Jarryd Bartle, "Sterility as liberation: Sex positivity drains the erotic of existential meaning"
What compels a grown man to write a book called Boyslut?
This simple question piqued my initial interest in this “memoir and manifesto” by Men’s Health sex columnist Zachary Zane.
Zane, who is in his thirties, makes a living selling his “sex positive” lifestyle, providing advice to readers on how to fulfil their sexual fantasies guilt-free and without consequence.
In Boyslut, Zane documents his struggles with being “bisexual, polyamorous, and horny all the time” in a world in which structural systems “idealize an unhealthy masculinity, promote queerphobia, and perpetuate sex-negativity”.
Zane’s first-hand experiences with these “oppressive” systems are documented at length in Boyslut — revealing much in their innocuousness.
Zane admits he grew up in a “very liberal, queer affirming” household. It was his nanny who first introduced him to sexual shame, when she scolded him for experimenting with another boy at the tender age of seven. Zane makes it clear that he doesn’t blame the help for this unfortunate foundational trauma, noting that she “like us all, was a product of a sex-negative and homophobic society”.
In a bizarre aside, Zane notes that he truly loved his nanny and that he “would beg her to feed me her half-eaten food, directly from her mouth like a mama bird”. Rich kid things, I suppose.
Zane’s other big resentment is the “double discrimination” he experiences as a bisexual man. Bisexuals, particularly online, are quick to lament their lack of “representation” in the wider media. They begrudge their diminished situational power within the dog-eat-dog world of identity politics. This insecurity is revealed in some hilariously bland complaints of biphobia in Boyslut, consisting of gay and lesbian people not sufficiently recognising Zane’s “queerness” and both men and women refusing sex. Harrowing stuff!
When reading the first chapters of Boyslut, I was fully prepared to just mock the author for his self-indulgent nonsense. The book is written in painful millennial sarcasm, and it’s pretty clear the author lacks the confidence to write seriously on any topic. How else is one meant to interpret: “I think we should celebrate STIs. It means you’re getting some, and couldn’t we all use a little more action?”
As Boyslut becomes more confessional, the darker components of Zane’s “sex positive” lifestyle bleed through. What at first comes off as a juvenile and asinine take on sex is gradually exposed to be something much more troubling.
Zane is a self-confessed “fraysexual” — one of those stupid online neologisms for a person who only experiences sexual attraction to someone for whom they have no emotional attachment. Relatedly, and possibly because of this, Zane primarily engages in very rough sex.
Much of Boyslut is spent describing Zane’s experiences within group sex — choking and (so important it gets its own chapter) emetophilia. “Whether someone’s puking on my dick or I’m puking on theirs; I’m an equal opportunity vomit fetishist!” Zane exclaims.
Sex for Zane is a completely unserious activity. Having racked up over 2,000 sexual partners he still understands eros as a bit of “fun” without much, if any, emotional significance attached. It therefore wasn’t at all surprising to learn that Zane deals with ongoing mental health issues, particularly obsessive-compulsive disorder. A sex columnist with obsessiveness is a bit like a doctor with hypochondria — prone to projecting their own pathological worldview onto others.
For people disposed to intrusive thoughts, the contemporary “sex positive” movement is understandably appealing: providing clear structures and certainties to mitigate sexual risk, whilst working to purge society of all guilt. However, it’s clear Zane has been led by these ideas towards a rather diminished understanding of sexuality.
Beginning in the internal squabbles amongst feminists in the 1990s, the “sex positive movement” is an ideology that frames sex as inherently unproblematic as long as it is done in a consensual, risk-aware and health-conscious manner. Sexologist Carol Queen describes the movement as a celebration of “sexual diversity, differing desires and relationship structures, and individual choices based on consent”.
Sex-positivity fits within what philosopher Slavoj Zizek calls the “enlightened consumerist hedonism” of the West, where “enjoyment is tolerated, solicited even, but on condition that it is healthy, that it doesn’t threaten our psychic or biological stability”. It is this free market approach to sexuality — combined with a fair amount of US-style therapy language about harm, trauma and “finding oneself” — that we see in Boyslut. For Zane, we are not born sexually free, but into a world filled with hang-ups and stigma, which we must unlearn and transcend to enjoy ourselves.
Zane’s ethos is to not be “bound by traditional heteronormative scripts” and to “embrace a range of ethically non-monogamous relationship styles”. “I’ve gotten over my sexual insecurities,” Zane proudly exclaims. “I’m brazenly out as bisexual, and I don’t have a bone in me that’s sex-negative. I’m sexually shameless, baby!” We all, of course, must become sexually shameless as well.
In substance, sex-positivity is a far cry from how many of the leading theorists of eroticism have approached the subject.
For the grand theorist of eroticism Georges Bataille, drawing on Freud, sexual desire is intertwined with a longing for self-annihilation. According to Bataille, we find refuge from cold individuality in the touch of another by breaking through to a sense of continuity, by “assenting to life up to the point of death”. Good sexuality (or eroticism) is not about simple pleasure seeking, but an encounter with the abyss in the moment right after orgasm (the little death).
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer argued that all pleasures, including from sex, come not as some gift from the body, but in the relief of ridding oneself of an unpleasantness (in this case, the sexual drive). It is in the brief post-coital suspension of the mind amongst lovers where sexual bliss is truly found, not in the possessive climax that precedes it.
This of course, all sounds very “sex negative” to contemporary ears. What’s wrong with a bit of harmless fun without all the sentimentality? Boyslut gives us the answer in its depiction of sex completely purged of existential risk.
Zane’s accounts of sex, rather than enviable moments of life-affirming, mind shattering sex, read more like a tourist racking up novel experiences. In the opening chapter to Boyslut, Zane cheerfully lists off his various accomplishments:
>>I’ve had sex with men, women, and nonbinary folks. I’ve had sex with twenty-one-year-old guys and grandmothers three times that age. I’ve had sex with people in and from dozens of countries. I’ve had sex with drug addicts, millionaires, and millionaire drug addicts (free cocaine, yay!). I’ve had orgies with over a hundred people, anonymous sex in saunas, and have hooked up with my Lyft driver.<<
These aren’t the tantalising memoirs of a Don Juan, but a rather silly attempt to impress readers by flexing one’s promiscuity.
Philosopher Byung Chul Han describes how our current social climate is one of culturally mandated self-exploitation. Becoming an “entrepreneur of the self” cages us in a cycle of self-curation, novelty seeking and self-marketing. Reading Zane’s accounts of his sexual exploits, I do wonder how much of all of this is playing up to the mascot of “horny bisexual sex columnist”, rather an earnest quest for sexual freedom.
The descriptions of violent sexuality in Boyslut aren’t shocking because of their content — we’ve known for centuries that male sexuality is prone to aggressive, sadomasochistic fantasy — but because the author gives no weight to these experiences. They are merely part of his shame-free sexual brand.
The sex positivity movement, in its urge to “destigmatise” and license any and all sexual activity, has deprived sexual encounters of any value. Call me a prude, but I think oral penetration to the point of puking should elicit something of a visceral response. Sexual shame, rather than a tool of oppression, is a sign that a person is embedded within a prism of meaning where limits exist to be transgressed. There is no point in a kink without shame.
Writer Mary Harrington has noted that the increased popularity of BDSM and stylised sexual violence is an attempt by many (particularly young people) to recapture and “re-wild” sexuality, which has been culturally overexposed and overanalysed. “The true, deep wildness of sex can only be reproduced, in the sterile order of de-risked consumer sex,” she writes in Feminism Against Progress. Even these extremes appear at risk of being intellectualised and diminished.
In one chapter, Zane describes being part of a panel discussion at a porn film festival where he nonchalantly discusses his puke fetish. “Oh, very interesting,” the moderator calmly replies. “Is there any type of puke you prefer?”
At its core, the sexual liberation proposed in Boyslut is that of Nietzsche’s “last man” — a contentment with simple pleasures with no desire to ascend to sensual heights. Zane’s anxious mind has fixated on the permissions and rules of sex positive gurus, denying himself any truly life changing erotic experiences. In practice, this has led him to the edges of depravity but without any libertine sense of transgression or intimacy.
Despite its jokey title, Boyslut provides an unintentionally nightmarish glimpse at contemporary sexuality. It scandalises, not because of its explicitness, but because its author repackages emotional sterility as a form of liberation.
Lem again.
ReplyDeleteHe propheted such a future of sexual freedoms. In USA to boot.
In couple of his grotesque, but funny texts.
Well... was that that much of a prophesy? You was sex-free in 60th already. From the POV of all-buttons closed Europe. ;-P
The "pill' changed everything. New "tech".
ReplyDelete???
ReplyDeletepill?
/He propheted such a future of sexual freedoms. In USA to boot.
ReplyDeleteBirth control pill... "trans" surgery. "Tech".
Plato, "Phaedrus"
ReplyDeleteSoc. At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
:P
ReplyDeleteIt's what Berlin termed "the unavoidability of conflicting ends" or, alternatively, the "incommensurability" of values. He once called this "the only truth which I have ever found out for myself... Some of the Great Goods cannot live together.... We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss." In short, it's what Michael Ignatieff summarized as "the tragic nature of choice".
:)
\\Birth control pill... "trans" surgery. "Tech".
ReplyDeleteYap.
Like in
Return from the Stars - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Return_from_the_Stars
Return from the Stars (Polish: Powrót z gwiazd) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem. ... it is the story of a cosmonaut returning to his homeworld, Earth, ...
And in some other text -- about "body construction revolution". ;-)
\\In short, it's what Michael Ignatieff summarized as "the tragic nature of choice".
Was my comment on that not enough?
That is in very structure of Universe. Thing which make it tick.
Arrow of Time. And Entropy.
Which based exactly on that -- if you going one way, you loosing possibility/ability to go another.
That is what even atoms lose to.
Or Quants of light -- photons. That's why we able to see deep deep in the past of Universe, with our telescopes.
\\Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness...
ReplyDeleteStill, we know it because it was written in letters. ;-P
\\Thomas Sowell's statement "there are no solutions, only trade-offs" has had the greatest impact on the author's understanding of the world.
ReplyDeleteYep.
Isn't that wht we discussed long ago?
Words of Golem ;-)
Yes... I tend to talk in circles. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteThat... only proves that you have integrity. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI myself too... quite repetitive. And not without merit. I hope. (shy)
:)
ReplyDeleteHow do you think, would Derpy start learning some logic... under press of my nagging? ;-)
ReplyDelete:-|
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for that, but who knows? Miracles happen.
ReplyDeleteI've been nagiing him for years, to no effect. :(
Well... he showed that he can copy-cating -- like how he started quoting me...
ReplyDeleteWho knows, if I'd be able to make him to google something about Aristotle's logic... hilarity ensure? ;-)
I doubt logic is going to help.... he'll only use it in support of his arguments, never against them.
ReplyDeleteOh... you saw him use logic??? Where? :-)))
ReplyDeleteTill this moment I saw him admitting some apparent facts only.
ReplyDeleteWell... that is big progress, as most I saw on the Net... I didn't saw even that.
And lately... he showed ability to so flaws in a non-formal logical clause...
He's not dumb, he's simply convinced he's got a moral cause to uphold and won't admit to anything that challenges it. I don't think that he actually believes what he's saying, he simply repeats what he's saying for the sake of "other believers" (lest they lose faith in the moral cause). He's like Neils Bohr and the horseshoe. He suffers from the fetishist's disavowel.
ReplyDeleteEither that, or he's a fundamentalist fanatic who totally buys into the liberal messaging he's bombarded with. In which case he really is a stupid f*ck.
ReplyDeleteWell... that last thing... is a bit exaggerated.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd find it insightful -- my POV of foreigner. Out of the USA box/pool.
I saw other of your left-aligned... and they all are that way.
Kinda like new religion. %)
But well, as far as I know USA is quite religious state... of its own kind.
And people in general... like to keep their traditions. And there habits.
Like watching/reading what CNN says... and taking it WITHOUT grain of salt. ;-)
That's all.
All other... that it result of your inner political brawls.
And modern open world -- where through means of internet... one can meet many more and much more differ people... than in older times.
PS I... cannot help it -- like that chance and try burtgeoning on it.
But not all people like it, that much.
And that... we still have not saw the Great Flood... of people from ALL OTHER world would come and participate... ;-)
...they're all like that. My argument from earler today... on the secular values of Democrats...
ReplyDeleteThe entire secular moral identity of Democrats lies in anti-racism. To deny "racism" today is to deny Democrats their moral identity. Without their moral identity, Democrats are just ordinary people, and they believe that the "moral superiority" inherent in anti-racism makes them extraordinary.
Anti-Jewishness was at the heart of Nazi identity. The social inequities in Weimar Germany were only intelligible to Germans (Nazis) in the 1930s in the presence of a malevolent Jewish presence that was preventing social harmony. The idealized German "volk" would only achieve harmony if the evil was rooted out.
Soviet Russia's entire identity involved an idealized and mythical Russian people whom the politicians served. Without the "myths" of the virtues of this mythical people, Soviet government policies would have had no meaning, no reinforcing identity.
When Democrats today deny "American exceptionalism", they do so in the name of anti-racism, and thereby proclaim their own "exceptionalism". It's a bait and switch.
Where would the women on The View be without that exceptional quality that entitles them to be feted, looked up to, idolized, and extremely well compensated? Their "moral superiority" is all derived from their moral stance vis anti-racism. To challenge the notion that racism is no longer a threat and that their vigilance is no longer necessary, is to deny them their entire raison d'etre and unjustified notions of "self-worth".
https://youtu.be/oBcFLmu_tl...
For they must all please "The Big Other". He grants them their worth. Just as Mrs. Grundy (and the Order of Appearances) grant the rest of us "our" moral worths.
https://mrsgrundys.blogspot...
links above:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBcFLmu_tlc&t=5440s
https://mrsgrundys.blogspot.com/
...as for the blogosphere, there's still a lot of language barriers that Google translate will have to overcome.
ReplyDeleteI think... that is not linguistical barrier.
ReplyDeleteSee... I'm here.
But, more like barrier of interests and worldviews...
\\The entire secular moral identity of Democrats lies in anti-racism. To deny "racism" today is to deny Democrats their moral identity. Without their moral identity, Democrats are just ordinary people, and they believe that the "moral superiority" inherent in anti-racism makes them extraordinary.
Yawn.
Easily scalable.
There is feminism and trans-genderism.
I myself saw lefty who tring to spread drumbeats of "THEY... against ALL who are smart"... well, you could guess for yourself -- my assessment of that one smarts. ;-)
\\Anti-Jewishness was at the heart of Nazi identity. The social inequities in Weimar Germany were only intelligible to Germans (Nazis) in the 1930s in the presence of a malevolent Jewish presence that was preventing social harmony.
Did you know?
That all that "anti-jewishness" was Russian Empire secret services plot. ;-)
War-time propaganda. So that their enemy (German empire in that times) would grow weak on the inside.
And how spectacularly it worked out.
But well... German's specops was first -- with their propaganda of commuinsm and help with Great Socialistic Revolution. ;-P
\\Soviet Russia's entire identity involved an idealized and mythical Russian people whom the politicians served.
Naah.
That is Modern Rusha... and even that -- only lately. When liliPut achived grip firm enough... and started to feed Nazi-style Propaganda.
Like today, when he all day preached "love to Mother-Rusha"... for the sake of people being ready to die.
In soviet times that was some idealized "proletariat".
But even that, in Late Soviet time was pretty much meaningless preaching.
Like about Christ born in a lamb's craddle... to a cinical city dweller... who saw lambs only in picture-book.
\\Soviet government policies would have had no meaning, no reinforcing identity.
They had no. No meaning at all. Pure voluntarism. :-)))
Pretty much all of the time. Maybe except for times of war against nazis... (that's why liliPut trying to preach to that idol of "war with nazis" today)
It all was punitively forced labour.
Based on people being dis-joined and unaware of their own rights.
ohh... yes, and propaganda. :-))))
ReplyDeleteOf course, it was homeric amounts of propaganda TOO.
""Mrs Grundy is a figurative name for an extremely conventional or priggish person,[1] a personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety.[2] A tendency to be overly fearful of what others might think is sometimes referred to as grundyism.
ReplyDeleteMrs Grundy originated as an unseen character in Thomas Morton's 1798 five-act comedy Speed the Plough.[2] References to Mrs Grundy were eventually so well established in the public imagination that in Samuel Butler's 1872 novel Erewhon, the goddess Ydgrun, an anagram for Grundy, dictates social norms. As a figure of speech, "Mrs Grundy" can be found throughout the English-speaking world.""
???
To me, with my upbringing... it pretty much unexistant.
There is pretty much NOTHING of latest history can be a base for such "grundism". ;-P
What that Mrs.Grundy of Post-Soviet should do??? Well, probably what liliPut do... but do he successful? Do he grundy??? Anyhow. :-))))))))))))))))
/I think... that is not linguistical barrier.
ReplyDeleteSee... I'm here.
But, more like barrier of interests and worldviews...
It's hard to surpass the cultural barriers. We (in America) often apply 1st world values to 2nd/3rd world problems. It's why the Chinese call us "Baizuo". Our value priorities are completely misaligned.
\\The entire secular moral identity of Democrats lies in anti-racism. To deny "racism" today is to deny Democrats their moral identity. Without their moral identity, Democrats are just ordinary people, and they believe that the "moral superiority" inherent in anti-racism makes them extraordinary.
/Yawn.
Easily scalable.
There is feminism and trans-genderism.
I myself saw lefty who tring to spread drumbeats of "THEY... against ALL who are smart"... well, you could guess for yourself -- my assessment of that one smarts. ;-)
Again, this is the same values misalignment thing. Anti-racism is like anti-Nazism during/after WWII. They're trying to De-Nazify the American government (remove all "racist Republicans"). There are very very very FEW racist Republicans. They's children pretending to slay dragons. Imaginary heroes defeating imaginary threats. The liberals have merely broadened the base meaning of anti-racism to include anti-sexism and anti-transphobia. They're desperate to find racists, sexists, and homophobes... they need to invent enemies so as to feel good about themselves.
\\Anti-Jewishness was at the heart of Nazi identity. The social inequities in Weimar Germany were only intelligible to Germans (Nazis) in the 1930s in the presence of a malevolent Jewish presence that was preventing social harmony.
/Did you know?
That all that "anti-jewishness" was Russian Empire secret services plot. ;-)
War-time propaganda. So that their enemy (German empire in that times) would grow weak on the inside.
And how spectacularly it worked out.
But well... German's specops was first -- with their propaganda of commuinsm and help with Great Socialistic Revolution. ;-P
Nothing would surprise me.
\\Soviet Russia's entire identity involved an idealized and mythical Russian people whom the politicians served.
ReplyDelete/Naah.
That is Modern Rusha... and even that -- only lately. When liliPut achived grip firm enough... and started to feed Nazi-style Propaganda.
Like today, when he all day preached "love to Mother-Rusha"... for the sake of people being ready to die.
In soviet times that was some idealized "proletariat".
But even that, in Late Soviet time was pretty much meaningless preaching.
Like about Christ born in a lamb's craddle... to a cinical city dweller... who saw lambs only in picture-book.
All nations do this, to build bonds between their own citizens, and erect barriers against the citizens of others. Russia has been America's boogeyman since the defeat of the Nazi's and the start of the Cold War.
\\Soviet government policies would have had no meaning, no reinforcing identity.
/They had no. No meaning at all. Pure voluntarism. :-)))
Pretty much all of the time. Maybe except for times of war against nazis... (that's why liliPut trying to preach to that idol of "war with nazis" today)
It all was punitively forced labour.
Based on people being dis-joined and unaware of their own rights.
An age old tactic, no doubt.
/ohh... yes, and propaganda. :-))))
Of course, it was homeric amounts of propaganda TOO.
Social capital spent in pursuit of actual monetary capital.
""Mrs Grundy is a figurative name for an extremely conventional or priggish person,[1] a personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety.[2] A tendency to be overly fearful of what others might think is sometimes referred to as grundyism.
Mrs Grundy originated as an unseen character in Thomas Morton's 1798 five-act comedy Speed the Plough.[2] References to Mrs Grundy were eventually so well established in the public imagination that in Samuel Butler's 1872 novel Erewhon, the goddess Ydgrun, an anagram for Grundy, dictates social norms. As a figure of speech, "Mrs Grundy" can be found throughout the English-speaking world.""
???
To me, with my upbringing... it pretty much unexistant.
You'd be surprised. In Jewish culture you have the Yenta.
yenta
ˈyen-tə
NOUN
one that meddlesblabbermouth, gossip
Surely you have some equal in yours. язык хорошо подвешен?
There is pretty much NOTHING of latest history can be a base for such "grundism". ;-P
What that Mrs.Grundy of Post-Soviet should do??? Well, probably what liliPut do... but do he successful? Do he grundy??? Anyhow. :-))))))))))))))))
No, a Mrs. Grundy shames you. A Mrs Grundy leads the Dionysian Chorus of shame in a society, extolling the deeds of the virtuous and depricating the deeds of their opponents (or those failing to follow their example). It's not a "manly" thing. It's "female society". It's like a Spartan mother's admonition to her sons... "Either with it, or on it." ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς
\\We (in America) often apply 1st world values to 2nd/3rd world problems.
ReplyDeleteWasn't you have had same problems... just a century or so ago?
And solved it with help of that values.
Isn't that makes it justified?
\\They's children pretending to slay dragons. Imaginary heroes defeating imaginary threats.
...they need to invent enemies so as to feel good about themselves.
Like anything new...
\\Nothing would surprise me.
Well... that is history. Things that WAS.
So, why it should be surprising, even though it was surrounded with such a thick wall of tryes to make it secret.
But still... basic trivia (that Lenin was brought in sealed vagon from Germany) still trickling through. ;-P
\\Russia has been America's boogeyman since the defeat of the Nazi's and the start of the Cold War.
Well... that was Rusha's... tyrant Stalin exactly, doing.
To hold his power infinitely (but still, just fo a miserly dozen of years)
Cause USA culture happen to be quite popular among aborigens. :-)
And fear of, that with that culture ideas about that values and freedoms would trickle too... was, logical?
Why tyrants of all around the World do dislike USA THAT MUCH? What would answer to that?
\\All nations do this, to build bonds between their own citizens, and erect barriers against the citizens of others.
And European union? ;-)
\\\\Based on people being dis-joined and unaware of their own rights.
\\An age old tactic, no doubt.
Was that anybody's tactic... I wonder?
People JUST WAS that way.
You know, peasants living in separate villages. Even brawling in between themself. Suspicious of incomers. Even if from village "next door".
That's how it was... in milenias.
And Modern liberal propaganda made this all world one global village. ;-)
Isn't that is something to praise it for?
\\Social capital spent in pursuit of actual monetary capital.
False analogy.
Money... it was pretty much unexistant construct in Soviet.
Only REAL money was some currency ($,DM)... but holding em was dangerous.
\\Surely you have some equal in yours. язык хорошо подвешен?
Naah. Lost in translation. :-) That is a praise for orators(or those who can "talk their way in"... or out)... well, not complete equivalent too, as there was no culture of giving speaches, as it is in USA.
word to word translation would be болтунья but I doubt it would match with ALL immediate and subliminal meanings... in Iddish(?).
Well, that is riches that multitude of langs do create.
Cudos for finding a way to double-check my language/origin. ;-P
Something Derpy totally oblivious.
\\ A Mrs Grundy leads the Dionysian Chorus of shame in a society, extolling the deeds of the virtuous and depricating the deeds of their opponents (or those failing to follow their example).
Dunno.
I understand concept, as far as I understand.
But cannot find any immediate corresondence with anything I have seen...
time change too fast here, for anything like that to be happening...
\\It's "female society".
Yap.
That shady side of the moon.
Like in Japan... with separate womenly language. :-)
\\We (in America) often apply 1st world values to 2nd/3rd world problems.
ReplyDelete/Wasn't you have had same problems... just a century or so ago?
And solved it with help of that values.
Isn't that makes it justified?
No, we simply continued to apply the old values until we didn't need them anymore and had pushed through and no longer had the need for them. We now don't allow others to do the same (continue applying the old values), we insist that they apply our new values, many of which are morally hazardous or ridiculously expensive (ie - Green energy).
\\They's children pretending to slay dragons. Imaginary heroes defeating imaginary threats.
...they need to invent enemies so as to feel good about themselves.
/Like anything new...
It's time to stop indulging such behavior. They've become 'righteous' and 'arrogant' to the point of causing real harm to others.
\\Nothing would surprise me.
/Well... that is history. Things that WAS.
So, why it should be surprising, even though it was surrounded with such a thick wall of tryes to make it secret.
But still... basic trivia (that Lenin was brought in sealed vagon from Germany) still trickling through. ;-P
It wasn't a Stolypin wagon, was it? ;)
\\Russia has been America's boogeyman since the defeat of the Nazi's and the start of the Cold War.
/Well... that was Rusha's... tyrant Stalin exactly, doing.
To hold his power infinitely (but still, just fo a miserly dozen of years)
Cause USA culture happen to be quite popular among aborigens. :-)
And fear of, that with that culture ideas about that values and freedoms would trickle too... was, logical?
Maybe from his side. There were many in America seeking to destroy the USSR. Patton wanted to use his army in '45 and take Stalin out while the American army was still in Europe.
/Why tyrants of all around the World do dislike USA THAT MUCH? What would answer to that?
ReplyDeleteWe're a threat. Economic and cultural.
\\All nations do this, to build bonds between their own citizens, and erect barriers against the citizens of others.
/And European union? ;-)
Looking for non-threatening markets w/o trade barriers. You'll notice China hasn't been invited to join. Turkey either.
\\\\Based on people being dis-joined and unaware of their own rights.
\\An age old tactic, no doubt.
/Was that anybody's tactic... I wonder?
People JUST WAS that way.
You know, peasants living in separate villages. Even brawling in between themself. Suspicious of incomers. Even if from village "next door".
That's how it was... in milenias.
And Modern liberal propaganda made this all world one global village. ;-)
Isn't that is something to praise it for?
Survival of the fittest. Diverse ecospheres become a single socio-sphere favouring a certain specific genotype. Homo-corporatus.
I think it also makes our societies more "fragile". There are good reasons why desert tribesman hide their women in hijabs and don't display them for other men to covet. They avoid more mating confrontations that way. What liberals would call "displays of toxic masculinity".
\\Social capital spent in pursuit of actual monetary capital.
/False analogy.
Money... it was pretty much unexistant construct in Soviet.
Only REAL money was some currency ($,DM)... but holding em was dangerous.
Soviet leaders didn't have secret Swiss Bank Accounts? ;)
\\Surely you have some equal in yours. язык хорошо подвешен?
/Naah. Lost in translation. :-) That is a praise for orators(or those who can "talk their way in"... or out)... well, not complete equivalent too, as there was no culture of giving speaches, as it is in USA.
word to word translation would be болтунья but I doubt it would match with ALL immediate and subliminal meanings... in Iddish(?).
Well, that is riches that multitude of langs do create.
Cudos for finding a way to double-check my language/origin. ;-P
Something Derpy totally oblivious.
No... not a chatterbox... or even a "hustler". More a "gossip" critically trading in the social/ moral deviancy of others. Like church-women with nothing better to discuss.
\\ A Mrs Grundy leads the Dionysian Chorus of shame in a society, extolling the deeds of the virtuous and depricating the deeds of their opponents (or those failing to follow their example).
ReplyDelete/Dunno.
I understand concept, as far as I understand.
But cannot find any immediate corresondence with anything I have seen...
time change too fast here, for anything like that to be happening...
It's something like "scapegoating"... an ancient practice derived from mimesis... and usually identifies the "goats" to be targetted for blame and ostracism.
\\It's "female society".
/Yap.
That shady side of the moon.
Like in Japan... with separate womenly language. :-)
Kind of... but not "polite". Vulgar/ obscene.
\\No, we simply continued to apply the old values until we didn't need them anymore and had pushed through and no longer had the need for them.
ReplyDeleteReally?
Well... if you say so... it's not my job to oppose. Ask Derpy. ;-)
Maybe it would introduce some real value into your "political discussions".
\\We now don't allow others to do the same (continue applying the old values), we insist that they apply our new values, many of which are morally hazardous or ridiculously expensive (ie - Green energy).
“Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.” François de La Rochefoucauld. ;-)
\\It's time to stop indulging such behavior. They've become 'righteous' and 'arrogant' to the point of causing real harm to others.
It's Sad thing to admit... but that is not how it happen, in History.
\\It wasn't a Stolypin wagon, was it? ;)
Who knows??? I am not hiswtorian. And I doubt that there ARE such, who'd collected and cherished such a fine details...
There was lots of "historical records" about that times. But most of them was produced in later times legends.
Like story about hay-house Lenin was living for some time. In Soviet time there was "sure original" reconstruction of it made. ;-P
Do it have any meaning? I know there is lots of people who like such material history. Collectioners. Amateur Historians.
But hardly it matter. Here.
\\There were many in America seeking to destroy the USSR. Patton wanted to use his army in '45 and take Stalin out while the American army was still in Europe.
And was they NOT right??? Given with nowaday situation, when one certain liliPut waging a nuclear holocaust??? Of USA in the first place.
Well... even if you'd discount it as mere shallow threats. And past year showed that it is most possible, most veritable thing to do.
There is whole generation of people who'd see their ONLY goal in life -- destruction of USA. (as in North Korea, but unlike in NK... with more than enough means to make that true :-((((((( )
\\We're a threat. Economic and cultural.
ReplyDeleteCultural? Yes.
Economical? Why they like your luxurious products then? ;-)
\\You'll notice China hasn't been invited to join.
To EU??? HOW???!!!!
\\Turkey either.
Well... their own fault.
Well... that is natural, that your blindness to that much more nagging issue at hand. Reminder: where last 2 WWs happened???
\\Survival of the fittest. Diverse ecospheres become a single socio-sphere favouring a certain specific genotype. Homo-corporatus.
Huh... but Evolution, not that simple...
And there is no ecosystem based on only one specie.
\\There are good reasons why desert tribesman hide their women in hijabs and don't display them for other men to covet.
Naah.
I bet it totally opposite.
They was forced to wear that fullbody cover -- because of weather condintions... and only then, after that it became fetish.
Once I saw a comparative picture of women traditional clothes of different nacionalities of arabic countries -- very few of them was full-body-covered.
Quote contrary -- oriental style is one of most sexually-frivolous. ;-)
\\Soviet leaders didn't have secret Swiss Bank Accounts? ;)
And how they'd managed them? And for what purpose???
I devised a way to explain it to foreigners, westerners.
To explain structure of USSR. Long ago. Not used it many times.
Imagine a Corporation.
Do directors of that corporation would need "Swiss Bank Accounts"??? Or any money on their hands, at all?
While living in a corporate flats, being delivered to/from work and elsewhere in corporate cars, all needed good delivered to them in accordance with their place in hierarchy.
Well... they have had an access to Western culture. As in form of goods and media.
But also, to ideas... about economy and politics.
So it is not hard to imagine them to grow liking that -- Western, USA-style structure of Power, based on Money.
Much more free, much more frivolous.
But still... I have not seen that much detailed sociological research -- how it happened. :-/
By obvious reasons...
Ther same as there is no detailed historical research of top brass of the Western countries getting their riches, isn't it? ;-)
\\Like church-women with nothing better to discuss.
Yap.
And where I could see anything like that... in a thoroughly secular country? ;-P
Some more from Fucauld ;-P
ReplyDeleteEuropean version of your Bierce, isn't it?
Yes, very much like Bierce.
ReplyDeleteAs for taking on the USSR at the time... that goes contrary to the American model (Cincinnatus). All we want to do is tend our own little gardens... not turn the world into one.
ReplyDeleteAnd where I could see anything like that... in a thoroughly secular country? ;-P
ReplyDeleteYou had no clique of "mean girls" in high school?
\\No, we simply continued to apply the old values until we didn't need them anymore and had pushed through and no longer had the need for them.
ReplyDelete/Really?
Well... if you say so... it's not my job to oppose. Ask Derpy. ;-)
Maybe it would introduce some real value into your "political discussions".
There's a saying. "Every civilization destroys itself from an excess of it's own 1st principle." Ours is liberty/freedom. We have since let go of many 2ndary principles/values (ie - Property, Christian sexual morality, etc.), but only the 1st principle really presses on (to excess).
\\We now don't allow others to do the same (continue applying the old values), we insist that they apply our new values, many of which are morally hazardous or ridiculously expensive (ie - Green energy).
/“Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.” François de La Rochefoucauld. ;-)
\\It's time to stop indulging such behavior. They've become 'righteous' and 'arrogant' to the point of causing real harm to others.
/It's Sad thing to admit... but that is not how it happen, in History.
Indeed. A calmity must befall us before any real and lasting actions can be achieved.
\\All we want to do is tend our own little gardens... not turn the world into one.
ReplyDeleteWell... you'd need a tech for that.
For example, habitats in space -- totaly self-sufficient with closed biospheres.
\\You had no clique of "mean girls" in high school?
Do you mean High School? ;-)
Well... we do not have it.
And well, I leapfrogged it -- by transferring into "technical school" -- that is translation I learned to do there, but is there anything lik that in USA?
Low-level schools -- for prols. ;-P
\\Ours is liberty/freedom. We have since let go of many 2ndary principles/values (ie - Property, Christian sexual morality, etc.), but only the 1st principle really presses on (to excess).
Dunno...
\\A calmity....
Calamity? Or calm calamity? ;-P
Well... there is always a chance of new tech introduction.
As was with computers, for example.
\\You had no clique of "mean girls" in high school?
ReplyDelete/Do you mean High School? ;-)
Well... we do not have it.
And well, I leapfrogged it -- by transferring into "technical school" -- that is translation I learned to do there, but is there anything lik that in USA?
Low-level schools -- for prols. ;-P
We have "vocational schools" for learning a trade vs. high school (college preparatory). In my county we have Harford Vo-Tech, which is what I assume you mean.
Again, in high school (grades 9-12) I took classes like Architectural Drawing and Auto Shop. In Middle School (grades 7-8) I took Metal Shop. At the Academy (college undergraduate) I learned drafting, welding, brazing, cutting, refrigeration, juice (electricity), diesels and steam and also spent a year at sea on various cargo ships, old and modern. It was like a vocational school, mixed with classes in thermodynamics, physics, calculus, material science, electric circuits, marine engineering, etc.. After graduation, I worked in the shipyards in San Francisco and Sparrows Point. I started as a "Looper", spending about a month with every shipyard craft: Shipfitting, welding, boilermakers, carpenters, machine shop, pipefitters, rigging, and electricians, and ended up a Production Engineer. I then got my masters degree in Systems Management and became a Systems Engineer in Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Shipyard. A "diverse" education. I then did 7 years at Lockheed Martin's Aero & Naval Systems Division and have spent the last 30 years at NASA's GSFC.
\\A calmity....
/Calamity? Or calm calamity? ;-P
Well... there is always a chance of new tech introduction.
As was with computers, for example.
Yes, they changed a lot of things. Fortunately I learned how to do things before that. I know how to live without them. How to organize information without the need for "Search Engines".
\\We have "vocational schools" for learning a trade vs. high school (college preparatory). In my county we have Harford Vo-Tech, which is what I assume you mean.
ReplyDeleteDunno.
Basically that is schools attached to some big enterprises/factories/forges -- to produce (slightly more educated -- so-called "specialists") working force for them.
Hardly USA have anything directly comparable...
\\At the Academy (college undergraduate) I learned drafting, welding, brazing, cutting, refrigeration, juice (electricity), diesels and steam and also spent a year at sea on various cargo ships, old and modern. It was like a vocational school, mixed with classes in thermodynamics, physics, calculus, material science, electric circuits, marine engineering, etc.. After graduation, I worked in the shipyards in San Francisco and Sparrows Point.
Yap.
It looks like better version of it.
Not surprising -- all technological education was acqured from USA... in pre-WW2 times.
And remained pretty much the same, to the very end. And even today.
\\ Fortunately I learned how to do things before that. I know how to live without them. How to organize information without the need for "Search Engines".
Well... it opens new technological approaches. New perspectives.
Old tech have no, and can have nothing comparable to a code -- that can be uploaded on thousand servers -- and change bahavior of a system, drasticly.
Old-way one would need to send whole horde of clever workers... to accomplish something comparable to a modern clever "hacker" can do with just a few keystrokes. ;-)
And that without Moore's Law even. ;-)
Old tech have no, and can have nothing comparable to a code -- that can be uploaded on thousand servers -- and change bahavior of a system, drasticly.
ReplyDeleteSure it did. You had procedures, and you followed them. You created cross-referenced lists and filed things accordingly. Purchase Requisitions to Purchase orders to specifications. Even the USN had a standardized part numbering system. All fire pumps of all types always started with the same numbers... by WBS (work breakdown system). It's still in use today and provides the framework computerized systems still used today. Standards may slow down innovation, but when it comes to mass production... they're invaluable. Change the "standard"... and sometimes it changes the entire system. Like 'D' size batteries...
Europe went "metric" standard. We didn't. We became "unhackable".
ReplyDeleteJapan has its' Japanese Industrial (JIS) Standards. Try building something in Japan w/o them.
ReplyDeleteAll pre-computer "tech".
\\Change the "standard"... and sometimes it changes the entire system. Like 'D' size batteries...
ReplyDeleteTime in which that changes can be introduced and tested -- very different.
Modern programming even use that "test first" mentality. When you first create framwork of what your code should do... and only then starting writing actual code which do things. ;-)
Well... it similar to that "standards first"... but turn around is much faster. ;-)
And...
Only imagine, what pace of development would be -- with systems that can learn by themself. ;-)
Because... today our human brains -- is that bottlneck.
We cannot start lerning things faster, cannot spread our attention any more. Our capabilities already are over-straigned. :-/
It's sounds like those who can implement systemic changes through re-directing AI will become the "masters of the universe".
ReplyDeleteSteering AI. Cybernetics.
ReplyDeleteThe term cybernetics comes from the Ancient Greek word κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs), meaning "steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder"1. The term was suggested by the French physicist André-Marie Ampère in the first half of the 19th century, who proposed that the still nonexistent science of the control of governments be called cybernetics2.
\\It's sounds like those who can implement systemic changes through re-directing AI will become the "masters of the universe".
ReplyDeleteIf they, that whimsical "who" could do that -- they would be able to upright their own minds first. ;-P
Masters of the Universe, my ass. :-)))
\\The term cybernetics comes from the Ancient Greek word κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs)
Yap...
It's not their own minds that they worry about. It's yours.
ReplyDeleteThere is such saying... not sure if you was meeting it before.
ReplyDeleteAbout being "Master of the Univerese"... why sitting in asylum, and trying to not attract attention of sanitars. ;-P
Ah, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari... :)
ReplyDeleteDoesn't he RUN the asylum?
:P
ReplyDeleteYou straining my miserly capabilities here, again. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe best I could recall it's relatively new film about crazy man who fall in love with beatiful patient and decided to impersonate himself a psychiatrist and elope with her... well, I watched it with half-eye, but plot itself was damn strange and original, and you know already how I love strange and original things...
Also... I recall mentioning here movie with Gibbson -- Genius and madman.
And that my comment was about some coloquial notion, like...
Basicly, this one
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products ...
www.amazon.com › Inmates-Are-Running-Asy...
The recurring metaphor in The Inmates are Running the Asylum is that of the dancing bear--the circus bear that shuffles clumsily for the amusement of the ...
I was referring to the old film... thought by some to prophesize the eventual rise of Hitler.
ReplyDeleteI got it.
ReplyDeleteThat's why tryed to provide some input. As excuse.
No, still very relevant to the argument. Variants on "Madness and Civilization" by Foucault.
ReplyDelete...or perhaps the "original" by Freau, "Civilization and its' Discontents".
ReplyDeleteTo civilize man, you must first "capture" him... like the deserts "captured" Egyptians living in the Nile river valley.
ReplyDeleteA very Greek (Cyclopian) argument. What will we do when the world no longer has walls? ALL go "mad"?
ReplyDeletePolyphemus, we barely knew ye.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I like sci-fi.
ReplyDeleteAll kinds of possbilities tested.
Like... what if all people would be mad?
Like whole planet used as asylum... with all personel suddenly disappear.
...and everyone, in that instant, were declared "sane". ;)
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar with "contrary's"
ReplyDelete\\...and everyone, in that instant, were declared "sane". ;)
ReplyDeleteWhy? No.
Just names of ilnesses became names of new tribes. ;-P
Well, in accordance with author.
What is "normalcy" anyway? Isn't it just a statistical averageness. ;-)
...and social convention. Cannibalism is normal n a tribe of cannibals
ReplyDeleteNot exactly...
ReplyDeletethat is Nature yoking us, with tedious choice(s).
As flash of a human body -- it's juicy and nutricious. If look from cinically utilitatian POV at it.
But.
We all, even cannibals, have natural distaste toward it.
Because... imagine a mother drooling from desire to devour her newborn, for example... naah, Evolution cannot allow it.
But.
About that cannibal tribes.
They, as anybody else, have brawls with there own kin -- homos.
But.
There is NO resource of meat.
So... when after big battle -- if they'll try to ignore that rich source of proteines they have on their hands... that "moral" tribe -- will go extinct.
Evolution, again.
And well... sci-fi too. ;-)
...and yet black widows and praying mantis eat their mates...
ReplyDeleteThat is also... Evolutiuonally feasible.
ReplyDeleteEvolution is not Mrs. Grundy. ;-P
ReplyDeleteShe's Mrs. Anything Goes. ;-)
She is the voice of the mirror neuron's.... sayin' "follow with/like the herd"!
ReplyDeleteLike there is neurons that DO NOT work in favour of Evolution...
ReplyDeletewe are slaves of volution totally.
There were, but they got weeded/ thinned out. ;)
ReplyDelete:-)))
ReplyDelete\\Steering AI. Cybernetics.
ReplyDelete\\The term cybernetics comes from the Ancient Greek word κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs), meaning "steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder"1. The term was suggested by the French physicist André-Marie Ampère in the first half of the 19th century, who proposed that the still nonexistent science of the control of governments be called cybernetics2.
Basicly... it's a notion that explains waves. ;-)
That to create a wave -- two antagonistic powers/forces needed.
And waves -- that's pretty much everything that happen in the Universe.
Generation from opposites...
ReplyDeleteEvolution...
ReplyDelete