A thread to ask about cultural stuff you should know

[OneFrenchEgg]

Ok so there's loads of stuff other people know and stuff I know.
Where do I start with Noam Chomsky and why? Is he left wing? Why is he so relevant?

There’s a novel, Mr Keynes’ Revolution, about him I enjoyed if you want a nice introduction to who he was and why he matters
^^thank you going to order this

So that's what I'm doing.
And I prefer other people's explanations because it brings nuance and filtering no rather than googling and being overwhelmed, no lens applied.

Chomsky claimed that people have an innate universal grammar. But there is very little evidence for innate grammar and statistical models (LLMs like ChatGPT) can do much better without needing chomskys theory.

I fucking love how clever mumsnet is 😍

Two old quotes from Noam Chomsky that are as relevant today as when he said them donkeys years back:

"instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless.”

“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”

You wouldn’t think so, by the number of people asking all manner of Google-able questions on their local neighbourhood group. Why ask a bunch of people who are often going to answer without any knowledge of the subject? Beats me…

You only want your knowledge in bite-sized chunks, in other words, with no depth.

“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”

Blimey.

You only want your knowledge in bite-sized chunks, in other words, with no depth.

It's weird how people enjoy being rude and making assumptions. You do you, and I'll enjoy interacting and deciding what is worth learning about in more depth. Surely you can't imagine I have no 'proper' knowledge of anything?

My thoughts exactly!

It's irrelevant how much a person knows and at what depth, what's relevant is what they do with what they do know.

Always the last word on the matter for me.

That’s rather unkind, @TitusMoan

Cultural capital is important. I think it’s admirable to seek to fill gaps in our knowledge rather than remain satisfied with not knowing. Asking others for what they think matters is as valid a route to that as Googling it.

The 'Theory of Economic Injustice' should be compulsory reading for much of MN. It's where Chomsky meets Keynes.

"Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars.
This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.

Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.

Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin (a rich landed gentlewoman) lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month.”

Sir Terry Pratchett.

Offside in footbal - if you are in front of the last two defender when the ball leaves your team mates foot, you are offside.

Naomi Wolf v Naomi Klein Doppelgangers !

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj778nj9ez8o.amp

Do you mean this book? Like a recommendation? Or you want to know more?

It was a bit of a joke tbh. I listened to a programme about them both. Very different individuals although easy to mix up !

Everything I know about culture is from either family guy or American dad.

Read Hegemony & Survival, a very interesting book.

@TitusMoan bite-sized chunks are important. That is how you eat an elephant.

Because it's fun to discuss things. Google is lonely.

Doppelganger is a really good book. Would definitely recommend. Naomi Klein was pissed off that people kept on mistaking her for Naomi Wolf, who started off being an influential feminist academic and author in the 90s and has gradually slid further and further down the conspiraloon rabbit hole. So she wrote a book about it. But because Naomi Klein writes such brilliant, accessible books about the ills of our capitalist society, it's not just about being confused with another writer. It's about the "shadow world" of Internet media, the way it lives almost independently of us, yet has such a massive influence on every aspect of our lives. Would definitely recommend.

(Funnily enough, when I'd finished it I noticed that the Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein are sitting next to each other on my bookshelf)

Lurking. I have been enjoying history podcasts to fill in gaps of knowledge. Are there cultural capita
Ones?

The key to mastering any concept is to be able to explain it simply, so that another person can build upon their knowledge, like laying each course of bricks in a wall.

To try and dump all current knowledge upon somebody's head without that fundamental structure is like chucking bricks, mortar and roof tiles in a heap and expecting the three little pigs to be able to keep the wolf outside.