The Cambridge Chat Thread's Starter for Ten - 'No, you lose five points!'

It's nice to know that someone occasionally follows the links. I had been wondering, though I would happily include them just for my own sake.

But apparently I'm too predictable. In future I'll have to make sure that the links are completely unrelated to the actual post.

I haven't seen the research but I would tend to agree with you here. I guess it's a case of "live fast, die young".

I hadn't come across that before, and having skimmed through the top entry I find it very typical of these kind of "Life at Cambridge" blogs - boring and pretentious. Then again maybe that's just me being boring and pretentious myself.

I always find other peoples' experiences or views of life and themselves interesting. I was disappointed that most of the entries were about sex or relationships, but a few weren't and they were generally good. I don't think its pretentious. If you have never had thoughts or experiences like those yourself, then perhaps it may seem so. But plenty of people have such thoughts to themselves all the time. If its the publicising it that makes it pretentious... sometimes sharing that kind of information can be pretentious, but its not necessarily the case. Certainly I'd find chatting to other people a lot more fun and interesting if they had conversations at that level rather than sticking to jokes and boring small talk

Other peoples' experiences and views of life can be interesting, agreed. However most - if not all - of "Life at Cambridge" blogs I have seen are not interesting at all - they are often written in a way that feels pretentious in that they are somehow special or unique having these thoughts when a quick glance at other similar blogs will reveal that this is not the case. I agree it's the publicising, and manner of publicising that I find pretentious rather than the content. But then again I haven't read one where the content would keep me reading either. I'm yet to find a blog worth following in my opinion. On the other hand, agreed it is generally more interesting when people are willing to talk about their thoughts instead of general lowest-common-denominator small-talk and similar.

Also agree with Sockpirate that the failed relationships and cambridge-induced-insecurities themes are probably the most boring of the lot.

I actually think it's quite well written. And it's far less pretentious than some of my posts on here.

Your last sentence reminds me of a quote that I saw recently:

From our cultural distance, it is evident that Kant’s arguments against masturbation, for the return of wives to abusive husbands, etc., are gobbledy-gook. This should make us suspicious that there might be other parts of Kant, too, that are gobbledy-gook, for example, the stuff that transparently reads like gobbledy-gook, such as the transcendental deduction, and such as his claims that his various obviously non-equivalent formulations of the fundamental principle of morality are in fact “so many formulations of precisely the same law” (Groundwork, 4:436, Zweig trans.). I read Kant as a master at promising philosophers what they want and then effusing a haze of words with glimmers enough of hope that readers can convince themselves that there is something profound underneath.

This is not meant to be critical, but I can't help reading negative responses such as yours as being a kind of defence mechanism like the author referred to. Its precisely the awkwardness and cringeyness of such topics that prevents regular people from publicising their thoughts about these things. If we stopped seeing such thoughts as cringey or awkward, and actually treated them as normal (as you claimed to view them) then not only would people be more open about it, but that would also eventually lead to less blogs or articles about this kind of angst, because there wouldn't be any more need for them, and the subject matter would become mundane and standard.

I kinda like the blog, but I think I somewhat side with Alex here.
Whilst reading it, there wasn't anything that seemed that unusual to me. I mean, my coping mechanism with stress at cambridge (admittedly relatively rare) was to remind myself that everyone else was almost certainly thinking the same, and having the same issues as me. That said, I still find it a little awkward reading (might be the style), and would certainly find discussing my own thoughts like that as immensely awkward. I don't mind telling people things (practically anything that doesn't compromise other people tbh), but it just seems awfully self-involved for me to assume anyone else would be interested!
Bit of a fail at paragraphs there, but hey. Can only avoid revision for so long before I feel guilty...

That's what I meant. People are raised to find displays of emotion awkward and to see it as a bad thing, e.g narcissistic, attention seeking, self involved and so forth. You are both culturally encouraged to be critical of it. You have the double whammy of being brought up British (the stiff upper lip and the constant sarcasm at anything that could be deemed too emotional are both still prevalent) and male. So it makes perfect sense that you would instinctively feel critical and uncomfortable with such material. I just think that we should second guess feelings of discomfort and try to appraise it more objectively. Forgive me, of course, for assuming a whole lot of personal things about you and Alex. But I do stand by those observations about British and masculine culture generally. As to the being 'programmed' thing, a lot of people find this reading patronising and somewhat insulting (that we're all dupes of culture/biology etc). But if it helps, I apply exactly the same rules to myself, and assume that I'm also programmed to have a particular range of deeply seated instinctive responses to certain things.

I should go now... but at least I've given you more excuses not to revise And PRSOM, but in absence of shiney green stuff: good coping mechanism.

I haven't linked to this blog for at least a couple of days, so here's an attempt to justify studying the classics (not that you're necessarily arguing against doing so). IMO the last two paragraphs are the most important. It may be a bit tired, but the "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" quote is rather good.

Also, I believe that it was H.W. Fowler in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage who* said that "A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because [various things] or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read."

*Or possibly that. See which, that, who (9).

I don't think anything about the blog suggests that the author thinks that the content is in anyway special or unusual. The introductory premise was that she wanted to show that any random person can be interesting. So if anything, the premise is that such thoughts and experiences are very normal.

And the reason Cambridge induced anxiety and failed relationships continue to be popular and appealing to readers is precisely because they're universal and everyone does go through these things.

If you are having a difficult time and are spending time thinking over it, its very welcome to read accounts of other people who have been through something similar, but with different conclusions and thoughts about that experience. It gives you a point of comparison, and in doing so it allows you to put your own experiences into perspective. This is very valuable, because most of the time people don't share such thoughts with others because they're too embarrassed to do so. And since this is the norm, people only have their own thoughts to refer to, and therefore can't access much perspective. Certainly I only found the entries interesting and valuable in so far as they were common experiences that everyone shares, but in more detail and depth than you usually have access to.

This is not meant to be critical, but I can't help reading negative responses such as yours as being a kind of defence mechanism like the author referred to. Its precisely the awkwardness and cringeyness of such topics that prevents regular people from publicising their thoughts about these things. If we stopped seeing such thoughts as cringey or awkward, and actually treated them as normal (as you claimed to view them) then not only would people be more open about it, but that would also eventually lead to less blogs or articles about this kind of angst, because there wouldn't be any more need for them, and the subject matter would become mundane and standard.

That's what I meant. People are raised to find displays of emotion awkward and to see it as a bad thing, e.g narcissistic, attention seeking, self involved and so forth. You are both culturally encouraged to be critical of it. You have the double whammy of being brought up British (the stiff upper lip and the constant sarcasm at anything that could be deemed too emotional are both still prevalent) and male. So it makes perfect sense that you would instinctively feel critical and uncomfortable with such material. I just think that we should second guess feelings of discomfort and try to appraise it more objectively. Forgive me, of course, for assuming a whole lot of personal things about you and Alex. But I do stand by those observations about British and masculine culture generally. As to the being 'programmed' thing, a lot of people find this reading patronising and somewhat insulting (that we're all dupes of culture/biology etc). But if it helps, I apply exactly the same rules to myself, and assume that I'm also programmed to have a particular range of deeply seated instinctive responses to certain things.

I would contest that both, or in fact either, of those are universal. I know people for whom at least one, if not both, did not apply.

Regarding a 'defence mechanism', unfortunately I didn't read that post so I'm not sure what I'm meant to be defending against here - is it my own Cambridge-induced insecurities and failed relationships? Putting asides whether or not these exist(ed), I'm struggling to see how this applies to my opinion on these blogs...

I disagree with quite a lot here:
- I do not find displays of emotion awkward or a bad thing in general.
- The "stiff upper lip" may be stereotypically British culture, but it is a stereotype and quite a generalisation to assume it would apply to both of us. Besides, I'm not fully British nor did I spend my early years in the UK.
- It's not common (in fact, practically unheard of unless with sarcasm) that someone suggests to me that I am demonstrating 'masculine culture' - while I am male again it is quite a generalisation to assume this would make me 'masculine' in this sense.