Politics Please say rock bottom is getting close (2 Viewers)

[Chris Craig]

Are we evolving into different species? I bet 80% of the guys on this forum would have loved to join in with this.

Nah, I'm good, but hey it's a free country...at least for now.

 

[Chris Craig]

They are ugly compared to pirate beauty queens.

barfo

Argh

 

[Phatguysrule]

They are ugly compared to pirate beauty queens.

barfo

Not into the one on the left. She seems to be holding some kind of scat award...

The one on the right appears to be a chubby chaser with her "Potato" sash.

I'm a fan. The wench on the right wins.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

 

[crandc]

Gag

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

We are so very f**king lucky to have such a classy individual leading this country again. Just proof positive how great we are.....

 

[crandc]

The image of Trump frolicking naked in the showers with young men at YMCA, which is exactly the meaning of the song, is stomach turning.

 

[crandc]

Texas governor threatened to withhold state funds from children's hospital because they informed parents they do not need to disclose immigration status.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

 

[beast blazer]

Why is academia producing this kind of shit?
"The broad aim of this thesis is to offer an intersectoinal and wide-ranging study of olfactory oppression by establishing the underlying logics that facilitate smells application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual and racial species power structures".

I mean, jesus fucking christ. You folks make think I'm too harsh on "wokeness" but this stuff is insane.

 

[barfo]

Why is academia producing this kind of shit?
"The broad aim of this thesis is to offer an intersectoinal and wide-ranging study of olfactory oppression by establishing the underlying logics that facilitate smells application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual and racial species power structures".

I mean, jesus fucking christ. You folks make think I'm too harsh on "wokeness" but this stuff is insane.

Why are you worrying about what somebody in the UK wrote as a PhD thesis in English Lit?

Are you an expert in that field? Very obviously not.

So why should any of us give a damn about your opinion about somebody's dissertation that you haven't even read?

But if anyone is curious, here is the full abstract.

This thesis studies how literature registers the importance of olfactory discourse—the language of smell and the olfactory imagination it creates—in structuring our social world. The broad aim of this thesis is to offer an intersectional and wide-ranging study of olfactory oppression by establishing the underlying logics that facilitate smell’s application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual, racial and species power structures. I focus largely on prose fiction from the modern and contemporary periods so as to trace the legacy of olfactory prejudice into today and situate its contemporary relevance. I suggest that smell very often invokes identity in a way that signifies an individual’s worth and status in an inarguable manner that short-circuits conscious reflection. This can be accounted for by acknowledging olfaction’s strongly affective nature, which produces such strong bodily sensations and emotions that reflexivity is bypassed in favour of a behavioural or cognitive solution that assuages the intense feeling most immediately. Olfactory disgust, therefore, tends to result in rejection, while harmful forms of olfactory desire may result in sublimation or subjugation. My thesis is particularly attentive to tensions and ambivalences that complicate the typically bifurcated affective spectrum of olfactory experiences, drawing attention to (dis)pleasurable olfactory relations that have socio-political utility. I argue that literary fiction is not only an arena in which olfactory logics can be instantiated, but also a laboratory in which possibilities for new kinds of relations and connections can be fostered and tested. Chapter One explores how smell can be used to indicate class antipathies, partly as they relate to homelessness, beginning with George Orwell’s seminal non-fiction text, The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), before considering Iain Sinclair’s The Last London (2017) and Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (2019). In Chapter Two I explore the fantastical, idealistic, and utopic thinking that surrounds olfaction, which presents smell as fundamentally non-human, by addressing J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933), Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (2021), and Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country (2020). Chapter Three focuses on the intersectional olfactory dimensions of ‘misogynoir’—the coextensive anti-Black racism and misogyny that Black women experience—and considers Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby (1981), Bernice McFadden’s Sugar (2000) and Raven Leilani’s Luster (2020). In Chapter Four, I conceptualise an oppressive olfactory logic, which is used against women and girls in order to legitimise their harassment or abuse, drawing primarily on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), but also Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (1985). Chapter Five discusses two forms of olfactory desire—perversion and queerness—which have separate moral valences. I address J. M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg (1994), Ann Quin’s Berg (1964), and Sam Byers’ Come Join Our Disease (2020), and argue for fiction’s role in reorienting readers’ habitual relations to olfaction.

barfo

 

[Everything Beagle]

Why are you worrying about what somebody in the UK wrote as a PhD thesis in English Lit?

Are you an expert in that field? Very obviously not.

So why should any of us give a damn about your opinion about somebody's dissertation that you haven't even read?

But if anyone is curious, here is the full abstract.

This thesis studies how literature registers the importance of olfactory discourse—the language of smell and the olfactory imagination it creates—in structuring our social world. The broad aim of this thesis is to offer an intersectional and wide-ranging study of olfactory oppression by establishing the underlying logics that facilitate smell’s application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual, racial and species power structures. I focus largely on prose fiction from the modern and contemporary periods so as to trace the legacy of olfactory prejudice into today and situate its contemporary relevance. I suggest that smell very often invokes identity in a way that signifies an individual’s worth and status in an inarguable manner that short-circuits conscious reflection. This can be accounted for by acknowledging olfaction’s strongly affective nature, which produces such strong bodily sensations and emotions that reflexivity is bypassed in favour of a behavioural or cognitive solution that assuages the intense feeling most immediately. Olfactory disgust, therefore, tends to result in rejection, while harmful forms of olfactory desire may result in sublimation or subjugation. My thesis is particularly attentive to tensions and ambivalences that complicate the typically bifurcated affective spectrum of olfactory experiences, drawing attention to (dis)pleasurable olfactory relations that have socio-political utility. I argue that literary fiction is not only an arena in which olfactory logics can be instantiated, but also a laboratory in which possibilities for new kinds of relations and connections can be fostered and tested. Chapter One explores how smell can be used to indicate class antipathies, partly as they relate to homelessness, beginning with George Orwell’s seminal non-fiction text, The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), before considering Iain Sinclair’s The Last London (2017) and Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (2019). In Chapter Two I explore the fantastical, idealistic, and utopic thinking that surrounds olfaction, which presents smell as fundamentally non-human, by addressing J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933), Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (2021), and Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country (2020). Chapter Three focuses on the intersectional olfactory dimensions of ‘misogynoir’—the coextensive anti-Black racism and misogyny that Black women experience—and considers Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby (1981), Bernice McFadden’s Sugar (2000) and Raven Leilani’s Luster (2020). In Chapter Four, I conceptualise an oppressive olfactory logic, which is used against women and girls in order to legitimise their harassment or abuse, drawing primarily on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), but also Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (1985). Chapter Five discusses two forms of olfactory desire—perversion and queerness—which have separate moral valences. I address J. M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg (1994), Ann Quin’s Berg (1964), and Sam Byers’ Come Join Our Disease (2020), and argue for fiction’s role in reorienting readers’ habitual relations to olfaction.

barfo

No joke this looks super interesting to me. Writing aromatics can be extremely potent, and extremely difficult, because a writer’s palette of smells is supremely personal and depends on where, when, and how you were raised. It’s basically triple black diamond difficult to write cooking smells of another culture accurately and compassionately. One person’s pungently acrid is another person’s pleasantly sharp. Given how many adjectives around smells are closely tied to pleasure/disgust responses to them, it’s a fucking field of land mines to write cooking cross-culturally without sounding like a complete idiot. And this isn’t just “oh white people can’t write people of color” either. Like, if I had a character from upper peninsula in 1935, and that character loves their grandma’s cooking, I better present that correctly or I’ll look like a city slicker.

 

[Chris Craig]

Why are you worrying about what somebody in the UK wrote as a PhD thesis in English Lit?

Are you an expert in that field? Very obviously not.

So why should any of us give a damn about your opinion about somebody's dissertation that you haven't even read?

But if anyone is curious, here is the full abstract.

This thesis studies how literature registers the importance of olfactory discourse—the language of smell and the olfactory imagination it creates—in structuring our social world. The broad aim of this thesis is to offer an intersectional and wide-ranging study of olfactory oppression by establishing the underlying logics that facilitate smell’s application in creating and subverting gender, class, sexual, racial and species power structures. I focus largely on prose fiction from the modern and contemporary periods so as to trace the legacy of olfactory prejudice into today and situate its contemporary relevance. I suggest that smell very often invokes identity in a way that signifies an individual’s worth and status in an inarguable manner that short-circuits conscious reflection. This can be accounted for by acknowledging olfaction’s strongly affective nature, which produces such strong bodily sensations and emotions that reflexivity is bypassed in favour of a behavioural or cognitive solution that assuages the intense feeling most immediately. Olfactory disgust, therefore, tends to result in rejection, while harmful forms of olfactory desire may result in sublimation or subjugation. My thesis is particularly attentive to tensions and ambivalences that complicate the typically bifurcated affective spectrum of olfactory experiences, drawing attention to (dis)pleasurable olfactory relations that have socio-political utility. I argue that literary fiction is not only an arena in which olfactory logics can be instantiated, but also a laboratory in which possibilities for new kinds of relations and connections can be fostered and tested. Chapter One explores how smell can be used to indicate class antipathies, partly as they relate to homelessness, beginning with George Orwell’s seminal non-fiction text, The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), before considering Iain Sinclair’s The Last London (2017) and Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite (2019). In Chapter Two I explore the fantastical, idealistic, and utopic thinking that surrounds olfaction, which presents smell as fundamentally non-human, by addressing J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933), Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (2021), and Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country (2020). Chapter Three focuses on the intersectional olfactory dimensions of ‘misogynoir’—the coextensive anti-Black racism and misogyny that Black women experience—and considers Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby (1981), Bernice McFadden’s Sugar (2000) and Raven Leilani’s Luster (2020). In Chapter Four, I conceptualise an oppressive olfactory logic, which is used against women and girls in order to legitimise their harassment or abuse, drawing primarily on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), but also Patrick Süskind’s Perfume (1985). Chapter Five discusses two forms of olfactory desire—perversion and queerness—which have separate moral valences. I address J. M. Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg (1994), Ann Quin’s Berg (1964), and Sam Byers’ Come Join Our Disease (2020), and argue for fiction’s role in reorienting readers’ habitual relations to olfaction.

barfo

People are just intimidated by what they can't understand.

 

[PCmor7]

I mean, jesus fucking christ. You folks make think I'm too harsh on "wokeness" but this stuff is insane.

I think you are too harsh on your use of English.

 

[barfo]

No joke this looks super interesting to me. Writing aromatics can be extremely potent, and extremely difficult, because a writer’s palette of smells is supremely personal and depends on where, when, and how you were raised. It’s basically triple black diamond difficult to write cooking smells of another culture accurately and compassionately. One person’s pungently acrid is another person’s pleasantly sharp. Given how many adjectives around smells are closely tied to pleasure/disgust responses to them, it’s a fucking field of land mines to write cooking cross-culturally without sounding like a complete idiot. And this isn’t just “oh white people can’t write people of color” either. Like, if I had a character from upper peninsula in 1935, and that character loves their grandma’s cooking, I better present that correctly or I’ll look like a city slicker.

I must admit that, not being a writer, I'd never once thought about the challenges of describing smells in literature. It's fascinating, now that I'm "woke" to the topic. I owe Beast thanks, I guess, for the accidental enlightenment.

barfo

 

[Kano John]

People are just intimidated by what they can't understand.

"Some folks hate the whites who hate the blacks who hate the clan, most of us hate anything that we don't understand". Kris Kristofferson - Jesus was a Capricorn.

 

[beast blazer]

People are just intimidated by what they can't understand.

You either didn't understand the abstract, or you are part of the problem.

 

[crandc]

Republican congresswoman Claudia Tenney questioned validity of Nobel Prize because Trump hasn't won it.

 

[beast blazer]

Republican congresswoman Claudia Tenney questioned validity of Nobel Prize because Trump hasn't won it.

Hey, Obama won it before he even took office. But true, Trump will need to earn it, unlike Obama. And I think after he settles the war in Ukraine, he will have earned it.

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

Hey, Obama won it before he even took office. But true, Trump will need to earn it, unlike Obama. And I think after he settles the war in Ukraine, he will have earned it.

But only after he walks on water, changes water into wine and feeds the multitudes, he'll get right on that, amirite????

 

[Chris Craig]

But only after he walks on water, changes water into wine and feeds the multitudes, he'll get right on that, amirite????

You forgot heals the sick and raises the dead.

 

[UncleCliffy'sDaddy]

You forgot heals the sick and raises the dead.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Steve Bannon and Roger Stone.......

 

[jonnyboy]

Comical coming from the poster who won't "do the research for others" when they spout their bullshit without support

Yeah. 35 rabid leftists demanding citations from 2 or 3 moderate individuals is kind of a tilt. Some of us have jobs. Like i said to one of the other far left militants, it wouldn’t matter anyway, you’d just discredit the source.
This is the forum where people discredit literal video evidence because of who posted it. Why even try?

 

[Everything Beagle]

Yeah. 35 rabid leftists demanding citations from 2 or 3 moderate individuals is kind of a tilt. Some of us have jobs. Like i said to one of the other far left militants, it wouldn’t matter anyway, you’d just discredit the source.
This is the forum where people discredit literal video evidence because of who posted it. Why even try?

A person would have to be a fucking moron to keep trying in the face of such stubborn resistance, just an absolute smear of dogshit for brains to keep going here when nobody believes you.

 

[GoZers]

i feel like if i was on the low side of a 35:2 ratio, maybe the problem would be me, not the 35.

 

[riverman]

Yeah. 35 rabid leftists demanding citations from 2 or 3 moderate individuals is kind of a tilt. Some of us have jobs. Like i said to one of the other far left militants, it wouldn’t matter anyway, you’d just discredit the source.
This is the forum where people discredit literal video evidence because of who posted it. Why even try?

Speaking of jobs...how much does MAGA pay you to troll social media with their talking points trying to own the libs 24/7? I've always wondered how you young folks can argue on the clock and keep a job. When you succeed in eliminating the dept of education, the next wave of MAGAdorks won't understand the words, "rabid", "moderate" or "citation" so get your digs in now! You guys are so much like Hanoi Hannah broadcasting in Viet Nam about the "evil" USA. You act like Bolton and Cheney are far left militants.....serious lack of perspective but hey....you can make shit up on the good ole internet all day long. Your crook has the playbook now. Good luck with that shit. Why even try should be the Republican theme song.

 

[jonnyboy]

Speaking of jobs...how much does MAGA pay you to troll social media with their talking points trying to own the libs 24/7? I've always wondered how you young folks can argue on the clock and keep a job. When you succeed in eliminating the dept of education, the next wave of MAGAdorks won't understand the words, "rabid", "moderate" or "citation" so get your digs in now! You guys are so much like Hanoi Hannah broadcasting in Viet Nam about the "evil" USA. You act like Bolton and Cheney are far left militants.....serious lack of perspective but hey....you can make shit up on the good ole internet all day long. Your crook has the playbook now. Good luck with that shit. Why even try should be the Republican theme song.

I have so much more faith in the generations that will come after mine than the ones that came before and that is not hyperbole in the least. You can continually pontificate about how bad the younger generations are, but it just reads as you doubling down on the sheer havoc your generation has caused and learned nothing from any of it. Your generations grip on the world has almost come to an end and despite the fact they pulled the ladder up behind them, new ones will be built and the future generations will thrive when this current power system is finally abandoned.
It would be nice to see boomers go out with some grace rather than clutching pearls and setting fires but i just haven’t seen much evidence of that.

 

[riverman]

I have so much more faith in the generations that will come after mine than the ones that came before and that is not hyperbole in the least. You can continually pontificate about how bad the younger generations are, but it just reads as you doubling down on the sheer havoc your generation has caused and learned nothing from any of it. Your generations grip on the world has almost come to an end and despite the fact they pulled the ladder up behind them, new ones will be built and the future generations will thrive when this current power system is finally abandoned.
It would be nice to see boomers go out with some grace rather than clutching pearls and setting fires but i just haven’t seen much evidence of that.

As I said, good luck with that shit....I started a fire in my woodstove this morning...definitely because at 30 degrees I was clutching my pearls....didn't do it on the clock though, that is another boomer habit that'll disappear with your generation. You'll give it all to AI and your cell phone anyway and think that's progress. Keep ghost dancing on a basketball site, it's what you were destined to do. Living with grace and dignity is something I take pride in but you guys just get off throwing ketchup at the wall. There's nothing dignified about the right wing these days but you know that. Trump is the poster boy for disgusting behavior and privileged bullying. Watch just how long that thrives....by the way, Trump is a decade older than me so he's effectively a boomer as well. You are propping up a guy that represents everything you seem to bitch about Mr. double standard.

 

[Phatguysrule]

moderate individuals

 

[PCmor7]

Yeah. 35 rabid leftists demanding citations from 2 or 3 moderate individuals is kind of a tilt. Some of us have jobs. Like i said to one of the other far left militants, it wouldn’t matter anyway, you’d just discredit the source.
This is the forum where people discredit literal video evidence because of who posted it. Why even try?

What moderates?