A good bit of advice for youngsters
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Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
I actually listened to this last weekend. Overall, it seems that he can diagnose some of the symptoms pretty accurately, but his eval of the overall pathology is dubious. For example, his class analysis becomes sublimated into a generational/lifestage argument. Also, there’s sort of an implicit assumption of progress-oriented liberal consensus thinking that suggests that the point of society is generation over generation increase in material splendor.
He seems to ignore some historical context stuff that would have caused a person to note that college used to be low cost or free but then became marketized. I mean, dude is a product of the UC system which WAS FREE until it ran into the neoliberal and culture war buzzsaw.
Blaming governments and their permit requirements and university admins and average aged social security recipients for wealth disparity while not looking at the many other structural and political factors that dismantled the post WWII economic order seems a little weird.
It’s easy to dunk on old people and social media and Nancy Pelosi and other things people hate, but arguing for disruption and tech-enabled market efficiencies and means testing and kinda quietly suggesting that we kill social security and maybe sort out something later without serious structural change seems not awesome. See also general concerns about hyperfocused reformist plans that don’t really interrogate the status quo. Also, it’s super easy to say that other younger people should have to do national service after the fact of one’s own eligibility.
Also, not super into the fat shaming nonsense and patriarchal/paternalistic appeals to LOVING YOUR KIDS IN YOUR HETERONORMATIVE NUCLEAR FAMILY IS THE ONLY PATH TO MEANING argle bargle. Not too surprising from a guy who is trying to do a kinder gentler manosphere thing, for example…
Boys to Men | No Mercy / No Malice
America has a vision of itself as the land of opportunity, with rights and liberty for everyone. That is not and has never been the reality. But for 250 years we’ve been closing that gap at a greater pace than any other multicultural democracy. Lately, however, there’s evidence we’re losing...
www.profgalloway.com
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shoeless
Riffin'
Fair enough. I didn't agree with everything he had to say either (rarely do with anyone), but thought he had some valid points.I actually listened to this last weekend. Overall, it seems that he can diagnose some of the symptoms pretty accurately, but his eval of the overall pathology is dubious. For example, his class analysis becomes sublimated into a generational/lifestage argument. Also, there’s sort of an implicit assumption of progress-oriented liberal consensus thinking that suggests that the point of society is generation over generation increase in material splendor.
He seems to ignore some historical consensus stuff that would have caused a person to note that college used to be low cost or free but then became marketized. I mean, dude is a product of the UC system which WAS FREE until it ran into the neoliberal and culture war buzzsaw.
Blaming governments and their permit requirements and university admins and average aged social security recipients for wealth disparity while not looking at the many other structural and political factors that dismantled the post WWII economic order seems a little weird.
It’s easy to dunk on old people and social media and Nancy Pelosi and other things people hate, but arguing for disruption and tech-enabled market efficiencies and means testing and kinda quietly suggesting that we kill social security and maybe sort out something later without serious structural change seems not awesome. See also general concerns about focused reformist plans that don’t really interrogate the status quo. Also, it’s super easy to say that other younger people should have to do national service after the fact.
Also, not super into the fat shaming nonsense and patriarchal/paternalistic appeals to LOVING YOUR KIDS IN YOUR HETERONORMATIVE NUCLEAR FAMILY IS THE ONLY PATH TO MEANING argle bargle. Not too surprising from a guy who is trying to do a kinder gentler manosphere thing, for example…
Boys to Men | No Mercy / No Malice
America has a vision of itself as the land of opportunity, with rights and liberty for everyone. That is not and has never been the reality. But for 250 years we’ve been closing that gap at a greater pace than any other multicultural democracy. Lately, however, there’s evidence we’re losing...
Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
Honestly, I think his reasoning is kind of daft. As a historian and cultural commentator, he’s a decent marketing guru.
For example, from that boy crisis link…
He attributes to “the West” as a concept/culture/sensibility the “invention” of the US middle class—which based on other contextual queues in his piece seems to mostly be the explosion of so-called middle class prosperity post WWII. But to not factor in things like the massive economic advantages baked into Breton Woods, the relatively unscathed post-war production capacity of US industry, the emerging Cold War economic order, the exclusions of whole groups of people from the boom times, etc. kind of makes it difficult not to see his arguments as just boosterism for an imagined golden age. (Neverminding larger issues about how America got its huge pool
of resources and the ways in which exploited labor built the foundations of the system.)
Just saying, he’s less odious than a lot of Ted-talking nincompoops and grindset gurus, but I’d be wary of recommending his advice to actual young people as it seems like the sort of self congratulatory stuff that old people like to believe and consider “common sense.”
Also, this whole thing below is pretty questionable and maybe calls into question the rationale for Prof G’s project and who he’s imagining a better world for—and which people are not part of his better world. Best case scenario, he’s advancing an unthinking BABIES FOR CAPITALISM worldview. Worst case, this “progress = virile young men” stuff is directionally pointing at some Jordan B. Peterson incel “everyone is owed a government issued wife” stuff.
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Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
So you’re not interested in his podcast network that will include shows by Fred Bizkit and Billy Pumpkin?
Fred Durst Will Talk About Aliens, Billy Corgan Will Talk About… Something On New Podcasts
Billy Corgan and Fred Durst will both get to host their own shows on a new podcast network set up by Bill Maher.
www.rollingstone.com
Guess you’ll just have to make do with the Billy Corgan reality teevee show.
Billy Corgan Sets Unscripted TV Series Centering on His Role as Wrestling Company Owner
Billy Corgan has announced a new unscripted series centering on the Smashing Pumpkins frontman's role as owner of the National Wrestling Alliance.
www.rollingstone.com
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