What we’re up against in today’s woke activism
This is long, and I don’t usually watch long videos. Nor have I completely finished watching this one – not yet. But I’ve watched (or listened to; you can do the latter while doing some other task that doesn’t require full attention) much of it and I’m highly impressed. “Wokal Distance” manages to sum up the philosophical underpinnings of what’s going on today in a manner that’s fluent, clear, and understandable.
At around minute 42:30, he talks about methods of fighting it. But the whole thing is worth listening to:
And this is interesting as well [emphasis mine]:
Once reified, postmodern abstractions about the world are treated as though they are real things, and accorded the status of empirical truth. Contemporary social justice activism thus sees theory as reality, as though it were gravity or cell division or the atomic structure of uranium.
The correspondence theory of truth holds that objective truth exists and we can learn something about it through evidence and reason. That is, things are knowable and we gain reliable information about them when our beliefs align with reality. It’s termed “the correspondence theory of truth” because a statement is considered true when it corresponds with reality and false when it doesn’t. Reality, of course, is the thing that does not change regardless of what you believe.
While advanced civilisations going back to classical antiquity employed this reasoning in selected areas (Ancient Rome to civil engineering and law, for example, or Medieval China to public administration), it’s only since the Enlightenment that it’s been applied consistently to nearly everything, at least in developed countries. It forms the foundation of modern scientific and administrative progress and accounts in large part for the safety and material comfort we now enjoy.
Reified “Theory” is no more and no less than a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. There are no universal truths and no objective reality, only narratives expressed in discourses and language that reflect one group’s power over another. Science has no claim on objectivity, because science itself is a cultural construct, created out of power differentials, and ordered by straight white males. There are no arguments, merely identity showdowns; the most oppressed always wins.
And, because language makes the world, attempts by scholars in other disciplines and from across the political spectrum to do what I did and falsify Theory’s empirical claims are met not with reasoned debate but an accusation that those individuals are harming the oppressed or silencing the marginalised, because all someone higher up the hierarchical food chain is supposed to do when confronted by someone lower down is listen. That’s the point of telling people to “check their privilege” before they open their mouths.
Pluckrose and Lindsay make a compelling argument that this is a religion, and not in the glib, observational sense that its adherents are taking knees, engaging in call-and-response, or washing each other’s feet. Rather, contemporary social justice asks us to believe things that aren’t proven in the same way that “Muhammad ascended to heaven from the battlements of Jerusalem on a winged horse” or “Christ rose from the dead on the third day” aren’t proven.
We live in two competing worlds. We’re not just watching two different movies (a phrase you often hear). We actually disagree about what “watching” and “two” and “different” and “movies” are.
Another way to look at it is that it’s a war between content and process. The post-modernists are about process, with content being whatever they say it is. And the process has to do with power as they see and define it, who has it and who doesn’t, and who ought to have it. They think they should have it, and then they will determine the content, which does not exist as an independent truth.
[ADDENDUM: A relevant announcement by Trump.]
Of course, “check your privilege” means shut up and take it. “Speech is violence” and “silence is violence” are similar. They are the mantras in the Church of the Great Awokening.
It is a harsh church, with penance required for most and expulsions aplenty. Microaggressions are whatever they say they are.
Many adherents remind me of the Dufflepuds from the C.S. Lewis book, “Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Whatever the leader said, even if it contradicted what he just said, they immediately agreed with him enthusiastically. And much of what the leader said was plain nonsense.
Unfortunately, true believers are abundant and since they rely nearly totally on feelings, difficult to reprogram.
I will definitely take the time to watch. Just the snippet you provided as a quote really gets to the foundations. There is an a huge epistemic chasm between the “Woke” and everyone else (be they conservative, liberal or old school progressive) that I don’t think most people realize. The former is deeply grounded in postmodernism (Foucault, in particular) whereby all arguments, all “facts”, everything is about competing narratives, and the power structures behind them. This is why it is often fruitless to debate the Woke SJWs. There is nothing, nothing at all, that one can offer in response to their platitudes and proclamations: debate itself (along with objectivity, truth, facts, etc.) are all part of an oppressive narrative. Even slightly questioning the Woke narrative is an act of violence and oppression, no matter how well reasoned or politely presented it might be.
This is what we’re up against. It is most definitely a religion, albeit a godless and (in my opinion) perverse one. I am looking forward to the section on methods to fight it; it seems an unbelievably difficult task.
Ackler:
The video is good, but the quote is from the linked article, which is by someone else. They deal with similar issues.
@Ackler
The thing about a War of Religion is that once it really kicks off you don’t get to change your terms and definitions on the fly to suit yourself *and* have the other side play along with you.
So I’m not convinced that the Legions of the Woke will stand much chance against regular Flyover Humans living their lives in Base Reality.
Could be wrong of course… but then Base Reality itself will do the deed for us if the Woke win.
They can’t win for more than a few decades at most as Wokeness cannot sustain a technological civilization it didn’t build or contribute to. Tragic for all the innocents who will not survive the collapse. Being a simple unsophisticated person, seems to me that the best option would be to string up the Woke today to keep Doctor Pangloss relevant.
TL:DR: Regardless my bloviations, there is no debating with these people. Fire and Sword.
Ah, gotcha. Thank you for the clarification
Years ago I read a book on the psychological origins of political correctness and the author pointed out that the PC deny realty and live in fantasy land. He also stated that PC is the result of a failure of psychological development so while the PC may chronological be adults’, menially they are still children. They are stuck in adolescence.
“Contemporary social justice activism thus sees theory as reality”
Which makes it unsustainable, as reality always has the final and definitive word.
“Reified “Theory” is no more and no less than a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. There are no universal truths and no objective reality, only narratives expressed in discourses and language that reflect one group’s power over another. Science has no claim on objectivity, because science itself is a cultural construct, created out of power differentials, and ordered by straight white males. There are no arguments, merely identity showdowns; the most oppressed always wins.”
I challenge advocates of “Reified Theory”, who claim there to be no such thing as objective truth… to jump off a 10 story building clothed only in pajamas. If sincere, they should have no objection to doing so, as gravity can’t exist if there is no objective truth.
Nor is science a “cultural construct”; 2+2 = 4 is true across all cultures. The atomic makeup of hydrogen is not a cultural construct. Nor is demonstrable independent confirmation a cultural construct.
But defining science as a cultural construct is an obvious means to acquiring power.
If the ‘oppressed’ always wins, then inevitably and inescapably, at some point, the ‘oppressed’ become the ‘oppressors’. The ‘theory’ is cyclic, unsustainable and ensures an ongoing cycle of violent revolution. Perhaps, that’s the point…
“contemporary social justice asks us to believe things that aren’t proven in the same way that “Muhammad ascended to heaven from the battlements of Jerusalem on a winged horse” or “Christ rose from the dead on the third day” aren’t proven.”
Muhammad never visited Jerusalem. So he couldn’t have ascended from it. And there were no witnesses but then, lying is an approved tenet in Islam.
Whereas, there were numerous witnesses to Christ’s death upon the cross who reportedly, then appeared and conversed with many of his followers after his death. Were they all liars or delusional? Was “doubting” Thomas’ refusal to believe his own eyes and ears until he’d touched Christ’s wounds a lie? Plus, “bearing false witness” is a ‘mortal’ sin in Judeo/Christian theology, it places the believer’s soul in grave jeopardy. Would believers knowingly place their souls in grave jeopardy to advance a lie that they ‘knew’ they’d be held accountable for in the afterlife?
Relevant article about parallels with immediate pre-revolutionary Russia.
H/T: David Warren
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/suicide-of-the-liberals
“There is nothing, nothing at all, that one can offer in response to their platitudes and proclamations: debate itself (along with objectivity, truth, facts, etc.) are all part of an oppressive narrative. Even slightly questioning the Woke narrative is an act of violence and oppression, no matter how well reasoned or politely presented it might be.” Ackler
If disagreement, “no matter how well reasoned or politely presented it might be” is an “act of violence and oppression” then “Fire and Sword” is the inescapable result. The only question then becomes to whom shall the sword be applied, when the ‘woke’ apply the fire? Actions have consequences and we reap what we sow. The Left is committed to a suicidal path. Only their failure to achieve their agenda can save them from the fate they court.
Zaphod,
An outstandingly informative and highly relevant historical connection to today’s American left.
An excellent find, Neo. Relatedly, how did in only a few months did BLM squander is favourable refutation into a post-St. George (Floyd) loss?
In David Cole’s “BLMs Hitlerian Heart,” we find a compelling, door-stopping and easily communicated critique: BLM is evil much like the Nazi’s because it offers not co-existence nor forgiveness nor “progress” or even amelioration. It’s final solution is destruction — elimination of the white race.
Here’s a few key grafts — read it all:
https://www.takimag.com/article/blms-hitlerian-heart/
Death to Western Civilisation which begat racism! Beyond the fact that the claim is false, blaming (or crediting) white people is also false. As Charles Murray proves in “Human Accomplishment” — but does not state outright, Western Civs unequalled achievement is the result of a distinct minority of caucasians.
Apropos of Trump’s announcement today: A historical reminder– Today (9/17) is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the day in 1787 that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia signed our founding document.
Three years ago DJT issued a proclamation not only designating September 17 as Constitution Day but the entire week following as Constitution Week. The proclamation includes a description of the present threats to the Constitution:
My solemn promise as President is to return power to the American People: to the workers and the warriors who made this Nation great and will make it great again. Restoring this founding principle of accountability requires us to once again respect the structural safeguards of our great Constitution. The Framers of our Constitution sought to preserve liberty by separating government power. In our constitutional system, the Congress is charged with authoring and amending the laws, in accordance with its beliefs about what will benefit our country. The President’s duty is to execute those laws and protect the Nation, consistent with the Constitution. And the Judiciary’s role is to faithfully apply the Constitution and the laws to resolve specific cases and controversies. Modern government, however, has rebelled against the constraints inherent in these defined roles, abandoning that original design in favor of a centralized system of out-of-control agencies that claim independence from elected leaders and demand deference from the courts.
On this day and during this week, I call on all citizens and all branches of government to reflect on the original meaning of our Constitution, and to recall the founding principles we too frequently forget: Our government exists to preserve freedom and to serve its citizens. We are accountable to the People. And the public deserves clear, intelligible laws that are enacted through an open, Constitutional process.
The full proclamation can be read here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/president-donald-j-trump-proclaims-september-17-2017-constitution-day-citizenship-day-september-17-2017-september-23-2017-constitution-week/
Geofrey…as disheartening as it is to acknowledge…I do believe you are right.
Zaphod…as with Geofrey’s comment….I am forced to admit you are likely right. It is a disheartening reality to confront. But, confront it we must.
Reality, of course, is the thing that does not change regardless of what you believe.
I don’t know who’s paraphrasing whom, but:
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” — Philip K. Dick
The root belief of postmodernism is that you can’t know what is really “out there”—the noumena…what is really out there in the real world…the objective world—because all our knowledge is coming in through our sense organs and these can notoriously fool us and do so all the time as they filter incoming information by admixing myriad neural chatter from all over the central and peripheral nervous system: your hopes and dreams and fear and hunger and sex and pain and sleep…ad infinitum. Thus there is no way to ever get at the real truth. We are always dealing with subjective information. Accordingly information is always filtered and admixed with endogenous neural activity and thus is always beyond our grasp. Read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
I believe there are ways to defeat this argument and that we can tell whether we are brains in a vat. We need to re-argue this. It has screwed with the wonderful tools of the Enlightenment long enough.
Dnaxy — Karl Popper’s comprehensive or pan-critical rationalism (CCR) is a door-stopper to the neo-Pyrronian skepticism of the PoMo’s.
Outside of the US, Popper — who died during the 1990s as the greatest philosopher of science of the 20th century — is the most popular philosopher of science in the English speaking world. But not in the US, where PoMo gained its greatest influence and success.
Coincidence? I highly doubt it. In the US, Popper’s arguments defending the fruits of the Enlightenment are simply ignored and neglected or, via David Stove, egregiously misunderstood.
Popper’s basic contention is that we don’t need justified a True Belief to ground knowledge claims, as tradition augers. Instead, we can use counter-factual, logic and empirical testing to critically select the superior of competing knowledge claims. Or, in other words, one can debate and decide between inferior and superior explanations. Which is why astronomy and psychology replaced astrology, for example, except as a cult novelty.
The ultimate value of CCR is to account for revisions of knowledge and the growth of knowledge in general — not some abstraction like natural science — something essential to having any realistic and compelling account of knowledge. (Popper trained as a teacher and his doctorate at the University of Vienna was in applied psychology. Only at LSE was he made professor of logic and scientific method.)
The paradigmatic text on philosophy of science is by his student, trained in physics, Alan Chalmers of the University of Sydney, and his brief book “What is This Thing Called Science?” Other even shorter introductions are “On Popper” by Mark Notturno (a funded social friend of George Soros, also a Popper student; but Notturno publicly dissented from Soros’ socialism in The Spectator [US?], a few years ago.)
Chalmer’s student Rafe Champion has polished and published short, lucid intros to Popper’s ideas available at Amazon. But Champion’s unpolished versions of these are highly recommended: search his name and “the Rathouse” online to enjoy for free. (Rathouse means both City Hall and a bier stubbe — or drinking hall — in German, Rafe Champion’s hat tip to Popper’s Viennese origins.)
Popper admitted that his ideas were not originally his own. For example, the early Pragmatist, Charles Pierce (“Purse”) is frequently credited.
I myself have wanted to find out if Pierce was not anticipated by an even earlier debate in science and philosophy.
For example, I have hoped to explore the impact of the early sea-faring captains of the Great Age of Exploration — where maps were used and revised and extended after Columbus, Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, etc — on debates over science between Baruch Spinoza and Sir Francis Bacon and their followers.
The critical testing of exploration, testing and falsifying pioneering attempts to define the landforms of the earth, seems to me to be ripe for better understanding, alone Popperian lines.
Alternatively, perhaps the abstract debate of this hugely consequential practical dimension eluded the best thinkers of that time, the early Enlightenment era? If so, then, the Spinoza-Bacon debates on science might resemble the findings of Galileo instead of Newton: the first described inertia — yet failed to make the abstract leap to the Law of Gravity the latter did.
On the one hand, I proposed this scholarly research plan to a first-rate historian of exploration from Jefferson’s Lewis and Clark and the US West, who held a prestigious yearly summer-time post at Oxford University. He was not supportive. On the other hand, the great and prolific champion of the radical Enlightenment and Spinoza, Jonathan Israel (who once headed up the Dutch Golden Age MA program at University College London), I still have not approached.
Nevertheless, Popper’s thesis about knowledge and the growth of knowledge is refined common sense, like science itself. Anticipations and progenitors of our civilization’s best ideas are therefore important. And sometimes a worthy endeavour goes still-born.
Zaphod argues that even if the “Woke” win, that they won’t last long in power, because they won’t be able to deliver prosperity.
I emphatically disagree with him. I would remind him that that the Marxists have remained in power in an impoverished Cuba for over 60 years now. I would point out that they are still in power in Venezuela long after they destroyed the Venezuelan oil industry and produced famine in a country that was the richest in Latin America.
The empoverishment of the population, for the Marxists, is not a bug, but a feature. Poor people who are dependent upon the government for handouts are subservient and compliant. Whereas, independent and prosperous people tend to think for themselves and resist tyranny.
Make no mistake. If the Marxists win in America, they could well be entrenched in power for the rest of your natural lives.
“Reified “Theory” is no more and no less than a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. There are no universal truths and no objective reality, only narratives expressed in discourses and language that reflect one group’s power over another.” [Helen Dale as quoted by Neo above]
This is what socialism/communism (and utopianism in general) has always been about: the imposition of a theory on reality. As Thomas Sowell said, socialism is a great idea but a lousy reality, and as Yogi Berra reputedly said, in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is. If two such disparate personalities can see that same distinction, what does it tell us about people who can’t?
*yawn*
[Insert “The Gods Must Be Crazy” here]
{Insert “The Lord of the Flies” here]
dnaxy & TJ: great comments on post modernism and Popper. I ended up with two thoughts:
1) our knowledge thus asymptotically approaches reality, analogous to the stochastic nature of atomic particles – we know statistically where they are but not exactly.
2) joke in engineering school: an attractive women is at one end of a long hallway; a male engineer and a male physicist are at the other end; the rule is they can advance towards the women via steps that cover half the distance between them. The physicist walks away, understanding that mathematically he will never get to “there” even after a million or infinite number of steps. The engineer steps right out because he knows/ perceives he can get “close enough for all practical purposes”.
The woke believe all those blacks are in prison because of racism, not because those blacks committed crimes.
https://www.theroot.com/a-judge-asked-harvard-to-find-out-why-so-many-black-peo-1845017462
Some good comments.
@ Dnaxy. Yes Kant’s solution has notoriously become the problem. Or, the paradigmatic example of “The Problem” of the perceiving and acting subject’s being assumed to be inescapably enclosed in a framework, be it physical, or linguistic, or cultural which negatively conditions absolutely, forevermore, and per the stipulation, ‘ inescapably’, the possibilities of acquiring ‘real’ knowledge (misconceived of as a god’s eye view of reality).
It’s funny how from beneath the weight of this assumption ooze out various divergent philosophies, which no matter how much they seemingly differ, be they Marxism (with its anti-metaphysical metaphysics) or Rortarian liberal ironic pragmatism, or some ubermench master morality ideal, all share the same underlying epistemic fatalism and resignation.
‘You may become a god, and devour and incorporate into yourself all that you encounter, but you will remain forever entrapped within a perceptual and cosmic shell you are incapable of really understanding much less transcending. So, Enjoy! Kill! Share! Copulate! Build! Destroy! Glory! Mutate! It Matters! It Doesn’t Matter! It matters BECAUSE it doesn’t matter …. ”
Like rivulets of blood squashed out in opposing directions, these philosophies, because of their origin as the result of an intellectual catastrophy – which ultimately traces to an assumed negative answer to question of the intelligibility of reality as a whole – all eventually circle around the same drain.
Thus, witness all the moral insanity and eventually nihilism that flows from the assumption that you cannot in principle know reality.
Thus, as Wokal Distance observes, their resulting ethics floats free of any ultimate conceptual relations. There are assumed to be none; or none that can be known, or none which can effetively impinge on life as lived.
I will have to carefully watch the second half of tbe interview to see if he further addresses how these “ethics” are moored.
I will be interested to see if he addresses the the “Woke” crew’s own analysis of the ontological and moral status of these free floating ethics ( and their implicit claims) given the fundamentally radical nominalism and category dissolving nature of post modernism. What is the objective category within which the system of ethics is supposed to obtain? Apparently, so far as I have watched, the category field in which these rules are supposed to operate, is an ad hoc class structure composed of those (” those” being an undefined and perhaps undefinable pronoun) power possessing on the one hand, and the power deficient (somethings) on the other. But a power deficient, what?
“It” , whatever it is in a radically self-defining and fundamentally chaotic reality – where as Rorty asserts, ‘ chance is a worthy master’ – possesses exactly what ethical status within a field of other radically self-defining and per definition therefore, essentially other, beings?
No wonder that thus far into the interview he predicts that the woke answer to that end-game problem within the woke millenium resolves down to either nihilistic tyranny, or the self-cannibalism of the revolutionaries.
In fact though, you cannot properly call it cannibalism, given their fundamental assumptions.
All the pseudo-religious political, socio-economic philosophies, by some miracle of miracles, if implemented , all boil down to loss of individual liberties and the imposition of a totalitarian government, that, if history is any guide, will result in a several hundred brand new gulags and the extermination of millions of “enemies of the state,” and other untermensch.
No point in really in trying to understand what motivates the adherents of wokeness, Nazism, communism, ANTIFA’ism, BLM’ism, etc. , because any sentient carbon based life form realizes what their end goals are.
No point in even trying to discuss what are the logical inconsistencies of these political socio-economic theologies because their adherents are immune to – or more likely do not care – about what non-adherents have to say, irrespective of the logical elegance of any arguments pointing out the deficiencies in their beliefs.
You cannot argue or debate a pseudo-religious belief system!!
It’s like arguing for/against the existence of God; one either believes or does not.
If you do not agree with these sorts of folks, you WILL be liquidated. They do not give a sheet about your well thought out and rationale debate points.
If it ever comes to pass that woke types and their acolytes ever come close to attaining power, the only solution is to remove them, existentially, from the living.
Because if they are not extinguished, all of us will be.
You can count on that.
All the pseudo-religious political, socio-economic philosophies, by some miracle of miracles, if implemented , all boil down to loss of individual liberties and the imposition of a totalitarian government,
And so pragmatism must rule the day. It’s interesting to try to trace the family tree of these ideas – and useful, too, if it helps us fight them and avoid the same errors in future – but aside from these utilitarian considerations, it doesn’t really matter whether we’re talking about BLM or trans activism or straight-up Marxism or “democratic socialism.” We can all see to the end of the road and we can all recognize that we’d better turn off before we get there.
I liked his suggestions for how to approach awakening the Woke. For instance – I’m kind of hoping I get the chance to answer the charge of, “That’s a racist dog whistle!” with my own, “So you’re saying you hate black people? After all, if you are able to assign whatever meaning you’ve come up with in your own head to the things I say and do in spite of my intentions and in spite of what we all used to think of as mutually agreed-upon meanings of words and actions, I surely have the same ability. Or if not, why not? Ah – your ‘lived experience.’ How is that different from experience? And if your perception of reality doesn’t agree with the reality that everyone around you is perceiving, and that mechanical instruments and computational devices are recording, why do you believe your perception is accurate? Is it really easier for you to believe that you are the only one who sees The Truth, and that ‘systemic racism’ [for instance] causes computers to generate racist statistics from verifiable facts? Is that really easier for you?”
Jeff Goldstein at the old Protein Wisdom used to talk about intentionalism a lot. I wonder if he’s still around…
Roy Nathanson
Good point.
Recall Salvador Allende, another Latin American Marxist. How the narrative was that the “democratically elected” Allende was a true democrat, scrupulously following the letter and the spirit of Chilean laws and the Constitution. Turns out the “true democrat,” just like other Marxists in power, had the ultimate goal of a one-party state. From journalist Georgie Ann Geyer’s autobiography, Buying the Night Flight. . [ page 97]
How many true democrats think a one-party state will be good for a country? Not many.
This is neither the time nor place for an extended discussion on the Chile’s coup of September 11,
1973. For a short introduction, I recommend José Piñera. Articles
I put “democratically elected” in quotes because that was the mantra defending Allened elcted by 36 percent.
If America is lost to Harris/Biden and the DNC, it is gone forever. FOREVER.
Gnosticism is an ancient heresy fought by the Church since the beginnings of Christianity. Loosely defined, goodness, for the Gnostic, is in the spirit, the mind; evil is in the flesh, in material things. You cannot really sin with your body, only with your mind by harboring the wrong thoughts. Those who are enlightened with this knowledge of the spirit, which is the Good (and is not physical), have a duty to purge the world of everything corrupted by those lesser people who don’t have this enlightened understanding of humanity and history.
Once you determine that you cannot sin with your body, all kinds of abuse are possible. Joseph Stalin, for instance, had likely raped a woman and killed a man when he was quite young. He became utterly convinced of his righteousness as the true warrior of Communism, and he showed no mercy to friends, family, or foes. Jeffrey Epstein may have had his own form of Gnosticism. Nazism, likewise, is a perverted Gnostic religion for the supposed purification of the German race at the expense of everyone else. The committed Nazi could convince himself that the German people were only a few executions away from paradise.
Yes, this definition of Gnosticism is very broad, but the results of people denying the sinful power of their physical humanity are death and destruction. The philosophies of today’s Left are just as Gnostic as those of years past; this is ironic for those, i.e. Marxists, who call themselves materialists.
James,
IMO you vastly oversimplicize Gnosticism. If “goodness is in the spirit, the mind” as you put it, what is in charge of the body and its actions? The body is not a Satanic automaton. Lips confess sins but do not act on their own, do not originate the thought of confession and redemption!
I disagree with your examples, in which you lump Stalin, Epstein and Nazis into the same “Gnostic” boat.
Try: Evil is evil.
I think you are sitting in the wrong pew.
R2L:
Love that joke.
Oh gimme a break. There is nothing to understand about the ‘woke’. It’s not deeper than the surface, they are surface feeders, similar to Koi
parker:
That’s a surface response.
For some, you are correct, and those are the people most amenable to change. For others, there are philosophical assumptions at work and they are meaningful (although faulty IMHO) – and powerful, when taught to the young. And they are being taught to the young.
parker:
Actually,come to think of it, see this.
Some posts and threads by neo are comments on the passing scene (one hopes); others are deeper, and of more lasting significance, like the sad Flynn saga and the rule or rather misrule of the Deep State.
This one is rarer still, where commentary exceeds the high level lead content by sustained dialogs: sober, stoic, insightful, with unsparing and courageous fatalism. Yogi Berra and R2Ls engineering joke? Yeah.
You people are rare delights! Thank you all for sharing with us, here. Thanks you.
See the Real World consequences of ideas? From the past summer? The estimated property loss from riots in 142 cities is 1 or 2 billion dollars, making the Antifa/BLM/Floyd George riots and arson more costly than the South LA race riots of around 30 years ago. Thus, becoming the most expensive ever.
As I write, the lead story on FNCs Martha MacCallum (?) show mentions that in Minneapolis, murder is up 90%, arson up 80%. Roughly doubling down on metrics of decline.
Yet the far left City Council there is in complete denial of the physical and social decline of the city into the new Detroit.
Ideas discussed here have real world consequences seen there, in Portland, in New York City.
Trump in Bemidji, Minn., directly confronts the Donkey in the state: immigration and the Somali Marxist from my home Congressional District, Ileana Omar. And then segues into the Protest against stupidity that is their rally, and the DFLs virus crisis tyranny and hypocrisy. Good time, good times!
Because the President states the Emersonian Rude Truths of our Time. Sarcasm on the “take this crap” vacillating virus control rules. He cannot help but be the honest voice of outrage. Retaining self-control, insight, and policy criticism, while mincing Sleepy Joe.
Good times, good times. Living in The Truth, riffing like only Trump can. The Manhattan builder turned TV entertainer turned heroic politician.
And Minneapolis still wants to abolish the police? He asks. Yes, replies the crowd. “These are Democrat controlled disasters,” he says. Only in America. Only in our time.
“We love Trump! We love Trump!”
Justice Ginsburg just died. Oh, a Holy Hell! Only in our time.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=walkaay
Yes, this definition of Gnosticism is very broad, but the results of people denying the sinful power of their physical humanity are death and destruction. The philosophies of today’s Left are just as Gnostic as those of years past; this is ironic for those, i.e. Marxists, who call themselves materialists.
Then why did many of the state churches use rape, ethnic cleansing, and war in a Holy War against the Albigensians, partially because they were labeled as heretical?
Gnosticism is a dead religion more or less, because State Christianity successfully purged the records, the people, and the books. It’s sorta like the 4th Reich or Southern Slave lords talking about freedom or Lincoln.
There’s an inherent bias from the Church of Rome’s pov concerning any kind of heretical organization they had to fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1IoqsFuNec
Just look the factions fighting here today over Woke. It was not much better back in history. Just you read the history books written by the ones that survived the purges.