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...
A friend and I were talking at work about the tragedy of the kids-these-days…the stuff they can’t do that previous generations would’ve been able to do, what’s changed in their upbringing, and consequentially in their behavior. She’s in her mid-thirties, I’m closing in on fifty this summer. So it was worth contemplating, that people in our age bracket have been harboring these concerns for a good long time, centuries even. In each generation, these concerns could be crystallized into something specific, that remains consistent with what was expressed a generation previous and a generation afterward: Here is something the kids aren’t being taught how to do, and after I was taught how to do it, darn it, turned out I really, really needed to know it. So how are they to cope? The world’s still here, so perhaps these worries are overblown.
But on the other hand. It would be futile, and maybe even a bit foolish, to doubt that there is a quickening of sorts taking place. The rate at which things are changing, the way they are changing, this is in itself changing. The kids don’t see it. And while the old farts like us do see it, it looks to us like some sort of a curve. Well, a curve could mean anything. y=x^2? Or, y=1/(k-x)? One can be plotted indefinitely and the the other cannot be. And this is the summation of the fears of all the old farts, grousing about the shortcomings of the younger generation, throughout history. Trying to detect from the slope of the curve, whether or not we’re heading over a brink. It’s the Stein Rule, whatever cannot last forever, won’t. So is this, that? Are we approaching something that can be approached only so much? That’s the question. Parabola or hyperbola.
I am reassured when I see that Medicators have been with us throughout the ages. These are the hopeless addicts to immediate gratification, the ones who don’t define much of anything at all, in fact will resist the useful definition of pretty much anything save for their own feelings. Their opposites are the Architects, the ones who take the time to figure out the widget will start working when, and only when, this pinion is affixed to this shaft and meshed with that other pinion…to which the Medicator protests, “I don’t care how the watch works, I just want to know what time it is.” Technology has illuminated, and intensified, this split in how people think. But the overall point is, it has also saddled us with a tragic paradigm: It has made it easy, in a way it never was easy before, for the Medicators to come out on top. Seems every big firm, right before tumbling over a precipice and starting a downward slide, puts their creative talent under the authoritative whim of the uncreative and untalented. This is a product of technology. Without technology, there is an implied contract of “you may have what you can build yourself,” just as without law and order there is an implied contract of “you may keep what you personally can defend with physical force.”
All-around, that’s an improvement. But there is one thing I know is wrong, for sure. I don’t need to wait to see how the curve plots as the X-axis extends rightward. And history provides me no assurances about this. And I don’t need a windy paragraph to make the point, I can summarize it in a single sentence:
People who “don’t care about” things, expect to win.
That’s new, and it isn’t being constrained in any way that I can see. Indeed, this expectation that the outcome should be unilaterally determined by people who claim not to care what the outcome is, does not come from within. If it does, it is at least being reinforced from without. These races for President of the United States just provide further evidence for what I’m observing. History is going to record President Obama got elected to fix our health care system, and…did something about it. The sources biased in His favor will say He fixed it, those biased against Him will say He wrecked it, but they’ll all be obliged to agree He was the Health Care President. But, Obama doesn’t care about this subject. He is not a policy wonk. If He was, He wouldn’t be fun to watch, there’d be no entertainment value in His speeches, and He would not be the figure He is today. Ever watch someone who cares about whether something works, build the whatever-it-is? Boring. Caring about where things go, how it all works, sucks up a lot of time. It can be made watchable only by way of careful editing, reducing hours and days to just a few minutes. But how about designing it? Want to watch someone do the actual design? Even more boring.
Watching someone wreck something, or dismiss a rebuttal with the ultimate smackdown of “I don’t care about,” that’s entertaining. Technology has enabled us to wallow in the delusion that this is how things are built. But it isn’t. Things that actually work, are built by people who care. Things that don’t work, are built by people who don’t. It’s no more complicated than that.
Which brings me to bathrooms. Among those crusading for an end to the ladies’ restroom as a defining edifice of civilized society, a talking point has set in that they’re somehow the sane ones; their exclusive lock on sanity is illuminated by the fact that they don’t care. They don’t care about the gender of the person using the facilities, and they don’t care about the issue overall either.
They think they can sell that as sanity, because they think it looks like sanity. Maybe it does to someone else, not to me though. Sanity, where one side cares about how an issue is resolved and the other side does not care, looks like: Let’s ask the ones who care. While those who have better things to do, more weighty things on their mind, go off to attend to whatever those things are.
I know, that’s just crazy talk, right? It would end these “bathroom wars” in a heartbeat.
But, that will never work. It takes seriously something that never was intended to be taken seriously, this outburst of “we don’t care about.” That’s fake. The crusaders for the rights of gender-confused bathroom visitors not only care, they refuse to take no for an answer.
This is an old problem with the homosexual agenda. It passes itself off convincingly as something reasonable, by basing itself on the premise that “kids are born that way,” therefore the object of all this crusading has to do with a personal birth-attribute, over which the person in question has no control, much like the color of a person’s skin. It is on that intellectual foundation that the movement is treated, from within and without, as an anti-discrimination movement. All fine and good. But it does not follow, from that, that the movement should be granted the various things it demands. This is the true meaning of the Latin “non sequitur“: It does not follow.
How you “sexually identify” shouldn’t have any ramification whatsoever on what bathroom you visit. We visit bathrooms to resolve biological issues; to take a #1 or a #2, to put it delicately. This has nothing to do with sex, it has to do with attachments and fittings. But with the “I don’t care” crowd running things, I suppose right-wing blogs are the only place we can mention what should be immediately & ultimately obvious?
As saneperson commented last month,
Another little game that liberals like to play is, “Why are you wasting time arguing about X when there are all these far more important issues?”
But if their real concern was that public debate time is being wasted on trivial side issues, the solution would be simple: Give the conservatives what they want on this issue, and then get the conversation back on the important things. If you think the issue of who can use which bathroom is silly and not worth arguing about for 30 seconds, then great, stop arguing about it! If you think this debate is a waste of time, you can end it instantly by just conceding the point.
Of course they never, ever do this. 9 times out of 10 they’re the ones who brought the issue up in the first place, by passing some law or getting a court ruling forcing everyone in the country to do something that liberals want. As in this case. So they’re argument is, “This is stupid and unimportant. So you should just concede the argument and give us 100% of what we want.” No, if you really believed it was stupid and unimportant, you would never have brought a lawsuit over it or lobbied Congress or whatever to begin with. You’re the ones who declared this a vitally important issue. And now you’re mad at us because we agree that it’s important.
The real objection, of course, is not that we are wasting time by debating this trivial side issue. The real objection is that we are not getting the liberal agenda enacted fast enough.
And that really nails it. My beef with them is not with their apathy; I’m apathetic about a lot of things. Nor can I fault them for their passion. It’s the insincerity, by which they so casually cloak the latter under a disguise of the former. They’re supposedly not targeting homosexuals, or straights, they just want a non-discriminatory world in which everyone can be what nature has decided they should be. And, they’re not coming after our kids, supposedly. But they are. Elsa is supposed to have a girlfriend, the newest hashtag campaign says so. What does “coming after our kids” look like, if that isn’t it?
And this brings me to the latest hot new trend of “We distinguish ourselves by not caring about it, so let us unilaterally dictate how it’s going to be and we will NEVER take no for an answer”: #NeverTrump.
Once again, a tempest in a teapot arises, and it’s supposed to be all my fault, for noticing a glaring contradiction. These are supposed to be champions of conservatism. Their narrative is that Trump is just as much a liberal as Hillary, and since the election is now a contest between the one and the other, it’s a lost cause for conservatism. They’re just pointing it out, folks, and don’t you dare insinuate they’re campaigning for Hillary!
Here is one example:
I will not vote for a liberal. I don’t give a hairy rat’s ass how many made-for-TV slogans he repeats, how many empty promises he offers, how many insults he or his followers hurl…I don’t trust him. I won’t vote for him. and I do not respond to fascist tactics, period.
if you only dive-bomb my posts in an effort to change my mind? save it. you’ll never do so.
if you delight in hurling insults at those who still take the time to engage you? don’t be at all shocked when they respond in the only manner in which you seem to understand.
don’t bother with your asinine argument about voting for BIG GOV CANDIDATE 1 (Thing 1) in order to prevent BIG GOV CANDIDATE 2 (Thing 2) from ascending to the WH. we told you months ago that — should this shit sandwich on soggy syphilitic toast become the fare du jour — we would not partake.
you’re comfortable with compromising your integrity, your “principles”, to the point that you’ll support a lying, classless bully who exhibits NOT ONE characteristic indicative of statesmanship, nor any fundamental understanding of the Constitution he might become charged with protecting — on the basis of this year’s “Hope and Change”? good on you; I’m happy for you. I’ll never be there.
I will not shut up. I will not stop posting about my objection to this ASS as an appropriate choice for president. I will NOT vote for him come November. and I AM NOT ALONE.
continue haranguing the last conservatives of good conscience remaining in this country; you’ll find that you only cement our resolve.
Where to begin.
“Hurling insults” is something I have seen time and time again from the Trump-phobes, not so much the Trump-philes.
I’ve checked out this thing about Trump being some kind of liberal. Even in the smear jobs, he comes off looking like a mercenary who has become tired of the rules he has successfully followed. This is the very picture of the newcomer-conservative that the movement should be making efforts to welcome.
And, as I’ve pointed out many times before, this mistaken mindset of “I must be correct for look how incredibly difficult it is to change my mind” is a rhetorical tool of the left. Of liberals. We should expect this to be the case. If they had what it took to take in new information, to consider other perspectives and other views, they wouldn’t be liberals.
But my biggest problem is with the “I will not shut up.” Why not, I wonder? If you are in this crusade to uphold your “principles,” which have to do with conservatism, which has been entirely betrayed now that the 2016 election is distilled into a contest between one liberal and another…then, I would expect, your head is in 2018 or 2020. And your crusading would go there. Why are you crusading in the here and now? What is it you want — this year? We know what you don’t want; what DO you want, then? Given all that is possible as of now.
If your thoughts are on this year, and you will not shut up…which I’m reading as, you will not take no for an answer…I’m guessing you want to divert votes away from Trump. You know your third-party candidate won’t actually win, so — what part of this is not supposed to look like crusading for Hillary? Why is it, exactly, that people aren’t supposed to think this is what you’re doing?
I’ve pointed this out to Trump-phobes before. They don’t take too kindly to it. One of the most common rejoinders is, if they’re expected to shut up, then anybody who disagrees with them should also shut up, just as quickly and just as much.
This misses the point. They’re the ones with the narrative that says all is lost now. They’re the ones who, given that the contest is now between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, don’t care. Which brings us back to the original subject, the title of this post. Just like the people who don’t care how nature made a child who was born gay; and, like the bathroom warriors. There is a certain way people behave when they really don’t care about something. True apathy has a certain standard, and #NeverTrump crusaders, by continuing to crusade, are failing to live down to it.
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Orwell said:
The fact that he had to say this about fighting the Nazis tells you everything you need to know about such individuals. If ever a group deserved war to the knife, it was the Nazis. And this while Britain was being starved out by U-boats, and bombed nightly by the Luftwaffe!
And speaking of WWII, I blame the Baby Boomers for the current mess. Rebelling against your parents’ values is a vital part of growing up. Which explains the Sixties. BUT: an equally important part of growing up is realizing that your parents were right. It’s the parents’ job to let their kids rebel a bit; it’s the kids’ job to soberly evaluate the results of that rebellion.
But that never happened with the Boomers. They clung to their “don’t trust anyone over thirty!” flower-power mantra well into middle age. Hence, grunge — how can you rebel against your parents’ values when their one and only value is “stick it to The Man”? You still have to rebel — it’s teenage firmware — but since that’s what your parents did, you have to pretend you don’t care about that stuff. At all. It’s like, you know, whatever. And even that didn’t work, because every time a slacker icon arose, along came some goddamn Boomer in Rolling fucking Stone to proclaim that while this Kurt Cobain fellow is certainly an amusing little monkey, he’s no Jim Morrison.
Hence, postmodern “irony” — which is really just passive-aggressive sarcasm — is the default mode of that entire generation. And they’re parents now, and their kids are voting for Obama even as they’re getting screwed over. They can’t be all, like, whatever about stuff, because that’s what their parents did. Nor can they be passionate about stuff, because that’s what their grandparents did… and grandma is still going on about fucking Woodstock and posting Jerry Garcia quotes on her Facebook page.
So they have to go all in on this bizarre identity politics stuff, and defend it to the death, even as they pretend not to care at all.
Sorry for the long-windedness (feel free to delete this, or tell me to repost it over at RC), but it just kills me to see this. Two entire generations systematically fucked over, all because bored little rich kids in 1964 liked playing “revolutionary” too much to get a real job after college.
- Severian | 05/19/2016 @ 06:00Sorry Morgan, but in that case you need to get out more because I’ve seen PLENTY from philes too (yes, plenty from phobes as well), surely you noticed the rise of “cuckservative.” I mean just go to any Vox Day post where he starts out insulting someone opposed to Trump and then the comments to it will fill out your ledger.
Well, i guess it also depends. If you’re talking about the leftist trump-phobes… yeah they’ve racked up a high score that’s in no danger of being broken. If you mean the rightist trump-phobes, they were the ones I was referring to as being no more insulting than many of the philes.
We’ll see. At times he also comes off as very mercenary and very much a salesman (and I know, I’ve worked as a salesman) so I’m hesitant just out of reflexive wariness of somebody telling me what I want to hear.
Plus also if you expect him to be liberal, then it will be a pleasant surprise if he turns out to be nearly reaganesque. (If you had me actually put money down… I would bet on… him being W 2.0.)
You’re onto something deeper there. Hence the rise of dank memes and other stuff.
- Nate Winchester | 05/19/2016 @ 06:24How 90s. I remember it well. Very Tarantino — it’s lame and boring to like stuff, so instead of just making a gangster picture because I like gangster pictures, I’ll make this ornately artificial gangster picture… that constantly points out how elaborate and artificial it is while it’s going on. That way I won’t be “genre,” and if anyone criticizes me for being too artificial, I can say “that’s the whole point, man!” Or music: I’ll be as un-rockstar-like as possible, to the point of basing my most recognizable riff off “More Than a Feeling,” aka the most corporate rock song of all time… but being as un-rockstar-like as possible is such a pose, but I know it’s a pose, which is so lame that it’s cool……
… ye cats the 90s made my head hurt. I can’t imagine what it’s like for kids now. No wonder they want transgender bathrooms — they have no idea what to make of an honest-to-God distinction.
- Severian | 05/19/2016 @ 08:55and in his latest article, theodore dalrymple says,
Now I feel REALLY sorry for future generations when the 90s is taken literally…
- Nate Winchester | 05/19/2016 @ 09:27Great post, organ, some really good points.
And the comments too are thought provoking.
Expanding/dovetailing a bit…I wonder if some of this social justice craploa is an extension of just not being able to deal with the realities of 2016. More specifically, terrorism and the suckass economy.
Or sure SJW have been at it since before 9/11 & Obama’s 7+ years of “recovery”, I get that, but these junior SJW’s like Black Lives Matter, Bernie’s retards, etc., are the ones who pushing the cart now. Sure their getting help from the older libfucks but they’re the driving force now behind the “safe spaces”, ‘I disagree with you I’m gonn’a call you a racist even if you’re not even talking about anything remotely related to race” and of course the “inclusive” mindset that brings us grown ass men using the same bathroom as little girls.
I just don’t think they can handle the fact that some folks, who they insist practice a “peaceful religion” and are Non-Whites, are in fact trying to kill as many as they can. It pretty much goes against everything they hold dear – a minority victimhood class actually perpetuating the very same thing – violence – they, SJW’s, believe (but not in actually) is happening to them – Arab Muslims. Their Anti-Semitism fits this narrative to a tee.
Just a thought…
- tim | 05/19/2016 @ 10:25Or…
Great post, Morgan…
“organ”…WTF tim!?!
- tim | 05/19/2016 @ 10:26tim,
I think you’re spot on. Steve Sailer says that PC is a war on noticing. But the fact that he uses “PC” betrays how old he is — for anyone who grew up after the mid-90s, there’s no such thing as PC; it’s just the default. They’ve been taught that everybody is unique and special and everyone is the best at everything. And then there’s the evidence of their own lying eyes….
I ran into an analogous problem in grad school. At least once a day I’d think “you can’t possibly believe what you’re saying;” but they gave every indication that yes, they did believe it, despite being aware of all kinds of evidence that disproved it. “Intellectuals” can talk themselves into anything, of course, but these are the people who are teaching your kids. So normal people become completely cynical — these people who are spouting this bizarre, obviously untrue nonsense; these are the best and brightest, the professors, the lawyers, the politicians. Thus, they conclude, the easiest way to get ahead in this world is to pretend to believe nonsense; whose act is most convincing wins.
- Severian | 05/19/2016 @ 11:29Sev, your grad school experience calls to my mind a classic Theodore Dalrymple observation: that one of the main points of an oppressive regime is to constantly make its subject-victims complicit in their own oppression, by making lies and unreality the coin of the realm. The more they are forced to act and live and think that way, the more demoralized they become, and simpler to control – it’s hard to have to confront that one played, however passively or minutely, a role in polishing one’s own chains.
- nightfly | 05/20/2016 @ 07:56“Pierre, a cautionary tale in five chapters and a prologue”
- CaptDMO | 05/26/2016 @ 14:19Maurice Sendak, Nutshell Library.
Kid’s these Days have this kind of stuff read to them, and subsequently read themselves, BEFORE mandatory K-12 “common core” education, ….right?
Nate:
“Now I feel REALLY sorry for future generations when the 90s is taken literally…”
Grab your codpiece and hold on to your spats,
- CaptDMO | 05/30/2016 @ 04:15“Idiocracy”
“Oleanna”
We’ve finished the translation. It’s a COOKBOOK!!! (OK, maybe “It’s an INSTRUCTION MANUAL!!!”)