Hunger Games Catching Fire: Badass Body Count
Number of people killed: 15
Number of people Katniss kills: 1
Number of times she is saved by someone else: 6
Number of times she saves someone else: 0
But boy oh boy, wasn't she spectacular at practice, 9 targets in 30 seconds, and then she strings up a mannequin. Take a bow. Badass.
I.
For context, here is why THG is a sexist fairy tale. It anticipates most of the criticisms.
Except one. An insightful, even optimistic retort is that at least she's not killing, at least she's made the ethical choice to not kill anyone.
But this insight is exactly what you are supposed to think, it is an illusion, and it is why my tally above is also a lie. She kills one person, but she is responsible for all of their deaths. From the very beginning of the Game it was immediately true that everyone but one got killed. From the very beginning, before anyone dies, you are guilty of everyone's death.
That's the Game. It's not like they went in there thinking, "I'm not going to kill anyone because I am planning to escape this Game." No one backed up their pacifism with suicide. Katniss's thinking is basically, "I'm not butcher, but I am going to try and survive." The movie elevates her passivity into a moral act, which it isn't, that's the trick. This is a closed system. Whether she shoots them down herself or waits for the psychopath in the group to do it for her, it's the same.
What's important is that this "choice" not to kill, and the personal feeling of morality it (falsely) gives you is how the system survives. Because you feel good about your choice, "at least I'm a good person," you fight the system much less. You are less of a threat to the system because you are allowed to believe you're a good person and they're not. But you're not. You killed 15 people. I counted them.
The true criticism of the movie isn't that it is too violent, but that it is not violent enough-- it is Disney violence, and whenever you see the word Disney you should instead see "100% in the service of the existing social structure." The movie presents "not murdering anyone" as if it were a moral option, as if it were true; so that you are not revolted by the fact that you did kill 15 people; so that you do not fight to change the system that forces you to kill 15 people.
Just because the system tells you, "the other tributes are your enemy," doesn't mean it's a factual statement, you have to answer the Thin Red Line question: "who's doing this? Who's killing us?"
The Game is rigged to prevent all choice but allow the illusion of choice. There are Good Samaritan laws in place which protect you from liability if you give someone CPR in good faith but inadvertently crack a rib. But this is nonsense. The person motivated to offer CPR NEVER thinks about a future lawsuit, he just acts; or, in the reverse, the person who is nervous about lawsuits was never going to help anyway, and thank goodness he can blame it on lawyers. These laws have the perverse effect of allowing the us passive aggressive techonauts to observe events rather than intervene in events. "Come on, what am I going to do, you know the litigious world we live in, besides, we have paramedics for that." So you're telling me that, i.e. for example, my child got hit by a car on the street and instead of Airway-Breathing-Circulation your plan was to shift to Landscape mode? "Well..." You better burn off your fingerprints and move to Siberia.
There's going to be some who will respond with the obvious: "yes, but the fact is, not killing is better than killing-- or do you think putting a gun to someone's head is really the exact same as not doing that?" And some will counter-retort that it's like war, if you send soldiers to fight you are responsible for their killings. Both arguments miss the point completely: NOT killing is better FOR HER, because then SHE doesn't have to feel any guilt. But everyone dies ANYWAY. Not killing is entirely a selfish act, not a moral one, if my kid gets hit by a bus the driver at least did it by accident, you CHOSE to not help, you are WORSE, see also Steubenville. "But they did the rape!" But they did it for you to see, do you not get it?
It looks like Katniss is free to make personal decisions, but no matter what her free brain decides, everyone around her dies as planned, huh, that's odd. The only "free" choice, the only way to beat the Game, is not to play. If you really wanted to be a moral agent in such a terrible environment, you'd have to convince the other tributes to all agree not to fight each other, knowing full well that the soldiers will therefore come-- that is the point of the maneuver, to expose the evil of the system instead of allowing them their deniability, "oh, we don't kill anyone, the kids kill each other!" You have to sit there and Prisoner's Dilemna the hell out of this and hope none of the other tributes breaks ranks and opens fire. It is the only anti-system choice short of revolution.
The response that this maneuver puts the individual Districts in danger, too, is, unfortunately, part of the deal. The genius of the system is that it never puts everyone at risk, it presents them with a lie: only these Tributes are at risk. If the Districts themselves don't want blowback, "we don't want trouble", if they "want" to maintain the status quo, they have to send people to participate. You don't send a Theseus, you send a Katniss, which they did, hence another round of Hunger Games. She'll look heroic, she'll perform badassly, and nothing will change, which it didn't, which is why even though she won the first movie there was a second movie.
There's going to be some of you who will be confused, "are you saying Suzanne Collins planned this? No way! You've totally misinterpreted--" No, no. Collins wrote the story, yet she is not aware herself of what she wrote; she couldn't have written the story any other way than from a narcissistic perspective because that's all she knows living in this world; or, to reverse it, had she known, had she written a different kind of story with a different kind of hero, it would never have been published, let alone made into movies, we'd be on Twilight 7.
It's here that I should SPOIL that the revolutionaries who do finally fight the system DON'T EVEN TELL HER ABOUT IT. Everyone around her is extraordinarily heroic and self-sacrificing, they literally drag her bad ass to the finish line at the cost of their own lives, so that she can survive as a symbol, and the rest of you dummies think she is the hero. Only a taught narcissistic psychology would SEE her as heroic when right in front of you and your eyeballs you can observe she is the least heroic of all. I'm not blaming you, this is the training we all got. The sleight of hand of such movies is that it presents an entirely different society (full totalitarianism) in the context of TODAY, in the context of narcissism as expected, as ok, so meaningless acts become exciting and meaningful acts are obscured. Huh, Mags blew herself up with poisoned gas. Ah well, she was old.
But in totalitarianism, there are no individual acts-- that's the whole point of the totalitarian structure, that's what it wants, what it wants you to become. Your acts appear personal and individualized but conform beautifully, they are no threat. It would NEVER occur to a real Hunger Games hero to show off for upper management, which is why no one else did it, that would be a meaningless act, only we today would applaud this, which we did, loudly. Badass. Not to go ancient history on you, but Achilles was the equivalent of a comic book superhero to young boys for two thousand years, it would never have occurred to any of them to applaud him for his trick shots. It wouldn't have made sense. It doesn't make sense. It is madness.
There are some earnest attempts to apply Game Theory to the Hunger Games, what is the optimal solution? But unfortunately the people who do this are bad at math. Let me try to explain. If 2 tributes are to be randomly selected from a District of, say, 1000 people, then the probability of you being killed is...... 100%. You can double check me if you want, but the math is correct. And-- and this is the point-- the math becomes correct if and only if you think it isn't.
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December 4, 2013 12:36 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I thought the berry trick from the first movie was heroic. Peeta would have allowed her to kill him, but she chose to break the rules instead. It was defiance, not love, and the districts could all see it.
Also, just from reading the books, I didn't think we were supposed to think Katniss is the most heroic. She isn't as selfless as Peeta or revolutionary as Gayle. Haymitch even says in the movie and book that Katniss could never deserve Peeta. He's the real hero. Her goal in the first movie is not to buck the system and to be a hero. It's to save Prim (which was pretty heroic. She was the first volunteer ever from her district). The second time around she wants to save Peeta. She doesn't care about being a revolutionary or a national hero. She only wants to be a hero to Prim and then to Peeta.
Score: 48 (66 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 12:47 PM | Posted by : | Reply
While I'm sure the criticism of society's perception of Katniss has some merit -- and it's consistent with TLP's role as a contradictory voice in the wilderness of current fads -- it still seems premature to judge the Hunger Games trilogy without examining the third book, and its climax.
Interested to see if the analysis changes when Hollywood and TLP catch up!
Score: 13 (21 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 2:04 PM | Posted by : | Reply
There's a small minority of people at any given time who are virtuous and talented enough to attempt convincing people not to kill each other. The effect of public education now is to expose them to the narcissistic rage of others, thereby coercing them into either a) becoming passive, when they realize that they're unwelcome and it's nobody's fault, or b) deciding that they're going to win the game, because "fuck these idiots, it's their fault," with b) being the much more likely outcome. There's no learning in the schools; the content is the method; the method is Lord Of The Flies.
The class sizes are big because that way it's regression to the mean, and the only way to win is not to play.
Score: 43 (49 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 2:07 PM | Posted by : | Reply
So convincing people not to kill each other means being hated by people and not hating them for it; almost no one is capable of doing this.
Score: 12 (16 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 2:21 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Seriously, with all the stuff going on in the world, you chose to write another post about the Hunger Games? I must be missing something.
Score: -43 (81 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 2:27 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The thing is that practically all that stuff is caused by the kind of thinking that Alone has described above
Score: 22 (28 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 3:23 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This is a bit of a tangent, but the comment on clapping reminded me something that is pervasive on 4chan. 4chan hates everyone and everything, including itself, but it has two redeeming virtues. One, it despises narcissists; it targets them preferentially and goes after them without mercy. The fact that there are many narcissists on the board keeps things interesting. Two, it often provides insightful criticisms about... everything... from individuals from all walks of life and all over the world.
Two of their favorite words when discussing the USA are "Amerifat" and "Clapistan".
Score: 20 (50 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 3:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Whether she shoots them down herself or waits for the psychopath in the group to do it for her, it's the same. "
And here I thought Alone was a virtue ethicist. This is incorrect, it matters very much if you shoot someone or don't. I didn't read or watch THG, but I'm appalled by this assessment. Maybe I'm missing something
Score: -18 (64 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 3:38 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
That would be true if she got shot, or stopped the game but she didn't. The game got played out and she survived, so she may as well have shot someone. That's the point.
Score: 13 (27 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 4:29 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I don't understand - to let the psychopath kill the other Tribute is the same moral liability as killing them yourself? Does this mean pro-life advocates are justified (at least by their own logic) in blowing up abortion clinics? Does it mean all Americans are guilty of the "collateral damage" deaths in the War on Terror? Maybe guilty in some sense of "omission", but sharing the same amount of guilt I'm not buying.
You touch on this (especially in the first post) but my problem with Katniss is how overwhelmingly PASSIVE she almost always is. She acts out emotionally and gets the old man in District 11 killed - Haymitch grabs her and saves her while she screams. The President threatens to kill her and her family if the Peeta love story isn't convincing, she doesn't seduce the hell out of Peeta and make it convincing, she (and he) just sulk their way through it and convince Snow he needs to crackdown.
I'm willing to listen to counterexamples, but I personally just wanted her to DO something. Something stupid, anything... You're the strong, feminist HERO for Christ's sake.
Score: -4 (30 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 4:32 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I love this blog.
I almost always read posts twice, and I will do the same with this one. And I never comment. But I too am worried that with your insightfulness and
"with all the stuff going on in the world, you chose to write another post about the Hunger Games? I must be missing something."
Also: it seems like there is a lot more going on in Catching Fire than what you address here. And there are plenty of readings of it that could be truly revolutionary, except, as we have learned from you, the point isn't that it's a revolutionary movie, the point is that it's a movie, which is what keeps you inside instead of in the streets, flipping over the news van, and clicking off the safety.
Your ideas have real power, and have the potential to change the world. I hope you keep developing them and taking us to new territory. The bad, bad, bad, narcissism, narcissism, dummies dummies dummies can only hold us for so long.
Score: 16 (32 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 4:34 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Two things:
1) I think the books are much clearer about presenting Katniss as a victim, who is just scrambling to stay alive in order to protect her sister and (useless) mother. The question of complicity is presented in a way that I thought was appropriate to the age of the target audience, ie, teenagers. Also, in fairness to Suzanne Collins: there is a third book, more things happen.
It's unfortunate, of course, that the filmmakers had to shoehorn Mrs. Collins' story into the conventional post-modern hero story, where true heroism involves no personal sacrifices, but consist in being seen in a rebellious light. And it's scary to think that the ubiquity of the filmed presentation is going to make the kids who read the books are going to remember the movies, and think that's what happened in the books.
2) Alone, what do you think the etiology of the hero-as-passive-narcissism story is? Because my sense is that more traditional narratives of heroism had fallen out of favor long before there was an Instagram. In the angsty days of the Baby Boomers and "fear of nuclear war," the idea that the actions of a single person could have a meaningful impact on society was held in low regard. Also, right around the time they stopped protesting things and started raising their kids, they discovered that young people standing up for beliefs was rude and sometimes dangerous.
So, responsibility for moral improvement was assigned to "democracy" and "the people", and moral leadership was redefined to consist of actions likely to motivate "the people" to engage in spontaneous change. Consequently, self-styled heroes began to behave in ways that were literally pathetic, designed to evoke pathos in an observer. Example: The Amazing Grace and Chuck, which was one of the most pointless fucking movies ever made. Kid feels fear, kid reacts by quitting sports, star athlete reads about kid by totally ridiculous coincidence, also quits, peace! Moral: when the system sucks, heroes quit in ways that get noticed.
Score: 44 (44 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 4:35 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I like how you mention The Prisoner's Dilemma, because I think it explains a lot of otherwise gaping plot holes in the middle of the movie. Katniss seems to be the only one who is incapable of seeing how ludicrous the politics of the "alliances" are - if only 1 can survive, I'll just pick the people I like the most and then murder them myself at the end after we destroy everyone else. She's the only one who can't infer what already must exist - organized insurrection.
A rational person in this situation, not privy to the whisperings of revolution, would lay down and die before being forced to kill the ones she loves. Or she would go looking for a revolution. Or organize a sit-in or something. She's smart enough to aim a bow and kiss her boys and talk on stage, but not smart enough to think through to the end of the game?
Score: 28 (30 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 4:37 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I also have to say that one of the most profound things I have learned from TLP is the maxim that "the only way to win is not to play".
I watched Catching Fire with about as much skepticism as I thought was possible, but as I watched Katniss do her thing, I realized that that was exactly how she was operating:
she hadn't decided to kill or not to kill, what she had decided was NOT TO PLAY.
Score: -10 (26 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 5:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's called instigation
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 5:25 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Taking a bullet for someone else would definitely be a better thing to do than nothing, but placing shooting and not-shooting on the same moral level is just bad logic. "They're just going to die anyway, it makes no difference if I kill them or not".
Seriously, what am I missing?
Score: -1 (15 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 5:37 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"I don't understand - to let the psychopath kill the other Tribute is the same moral liability as killing them yourself?"
It's in front of your eyes without you seeing it and you basically just did what Alone criticized in the last 117 posts.
It's a closed system, not a vacuum. The system dictates the rules, not the so called participants. People die anyway and not killing, but trying to survive is a moral cop-out to feel better about oneself, but it's still killing. It's exactly the same amount of guilt, because you followed the rules: Everyone dies, but one.
Score: 25 (29 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 5:48 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Thq question isn't "Is Katniss a good person?". It's "Is Katniss a hero? Should we admire her, and model our actions after her?"
No, she doesn't kill anybody herself, not choosing to be personally implicated in a violation of the moral law, or however we're saying it these days. That's important - that allows us to say that Katniss is not a shithead.
On the other hand, she is thrown into a situation where dozens of people are going to die as a result of this game unless somebody does something. Her response is to look out for herself and let them die. She's still not a shithead -- she's a teenager, she doesn't know any of those people, and she's got responsibilities at home. It's perfectly understandable that she would act the way she did. But what is admirable about the course of action? When did "not being a shithead" qualify you for medals and a parade?
Is that a lesson you'd want your daughter to learn, that when things get ugly it's cool to sit back and watch people die? Because if that's the standard, there are plenty of gossipy, thieving, malicious, selfish people out there that ought to have trilogies written about them. I think heroes should do better than that. They should be virtuous - and while the studious avoidance of vice speaks to the continence of the agent, it does not rise to the level of virtue. And I worry that the habit of cheering whichever character (or real-life person) happens to have the camera trained on him will make it harder to ask the tough questions that let us see the difference. Worse: we may get so caught up in the cheering that we forget to ask the questions.
Score: 73 (75 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 5:51 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Okay, fair enough.
Then my point stands. The Hunger Games is just a small version of our system, in which the individual participants most certainly certainly do not make the rules, so anti-war protesters have as much blood on their hands as political/military decision makers regarding US atrocities abroad.
(This is not to get into whether all US ventures overseas are atrocities, just that some certainly have been, with active complicity from the top)
Score: -12 (14 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 7:51 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I guess Alone means there is no difference for the system once it only cares about someone being killed, no matter the means.
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 8:02 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
but the whole site is so self centered that any criticism against narcisism is invalid, it's the very symbol of snobish self pitying narcisism
Score: -5 (23 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 8:42 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
In regards to pro-life advocates, it depends on their specific logic for opposing abortion. Yes, if one authentically (though, of course, incorrectly) believed that there were facilities in this country dedicated to murdering inconvenient children, then it could be morally acceptable to shut them down by any means necessary.
Score: 8 (12 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 8:58 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"Her response is to look out for herself and let them die"
"Is that a lesson you'd want your daughter to learn, that when things get ugly it's cool to sit back and watch people die?"
Thanks for explaining. I got trigger happy at the keyboard, but without having read or watched TGH I'm obviously missing a lot about this Katniss. You're 100% correct, to be passive is to be complicit in the crime.
I guess I was thinking about those "trolley problems", the ones that trick everyone into performing some utilitarian moral calculus (um.. lets see... 10 innocent people minus one fat man...)
Score: 13 (17 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 9:02 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You just said that while 4chan hates everything and everyone, it's redeeming qualities are its hatred.
which is to say: its redeeming qualities are hating the specific things you hate.
think about this for more than three seconds and you can see both why 4chan is the most influential thing on the internet and why it is terrible. those are the same conclusions, and the "being terrible' is the driving force, the primary attraction specifically because narcissism is not the target, it is the base ingredient.
Score: 40 (40 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 9:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
TLP, but you paid to go see it, so who wins at the end?
Score: 11 (17 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 9:36 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"If 2 tributes are to be randomly selected from a District of, say, 1000 people, then the probability of you being killed is...... 100%. You can double check me if you want, but the math is correct. And-- and this is the point-- the math becomes correct if and only if you think it isn't."
Is this a double entendre on Significant Figures??
Score: 6 (6 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 10:31 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
They both win. Hollywood gets a ticket sale, and TLP gets something to write about. The losers are girls and feminism, who become convinced that this farce is what a female hero looks like.
Score: 39 (41 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:01 PM | Posted by : | Reply
4chan? Peeta? Prim? Katniss?
Huh?
Score: -1 (7 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:19 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Good to have another article, thanks. I still quote you often.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:37 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The first one I liked and saw it before I read any of the books. There was contemplative time in it. Catching Fire was like a wham bam thank ya maam as each scene jumped into the next scene while hitting you in the face with a plate of pancakes thrown at you non-stop one at a time. This is typical of a Francis Lawrence directed picture. It is also very obvious that Scummit Summit was really on board for Catching Fire in a way they weren't for the first Hunger Games. The first one fictionalizes confinement (districts), Simulated Reality (the Capitol) and Virtual Reality (The Games) and in Virtual Reality where we are headed, there is no escape. Nothing is true or false any longer, Catching Fire is a mess, but a typical action movie which audiences eat up. The Catching Fire book is mediocre and Mockingjay is too, so don't expect much as Lawrence will give you a literal take on it.I don't even know why I said all this.
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:40 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Considering Foucault's Discipline and Punish the public schools are exhaustively analyzed. They are to ensure cultural normality and to exact obedience. That is what they are for. The fact that some learning and creativity occurs is incidental.
Score: 13 (15 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:45 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Well where are we when drones kill women, children, bride and bridegroom at a wedding or a family at a funeral? It was our money in taxes that paid for that drone. During the Viet Nam War there was a lot of tax resistance instigated by the Quakers. We could bring the murdering corporations to their knees if we just didn't buy their stuff unless a product was absolutely necessary. This is why we couldn't get out of the Great Depression. People wouldn't buy as they made do. After the war pent up greed from deprivation went wild.
Score: 0 (14 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:50 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
She is just a "floating sign" of strong feminist masking the emptiness of her strong feminist stance. Fooled everyone didn't she! I prefer Bella. Her true sense of hospitality towards the Other, her growing assertiveness. But I hated all the directors after Eclipse. And Slade of Eclipse turned it into pure camp, which was so funny. All the others were camp too, but unconscious camp as the directors didn't get camp.
Score: -4 (10 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:53 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The first Hunger Games is truly revolutionary in many ways. Catching Fire - book and movie - and Mockingjay are not at all. I did like the way Collins ended the last book with Katniss opting out of the New World Order - cough cough.
Score: -2 (2 votes cast)
December 4, 2013 11:59 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The Dominating Discourse does not allow a different way. Until more people understand how the system is structured and perceived, there will be no change.The Discourse people speak, think and write in prohibits any change.
Now DeLillo gets it in his book Cosmopolis, but Cronenberg misread it in his movie. Cormac McCarthy really gets it in The Counselor which has taken me 5 viewings to feel I have chewed and digested all that is i there. I will see it one more time just in case I missed something. The first Hunger Games was wonderful. Lionsgate had control of it but now that Scummit Summit has stamped their fingerprint all over it it smacks of what they did to Twilight.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 12:10 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes, the protesters just strengthen the system. This is clear in DeLillo's Cosmopolis but not Cronenberg's film of it, as he misread it. In Cormac McCarthy's The Counselor which is themed - as is Bolano's 2666 - around Cuidad Juarez and the murder of hundreds if not thousands of young girls and young women whose bones and bodies are buried in the surrounding desert or dumped in refuse dumps. It is the story of one women and how it happens to her and while we watch we see that the entire system including the border into El Paso and the US is involved, not to mention the complicity of the rest of the Western World. It is a relentless movie, was reviewed by idiots, and McCarthy was trashed for his gorgeous dialogue because it was so unusual.
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 1:13 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Your ideas have real power, and have the potential to change the world. I hope you keep developing them and taking us to new territory. The bad, bad, bad, narcissism, narcissism, dummies dummies dummies can only hold us for so long.
How can the world change if the bad narcissist dummies just get bored with being told why they're bad, narcissistic and dumb?
"Your ideas have real power, and have the potential to change the world. But I've heard them already so I hope you ditch those ideas and entertain me instead. Or I'll just go and read something else...
...and that will be the end of the world."
____________
Did you know there is a type of person who often uses words like "us" and "we" when expressing their personal opinion? They speak for everyone or at least, they speak for everyone they care about.
I hope you don't get too bored figuring it out.
Score: 9 (19 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 1:16 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
This is incorrect, it matters very much if you shoot someone or don't.
You know Dubya didn't actually shoot anyone in Iraq, right? Those four million orphans have nothing to do with him.
Score: 8 (22 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 1:24 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I've experienced this "us" and "we" speak, and it's been entirely cordoned - in my world - to people who live in hard science academia. "We" know that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. "We" don't know that the democrats have an impenetrable platform in this next election.
There's a difference between what is obvious and what is opinion, and if you don't see that then... well... someone's perception is off.
Score: 0 (8 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 2:16 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Why the obsession with hunger games? He wrote about this before. I thought these were a ripoff o the running man, no escape, and others with a feminist twist. It's not something to evaluate seriously
Score: -8 (16 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 7:45 AM | Posted by : | Reply
"If 2 tributes are to be randomly selected from a District of, say, 1000 people, then the probability of you being killed is...... 100%. You can double check me if you want, but the math is correct. And-- and this is the point-- the math becomes correct if and only if you think it isn't."
-The probability to get killed is 100% because everyone gets killed in the end as long as the system perpetuates itself. If we think the math is not correct, this means that we think we are at little risk: it will happen to someone else, not us, therefore we don't do anything to change the system, so it's able to stay in place, taking its toll every year, so the math becomes indeed correct. Brilliant.
Score: 27 (27 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 7:47 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Precisely because it's not feminist, but gets the label anyway. Alone is reflecting on our tendency to confuse actual courage with that kind of posturing.
I thought he made his point in the first two articles, but eh.
Score: 18 (18 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 8:47 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
She's smart enough to aim a bow and kiss her boys and talk on stage, but not smart enough to think through to the end of the game?
As opposed to the ~106,000,000,000 liars who were? If liars were smart enough to think instead of feel, they wouldn't value illusions. They're flat out fighting to survive any given moment of their combative existence. Minds are crippled beyond capacity to think by exposure to corrupted thoughts (self-defeating emotional rootkits injected into children's minds to create illusory need with the explicit intent of hijacking the biological survival mechanism that blurs or blinds our perception of reality).
Humans want to lie and use force so they're deceived and forced. Certain they're bulletproof, they shoot first. Humans need to fight to survive because living in peace is selfish & they're selfless.
I doubt many perceive the exchange of lies and violence in such objective or enlightened terms, but disassociation from one's true Self (and losing the capacity to perceive objective reality) is something of an occupational hazard when you dabble in fantasy to project a false image, innit?
____________
nb. Not to take anything away from the occupation itself, traditionally very popular (so it must be valid). Opinion is the definitive measure of worth. Literally everyone knows that!
~106 billion have known that. The only way to win is not to play, because liars have nothing to offer but their need. Game over.
Score: -3 (11 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 9:39 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Sorry for trying to speak for everybody, everybody.
My sense is that TLP has a large, loyal following and that increasingly people are expressing concern that he is losing his former knack for unpredictability. NBD.
Jonny, prescribe the proper penance for my dysfunction and I will do it.
Score: 4 (8 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 10:03 AM | Posted by : | Reply
dear reader you have spent enough time here. Like I did as well.
I am going to read another book by Paul Watzlawick now. The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious - The Pursuit of Unhappiness
This swiss american gentleman knows what is keeping you locked inside your brains.
I read them all. I am rereading them now because ending up on this blog made me realize it was time for it.
Score: 6 (8 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 10:28 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Alone-
I'd like to see you compare this with Ender's Game, in which he does make a choice in the end -- to be the speaker for the dead in the face of the xenocide in which he was complicit. (Probably the sequels that flow out of that choice are more relevant.)
Score: 2 (6 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 10:28 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I think THG are propaganda, that much is obvious. And while we're meant to want to be like Katniss (and it's working BTW, a lot of people are now taking up bows), the fact is that she's a helpless whiney nobody. She does nothing, she doesn't come up with a plan, (the black guy did), she doesn't figure anything out (again it was people around her that figured out one of the major tricks), she doesn't decide to do anything, or even not to do anything. the point of holding her up as a hero is that we, like her are supposed to be passive and work within the system. Actually most of our heros are like that. At best they save the people around them, but no more than that. Batman doesn't go against the system either, in fact he protects the system.
Score: 25 (25 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 10:39 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
That's a totally false analogy.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 12:16 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Not to go ancient history on you, but Achilles was the equivalent of a comic book superhero to young boys for two thousand years, it would never have occurred to any of them to applaud him for his trick shots.
To be pedantic: Odysseus was a beloved Greek hero as well and he was in fact applauded for his trick shots. He then murdered a whole room of people for trashing his house but still.
Score: 11 (13 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 1:13 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Holy shit Susan, I am not being sarcastic: I love you.
I am to the point where I have to say, does anybody else want to quit being a bunch of pussies and get off the internet with this stuff? It's so fun complaining/analyzing/ruminating about reality on the internet, but (as I mentioned before and learned from Alone) it keeps us on the internet. Did you know that's not a place?
Like, can we quit talking about how awful these battery eggs are have some coffee together and figure out how to get these fucking plugs out of our heads and the slime out of our ears? There are a lot of confused, poor and oppressed people in my city-- yours too!
Anybody who wants to figure out something to do can come to my house. In the meantime, I'll be in the archives.
And on amazon typing "Watzlawick"
Score: 10 (10 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 3:23 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Odysseus was famed for his tricks, not his battlefield prowess.
Score: -1 (5 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 3:50 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Hmm... I don't know about the end of Ender's Game, but there's that controversial essay which is accusing Orson Scott Card of exactly that which Alone is talking about here: Ender is constantly robbed of agency (and he ends up tricked into committing genocide) while we're told by the writer that he's an almost saintly person despite his violence and inner rage.
I don't know how valid you can consider these criticisms, but if you want to see narcissism's logic pushed to an absurd extreme, read on:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm
Need I precise that Ender's Game is considered one of the greatest scifi novel by many adolescent nerds?
Score: 2 (10 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 7:52 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Can you please, please, please do a post on Rob Ford? Like an intelligent and incisive one, and not just some superficial recap like all the news outlets are doing? PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE
*feels like a beggar*
*probably is a beggar*
Score: 7 (9 votes cast)
December 5, 2013 9:53 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
´Seriously, with all the stuff going on in the world, you chose to write another post about the Hunger Games? I must be missing something.´
Hunger Games? What about race relations and the oppression of black people? Or ´terrorism´ and the oppression of people in the middle east? Or Apple products? Or something.
But you´re probably right. I´m pretty sure The Iliad is about a bunch of dead Greek dudes and it has nothing to do with me, IIIMeMeMe.
Score: 5 (9 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:35 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Odysseus was famed for his tricks, not his battlefield prowess.
Actually, he had a pretty good reputation on the battlefield, just not on the level of Achilles or Ajax. In the episode in question, his first trick is being strong enough to string a bow that none of the suitors has been able to string.
The comparison between Achilles and Katniss raises an interesting point though -- Greek heroes tended to be narcissists, and called attention to that narcissism, but came to a bad end because of it. I haven't read or seen THG, but Katniss sounds like many heroes of television, movies, and comic books, who make gestures of aspiring to a normal life, but whom the narrative makes clear are exceptional and moral simply for being the hero.
Greek stories drew the community together by pushing the narcissist to the boundaries, while American stories pull the community apart, by placing narcissists at the moral centers of events. When moral superiority is taken as inherent to the self rather than something achieved in public, morality loses its function as a binding force among individuals.
Score: 21 (21 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 2:17 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I've heard people complain about reader comments on stuff like this, but I have to say that for me personally this post was completely lost on me until I read some of the comments here, which helped clarify things. There are some comment diamonds in the rough here for sure, and I probably wouldn't have gotten the deeper meaning here without reader input.
On the other hand, I don't get why some people are complaining about continuing on with this series. For me, this post resonated a lot in ways that the earlier posts didn't because it came at it from a different angle. If it resonated with me, then it had to have resonated with some others. Those who expect every post to be personally tailored to their own interests and so on...I hate to break it to you but no one cares, and the author has no obligation to you.
His writing is more popular than anything you could ever hope to do, and for a reason. Get over it. To quote a comedian: "We're here where you, the fucking peon masses, can once again ruin anyone who tries to do anything because you don't know how to do it on your own." Now, this guy was a bit dramatic, but the point still stands. You guys are the equivalent of hecklers, not caring that your clever little complaints are potentially ruining the show for everyone else because you think your input and opinions are just as good and valid as the author's. They aren't.
Next time you want to tell the author what he should write about, please don't. You're still here, and so are a lot of other people, so it stands to reason that he has this whole racket figured out.
Score: 12 (18 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 8:17 AM | Posted by : | Reply
A great, real life example of THG is George Soros who helped the Nazis to lead his fellow Jews to the gas chamber and justified it by telling himself that if he didn't do it, someone else would. Like Katniss, he didn't really condemn or kill anyone. He allowed the "system" to do it while he played the game and survived.
Score: 19 (19 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 10:02 AM | Posted by : | Reply
There are two fantasies about responsibility that essentially keep the system in place. One is a view that personal agency is the only thing that counts and thus if one does not physically kill, one is not a murderer -nevermind how much we support and confort we derive from structures that are essentially murderous-. The second one is that of "negative responsibility": I am guilty of every bad thing that I could have prevented. But if we are already murderers, then what is the difference between killing 1 and "letting die" a 100, or letting die a 10000 or killing 100, except the numbers. If realpolitik so demands, as long as the total number of deaths is smaller, we are on the good side. And somehow accounting always tells us we are on the good side. Both are system logic. These are two bullets, choose which one to bite, and pat youserlf in the back for being so though minded...
Score: 11 (11 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 11:01 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
For sure, the body of Ender's Game shares just about all of this with The Hunger Games except for the media circus. A children's "game" is in fact a life-or-death adult arena pushing powerful adults' geopolitical agendas of oppression/xenocide; the child protagonist enters somewhat willingly on behalf of his/her family and a sister in particular. Half-intentionally and half-unintentionally, Ender's and Katniss's willful involvement in the game results in the death of others and the preservation of the power of those in charge. Both are helped by a hero from a previous war/game, and for both this mentor shows/inspires them with the way to "fight" the system, in one way or another.
They do differ in some ways. Central to Katniss's role is her status as a celebrity, which isn't significant for Ender. Her game is virtual but played in the physical world; Ender's is physical but played in the virtual world. But the key, as of these films, is that Katniss so far exhibits at most Stoic virtue: accept your fate, smile, take care of your family. Ender, at the end of the film, makes the revolutionary choice on his own: he goes to the queen. And that's the key difference.
Now, I haven't read the books, so I don't know how the rest will pan out. Maybe Katniss is not just used by others as a catalyst in book 3; maybe "Speaker For The Dead" etc. doesn't actually foreshadow a crusade of mercy and/or justice on Ender's part. But the ends of both films indicate that Ender is the one who decides to do something, where Katniss is unwitting.
That is, the ending is the only point at which I'm saying they diverge radically.
Score: 8 (8 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 11:11 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The important difference is Batman embraces and transcends the system so those that are crushed by it may do the same; while Katniss lets the system(s) use her to facilitate the crushing in exchange for her feeling good about herself.
Score: -2 (6 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 11:28 AM | Posted by : | Reply
But, Alone, isn't the system in service of us, who serve the system to be served, and on and on?
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 11:57 AM | Posted by : | Reply
can anybody talk about how a little bit of traditional violence (the games) is used to distract from widespread economic violence (the districts) and how that directly relates to our situation right now?
ie: news reports "some black guy killed somebody! horrors!" but never "holy shit the government continues to fuck over almost everybody! they're literally rolling around in wheelchairs and dying of diabetes as a direct result of our economic policies!"
it kind of seems like the discussion here has fallen prey to that-- why so much talk about the death toll and individual morality and not about the systemic oppression that it's hiding?
Score: 4 (10 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 12:16 PM | Posted by : | Reply
There's something essential I'm missing.
Why is THG subject to TLP's attention? Is it?
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 12:52 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Alone has a special interest in how girls are socialized.
This is most likely rooted in concern over his own perspective on the world, which he has admitted has strains of misogyny.
He believes that women actually do behave as if they had less agency than men do. And he chooses to fight against this state of affairs by highlighting some of the factors that create this lack of agency.
He focuses especially on the Hunger Games because it is hyper popular and not really criticized by anyone else, and is in fact used as a template for how girls should behave. This makes it a Trojan Horse, teaching helplessness while appearing to teach strength, making it extremely dangerous and worth addressing multiple times.
Score: 40 (42 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:07 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Why is THG subject to TLP's attention? Is it?"
I'll let the original Alone answer that for you:
"Plato says somewhere in his "Republic" that things will go well only when those men shall govern the state who do not desire to govern. The idea is probably that, assuming the necessary capability, a man's reluctance to govern affords a good guarantee that he will govern well and efficiently; whereas a man desirous of governing may very easily either abuse his power and become a tyrant, or by his desire to govern be brought into an unforeseen situation of dependence on the people he is to rule, so that his government really becomes an illusion.
This observation applies also to other relations where much depends on taking things seriously: assuming there is ability in a man, it is best that he show reluctance to meddle with them. To be sure, as the proverb has it: "where there is a will there is a way"; but true seriousness appears only when a man fully equal to his task is forced, against his will, to undertake it¾against his will, but fully equal to the task.
In this sense I may say of myself that I bear a correct relation to the task in hand: to work in the present moment; for God knows that nothing is more distasteful to me."
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:26 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Let me try to rephrase your message.
Plato, rulers should be selected rather then select to rule. A "principle" which apply to other relations. Further, it become "serious" (huh?) when the man is equal to his task, which is somewhat against his own will.
In the last paragraph you refer to a task in hand: to work in this present moment, and nothing is more distasteful. Because it is against his will?
Sorry I don't get it though it feels like I should. Did you address laziness? Or resistance to the task in hand?
Thank you anyway for your attempt
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:30 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Communication feels redundant.
Alone: Whether she shoots them down herself or waits for the psychopath in the group to do it for her, it's the same.
Curio: This is incorrect, it matters very much if you shoot someone or don't.
jonny: You know Dubya didn't actually shoot anyone in Iraq, right? Those four million orphans have nothing to do with him.
Curio: That's a totally false analogy.
Whether Dubya shoots Iraqi civilians himself or waits for the Marines to do it for him, it's the same.
________________
I believe a more correct analogy might be an American anti-war demonstrator denying culpability after participating in the process (that is literally designed to allow dissenters to express their opposition before everyone contributes to the inevitable leaching cannibalism) because he attended a few anti-war demonstrations. What does it matter if you feel what you're doing is wrong if you then go ahead and contribute to getting it done? If you have a problem with it, stop being a cog in the warlords' killing machine. If you don't want to, just keep on killing people. What's the problem?
The problem is that everyone takes after their whore mothers, who want to have their cake and eat it as well.
Guns don't kill people. The process of 'profiting' from the suffering, genocide and rape of your own species kills people. If you participate in that process, you kill people.
"No."
Lying to yourself is batshit insane.
"No."
You can't change reality by the sheer force of your wanting.
"No, you're just crazy. I'm concerned for your mental health. Are you feeling okay? Maybe you should see a doctor? I'm really worried about you."
Great world, this one. Top people, wonderful community. Love what you've done with the place. A++ Would visit again.
Score: 5 (13 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:39 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
TLP, but you paid to go see it, so who wins at the end?
I could be wrong but I seriously doubt box office takings are the driving force behind blockbuster propaganda films. They're choc-a-bloc full of sleazy, creepy, manipulative conditioning which is clearly intended to get slaves to prey on slaves and self-destruct.
Score: 1 (11 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:53 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Katniss's potential for heroism (as well as all pragmatism on the part of the revolutionaries) was sacrificed in service of the Surprise!Gotcha! twist at the end. It made literally no sense to not tell her about the plan, but whatevs, $160 million opening weekend.
That said, Katniss is a character who does the best job she can do protecting the people she loves in a hostile world where she has no control, and therefor, no real agency. It's not a feminist fantasy, but then again, most such narratives center around a male protagonist, or some female teenage rape victim... It's nice to see a woman playing a reactive protagonist whose plot doesn't involve dealing with an unwanted pregnancy/sexual assault.
Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 1:59 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
...why so much talk about the death toll and individual morality and not about the systemic oppression that it's hiding?
It's the other way around. In Hipsters on Food Stamps, Alone said:
Society is nothing more than individual psychology multiplied by too many to count.
The system is tyrannical because The People are tyrants. New masters, same as the old because we're trapped in a perpetual cycle of religious Dark Ages horror (children's minds are mutilated so their bodies can be exploited, with the bodies that survive imagining they're shrewd to rinse and repeat).
Score: 10 (10 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 3:50 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Golly, sounds pretty hopeless!
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
December 6, 2013 7:17 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
But to me, the issue comes down to a choice. That's the part THG leaves out. If the person chooses a course that causes a death, the part that makes you responsible is that you chose that path. If I choose to say nothing about an electrical hazard and it causes the death of 100 in a fire, I cannot dodge the responsablity for those deaths. Now as far as why the numbers should matter, honestly, sure you do the best your can, but if you are choosing a path littered with corpses, I think you can only count yourself good if you've made choices that minimize those deaths.
Lemme see if I can put this in pop culture terms. There was an old Star Trek, actually not that old, it was a Next Generation ep, in which a star goes supernova. Now the crew was pretty much going to let everybody on the planet die because Prime Directive, and so on. A guy on the ship (a cousin of somebody, so I guess since I'm not going to bother to look it up, we'll call him Cousin Erie) saves a tribe of these people. Now, Picard is the Katniss if you like, He we trying to survive in the system (not be sent to jail for violating the prime directive), so his course ends in a body count. He's actually the bad guy, as is everybody else -- because they chose that path. If they had their way, everybody dies. Doesn't matter that they didn't use a Death Star, they may as well have done that (yes I'm aware that the Trek universe lacks Death Stars). But even then, Cousin Ernie doesn't end up looking much better by comparison. 99% of the planet still dies. But, there's a difference in the 99% that Ernie lets die -- he chose to do something to minimize the deaths. He chose to save some of them rather than just stand around while everybody dies.
That's the reason that the death count and the reason matters, because you're making choices every day. I don't think anyone expects that you'll be able to change the world, or save everybody, or have a revolution or anything like that, just that you'd do what you can to minimize the damage or at least help out. Schindler was a failure on the account that he didn't stop the holocaust. except that he at least chose to do something. He chose to bribe Germans and make a list of people he could save.
Score: 7 (7 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 12:43 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Once a young man asked a weapons engineer if he had ever killed anybody. The engineer answered, "have you ever heard of a gunship?" "that's not what I mean" retorted the young narcissist.
Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 2:32 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Because THG makes basically the same point about working inside the system as TLP makes quite often. Katniss allows the system to function. She wishes it was different but does nothing to make it different. Even after she breaks the Games, she still works with the president to go along with the storyline and maintain the system.
This sort of touches on TLP's idea of narrator being a method of the protagonist to lie to themselves, too. Readers are privy to Katniss's thoughts. In a vacuum, though, the girl on fire becomes a symbol of benevolence of the government by allowing her and Peeta to remain together after the games. And she never objects to this. In fact, she does her best to make sure it's real. She was willing to live a lie for the rest of her life to maintain the system. This is not heroic. It's also why it's so unbelievable that the government would send her back in to a second games. They won.
If the government never selected her to go back in, do you think she would have broken the games, or do you think she would have just lived her quiet life in the district and watched people die on TV while feeling really upset about it? She was forced in to the games again and then even the rebels didn't trust her to do much more than cheerlead. She doesn't even take responsibility for the biggest decision she makes in Mockingjay. Why, exactly, is she a hero?
Score: 8 (10 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 3:01 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Remember everyone. Mandela is not a terrorist, because he only led the ANC's bombing and "necklacing" (look it up, brutal) campaigns. He didn't actually light the fuses. And if you disagree, you're a rrrrrrrrrrsaaasyyyyyyccccsssssssssyyyyyyyyyttttttt.
Score: 2 (22 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 4:48 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I haven't read the books, but would like to challenge Alone's reading of the first two movies as overly simplistic. Rather than saying Katniss is or isn't heroic, is complicit with the system or isn't, couldn't she fall somewhere in the middle? I see the first two movies as a kind of political awakening or radicalizing of Katniss; she's simply growing as an individual, and arguably in a good way. Thus, at the end of the second film, she comes close to killing Finnick Odair, but after he tells her, "Remember who the real enemy is," she aims her arrow at the roof of the dome instead and breaks it right open: The system itself, in other words, is her real enemy and by shooting her arrow at it, she demonstrates clearly that she now knows it. It remains to be seen what final form her character takes in the third film, but for now I choose to keep an open mind myself.
Score: 4 (8 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 12:02 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Didn't read the books, haven't seen the movies.... I did know what 4chan is, though; I went over there to read the rules and the FAQ and the boards' names. Enough of that.
Score: -3 (5 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 1:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
off the subject for this one: Iceland police shot and killed a man in the line of duty recently in the North Atlantic Islandic country in the first of December. The shooting was the first time a man or anyone else was killed by Iceland police. And that is in the total history of the republic. The nation and even the police came out and mourned the death of the man. What a record, that there are still places in the universe where the whole idea of robbery, killing and the like are non existant in society and the rules of society hold up fairly strong. Iceland has 320,000 people. Its everyday affairs and events when it comes to murder, homicides and the like, here for U.S. citizens. Nevertheless the Icelandic population has gotten the much better end of the deal in this area than anyone in America for that matter. The Vikings founded the country in the late 700s.
Score: 7 (7 votes cast)
December 7, 2013 10:57 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes, that was terrorism. And I for one am entirely on board with it. As one guy with an arbitrary sense of justice speaking to another, go to hell, dude. Viva la necklace. Saints are one in a million. 99 times out of 100, if you have an opinion on any issue, you'll be supporting someone with blood on their hands and scalps on their belt.
I don't care that the ANC committed terror. Every country and every political movement that has ever changed the system did so at the expense of someone else. Good riddance to white rule, rest in peace Nelson Mandela.
Unfortunately, now they're stuck with that piece of shit Jacob Zuma in charge.
Score: 1 (15 votes cast)
December 8, 2013 12:40 AM | Posted by : | Reply
you should read battle royale.
or that one long walk stephen king vehicle.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 8, 2013 4:21 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes, me! shoot me a mail at northernlightsx[at]outlook.com
Anyone else?
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
December 8, 2013 10:00 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Katniss is a kind of hero. She's not interesting in the greater good because she feels powerless to affect it. She's interested in protecting her family and the people she loves while doing as little damage as possible to others. She is absolutely aware that this is a cop-out, but her primary "hero" trait is her profound loyalty to her tribe; she is very parochial. She doesn't want and isn't capable of taking on the role of hero of the revolution that others eventually place her in.
What makes her a hero by the third book is her complete rejection of and her attempt to destroy ALL SYSTEMS - not just the Capitol and Snow but also the revolutionaries. This destroys both her and the ones she loves.
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
December 8, 2013 10:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Also - in the third book Katniss does take positive decisive action - she does choose. This only happens in the last chapter of the last book but it's a doozy of a decision.
Reading through many of the comments here, I'm pretty sure many of you haven't read the books. Basically, many of you are blowing smoke.
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 12:06 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
She's interested in protecting her family and the people she loves while doing as little damage as possible to others. She is absolutely aware that this is a cop-out, but her primary "hero" trait is her profound loyalty to her tribe; she is very parochial.
Because our families and the people we love are more important than the worthless, unimportant humans we must - regrettably - kill to ensure those we love can survive.
"Your family comes first!"
- mothers
Children are exploited by those who tell every child they're Special by virtue of their lucky, superior birth (a birthright that affords the lucky child the 'unconditional' love of the most important and Special people in the world).
Why, their love is so Special, children have been dying to impress those who blinded them for a long time. "No greater lie."
The truth of unconditional love is revealed when you ask those who want you to die for them why they don't want to die for you.
Loyalty to a tribe is treason. Traitors betray their species and themselves by falling for the lies and Confidence tricks of those who blind children with love to enable their utility and disposal.
Score: -4 (14 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 12:30 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Is the only place for in-depth discussion on the last psychiatrist's thoughts in the comments section after each post? Is there anywhere place to discuss? (I like a lot of the comments here, but there are better formats to drive discussion and archive it.)
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 1:35 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Reminds me of this:
Rather, I see in women an innate preoccupation with and loyalty to a smaller group i.e. family, clique, or personal ambition over a wider moral or civic duty to outside groups. Women seem more ready than men to rationalize, minimize, and willfully ignore some moral evil, i.e. rape or sexism, if it means protecting the group, their group. Call it the maternal instinct if you'd like, but it is part of women for better or for worse. Unchecked, it can lead to increased infighting and unfairness.
From here:
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/01/no_self-respecting_woman_would.html
Question: Does "wishing to protect your family" makes you a hero, or is it expected of you?
Hint: If you're not sure, guess what that makes you.
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 1:35 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I agree with you it's a poor format. Any suggestions?
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 1:41 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
This is a "straw man" argument with an excluded middle.Then whichever you choose makes you a shit or something.
The family is a recent social structure in the past few hundred years that is part of what Foucault called biopolitics. For capitalism to flourish a work force was needed that was reasonable healthy, and it was necessary that children not be wasted in premature deaths, so they had to be better cared for. Living together and having illegitimate children was not going to be productive, so the social pressure for marriage, families, better hygiene, better care of children came along with the beginnings of capitalism. They intersected at that time in history. This is not to infer cause and effect, just an intersection.
Score: -3 (9 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 1:46 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
We live in a culture that is based on competition. Every member of the family is in competition with each other fro the resources of the family whether they be financial or emotional or psychological. This forces a sort of incestuous situation and does not allow for connections to be formed in the outer world for the good of humanity. It arrests human beings within the nuclear family. This is a recent development and in Europe for example it is not so pronounced as it is in the US, especially after World War II with single housing becoming affordable for every family.
Again I keep replying within the Matrix as no one thing can be isolated from it.
Score: 0 (8 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 2:50 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I threw together a subreddit for him. Surprised there isn't one already
http://www.reddit.com/r/thelastpsychiatrist/
I'll start in earnest tomorrow.
Score: 4 (10 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 4:10 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I went there, registered and posted. Nice place.
Score: 0 (4 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 4:25 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Why don't we question this ridiculous label of hero. Do you really think it applies to Katniss.
As I have read it, Katniss and Peeta of all the tributes are not programed, cloned to respond in a certain way. Their spontenaity is seductive. As Baudrillard has said the only out from Simulated Reality is seduction since seduction is the only attribute THAT CANNOT BE PRODUCED. It always takes place in the Symbolic Order and falls under the rule of Symbolic Exchange and Death: first attribute is its reversibility. Others: risk, challenge, sacred, passion, and there are more but I am tired right now.
The Order of Production is irreversible and this is the greatest concept Baudrillard has given us.
The NSA secret system Snowden revealed in his documents because as he said, "all it would take would be a change of oversight, a different head, a different administration and it all would become institutionalized." Once that happens you are in the Order of Production and it is irreversible. A great danger.
Katniss is seductive. Seduction is opposed in the Order of Production by provocative. We see this in almost every young female celebrity at this time with the exception of a very few. It is Miley Cyrus that is taking cloned provocativeness to an excess that she keeps pushing. She is making standard cloned provocative sexiness obsolete and yesterday. She has thrown the challenge at them and they will have to meet her challenge or suicide. Women have attacked her unmercifially on celebrity sites. I am eagerly watching how this turns out.
Jennifer Lawrence is basically playing Katniss on the Interview circuits, charming and seductively real, funny and spontaneous, unscripted. Let's watch. She's not playing Miley's game. Miley is out to wreck it (Wrecking Ball), Jennifer is not. Interesting as we talk about Katniss's revolutionary potential, or just her figurehead status.
Score: -1 (7 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 5:36 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
There is en.reddit.com/r/PartialObjects/ already.
Though it's a slow subreddit, and most redditors don't like Alone too much. Uncomprehensible, strawmanning, self-important is how they see him.
Score: 1 (5 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 5:43 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Better link:
http://www.reddit.com/r/PartialObjects/
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 6:30 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Threatening to kill yourself is not "defiant," it's juvenile. Why would they give a crap if everyone died? I kept waiting for Katniss to come up with an awesome plan to escape the game and beat the system. That would be defiant. That is what a man would do.
Score: -1 (7 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 7:53 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The final point is a good one; it reminds me of an experimental 'vault' in the game Fallout 3. The experiment in this particular vault was a lottery that was held every year whereby an occupant would be selected to be killed, and if they didn't die then the fault would kill everyone else. Naturally the threat was just a bluff and only the last guy finds out.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 7:55 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Sorry my synopsis was a bit poor, but here is the link
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_11
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 10:16 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
That link you put here results in an avalanche of stuff coming from that site.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 10:21 PM | Posted by : | Reply
where can I read more "media criticism" kinds of things? Is there any field that deals with this beyond philosophy and Lacanian Psychoanalysis? Or college major behind higher level 400s? I am in love with these kind of popular media dissections, really any kind of dissection?
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 10:24 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You can come to my blog http:// moviesandfilm dot blogspot dot com and comment there. I can easily put links to the other places where we are reading and talking. This software is very restricting.
Score: -4 (4 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 10:25 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Tht's Shirley Jackson's story The Lottery.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 9, 2013 11:56 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Our generation was raised with the overwhelming discourse that we are all little heroes, special. Born to change the world.
A message like this is designed to be a pressure valve for that discourse - because we can't all be heroes, or we secretly don't want to be heroes, we all know the status quo is unethical, but we can't--
we can't say we won't. We can't say we don't want to be the little heroes we were raised to be.
Messages like this let us have our cake and eat it too. It's popular because we can still be heroes even if we don't try to take down the system that we know is unconscionable. We can still live in our fantasies without having to admit to ourselves that we don't actually want to take an ethical stance if it requires sacrifice.
When things get bad, we can just protect the ones we love, turn a blind eye to the global disenfranchised, and we don't have to feel as if we didn't live up to the heroic expectations, because look at Katniss, she came to the same conclusion, things are overwhelming, we did the best we could, we're still "little heroes," making the world a better place just by recycling, giving to charity, finding love and being kind to animals.
Score: 9 (11 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 3:11 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Dear Alone,
Where the f*ck is my porn book?
-Regards
Score: 15 (15 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 5:34 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I am so sorry! Oh, you poor thing!
Here is a preview of what you seek-- at least I presume. I dearly hope it will assuage your aching mind...
Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 5:43 AM | Posted by : | Reply
*Here=
http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/post/64186936538/the-big-book-of-online-entitlement-by-rainbow
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 5:58 AM | Posted by : | Reply
So many people blindly worship The Hunger Games franchise, and other media driven pop culture fare, but none of their understanding of "what it's about" comes from their own analysis or even from a sampling of diverse and contradictory opinions. They're in spoon-feed land all the way and couldn't write a critique of the latest "must see" [sic] film or TV series if it means they have to apply critical or independent thinking skills.
While I believe what I wrote above to be mainly true, the primary reason for this post is to trigger the e-mail update feature. ;-)
Score: -1 (3 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 6:11 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Given the earnest and rather pretentious nature of your reply it's clear you haven't considered that Impatience's post may have been meant lightheartedly; a gentle ribbing of TLP and his promises of a porn book "soon".
I could be wrong of course. Maybe he/she is deadly serious but if I were a betting man I wouldn't put money on it.
I also find it really annoying when people in online forums speak for other posters.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 6:32 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Everyone to http://www.reddit.com/r/thelastpsychiatrist/ hup, hup, hup!
Score: -4 (6 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 6:41 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I take it that I have crossed a line of yours, and thus have been put in my place.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 8:59 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Achilles was a narccissist - that's the whole point of the Illiad. He can't put down his pride and taps into his narcissitic rage to go to war rather than listen to the counsel of those wiser than him who beg him to stay home. He chooses fame over life, that's why it's a tragedy.
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 11:44 AM | Posted by : | Reply
The current executives at Disney really hate your interpretation, TLP. But, considering that they foisted [i]The Lone Ranger[/i] on an un-suspecting population, their hate is understandable.
Score: -2 (2 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 2:00 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
TLP's commentary pertains mostly to the movies. They may or may not have read the books, not sure. But it is very clear from the examination of Katniss' kill score in the first essay they are talking about the movie. Katniss kills more people in the book than she does in the movie, including one out-and-out him-or-me Katniss-shot-first encounter. (Although she was not "hunting" the person.)
Book Katniss has her own problems, but she has approximately infinity to the power of infinity more agency than movie Katniss.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 2:27 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Oh absolutely...I was being 100% serious. Just remember your place from now on and we'll be fine. And no more of that deadpan humor please. Thanks!
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 3:48 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
No Achilles is choosing the immortality of the Gods for himself. To identify with his own heroes in eternity. He did it too.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 10, 2013 8:07 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Goddammit, you should know better.
Katniss doesn't care about killing. She's not playing a manly masculine murder game. She's playing a PR game. She didn't make the ethical choice not to kill anyone, she made the PR choice not to kill anyone.
So you're constantly confusing the "audience" within the movie with the audience OF the movie. The audience within the movie has buying power, voting power, giving-of-medicines-and-trinkets power. She plays them. This is made explicit in the first movie -- she is told this by her mentor (or whatever).
Your thesis is that, because she didn't play the brawny murder game, she's enforcing a gender stereotype. I hypothesize that she maintained a frail, emotional girl front (with all the cave-kissing and friend-making) for precisely the purposes of winning. She clearly HAS the brawn to win on physical talent alone, and chooses not to - she chooses brain over brawn, deliberately. Misogyny would be to suggest that brawn was never an option for her. She didn't choose pacifism, only the appearance of it.
Who cares if she killed anyone with her two hands? She couldn't, not if she wanted to win public favour. And public favour was what kept her (and whatsisface) alive to the end of the first movie. That was the Game. (oh my god it's like an actual metaphor for our times, not whatever time you're imagining with your kill-kill obsession)
I'm not saying this isn't narcissism, it's just not a virtue-driven narcissism. Is duplicitousness gendered? Yeah, I guess. And yeah, she gets used as a symbol, and lets herself be used, and that's gendered too. But direct challenges to The System are idiotic. I give her at least that much credit.
Score: 4 (10 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 1:56 AM | Posted by : | Reply
And writing a blog on the inter(net) [web] is an effective, productive act of defiance? What are nets for? What are webs for?
Maybe it is. Maybe it is preliminary. Maybe movement requires motivation, but when it comes down to it, talk don't get the job done.
That said, the system is going down anyway, sooner rather than later. Why invest oneself in nothingness?
The future is elsewhere. The answer is to make like Lot. The presence of good people indeed is what keeps the system going. Removing one's presence is the ultimate act of defiance. It's so far gone it's not even worth fighting.
Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 2:30 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Haven't you guys figured it out yet? The only way to win is not to comment! Wait...shit
Score: 7 (9 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 2:35 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
That's what Rand wrote: the best people keep it going. Writing a blog keeps certain people here to give them emotional courage and support by validating their belief, the same for you. All it takes is one person you respect to validate you and you are OK. That in itself is worth it all. Because if you are here, you are here for the same reasons I and everyone else is here. Because we know. We cannot find an answer until we can ask the right questions. And expecting anything in the system to be addressed to fix it will not work. Just that understanding alone is crucial. It is unfixable, irreversible.Energies must be turned elsewhere. Where? I have no idea.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 2:49 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I'm looking at Antarctica. Not even kidding.
When the world's on fire, best to be someplace cool.
"I know not with what weapons ww3 will be fought, but ww4 will be fought with sticks and stones" -Einstein
They've built deep down below the ice under Amundsen-Scott. Some science experiment, or so the story goes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
Dig deep enough you hit bedrock. Then keep on digging; set ourselves up a cozy little hideaway.
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 3:07 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Thank Francis Lawrence the director for that.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 11:01 AM | Posted by : | Reply
you're losing your edge, TLP. this post is conspicuously lacking in the hallmarks of your best work.
where is the deeply cutting social commentary? what we have here is half-baked lit crit attempting to shoehorn some of your previous arguments onto a new example regardless of the appropriateness of the example.
where is the delightful drunken rambling? were you sober when you wrote this? outrageous!
where is the gender ambiguity and subversion of contemporary gender narratives? you come across as just a conventional liberal feminist here. boring. stupid. narcissistic.
Score: 3 (9 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 11:10 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You will hate this comment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iceland
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 2:10 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
In response to the first commenter:
"Her goal in the first movie is not to buck the system and to be a hero. It's to save Prim (which was pretty heroic. She was the first volunteer ever from her district)."
I would argue that stepping up to save your baby sister is NOT AT ALL heroic, or at best, the loosest possible definition of heroism. Come on! This is your SISTER! If you DON'T step up and save her, then you are a miserable piece of shit. That is your job. Protect your little sister. It was not heroism...that was duty, plain and simple. Don't diminish the power of a "hero" by linking it to base, reflexive, instinctive actions. We have to have higher standards for our heroes.
Score: 4 (10 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 4:10 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I disagree. I see it differently. At the spontaneous moment she did it she expected to die instead of her sister. She really never expected to win, not even when she did because she would have to do it at the expense of Peeta. This is Baudrillard's concept of Impossible Exchange. Each individual is unique, singular and since there is only one it cannot be exchanged because there is no other value reference. BUT that life can be SACRIFICED for another, which places the act in the Symbolic Order. So yes she is a heroine. And I just like the sound of the word heroine so I will use it instead of the PC correct hero.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 4:36 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Everyone around her is extraordinarily heroic and self-sacrificing, they literally drag her bad ass to the finish line at the cost of their own lives, so that she can survive as a symbol, and the rest of you dummies think she is the hero.
Why is nobody reading this line? It's in the body of the post; I'm not hallucinating it. I checked.
The narcissistic fantasy of the Hunger Games is the same as the fantasy of Twilight, which is that you can be special/heroic/the star by virtue of your identity and not your actions. This is the lie that people want to believe, and the reason why everyone wants Katniss to be a hero, all evidence to the contrary. Throw a crown on her, call her princess, and she's an escort mission in a video game. But if she can be the symbol (ie identity) of the eventual revolution, and we can pretend she's the hero, then the flip side is: it's not your fault you're not a hero.
I'm not writing a high school graduation speech so I won't quote Webster's, but grant me that our definition of heroism is going to involve conscious personal sacrifice in service of some higher good (define how you will). What has Katniss sacrificed? I suppose the first movie implies she'll have some lingering tinnitis, but otherwise, her greatest sacrifice is..... oh, nothing? She gets to be the hero of the overthrow of a repressive regime, purely through the force of her identity? #mockingjay, I guess. Too bad they don't have her in Syria.
Score: 15 (17 votes cast)
December 11, 2013 5:28 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Initially her personal sacrifice is her life rather than her siste's death. Then it is sacrificing her life for Peeta with the berries. But in doing that she judos Snow and the Games. She isn't doing it to judo. Katniss is pure seduction in the Symbolic Order. Seduction cannot be produced. It is spontaneous and coupled with challenge. Her final act with the berries is not a calculated strategy. Cinna is the one who calculates a strategy by the way he costumes her, he is shaping her to become who she becomes by how he dresses her. Pygmalion mythology. Liza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.
Bella in Twilight is the New Feminist but read Calchi-Novati reading Bella through Zizek and Lacan for her essay: http (colon)//twilightirruption(dot) blogspot(dot)com/2012/04/twilight-reading-through-lacan-and(dot)html
Score: -1 (3 votes cast)
December 12, 2013 2:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
We live in a culture that is based on competition.
That's nonsense. Nothing could be further from the truth. For 6000 years, culture has been based on fear of competition.
It is fear of competition that mutilates girls rather than allows them to compete to bring happiness to those one (ostensibly) loves. It is fear of competition that needs lies and violence to hijack and steal rather than contribute and trade fairly. It is fear of competition that needs to limit liabilities, manipulate prices, form cartels, restrict free trade, monopolize the market or exploit customer loyalty to retain market share. It is fear of competition that needs marriage, commitment, loyalty, exclusivity.
This world has been destroyed by the Matriarchal fear of competition. If women weren't competing to exploit men, Society would consist of orgies, banquets, festivals, entertainment, sports and games (a culture based on competition). We live in the opposite culture, a Dark Ages culture where sex is taboo and love is celebrated.
And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and [compete] no more."
It's a sin to compete with those who fear competition. Love=Hate.
Score: 1 (19 votes cast)
December 13, 2013 2:20 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Those points are valid. It does not change the fact that her actions were not heroic. She makes two major decisions in the series. 1) She steps in for her sister. 2) The end of Mockingjay. In fact, in most of the second book she is actively fighting to maintain the corrupt system that sacrifices two dozen children every year. Either by going on the President's press tour or going through the second Hunger Games. Her actions at the end of Mockingjay are arguably heroic, but she takes no responsibility for them.
The whole point of this is that even though she kills nobody, she is responsible for their deaths by helping to maintain this system that sacrifices children every year.
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
December 13, 2013 2:28 AM | Posted by : | Reply
mh said: I also have to say that one of the most profound things I have learned from TLP is the maxim that "the only way to win is not to play".
That predates TLP; in fact, it's the tag-line for the 1983 cult classic WarGames.
It's interesting just thinking how movies and audiences have changed in the last 30 years since that film came out. Paralleling the two movies just shows the shift that TLP's always harping about in our culture: we've gone from the depths of the Cold War and sitting through (and enjoying!) a movie telling us that sometimes the only way to win is to think outside the box, to take the immediate hits to us as individuals that stem from the rigid system and unlock the pathways to win the long-game for everyone... to The Hunger Games.
I'd ask God to help us, but we killed that fucker
Score: 6 (8 votes cast)
December 13, 2013 6:26 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
True. Do you think that PEDs in sports are antithetical to competition? Irrational as it may be, I always felt those floating-in-the-air vibes of subtle paranoiac consumption the few times I was (briefly) in the company of pro-level endurance athletes that were later confirmed to have been using.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 13, 2013 4:51 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
PEDs are irrelevent. The games are just games. They are a distraction from whatever people are worried about. That's the only point of professional sports. I don't even get the insisence on "purity". You want them to look like that. Look at the "stars" -- doesn't matter which ones, we like them big, well endowed, and productive. It's obvious that most of them are on drugs. Look up the rookie picture of any one of them and compare it to 3-5 years later. They'll have almost doubled in size. It didn't bother anybody at all. As far as fair competition, again, as a practical matter, it doesn't matter. these games don't do anything but give you regional pride. Most of the complaints about doping come from professional journalists, not the fans. Cardinals fans didn't care that McGuire was doping, Cubs fans didn't care that Sosa was doping, sales were UP during the drug-fueled home run fest. You couldn't get standing room, you almost couldn't see with all the flashbulbs going off. People were paying for the spectacle, and if drugs give people that spectacle, then why worry about the "purity" of a sport played solely for entertainment?
Score: 6 (8 votes cast)
December 13, 2013 5:10 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You have me. Why is pure logic so NOT in vogue no matter the time we live in.
Actually I think it is because "it sets a bad example for athletic heroes to drug for performance for CHILDREN!" We are a culture that hates children and professes to love them. So we publicly ding anyone and anything that might just shred that illusion. You will like this site and so will jonny actually, at least some of it. http (colon)//historiesofviolence (dot)com/
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
December 14, 2013 7:10 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Achilles wasn't a narcissist. It's quite possible that Julian Jaynes is right and the original Achilles was a person whose decisions were made by 'Gods' residing in his right hemisphere..
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 14, 2013 8:32 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes. And someone who knows Jaynes is such a pleasure to encounter. I met him at the APA in the mid 1970's. I talked with him about LSD and the trees talking to you and the rocks runing,etc and he was very interested in that and wanted me to come to Princeton to talk with him but I never did. Damn. But that's what the experience feels like as everything is animated. Of course that was Achilles experiencing that.
Also David Denby the film critic for the New Yorker took a year to redo the basic philosophy course at Columbia - NYU? - with two different professors. His long essays on the Greeks were wonderful in his book about doing that course. They were so different that psychological interpretation which is awful at best is completely stupid thinking to do for the ancient Greeks.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 14, 2013 10:39 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Do you think that PEDs in sports are antithetical to competition?
I don't think it's the use of PEDs so much as the doping bans themselves that are antithetical to the spirit of competition. Regulation of [performance edge] to ensure a level playing field? In a morally and ethically bankrupt world, there will be corruption where there is opportunity. Rules which serve to restrict or handicap will almost always be introduced to create opportunity for anti-competitive edge to be leveraged. Restrictive rules are imposed by those with the power to avoid enforcement on those who don't. Broken humans just can't help themselves. Almost no one is competing or at least, competition results are largely determined outside the boundaries of the competition proper.
As Dovaikiin (who is always right) pointed out, people don't care. Or if they care, they're compromised by moral relativity. "It's wrong unless we need to do it. By virtue of our need to do it, wrong is made Right." In the leadup to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, there was a report that said 80% of the Australian swimming team had asthma. The discussion it generated was limited to why swimming was beneficial for children with asthma.
_________
Score: 4 (8 votes cast)
December 14, 2013 10:59 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Why is pure logic so NOT in vogue no matter the time we live in.
Because mothers have always dictated emotional values for the species, no matter the time we live in. Logic needs truth and truth is considered the enemy by women who want men to pay them for [doing what they want to do] and who want children to love, please, respect, kill, die and care for them. Logic dictates these sorts of things should be the other way around.
Women aren't concealing truth with their need for concealment. Logic can't work with lies. They had a crack at it once. Now we have religion.
Score: -1 (11 votes cast)
December 15, 2013 12:38 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Tell me: is it hard to see the echo chamber of idiocy reflecting the thoughts you almost believe you have?
What mirrors there must be in the universe of a man who can see everything except what matters--what terrible and pervasive mirrors.
I would pity you, except--you asked for it.
Score: 0 (4 votes cast)
December 15, 2013 11:07 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"Seriously, with all the stuff going on in the world, you chose to write another post about the Hunger Games? I must be missing something."
The Television, Cinema, Internet is what is going on the in the world.
Consider that a great deal of people in the world have their self exposed to television.
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 12:13 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The advantage of making a point through a popular film is that you speak to the masses who watch them. It is they you are trying to reach not the choir.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 4:18 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Another great post as usual TLP, and once again you got me thinking about allot of things through something I know little about, The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games are about a young woman who lives under a oppressive regime that every year demands young people from 12 districts. They kill each other in a televised event "The Hunger Games". Bread and Circuses for the masses, par for the course in a despotic regime. The protagonist wins by not killing anybody. This causes her to be very popular. Revolutionary forces against the regime decide to use her as a icon of the revolution.
Here's were it gets interesting. She doesn't seem to take a active role in the movement for or against it. She even appears to be aiding the regime in places. She only cares about her family and her district. Her motives are sympathetic and that's about it. She's not a hero. To be a hero you need to take a active role and stand for something. She seems to be a hero based on what she appears to be rather than what she really is or her actions.
People will say she doesn't kill people and at least that's a good message to send kids, that there are ways to start social change without killing people. And that's were TLP comes in. Even if she doesn't take part in the games, by being complacent in the games she is justifying the games and the regime itself because that's what the regime wants. It wants the illusion that by not participating you are not apart of the regime. When really it doesn't matter, not agreeing=tacit approval to a dictatorship that doesn't care what the average citizen thinks in the first place. So really Katniss has blood on her hands, even if she refuses to acknowledge it.
Katniss is in many ways like a superhero, which is what this post also got me to think about.
I believe you don't choose to become a hero, circumstances turn you into a hero against your will. And that heroes don't just save people, they also become a active participant in the world around them to make it a better place for people, at great sacrifices to their personal lives. They also become a symbol of an idea greater than themselves. People today only seem to understand the last part.
Modern people's idea about heroism is...decaying. We live in a narcissistic age, it's all about what you want the world to see you as rather than shaping your perception through your own actions. It's all about having your cake and eating it too, the appearance of self sacrifice without self sacrifice. And the idea of a united community seems to be dead as well, now you can't depend on your neighbor anymore, the most you can depend on is your family and a few close friends. The hero is about not just helping the few people you care about, it's about helping the people you even hate.
Our narcissistic age has made heroism impossible. What we have is superheroism instead. What's wrong with superheroes? Well superheroes are wish fulfillment first, everything else second. Yes, that includes saving people. Superheroes are also pretty narcissistic to start with. Once you really study and read superhero comics,movies,TV shows, you realizes that superheroes wear the costumes to feed their narcissistic identity. "But they save the world on a regular basis" And I can think of few ego boost for a narcissist than saving the world on a monthly basis. And superheroes are prone to displays of grandiose behavior, always making speeches about what they believe in, displaying their superpowers in stunning stunts, beating up bad guys in the flashiest way possible.
Superhero origin stories always arise not out of circumstances pushing a person into heroics i.e. a supervillain does... supervillainy and superhero arises to the challenge. It's always the superhero that comes first out of his belief that a hero is necessary for the huddled masses. Rather than do anything logical as a citizen to stop crime, he rather do the illogical thing and beat criminals up in bright, shiny spandex.
A criminal gets it in his head to do the exact same thing. Than whatever ever meager positive changes goes down the drain as the city in which the superhero protects gets it's first supervillain, worst than ever before.
Superheroes are useless vain,hypocritical, ultimately don't believe in what they say, but are the types of heroes we won't in this culture we have because they reflect ourselves.
Were afraid to embrace anything that involves sacrificing our narcissistic self, so we have even tailor made the hero to be more like us. Thus why superheroes are so popular. They are generic good guys who do the easiest stuff, saving people, they don't stand for anything meaningful, they aren't apart of any community, they are disconnected like us, and they are afraid of the status quo and agents of the status quo in that regards.
If the Hunger Games and the latest Thor movie is what passes for heroism nowadays, than we are doomed
Score: 10 (10 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 4:43 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
And then there's Edward Snowden.
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 10:49 AM | Posted by : | Reply
So let me get this straight: old lady and goth chick die by poison fog and baboon respectively, and TLP says those sacrifices are honorable, but we are too selfish to notice. Yet one movie prior, Katniss all but sacrifices herself by volunteering for a guaranteed death, and TLP could care less because she came back alive. So what if there were an extra scene at the end where fog lady and baboon girl are shown alive in an ICU hooked up to breathing machines? TLP: "You robbed them of their agency!" Yeah, now who won't give CPR?
The fact of the matter is, in this movie, Katniss did make a choice, and it wasn't the narsissitic one: she fell in line. One old man got a bullet through the head because she went off script, so from that point on, she stuck to the script. The end. Or at least it would have been if the heroes TLP wants to applaud didn't rob her of her agency first. It was on both sides. The presidents forceful hand was obvious, but the rebellion was doing it too. Metro-Lenny kravitz made her wear a dress she would have likely rejected if she knew about it on account of it getting her family killed. He didn't tell her because he wanted to take that decision away from her. Phillip Seymore Hoffman rigs the whole game without telling her because he knew she wouldn't approve of the whole massacre that went with it. In this movie, the good guy mentality is " if you want to make an omelette, don't tell the chickens you're going to murder their children.
With that all considered, the only decision that seems honorable is the one where you fall in line to spare a few lives. And if those saved lives never know the real reason why you didn't hop aboard the "chosen one" hero parade when everyone else was trying to force you to, so be it.
Score: 1 (5 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 3:16 PM | Posted by : | Reply
What is going on in the world today.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 9:37 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Who cares.
This lousy franchise doesn't warrant deep examination. Orwell and Huxley it ain't. It was evident from what little I read of the first book that it was shallow and ill-conceived. From the absurd premise to the unconvincing world it's set in. How can you properly examine someone so bad and ill-thought out with any level of accuracy? A case in point:
"Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It's always the flu, or exposure or pneumonia. But that fools no one." Pg 28
Gee, no flies are you is there, Katniss? I mean, it's not like they hold an annual event called the "Hunger Games" or anything, is it?
It's target - the excesses of reality TV - is a nice, safe and uncontroversial one. We all know how dumb reality TV, is, right? Of course, that's what it's the target. Criticising it offends no one (with the added bonus that we can all feel smug and superior afterwards).
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 11:02 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I agree with you that the author nor the film people were having any serious thoughts at all. That doesn't mean that there's not something in there that is being overlooked. And I mean Simulated Reality - which we are in now - moving into Virtual Reality. Hunger Games fictionalizes that. Not so clear in the movies as the book, the first one at least, the 2nd and 3rd are a ploy to increase sales, sell to films, etc. Unimportant. She could have stopped with the first and that would have been the best choice.
Confinement is our greatest danger along with Simulated Reality becoming total. Then we will be in Virtual Reality and no escape.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 16, 2013 11:33 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Great post.
In addition, the supervillain and the superhero are virtually interchangeable; the only thing separating them is the omnipotence of the narrative.
Comics enjoying some light metacommentary, this is aknowledged, of course, but only to then reinforce the deception. If capes can't show a better world as a result of their actions, they can always find excuses: every alternative is worse, or the masses are thankless and stupid, or they really are making a difference but...
Morality: The solution to any threat to your self-importance is frantically searching for a new perspective that allow you to preserve it. Even if your identity has to pass through absurd hoops to do so. See: the evolution of any major superhero over time.
Of course, from a narrative standpoint this is necessary, but who need narrative in their lives? Here is the danger.
On the topic of superheroes, see also this:
http://www.postmodernize.com/2013/01/self-help-ii-super-thanks-for-asking/
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 17, 2013 11:05 AM | Posted by : | Reply
off-topic but I was wondering what TLPs take would be on this video as it reminded me of Couple Reveals Child's Gender Five Years Too Late:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFn81_HAvWg
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 17, 2013 10:46 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I would like to hear TLP's take on Edward Snowden's recent "open letter" to the government of Brazil.
I am pretty well convinced that Snowden genuinely believes that he is the single most important person on the planet.
Score: -5 (7 votes cast)
December 17, 2013 10:57 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Let's not forget that Edward Snowden actually accomplished something. He developed a skill and was good enough to land a job in a position that Dartmouth grads also get. He also took a life-risking stance by being the only person out of an intelligence agency to speak against the group's activities. He then fled the country, secretly talked with the press, then met with a range of different world leaders.
Alone talks about narcissists fantasizing about their life being a movie, about how they imagine that one day, just not right now they'll demonstrate some cool talent that will redeem them from their idle present. But Snowden didn't fantasize, he actually did something. The distinction is important. He may be loud in terms of trying to spread his voice, but narcissism isn't grandiosity. He knows people are paying attention to him, so he's taking advantage of that fact. He's actually doing something.
Score: 13 (15 votes cast)
December 17, 2013 11:40 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I don't think so. Maybe he won't change NSA snooping but what he has changed permanently is the facade of govt. No one any longer believes anything they say about anything, even when they are telling the truth. That is the discussion that is now taking place that he had not planned on.
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 7:14 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
He's not accomplishing anything. The NSA is still spying on your cell phone, and likely your kid's Xbox One. It's the same thing as Katniss, except Snowden is a nerdy man instead of a badass. The only difference is that now the government is admitting that they're doing it and admitting it won't change.
Score: -1 (7 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 7:31 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
He's not accomplishing anything. The only difference is that now the government is admitting that they're doing it and admitting it won't change.
To disillusion is a lofty accomplishment. If the world was disillusioned, there would be nothing left to accomplish.
(*usually right)
Score: 5 (7 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 8:08 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Katniss did make a choice, and it wasn't the narsissitic one: she fell in line.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure falling in line is what narcissists do. They suffer from an eroded Self. They fall in love with their fake image and become obsessed with their appearance not because they love themselves but because they don't. They're terrified of what everyone else will think.
"Oh you can't do that. People will talk."
Without Self, narcissists cannot afford to take risks. They're not selfish, they just impose on everyone else (because they have no Self). The world has gotten selfish (self-reliant, self-sufficient, need-free) conflated with selfless (self-defeating, self-destructive, self-sacrifice, needy). There are very few people with the Self required to buck the status quo in this world. The danger of being ridiculed is too great. Narcissists will always conform, keep up appearances, imposing on whomever they can (children are easy targets for narcissistic cowards).
Score: 7 (11 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 12:53 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Here's what Snowden accomplished:
* conned his co-workers into giving him their passwords
* stole upwards of 1.7 million classified documents
* went to that bastion of privacy and liberty, Russia, but not before a layover in the other one, China
* claimed to have a "dead man's switch" set up so that all his material gets released in the event "anything happens" to him. Note this is not smart even if it's untrue: all any entity that wants to do massive damage to the US has to do is make him vanish? Surely there are no seriously scary people with means and opportunity who would want that...
* also admitted to having planned to do this before even taking the contracting job
He's not some crusading hero who was outraged by what he saw on the job and committed himself to Do The Right Thing. He's a thief at best, and an Aldrich Ames-type spy at worst.
Score: -8 (16 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 1:40 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
He's not some crusading hero who was outraged by what he saw on the job and committed himself to Do The Right Thing
Dude, you are fodder for cannon. There is no US v Russia v China. There is Power v slaves. Every sovereign plantation-state is nearly exclusively focused on exploiting its own. This is not the world you have been led to perceive. You and a North Korean patriot have a lot in common, but they have a pretty good excuse for being house niggers. They can't conceptualise another world.
You have no excuse. But I would wager an indecent sum on a proposition that you hold very strong feelings in respect of your dear mother. I've never met an authoritarian parrot that didn't.
Score: 7 (21 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 2:08 PM | Posted by : | Reply
god J do you live in a basement
Score: -1 (9 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 5:28 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Great points. Addendum to this. The mentality that 'society' espouses is that you don't need to do anything other than follow your marching orders and you will be rewarded with whatever you want. Think about everything you learn in school and through culture. Act the right way, say the right things, be a good student, buy the right things, and then, only then will you get the recognition you feel you deserve.
By this logic, Katniss is a hero because she followed the rules of the game to the letter. She didn't need to do anything else; that in it of itself makes her a hero. Even worse, the people who did things that we would normally consider heroic are branded as irrelevant because they broke the 'rules.'
What we have now as a result are several generations of people who are full of rage because they have done everything that society told them to do but still feel empty and stuck. "where is my reward?", they say. So here we are.
Score: 12 (14 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 5:47 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Alone's not accomplishing anything. People are still narcissists, and their kids likely are too. It's the same thing as Katniss, except Alone is a shadowy psychiatrist instead of a badass, etc.
Score: -3 (7 votes cast)
December 18, 2013 8:29 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Thought you all would love this:For first time, anti-terrorism law used to have Americans protesting Keystone XL pipeline arrested http (colon)//miaokuancha (dot)tumblr (dot) com/post/70344587204/thepeoplesrecord-for-first-time-anti-terrorism#comment-1168986071 The image shows a banner of Mockingjay hanging from 2nd floor saying "The Odds are never in your favor," and they are facing 10 years for terrorism under the "NEW" MO since 9-11 of "preemptive threat" which means if you FEEL threatened, then the situation or people are terrorizing you can can be arrested for inciting terrorism or inciting "proxy terrorism!" It is hilarious if it weren't true.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 19, 2013 9:14 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I hope you finish your book of porn soon.
Score: 6 (6 votes cast)
December 20, 2013 3:06 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Alone isn't holding himself out as a badass. He's not casting himself as a hero. He's a guy with a blog.
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
December 20, 2013 4:19 PM | Posted by : | Reply
There's no reason to believe Snowden casts himself as a hero, but the real point is that your criticism is silly. When you're in a position in which you find out you that your employer is doing something you believe is wrong and this employer has a history of arresting and torturing people who speak out from the inside (see Bradley Manning), what are your options? I'll tell you. They are: speak up and risk your life and career or don't speak up and let your conscience eat it. Note that getting rid of your employer is not an option. Snowden single-handedly shutting down the NSA's wiretapping program was never in the cards. The only thing you can do is speak (like Alone) and hopefully inspire the actors in the social drama to move.
I'm not saying I like it, but that's how it is in this time and it will only get worse as the technological gap increases.
Score: 6 (6 votes cast)
December 20, 2013 4:58 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Congratulations, Alone, it appears that rum is the right medication for curbing your pessimism. Pertaining to Game Theory in practice, people usually try to figure out the equilibrium conditions (strategies that will result in the best case scenarios for all parties), in order to tip the advantages towards themselves through emotional manipulation and deceptions. So whether or not you are good at math, you have failed to appreciate the fact that, not everybody wants the best for everyone, and that what this budding generation understands as virtues, are different from your ideas of virtues from way back. Kids are not blind or dumb, they have changed.
Let's continue the rum at previously established dosage?
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
December 20, 2013 5:50 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Please let me add that natural selection isn't an active process. It is nature's indifference to survival of the weak.
Score: -1 (3 votes cast)
December 20, 2013 8:12 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes. I agree. They young generation is living in Simulated Reality. No truth and not false because the dialectics of the Discourse are gone. There is only speculation and the credibility of that speculation. How Kerry got caught by Swiftboating. Kerry lived in a a different world. The GOP "ers" were creating history,manufacturing history, not following it or trying to understand its messages.We live in a world ruled by EVENTS, a discontinuous, nonlinear, non progressive, non historical world. Why capitalism is not fixable.It is irreversible.
Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
December 20, 2013 8:15 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes. The planet is indifferent to us. Much more indifferent than we are to the planet. It is this indifference that so frightened the colonists of the New World, that they HAD to master it, control it, subdue it, tame it and now we have the consequences of that fear that could not be acknowledged.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 21, 2013 3:36 PM | Posted by : | Reply
??? I apologize, for having made overly large conceptual leaps in my previous comments. What I was trying to point out is, most kids these days, win by letting their peers fail, usually by withholding information. Some may try to mislead their peers, but, misleading tends to be too active a process for the current generation of the future pillars of society. On top of that, like it or not, slim and good looking individuals who appear to have some sort of convictions , sensible or not, almost always win. This is because few people are slim and good-looking, and have personal convictions anymore.
I was merely trying to point out the current trend in winning by passivity and indifference to the plight of others. I used natural selection as an analogy because, like the current generation, nature doesn't select (so you can stop flattering yourselves). If you are reading this and this is not for you, you just haven't been passed off as out-of-context, yet, but you will be next.
Score: 7 (7 votes cast)
December 22, 2013 7:38 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I've not read the books, so I don't know how closely the movies follow, but in the first movie I would say Katniss kills 3:
1) The chick waiting under the tree (granted, you could argue not directly, but Katniss did drop the hornet-like nest on them)
2) The guy that threw the spear and killed the little girl when Katniss dodged it.
3) The District 1 guy at the end (granted, it was a bit of a mercy killing).
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 22, 2013 11:26 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Alone, you should write about the coincidences surrounding Elisa Lam and http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 23, 2013 4:38 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Alone should only write about what moves her/him.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 23, 2013 10:10 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Stop trying to move the conversation over to Reddit. I don't want to have to go over to fucking Reddit to follow the discussion.
Jesus I hate Redditors. No doubt you're farming this entire thread for your previous karma.
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 23, 2013 11:23 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I started to on Ayn Rand and then gave up. It's a free for all there.Someone suggests to take it there so they can troll you to death. I have no intention of putting good content on that site. I did find Schultz's (Peanuts Schultz) widow there who sounded as if she really were and I left her a comment I wanted to share with her. But I am outta there.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
December 24, 2013 2:08 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
If you're capable of getting trolled by anyone on Reddit then you have other problems. It's like a daycare over there compared to 4chan.
It's just silly to create a subreddit for TLP when the discussion format here is just fine.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 24, 2013 5:08 PM | Posted by : | Reply
For all you need to know about Alone and his motivations, read "Marc Maron's Mid-Life Crisis". Zaya is option No.1, making you...
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 24, 2013 9:44 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It was a matter of hijacking the thread here on Ayn Rand, but I should have known better that it was a Randian who wanted to get hits for his Randian blog. Or hers.
Score: -2 (2 votes cast)
December 25, 2013 3:45 AM | Posted by : | Reply
TLP's point is that the ethical discourse that prevails today is a guise for the language of domination. Whether X or Y is the 'better' action veils the message of the game and of 'ethics', namely, "OBEY!" Whether Katniss kills or not she is complicit in the mode of opression. That readers find themselves confronted by this point only goes to show how pervasive it is. When you find yourself nodding along with the media about the right thing to do, that is when you ought to be most suspiscious of your own thoughts and of that with which you are agreeing. Read Lacan, not whoever is dribbling talk of ethics
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 25, 2013 3:49 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes, the Foucauldian Doinating Discourse of classical Hegelian opposition. Hre's an article I just started reading on Zizek you might like: “We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom." http://www(dot)berfrois (dot)com/2013/12/zizek-and-education-antonio-garci/
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 25, 2013 6:48 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"Read Lacan, not whoever is dribbling talk of ethics"
Read what, exactly? There are tons of seminars and his thought goes through at least three distinctive changes. Not to mention that he isn't the easiest person to understand.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 25, 2013 9:47 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I posted the link.
Read Lacan but not enuf nor often enuf. Once I feel comfortable with the original I like to see what others have to say and I liked this one which is mostly on Zizek with an interesting new twist for me. Maybe not for U.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
December 25, 2013 11:17 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"But in totalitarianism, there are no individual acts-- that's the whole point of the totalitarian structure, that's what it wants, what it wants you to become."—aloneBut you also want totalitarianism no? Individual acts entails personal responsibilities. There are risks involved. So your petty ego pretends that you have no choice. You participate in the game willingly (even eagerly) while bitching and moaning self-righteously. You support the perpetuation the system, and if it falls short of oppression, you make up for it in your own mind through fiction or delusions, so when shit goes down, you are never at fault.
Score: 4 (8 votes cast)
December 25, 2013 11:42 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It's a common theme of French philosophy that you can't escape the system, because the system is society, and you are a social being. Kind of a paradox of continental philosophy: it tries for revolution while admitting it's impossible.
Thus amor fati.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 26, 2013 10:15 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Can extreme narcissists be dangerous? There's an internet narcissist who's name pops up every now and then. If you're involved in message boards about ebook publishing or reading fantasy novels, you might recognize his name--Robert Stanek. At first glance, you might consider Stanek a troll, but he's been trolling non-stop for at least ten years. The narrative he's crafted for himself, never once (that I can find) breaking character, is that he's a best selling author, winner of multiple awards, has millions of fans, and is one of the finest writers in history. That's all according to Stanek. According to everyone else, he's the worst of hack writers, writes his own reviews, and takes every chance to tear down writers he considers threats.
He recently cropped up on the kboards (formerly Kindle Boards) with a long post about his past $100 million in sales, how flattering it was to have articles that mentioned him (like in the Wall Street Journal). (Of course, when someone on the forum asked for more info on this WSJ article, he could only link to his website. She looked up the article he was referencing, and he's not even mentioned in the original.)
I looked up the symptoms of the narcissistic personality disorder on Wikipedia, and it's a check list of Stanek's behavior.
Expects to be recognized as superior and special, without superior accomplishments. (If you take a look at the evidence, Stanek is a nobody, but according to him he's been recognized as one of the greatest writers in the history of the world.)
Expects constant attention, admiration and positive reinforcement from others (Stanek's posts tend to fall into one of three categories. 1. How great I am. 2. Lecturing you on how to do X. 3. How much of a victim I am, because I'm so great.)
Envies others and believes others envy him/her (Has spent a great deal of time tearing down successful authors, accusing them of the same things he himself does, like buying Facebook fans (Robert Stanek, apparently he's really, really loved in Indonesia), faking reviews, etc. Any person who even questions him or his evidence is accused of being jealous and someone who enjoys "throwing stones at giants")
Is preoccupied with thoughts and fantasies of great success, enormous attractiveness, power, intelligence (A recent post on the kboard is about how his $100 million empire is going to double to $200 million in 2014.)
Lacks the ability to empathize with the feelings or desires of others (I've never seen him even once consider that people might have legitimate gripes about his claims. He's making extraordinary claims, but is lacking extraordinary evidence (or even ordinary evidence.))
Is arrogant in attitudes and behavior, Has expectations of special treatment that are unrealistic. (Only Robert Stanek is above reproach and should be taken at his word. Everyone else is either a fan or a someone jealous of his greatness.)
The reason I ask if he could be dangerous is because he doesn't confine his nonsense to the internet. He shows up at author book signings, has pictures taken with a real professional, posts them to his site like a press release hinting that they were doing the book signing together. (He's also made threats of violence against his critics.) He obviously needs total strangers to believe his stories, but too many people know he's a big cockadoody liar and aren't afraid to call him out on it. I worry about his children. He's posted pics on the internet and right now they're young'uns, but soon they'll be old enough to go on the internet and see the evidence for themselves. They're going to see through their father's insanity, which raises the question--how far might he go to protect his image?
tl;dr Robert Stanek is a liar and a fraud. You should definitely Google him if you're interested in Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
December 26, 2013 1:04 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Obviously he is, yes. If he does go to book signings and posts them on his site, it is up to the professional's agent to stop this in regards to that particular person. As a former professional, no I do not think he is dangerous. Here's why. A narcissist who verbalizes (and this one writes a lot)his rage is NOT going to act on it. It's the ones who do not verbalize that you need to watch. If you come across him just ask him a question with "you" in the sentence structure and that ought to set him off on a rant. Don't attack, just ask. Then he will vent for the day and his kids won't get it from him. A steam kettle, just open the vent a little.You must do this in therapy when working with them. Little by little they change. It takes years.
Score: 6 (6 votes cast)
December 26, 2013 5:00 PM | Posted by : | Reply
^ That checklist sounds a bit like me. Except I'm not quite so grandiose or intense in the delusion. I'm just young and involved in my studies of grand themes, I hope. The victomology is true: gay men in the South have legitimate gripes.
That guy sounds like a proper nutcase. Why and how he reproduced I haven't a clue.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 27, 2013 4:23 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Oh.
And.
There are no heroes.
Unless you count every human being whose very existence is a struggle, there are neither heroes nor saints. Saints are especially destructive--if you know there are "people like that" in the world then you know that you don't have to do anything yourself.
Same thing with heroes. I don't care what someone did or how badass and selfless it was. The only way you found out about it was through media and that means the media decided you needed to hear about it, which means you didn't, and the hero isn't a hero.
Did I do a good job of impersonating Alone's cynical analysis?
(and that guy who keeps talking about "mothers," what's his deal? read too much Nietzsche and applied it to the woman who bore him out of her own body?)
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
December 27, 2013 4:59 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Actually he hasn't read any of Nietzsche. I wish he would.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 29, 2013 7:34 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Wow all of this analysis is interesting. TLP, I am kind of surprised that you didn't see the second movie the way I did. I thought like you did after movie 1, although I didn't see the narcissism you see in Katniss, I did see that she was not a hero but a pragmatist. However, the second movie went psychologically to 'a whole notha leve;'. Katniss obviously had PTSD from the first game and she was strictly in survival mode, even when living back at home with all the attendant upgrades in living style. The writers and director really get PTSD and what it is like to dissociate, as a person with PTSD I got triggered about a million times but as a health care professional I was intrigued enough to stick around although by the end I was more or less fried. I now see Katniss as a person who is neither a narcissistic hero nor a passive villain. I see her as a person who is not her own, whose life is always co=opted for the purposes of others. When they hauled her up at the end and told her about the revolution and how she was the figurehead, it was another violation of Katniss, just like the games were. She wasn't asked, she was told, she was used and can be thrown away at any time. Honestly it is just as much a 'rape' of Katniss and her personhood for the revolution to co-opt and use her for their purpose of 'freedom' as it was for the hunger games and the government to co-opt and use her as a sacrificial tribute. I haven't read the books, but I hope that in the third movie Katniss sees that she will always be violated and used until she stands up for whatever it is she personally believes in and wants to support. I hope in the end Katniss wakes up and takes her life back.
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
December 30, 2013 4:05 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Mythology, Madness, and Laughter
Read this, first PhilPsycho Book in Years without depressing stuff in it.
really surprised by Markus Gabriel and co Author Zizek.
also check the Ted talk of Markus Gabriel
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 30, 2013 5:22 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I'm not sure that anyone has responded, but it seemed to me that Katniss was becoming aware of the conspiracy as well. As an observer, yeah it was really obvious. I had my own suspicions about the alliance but it became clear when Katniss noted that it made no sense that someone sacrificed herself for the sake of Peeta.
It's a little unfair to judge her for not being able to see the big picture, then, because she's also probably trying to figure out how to survive, figure out whom she can trust, and figure out what the trick behind the game is. For us, as observers, it was clear. For the other conspirators, as, well, conspirators, it was obvious. But for Katniss? Surely it can be forgiven.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 31, 2013 12:48 PM | Posted by : | Reply
People, don't apply for Stanford! They just want us to kill each other or let each other die trying to get in!
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 31, 2013 8:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
m-muh rape
m-m-muh triggers
go back to tumblr
Score: 3 (7 votes cast)
January 1, 2014 10:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
You saw this movie after having seen the first Hunger Games and knowing its flaws. You're out your $12.50. The system won again.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
January 2, 2014 11:38 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
After reading many of your comments, I get a general sense that you believe your mother is evil. However, not once have you criticized your father for not protecting you from her.
I'd wager that you've got a little bit of borderline black and white thinking going, as a result of an abusive narcissistic father convincing both you and your borderline mother that she was the source of all the families problems.
Score: 5 (9 votes cast)
January 2, 2014 12:06 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I can't tell you where to start with Lacan. I came to him through Diane Rubenstein's This Is Not A President. Before that I was reading his paper on Transference. IDK just jump in and read. If it feels right, continue. If not try another one. Or one of those Lacan made easy. Zizek is a great intro to Lacan.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
January 5, 2014 5:58 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Can extreme narcissist be dangerous?
It depends. Search this blog for posts about actual narcissist turning violent*. The common theme in all of those was that the agressor, shortly before becoming violent, found himself in the position of being exposed without being able to retreat, to mitigate the exposure and hence the shame. He had been cornered and needed to go holocaust on somebody.
So I wouldn't bank on the reasonning that, since this guy talks a lot, he can't become violent. It doesn't seem to be valid.
* Everything related to "honor killing" (and which are framed as "honor killing"), caracteristics of family annihilator, that dude that launched his plane into an IRS building, etc.
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January 5, 2014 6:32 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I haven't read the original posts by this guy. As for verbalizing and not acting out that depends. I wouldn't say that his constant trolling indicates a verbalizing that stops him. What he is doing is "pissing" on everyone. A therapist will have patients who do that and you must stop it by a perceptive intervention. To confront him as a liar just strengthens him, so that is not an option. I would ignore him as he might only act out on someone he has developed an online relationship with that he can get at. These are the people who hack you, send you malware, etc.Stay away from them.
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January 6, 2014 2:19 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Hi TLP. I am a big fan of your blog. Sorry to send this as a comment rather than an email. Could you somehow give your opinion on whether temporary physical sickness alleviates or cures mental problems? E.g. a broken arm distracts from your perpetual negative thoughts, or having the flu doesn't allow you time to obsess. The sickness jars you so once it's over, you don't return to your old thinking patterns. It's not that now you're more grateful for your health, but that your habit was interrupted. Since the mental problems were so self-absorbed, nothing external could help you (people talking to you or reading things), but something that came from your own body that happened to you physically did affect you. I think it could be both ways though: that being sick makes a person self-absorbed, but also that something like getting the flu is a chance thing and so breaks the daily routine of obsessive thinking that isn't about his body.
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January 6, 2014 10:41 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Did I ever like this comment. Psychoanalytic case studies throw an interesting light on your comment. Women who experience a great loss and who don't grieve often develop breast cancer. Also there seems to be a relation between schizophrenia and cancer. IF the schizophrenia is cured (and it can be by Modern Psychoanalytic therapy) then cancer develops. If you cure the cancer then often schizophrenia develops.Since analysts are not hooked up with big pharma and don't prescribe for their patients (it's a no-no as they want to suicide on YOUR pills)analysts are about the only ones who think deeply about these connections.
I once treated a patient sho cut herself. I was beside myself with terror.She would say that she knew just how deeply she felt the pain by how deep she cut herself. My supervising analyst said that when you cut yourself it gives you something very real to do. Cleanup the blood, bandage the cuts, go to emergency for stitches,etc. So I would think that he being who he was in the filed was probably correct and your intuition is also validated. Good work. You would make a great analyst. Have you ever thought about that?
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January 8, 2014 12:51 AM | Posted by : | Reply
The Last Psychiatrist may enjoy the book "The Decadence of Industrial Democracies" for its deconstruction of the consumer capitalist system: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12338132-the-decadence-of-industrial-democracies-volume-1?from_search=true
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January 10, 2014 12:35 PM | Posted by : | Reply
All of these criticisms of Katniss' behavior are true, but the idea that it makes THG a "sexist fairy tale" is hyperbole. I don't even think Katniss is invalidated as a strong female character despite the fact that she lacks agency for two movies and falls neatly in line with what the totalitarian system expects of her-- it simply makes her a poor role model for teenage girls, which I think is an important difference.
Yes, the movie is marketed as though she's kicking ass and lassoing bad guys like a Silver Age Wonder Woman, but I think the text of the movie itself makes it extremely clear that it is in agreement with your analysis of the character, rather than the marketers'. The threatening meeting with President Snow, and his glowering down from on high, a literal patriarch shaking his head in disapproval that her charade is not good enough is explicitly disempowering. It's clear that the other tributes are the ones formulating the clever plans. At the end of the movie, when she comes upon a meeting room where the male characters who have masterminded her escape and intend her use as a figurehead finally reveal their plan, they explicitly say, "We thought you too short-sighted, blinded by the system, and impulsive to trust with the truth, and we were right." That is not the movie selling Katniss as an action heroine, when every effort by the director subverts that message.
No, Katniss is a YA Don Draper, visually appealing as a hero with her fiery dress as her grey flannel suit. But the bow in her hand doesn't empower her to see beyond the system that created her any more than Don is liberated by the Old-Fashioned in his, and the text of the movie hammers this home. Yes, this is ironic in the face of their respective product tie-ins at Subway, or CoverGirl, or Banana Republic, or the section of the audience who ignore the repeated glaring visual cues of powerlessness and their character's flaws, looking only to the image they see as aspirational. But that's not to say that all the fans are without the ability to see what is made plainly obvious by the creators, or that you are the first to notice.
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January 10, 2014 1:29 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I like your analysis so much. With any work of "art" - not sure THG is art - there are at least 2 levels. The content of the work and the spirit of the work. Or say the literal and the imaginative or metaphoric. Those criticizing Katniss for not being a feminist role model - or not enough of a one - are focusing on the LITERAL and the literal is the lowest form of understanding. d-o-g = dog. Probably most of these people learned to read via a phonics method which results in good word pronouncers but not so good in comprehension, so we are reaping the Rudolph Flesh hysteria of Why Johnny Can't Read shit.
She's the figurehead and she can be intimidated because she has hostages: her family. The family can be both your strength as a revolutionary and it can also be your weakness.
"Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, everyone you love is a hostage, sapping your courage and corrupting your judgement." Orson Scott Card - Empire
Stig Larsson never married his life partner because he did such dangerous journalism. Then when Girl With a Dragon Tattoo series was such a phenomenon after his death, his family fought her for the money and their apartment as he died suddenly without a will.
Now Liz Salander is a heroine.
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January 12, 2014 2:29 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Alone, have you seen the new Spike Jonze flick, "Her"? Narcissism like you wouldn't believe
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January 12, 2014 2:49 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I haven't seen "her", but, being an artificial intelligence enthusiast, I'd say whatever love evoked in a relationship with an artificially intelligent agent (in the unforeseeable future), is composed of projections that can fully qualify as delusion. Now that's totally narcissistic!
Thank you, curio, for bringing this up!
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January 12, 2014 3:00 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Wh...I meant to reply to Curio above. Have I had too much to drink already? I do tequila, by the way, rum is for baking, no?
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January 12, 2014 3:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Where did this idea come from that a hero or heroine in a movie or book IS SUPPOSED TO BE A ROLE MODEL FOR GIRLS - and boys. Why is Katniss supposed to be a role model. She is a character in a story that was made into a movie? What is all this ping-pong idiotic interpretation even for!
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January 12, 2014 3:21 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
" whatever love evoked in a relationship with an artificially intelligent agent (in the unforeseeable future), is composed of projections that can fully qualify as delusion."
Well this is why Freud said that love was a madness of sorts - forgetting his exact definition.
All "love" is a projection of the ego ideal on to the object.This is what the beginning of transference is. A projection, a positive projection. Only later will the negative projection kick in.So initially we have the positive narcissistic transference, then later the negative narcissistic transference. This is the important point in the analysis. When the patient focuses their anger on you, the analyst, the work begins in earnest.To release creativity in art, intelligence, skill or anything, the anger has to be worked through. (Think about Jonny.)At this point in the analysis nothing you do is right and the patient must verbalize this and the analyst must make the proper interventions to interpret the anger, accept it, welcome it is the best, so the patient can work through it in their own individual way whatever that may be. To verbalize it,not to act on it.It's all over the place on this blog. Some are quite content to stay in the positive narcissistic transference with alone forever. Others feel comfortable expressing their negative feelings to alone.And some express both feelings thus acknowledging that alone is an individual person with many different feelings and ways of expressing them, and no longer your transference object.
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January 12, 2014 3:23 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Reminds me of that wonderful movie with Ryan Gosling Lars and the Real Girl.Do see it.
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January 12, 2014 3:25 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It is for a better future.
Art imitates life, and life imitates art, not that there's any literary value in THG. Please replace instances of "art" above with "fiction".
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January 12, 2014 3:29 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The Hunger Games is a masterpiece of clairvoyant political fiction on confinement, Simulated Reality, and the end of it all Virtual Reality.In that sense it is "art" the way Ayn Rand's fiction was "art" to prophesise and warn us.No one has fictionalized Foucault and Baudrillard better.
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January 12, 2014 3:30 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
And I mean THG for young adults and Ayn Rand for supposedly older readers. Maybe.
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January 12, 2014 4:31 PM | Posted by : | Reply
On an unrelated note, TLP should write something about Spike Jonze's new film Her.
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January 12, 2014 6:10 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Someone beat Alone to it, though this article only scratches the surface.
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January 12, 2014 11:56 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
How is the movie "Her" narcissistic?
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January 13, 2014 11:15 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Theodore Twombly sees himself as the main character in his own story, and only relates to others as they reflect his own identity. There is a lot of talk of love in "Her", but it's all ego gratification. There's no sacrifice to speak of, just self-aggrandizement and a lot of talk of "finding myself".
Theodore gets defensive with his (soon to be) ex-wife when she suggests he can't handle real emotions, real people. He knows that Samantha (the super sultry-voiced computer he "falls in love" with) is a mirror, not a person.
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January 13, 2014 11:23 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Thanks! I think the problem is that the term "strong female characters" gets bandied about quite a bit when there's some ambiguity there. Some people are saying we need more female power fantasies and role models, while some are saying we need more complex portrayals of girls and women in fiction. I think we need both, but we need to disambiguate which one we're talking about at any given moment.
I think it's a good point, and crucial to the character of Katniss, that she relates back to her mother and sister. They're hostages later on, but they also provide the motivation for her volunteering, the act that sets the whole thing in motion. As you say, they are what turn Katniss into an accidental revolutionary. Katniss isn't always likable, but her original motivation being small-scale and personal makes her more relatable. The hero doesn't often set out at the beginning of their journey to destroy the corrupt system, and it's a little knee-jerk to label anything short of that as "sexist."
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January 13, 2014 2:03 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
When we demand "role models" from our YA books and films, then we turn what might be art into propaganda. Like early soviet art. And Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Olypiad. I think they will argue forever whether her films are art or propaganda and IMO in her work the two cannot be separated.The first Hunger Games movie was close to art but Catching Fire was Scummit Summit influenced and pure new model of filmmaking and box office. Everything comes at you. NO contemplation. No seduction. Just action folks and this is what I object to CF.
Asking for or demanding role models ought to be squelched before it gets any worse.
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January 13, 2014 2:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Most of what passes for love is exactly what you said, computer simulation or real life simulation, it amounts to about the same thing.
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January 13, 2014 3:33 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The scary part is, despite apparently being some sort of cultural critique (those self-absorbed smart phone users!) the movie never rises above its narcissistic characters.
As TLP, Zizek, and most other people know, movies are a window to the culture. I hadn't been to the theaters in a while, and frankly I'm worried.
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January 13, 2014 3:52 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Back off from the characters for a minute the way one does when reading Atlas Shrugged and look at the system portrayed. In Hunger Games we have our greatest danger fictionalized with "confinement" in the districts.Then we have Simulated Reality in Panem the capitol. finally we have the final consequence which is Virtual Reality - from which there is no escape - in The Games where no one knows what is true or false, good or bad. Katniss picks people based on her own idea of credibility. The ones she knows less about she is distrustful of. Or partially distrustful.
The adulation of American Hustle is a travesty IMO.It was a cynical choice.
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January 13, 2014 5:08 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
No, we don't "need" both. You are not entitled to it, nor are artists obligated to supply you with better female roles in films.
Protip: filmmakers do not have to pander to feminist sensibilities when making a film. They don't have to pander to ANYBODY'S sensibilities when making a film. They make a film for their own reasons, and if you don't enjoy it, watch something else. By all means apply the Bechdel Test, but don't be surprised when you end up with a handful of worthwhile films left, because there really isn't a market for such things. If people are that upset about it then go out and make a worthwhile film where two women talk to each other about something other than a man, or vote with your wallet (or purse ) and only support films of that type so that more are encouraged.
The somewhat lamentable truth is that nobody wants to watch a fucking movie about women talking about women things and doing whatever the fuck it is women do.
Their lives revolve around men. The fact that so many films fail the Bechdel Test is an example of art imitating reality. If you disagree, maybe you should go back to Tumblr and write an angry self righteous blog entry about it.
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January 13, 2014 5:24 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Blue Is the Warmest Color.
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January 13, 2014 5:54 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Is only one movie that stands out in recent times.
How many people out of the general public (who are not cinephiles) have seen it or even heard of it?
How many people who do belong to that group saw it because of the explicit lesbian sex scenes? How much of its fame does it owe to that?
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January 13, 2014 6:56 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It won best at Cannes.
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January 13, 2014 7:57 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I'm aware of that, but it has little to do with the questions in my post, nor with the original point.
People seem to think they're entitled to strong female characters. They're not. As if filmmakers, musicians, and artists are obligated to pander to their individual sensibilities. It's an example of people letting their ideologies get in the way of their enjoyment of art. If it wasn't, shit like this wouldn't exist:
And what's funny about this is if they took the time to seek out films with strong female characters, or trans characters, or whatever the social justice warrior flavor of the week manufactured victim is, they'd find them. They're out there.
But that would be too much work, better than to just nod your head in approval at the new article on Jezebel about how the latest mainstream and aesthetically bankrupt superhero movie demeans women and offers no good female role models.
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January 13, 2014 8:04 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
We are just arguing with those who prefer propaganda films.
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January 14, 2014 8:48 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I just caught this article on the Psychiatric Times blog. This must be Alone, or someone who plagiarized pretty heavily from him. Anyway, loved the blog article and the discussion afterward.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/couch-crisis/maintenance-certification-exam-fetish?GUID=38935BBD-4B34-442A-8DC3-FA6F50B0F13C&rememberme=1&ts=11012014
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January 14, 2014 2:00 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Great article and thanks so much. Obviously no one on the board knows anything about Lacan who would have loved playing with this in a seminar. Here's the comment I left there.
"Reading through Jean Baudrillard, the exam is a simulacrum. The signifiers have separated from the signified and "float" - as currencies float against each other, talking to each other. The simulacrum is a "floating sign" acting as a mask asserting competence while that competence is being read as "empty," an empty sign. "
The Global Center for Advanced Studies has just opened. Check it out. My friend from Bosnia is doing a reading of Lacan's 5th Lecture there with others online translating it into English/French and into Bosnian.
PhD will cost you 15,000 only if you don't get a scholarship and they know where to send you to get them.Zizek is teaching there, Clayton Crockett, Creston Davis who helped start it and Badiou is now teaching a course there. Credit or non-credit and open enrollment.
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January 14, 2014 2:03 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Again thanks so much. I put it on my fb page so GCAS people will see it.
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January 15, 2014 12:42 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Style is almost identical. A quick search yields near confirmation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard
"Edward Teach (c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard..."
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January 15, 2014 8:05 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's Alone. Now if he'd only get back to the blog!
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January 20, 2014 3:21 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I think Alone misunderstood the film.
Katniss is meant to be a symbol, not a heroine. There's various clues in the film that she's actually very self-centered and untrusting, but most people (see ploteriat-class revolutionaries) aren't aware of that side of her.
You know, just like in real life: when people put their hope in leaders like Obama, Putin, Chavez, Napoleon, Stalin, Washington who are/were far from perfect?
She's meant to be a badass and a heroine for the fictional people from the fictional districts, sure... but that's not necessarly the same case for the people viewing this movie.
Its heavily implied that the actual "organic-intellectual" revolutionaries like Plutarch are just using her because they KNOW the masses like her.
The main theme of this franchsise is precisely that: propaganda war.
Its all about the appereances, not the content.
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January 20, 2014 3:53 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Alone's post was Alone's reading of the film. Yours is a different reading and mine still different.Difference and Repetition by Deleuze. I liked your reading BTW.
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January 20, 2014 10:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes, but some readings are wrong. Don't let all those continentals turn you into a relativist!
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January 21, 2014 2:03 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
THG is a prescient look at our future of confinement, Simulated Reality and Virtual Reality. It follows these events perfectly. Foucault says that confinement and surveillance is our greatest danger now. Baudrillard details it. And others of course. The plot is not so important in THG, but it is good for the masses to think Revolution and revolt. It gives them hope. But when Katniss shoots the arrow into the membrane of the Virtual Reality world, that is the MOMENT, the event. She reveals the invisible.
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January 21, 2014 2:05 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
But my comments are revealing IMO and you haven't noticed them. To speak of anyway.
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January 21, 2014 2:10 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
If you disagree with a reading then you just say, "My reading differs from x's reading" and go on. No tearing away point by point by point, quoting and arguing.
You can say "My reading agrees with X's reading and I am considering further about ............ to extend what X has said."
Or any other way you want to say it. The idea is you don't get trapped in the Dominating Discourse of classical Hegelian dialectics, where you ping pong back and forth interpreting, reinterpreting, blah blah blah until kingdom come.
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January 21, 2014 2:14 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Because they don't see how their reality has been stolen in homeopathic doses. They haven't read Baudrillard's The Perfect Crime.It is invisible to them.
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January 21, 2014 2:21 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You have fallen for the sound bites. Continental philosophy is NOT relativistic. In fact it is the most austerely ethical thinking today and is the foundation of the radical theologists, who are an awesome group.No dogma. Just because it moves out of the Dominating Discourse of classical Hegelian dialectics of oppositions doesn't mean it is relativistic. In saying that you are trying to move it back into the frame of the Dominating Discourse.Watch Russell Brand deal with it in his interviews. Watch Cody deal with it with Glenn Beck on his 3-D printer gun.
Listen to how Snowden expresses himself. He doesn't fall into their frame.
These are the most ethical people around.
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January 21, 2014 2:49 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I've read the last paragraph of the OP about six times and I still don't get it. Could someone walk me through it? Cheers.
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January 21, 2014 10:23 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I've tried and tried and tried with those continentals... do you have any good links to web-resources or books that make their ideas digestible?
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January 21, 2014 5:46 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes I do. Me. I am writing especially for you. If you know Ayn Rand in this blog post I am reading Rand and Foucault together. http://aynrand2 (dot) blogspot (dot)com/2012/05/ayn-rand-michel-foucault-and-atlas (dot ) html?zx=a2ae7337f2bc3029
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January 21, 2014 10:46 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Thanks, I thought you might blog. Ayn Rand, really? She at least strives for clarity and consistency, but unregulated free market capitalism? Really?
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January 21, 2014 10:52 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes she wanted complete separation of govt and economics for the same reason as separation of church and state. Unregulated free market economy. Zizek names this as an over-identification with capitalism, not capitalism"light" not "decaffeinated" capitalism. When her acolyte Greenspan carried this out as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, we got the derivative collapse of 2008. Now we are in the era of the end of capitalism but its ghost will be around for a long time. Rand took everything to extremes, following her only master, Nietzsche.
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January 22, 2014 5:46 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"When her acolyte Greenspan carried this out as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, we got the derivative collapse of 2008."
You describe mercantilism, then label it capitalism. This does not bode well for discussions of free-markets and limiting government intrusions into people's wallets. Rand wrote philosophical fiction and non-fiction. She was not great on economics and she despised libertarians who are by and large much more economically literate. Libertarianism has now been co-opted just like the term liberal before it, but a cursory glance at the writings of it's stalwarts Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard would dispel the confusion between mercantilism and free-markets (capitalism - a term coined by another economic illiterate, Marx.)
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January 22, 2014 7:37 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You disagree with Marx? You despise him? You name call him. Illiterate? Marx? I mean have you read anything by him? Whatever he was, he was not illiterate.
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January 22, 2014 7:48 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Marxian economics can be safely contested. Marx's literacy and generally outstanding knowledge of culture cannot be contested.
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January 23, 2014 4:52 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Guys, could someone help me out with the last paragraph of the OP? I've read it a bunch of times and can't make head or tail of it. To clarify, I'm talking about this bit:
"There are some earnest attempts to apply Game Theory to the Hunger Games, what is the optimal solution? But unfortunately the people who do this are bad at math. Let me try to explain. If 2 tributes are to be randomly selected from a District of, say, 1000 people, then the probability of you being killed is...... 100%. You can double check me if you want, but the math is correct. And-- and this is the point-- the math becomes correct if and only if you think it isn't."
It doesn't seem to make sense on any level. Either you're chosen for the Games (from a pool of 1,000) or you're not. If you're NOT chosen the odds of you NOT being killed in the Games are 100%, because, well, you're not in the Games. If you ARE chosen the odds are, obviously, much higher, but they can't possibly be 100% because every Games has one winner. It seems to me that the math can't possibly be correct. What (if anything) am I missing?
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January 23, 2014 7:51 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
economically illiterate
sheesh I would have thought that was obvious given the astounding application of his ideas.
the man had a terrible premise of value grounded objectively in labor hours. idea experiment: i dig a hole that takes me 3,000 hours of labor; i should be able to sell that for a fortune, right?
anyway...I agree that his social analysis has merit but not from the perspective of economics.
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January 23, 2014 8:12 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
OK Anonymous. You have answered with simplistic sound bites. What I expected, and why I said what I said.Thank you for proving my point.
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January 23, 2014 8:31 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Industrialize that hole-digging and take into account feeding your worker for 3,000 hours, and yes, the labor transmutes into value.
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January 23, 2014 8:35 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's too simplistic a sound bite. This is why scholars have spent their entire careers on Marx. BECAUSE you can't understand Marx in a sound bite.
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January 23, 2014 9:30 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's a good question and not something I'm confident I understand myself. It may be that what Alone is saying is that even by calculating the odds in your favor, you're dehumanising the thousand people in your District and thus allowing the system/game to dehumanise you. This might not sound all that horrible (it is), but you're not the only one calculating those odds. If everybody in the District has that probability in their head, they've resigned themselves to the probability that the system let them have. They have accepted a pittance of "good odds" and whether or not they get chosen, they are still playing the game and mistaking inaction and servility for gaming the system.
In this interpretation, "being killed" is probably not supposed to be taken entirely literally. It could mean that by accepting the odds of the system, you're setting yourself up to accept anything that they do to you (including eventually being killed). Or that you're being killed in the sense that you're allowing yourself zero agency, etc.
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January 24, 2014 9:26 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Time to come back Alone, take a break from the book if you feel bogged down. There is an audience here waiting for you.
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January 24, 2014 2:34 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Alone - where's the book? You've been talking about it for years, is it anywhere near finished?
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January 24, 2014 2:54 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Value is the price negotiated and received for the product of labor. It is nothing else. If I can sell a hole for $1 or $1,000,000 it is not relevant that it took me 3000 hours to dig it.
The only relevance is the agreed upon selling price.
The values imputed to the product are subjective to the buyer and seller. The buyer might value his 3000 hours and the completed hole at $1,000,000 but if the highest bid for the hole is $1 then the seller's expectation of the demand for his product is completely out of sync with what the market is offering in general. This is the uncertainty that an entrepreneur must deal with.
The truth is that most people don't need holes; even if you tricked someone into paying $1,000,000 for a "magic" hole by lying to them, it doesn't change that the market, in general, has no use for million dollar holes.
You talk about industrializing the hole digging. Fine, if someone is planning an office building, a hole will need to be dug to lay foundation. But that is a market response to a specific demand. Holes, in general, do not sell for the hours of labor that went into them. They are contracted for on the basis of the subjective value of the product to the supply of hole-diggers on the market. Digging a hole is not ipso facto a valuable product.
As to SeymourBlogger, you decry soundbites but this is a forum on a blog for pop psychology. What kind of treatment do you expect to get of an intellectual wasteland that Marx has proven to be. Communism fails at the premise, in no small part due to his lack of understanding of human nature and economics. His utopian pillars of communistic societies were predicted to fail based on his faulty premises and they proved to fail after countless, horrible real world applications. They failed the same way all collective societies (socialist, fascist, communist, etc...) will fail. Without private ownership of the means of production price discovery can not occur and thus resources can not be efficiently allocated. In short, scarcity causes famine, stagnation, greater authoritarianism and ultimately death. Read some Cantillon, Turgot, Bastiat, Bohm-Bawerk, Menger, Mises and Rothbard for some quality analysis on the economics of human action. Their premises are sound which keeps them relevant when scholarly non-sense like Adam Smith, Keynes, Marx and Friedman rule the day.
Thomas Kuhn was right about scientific revolutions and the backwaters that political and economic science have fallen into today are proof of it.
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January 24, 2014 5:56 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
There are plenty of million dollar holes around - even billion dollar holes. They just don't look like holes. They are camouflaged, masked to look like something else.
SeaWorld is one. It is a Gulag for dolphins where we can go watch them slowly die trying to entertain us to get fed. If they get mead and kill one of us then they are locked in a cage and their semen is pumped out of them. To make dolphin producing factories out of them.There is no need for this "hole" but a DEMAND HAS BEEN CREATED to convince our children that they NEED to see this SPECTACLE because their friends have seen it and TV ads come on to show us how wonderful it is to torture animals for our amusement.
But hey, that's capitalism. There's a product in the ocean, let's capture it and sell it to the highest bidder. I think Dubai got the little albino one the other day at Taiji Cove.
And honey, read Foucault. Far more so than Kuhn who is just a beginner compared to the Continental philosophers.
Your Rand analysis is straight up John Galt.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
January 24, 2014 5:58 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
And if you think alone is pop psychology you haven't been reading alone. Go read his ones on drugs. A few years ago so you might not have been around here then.
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January 24, 2014 6:15 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Mises is nonsense. I assume your father owns his own business.
"Communism fails at the premise, in no small part due to his lack of understanding of human nature and economics."
Marx's theories of human nature are pretty sound. You'll find he didn't like utopian communists--those were the other communists of his day, not Marxists--and predicted that capitalism is better than any other form of wealth distribution, but due to structural inequalities, is itself doomed to negation thus producing an equal power structure. The logic in it is based on the notion that society exists as an emergent property, not as some mythical collectivity. Society, alas, does exist, and it functions fairly predictably, as your economists will note. Nothing Marx did directly related to those who misread and capitalized on historical misery in order to enact their own murderous regimes.
And plenty an entrepreneur has been ruined by reading and applying Mises. Good luck--I hope I work for the government.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 24, 2014 7:43 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's another way of saying: "The only way to win is not to play."
If you think there's a chance you'll beat the odds, you'll play the game the way it's designed to be played. But do that, and you condemn yourself and everyone else to lose. While the game goes on...
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
January 24, 2014 7:52 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Marx's theories of human nature are pretty sound.
I think this single sentence from Marx sums up all the problems facing any kind of political or economic system. Until this evil is eliminated from Society, it's going to need to remain awfully polite (so fcuking rude, if you think about it).
"...from the whore to the Pope, there is a mass of such scum."
(Karl Marx, on the service sector)
The problem with selling pain relief or protection, whether you're talking about the Church, the State, even less organised crime syndicates, the advertising industry, entertainment media, doctors, lawyers, mechanics or your mother, is the conflict-of-interest represented by the capacity for whomever controls Supply to create the Demand. If you're selling pain relief, you need pain to relieve. If you're selling protection, you're going to be the one people need to be protected from.
The medical industry makes money off sick people who are treated routinely without being cured. Healthy people are terrible customers.
The advertising industry makes money by making people feel bad about themselves so that they need to buy the pain-relieving product. Happy people are terrible consumers.
The military makes money by setting up needless conflict or rigging phoney wars like the Cold one fought against Americans and Russians by their respective governments.
Mechanics make money by telling you that your [something you don't understand] requires urgent fixing. It will be a safety issue.
All of Society is making money by inflicting pain to sell pain relief. Until humans stop rewarding those who make them suffer,they will continue to pay for pain to be inflicted. Only truth can save this world but women want to mutilate their slaves after selling themselves to men who treat their malicious abusers Right (like whores).
Men need to compete for sex.
Women do not need to compete for sex.
Women feared competition and thought ahead, mutilating girls genitals, emotions and minds. Women compete to induce artificial desire (suffering for manipulation and extortion). There's no economic system that can carry the service sector's needy malice. If it's not addressed, Humanity will be made to suffer until The End.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
January 24, 2014 9:44 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I wrote a thesis on Mandeville's Fable of the Bees. Marx liked him. He describes what you describe here, though more poetically, less angsty.
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January 25, 2014 7:31 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Are you sure about that? I've just read Fable of the Bees three times along with some analysis and commentary; and unless I'm having a really bad day, it's got nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
I'm not talking about austerity. I'm talking about evil, Supply manufacturing the Demand for services which are not needed. The imposition of Pain on innocents by those who wish to peddle Pain Relief. I'm talking Cannibalism. Hijack. Extortion.
I can't see how Fable of the Bees is connected?
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 25, 2014 1:20 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57PWqFowq-4
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January 25, 2014 6:09 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
IDK. Haven't read it.
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January 25, 2014 6:19 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WzqyO-wIMI Part 1 of 7 parts of a movie about Wittgenstein by Derek Jarman, his last film while dying and almost blind of AIDS with $200,000. With Tilda Swinton. A labor of love by everyone involved.
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January 26, 2014 12:28 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I agree with most of these points, but I think that although Katniss' pacifism was futile for most of the story, it ultimately facilitated the survival of two champions, rather than one. She could never have planned this at the start, so it doesn't strengthen a case for her agency, but I believe it is worth noting that her nonviolent protest did indeed have a tangible effect.
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January 27, 2014 4:35 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The best take on the Fable,
"Hutcheson's most impressive achievement was his sharp rebuttal of the satiric Bernard de Mandeville (1670–1733), whose enormously popular Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Public Benefits was published in 1714, and expanded and reprinted in several editions over the next 15 years.[2] In a pre-Physiocratic, proto-Keynesian piece of mischief, the Fable maintained that the vice of luxury, no matter how deplorable, performs the important economic function of maintaining the prosperity of the economy. Many historians, especially F.A. von Hayek, have held Mandeville to be a forerunner of Smithian laissez-faire, since Smith held that individual self-interest is harmonized with the interests of all through the operation of competition and the free market. But the intent and the analysis are very different, for Mandeville stressed the alleged paradox of "private vice, public benefits," and the "benefit" was to come through the pre-Keynesian mechanism of consumption spending. Mandeville, furthermore, did not in any sense draw laissez-faire conclusions from this analysis; on the contrary, in a Letter to Dion (1732) published shortly before his death, Mandeville insisted that not the free market but the "wisdom" and "dexterous management of a skilful politician" are needed to transform private vices into public gain.
Mandeville's work, furthermore, was virtually the living embodiment of what the 19th-century French laissez-faire economist Frédéric Bastiat would call the "broken-window fallacy." Mandeville not only defended the importance of luxury but also of fraud, as providing work for lawyers, and theft, for having the virtue of employing locksmiths. And then there was Mandeville's classically imbecilic defence, in his Fable of the Bees, of the Great Fire of London:
The Fire of London was a great Calamity, but if the Carpenters, Bricklayers, Smiths, and all, not only that are employed in Building but likewise those that made and dealt in the same Manufactures and other Merchandizes that were Burnt, and other Trades again that got by them when they were in full Employed, were to Vote against those who lost by the Fire; the Rejoicings would equal if not exceed the Complaints.[3]
"Keynesianism" gone mad; or rather, carried to its consistent conclusion.
Mandeville's defence of the "vice" of luxury was enough to outrage both the rational economist and the Presbyterian in Francis Hutcheson. In rebuttal, in a prefigurement of Say's law, he pointed out that "income not spent in one way will be spent in another and if not wasted in luxury will be devoted to useful prudent purposes." Luxurious spending, then, is scarcely necessary for economic prosperity. In fact, he went on, it is the thrifty and the industrious who provide prosperity by supplying goods to the public. Declared Hutcheson: the "good arising to the public is in no way owing to the luxurious, intemperate or proud but to the industrious, who must supply all customers." Ridiculing Mandeville, the ordinarily sober Hutcheson riposted: "Who needs to be surprised that luxury or pride are made necessary to public good, when even theft and robbery are supposed by the same author [Mandeville] to be subservient to it, by employing locksmiths?" The money saved by not spending on luxury (or locks) would be profitably employed elsewhere, unless all other wants had been totally saturated, that is, "unless all men be already so well provided with all sorts of convenient utensils … that nothing can be added.""
-Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith v.1
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
January 27, 2014 5:04 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Katniss is always coming from the Symbolic Order. The commenters mostly come from questions in the Order of Production and wanting to know why she wasn't in the OOP doing X or Y.
Because SEDUCTION is the only attribute that cannot be produced, so it is the only out in the Order of Production or in Simulated Reality where Katniss is. Seduction cannot be planned, predicted, and is a surprise, a challenge. This is Katniss and her great appeal.
So easy to understand when you think differently. I don't know if this link will help or not. There's another one there on Hunger Games also. http://moviesandfilm.blogspot.com/2012/04/hunger-games-and-katniss-everdeen.html
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January 27, 2014 5:16 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I once spent an evening with the Rothbards at one of his informal seminars. I too was enamored of him at the time. But quoting his writing is not going to change anyone.
There is mostly nothing in the Austrian School to accommodate the rampant CREATION of needs,wants and desires among the masses. Like endless toys dangled in front of an infant. No end to them. They can always catch the greed of your eye or ear or skin or or or or.
This attentiveness to detail is why Marx in his Grundrisse - before Capital - wrote that capitalism is IRREVERSIBLE. It will continue and devour everything - including the planet it depends upon.Like Ayn Rand (who also knew this but didn't know she knew)both writers opted for the Happy Ending. Marx with his dictatorship of the proletariat and Rand with The Valley.
But there is no Happy Ending. DeLillo sees this in his Cosmopolis altho Cronenberg ducked it.
Rothbard was for taking everything you could from the state to weaken it. He lived in a large, rent subsidized apt in NYC and this was his answer when - purist Randian that I was - I asked hi why he lived in a rent subsidized apt.His problem was that he didn't see how you got corrupted yourself in doing that. That you didn't want to pay market rates afterward. I still don't and I never have, altho when I had real estate of my own, I wanted market rates from renters. Otherwise I couldn't keep it all afloat. And that's what I did, keep it all afloat, not flourishing, because that takes many many many years.Your whole life as you keep going on to the next deal.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
January 29, 2014 11:20 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Everything you wrote is true, in my opinion, except the part about Suzane Whatshername not knowing what kind of character she made. If you had read the third book, you would have seen that the first two were designed to reel in young readers and that only in the third third of the last book do we see the point of the series, which is that heroic behaviour doesnt exist and that it is just selfish in nature. Everything Katniss does is a direct result of a conspiracy made by a new kind of corrupt system trying to take over the old one. Katniss only understands this at the very end, and then she does the only actually useful thing in the whole series, and even then her motivation is selfish. She is not the rolemodel in the books, the books were written to have no rolemodels. They were made to trick young adult fiction readeres into understanding how manipulation and propaganda works.
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January 31, 2014 3:49 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
... not once have you criticized your father for not protecting you from her.
No, you blind fool. Have you eyes but cannot see? My father was utterly useless, so why would I have a problem with him?
My father didn't bring me to this world to suffer. I was brought here to make him suffer. My mother would say: "You were our glue." I vaguely understood. My mother was malicious and it's the difference between being worthless (like my father) and being worth less than worthless. If you struggle with the complexity of something this simple, you have a severely mutilated mind.
It was not my father's job to protect me from the world. It was his privilege to give his children (men have four or five billion) the knowledge and truth they need to protect themselves.
"Of course, men should take care of everyone but family comes first."
- mothers
Nonsense. Why would one family be worth more than another family? That's whore logic and it's the reason humans fight wars. There is nothing biological about men exclusively caring for a specific woman's children. Men are biologically coded to take care of all children. The meanest, baddest biker will turn into a teddy bear when a cute child requests their help; women noticed this and started adopting childlike or infantile traits to gain competitive edge in their frenzied obsession with exploiting men. Men compete for sex (natural). Women compete for artificial male desire (unnatural). When women infantilized themselves, they threw children under the bus. There is nothing complex about respondent (Pavlovian) conditioning. If you associate cute with sex, children are going to get raped by men conditioned to be aroused by cute.
Pavlov's dog (men) was conditioned to salivate (become aroused) by ringing a bell (cute child) which had been associated with food (sex).
As you read this, paedophilia is being conditioned into the minds of men by a billion evil women adopting childlike traits to exploit the male biological instinct to selfishly care for and protect innocent children. Inhumane women have stolen the biological protection mechanism afforded to the offspring of every mammal species, so now human children are being raped by women.
So what else is new.
____________
Lying is selfless. It is in the selfish interests of everyone to give children the truth they need to take us all into the stars. This is so simple, I'm not sure how anyone could get confused but then I'm not a woman.
So I'm not a perverted, unnatural abomination with a mutilated mind and a repressed-obsession with sex.
"Men are pigs. All they think about is sex."
- women, hilariously revealing truth (men exploit all value)
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 4:35 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Hi.
Some thots for you. Assange's mother took him to The Family in Australia and had another baby son by a man there. As that broke up she feared he would take her young son so she took Assange (diff father who disappeared before he was born)and younger son on the run. They kept moving and living in all diff places to get away.I thought of you.
Kristen Stewart's mother Jules Stewart in an interview said, "I didn't raise by children as children. I raised them to become adults." She has neither put obstacles in her daughter's way nor blabbed anything about her personal life.
Yes many women have a child to tie the father to them. It doesn't work now as well as it used to.
I agree with your conditioning of infantile - cute - sex to shape men to be turned on by children. The type of woman that is considered beautiful by the ads in the zines is a woman with a a vapid face, large plump lips and vacant eyes that see but do not judge. A baby's eyes. They just look at you like dogs do. (Cats are something else.)Graham Greene the writer wrote a piece on this about Shirley Temple and studio exploitation of her sexuality in her movies and the magazine was hit by such a huge lawsuit that it folded and Greene had to go to Mexico to avoid extradition for an arrest on defaming the brand of Shirley Temple. I liked to this long ago here. Anyway Greene in his writing often refers to a woman's mouth as an "unweaned" mouth. And this is what is considered a beautiful mouth at the present time. One with full wet lips like a baby's all primed and meant for sucking. When they were babies whenever they got fussy the pacifier was put in their mouths training them to be the future blow job queens of the universe. Philip Roth the writer said that modern women are experts in fellatio to a degree never before encountered in history. Why would anyone want to get married.
I think I had something else to say to you but I forget.
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 7:27 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Women compete for artificial male desire (unnatural)
I will start by defining "Women" as adults that bear morphologically distinct (female) characteristics relative to men and are psychologically mature relative to girls. Additionally, I will contrast this with your some-time-ago statement(s) indicating: (both paraphrased as follows) that most adult females are psychologically immature girls, yet it is given that some women do exist. Of this small percentage of women, let us assume that a few of them are in committed lesbian relationships. Consider:
1. Women compete for male desire
2. Lesbians do not compete for male desire
Therefore, lesbians are not women. Et nunc:
1. Girls are psychologically immature
2. Women are psychologically mature
3. Competing for artificial male desire is psychologically immature
Therefore, girls compete for artificial male desire. Next:
1. Competing for artificial male desire is unnatural
2. Women compete for artificial male desire
3. Lesbians do not compete for artificial male desire
Therefore, lesbians are not unnatural.
********
Help me out here.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 9:01 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes but it's important to distinctly clarify that women are acting with (malicious) agency. They will (in the same breath) claim that they are being infantilized by men's preferences (they're so stupid, they've misread children's biological protection as a preference for their infantilization) and that the Patriarchy is attempting to patronise them by declaring they lack agency (ostensibly as a pretext for withholding the equality they've never wanted because men have always given them everything they demanded / extorted).
You can't say they have agency and you can't say they don't because they're batshit insane and clearly Know Best, simultaneously. Idiotic, sex-deprived men gave them the future to care for and now we don't have one.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 1:01 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Help me out here.
Glen, I am the first to concede I am an inept writer and I often cringe at seeing what I've written whilst sleep deprived or exuberant. But when I write badly, people like you are who I have in mind when I try to note every exception, clarify everything, include qualifications for every generalisation and I end up crossing all my i's and dotting all my t's and everything goes pear shaped.
You need to help yourself. Though I'm not in the league of Alone - who is likely an outlier (from the distribution of outliers) - I have always been a world-class thinker. I've never been a writer. Many poker players learned about my thinking the hard way. Many readers learned about my writing under similar duress. Readers like you make writing incredibly hard because you're not looking to improve your mind, you're just looking to haggle over what isn't relevant.
When you read that brilliant comment, you felt the important thing was to clarify that lesbians are women too? I had presumed that readers would be intelligent enough to simply understand that I wasn't talking about lesbians or nuns or celibate women or asexual women or women post-menopause or workaholics or inmates of prisons, hospitals, asylums, happily married women blah blah shut the fuck up.
You're a little too confused for me to help you. You need a lot of help but no one can help you until you help yourself. Learn how to think again.
Pavlov's dog (men) was conditioned to salivate (become aroused) by ringing a bell (cute child) which had been associated with food (sex).
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 7:12 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I love this sentence.
"Readers like you make writing incredibly hard because you're not looking to improve your mind, you're just looking to haggle over what isn't relevant."
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 7:18 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
From the Tractatus:
3. A logical picture of facts is a thought3.03 Thought can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically
3.04 If a thought were correct a priori, it would be a thought whose possibility ensured its truth
3.05 A priori knowledge that a thought was true would be possible only it its truth were recognizable from the thought itself (without anything to compare it with)
I find it in poor form that you cast blame upon others ("readers") as explanation for why you perceive writing* as "incredibly hard."
_________
*Assumed meaning is "my (jonny's) writing"--as it was in the sentence before it as a dislocation of syntax
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 7:29 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
OMG we have a Randian from the Randroid Belt commenting.
The meaning comes from the reader and there can be many readings of a text.
Some people prefer the literal. Walter Benjamin wrote about that in his Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. It is content and intent. It is the literal and the metaphoric. It is the rote reader and the critical reader. Education has taught children that to be critical of insignificant details is the mark of a good critical reader. Fine when you are doing math, scientific formulations, not so fine when doing literature as a work of art.
Still a great sentence: " Readers like you make writing incredibly hard because you're not looking to improve your mind, you're just looking to haggle over what isn't relevant. Readers like you make writing incredibly hard because you're not looking to improve your mind, you're just looking to haggle over what isn't relevant."
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 7:34 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I'll help you out here. If you would read Judity Butler your mind would clear on this.
Sex is a biological given.
Gender is socially constructed. Woman is a gender who may be gendered masculine: See The Counselor movie for Cameron Diaz's performance as a sexed female, masculine gendered, masquerading as a woman.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 8:11 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It is never my intent to heckle bodhisattvas, but habits are habits.
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January 31, 2014 10:02 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Me: I'm not talking about austerity. I'm talking about evil, Supply manufacturing the Demand for services which are not needed. The imposition of Pain on innocents by those who wish to peddle Pain Relief. I'm talking Cannibalism. Hijack. Extortion.
I can't see how Fable of the Bees is connected?
alaska3636: Mandeville not only defended the importance of luxury but also of fraud, as providing work for lawyers, and theft, for having the virtue of employing locksmiths.
And then there was Mandeville's classically imbecilic defence, in his Fable of the Bees, of the Great Fire of London:
The Fire of London was a great Calamity, but if the Carpenters, Bricklayers, Smiths, and all, not only that are employed in Building but likewise those that made and dealt in the same Manufactures and other Merchandizes that were Burnt, and other Trades again that got by them when they were in full Employed, were to Vote against those who lost by the Fire; the Rejoicings would equal if not exceed the Complaints."Keynesianism" gone mad...
Ah, thanks. I see the connection. Good grief, Mandeville was an imbecile. His logic makes him sound like an objectified woman.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
January 31, 2014 10:42 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Sex is a biological given.
Gender is socially constructed.
Someone brighter than I am needs to look into this ladyboy phenomenon underway in Thailand. I know it's important somehow but no one is taking it seriously (so there's no credible data). But a sampling of school teachers' suggests ~20% of males are now asserting themselves as ladyboys. So 1 in 5 boys in Thailand are identifying as girls (with the % increasing each year).
Until recently, I didn't realise it was entirely psychological. But these are young men who truly believe they are women trapped inside a male body (which they despise). It's mothers who set girls up to be antisocial little demons who predictably incur retaliation and contempt from men (hatred perceived by the broken objects to be an unprovoked assault). Girls imagine they're the victims when the truth is, they're the first offenders. As a result of that misperceived hatred, Thai culture is gripped by (irrational) misandry. Relations between the genders are at boiling point so there's a lot of single mothers raising sons alone, 1 in 5 of whom are being imprinted with a female mind.
Life isn't great for ladyboys but it's not great for the other 80% of men either. Thailand is No Country For Young Men, that's for sure.
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
February 9, 2014 1:40 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I think you are the best blogger I've ever read.I say it, because you've changed how I view things. I'm not neccesarily saying for the better, because I always was a cynic, now I'm that on crack.
Yeah, I know I'm not on a moral high ground here. I just watch things happen and shake my head. But if I ever leave my narcissistic excuses and start doing things, part of the reason for me to do so is this blog.
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
February 13, 2014 6:18 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Women are shallow like that, judging by men's criteria. Heroism, altruism are artifacts of the male brain. The book this film was based on was written by a woman and for girls, therefore it is entirely normal that it missed the point. In the world of women, it is more important to be chosen to wear the dress that makes the fashion statement than all the other whatevers. It is not sexism, it is nature.
Score: 0 (6 votes cast)
February 13, 2014 7:50 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
In the world of women, it is more important to be chosen to wear the dress that makes the fashion statement than all the other whatevers. It is not sexism, it is nature.
How dare you suggest that biology is responsible for self-defeating, deranged, cannibalistic humans? It's contemptuous that imbeciles would imagine their mothers' abuse to be natural.
Girls are rendered worthless by their mothers, who maliciously mutilate their Self with lies ("Respect yourself, men don't respect women who are easy, be difficult and wait patiently for what you deserve!") and shame ("Sex for fun makes you a worthless slut, respectable women force men to respect them") to take them out of competition for the attention of male slaves. There is nothing biological about malicious infants obsessing over their appearance rather than concerning themselves with who they are and what they have to offer, in reality.
Humans are reduced to being narcissistic by their objectified mother's emotional abuse / obsession with appearances. No human has ever been born malicious and no woman has ever been born a whore. Nature doesn't slut-shame women into selling themselves and preying on men. Babies cannot feel shame until they learn to understand their mother's (putrid) tongue. The objectification of Humanity is sociological.
There is nothing biological about it.
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
February 13, 2014 8:42 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Heroism, altruism are artifacts of the male brain.
Your blind ignorance represents everything that's wrong with this selfless, needy, murderous species of vermin. There is nothing male or natural about disregard for Self. Selfish humans would never self-destruct. Violent conflict is selfless / self-defeating.
The Self of boys is eroded by tribal mothers who bring life to this world to be enslaved. Mothers want sons to love them instead of loving themselves. This is why "good boys" (read: worthless, selfless sociopaths who kill for their exclusive whores) are prized by mothers and it's why "good girls" (read: worthless, selfless whores obsessed with reducing broken men with suffering until they need a whore's exclusive love / marriage) are just tolerated.
Boys with Self are "bad boys", tolerated by their mothers in the hope they'll come good when the wretch needs them. Girls with Self are "bad girls" who are hated by women because they respect themselves instead of respecting Whore Society's shame.
Females are just unwelcome competition for male warrior-slaves, who suffer to please their whore mothers instead of pleasing themselves, who strive to make whores proud of them instead of taking pride in themselves, who sacrifice to take care of their exclusive whores instead of taking care of themselves, who kill (and die) protecting whores in lieu of protecting themselves.
Selfless love is pure evil. Love blinds. If a decent man is blinded by love for an evil woman, he will stop being a decent man. Love turns humans into sociopathic slaves who kill innocents for the tribe which mutilated their minds to make them feel worthless enough so that they would want to die to impress demonic elders. The Matriarchal religions all boil down to the identical child-mutilating, objectifying, Self-obliterating, tribal kernel:
Boys for war. Girls for sale.
Score: 1 (13 votes cast)
February 14, 2014 10:47 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Guy i really didn't get the last paragraphy. The probability thing. Could you give another example?
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
February 14, 2014 2:32 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I sure do love the part where you justify anything you said.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
February 15, 2014 2:18 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's all justified. But your sleaze is transparent. You can't find a part that isn't justified or you would have pounced on it. Though it was not your intention, you've just signed off on the validity of every tenet. But then I already knew it was all valid.
I want to talk about female desire. Care to kick us off with some truth (for a change)? Why not contribute (for a change)? There's a first time for everything.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
February 15, 2014 2:38 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Female desire? I suggest reading Josephine Hart on that subject. The only other one that is so good is Toni Morrison in SULA and Joyce Carol Oates in all her novels. I know you would like Josephine Hart's women characters and Oates's also. I suggest Hart first.Don't expect anyone commenting here to know deeply about feminine desire enough to comment here on it.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
February 15, 2014 3:57 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
We have no females here? How surprising. I was under the impression many of the Anonymous 'contrbutors' were women.
You're going to say individual females can't talk about female desire as if there were some huge disparity that prevents individual women from talking intelligently on the subject, but that is bullshit. The disparities in female desire are entirely the product of emotional abuse and social conditioning. I know enough to comment and there are plenty who would know more than I.
I have no sympathy for victims who'd rather victimise than accept the reality of their mother's betrayal. We all have things we'd rather do, I'd rather put anyone shaming toddlers or girls into the ground without warning. Society is going to have to do this at some point or there won't be a Society.
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
February 15, 2014 4:14 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Go ahead an get a thread going on the topic of feminine desire. Go open up that can of worms. Be my guest.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
February 20, 2014 6:38 AM | Posted by : | Reply
"It's here that I should SPOIL that the revolutionaries who do finally fight the system DON'T EVEN TELL HER ABOUT IT. Everyone around her is extraordinarily heroic and self-sacrificing, they literally drag her bad ass to the finish line at the cost of their own lives, so that she can survive as a symbol, and the rest of you dummies think she is the hero. Only a taught narcissistic psychology would SEE her as heroic when right in front of you and your eyeballs you can observe she is the least heroic of all."
Wait, I thought that was the point of the book? Katniss herself acknowledges her lack of heroism, that she is nothing, that she's just a took for braver people. Did you read the books or are you just talking about the films?
Score: 0 (4 votes cast)
February 23, 2014 1:05 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Men naturally vary in their levels of sexual desire, so why shouldn't women? Or do you think that women are more susceptible to social conditioning? Or that men's sex drives are also altered by social conditioning and emotional abuse (which would seem likely these days, with manipulation/exploitation of male sexuality having become an advertising staple), which accounts for the discrepancies between them as well?
Do you disagree with the common assumption that men have a higher baseline of sexual desire than women? You seem to. I'm in my mid-20s, so I grew up with the internet, or on the internet. I began watching porn at 11 or 12 and have always masturbated quite a bit. At the same time, I dislike casual sex even after attempting it several times and generally prefer to keep sex within the context of a relationship-- based on your philosophy, does this make me some sort of whore who subconsciously (or consciously, I'm not sure whether you believe the process is entirely conscious) emotionally abuses and degrades whichever man I'm attached to in the hopes that they'll come to "need" my love and remain attached to me forever? I dislike casual sex because men can be rough and sexually selfish with a woman they don't know, but mostly because of the attitude: a man's idea that he's degrading you and gaining some sort of "one up" advantage on you by your having sex. The endless machinations and manipulations some men will finagle in order to be able to tell themselves later on that your having sex was proof of their cleverness and intelligence or something. The way they talk about you with your friends later on, the same way I've heard so many men talk about other women they've slept with. It tends to put a damper on the whole experience, to suspect that your partner inwardly feels contempt and superiority over you for engaging in an activity that should be innocent and mutually pleasurable. Rather than unsuccessfully ignoring all these negative vibes, it seems simpler and ultimately more honest to limit myself to sex with people who don't secretly equate me with the scum of the earth. But, according to everything you say, this puts me well on the path to becoming some sort of covert mommy dearest who seeks only to turn those closest to me into emotional slaves? Am I wrong?
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
February 23, 2014 5:10 PM | Posted by : | Reply
The Self of boys is eroded by tribal mothers who bring life to this world to be enslaved. Mothers want sons to love them instead of loving themselves. This is why "good boys" (read: worthless, selfless sociopaths who kill for their exclusive whores) are prized by mothers and it's why "good girls" (read: worthless, selfless whores obsessed with reducing broken men with suffering until they need a whore's exclusive love / marriage) are just tolerated.
Wow...you, er...you've got some issues, dude.
Score: -2 (8 votes cast)
February 23, 2014 5:38 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
We are bred for obsolescence: to labor and consume and die.The artist is the person who has discovered the secret of her/his own obsolescence.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
February 24, 2014 12:13 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yeah, but that would take 500 years, not factoring in birthrates, etc...
Still, that's probably the point, but I think you took it too literally. It's everyone dies by playing the system's game, not that LITERALLY everyone dies
Score: -1 (3 votes cast)
February 28, 2014 11:48 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Men naturally vary in their levels of sexual desire, so why shouldn't women? Or do you think that women are more susceptible to social conditioning?
Naturally vary? How can that claim be made? Children are subjected to unnatural emotional conditioning as soon as they decipher their mother's tongue. Newborns and toddlers cannot feel shame until then.
Obviously boys aren't subjected to the sheer intensity of shaming Society blasts at young ladies non-stop. In addition, male desire is a mere fraction of female biological desire. The more intense the desire, the more traumatic the shame. Shame may only rattle boys but it seems to shatter girls, but the important question is: Why are children being traumatized with lies at all?
The conditioning of girls to feel dirty, nauseous, disgusted etc by sex is outrageously malicious. Women need to do it or girls would steal all their male slaves. Girls are seriously damaged by their mothers' betrayal in shaming them as if they were abnormal or perverse. It breaks their minds. An example of conflicting sociological and biological emotions being managed in the mind of a girl conditioned to feel repulsed when exposed to biology [i.imgur.com/zn0FhO4.png].
Our emotions are completely corrupted. We were told how we're supposed to feel (conflicting lies) when we were impressionable but you can't override millions of years of coding with shame. You can merely corrupt, confuse and misdirect.
We're all wearing clothes so there's no way of knowing how messed up we are. Children don't need their mothers telling them how to feel (bad, for not feeling bad). Of course mothers know this, they're simply evil. They literally set children up to feel shame for innocent behaviour, like being naked or being born [i.imgur.com/oRinBsX.jpg]. They just want to make children feel miserable and wretched so they can be manipulated into slavery.
"What! Is that wrong?" *teehee*
How else can an objectified woman survive when she has no value to contribute? To create the demand for the supply of herself, she must inflict Pain or no one will need her Pain Relief. She has to manufacture the illusory need for the illusory services she is limited to offering (sex, comfort, companionship).
Reality as I perceive it is ghastly; a species where girls are maliciously purged by their established competition, objectified and made to be uncompetitive by mothers turning girls into whores who breed suffering. Life has less meaning than if it were meaningless. It seems mothers would rather destroy children's minds and lives than let truth and right from violence be freed.
"You're not supposed to feel that way. Shame on you!"____________________
- everyone
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
March 27, 2014 7:05 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I played this game.It is really wondering thanks for sharing
flappy bird
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
April 11, 2014 4:51 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Alone, you're just not right on this one...maybe. It depends on how consistent you are, and of course the view of history.
First of all, Katniss is an opportunist, and every teenage girl I've talked to (I'm a teacher and have had many occasions to do so) know this. The books actually teach humility to all the privileged First-Worlders (like the people commenting here) who think they would fight the machine to their dying breath. I somehow doubt they would. I know, being a wife and mother, that I doubt myself.
Anyone who loves someone lives in fear, and fear is the tool of the status quo. To be as ruthless as Gale or as compassionate and vulnerable as Peeta is the heroic and hard way; and even the thirteen-year olds reading understand that.
So yes, the review entirely misses the point of the story. As to your real-world implications, my soul, man! You have asserted that I (and many others) ought to be not merely an anarchist, but a criminal.
Id est, I know scientifically that the unborn child is human, and I do not subscribe to the selfish and utterly inane idea that birth magically creates personhood. So according to you I should be enacting the same form of defense for those children that I would for children the law protects? I should be kidnapping pregnant women who want to murder their children until they come to term?
Or are you going to backpeddle now and say, 'Well, actually, abortion is a good thing, because it enables fun sexual bulimia, so you in particular, et al., shouldn't follow my advice'? No, you said we should be acting according to what is right regardless of law and order. Well, we all know right according to what we perceive. No one thinks he is wrong, or he would think something else. Naturally.
So, am I wrong for seeking to work within the law to make this world a better place? Or am I an immoral coward for doing so? Maybe the future will indeed scorn pro-lifers who didn't overturn society to protect the helpless, but Epimetheus had 20/20 vision in only one direction, and even then, he was never very wise.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
May 1, 2014 9:08 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This post is SO stupid. "Katniss saves: 0." Katniss has saved SO many people. She volunteered for her sister and saved her countless times, has saved Peeta countless times, and, oh yeah, SHE WAS THE SPARK that ended the Hunger Games which SAVED THOUSANDS of kids. SUCH a stupid post. Katniss is amazing, strong, and brave. Literally fuck this post.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
May 2, 2014 1:14 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You read the blog, it was for you.
Score: -1 (3 votes cast)
May 7, 2014 4:27 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
If women weren't competing to exploit men, Society would consist of orgies, banquets, festivals, entertainment, sports and games (a culture based on competition). We live in the opposite culture, a Dark Ages culture where sex is taboo and love is celebrated.
Had come upon this article[1] today by D Honan and the the above quote (recalled from months ago) immediately came to mind.
I'm still inclined to think, however, if the Zeitgeist movement became fully realized competition would lose steam altogether. In other words, current unfair/corrupt competition would not be replaced with competition proper. It would be as outmoded as military activity.
/idealism
________________
1. Full-scale image from the article
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
May 8, 2014 1:02 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"I am optimistic that religion is not strictly needed. But I cannot be a hundred percent sure because there is no human society where religion is totally absent so we really have never tried this experiment."
I just...were it not for the Yahweh religions of dark emotional depravity and corruption, genocide and slavery, one would imagine humans would be humane. But then you get a chicken v egg paradox, religion was created by some very sick individuals (I believe mothers blinded by love for their sons, sick of promiscuous women 'stealing' them) so maybe religion is merely the side-effect of the problem.
But the religious formula of warriors and whores is why this clown thinks the experiment hasn't been tried. If you were humane and I was a cannibal, you'd welcome me with excitement and I'd hack you and burn your city, grab some children for raping, some gold for Mom, continue on. All the books burned, Mom says they're evil and I can't read. I'm a mighty warrior, I don't like things I don't understand so any scientific inventions / knowledge / discoveries reset to 0 as religion's abused, reduced sons burned their way across the globe.
Evil appears to beat Good short term but only Good is sustainable. We've gone with evil. Game over.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
May 8, 2014 2:02 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Do me a favor and read Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals to answer your questions. I am not saying he is right or wrong, but his reasoning is better than yours while his feelings are similar.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 10, 2014 7:34 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
What are my questions? Fathers don't give religion to children.
There's a quote going around that has been attributed to Voltaire but this has been fiercely disputed, with the majority of knowledgeable types attributing it to some Right-wing Republican wackjob. I didn't read their working nor pore through the disputes because I'm not braindead but it's funny that people are. The emotion involved with discrediting the source of the quote is insane because truth is not a function of who says it. The implications of the brilliant quote are almost certainly the reason people care so much to discredit it. The quote is:
"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."
Perhaps nearly a third of everything I ramble online is simply wiped without warning or notice. I've noticed some patterns. When talking about the Western war machine, if I say something like "The last time the US played a home game, their opponents were the US", I have to expect the entire thread (not merely my comments) might disappear. Links to the YouTube videos will say the video has been taken down following a copyright claim by [insert corporation here]. That the identical video has been uploaded 100 times on YouTube is irrelevant, 99 will remain.
If I mention anything about identity or plantation-State branding of vassal children mutilated to make them feel they need to prove their worth to warmongering tribal elders, that tends to go.
And of course, references to mothers abusing children are routinely censored. As I don't want to be forced to link to my blog (which no one reads) when referencing a video like this (uploaded to my blog from a Facebook post since deleted):
[ religionconfidencetrick.blogspot.com/2013/08/more-representative-of-mothers-than.html ], I spent an entire frustrated day failing to upload it to a video sharing site. YouTube rejects it on copyright infringement (go figure?), LiveLeak rejected it claiming it's a duplicate but they declined to give me the URL to the ostensible original, Vimeo and a number of others rejected it without explanation. These sites have videos of things so grotesque, I cannot even watch them (road accidents, beheadings, suicides, animal cruelty beyond the pale) but videos of mothers abusing children you will struggle to find.
Which must mean that it never happens.
This ad was created for British television:
[ trueactivist.com/gab_gallery/40-second-tv-commercial-that-will-leave-you-speechless ]. Note the gender role-playing. "Help women save children from male violence!"
One lady expressed outrage at the violence, feeling compelled to declare that she would never hit her children (as if those who beat children are aware of reality). I asked her why deceiving and shaming children was fine and she deleted her comment (and my question) because that is how emotional Toddlers handle questions. A gentleman declared a need for such a man to be castrated in public. When I asked him what purpose / function that would serve, he deleted his comment (and my question).
If I ask women why they need love from their children or why they need men to prove their love, when love blinds (so merely wanting it makes you either stupid [if you're willing to love] or evil [if your idea of love is having sex or protecting children from truth]), I'm banned or ignored because that is how demons deal with reality. They deny / suppress it. Though it should go without saying, everyone who perceives virtue in denial is psychotic.
A story about a police officer who ignored a child's wishes because he knows best has been tweaking the heartstrings of psychotic demons who know they're good people:
[ wsmv.com/story/25459694/police-officer-goes-above-and-beyond-for-sumter-teen ]
A few weeks ago, 13-year-old Cameron Simmons called Sumter police because he was upset after fighting with his mom. The teenager told police he didn't want to live in the house with his family anymore.The officer brought Simmons home, and realized the boy didn't have a bed. In fact, Simmons didn't have nearly anything he needed for a bedroom.
I had to read through 600 nauseating comments celebrating the officer's well-intentioned ignoring of the child's wishes to find one (1) that noted if her child didn't have a bed, she'd sleep on the floor. That was the only criticism of the evil mother's vile crime in hijacking life out of peace into a world of traumatic horror, made to be a dependent state only to be left to fend for himself.
There is no such thing as a good mother, as in the very concept is impossible. A mother who gave her children everything in their march to independence, even sacrificing her life so that her children could survive, can only ever be a neutral mother at best. Children don't ask to be here. Taking care of them until they can care for themselves is repayment of debt. They owe nothing.
On the same website, a story about a demon with MSbP:
[ wsmv.com/story/25469616/murfreesboro-woman-accused-of-starving-her-3-month-old-boy ]
A couple mothers who criticised the imprisoned woman were viciously abused for being judgemental. The vast majority of comments call for increased support for mothers, as if existing support for women breeding life they cannot care for wasn't The Problem. They breed life of Their Own in a world where 29,000 toddlers are dying every day from avoidable disease and neglect (ref: UNICEF) precisely because men (and the State) provide support for women who can't (or won't) care for themselves.
Pathetic beta men are to blame. Every husband is guilty of a Crime Against Humanity. Men who incentivise the objectification of girls represent the Demand for women to mutilate the minds of their competition. Marriage is the nucleus of all evil; men caring for dependent women are an unnatural abomination.
It would be very hard to counter an argument that asserted every dependent mother has MSbP, to a degree.
"Some mothers need happy, respected children; some need unhappy children: otherwise they cannot demonstrate their goodness as mothers."
- Nietzsche
This is why Nietzsche annoys me. The above statement is false in two places. An incomplete or misrepresented truth is a lie. I completely understand why he lies; if he didn't, no one would have ever heard of him. When I die, no one will ever hear of me but appeasing evil is the problem. Tolerance of evil is the problem. Compromise is the problem. You cannot negotiate with terrorists without incentivising terror. You cannot find middle ground with hijackers; they have no ground. You cannot rationalise breeding with objectified women, they have no value to offer. They will need to create the appearance of demand for their worthless existence to be sustained. I didn't make them worthless. I would have protected them from Their Own. Now their children need protection from them.
"Woman needs children, a man is for her always only a means: thus spoke Zarathustra."
- Nietzsche
If men are a means to a woman, the end will not be her children. Her children will be a means as well to an end that will always be the woman. The psychotic cannibalistic delusion that leads tiny-minded victims of abuse to perceive the utility in using and disposing of humans to serve one's interests is why they were abused. And it's why the human species must be wiped out in one fell swoop. You cannot protect children from biological betrayal. The pot of stew has been pissed in.
Urine: [ i.imgur.com/rDv889d.jpg ] I have never seen a better example of psychosis than this. Anyone who cannot perceive the nature of the psychosis is psychotic and cannot serve the interests of anyone, in reality; least of all their own.
...but his reasoning is better than yours...
Stop asserting that so-and-so's reasoning is better, when you cannot reason. Their reasoning may be better, but how the hell would you know? If you cannot give me a better reason than your delusional opinion (in lieu of a reasoned argument), I have no reason to do anything but spit at my incapacity to terminate the universal psychosis of a deity species breeding for betrayal.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
May 10, 2014 9:35 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
In order for your argument to be ontological complete, you must provide the basis for its negation and include such negation in all properties of said argument.
In other words, you must make the case for optimal mothering/parenting.
Get creative Jonny! Cognitive synthesis FTW!
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 11, 2014 4:18 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
*ontologically (Verdammte Scheiße)
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
May 11, 2014 7:36 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I don't understand? The case for optimal motherhood is utopia.
A world without artificial (imagined / non-sensory) suffering or pain inflicted by victims of mothers' emotional degradation. Almost all suffering is needless, objectified women manufactured a world of pain to sell their pain relief.
A sustainable world, where humans are not blinded by fealty to their abusers but raised to be unattached / independent / humane / need-free. At liberty to pursue selfish happiness instead of selfless misery, free of filial lies of obligation and duty.
A world without violence, deceit, malice or fear of competition. A world of competitors who understand that to win requires competition, there's no victory in taking out your competition. The only way to win is by elevating your competition. It's not counter-intuitive but it may appear that way to cannibalistic leeches who value the appearance of comparative illusions of 'superiority'. It's the difference between pushing others down to create the illusion of being on top and pulling others up to pull you up, and up, and up...and there may not be a top, in reality.
106,000,000,000 deity minds have been reduced from incomprehensible geniuses to retarded cannibals who kill each other for love. We'll never know what might have been, were it not for mothers who lost the plot. We own the fucking universe but we'll die on this blood-soaked rock. At least we all had fun.
You know, if the brilliant minds of children weren't destroyed, it stands to reason that no one would need to die at all. I dunno. The horror is...can't think. Headache. I need to go lie down.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
May 14, 2014 10:43 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It was not my father's job to protect me from the world.
A child cannot be expected to defend themselves against an adult, much less an insane parent.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
May 15, 2014 10:21 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Jonny: Proper parenting consists of teaching your child to be autonomous, competent and to know how to treat others. To wit: I tell my son (5) that it is none of my business how he feels about me or his dad or anyone else in the world; it IS my business to see that he treats everyone with respect, regardless of his emotions. It is my duty to raise him; it is in my mythos, ethos, and logos to love him. It is NOT, however, his duty to love me. He might, if he wishes, and he might not. He will nevertheless obey me and respect my authority until he is out of my house. I do not tolerate cruelty or lying or disobedience. This is how i was raised and I must believe that this is the way many, many people were raised. I fail to see how this approach to parenting "shames" or "degrades" anyone. I guess I don't understand why you have universalized an experience that I suppose too many have had but certainly not all, and probably not most.
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
May 15, 2014 10:27 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You are teaching proper parenting to fit your son into the capitalistic system. Read Foucault. You have been duped by propaganda. People are bred for obsolescence. You have consolidated that in the way you brought up your son. Obedience is crucial. Question Authority is a great bumper sticker.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
May 15, 2014 10:31 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
How do you ensure that he treats others with respect? Do you teach him about ethics?
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 15, 2014 11:03 PM | Posted by : | Reply
My son is five years old. It is critical for now that he obey me. His safety in the world may depend upon it. He is never punished for asking why or for attempting to negotiate with me or his dad. Am I raising him for capitalism? No, I am raising him to be able to manage his own emotions and to live in the world that is, not the world of some fevered imagination. I am raising him to do no harm to others, to keep his own counsel, to be just always, to be kind when he can. I am well aware that I have brought him into an exceedingly corrupt world in which power over others is the aim of most. I am not stupid. But you can be just and clear-sighted and happy, it's just not easy. The answer is NOT swimming in misanthropy, even though most humans perhaps deserve contempt. It is somewhere in the realm of compassion and understanding that all of us were born without a rule book, we do the best we can with the information we were allowed to glean from our caregivers and from the culture. We only get a few years to figure it all out. We are all hapless schmucks.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
May 15, 2014 11:39 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You don't think there are times when the just thing to do is harm someone?
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:04 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
No he doesn't. You want him to debate with you in the Dominating Discourse that is, on your playing field. He doesn't have to do it your way. Correct logical syllogisms are not truth. Check your premises.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:08 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
That's a kind of straw man argument that really can't be answered.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:10 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Me it didn't fill in auto.
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:12 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
You teach ethics by example. Your children watch you all the time to see if you mean what you say you mean. You are under surveillance by them 24/7
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:15 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Asian Wisdom: To be sincere in the land of the insincere is dangerous.
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May 16, 2014 12:16 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The owl of Minerva soars only at dusk. - Hegel And then it is too late because the world is already in the hands of thugs.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:22 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
The purpose of the "straw man" fallacy is to point out when somebody is attacking an argument that nobody is making or an action which nobody took. It is a mischaracterization.
What I'm doing is asking about a hypothetical situation in which harming others is the just thing to do. In other words, I'm trying to ask why this person wants to raise her child to think that harming others is wrong or unjust when it would seem more appropriate to introduce the child to the concepts of "senseless harm" vs "just harm."
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:52 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
And you think you are not provoking a straw man argument?
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May 16, 2014 12:55 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Mistake/incongruence noted. Methinks I'm skint for understanding the Master-Slave dialectic. To the Bookcave, Robin!
To Jonny: an acknowledgement that I stepped over bounds there.
To Abbeysbooks: appreciate your correction
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 12:59 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I'm provoking an answer from her, not an argument. If you can actually demonstrate the straw man, go for it. Seems like you're misinterpreting.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 1:04 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Exactly what's wrong. Interpretation belongs to the Dominating Discourse and it's over now. Not gonna go there.
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 1:06 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Baudrillard for Master/Slave and its 3 levels. Straightened my head out on it.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 1:10 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yeah, yeah. Full of shit as usual. Might want to consider what the consequences of calling argumentative fallacies are in the critique of the Dominant Discourse more carefully.
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 16, 2014 1:15 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I'm trying to stay out of it. How am I doing?
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May 22, 2014 4:14 AM | Posted by : | Reply
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friv 1 | friv 3
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
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Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
May 29, 2014 11:20 PM | Posted by : | Reply
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May 30, 2014 4:08 AM | Posted by : | Reply
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that in a short period of time.
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May 30, 2014 4:47 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I didn't call interpreting a fallacy.It's not. It belongs in the Dominating Discourse. Interpreting is about dominance. Read Foucault.
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June 5, 2014 7:55 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Your informational post is good one to read and i think it can easily to reach the correct market place. so thank for creating this interesting blog.
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June 18, 2014 11:54 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Sounds like nobody should comment at all, ever, in that case.
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June 19, 2014 12:01 AM | Posted by : | Reply
By this logic, is not The Last Psychiatrist every bit a killer - even murderer - as the worst of the murderers in society, because he participates in this society?
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June 21, 2014 4:42 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I didn't get the impression that she didn't make any choices in either the first or the second movie. Yeah, she had been pushed along by the system a fair lot. But that is true in general for the teenage fiction heroes, whenever male or female. Others have mentioned Harry Potter, and he's very passive.
Children are being pushed around by the system, the teens have the fear of impeding independence, and it is both easier to relate to such heroes and is a form of escapism.
We'll be getting a male Cinderella, or even a Sleeping Prince. And don't you dare say that it is awful, you'll be accused of "misandry", because it is suddenly just as awful not to have an expectation of passivity from men, as it was to impose the expectation of passivity upon women.
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August 2, 2014 8:35 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This is an excerpt from my blog
Www.curementalillness.wordpress.com
I am trying to spread awareness of the truth of dissociation.
The most effective methods of causing dissociation are believed to be those that consist of inflicting moderate amounts of pain over extended periods of time. Emotional trauma is also important.
The horrific experiences victims are exposed to result in their mind utilizing a defense mechanism called DISSOCIATION. Dissociation consists of the victims consciousness detaching from their bodies (or so it seems to them). The result is a euphoric floating feeling. DID caused by Beta programming only serves as the most drastic form of abuse which stimulates dissociation.
We can utilize this knowledge to show how any survivor of any level/type of abuse can be considered as having any measure of DID it is my proposal that many trauma survivors have on some level dissociation of self. Therapists must gain awareness of this fact and utilize techniques which can facilitate a unity between all senses of self. Self awareness can surmount once we confront past events which we are scared of. And the personal, familial and social ramifications of this endeavor may be great. But in order to create unity within one self, we must be self aware. We must gain confidence. We must be free.
I will be tracking my findings of my readings of Carl Jung, unconscious memories, dissociation, dissonance and therapeutic accounts on this blog. Please open your mind to new thoughts on treatment and the reality of DID in the majority of patients.
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August 11, 2014 4:12 AM | Posted by : | Reply
What's even more comfortable when you are entertaining after a day of hard work.
friv 3
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October 9, 2014 9:38 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Great photos! You really deliver! I think many couples are aiming to have a unique and unforgettable experience by choosing to get married in other countries. It seems fun. Maybe the preparation is tedious but, it really sounds fun!kizi
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October 9, 2014 9:55 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Well if it's fun, then by all means do it.That's what we are here for right? And marriage is for FUN! Think you ought to see Gone Girl.
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November 3, 2014 2:47 AM | Posted by : | Reply
its so hard
http://www.hacvumre.com/
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November 10, 2014 3:01 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Though I have a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, I rarely read as a professional but to enjoy a well-told good story. From a rather naive perspective, I'd say that reading all three books are necessary to get a perspective on Katniss' emerging maturity. Despite her limited exposure in her family and district, she stepped up...and as I one commenter said, she saved her sister. As the games develop, she is learning and making choices courageously without knowing what the consequences would be. She's doing the best she can. In book three, her world become much larger and her exposure to evil, power struggles, heroic acts of mother, Prim, etc.--all these affect her choices. We may not always agree but it's a story about growing up, isn't it? I'm not sure that those caught up in who is truly a hero, whether one cooperates, is passive or fights the establishment, etc. have the "truth." I'm for appreciating everyone's struggle to do what he/she consider is right and truthful for them. And getting caught up in so much as the analyses above turns my brain off. Sorry. Thank you for an interesting post.
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November 10, 2014 4:11 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I agree with you. Step into psychological interpretation and you are in the swamp as Foucault and Baudrillard say. Stay out. I see THG as a fictional account of what our govt is doing to us. Confinement, Simualted Reality, Virtual Reality (games) and from this POV it is excellent. The YA theme of growing up etc is a surface plot to inject the ghastly future ahead of us if we don't wake up.
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November 24, 2014 3:04 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This article is pure bullshit. The Hunger Games is not a Prisoner’s Dilemma. There is a way out of the Prisoner’s Dilemma if all players agree to the optimal solution, which is for all of them refuse to fight. If they do so, they are all still dead. “If Seneca Crane had had any sense at all he would have blown you to bits the minute you pulled out those berries.” That is not a Prisoner’s Dilemma. That is a Zero Sum Game. You win or you lose. Katniss has ZERO moral responsibility for the other tributes because even if they all make the optimal choice and refuse to fight, they are all still dead.
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November 24, 2014 8:25 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Sometimes I think about societal narcissism as predictable, it makes me feel safe and relaxed. At least the facade is maintained.
What I don't understand how it will be kept up. Isn't non-violence pretty much a fundamental part of our civil, enlightened and progressive culture? What about revolutionaries? Are they going to be reprimanded until they die?
I don't get it.
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November 24, 2014 9:32 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I wouldn't get it either if I were making those statements and asking those questions.
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December 14, 2014 12:03 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Search for it above, it's been answered. Basically the system doesn't change so eventually you WILL be selected
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December 25, 2014 5:26 AM | Posted by : | Reply
its nice
http://www.ucuzumrefiyatlari.com/
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January 2, 2015 12:39 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Can we get a commentary on Mockingjay part 1 please?
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January 7, 2015 9:15 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Thank you for putting this information into one place.
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March 13, 2015 1:24 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Thank you very much for posting and sharing this great article. It is so interesting for me
Vimax Original
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March 14, 2015 1:16 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
exactly. it only seems impossible but that kind of autonomy is our natural state. thats not to say all of us will express that state in our lifetime.
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March 19, 2015 3:37 AM | Posted by : | Reply
you always bring everyone the most interesting and useful, I like it all, thank you.
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May 18, 2015 2:15 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Its always great to read your blogs.. They always make a great read. Thank you so much.
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May 20, 2015 7:47 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Most of these are written and acted behind the green screens but we should always admire their creativity.
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May 21, 2015 1:55 AM | Posted by : | Reply
reading your blogs makes a great read!
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May 25, 2015 9:20 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I have laughed, i have cried. This is a tough space. I will let my thoughts rest with me...
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June 9, 2015 2:36 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Good article..... I agree with you. Step into psychological interpretation and you are in the swamp as Foucault and Baudrillard say. Stay out. I see THG as a fictional account of what our govt is doing to us. Confinement, Simualted Reality, Virtual Reality (games) and from this POV it is excellent. The YA theme of growing up etc is a surface plot to inject the ghastly future ahead of us if we don't wake up.
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June 9, 2015 2:50 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Such a wonderful film it was. I am a great fan of that film eventhough these thinks are just an imagination for all of us
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June 18, 2015 5:08 AM | Posted by : | Reply
... "yes, but the fact is, not killing is better than killing-- or do you think putting a gun to someone's head is really the exact same as not doing that?" And some will counter-retort that it's like war, if you send soldiers to fight you are responsible for their killings.
Is this true with Alshabab killings in Nigeria and Kenya? ... responsible for soldiers killings....True or False
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