Fear of Woking

[Malcolm]

Lmao, as a freshman here, duly noted!

Yup, when you get to 60, you’ll understand.

[reiun]

Lmao, as a freshman here, duly noted!

Yup, when you get to 60, you’ll understand.

It may not take that long. Irony already understood. By him, I mean.

[Malcolm]

The Predictable Backlash to Critical Race Theory: A Q&A With Kimberlé Crenshaw

https://www.thenation.com/article/polit ... -crenshaw/

[Natan]

Yes, because people are threatened by freshman in college. Give me a break.

You've obviously never been the reason for a college sit in.

I have lived in college towns for my entire life. Ithaca, the Happy Valley (Western Ma), Cambridge, Burlington, VT., Boston, and back to the Valley again. I've seen more sitins than I can remember. Freshman come and go, get on with their lives, forget about their youthful political passions, get married, have families, etc.

What freshman in college think is just not a big deal.

Maybe so. But core generational values tend to stick around. It's demographics and it does matter.

[Malcolm]

Maybe so. But core generational values tend to stick around. It's demographics and it does matter.

I've seen a lot of college radicals become middle age conservatives, and even trump voters...just sayin...

[KristenM]

Maybe so. But core generational values tend to stick around. It's demographics and it does matter.

I've seen a lot of college radicals become middle age conservatives, and even trump voters...just sayin...

You don't say...

[PeterC]

Kimberlé

Ok, this I think is something that freshmen should be campaigning against: these ridiculous invented modern names.

[Knotty Veneer]

I've been to Woking. I didn't find it particularly unsettling.

[Malcolm]

Maybe so. But core generational values tend to stick around. It's demographics and it does matter.

I've seen a lot of college radicals become middle age conservatives, and even trump voters...just sayin...

You don't say...

Funny thing is, this guy was always a conservative catholic, remember "Polly, I'm not an animal," the Pistol's anti-abortion song?

[Knotty Veneer]

Funny thing is, this guy was always a conservative catholic, remember "Polly, I'm not an animal," the Pistol's anti-abortion song?

Lydon was an avid Thatcherite back in the day. The Sex Pistols were never a protest band - their whole plan was to sell out and see how many people bought the records even though they were laughed at openly by the band. All that anti-monarchy stuff was just to garner tabloid inches.

[Malcolm]

Funny thing is, this guy was always a conservative catholic, remember "Polly, I'm not an animal," the Pistol's anti-abortion song?

Lydon was an avid Thatcherite back in the day. The Sex Pistols were never a protest band - their whole plan was to sell out and see how many people bought the records even though they were laughed at openly by the band. All that anti-monarchy stuff was just to garner tabloid inches.

Even so, great rock and roll, even if it was a swindle.

[Queequeg]

Funny thing is, this guy was always a conservative catholic, remember "Polly, I'm not an animal," the Pistol's anti-abortion song?

Lydon was an avid Thatcherite back in the day. The Sex Pistols were never a protest band - their whole plan was to sell out and see how many people bought the records even though they were laughed at openly by the band. All that anti-monarchy stuff was just to garner tabloid inches.

Isn't the punk ethos fundamentally nihilist in view? And the aim fundamentally to troll and be provocative? Saying and doing whatever to get a rise out of people. In a sense, mohawks and dying the hair day-glo green was a matter of self expression, but it was as much to shock and make squares uneasy. In some sense, punk is overbearing, even authoritarian - someone puking on my doorstep and spray painting anarchy symbols on my house is not going to get me to wake up out of my smug middle class sleep walk - it just pisses me off and makes me want to call the police on those hoodlums. And what was the most awful thing a punk could level at someone? "POSEUR!" The whole motivation behind that ejaculation is, lacking all irony, a demand for conformity to some code.

Isn't Trumpism basically nihilist trolling? Orange hair and orange skin to cause people to throw up a little when they come face to face with the demented ring leader.

[Knotty Veneer]

Isn't Trumpism basically nihilist trolling? Orange hair and orange skin to cause people to throw up a little when they come face to face with the demented ring leader.

[reiun]

Kimberlé

Ok, this I think is something that freshmen should be campaigning against: these ridiculous invented modern names.

Love those creative non-whitey-white names.

Instead, let freshmen campaign for social justice and respect.

[Malcolm]

Funny thing is, this guy was always a conservative catholic, remember "Polly, I'm not an animal," the Pistol's anti-abortion song?

Lydon was an avid Thatcherite back in the day. The Sex Pistols were never a protest band - their whole plan was to sell out and see how many people bought the records even though they were laughed at openly by the band. All that anti-monarchy stuff was just to garner tabloid inches.

Isn't the punk ethos fundamentally nihilist in view?

I wouldn't say that, as a former punk rock musician from the late seventies/early eighties. It was a rejection, principally, of arena rock and commercialism, attended with a lot of social justice concerns in fact, for example the Pop Group, the Slits, Crass, etc. Sure, a lot of it was just adolescent good fun. Grunge was much more nihilistic than Punk. Punk, if anything, was pretty idealistic, in a disappointed sort of way. The sixties did not work out the way they were supposed to.

Isn't Trumpism basically nihilist trolling?

Yup.

[Malcolm]

Instead, let freshmen campaign for social justice and respect.

It's a good use of their time.

[Natan]

Maybe so. But core generational values tend to stick around. It's demographics and it does matter.

I've seen a lot of college radicals become middle age conservatives, and even trump voters...just sayin...

Totally, baby boomers. Still you cannot underestimate the changes in attitude to sexuality and gender. People are getting permanent surgical changes. So no going back. This things are here to stay and are related with changing attitudes about race. Wokeness is basically slang for critical race and gender theory. It stands at a crossroads with recent revolutions in science. If this group which is embracing these changes as young people suddenly were to reverse course it would alienate a very large group and represent a betrayal of epic proportions. We are not just talking about young socialists who became Reaganites..

[Queequeg]

Isn't the punk ethos fundamentally nihilist in view?

I wouldn't say that, as a former punk rock musician from the late seventies/early eighties. It was a rejection, principally, of arena rock and commercialism, attended with a lot of social justice concerns in fact, for example the Pop Group, the Slits, Crass, etc. Sure, a lot of it was just adolescent good fun. Grunge was much more nihilistic than Punk. Punk, if anything, was pretty idealistic, in a disappointed sort of way. The sixties did not work out the way they were supposed to.

Good points.

Maybe it would be better to identify different streams in punk. When I think of the Sex Pistols, I don't think of social justice. I just think of a big, loud middle finger to the proverbial man. And I think there is a strain of punk that follows down that stream - I'd say it culminated, or rather reached its nadir, with GG Allin, running around an NYU student lounge naked and flinging his shit at people.

And then there are the militant punks who very easily could be transformed into Brown Shirts. I think you can discern those impulses down through the skinhead scene to the present in groups like the Proud Boys. Yeah yeah, Ian McKay and Henry Rollins were progressive skinheads - but they're also overbearing, holier than thou ass holes - a few shades away from leftist authoritarians. One of my Trumpist cousins was a skinhead who with his gang of righteous dudes would fight NeoNazis and White Power skinheads in Trenton. The slip is easier than we might have thought looking at those guys when they were 17.

[Malcolm]

Isn't the punk ethos fundamentally nihilist in view?

I wouldn't say that, as a former punk rock musician from the late seventies/early eighties. It was a rejection, principally, of arena rock and commercialism, attended with a lot of social justice concerns in fact, for example the Pop Group, the Slits, Crass, etc. Sure, a lot of it was just adolescent good fun. Grunge was much more nihilistic than Punk. Punk, if anything, was pretty idealistic, in a disappointed sort of way. The sixties did not work out the way they were supposed to.

Good points.

Maybe it would be better to identify different streams in punk. When I think of the Sex Pistols, I don't think of social justice. I just think of a big, loud middle finger to the proverbial man. And I think there is a strain of punk that follows down that stream - I'd say it culminated with GG Allin, running around an NYU student lounge naked and flinging his shit at people.

Yes, this was the Malcolm Mclaren version.

And then there are the militant punks who very easily could be transformed into Brown Shirts. I think you can discern those impulses down through the skinhead scene to the present in groups like the Proud Boys. Yeah yeah, Ian McKay and Henry Rollins were progressive skinheads - but they're also overbearing, holier than thou ass holes - a few shades away from leftist authoritarians.

Gavin Mcleod was musician in punk band in Canada.

Ian McKay and Henry Rollins

Definitely not skinheads. They didn't even have shaved head, apart from McKay and they had no fashion sense at all.

"Skinhead" was a fashion, which ultimately came from merging the hard mod fashion with Jamaican Rude Boy fashion in the late 60's. To be a skinhead required that you wore the right gear, levis, eight or ten-eyelet DMS, skinny braces, Fred Perry, etc., and importantly, football! It started here because people liked the look of Selector, the Specials, Madness, and so on. Then Oi! started getting promoted first in England, then here.

I was a skinhead in the early 80's, because of Ska music and Oi!. I played in a reggae band in Boston, etc. I saw the whole scene go to shit because of the white power assholes, circa 1982 onward. Plus Skinhead fashion was cool in the Industrial Music scene, and that did lead some people into neonationalist territory, like Death in June, etc. West coast punks with leather jackets and Frye motorcycle books were something else, same with Minor Threat, who wore sneakers for lord's sake. And even if these US punks had DM's, they generally never knew how to lace them properly, so they looked pretty clueless.

I abandoned that fashion completely in 1985 when I saw a ten year old on a skateboard dressed exactly like me. But it was a good look and since I was working in food service the whole time, from 1980-1986 or so, it served me well.

One of my Trumpist cousins was a skinhead who with his gang of righteous dudes would fight NeoNazis and White Power skinheads in Trenton. The slip is easier than we might have thought looking at those guys when they were 17.

Some guys never grow out of the "our gang" mentality.

[Queequeg]

I abandoned that fashion completely in 1985 when I saw a ten year old on a skateboard dressed exactly like me.

Sorry. That might have been me.