Category: Culture

Art, music, literature and thespianism

Hidden Depths

Culture, Men & Women

Like many of my contemporaries — people who grew up in a British colony — my childhood literary upbringing was primarily that of the Mother Country:  Rudyard Kipling, Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, C.S. Lewis and so on.

Another was a female author, E. (Edith) Nesbit, who wrote Victorian-era children’s classics such as The Railway Children and The Story Of The Treasure-Seekers.  As a child, I remember my parents reading both to me at bedtime.

One always thinks of the authors of children’s literature — especially female authors — as quiet, spinsterly or even virginal.  In the case of Edith Nesbit, it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.

So far, Edith had been rather a passive participant in ‘free love’, but she now began to even the score with Hubert, embarking on a series of romantic affairs with young writers whom she mentored. Some of these relationships may have been platonic rather than passionate, such as her fling with George Bernard Shaw, who she met through the Fabian Society.
…
It’s likely her other lovers were less reserved.  The young poet Richard Le Gallienne was captivated by Edith’s beauty and unconventional style – she refused to wear a corset and cut her hair boyishly short, drifting around in flowing robes, her wrists jangling with bangles – and she contemplated leaving Hubert for him.
A young accountant, Noel Griffith, was the next to be dazzled by her, although he found her ménage à trois with Alice and Hubert bizarre, observing that Alice seemed uncomfortable and that Edith found Alice irritating.  The only real beneficiary was Hubert, who was ‘very hot-blooded’ and ‘abnormally sexual’ – which didn’t stop him moralising about the importance of fidelity in his newspaper columns.  Meanwhile, Edith let her children run wild, playing on the railway, and turned a blind eye to domestic chaos.

Sounds positively 21st-century, dunnit?

Fallout

Culture, Men & Women

I begin this post by offering up a quote from Megan Fox, talking about the feministical anti-Kavanaugh protesters:

“What employers will hire women now?  If I were one, I wouldn’t.  What kind of sado-masochist do you have to be to want to take a chance on hiring one of these women who think accusations are enough to hang a man?”

That particular bullet, it seems to me, has long since passed through the church.  I am pretty sure that but for the presence of the (largely female-staffed) Human Resources departments in business today, most men would probably not hire young women unless forced to do so.  Hell, I’m not even sure that female managers would hire that many young women either.  Because this is the kind of employee you’re likely to get:

Here’s a quick question for a prospective employer:  assuming you weren’t paying attention and hired one or two of these mopes by accident, about how long do you think you’d have before they started disrupting your workplace, taking time off to attend protests, or filing protests against male coworkers for imagined grievances?

If you answered anything other than “Days, maybe even just hours”  to the above question, you’re deluding yourself.  And as for these prospective Yale attorneys:

…well, I’m pretty sure that few law firms (other than the neo-Stalinist ones) would give them a look, but the nice thing about getting a law degree from Yale is that there’ll always be a job for you at pinko outfits like the ACLU, SPLC, Greenpeace and the like.  Hell, you’d be a shoo-in as a staffer for some Democrat congressman, so no worries there.

In the real world, however, I’m predicting that all the ones at the top are going to have to get used to filling orders at Starbucks or waiting tables at Applebee’s, because #patriarchy.

That’s the beauty of being one of the Permanently Aggrieved, you see:  it’s always someone else’s fault.

Fucking children.

Actually, No

Culture

From some SJW / Millennial ingenue named Hannah Yasharoff:

National Lampoon’s raunchy frat house comedy “Animal House,” which celebrates its 40th anniversary Saturday, is widely regarded as an all-time great movie.  But four decades later, it feels less like a comedy classic and more like a toxic showcase of racism, homophobia and jokes about sexual assault.

As the title of this post suggests, Animal House actually feels more and more (not less) like a comedy classic precisely because it does make fun of racism and jokes about sexual assault*.  (Remember that Dean Wormer’s the mayor’s 13-year-old daughter is the one who comes to the toga party and gets pass-out drunk — and then much later, only after she finally has sex with Larry Kroger, does she shockingly admit her true age.  That’s what was so goddamn funny, you pearl-clutching asswipe.)

Animal House aimed at so many sacred cows it’s difficult to know where to start.  Now that the Left has created its own sacred cows, however, they’ve decreed somehow that while it’s perfectly okay to make fun of (say) religion or patriotism, heaven forbid that anyone make fun of (say) transgenderism (despite the latter’s self-identified social deviancy).

And duh!  National Lampoon’s entire raison d’être was toxic comedy in that they skewered and made fun of everything.  (The word “lampoon” right up there in the title should be sufficient warning, but clearly our SJW children’s liberal education never got that far in the lexicon.)

Good grief.  I need a gin & tonic.  Oh wait:  my love of booze would make me future SCOTUS Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s spiritual [sic] sidekick.

Excellent.

*I don’t recall any homophobic jokes in Animal House, but I could be wrong.

Why Not?

Culture, Men & Women, Seen On Campus

So here’s the thing.  William F. Buckley once characterized conservatives as people “standing astride the course of history, shouting STOP!”  I, on the other hand, prefer to think of myself as someone standing astride the course of history, but instead of shouting “STOP!”, I prefer to shout, “GO BACK TEN STEPS!”

Yes, I have always preferred to go back to an earlier (and better) time, when things made sense (e.g. two genders — male and female — instead of the fifty-six flavors now apparently on offer).

Of late, however, I must confess to finding secret glee in not being so reactionary.  Nowadays, I seem to find pleasure in urging on The Great Insanity rather than attempting to fight it.  Here’s an example.

A British university has recently come under fire for allowing a rather different kind of career option in a recent jobs’ fair:

A university has been slammed after its freshers’ fair had a stand that advised new undergraduates on how to be sex workers.
Brighton University’s freshers’ fair last week had a stand run by the Sex Workers’ Outreach Project, Sussex.
SWOP describes itself as ‘A discreet and confidential trans inclusive service for women working in the sex industry who live or work in Sussex’,
Before the fair, the group tweeted: ‘1 in 6 students does sex work or thinks about turning to sex work. We can help.’
On A Level Results day, the group invited students to visit their stands for advice and information on sex work.
At the Brighton freshers’ fair, the group offered free condoms and lubricants for all students and invited to ‘play on our wheel of sexual wellbeing’.
Prizes from the wheel included underwear.

Amazingly (in today’s world), this has caused something of a negative reaction in social media:

One user commented: ‘Saddened to see this. Students should not be encouraged into prostitution.’
Another added: ‘What the f***? Are you seriously encouraging young people to sell their bodies to fund university? “Sex work”? Do you mention this to prospective parents at open days?’
A third simply said: ‘This is grotesque beyond words.’

Unsurprisingly, SWOP responded with the “If they’re going to do it anyway…”  liberal trope (see also:  handing out condoms to, and discussing anal sex techniques with preteens in Sex Ed classes):

‘Rising living and tuition costs mean that more students than ever are turning to sex work and SWOP believe that they deserve our help as well.
‘Sex work is work.’
‘SWOP have never idealised sex work. However, we understand why students may turn to sex work, and navigating the legal precariousness as well as potential danger mean that students are extra vulnerable and we will help.’

As I said earlier, this whole thing would once have brought from me a thundering denunciation of the decline of morality and the liberal-mindset catalyst that has enabled and encouraged it.

Now?  I shrug.  Because whenever I and other conservatives have have had this kind of attitude in the past, the response has often been that we’re being too judgmental, too harsh and too unforgiving.

So now I say:  Go on.  Tell these young girls that prostitution is a reasonable option towards funding their university education;  tell them how to set up “client lists” and draw up “business plans” for the exploitation of their vaginas, and tell them how best to advertise their wares vaginas and where best to set up operations.  Hell, given what’s being taught here, make it part of a business degree — it’s pretty much what’s taught in business schools these days, except that instead of using the hypothetical “widgets” so beloved of business-school professors, they can use real-life vaginas — their own vaginas withal, so there’s not even a need to set up a product manufacturing process!

I know this sounds cynical, and it is.  But my cynicism pales by comparison to that of the people who have re-labeled “fucking strangers for money” as “sex work”.

Long-Time Favorite

Culture

(I was reading this article and it triggered a train of thought which is worthy of a post.)

I am sometimes asked which classical novelist is my favorite, and honestly, I have a tough time answering the question.  Victor Hugo?  Balzac?  Dumas?  Mann?  Hardy?  Robert Graves?  D.H. Lawrence?

Wait, go back a bit;  Hardy?  Jude The Obscure, Far From The Madding Crowd, The Mayor Of Casterbridge… that Thomas Hardy?

Indeed.  My first exposure to Hardy was The Mayor Of Casterbridge (our 12th-grade set work).  I was utterly captivated, and despite the oncoming final exams and the endless study involved, I still somehow managed to squeeze in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Return Of The Native  and The Woodlanders  before year’s end.  In my lifetime, I have read all his “major” novels (i.e. the Wessex series) at least twice each, and Casterbridge maybe six times.

Here’s why.  I was (still am) a rebellious soul who has always looked on the customs and mores of society (of any era) with a critical and jaundiced eye.  (That I have a favorite era — late Victorian / Edwardian — does not stop me from being critical of it, understanding its shortcomings and loving it nevertheless, especially when I compare it to our modern, soulless technocracy.)

Hardy was probably one of the most critical writers of my favorite era, ever.  In fact, so scathing was his “realistic” perspective that many people believe that he finally eschewed novel-writing for poetry because of the opprobrium he received for his baleful scrutiny.

And for the 16-year-old Kim, full of ignorant passion and rebellion, Hardy was fuel to the fire — not for his displeasure with the Victorian era, but for his displeasure per se.  It became easy to criticize apartheid-era South African society (and I did) using Hardy’s prose as my role model.  It may therefore come as no surprise to my Loyal Readers that I haven’t changed a bit, except that now my ire is directed towards our contemporary society of the early 21st century.

My only regret is that I don’t have Hardy’s skill as a novelist — nobody does — but that doesn’t stop me from reading him, over and over again.

In fact, I think it’s high time for me to re-read… hmmmm, which one… Native?  Jude?  Casterbridge?

I’ll let you know.

Yes, Of Course

Culture, Deep Thoughts

From Myron Magnet at City Journal (on another topic):

“Don’t you think the whole effort of modernism—in architecture, in literature, in music, in painting—might have been a huge dead end, from which Western culture will painfully have to extricate itself?”

Longtime Readers of my fevered scribblings and rants will know that I am an implacable enemy of Modernism (and its bastard child, Postmodernism), so to me, Magnet’s question should really be a statement, with no conditional verbs.

Modernism has been a spiritual dead end, in its subjugation of beauty and form into soulless utilitarianism and the inscrutable abstract, and wherever its proponents (Le Corbusier, Duchamps, Von Der Rohe, Kandinsky and all the other charlatans) might be today, I hope the temperature is set to “BROIL”.

 Kandinsky: Garden of Love II

As for Magnet’s primary thesis (that of the imperilment of free speech), I think I’ve covered it already in my recent “Kicking Down Fences” post, but that shouldn’t stop you from reading Magnet’s greatly-superior take on the topic.