tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post1662079079310379768..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Sexual and Textual Perverts in Islam and the WestGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84594637539815346262007-12-13T05:53:00.000-08:002007-12-13T05:53:00.000-08:00billh said "Perhaps it is a total lack of etiquett...billh said "Perhaps it is a total lack of etiquette or protocol that I am missing in posting here but I find it very interesting that whenever I post anything it is immediately, not criticized, but vehemently attacked often immediately after I post it. With such outstanding critical arguments as “assoul”. "<BR/><BR/>'billh' is a nic, which I don't recall seeing before, so I was a little confused about your saying you always get attacked. The mispelt words made me think of an anonnymouse we had a running gag/fight with, whose 'opinions' were so silly that Hoarhey & I taunted him with 'still laughing' at his attempts at critical insults.<BR/>'assoul' - sometimes Cousin decides that the best remedy for tappin in a nail is to use a sledgehammer.<BR/>He means well.<BR/>(check the comments in the day after this for similar links)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-53510849450177983522007-12-12T09:29:00.000-08:002007-12-12T09:29:00.000-08:00Thanks Van for the resources. I have read the The ...Thanks Van for the resources. I have read the The Ominous Parallels but I have not read “Explaining Postmodernism”. I would think there would be some good references in it to point to a trend in rising narcissism. I personally feel strongly that the “trend” was more a revolution or major shift than a rise and I also think it happened with the Boomers. Whether it has increased, I am not convinced, although I do not see a trend or shift away from the changes that occurred in the 60s. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps it is a total lack of etiquette or protocol that I am missing in posting here but I find it very interesting that whenever I post anything it is immediately, not criticized, but vehemently attacked often immediately after I post it. With such outstanding critical arguments as “assoul”. Sorry Van if I stepped on your toes and you consider yourself part of the “community” that does this. I do not even know what a nic is so I cannot respond or continue laughing but I can thank you for the resources and the discussion on the Ominous Parallels that have obviously continued to be discussed into today. I have benefited from them both and am probably wasting bandwidth or something posting on a previous days comments but ignorance is bliss.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-3314311587549001872007-12-11T10:50:00.000-08:002007-12-11T10:50:00.000-08:00Yes. I think there were some that mistakenly thoug...Yes. I think there were some that mistakenly thought Free-Market Capitalism would not work without a subservient consumer class. <BR/><BR/>They were probably communists. Who, according to Chesterton, created the only truly working model of 'capitalism' (as they defined it - they're the ones who coined the term.)<BR/><BR/>It was that on one hand you had the socialists, who were heavy handed top down planners, and on the other the magnates, who wanted a free market of (more or less) slaves. <BR/><BR/>Neither seemed to really understand at all what a free market means. One thought experts could dictate where money needed to be spent and guarantee stability; the other thought that stability would come from masses who were taught to buy consumables and be obedient to marketing.<BR/><BR/>Really, they're both the same thing - a mistrust of maturity. The idea that underlies seems to be if people, adults, had their way, it would be anarchy.<BR/><BR/>Really, it's just the fears of men of power being worked out...Ephrem Antony Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00032465992619034619noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-157737384417755782007-12-11T07:28:00.000-08:002007-12-11T07:28:00.000-08:00"Please list what you have and if any others have ..."Please list what you have and if any others have good resources on the rise of narcissism in America I would like to know them."<BR/><BR/>That sounds suspiciously more like a demand (albeit a polite one) than a humble request...<BR/><BR/>But hey, I guess I'm the assoul.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8381567089346374842007-12-11T07:11:00.000-08:002007-12-11T07:11:00.000-08:00River,That's an interesting point you make, and on...River,<BR/>That's an interesting point you make, and one that John Gatto returns to quite often in his writings on the public school system in America. It has been, since the early 1900's, according to Gatto, by design, a system created to increase the time of adolescence. This is why middle and high schools are so mind numbing, in general. The idea is to develop a stupid, subserviant, consumer class.<BR/>It worked.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-37148576889896192482007-12-11T06:58:00.000-08:002007-12-11T06:58:00.000-08:00Another great one, Bob, and it was a nice surprise...Another great one, Bob, and it was a nice surprise to have Dr. Rittenberg drop in. His piece is excellent and goes beyond, but helps to crystalize, my misgivings about recent trends.<BR/><BR/>I think you're onto something, Van. It's tempting to think that at least some of what went wrong with Raising Boomer came out of the kind of denial and repression that often accompany trauma. The 1-2 punch of the Depression and WWII also followed on the heels of cross generational trauma in that the Greatest Generation was raised by those who had endured the Great War and many premodern conditions. My grandmother, for example, was raised by parents who had lost all five of their children to the 1918 flu just before she was born.<BR/><BR/>As for boomer narcissism, it became clearly evident almost immediately on a broad social scale. The proliferation of higher education -- along with the assumption that we young 'uns had secrets to convey -- was followed by student riots and unrestrained hedonism within a few years. The same trajectory followed the civil rights movement, with the first real destructive riots (Harlem and Brooklyn, 1964) following by two weeks the congressional passage of the most sweeping Civil Rights Act to date. Both of these deeply destructive trends, and the aftermath that continues to the present, appear directly attributable to the abdication of authority by those in charge.<BR/><BR/>I find myself less worried these days, though, about evil really getting the upper hand again. My late-90's theory that the Left was dead met a bad end, I have to say, but there's a feel now that America still has a lot of common sense remaining and that the 16% of us who still call ourselves liberals is about to suffer yet another trauma like the one in 2004.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-74983222221059938002007-12-11T06:43:00.000-08:002007-12-11T06:43:00.000-08:00I think our problem as of late is not being child-...I think our problem as of late is not being child-centric, but adolescent-centric. Adolescents are the people who are capable of adulthood but still childish. In earlier eras they would have been forced - or allowed or made able - to begin to behave as adults. <BR/><BR/>While I suppose the complexity of things has forced this to arise, it would seem that there is a stuckness - sticking to the childishness rather than the childlike wonder.<BR/><BR/>"I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys R Us Kid" Is not a message for a child; they really don't know what growing up is. It's an adolescent message: "I'm growing up, but I don't want to. I want to keep buying toys and remaining a kid."<BR/><BR/>...<BR/><BR/>Loss of discipline turns love into coddling; and young men into teenage wannabes...<BR/><BR/>Once you hit the 'age of reason' it is impossible to really be a child anymore. <BR/><BR/>Er, except in the sense of recapturing the childlike wonder of that time. That's what you want.Ephrem Antony Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00032465992619034619noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-91767013075622600882007-12-11T06:19:00.000-08:002007-12-11T06:19:00.000-08:00Oops. That was to coonified...just sayin'.Oops. That was to coonified...just sayin'.NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-51388268424217778672007-12-10T21:14:00.000-08:002007-12-10T21:14:00.000-08:00Nice.<A HREF="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy%203:16-17;&version=49" REL="nofollow">Nice.</A>NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-45233883083083651052007-12-10T20:12:00.000-08:002007-12-10T20:12:00.000-08:00Quick related note, I watched a C-Span show this w...Quick related note, I watched a C-Span show this weekend on Diana West's 'The Death of the Grown-up' in which she raised a lot of interesting points, and notes that by the early 1950's, there were already warning alarms beng raised about 'child centered' homes....<BR/><BR/>Presumably, these would have been the leading edge of the boomers, brought forth from those returning from WWII. Doing a little pop-psyching, I wonder if we didn't reap a perfect storm of parents wanting to indulge their kids, rather than discipline them, due in part to the fact that The Greatest Generation were:<BR/>- The first generation whose parents were themselves raised in public schools (thanks to, and imbued with the message of the progressives). <BR/>-Raised with little or no frills during the Great Depression,<BR/>-Brought up under the beginnings of Nanny Statism with FDR's New Deal, <BR/>-Having seen all the regimented discipline and horrors of death and destruction they ever wished to see in WWII, <BR/><BR/>is it surprising that these new parents were not only willing, but wanting, even needing, to see 'happy' faces on their children more than anything else - and especially on the parts of the WWII veteran fathers, at a distance?Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11804895030314135542007-12-10T19:39:00.000-08:002007-12-10T19:39:00.000-08:00No, not at all.No, <A HREF="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207:21;&version=50;" REL="nofollow">not at all</A>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11054484964884248552007-12-10T19:35:00.000-08:002007-12-10T19:35:00.000-08:00Nomo said: "(Look at me resisting the multiple lin...Nomo said: <BR/><BR/>"(Look at me resisting the multiple links I could have made to scripture to illustrate these points)."<BR/><BR/>I never minded the links to scripture Nomo. That's one of the things I like about you. What the scripture means...well, we may differ on some things. But we shouldn't dwell too much on that <A HREF="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%201:4-7;&version=50;" REL="nofollow"> should we? </A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-56314567155611298062007-12-10T19:15:00.000-08:002007-12-10T19:15:00.000-08:00Thanks, and I just read your piece on Joe Torre. ...Thanks, and I just read your piece on Joe Torre. Tough luck. We got him, and we're not giving him back!Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-30901585919678112472007-12-10T19:03:00.000-08:002007-12-10T19:03:00.000-08:00Thanks for the kind references to my piece on Jiha...Thanks for the kind references to my piece on Jihadism, Liberalism and Perversion in the American Thinker. The French psychoanalyst I cite, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, has written a very important book I recommend to all. It's titled Creativity and Perversion. Her analysis of the Marquis de Sade is crucial, I believe, to understanding the appeal of murderous jihadism today.<BR/>Stephen Rittenberg<BR/>http://www.doctor-horsefeathers.comStephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11307822688287792021noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-47540986968431349642007-12-10T18:05:00.000-08:002007-12-10T18:05:00.000-08:00Oh... and the Parallels are between Germany of the...Oh... and the Parallels are between Germany of the late 19th century - when they had their Hippie movement, and America of the late 20th century. It leads unsettlingly well into today. <BR/><BR/>I believe he was writing in the early 80's, and we're now beginning to see more of that swell into public view, what with Greens, Gore's and HillarObama's... but this is still America - still filled with the unseen defuse’rs of disaster… the pre-post Remnants…Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-69474416096836128522007-12-10T17:43:00.000-08:002007-12-10T17:43:00.000-08:00billh said "But then I’ve gotten used to getting t...billh said "But then I’ve gotten used to getting this kind of response from posting on this “forum”. A strange kind of “community” but fun to see is consistent. I shood haf mispellt some words to really get the police out."<BR/><BR/>Hmmm ... interesting backhanded turn, or slip there... maybe you should stick with one nic, instead of using a shifting anonymity of nics? Perhaps I should say 'still laughing?'<BR/><BR/>Anyway, distractions aside, the point of the potential of leftism sliding into nazism is well addressed in <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Ominous-Parallels-Leonard-Peikoff/dp/0452011175" REL="nofollow">The Ominous Parallels</A>,a couple bullet points noted:<BR/><BR/>-<I>Political parties devoid of principles or direction and moved at random by pressure groups, each demanding still more controls. </I><BR/><BR/>-<I>A "progressive," anti-intellectual educational system that, from kindergarten to graduate school, creates students who can't read or write — students brainwashed into the feeling that their minds are helpless and they must adapt to "society," that there is no absolute truth and that morality is whatever society says it is.</I><BR/><BR/>and much more. He digs into the philosophical foundations for the rise of Nazism, rather than the irrelevant particulars (economy, Versailles treaty, etc) which were nothing more than convenient material to work with - had events been different, different events would have been made use of. A particularly interesting read for those who have read <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1592476422?tag=onecosmos-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1592476422&adid=0RKMKKWF1BWVECV326E1&" REL="nofollow">Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks</A><BR/><BR/>It'll get your brain churning - good for the doom and gloomer in everybody, but with the recognition that all it takes to correct that path is adherence to reality and respect for the oneness of Truth. Of course, being an Objectivist, it is atheistic, but as an incidental, not of the current silly strident Harris/Hitchens variety, and once indicated, Raccoon's can take the fire escape into the vertical from that point.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9130189116048240182007-12-10T15:53:00.000-08:002007-12-10T15:53:00.000-08:00Assoul.Assoul.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-7102253615450656842007-12-10T15:27:00.000-08:002007-12-10T15:27:00.000-08:00Only in the postmodern world wide perverted whoopi...Only in the postmodern world wide perverted whoopie have people been able to write under the name "anonymous" and assert their opinion as truth without any requirement to list their resources. The burden of evidence has always been on the writer in the past but with the rising increase in libel and slander, the new narcissists think they are entitled to simply post their opinion, whether factual or not. I am sure Bob doesn’t confuse a request for a resource a demand, as “anonymous” seems to have and also spoke for the “community”. <BR/><BR/>But then I’ve gotten used to getting this kind of response from posting on this “forum”. A strange kind of “community” but fun to see is consistent. I shood haf mispellt some words to really get the police out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-78502533690738832772007-12-10T14:40:00.000-08:002007-12-10T14:40:00.000-08:00Yes, "diversity" is nothing less than the deificat...Yes, "diversity" is nothing less than the deification of the particular over the universal, which leads to the flatland homogenization of man rather than the vertical hominization of beasts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-30795755108457422342007-12-10T14:27:00.000-08:002007-12-10T14:27:00.000-08:00The ideas (truths) in today’s post need popularizi...The ideas (truths) in today’s post need popularizing and broad distribution.<BR/><BR/>My couple of cents:<BR/><BR/>Although I’m not a big fan of Michael Savage, there are a few words and phrases that I believe originated with him that have become widely used (although not necessarily well-understood) – e.g. “compassionate conservative”, “islamofascism”, <BR/>“liberalism is a mental disorder”, and “diversity is perversity”. Regarding the latter in relation to your post today, almost as if in accordance to some master plan look how “diversity” morphed from its original, fairly benign EEO / AA intent, to its ultimate promotion of “equality” across nearly all differences, finally taking firm hold of our culture, laws, and even our language and thought. As you said today, when you “eliminate the vital distinctions that make thought possible”, what’s left (pun intended) is programming – human machines with artificial intelligence.<BR/><BR/>While identifying children as gifts from God, the Bible speaks repeatedly to their healthy rearing and makes clear the horrific result of the alternative. Loving discipline, correction, guidance, etc. has always been the scriptural Jewish and Christian tradition of the faithful. For me, every single scripturally-based, individual faith relationship with God down through the ages, regardless of the covenant in place at the time, has represents a “present vertical Eden” connection of man to God, if you will – establishing the family model. In other words, it only takes looking up to determine what it is to be a father, mother, or child.<BR/><BR/>(Look at me resisting the multiple links I could have made to scripture to illustrate these points).<BR/><BR/>8’]<BR/><BR/><BR/>billh - How ripe? Just take a big whiff.NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27881000103478167432007-12-10T14:26:00.000-08:002007-12-10T14:26:00.000-08:00Speaking of narcissism, Bill, you certainly feel e...Speaking of narcissism, Bill, you certainly feel entitled to make demands of Bob and the community here.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-12298982222405246872007-12-10T13:57:00.000-08:002007-12-10T13:57:00.000-08:00You write:“Of course, I cannot cite statistics to ...You write:<BR/><BR/>“Of course, I cannot cite statistics to back this up, but psychoanalysts in general began to notice a great increase in narcissistic patients by the late 1960s, which led to a revolution of theorizing about how to treat them, since they couldn't be treated in the manner of a normal neurotic.”<BR/><BR/>I would like to see what resources you did use for the problem of the rise in narcissism in western culture. I have used Professor Jean M. Twenge’s study titled “Generation Me” as a resource for this subject but would like more and possibly better resources if you have any. Particularly for the rise in narcissistic behavior. <BR/><BR/>Because if :<BR/><BR/>“Nazi perverts in World War II = Islamist perverts today”<BR/><BR/>And <BR/><BR/>“As Rittenberg explains, leftism is as perverse as Islamism”<BR/><BR/>Then<BR/><BR/>Leftism = Nazi perverts. <BR/><BR/>How ripe are we then as a nation of perverts for a Forth Reich? Only this time we would be further along the narcissistic time line increase. <BR/><BR/>You wrote :<BR/><BR/>“When liberalism asserts that al Qaeda and America are equal threats to the world, it is being perverse.”<BR/><BR/>Is it, or is it in a narcissistic way trying to tell you something? A Liberal America I think would be as perverse or even more than al Qaeda, and I think we are further towards that conclusion than you may want to think. Let’s get the studies and statistics out and see. Please list what you have and if any others have good resources on the rise of narcissism in America I would like to know them.<BR/><BR/>ThanksAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-57988444814301136172007-12-10T13:36:00.000-08:002007-12-10T13:36:00.000-08:00"Because in reality, indulging a child is not empa..."Because in reality, indulging a child is not empathic. Rather, it is a failure of empathy, because it is a failure to recognize the actual child and to provide what he really needs as opposed to wants."<BR/><BR/>Just as the concept of "curling parents" sweeping away every little rough spot in front of their child. Thus, raising an indivual totaly incapable of taking care of him/her self. A whining grown up who yells and get angry as soon a things are not like they wish. Just listen to the left, all they do are "demanding" stuff, rights, equality, etc, instead of going out there and create something on their own.<BR/><BR/>Also, this must be the idea of the leftist "do gooders", who wants to "take care" of all people, defining people as "weak" and therefor in need of government support all through the different passages of life. It the leftist "circle of anti-life", if you ask the Lion King.<BR/><BR/>/JohanKaffepaushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345465424685778306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-35656990690731973632007-12-10T12:53:00.000-08:002007-12-10T12:53:00.000-08:00"Perverse thought eliminates the vital distinction..."Perverse thought eliminates the vital distinctions <B>that make thought possible</B>; it is literally a form of thinking in reverse..."<BR/><BR/>In reverse, or the leveling of throwing down the structure of thought as it seeks to be, in favor of a flat and undifferentiated yada yada yada blah blah blah of quantity without quality and meaning.<BR/><BR/>"It is what Bion referred to as a sadistic "attack on linking," the links that form the foundation and infrastructure of the thinking mind."<BR/><BR/>Or what the DBA's out there would recognize as a corrupted database.<BR/><BR/>"...in that it believes that the ultimate meaning of meaning is to render meaning ultimately meaningless."<BR/><BR/>Robin Hood splits the arrow - bullseye!Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-88090475302998538122007-12-10T11:56:00.000-08:002007-12-10T11:56:00.000-08:00Today's post is a rocket...bombs bursting in midai...Today's post is a rocket...bombs bursting in midair!<BR/><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://robinstarfish.blogspot.com/2007/12/rabbit-ears.html" REL="nofollow">Rabbit Ears</A><BR/>the age of reason<BR/>lost when man dyed black and white<BR/>dan choked on couragerobinstarfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15665546554663005609noreply@blogger.com