Absolutely nothing

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

K-punk appears to have declared war on us.

Comments

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

You know, I have to admit that when British people start talking about class, education and their attendant shames, my brain kinda turns off. I don't really know how else to put this, or if I'm making sense, but discussion about these subjects seem like a mere hobby -- sort of like putting ships in bottles or collecting Beanie Babies, only without their real-world relevance. They only get talked about because everyone knows they don't really matter.

[giddyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

I don't think you have to be K-Punk to find the suggestion that class+education "don't really matter", or that chat abt same lacks "real-world relevance", to be complacent reactionary bollox

it's difficult to critique the middle class/public school assumptions of much popist discoure w/out sounding like a knee-jerk class warrior, but some of the more hardcore poptimists really do seem to be suggesting that any form of crit that does not wholeheartedly celebrate hedonism/materialism - or still keeps some kind of faith/interest in class conflict and the social/political - is old skool/old hat/body-hating funkilling rub. bah

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

A good point - however my stance is that while I'm willing to accept that class/politics/public school DOES have something to do with how one approaches pop & criticism thereof, k-punk doesn't explain what that 'something' is satisfactorily. Yet he continues to use the 'something' as a leaning post for further argument. I might have missed his earlier posts where he went into more detail about this link, but the logic doesn't add up from where I'm standing.

See, I warned you I might not be making as much sense as I should.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

No, you see, when I'm talking with other Americans about the situation in America, the influence of class and education on how people are is palpable, undeniable, completely non-trivial (if oh-so-hard to discuss without lapsing into ad hominem comedy (http://gawker.com/news/rankings/vote-for-americas-most-annoying-liberal-arts-college-280730.php)). But from the other side of the puddle, British obsessiveness about these subjects always seems ridiculous and overwrought in comparison. Perhaps this is the residual influence of race, or our supposed belief that class doesn't exist here (Possibly true in Tocqueville's day, but now? Nuh-uh.) and perhaps this is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass, maybe, I wouldn't deny it.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Also, just who are these hardcore poptimists, anyway? Like, names and such.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Ha! Whenever I ask that I get chided for requiring obsessive "footnoting" (or something).

The tenor of the debate is too McCarthy (cartoonish) for my tastes, really. I imagine K-punk to be a bit like the buffoon McCarthy parody in The Manchurian Candidate, which I guess makes Reynolds Angela Lansbury (you get the sense that his/her mind is elsewhere in the course of everyday attacks, and that a weirdly disinterested cynicism underlies most "ideological" stances...except I doubt that Reynolds, unlike Lansbury, actually belongs to the "other side" tho or I'd probably know where his popist locked LJ is by now). So koganbot is Frank Sinatra and Tom is poor, tortured Raymond and I might be the guy who gets hypnotized into shooting his pal in the face or something. (I imagine the Janet Leigh character is an amalgam of Poptimists whose underlying motives in conversation are never entirely clear -- which is, like, all of them.)