[user deactivated]

Hey no worries Andy, appreciate the post. I’m don’t mind a bit of negativity anyway. Balance and all that. Obfuscation and woolly language are a big part of art college. In psychotherapies it might be called intellectualisation or bull shit. In the corporate world, management speak or the emperors new clothes. I won’t get started on the physical therapies haha. I am conscious of that and would more say I’m interested in a complex range of topics and have lots of half formed ideas, most of which no one really wants to listen to. Sounding them out generates the clarity rather than starting with clarity, which to me might suggest I already know the answer.

[Andy W]

I

Hey no worries Andy, appreciate the post. I’m don’t mind a bit of negativity anyway. Balance and all that. Obfuscation and woolly language are a big part of art college. In psychotherapies it might be called intellectualisation or bull shit. In the corporate world, management speak or the emperors new clothes. I won’t get started on the physical therapies haha. I am conscious of that and would more say I’m interested in a complex range of topics and have lots of half formed ideas, most of which no one really wants to listen to. Sounding them out generates the clarity rather than starting with clarity, which to me might suggest I already know the answer.

In terms of clarity within the question being asked, I wouldn't say a clear question denotes that you already know the answer. If the question was more hypothesis that might work.

[user deactivated]

True, it could definitely be more clear. I may just pop it on a web page and do some film making and photography rather than post it here. Saves pushing it on others and getting the ‘push back’ to quote Stu.

[Moo]

There's nothing inherently wrong with the questions your asking Dan, far from it. I would simply venture its the style in which your asking, them which has caused the discussion to become a bit fractious. Maybe take it a bit more to the point and ask some more direct questions.

For instance this thread could easily have been entitled 'What do grades mean to you?' followed by your perception and with the responses from that you'd have grounds for a much more constructive debate. As it is your probably inviting people to try and shoot down your point of view a bit more than you may have realized at first.

[user deactivated]

The idea of neutrality or seeking to not offend is an interesting one in its own right. In some ways it’s better for me (online at least) to be marmite than mild cheddar. I wasn’t really after a comfortable and productive debate. If I look deep inside it’s more of a fuck you to the establishment whatever that might be. Christ even the antiestablishment has now become the romanticised establishment with endless biographies about how great it was in the eighties and statement of youth being consumed by people in vw campers on MacBook Pro’s blogging from their gap year / career break in Margalef. I remember attending a ‘moon - Moffat training day in the mid 90’s at a small wall in the south west (I think a young el mocho was there looking stronger than the pair of them ironically) I decided recently that was infancy of all this. Cash, cars, grades, training, diets, success.

[Fiend]

fear, designer danger, control, nature, interaction with manufactured experiences, routes, gear, style, gardening, wilderness, aesthetics, lines, movement, rock, interpretation, feeling, signs, symbols, visual metaphor, consciousness, unconscious, dissociative states, changing times, sub culture.

You've found Dan's list of planned UKB topics.....he's not even halfway through 

[monkoffunk]

The idea of neutrality or seeking to not offend is an interesting one in its own right. In some ways it’s better for me (online at least) to be marmite than mild cheddar. I wasn’t really after a comfortable and productive debate. If I look deep inside it’s more of a fuck you to the establishment whatever that might be. Christ even the antiestablishment has now become the romanticised establishment with endless biographies about how great it was in the eighties and statement of youth being consumed by people in vw campers on MacBook Pro’s blogging from their gap year / career break in Margalef. I remember attending a ‘moon - Moffat training day in the mid 90’s at a small wall in the south west (I think a young el mocho was there looking stronger than the pair of them ironically) I decided recently that was infancy of all this. Cash, cars, grades, training, diets, success.

Ha Dan it does seem a bit like forging a lone path when you are both antiestablishment and antiantiestablishment! You might be right about how we ended up where we are, but it’s not all bad you know.

[user deactivated]

Don’t worry lads, I have a Wordpress app so I’ll put my tedious and implicitly directive ravings on there instead. In that way no one will get their knickers in a twist while doing their ancap base for the season.

[Fiend]

LOL you fud. I think we mostly all like your ravings AND agree with the principles and ideas if not all the specifics.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

"Cash, cars, grades, training, diets, success“

Success?

I get the sense that it isn't conflict that motivates you Dan, but the very unpopular alternative success that you're asking people to consider.

After all, the meaning is never in the grade anyway, as you say.

I think there is always a social currency in the reputation of certain problems and routes; the number is more like an accounting system.

What does the social currency (stroke economy?) satisfy, and why? How much do we need to cash in our kudos chips? We do it in so many ways.

What if we don't have to? What does it satisfy?

It follows fashions too.

Gone are the days of huddling around a Barleycup and brown bun at Stoney caf, as the common badge of allegiance to the cause. These days, you're more likely to be met with disdain if you claim your free mug of Nescaf, and not the double shot latte.

"'aving it" is today's success, but the pay-off was always there, even in having nothing.

[user deactivated]

Hey thanks Moo, I just learnt all about ‘shoehorning’. Interesting how it is used, particularly by psychics. Common ground between politics and the paranormal. I like the bit about raving lunatics and green ink / ugly websites particularly. Not sure it’s deserved of negative vibes tho.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shoehorning