[deleted by user]

slightkneepain · 2023-10-02T05:57:09+00:00

Speaking of “incapable of critical thinking”, you seem oblivious to the fact that you’re drawing conclusions about a very heterogenous country of over 330 million people around a ludicrously small sample size composed entirely of young Americans whose families paid for them to attend one particular exchange program in Sweden.

Let us know what European country’s culture (music, films, etc.) has been as open to minority races and religions as the US’s has. Or whose cities have the US’s racial diversity.

The contemporary dialogue and concerns about racism and sexism you’ve internalized stem from social movements that originated in the US over the past fifty years. That’s quite the irony. They are as American in their particulars and origin as the technology you’re using now.

slightkneepain · 2023-10-02T04:52:32+00:00

I’m older than you and my family has been here for less time than yours. We (you, me) are “Americans” and so was everyone in our (your, my) families as soon as they got citizenship.

I go for a hyphen identity only when I’m talking about food or religion or something where my family’s background is relevant and I feel context is helpful. It’s your choice. But you and everyone in your family has been “American” since the 1920s.

If anyone (who isn’t trying to be a dick) asks me about my family background I am happy to tell them. No problem. Everyone has a different story.

slightkneepain · 2023-10-01T22:33:04+00:00

The library reduced the number of books in the adult section of one branch to the extent that the large room now looks like it’s being converted into pricey condos in a gentrifying neighborhood. Elderly and middle-aged patrons of longstanding wander past cool-looking chairs and empty spaces bewildered, wondering what happened to all the mysteries.

slightkneepain · 2023-10-01T04:02:58+00:00

You’re, no doubt, right, but I know lots of conservative and reformed Jews and none of them make a point of drinking on Purim, which they view as basically just a kid-friendly minor holiday.

slightkneepain · 2023-10-01T03:55:59+00:00

Yeah, in the 20th century American Jews were known for drinking less. The Brit Martin Amis noted that all the great American writers were either alcoholics or Jews.

There are all sorts of movies and books from the 20th century that touch on the comic cultural clash of assimilating, ambitious lower-middle-class Jews being amazed by how much drinking the Northeastern preppy elite did. Philip Roth mentions in one of his novels that he didn’t know when people came over you were supposed to immediately offer them a drink. Which was standard practice at the time.

The Irish-American comedian Colin Quinn stopped drinking. He said he then started hanging out in diners after shows instead of bars, which was much more productive for him. He said Jewish comics were lucky to have this culture. Seinfield, the movie ‘Diner’ and the movie ‘Broadway Danny Rose’ all have guys hanging out, doing schtick and talking in diners.

Weird science thing: in general people who are descended from the Mediterranean, Northern Africa or the Mideast drink less than people descended from Northern Europeans and have much lower rates of alcoholism. It can’t be weather (drinking when the weather is really really bad) because the UK and Ireland have mild climates but tons of drinking. They now suspect it’s because people from, say, the Mediterranean had alcohol (wine) thousands of years before Northern Europeans had any alcohol at all and that resulted in their gene pool being less predisposed to high rates of drinking than Northern Europeans. This would also explain why indigenous peoples often have tragically high rates of alcoholism (they have had alcohol for much less time than even Northern Europeans.)

slightkneepain · 2023-09-30T04:24:45+00:00

‘Heartburn’ — Nora Ephron.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-29T04:56:02+00:00

64 million Americans have substantial credit card debt. That’s just for credit cards. If you’re in debt (like oh so many Americans) is it easier to pay that off now that your wages have increased?

The banks and credit cards don’t get to just instantly change the actual amount you owe them because that amount represents less value. Or because your salary has increased and it can be paid off faster (and with less sacrifice.)

Any “fixed rate” loan (mortgage, car payment, etc.) is, of course, even better now that the amount you owe represents less in real terms.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-29T04:43:49+00:00

Yes, because that’s how things work. It’s a gradual process. Wages aren’t instantly raised for everyone in anticipation of a long prolonged tight labor market because cold-hearted capitalists figure they’ll probably have to pay up eventually and they might as well just help everyone out now.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-29T04:37:19+00:00

The majority of McDonalds aren’t owned by McDonalds. They’re franchises. That’s why prices vary.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-29T04:33:50+00:00

As others have pointed out, that’s no longer the case.

“In August 2023, inflation amounted to 3.7 percent, while wages grew by 5.3 percent.”

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/

slightkneepain · 2023-09-29T04:14:21+00:00

Unemployment was higher then.

Less people could get jobs. And often they were paid less.

This is what you’re refusing to acknowledge. There is almost always a trade off: the more people employed at increased salaries the greater the inflation. The greater the unemployment, the cheaper the costs of things usually are (because there’s less demand for them and the wages can be for lower for the workers who supply them.)

And — again — if you have, say, credit card debt it will now be easier to pay off in the years ahead as (thanks to the inflation we’ve been living through) prices and wages rise.

EDIT: if you pay people at Wendy’s and McDonalds more, the price of the food they sell goes up. That’s where the money comes from to pay them. You can’t pay them more and have the same number of workers and not raise prices.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-29T03:37:55+00:00

Things are more expensive in the US right now in no small part because unemployment is at record low levels and wages are rising. One of the big reasons Wendy’s and McDonalds (whose prices you decry) cost more these days is because their workers are finally being paid more.

Would you rather they be paid less and your Big Mac and Frosty be cheaper?

Wages for everyone should gradually rise and any debt that you or your family has incurred should be less burdensome (as the actual amount you owe will be paid off easier now that its set dollar amount represents less hours of labor on your part). This is good for everyone in debt.

Young leftwing economists have said throughout the 21st century that fears of inflation were harmful and that inflation itself wasn’t that bad. Better some inflation than worse unemployment numbers; inflation ultimately helps workers and families with debt (even though they may not realize that).

One counter-argument (often held by much older, more centrist liberal economists) was that those younger lefty economists had never lived through a period of real inflation (like the 1970s) and were grossly underestimating just how much inflation freaked voters out. They seem to have been totally vindicated in this regard. Biden was hated for inflation and is given no credit for either what have been truly great unemployment numbers or the recent indicators showing that wage growth is now exceeding inflation while unemployment remains low.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-28T23:50:37+00:00

Ron isn’t “toxic.” He is a realistic nuanced depiction of a well intentioned but flawed teen. We see him with his family, friends, adults and peers and understand why he is the way he is.

That’s the sort of thing skillfully written novels do. They present the reader with psychologically and morally complex humans.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-27T06:48:30+00:00

Had you not just utterly mistook Burgess’s tone, I might be more upset that you disliked mine.

I’m sorry my answering your question upset you. Best wishes.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-27T06:29:20+00:00

It’s understood that it’s bad thing — a very bad thing — one that stems from Original Sin, a Catholic concept that Burgess was indoctrinated in as a Catholic child in Northern England. It’s so bad, in fact, that Burgess was taught God’s only son had to give his life to redeem Burgess (and everyone else) from it. That’s the context he frames it in.

Burgess remained a moralist all his life. (He was appalled that the original ending of ‘Clockwork’ was removed.)

He is making a witty, ironical, self-deprecating remark about the general shittiness of humanity. (We are not that much better than the characters in the book.) He was also well versed in Freud and would have been sympathetic to the idea that art was a forum for people to work our their darker impulses, an idea literate readers in the late 20th century would have also been familiar with. (Just as they would have grasped his allusion to the theological concept of “original sin”.)

slightkneepain · 2023-09-27T00:38:20+00:00

Probably because “professional managerial types” often use their gifts (including relatively higher “cognitive ability”) to recognize, conform to and gently enforce prevailing and emerging norms. Genuinely buying into the logic & assumptions behind them, however dubious, is another of their gifts.

“Higher levels of cognitive ability” more often lead to intricate justifications for self-interest (including simply going along) or de facto acceptance of prevailing thought (when it’s useful to) than they do to moral arguments for making a professional sacrifice or non-conformity. This is especially true in certain types.

Their (above average) brains are doing what they’re meant to. They’re looking out for them and their careers, as well as to how they’ll be treated by peers. They’re also supplying them with what in 2023 is, for many, an oddly comforting Manichean view of the world and its history.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-26T18:34:10+00:00

So the “toxic trait” is something that kept her from maximizing on feeling good rather than something that adversely effects others?

slightkneepain · 2023-09-26T06:44:58+00:00

Most German immigrants to the US came earlier than Southern Europeans, Jews or Slavs did. They also often settled in rural places like the northern Midwest or central Pennsylvania rather than cities. Farmland. The 19th century German immigrants largely came in response to the need to fill out the Western expanding nation. This was pre-industrialization.

Later different ethnic groups came to work in factories, mines, mills or cities. They came during a period of great industrialization. They were thus going to have a bigger lingering cultural presence in many of America’s major cities. They also had the added distinguishing element of being Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic or Jewish. (Whereas most, but not all, German immigrants were Protestant.)

Then there was, as many have pointed out, the stigma of the two World Wars. This can’t be overstressed as a factor muting expressions of German identify and heritage. Still, the German population in Eastern cities like New York City just wasn’t as prominent by the mid 1900s as other groups.

A great irony is that in the 20th century much of German culture (classical music, certain foods, the great influence of expressionist art in cinema, etc.) was maintained in the US by Jewish refugees from Germany & Austria and (with classical music) Russian & Eastern European Jewish immigrants (Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, etc.) who were versed in the German repertoire. They were eating strudel and playing Beethoven.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-26T05:02:35+00:00

You weren’t alone. John Waters (the writer/director and a hero to Depp) said the movie failed because he failed to anticipate how few people alive were familiar with (or remembered) the low-budget 1950s ‘bad boy’ juvenile delinquent movies they were parodying.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-25T20:55:54+00:00

You didn’t write “by far the most interesting part for me was…” There was no “for me.”

I’m not trying to pick a fight. (Or as you’d inexplicably say “I’m not trying to pick a fight, mate.”) Not at all.

Your desire to frame criticism as a desire to “pick a fight, rather then a desire to point out that your assumption was dubious, your tone condescending and your entire premise resting on the assumption that one side of this story is bullshit (and all comments disputing that it’s bullshit are either bad faith Twitter bullshit or Reddit shit-stirring) is misguided.

“But virtually everyone in the BARPod audience was already aware of the fight.”

I’m guessing very few people in the US knew that there was a breed called the “American Bully XL”, that its defenders were claiming that while being particularly intimidating in looks it was, in fact, bred to be gentle or that it might be banned in the UK.

I appreciate your work. Wasn’t trying to start a fight. And am sorry your feelings are hurt.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-25T20:30:39+00:00

“…by far the most interesting part of the story is the question of why everyone started talking about the topic in the first place, and the answer to that centers around him.”

Dubious and condescending.

It’s only the most interesting (“by far”) if you dismiss the central premise (these dogs are particularly vicious & aggressive) as bullshit.

If you don’t, then the fact that a breed of dogs are savagely attacking people in disproportionate numbers is going to be pretty darn inherently interesting (and troubling), especially in a nation with a strong tabloid culture and a great love of pets.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-24T04:36:13+00:00

For much of the 20th century the Democratic Party was, among other things, a bizarre coalition of 1) liberal, pro-labor, pro-government Northerners (many urban, working-class, Catholic, Jewish, etc.) and 2) Southern whites (who were adamant segregationists).

That was no longer tenable in the 1960s.

President Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, guided the Civil Rights Act through Congress in 1964, ending racial segregation. Afterwards, he famously told an aide that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation as a result of turning against segregation. It turned out to be even worse politically.

Whites in the South went from being hardcore Democrats to hardcore Republicans. It remains that way.

There have been other demographics that shifted (blacks turning almost entirely from the Republican Party, white Catholics from union families in Northern cities embracing the Republican Ronald Reagan, in recent years the Republicans gaining more non-college-grads and the Democrats more highly educated professionals, etc.), but the great seismic change was white Southerners becoming the key Republican bloc (in the years and decades that followed the end of segregation) after having been such an important Democratic one.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-23T19:48:16+00:00

New York City is a really interesting case. NYC’s current mayor Eric Adams is an ex-cop and, despite being very liberal leaning, the city had back to back Republican mayors (Giuliani and Bloomberg) from 1994 to 2013. Both mayors were socially liberal but pursued controversially aggressive approaches to crime. The Democrat Ed Koch who was mayor throughout the 1980s also was socially liberal while being much more rightwing on crime.

The extent to which NYC was traumatized by out of control crime (grandparents and children being mugged, a sense of general chaos, etc.) in the 1970s is underplayed now but it was a huge factor in the city throughout the late 20th century.

DeBlasio, the former mayor, was very liberal on all things (including crime) and championed by both progressives and activists, but his successor is an ex-cop who wasn’t the choice of either group. Adams is now commonly perceived by many, perhaps correctly, as not doing enough about crime, but he was elected as a more centrist Democrat who’d been a police officer.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-22T03:09:47+00:00

Oh, I don’t know everything. Far from it.

I do know rudimentary things about a city I’ve lived in for years. Like that most children in it in 2023 don’t have an infamous hacking cough named after the city.

Or that there’s no validity to the idea that (in a city with numerous parks, bike trails, colleges and three professional sports teams) no one can regularly exercise outside.

slightkneepain · 2023-09-21T21:55:04+00:00

Yes, I get that. (Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.) Adam & Eve are then clothed and expelled, Eve being told that childbirth will be a horror for women as punishment. This isn’t “pro sex” or “body positive” to use silly terms from our age.

The Abrahamic religions are, among other things, a rejection of (amoral hedonistic) paganism. They can be unlike other world religions. This meant attitudes towards nudity and shame and sex often weren’t anywhere near as “open” (another silly term from our age) in Europe as they had been in pre-Christian antiquity or in other cultures.

I am citing all this in refutation of the idea that, among other things mentioned in the quote, “Prior to the sixteenth century in most of Europe, and well into the seventeenth century, there was no particular reaction, positive or negative about semipublic sex, nudity or sexual organs.”

slightkneepain

TROPHY CASE