Perhaps more of a blog
post... but on Weinstein and what Hollywood could be exposed to:
This is going to be hard
thought to express, but here goes:
Most are assuming that the massive power of #metoo right now means we've finally become more progressive. I'm not sure that's the only reason for the timing of this, though, this mass demolition of opponents, of predators, who successfully cowed people for decade after decade. I think in play is also a public's sense that this is all about licentiousness, about people using their power and revelling in it (picture Weinstein right now; his gloating), and believe it or not I think this could hurt progressives more than it will conservatives.
I think people assess
that when liberals partake in "spoils" it's all done for their own
enjoyment, their own sick pleasure; but when conservatives do so it's somehow
not the same thing, for they assess conservatives as those who fundamentally
have forsaken themselves the right to self-individualize, to reach heights
never reached before, to glory on top of fallen bodies to themselves be the
ones who grasp at a crimson flag, who touch the very hand of "god"
and reach even beyond. Rather, they assess them, they understand them, as those
who began the climb up but were immediately cowed away from further doing so,
and thus they conserve, halt, stop, rather than progress, for they are broken;
are stewards of the broken, and count amongst the miserable. Liberals reach for
the new, the forbidden, the apple in the garden -- and they are understood as
essentially sinful for this: sex, drugs, rock and roll. Conservatives never go
there, and so their behaviour, however egregious, tastes differently to us; can
be surprisingly easy to pass over when nothing makes us more anxious than
"immodest," "spoiled" behaviour.
At the end of this we may
find that liberalism loses. For being for full individual self-realization, for
what is ostensibly a quintessentially American ambition, an American glory --
the undeterred right to happiness -- still arouses guilt in almost all of us,
creates chaos in our minds, and this can be "addressed" in projecting
our own sinfulness into others and punishing them for it. Many powerful
liberals, simply for being possessed of something genuinely virtuous -- an
unwillingness to deter their own self-growth -- may be guilty of a surprising
degree of predatory behaviour... it might be lopsided on the liberal side, at
least amongst the powerful. If they are all outed, a culture may decide that
the lesson to be learned is that we must be more modest in our ambitions -- for
look what belief in intrinsic human goodness rather than sinfulness leads to
when its lead propagandists arrange things so they go unsupervised, unchecked.
Dan Eades Donald Trump? Unspoiled
behavior?
Patrick McEvoy-Halston To you he
seems vainglorious and spoiled. To the people who voted for him, he seems
someone who's serving the nation's desires... they believed him when he said
that he was their arm, their voice, and he is that... even as in these fascist
times, that's no great thing. Anyone who is like that, has in a sense
sacrificed themselves of what liberals are rightly, courageously, making every
effort not to do: their own independent, adult voice. Psychologically, I don't
think he's the same person he was in the 80s. American would never have voted
for that man. They're looking for someone who is truly an agent who sacrificed
himself to serve the beloved mother country, America. Liberals see him as
narcissistic, as "me"-centred, when if he was like that an American
populace that finds itself feeling like it has long abandoned the interests of
their mother country, would never have voted him in. Who he is, mostly, is
self-sacrificial -- and pitiable for that.
Dan Eades Self-sacrificial? Unspoiled?
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Dan Eades Yes,
that's how many Americans see him, and it is how no one sees the Weinsteins out
there, because they're still endeavouring films and politics that uphold the
previous America, which was not about advocating self-sacrifice to the nation
but about individual, artistic self-development / expression. If we don't get
this we'll never really understand why someone like Franken and Clinton could
end up in a worse state for their criminal abuse of women than Trump will. In a
populist, nativist time, we'll be concerned to down people who represent
individual self-actualization, abandonment of parental mores, and each and
every one of these can only be liberals, for conservatives represent, more than
anything else, the anti-thesis of this.
Ralph Benner "They're looking
for someone who is truly an agent who sacrificed himself to serve the beloved
mother country." Quite obviously they haven't found that
"someone" yet. Why? Because that's not the kind of person they're looking
for. They found what they wanted in the Orange Flamer.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Ralph Benner That's Charlie Chaplin's
take on Hitler, but it's not the German take on him... they recognized him
fundamentally as a minion of the arising mythic Motherland.
Cynthia MejÃas Patrick McEvoy-Halston Trump is the
antithesis of sacrifice.
Dan Eades Patrick McEvoy-Halston I think you have
the gender wrong...I believe Hitler and the Germans saw a rising Fatherland. It
was the Soviets who looked to a rising Motherland.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Cynthia MejÃas To you, he seems that way.
But narcissism is about early childhood deficiency, about feeling great because
you're still part of the omnipotent bond with the mother... so in a sense it's
not about self, at all, but a show of a lack of it. I think he was more
the way you are describing him back in the 80s, just like Clinton was, and both
possibly acquired their true selfhood in part by partaking in a culture which
allowed for so much victimization; that enabled the predator in people. Right
now Trump is about sacrifice... sacrificing his formerly more individuated self
for being a servant of his country's desires (as I said, I think if he was
calculated/disgenous about being the people's voice/arm in that convention
speech, people would have sensed it and he wouldn't have won). This sounds
virtuous (though never to me, does it), but I mean it as exactly the opposite:
something horrible; anti-human... tragic.
Cynthia MejÃas Please, Trump is not a
servant of his country's desires. He is a con man, a money launderer, a real
estate-casino mobster. He doesn't serve his base, he serves the international
oligarchy. In any case, I'm in this group to discuss movies, so I'm out of this
thread.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Dan Eades The German nationalistic Volk
was matriarchal... drew on ancient chthonic sense of the earth mother feeding
her people. Hitler himself absolutely thought of the country he was
"saving" as a Motherland.
Dan Eades I'm sorry, but Hitler
talked about the Fatherland in his speeches and so did the Nazi party.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Cynthia MejÃas He is everything you say
(but how could I not know this?). However, if the people are becoming in the
U.S. as they are in so many other places in the world, increasingly nativist,
mother-country worshiping, populist regressives, then the fact that he
truly believes the country is under attack by aliens intent to rape Her, that
the cosmopolitan mindset amounts to hating your home country, to abandoning
Her, to indulging in "spoiling" while laughing at those you step
over, then he is also someone who has morphed into someone who has probably
projected his own mother onto the country to be her prime, "good boy"
servant again... someone who has clung back to an infantile or childish fold.
Since much of his life seems to have been about contriving ways to distinguish
himself from her -- the attacks on other women: revenge upon others for what
she, her company, did to him, like Hillary guesses was true with her husband?
-- even as he has nothing but worshipful praise of her, this genuine impulse
from him means he's succumbed in a way... has sacrificed the "self"
part of himself. Remember, we were surprised with the election results in
finding that many Americans did not perceive Trump the way we thought it
impossible not to. Let's start snapping out of this habit if we can and get
inside their apperception of him.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Dan Eades Let's not get into this. I have
background on this matter too.
Dan Eades Patrick McEvoy-Halston So you have
background; but you are wrong, dead wrong...
Mark Schaffer Actually, Hitler was
The Devil...and Churchill was the archangel Michael..The war was fundamentally
a battle between the powers of good and ultimate evil occuring in the profane
realm..It was a spiritual test for personkind, which it successfully psssed...but
not without possible defeat..You could look it up.
Mark Schaffer Read The Black Spider..
Adam Green "many powerful
liberals ... [Unwilling] to deter their own self growth -- may be guilty of a
surprising degree of predatory behaviour"
How very Nietzschean of you.
How very Nietzschean of you.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston I would have
thought it more Freud, until Frederick Crews reminded me that Nietzsche
anticipated quite a bit of him. So possibly, yes. Anyway, with Nietzsche or
Freud out of the picture, it's difficult to defend the last 40 yrs of genuine
growth in this country -- for I think it necessarily had to come, with our
still somewhat primitive ability not to associate growth with sin, with a lot
of victimized people; a class "carrying" the idea that a price had to
be paid -- which is too bad. The test will be if Masha Gessen is right and we
end up all surveillance/Hays Code. Somehow exactly where we ought to be, but it
feeling overall worse.
Adam Green It seems to me that what
you call growth others might call decline... Or that some might say that your
idea of 'progress' is a convenient social construct developed to promote
certain ideas.
Either way, the idea that the strong can lord it over the weak for the purpose of their own self-realization is a form of evil, not progress.
Just my opinion.
Thanks for your thoughtful post and response. You have me thinking now.
Either way, the idea that the strong can lord it over the weak for the purpose of their own self-realization is a form of evil, not progress.
Just my opinion.
Thanks for your thoughtful post and response. You have me thinking now.
Mark Schaffer What?
Patrick McEvoy-Halston This appears
to be your response to everything I write, Mark. You can just desist and I'll
happily fill in your puzzled "what?" into every one of my subsequent
posts, don't you worry!
Adam Green He's saying the powerful
are allowed to exploit/transgress against the weak for their own progress or
self actualisation and we should let them because these transgressions will
allow us to 'progress' to further heights. He's basically advocating for a more
depraved versions of Nietzsche's "superman"
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Adam Green
Well, I'm saying it a bit more nicely than that, Adam...
Seriously though, I'm saying that there is actually worse than the behaviour I am describing, there is worse than neoliberalism (rise of the professional class, collapse [brutal humiliation and destruction]of everyone else), and that's what's about to follow: fascism. If we want uncomplicated growth, we tend to get it right after great depressions or huge wars... a period of all-rising boats. What follows this is a period of growth, but cruel growth, where it must be accompanied by a huge measure of victims. Improved parenting, will mean the end of this cycle, as the idea of growth as sin is born there, in how our parents reacted to our own self-growth away from what they needed of us. In the rapprochement stage, around 2 to 2 and a half, a period, incidentally, where Trump was abandoned in his care... where he might have internalized that wandering about on his own meant that he was being bad and to be punished for it.
Seriously though, I'm saying that there is actually worse than the behaviour I am describing, there is worse than neoliberalism (rise of the professional class, collapse [brutal humiliation and destruction]of everyone else), and that's what's about to follow: fascism. If we want uncomplicated growth, we tend to get it right after great depressions or huge wars... a period of all-rising boats. What follows this is a period of growth, but cruel growth, where it must be accompanied by a huge measure of victims. Improved parenting, will mean the end of this cycle, as the idea of growth as sin is born there, in how our parents reacted to our own self-growth away from what they needed of us. In the rapprochement stage, around 2 to 2 and a half, a period, incidentally, where Trump was abandoned in his care... where he might have internalized that wandering about on his own meant that he was being bad and to be punished for it.
Adam Green Patrick, I see fascism as coming about because
of what you describe - especially the individualist attitude that borders
on/actually is solipsism which corrupt any since of community.
Growth and Progress (from a social/political aspect) are 19th century ideas and from what I can discern, probably dubious.
Growth and Progress (from a social/political aspect) are 19th century ideas and from what I can discern, probably dubious.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Okay Adam. I
see it as a regressive reaction against genuine societal growth, which comes to
only be perceived as corrupt and self-indulgent. Liberal Weimar into Fascist
Germany. I believe that there are enormous numbers of predators out there that
will be uncovered, in places of liberal power. Unless we have some way to
appreciate why the appalling intensity of it, I think, as I've been arguing,
that our current struggling liberal period will be enwrapped exactly the same
way Weimar was by a nation that was beginning to want to surrender their
freedoms and go Volk. That's why I'm making my effort here.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston And NewYorker,
please be aware that I am cognizant of keeping my participation mostly to what
applies to film. It would depend on your latitude, but I do believe that the
fight I'm making here in discussion of politics and politicians, will find
application in the sorts of films we find created tomorrow... how far apart
from the straight and narrow, they'll be able to range.
Max Miller Who moderates these posts?
Can you rephrase that to be less of a word salad?
Patrick McEvoy-Halston You're
speaking to the mod I assume. I doubt they've got the time. If you're speaking
to me, work on making your appeal appealing to me.
Jeremy Daniels You don’t think it’s
just pure avarice and self-interest? Putting aside how modern Republican
politicians actually operate, you don’t think they just see minor
transgressions of regulators and tax hikers as unforgivable, even as they
ignore the most grievous and disgusting crimes of deregulators and budget
slashers? I tried to understand their crazed hostility toward Obama on this
front, and that’s all I can come up with. Taxing them is original sin, and
anything they can throw at liberals, however paltry, is the corroborating
evidence of what they need to prove anyway, no matter what. It’s pointless to
dispute any arguments on the actual merit.
They’ll always have that on us. They don’t want to pay taxes and there’s a fervor and hostile force behind that. We think there should be government and taxes, but paying taxes is not necessarily something we love doing either. We believe in it more like a necessary nuisance, so we don’t have the same crusading spirit on our side. That might be why we’ve moved further into identity issues rather than fiscal ones, to have that same kind of visceral and emotional force of righteousness.
So we have our emotions behind the human rights issue of stopping sexual misconduct on all fronts, and the right has their emotions behind cutting taxes, deregulating, and protecting business interests, and reverse engineering their reasoning for any candidate who will do those things. Of course this will hit liberals harder because it’s hitting what we care about.
They’ll always have that on us. They don’t want to pay taxes and there’s a fervor and hostile force behind that. We think there should be government and taxes, but paying taxes is not necessarily something we love doing either. We believe in it more like a necessary nuisance, so we don’t have the same crusading spirit on our side. That might be why we’ve moved further into identity issues rather than fiscal ones, to have that same kind of visceral and emotional force of righteousness.
So we have our emotions behind the human rights issue of stopping sexual misconduct on all fronts, and the right has their emotions behind cutting taxes, deregulating, and protecting business interests, and reverse engineering their reasoning for any candidate who will do those things. Of course this will hit liberals harder because it’s hitting what we care about.
Melissa Lawson tldr
Patrick McEvoy-Halston And you're
part of a NewYorker discussion group... that mag's known for its long reads.
There's plenty of stuff on the net which tells you you can digest in less than
a minute or two, but deep thinking mags, deep thinking, provocative discussion
groups related to such mags, are not the place to go for that.
Sheryl Price THIS guy again-PLEASE
-this group is supposed to be thoughts,discussion etc about MOVIES!! Rant
somewhere else.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston It's also
supposed to be about polite, respectful behaviour, which would leave you exempt.
Sheryl Price Patrick McEvoy-Halston Oh I am so sorry.
Please review the guidelines of the group. I sincerely hope henceforth you will
abide by the stated parameters. I thank you in advance. Better??
Sheryl Price I DID NOT post the gif
with the yellow hands 
ðŸ˜
ðŸ˜
Max Miller I only posted mine in
response to Patrick. It's an artistic rendering of him typing thousand word
posts on this forum.
Elizabeth R. Shafer Watched Lillian
Gish in “Wind” the other evening. The title best describes your diatribe and
lecture.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Alright. I
thought it was an offering.
Hamish Wood Lmao what
Tod Alan Spoerl I thoroughly enjoyed
this thought-provoking post and lengthy thread. Thanks for your insight Patrick McEvoy-Halston, Ralph Benner, Adam Green, Jeremy Daniels et al.
Patrick McEvoy-Halston Thank you Tod.
Marc Imbillicieri How is any of this
relevant to movies?
Judy Mam Completely off topic.
Comments
Post a Comment