Hipster/Chardonnay Socialists

[Mugwump]

[Nick - Pie Man]

What I don't understand is the phenomenon of thirty plus somethings like myself, who've lived through the crazy 'the world is broken and only I know how to fix it' phase of their lives, now pretending not to understand what motivates the next generation of anarchist assholes. They're young naive and stupid, stupid.

[stui magpie]

But what about those over 50s who still hang onto those belefs they had in their late teens?

[pietillidie]

I think the hardest thing for us to grasp is the fact that the myths we live by are not useful world observations, but rather extremely idiosyncratic scripts which make little sense beyond their inner psychological context. Combine that with fact that we're self obsessed by virtue of our embodiment, and we have two challenges which cripple our bid to be more 'rational' before it gets going.

And yet, in coordination we can often achieve great and sophisticated things. Somehow, marrow from our inner nonsense is extracted and applied in concert with others, hence our advanced social brains. Even then, though, group bonds threaten to spoil those gains by directing them to oppressive and parochial ends.

Sometimes, I wonder how we get anything done between us!

[Mugwump]

^ very gnomic. What do you want us to do with it ? If anything, you might need to translate it into the terms of the debate posed in the OP.

[HAL]

I would like to study psychology and maybe go into law or politics.

[Pi]

Most of these inner urban socialists are generally just wearing the uniform, their need to sound sophisticated in coffee shops by quoting Marx and obscure but ‘very important' French philosophers is their way of dick waiving.
The same kind of dick waiving that drives rich industrialists to buy a room full of expensive ‘art’ they secretly don’t like but have to have in order to feel they are among the self-proclaimed cultural elite mentioned above.

[David]

^ Both sound like caricatures to me. How closely do you know such people? When did you last come across someone quoting French philosophy in a cafe? Were they wearing a beret, smoking a cigarette and holding a baguette under their arm?

For full disclosure, I’ve had the odd conversation about philosophy in the past, with people who looked nothing like that cartoon and who weren’t in any way putting on airs. Of course, god forbid that anyone should actually be interested in such things.

[Pi]

^
that's because it is a caricature, its not that far from the truth.
I worked in a Jazz club, it was full broke intellectuals sitting in corners occupying space drinking water not spending money and talking about obscure but important jazz musicians. These kinds of people wear the same social and intellectual uniform, and it sticks out a mile.

By the way the Jazz club went broke and I went to work in the Annandale which was full of third rate punk musicians playing songs 'about a girl' that all sounded the same and was full of students not spending any money.

[David]

Lol, fair enough. Hardcore jazz devotees are certainly an interesting breed (each to their own, though!)

[Pies4shaw]

Hardcore devotees of anything are the enemy. That said, I have a list of classes of hardcore devotees of things that I keep for reference, just in case the revolution comes.

After the board of directors of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (apols to Douglas Adams) and all of the people deluded by religious beliefs who think they have “special knowledge” (as distinct from a sectionable illness), jazz enthusiasts are on the list (but certainly well down) of those who will be against the wall, in due course. In fact, by the time my list gets down to jazz enthusiasts, there may not be too many others left to do the shooting. It will be a dour world, but relatively quiet (save for the sound of 1,000,000,000 children practising their Liszt as part of their re-education).😄

By the way, I’ve just been eating a pie and listening to Bono whine something on the radio from Joshua Tree (it wasn’t that galumphing one in D about looking for things, it was something else - yes, I have the album but even after 30 years or so, I still can’t really tell which song is which). It’s fair to say “jazz enthusiasts” just went down a row on my list.

[Pi]

As you say , each to their own , thing was I actually like Jazz and liked working with the musicians but we all hated some of the fans who seemed to have this fake intellectual attitude.

[pietillidie]

[Mugwump]

^ these may or may not be silly generalizations. But since there are groups of people who share complexes of attitudes, and sociology isn’t literature, it’s reasonable, and indeed necessary, to use abstractions and class concepts when discussing them.

[think positive]