The self-confident sexism of this guy's threads (including one on whether MeToo has "overreached," is breathtaking. It amazes me that thinking men can be so lacking in self-awareness. One woman's response to the pussyhat cringe hit the nail on the head:
"Totally get the annoyance, because as present day events have clearly proven, women "performatively" marching in those "silly hats" back in 2016, because they were afraid of losing their rights to bodily autonomy, were definitely wildly overreacting."
Is anxiety the right emotion? I tend to think negative reactions to others’ displays of opinion are more about fear. Fear of what we don’t understand, fear of being left out, fear of being put down, insulted, deprived of status and so forth. Maybe there’s enough crossover between fear and anxiety that they’re both right. Anyway, the current crop of Wisconsin Republican governor primary ads are fucking insane. “Warrior Conservatives”!! Talk about putting your anxieties and fears on display. “We used to say the Pledge, now they take a knee,” and every other pseudoconservative brain fart from the last 20 years. It’s like having Roy’s Hardcore headlines interrupt your local weather report.
Way back before the comet killed the dinosaurs, I had a job as the guy who trained your receptionist on how to use the new business phone system. We sold a lot of these systems to galleries down in Soho, which let me see lots of early '80s new art. There was good, there was bad . . . and there was one installation that consisted of a 6-volt battery with a knife switch and lightbulb attached to a piece on 1X6 plank atop a cheap stool. $10,000 for that grade-school science project.
My girlfriend at the time was a fine arts major at Hofstra, and she dragged me out to various shows. We went to see an exhibition by one of her profs at the Hyde. He'd managed to fill an entire wing with the same painting in different sizes and orientations: Fine pastel lines on a white gesso background. Dozens and dozens of these things, with the least expensive starting at $36,000. When I pointed out to my girlfriend that what this genius had painted was Sanitess drawer liners, she got pissed. Not two weeks later, we were walking through Pergament (a department store) when I spotted the very Sanitess I was thinking of. So I grabbed a roll and showed her that it was the exact same pattern of fine pastel lines on a white background--right down to the order of the colors. She was shocked, but still defended the prof's work as some kind of social commentary derivative a la Warhol. I figured the guy had decided he had a moral duty to separate stupid and pretentious people from their money.
Am I still cynical about art? Very much so. I've seen too many frauds and poseurs over the decades. (Latest favorite object of scorn: A woman I know who calls herself an artist because she made a painting back in 1987, but hasn't painted since because she's "blocked.")
If these guys really are so concerned about being masculine, why don't they try the traditional, time tested method of SHUTTING THE HELL UP? Like Tony Soprano used to say (an enormous crybaby himself), whatever happened to the strong, silent type like Gary Cooper? Maybe then they could concentrate on something important like actually trying to get somewhere in life instead of complaining about their wretched lot all the time.
To my knowledge -- and like Roy, I have no interest to expend the energies required to confirm -- I believe Smith’s shtick is being a lib apostate, a Greenwood-lite as it were. And/or maybe the problem is that he feels required to opine frequently and has just run out of juice, causing some strains.
As for the hats: My heart (blackened, dead) is warmed to see huge groups uniting, coming together. Not because it affects policy in any way that matters but because the masses uniting is the only way we’re going to get through what is no shit a collapse of the national state. See, Dobbs. That is, keeping control on the local levels and taking care of ourselves is the way.
Smith, OTOH, can’t seem to get past knit hats which, I know, put like that can be taken as a sign of a problem.
Meanwhile, I’ve reached a point where I’m not so sure what liberal means anymore. Not being an asshole? Believing that a national government should have the power to initiate nationwide responses to global pandemics? (SCOTUS has shot that one down.) Being fully accepting of capitalism? Can’t get it together to actually oppose thing like, I dunno, our farce of national security issues? Thinking that the Dems have ours interests at the. Forefront of what they do? I don’t know. Maybe I’m missing things, losing it, I don’t know.
I never could understand the whole "the Party left me" line -- when in the name of St. Donna Summer has the Democratic Party stood for anything!? And being "liberal" has only meant "vaguely leftward-leaning" since Rush Limbaugh [spit] taught us that perverting language was profitable.
As for Noah here, patriarchy comes first before all other concerns or oppressions, So I really appreciate your analysis here -- anxiety & neurosis is a big part of the spoutings-off of men who inexplicably have mics these days.
May 13, 2022·edited May 13, 2022Liked by Roy Edroso
Yea, fashion can be an obstacle. And the notion that the universe is not designed to cater exclusively to one’s whims at any given time in their lives. I’ve come to believe that the fact we are primates and the limitations that come with it are what dooms us as a species. It’s nice a few of us evolved past those basic limitations in the Age of Enlightenment, but as things heat up and the luxuries get scarce, the less enlightened among us will inevitably follow the biggest, meanest ape with the most gnarley red ass, especially those more prone to violence as that is the only skill they have and it’s our nature to want to be good at something.
I too get where that guy is coming from and sometimes find it stifling to mute my justified criticisms of our side, but hopefully he can keep in mind that cringe worthy as pussy hats may be, they are a helluva lot better than jack boots.
Except that "real men" actually are terrified into "walking away" from pursuing justice by pink hats.
That's the entire distinct content of masculinity. It doesn't mean anything else. (Masculinity has no virtue, strength or desirable quality that a non-masculine/non-male person cannot possess or practice.)
Masculinity's defining characteristic is horror/disgust when confronted by something sufficiently non-masculine, and a reaction against that thing, ranging from "an urge to walk away...somewhere" to "WIMMEN MARCH SADDERDAY Gnnnnnnrgggh Whor Baby Bort Arrrrrgh" to "murder"
Not what I'm sure the point was, but I'm grateful to know that being an asshole is something I can grow out of.
My personal asshole take on pussy hats is, people who have their rights written into the Constitution should not tell people who don't how to object to that fact. Doesn't matter how cringe I think it is. Anyway, we like cringe here. It appears to be the new word for "sincere".
the biggest threat to progressive political outcomes is right-wing political forces, but the second-biggest threat is ostensible liberals who ultimately care more about aesthetics than outcomes.
While I don’t have an issue with the hats, I find myself not entirely in sympathy with some of the stylistic manifestations of Left activism—and that’s to be understood, because I’m closing on my eighth decade, and Old Fartitude is a thing. I recognize my Inner Republican, but I don’t let the bastard vote. Of course, this tendency was perhaps latent in my youth. A companion and I bailed from a political march circa 1982 (I think the rally may have had something to do with US policies in Central America) when the folks with the bullhorns decided to lead the masses in that deadly chant: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, [objectionable thing or policy] has got to go.” We looked at one another and wordlessly agreed to leave the scene, although we had different ideas as to where we might next betake ourselves (spoiler: it wasn’t to her apartment, alas).
Bravo!
Mistaking anxieties for political beliefs is an accurate umbrella description of many if not most Republican voters.
Nicely done.
The self-confident sexism of this guy's threads (including one on whether MeToo has "overreached," is breathtaking. It amazes me that thinking men can be so lacking in self-awareness. One woman's response to the pussyhat cringe hit the nail on the head:
"Totally get the annoyance, because as present day events have clearly proven, women "performatively" marching in those "silly hats" back in 2016, because they were afraid of losing their rights to bodily autonomy, were definitely wildly overreacting."
Is anxiety the right emotion? I tend to think negative reactions to others’ displays of opinion are more about fear. Fear of what we don’t understand, fear of being left out, fear of being put down, insulted, deprived of status and so forth. Maybe there’s enough crossover between fear and anxiety that they’re both right. Anyway, the current crop of Wisconsin Republican governor primary ads are fucking insane. “Warrior Conservatives”!! Talk about putting your anxieties and fears on display. “We used to say the Pledge, now they take a knee,” and every other pseudoconservative brain fart from the last 20 years. It’s like having Roy’s Hardcore headlines interrupt your local weather report.
I was hoping the picture was of you in 1982, but I see it's from some TV movie.
Note from the Art World:
Way back before the comet killed the dinosaurs, I had a job as the guy who trained your receptionist on how to use the new business phone system. We sold a lot of these systems to galleries down in Soho, which let me see lots of early '80s new art. There was good, there was bad . . . and there was one installation that consisted of a 6-volt battery with a knife switch and lightbulb attached to a piece on 1X6 plank atop a cheap stool. $10,000 for that grade-school science project.
My girlfriend at the time was a fine arts major at Hofstra, and she dragged me out to various shows. We went to see an exhibition by one of her profs at the Hyde. He'd managed to fill an entire wing with the same painting in different sizes and orientations: Fine pastel lines on a white gesso background. Dozens and dozens of these things, with the least expensive starting at $36,000. When I pointed out to my girlfriend that what this genius had painted was Sanitess drawer liners, she got pissed. Not two weeks later, we were walking through Pergament (a department store) when I spotted the very Sanitess I was thinking of. So I grabbed a roll and showed her that it was the exact same pattern of fine pastel lines on a white background--right down to the order of the colors. She was shocked, but still defended the prof's work as some kind of social commentary derivative a la Warhol. I figured the guy had decided he had a moral duty to separate stupid and pretentious people from their money.
Am I still cynical about art? Very much so. I've seen too many frauds and poseurs over the decades. (Latest favorite object of scorn: A woman I know who calls herself an artist because she made a painting back in 1987, but hasn't painted since because she's "blocked.")
If these guys really are so concerned about being masculine, why don't they try the traditional, time tested method of SHUTTING THE HELL UP? Like Tony Soprano used to say (an enormous crybaby himself), whatever happened to the strong, silent type like Gary Cooper? Maybe then they could concentrate on something important like actually trying to get somewhere in life instead of complaining about their wretched lot all the time.
To my knowledge -- and like Roy, I have no interest to expend the energies required to confirm -- I believe Smith’s shtick is being a lib apostate, a Greenwood-lite as it were. And/or maybe the problem is that he feels required to opine frequently and has just run out of juice, causing some strains.
As for the hats: My heart (blackened, dead) is warmed to see huge groups uniting, coming together. Not because it affects policy in any way that matters but because the masses uniting is the only way we’re going to get through what is no shit a collapse of the national state. See, Dobbs. That is, keeping control on the local levels and taking care of ourselves is the way.
Smith, OTOH, can’t seem to get past knit hats which, I know, put like that can be taken as a sign of a problem.
Meanwhile, I’ve reached a point where I’m not so sure what liberal means anymore. Not being an asshole? Believing that a national government should have the power to initiate nationwide responses to global pandemics? (SCOTUS has shot that one down.) Being fully accepting of capitalism? Can’t get it together to actually oppose thing like, I dunno, our farce of national security issues? Thinking that the Dems have ours interests at the. Forefront of what they do? I don’t know. Maybe I’m missing things, losing it, I don’t know.
I'm old as fuck so I know exactly what you're talking about. Very well put.
I think Noah, however, is a genuine asshole and not just an asshole because he's young.
I could be wrong. I don't care.
I never could understand the whole "the Party left me" line -- when in the name of St. Donna Summer has the Democratic Party stood for anything!? And being "liberal" has only meant "vaguely leftward-leaning" since Rush Limbaugh [spit] taught us that perverting language was profitable.
As for Noah here, patriarchy comes first before all other concerns or oppressions, So I really appreciate your analysis here -- anxiety & neurosis is a big part of the spoutings-off of men who inexplicably have mics these days.
This is good, and I resemble this. But the last line really says it all, and it’s what differentiates liberals from conservatives.
Yea, fashion can be an obstacle. And the notion that the universe is not designed to cater exclusively to one’s whims at any given time in their lives. I’ve come to believe that the fact we are primates and the limitations that come with it are what dooms us as a species. It’s nice a few of us evolved past those basic limitations in the Age of Enlightenment, but as things heat up and the luxuries get scarce, the less enlightened among us will inevitably follow the biggest, meanest ape with the most gnarley red ass, especially those more prone to violence as that is the only skill they have and it’s our nature to want to be good at something.
I too get where that guy is coming from and sometimes find it stifling to mute my justified criticisms of our side, but hopefully he can keep in mind that cringe worthy as pussy hats may be, they are a helluva lot better than jack boots.
Except that "real men" actually are terrified into "walking away" from pursuing justice by pink hats.
That's the entire distinct content of masculinity. It doesn't mean anything else. (Masculinity has no virtue, strength or desirable quality that a non-masculine/non-male person cannot possess or practice.)
Masculinity's defining characteristic is horror/disgust when confronted by something sufficiently non-masculine, and a reaction against that thing, ranging from "an urge to walk away...somewhere" to "WIMMEN MARCH SADDERDAY Gnnnnnnrgggh Whor Baby Bort Arrrrrgh" to "murder"
Not what I'm sure the point was, but I'm grateful to know that being an asshole is something I can grow out of.
My personal asshole take on pussy hats is, people who have their rights written into the Constitution should not tell people who don't how to object to that fact. Doesn't matter how cringe I think it is. Anyway, we like cringe here. It appears to be the new word for "sincere".
the biggest threat to progressive political outcomes is right-wing political forces, but the second-biggest threat is ostensible liberals who ultimately care more about aesthetics than outcomes.
While I don’t have an issue with the hats, I find myself not entirely in sympathy with some of the stylistic manifestations of Left activism—and that’s to be understood, because I’m closing on my eighth decade, and Old Fartitude is a thing. I recognize my Inner Republican, but I don’t let the bastard vote. Of course, this tendency was perhaps latent in my youth. A companion and I bailed from a political march circa 1982 (I think the rally may have had something to do with US policies in Central America) when the folks with the bullhorns decided to lead the masses in that deadly chant: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, [objectionable thing or policy] has got to go.” We looked at one another and wordlessly agreed to leave the scene, although we had different ideas as to where we might next betake ourselves (spoiler: it wasn’t to her apartment, alas).