for the record i don't think people fake it, I just think that they acquire it for reasons having to do with desperately wanting to be the masculine ideal they see sold to them in the culture
@MrMister do you really think the main drive for my consumption of whiskey is the masculine ideal of it?
certainly that aspect is fun, but it's also ridiculous.
the main drive for consuming any kind of straight liquor is that, when you have acquired the taste, it has strong, varied, interesting flavours, and the whole experience is enjoyable. the scent is deeply pleasant (people who hate drinking whiskey often ask to smell whatever i'm drinking because it's so nice), the taste of it as you roll it around in your mouth is obviously wonderful, and the lingering flavours after you swallow it from the fumes are great too. it's a whole different experience from drinking most other liquids. i'd compare it to drinking good wine, except it's easier - wine is subtle, and more prone to variation due to environmental factors like letting it "breathe" or having a bottle that's a bit off (and wine continues aging in the bottle, unlike liquor).
and the flavours aren't typical of what we crave in other food and drink indulgences - instead you get flavours that remind you more of pleasant scents that you might not otherwise find appetizing. I love the smell of leather, of campfire smoke, of old wood or fresh-cut wood or charred oak, of cut grass, etc, and to be able to drink something that tastes like those smells is really enjoyable, though you might not think it would be initially. And of course, if you're drinking a sweeter whiskey like a bourbon, you're getting those wood flavours but also more traditionally consumed flavours like caramel, maple, praline, brown sugar, toasted grains, etc.
if i were to ascribe a set of motivations, i wouldn't really include masculinity. i don't think it's a gender identity motivator. instead, i'd ascribe it to classism and wealth - part of what motivated me to try to enjoy nice liquors was the construction of a new identity as i moved into a post-graduation career and started making decent money and living a new lifestyle. I liked the idea of being someone who consumes fine things. I started caring more about interior design, about clothes and outward grooming (specifically suits, shoes, accessories, etc.), cooking meals and hosting, going to nice restaurants, making cocktails. I got a bunch of nice crystal decanters and a shelf that prominently displays my "collection" of whiskeys. This was also parallel to grad school and a similar intellectual course - what's across from my whiskey collection in the living room? A bookshelf with all my tough philosophy books just above eye level. :P
Certainly a superficial and dubious set of motivations, with its own set of problems, but not the one you pegged! And once those things have motivated you to acquire the taste, the taste is itself quite rewarding aside from those motivations (though they are perhaps necessary to give you the decision-making bias to spend $80 on a bottle of scotch).
Evil, I wouldn't deny that there's great pleasure in a fine scotch. I'm a subjectivist about aesthetic pleasures generally, and I mostly take people at their word when they describe what they like. If there's anything for me to critique here, it's not the enjoyment itself, which I don't even really think is the kind of thing susceptible to critique. Rather, it's the reasons that people go on to acquire that taste, and the social messages embedded in the practices around it. I mean, almost everything can be enjoyed if one is dogged enough in its pursuit. But there's a reason that so many friends of mine have gone after Scotch rather than, say, deciding to dedicate hours and hours to sitting through and eventually mastering modern American poetry, or mid-century Communist film, or whatever. And I think those reasons are mostly bad reasons; at best just because wanting to be cool, at worst because wanting to be cool specifically by displaying and taking advantage of certain objectionable class and gender markers.
You're also right that I was missing half the point when I focused on Scotch as a marker of masculinity. It's surely about marking class as much as it is that--though these things are not entirely disconnected, because the ideal type being pursued here is both male and definitely not poor. As you note, my missing that point though does not really detract from the overall critique, it just changes its focus slightly. I do also think that this definitely goes with the other consumables and practices you list--expensive restaurants, good furniture, leather shoes, etc. There's a yuppie package here. Again, I think it's still male-typed, but you're probably right that the conspicuous consumption involved in 'discriminating' and grown-up taste is the more significant part of it.
I think maybe the reason I'm disagreeing with focusing on scotch, in particular, is that I think any problematic motivations to acquire that taste/interest are a very specific subset of a much larger, much more widespread problem, and it's just particularly noticeable to you because you are not interested in it.
The problem I'm talking about is the way people create identities through consumption, i.e. the brutal machinery of capitalism in operation, and that's something that certainly does target yuppies - but also everyone else, from rich to poor. "Target" is probably the wrong word. "Consumes" or "envelops in a warm, muffling shroud," maybe.
Drinking expensive liquor is an indulgence and a pleasure, and there's nothing inherently bad about it, but it's definitely pushed forward by an enormous, vastly powerful marketing effort and a long history of alcohol-as-status-symbol. But it's difficult for me to give credence to criticism of motivations for drinking scotch as such, rather than as a gateway to a broader critique of capitalist identities.
My reaction can probably be summed up as "sure, but that's the problem with almost everything else we do, buy or enjoy, too." It hardly seems possible to escape it.
I think the problem is indeed widespread, but I guess I disagree if you think it's so widespread that there's no point in really noticing or talking about it -- cause whatcha gonna do?
Even if we accept that creating identities through consumption is inevitable, we can still think about which ones we create and whether they could be better or worse.
Also, I don't really think that it's actually inevitable, at least not in its fullest degree. At the very least we can moderate ourselves and think about our choices and what they really mean. Maybe we won't all go and live on a commune today, or tomorrow, but at the very least we might think a second thought about what we're really doing when we show off our crystal decanters, and maybe we'll even decide to eschew the decanters altogether.
“His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.”
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I've played a good 300 hours of Civ 5 (it one more turned me). I think it was much, much better than Civ 4--they cut out the bells and whistles that had accumulated over time ('because we can!') and gave an actual streamlined and sensible play experience.
However, I will also concede that no opening anywhere ever can stand up to Baba Yetu.
Granted I didn't clearly say it, but I only intended to communicate that Babu Yetu was wonderful, hahah.
I'm inclined to think Civ 5 is ultimately the better game. They certainly trimmed out a lot of stuff that only seemed to be weighing the gameplay down.
The combat was a bit disappointingly tedious and slow in the new system, though, but I don't know that past combat was altogether better, either.
I like the new combat quite a bit (maybe unsurprisingly). Eliminating unit stacking was the best possible decision. Now there are fronts and terrain actually matters a lot. It's infinitely more tactical and less 'shit out a stack of 30 swordsmen and march it 1 square at a time until it walked over every city.'
I agree with you in theory, but in my experience this just ended up meaning in practice: funnel larger armies into a choke point with half a dozen artillery waiting for them; it will take forever but it will be no less cheesy than anything else has ever been.
This is why you don't attack your large army into a chokepoint. If your opponent has seized territory around the map such that your only approaches are through choke points, then you need to go frigates, planes, or nukes if you want to contest militarily.
The AI doesn't always get this. One thing I will say is: the AI is a bit disappointing. They're not that great strategically and mostly just big cheatypants.
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
I've played a good 300 hours of Civ 5 (it one more turned me). I think it was much, much better than Civ 4--they cut out the bells and whistles that had accumulated over time ('because we can!') and gave an actual streamlined and sensible play experience.
However, I will also concede that no opening anywhere ever can stand up to Baba Yetu.
Granted I didn't clearly say it, but I only intended to communicate that Babu Yetu was wonderful, hahah.
I'm inclined to think Civ 5 is ultimately the better game. They certainly trimmed out a lot of stuff that only seemed to be weighing the gameplay down.
The combat was a bit disappointingly tedious and slow in the new system, though, but I don't know that past combat was altogether better, either.
I like the new combat quite a bit (maybe unsurprisingly). Eliminating unit stacking was the best possible decision. Now there are fronts and terrain actually matters a lot. It's infinitely more tactical and less 'shit out a stack of 30 swordsmen and march it 1 square at a time until it walked over every city.'
I agree with you in theory, but in my experience this just ended up meaning in practice: funnel larger armies into a choke point with half a dozen artillery waiting for them; it will take forever but it will be no less cheesy than anything else has ever been.
This is why you don't attack your large army into a chokepoint. If your opponent has seized territory around the map such that your only approaches are through choke points, then you need to go frigates, planes, or nukes if you want to contest militarily.
The AI doesn't always get this. One thing I will say is: the AI is a bit disappointing. They're not that great strategically and mostly just big cheatypants.
Well, to be more clear, "funnel larger armies" refers to larger enemy armies. I dislike that if you're in a bad way then you can often get by with abusing the fact that the (cheating, unimpressive AI) does not get this.
So situations that might make for interesting, difficult challenges often instead make for pouring down a ton of artillery onto a bunch of AI troops until their nation slowly runs out of steam.
kedinik on
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
I've played a good 300 hours of Civ 5 (it one more turned me). I think it was much, much better than Civ 4--they cut out the bells and whistles that had accumulated over time ('because we can!') and gave an actual streamlined and sensible play experience.
However, I will also concede that no opening anywhere ever can stand up to Baba Yetu.
Granted I didn't clearly say it, but I only intended to communicate that Babu Yetu was wonderful, hahah.
I'm inclined to think Civ 5 is ultimately the better game. They certainly trimmed out a lot of stuff that only seemed to be weighing the gameplay down.
The combat was a bit disappointingly tedious and slow in the new system, though, but I don't know that past combat was altogether better, either.
I like the new combat quite a bit (maybe unsurprisingly). Eliminating unit stacking was the best possible decision. Now there are fronts and terrain actually matters a lot. It's infinitely more tactical and less 'shit out a stack of 30 swordsmen and march it 1 square at a time until it walked over every city.'
I agree with you in theory, but in my experience this just ended up meaning in practice: funnel larger armies into a choke point with half a dozen artillery waiting for them; it will take forever but it will be no less cheesy than anything else has ever been.
This is why you don't attack your large army into a chokepoint. If your opponent has seized territory around the map such that your only approaches are through choke points, then you need to go frigates, planes, or nukes if you want to contest militarily.
The AI doesn't always get this. One thing I will say is: the AI is a bit disappointing. They're not that great strategically and mostly just big cheatypants.
Well, to be more clear, if you're in a bad way then you can often by with abusing the fact that the (cheating, unimpressive AI) does not get this.
So situations that might make for interesting, difficult challenges often instead make for pouring down a ton of artillery onto a bunch of AI troops until they run out of steam.
Yeah, I haven't played much recently and it's largely because I got tired of the particular strategies for beating the cheating, unimpressive AI. Now I mostly watch streamers who play multiplayer, which is much more strategically satisfying.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
for the record i don't think people fake it, I just think that they acquire it for reasons having to do with desperately wanting to be the masculine ideal they see sold to them in the culture
@MrMister do you really think the main drive for my consumption of whiskey is the masculine ideal of it?
certainly that aspect is fun, but it's also ridiculous.
the main drive for consuming any kind of straight liquor is that, when you have acquired the taste, it has strong, varied, interesting flavours, and the whole experience is enjoyable. the scent is deeply pleasant (people who hate drinking whiskey often ask to smell whatever i'm drinking because it's so nice), the taste of it as you roll it around in your mouth is obviously wonderful, and the lingering flavours after you swallow it from the fumes are great too. it's a whole different experience from drinking most other liquids. i'd compare it to drinking good wine, except it's easier - wine is subtle, and more prone to variation due to environmental factors like letting it "breathe" or having a bottle that's a bit off (and wine continues aging in the bottle, unlike liquor).
and the flavours aren't typical of what we crave in other food and drink indulgences - instead you get flavours that remind you more of pleasant scents that you might not otherwise find appetizing. I love the smell of leather, of campfire smoke, of old wood or fresh-cut wood or charred oak, of cut grass, etc, and to be able to drink something that tastes like those smells is really enjoyable, though you might not think it would be initially. And of course, if you're drinking a sweeter whiskey like a bourbon, you're getting those wood flavours but also more traditionally consumed flavours like caramel, maple, praline, brown sugar, toasted grains, etc.
if i were to ascribe a set of motivations, i wouldn't really include masculinity. i don't think it's a gender identity motivator. instead, i'd ascribe it to classism and wealth - part of what motivated me to try to enjoy nice liquors was the construction of a new identity as i moved into a post-graduation career and started making decent money and living a new lifestyle. I liked the idea of being someone who consumes fine things. I started caring more about interior design, about clothes and outward grooming (specifically suits, shoes, accessories, etc.), cooking meals and hosting, going to nice restaurants, making cocktails. I got a bunch of nice crystal decanters and a shelf that prominently displays my "collection" of whiskeys. This was also parallel to grad school and a similar intellectual course - what's across from my whiskey collection in the living room? A bookshelf with all my tough philosophy books just above eye level. :P
Certainly a superficial and dubious set of motivations, with its own set of problems, but not the one you pegged! And once those things have motivated you to acquire the taste, the taste is itself quite rewarding aside from those motivations (though they are perhaps necessary to give you the decision-making bias to spend $80 on a bottle of scotch).
Evil, I wouldn't deny that there's great pleasure in a fine scotch. I'm a subjectivist about aesthetic pleasures generally, and I mostly take people at their word when they describe what they like. If there's anything for me to critique here, it's not the enjoyment itself, which I don't even really think is the kind of thing susceptible to critique. Rather, it's the reasons that people go on to acquire that taste, and the social messages embedded in the practices around it. I mean, almost everything can be enjoyed if one is dogged enough in its pursuit. But there's a reason that so many friends of mine have gone after Scotch rather than, say, deciding to dedicate hours and hours to sitting through and eventually mastering modern American poetry, or mid-century Communist film, or whatever. And I think those reasons are mostly bad reasons; at best just because wanting to be cool, at worst because wanting to be cool specifically by displaying and taking advantage of certain objectionable class and gender markers.
You're also right that I was missing half the point when I focused on Scotch as a marker of masculinity. It's surely about marking class as much as it is that--though these things are not entirely disconnected, because the ideal type being pursued here is both male and definitely not poor. As you note, my missing that point though does not really detract from the overall critique, it just changes its focus slightly. I do also think that this definitely goes with the other consumables and practices you list--expensive restaurants, good furniture, leather shoes, etc. There's a yuppie package here. Again, I think it's still male-typed, but you're probably right that the conspicuous consumption involved in 'discriminating' and grown-up taste is the more significant part of it.
I think maybe the reason I'm disagreeing with focusing on scotch, in particular, is that I think any problematic motivations to acquire that taste/interest are a very specific subset of a much larger, much more widespread problem, and it's just particularly noticeable to you because you are not interested in it.
The problem I'm talking about is the way people create identities through consumption, i.e. the brutal machinery of capitalism in operation, and that's something that certainly does target yuppies - but also everyone else, from rich to poor. "Target" is probably the wrong word. "Consumes" or "envelops in a warm, muffling shroud," maybe.
Drinking expensive liquor is an indulgence and a pleasure, and there's nothing inherently bad about it, but it's definitely pushed forward by an enormous, vastly powerful marketing effort and a long history of alcohol-as-status-symbol. But it's difficult for me to give credence to criticism of motivations for drinking scotch as such, rather than as a gateway to a broader critique of capitalist identities.
My reaction can probably be summed up as "sure, but that's the problem with almost everything else we do, buy or enjoy, too." It hardly seems possible to escape it.
I think the problem is indeed widespread, but I guess I disagree if you think it's so widespread that there's no point in really noticing or talking about it -- cause whatcha gonna do?
Even if we accept that creating identities through consumption is inevitable, we can still think about which ones we create and whether they could be better or worse.
Also, I don't really think that it's actually inevitable, at least not in its fullest degree. At the very least we can moderate ourselves and think about our choices and what they really mean. Maybe we won't all go and live on a commune today, or tomorrow, but at the very least we might think a second thought about what we're really doing when we show of our crystal decanters, and maybe we'll even decide to eschew the decanters altogether.
no, that's certainly fair, and I do agree with you, but it's important to draw a line between why they decided to like a thing, and the actual liking of the thing
like, a lot of these identity-building pursuits culminate in hollow disappointment, and guilt, and then denial, and then you're spurned on towards other such pursuits to endlessly try to satisfy your desire, etc.
but drinking scotch (and really, drinking alochol in general, of which scotch is merely a subset and not the main feature) is, at least for me, a very good result after whatever questionable motivations led me there - a fascinating and historical hobby, a pathway to conversation with many people i'd otherwise have little in common with, a fun creative exercise when it comes to creating and making cocktails, a huge component of socializing and entertaining, a gustatory delight, etc. I wanted to drink nice booze because I felt like it was something I should do, because of a kind of identity pressure, but when I got there I found that I greatly enjoyed it, for a set of reasons largely divorced from that pressure.
so consumerist yuppie lifestyles are a major problem, sure - but i think the criticism of drinking scotch is somewhat unfair, because if anything it mitigates those problematic motivations by providing a lot of immaterial, fulfilling rewards, beyond whatever transient status satisfaction it may provide.
i don't think we should eschew decanters - they are beautiful. but maybe we should want them more because they're beautiful (and good for serving liquor) and less because they're such a dramatic symbol of class and status.
I've played a good 300 hours of Civ 5 (it one more turned me). I think it was much, much better than Civ 4--they cut out the bells and whistles that had accumulated over time ('because we can!') and gave an actual streamlined and sensible play experience.
However, I will also concede that no opening anywhere ever can stand up to Baba Yetu.
Granted I didn't clearly say it, but I only intended to communicate that Babu Yetu was wonderful, hahah.
I'm inclined to think Civ 5 is ultimately the better game. They certainly trimmed out a lot of stuff that only seemed to be weighing the gameplay down.
The combat was a bit disappointingly tedious and slow in the new system, though, but I don't know that past combat was altogether better, either.
I like the new combat quite a bit (maybe unsurprisingly). Eliminating unit stacking was the best possible decision. Now there are fronts and terrain actually matters a lot. It's infinitely more tactical and less 'shit out a stack of 30 swordsmen and march it 1 square at a time until it walked over every city.'
I agree with you in theory, but in my experience this just ended up meaning in practice: funnel larger armies into a choke point with half a dozen artillery waiting for them; it will take forever but it will be no less cheesy than anything else has ever been.
This is why you don't attack your large army into a chokepoint. If your opponent has seized territory around the map such that your only approaches are through choke points, then you need to go frigates, planes, or nukes if you want to contest militarily.
The AI doesn't always get this. One thing I will say is: the AI is a bit disappointing. They're not that great strategically and mostly just big cheatypants.
Well, to be more clear, if you're in a bad way then you can often by with abusing the fact that the (cheating, unimpressive AI) does not get this.
So situations that might make for interesting, difficult challenges often instead make for pouring down a ton of artillery onto a bunch of AI troops until they run out of steam.
Yeah, I haven't played much recently and it's largely because I got tired of the particular strategies for beating the cheating, unimpressive AI. Now I mostly watch streamers who play multiplayer, which is much more strategically satisfying.
That sounds cool.
I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
for the record i don't think people fake it, I just think that they acquire it for reasons having to do with desperately wanting to be the masculine ideal they see sold to them in the culture
@MrMister do you really think the main drive for my consumption of whiskey is the masculine ideal of it?
certainly that aspect is fun, but it's also ridiculous.
the main drive for consuming any kind of straight liquor is that, when you have acquired the taste, it has strong, varied, interesting flavours, and the whole experience is enjoyable. the scent is deeply pleasant (people who hate drinking whiskey often ask to smell whatever i'm drinking because it's so nice), the taste of it as you roll it around in your mouth is obviously wonderful, and the lingering flavours after you swallow it from the fumes are great too. it's a whole different experience from drinking most other liquids. i'd compare it to drinking good wine, except it's easier - wine is subtle, and more prone to variation due to environmental factors like letting it "breathe" or having a bottle that's a bit off (and wine continues aging in the bottle, unlike liquor).
and the flavours aren't typical of what we crave in other food and drink indulgences - instead you get flavours that remind you more of pleasant scents that you might not otherwise find appetizing. I love the smell of leather, of campfire smoke, of old wood or fresh-cut wood or charred oak, of cut grass, etc, and to be able to drink something that tastes like those smells is really enjoyable, though you might not think it would be initially. And of course, if you're drinking a sweeter whiskey like a bourbon, you're getting those wood flavours but also more traditionally consumed flavours like caramel, maple, praline, brown sugar, toasted grains, etc.
if i were to ascribe a set of motivations, i wouldn't really include masculinity. i don't think it's a gender identity motivator. instead, i'd ascribe it to classism and wealth - part of what motivated me to try to enjoy nice liquors was the construction of a new identity as i moved into a post-graduation career and started making decent money and living a new lifestyle. I liked the idea of being someone who consumes fine things. I started caring more about interior design, about clothes and outward grooming (specifically suits, shoes, accessories, etc.), cooking meals and hosting, going to nice restaurants, making cocktails. I got a bunch of nice crystal decanters and a shelf that prominently displays my "collection" of whiskeys. This was also parallel to grad school and a similar intellectual course - what's across from my whiskey collection in the living room? A bookshelf with all my tough philosophy books just above eye level. :P
Certainly a superficial and dubious set of motivations, with its own set of problems, but not the one you pegged! And once those things have motivated you to acquire the taste, the taste is itself quite rewarding aside from those motivations (though they are perhaps necessary to give you the decision-making bias to spend $80 on a bottle of scotch).
Evil, I wouldn't deny that there's great pleasure in a fine scotch. I'm a subjectivist about aesthetic pleasures generally, and I mostly take people at their word when they describe what they like. If there's anything for me to critique here, it's not the enjoyment itself, which I don't even really think is the kind of thing susceptible to critique. Rather, it's the reasons that people go on to acquire that taste, and the social messages embedded in the practices around it. I mean, almost everything can be enjoyed if one is dogged enough in its pursuit. But there's a reason that so many friends of mine have gone after Scotch rather than, say, deciding to dedicate hours and hours to sitting through and eventually mastering modern American poetry, or mid-century Communist film, or whatever. And I think those reasons are mostly bad reasons; at best just because wanting to be cool, at worst because wanting to be cool specifically by displaying and taking advantage of certain objectionable class and gender markers.
You're also right that I was missing half the point when I focused on Scotch as a marker of masculinity. It's surely about marking class as much as it is that--though these things are not entirely disconnected, because the ideal type being pursued here is both male and definitely not poor. As you note, my missing that point though does not really detract from the overall critique, it just changes its focus slightly. I do also think that this definitely goes with the other consumables and practices you list--expensive restaurants, good furniture, leather shoes, etc. There's a yuppie package here. Again, I think it's still male-typed, but you're probably right that the conspicuous consumption involved in 'discriminating' and grown-up taste is the more significant part of it.
I think maybe the reason I'm disagreeing with focusing on scotch, in particular, is that I think any problematic motivations to acquire that taste/interest are a very specific subset of a much larger, much more widespread problem, and it's just particularly noticeable to you because you are not interested in it.
The problem I'm talking about is the way people create identities through consumption, i.e. the brutal machinery of capitalism in operation, and that's something that certainly does target yuppies - but also everyone else, from rich to poor. "Target" is probably the wrong word. "Consumes" or "envelops in a warm, muffling shroud," maybe.
Drinking expensive liquor is an indulgence and a pleasure, and there's nothing inherently bad about it, but it's definitely pushed forward by an enormous, vastly powerful marketing effort and a long history of alcohol-as-status-symbol. But it's difficult for me to give credence to criticism of motivations for drinking scotch as such, rather than as a gateway to a broader critique of capitalist identities.
My reaction can probably be summed up as "sure, but that's the problem with almost everything else we do, buy or enjoy, too." It hardly seems possible to escape it.
I think the problem is indeed widespread, but I guess I disagree if you think it's so widespread that there's no point in really noticing or talking about it -- cause whatcha gonna do?
Even if we accept that creating identities through consumption is inevitable, we can still think about which ones we create and whether they could be better or worse.
Also, I don't really think that it's actually inevitable, at least not in its fullest degree. At the very least we can moderate ourselves and think about our choices and what they really mean. Maybe we won't all go and live on a commune today, or tomorrow, but at the very least we might think a second thought about what we're really doing when we show of our crystal decanters, and maybe we'll even decide to eschew the decanters altogether.
no, that's certainly fair, and I do agree with you, but it's important to draw a line between why they decided to like a thing, and the actual liking of the thing
like, a lot of these identity-building pursuits culminate in hollow disappointment, and guilt, and then denial, and then you're spurned on towards other such pursuits to endlessly try to satisfy your desire, etc.
but drinking scotch (and really, drinking alochol in general, of which scotch is merely a subset and not the main feature) is, at least for me, a very good result after whatever questionable motivations led me there - a fascinating and historical hobby, a pathway to conversation with many people i'd otherwise have little in common with, a fun creative exercise when it comes to creating and making cocktails, a huge component of socializing and entertaining, a gustatory delight, etc. I wanted to drink nice booze because I felt like it was something I should do, because of a kind of identity pressure, but when I got there I found that I greatly enjoyed it, for a set of reasons largely divorced from that pressure.
so consumerist yuppie lifestyles are a major problem, sure - but i think the criticism of drinking scotch is somewhat unfair, because if anything it mitigates those problematic motivations by providing a lot of immaterial, fulfilling rewards, beyond whatever transient status satisfaction it may provide.
i don't think we should eschew decanters - they are beautiful. but maybe we should want them more because they're beautiful (and good for serving liquor) and less because they're such a dramatic symbol of class and status.
I think this is mostly reasonable. I picked Scotch not really so much as a considered choice but rather as just the first thing that sprung to mind. Because I have some friends, and I love them dearly, but they love Scotch and they are also everything that's wrong with culture.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
I spent a lot this week and don't want to buy more
But I'm also very hungry and the thought of eating any of the stuff I have lying around makes me borderline nauseous, so I am contemplating a pizza.
it's Saturday night get a pizza!!!
i just had a pizza and some potato skins with cheese and bacon and some spicy chicken dippers and some soft cookies and i would strongly recommend 10 pizzas / 10 would eat again
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y2jake215certified Flat Birther theoristthe Last Good Boy onlineRegistered Userregular
EM where is my kimbra cover you purveyor of lies
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
for the record i don't think people fake it, I just think that they acquire it for reasons having to do with desperately wanting to be the masculine ideal they see sold to them in the culture
@MrMister do you really think the main drive for my consumption of whiskey is the masculine ideal of it?
certainly that aspect is fun, but it's also ridiculous.
the main drive for consuming any kind of straight liquor is that, when you have acquired the taste, it has strong, varied, interesting flavours, and the whole experience is enjoyable. the scent is deeply pleasant (people who hate drinking whiskey often ask to smell whatever i'm drinking because it's so nice), the taste of it as you roll it around in your mouth is obviously wonderful, and the lingering flavours after you swallow it from the fumes are great too. it's a whole different experience from drinking most other liquids. i'd compare it to drinking good wine, except it's easier - wine is subtle, and more prone to variation due to environmental factors like letting it "breathe" or having a bottle that's a bit off (and wine continues aging in the bottle, unlike liquor).
and the flavours aren't typical of what we crave in other food and drink indulgences - instead you get flavours that remind you more of pleasant scents that you might not otherwise find appetizing. I love the smell of leather, of campfire smoke, of old wood or fresh-cut wood or charred oak, of cut grass, etc, and to be able to drink something that tastes like those smells is really enjoyable, though you might not think it would be initially. And of course, if you're drinking a sweeter whiskey like a bourbon, you're getting those wood flavours but also more traditionally consumed flavours like caramel, maple, praline, brown sugar, toasted grains, etc.
if i were to ascribe a set of motivations, i wouldn't really include masculinity. i don't think it's a gender identity motivator. instead, i'd ascribe it to classism and wealth - part of what motivated me to try to enjoy nice liquors was the construction of a new identity as i moved into a post-graduation career and started making decent money and living a new lifestyle. I liked the idea of being someone who consumes fine things. I started caring more about interior design, about clothes and outward grooming (specifically suits, shoes, accessories, etc.), cooking meals and hosting, going to nice restaurants, making cocktails. I got a bunch of nice crystal decanters and a shelf that prominently displays my "collection" of whiskeys. This was also parallel to grad school and a similar intellectual course - what's across from my whiskey collection in the living room? A bookshelf with all my tough philosophy books just above eye level. :P
Certainly a superficial and dubious set of motivations, with its own set of problems, but not the one you pegged! And once those things have motivated you to acquire the taste, the taste is itself quite rewarding aside from those motivations (though they are perhaps necessary to give you the decision-making bias to spend $80 on a bottle of scotch).
Evil, I wouldn't deny that there's great pleasure in a fine scotch. I'm a subjectivist about aesthetic pleasures generally, and I mostly take people at their word when they describe what they like. If there's anything for me to critique here, it's not the enjoyment itself, which I don't even really think is the kind of thing susceptible to critique. Rather, it's the reasons that people go on to acquire that taste, and the social messages embedded in the practices around it. I mean, almost everything can be enjoyed if one is dogged enough in its pursuit. But there's a reason that so many friends of mine have gone after Scotch rather than, say, deciding to dedicate hours and hours to sitting through and eventually mastering modern American poetry, or mid-century Communist film, or whatever. And I think those reasons are mostly bad reasons; at best just because wanting to be cool, at worst because wanting to be cool specifically by displaying and taking advantage of certain objectionable class and gender markers.
You're also right that I was missing half the point when I focused on Scotch as a marker of masculinity. It's surely about marking class as much as it is that--though these things are not entirely disconnected, because the ideal type being pursued here is both male and definitely not poor. As you note, my missing that point though does not really detract from the overall critique, it just changes its focus slightly. I do also think that this definitely goes with the other consumables and practices you list--expensive restaurants, good furniture, leather shoes, etc. There's a yuppie package here. Again, I think it's still male-typed, but you're probably right that the conspicuous consumption involved in 'discriminating' and grown-up taste is the more significant part of it.
I think maybe the reason I'm disagreeing with focusing on scotch, in particular, is that I think any problematic motivations to acquire that taste/interest are a very specific subset of a much larger, much more widespread problem, and it's just particularly noticeable to you because you are not interested in it.
The problem I'm talking about is the way people create identities through consumption, i.e. the brutal machinery of capitalism in operation, and that's something that certainly does target yuppies - but also everyone else, from rich to poor. "Target" is probably the wrong word. "Consumes" or "envelops in a warm, muffling shroud," maybe.
Drinking expensive liquor is an indulgence and a pleasure, and there's nothing inherently bad about it, but it's definitely pushed forward by an enormous, vastly powerful marketing effort and a long history of alcohol-as-status-symbol. But it's difficult for me to give credence to criticism of motivations for drinking scotch as such, rather than as a gateway to a broader critique of capitalist identities.
My reaction can probably be summed up as "sure, but that's the problem with almost everything else we do, buy or enjoy, too." It hardly seems possible to escape it.
I think the problem is indeed widespread, but I guess I disagree if you think it's so widespread that there's no point in really noticing or talking about it -- cause whatcha gonna do?
Even if we accept that creating identities through consumption is inevitable, we can still think about which ones we create and whether they could be better or worse.
Also, I don't really think that it's actually inevitable, at least not in its fullest degree. At the very least we can moderate ourselves and think about our choices and what they really mean. Maybe we won't all go and live on a commune today, or tomorrow, but at the very least we might think a second thought about what we're really doing when we show of our crystal decanters, and maybe we'll even decide to eschew the decanters altogether.
no, that's certainly fair, and I do agree with you, but it's important to draw a line between why they decided to like a thing, and the actual liking of the thing
like, a lot of these identity-building pursuits culminate in hollow disappointment, and guilt, and then denial, and then you're spurned on towards other such pursuits to endlessly try to satisfy your desire, etc.
but drinking scotch (and really, drinking alochol in general, of which scotch is merely a subset and not the main feature) is, at least for me, a very good result after whatever questionable motivations led me there - a fascinating and historical hobby, a pathway to conversation with many people i'd otherwise have little in common with, a fun creative exercise when it comes to creating and making cocktails, a huge component of socializing and entertaining, a gustatory delight, etc. I wanted to drink nice booze because I felt like it was something I should do, because of a kind of identity pressure, but when I got there I found that I greatly enjoyed it, for a set of reasons largely divorced from that pressure.
so consumerist yuppie lifestyles are a major problem, sure - but i think the criticism of drinking scotch is somewhat unfair, because if anything it mitigates those problematic motivations by providing a lot of immaterial, fulfilling rewards, beyond whatever transient status satisfaction it may provide.
i don't think we should eschew decanters - they are beautiful. but maybe we should want them more because they're beautiful (and good for serving liquor) and less because they're such a dramatic symbol of class and status.
I think this is mostly reasonable. I picked Scotch not really so much as a considered choice but rather as just the first thing that sprung to mind. Because I have some friends, and I love them dearly, but they love Scotch and they are also everything that's wrong with culture.
in my optimistic moments i think we can take the identities we've stitched together from our purchases and recuperate some kind of "authenticity" or make something worthwhile, even in the context of a cultural engine that turns with inexorable force, but it definitely is not easy and one would have little motivation to do so when one's identity can involve drinking fine scotches and attending graduate school and wearing nice jackets to dinner
+1
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
let me read this rulebook and then i will see if i can get something recorded that i am pleased with
(the song is challenging to fully realize without a loop pedal and a music degree)
+1
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simonwolfi can feel a differencetoday, a differenceRegistered Userregular
My old Informationweek editor, Mitch Wagner, once discovered some young girls holding a gossipy chat in the comments section of an old blog post of his; when he asked them what they were doing there, they told him that their school blocked all social media, so every day they picked a random blog-post somewhere on the Internet and used it as a discussion board for the day.
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I spent a lot this week and don't want to buy more
But I'm also very hungry and the thought of eating any of the stuff I have lying around makes me borderline nauseous, so I am contemplating a pizza.
This is why you don't attack your large army into a chokepoint. If your opponent has seized territory around the map such that your only approaches are through choke points, then you need to go frigates, planes, or nukes if you want to contest militarily.
The AI doesn't always get this. One thing I will say is: the AI is a bit disappointing. They're not that great strategically and mostly just big cheatypants.
Well, to be more clear, "funnel larger armies" refers to larger enemy armies. I dislike that if you're in a bad way then you can often get by with abusing the fact that the (cheating, unimpressive AI) does not get this.
So situations that might make for interesting, difficult challenges often instead make for pouring down a ton of artillery onto a bunch of AI troops until their nation slowly runs out of steam.
Yeah, I haven't played much recently and it's largely because I got tired of the particular strategies for beating the cheating, unimpressive AI. Now I mostly watch streamers who play multiplayer, which is much more strategically satisfying.
Having food in the house but not wanting to eat it.
#firstworldproblems
Oh wait I guess North Korea is the same way but instead of having food in the house it's babbies and pets. Because famine.
I am secretly billionaire Obama
no, that's certainly fair, and I do agree with you, but it's important to draw a line between why they decided to like a thing, and the actual liking of the thing
like, a lot of these identity-building pursuits culminate in hollow disappointment, and guilt, and then denial, and then you're spurned on towards other such pursuits to endlessly try to satisfy your desire, etc.
but drinking scotch (and really, drinking alochol in general, of which scotch is merely a subset and not the main feature) is, at least for me, a very good result after whatever questionable motivations led me there - a fascinating and historical hobby, a pathway to conversation with many people i'd otherwise have little in common with, a fun creative exercise when it comes to creating and making cocktails, a huge component of socializing and entertaining, a gustatory delight, etc. I wanted to drink nice booze because I felt like it was something I should do, because of a kind of identity pressure, but when I got there I found that I greatly enjoyed it, for a set of reasons largely divorced from that pressure.
so consumerist yuppie lifestyles are a major problem, sure - but i think the criticism of drinking scotch is somewhat unfair, because if anything it mitigates those problematic motivations by providing a lot of immaterial, fulfilling rewards, beyond whatever transient status satisfaction it may provide.
i don't think we should eschew decanters - they are beautiful. but maybe we should want them more because they're beautiful (and good for serving liquor) and less because they're such a dramatic symbol of class and status.
it's Saturday night get a pizza!!!
I don't even have any babies or pets to eat, my apartment is worse than North Korea.
now nothing
ugh
I was waiting for you to appear and tell me to do that :P
That sounds cool.
I think this is mostly reasonable. I picked Scotch not really so much as a considered choice but rather as just the first thing that sprung to mind. Because I have some friends, and I love them dearly, but they love Scotch and they are also everything that's wrong with culture.
i just had a pizza and some potato skins with cheese and bacon and some spicy chicken dippers and some soft cookies and i would strongly recommend 10 pizzas / 10 would eat again
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
in my optimistic moments i think we can take the identities we've stitched together from our purchases and recuperate some kind of "authenticity" or make something worthwhile, even in the context of a cultural engine that turns with inexorable force, but it definitely is not easy and one would have little motivation to do so when one's identity can involve drinking fine scotches and attending graduate school and wearing nice jackets to dinner
i was thinking i should do that tonight
let me read this rulebook and then i will see if i can get something recorded that i am pleased with
(the song is challenging to fully realize without a loop pedal and a music degree)
spacious, well-furnished, nice hardwood floors
it looks far too nice for me to afford and i am angry
Young Master Edward has some former flame who stands to inherit roughly half of Texas.
No doubt she is throwing a party for the Young Master.
You forgot the pool table.
laaaaaater!
*runs to gym*
*runs at gym*
This is very cool
@Abdhyius in particular
If I still had Photoshop I would've taken this image and put "SHIPS RUM" on everything in that photo.
i can't even figure out clothes anymore man.
it's real bad.
i know the solution but it requires so much effort ;-;
(REI is a cool store)