Post 9rLPUXVFT5KkBpy91k by Alicia@neenster.org
(DIR) More posts by Alicia@neenster.org
(DIR) Post #9rL4o7ctHxzogm2YBU by nina@neenster.org
2020-01-24T21:36:18Z
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The reason good books exist is some things can’t be summed up in a sentence. Or even a paragraph. Or even an entire blog post. https://blog.ninapaley.com/2020/01/24/in-defense-of-books/
(DIR) Post #9rLLKSJdV3WxOCTQvo by w9cma@neenster.org
2020-01-25T00:41:40Z
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Once again, you have enlightened and educated me. Also an excellent argument for reading books. @nina
(DIR) Post #9rLMvJrvy3i5rQeroG by LennartMathiassen@neenster.org
2020-01-25T00:59:30Z
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@nina ok nerd
(DIR) Post #9rLPUXVFT5KkBpy91k by Alicia@neenster.org
2020-01-25T01:28:09Z
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@nina "I am open to nuanced arguments, but those don’t happen on social media." I thought spinster would be different, but mostly disappointed. 😞
(DIR) Post #9rLW21df2poKw3FqRk by nina@neenster.org
2020-01-25T02:41:38Z
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@Alicia Spinster is the best social media platform/community I've yet seen. It's just that it's still social media. I need to adjust my expectations along with everyone else.
(DIR) Post #9rLmRkxvFxL81J1Urg by Ilongedformuskrats@spinster.xyz
2020-01-25T05:44:53Z
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OMG that song and that video is amazing! Also, thanks for summarizing the "Jeffreys-gate" for us unknowing. As I'd much rather discuss this in real life than here, I'll add my favourite quote from Adrienne Rich: "You must read and write as if your life depended on it!"She didn't mean read social media posts or write comments. @nina @Alicia
(DIR) Post #9rM41aAyXz6ACdnVdg by AdrianLSullivan@spinster.xyz
2020-01-25T09:02:33Z
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I had the -exact- same experience you describe in the first five paragraphs of your piece. When I finally read Dworkin (only recently!), the degree to which I discovered she was maligned was more than a little bit enraging.On politics as you talk about them after that... It feels like we are very much in a time where nuance has been rejected. After I was cancelled in one community I'm in, I was told by some European friends/supporters that when they travel to the US, they call it 'the land of black and white'. Complexity has been largely abandoned. Maybe I'm wrong, but I largely blame social media. Nuance. I hope it makes a comeback. I don't plan on holding my breath, though.@nina
(DIR) Post #9rM7z5l54H1z6MklcW by Tryphon@mastodon.social
2020-01-25T09:46:12Z
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@nina But a couple of chapters maybe? For people who are already familiar with the subject, don't need all the introductory material, and don't need all the points made three times? Even some great books could be much shorter.
(DIR) Post #9rMPoEKyd5wPhMVvFo by arkadyhughes@glindr.org
2020-01-25T13:06:37Z
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Great piece. "There's more to life than books she said. But not much more." The Smiths.I seem to remember Dworkin arguing that dating was a form of coercion akin to rape...though I haven't read her since the 90s...it made me think about 'traditional' dating, the dinner, the flowers stuff that many 'normals' do as a form of buying sex...Dworkin's great and it's good to see that she's sneaking back onto reading lists...Though I hate confrontation of any kind, argument alert!! sorry sorry sorry...but I really would not recommend the Vegetarian Myth as a coherent argument for eating meat/dairy...I remember reading it when it came out (know thine enemy) and the nutrition pseudoscience is pretty poor, there's loads of sites debunking the humans are made to eat meat, vegan diets cause DDD, human digestive system is same as carnivorous animals, etc...all nonsense I'm afraid...And anecdotally, I've been vegan for over 30 years and my diet would make most faint (mostly peanut butter sandwiches and date based cereal bars) but I'm 47 and holding up ok...The livestock stuff is very poor...suggesting you can keep animals in some kind of organic farm state and extrapolate that to 7 billion people is completely unsustainable and her tiresome stuff about the wheatfields of Kansas etc. feeding vegetarians is nonsense as most wheat goes to animal feed and the corn into corn syrup in junk foods...And I was intrigued that she wrote a book called "The vegetarian" myth rather than vegan but it seems it's just an excuse to discuss dairy farming then extrapolate that to vegans by proxy and also to suggest that vegans aren't perfect, well of course not...much.:)Just felt the need to say :)@nina
(DIR) Post #9rMVa9Oon9WA3Pypcm by nina@neenster.org
2020-01-25T14:11:19Z
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@arkadyhughes boy do I appreciate your critique of the Vegetarian Myth! Since you actually read it!I mostly thought the first chapter, about moral vegetarianism, was interesting. Obviously I’m not eating meat because of it. But I agree with Lierre Keith that there is a naïveté and refusal to grow up that motivated me much of my life, and still does to some extent.
(DIR) Post #9rMW4RE74gpU23Pnfc by nina@neenster.org
2020-01-25T14:16:43Z
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@Tryphon overlong and bad writing is definitely a problem. For example The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a really important book, even a crucial one, but it’s 6 times longer than it needs to be due to a writing style I don’t care for. I’d recommend that book constantly we’re it not for the suffering the reader must endure to slog through it. But yes sometimes a single chapter or two are a book’s standouts, and all one should bother reading.
(DIR) Post #9rMXNrCunrIw49g7do by arkadyhughes@glindr.org
2020-01-25T14:31:25Z
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I confess I can't say I enjoyed it...I did go in with a semi-closed mind (being vegan) but I am open to discussions of eating meat, I read about one guy in Wales who lived off roadkill, I was a bit sceptical but if he did then there's no moral argument against that, good for him. In theory, morally, it makes sense for a smallholder to keep animals and kill them themselves and eat them and if they can kill them themselves then it's hard to argue against...other than the animal sentience argument.Keith's first chapter's ok as it's mostly her experience of trying to live a veg life and realizing the pitfalls (I'm vegan but I buy from stores that actively perpetuate factory farming etc., it's impossible to be pure)...it's when she starts extrapolating that to the wider world, to health issues, farming practices that I don't think she understands that the problems start...I think I read somewhere that she'd been vegan for sometime but fell ill...It's a common trope but I have no idea what they're eating (the pb sandwiches/cereal bars with fruit smoothies is really pretty much all I eat :/)...It is the joy, as you write, that books, good writing, even if you fundamentally disagree, makes 'you' think about your own ideas...In my day to day 'real' existence it seems like critical thinking is something passe...I love your writing anyhow and I would love to read more takes on feminist theory (I studied women's studies back in the '90s...yes, I thought I was so liberal but now I think it was another case of a male invading a women's safe space...eeek:( but I do still read fem theory though )Thanks.@nina
(DIR) Post #9rMYKVtVghp93BZTpw by magpieshines@spinster.xyz
2020-01-25T14:41:51Z
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@nina Great post. Long-form journalism is missing from most people's media consumption, too.
(DIR) Post #9rMfA00479vIuoZSIi by nina@neenster.org
2020-01-25T15:58:32Z
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@arkadyhughes "It's a common trope but I have no idea what they're eating (the pb sandwiches/cereal bars with fruit smoothies is really pretty much all I eat :/)..."I think it depends on the human, whether a vegan or vegetarian diet will work. Some people seem to do terribly without meat, even when they do everything "right." Others, like me, thrive without meat. No "health" argument is gonna convince me to go Keto when I'm so healthy now. I get a lot of bicycle exercise, too; if I didn't, maybe I'd need a different diet as well. But I'm physically very healthy (finally! living away from the Big City has improved my health as well, now that I don't live in a petri dish) enjoying the dreaded grains and starches that my keto friends consider the devil.