Hitler has a lot to answer for. But he and his minions did not invent "Concentration Camps."
England invented Concentration Camps, during the Boer Wars.
The idea was to round up all the wives and children of the Boers, and cram them into horrible enclosures, so they could not work the farms and feed their husbands and fathers who were conducting a Guerilla war against the British.
England admits to perhaps 27,000 deaths, but 100,000 is generally accepted as more realistic. In part because of poor record keeping.
Without reading either of the novels, my gut tells me that this — “ Monkey Grip is a story of people who want to be good but aren’t sure how” — is just the story of humanity.
We have always tried and we have always failed to live up to our potential. The idea that there were eras where humanity was better behaved or “good” is foolish.
Drunks and thieves and murderers and adulterers and psychopaths and sycophants and charlatans and child molesters and the monsters that humanity has always carried with us were there just the same in 1900 as they were in 1933 and 1952 and 1975 and 2026.
The only things that change are visibility and access. The people do not.
The left was right. Societies have always had these people and now they just walk in daylight. But what mattered was society's REPONSE to the existence of these people and their lifestyles. Did The Great We encourage or discourage them?
Either way, we're losing sectors of the population to crime and degeneracy. I don't think it matters whether we're hiding it behind closed doors or talking about it in the open. There are always people who will shit in the fountain they play in and there is no saving them.
And it's not even a question of morality so much as a simple cost/benefit equation. She had her chance to function within civilized society, and this was the result. She will never contribute enough to somehow offset murdering her three children. Why force taxpayers to subsidize her existence in jail?
Being overly tired and forgetting a kid in the back of the car is a deadly mistake, forgetting to lock the gate and they slip and drown in a pool, is a mistake, changing you clothes at the end of the work day and a kid interupts you when you put your firearm on the table (partially why I don't carry) and forget about it is a mistake
Since the defense is angling for N.G.R.I., I assume there's no reasonable doubt as to the woman's guilt.
I stand opposed to the death penalty because I do not trust our government--federal, state, municipal--with the lives of my countrymen, but this is one case where the chair or the needle seems warranted.
The only possible problem I see with that is the guilt felt by the firing squad. It's a damned hard ask for some CO to have to shoot a guy in cold blood. I wonder if there's some valid reason why the judge who passes sentence of death shouldn't perform the execution himself? Hydraulic guillotine with a splatter shield, doctor and two sheriff's deputies or what-have-you present as witnesses.
Not all of the guns are loaded with live rounds. At least one has a blank, so you can pretend that your gun had it.
I've also heard stories of guys checking to Make Sure that the blank Was Not in *their* rifle.
And there are judges who would be happy to do it. And I've known jurists on murder trials who asked if they could be the one that threw the switch, because the evidence was so nasty.
You want to kill some cunt who murdered her kids gen z would line up and bring their own bullets. World seems to be getting fed up with womens bullshit
It's right in the names: the US Constitution, which establishes three co-equal branches of government (and state constitutions follow similar principles); JUDGES belong to the JUDICIAL branch, and EXECUTIONS belong to the EXECUTIVE branch.
(Due to the nature of being aboard a vessel, under _maritime_ law, which aviation inherits, the Captain is "judge, jury, and executioner." YouTube evidence indicates that many Spirit Airlines passengers failed to appreciate both this principle and its necessity when sharing a pressurized tube of 1.1mm thick aluminum with 200 other humans at Mach 0.79 in the stratosphere.)
Idaho recently started the selection process for fire squad members, generally, not for a specific execution, and they were overwhelmed with volunteers. I am in favor of the death penalty, and I don't have strong opinions on the method.
I mean maybe. What if they were all persons formerly molested, and they were volunteering for convicted pedophiles? That ID law was passed to great fanfare in conjunction with a law that significantly increased the consequences of something to do with harming children, so I think the volunteers were directly related to that.
I for one, would volunteer for that golden state killer pos. If you read what he was doing to whole families? He’s gotta go. Not even about paying, just that it’s time to go.
Sure, but they aren't volunteering to kill the Golden State Killer, they are volunteering to be on a squad that might be his executioner, and more importantly there is a big difference between all of these things, psychologically.
I think child molesters should be executed --> I think my molester should be executed --> I am volunteering to execute my molester --> I am volunteering to execute a child molester --> I am filling out government paperwork so that I have to opportunity to execute people, some of whom might be child molesters.
You can substitute in that chain any other type of heinous criminal. You still end up with a list of people looking to use violence to fill a personal need.
When justice repeatedly fails, vigilantism increasingly seems a reasonable - even necessary - alternative. Idaho is merely channeling those baser impulses to fulfill a lawful need, and I won't throw stones at, or take names of, anyone who volunteers for it.
This brings to mind Trump's infamous statement, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." When I first heard it, my immediate response wasn't to rend my garments in horror but rather ask, "That should really depend on who he shot, right?"
She's not going free when this is over; it's a question of prison or the psych ward.
Additionally, her suicide attempt left her paralyzed just above the waist. She probably wishes the Commonwealth could put her out of her misery, but it's not in the cards.
ACF doesn't have to worry about the defense "winning".
Men who kill themselves do it because they believe they have no utility, that they are "useless", which is why retirement is so dangerous for a lot of men. Absent a reason to continue struggling and contending, they quit on themselves and the world. Jason Arday was a proven liar, fantasist, and plagiarist. He believed there was no coming back from that and so ended himself.
Women who kill themselves do so for the same reasons they're unfaithful in marriage -- because their emotions have spiraled beyond their own ability to self regulate or talk themselves back into alignment with reality.
Death is a serious thing, I was fascinated by it when young then I watched too many die and decided it's not actually cool like they show in movies, books and so on .
Yes, I do believe the death penalty is useful and important, no I never want to be the person who flips the switch / pulls the trigger / whatever .
Some years back when I was with L.A.P.D.'s Air Support Division I tried circulating a petition to make California's death sentences open to the public, never got a single signature from all those blowhards who, like here bleat endlessly about "kill 'em all" .
The damned thing doesn't even work. My wife an I are in agreement our kids shouldn't take it. Unfortunately, I lose medical access to my kids charts at 12 in illinois*. 12!
*apparently it's everywhere and I can't even move to avoid it.
"The greatest generation" raised the idiot boomers, just like the idiot boomers raised the slacker Millennials, and the slacker Millennials are raising Gen Z. There is bleed-over of course, but every generation of self-absorbed snots told themselves they were giving their kids the life they never had.
This is a spiritual problem, manifesting as societal breakdown.
Actually, Millenial here. Pretty sure we're raising gen Alpha or whatever it's being called now simply because we were told to WAIT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE TO HAVE KIDS. You know, "Because they ruin the fun". What an idiot we were. Should have had kids in my 20s. Jack's right... there is a "too late".
One of the social aspects contained in the early novels of O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is within a discussion concerning the fate of Mrs. Horatio Nelson and whether a character should like to share similar. Nelson had openly moved into the house of an older, moneyed man and borne a child via the fellow's wife. The Victorian attitudes were just another pendulum swing.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton died ninety years ago but, were he here, would surely remind us that in human beings nothing is truly new under the sun.
I'll take a different tack on this. I don't think we see a significant pendulum in human behaviors, we see a change over time in the size of a population that has access to the same news/gossip. Nelson's behavior was an embarrassing scandal that would have ended his career if he had not died at Trafalgar, just as much as the same would end his career in Victorian times or now because that behavior was so public. I would welcome a side discussion on the uniqueness of Nelson, how he operated in a system that allowed his talents to create a career without parallel as a tactical commander. The limited examples we have of him trying to operate strategically indicate he would have been a bumbling idiot given more opportunities.
I also think that there isn't much of a pendulum on "but by the time of Monkey Grip it seems unexceptional for a man to sleep in another room so his girlfriend can entertain a former lover for a night." The only time that has been publicly normalized is now because we now live in a panopticon where everything we do is public to everyone and the size of the population news/gossip is disseminated to is the population of Earth. The recent (within living memory) trend to normalize fetishistic/destructive behavior is a response to that panopticon because taking the list of those behaviors as a whole would ostracize too many people so we must adapt to keep them in society. For the moment let us put aside the fact that this ostracization requires middle class values, and therefore the creation and continuity of a middle class and a preservation of records of what they thought. I think despite it not being well recorded, the behavior of the poors has always been and will always be widely varied and encompass the whole of outrageous behavior.
Did it seem like it was normalized before? Maybe, depending on what you read and how it is presented. One of the wonderful things about biographies is that they are presented as intimate looks at a person's life, in general written by a someone who admires them and read by people who do as well. So let us take an example from the Victorian era of a man sleeping in another room while his wife can entertain a former lover for a night.
This was the common lot of Lord Randolph and his famously promiscuous (in upper class circles of the time and everyone who is interested now) wife. It did not hurt his career because the information was only common knowledge in a small circle, MANY of whom were the beneficiaries of his (on some level coerced) permissiveness. and for that matter depending on which person his wife was getting off with that night it may have also helped his career. Just as interesting we should look at how it affected his son. Would it fuck them up, which is the predicted result for the child Grace in the book that explores that normalization. In the case of Winston Churchill I would suggest it did fuck him up a bit, but also shaped the personality that allowed him to be him. As a way to order a society it is a pretty low percentage shot that you are going to end up with Winstons instead of incels.
Back to the normalization, which again I don't think is happening now or then. I think a better way to describe it is a lessening of the severity of the penalties for behavior that is frowned upon but not illegal. The grace we would extend to people close to us is now being extended farther and farther because of that same panopticon and the way news/gossip is disseminated. It is the only way the world is truly becoming flat.
The real change between the time periods of the novels is the widespread use of hardcore drugs, and just as importantly the ability and willingness of a society to support an entire class of people on them. That is the outrageous behavior. I am still slogging through Fish Tales which is exploring some similar themes. I say slogging through because I find myself having a lot of trouble with the language, probably in the same way that a lot of ACFers had trouble with the jargon in Master and Commander, which I found very familiar. This is a me problem because I am probably putting more effort into trying to understand what Nettie Jones is writing that she put into understanding it herself. It has resulted in some gems like a rabbit hole involving offerings of mid century modern furniture in the Sears catalog.
? Any Baseball enthusiasts here ? . I'm reading "The Brothers K", every page has some sort of Baseball tie in, I don't care for the game but it's a good book so far .
Wow, these books sound hard to read . I dislike (maybe hate) hippies for all the reasons they're hippies, I was there in that time and disliked being forced to live in filth etc. .
Pick & choose wisely indeed .
-Nate
(edited to correct book title) I _REALLY_ hate those greasy, stinky, lazy hippies ! .
Yes, thank you for correcting the title, I have edited .
Not so impressive, I read well and quickly, others "doomscroll", I read, often several books in a day, I'm poorly educated (my own fault) and crave learning, books are a good and pleasurable way to learn .
I mostly use "Little Free Libraries" and return the books to other locations .
FWIW, I always support my local Baseball team. now it's the Los Angeles Dodgers, they didn't win much in Brooklyn so I don't mind them loosing here unlike others .
In general sports have much to offer in life lessons, I'm no good at any sports so I don't follow them much but find the physical aspects of most players fascinating .
How many of the readers of these two books will perceive the social trends that you describe, as opposed to just casual prurient interest? Not that the average citizen will take the time to actually read a book, having their attention span shaved down to less than a minute by the pervasive phones. Your review was thought-provoking and incisive, at least for me. Keep the flame burning!
FAFO! A mental-health ANYTHING doesn’t absolve you of criminal behavior! Your shrink or therapist can’t get you out of jail! This “therapist” should have known that!
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!
To the Perrysburg Police Department’s credit, they’re pretty good, as are the officers in general.
"the Trustee from the Toolroom" has a similar vibe to "the go-between," and while a pulp, it shows what a different world we left behind - it's a vision of the nightmare of doing the right thing
Of course, being partially set in the UK it's also just depicting the nightmare of the UK, surely one of the ghastliest places on earth
Good read. Nevil Shute wrote a lot of good books in the 50's that are really dated today and have rather one dimensional characters. But still worth reading. Other titles off the top of my head are On The Beach, and No Highway.
BTW. When I read him, it struck me that Tom Clancy adopted a similar writing style: spend a few page with a succession of totally unrelated characters and have them cross paths with each other more and more often until the story comes together.
I just happen to be on a work trip. Reading this post in Melbourne at a wine bar on what was once probably a seedy street from the era of that novel. And since I’ve only just arrived a couple hours ago, it’ll probably frame my whole visit.
I'm reading "Summer's End" by some guy named John Van Stry. It's the story of a young man with a troubled past who builds a successful life by rolling with the punches, playing all of his hunches, and making the best of whatever comes his way. It's also a bit of a cautionary tale about where Earth ends up if we continue on our present path: a society of "proles," "doles," and elites. It's a fun read with a logical plot progression and no "Oh, please" moments.
"This behavior, the introduction of random sex-partner men of dimly comprehended provenance into the lives of one’s daughter[s] because one is too lazy to handle the required parenting one’s own self, is the universal hallmark of a completely valueless single-mother whore and I personally despise it the way I despise the abuse of helpless animals."
Cosigned. That describes the last woman I dated before I met 2.0. She wanted to introduce me to her six year old daughter IMMEDIATELY. Huge red flag.
I had a friend who was letting her new boyfriend sleep over with the kids in the house, "but don't worry, I don't come too loudly when the kids can hear," yet wouldn't let the father of said children meet the dude.
Of course, the father was such a pussy he didn't insist on it, so the new boyfriend was giving the girls baths well before the meeting happened, about a month after he moved in.
Thus the eternal pendulum swangs
About the Boer Wars:
Hitler has a lot to answer for. But he and his minions did not invent "Concentration Camps."
England invented Concentration Camps, during the Boer Wars.
The idea was to round up all the wives and children of the Boers, and cram them into horrible enclosures, so they could not work the farms and feed their husbands and fathers who were conducting a Guerilla war against the British.
England admits to perhaps 27,000 deaths, but 100,000 is generally accepted as more realistic. In part because of poor record keeping.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_camps
s - j
YouTube channel "The Great War" did a good series on the 2nd Boer War.
First episode here: https://youtu.be/exVno170qhU
That picture of the young girl on the Wikipedia page? Fuuuuck.
Yeah. It makes me want to set off a nuclear weapon over Buckingham Palace.
It's been dropped, but a bioweapon, not fissile material.
theres no upside to that
and its not just in london
Seems like you’re 100 years late.
Without reading either of the novels, my gut tells me that this — “ Monkey Grip is a story of people who want to be good but aren’t sure how” — is just the story of humanity.
We have always tried and we have always failed to live up to our potential. The idea that there were eras where humanity was better behaved or “good” is foolish.
Drunks and thieves and murderers and adulterers and psychopaths and sycophants and charlatans and child molesters and the monsters that humanity has always carried with us were there just the same in 1900 as they were in 1933 and 1952 and 1975 and 2026.
The only things that change are visibility and access. The people do not.
The left was right. Societies have always had these people and now they just walk in daylight. But what mattered was society's REPONSE to the existence of these people and their lifestyles. Did The Great We encourage or discourage them?
Either way, we're losing sectors of the population to crime and degeneracy. I don't think it matters whether we're hiding it behind closed doors or talking about it in the open. There are always people who will shit in the fountain they play in and there is no saving them.
And we used to jail that lot on a variety of charges that all said, "We actually care about the well-being of our nation."
The number of "Noras" that put their daughters in spots that get them molested/raped/beaten is alarmingly high.
Generation X were the first civilian casualties of the sexual revolution.
Boomers - self-casualties
Friendly-fire or collateral damage?
Collateral damage, I think. We were acceptable losses.
Signed - a guy who had to pour his mother into bed after she came home stoned from "league night" at the bowling alley. I was 11.
Human procreation is a process virtually tailor-made for mass-producing damaged people.
FACTS 📠
I'm in that cohort: I rebelled against the degenerates. Home, wife, kids, and church.
They attempted to raise me to be Hugh Hefner 2.0
Well done sir.
A woman is currently on trial in Plymouth, MA for strangling her three young children.
The defense is pleading insanity by virtue of the post-partum blues.
How does that grab you?
death penalty
next question
Yep, and make it quick.
And it's not even a question of morality so much as a simple cost/benefit equation. She had her chance to function within civilized society, and this was the result. She will never contribute enough to somehow offset murdering her three children. Why force taxpayers to subsidize her existence in jail?
Maybe she can be a famous person who is beloved of leftist e-hoes, like Casey Anthony
She already is! https://xcancel.com/HannahDCox/status/2086438307970371604 (Important "Community note")
Why should "reproductive choice" end at birth?
Abortion legal up to the 27th trimester...
This Hannah person is WILD
Kills three kids "people make mistakes"
Being overly tired and forgetting a kid in the back of the car is a deadly mistake, forgetting to lock the gate and they slip and drown in a pool, is a mistake, changing you clothes at the end of the work day and a kid interupts you when you put your firearm on the table (partially why I don't carry) and forget about it is a mistake
Strangling your children is an act.
Canada is a step ahead with the MAID program
It's too late for "maybe".
I mean she tried. She’s paralyzed now from it.
dont send a woman to do a mans job i guess
Since the defense is angling for N.G.R.I., I assume there's no reasonable doubt as to the woman's guilt.
I stand opposed to the death penalty because I do not trust our government--federal, state, municipal--with the lives of my countrymen, but this is one case where the chair or the needle seems warranted.
Due to issues with injection, firing squads are making a comeback in some states.
The only possible problem I see with that is the guilt felt by the firing squad. It's a damned hard ask for some CO to have to shoot a guy in cold blood. I wonder if there's some valid reason why the judge who passes sentence of death shouldn't perform the execution himself? Hydraulic guillotine with a splatter shield, doctor and two sheriff's deputies or what-have-you present as witnesses.
Not all of the guns are loaded with live rounds. At least one has a blank, so you can pretend that your gun had it.
I've also heard stories of guys checking to Make Sure that the blank Was Not in *their* rifle.
And there are judges who would be happy to do it. And I've known jurists on murder trials who asked if they could be the one that threw the switch, because the evidence was so nasty.
You want to kill some cunt who murdered her kids gen z would line up and bring their own bullets. World seems to be getting fed up with womens bullshit
"some valid reason"
It's right in the names: the US Constitution, which establishes three co-equal branches of government (and state constitutions follow similar principles); JUDGES belong to the JUDICIAL branch, and EXECUTIONS belong to the EXECUTIVE branch.
(Due to the nature of being aboard a vessel, under _maritime_ law, which aviation inherits, the Captain is "judge, jury, and executioner." YouTube evidence indicates that many Spirit Airlines passengers failed to appreciate both this principle and its necessity when sharing a pressurized tube of 1.1mm thick aluminum with 200 other humans at Mach 0.79 in the stratosphere.)
Idaho recently started the selection process for fire squad members, generally, not for a specific execution, and they were overwhelmed with volunteers. I am in favor of the death penalty, and I don't have strong opinions on the method.
The volunteers should be on a watch list.
I mean maybe. What if they were all persons formerly molested, and they were volunteering for convicted pedophiles? That ID law was passed to great fanfare in conjunction with a law that significantly increased the consequences of something to do with harming children, so I think the volunteers were directly related to that.
I for one, would volunteer for that golden state killer pos. If you read what he was doing to whole families? He’s gotta go. Not even about paying, just that it’s time to go.
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2026/jul/1/idaho-will-recruit-law-enforcement-volunteers-for-firing-squad-executions/
Sure, but they aren't volunteering to kill the Golden State Killer, they are volunteering to be on a squad that might be his executioner, and more importantly there is a big difference between all of these things, psychologically.
I think child molesters should be executed --> I think my molester should be executed --> I am volunteering to execute my molester --> I am volunteering to execute a child molester --> I am filling out government paperwork so that I have to opportunity to execute people, some of whom might be child molesters.
You can substitute in that chain any other type of heinous criminal. You still end up with a list of people looking to use violence to fill a personal need.
When justice repeatedly fails, vigilantism increasingly seems a reasonable - even necessary - alternative. Idaho is merely channeling those baser impulses to fulfill a lawful need, and I won't throw stones at, or take names of, anyone who volunteers for it.
This brings to mind Trump's infamous statement, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." When I first heard it, my immediate response wasn't to rend my garments in horror but rather ask, "That should really depend on who he shot, right?"
Would that put me on your watch list, too?
She doesn't dispute the killing.
She's not going free when this is over; it's a question of prison or the psych ward.
Additionally, her suicide attempt left her paralyzed just above the waist. She probably wishes the Commonwealth could put her out of her misery, but it's not in the cards.
ACF doesn't have to worry about the defense "winning".
... and yet there is an online narrative that "the father did it". The mind reels.
Probably because he managed to move on and is already remarried. I doubt most of us would manage that in his shoes.
Good for him. The conspiracy theorists should join her in the psych ward.
"Probably because he managed to move on and is already remarried. I doubt most of us would manage that in his shoes."
Men rarely commit suicide when their children die.
They commit suicide when they lose their jobs.
What that says about us... is unpleasant to examine.
Men who kill themselves do it because they believe they have no utility, that they are "useless", which is why retirement is so dangerous for a lot of men. Absent a reason to continue struggling and contending, they quit on themselves and the world. Jason Arday was a proven liar, fantasist, and plagiarist. He believed there was no coming back from that and so ended himself.
Women who kill themselves do so for the same reasons they're unfaithful in marriage -- because their emotions have spiraled beyond their own ability to self regulate or talk themselves back into alignment with reality.
Men also commit suicide when their wives leave them or cheat on them.
He should move on. Grieve and move on. Wallowing it for the rest of your life isn't going to solve anything.
Women around the country have given her almost $1M and are 'casting spells' to that effect.
It’s a similar group to the ones in Luigi’s corner.
BUT HE'S SO CUTE HE CAN'T BE BAD
We really should start burning witches again. I have 100% changed my mind about the salem witch trials.
I wouldn’t go that far, but I would say that as a nation we should put a pause on Halloween until things calm down again.
My wife is convinced the ex husband did it. Not even the defendant’s own lawyers are proposing that.
Judging by the comments, I'm the only one who got the joke.
Not sure what the 'joke' was .
Death is a serious thing, I was fascinated by it when young then I watched too many die and decided it's not actually cool like they show in movies, books and so on .
Yes, I do believe the death penalty is useful and important, no I never want to be the person who flips the switch / pulls the trigger / whatever .
Some years back when I was with L.A.P.D.'s Air Support Division I tried circulating a petition to make California's death sentences open to the public, never got a single signature from all those blowhards who, like here bleat endlessly about "kill 'em all" .
Most don't really think before they speak .
-Nate
Asking how a strangulation case "grabs you?"
?? .
Elucidate please .
-Nate
Groan
thank the boomers i guess
reading about the destruction and degradation of society is more poignant than any fictional horror book i can think of
Boomers didn’t invent the pill; their parents did
The Boomers weaponized it. The slope from continually pregnant or nursing til menopause to where we are now was slipperier than thought.
? This is a bad thing ? .
Boomers gave you mch more than you'll ever admit .
-Nate
The 'Where we are now' is the bad thing, yes.
I would say of all they've given us are a net negative.
Fairly typical eyes wide shut here .
-Nate
The damned thing doesn't even work. My wife an I are in agreement our kids shouldn't take it. Unfortunately, I lose medical access to my kids charts at 12 in illinois*. 12!
*apparently it's everywhere and I can't even move to avoid it.
who said it was just that
"The greatest generation" raised the idiot boomers, just like the idiot boomers raised the slacker Millennials, and the slacker Millennials are raising Gen Z. There is bleed-over of course, but every generation of self-absorbed snots told themselves they were giving their kids the life they never had.
This is a spiritual problem, manifesting as societal breakdown.
Not all of the Boomers did this .
I never had the $ to give my son endless things, I tried hard to teach him instead to work hard and be honest, mostly I think I've succeeded .
Like me he dislikes any one else carrying his water, he doesn't want to be beholden to anyone for anything .
In many aspects your "self absorbed' comment is true but it's far too broad a stroke IMO .
-Nate
Well, sure it is. There are exceptions to every rule, Nate-- and I'd expect most men here are exceptional.
I'm not for sure .
I'm less than impressed with many of my fellow Americans at this point to be honest .
-Nate
gen x forgotten once again
Is this phenomenon a meme by now? GenX is so often omitted from considerations, that I sometimes feel it's done intentionally for comedic effect.
im not sure if its a meme so much as it seems to be the reality of boomers forgetting gen x exists and everyone else turning that into a joke
Actually, Millenial here. Pretty sure we're raising gen Alpha or whatever it's being called now simply because we were told to WAIT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE TO HAVE KIDS. You know, "Because they ruin the fun". What an idiot we were. Should have had kids in my 20s. Jack's right... there is a "too late".
One of the social aspects contained in the early novels of O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is within a discussion concerning the fate of Mrs. Horatio Nelson and whether a character should like to share similar. Nelson had openly moved into the house of an older, moneyed man and borne a child via the fellow's wife. The Victorian attitudes were just another pendulum swing.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton died ninety years ago but, were he here, would surely remind us that in human beings nothing is truly new under the sun.
Ah, Nelson. What a pig. And yet it's Trafalgar for which we remember him.
I'll take a different tack on this. I don't think we see a significant pendulum in human behaviors, we see a change over time in the size of a population that has access to the same news/gossip. Nelson's behavior was an embarrassing scandal that would have ended his career if he had not died at Trafalgar, just as much as the same would end his career in Victorian times or now because that behavior was so public. I would welcome a side discussion on the uniqueness of Nelson, how he operated in a system that allowed his talents to create a career without parallel as a tactical commander. The limited examples we have of him trying to operate strategically indicate he would have been a bumbling idiot given more opportunities.
I also think that there isn't much of a pendulum on "but by the time of Monkey Grip it seems unexceptional for a man to sleep in another room so his girlfriend can entertain a former lover for a night." The only time that has been publicly normalized is now because we now live in a panopticon where everything we do is public to everyone and the size of the population news/gossip is disseminated to is the population of Earth. The recent (within living memory) trend to normalize fetishistic/destructive behavior is a response to that panopticon because taking the list of those behaviors as a whole would ostracize too many people so we must adapt to keep them in society. For the moment let us put aside the fact that this ostracization requires middle class values, and therefore the creation and continuity of a middle class and a preservation of records of what they thought. I think despite it not being well recorded, the behavior of the poors has always been and will always be widely varied and encompass the whole of outrageous behavior.
Did it seem like it was normalized before? Maybe, depending on what you read and how it is presented. One of the wonderful things about biographies is that they are presented as intimate looks at a person's life, in general written by a someone who admires them and read by people who do as well. So let us take an example from the Victorian era of a man sleeping in another room while his wife can entertain a former lover for a night.
This was the common lot of Lord Randolph and his famously promiscuous (in upper class circles of the time and everyone who is interested now) wife. It did not hurt his career because the information was only common knowledge in a small circle, MANY of whom were the beneficiaries of his (on some level coerced) permissiveness. and for that matter depending on which person his wife was getting off with that night it may have also helped his career. Just as interesting we should look at how it affected his son. Would it fuck them up, which is the predicted result for the child Grace in the book that explores that normalization. In the case of Winston Churchill I would suggest it did fuck him up a bit, but also shaped the personality that allowed him to be him. As a way to order a society it is a pretty low percentage shot that you are going to end up with Winstons instead of incels.
Back to the normalization, which again I don't think is happening now or then. I think a better way to describe it is a lessening of the severity of the penalties for behavior that is frowned upon but not illegal. The grace we would extend to people close to us is now being extended farther and farther because of that same panopticon and the way news/gossip is disseminated. It is the only way the world is truly becoming flat.
The real change between the time periods of the novels is the widespread use of hardcore drugs, and just as importantly the ability and willingness of a society to support an entire class of people on them. That is the outrageous behavior. I am still slogging through Fish Tales which is exploring some similar themes. I say slogging through because I find myself having a lot of trouble with the language, probably in the same way that a lot of ACFers had trouble with the jargon in Master and Commander, which I found very familiar. This is a me problem because I am probably putting more effort into trying to understand what Nettie Jones is writing that she put into understanding it herself. It has resulted in some gems like a rabbit hole involving offerings of mid century modern furniture in the Sears catalog.
https://midcenturymodernfreak.tumblr.com/post/41202443583/sears-1960-fall-catalog-via/amp
? Any Baseball enthusiasts here ? . I'm reading "The Brothers K", every page has some sort of Baseball tie in, I don't care for the game but it's a good book so far .
Wow, these books sound hard to read . I dislike (maybe hate) hippies for all the reasons they're hippies, I was there in that time and disliked being forced to live in filth etc. .
Pick & choose wisely indeed .
-Nate
(edited to correct book title) I _REALLY_ hate those greasy, stinky, lazy hippies ! .
Impressive that you're reading a book about a game you don't even like!
Are you taking about _The Brothers K_ by David James Duncan?
We'll all be reading about the world series champion White Sox in a couple months!
Yes, thank you for correcting the title, I have edited .
Not so impressive, I read well and quickly, others "doomscroll", I read, often several books in a day, I'm poorly educated (my own fault) and crave learning, books are a good and pleasurable way to learn .
I mostly use "Little Free Libraries" and return the books to other locations .
-Nate
I hate golf but love Happy Gilmore and the Hawk?
My dad, uncle and brother are lifelong Yankees fans, but I find baseball fascinating for sociological reasons.
It really IS a game for Jewish accountants.
FWIW, I always support my local Baseball team. now it's the Los Angeles Dodgers, they didn't win much in Brooklyn so I don't mind them loosing here unlike others .
In general sports have much to offer in life lessons, I'm no good at any sports so I don't follow them much but find the physical aspects of most players fascinating .
-Nate
Shohei Ohtani is a BIG DEAL.
? Who ? .
-Nate
Dodgers pitcher and DH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shohei_Ohtani
THANK YOU ! .
See how little I know about my favorite team ? .
-Nate
I'd always wondered what book that line came from, I've heard it quoted many times.
As the late Biggie Smalls said: if you don't know, now ya know!
The Go-Between is significantly more enjoyable when one imagines Julie Christie as Marian.
Very true, Sir! I shall just have to watch it again.
How many of the readers of these two books will perceive the social trends that you describe, as opposed to just casual prurient interest? Not that the average citizen will take the time to actually read a book, having their attention span shaved down to less than a minute by the pervasive phones. Your review was thought-provoking and incisive, at least for me. Keep the flame burning!
"pervasive phones"
Phones, Psychotherapy, & Police in Perrysburg: A Microcosm of Modern Mores: https://youtu.be/iMWESKCWKtw
That’s the town in which I live!
I gotta start binge-watching this channel!
FAFO! A mental-health ANYTHING doesn’t absolve you of criminal behavior! Your shrink or therapist can’t get you out of jail! This “therapist” should have known that!
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!
To the Perrysburg Police Department’s credit, they’re pretty good, as are the officers in general.
Extensive discussion here: https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/wednesday-ort-yuki-returns-fake-poll/comment/318271498
Here's one from Canton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsFrgeWhtIk
"the Trustee from the Toolroom" has a similar vibe to "the go-between," and while a pulp, it shows what a different world we left behind - it's a vision of the nightmare of doing the right thing
Of course, being partially set in the UK it's also just depicting the nightmare of the UK, surely one of the ghastliest places on earth
Good read. Nevil Shute wrote a lot of good books in the 50's that are really dated today and have rather one dimensional characters. But still worth reading. Other titles off the top of my head are On The Beach, and No Highway.
BTW. When I read him, it struck me that Tom Clancy adopted a similar writing style: spend a few page with a succession of totally unrelated characters and have them cross paths with each other more and more often until the story comes together.
Maybe I didn't give him a fair shake, but after Patriot Games I could not take Clancy seriously.
Struck me as masturbatory gun-nut power porn, the male version of Chick Lit almost
"Maybe I didn't give him a fair shake, but after Patriot Games I could not take Clancy seriously."
Wait, there were people who took him seriously to begin with? His first book, although fun to read, was based on playing a nerdy board game!
Steady on, Donkey! It's not THAT bad, although the trajectory isn't great.
I’m so sorry, Peter.
But among free world / first world countries Britain has to be the worst.
If it makes you feel any better, every other country is doing all it can to get caught up as fast as possible.
I just happen to be on a work trip. Reading this post in Melbourne at a wine bar on what was once probably a seedy street from the era of that novel. And since I’ve only just arrived a couple hours ago, it’ll probably frame my whole visit.
GO OUT AND REPORT BACK ON THE SITUATION :)
It’s still seedy and full of heroin addicts, but now with expensive real estate and Palestine flags
God help us!
I'm reading "Summer's End" by some guy named John Van Stry. It's the story of a young man with a troubled past who builds a successful life by rolling with the punches, playing all of his hunches, and making the best of whatever comes his way. It's also a bit of a cautionary tale about where Earth ends up if we continue on our present path: a society of "proles," "doles," and elites. It's a fun read with a logical plot progression and no "Oh, please" moments.
That's the tough part, isn't it? Writing "interesting" without endoing into, "Oh, come on!"
I read that recently - enjoyed it.
THIS is the Jack Baruth I signed up for. Well done, sir.
"This behavior, the introduction of random sex-partner men of dimly comprehended provenance into the lives of one’s daughter[s] because one is too lazy to handle the required parenting one’s own self, is the universal hallmark of a completely valueless single-mother whore and I personally despise it the way I despise the abuse of helpless animals."
Cosigned. That describes the last woman I dated before I met 2.0. She wanted to introduce me to her six year old daughter IMMEDIATELY. Huge red flag.
I had a friend who was letting her new boyfriend sleep over with the kids in the house, "but don't worry, I don't come too loudly when the kids can hear," yet wouldn't let the father of said children meet the dude.
Of course, the father was such a pussy he didn't insist on it, so the new boyfriend was giving the girls baths well before the meeting happened, about a month after he moved in.
If children must have only one parent, it's probably better that it be dad.
Thankfully, the judge at my divorce proceedings thought so too.
objectively true
(cant remember the name of the study)
Jesus.
No kidding! 🤯