Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Shiny Beast at the End of History

Well, I have almost no time this morning, so if this post suddenly ends in a whimper instead of a bang....

Often I start a post with just the fragment of an idea for an idea, which then metastasizes into a whole post after placing it in the "crock pot" (which is what Petey calls my head). Today I'm afraid I may only have time for the raw fragments, so it will be up to you kook them into a fully half-baked compost.

Take this line, for example, about the gradual transformation of plain old Germany into Nazi Germany. If I had time, I could turn this into a long-winded post about how the left has gradually taken over every institution (the media, academia, the education establishment, the state department, professional associations, the judiciary, etc.) during my lifetime, so that elections hardly even matter to them:

"[A] reporter compared the process of Nazism's attempted moral transformation of German society to rebuilding a railway bridge. Engineers could not simply demolish an existing structure, because of the impact on rail traffic. Instead, they slowly renewed each bolt, girder and rail, work which hardly caused passengers to glance up from their newspapers. However, one day, they would realize that the old bridge had gone and a gleaming new structure stood in its stead" (Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich).

So for the left, elections are just noisy diversions that they use like a magician to distract the public while they do their real lasting work right under your nose. For example, the left is still yammering about the theo-fascist takeover of government and the urgent need to impeach President Bush at once, even though he really will leave office in 13 months, no matter how much they complain, which will cause their readership, subscriptions, and fundraising to plummet.

But no mere election can rid us of the entrenched interests of the left, which has its testicles.... wait, it has no testicles.... its tentacles into everything.

Look at that -- just three paragraphs into the post and I've already fulfilled Godwin's Law....

Some other nuggets from that same book: Nazism is applied biology. It's what you end up with in a thoroughly despiritualized (and therefore derealized) world, i.e., "the imposition of an ought-world on reality."

Another contemporary commenter called fascist rhetoric "an extraordinary rape of the soul." But if the soul doesn't exist, then it cannot be raped, so the left eliminates that problem at the outset. No, the soul cannot be raped, but the earth can be. Which is ironic, since much of the rhetoric from the greenhouse gasbags approaches soul rape -- i.e., human beings are intrinsically bad and selfish, and should stop reproducing altogether.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Here's Sean Penn's floppy boot stomp (apologies to Captain Beefheart) in his speech last week in support of the the peace candidate, Dennis Kucinich: "High crimes and misdemeanors? How about full-blown treason for the outing our own CIA operatives? How about full-blown treason for those who support this administration through media propaganda? While I'm not a proponent of the Death Penalty, existing law provides that the likes of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice, if found guilty, could have hoods thrown over their heads, their hands bound, facing a 12-man rifle corps executing death by firing squad."

Now if Ann Coulter had said something similar, she would have been placed in the left wing media barrel and tossed over Niagra Falls for a few days of joyously sadistic bouncing.

Nazism was a "secularized religion." The result was "a 'church-state' or a state 'counter-church', with its own intolerant dogma, preachers, sacred rites and lofty idioms that offered total explanations of the past, present and future, while demanding unwavering dedication from its adherents." Why does this sound familiar? Oh yes, my 12 years of higher education....

Now speaking of bridges and past-present-future, one of our only defenses against the false god, Demos, is the coontinuity between the living, the dead, and the unborn, which in Christian life form a single body. Otherwise, we face the all too familiar torch-and-pitchfork-carrying leftist mob with no defense except Truth and Spirit -- which will prevail in the end, but in the meantime, we could use some backup. In our case, our most sacred reinforcements are the heroic Americans who gave their blood for an America that would be unrecognizable to them should the left prevail in its sinister world-historical mission.

In other words, its one thing to ask a man to give his life for a nation he recognizes and loves. It's another thing entirely to ask him to give his life for his country, only to deceive him by turning it into a country that he might very well have taken up arms against. How many of the "greatest generation" shed their blood for multiculturalism, or "diversity," or moral relativism, or income redistribution, or the redefinition of marriage? I would guess none, because the cowardly people who believe in those cynical and unheroic ideals are not likely to lay down their lives to advance them. Hell, they wouldn't even risk tenure, let alone their lives. They are not revolutionaries, but academic retroviruses.

But as Chesterton writes, "tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record.... Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.... tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father."

Now the left, since it obliterates all distinctions, destroys the continuity of the past and present. In particular, the narcissistic Boomer generation rejected the authority and wisdom of the past, and imagined that it could create a better mankind from the ground up, thus doing satan's heavy lifting. For once you collapse the vertical, you also shrink the horizontal, since you divest it of its eternal qualities. You end up with the flat moment, and that's all there is. And a moment is much easier for power-grabbing demagogues to manipulate than reality.

The end. Did I hear a whimper?

31 comments:

walt said...

Pretty good, for a man so obviously out-of-time!

Rick said...

I would like to take back what I said about yesterday’s post being one of the first tracks in the greatest hits boxed set. I really meant today’s.

Van Harvey said...

Ricky Raccoon said...
"I would like to take back what I said about yesterday’s post being one of the first tracks in the greatest hits boxed set. I really meant today’s."

You might want to consider upgrading to the double boxed set directors edition, with updatable online downloads, and behind the scenes Gag(dad) reel.
I believe the roll he's on is picking up speed.

julie said...

"I would like to take back what I said about yesterday’s post being one of the first tracks in the greatest hits boxed set. I really meant today’s."

Trouble with that, Rick, is that it's true just about everyday :) I'm sure there's a time metaphor in there somewhere, but my brain's too fuzzed right now to express it.

Van Harvey said...

"All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death..."

Oh my, Chesterton could really turn a phrase, couldn't he?

Heh, next time you run up against a leftie smirking at silly old traditions like the Bill of Rights, call him a ... hmm... how about "You lifeist! You show no sensitivity to the rights of those no longer breathing! Tearing through the work of ages of the dead, who struggled to build up and pass on the fruits of Western Civilization, and you tear them down for your own pleasure and amusement! Nothing but a greedy, good for nothing, air breathing lifeist!

That should appall them on so many levels.

Anonymous said...

dilys said:

The ideas of the "flat moment," Chasseguet Smirgel, and a comment yesterday on materialism being perversion, invoke a theory that perversion is the pursuit of ecstasy outside the realm of worship of the [vertical] ultimate cosmic order/being. Meditations on the Tarot speaks of unchastity as "sterile enjoyment."

As in, for instance, the implicit promise of ultimate consumerism, the will to power (which neurology shows to be endorphin-related), and garden-variety-onward sexual perversions [no cites, deference to Nomo]. As well as subtler deviations of the will. This is why the conscience requires steady development, inquiring into the bare pleasure principle, distinguishing innocent joy from the chemical rush at boundary transgression and related fantasies, between creativity and perversion.

Mankind is made to love goodness. But his discernment is dangerously suspect, and in many conditions the misplacement of pleasure is a snowball rolling downhill.

NoMo said...

(Dilys)"...and garden-variety-onward sexual perversions [no cites, deference to Nomo]". What? Oh, DEference, not REference. OK, nevermind.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

About the free market/materialism: I think we've been notoriously stupid about the Free Market (A.K.A. Capitalism) in the last century. There is a straw man that has been developed about it regarding the actions of certain rich men. In the end, the Free Market beats Socialism hands down, but only if the men who gain power from it are curtailed in their abuses of it. This is a real problem that Gatto basically alluded to.

What to do about the fact that Carnegie and others used their vast wealth to fund making our schools mandatory and ultimately only good for making drones? We of course can't ignore that the government played along to their tune - tabula rasa and whatnot. It is perhaps possible that without the consent of the government to force the ideas and institutions they funded, we would not have the problem we have today.

I've noticed that many Russian thinkers complained about Capitalism; but the Capitalism they were familiar with was the flat, consumerist variety. And it only existed because a government was foolish enough to build it.

Sadly, we're typically given by those thinkers a false dichotomy: Poverty and misery or consumerist capitalism.

The problem with this perspective is simply that it fails to note that free markets do not automatically produce buyer-drones and flatland worlds - they only do so at the behest of those who use them.

In other words, if it's a flatland, it's because we were flatlanders. If it became overly materialistic, it is because we were overly materialistic. It's a clear container; the water is what is colored.

Anonymous said...

Would PETA support or Euthanize this Shiny Beast?

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/

Van Harvey said...

River said "I've noticed that many Russian thinkers complained about Capitalism; but the Capitalism they were familiar with was the flat, consumerist variety. And it only existed because a government was foolish enough to build it."

Note: if the Gov't built it, it ain't Capitalism - retail power peddling, and nothing more, putting a price tag on it doesn't make it capitalism.

Also, anything that requires a variant name, whether it be "Consumerist", or even "Free Market" (which is of course the common reference, but says nothing about the state of what it really rests upon...), is only putting lipstick on the Russian variety.

Capitalism requires and rests upon a Gov't that recognizes the proper Individual Rights (including, and resting upon, the Property Rights) of its citizens, and defends them against all enemies, foreign or domestic, through the police, courts and military.

Sadly, we haven't enjoyed Capitalism in the United States since shortly after the founding, and declining steeply since the opening of the 20th century. We have a blend of 'Free Market' and Statist policies, which have necessarily been corrosive to the status of our rights, and to the morals of the Nation. We do though, thankfully, still have a more capitalist system than any other nation, and hopefully we will restore it in the (near - unlikely, but...) future.

(Sorry Riv, nothing directed towards you - sore nerve today)

Van Harvey said...

Anonymous said... "Would PETA support or Euthanize this Shiny Beast?"

Heh, 'fraid Peeta is the shiny beast, one species of it anyway.

Anonymous said...

Under the category of battling leftist propoganda, apparently there were a few flies in the ointment at the "Bali Propoganda Warming Conference". A few dissenting scientists were able to slip through security and give their views on the truth about the subject. (link on Drudge).
The champion in the U.S. for people who refuse to be led down this latest primrose path of "leftist/socialist induced U.N. world dominance hysteria" has been Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma.
He's come out with a booklet entitled 'A Skeptics Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism' which gives good information to battle the hysteria.
Do a web search with the book title to get a downloadable or PDF version or call his office and request a free (taxpayer paid) copy, 202-224-6176. If you call, give him an atta boy for me.

Anonymous said...

You guys have a lot of hate for the left, considering you've pretty much taken the extremist views(which probably only represent like .01% of the population)

You make it sound like they're monsters. I don't think you've taken time to understand the less extreme views, but then again nobody ever does. And the hardest thing you seem to not understand is separating personality from political views(actually you seem to tie personalities to both sides that aren't common of either even).

I think your dim view of the left is probably because of your rosy glasses(which are actually a shade darker, perhaps sanguine even).

Why is it you seem to have such little to say to people with different beliefs, but somehow have so much to say about them?

Anonymous said...

"...existing law provides that the likes of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice, if found guilty, could have hoods thrown over their heads, their hands bound, facing a 12-man rifle corps executing death by firing squad."

I would prefer that they are simply imprisoned. No need to be barbaric about it.

Anonymous said...

So, you've discovered that we want to take over. Admittedly, we do.

We have an agenda. We have a plan. We want a new world order.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Anonymous said...

Must have hit a nerve.

Stephen Macdonald said...

left out:

Some post there. I can tell you've been through Hell and back.

Anonymous said...

Van said:
‘a leftie smirking at silly old traditions like the Bill of Rights ...
That should appall them on so many levels.’

It SHOULD do, but does not seem to.

Gets me thinkng about a comment by an Anonodope several days ago:
‘racist, pagan, statist, irrational, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, etc.
These are issues that are either opinion, or irrelevant to politics’

Whaaaaaat???? Tell me you’re not so clueless as to think these things are not hyper-linked. Have people no idea what life is like in most of the rest of the world, right now? That silly old traditions like the Bill of Rights are what keep clueless Americans safely tucked inside their unreality-bubble, able to spout idiocy?

Today Bob talked ‘about the gradual transformation of plain old Germany into Nazi Germany’ Not all that far to go from one to the other, if Anono’s comment reflects a pervasive frame of reference/worldview, just a matter of increments.

I’m thinking it’s gotta involve: “Perverse thought eliminates the vital distinctions that make thought possible; it is literally a form of thinking in reverse... "attack(s) on linking," the links that form the foundation and infrastructure of the thinking mind.”

I’ve long been puzzled by the left-leaning of a set of friends of mine, two long-married couples, only a few years older than I am. They’re not stupid, and not rabid-leftist, just reflexively pink, as tho they fall prey to a sort of default progamming. They & I couldn’t be more different in our worldview.

Wonder whether it’s because they grew up under the fashionable radical-chic of the ’60s & ’70s in America, while I missed that whole mess by being raised outside the US, moving here for college after turning 18. They were burning their bras & protesting Vietnam, while I lived a ‘priviledged life’ as a foreigner in countries where the locals were subject to
Totalitarian rule. Plenty of my classmate’s Fathers were kidnapped by dirtbags & held for months for ransom. Lots of my friends who were nationals ‘dissappeared’, never to be seen again.

My Dad always made a point of drilling into us what foundational American precepts kept people in the US safe from the sort of things going on all around us down there. It was total culture-shock to move to the US, where my peers & teachers, for the most part, had no appreciation for what was handed them on a silver platter.

Perhaps it’s the eyes of a ‘foreigner’ that make the danger of incremental errosion of ‘American values’ so clear. This past weekend I watched ‘ Little Dieter Needs to Fly’ a documentary by Werner Herzog about Dieter Dengler, & Herzog’s feature ‘Rescue Dawn’ about Dieter’s POW escape from Laos in 1965. Werner talked about how Dieter, tho born in Nazi Germany & an immigrant to the US at age 18, turned out to be ‘a quintessentual American’, with: youthfull optimism, frontier spirit, courage, loyalty to country, self-reliance, perseverence, determination & lack of cynism.

Thanks Werner

Gecko said...

If Gagdad had time and was long winded he might tell you that the gradual take over by the left was a conscious goal of the communist party when he was a wee lad.
This was entered into the Congressional Record in 1963, taken from a book called "The Naked Communist".

The goals of the Communist Party. Some of my favorites/working best for the Communists.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States. (Ed-Mission accomplished)

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.


44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

But you probably know all that.

Anonymous said...

Anon said:

"You guys have a lot of hate for the left, considering you've pretty much taken the extremist views(which probably only represent like .01% of the population)"

And 99.99999% of the political leadership.

walt said...

Gecko:

More.

Van Harvey said...

To which I would add that the substance of all of that was written, and put into practice before the communists existed, or before they even fully had control of Russia.

In 1795, Kant wrote a little essay called "Perpetual Peace" as an outline for Global Disarmament and a basis for establishing new world order. The title of his essay, he noted in the best smarmy tone of the leftist, which would be their mark long after him, as:
"‘PERPETUAL PEACE ”
WE need not try to decide whether this satirical inscription, (once found on a Dutch innkeeper’s signboard above the picture of a churchyard) is aimed at mankind in general, or at the rulers of states in particular, unwearying in their love of war, or perhaps only at the philosophers who cherish the sweet dream of perpetual peace."


Note: he is refering to the graves in a cemetary. The joke was, he wasn't joking. That is the gift he sought to bring to all. Graves. People read Rousseau and Kant, and assume "Oh... they couldn't have meant that!" and immediately set about interpreting it in a more pleasant light. They meant it. And they counted on future followers to react and excuse them, just as they do. While putting what they knew would result, into practice. Read Them. Judge for yourself. Our biggest problem as Americans, is that we think the fight is for things like tax credits for education, unwittingly giving over the whole battle by letting ride the idea that the state has a say in the matter. We lose even more when we win, because we just buy the foul ideas more time to sink in.

"People in this generation still putting up a fuss? Hmm, ok, let it simmer another decade, and then stir again."

Here's a couple excepts from Kant's blueprint for the ninnymouses new order:
"CONTAINING THE PRELIMINARY ARTICLES OF PERPETUAL
PEACE BETWEEN STATES
I.-" No treaty of peace shall be regarded as valid, if made with the secret reservation of material for a future war."
For then it would be a mere truce, a mere suspension of hostilities, not peace. A peace signifies the end of all hostilities and..."
...
3. -- (I Standing armies (miles perpetuus) shall be abolished in course of time."
For they are always threatening other states with war by appearing to be in constant readiness to fight. They incite the various states to outrival..."


No distinction is made or intended to be made between Good and Bad states, Republics over Tyrannies, since it was the aim to regulate (to put it nicely, enslave to put it plainly) all states and all peoples into the New World Order. It's a long range plan. It's still enthusiastically in the works. Kant is the one who came up with the categorical imperatives such as "Never tell a lie - never! Even to a murder who asks if you hide his intended victim". He says so, and very plainly, while masking it as virtuous - its intention and affect of course being to destroy the ability to judge, act from judgement, and destroy Virtue. There are many fine sounding things which Kant said which make him sound like a swell freedom loving kind of guy. Look for the vial of poison amid the fine wine. Its not hidden, just mixed in with the rest. It only takes a little.

'Perpetual Peace' is a very short essay, about 50 pages, the translators notes are twice as long as it is, but it's historical reach has been long and devastating. Our proregressive President Wilson had it very much in mind, when he sought to establish the league of nations; probably had it in mind from getting his Phd. in Germany. Recall the discussion yesterday and today, about where the roots of Nazism first grew, where they spread, and how they've gained force here.

The Progressives put their first non-testicular tentacles into America through enforced public schooling in the early 1800's, and immediately began to push for just the issues Gecko noted above. Make no mistake folks, Rousseau, the inspiration, and Kant, that philosophic general, began a war on the English Enlightenment three centuries ago, for the expressed purpose of ending the Enlightenment of capital 'R' Reason in order to supplant it with their decadent little 'r' mockery of reason in order to also bring to an end ideas like America. Their tactic was to, as the left's has always been, pretend to promote with smiles and enthusiasm, what they sought to destroy in shadows with corrosive intellectual and spiritual acid.

Dewey and the NEA explicitly stated as their goals, to undermine parental authority and their standing in their childrens eyes, and eventually that the state should have legal authority over all children, that they should be considered wards of the state, temporairly housed with the parents. It's not difficult to look up.

Sorry for the length. Still working on that brevity thing.

Anonymous said...

Excellent post, Bob. You should read Peter Wood's article on the left in academia in today's National Review Online. It synchs well with your conclusions.

Van Harvey said...

oops... sorry, came out wrong, Phd's came from, started in Germany, not Wilson's particular one.

Mizz E said...

<:::Presenting:::>

"The Attack of the Commiebots"

Gagdad Bob said...

philomathean--

Good article by Wood. And you just know that if the numbers were reversed, the left would make it against the law.

vogz said...

Coons,

There's a new book out by a Catholic priest called The Skies of Babylon: Diversity, Nihilism, and The American University.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933859350?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwviolentkicom&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1933859350

Stephen Macdonald said...

van:

That was a breathtaking post. Really great stuff, and please don't try too hard for brevity. I have read "Understanding Post-modernism" on Bob's recommendation, but don't recall him elucidating Kant's nefarious intent the way you have.

I think I need to hire a really bright grad student to just go out and digest stuff like this for me, then brief me. It works in business (it is impossible to do business at a high level otherwise) so maybe it would work in other areas too...

So much to learn -- so little time.

Gecko said...

Thanks Walt, Mizze for those links, and Van, for that telling little essay and its highlights. Ideas do have consequences.

And everything Julie said including the fuzzed brain part.

Van Harvey said...

Smoov,
Uh-oh, you encouraged me... well...make sure your grad student has his innoculations first, or he could wind up like... well... like the current state of our wackademics.

First innoculation: "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.", from the Preface to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Why? Here's my translation of his paragraphs 29 & 30,
'We must divert people down a false trail so that we can be secure in our pretentions to a faith we don't really have in a God we fear isn't strong enough to defend himself against the Reason he Created'(from Would you trust a liar who told you he was going to lie to you? )

The Grad student needs to keep in mind that Kant wasn't seeking after Truth, his entire philosophy was designed to accomplish something, and that something, as he stated, was to deny/destroy Knowledge. He was worried that English skepticism, particularly Hume's, would expose 'all of God's secrets', and destroy faith. His solution was to put across the idea that we really can't know reality as it is, only our sub-knowledge level impressions of it, as reflected in the beliefs of an entire people. Enter Collectivism and Pressure Groupism.

American's answer, in pragmatism, was 'Well, if we can't really know what's right and true - the heck with it! Let's just worry about what works!. Hello Pragmatism.

Much of Kant's philosophy was silly on the face of it, and much has been 'overturned', but like a good intellectual three card monty player, those were the moves he intended everyone to see. What they didn't see, was that everyone, even those anti-kantians, bought into his real motivating idea, that we kant really know anything for sure.

Booster shot: Kant's trick, which being the good three card monty player that he was, distracting you with never ending and convoluted sentences and endless examples proving the obvious (hiding the even longer and more convoluted ones that end in an assertion only), is that he switches processes for things, and then builds upon them as if they were things. He swaps out What's for How's.

I did a few posts on where things like Chomsky came from (at root, Rousseau & Kant), and how they worked their way into America and education in:
Trees that bare the barren fruit
Would you trust a liar who told you he was going to lie to you?
Spreading the flames
What never was and never will be

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Smoov: I Ain't a grad student, but I do have a good digestive system.

By the way, the Spy argues that Leftism as we know it was first planted sometime in the 1000's.

(If you're a committed Roman Catholic you may wish to not read my criticisms of Anselm because 1. They've been better written by someone else and 2. You may have great respect for the dude.)

The argument is thus: 'Satisfaction' requires God to pay our debt (instead of cancel it.) In human justice systems this implies responsibility for the debt; implicitly making God responsible for our sins. That means we're ultimately not responsible.

Anyhow, feel free to disagree.

Van: What I was doing (earlier) is trying to metabolize what I find so compelling in Chesterton and Gatto against what seems like such madness and banality in the common anti-consumerist. It seems that most anti-consumerists are really just attack socialists. But neither Gatto nor Chesterton is/was.

I think it is better to define more clearly what 'flat' capitalism is and what 'round' capitalism is. The first is only capitalistic in appearance (like a picture) and the other is the fullness thereof.

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