court at the Groucho” when the wait-staff (i.e. the ones that weren’t off their tits on booze and drugs) remember all off them as “That fat bird/bloke slurring incoherently to him/herself in the corner”
🙂 I like this. There was that very brief moment when journos thought they could be heroes...
I’ve never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week – and often to stimulate controversy?
...when they could come on here and do it for free?
When I watch the 10pm news and they are talking about post covid economic recovery, I want to hear opinions of academics, historians, politicians, statisticians etc. I really don’t care what unemployed Bob says on his way to Greggs for a steak bake.
The tyranny of vox pops - best summed up with "I think you'll find that most people have had enough of the experts" (Michael Gove, 2016).
Over the last three decades there's been a notable shift away from subject matter experts quoted in the media to polemicists. This is why we've had (Burchill) someone with only a secondary school education being employed to articulate the finer points of international diplomacy vis a vis the United Kingdom leaving the world's largest trading bloc and my perennial annoyance James Delingpole (with a degree in English Language) here, contracting himself and in way over his head because he's being asked to present an expert view of something way outside of his area of expertise.
Unfortunately, the public at large don't see it because they might like what Delingpole and Burchill have to say about this week's manufactured grievance, but don't understand the difference between a rent-a-gob and someone who knows what they're talking about.
seems Paul nailed back in 79 (reportedly)
The next media gremlin will be along in a week or so.
Unfortunately, shutting up Piers Morgan is proving a bit more difficult than I thought.
I can’t say how much I dislike Julie Burchill. Vile person.
Takes contrary social and political viewpoints to seem edgy, for sheer contrariness and to make empty noise. Has made a habit of the same type of approach but regarding music, art and film etc. Does all of this, speaking in an affected, completely unnatural way.
I am sure she supported Leave, precisely because she didn’t think the campaign would be successful and could then spend the rest of her career complaining about it and peoples lack of tolerance and clear thinking. When Leave won, I am sure she had to find a way to still make herself the victim - hence this play.
Unfortunately, shutting up Piers Morgan is proving a bit more difficult than I thought.
You have to ask yourself, the likes of P*ers M#rgan and Lozza Fox who stand on an "anti-woke" platform, what are they actually standing for?
Unfortunately, the tabloid reading ****s have been programmed to believe that the EU/"The Left"/Labour/Woke/Meghan etc are the reason why things are more shit today than they were twenty years ago.
[Burchill] Takes contrary social and political viewpoints to seem edgy, for sheer contrariness and to make empty noise. Has made a habit of the same type of approach but regarding music, art and film etc
She's always done this, it's far easier for her to be contrarian about stuff that she hasn't actually listened to or viewed, sneering faux-intellectualism from someone who is held in contempt by the people she used to frequent the Groucho Club with.
@oakleymuppet - out of interest, what views of Peterson do you consider abhorant?
I’ve never understood the appeal of columnists. Why would I want to pay attention to anyone who is paid to manufacture opinions week-on-week – and often to stimulate controversy?
It's cheap is why and fills space. It doesn't take long to write an opinion piece vs actual journalism which requires time-consuming research.
For example, the Guardian these days is maybe 60% opinion pieces.
out of interest, what views of Peterson do you consider abhorant?
Can we not go down this shitstorm route again please. It never ends with anything other than flounces and thread closure.
Can we not go down this shitstorm route again please. It never ends with anything other than flounces and thread closure.
Peterson is painted as a demonic entity by many on the left, but when pushed they tend to be unable to articulate a single idea of his, instead, it's all projection and hearsay.
Hmm...Peterson himself argued that Gender Studies should be "defunded" and that undergrads should avoid subjects like Sociology, Anthropology, etc anything "corrupted by neo-Marxists", hence him being feted by the likes of well known intellectual bankrupt Toby Young.
on the left
And that's it, I'm oot, cheerio. Have fun.
Peterson is painted as a demonic entity by many on the left,
JP fanbois shouldn't act like a bunch of cultists then.
Peterson’s descent into prescription drug addiction and Eastern European quack remedies has been interesting* to hear about.
*Now when I say, “interesting”...
Hmm…Peterson himself argued that Gender Studies should be “defunded” and that undergrads should avoid subjects like Sociology, Anthropology, etc anything “corrupted by neo-Marxists”, hence him being feted by the likes of well known intellectual bankrupt Toby Young.
I'm not sure what's abhorrent about that though?
Peterson disagrees with post-structuralist/post-modern theorists. Is that so wrong especially when these ideas have recently been recycled into the absolute truths of critical social justice?
I think it's more being the poster boy for the incel movement most people find objectionable
Peterson disagrees with post-structuralist/post-modern theorists. Is that so wrong especially when these ideas have recently been recycled into the absolute truths of critical social justice?
Parklife!
It's no wonder he became an addict if he followed his own incredibly basic, unhelpful advice on dealing with addictive behaviour.
PJM1974
Free MemberThe next media gremlin will be along in a week or so.
It is interesting just how few of them actually manage to do it for the long run and also do it in any volume. Like, Katie Hopkins emerges from time to time to say something horrible so she's got longevity, but how much of her stuff really gets any attention? She's a persistent floater but only a little one. And even that puts her way out in the lead of most of these shits who at best leave a horrible smell.
Very very few people get to really block the pipes like Tucker Carlson.
So yep there'll always be another one along in a minute which is good for media companies but not so good for their victims, or for us, but interestingly not for the failed gremlins who get melted. Which makes you wonder why people choose that career route. You have to be both good and lucky and like I said earlier, the actual combination of personality traits needed is rare. Is it all just that everyone who's got the capability to do it, also lacks the awareness that it might not work, the capacity for doubt?
I think it’s more being the poster boy for the incel movement most people find objectionable
That's entirely imagined.
Peterson is simply a conservative academic psychologist with a penchant for Jung.
That some reactionaries seem to associate themselves with him seems to have caused some to turn him into a hate-figure.
Peterson is simply a conservative academic psychologist with a penchant for Jung.
He's not though is he. He talks endlessly about all sorts of subjects which have nothing to do with his specialism, but trades on his position of authority as an academic.
Basically he got famous by making a fuss about not wanting to use preferred gender pronouns at his university, then realised he could get lots of media attention with his 'anti-woke' stance. He might not be far-right himself but he's very very popular with people who are - why is that?
That’s entirely imagined.
It's really not. Peterson suggested that they should be "assigned Mates" to prevent them from taking their rage out on society. But like eddiebaby suggested, let's not get into a thread about Peterson.
He might not be far-right himself but he’s very very popular with people who are – why is that?
That's called a fallacy of attribution. One could condemn Nietzsche by the same token.
It’s really not. Peterson suggested that they should be “assigned Mates” to prevent them from taking their rage out on society. But like eddiebaby suggested, let’s not get into a thread about Peterson.
Do you have the quote for that because I believe you may be taking him out of context?
He’s not though is he. He talks endlessly about all sorts of subjects which have nothing to do with his specialism, but trades on his position of authority as an academic.
Sure, he's a public intellectual. 99% of youtube is people talking about things they don't have an academic specialisation in.
Re the enforced monogamy comment:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/22/what-the-left-gets-wrong-about-jordan-peterson
The article continues: “Peterson does not pause when he says this. Enforced monogamy is, to him, simply a rational solution. Otherwise women will all only go for the most high-status men, he explains, and that couldn’t make either gender happy in the end.”
Besides failing to clearly condemn incels, Peterson’s quote made it seem as if he believes women should be required to sacrifice themselves against their will to fix male violence. He doesn’t. He’s said that by “enforced monogamy” he merely meant encouraging monogamy through social norms. Peterson, of course, is a public figure commanding a vast following, and he should expect to be held accountable for what he says. It is impossible to defend his wild regressive flourishes – like his suggestion, in a recent Financial Times profile, that women would be happier under traditional gender roles.
A theory of monogamy, as a social norm, by which it performs a 'social function' of promoting social stability by ensuring that hordes of young men don't end up without long term partners, is surely not that controversial?
Do you have the quote for that because I believe you may be taking him out of context?
And therein lies the beauty of the way that Peterson frames himself. "that's not what I meant at all" says the indignant Prof when something he said is reveled to be just a little bit...well...Far-right-y. Here's what he said...
“He was angry at God because women were rejecting him. The cure for that is enforced monogamy. That’s actually why monogamy emerges.”
And sure please feel free to tell me how out of context that is...I'm dying to know...really. While you're doing that, explain what he means by "Swamp witches" and please feel free to explain away such pearls of wisdom as "Feminists wish for brute male domination" and that women should "Allow themselves to be transformed into mothers by nature" because declining birth rates (note, nothing about declining sperm counts here) will "be the undoing" of "The West" This last couplet by the way, has been used in such luminary podcasts as The Daily Stormer and "TDS" (Formally The Daily Showa, they got bored of saying Showa on their far-right podcast so shortened it to tedious, geddit?) as intellectual back-weight for the 14 words.
So even if his words are being taken out of context by the left, they're also being used by the far right. Something for which he has form.
Also; Lobsters. Which you have to admit is pretty funny when some-one pointed out how he'd got it completely backward... Ooh, burn ( as I think the young people are saying )
A theory of monogamy, as a social norm, by which it performs a ‘social function’ of promoting social stability by ensuring that hordes of young men don’t end up without long term partners, is surely not that controversial?
Have rates of monogamy declined? What agency have women in this? Are there hoards of young men without wives? and then finally let's be clear here; Women through-out history have managed to, prevent and indeed hold back the tides of male violence including male violence to women, wars, murder and other crimes...by just getting married to them...Oh wait...
Women have only relatively recently gained agency over themselves, and their reproductive rights, and the very thing that Peterson blames for this? Not overt male domination, but those nasty witches who want to overthrow men's rightful place. Oh, the humanity...
Do you have the quote for that because I believe you may be taking him out of context?
LOL, Initiation 101.
Dude, we get it - you're a fanboy and you won't accept any criticism of him. Can we move on please?
And sure please feel free to tell me how out of context that is…I’m dying to know
He's clearly talking about monogamy as a social norm having a certain 'function'. Indeed that was his clarification rather than being some de jure state-of-affairs. There is a difference also between is and should. Surely one can identify the social norm of monography as a cure without saying that it should be the cure!!?? A subtle difference but important otherwise many discussions and conversations are off the table.
So even if his words are being taken out of context by the left, they’re also being used by the Far Right. Something for which he has form.
Is it fair to blame someone for how others' use their words?
Women through-out history have managed to, prevent and indeed hold back the tides of male violence including male violence to women, wars, murder and other crimes
Why do you think men compete with each other like that? Peterson would say it's so that they may be chosen by women.
By some accounts, it was the agency of Queen Helen of Sparta that precipitated the biggest war in Greek mythology.
Is it fair to blame someone for how others’ use their words?
Yes. They're dog whistles. When he says "Declining western birth rates", he means white people. He knows it, his far right supporters know it, and that's why he keeps on saying it. A lot of what he says is uncontroversial, but an awful lot of what he says is designed to be 'heard' and understood and translated by ultra conservatives and the far right.
That either bothers you or it doesn't.
Edit: I'm not doing this any more, I'll leave you with the Prof's own word: Rule 10 "Be precise in your speech"
I'll also quote Maya Angelou "When people tell you who they really are, believe them"
Why do you think men compete with each other like that? Peterson would say it’s so that they may be chosen by women.
Spoken like a true incel.
Women through-out history have managed to, prevent and indeed hold back the tides of male violence including male violence to women, wars, murder and other crimes…by just getting married to them…Oh wait…
I mean I dislike Peterson and I don't like his theories on enforced monogamy because if it wasn't for having found the perfect other half, I'd prefer to just be playing Xbox, Mountain Biking, casually dating and enjoying singledom. I like people and socializing but there are very, very few people I can cope with on a day in, day out basis.
However....
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/03/19/why-polygamy-breeds-civil-war
Having said that, Polygamy isn't the automatic alternative to "enforced monogamy" and shouldn't be seen as such. Not to mention the models that are studied are essentially just another form of male ownership of women. It's just kind of an interesting topic, there's quite a lot of sociological research on it actually.