The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXVII

[Tahuti]

Ideology can work like that, though. You don't need to be consciously following formally codified principles in order to have defined principles. Indeed, conservatives throughout history have claimed 'we don't believe in ideology, we just use common sense' while acting according to remarkably consistent principles, just like anybody else. At its most basic an ideology is just an abstracted idea of what the world is like (as all such pictures must be), which is married to a similarly abstracted view of what the world should be like by means of a plan to bring A into B.

What you describe is groupthink - which is perhaps what ideology itself is. However, wouldn't you consider this to be a weakness on the part of the individual? Today's historians and anthropologists have a tendency to systematise everything, without perhaps taking into account the susceptibility to groupthink as a personal flaw of an individual.

 

[Flying Pig]

I don't think it's a flaw at all. There's a tendency to denigrate the conventional wisdom because we idolise those who go against it and are right, but we forget that it is, after all, usually wise. There's nothing wrong with following someone else's principles if they're good ones, and I do think that most political ideologies in general currency are reasonably sensible: one might agree more with one than the other, but it's possible to see the foundations on which the others are built and see that they do proceed intelligently from there, even if one might disagree with their basic assumptions.

 

[Tahuti]

I don't think it's a flaw at all. There's a tendency to denigrate the conventional wisdom because we idolise those who go against it and are right, but we forget that it is, after all, usually wise. There's nothing wrong with following someone else's principles if they're good ones, and I do think that most political ideologies in general currency are reasonably sensible: one might agree more with one than the other, but it's possible to see the foundations on which the others are built and see that they do proceed intelligently from there, even if one might disagree with their basic assumptions.

I agree. Following conventional wisdom - provided these are critically weighed against other options - is not necessarily a bad thing. However, that does nothing in that I still think history is judged too systematically, neglecting the decisions made by individuals.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's definitely a question worth its own thread.

 

[Cutlass]

Are those the only way to find out?

There's a gray area at the margins. Particularly with the category called "young adult", like Ajidica was talking about. The Harry Potter series, for example, is a young adult series. But the series, the stories themselves, grows with the characters within the books. So I only read the first of the books. I didn't go on with it because I found it too far below my reading level. But I have a friend, who's a few years older than my 49, who loves them, and reads a number of other young adult books. So it's not like an adult can't read those. If that's where you get your enjoyment from reading, go for it.

 

[Tahuti]

That's definitely a question worth its own thread.

Maybe the mods can merge our discussion with the thread you just linked. Thanks for making this thread, however!

 

[Tee Kay]

It is quite telling how 'neo-' is almost universally applied to non-left-wing movements, as if there is moral equivalency between 'neoliberals' and 'Neo-Nazis'.

Almost all left-wing movements from the last two hundred years are either dead or moribund, so that's why you don't hear much about "neocommunism", say.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think it's fair to say that the prefix "neo-" is often used to lend a sinister air, largely because of the negative associations people make of movements like neo-Nazism or with phenomena like neo-colonialism. It can imply something vaguely conspiratorial, the revival of a corpse we thought we'd buried. Kaiserguard's own neo-absolutism, for example. That's not why the term "neo-liberalism" exists, or for that matter "neo-conservatism", because in both cases nobody thinks of liberalism or conservatism are extinct to begin with, but they do sometimes carry the same sense of second-hand menace. Such is the twitchily emotive media landscape; you could have a news anchor talk about "neo-impressionism" in his Serious Voice and it would sent a jolt down people's spines before their brains caught up with their ears.

Also, you probably could apply the term "neo-" to describe plenty of things on the left: most Trot sects could reasonable be termed "neo-Trotskyist", for example. People just don't, and I'd guess that's precisely because of the sinister connotations the prefix has developed, because when combined with the history of anti-Communist paranoia it all ends up sounding a bit... much. Going on about "neo-Trotskyists" at any length is going to have people thinking that the conversation will end with you saying "and that's why the Jews are secretly lizards". The one you do sometimes here is "neo-Marxism", but that's usually used in an academic context where those associations don't carry over.

 

[Borachio]

And this.

 

[Traitorfish]

And this.

Ugh, neo-Situationists.

 

[Hygro]

I did. The biggest flaw of his analysis is that he goes to great pains to portray it as a distinct ideological movement that is fairly new, disregarding any ideological influences of the past. Furthermore, the term rather incoherently describes anything that isn't intellectually left-wing as neoliberal, pointing to economic deregulation at one point as a common thread, disregarding the possibility these reforms may perhaps been more the result of pragmatism on the part of political leaders than any ideological orthodoxy. Ironically, he points himself that they aren't ideologically orthodox themselves. It is yet another flawed attempt to attribute a common systematised ideology to what is effectively are the individual decisions of individuals.

He doesn't. Why would you say that?
It doesn't. Why did you also say that?
There's nothing politically pragmatic about neoliberalist reforms except along class lines, i.e. for the wealthy. i.e. for the benefit. It weakens countries and hurts politicians who get the "it's the economy, stupid" boot. These politicians, not scholars in political economy, have no idea they've been duped.
It is ironic, and it's also true. Neoliberalism isn't used to describe an ideological orthodoxy. It's used to describe a particular historical phenomenon that is/came from a specific class reaction to keynesian equality.
The movement's tools included the deliberate funding of think tanks and propagandists who did spread an associated ideology. It took a long, long time to work. Their first big victory was convincing everyone that low interest rates caused the unemployment of the 70s.
Except that there was a (someplaces tight, someplaces loose) collusion among moneyed interests to match the historical moment of rich people losing electoral power.

I'm not trying to pick on you but damn man, you say some stuff.

 

[cybrxkhan]

What exactly does "hearty" mean in the context of food/recipies/whatever? (For instance, hearty bef stew, hearty bean chili, hearty potato lasagna) It's always seemed like such a vague word synonymous with delicious or tasty to me.

 

[Mise]

Warm, rich, thick, usually with lots of sauce.

 

[Flying Pig]

It's a little bit like 'tangy' and 'zesty' in that bad food writers use it to pad out their articles without actually conveying much information. I think for a meal to be 'hearty' it usually has to be the sort of stew that you can only eat on a cold day, or else (as with 'a hearty breakfast') it just has to be big and unhealthy.

 

[Borachio]

What exactly does "hearty" mean in the context of food/recipies/whatever? (For instance, hearty bef stew, hearty bean chili, hearty potato lasagna) It's always seemed like such a vague word synonymous with delicious or tasty to me.

Quite literally* "full of heart", imo. Something very tasty and filling?

It's difficult to imagine a hearty salad. Or a hearty soufflé.

*literally, but figuratively, if you see what I mean i.e. not full of offal. Not necessarily. (I ate beef heart once. I didn't like it. Though I'd eat it again if there was nothing else; if I were in a concentration camp and starving, for example.)

 

[bhsup]

It's difficult to imagine a hearty salad.

You've never seen me at a salad bar. They're salads, I suppose, in that they have a smattering of lettuce at the bottom.

 

[Borachio]

Actually, I was probably rather hasty. On reflection, I find I consume a large number of hearty salads. With gusto (which isn't a kind of mayonnaise, btw).

 

[Flying Pig]

You've never seen me at a salad bar. They're salads, I suppose, in that they have a smattering of lettuce at the bottom.

What passes for a 'salad' bar at Pizza Hut or Harvester can certainly be used to take on as many calories as the meal itself.

 

[Quackers]

How does that work? ^^

 

[Borachio]

Lots of pasta, cheese, beetroot and hard-boiled eggs maybe? Potato and mayonnaise?