Comments on: Overperforming and underperforming, momentarily dazzling but ultimately deflating

By: Sam J.

Sam J. — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 08:44:56 +0000

“…Neither elitists nor egalitarians will accept the notion of live-and-let-live. Both groups want to run society like some sort of vast machine. Society is not a machine. Society is people, an aggregate of a great many individuals.

This is the point Libertarians miss: you can’t be left alone simply by saying you want to be left alone. You have to figure out a way to make them leave you alone, because many people won’t willingly leave anyone alone…”

That is about the most succinct and powerful summation of history and politics I’ve ever seen.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 12:53:08 +0000

The great majority of people do not appreciate beauty. Appreciation of beauty is therefore anti-egalitarian.

Neither elitists nor egalitarians will accept the notion of live-and-let-live. Both groups want to run society like some sort of vast machine. Society is not a machine. Society is people, an aggregate of a great many individuals.

By: Albion

Albion — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 08:39:57 +0000

So, having a picture of a woman (who looks very much like Lucille Ball) showing her underwear in a somewhat ungainly position isn’t a gimmick?

A gimmick to sell the publication in a ‘late capitalism’ era?

Interesting.

By: Lucklucky

Lucklucky — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 03:49:58 +0000

“The categories of the sublime and the beautiful, as theorized by Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, continue to shape how we make sense of aesthetic experience.”

Marxists have been trying since the beginning to destroy The Beautiful in Art, since it makes Capitalism beautiful.

They already destroyed beauty in painting, most of it in sculptures; they have been destroying beauty in music.

One of common narratives of Marxist art critics is calling something “celebratory” when it does not show fealty to Capitalism.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 00:40:12 +0000

Nothing gives you the flavor of an era like a few years of bound magazines: McClure's, Look, Saturday Evening Post, New Yorker. Or doing research in old newspapers. You see, as Kirk notes, that there's nothing new under the sun.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 18:09:36 +0000

Outside of his imagination, there weren’t too many in Byron’s life, either. I suspect if you’d have known the man in life, you’d have probably had the same reaction to him that you’re having to this twitterpated chicklet.

These sorts are ever thus, twining their way around reality like so many annoying mayflies or moths around a summer’s light-bulb. If you were to go back and look, there are a thousand forgotten wretches just like her, from “back in the day”. You have to have access to a library that wasn’t culled, or a collection of magazines that’s been left entirely intact to really get a feel for an age, and having had both…? I’m telling you, in a lot of ways, things haven’t changed a bit. Those whose thoughts and actions render them trivial and insignificant get forgotten, and only those who provide positive lasting and exemplary patterns get remembered. The subject of our post ain’t one of those.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 15:21:27 +0000

The phrase “late capitalism” is a gimmick.

Still, I might just read Ugly Feelings in search of useful insights into the psychology of everyday people. After all, there aren’t many Byronic heroes in my life.

By: Freddo

Freddo — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 14:35:17 +0000

And when the gimmick has run its course you recycle it with a bit of anti-capitalism and disdain for the bourgeois Hello Kitty for instant renewed acclaim from the ivory tower.

By: Kentucky Headhunter

Kentucky Headhunter — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 13:12:15 +0000

So, her gimmick is to pretend to be saying something, when actually not saying anything.