I've written about commercials here before, such as "stupid men commercials" and the DJ Hero 2 spot that defies concise description. In general, commercials provide both a reflection of the modern culture and a potent means by which leftists push their agenda. Commercials offer a memorable and pithy message, often in a humorous or visually appealing context, and thus it makes sense that liberals would use this as a medium for propaganda. Or more generally, the entrenched constructs of the cultural left manifest often in TV ads, then become even more acceptable due to the repetition of commercials while viewers only passively listen.
During football yesterday, I saw two new commercials, one unsurprising and the other an unusually hopeful instance of mainstream conservatism. The first shows a boy trying to convince his parents to buy him a dog.
We then see that the parents give into his demands as he's happily playing with a new puppy. Notice how at 0:16 the father looks for guidance from the predictably assured wife. Then, at 0:20, the father brings to his wife a presentation entitled "Why I need to play golf on Sundays", essentially infantilizing and emasculating the husband to the maturity and authority level afforded to his own child. Of course, his wife, the ostensible leader of the household, shrugs him off dismissively and he exits with a look of utter defeat, shoulders caved and head down. The father, the man, is depicted as a puerile, weak-willed individual whose wife dictates to him and not the other way around. Here we see the cultural undermining of men as symbols of authority and strength.
But it's not all bad. In opposition to the despair porn of much of the alt-right, I've posited that a conservative renaissance lies unawakened within the masses, illustrated by anti-Obama rage and last year's Tea Party movement. However, the media, academia, and government inhibit the means by which these apprehensive conservative-leaning individuals find each other and, more importantly, discover the social sanction to express their anti-PC views. Commercials can do much to convince people that others like them exist, that others romanticize about a return to traditionalist America - the one we see in our parents' black and white photos and hear our elders reminisce about wistfully.
A recent Chevy commercial makes this romanticism astoundingly explicit:
Now wasn't that great? A fantastic rendition of America the Beautiful (by Ray Charles, ironically enough for this blog) showing a forgotten nation of nicely dressed individuals, families, smiling children, energetic youth, and natural beauty. The commercial ends with this nod to Chevy-based traditionalism, spoken while a family gets into their car together:
For the first 100 years and for many more generations to come...Chevy Runs Deep
YouTube commenters appear to get the conservative symbolism, noting "I think Chevy has been listening to Mark Levin" and "It's to sad to watch, the golden years have passed." But have the "golden years" really passed if commercials like these put stock in the notion that many Americans still long for that society to return? Chevy would not put all that money and energy into a campaign if they didn't believe there existed an audience for it. So despite the alt-right's hasty defeatism, it seems that the masses still believe in America, the beautiful. And this type of commercial will hopefully help that along.
Back in January, the left decided "civility" was the way to go. The leader of that movement, the absurdly named Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has since accused Republicans of wanting to "literally drag us back to Jim Crow days", compared small government conservatives to "a dictatorship", and referred to Paul Ryan's reforms as "a death trap for seniors" and tantamount to "throwing [people] to the wolves." Of course, I predicted the utter mendacity of the "civility" campaign when it first arose:
In other words, the call for "civilty" is nothing more than a call for surrender to the liberal zeitgeist...One can conclude then that the only viable option for conservatives to achieve civility is to fully accept leftism...Over the past few days, we've seen that leftists will attempt to neuter conservatism in the guise of tolerance.
But the larger question - what does any of this mean outside of that political fad earlier this year? Specifically, can we actually seek reconciliation with the left, a common understanding that transcends the political divide and works towards the betterment of this nation? Right now, the answer is hell no. Conservatives must seek reform by appealing to the increasingly aggrieved masses in which I believe reactionary right-wing politics lays dormant. While many Democrat-voting suburbanites vote out of mere ignorance, status-seeking, or passive credulity, the "informed" left, the Daily Kos commenters, the Ivy League law graduates, and the Democrats in Congress, have gone off the deep end.
Honestly, they've gone insane. Let me show an example and while it's just one, I'll confidently assert one can find instances of this from just about every liberal commenter on the Internet. A review of the new Justin Timberlake movie "In Time" appears in the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post. The reviewer calls the thriller "dumb" and notes the rather obvious soft-socialist undertones of the film. Basically, the "rich" (with wealth defined by actual years someone gets to live) are a bunch of greedy thieves and the hero engages in a Robin Hood-esque campaign against them. The reviewer merely denigrates the wealth redistributionist message, a type of argument one would encounter in the University of Chicago's economics department:
The movie (written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who wrote “The Truman Show”) assumes that behind every great fortune lies a great crime, yet the most massive injustice we see is when a time cop played by Cillian Murphy convicts and punishes Will for time theft, with no evidence. In fact, Will has come by his time-stash legitimately, yet the cop seizes almost all of Will’s time on the spot without trial. The movie thinks it’s about abuse of capitalism, but it’s more about abuse of authority, and of logic.
At the end, “In Time” thinks it’s being very up-to-date when it suggests a major stimulus/redistribution program would make the workers of the world rise up against private industry. This future looks awfully passé: The stimulus didn’t work out. Neither did 1917 Russia.
Let me summarize: Communism is bad and capitalism lets people earn their money, so let's give people economic freedom independent of an abusive authority system. And now for the coup-de-grace - a commenter responds (with two 'Likes'):
Wow - Even Faux News movie reviewers are required to spew right wing Tea Party hate speech. Did you get that line about Karl Marx from listening to the Pillsbury Doughboy? And 1917 Russia was a lot better for most Russians than 1910 Russia.
That was "right-wing hate speech"!?! Seriously, let me repeat that - "right-wing hate speech". But his comment gets even better and illustrates the unbelievable hypocrisy of the left and why the Right should no longer consider them even minimally viable political partners:
Just as someday when the peasants in this country rise up and hang the Murdochs of the world life will be better for the majority.
Capitalism = "right-wing hate speech". Reveling in the murder of the upper class = totally cool.
The Left is done as a respectable institution. Hopefully it will destroy itself soon enough.
At OneSTDV and other related sites, we've often discussed the phenomenon of extended male adolescence within the context of our cultural and political environment. In the latter post, we responded to Kay Hymowitz's excoriation of today's young man. We largely argued that men have not consciously sought out their spiritual and physical torpor; instead they have seen a generation of feminism and liberalism undermine their ability to "man up" via becoming financially independent and starting a family. Yet I suppose maybe something's actually going on.
One could deem this collective languidness a generation-wide "quarterlife" crisis. Everyone knows about the "midlife" crisis, commonly depicted as an empty-nester buying a red convertible (my dad bought a Harley). But in recent years, the concept of a "quarterlife" crisis has begun to plague 20-somethings with lots of college debt, little middle-class job prospects, and a general spiritual emptiness that cubicle work, Facebook, drunken debauchery, secularism, and general mediocrity can not cure. This generation appears to be in a crisis, a sort of stupor they experience without insight into how to escape. A decade ago, hidden underneath the mass-appeal of blood, fisticuffs, and violent anarchy, Fight Club touched upon this modern professional and social daze. We watched Ed Norton's character content to go through his days with unchallenging comfort until he literally gets punched in the face and starts living.
So what exactly has caused this "quarterlife" crisis? And are we even in one? Do we live in a time of unprecedented comfort that has enervated our survivalist instincts, a time of rampant materialism that has made status-seeking our only goal, a spiritual dark age with no greater good or collective purpose to go after? Some would say yes to all of that, as Frost over at Freedom Twenty-Five subtitled his blog "arts and letters in a quarterlife crisis". He's doing something about it though, moving to Thailand, writing a book, and becoming a polymath/ripped/sex machine.
But is the pursuit of status, the kind experienced by Ivy Leaguers, lawyers, and guys with massive guns any better - the individual successes fleeting and the struggle omnipresent? Or should we accept our mediocrity because it's just so damn easy. Maybe we lose something important, but we avoid the stresses so many of our ancestors would gladly do without. I guess in the quarterlife crisis, we ask these questions because we don't know the answers and we don't know how we're going to find them. We want the comfort of adolescence, but the spiritual fulfillment of adulthood, all the while constrained by a cultural and political milieu that has largely failed us.
Today's questions: Are you in a quarterlife crisis or did you once experience a quarterlife crisis? If you're now past it, how did you find your way out of the quarterlife crisis? Can you describe what exactly a quarterlife crisis is and why today's 20-somethings go through it? In general, what are the main problems causing this generation's collective quarterlife crisis? Is it spiritual, sexual, physical, and/or professional? How do we fix it? Is there a gender gap in the quarterlife crisis? Technological component? Should 20-somethings pursue the kind of route favored by Frost - the "be the best you can be at all costs" route or just settle for comfortable mediocrity without all the stress?
Earlier this month, a dedication ceremony was held commemorating the statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a Chinese dictator. Obama spoke at the event, unsurprisingly alluding to MLK as a godlike figure who we should look to for guidance.
President Barack Obama saluted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday as a man who "stirred our conscience" and made the Union "more perfect," rejoicing in the dedication of a monument memorializing the slain civil rights leader's life and work. "I know we will overcome," Obama proclaimed. "I know this because of the man towering over us."
"He had faith in us and that is why he belongs on this Mall: Because he saw what we might become."
Given the notion of MLK as an omniscient figure of unparalleled probity, this last statement, that MLK "belongs on the this Mall", garners very little skepticism. We believe he belongs there, amongst other DC statues for Jefferson, Einstein, Franklin, Columbus, and Washington, because he did something worthy of their company. But I dare to ask what exactly did MLK do? Sure he championed (perhaps agitated is more appropriate) for "equal" rights, but ultimately he produced nothing of actual substance. He didn't pioneer the founding of a nation, remake the laws of physics, invent a ton of amazing things, find a whole new continent, or lead a fledging nation. He made good speeches and turned around a few laws.
Was he worthy of veneration? Yes, but is the black collective so devoid of value-producing individuals that they must accept a professional agitator as their ultimate luminary? Well, NewsOne.com answers that question with their list of Five Black Americans Who Need Monuments:
4 Little Girls — Birmingham, Alabama: Civil Rights-era murder victims Fannie Lou Hamer: Civil Rights activist James Weldon Johnson: Civil Rights activist Stokely Carmichael: Civil Rights activist Nat Turner: proto-Civil Rights activist who lead slave revolt
-"significance in the general progress of Aliens toward full equality in the American social and political system" [translation: race-baiting] -"self-sacrifice and a willingness to take great risks for the collective good" [translation: race-baiting leading to murder by racist white people] -"unusual will and determination in the face of great danger and against the most stubborn odds" [translation: a black "first" like Jackie Robinson or the Little Rock 9] -"a consistent posture toward raising the social, cultural and economic status of African Americans" [translation: race-baiting] -"personal achievement that reveals the best qualities of the African American people" [translation: they wrote black poetry/literature, played basketball, or rapped real good]
In addition to the usual suspects, I suspect the list also includes lots of "first" blacks who gained acclaim for doing something tons of other white people did before them. To appraise the quality of the list, note that the list contains "black"-American Tiger Woods!
It appears then that the best way to attain status as a revered black figure is to get murdered by white people or become a professional racial agitator, i.e. a black Democrat political figure. I guess MLK has both, so that's why he's at the top.
Finally, as noted above, very few "greatest African-American" list include people who actually did something. White people make monuments to producers and innovators; black people make monuments for martyrs and rabble-rousers. Ostensibly, blacks have a far more limited class of individuals to choose from, the putative scientific or philosophical genius not exactly a common occurrence amongst blacks. But one imagines that the antagonistic nature of these glorified black figures reflects the primary motivation of the black collective. In almost all these cases, the prominent black figure does nothing but stick it to white people. Thus, blacks don't want to celebrate their own achievements, instead preferring to pay tribute to those who merely antagonize or undermine whites. In sum, it seems that the black conception of their own collective, founded more in hating whites than supporting their communities, is yet another unhealthy reality of modern black America.
Feminists love abortion for two primary reasons - it devalues life and it frees women to engage in promiscuous, consequence-free sex. While women still prefer long term relationships, they will settle for pump and dump flings with high status men. The attendant separation of sex from its primary purpose, life conceived in a loving and supportive environment, reflects the pretentiousness of modern liberalism. They consider their own spirituality so mature as to render common human emotion obsolete, ultimately believing women can fully escape the biological imperative of motherhood and all its emotional trappings.
In sum, pro-abortion advocates view a growing life as inconsequential. It means nothing. It has no value. It is not a life until they deem it so. And their strident championing of "abortion rights" reflects this notion that people are making a big deal about a "clump of cells." At Feministing.com (Trigger warning for retarded shite), an article criticizes the so-called "Personhood" amendment. Another article reports on a documentary telling the story of abortion doctor and murder victim, George Tiller, with the author dismissively referring to abortion as a "controversial" issue. They obviously find abortion "rights" very important, especially the idea that women who get abortions, doctors who perform abortions, and lawmakers who defend abortion "rights" maintain freedom instead of perpetrating murder.
But as with all feminist positions, there's an underlying motivation obscured by slick political maneuvering (read: shaming from a bunch of whiny bitches). A thought experiment follows:
A gay gene is found. Woman wants a child, but decides to abort the child because she does not want a gay child. Do feminists accept this reasoning and support her decision?
The "gay baby" issue has surprisingly little Internet footprint. The only recent news comes from a pro-life advocate in Maine who proposed a law protecting gay babies. Essentially no pro-abortion sites have discussed it or at least I couldn't find any discussion with a Google search.
One wonders then how would pro-abortionists react to such a situation? If the "baby" is really just a clump of cells, then absolutely any reason whatsoever should suffice. It's not a life so therefore it does deserve the same protections or value of a life. Thus, any reason, no matter how trivial, whimsical, or arbitrary, justifies the abortion, a concept implicit to pro-abortionism that holds female choice as the only necessary justification for a morally tenable abortion. So a women can abort a child for having a hitchhiker's thumb, being born in the afternoon, being born in the summer, liking blue instead of green, or being a girl instead of a boy (obviously we don't have tests for most absurdly trivial reasons, but think about it hypothetically). Any of these reasons should work if the female decides because ultimately she has full moral autonomy.
Back to the initial discussion about abortion motivations. If abortionists begin from the premise of a "clump of cells", then they will support the "gay gene" decision. But if liberal pro-abortionists support abortion because it fits into a debased worldview of casual sex and anti-family hedonism, then they won't. Further, feminists never really stray from the core motivation to norm the abnormal, thus imbuing their fat, ugly selves with relatively more social capital. Liberals thus need gays as a political weapon to impose homosexuality on the public thereby mainstreaming a viscerally repulsive sexual lifestyle (still a lifestyle even if you're "born that way") and undermining traditional society. Abortion of gay babies would obviously reduce the number of gays and thus make all their initiatives far less impactful.
Can we expect a feminist/liberal to maintain political and intellectual consistency? I'd say probably not. So I imagine most would oppose "gay abortion."
[I take awhile to get to the main part of the post, so for the "tl;dr" readers skip down the paragraph before the video.]
Feminists constantly complain about our misogynistic culture, but they offer very little evidence for their main premise. The feminist argument boils down to the following incredibly weak premises: lack of abortion "rights", the wage-gap fallacy, the "beauty myth" myth, and widespread objectification of women (read: unattractive betas courting them awkwardly). Not one of these main arguments for widespread misogyny actually supports their position, but it doesn't stop them from getting hysterical over any perceived slight to women, such as this recent Dr. Pepper campaign. Funny that they've ignored the huge Miller Lite campaign that attempts to shame men for being "unmanly."
In sum, feminists argue that our society devalues women. Our culture simply does not consider women to be the moral equal of men, evinced by a media and culture that openly opposes female sexual, professional, and cultural freedom. Our patriarchal culture offers a social narrative with men at the top, their aims, wants, and moral being the foremost priority. Now, if none of that really made any sense, don't worry. Feminism works in abstraction, never countenancing an argument based on stuff like statistics when emotional rhetoric and social shaming suffices.
The inquiring mind then asks what evidence do we have that our culture actually devalues women? And this really is the main crux of feminism - that society does not respect women as much it respects men. But given the nauseating betatude of American men, showcased in 90s family sitcoms where each episode depicts the father screwing up then begging for his wife's forgiveness, I don't find this idea at all convincing. From my perspective, society overvalues women, giving them economic power via divorce laws and alimony payments, sexual power via the acceptance of promiscuity, judicial power via lax rape laws and sexual harassment hysteria, professional power via affirmative action, and cultural power via a plethora of anti-male memes that permeate commercials, TVsitcoms, and everyday social environments.
For the latter, recall "The Talk" segment where the hosts, along with the audience, laugh about a man getting his penis chopped off by a vengeful spouse. We can generalize this example by noting how the masses react to negative events affecting men and those affecting women. In general, it appears that anything minor done wrong to a woman is a greater moral sin than anything experienced by a man, even if the man suffers a horrible medical problem or even dies.
This evident distinction in that people consider even minor female suffering with far more gravity reflects the perverse system of values erected by post-60s feminism. Unsurprisingly, feminists get it exactly wrong - men are actually devalued below women in our society. Take this example from Comedy Central's roast of Donald Trump. The roasts contain some of the most off-color jokes you will ever encounter. Yet throughout it all, the audience laughs. They laugh at everything, perhaps slightly uncomfortable, but nonetheless momentarily divesting themselves from common courtesy to enjoy decidedly anti-PC humor. In the following video, Jeff Ross makes a joke about Gary Coleman dying at 2:00 and one about Donald Trump being killed at 5:59:
This year, the Comedy world lost a great friend - Gary Coleman. He died of multiple aneurysms, which is kind of like Different Strokes.
And now you're gonna run for President...Perosonally, I can't wait for the assasination...err I mean the inauguration.
And the audience laughs hysterically, at masturbation jokes, at Larry King dying, at deaf jokes. In this video from the recent Charlie Sheen roast, Anthony Jeselink mocks Michael J. Fox for having Parkinson's, one comic jokes about aborting retarded babies, and a number of comics chide fellow comic Patrice O'Neal for having diabetes and possibly getting a limb amputated (@ 1:53). And the audience laughs hysterically. Absolutely nothing is out of bounds.
Now I've watched plenty of these roasts and there really is no line to cross. The comics subvert all sorts of polite society norms, racial, sexual, and just plain human decency. And the audience plays along with glee, never once gasping at the baseness and crass nature of the content. Yet in Jeff Ross' act (video above), he appears to cross an apparent line that completely undermines the feminist fabrication of our moral gender hierarchy. In a forum where jokes about cancer, death, and retards are all perfectly acceptable, Ross mentions domestic abuse at 3:43. (Background: Comic Lisa Lampanelli's act often focuses on her having sex with lots of black men, primarily as a result of white men rejecting her.)
Ya know, Lisa's vagina is so beat up its nickname is Rihanna.
Instead of laughing, the entire audience gasps with shock at such a supposedly off-color quip. Of course, I don't advocate domestic abuse outside the Sean Connery variety, but Rihanna suffered the equivalent of a lost bar fight. She had a couple bruises and a black eye. Far better than having your penis chopped off, dying of a stroke, or having a limb amputated from diabetes, yet the audience reactions couldn't be any more different. While male mutilation evokes laughter, a couple bruises on a woman justifies gasps of horror that reflect how much our society pedastalizes women above men.
The links in the previous paragraph show a few examples of this phenomenon. Another example is in the realm of music. The 90's explosion of hip-hop/rap and its commensurate spread to pop music represented perhaps the most explicit instance of black music predominance. While previous generations had The Temptations and the Jackson 5, with white artists often adopting their sound, the late 80s and 90s saw blacks become the unchallenged king of the music hill. Artists like Mariah Carey ("Honey" with Puff Daddy, Mase, and the Lox), Justin Timberlake ("Like I love You" with Clipse and many other songs with Timberland), and Christina Aguilera ("Dirrty" with Method Man) all sought to garner musical and cultural authenticity via collaboration with black hip-hop artists. Sure, a vibrant alternative "white" music scene existed with acts like Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, but many pop artists believed pop music was somehow less culturally vibrant and "real" than black music. A more current example - teen idol pop singer (and Canadian) Justin Beiber sings, moves, and sometimes raps as if were a black soul singer.
This musical trend reflected the growing enervation of white culture as a collective entity and eventually the use of "white" as emblematic of cultural emptiness. Hua Hsu discusses this in The End of White America:
Matt Wray, a sociologist at Temple University who is a fan of Lander’s humor, has observed that many of his white students are plagued by a racial-identity crisis: “They don’t care about socioeconomics; they care about culture. And to be white is to be culturally broke. The classic thing white students say when you ask them to talk about who they are is, ‘I don’t have a culture.’ They might be privileged, they might be loaded socioeconomically, but they feel bankrupt when it comes to culture … They feel disadvantaged, and they feel marginalized. They don’t have a culture that’s cool or oppositional.”
In addition to partnerships with black artists and producers, the black, gospel-inspired singing style became a means for white artists to showcase their "soul." On American Idol, a superfluous run of notes is often a necessity for showing one's singing chops, as in Kelly Clarkson arriving with her rendition of Aretha Franklin's classic "Respect". And the Star-Spangled banner, once a stoic ode to our proud nation, has become a showcase for this black singing style. Take this offering from Kat Deluna prior to a 2008 NFL game.
First time in ages that I finally got to hear it sung as it was meant to be sung. With no embellishment. Thank you Zooey.
I loved it! She didn't try to show off her vocal range like so many do; she kept it simple and beautiful. I love Zooey! She's so talented and I was very happy she got to sing it.
I thought she did a great job singing the Anthem - no runs and extra notes thrown in - I thought she sounded lovely. Also, her dress was darling!
The National Anthem SHOULD be sung simply and respectfully, not as a showcase for the singer's vocal acrobatics. She did a great job.
It's called glissando, Tiffany... and lots of singers overdo it to the point of making me ill, tell ya wut.
Seriously, if I never hear a single note turned into 5 or 6 or 7 notes again, it will be too soon. Xtina, Mariah, Celine... they all do it to sickening extremes.
It was refreshing to have someone sing it without over doing it with vocal runs.
It was refreshing to see her performing not for her own gratification, but to honor our Country and those who have served to protect us and others!
Take note, Divas: JUST SING THE SONG THE WAY IT WAS WRITTEN!
Thirty comments from white people (can see their Facebook photo) and every single one says the same thing - they like it how a white girl sings it, not the musical verbosity of Beyonce, Mariah, and Aretha.
The selling point of rap is that the beats bypass the higher functions of the brain and strike directly at the primitive root. It's very good at hooking in teenagers.
Briefly, it's interesting to note how then has black music still become so popular amongst whites? I like the above explanation, but it appears lacking to me. In addition to the above, one can look at the construction of every single popular rap song. It goes: Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, middle 8 (AKA breakdown), chorus, outro. Most music producers would appropriately call the "chorus" a "hook" because that's what it does. While rap has become ever popular, it's actually the hook that ultimately facilitates its spread amongst white teens. Awhile back, I was watching Puff Daddy on MTV and he said something like, "I'll let you guys onto a little secret - it's all about the hook." The percussive rap sections play a part as noted above, but white kids need that melodic, catchy break. Note that pure African music has no such intermissions, with songs comprised of one big long drum beat.
To sum it up, Chuck quotes rap luminary Masta Killah of the Wu Tang Clan as saying, "the dumb are mostly intrigued by the drum."
[And I didn't even get into people, white and black, who blast music at headache-inducing, wall-shaking levels. Is there any better indicator of an idiot/asshole?]
A video from Occupy Wall Street, possibly the greatest bonanza ever for conservative media, totally sums up how liberals feel about race. (H/T: Unamused)
I have to put this racial hissy fit in print because it's just that good. Mr. Evident Diversity, with scraggly hipster beard, doo-rag, bandana, and wearing all-black, condescendingly offers this piercing analysis of race relations:
Are you a white man? If you're a white man, then shut the fuck up about race, ’cause you don’t know shit, other than how to rape and kill. So please just shut the fuck up about race.
But he continues in an inimitably insightful manner:
But..but..when black folks start talking back at the power structure...
I've never seen anyone comment on the use "folks" before, but given that ideologues like Tim Wise and Cornel West use it endlessly, I imagine there's something there. So my advice - never use the term "folks" to describe a racial cohort. Wait though, it gets better (non-gay version). A hipster-SWPL caricature then picks up where Mr. Diversity left off, apparently reading from the same list of keywords:
We live in a system of institutionalized racism and you tell someone that there's no such thing - that's fucked up!
Power structure, institutionalized racism? What about "social construction" and "legacy of historical oppression"? In listening to individuals like this and anti-racist literature in general, I'm reminded of the Postmodernism Generator that automatically generates an essay closely imitating postmodernist writing.
In sum, the anti-racist position comes down to what Mr. Diversity above expresses:
Hey whitey - sit there and take it while we blame you for all the world's evils.
However, we shouldn't exonerate whites entirely; they've done some pretty bad stuff over the years. While genocide is surely not exclusive to whites, whites have engaged in this sort of behavior throughout history. A few counterpoints though to the notion that whites are singularly violent and that this means whites should never speak on the subject of race:
White genocide often a result of greater technological achievement and organization: Whites have usually been at the forefront of technological and societal progress. Europe has pioneered or perfected a wide variety of technological developments as well as pushing forth some innovative ways of organizing society, e.g. democratic republic. Is it any surprise then that in clashes of civilization whites almost always come out on top? While leftists view early colonialists as perpetrating genocide, one could more accurately view it as whites just plain winning. They had the better weapons, the better strategy, and the better organization. European settlers took over because the South Americans, Africans, and Native Americans could not stop them.
If nature had imbued these groups with abilities above that of the European, perhaps the hypothetically "oppressed" whites would interpret military skill as genocide. In this vein, consider that Africans, Asians, Arabs, and South Americans have all committed large scale murder campaigns as well. The notion that only Europe does so perhaps derives from the fact that when they do commit rare genocide, e.g. WWII, they just do it better. It sounds horrible saying it, but greater European efficiency manifests here as well. When Germans or the English want to kill a bunch of people, they do it way better than Sadamm Hussein or an African Big Man does it; primarily because they do everything better - running an economy, producing goods, and erecting an educational system. Basically, even if we accept that whites have killed more people, they have done so not as a reflection of their unparalleled evil, but as a result of their inherent abilities to produce and organize.
Whites still the most benevolent: So Mr. Diversity tells us that white people suck. Ignoring the fact that his white mother probably raised him, white societies are clearly the most benevolent. Even our "extremist" right-wingers have more compassion and tolerance than the average non-white. After all, do not "eat da poo-poo" in Africa, do not try getting into Mexico from Guatemala, and do not be a woman in South Africa. Think about the money we spend on blacks and Hispanics in both our own country and given away in foreign aid. Interracial adoption only goes one way. White people run just about every charity in the world. And we even export our military to save people who want to kill us.
Current Whites do not inherit racial sin of their fathers: Mr. Diversity constructs his screed quite transparently, using the pronoun "you" to signify collective sin as in rape and murder. Note that he speaks here to an individual white person yet impugns him for the crimes of the white race. Is there any better definition of intolerance and racism than that? And does Mr. Diversity really want to continue with this standard given his race's not so good track record?
Racial statistics might be even worse: Unamused points to some telling statistics on racial crime, but even then, the crime stats don't make whites look that great. While whites comprise the majority population, I believe they still commit something like 25% of murders and rapes. But two things to consider. First, law enforcement massages that data a significant amount, often classifying obviously Latino individuals as white and mixed-race blacks as whites as well. Here's an example. Second, when we think of murder, we generally view domestic disputes as more acceptable. In other words, most people would rather live next to a guy that would kill his wife than someone that would kill a convenience store clerk. Admittedly I have no evidence, but I confidently presume that a significantly larger portion of white murders and rapes (college rape hysteria) are perpetrated against acquaintances.
But I guess I'm not allowed to speak on race anyway, right? Statistics, history, technology - all racist white people inventions.
Over at Salon.com, an interview with the director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the country's most prestigious MFA program**, touches on recent criticism of MFA programs in general. The interviewer brings up a piece entitled Get a Real Degree lamenting the postwar increase in creative writing programs as opposed to the more traditional literary criticism PhD. The director responds:
It’s so fascinating to me that smart people waste, or spend, an enormous amount of effort criticizing people who love to read and write.
But you have more time to think, and you have time to think about your life. And to think about the lives of other human beings. That is a privilege, but it is something that a lot of people need and want. It’s a privilege and a basic human need. Our society pushes us toward productivity in a way that is antithetical to our basic needs.
I imagine programs like these, enamored with garbage like postmodernism that could only manifest and persist in enclaves like the modern university, are a hotbed of liberalism. And it's this leftist bent that likely motivates much of conservative opposition to artsy academia. Further, the decidedly non-practical nature of these programs, the tweed jacket wearing SWPLs drinking imported beer while cogitating on their own self-importance, also annoys conservatives who champion the tangible.
But I admit that I quite like the idea of an MFA program, even if academic riches subsidize a bunch lefties pursuing the veneration of an isolated peer group of similarly pretentious individuals. Some believe artists should accept a life of penury for their craft, but if one gets the chance to avoid such an unenviable situation, then so be it. As the director notes, what better privilege than to spend one's days just plain thinking and living in the world of ideas without the threat of poverty? While we need a society built upon the productive, we shouldn't attack the chosen few who escape the spiritually enervating serfdom of modern cubicle work. After all, stripped of its masculine revolution and violence, wasn't Fight Club ultimately about divorcing ourselves from professional slumber and finding some invigorating purpose?
The cited article, written in perhaps the most prolix and abstruse prose I've ever encountered, criticizes MFA programs for secluding their members, thereby making them incapable of presenting accurate depictions of the world. Though, given the author negatively compares the MFA world to the apparently more open literary history PhD world, self-awareness appears to be a rather rare ability in this discipline. In the essay, the author spends a considerable amount of effort attacking racist white people who just don't understand minority struggle (seriously).
But his main point is that MFAers don't have firsthand knowledge of the outside world and thus can't articulate indirect experiences. (I tried to find a quote, but damn, that essay is hard to get through.) We shouldn't find such a position surprising, given that liberals have personalized all experience as a means to underme societal collectivism - the notion that we live as a cohesive society with widely agreed upon norms. In other words, liberals don't want anyone speaking on a matter unless they have lived through it themselves, a major aspect of anti-judgment doctrine that aids pathology like single motherhood. So the MFAers, living behind the gated walls of a workshop surrounded by the similarly "privileged", can't speak on what happens outside their little community and thus, fiction suffers.
I won't begrudge this point too much as direct experience teaches us something distant observation can not. Yet what are writers but imaginative and insightful philosophers on the human experience? The ability to craft a narrative without actually having gone through it should be a basic skill of the fiction writer. I mean, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, and any number of writing genres absolutely require this ability. And further, in an age where information flows so freely, why can't we understand those around us who we don't know intimately. Finally, the author ignores the notion of writer as social anthropologist, something we bloggers and commenters engage in every single day. The ability to discern others' motivations, even if we can't rationalize or experience them ourselves, is a basic component of humanity and, more importantly, genuine sympathy.
**Personal note: I knew a poet who graduated from the Iowa MFA program, an incredibly exclusive program, and she was one of the most brilliantly insightful people I've ever encountered.
The following quotes are incredibly perceptive ruminations on modern American society. Given the TL;DR nature of the Internet, I imagine a lot of you will just skim over the following passages. I have copied so much of the writing because I consider it especially insightful, but I have bolded the most important parts for those that wish to just skim. If you read only one excerpt, read the first bolded section below.
[I] attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions.
One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism...[I] have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct" types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal-rights activists and the like... [T]wo psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call feelings of inferiority and oversocialization. ... By "feelings of inferiority" we mean ... low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc...Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality... [they hate] America and the West because they are strong and successful...
Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom...
science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.
Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades.
The entertainment industry serves as an important psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it is dishing out large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides modern man with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television, videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction.
Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin.
Did I write that? Nope. Did Auster, Mangan, or Roissy write that? Nope. If you initially believed these ideas came from the paleo/alt-right, I wouldn't blame you. Let's see: appeal to evolution for structuring modern society, criticism of mainstream science as corrupted, criticism of "politically correct types", criticism of Big Pharma, denouncement of leftism as delusion and psychological chicanery, mentioning that leftists hate the productive including white men, and an evident lack of religious undertones to the philosophizing. Essays from this individual also include a passionate defense of nature and rural living, with an equally fervent censure of modern society structured on soul-crushing cubicle work and status-seeking.
The above passages express ideas almost exactly in line with the Internet's alt-right, yet all the ideas above were espoused by one of the famous and brilliant Americans of the second half of the 20th century. [\spoiler alert] I imagine most people have probably figured out that the author is Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber.
He was obviously an incredibly troubled man unable to exist in society due to pathological social anxiety and awkwardness. Despite having unparalleled intellectual gifts (majored in math at Harvard at age 16 and youngest professor ever at Berkeley), he quit his professorship at age 26 to live mostly in the Montana woods. He would engage in a bombing campaign that one could classify as simultaneously built upon a perspicacious critique of society, a revolutionary messiah complex, and a rageful animus towards modern civilization in general. The last motivation likely results from his extreme loneliness and social rejection throughout life - a man who failed at living amongst others sought destruction of the social system in which he could not function. Kaczynski was eventually turned in by his own brother, David Kaczynski, after the NYT and Washington Post printed his manifesto and David noted the striking similarities to Ted's professed views. Ted rejected an insanity plea at trial and is currently serving a life sentence for killing three people, all of whom were involved in technological development.
Today's questions: Did you figure out the author before I revealed his identity? Could one justifiably consider Kaczynski a member of the paleo/alt-right? Is there much philosophical difference between the critiques of modern society put forth by Kaczynski and the paleo/alt-right? If Kaczynski were not in jail today, do you think he would gravitate reading paleo/alt-right sources or anarchists/greenies? Is Kaczynski an example of genius gone crazy? Was Kaczynski autistic or did he have a more unique social problem? As I argue above, did his social problems motivate his bombing campaign? Given his immense intelligence, could Kaczynski have even found social peers if he tried more? Would you have turned in your own (estranged) brother, as David did?
Please confine comments to the Unabomber and not related cases. Thanks.
Awhile back I wrote a post defending Jews for Jesus, claiming that they displayed a genuine tolerance for ethnically Jewish peers, though a tolerance not in line with leftist multiculturalism.
But consider that J4J wholeheartedly accepts Jews as full-scale members of the Christian community. The Christian community that still comprises the bedrock of our country, once the domain of the insular "goyim", doesn't care anymore - as long as you make a sincere effort at adopting their beliefs. J4J isn't a "tolerant" institution in the vein of modern leftist; it's moreso a "tolerant" institution in that it will accept a congenial minority group as long as that minority group respects the majority's culture. J4J makes this demand explicit and that's perhaps what grates its opponents most.
The shrill opponents of Jews for Jesus often use the phrase anti-semitic (AS) to classify an organization that ironically welcomes Jews. But we shouldn't find this surprising given the grievance industry of multiculturalism - complaints on the grounds of discrimination usually prove successful.
In sum, the anger many Jews express about Jews for Jesus comes from an overly general definition of Jewishness, especially in the context of antisemitism (AS). Perhaps as a means of maintaining their dwindling numbers or as a way of showcasing their prodigious collective talents, Jews play rather loose with the definition of who actually qualifies as a Jew. In general, two main definitions of Jew exist: a person who believes in the Torah and a person, at least partially, descended from those of Jewish blood. The former is open to anyone, e.g. Shyne, and the latter comes from biological inheritance, with Jews undoubtedly a verifiable ethnic group(s).
Yet, professional rabble-rousers like Abe Foxman never actually distinguish between the two forms of AS. I've heard individuals like Foxman inveigh against both types of AS without noting the important difference, one of kind not type. In essence, anti-religious bigotry differs from anti-ethnic bigotry because the former entails disagreement with belief and not personhood. Belief is assuredly not intrinsic to personhood and disagreement or downright animus on account of belief should not be considered bigotry. This point is further supported by the notion that minority beliefs within the context of a larger homogeneous belief system, such as the religion of Judaism within American Christian culture, reflect a group's reluctance to participate fully within said society. By denouncing Judaism as a religion or, equivalently, denouncing Jews solely for believing in Judaism, the perpetrator merely expresses his own belief that another person(s) is wrong, especially important considering the irreconcilable inconsistencies between the two religions. Surely such a decry would not warrant the "two minutes of hate" directed at individuals like Ann Coulter.
Despite this rather obvious distinction, the Abe Foxmans of the world still conflate genuine AS with religious AS, the genuine version defined as enmity towards a Jew solely on the basis of his genetic heritage. (I won't get into collective animus or the more benign and possibly justifiable collective exclusion here, so let's stick with "hating a Jew because he was born a Jew" in discussing actual AS.) The anti-Jew from a religious standpoint is markedly different from the often irrational and spit-spewing actual AS because the former depends on something that can change. Basically, the religious AS will usually welcome the converted Jew as the Jewish convert expresses an authentic respect for the majority's traditionalism.
With that said, and what was initially the main point of the post, I contend that the Spanish Inquisition should not be exclusively regarded as anti-semitic. In sum, the Spanish Inquisition was a concerted effort by Spanish and Church power to ensure that Jews did not seek to undermine Spanish and Christian culture. In general, Jews were given the freedom to accept Christianity and live almost as full citizens within Spain, an explicitly Spanish Spain that did not tolerate cultural apostasy. Evidence follows.
Thus after 1391 a new social group appeared and were referred to as conversos or New Christians. Many conversos, now freed from the antisemitic restrictions imposed on Jewish employment, attained important positions in 15th century Spain, including positions in the government and in the Church. Among many others, physicians Andrés Laguna and Francisco Lopez Villalobos (Ferdinand's court physician), writers Juan del Enzina, Juan de Mena, Diego de Valera and Alonso de Palencia, and bankers Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez (who financed the voyage of Christopher Columbus) were all conversos. Conversos - not without opposition - managed to attain high positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, at times becoming severe detractors of Judaism. Some even received titles of nobility, and as a result, during the following century some works attempted to demonstrate that virtually all of the nobles of Spain were descended from Israelites.
Note that these "new Christians" were afforded the privileges of ethnic Spaniards, with little opposition based on their genetic lineage.
The king and queen issued the Alhambra Decree less than three months after the surrender of Granada. In it, Jews were accused of trying "to subvert their holy Catholic faith and trying to draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs." These measures were not new in Europe.
Some Jews were even only given four months and ordered to convert to Christianity or leave the country. Under the edict, Jews were promised royal "protection and security" for the effective three-month window before the deadline. They were permitted to take their belongings with them – except "gold or silver or minted money".
Ethnically Jewish Christian converts became such an entrenched part of society that their genetic inheritance persists today (though the paper has been questioned):
In December 2008, a genetic study of the current population of the Iberian Peninsula, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, estimated that about 10% have North African ancestors and 20% have Sephardi Jews as ancestors.
While some argue the Spanish Inquisition showcases political and papal power run amok, one could aver that the Spanish ruling class simply grew tired of a disjointed society with large numbers of Jews and Muslims stubbornly opposed to assimilation. The Christian intentions of the Inquisition illustrates the religious nature of the pogroms. This religious focus invalidates characterization of the Inquisition as genuine, ethnically-based antisemitism in which an individual Jew can do absolutely nothing, excluding even passionate expression of national or cultural loyalty, to exonerate himself for a purported genetic sin.
Note 1: This is a nuanced argument regarding an always contentious subject. Please read it carefully before opining. It is obvious that I am downplaying only religious-based AS.
Note 2:I admit that this argument ignores some genuine ethnically-based antisemitism amongst the Spanish masses, but in general, as evinced by official decree and high intermarriage rates, this hostility was relatively rare
Note 3: It also goes without saying that I don't agree with killing people, for any reason.
Note 4: I purposefully focused my discussion on individual antisemitism and not group-related bigotry, e.g. "Jews started all the wars." This is another topic altogether and requires a different set of definitions, ideas, and historical background.
A Brooklyn "performance artist" has decided to turn her childbirth into an artistic spectacle. I've previously described performance art as " half-naked androgynous person convulsing on a stage lit from the back with bright neon lights, utters nonsense with words appearing behind him on a screen", but this takes it to another level. Surely in the same neighborhood as Susan Sarandon receiving the projectile vomit of a transsexual (true story).
Brooklyn, N.Y., performance artist Marni Kotak believes that “human life itself is the most profound work of art.” To that end, she has reenacted her grandfather’s funeral, the night she lost her virginity in the back seat of a blue Plymouth, and her childhood masturbation experiments with “plastic baggies full of hot water.”
On Saturday, she began a month-long performance and installation at Bushwick’s Microscope Gallery that will cap with “her most profound and physically challenging performance” yet — the arrival of her first child. But by turning a portion of a gallery into a birthing room — complete with a bed, birthing pool, shower and rocking chair — “The Birth of Baby X” seems particularly calculated to elicit attention. It’s one thing to lock yourself in a cage for a year; it’s another to reinvent something as profound and intimate as the arrival of a baby as an event for the wine-and-cheese crowd on their way to a Hold Steady gig.
Considering the class of individual perpetrating this event, one presumes blaming liberalism would suffice here. After all, despite the conspicuous attempts at garnering status and attention via "good" deeds like adopting black babies and protesting greedy banksters, the left really does only care about status and attention. Their unrestrained animus towards conservatives, Christians, whites, men, Europeans, capitalists, anyone who showers, women who dress demurely, men who like football and beer, and anyone else who disagrees with them belies their shallow expressions of sympathy and good will.
From the liberal perspective, people don't matter as much as causes and the corresponding status boosts and thus displays like this one make sense. Fittingly, a newborn baby enters the world as an artistic object validated by discerning onlookers and not the love of his family. Further, this notion that everything is art, even sacred life, reflects the deluded "enlightenment" of hippie-liberalism. These people think of themselves as so above the common man and his common emotions, that they seek to divorce themselves from the common man's mundane spirituality. And what better way to display this "nirvana" than through art, an increasingly ambiguous institution that dirty hippie and Upper West Side liberals use to exclude whoever can't convince themselves to "get it."
Even the Salon.com author criticizes her:
Kotak sure seems hopelessly naive and chillingly disconnected from her own child when she says that the focus of birth “provides for the most authentic performance art situation … And the ultimate creation of this life performance will be a living being!” Even more unnervingly, her gallery promises, “The exhibit also launches Kotak’s new conceptual work Raising Baby X in which she re-contextualizes the everyday act of raising a child into a work of performance art, reaching out to collectors, private investors and foundations for their support.” In other words, her yet unborn baby — the one with the generic brand name “X” — has already been drafted into service as part of her career.
Another "art" exhibit called Bodies: The Exhibition showcases the same almost unbelievable lack of respect for life. The exhibit is of mutilated dead bodies with their skin removed. I can't stomach looking through the webpage, but I believe they cut open the bodies and show the various muscles, ligaments, joints, bones, and brains in detail. They have some procedure whereby they make the bodies look like instructional graphics in a medical text. In some cases, it suffices to just comment that something is just plain vile, enough said.
[Note: I use the term "liberalism" throughout this post, but perhaps "hippie-liberalism" or "progressive faux-enlightenment" would be more appropriate as I can't imagine even most leftists would find these exhibits acceptable.]
Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops — and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.
“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.
“I had my Mac stolen — that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”
Crafty cat burglars sneaked into the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park overnight and swiped as much as $2,500 in donated greenbacks from right under the noses of volunteers who’d fallen asleep after a long day whipping up meals for the hundreds of hungry protesters, the volunteers said.
Liberalism works because none of its most fervent adherents actually practice it. Take the donated $2500 dollars - if the burglars, a cohort who liberals contend have been forced into such crime, need the money, then wouldn't it go to them anyway? Wouldn't the money eventually go to the individuals desperate enough to steal it and thus shouldn't the OWSers absolve the thieves of wrongdoing? And isn't property ultimately owned by "we, the 99%", with stealing merely an impolite manifestation of this ideal.
But we don't see any of this. The OWS protesters justifiably get angry over having their private property stolen - because it's their private property. And yet they have no problem with capping salaries, evidently leading to strangers benefiting from an individual's personal industry. They have no problem with denying other people the freedom to pursue material wealth, in essence, stealing from the productive before they even get a chance to spend their own money.
In the progression of this blog, I've sort of forgotten about capitalism, loosely defined as the freedom to advance oneself economically. I've focused more on racial and traditionalist issues, regarding economics as something that would just sort of work itself out. But the OWS protests have reminded me of the importance of capitalism as opposed to redistributionist policies. I don't necessarily view capitalism as the only pragmatically successful economic system. Instead I passionately support capitalism, the American Dream version not the one espoused by Gordon Gecko fanboys, because it's a moral defense of the individual and his personhood.
Some of the more controversial bloggers have compared alimony to rape, an excessive comparison but correctly grounded in the notion that capital derives from one's own moral being. Wealth redistribution rejects what we accomplish as individuals, implicitly believing that all work gets done by groups of equal partners. Yet, due to nature's genetic blessings and an individual's dedication, some people simply matter more. And it's through their blood, sweat, and tears that things get done. Capitalism celebrates the individual instead of stealing what he has rightfully earned.
It is this idea, that no one rightfully earns what they own, that underpins so much of modern liberalism and the OWS protests. While OWSers harp on bankster greed, their oblique concerns regarding concentrated wealth, capping salaries, and outright socialismevokes the notion that inequality results from purposeful malice and not natural circumstance. To sum it up, modern liberalism invalidates the successful via the championing of "privilege." If you read liberal sites, essentially any success is "blamed" on "privilege", with the most common being "white privilege" and "male privilege" and the almost satirical "able-bodied privilege", "traditionally attractive privilege" and "cis-gendered privilege". According to liberals, the productive and able get to their positions of power via birthright and unfair handouts, not hard work.
It makes sense then that OWS would gladly take away the money of the productive, presuming that their work could be completed by anyone if "privilege" would disappear. The earnings of an individual are always unfairly obtained due to societal injustices, with wealth redistribution a necessary way of correcting such wrongs. Liberals seek to impose uniformity in capital in order to reflect what they believe to be uniformity in ability and potential production.
On a few occasions, I've trolled leftist blogs just for kicks. Most reactionary conservatives who troll leftist blogs go there to debate the issues and spread some knowledge, maybe get their hands dirty in the twilight zone of today's liberalism. But I long ago found direct contact with a horde of liberals quite exhausting; in fact, it was a marathon forum argument (about eight months long) with a number of anti-white liberals that precipitated the genesis (genius) of OneSTDV. So I confine my arguments to discussion with the few liberals we get here - hello Dave .
When I comment on leftist blogs, I basically just call them racist, sexist, and whatever other -ist is appropriate. In one memorable instance, I criticized pro-gay liberal activists' transphobia due to their use of the acrynoym LGBT and not GLB(ISGD)Q. I also once told liberal atheists that their entire movement is founded upon white racism since no black people show up to their events and the fact that Western skepticism undermines indigenous spiritual culture. And I've argued that whites should minimize usage of the terms "father" and "mother" as de facto parental units because it's racist towards non-nuclear family blacks (this actually happened in my elementary school).
In general, this tactic provides plenty of fun and it reflects the gaping holes present in modern leftism. The modern left depends on a standard set primarily by emotional grievance. As such, their positions do not reflect objective value, but rather the capricious whims of a given "oppressed" individual. So an "intersex" woman can express indignation that even the pro-homo lobby does not speak to her needs and the ghetto black female can get angry when a white guy looks at her directly, citing his "mean-mugging" as a vestige of historical abuse. This makes their positions ripe for undermining, even at their own hand and not that of a mischievous interlocutor like myself.
For example, in a NYT-arranged meeting between a dirty OWS protestor and a venerable Wall Street broker, the OWS protestor discusses what he sees as wrong with America (1:26). While the protestor deals almost entirely in abstraction (in the vein of "our voices need to be heard", "equality", "doing what's right"), he does condemn America as a failing entity and, perhaps in a fleeting moment of candor, belies the globalist leftist rhetoric quite popular amongst his group:
A lot of us are here mostly because we see that our country is starting to fail and that it's being systematically turned into a third-world country by people who have no interest in it.
In other words, third-world countries full of black and brown people are shitholes with standards of living us Americans should never endure. While Mr. Dirty Hippie couches his rather explicit denigration of third-world countries in the context of anti-capitalist doctrine, he does basically admit that those other countries suck. Now imagine though if he had said that without the overall liberal context, as in, "Good god, we have to do something before America turns into one of those horrid third-world countries." One presumes though that most liberals will forgive his above slip-up because leftists care only for the political victory and not for any ideal in general.
This type of implicit condemnation of "underprivileged" countries appears in almost every single MSM piece on Africa and Latin America. We see the dilapidated homes, the wandering children, and the general squalor of their cities. With morose classical music in the background and a soft voiceover lamenting their struggles, the intent is to elicit our sympathy. We're supposed to think of our relative wealth and pity those that live without running water, indoor toilets, and extensive schooling. Yet isn't such a position a tacit admission that the West is simply better? That our way of life is better? That our country is better? And further, aren't we suggesting that the way we do things, defecating indoors or sending our kids to school as opposed to manual labor, is superior to how they do things?
It appears we pity them only because they do not live in accordance with the Western/white standard. In the context of anti-racism, such a smug position epitomizes the unconscious superiority of insular Westerners. Logically, the anti-racist should view crusading liberals who constantly bemoan third-world poverty, exclusive of initiatives for clean water and basic medicine, as expressing a self-righteous and paternalistic stance towards third-worlders. Who are we these racist Westerners to decry sleeping on dirt, eating dead relatives, and never showering? If third-worlders live happily in such fashion, then only a racist white person would condemn their traditions or try to change their native way of life. And note that the consistent anti-racist should consider racist any foreign aid for the purposes of disrupting traditional African and South American systems of governance.
So feel free to use that argument at whatever liberal site you frequent.
I've noted before that much of mainstream conservatism is reflexive in that the "Right" takes its cues from the left rather than a basic set of principles. In doing so, mainstream conservatives appear content to oppose whatever carping emanates from the left. Instead of championing an ideal independent of the left's increasingly inane doctrine, the "Right" listens to the left, flips over their positions, then espouses this anti-position in response.
This tactic allows the left to frame the political debate, rendering traditionalism essentially moot in that it exists only as an enervated opposition to modern leftism. Since modern leftism is a pliable set of principles that change not only in Congress but from blog post to blog post, conservatives find themselves without a foundation on which to stand.
A recent example comes from the frustratingly tiresome OWS protests which keeps harping on the 99% of us who apparently live in poverty due to the boogeymen capitalists. In response, RedState.org founder has launched "We are the 53%", referencing the percent of Americans who pay income tax. I like the idea, but unfortunately the site has devolved into a contest over who has endured the most hardship. A few recent entries:
I don't mean to criticize these people at all since they have my utmost admiration. I don't envy their suffering and I respect their resolve. We should surely applaud individuals like them.
But is this really the kind of America and, more importantly, a cultural norm we should strive for - one where success is only measured by relative rather than absolute ascension. Where we venerate only those that struggle, where we only admire the struggle instead of the comforts afforded by our responsible elders. I'd much rather see a "We are the 53%" filled with stories like this one (I'm making this up):
I'm an average, middle-class white guy who grew up in an idyllic small town. My parents have been married for 30 years and supported my siblings and I as best they could. They both worked hard, but they had plenty of time to spend with their children, family, and friends. My parents helped me through college after saving up for many years, a gift I am thankful for because I was able to pursue a challenging major and have enough free time to enjoy my life. Due to the positive influences of my parents and my small-town values, I have never suffered from alcoholism, drug use, domestic abuse, or any other modern pathology. I now work one job for a good wage and I'm excited about my career advancement, especially since I just got married and plan to start a family now since I have little debt at age 28. I am the 53%.
In reading these "We are the 53%" stories, the long-running MTV reality series The Real World comes to mind. The show began as a novel social experiment far before reality TV exploded. The show took seven regular people with slightly eccentric personalities and put them together to see what would happen. But it has devolved in recent years, now exclusively showcasing incredibly dysfunctional individuals, all while maintaining the notion that these people comprise "the real world." Unfortunately, my hypothetical friend above would never get onto the show and thus an important pop culture institution (show has been on for 20 years) presents rampant dysfunction as "real". For example, last year's show in Las Vegas had the following people: teenage drug dealer with severe alcoholism, gay porn star, bicurious sorority whore has brother with brain cancer and a history of alcoholism, ghetto black guy adopted by white parents at age ten after mother became drug addict, parents heavily involved in drugs and served jail time left him basically orphaned throughout childhood, spicy, bicurious Latina who didn't know her real father, and slutty biracial Latina from the Bronx. The most recent season, taking place in San Diego, includes a biracial girl who grew up in Zimbabwe, alcoholic bisexual whose parents disowned him, manwhore alcoholic, Mexican daughter of illegal immigrants with breast implants, and borderline transexual lesbian who performs in drag. Usually, there's at least one cast member who has been sexually abused or involved in a domestic abuse relationship.
In sum, while overcoming obstacles makes for good dinner conversation and a social badge of honor, we should strive to erect a social, cultural, economic, and political construct in which these types of struggle are uncommon. Thus, conservatives should not brag about their own wherewithal while offering an implicit condemnation of our society's failings. Instead they should offer an alternative system, built upon positivity not chest-thumping triumphalism, that supports our families and communities.
Here's a graphic showing the distinct media narratives of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the Tea Party:
In sum, OWS is primarily hipster/hippie/SWPL liberals pontificating on shite like "equality", "greed", and..good god they're just so damn boring. I really haven't followed OWS too closely because it's frustratingly predictable - entitled young people agitating for free money by blaming boogeymen. The "poverty" in which these individuals find themselves, defined as not owning a plasma TV I presume, is largely self-induced; no one forced them to get a degree in Useless Studies or have a child out of wedlock. And one can't exactly attack nature's parsimony in handing out genetic gifts.
Obviously, I could never get behind such a movement, even if I share OWS' disdain for corporatism and crony capitalism. My more informed nationalism has overtaken any sympathy I once felt for multinational corporations, an opposition based more in patriotic loyalty than a reflection of my spiritual/political "enlightenment." Basically, I see corporatism as an extension of globalism, not as a scheme to steal from the poor. Yet this common belief alone would not motivate support for people who would gladly take my hard-earned money due to my "privilege", as one presumes OWS view the 1% as merely the tip of the iceberg.
But is there some reason for the alt-right to sort of get behind this movement anyway? After all, let's see what OWS' main enemies are saying. Warren Buffet's son:
Howard Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. director and son of Chairman Warren Buffett, said Wall Street protesters were provoked by abuses from corporations amid a widening disparity between rich and poor.
"I think it takes that to make things happen sometimes," Howard Buffett, 56, said of the demonstrations in an interview yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa. Over the past 15 years, "we saw large corporations really screw people."
But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.
In 2010, the securities folks on Wall Street gave $32 million to political candidates -- and that was before the Supreme Court removed the ban on corporate campaign contributions in politics. More than 60% went to Democrats. And in 2008, Barack Obama's presidential campaign received almost $15 million from the finance industry. Nearly $1 million of it came from Goldman Sachs employees -- making the company Obama's second-largest source of donations. The only entity that gave more: the University of California.
Among Wall Streeters who do vote Republican, they tend to align with Bush or McCain on economic issues, and Obama on issues like race and the environment and most especially abortion and other religious issues. They’re not Tom Tancredo or Ron Paul supporters. They don’t care about affirmative action because it doesn’t hurt them in the slightest. Affirmative action is a problem for white proles. They don’t care about immigration, they aren’t competing against them—immigration means cheaper maids and nannies, and whenever they go on vacation it’s to some foreign country where they meet foreigners who are a lot more of their type of people than domestic white proles.
So if Wall Street is full of economic conservatives who think like SWPLs, decry American nationalism, and look down upon American traditionalists, then why should we defend them?
Maybe we should give these Wall Street liberals what they ask for - take away their money and their comfort. Allow them a real connection with the economic populists they support in word, but not action. Let them show real dedication to the plight of the poor - by joining them. Let them express their sympathy by enduring the same struggle as opposed to merely making ultimately vacuous statements.
Of course, the displayed sympathy is a means to mollify direct rage and to increase their social status in modern liberal America. They like their money, but fear going Gekko as admitting it wouldn't be good for business. I agree, but maybe someone should call their bluff. And while OWS' intentions are sincere, if they get their way, that bluff will be called. Then we'll see how quickly liberal status mongering, even amongst the rapacious elite, gives way to maintaining personal benefit.
He was decked out in what looked like Italian shoes, a fitted metallic gray suit, red socks, vest, blood red tie with some sort of iridescent pattern, and big tortoise shell designer sunglasses. He sported a very minor fauxhawk, and was well-tanned. He was a skinny white guy, average height. He smiled like he knew he was the go-to guy at that party. I could have sworn he had a gold cap on one of his miserable teeth.
Since Roissy runs a Game blog, he concentrates on dress within the context of pickup situations or explicitly social environments. Obviously, appropriate dress varies from place to place and with regards to an individual's intentions, e.g. impressing a boss vs. hanging out with friends. Clothes no doubt matter. We live in a shallow world. Or perhaps, more directly, we are a shallow species often content to judge individuals merely on the physical, a trait rationally derived from our evolutionary past. So dress does impact basically all aspects of life, cultural, social, professional, and sexual. It's an important way that we relay information about ourselves; though clothes do not make the man, an aphorism implying that facial features and body type can only be obscured so much.
Since this blog deals with conservatism, it's also important to understand the regression of dress and how clothes define different political and social groups in our time. Too big of a topic here, so I'll leave that for the comments.
Today's questions: How should a conservative (both male and female) dress? How important is clothing in motivating social trends? How do you personally dress? Any anecdotes about how dressing a certain way affected you? Go through any bad phases in dressing? What do you think of guys who look like tools, but their way of dressing gets them positive attention? How do you react to women who dress slutty or demure and men who dress overly casual/slovenly/in suits? Do you judge others on how they dress?
[I know that I dress poorly in my free time. I rarely ever wear anything except jeans with a hoodie, polo shirt, or wife beater. I've become too comfortable in those clothes, so I don't feel like changing.]
Awhile back, we had a discussion over the "It" factor. In that post I profiled Tiffany Alvord, a cute (very cute) singer/musician with a YouTube following of over half million fans. I described her as "very cute, wholesome, and talented, a lovely girl with an obvious ability to sing and play music," but I predicted little commercial success because she lacks the "It" factor. What exactly is "It"? Some view it as charisma, sex appeal, or just plain likeability. In the end though, the amorphous nature of this trait reflects why "It" remains the term of use and much like porn, we can't define it, but we know it when we see it.
In my gut, I don't think Ms. Alvord has "It", with that characterization neither a knock on her personality nor his musicianship. Instead, that negative appraisal reflects how I foresee Alvord failing to connect to an audience, as the people ultimately adjudicate on "It" by supporting certain artists.
In the original post, I cited early Britney, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift as examples of having "It." Obviously, "It" spans a wide array of the cultural spectrum and one can express "It" in all sorts of different ways. Since I never did provide a good illustration of "It", let me give you one now to explain what I'm thinking. Taylor Swift recently put out a video for her song "Sparks Fly" showing her in concert in front of an adoring fanbase. The entire video is a testament to Ms. Swift's "It" factor, her playful facial expressions, the way she moves her body, raises her arms, and walks around the stage. This one little girl in a crowd of thousands commands the entire stadium's attention.
But there's a particular moment that just about encompasses "It" as perfectly as one image or moment can. The sequence starts at 0:39 (the embedded video starts right before) with Ms. Swift finishing a line by delicately pointing her hand outwards. She then smirks, looks up to the side, and then opens her smile wider. It's a subtle moment, but it's the hallmark of a woman in command, of a woman who has the audience enthralled, who knows how to showcase her undeniable "It."
In general, one discusses "It" in the context of celebrity, yet the concept surely expands to essentially every aspect of life, from the political arena, to the sports arena and the boardroom. Basically all of our social leaders possess "It", a means of making their subordinates follow and trust them. Every social environment inevitably reduces to leaders and followers, with those "It" persons rising to the top often independent of merit. In essence, "It" not only dictates who rules society, but also how society progresses, the ebbs and flows of revolution and tradition hinging on what charismatic figures champion certain ideas.
A quick thought to finish. While we can leave "It" as nothing more than a gut feeling likely derived from our evolutionary past, one can pinpoint a few underlying characteristics. Primarily I'm thinking of physical attributes, perhaps the most basic way in which we classify others. In sum, it appears that beautiful women and tall men possess "It" the most. Think pop stars and Presidents for evidence of that. Women want dominant men leading, with height the most obvious reflection of that personality trait. And men are often mesmerized (maybe even hypnotized) by the lures of a nubile woman, a response many would describe as a nebulous "It".
