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The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved (1970)
- QuantumChaos 12y ago>But the breeding of humans is not so wisely supervised, particularly in a narrow Southern society where the closest kind of inbreeding is not only stylish and acceptable, but far more convenient—to the parents—than setting their offspring free to find their own mates, for their own reasons and their own ways. (“Goddam, did you hear about Smitty’s daughter? She went crazy in Boston last week and married a nigger!”) I don't know much about marriage patters on Southern states in the 70's, but I find it amazing that Jews, Chinese, Africans etc. manage to mostly avoid race-mixing, but also avoid the opposite extreme of literal in-breeding. What is it about White people that, unlike every single other ethnicity, who produce rich, vibrant cultures when left to their own devices, White people turn into crazy inbred rednecks? I mean, I've never read a similar article about close-knit Jewish communities in Brooklyn, or African immigrant communities. Somehow those people manage to retain a distinctive culture and lifestyle (and even some of the conservative values that the author describes), without becoming the caricature the author describes. EDIT: this post was a parody of anti-White sentiment such as the part of the article that I quoted. I don't actually think White people are special in the way I described. What is unique is the ridicule to which White culture and White communities are subject by the mainstream media.
- vezzy-fnord 12y agoIt feels like I'm reading reverse Stormfront.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoThere were a couple articles the last few days that brought out the biotruths / MRAs / etc crew, I guess some of them stayed on.
- QuantumChaos 12y agoI was posting about the double standard by which the media treats White communities vs communities of other ethnicity's. Nothing to do with genetic differences, Men's Rights, or any other group you want to associate me with for no reason.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoThat's a lot more than 14 words, pal.
- QuantumChaos 12y agogreat rebuttal
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoFor the record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
- theorique 12y agoWhat is it about ----- people that, unlike every single other ethnicity, who produce rich, vibrant cultures when left to their own devices, ----- people turn into crazy ------ --------? I find that it's useful to take 'potentially' racist screeds and see if they would still sound racist if you mixed up the groups being criticized. In this case, yes, it still sounds racist.
- coldtea 12y agoIn ANY case, it makes a valid point and provides food for thought.
- icegreentea 12y agoThis honestly needs to be voted back up to at least neutral. I don't think QuantumChaos is trolling or anything like that here, and it's honestly an important point. I don't know how many of you here have South or South East Asian parents, especially those who are first generation immigrants. I live in Canada (in Toronto!), so I get to talk to fellow immigrants about this all the time. It's pretty much accepted that many of our parents are racist. I have a Tamil friend who will only date other Tamils because of her parents. My Korean friends know that their parents will disapprove of them dating non-Koreans. My Chinese friend caused a stir in her family when she dated an African. A lot of these parents will not have a problem with other ethnicities or whatever. They're not going to call anyone a nigger, or a gwielo, or a towelhead or whatever. They're not going to avoid talking to someone of a different skin color. They'll happily go out and be real and true friends of whoever. But they'll want their children to 'keep the tradition' or whatever. This is a real thing. And it is a real racism. Whether or not we think its an acceptable thing is one thing. But if we let the Korean immigrants get away with it, then we can't get too upset at when the 'white people' do it.
- QuantumChaos 12y agoThanks for expanding on my point. I would also add that it's not just about the act of self-selection, but the way the communities are viewed in themselves. Exactly the same qualities are described in very different terms, e.g. a tight knit community which upholds their traditions and values in the face of modernity, vs inbred, ignorant bigots. The main difference between my viewpoint and others who make similar arguments, is that I'm not saying this is an actual contradiction. There are many differences in context which mean that the two cannot be directly compared. However, there is what I would call a discrepancy. The author of this piece never made a logical argument, that what is good for White communities isn't good for others. He simply painted a picture, which many people might find compelling. If I can expose this discrepancy, people might find these narratives less compelling.
- apostal 12y agoThe "discrepancy" you are oh-so-desperately trying to invent is, if anything, the difference between a racist culture that has dominated a nation, and reactions to that racism. Hunter S Thompson's narrative IS compelling, because that racism was and is still rampant in the United States.
- anigbrowl 12y agoThe writer critiques 'a narrow Southern society' that goes in for intermarriage. It is who who generalized this to an attack on 'White culture.' Inbreeding exists in many cultures. It's just that we're familiar with our own cultural referents (American in this case), whereas we're not as familiar with the sub-populations of other nations or ethnic groups that might be known for it. For example, there's a large city in Saudi Arabia called Dammam where first-cousin marriages are unusually common for reasons which have to do with tribal history [1]. It's quite possible that people in other parts of Saudi Arabia make jokes or critiques of people from that city, but they would be lost on anyone who hasn't studied the subject. 1. http://www.as.wvu.edu/~kgarbutt/QuantGen/Gen535_2_2004/Inbreeding_Humans.htm http://www.as.wvu.edu/~kgarbutt/QuantGen/Gen535_2_2004/Inbre... As for complaining about how poorly white culture and communities are treated by the mainstream media, get back to me when the comment pages of most news sites are no longer awash with the toxic rantings of racist idiots.
- coldtea 12y ago>As for complaining about how poorly white culture and communities are treated by the mainstream media, get back to me when the comment pages of most news sites are no longer awash with the toxic rantings of racist idiots. I don't know which "mainstream media" you mean, but a lot of mainstream media I read are awash with the toxic rantings of PC idiots.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dang 12y agoThis subthread is a poster child for thread derailing: an off-topic provocation (on race, no less) followed by earnest rebuttals and further provocations. Please don't post, or respond to, this kind of off-topic flamebait on HN.
- QuantumChaos 12y agoI don't think that what I wrote was off-topic, because poking fun of Southern White society was a major theme throughout the entire article, not just the part I quoted directly. And my subsequent posts clarified my viewpoint, and weren't written in inflammatory language. It's not my fault that some people immediately associate the use of the term "White" with a crazy Stormfront posting neo-Nazi. How else am I supposed to refer to the subject matter? Using White in a negative context seems to be fine. If a lot of people think that using terms like "White culture" makes you a neo-Nazi, then that precisely confirms that the viewpoint I was parodying in my first post is alive and well.
- dang 12y agoYou poured gasoline along the shortest path to a flamewar, threw in a couple matches, and then acted like the rational one. Subsequent posts to "clarify" merely feed the flames. The damage was done. And "it was only a parody" is deeply lame. The discourse is fragile. This kind of thing harms it. Whether it's arson or just pyrotechnics doesn't much matter. Please don't do it again.
- QuantumChaos 12y agoThe term "parody" is often misused, but I was using it correctly here. My post was a parody of what I perceived to be anti-White bias. This did initially cause some confusion, but all of the criticism I received was by people who recognized the intent of my post. A more direct version would have gone something like "Imagine if the author had portrayed Jews, Chinese or Africans living in the US using the same insulting caricatures, or conflated their relative ethnic homogeneity with literal inbreeding..." If you would prefer the latter style of presentation, I will try and avoid satire/parody as a stylistic device.
- aspidistra 12y agoJust checking department: do you have permission from the copyright holder(s) to publish this?
- fyrabanks 12y agoI highly doubt anyone at Scanlan's Monthly cares.
- coldtea 12y agoWell, the story has been sold to a book publisher afterwards, but it's not like it's our role to obsess over this. Let him worry, if he has to.
- robobro 12y agoI'm sure Thompson's rolling in his grave at the thought of someone being naughty.
- derwiki 12y agoI know you're just using a metaphor, but Thompson's remains were shot out of a cannon over Colorado[1]. No grave. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001078.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08...
- benihana 12y agoIf you enjoyed this, another fantastic article by HST is Strange Rumblings in Aztlan[1] about the murder of Ruben Salazar and the Chicano movement against the Vietnam war. [1]http://s3.amazonaws.com/eob_texts-production/texts/22/1297809321_Strange_Rumblings_in_Aztlan_small.pdf?1297809321 http://s3.amazonaws.com/eob_texts-production/texts/22/129780...
- derwiki 12y agoOr if you really enjoyed this, skip right to Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga[1]. Bonus if you currently live in the Bay area, because that's where much of the story is set. It was Thompson's first "breakthru" book and (in my opinion) one of his much more coherent writings. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Hells-Angels-Strange-Terrible-Saga/dp/0345410084 http://www.amazon.com/Hells-Angels-Strange-Terrible-Saga/dp/...
- dmix 12y agoHST's fiction and even most non-fiction journalism was never as good as his letters to his friends (his friends included famous Beat writers and 1960s literary legends). His writing quality follow this hierarchy: Letters -> Journalism -> Fiction Largely due to his inability to focus on long works due to his (hilariously) reckless lifestyle. He was brilliant in small short pieces. I learned this having read nearly all of his work over the last 5 years. I recommend his collection of letters, published across a 3 book series, which he preserved over the years from being teenager in the 1950s to becoming a famous journalist in the late 60s. http://www.amazon.com/The-Proud-Highway-Desperate-Gentleman/dp/0345377966/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Proud-Highway-Desperate-Gentleman/... For example one of his letters that went viral recently, written while he was 20: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-thomspon-letters-of-note-advice/ http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/04/hunter-s-t...
- hv23 12y agoI’ll have to check this one out! Also highly recommended — "The Great Shark Hunt", a collection of his pieces through the 60s and 70s. "Hell's Angels" is marvelous, "Fear and Loathing” is probably his best-known, but nothing quite covers the range of HST's work like this book. http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Shark-Hunt-Strange/dp/0743250451 http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Shark-Hunt-Strange/dp/074325...
- rch 12y ago> “There’s going to be trouble,” I said. “My assignment is to take pictures of the riot.”
- RobSpectre 12y agoOne of God's own prototypes - too weird to live, too rare to die.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ruggeri 12y ago> One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. —Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone December 15, 1977, eventually part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Zeta_Acosta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Zeta_Acosta
- gonzo 12y agoI named my son "Hunter Speed". Our last name is Thompson.
- twic 12y agoIn case anyone else is, like myself, a foreigner confused as to why this article is on the front page of HN at this particular moment, two facts are germane. Firstly, the Kentucky Derby is this weekend. Secondly, Hunter S. Thompson was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame last week: http://jat.uky.edu/ky-journalism-hall-of-fame.html http://jat.uky.edu/ky-journalism-hall-of-fame.html http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/hunter-s-thompsons-pre-gonzo-journalism-surprisingly-earnest/361355/ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/hun...
- discreteevent 12y agoOK. I thought it was someone's idea to demonstrate how hypertext can obliterate the experience of reading a good story because you are constantly distracted by the thought that you are not clicking the links. I'm not being sarcastic. I really thought it was a very clever demonstration.
- useflyer 12y agoI enjoyed the experience of being able to have context and additional information as I read the piece. People read in different ways (I stop and marinate on each paragraph), and being able to explore a bit made the story all the better.
- keane 12y agoThank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the format! I think I'm like you, stopping on numerous paragraphs to allow those sentences to unlock something or bring something to mind. And ultimately, I wish that more articles included definitions and links to resources the author used or was aware of. I hate when the New York Times doesn't link to the very website they are discussing! Thanks again!
- golergka 12y agoNever open TVTropes.
- keane 12y ago
- the_watcher 12y agoI read this every year on the morning of the Kentucky Derby. It's truly a work of genius by a man who became more famous for his other works, and it should be appreciated more.
- ableal 12y agoThe link/story about the winning horse's owner is not bad either, if not nearly as gonzo ... "I went out there and sat for 21 days, 14 hours a day, waiting to shoot a tiger that had killed 117 villagers in the surrounding countryside." http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1083588/index.htm http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1...
- jballanc 12y agoIf you've never seen it, this is (supposedly) the daily schedule that Thompson stuck to when writing: http://mentalfloss.com/article/33487/hunter-s-thompsons-daily-routine http://mentalfloss.com/article/33487/hunter-s-thompsons-dail...
- nutjob2 12y agoI remember reading Fear and Loathing when I was 14 and thinking it was the work of a genius.
- leemcalilly 12y agoThis essay is a great intro to Hunter S. Thompson.
- ds9 12y agoIf you like Thompson's writing or ideas, or would like to observe more of the "gonzo" character, then in addition to the writings check out a 1978 BBC mini-documentary "Fear and loathing in gonzo-vision". A journalist and cameraperson go around with HST for a few days, there are casual interviews, some on-the-scene scenes and some background. Vids with that or similar names may be on youtube (I can't verify right now); also discs and torrents.