Forum Settings
       
Reply To Thread

Snowe will vote "Yes" on Senate Finance HC billFollow

#152 Oct 17 2009 at 1:48 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Also, if you wanted to know my reason, you might actually bother to read my posts.

Hilarious, that you think I haven't. Hilarious further, that insinuating this is a close cousin of zepoodle telling you that you don't "get it."

Quote:
You want to understand Freud's points and his intent? You understand who the man is.


Point has nothing to do with intent. Stop conflating these. You want to know his intent? Study history and his time (for whatever reason you want.) It's useless and fails to be valuable for making our own thesi in response, but you can do it nonetheless, and enjoy your knowledge of Freuds psychology. Want to understand his point? Read his points! Points and intent are separate entities and combining them into some conglomerate of understanding is a rape and desecration of what it means to do a good judgment of argument.

Quote:
So what is Pensive's point? Critiques of western culture inevitably leads to wife beating?


Of course not. It's an anecdote used to prove a posibility, not a probability. The fact that this possibility exists at all is terrifying - to hear a man assert that beating your fucking wife can be ethically okay as long as your society deems it so, and a woman assert that women who stand up in those novels and contexts are wrong, because that's not the pervasive culture - that is incredible, as in "I cannot imagine a situation where this would be credible." The critique of the west has little to do with it, but the backlash, the self-loathing and the fear are almost certainly necessary conditions for this kind of refusal to judge.

Besides, wife beating exists in "western" culture also, but for some reason you get relativists who refuse to apply the same damn standards they do to themselves, to other cultures, not because they think that ethics is invalid, not because they re sociopaths, and not because they really feel that relativism is right, but because they are cowardly.

Second point: the fact that you're positing the existence of anything "western" to critique in the first damn place, the fact that you feel the need to determine the essential qualities of some pervasive perspective, the fact that anyone would be so ludicrously misguided with their goal of obtaining knowledge, is approximately as stupid as when the direction of it is reversed. It's not like I'm unfamiliar with orientalism and Said. I love those sorts of polemics, really, but it irritates the **** out of me when people fail to take the natural corollary from it - the idea of "western" society is as much a pejorative (a pejorative to be discarded)as the "oriental."
#153 Oct 17 2009 at 1:53 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Guenny wrote:
Aripyanfar wrote:
Guenny wrote:
Does "Anonymous" = "Pensive"?

No. No further speculation on this point will be answered to. Although I will say that Anonymous wanted me to put "Mindel" in his place name, as an hommage. Or joke. Or wistful memento.


Sorry, Pensive, your cover's blown. It's not Ari's fault, though.


It's kavekk you stupid ****. Way to be easily manipulated by a young british teenager and ari's delicate sensibilities due to whatever preconception you had about the topic.

Quote:
It's someone who is sincere and earnestly wants to understand even though it pisses him off. I'd say it must be Pensive.


Anna I really do like your company a lot and such, but this entire discussion just makes me disappointed in you. To be honest, that's why I'm a bit irritated. If I didn't already think better of you, I wouldn't give a crap. Because, however, you are a really intelligent and articulate person, it empathically hurts me when you well... I will just keep the rest of my thoughts on that to myself.

Edited, Oct 17th 2009 3:57pm by Pensive
#154 Oct 17 2009 at 2:00 PM Rating: Good
I'm pretty disappointed in everyone here, really.
#155 Oct 17 2009 at 2:00 PM Rating: Good
Soulless Internet Tiger
******
35,474 posts
Pensive the Ludicrous wrote:
I will just keep the rest of my thoughts on that to myself.
I think it's imperative that we hear this.
____________________________
Donate. One day it could be your family.


An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. Victor Hugo

#156 Oct 17 2009 at 2:08 PM Rating: Good
*****
15,952 posts
Kavekk the Ludicrous wrote:
I'm pretty disappointed in everyone here, really.

Why? Tailmon isn't here.

Except for Sassy of course. He's a bad, bad man.

Edited, Oct 17th 2009 4:10pm by Aripyanfar
#157 Oct 17 2009 at 2:26 PM Rating: Good
Sage
****
4,042 posts
Man, it is ridiculously easy to get Pensive's panties in a twist.
#158 Oct 17 2009 at 2:29 PM Rating: Good
Repressed Memories
******
21,027 posts
Guenny wrote:
Man, it is ridiculously easy to get Pensive's panties in a twist.

Hey, at least he is classy enough to wear panties.
#159 Oct 17 2009 at 2:33 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Guenny wrote:
Man, it is ridiculously easy to get Pensive's panties in a twist.


The person you're ******** was way better at it.
#160 Oct 17 2009 at 2:44 PM Rating: Good
Sage
****
4,042 posts
Pensive the Ludicrous wrote:
Guenny wrote:
Man, it is ridiculously easy to get Pensive's panties in a twist.


The person you're ******** was way better at it.


Yeah, no ****. I didn't even have to try.
#161 Oct 17 2009 at 4:26 PM Rating: Good
Avatar
*****
13,240 posts
Quote:
I'd be surprised if Timelordwho would be interested in a discussion like that. He's a cynic and full of shenanigans but he doesn't seem all that interesting in ******* and drama. It's someone who is sincere and earnestly wants to understand even though it pisses him off.


You'd be wrong, mostly.

Quote:
Man, it is ridiculously easy to get Pensive's panties in a twist.


Tell me about it.

Oh, and I'd like to point out that decontextualization is not a patriarchal concept. It's primarily either a summarization technique, or simplification technique.

Edited, Oct 17th 2009 6:48pm by Timelordwho
____________________________
Just as Planned.
#162 Oct 17 2009 at 5:29 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Quote:
Tell me about it.


It obviously doesn't count if the panties are already twisted...

That's like going outside in a storm and claiming responsibility for the grass being wet.
#163 Oct 17 2009 at 7:03 PM Rating: Good
Don't let these player haters get you down, Pensive.

Screenshot
#164 Oct 17 2009 at 9:03 PM Rating: Decent
***
3,909 posts
Annabella, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Also, if you wanted to know my reason, you might actually bother to read my posts. You want to understand Freud's points and his intent? You understand who the man is. You think about his acolytes and how they shaped his theories according to their own history. You don't get Bowlby unless you get both his background as a London Psychoanalyst and then how he altered his viewpoint, which was informed by his own upbringing in early 20th century England.


Firstly, you're conflating points and intent in a horribly confusing manner.

Secondly, reading about Orwell acolytes and his upbringing and his background is all really useful, provided the question we're asking is "What was Orwell thinking when he wrote such-and-such?" We're not asking that question. We're not asking "What did Orwell want to express?" because as we all know, the message an author intends to convey and the message he actually conveys are often quite different.

We're not asking "What message did Orwell intend?" We're asking "What message did the reader take from it?" That's the question Pensive was approaching at the start. And for the purpose of discussing that question, Orwell is irrelevant. Orwell's life is irrelevant; the reader did not live Orwell's life. Orwell's friends are irrelevant; they are not the reader's friends. The only connection between Orwell and the reader of his text is his text. We're asking the reader a question.

You can ask "What message did Orwell intend?" all you want. It's a shallow question. It tells us very little, except trivial biographical details about Orwell. It doesn't help us relate to the text; it helps us relate Orwell to the text. We're not disputing that - provided you ask that question - Orwell is a central subject for examination. But it's not a good question to ask, and frankly it wasn't the question we were asking.

By contrast, when we go to Kavekk and say "Kavekk, you read 1984, yeah? What'd you think it was about?" we're very clearly asking Kavekk a question. And the answer is important for Kavekk, because it tells him something about himself, and it's important for us because it helps us relate to Kavekk as opposed to a dead British socialist who can't relate back. And it's important because the answer is obviously going to change from person to person, and whether a person thinks Orwell was a socialist or an anti-communist or the author of a trashy political horror novel will tell you something about the person.

Quote:
[4:43:17 AM] Aripyanfar: Anna thinks that there can be a Male Mode of reading and gaining meaning from a book, and a Female Mode of reading and gaining meaning from a book.


The presumption that men and women have qualitatively different modes of thought and comprehension is inane, inaccurate, and ultimately harmful.

Assuming that you aren't trolling, Ari, I'm disappointed. You may as well have suggested that we study phrenology.

Edited, Oct 18th 2009 3:04am by zepoodle
#165 Oct 17 2009 at 9:10 PM Rating: Good
Vagina Dentata,
what a wonderful phrase
******
30,106 posts
Of course, Ari should realize that only men really understand and realize the harm of acknowledging different modes of thinking. Gosh, we ladies should really know better. Thank God they are here to school us all about the patriarchy (also +1 to Guenny and Elinda) And I'm surprised how dense you guys are around issues of gender. Maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe i should have been more open to the reality that you guys aren't interested in thinking about how women might perceive the differences given the ways that our voices haven't been privileged or prevalent in the same way in philosophy or literature or western thought as a whole. Instead you are caught in the whole thing that if you don't perceive it, it doesn't exist.

Quote:

We're not asking "What message did Orwell intend?" We're asking "What message did the reader take from it?" That's the question Pensive was approaching at the start. And for the purpose of discussing that question, Orwell is irrelevant. Orwell's life is irrelevant; the reader did not live Orwell's life. Orwell's friends are irrelevant; they are not the reader's friends. The only connection between Orwell and the reader of his text is his text. We're asking the reader a question.


And I'm saying in my opinion as a reader his intention matters. In my studies, knowing who the and why an author wrote a piece matters. The connection goes beyond the text itself. When I understand Orwell's life and body of work--as well as his historical context, it adds to the text.

You might not relate to a piece of work that way but I do and I'm not alone in it. I studied alot of Tolstoi as a college student--it added alot when I really examined alot about who he was, his belief system and what he wanted to accomplish by publishing his work--I'm not really alone in that endeavor.

Also, this discussion is boring me now.

It's like a collection of banal 20 year old boys and their musings. Christ, it makes me glad I'm not that young anymore.

Edited, Oct 17th 2009 11:20pm by Annabella
____________________________
Turin wrote:
Seriously, what the f*ck nature?
#166 Oct 17 2009 at 9:29 PM Rating: Decent
***
3,909 posts
Annabella, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Of course, Ari should realize that only men really understand and realize the harm of acknowledging different modes of thinking. Gosh, we ladies should really know better. Thank God they are here to school us all about the patriarchy (also +1 to Guenny) And I'm surprised how dense you guys are around issues of gender. Maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe i should have been more open to the reality that you guys aren't interested in thinking about how women might perceive the differences given the ways that our voices haven't been privileged or prevalent in the same way in philosophy or literature or western thought as a whole.


For ****'s sake, Anna, men and women only differ in trivial physical characteristics. No sex or gender is more special than the other, and presuming so is to engage in the same arrogant self-deception that created gender discrimination in the first place.

I'd like to point out that no-one here was discussing gender until you brought it up. You seem incapable of participating in any discussion without imposing a false male-female dichotomy. This seems sad.

Quote:
And I'm saying in my opinion as a reader his intention matters. In my studies, knowing who the and why an author wrote a piece matters. The connection goes beyond the text itself. When I understand Orwell's life and body of work--as well as his historical context, it adds to the text.


Don't you understand? When you study Orwell's life, you're not engaging with something beyond the text. You're engaging with a second text, and furthermore, it's a trivial one. You're reading Orwell's life, picking out the bits you think are important, then holding them up and saying "Here! Here is where Orwell's true meaning lies, in his time in Burma, in his choice of a pen name, in his travels in Northern England." You're not touching on Orwell's meaning. You're not surpassing the text. You're engaging in a separate text, asking questions about it and then deceiving yourself as to the nature of the answers.

You can't relate to Orwell without the text. You've never met him, and besides, he's dead. Now, you're reading Orwell's biography and thinking "here I will bypass the text, connect to Orwell and find the true meaning of the text" but you aren't connecting to Orwell. His life story is just another text to engage with. And the "true meaning" you're seeking is just your judgment of his life. A judgment which, I may say, tells us far more about you than it does Orwell.

#167 Oct 17 2009 at 9:37 PM Rating: Decent
Vagina Dentata,
what a wonderful phrase
******
30,106 posts
zepoodle, I hope at some point you learn to respect women enough to acknowledge the privileging of masculine forms of thinking that has been part of the legacy of sexism in our society. But you won't because pretending it doesn't exists doesn't harm you, does it? I think you are naive and you combat that by making a poor stab at intellectual condescension.

And yes, understanding who he is, the times he lives in and his intent is another way to read a text. Are you so intellectually limited that you think that New Criticism is something that can't be disputed and there are no other ways of thinking about how people engage with literary works? If you guys want to have your little ****-fests where you can both revel in the same theories, you should have a Modernist Forum where you can feel accepted.


I mean Jesus Christ. Haven't you even read any critiques of those beliefs?



Edited, Oct 17th 2009 11:43pm by Annabella
____________________________
Turin wrote:
Seriously, what the f*ck nature?
#168 Oct 17 2009 at 9:54 PM Rating: Decent
***
3,909 posts
Annabella, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
zepoodle, I hope at some point you learn to respect women enough to acknowledge the privileging of masculine forms of thinking that has been part of the legacy of sexism in our society. But you won't because pretending it doesn't exists doesn't harm you, does it? I think you are naive and you combat that by making a poor stab at intellectual condescension.


This is what I'm talking about. Gender is not relevant to this discussion. You keep bringing it up because you don't seem capable of viewing the world outside of a male-versus-female dichotomy. It's sad, it's limited, and it's really fucking annoying. I mean, what the fuck is a "masculine form of thinking?" What is it? Really?

You end every goddamn discussion - every single one - with some variation on the form

Quote:
It's like a collection of banal 20 year old boys and their musings. Christ, it makes me glad I'm not that young anymore.


I don't disagree with you because you're a woman, Anna. I disagree with you because I think you're wrong.
#169 Oct 17 2009 at 10:01 PM Rating: Good
Vagina Dentata,
what a wonderful phrase
******
30,106 posts
Quote:

This is what I'm talking about. Gender is not relevant to this discussion. You keep bringing it up because you don't seem capable of viewing the world outside of a male-versus-female dichotomy. It's sad, it's limited, and it's really @#%^ing annoying. I mean, what the @#%^ is a "masculine form of thinking?" What is it? Really?



It seems limited to you because of your own privilege. Masculine forms of thinking? Have you read the thread? Have you read feminist literary theory?

I went to college with alot of guys who were really interested in feminism--both activism and in literary works. I appreciated their willingness to engage in work that way because by acknowledging gender divisions and the privileging of certain modes of thinking (and certain literary canons and philosophical constructs), we could be on a more level playing field because they were willing to acknowledge power differences. There are ways that ignoring gender oppresses women b/c you don't recognize how gendered the discourse can be--and traditionally women have been excluded or different POVs have been devalued as inferior, when in reality, they were about a different way of relating. Pretending there are no differences only benefits the people in power. It only helps the status quo.

But you find it such a hassle to have to talk about gender. It's much easier just to ignore it. I mean, it doesn't bother you. You are a guy. You are perfectly content with the dominant discourse. Why bring it up at all?

Those feminist theorists? Man, they are just sad.

Edited, Oct 18th 2009 12:04am by Annabella
____________________________
Turin wrote:
Seriously, what the f*ck nature?
#170 Oct 17 2009 at 10:02 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Quote:
Don't let these player haters get you down, Pensive.

Screenshot


Did you make that post based on the second hand relations of sartre that come up randomly when I'm talking to you? Cos if you did, that was kind of sweet.

Quote:
Of course, Ari should realize that only men really understand and realize the harm of acknowledging different modes of thinking.


Lots of women do also. Tons, in fact, realize how pernicious such thoughts are, and ari has done so on multiple occasions.

The thing with ari is that her points are neither your points, nor my points, nor zepoodles points: they are her own. She doesn't exactly need me or you to defend her, and certainly not appropriate her ideas, but I will say that her thoughts have different nuances and different goals, and you speaking for her is about as idiotic as me speaking for her.

Quote:
Maybe i should have been more open to the reality that you guys aren't interested in thinking about how women might perceive the differences given the ways that our voices haven't been privileged or prevalent in the same way in philosophy or literature or western thought as a whole. Instead you are caught in the whole thing that if you don't perceive it, it doesn't exist.


Not one single male in this thread has remotely approached saying anything like this. You seem to be arguing against people who aren't here.

Quote:
Also, this discussion is boring me now.

It's like a collection of banal 20 year old boys and their musings. Christ, it makes me glad I'm not that young anymore.


Jesus christ anna. It's like you can't have a discussion with anyone without demonizing them. I've been painstakingly, mindfully delicate and consciously forcing myself to not devolve into some counter-psycho evaluation of you or anyone else just to prove my points, or to get into some personal sort of pissing contest about your discipline, sex, gender, age, area of study, or basically anything about you not related to this once facet of hermeneutics. Have I made some generalization about older generations? Have I remarked on the ridiculousness of your profession? Have I even payed the slightest heed to your sex or gender except to state that I don't care what it is, because they are both rad? No, no, and hell no. Is it that hard to give the same courtesy to other people? Isn't one of the beautiful aspects of the female mind the ability to have empathy? Use it.

You want to know why your thoughts are insidiously harmful, and why the process of assigning gender and all other sorts of contextual crap to? Read your goddamn posts in this thread again, and note every time where you incorrectly infer or assume information about someone's point due to the transparently obvious and unequivocally false conceptions you have about them in your mind. It doesn't work in literature, and it doesn't work here. Good day to you.
#171 Oct 17 2009 at 10:06 PM Rating: Good
Vagina Dentata,
what a wonderful phrase
******
30,106 posts
Pensive, you compared my criticism to "rape" which i really appreciated given my history as a rape survivor. It was just like a discussion on a message forum. So don't pretend you've been little Mr. Innocent.

But really, I appreciate how much guys on here can school women about the problems of feminist theory. What do chicks know?

Edited, Oct 18th 2009 12:09am by Annabella
____________________________
Turin wrote:
Seriously, what the f*ck nature?
#172 Oct 17 2009 at 10:14 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts

Quote:
It seems limited to you because of your own privilege. Masculine forms of thinking? Have you read the thread? Have you read feminist literary theory?


I don't know what this means, and it's not directed at me, but I'm answering it.

Again, I don't know what this means, and most probably nothing I've read with relate to literature, but I've read feminist stuff, that would probably not be considered literary.

A lot of it was politics, and most of it is really awesome. Some of it's not so awesome.

The coolest one was Simone de Bau... de Beai... Beauvoir, who most people seem to consider really awesome in feminist circles, and she was a total ******* genius in everything I've read either about or by her, awesome enough that Kavek should make a poster about her.

Her spirit is, unfortunately, not at all present in most modern ideas of feminism which I encounter. Or are they?! Who knows? She's dead. We could worry about her history and class in the world and bother ourselves with understanding the true meaning of her work, or we could have a meaningful discourse which doesn't bother with that sort of thing, because what she said is more important than who she was.
#173 Oct 17 2009 at 10:19 PM Rating: Good
Vagina Dentata,
what a wonderful phrase
******
30,106 posts
Quote:
she said is more important than who she was


Except if you find that viewpoint problematic because it is ahistorical and decontextualized.
____________________________
Turin wrote:
Seriously, what the f*ck nature?
#174 Oct 17 2009 at 10:22 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Quote:
Pensive, you compared my criticism to "rape" which i really appreciated given my history as a rape survivor. It was just like a discussion on a message forum. So don't pretend you've been little Mr. Innocent.


I don't know what this means. I compared it to rape here, and I still will, because that's really the most appropriate word for it. What else should I call a destructive and wanton force which has nothing but the forceful degradation of both literature and society, as well as the individual human spirit, in its crosshairs, leaving both in shambles were that force to get its way?

Notice how, still, I'm not ******* attack you, by doing so: at the worst, I'm being callous, and at the best, forgetful. I have not made a single assertion at all about you, neither implied nor spoken, not any set of things in which you belong, so I'm feeling pretty awesome about being Mr. Innocent as far as prejudice and malice are concerned.

I seriously hope you have another example, or were thinking of another example. I could think of lots, but not in this thread, and the occasion would be improbable up until maybe a year ago.
#175 Oct 17 2009 at 10:23 PM Rating: Good
***
3,909 posts
Annabella, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
It seems limited to you because of your own privilege. Masculine forms of thinking? Have you read the thread? Have you read feminist literary theory?


I've read Simone de Beauvoir. She had this really great point about how there was no such thing as masculine or feminine modes of thinking.
#176 Oct 17 2009 at 10:24 PM Rating: Decent
*****
10,359 posts
Quote:
Except if you find that viewpoint problematic because it is ahistorical and decontextualized.


This is why we read entire posts, which often contain premises and conclusions. What you've quoted is a conclusion.
Reply To Thread

Colors Smileys Quote OriginalQuote Checked Help

 

Recent Visitors: 326 All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (326)