You look really pretentious on that roof.

Ah, sorry, I didn't see the cigarette. Yep, pretty good.

Hand on the chin, cardigan, and deeply penetrating gaze--but no pipe. Try harder.

David Chalmers

Foucault doesn't appear to be posing. To me it looks like he's been caught at the weekend on his way to the Castro, but doesn't mind stopping for a photo.

a couple of hounds by his side would have completed it nicely.

The Ugly Christmas Sweater: From ironic nostalgia to festive simulation

Baudrillard ought to be condemned for that sweater, though.

Ah, I see. So this is more about facial expressions and poses? Well I'm still confused, because Foucault looks utterly unpretentious in the photo you posted. Barthes and Baudrillard don't look pretentious to me either.

Just trying to work out what is and isn't douchey in the world of Thorongil.

In that photo, Ortega y Gasset is wearing a Panama hat and holding a cigarette holder. I'm confused.

I'll take your word for it.

:D

I meant more recent philosophers, contemporary with the French intellectuals whose style does not appeal to you.

I think what's happened is that smugness has become associated with that style in retrospect, because those philosophers are sometimes considered today to have been part of a smug, affected philosophical tradition. I don't think they look especially smug, myself.

There's a whole host of examples that are continually brought up. The main one I come across is his not living the ascetic life he so exalts in his philosophy. — Thorongil

To me, that's his saving grace.

Odd that you think Camus looks "douchey" in that photo, because to me he looks pretty cool. I wonder, could you post a picture of a philosopher who does not look douchey?

Unlike said comments, I'm not even trying to advance an ad hominem but am merely poking fun for its own sake. If that's not allowed on a forum, then that forum is far too self-important. — Thorongil

But it's not true that it's not allowed on this forum. I do prefer, however, that it is not allowed to derail serious discussions. It's about context.

Think of me and the mods like editors responsible for maintaining the quality of a prestigious publication. We make subjective appraisals, of course, but I hope we try not to make arbitrary decisions based on whim.

I'm sure we can continue on good terms. You're a good contributor. I honestly didn't think you would get upset or even remark on the deletions at all; I assumed you would have appreciated my reasons and would not have minded.

Just like the old forum, we have standards of quality. I deleted the posts because I judged them to be of low quality.

Anyway, yes, let's all be friends again.

What are you on about, BC? I deleted the post for low quality, not because it was disrespectful or humorous.

Fair point, Hanover. I was intemperate. But still, we're not discussing philosophy here.

It was me. It was a serious discussion, so you don't get to twat on about how much you think French intellectuals look like "douches" and how much it upsets you that they smoke pipes. I didn't find your posts funny, and I didn't realize they were meant to be funny. I just thought it was the typical, insufferable, adolescent American shite we have to either put up with or delete, every single day.

His argument did not carry the day, but it seemed quite reasonable, or at least far from foolish--and eminently conservative: On foxhunting.

I am actually curious - who do liberals view as key intellectual social conservative thinkers both past and present? — Agustino

In the present day, Roger Scruton.

Darwin rejected the idea of survival of fittest and claimed evolution was all about which species is more adaptable to the specific environment — wuliheron

To my knowledge, Darwin actually embraced the term "survival of the fittest". And "more adaptable to the specific environment" is what it means.

I managed to escape the impossible housing market in Edinburgh and go house-sitting, which is not so much a rejection of the property market as a kind of parasitism upon it. It's only possible because I can work from anywhere with an internet connection, and because I have no dependants. On the one hand, I'm a rootless itinerant, unsure of what "home" means, with no savings, completely relying on the success of my current venture to ensure a comfortable future. On the other hand, I get to live in great houses and places for free. I recommend it (but not as a solution to the housing crisis, of course).

wasn't aware of SW England — Hanover

Think of the pirates' accent in movies: Arrr! Why pirates must speak with a West Country accent, I'm not sure.

The British r is close to the plantation south. — Hanover

Not in Scotland or South West England.

Speaking of PF members who haven't properly made it over here, I don't get why @busy (busycuttingcrap) hasn't joined in, despite actually joining last year. I recall that he, along with several others, wasn't happy about the way the TPF faction abandoned ship, but none of that matters now.

EDIT: Maw, too, though I don't think he's joined this site at all yet.

Very even-handed. (Y)

I took him to be referring to himself among others, you pedantic lot.

I just want to echo Baden's and Sapientia's comments and say that I can't see anything objectionable in Un's comment.

I found Un's "I'm in charge and nobody gives a shit what you think" schtick to be unacceptable at the old forum. I'd rather not see it start up here. — Mongrel

And I don't recognize this description. I'm guessing you just have difficulty seeing through Un's unique style and tone to the soft-hearted teddy bear beneath.

Looks good. Kinda hot for a hike mind you. Lovely place anyway. I'll wave back from wherever I am on my bike trip to Bordeaux via the Canal Latéral de la Garonne.

Hike up Vesuvius while you're there.

That's another one ticked off the bucket list.

The slavery where the slave is brutalised and completely dehumanised is not Ancient slavery, but industrial age slavery. — Agustino

Not true. Conditions for the slaves in the Roman mines were famously brutal.

Yeah, I've heard Zizek talk about this, the denial to the right of the minority even to be morally wrong as a disguised form of racism. I tend to agree, and the NUS seem to have thought themselves into a hole on this one. On the other hand, the progressive attitude can have the positive effect of combating the creation in society of a group that it becomes socially acceptable to discriminate against. — Baden

Agreed, but I think there's a big difference between, on the one hand, the defence of a group by standing up for the rights of its members to be treated the same as everyone else (the Civil Rights Movement), and on the other hand, the attempt to protect a group's identity and culture (multiculturalism and identity politics). A person's particular identity and culture may be exactly what he or she wants to escape from.

Of course, when identity and culture are precisely what a person is attacked for, there is good reason to defend them, and to assert them. This has often been an aspect of protest and is not peculiar to modern identity politics as such. But it's a problem when this becomes the deep and not merely symbolic mode of protest, and the only one seen as legitimate by the most vocal activist groups, which people formerly on the same side must abide by or else suffer the wrath of the self-appointed guardians. (For examples of that, just look at the way Peter Tatchell and Germaine Greer have been attacked by LGBT activists and feminists, and the the way that Muslim and ex-Muslim opponents of Islamic fundamentalism have been attacked by the Left.)

Where previously it was quite common to protest with "no, I am not defined by that group or culture; I am a citizen just like you and I demand the same rights," now everything is being drowned out by "I am defined by my identity and my background, and it is sacrosanct". At least, this is the sanctioned script.

I agree with a lot of that Erik.

I also think an argument could be made that 'progressive' intellectuals who push things like multiculturalism and identity politics could be the cause of increased white racism, precisely because they purposely go out of their way to highlight differences amongst people based upon race and ethnicity and sexual orientation - black culture, Latino culture, LGBT culture - and then refuse to allow straight, white men to have any identity beyond perpetual racist or bigoted oppressor. — Erik

I think it's worse than this. I think these progressives are guilty of a kind of racism or racialism of their own, because they implicitly reject the dream in which people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Martin Luther King's vision is, to this way of thinking, a microaggressive denial of racial identity. (I think some conservatives have said what I'm saying here too, so I'll probably be accused of being a conservative, again).

It can also be seen in the European left-liberal attitude to Muslims, who become to them another monolithic group of victims with characteristic grievances. To these "progressives", the poor little Muslims can hardly be blamed for their rage against the West, and criticism of ISIS is deemed to be Islamophobic (an extreme example perhaps, but it did happen: NUS motion to condemn Isis fails amidst claims of islamophobia).

Surely it's because his philosophical work concerns things you think are important that you dislike him so much, no?

Tom Slater's take on it in Spiked is quite interesting:

On the one hand, the alt-righters are actually a product of political correctness. The politics of victimhood nurtures victimisers; the more people talk up their emotional and moral vulnerability – as a result of their gender, race or sexuality – the more saddos will try to have a pop. A culture of You Can’t Say That will inevitably embolden some people to Say That – again and again and again. So, the liberal journalists currently penning self-righteous takedowns of the alt-right need to have a word with themselves. By contributing to the cult of victimhood, they helped make these monsters.

But, on the other hand, the alt-right is the mirror image of political correctness, specifically the victimhood that underpins it. They don’t just want to have a pop at self-styled victims – they want to claim victim status for themselves. Their broadsides against feminists, Black Lives Matter or Islam are underpinned by the idea that straight, white males are an oppressed group – that ‘white culture’ is under attack. They may take up arms against weepy identitarians, but they share the same, deadening sense of victimhood – just with another set of dreamt-up grievances attached.

Source

Their rightism was once an ideology of the ruling class, but now it is just another identity. I like this criticism partly because it's the one that I imagine would annoy them the most.

Frank Zappa, Patrick O'Hearn and Terry Bozzio, just jamming.

I moved this one to the Lounge so maybe you'll be able to carry on your conspiracy nuttiness here without fear of deletion. But of course, I cannot speak for Them.