"Could It Be Time To Deny White Men The Franchise?" and the culture war.

posted verbatum from literarydevices.net to help our troubled colleague understand satire

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Yes yes no one is going to fess up to it, sure. Did no one vote for her? Guess all the claims she rigged the primaries are true then?

Someone chooses to nuke the country, and your going to respect that choice?

Oh boy I hit a nerve here didn't I? So let me get this straight: I point out hillary primary voters choose badly, got us trump, pointing out that fact makes me a jackass? How about pointing out the sjw talk created the alt-right and help propel trump? That makes me a petulant child? I point out crap like this article from the huffington post which turns out to be a hoax created to prove the huffington post will print racist tripe as long as its against white males, the very demographic we lost in the worse places resulting in the election a pig boar as president, that just makes me a complete asshole then?

If pointing out these facts makes me all that, I can live with that, I can take the hit in administering some tough love.

Maybe something is missing in the sentence here, but ok you tell me how ignoring our faults is going to help us in 2018 and 2020?

oooh scathing.

and? What does this have to do with my original argument? That the huffington post prints click-bait tripe? So long as it is inflammatory and pushes leftist ideology, not raise minimum wage leftist ideology mind you, but lets strip the vote from white males ideology, horribly unelectable leftist ideology, that has gotten us where we are now with president trump.

Your whole counter argument is over defining a single word, utter sophistry. At first your argument is that it is not serious it all a sophisticated joke, no one would take this seriously, well clearly the editor did, she said so when defending it, and also admit how great it was generating clicks. The author admitted it was racist tripe created to appeal to huffington editors ideology, and your only counter to all that is that it all still counts vaguely under the word "satire"... so?

 

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#sinisterorstupid | #WhatTheyVotedFor​

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Click because God loves his children, yeah.​

Look, I can't speak explicitly for PJ, but just at a guess, the jackassish or assholey behavior he's referring to might have something to do with your tacit but effective acknowledgment that your argument is entirely clueless↑.

Think of it this way: Either you were unaware of PJ's political outlook, or you chose to ignore it. In either case, whether you're unbelievable or simply going out fof your way to behave like a jackasshole, you petulantly tried to upbraid him for something he didn't do. And that bit of ignorance or trolling atop your ignorance of liberalism and basic Democratic Party centrist politics, undisciplined and ignorant fallacious advocacy of bullies and bullying, and more vicious portrayal of Republican and conservative advocates as punch lines.

Batting zero at this point is more than simply anomalous.

Seriously, the only part of this you're getting right is the part where you can't do anything correctly.

But we do get it: This is all about you↗. And, you know, it's one thing to run with, "Say what you gotta say and get it off your chest", but we're still waiting for you to have something to say.

I once did this punch line↱, "Stupid enough to be scared sadistic is no decent way to go through life"; it sounds ridiculous, to be certain, but still, what are we to say to masculine murderlusting homophobia that gets hard over men? And, really, how often should the general sphere of presidential discourse even get around to one dude telling another, "Hope I get to watch u bleed out n get a hard on from it"?

No, really, what part of mundane society should functionally require gratification of such politics?

It makes a good example, reminding how much we lower the bar for the brand of politics you're trying to pitch, here.

Then again, we should probably check in with PJ. Still, as near as I can tell, the "nerve" you hit is the one that flares when the latest unacceptability to be excused for the sake of ignorance if at all is simply the latest excess in what appears to be a life choice to wallow not so much in excessive uselessness, but the excess of uselessness itself. I don't know, I would say the latest excess in a string of excesses, but excess is relative, and as you plumb these depths you're just not coming up for air.

Your parody of satire, as such, is incomplete, which is why it is neither funny nor wise, offers nothing good unto the world, and thus fails in every aspect except fervent exhibition of conservative dross.

We've known this routine ... actually, y'know, we once had a guy who tried to preach a ministry that way: Set up arguments at Exosci, and then restyle them as sophomoric and solipsistic sermons, requiring some imaginitive license, at his ministry website. We've actually seen a couple variations on the "attractive (or even hot), successful woman" spouting traditionalist nonsense bigotry specifically in order to complain about how impolite liberals are. You're another grain on a sandy beach, in that context.

Sometimes I say that a blind man, having thrown enough darts, will as a matter of statistical necessity eventually strike a bulls-eye. Normally, though, I'm chortling at some moment of the discourse in which others might mutter something about broken clocks and twice a day. The flip side of that, of course, is that I deviate strongly on Zener cards, averaging one in eight when presented with a five-card selection.

And you, sir, should at some point accidentally both try to make a point and fail to fail. That is to say, those two conditions should, at some point, reasonably coincide, even if by pure accident of statistical necessity.

Once flipped seventeen heads in a row in a twenty-five toss set. Sophomore biology. But it's also true, classwide we got pretty close to fifty-fifty.

Deviations are as deviations do, but at some point, you should at the very least fail to fail.

 

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That didn't read like satire to me. It was too straightforward to come off as satire and if it was mean to be satire, barely. Satire has elements of facetiousness, irony, sarcasm, usually dry humor but some type of humor, hyperbole, even strawmen to make a counter example etc. key: there was nothing funny or "ironic" in it whatsoever. I think she was serious, not that it is even sound or should happen though.

Besides, white males can't have a strangehold on power forever because the world is more mobile these days and western countries are mixed which means the next generation is more mixed than the previous etc. The word is getting more mixed.

Her blindspot is the focus on 'white' males only when it's really patriarchy that is the major problem of inequality if males have majority power, no matter what race.

There is always a first step to address an issue but to think that will fix all problems is presumptuous. it doesn't matter who has majority power, all others will be marginalized. the more specific the group that has majority power, the more others are marginalized because the former is that specific. so even if purple females held majority power, then all others who are different will be marginalized usually because that power gives them entitlement to define/shape society to their specific views.

 

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Click because it probably did seem like a good idea at the time.​

One of the most common critiques in the world is some version of, "Well, that didn't sound like a joke to me."

To wit↑:

Saying, "'Satire' it was not", is a bit like trying to disqualify The Aristocrats from comedy because the sketch offends someone's moral presupposition. Historically, bad writing and execution are the only real disqualifying criteria for an Aristocrats sketch, though that bit where we suck air through our teeth and ask, "Too soon?" is generally worth accounting for on the front side; oh, right—writing. Such cases are disqualified from being funny; that one attempted the form of the Aristocrats sketch, however, does not change.​

Don't ask about the chicken.

Would this, then, be a bad time to make the point that apparently the author is a male conservative posing as a female philosophy student in order to write a parody of a particular satirical form in order to point out that the editorial standards for the Huffington Post blogs are less strenuous than they are, for, say, news or whatever passes as news. (Covering Congress? Fashion-shaming a princess? You're a reporter. South African racial politics in the blogosphere? You're a blogger.) And, in this case, a poseur; what the author ended up telling us is what one white male conservative thinks he sees a white liberal woman sees in South African racial politics. It's very nearly a rugoberg° modest proposal.
____________________

Notes:

° rugoberg ← ru'go'berg ← "Rube Goldberg" (adj.)↱

 

Rather extreme effort. Where is the indication that it's a male posing as a female student? Then it still wouldn't be satire but an attempt to misrepresent and re-shift blame onto another party. That would be like me posing as a white male supremacist and writing something extremely offensive and stupid in a serious tone so that it discredits them even more. That's satire? Who the fuck would know? I would know anyone reading that would not know what i was up to so a prank is not satire. You would have to know that it was a poser, and that poser was a conservative male etc.

The point is the "piece" standing alone itself does NOT indicate satire besides because it is a 'blog' and we know people can have crazy, extreme or totally unconventional, provocative or controversial views. Even so-called legitimate online news outlets have published ridiculous and prejudicial pieces seriously. It happens all the time.

 

Tiassa,

Your long form babbling of slander is not an argument, you know that right?

Well aside for the huffington post admitting there error in posting this, the very idea of "blog" on a news journal is a perfect example of how low news media has come. Next up is your ad hominims, that if it is conservative it must be wrong, the author by his own admission is not a conservative, certainly very few conservatives admit to have "white privilege". Next is yours and pj attempt to claim this is all "satire" that no one should have taken seriously, inspiring racial and sexual hate is something to take serious, especially when it makes the left look bad, thousands took it seriously, the editor took it seriously (and believed it righteous no less), South African law took it seriously, the only ones that don't get it seem to be you.

Anyways back to why the huffington post has blogs, simple: to get clicks. The more sensational the blog the better, so long as it has a liberal bias, pumping out this tripe for clicks has powered the alt-right counter culture and here we are with president Trump.

Anyways to makes sure people read this, I will have to copy and paste it:

Instead of exercising caution and investigating the claims, editor Verashni Pillay doubled down. On Friday afternoon, she strongly defended the post, and dismissed its critics as alt-right racists. She wrote:

“Garland’s underlying analysis about the uneven distribution of wealth and power in the world is pretty standard for feminist theory. ... It would appear that perhaps much of the outcry derives from a very poor reading of the article – or perhaps none at all. Dismantling the patriarchal systems that have brought us to where we are today, a world where power is wielded to dangerous and destructive ends by men, and in particular white men, necessarily means a loss of power to those who hold it. A loss of oppressive power. Those who have held undue power granted to them by patriarchy must lose it for us to be truly equal. This seems blindingly obvious to us.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean we agree or endorse everything in Garland’s blog. The point of our Voices section is to invite a wide array of voices and views.

“We hope, as reads continue to rack up on this blog, that those who are tempted to fire off an angry email to us would first engage with the underlying analysis in Garland’s blog.”

This response is contradictory, in that it appears to agree with the substance of Garland’s blog post despite its objectionable content and despite the fact that a number of the “facts” on which it was based were patently false.

For example, the claim that 97% of the stocks listed on the JSE stock exchange is owned by white people, mostly men, contradicts the JSE’s own figures. In response to President Jacob Zuma’s false claim in the 2015 State of the Nation Address that blacks own only 3% of shares on the stock exchange, the JSE reported that 23% of its top 100 companies were owned by blacks, either directly or through pension funds, unit trusts and life policies. By contrast, South African whites owned only 22%. Most of the rest was held by foreign investors.

Another claim, that whites own nearly 90% of land in South Africa, is likewise patently false. The biggest error in that claim is that it disregards state-owned land. Under apartheid, it was considered to be under white control, for obvious reasons. The transfer of power from the racist National Party to the non-racial ANC, however, implies that state-owned land is now held in proportion to population demographics, i.e. it is for the most part in black hands. Adding other changes in land ownership, from land restitution and land redistribution programmes, to private sales to the burgeoning black middle and upper class, suggests that black land ownership in South Africa is closer to 40% or 50%.

This is not to suggest that all is well and that racial equality has been achieved, of course. It is true that black people remain disadvantaged by past and present discrimination. They remain, on average, much poorer than their white counterparts. They also bear the brunt of crime, and of the government’s inability to deliver basic services. But from a fairly recent position of outright state oppression and dispossession, the situation is slowly improving, and is not as dire as Garland’s piece would have you believe.

Readers also reacted to the advocacy of discrimination against people based on their race and gender, which contravenes the South African Press Code, and the proposal to disenfranchise people based on their race and gender, which is simply unconstitutional. Such suggestions directly threaten this country’s already fragile democratic project. However vitriolic the responses, most were based on a perfectly good reading of the Garland piece.

 

This and That

See PJdude↑ above, last quote, which in turn comes from a link in one of EF's posts.

Tomato, tomahto, but only sort of. The author apparently thinks his parody of a female liberal has made a point of some sort targeting the Huffington Post. Victimizing women, liberals, or racial tensions in South Africa has nothing to do with his intention, so it's up to us to bring all that extra stuff into it. And, okay, that last is a bit speculative, but it's consistent with conservative ideology.

It is interesting because we have both narrative and contextual elements, to the one, and quite literally the literary form, to the other, with a particular rhetorical device—targeted misdirection—and the argument against satire is that the author wants to be taken seriously instead of satirically, suggesting he fails to comperehend what satire is; one posting advocate arguing it cannot be satire, at first↑ because, "It literally was not a satire but intentional vile tripe" having something to do with "social justice authoritarianism"; and then↑ the (nonexistent) "author said it was not satire" (see point re: "Aristocrats"↑); and then↑, "This was not a work published by the huffington post to satirize their own low standards of article acceptance and hateful ideological bias"; and then↑, "Oh its a news story now!"; and then↑, although it's subtle, he actually gets it partway correct, that "'satire' ... means something else to you and me"; but then again↑, "What does this have to do with my original argument?"

So, yeah. There's two. I think.

And then, of course, you're a third vote on grounds approximately that the execution does not meet your standard and therefore does not deserve the designation.

So there's that.

The thing is that not one of these objections is preclusive of satire.

• • •​

No, it's not.

Seriously—

—start making sense.

Let us know when you finally have something to say.

 

Who says satire should not be taken seriously?

Well written satire causes one to think in new ways, often more succinctly than a straight piece ever could. How is that not a serious endeavor?

 

Clearly we are not speaking the same language then, oh well I will just have to keep repeating my self over and over again. '

This tripe defames the left and helped get trump elected, This tripe defames the left and helped get trump elected, This tripe defames the left and helped get trump elected.

I give zero fucks about the word "satire" while everyone goes on with this sophistry, I concerned about what this --what ever you want to call it-- is doing to the progressive cause.

 

What exactly is "this" doing to the "progressive cause"? From your own links, one might conclude that an editor for HuffPo South Africa is kind of an idiot--or just not terribly attentive--and some people (mostly wingnut wackos--see responses to the blog post in your own links) took obvious satire way too seriously. Nothing new there. Big deal.

Also, why do you and Michael consistently misuse "sophistry" (or "sophism," as Michael would have it)?

 

Apparently, humor and criticism must be mutually exclusive. Weird.

 

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Click for a lie.​

In truth, I'm torn between the idea that he damn well knows this, already, and the question of how freaking elitist I must be in order to presume him intelligent enough to damn well know this, already.

Did you notice, though—

Well aside for the huffington post admitting there error in posting this, the very idea of "blog" on a news journal is a perfect example of how low news media has come. Next up is your ad hominims, that if it is conservative it must be wrong, the author by his own admission is not a conservative, certainly very few conservatives admit to have "white privilege". Next is yours and pj attempt to claim this is all "satire" that no one should have taken seriously, inspiring racial and sexual hate is something to take serious, especially when it makes the left look bad, thousands took it seriously, the editor took it seriously (and believed it righteous no less), South African law took it seriously, the only ones that don't get it seem to be you.

Anyways back to why the huffington post has blogs, simple: to get clicks. The more sensational the blog the better, so long as it has a liberal bias, pumping out this tripe for clicks has powered the alt-right counter culture and here we are with president Trump.

(#87↑)​

—the amount of incorrectness one must attend in order for those paragraphs to start making? The first sentence of the first paragraph cited above, as well as the entire second paragraph, are based on some fallacious notion about news and blogs. Many newspapers include reader blogs, and stuff that gets attention sometimes gets promoted up to the news. It's a well-known fault in the formula, but in that case, "good enough for government work" has largely been replaced, these days, by, "good enough for the tech sector".

Amid my vacation snaps and glib comments about Japan are multiple tantrums aimed at Facebook, having to do with any number of stupid things; for our purposes, there was the bit where they kept pimping me access to women, and then the part where they decided to advertise software services they already know I use. Given the legends of Facebook's scary, "I bought that with cash at the mall and when I got home, Facebook was advertising add-ons and competing projects", advertising prowess, I figure they're just lulling me into a false sense of copmlacency, or even complaisance. And, you know, the fun part is they did that to themselves by running unethical behavioral experiments; we can never trust them again.

I also do this bit where I pick on web users for what they promote. The "Most Read" or "Most Emailed" lists in news site sidebars are generally horrifying; there's a Martha Stewart joke that goes here, but we'll skip it. And I'm pretty sure you've known me to go off on software↗, before; the blog version↱ is same-same, but different, namely longer, more detailed, and even more self-righteous.

But, yeah, it seems to me there will always be issues in the American marketplace; promoting reader blogs and other such comment to news can be done responsibly, but requires more effort than we've seen anywhere in the industry. Nonetheless, it's true that part of the idea of such blogs is to get clicks; they also happen to offer rather quite useful opportunities. In my area, for instance, I can think of three newspapers, run by different companies, who have engaged reader blogging, and whose reader blogs occasionally make the news.

And this latest iteration of why it can't be satire is what it is, the latest spatter flung at the wall. There are industries-wide discussions to have about reader blogs, editorial selection, and whether the fact of anything being popular actually requires newsworthiness; it's worth checking in, now and then, on the music charts, television ratings, and other such measures of popular culture.

Still, at this point the episode doesn't seem to be haunting the HuffPo brand; it seems interesting that it took a prankster to write the article and a legion of alt-right advocates to promote the resulting controversy. If we survey the rest of the audience, I'm going to go with, "Yeah, but I got it", being at least third, following, "Yeah, but why do I care?", and, "Wait, what are you on about?"

Hey, can I blame Facebook for St. Jude chain letters?

That's almost a poll question in itself: Who knows what that question means?

Then again, nor did he mean what he said.

 

You're not doing a very good job at showing that you give zero fucks about the word "satire," as you seem to have continued this rant into another thread you've started on Alex Jones. What gives?

 

You have been berating lots of people for being Clinton supporters when they were not Clinton supporters. That is because you don't pay any attention to leftwing arguments in the world, or postings here; your presumptions about actual lefties and so forth are all wingnut media propaganda memes, the same shit we get from Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough and Breitbart and the like.

I don't think you quite realize how that obvious feature of your posting has been framing your posts.

The "alt right" predates WWII.

Sweet spot.

 

Gee a Liberal editors is proven to be an idiot and hatemonger, surely can't look bad for other liberals.

If I was not fire proof I would feel that burn.

Oh but Tiassa gives a fuck about satire, thinking it has no relevance to the real world other then for laughs, yet Tiassa thinks Alex Jones is pure evil, clearly Tiassa does not "get it". Hatemongering, real or "satire" looks bad, and the left is in no position to look any worse.

 

Why? Why should it reflect poorly upon anyone other than the editor, and perhaps the person or persons responsible for hiring the editor?

This is just nonsense--I can't even figure out what the hell you're saying here, other than your bizarre suggestion that Tiassa thinks that satire is "just for laughs." I'm pretty certain he doesn't, but I'll let him speak to that.

 

??? There are plenty of idiots and hatemongers on both sides of the political spectrum. The right wing seems to be attracting more than their share as of late, but idiocy knows no political bounds.

I mean, Trump's an idiot - does that make you look bad?

 

I rather the right be filled with them ONLY, not us. The alt-right has grown to such powered because of the ctrl-left, sjw, regressives that demand political correctness beyond any fault, demand people be "no-platformed" and fired for wrong think, and have simply made an ass out of the left

How would it? I did not vote for him, I voted for Hillary.

Because the editor is a representative of liberal thinking. Because thousands of liberals come out and defend her and the huffington post. Reader her defense, she say that the proposal is standard of feminist theory, so she took down all of feminism to her level as well.

 

Show me some evidence for this claim.

I did read her defense. It was kind of bizarre, nevertheless, her statements re: theory were mostly accurate.

Taking down feminism? I think you need to remind yourself of some of the things that YOU have said regarding feminism, starting with this thread--http://www.sciforums.com/threads/feminism.134528/page-2

Here's the first thing you have to say:

(Hyphenated parenthetical bit mine)

And your bizarre claim was followed by equally bizarre justifications in subsequent posts. At one point, you copy-pasta'd a bunch of quotes that were from first-wave feminist texts at least 40 to 50 years old, which I pointed out were not especially relevant in 2013. But at no point did you establish that there is some contemporaneous "outspoken" feminist movement which is all about "getting equality for women but not about getting equality for men."