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I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

samj.substack.com

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Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#71

Post by Spivak »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #66
jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

[flagged]

These are… specific examples. Something on your mind? Puritanical cultures do have an association with being sex-negative lack of a better term because purity culture sounds circular. But they're far from the only aspect of culture that can embody puritan thinking.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#72

Post by zmgsabst »

ffsm8 wrote: post #67
zmgsabst wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue that your last paragraph has the cause-and-effect reversed: We’re entering into a populist phase because the managerial class is incapable of addressing the problems experienced by most people — so they’re going to try dismantling the current elite systems and rebuilding them. To say that the problem is elites inability to suppress populism is to miss that the elites own chronic failures is what caused the…

The only issue is that - in the past - weapons had to be wielded by people. The same working people that revolted. There is very strong evidence that this will not be the case by the time this wave you have imagined gets really rolling. I hope it does not happen for decades yet, because frankly: I cannot see the working class (of which I am part of) win that conflict.

Currently, weapons and logistics are not automated to that extent; I don’t think it’s meaningful to guess about decades from now, given the current flux.

I’d argue that your perspective means that the time to revolt is now (ie, next few years) — while the technical and social systems are in mutual flux and before a new regime solidifies. A regime that might be more autocratic totalitarian in nature (as you suggest will be the case).

People will reasonably come to different conclusions.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#73

Post by smelendez »

Great article.

This kind of humor still exists and I think it’s still most popular with young people. I followed an Instagram account in Chicago that mocks local bars and the people who go to them, but they’re all bars for people in their 20s, so I’ve rarely heard of them and don’t fully get the descriptions. There’s also that trend of “cynical maps” (Google it) of city neighborhoods, country regions, etc that peaked a few years ago and still circulates.

I don’t see this selling as a book now, but I also don’t see humorous coffee table books in general as a category the way they were 25 years ago?

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#74

Post by vixen99 »

harimau777 wrote: post #35
mmaunder wrote: post #31

Great article with links to others, like this one: https://arena.org.au/stay-in-your-lane-the-oxymoron-of-authe... With quotes (re cultural appropriation) like “the ultimate endpoint of keeping our mitts off experience that doesn’t belong to us is that there is no fiction… All that’s left is memoir” We’ve been suffering under the yoke of the intellectualization of deliberalization, censorship and oppression of ideas…

Personally I see it the other way around: the youth's increasing intolerance of politically incorrect ideas is caused by the increasing power of the "jack booted militia" on the right. It's not surprising that people try to suppress intolerant ideas when there is a very real risk of them being adopted by those in power.

"jack booted militia" is a nastily evocative & suggestive phrase that lingers like a rotten smell. I am worried & want to know who and where. Which are the ideas that we all agree are intolerant? Sounds as if you are addressing a club of the like-minded.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#75

Post by khazhoux »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #66
jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

[flagged]

They've been a naughty girls, they let their knickers down!

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#76

Post by pydry »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #66
jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…

[flagged]

puritanism is often linked to a backlash against this type of thing.

Weimar berlin was very open about this stuff too and was followed by a puritanical backlash. The world feels like it is going through something very similar.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#77

Post by PaulRobinson »

It's not about identity politics. It's not about self-deprecation. It's not even about if the material is particularly funny or not.

It's whether you're punching up or punching down.

If the purpose of Crap Towns is to punch up, speak to power, to point out the failures of Thatcherism, decreased social mobility through a perptuation of failing center-right politics thanks to an overly-powerful media and political class that is divorced from reality, the absurd dominance of PPE graduates within policy making, and on, and on, on... well, it's great satire.

If it's just to point at working class people and go "haha, their streets are dirty and they eat bad food", well... you're punching down, and it's rare that can work as comedy. It's just mean bullying.

So yes, you can write Crap Towns today, but it lands better if you draw the line from Thatcher through Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer, and their acolytes - the PPE mafia on both sides of the House, and point out how their crappy politics has caused all this, not their victims.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#78

Post by rhubarbtree »

arrowsmith wrote: post #59
parpfish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

You’re looking at the wrong numbers. Wealth, not income. Wealth inequality is through the roof. Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts.

If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving, then you have no idea about the reality of living in the UK. Visiting some of the towns in this book would be a starting point.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#79

Post by PaulRobinson »

arrowsmith wrote: post #59
parpfish wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

Go get an airbnb in a poor suburb for a few weeks and live there, talk to people, and ask them if they think they're more or less equal with other Britons in the last 15 years. Show them your Gini coefficient and see what they think of it. Ask them if they feel the income distribution has been flattened in a way that favours them.

The rich people living here for the last 40 years all leaving does not bother most people. In fact, it's cause for celebration. They're leeches who don't pay tax on their piles of cash held in off-shore accounts - they just drive up the price of everything, particularly property. Meanwhile there are plenty of people trying to get here from the US to replace them who understand the purpose of capital is to put it to work and create jobs, not stare at it on a screen.

Your kind of thinking is not unusual within centre right politics, but it's also why nationalist populism is a credible threat. Farage is currently favourite with most bookmakers to be next PM because of the kind of defence of Tory policy you're making. Please think on that.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#80

Post by riehwvfbk »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #7

In my experience there are only a few cities in the U.S that literate people are proud enough to live in, that they would be insulted that you put that into your crap town book. Thus I wonder what demographic that at one time would have bought this book is not going to be buying this book now.

The funniest thing about that is that the cities where these proudly smug people live have the most actual crap on their streets.
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