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Gmarley
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I mean, going to hardcore shows when i was 15 you could get blasted in the face for just standing there. Right or wrong, it’s part of the culture, and if you do something to PROVOKE THESE PEOPLE… well, I don’t have a ton of sympathy.
I can’t buy it yet. I’ve been listening to the Kvelertak stream SG put up pretty much non-stop and to switch over to Mirrors… I’m just in a good place right now and I’m not in a hurry.
The question needs to be asked because it validates the humility Morrissey should be exhibiting if he’s going to have any credibility outside of those already in his camp. “You’re a shitty person and I’m better than you and can have nothing to do with you” hasn’t worked for the religious world, and it got there by not asking themselves the right questions to bring their thoughts outside of their own head. It sure as hell won’t work for Morrissey either.
Not eating meat is a choice unless it isn’t: I’d like to see Moz try to survive in a rural African village, or an Inuit communty for a month. Vegetarianism on moral grounds can be and often is an exercise in economic privilege. Do it! By all means, but the sanctimony would go right out the window once your belly starts to distend.
Does anyone else think the DIIV video is getting a little too close to gross female objectification? Like, is it really ok if it’s done by other women and hipsters?
He should try pulling this kind of thing in Africa. It’d go over really well.
Michael: I think you’re touching on a huge fallacy in today’s broad thinking. “Don’t judge others.” is a very important moral concept, I just think it’s hugely abused. We simply cannot avoid judging behavior, to the point where I think people are much more in tune to an objective moral framework than most moral relativists are willing to admit. When someone does something wrong I think it’s necessary to communicate that, there just doesn’t have to be judgement of that person to point out that they are doing wrong. I think you’re flirting with personal judgement, because you seem to be saying that it takes a certain kind of person to be capable of a certain kind of wrong, and that’s true only in a relative sense. Environment effects emotional reaction to moral concepts. I think it’s too reductionistic to say a person’s choices are entirely produced by environment, but it’s just as reductionistic to say everyone is solely responsible for their tendencies. To not judge someone is to understand they may have circumstances that make right choices more difficult, but it does no one any good to alienate them from the dignity of responsibility. Wayne Coyne should say “I have to be honest, fidelity to my wife is very difficult in these situations which are increasingly hard to avoid, take that as a warning” instead of just saying “Well, I’m here and therefore I can do what I please.” (if that’s actually what he’s saying)
The case of Chris Brown is actually perfect. We do not want to consider that this is a young kid suddenly surrounded by sycophants and a ton of money that has clearly aggravated a displaced sense of self-importance and a lack of responsibility. He 100% should not have hit Rihanna, but it’s much more frightening to consider that he might not have done that if he were in an environment that engendered humility and maturity than it is to say “What a monster, I’m very different from him.” I don’t feel a great deal of pity for him at all, but to think that he’s just a human of some other sort than me is simply me protecting myself from identifying my own moral struggles and their sources.
I totally agree with your main point. The danger of exiling someone from the moral community is in the risk of the exiled becoming more resolute in their wrongdoing. We all need validation, and when condemnation becomes severe enough, “me vs the world” can result in self-validation and a distrust of everyone else. I think Sarah Palin was a good example of this. She was obviously misguided and not someone anyone should emulate, but it became ok for everyone to be absolutely brutal towards her, and it just fueled the flames and the brutality increased in proportion to her self-assertion. We eventually allowed a woman to be called a cunt publicly, and derision about a mentally handicapped child was just fine. That’s totally regressive and has no place in a moral society. We became less thoughtful, more self-righteous and ended up betraying our own standards of behavior and what is socially acceptable and it accomplished nothing.
Who are you to draw the line on adddo drawing the line? This is where you start to lose me. There is a massive difference between pronouncing judgement on someone (IE “They are an irredeemably bad person, different from me in some distinct way, and thus lower than me morally.) and saying “I cannot in good conscience support this artist because I think it is unjust to do so based on their crimes. I don’t want to financially validate the glorification of gang violence.” I don’t think someone is wrong if they can separate the art and the artist, but I would think someone is justified if they see a real problem with giving money to someone who is potentially profiting in direct relation to their wrongdoing. Simply saying “I’m finite and flawed and thus cannot make an objective moral decision about what to do with my money and time in regards to art.” is way too flimsy, and it’s hypocritical to criticize someone else for doing the opposite.
As I get older, I find myself less mystified by the concept of pop culture having an actual effect on people psychologically. For the most part, I’m pretty happily free of hero worship when it comes to most artists. There are some people that I’d get nervous/self-concious around, but by and large I’m rarely infatuated with anyone. Now, I don’t think there’s some kind of direct line of causation between teenage girls going giddy over Chris Brown and then growing up to tolerating being battered or being in an abusive relationship in the first place. However, wouldn’t we be rightfully disturbed to see how his charm and fame overtake what should cause serious consternation among our daughters? I don’t think people should get caught up in vitriolic fury over Brown, because it’s just not terribly healthy, but when awful behavior just doesn’t seem to register ANY reaction from young fans, let alone that behavior turned into some kind of cutesy-sick joke, I think that has to be addressed pro-actively, in a more intelligent and effective way than just banishing all knowledge of Chris Brown.
The main problem with your point here is, you seem to think that you, from whatever cultural/demographic segment you croak from, have the total handle on all that is valuable and legitimately emotive. I think Cloud Nothings make some great songs, but I’d be absolutely kidding myself if I wanted everyone to have the cultural context to hear the value in it. In fact, most would be very justified in thinking that it sounds awful. Enjoying a lot of kinds of music involves contexts of various kinds. Sometimes it’s actually a valuable thing to just listen to some top 40, because it’s a thing that’s happening in the world, and once in a while something listenable comes along. It’s not the end of the world.
Frank Ocean wrote a great r&b album in a market of increasingly vapid r&b. You don’t like it! OK! But put your hammer-of-thor away when it comes to talking about what’s real music and what isn’t, because you’re only talking about your own limitations.
That’s some first-child’s-middle-name shit right there
that’s a jennifer lopez song and it is well and truly brutal. it might be my most hated of the year actually.
Vikram I think you’re overstating my case. plb and I have a difference in belief on the scope of “meaning.” Which is fine and I thought it was friendly and honest. I didn’t claim to know everything about him, but taking his statements at face value, which I think I did, I am just saying there are plenty of people of sound mind who have legitimately wanted to know about a possible significance beyond what is visible or present in their lives at any given time. I’m not saying plb in no way wants that or never has. I make no assumptions about whether or not plb is happy or miserable, nor would I try to convince him he is either of those things. With that said, and I WOULD venture a guess that no one would take issue with this, on an ontological level, I think Christianity, to which I subscribe, makes superlative claims about the concept of meaning and significance of individuals and man kind as a whole. That isn’t saying “I’m right and you’re wrong” it’s simply a comparison of what Christianity says about people vs what agnosticism* says about people. For me to say that God created man, loved him despite animosity and made extreme sacrifices for their benefit/redemption all with a specific goal in mind is something someone can outright reject, clearly, but it’s obviously saying something more exacting and ascribes more value to people than the atheistic view of the purpose of man. Rejecting the idea and recognizing that it’s at the very least a more urgent claim are not mutually exclusive. That in no way means that to not subscribe to that belief that one cannot experience and assign meaning to things.
*there is obviously no compiled consensus of an over-arching agnostic theory as far as value and morality and “meaning” are concerned, but speaking in generalities to a possible fault in this forum is a necessity.
He’s a rabbit. A terrifying, kick ass rabbit.
Yeah, I think the term “evangelical” has really lost any sturdy meaning. I don’t really know what people have in mind as an alternative type of Christian to the “evangelical” who believes in the eternal and spiritual significance of the person of Christ and the crucifixion. I read somewhere on CNN (which has the worst editorial on the topic of religion I’ve ever read) where it characterized evangelicals as people who “had a propensity for communing with the Holy Spirit” or something and, uh, that goes back a couple thousand years now. It’s not a new behavior coming out of a broader Christianity that just thought Jesus said some nice things that they find agreeable and that’s been the sum total of orthodoxy until the 700 Club made us all maniacs. (granted: the 700 club IS deeply misguided on many, many things and is a pariah to society as a whole.) 1st Corinthians should have said “Be united in mind or you’re going to screw things up for everyone.”
You also don’t sound like a dick at all.
No I totally hear you and I’m not looking to change your mind. I just think it’s going to be a natural response for some people when you say “People should be good to one another because it’s the right thing to do.” to then ask “Why is it the right then to do, if there is such a thing as a right thing to do, especially when being good to someone might come at a personal cost to me?” I don’t think at all that a given individual requires religion to have morals and act morally, nor do I think your relationships are meaningless without a broader, ultimate context. I just think there’s room for MORE meaning should you ever find yourself in a place where you need it. Life’s weird, ya know?
I would say, without looking to pick a fight, that the search for meaning on at least some level is inevitable, and that happens in and outside religion. Humans have the ability to think in terms of ultimates (death, time, absurdity) and circumstance inevitably disrupts a rhythm of “eat, drink and chill out.” I’ve found the agnostic/atheist relationship to human rights to be a really interesting. Why are people equal and deserving of rights in an accidental, meaningless universe? I mean that rhetorically, but also in the context of when people trample on things like equality and dignity. Both of those, in fact, are moral terms because they invoke value and to make a decision on one’s affirmation or rejection of anything of that type of value, one must appeal to or reject an authority. Otherwise, it’s just any number of parties making up of equally meaningless jibber-jabber in the face of a universe that will kill us all. Asking “why?” begets more “why?” and it’s within the range of belief between organized religion and individual philosophy to decide in what Ultimate does the line of “why” stop at an answer.
From B.Scott: Thoughts? I think the song is really cute! Chris’ falsetto sounds a little off, but he makes up for it in the end with his Michael Jackson-esque ad-libs.
I think he makes up for it by not kicking the shit out of her… This is vile.
Love that guy.
I’d say “But she’s mad cute yo.” in response, but every girl I know uses that mentality in defense of Adam Levine and WELL… I hate that.
I do love the idea of the real Jackie O crouching behind a bunch of flowers making maniac faces.
I’m pretty sure that’s Shia LaBeouf’s favorite music video of all time.
Basically very annoying all around.