Sunday, June 05, 2011

The Fruit of Forgotten Meditations

Here are a few random aphorisms of Don Colacho -- or what he calls "the spontaneous fruit of forgotten meditations" arrived at by a man who is "but a rag blown about by sacred squalls."

--Liberty is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.

And how. But how do they sell the latter? Easy:

--To corrupt the individual it suffices to teach him to call his personal desires rights and the rights of others abuses.

This results in a new race of humans: a race to the bottom, comprised of

--individuals dissatisfied with what they have and satisfied with what they are.

But linguistic sleight of hand comes to the rescue, so

--“Social justice” is the term used to claim anything to which we do not have a right, while “Raising awareness” is the modest version of indoctrination.

As a result,

--Each day we demand more from society so that we can demand less from ourselves.

This appeasement of envy only ends in frustration, since

--Man would not feel so unfortunate if it were enough for him to desire without pretending to have a right to what he desires.

In any event,

--A man is called a liberal if he does not understand that he is sacrificing liberty except when it is too late to save it.

Which is why

--Wise politics is the art of invigorating society and weakening the State.

For in the final analysis,

--It is not to realize his dreams for which man can strive, but to appear worthy of their realization.

Now, our first principles are the opposite of the left's, in that we believe

--The permanent possibility of initiating causal series is what we call a person.

In other words, man is a subject with dignity, not a mere object to be manipulated by third parties who know better how to run our lives. The whole catastrophe is rooted in an absurd metaphysic, whereby

--Modern man treats the universe like a lunatic treats an idiot.

Indeed,

--Nothing makes clearer the limits of science than the scientist’s opinions about any topic that is not strictly related to his profession.

Ho! But at least these tenured barbarians unwittingly teach us that

--To become cultivated is to learn that a particular class of questions is meaningless,

thus allowing us to "move on." The ignorantsia speak of "evolution," oblivious to the fact that

--To change thoughts repeatedly is not to evolve. To evolve is to develop the infinitude of the same thought.

Yeah boy, the real action takes place on the vertical plane, which is why

--Religious thought does not go forward, like scientific thought, but rather goes deeper.

I mean,

--Everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure,

right? But how does this effect Bob? In a couple of ways, I suppose. For

--Intelligence is enabled to discover new truths by rediscovering old truths,

and

--To write honestly for the rest, one must write fundamentally for oneself.

28 comments:

vanderleun said...

We are pleased, DAMNED pleased, to see Don Colacho in such an appropriate setting.

Gagdad Bob said...

And thank you for discovering this priceless voice in the bewilderness. I never would have found him in the absence of holy happenstance.

Anonymous said...

Liberty is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.

On the other hand:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

And more: www.unification.net/ws/theme030.htm

It is amusing, or maybe depressing, to see supposed Christians who are more in thrall to the sociopathic Ayn Rand than they are to Jesus.

Oh well, have a nice Sunday.

Don Colacho said...

Whoever wants to know what the serious objections to Christianity are should ask us. The unbeliever makes only stupid objections.

Anonymous said...

I just realized I'm arguing against myself. Which is allowed, since I don't have one.

Anonymous said...

I'm also wondering how you can combine the worship of the American system of democracy and equality with the anti-democraticism of a reactionary like Colacho:
don-colacho.blogspot.com/2010/01/democracy-equality.html

OK, maybe he turns a nice phrase, but you can't simultaneously take him to heart while also valuing the US Constitution, any more than you can follow Jesus and Ayn Rand at the same time.

Anonymous said...

However, even during the time when he bore primary responsibility for the business, he did not pay excessive attention to it. Mosebach reports that Gómez Dávila generally only visited the office once a week at midday for about ten minutes, in order to tell the business manager to increase profits, before going out to lunch with friends at the Bogotá Jockey Club, where he was an active member, playing polo and even serving as an officer for a while. (He had to give up polo, though, after injuring himself on his horse—he was thrown off while trying to light a cigar.)


He seems like a typical rich, right-wing shit to me. Very easy to toss off glib phrases about the horrors of equality and democracy when you are part of the comfortable elite, with lots of time on your hands.

Anonymous said...

Fucking slack.... If I can't have it, no one can!

julie said...

My, my - someone's a little wee-wee'd up this morning. What's the matter? Did you lose a couple of races?

Anonymous said...

Elitists and reactionary aristocrats like Colacho want to reserve slack for themselves. The message of the US, democracy, and even christianity in its better forms is that slack is available to all.

Make your choice. But I doubt most of you have stables of polo ponies, so you might want to think twice about allying yourselves with those who do.

John Lien said...

This made me wince, at first.

DC sez:

"In societies where everybody believes they are equal, the inevitable superiority of a few makes the rest feel like failures.
Inversely, in societies where inequality is the norm, each person settles into his own distinct place, without feeling the urge, nor even conceiving the possibility, of comparing himself to others.
Only a hierarchical structure is compassionate towards the mediocre and the meek."

Maybe he was promoting heirarchical societies for compassionate reaons? If so, I would not promote that.

However, what he was saying about human nature, our inequality and feelings of failure when we encounter somebody better, are still true.

Even if he were wrong some of the time, why dismiss him entirely and miss out on the good stuff? His hit rate is very high.

Slack isn't a zero sum game. I don't think he was trying to keep it from others. Heck, he is producing it posthumously.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Anniny is so unoriginal and predictable.
Aninny follows the basic troll playbook:

Attack the messenger? Check.

Distorted view of Christianity? Double check.

Misrepresents the US Constitution?
Of course (we're a Republic, dumbass not a democracy).

But we do see anniny's envy, bitterness, ignorance n' foolishness personified and it stands as a stark warning to the restofus what happens when a man gives up his liberty (and much more) for the Lie.

Anniny and those who are of like mind(lessness) would have us all equal (yeah, equal in the chains of slavery which is the only way to impose equality by force...or farce as the case may be).

julie said...

John, there is a distinction I see there (and which is important in understanding why America works where democratic socialism doesn't), along with the caveat that the Don is not an American and, like many of the sages, apparently sees nothing wrong with a stratified class system based mainly on heredity.

To the point of the quote, I read that as referring to societies that expect equality of outcome (iow, socialist, communist, purely "democratic," etc.). In such places, it cannot be other than as he describes.

The American distinction is that, ideally, Americans know that each individual life has an equal value (which means, for instance, that every person deserves equal treatment under the law, regardless of wealth, fame or status. Of course it often doesn't work that way, since the law is carried out by flawed humans; nonetheless, that is the point), but that there is not (or ought not be) any expectation of an equality of outcome. Such a place can't help but recognize that there are social hierarchies; that in fact, man as a social being relies on such hierarchies for the culture to function; but that one's place in the hierarchy is not fixed according to birth. Hence Americans may be "upwardly mobile" (or just as often the opposite) in any number of ways both horizontal and vertical.

Granted, the Don may not have seen the value in this mobility, as it does not eliminate the working of envy. Then again, a society stratified by any sort of hereditary caste system runs into the same problem of equality within the layers of caste; a peasant farmer may not envy a lord his wealth and finery, but he will absolutely envy his peasant farming neighbor's newfangled farming technique, and if it looks too promising or breaks too much from tradition he will demonize and/ or sabotage his neighbor accordingly.

Anyway, as you pointed out, discounting his wisdom because of a few small points of cultural disagreement is as silly as dissing a mountain for the fissure in its side.

John Lien said...

@Julie. Nice. Thanks!

ge said...

Just thinking how amazing and sweet it'd be if this section were blessed with an Unknown Friend-type Anon. posting comments, instead of these sick-freak lib-ass types crawling from under their dumb stones to quip...

julie said...

Heh - if they were really quipping, that would at least be amusing.

But yeah, that would be pretty cool.

flunky said...

By far the best work environment I ever enjoyed was the one where I was completely free to be myself (with the restriction of being fired if my bottom line value didn’t measure up. And I didn’t undermine the boss I suppose, though I did play some excellent pranks on him...).

The worst work environment I ever suffered was the one where no amount of bottom line value or talking up the boss mattered (because I was successfully smeared as a major threat / scapegoat by the office sociopath).

What is the Don Colacho-ism for such a concept?

sweating through the rolls said...

Who's Gómez Dávila ?

julie said...

See here.

flunky said...

These Columbians are always renaming themselves when they achieve “superiority”. Even I aspire to be Don Flunky, someday.

But seriously folks, Gracian the Jesuit spoke of the malicious and how to handle em, in less than 300 aphorisms. Somewhere in 3000 DC aphorisms there's gotta be some good stuff about how to confront The Evil Ones.

Mother Effingby said...

Bah Humbug, flunky. So Davila has a pen name. Everyone on the internet, myself included, uses a pen name. Except you, I see. What were your parents thinking?

flunky said...

Don Jewel?

Comeon folks. It's not that hard. The reason for most religions is dealing with evil. The main reason for all governments is dealing with evil.

How does the Don suggest we deal with evil?

julie said...

Nice theories. Wrong species.

Jewel said...

Well, senyor flunky, we would hope that religions and governments are there to deal with evil, but the point of Colacho's aphorisms is to point out that the very do-gooders of government cause more evil than they prevent.
And there is a religion, at least one, Islam, I'm sure you've heard of it, where evil is good and its acolytes are encouraged in every manner to be evil.

julie said...

I’m curious to see if DC shares my own assessment

Well then, why don't you go look it up on his website. Then if you're right, you can come back and 'splain.

As far as your theories go about the reason for religion and for government, if you can provide a genuine example of either one existing principally as a means of "dealing with evil" ... well, you can't because there isn't one. So, nice theory, wrong species.

Jules said...

Nice... always appreciate Colacho, though I think he may be a bit hard on the industrial world... is man's destiny not the stars ? for which we need industrialization etc

Van Harvey said...

Ah... slipped a Sunday OC by me. A nice surprise for Tuesday night though... nice to see the DC's legos assembled into an OC skyscraper.

Van Harvey said...

flunky said "What is the Don Colacho-ism for such a concept?"

Maybe something along the lines of "A flunky is as a flunky does."

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