From a 2015 column in the NYT "How ‘You Do You’ Perfectly Captures Our Narcissistic Culture" by Colson Whitehead. I'm reading this because I've been studying the phrase "You do you," and I am only just now noticing that he's the author of a novel I happened to write about yesterday, "Underground Railroad."
ADDED: At English Language and Usage, back in 2015, they discussed that NYT column, and somebody wrote:
The full phrase this originated from is "do you and I'll do me". Another variation is "do you - cuz I'mma do me". The oldest reference to the phrase that I could find is from the song Do You by Funkmaster Flex (featuring DMX), from the album Volume IV, released on December 5, 2000.A century of "do your thing"? I though that was quintessentially 1960s. Oh, wait. I've been here before. It goes back to Ralph Waldo Emerson. From "Self-Reliance":
This could be a variation of the phrase "do your thing", which has been in use for at least a century.
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you, is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the Government or against or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers,—under all these screens, I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your thing, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blind-man's-buff is this game of conformity.I blogged about that back in January 2018, a propos of Melania Trump's "Be best" slogan.
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Hindsight is 20/20.
Play the ball where it lies.
No Monday morning quarterbacking.
For context, remember "Let Reagan be Reagan."?
They're not tautologies. The first appearance is taken broadly and the second is taken narrowly. They're saying the first deserves the same value as the second.
"You do you" is also an insult on the order of "bless your heart."
When someone is throwing an emotion shitfit and is unwilling to face the facts of the matter. The only thing you can do to defuse the situation and move on with your life is to say, "well, you do you."
I've always read You do you as "I really don't care what you do. As long as it doesn't affect me, do whatever you want." It's sort of like spelling out that you're not responsible for another's actions.
Tautologies are tautological.
"When God informs Moses, 'I am that I am,' he is telling the prophet, 'Look, get off my back, I’m God.'"
This is not what the text means at all (in Hebrew). How shabby to blame the narcissist revolution on God. In fact, the very idea of using this to justify outrageous behaviors and interaction is so, well, narcissistic.
Whatever.
"You do you" is also an insult on the order of "bless your heart."
Yes. Obama and the other cool kids use it to disparage. It's a Your behavior is wrong says everyone and you're both too dumb to change or recognize that I'm insulting you. The self assured smirk is optional though is rarely reserved.
A friend of mine detests the phrase, "It is what it is." I think it's occasionally useful, though I don't use it much. The statement may be trivially true, but the speaker's acknowledging It may not be.
"I am that I am"
His interpretation is completely wrong, at least as I understand it theologically.
God is saying - as you've probably heard before - that he is beginning and end, alpha and omega, all that is, has been and will be.
In that sense, God is doing God, and making sure Moses knows it when Moses asks. Apparently a bush that burns yet is not consumed wasn't enough...
I was always taught "you do you, you go blind".
"How ‘You Do You’ Perfectly Captures Our Narcissistic Culture"
Your belief that you can perfectly capture anything, Mr. Encephalized Ape, is sorta funny.
I can't tell you who to sock it to.
Well ain't that a bitch.
When God informs Moses, 'I am that I am,' he is telling the prophet, 'Look, get off my back, I’m God.'.
I'm so glad Colson Whitehead writes cultural interest stories for the NYT & not Biblical exegesis.
"do you - cuz I'mma do me"
Am I the only one who thinks this refers to self-pleasuring?
I've always take the "do" in you do you to mean "have sexual relations with". As such, you do you means "go fuck yourself".
Usually an appropriate sentiment.
I heard on the Lexicon Valley podcast (which, BTW, I think Althouse would really enjoy) recently that the phrase “be yourself” used to mean something more like “steady yourself” or “cool down” I the early 20th century, and it’s current meaning came much later.
Am I the only one who thinks this refers to self-pleasuring?
No. So do EDH and Ignorance is Bliss...
Yeah, what Daniel Jackson said at 1:48, and reiterated by others.
When God informs Moses, 'I am that I am,' he is telling the prophet, 'Look, get off my back, I’m God.'.
Yet another example of why one does not rely on the NYT to explain theology.
Better to rely on someone like . . . John Piper: https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/i-am-who-i-am
That dead Bible will be around long after Waldo is forgotten.
Nike's rejection of the slogan Just Do Me is one of the best decisions in sports marketing history, topped only by the rejection of Show us your Dicks! by the Dick's Sporting Goods chain.
My hat's off to anyone who can read Emerson and get something out of it. I've read several of his books, and everything is forgotten one second after I put it down. I just don't get him. I feel the same about Henry James.
Even that little paragraph Althouse quoted. I read it three times, and still can't remember anything except "Do your own thing".
I morn the age where "You do you" is esteemed as a deep foundational truth.
Leads me to ask, "Are you suggesting that Charles Manson was just keeping it real?"
The sixties expression was "Do your own thing," which is a little different from Emerson. Emerson was saying, "Do what expresses your true nature, and I will know you." The sixties kids were saying, "Do what you enjoy, and don't worry about other people."
"Narcissism," like "greed," has become one of what Tom Wolfe called "vacuum words," i.e., words pretty much emptied of any real meaning so that you can give the word whatever meaning you want to give it. Most people would agree that a certain amount of self-esteem and self-care is healthy, and even necessary to survival; but one man's rational self-esteem and self-care becomes another man's "narcissism."
Best Do Your Thing ever. 20 minutes of pure awesome.
"It is what it is" happens to be a favorite of mine.
"When God informs Moses, 'I am that I am,' he is telling the prophet, 'Look, get off my back, I’m God.'
No. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
"It is what it is" happens to be a favorite of mine.
Well....STOP it, Captain Obvious!!
“I am what I am, and that's all that I am.”
― Popeye
"Emerson thought very highly of himself"
Yes, he did.
"My hat's off to anyone who can read Emerson and get something out of it.'
My hat (a Basque boina/txapela) stays on. You can keep Emerson.
isn't that the wiccan philosophy, it takes work to be as ignorant as colson, a ny times review best seller, If memory serves,
I also share the view that "I am that I am" refers to God as pure Being, "Is-ness." The rest of us come and go, the rest of everything in creation, known and unknown, comes and goes. God doesn't change.
Doesn't surprise me that someone at the NYT is hostile and clueless about religion and an atheist. That's the Left these days. Pathetic.
You may think that " you do what you want to do" of the 60s is a sign of rugged individualism but it was a sign of cowardice. The boys of that era where scared shit of being drafted and going off to Vietnam. You see the draft was standard procedure in those days, the standard way of life for young men.You conformed to the rules and served when called. Not with these pampered (spock babies), gutless kids ( iam talking about the ones who dodged the draft illegally). So they came up with the bullshit that " I do my own thing" . The real rugged kid was the one who did his duty,conformed to the rules and served, not the punks who fled to Canada and did their thing.
The real rugged individual is the one that goes to work every day, mows his lawn, and worries about the welfare of his family - the deplorables.
The important thing about "You do you," is that the person saying it is abdicating all responsibility for the maintenance of standards of behavior by the person being addressed.
The exact opposite of this statement would be Dirty Harry's statement, "Make my day."
I'd suggest not doing so, if Harry ever says this to you.
Not to be too too pedantic (just pedantic enough!):
In Hebrew there is no present tense of the verb 'to be' which of course leads to all sorts of poetical sounding pronouncements. ['The guy is red' and 'The red guy'] can be translated exactly the same.
The literal translation of what God says is "I will be what I will be".
Or maybe "imma be like imma be"
Ok Obama, you do you and HRC whom you silenced by making her SOS, will toss your fecklessness into the trash heap. We got Trump and our betters in the media can't hide their bias. Good job Mr. Mom Jeans
cutting your lawn
I like to have two or three margaritas and smoke some hash before cutting the lawn because then I know that lawn is getting what's coming to it. That's as an individual, of course, not as a former taxpayer and honey-producing member of the hive.
One reason to excuse mischief is to avoid compulsion.
One of the great benefits of fatalism -- what will be will be -- is that it avoids the lie of certainty.
Our current established order does not believe in mischief or fate. It believes in certainty and embraces compulsion as its consequence.
The Irish poet Padraig O Tuama writes:
"[Reconciliation] is an exercise in the art of compromise, and compromise, for many, is like death. But death happens anyway."
The Gospel According to Popeye
"And you didn’t even realize that Popeye the Sailor Man was a believer, did you?
Popeye’s verse—I’m assuming his life verse, went like this:
“I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam.”
I’m sure you recognize this as a slightly, uh, personalized form of 1 Corinthians 15:10a, which reads, 'But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.'
This verse has been popping into my head a lot recently."
I will be what I will be sounds like in independent mind. If that mind also wrote the scriptures they must bend towards valuing freedom. Yet the Law of Moses can cause a submissiveness bondage that only the New Covenant can set men free from.
Thank a God for picking the intellectual Saul, later named Paul, to clear it up.
"He who will not governed by the rudder, will be governed by the rock."
attributed to anon
don't forget the most important!
When Frodo asks Goldberry just who Tom Bombadil is, she responds simply by saying "He is"
Mrs Gump told Forrest, “ stupid is as stupid does.” That about sums it up.
Once upon a time, it was: It is what it is.
But then, somebody said: It depends on what the meaning of is, is.
And some people were ok with that.
And that was that.
Que sera sera
Doesn't the wicked wiccan mantra (Thelema?) begin "And it harm no-one, do what thou wilt [etc whatever]"? Might be a later interpolation, or I'm more confused than usual . . .
Guess who got a lot out of Emerson.
Narr
Rhymes with preachy
The literal translation of what God says is "I will be what I will be".
"People don't think I be like I is, but I do."
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