A one minute long flerbert

50 comments

1. postmodernism, no doubt. it’s the decline of western civilization (says an old retired warfighter).

   btw, the reason for the cowardly punt in the previous thread is the situation. seattle had already conceded two touchdowns in the first quarter. most teams would kick a field goals and have kickers that can hit one from there. however, you can’t run the risk of conceding a short field if your kicker misses (who is seattle’s kicker anyway?),when you’re already trailing against a potentially explosive offense. the situation always dictates your actions. regardless, it proved a smart move as seattle went on to win that game, and the majority of their approach play was far from cowardly.

2. “that the various FAs in charge aren’t going to do anything about this, ”

   Well, this is not exactly true. Bulgarian FA president (14 years in the position) has been forced to resign by the Bulgarian Prime Minister, who threatened to stop all financial support for the football in Bulgaria. There has been also a meeting on vice-PM level between Bulgaria and the UK.

   Also, I believe that UEFA will issue a punishment as hard as never until now.

3. uefa are going to prosecute bulgaria for the prime minister getting involved and the fines for racism are yet to surpass bendtners fine for wearing paddy powers pants.
   so don’t hold your breathe.

4. “…football and politics have become parodies of each other in that both are basically just people rooting for their teams and not in any way trying to be logical, and just like politics there are divisions within the fanbases…”

   I completely agree. Also would add the shrill hysterics that underline extreme elements being given way too much facetime on both sides and in both spheres which makes it sound like they’re the only elements who exist (solipsism!?). Yes, humans have always been like this (we think) but it’s only recently that we’ve given so much space to so much vapid content.

   1. We now face the unenviable choice between turning the faucet on and destroying our attention spans, or feeling left out by a world who is choosing to do it with or without our consent.

5. All we need is love, love.

   Love is all we need…

   1. What is love? Baby you….

6. I just want to thank all of you for bringing some peace to me whenever Tim posts new material. This is one of the few places I feel safe and can enjoy the fact that there still are decent, intelligent people in this world/country (on both sides of our political divide seemingly) that can discourse rationally and mosty sensibly on any number of themes that Tim throws out – I arrived as an Wengerist, but I return again and again because of the intelligence, breadth and humanity I continually (and fortunately) get to read on this site – Bravo!

   1. Arsenal used to make me happy. Quite happy, at times. During those times, I never felt that being a supporter was a chore, a burden to be undertaken because that’s how I understand football culture: supporters gotta support.

      If Arsenal could make me feel like that again with – win or lose – a sustained run of quality team performances, it would renew me and invigorate my sense of Goonerism.

7. The tenets of postmodernism are promiscuous. They were germinated and championed by the left (1968-present!), but in practice they serve both ends of the political spectrum. They support, for example, the aims of both climate change (and causation) deniers and anti-essentialist feminists, groups you would not usually consider aligned in any way. It’s terribly ironic that postmodernist ideas are associated with the kind of conversations you’d expect to have in a subversive / ‘problematizing’ context such as a (secular) college / university, given that it so easily elides into (and is welcomed by) the assumptions of imperialism and capitalism.

   As John Adams observed, the US Constitution assumes for its efficacy a moral and religious people. It only works well in a shared-values context, and it’s partly based on the Enlightenment idea that the purpose of government is not to instill virtue but rather to establish an order in which the individual can exercise his/her will. In other words, it assumes virtue. So what happens when rights are untethered from any conception of right, wrong, truth, falsehood — an untethering that was a major project of postmodernism, whose most prominent voices rejected metanarratives like Christianity, Marxism, Enlightenment empiricism, etc., as well as any other ‘universals’ and ‘givens’? And when even to talk about truth or morality in any transcendent way (i.e., cutting across differing subject positions) was and is characterized as outdated, naive, and cruelly complicit with imperialism / 19th-century liberal humanism?

   Witness our current political moment.

   1. Thank you for this post!

   2. This is brilliant:
      “based on the Enlightenment idea that the purpose of government is not to instill virtue but rather to establish an order in which the individual can exercise his/her will. In other words, it assumes virtue.”

      And… Promiscuous. Lol.

      I would like to summarize my take on philosophy and the current political climate thus: 💩
      You have to laugh. Otherwise the stress will give you cancer and heart disease.

   3. Yeah, thanks for that response. It’s like you just masterfully crammed a 16-week university course into two paragraphs. I always feel smarter when I read your comments.

   4. Certain Founding Fathers got a great deal wrong…

      Lots of “moral” and “religious” people are quite happy to selectively manifest the tender mercies of such shared values.

      1. Agreed. But it also means that appealing to a morality outside of the subjective allows the opportunity for people to look beyond their selective application. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about permitting a space to reflect on right and wrong. The civil rights movements of the mid-twentieth-century were all about morality and, in some cases, religion as well. I’d hardly denigrate that as “selective,” would you?

         1. Interesting. Not sure I disagree with you (not sure I entirely agree either).

            I resist the notion that the U.S. Constitution requires a moral and religious people in order to function properly (if not optimally). Words like “moral” and “religious” are just words. What matters is what you do.

            The civil rights movement was about religion only inasmuch as it used the religiosity of African American society as an organizational tool. It was about morality, however, although many of its leaders had personal behaviors that were less than what would be considered “moral”.

            No, the United States is, and was intended to be, a nation of laws, not of men. All that is required for this social experiment to work is adherence to principles of equity…AND a willingness to place equity about partisanship and normalized self-dealing.

            The rub is that the engine that propels us toward equity… that “bends the long arc of the “moral” (there’s that word again) universe towards justice”…is often fueled with civil strife…and blood

8. The international football is beyond boring.
   I started watching Germany/Argentina the other day and gave up after 10 minutes.
   Sweden/ Spain, same .
   Arsenal at their worst are still miles the better entertainment than this pointless international flag waving bs.

   Nixon got impeached because there was no Fox News back then, and special interest wasn’t running politicians the way they do now.

   Trump isn’t getting impeached , not in the senate anyways, and if the economy keeps up he will get re- elected., which is quite depressing.
   Am I the only one in this country who finds it hilarious that Trump is the boss of the Senate majority leader’s wife?
   Yes, Mitch the grim reaper McConnell’s wife works for Trump and yet no one seems a bit bothered by this fact.
   Doesn’t Brett Kavanaugh’s wife need a job?
   There’s got to be cabinet position open she could fill right now.

   Got to feel for the Kurds , although they should’ve seen it coming.
   This is what happens in Trump world when one of the combatants has two Trump Towers in their territory and the other one has none.

   Defying Congressional subpoenas……….I wonder if this ever catches on ………,or like the Supreme Court ruling Bush vs Gore it only applies once.

   I wonder why Bill Clinton did think of this. Sucker .

   Happy B-day Tim.

   1. with the kurds, this isn’t the first time they’ve been abandoned by the u.s.

      back in ’91, during operation desert storm, the u.s. invaded iraq and the iraqi kurds took up arms to fight with the americans, only for h.w. bush to pull back the american offensive, leaving the kurds to be smacked up by saddam hussein. getting the kurds to join forces with the u.s. led coalition during iraqi freedom a mere 12 years later took some convincing but it got done. fast forward to today and dj is undoing the work of his predecessors efforts to bring stability to the region while blaming everyone for the residuals except himself. he’s a self-serving disgrace!

      1. The Kurds were to be used to justify forming a client state over Syrian oil. Turkey can never allow a Kurdish state. This was always going to happen. The US would hem, haw and make conditions, but Turkey’s strategic value is greater than the Kurds. They were always going to be betrayed. It’s just that Turkey was alienated by the coup attempt, and so are less patient and more assertive now, and that Syria didn’t fall changes things.

         The FSA are the same ‘moderate rebels’ unleashed on the rest of the Syrian population earlier with full US support.

         Trump’s motivations aside, what this means is that Kurds have reached a deal with Syria, which was always the most logical and stable solution. Turkey will make sure the Kurds disband their army, and will eventually withdraw, or at least not advance.

         Temporary upheavals are always used to justify continued illegal US military presence. More debate and ‘shame’ seems to be about withdrawals than in starting wars. The US should leave. It’ll be a better world for it.

         1. I don’t think enough attention has been given to the argument for leaving — per your last line — but youre missing a key point about the Kurds. Kurdistan is sprawled over number of states with west-imposed borders that literally carved them up. So it’s not about a “client state”… it’s about a homeland, a country with proper contiguous borders. And part of that state is in Turkey! You seem astonishingly blase about their fate.

            1. I don’t believe every ethnicity needs its own homeland. (Imagine applying that logic to the US, UK, or closer to home for me, India) The West never divided a Kurdish state because none ever existed. Even if you want one to be created, it’s not realistic. The Kurds of Iraq and Iran, and the Kurds of Syria and Turkey have significant differences and different ambitions anyway. Even within Syria some Kurds live in Damascus and side with the govt.

               I’m not blase about their fate. I don’t hold their fate in special interest above all Syrians of all faiths and ethnicities who have all made sacrifices in fighting ISIS and the Western backed forces who are finally now accurately being termed what they are.

               Of course the US cares about them being a client state. (and the oil under the land they’d place them on)They couldn’t care less about the Kurds. It’s roughly the 4th or 5th time they’ve been betrayed. They were even betrayed recently enough when Turkey and its goons sacked Afrin. There was no international outrage then because it was still hoped Syria could be defeated, and Turkey was important in that goal.

               Also btw, the Kurds have been imposing their will on Christian Arabs who would rather side with Syria. Historically, the Kurds participated in the Armenian genocide, so it’s not like they’ve always been on the right side of history either. It’s a complicated place.

               They were late to it, but I’m happy they have negotiated a deal with the Syrian govt which will put an end to the civil war in Syria, and hopefully, lets Syrians have Syrian land for themselves, and decide their own futures.

9. Bill Clinton didn’t think of this

10. Ozil’s done an interview in the Athletic with Ornstein now. I’ve read quotes online, but don’t have a subscription. It appears he said he’s not going anywhere.

    Capitalism.

    Didn’t watch any international football, but the rugby world cup is entering its knockout phase, with some tasty matches over the weekend. Looking forward to that.

11. Interesting post Tim. Thanks for taking the time and putting in the effort to put out these great posts.I think international football is great during World Cup years but incredibly uninteresting in the 3 years between the world cups but to each his own.

    I agree with shard and it certainly looks like Mesut Ozil is planning to finish his contract and probably his career with Arsenal and there is nothing the club can do if he is not willing to move. He was a new wife and it sounds like staying in London is his #1 priority and I certainly don’t blame him for that. He has had a long and distinguished career and won lots of big trophies and developed a huge international fan club and made more money then any of us could ever hope to make and he has nothing left to prove. I certainly can’t blame him if he believes family comes before playing regular football at this point in his career and I would do the same thing if I was in that situation

12. Capitalism.

    Most of the complaints about postmodernism rely on a really bad and inaccurate summary of what postmodernism actually was. Postmodernists never rejected the idea of truth. They never rejected facts. They just noted the various ways that truth and facts were marshalled into dissembling narratives of history and current affairs.

    I’ve long noticed this collision between Anglo- and Euro-centric approaches to philosophy and theory. Anglos are relentlessly literalistic, unironic and dogmatically “rational”, where Euros use imagery, polemic, exaggeration and illustration, and also like to retain a sense of humour which Anglos tend to find distasteful and, well, unserious.

    So in 1991 (peak postmodernism), when Baudrillard declared in Liberation and The Guardian that “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place”, (a famous and quintessentially postmodern claim) lots of Anglo scholars and commentators instantly ridiculed him, saying that he was denying facts and reality, and insisting that there was no such thing as truth. In fact, Baudrillard believed that the events and actions themselves did indeed take place (because he’s not an effing moron), but was saying that these events could not be neatly packaged up into something called a war, that unfolded along the lines of the competing media narratives (the “simulacra”), with their demand, like all stories, for clear cause-and-effect and a moral arc. For what it’s worth, I find this totally uncontroversial, but it gave the opportunity for lots of Anglo scholars to get on their mildly xenophobic high horses and pronounce him a clown.

    I am currently helping to coordinate the humanitarian response in North East Syria. Whatever is going on there does not, and should not, fit neatly into anyone’s personal grand narratives of imperialism, US exceptionalism, terrorism, Turkish or Syrian nationalism or anything else. 155,000 people have been displaced, kids are terrified and many abandoned, my colleagues have evacuated, and it’s one of the least terrible things that’s happened in my four years of trying to manage this crisis.

    Far from postmodernism being the problem, the problem is that we are living in reactionary times, and postmodernism is one of the things we are reacting against. People are absolutely insisting on their right to maintain their fictions, their grand narratives, and it’s the poor, weak and powerless who always pay the price.

    1. I don’t know if this is gauche here, but +1

       1. You’re good, buddy. +1 😁

    2. I’ll amend that last paragraph.

       In fact we are living in postmodern times. But this post-truth authoritarian Trumpian world is not a consequence of postmodernism. It is exactly what postmodernism predicted and warned us about. But we decided that we knew better than those ridiculous leftists with their weird and unserious opinions.

    3. Thanks for this post, Greg. Always appreciate your comments. I agree that capitalism has been worse for the world than postmodernism, particularly because postmodernism was not a zeitgeist anywhere but in certain Anglo-Euro-American contexts, whereas capitalism is global (depending on how you define it, I suppose), and it adversely affects the quality of lives far beyond the contexts I just named.

       However, I don’t think it is a lazy assumption to imagine that postmodernism dispenses with concepts of truth, reality, and morality as traditionally held. Such concepts are rendered contingent, constructed, and a matter of freeplay in the decentering projects of Derrida, Lacan, and Ehrmann; the language games of Lyotard; and the discursive formations of Foucault. According to them, reality itself is imputed, constituted by language, and, since language itself is an arbitrary signifying system, there can be no truth, morality, or reality that exists in any way outside of the subject and/or language itself. Baudrillard’s hyperreality also dispenses with any distinction between reality and unreality, or any modernist notion of truth, meaning, etc., though he, unlike some other like theorists, situates this historically as an epoch.

       I also don’t think it’s true that metanarratives have any inherent connection to the oppression of the weak. I have many religious, Marxist, and classically ’empiricist’ colleagues who work extremely hard for the weak, suffering, marginalized, and oppressed, precisely because they believe it is the intended remit of their metanarrative / scripture. In fact, I would suggest that postmodernism (of which poststructuralism is a part, since I reference Derrida et al above), is itself a metanarrative, only one that offers no compelling reason or principle for why one ‘ought’ to do anything to help the weak. While it levels all forms and categories, it does not tell us how we should treat this sameness of difference.

       Finally, the Trump thing. Yeah, that’s hard. I don’t think we can say, “oh, well this is all down to postmodernism.” However, I would say that it’s an important factor. Postmodernism / poststructuralism was once part of the ‘rarefied’ air of the academy (which is ironic, since it was supposed to be anti-establishment at heart, but formulated itself in ways that only academics could appreciate…hence why you need to have read Nietzsche and Heidegger (and Levi-Strauss) to fully appreciate what the hell Derrida is up to). It was elitist, the musings of largely white, European or American male intellectuals.

       While this may have been the case in the 1970’s, 80’s, and even the early 90’s, things have changed. I would suggest it has become part of the popular stream (the academy teaches our teachers, after all), but without the critical apparatus. It is a zeitgeist. It is ‘intertextual’. Believing in the contingency of truth does not require any knowledge of Foucault, for example. It’s just how we talk these days. We tie ‘truth’ to subject position (“that’s true for you”) because we’re postmodernists, and given the multiplicity of subject positions, finding common ground becomes neither the goal nor the project of our political conversations. That’s down to postmodernism. I think. Because ‘common’ implies ‘shared’, ‘universal’, ‘given’ and the like. Postmodernism emphasizes difference, intersectionality, etc.

       1. Thanks Bun. I appreciate the thoughtful response. I think there are a couple of misrepresentations in there but it’s a long time ago I read this stuff and what the hell do I know anyway.

          The stuff about metanarratives driving people’s morality is interesting on a couple of grounds. It’s a similar argument to religious types claiming that there is no morality without God. I think you would reject that. Personally I struggle, because I want to reject it and agree with it at the same time.

          Also I am close to being certain from experience that people trying to do Good Deeds contribute as much to the problem as they resolve because they try to fit people and their needs into their ideas, rather than fit their ideas around people and their needs. This ends up causing harm, and yes it’s the most vulnerable who pay the price because they don’t fit other people’s narratives. I spend a lot of my working life stopping people from trying to help.

          1. I’m sure you do more than I ever have or could to make our world a better place. I tend to believe (I’m not saying this is true) that you can’t have a coherent ‘ought’ (ethical position) without recourse to an objective or transcendent system. I mean, even evolutionary morality is based on a belief in the objective. It’s just that postmodernism, despite its promise of supporting those on the margins, pulls the rug out from any argument that would offer a reason or ethical responsibility to do so. When I start to see people and reality as texts, as constructs, there’s a distancing effect, and maybe, if I follow postmodernism, I can just hope that changing representation will take care of all the work for me. I don’t think that helps.

          2. Oh, and I’d be happy to talk about misrepresentation. I’ve read and studied every author I mention, but that’s not to say my interpretations aren’t debatable!

13. By the way, what is a flerbert? I refuse to google.

14. Tom: “Am I the only one in this country who finds it hilarious that Trump is the boss of the Senate majority leader’s wife? Yes, Mitch the grim reaper McConnell’s wife works for Trump and yet no one seems a bit bothered by this fact.”
    _____________________

    I was beginning to think that I was the only one who found that remarkable, when you pop us with this, Tom. As with much else concerning Trump, it is a corrupt arrangement.

    The US under Trump is much like any of the banana republics I’ve lived or worked in, and I’ve experienced a few. The leader instals his children and their spouses in key positions. He subverts his ministry of justice to serve him and not the country, and the AG covers his boss’ ample rear, instead of the constitution. He suggests that a big, lucrative international summit be held at his resort. His former campaign manager is a felon. His former national security adviser is felon. His former lawyer is a felon. His current lawyer looks increasingly like he too broke laws, and ran a parallel operation at the state department, not in serviec of country but in serviec of the president. The president wants to jail, punish or prosecute his political enemies, and is willing to break laws in service of that. And as you said, the wife of the leader of a parliament that is supposed to hold him account works for him. And not only that… she brings a disproportionate amount of pork to her state.

    If the US had a US embassy in Washington, they’d be writing anguished cables to themselves about rampant, in-your-face corruption of the government. There are lots of adjectives you can use to describe this president of the United States. I’ll settle on a simple one… bad. He is just, fundamentally, through and through, a thoroughly bad person. Corrupt to his boot heels, to a degree that is unprecedented and shocking.

    How stupid must burn-it-all-down folks on the far left feel now? Assuming of course that they possess self-awareness. Yes, he was far and away the absolute worst of the two. And that was abundantly clear to anyone with 2 functional eyes. Maybe you’ll come round when he puts 2 more justices on the Supreme Court, but somehow I doubt it.

    Anyone who marks X to Trump’s name at the ballot box needs a brain transplant and a complete moral re-wiring. Or like Elaine Chao, works for him.

    1. And right on cue, Trump’s Chief of Staff announced a short time ago that the next G& summit will be held at Donald Trump’s Doral resort in Florida.

       This man would make a sub-Saharan African tinpot despot blush.

    2. I just wonder, how are the regular pro-Trump folks justify that G7 Golf resort thing? I understand that in the relatively complicated cases like the current Ukraine scandal they can easily blame “the deep state” or just deny that anything at al happened in the first place. But what about such simple, in-your-face, coming directly from Trump case like organizing international summit for his own profit? What is their reaction? Are they excusing him, like “Well, it is nothing wrong for a businessman to make money” or they accept that it’s kind of wrong like “It is bad, but we can swallow that irregularity for the sake of all the good that Trump is doing for the country”.

       1. Simple, they will say Trump is soooo fu$king rich already hosting G7 at his golf resort can’t be about money.
          The only news channel they ever watch , Fox News, won’t mention this as anything out of ordinary and their partisan life will go on as usual.

          Not like there haven’t been enough examples of Trump’s self dealing a plenty already.
          Like Air Force lodging their personal at Trump resorts or even Trump charging Secret Service detail for golf carts they ride while protecting his fat a$$ on the back 9

          You can’t shame someone who is shameless and that goes for the majority of Republicans these days..

    3. Most Trump voters I know are a single issue voters who have always voted republican because they want their taxes low.
       They say they are apolitical and everything else is just noise.
       If you mention corruption they wily say Obama was also corrupt ( baseless) and just shrug their shoulders.
       Some of them are also racist which is sad but true.

       1. This was to Claude re his last paragraph

15. I’ll amend that last paragraph.

    In fact we are living in postmodern times. But this post-truth authoritarian Trumpian world is not a consequence of postmodernism. It is exactly what postmodernism predicted and warned us about. But we decided that we knew better than those ridiculous leftists with their weird and unserious opinions.

16. The Trump presidency is so horrendous that accusations of child rape barely register as a story.

    Obama having mustard on his burger was apparently a HUGE deal.

    I genuinely think that people who are still fine with Trump at this stage will never abandon him.

    He could drop the n word tomorrow and I don’t think it would make any difference.

    I’d love to see Bernie elected because (apart from being the best candidate in my opinion) I’d just like to start liking America again.

    1. Trump is like Chelsea. Their supporters will never abandon them, no matter how bad football they play. You know, they have started supporting them because of that in the first place, so why stop now?

17. bulgarian racist fans fines £443 each and banned from attending sports stadiums for TWO years..
    lol.

    1. Man that’s sad.
       It’s almost like they don’t take it seriously. 🙁

    2. Apparently the average monthly salary in Bulgaria is 640 euros. 550 pounds. These racists probably earn less than that. It’s not an entirely insignificant amount.

       Not saying Uefa, the FA and even the govt are doing enough. The ban should be longer for sure.

       1. Apparently the average monthly salary in Bulgaria is 640 euros. 550 pounds. These racists probably earn less than that.
          ———————-
          Sorry Shard but this made me chuckle.
          Are you saying racism is a low income issue ?

          1. I’m not sure what you mean by low income issue.

             I was giving a possible rationale for why the fines were what they were. It only occurred to me because that’s a pretty big sum of money for a lot of people in my country too.

    3. Where did you get this information from, actually? In any case, I never expected jail times or something — in the end this is case of hooliganism at most.

       In any case, the problem is not with those few individuals. The problem is with the overall denial in the Bulgarian society that there is a problem with racism (and discrimination in general). As a result, they treat such cases like exceptions and treat the symptoms (or at least they think so), which leads to nothing.

18. And you think there isn’t a permanent underclass under socialism?

    1. Cute.

       And reductionist.

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