Quote:
Originally Posted by Versus
I mean that it's over my head. Oh well.
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Is it really beyond your ken, Versus? I think an analogy to the early Soviet period is apt, if I may say so without shaming the memory of the millions who perished by purge, pogrom, and ill-conceived collectivization initiative. As my admittedly blue eyes see it, you fools have forced out all real ideological opposition and are now rending each other limb from virtual limb-- if I may say so without shaming the memory of all those dragged asunder by the tyranny of Edward I-- over semantics in order to-- forgive me-- occupy your time. Presiding over this miserable ordeal is a First Citizen of unimpeachable progressive piety, and if one's words provoke this man of steel, the ostensible nature or intent of those words doesn't matter: the offender fucked up, and better feel bad about it.
To preface the rest of my post and contextualize my extremely insensitive comparison of Versus to Stalin, I feel I should clarify that I'm racist, misogynist, and heterosexist. I'll throw in that I'm classist too, for good measure. I was brought up by racist, heterosexist, misogynist classists and have spent my entire life in racist, misogynist, heterosexist, classist institutions-- 1% born and bred. Is it bourgeois to say "1%" now? Well, that's true to form, because I'm bourgeois. My Jewish identity only complicates this in that it fills me with a titanic persecution complex and profound self-loathing that feed each other endlessly. Despite my red sympathies, objectively speaking there's no doubt that I'm part of the problem in this little world we've perniciously made, and to remove me therefrom could really only improve things. For anyone interested in assassinating me, I can usually be found in and around Harvard Yard, where, in exchange for obscene capital, predominantly white, male professors struggle in vain to narcotize me into thinking I'm a warrior-philosopher for the side of social progress rather than a loathsome parasite. Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm a hopeless narcissist, and from all that time looking in the mirror, I know very well what a total asshole looks like, so I can say definitively say, Versus, that in this respect you and I are soul brothas.
Although as a classicist (not the same as a classist, but related) I am compelled to object to Saya's idea that the reality of slavery in ancient Greece and Rome does not still live in the intellectual heart of western civilization, on the whole I can't even articulate how little I care about the argument that blazed through this thread. I suppose that speaks to my foresaid privilege, but, as hard as I try, I really can't help not caring. I don't begrudge Versus the right to be upset when the word 'slavery' is used in characterizing something that, in his mind, is not slavery, nor do I begrudge Despanan the right to use the word 'slavery' in characterizing something that, in Versus' mind, is not slavery. Maybe it takes blue eyes, but through the thin veil of pedantic quibbling I can clearly see the unmistakable jaundiced shimmer of a hollow pissing contest. To believe that any of this shit is really about race or class or anything important would require me to think, as I'm not particularly inclined to do, that Versus is a dumbass reactionary, unable to perceive Despanan's post for what it was: just an idle attempt to share some liberal bona fides with his comrades here at the headquarters of the global revolution and the web's one-stop spot for bone chilling literary culture. He didn't really mean to imply that white people have had it worse than black people, and, Versus, I believe you fucking know that, but instead of posting "while I think the four far-left commies who read this forum can all agree that this is certainly unconscionable, I'm not sure how I feel about your use of the term slavery. That word is highly racialized in its connotations, and perhaps we should move toward a more precise lexicon when we talk about this kind of injustice", you came out swinging with some condescending, cryptic bullshit guessing game of pinko penance. Of course, your cloying toady is right that it isn't your job to (re?)"educate" other people if you don't feel so inclined, but it's clearly your pleasure to disparage and humiliate other people. I don't presume to know what your life is or has been like-- save for that it's probably less flush with plunder of white supremacy and capitalism than mine, for which fact I offer a perfunctory, meaningless apology-- but outside of that life, in this insipid, insular little internet clique, you do possess auctoritas and you crave more. There's no sociology going on here, just bubblegum pop psychology. It's a sophistic dialectic, a clash of forum royalty, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and, frankly, seeing an issue like this trivialized and debased to serve as the dueling circle for two fuckheads in a forgotten, faux-victorian bordered corner of cyberspace strikes me as pretty gross, but I'm just a racist, classist, heterosexist misogynist, so what do I know? I'm sure all the casualties of the trade in African men, women and children will be comforted to know that we've agreed to rank them several orders above the Magdelin washerwomen on the hierarchy of suffering.
The fact is we're all fucked-up people addled with neuroses and insecurities, battle scars of our infant psyches' Hegelian assimilation by an awful society (Certainly Saya's are on full display here-- girl, a little self-awareness is good, but the doubt and guilt that seems to haunt every single thought you have worries me; I hope it's just my blue eyes that look at you and see Wanda Ileen Barzee). There is no actual man of steel, void of hypocrisy, and chasing that ideal with such venom speaks-- loudly-- to a serious angst. It'd probably be too tedious for the big kids on this playground to actually just be friends, and it'd probably be too awkward to dispense with any pretense for eviscerating each other, so it's unlikely that anyone will take anything away from this post, especially given that I'm blinded by white maledom and totally wrong about everything, but I felt compelled to try putting things in perspective, said perspective being that this thread is fucking insane. If you want some real anti-capitalist capital, ditch this small-time nonsense and please, come assassinate me. If I may say so without shaming the memory of Twin Peaks, you'd make a great lynch mob.