Post 9/11 World and Harry Potter

[DavidEC]

I was talking about a specific sort of attack, however, in my original posts and original point.

[Darth Wong]

I was talking about a specific sort of attack, however, in my original posts and original point.

Wrong, you stupid lying cunt. I said I wasn't surprised, and you responded to MY post by characterizing it as "20/20 hindsight".

[General Zod]

Where you thinking about the political causes ramifications of the attacks as soon as you saw the images?

What the fuck does that have to do with my point? I don't remember what I was thinking at the time except maybe wondering who did it.

And indeed, did most people have that reaction, rationally justified or not?

Who gives a shit about what most people thought?

[DavidEC]

What the fuck does that have to do with my point? I don't remember what I was thinking at the time except maybe wondering who did it.

Your words: "I generally tend to feel more sympathy for people in disasters that are completely outside of a nation's ability to control or prevent." To me this implies politics but I could be misinterpreting it.

Who gives a shit about what most people thought?

Me when answering the OP's general thrust.

[General Zod]

Your words: "I generally tend to feel more sympathy for people in disasters that are completely outside of a nation's ability to control or prevent." To me this implies politics but I could be misinterpreting it.

It implies things like natural disasters are generally outside of anyone's ability to control or predict as opposed to terrorist activity or actions a government can monitor and actively work towards stopping. This is hardly rocket science.

Me when answering the OP's general thrust.

Except whether or not other people felt the same has absolutely zero bearing on what I was responding to.

[DavidEC]

Wrong, you stupid lying cunt. I said I wasn't surprised, and you responded to MY post by characterizing it as "20/20 hindsight".

I specifically mentioned, in my original post:

"the footage now on YouTube" - I am particularly concerned with the impact of the visual imagery and how its: "spectacle, instant media coverage, and concentration of suffering" relate to its greater cultural impact. Also I mentioned "skyscrapers collapsing". It's not surprising that America was attacked; the way in which it happened and the way it filtered down to most of us (i.e. not in NY) was surprising, except to a handful such as Rick Rescorla, Osama and so on. I've constantly talked about the specifics of the attack and how unique it was in an immediate sense.

To an extent I should have clarified in my first reply to your reply that I was talking about specific visual imagery but I've done my best for now.

[SirNitram]

I'm high off nitrous.. Let's hear it for dentistry.. But this is still unadulterated crap. Pure and distilled. If you absolutely must know, you ghoulish fucktard, I had a more viscereal reaction to 9/11 because... I LIVED AN HOUR FROM THE CITY AND MY FATHER WORKED IN ONE OF THE BUILDINGS.

Gee, didn't you specifically caution against that for comparison to the Tsunami? Why not do so for the towers? Oh, right, it invalidates your bullcrap. Yet, even with my personal stake in 9/11, I know it wasn't some 'new age'. It was not the stupid media sensationalism that triggered my reaction, it was the fact it was people I knew and grew up around.

You, on the other hand, openly admit you had no stake, no personal connection, yet pretend to lecture me? What a joke. What a buffoon you are. I'll let Mike, whose less medicated, finish eviscerating you, but I couldn't let this ghoulish nonsense continue.

[DavidEC]

I'm high off nitrous.. Let's hear it for dentistry.. But this is still unadulterated crap. Pure and distilled. If you absolutely must know, you ghoulish fucktard, I had a more viscereal reaction to 9/11 because... I LIVED AN HOUR FROM THE CITY AND MY FATHER WORKED IN ONE OF THE BUILDINGS.

Most people did not. If I offended you I apologise, nothing more worthwhile I can say on the subject but I am obviously talking about most people, and around the West, most people were not near NYC on that day.

From the very start I was talking about 9/11's impact on a wider audience via media and explaining why people, reasonably or not, talk of a new age.

Gee, didn't you specifically caution against that for comparison to the Tsunami? Why not do so for the towers? Oh, right, it invalidates your bullcrap. Yet, even with my personal stake in 9/11, I know it wasn't some 'new age'. It was not the stupid media sensationalism that triggered my reaction, it was the fact it was people I knew and grew up around.

Did I say I thought we entered a 'new age'? In a final sense I don't know and due to the reasons you say I'm not sure I ever will.

I am, however, attempting to explain possible reasons or excuses for why people think we've entered a new age, regardless of whether or not they are reasonable.

You, on the other hand, openly admit you had no stake, no personal connection, yet pretend to lecture me? What a joke. What a buffoon you are. I'll let Mike, whose less medicated, finish eviscerating you, but I couldn't let this ghoulish nonsense continue.

I didn't lecture you and I don't pretend to be taken on my own merits. I'm talking in a wide cultural sense. If I did lecture you it's only because you missed that point and made it personal.

The OP struck me as non-personal and wishing to discuss 9/11's general cultural impact. When I said "Did you feel this or that" I did not literally mean 'you' as in a specific person, and when I said "I thought the footage was this and that" I did not have my own unique experiences in mind - I don't have any of those.

Those images are, however, presumably representative of what a lot of people with access to media saw that day and so I focus on them.

[Tribun]

Oh hell, please somone split this idiocy of DavidEC.
Why do 9/11 threads almost attract idiots like light the moths?

[General Zod]

Oh hell, please somone split this idiocy of DavidEC.
Why do 9/11 threads almost attract idiots like light the moths?

The same reason it attracts the me-toers I'd imagine.

[SirNitram]

I'm high off nitrous.. Let's hear it for dentistry.. But this is still unadulterated crap. Pure and distilled. If you absolutely must know, you ghoulish fucktard, I had a more viscereal reaction to 9/11 because... I LIVED AN HOUR FROM THE CITY AND MY FATHER WORKED IN ONE OF THE BUILDINGS.

Most people did not. If I offended you I apologise, nothing more worthwhile I can say on the subject but I am obviously talking about most people, and around the West, most people were not near NYC on that day.

From the very start I was talking about 9/11's impact on a wider audience via media and explaining why people, reasonably or not, talk of a new age.

It's completely unreasonable and only comes from those whose heads were inserted firmly up their asses for the decade prior. WTC had been bombed. Oklahoma City. The Cole. So on. So forth. There is absolutely no way to pretend that day was a dawning of a new age, save perhaps a new age of attempts to subvert democracies into dictatorships.

Gee, didn't you specifically caution against that for comparison to the Tsunami? Why not do so for the towers? Oh, right, it invalidates your bullcrap. Yet, even with my personal stake in 9/11, I know it wasn't some 'new age'. It was not the stupid media sensationalism that triggered my reaction, it was the fact it was people I knew and grew up around.

Did I say I thought we entered a 'new age'? In a final sense I don't know and due to the reasons you say I'm not sure I ever will.

From the very start I was talking about 9/11's impact on a wider audience via media and explaining why people, reasonably or not, talk of a new age.

I truly despise people who lie so blatantly. You were on about a new age. You might not believe it yourself, but that just exposes the dishonesty of your reply here.

I am, however, attempting to explain possible reasons or excuses for why people think we've entered a new age, regardless of whether or not they are reasonable.

They're self-absorbed little fucktards who had their heads up their asses for the previous decade, ignoring numerous terrorist attacks, and only noticed when it was politically convenient to those who they supported. That seems to fit the data better than your half-assed crap.

You, on the other hand, openly admit you had no stake, no personal connection, yet pretend to lecture me? What a joke. What a buffoon you are. I'll let Mike, whose less medicated, finish eviscerating you, but I couldn't let this ghoulish nonsense continue.

I didn't lecture you and I don't pretend to be taken on my own merits. I'm talking in a wide cultural sense. If I did lecture you it's only because you missed that point and made it personal.

No, little boy. You trivialized it all by making it about media coverage; As I said, a city left to die received less, and a celebrity known for fake tits got about the same. By your stupid little hypothesis, we enter a new age every time a pinup dies.

The OP struck me as non-personal and wishing to discuss 9/11's general cultural impact. When I said "Did you feel this or that" I did not literally mean 'you' as in a specific person, and when I said "I thought the footage was this and that" I did not have my own unique experiences in mind - I don't have any of those.

Then why the fuck did you say 'You'? It is implicit in including the reader, for chrissakes. There was no cultural impact, save that it let people unmask their own already-existing bigotry. After all, before we knew it was domestic, the Right Wing's noise machine on radio was blaming Oklahoma on those muslims.

Those images are, however, presumably representative of what a lot of people with access to media saw that day and so I focus on them.

Again you go back to this 'Lots of media play == IMPORTANT!' crap. Again, celebrities get the same treatment. Was it a New Age when John Paul II died? When Anna Nicole Smith did? What was more important about two buildings in NYC than an entire city in Lousiana?

You never answer these, you just duck and dodge and try to pretend you're on some pedestal where you can't be criticized.

[DavidEC]

Sorry, I think I confused visceral, emotional and cultural in the beginning.

I am speaking solely about the non-political, non-rational but artistic and visceral reaction a large number of people had to their 'experience' of 9/11 - i.e. through media - and how this would impact on art, literature, the general cultural climate and so on.

When I said 'visceral' and 'emotional' and so on I didn't think it through properly and what people it might apply to, though it should be obvious that I meant no offence by it. And yes, I do feel uncomfortable talking in this post-modern bla-bla cultural studies professor mode.

[SirNitram]

Sorry, I think I confused visceral, emotional and cultural in the beginning.

I am speaking solely about the non-political, non-rational but artistic and visceral reaction a large number of people had to their 'experience' of 9/11 - i.e. through media - and how this would impact on art, literature, the general cultural climate and so on.

When I said 'visceral' and 'emotional' and so on I didn't think it through properly and what people it might apply to, though it should be obvious that I meant no offence by it. And yes, I do feel uncomfortable talking in this post-modern bla-bla cultural studies professor mode.

Post-Modernism is worthless on it's face, even within the minimally useful realm of philosophy: It rejects the very concept of a meaning, while philosophy is about finding the meaning. So please take that crap and go the fuck away. I don't care if you 'mean no offense', you offend with the repeated stupidity of your spewings.

If you want to look at it's effect on art, pick up some of the comics that came out around that time and see how they recignize the heroes of that day. If you want to see it's effects on culture, contrast the redneck retards who hate New York Liberals yet use it as a battlecry, against the city and those around it when there was an outpouring of donations.

But don't prattle on like you have. You have proven you really can't discuss what you think you want to. I don't particularly care why you're incapable.

[DavidEC]

It's completely unreasonable and only comes from those whose heads were inserted firmly up their asses for the decade prior. WTC had been bombed. Oklahoma City. The Cole. So on. So forth. There is absolutely no way to pretend that day was a dawning of a new age, save perhaps a new age of attempts to subvert democracies into dictatorships.

It is unreasonable. That's what I've been saying concerning arresting visual imagery.

Do you think it's produced new shifts in culture? Do you think 'Sleeper Cell' and CoD4 and BF2 and 'Britz' and so on and so forth were as likely to be made pre as post?

Conversely, do you think 'Sum of All Fears' and 'Crimson Tide' are as culturally relevant today?

There is evidence to the contrary: 'True Lies' and the film I mentioned earlier, 'The Siege', is such evidence, of films being made before 9/11 and presaging large-scale terrorism in the US associated with Arabs. However, I generally think it dominates our cultural imaginations more.

I truly despise people who lie so blatantly. You were on about a new age. You might not believe it yourself, but that just exposes the dishonesty of your reply here.

Alright then, I admit confusion from the start and say that I should have restricted myself to positive description rather than any hint that I was giving my own opinion on 9/11.

They're self-absorbed little fucktards who had their heads up their asses for the previous decade, ignoring numerous terrorist attacks, and only noticed when it was politically convenient to those who they supported. That seems to fit the data better than your half-assed crap.

That's almost a given in my half-assed crap; I said right from the start that I was talking about irrational reactions to 9/11, not rational analyses. However, different types of imagery affect self-absorbed little fucktards in different ways and 9/11 had a potent mix which it irrationally more important.

By the way, it is half-assed. This is a problem with culture; there are few hard and fast statistics to go by. I would love to see how many times 'terrorism', or 'Islam', for example, is mentioned in major newspapers pre and post 9/11, or and so on but it requires in-depth analysis.

No, little boy. You trivialized it all by making it about media coverage; As I said, a city left to die received less, and a celebrity known for fake tits got about the same. By your stupid little hypothesis, we enter a new age every time a pinup dies.

A pinup dying is obviously not on the same level as 9/11.

However, if you're saying that this media coverage is shallow, image-based and based on quick, visceral reactions, then you're on the same track as I. That's what I've been talking about from the beginning.

Then why the fuck did you say 'You'?

Imprecise language on my part, I apologise, but otherwise it's a common colloquial use of the second person. "When you cross the road, you look both ways." 'You' is not directed at any particular person.

Again you go back to this 'Lots of media play == IMPORTANT!' crap.

Not quite. 9/11 had characteristics which made it more visually impacting.

Again, celebrities get the same treatment. Was it a New Age when John Paul II died? When Anna Nicole Smith did? What was more important about two buildings in NYC than an entire city in Lousiana?

Do you think I place that much importance on those things?

I don't, I get sick of Anna Nicole Smith and the narrow-mindedness of the media. I am explaining how, nevertheless, it impacts on general culture.

You never answer these, you just duck and dodge and try to pretend you're on some pedestal where you can't be criticized.

You never answer the point of normative vs positive, but keep thinking that I myself consider 9/11 a more tremendous event, even though I've explicitly mentioned other tragedies as being far greater.

[SirNitram]

Oh look. I answer the insipid, flailing attempts at 'points' and what does he do? Snip them out so he can stay up on his pedestal. Not surprising.

[DavidEC]

How should I reply?

En bloc?

I find that tends to produce people talking past each other so I don't do it.

I'm going to reduce it all to this: "9/11 has had an unreasonably great impact on Western cultural imagination because of its visually arresting, powerful imagery."

[SirNitram]

How should I reply?

Here's a concept, you deceitful little Troll: When someone answers your pathetic little crap about how you want to talk about the cultural impact, do not snip away where he does so and again demand that be the topic.

Fucking Troll.

[DavidEC]

Is that not a major point in the OP, however, the cultural impact?

[SirNitram]

Is that not a major point in the OP, however, the cultural impact?

Are you going to address the fact I've given you an answer, or are you going to play this stupid little game because you think it makes you look good?

[DavidEC]

I think I did, but I'll do it in more detail.

"Here's a concept, you deceitful little Troll: When someone answers your pathetic little crap about how you want to talk about the cultural impact, do not snip away where he does so and again demand that be the topic.

Fucking Troll."

What are you implying here? That I should answer all impacts of 9/11 (even though I didn't invite myself into discussions about them)? Sorry, but I want to restrict myself for simplicity's sake. Discussing all the impacts would take too long Nothing wrong with that.

Or that I discussed non-cultural impacts of 9/11, and then denied responses to those parts because I then wanted to talk culture, as a cover for my stupidity in those parts? Any attempt to talk about non-cultural impacts was accidental and the result of sloppy thinking or sloppy language, I apologise, but as I've said repeatedly, it was never my intention. Which of these statements do you have a problem with?

Or, that I snip out the insults? Hey, I'm not particularly hurt by them, nor do I enjoy them - the latter being a classic hallmark of a "fucking troll". I just don't have anything to say to them.

[Dark Hellion]

Saying we live in a "post 9/11" world is the same as saying we live in a "post Superbowl" world after America saw Janet Jackson's tit. Its the media's dumbshit way of saying that historical events actually effect culture. The media being the morons they are, like to distill everything into a single talking point, that they have the best footage of.

Of course 9/11 had a large impact upon the way that the world works, you had the world hyperpower get a bloody nose from some third-world group that the average dumb as fuck American had never heard of. And if there is something America as a culture hates, its the concept of a large scale attack on American soil. Of course you are going to have a major visceral response, most people grandparents remember Pearl Harbor, their kids grew up on stories of 'how America got so great' afterwards, and now you had an easily equivocated (although incorrectly) attack. But really, did this need to be harped on by the media as "post 9/11 world" hell no. We haven't had a WWII style mobilization, or 'nam style drafts, we just get reamed a bit more when we fill up our SUVs. There is no major change, just the shitty escalation of what the conservative morons want to be the status quo, and a bunch of ignorant asses who eat it up because you have some pictures of buildings blowing up, and flags waving, and eagles soaring, and rednecks singing country songs about how America is going to kick dirty sand nigger ass.

Of course we live in a 'post 9/11 world' by the media's definition. We also live in a 'post jailed Paris world' a post 'tickle-me Elmo world' and a post 'YMCA world.' Because reporting on the actual causes of terrorism actually requires thinking, and requires the audience to sit down, get the fuck off their cell phones, shut up, and use that brain of theirs that is mostly good for drinking, partying and working whatever moron job they do to pay for this (with their magic money making credit card of course.)

Red,white and blue forever. WHOOOO!

[SirNitram]

Or, David, you could go back up, read my posts, see where I discussed the cultural impacts.. The two diametrically opposed ones, no less.. of that day, and actually be honest and not a fucking wanker.

You chose the wanker route? Really? Whining and being deceitful? I'm not shocked. You have no interest in actual discussion, it seems, because you avoid it at all costs.

So go on. Continue to complain that I must be asking you to not snip insults. Amuse me further, you little cretin, where anyone who reads the thread can see where I've answered your pathetic stupidity.

[DavidEC]

First of all, a short character defence: I'm not whining. Whiners say stuff like "I want freedom of speech" or "I'm just expressing my opinion". And when I say 'insults', it's stuff like 'fucking troll'. Poetic, to be sure, but it doesn't have a logical point in it so why should I quote it?

The reason I listed those possibilities is that I'm clasping for straws. I'm not sure exactly what instances of trolling you're talking about.

You mention the diametrically opposed cultural impacts? Is this the one?

"No, little boy. You trivialized it all by making it about media coverage; As I said, a city left to die received less, and a celebrity known for fake tits got about the same. By your stupid little hypothesis, we enter a new age every time a pinup dies."

A pinup dying is obviously not on the same level as 9/11.

However, if you're saying that this media coverage is shallow, image-based and based on quick, visceral reactions, then you're on the same track as I. That's what I've been talking about from the beginning.

My answer to your quote concerning John Paul II and a few other examples is essentially the same.

(Speaking with Dark Hellion as well) To that I clarify that Anna Nicole Smith hardly received the the same level of coverage that 9/11 did and wouldn't have the same cultural impact, and neither would Paris Hilton, tickle-me-Elmo, YMCA and so on.

Again, I personally don't think 9/11 changed the world or even the West that much but I do see how people might say it. That's my point. What more can I say SirNitram?

[Frank Hipper]

It didn't change mine at all. But I suppose that if you had some absurd, completely bullshit Candy-Coated Worldview before it happened, then it might have been a big shock to the system. To be honest, when it happened, I found it tragic but not surprising...

...You don't have to predict a specific attack in order to know that some kind of attack is inevitable. Hell, they already tried before, moron...

...Around the world, many people were surprised not by the fact that the US was attacked, but by the fact that the attack was so successful.

When my roomate woke me up that morning yelling something about "they're bombing us!", I knew (well, strongly suspected) immediately who "they" were.

[SirNitram]

You mention the diametrically opposed cultural impacts? Is this the one?

Illiterate peice of shit.

If you want to look at it's effect on art, pick up some of the comics that came out around that time and see how they recignize the heroes of that day. If you want to see it's effects on culture, contrast the redneck retards who hate New York Liberals yet use it as a battlecry, against the city and those around it when there was an outpouring of donations.

There it was. Higher on the page. Just waiting for you to respond. Did you? No! That'd be honest, and you apparently can't abide that. You had to keep playing with strawmen.