How about this metaphor? It'd be like someone claiming to be against white supremacy marrying a Klan leader.
Sorry, but it is categorically impossible to be a leftist while defending a billionaire. Words have meanings. Also, an intentionally public relationship designed to create a specific image for the two very rich, famous, and most importantly, CENTRIST people in it (talking about Carville and Matlin) should be viewed as suspect, not some liberal wet dream. Also, even given what their publicists let us know about them, their differences are miniscule compared to the galaxy that is between billionaires and actual leftists.
Someone can make art you love and still be a bad person (or just make bad choices). Billionaires cannot exist ethically when their existence REQUIRES extreme wealth disparity, which, on top of fucking all of us, especially hits any marginalized group harder. It reinforces patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, you name it. Her (and your) cognitive dissonance doesn't make you more understanding, intelligent or thoughtful. Just because someone wants to lie to themselves, and just because you'll believe it rather than criticize your idol, doesn't mean the rest of us are required to indulge it.
At first, I was like "That's pretty brave/arrogant of him to release a book so soon after the accusations," and then I remembered there are two Warren Ellises.
Every fucking time, I tell ya.
No. Calling something what it is is not name-calling. You goddamn well know the difference. Also, I didn't call you a fascist. I said you were using the same tools as a fascist. It's up to you what you do with that information. But remember: "Isn't [blank] the real [blank]" is a logical fallacy and bad faith semantic trick that is also a pretty well known tool of fascism. So, you know, walks like a duck and all that.
Pretending to be above the argument when you start to lose is a well-known tool of the fascist. Good job.
Playground name-calling, too? I feel sad for you that you don't respect yourself more.
Dude, MOST of us get upset about this because we grew up absolutely loving Morrissey and it breaks our hearts that he's a xenophobe who engages in intellectual dishonesty instead of ever admitting fault. But whatever you need to tell yourself to think that slavishly worshipping an internationally famous millionaire makes you a rebel, I guess.
Why is it always the dumbest people, those least-capable of a coherent independent thought, who most loudly declare themselves to be free-thinkers? Did you ever consider that you're just wrong? Like, if you said the sun was purple, and everyone told you you were nuts...that doesn't make THEM sheep just because they all agree. Engaging with reality is not conformity, and only those with the mindset of a reactionary teenager think that's a valid critique of a position or its holder anyway.
I guess I shouldn't expect someone who thinks all Mexican citizens of Los Angeles have the exact same opinion to have a good grasp on what is and isn't racist.
If you feel like you're "back in Junior High School in Oklahoma", it might be because you're acting like a junior high schooler. Sure some of the downvotes are because you're defending an overt racist who is engaging in multiple logical fallacies to defend himself. But a lot of them are because you're kinda being a dick.
You need to learn that sometimes, when people are mad at you, they're not conforming for some nebulous, ridiculous reason you can't explain and conspiring against you. Dismissing any criticism of your actions as "conformist" is just a crutch disingenuous people use to avoid considering their own actions. Sometimes everyone is telling you you're wrong because YOU ARE.
I guess it tracks that you'd defend Morrissey.
I gotta say, as someone who has had a beard since I first could grow one, way back in the 90s, it's a trip going from being told I'm unhireable to, apparently, deeply conformist.
I mean, sure, if you ignore all of the screamingly racist, xenophobic, colonial things he's said.
Someone doesn't have to hate all races equally or be a cacklingly evil klan member to be racist. The bigger problem in our world right now is privileged white folk who don't recognize their privilege and therefore don't understand the racist aspects to their actions, and then get actively racist when confronted about it by people who are tired of being seen as second class citizens just so white people don't have to be uncomfortable.
But Morrissey is WORSE than that. He voices xenophobic ideas and signal boosts actual hate groups. Your argument is equivalent to saying "But my black friend lets me say it!" Maybe it's time to confront your own privilege and stop defending reactionary millionaires?
I think of emo and post-hardcore as having a similar relationship to pop-punk and skate punk. They're not the same thing, but there are a lot of bands who are practically both at the same time. I'd definitely put Thursday in that category, but that's largely because I was 19 when Full Collapse came out, and we called it emo then (as post-hardcore referred more to stuff like Rival Schools or At The Drive-In). In retrospect, that probably had more to do with Geoff Rickley's voice than anything else.
I gotta say, as someone who has loved emo since the late 90s, it is aggravating to see these dismissals come back from the very scene who constantly hyped up anyone doing a half-assed American Football cosplay a few years ago.
The idea of "uninteresting", "monotonous", "repetitive" or "exhausting" being used to describe Something to Write Home About or The Power of Failing is mind-boggling to me.
I should also mention that I grew up feeling like I was "too punk" for this kind of stuff, largely for the same reasons you shared. But when I opened my mind to it in my THIRTIES, I found a world of worth I had been dismissing. I opened up to it the same way I did pop music, indie and hip-hop, and I am so much happier because of it.
Taste is taste, but, from the POV of someone who writes in both styles, it takes the same level of talent to write shit like this as it does a Phoebe Bridgers album. And both genres have equal possibility of being cliche and uninspired as they do being genius.
Don't let aesthetic trappings and outdated ideas of what counts as musically mature cut you off from some incredible music.
You literally just shared a bunch of subjective opinions declaring this entire genre immature because you grew out of it, and then proceeded to hype a handful of younger indie-influenced bands to try to disprove what I said.
Maybe understand that people who enjoy this stuff might see more uniqueness or depth in it than you do? Any genre sounds samey and uninspired to people who don't like it. Why is this the only one that it's still okay to be condescending and elitist about? Why can we validate top 40 pop music but not this? You don't know as much as you think you do about this stuff. The fact that you may have liked it as a teenager doesn't mean your reaction to it as you grew is the only correct one, or that you have any idea what the genre looks like now.
And you don't have to think highly of this individual band for your original post to be untrue - this sound has a fanbase well into their 30s and 40s. Not everybody dismissed it as immature the way you did, and it's pretty pretentious to declare that they're wrong.
I have been known to argue that the left can be more concerned with pointing out bad behavior than fixing it, but, Jesus, dude. Wallen yelled a vile, racial slur. Why are you more upset about people bothered by it? Why is it so foreign to you to care that much that you think it has to be performative?
"Is it possible saying the n-word is fucked up and the cutthroat surveillance culture where 10-year-old tweets can make you a pariah is ALSO fucked up?"
Is it possible that these are two wildly different issues and the only reason to conflate them is to confuse the issue and argue for the status quo?
I have an adopted younger brother. He grew up, as I did, in Appallachia. He's a teenager who's had a lot of trauma in his life, and, like most teenagers, he acts out. He's been suspended from school for looking at pornography on a school computer. He's skipped school and posted photos of it on Instagram. He uses "gay" as a synonym for stupid (despite the fact that I'm queer).
He knows well enough to not say that word.
Get the fuck out of here with your racist garbage.
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