"*And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect." Um,...?
"perfect being enemy of good" is what I thought of.
Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
61–70 of 88 posts
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Both sides" nonsense. Show me anything from the left that begins to approach believing that there's a secret cabal of baby-eating satan worshippers running a pedophile ring from the basement of a pizza joint.
Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory has its problems but it's not an elaborate conspiracy theory clutching at random tidbits of news and numerology and obscure messageboard posting and constructing a massive, world-ending conspiracy out of them.
I mean, it's a cute comparison if you squint, but there's far less craziness to describing the reality of racism than describing all of the political class as baby-eating vampires.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#63Seems like a pretty thinly veiled swipe at Trump to be honest. Really looking forward to the next four years of "Isn't it great how we're all united in the common cause of hating half the country"
You started a wretched flamewar with this comment, which broke the site guidelines badly and predictably led to worse. Then you perpetuated it. This is criminal negligence if not arson, and we ban accounts for this kind of thing—especially now, after the hellfires this site went through in the last couple of weeks. We've raised the bar and are banning more accounts for abusing the site this way. I'm not going to ban you because your comment history shows that you've mostly been commenting about other things. But please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, keep the intended spirit of the site in mind, and don't do it again.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#64Seems like a pretty thinly veiled swipe at Trump to be honest. Really looking forward to the next four years of "Isn't it great how we're all united in the common cause of hating half the country"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and don't post personal attacks. These rules apply regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heart Emoji The left spent four years focusing on the absolute worst aspects of a man, and refusing to give him credit for the several things he accomplished that were actually worthwhile. That's a recipe for an unhealthy relationship, and it's also something you only get better at with practice. I think they did more psychological harm to themselves over it than he ever could have.
Someone sounds a little snow-flakey. What's wrong did someone possibly criticize your dear leader? Wouldn't want that now, would we?
You can't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We're trying to have a forum that doesn't burn itself to a hellfire crisp. Scorched earth is not interesting.
This place is fragile and vulnerable. Please contribute to protecting it, not destroying it. I'm sure you wouldn't dump motor oil in a mountain lake or something like that, so please don't do the equivalent here.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mmm. Consider it possible that I'm right? Not everything that sounds good stands up in the cold harsh light of criticism. Or as a great poet once put it ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6hzkBihaew ): "Do you remember Rick Astley? He had a big fat hit, it was ghastly." Update: heh, my fastest-downvoted comment. Yup, I'm definitely right.
You can't be "right", much less "definitely right" about a subjective opinion on the quality of an artistic work. That's just, like, your opinion dash2.
Oh, woah, just cool it krapp! Your last tape wasn't such hot stuff!
Seriously, sure, this isn't like a maths problem. But we can have reasoned opinions about art, just as we can have reasoned opinions about whether, say, a piece of software is well or badly written, given that it does what it's technically supposed to. I'm not just saying it's bad because it gave me a nasty feeling in my tummy.
In particular, poetry and art contain ideas. They express ideas powerfully and viscerally. It matters whether we have good or bad ideas, thinking or hot air, new understanding or stale clichés. In this sense, art isn't just like a bag of cheetos. It has consequences. That's why dictatorships have often censored good art, and supported bad art. Good art can express new thoughts. I think the US will need a lot of new thoughts in the next four years.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#67Seems like a pretty thinly veiled swipe at Trump to be honest. Really looking forward to the next four years of "Isn't it great how we're all united in the common cause of hating half the country"
One side wants to help people, the other to hurt. This is not a 'two sides' issue. Your country is half evil, fix it.
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological warfare and flamewar hell. Tossing in a Molotov cocktail of nationalistic flamebait is also seriously not cool.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: you've done this kind of thing more than once lately. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against—we have to, because it destroys what this site is supposed to exist for. I'm not going to ban you because your account has mostly been posting good comments. On the other hand, mostly-not-exploding-bombs is not sufficient. If you'd please review the site guidelines and be more mindful of the intended spirit of the site going forward, we'd be grateful. Perhaps you don't owe your enemies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
One side wants to help people, the other to hurt. This is not a 'two sides' issue. Your country is half evil, fix it.
[flagged]
This is the sort of comment I'm talking about upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25862817) when I say that you perpetuated a wretched flamewar. Seriously not cool. Please stop and don't restart.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mmm. Consider it possible that I'm right? Not everything that sounds good stands up in the cold harsh light of criticism. Or as a great poet once put it ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6hzkBihaew ): "Do you remember Rick Astley? He had a big fat hit, it was ghastly." Update: heh, my fastest-downvoted comment. Yup, I'm definitely right.
No, it's not that you're "right". It's that your techbro-ism is showing. Not a good look.
You've repeatedly broken the site guidelines in this thread by calling names, among other things. That's not cool—not in this comment, nor in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25862065, nor in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25862047. We ban accounts that post repeatedly like that. Fortunately, your comment history doesn't have much of it (in fact, I didn't see any other cases when I skimmed back a ways) and contains many good comments. Please stick to that kind of comment and drop this kind. The commons is vulnerable and fragile and we need everyone to help protect it.
Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)
#70Look, no offence, but this is a terrible poem. It's verbose: > We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. It doesn't make sense. (You can't be the successor of a country, you even more can't be the successor of the present instant happening right now.) It's content-free…
What I find fascinating is how people so often have this impulse to tear down things that others hold in high regard. Impulse might even be an understatement - it's almost a need. I wonder why that is. Ex: - "vim sucks! why don't people use emacs instead?" - "katy perry's music sucks!" Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Many liked it. Many did not - yourself included. That's okay. Art does not evoke the same…
It's fine for people to disagree, sure, and I certainly don't expect to convince everyone. You're also absolutely right that disagreements can engage the emotions in the way you describe.
But consider your example, software. People have strong emotions about, say, Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux as a platform. This isn't just about the feels. Real issues are at stake. The Unix-hater's handbook points out how "root" was a terrible security model. Similar comments might apply to Windows.
Well, I think art matters too. There's no bright line between "art" and the other ways people have of expressing ideas (political speeches, say). If our art is clichéd, it means our ideas are clichéd. At worst, it means we are hiding from reality in a bubble of uplift and togetherness. At present (in my view as an outsider) Americans really need to come together as a nation - but that will require more than repeating the clichés of one's own political tribe. So in that sense, I think this poem is a bad omen.