Category Archives: Culture

Wish-Casting

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Note: The weekly Taki post is up here. This week I go back to an old favorite of comparing modern day America to Russian, past and present. There is also a cornucopia of items behind the green door. Since so many were vexed with me about my position on crypto, I suggest proving me wrong by sending me your crypto.

Hope and optimism are the two things that propel life forward. Sometimes they lead to disaster, but often enough they lead to good results. Innovation, after all, is rooted in hope and optimism. If cynicism were the default for mankind, we would never have taken a shot on that new thing called the wheel. Risk taking requires a degree of foolish optimism and a hope that this time things will be different. On the other hand, too much optimism becomes escapism, a way to avoid reality.

If it were possible to measure hope and optimism, specifically misplaced hope and optimism, in a society, it would probably be a useful metric. A people unrealistically hopeful for the future are probably filled with dread, because their current situation is seemingly hopeless. Instead of grimly facing the reality of their situation, many choose to cast their hopes and aspirations onto someone or something. The popularity of wish-casting increases as the situation declines.

An example of this would be the Obama presidency. Few people talk about him these days, even though his term ended just five years ago. When he ran for office, however, his fans talked about him like he was Jesus. Despite his embarrassingly thin resume, they projected onto him the image of black Lincoln. There was little reason to think this man would do much of anything, given his nature and the people around him, but his fans were sure he was going to usher in the golden age.

It feels like a long time ago, but it was a very strange phenomenon. The people who had heralded Hillary Clinton as the new model woman suddenly treated her as the locus of evil in the world. Their new champion defeated her in the great contest and then he ascended the throne. Party stores had special Obama themed items produced so believers could have their Obama parties on inauguration day. For millions, it was the rapture, except it happened entirely in their imagination.

Something similar happened with Trump at the end of his term. Unlike Obama, he did not immediately develop a cult following. He won mostly because the alternative was so unpleasant that anything had to be better. It was during his term, as it became clear he was never going to do what he promised, that he developed a cult following. By the end, he was Trump the guy with a secret plan to win the election. When the shenanigans hit home, he became a superhero with a secret plan to overturn the result.

The Trump and Obama comparison offer an insight into how this wish-casting phenomenon works in liberal democracy. The people disappointed by Bill Clinton and then disaffected by Bush, turned to the escapism of Obama. The same sort of thing happened with Trump, except it required his victory in 2016 to trigger the process, as he was too much of a known quantity in 2016. Obama was a blank slate, while Trump’s slate needed a lot of scrubbing to clear some space for the wish-casting.

The Q-phenomenon is another good example. What started as an internet prank on the MAGA people became a weird fantasy cult. It combined the elements of conspiracy theory with the essentials of wish-casting. Every event was turned into proof that the prophesies would come true and the faithful would be rewarded. The size of the Q-cult was exaggerated by the media, of course, but a lot of people preferred that fantasy over the reality of the present, which says a lot about the age.

The crypto cult is looking a lot like the Q-cult all of a sudden. This one combines the silly promises of Austrian economics, the reality avoidance of libertarianism, with a form of techno-futurism. Bitcoin is going to usher in the anarcho-capitalist future, where the power of the state is broken and all of the bad things about the cultural war are rolled back to some happy place in the past. How this will happen does not matter, as what matters is the dream of a new reality, free of the present.

You can probably fit the insurrectionist fantasies of our political class into this phenomenon as well. Rather than face the reality of their situation, they focus on bizarre conspiracies about invisible white supremacists. Reality is we live in a tripartite system of corporate interests, radical cultural interests and the state. The result is a doddering old man as the face of a nation slowly tipping into crisis. Instead of facing that, they are obsessed with secret conspiracies about white people.

That last bit becomes more interesting when you put it in the context of the cult of Obama and how it ended. The lunacy that erupted on the Left when Trump won in 2016 was never about Trump. It was about the final end of the Obama fantasy. Not only was he not black Jesus, he was never the savior. The people who worshipped him and hated Hilary, had transferred their love for him onto Clinton and their hate for her onto Trump during the 2016 election, especially toward the end.

What all of this suggests is we are moving further into a collective psychological crisis as the cultural situation degrades. Rather than face the reality of a fading empire that should have been dismantled thirty years ago, people are escaping into these aspirational cults. Even the political class is embracing escapism. There is always a bit of irrational exuberance. Progress requires a degree of optimism. What we are experiencing today is closer to systemic mass delusion.

This may not be entirely without precedent. Historians debate why the Athenians waged the Peloponnesian War as they did. The decision to attack Syracuse is a legendary blunder that defies reason. Perhaps it was the result of the same phenomenon that we are seeing today. A thoroughly democratized people, unable to face the reality of what that entails, indulges in wish-casting, placing all hope into a person or a plan. What lies at the other end is a shocking corrective that breaks the spell.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Time For A Divorce

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Elections in America have always been contentious things, as the point of them is to get all sides as agitated as possible. If you wanted to find the point at which our elections turned ugly it would be when the concept of turnout became the focus. The surest way to get your guys motivated to vote is to convince them that the alternative is pure evil, the worst thing imaginable. Since one side will always lose, it means something close to half the country is always angry at the result.

The thing is though, it was always a game and most people got it. The candidates would say the vilest things about one another, but then carry on like old pals during a debate, showing the world they did not really mean those things. In fact, this is why the Left has controlled the country. Everyone else has always been sure the Left was not really serious about what they were saying. Despite it all, many people remain convinced that the Left today is just putting on a show.

That may be one of the factors creating the current crisis. The eruption of mass media over the last couple of decades puts the Left in our face all the time. There is no escaping politics today, which means there is no escaping the Left. Watch a sporting event and there will be lefty political preaching. Check the weather for your trip to the beach and you get a lecture on global warming. Go outside and you see people wearing three masks in their car, letting you know they are in that cult.

Of course, social media is like standing in front of a firehose. Even if you only want to follow something banal like entertainment news, you will be drenched in political commentary, almost entirely from the Left. The carnies all fashion themselves as philosophers now. The athletes have made politics a feature of their act. These are the dumbest, crudest people in our society, but they are sure you need to know what they have to say about current events.

There is another part to this. Along with not being able to escape the left-wing crazies, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no living with them. Politics, regardless of the system, is about compromise. The opposing sides find some middle ground that they can accept or some combination of their proposals that prevent either side from feeling cheated by the other. In a democracy, compromise is based on the understanding that both sides want what is best.

How do you reach a compromise with someone who thinks invisible men from a faraway land used mind control to change an election? On top of that, they were perfectly willing to destroy the country over it. If one side is sure the other side is evil, there can never be a compromise. The best you can get is a truce in the hostilities, but eventually one side will attack again. After all, any compromise with evil is immoral on its face, so the only more thing to do is confront it.

Take a look at this tweet from a man who is the former Director of CIA & NSA. He is convinced that we need to round up citizens and put them in concentration camps because they said things he does not like. The regime has already imprisoned dozens of people on trumped up charges. America is now a country with political prisoners being tortured while in prison. This ghoul wants to institutionalize the persecution and torture of Americans who disagree with official policy.

How can you compromise with a person who literally wants you dead? Even if you dismiss him as a fanatic, look at the responses. The people replying to him are both demented and delusional. It is not unreasonable to say that many of them are suffering from a form of mental illness. If you think the capitol protests were an insurrection or comparable to a terrorist attack, you need to be institutionalized. There is no reasoning or compromising with someone in this condition.

The thing is, of course, is the majority of the ruling class truly believes they are confronting an invisible army of white supremacists. If you polled the media, you can be sure that the overwhelming majority think the protestors are getting off easy. At the same time, they think the two blacks who killed the Uber driver in DC were given rough justice, because racism. We live with people who think it is fine for blacks to murder people, but you cannot question the results of the last election.

The old civic nationalist response to this is “well we just have to make sure to vote for the Republicans in the next election.” Even if conservatives were something other than apologists for their masters on the Left, it does not change the fact that close to half the country wants to murder you. They are not going to lose an election and then think, “Geez, maybe I don’t need to murder that guy with the Trump flag.” Instead, they are going get even more deranged and murderous.

Again, politics has always been contentious, and the Left has always thought they were on a holy mission against the forces of evil. The pretty lie that made it possible to live together was that we all wanted what was best for the country. Like a couple realizing they no longer love one another, we have reached the point where we know we can no longer live with that 20% called the Left. The only possible compromise is with ourselves, which is just another way of describing surrender.

If there is to be a solution to the current crisis it will come when enough white people give up on this relationship with the Left. The people living in whites-only neighborhoods chanting about antiracism are beyond reason. The people demanding the state torture citizens who question official policy can never be trusted. The only peaceful solution is peaceful separation. The only compromise is how best to divvy up the property and even that is only to expedite the divorce. It is time to move on.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Truth Versus Justice

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Note: If you missed the livestream of me and Frodi discussing the great Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, then you can catch the replay here. It was a very good show, even if you are not a movie buff. It was mostly about ideas that our side should discuss more often. The more views it gets the more credits he accumulates, so check in for a few minutes, even if you are not a big into movies.

In his essay Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Ever since it has been a useful dismissal of the pedant, but it is also a useful way of understanding American politics. One side in the political fight spends all of its time fussing about inconsistencies of the other side, while the winning side is happy to dismiss their own hypocrisies. As Emerson understood, it is the latter who always has the edge over the former.

It is the Right, of course, that spends all of its time fussing about inconsistencies on the Left, while the Left just wins every fight. The American Left, unlike the European Left, grew out of that peculiar form of American Christianity that has informed its worldview since the 19th century. Filled with self-righteous fury over the inequity of the world, the righteous are free to do as they please to right the wrongs of the world. Even their own past statements are no impediment to them.

Of course, in 18th century America, radicalism was still bound by Scripture, if not literally then morally. Those new Prometheans springing up to oppose things like slavery were relying on a moral framework they inherited from the past. Today, free of that moral framework and free of factual reality, those old urges have curdled into petulant and nasty partisanship. The American Left is now just a hysterical tirade against anything or anyone that represents order.

You see this in the reaction of the court taking up a case regarding the power of the tech monopolies to control public discourse. This Slate writer flew into a purple faced rage on Twitter about the alleged inconsistencies of Clarence Thomas in comparing these sites to common carriers. He then followed that up with an amusingly unhinged essay in Slate titled, “Clarence Thomas’ Attack on Social Media Companies Is a Paranoid Marxist Delusion.” That is a man detached from reality.

Not to be outdone, this guy, looking for attention, posted his condemnation of right-wing hypocrisy on Twitter. His claim is that only through giving a handful of corporations absolute control of the public square can we have genuinely free expression. It is an interesting mix of fascism and Orwellian language. It shows how the Left’s response to any effort to rein in these companies, will be whatever they think will work, even if it means condemning their own words from yesterday.

The facts here are important only in that they help us understand the mentality of the people who are closing off the public square. The explicit intent of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 was to curtail censorship. The tech companies argued that they did not want to moderate their forums and that it was practically impossible for them to do so. In order to encourage free expression, Congress carved out a special exception for them in the law.

Now, if you point this out to the Left, they will laugh in your face. After all, they are defending our democracy. They are not going to be bound by the words and intents of people long since gone from the scene. There is that old Emersonian inclination at the core of the American Left. Tradition and custom can never be a restraint on man in his pursuit of justice. For the Left, the law is always whatever it needs to be at the moment, as theirs is an ends justifies the means world view.

On the other hand, the Left is endlessly fussy about the tiniest of inconsistencies in their opponent’s positions. If none exist, they will make some up. You see that in the claim that there is some contradiction between allowing a baker to express his religious convictions, while preventing a trillion dollar company from crushing dissent. There is no contradiction here, but that is not important. The righteous man is free of mere facts, so he is at liberty to find inconsistency where he must.

The Right, of course, responds to this with long recitations of fact, which have no impact whatsoever on the debate. Politics in a democracy are always about morality, which is why the Left is endlessly yapping about it. They see themselves as the fullest expression of democratic morality. Each of them is a finger on the reified hand of the public will, so the more democratic the society the closer it is to achieving that ideal of the public will. They are the instruments of that public will.

You can no more reason with someone who thinks they are the sword of a secular god than you can reason with someone who thinks they are a god. On the other hand, the people will naturally side with those who they see are morally correct. When Ocasio-Cortez famously said being “morally right” is more important than being “factually right”, she was expressing the very essence of liberal democracy. People will go along with the most insane things if they feel their gods demand it.

The other part of the Emerson quote is “With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.” That right there is American politics in a nutshell. One side sits staring at the wall, certain they are right, while the other side speaks hard words in pursuit of justice.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Liberal Majoritarianism

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The truth is like a body. No matter how clever you are in trying to conceal it from view, it eventually turns up. One truth that keeps turning up despite great efforts to bury it is that humans are naturally hierarchical. Another is that in any human organization, someone has to be in charge. This is the body that liberal democracy desperately tries to conceal, but it keeps popping into public view. The result is the people in charge spend an enormous amount of their time trying to rebury the body.

Democracy, of course, is majority rule. Liberal democracy, in theory, is majority rule within a framework of principles, like equality before the law, separation of powers and human rights. A proposition is put forward and it carries the day if fifty percent plus one supports it. Its rightness is therefore determined by the majority, not by some intrinsic quality it possesses. The majority is the legitimizing authority in a democracy of any sort, including a liberal democracy.

This is an important defect. Since it is universally true that humans are naturally hierarchical and every society has someone in charge, it means the ruling class is the result of natural factors. In other words, the most important part of a human society exists outside the legitimizing power of majority rule. Instead of invalidating the idea of truth being the result of popularity, liberal democracy flips things around and demands that the majority, real or imagined, grants legitimacy to the rulers.

It is a good example of the immutability of belief. When a person or a society comes to believe something about itself, reality is willed in support of that belief. That which confirms the belief is held up as proof, while that which contradicts the belief is ignored or disputed. It is why a disbeliever is always the prey for believers. The destruction of the disbeliever not only validates the belief. It validates the believer. This is why democracy breed fanatics operating in the name of the public.

This great conflict in liberal democracy spins up over time into the frenzy we are seeing unfold in front us. The people in charge need the validation of the majority to bestow legitimacy on their position. It is why they go berserk whenever they lose an election or fail to get their way in a public policy fight. On the one hand, it is a threat to their image as the will of the people. On the other hand, it means there are enemies of democracy that must be hunted down and defeated.

The logical end point for one man rule is that the king, the pharaoh, or the emperor eventually comes to think of himself as the embodiment of the people. He is the physical manifestation of the people, but also their moral purpose. The king becomes a god and is therefore self-validating. In liberal democracy, the ruling class comes to think of themselves as the embodiment of the public will. They exist because the majority created them, and their existence is validation of the public will.

This was clear after the last two elections. When Trump won, the ruling elite was compelled, it was their moral duty, to get rid of him at any cost. He was a threat to “our democracy” because he was viewed as a repudiation of the elite. They had a moral duty to defend democracy from him. On the other hand, the manufactured majority for Joe Biden, with all of its absurdity, quickly became a point of public morality. The elite demanded their opponents publicly admit it was a legitimate election.

This is why people are sent by their employers to reeducation camps to learn the latest social fads. It is not enough to comply with these edicts. People silently tolerating in public the edicts of the rulers could be privately rejecting them. Since those edicts are by default the will of the people, it means there could be millions of silent enemies lurking in their homes and offices. The only way to make democracy safe from these silent enemies is to root out dissent.

It also seems that the hunt for dissenters provides a useful distraction for the people in charge, allowing them to pose as part of the mob. Note how the most powerful people in our liberal democracy carry on as victims. By playing the role of David, while being Goliath, they hide from themselves the realty of their position. Instead of being at the top of the social hierarchy, with all it entails, they see themselves as the guys at the front of the mob, chasing off the enemies.

As with communism, the civic religion that evolves to perpetuate the falsehoods of the system quickly becomes a delusion the ruling elite needs to perpetuate among themselves in order to carry out their role. The rulers of a liberal democracy come to see a natural majority for everything they do. Whether that majority exists or is the product of imagination is immaterial. They believe it does exist or that it would exist if the enemies of democracy were not preventing it.

We are at the point in liberal democracy where the majority is the source of all truth and the arbiter of morality. When no majority exists, one is manufactured through propaganda or coercion. If that fails, then one is simply invented. Since no source of legitimacy exists outside the majority, liberal democracy starts to look a lot like every other totalitarian system. Everything in the public will, nothing outside the public will and nothing against the public will.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Lawless And Chaotic

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The main difference in form between a liberal democracy and a republic is that the latter is defined by a fixed set of rules. The former, in contrast, is formless as it is defined by the will of fifty percent plus one. The republic has clearly defined roles for itself, including limits on its power. In a liberal democracy, there are no limits, because truth itself is just a simple majority, so the roles and limits of the liberal democracy are whatever the people want at the moment.

When the truth is defined by the majority of the mob, this must inevitably lead to chaos, as we can no longer live in a world of fixed rules. Present experience suggests that rules themselves are seen as the enemy in a liberal democracy. We see this in the language used by the most pious of liberal democrats. They want to disrupt the status quo, break barriers and open everything up to the world. The end of this project is never mentioned, as it does not matter. They just like smashing things.

We see this most clearly in the transformation of the mass media. A generation ago the core of the media was a tool of the ruling class, but it had lots of tentacles that functioned as a check on the ruling class. There was a relationship between the media and the ruling class. The media could be very useful in promoting the interests of the ruling class, but it could also turn on its masters. The media needed to maintain some distance as the fourth estate in the republic.

That old set of arrangements are gone now. Today, the media operates like the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in Iran. Their job is to hunt for heretics and witches, which they currently call white nationalists. Whether real or imaginary, they exist to root out these evil doers and expose them to the world. They have lots of names for these evil doers, but white nationalist is the official name, the one they chant when they seek to summon forth the arch demon of their faith.

In present day America, being a white nationalist is just about the worst thing you can be, as it includes all of the worst heresies of the age. It means primarily that you hate all of the things a good person is supposed to love. If you are accused of being a white nationalist, whether you are one or not, you are subject to the worst punishments we currently have now. You can be proscribed. This is a form of internal banishment in which you are treated as a pariah by society.

White nationalists don’t like this for two reasons. One is that they don’t think there is anything immoral about being a white nationalist. They point out that black nationalists do not suffer from this moral prohibition. Jewish nationalists are celebrated. The other reason white nationalist object to the current use of the label is they correctly point out that the definition used by our betters is a lie. White nationalism is just nationalism for white people, not a bundle of hatreds against others.

None of this matters, as the accusation is enough to cause real harm to the life of the person accused of being a white nationalist. This is why VDare sued the New York Times last year. If the label sticks, it basically places the accused outside legal protection, which at this time is limited to financial and cyber-attacks, but in the near future it may include physical attacks as well. How long before “he was a white nationalist” is a justification for intentional homicide?

Now, the VDare case was dismissed and in that dismissal we get a glimpse of why the truth has no place in a liberal democracy. The Times, you see, never accused Brimelow and VDare of being heretics. They repeated the claims made by others. This is how the game is played. A pipsqueak outfit like the Daily Beast circulates the accusation and then it is repeated by a major publication. The Times just has to pretend they are reporting the charge and they get away with libel.

This sleight of hand turns up all over the media. Mark Steyn, in his often amusing deposition in the Michael Mann case, pointed out that National Review is now claiming they are not a publisher. You see, because they allow highly filtered and censored comments, they now qualify as a public platform. They are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This means they are free to libel anyone they like as long as there are some comments allowed on the post.

Of course, the big social media players have been exploiting this new truth for a long time now. They do all of the things that a publisher would do, like promote content, edit content and block content, but that is now proof that they are not a publisher. For example, they accuse rivals of having malware on their sites by posting warnings to their links. If you click the BitChute link in this tweet, for example, you are given a warning about BitChute’s shady technology practices.

What’s happened to the media in America is the result of living in a world where the truth is fifty percent plus one. In a world where the truth is defined by a majority, all the incentives shift from truth telling to persuasion. Facts become sparingly used props in the argument to persuade the public. Facts are sprinkled in to give the argument authenticity in order to trick the audience. The truth is therefore defined by who wins the argument and winning by any means necessary is now a virtue.

We now live in an age in which we are awash in mass media, but the only truth is that nothing in the media is true. Even provable fact is positioned as to be in service to some lie aimed at deceiving the public. Of course, a world without truth is a world without rules, which is a world without limits. Anyone can do anything to anybody if they can convince a simple majority of it. The law, which is about limits, ceases to exist because in a world where everything is possible, there can be no limits.

Perversely, every new law, every new effort to limit the assault on truth becomes a weapon against the truth. We see that with Section 230. A law to place limits on these platforms and their potential opponents, is now a license for the platforms and their former adversaries to wage war on the truth. The mass media is a defamation machine in service to the most gifted liars in society. Liberal democracy has become a theocracy in which the lie is the god and truth is Satan.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Darkness From Above

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Note: The regular post on Taki is here. I decided to dive back in the ancient Rome comparisons, which is always a good time. Of course, there is content behind the green door for those supporting the cause with their wallet.

A big part of the ongoing crisis in America is that both sides of the political debate agree on one main point. The people are responsible for the mess. Joseph de Maistre gave us the phrase, “Every country has the government it deserves.” The American ruling elite has turned it into their raison d’etre. Because they have nothing but contempt for the people over whom they rule, they feel they have an obligation, a sacred duty, to be every bit as contemptable as the they imagine their subjects.

The general shabbiness of the current ruling class relative to those of the past can be seen when looking at the oligarchs of the prior age. Great technological advance brings great changes in economics. There are winners and losers and some portion of the winners become something like royalty. The industrial age gave America a class of super-rich who were every bit as powerful as old world aristocracy. They controlled the economy and finance, and thus the country.

These were the robber barons. The term itself actually comes from the feudal age, when a class of knights would shake down travelers for money. They would charge tolls for goods crossing through their lands, even though they had no authority to do so, and the roads were intended for public use. A robber baron was someone with status who maintained it though unscrupulous practices. Surprisingly, it was the New York Times that first used the term to describe modern industrialists.

The robber barons were accused of exploiting unethical monopolies over natural resources like coal and oil. They maintained these monopolies by bribing politicians and threatening those who challenged them. They squashed their competition, which let them suppress wages. If that was not enough, they operated financial scams on unsuspecting investors, often by manipulating the markets through fraud. The robber barons were high status crooks.

If that sounds familiar, it should. The oligarchs of the modern age make the robber barons look like pikers in terms of wealth and immorality. They are not hiring private armies like the Pinkertons to murder their workers. Instead, they are unleashing waves of foreign peasants who create mayhem in your community. They finance terrorist groups like Antifa and BLM to attack white people. Of course, they have their tentacles wrapped around the economy like a kraken.

When you look back at the men who were the oligarchs of the prior age, they are not very different from the current crop of oligarchs. Look at their biographies and they are familiar to a modern eye. Getting a monopoly on oil, like Rockefeller, is no different from having a monopoly on operating systems, like Bill Gates. James Fisk got rich through stock fraud, which is no different from what we see from the gangsters in the financial class today. We just have more of them.

There is one big area of departure in this comparison. The robber barons of old had some sense of shame, which led them to take some of their ill-gotten gains and put them back into society. Maybe it was just a way to buy public approval or maybe it was a genuine sense of duty, but they did underwrite things public works projects, colleges, and museums. In fact, most of the remaining culture we have that is worth the name was paid for by the robber barons of the industrial age.

The current robber barons appear to have no shame. Instead of using their money to build cultural monuments they are trying to blot out the sun. That is right, Bill Gate is using his wealth on a plan to block the sun. Feudal man got great cathedrals from his rulers, while industrial man got great museums. Technological man is getting crackpot schemes to plunge the world into permanent winter. By comparison, our oligarchs are super villains compared to those of past ages.

This is not just a one-off example. Gates is fairly typical of the modern robber baron, in that he seems to have a fetish for schemes that cause more harm than good. He poured money into African relief programs that were doomed from the start. He has bankrolled education schemes that make a mockery of what we know about how to train up the young generation. He has been making an ass of himself on the Covid issue, spouting one kooky idea after another.

Part of this, of course, is the modern moral framework. The robber barons of the prior age were working within the Christian moral framework. They may not have been believers, but the public was still Christian. If they wanted to be seen as pious men, they had to commit public acts of piety. Modern man is far more primitive in his beliefs, so pleasing the earth goddess or fighting evil spirits is the way to salvation. Even the hacks in the political system get in on the act.

Perhaps de Maistre was right. The people in the prior age would have had the good sense to hang someone promising to blot out the sun. If a governor stood in front of a pothole filled road blaming in on the gods, he would have been tared and feathered as a lunatic, if not a blasphemer. Today, out best and brightest indulge in the onanistic religion of climate change with the same fervor as the loons promising us they can control the sun. We have the rich people we deserve.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Who Are We?

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The failures of conservatism are a popular topic on this side of the great divide, mostly because most on this side passed through conservatism. While it is true that an understanding of human nature leads to a traditionalist political outlook, it is also true that having a conservative inclination leads one to dissident politics. Russell Kirk was right that conservative politics is the end result that begins with a certain attitude, a perspective on society that naturally leads to right-wing politics.

This attitude begins with the understanding that all human societies have an identity, an instinctive answer to the question, “Who are you?” That is closely tied with the understanding that someone is always in charge. This is where modern conservatism goes off the rails. Modern conservatives are terrified to even think about identity, because they are terrified of being accused of having one. Identities are exclusive and that is the opposite of inclusive, the greatest thing ever.

This peaks through in this American Conservative post about the lack of diversity at the US State Department. The post is in response to this post in the far-left DC scandal sheet called Politico. The claim is that State has a systemic racism problem. The conservative response to that is always some form of the old internet meme, “Democrats are the Real Racists.” In this case, it is those well-bred white people popping out of elite colleges, who then go into the State Department.

The post is interesting in that it gives some insight into how the American foreign service operates, but it amplifies left-wing morality, because the writer comes at the topic from something other than a conservative attitude. A genuine man of the Right would say that the State Department is a vital ruling class institution. It represents to the world the interests of the American ruling class. The reason it is full of Jews and Protestants is that is who runs the country.

This attitudinal deficiency also leads to errors in tactics. When a left-wing site like Politico starts bellowing about the lack of diversity in the ruling class, it is intended to distract, not spawn a dialogue. Since thinking about who is really in charge of the country is anathema to the modern conservative mind, they are more than happy to chase the diversity stick tossed by the people in charge. The result is more mewing about the lack of diversity, as if anyone cares.

This is something that modern conservatives have never grasped about their role in this relationship with their alleged opponents. Their primary duty is to keep anyone from talking about who is in charge. This is a key part of the managerial state. From the outside it always looks like a committee composed of faceless bureaucrats. In a world where it is never clear who is in charge, it is near impossible for the people to pin the blame on the people who are actually responsible.

Further, when the question “who are we?” is only asked in secret, the answer is only uttered in secret. That AmCon post gently touches on this fact, but it should have been the focus of the post. Instead, it is only hinted at, while the writer does the old DR3 and championing diversity. It never seems to occur to him that the people running the State Department have an interest in running the system as they do. That maybe the people in charge know who they are and intend to remain in charge.

Note also the reliance on the fantasy of the meritocracy. There is the belief among conventional conservatives that the alternative to Progressive domination of the institutions is meritocracy. Like the market place, a meritocracy is a man made thing, which serves the interests of those who make it. It is not some magically occurring bit of nature that grows in the wild. A meritocracy is always a tool of the ruling class used to perpetuate their position at the top of the social hierarchy.

The elephant in the room, of course, is the question of diversity. Right after “who we are?” and “who is in charge?” comes the question, “What are the rules?” Those rules are inevitably aimed at maintaining the answer to the first two questions. The reason the ruling class is happy to see unlimited diversity outside their ranks, but no diversity inside their ranks, is they have to intention of stepping aside. The people outside the walls only matter when they cause a ruckus or make threatening noises.

In other words, the opportunity here was to point out that diversity is poison and serious people avoid it at all cost. The people running important institutions like the State Department, Wall Street or the media get this. The reason these institutions look the way they do at the top is the people in charge are serious. They know diversity of any kind, especially diversity of opinion, is bad for them, so they make sure to root out any diversity in their ranks. There is a lesson there for all of us.

20th century conservatism was a failure in large part because it either refused or was temperamentally unable to tackle the basic questions of human organization. That starts with understand who we are and what are our interests. Then it quickly moves to deciding what sort of people need to be in charge and what sort of rules must be in place in order to maintain the resulting society. Conservatism was always happy to leave the questions unasked, so they were always a leaf in the wind.

This is why any alternative to the current regime must first start with a sense of identity, a point around which people can rally. This is why communists focused so much attention of class identity. It is also why bourgeoise intellectuals were so enamored with communism, despite not being working class. The draw of identity is natural. People with no natural sense of identity envy those that have one. That is the power of group identity and why it must be the core of any political movement.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

The Renter Society

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Anyone who has rented a car, or an apartment knows it is a different relationship from owning a car or especially a house. Drive through a working class neighborhood and you can easily spot the owners from the renters. The houses with overgrown lawns will usually be the renters. Of course, everyone knows the jokes about rental cars. Even the most conscientious renter tends to be more reckless with a rental car. You just do not have the same connection with it as you own car.

Another thing goes along with this. People with old beat up used cars tend not to be as careful as people with new cars. This has been tested. Take that old clunker and fix it up or replace it with something nice and the driver gets more conscientious about his driving and how he treats the car. The same thing probably happens with houses or even neighborhoods. What is the point of having a great lawn if every lawn in your neighborhood is a trash strewn, overgrown mess?

The point here is that the relationship one has to the property at his disposal is controlled to some degree by the ownership and condition. For this reason, it has been an article of faith with conventional conservatives that the way to lift people out of poverty is to get them into a house they own. The theory is these people will invest in their community, because they own a house in it. They have skin in the game, while the renter can just pick up and leave if things get bad.

This is not something that gets much attention now. While homeownership rates are about where they have always been, few people really own their house. They have a mortgage that they may never pay off. Each generation of American is poorer and carries greater debt. The policy to inflate home prices means younger people will carry a mortgage much longer and carry a much larger debt load in general. America is a land of debtors falling deeper in debt with each generation.

Then there is the general erosion of property rights. You may own your home and your car, but some company is tracking your use of them. That information, which is your property, is bought and sold without your consent. If you have a smart TV, it is spying on you, maybe even listening to your conversations. Just as the landlord can come into your apartment at any time, corporate America can poke around in your life whenever it feels the need to harvest information about you.

It is not just in our private lives where we see the transactional arrangement supplanting the ownership society. Businesses are increasingly moving to technology platforms that are pure services. Instead of owning the accounting system and running it on your server, you sign up for a web-based option. You pay monthly and agree to their terms of service, like all the other services that now dominate our lives. Increasingly, a business is just a temporary set of rental agreements.

This is something that cannot be overstated. if you look at the firms behind the apps that pop up in our lives, there is nothing to them. They have assembled a collection of licensed products that they have given a clever name. They work out of temporary offices and rent server space from Amazon. The employees are contract labor from somewhere over the horizon. The traveling circuses of old had deeper roots than the typical tech startup. They at least owned the tents.

There is something else that relates to this change in our society. Drive around and the infrastructure is looking shabby. Streets are full of potholes. Utility lines are a cluttered mess, often looking like something from the third world. Schools are old and shabby, even in nice middle-class areas. People think about the tyranny part of anarcho-tyranny, but it is the anarchy part that has the greatest impact. There is a general shabbiness to our lives that erodes our civic pride and commitment to community.

Taken together, the engine for creating social capital has slowly fallen into disrepair, to the point where we have adopted the renter’s mentality. The only time politicians speak of community is when they are discussion artificial or imaginary communities like the “trans community” or the “Asian community.” Even more bizarre is that most people think about their on-line groups when they think of community. The typical millennial has a stronger relationship to other gamers than his neighbors.

The other thing about the renter’s mentality is the owner of the rental property does not invest more than necessary. The landlord does not install granite counter tops in a rental unit and the car rental place is not waxing the cars between rentals. The software as a service vendor is cutting costs on development, because that is his only way to increase his profit margins. Eventually, these savings have to be balanced out with a capital infusion, but often after the property is sold.

This cannot work in a society. There is no way to replace the social capital that is not being created due to the lack of community. We see this with the attempts by Washington to inject money into the economy. What is not stolen by the pirates that prey on the economy has no impact on the people. The $1,400 check is never going to be the same as a job at a local business, run by one of your neighbors. Once the money is spent, there will be a new cry for more checks.

America is a rentier economy populated by people with a renter’s mentality. Every relationship is transactional. Once the transaction is over, the parties go on their way until the next transaction. One result of this is the country now looks like a neighborhood full of rental properties. No one, not even the government, sees a reason to invest in anything other than their immediate needs. The last functioning institution is the military, and it is succumbing to the same mentality.

It is tempting to call this feudalism, but feudalism had a strong ownership component and a well-defined set of reciprocal responsibilities. Modern America is becoming something different. A tiny group of people own everything, either directly or through the financial system, with no relationship to anyone other than through the rental agreement, the terms of service or the short term contract. The vast majority are just passing through society like renters.

Whether or not this is sustainable is an open question. The only societies we have ever created without social capital are penal colonies. Even in those, the inmates build bonds with one another. A prison cellblock has more social capital than a gaming community or social media network. We are into uncharted territory. Can a society sustain itself in a crisis, even a society post scarcity, when none of the members feels any connection to the other members? It seems unlikely.

On the other hand, maybe one part of the post scarcity society is there is no longer a threat of a genuine crisis. The great crises of the last few decades have been imaginary or exaggerated. There is a strong sense that things like the Covid panic are due to the political class not having anything to do with their time. These fake crises give them a reason to demand our attention. Maybe the renter society is a natural response to the elimination of real threats to society.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Éireannach Diúltach

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Today is St. Patrick’s Day, which is when people around the English speaking world celebrate having driven the Irish from their community. Businesses dust of the old “Irish Need Not Apply” signs and post them up. People mock the Irish by getting drunk and starting fights in public. Everyone wears green. Going out for corned beef and cabbage is a big thing, even during the pandemic. The meal is capped off by leaving a small tip in the tradition of the flintiest people on earth.

This is not true, of course, but it would probably be a better way to respect the Irish people than the current way of celebrating the day. St. Patrick’s Day in America is mostly just another version of Cinco de Mayo. That is, a reason for restaurants to roll out some themed specials and college kids to wear silly outfits. The difference is the college kids will not get in trouble for making fun of the Irish or for culturally appropriating them by wearing stereotypical Irish clothing.

The Irish are, however, a good topic for dissidents to study. Ireland struggled through a long and unpleasant occupation by a people who sounded a lot like them and looked like them but were not them at all. The Irish were ruled for a long time by clever, resourceful aliens. Crushing Irish resistance became an obsession with the British at times, even when it was not in their interest. This is, of course, the situation for white people in America now, just without an armed resistance yet.

How the Irish fought the British and how the British fought back is something highly relevant to modern America. The Irish eventually won their independence by driving up the cost of occupation. This came at a heavy cost to the Irish, as well. There are more people of Irish descent in America than in Ireland, because the long battle with the British made living anywhere else better for most Irish. There is also the fact that Ireland was never and will never fully united under the Irish flag.

Ireland is also a great example of how negative identity can destroy a people much faster than a conqueror. The Irish during the struggles became a people defined by their hatred of the British and their long history of oppression by the British. This made them wholly unequipped to go into the world as a full independent people. Ireland was immediately consumed by globalism. First it was the boom-bust of global economics and then it was the homogenization of global culture.

Starved of its ancient enemy, the Irish had no reason to exist, so the Irish ruling class joined the global ruling class, in spirit if not actuality. What that means for Europeans is embracing a plan of self-eradication. They elected a gay Indian as their ruler and set about importing as many nonwhites as they could find. Ireland’s Project 2040 promises to import a million Africans. If you do the math, they plan to make the Irish a minority in Ireland in this century. It is a plan for national suicide.

There is a popular meme where you see American soldiers disembarking on D-Day being told their kids will be trans or some other equally vulgar fad. The idea is that if our ancestors knew what defeating the fascists would lead to in a few generations, they would have refused to fight. One suspects that if Michael Collins could have seen Leo Varadkar, the gay Indian prime minister of Ireland, he and his compatriots would have turned their guns on their own people.

It is no surprise that the Irish have often called themselves the blacks of Europe, as they share the same sense of identity as American blacks. The Irish think the comparison works because they are both musical people, but it works better in the context of negative identity. Both the Irish and American blacks are defined by their long struggle, real and imagined, with another people. Without that struggle, the Irish have ceased to exist in a meaningful way. Like their memories, Irish is history.

There is a lesson here for dissidents across the West. It is not enough to hate the ruling class and hate the liberal democratic system that sustains them. Hatred is a powerful motivator and a powerful rallying cry. It can only be a tactic in the larger strategy for national independence.  It may feel good to hate a person or a group of people, but it can never come to define you or your people. By rooting identity in the relationship with another group, you become that group’s slave.

This is why Jews have survived as a tiny minority, often among people who hate them, without having to assimilate. Jewish identity is a positive one. It is largely the same in all times and all places. They adjust to the host population or in the case of Israel, the relative strength of her neighbors. Otherwise, Jewish identity in 19th century Russia is the same as in 21st century Manhattan. The people and places change, but Jews and the complaints about them remain the same.

This is why “Yes, But Is It Good for the Jews?” is an old punchline to jokes. Jews are famous for always thinking first about whether some situation, even a disaster, is good for them and their people. They joke about it among themselves. No one ever asked, is it good for the Irish, but plenty of Irish wondered if it was bad for the British. They were, in effect, putting the interest of the British ahead of their own. Because they have a positive identity, Jews never think this way.

If the pubs are open in your part of the hellscape that is Covidian America, enjoy a green beer and some inauthentic Irish culture. Everyone, even the Irish, are entitled to have some fun when the chance arrives. In between points of green beer, think about why Irish has been reduced to a trashy holiday and how best the fight for national sovereignty can avoid the fate of the Irish. If freedom means infinity Africans and gay Indian prime ministers, what is the point of the struggle?

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

Storytellers

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People in the modern age tend to think of people in the prior ages as being primitive or unsophisticated in their understanding of the world. This is mostly a modern thing, something that arose along with science. Once man started to understand the material operations of the natural world, those prior explanations for natural phenomena started to look rather silly. One reason for the primitive – modern dichotomy is a sense of embarrassment that our ancestors were so ignorant.

The truth is, of course, those primitive beliefs about what makes the leaves change color in the fall or why certain people refuse to live by the rules of society were useful and often quite clever. Stories about nature not only helped people understand and predict natural phenomenon, but they also provided a moral lesson. One thing science is telling us is that people are natural story tellers, because we have a natural preference for abductive reasoning over indictive or deductive reasoning.

The primitive – modern dichotomy is not just a battle between rational explanations of the world versus beliefs about the world. Various forms of Christian belief, although not all, are modern relative to prior forms of belief. The Christian logic of man’s relationship with God is very sophisticated compared to ancient belief systems. It was a great leap forward that became a foundation of Western civilization. The belief that the world operates by fixed rules is an axiom of the modern age.

Christianity has been subject to the primitive – modern dichotomy by radicals since the French Revolution. With the rise of science, all religion has been gratuitously lumped into with privative beliefs. Ironically, this is a primitive belief itself, as humans are biologically wired to believe. Belief is one of the oldest modern human attributes that probably coevolved with language. Like language, belief facilitates knowledge by providing a way to efficiently containerize abstract concepts.

In this regard, radicalism is best seen a primitive reaction to the advance of our material understanding of the world. The French Revolution may have started as a reasonable objection to the aristocratic system, but it quickly led to the Cult of Reason, which looked like a Bronze Age pagan festival. Today we see the same thing, but the pagan god at the center is called science. People are wearing codpieces on their faces and using grimy canvas sacks because science.

Notice how the primitives are saying that the rush to the border is caused by climate change, rather than the infantile tantrums of the new President. It is not excuse making or a distraction, at least not entirely. The people saying this nonsense know that tens of millions of people believe Gaia is angry at our lawnmowers, so they are happy to heap their troubles on the goat of climate change. If we just repent, Gaia will relent and lift these terrible plagues from us. Oh, save us Gaia!

This is not just rank and file oogily-boogily. The people at the top of our society are more like shamans and soothsayers now. The high priests of Progressivism are blaming the Covid panic on climate change. It is no surprise that this stuff is belching out of Harvard, as it has been and continues to be the primary training ground for the high priests of the Progressive faith. Founded by Puritans, it is the most prestigious indoctrination academy of the Judeo-Puritan ruling elite.

The ruling class embrace of increasingly bizarre forms of animism is not without its amusing aspects. In less sophisticated times, the court would have had an astrologer or wizard to impress the court with magic and soothsaying. Today, the court magician is little Italian fellow named Anthony Fauci, who is better suited to play the role of court jester than court magician. Modern paganism has become self-parody but combining the clown and the priest into a single role.

Another hallmark of primitive thinking is the person charged with finding those responsible for angering the gods. Currently, the name for those in league with Old Scratch are called conspiracy theorists and the tool for unleashing sin in our community is disinformation. We now have “experts” charged with analyzing how Old Scratch uses disinformation to trick us into sin. The similarity between this bit of oogily-boogily and the use of spectral evidence in witch trials should be obvious.

Of course, you cannot have witch trials without some witches, and you need witch hunters to supply those witches. This is where the cast of dingbats and airheads employed by C-list news sites find their place. These otherwise useless people roam the countryside looking for “haters” who knowingly speak blasphemy and spread heretical thoughts. Instead of an actual witch trial, the mob goes to social media, points, and ululates at the sinner until they go away.

One of the more amusing witch hunters is a dingbat name Megan Squire, who is employed by a university as a full-time witch hunter. Her formal title is professor in the computer science department, but it would be more accurate to call her the chief inquisitor of the one true faith. It is a nice bit of irony putting a raving lunatic in the most rational of fields. Maybe Gaia likes a good joke once in a while. Regardless, Squire’s job is as an increasingly deranged witch-hunter for the Left.

Using the old primitive – modern dichotomy, it is tempting to think we are descending into a primitive madness. This age is riddled with people no better than wizards, warlocks and dervishes who would have easily found work in the most primitive of times, just using different jargon. Megan Squire would have read entrails instead of “data” to explain why the village boy is a witch. Instead of Gaia causing the plague it would have been, well Gaia. Some things never change.

The truth is though, human progress has always been a struggle between the rational and the irrational. When the rational and spiritual correspond, we see rapid advance not only in material knowledge, but in spiritual understanding. The so-called dark ages left us with the most stunning of architecture for a reason. When they are at odds, we get a war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Usually, the lie beats the truth, because the liars are better storytellers.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link.   If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.