Or put another way: the nat-geo thing about which breasts are showable, and which celebrity is what race - these are pervasive and organic. All the self-reproach basically builds on this with a dialectical twist.

All of this is out there, and all of it is nonsense, but I think it's mostly liberals that play this sort of stuff up, and it comes out of academia, not the way people organically think.

Well, it's certainly liberals who elaborate whiteness in the ways you point out. But I think that same academic bubble you decry may, despite your best intents, may be operative in how you're approaching and thinking about this. None of this stuff is born in academia, it's just a foreseeable articulation of something already brewing from beneath.

Like, I have academic interests and skew liberal, but that's not the world I live in. I spend half of my work hours talking to tow truck drivers. People do organically think this way. That's what I was getting at with the none-too-academic past-time of deciding the ethnicity of a celebrity. It's a good litmus test for the way people spontaneously understand race. Maybe it's not 95-5, but you can bet 66-33 will score 'black' for white people watching tv. And, I think, many black people as well.

Obama was half white, and for political reasons that had to be suppressed in the popular imagination. But in the hood, well, you tell me how black he could have stayed.

Yes, but that's the point. If Obama is black as America's president, yet white as just another guy in the hood, then things are very complicated here - it's not as simple as european vs african descent (though obviously it's tightly woven with real genotypic & phenotypic differences.)

Doesn't the 'one-drop rule' speak to a more complicated, quasi-metaphysical understanding of whiteness? (Note: I'm definitely not saying that the idea of racial or bloodline purity begins and ends with europeans - just that the whole idea of purity/impurity, here, as elsewhere, is central.)

Calling someone black who's 95% european and 5% african - this goes way beyond simple description doesn't it?

So when you say "[white] as is actually used it means people of European descent," this certainly hasn't been exactly true in the past (and really still isn't, the one-drop thing still operates on a subconscious level and you can see it everywhere) ). People primarily of european descent were/are often still considered black first.

Again, this isn't necessarily an arcane or archaic understanding of whiteness - just look at how people agree on the race of celebrities of mixed descent. If there's any ambiguity, people tend to err on the side of black (or 'foreign' or something.)

i agree that pc speech is all too often a class signifier used to identify and keep down poor ppl.

Anyway, the point was just that you said the video was funny because of its being flippant and cute with something unspeakable, but the unspeakability is what is important here.

Oh, I definitely agree, but I think we differ on why the unspeakable stuff in it is funny.

Is not being allowed to attack someone symptomatic of being in a position of power over them?

I think that's actually a super complicated question. Couldn't you flip this and say the taboo on racial slurs is an expression of white racial security? Don't need to put someone in their place, who knows their place, kinda thing. Imagine a subtly abusive husband who fucks with his wife in subtle ways but acts calm and in control while she launches insult after insult, and remains respectful especially when he's talking about her in public

I don't think it's as simple as the image, but it's also not as simple as whites under the heavy thumb of pc speech-policing.

I still don't think that makes the white people the underdog, tho, certainly not enough to explain the humor of the vid.

Oh ok, yes, I agree minorities are allowed to attack white people in ways white people aren't allowed to attack minorities.

If you like, csal, you are the underdog if you discover anything unspeakable, because if you weren't, your opinion would determine, implicitly or explicitly, what is unspeakable and what is not.

I guess I don't see that as an underdog/overdog thing. It's an ethos thing. And a public/private thing. There are certain taboos in any culture. Both wealthy people and poor people, with our ethos, suffer repercussions if they say racist things in public, so they generally don't (Even Donald trump wouldn't say nigger right? & Mel Gibson did his time etc. etc.)

I'm not sure what you mean. I think by and large white people are in power, yeah, but there are important social/class things that come into play and make it impossible to talk it about it strictly as white/non-white thing.

What's the non-naive understanding of white people and power?

Like I said, the video is funny bc white ppl already do this exact same thing but code it (like a movie! like a french novel! like jane austen!) but this clip just makes it explicit.

If you are not the underdog, there is nothing unspeakable for you

Nah, most rich successful white ppl are repressed as fuck. It's a psychological minefield, every day, of what's speakable and what's not.

What this response ignores in my opinion is that being funny and being the underdog are deeply, deeply linked.

I disagree with this reading.

It's funny because it expresses the unspoken and unspeakable emotional undercurrents two powerful white ppl (say a news anchor(ess) and idk a senator) might feel, but would irl chalk up to something very different (just like a movie! a perfect romance! like a french novel!). lt's not funny bc it's about underdogs - it's because it presents that which is usually unspeakable due to repression and good manners , as spoken in naive, shame-free open disney-level musicals.

I think it works as best as neither criticism nor sincere expression, but as just a kind of strange crossing of two realms that would never otherwise meet - disney, with all that carries, and alt right. (tho even to spell it out like that kinda ruins it) Maybe that's what you mean by a level of disruption.

"I was actually thinking "How nice for them. Their fascist white supremacy will be so beautiful" watching it."

Ha, yeah, I think that's why it works.

And, as you've already said, alt-righters are all too eager to get serious and sacrifice the humor.

It's not bad at all. But it gets infinitely less funny if you view it as a serious attack on PC speech-policing (since it then turns into a sincere love song between two alt-righters - and would then be as unfunny as liberals rewriting the lyrics so they're celebrating the success of obamacare or multicultural tolerance)

I've always thought Trump was funny, and not just in a funny-for-me-as-a-smart-ironic-liberal guy way. But yeah, no crocodile tears, I think you have to differentiate between who's funny and who's a good candidate.

And I agree with you, complacency kills a sense of humor. But not-being-complacent is necessary, not sufficient. You can be a radical or outside the mainstream and still be super fucking boring.

I'm very arrogant about my sense of humor. As arrogant as Trump is about other things, maybe. And the alt-right isn't all that funny. They're a little funny on a first pass. But they have one or two jokes and they beat them to death and then get serious about their real concerns.

Everyone knows a meme dies after a few cycles. But the alt-right will keep posting pepe the same way normies keep posting gene wilder looking smug or picard being bewildered.

I used to think that the humor was an endless spiral, and that maybe there was a sort of ethical duty to remain committed to it, which precluded ever adopting a 'serious' ideology. The people who stick too hard to the alt-right have found their serious ideology, and so it can make the humor fade, because they won't suffer a joke to the thing that they now take seriously. I don't know if I feel that way anymore, and I think I would adopt an ideology if it was something worthwhile, even at the risk of not seeing the funny as clearly anymore.

Yeah, this is where I'm at. I love the anarchic comedic spirit (I've mentioned him before but Donald Barthelme is my saint here and is far funnier (and more morally and politically serious) than any alt-righter who thinks he can transcend any category through sheer outrage (Nigger! Normie! blahhh)

(and, sure, saying 'anarchic comedic spirit' is already to lose it, but w/e)


At a certain point, you have to ask: Is a slightly more sophisticated version of a COD player calling everyone else a fag really where I want to stake my claim?

I respect that type of humor and deeply sympathize with it. It makes me real nostalgic for High School. That's my shit! Those are my ppl!

& I also understand that the alt-right has grown out of that kind of IDGAF messageboard ethos.

But the ethos & sense of humor I could empathize with gets lost when ppl go hard-alt-right.

Because it gets less funny!

I believe that plenty of legitimately funny 4channers went hard-right. But I think they probably got less funny as a result of that in the same way other funny ppl got less funny when they started pulling hard for HRC

no, clickhole is funnier than all that, tho I do agree with you re: Louis CK, Amy Schumer et al. Not all that funny.

(I'll be honest, I didn't watch that vid because I can't stand the young turks and I don't need to watch it to know I won't like it.)

But the alt-right shitlord troll-memes aren't really that funny. They're 'edgy.' Who cares? They have shock value, and shock value is good, even necessary, to progress through your teenage years.You have to embrace it before you can authentically move beyond it. But if you still find shock-value shit deeply funny at 27 (my age) then something went horribly wrong. Yes, whoa, you're very edgy, mannn, wow, you make jokes about 9/11?? and Muslims?? & Jews too!!!
jeez, no one can hold you back!

whoa wait, feminists and SJWs too?

dammmn.

No, stoppp, you wouldn't dare, about blacks too? About MLK? mann soo good! no fucks given, lol, amirite?

I agree with you - funny for me trumps all. But I think clickhole is funnier than most 4chan stuff. The alt-right memes quickly become as predictable as any mainstream whatever. But they do have great hair! Nice sweep, Milo!

I agree - even look at OWS. I'd love to never hear a confused reference to Hardt&Negri again. But satisfaction at being smarter - or more aware - than others is the same whether we fight against 'rednecks' or sophmores with a trustfund - thats about our own merits, not about changing shit.

one could easily cobble together a vid of alt-righters being dumb for example

We're very much in agreement, I think, but I still don't like that Horowitz video, for the same reason I don't like daily show vids about dumb trump supporters. There're so many dumb people (code, here, for liberal academics) that anyone can make a worst-of vid for any group. I agree with your criticisms of academia, but the vid immediately made me think of the daily show and smooth editors.

I do agree humans are animals, I worded the question poorly. Would you say that a turtle remain the same turtle throughout its life?

I made no dualist assumptions in my early conversation. If one believes that "identity" does not persist over time (which is a quote verbatim) then the term "personal identity" is quite clearly an explanandum not an explanans - I gave him the chance to explain how this works, and he cited four factors. I raised concerns over how well they work (by reference to the torture though experiment) and he ignored all four responses (except to ask me how an torturer is causally related to an anguished "brain state.") Nowhere did I say his view was a priori wrong. In fact, I took great pains not to do this.

Now I did say that if one believes that identity does not persist over time, then personal identity is either not a subset of identity or is incoherent. Again this was in response to "identity does not persist over time." If he meant, simply, that things do not remain indiscernible over time, and so are not identical in one limited sense of the term 'identity', then it would have been prudent not to have said, simply, "identity does not persist over time."

( & btw I'm not even a dualist!)

One last thing re: liberals polling and interviewing minorities (or poor whites.) There's often a slightly bullying aspect to it. The undertone is you do realize how bad this person is for you (you whom I'm addressing as basically just a faceless representative of a demographic). X said Y - can you believe that? - as someone who should be offended by that, are you offended by that?

People are more likely to tell you what you want to hear if they think you're publically pressuring them, just to make you happy and go away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty liberal myself, but it's hard not to see this dynamic at play.

That's fair, I agree with most of that.

One quick question before delving in: Do you think animals have personal identity? Or just humans?

The people shocked at Trump's Latino support really don't get it either. Have they talked to latinos? Beyond asking them stock questions for 15 minutes at a time before retreating to the suburbs? I spent the summer of 2015 in D.C., with nothing to do, wandering around (I took two months from work for personal reasons) and ended up speaking to whole lot of immigrants. Most identify as hard-working, enterprising individuals who, like anyone who is part of a large, diverse population harbor resentments toward many within that population, those they see as giving the whole group a bad name. So though I don't like the rhetoric myself, all that xenophobic stuff about keeping 'the bad ones out' can actually easily resonate with an immigrant population. "the bad ones" are always someone other than myself, the ones making it harder for me to be successful and respected.

I am not enthusiastic about a Trump win but I don't see it as a sign of the apocalypse. I hope that above all else, every pollster, media station, and complacent liberal who is 'surprised' right now takes a long hard look at themselves, and realizes 'I am completely out of touch with reality, with my country, and the desires of the people, and have little conception of the way that people think or what they value.'

That's the lesson to be learned from this. There are a lot of people who need to let sink in just how wrong they were. The media stations are all reporting that nobody saw it coming.' Yes, they did. You didn't see it coming. Because you are deeply, deeply deluded and incompetent.

Yeah, I'm pretty upset with the results, but I agree with this 100% (There were a few prescient voices among liberals, but they were drowned out by the consensus of their peers)

Sure, that's fair and I'll admit it was too strong to say based simply on the physical/conceptual opposition that you were in disagreement with the quote. However, based on what little I know of your viewpoint, it's a big - tho perhaps not insuperable - stumbling block that you'd need to carefully address.

Great, concepts are physical. And they're real too right?

Excellent, so after 3 pages, you've arrived at the response Willow was able to formulate immediately. (See above)

Can I assume that you think concepts are physical?

There's one word that sticks out to me a bit.

"Personal identity is the concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course of your life."

Nothing about this quote strikes you as suggesting that personal identity is conceptual?

To be fair, I'm not sure which quote is from where, since you didn't cite your sources, but the first sentence of your first quote is this: "Personal identity is the concept you develop about yourself that evolves over the course of your life."

In what way? Not re physical/nonphsyical. AGAIN, their definition has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. It makes no coment about any issues in that realm. — Terrapin

Wait, you are referring to definition you quoted, right?

You asked me for examples of inconsistency earlier? Here ya go

So tho the SEP explicitly defines it in that way - and tho you quoted them to demonstrate the conventional definition - in fact their definition is beside the point?

So you cited the SEP as a way to explain how personal identity is defined conventionally, but you disagree with how they define the term?

You may have trouble spotting bolded words, a possibility I hadn't considered, so I apologize for trying to to get you to do that.

So my point (which Willow understood immediately, having perhaps an enviable natural facility for bold-spotting ) is that you consider personal identity to be physical, while the SEP considers it to be conceptual.