The Quest For Meaning

When you are living through an age, it is very difficult to see the currents with which the age will be identified. Few people living in the Jazz Age would have guessed they were living in the Jazz Age. In this age, society is whipsawed by one trend after another, so it seems impossible to know which one will be remembered. Maybe this is the geriatric age where aging Baby Boomers ruled the day. Perhaps the democratic age, where mob rule plunged the West into darkness and chaos.

One option may be the age of meaning. This is the time when people are always searching about for meaning and purpose in their lives. They turn the trivial into all-important moments, so they can pretend to be in a struggle. They invent victims of imaginary oppression so they can play the white knight. Every crisis, it turned into a crusade that quickly takes on the trappings of religion. Ours is an age where everyone is on a vision quest and they force the rest of us to play along.

For example, lost in all of the handwringing about Afghanistan is how some became emotionally attached to a place they ignored for two decades. Suddenly, getting our “allies” out was a holy mission. They spent all day on-line playing “digital Dunkirk” as if they were really doing something heroic. All of a sudden, the media was full of stories from people who claimed to working to get their friends out of the country. Of course, those friends were always heroic Afghans, not Americans.

This quest for meaning was not limited to LARP’ing on-line. Two congressmen flew over there against the wishes of the government in order to play hero. They were not satisfied with making noises about it on the House floor. They had to be in the middle of the action. Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma decided to play Rambo and went over to personally rescue people. These pointless and foolish acts are driven by a need to be seen as men with a purpose beyond the role they play.

Of course, for close to two years we have been hit by a tsunami of this from women claiming they are in the “front lines” of Covid. Just look at the language. They imagine they are in real trenches fighting real monsters. When it started, every nurse and doctor went on-line every day to tell us how exhausted they were, as if they were rescuers working day and night to save people from a collapsed building. Many got swept up in their fantasies on-line for the same reason.

The main reason the Covid panic is not old news is the people swept up in the cause cannot let go of it. For many, this was the first time in their life they woke up in the morning with a sense of purpose. There are nefarious reasons behind the government response, but it is aided and abetted by the quest for meaning. There are many more people who want to believe the stories are true than those who are offended by the assault on their liberty by the state in response to the problem.

The best way to see this quest for meaning is in things that are not driven by a sense of crisis, but by history. Here is the ridiculous governor of Virginia inserting himself and his co-religionists into the history books. They get to feel like heroes for righting a past wrong, that was probably not wrong. The facts are not important. They need to be part of the long gone struggle. Since the line for the Emmett Till ride is way too long, they picked a different event to exercise their quest for meaning.

This is one reason events like the civil right movement are talked about as if they happened yesterday. Part of it is nostalgia, for sure, but a big part of it is a secondhand nostalgia by people who have no direct connection to the events. Instead, they seek to fill the need for meaning and purpose in their present lives with fantasies about having experienced emotionally important events of the shared past. This allows them to feel like they are part of the struggle from the safety of home.

Bourgeoise restlessness is not a new thing. This desire to do something important seems to be the result of leisure. Young men from good homes have gone off to seek adventure since there have been young men from good homes. We live in an age in which large swaths of the population are idle. Poverty is no longer a threat, as even the poor have more than they need. In one respect, the quest for meaning in a post-scarcity phenomenon driven by an excess of middle-class people.

Another driver though is the devastation wrought by liberal democracy. Social capital in the form of family and community has been used to fire the great engines of the technological state. The transactional replacements, on-line community, social media groups and mass media, are a poor substitute. Like emergency meal replacements, manufactured community can keep you going for a while, but it is a constant reminder of the loss of the real thing, as well as a poor substitute.

At the end of the Time Machine, the protagonists realizes that the future he witnessed was not the failure of man, but the result of his success. “It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble.” Once those challenges were conquered, there was no need for the sort of men who rush to the sound of danger. Over time those types faded away and were replaced with the type who easily lived a carefree life as food.

We are learning a similar lesson. Like all living things, humans are wired to do what is necessary to reach sexual maturity. What has always made man unique is the desire to live beyond that point. To look into the heavens for purpose and then manifest that purpose on earth for the benefit and admiration of our people. The dream may be small or grandiose, but it is the dream that gives meaning to life. We are not meant to live in adult daycare centers, marking our days consuming the latest products.

Perhaps the tech overlords will make the virtual quest for meaning good enough to keep the species going for a while longer. We will plug into the machine and have our dreams made true by an algorithm. Maybe we simply make ourselves insane in the increasingly chaotic quest for meaning. Whatever happens, there is a good chance that people look back at this age and know that we were spoiled for choice in the material realm but starved for choice in the spiritual realm.


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Catxman
2 years ago

The quest for meaning can be satisfied easily for a woman: have a baby. Studies have shown that women’s work-drives drop dramatically after they have their children. They transfer their needs into the child’s achievements.

For a man, it is not so simple. He needs actual achievements. The “mid-life crisis” where you buy a cool sportscar is an attempt to buy himself some coolness, which substitutes as meaning.

Either way, male or female, the real whammy starts by the Age Thirties.

Hi -Ya!
Hi -Ya!
Reply to  Catxman
2 years ago

Meaning can only be found in truth, then in God. Liberalism puts all “meanings” on the same level. Thats the modern crisis

A.B Prosper
A.B Prosper
Reply to  Hi -Ya!
2 years ago

The last part is spot on. For most people deep meaning is a luxury good if they have cognitive capacity enough to want it that is.

A simple “I am a member of my society and this is what is expected of me” is all they need but our society doesn’t have that.

Peabody
Peabody
Reply to  Hi -Ya!
2 years ago

Keats said it best:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

miforest
Member
Reply to  Catxman
2 years ago

absolutely wrong, for a man fathering a baby instantly gives you a new purpose and priority. or at least it should . and if you are fortunate , then you may get grandchildren too. My kids and grandkids mean as much to me as they do to my wife.

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  miforest
2 years ago

Spot on.

If taking care of, providing for and protecting your kids and wife doesn’t give a man purpose, I’m not sure what would.

JohnWayne
JohnWayne
Reply to  Catxman
2 years ago

By nature,

Women want love, the love of a man and children and family.

Men want to be respected. The respect and admiration of a woman, his family, and friends.

A man wants to be strong and able to provide for, support and protect his family.

A woman wants to be attractive and lovable.

Men lift weights, buy ammo, and watch Rambo movies.

Women buy cosmetics, pretty dresses, and read Sense and sensibility.

By our Post Modern Culture:

Forget about all i just said.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
2 years ago

3g4me: ok 🙂

filler for comment checker

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
2 years ago

One of your best, Z!

A.B Prosper
A.B Prosper
2 years ago

We are rudderless because sound minded Americans don’t want to consider self rule or authority and instead depend on other to do what they must do themselves. If we to end this mess and are willing to pay the price which is questionable, to get started get a win plan. The Taliban did. When we win we become the State and impose Sharia. It was a solid plan with clear goals and it was successful. Pretty good for supposedly 85 IQ goat herders. If when our side comes up with one or more win plans, than they can get started.… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
2 years ago

I’m with Frip on this. I say shopping for pleather and Celine Dion at TJ Maxx is the ultimate quest for meaning.

Panzernutter
Panzernutter
2 years ago

In Los Angeles the bag boys at the grocery store wear shirts that say ( proud to be an essential worker) on the back of them. It’s truly sickening. It’s almost enough to get me to hire a greasy jogger with purple gums and blonde hair to deliver moldy bread and bruised fruits and vegetables to the front door. FYI when I’m at the grocery store these days, it’s 70% instacart food slaves wandering the isles looking for truffle oil. We used to run into our neighbors while shopping. Not anymore.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Panzernutter
2 years ago

The local post office has “Heroes work here” displayed on wall of the building. I guess not all heroes wear capes.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Penitent Man
2 years ago

Aldi had “Heroes Work Here” proudly displayed outside their stores last year. As Norm Macdonald said, “Those guys at Iwo Jima? They were so close.”

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Panzernutter
2 years ago

Stopped by one store this morning that I don’t frequent that often. Sign ‘strongly encouraged’ masks for ‘our guests.’ I’m not a damned guest, I’m a customer. We’re not talking friendship but a mere commercial transaction. I’m so enraged by the presumption of intimacy by everyone. And guest/ host implies I have an obligation to comport with their standards, instead of customer/seller where they have an implied obligation to appeal to my wants and needs. The commercial pretending to be the personal has invaded every aspect of life, and I want to kill it with fire.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

I hate that presumption of familiarity. Last week the FDA put out a tweet pertaining to Ivermectin that said “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Just stop it.”

I can feel my jaw clench when I encounter that sort of unprofessionalism. I blame much of it on parents who have spent the last 20 years calling their kids “buddy” or “dude”.

Bartleby the Scrivner
Bartleby the Scrivner
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

Was in a Farm and Fleet of all places, and an honest to God, real life Karen informed me (while way back in the store), that I needed to have a mask on. I said “ok” and continued my shopping. Everyone was masked up and no one else said a word.
Ignore them.
If they persist, leave.

Hi - Ya!
Hi - Ya!
2 years ago

Gk Chesterton covered this to an extent in “orthodoxy” although it’s been a hike since I read it. If God were to be asked what the major problem on earth would be, He would say, sin.

But then people would have to start changing their lives and that’s hard.

Reynard
Reynard
Member
Reply to  Hi - Ya!
2 years ago

I first read “Orthodoxy” 5-6 years ago. Its a great book, I need to read more Chesterton. At the time I was shocked by how relevant it was to the contemporary world I was growing up in. The creeping Bolshevism in the culture and all the social ills of the early 1900s had a nearly 1:1 modern equivalent.

Of course his writing is top notch as well. He is a master of the pithy phrase or one liner. There is a gem on nearly every page.

Hi- Ya!
Hi- Ya!
Reply to  Reynard
2 years ago

His best is The Everlasting Man!

Reynard
Reynard
Member
Reply to  Hi- Ya!
2 years ago

Thanks, I will definitely read that.

Hokkoda
Member
2 years ago

“Once those challenges were conquered, there was no need for the sort of men who rush to the sound of danger.“ This is actually why I had no problem with those Congressmen going to one of the ‘Stans to try an lease helicopters to get Americans out of Kabul. Sure, it was a bit reckless, but we don’t have enough of that. Instead, we get told it’s not their “place” and that it should be left to the same professionals who so utterly botched the simple job of flying Americans out of the country that their only recourse has been… Read more »

manc
manc
Reply to  Hokkoda
2 years ago

Apparently the military had a drone strike locked on the suicide bomber and the DOD wouldn’t sign off. Also, its evidently no big deal to the State Department and WH that American citizens are stuck in a stone age war zone.

This is America’s Suez moment.

Jonesy
Jonesy
Reply to  manc
2 years ago

I think the Vietnam defeat was more meaningful.

This is America’s Saigon moment.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  manc
2 years ago

manc: Whether those “American citizens” are Afghans with magic papers (highly likely) or stupid missionaries or stupid girls from ngos trying to help Mohammedan women, I don’t particularly care that they were left behind. They oughtn’t to have been there in the first place.

As far as America’s this or that moment, people can pick and choose. The decline began long ago, even if the oncoming fall is only just becoming apparent to many.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

The great mistake was not the withdrawal from Afghanistan; it was being there in the first place.

TomA
TomA
Reply to  Hokkoda
2 years ago

This anecdote is why I added focus to my 4S dictum. If you don’t focus on the root of the problem, you will forever be spinning your wheels chasing the side-effects of our societal cancer. The latter is known as palliative care, which is just a humane way to die with minimum pain.

Pete
Pete
Reply to  Hokkoda
2 years ago

The only way to prevent such an attack would be to bar all Afghans from entering the airport area, and to shoot any that tried to come in anyway.

Since the orders to our Marines were to pack as many Afghans as possible that would fit into a plane and bring them to the USA so they can rape and kill Americans, collect welfare and vote Democrat for the rest of their lives, the attack could not be prevented.

Member
Reply to  Pete
2 years ago

They ain’t “our Marines” anymore.

Good ol' Rebel
Good ol' Rebel
Reply to  Pickle Rick
2 years ago

Yeah, but if you call them Imperial Marines, it sounds way too cool for what they have become.

Member
Reply to  Good ol' Rebel
2 years ago

MINOs for AINO.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Hokkoda
2 years ago

I agree with another WRSA writer, Big Country, that this is a war between the elites. Intel set up Military for that strike.

He speculates that the Intelligence, Military, and Executive branches are fighting behind the curtain, thus we are rudderless.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

It’s always a war among elites.

That’s why they’re “elite “.

It’s a big club, and we ain’t in it.

nailheadtom
nailheadtom
Reply to  Hokkoda
2 years ago

Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma decided to play Rambo and went over to personally rescue people. These pointless and foolish acts are driven by a need to be seen as men with a purpose beyond the role they play.

What’s more pointless and foolish than the POW-MIA flag? Those servicemen, many of whom were draftees, are indeed forgotten and even if you knew the exact location of one of them it would be against federal law for you to engineer their release and repatriation.

trackback
2 years ago

[…] ZMan takes the long view. […]

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
2 years ago

being a socal native, hedonism is something i know a little about. if you visit cali you might get a teeny sense of how amazing the climate is near the coast (go 25 miles inland and the story changes). the light really is golden, and the sun kissing your skin is pure bliss. but. like the sweet liquid in a Venus Flytrap, it is a lure. it makes people like the Greek story/myth of the land of the lotus eaters. they rot away lying in the sun. a few years ago i read a small essay about the difference between… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Karl, as you aptly note, the mind can not stand a constant input of stimulus, hence it attenuates. This causes folks to be able to work in stock yards and others to require higher doses of drugs to relieve chronic pain. There must be balance—ying/yang sort of stuff. We’ve lost that balance.

Guest
Guest
Member
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

thanks karl
you prick
now im not gonna sleep tonight

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

Zman said: “Like all living things, humans are wired to do what is necessary to reach sexual maturity.” I would state it a bit more explicitly: From Nature’s point of view, an organism becomes useless, indeed a liability, the second that its descendants are the ones that reached maturity (can live without requiring the parent’s support.) Of course, with humans it is more complex than that. Older people past child bearing age, whether biological parents or not, can and do contribute to the family or the tribe in many ways. But they also become a burden at some point. Some… Read more »

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

what to do with those members of a society, that refuse to work or contribute to society, is an enduring problem. letting them starve is the correct response, as is driving them from society. old ways are best ways.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

I suspect in the former, ancient times, one did not live too long past one’s age of self-sufficiency, or clan contribution to pose a detriment to the group. My thinking is that the Industrial Age changed this balance/ratio. On a positive note, a societal collapse will right this imbalance PDQ—with the added benefit of removing the not so old detritus.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

In 17th-century Geneva the average lifespan was no more than 30.

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
2 years ago

17th century Europe also saw Plague, Cholera, and the Thirty Years War. War, famine and disease will do that.

A.B Prosper
A.B Prosper
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

This doesn’t work when automation replaces the need for too much labor.

1.3 TFR forever is not the way to have a society.

Once society collapses and all that is left are farmers and hand craftsmen, get back to me.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

Speaking as one who was a near-lifelong resident of Virginia, the “pardon” was somewhat of a surprise. Not in the least, was that I was unaware that rape could get the death penalty in the old days. I don’t think anyone denies that Virginia was Jim Crow in 1949 or that Negroes got the worst of it back then. But the US military was as harsh: in that era, solders too were executed for rape, to include the father of famous Civil Rights “martyr” Emmett Till. Harsh though the death sentence was, I do not see any claims that the… Read more »

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

What pardon are you talking about?

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
2 years ago

Please see the headline linked at “Here is the ridiculous governor of Virginia inserting himself and his co-religionists into the history books” in Zman’s post.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

Sorry. The VA govnuh pardoned some black guys hung in 1949.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

I wonder what evidence exists to prove their innocence.

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

It must have been the content of their character.

I.M. Brute
I.M. Brute
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

If I recall correctly, Louis Till was executed for not only raping those Italian women, but murdering them as well. I also read somewhere that of the 96 American G.I.’s who were executed for raping and murdering civilians in Europe during the war, 87 of them were negroes.

ProZNoV
ProZNoV
Reply to  I.M. Brute
2 years ago

When I think of how the Russians treated the Germans after WWII, I’m reminded of the saying “It is good war is so terrible, lest we become too fond of it”.

Cured the German of war fever, anyway.

US war adventures will continue until we are on the terrible end of it. Something the US mainland has never truly seen.

Good ol' Rebel
Good ol' Rebel
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

At common law, all felonies were punishable by death. Rape has always been a felony in the Western tradition. The erosion of the death penalty by the black-robed shaken isba tragedy – first barring it for rape back in the 70’s I think, and then I think it was the 90’s they decided death penalty for raping children was “cruel and unusual” and thus unconstitutional.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
2 years ago

Our Town, by thorton Wilder

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
2 years ago

Probably posted before, but:
“Is it any wonder I’m not crazy? Is it any wonder I’m sane at all
Well I’m so tired of losing – I got nothing to do and all day to do it
I go out cruisin’ but I’ve no place to go and all night to get there
Is it any wonder I’m not a criminal?
Is it any wonder I’m not in jail?
Is it any wonder I’ve got
Too much time on my hands?”

And as for the current resident at 1600 PA Avenue:
“Is it any wonder I’m not the president”

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Stranger in a Strange Land
2 years ago

in what universe did i just upvote a Styx ref?! the horror, the horror…

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Karl – these things happen. It could have been worse (though I’m hard pressed to say how)

Pozymandias
Reply to  Stranger in a Strange Land
2 years ago

REO Speedwagon. That would have been worse.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

That an act like Styx once could fill arenas proves Hollywood is long past its peak.

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  Paintersforms
2 years ago

Non-“legacy” bands today that work at the same very-very-lower-middlebrow artistic level as Styx have a worldwide audience of a couple thousand people.

Styx is far, far too beautiful for this world.

STYX

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Hemid
2 years ago

Don’t get me wrong, I do like Styx, but it’s because I get a kick out of them. I like Falco and Slipknot for the same reason, and Primus might be my favorite band.

What tripped me up about Styx was seeing Dennis DeYoung on VH1 back in college. He seemed so earnest about it. Idk, it’s complicated?

KGB
KGB
Reply to  Paintersforms
2 years ago

I disagree. I’m a Journey man myself, but those were bands that actually had skill sets. It was mostly the effete snobbery of the Rolling Stone types that gave them a bad rap; an early example of the coastal elites pissing on flyover country.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Stranger in a Strange Land
2 years ago

I think you’ve got too much time on your hands. 😀

Anonymous White Male
Anonymous White Male
2 years ago

“There are many more people who want to believe the stories are true than those who are offended by the assault on their liberty by the state in response to the problem.”

A response to a problem they created. This is pretty much a history of the west for the last 150 years. Or longer.

Basil Ransom
Basil Ransom
2 years ago

I’d call this another case of Hitler’s revenge, Chapter CXVIII Americans didn’t become obsessed with making the trivial into the epic until Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers came out in the late nineties and early 2000’s. While the violence portrayed was realistic, everything World War II related became elevated to CRUSADE status which Bush and the neocons exploited mercilessly when it came time to send the troops over to the Afghan and Iraqi wastelands. It has spiraled downwards and dumbwards from there. People know deep down that the country is spiritually empty and not worth getting a leg… Read more »

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Basil Ransom
2 years ago

“Americans didn’t become obsessed with making the trivial into the epic until Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers came out in the late nineties ”

no. let me introduce you to a little thing called prohibition…

Hoagie
Hoagie
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

I don’t believe for one second that two movies were the turning point of American culture. But if that were to be so they certainly weren’t war movies. More like Thelma & Louise and Natural Born Killers.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Hoagie
2 years ago

oh man, if you haven’t seen NBK, do yourself a favor and watch it. just an incredible fever dream of a movie. shit, i am going to watch it right now 🙂

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Mazzie Star. My gods, that theme song on NBK.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Hoagie
2 years ago

I recall “Saving Private Ryan” as a pretty good movie. However, the plot, as I recall it, was that the Army committed resources to rescue from the risk of a combat death, said Ryan, a sole surviving son. While high drama and a good emotional tug, I find it very hard to believe that in wartime, the military would risk major resources, including multiple lives, solely for such a reason.

Basil Ransom
Basil Ransom
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

Paul Fussell, a Battle of the Bulge veteran, said that the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan should have been spliced out as a separate film and shown to every high school male senior under the title “Omaha Beach: Aren’t You Glad You Weren’t There?”.

The rest of the film he thought was on the level of a sub par John Ford Western.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

Ben, the story line in Ryan was a bit imagined, but the occurrence of an entire family line perishing was not. The Sullivan brothers all being killed early in WWII was a major blow to the country’s morale. The military changed their deployment policy such that relatives did not serve together as closely as the Sullivan’s were allowed and were more inclined to deferments for only sons and such.

SidVic
SidVic
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

I recall reading about ww2 navy ships going down and taking all young men of entire towns with them (brothers included). The Navy grouped towns together on one ship to improve cohesiveness. They stopped this practice.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

The Sullivan brothers were unavailable for comment…

Not My Usual Pen Name
Not My Usual Pen Name
Reply to  Basil Ransom
2 years ago

Americans didn’t become obsessed with making the trivial into the epic until Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers came out in the late nineties

Where by “Americans” you mean an Israeli named Steven Spielberg?

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Not My Usual Pen Name
2 years ago

hahahaha. good one!

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Not My Usual Pen Name
2 years ago

Do we know Steven Spielberg was/is an Israeli? I went to school with him, and I can assure you it was not in Israel. (But he might have claimed dual citizenship in later years).

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

i think that was just another way of saying mr speilberg is j** 😛

what was he like? any good stories?

Dennis Roe
Dennis Roe
Reply to  Not My Usual Pen Name
2 years ago

Exactly, Talmudvision, you will see what we want you to see.

Frip
Member
Reply to  Basil Ransom
2 years ago

“Americans didn’t become obsessed with making the trivial into the epic until Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers came out in the late nineties and early 2000’s.”

You’re gonna need a new pet take. I don’t want you being laughed at down at the pub.

3 Pipe Problem
3 Pipe Problem
2 years ago

I tried earlier but comment in moderation. In brief, though it’s been used before, the Age of Anxiety suits these times very well. When American adventurism peaked and crested at the Pacific rim [with a brief resurgence in space], the tsunami rolled back leaving us searching for purpose. When the everyday event is enshrined, even the trash collector is a hero. Anxiety springs from the inner knowledge that we are merely jousting at windmills. Modern Heroes Bereft of lyric Homer Voice Folly to Rime heroic Verse Yet a troubled Heart leaves no Choice But Speak Thoughts in Mind well-rehearsed. The… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  3 Pipe Problem
2 years ago

Of course they’re heros. A twenty-year old has lived his entire life under assault by the government since 9/11.

They know nothing, Nothing, of the peace, security, and simple joy of living we had- even though we, too, all had secret police (“undercover”) keeping everyone suspicious and paranoid.

Rdz
Rdz
2 years ago

If only we had a space program worth a damn , I would sign up for a one way to mars.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Rdz
2 years ago

Standing ovation on that!

Let the others run after us while we go our own way. They’ll end up climbing the ladder at their own pace, and everybody ends up better off.

A.B Prosper
A.B Prosper
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

There is nowhere to run too. Our guys really need to ditch that Space Will Make US Free Heinlein/ Moon is a Harsh Mistress nonsense. Mars has no water we can use, toxic soil and no air. If we could get around that anyone who is not a billionaire or multi millionaire going to an exoplanet colony will be a slave. Thinks Mandatory Neuro Link and control by Elon Musk’s computer, not limitless personal freedom. The best case scenario is all the freedom of a a maximum security military prison. if you want liberty or to be ruled in the… Read more »

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Rdz
2 years ago

Nothing more than escapism. I’m glad we don’t still have a space program. Total waste of time and money.
We can’t even keep our roads and bridges in good shape and people think we’re going to magically terraform Mars into a livable place, probably in just a few years too. Even if we could establish a small base on the Moon, it would be 100% reliant on a weekly delivery. You just know they would send a bunch of diverse people. All it would accomplish is getting graffiti on Moon rocks.

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
2 years ago

Indeed. It’s lunar-cy.

On the plus side, NASA had those joggers that did the maff. All the maff.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  OrangeFrog
2 years ago

You do know that black Egyptians were flying ships around the pyramids until an evil white wizard named Yakub stole their flying ability.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Ostei Kozelskii
2 years ago

Damn white people, always stealing the black man’s ideas and won’t give em back.

Hoagie
Hoagie
Reply to  OrangeFrog
2 years ago

Not only did joggers do all the maff, but they were distaff lady joggers to boot! Who knew? Next we’ll be told Washington was a mulatto.

Maus
Maus
Reply to  Hoagie
2 years ago

Why not? A Broadway hit has taught us that Hamilton was black (sometimes the “one drop” rule comes in handy). And Jefferson liked to get himself some strange; so if he wasn’t, his son was. There’s something about the historical existence of chattel slavery that mind worms some significant fraction of the people in bizarre ways.

Member
Reply to  Hoagie
2 years ago

Well you can’t expect Hollywood to give the credit to Werner von Braun and his merry band of smart Germans, can you?

UsNthem
UsNthem
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
2 years ago

Well if we hadn’t gone all negro/diversity/feminist centric beginning about 50 years ago, something more may have come of the space program. As it was, when we went from the Apollo program to the space shuttle, you knew the days of reaching out for the stars was over.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  UsNthem
2 years ago

Though I still haven’t read the whole thing, in whitey on the moon by Paul Kersey, he documents how Congress and the bureaucrats turned it into a welfare program for credentialed diversity and wammen. But, you still have to take into consideration what NASA’s real mission actually was, which was to perfect ICBMs. By the time of the Moon Landing, they pretty much knew what they wanted to learn. Actually having colonies on other worlds just isn’t feasible any time soon. The amount of money they spent on NASA in the 60s (among other things like Vietnam and medicare/medicaid), caused… Read more »

Maus
Maus
Reply to  Tars Tarkas
2 years ago

NASA is nothing but crypto-welfare for the STEM crowd. The space program was a relic of Cold War propaganda and should have ended when the Soviet Union collapsed. But Tubman DF doesn’t get rid of bureaucracies, it only expands them.

(((They))) Live
(((They))) Live
Reply to  Rdz
2 years ago

So you’re not watching what SpaceX are building in Texas

UsNthem
UsNthem
2 years ago

In years gone by, the quest for meaning (at least for normal people) would typically involve doing your job to the best of your ability, or raising a fine family, or just being a normal, decent human being and community member. Not any more. Now it’s all about the “good feels” to be had on social media, the curse of the planet. It’s all just so superficially pathetic. Kudos from your real flesh & blood friends, family or co-workers simply aren’t enough these days. It all has to be blasted out to the world in order to get that REAL… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  UsNthem
2 years ago

A lower sense of purpose fulfills us with many small victories.

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

Pithy (which is my one word response, since comments won’t allow a one word response)

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  UsNthem
2 years ago

Bingo. This has always struck me as bizarre; that so many people hanker after the attentions and adulation of others. Seems very odd to me, but perhaps there have always been this many crazies and social media has just blown the lid off. Either way, earning your keep, taking an interest in stuff, building family and extended networks based on actual values – not mass movements – seems the way to go. In fact, for the DR, so practical sloganeering could really appeal to normie’s want to start a family. That’s what we could in fact offer, and that is… Read more »

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  UsNthem
2 years ago

UsNthem: Yes, that desperate need for constant attention and affirmation. Cue all the Hollywood denizens posting about their spawn and their causes, the dindus flaunting their latest White kill, the dinduettes claiming credit for hair braids, hoop earrings, and shaking their steatopygia. It just does not compute for me – even when I watch videos of a presumably decent White family learning to homestead, I cannot conceive of exposing and monetizing my own private life the same way.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

“shaking their steatopygia”

Hahahaha!

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

if you don’t know what “steatopygia” is/are, be very careful about looking it up. what is seen cannot be unseen.

UsNthem
UsNthem
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

I have to say that’s a word I’d never heard of. And I’d further add it’s a word I wish I I’d still never heard of!

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  UsNthem
2 years ago

No, nowadays validating one’s purpose in life requires such socially useful actions as dredging for dirt, no matter how trivial, so that you can get a game show host fired. Dislike someone? If you dig enough, he’s BOUND to have once told a dirty joke or said something sexist. If it’s really important, like an alleged sexual assault from 40 years ago, just make up some shit. After all, you’re a helpless victim! They’ll believe you. Or for the second and third tier activist, how about getting a bird renamed? After all, a black birder might take offense at one… Read more »

Bill
Bill
2 years ago

Perhaps the overarching theme for which this age will be remembered is the Great Crusade for Egalitarianism and Equity: The final overthrow of hierarchy of every kind, in the instantiation of the insistence that ‘Everyone is alike and equal in every respect!’ Whereas our evil ancestors made distinctions among the various groups of people, today’s Anti-Racist Egalitarians are engaged in the righteous struggle to make sure all our institutions and beliefs reflect the fact of Perfect Equality For All. Groups like Blacks who have long been denied equality now become our Sacred Symbols, and are exalted to the degree they… Read more »

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Bill
2 years ago

the hiercharchy isn’t being overthrown, it is being flattened. in 1984 there were only three levels in the hierarchy: inner party, outer party, and the proles. from the way Orwell described it, the proles didn’t have such a bad deal. they weren’t the ones being spied on and coerced (that was for the outer party).

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Prole-ville is where we seem headed. The vast underclass will live as they want (example: any inner city), as long as they do as they are told and accept the crumbs of the economy, while the productive class will be tightly controlled and watched, less they attempt to seize power from the ruling elite.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

The entire point of jabports is to prod the productive class into a China-style social credit system and central bank digital currencies with built-in expiration dates and taxation.

Obviously, the expiration dates, rates, and available spending categories will all be managed via social credit score.

There will probably also be a health score component based on jab records, BMI, exercise frequency and intensity.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Bill
2 years ago

As Z recently stated, equality is the great crime against civilization.

TomA
TomA
2 years ago

Everyone is the hero of their favorite dream. I think it may be in the DNA. In olden times, this was a largely personal reverie, but in the age of the internet, everyone can manufacture their 15 minutes of fame if they know how to work a cell phone camera. Fight videos are now epidemic online and OnlyFans has elevated depravity into an art form. It’s all part of the accelerating vortex of the toilet bowl we are descending into. So, what to do? First, step out of the sewage pit, wash yourself off, and get the Hell as far… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  TomA
2 years ago

This is all good lifestyle advice, but politically, the frontier mindset is a losing formula. The internet is the most powerful political weapon ever known to man; you can’t disarm yourself of it and win.

You should spend at least an hour a day shitposting, providing questioning Normies with a safe social space and help them on their red pill journey.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

i shitpost like a champion :). i especially like to go on xhamster and critique sex videos. sometimes i go on realtor.com and send shitposts to realtors about the crappy home they are pushing. or i put in an offer for half the asking price. so far i have refrained from going on lefty sites, as it’s no fun picking on retards.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

Well then, pat me on the back. What I er, contribute here is only a sample of the (yes really) several hours a day I put in, much of it commenting online and some of it in more mainstream locales.

TomA
TomA
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

In theory, your advice may have an incremental impact at the margins of society, but you will be competing against the Big Boys, who have weaponized mass media for decades now and are masters at the game of indoctrination. And all of this is largely closing the door after the horse has run off. The prime time to indoctrinate is during the formative years of early childhood development, and Progs own the public schools, TV cartoon networks, and even children’s books now. I submit that you’re dancing in the feces with the other muckrakers and don’t realize the contamination it’s… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  TomA
2 years ago

Big Boys, who have weaponized mass media for decades now and are masters at the game of indoctrination.

Then why are they panicking, burning their own online platforms to slow down our triumphal online campaign? Because if not for systematic censorship, the dissident right would own Youtube by now.

Ten years ago, almost all major MSM outlets had comment sections on most articles, because they trusted the indoctrination. Boy, were they wrong!

it’s a conceit to presume you’re going to change the world with some snarky criticism.

Trump got elected by a cartoon frog.

I.M. Brute
I.M. Brute
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly those comments sections disappeared! Seems like too many dissidents were going against the approved narrative!

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  TomA
2 years ago

Snarky criticism is only one aspect of taking it to “the man”. Another aspect is what we have among this group—an exchange of ideas and knowledge. As much as I may like my immediate physical neighbors, they can’t match such a group as this.

BTP
Member
2 years ago

I think the idea that we are experiencing a spiritual exhaustion is exactly right. This exhaustion is not merely one we see among the irreligious: I know lots of church-going bugmen for whom the big weekly celebration of God and the bi-weekly small group meetings are not working. They keep looking. Maybe the thing where the men’s group funds a trip to Ethiopia to dig a well in some godforsaken village somewhere will do the trick. But an Evangelical whose older son is busy in the Big City and whose younger son just came out as gay is going to… Read more »

B125
B125
Reply to  BTP
2 years ago

And the Ethiopians think, what is this white man doing here and why did he dig a giant hole in the ground?

Then a week later, the hole in the ground is full of feces, goats, and dead bodies. The white man, safely back at Metro Atlanta MegaChurch can virtue signal about how he provided Ethiopians some clean water.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  B125
2 years ago

The copper pipes were dug up and sold for scrap. The pump and any other hardware was sold on the black market for what it would fetch. Meanwhile, the women carry water from the nearest well, a few miles away, just as they have for decades. They scrounge further afield for firewood. It never occurs to anyone to ask where all the trees have gone, nor why only barren ground remains.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

Africa Wins Again!

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  BTP
2 years ago

I think the idea that we are experiencing a spiritual exhaustion is exactly right.

I see what you mean, but I haven’t experienced that myself, on the contrary: becoming a white nationalist was invigorating, it gave me a clear lodestar.

I don’t understand it when people lament that we don’t have visions, nothing positive to offer young people; I find it almost offensive: is saving your people from genocide not noble or elevated enough?

OrangeFrog
OrangeFrog
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

Good shout, Felix. Protecting and saving your heritage and people is probably – spiritually, at least – the highest thing a man can do.

Just a shame that what we offer is hard work, and not obviously materialistic. Why worry about old dead great-great grandpa – he was probably a why ‘spremacisss anyway – when I can just keep upgrading my iPhone.

That said, many people of my acquaintance are realising things are broken. And that the solution typically is local in fashion. With family and extended clan coming first.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

I agree Felix. I guess that I am too skeptical to be traditionally religious, but I find meaning in preserving and extending the white race.

If I had to adopt a religion, I would do what I’m told the Japanese do: worship my ancestors.

Worship them not necessarily because they were the best but because they survived and they are mine.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

You betcha, Krull. I am filled to bursting with a sense of duty and resolution.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  BTP
2 years ago

Fight Club summed up male ennui pretty well back in 1999:

https://youtu.be/chyRpj-971o

Mister Excitement
2 years ago

I was born in the Martinsville, VA hospital and have lived 20 minutes from Martinsville most of my life. My family has been here for over a century, and in the state of VA multiple centuries. Never once have I heard of “The Martinsville Seven.” The lefties work full time to dredge this stuff up.

rashomoan
rashomoan
Reply to  Mister Excitement
2 years ago

like demons on meth..

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  Mister Excitement
2 years ago

Is their “Martinsville Seven” for real? I never heard of it either. I have read the FBI report on the Death of Vince Foster and its grusome details on how his “suicide” was suspect, but you can’t find a copy of that ANYWHERE. Maybe we are living in the flesh and blood Matrix, one where so many people work to lie and eliminate anything showing the truth, that we really don’t know anything any more.

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  RoBG
2 years ago

OMG you’re one diligent cookie! Kudos to you!

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Coalclinker
2 years ago

There’s all sorts of interesting “conspiracy” related things in the FBI vault. For instance in the Finders’ Cult file there’re (mistaken?) unrelated pages referencing that they actually did find tunnels at the McMartin preschool of “satanic panic” fame. https://vault.fbi.gov/the-finders/the-finders-part-01-of-03/view And you could spend the rest of your life on unreported stuff from 9/11.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Mister Excitement
2 years ago

i did a search on TM7 and only checked the first page of results, and every reference was from this year, starting around April.

just for shits and giggles, you might point out that everyone in the south was a democrat back then 😛

Emmet Till’s father was executed during WWII for murder and rape. The nig doesn’t fall far from the tree…

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Doesn’t fall at all if you used a good rope 😀

Darn, I’m on the FBI’s shit list for sure, now.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Ben the Layabout
2 years ago

oh fukk, that was wicked good!

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

That Emmet Till is still dragged up ‘til this day is an indication of how few these cases were. If one wants to be indignant, try looking for egregious, recent cases of Black on White violence.

Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

White on black a tragedy.
Black on white a statistic.
A variation on Joe’s modus operandi.

I.M. Brute
I.M. Brute
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

Here’s a pretty good resource for that:
http://www.newnation.org/NNN-Black-on-White.html

Good ol' Rebel
Good ol' Rebel
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

Till got what he deserved. Attempted rape accompanied by sexual battery was and ought to be a capital crime, especially in those circumstances. We now have 25,000+ BM-WF violent rapes per annum bc we let up on those “unduly harsh” laws and punishments.

Ostei Kozelskii
Member
Reply to  Good ol' Rebel
2 years ago

You get what you tolerate.

Tars Tarkas
Tars Tarkas
Reply to  Mister Excitement
2 years ago

It is always just assumed that an “all white jury” was just out for racial blood and not at all interested in finding the right party.
Of course, the opposite is NEVER considered. When a black jury TODAY exonerates a black from murdering or raping a white, oh that’s never because of racial solidarity or when a black jury convicts a white man.
It’s all sickening.

Wkathman
Wkathman
2 years ago

Zman seems to be hinting at a transhumanist future in his final paragraph. Our Tech Lords very much desire that future and believe that they can bring it about. I would call our current time “the age of universal narcissism.” The widespread narcissism makes people easier to control and, given advancements in technological surveillance and AI, may well lead to the end of our species as we have known it (at least in The West — which has become the focal point of the totalitarian drive toward a mechanistic neo-feudalism).

Not My Usual Pen Name
Not My Usual Pen Name
Reply to  Wkathman
2 years ago

“the age of universal narcissism”

Aided & abetted by the dopamine hits served up by Scr0tial Media to the Histrionically Personality Disordered [which would be all women and yuge numbers of men these days].

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  Wkathman
2 years ago

Imagine a society where the Cloud People have failed to enact their AI narcissistic machine. I really do think they will fail. Also, after who’s left alive in the debris of 2020’s American Globohomo society pick themselves up, imagine the ones who will either go insane or will kill themselves when they find out they never were important at all.

Wkathman
Wkathman
Reply to  Coalclinker
2 years ago

I too believe that the Cloud People will ultimately fail in their technocratic schemes; my fear is that they will destroy potentially billions of lives in the process of bringing disaster upon their own heads. What you’re talking about is a “remnant” — a group that survives the mass carnage. You speculate that some may go crazy and/or off themselves when they find out it was all a stupendously propagandized hoax. You might be right about that. My faith is that there will be other survivors who emerge with a renewed sense of humanity and the necessity of genuine freedom.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Wkathman
2 years ago

billions of lives are going to be lost, one way or the other. the true carrying capacity of Earth is (pulls number out of cat’s ass) maybe one billion people? less would be better.

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

I figure when it blows up in America, the Government Cloud People will kill anywhere from 10 to 30 million before they go down.
Their forlorn shills and toadies will likely face an Afghanistan living hell in the aftermath. Leave America to anywhere as long as you are gone, or you will die. There won’t be any “Reconstruction” where they can be “reintroduced” to The Union.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Coalclinker
2 years ago

Cc-

I tend to agree.

Their current project really has the stench of the Tower of Babel about it.

The supply chains are so effed that the MIC is unable to get critical electronic components.

A bunch of guys with nothing more than dirty rags, rusty AKs, and well-worn prayer rugs just sent the most powerful military on the planet home with its F-15s, nukes, and its tail between its legs.

Spingehra
Spingehra
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
2 years ago

Winning was never part of the plan.
Pakistan = Cambodia
Wazeristan = Laos
Afghanistan = Vietnam
MIC-MIC
same same

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  The Wild Geese Howard
2 years ago

On that tech note, Green Tech isn’t about the environment, it’s a cover for the surveillance grid components.

The Greens are ravagers, environmentally.
We could’ve cleaned up the trash years ago.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

Yup.

The smart grid is about controlling the electrical power to your home.

That will be tied to your jabport and social credit score.

Same goes for electric cars.

They will control where you go, when you go, what route is taken, and the speed you get there.

No travel for those with low social credit scores or expired jabs.

Too much bad think detected?

Maybe you get locked in and driven to the nearest camp. Or maybe off a cliff into a lake.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Wkathman
2 years ago

we can’t cure a virus, but we are going to be able to do trans-humans? hahahahaha

here’s a better plan: play the hand you are dealt, to the best of your ability, and let the chips fall where they may.

Gunner Q
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

The masses see transhumanism as the conquest of death itself. The Elites see transhumanism as the enslavement of a man’s soul in addition to his body.

The engineer sees transhumanism as a bug-infested joke.

Doesn't Matter
Doesn't Matter
2 years ago

Truth be told, isn’t there a bit of Lloyd in each of us?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3xLJVp9XVdk&has_verified=1

ArthurinCali
ArthurinCali
2 years ago

This post is on point and encapsulates the vacuous existence most are living in the modern age.

Where are the challenges and endeavors to conquer today? Traveling the stars has been relegated to a few billionaires. Technology advancements only strive to deliver products and mindless entertainment in a faster manner to the population.

The ruling class is insane with the belief that we are only exist to worship the almighty GDP Excel spreadsheet. In their eyes we are merely atomized economic units to use in a constant game of Global Tetris for control.

Not My Usual Pen Name
Not My Usual Pen Name
Reply to  ArthurinCali
2 years ago

Where are the challenges and endeavors to conquer today… In their eyes we are merely atomized economic units to use in a constant game of Global Tetris for control. You might consider taking the Elites at their word: The Georgia Guidestones prophecy envisions a world of only 500 million humans, so to get there, starting with a world of 8 billion humans, 15 out of every 16 humans must be liquidated. You might consider the possibility that for the Elites – Gates, Buffet, Rothschild-Schwab, Soros, etc – the “challenges and endeavors to conquer today” consist precisely of liquidating 15 out… Read more »

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Not My Usual Pen Name
2 years ago

and those knobs actually think their personal security won’t butcher them like fat hawgs, at the first opportunity.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Good point. These fat cats depend on a basic level of societal function. Once that’s gone, they are just meat.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Compsci
2 years ago

As their apparent hero Mao once said, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun.”

Not My Usual Pen Name
Not My Usual Pen Name
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

McHung, search for the following essay:

Survival of the Richest
The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind
Douglas Rushkoff
Medium Magazine
Jul 5, 2018

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Not My Usual Pen Name
2 years ago

Our true challenge is getting to them first.

Why wait for them?
On that, any word on the truckee strike in Oz?

Severian
Reply to  ArthurinCali
2 years ago

“Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional… Read more »

rashomoan
rashomoan
Reply to  Severian
2 years ago

and then along came 2nd wave feminism.

Carl B.
Carl B.
Reply to  Severian
2 years ago

What “sold” Hitler to the German people were results, i.e., relatively easy and painless victory both militarily and economically in the early years 1936-1940. Hail Caesar!

Once the tide changed the love affair began to crumble. In the meantime, the Volk enjoyed their comfort, their vacations, their prosperity, their parades. Then came the Catastrophe.

The fat, stupid, and lazy so-called “American” people are overdue for their own Catastrophe.

Götterdamn-it-all
Götterdamn-it-all
Reply to  Carl B.
2 years ago

The “catastrophe” occurred many decades ago. Recent events have only brought home that fact.

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Götterdamn-it-all
2 years ago

Similarly, one can argue (and we often do), that the catastrophe has occurred over an equally long period, indeed is still ongoing. To take but one issue, in a very real sense, our nation (and many other once-proudly White nations) have been invaded. Not by bayonet-tipped riflemen, nor by tanks escorted by bomber planes, but rather by lesser breeds, the majority of whom were INVITED by the host country! How often has that happened in world history? Yet it happened right here.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
2 years ago

Before starting today’s, I must say I missed entirely what was laid out clearly in yesterday’s “Christian Zionism”. Hechler lit the fire under Herzl’s “next year, in Jerusalem!”, hoping to bring the eschaton. Herzl’s rather practical idea to create The Jewish State was “well, why don’t we just buy it?”, and the Pennies for Jerusalem program was born. Jerusalem was a deserted derelict, Palestine a wasteland mismanaged by six Arab families, legates of the Ottomans. Once again, Jacob craftily used guile to take the birthright due his bigger, dumber brother- us, “Esau”, the Aryans he had been marrying into. We… Read more »

Disruptor
Disruptor
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

Christians United for Israel is run by Ehud Barak’s cousin.

One can scroll through time and find the same pattern. Those guys are busy. They start/join any and every type of group to guide and insure the interests of them.

Christian, Wicca, Buddhist, Conservative, Liberal. Don’t matter matter, build it, they will come. And if you don’t build it, they will come up with something.

B125
B125
2 years ago

I remember I was on a work holiday get together zoom meeting last Christmas (wow, it’s been so long) and the Karens were virtue signalling about how much they were inconveniencing their families and changing their plans to “fight” COVID. “Well *I’m* not going on a trip this year” “We’re not visiting my grandparents this year, too risky” They kept saying how bad COVID is, but it was clear that they actually quite enjoyed putting themselves under lockdowns, and “sacrificing” themselves for a bigger cause. Looking for meaning. Fwiw these chicks are also hysterical, insane, and likely haven’t gotten an… Read more »

3 Pipe Problem
3 Pipe Problem
2 years ago

It’s been used before, but The Age of Anxiety” perfectly suits our times. The American adventure crested when reaching the Pacific, though for a time the further expansion of empire, be it global, or in the realm of space, allayed the inevitable rolling back of that tsunami. Bereft of meaning and purpose, we see this anxiety reflected everywhere as people, searching for meaning, find none in this postmodern world. The elevation of everyday events into near mythic proportions enables even the trash collector to imagine himself as a “hero.” Modern Heroes Bereft of lyric Homer Voice Folly to Rime heroic… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
2 years ago

Two congressmen flew over there against the wishes of the government in order to play hero.

Reminds me of the scene in Charlie Wilson’s War (excellent movie, by the way) where some evangelical Congresscritter is visiting an Afghan refugee camp. He holds a rousing speech, and every time he says “God”, the towelheads all cheer, so he imagine they’re just like him.

Speaking of, here’s a topical key scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cjVhUrmII

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

reminds me of when a congressman went down to guyana to check on jim jones. didn’t make it back alive.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Except that story had a happy ending.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

oh my!

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

Heh. Charlie Wilson: “All we had to do, was shoot down the helicopters” becomes “we give the mujahideen RPGs, to shoot down our fleeing airplanes”.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

Yes. Hence the linked scene with the story about the Zen master.

Who knows what comes next? This might turn out to be the best thing to happen to America since Yorktown.

Severian
2 years ago

Orange Man really missed a trick there with his half-hearted Reagan nostalgia. The worst lunatics are always the people who were fully aware of, but unable to participate in, some great social upheaval. All the damage we associate with “The Sixties” (or “the Boomers,” if you prefer) was actually done by people just a hair too old or young to be hippies. The original stuff — Civil Rights, the Port Huron Statement, all that — came from guys born in the late 1930s. They had vivid memories of WW2, and even more vivid memories of the angry young strangers they… Read more »

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Severian
2 years ago

ironically, if the dems hadn’t gone scorched earth on trump, there would have been another fun period like the 80’s (or 60’s).

Götterdamn-it-all
Götterdamn-it-all
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Sure, except it would be followed by something similar to what we’re experiencing now. But the Ruling/Managerial Class simply did not have patience. They boldly stole a presidential election, and did it on an industrial scale that cannot be hidden. The results are going to be catastrophic for everyone. I often hear people on the right referring to themselves as “accelerationists.” No, you’re not. The Ruling/Managerial Class hold that honor.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
2 years ago

you know who was good at giving people meaning in their lives? that’s right. watch “Triumph of The Will” and pay attention. the first couple of times i watched it, i thought all the shots of uniformed people were of military members. they are not. they are all party members. the guys who are literally ditch diggers are carrying their shovels like rifles (as well as wearing uniforms). tens of thousands of people in a huge week long jamboree, culminating in the big rally. the problem with virtual quests is they lack a physical component – as well as lacking… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

watch “Triumph of The Will” and pay attention. Not a bad idea, it’s on YT. You get to see what Nürnberg looked like before it got razed. It’s cheering Aryans all around, horseplaying Hitlerjugend, blond peasant girls in traditional garb, cute white children. No f*gs, no hippies and no joggers. Terrible quality, alas, somehow nobody ever restored it. The sound bites are rather trite, although Goebbles and Uncle Adolf gives a good show. The massed martial pageantry and the marching doesn’t really do it for me, it’s terribly un-Danish, but it’s no wonder that the Nazis scared people. start organizing… Read more »

Not My Usual Pen Name
Not My Usual Pen Name
Reply to  Felix Krull
2 years ago

No f*gs, no hippies and no joggers.

There’s a story this morning, by Joe McDonald, writing for the AP, which is titled “China bans ‘sissy men’ from TV in new crackdown”.

Lately I don’t seem to have any luck poasting URLs chez Z, but it’s a story worth searching for.

[And if Ang1in hasn’t written an essay about it yet, then I’m sure an essay about it will be soon forthcoming].

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
2 years ago

> When it started, ever nurse and doctor went on-line every day to tell us how exhausted they were, as if they were rescuers working day and night to save people from a collapsed building. Look at the rhetoric now, and it’s clear the meaning of many health care people is not to care for the sick, but punish the heretics. While a lot of it is LARPing, reddit and twitter are full of doctors and nurses practically giggling with glee at refusing Ivermectin and putting the unvaxxed on ventilators. Deep inside everyone knew the medical community was full of… Read more »

Not My Usual Pen Name
Not My Usual Pen Name
Reply to  Chet Rollins
2 years ago

Deep inside everyone knew the medical community was full of low-key psychopaths, but now it’s socially acceptable for them to show their hate and contempt. I suspect that you’re projecting your powers of extrospection onto the clueless, particularly when you use the past tense [“knew”]. You knew it, because you have powerful gifts for extrospection, but I don’t think the clueless knew it. And while it’s taken some time, I do agree that even moast of the clueless are maybe kinda/sorta finally starting to wake up to the possibility of psychopathy – although psychopathy has four syllables, which is a… Read more »

Drew
Drew
Reply to  Chet Rollins
2 years ago

In fairness to health practitioners, the nature of medical care pretty much precludes any sort of healthy, sympathetic relationship between practitioners and patients. Patients have a general tendency to wait until problems get out of hand before addressing them, distrust medical advice, and seek alleviation for symptoms instead of an underlying cure. This is particularly true of stupid people. Thus, you have lots of instances where overweight sedentary, average-IQ patients come in with a problem, demanding pills or special treatments/therapies they’ve read about online, with no understanding of their actual health problem, or it’s best solution. Thus, it’s not hard… Read more »

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
Reply to  Drew
2 years ago

Pretty much a universal theme among doctors I know and I can sympathize. However, with many of the current generation the boundary seems to have been crossed where instead of just being pissed at not taking their advice, they consider them unworthy of any care at all, and maybe even worthy of active harm.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Chet Rollins
2 years ago

Chet: It’s not the stupidity that bothers the doctors; it’s the implied lack of respect for their ‘status.’ I’ve challenged doctors (all authorities, in any field really) for all my life. And not from stupidity or cupidity, but trying to find out the truth. Hard to say who takes it worse, the clerk at the DMV or the vaunted herr doktor. Prove them wrong (not all that difficult to do) and they hate you with the heat of a thousand suns. And today it’s not lack of respect for their implied knowledge and authority, it’s having the temerity to have… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

3g4me—bingo! Agree 100%. My impression is that doctors are most aggrieved at being questioned and most adept at simply following “authoritative” treatment guidelines once they’ve pigeonholed you into a diagnostic category.

The current COVID-19 bs has firmly convinced me of this—and further, that most doctors are not that smart. High IQ and a smiling persona not withstanding.

Good ol' Rebel
Good ol' Rebel
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

We have decided to drop the “tough” part of “tough love.” Instead of hearing the truth from her “care providers” that she’ll be dead inside of 10 years if she doesn’t stop gorging herself, she gets the “healthy at any size” support.

Pozymandias
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

Adding to what Compsci said, most of the medical profession is composed of midwit “box-checker” strivers. They tend be very good at memorizing facts and taking tests. The sign of real intelligence though, is being able to integrate facts from a given field (like medicine) into a whole picture of what is going on, incorporating even one’s prior knowledge of things in quite different fields in the process. The box-checker struggles to do this though and also looks to authority figures *first* instead of analyzing the problem first and then checking to see if the “higher ups” reached the same… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Drew
2 years ago

Nor does it inspire confidence in the medical profession when they prescribe me something that my pharmacy would charge me $169.58 for, when a nearly identical (?) product is over-the-counter for about $10. Is it any wonder that my insurance won’t cover this Rx?

In this case, I’ve asked the MD to clarify and perhaps, offer a generic. And I’m sad to say, similar has happened at least once in the past, with other MDs.

Anonymous White Male
Anonymous White Male
Reply to  Chet Rollins
2 years ago

When you realize that hospitals get $10,000 more per “Covid” Medicare patients, you realize why they are filled with “Covid” patients. Medicine today has become a racket. Maybe it always was, but there was a time when physicians actually believed the Hippocratic Oath. Now, they believe in getting a Mercedes for their 3rd wife. It also annoys me that there is so much media attention to how hospitals are at the “breaking point” because of Covid. But, I don’t see any evidence of this, although you’ll know someone, who knows someone, that says that the local hospital is at capacity.… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Anonymous White Male
2 years ago

The “understaffing” is because the bean-counters, watching houly, declared there are too many staff on the floor today, because according to corporate efficiency guidelines, each patient interaction should only take 5 minutes or less– so everybody gets their hours cut to one day a week. Grampa didn’t listen, and has spilled his tray, barfed on the floor, got out of bed and fell, pooped his depends, and is demanding something for the 3rd time this hour. That counts as 5 minutes. The facilities are “crowded” because the patient beds are socially distanced and a wing or two has been closed… Read more »

RoBG
RoBG
Reply to  Anonymous White Male
2 years ago

I believe it’s considerably more if the patient is put on a ventilator. Talk about perverse incentives. Last week some guy was tweeting his ER visit (he blew out his knee). His paperwork described his symptoms as pain, swelling, and the inability to put weight on it. They coded his injury as “Covid related.”

David Wright
Member
2 years ago

People of the future looking back on our age and trying to describe it? We don’t do that now, we used to make an honest effort. They will do what present historians and the like do now, manufacture a narrative that fits their agenda. You know, negroes hanging from poles and trees everywhere. It was bad back then.

Kind of like he that controls the past controls the present. We live in the age of lies. Hopefully your future robot historians will craft an honest research. I suspect we may not get them but will get your future ape historians.

Reynard
Reynard
Member
Reply to  David Wright
2 years ago

That’s why I don’t think I can stomach sending kids to public schools. I think about their history and “social studies” textbooks. How will these depict the last decade? George Floyd will be sanctified, BLM will be a just crusade, and so on.

Science is no better. We just apply a fresh coat of brown paint uon Cheddar man and voila! “Britain was always black, now make way for a mass migration of brown people to settle back in their homeland!”

Hemid
Hemid
Reply to  David Wright
2 years ago

The official history of times I clearly remember is already wrong, and I’ve only gone 50% gray. Almost everything has been forgotten before we’re even old, and what remains that isn’t material artifact is all lies. In my field of expertise, those lies are told by people I know, who were “there” with me, not experiencing what they now say they did. It’s disturbing, even at its smallest, e.g.: The true trajectory of the Beastie Boys’ career was obliterated while every fan they ever had is still (statistically) alive. They replaced it with a current_year morality tale, a metonymic précis… Read more »

David Wright
Member
Reply to  Hemid
2 years ago

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  David Wright
2 years ago

America could use a man like Roy Batty.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  David Wright
2 years ago

Those poor ape historians.
They’re going to get *everything* wrong.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Alzaebo
2 years ago

just this morning, i was thinking that maybe Planet Of The Apes was really an allegory about nigs not exactly taking over, as being the last primate standing after Gaia throws a giant hissy fit. Cause the apes in the movie have human anatomy…

My Comment
Member
2 years ago

This age strikes me as being the age of Globohomo: Weimar part 2 (pretty much a repeat but gone global). Most of the planet now had a culture created by the tribe for hysterical females. All of the preposterous narratives are lies that appeal to emotions, the more hysterical the better. The lone major patriarchal holdout with a chance of not succumbing is China. Most of the white pills these days seem to come from them. Billionaires humbled. Entertainment stars ripped of their pedestal. Boys urged to be more masculine with camps to help them become more manly. Many (but… Read more »

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  My Comment
2 years ago

move there then. yeah, i thought so.

Astralturf
Astralturf
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

I suspect a large portion of this crowd would move to China, given the opportunity for asylum. We’re all pretty much waiting for the camps and famine at this point. Although I would prefer Russia.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  Astralturf
2 years ago

you how the chins would treat you guys, should you ever make the mistake of moving there? as organ donors. i guran-damn-ty you, none of these dummies has any knowledge of what happened to an earlier group of dummies, who went over to the cccp in the 30’s. this kind of cognitive dissonance really agitates me. on the one hand you acknowledge Han solidarity, and at the same time think they would let you come over and mooch off them. know mandarin? fuck no, you don’t even know how to spell it. you are pathetic in the extreme, in your… Read more »

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

Yup.

When it comes to ethnic superiority complexes the Han make the Aryans look like pikers.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

karl – I agree with you that China is no panacea, nor is it an appropriate homeland for White Europeans, but tone down the vituperation just a bit, eh? I know, I know, pot calling kettle, but it doesn’t come off the way you necessarily intend it.

karl mchungus
karl mchungus
Reply to  karl mchungus
2 years ago

34gme: ok, will do 🙂

filler for comment checker

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  Astralturf
2 years ago

Throw in a blonde, blue eyed wife, let me keep most of my funds in the locale of my choice, and you’ve got a deal! 🙂

My Comment
Member
Reply to  Astralturf
2 years ago

I have lived in China. Would do so again if need be and could get the visa. Unlike the US they don’t take in everyone who shows up. Very picky and don’t prefer old farts like me. I think everyone who can should try living there. One of the most fascinating experiences that I have ever had

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
2 years ago

The rural and small town life before agricultural technology, Wal Marts, and highway improvements got out of hand is probably the closest I personally got to happiness on earth. We still had the old timers around who remembered the very early 20th century, a time before rural electrification. There was strong community and churches then. The same thing was present in cities within the ethnic neighborhoods where until the freeways and the suburbs and the shopping malls destroyed those connections communities flourished. Man needs more than technology to thrive. But what we will probably get is VR devices strapped to… Read more »

Chet Rollins
Chet Rollins
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
2 years ago

> The same thing was present in cities within the ethnic neighborhoods where until the freeways and the suburbs and the shopping malls destroyed those connections communities flourished.

Let’s not forget how they were enriched by diversity.

G Lordon Giddy
G Lordon Giddy
Reply to  Chet Rollins
2 years ago

True, that was a part of it all too.
Diversity meant moving out to get away from the disfunction blacks brought to previous mostly stable ethnic neighborhoods

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
2 years ago

Isn’t it amazing at how people shriek and howl when their electricity goes out? They won’t even keep a good kerosene lamp in the house, ready to go, at all times, to light their way when a bad storm blows in. All they know how to do is literally sit in the dark, and bitterly complain about why someone isn’t doing something for them, right now.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
2 years ago

G Lordon Giddy: I doubt the powers that be want White people to be allowed to visit their past happiness even via VR – could encourage bad thoughts, you know. It’s blatantly clear to anyone who’s trying to buy land or a house or merely move from an overpriced apartment these days that there is a deliberate national and global effort to prevent Whites from forming communities just about anywhere. Probably 75% of suburban home sales are now to corporations, who massively jack up the selling or rental price. The goal is not to actually raise capital from it, but… Read more »

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  3g4me
2 years ago

The DC regime is going to seed YT communities with Afghan terror cells as soon as possible. I can’t feel too sorry for realtors right now. Plenty of them are absolutely cleaning up. A friend back in the whiteopia where I grew up mentioned one recently cleared $160k on a single deal. Nice work if you can get it. I am also boycott jab Nazi businesses and events. In my metro area we’re up to about a a half-dozen bars asking for papers. In the wider region, we’re starting to see outdoor events limit capacity and ask for jab status… Read more »

Ben the Layabout
Ben the Layabout
Reply to  G Lordon Giddy
2 years ago

Interesting. As someone who turns 60 this year, my fond memories are of what replaced the bygone era you describe. I miss clean, orderly, dare I say, 100% White, suburbia, visits into the big city (the parts that hadn’t deteriorated yet; it was only a decade or two into Civil Rights), the convenience of rapid travel on the still-new super highways. Perhaps that’s partly normal nostalgia for what’s past. But it’s no exaggeration to say that most of that is gone, at least in the places where I experienced it. The upscale shopping mall that replaced fields of rolling hills… Read more »

Marko
Marko
2 years ago

Perhaps normal people are starved for choice in the spiritual realm, but our progressive enemies are quite fulfilled in their version of the great awakening. We see it as madness, but they see it as a jihad. The danger is their religion sweeps across the land like Muslims in the 7th century, and we’re in for a thousand years of a Clownworld Sultanate.

Coalclinker
Coalclinker
Reply to  Marko
2 years ago

Oh, there’s lot’s of people creating their own little religion out of thin air and Facebook, but imagine what their lives will be like when the Dollar turns into a rough but cheaper alternative to Charmin. That’s when they’ll start the car in the garage, sit in it, and not open the garage door.

3g4me
3g4me
Reply to  Coalclinker
2 years ago

Coalclinker: One can only hope.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Coalclinker
2 years ago

And those days will be known as the great “culling”.

The Wild Geese Howard
The Wild Geese Howard
Reply to  Coalclinker
2 years ago

I was hoping they’d get some plastic bags and duct tape to mask up one last time.

For the greater good!

Captain Willard
Captain Willard
2 years ago

Great stuff from Zman. May I suggest our host write part 2 of this essay on the Age of Recognition?

As Reynard implied, the quest for meaning and the quest for recognition seem to have merged these days. It’s not enough to search for meaning, because in this age of narcissism and exhibitionism, meaning has no meaning unless society recognizes the individual seeker.

Reynard
Reynard
Member
Reply to  Captain Willard
2 years ago

“Quest for recognition” “age of exhibitionism”
*chef’s kiss*
That’s perfect. You said it much better than I could. I hope you don’t mind if I steal those phrases.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Reynard
2 years ago

That *is* perfect.

Related: “…theater production in which the terrorized performers are also the audience.”

“They did this mostly with visual propaganda, images and observed behavior.

(The nonsense the New Normals robotically recite at us isn’t meant to believed; it is meant to be memorized and repeated verbatim, like religious dogma, or a customer-service-representative’s script.)”

Quite short, please see https://consentfactory.org/2021/08/13/the-propaganda-war-part-ii/
at WRSA.

Reynard
Reynard
Member
Reply to  Captain Willard
2 years ago

That’s very interesting point though about the need for recognition. In the past we had a homogeneous and monolithic society. We belonged to true communities. “Recognition” from the community was granted by age old traditions, and was on a much smaller scale– it was entirely parochial. We had traditions, rituals, rites of passage for such a thing. I grew up in a Catholic family. The individual goes through several rituals and rites of passage throughout their life: baptism, confirmation, marriage, milestone anniversary, funeral. These are all societal moments of recognition. I have an unread copy of Bowling for Soup sitting… Read more »

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  Reynard
2 years ago

Excellent. Dovetails with the other day, re: hierarchy. Absent the infrastructure of a culture that provides incentives that conform to shared values and accrue status upon those who fulfil those rites – while folding individuals back into the service of their people, the result is those rites of passage – or said differently, the channeling of biology’s wont to break from pro-civil behaviors, will still happen, but instead they are directed by one’s base motives animated by a culture of freelance opportunism and self-indulgence. Cue the dark triad men and feral, narcissistic women. There is a reason that rites and… Read more »

Reynard
Reynard
Member
Reply to  Screwtape
2 years ago

“That sense of purpose – I argue its really a sense of duty or “service”, is left to the idle whimsy of feeding those base impulses.”
“Duty is now dopamine mining.”

I agree 100% This comment section is the best out there.

Our men today are being denied “duty and service” even within the military. I think we need to meme something along the lines of “Hierarchy is Harmony.”
“Duty, Service, Honor: Its the only way.”

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Reynard
2 years ago

“There is no community, there are no traditions, and consequently there is no recognition besides what we can scrap together from total strangers in a virtual setting.”

That, too, is also perfect.
What a strange, strange age.

Mr. Generic
Mr. Generic
Reply to  Captain Willard
2 years ago

I’d abbreviate and describe Global Clown World as “the Age of Narcissism and Histrionics”. The madness is being driven by an excess of mental illness, not an excess of middle class searching for a higher purpose.

Reynard
Reynard
Member
2 years ago

It reminds me of the G.K. Chesterton quote: ““When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t believe in nothing, he believes in anything.” In a similar sense, when you take away a unified purpose in society, the individual doesn’t merely lack meaning, he projects meaning onto everything and hunts for it any way he can. Today we have narcissists who crave attention by any means (mainly via social media). This is the only meaning they can find in their life. “These pointless and foolish acts are driven by a need to be seen as men with a purpose beyond… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Reynard
2 years ago

Manifestation of rebellion against one’s own mediocrity? And yes, I can include myself here.