Here it is: "Conservatism should not be a party but the normal attitude of every decent man." It is common sense, common decency, and a common inheritance of the Permanent Things.
But it's not all bad news for the left, because at least we conservatives "provide idiots the pleasure of feeling like daring avant-garde thinkers."
Notice how our daring and avant-garde -- and confident and clueless -- president takes abundant advantage of this service we provide. And what thanks do we get?
Oh well. Raccoons don't care about manmode honors and encomia. Conservatives understand that "man is a problem without a human solution," much less a political one. Obama is trying to heal his own wounded soul via politics, but he splits and then projects the wound into others -- into the victims of the left and the sadists of the right, making himself savior to the one and martyr of the other.
Or in other words, Obama is a classic Christian pervert (or inverted Christian), something to bear in mind for folks who still cling to the idea that he is a closet Muslim.
No, for starters, a real Muslim wouldn't project the sadism, but act on it (use of the IRS to persecute political enemies notwithstanding). Nor would he give a fig about so-called victims. It's just not a part of their culture -- except when politically expedient to propagandize the useful Jew-hating idiots of the international left.
For "In the end we only defend and attack religious positions with zeal." Think about that one. I'll wait.
You could even say that it is possible to implicitly know a man's religion by paying attention to what gets his zeal up. For example, is there a commenter more zealous, more on fire for his incoherent cause, than our anonymous troll? Clearly, something is eating him, but you will also have noticed that he is unable to articulate it in terms of principles. It's all just lashing out at projected ghosts. Here is a hint: since 2005, One Cosmos been providing idiots the pleasure of feeling like daring avant-garde thinkers.
But here is a timeless avant which no garde can surpass: "The greatest political puerility is to attribute to certain social structures the vices inherent in the human condition." We can argue about whether Obama is the most far left president we've ever had, but he is without question the most puerile. I know this because I believed the same crap when I was but a puer boy, caught up in the cultural peter pandemic.
Back to Imagination, which is why we're here. "Without an alert imagination intelligence runs aground." I love this one, because it implies that intelligence is a ship with a destination. But it is navigating over a kind of dark sea, or at least a nonlocal sea that is full of potential dangers. Tradition, of course, provides nautical maps, but each person must nevertheless set sail, and in the words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face -- or until they are caught in a hurricane.
I believe I have spoken before of how this nonlocal ocean feels to me. It is filled with subtle forces and attractors that one must "feel" one's way into and through. When one is in the right spot, one will feel the flow of spirit along one's keel, so to speak. Likewise there are doldrums, storms, and, as implied by the aphorism, rocks and icebergs.
So, "Imagination is the capacity to perceive, through the senses, the attributes of the object which the senses do not perceive." Analogously, this would apply even to something as prosaic as a baseball game. Two people can watch the identical game, but someone who knows nothing about baseball will not have access to 95% of what is going on. Same with religion, only without the designated hitter.
This one is so poetic that I almost hate to spoil it: "Nothing important is is reached simply by walking. But jumping is not enough to cross the abyss; one must have wings."
We can talk about why later, but it has not pleased God that man should be saved by walking or by jumping, but by flying. Walking is either the purely intellectual approach or the completely voluntaristic (i.e., will-based); each embodies the pelagian heresy, which essentially means that (↑) is completely sufficient without (↓). (In the cosmically correct formulation, the former is generally necessary but the latter is sufficient.)
Now, what is (↓) but the wings God provides for vertical flight (↑)? Not only is walking a little stupid, but it is also a refusal of the gift of wings. While you're at it, might as well refuse the gifts of reason, language, and truth. Or in other words, become a postmodern leftist who has convinced himself that "his impotence is the measure of things." Which, in a way, it is for the cognitively impotent man (i.e., the infertile egghead) or for the barren ovary tower feminist.
Just yesterday I was thinking about how ideas need to be backed by the full faith and credit of the First Bank of Reality. But the postmodernist has abolished the bank and issues counterfeit notes from his own printer. This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass -- excuse me! Dupree did that while I was taking a leak -- when you pretend that words do not refer to things but only to other words. There has never been a president who lies as casually as Obama, but only because he has assimilated the greatest Lie of all.
So I know just what Brother Colacho means when he says: "Nearly every idea is an overdrawn check that circulates until it is presented for payment." For the last six years, President Obama has been confidently presenting his bankrupt ideas for payment.
What a time to find out he has nothing but funny money and rubber checks! No wonder the Fed keeps cranking it out. Gotta keep the dream alive for another two years. But the rest of us will be paying off his college loans forever.
38 comments:
Re. Dupree's commentary, in the censored for TV version they dubbed it over so Walter says "...when you find a stranger in the Alps!" Which is both hilarious, and random enough to almost sound koan-ish.
I believe I have spoken before of how this nonlocal ocean feels to me. It is filled with subtle forces and attractors that one must "feel" one's way into and through. When one is in the right spot, one will feel the flow of spirit along one's keel, so to speak.
Yes, just so.
It's Electric!
Julie, that's like the TV version of Fargo - everybody keeps sayin fruitin instead of the other F word.
So I know just what Brother Colacho means when he says: "Nearly every idea is an overdrawn check that circulates until it is presented for payment."
The Evan Sayet routine that's been making the rounds comes to mind, in which he observes that prominent leftists are able to hold onto their ideas because their success in life comes not from doing, but from talking. They never come into contact with reality, and so they never have to experience, first hand, the fruits of their own ideas.
Dupree is just not the bowdlerizing type. Speaking of baseball and bowdling.
That's awesome.
My brain can't see him in any movie anymore without seeing The Dude, just in different clothing.
I wasn't suggesting Dupree should edit himself, by the way - I just find the alternative to be bizarrely amusing. It's so out of touch with what's happening in the scene, and what's he saying, anyway - that if you're in the Alps and you find a stranger, you should assault him with a baseball bat?
About those first religious principles of the left -- from Vanderleun's sidebar:
'among whose allegiants many detail differences of reasoning and position can be identified, we tend to agree on our moral premises: i.e., the Rights of Man. The Left has no moral premises to which it will hold fast; their sole touchstone, as with the villains of Atlas Shrugged, is "Can we get away with it?" Which is, of course, entirely consistent with their drive for power over all persons and things.'
Memo to Ben, who mentioned Art Tatum the other day:
I am going through the Bill Evans box, and he did a couple of sessions in which he put down one piano track and then overdubbed a second piano playing along with himself. Sounds like one Tatum.
I must be missing something about anon the troll (or possibly missed some of his pearls) because I don't find him any more zealous or different than the run of the mill mynah bird the academy releases. All wound up with nowhere to go. He and his ilk may feel avant garde and in the sense of Bohemian lifestyle it may be apt, but certainly not in the sense of advancement or innovation. Course ... that is probably lost on him.
No, he's not more zealous than any other. But leftism is the most successful religion in the contemporary world (really, for the past 100+ years) , and he exemplifies that.
He's not particularly special; unlike most of our trolls, he doesn't generally bother to argue any of his points. His style is more bitch-and-run. At least with past trolls, they had a position that they tried to defend, no matter how poorly or how cut-and-paste.
"Conservatism should not be a party but the normal attitude of every decent man." It is common sense, common decency, and a common inheritance of the Permanent Things.
Ain't that the truth.
Come to think of it, if he's actually the guy who runs the American Communist blog somebody linked here a couple of weeks back, it's almost surprising he doesn't try a little harder.
Yes, leftism is certainly a religion and a quite successful one at that in terms of membership. And as you have pointed out many times, the human spirit seeks truth so much so that when truth has been buried the human spirit zealously attempts to convince himself and others of the substitute.
Now, what is (↓) but the wings God provides for vertical flight (↑)? Not only is walking a little stupid, but it is also a refusal of the gift of wings. While you're at it, might as well refuse the gifts of reason, language, and truth.
The holy hipster ethos seeks an artisanal God.
A troll has to know his limitations, especially one who runs a blog and doesn't want to get shown up. He thrusts when he sees an opening but is ill equipped to parry and therefore slips away before he loses the match. I suppose that suggests he's a little brighter than the ones who stick around to argue, or has a better sense of self preservation.
Also, this one doesn't appear to have Asperger's.
Oldie:
"2. The Pixies: last truly great rock group? If not, who am overlooking?"
I have a stupid question.
What's a rock group?
I submit:
Black Crowes - Seeing Things
I think what was tried to do, was done perfectly.
"Dupree did that while I was taking a leak -- when you pretend that words do not refer to things but only to other words. There has never been a president who lies as casually as Obama, but only because he has assimilated the greatest Lie of all."
You actually listen to him?
I pressed the mute button years ago.
Seriously, press the mute button.
It's not like anything he says means anything, so it frees you up to do more productive things.
Nobody actually cares what Obama has to say.
That thing about 'zeal' is exactly what many progressive spiritual communities (e.g. A.C.) have too much of. "It's all up to us." It's the walk and the jump, while the wings are only occasionally spanned.
This book Leftism is an excellent rant. I found an inexpensive used copy, but it's also available on Kindle for cheap.
Hi Bob,
That is interesting. The videos I have seen of Tatum suggests that ain't hyperbole either.
I could only imagine how Tatum would've playing if he was on coke instead of booze.
Then he could have started a progressive rock band. Like "Tatum, Lake & Palmer."
I don't listen to a lot of progressive rock, but when I do, I listen to ELP or Yes in bed at night, and it puts me right to sleep.
Pink Floyd also did that, but I divested myself of their CDs because of Roger Waters vicious anti-Semitism.
I guess I'll have to do the same with Carlos Santana and Elvis Costello. Although they don't seem to be as insane as Waters, who is definitely another brick in the wall.
"One Cosmos been providing idiots the pleasure of feeling like daring avant-garde thinkers. But here is a timeless avant which no garde can surpass: "The greatest political puerility is to attribute to certain social structures the vices inherent in the human condition." We can argue about whether Obama is the most far left president we've ever had, but he is without question the most puerile. I know this because I believed the same crap when I was but a puer boy, caught up in the cultural peter pandemic."
Ah yes, the Peter Pan sindrone. I reckon it's no mystery who fills the role of Stinkerbell in Obama Pan's life.
I used to be Floyd Droid but no longer listen to them for the same reason.
I think Waters is worse than Animals when he Meddles in anti-Semiticism.
It's fascinating to see the rift in leftwing actors irt Israel.
The more sensible ones seem genuinely puzzled that any of their fellow lefty actors could support Hamas.
Now they know how we feel irt their leftism.
I don't know if the Jew haters are more evil or just appallingly ignorant. Whatever it is, it is a spiritual disease that renders one stupid, no matter how intelligent.
Irt the book Leftism,
Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn is a helluva name!
The von part redeems it though.
Thanks for the recommendation, Bob. This looks interesting.
I salute you sir, be proud to say Bob's me uncle. A magnificent treatise on a position. Can't comment on the content, bedazzled by the style.
That objective comment has just earned you an indulgence for one venial sin, boyish peccadillo, or Democrat vote.
Europe for example is low- or no-growth for the foreseeable future.
I have met young French people who say they want nothing more than a "position" at some French government agency from which they can draw a salary, a long vacation, and a generous pension. This is the ideal, the kind of life they really want for themselves. They look on Americans as working too hard. Americans have no joie de vivre, etc. In fact, they rather resent the American work ethic, which forces the rest of the world to try and keep up.They don't want to.
In my imaginary political theory world, all the elite politicians and bankers know the level of real ambition around them, which is why their main job is simply to keep shuffling the dwindling supply of money around so the prevailing short-term dream can continue. (Small wonder the "poststructuralists" and "postmoderns" make such a big deal out of the concept of "differance" and "deferral" -- it's how their tenure/salary is paid.)
But Margaret Thatcher is right to point out that this entire attitude toward work and wealth is parasitic. It's "unsustainable." The blue-state model, the whole edifice of social democracy, the social market approach, relies on an unlimited supply of initiative, ambition, and creativity. The very system however forces these sources of growth to experience fewer and fewer rewards. Eventually, the sources dry up. When that happens, the entire system crashes.
The eurozone is in a kind of zombie state animated mainly by the German work ethic. Germans feel this. Merkel's main job is to keep the German body (work ethic) and soul (Christianity) together. If it ever comes apart ... well, we know what happens.
This is the problem with all check kiting schemes. Not only do they defer a reckoning with reality, they make people more and more vulnerable to catastrophe when that reckoning inevitably comes.
Personally, I have great admiration for monasteries, which are self-sufficient. They don't contribute much to GDP, but they stay alive and healthy. What's the magic number for growth, then, that strikes the best balance between health, stewardship, and growth? Three percent per annum?
Re. monasteries, I'm not sure I'd agree that they're entirely self-sufficient, inasmuch as they generally produce goods that they then sell outside the monastery. And quite often, what they sell is extremely good quality. Within they monastery, they are generally communistic, but as an entity they engage in the free market, and I think therein lies their strength. Rather like a healthy family, come to think of it...
Yes, you're right: monasteries still rely on some external inputs. It's a question of degree. And yes to healthy family. I'm always struck with the existence of "cells" in monasteries. It recognizes the irreducibility of the individual. Yes, work for the good of all, but you have your own room, which is precious.
Boundaries are extremely important.
This is another thing the radical left gets completely, totally wrong.
Agreed. I would have a lot more respect for leftists if they would be content to live as they choose in a similar fashion, and allow everyone else to do the same. Instead, they must inflict the lifestyle they idealize upon everyone else, usually while living completely the opposite way themselves.
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