Things You Feel Kinda Bad For Just Not Caring About

Like Things You Just Don't Care About but with some measure of guilt (and less passive-aggressive hostility). I'll start:

Greta Gerwig's Barbie

literally nothing tbh you can't guilt yourself into caring about things you don't care about

The Smithsonian

it's incredibly healthy to not care about things that are not directly related to your survival or your joy ime

on the other hand it's literally impossible to say 'i don't care about x' without looking like a dick.

possibly a better way to frame it would be "things you are grateful you don't care about"

mine lately are:

"fast car" and the country version of it and music biz racism etc

i had another one but i can't remember what it is

The Olympics

literally nothing tbh you can't guilt yourself into caring about things you don't care about

― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, July 19, 2023 6:35 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This. I also don’t subscribe to the ‘guilty pleasure’ in relation to pop culture.

Greta Gerwig's Barbie also and the followup zeitgeist/meta discussions.

do you really feel kinda bad for just not caring about that?

i kinda wish i cared about sports as much as i used to -- it's a fun pastime! -- but i certainly don't feel *bad* about not

ditto new music

i used to read a bunch of magazines and know about shit going on around the world, and it seems vaguely bad that i no longer bother? but either way we're totally fucked and i'd rather not wallow in it

Don't really get the concept of feeling guilty about not caring about something. The world is full of things that rightfully demand someone's attention, but that person doesn't have to be you! In my job I'm doing some comms for a very worthy public health organisation. Personally, I'm not really interested in the work they do. But I recognise it's important and I'm glad people other than me are interested.

I don't think most people feel guilt as a means to an end. It's an emotion that you experience organically and is hard to turn off when you do! More power to those of you who are able to do that, sincerely.

I definitely don't feel bad about not caring about something like the discourse around a pop culture phenomenon. The thing that first came to mind when I saw the thread title is foreign wars and crises. I simply cannot bring myself to keep up with the details of things like the Ukraine conflict, I just find it enervating and it leaves me feeling helpless and impotent. Why, then, do I still feel bad about it? My cognitively dissonant brain also holds the belief that if I did follow things closely, it would provide me with insights that might guide me towards how I could actually be helpful, even just at the level of what causes to donate to or whatever. So then I feel lazy that the visceral experience of helplessness and exhaustion win out over the theoretical benefits of keeping up.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FO_P_y4VUAMqcC5.jpg:large

Science.

The works of Kate Bush.

I support the ongoing Writers Guild strike in theory, because I support workers' rights and want those people to be taken care of, but I have not really been keeping up with the news about it since I don't care about TV or movies

I don't even own a movie

I definitely feel very guilty about how often I deliberately forget the horrific levels of violence and coercion and plunder inherent to basically any product or service I rely on for sustenance or comfort or entertainment in this broken world. it's hard to know what else to do about it esp since while I know these supply chains are indefensible I'm also terrified of them drying up for purely selfish reasons

so what nudie mags do you buy

sorry I don't remember the 70s

_literally nothing tbh you can't guilt yourself into caring about things you don't care about

― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac)

This. I also don’t subscribe to the ‘guilty pleasure’ in relation to pop culture.

I don't view my guilt as a strategy towards becoming better - not all emotions are useful emotions, we have threads for irrational anger and embarassment too.

sometimes i feel bad that i don't care about the things that so many people care about. maybe it would make me feel closer to people? like...travel, cars, vacations, majestic scenery in national parks, famous landmarks, libraries, museums, large outdoor events/festivals/concerts, trips to the beach. basically anything with a lot of people outside or inside. there is a brand new library in town that cost millions and i have no interest in checking it out. its big and has a lot of windows.

i do feel kinda bad that i no longer care about pop music. i was always such a big fan of top 40 hits. but with age and the disintegration of FM radio and the feeling i get that i should leave it to young people and also just a big lack of curiosity in new stuff/producers/singers its easy for me to ignore. also so much pop and pop culture in the country i live in now feels like its 100% money-driven. and i know it always has been but maybe being older makes me see it faster or something. i can't watch award shows anymore. they feel Nero-ish now that i am a climate-porn-driven-sad-dad in my golden years. don't worry i promise i won't find religion. early pandemic i did a lot of spotify flipping and i definitely heard interesting things on the outskirts. not big-name pop. but things that sounded new/now in a compelling way that didn't make me think of how boring chart pop sounded to me. african dance music. mostly electronic stuff. there will always be exciting new electronic music for me. maybe that's my pop now. romanian minimal. sault. i liked sault. but the radio doesn't sound like sault. sault was probably cooked up at a corporate retreat because big music knew that middle-aged men needed something to listen to when they were sad. granted, i live in the worst place on earth for radio. there are THREE country stations where i am! in massachusetts! they are all robo stations owned by the same big company too. anyway, i DO feel kinda bad that i no longer have my finger on the pulse. but it might just mean that i feel kinda bad that i'm old.

i DO feel kinda bad that i no longer have my finger on the pulse. but it might just mean that i feel kinda bad that i'm old.

otm -- i used to care about who got on the front page of the Wire or who got feature articles in the various cultural publications I read (past tense), and who got to be a genius or the pre-genius fellowships in music and the arts. But now I don't really care, because I'm kinda old? And I think the next stage past "not caring" is befuddlement and genuine confusion in not having the slightest clue who any of these people / things even are? ... whether this comes before or along with the adult diapers, I don't know.

I simply cannot bring myself to keep up with the details of things like the Ukraine conflict, I just find it enervating and it leaves me feeling helpless and impotent.

The discussion of guilt here has been interesting, thought it has mostly had the effect of making me immediately regret establishing a category that could reasonably contain everything from frilly summer blockbusters to labour disputes and international crises. For what its worth, I don't necessarily thing that lack of engagement with something implies indifference towards it; the quote I isolated from Lavator describes matters that might reasonably elicit feelings of guilt (and a host of other emotions) but which do not read to me like not caring.

The examples of Kate Bush and the Smithsonian (I'm assuming the latter was not a joke?), as well as my own example of Barbie are closer to what I was trying to get at here. I respect Greta Gerwig, I like that a film that appeals so readily to girls and queers is getting this level of attention (particularly when pitted against the latest Nolan opus, which I feel no guilt over not caring about), and I like that it annoys Armond White and Ted Cruz. I simply wasn't interested in a movie about Barbie when it was announced, but the discourse that has quickly surround the film has left me feeling like a bit of a grinch for remaining uninterested.

Ultimately, were the thread title to more accurately reflect my intentions, it might have been called Things You Should Feel Silly For Feeling Kinda Bad For Just Not Caring About, or something like that. But let it take you wherever it takes you.

Giving up on new books and movies has been good for me, as I was sick of the hype cycle, but I do still feel left out when EOY lists come out.

Substitute "books" with "music" and this is pretty much where I am these days.

I don't even know where to look to find interesting new books. I check magazine EOY lists, or the "best of 2023 (so far)" things that sites do these days, and there's literally nothing I want to read. I often have the impression that the people writing those lists haven't even read the books.

sometimes i feel bad that i don't care about the things that so many people care about. maybe it would make me feel closer to people? like...travel, cars, vacations, majestic scenery in national parks, famous landmarks,

I've definitely caught myself, while others marvel at scenery, thinking sarcastically 'Oh yeah, wow, a hill with trees on it. Haven't seen that a million times before'. Or getting annoyed at people posting sunrises and sunsets (which I've actually done myself?). It's not so much guilt as just feeling bad that I'm not being enthusiastic. The downer of the group, if you will. idk.

Nature photography leaves me cold. The Oscars often reward pretty nature shots with Best Cinematography.

i think for me its also the idea of GOING somewhere to see something majestic. i like the outdoors. and trees. i love trees. i just don't feel that impulse that people feel where they seek out babbling brooks or rock formations. and sometimes i feel kinda bad about it. or maybe its guilt. that i'm not getting all i can out of the earth or something. people are good at making me feel guilty for not wanting to explore the natural world. but it doesn't mean that i'm not curious about life on earth. i curious about a lot of things.

nature photography is rarely interesting to me, and national parks suck, they're basically like going to the mall. i love being outdoors though, it's still a rush. has to be very few people around for me to really enjoy it, which is increasingly rare.

I only go outdoors to walk my dogs.

Being outdoors is definitely something that people try make those who do not enjoy it feel guilty about. "Why don't you go outside and play?" is something we all probably heard as children. "Because my books and records and movies are indoors" was always my implicit answer, and I finally have no qualms about expressing that as an adult.

yeah i need to own my own life more. and not feel bad about it. having said that, i do realize that not doing something a lot is a really good way to never do something. "try it - you might like it!" can be a true thing. having said THAT, i couldn't help but love this article:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel

I've definitely caught myself, while others marvel at scenery, thinking sarcastically 'Oh yeah, wow, a hill with trees on it. Haven't seen that a million times before'.

<3 <3

This is very much how I felt as a child, but my parents were quite aggressive in making sure I was out of the house regularly, they were very enthusiastic about the idea of me roaming around the urban landscape starting at a young age. So now I find myself wanting to get out a lot, but once I start encountering people, I quickly get emotionally drained and want to hurry back home to my stuff.

xp to cryptosicko

in general, i'm only appreciative of the nature pics when people post pics of themselves swimming in a lake or at the ocean when it's like 90 degrees outside where I am ...

i think the pandemic completely reoriented my attitude towards the outdoors (i'm very pro now)

i was particularly indifferent to beach trips myself and legit felt bad for not caring about it. (don't love sand, have a negative relationship with the sun, the ocean has always been awesome to me tho don't get me wrong.) in the past few years though i've become a total beach convert and cannot wait for my annual beach town trip with my friends in august. i'll still be finding sand on my clothing a month afterward and I DON'T CARE

I fucking love the beach, can't wait for my weeklong Florida west coast trip in 10 days.

Nature photography has only gone downhill.

has to be very few people around for me to really enjoy it, which is increasingly rare.

otm

and scott seward otm about the spectacle of money

but there's a difference between loving being at the beach/ocean yourself and looking at other people's pictures ... oh, I would add "sunsets" and "whoa the moon is full" imagery to the nature pics category

i like the kind of beaches geologists write field reports about. as long as there's nobody there.

Instagram has ruined nature photography and, well, everything.

every once in a while someone with a more documentary eye posts pics that i like. generally the less "remarkable" they are the more i like them. "eye candy" as a subject is stupefyingly boring to me.

i still like every dumb photo of a moose or a bobcat from someone's car window though.

I have become a much bigger fan of nature since moving to where there is some. Life in NJ was less than pastoral. But here I have watched a doe and two fawns walk through the field behind my house; have watched a pair of hawks circle over the trees for an hour or more; have seen an eagle's nest (basically a pile of sticks the size of a monster truck tire) on top of a telephone pole; have walked through a forest of trees six and seven stories high...nature's fantastic.

Both involve imagining others’ critical views of your preferences. Anyone with any social awareness is capable of that.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 20 July 2023 13:43 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

imagining what others might expect me to feel guilty about is not guilt and does not strike me as effort well spent tbh

xp sounds lovely but i thought NJ is full of nature? isn't that why it's "the garden state"?

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYzVmZGRjNWMtM2ViMS00MmM4LTk4NGYtMjVlYWFhMTQ2MjI3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDIyNjA2MTk@._V1_.jpg

Jonathan Lethem and Tom Scharpling in The Revenant?

"fast car" and the country version of it and music biz racism etc

― ꙮ (map)

and the epic jim o'rourke live version of it

i have the opposite, i feel bad about caring about everything too much to the point where it fucks me up and gets in the way of me living my life

any time anybody talks about the weather i start spiraling about climate apocalypse, this makes my life complicated because it turns out people talk about the weather a _lot_

i'd always assumed "the garden state" was ironic, but apparently it refers to the state's being "an immense barrel, filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and New Yorkers from the other"

literally in my therapy program somebody just made a joke about not being able to talk about the weather

i'd always assumed "the garden state" was ironic, but apparently it refers to the state's being "an immense barrel, filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and New Yorkers from the other"

― difficult listening hour

petition to rename new jersey the "spitroast state"

gardens are artificial of course (even cottage-industrial)-- think this is the intended sense.

xp sounds lovely but i thought NJ is full of nature? isn't that why it's "the garden state"?

I lived in the state's fifth-largest city, which was right next door to its largest city. There are plenty of forests and fields, and obviously the beach, but I rarely saw much of that.

I don't care about supporting the arts. or rather, the concept as I see it carried out.

obviously I DO support local art and frequently attend local events - but not for the inherent purpose of supporting arts, because I wanted to go to that thing or a close friend was doing that thing.

Lately it seems that people that are attempting to get people to come see their play/band/art installation, do so only through the lens of obligation, and don't actually talk about the qualities of the event that should make me want to see it. "Come out and support local theater/local artists/local bands! You pay $250 to see Blink 182, you can pay $10 to see us!".

not "hey come see us, we're a local 4 piece pop/punk band and we have a crazy live show! AND we're only ten bucks!". I mean, with close friends, its one thing - I'll go and see any of my best friends doing whatever they love, even if it doesn't hold interest to me. but for the general public? come on. I'm not going to come to your thing just because you're local and you are laying on a guilt trip. Oh, you're doing Urinetown? been done here six times recently - why should I come see yours besides "SUPPORT US WE'RE LOCAL"?

recently, one burlesque producer write a 5 paragraph essay chastising people for not buying tickets to events like theirs in advance, claiming audiences weren't real supporters of theater if they waited until day of to buy tix, because it caused shows to be cancelled prematurely sometimes due to venues getting spooked by poor pre-sales. and I was like wondering, are you unfamiliar with people who can't confirm work schedules early enough, or aren't sure about their babysitter's availability, or can't afford to buy in advance. or people like me, who up until a few months ago were caretaking full time and often didn't want to commit too far in advance 'just in case'.

however the reason this falls in the 'guilt' category = I still feel like I'm a massive asshole because of this dismissive attitude, because guilt from other people, however irrational, works on me.

marketing is all moralism rn because people are unusually desperate to not be part of the problem; it'll pass one way or the other

xxp yeah i might have inferred that sorry, my post was like saying to someone in NYC "but the Catskills are full of nature!" it was thoughtless disregard plz

Yes! There is this big sense of guilt and obligation in the local scene here, like you shouldn't expect to be a part of it unless you are constantly being a presence at lots of gigs, but too much of it just isn't that good and the main proposition is a need for warm bodies to fill a space rather than a chance to hear something good.

I often feel like I should go to more things, but I can't get excited about it unless I actually like the music involved.

xxp

people are unusually desperate to not be part of the problem

damn, good point!

I went to one of the worst productions of Cabaret I've ever seen back in 2012-2013, like I felt the director wasn't just bad, but completely misunderstood the piece, playing things that shouldn't be comical for laughs, or vice versa, tonally it was completely off. Like just about the only thing he got right was that Nazis are bad. at the end we're walking out and he's like "thank you for supporting LOCAL THEATER" and only politeness prevented me from saying "You should be stopped!".

"eye candy" as a subject is stupefyingly boring to me.

unless it's Jake Gyllenhaal on a beach

get a room!

new jersey has the best corn. and tomatoes! when i worked at food places in philly all the produce we got came from new jersey. they got hella farms. i even went to cow town once! a rodeo in new jersey.

i like the ocean and beach at night. no sun. beautiful wave sounds. i definitely felt guilty that i lived on marthas vineyard for 6 years and went to the beach....um...i don't even remember going. but at night i did. because that's where i buried the bodies...kidding!

as far as local art and theatre and music goes.....i might have had my fill. also, too many people making stuff these days and i don't care about any of it and i don't feel bad. how many maker spaces can you open up western mass???

i am going to have to FORCE myself to go to the Munch exhibit at the Clark. i won't go into my laundry list of reasons why i avoid museums. i went to the most massive Munch exhibit ever in NYC when i was a kid (still the biggest to this day?) and it legit changed my life in some weird way.

(also art-related: these big-ass gallery/museum rooms filled with crap and trash have to go. you can have your immersive installation of consumer culture or whatever but do it at your house. nobody really needs it unless its for instagram photo-op purposes. i think every artist, if needed, should be allowed a tiny house to fill with their crap and no more than that. even art should be more ecologically sound. but that's more of a complaint and something that bugs me so i guess i care about it a little.) (actually, an outdoor tiny house gallery might be kinda cool. more manageable. one person inside one tiny house at a time. i feel like art doesn't breathe anymore. its way too caught up in the money thing. to put it mildly.)

I'm going to post something about travel that's related to scott's posts as soon as I get better bandwidth.

i used to get calls from people about playing music at my store and they would explain that they had friends coming to town who also played music and they thought it would be fun to put on a show and i always wanted to say to them: why don't you just invite friends over to your house and play music!? why does it have to be at my last-minute-idea record store? the freak folk underground has been putting on house shows here forever. it seems so much more human. what are you, pavarotti? go to a public park and make music with your visiting friends! that would be so much cooler of you. use any one of the empty front porches in this town. which is all of them. nobody would mind. they are inside watching t.v.

art needs to go back the cave.

shit this has turned into things i care about! my bad. carry on.

on the subject of national parks we should care about (hating) them because they're colonial land grabs which are both tools and products of genocide - liberal environmental movements' embrace of them is an absolute disgrace

The first director of the USA Natl Park Service (Stephen Tyng Mather) was a direct descendant of Cotton & Increase Mather of Salem, MA infamy (and of lesser importance founders of Harvard College).

kinda reminds me of something a social worker said to me once “I don’t go camping, I was homeless for 5 years, I’ve done enough camping.”

"Come out and support local theater/local artists/local bands! You pay $250 to see Blink 182, you can pay $10 to see us!".

This is cool and fine and supporting local arts scenes is a good thing, you're a big meanie Neanderthal...

a 5 paragraph essay chastising people for not buying tickets to events like theirs in advance, claiming audiences weren't real supporters of theater if they waited until day of to buy tix

...oh god, no. I take it all back.

People who take their kids to pick fruit … like pay to pick berries and whatever…

Xp scott … they might be thinking that people who who get bored of listening to their bands can look at the records you have for sale and that might be better? Otoh if you play a house show, there might be records or books there, or dogs and cats … Otoh they might just not want to deal with cleaning or having randos going their personal stuff and gossiping about the inadequacy of the bathroom

kinda reminds me of something a social worker said to me once “I don’t go camping, I was homeless for 5 years, I’ve done enough camping.”

Ha, my buddy's parents wandered a shattered Germany as children at the end of WWII, they feel the same about camping

"Otoh they might just not want to deal with cleaning or having randos going their personal stuff and gossiping about the inadequacy of the bathroom"

this seems more likely. but also it felt like they would be impressing their friends somehow? these were all people i didn't know, by the way. anyone i knew or was friends with could do a show whenever they wanted kinda.

hahahahah oh totally! i've been there. ...

on the subject of national parks we should care about (hating) them because they're colonial land grabs which are both tools and products of genocide - liberal environmental movements' embrace of them is an absolute disgrace

I am currently reading some really fascinating books about indigenous American history, and/but/so I kinda feel bad that I really don't give a fuck about colonialism as some grand evil. Human beings are tribal creatures who go to war with their neighbors. Always have been, always will be. Land is not "stolen," it is occupied by one group of people or another. Before Europeans got to North America, tribes were killing each other for the exact same land. So if you want to wrest it from the grasp of its current occupants, have at it! But stop fucking whining about the people you lost a war to.

whoa dude, you went there ...

I fucking love the beach, can't wait for my weeklong Florida west coast trip in 10 days.

xp classic renter mentality

i do feel awkward at meetings where we are supposed to do land acknowledgements, because most of the time these are virtual meetings, so I'm at home, in my rented apartment, which is directly above an apartment rented by a black family, who at one point in history would not have been allowed to rent in this neighborhood, and the building is owned by a Chinese man, who at one point in history would have been deported/denied citizenship in this country, and before it was America, the Spanish owned the land, which they expropriated from the Ohlone ... and, it's just ... I think in some places it's a lot more clear cut why you should be doing land acknowledgements, and "defensiveness" about humanity being warlike by nature is a really bad look?

hey fuck you unperson

petition to rename new jersey the "spitroast state"

― Kate (rushomancy)

ok i looked up when the name came from because back when alexander hamilton killed aaron burr in, what, the pine barrens? was it? apparently the whole state was empty

per this site:

https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/new-jersey/state-nickname/garden-state

A quote from the official New Jersey website: "Alfred M. Heston, in his two-volume work, "Jersey Waggon Jaunts" (published in 1926), credits Abraham Browning of Camden with coining the name at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia on New Jersey Day in 1876.

On page 310 of volume 2 he writes: 'In his address Mr. Browning compared New Jersey to an immense barrel, filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and the New Yorkers from the other. He called New Jersey the Garden State, and the name has clung to it ever since.'

The problem with this theory is that the image of a barrel tapped at both ends dates back to Benjamin Franklin if not earlier, so crediting Browning with naming the Garden State can not be taken at face value."

this makes perfect sense, ben franklin definitely seems like a guy who would've enjoyed being spitroasted

on the other hand maybe he was just talking about booze, which he _definitely_ enjoyed

Before Europeans got to North America, tribes were killing each other for the exact same land. So if you want to wrest it from the grasp of its current occupants, have at it! But stop fucking whining about the people you lost a war to.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 20 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Wouldn't you be better posting in a far right msg board?

it's unfathomable to me that anyone familiar with the scale and brutality of the ongoing american genocides could be so blase and victim blamey about them but I guess that's how coloniser brain works

it's basically all the different toxic pieces of white supremacy, layered upon one another?

Before Europeans got to North America, tribes were killing each other for the exact same land. So if you want to wrest it from the grasp of its current occupants, have at it! But stop fucking whining about the people you lost a war to.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 20 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Wouldn't you be better posting in a far right msg board?

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, July 20, 2023 12:25 PM (six minutes ago)

tbf the far right do a lot of whining about their entitlement to land they lost in wars ...

Stop being fair to colonialism.

The venn diagram of the far right and the environmental movement overlap a lot more than people realize

similar to the far right and the "health conscious" crystal stone energy movement

Nothing can be known about the future, [he thought], except the limits of our planet: “the surface area of a precisely measured space.” Ecology was scarcity, and existence meant a struggle for land. The immutable structure of life was the division of animals into species, condemned to “inner seclusion” and an endless fight to the death.... The struggle could never end, and it had no certain outcome.... “Nature,” [he wrote], “knows no political boundaries. She places life forms on this globe and then sets them free in a play for power.” Since politics was nature, and nature was struggle, no political thought was possible.... human activities could be understood as biology.... [His] point was not at all that the desirable end justified the bloody means. There was no end... The weak were to be dominated by the strong... And that was all there was to be known or believed.

just want to point out that there is a big mass of contingent grey area to the colonialism discussion as it relates to the u.s. that have much more bearing on relations that exist right now but instead we've heard the two most literally stagnant hard-line extreme positions in this thread within a couple of posts of each other, thanks for the illumination guys.

The venn diagram of the far right and the environmental movement overlap a lot more than people realize

doesn't really scan like unperson does feel bad about not caring.

Had to get it out of his chest, you know..

Xp Xyzzz … I just like calling the far right mean names.

Don't want to wade too far into this, but it bears reminding that many tribes are sovereign nations, with binding treaties too often ignored by one of the signatories

Ecofascism and the overlap between the far right and hippies/healing crystals has def graduated from "most ppl are unaware" I think, gets brought up on ILX every other week at any rate. Think probably covid was the moment a lot of ppl found out.

I guess I am confused what hippies have to do with colonialism?

How is this relevant to colonialism, which has destroyed the lives and existence of countless numbers?

many tribes are sovereign nations, with binding treaties too often ignored by one of the signatories

Absolutely true. Genocide was real and the atrocities must be acknowledged and society can do much better moving forward than its doing now. However, how many people in this thread owe their very existence to this same colonialism? I sure do. How many families and communities benefited from it over time from all over the world (specifically referencing US colonialism/manifest destiny)?

It's complicated, as map insinuates. But perhaps this isn't the place for such discussions.

Still a source of constant confusion for my hippie mum who keeps finding out ppl in her yoga class are not good marxists tho.

xposts

I think the current train of thought is going colonialism -> national parks -> environmentalism -> hippies, I'd certainly agree this is a few twists too many

Muddying the waters, I guess.

Tribal wars vs actual genocide … not really equivalent

I wasn't thinking about the far right and crystals, but any time the far right invokes The Population Bomb

was gonna say, ground zero for ecofascism is "there are too many people" but it turns out it's too many of a specific group of people

I agree those are two distinct things but I feel like fascists bringing up overpopulation, especially in a climate crisis context, has also become quite a well known thing - but perhaps this is due to living in the UK where these views regularly make it to prime time television.

and then in the UK you get "revered" figures like Sir David Attenborough trying put a more reasonable spin on "asians and africans breeding like rats"

I owe my existence to colonialism as a product and beneficiary of the british imperialist welfare state and I think that's fucked up, the fact that I would prefer not to exist is irrelevant I think - I don't accept the attempted gotcha in either case

what is the other extreme position being represented here as opposed to the genocide is good position? please explain because it's not obvious to me

t I feel like fascists bringing up overpopulation, especially in a climate crisis context, has also become quite a well known thing - but perhaps this is due to living in the UK where these views regularly make it to prime time television.

"Become"? Ummm.. Malthus to thread?

(there's a good episode of If Books Could Kill about The Population Bomb that gets into the history of overpopulation studies)

Malthus is kinda esoteric…

it's more than troubling that liberals agree with fascists on this one but liberals were doing this long before fascism was officially a thing, it was the attenboroughs of the 19th century who manufactured the famine in ireland

the genocide is good position

Who said genocide is good? I said genocide is what people do. Even non-white, non-European people. People in large groups suck. So live your own life in whatever seems to you to be a virtuous manner, and help others when they need it, because reparations/restitution/cosmic justice are not forthcoming, and the future will likely be worse than the past.

fuck you

you spread smallpox

What the fuck

I think reparations are worth a shot tbh.

I'm not going to engage with people whose take on the depopulation of the americas amounts to "shit happens"

Elvis yeah I don't mean it's a new development I mean it's become a thing more widely discussed in the #discourse than it was, like, five years ago

I owe my existence to colonialism as a product and beneficiary of the british imperialist welfare state and I think that's fucked up, the fact that I would prefer not to exist is irrelevant I think - I don't accept the attempted gotcha in either case

― your original display name is still visible (Left)

fwiw i'm glad you exist, your continued existence is an act of resistance against a world that is systemically hostile to you. doesn't make it easy or fun but it's _incredibly valuable_.

and yeah, arguing that colonialism predates post-colonialist ideologies is... fairly self-evident. plus, i mean, my understanding is that karl marx argued that capitalism was a necessary prerequisite to communism... i'm not sure he was defending capitalism by doing so...

if we're talking about genocide i do want to mention (not to you, Left, this is stuff that you almost certainly are well aware of) that THE BRITISH IMPERIALIST STATE IS PERPETRATING A GENOCIDE RIGHT NOW against trans people. this implicit bias that genocide is something that imperialism and colonialism only did in the _past_ is frankly kind of offensive to me!

anyway i'm probably not gonna make it much longer in this thread, unperson's take was obviously extremely bad and everyone here calling them on it is right.

agreed on all of this, I would just add that the genocide against trans people comes in the wake of a couple of decades of targeted deportations of queer migrants and refugees which the liberal establishment was also largely on board with

marx was a mess on colonialism but at least he acknowledged the brutality involved in capital accumulation with a frankness that few of his peers were able to muster

when did Ben Shapiro join ILX

People in large groups suck

Ah, this explains why you don't get Brazilian music.

Hold up. The Pine Barrens are like a hundred miles away geographically (and culturally light years away) from where the Hamilton/Burr duel was (Weehawken).

I have spent time in the Pine Barrens and it is a seriously fascinating place to be.

One time, my ex-girlfriend and I got severely lost while camping in Wharton State Forest. You are literally in NEW JERSEY but there are huge areas with no roads or businesses. After three days in the woods, we found a diner. The waitress was deeply surprised to see people from someplace else - she marveled that we had a Virginia license plate on the car, and spoke to us in a dialect that was nearly Appalachian in its incomprehensibility.

Later on, I read John McPhee's pretty fine book about the Pine Barrens and it made a little more sense. There are lots of parts of New Jersey that don't seem very "New Jersey." Cape May has a fine zoo, for example. For a long time, Richard Stockton College hosted my favorite contemporary poet, Stephen Dunn - I tried and failed to meet him but saw him decades later at the National Book Festival and wanted to talk to him about it but got pulled in another direction; now he's dead. Princeton - the town and its reasonably well-known university - are lovely in light snow.

I am neither a native nor a resident but I get weirdly protective of much-maligned New Jersey.

I am neither a native nor a resident but I get weirdly protective

colonialism

(jk)

it's funny, I'm a FL native and didn't say the first nice thing about my home state until maybe 2015

There are lots of parts of New Jersey that don't seem very "New Jersey."

This is exactly right. There are probably a half dozen New Jerseys. There are the farms; the Pine Barrens; the rich asshole towns up north that produce scumbags like Chris Christie and current Montana governor Greg Gianforte; the various self-contained communities in the middle of the state (Indians in Edison; Central and South Americans in Elizabeth, where I used to live). Anybody who thinks NJ is all Springsteen and the Sopranos has no idea.

Counterpoint: baby this town rips the bones from your back. It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap.

Hold up. The Pine Barrens are like a hundred miles away geographically (and culturally light years away) from where the Hamilton/Burr duel was (Weehawken).

― Exit, pursued by a beer (Ye Mad Puffin)

ah, shit, that's what i get for not doing my research

my overall feelings on new jersey are pretty negative but that has more to do with growing up in 1980s morris county, which was a republican shithole. maybe still is, fuck if i know.

this thread is wandering all over the place, love it

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.2594049779.3898/st,small,507x507-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.jpg

i am, though. who am i? what am i doing here?

How much of this is that the vast majority of us live in societies of rotted and discredited institutions where we have no collective path to attempt to change the slow collapse cascade we’re witness to, either directly or vicariously? All we can do is just talk about it to each other, so we just vent or scold others online because most lack viable social contexts for handling anything, right?

So yeah, like there’s a shit ton of liberal guilt but also a mutual policing mechanism where we’re hyper focused on making sure each other are reacted the right way and saying the right things that validate our own anxieties and concerns, because that’s all that’s left? We have no power to change shit but we’re expected to express this dismay in certain ways?

The kicker is that this process is applied to everything, because the internet flattens everything that people care intensely about, doesn’t it? So pop cultural choices become matters of import because they have become aspects of personal identity. We argue about frippery in the same way we argue about actual problems.

give the lenape their land back now

xpost idk the King Crimson thread was a little more civil these days

what is "this"?

It's it.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/84/3d/f0843d2139dabfc86794af55ca37543d.jpg

making sure each other are reacted the right way and saying the right things that validate our own anxieties and concerns, because that’s all that’s left?

i feel like there's some of that flattening you spoke of going on here in this sentiment.

We have no power to change shit but we’re expected to express this dismay in certain ways?

at the moment that we are posting on ilx ... no ... we are not effectively changing shit. Outside of ilx, there are things (albeit small, but potentially significant) that we can do to repair / improve the fucked up shit that is the result of white supremacy (which includes colonialism).

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/7fbd0942-3cea-4cfa-a4f9-6459b5d70e27.66ea38bbc46540c841d259be837b971b.jpeg

i used to like those more when i was a kid ... idk ... never did the factory tour.

at the moment that we are posting on ilx ... no ... we are not effectively changing shit. Outside of ilx, there are things (albeit small, but potentially significant) that we can do to repair / improve the fucked up shit that is the result of white supremacy (which includes colonialism).

Well now here we’re talking, and yes, this gets into what I’m not-that-well stating. Once we get into the context of doing IRL stuff, then there’s definitely shit we can do(tho yes it’s small and going to take quite a while but at least it’s real world action).

holy shit I was on some errands and meant to come back and post about feeling bad about not really feeling like seeing movies in the theater anymore and the trap has gone ham

wrt colonialism i think a good first step is to learn about pre-european inhabitants in your area. not just historically but where they are now. a friend of mine is more involved than i am and has gone to some timponogos / shoshone meetings. seems like a good way to get a feel for relevant povs. i suspect there are fewer of the left-lib variety than you might expect. i will say that i think generational trauma is heavy and real and also that nobody is "pure". certainly acknowledgment of wrongdoing is a huge first step. gravesites at indian schools being discovered today & the state acknowledging the wrong when they used to just ignore it, that definitely seems like progress to me. how are people living with all of this today? and how does that translate into our weird-ass landscape today where identity is mined for capital. some from column a some from column b.

"All we can do is just talk about it to each other, so we just vent or scold others online because most lack viable social contexts for handling anything, right?"

Please. These posts aren't acceptable.

its the thread for it tbf

I'm not fair.

holy shit I was on some errands and meant to come back and post about feeling bad about not really feeling like seeing movies in the theater anymore and the trap has gone ham

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

we should start a vaush thread, that'll really bring out the ones you need to watch for

How much of this is that the vast majority of us live in societies of rotted and discredited institutions where we have no collective path to attempt to change the slow collapse cascade we’re witness to, either directly or vicariously? All we can do is just talk about it to each other, so we just vent or scold others online because most lack viable social contexts for handling anything, right?

― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish)

to be blunt most of my time is spent just trying to stay alive in a world that structurally wants me dead

i spent a while trying to keep myself and the people i cared about alive but that was too hard, i'm just working on keeping myself alive now and, i don't know, establishing effective networks of care or something

to dig down into it that's really what it boils down to for me. i need things, the things i need are things i can't get from the rotted and discredited institutions, and building new institutions from the ground up to replace the ones that are rotted and discredited and STILL HAVE ALL THE FUCKING MONEY is pretty hard

especially since none of us have actually figured out how to produce our own E yet, why the fuck is it easier to score fent than it for me to get my hormones

I feel bad for not liking cake. Every birthday, mine or others, I choke down a piece. Out of...Tradition? Politeness? I don't know. But when it's my birthday it's always politeness.

I do recall screaming an outright tirade at my brother when I was perhaps 5 and he was 11 because he requested a chocolate cake for his birthday. The cake was insulting enough, but expected. The chocolate was the salt in the wound. Disgusting. What a terror I was.

And, of course, the monthly office birthday cakes where if you decline a piece suddenly the narrative changes very quickly to dieting and body dysmorphia.

I guess it's one of those things you learn as you get older. Your birthday is for others. Your wedding is for others. We came so very, very close to eloping by I knew it would break my mother's heart.

I like cake if you go easy on the frosting but otherwise yuck

Oh, I feel slightly guilty about not giving a shit about chess... I'm sure it's amazing, and if I spent some time to learn it, I might be rewarded.. but yeah, no, don't care about the queen's gambit or whatev

Don’t feel bad, cake sucks

Ice cream pie >>>>>>>> cake

I feel kinda bad that the longer any ILX thread goes unread, and the more posts it accrues, the less likely I am to read it.

sunny we may be experiencing some thread drift between the IA thread and this one

Unless you feel kinda bad about cake, in which case, rock on

Yah. The feeling bad about hating cake reminded me of the IA I feel over paper thin slice complainers.

Paper thin lunch meat slices? Those will drive me into a blind rage.

Cake. But thin lime slices vs thick limes. Don’t even get me started.

How much of this is that the vast majority of us live in societies of rotted and discredited institutions where we have no collective path to attempt to change the slow collapse cascade we’re witness to, either directly or vicariously?

On that cheerful note...

a good first step is to learn about pre-european inhabitants in your area. not just historically but where they are now

Not wishing to do the American "I'm Irish too" thing but I do have specific known and well-documented ancestors who were Kaskaskia, including a chief of the Illinois Confederacy (Mamenthousa, probably a 9th great-grandfather) and Marie Rouensa, probably an 8th great-grandmother.

I am given to understand that the Kaskaskia ended up in Oklahoma due to various cruel forced migrations and that's where things stand at present.

The land I currently dwell on has murky history; it seems hard to get a straight answer about this because it seems to have been more highway than dwelling-place.

I live at a crossroads between different routes to important places, but there is relatively little information about people staying/living here until 17something.

kingfish's first post itt otm

Paraolympics

I know this is, like, the most uncontroversial opinion ever, but: My head is pretty full.

At my age, I no longer feel the need to discover new music/books. I am sure a lot of it is good - I just don't have the attention span or the desire anymore. I am not done with the previous thousand years of music or books; why do I need to keep taking in more? I own about a thousand records and ten thousand songs. Similarly, I own about seven thousand books... is it really an absolute requirement (or moral imperative) that I keep acquiring more?

Constantly learning more about the cool new music/books just sounds like work to me. It was fun when I was 20. Now that I am 50+ish I don't want more homework assignments.

What I want is a reprieve from the perceived imperative. I still enjoy composers and bands and authors who haven't been active in decades (or centuries). So my need for new input is minimal. Again, apologies for the really stereotypical Dad Take.

"is it really an absolute requirement (or moral imperative) that I keep acquiring more?"

i dont believe for a second anyone has ever argued that it is, tho- the "perceived" element is ofc the part you have to fight but nobody can help you there perhaps?

I agree those are two distinct things but I feel like fascists bringing up overpopulation, especially in a climate crisis context, has also become quite a well known thing - but perhaps this is due to living in the UK where these views regularly make it to prime time television.

Is this still happening? I thought we were into the population decline arc now, even on prime time

"Constantly learning more about the cool new music/books just sounds like work to me. It was fun when I was 20. Now that I am 50+ish I don't want more homework assignments."

That has never felt like homework to me.

Honestly, seven thousand books strikes me as a lot. I have about 700 at last count and that feels excessive. (I can read what, 50-60 in a year?)

kindle changed the game

I no longer feel the need to discover new music/books

I get this and mostly concur, but I'll occasionally force myself to listen to, say, a half an Olivia Rodrigo or Bad Bunny song or something like that, just because I'd like to pretend I still know what's going on, even if I don't. It also helps when speaking with friends' teens at BBQs

"Similarly, I own about seven thousand books... is it really an absolute requirement (or moral imperative) that I keep acquiring more?"

i have a friend my age who runs an excellent horror website and recently they said that they had spent their whole life amassing movies on vhs and dvd and now they were just going to watch them. they were done! i like that idea. the more more more thing is just this evil world whispering *more more more* in your ear at night. but you don't actually have to listen to it! and you don't need to go full kondo.

all this colonialism talk reminds me of something that i feel bad for not caring more about. and that is that i have first world problems. its funny the first 500 times you say it and then you really just have to come to the conclusion that its the only world you know and that they are just, in fact, your problems.

my people have been in the valley i live in for 400 years and were a part of the tortured history of the Indian Wars here and I think about it and read about it and I don't know if I will ever come to grips with it all in my lifetime. this country is so....much. i do admit that i get a kick out of the fact that there is a haunted bridge in my town named after an ancestor of mine who was kidnapped during the Deerfield Massacre and raised by the Mohawk tribe in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Kanenstenhawi_Williams

I know this is, like, the most uncontroversial opinion ever, but: My head is pretty full.

― Exit, pursued by a beer (Ye Mad Puffin)

i guess my problem is that most of the stuff my head is full of is crap

plus, it wasn't just stuff i read/listened to because i'm just a naturally curious person (although i am, i guess). it's a distraction. my head goes spinny spinny spinny all the time and distracting myself helps me get into these ruminative loops about all of the shit i've been through. absorbing myself in stuff that has nothing to do with me helps keep me from sinking into intractable despair.

so it's probably for the best that you'd rather step off the culture treadmill!

all this colonialism talk reminds me of something that i feel bad for not caring more about. and that is that i have first world problems. its funny the first 500 times you say it and then you really just have to come to the conclusion that its the only world you know and that they are just, in fact, your problems.

― scott seward

scott otm, i do have first world problems, i do have privilege, and what that privilege translates into in practice for someone like me is that... i'm not dead. i feel bad that other people don't have the privileges i have, but having privilege and first world problems and all that stuff, i don't feel bad about that.

most people are dead, or did we recently actually skew the numbers there also

https://i.postimg.cc/cH5jJLqh/R-4601728-1563580154-8804.jpg

They were all my friends

And they died

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j2GQqu18J0

Also re: having lots of books, that was not meant as a brag or humblebrag. I am a nerd who lives with other nerds. We try to keep it down but we fail.

Fwiw I once went to see Umberto Eco talk and he said his personal library had 30,000 volumes. For him, many are probably rare and irreplaceable. We just have a bunch of 1990s paperback Virginia Woolf and Nabokov and Banana Yoshimoto and such.

on the subject of national parks we should care about (hating) them because they're colonial land grabs which are both tools and products of genocide - liberal environmental movements' embrace of them is an absolute disgrace

I am currently reading some really fascinating books about indigenous American history, and/but/so I kinda feel bad that I really don't give a fuck about colonialism as some grand evil. Human beings are tribal creatures who go to war with their neighbors. Always have been, always will be. Land is not "stolen," it is occupied by one group of people or another. Before Europeans got to North America, tribes were killing each other for the exact same land. So if you want to wrest it from the grasp of its current occupants, have at it! But stop fucking whining about the people you lost a war to.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 20 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

"This will be the first time Minnesota transfers a state park to a Native American community, said Ann Pierce, director of Minnesota state parks and trails at the natural resources department.

Minnesota’s transfer, expected to take years to finish, is tucked into several large bills covering several issues. The bills allocate more than $6m to facilitate the transfer by 2033. The money can be used to buy land with recreational opportunities and pay for appraisals, road and bridge demolition and other engineering."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/03/native-tribe-upper-sioux-agency-us-dakota-war

Oakland did a similar thing recently fwiw