Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Why the Chosen Always Have Arrows in their Backs

Let's be honest. When we talk about American exceptionalism, we're really talking about Judeo-Christian exceptionalism, since we are literally the only nation founded upon, and imbued with, Judeo-Christian values and principles.

And when we say "exceptionalism," does this equate to triumphalism? Of course not -- any more than Jews being the "chosen people" implies some sort of crass self-aggrandizement.

To the contrary: chosenness is a grave responsibility from which most peoples would -- and did, in the oral tradition -- shrink: "thanks but no thanks." God only makes offers you can refuse.

Most worthless cultures can bumble along in the shadows of history and escape getting screwtinied, while the Israelights had to glow up in public and to this day cannot evade the slimelight of dimmer bulbarians.

No one expects anything of Chinese, or Arabs, or Eskimos. The UN holds them to no moral standard, and rightfully so. When Muslims desecrate an American soldier, we are appalled but not surprised. But mishandle the body of a genocidal Muzz-murderer? Day of rage!

It is very much as if the dark powers do indeed recognize Israel as chosen, hence their double standard in a psychopathic worldview that is otherwise devoid of a single standard. For the other nations, whatever; for Israel, perfection.

Thus, the UN's vicious defamation of Israel is a kingly title. As is the left's vilification of America. After all, how is the left supposed to react in the face of wanton and senseless goodness? With indifference? The left is under no moral obligation to turn the other cheek to decency, but will attack it with a vengeance, from the Boy Scouts to the ROTC to the sanctity of marriage.

This just in, a comment from Mizz E linking to Mark Steyn's take on Fukuyama. Let's see what he has to say....

Very good. It's just a short blast, but he points out the absurdity of holding out socialist Denmark as some sort of ideal toward which the cosmos is laboring:

'The Muslim world is certainly “getting to Denmark”. It’s also getting to the Netherlands, to Austria, to France, and beyond. In Scandinavia and in other advanced western societies, the state grows ever bolder in constraining freedom of expression and other core western liberties. In the interests of enforcing the state religion of a hollow and delusional “multiculturalism”, basic tenets of Fukuyama’s “rule of law” – including due process, the truth as defense, and equality before the law – are tossed aside in the multiculti version of heresy trials. As recent decisions in Michigan suggest, America is not immune to this trend.'

No. The question, as always, is how to get to America, both literally and figuratively. As to the former, is there any nation on earth to which more people would rather get? That was certainly the case for my father, who gettled here in 1948.

And why did he want to get here? Because he knew that he would have the uppertunity -- only the chance, mind you -- to embark upon the adventure of consciousness and be someone. Had he remained in England he would have likely stayed a no one due to the sclerotic and ambition-killing class system of the time. There he would have been a mason or mechanic; here he was able to leverage an eighth grade education into a corporate executive position.

When we say "class," it is really another way of saying "tribe." The more abstract notion of class is nevertheless superimposed upon the subterranean waters of blood and kin.

Thus, to escape from class or kin is to make a run for individualism, for a true individual is always in a class by himself.

Which is why the B'ob can neither follower nor followed be. Trolls who accuse him of failing to meet the requirements of some fantasied group are missing the point entirely. It is like telling a jazz musician, "hey, you just strayed from the melody! Get back in line!" But to paraphrase Einstein, to be in a marching band requires nothing more than a hindbrain.

Now, as we have always emphasized, the family is the penultimate basis (the Trinity being ultimate) of our unique identity, and all three -- God, family, and person -- are sacred. Different family arrangements result in very different kinds of people. This is axiomatic, but Fukuyama provides abundant historical evidence for skeptics who will not believe unless they can place their hand in the wound.

Each part of the trimorphic family -- Mother-Father-Baby -- is equally important to its evolution, which is why, for example, cultures that value the female will produce healthier children. Just look at the Arab world, where females are second-class citizens and the men are first-class nuts. (And of course we are speaking in generalizations, without which thought is impossible.)

It is an absurdly self-flattering myth of the left that the "feminist movement" somehow emerged from nowhere in the modern west. For one thing, the movement was an effect, never a cause of what it purported to seek. These bitter misandrists continue to throw themselves like lemmings against doors that are wide open. Or so my wife tells me.

At any rate, Fukuyama shows that in the West there was a more enlightned attitude toward women very early on -- certainly prior to the so-called Enlightenment. Even in the late Middle Ages, "Englishwomen had the right to hold and dispose of property freely and to sell it to individuals outside the family..." From no later than the 13th century, they could "sue and be sued, and make wills and contracts without permission of a male guardian."

This is an indication not of liberation from men -- since true liberation always involves a co-evolution of all members of the trimorphic family -- but "of the deterioration of tribal organization" (ibid.). While the latter may well have been "patriarchal," to suggest that the average man of 1000 AD gloried in his worldly power is just so much feminist piffle.

One critical point about the healthy trimorphic family is that it is future-oriented, a stance that is rife with implications. Fukuyama contrasts this with the Chinese, for whom the family was upside-down and backward: "Confucian moralists were clear that individuals had stronger obligations to their parents than to their own children, and Chinese law severely punished children who behaved in unfilial ways."

In profound ways, this created a backward-looking, static, and unevolving culture, which is a major reason why the transition to communism was really just more of the same, only under a modern ideological guise. It is the same with the backward-looking progressives of the left.

Since the family is the hinge of psychopneumatic evolution, it should come as no surprise that Job One of the left is to undermine the family in each of its three components.

It devalues fatherhood by replacing it with the state (and that's just for starters). It devalues motherhood by insisting that women should emulate men (so long as the men are safely neutered); and it systematically assaults childhood in any number of sinister ways. I won't even chronicle them here, for if you have a child and you are sane, you are already well aware of them. To be a responsible parent now includes protecting your children from the toxic soul environment of the left.

In these parts it began with Marx, who reduced the family from sacred soul-incubator to mere "money relation."

Indeed, one of the central arguments for the redefinition of marriage is its supposed monetary benefits. Thus, to even respond to such a vulgar argument is to concede the argument to the vulgarian who advances it. Marriage is a cosmic sacrament. Man did not invent -- and could not have invented -- this Fact.

Rather, we can only preserve and memorialize it through ritual and ceremony. "Homesexual marriage" simply cannot be without undermining the foundation of the cosmic spiritual economy. To imagine that two men can marry is to literally have no idea what marriage is. Conversely, to know what marriage is is to place a bullseye on one's back.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Arrows in the back? You are obsessed with homoerotic porn, aren't you?

word veri said...

You are phooking nuts, mate.

Anonymous said...

"Nuts?" More homoeroticism. Some religious blog.

julie said...

These bitter misandrists continue to throw themselves like lemmings against doors that are wide open. Or so my wife tells me.

The sad part is, any person with even the slightest amount of self-awareness would, upon falling unexpectedly through that door, dust herself off, take a good look at what just happened, and realize that a) they had grossly misunderstood reality, and b) this issue was a non-issue. Instead, they jump back up, go right back to the doorway, and wail that there's a frame and a wall right next to the door, and they can't get through.

Come to think of it, that describes the dedicated leftist response to pretty much any part of reality they don't want to understand.

Anonymous said...

And "mate?" With whom? Another man?

word veri said...

Sorry, I'm a robosexual. But I'd love to get to know that electric kisser. Yowza!

Gagdad Bob said...

re wide open doors, look at Obama and the racers. For leftwing racers to give up racism would be like giving up oxygen. As Taranto said yesterday,

'Baselessly accusing their political foes of racism is a way in which today's liberals attempt to incite fear and loathing of "the other." But it serves a psychological purpose as well. It reinforces white liberals' sense of their own superiority.'

'Their outdated attitudes about race put them in the absurd position of arguing that the most powerful man in the world is a victim of oppression because of the color of his skin.'

Gagdad Bob said...

Harry Reid: "Hey, Rubio, who do you think you are, an individual? Stop pretending you're not brown."

julie said...

Indeed. I was just about to say, in re. to this:

In profound ways, this created a backward-looking, static, and unevolving culture, which is a major reason why the transition to communism was really just more of the same, only under a modern ideological guise. It is the same with the backward-looking progressives of the left.

It's darkly ironic that they call themselves forward-looking, when all that they revere both comes from and leads back to the past. Including their bitter clinging to racism. Turning their prejudices inside-out does not remove the prejudice.

Gandalin said...

Dear Bob,

Appreciate as always your defense of the authentic Tradition, and your willingness to accept targeting from the po-mo multi-culti left. When you don't have to, it shows even more courage.

Gandalin

Gagdad Bob said...

Just doin' what comes supranaturally!

Van Harvey said...

"Since the family is the hinge of psychopneumatic evolution, it should come as no surprise that Job One of the left is to undermine the family in each of its three components.
It devalues fatherhood by replacing it with the state (and that's just for starters). It devalues motherhood by insisting that women should emulate men (so long as the men are safely neutered); and it systematically assaults childhood in any number of sinister ways. I won't even chronicle them here, for if you have a child and you are sane, you are already well aware of them. To be a responsible parent now includes protecting your children from the toxic soul environment of the left.
In these parts it began with Marx, who reduced the family from sacred soul-incubator to mere "money relation.""

What's interesting, is that pure political power hustlers have always been around, in all cultures, but in the last 2,000 years, as ideologies, they never made it any higher in the West than that - your money or your life.

There were attempts in the west to try for something else, but they just fell horizontally flat - Machiavelli, Hobbes, even those who tried to speak for heaven... they could wrangle and render everything of Caesar's they could get their hands on... but only this far and no further could they go - something was holding them in check.

Until, that is, he who I so rue, Rousseau, came along. He took the opening in the West's cranium, and launched a truly merciless attack upon all of Christendom. Wife & child, in his misosophy, were unnatural burdens, artificial creations of 'civilization', which along with 'the worst thing in the world, property', took men who were 'born free, but everywhere are in chains', and turned each man who listened, firmly against their own soul and hope of salvation, and with his assault upon Education ("Emile, or education") as well, he ensured that no one who followed him would ever be capable of understanding again, and we've been falling 32 ft per second, per second, ever since.

The opposite is of course true, you cannot have lives worth living, without " the trimorphic family -- Mother-Father-Baby -- is equally important to its evolution", and you cannot properly even hope (an important point) to support your life without Property and the Right to it.

Rousseau took Descartes' opening, and mixed and administered his poisonous prose with care; Kant, Hegel, Marx, took it up, polished it to a glossy shine, tossed in numerous epicycles, bulked it up with reams ['reams'! why the incessant homoeroticisms?!'] of impenetrable babble, but the core remains the same - destruction of the family and eradication of the means to living as an individual - and what follows in its wake is utter and complete destruction to all who choose to listen.

I may go too far, but IMHO there's no need to look for an anti-christ, he's already come, and his words and spells are here, there and everywhere around us. Mohammedit couldn't have succeeded in having his camel spit over the gates of the west, without Rousseau's tearing them down from the inside, the inbred islambies, like Marx and company before him, is just riding the horse prepared for him long ago.

wv:nonouse
No noose needed, poison working fine.

julie said...

Slightly OT but speaking of Taranto, I like this line ending his column yesterday, in regards to yet another person trying to mandate the "appropriate" response to the news of OBL's death:

"What's the point of having libertarians if they're going to boss us around and tell us how we're supposed to feel? Liberals do a more than adequate job of that."

Van Harvey said...

Less OT than I'd like it to be, PETA: Obviously a racist and anti-muslim organization

Anonymous said...

You people are STILL doing this? Good lord. Blah blah blah leftists, blah blah blah leftists.

Cousin Dupree said...

Yes, and such small portions!

Preying Mantis said...

The alpha male is concerned with being one-up and dominant.

Challenges by both enemies and family and friends must be countered immediately.

I sense that Julie might be an example of an Alpha female. Along with Bob and Van, there is an atmosphere of concern with being dominant here at the blog.

I'm not saying its wrong; some groups are more cooperative, and some more competitive. This blog is competitive. That can be a good thing. As Julie noted, Macho is what she likes.

The top dogs here are careful not to bite each other, I notice. But strictly speaking, what Bob says goes, and you better not differ. there is a definite heirarchy.

So, in this atmosphere, cutting remarks, disregard for feelings, one-upsmanship,and other hard male type interactions are accepted, whereas the touchy-feely feminine side is down-played.

The down-side is that Alphas cannot really relax and let their hair down. They are always afraid of being usurped, supplanted, etc.

Spiritually, it is acceptable. Such folk become Shatriya (warrior class) type people.

julie said...

Oh, bravo. It's like looking into a mirror. One of those funhouse mirrors, after the strongman took a hammer to it. But hey, at least he's a macho man.

julie said...

And now, for something completely different. And lovely. Although depending on your tastes, you may want to mute the soundtrack and pick your own 4 minute accompaniment.

trail dust said...

It occurs to me this morning that trolls hold The b'ob to a high standard of christianinanity in the same way The b'ob holds leftists to a high standard of lunacy.

So...kwitcherbichen.

Gagdad Bob said...

This is true. The difference is that I am always coming from first principles, whereas the left always either runs away from theirs or tries to conceal them under a cloud of emotionality, good intentions, failure to follow where logic leads, and general misdirection.

trail dust said...

Of course. You know that and your Coons know that, but then so does the Lunaleft have their own sacred canon of beliefs.

My point is that in generalizing we also tend to idealize or magnify, fairly or not. Both sides feel that their sacred principles make them worthy targets. Both sides feel the arrows in the back.

How do we move past this to Change?

julie said...

Of course. You know that and your Coons know that, but then so does the Lunaleft have their own sacred canon of beliefs.


That's disappointing. You had started off in a promising direction.

Preying Mantis said...

That's right, girl. He challenged you so you had to slap him down.

You are still top dog. Congrats.

Van Harvey said...

tail dust said "How do we move past this to Change?"

For starters, by not trying to do anything for 'change', but instead do what you do to accomplish something. That requires identifying what it is, and what it isn't, and that can't be done without generalizing - no principle can be formed, followed or applied, without doing so.

trail dust said...

GB:
After I posted the above comment, I had some time to think about it without anyone else's input and decided you are working for change by viscerally engaging those whose viewpoints you disagree with. It can be a painful process, changing one's mind, and many are simply not up to the myriad challenges involved. By simply staying your course over the years you have had an impact on my own thinking. Even though I often don't agree with you, I always admire your faith in your ideas. In fact sometimes I'm jealous of it.

The process of truly "knowing" is, for me, as mysterious and fragile as any growing thing ever could be. I can attempt to force the timetable, or I can teach a pig to sing.

When I tuned back in after class I found the Julie comment surprising. I promise not to disappoint if you promise not to expect.
And Van, I think you are ringing the same bell I was climbing the stairwell toward. Maybe.

Van Harvey said...

Trail Dust,
I think I futzed with your nic too soon, that shows actual thinking.

Whether or not your conclusions (of the moment) are correct, keep doing that, and they will be.

I love finding out I was wrong.

julie said...

Trail Dust - I'll second Van's comment.

My reaction was blunt. I thought about expanding, but at the time wasn't sure it was worth the effort. Respectfully, your comment had much in common with what we get from the trolls, and frankly after earlier this week I just don't have the heart for yet another fruitless endeavor. The "kwicherbichen" after your first comment also didn't help in making me predisposed to taking you seriously.

Nevertheless, I'd be genuinely delighted to be proven wrong, so here's my expanded and respectful rebuttal:

Your argument comes from a standpoint of multiculturalism. It really isn't all that different from "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." And certainly, it is even correct as far as it goes, inasmuch as it is an argument from feelings - they feel that they are right, and we feel that we are right, why don't we all just get along?

The problem is, feelings are too often completely unmoored from anything even remotely resembling reality. I am happy to allow that most leftists do indeed feel that what they want is good; indeed, I used to feel exactly the same way that they do, on the same issues. Eventually, though, I had to realize that if my feelings about what was good were not aligned with that which is truly good in and of itself, then those feelings were in grave, even catastrophic, error. And if you think I'm being hyperbolic, just try to remember how many hundreds of millions have died in this past century because someone was acting according to what they felt was right.

So first things first, or as Bob noted, what are your first principles? If you believe that everyone has their own "truth," and that it is therefore not right to judge anyone else's truth (a self-refuting position, but many people hold it because they don't follow the idea to its logical conclusion, and it feels nice), then you have dismantled any possible objection you may have to anyone else's opinion or behavior before you've even addressed the content of their thought. In other words, if that's your truth, you are welcome to it, but if it is "true" then you must leave me to mine.

On the other hand, if you believe that there is real, objective Truth outside of anyoneself - that there is a knowable reality that exists independent of any individual person - then things become interesting. For if there is objective truth, might there also be objective goodness and objective virtue? What are their characteristics? And most importantly for any individual, how closely does your life align with these objective realities?

Answering these questions leads one to the often painful but inescapable conclusion that it is possible to be wrong, and to live wrongly.

However, nobody can be forced to come to these conclusions. And in regards to the idea of working for change, as Van noted, change from what and to what? Change for the sake of change just as often goes from bad to worse: all the current revolutions in the ME are great examples. What good does it serve Egypt to go from being ruled by a dictator to being ruled by tyrannical and murderous theocrats? It's a change, but if it turns out for the better I'll be amazed.

You started with an interesting observation. I'd be curious to see more of your thoughts, in fact, though I may heartily disagree.

However, may I suggest continuing in today's comments? That way, more can play.

Brazentide said...

"Which is why the B'ob can neither follower nor followed be."

This could be said of all Raccoons.

We just gather 'round and share our thoughts as B'ob mixes drinks at the ol' watering wh0le.

We also have a good laugh at the Tr⃠lls who never fail to throw a tantrum when they come across those who don't sing their tune.

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