The big lie is not equality. The big lie is not that women are naturally virtuous. The big lie is not that gays want monogamous marriage. The big lie is not the magic negro.
The big lie is that the Cathedral is holy. Every item of propaganda issued by every Cathedral spokesman has the subtext “I am holier than thouâ€, and it is this subtext has to be attacked in the same utterly venomous and fearless manner that Jesus attacked it.
If when Cromwell’s puritans desacralized marriage, the cavaliers said that puritan pastors were planning to bang the wives of their congregation, we might not have been in this hole. Instead, everyone seriously and earnestly debated the issue marriage as a sacrament, as if the Puritans gave a tinkers dam.
If when the successors of Cromwell’s puritans, the dissenters, in order to supposedly “rescue fallen womenâ€, proceeded to eliminate all the unpleasant social, legal, and economic consequences of being fallen, reactionaries had forthrightly accused them of abusing fallen women, we might not be in this hole. Instead, we let them demonstrate their superior chastity by covering up women’s ankles and bowdlerizing Shakespeare, while banging those sluts.
When progressives, still at that time pretending to be Christians, defined temperance as absolute no alcohol, leading to prohibition, we should have noticed that they were claiming to be holier than Jesus and the apostles, a claim they had already made in relation to slavery and female emancipation, and ridiculed them accordingly. We did not.
When Obamacare was introduced, the AMA piously approved prolonged deep sedation for the very ill – a course of treatment that is invariably fatal, usually within a few days, even when given to the young and healthy. The plan is to murder old people so as to make available medical resources for free abortion and free sex changes. Nobody mentioned this. Perhaps they felt it was improper to cast doubt upon the good and proper motives of the cathedral.
Deep sedation is never given as assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is a fentanyl clicker. Oops, says the doctor, the patient clicked a little too hard, and the death is piously ruled death by accidental self administered overdose. Maybe it was. Prolonged deep sedation on the other hand is always given without the consent of the patient. It is murder, the most direct possible violation of the Hippocratic oath.
This medical program is a continuation of the original project of Cromwell’s Puritans, more sex for the highest status males, and to hell with society and civilization. Most progressive projects somehow wind up getting more sex for those males highest in the Cathedral, sometimes indirectly by increasing their status relative to the rest of us, but usually directly by directly encouraging hypergamy. For example war on Christmas, which started with Cromwell’s puritans and continues to this day, is part of the war on the family. While other tactics come and go, that one has been around from the beginning.
The latest Cathedral project, now that they have finished destroying the health system, is to open the borders and register the flood of underclass mestizos from Mexico to vote for more welfare. When justifying this project, the Cathedral spokesman will inevitably use language that implies or explicitly says that these migrants are coming here for jobs.
Cathedral subtext:
“Oh, you evil person. I care about the welfare of far away strangers, I care about people different from myself, but you, cruel selfish man, do notâ€
But there is another subtext, which needs to be made explicit:
“Hah hah hah. I, unlike you, can afford to live in the bubble where the only mestizos I see have jobs as maids and gardeners, unlike you who get to experience the vibrancy of underclass mestizos who have absolutely no interest in getting jobs, who live on crime and the welfare payments their numerous girlfriends get for their numerous anchor babies. If you are ethnically cleansed by them and need a place to live, you are going to have to bid up the price of property in my bubble to even higher than it is already, which will enable me to hire even more mestizo maids. Sucks to be you, does it not?.â€
When we argue, we always argue from our own self interest. Thus, for example, Sunshine Mary does not say that a woman should submit to her husband because it is good for men, or because the will of God favors men. She says that women need to submit because a woman is the weaker vessel, and needs male authority to protect herself from herself, and because it is hot, and because a woman’s fulfillment is in her husband and her family, and submission gives her a good husband and a good family. The Cathedral always claims to care deeply about the good of other people, the good of far away strangers, and that claim is always a lie. The Cathedral always brutally pursues the immediate short term gratification of the higher males of the Cathedral, without any regard for collateral damage.
Progressives did not care about slavery. Observe their total lack of interest in enslavement of whites by Muslims. They cared about subjugating the South. They still don’t care about slavery. Observe their total lack of interest in the use of slavery by Marxist states.
Bravo!
Jim, have you elsewhere discussed the similarity between the Pharisees and Saducees of Jesus’s day with the right and left of our own? It seems they were both cooperating with the subjugation of the Jews, either under the Romans or something more insidious.
Also, could you expand somewhat on how the war on Christmas is really an attack on the family? Is it simply that Christmas celebrates family as something holy, as childbirth something divine?
What made them leftists was not cooperation with the Romans. Rather, what made them like leftists was their claim “I am holier than thou, therefore I should rule over thee”
Christmas is a family celebration, a time of year to bring the family closer together, to remember and strengthen family bonds, perhaps for the reasons that you suggest. I don’t really know why it is what it is, but it is what it is.
Christmas is also a celebration to which all men are invited, not just all Christians, and is therefore fundamentally incompatible with being holier than thou. Hence the hatred expressed by the snarky wish, “Happy Holidaysâ€, which implies both that not all men are invited, and, contradictorily, that the speaker rejects the invitation.
Thank you, Jim. I’m honored you took time to make these replies and am astonished by the quality of insight. It’s why I check your blog multiple times each day.
So Jim, you going to start writing anti cathedral propaganda? Your arguments are quite good for the thinkers, but if you really want to discredit the system then someone needs to write propaganda for the average office worker and cartoons for those below. The system should be easy as hell to tear down in everyday conversation, but most of the really good propagandists are already working for the cathedral.
are you*
No.
See Moldbug’s post about what propaganda is: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/03/jacques-ellul-on-demand-for-propaganda.html
If it’s not worth saying completely, it’s not worth saying. The biggest problem we have is sanctimonious asshats reciting propaganda slogans to each other as a form of mental masturbation. You can help by not participating and encouraging your friends to also refuse to participate.
No that’s not the biggest problem we have by Far.
A big problem we have is a cowardly failure to engage. And when Anti-Cathedral Forces do engage they are incomprehensible. Even the Rebumblekins [frauds] when they are attempting to market their chief Outer Party product of balancing the books utterly blow it by engaging in minutiae and footnotes from the first sentence.
The Biggest Problem we have is serial defeat, and one of the feeders into that is Monkery – withdrawing from the world as it’s beneath you, and it isn’t – which is the perfect complement to Cathedral Priestery. They win by forfeit.
The illiterate redneck who hurls a slogan – even nigger lover – at his mortal Lily white foe is a better and braver man than he who does not offer battle.
> planning to bang the wives of their congregation
> banging those sluts
Eh? What’s this? Where can I read about it?
This medical program is a continuation of the original project of Cromwell’s Puritans, more sex for the highest status males, and to hell with society and civilization.
wtf
You cannot read about it. What you can read is that Cromwell’s Puritans abolished marriage as a sacrament, replacing it with civil marriage based on common law marriage, and introduced divorce.
Theoretically they had fine religious motivations for this, in that at the time of Paul, marriage was not a sacrament, and the Puritans wanted to purify Christianity of all these pagan accretions (such as marriage and Christmas) but if they wanted to set things back to the way they were in Paul’s time, should have gone back to traditional Roman marriage, wherein the patriarchs of the families of the bride and the groom instituted a new patriarchal family by contract between the bride and the groom and the families of the bride and groom. Of course, had they done so, Christian patriarchs would have invoked the authority of God the Father, and it would still in practice be a sacrament. People would have scarcely noticed the change, for the Church ceremony closely resembles the old Roman ceremony. So, instead, the Puritans instituted civil marriage by magistrate and suppressed church marriage, with the Pauline wedding vows quietly disappearing.
Fine, except when you replace “puritans” with “jews” it sounds a bit like Julius Streicher.
After 1930 or so, Jews bear a little bit of the blame, and after 1950 or so, quite a lot of the blame, but looks to me that things really went to hell during the nineteenth century, and that subsequent decline is just a consequence of what happened back then.
@fnn,
You’re confusing a religious group (puritans) with an ethnic group (jews). Jewish people do not, I think, generally hear modern notions of equal rights and feminism preached at synagogue – they hear Torah. On the one hand you have people intellectually arguing in favor of an agenda because they went to a “good” school (mostly WASP or Austro-German) and drank the Kool-Aid. (This is why taking back Academia is important.) On the other hand you have people preaching an agenda because they say it is the Will of God. (And nowadays God doesn’t even get a say in the matter, it’s just “self evident”.)
Jim sometimes you sound like you give a shit about Paul and Christianity. Tell me it ain’t so.
We are in a holy war. Christians are on the same side – defining Christians to mean traditional Christianity as it was from the time of Paul to 1950 or so. Note that by this definition, the current Pope is not only not Catholic, but not Christian.
The connection between Calvinism or Puritanism and modern liberalism has been often asserted by Moldbug and others but I’ve never seen the legwork done to back it up. Just one link to scratch the surface see here…
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/10759-how-harvard-went-from-calvinism-to-unitarianism
You could also read more in depth on Henry Ware if you so choose. It becomes a matter of coopted infrastructure. Blaming liberalism on Calvin because of Harvard is like blaming Julius Caesar for Christianity.
I would say that if you really do think that Puritanism or Calvinism is responsible for Western liberalism you should stop using Puritan and puritan/pharisaical interchangeably. It leads to sloppy thinking.
I would point out that the architects of the American state were generally universalist and deist and not Puritan.
For an idea of how the American project was erroneous from the start watch J. Budziszewski’s talk at Notre Dame.
http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/fall-conference-videos/summons-of-freedom-videos
Its long but well worth it.
The connection between the Puritans and Harvard is:
William Wilberforce. John Brown. The movement to rescue fallen women. Exeter Hall. Prohibition. The Civil war was Calvinism/Puritanism conquering America and imposing their religion with fire and steel.
The transition from loudly and ostentatiously Christian leftists, to loudly and an ostentatiously anti Christian leftists went through them being holier than thou by being more holy than Jesus and the apostles, prohibition being the final and most extreme example of Holier than Jesus.
The connection between Puritans and Harvard is that Puritans founded Harvard. You have not addressed my challenge to show a connection between historic or present day Calvinism and present day liberalism.
Wilberforce was raised in the Church of England. He was more of a Methodist than anything else. As for John Brown’s Calvinism …
http://m571.com/theology/writings/john_brown.htm
There are of course plenty of Calvinists and Arminians around today and you will find liberation theology supported by Roger Olsen (prominent Arminian apologist) not R. C. Sproul.
I can understand it if you have no interest in researching such things but in that case you should stop making unsupported assertions about the various flavors of Christian theology.
Wilberforce Wilberforce operated from Exeter Hall, the address of “dissenters†(the latest name for puritans) acting as a political conspiracy and religious movement. From this address was emitted puritan religious evangelism, (“The Church Missionaryâ€) radical left wing evangelism, and puritan left wing evangelism. As for John Brown, the link you give shows us that John Brown’s father was calvinism already well transformed into modern progressivism, was himself one of the links connecting yesterdays ostentatiously Christian leftism with today’s ostentatiously anti Christan leftism.
William Wilberforce sought to have Calvinist Bishops appointed in charge of the Church of England, the equivalent of seeking to have Soviet agents appointed to the State Department. He was therefore an entryist, a person who uses his membership of a group that he hates and despises to destroy that group. He deserved death as a traitor.
If you are going to bring up Wilberforce on a weekly basis you could at least flip through a biography on him.
You misspelled “hagiographyâ€
Sorry, Jim. I momentarily forgot that, for you, the sacred is a noble lie developed to distribute goods more evenly throughout a group of animals that remain, fundamentally, killer apes. So, the sacred doesn’t exist.
Hey, I am not in favor of distributing goods more evenly, as this undermines the economy and reduces the incentive to build civilization. I am in favor of distributing pussy more evenly, as this maximizes incentive to build for posterity.
Sorry, I was speaking euphemistically, but also suggesting a larger point:
Maximizing incentives for posterity is the best way to promote the good of the whole, for all people, wouldn’t you agree?
Promoting the good of the whole is a bad objective, because it is not in our nature. We don’t know the whole.
Jim, I don’t think you understand Puritanism at all.
“This medical program is a continuation of the original project of Cromwell’s Puritans, more sex for the highest status males, and to hell with society and civilization.”
Here are several things that I think are definitely true of Puritans:
(1) They definitely, genuinely believed in God and heaven and hell and these were their real rewards or punishment. If they wanted to be holier, they were sincere and not doing it for show.
Life was hard, and life was often short and the sting of privation and suffering was all around.
(2) Their sexual morality surely was much higher than we have today.
(3) Where the rubber met the road, they were in actuality excellent builders of civilization.
If there is a battle to be more conservative than the next guy, surely it involves going further back in time to find your reference point. Well Douglas Adams in the hitchhiker’s guide has us beat:
“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.”
I personally think the actual puritans were absolutely the cat’s pajamas, as evidenced by the astonishing flowering of civilization that occurred in their wake. They were builders and pragmatists, thinking about the very very long term while our modern ‘Cathedral’ seems to have no time horizon at all. Shall we blame them for everything that is going wrong almost 400 years later?
I think it more apt to compare the modern Cathedral to Marxist regimes of 20th century. Both have the short-termism and amorality of an atheistic foundation and both are consequently very destructive. You can find plenty of preening, status-seeking and wierd official ideology in the history of Marxist regimes.
John Brown was a puritan, a horse thief, a slave thief, a sadist, and a cold blooded murderer. He was also a sincere believer, believed all of the stuff you say puritans do, but somehow that did not stop him from stealing horses, slaves, and murdering people in cold blood.
William Wilberforce, unlike John Brown, was a thoroughgoing hypocrite, who deserved every bit of the fiery condemnation Jesus gave the Pharisees. It is unfortunate that we only hung the more sincere and genuine of the two.
If you don’t celebrate Christmas, because you think it is a pagan accretion, you refrain from Christmas because you want to be holier. If you break up someone else’s Christmas, you are doing it for show. The Puritans declared an Englishman’s home is his castle, and then proceeded to kick down people’s doors to destroy their Christmas feast.
If you wish someone “happy holidays†instead of “merry Christmasâ€, you are doing it for show.
Not a very high bar to jump. Today’s leftists are lefter than yesterday’s leftists, and yesterday’s leftists are lefter than leftists of the day before. And similarly, the Vennerites were lefter than the Fifth Monarchists, the Fifth Monarchists were lefter than the Diggers, the Diggers were lefter than the Levelers, and the Levelers lefter than Cromwell. Cromwell was outflanked on the left, and those who outflanked him were in turn outflanked on the left, until Cromwell, like Stalin, stopped the endless and accelerating movement left, stopped the left singularity, by violence.
Women will misbehave unless firmly kept under the authority of husbands and fathers. That is a biological reality that was well known at the time. Thus the church traditionally backed the authority of males over females by such rules as the women may not speak in Church rule, dress codes, and by the marriage vows. Puritans dismantled these restraints on female misconduct.
The original Puritans were Cromwell and the long parliament, the Commonwealth. We see science and technology get started in the Restoration, with the formation of the Royal society, get started when the Puritans were removed from power.
The British empire was created by merchant adventurers, part trader, part pirate, part slaver, and part conquistador. We see these people start going out and subduing the world under Queen Elizabeth the Great. Then, during the commonwealth, during the rule of the Puritans, they are no more. Then the restoration comes, and the merchant adventurers return to business as usual.
So it looks to me that civilization building took a pause under the Commonwealth.
Jim,
If you haven’t already, you should download and read (or download and watch) Galsworthy’s ‘The Forsyte Saga’. In a conflict between two branches of the same fictional family, you will see modernist tropes on display: the celebration of art and love over principle and property. ‘Marital rape’ and adultery play pivotal roles in the development of the plot.
By stacking the deck in favor of love and art, (Irene and Jolyon are implausible as characters; change their character to something more plausible and the case for love and art collapses) Galsworthy only succeeds in disproving the case in favor of them.
We know that Irene is implausible because we have a real life counterpart in the wife of Andrew Mellon. (She married Mellon for the money, and abandoned him for a Good Time Charlie … who later left her when he got paid off. He later returned for an other payoff. Mellon refused, and divorced the harlot. Mellon’s ex-wife was left abandoned by both men).
Both Mellon and his wife were contemporaries of Galsworthy. The very public divorce happened ten years before publication of the book. He should have known better. Probably he didn’t care. Or worse: he cared enough to replace history with a lie and call it art.
Marx traces left wing socialism to the diggers. (Plato being the origin of openly authoritarian socialism.) If Marx does it, so should we all. We are all Marxists now.
Men build civilization. Women do not. Thus the basis for building civilization is marriage, which gives men an incentive to build civilization. No marriage, no posterity, the end. Single moms and their children are feral.
So, the basis for the left turn, the starting point where we went wrong, was the attack on marriage, thus the Puritans.
Further, the distinctive characteristic of today’s Cathedral is that it is holier than thou. Tracing back holier than thou disease, this outbreak in the Anglosphere comes from the puritans. (Though recycling is distinctively Jewish phariseeism)
Here I quote, unedited from the Wikipedia entry on Puritan Family Life. If 50% of this is true, I think your blame of Puritans is wholly misplaced.
“Puritans placed family at the center of their societies as an organization to facilitate their devotion to God. Based on Biblical portrayals of Adam and Eve, Puritans believed that marriage represented one of the most fundamental human relationships rooted in procreation, love, and, most importantly, salvation.[25] According to Puritans, husbands were the spiritual head of the household while women were to demonstrate religious piety and obedience under male authority.[26] Furthermore, marriage represented not only the relationship between husband and wife but also the relationship between spouses and God. Puritan husbands commanded authority through family direction and prayer; the female relationship to her husband and to God was marked by submissiveness and humility.[27]
Puritans believed wives to be spiritual equals to their husbands. Puritan author Thomas Gataker describes Puritan marriage as such:
“ …together for a time as copartners in grace here, [that] they may reigne together forever as coheires in glory hereafter. â€
[28]
The paradox created by female inferiority in the public sphere and the spiritual equality of men and women in marriage, then, gave way to the informal authority of women concerning matters of the home and childrearing.[29] With the consent of their husbands, Puritan wives made important decisions concerning the labor of their children, property, and the management of inns and taverns owned by their husbands.[30]
For Puritans, motherhood represented the most significant aspect of the female identity. Pious Puritan mothers labored for their children’s righteousness and salvation, connecting women directly to matters of religion and morality.[31]”
Highlights:
(1) Puritans made marriage the spiritual center. This was a radical shift from the millennium of Catholic teaching that held *non-marriage* and chastity as the highest spiritual good. For Puritans the marriage bed was a great and holy thing. The Catholics were the holier-than-thou ones with their chastity business.
(2) Eternal marriage that extends on into the spirit world for eternity. Another radical shift *toward* marriage. Pretty much the opposite of divorce. This is also what Mormons believe and it seems like a very constructive view of marriage.
(3) Spiritual headship of the husbands.
(4) Motherhood was the most important aspect of being a woman. The Puritans were wonderfully fruitful and fertile.
All told, the Puritans view of marriage was a massive improvement on what came before it. The highest ideal before that was to flee marriage.
I would say the Puritans were pretty much the opposite of modern Cathedralists. Puritans believed there were ultimate spiritual truths. Modern Cathedralists are dogmatic that there must be no truths of any sort, even very obvious physical truths like the existence of gender.
If you don’t want to compare the Cathedral to Marxism then compare it to the medieval Catholic Church, but the Puritans were pretty much terrific. Someone here or there was called a witch but that was really rare.
This is hypocrisy, for if married in Church of England, wife and husband had to vow all this stuff, while if married by Puritans, did not.
It is like the Victorian left piously bowdlerizing Shakespeare and covering ladies ankles, while at the same time removing all the legal, social, and economic disabilities suffered by fallen women.
Equality in marriage means no marriage. If you are in a single household, someone has to be in charge, and that someone has to be the husband, for women will not tolerate sex with their equals. Piously being in favor of marriage while also being in favor of greater equality within marriage means not being in favor of marriage. In particular, and especially, the husband has to have final and decisive authority over the children. Women are extremely bad at discipline and raising children socially, just as men are extremely bad at raising children physically. The mother should grow them up with good food, the father should inculcate good behavior and adult social roles. The wife making important decisions over the labor of her children was the first step on the way to today’s feral and fatherless society.
And more:
” Bounds were not set on enjoying sexuality within the bounds of marriage, as a gift from God.[41] In fact, spouses (albeit, in practice, mainly females) were disciplined if they did not perform their sexual marital duties, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 7 and other biblical passages.”
Jim, how happy you would have been if you lived in a puritan society and had a puritan marriage. This alone merits a follow-up blogpost absolving the puritans of all blame.
Today, the rule you describe is pro sex relative to today’s climate, but in the sixties and earlier, it was just normal. As Puritans have become ever more puritan, the environment for low status males has become ever more anti sex, so of course seventeenth century puritans were pro sex relative to today, but they were anti sex relative to their contemporaries.
You are saying that Puritans were less Puritan than today’s progressives, but the fact remains that they were more puritan than the people of their time, that they took the first steps along the path to abolishing the duty of spouses to sexually gratify each other.
Of course married people should have sex. This was entirely uncontroversial from the beginning of Christianity until 1970 or so. Puritans, however, by making divorce easier, by desacralizing marriage, and by allowing women to speak in Church, took the first steps towards removing the duty of married people to have sex, took the first steps away from the duty of married people to sexually gratify their partners, and then, the ever leftwards movement, as Puritans were endlessly outflanked by Puritans more puritan than thou, eventually brought us to the 1970s, when married people were free to refuse their partners.
Puritans then were anti sex for beta males, pro sex for alpha males, for example easier divorce, desacralizing marriage), and their progressive successors are anti sex for beta males, pro sex for alpha males (for example workplace harassment law)
Fiery the Angels fell, deep thunder rolled around their shores burning with the fires of orc.
-WB – Blade Runner
As an aside DF made a point that can be posted anywhere on this blog (almost):
“Wolff commented that my describing him as on the same side as Murray Rothbard was a terrible insult. But it is also true. Both of them chose to see the conflict as between good men and evil men. I see it as between good ideas and bad ideas, where bad ideas are not evil, simply wrong.”
Most people – even those in the cathedral – believe they are doing good.
Calling many evil (perhaps entire groups evil) belittles arguments made here and elsewhere.
I personally think this is a mistake. Just as DF does.
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2013/04/which-side-are-you-on-robert-wolff.html
Just sayin’.
But the justification of such words may be sufficient in describing group results, not intentions.
Nah, they are evil people. See Monsters Among Us
First, tactics: Is it a good idea to call your opponents evil?
Argue with any of them about any matter at any time, health insurance, immigration, child support, sulfur dioxide levels, global warming, whatever, they will call you evil every time. Works for them.
David Friedman will call you evil if you disagree with him from the right. Works for him. Argue with him about immigration, on the basis that we are getting a lot of racially inferior immigrants. It is only leftists he will not call evil.
Next, truth: Are they evil?
Whosoever claims to be a utilitarian, lies. There are no utilitarians. If lying, up to no good. The bad consequences of their deeds are intended, my favorite examples being South Africa, prolonged deep sedation of the very ill, the Congo, and progressive AIDS. Another good example was the Ethiopian famine. Remember “We are the world, we are the children”
Did John Brown intend good? Probably. Indeed almost certainly. He was, however, nonetheless vain, cruel, foolish, dishonest, and murderous.
Did William Wilberforce intend good? I am pretty sure he intended evil, wished to cause pain, suffering, and death motivated by hatred and malice.
Did Pol Pot intend good? Absolutely, no doubt about it. No possible question that he intended good. He also murdered every single person who knew him from before he adopted the name Pol Pot, including every friend he ever had, perhaps because they knew too much, or he suspected them of knowing too much.
When reports got to Pol Pot that the consequences of his policies were in fact not good, he proceeded to have whoever brought him such news tortured to death. When he finally accepted the bad news, he was so horrified that he personally tortured numerous of his colleagues with his own hands into confessing to causing the bad consequences, and then personally killed them. He did not, however, endeavor to otherwise correct his policies.
Did Aristide intend good? Probably he did. But Aristide personally with his own hands gouged out the eyes of one of his minions, for some minor or imaginary failure or misconduct. Did those who installed Aristide as dictator over Haiti, which is to say the entire Democratic party and most high level government employees know he was prone to such behavior when they imposed him on Haiti? Yes they did!
The thing is, evil people usually do theoretically intend good – because they don’t bother thinking through what the actual consequences for other people are likely to be. Good people usually intend self interest. The good person says “We should do this because it is good for us”. The evil person says “We should do this because it is good for some person far away of whom you and I know nothing and care less”, because he does not care what the consequences are for other people.
“David Friedman will call you evil if you disagree with him from the right. Works for him. Argue with him about immigration, on the basis that we are getting a lot of racially inferior immigrants. It is only leftists he will not call evil.”
I have never personally witnessed David Friedman call anyone evil for any reason. Could you please provide evidence for this claim that you’ve made about him? I strongly suspect that you’re mistaken – that you lack both understanding of and empathy for those people with whom you disagree, and that this blindness causes you to make many mistakes you ought not. The other possibility is that David Friedman is a hypocrite, and I simply haven’t noticed. I’m curious to know which of these views is closer to correct.
A few minutes of googling resulted in the following quote copied from a blog post, but originally published in one of DF’s books. He doesn’t use the word “evil” to describe those against immigration, but the intent is the same.
“If we want to be honest, we can ship the Statue of Liberty back to France or replace the outdated verse with new lines, ‘America the closed preserve/That dirty foreigners don’t deserve.’ Or we can open the gates again.”
“He doesn’t use the word ‘evil’ to describe those against immigration, but the intent is the same.”
I disagree with you that disagreeing with someone is the same thing as calling them evil. Do you deny that our country’s immigration policy makes a mockery of the words engraved on the Statue of Liberty?
David Friedman is not disagreeing. He accuses everyone who disagrees with him from the right of hateful and irrational beliefs.
DF does more than just disagree. He states that his opponents think of all foreigners as “dirty”, implying that they are evil bigots.
Also, our country’s immigration policy makes a mockery of common sense and logic. Different circumstances require different policies. At one time virtually open immigration made sense for the US, but that time had passed by the 1924 Immigration Act, and post-1968 changes have been sheer insanity.
The problem is that we are importing an underclass. We need to get rid of the underclass.
Another problem is Muslims. For a over a thousand years thousands of races, peoples, religions, governments, and cultures have struggled to find ways of coexisting with Muslims. None have succeeded.
And there you go, calling me evil. Oh what a big surprise.
Of course leftists are monsters. if they were normals, they would have anticipated the reaction to “10:10 No Pressureâ€
As for empathy and understanding, see my autobiographical article where I tell how I saw awareness of evil dawn among my fellow leftists:
“And there you go, calling me evil. Oh what a big surprise.”
I didn’t call you evil, Jim; I suggested that you might lack empathy and understanding for people with whom you disagree. That you would so badly misinterpret my words lends a great deal of credence to this hypothesis.
Your autobiographical article says that you felt very oppressed when you were about 13/14/15, but I suspect that you continue to feel very oppressed to this day and that this feeling has a larger influence on your behavior than you consciously intend for it to.
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile because I think you are intelligent and interesting. I am not here to attack you. I simply think you are mistaken about a few things, and I would like to explore them. Ideally, you would swiftly make a mockery of my doubts, and I would embrace the opportunity to learn. My second-most preferred outcome would be that you consider my words and decide that what I have to say merits modifying your mind. But if you refuse to reconsider the idea that “leftists are monsters,” then I’d appreciate being told so now. I don’t want to waste my time.
No matter how you phrase it, you are claiming to be holier than I.
The rule you, and David Friedman, propose, is not really “Don’t call other people evil”. It is really “call everyone to the left of you good, and every one to the right of you bad”.
Isn’t it obvious that one of the major points and purposes of Obamacare is to murder old people in order to make available medical resources for free abortions? David Friedman is allowed to say that those that disagree with him on immigration have an irrational repugnance to people different from themselves, but no one may say that Obamacare is in part motivated by intent to commit murder.
Following this rule, which pretty much everyone in the entire world does, means no enemies to the left, no friends to the right, thus all your friends are your enemies.
Thus, for example, we see in the Republican party that the right of the Republican party is allied to the left of the party, but the left of the party is not allied to the right of the party, but to the Democrats. The Democrats, however, are not allied to the left of the Republican party.
“David Friedman is not disagreeing. He accuses everyone who disagrees with him from the right of hateful and irrational beliefs.”
I have never personally witnessed David Friedman accuse anyone who disagrees with him of holding hateful and irrational beliefs. Could you please provide evidence for this claim that you’ve made about him? I strongly suspect that you’re mistaken – that you lack both understanding of and empathy for those people with whom you disagree, and that this blindness causes you to make many mistakes you ought not.
“DF does more than just disagree. He states that his opponents think of all foreigners as ‘dirty’, implying that they are evil bigots.”
He does no such thing. I would ask that you quit misrepresenting his words, but I know that you don’t do so intentionally, and so such a request would fall on deaf ears.
Do you deny that you think of illegal immigrants as “dirty”? Here is a comment from this blog’s author on another blog that I read:
“[T]he typical illegal immigrant is not your maid and your gardener, but a short fat woman clogging up the emergency room with her numerous bastard spawn, receiving large amounts of welfare money for these anchor babies, much of which she gives to her boyfriends, who live on crime and the welfare she receives.
Most illegal immigrants are low IQ mestizos who are seriously allergic to working.
Most illegal immigrants do not work and have no interest in working. A very large proportion of them drive drunk, probably less than half, but more than a quarter. Most of them drive with no license and no insurance. Most of them are alarmingly bad drivers. A significant minority of them are dangerous thugs.”
I would not label the author of these words evil, but they do strike me as originating from a bigot, broadly defined. Do you disagree?
“Also, our country’s immigration policy makes a mockery of common sense and logic. Different circumstances require different policies. At one time virtually open immigration made sense for the US, but that time had passed by the 1924 Immigration Act, and post-1968 changes have been sheer insanity.”
Please understand that I agree with you on this point. My objection is not to your views on immigration, but to your characterization of people who disagree with you/us.
I would say that the author of these words is in contact with reality, and anyone who denies reality is lying or deluded.
“The problem is that we are importing an underclass. We need to get rid of the underclass.”
Do you mean only that we ought to stop importing additional members of the underclass, or that we ought to take steps to deport current members of said class? If the latter, what standard(s) would you use to decide who belongs to the underclass and who does not?
Stop importing new underclass people, and stuff existing underclass people into ghettoes and not let them out – segregated ghettos. We would not want to put white underclass with black underclass, because the black underclass would eat them in place of food stamps.
Underclass people engage in hunting and gathering behavior, as if the city was a jungle, which is inappropriate in a world of property rights, agriculture, trade, and industry. Underclass people do not work, and predate on civilized people. If you don’t have visible means of support, probably underclass. At fault in a traffic accident and cannot or will not pay, underclass. Drunk or stoned while behind on your rent, underclass. Inappropriate intoxication such as fighting drunk in public, or drunk or stoned when at fault in a traffic accidents, underclass. Petty theft, underclass, shakedowns, underclass. A woman who has children by more than one man without reasonable excuse such as widowhood, underclass. Vandalism, underclass. Streetwalking underclass, though tonier forms of prostitution, for example operating out of a bar or brothel, would not necessarily be underclass. People who profile as underclass (underclass mother, black, fatherless, and suchlike) would be assumed underclass and would have to demonstrate non underclass character by getting a job and staying out of trouble. Conversely, people who profile as middle class, (white, two middle class parents) would be assumed middle class, unless they they show underclass behavior, such as fighting drunk in public, homeless, stealing, etc, show underclass behavior by getting into trouble. Born in the ghetto, have to earn your way out. Born in the suburbs, have to screw up to get sent to the ghetto.
Basically any wrongful behavior that adversely affects property values or disrupts business, underclass, send them out of the nice suburbs. This would remove about eighty or ninety percent of blacks, mestizos, and bastards from the nice suburbs.
“No matter how you phrase it, you are claiming to be holier than I.”
Taken as a statement of definition, rather than an empirical or objective claim, I feel no need to refute this. If you wish to interpret my words as claims to holiness, I cannot stop you. I do not make regular use of such language, however – instead, this is what I think:
I am smarter than you, Jim. I am also less susceptible to bias. Therefore, where we disagree, I am less likely to be mistaken than you are.
I do place a great deal of importance on the ability to think clearly and well, so it is not too great a stretch to call this a claim to holiness, which is why I’ll not object to your doing so. I’ll even go a step beyond claiming it and suggest that you ought to agree with my assessment. Or, to put it another way: Learn your place. You belong to an inferior class of human. Quit rebelling against nature’s hierarchy.
“The rule you, and David Friedman, propose, is not really ‘Don’t call other people evil’. It is really ‘call everyone to the left of you good, and every one to the right of you bad’.”
You are to the left of me. I do not think you should be called “good.”
“Isn’t it obvious that one of the major points and purposes of Obamacare is to murder old people in order to make available medical resources for free abortions?”
No, this is not obvious. You seem biased and hysterical and are an embarrassment to the cause when you say things like this. That is why men like James Goulding do not wish to be associated with you.
Moron. You find it easy to believe that I make the arguments I make out of irrational hatred of women, blacks, foreigners, and such, but impossible to believe that Obama does what he does out of irrational hatred for America, Americans, and whites, despite having been raised from birth in an environment where he was taught such hatred.
@Max
“Mr. Donaldson’s errors and misrepresentations” are nothing of the sort. That Friedman does not use the word “evil” I’ll grant, but are you seriously arguing that in that quote Friedman is not claiming moral superiority over immigration restrictionists?
But, you say, opposing immigration really does make a mockery of “The New Colossus.” Yes, that’s true. So what? Hypocrisy and policy are no strangers. More relevant to the argument: Friedman is claiming his position is more in line with the values of this beloved symbol of America. Sure he’s right. He’s clearly still claiming superior holiness; that’s the source of his supposed holiness!
Friedman also gets in his “dirty foreigners” dig. Well, you said, restrictionists really do think foreigners are dirty. Again, even if it’s accurate, it’s still a claim of moral superiority. Why else do you suppose Friedman wrote those lines?
Jim says Friedman claims to be “holier than thou.” As far as I can tell, your retort is that he doesn’t claim this because he really is holier.
I don’t think foriegners are dirty, and I don’t think restrictionists think that foreigners are dirty. I think that most immigrants are disturbingly stupid, lazy and feckless, and come here for the welfare benefits. If welfare was abolished, we would get a higher class of immigrant, and immigration would no longer be a problem – though we would still have the problem of blacks that were abducted here and the mestizos who came here under their own power.
“That Friedman does not use the word ‘evil’ I’ll grant, but are you seriously arguing that in that quote Friedman is not claiming moral superiority over immigration restrictionists?”
Yes, though I can certainly see how a reasonable person might argue otherwise, and so I’m not terribly interested in defending this point. The question ultimately hinges on how one chooses to define “moral superiority.”
“But, you say, opposing immigration really does make a mockery of ‘The New Colossus.’ Yes, that’s true. So what?”
So, I say, it is senseless to suggest that his little poem is intended to paint his opponents as “evil” when a more reasonable explanation exists – he means to highlight the dissonance between the words engraved on a beloved American symbol and our current immigration policy. Further speculation as to his motives is uncharitable, unwarranted, and likely incorrect. I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that, were DF asked to chime in on this discussion, he’d deny thinking anyone here was “evil” for holding views in conflict with his or that he somehow possessed superior “holiness” to any other individual. I doubt anyone would take me up on this offer. Excuses would likely take the form of claiming to know better than DF why DF does things, or claiming that DF is evil and lying. But deep down, I think you all know that the invisible dragon in the garage simply isn’t there.
“Hypocrisy and policy are no strangers. More relevant to the argument: Friedman is claiming his position is more in line with the values of this beloved symbol of America. Sure he’s right. He’s clearly still claiming superior holiness; that’s the source of his supposed holiness!”
And the leftists here claim superior holiness to Friedman because they, unlike he, do not claim superior holiness. I would say I’m shocked that no one has thought to make this point before, but really I’m not.
Broaden the understanding of a term enough, and it stops being useful. I’m struck by the idea that claims to “holiness” are not what’s being objected to here. Instead, it is the claims of “superiority” that really stick in your craws. Hierarchy is all well and good to talk about in the abstract, but feeling its weight pressing down appears to have driven you all mad.
“Friedman also gets in his ‘dirty foreigners’ dig. Well, you said, restrictionists really do think foreigners are dirty. Again, even if it’s accurate, it’s still a claim of moral superiority. Why else do you suppose Friedman wrote those lines?”
Because more members of our leftist culture react negatively to the use of phrases like “dirty foreigners” than support open borders, and by linking the the former to opposition to the latter, Friedman hopes to create a feeling of cognitive dissonance in people and persuade them that the proper way to resolve it is by supporting open borders. It’s propaganda; he wants to convert you. If you want to claim that all propagandists are implicitly claiming moral superiority and therefore evil, I can’t stop you, but I wonder if you’d paint Radish with that same brush.
“Jim says Friedman claims to be ‘holier than thou.’ As far as I can tell, your retort is that he doesn’t claim this because he really is holier.”
I flatly deny that the concept of holiness plays any part in my map of the world.
The virus that has eaten your brain, though of a different strain than that which ate Dawkins’s, appears to have done its job just as well.
“Further speculation as to his motives is uncharitable”
Oh yes, we mustn’t be uncharitable, says the man who just claimed those disagreeing with him here are either:
1) too stupid to understand him, or
2) too resentful of his clear intellectual superiority to accept their place as his attentive pupils, as Natural Law would dictate. Physician, heal thyself.
“Hierarchy is all well and good to talk about in the abstract, but feeling its weight pressing down appears to have driven you all mad.”
I haven’t accepted that you are the natural aristocrat you say you are. You made some semantic quibbles that you’re not even interested in defending anymore, then followed that up with bombastic boasts about your intelligence. This is all I know about you and all I’ve seen from you. You’ll forgive me if I don’t yet believe on that basis that you’ve been anointed by Maat/Nomos/Natural Law/The Mandate of Heaven to rule me.
“Oh yes, we mustn’t be uncharitable, says the man who just claimed those disagreeing with him here are either:
1) too stupid to understand him, or
2) too resentful of his clear intellectual superiority to accept their place as his attentive pupils, as Natural Law would dictate.”
I made no such claim; you’ve misunderstood. I do not insist that the only possible explanations for these repeated miscommunications are the two you’ve listed here. Indeed, the one that factors most prominently in my mind is a failing on my part. If I were much smarter, I could effortlessly link to you, using language that would cause you to label me “friend” rather than “enemy” and then be more susceptible to molding by my ideas. Instead, I have clumsily experimented with different approaches, arousing suspicion, defensiveness, and even outright hostility. This is unfortunate.
“I haven’t accepted that you are the natural aristocrat you say you are.”
Good. Only a fool would accept a stranger’s self-serving claims at face value. I do not ask that you play the part of a naive child. But you must be prepared to accept the possibility that everything you know is wrong. Or rather – if you are not so prepared, then both of us would benefit by your refraining from replying to me.
“You made some semantic quibbles that you’re not even interested in defending anymore, then followed that up with bombastic boasts about your intelligence. This is all I know about you and all I’ve seen from you.”
I disagree that this is a fair summary of my contributions here. Your attitude has renewed my interest in defending what you call semantic quibbles. Therefore, I ask: How do you define “moral superiority”? How does it differ, in your view, from just plain superiority? It seems to me that the way in which you use the phrase makes it reasonable to say that anyone who claims to be correct while someone else is mistaken asserts moral superiority over the person with whom he disagrees. I suspect that you’ll disagree, and I’ve some inkling of how, but I’m not certain. Kindly clarify.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t yet believe on that basis that you’ve been anointed by Maat/Nomos/Natural Law/The Mandate of Heaven to rule me.”
Haven’t you heard? It is the People who do the anointing nowadays.
Yes you did. The fact that you continually make claims that you then have to turn around and deny making reveals your level of intelligence.
Technically Jim, Max is right that he did not claim what I said he did. Technically. The key in his mind is the word “either;” because he never explicitly said those were the only two options, I misunderstood and misinterpreted him. It smells like BS word-slicing to me, but I suppose technically I shouldn’t have used that word.
The man is slipperier than a hagfish, and a sophist in the most pejorative sense of the word. He refuses to be pinned down to anything he has said unless it is 100% explicit and undeniable. Of course, this doesn’t stop him from reading implications and connotations in what other people write, which is part of what makes him so irritating. You’re wrong to read any implication at all of evil when he says you “lack understanding and empathy,” but he can tell right away that you think foreigners are dirty, even though you’ve never explicitly said so.
It’s a shame he’s such a supercilious jackass, because he’s finally asked a question that might be worth exploring:
“Broaden the understanding of a term enough, and it stops being useful. […] How do you define “moral superiorityâ€? How does it differ, in your view, from just plain superiority?”
Of course I don’t think foreigners are dirty. I think Mestizos, or at least the Mestizos that North America is getting from across the Mexican border, are, on average, bad drivers, lazy, stupid, profoundly disinclined to work, apt to drive without license or insurance, apt to steal, apt to drive drunk, apt to kill and eat cats, that female mestizos are short, fat, sexually promiscuous, and frequently pregnant to persons unknown, and, worst of all, that mestizos of both sexes will invariably vote for whoever promises the biggest welfare handout, but you cannot reasonably deduce “dirty” from that.
Alcestis corrects me. Mestizos are OK, being culturally white though racially mixed. The short ugly women continuously spawning anchor babies fathered by persons unknown and the men with no jobs driving drunk are Indios.
Sorry Alcestis, thanks for the correction.
Max:
“I am smarter than you, Jim.”
Show us, Max. Don’t tell us.
“I would say that the author of these words is in contact with reality, and anyone who denies reality is lying or deluded.”
And supposing I agreed entirely with this assessment, that’d still leave open the question of whether the quote’s author could properly be labeled a bigot. I suggest that he might be. What say you?
“Stop importing new underclass people, and stuff existing underclass people into ghettoes and not let them out – segregated ghettos.”
How do you intend to make this proposal a reality?
Wouldn’t it be simpler (and cheaper) to just kill them?
Segregation worked fine. Very little coercion was required. People don’t really like to mix. Integration raises their blood pressure, makes them depressed and angry, increases death from crime and death from stress related diseases. Look at the school cafetaria. Life would be a lot easier and less stressful if you put a little sign over the black section of the school cafeteria saying “Black Section” so that no one would get confused. Similarly, people pay lots of money to stay clear of people of their own race, but different class. Black people in racially mixed suburbs are more hostile, antisocial, and alienated than in overwhelmingly black suburbs, and white people in racially mixed suburbs are more hostile, antisocial, and alienated than in overwhelmingly white suburbs.
Too permanent. Need to give people the opportunity and incentive to improve their game. It is the white man’s burden to impose civilization on his inferiors. Plus killing people is not always cheap. They tend to be difficult about it.
“Moron. You find it easy to believe that I make the arguments I make out of irrational hatred of women, blacks, foreigners, and such, but impossible to believe that Obama does what he does out of irrational hatred for America, Americans, and whites, despite having been raised from birth in an environment where he was taught such hatred.”
You should be more mindful of your manners when speaking to your betters, Jim. You are confused about what I find easy and/or impossible to believe; this confusion stems in part from a simple lack of general intelligence, but also in part from an inability to accurately perceive those whom you have mentally labeled “enemy.” You cannot overcome bias if you are not aware of its existence. Try to step outside yourself long enough to recognize that you are not evaluating things dispassionately and that your emotions are the fuel for childish thinking.
In an attempt to make myself perfectly clear and break through the fog engulfing your brain: I do not believe that the arguments you make are borne of irrational hatred, nor do I entirely discount the possibility that Obama harbors some enmity for America and white people. Your assertion to the contrary is evidence of a mental shortcoming on your part of precisely the sort that I suggested might exist in my first comment here – “that you lack both understanding of and empathy for those people with whom you disagree, and that this blindness causes you to make many mistakes you ought not.”
“Show us, Max. Don’t tell us.”
But I feel that I already have, by calling attention to Mr. Donald’s errors and misrepresentations while making none of my own. Do you feel that this claim is itself a misrepresentation? Then I can do no more than remind you that people are rarely equipped to evaluate their betters, knowing that by doing so I will trigger the leftist center of your brain, which responds very negatively to feelings of oppression brought on by the imposition of order from above.
I do not make claims of intellectual superiority merely to antagonize our gracious host; my purpose here has been stated once before, but one cannot learn when one does not recognize the need to. If Mr. Donald persists much longer in his obstinacy, then I will know that my time is best served elsewhere, and regretfully abandon him to his mistakes.
Max:
“Then I can do no more than remind you that people are rarely equipped to evaluate their betters”
How very convenient for you. 🙂
“Segregation worked fine. Very little coercion was required . . . Life would be a lot easier and less stressful if you put a little sign over the black section of the school cafeteria saying ‘Black Section’ so that no one would get confused.”
Worked. Was. Would be. With these words you reveal that you did not read my question very carefully. I asked how you intend to make your proposal a reality.
“Plus killing people is not always cheap. They tend to be difficult about it.”
The same could be said of segregation. As you’ve observed, we once lived in a segregated society; now we do not. Even if you were temporarily granted the power to impose your will on the world, how would you maintain it? Better and smarter men than you have sought to organize society in ways you’d find appealing. They failed. What do you know that they didn’t which will allow you to succeed?
“How very convenient for you.”
No, Marc, it is decidedly inconvenient for me (and even moreso for the world at large) that people are so often unable to recognize their place – that they are in fact hard-wired NOT to recognize it, and to rebel against being put there.
John Brown had the right idea. If slavery had never occurred in America things would be so much better today.
Forcibly importing tens or hundreds of thousands of Africans was a really dumb idea and something that we can never seem to erase. Probably the dumbest thing America has ever done. Will that and the reaction to it be America’s downfall? Possibly.
Thanks for the reply. You’ve made some good points here (and in the new post), as have some commentators.
I didn’t intend to suggest not call a spade a spade. Just merely to call an actual spade a spade, and perhaps you’ve been doing that.
[…] Speaking truth to power « Jim’s Blog […]
I try to step in here to rescue Calvinists from historical revisionism but at the same time I have no doubt that if you put in the time and effort you could connect John Calvin to Betty Friedan and Kevin Bacon in 6 easy steps. I know that you are looking for stability not necessarily truth but I’ll tell you that you are setting up a test for Christian theology that Christians do not claim for themselves. David was a man after Gods own heart but his son was led to worship false God’s by foreign women. Moses was away 40 days and the Israelites made themselves an idol while telling themselves that they were worshiping the one true God. Purer holiness is not more stable, it is very fragile. Such a thing has to be constantly pursued and it is not guaranteed to the second and third generations.
Also, why would you think a noble lie would restrain a king or a Cromwell? A noble lie is means to serve such men, is it not. A king may only be restrained by the threat of God’s judgment in the next life and only if he is a true believer. (You can find God’s take on restraining the king from taking sexual liberties with the wives of his subjects in 2 Samuel and Psalm 51. As far as I know that is a very unique proscription in human theology or history.)
Cromwell was outflanked on the left by the levellers, the levellers outflanked on the the left by the diggers, the diggers outflanked on the left by the fifth monarchists, the fifth monarchists were outflanked by … – wherupon Cromwell sent in the army to arrest everyone who was too far left and too active in his leftism. With the diggers, you already have the modern radical left that would be right at home in the latest twenty first century protest, while still claiming to be followers of Christ and the apostles.
The fifth monarchists were commie feminists who claimed military backing by Jesus Christ. Marx tells us the diggers were radical left wing socialists and the roots of modern leftism. This is not some radically new Moldbuggian doctrine
The subsequent transformation from ostentatiously Christian to ostentatiously anti Christian went via holier than thou disease – By 1840, Exeter Hall was already dominated by those claiming to be Holier than Jesus.
The noble lie is not to restrain the King or the Cromwell, but to restrain their subjects. A Cromwell is the least bloody and disruptive way to end a left singularity.
I would prefer something freer than the five good emperors, but the five good emperors were a lot better than what we have got. I would like to get to anarcho capitalism, but expect that the path to that is through anarcho piratism and feudalism, through a possibly lengthy dark age.
As a Christian of the Reformed stripe I’m always interested in seeing how Calvin gets handled by reactionary theorists. I feel like the diagnosis of modern progressives as spiritual descendants of the English Puritans, via the Unitarians, is entirely correct. The emphasis of the Puritans on emotional experience as fundamental to community membership drove many of their children away from them and away from orthodoxy as a result.
But even Amalek was a descendant of Abraham. Just because our current masters kept something of the traditions and attitude of the Puritans doesn’t mean we should throw out the good things the Puritans (or Anglicans or continental Calvinists or Lutherans or Romans) knew and taught. Even the best human actions and ideas come from mixed motives.
Truly, unless we’re willing to repent of even our good deeds, we won’t receive God’s blessing.
[…] Speaking truth to power « Jim’s Blog […]
I guess this Max prick is a good example of the Less Wrong crowd?
Changing holier than thou with smarter than thou is no advance if it’s still a content-less assertion of higher status. Nobody gives a shit about your opinions on anybody. Make an argument or go back to your cave.
At least Goulding tries.
“I guess this Max prick is a good example of the Less Wrong crowd?”
I have read an article or two there, if that’s all you mean, but I am no member of the community. I have not created an account and post no blogs or comments there. I don’t even have the site bookmarked.
“Changing holier than thou with smarter than thou is no advance if it’s still a content-less assertion of higher status.”
I agree. Let’s remove me from the equation, then. I claim that, for any reasonable definition of the word, the Cathedral truly is holy. How do I defend this claim? By observing that there is no God, and morality is a fiction, so holy is simply another word for powerful. If an entity can and does punish heresy, then it is holy.
I do not support sacrificing speakers of truth on the PC altar, but they burn nonetheless. The stench of their flesh wafts upward towards the great hook-nose of our harpy God. And She is pleased.
The title of this post is a joke – “Speaking truth to power”? You rabble-rousers are so far removed from Power that it doesn’t even notice you exist. Dissent is cheap when it has no teeth. If ever you begin to pose even the faintest beginning of a threat, you will swiftly learn this lesson – or be destroyed.
“Nobody gives a shit about your opinions on anybody. Make an argument or go back to your cave.”
You are mistaken. A great many people care quite a bit about my opinions on a diverse array of subjects. If you were more observant, you’d be one of them. I have made many arguments here, whether you recognize them or not. And I live in a paradise built by my ancestors.
“At least Goulding tries.”
He used to, you mean. He no longer does. Because you lot are an embarrassment.
“I claim that, for any reasonable definition of the word, the Cathedral truly is holy. How do I defend this claim? By observing that there is no God, and morality is a fiction, so holy is simply another word for powerful. If an entity can and does punish heresy, then it is holy.”
See, that’s a good argument. Better than “I live in a paradise built by my ancestors.”
Is it that hard to not be a prick? “You lot are an embarrassment”. Who’s this, Cousin Violet?
Do you really think going around saying “I am smarter than you, and a great deal of people listen to my opinions” is a productive way to debate? And you accuse Jim of not having enough empathy!
So embarrassed that you are of putting your name in the same page as us rabble, why not go raise some funds for James Goulding? He seems to have some ideas which don’t involve going to peoples blogs to brag of being smart and having a great deal of people who listen to them.
“See, that’s a good argument. Better than ‘I live in a paradise built by my ancestors.'”
The latter is not an argument. It is a correction.
“Is it that hard to not be a prick?”
Difficulty’s got nothing to do with it. Some people respond positively to mannered requests for clarifications followed by gentle correction; others must have their faces shoved in the mud a few times before they’ll listen. A cantankerous few have so sealed off their minds that no penetration is possible by any means. I behave as I believe to be best.
“Do you really think going around saying ‘I am smarter than you . . .’ is a productive way to debate?”
When two people disagree, one has made a mistake. In order for correction to occur, knowledge must be transmitted from the party with the correct view of things to the party with the incorrect view. This transmission requires openness by the mistaken party to the idea that he has erred. Absent this openness, growth is impossible.
In other words, it is not a way to debate at all. But if neither party accepts the possibility that his opponent knows something he does not, then productive debate is impossible. In that case, all contradictions fall on deaf ears, and the people involved would be better served by ignoring one another, since that is in effect what they are doing anyway.
Here, we have an interesting situation where my criticism of Mr. Donald and many of his associates is that they are too quick to dismiss the idea that they might be mistaken. Unsurprisingly, they have quickly dismissed the idea. If I am to persist in making the claim, how should I go about persuading them of it? Their error stems from hubris – the belief that they are holier than the Cathedral, and that by virtue of their holiness, they have been able to grasp hold of truths which have eluded the high priests of that heretical order. I don’t even necessarily disagree with that last bit – but the mindset that has taken root as a result of these revelations is no less blind and fanatical than that which exists in Cornel West. If an awakening is to occur, it must begin with them understanding that they are not so smart. http://hanson.gmu.edu/deceive.pdf
“And you accuse Jim of not having enough empathy!”
I still do, yes, and continue not to recognize that failing to the same degree in myself. Being imperfect, I make mistakes, and I strive always to accept criticism where it is warranted. But I am pretty sure that it is not, here.
“So embarrassed that you are of putting your name in the same page as us rabble, why not go raise some funds for James Goulding? He seems to have some ideas which don’t involve going to peoples blogs to brag of being smart and having a great deal of people who listen to them.”
Because, bright though I believe him to be, I do not think he has got the right idea about how best to proceed. I am confident, however, that with the passage of time this disagreement will fade. Either he will come to see things my way, or I will come to see things his, and I am largely indifferent to which of these outcomes eventuates.
But you don’t actually believe this. You use moralistic language that presupposes that that Cathedral members and Cathedral supporters intend good for reasonable reasons, and that critics of the Cathedral hatefully intend harm for foolish reasons, that is in fact outrageous, ridiculous, and absurd to suggest that Cathedral members intend to harm people in order to benefit themselves.
You not only claim that the Cathedral is more powerful than we are, which obviously it is, but that it is wiser, smarter, and intends to do good to us, while we, in our foolish ignorance, pursue ends that intentionally and malevolently harm others, while failing to benefit ourselves, indeed hurting ourselves.
You say it is ridiculously extreme, insane, and outrageously offensive to say that Cathedral policies aim at hurtful and malevolent ends, while it is mere neutral statement of fact that people who disagree with David Friedman from the right aim at hurtful and malicious ends for stupid and hateful reasons.
You claim that to attribute malicious and hurtful ends to leading members of the Cathedral is an extraordinary insult, but to attribute malicious and hurtful ends to those that disagree with the Cathedral is mere neutral statement of fact, not a denunciation of evil and a claim of superior holiness.
In short, no enemies to the left, no friends to the right, which means that all your enemies are your friends and all you friends are your enemies, so that you are always betraying, and always betrayed.
“But you don’t actually believe this.”
You assert, then, that I am either blatantly dishonest or so stupid as to be confused about what beliefs I actually hold. I deny this. I assert, instead, that you simply misunderstand me.
What priors could you possibly hold that would make the former assertion seem more plausible than the latter? In which direction do you think an objective and independent observer should lean in the absence of evidence aside from what’s been said in this thread, and why?
“You use moralistic language that presupposes that that Cathedral members and Cathedral supporters intend good for reasonable reasons, and that critics of the Cathedral hatefully intend harm for foolish reasons, that is in fact outrageous, ridiculous, and absurd to suggest that Cathedral members intend to harm people in order to benefit themselves.”
Show your work. I disagree with your characterization of the language I use, but even if we accept this as a reasonable interpretation of the subtext to what I’ve said thus far, what follows overwhelms and contradicts it: Not all Cathedral members and Cathedral supporters intend good for reasonable reasons, and no critics of the Cathedral with which I’m familiar intend to cause net harm. Some Cathedral members intend to harm people in order to benefit themselves.
Will reading these words light a spark of understanding in you, or will we all witness the weaving of further fairy tales about what I “actually believe”?
“You say it is ridiculously extreme, insane, and outrageously offensive to say that Cathedral policies aim at hurtful and malevolent ends, while it is mere neutral statement of fact that people who disagree with David Friedman from the right aim at hurtful and malicious ends for stupid and hateful reasons.
You claim that to attribute malicious and hurtful ends to leading members of the Cathedral is an extraordinary insult, but to attribute malicious and hurtful ends to those that disagree with the Cathedral is mere neutral statement of fact, not a denunciation of evil and a claim of superior holiness.”
Quote me. You claim that I have said some things. I claim that I have never said them and never would, because these words do not reflect my views. I challenge you to prove me wrong. We cannot possibly make progress if we cannot even agree on what I have said and what I believe.
There are no holy wars, Jim. There is no good or evil. There is only the world. How it is, how you perceive it, and how you’d like it to be are three different things. Wisdom consists of uniting this trinity.
“In short, no enemies to the left, no friends to the right, which means that all your enemies are your friends and all you friends are your enemies, so that you are always betraying, and always betrayed.”
You repeat yourself as if you had not read half of what I’ve written in the interim since you last said this. That is why I’m beginning to think you more of a dullard than I did when we began this exchange. I don’t like thinking that. It makes me sad.
I claimed that Obamacare intends, among other things, to murder sick old people with prolonged deep sedation in order to release medical resources for free abortion on demand. You claimed that I “seem biased and hysterical and are an embarrassment to the cause when you say things like this.”, while you noticed nothing biased or hysterical about David Friedman’s demonization of those who disagree with him on immigration, even though my position is obviously factual, and Freidman’s position absurd.
Says the man who demonizes in moralistic language anyone who disagrees with him from the right
Alright. I am done here.
You will die in obscurity, and that is for the best.
“You will die in obscurity, and that is for the best.”
Ahahahaha. Projection much?
[[[…we’ll define trolls as “critics from nowhereâ€. A real troll will never give you their top 10 favorite death metal albums, because that opens him up to criticism – he’s not in it for that. Instead you have to tollerate this fucker telling you how Opeth isn’t “real†death metal, without providing alternatives. This is what’s so infuriating about trolls.]]]
http://www.xenosystems.net/trolls/#comments
[…] Speaking truth to power « Jim’s Blog […]
Excellent post. Well spoken.
I enjoyed reading this. Care to share it with the readers of Alternative Right?
You are asking me if I want free publicity in a sympathetic forum? Of course.
[…] Speaking truth to power « Jim’s Blog […]
Upon their arrival, the Scottish Commissioners – Alexander Henderson , George Gillespie , Samuel Rutherford , and Robert Baillie – organized a campaign to have the Church of England adopt a presbyterian system similar to the Church of Scotland . It initially appeared that the Scottish Commissioners might be able to push through their presbyterian scheme with only minimal resistance.
Jim – interesting “dialogue” between you and max. There was definitely something not quite right about him and it wasn’t subtle. BTW – I enjoy your blog.