That is the most sensible comment I've seen on this whole subject.
When a herd of independent minds is supporting a political party, the political party concerned has a problem.
That video clip of "kitties on a treadmill" is cuter than "budgie on a skateboard" any day.
Nonsense, Herr Doktor. Kittens are totally 2006 - budgies are the in-thing for those in the know.
When a herd of independent minds is supporting a political party, the political party concerned has a problem.
I'm not quibbling with that - if anything, it's the point of half the posts on this blog. True believers of whatever stripe should be kept the hell away from power, and that's it.
That goes double for true believers who clearly think they know the way for all of us, and are quite happy to resort to dubious methods to get their way.
Well, as usual, I only understood a small part of your over-written, convoluted post but I gather that part of your complaint concerns Right-wing bloggers posting comments on the sites of other Right-wing bloggers. I am generally described as a Right-wing blogger (a description I dispute) but virtually all my comments are deposited on Left-wing sites, er, including this one. Do I get any thanks, any appreciation, a kind word or a small donation? 'No' is the word I'm struggling for. Usually I'm told to piss off and not come back!
"True believers of whatever stripe should be kept the hell away from power, and that's it."
That's one of Chris Dillow's main points ("An extremist - not a fanatic")
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/
He argues that we should advocate positions in the way that stockbrokers pick shares - with an ironic detachment. Don't get emotional over stock, etc.
It makes for a better class of rationality, he thinks (and I'd agree for the most part).
Usually I'm told to piss off and not come back!
Open Goal Alert
Kittens are so yesterday !
was the Kitty running from the bird on the board..grin
has the hunter become the hunted?
Incidentally, the Pedants Association would like to present you with this silver-plated commemorative cup to mark the last known use of the word 'fulsome' with its original meaning.
*applause*
It's worth pointing out that I've seen dissent (ie, any deviation from the 'Maggie Thatcher, amen' line - or independent thought as it might otherwise be called) in the rightosphere being rewarded with threats of violence and death. Truly nasty, nasty cultish stuff.
Do you have a Youtube budgie clip rather than just a still photo?
Sorry for the left-field intro...
Left field is better than left wing anyway.
Guido post. Hmmm.
Insightful as always, James.
Here's that Skateboarding Budgie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R...h?
v=R_MhLtbdVk0
There.
I defy anyone to tell me that Guido is more entertaining than those skateboarding budgies, and I've never clapped eyes on a blog with half the brilliance of that dog on a bicycle.
Now, that's genius.
And while I'm on a wanky, poetry-quoting jag, this seemed apt...
You—Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion
From better company, have kept your own ...
There is a narrowness in such a notion,
Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for Ocean
True believers of whatever stripe should be kept the hell away from power, and that's it.
In some ways. There's some good stuff on the subject in The Name Of The Rose, as it happens, and it doesn't hurt that Eco's way of saying it is thoughtful and persuasive rather than screaming "murderers, fanatics, extremists, apologists!"
I'd add some riders though. First is that "of whatever stripe" means what it says, it's not code for "distance from the political centre".
Second, and not unconnected, is that some of the worst fanatics are "stop the fanatics" people. Indeed, the whole HP business and the politics which gave birth to it all involve people looking for wild-eyed and intolerant fanatics in a fanatical, wild-eyed and intolerant way.
Third, I'd rather have an idealist than a cynic any day. There's a whole breed of New Labour politician that basically believes in nothing save their own personal advancement: and there's nothing they hate, therefore, more than somebody who actually believes in something. Observe Hazel Blears and ask yourself - Christ, has it really come to this?
Another great post FR.
I'm remember something Kierkegaard wrote about the church and organized religion (he was Christian himself). He said that the problem was that the church was a gathering of people who all shared the same opinion, and were therefore unlikely to intellectually challenge each other. This would then lead to lazy assumptions about the rest of the world, which in turn would lead to intolerance and impatience with opinions unfamiliar to you.
For those of us who like to read political-ish blogs, we want to read something that might have a different angle on an issue - something intriguing, something we hadn't thought of. You know, a blog that looks like it was written by a person who actually has their own thoughts.
If some people with some bizarre political agenda want to corral their blogs into an online ghetto then they are the only ones who lose out - having the same endless discussion agreeing on all the same points over and over again is hardly going to keep the mind sharp and convince anyone but you and your mates.
"He said that the problem was that the church was a gathering of people who all shared the same opinion, and were therefore unlikely to intellectually challenge each other."
Hey, there goes the Reformation!
Duffy,
Not sure I get what you are saying - sorry.
Fair point The Duff. Mr Luther's new cleaning rota certainly split some congregations....
Why, I'm currently in stitches as I watch the Anglican Church 'intellectually challenge' each other over what they think the Almighty intended us to do with our naughty bits.
Struth. There's a whole subculture of sk8boarding budgies. One more internet tradition to be aware of.
Skateboarding budgies have nothing on Gabba Parrot.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?
v=ts...feature=related
Guaranteed to cheer you up, no mater which brand of loonies have annoyed you.
Good points made here, but none that Shlomo doesn't answer succinctly in the following video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f...h?
v=fk6LFBYHDWo
Gabba Parrot
That parrot has stolen his techno dance from my own performance at Ska concerts. Parrots have no shame or sense of plagiarism.
"Not sure I get what you are saying - sorry."
Why am I not surprised, Don?
The history of the Christian religion is one of continuous 'intellectual challenge' amongst themselves which is why they are currently in such a schismatic state. This continues today as 'Illman' indicates.
Piss off David, and don't come back.
Brisso, my dear old thing, not only will I not 'not come back' but I shall instantly return to your, er, amusing site which I thought had perished in a welter of personal angst but which I now see is restored to its former, er, what's the word ... no, don't tell me ... it'll come to me ... give me a minute ...
Anyway, poor old 'Ratty' needs a break. I get the feeling that perhaps I have visited too often recently - I'm very sensitive like that.
First is that "of whatever stripe" means what it says, it's not code for "distance from the political centre".
If it's code for anything, it's people who are completely indifferent to the reality around them, and have little bother incorporating any event into their worldview.
Sure, I think we all do that from time to time, but some of us more fanatically than others. Take Duffles up-thread, for instance - there's practically nothing that he couldn't wedge sideways into his eternal battle with the liberal elitists in his mind.
Plenty of it about online, it's just a question of what annoys you most.
I'd rather have an idealist than a cynic any day...
I'll agree with that, but with a rider of my own. Idealists should recognise their aims as just that - ideals, rather than absolute rules or hard facts.
Start confusing the two, and you'll soon find yourself issuing manifestos which explicitly forbid signatories from looking back at your previous statements, comparing them to reality and drawing negative conclusions about your powers of reason.
Duffy,
The point being made by Kierkegaard is that people take refuge in depersonalized realms of ideas and doctrines, rather than confronting the fact that everyone is ultimately accountable for their own decisions and how they live their lives. His argument was that churches made this process of 'refuge' in ideas even easier, by institutionalizing these ideas and doctrines.
Change 'church' to 'political party' and it's pretty much the same point. The people in a political party or church don't have to agree on everything, but to join in the first place you must have accepted a large number of propositions. If you spend most of your time with these people, then those that don't accept the views of your group must seem that bit more perplexing and incomprehensible because to you, they are the exception.
Whereas if you don't owe allegiance to any particular group, you have to think for yourself.
Don, I imagine Duffles will respond with a pissy comment about global warming or some such, and while he'll be wrong on the micro scale he'll probably be right on the macro... That daft ideas often gain traction with otherwise intelligent people.
Point being, you don't have to join in a political or religious group to accept provably wrong ideas as truth - it just helps a lot. A large part of my job is keeping an eye on issues in the media and how they develop, and I've found it dispiriting how often people just repeat the last thing they've read on any given subject without giving it consideration.
Hell, I do that from time to time - I think it's just the way our brains work, especially when presented with a riot of information like modern communications. I think if we didn't we'd go nuts.
The question is, do you accept that and try to come to your own conclusions, or merely pick up a shop-bought philosophy? I like to think I do the former, but it'd be sheer vanity to imagine I'm a genuinely independent thinker.
And what happened after the reformation, Duffy? We created new churches with new doctrines, and exciting new forms of bigotry.
Whereas if you don't owe allegiance to any particular group, you have to think for yourself.
Well yes, but it can also be a comforting doctrine that one is thinking for oneself, when this isn't always what people are doing - it's pretty easy to absorb and regurgitate all sorts of ignorant ideas, perceptions and philosophies without ever going anywhere near a political party or a church, unless it be the Universal Church of the Saloon Bar.
It's like people who tell you that they went to University of Life, the use of which phrase tends to be followed by the production of all sorts of cobblers. Which serves to obscure the likelihood that the University of Life is probably the best university there is, but it's not really unlike any academic university: you have to read, you have to listen and you have to think.
I agree with you both Justin and FR - there is a self-defeating vanity in believing yourself to be truly independent. We all have our own biases. And often we express it by choosing which sources to read from the mass of information that RD referred to. There's no need to join a church or a political party to have narrow view of the world - we can manage this all by ourselves at home.
It's entirely natural to want to hang around with people you like, but we should certainly be suspicious of the instinct within us that sometimes wishes THAT sort of person who doesn't agree with us wasn't around, and is there a way we can get rid or keep out THAT sort of person. I see the problem you raised with this post as almost an anthropological one.
Oop, when I said 'RD' I meant 'FR'. D'oh.
I find it dispiriting how often people just repeat the last thing they've read on any given subject without giving it consideration.
He argues that we should advocate positions in the way that stockbrokers pick shares - with an ironic detachment. Don't get emotional over stock, etc.
I, for one, welcome our new hipster overlords.
rant on s/he of the me and you, the Mind where gender aint there when the commentator's read, as the truth is you know, it is all very well and good ranting, on what one percieves as injustices -- in yr case with immensley convoluted metaphors reliant on ephemeral knowledge of fleeting pointless fellow colleague-ranters' names.
Toynbee, i do not ned to read to know, is an overpaid gob spouting bollix, and after yrs of daily practice telling her silent void what is good for it, the polly Public which exists in one head alone, and prior to the net, not a voice of reason, but a singular human being, with an opinion on everything, often vicious, Hitchen's younger and elder, both horros, all the whingey gits, what do they do?
are they fortune tellers, what's their track record as a prophet?
Public, thats Us ppl, each Unique and the gift of the net, one can learn in a way unique and in which one need not sacrifice the s/he principle, that We are all single Minds, alone and it is Hope which leads to optomism, which leads to confidence, which leads to belief, freedom democracy, all the Good civilisation...
...but ranting away as this, is a self fulfilling prophecy. If a writer only ever moans in print, after a few yrs, well, peter hitch, any number of vicious vixens, the malones, the horrid totally bad natured cackler in the irish (yah) daily Mail from a bunch of ppl who all have good jobs that pay very well and take expensive jaunts, travel around the place in nice motors, and moan about everything in their life..
i live in a bedsit and am very very happy, on state bens, and i do not moan with the bile and bitterness these broomstick users hagging inprint do...it's dead easy, write unhappy, stayt unhappy, write happy, get happier until you are so far above the whiner/s one can but dance in comedic light and Human warmth, the quality s/he can aim for, as equal as s/he can go for the absence of it, fifty fifty, our Will controls what appears in print and if it is always about how Bad the world is coz some middle aged looks obsessed dreary Woman as professional construct s/he trapped in female flesh, rants how some millionaire younger rival in the physical appearance dept, should be gassed and tortured for setting the wrong expample to the bitter old bags parish of *young* ppl, as if s/he the Lonney F doing all but showing her nickers and stripping off in rage, is the worlds foremost expert on everything from celebrity shopping and regular first class travel and holidaying advice, to going totally green in that particular kind of hack way, which says, do as i say, not as i do, as i am more humanly Important...utter trolls, gra agus siochainn
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
?
Serves you right for supporting Celtic.
Don:
"It's entirely natural to want to hang around with people you like, but we should certainly be suspicious of the instinct within us that sometimes wishes THAT sort of person who doesn't agree with us wasn't around, and is there a way we can get rid or keep out THAT sort of person."
Absolutely! Quite so! Could not have put it better myself! Indeed, not too long ago on this very site there was a prime example of it - ask our host.
Justin writes: "It's like people who tell you that they went to University of Life, the use of which phrase tends to be followed by the production of all sorts of cobblers." Ouch! I never stop boasting of my Third achieved at the 'Uni of Life', and indeed I have produced an enormous amount of cobblers. The only thing that gives me some comfort is the number of people with Firsts who outproduce me in the manufacture of cobblers.
What I find depressing is how often people just take the last thing they read as their current gospel.
And then there's the people who take the last gospel they read as their current thing.
The YOUTUBE VID of My Budgies was Frickin Crap!
and I'm a little pissed about it
There is however cool footage of my 13 Budgies Skateboarding Skating in sink together in a mini Skate park that I built after that CRAP interview
They also play group soccer
amongst other shit funny stuff
Check out my photo site @
www.flickr.com Trieste Visier
http://skateboardingbudgies.blogspot.com
or google Trieste Visier or Skateboarding Budgies
"This Private Eye without the gags, this Drudge Report without the celebrity nipples, this LA Confidential Sid Hudgens without the wit or charm."
Amen
Could this blog be a honeytrap for Mr Duff?
*standing ovation*
Hey, I'm right up for that JK Galbraith blog idea of yours, send me an email when you get it up and running!
Whereas if you don't owe allegiance to any particular group, you have to think for yourself.
Or not think at all.
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