Stereotypes exist for a reason, they just don't formulate out of thin air. We've gotten to this place particularly with youth, but not exclusively, where trashy behavior in public is considered "cool." To boot the fatter, disheveled, unbathed, tatted up the better. 300 pound women wearing string bikinis. Old gay men that feel the need to show their sagging private parts to children.
I travel quite a bit so it's the one of the few times that I really get out and see "America." The number of people that show up at an airport in unwashed clothes, lacking a shower and wearing clothes not made for their body is shocking. And yes it trends more with "people of color."
Excellent critique of the reasons why it’s wise and practical to “judge a book by its cover” with regard to people. The feminization of our culture demands being nice over being realistic and heeding the warning signs demonstrably shown of psychological instability. Being nice absent common sense can get you hurt or even killed.
Yes. I have a personal crusade against tattoos in particular - some mistakes are built to last, and body ink is one of them. No one looks at the alligator on your calf, the blue roses twisted with ivy on your arm, or - Heaven forbid - the scribble above your eyebrow, and thinks, “What a creative, artistic person! I wonder what the deeper significance of *that* tattoo might be!”
No. They hear an alarm bell go off and then try to ignore it in the interests of being “kind.”
I had one black tattoo - smaller than a dime - on my ankle for 10 years, and there wasn’t a moment I didn’t look at it and realize I’d made a mistake. Laser didn’t work, so I finally had a surgeon carve it out of my skin with a scalpel. The scar, and tat-free skin, is better.
The trend now is small “fine-line” tattoos for under $50 that look like doodles. Makes you look no-account, in contrast to the big, full-color ones that make you look like either a criminal or a trust fund baby who went to art school and knows you’ll never have to work a day in your life.
The worst: Tattoos of actual human faces.
The worse-than-worst: A wobbly, homemade tattoo of a woman fisting herself, which I saw recently.
Tattoos, no matter how much you pay for them, age badly. And they slot you into a permanent social category that you (after you’re grown up and emotionally healed from abuse and trauma) won’t want to remain in. I think tattoos can prevent, or even delay, this kind of growth and healing.
I really hate tattoos. They remind me of graffiti on a lovely building. It's ironic that people used to get tattoos to express their individuality, to stand out. Now they just look like everybody else. The more tattoos a person has, the less I look or even notice them. I think of the old women and men in nursing homes, their Betty Boop tattoos slowly melting into Betty Droop. I wouldn't put a tattoo on my body any more than I'd slap a bumper sticker on a Maserati.
I've noticed what you're saying about pattern recognition everywhere especially among leftist women, of course. They absolutely refuse to recognize patterns that may implicate them because they can't look in the mirror. Pattern recognition is essential to inductive reasoning and yet our society has forgotten how to engage in that mode of logic. Those of us who see patterns are socially shunned, and again particularly women who dare to do so.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, my Grandad always used to say. And it was for that reason he lost his job as the chair of the British Book Cover Awards panel.” - Stewart Lee
Excellent piece! I engaged in deliberately ignoring visual cues before accepting dates from men, and regrets were always next. Be judgemental, it's for your survival after all. Nice can get you hurt.
I've become numb to all the visual 'LOOK AT ME!' cues. I'm expected to care, or recoil, or marvel and someone's 'edgy' style or choices, but I just don't feel like paying attention.
I have no tattoos because my body is not a canvas. I have no piercings because I find poking permanent holes in myself barbaric. I have purple hair because it's my favorite color. Would anyone guess I'm a 60 year old politically independent artist? I don't care. I'm not an open book.
Those spouting, "don't judge; it's mean" are also the one's who want to break society into ever more separate categories, thus slotting people into "book covers" and assigning "accepted societal judgment" upon that group of "books". External homogeneity makes it so much easier to extol, or target, groups of people based on external cues - that only certain people, the right kind of people, are allowed to deploy.
There's a guy I've managed to catch on a few different podcasts where I'll occasionally tune in. Name is Chase Hughes. He is a neuroscientist, spent 20 years in the military. Now he's the USG's brainwashing and interrogation expert doing training of intelligence agencies personnel - and also private companies - on human hacking, influence, persuasion, interrogation, and negotiation. He talks about decoding psychopathy and the masks that people wear. Last podcast I caught him on he said something that has stuck with me:
"Everyone is a product of childhood suffering and childhood reward."
He's an interesting guy. Definitely notices everything about the cover.
I noticed the same thing among badass bikers. They like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, yet they wear the same Levi jackets with the arms cut off, the same boots, same wallets chained to a belt loop, same long hair, same beard. It's as if they're in uniform. You can't tell one from another.
I wonder if the same people who say you should never judge a book by its cover also bite into moldy strawberries or moldy bread just to see if they're really bad.
It seems as if I'm seeing fewer young women with tattoos. I'm hopeful that it's a dying fad. It might have been replaced by oddly colored hair, but at least that can be got rid of.
So very true. I'm usually surprised when I see a woman on the Right wearing the giant, cartoon glasses. That does seem to be the exception. One of the many hideous current trends among all Cluster B women. Also seeing them now on more black men and women. I do make a judgment. Also called healthy discernment.
The Left's stereotypes of those of us on the Right are not based in reality. So tiresome hearing all the Cluster B women whine about "feeling unsafe" around us. You are the unstable personality disordered and that IS based in reality.
Gavin De Becker's Gift of Fear - yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Everyone and especially every parent and teacher needs to read this book because you need to be more fully equipped to protect your kids than society today prepares you to. Excellent, excellent recommendation. I have recommended it myself and bought copies for people. His subsequent book Protecting the Gift is also excellent. Thank you, Josh.
Stereotypes exist for a reason, they just don't formulate out of thin air. We've gotten to this place particularly with youth, but not exclusively, where trashy behavior in public is considered "cool." To boot the fatter, disheveled, unbathed, tatted up the better. 300 pound women wearing string bikinis. Old gay men that feel the need to show their sagging private parts to children.
I travel quite a bit so it's the one of the few times that I really get out and see "America." The number of people that show up at an airport in unwashed clothes, lacking a shower and wearing clothes not made for their body is shocking. And yes it trends more with "people of color."
Excellent critique of the reasons why it’s wise and practical to “judge a book by its cover” with regard to people. The feminization of our culture demands being nice over being realistic and heeding the warning signs demonstrably shown of psychological instability. Being nice absent common sense can get you hurt or even killed.
Yes. I have a personal crusade against tattoos in particular - some mistakes are built to last, and body ink is one of them. No one looks at the alligator on your calf, the blue roses twisted with ivy on your arm, or - Heaven forbid - the scribble above your eyebrow, and thinks, “What a creative, artistic person! I wonder what the deeper significance of *that* tattoo might be!”
No. They hear an alarm bell go off and then try to ignore it in the interests of being “kind.”
I had one black tattoo - smaller than a dime - on my ankle for 10 years, and there wasn’t a moment I didn’t look at it and realize I’d made a mistake. Laser didn’t work, so I finally had a surgeon carve it out of my skin with a scalpel. The scar, and tat-free skin, is better.
The trend now is small “fine-line” tattoos for under $50 that look like doodles. Makes you look no-account, in contrast to the big, full-color ones that make you look like either a criminal or a trust fund baby who went to art school and knows you’ll never have to work a day in your life.
The worst: Tattoos of actual human faces.
The worse-than-worst: A wobbly, homemade tattoo of a woman fisting herself, which I saw recently.
Tattoos, no matter how much you pay for them, age badly. And they slot you into a permanent social category that you (after you’re grown up and emotionally healed from abuse and trauma) won’t want to remain in. I think tattoos can prevent, or even delay, this kind of growth and healing.
I really hate tattoos. They remind me of graffiti on a lovely building. It's ironic that people used to get tattoos to express their individuality, to stand out. Now they just look like everybody else. The more tattoos a person has, the less I look or even notice them. I think of the old women and men in nursing homes, their Betty Boop tattoos slowly melting into Betty Droop. I wouldn't put a tattoo on my body any more than I'd slap a bumper sticker on a Maserati.
Yes to all of this. I’d say “go with your gut” is also helpful.
I've noticed what you're saying about pattern recognition everywhere especially among leftist women, of course. They absolutely refuse to recognize patterns that may implicate them because they can't look in the mirror. Pattern recognition is essential to inductive reasoning and yet our society has forgotten how to engage in that mode of logic. Those of us who see patterns are socially shunned, and again particularly women who dare to do so.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, my Grandad always used to say. And it was for that reason he lost his job as the chair of the British Book Cover Awards panel.” - Stewart Lee
Excellent piece! I engaged in deliberately ignoring visual cues before accepting dates from men, and regrets were always next. Be judgemental, it's for your survival after all. Nice can get you hurt.
I've become numb to all the visual 'LOOK AT ME!' cues. I'm expected to care, or recoil, or marvel and someone's 'edgy' style or choices, but I just don't feel like paying attention.
I have no tattoos because my body is not a canvas. I have no piercings because I find poking permanent holes in myself barbaric. I have purple hair because it's my favorite color. Would anyone guess I'm a 60 year old politically independent artist? I don't care. I'm not an open book.
Those spouting, "don't judge; it's mean" are also the one's who want to break society into ever more separate categories, thus slotting people into "book covers" and assigning "accepted societal judgment" upon that group of "books". External homogeneity makes it so much easier to extol, or target, groups of people based on external cues - that only certain people, the right kind of people, are allowed to deploy.
There's a guy I've managed to catch on a few different podcasts where I'll occasionally tune in. Name is Chase Hughes. He is a neuroscientist, spent 20 years in the military. Now he's the USG's brainwashing and interrogation expert doing training of intelligence agencies personnel - and also private companies - on human hacking, influence, persuasion, interrogation, and negotiation. He talks about decoding psychopathy and the masks that people wear. Last podcast I caught him on he said something that has stuck with me:
"Everyone is a product of childhood suffering and childhood reward."
He's an interesting guy. Definitely notices everything about the cover.
I also look at tattoos on millennial women as a sign of mindless conformity.
I noticed the same thing among badass bikers. They like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, yet they wear the same Levi jackets with the arms cut off, the same boots, same wallets chained to a belt loop, same long hair, same beard. It's as if they're in uniform. You can't tell one from another.
I wonder if the same people who say you should never judge a book by its cover also bite into moldy strawberries or moldy bread just to see if they're really bad.
Probably. There are people who will approach grizzly and polar bears because they don't want to judge Nature. They frequently get eaten.
It seems as if I'm seeing fewer young women with tattoos. I'm hopeful that it's a dying fad. It might have been replaced by oddly colored hair, but at least that can be got rid of.
So very true. I'm usually surprised when I see a woman on the Right wearing the giant, cartoon glasses. That does seem to be the exception. One of the many hideous current trends among all Cluster B women. Also seeing them now on more black men and women. I do make a judgment. Also called healthy discernment.
The Left's stereotypes of those of us on the Right are not based in reality. So tiresome hearing all the Cluster B women whine about "feeling unsafe" around us. You are the unstable personality disordered and that IS based in reality.
Gavin De Becker's Gift of Fear - yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Everyone and especially every parent and teacher needs to read this book because you need to be more fully equipped to protect your kids than society today prepares you to. Excellent, excellent recommendation. I have recommended it myself and bought copies for people. His subsequent book Protecting the Gift is also excellent. Thank you, Josh.
Regarding tattoos, the comedian Sebastian Maniscalco said something like “Why would I put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari?”