What do you assign to Mordor?

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

I can second that, Lindale. I also assign Marxist professors who give you a failing grade on a paper just because you disagree with Marxism and are promoting the designs of Capatolism! I assign teachers who indoctrinate you instead of teaching you!

All the universities in this nation stink! The only good colleges left are the Hillsdale College and the military institutes.

I'll take that as the term-paper-hangover, wherein suddenly philosophers and thinkers you love reading about you just suddenly want to toss into the fiery pits of Mordor because you just hafta articulate things and your interpretations on them.

If you are saying that your professors (I assume you're in US or Europe?) indoctrinate you instead of teaching you, try University of the Philippines, Diliman campus (the other campuses are sissies!). A semester would perhaps drive you insane. Our college is notorious for producing the likes of founders-of-Communist-parties and students who would eventually go to the mountains as guerillas against the government, usw. Try googling Jose Ma. Sison, formerly a professor of English. But I also have one professor, and I'm almost tempted to write his name, who does not have a political stance, and it reduced him into a thing-of-the-past, a professor never promoted, despite his good teaching skills and his lifetime ambitions to learn Aramaic (to read the Bible) and to go to the places his heroes Aeneas and Odysseus have been (which I think he already has done).

I for one am not Marxist, but I enjoy reading Marx once in a while. In fact I became so amused with it I actually decided to take German as language elective so that I can read it in its original language.

And now that I've gotten past all my papers and exams, Edward Said and Daddy Karl no longer belong in Mordor! Yay! They'll be back here maybe next semester.

But if you want a Marxist into Mordor, then Althusser. Really large nutcase. I suppose geniuses are all nutcases. Which should relieve me a bit.

[Lindale]

Domestic violence is something assigned to Mordor, no questions asked, no excuses needed. And above all, no traditions blamed--it's tradition for the men to discipline their wives! DV is DV is DV is DV and shall be DV till the end of the world.

[Mithennor]

hear, hear!! I whole-heatedly agree with you

additionally I also assign:

*sorority girls
*gross stupidity (though I might be repeating myself here)
*country music
*Hannah Montana
*My university's president
*Peppers
*my crazy (abusive) ex b/f
*the mechanic who ruined my alternator.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by Lindale

I'll take that as the term-paper-hangover, wherein suddenly philosophers and thinkers you love reading about you just suddenly want to toss into the fiery pits of Mordor because you just hafta articulate things and your interpretations on them.

Nay, I don't think it's even necassary to write about Karl Marx in an marketing class! The professor told me to my face that I was "ignorant of the genius of Marx" and that he would not tolerate me writing about a "corrupt" system of marketing! It that's not indoctrination than I would like to know what is.

Yes, you're right Gollum. I was speaking out of frusteration back then and I'm sure that there are lots of great Universities in the America, but private colleges are better.

Originally Posted by Mithennor

*country music

Not all Country Music I hope, just the newer rockier bands.

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

Nay, I don't think it's even necassary to write about Karl Marx in an marketing class! The professor told me to my face that I was "ignorant of the genius of Marx" and that he would not tolerate me writing about a "corrupt" system of marketing! It that's not indoctrination than I would like to know what is.

One cannot deny the "genius" as your prof put it, of Das Kapital. I'm even taking German so I can read it in its original. Having full or nearly-full knowledge of what Marx theorizes about the system of capitalism is not the same as screaming Revolution! Workers of the world unite! Why, if I did that, I'd be destructing myself, being a very small-time "capitalist" (I manage bazaars every Christmas or whenever an occasion presents itself, which is not a very rare thing). Marx gave a very good theory of economics that rivalled Adam Smith with his theory of the invisible hand and the unpredictability of market forces.

Don't worry Groin. Every single day of my life at UP Diliman, I meet red-heads who keep screaming revolution! but who end up deconstructing themselves anyway. It's not only you who's annoyed at those revolutionaries who in fact just dwell in their darling ivory towers. Yay for sembreak!

[Gollum the Great]

Rock. Anything that has no rhythm or beauty, no worth-while attributes and -when in a generous mood- can best be described as "catching", distracts one from his duty and mocks or plays down upon lawful authority is best for orcs. I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

Rock. Anything that has no rhythm or beauty, no worth-while attributes and -when in a generous mood- can best be described as "catching", distracts one from his duty and mocks or plays down upon lawful authority is best for orcs. I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

Hmmm...as far as rock, I wouldn't assign as Mordorion a slap at authority like The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again', Dylan's 'Hurricane' or 'Masters of War', Peter Gabriel's 'Biko' or The Clash's 'London Calling' (Mordor is fascistic and despotic by design; ergo, there can be no dissent against authority). Revolt against authority is not Orkish, particularly when authority is often Sauronish itself. As far as rock lacking rhythm, beauty or other attributes, which genre are you referring to, as the term 'rock' encompasses innumerable offshoots and branches?

I would like assign the 2008 Presidential Debates to Mordor. Never have so few said so much about so little. Like the Roman god Janus, the politicians face in opposite directions but are joined at the hip, mutually mouthing specific sound-bytes palatable for their partisan public.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

Rock. Anything that has no rhythm or beauty, no worth-while attributes and -when in a generous mood- can best be described as "catching", distracts one from his duty and mocks or plays down upon lawful authority is best for orcs. I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

There is great beauty in discordancy (listen to some Drum 'n' Bass or maybe some Stockhausen); the 'catching' rhythm of music is also found in poetry; being distracted is a wonderful thing (Tolkien was completely distracted - he could have been writing academic papers instead of trinkets about Hobbits); and authority must always be mocked in case it gets too full of itself

I'm happy to go to Mordor though, if my record collection must be sent there - I couldn't live without it!

[Diane C]

A one-way ticket for Paris Hilton & Jodie Marsh. I think they'll both fit in to their new surroundings in down-town Mordor.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I'm happy to go to Mordor though, if my record collection must be sent there - I couldn't live without it!

That was exactly my thought when reading the offending post, and it was the reason I asked GtG exactly which genre was being referred to. Conversely, I'd like to know which form of music GtG feels is 'correct' as far as having attributes worthwhile enough to save it from the slag heaps of Mordor.

[Gwathagor]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

Rock. Anything that has no rhythm or beauty, no worth-while attributes and -when in a generous mood- can best be described as "catching", distracts one from his duty and mocks or plays down upon lawful authority is best for orcs. I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

Believe it. I am particularly honorable, and I also listen to rock on a regular basis. It can be done.

I will assume that you have a very specialized definition of rock, because your description of "rock" sounds very little like the music I listen to.

[skip spence]

Yeah, rock belongs in the Shire, although I bet an Orc-band out of Mordor could do decent trash metal if only Sauron would allow them but he wouldn't - Sauron hates rock'n'roll!

Originally Posted by Mithennor

Country music

Country music I assign to the Shire too, but then I mean real country music, not Garth Brooks and his likes who belongs in Mordor together with lawful authority. Stick it up to the man!

Btw, wasn't the pounding, sexually alluring rhythm (and Elvis' pelvic thrusts) the very thing about rock'n'roll that offended 'respectable' people most back in the days?

No rhythm or beauty in rock... *sighs and shakes head*

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

Rock. Anything that has no rhythm or beauty, no worth-while attributes and -when in a generous mood- can best be described as "catching", distracts one from his duty and mocks or plays down upon lawful authority is best for orcs. I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

As soon as I read this post I could sense that there would be trouble, as a sizeable number of Downers (including me) listen to rock. I wouldn't describe rock the way you do. But then again, as Morth said, it is a very wide genre.
I will hapily echo:

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

I will assume that you have a very specialized definition of rock, because your description of "rock" sounds very little like the music I listen to.

Originally Posted by skip spence

Btw, wasn't the pounding, sexually alluring rhythm (and Elvis' pelvic thrusts) the very thing about rock'n'roll that offended 'respectable' people most back in the days?

I read that as Elves' pelvic thrusts

[Gollum the Great]

A great deal has taken place since I posted.

First of all, when I spoke of no honour, I referred to music (if it can be so called) which included all of the characteristics I mentioned, not necessarily all rock. I do not listen to rock and I have scarcely studied the topic to any degree, and so I am obviously in no position to criticize the whole. What rock I have heard and what I am told of it compels me to avoid it, its very nature is to me repellent (though apparently not to others).

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

First of all, when I spoke of no honour, I referred to music (if it can be so called) which included all of the characteristics I mentioned, not necessarily all rock.

Ummm...no, you directly insulted the people who listen to it, along with the music itself:

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

Perhaps actually thinking about what you post prior to typing it may prove helpful in the future.

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

I do not listen to rock and I have scarcely studied the topic to any degree, and so I am obviously in no position to criticize the whole. What rock I have heard and what I am told of it compels me to avoid it, its very nature is to me repellent (though apparently not to others).

So, let me get this straight, the rock form has been in existence for over 50 years, but in that time you have failed to notice that there are a strikingly wide array of genres in the form -- perhaps more variations than in any other type of music? Again, I ask what songs or artists you are referring to specifically, and in which monastery are you cloistered?

Rather than this continued ambiguity, I suppose it would be of assistance to the rest of us lower mortals if you would condescend to tell us what music you prefer, because, as a musician myself, I know and have played alongside plenty of classically-trained and/or jazz-influenced artists who would neither make such outrageous statements, nor debate attributes of music without first laying the groundwork for such a discussion with specifics.

Otherwise, your diatribe has little merit.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I assign having multiple textbooks for a single class, both of which give conflicting information on the same topic.

Example: my take-home contemporary art history midterm asks who started a certain kind of art-making.

Textbook One says that two men 'pioneered' it in like 1951.

Textbook Two says that a third man was 'the real originator,' and he did it between WWI and his death in 1948.

So if two men pioneered it but a different man was the real originator, which guy do I write down on my very important test as being the correct answer to the question?

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Gollum the Great

Rock. Anything that has no rhythm or beauty, no worth-while attributes and -when in a generous mood- can best be described as "catching", distracts one from his duty and mocks or plays down upon lawful authority is best for orcs. I can't believe any person with any form of honour would lower himself to listen to that trash.

Gollum, please don't tell me you're including Nightwish or anything like that lovely Finnish group with a lovely Swedish singer in your list. Nah, on second thought, it's metal, isn't it? If you do, the most I can do is tell you, don't listen to rock if you don't like it but don't tell anybody else not to listen to it.

Though if you're referring to MCR or its likes, I wouldn't have a problem, but maybe Volo might.

Maybe there are crapheads out there who listen to rock all day and do nothing else but breathe and bang their heads, but there are also decent people who like rock. In my senior year at high school we used some rock songs to discuss sound.

Originally Posted by Rikae

Oh, Bhabha. Did I mention that some of those "works" I was assigned two weeks ago were written by that lovely fellow? To Mordor with him and all his beloved jargon!

My prof did some "dumbing-down" of Bhabha when we discussed it, relating to postcolonial theory eros and fetishism. It was so fun and made a hell lot of sense, I never bothered to read the original text, but I attempted twice.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Lindale

Though if you're referring to MCR or its likes, I wouldn't have a problem, but maybe Volo might.

All this 'emo' stuff can go to Mordor (it's not 'rock' to me, sorry emo kids) but my Pixies LPs can only go there over my dead body

I am assigning stupid people at work who ask stupid questions.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I'll defend Metallica like it's my job. Same goes for Opeth. And I've recently fallen completely in love with Dropkick Murphys, so hands off.