Time to go after the real shock jocks...
From LRC
Though I find her pseudo-defense of Imus to be more ridiculous than apalling, Lila Rajiva's point about the real shock jocks, the ones who actually have influence on policy in Washington and elsewhere, is well taken.
Some examples:
"I've been to Africa three times. All right? You can't bring Western reasoning into the culture. The same way ( Read more... )
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It remains to be seen whether these right-wing shock jocks will be put on notice, or whether the true double standard in the industry is that these guys, in favour with the current administration, are exempt.
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Oh, granted! I never even thought about the guy until confronted by some dumb thing or other that he said, and I had no use for him whatsoever. I still believe that this whole matter has been handled very poorly, and he has been treated very shabbily by people who never seemed to have a problem with appearing on his show, and tolerating the idiotic things he has said in the past. Now, this is being used as an excuse to lay into hip hop and claim that Imus was influenced by that community's attitude toward women. Poppycock! All the while, I suspect Beck, Limbaugh & Co. are having a chuckle at a situation in which the racist and sexist comment made by an old white guy is blamed on young black men. That's rich!
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Right, our so-called leaders wanted a nation of frightened children whom they could lead around by their noses. They wanted a nation of muling babies absolutely dependent upon the state and the market for everything---incapable of doing anything for themselves.
Read Ivan Illich's Toward A History Of Needs---in fact, if you have trouble finding it, I'll send you my copy---to see different examples of how this works, and various ways that individuals and communities have resisted it. Illich is a true conservative, in the sense that he does not believe in progress (i.e., as a force or engine that exists outside of human values or human effort or human history, and which propels those things forward---that is one of the greatest lies of our age! When Robert Moses brought the freeways into New York City, some (those who made money off it) said, "Well, it's progress, and you can't stop progress! Ha ha ha!" Everyone of them should have been shot as traitors. But, I digress.), rather he believes in the human mind, and its ability to ( ... )
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No, apparently you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about feeling sorry for anybody. If there's one thing our poor, frightened, downtrodden, ignorant, welfare-addicted, television-addled fellow citizens have had too much of it's pity. What they've never had---or, anyway, never had enough of---is self-respect, and that can't be handed out, can't be purchased, and can't be stolen; can't be injected, smoked, or drank; you can't pray for it. It is earned, it is self-created, always within the context of building something for one's self and for the people one loves. It is always, I firmly believe, achieved in concert with mutual aid and solidarity with others. It has nothing to do with politics in any traditional sense of the word. It has to do with culture, in the best sense of that word. The achievement of it has little or nothing to do with genetics or any sort of conception of "inherent worth".
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By self respect... I assume you mean people wanting better for themselves than wage slavery. Absolutely! No wage slavery, and an end to the "commodity fetishism" that almost always goes along with it---i.e., an end to the almost-mystical process whereby people try to find self-respect in the commodities they buy. It never works, of course, or the feeling doesn't last very long, so they just keep buying. As the saying goes, "He who is not busy being born, is busy buying ( ... )
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Well, obviously, you and I have a fundamental disagreement on this matter. And, quite frankly, I do not recall your being this pessimistic when we were friends down here, all those many years ago. What-in-the-hell happened to you there in South Bend?
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I'll change my mind in a nano-second upon being shown a single tiny peice of evidence that a craving for liberty is a common human trait.
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Part of it could be that it's easy on the internet to talk past each other.
That could very well be the case. Which brings to mind a question I asked some time back: when are you going to come down to B-ton, so's we can get a pint at the Irish Lion, and have this conversation in person?
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Douglas Adams once observed that we "live in an era of offense taking". I don't know where folks got this idea that we're supposed to prevent people from offending us. I get this logical fallacy from religiosos a lot; that religion inherently warrants respect, just like individual people. No. No it does not. I don't have to respect anyone's religion. Where did folks get this idea!? Would be clever people say, "ya gotto respect their religion, ya know...". What!? No you don't! It makes everyone stupid when we have to be reminded, "I'M ALLOWED TO OFFEND YOU". If we're going to police what is and isn't offensive, I have a question for ya; who is going to be the inspector?
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If we're going to police what is and isn't offensive, I have a question for ya; who is going to be the inspector?
It's a good question, one to which no one has a very good answer. But, this is where, at least in my opinion, something that George W. S. Trow said in his book Within The Context Of No Context makes a lot of sense:
"Remember, in the situation I am describing the referee always wins."
He was correct when he wrote it, and he is even more correct now.
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