Michelle Obama created a bit of a stir at a stop on her book tour last night, speaking about the struggle women face to balance their personal and professional lives:
At Barclays tonight, Michelle Obama said: “It’s not enough to Lean In because that shit doesn’t always work!” Tattoo it on my body!
— Erin Strecker (@ErinStrecker) December 2, 2018
Tell that truth, ma’am. Open thread!
Corner Stone
Sheryl Sandberg is the fucking devil.
Corner Stone
I wish DeShaun would eventually learn to throw the damn ball.
Major Major Major Major
Rock on!
James E Powell
Every day, in every way, I love her more and more.
trollhattan
Audience reaction must have been priceless. Bring the heat, Michelle!
germy
@Corner Stone: No argument there.
eclare
I had coworkers who worshipped that book. I never understood it
Baud
Since I ignore most of the culture, what exactly does Leaning In entail?
JR
@Baud: basically suck it up and work harder. Typical company (wo)man bullshit.
Elizabelle
Yea Michelle.
Truth.
Corner Stone
Throw the fucking ball.
eclare
@Baud: Accepting corporate BS.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
I have not read Sandberg’s book but I believe it describes how hard a rich white woman with a nanny, staff and etc can work if they focus on their career and just believe in “having it all”.
JGabriel
Erin Strecker via Betty Cracker @ Top:
[JGabriel gets popcorn ready. Sets popped kernels on desk. Puts legs on desk, leans back, and settles in, with hand poised over popcorn bowl.]
I’ll be sitting over here waiting for the show to begin – you know, the one where all the conservatives who defended Trump’s ‘Adam Schitt’ insult suddenly clutch the pearls they mysteriously couldn’t find two weeks ago.
Corner Stone
@JGabriel: You mean for her use of the word for poo? Or for dragging Sandberg? Because right now, besides 500 paid lobbyists, I’m not sure anyone in DC is pro-FB or pro-Sandberg.
Mandalay
@Baud:
Thanks for asking. I had no clue what that meant either.
Amir Khalid
Reposted from previous thread, for no real reason:
This Merseyside derby has just had the kind of ending they wouldn’t have dared put in Roy Of The Rovers. Out-of-favour Liverpool striker Divock Origi, recently back from a loan spell in the Bundesliga, heads in a rebound off the crossbar in the 96th minute of injury time: 1-0 to the home side. But then Jürgen Klopp ran onto the pitch to celebrate before the match was over, a violation that could get him a caution or maybe even a fine.
Nicole
@Corner Stone:
That about sums it up. I could not, could NOT, understand the book’s appeal to so many of my friends. I just lectured a (male) friend about not wanting to vote for a politician because she gave him a “queasy” feeling, without him knowing any of the politician’s actual votes, but I confess to having a knee-jerk reaction against Sandberg long before the FB stuff came out. Largely due to that book annoying the crap out of me.
SFAW
@JGabriel:
Oh, cut the crap. I distinctly remember the brows of Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham furrowing ever-so-much-more-deeply over Shitgibbon’s locker-room talk.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Ask Sheryl Faceborg.
debbie
@Baud:
It also means,”Listen.” Because, little girl, there’s always more to learn from us (male superior beings).
C Stars
@Nicole: Yeah, I was living in SF when it came out and a member of an ambitiously botoxed moms group (never did fit in very well there) and everyone around me bought it the day it came out. I skipped the book club meeting for sure. Always, always, from the first I heard about it, thought it was a crock of BS.
And now of course it turns out that Sandberg is exactly the kind of morally bereft backbiting corporate automaton she tried to pretend not to be.
Mnemosyne
The Giant Evil Corporation I work for offers “Lean In Circles,” which are basically mutual support groups for women with similar interests — I belong to one for writers. The national Lean In organization started distancing themselves from Sandburg about a year ago and I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up re-branding themselves entirely.
C Stars
I recently read “The Glitch” by Elisabeth Cohen–a send-up of folks like Sandberg. In fact, the main character is likely modeled on Sandberg. A fun, witty read that accurately skewers so much Silicon Valley bullshit.
(ETA: corrected Silicone to Silicon, but hey, if the shoe fits…)
Joey Maloney
@Baud: Imagine a woodchipper made of condescension and sexual harassment. Now imagine Leaning In to it.
neldob
We can hang it up there with the old chestnut “Work smarter not harder” and “work expands to fill the time allotted”. Seems like we are going back to the 12 hour work days, 6 days a week. When will child labor make a comeback? Probably yesterday.
OldDave
@neldob:
I think I’m already there.
Baud
@Baud:
While I appreciate the responses, I have to admit I remain confused.
Corner Stone
@C Stars:
That’s, ummm…an interesting descriptive.
Ruckus
@Joey Maloney:
That is priceless.
And deserves repetition.
Corner Stone
@Baud: Sheryl Sandberg is a fraud, a fake, a phony, a grifter. Her book Lean In is garbage, hokum, pablum, trash, elevator muzak for simpletons.
NotMax
Long ago concluded that the term “self-help book” is astonishingly on point and accurate.
Once one realizes the self being helped is the author.
C Stars
@Corner Stone: For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why so many of them seemed unable to really smile or express any kind of intense emotion. We all had teeny tiny kiddos and were in our early/mid thirties, so it took me a while to figure out they were already getting injections.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Along the same lines as Silicone Valley.
PJ
@NotMax: As someone remarked ages ago, if just one of these self-help books really worked, there wouldn’t be a whole section of them in the bookstore.
Ruckus
@Corner Stone:
My last comment was supposed to be to you.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
I’d have thought my reference to Trump’s ‘Adam Schitt’ insult made it clear I was referring to the Michelle Obama’s thoroughly appropriate use of the word for poo – ‘shit’ being a perfectly valid and common metaphor for noxious nonsense we should shed¹, whereas Trump’s usage was just puerile fourth-grade level name-calling.
But you just know the same conservative jackasses who defended Trump’s ‘joke’ will come out screaming about the black lady using vulgar language and setting a bad example for the kids.
(¹ See what I did there? Shit @ Wikipedia: “The word may be further traced to Proto-Germanic *skit-, and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *skheid- ‘cut, separate’, the same root believed to have become the word shed.”
Baud
I should write a book titled “Sleep In.”
Mandalay
UpChuck Todd posted perhaps his most vile tweet ever:
Todd pretends to tweet about GHWB, but it’s really a pretext for giving the reviled Cheney an attaboy, and also making it all about himself (“Cheney tells me…”).
A shameless and pathetic lightweight.
Llelldorin
@Baud:
Fundamentally it’s a book by a woman who succeeded in the tech industry that fundamentally assumes:
(a) That success was entirely because of her own personal awesomeness.
(b) Tech doesn’t really have any institutional barriers to women; it’s entirely down to other women failing to be as awesome as the author
It’s basically a female entry into the vast “I succeeded because I’m just that awesome. Here’s advice on being awesome like I am. Please ignore my wealth and other advantages,” class of books.
C Stars
@Baud: I would buy that.
JGabriel
@SFAW:
I was thinking more along the lines of Hannity, Coulter, et. al.
Starfish
@Baud: It means that men are not responsible for women getting ahead in the workplace, it is women who just do not work hard enough and have a husband to foist all the housework onto.
James E Powell
@Llelldorin:
It’s like prosperity gospel without Jesus.
MattF
Sounds like Sandberg’s book is the sort of motivational bullshit that C-level execs preach as part of their jobs. “All you have to do is ignore all other responsibilites and work harder for this organization.”
The only question is why people keep falling for it.
gene108
@MattF:
The pay is good in the C-suite.
NotMax
@a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2018/12/02/someone-had-to-say-it/#comment-7106710″>Baud
These day it has to be, at minimum, a trilogy.
Volume the first: Sleep In.
Volume the second: Pants Optional.
.
Shall leave the final tome to the imagination. Goes without saying it is available only to those who pony up for the Advanced Secrets package.
:)
Llelldorin
@James E Powell:
That’s the best description I’ve read of the genre, kudos.
MattF
@NotMax: By Deepak Chopra. “Drinking Urine for Dummies,”
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Your boys lucked out big-time! Everton deserved a point.
C Stars
@Llelldorin: Exactly. As I understood it the premise was that mothers just weren’t working hard enough and needed to stop being such wimps about leaving their kids with the nannies all the time. Any discussion of the fact that corporate/tech work expectations are untenable for new mothers (or families generally) was a cop-out. So evil.
Another Scott
@MattF: One of our big bosses at work likes to talk about “finding an extra half-hour a day” to get things done.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Meanwhile, in the real world, a colleague just retired and said that her morning commute was 30 minutes when she started at our place but 90 minutes now…
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@NotMax: Doesn’t it have to be, Baud: After Dark ?
Ruckus
@neldob:
And no overtime.
At least when I worked sixty hrs a week on an hourly job the money was better. But if those wealthy business owners get their way OT will be gone. Next step after that is workers comp, then heat and AC. Any thing that “costs” them money that could be slid into their palms has to go. They don’t want to pay for any healthcare either and if we had universal healthcare they wouldn’t want that, with proper healthcare people can work longer and expect wages to reflect that. Always be starting new people at a lower wage, get rid of those who have expectations of more.
It must be something in the ink used in $100 bills that causes them to become raving sociopaths.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Yeah, old folks drive slower. Need more time for the turn signal to stay on.
;)
C Stars
Also: Michelle Obama and Ocasio-Cortez keep saying such fucking charming things. I’m trying not to fall for them, but geez, they’re making it hard.
Timurid
@PJ:
I don’t care about the lawyers. When I’m King, I’ll kill all the motivational speakers.
Ruckus
@C Stars:
I’ll save you the $24.95.
Repeat after me – Don’t get up in the morning.
There. Done.
Starfish
One of the critiques of Sandberg’s book was that it was completely never going to work for single moms, and she apologized to the single moms when her own husband died.
JGabriel
@NotMax:
Volume the third: Lean Back.
MattF
@NotMax: Reminds me of Reverend Jim’s Driver’s Exam. A candidate for the funniest sitcom sketch. Ever.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
The source: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013), by Sheryl Sandberg.
Washington Post review here.
Sister Golden Bear
@James E Powell:
Or prosperity gospel written by CEO Jesuses (or so they think of themselves).
Burnspbesq
@neldob:
“Slackers,” says every lawyer, accountant, and consultant in the world.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, that goal was a fluke: Virgil van Dijk mis-hit his volley and it went looping up in the air. It was going out until Pickford parried it back onto the crossbar, whence it rebounded into play for Origi. It was a cruel turnabout for the Toffees, who had fought like lions and fended off Liverpool’s attack all day. But the three points keep us within sight of Manchester City, and I’m satisfied with that.
C Stars
@Ruckus: Nah, I need to have the $25 glossy hardback in hand to validate it, dontcha know.
Also, I have a 5 and 8 year old who have been waking up at 5am on the dot since daylight savings ended. So sleeping in will have to happen vicariously for me.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
You crazy diamond!
Ruckus
@MattF:
“That’s a tough choice.”
C Stars
@Starfish: Also was clearly really only written for a very specific “type” of woman. She’s not advising housecleaners to lean in…they’re just there to ENABLE the lucky lean-inners (i.e. kids whose parents coughed up Stanford tuition).
Mnemosyne
@Starfish:
That’s pretty much exactly the realization that the Lean In nonprofit that runs the circles came to: women can support each other as much as they want, but if men are still the gatekeepers, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good. That’s why they’re retooling and (I suspect) will end up rebranding, especially now that Sandberg is so toxic.
Corner Stone
Why the F did you wait for 10 seconds to call a timeout, you damn fool.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
I figured you would be. I feel sorry for Everton. They didn’t just “fend off” Liverpool; they were in it the whole way.
Mnemosyne
@Burnspbesq:
You guys are (supposed to be) getting paid the big bucks to work those hours. The captains of industry want the rest of us to work those same hours for $25,000 per year.
A Ghost To Most
“Lean into it” = “Be as fucking greedy as you can”.
Fuck Sandberg. Fuck Zuck. Fuck Fascistbook.
danielx
@Baud:
A Vanity Fair article that may help:
Also too: found out this morning that sliding toward the edge of a second story roof is…unsettling. And landing on that roof on your shoulder with your full weight hurts like a motherfucker.
Barbara
It makes me uneasy to see all the piling on of Sheryl Sandberg. She actually did write a second book in which she acknowledged that many of her assumptions in the first book had been flawed. Among other things she had an incredibly supportive husband, until she didn’t and began to realize how different and special that had made her life.
I can hold Sandberg responsible for her ghastly and sometimes amoral decisions as an officer of Facebook, but I’m sorry if I see this urge to demonize her as more than a little comparable to the vultures that couldn’t stop circling Hillary Clinton. Oh goody, another powerful woman I can tear apart! Misogyny runs really deep in our culture.
MattF
@Barbara: It’s fair to say that she’s not worse than most executives. I guess the unspoken assumption was that she’d be better– but she’s not.
A Ghost To Most
@Burnspbesq:
I did those kind of hours, but salaried aren’t paid by the hour like lawyers are.
Corner Stone
@Barbara: IMO, Sheryl Sandberg is multiple times smarter and more knowledgeable than Zuckerberg. That, to me at least, raises her level of culpability. Not to dismiss the vileness of Zuckerberg. SS put herself out there with a childishly simplistic self-help book that utterly dismissed a majority of the lived experiences of actual women. I’m not going to waste any time or effort on her.
NotMax
@Corner Stone
Yup. The spot behind the three card monte table is gender neutral.
A Ghost To Most
@danielx:
But less than falling off a roof.
BruceFromOhio
@Joey Maloney: This made me laugh, and then laugh some more. Thank you!
Amir Khalid
Per Wikipedia:
Sheryl Sandberg got a lot of sympathy in 2015 when her husband (and fellow Silicon Valley big wheel) David Goldberg died at 47 in a hotel gym. Sympathy and a second bestselling book, Option B. She is a billionaire from cashing in some of her Facebook shares when they went public.
emmy elle
@Corner Stone: So, I have read the book and that’s not what it is. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michelle Obama, and Sheryl Sandberg has exhausted my last fuck to give with all of the Facebook bullshit. But I did like the book, even though I think she is not a very good writer, and I thought that a lot of the criticism of it missed some essential points.
She conveyed that women often take themselves out of the running, “quit before we quit” (for example not wanting to go for partner or promotion or whatever because we might want to have kids some day), turn down opportunities out of either fear of failure or fear of impact on family life, etc. She doesn’t say there there is no discrimination. She does not say suck it up and work harder. She says Don’t take yourself out of the running.
She also presents an article for scalability. Yeah, she’s a multi zillionare, and probably her personal assistant is paid more than I am, and she acknowledges that. But she uses examples at almost every professional income level for subbing out domestic work in order to free up space for career advancement. She covered everything from buying prepared lunches or school lunches for the kids (most professional people can afford that), hiring a person to clean once or twice a month, paying a babysitter or after school care person, so that you can take advantage of an opportunity to serve on a career advancing committee or project, pick up a class or professional development opportunity, go to a conference. She encourages people to consider these as short term investments in long term outcomes. Her goal is to help more women advance in whatever it is they are doing, because it is going to be better for all of us if women are in leadership positions in a wide array of employment sectors.
The book and its thesis are not above criticism (and not just from writing snobs like me who can’t stand it when people who went to elite universities can’t write well), but what most people say it is about is not what it is about.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost To Most: Few lawyers are paid by the hour. Lawyers may bill by the hour, but most are paid a salary.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@C Stars: I have given in to love for FLOTUS. Octavio-Cortez is promising, but it’s the long distance that tests the runner. I was Bernie-curious for a few minutes in 2016 too.
I will say for Octavio-Cortez that she’s fantastic at using new media. Live streaming herself cooking is genius.
A Ghost To Most
@Omnes Omnibus: I stand corrected. Still, probably a much bigger salary than I made as a top-level systems designer and developer, at a time when we were in very short supply. I made a good living, but not lawyer level.
Walker
@Corner Stone:
She also personally ordered Facebook to go after George Soros.
Another Scott
@Barbara: Yes, beating up on women for being women is despicable.
I don’t think that’s happening here in this thread though.
A counterpoint on her second book:
Books are very personal things, of course, and people react differently to them. But incredibly rich and powerful people who decide to become authors have to be willing to take the brickbats no matter their gender. I assume she is.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Sorry, Sandberg gets no sympathy from me either for her self serving book Lean in and its sequel, nor for her actions on the behalf of Faceborg.
That she is a woman does not excuse what she did. I just saw her lying through her teeth on the Snooze Hour segment on FB and elections not that long ago.
MomSense
@Baud:
It doesn’t mean anything.
Mandalay
It’s interesting to do a Google Search for Sandberg, but limit it to articles written for the 6 months after the death of her husband. The articles and their comments were overwhelmingly fawning, sympathetic, supportive and admiring.
Yet even back then, a few more cynical posters were linking to other non-mainstream articles showing that she wasn’t all she pretended to be. There was dirt on her, but the mainstream media didn’t want to know.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost To Most: Again, not necessarily. Most lawyers don’t work for BigLaw firms.
C Stars
@Barbara: I understand what you’re saying, and you’re probably right, but it felt to me for a long time that criticism of her or her ideas was actually not permitted because she is a successful woman. This thread is actually the first time I’ve openly articulated how repulsed I was by what she stood/stands for. She had the opportunity to use her voice to help women out–all women–and instead she used it to perpetuate and hold up the same old system that is not healthy for women or families.
Imho, of course…
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
And I worked hours way over 70 every week for years as a lawyer being paid shit salary. Public defender — best job I ever had and I felt so rich because no time to spend what meager amount I got and no family or dependants other than my cat, Raymundo Bocanegra.
NotMax
@MomSense
If it is devoid of that swing.
“Great tune but the lyrics still need some tweaking, Duke.”
:)
MomSense
@NotMax:
It don’t mean a thing
It’s devoid of that swing
Du wop du wop du wop du wop du wop du wop
C Stars
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Same. Until I realized he was a (willing) cult figure.
I’ve had the same concerns about Ocasio-Cortez, but I’ve been following her Twitter feed this week, and, per the vernacular, I’m stanning.
The simple act of informing everyone that her healthcare coverage as a member of congress was going to be so much better and cheaper than her options as a struggling hospitality worker, and how little sense that makes… I mean, it’s so simple and so genius at the same time.
B.B.A.
I’m waiting for Sandberg’s ghostwriter, the utterly brilliant Nell Scovell, to turn on her and spill the dirt Tony Schwartz style.
I get it if Scovell doesn’t – the book probably brought her much more money than her residuals from Sabrina ever will – but that didn’t stop Schwartz.
MomSense
@NotMax:
What were the names of the series you recommended for those of us who love The Detectorists?
Barbara
@Another Scott: The Vanity Fair article puts her actions in the context of HBS, and I agree eith much of its critique: HBS graduates don’t start from the premise of qualifying financial success by consistency with values. They are amoral, and that’s why they make so many poor decisions when their companies face crises. They have no clarity around the concept of harm and see everything as simply a management issue. For Facebook this problem seems to have devolved into a kind of schizophrenia, in that they see themselves as benefiting users but the only way they can extract value is by selling user data in increasingly aggressive and deceptive ways. Their refusal to accept a lower bottom line in deference to their users is a choice they make every day. I don’t see that as being related in any way whatsoever to what kind of advice Sandberg is offering to other women. I didn’t buy her books but I do see how women sandbag themselves every day in the workplace. It is not the only reason and maybe not the primary reason so many don’t achieve what they aspire to but it’s in the mix.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: You don’t get what I am saying. It is the mixing of “Lean In” with her role in the Facebook fiasco that bothers me. I am not offering up sympathy but it is obvious that many people who hated the books are all too willing to hold her especially responsible for Facebook’s perfidy.
NotMax
@MomSense
Here ya go.
Ruckus
@C Stars:
I’m semi retired, have no family or kids, who would be grown anyway with their own lives, so it’s easy for me on my non work days.
Get up at the crack of no alarm, when I don’t feel like sleeping any longer. I worked 60 or more hrs a week for decades, after that I worked way past full time in professional sports – which meant I had to attend events – which are all on week ends of course…. The only time I worked less than 40 hrs a week from when I was 17 till President Obama was in office was the year after the recession destroyed my retail business. I’m going to enjoy my retirement until I run completely out of money and I have to sleep in the park. Then I’m just going to hate the rainy days.
Immanentize
@NotMax: You don’t get very much sleep, do you? Is it raining there? Lawn mower or machete?
MomSense
@NotMax:
???
Immanentize
@Ruckus:
My dear Uncle, who recently died was wonderful about death throughout his life. When we drove past a cemetary with him, he would always say, “nice rock garden.”. But the best most useful advice he ever gave by way of his own humor was:
“Ever see a hearse pulling a U-haul?”
You are living with my uncle’s attitude as I try to (after taking care of the Immp).
schrodingers_cat
OT question
When (which month) do most high school students take the SAT , how many times does the average student take the SAT
debbie
@Barbara:
I don’t demonize her. I just call her philosophy the entitled pile of crap that it is.
prostratedragon
It don’t mean a thing
If it’s lacking a certain je ne sais quoit.
—Peter Schickele
prostratedragon
‘quoi,’ that is.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: I did not read the books. To me Lean in blends with the rest of her personality, as that of a liar who will say whatever it is that you want to hear, to push her agenda on behalf of her own personal brand and that of FB. I don’t like people who lie to my face. Even if they do it by smiling pleasantly. David Brooks is another example of this.
Llelldorin
@Barbara: She is the COO of the company, and has been so for more than a decade. She led the original effort that made Facebook profitable in the first place. As soon as blame spreads beyond Zuckerberg himself, it pretty much has to spread to her.
Yes, it’s questionable if it does so here when it wouldn’t for some male executives, but my problem is with the latter, not the former.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Suffice it to say that as the years have passed, sleep and I, unbidden, have developed a long distance relationship.
Partly cloudy outside at the moment. Only 10 a.m. – too early on a Sunday to fire up the mower, out of consideration for the neighbors. Will wait until noon or shortly after and see what the weather is – gives the ground some more time to firm up after yesterday, too. If it is too spongy I’ll tackle only the streetside berm (pavement to the tall retaining wall for the rest of the property); that normally takes a half hour all on its own – it’s wide.
oldgold
A lawyer dies and goes to Heaven.
“There must be some mistake,” the lawyer argues. “I’m too young to die. I’m only fifty five!”
“Fifty five?” says Saint Peter. “No, according to our calculations, you’re eighty two.”
“How’d you get that?” the lawyer asks.
St. Peter says, “We added up your time sheets.”
Actually, time is just one factor, among many, that attorneys use in calculating their fee.
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone: @Mandalay:
Corner Stone nailed it.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
The SAT is usually taken by high school juniors in their last semester or in the summer between junior and Sr year. Most every student in the US takes the PSAT in the fall of their junior year. This is the test that sorts for National Merit Scholars.
I think most students only take the SATs once, but a very high percentage who are college bound and competitive take the SAT two or more times. Colleges now “super score” the SAT which means they take the highest score on each section no matter how many times you take it (in my day, colleges averaged multiple SATs).
There is also the ACT which tests slightly different things than the SAT. Almost every college now accepts either. The smart play seems to be take an early SAT and ACT, determine which one better suits you and then take that one a second time. Colleges super score the ACT too….
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
If the initial reports are true that Sandberg personally asked her Facebook staff to investigate and demonize George Soros in anti-Semitic ways to disguise the fact that she was playing footsie with white supremacists to enrich herself and Facebook, she deserves every bit of the bashing she’s getting. I don’t make excuses for anyone who pals around with Nazis.
SFAW
@JGabriel:
My mistake. I assumed when you wrote “conservatives,” you were not using it as a proxy for “Right Wing Asshole Motherfuckers.”
trollhattan
@Immanentize:
Love that! (could also see it as a quick cutaway in a Farrelly brothers’ movie)
oatler.
“Lean in” always bugged this old fart, sort of like the “clap back” meme which thankfully seems to have came and went. Also, MSNBC’s “Lean Forward” slogan (since changed to “Lean Republican”).
Ruckus
@Immanentize:
Smart uncle.
I don’t know if it’s because of my age or the people I’ve met over the decades who seemed to be calm in the face of what I’ll call shitty lives or because of all the time I’ve put in working, but as I’ve arrived where I am now relaxing and not really giving a shit about the little future I probably have as an old, living is calmer, easier and I like that. What isn’t is that younger folks seem to be on this endless merry go round that only has one speed, fast and loud. And that is very easy to fall off of for reasons that they most often don’t have any say over. Which really is life, you go along or you fight back but in the end, does it really make a lot of difference? Greed doesn’t seem to be a problem, greedy people rarely get their just, like saints rarely get theirs. I’m just trying to survive as best as I can, which is to be less enraged about things I can’t do anything about and engaged about things I can help with.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
As Immanentize said, it’s variable how many times a student takes the SAT, because different students may have different motives for doing it. In Florida, you can get cheap or free tuition at a state university depending on the combination of your high school grades and SAT score, so the daughter of my brother’s girlfriend took it like 4 times to make sure her score qualified her for free tuition.
trollhattan
@oatler.:
“Lean Republican”
Like Trump? “People are saying I’m in great shape, the healthiest president in history. I take good care of myself and I think it’s obvious.”
Ruckus
@SFAW:
There’s a difference?
Must be a rather small one if it’s even measurable.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
Back in the late 1980s, I did really well on the ACT because it primarily tested reading comprehension — you could get a good score on the much-vaunted science portion just by reading the questions and examples carefully. I never even took the SAT, because my terrible math scores would have dragged the overall score down too much.
When I took the GRE for graduate school, I studied my butt off for the math portion and was thrilled that I managed to score in the 50th percentile. ?
NotMax
@trollhattan
If the shape you’ve chosen is an egg.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: @schrodingers_cat:
Also, the SAT now has subject matter tests besides the omni-test. In the end, my son took one SAT, two ACTs, and the calculus B and physics subject matter tests. Schools don’t generally require SATsubject matter tests, but some do and quite a few “recommend” (read require) them for certain majors. Of which, I can say with authority, Computer science/engineering is one.
Then, there are the AP exams…. We are really asking too much of our kids seeking a spot in higher education.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I never bothered with the ACT because the SAT was the qualifier for National Merit Scholarships and there was not reason to take both tests.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: The Immp thankfully got his Mom’s brains and test taking chops. It is kinda sad how much rests on these tests — which are as much about skill at test taking as they are about knowledge. The Immp ended up doing better on the ACT, even though math is his strength. Go figure!
C Stars
@Ruckus: Yeah, you are beholden to nothing and no one. Other than the rain.
I am lucky now in the sense that I (or my family) make my schedule–I’m not beholden to put in 40-60 hours per week of non-domestic labor (although in my 20s and early 30s I certainly did). And while I complain about my kids, I also try to enjoy waking up to their cold little noses on my cheeks at five in the morning, because I know in a few years that’ll all be over for the rest of forever. I’ll have time to sleep in, eventually.
I hope.
Steve in the ATL
@Timurid: I’m adding you to our Christmas card list!
Immanentize
@C Stars: Enjoy their little selves. You might have to remind them how truly sweet they once were?
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: What I read is that she definitely authorized investigating whether Soros had a financial motive for publicly criticizing FB. That doesn’t bug me, i.e., if he had a short position in the stock that would provide context for his statements. When that investigation didn’t turn up anything FB (no one is taking responsibility) nonetheless went after him in a PR campaign. That was despicable.
They, and I mean everyone at FB, just don’t want to internalize the fact that their business model is inherently destructive of true social networks. They could be better but then they wouldn’t have as much money.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Ditto. NY also had/has the Regents Exams.
rsginsf
There was always this weird thing about the title of that book, that it’s what the old-age classic Hollywood starlets did to show their cleavage: they ‘leaned in’ to the photograph. I could never quite shake that image when I saw the book title.
SFAW
@Barbara:
Which raises the question/point: Her (purportedly) amoral actions helped Facebook in its drive (so to speak) to be the go-to resource for the anti-Dem/anti-Hillary/pro-Trump populace. Those actions may have helped her “lean in” and succeed in the male-dominated corporate landscape. Or perhaps she had already succeeded before allowing her amoral freak flag to fly. Either way, it seems as if her moral standing from which to opine on how women can “succeed” might be compromised.
“The Art of the Deal” was popular for a time, too.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
The PSAT is the NMS qualifier (the SAT comes after). I guess you are saying you were a NMS? Congrats! My wife was too. The Immp would have made it too if he had lived in 44 other states rather than Mass. Each state has it’s own cut off numbers….
Immanentize
@NotMax: The Regents scholarship paid for half my tuition at SUNY Binghamton. God bless New York!
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: @Immanentize: Thanks.
Do you guys happen to know if there is a particular time of the year that students prefer to take the SAT or the ACT.
Ruckus
@C Stars:
And that is it in a nutshell. I’ve never had the time before now. I’m going to enjoy it while I can sleep and before my health wakes me up in the middle of the night, scared and sweating. Which comes just before waking up screaming. Don’t know why that happens for some folks but it does. It’s guilt or terror or both I’d imagine.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: I think I got close to a perfect score on the math portion of the GRE.
JaySinWA
@rsginsf: And I thought the silicone valley was a cleavage reference.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
They are given all year long. Check out the College Board’s website for offerings. Most kids take the SAT or ACT in May or June after their junior year, but some take it earlier (the Immp took his SAT tryout in December of the Junior year — just over a month after the PSAT on the theory the two tests are quite similar)
SFAW
@Ruckus:
There are still some conservatives out there (Larison, Bruce Bartlett, possibly JRubs, but I’ll withhold judgment until after Shitgibbon is gone). They have been drowned out by the shrieking of the RWAs/RWMFs. I don’t think there’s any person who would honestly call Hannity or Coulter a “conservative.” “Right-wing,” perhaps.
Barbara
@SFAW: Sorry, I don’t buy that. Counterfactuals are inherently lazy. Facebook has been telling itself a fantasy story about its potential to improve the world that it sells out every day by allowing anyone to use data, basically. Sandberg bears responsibility commensurate with her stature and the decisions she was actually respondible for, along with a lot of other people. That should be enough without piling on her especially because she is female.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
Their amorality is not about wanting to make money, even scads of money. It’s about how they went/go about it. And her books are a part of that amorality. She’s trying to explain both how to be that way and that it’s good. That’s why people are criticizing her. It’s not wrong to work hard, it is wrong to be a hard working thief. She’s as responsible as Z is in this regard.
Schlemazel
@Timurid:
If you have a cabal I will happily throw my lot in. I like your stated objective
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: The subject matter exams were called SAT II mumble-mumble years ago. I got a 790 on one of them which pissed me off to no end, because I figured I’d just missed one question, and I didn’t know which one. I’d rather have gotten a 770 or something.
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: PSAT and SAT are quite similar. There is a significant overlap in their syllabus. I have looked at College Board’s website and downloaded the tests etc. Thanks for all the info. I appreciate it.
I was helping a friend’s son when he was working on his SAT and was in general dissatisfied with the prep materials for math. There is a lot of material out there both free and paid but no course that puts it all in context and gives it a logical structure.
So I set out to construct a math review course for the math portion of the SAT using materials that College Board puts out. I am trying to figure what potential this course as a business idea. As in whether there is market for this product.
Gin & Tonic
@JaySinWA: Ah, another Russ Meyer fan.
Steve in the ATL
Sandberg, like almost all Silicon Valley titans, is a horrible human being, and her horribleness has nothing to do with her being female.
Of course, I am apparently a lazy misogynist because I don’t like yoko ono’s singing.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: That’s fantastic! But I totally get the “missed it by that much!” feeling. Colleges love to brag about the number of National Merit Scholars and number of perfect score getters they admit.
danielx
@A Ghost To Most:
This is true. While I was making like a crab and dragging my ass back up to dry shingles* I was thinking that the risk/reward ratio for gutter cleaning is pretty clear, and why the hell am I doing this instead of paying somebody who has long ladders and shit?
*While dragging the leaf blower I was using to clean gutters behind me, mind – couldn’t leave it up there.
?BillinGlendaleCA
OT: I spent yesterday on a fashion shoot out in the desert. It was cold and windy, more for the model than us. I shot over 1000 shots, here’s one of the IR shots. Tonight’s the Chinese Lantern Festival at Fairplex.
NotMax
Suppose someone has to make mention of this:
Fox, ‘Cosmos’ Producers Investigate Sexual Misconduct Claims Against Host Neil deGrasse Tyson
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
YouTube a version/lecture about it and then sell materials for the YouTube part 2. Push marketing they call that, I think. Offer the freebie to sell the product.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL:
I think that means you don’t as of yet qualify for a hearing aid.
Omnes Omnibus
@Immanentize: PSAT is used to select semifinalists, but it then puts you in the SAT orbit.
Immanentize
@NotMax: This has just made me very sad. NDT is a bit full of himself, but I never imagined he would be a harraser. Seems anti-science somehow. Anyway, I saw today at Huffpo that he denies it FWTW. Hard to find heroes these days.
Barbara
@Ruckus: Yeah, that is my point. They were willing to do bad things so they would have more money. It is not the money, it is how they got it. Feeling like you didn’t actually read what I wrote but were predisposed to disagree. Signing off.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus:
And that, sir, has long been the College Board’s business plan.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
As Imm said, it’s usually during the summer between junior and senior year of high school. Do you need an actual age, like 17?
I got a near-perfect score on the English portion of my GRE, but since I was taking it to get an MFA in screenwriting, it would have been really embarrassing if I didn’t. ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
I missed the cut-off to be a NMS because I suck so badly at math. Oh well. I always planned to go into the arts anyway, so it’s not like I missed out on a lifelong dream of being an engineer.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss me love? Not even?
danielx
@Steve in the ATL:
You mean people actually call it singing, what she does?
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Very cool!
There are myriad IR conversion options–which is yours?
Anotherlurker
@Immanentize: I LOVED THE SUNY system. SUNY Binghampton, ’76.
Immanentize
@Anotherlurker: Me too! ’81. I was a townie.
MomSense
Speaking of tests, my kid passed his FINRA Series 6 and is going to take the Series 7 soon. I think it means he is now licensed to operate on the dark side.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
I should have shared the link: Kiss Kiss Kiss. It is really a great punk song off of Double Fantasy.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: No, I don’t need the age of the students, if I do launch a product then I want to do it when more people will be searching and looking SAT math products. So I was trying to figure out what would be a good time to do this, so need the time of the year when interest in SAT math is high.
Tiger parents among my friends have expressed interest.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: I had the hot mirror in the camera replaced with optical glass and use filters on the lens.
Thanks, glad you liked it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: Song is good, the “singing”, not so much.
Immanentize
@MomSense: FINRA is certainly the dark side! My program got FINRA funding to help small investors cheated by brokers. FINRA had to do this as part of a settlement in NY. As soon as they could, they cut funding to all such programs because it seems some old people who were cheated were actually winning claims!
Just tell your son, “No CHURNING!”
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: I know the song.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: and BiG has my proxy on it
JanieM
@Immanentize:
(my emphasis)
The SAT has had subject matter tests at least since 1967-68, when I took several. They were called the “Achievement Tests” then. By the time my kids took them 35 years later, their name had changed to the “SAT II.” Now they’re the SAT Subject Tests. SSDD.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: then how’s he going to get rich?!
Corner Stone
@Barbara:
What you wrote in this thread does not seem to comport with anything others have commented on.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But I don’t think the song would work without her singing. It so prefigured Cibo Matto who I love.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Merci. IIUC that’s the most-flexible setup, just requires a filter suite to vary the results.
I’m eyeballing an unused camera for conversion. When it gets back home it will be Christian, not-gay and infrared-curious!
Ruckus
@Barbara:
I read what you wrote. You defended her in several comments. Your right to do so but you also commented on others right to do the opposite. As you are doing now. Most of us are at least trying to make the opposite side and explaining why. She’s joining the club, not trying to be better. Being a women is not part of that. It’s what she’s done. You aren’t even seemingly arguing that except for your comment that she deserves better because she’s a woman. She really doesn’t. The women who do try harder never seem to get the accolades but one who actually joins the shitty men deserves them? That’s the direction of your comments and I’d bet I’m not the only person who sees it that way, not from the comments I’ve seen here.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
By selling “hot take can’t lose new stocks,” of course.
eemom
@Barbara:
Happens a lot around here.
trollhattan
@JanieM:
Yup, my kid already took one SAT achievement test and doesn’t take the full SAT until next year. There are a lot of them. Took the PSAT a second time to try and qualify for NMS, but no result yet. After the first time we were inundated with college recruitment mail and it hasn’t stopped. It’s like the election, only the election was never held.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: I think many other less bad but still bad singers could have pulled it off. Siouxsie Sioux, for example.
NotMax
@MomSense
Made me remember the big laugh from the audience during the stage production of You Can’t Take It with You starring James Earl Jones, when he came to the line “He’s a Russian. They’re inclined to go to the (pause to rev up full Darth Vader timbre) dark side.”
Steve in the ATL
@eemom: here? You mean everywhere!
Barbara
@Ruckus: I wasn’t defending her. Not at all. I am asking people to differentiate their criticism of her based on her decisions as a FB executive from their disdain for her advice to women on success in business. I see a lot of people giving Sandberg undue blame for an inherently deceptive business model because they don’t like her advice to women. As if Mark Zuckerberg is her toddler child as opposed to, you know, her boss.
oldgold
@trollhattan:
ACT and SAT sell the PII of the test takers
Corner Stone
@Barbara:
That is dismissing her agency. She made the decision to attack Soros as an enemy. And then lied about it, repeatedly.
JanieM
@schrodingers_cat: Sal Khan started small and now has an empire:
I’m curious as to whether your friend’s son tried Khan Academy and was unhappy with their stuff.
Anyhow, good luck!
Yarrow
@Barbara:
Without Facebook Sanders doesn’t get to write the book. If she were the COO of some tech company no one had ever heard of then she wouldn’t have been given the book contract. Her book was made possible by her role in Facebook.
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree with all of this. I’ve never trusted her. Even back when Facebook was the new big thing, they’d send her out to be the nice face to sell the latest abomination that Facebook was rolling out. I’ll never forget her being all nicey-nice when the interviewer asked her about some Facebook change that made previously private info would public–without notice to users. “We think sharing more is good!” she responded with her patented combination of almost-chirpiness and meant-to-be-soothing concern. It was a big FU to users and their safety and she was in on it from the start.
I do not mean to leave Zuckerberg out of it. He’s as guilty as the rest of them and as CEO the responsibility stops at his desk. Facebook took plenty of Russian money so there’s a lot more yet to come out about them. Traitors.
trollhattan
@JanieM:
My kid isn’t a fan, I guess because it hasn’t patched any meaningful holes in her knowledge or understanding. Teachers sometimes assign lessons hosted there.
That’s just one kid’s opinion (of many, many opinions) so I’m neither recommending or warning off anybody who wishes to give it a go.
JanieM
@trollhattan:
LOL. I still get junk mail from charities I gave to once 30+ years ago, and now and then right-wing vileness because I was a homeschooling parent decades ago. I’d be curious to know whether the colleges actually stop sending stuff in response to the standardized tests in a year or two. Kids actually do get out of high school, right?
SFAW
@Barbara:
To which “counterfactuals” are you referring?
Not clear that that has been the case here.
schrodingers_cat
@JanieM: Khan academy’s stuff is pretty good, if you know what you are looking for. Most high school students don’t. The information is out there, but what I am trying to do is give it structure and context, so that students can better their problem solving skills.
JanieM
@trollhattan:
Rolling my eyes.
trollhattan
@JanieM:
I’m counting on both of these happening.
Omnes Omnibus
As long as one has a basic knowledge of the subject matter, all that any of these tests measure is one’s ability to do will on standardized tests.
JGabriel
@SFAW:
I tend to use words the way they’re used in typical present-day discourse – so, yes, of course I see ‘Conservative’ as synonymous with ‘Right Wing Asshole Motherfuckers’.
And since conservatives have, all my life, been hell-bent on turning ‘Liberal’ into a smear, I have no compunctions about associating the word ‘Conservative’ with the basest and farthest right, white-supremacist, neo-fascist, political movements in the country – after all, conservatives have been doing that themselves for decades.
Language changes. Words shift meanings. At one time ‘Awful’ was used in much the same way, and meant much the same thing, as ‘Awesome’ does today.
For instance, the Republican Party has marketed itself as the conservative party since Taft. The press and media have largely gone along with that assessment, treating and writing about the GOP as a ‘Conservative’ party.
Now, I’m in my mid-50’s – the Republican presidents who’ve been elected in my lifetime are: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, GHW Bush, GW Bush, and Donald Trump.
Right Wing Asshole Motherfuckers, all of them.
So, given press and media usage, and the leaders that Republicans – the self-described party of conservatives – elect, I ask:
Why should I, or anyone born after 1960, think that the contemporary definition of ‘Conservative’ is anything but ‘Right Wing Asshole Motherfuckers’?
Did ‘Conservative’ used to mean something different? I know there are people who still think of ‘Conservative’ as meaning something like the politics of Eisenhower, but I was born after Eisenhower left office. It’s never been used that way in my lifetime – except in a historical context about politicians who left office before I was born, like Edmund Burke or, well, Dwight Eisenhower.
And I’m not going to grant Republicans the fiction of using the word ‘Conservative’ in the flattering way that they’d like; not when even they themselves haven’t used it that way for over half a century.
So, please, stop trying to defend an old and outdated concept/definition of ‘Conservative’. That linguistic tug of war was over when the GOP nominated Goldwater and elected Nixon.
JanieM
@Omnes Omnibus: Seconded.
And though good test scores do have the benefit of helping open doors to more selective colleges, and therefore maybe to better jobs in the end, in my experience their glorification also gives kids (including me, back in the day) a very skewed notion of what it takes to do well in the big wide world of adulthood. I could have sacrificed a few math classes (I mostly taught myself math anyhow) for some classes in communication, the politics of daily life (and academic departments and offices), conflict resolution — all the really hard stuff.
eemom
@Steve in the ATL:
Yeah, but one might, theoretically, expect better from this crowd.
trollhattan
My kid just had a phone chat with the Oberlin soccer coach. Any jackal opinions on the school?
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: lol!!!
eemom
@JGabriel:
As I see it, though, for we decent people to use the word “conservative” to describe RWAMofos is buying into their bullshit decades long co-optation of that poor word to conceal their filthy agenda, which is radical, the very opposite of conservative. Similar to using the term “pro life” to describe antiabortion fanatics. It drive me fucking CRAZY when people do that.
What you seem to be saying is that the RWAMofos have succeeded in changing the definition of the word “conservative”. While I get the whole “living language” thing, I absolutely reject it in this context. I never refer to them as “conservative” without quote marks, and I generally try to stick with more accurate terms like yours.
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
I for one think that conservatives have stood for has always been the same thing. That they alone are the only way to succeed and that success is based upon them having all the money. You can narrow that to this country if you wish but if you go back in history I believe that you will find that conservatism, as we are discussing it here has always been the same. The language has changed, but the actual politics hasn’t. The shitgibbon is no different, he’s just far more obnoxious. Which at least has shown more people what conservatism is all about.
And I don’t think that when you were born has anything to do with it. Ike was good because his training and general outlook put him as a far more middle of the road conservative than what we’ve seen since. And his military/war experience left him with a somewhat more centrist version of warfare than say LBJ (fuck him, among others) Ike also had a citizenry that was not all that warm to another war and Korea.
Immanentize
@trollhattan: Very good midwestern small and groovy liberal arts school.
A Ghost To Most
Exactly. Nothing conservative about them. They are revanchists, at best. Malignant cancervatives.
immanentize
@trollhattan: My son was wisely advise to check the “do not share my information” box on all his tests and when using portals. I expected to be buried by college crap, but the only places we received anything from are those he signed up for at college fairs or because of campus tours. I have been very pleased. He is a hidden prospect which is what he wanted to be.
Barbara
@SFAW: Almost as soon as Sandberg wrote that book people pushed back, in some cases hard. The reason why we are kicking her so hard now is that she is down because of other reasons. So feeling a little disappointed in Michelle Obama.
The problem with most books of this ilk, including hers, is that it is as if they were teaching ballroom dancing by giving instructions only to women, and refusing to recognize the role of the other person in the dance. So as far as it goes, these books can be useful in helping women avoid self-sabotage in the workplace, which does happen. They are comically incomplete, however, and a lot of people pointed that out years ago with regard to Sandberg. So why go after her now for something that was done and dusted years ago?
The counterfactual is the assumption she would not have been as successful if her advice to FB had been more ethical. We will never know.
immanentize
@trollhattan: Very good, mid-western, small, high quality, groovy liberal arts school.
Barbara
@trollhattan: Best known for its esteemed music department, probably among the top 10 and likely the best for a school of its size.
eemom
@trollhattan:
By all accounts I’ve ever heard Oberlin is a great school.
At least back in my ancient day, it also had something of a hip vibe.
eemom
@Barbara:
My high school bestie graduated from the Conservatory!
AND, in about as weirdly small of a world as it gets, a lesbian couple who live down the street from me here in Vienna were her classmates.
JGabriel
Close. The point of view I’m coming from is that the right has succeeded in hiding their increasing extremity under an outdated, co-opted, definition of conservative; and that we have to change our conception of conservative – change the definition of ‘Conservative’ – to match the actions and ideology of the people who today describe themselves as ‘Conservatives.’
To match how it’s actually used, instead of how they want people to remember it being used.
In other words, I’m saying we’re not going to make any progress against the GOP, the Far Right, and Conservatives – or ‘Conservatives’ if you prefer – until the label ‘Conservative’ is just as toxic as ‘Nazi’.
I think a portion of millennials have already absorbed that understanding just from common usage already. And I think, after 58 years of rightward ideological acceleration among self-described conservatives, it’s time for all of us to be asking ourselves the same question I posed above, slightly more generalized this time:
Why should any of us think that the contemporary definition of ‘Conservative’ is anything but ‘Right Wing Asshole Motherfuckers’?
I mean that seriously: Why? What do older, more benign, concepts of ‘conservative’ represent that is worth preserving in modern thinking about conservatism?
Are we preserving the idea of moderate conservatism? We already have a word for that: ‘moderation’. A word and concept, by the way, which modern conservatives reject.
As far as I can see, the only thing that actually gets preserved when we try to hold on to an older concept of ‘conservatism’ is the nostalgia for a moderate conservatism (that I suspect never really existed, and is an oxymoron in today’s usage anyway), which modern conservatives use as a cloak – i.e., an outward facing cloak of moderate nostalgia used as propaganda to hide the extremism of their views and their rejection of moderation.
So, again: What do older, more benign, concepts of ‘conservative’ represent that is worth preserving in modern thinking about conservatism? Anything? Convince me.
eemom
@JGabriel:
Again, the analogy to “pro life”. The word they use to describe themselves highlights their hypocrisy.
Also, the true meaning of the word “conservative” extends beyond the political; so are we going to write the word out of the language to accommodate their theft of it?
JGabriel
@Ruckus:
I agree, as you can probably surmise from my latest comment. But you and I aren’t the people who need convincing. There are a number of people, even here in this liberal bailiwick run by a former self-described conservative, who still think conservative means, or used to mean, something more … moderate.
Again, I agree. Ike was a moderate, not a conservative. But the language even you use makes my point. I call Ike a moderate; you call Ike a middle of the road conservative. I think there’s a nostalgia to that latter description of Ike – “middle of the road conservative” – that today’s Republicans use for propaganda. They try to sell their conservatism with the nostalgia of a “middle of the road” association, while rejecting all moderation.
And – this is where we disagree – I do think when we were born may have something to do with it (though I’m willing to admit to possibly being wrong on that point). I’m too young to have any memory of Eisenhower as president, which means I have no nostalgia for him. And more importantly in the context of this discussion, I have no nostalgic Eisenhower-era correlation of conservatism with moderation.
trollhattan
@immanentize: @eemom: @eemom:
Thank you all! I will share.
Took it as a good sign the woman made an effort to note that while it is in a red state the school is rather blue-leaning. After my kid replied “That’s okay” she commented “some perspective students are…surprised.”
We live in weird times.
JGabriel
@eemom:
I don’t see that general usage of the word ‘social’ has suffered from ‘Socialism’ being a derivation. I think the English language is capable of accommodating the same word having different uses in different contexts.
Also, I think you’re avoiding the specific question by extending the domain. I asked:
Expanding the question to all uses of the word ‘conservative’ is avoiding the specific political content of the question. (And I’m pretty sure you know that, and that you were hoping I wouldn’t notice. Or maybe you were hoping I would. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ )
Barbara
@trollhattan: Rather blue leaning would be an understatement.
eemom
@JGabriel:
Read my first point above.
SFAW
@JGabriel:
Oh, quit whining.
No, I’m kidding. I have a few years on you, etc. But these days I almost never refer to RWAM as conservative, unless they truly are. (Although, I guess the intersection of those two words is actually a null set.) The other reason — well, one of the reasons — I no longer use “conservative” is because it creates the (no longer valid) impression that they’re semi-reasonable, which the RWAMs are not. They’re radicals, or nihilists, or plutocrats, or perhaps just plain old anti-American thugs. Or all of the above.
I understand that language changes. In recent years, I’ve seen it with “sketchy,” “bemused,” a few other words. Doesn’t mean it’s right, doesn’t mean I’m going to adopt the formerly-incorrect-but-who-the-hell-knows-now words.
As you know, you and I are on the same side. [Truth, Justice, and the American Way?] And I wasn’t completely serious when I busted your chops initially. And, finally, even though you’re worng about “conservative,” it doesn’t make you a bad person.
Ozark, on the other hand … well, I just don’t know about HIM.
eemom
@SFAW:
Yeah, that’s what I was trying to get at also. That’s why it’s better to mock their use of the word instead of accepting it. Again, highlight the hypocrisy.
JR
@Immanentize: Could do worse.
JR
I’ll say this for Sandberg.
She’s better than Jack Welch.
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
I think I didn’t make myself clear.
Conservatism has had many forms and names over the years and the people who would fall on that side of the aisle vary by distance from center. Same as the people on the liberal side of the aisle. Ike was a middle of the road conservative. That means he was more moderate than say Goldwater. He was still a conservative. What I mean by this is that while the voices of conservatism have gotten louder and much cruder over the years, what they desire has not changed. Some of Ike’s conservatism may have come from his role in WWII or by earlier experiences and upbringing, I have no idea. What sets Ike apart from the conservatives of today was he was willing to listen to both sides, before he made up his mind to go with conservative policies. But that’s the way he went. And that was acceptable to a majority at that time. But we have advanced, a lot with LBJ, fuck him, and a lot with general ideas that have taken shape since the end of WWII. But the ideas are the same now as they have been for many, many decades. The difference is that we as a nation have become more liberal, we have seen the countries that rebuilt after WWII and the things that they do, for example, like decent healthcare for all, we want that. How to pay for it is important but the reality is that we don’t have healthcare for everyone even with the ACA as it was enacted. We always design in holes and blocks to the everyone part, and that is basic conservatism and no different that it was at the end of the 1700s. That Ike was or was not a conservative is far less important than that the ideas haven’t changed, the means that conservatives go to to protect their ideas of exclusion of those they don’t like, or to pay their masters has changed and gotten far worse. shitgibbon is just another point along the line that stretches from before Nixon and Goldwater. The difference is in style, not in substance.
SFAW
@eemom:
For a second there, I was afraid you were going to write “highlight the contradictions.”
Lymie
If you lean in, don’t they just look down your shirt? To quote Gina Barreca.