LOATHING THE OTHERS WELL: Philosopher loathes The Others well!

TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2016

Part 1—The soul of the New York Times:
Tom Whyman, age 27, had a rough go of it Thursday.

Whyman summers in Alresford, by which he seems to mean this small town and civil parish in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire, England, as opposed to Alresford, Essex.

Whyman summers there with his parents; this seems to trigger his loathing of everyone else on the face of the Earth. We say this based upon Whyman's account of what happened to him last week.

Still being perhaps a bit of a slacker, Whyman had failed to make arrangements to cast his Brexit vote in Alresford, the beautiful town where he summers. For this reason, his time was wasted on trains last Thursday, and he never quite managed to vote.

That said, Whyman hadn't shown much interest in Brexit until Jo Cox was killed. Did we mention the fact that Whyman may possibly still be a bit of a slacker?

In the ridiculous piece which headed the New York Times' Sunday Review this weekend, Whyman described his ennui-flavored lack of engagement in best existentialist fashion. Only the New York Times, no one else, would publish such manifest crap:
WHYMAN (6/26/16): Since my late teens, every effort I have ever exerted has been with the intention of escaping Alresford. And yet, I am an early-career academic and so I am forced to move back, every summer, to live with my parents because I cannot afford to pay rent elsewhere after my temporary teaching contract ends. Then, sometimes, I think: What if I’m actually secretly comfortable here? What if I have chosen the security of death in Alresford over the risks of life elsewhere? What if I am in fact fully in the clutches of Alresfordism?

It was for psychological reasons, as much as anything else, that I didn’t register to vote in Alresford. Registering to vote here would have felt like actually moving here. I registered in Essex, where I live during the academic year, for the recent local elections, so I just thought I’d retain that registration for the Brexit referendum. I also don’t like filling in forms, which is why I didn’t register to vote by mail or look into how I’d amend my registration.

I admit that I was very complacent about all this. I didn’t think one vote would make a difference. And besides, I wasn’t particularly motivated to use my vote anyway. Brexit, supported by some very bad people, would definitely have some bad consequences, but on the other hand, who knows what positive effects it might have? I wasn’t willing to endorse it, but, hey, I certainly bought the argument that it might be a worthwhile shake-up to the system.

My complacency lasted until June 16, when Jo Cox, a Labour member of Parliament and a vocal defender of immigration, was killed;
the man charged in her death, Thomas Mair, had ties to far-right groups and introduced himself in court by the name “death to traitors.” That shocked me into a realization that this referendum wasn’t really a referendum about whether or not we should remain in the European Union. It was a referendum on immigration and on race—on whether to have our borders open or closed.
Do we detect the hint of a tonal borrowing from Camus? Whyman, you see, isn't just any "early-career academic." According to the New York Times, he's a "lecturer in philosophy at the University of Essex."

By his own more specific description, he's "a philosopher who works at the University of Essex. In my day-to-day life, I do research about (and teach) critical theory, German Idealism, and ethical naturalism. This blog is a place where I publish what I guess I would call ‘cultural criticism’. Philosophy is the most serious thing of all, but in order to meet the immense stupidity of reality today, it cannot confine itself to pretensions of academic seriousness."

Do we detect the hint of a borrowing from Camus? In part, we ask because the title of Whyman's revealing piece—"Hell is Other Britons"—is a reference to immortal Sartre, as we'll note below.

At any rate, you can detect the hint of the slacker in Whyman's account of his emergence as a despairing anti-Brexit hard-liner. Two weeks ago, he didn't much care one way or the other! By Sunday, he was condemning the whole human race, over the result of a vote in which he didn't take part.

You may think we're exaggerating about his alleged condemnation of the whole human race. Surely, you will think, this young philosopher issued no such blanket denunciation—and if he did, the New York Times certainly wouldn't have published such a manifesto.

In fact, that is precisely where Whyman was led by his existential despair concerning a topic he didn't care about until June 16 or later. Inevitably, the outcome of the Brexit vote has filled him with loathing for The Others, pretty much for the whole human race.

He seems to want them all to die, or at least to disappear. Here's part of what he wrote this Sunday. It stems from his vast existential despair about the place where he grew up and summers:
WHYMAN: My parents’ house stands in the middle of a 1980s housing development of suburban ugliness, all detached red-brick blocks and generously proportioned driveways. There is not supposed to be nature in the suburbs, but in Alresford (pronounced AWLS-fud) nature is still powerful—every year the grass at the top of the road will suddenly grow tall, and fill with wildflowers, hedgehogs, little birds of delirious and unusual colors. Every morning the birds wake you up at 4 with a chorus of hoots and trills.

But no sooner has nature started to assert itself than the grass gets cut back and the mornings return to being silent and still. Alresford becomes human again. Human in a normal, provincial English way, in a place where people own homes, save for pensions and vote to leave the European Union—as 55 percent of the population of Hampshire county did on Thursday.

Sometimes, in the summer, I walk up the hill and I look out over it, the housing development on one side and the Georgian town center at the bottom of the other, and I have this fantasy image of how it once was, before Alresford was founded in the Middle Ages, when all of this was untouched: just the wild, untamed nature that it keeps wanting to turn itself back into. And sometimes, I think: I wish that would happen. Because all that humans have ever done here is ruin things.

Alresford is my personal hell.
Whyman doesn't seem to like the fact that Alresford is "human." More specifically, fifty-five percent of the people in Hampshire County disagreed with the judgment he only recently reached about Brexit, and he seems to be taking it hard.

The town in which mummy and daddy live "is my personal hell," Whyman explained in his anguished essay. As he continued, he sketched his loathing of The Others in crazier, ugly detail:
WHYMAN (continuing directly): We are not used to thinking that a place like this—a pleasant town with a pretty center—might actually be hell. There is almost no poverty and only the occasional act of violence. There are good schools, a range of shops, a heritage railway. In fact, it’s somewhere that a lot of people, apparently, actively want to live: Houses in the center easily sell for upward of a million pounds. (What they will cost once the vote to leave the European Union makes the economy crater remains to be seen.)

But dig below the surface, and you will find the demons crawling. You can see them in the looks that residents give you when they pass; sneering snobs glaring down their noses with entitlement; small-minded townies, bullying you with eyes that you recognize from the primary school lunchroom; the old people, 80 and above, wearing blank stares. You can hear it in their bothered tutting at the bus stop (especially if they ever hear a visitor mispronouncing the name of the town), the shots that constantly ring out from across the countryside as they set about murdering as many of the local pheasants as they can.
Whyman can see "the demons crawling" everywhere in the personal hell he's too lazy to abandon. More specifically, Whyman can see "the demons crawling" when he looks at The Others.

Forty-five percent of the people in his county voted the same way he would have voted, had he managed to vote. But Whyman seems to loathe everyone in his town. An instinctive democrat, he loathes them all the same.

He even loathes the 80-somethings, who he imagines snubbing him through their imagined "blank stares." Newtown may have started like this, a sensible person might think.

By the end of his piece, the philosopher is explicitly wishing that everyone in Alresford would cease to exist. Everyone in all of England, in fact!

"I want a demented, throbbing, fecund nature to overrun this whole country," the disappointed philosopher-king writes at the end of his piece. He wants that demented nature "to overturn the wretched consequences of the laws that we have, in our stupidity, set for ourselves."

As noted, the headline on Whyman's essay says this: "Hell is Other Britons." It's a reference to Sartre's demon-infested Huis Clos (No Exit), in which one of the characters makes the eternal declaration:

"Hell is other people."

More on immortal Sartre tomorrow. For today, let's note what makes Whyman's piece so revealing.

Whyman's cry for the death of all humans started as a blog post. Incredibly but inevitably, the New York Times became aware of the post—and sure enough!

Instead of suggesting that Whyman seek help, the Times decided to publish his piece! ("Sorry for selling out," the philosopher declares.)

Indeed, the Times didn't just publish this slacker's lament; they made it the featured piece on the front page of last weekend's Sunday Review. We'd call that decision revealing.

Whyman is still quite young; we'd be inclined to say he seems depressive, and quite foolish at this point. That said, his loathing and contempt for his neighbors captures a cultural style of the pseudo-left over the past many years.

That cultural style is ugly and self-defeating. On the merits, it's breathtakingly stupid, but it's very much ours.

Sensible people of the left can learn a great deal from the loathing expressed in Whyman's piece. Americans can learn a great deal from the fact that the New York Times published his troubling blog post.

We'll assume that young Whyman is well-intentioned—but on its face, his essay is a paean to loathing and the desire for death. It's also an instructional manual in the loathing of the underclass, The Others, the subhumans who create Whyman's personal Hell.

His piece is all about loathing The Others, us humans. Inevitably, the New York Times rushed to publish the piece on the highest platform it holds.

Tomorrow: Immortal Sartre's apricot cocktails. Also, lessons in loathing "white trash"

45 comments:

  1. Whyman reminds me a great deal of another philosophy student whose bad writing style has captured my fancy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey anon 11.49,
      That's a Whymanian response. Somerby never attacks ordinary citizenry. He only goes after the sneering class of pundits and profs. And his writing style is not at all bad. And Bob is exactly right on this post. A young academic calling out 80 year-olds for their blank stares-what absolute meanness. 80 year old bodies hurt to be in and they deserve our utmost sympathy. The NYT really fucked up putting that inhumane drivel in their paper, and Somerby is proving his worth by calling them out. What the hell is your point?

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. Mr. Carpenter you seem to be as prone to jumping to conclusions as Nona Nym, who many people call "The Sock" or "The Pup." Nobody said a word about Mr. Somerby.

      Delete
    4. It’s very hard to have much respect for horrible people like us.

      Delete
    5. In the past few years, we have all been able to see how childish, lazy and dumb we liberals actually are.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous @ 1:28 everybody makes mistakes. All us humans are dumb. When we the people are young, we can be very dumb!

      Delete
    7. True 2:01. There are so many young, dumb douches out there like the guy here. So gross. They have been ruined by television and empty culture. So dumb they don't even know they're dumb. They should throw away their TV's. They could be saved. First, throw away the tv, second read Crime and Punishment. 3rd. Stop thinking. 4th. Shut up, never talk. 5th Work and continue to shut up and not talk and think. 6th. remember you are not special and definitely NOT smart. Thats the hardest one for them, the 6th.

      Delete
    8. What was the 6th again?

      Delete
    9. Before I clam up can I ask who @ 11:49 is talking about?

      Delete
    10. Anon 1.28,
      Anon 11.49 threw out the first response to Mr. Somerby's post. If the negativity was directed at some other person, then that should have been made clear. Who did you think anon 11.49 was talking about? Would you clarify for me. I don't know about the sock and the pup or Nona Nym. It seems like every other post on this comment section is a an attack on Somerby, so it was an easy assumption to make on my part. But if I was wrong, I would like to know.

      Delete
    11. 5:23. Shut up and get out of here idiot loser creep. No one cares about you.

      Delete
    12. Mark - you too. Take a hike. Get offline. Read a book or whatever just get the he'll out of here.

      Delete
    13. I think its Yglesias.

      Delete
    14. Mr. Carpenter, your defense of the aged, infirm and sympathy for Bob is most kind. Do we take it to also include their habit of murdering winged wildlife?

      Delete
  2. I am struck by the certainty of many that Brexit is an unmitigated disaster. Even many Americans are entirely certain. As far as I can see, Brexit has both advantages and disadvantages for the Brits. I don't believe anyone can foretell what will happen now or what would have happened had the Remains won the vote. In short, I think more humility is called for.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Move to England then dumbass preposition sentence-ender.

      Delete
    2. A famous valid sentence ending with 5 prepositions:

      "What did you bring that book that I don't want to be read to out of up for?"

      Delete
  3. Critical theory, eh? I'd say the Times did everyone a great service indeed. Truly, the man is a credit to his studies. Rarely are such philosophers so open an honest about the fruits of their philosophy. Just in case anyone had any doubts as to where the resurgence of traditionalism and nationalism are coming from, he outlines where the now dominant paradigm leads.

    True, the hoi polloi don't have his fancy philosophy degree, but even before his essay, it has been becoming increasingly hard to miss where such ideas lead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Back in Bob's day they led us right to Reagan.
      And probably Thatcher across the pond. I'm glad I missed it.

      Delete
  4. I salute Somerby for pointing out another dangerous teacher at the higher education level. The Times should not be publishing him. He is not from here anyway but he clearly has the trappings of one of our own liberal tribal leaders.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Sorry for selling out," the philosopher declares.

    Well, a cynic might note Wyman is at least aware he is whoring for the Times, unlike Rachel Maddow, who seems clueless she is the one bribed by the bagmen at NBC.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maddow - can you imagine what it must be like to be around that horrible bag of self loathing and phoniness?

      Delete
    2. I enjoy Maddow's performance. She uses humor well and her reporting is rock solid.

      Delete
    3. As Somerby pointed out so well yesterday, she is paid. That makes her corrupt. She makes the McDonnell's look like the church choir.

      Delete
    4. "she is paid. That makes her corrupt"

      I didn't see that syllogism myself. But whatever.

      But corruption to the side though, can you explain what makes her so unbearable?

      Delete
    5. She is so unbearable. That is true. Gawd. What a fake

      Delete
    6. Anon @ 6:06. How could you have missed it???

      "But make no mistake—there's almost nothing she won't do to please the bosses who bribe her and affect her conduct with that $7 million per year."

      How can youy claim not to be able to bear her yet blow right past that gem from the Somster?

      What a piddle pimper.

      Delete
    7. It's line she is unbearable because human beings are not always bubbly like she is. We have dark and serious sides too so when a fraud like her presents themselves as bubbly and bright, we can all smell that is bs. Admittedly many of us can't but many do realize that she is being false and its offensive and unbearable. Another unbearable trait that is kinda of from the same cloth is that she adopts the affectation of a teenager which a lot of adults do and she and those that do are unbearable when he do it. She just sucks though obviously. Pull your head out of you can't see it.

      Delete
    8. She reminds me ot the teachers who "want to be your friend." I stayed away from the nuns, coaches, and priests.

      Delete
    9. She doesn't know, like or respect herself. She's obviously totally hollow. It's offensive.

      Delete
    10. Plus there is the matter of her recompense.
      I heard it is in the $7 million plus range annually. A few might seem to find that offensive and it could lead them to insane jealousy and even childish name calling.

      Delete
  6. Terror attacks don't lend themselves to rational thought, do they?

    ReplyDelete
  7. "You can see them in the looks that residents give you when they pass; sneering snobs glaring down their noses with entitlement; small-minded townies, bullying you with eyes that you recognize from the primary school lunchroom...."

    This man lacks self awareness. I never say this, but this dude needs a serious beating.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even a half hearted one would improve his outlook.

      Delete
    2. Thugz rule, right dorks?

      Delete
    3. Do you see any spellcaster spammers around?
      Are we not men?

      Delete
  8. Funny comments today, in both senses.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Howler liab hu ua thiab paub txog qhov nrov, guttural howls lawv sia siv ntawm qhov pib thiab xaus rau hnub ntawd. Lawv yog cov tsiaj nyob hauv lub ntiaj teb tshiab loudest thiab thaum lawv nqov no tsis yog lub suab piercing, nws mus ua rau peb mais mus txog tom hav zoov tuab.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Did it ever occur to Somerby that somebody at the Times picked this piece out as an example of demonstrating what insuffereable worthless whiny twits the English are and always have been?

    ReplyDelete
  11. HOW TO RESTORE YOUR BROKEN MARRIAGE
    Life is all about good and bad experience...i was hurting REAL bad when my husband left me but now i can't really believe that i am with my Ex-Husband again and With this little short time and just want to use it in thanking the great man that brought joy back to my life within 48 hours by bringing back my lover. Yes it was true that i had some difficulties with my lover but today i am back here to tell the world that Dr.goodluck brought my lover back to me. I have always heard of love spell but i never had an idea of how effective it can be. Well my time is up just contact Dr.goodluck at his email goodluck05spellcaster@gmail.com and you can also whatapp him or call with his mobile +2349059610309. To enable you have a taste of his great work.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Healing from HIV-AIDS, i never though dr.camala who could ever get my HIV-AIDS cured with his healing spell, i have tried almost everything but i couldn't find any solution on my disease, despite all these happening to me, i always spend alot to buy a HIV drugs from hospital and taking some several medications but no relieve, until one day i was just browsing on the internet when i come across a great post of !Michelle! who truly said that she was been diagnose with HIV and was healed that very week through the help of these great powerful healing spell doctor, sometime i really wonder why people called him Papa camala, i never knew it was all because of the great and perfect work that he has been doing that is causing all this. so i quickly contacted him, and he ask me some few questions and he said a thing i will never forget that anyone who contacted him is ! always getting his or her healing in just 6 hours after doing all he ask you, so i was amazed all the time i heard that from him, so i did all things only to see that at the very day which he said i will be healed, all the strength that has left me before rush back and i becomes very strong and healthy, this disease almost kills my life all because of me, so i will to hospital to give the final test to the disease and the doctor said i am HIV negative, i am very amazed and happy about the healing dr.camala gave to me from the ancient part of Africa, you can email him now for your own healing too at: dr.camalahivadscure@yahoo.com or WhatsApp him +2348164728160 thank you sir for healing me from HIV

    ReplyDelete