It used to be mandatory to believe that evolution was a mere creation myth, something that happened long, long ago, and far far away, but had not happened in the last hundred thousand years or so, so that it was impossible for there to be differences between races, or indeed between men and woman.
But, in that case, we would still be shaped for eating meat and fat, and not yet shaped for eating wheat and vegetable oil, which is horribly politically incorrect. Vegetable oil would produce heart disease, which is as bad as lack of global warming. And so, it is now mandatory to believe that evolution is extremely fast when it would produce politically correct results, and does not happen at all when it would produce politically incorrect results.
PC gets ever more stupid, as the arrogance of power has excused it from making any sense at all.
PC requires us to believe that human subspecies do not exist. PC also requires us to believe that meat is bad for you and grain is good for you. Logically, this requires us to believe that evolution does not happen, and that evolution is incredibly fast.
Would you happen to know why these foods are PC?
So, progressivism works by evolution, it tries everything and promotes what works, but I can’t think of a convincing reason that vegetable oil and grains are PC. How does that help proggies?
Alrenous, you’re just not paranoid enough.
Each proggie wants to be lefter than all of the others. Animal rights, save the earth, self sacrifice. Opposing meat gives one three credentials to be lefter than thou.
Also denying oneself meat is an old Christian symbolism, and progressivism inherited the whole Christian tradition, but transliterated from this world to the next, so that instead of improving the soul, denying oneself meat supposedly improves the body.
Paul warned people not to go overboard on denying themselves meat. A bit of symbolic self denial is a fine exercise in outward and inward piety, but giving up meat altogether is silly, Paul tells us, and going holier than thou and condemning those others who fail to deny themselves meat is sinful.
But, since holier than thou is the driving force of progressivism, Paul’s warnings on excessive self denial got ditched along with his warnings on excessive anti slavery activism.
I see, thanks.
Jesus spends a LOT of time reiterating over and over again that we are NOT to use Christianity, God, or religion as an instrument for status warfare. That’s the main meaning in the ‘when you pray, do not as the Pharisees do’ passage. He’s not speaking against praying in public, hell, He and the disciples prayed in public in front of huge groups all the time—they even instructed big groups in HOW to pray. There are plenty of dimensions to compete on status. God just doesn’t want us using HIM as a marker in any of those competitions.
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I´m not sure if I understand you well, but by using animal rights as an example of being leftist is obsolete. There is humane imperative and compassion involved, which is not unique to people, who are focused on community rather than individuality. Even realtors are writing about animal rights and going vegan. And you probably wouldn´t accuse them of being leftist, would you?
Vegan is SWPL. SWPL is leftism. It is as leftist as Charles Murray eating pasta with homeopathic quantities of truffles.
I think his point is PC is contradictory, and he sums it in the last paragraph.
Jim the problem with your comments argument is it could be used against us – as indeed in a very long winded indirect fashion it is – that we should obey OUR masters – USG and Americas Ruling Class. They certainly think it’s proper and have dropped the mask regarding their views of us.
That’s one of the reasons I still like democracy – while quite imperfect it allows at Americans to throw out the bums. We do not have democracy the last 80 years and you will notice things have been going to Hell the last 50.
The other reason I like American democracy is as a weapon.
VXXC, you haven’t read much about Athenian democracy and the french revolution. Any sane ruling class turns democracy into managed democracy quite quickly if they want the nation to survive.
Evolution can happen as fast or slow as they need it to because it only happens from the neck down, you see…
I do think that it is probably a “coincidence” that the Paleo diet works.
Some human population groups have not been hunter gatherers for a long time. They’ve probably had enough time to adapt to grains in their diet. But nobody has really had had time to adapt to processed foods or stuff like “frankenwheat”.
So when you adopt a simple diet based on unprocessed, old school foods (meat/veg/fats) you cut out a wide variety of bad stuff, even if your recent ancestors might have been capable of eating grains the grains of their time without getting fat. And you avoid the low fat nonsense as well.
Quite likely For all I know, grain might really be good for you. I was rather addressing the internal inconsistency of leftism, that leftism is not required to make any sense.
Are you familiar with Banting’s Letter on Corpulence?
Yes, and his diet (avoid high carb foods) was attacked in a way that suggests it, and he, was perceived as wicked and immoral.
I was thinking about the frankenwheat hypothesis when I remembered him, and he kindly ruled it out for me.
From the review by Cordelia Fine:
Moreover, there is increasing evidence of diet-induced changes in the human genome quite recently—that is, since the development of agriculture. Such discoveries undermine another fundamental assumption of paleofantasies, which is that all evolutionary processes take place at an astoundingly slow speed over hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, certain circumstances can bring about relatively rapid changes in gene frequencies and traits.
I wonder if she realizes what she’s even uttered there. Perhaps she does. She’s also written a book about gender malleability called “Delusions of Gender.” I could see a kind of bizarre logic at work: Evolution can be quick, so clearly there’s been enough time for the sexual dimorphism in humans to be changed. A few centuries of women in the workplace, and you’ve rewired their brains from the domesticated women of yore! (Of course, don’t dare suggest to her that rapid evolution of other traits might occur as well . . .)
Or not. Her book might just be more blank-slatist nonsense, in which case, she is, as everyone has pointed out here, living in a state of cognitive dissonance, a blank-slatist one minute and a fellow traveler of Harpending/Cochran the next.
This is effectively normal for progressives. They don’t see the conflict between “my body my choice” when it comes to killing babies but not drug use. The actual ideas they express are complete independent from the words they use. This isn’t terribly unusual with people who are disinterested in the nature of reality. They love their progressive matrix.
I got the impression that the article only existed as cover for the opening paragraph. That she believes in perfect blank slatism just underscores it: look how smart my child is! What a wonderful parent I am!