"Modern Western populations," writes Bruce Charlton, "are only semi-human in their mass perceptions and responses -- since they lack the stable centre of religion, and are metaphysically incoherent; they live inside an artificial and distorted world; and their minds are continually filled-with and distracted-by lying nonsense -- all of this in an unprecedented fashion and degree."
Concur. Our adversaries live inside a Matrix -- which has been carefully constructed for them by forces beyond their conscious control.
Thus, "the true agenda of evil is not just beyond their belief, but beyond their comprehension -- lacking God, they cannot recognise nor understand the nature of evil (and are, indeed, inclined to deny its truth and rationality)" (ibid.). As did our anonymous but always illustrative commenter yesterday, when I merely pointed out that the suppression of truth is the essence of evil. He even went so far as to suggest that doing so violates none of God's laws.
No, it's worse than that, for truth is one of God's names; to attack or thwart it is to smite the Creator. It is to pound another nail into the Cross.
We've been toying with the idea of "principles of history," but maybe we should be talking about the principalities of history. Or worse, perhaps history itself is a principality -- you know, a kind of satanic playground. That would explain why the war has been going on for, oh, 50,000 years.
Is there any reason to believe such perfect nonsense? I don't yet have any central thread, only a pile of books on my desk which may lead in the right direction. For example, of the appeasers of the 1930s, Manchester writes that "like all fundamentalists" they "held facts in contempt." But it was more than mere facts; rather, their minds attacked the conclusion to which the facts inevitably led.
The conclusion was known, but had to be rendered un-known. For example, upon reading a damning book called The House that Hitler Built, Neville Chamberlain wrote that "If I accepted the author's conclusions I should despair, but I don't and I won't" (in Manchester). Well, that was easy!
Let's try it out: If I accepted the idea that the Iranians cannot be trusted and that the nuclear agreement isn't worth the paper it is written on, I should despair, but I don't and I won't.
Or, If I accepted the idea that the left wishes to foment racial antagonism and a war on the police, I should despair, but I don't and I won't.
I feel better already!
Our anonymous commenter criticizes us for supporting Trump. If he has any better ideas as to how to stop Hillary and defeat the left, I'd like to hear them. As Prager has said, Trump is like using chemotherapy to fight cancer: yeah, it's going to make you sick and cause a lot of damage, but what choice do you have?
"Historians a thousand years hence," Churchill told parliament, "will still be baffled by the mystery of our affairs. They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered themselves to be brought low, and to cast away all that they had gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory -- gone with the wind!"
Yes, historians will be baffled. But what about Raccoons? Should we be baffled by America's entirely self-willed decline? I don't see why. Let us consult one of our Vertical Fathers, Don Colacho. "Civilizations are the summer noise of insects between two winters."
Better bundle up.
"The external adversary is less the enemy of civilization than is internal attrition."
Oh, that and demographic flooding. Which is why the left favors open borders, which is just genocide -- and worse, pneumacide -- by other means. The left can't defeat our ideas, but they can stampede over them.
"Those who live in the twilight of history imagine the day is being born when night is approaching."
The Obama era, dawn of a new day!
D'oh!
"Modern history is the dialogue of two men, one who believes in God, another who believes he is god."
I disagree. Dialogue with Obama is impossible.
"Falsifying the past is how the left has sought to elaborate the future."
Which is why if we don't somehow take back the educational system -- now a wholly owned and operated franchise of the Dark Aeon -- a deepening metastasis of the left's grim utopia is inevitable.
Out of time here. And tomorrow must be sacrificed to the serpent of Continuing Education, so no post. BTW, I was surprised to learn that as many as 24% of psychiatrists are Republican. Among woolly-headed and thoroughly feminized psychologists the figure is surely lower. But if you're out there, please show yourself. I am occasionally asked for a referral to a sane therapist.
46 comments:
If you are in a spiritual war and the leaders of your side are people like Trump, Breitbart, Milo, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Giulani, Gingrich....all repellent to anyone with any ability to detect and respond to virtue and its absence -- perhaps you are on the wrong side.
Thank you for your ongoing service!
Besides, in the past God has chosen much more more flawed vehicles to defeat evil.
This guy has a good point. When I go to my favorite record store in Hollywood, I look like a narc in the Star Wars bar.
"We 'Conspire to Produce an Unaware and Compliant Citizenry’."
No. Really?
My pops is a Gestalt Psychologist, and downright reactionary. But he would tell you, he is one of precious few.
Sounds like he sees the gestalt, i.e., the whole that renders the parts intelligible.
I'm pretty much a geist-alt psychologist.
Or pslackologist.
Have you got gab.ai yet?
No. Or maybe I did and it healed on its own.
Some conditions are known for rapid convalescence.
Guess it's time to check the winter stores!
"Manchester writes that "like all fundamentalists" they "held facts in contempt." But it was more than mere facts; rather, their minds attacked the conclusion to which the facts inevitably led."
I think Manchester is being a bit too glib, especially as any good leftie will intently inform you, there is nothing they care more about than the facts - and especially less of concern to them than the facts, are the relations by which those facts convey meaning. Context. Every Fact they wag about, as our aninnymouse above, has 'significance' to them Only through the absence or outright rejection, of its proper context. Aka Truth.
Go figure.
Re. the Cracked article, it was surprisingly even-handed. I used to read them daily, until the constant leftist virtue-signaling became too much.
I'm surprised that there are that many Republican psychiatrists. Good to know.
when I merely pointed out that the suppression of truth is the essence of evil. He even went so far as to suggest that doing so violates none of God's laws.
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord.
***
13 “Among the prophets of Samaria
I saw this repulsive thing:
They prophesied by Baal
and led my people Israel astray.
14 And among the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen something horrible:
They commit adultery and live a lie.
They strengthen the hands of evildoers,
so that not one of them turns from their wickedness.
They are all like Sodom to me;
the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”
15 Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says concerning the prophets:
“I will make them eat bitter food
and drink poisoned water,
because from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”
You might find this interesting, sir. Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He have had enough with the SJW crowd and the laws they are trying to force on the public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpim_n0r0z0
Bob, not to add to your workload and if you've already addressed this, please point me to the archived post, but I would like you to put on your professional hat and as briefly as possible describe what motivates a troll to be a troll. There must be more to it than attention seeking or spoiling for a fight, and I find it difficult to believe the troll has any hope of actual conversion. So what drives a troll to spend time commenting on a blog where he has no hope of making a difference?
I really don't know enough about them to make any generalizations. And since I don't troll, I have no first person knowledge. Before I started blogging, I would occasionally get into arguments with people, but I just called it arguing. Now I know better than to argue with a liberal.
Someone compiled an amazingly detailed list of every kind of troll. It was pretty amusing. I'll try to find it.
Here's a list of thirteen.
100 plus types.
The second link is much better.
Troll, please. God's virtue is so unassailable by our efforts, He can speak through an ass, if He needs to. He can even use you, which is why everyone here is careful to be deferential to your species.
You people are more postmodern than the leftists you like to trash. By dismissing any criticism as "trolling", you essentially are saying, I want to live in my own comfortable bubble of thought and have immunized myself against any argument from outside of it.
Inventing elaborate psychological motivations for your opponents is also quite a postmodern move. How about this: you people are deeply and fundamentally wrong, and wrongness demands correction. That sounds kind of old fashioned, doesn't it? But you guys are supposed to be the conservatives, so you shouldn't have too much trouble accepting that as a motivation.
But you are right, arguing with anyone who has walled themselves off in a bubble is probably a waste of time. And your particular bubble looks to be going down to a truly stunning political defeat, which means I don't have to worry about it as much. For awhile there it looked dangerous, now it is merely pathetic.
Not only do I live in a world steeped in liberalism, I used to be a liberal, so I can't relate.
We've been toying with the idea of "principles of history," but maybe we should be talking about the principalities of history. Or worse, perhaps history itself is a principality ...
I can't help thinking history is good, but like so much that is good, it gets perverted by the principalities that are in charge of that division.
Divine history moves from Christ to Christ. Of course, even thinking that puts me on the "wrong side of history" for people like Obama.
As far as our new troll goes, I love Milo but I certainly don't consider him a spiritual leader. He's a weapon. Far be it from me to suggest trollie read the Bible, but if he did, he would find that God used prostitutes, murderers, adulterers, and pagans to accomplish His purposes. That doesn't bother me because if He didn't, He wouldn't be able to find anybody to with whom to work.
For we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And, God forgives sinners, of which I am the chief.
Also, I specifically said of trolls that "I don't know enough about them to make any generalizations." I just take them and their arguments at face value. I've certainly heard and considered all their arguments, to such an extent that I once believed most of them myself. Indeed, if I were the sort of person who lives in a bubble, I'd still be a liberal.
Speaking of which, it is lunch break here for my CE seminar. Once again I find myself in a room full of liberals with a liberal professor, as in days of old. Imagine if the situation were symmetrical, and liberals were forced to attend seminars by, say, professors from Hillman College or the Hoover Institute. Not advocating that, but it is impossible to insulate oneself from the reach of liberalism.
Bob - were you still a lib when you began attending these seminars? If so, for how long? And if so, did they play any part in what finally pushed you over the edge?
Also also, I think the trolls may be paid (only the paid ones) and Milo could be (brilliantly) faking his gayness. It works like an immunity necklace, no? Maybe we should all get one.
Just throwing that out there on Open Line Friday.
Mushroom, beautifully said.
Rick, as far as Milo goes I'm not convinced of anything about him. Except that he is fantastic driving them frothing mad.
Unbelievable. I just gave a long, thoughtful answer to Rick's question -- at great peril to myself, what with the presenter hovering around -- but the stupid hotel wifi malfunctioned and it was lost.
The short answer is that I was still a lib, and that no, the seminars had no influence on my conversion to the dark side. But there was much more to it.
Doh! I hate when that happens.
Apropos of nothing, Happy Acres linked to a great article by Anthony Esolen featuring the delightful phrase "pronominal lobotomies."
Also, "Microaggressions warrant microattention"
Thanks, Bob.
God help us; this is what we can look forward to if Hillary wins.
Though I suppose for those who hate Israel enough, that wouldn't seem like such a bad deal.
And let's not forget, they are apparently actually trying, right now, to start a war with Russia.
I haven't had time to listen to this address by Netanyahu before the UN. No wonder Obama can't stand him. He makes him look like the petty ideologue he is.
Where's USS Ben?
He goes by Allena C now. Still pops in now and then, but I think has more social life these days.
How psychology works:
"I am unaware of any other domain of science in which scholars have so little high-quality data to answer comparatively new research questions and yet are so quick to declare those questions answered and done with. We don’t do that in any other field or with any other question. What ought to be an empirical matter... has instead turned into a moral test of fealty."
And if differences are found, they are just reframed: sexual identity confusion is called "open-mindedness," or promiscuity "sexually adventurous."
Maybe they can work it out at Gateway Pundit. Or some other log cabin-y place?
Apropos psychology, one of the interesting things about WikiLeaks is how much that people merely suspected before turns out to be verifiably true. The left really is running a long-term gaslighting project.
For instance, InstaPundit's long-running crack about "President Goldman-Sachs" was wrong only inasmuch as it apparently should have been "President CitiBank," since that's who apparently determined who all of Obama's cabinet members should be - notably, a month before the '08 election.
But hey, at least they only provided documents full of women. Not binders. Only evil Republicans would use binders.
These liberal elites have such open contempt for the people they claim to represent. But it has always been thus. I'm just now reading an excerpt from Bastiat's The Law, and he observed the same of liberal do-gooders in the mid-19th century.
Every liberal is ultimately just like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, using the "power of poverty" to increase personal wealth. For liberals to actually care about reducing poverty would be completely self-defeating -- like asking a corporation to sell things at a loss.
Anonymous said...
If you are in a spiritual war and the leaders of your side are people like Trump, Breitbart, Milo, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Giulani, Gingrich....
First of all, no one but G_D leads a raccoon.
If you need a leader than you've come to the wrong place.
We elect representatives we hope will aspire to love the truth.
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