#class distinctions

[howifeltabouthim]

Her last words lingered in his mind. The shadow of eternity! Rich people, who could afford to cultivate their emotions, talked like that.

L. P. Hartley, from The Hireling

[blueheartbooks]

"Love's Triumph and Social Satire: A Spirited Journey Through 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen"

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" stands as a timeless masterpiece, an exploration of love, social class, and the complexities of human relationships in early 19th-century England. As I delved into the pages of this classic novel, I found myself enchanted by Austen's wit, keen observations, and the enduring relevance of her narrative.

At its core, "Pride and Prejudice" is a love story, but Austen elevates it beyond mere romantic entanglements. The novel unfolds in the world of the landed gentry, where societal expectations and class distinctions shape the characters' lives. Elizabeth Bennet, the spirited and intelligent protagonist, becomes a beacon of Austen's social commentary. The title itself hints at the central themes, highlighting the barriers erected by pride and prejudice that hinder genuine connections between people.

Austen's narrative prowess is evident in her sharp and satirical depiction of the characters. The Bennet family, with its blend of endearing eccentricities and societal foibles, provides a canvas for Austen to explore the absurdities of her contemporary society. Mrs. Bennet's single-minded pursuit of advantageous marriages for her daughters and Mr. Collins's obsequiousness are rendered with a comedic touch, yet they reveal deeper truths about the societal pressures faced by women in that era.

The heart of the novel, however, lies in the dynamic between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Their relationship evolves amidst misunderstandings, societal expectations, and the prideful assumptions each holds about the other. Austen skillfully weaves a narrative that transcends mere romantic conventions, delving into the intricacies of personal growth, self-awareness, and the transformative power of love.

What sets "Pride and Prejudice" apart is Austen's ability to infuse her characters with authenticity and nuance. Elizabeth, with her sharp wit and strong convictions, emerges as a compelling and relatable heroine. Mr. Darcy, though initially perceived as aloof and arrogant, undergoes a profound transformation, challenging the reader's own prejudices and preconceptions.

Austen's narrative unfolds with a rhythmic cadence, her prose a dance of intellect and emotion. The novel's pacing is deliberate, allowing the reader to savor the unfolding drama and appreciate the intricate web of relationships. The dialogue, filled with social commentary and clever repartees, remains a testament to Austen's literary finesse.

While "Pride and Prejudice" is undeniably a product of its time, the novel's enduring appeal lies in its exploration of universal themes. Austen's critique of societal norms, her championing of independent thought, and her celebration of genuine love resonate across generations. The novel remains a relevant and engaging commentary on the human condition.

In conclusion, "Pride and Prejudice" is a triumph of literature, seamlessly blending romance, social satire, and astute observations on human nature. Jane Austen's legacy endures, and her ability to craft a narrative that transcends its temporal setting cements "Pride and Prejudice" as a timeless classic. As I closed the final chapter, I couldn't help but marvel at Austen's enduring relevance and the indelible mark she has left on the landscape of literary brilliance.

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is available in Amazon in paperback 16.99$ and hardcover 24.99$ editions.

Number of pages: 453

Language: English

Rating: 10/10                                           

Link of the book!

Review By: King's Cat

[blueheartbookclub]

"Love's Triumph and Social Satire: A Spirited Journey Through 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen"

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" stands as a timeless masterpiece, an exploration of love, social class, and the complexities of human relationships in early 19th-century England. As I delved into the pages of this classic novel, I found myself enchanted by Austen's wit, keen observations, and the enduring relevance of her narrative.

At its core, "Pride and Prejudice" is a love story, but Austen elevates it beyond mere romantic entanglements. The novel unfolds in the world of the landed gentry, where societal expectations and class distinctions shape the characters' lives. Elizabeth Bennet, the spirited and intelligent protagonist, becomes a beacon of Austen's social commentary. The title itself hints at the central themes, highlighting the barriers erected by pride and prejudice that hinder genuine connections between people.

Austen's narrative prowess is evident in her sharp and satirical depiction of the characters. The Bennet family, with its blend of endearing eccentricities and societal foibles, provides a canvas for Austen to explore the absurdities of her contemporary society. Mrs. Bennet's single-minded pursuit of advantageous marriages for her daughters and Mr. Collins's obsequiousness are rendered with a comedic touch, yet they reveal deeper truths about the societal pressures faced by women in that era.

The heart of the novel, however, lies in the dynamic between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Their relationship evolves amidst misunderstandings, societal expectations, and the prideful assumptions each holds about the other. Austen skillfully weaves a narrative that transcends mere romantic conventions, delving into the intricacies of personal growth, self-awareness, and the transformative power of love.

What sets "Pride and Prejudice" apart is Austen's ability to infuse her characters with authenticity and nuance. Elizabeth, with her sharp wit and strong convictions, emerges as a compelling and relatable heroine. Mr. Darcy, though initially perceived as aloof and arrogant, undergoes a profound transformation, challenging the reader's own prejudices and preconceptions.

Austen's narrative unfolds with a rhythmic cadence, her prose a dance of intellect and emotion. The novel's pacing is deliberate, allowing the reader to savor the unfolding drama and appreciate the intricate web of relationships. The dialogue, filled with social commentary and clever repartees, remains a testament to Austen's literary finesse.

While "Pride and Prejudice" is undeniably a product of its time, the novel's enduring appeal lies in its exploration of universal themes. Austen's critique of societal norms, her championing of independent thought, and her celebration of genuine love resonate across generations. The novel remains a relevant and engaging commentary on the human condition.

In conclusion, "Pride and Prejudice" is a triumph of literature, seamlessly blending romance, social satire, and astute observations on human nature. Jane Austen's legacy endures, and her ability to craft a narrative that transcends its temporal setting cements "Pride and Prejudice" as a timeless classic. As I closed the final chapter, I couldn't help but marvel at Austen's enduring relevance and the indelible mark she has left on the landscape of literary brilliance.

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is available in Amazon in paperback 16.99$ and hardcover 24.99$ editions.

Number of pages: 453

Language: English

Rating: 10/10                                           

Link of the book!

Review By: King's Cat

[severianrising]

[astromechs]

really think mcu infinity war lost something when they decided to make thanos a malthusian ecofascist instead of a pathetic man desperate to fuck a skeleton who doesn't wanna fuck him back

[welcometogrouchland]

I understand that literature nerd Jason Todd is kind of overblown in fanon compared to it's actual presence in canon (a few issues during his pre (and post?)crisis Robin tenure that highlight it) BUT consider that I think it's hilarious if the unhinged gun toting criminal has strong opinions on poetry

[canisalbus]

Nervous Machete from my class notes!

we were learning about the spread of christianity.

.

[delvinanaris]

And also, like…

Yes, it is possible that the Green brothers are masterfully hiding their True Beliefs™️ and are actually fiendish hypercapitalist wannabe-lords.

But this seems extremely unlikely.

While it is indeed important to be careful about ascribing your own motives and beliefs to people in positions of some power or influence, the idea that the moment someone, in our current system, crosses the (apparently hard, bright, and inflexible) line between Fellow Worker and Evil Boss, they should be vilified and treated as no different from, say, Jeff Bezos, regardless of their beliefs and politics? It’s absurd.

It’s in a category of thinking that attempts to place certain principles at the core of everything, without clearly examining either what those principles actually entail, or why they exist in the first place.

I was raised to believe, as Lois Bujold’s character Miles Vorkosigan so succinctly puts it, in “persons over principles.” No matter how important a principle is, if it leads you to lose sight of the actual human beings involved, then you have lost your way.

The majority of professional YouTubers, particularly the more established ones, are bosses. Their economic interest rests on their ability to exert coercive power over their employees, including the coercive threat of homelessness. When they post about politics it's important to remember they aren't doing so from an uninvested position.

Look at it this way, if a packer at a DFTBA warehouse came to Hank Green saying their rent had increased and they could no longer afford it do you think he'd offer them a raise or more hours?

I mean tbf Hank Green is roughly as representative of youtubers as, I don't know, Taylor Swift is of musicians. Really, really riding the far edge of the power law line.

So like

When they post about politics it's important to remember they aren't doing so from an uninvested position.

is of course entirely correct, but I'm pretty sure the average 'pro' youtubers invested economic position is the desperate need to ride the algorithm and avoid pissing off BetterHelp or whoever's still buying ad reads on video essays these days. Making enough money to have employees is a, like, .01% thing.

[lucky-katebishop]

I was confused at first why they were being killed one by one because that didn't really make sense and then I realized it's because last names are what they are born with. Last names can dictate influence, especially when it comes to wealth. Lindy used her last name as an advantage over Ricky because September was just a stage name- his last name came before hers so he had to die first. I think it's interesting that something so simple is actually so complex and no wonder the Doctor was so confused by it. The dot used what so many rich people take for granted (their last name) in order to punish them for it.

[apas-95]

like. okay yeah I have my own criticisms of bourgeois academia as an instrument of class rule, but some of this is a bit silly. a lot of people are acting as though academia refers solely to like, literature degrees.

like at a fundamental level, yes, the purpose of a degree is as a barrier to access - but that is not in and of itself always a negative thing! the proletariat also requires the ability to produce, assess, and verify intellectuals. all the 'why the fuck should I care if the student across from me cheated on their tests, never attended class, etc' talk falls apart when the question being answered by their possession of a degree is 'should this person be permitted to design and construct buildings'! fundamentally, yes, someone cheating on their exams devalues a degree, because the confidence in qualification granted by that degree is lessened - not to mention the inherent danger of a fraudulent qualification! (strangely, this argument hasn't been extended to driving license exams yet, though I'm sure the inevitable libertarian convergence isn't far away.)

in all the discussion of burning down the local polytechnical, i have seen vague mention to academia existing as a barrier to access, some scant reference to discrimination against poor and minority students, but zero mention of the actual role of bourgeois academia and the intelligentsia in upholding bourgeois rule! it's all simply coming from the point of view of the restrictiveness being bad because it prevents people from getting high-paying jobs or the like, and the vague notion of elitism. again, with all abolition discourse here, given the lack of any real class analysis, the question is - are we talking solely within the context of capitalism, of existing bourgeois institutions? if so, why? why limit our positions to capitalist realism, to an essentially liberal discourse? if not - then how have we not reconciled the real, practical value of these technologies (mass education, examination, qualification) with their specific characteristics under capitalism?

everything has both positive and negative aspects. bourgeois class rule itself, even, was once a truly progressive thing. we can acknowledge the negative side of bourgeois academia without ignoring its positive side - and still take it on the whole that it, along with all bourgeois institutions, should be torn down and replaced by proletarian ones. that, stripped of their capitalist character, these are useful barriers.

Fundamentally, the point is this: why is our focus on attacking the barriers keeping us from class mobility, from high-paying jobs, themselves; instead of on attacking the existence of the high-paying, middle-class jobs that themselves characterise a fundamentally useful, practical system like examination as an instrument of class rule?

[icarusbetide]

i joke that rev period america was just 20 people in a circle recycling reusing periodic beef with each other but holy shit the same names every single goddamn time. von steuben wtf were you doing at the doctors' riot of 1788. hercules mulligan you exist in a different stratosphere from the adams family, why is your son involved with john adam's son. von steuben and hamilton why are you involved in this as well. aaron burr why are you maria reynold's lawyer. can i expect jefferson and madison in a trenchcoat to jump out of the bushes or what.

[howifeltabouthim]

'I belong to a family older than yours . . . much older than yours, though we may have come down in the world. And that's why I don't understand one word of what you've been saying. None of my relations would have understood, because they didn't belong to the middle class.'

L.P. Hartley, from The Harness Room

[prismabeth]

i wish i knew what to call the specific discrimination appalachians face

cuz like

it isnt racism, appalachians dont form a distinct racial category

but it isnt accurate to call it classism, the discrimination we face is influenced by, but distinct from the perception of appalachians as exclusively working class

and even in working class spaces i find my culture to be singled out, and that most non appalachians ive met consider the region an acceptable target of prejudice and ridicule, regardless of class background

nativism, nationalism, and xenophobia all dont really work in analysis

my girlfriend suggested the term "locational prejudice"

but that isnt a particularly useful term if your goal is to dismantle said prejudice, its clunky and an ineffective phrase for communication

[waitineedaname]

the system possession au has had me thinking lately: how do you guys interpret the system when it comes to the two transmigrators? Do you see it as one system working with both transmigrators for the same overarching goal of Fixing The Plot, or do you see it as two distinct systems, unique to each transmigrator?

[vaguely-concerned]

I feel that during the first coffee date walk through the market, rye has a fraction of a millisecond's kneejerk trauma freakout of '...wait. wait. am I really catching feelings for a rich boy again. with how that went down last time. am I truly that stupid' (once derogatorily referred to quite openly at a party as 'young master anaxas' pet mortalitasi' to which the young master anaxas only grinned and shrugged and STILL you don't break up with his smug controlling ass for good for six more months because you have a desperate bottomless yearning pit where your self respect should go, twice shy lol). and then he actually looks at lucanis standing next to him getting harding spearmint to help with bad dreams and generally being so quietly thoughtful and sweet through the prosaic yet necessary medium of grocery shopping it makes me feel a little unwell to truly contemplate. and rye is like '*the softest fondest eyes anyone has ever turned on anything* ...you know what. I suspect we don't have to worry about that repeating, I think we're probably safe. I am comfortable being this level of stupid. (slowly dawning marital intent even at this stage)'.

(part of the reason rye buys NONE of illario's bullshit at all right from the beginning is that he's basically vaccinated against this exact type of dude after that relationship lol. charming suave guy who in the beginning pays you a lot of lavish attention and takes pains to make you feel special every time you're in a room with him -- but shallowly and mostly, it slowly dawns on you, when there's something he wants from you (and he's often doing it at the expense of someone else, raising you up to put someone else down and you won't believe this... it can turn into a seesaw at a whim. yay). and beneath that there's just a seething pit of resentment and inferiority complexes and bitterness left to fester until he can make it everyone else's problem and that IS going to start to bubble up between the cracks with you too if you stick around for long enough. no thank you been there done that wasted my youth and potential on it and all I got was this lousy shiny set of new emotional intimacy issues haunting me for life! trust me illario I HAVE, as it were, chosen the wrong dellamorte before, which is exactly how I know I didn't this time. go get him lucanis I've got your coffee

hilarious mental image: rye and illario sitting quietly together while everyone else is busy milling about during a cursed dellamorte family dinner (the vibes are so bad. you know the vibes are bad. sitting as still as you can and hoping for calm skies is your best bet without lucanis or teia favourite child privileges to work with) and rye out of the blue gazing thoughtfully into nothing over the edge of his glass with half-lidded eyes to go 'you know. you remind me a lot of my ex. not in a good way' and illario with absolutely no shame and hilariously also something that's the closest he ever gets to real sympathy going 'yeah, I get that a lot'. best talk those two ever had, unironically. their bond leveled up to its final form that day. *soulsborne boss defeated text* MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING REACHED)

[odo-apologist]

I know I just recently reblogged a post and mentioned how much I love the Lows but I love the Highs too and I think they're cute and they deserve more love <3 I love thinking about their little poetry readings and philosophy discussions and the fact that they probably all wear symbols on their foreheads in solidarity with Rimmer. I like to believe that there's a large garden on their ship and Kryten is the one who mainly tends it but the others help out and Rimmer paints it and does still lifes of various flowers and produce from it (he probably paints portraits of the others and other works but Holly can't sustain the projection of all of them so they don't last long). Even though The Cat doesn't care as much about fashion I think he still likes utilizing the same skills OG Cat has through embroidery/textile art and mending/creating all of their robes. He could also arrange flowers from the garden (sometimes for still lifes) and design the layouts of their communal areas. Lister can actually play guitar and other instruments on top of that and he's usually the one that performs music for the others (even though the others probably know how to play too- perhaps Lister taught them or helps them improve). He definitely taught Kryten and is the most encouraging in him trying out ways to express himself. Sometimes he writes poetry not set to music. In the universe(s) that exists where the High crew continue to live on after Demons and Angels take place, I think it's nice to imagine Rimmer getting the hardlight drive and all of them being so ecstatic that he can participate more fully in the activities on the ship, planting in the garden and playing physical instruments and getting to keep his paintings. They have a little banquet to celebrate and they cook it together. Rimmer paints Lister a little portrait that he can keep in a locket around his neck. Lister returns the gesture. I know this is all over the place but I just love thinking about the crew being creative and artistic and I think the Highs are the most likely to truly not only embrace that part of themselves but also make it communal. I want to see them create things and bond! I love them so much