Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
…asks one of my liberal Facebook friends, decisively nudging in an unstated way toward an approved answer of “no.” We-ell…if I’m going to speculate on this with honesty, I have to factor in years, and years, and YEARS of arguing with liberals who’ve been cudgeling me the entire time with entirely unsupported “we all know” arguments. Such arguments are lifted above the depths of inconvenience that goes with the presence of dissent, and the messy business of contending with it. They sidestep it. Hey, it’s a given. We all know.
Or…most of us know. More people agree than don’t agree, and that just proves it, right?
If that is the sentiment — and it very often is — what then is the difference between that, and confessing to a resolute belief in the majority’s privilege to manufacture its own brand of relative-truth, that is beyond challenge or appeal by any other brand? St. Augustine is said to have authored the maxim about “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” Alright, maybe he didn’t say it; I’m sure the experts would agree it seems like something George Washington would say. The important thing is, if St. Augustine did say it, would liberals agree?
Or, let’s leave the liberal thing behind for a bit, since that’s not part of the question. The question suggests a fragile absolute. That seems quite precarious to me, since to stick to a minority opinion after it’s been demonstrated to be in a minority, requires some sort of principle. Even if it is an unscrupulous minority opinion, you’d have to show some rugged constitution about it, and a determination to withstand the dissent of “everybody knows.”
That, although we may be loathe to acknowledge it in certain situations, demands character. Something we have to develop over time. We aren’t born with it. And it’s absurd to suppose everyone with a heartbeat is developing it.
I remember one lefty-leaning guy in particular, who left me with a palpable sense of “I don’t think that guy has ever gone against the group-consensus in his entire life.” Thankfully, by this time I had developed the sense of discernment not to say some things out loud. I have an effervescent memory of being tempted and deciding against it. And I can dimly recall the parting-shot he used to inspire this: Something about, me being proven wrong was some sort of fait accompli, since everyone — and I had shown my negligence in failing to figure this out for myself — disagreed. Everyone out of…whom? Smart people? English-speakers? Everyone he knew? Everyone with red blood in their veins? He did not say. But there was sufficient definition in his condemnation to satisfy him, which is what mattered…”everyone” was qualified in some, entirely unstated way, and the St. Augustine wisdom did not apply, so anything else to be discussed was just so much useless static.
It isn’t an isolated incident by any means.
And whenever anyone, liberal or otherwise, indulges in the “I know you’re wrong because nobody agrees,” or its companion of “I know I’m right because everyone knows it” — they are implicitly confessing to being part of the lifelong-bandwagon crowd. That is the equivalent of saying “No I’ve never been in the minority on anything, ever, why would I ever consider it?”
There is a lot of danger involved in assuming the majority is always correct.
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As I’m going through a commie nostalgia kick here lately, I have to note the precipitous decline in Lefty weasel-words. A “decision,” comrade? Of course I’ve been in the minority there. We all have. Why, just last week the guys at the staff meeting decided to order Chinese for lunch, despite my best efforts to talk everyone into having pizza.
Which just goes to show you that I should support any and all “Social Justice” causes du jour, right? 🙂
But a much better question, comrade, is have you ever been in the minority on any issue of importance? Or, even simpler, have you ever simply not known what the Approved Answer is on any big question?
It’s one of the simplest TTLs (Turing Tests for Liberalism) that I know. Your Liberal will admit he doesn’t know where the nearest post office is, or how to make a killer burrito. But if you say something like “gee, it sounds like [insert Republican] has some interesting ideas about credit re-transmogrification in the BRICS nations,” and get ready for a deluge of smirks. Doesn’t matter that there’s no such thing as “credit re-transmogrification” and BRICS are what happens when Shaquille O’Neal shoots free throws; your Liberal knows all about it, and how could you disagree with her, since “everyone knows” blah blah blah?
- Severian | 10/03/2016 @ 06:55That’s a good point about the decision mattering, I hadn’t thought to distinguish between the significant and the not-so-much. And I should’ve, now that I look back on it, since I think I saw you going down this road before.
But then again, I’m giving it another think, in your chosen context…”Is there anyone who has never been in the minority on any decision” — including, pizza vs. Chinese for lunch. Flipping it around, we get: Is there some decision somewhere, that is SO fleeting, so obviously trivial, that even the most fickle and unprincipled among us can legitimately claim to have taken a stand against the majority, simply because it didn’t matter?
And I’m thinking…actually, probably not. I think there are some living among us, ideological plankton essentially, whose scruple-inertia is so low that they wet their fingers & stick ’em in the air with everything that comes along, if for no other reason, that they simply have never bothered to learn another way. About this time of year, they’ll be paying through the nose for Pumpkin Spice Latte even though they can’t stand the stuff.
I can’t prove it, though.
- mkfreeberg | 10/03/2016 @ 15:55Those are the folks liberals count on to push their agenda — the Pumpkin Spice Latte drinkers. Those are the only folks really capable of being swayed by “everybody knows” arguments.
I emphasized a trivial decision because that’s exactly the intellectual level we’re dealing with. Holding out for pizza when everyone else wants Chinese is, indeed, “being in the minority”… but it’s also called “being a dick,” because yeah, that type of decision IS that trivial, which is why nobody goes to the mattresses for it.
But we all know how the “argument” is supposed to go from here: Being “in the minority” gives you a new respect for minority perspective, and since there’s only one “minority perspective” that matters — i.e. whatever the Social Justice wank du jour is — therefore, you must vote Democrat. It’s so transparent it’s sad — a slight cut above the Cuttlefishes’ “define political left” stuff, but not much (and I know George Washington said that). Whether it’s Chinese food or late term abortion, the “argument” is exactly the same….
….which is why I keep saying that today’s blue-haired bicurious vegan slam poet is tomorrow’s obergruppenfuhrer. The exact same “argument” process that goes from “losing the lunchtime debate and having to eat General Tso’s for the fourth day in a row” to “vote Hillary” will enable their switch en masse once the majority goes over to hard-K. These are the most dangerous converts, because they have the longest track records of behaving with no scruples whatsoever. The same HR gal who would disemploy you for voting Trump this year will disemploy you for NOT voting Trump in 2020.
- Severian | 10/03/2016 @ 18:19Found in the wild:
A guy that argues the majority is usually in the wrong on a decision.
Remember the answer is always: “What does the poster feel at this moment?”
- Nate Winchester | 10/10/2016 @ 08:27