Reddit mentions: The best popular culture in social sciences books

Maybe have a look at this: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/04/03/hip-hop-is-for-lovers/

Specifically:

>...LB: I find that as a hip hop fan who also keeps some mainstream feminist company, I find myself defending the very existence of the genre among other feminists. Uche, I know you’ve addressed this before in prior interviews more generally, but what do the HH4L ladies have to say to feminists who accuse hip hop at large of too much sexual bravado and objectification of women?

>Uche: When I first began discussing the concept of HH4L, I got mixed responses. People said everything from there is not enough music to support that to Hip Hop doesn’t talk about love and even expecting us to not deal with certain subjects or play certain songs. Sexual bravado and objectification of women happens in every culture. Hip Hop is not the only one. If you are not attuned to the culture of Hip Hop or anything remotely related to the experience of those that make or enjoy this varied and layered music, I would suggest you do some real investigation into it before labeling it as such. All hip hop music does not have sexual bravado and objectify women just like all feminists aren’t white man hating lesbians. Right?

>Lenée: I’m taking a deep breath as I type this, because I have so very much to say. First, Hip Hop culture and music are the result of a colonial history: the history of Black folks in the US. Hip Hop culture exists as a mirror of larger US culture and also as a filter of that culture. As an agent of the culture, the music speaks to an array of experiences and perspectives. Yes, the primary media makers in the culture are heterosexual cisgender men of color (mostly black-identified). Yes, there is sexual bravado, and yes there’s objectification of women. I think that the tendency of people I identify as outsiders — usually academics, often white people, and way too often white cisgender women who ID as feminists — is to be outraged first and ask questions later.

>LB: (Also, dear readers, there is about ten-plus years of womanist and feminist scholarship by women of color on hip hop, on women in hip hop, and hip hop feminism, so please google-fu if this is news.)

>Lenée: If a straight man makes a song about someone he’s attracted to, we know it sure as shit isn’t gonna be a song about one of his homeboys. So, objectification of women is gonna happen. It cannot be avoided. The extent to which it goes is my concern. As far as the sexual bravado goes, I’d like to direct any and everyone with this critique to study stereotypes about black men — namely the construct of the big black buck. Sometimes rappers reinforce the constructs, sometimes they build their own identities in the shadow of those constructs… And other times, nobody’s paying attention to what doesn’t fit what they’re looking for. Just so they can be outraged first and ask questions later. Also: Lady (“Yankin’”) is just as full of braggadocio as any song by a man that we’ve played on the show, if not more. I’m certain that different ideas apply because she’s a woman and the decency police feel differently about her. But that’s probably a blog post in and of itself.

>LB: No kidding. I was googling Lady out of curiosity and saw that she gets a lot of blowback about that song. (I can’t even begin to dissect the video.) Sure it’s sexually explicit, but it’s not meant to be a deep song. What it is is an affirmative, body-positive song about getting laid. The narrator has agency, she’s enjoying herself, it’s consensual. There’s a place for that and it’s a worthwhile narrative, so I think the real problem — and there is considerable scholarship on the “acceptable” roles for women in hip hop — is when the only available slots for women in the mainstream are the super-sexy Trinas or the crunchier Lauryn Hills.

>Uche: The song “Yankin’” and those like it have its place in Hip Hop. The whole social construct that it’s taboo for women to speak on their sexual prowess is really outdated (to me anyway).

>Lenée: I agree. It’s really simple to me: dudes rap about the presence of alcohol and/ or drugs in sexual encounters. They talk about being great in bed, good in bed, the king of cunnilingus or whatever. A lot. T.I. (he calls himself the pussy pumper!), for instance, talks about handing out bottles of Grey Goose and ecstasy pills as he has multiple partner sex. In more than one song. I’ve heard the most harsh criticism about Lady from “real Hip Hop heads,” people who actively and vocally ask for the return of Leaders of the New School, DAS Efx, and LL Cool J’s first nose. I think Lady’s song is epic. It’s fun. It’s got a good beat. And at the end of the day she’s not hurting anyone. Lots of folks seem to have gone out of their way in online spaces to decry “Yankin’” and act like it’s The Sole Reason Black People Can’t Have Nice Things. As if it isn’t R. Kelly. (Jokes.)...

Lauren Bruce interview with Uche and Lenée, hosts of Hip Hop is For Lovers (a multimedia web experience dedicated to looking at love, sex and intimacy through the lens of hip hop culture. Its centerpiece is a weekly woman-centered, queer-friendly and justice-heavy podcast that features discussions about a variety of relationship topics punctuated with the best in rap.)

I came here to post Economics for Dummies as well. The for Dummies books can be hit or miss, but I felt like that one was pretty good. Well organized, good at explaining the basics without getting lost in technical jargon, and it has a glossary of terms in the back (something a lot of the For Dummies series books don't have).

If you are interested in politics and economics, then I would recommend anything by Joseph Stiglitz, Milton Friedman, David Friedman, Frederich Hayek, John Kenneth Gailbraith.

If you are interested in economics more as a social science and how it relates to everyday life, I would recommend Superfreakonomics, More Sex is Safer Sex by Steven Landsburg, Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen, and Predictably Irrational by Daniel Ariel.

Also, you should check out the economics, finance, and banking videos on khan Academy as well.

Also--don't just study economics by itself. Economics is great, but some people who study it get tunnel vision and think that the "economist" way of thinking is the only way we make decisions. Throw in some psychology, political science, anthropology, even literature and it will enrich your understanding of economics and vice versa.

And a final note--also remember that economics is not like science and engineering in that it is always value neutral. Usually when people argue for one type of public policy or another, and use economic reasoning to justify it, there are usually implicit ethical arguments they are making as well. If you can pick up on these as well, you will be a more astute observer of the news and a wiser policy maker if that is the direction you wish to go. For more on that, you should check out this book, although it is a little bit more advanced.

There's a lot of bullshit heaped onto feminism that really doesn't belong there. It really depends how you define the word as to whether or not I would consider myself a feminist.

Here is a link to a book called Why I am not a feminist: A feminist Manifesto:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Am-Not-Feminist-Manifesto/dp/1612196012/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493343631&sr=1-1

The lady who wrote this book wrote a fairly long, very detailed account of the prevalent Oscar's question: "Are you a feminist?" in the New York Times not too long ago.

Her article basically made practically every woman who claimed to be a feminist this year look like an idiot. It was a very interesting article. Essentially, her argument is that the word has lost all value. It is either women making a lot of money but giving no thought at all to what role their gender has made in that profit (for instance, super models. Asking someone like Kim Kardashian: Are you a feminist? The only reason she's famous is because of a sex tape, and even if she has a position of power in some clothing company or something, has she done anything with that power to make things better for women who are not super models and to promote a realistic body image. Or, on the other hand, you have crazy people who are basically a parody of themselves.)

What this guy above in the picture is doing is basically repeating an idea that you see in post modern philosophy. The idea is basically that statements exist in a sort of framework, and that framework contains the argument against that idea. So, in a way, if you make a statement about being a feminist, you are reacting to a position of non feminism, and vice versa.

My guess is that the guy in the above picture has read a contemporary cultural critic named Slavoj Zizek. Slavoj Zizek is a marxist thinker, and he relies a lot on deconstructionist philosophy which is the philosophy that proposes the idea that basically says each statement, in a way, contains its own argument. Another way of looking at this idea is to say that if you have 10 things, and you select one thing, you are not just selecting the one thing. You are, also, omitting nine other things. So if you want to actually understand what these ten things are, you cant just say, I want the one thing. You have to look at all ten things.

If he did not get this idea from Zizek, I would be surprised. Zizek is very popular right now in liberal college circles. He has written many books, but he suffers from what many academic writers suffer from who write that many books: he self plagiarizes. In some books, he will basically lift a passage he has previously written and make that passage fit to the current argument. The kernal of each book is new, but some stuff can be repetitive.

However, there is a chance that he got this idea from the source or his most important interpreter, a woman named Penelope Deutscher. The source of the idea was a french philosopher named Jacques Derrida. He looked almost like a male model and was known for being fashionable and a little flashy. At the same time, he was often a sort of "adult" voice in the room, very much a non-neckbeard, please lets not let everyone get out of hand sort of man. He theorized this idea, and his purpose was to try to civilize people. Sometimes, he can be abstract, sometimes pompous, but overall, Jacques Derrida basically wanted people to understand that if they say one thing, the things opposite is sort of going to follow.

If you are interested in reading either Slavoj Zizek or Jacques Derrida, I would check out Verso Books. They only have one book by Derrida, but it is a good book from what I understand although I have only read a little of the beginning. I know him from his essays in writing and difference. Here is a link to the website for verso books. They are consciously left wing.

https://www.versobooks.com/

If reading a whole book sounds a little mind numbing, there is a very good youtube channel called "The School of Life." They have a short, 9 minute video about Jacques Derrida. Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0tnHr2dqTs

As for Zizek, you can probably find a lot about him easily. He is entertaining, but many people don't like him. I think many neckbeards on the left would probably like to basically be him.

The last thing I want to say is that I think someone could get away with putting the original post on r/Iamverysmart . What the person posted on his facebook is basically taking an idea that was formulated for him and made it look like his own. And he did all of that while wearing a hat.

I hope this is helpful.

P1:

>nope - don't care about the feelings of the crappy parents. i care about the wellbeing of the children they're foolishly sending into harms way.

So then what are the options for a parent trapped in bad area, impoverished and with little hope for getting better for their children? You like to disagree with bits and pieces of what I'm saying and disregard the stuff you don't feel like thinking about. Go back and read what I said, don't just gloss over it for parts you think you can respond to. I specifically mentioned that the parents I an referring to have little to no choice in sending their kids away, it's the best they CAN do in some cases and if you don't respect that you have no right to speak to what kinds of parents they are.

>in that SPECIFIC instance, he's correct - but not correct in how he chose to interpret and act on it. equality is an illusion - every person is greater in some things, lesser in others. some people have beauty, some have brains, some have money, and some have influence. people at the bottom of the barrel typically have none of the above, and so have to rely instead on hard work.

No, he isn't correct though and neither are you. The Nazi ideology you've chosen to adopt here is rooted in a presumption about the natural state of things that has no basis in science. Yes humans are naturally competitive, but we are also biologically and naturally communal and you can find examples of that in nature now. There's nothing to suggest we cannot be entirely communal and equal in all things of material substance. Sure not everyone is "beautiful" as you say but that depends on the person you're talking to. In some cultures fat is seen as ugly whilst in others it's seen as beautiful. Actually I recommend the ethnography called Feeding Desire by Rebecca Popenoe if you want to learn more about this dynamic in the Saharan people Azawagh Arabs.

Equality is not an illusion, some anthropological work shows the existence of "aggressively egalitarian" societies. It's not only possible, it's a total reality and had happened all over the planet. What you believe about the sort of neo-Darwinian animal nature of people or their basic qualities is all entirely subjective and rooted in YOUR historical education, which was created by people like you who didn't fully understand the depth and complexity of different human cultures. There are differences but the adjectives you mentioned "greater" "lesser" "beauty" "brains" "influence" those are all entirely subjective to the people who are subject to this person. Money isn't subjective, but as we've discussed money is given by opportunity and is thus not something that describes a type of person but a state of being.

Hard work is not all there is to making opportunities for ones self, it just isn't. I can give you a plain example, New York Firefighters and EMTS and Officers until just recently were fighting for years for basic health care costs for the damages of 9/11. Now you tell me who works harder and is more dedicated to their job than first responders? You want to tell me why it took a social media crusade by one of the most popular late night comedians and thousands of people reaching out in advocacy for them before congress got their ass into gear and stepped up to help them? You wanna tell me why we need social media blowhorns to get people to pay attention to basic needs of the people? It's because people sit back and pretend everyone else just isn't working "hard enough" to get the lucky break they need. Nah, not the case.

We live in a country where it is impossible for some people to get ahead, even if they work their fingers to the bones, even if they die doing their job their families have to fight medical bills and tax collectors. That's so unamerican in nature it makes me physically sick. Don't talk to me about hard work, just because it may have worked out for you doesn't mean everyone else has it that way and you need to start opening your horizons a little bit and start examining the world around you or it will leave you behind.

>if you map out averages of ability across races, you'll see commonalities emerge. modern politics has forced the scientific community to surpress these studies, because it doesn't mesh with the thinking of the politically correct - but its THERE.

​

Well that's just real convenient for you, your evidence exists but you can't show it to me cause the government suppresses it. Maybe the science you are referring to is just wrong, but I don't think you would have considered that because it doesn't mesh with your thinking does it? I'm not even asking you to conclude that it's wrong, I just want to see the sources you're using to reach this conclusion. Anything, a newspaper clipping, some kind of verifiable piece of evidence to show you're not just assuming that something you read about or heard once is true and that's what you've believed for the last forty years. Show me what's "there" and I can't promise not to rip to shreds, but I'll look at it.

​

>shitler was wrong in using his power to try to exterminate what HE saw as lesser races. wrong in assuming they were lesser, wrong in trying to exterminate them.
>
>in todays society, we've gone the equally wrong direction of "dumbing down" everything to the lowest common denominator - removing the drive from any child to develop exceptional talent. which is deeply disturbing and sad :(

​

I don't know who you're referring to. We still have Ivy League schools and a capitalist republic democracy, the only thing that's changed is those really smart children went on to realize the dumb ideas of the past were really symptomatic of a poor understanding of diversity. You should read "Ender's Game" it actually does a really good job in showing what it means to be in a team, and how different individuals, because of their differences make up for each other's shortcomings and that is what makes us better than a homogeneous population that would see a class of the "intelligent" and a class of the "underlings" no, that's not what matters. In some cases genius a nourished, in some it's revealed, in some cases genius is discovered long after a person has died. Human progress and the march towards Nietzsche's ubermensch is not a path of homogeneity or class dialogue, it's a path of endless diversity and modulation and specializations but also adaptations to new challenges and that requires the preservation of diversity.

​

>instead we should return to separating out individuals by ability (regardless of race) and let each group focus on what they test best at. raise a group of super science brains. another of mental librarians. several groups of super athletes. PUSH them into being amazing :) and let them lead our future by inspiring others to what the pinnacle of humanity CAN be...

​

Again, it seems like we agree on the direction and that's what diversity does by compensating for society's poorly placed institutional biases. There are no racial differences, and there is no one keeping everyone special, that's such a poor stereotype of what it means to be liberal. Liberalism is not about denying people who are gifted opportunities, it's about making sure the landscape in which gifted individuals find themselves is so level that they ALL have a REAL opportunity to achieve success. Sometimes genius is discovered and sometimes it needs a little push, sometimes great people are born and never see the inside of a book because of fascist and backwards social policies. We aren't pushing too far into the realm of homogeneity, we're discovering a new tactic for the embellishment of our future leaders. It's called equality, and it's the bees knees.

I both agree and disagree.

I agree that it is unlikely to happen, certainly nowhere near the scale of the BBS scene. But I disagree that all of the conveniences you outline (which BTW are fictionalized quite well in Daniel Suarez' Daemon and Freedom novels) are absolutely necessary to make it big enough to make a difference.

Indra Sinha's book Cybergypsies is an interesting read from the era of the late 80's. Most of it revolves around MUDs, viruses, and the interesting people online at the time, but Indra's BBS connections were very important in supporting his political activism, leading to some influence on real events related to the Kurds in Iraq War I.

> An alternative network like that won't going to matter much if only the technically inclined can use it.

Depends on what you value. If you just want a few dozen people to talk to on a regular basis, the "technically inclined" is still a pretty big pool to find friends in. If you are involved in real journalism or political activism, you only need about a hundred thousand people in the network to make a very strong impact. Look at TOR and I2P today: almost no one relative to the total population use them, yet they are in the news pretty frequently.

Sit down and give this book a read.

From a Salon.com article on the book:
>Ultimately, Female Chauvinist Pigs want power. They equate power with being like men, and being liked by men. They're the kind of girl who's always felt more comfortable with boys, who doesn't really like other girls. Raunch is one way for them to gain access to that circle of men and to separate themselves from other women. Annie, for instance, used to enjoy Howard Stern because "it's humor masking a pretty woman-hating thing -- which I've got a good amount of in me, I guess, because I take pleasure in it."
>
>"Yeah, we're all women, but are we supposed to band together?" asks Anyssa. "Hell, no. I don't trust women."
>
>Yet as Levy points out, being the exception that proves the rule -- the girl who gets raunch, who laughs at Howard Stern -- just means the rules are still intact. As long as "acting like a man" is valued, acting like a woman will be devalued. And regardless of how you understand gender, being a woman -- having breasts, bleeding once a month -- will be a handicap.

Not that you'd care what my opinion is, but just to be clear I'm not necessarily asking for the more political videos. I'm perfectly fine with whatever output you decide to do as I enjoy the Jim Bakker/Jimmy Fallon/Chubby/etc stuff just as much. Frankly I'm so bummed out after the election that I've found myself avoiding anything Trump related, so your other videos are a nice break from it all.

On the subject of Alex Jones, are you familiar with any of the work Jon Ronson has done related to Jones? Ronson is somewhat "responsible" for helping in Jones's rise when he helped him "infiltrate" Bohemian Grove back in the late 90's. He wrote a short book a few months ago that detailed him catching up with Jones again and also the interaction the Trump campaign was having with Jones's show (specifically through Roger Stone). It's a pretty scary and intimate look at Alex Jones's world view, I think you'd enjoy it.

Of course it's "logical" for women to buy into patriarchy - but it's only logical after one has accepted that this is the way things are and they cannot change.

>So why is it that when men hold a sexist ideology, their positions are attributed to a well established (and by many, respected) ideology, but when women analyze the same information, and come to the same conclusions, is it assumed that she's internalized this completely irrational ideology that supposedly belongs to men alone, as if she's somehow been brainwashed and manipulated?

This is confusing - I think feminists would say both have been equally socialized (they wouldn't say "brainwashed") to believe patriarchal constructs. Part of the confusion seems to be that you're using "rational" to mean "self-interested." A man buying into patriarchy is purely self-interested, right, because he's reaching for the highest status in his given society, accepting no limitations on that status. Women who buy in are also trying to achieve the highest status possible in their society, and in that way are self-interested, but the woman is accepting that there are limitations for her. She is trying to be the highest-status subordinate. From that wider perspective, she's not acting in self-interest if she does not challenge her ultimately subordinate status. That doesn't mean it's irrational, but it does make buying into the patriarchy as a man vs. as a woman inherently different, because a man's position in patriarchy is by definition different from a woman's.

I think you could go further, though, and argue that men buying into patriarchy are not actually truly acting in their own best interests, because as we all well know, patriarchy hurts men too. But it's different from internalized misogyny because it's still completely self-interested within the logic of the system - within the way patriarchy defines value - if not truly self-interested in the context of other (more organic?) systems of value.

Edit: There are also different ways of "buying into patriarchy." My discussion above has in mind women who accept and embrace a very traditional feminine role. But there are also women that are what Ariel Levy has called "female chauvinist pigs", who essentially adopt a sexist masculine persona in order to try to achieve higher status than women are generally allotted in patriarchy (since, again, in patriarchy masculine>feminine). Again, this is completely rational within the context of patriarchy, arguably even more "logical" (self-interested) than the traditional woman's strategy, but as Levy points out:

>There's just one thing: Even if you are a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will still always be like a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of as something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too.

Great question! I have a couple of go-to cannabis books that I'd love to share! [Spliffs] (http://www.amazon.com/Spliffs-A-Celebration-Cannabis-Culture/dp/1579123600) and its sequels ([Spliffs 2] (http://www.amazon.com/Spliffs-Further-Adventures-Cannabis-Culture/dp/0932551726/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0CBT35HSTFRBBP9YFTFJ), [Spliffs 3] (http://www.amazon.com/Spliffs-Last-Word-Cannabis-Culture/dp/1843403102/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0T1B4E5QN5Z3XG3QTAKY)) are great if you want to read while you're stoned. They have articles about cannabis culture, broken up by cool quotes by famous people about weed, some of the science of getting high, and, of course, pictures of ganja.

If you're above a [7] and reading isn't really your thing, then you'll love the high resolution pictures and digestible descriptions of all the different strains in the [Cannabible] (http://www.amazon.com/Cannabible-Jason-King/dp/1580082084/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416022050&sr=1-2&keywords=Cannabible) and its sequels, [Cannabible 2] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Cannabible-2-Jason-King/dp/1580085164/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HZ3CBSJ1NSXP6EMD746) and [Cannabible 3] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Cannabible-3-v/dp/1580087841/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HZ3CBSJ1NSXP6EMD746).

No Steven is definitely not family. He used to be the editor of the Bay Guardian and came up under Tim Redmond and therefore had great access to Larry. His political beliefs are pretty out there (no surprise) but he is a nice guy and he writes well. The Tribes of Burning Man is a pretty good read.

Novels as a device were actually originally targeted at women and considered low brow trash. Because women. If you've ever read Northanger Abbey there's a line where Jane Austen actually addresses this:

>“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”

People of substance read histories and philosophy and things to "better" themselves, and you wouldn't dare let a gentleman catch you doing anything as untoward as novel reading, heaven forfend!

There's an ebook called "Dangerous Books for Girls" that actually really gets into this.

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy really brilliantly examines female sexuality in modern US culture in a way that is very thoughtful and thought-provoking. I read this when I was in high school and it has definitely helped shape how I define my own sexuality. There are some really great chapters that describe the commodification of sex, and I feel like that section can speak to both sexes.

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala by Karen King. Read this in college and have never considered the Bible in the same way again. Whenever people reference the Bible as if it's this concrete resource that just sprang into being as it is, I want to bop 'em over the head with this book. There are other writings that didn't make it into the Bible as "canon," due to the judgement of the Council of Nicaea, and the Gospel of Mary is only one of those excluded, but it serves as a nice reminder that the Bible is not the so-called "word of God," but a man-made scrapbook.

And there's been some mention of this already, but definitely some Calvin and Hobbes up in this thread. Yeah, it's a comic, but there's a lot of depth to Watterson's quick little quips, and his strips on the public education system in the US are hilariously, terrifyingly accurate, like this one.

> I'm gonna read that book just to get a better idea of what exactly I'm advocating for.

LOL, not my intention to spread the ideas I disagree with. But it sounded like a thesis you would.

> Do we know this? I don't think we do

I think the evidence suggests this. And it makes sense to me that the lives of people who highly value self-reliance are going to generally be far better than those who don't share that value and who are perfectly content to be on the dole.

At the risk of going down a completely different rabbit trail my view is actually a little more complex since I DO think interdependence in the context of family and community is important and of great value. I'm all for Edmund Burke "little platoons" of family, church and local neighborhood. It is large impersonal institutions that reliably fail, they cannot know and love the individual, they cannot make the moral judgments that a loving parent, or an increasingly impatient neighbor might make when presented with yet another plea for next month's rent. I very much agree with the title of Hillary Clinton's book "It takes a village" I don't think she understood the full meaning of the proverb... since she turned it around to mean: "It take a large impersonal bureaucracy" which is NOT the same thing at all.

> If you have any other reading suggestions then I'll take a look. I don't want to become massively entrenched in my views

None of these are necessarily related to your discussion though they might touch on some similar topics.

I recently read Haidt's The Righteous Mind not actually a conservative book but one which is really interesting in terms of figuring out why liberals and conservatives talk past each other.

And there's always the conservative classics that you'll always get when people ask. A few personal favorites: Kirke's The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom though technically he'd insist on calling himself as a "liberal" (By which he means a classical 19th century liberal) I liked Bastiate's The Law if you want an actual 19th century liberal. The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

Those last two are both relatively quick and easy reads.

And of course Sowell has written extensively on exactly this subject. I think Race and Economics was his first book so it may be a bit dated now.

Sadly I've not read that one nor his other books that seem most directly related to our discussion. Personally I've only read his Basic Economics and I read Race and Culture years ago which is somewhat related but about the impact of race, ethnicity and culture in an international setting. His ideas about the primacy of cultural capital in explaining group differences in economic capital are consistent but he's applying those concepts internationally in how various cultural groups have done economically as majorities, as minorities, migrants, conquers or conquered etc. it's been a while but I remembered more about the overseas Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia than about blacks in America.

I had a friend that did his thesis on Hip Hop and how it affects college students on campus. Here's the link.

And if I'm down to help out. I've been documenting random Hip Hop events in Southern Cali for the past two years . . . mostly Bboy Jams. I've also played sound selector since 2003. Here's a my blog if you're interested. Good luck my friend.

I'd recommend Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs. It's an interesting view of how women are objectifying each other in the way men used to/still do. I also really enjoyed The Beauty Myth.

Thanks for joining the feminist side =D

EDIT: Spelling

Cavell argues that Wittgenstein's final work, Philosophical Investigations, is a confession. The passage that starts the work refers to Augstine's Confessions. However, this is only one part of the "New Wittgenstein" The part that is most striking is the "method of reading" used by Cavell. I would advise, if you are interested, reading The Cavell Reader which is edited by Stephen Mullhall. It has a collection of Cavell's essays. Most important to this discussion are the essays "Declining Decline", "Being odd, Getting even", and "Words and Sentences."

I am now required to call upon another philosopher from the Modernist period, Ernest Bloch. He predated Benjamin and thinks of Benjamin as an upstart who isn't really in the Frankfurt school. (Oh how wrong one man can be) I am thinking of his work Heritage of Our Times. In this he presents something similar to, and more relatable than, Cavell's method of reading.

A montage is a collection of things that have a different meaning by themselves. When put together they have some sort of new meaning that may not relate at all to any of its parts. It is something greater than its parts. Here is Hitchcock explaining this in terms of film with the Kuloshuv Effect. Bloch sees montage as a way foreword in communism as it allows for "propaganda" to be disseminated to the public efficiently. I would go so far as to say any movie's point/ emotional impact is made through montage. Not just the scenes in eighties movies where people get stuff done, but the entire movie.

Now to tie this all back to your original question. What in blue blazes does this have to do with psychoanalysis? One the one hand we have an American philosopher from the 1970's who is talking about some method of reading. On the other we have a Jew from the 1920's who is talking about communist propaganda. Let us step back. Both the method of reading and montage both use some form of psychoanalysis. Namely, that of free association. Put to use in one way, it allows for a new reading of Wittgenstein. In another, it allows a complex idea to be portrayed in a short amount of time without the audience knowing what hit them. In the end both of these different things use psychoanalysis in a dialectical way to achieve something greater than a traditional route.

Sources:

• The Cavell Reader
  
  
• Heritage of Our Times
  
  Also, thank you for the article. I will read it and let you know my thoughts.

This video is amazing. I, for one, am irked when large businesses tackle social issues and it's seen as a sustainable practice. It reminds me of that time freaking Forbes came to our school to tell us how "capitalism is great" because of this (here's the poster for that).

Interestingly enough, the social changes that reward these empty gestures of multiculturalism and progressiveness are nothing new; it's a trend that exploded in the US after the 50s but also existed in other parts of the world before then.

There's two great books on this phenomenon that give the historical context in the US, even if they don't provide a direct solution:

Bobos in Paradise - David Brooks (bourgeois bohemians = "bobos")

Everything but the Coffee - Bryant Simon (talks a lot about how Starbucks was able to manipulate social changes)

FYI.

"COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum" was apparently first posted in 2008 on a Ron Paul affiliated forum.

Its has since been rebranded as part of "The Gentleman's Guide To Forum Spies" a mash-up of playbooks on online deception, manipulation, disinformation, propaganda, you name it.

Part 2, "Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation and 3, "Eight Traits of the Disinformationalist were written by a conspirationist named H. Michael Sweeney, a.k.a "The Professional Paranoid" in the late nineties (1997?)

Part 4 is claimed to come from a booklet "How To Spot a Spy" and was last edited (at least the version circulating) by a "batshit insane blogger and crank, who calls herself a "scientific mystic and PaleoChristian Shaman", Laura Knight Jadczyk, author of highly praised books such as "9/11 the Ultimate Truth" and "
High Strangeness: Hyperdimensions & The Process Of Alien Abduction.

part 5 "[Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression]
(http://www.dcdave.com/article3/991228.html)" may have been written in 1999 by a guy named David Martin from the American Patriot Network or American Freedom Network, they would probably call themselves America Great Again Freedom Network nowadays... you get the idea.

You might want to read about the GCHQ's JTRIG unit

Peace

edit: typo

There's an awesome book called Female Chauvinist Pigs that looks at how we went from women burning bras to 18 year olds posing for girls gone wild. It's a great read and I highly recommend it! It explained a lot about my own journey into feminism. =)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743284283?pc_redir=1414449178&robot_redir=1

You've already had some good suggestions, which I'd suggest following. I have a BA in geography and even after school found these interesting reads.

Cultural and Historical Geography

Eratosthenes' "Geography"

The World of Gerard Mercator: The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Race And Culture: A World View

Technical, GIS, Cartography

How to Lie with Maps

Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers

An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems

I know most of these won't be of much use with a BS degree, but gives you a good foundation for thinking geographically. For the more science aspects; a good understanding of physics, chemistry, and to a lesser extent biology, will really give you a leg up when starting out.

female chauvinist pigs is pretty good too. not too theoretical or deep but it captures modern american society pretty well.

Two that I think are great without going back too far are Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, and Female Chauvinist Pigs.

I'm looking at amazon.com and thinking of ordering a new one from bell hooks, who I've always liked. As an African-American woman, hooks has always had a broader perspective.

I'd also recommend Susan Faludi's Backlash.

Amanda Marcotte's recent It's a Jungle Out There was a quick read and good.

I'm currently looking at Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism and by Siegel and Baumgardner's Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, but they're about 4th and 5th on my current reading list and I can't yet say how I'd rate them.

Also on my reading list is Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?: A Debate (Point/Counterpoint) by Warren Farrell, Steven Svoboda, and James P. Sterba on my list. Looking forward to that one. Warren Farrell is a former feminist and the father of the men's liberation movement. The movement had progressive roots, but I think Farrell's moved more center, and certainly the men's movement has some very conservative branches. I think it will be interesting splitting apart any anti-feminism from the pro-men's liberation stuff.

I personally don't think there's any conflict between men and women's liberation, but I want to be more informed as to the current arguments.

The book Furry Nation gives a pretty good description of those times. The fandom really didn’t exist before the 80s and up until the early 90s was limited to flyers at conventions for room parties and zines.

I got into it early/mid 90s when it was largely based out of newsgroups and MUCKs with conventions starting to get a good foothold.

I thought that was coined by David Brooks?

The way he uses it, it doesn't mean hipsters in the sense of urban youth, but of old-style hippies who grew up and became successful but held onto many of their hippie values. Hence bourgeois.

The hipsters I know aren't really capitalists.

Thomas Sowell, probably the greatest black intellectual alive today has been saying as much for a long time. And of course I doubt whites have more sensible political opinions, the only difference is that blacks have an easier time asking for handouts and special treatment (even if in reality it harms them more than help), whites would do the same stupid things if they could.

Race and Culture: A World View and Black Rednecks and White Liberals are two great books by Thomas Sowell on the subject.

Of course, in the current climate of political correctness paranoia, anything that can in any way be interpreted as criticism of a 'minority' is not acceptable, whatever it is true or not.

The activist paradigm the world over is very much the people described in Bobo's In Paradise. Europeans included.


^(Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo.
In his bestselling work of "comic sociology," David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today's upper class -- those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation.)

If you want a really good look into the history of BM and a behind-the-scenes type of view, I highly suggest checking out Scribe's (author of the article) book "The Tribes of Burning Man" I've been a burner for 5 years and there is SO much that I learned from his book. It gave me a new-found respect for many aspects of the event that I just didn't have any info on.

Also, Ronson's short piece "Elephant in the Room."


https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Room-Journey-Campaign-Alt-Right-ebook/dp/B01LXOO7UQ

I think Ronson is the perfect person to do a long expose on Jones. Him and Jones have a long relationship and Jones seems to trust Ronson.

Yes, I recommend you read "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster" for more information on this. However Louis Vuitton do still have a lot of leather artisans hired at their french factories. And from what I can see most of their trunks are still made to order at these factories, although I am sure you are right and they still get many of the parts from factories all over the world. Most of the commercialized goods(keepall bags, speedy purses, wallets etc.) are made in countries with cheaper production costs. And it is very noticeable. If you go into a store and check out the craftsmanship on the trunks vs. the less expensive purses, bags etc. there is a huge difference.

Hermes is one of the few high end fashion brands that still does not outsource production to cheaper countries, but you sure notice it on the price(which is so high it is just ridiculous).

Okay, how about https://psmag.com/social-justice/commercializing-counterculture-summer-music-festival-went-mainstream-86334

and the book Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There

Do they have to be sources from social science journals?

http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/31448/1/1-s2.0-S0160738316301761-main.pdf

That's actually a misnomer. There is a built in obsolescence just as much with "luxury goods" as with economy goods. this book is pretty good in explaining the evolution.

He also had a little kindle single about the 2016 campaign and the alt-right, featuring a reunion with Alex Jones (it was written before the election, so Ronson was still confident Trump would remain a fringe character like Jones).

Here's actual data on why I urge you to not screw up your relationship, if you are with a good man.

This book was published this year https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Sex-Navigating-Complicated-Landscape-ebook/dp/B0111YAT0Y

>They are considerably less likely, for instance, to receive oral sex in casual encounters, and when they do, it’s rarely to climax: only 17 percent of women reported orgasms in first hookups that included oral sex alone, as opposed to 60 percent whose most recent cunnilingus experience was in a relationship. (Men in hookups, incidentally, overestimate their partners’ orgasms by a third to a half.) In hookups involving intercourse, 40 percent of women said they’d come (half the rate of men who did), as opposed to three-quarters in serious relationships.

>Perhaps one could argue that it takes time for men to learn a female partner’s body and responses, but it also requires interest—and basic respect. Young men routinely express far less of both for hookup partners than for girlfriends or even “friends with benefits.”

Also based on this book from from 11 years ago, 70% of women having casual sex were not having orgasms https://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743284283

If you aren't satisfied with sex with your boyfriend, I can suggest some books to fix that too.

I really wish someone other than Vox day would, effectively, re-write this book. His name has so much baggage that you can't just hand a copy out to normies.

​

Looking at his related books... (Holy shit, linking these are a nightmare due to Amazon's tracking buillshit in the URLs)

https://smile.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed-ebook/dp/B00L9B7IRC/

https://smile.amazon.com/How-Trump-SJWs-Alinskys-Radicals-ebook/dp/B01JFOM1LM/

https://smile.amazon.com/Social-Justice-Warrior-Handbook-Millennials-ebook/dp/B074N6968P/

https://smile.amazon.com/Bullies-Culture-Intimidation-Silences-Americans-ebook/dp/B008GULMDK/

https://smile.amazon.com/New-Church-Ladies-Extremely-Uptight-ebook/dp/B06VVHV1DX/

​

Nothing short and to the point, but some good stuff there for normies to read.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure I heard all these arguments first from a black law professor (Steven Carter ) and a black economist (Thomas Sowell). They are common views among those who have an economics-influenced worldview. (which is to say, more common among libertarians and conservatives than liberals)

To be more specific with regard to your bolded claim: in practice the intent to practice AA in colleges has had the effect of requiring Asian applicants to achieve much higher SAT scores than others in order to get admitted to the same set of colleges. When this has been noticed, the ideology seems to encourage covering it up or moving the mechanism which accomplishes it into harder-to-quantify areas.

I left off another argument, which is that AA helps already-privileged members of minority groups (who would have succeeded without it) while either failing to help or actively harming the less-privileged members of those same groups. That was the main thrust of Carter's book .

Of course, the body of ideas that constitute "AA" is ever-changing, just like the body of ideas that constitutes, say "communism". One can always claim some criticism doesn't apply to YOUR version of AA (or communism, or liberalism) and sometimes that is actually true, but more often it's a no-true-Scotsman effort. At its heart, AA policies are based on a set of premises about what is likely to be fair or effective or beneficial, and these premises are reasonably disputed by AA's critics.

(Side note: some of the past intellectual basis for AA used the concept of "stereotype threat", which has since been a casualty of the replication crisis.)

You're making me math?? Oh, you cruel fiend :)

This book + this dvd should be $22.21, if I didn't mess up my math :) .

If anyone would like to learn about Alex Jones I recommend a book by a guy who actually knows the guy. Jon Ronson actually happens to know Alex Jones. He worked with him for a while and they diverged. One went into conspiracy theories and the other into journalism. The book goes into a lot of it. He also spends a lot of time talking about Roger Stone and more. I... I just really like the book.

> The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the “Alt-Right

It's free to read (in the US) if you have Amazon Prime.

Race and Culture is another good one.

If you are interested in learning more about this, there is a famous economist you may have heard of called Thomas Sowell, who has written extensively on this topic.

His most extensive work on the topic, from my perspective, is the book below:
http://www.amazon.com/Race-And-Culture-World-View/dp/0465067972

edit: spelling

No, but they are perpetuating the same stereotypes that justified not giving you those rights for generations and generations.

See: Enlightened Sexism and Female Chauvinist Pigs

Race and Culture, by Thomas Sowell.

Now can we please move on?

I'd recommend Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy.

Sowell does write about race and culture, too.

But he is also a serious economist, yes.

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Recent research studies have concluded that women have a alternative sense of sexuality compared to men. Women have been prevented from claiming their sexuality through acts such as sex. So they've begun to relate to their sexuality through feeling sexy. This is why women are so willing to participate in what many people would think are ridiculous- Girls Gone Wild is one example. They "look for nothing by 9s and 10s" and they get plenty of them for nothing more than a girls gone wild hat or shirt.

Whether the women are exploited or not, it is an interesting example of the differing sexuality between men and women.
sources
http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743249895

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018563

Here it is!

I normally do link books whenever I mention them, don’t know why I didn’t this time.

Also, Ronson wrote a short follow-up in 2016 at the height of the campaign season, The Elephant in the Room, about Jones, the Alt-Right, and the Trump Campaign, generally about the rise of extreme conspiracy theories becoming mainstream and a presidential candidate (sadly now POTUS) embracing them and endorsing someone like Jones, who has now become famous and people all over buy into his crap. Interesting section where Ronson “reconnects” with Jones, 20 years after their adventure. Which, by the way, Jones had a completely different interpretation of, naturally.

Buy [this] (https://www.amazon.com/Furry-Nation-Americas-Misunderstood-Subculture/dp/162778232X) and tell her about it and then say that if she wants to learn more she should read the book and just warn her of the prejudice of the internet.

And for the love of God don't say something like "it's not a sex cult" straight off the bat because that is something someone in a sex cult would say.

In a nutshell, Ms. Levy asserts that women are at least partially to blame for the "raunch" culture -- women making other women and themselves sex objects.

If you are interested in learning more, here is a link from amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743284283/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347384465&sr=8-1&keywords=female+chauvinist+pigs.

I would suggest you check it out from your local library.

Here is the mobile version of your link

Reminds me of Jim Goad's book The New Church Ladies

Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy

She just wanted to brag that she buys expensive butter and organic coconut oil. Standard Bobo stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Bobos-In-Paradise-Upper-Class/dp/0684853787

It's know as internalized sexism. Those who express it are female chauvinist pigs.

If you read Jon Ronson's Kindle single about Alex Jones and the RNC, apparently Trump tried to get Beck on board with a trip to Mar-a-Lago, and Beck viewed it as manipulative.

There is a book called The Elephant in the Room by Jon Ronson that details the influence Alex Jones has on Donald Trump.

No matter how trivial YOU find him, the person leading this country takes him quite seriously. That is something none of us can afford to take lightly. Trump quoted Jones at the RNC! Called him "Very Smart" and meets with the clown. Talk about a Confederacy of Dunces, we got one now and it's not nearly as entertaining as the book by John Kennedy Toole.

There are many more that exist, of course, but here are some of my favourites:

Bitchfest - A collection of essays from Bitch magazine

Female Chauvanist Pigs: Women and the rise of raunch culture by Ariel Levy

Men explain things to me - Rebecca Solnit

Backlash - Susan Faludi

Bad feminist by Roxane Gay - I'm just in the middle of reasing this now, really enjoying it.

My favourite line from Jon Ronson's The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the "Alt-Right" was when he was talking to a Trump supporter who told him Hillary was a 'known luciferian' and he replies 'She's not a known luciferian', 'well yes and no' comes the response. Where I come from the only people who believe in luciferians and satanists are 13 year old death metal fans.

Some people are born in areas where resources are more or less plentiful, this is not fair. That being said, some cultures or demographics make more babies who make more babies at rates which continue to ensure the limited resources available are certainly incapable of handling the population. Well what to do besides fuck if there is nothing to hunt, well their is war, political power, etc...Or their is entering the labor force through education and training. But it doesn't exist, ok import it, NOPE IMPERIALISM! rant off/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

May I suggest Sowell for an interesting viewpoint on historical choices of individuals as they relate to their particular advantages or disadvantages within certain areas, types of legal framework, ethnic groups, and culture... https://www.amazon.com/Race-Culture-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465067972/ref=la_B000APQ7EI_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495232293&sr=1-17&refinements=p_82%3AB000APQ7EI

He has written maybe a dozen books about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Culture-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465067972

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Economics-and-Politics-of-Race-Audiobook

https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465058728

https://www.amazon.com/Race-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/067930262X

https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sowell/dp/154164560X

But here is a speech he wrote about three such books (Race and Culture, Migrations and Culture, and Conquests and Cultures.)

https://www.tsowell.com/spracecu.html

Note he immediately points out not only that things aren’t equal or just, but also that there’s no reason one should expect equality, nor that we should expect everyone to behave morally. That’s specifically what I was responding to re. your post.

> absent the necessary punishments of parasitism?

Are you claiming that this can only be provided by a State? Come on man, you're better than that.

>Your guys' political economy has no other explanation for why Africa is so low trust other than "they were brainwashed, man!"

I don't know which "guys" you are referring to, but I personally find the issue far more complex than that. In my opinion, there are environmental, cultural and ultimately genetic reasons why we Africans are so damn poor. We were not just "brainwashed, man".

Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs - ta da! Women are just as complicit as men are in propagating gender roles, though I don't agree with everything Levy argues.