Honesty time: Do you think mainstream culture and thinking are backward / gullible?

[mutley]

People aren't happy here, or anywhere else frankly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4245282.stm

(If you want to see the survey on this link there's a link in the top corner that tales you to a box with the actual results)

The problem is that many don't know what the solution is, or how to take more control of their lives. I reckon that's why they'll get stuck into mainstream culture and consumerism. At the same time most people know that they're shat on at work, and have very little effective political control over their lives or society.

 

[slaar]

Agreed when food clothing and shelter are the requirements.

But the UK, a developed nation, is way beyond that.

It is our duty, as a strong nation, to look outside of ourselves and to take care of weaker nations, weaker people.

As an individual, to look after other individuals weaker than ourselves (you know it makes sense, we feel good when we do it, and good comes of it).

This is human nature, but which is subverted by those with power. If all humans are happy, then there is no need of political leaders. They must have discord in order to lead and to abuse power. Therefore they create discord.

Or blindness, and COD provides that nicely...

You focus on the negative fela. The British Army played a major role in stopping a horrific and nihilistic civil war in Sierra Leone just five years ago. We give millions of pounds in foreign aid, in a way that far exceeds many other countries in terms of genuine desire to improve conditions in the Third World, according to a wide range of pressure and civil society groups. Is that not an example of what you're talking about?

 

[El Jugador]

Well it did say "honesty time" - so why not try some?

what a snobbish, culturally elitist, crock of shite if you don't mind me saying. Whats the view like up there?

What, the view of you looking down at me and my snobbish, cultural elitism? Well I can see right up your nose for a start

I thought I might pick up a response or two like this, but please understand that I never claimed to be any better, and in fact I couldn't give a fuck whether I am considered "above" or "below" anyone else, unlike those who I'm referring to - in fact such oneupmanship as you have projected onto me is quite possibly part of the very thing I'm on about - however I fear that in your case you are merely expressing an (arguably patronising) affection for what you might see as charmingly swarthy little people, and a hostile attitude towards those who would knock them.

My comments were about the numpty-headedness of (for example) deciding whether people should be banned from doing something or not purely on the grounds of whether they themselves like to do it. Likewise they will happily ignore the exclusion of others if it does not directly affect them or their friends, yet then will then completely reverse their thinking as soon as it does. No principles, just total self-regard.

I'm talking about those who are so self-centered that they ignore any negative aspect of their own wastefulness and destruction of everyone's environment purely to blow hot air into their own pride and vanity. Like London SUV drivers and commuters one-to-a-car, wasteful incurable landfill-creaters, people who invest in the stock market, people who value animal fur and diamonds.

The kind of people who are happy to victimise and subjugate others merely for being different to them. They won't admit it but they do it as a vain attempt to counterbalance their own sense of inferiority, but why should others suffers on account of that? People like that create racism, homophobia and and any other unfair victimisation of others based on nothing but their own prejudice and insecurity.

"I've met the man on the street and he's a cunt" Is a major understatement.

We mustn't forget that the shit that occurs in this world occurs because people make it that way, and all people whether they realise it or not are responsible - And that includes you and me for we too contribute in our own tiny way to mainstream culture. So I'm a cunt and you're a cunt, but the difference is you think you're better than me whereas I merely hate everyone who I don't know.

 

[fela fan]

You focus on the negative fela. The British Army played a major role in stopping a horrific and nihilistic civil war in Sierra Leone just five years ago. We give millions of pounds in foreign aid, in a way that far exceeds many other countries in terms of genuine desire to improve conditions in the Third World, according to a wide range of pressure and civil society groups. Is that not an example of what you're talking about?

The negative? Mostly so on urban yes, much more on the positive outside of urban, but i'm here to try and create more positive by focussing on the negative.

I'm more than aware about the british people's sterling efforts at aid and contributing to world disasters to any number of people. Often we outshine everybody (eg the tsuanami, and i live in thailand, and i saw how much help came from the british public).

I've very little time now, so will respond a bit more later coz i can't really remember the focus of my posts on this thread. But just coz there's positive, should i not talk about he negative?!

 

[fela fan]

Good post that one El J, i want to write more, will do later.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

chegrimandi

your 3 posts:

1) That's the point up for discussion. I'm posing a question that you havent, to be far, answered. Look at the high selling stuff in the newsagents How is too "eliteist" to criticise and analyse it. Are you saying no one can describe anything in negative terms?

On jobs, there are lots of questions to be asked about what we spend our time doing. I know people work for money of course, but the value of their output can be more questionable, as the worker often is only too aware of.

Fair play on your second post (2) that it's wrong to stereotype BB watchers too much.
But there is a supreme irony in the everpresence of the show and the fading knowledge of the warnings of the book that are comming truer as we forget.

Sorry you think my attitude stinks. I think the fact that 50 Cent is a presented and accepted as a leading role model stinks, so it's all swings and roundabouts.

 

[revol68]

I hardly think that this particular insight originates with Stuart Hall, Nino. Have you never heard of Foucault?

don't be a pretentious prick especially as Foucaults insights are hardly that origional either and his whole bullshit of historical breaks is ideological bullshit.

 

[slaar]

The negative? Mostly so on urban yes, much more on the positive outside of urban, but i'm here to try and create more positive by focussing on the negative.

I'm more than aware about the british people's sterling efforts at aid and contributing to world disasters to any number of people. Often we outshine everybody (eg the tsuanami, and i live in thailand, and i saw how much help came from the british public).

I've very little time now, so will respond a bit more later coz i can't really remember the focus of my posts on this thread. But just coz there's positive, should i not talk about he negative?!

Not at all, but your consistent views as expressed here on governments and politicians are that they are unambiguously negative. It was the British government and executive that sent the army to Sierra Leone, that drives aid efforts on behalf of the people of Britain etc. Obviously private donations are also significant (although nowhere near as significant as in the US).

Be interested in your thoughts.

 

[fela fan]

Not at all, but your consistent views as expressed here on governments and politicians are that they are unambiguously negative. It was the British government and executive that sent the army to Sierra Leone, that drives aid efforts on behalf of the people of Britain etc. Obviously private donations are also significant (although nowhere near as significant as in the US).

Be interested in your thoughts.

Mate, nothing is all good or all bad. So even blair must do good sometimes. I guess even bush too, but maybe he fucks up what i've just said...

But with that premise out of the way, i come from the default that all american governments in my life have been criminal in their destruction of human life. The latest one is the very worst of the lot, and that says something when we consider reagan's watch. [I was too young during nixon kissenger years, but they have to be the very worst of the lot]

And that all the british governments of my time are not much better, and the latest one is the worst of the lot.

I recognise that context plays a part, and i also recognise that what i say can often be construed as black or white.

But, i do not believe in the inevitability of war, and i hate western hegemony, any hegemony. I have argued against the US since i was about 16, and against the UK since i could understand a wee bit more.

My fight is all peoples against all governments/leaders. The governers against the governed if you like.

That's all a bit general i'm afraid, but it's designed to contextualise my position on such affairs and therefore to show where i'm coming from. Let me now try and be a bit more specific...

 

[fela fan]

Not at all, but your consistent views as expressed here on governments and politicians are that they are unambiguously negative. It was the British government and executive that sent the army to Sierra Leone, that drives aid efforts on behalf of the people of Britain etc. Obviously private donations are also significant (although nowhere near as significant as in the US).

Be interested in your thoughts.

Italian Godfathers no doubt did good things and helped out folk.

But they also ordered many deaths, and ruled by creating a climate of fear. Their currency was violence and death.

Same with blair and the british leadership. Perhaps we have to be distinct between the leadership and all mps per se, although only to a certain extent.

They may have helped out in one or two situations (your example maybe being one), but they also are responsible for so much shit in this world. They have through their actions caused the deaths of so many people, and the destruction of so many families. They are nowhere near as bad as the yanks, but they still go along with them. That is a heinous crime in my book, coz that book tells me that the yanks are the gravest violators of human rights. More than anyone they fuck up our world through their power games. Depressingly they have the most power to make our world a peaceful one.

As for this current british government, they are rolling back all kinds of freedoms previous generations fought so hard for.

And to address the thread's title, the reason they get away with their twin attacks on foreign people's lives and british people's freedoms is that the bulk of the british population are anaesthetised by the prevailing culture. Which is pretty much as taffboy and El J have indicated.

I find the daily lives of so many in britain a total waste of living the miracle that being a human is on my visits back there. I think the press are dreadful (except maybe the indie), the tabloids are puerile to the extreme, the subject matter they write about is all celebrites, telly, and humiliation; the country is awash in advertising (which treats folk as being stupid, and they then live up to it), cameras are everywhere, random fighting on friday and saturday nights is rampant by those who cannot take their drinks without becoming a raging monster, and the TELLY RULES!

Not everybody, but a big enough majority. Of course we have some of the finest humour, music, sport, art, and manners, in the world.

Like i said nothing is all good or all bad, but as a british person, albeit one who has decided he can never live there again, i find it sad as fuck how such talented people have sold their soul to such a degree. Look at the state of tabloid culture, the leaders we have, and the absolute peer pressure (society pressure in another word) to conform and not stray from accepted norms.

Britain badly needs a wake up call mate.

 

[fela fan]

what are these jobs of questionable value? People have jobs mostly to pay the bills. Thats a fairly important value in my book. To be honest taffboy I think your attitude stinks to high heaven.

Look i'm sorry in advance, but it's not taffboy's attitude that is wrong, it is yours.

All you're doing is getting defensive about something that you hold to be important.

I'd suggest you listen hard to what he's saying, coz there's shedloads of truth in it. Too many people react in the manner that you have. They don't like what they hear, and instead of reflecting why, they just attack the messenger and get all uppity and moral like. Minds remain closed and miss the opportunity to open up.

He's been honest and stuck his head above the parapet. Reactions like yours make such actions hard to do. They stop less fearless people from rebelling against the shit that occurs.

Your reaction is part of the wider problem. You will doubtless take that personally (but i hope you don't), and that again is the problem. It's not your problem, it's society's. It will never get better until you lessen your ego and stop elevating others to positions where they apparantly look down on you. You put them up there, they didn't do it themselves. Can you see the irony??

 

[fela fan]

what a snobbish, culturally elitist, crock of shite if you don't mind me saying. Whats the view like up there?

No no no no! Y'see chegri, that in itself is snobbish, your post! All you do with this kind of response is enlighten readers about your thinking, not the thinking of the subject of your attacks.

And just what does 'culturally elitist' actually mean, if not an appeal for the mass to agree with you?

You expose a world where there are superior and inferior people by asking what it's like 'up there'.

Well, here's a newsflash for you: some people just like to speak as they see things. Many of them see no-one above them and no-one below them. A beggar they and the king are all equally valid human beings.

Too much judgment going on in british society that has negative outcomes.

 

[fela fan]

don't be a pretentious prick especially as Foucaults insights are hardly that origional either and his whole bullshit of historical breaks is ideological bullshit.

There's pretentiousness in your post too, or did you not see that?

 

[fela fan]

People aren't happy here, or anywhere else frankly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4245282.stm

(If you want to see the survey on this link there's a link in the top corner that tales you to a box with the actual results)

The problem is that many don't know what the solution is, or how to take more control of their lives. I reckon that's why they'll get stuck into mainstream culture and consumerism. At the same time most people know that they're shat on at work, and have very little effective political control over their lives or society.

The problem is external: looking at and judging everyone else, worrying about what everyone else will think about what they say or do.

The solution is to look at oneself, to take care of oneself, to make oneself happy instead of gaining succour from the misery of others.

Stop buying the bloody papers for a start! And add the telly news to it.

 

[chilango]

Italian Godfathers no doubt did good things and helped out folk.

But they also ordered many deaths, and ruled by creating a climate of fear. Their currency was violence and death.

Same with blair and the british leadership. Perhaps we have to be distinct between the leadership and all mps per se, although only to a certain extent.

They may have helped out in one or two situations (your example maybe being one), but they also are responsible for so much shit in this world. They have through their actions caused the deaths of so many people, and the destruction of so many families. They are nowhere near as bad as the yanks, but they still go along with them. That is a heinous crime in my book, coz that book tells me that the yanks are the gravest violators of human rights. More than anyone they fuck up our world through their power games. Depressingly they have the most power to make our world a peaceful one.

As for this current british government, they are rolling back all kinds of freedoms previous generations fought so hard for.

And to address the thread's title, the reason they get away with their twin attacks on foreign people's lives and british people's freedoms is that the bulk of the british population are anaesthetised by the prevailing culture. Which is pretty much as taffboy and El J have indicated.

I find the daily lives of so many in britain a total waste of living the miracle that being a human is on my visits back there. I think the press are dreadful (except maybe the indie), the tabloids are puerile to the extreme, the subject matter they write about is all celebrites, telly, and humiliation; the country is awash in advertising (which treats folk as being stupid, and they then live up to it), cameras are everywhere, random fighting on friday and saturday nights is rampant by those who cannot take their drinks without becoming a raging monster, and the TELLY RULES!

Not everybody, but a big enough majority. Of course we have some of the finest humour, music, sport, art, and manners, in the world.

Like i said nothing is all good or all bad, but as a british person, albeit one who has decided he can never live there again, i find it sad as fuck how such talented people have sold their soul to such a degree. Look at the state of tabloid culture, the leaders we have, and the absolute peer pressure (society pressure in another word) to conform and not stray from accepted norms.

Britain badly needs a wake up call mate.

Amen.

(pretty much)

 

[chilango]

Incidentally, I think one of the reasons (prolly the main one) that the Left doesn´t like it when people criticise the banality of popular culture is that they are confused about the role of the working class in a revolutionary project.

Leninists confused the abolition of the working class with dictatorship of the proletariat and ended up with grotesque gulag of the Soviet Union.

In the UK today, too many groups - including many anarchists - seem to put the working class on a pedestal in some ways. Class War for example "Class Pride, Class Unity" ? Pride? Nah.

the only reason, imho, the wc is important, significant, whatever is that it is the class whose position in a capitalist economy and society provides it with the means of liberation through the revolutionary dedstruction of said economic system. The middle class doesn´t have that power, and the ruling class wouldn´t want/need such a change.

However, this position has been warped over time to produce attitudes that elevate the working class on an almost moral level. Lefties often look at the working class as a cultural rather than economic entity (hence threads on whether teachers etc are the class enemy, and whether "middle class wankers" should be part of revolutionary groups)...and hence why Chegrimandi takes the position s/he does above.

 

[nino_savatte]

There's pretentiousness in your post too, or did you not see that?

Ah, but revol68 is replying to phil, who is a pompous, pretentious wee shite.

 

[phildwyer]

don't be a pretentious prick especially as Foucaults insights are hardly that origional either and his whole bullshit of historical breaks is ideological bullshit.

You mean *epistemological* breaks. I don't think much of Foucault either, but Nino worships him, and a memorable "Nino-moment" can sometimes be induced if you mention Foucault to him. Give it a try, the results can be most satisfying.

 

[nino_savatte]

You mean *epistemological* breaks. I don't think much of Foucault either, but Nino worships him, and a memorable "Nino-moment" can sometimes be induced if you mention Foucault to him. Give it a try, the results can be most satisfying.

The colon and the brain are quite clearly connected here.