Leo
Well-known member
this is my reaction to at least 30% of all dissensus posts.
K-Punk
- Thread starter droid
- Start date
this is my reaction to at least 30% of all dissensus posts.
craner
Beast of Burden
I remember the days when Corpsey used to whine about me not writing anything.
I think this is a similar thing to when people call other people hipsters, or complain about hipster bars and really it's a signal that they themselves are hipsters. Also "chavs", I hate that one.
sufi
lala
yeah but its way woirse than that given our mass interconnectedness cos for every bizarre niche subculture that you can extrapolate from the 5d venn diagram there are gonna be "people" out there who are ready to fulfil whatever stereotype you can imagine to perform the role of your strawman, your ideal imbecile adversary (@Mr Tea)
when i say people i mean that there are identities to step into,
and generally there are humans or bots or whatever incentivised to do those roles one way or another
luka
Well-known member
i think it was more than bitchy i think those people were very badly damaged and completely poisonous. bad news.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
The hipster thing in particular reminds me of Sarah Thornton's thing (based on actual proper research, not just the usual approach of making shit up to suit your argument) about "mainstream" in clubbing - like, if you ask anyone whether the club they're at is "mainstream", they'll say no, that club over there is mainstream. And if you go to that club and ask the people there then they'll say that no actually, they've got their own distinct thing going on and some other club is mainstream. It just becomes this reconfigurable punchbag that means whatever you need it to mean at the time to prove how inferior people who aren't us are.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
With the Cafe Oto guy tweet - I mean, yeah, there's some basic strawmanning going on, but it did give me some pause for thought. Like, I have this running hate for Boomer thing of endlessly trying to figure out what evil contrivance lead the 60s counterculture / hippie revolution fail to fulfil its obvious socially transformative potential, without really considering the possibility that maybe it was mostly just self-indulgent shite with a few decent tunes and some good drugs. And I did have this sudden moment of self-doubt that shit, maybe Dissensus is basically like that but for the nuum.
I mean who isn't damaged, in some way? But some scene dynamics let the demons loose to run rampant, and some work to contain them or set them to productive tasks.
There was a lot of charisma floating around, and I want to point that word back to its origin in describing spiritual gifts - I don't mean that people were necessarily tremendously likeable, gregarious, photogenic, gracious, good at putting others at ease or what have you. I mean that you would have the strong feeling of having met someone with a very distinct and often quite prickly sense of who they were in the world. Most people aren't like that: they might or might not have a robust private sense of identity, but either way they mostly prefer to rub along with others without standing out too much. Imagine wanting to be thought of as "intimidating"! If only so that you then have occasion to say to people "don't worry, I'm not intimidating really, what, little old me?", knowing full well that they find you very imposing, if not actually terrifying. But the source of that isn't pure narcissistic self-importance (although that can be a besetting vice), it's having gifts that you're not comfortable with and don't know how to control. If other people recognise you as different, even if you keep telling them that you don't want to be seen as different, then at least there is some confirmation that the thing that's wriggling around inside of you is real.
Mark was unquestionably very gifted, and by that I don't mean that he was some luminous once-in-a-generation genius, but he was too large for his own skin and kept having to find things to pour the excess out into. His teaching and lecturing were probably the most benign form this took; the dark magus stuff, not so much.
This will doubtless seem absurd in this particular connection, but I'm very fond of Susan Howatch's series of novels about Anglican priests who get derailed in one way or another by bits of themselves they don't fully recognise and can't control - sometimes their earthly, sensual nature (i.e. they end up shagging someone they shouldn't); sometimes forms of spiritual giftedness and insight which render them prone to dangerous pride (i.e. they try to fix complex emotional problems, and end up driving someone to madness or suicide). What you're supposed to do with such people is put them under the mentorship of a pretty stern spiritual advisor, ideally a monk with a colourful former life, who will tell them off if they start misleading themselves about who they are and what they're supposed to be doing. Well, it's a template for thinking about gifts and harms and how they sometimes come together. How do you guide someone who thinks they have a vocation, because they need to find a use for the thing that's wriggling around inside of them?
Mark was unquestionably very gifted, and by that I don't mean that he was some luminous once-in-a-generation genius, but he was too large for his own skin and kept having to find things to pour the excess out into. His teaching and lecturing were probably the most benign form this took; the dark magus stuff, not so much.
This will doubtless seem absurd in this particular connection, but I'm very fond of Susan Howatch's series of novels about Anglican priests who get derailed in one way or another by bits of themselves they don't fully recognise and can't control - sometimes their earthly, sensual nature (i.e. they end up shagging someone they shouldn't); sometimes forms of spiritual giftedness and insight which render them prone to dangerous pride (i.e. they try to fix complex emotional problems, and end up driving someone to madness or suicide). What you're supposed to do with such people is put them under the mentorship of a pretty stern spiritual advisor, ideally a monk with a colourful former life, who will tell them off if they start misleading themselves about who they are and what they're supposed to be doing. Well, it's a template for thinking about gifts and harms and how they sometimes come together. How do you guide someone who thinks they have a vocation, because they need to find a use for the thing that's wriggling around inside of them?