Girls are Weird: Buying Stuff Edition

Your observation today: girls are weird.



I honestly haven't made a frivolous purchase in probably a decade. I buy clothes maybe once every five years and that's about it. And I'm not really a masochist (or cheap), I just never have a desire to buy anything besides the bare essentials.

As for the claim that girls are weird, I'll cut them some slack. That's just the way they are - it might seem weird to me, but I don't have a vagina. The problem is that society now caters to female frivolity instead of articulating its existence and actively dampening it.

The "Real" Experiences of Surburbia

In a post defending Taylor Swift, I railed against the notion that social stability is somehow "unreal":

The music industry mostly accepts the notion that "real" artists only write about struggle - generally related to some type of drug addiction, criminal activity, or violence. Take the praise showered upon Eminem for his recent return from years of pill popping, the lauding of Madonna for singing candidly about her salacious affairs, and the American Dream narrative projected onto rappers like Jay-Z and 2Pac. The topics broached by these individuals, drug use, broken families, violent death, and other social pathologies, somehow imbue the artist with authenticity not present in Ms. Swift's tales of adolescent love and heartbreak.

White middle-class suburbanites, the class engaging in what was once seen as good and normal, are considered "sheltered from the real world" and somehow not privy to "real experience." Thankfully, not all of us have fallen for this idiocy.

This meme expands beyond the music industry, such as every season of The Real World including a sexually abused individual, an alcoholic, and a number of individuals with generally horrible childhoods, like the guy this season with both parents in jail for being hardcore drug dealers. To grow up in a middle-class, two-parent home is considered boring, uninteresting, and somehow "unreal" as compared to the supposedly more vibrant environments with pervasive teen pregnancy, divorce, drug abuse, and crime. In this, we see the perversion of the once venerable American dream, the "by one's own bootstraps" replaced by the badge-of-honor "I had a fucking bad childhood so praise me because I made it out, motherfucker."

We see this in popular culture as well. Awhile back I praised Forrest Gump as a fantastic conservative movie showing that a simple man who makes good decisions and cherishes personal relationships can thrive without need for society's materialism and frivolity. But not everyone agrees, including the "conservative" blogger Allahpundit at HotAir who had this to say:

Civilization ends: Greatest film character of all time is … Forrest Gump
People who are fascinated by Forrest Gump must watch Elvis’s movies and find his characters amazing.

Allahpundit (dumbest name ever?) considered Scarlett O'Hara the only "realistic" character in the poll. Telling as Ms. O'Hara had three children by three different men and

"she used her charms shamelessly to get what she wanted including lying, cheating, and even marrying her sister's beau. Nothing she did was beyond shame if it got her what she needed. And she needed money as God was her witness, she would never be hungry again if she had to lie, cheat or steal or sell poor lumber for the better quality stuff."

OK, I know Forrest Gump isn't realistic per se, but Allahpundit's derision clearly stems from the underlying simplicity of the character. Gump upholds boring traditional values while O'Hara is a lying, cheating embodiment of modern moral decadence - and somehow this is "real." Another instance is Pleasantville, a popular 1990's movie that makes this criticism nauseatingly obvious and goes even further in basically flashing neon lights on the screen for its racial allegory. The film depicts 1950's America as hopelessly naive and that one can only escape such emptiness by having casual sex.

Let me qualify this somewhat and partially agree with these leftists. They're somewhat right in noting that socially conservative enclaves like Mormon Utah feel fake - because in a way, they are. But that's the beauty of civilization; it tempers our carnal urges and allows us a safe environment in which to live. Civilization has done away with whimsical murder, rape, and that whole trivial food supply thing. So perhaps these isolated places of social continence don't arise in an entirely organic fashion; but who cares, it works great.

Final note: this qualification regarding "fakeness" doesn't contradict what I said above, if we consider "reality" and "vibrancy" without regard to what makes for good headlines, fodder for neighborhood gossip, or worse, the nightly news. Stable suburban families provide "real", loving environments with plenty of emotional satisfaction. These suburban environments are "real" because they exist and they're "fulfilling" because nothing beats loving families and a close-knit social community and then there's that whole not dealing with crazy people, crime, teen pregnancy, drug use, trash, and general listlessness.

Parallel between Promoting Vegetarianism and Liberalism

I honestly regard Gary Taubes as a legitimate hero - odd praise for a science journalist. Because of his brazen skepticism and excellent research, Taubes has literally saved thousands of lives. Taubes wrote the excellent book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, which fastidiously dismantles the lipid hypothesis. For those unfamiliar, the lipid hypothesis contends that saturated fat and meat cause modern disease, a claim without any merit and perhaps the impetus for our current health crisis:

"The country's big low-fat message backfired," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "The overemphasis on reducing fat caused the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar in our diets to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today."

I've argued before that vegetarianism is an aspect of leftism intended to devalue masculinity and American culture, a notion that I'll tie into the following.

Taubes recently appeared on Dr. Oz's "medical" program. Oz, who has dethroned LSD-loving and Native American shaman-admiring Andrew Weil as the chief purveyor of the high-grain, low-meat, low-fat diet, invited Taubes onto his show to act as a foil. Taubes writes about his experience:

The Dr. Oz Show is one part health advice and discussion and quite a few parts entertainment, as Oz’s producers kept telling me in the days before we taped the episode. To make for what they consider good television they played me up as the second coming of Atkins – a persona that my wife likes to refer to as “meat boy” — while Oz got to play the role of the harvest king, extolling the healing virtues of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. This made it more difficult than I would have liked to get across the important messages from my books, but television is television and I certainly knew what they had in store for me.

Even when confronted by Oz's condescending hubris, Taubes, ever the gentleman, responds with sound science. And in his blog article, he continues speaking truth and explaining the good science behind his position. But unlike his adversaries, those that have promoted a myth that has poisoned and killed people, Taubes isn't a doctrinaire. And that's a very bad thing:

The way I see it, Oz, who’s naturally skinny, can eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains to his hearts content and remain lean. For him, they can be the bulk of his diet and he can tolerate them and burn them off. They give him energy. They don’t make him fat.

Assuredly some proportion of the population and so Oz’s audience will lose a little weight eating as Oz recommends and getting rid of the refined grains and sugars in their diet, and they’ll be a little healthier for the effort. Getting rid of the sugars alone might make a significant difference on both counts.

Taubes is obviously correct - the paleo diet isn't a panacea for every single individual. There is variation amongst the population so whole grains and sugars might not affect some people too much (still doesn't mean it's any good for you). But because Taubes makes this accurate concession that not everyone is the same, he loses the public relations war. And in the end, one must win the hearts (not the minds) of the people to motivate progress.

Medical salesmen like Oz, the flashy ab roller infomercials, and whatever crap Andrew Weil peddles are successful because they present a glossy, pristine product that will work for you! They don't appeal to individual variation or alternative perspectives; they stick to their selling point without question. And the public, literally, eats it up. When someone like Taubes comes around with his medical apostasy, it will take more than just good science to sway the public. The masses yearn for assurance that their risk will prove successful, that whatever magic potion championed will actually work for them.

So Taubes gets it wrong in that he doesn't understand how myths get promoted. And now back to the political biases of leftism. Leftism reflexively rejects any traditional concept and, as I've shown, meat-eating is a subtly entrenched aspect of Western tradition, including hunting, Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham, and protein as a means of male muscle building and aggressiveness. Yet it doesn't stop there; the left functions as a late-night infomercial, flashy graphics replaced by esoteric journal articles, sexy models by unctuous politicians, unrealistic promises by..unrealistic promises. But note that these infomercials always have a foil. For example, the ab roller machines always show a fat person struggling through crunches, with cacophonous music in the background and the picture a bleak gray.

In other words, what you've been doing isn't working so try this brand new whatever - it's gauranteed to change your life and work way better than the crap that has failed you so far. Note the parallels - shysters like Oz denigrate the traditional (diet), promote a one size fits all cure, then ignore the undeniable failure of their initiatives. Sound familiar? The promotion of vegetarianism is not only a means of undermining traditional culture, but it's promoted in the exact same way as others leftist lies.

The Media's (Misleading) Portrayal of Race Relations

In breaking news, the media presents an incredibly sanitized version of race relations in America. Primarily, the media expresses this utopic vision of race in two ways: whitewashing or outright silencing any mention of minority pathology and offering misleading information on successful diversity. First, it is completely unacceptable to insert race into any discussion of crime or dysfunction...well only if the perpetrator happens to be white - then it's totally cool. Take this recent article at Media Matters where they chastise a Fox News contributor for his rather obvious appeal to HBD. His tweet reads: "Black people riot at Burger King" with the video linked. The pleasantly surprising news: a mainstream conservative quite clearly believes in HBD. The bad news: he later deleted the Tweet amid the predictable outrage from prattling liberals. The taboo on ever mentioning race, besides blaming whites for NAM violence, also arises in descriptions of European "youth" (read: Muslim) violence. In the end, the public needs to read between the lines to understand the true scope of minority pathology. Though let's be honest here, the unwashed masses know; it's just the elites and polite society that must be converted.

Second, and more importantly, here's an article from the New York (Beta) Times that presumably should detail an important social statistic. Of course, instead of unbiased journalism for basically an academic issue, we get hyperbole and multicultural rainbows. The article discusses the rise of multiracial children, though they have a rather curious way of doing so. Now, it goes without saying that liberals champion the "prevalence" of multiracial children as an omen of our coming diversity paradise. I'll highlight the important words below as evidence of the article's slant:

Among American children, the multiracial population has increased almost 50 percent, to 4.2 million, since 2000, making it the fastest growing youth group in the country. The number of people of all ages who identified themselves as both white and black soared by 134 percent since 2000 to 1.8 million people, according to census data released Thursday.

The data shows that the multiracial population is overwhelmingly young...

In what experts view as a significant change from 2000, the most common racial combination is black and white.

"I think this marks a truly profound shift in the way Americans, particularly African-Americans, think about race and about their heritage."

But in the South and parts of the Midwest, the growth has been far greater than the national average...

“The numbers, for mixed race families like my own, mean that the world must stop and recognize the changing face of today’s family, the changing face of today’s individual,”

Note that I said "more importantly" above, for two reasons. First, as stated, everyone knows who commits crime. To test this theory, get someone drunk and ask them what a "bad neighborhood" really means. Hint: not a trailer park. Second, this misleading characterization of a racial phenomenon inculcates the public with the notion that a diverse utopia is inevitable. In turn, this undermines the loyalty to a traditional national construction because people view a post-racial society as unavoidable given the purported (yet highly exaggerated) trends. But let's look at the actual numbers:

Across the country, 9 million people — or 2.9 percent of the population — chose more than one race on the last census, a change of about 32 percent since 2000.

Just under 3% of the population. Now take out the large number of white Hispanics, a category the article notes as significant, and the number is even smaller. So how much is 3% of the population? More people (5% of the adult population) claim to have seen a monster in their closet. Now why isn't the NYT reporting on all these closet-dwelling monsters?

Of course, the article doesn't stop there - it adds a personal touch to show that, hey, this whole race melting really works; after all, I bet the author really likes that black guy who lives next door to her in Chelsea.

...said Suzy Richardson, founder of Mixed and Happy, a news and opinion Web site focused on issues of concern to multiracial families.

For Michelle Hosenbackez, who is white and Hispanic and is married to a black Cuban man, the data suggests a future for her 16-month-old daughter that may be much different from her own childhood. Mrs. Hosenbackez, 27, of Raeford, N.C., said, “With the mixed race population growing the way it is, she will be able to say, ‘Hey, that person is like me.’ I want her to be able to build confidence in that identity.”

And this linked video within the article showing happily married interracial families.

Now I'm not denying that these people are happy and good for the few of them. The problem is that this article depicts this an emerging trend when, in reality, it remains a decidedly small one with little impact if not for exaggeration by preening race-liberals. Further, do we ever get any information on the stability of these relationships or the identity issues faced by their children? A couple in the video say with a smile, "black and white and just right", so if these individual relationships are apparently microcosms of diversity's joys, then can we consider dysfunctional racial romance as evidence of diversity's harmful consequences? Of course, the mainstream won't present any of the issues honestly, instead preferring the misleading portrayal showcased above.

Contact and Science as an Insufficiently Emotional Construct

Generally I despise film critics, mainly because they comprise an insular subgroup of pseudo-intellectuals who consider opaqueness the hallmark of a good film, e.g. Memento or anything by Darren Aronofsky. Yet, even with his leftism, I've always admired Roger Ebert. Ebert is a fantastic writer and the kind of deep person who expresses exceedingly interesting analysis but doesn't come across as a stuffy, intellectual show-off. Recently, Ebert posted a blog article about Contact, one of my absolute favorite films, sandwiched in my top five by about 15 sports movies. Ebert's article is long so I won't repeat it here, so please read the article for his incredibly incisive analysis of the themes.

One particular theme covered in the movie is the notion of science, in this case astronomy, as a proxy for religion. Ebert notes:

Protecting herself by using a relentless rationality, Ellie is an astronomer unable to see any kind of romanticism in the stars she observes (Venus, the most seductive planet, is "full of poisonous gases") and, when a senator stupidly questions why the alien sign consists of prime numbers and not English words, she doesn't hesitate before answering with no diplomacy that "70% of the planet speaks other languages", adding, as a good scientist, that "mathematics is the only truly universal language".

Centered around the careful exploration of the ideas and consequences of its intriguing premise, it shows its courage by never running away from the discussions naturally inspired by its central themes, such as the contra-position/complementation of Science and Religion - and, thus, it presents with no cynicism or criticism the human tendency of, when confronting the unknown, seeking comfort in the supernatural...

The movie's main character, played by Jodie Foster, uses her pursuit of intelligence life as a substitute for personal emotional attachment, a void left by the death of both her parents. The movie follows her long journey from finally hearing a signal, decoding it, and eventually traveling to meet the aliens themselves. All the while, the film showcases her unflinching skepticism, both in regards to questions of the divine and to those around her, those that she feels have either nothing substantial to offer or those that have somehow imposed themselves on this, her personal lifelong pursuit.

I think Ellie's pursuit for emotional substance in the admittedly romantic notions of space mirrors that of Sagan himself and his acolytes who share his passion for "scientism". And while the heavens surely provide wonderment and an unparalleled feeling of awe, I believe the movie argues that such an impersonal "God" is not sufficient. Much like Zemeckis' most famous film, Contact argues that personal relationships, and only personal relationships, can sustain our emotional selfs. In the end, it's not meeting the aliens that leaves Ellie most moved and fulfilled; it's the (virtual reality) reunion with her father and the faith of a close friend.

[Ironically, given my championing of personal relationships, I'm rather misanthropic with a Seinfeld-ian curse to obsess over others' minor faults.]

Life: What is it Good For?

Saturday Audience Participation

Frost, blogging at Freedom Twenty Five, chronicles his pursuit of, ummm, well it's all very vague really:

This blog’s mission will be to narrate and inspire my rise from what I am – a content and conventionally successful young guy, one year into his tenure at a prestigious, but soul-destroying desk job – into what I want to be: An Artist. A Man. A genuinely happy and fulfilled person, whose life is spent creating and experiencing the sublime.

In other posts, he discusses achieving excellence:

So what is the logical response of the contemporary man to this brave new world? Simply: The radical pursuit of excellence in every walk of life. Get in great shape. Get rich. Learn game. There are huge rewards waiting for you if you can enter the top decile of good looks, income, and comprehension of female psychology. If you can’t, the world is an inhospitable wasteland.

I think Frost's general frustration with traditional success is quite common. Many of this generation, the Fight Club generation, have done what they're supposed to do yet feel trapped in a life they don't find emotionally satisfying.

But what is the alternative really? For Frost, it seems like he wants to pursue "excellence in every walk of life," in addition to creating and satiating his artistic, creative side. To me though, the former seems ultimately empty as well. Honestly, I want an easy life; of course I get unparalleled pleasure out of working hard and completing a difficult task. But in the end, it doesn't give me that je ne sais quoi feeling I get connecting with other people, watching a great movie, or expressing an original idea. And it just wears on you - the struggle to be great, the struggle to beat everyone else, the endless rat race many of us realize isn't worth it.

What's ironic though is that Frost himself has rejected the status quo that defines value. He has described himself as a commonly successful man who doesn't really want that in life. But isn't he then acquiescing to these same societal constructs by trying to get rich, get a great body, and attain whatever other social capital he desires. The "pursuit of excellence" seems to be a more subtle capitulation to the status quo than a cubicle in middle management; maybe you have a little more control, but the endgame remains status mongering. The only way out perhaps is building yourself a cabin in Montana and writing an surprisingly perspicacious tome about the failings of modern technology and society - but minus the pipe bombs.

Today's Questions: Is "success" even worth it? What kind of life do you aspire to - an easy one or a traditionally successful one? If traditional success like a prestigious job and degree aren't worth it, then what is? In the end, what satisfies us the most - other people, success, social capital, other?

Inconsistency of Moral and Cultural Relativism

If one accepts moral and cultural relativism and thus rejects all objective moral orders, then how can one also pronounce racism, sexism, and homophobia as ethically wrong? Or, if a people have a traditionally racist, sexist, or homophobia culture, then, consistent with cultural relativism, isn't their mere valuing of these ideals sufficient justification for maintaining these traditional concepts, independent of aggressive violence?

Connection between Duke Basketball, Race, and Acting White

I believe the apt phrase would be "even a broken clock is right twice a day." At HuffPo, of all places, editor and author Rob Kirkpatrick channels Richard Spencer in noting the conspicuous reason why everyone hates Duke basketball.

And as a Duke fan, I've become quite familiar with Duke Hating, a favorite pastime of fans of pretty much every other college team in the country. I've heard all the reasons why we should hate Duke: Duke is to be hated for its success -- though, for some reason, we need not hate other winning programs like UCLA or North Carolina. Duke is to be hated because it's a private school -- though, for some reason, not other private schools like Syracuse or Wake Forest. Or the four-time national champions are to be hated because they're perpetually "overrated" and "get all the calls" -- something that has yet to be quantified, but which seems to stem from a fuzzy conspiracy involving the referees, the Selection Committee, Dick Vitale, and, I think, Oswald's ghost.

But what's increasingly disconcerting is the racial element that often seems to be at the heart of antipathy toward Duke. Over the past two decades of Duke dominance, the haters have had one thing conspicuously in common: The slick-dishing Bobby Hurley? Hustling overachiever Steve Wojciechowski? Sharp shooter J.J. Reddick? Duke haters especially hated these guys. Yet you almost never heard the haters go after a Grant Hill or a Chris Carrawell or a Nolan Smith. It's been the white players at Duke who've usually drawn the most venom... especially from white fans...In this climate, Duke's white players would make politically correct targets.

Parker didn't like how these white guys played the game. Lest you think I'm reading into his comments, Parker drew criticism in March 2008 for questioning the NBA potential of then-prospects Tyler Hansbrough and Kevin Love based on their being white. Although Hansbrough has been slow to establish himself with the Indiana Pacers, Love made the All-Star team as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves this year.

There's even more in the first part of the article that I cut out. And note that when I say he channels Richard Spencer, I really mean it. The article reads like it's straight outta the reactionary rightosphere, including candid accusations of reverse racism and noting how the popularity of hip-hop implicitly sanctions the demonization of white men. I don't really have much to add to Mr. Kirkpatrick or Richard Spencer's discerning analysis, so go read the linked articles for discussion. One addendum: many anti-racists often condescendingly reject the notion that white men have lost all social power, that white men are not worshiped as the default entity of power and prestige. The ubiquity of Duke hate, with sports a reflection and very powerful motivator of our social landscape, provides a potent counterexample.

Kirkpatrick then segues into Jalen Rose's insult concerning Grant Hill "acting white."

"I hated Duke and I hated everything I felt Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms. "Certain schools recruit a typical kind of player whether the world admits it or not. And Duke is one of those schools. They recruit black players from polished families, accomplished families."

One of my first articles was on the myth of "acting white", as I consider this a precarious issue for race realist conservatives. On the one hand, black culture (and white culture along with it) has clearly regressed since the 1960's. One statistic tells it all: almost 80% of black babies are born out of wedlock, or as EW puts it, they're bastard children. So conservatives should rightly criticize a culture that outright celebrates complete hedonism and excuses pathology. And even the race realist should concede this point - the blacks of the 1950's were much better behaved than those of today largely due to culture. But the race realist, in his attempt to mainstream biological differences, shouldn't focus too much on this aspect of racial disparities. He can't continually criticize culture because liberals and mainstream right-liberals will gladly accept this more PC explanation. Focusing on culture too much will undermine the more powerful and impactful explanation - that of divergent racial evolution.

Further, I've argued that "acting white" is actually a phenomenon that exists across all races, just not in non-racial terms:

"Acting white" represents the supposedly anti-intellectual aspects of black culture. In the HBD debate, researchers often appeal to this depressive social impulse in explaining the achievement gap. In my opinion, politically correct sociologists, eager to patronize their favorite minority, renamed an already frequent structure amongst the white student population. Clearly these researchers have never heard high achieving, complicit white students referred to as nerds, geeks, dorks, losers, goodie-goodies, etc. In any racial group, there is peer pressure against high academic achievement, yet many offer this as an excuse solely for black underperformance.

I offer an alternative explanation for what "acting white" actually represents (a defense mechanism) and note that success in predominantly white endeavors is actually often celebrated amongst blacks ("sticking it to the Man"). Read the post for more on that.

Exercise and Masculinity

Since I discovered the paleo diet last year and the almost unbelievable lies present in mainstream nutrition, I've advanced the notion that research into health is surreptitiously motivated by liberalism. I've written two main articles on the subject: Real (White) Men Eat Meat and Real Western Men Lift Weights. The latter post dealt with mainstream suggestions on fitness, especially the support for "cardio" training and other slow, steady forms of exercise.

In the above post, I argued that marathon running, long-distance running, and similar activities were partly motivated by feminism and the corresponding enervating of Western masculinity. By pushing exercises that both undermine testosterone production and simply make us unhealthy, feminists and liberal manginas undermine the value of masculinity and therefore equalize the gender hierarchy. Leftism works by subverting natural order, so weakening men and devaluing masculine strength does just this. Two other possible reasons come to mind: weak, nonathletic male professors putting out biased research and feminism as a societal shit test working by marking any beta male who would actually accept the "cardio" paradigm.

It's clear that exercise science is privy to a less obvious sort of leftist social bias. But how does this affect the man on the street? Do such notions of gender affect an individual's pursuit of certain exercises? I'll give you two examples where such motivation is obvious, both extremely unhealthy, encouraged by two opposite sides of the masculinity spectrum. First, I give you powerlifters. If you go to a gym, look for the guys with enormous guts, huge arms and legs, spandex shirts, and those that can barely walk across the floor to pick up all the 45 plates and put them on his squat rack. I can't find a good picture, but you've seen them.

To guys like this, anything besides massive powerlifting moves are for pussies. Their actions reflect the idea that masculinity is defined solely by brute strength. To do any exercise not intended towards this end is evidence of femininity and thus completely unacceptable. And what do they have to show for their socially biased perspective? Being non-ambulatory, fat, and unhealthy.

The second class of individuals is extremely common amongst SWPLs. SWPLs shun weight lifting because (and if you know a SWPL male, I guarantee they've said this to you), "I don't want to get big" or "I just want to tone up, not gain a ton of muscle." To them, traditional masculinity reflects an archaic, anti-liberal tradition. They instead prefer feminized exercises so as to not brand themselves a "meathead" or a "lunk." These SWPLs are usually skinny-fat and despite their lack of excess weight, are still extremely unhealthy and weak. I found an example of a guy who decided to lose weight on the Wii. Notice the slumped shoulders and extreme lack of musculature (I'm not linking to his webpage because that would just be mean, though he's shockingly married to an Asian girl):


In the end, the social notions of masculinity have failed both classes of individuals. Neither has a healthy definition of gender, in part due to the complete absence of a strong notion of masculinity amongst the mainstream. As a result of either general apathy towards men or palpable antagonism (see Maureen Dowd's classic), men have begun branching off into two extremes: the overly masculine meatheads and the feminized SWPLs.

(I tried to get a good CrossFit/circuit training video, showing both the exercises and the ideal body type, but I had trouble finding one. If anyone can find one on YouTube or somewhere else, please leave it in the comments and I'll add it here.)

Teachers as Clowns and the Connection to more General Social Hierarchies

Last week, I posted a video where a math teacher (the atheist blogger Hemant Mehta) allows a student to "pie" him in the face as a perverse way of celebrating Pi Day. I criticized the clear subversion of the student-teacher hierarchy and felt this represented our cultural apathy towards similar demarcations of social and professional power. Many of the readers agreed and provided some excellent analysis:

The teacher's behavior here represents in microcosm much of what's wrong with the world today.

Apparently this prize jackass regards his egalitarianism as his own personal Great Leap Forward in the abolition of traditional hierarchies.

There is so little sense of a superior subordinate status in this setting, pieing the university president is unremarkable. There is a obsession today with erasing boundaries and hierarchies, in the name of equality...All that aside, the phony familiarity endemic today is annoying.

At least presenting themselves as fans of inverse dominance hierarchy is a big thing in liberal circles.

Now back to education and pandering to student immaturity. Captain Capitalism posts on the increasing popularity of "clown days":

"Clown Days" meaning days where instead of learning, the little kinder are marched off to the gym where they are entertained by clowns. Or during St. Patrick's Day where they have potato rolling contests. Or "Dunk the Teacher Day" where students raise funds by paying to have a chance to throw a ball and dunk a teacher in a dunking tank.

My friends estimate about 3 days a month are dedicated to "clown days." Multiply that by 9 months (which most students can't because they're too busy with "Pizza Days") and you are losing about a full month of education.

We rarely had these when I was in school, but I hated the few we had. I didn't particularly enjoy going to school for rote memorization/learning, so if they're not going to "teach", then at least let me sleep in. A commenter from my last post agrees with the Captain in that "having a 'friendly student-teacher relationship' is not what is in the best interest of the children."

Our secondary "educational" system is obsessed with gimmicks and stunts at the expense of tried-and-true pedagogical methods. I really hope the homeschool movement takes off. It's time to put an end to this idiocy.

In this vein comes a video where an English teacher acts our Macbeth's sword fights:



I'm sure the students are really engaged with the literature, in between all their laughing and then after he puts the book down and really gets into the sword fight. Notice that only maybe half the class even pretends to be following along in the text. Why do teachers think this works and why would any self-respecting person voluntarily make himself a "clown"? (I don't want to be entirely pessimistic here - learning games do work in a highly controlled atmosphere where the actual academic content is central to the activity.)

I'd never respect any teacher who engaged in such behavior and I doubt any of these children do either. In fact, I'd be pretty uncomfortable if a teacher tried to befriend me in more than just a friendly type way. As discussed above, this reflects the prevailing egalitarian ethos where paying your dues or collecting social capital over a long period of time is considered an unfair demand. The entitlement paradigm, an irrational desire common amongst low-level college graduates, seems to manifest in all aspects of life.

Considering Race-Based Motivations

At VFR, Auster criticizes a reductionist conception of human behavior and motivation:

Cesar's remark that my supposed "blindness about the Jewish Problem" is "due to ethnocentric self-deception" typifies the material reductionist / racial deterministic thinking of the white nationalists which reduces humanity to race-driven automata. There is no human reason, there is no point in talking, and humanity is reduced to a bunch of tribes mechanically killing each other. This is the white nationalist vision.

Auster later qualifies his criticism of WNism by noting that he considers the term corresponding to its common usage, an important qualification because ethno-nationalism (something I support for the Jews, Japanese, and Germans) need not depend on the notion of race-based motivations. Rather, ethno-nationalism, the purposeful maintaining of an ethnic majority, should be supported on the basis of racial behavioral differences, the axiomatic value of ethnic based traditions, and, in some cases, the negative consequences of accepting particular immigrant groups.

Let me touch on a particular point Auster raises where he argues against race-based motivations:

No, my different view must be a function of genetic ethnocentric programming...which reduces humanity to race-driven automata.

The idea that ethnic and racial based motivations exist arises often in racial discussions and even implicitly in every day social phenomena. Given the often organic genesis of clearly defined racial social groups and the attendant ethno-nationalist rooting interests commonly observed (e.g. the Olympics), one wonders about the potency of race and ethnic based motivations. Basically, how much of our motivation in choosing our friends and neighbors and those we provide with charity depends on them sharing our genetic lineage?

As alluded to above, it seems to matter - somewhat. The popularity of Duke in college basketball and the 1980's NBA Celtics are but one example. I won't go over this assuredly complex topic, but I will say people care at least a little bit about ethnic commonality. The Irish root for Notre Dame and get excited when a Sullivan gains prominence, Jews celebrate anyone with partial heritage, and blacks...well we know that one. Though, getting excited about so and so who shares one's last name definitely does not equate with forming opinions or acting only in accordance with the nebulous concept of ethnic genetic interests.

But if we're interested in how biology affects (American) politics, then we should at the very least consider the potency of racialism and understand its possible consequences for voting, socializing, and political policy. First, from an article denouncing black conservative Herman Cain, let me give you an example of how blacks view racial community:

But there was always a sense of linked fate and communal obligation. my grandmother always reminded me that while most honored the community that nurtured them and fought for our collective well-being, there were others whose minds had been poisoned by white racism. These sad souls were to be pitied, but also avoided.

Cain and many other popular black conservatives run from the history of communal struggle and obligation that is a mark of pride in the African-American community.

Basically, the author contends "this Uncle Tom has betrayed the entire black race." This particular example evinces the notion that even if we have some inherent biological predilection towards racialism, we should instead understand the manifestation of racialism in the context of polite American culture. Specifically, we should understand how racialism arises in America not due to a biological imperative, but instead as a result of encouragement from the multicultural zeitgeist and as a means of garnering political power.

Currently, PC America outright encourages minorities to form exclusive clubs, to antagonize the majority, and to fight for explicit ethnic-based concessions. Of course, it discourages the white majority from doing so and even aggressively denies them from engaging in such behavior. Therefore, the most common form of racialism present in American society, that of blacks and Latinos (some from groups like NOW and ADL), arises from a conscious and deliberate engineering of the social landscape. So even if there lies dormant a racialist biology within the white population (again, I'm still skeptical), one notes that the primary opponent is a cultural construction. Further, our current PC also shows that merely an inverted construct, whereby whites are allowed to form explicitly white groups (note that I only support decidedly positive hypothetical organizations), is sufficient for a successful conservative renaissance, perhaps with the Sailer Strategy.

In addition, liberals and the elite will gladly foment racialist sentiments amongst loyal minority groups simply to push through their favored political projects. They know where the votes and the money comes from so they pander to the appropriate collectives. Those in power or those that push the current PC culture understand the importance of collectivist loyalty. And it seems race is the easiest loyalty to get people excited about, e.g. OJ video at 1:35.

War on Childhood: Structured Learning Does Not Work

Awhile ago, I began criticizing the so-called "War on Childhood", which I defined as the recent increase in over-parenting amongst the older SWPL class. My favorite example involved parents on the Upper West Side hiring occupational therapists to teach children how to use their hands. I connected this "war" back to the notion of educational romanticism - the idea that genetic predispositions do not exist and that success depends exclusively on proper training. This widespread belief then manifests in helicopter parents fighting for admission to "elite" preschools (and then suing for not getting in), hiring tutors for four year-olds, and turning their children into incessantly practicing robots.

Primarily, I've opposed this helicopter parenting because it undermines childhood, that fleeting time of exploration, imagination, and care-free discovery. I want children to play on the monkey bars with their friends, not do worksheets while hopped up on Ritalin. So I've focused mostly on the unquantifiable effects of the "War on Chilldhood"; but here's an article from a Berkeley professor showing, unsurprisingly, that structured drilling is worse anyway.

Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb. They pressure teachers to make kindergartens and nurseries more like schools. So does the law—the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act explicitly urged more direct instruction in federally funded preschools.

Perhaps direct instruction can help children learn specific facts and skills, but what about curiosity and creativity—abilities that are even more important for learning in the long run? While learning from a teacher may help children get to a specific answer more quickly, it also makes them less likely to discover new information about a problem and to create a new and unexpected solution.

But there is an intrinsic trade-off between that kind of learning and the more wide-ranging learning that is so natural for young children. Knowing this, it's more important than ever to give children's remarkable, spontaneous learning abilities free rein. That means a rich, stable, and safe world, with affectionate and supportive grown-ups, and lots of opportunities for exploration and play. Not school for babies.

So let them play. Simple as that. Turns out boot camp for babies isn't the best idea.

Real Life Personality from Online Interactions

Saturday Audience Participation

The popular conservative media network, Pajamas Media, got its name as follows:

Pajamas Media's name is derived from a dismissive comment made by former news executive vice-president Jonathan Klein of CBS during the Killian documents affair involving then-CBS anchorman Dan Rather in the fall of 2004: "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances at 60 Minutes and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas".

What I'm interested in here is not the political context, but rather the notion that one can presume to know another person solely from online interactions. In spirited Internet discussions, it's inevitable that one side will derisively comment on their opponent's social flaws, including but not limited to accusations of having a small penis, living in his parents' basement, being a loser with no friends, never getting laid, being ugly, short, and fat, and arguing based on some pathetic failure in real life. In almost any instance, these insults are completely unsubstantiated, generally arising from enmity, a weakness in argument, and a good imagination.

But even if the juvenile feminist (to give a common example) hit on something that happens to be true, is she even justified in making the claim? By this, I mean how much information about a person's real life personality and circumstances can one gauge from bytes and bits? How well can you actually know someone based entirely off online interaction and what they write about? Are there contexts, online venues, or spheres of discussion that better reveal real life personalities? Can you discern someone's sense of humor, social grace, or outright craziness from online writings?

As for me personally, I think this blog generally showcases a specific part of my personality. In real life, I'm actually quite jocular and sarcastic with interests less academic than discussed here. I'm about halfway between a nice guy and an asshole; though I don't think my amiable and positive side comes through much on this blog or that I could even really translate that aspect to written form (it's generally very extemporaneous).

As for other bloggers and personalities, there was a commenter who has since disappeared (the "bag lady" who incessantly talked about desis) who everyone understood was legitimately mentally disturbed. And same for that female "blogger" who writes incoherent posts about Game bloggers (not linking to her site). And I think we all realize fellow blogger Whiskey is, how shall I say this, rather eccentric. Other than that, I either can't speak on most commenters or I get the feeling they're run-of-the-mill average guys, not meatheads or nerds, somewhere in between - the good neighbor and father types who would find equal satisfaction in watching football (stereotypical "man" activity) or discussing global warming (leaning towards "nerd" activity).

I'll end with a warning to those who would answer the above questions positively, beware of the fat girl angle shot.

Veganism is a Religious Belief

Veganism, vegetarianism, and the general low-fat/high-grain diet are essentially religious beliefs, especially amongst serious practitioners. Secular priests from elite universities and government agencies bestow revelation upon the credulous masses. Believers reject heretics like Gary Taubes as stubborn and debased, preferring the falsehoods of obviously false doctrines like The China Study and whatever tripe Dr. Oz peddles. You simply can not reason with these people, they will accept no amount of scholarship as evidence. They will point to slimy liars like Dean Ornish or Andrew Weil as evincing their position, never considering their specious claims in detail.

If you haven't guessed, I had a heated conversation today with a 15-year vegan. We had the following exchange:

"If someone gave you 5000 dollars to eat a steak, would you?"

Answering without hesitation: "No way!"

I then pushed vegan as pseudo-religion notion, focusing on the connection between creationism and the high-grain diet. I made some headway, but even this didn't really faze her (is it just me or is the high-grain garbage especially attractive to women?). In the end, she'll eat tempeh and lentils tonight and I'll chomp into a burger with a salad on the side. Wonder whose stool will come out better. Sorry for the TMI, but one of the best gauges of a particular food or diet's healthfulness is the consistency of stool; and paleo dieters rarely, if ever, suffer from diarrhea. Now, tell me - do beans, one of the most preferred foods of vegetarians, cause any digestion problems?

Asians in the Library: What's the Big Deal?

Besides Rebecca Black's masterpiece, this week's other viral video comes from a buxom blond UCLA student and self-professed "not the most politically correct person" railing against the "hordes of Asian people" annoying her in the library. She begins defensively, hoping no one "will take this offensively " and distinguishing between random people and her presumably Asian-American friends, but she doesn't hold back during the rest of the video:



The highlight comes at 1:45 when she speaks Asian language gibberish. Unsurprisingly, this video has caused some outrage, with even the chancellor of UCLA posting a video denouncing the comments and lauding his university's cherished diversity. A few issues come to mind in understanding the anger. First, a video discussing black pathology and mannerisms would never even be made, let alone thought. It remains somewhat acceptable to mock Asians, perhaps due to their relative success, assimilation, and passivity.

Second, the expressed outrage centers on the purported "racism" of the video, which after processing through my no-liberal-bullshit translator means: observed patterns corresponding to racial groups. Besides her gibberish moment, the blond notes a number of patterns that are essentially unassailable, probably so much so that most Asian students would express agreement if not in this antagonistic context. But even if we accept the banal accusations of racism, I don't think that's what's causing the backlash.

Instead, it's her defiant attitude towards the foreign Asian students' lack of desire to assimilate. As reflected in her usage and enunciation of "American", she clearly observes the culture clash here and does not accept the liberal notion that Americans must concede cultural and social ground to any minority group that demands it, tacit or otherwise. Instead of either celebrating their differences or holding them up as a sagacious non-Western entity (think Mr. Miyagi), she flat out states that their differences are annoying. She doesn't go all the way, stating that "it's OK" that they're here, but demands that the foreign-born Asians learn how we act and change their behavior in accordance with our norms.

Finally, while one can't possibly express this in the PC sphere, the blond clearly delineates between Asian-Americans and foreign born Asian students. And despite what Mr. Ivory Tower will tell you, foreign born Asians are really weird, a uniform character trait that even Asian-Americans have used to deem them FOBS (fresh off the boat). If you've spent any time at an elite college, you've run into the insular group of foreign Asian students who fit in worse than just about any other racial immigration, even Africans. Some common behaviors: extreme deference, horrible grasp of English language, general social obliviousness, refusal to eat American food, and refusal to socialize with non-Asians.

If the race-left would accept an inconsistency, the vast difference between Asian-Americans and foreign born Asians could provide the most compelling evidence for the culture paradigm of human behavior. Not sure why they're so damn weird, but it's really quite obvious. Asian-Americans assimilate quite well to suburban white communities, but that first generation really sticks out. I guess they bring it from the homeland where they marry pillows.

Humor and Politics

A new reactionary, anti-PC blog has surfaced entitled Unamusement Park. The author, Unamused, covers many of the same issues discussed here, but he does so in a decidedly acerbic tone, mixing political and social commentary with an unrelenting sarcasm and humor. I do find most of his commentary both insightful and quite funny.

This melding of two seemingly discordant types of expression, the humorous and the political, has a few common practitioners amongst the mainstream, most notably Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert on the Left and Ann Coulter and The Onion (perhaps a contentious interpretation and somewhat odd considering it started in Madison) on the Right. These individuals use humor to undermine the other side's perspective. Instead of offering a comprehensive intellectual counter-argument, they satirize, mock, and exaggerate the other side. It's argument by social shaming, largely efficacious but perhaps dependent on appealing to their audience's basic tilt and therefore impotent in a more disinterested sphere (is there any?).

So maybe in the end, it works. I won't deny that. But I find it somewhat unnerving that politics could serve as a basis for humor. The question - is humor even acceptable in the political sphere? Should we welcome humor when the consequences are so grave, when peoples' lives depend on the outcomes, when our nation hangs in the balance? In asking this question, we no longer consider the strategy's success rate or whether the noted individuals do offer something substantial. Instead, one asks when does humor cross the line and belittle the context in which it exists.

We know that society simply does not condone the use of humor in times of tragedy. Thankfully, the insufferable and vile Gilbert Gottfried learned this lesson in the past few days. Comedians will often use the "just joking" defense to excuse their subversive and sometimes outright disgusting pleas for attention, but the public largely doesn't like it. But even if not in the explicit context of palatable tragedy, politics deals with life and death. It deals with the health of society and family and the emotions we experience as a result of our social and cultural landscape. So to mock the details of politics, outside of the machinations of Washington, equates with mocking the peoples' experiences, those negative and those positive. And if we consider politics and social phenomena merely the backdrop of a joke, then it belittles the gravity of these issues.

Rebecca Black's Friday

Never before have I seen an internet meme explode like this one. I give you possibly the greatest, in a decidedly ironic sense, song and music video ever - Rebecca Black's "Friday":



Highlights:

"Gotta get down to the bus stop/Gotta catch my bus/I see my friends"
"Kicking in the front seat/sitting in the back seat/gotta make my mind up/which seat can I take"
"Fun fun fun fun"
"We we we so excited"

And at 2:06, she sings the days of the week - in order! But my personal favorite comes in at 2:30. I won't spoil it so watch the video straight through to get the entire effect of that "surprise." Suffice it to say that if [the surprise] hasn't already, its appearance here is an undeniable jump-the-shark moment.

And now I'm supposed to muse philosophical on the societal implications of this video, the pervasiveness of ironic internet humor, and the manner in which social media shapes culture so rapidly. Nope, this crap is hilarious. Just enjoy.

The Undermining of Whiteness

A recent article in the New York Times illustrates the mainstream view on race, whiteness, and the coming American demographic shifts:

“Whiteness,” Nell Irvin Painter said the other day, “is not what it used to be.” Dr. Painter is a black woman and a prominent scholar of whiteness. Last year, she published a much acclaimed book, “The History of White People,” which germinated in a whiteness studies class she taught at Princeton University in New Jersey. Beginning with Homer and ending with the Obamas, it is the story of the invention and defense of a pigmentary privilege.

In the America of his youth, it was easier to be white, male and middling than it is today. I asked Dr. Painter whether, as whiteness becomes less plainly advantageous, as it becomes better to be rich and black, for example, than poor and white, there will be more explicit calls for white pride and white solidarity.

The article runs with this theme throughout, portraying whiteness as a guaranteed nepotistic privilege. Surely this is an ironic stance given the article's author Anand Giridharadas, likely a full-time writer at the most prestigious paper in the world, and the main subject, Dr. Nell Irvin Painter, a retired professor from Princeton. Painter, whose book I covered last year, spews the standard tripe about white privilege and anxiety, painting conservative whites as hate-filled and paranoid. And you've heard this before, so I won't get into it here.

Instead, let me note two interesting concepts reflected in this piece: the lack of racial moral autonomy for whites and the portrayal of bitter conservative whites. I've covered the former before, which I defined as below:

Whites' denunciation of racism can not stand by itself, the independent collective opinion of whites must be corroborated by some external racial entity. Racial and religious minorities are considered the ultimate arbiters of moral transgression.

Considering this, look at the description again of Dr. Painter:

Dr. Painter is a black woman and a prominent scholar of whiteness.

Since leftists have made honest racial discourse taboo, no whites, let alone race realist conservatives, will speak on the issue. Instead, we get wholly biased voices like that of Dr. Painter speaking on "whiteness". She, of course, takes an antagonistic view whereby whiteness is a fabrication of racists and thereby a meaningless criterion with which to define a nation. Painter's opinion then becomes the only one available and thus the concept of whiteness is defined not by the people themselves, but by a hostile external entity with motives to undermine it further.

Second, note the "loser" depiction of conservatives whites:

But she sees in parts of the ferment the hallmarks of a “movement of resentment — resentment over loss of what seems to be the center of the world, or of country; loss over what may be perceived as traditional values; loss of a world that seemed to be in their hands.” A moment later, she described it as “a loss of the meaning of whiteness,” of the feeling of “being at the center, being powerful, being beautiful, being important.”

In the America of his youth, it was easier to be white, male and middling than it is today. The withering of American manufacturing has wreaked its havoc. Globalization has compelled Americans to compete with the best and brightest everywhere. The median wage has stagnated. Immigration has soared. Women and minorities have been admitted into places where white men never had to compete with them. Islamic fundamentalists have taken on the United States. China has graduated from Communist backwater to challenger for pre-eminence.

So she frames the debate as the bitter carping of losers who can't compete. This is a popular strategy amongst the anti-racist/feminist crowd, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that an Ivy League "professor" does so as well. However, Dr. Painter grossly misdiagnoses the problem and I, as one of these presumably bitter individuals, can more adequately speak on such issues. Dr. Painter asserts that whiteness no longer means "“being at the center, being powerful, being beautiful, being important”; yet, from reading HBD and race realist blogs one notes little complaining about our dwindling national hegemony as an organic phenomenon. Instead, race realists note the facilitated undermining of white preeminence, brought forth by affirmative action, feminism, immigration, and popular culture. We criticize these policies because they consciously seek to destroy "whiteness". I don't care if the Chinese outscore us; I care that popular culture portrays white men as dolts and culturally empty, spends their money on erecting an unproductive affirmative action class, and replaces their culture with subversive alternatives.

The second paragraph quoted tacitly views white men as recipients of privilege. I'll offer a concise counter-argument: if white males dominated only due to privilege, then how did America become a national power on their backs alone?

In sum, the article condescends towards the notion of whiteness as valuable. It has an almost celebratory tone with Dr. Painter gleefully prognosticating on the demise of her peoples' oppressors. But even ignoring the practical consequences (can America's economy run on women interior design businesses and rap labels?), why does Painter so blithely denounce the concept of whiteness as a value? Even if whiteness doesn't exist per se (absurd), native American whites have surely erected a culture, one independent of their "racism". So why then does Painter see this as unworthy of preservation. Why does Painter reject the notion that John Boehner wants to maintain the "America he grew up in". Shouldn't we respect all racial and ethnic groups and not do away with their unique customs.

Of course, Painter only offers such veneration towards non-white groups. Whiteness has become the absolute lack of color, a blank slate which must have color added to it. The article ends with a nauseatingly desperate attempt at a profundity:

Color, it turns out, was a multifarious, complicated, ever-shifting thing. Which the historian in Dr. Painter, if not the painter, knew all along.

Get it?!? It's a metaphor! The author's forced analogy here, whereby nations and societies are merely amorphous and arbitrary constructions of (the white) man, shouldn't be lost on the reader. Note that he asserts this as a matter of fact, envisioning the black intellectual subverting the racial hierarchy and defining society according to her own whims.

The Never-Ending Dissatisfaction of Liberalism

In reading Chuck's (as always) insightful commentary on the Cleveland gang-rape and watching this video where the black community contends the perps are being unfairly targeted (H/T: SBPDL), I wonder how far down can leftism go. How far can leftists go in perverting reality. In a post discussing an article on "racism, speciesism, feminism, and environmentalism" which I entitled "Race to the Intellectual Bottom", I said the following:

If there exists no damping mechanism to thwart the proliferation of garbage, then the [political] garbage keeps piling up. It collects until someone excitedly climbs to the top, smitten with their own stature, yet not realizing she's atop a bunch of diapers, vomit, and moldy food.

And it is for this reason, the unending march towards inanity, that I so abhor moderates. Unlike the steadfast conservatives, loyal to a set of ideals, unrepentant about their morals, undeterred by the winds of polite society, moderates gradually surrender to the prevailing zeitgeist:

The current mainstream doctrine, one based on the "anything goes" mentality, has defined "extremism" as any position with steadfast loyalty to a set of principles. An "extremist" is now someone who refuses to capitulate and surrender his values, even if said values represent some ultimate good. As Goldwater states, one must sometimes engage in hidebound pursuit of justice and avoid the easy out of moderation if chasing a worthwhile objective.

At its heart, political moderation is intellectual cowardice, defined more by a desire to please everyone than a desire for actual progress. Moderates will vacillate from side to side, adopting convenient positions, all the while moving leftward as a means of ingratiating themselves to the ever increasingly strident left. So perhaps, in a world where leftists became complacent and satisfied with the damage they've already caused, moderates could find a corresponding steady position. But we do not live in that world, as evinced by such vile individuals linked to above. They revel in their unending dissatisfaction.

So today, the mainstreamers and moderates offer platitudes concerning apathy over gay issues, carefully criticize decadent culture, and shower their opponents with praise. But when do you stop capitulating? Here's a link from the same site containing the vegetarian/racism article explaining their umbrella term for homos (NSF your sanity):

GLB(ISGD)Q stands for: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, (Intersex, Sex and/or Gender Diverse), Queer. The letter 'T' for 'transgender' is often used in this acronym, but as an umbrella term it is incorrect and offensive to many people who don't consider themselves 'transgender'. They may be 'trans', or' transsexual', or 'transexed' or 'intersex' or 'androgynous' or without sex or gender, or many other terms. Intersex, Sex and Gender Diverse as an umbrella term is much more inclusive.

And you thought LGBT was all-inclusive. Yes, they have added, "Intersex, Sex, and/or Gender Diverse" to the already lengthy acronym. So all those maginas and probably even "mainstream" feminist nuts are ignorant bigots who have been offending "trans" and "intersex" people unknowingly.

See, it really never ends with these people. The pusillanimous and downright naive champions of civility should take heed - it'll never work because liberals will never be satisfied.

Teacher Pied in the Face

Saturday Audience Participation

I've written before about the "FriendlyAtheist" Hemant Mehta, a liberal mangina if there ever was one. An "atheist" (quotations because I consider liberalism a religion), he writes more often about gays and the so-called Christian Taliban (usually in regards to their treatment of gays) than about the real negative effects of religion, i.e. Islam. His commentariat is far worse though, but this post doesn't concern them.

Hemant is a math teacher by day and yesterday he posted this video of a Pi Day celebration at his school. In it, a student pies (get it?!) him in the face and rubs it in while a bunch of other students laugh at him.



Of course, Hemant probably viewed this as a means of ingratiating himself to the students, being buddy-buddy and forging a less sterile connection between teacher and student. He probably wanted to be seen as a "cool" teacher, maybe not the one who buys them alcohol, but the one that knows how to have fun and not be so damn serious all the time.

I disagreed with this presumed motivation and voiced my opinion in the comments:

From my perspective, it just subverts the authority/student hierarchy. Students don’t respect someone who would willingly engage in such a public display of humiliation. Sure the students will laugh, but in the end they will lose respect for someone who would go through with it.

If you think teachers only need to know the material and how to effectively relay that information to the students in a pedagogical sense, then you’ve probably never spent time in an actual classroom, especially in a public high school.

Big difference between doing something goofy and allowing yourself to be humiliated at the hands of a student – while other students watch and laugh at your expense.

I got called a troll, clueless, boring, accused of not having my balls drop yet, and not being of this Earth.

Today's Questions: Am I being a killjoy here? Is it appropriate for teachers to act in this manner? Should teachers be conscious of how they present themselves to students in regards to maintaining their position of authority? Will this perhaps have repercussions for how the students react to Mr. Mehta in the classroom? Is this part of a more general trend towards the subversion of authority, an aspect of the acritical leftist zeitgeist? Would you ever do something like this?

Anti-Establishment: Mere Reaction vs. Reactionary Conservatism

The Reactionary Right has evolved into an odd conglomerate of personalities. I've noticed a gradual splintering of this online niche into two factions, both with a skepticism towards the establishment yet harboring distinct views on where that skepticism leads. I will deem these two camps: reactionaries and reactionary conservatives. Note the common moniker of reaction reflecting both groups' similar pessimism towards mainstream discourse.

Yet even with agreement on how society has failed or what elements of society no longer function to suit its populace's needs, the similarities largely end there. If you read this blog, especially my excoriation of Ron Paul's empty libertarianism, you're aware of my disdain for mere reaction. I've opposed the "legal reductionism" inherent to Paul's school of thought as such:

At the most basic level, they espouse the same "legal reductionism" popular amongst the left - the notion that a collective either does not exist or is so amorphous as to warrant its rejection in political affairs...To Paul, this nation is merely a vessel that bestows freedom upon its citizens, not a land with a unique history and peoples. This fits into his general worldview that if it can't be measured or written down in rigid terms, then it doesn't matter...[T]heir ideology is short-sighted in ignoring how collectives and nations form and maintain themselves. And without an understanding of those phenomena, their bitter rhetoric coupled with utopic idealism won't accomplish anything except the dissolution of society and the communal bonds therein.

In sum, a viable political movement requires something more than a rejection of the status quo. It requires not only an elucidation of the stain of liberalism, but also a set of values and mores with which to replace what liberalism has wrought. For the overly pessimistic reactionaries, which encompasses New Right, New Left, and paleo/paleo-libertarian individuals, they espouse nothing but destruction. Sure, they intend to extirpate the harmful institutions of liberalism, but in reading their commentary, they have no goal besides that.

In championing such an empty idea, that of merely being against the Establishment, they devolve into complete nihilism. And I ask how can we build a sustainable nation on just the ashes of liberalism's failed experiments? How can a collective spur deep emotion in their persons if they only oppose and do not value anything substantial? If we strive merely for defeating leftism, then what happens next?

What I've witnessed is a defeatism that considers society irrevocably lost and thereby unworthy of saving. These individuals, perhaps motivated by the notion that any hierarchical system, even a meritocratic/conservative one, would have them at the bottom, preach destruction and anarchy. They want to do away with any type of order, then unjustifiably blame their anti-everything stance on whoever they feel has failed them. In a response to my initial apprehension about In Mala Fide 3.0, Ferdinand says:

Right now, there are dozens and dozens of groups with an axe to grind against the status quo – men’s rights activists, gamester hedonists, reactionaries, libertarians, white nationalists, hereditarians, nihilists, men going their own way, and the like. None of these groups will likely become popular enough to eclipse the others, and in the pre-Internet days wouldn’t have risen beyond obscurity. Now, each one of them has the ability to strike at the Cathedral with a minimum of expenditure. No unified sets of principles are necessary – each pair of fists beating on the multifemicorporate Hydra, for whatever reason, is valuable in its destruction. Death by a thousand cuts, delivered by a thousand different hands.

Throughout Ferdinand's rejoinder, he uses the terms "death", "strikes", "chaos", and "guerrilla warrios". He merely wants to destroy, not save. He never once appeals to a valuable and viable society erected after the Fall. He doesn't celebrate America and its traditions or motivate concern that liberalism has picked away at that vibrant culture. In another post at IMF 3.0, Raliv is partially sympathetic to this type of "going their own way", forgiving this dejected pessimism as a product of feminism instead of encouraging a resolute conservative opposition:

...young men who are angry at being helpless and hopeless in the real world because they are not valued by women and feminist dominated society...The same society that has and continues to neglect the creative abilities and value of men is about to get hosed by those same men.

At Vox Day, after linking to my posts criticizing Ron Paul, the best the commentariat could come up with were the following:

You're a commie. Go find a different country to bomb brown people from.

what he said. Oh noes, teh brown peoples are so scary!!

And more insults including the word "neocon" more times than I can count. So I put forth an argument that Ron Paul doesn't support culture conservatism and all they can rant about is his foreign policy and accuse anyone who disagrees of being a "neocon." In this instance, I'm not lamenting Paul's short-sightedness, but rather the type of rhetoric that sees only the negative. One notes that their ideology is entirely based in what they don't like and therefore they can not offer any counterargument when someone criticizes a completely tangential aspect of their position.

Instead, we need a more robust political doctrine that understands what exactly liberalism has destroyed. We must understand what existed prior to liberalism so that we can fully gauge its impact. We must oppose liberalism because we have a better alternative besides immature reaction and anarchy.

Race Realism and HBD as Moderate Positions

In a post at AltRight, Robert Burnham discusses race realist outlet American Renaissance headed by the eminently genteel Jared Taylor. Mr. Burnham laments the cancellation of AmRen's last two conferences and analyzes this in the context of the left's increasing fear of white racial consciousness. He criticizes the left's hysterical response to any perceived Secular Humanist apostasy; in doing so, Burnham argues that the left's fervent opposition to AmRen is unjustified given the latter's actual positions:

An impartial examination of American Renaissance’s positions vis-à-vis race and especially the Jewish Question would clearly reveal that American Renaissance could, in a sane world, serve to give voice to the West’s White population in a remarkably moderate fashion...By this I mean organizational forms that are less vulnerable to penetration, compromise, control, suppression, or co-option. Indeed, it could be said—and many would say outright—that American Renaissance was an example of an organization that, through its philosemitic positions, open and forthright behavior, and Classical Liberal political positions, required no such countermeasures.

In other words, Burnham contends that AmRen says nothing particularly controversial. Now, the mainstream would find such an assertion risible given the forever leftward march of the establishment, a procession that last year joined together Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich. So we shouldn't consider the above in regards to the more general left-right prism. Instead, we should view it in the context of reality - the "institution" largely ignored by power seekers and romantics.

After all, what exactly does AmRen say that's so damn controversial. They published a compendium on crime entitled "The Color of Crime", controversial I suppose due to its insistence on using facts and not distortion as is popular amongst academics. And of course they believe in racial behavioral and intellectual differences. Here's an article from ThinkProgress presumably highlighting AmRen's primary transgression:

it will find that most of McInnish’s data is cribbed from the right-wing New Century Foundation (NCF), which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a “self-styled think tank” that propagates “academic racism.” Dedicated “to the ideal of the United States as a white European nation,” NCF also publishes the American Renaissance — a magazine that “publishes frequent articles on the discredited field of eugenics” which is “selective breeding to improve human genetic stock.”

So AmRen sees America for what it actually is, a European, Christian nation that has been relatively welcoming and accommodating to minorities. Basically, I don't get it.

OK, so I'm being purposefully obtuse. Of course I understand why the left objects to race realism so much - it contradicts the maxims of their ideology: "Diversity is Strength", "White People Suck", and "All blacks and Hispanics are underutilized physicists." But if one understands race realism and HBD as a search for a better society, one motivated by traditionalism and not insidiousness, then what exactly is so radical, so extreme, so dangerous? If one champions a society where American whites have moral autonomy, live without fear of physical violence or social demonization, and decide the progress of their own nation, as do the Japanese, Chinese, Israelis, Mexicans, and Zimbabweans, then why is that so crazy?

Last year, I asked the "hataz" what exactly is acceptable racial opinions for whites:

What racially conscious opinions and observations are actually acceptable from whites? Is a white person allowed to hold the following views and not be a racist: opposition to diversity and affirmative action programs, attraction to homogeneously white residential areas and schools, opposition to non-white immigration in order to preserve traditional culture, and belief in genetic racial differences in IQ, crime, obstreperousness, beauty?

In the end, I'd say none of them are OK in polite society. But in my crazy world defined by logic and real equality, a white person holding any of those views would be rather mundane. The stuff I say on this blog would comprise the mainstream discourse due to its obviousness and not merely implicit to their actions.

What the Elite Think of You

New Media journalist James O'Keefe, of the ACORN video sting fame, has nabbed another big target - a leading figure at NPR. I recommend you watch the entire video as it's very worthwhile.



The video illustrates what all conservatives know; the media is liberally biased, full of itself, and they loves Muslims and other minorities. This merely reiterates the common complaints expressed by right-leaning individuals.

But if you watch Mr. Schiller closely, you'll notice a palpable disdain for the average (white) American. He says this about the Tea Party, a racially innocuous group that's done their share of pandering to minorities:

And not just Islamophobic, but xenophobic...they believe in sort of white, middle America, gun-toting..I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people.

Schiller also accuses conservatives of being "anti-intellectual", a euphemism for dumb hicks. Of course, I don't find anything about this video shocking because I read HuffPo, leftist academia, the NYT opinion page, and all other facets of the leftist, elitist cabal.

When discussing politics with the less informed, the biggest hurdle I often have to overcome is the notion that the elite exists and that they actually have the public's best interests in mind. As I stated in yesterday's post on specious nutrition advice, the elite look at themselves not as disinterested seekers of truth, imbued with an intellectual gift to find such truth. Instead, they look at themselves as secularly ordained priests who the plebs must follow without recourse. They have erected institutions ensuring their way of thinking persists and indoctrinated each generation into believing that this way is the correct way. And with such an insular community comes an undue amount of hubris. Now imagine the "unwashed masses" questioning their wisdom that they've worked so hard to attain.

These sting videos are important because they open up how the elite really feels about the public. How the elite disparages the public's perspective and views themselves as the sole purveyors of truth. Once this viewpoint is understood, the elite will lose much of their sway. After all, how can one trust a domineering and doctrinaire force, one unwilling to consider alternative viewpoints, quick to dismiss dissenters as motivated by insidious desires.

Nutrition and Health: Don't Trust Big Pharma, the FDA, or Academia

I used to be a strong proponent of Western medicine, which I took as empirically based and soundly tested medical cures. I expressed a somewhat blind confidence in Western medicine, a passion likely attributable to my nascent reactionary conservatism. So when confronted with opposition to Big Pharma and the drugs peddled by these companies, I reacted incredulously. When others would champion "natural" cures as equal to the West's synthetic cures and concoctions, I decried their lack of skepticism. Drugs were the answer, not Eastern mysticism or some other fad. Drugs were a product of modern science, tested by corporations, those venerable constructs of our free society, the positive end result of our singular system of governance.

Since I discovered the paleo diet last summer, I no longer believe this at all. For some reason, liberal mega-site HuffPo really likes paleo-diet thinking. Here's a recent article on the low-fat lie with this money quote:

But old dietary habits die hard and convincing people that what they've been told for the past 50 years is just plain wrong, is a hard sell.

The scientific community has lied to use for 50 years. They have promoted an unequivocally false nutritional lie and looking at average Americans, you can see the big fat results. But it's not just the nutritionists who have lied to us - it's the people you look to for advice: doctors. It's the doctors who take money from big pharmaceutical companies; it's Big Pharma who couldn't care less about what you put into your body; it's the government that looks the other way because they get money; and it's the liberal zeitgeist that has pathologized any ailment, pushed drugs down our throats to cure things like male adolescence, then hidden the cure (paleo diet wisdom) because it contradicts their politics.

And what is the end result: it's literally killing us. The drugs pushed by Big Pharma are not the magical cure; in fact, most of them probably harm you. Here's an article from AlterNet discussing Big Pharma's war on America:

Grozier was prescribed a combination of Ciprofloxacin and Vioxx, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Shortly after taking the medicine his ears began to ring. He called Bayer, the company that produces Ciprofloxacin, and reported his symptoms to a pharmacist who told him to keep taking the drug to get the full effect. Shortly after Grozier stopped taking the prescriptions, he suffered a psychotic episode. He had difficulty breathing, experienced hallucinations, and was barely able to call his mother to ask her to take him to the hospital.

“Things in my ears were resonating like I was in an echo chamber,” Grozier said. “And everything was wavy…it was unbearable. I really thought I had a heart attack and was dying.” At the hospital, Grozier was given a sedative. The doctor he spoke with blamed the episode on irritable bowel syndrome, wrote him a prescription for Xanax and sent him home. But his symptoms steadily worsened. He experienced numerous petite mal seizures, was unable to bathe himself and suffered from severe anxiety.

“I was praying to God to take my life, let me die,” Grozier said. “It was unbearable."

Fuller took Floxin to treat pneumonia in 1986 and suffered a heart attack and a blow to his Achilles tendon. In the '90s, he took Ciprofloxacin for a sinus infection and has almost completely lost his vision and developed a kidney stone as well as experiencing serious damage to his joints. He diagnosed himself after reading articles online.

The article relays similar stories and describes how the government and Big Pharma collude to harm the credulous and ignorant public.

So what can you do to save yourself? First, don't be too oppositional. Go to doctors if you have a serious problem - they can fix a lot of problems, e.g. triple by-pass surgery. But do not listen to their advice on daily upkeep, including shams like statins and low-fat dieting. Second, inform your family and friends. I've tried and it's a tough road, but maybe you'll make some believers. One of the most rewarding experiences from this blog was having a reader say that I've converted him to paleo dieting.

Third, understand that the elites and the governing class have abandoned you. You can not count on the government, corporations, or academia to present an accurate picture of reality. These institutions no longer exist to help the public; they exist for self-aggrandizing purposes, a noxious conglomerate of leftist capitalism without a moral backbone. Luckily, we have the Internet and the wealth of information therein. People are talking and the avenues of scholarship have opened to the general public.

Fourth, don't allow politics to cloud your judgment. The paleo diet is extremely popular amongst the reactionary crowd, likely a consequence of their skepticism regarding popular opinion, so you probably don't have a contradiction there (IIRC: Michael Savage often discusses nutrition and health subjects connected to paleo diet ideas). But the far-left, for different reasons of course, might sympathize with it as well. AlterNet did publish an article a couple months ago on the low-fat lie. So don't see yourself as a crusader for capitalism and thus a hidebound defender of Big Pharma or consider support of the West as dependent on support of their reckless forays into synthetic medicine.

In the end, you should go as natural as possible. Go with what feels "evolutionarily" correct. Look at our teeth, the size of our brains, and the placement of eyes to know we're hunters. Note the correspondence between meat protein and robustness to know we should eat it. Note that we survived thousands of years without agriculture and chemistry. It will take perhaps centuries for man to unravel the wisdom of nature's design; and considering the pervasiveness of bias, it might even take longer.

Howard Stern: An Empty Hero of Modern America

I saw Howard Stern interviewed on Piers Morgan a few weeks ago. Stern has this haughty, overly self-assured air about him that I find off-putting. His tone reflects a rather obvious pretentiousness, as if he sits above the plebs harboring an inimitable ability to discern reality. If you haven't guessed it, I absolutely abhor Stern.

But Stern is beloved amongst the populace, celebrated both by puerile men who live vicariously through him and the culture pundits as some trailblazing American figure. Of course, I understood the former's adulation, but the latter's always confused me. What has he done to deserve such acclaim and reverence as this intrepid and innovative personality? OK, he created the "shock jock" persona. And what is that exactly - get a bunch of porn stars on your show, have women strip, tell dirty jokes with euphemisms, and ask celebrities about having anal sex.

In a more general context, Stern's deification as a pioneer of radio fits into the libertarian narrative quite well. Liberals love him because he celebrates sexual pathology. And if I'm not mistaken, he often goes into anti-establishment (read the juvenile ruminations of a depressed 16 year-old contrarian who hates everything) rants against "The Man".

Libertarians love him because he's a pioneer for "free speech." And to libertarians, nothing matters except freedom. Libertarians have no values besides the ability to do whatever they want. So an empty vessel like Stern, who proffers salacious content independent of any real point outside of sensationalism, becomes a hero. After all, he has opened up our culture - to what exactly, who cares. The end result of a vibrant culture doesn't matter so long as everyone can do whatever they want.