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You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

churchlifejournal.nd.edu

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141–150 of 243 posts

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#141

Post by foldr »

mjw1007 wrote: post #134
Retric wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hoi polloi is a redundant phrase that’s intended to hide the simplicity of the idea. It’s simply lazy writing to mask lazy thinking.

In this case I think all that's going on is that the writer has already used the phrase "working classes" earlier in the sentence, and is following a convention that recommends avoiding repetition in this sort of case.

It's more than just that. If you read the initial part of the sentence (that dhsysusbsjsi cut off) you can see that the author is paraphrasing a worry of the ruling class. In this context it's natural to use the kind of vocabulary that they might have used in their own thoughts.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#142

Post by 2019-nCoV »

foldr wrote: post #121
2019-nCoV wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the mark of a charlatan to explain a simple concept in a complex way.

You are seeing conspiracies where there are none. The average humanities professor has spent their life reading books and has a bigger vocabulary than the average programmer. They’re not trying to pull a fast one on you. They just know more words than you do, and are used to talking to people who are familiar with said words. The sad thing is that none of the words in the quoted passage are obscure at all. If you don…

You need to realise that the only thing a career academic can really teach you is how to be a career academic.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#143

Post by Redoubts »

payattentionhm wrote: post #86
dangus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m looking for your substantive comment on the article but I haven’t found it yet. Pot, kettle, etc. And I realize the irony in the fact that my pointing this out to you is the main subject of my not-substantive comment. However, I won’t resort to accusing you of being simple minded, as I wouldn’t call someone who couldn’t make it though an article like this simple minded either. The concepts and history presented a…

I'm not sure why you're rushing to defend their comment, given they those chose to insult the author's work with derogatory term "word salad", a psychiatric term used to indicate the jumble of words present in some neurological and mental disorders. They were basically calling the author a retard, because they couldn't be bothered to take the time to understand the author's piece.

You're adorable.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#144

Post by tomrod »

foldr wrote: post #139
tomrod wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assert the definition of an "educated person" evolves. Today, it is more advantageous to be literate in data and systems than to spend time chasing after humanities fashionability. Note that my point isn't arguing that humanities is without marginal value, only that the average value is not evolutionary advantageous. As such, it therefore fails to provide for most than its professors. In my view there is a commonal…

I don't follow the thread of your argument. If you think you can get rich by skimping on literacy, more power to you. But are people writing articles in the Church Life Journal of the University of Notre Dame then obliged to condescend to your level? Your comment is actually a lot stodgier and more obscure than the article itself.

Thank you for the feedback. Received in the spirit it was given.

My prior comment was a representative example of the issue. That you found it stodgy and difficult to follow highlights the same issues the parent commentator points out about the source article.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#145

Post by Retric »

foldr wrote: post #141
mjw1007 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case I think all that's going on is that the writer has already used the phrase "working classes" earlier in the sentence, and is following a convention that recommends avoiding repetition in this sort of case.

It's more than just that. If you read the initial part of the sentence (that dhsysusbsjsi cut off) you can see that the author is paraphrasing a worry of the ruling class. In this context it's natural to use the kind of vocabulary that they might have used in their own thoughts.

Critically it’s redundant in the paragraph, much like ‘dark and stormy night’. The point is to convey something else which is made clear by the redundancy.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#146

Post by brownbat »

noir_lord wrote: post #7

Other than the author having the ability to use large words I'm not sure what I was supposed to have come away with from this piece at all, it's just word salad.

Feels a bit like it came from a markov postmodernism generator: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

Postmodernist arguments and critiques are like the blue/gold dress. Some people see it as pure obscurantism, just all white noise. Other people see it as full of interesting ideas.

I've never seen these two groups successfully hold a conversation about it without getting progressively angrier at each other, mostly devolving into insulting each others' intelligence (like many of the replies to your comment).

Add a layer of politics on top of that, to really rile people up, and this whole thread is just a recipe for disaster.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#147

Post by black_puppydog »

noir_lord wrote: post #7

Other than the author having the ability to use large words I'm not sure what I was supposed to have come away with from this piece at all, it's just word salad.

Well, professor of humanities there. Accusing them of using large words or "having swallowed a dictionary" (like one of the siblings here) is getting dangerously close to an ad-hominem.

He presents some content. Not in the easiest form, maybe, but you're insinuating there's nothing else in there, when really it's more of a refusal on your part to engage.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#148

Post by foldr »

2019-nCoV wrote: post #142
foldr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are seeing conspiracies where there are none. The average humanities professor has spent their life reading books and has a bigger vocabulary than the average programmer. They’re not trying to pull a fast one on you. They just know more words than you do, and are used to talking to people who are familiar with said words. The sad thing is that none of the words in the quoted passage are obscure at all. If you don…

You need to realise that the only thing a career academic can really teach you is how to be a career academic.

Meh, I’ve been in and out of academia and can be as cynical about academics as the next person. But taken literally, what you are saying is obviously untrue. I was taught by career academics all through my undergraduate and graduate education. How to be a career academic is the one thing that I failed to learn from the experience. I learned lots of other interesting stuff, though.

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#149

Post by plint »

cpr wrote: post #132
deathhand wrote: post #25

Government was always supposed to be influenced 'by the people' those people are usually aristocrats. That is fine if there are enough of them with different ideas. What has happened is the consolidation of the artiscroacy and thus the means of influence of government. This is where we are getting our ugly problems from. What is the first step to fixing this? Bring voting into the 21ST century AND NOT HAVE VOTING SOF…

The problem with democracy is that you end up with mob rule. And as soon as the mob realizes it can vote itself bread and circus, it's all over. The founding fathers said exactly that. And the mob in general is in thrall to the media, which is pretty much a wholly owned operation of the ruling class. So, I guess, in the end, you get what your ruling class wants anyway, with the unwitting mob just a means to its own c…

Just as a fact check, it appears that the saying that I think you are referring to is one commonly misattributed to Benjamin Franklin.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4hlaxi/did_b...

Were you thinking of another source?

Re: You're a Slave to Money, Then You Die

#150

Post by throwanem »

billfruit wrote: post #107
throwanem wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A leftist would say that's because neoliberalism, despite having the word "liberal" in its name, is at best a center-right ideology, and would be very surprised at your assertion that leftists want to preserve the broken status quo.

Yes but left seems more critical of change/possibility of change than the right.

I don't understand in what context this can seem accurate, unless it's one of confusing liberalism and leftism. The US presidential candidate favored by the left, in the current and prior election cycles, is a democratic socialist whose candidacy and appeal are both founded on the promise of restricting the power of, and ameliorating the consequences of, the same laissez-faire (ie unregulated) capitalism so beloved of neoliberals.

The left and the right, as a major distinction between either and status-quo-favoring centrists including neoliberals, have in common the idea that radical change is necessary; the idea has been expressed in terms I roughly paraphrase as "capitalism has failed, and in the face of that, we'll have either socialism or fascism", a statement with which leftists in my circle would not disagree. The difference between left and right lies not in seeing a need for change, but partly in means and entirely in desiderata.

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