False consciousness is term probably coined by Friedrich Engels to describe a scenario where a subordinate class embraces the ideology of the ruling class, even though the ideology guarantees their subordination. In the communist view of things, workers embraced the bourgeois values of capitalist society, even though it meant they remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy. It was an interesting bit of projection that has been a feature of radicalism since the beginning.
To be a radical in the conventional sense of Western politics starts with a heavy dose of self-deception. Radicals are rarely from the subordinate class. Almost always they are from the ruling elite. They are intellectuals raised in leisure, but convinced they are the authentic voice of the masses. The rare few from the masses have been elevated because they confirm the bourgeois radical’s need for affirmation. As a reward, the striver gets to live in the farmhouse with the pigs.
A glaring example of radical self-delusion is in this clip from the Jimmy Dore Show in which the host discusses the revolution with Chris Hedges. For those unfamiliar, Dore is a comic who has made himself rich doing left-wing comedy. Chris Hedges is an activist who caters to the NPR crowd. He used to write for the New York Times and got famous trafficking in conspiracy theories during the Bush years. He is the type who claimed Bush was a fascist and Iraq was the Sudetenland.
The clip is interesting because both men are convinced they are opposed to the system, when in fact they are products of the system. This is not an act. They truly think they are the avant garde trying to organize a revolt against the system. Further, both seem to think they are working class heroes, leading the proletariat in their struggle against the bourgeois oppressor class. There are times when they sound like a museum exhibit explaining the 1930’s union movements.
Jimmy Dore is a rich guy who lives in a two-million dollar home in California, while Hedges is a rich guy who lives in a mansion in Princeton New Jersey. That is one of the tonier neighborhoods in America. They owe everything that truly matters to them to the system they pretend to oppose. If there was a revolution, they are the on the first train cars heading to the gulags. The only thing more ridiculous than these two talking revolution is the fact that they seem to believe it.
An amusing sidebar here is that they both have put a lot of effort into retconning their life story to match their roles. Hedges claims to have grown up working class, but his family sent him to elite boarding schools. But hey, the Chaffee school is pretty much a juvenile detention center. Dore carries on like his father was Archie Bunker, but in reality, he was a cop who owned a construction business. The system they claim to oppose has been very good to the both of them.
Other than the entertainment value, the reason to pay attention to these sorts of people is they offer an insight into the people in charge. The typical person in mainstream politics suffers from the same sort of self-delusion. Few have ever done real work or known anyone who does real work. Their entire lives have been inside the world of make believe, where they struggle with other actors, pretending to care about the people outside the bubble.
Just as conservatism is a bone the system throws to middle-class white people to keep them busy; socialism is a bone tossed to upper-middle class white people to make them feel special. One of the remarkable features of the Bernie Bro phenomenon is that it is whiter than a Klan rally. Scroll through the clips of the Jimmy Dore show or the Young Turks and it is nothing but palefaces. In no way does this brand of radicalism look anything like the people they claim to represent.
The self-delusion is not a one-way street. There are cynical people in politics, for sure, but most really believe what they are saying. Elizabeth Warren holds court in her mansion telling the wealthy hens in her circle about how she is fighting for working families and the victims of Wall Street. They all congratulate themselves on being the conscience of the people. All of these people are high on their own fumes, which is what keeps them from facing reality.
The thing about the concept of false consciousness is that Engels was inadvertently signaling what would become a prominent feature of radicalism. It is not the subordinate classes that are the victims, but rather the radicals themselves. Whether it is civic nationalists and their utopian fantasies about the Constitution or the middle-class socialists and their utopian fantasies about economics, radicalism requires the participants to live in a state of smug self-delusion.
Perhaps it is the nature of all political systems to delude the beneficiaries, so they do not have to face the reality of their position. The king can know himself, but his court must believe they are acting in the name of honor. The crafty political operator can be as cynical as he likes, but his supporters must see him as a man of virtue, selflessly serving the republic. In liberal democracy, it is the narcotic of radicalism played out in the comfort of the gated mansion.
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In my lighter moods, the thing I find funniest about all this is that bourgeois radicalism only really took off in America once we installed the self-esteem cult. Only when kids are taught practically from conception to “just be you” and “you’re awesome just the way you are!” do we see middle class kids frantically trying to convince themselves they’re on the vanguard of world-historical forces. Back in the bad old days, when we were all forced to be rigid conformists, a middle class person could live and die content, knowing that he had a decent paying, socially useful job — a clerk or something — that provided a decent life for his kids.
Turns out that when it’s NOT ok to just be you, people are a lot happier, and society runs a lot more smoothly. Start letting people think they’re awesome just for “being themselves,” and the whole thing crashes faster than Windows ME.
10
Turchin coined the phrase “elite over production” to explain this, but I think he misses the mark in an important way. Liberal democracy produced an excess of mediocrities who imagine themselves as elite. Liberal democracy is like a fog machine that blinds everyone to the reality of social relations. This allows them to imagine themselves as something they are not, which is always going to be something grandiose and self-flattering.
14
The overproduction of elites is driven by the festishization of education, not democracy per se.
Which is derivative of the liberal enlightenment paradigm.
2
Universities certainly have a lot to do with it. Every revolution springs out of the fresh new classes graduating from the universities. Young Puritans with bold new ideas about how to read the Bible. Lawyers and clerks wanting the privileges of the French aristocrats. Bushmill Russian intellectuals wanting to makeover all of the autocracy so that they can look less backwards to the West.
I think all these people are always not quite the elite. They feel like they don’t have the power so it makes them all the more eager to get it for themselves. Not power for power’s sake of course. No, it’s for the people! And how can you be against the People?
The University may well be the worst institution ever invented in Western Civ.
3
Agree with the overproduction of mediocrities who view themselves as something more important.
But as I noted above, I think what’s causing the system stress today is the traditional problem of the establishment blocking out talented people – whites in this case – who really should be elite or, at least, valuable pieces of the establishment.
Sure, there’s still room for white kids of the elite and the upper stretches of the managerial class, but smart working and middle class whites are finding themselves not only shut out of a path to managerial class but denigrated. Heck, even a few white kids from the managerial class are getting sick of being trashed on.
There’s only so much room at the top. If 50% of those slots go to undeserving non-whites, that leaves a lot of smart, talented white people out in the cold with no love nor loyalty to the establishment.
You can see it on Gab. You see it here. These people should be the backbone of the establishment, maybe even part of it’s elite. But they’re not, both because they’re not allowed to join or move up and because they don’t want to be a part of something that hates them.
Ruling establishments are always cause themselves trouble when they block out elites which is exactly what our rulers are doing.
5
As I read Turchin, this is entirely consistent with his theory.
1
Psaki is the poster child for the self-important mediocrities.
This is exactly it. Back in the days of crushing conformity (please note the sarcasm here), it was understood that “elite” really meant “elite.” Maybe it was fundamentally silly, like a pro athlete, but no one considered lawyers, doctors, and the like “elite.” Those were called “the professions,” and maybe they were a cut above farmers and auto mechanics, socio-economically, but those extra letters behind your name didn’t make you a genius without portfolio. More importantly, though a farmer and his doctor might move in different social circles (for the most part) they doctor wouldn’t look down his nose at the farmer, and the farmer wouldn’t doff his cap and tug his forelock whenever the doctor entered the room. We’re all in this life together, and we all need each other….
Nowadays, thanks to “self-esteem,” you need letters after your name to be a shoeshine boy… and somehow, some way, the shoeshine boys with BAs think they can look down on the farmers, because they just grow food — what a waste of time, since everyone knows food comes in packages from the grocery store. Stupid clodhoppers probably can’t even spell “intersectionality”….
4
In fairness to Turchin, I think he’d probably concede your point. If I understand his models/thinking correctly (which I may not), I don’t think it matters to him (or his models) whether “elites” are truly elite or not. What matters is their susceptibility/propensity to radicalization, based upon their disappointment relative to their expectations from society.
I’m not an expert on Turchin, so I could be wrong. I’m not a big fan of Turchin, to be honest, so I could be unfair to him here.
Gotta disagree.
Bourgeois radicalism is something of a misnomer. It’s really intellectual radicalism – which traces back to the 19th century. It only donned the skin of bourgeois in the 50s-60s when the WWII era GI bill sent masses of young people, and then their younger siblings and offspring, to university in large numbers.
The self esteem movement is much younger. It really only began in the 1980s. I lived through its emergence and then dominance. The champagne socialists were already old hat at the time.
2
I knew that when public education convinced the students that they are “special”, their so-called rights would interfere with those of everyone else. The demarcation point of no return was:
When schools started banning anything with peanut butter in it for the ONE kid who was stupid enough to eat peanut butter.
7
Haha
Somehow I’d forgotten about that hysteria.
In retrospect, it was a sign of the feminization of society. The prioritization of absolute safety over all other factors.
4
“The prioritization of absolute safety over all other factors.”
Expressed as “If I have a problem with something, no one can have it / participate in it!”
1
You are hereby awarded a trophy, and a medal for that comment about the self esteem movement.
1
Education as an Operah set: You get an A and you get an A; everybody gets an A.
I remember when “special” was a euphemism for retarded, not a description of each and every student. Well, “Hey, scrot, plenty of ‘tards are livin’ a kick ass life.”
I dunno, from my youth I remember all those crusty fathers who were sent to the military and then had to find some job to support the woman he impregnated after coming home. Many if not most of them were miserable. You can see the archetype on TV and movies from the 1990s and before. Yes, they did their duty as a man and that’s respectable, but it created a distant and cold father figure that didn’t do anything to help the wife or raise the kids. I only knew a handful of fathers who seemed to enjoy themselves. Nowadays, after all the self-esteem movement and feminism has washed over the land, I see many more fathers engaged in their family and trying to find a meaningful career. Yes these progressive fads have gone too far, but I don’t really want to return to the crushing conformity of the before times.
2
5
Perhaps TV is not real. Every way we can measure these things tells us today’s males are more miserable and depressed than their ancestors.
13
1
No fault divorce and working moms really did a job on children in the 70’s and ’80’s.
Divorce turned off the dads and mom working turned off the love and attention.
13
Family court and liberalized divorce were monstrous crimes against the white working and middle class. After the revolution, the people behind that will be disinterred and given the Cromwell treatment.
10
You seem to understand nothing of the before times.
1
To each their own. Not all remember those days as ones of crushing conformity. In fact, some find this era more conformist. But I suspect the cultural shift reflects the demographic shift introduced by the immigration in the late 1880s and early 1900s. The customs and traditions of heritage America possibly could only feel confining to those who came after. Much of the attack on ‘whiteness’ in this age is really an attack on the ethos and culture of settler America. The same will occur to the amalgam that defines itself as the ‘immigrant’ nation. They are on track to be displaced by the peoples who arrived post-60s, and will likely see their own cultural preferences scorned. What this third amalgam will prefer is anyone’s guess, but it is unlikely to conform to the preferences of the flower children. Nor, for that matter, is it likely to revert to the preferences of the first colonizer/settler culture. If heritage Americans survive at all, I suspect it will be as either a cultural isolate or subsumed by the whole altogether. Their destiny is less secure than many groups who have been conquered before them. They have no mountain ranges to separate them from those who would drive them from humanity’s history books as well as from existence.
1
I can only be a sample size of N=1, but my father, a WW2 veteran who “Saw some sh-t” in the ETO as a front line infantryman (and earned a Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds) seemed pretty darn happy to me, or at least content. The old man was a mix of Archie Bunker and Old Man Daley (Hizzoner Da Mare of Da Great Citya Chicagah in Chicagoese), and tried to orient me to the ways of the world before he passed too young.
Of course it helped that he helped to build the greatest economy ever seen and got to partake in the bounty it offered. And he cared about all of us and helped out my mother in raising us.
As Z says, not all television or movies are real.
7
Crushing conformity? Let’s see. In the Fifties we had awesome Jazz, Rock ‘n Roll came into being, TV was a new, shared experience for millions, we had films that actually had intelligent, interesting actors and plots, art was still art, “Avant Garde” was really avant garde, sportsball players were not asked for their opinions on anything other than the game, we had a President who was a retired General who had actually won a war, black families still had fathers, we had newspapers that were actually literate, it was safe for children to play outside, we could hang a rifle in the rear window of our trucks and not be shot dead by “the authorities,” schools taught the “3 R’s,” women who dressed and acted like sluts were called sluts, men who were bums were called bums, etc., etc. I could go on.
I’ll take the “crushing conformity” of the Fifties and early Sixties over this current-day insane asylum any day.
10
I am a product of those 50’s and 60’s. I have few regrets and am more often surprised as to how my upbringing (I assume) has shielded me from today’s prevalent insanity. All those misguided and unenlightened things my parents did in my upbringing seem to have served me well in the long run.
Or perhaps it is simply Provenance. 😉
I love early rock n roll, thanks to my Dad, and I appreciate the jazz of that period.
Nonetheless, the uptight white Christians who criticized Elvis and what he portended, were absolutely correct.
My interpretation is that our racial enemies had assumed almost total control of our culture in the 50s and executed their plans without opposition. And so, here we are.
The problem may not have been Chuck Berry or Miles Davis as artists, but those controlling our culture.
They’re almost all gone now, but the WWII veteran fathers I knew, including my own, were not miserable. They loved providing for and raising their families. They were “crusty” because that’s a genetic factor for the Northern Europeans who used to be the majority. They built everything we have.
4
This essay pretty much sums up everything that is the American Branch of Globohomo.
The players are usually lily white, they never show pictures of the mansions they live in or private airplanes they own, and their daily existence consists of moaning and hissing sounds of them telling the Dirt People how they need to live.
7
Baizuo speak like MLK, live like the KKK.
Way back in the olden thymes I would do the MLK/KKK line in the comments of NRO and half the commenters would have a stroke. That gag never got old.
1
Part of this “We’re in this together, and We are looking out for us” attitude has a lot to do what happened to the children of the middle class over the last 65 years. Most poorer ones remained working class, and grew up to become a new generation of Dirt People. The “smart” ones went to college where they all got inculcated with the communism by those who had The Big Plan.
The colleges succeeded in training generations of shills and toadies for Globohomo, and I think at this point the only solution is to cut the student loans and watch the poisonous gourds die on the vine. I figure when the value of money goes the way of single ply toilet paper, they’ll dry up and we’ll see lots of decaying college buildings with plywood nailed over the doors and windows.
11
Charles Murray’s Coming Apart did a nice job of showing that phenomenon.
Like the Inner Party, the modern establishment actually did (and still kind of does) a very good job of finding potential trouble-makers among the middle-class and working class of all races but, particularly, whites and elevating them to their own ranks, thus giving them a stake in maintaining the status quo.
Starting in the 1960s with the SAT and then with other testing of young kids, smart kids were found and encouraged to go to college where they were indoctrinated in “right thinking,” took on the culture of their fellow smart students, became friends with future establishment members and, eventually, marry one.
It’s an impressive system when you think about it. The establishment thoroughly combs through millions of kids to find and promote the smarts into their own ranks, thus getting the cream of the crop and eliminating possible rivals.
Hell, Charles Murray is a perfect example of that system.
But Wokism is breaking down that system. Merit is getting replaced by affirmative action. The system always had a bit of AA, but AA is becoming the system, which means that you’re blocking out smart young whites or not allowing current establishment whites to rise in the system.
If enough smart whites don’t feel that they have a home in the establishment, that’s going to be trouble for the establishment. But they’re too caught up in their religion to notice, which is good for us.
13
The problem is, if smart people are not running our power grid, we all die. If smart & brave people are not promoted in our military, we die. If smart & ethical people are not rewarded for thrift, hard work and sacrifice, we get 2020 and 2021.
11
I sometimes wonder if the gamble our current ruling class is making is that human capital of all sorts, including intellectual capital, will be rendered negligible via AI and other fruits of the technological revolution. If so, they don’t need smart people from any ethnic group. But holding life and human-based intelligence cheaply might not work out for them. We’ll see.
2
I think their gamble is that they can get enough mental horsepower from talented tenth Indians and Chinese to keep things running. With Mexicans on the lower end doing blue collar work.
Will it work? Hard to say. Certainly not in a democratic system. Singapore kind of works. It also has a competent pro-Han government that doesn’t hate its dominant ethnic group.
2
Your suspicion wrt AI and robotics is most aptly illustrated by the US military and DARPA. For example, they are developing a robotic “suit” that personnel can wear which allows them (meaning women) to lift heavy objects for the purposes of loading and unloading supplies. Also, the military for some time now has been developing rifles which automatically sight in and in essence hit enemy personnel without much consideration to the soldier’s shooting skills.
They seem to exist under the delusion they will be able to rope enough productive people into the jabports and central bank digital currencies to keep their yachts, private jets, and beachfront properties running while the rest of us are unable to travel more than a mile from home.
These fools fail to understand that all those luxuries are as tied into the current global supply chains as anything else.
This why I’m pretty blackpilled about the short and medium-term, with guarded optimism for the long-term.
Response to B125 below: Yes, Singapore kinda works, but not in the way most Whites assume The giggling and very entitled Han office girls will disdainfully drop their coffee cups and old lipsticks on the ground, in the knowledge that a minimum wage Indian or Malaysian groundsman, grateful for the opportunity to live there and anxious not to lose his job or residency permit, will pick the trash up eventually so the White tourists can proclaim over how neat and clean everything is. There are lots of shiny luxury malls for the top 10% and the tourists, and the regular working class Han make do with the smaller, back road stores and knock off goods, comfortable enough, and knowing that if their kids do well on their exams they’ll be moving up closer to the top 10% – as long as they are Han.
In many ways it’s a microcosm of the decadent west, but it still rewards merit of a sort and the rulers are very clear about whose interests they represent. They are careful not to let the racial balance of the population drop below 70-75% Han.
Totally agree, which is why I’m pessimistic for the short and medium term but optimistic the long term.
1
I was probably one of those smart whites. The system is failing to integrate us now.
I did go off to university like a good goy, but instead of sucking me into the system, it spat me out. By 2010 many Canadian universities in STEM were already packed with 3rd world aliens. Spending years around hostile tribes, like Indians (who don’t even wash), Chinese, Arabs, and Nigerians turned me racist. These aren’t the white washed 1%ers you see in white neighborhoods, these are savages direct from the slum.
Similarly, upon graduation, just about every neighborhood and suburb in the Toronto area is packed with non whites. It’s great to make a good salary, but… so what? So I still have to live in a third world slum no matter how rich I am, or what neighborhood I’m in?
Basically there’s just about no benefit to maintaining the status quo from my perspective. Having money just means your neighbours are all Chinese money launderers and gang members, instead of stabby Jamaican thugs. Middle class means your neighbours are all hindus or turban people.
Usa is further behind on the replacement curve, particularly among the upper middle and upper classes. But you’ll start to see that more and more there too; the Muslim refugees and Hindu immigrants are pouring into DFW, NOVA, even Metro Detroit. The system is cutting all pretenses of caring for whites and is now telling us to die instead of trying to co-opt us.
4
The sad thing is, the Goodwhites can’t see it. They WON’T see it.
My leafy suburban paradise’ education factories spit out hundreds of Adderal addicted SJW every year, parents then spend a quarter of a million $ for them to take 5 years to get a degree in history or communications or political science.
None of these offspring can afford the property taxes on a typical house in my town, let alone a mortgage.
But this crowd is the first to crow about the need for “sustainability”.
1
Listening to a few minutes of the clip, they sound like stale old-guard liberals who don’t realize they have been passed over for a new era.
In a way, they have the same delusions as the conservative gun people, the idea that the people will all of the sudden rise up and destroy their oppressors. The only difference is whether their oppressors are the capitalists or the socialists.
Like the normie right, he hasn’t realized he’s expecting a fairy tale that never happens. Instead, the left-elite has successfully unshackled the chains of economic progressivism in favor of wokism and corporate cronyism.
Frankly, it’s depressing as hell, listening to these true believers, for the same reason it’s depressing listening to a raving schizophrenic in a mental institution.
They’re gone, lost, and are never going to return to the realm of reality.
6
Listened to a few random minutes of the clip also.
The bald talking head said something to the effect that the Left is more concerned about celebrating themselves rather than actually being effective. That statement I tend to agree with.
1
Most people, as far as I can tell, conflate emotion with reality, in that to feel something is the same as being something. They perceive no quantifiable difference between feeling virtuous and being virtuous. Thus, the power of words is that it can make people feel something and in so doing make them believe they’ve become something.
1
Like Blacks are fond of saying: “Do ya feel me?”
There’s a really weird aspect of American culture in the 20th century.
It’s the elevation of social status in victimization.
We celebrate victims, find them morally superior, and insightful. And it doesn’t matter what they are victims of. Unfortunate circumstances, tragic accidents, violent predators, their biology, their own choices even imaginary factors. All provide social cache as long as the person feels harmed in some way.
Which is especially odd as this era has been the best ever for human welfare. We have been healthier, more prosperous, freer etc than at any point in time before us.
And yet, we celebrate victims so much that people imagine and claim false victimization for social standing.
I can’t think of any culture in the past that has a similar dynamic. And don’t see how this can lead to anything but disaster in the not so long term.
8
Older cultures assumed if tragedies constantly hit someone, they somehow deserved it or pissed off the gods in some way and should be avoided. While also not terribly healthy for a society either, it’s better than what we have now.
More often than not the reason bad things keep happening to a person is because that person is doing idiotic stuff.
3
“More often than not the reason bad things keep happening to a person is because that person is doing idiotic stuff.”
That was certainly true of the people at the homeless shelter I worked at: they remained homeless not because of barriers to their advancement or lack of opportunities to advance, but because of the kind of people they were (mentally ill) and how they acted (crazy-dysfunctional)
1
There is a particular group of people who have inspired this subverted victimhood hierarchy. Their entire religion is essentially a victimhood narrative. Nearly all their holidays open up old wounds and inculcate a bitter “us vs the world” perspective. They have claimed the last century as their own, and its not hard to see why.
4
We celebrate victims, find them morally superior, and insightful. And it doesn’t matter what they are victims of.
I’d venture it’s a result of late-stage Judeo-Christianity. Jesus was a victim so being a victim is a bit like being Jesus.
2
Somehow, they keep forgetting that Jesus forgave his murderers instead of treating them to a diversity seminar. Truly, he was the son of God.
1
No, Jesus told the Pharisees that they would face the wrath of the Romans which they did ( in a parable, Jesus likens himself to the cornerstone of a temple which once removed would collapse the entire structure down upon them). He “forgave” the Romans who nailed him to the cross for they knew not what they were doing. They were carrying out the bidding of the Rabbinical order who condemned him in the first place.
What I hate about our victim hood mentality is that it seems I’m many cases to stymy progress wrt to overcoming adversity and moving on in life, as victim hood is the highest “good” or “status” obtainable these days. When I was young and growing up before this madness set in, the typical response I got as a young child was to grow up and stop crying. In short, life sucks, deal with it.
4
True. Calling somebody a crybaby today could result in hate crime charges.
1
Dino – Oh, there used to be social cachet among 18th and 19th century English/American women based on physical illness (real, or more often imagined). The ‘victim’ of ennui, of wealth, fancied herself a poor, woebegone sufferer of crass materialism. The society matron who suffered fainting spells because she laced her corset too tightly was vying with the genuine poor dying of consumption (tuberculosis). Many would even ape the symptoms (pale cheeks, bright eyes) because they were considered highly attractive.
1
Victimhood confers real benefits, too. College students claiming some half-baked disability get all sorts of preferential treatment on test-taking, and being “handicapped” gets one all of the best parking spots. In the past, nobody wished to be thought handicapped. Nowadays, every third car has one of those damned handicapped cards hanging from the interior mirror.
1
“Nowadays, every third car has one of those damned handicapped cards hanging from the interior mirror.”
And all it takes to get one is to find a doctor to certify that you have a handicap. No requirement to specify the nature of it or supply proof.
Like getting disability payments from the Gov’t; though that requires two doctors.
The fact that SSSniperwolf has 29 million plus subscribers on her utterly tarded YouTube channel is proof we are doomed.
1
The Positive Thinking Movement is very much a Bourgeois fantasy that aids in the delusions, and inculcates “false consciousness.” It started in the corporate sector as a way to indoctrinate the middle management and groundfloor laborers to be happy about the scraps they were receiving. “If you are laid off or given a pay-cut, don’t be a negative-nelly, look at this as an opportunity!”
The seminal work is “Who Moved My Cheese?”, a book which compares you the reader to a lab rat in an experimental maze searching for itinerant cheddar. In the parable, all accountability is placed on the individual (lab rat) to merely “react” to their ever changing environment, instead of act upon it, or change it to better suit himself. “Don’t dwell on the fact that your cheese has moved, don’t ask why it moved, just get to it and start the search where the new cheese!”
This initial movement eventually rebranded itself in a myriad different ways, and spread into the broader culture at large. It spawned the “toxic positivity” of financial gurus and life-coaches. Its a sort of surrogate philosophy or surrogate struggle. It protects the mediocre mind from reality, discourages any intellectual thought by deeming critical thinking as “negative” or “excuse making.”
8
Off topic but: you just can’t escape it.
Was at the coffee shop this morning and a lovely white family came in and sat down. For once the man was actually kind of alpha and they had 2 blond daughters maybe 12 and 8.
I realized that loud rap music was blaring over the sound system, being soaked up by the little girls. Some monkey “rapping” jungle noises is trying to teach those girls to be whores, even at a place as innocuous as the coffee shop.
There is no escaping the evil system. And they’re after your kids.
26
Whites should boycott any establishment that plays rap. But they won’t because rejection of that savage anti-music is rayciss, and they can’t have that, by gawd.
4
Ask the proprietor/ staff to turn it off.
When I visit my range, you can always tell who is working by the music: one guy always plays death metal (loudly), another guy does 80’s music and a bunch like Tony Bennet and Sinatra.
If I have my wife or boys with me, I just ask them nicely to change the channel. The staff invariably laugh, because they are not jerks and clearly heavy guitar and a guy screaming “DEATHHHHH, F$#@!!!!!!!!!” is not exactly family friendly.
Last weekend, they were playing Dean Martin singing “Hey Mambo” when I walked in.
4
Psychosis used to be an individual phenomenon and treated like any medical malady by focusing on the singular person with the affliction. Then industrialization happened and our societies began manufacturing crazy people in huge numbers. Part of this was driven by the extinction of evolutionary culling, part driven by an environment dominated by way too much leisure time, part driven by the Pied Piper effect of professional hucksterism, and part by the emergence of parasitism as a replacement for genuine work ethic. A worthless person knows (at least subconsciously) that they are worthless and therefore must self-delude as a critical defense against overt realization of this defect in their person. Joining a phony cause ce´lebre is the perfect antidote to acknowledging one’s failure as a human being. Can you imagine what it’s like to wake up one day and realize that you’ve taken on a few hundred thousand dollars of University debt and emerged with no useful or employable skills? The proper response is, in fact, insanity.
13
> Can you imagine what it’s like to wake up one day and realize that you’ve taken on a few hundred thousand dollars of University debt and emerged with no useful or employable skills?
It’s worse than that. It’s one thing to take debt and learn new and profound things about the world, as financially silly as it is in this age. What they were taught was literally anti-knowledge that stunted their ability to actually survey and understand the world they live in.
9
Reminds me of an incident with my father that put it all in perspective. I was visiting him one summer while employed at the university. We began to discuss work—quickly getting to a Blue collar/White collar comparison—and he asked, specifically, what I did at the university.
I responded the normal drivel: write papers, teach classes, hold committee assignments. His response, “That’s what I mean—you don’t do anything!”. 😉
5
Most corporate jobs are nothing but endless paper pushing and empty, petty office politics.
No one is going to care about that memo you sent or change notice you signed next week, much less five years, unless their goal is to cancel you.
3
Wild Geese – I had to stop by my hubby’s office this morning for the first time in a couple of years. Whereas before there’d always be a gaggle of ‘working women’ out front (on a coffee or smoke or bitch break), this time it was pleasantly empty. Same with the building’s inside lobby. Same with the office itself (his employer is looking to sub-let at least half the space, as they just don’t need it any more).
2
Very good post.
Like this “ the narcotic of radicalism played out in the comfort of the gated mansion.”
Wit.
But What is to be done?
As someone who lives in the heart of these people, I can tell you that their self-delusion is complete. They aren’t pretending. They truly believe all of this.
Put them on a lie detector and ask them if they chose to live in this are because it’s 80-90% white area and they’ll answer “no” and pass with flying colors. They really believe that they chose this area because of “good schools” and it’s a “nice area.” But in their mind, they believe that it just happens to be white.
What’s funny is I know that these people weren’t always so woke, but as the years have gone along, they’ll slowly come to believe what they once only said to not get in trouble. Turns out that you don’t need to put a rat to Winston’s face to get him to truly believe that you’re holding up five fingers. Just have and everyone he knows repeat it every day and a few years later, it’s real.
Also, these people’s beliefs are being re-enforced by the trickle into the area of Asians, Indians and, very occasionally, 0.001% Africans/half blacks who act so very white. They latch onto these people like CivNats latch onto Thomas Sowell, or, as I like to call him, Sir Thomas.
19
Years ago, a lefty acquaintance told me with a straight face that he moved his family to Arlington Mass because of the diversity. The only diversity in Arlington is the servant class and the non-white college professors. It glows in the dark it is so monolithically white. Of course, I laughed in his face. He never forgave that.
11
Yes, I’ve learned over the years that pointing out the absurdity of my friends’ and neighbors’ colorblind statements or believes doesn’t exactly go over well, especially if you joke about it – particularly, if you joke about it.
I’ve been the cause of many an uncomfortable silence.
While these people believe what they’re saying, that believe is very fragile because, in fact, it’s a boldface lie. Everyone can maintain their beliefs as long as everyone maintains their beliefs. Anyone poking fun at those beliefs is putting everyone’s situation and view of themselves in danger.
One amusing thing that changed over the past year or so is with people with security clearance. They’re literally terrified to say anything about anything. They won’t even say something in favor of the current orthodoxy out of fear that they might not say it correctly or emphatically enough.
I first noticed it one night when one neighbor criticized BLM and another responded by supporting it. The security guys clamped up. One of them – a serious liberal – didn’t say a word and looked concerned. It was odd because I figured that he’d be all over talking about how he loved BLM. But nothing.
Same thing happened again and again last year. The level of fear with these guys is hilarious. Security clearance is the golden ticket and they’re not going to lose it because they didn’t praise Stalin enough or in the right way.
6
An old friend of mine lives in a white middle-class enclave. His strategy was to personalize the subject: “how many Moslems do you know?” or “you’ve been an immigrant yourself, so how can you be against immigration?”
I kept insisting “this is not about me, this is about politics”, but he only shut up when I told him that I knew a lot more Moslems than he did, which he had forgotten in the heat of argument.
This is probably a consequence of the de-masculinization of society: everybody argues like women, unable to understand arguments that aren’t personalized.
The only political argument that seemed to give him pause was when I told him his grandchildren wouldn’t have a country to call their own. He dismissed it of course, but you could see it hit home.
8
Likewise regarding race: I’ve noticed that the degree of admiration people express for Blacks is inversely proportional to their actual experience with them. I recently had an acquaintance condemn me over my race-realist views concerning Blacks. Turns out he’s never actually known or worked with one.
Z has mentioned this and I agree 100%.
Tell people that their children or grandchildren will be minorities in your country. They’ll pretend that they don’t mind, but the majority will feel fear.
Btw, this doesn’t work on young people. They think that a glorious future awaits whites as a part of a multi-culti paradise.
These days, holding a clearance leads to an even dumber eternal game of, “Simon Says,” than all the Beer Flu guidance.
Yeah, but it’s guaranteed job security for the upper middle class. No Indian is going to take your tech job.
Citizen: Highly ironic, because everyone and his brother has a security clearance. I used to have a number of them above top-secret, but it was generally meaningless. The problem is no one’s clearance is ever revoked, and every bureaucrat and politico from every past administration has his clearance automatically renewed ad eternum.
I really don’t know how you continue to survive in the belly of the beast. I grew up in the DC burbs and I loathed all the smug, narrow-minded automatons. There’s a ton of reasons I’ve never gone to a single high school (or college, although it’s hundreds of miles away) reunion, and never will.
2
It’s tough. Luckily, I moved away from Arlington, which is truly the belly of the beast, but I’m still in the orbit.
Because of their connection to DC, these conservative and libs might be the worst in the country. Sure, San Francisco and NYC are bad, but their jobs and place in the managerial class aren’t directly based on the government. These people are, so they love it.
Btw, my security clearance people aren’t military or intelligence, just working for defense contractors. I do know one guy who’s fairly high ranked in the military. Toughest guy you’ll ever meet, real man’s man and definitely not a desk jockey. He’s totally pozzed. It’s jarring to hear such nonsense from a guy who’s so tough and realistic in every other aspect of life.
Also, he can retire whenever he wants, so he’s not spouting the party line because he needs the money. Decades of being in the military can make you believe anything.
The only diversity in Arlington is the servant class
Here in Copenhagen, the posh neighborhood is Hellerup, about 10 miles north of town.
So you have one of these perennial political kvetch-fests on how to spread the enrichment around and the mayor of Hellerup righteously argues that his township is as diverse as anything in Denmark, so please to house the Syrians somewhere else, thank you.
Except their diversity are all Filipino “au pairs” which is to say nannies and maidservants that you’re not obliged to pay a minimum wage because they’re here, not as guest workers, but to learn about Danish culture by living with a Danish family, and then help around the house for pocket money.
I don’t know if he believed it – he was a politician after all, so he probably doesn’t know himself when he’s lying.
(My mother was an au pair in England; it remains one of the fondest memories of her life and she still speaks of her hosts with great warmth.)
7
It is interesting to note that student radicals in the second half of the sixties turned against Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer when the latter two told them that they were not oppressed and that they could not be the vanguard of any forthcoming revolution. The Frankfurters were right in the first instance and wrong in the second. At any rate, when the student radicals abandoned the Frankfurt School, postmodernism, spearheaded initially by Michel Foucault, rushed in to fill the void. The rest was the end of the West.
4
The Frankfurt School has become a totem for the anti-Semites, but Gramsci and Marcuse are much more important in American radicalism.
5
Absolutely. Especially as it regards freedom of speech and other basic individual rights.
2
This is true. Of the Frankfurters, only Marcuse didn’t lapse into political quietism. He continued believing in the overthrow of instrumental reason, and with it, the destruction of capitalism. Marcuse also, at least notionally, continued supporting the student radicals.
Habermas, incidentally, a second-generation Frankfurter, sided with Adorno and Horkheimer. He actually referred to the student radicals as leftwing fascists. Suffice it to say that didn’t go down well with the students.
1
False consciousness is what Leftist intellectuals confect to explain why reality keeps refuting their theories. Hence, Leftists are never wrong; they simply haven’t come up with enough theory.
3
Professional Students (people who spend the better part of a decade or more not going to medical school) start out this way and are constantly larping or pining to get into elite government orgs or 503(s).
The Boston area is full of transplants who end up working in either government created orgs or non for profits. The local ethnic whites still dominate the municipal and most state agencies. The old adage “those who can’t do, teach” has been replaced with those who don’t want to work but pretend their life has purpose enters politics, works for or starts a morally superior 503c and justifies their years of wasted time with useless advanced degrees.
I have a friend who went to BC, worked for Bidens campaign back in the early 2000s, went on a sabbatical to a homeless shelter in California then graduated from Suffolk Law and is now running for a City Council seat after years at an entry level position in municipal government. For him the possibilities are endless and his intentions are always noble. He’s living a delusion.
13
Your anecdote is a terrific example of what an enormously cancerous problem the Leftist support structure is.
There are plenty of people far removed from official DC who can spend their entire lives as parasites in this support system.
6
This is one of the reasons I’ve withdrawn from donations to these organizations, religious or secular. They all support a cadre of these Leftists and who in one way or another subvert your values using your own money. It’s a great grift—like the pre-reformation Catholic Church selling indulgences to the peasants.
8
Religious organizations are some of the absolute worst Wokesters running around in conservative skinsuits.
They have grown rich, and are growing richer importing illiterate Kurds and Somalis to Idaho and Minnesota.
5
The modern incarnation of the village busybody – the eternal student/entry level government ‘servant.’ He’ll be a millionaire while making edicts about how you and the peons shall live. Put something in his drink now and spare everyone the future hassle.
4
People have become neurotic. They think too much, become strangers to themselves, come to hate themselves. It’s a lot easier and happier to trust your instincts and let ‘er rip. Easier said than done these days, but it ought to be.
4
Yes, Jimmi Dore is your typical bobo revolutionary: during what must be Keek Uyghur’s lifetime performance, he spat in Alex Jones’ face and immediately ran away like a little bitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=412aatJqbzo
Notice what Alex tells Keek: “You’re the anti-liberal, and you’re pissed!”
1
What I find interesting is Dore, Shapiro, Zinc Wigger, et al are all from the same formula. They are the political version of the boy band. A creation of the system to crowd out opposition.
6
“What I find interesting is Dore, Shapiro…”
Add Fauci to that list and if the phyzz alone does not set off alarm bells, ask yourself why. That may entail looking in the mirror for some – but if you share the physiognomy of these, named, best approach may be to avoid being what they are. Or is there any merit to the link between the outside and the inside of the human being?
2
If they were a boy band they’d call themselves “Rebel Media”… Oh, wait! That’s already taken.
But hey, if you style yourself “rebel”, you can’t very well be and establishment pawn, can you?
“If they were a boy band they’d call themselves…”
The band in Revenge of the Nerds.
1
Just like you couldn’t possibly call yourself Students for a Democratic Society and be communists or People for the American Way and be anti-American…
Revolt Against The System™ brought to you by Amazon World Services and Microsoft Azure.
1
The Backdoor Boys
Dore is the typical dissatisfied lefty who eventually gets approval from the right because he hates wokism. I remember the spitting incident which reminded me of the little punks in school who would run when they sucker punched someone.
So one millionaire having a falling out with other multi-millionaires (TYT) . I hate them all.
4
So one millionaire having a falling out with other multi-millionaires
It’s sort of lost in the hubbub, but what makes KEEK freak out is when Alex says they’re funded by Saudi Arabia – what a dirty LIE, we’re funded by Qatar – BIG difference.
I suspect what make him blow up was that Alex didn’t know TYT inside and out because KEEK knows everything about Alex Jones, you can be stone sure of that.
Of course all this anti-Mohammadan hobbyhorsemanship seems so quaint in $CurrentYear, a relic of the Bush era.
Perhaps it’s best to think of the phenomenon Zman describes here as a propaganda machine for reducing Cognitive Dissonance. How the hell are you going to get a generation of self-styled elite hipsters to willingly enslave themselves to Globocorp? Answer: by convincing them that they’re really “sticking it to the Man”.
Through a blizzard of propaganda from poltroon Prog anchor-persons, comedians, “influencers” (WTF?) et alia, the self-styled elite all think they are creating heaven on earth by destroying western civilization. Deep down, they know they’re slaves. This (partially) explains drug use, depression, low fertility etc. The average Russian Serf was probably happier.
14
I tried out Jimmy Dore to see what all the hype was about. I found him to be Jimmy Bore.
4
Hedges is a real piece of work. He is a totally fake Christian who literally describes God as being “a verb and not a noun.” He first came to my attention when he used a graduation speech at some college (Rockford college, I think) to grandstand about Iraq and the evil fascist empire and they pulled the plug of his microphone during his speech when he wouldn’t shut the hell up. Leftists made it into a “free speech” issue.
The one thing he was actually pretty good on is the fake leftists. Most of his speeches and writing that I’ve seen is him criticizing the left for being fake as shit. One line he used to use that I actually like was “the leftists claim to the love the poor, but they hate the way poor smell.” Of course, he follows that up with his bugman bit. The last I heard of him was when he got caught plagiarizing.
2
Semi OT:
Anyone else notice iSteve spent most of the week hysterically sperging out over Beer Flu?
I get his personal experience, but there is simply no credible, quality data out there that justifies that level of sheer terror.
Meanwhile, JHK has posted a Friday missive that makes it sound like he’s ready to saddle up and ride out with the militia.
3
You would think an experience with cancer would improve somebody’s ability to cope with the concept of death.
But I guess for an atheist, it doesn’t help. Steve will be cowering in fear of death (and divine judgement) until he dies anyways whenever it’s his time to die.
4
born a pussy, die a pussy.
Well said. Clarification needed: has he had a personal bout with cancer or was it dearly departed wife?
I read this as we have an old asset as new asset 😡
I mean ISIS-K
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/taliban-have-a-2-front-war-headed-their-way/ar-AAO2aAP
1
I was wrong about setting up an Afghan-Paki war, as I had forgotten the local aphorism “not a shot is fired in Afghanistan that the ISI doesn’t know”- the Taliban’s logistic and miltary support is Pakistan.
They are Paki-backed puppets, as was Mullah Omar.
This won’t be Afghans gaining territory, this is Pakis gaining territory. What weird games are our Intel (State) and Mil (DoD) up to now?
A while back, Paul Ramsey and a small group were harassed by antifa, SPLC freaks while walking from the parking lot to attend a conference. They were screaming obscenities, epithets, and screeching “Resist!”. They have zero self-awareness. Paul Ramsey responded by yelling “you ARE the man!”
If you happen to have a moment and need a laugh, please listen to Kevin “silver tongued devil” McCarthy’s speech about removing Confederate statues and his criticism of CRT back in late June. He proudly and repeatedly reminds everyone that they are removing statues of Democrats! and boasts about a painting of Lincoln in his office. The fact that McCarthy is the House Minority leader and can’t string two coherent sentences together is reason alone to begin stockpiling emergency supplies/food storage.
Robert E. Lee wrote in a letter “we cannot consult our feelings on the matter”. He was a morally conscious man with a deep sense of duty, forbearance, and self-discipline. He had a clear vision of right and wrong, fully detached from emotion.
We live in such a different world now with such different “leaders”. Their lack of intellect is almost as bad as their complete lack of morals.
3
And yet, we’d be a lot better off if people listened to Chris Hedges. He’s not wrong, you know.
https://youtu.be/VXYsGuBdzM4
So, are we all living a movie in our heads?
Lefties marching with Lenin to attack the factory.
SJWs marching at Selma and rioting at Stonewall.
Conservatives, hungry and cold, crossing the Delaware with Washington.
Alt-Right standing in defense of Dresden.
Christians confronting Roman soldiers at the garden of Gethsemane.
Hebrews in the foothills watching the Thera tidal wave smash Egyptian chariots with Moses.
Muslims riding across the midnight desert on a raid with Mohammed.
Hindus carrying His arrows following Krishna into battle.
Bhuddists hearing His voice under the bo tree.
In our strangest of times, we now have this:
“People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. ”
So, Dissidents- what movie will our children think of, when they think of us?