https://web.archive.org/web/20240424140643/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html
“This piece which is meant to make the listener engage with the world around them is good except for when I don’t want to engage with what’s going on in the world around me”
beyond this being just a stupid take, wouldn't having protestors audible made a more interesting version of 4'33'' than fucking birds or people walking or whatever
yeah and we can't give protests for Palestinians the dignity of being a musical subject, keep up.
Gee, I wonder if sometimes an artistic piece that encourages contemplation might actually require you to fuckin contemplate!
being a liberal "academic" sounds so goddamn exhausting. how on earth do you spend so much time looking high minded, writing so many words to explain the reality of the world around you just to never actually come up with a single ounce of something profound to say. Self assured idiots who are only concerned with presenting as smart and rational whole not having a single original or subversive thought ever even have the chance to grace their sterile minds?
The problem with the elite institutions is that they’re too often focused not on academic exploration but on training rich kids to communicate with others in “high society,” the tropes, name drops, and jargon to signify being “cultured.” The analysis of what Cage was trying to say with his music isn’t the point, the point is to give them the clever things about Cage they can say years down the line at gala events.
I thought about what would have happened if protesters were instead chanting anti-Black slogans, or even something like “D.E.I. has got to die,” to the same “Sound Off” tune that “From the river to the sea” has been adapted to.
when you make an analogy, the analogy is supposed to hold. protesting against genocide is not the same as yelling sieg heil, actually.
Why do so many people think that weekslong campus protests against not just the war in Gaza but Israel’s very existence are nevertheless permissible?
because the zionist entity shouldn’t exist.
Yes, there can be a fine line between questioning Israel’s right to exist and questioning Jewish people’s right to exist. And yes, some of the rhetoric amid the protests crosses it.
such as? the actions of israel have definitely legitimized antisemitism but let’s not pretend it is in any way characteristic of the protests.
However, the relentless assault of this current protest — daily, loud, louder, into the night and using ever-angrier rhetoric — is beyond what any people should be expected to bear up under, regardless of their whiteness, privilege or power.
israel’s bombing — daily, loud, louder, into the night and using ever-angrier rhetoric — is beyond what any people should be expected to bear under, you whiny fuck.
Today’s protesters don’t hate Israel’s government any more than yesterday’s hated South Africa’s. But they have pursued their goals with a markedly different tenor — in part because of the single-mindedness of antiracist academic culture and in part because of the influence of iPhones and social media, which inherently encourage a more heightened degree of performance. It is part of the warp and woof of today’s protests that they are being recorded from many angles for the world to see. One speaks up.
gen z iphone tiktok trend bad
a large number of protesters, including those in the fucking cover image are wearing masks, protesters don’t have their phones out like they’re at a taylor swift concert. idiot
I thought about what would have happened if protesters were instead chanting anti-Black slogans, or even something like “D.E.I. has got to die,” to the same “Sound Off” tune that “From the river to the sea” has been adapted to.
Whenever I see this 'substitute x for y' idiocy I just immediately know that the person spewing it has nothing valuable to add to any discourse.
Ah, but consider the following: Protesting against genocide and protesting for genocide are both protests, and therefore equivalent!
What in the actual fuck is this take, this dumbass should be fired for incompetence
The entire point of 4'33 is to listen to the audience. This is exactly the kind of thing that 4'33 is about.
I thought about what would have happened if protesters were instead chanting anti-Black slogans, or even something like “D.E.I. has got to die,” to the same “Sound Off” tune that “From the river to the sea” has been adapted to. They would have lasted roughly five minutes before masses of students shouted them down and drove them off the campus. Chants like that would have been condemned as a grave rupture of civilized exchange, heralded as threatening resegregation and branded as a form of violence. I’d wager that most of the student protesters against the Gaza War would view them that way, in fact. Why do so many people think that weekslong campus protests against not just the war in Gaza but Israel’s very existence are nevertheless permissible?
because Isn'trael is an apartheid colonial proxy state committing genocide against Palestinians as we speak, you literal shit-for-brains. no professor should be able to write a paragraph like that, ending in a question like that, and not sit there for a few minutes and rethink their entire existence to that point.
I thought about what would have happened if protesters were instead chanting anti-Black slogans, or even something like “D.E.I. has got to die,” to the same “Sound Off” tune that “From the river to the sea” has been adapted to.
I thought about what would have happened if the professors were instead trying to make students listen to nazi propaganda and boy let me tell you it does not look good for this guy.
Have you considered in a different situation things would be different? I am a very smart person who should be taken seriously.
I remember believing that Ivy League schools like Columbia only had the smartest people working and attending there. People like this prove how untrue that it.
