Chimp politics and Cromwell’s puritanism

Moldbug is a big fan of Carlyle. Carlyle is a big fan of Cromwell.

Well I am a big fan of Cromwell also, but Carlyle takes Cromwell’s Christianity seriously. If Carlyle was around today, I would have the exact same quarrel with him as I have with B.

Reading Carlyle on Cromwell, Carlyle takes it as simple fact that the Puritans were very sincere and strong believers in God, which obviously they were – but declines to inquire as to why this sincere and strong faith in God increased dramatically with every election, until Cromwell made himself supreme, whereupon it evaporated like Marxism in the Soviet Union.

A striking thing about this simple and strong faith is that Carlyle shows us that they are always talking about the goodies, about who gets Church of England sinecures. Being simple and strong believers in God, they believed that the goodies should go to simple and strong believers in God, like themselves, and were homicidally indignant when the goodies went to more worldly men, men they indignantly accused of being interested in mere goodies. Carlyle enthusiastically endorses the passionate and angry language with which they expressed this indignation at the worldly concern of those who wanted Church of England sinecures merely for the money and power, rather than wanting them for the greater glory of God.

The Puritans focus on the next world resulted in remarkably passionate and intense focus on the distribution of state and quasi state jobs in this one. Carlyle reports, approvingly, a bunch of incidents where puritans acted like a mob of apes. One expects leftists to act like animals, since they identify with subhumans, but it is disturbing to see Christians act like leftists. Puritanism, to judge by the activities described by Carlyle, was almost entirely about jobs for the boys, and to the objective of getting jobs for the boys, they brought out the mob, made alliances with far against near (Englishmen using Scots against Englishmen) and became startlingly enthusiastic about equality and social justice.

The social justice puritans were outflanking Cromwell, being holier than he. But he put a stop to that.

A religion is a synthetic tribe. (I use the term religion broadly to include things like Marxism and progressivism.) Being a synthetic tribe, useful for shaking down smaller tribes and those less cohesive, thus religion and state naturally become one. A state can hardly exist except it propagates and enforces an official belief system, in other words, something suspiciously like a religion.

Membership of the state apparatus for propagating its official beliefs is lucrative and high prestige, thus if the official belief system is not already a religion, it will be taken over by an organized group of sincere believers in one thing or another, taken over by a religion. If you have open entry into the priesthood (also known as community organizers), you wind up with the most sincere and extreme believers organizing against the slightly less sincere and extreme believers, an endlessly escalating sequence of conspiratorial takeovers by ever holier people, endlessly taking over the State system for propagating official beliefs – in our case, high status universities are endlessly turbulent, endlessly going further left, and endlessly dragging the rest of society along with them.

Stable long lived states have some mechanism against this. The Hebrews had a hereditary priesthood. Japanese shrines were and are private property, even though it is a state religion, and you cannot easily whip up new and competing shrines. Pagan Icelandic shrines were private property, and again, new shrines were not permitted. You could buy your way into the cartel, but you were not allowed to out holy them.

A lot of reactionaries daydream about the dissolution of the universities. It is plausible, indeed likely, that the universities will be dissolved in the quite near future. When the tail wags the dog, surgical tail removal becomes increasingly likely. Leftism can go on getting ever lefter for a while longer, but universities cannot go on spending ever more money, becoming ever more expensive, taking up ever more of people’s time, and becoming an ever greater pain in the neck for the Pentagon and the State Department.

Such dissolution would not necessarily in itself result in the abolition of state supported official belief, and abolition of the wealth, privilege, status, and power that comes from controlling the system of state supported official belief. Henry the Eighth dissolved the monasteries, but a hundred years later the problem was back and worse than ever.

The system for propagating official state belief is an attractive nuisance, and attractive nuisances need to be fenced. A libertarian would like to abolish it, but fencing is easier. I would like to see true separation of information and state, which is to say, true separation of Church and state no matter how religion redefines itself to be not religion, but this is utopian. It is a lot easier to have an Archbishop and a Grand Inquisitor to stop the process of mutation to ever greater holiness. We also need to make positions in the system semi hereditary or private property in order the bribe the indolence of the clergy. We need clergy to have the power and the incentive to keep out those holier than themselves, just as we need a King to keep people out of politics.

B complains that I use the word “Holy” to mean “Screaming mob of chimpanzees hurling their feces and biting anything they can bite, including themselves”, but no one was holier in B’s sense than the puritans, as Carlyle quite correctly tells us, yet when goodies were in reach, they became a screaming mob of chimpanzees hurling their feces and biting anything they could bite, including themselves, as for example the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the prelude to the Bishop’s wars.

51 Responses to “Chimp politics and Cromwell’s puritanism”

  1. […] in these circles for practically the same concept is “virtue signaling,” which leads to holiness spirals and hell on Earth. [Also see This and This and This]. This faux compassion is actually a pretty big […]

  2. […] but any sort of appeasement to the left will end up getting you devoured. Eventually, Cthulhu swims left past you and you will be destroyed by your once allies who suddenly figured out they are more holy than you […]

  3. Dogs says:

    I’m amazed, I have to admit. Rarely do I
    come across a blog that’s both educative and amusing, and without a doubt, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
    The problem is something too few people are speaking
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  4. Caprizchka says:

    I think that is important to remember that the Puritan and then Quaker influences on the modern U.S. education system probably outweighs all other religious influences on it, such that Quaker John D. Rockefeller is effectively a religious leader, “saint”, or “pope”. This influence on U.S. education extends well beyond the accreditation of medical schools. Medicine is of course a leftist religion today, with any “unhealthy” behavior to be morally condemned by them. Of course, none of them consider the unhealthy effects of obsession over the habits of others, both by the obsessor and the object of that obsession.

  5. […] of sorts does appear and is able to put out the raging fire of leftism (even if it is to merely halt it in place for a period of […]

  6. pseudo-chrysostom says:

    @jim

    outbreeding depression.

  7. […] Holiness, chimps, and Cromwell. […]

  8. B says:

    In a world without numinosity, there is no reason to live other than Epicureanism-pursuit of pleasure (each according to his capacity, the dumb finding pleasure in consumption of sex and delicacies, the smart in more sophisticated perversions and exquisite pleasures, the very smart in thinking) and the avoidance of pain.

    G-d not being a sucker, he made it so that this sort of behavior drains the pleasure away from pleasure. As Rav Steinsaltz said, in a world where sex is no different than drinking a glass of water, it becomes as pleasant. And eventually it becomes a source of constant pain. There’s a reason that people in the West tranquilize themselves constantly with drugs-prescription, legal or otherwise.

    The Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, tried to hack this system in a very Buddhist way, trying to remove attachment to pleasure and pain from their constitution and focus on abstract values like honor, duty, integrity. This is as good as it can possibly get in a world with no numinosity. But it was bound to fail, because most people can’t live like that, and even for the ones who do, all they can achieve is to bear tragedy nobly.

    People who live with no Heaven over their head end up with no Earth under their feet.

    And your answer is, “well, sometimes people go overboard with holiness.” OK. Just like anything else, holiness has a dark side, or rather is reflected in the dark side of our souls, and gives that side power to do evil it would not have otherwise had. But this is like saying that cars, sex, food, wine kill people. They do-you have to know what you’re doing. But you can’t live without these things. It’s not an option in the long term.

    • jim says:

      Yes, you are of course quite right – thought none of that is evidence that the numinosity is actually there, merely that it is convenient to have people believe that it is.

      However a system for encouraging and enabling worship can work just as well ensuring the worship of demons. The holy and the demon possessed are frequently hard to tell apart, and you have to be serious about keeping the demons out.

      • B says:

        What does “is there” mean?

        There are plenty of things that aren’t “there” in any material sense, but have a strong influence on our lives, stronger than anything that “is there”. For instance, love, hatred, envy, pride, friendship, beauty. We can perceive them, yet not in any material sense, and we consider people who can’t perceive them defective, as though they were blind or deaf.

        More than that, there are things which we can’t even perceive, yet we consider them real because when we assume their existence, things consistently work that otherwise wouldn’t. For instance, neutrons and electrons. Without assuming their existence and certain properties, we can’t use electricity and nuclear energy. By acting as though they were real, in a very objective sense, we can build a nuclear bomb or a nuclear reactor, a torture device or a water purification plant. So we say that they have an objective existence.

        With numinosity, we can sometimes perceive it (to varying levels, of course,) and all human cultures have the concept. Furthermore, when we assume its existence, our society works, and we live. When we assume that it does not exist, our society collapses, regardless of material wealth and strength of arms. You can say that our existence (in the long term) depends on it. So I suspect it has an independent existence, is as real as anything or more so.

        Obviously, with numinosity, you can build a demonic society like that of the Aztecs, or simply a bad one, like that of the Muslims, based on a twisted perception of numinosity, just like you can use organic chemistry to synthesize Zyklon B and murder people with it en masse. But it’s not necessary-machetes, or a materialistic worldview, will do just as well for atrocity. If you say that Pol Pot and Stalin were moved by a different conception of holiness, perhaps it’s so and perhaps not. In kabbalistic Judaism, there’s the concept of a side of our existence which has no inherent holiness but faces and reflects holiness and gives its strength to the darkness, allowing it to do more wicked things than it otherwise would have. The wicked men of the 20th century, who explicitly set themselves in opposition to G-d and His people, were able to do more wicked things than their predecessors who were merely neutral on the issue.

        How do you keep from worshipping demons? Our answer is simple-through learning and keeping the Torah to the best of our ability. And we see that this is true even for gentiles. So, the Conquistadors, who had a distorted fragment of Torah, were able to conquer the pagans of Latin America, who had none, with speed and ease, despite great odds. And the Puritans, who took the Torah quite seriously, though they also only had a fragmented reflection, were able to not only conquer the Indians, but also their opposition which was less religious, while sustaining a very high birthrate.

    • John says:

      Are you saying that drugs and alcohol are a better option ethically than buddhism and holiness?

      I have to agree. A regimen of vodka and painkillers used creatively has done more to progress my moral aptitude than any amount of meditation. Though it is not perfect by any means.

  9. […] shut down a left singularity. “… it’s a mob all the way down.” Squishy moderns. […]

  10. ccubed says:

    Who is the “B” referred to in the post?

  11. […] links to it below.) Also from Jim extended ruminations on anime, few of them complimentary. And Chimp politics and Cromwell’s puritanism. Liking Cromwell seems a bit like liking Stalin: you admire him mostly for standing in place of […]

  12. vxxc2014 says:

    Take Heart Michael they’re spending far more than they take in even with Fiat madness.

    Michael is correct, in Western NY [deprived of Fracking or frankly any other income other than sustenance + welfare] the University of Rochester is positively becoming a secular Bishopric.

    But you see this requires that Fiat can be extended infinitely.

    BTW Larry Summers was on the Telly at Davros telling a room of EU types that the possibilities with QE were “unlimited.” He had quite the gleam and fire in his eyes of both madness and no doubt predation and greed.

    They weren’t quite buying it but of course they bowed to the reality of the choices they’ve already made in their actions.

    The difference between the 2 is Larry Summers thinks he’s gonna make it, and the Euros know they’re only playing for Time.

    • Alan J. Perrick says:

      After the enormity of the Vatican-Roman Church had been driven back, a period of jostling and adjustment only makes sense. The Puritans were the people who felt free enough from institutional loyalty to make demands upon said institutions as far as jobs and probably, also, in other categories…

      In many ways the return to fundamentalism is good and today, we see institutions like the “official” Anglican Church and the Vatican-Roman Church, which had resisted many of the reforms throughout the centuries, becoming diseased to the point of poisoning the culture around them. Interestingly, though, Anglican Evangelicals are still quite conservative on most issues, though unfortunately not outspokenly on racial intermarriage…

      A.J.P.

  13. cassander says:

    The monasteries were dissolved because they owned something like 15-30% of the land in england at a time when land and wealth were basically synonymous. This gave an ambitious king, or anyone else, a huge incentive to come up with pious reasons for dissolving them. the universities don’t have anywhere near that much wealth.

    • jim says:

      People are wealth, not land. Universities are wasting an ever increasing amount of the lives of an ever increasing number of people.

      But it is not that that will get them in trouble. Like the monasteries, power. The universities are exercising too much power.

      • Mackus says:

        My take on it:
        Progressivism contains two major groups: those with guns (police state), and those with words (professors and celebrities).
        Guess what will happen to latter when former realize they are of no use, because banking and society collapsed, and nobody believes lies anymore?
        Or worse, when “people with guns” decide they aren’t getting their fair share of plunder?
        There will be some sort of “national salvation emergency”, and “people with words” will be dragged to be shot, to the cheers of the general population, happy that someone is doing something.
        “People with words” are faces of current regime, and are convenient scapegoats for “People with guns” to keep their power when system comes crashing down.

  14. Michael says:

    here on the ground it does not look like universities will be overthrown, in NYC they are building medical facilities office towers housing labs and classrooms by the billions of dollars every year.as i build them towards the end i get too watch them fill very few white men in these institutions a lot of immigrants Asians and women. and of course foreign students. they have their own power stations police forces and seem to be able to increasingly dictate terms to the state,

    • Dave says:

      Whenever I see a construction crane, it’s on a college, hospital, or government campus. Eds and Meds are immune to recession. In fact, the entire Cathedral is invulnerable as long as it can print money to feed its insatiable appetites.

      The real fun begins when that money turns into worthless paper and Leftists start massively purging the less holy among them. I wouldn’t want to be an immigrant Asian woman in that situation.

      • Michael says:

        we all have this fantasy but every day more and more generals mayors CEOs police civil servants are non white immigrants. for inexplicable reason Hispanics and others get affirmative action most union construction jobs in big cities and civil service jobs pay almost 200k a year when benefits are included more than half these jobs go to recent non white immigrants as if that wee not bad enough they haven’t the intelligence integrity work ethic to build these projects or maintain union stands and cohesion. they do things like work off the books then file lawsuits for lost hours, pass their union books and health insurance around the neighborhood etc.every year work quality decreases and things must be redone half a dozen times the engineers draftsmen archetects are now usually women and immigrants as well this is happening in every industry we have. so hoping when the collapse comes they will simply flee is unlikely. its more likely they will use their power to relegate resources to themselves as they already do. and most whites will continue to feat confrontation.and its not just fear if you work or live closely with people its almost impossible to see them as so different from yourself. oh sure its almost impossible not to notice how different they are. but every year americans in general like workers in these unions and civil services become more like them as standards are ratcheted down, morals are ratcheted down etc. also the propaganda piped non stop into the brains of the average westerner trains him never to look at the whole to see the pattern every aberrant act is treated by his brain as a single incident, if confronted with the pattern they zombie like respond white privelage systemic racism. they simply can not compute the obvious, and one of the reasons is the nice black lady in the next cubicle. and this is the problem blacks and hispanics etc are not all bad probably the vast majority are really no different than us the ones we are most likely to come in contact with will be their best and brightest. the problem is their percentage of low iq high violence etc is high enough to cause severe problems. if whites and non whites could accept a heartless meritocracy and severe law enforcement this problem might be managed but we have seen this is unworkable.as AI robotics etc make even skilled labor almost worthless in the coming decade or two things will get ugly. already legal and medical research is done by software.but whats already come is a total police state our every word movement dollar spent communication sent is being recorded now they are gearing up to outlaw free speech like Europe already the major media and internet owners regulate speech as they see fit making sites like this almost invisible. There wont be a collapse if china and Russia cant build an anti cathedral and they are not doing very well.NYC during the 80s-90s taught me people will put up with anything if i8t happens slow enough and blame can be diffused. a collapse will simply be an excuse for more police who will get more arrogant as they realize its their own self interest they are protecting sheeple will do as they are told.

        • Dave says:

          I think it’s quite the opposite — the more you’re forced to interact with people of other races, unless they’ve been carefully vetted for white, middle-class values — the more you realize how different they are. Notice how the least racist white people live in the lily-white exurbs of northern blue states. We believe Cathedral propaganda only because we have no personal experience to the contrary.

          Whites create, Asians maintain, Africans destroy, and all debts the Left incurs against Nature will be fully repaid with interest.

          • Michael says:

            the least racists whites live in hipster urban enclaves and gentrified brownstones.
            but you are right the blacks both groups come into contact with are carefully vetted. if they got good enough scores to go to university get through it and work in white corporations and hang out with whites they are outliers. and these are most of the minorities these whites know so they think the occasional thug is the outlier and the cause is systemic racism. I live in both worlds i have one life with upper middle class whites and minorities and another living and working with lower class minorities- its a long story but unfortunately i see we have passed a tipping point interracial coupling is going mainstream at the upper end.

          • peppermint says:

            interracial coupling is already mainstream at the upper end. Many men I respect are married to rice niggers.

            An American man was sitting in his favorite restaurant when a Chinese bloke said to him, “I am sick of seeing your big round eyes.” The American replied, “Put on a blind fold.” The Chinese man asked, “Where do I get one? The American then said, “Here take my shoe lace.”

            If not rice niggers, then Turks and Indians. Their children are not White.

            But in the previous generation, many intelligent White men married kikes. I know a number of kikes who had one White parent.

            This can not keep going on forever. But it can go on for a short time. In Russia, they lost their entire upper and middle classes, and they’re still capable of stuff.

            The biggest existential threat to humanity isn’t niggers running wild in Africa tryig to develop a disease that will wipe them out. The problem is going to be how to deal with all these semi-human mongrel vermin with grotesquely high IQs.

            I would prefer if they would kill themselves or marry niggers so their offspring would be easier to deal with. But no one cares what I would prefer, not even me. If things keep going the way they are going, what will happen will be what will happen.

            • jim says:

              White culture has been destroyed. They said “Western Civilization has got to go” and then got rid of it. What therefore is the problem in blending with East Asians?

          • Corvinus says:

            “White culture has been destroyed.”

            Please define white culture and give examples.

  15. Mackus says:

    I wonder how it would affect the Objectivist society.
    Their virtue is to be talented, and successful in business. How would one out-holy someone in Objectivism? In a way that would make him dangerous to Objectivism?
    The movement had some schism early on, but those mostly dealt with private disagreements between Ayn Rand and her followers. I don’t think any “heretic” who was cast out ever took any significant number of followers with him, or formed his own group which survived. I am fairly sure they had no schisms in last decade, and no rival objectivist heresies survived as movements.

    • Alan J. Perrick says:

      Extreme amounts of Objectivism is obviously just self-hatred. Techno-Commercialism gets a short-term boost from this sort of behaviour, but in the end, if it is concentrated in an area, it leads to decline in quality of goods and services…

      What you’re describing, “Mackus”, is basically the substance of The Cathedral.

      Of course no schism, it is totalising…

      A.J.P.

      • Mackus says:

        Nah. People naturally tend to believe something that will make them fell good (thats why most white supremacist are white people).
        Self-loathing objectivist, will be self loathing because he is a failure, not successful enough, but thinking too highly of himself and having too low self esteem to accept his position in society. Its means he will not be holy enough, and is more likely to turn to outright collectivism (blame rich for his failure), rather that out-holy heroic entrepreneur objectivist elites.

    • peppermint says:

      haha, this sounds like the setting of the glorious PC game BioShock

      • Mackus says:

        You know, you could’ve just answered that “too holy objectivists” will end up like Andrew Ryan out of Bioshock.
        Being mean and vague does not add to your argument, it just means other person is less likely to retort rationally.

    • mukatsuku says:

      Objectivism is run on the rabbinical guru system. Ayn Rand named an ‘intellectual heir’ Leonard Peikoff because she was childless. He has been quite ruthless in purging anyone trying to out-holy him. (Most recently on transsexualism he purged Diana Hsieh after she called his position unenlightened).

      • jim says:

        Unfortunately for Judaism there is no rabbi that can stop other rabbis from out holying him.

        • B says:

          Fortunately for Judaism, the system does not operate on the primary principle of holiness competition. People choose their own rabbis based on many different factors, the rabbis police each other through more or less polite and public debate with frank discussion of sources, for every stringency there is a leniency, etc. Some people like stringencies, others like leniencies, others like a middle path, etc.

          I am unsure what Ayn Rand has to do with rabbinical Judaism, since she was very explicitly irreligious.

          • jim says:

            On the one hand you have those fences, and those fences around fences, and those fences around fences around fences, leading to double dishwashers.

            On the other hand, when you get unwanted rules you reinterpret them, loophole them, apply the overly literal meaning of the words while ignoring the intent, etc. So you continually get less holy where the surrounding society pressures you to be less holy, for example patriarchy and homosexuality, while continually getting more holy with epcot style judaism, for example double dishwashers and taking babies for a stroll on the sabbath.

            Because a priest banned cartloads of goods from going through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath, you conclude a woman cannot carry her baby through her door on the Sabbath – fair bit of fence building going on. Meanwhile the rabbis turn triple somersaults dismantling patriarchy.

          • B says:

            Double dishwashers have learned people making a case for, based on extensive sources, and have learned people making a case against. What is the problem?

            Your idea of patriarchy has never been operative in Judaism. As for homosexuality, I’ve asked you six times-are we still on for the bottle of whiskey?

            >Because a priest banned cartloads of goods from going through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath

            As usual, you are completely ignorant of the subject matter, which doesn’t stop you from making sweeping pronouncements.

            What does the Torah say about the Shabbat?

            “See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.”

            “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.”

            “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words”

            “32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it had not been declared what should be done to him. {S} 35 And the LORD said unto Moses: ‘The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.’ 36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died, as the LORD commanded Moses.”

            As we see, the cartloads of goods being brought into Jerusalem were an example of a particularly egregious violation of a law straight from Sinai. And you would know this if you actually read the Book of Ezra/Nehemiah:

            And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the singers, the Nethinim, and all they that had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, every one that had knowledge and understanding; N 10,30 they cleaved to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and His ordinances and His statutes; N 10,31 and that we would not give our daughters unto the peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons; N 10,32 and if the peoples of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the sabbath, or on a holy day; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.

            In those days saw I in Judah some treading winepresses on the sabbath, and bringing in heaps of corn, and lading asses therewith; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath day; and I forewarned them in the day wherein they sold victuals. N 13,16 There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, who brought in fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. N 13,17 Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them: ‘What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? N 13,18 Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath.’

            So we see that you have it precisely backwards-the plain text prohibits going out of your dwelling at all on Shabbat. Ezra is not enacting a new ordnance-he is explicitly enforcing the original one. And a child who can’t walk is no different a burden than any other. So only because the Oral Torah allows us to establish an eruv, to join many dwellings into what is legally considered one, can we carry outside our dwelling, whether an infant or anything else, without being liable for the death penalty.

            • jim says:

              Double dishwashers have learned people making a case for, based on extensive sources, and have learned people making a case against. What is the problem?

              The problem is that the proscription on cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk has been expanding pretty steadily over the centuries to the present day.

              And we see the same thing in other fields. For example automobiles are driven by fire, and starting a fire on the sabbath is forbidden. One might say, and I suppose lots of learned Jewish authorities do say, that lighting a fire by turning a key is not work the way starting a fire used to be, but some Jews, quite a lot of Jews, get a proscription on driving a car on the sabbath. But hang on. What about an all electric car? That gets proscribed also, the original prohibition expanding under the pressure of holiness competition.

              This is Epcot Judaism, the Judaism of silly and morally insignificant distinguishers.

              Meanwwhile, the patriarchy that forced Jews to behave properly towards other Jews, thus giving Orthodox Jews a monopoly of the diamond business, has lost its ability to force.

              Your idea of patriarchy has never been operative in Judaism.

              The marriage contract, equivalent of the vows, used to be made between the woman’s owner and her husband, not between the woman and her husband. That is a harsher patriarchy than I recommend. I argued that female formal and explicit consent to marriage should be required except in the case of female bad behavior.

              So we see that you have it precisely backwards-the plain text prohibits going out of your dwelling at all on Shabbat.

              “Place” is not dwelling. Consider that at the time they lived in tents, and were required to poop outside the camp. Pretty sure that a child pooping inside the tent (or anyone pooping inside the tent) is, unless unavoidable, a bigger violation of Jewish law, than assisting a child to poop in a more appropriate location.

          • B says:

            >The problem is that the proscription on cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk has been expanding pretty steadily over the centuries to the present day.

            Not really. There was one expansion that is in the Talmud, which is when they forbade eating fowl with dairy. That’s it. Everything else is fences, and the fences haven’t been expanding.

            >And we see the same thing in other fields. For example automobiles are driven by fire, and starting a fire on the sabbath is forbidden. One might say, and I suppose lots of learned Jewish authorities do say, that lighting a fire by turning a key is not work the way starting a fire used to be,

            You suppose all kinds of shit. That is your problem. Nobody says that starting a fire electrically, or with a lighter, or any which way is not work in the prohibited sense.

            >but some Jews, quite a lot of Jews, get a proscription on driving a car on the sabbath.

            It’s a universal proscription.

            >But hang on. What about an all electric car? That gets proscribed also, the original prohibition expanding under the pressure of holiness competition.

            Your problem, as I’ve said, is that you assume all kinds of shit, and then build elaborate constructions on those assumptions.

            The reality is that when electricity came about as something used commonly, the rabbis had to make a decision, and they decided to forbid breaking or building a circuit, for various reasons. This is not an example of a prohibition expanding, it’s an example of a completely new factor to which we have to decide how to apply Torah law.

            >This is Epcot Judaism, the Judaism of silly and morally insignificant distinguishers.

            You are just being completely disingenuous here. What, in your system, gathering firewood on Saturday, or going fishing, or having sex with your wife on her period are not silly and morally insignificant things to get worked up about? But the Torah says that all that stuff is punishable either by death or by having your soul cut off. And the Torah is FULL of these kinds of commandments-what could be less morally significant than sending a bird away from its nest before you take the eggs? Since you think all this stuff is silly and morally insignificant, except insofar as you can make up a post facto rationalization (“pork has parasites when improperly refrigerated” or whatever,) it’s dishonest for you to single any of it out. But for a religious Jew who takes the Torah seriously, the Shabbat is one of its pillars, its observance is equivalent to observing ALL the commandments, and therefore we have to understand what is and is not prohibited and take it seriously.

            >The marriage contract, equivalent of the vows, used to be made between the woman’s owner and her husband, not between the woman and her husband. That is a harsher patriarchy than I recommend. I argued that female formal and explicit consent to marriage should be required except in the case of female bad behavior.

            You are quite thick. I’ve pointed out that the woman doesn’t have an owner. She might have a guardian.

            >“Place” is not dwelling.

            Again you want to teach me Hebrew etymology?

            >Consider that at the time they lived in tents, and were required to poop outside the camp. Pretty sure that a child pooping inside the tent (or anyone pooping inside the tent) is, unless unavoidable, a bigger violation of Jewish law, than assisting a child to poop in a more appropriate location.

            They were not required to defecate outside the camp-this would have been logistically difficult, being that there were 600K adult men alone, with a correspondingly large number of women and children. You think people would have gone for a 30 minute walk every time they had to relieve themselves? They were required to establish latrines.

            The Karaites, who held your approach (Sola Scriptura, and every man can determine for himself what it means,) did not and do not go out of their house on Shabbat.

            In any case, this is all irrelevant-the prohibition is on carrying an infant who can’t walk for himself. Such an infant obviously can’t use the bathroom, and even if he could, would not be able to restrain his bodily needs long enough to be carried there.

            • jim says:

              >The problem is that the proscription on cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk has been expanding pretty steadily over the centuries to the present day.

              Not really. There was one expansion that is in the Talmud, which is when they forbade eating fowl with dairy. That’s it. Everything else is fences, and the fences haven’t been expanding.

              A fence is expansion, the latest fence being double dishwashers. Early twentieth century Jews did not need double kitchen sinks.

              You are quite thick. I’ve pointed out that the woman doesn’t have an owner. She might have a guardian.

              If a guardian, the marriage contract would be with the woman, with the woman consenting subject to her guardian’s permission, supervision, and advice. No female consent in Old Testament nor Elephantine marriage contracts, therefore, the person that the contract is with is the owner.

              The contracts and payments, and the laws governing payments, show that women normally and normatively did have owners. Those contracts are sales or leases.

              The reality is that when electricity came about as something used commonly, the rabbis had to make a decision, and they decided to forbid breaking or building a circuit, for various reasons. This is not an example of a prohibition expanding, it’s an example of a completely new factor to which we have to decide how to apply Torah law.

              The first common use of electricity was electric lights, which were plausibly forbidden from being switched on or off on the sabbath, as fire. Then holier than thou set in. Electricity is more like water under pressure, or water stored high, for which you have precedent from less holy times that taps are OK. There is an obvious drift to holiness.

              >This is Epcot Judaism, the Judaism of silly and morally insignificant distinguishers.

              You are just being completely disingenuous here. What, in your system, gathering firewood on Saturday, or going fishing, or having sex with your wife on her period are not silly and morally insignificant things to get worked up about?

              These practices were external and visible signs of less directly visible practices – that the Hebrews, unlike the Egyptians, did not engage in incest and infanticide, and unlike the Canaanites, did not sacrifice their children to Moloch in the fire.

              If not a sign of less directly visible practices, but rather in place of less directly visible practices, while in fact you are swiftly assimilating to the dominant society, then superficial Epcot Judaism.

              They were not required to defecate outside the camp-this would have been logistically difficult, being that there were 600K adult men alone, with a correspondingly large number of women and children. You think people would have gone for a 30 minute walk every time they had to relieve themselves? They were required to establish latrines.

              So, a five minute walk. Still going through a door, and taking their child through a door, on the Sabbath.

              In any case, this is all irrelevant-the prohibition is on carrying an infant who can’t walk for himself. Such an infant obviously can’t use the bathroom, and even if he could, would not be able to restrain his bodily needs long enough to be carried there.

              Still not going to change the nappy inside the tent, nor very close to it.

          • B says:

            >A fence is expansion, the latest fence being double dishwashers. Early twentieth century Jews did not need double kitchen sinks.

            Jews today do not need double kitchen sinks. I know Jews who are quite Orthodox who have single sinks. But it is easier to avoid washing dairy and meat utensils in the same water if you have double sinks.

            A fence is not an expansion. Nobody will claim that someone who ate chicken with cheese is violating a Torah prohibition.

            >If a guardian, the marriage contract would be with the woman, with the woman consenting subject to her guardian’s permission, supervision, and advice.

            That’s just stupid. When you enter your child into a school, the school signs a contract with you, not with the child. You are the child’s guardian.

            >No female consent in Old Testament nor Elephantine marriage contracts, therefore, the person that the contract is with is the owner.

            Even stupider. We don’t have Torah contracts preserved. In the Elephantine contracts, the woman could divorce at any time at will, and if the husband divorced her, she would get all her stuff back, money on top, and was free to go as she pleased. And from this you derive that her husband owned her?

            >The contracts and payments, and the laws governing payments, show that women normally and normatively did have owners. Those contracts are sales or leases.

            No. Women normally had guardians until a certain age, and even after that age it was customary for them to have their guardian speak for them in negotiating a marriage contract. I have repeatedly pointed out that in the contracts we’re looking at, the woman’s guardian got a brideprice from her husband which was much smaller than the property she brought to the marriage, which is the OPPOSITE of how a sale or lease works. Since you have nothing to say about this, you continue ignoring it. And afterwards, she was free to demand a divorce and get it, which is definitely not how a sale or lease works.

            >The first common use of electricity was electric lights, which were plausibly forbidden from being switched on or off on the sabbath, as fire. Then holier than thou set in.

            Jim, when you make flippant and stupid statements about things you know nothing about, most of your audience will let it slide and presume that someone so self-assured MUST know what he is talking about. But not everyone.

            >Electricity is more like water under pressure, or water stored high, for which you have precedent from less holy times that taps are OK. There is an obvious drift to holiness.

            Less holy times? Like when we killed a guy for gathering firewood on Shabbat?

            The rabbis of the Jewish nation did not see electricity as being like water under pressure. They, for various reasons, saw building or breaking a circuit on Shabbat as prohibited, for various reasons (i.e., you are creating something new that didn’t exist previously, etc.). The Jewish nation accepted that reasoning. The end.

            >These practices were external and visible signs of less directly visible practices – that the Hebrews, unlike the Egyptians, did not engage in incest and infanticide, and unlike the Canaanites, did not sacrifice their children to Moloch in the fire.

            This is more post facto rationalization. When a man doesn’t sleep with his wife when she’s on her period, this is not an external or visible practice. Nor is circumcision-we don’t walk around with our dicks hanging out. Nor is sending away a mother bird from her nest before you take the eggs. Etc., etc., etc.

            >If not a sign of less directly visible practices, but rather in place of less directly visible practices, while in fact you are swiftly assimilating to the dominant society, then superficial Epcot Judaism.

            Yes, yes, teach us about what is and isn’t important in our faith-you’ve perused a Gideon bible you found in your hotel room once, so you’re quite qualified. Tell me, are we still on for that bottle of whiskey?

            >So, a five minute walk. Still going through a door, and taking their child through a door, on the Sabbath.

            So here we are already debating what is a place, what is a domain, etc. You have one interpretation, based on your session with the Gideon bible. The Karaites, who at least know how to read Hebrew and some of whom were quite serious scholars, have another. We have our own, based on our tradition which goes all the way back to that camp in the desert. Obviously, there is such a thing as a domain, and it is constituted in some standard way, with a delineation etc. So what is the problem?

            >Still not going to change the nappy inside the tent, nor very close to it.

            Where do you get this shit? You’ve said you had a son. Presumably, you’ve at least watched your wife change his diaper at some point. Did she go out across the yard to do it? Would she go out in the yard if

          • B says:

            …if it was 40 degrees celsius with blazing sun outside, or 5 degrees celsius and blasting wind? These are typical Sinai temperatures in the summer and winter.

        • mukatsuku says:

          By rabbinical guru, I was comparing it to other Jewish-dominated intellectual or ‘activist’ movements. They ensure some longevity by keeping it in the actual family or explicitly choosing an heir. As for the welcoming of converts and excommunicating heretics isn’t necessarily Jewish, just common sense.

  16. Chris B says:

    Good timing. Have you read ‘On Power’ by De Jouvenel? The marriage between centralising power and leftism is a re-occuring one. Central power can stop it (leftism) at any time but does not as it serves power extension. Only when it starts to threaten those in Power and those in Power are competant enough to call a halt does it stop. To only be let off the leash when needed again.

    • Talmid HaSepher says:

      Thanks, good reference. Found the etext, saved to the hard driver for later reading.

  17. Talmid HaSepher says:

    You have my interest. As a descendant of Cromwell’s crowd, i can tell you things haven’t changed much. The “reaching for the goodies” stuff still happens. In the Jehovah’s Witnesses for instance. They speculate whose house land and possessions they’ll inherit when God comes back and kills off all the unholy.

    My further question: how did Cromwell outflank the SJWs? Can you reference some incidents or keywords for further research?

    • jim says:

      He did not outflank the social justice warriors. He purged them. See “Pride’s purge”, “Diggers”, “Levellers”.

      • Talmid HaSepher says:

        Ok. That makes sense. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are also very alert and swift to purge anyone that tries to be holier than the hierarchy. Purges can happen within hours at times. They’ve never had a significant schism. The Mormons, with their more Pentecostal approach to personal prophecy, have had a few significant schisms and breakaways. The Seventh Day Adventist movement, matriarchal to the core, has had a tremendous number of schisms.

      • Anonymous Rice Alum #4 says:

        Just as the Puritans executed a king 150 years before French atheists did so, Cromwell pulled a Thermidor 150 years before Robespierre went to the guillotine.

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