Insolence revolution
Improving the world through scorn
September 5, 2006 16 comments
One of the tools available to a web-dictator such as myself shows which search terms people have been entering into google in order to arrive at the site. This can be very illuminating. I am happy that people searching for “failed asylum seekers” or “unspeak christian“, or even the evocative phrase “kamm terrorism“, end up here: that is as it should be. However, I feel I ought to apologise to those people who were also driven into my virtual arms by looking for information on “supernatural odour” (what does a ghost smell like? Happily, I have no idea) and – fascinatingly – “orwell on cereals“. (I regret to say that the Introduction offers no theory about whether George Orwell preferred cornflakes to muesli.) My favourite so far, however, is “insolence revolution blog”, which, once I had stared at it for a couple of seconds, I decided was miraculously appropriate.
Yes, this is an insolence revolution blog. Here at unspeak.net, I and my regular commenters are conspiring to foment an insolence revolution. Soon, insolence will be on the march, imposing the precious freedom of scorn for authority on all corners of this benighted globe. I say now: if you’re not with us in this war on deference, you’re against us.
You know, according to Marcuse’s idea of “repressive de-sublimation”, everything that now seems liberating — like sexual mores in the seventies — will eventually be co-opted, or co-opts itself, by taking attention from what really oppresses us.
So, insolence, too, may be someday co-opted, thrown back at us in commercial or political form. I can even imagine a President who says to a reporter “why should I care what you think?”, or a VP who says to a Senator of the opposition party “Go f*ck yourself!”
Israel’s leaders already have the style down pat: Olmert says toward the end of the indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon, “we will do what we have to, and not apologize to anyone.”
We may eventually have to go beyond insolence, to ironic deference, or surreal sincerity, to make our points.
Well, I found unspeak.net by typing in “Hot Sexxx Christopher Hitchens”.
Imagine my disappointment . . .
Brave man, SW!
I tip my hat to you, bobw, for the masterful suggestion of “ironic deference”.
SW, I don’t know whether you are a playwright, but “Hot Sexxx Christopher Hitchens” sounds like the title of a show that could take the West End or Broadway by storm.
Some more recent searches leading here:
“damn it feels good to be a gangster t-shirt”;
“spouse appreciation game”;
and, quite unaccountably:
“italian masculinity cheating”.
I do believe – and I may be wrong – that I previously name-checked the Geto Boys’ masterpiece of lounge rap, Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta, and so take full responsibility for providing the bait to entice that poor t-shirt-seeking soul here – to the type of site that attracts vicious sorts who would try to unmask the Unspeak in “Gangsta”.
I might add that I made up “lounge rap” to describe this Geto Boys’ song: a quick google search (Google is my friend) finds that this may already be a genre, it’s not clear: the sample I listened to would make poor company for Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta.
But I am curious, SP, why “unaccountably”? Surely we would be far more surprised to find somebody searching for “italian masculinity faithful” or “italian masculinity sensitive” or “italian masculinity post-oedipal”?
Or perhaps we should just ask Zidane.
Some of the search terms that have led people to my site today:
show me how to groom female pubic hair
the simpsons mazel tov quote
world strip poker championship pictures
star of david gang symbol
who likes george bush
katherine harris form fitting hot pink
barbie nude
when did bush fart
Sadly, WIIIAI, I found your site when I searching for “Hot Sexx Katherine Harris Photos” . . . Imagine my disappointment . . .
WIIIAI is a valued ally in our war on deference. I love the idea of someone typing “who likes george bush” into google.
SW, I hesitate to speculate on the psychic wound that issues in your regular incontinent anti-Italian spiels: it ill behoves someone otherwise so reasonable.
I was 99% sure that I remembered George Orwell having some views on muesli, but a quick search reveals that his ire in the last chapter of “The Road to Wigan Pier” was actually directed against “fruit juice drinkers” which if anything seems like an even odder target.
Are fruit-juice drinkers the ancestors of the bearded sandal-wearers so beloved of unfunny Guardian letter-writers?
Your own regular incontinent charges of incontinence against other members of the Unspeak community may speak to psychic wounds, but I don’t “hesitate” to speculate on these wounds – I simply don’t care enough to even start speculating on them. Of course, claiming to “hesitate” to do something is itself a rather grotesque act of unspeak: because while implying that you are too prim and proper and sensitive to do something, you are simultaneously unspeaking how you broached the whole topic in the first place.
A quick search back over unspeak.net finds that those you accuse of being “incontinent” rarely are, but it does shut them up. So, it really doesn’t matter why you make the charge: the effect is the same.
In the context of Unspeak.net, “Italian masculinity cheating” was obviously going to lead to the Insolence debate, where those terms came up again and again, and yet you preface it with an “unaccountably”. Again, why is that any more unaccountable than “spouse appreciation game”? Picking up on that odd “unaccountably”, I teasingly change that search term into fairly conventional stereotypes of the Italian male to suggest _that_ is its unaccountability. Hardly a gushing tirade of pissed loathing.
But, I bid adieu for now – other business calls for a while, so the unspeak community will have to plug along without my “reasonable” contributions (Christ, if I knew I was being “reasonable” I never would have left my comments) and my uncontrolled, probably insane jokes about Italians.
SW, I congratulate you on noticing my rather obvious irony re hesitating to speculate, and take the opportunity to remind you also of this, from the Functional insanity thread:
Both Italy and the American West, however, come provisionally under the term “primitive”.
All meant in good fun, I’m sure, though perhaps Italian readers, if there are any, wouldn’t think so.
the man who invented bearded sandal-wearing was a pioneer gay vegetarian in the arts and crafts movement called EDWARD CARPENTER — he also invented crafts awaydays in the country so he could have hott sexx w.young victorian working class artisans
i am very fond of him (despite his non-canonic wiki beardlessness)
Fascinating, blt, thank you. That page also has the full Orwell quote, where he also fulminates about “sex maniacs”. Is a sex maniac possessed of a kind of “functioning insanity”?
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