Note: Behind the green door is a post about Ukraine, a post about Biden and the Sunday podcast. Since there is interest in it, I will be doing a weekly post on the happenings in Ukraine. You can sign up at SubscribeStar or Substack.
Way back in the heyday of conservatism, a common charge leveled at them from the Left was that they were anti-intellectual. Generally, this meant that conservatives did not appreciate free verse or post-modern art. You see, the Left read books and appreciated the arts while the Right read the Bible and fired off their boom-sticks. It was not so much an argument against the intelligence of the Right, but rather a class argument against the uncouth people entering politics.
After the Cold War, it was no longer possible for the Left to use a class argument against the Right, when their champion was the Snopes clan. There was simply no way to present the Clintons as sophisticated and erudite. Compounding it was the obvious fact that their politics looked like daytime television. These were crude, uncouth people who brought with them a collection of vulgar carny freaks. By comparison, the talk radio guys looked sophisticated and measured.
That was not the end of the anti-intellectual claim. It transformed into a claim that the Right was full of anti-science believers. You see, the Left was now armed with the latest ideas from the social sciences, while the Right was armed with superstitious nonsense from their sky god. Never mind that the social sciences are closer to astrology than actual science. They had studies and the word of men with impressive sounding titles to show how much they bleeping loved science.
Since the end of the Cold War, this has been incredibly effective magic. Just look at how the conservatives curled up in a ball when the Left started waving around their studies about the Covid pandemic. Most of them did not hold up to scrutiny, but the conservatives were unwilling to scrutinize them. Instead, they were happy to embrace policies that they allegedly opposed as a matter of principle. They accepted the grotesque violations of civil liberties because science!
Science, of course, is about debate, when you stop and think about it. Theories are proposed to explain some observed phenomenon. Those theories are tested and challenged in a formalized process. Simply put, science is about broadening the debate about the natural world within an agreed upon process. The exact opposite of science is telling people to shut up because science. This is exactly what happened with Covid and the conservatives were happy to agree.
What appears to be happening is that the Left’s claims against what they call their opposition are being embraced by their opposition. Just as many conservatives in the 1980’s relished their populist, working clash aesthetic, the new conservatives forming up seem to be embracing a rejection of science. They are going to stand on antiquarian ideas from the long lost past and reject the human sciences. This is what you see in this book review by Sohrab Ahmari.
The book and the review are a long form version of the old internet meme about Democrats being the real racists. You see, race never existed until it was invented by bad people to do bad things. Before those bad people, no one had ever noticed the vast differences in people. Then those bad people came along and coined the word “race” and then created “race science” to divide people along entirely arbitrary lines, that while easily measurable, are a figment of our imagination.
Now, Sohrab Ahmari is not working math puzzles in his free time. He is a discount Dinesh D’Souza. An exotic guy who orbits around conservative politics, looking for a place to land. D’Souza got his big break when he stabbed the great Sam Francis in the back on behalf of the Washington Post. Ahmari got his break when he noticed people making fun of David French on Twitter then penned a column based on what he read called Against David French-ism.
Sohrab Ahmari is at the center of the new Right so even though he is no one’s idea of a deep thinker, he represents the new opposition being created within the managerial elite to be the Left’s new foil. He is not an exception. Look at the Yoram Hazony project and you see an even stronger opposition to science. In the tenth item, he writes, “No person’s worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test.”
The fact that no one says such a thing makes his opposition to it rather weird, but that is not the point. Anyone who has taken in Hazony’s live shows will have seen how he acts when the human sciences are mentioned. In his first show he said something along the lines that the “race scientists” are incredibly good at marshalling the facts to support their arguments, so it is best to avoid debating them. In other words, this is not a pose for him, but a cornerstone of his worldview.
In fairness, some of this hostility to the human sciences is due to fear of mean words from the Left. If you are going to be the useful idiot to the people atop the prevailing orthodoxy, you have to make clear you are no threat to their worldview. Controlling the morality of race has been a highly effective weapon for the ruling class and they are not going to let that weapon drop, even in the face of reality. They are certainly not going to trade it away just to create a new useful idiot.
That said, there is a genuine contempt for the human science on the Right, both the new Right and the old Right. Part of it is due to the fact that once you accept biological reality, whole areas of debate are closed down. Worse yet, important areas of social life are reduced to the tough choices. A big part of democratic politics is reality avoidance, so reducing policy options to coldblooded trade-offs is no fun. Universal human equality is much more fun than biological reality.
A bigger issue here may simply be intelligence. For a long time, the smart fraction was selected into areas like philosophy and theology. Once theology was dropped from ruling class interest, the smart fraction was recruited into things like the amusingly named political science and then political economy. The rise of actual science began to change the selection pressure. For a few generations now, the smart fraction has been selected into STEM and even finance.
The result has been a dumbing down of political philosophy. A dunce like David French can pass himself off as a deep thinker, as long as he keeps up with the latest fads and picks the right enemies. No one else around him is going to notice that he moves his lips when he reads. In such a world, the increasingly complex world of the human science can easily look like black magic. Declaiming against “race science” is not just an in-group signal but a defense mechanism.
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The issue isn’t so much Science, as it is Authority. Science is revered by Lefty to the extent that it serves their interests and supports their power. The marxist idea of scientific socialism or the Wilson progressive dream of government by expert – both are a means to an end, specifically political power, power burnished by the Authority of expertise. The Covid panic was simply the latest manifestation of Rule by Experts, defined less by their actual expertise than their membership within the right social class.
this is off topic and part of me being an autiste – but does anyone find kitchen architecture to be worse than it used to be. I don’t think Z has ever mentioned this topic – but I feel kitchens used to have a more drab but “livable” feel to it. I also feel that there is a sort of market totalitarianism. What if you want to convert a more modern kitchen into more of a 70s/80s kitchen – is it even possible?
https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/before-and-after-remodeling-a-dated-80s-kitchen-to-sell-248953?utm_source=tk&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=xpost
=============== SCIENCE Middle English, knowledge, learning, from Old French, from Latin scientia, from sciēns, scient-, present participle of scīre, to know; see skei- in Indo-European roots. ***** SCIENTIA sci.entia VPAR 3 4 NOM P N PRES ACTIVE PPL sci.entia VPAR 3 4 VOC P N PRES ACTIVE PPL sci.entia VPAR 3 4 ACC P N PRES ACTIVE PPL scio, scire, scivi, scitus V (4th) TRANS [XXXAX] know, understand; scient.ia ADJ 3 1 NOM P N POS scient.ia ADJ 3 1 VOC P N POS scient.ia ADJ 3 1 ACC P N POS sciens, scientis (gen.), scientior -or -us, scientissimus -a… Read more »
tl;dr == “Science” worked when “Science” was being conducted by Christian men who had a spiritual devotion to an abstract ideal of Truth. But when the men of Inner Hajnalia became weak, and indulged in fancy and delight and naughty, and began to lose their devotion to Truth, and as Hajnalia became overrun with the other – the j00 & the street-sh!tter & the g00k & the gr0id – the knowledge, the Science, was sullied with untruth, and the knowledge became corrupt, and the Hajnalians turned to different spirits, spirits which had been cast into the void. Spirits such as… Read more »
Welcome 🤗 to women and their “will o’ the wisp” view of style and fashion. EVERY damned woman wants a Great Big Ol’ “Modern” kitchen that could be used to cook for a family of ten to twelve, or supply a small restaurant. Even if she’s only cooking for one, or two. 😏 So while your kitchen may be functional, expect that your gal is going to get the “wild hair” to tear up and rebuild the kitchen and put you $10, 25, 50K in the hole. I speak from experience. Also expect your gal to have no conception of… Read more »
Just repainting the cabinets a light color would have fixed most of it. The new resin material countertops are great and durable, some cheaper than granite. To avoid the hard water stains, suggest a lighter color with veining (it won’t avoid the stains, but they will not be as noticeable).
Perhaps a bit off-topic, but worth a laugh. Z has fingered Salon as an uber-Progressive rag. But he hasn’t seemed to toss us any tidbits lately. Allow me to step in and attempt to fill the void.
Biden 2024: Now an even worse idea
Norman Solomon
Of course Trump’s scandals are worse. But this debacle should make clear that Democrats can’t afford Joe Biden
I didn’t read the article (why bother?) Is this part of the ongoing narrative change by Deep State that it’s time to curtail former Vice President Biden?
Throwing rocks at the baffoons of ConInc is easy pickings, but ultimately accomplishes nothing. No minds are changed, no converts are acquired, and no movement is started. It’s like giving wedgies to inmates at an insane asylum; good for a cheap laugh but otherwise a waste of time. And if you really want to hurt their feelings, just ignore them. As to the perverse use of “science” as a propaganda tool of the Left, this gambit only works because of the dumbing down of the American population. Our public schools now actively teach stupidity to their students and they are… Read more »
Indeed, Richard Feynman, one of America’s greats, said that the real business of science is proving the establishment wisdom wrong…
But now it seems to me that “the science” is on the take.
Probably slways was, everybody has bills to pay. “The science” now has no meaning, a weaponized buzz term used by scammers to hoodwink the ignorant. With temporary morgues being set up to deal with excess deaths will “the science” be able to cover for those who have made billions ?
The science admen are pulling all nighters right now.
Working on the next big set of lies to force feed the NPCs
“Science, of course, is about debate, when you stop and think about it. Theories are proposed to explain some observed phenomenon. Those theories are tested and challenged in a formalized process. Simply put, science is about broadening the debate about the natural world within an agreed upon process.” May I respectfully disagree? If that comment about science was ever true, it certainly isn’t now. And I argue that it was never true, at least not generally. Look how they treated–and still treat–Antoine Béchamp. WIRED mag did a hit piece on this unheard of man in 2018, wasting space that they… Read more »
I wonder if anyone else here is as unsurprised as I am by this revelation?
“May I respectfully disagree?”
You are right. You are confining yourself to CDC and public health but something holds in the fields I’m familiar with. Generally a handful of bigwigs control what is accepted and what is not, and what the terms of “debate” are. It’s all very subjective and has to do with the power and reach of these bigwigs, who control the journals and who have a big say in academic appointments.
So high school eh? 😉
Once people perceived that scientists and the findings of science were respected, the politicization of science was assured. It’s a level of humbug that reminds me of characterization of Merlin in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. ‘Shamanism’ is exactly right and the political goal of all such research is often explicitly acknowledged, without a hint of shame. An easy means of fooling a public that relies on experts being both honest and well-meaning.
Thanks for an insider’s view. I claim no working familiarity with the research or medical profession. I’m a long-retired IT geek. Since 2022 I have developed the odd pastime of dissecting the occasional drug study, usually for a drug I take or took. I’ve been educating myself on the “alternative” views of circulatory health from authors such as Bowden & Garcia “The Great Cholesterol Myth” and my favorites, books by Malcolm Kendrick on similar topics, especially his “Doctoring Data.” Especially in Kendrick’s books, it is by turns diverting and appalling what goes on in pharma/medical research and practice.Phenomenon, I don’t… Read more »
Medicine has and still does accomplish many wondrous feats of curing and managing illness. IMO Western medicine does a great job of treating acute injuries and an ok job of treating acute illnesses. It can patch you up from a car accident or fall – you should definitely use it for that. It can also help with infections. It generally sucks at dealing with any chronic illness or disease. Other than type 1 diabetes, and a few other rare genetic disorders, lifestyle is much more important to health than medical care. Between low success rates and iatrogenic complications, On net,… Read more »
TIP-
Amen.
All that, “military standard testing,” the MIC brags about?
Let’s just say there’s a lot of room for, “massaging,” how those tests are designed, conducted, analyzed, and reported.
DoD stakeholders might adjust the material requirements on their pet projects to support the TEMP? Say it ain’t so!
The 85% non-replication rate was reported about 1 years ago…and no one seemed disturbed or even interested in that fact….
Not disagreeing with your overall point at all but …
Headlines are written to get attention. Not accurately reflect anything. It’s not uncommon to see a headline that is completely contrary to the article that it references.
That’s before even getting to the reality that “journalists” and other news writers are idiots. Their product is called “stories” … which should tell everyone that they are about a compelling narrative, not disseminating accurate information.
In an consistently excellent comment section, this post stands out as one the best I’ve read here. Quite illuminating. Well done, sir.
The oft-touted “finding” that always puzzled me was that taking the jab reduced severity of the illness. How the heck would you know that if you don’t even know how many are infected and have no symptoms?
I’m of several minds about this. Z’s basic point is valid and “professional conservatives” (the kind that hope to make money off the deal) desperately need a new con. Dragging the already poorly educated Grillers down a new blind alley of some kind of neo-Gnostic mystical rejection of science is, I’m sure, loads of fun. It certainly adds products to the “Conservative Case for…” shelf. CCf-Flat Earth? CCf-humour-theory-of-disease? I for one, plan to make trillions on the t-shirts alone. One the other tentacle: anything that has value, whether an old masters painting, cryptocoins, or paper dollars will be counterfeited. Science,… Read more »
Beautiful!
I wanted that to be my entire comment, but … yeah. You already know.
Orchids to you, Pozymandias.
Virtual flora appreciated IP. As I promised I added a postscript at my blog on scientific interpretations for those who might want to go over there. It ended up being longer than the original post! The essay is called “¡The Science!”. Just click my handle.
I guess the question is how long can “science” retain the reputation it gained when it was performed by white anglo saxon christian males with rigorous stem educations, once it is no longer performed by such a group with such an education. In an abundant resource, abundant goods and services, free money society, I suppose it really doesn’t matter. Science can be whatever “they” say it is and merrily we roll along. It only matters once the power and water aren’t on, once the currency is worthless etc. Everybody having electrical power and all the cheap goods they could ever… Read more »
There were also a few pretty good White Slavic, Gallic, and Roman Christian males involved as well.
“The result has been a dumbing down of political philosophy”
I believe this correlates to how much money has been thrown into that “industry” in recent years. It has thus attracted a lot of mediocrity that nobody would really care to read, and certainly couldn’t sell on its merits, or pay its own rent, without some kind of subsidization. How else would we know the names of people like French and Ahmari? Or D’Souza. Or Owens. This could turn into a long list if I kept going. Because the empire of free money can buy all the astroturf it desires.
This correlates directly to what I said to Glenfilthie (and I hope I didn’t offend).
A secular reading of the Book illustrates the reason it was written as it was: they were dealing with the stresses of a racially diverse society, as nonwhites sought first acceptance, then dominance.
We take our values from that source.
The Enlightenment was another attempt to bridge those stresses.
Good fences are really in order here, but I don’t know how in blazes we’ll ever untangle that mess now. Those stresses are going to shape whatever strange future lays ahead.
This guy Sohbrab Basmati or whatever his name is, will be hitting up to the consequence of black ambition and Gavin Newsom wanting to be President: black reparations or pay Whitey pay! In California, the statewide panel on reparations has come up with the figure of $1 million each per black person, along with tax free status on the payments and wiping out all debt. This is Newsom’s statewide panel, recall California was not a slave state nor was slavery legal under Mexican rule. What little slavery was practiced under Spanish rule in California was aimed at the Indian population,… Read more »
The rest of Cali are mere pikers.
” In a spectacular display of what happens when woke politics intersects utter financial illiteracy, a San Francisco government advisory committee on reparations has recommended the city pay eligible black residents age 18 years and older $5 million apiece.
That’s just the headline recommendation of the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC), which was created by the city’s board of supervisors amid 2020’s nationwide racial tumult. ”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/san-fran-city-panel-urges-reparations-5-million-black-adult
Sorry, I don’t get the whole thing. Why ridicule Sohrab Ahmari?
It really isn’t about science, though, is it? I realize that none of these conservative “thinkers” are as smart as they think they are, but I suspect that even they are smart enough to know that 98% of what the media/left puts out as “science” is just completely bogus. The left’s “science” on race is just total garbage, transparently nonsense and has been since Boas. Their response to criticism is to just shut off all discourse and ban people who say things they disagree with them. Telling them it isn’t science doesn’t matter, either, because to them science is a… Read more »
It’s not about science. Never was. It’s about power.
It’s bizarre to see the inversion of science and religion on the Left in my lifetime. From the Scopes Monkey trial right up to the 1970s and 1980s, the Left delighted in mocking the Bible-thumping conservative rubes who were skeptical of evolution and believed that God created Man in His own image on the seventh day. Remember the charts they used to publish with a chimp on on the left side, and progressive depictions of homo erectus culminating with man, the Naked Ape, on the right? According to that theory, it’s quite reasonable to believe that the Negro occupies some… Read more »
The problem is that it doesn’t seem possible to acknowledge that some groups are inferior without the leftist-minded people then turning and screaming that the inferior group needs to be sterilized or exterminated for the glorious revolution. In a way, the “we’re all the human race” dogma kept the left under control for the last fifty years (relatively speaking…I’m comparing the boomers to Bolsheviks and Robespierre). Now that the Science! has shifted over to white people being intrinsically evil, the left is most likely going to revert to their old tricks of mass murder and genocide for the utopia. If… Read more »
Well, this is a great point. The Left adheres to a doctrine of radical egalitarianism and tolerance and worship of “victimhood,” while simultaneously wanting to deplatform, censor, fire from employment, confiscate the property of, and even kill right-wing unbelievers. Actually, you don’t even need to be a right wing-unbeliever, they want to euthanize old people, as in Canada.
It’s like the medieval Church claiming that we are all sinners and entitled to forgiveness — while burning people at the stake.
I recently read a modern “apologist” for exactly such a belief. The author wasn’t defending the Inquisition; he was merely attempting to illustrate how group beliefs operate. I believe the explanation is reasonable.
The medieval Church burnt a heretic at the stake, ostensibly because according to the system of belief then in force, it was better to condemn one man albeit to a horrific death, than to stand by and do nothing and allow the heretic’s thought, world or deed to lead to the damnation and eternal hellfire for all the flock he would otherwise have led astray.
Burning a heretic was humane and compassionate under their belief system. If you really believe that the heretic is risking eternal torment and damnation and has resisted attempts to persuade them away from that fate. Then it is justifiable to use pain to change their mind – for their own long term good. Even if the source of the pain kills them, and they accept the error of their ways at the end they will be spared the eternal pain of damnation. That logic is inescapable once you accept the original premise. Not only that, but allowing the heretic to… Read more »
The US didn’t round up all persons of Japanese descent. The ones who were interned were persons holding Japanese citizenship, and persons holding dual citizenship who refused to renounce Japanese citizenship. They were enemy aliens. Enemy aliens are always interned in time of war. German and Italian nationals in the US got the same treatment. Funny how you never hear about them, though. And the only thing they got from the US government was a trip back to Europe on leaky Liberty ships at war’s end.
Ironically, quite a few served in the Army.
Wrong. My ex-wife’s father and family were American citizens, born here. They were put into Heart Mountain Relocation Facility in Wyoming. The family lost all of their very extensive nursery holdings in and about Norwalk, California. Three brothers volunteered for military service — the two who were 17 did so the first day it was authorized; the other one ON his 17th birthday, not even the day after.
time for a poll, if you got vaxxed, upvote this comment, if you did not get vaxxed, downvote it. i’ll start the fun; i am unvaxxed. if you want to register disapproval, just leave a comment (please).
I was wondering what kvh did to warrant the downvotes. Btw, you got it wrong, the unvaxxed should be the smiley face.
“No person’s worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test.”
Ahmari packed so many straw men into that sentence, it’s a fire hazard.
I think Hazony wrote that. But either way, it’s sort of a “conservative” version of those yard signs that say “in this house we believe….”
“Universal human equality is much more fun than biological reality.”
It’s not so much “fun” as necessity for belief. The fun really is in “equity”, not equality. Equality is a necessary precondition to justify equity efforts. That’s where the remake/control of society lies—to produce equity. Race Realism immediately kills equity. It also begins, oddly enough, to open a workable path to harmony among the races—which in its fullness would allow the dirt people insight into who their real enemies are, the elites.
This is exactly right. It is why the left has no issue with removing any standards that could stand in the way of the same outcomes. Want less blacks in prison? Simple, stop enforcing the law on blacks! Want more black HS graduates? Simple, remove grades and due dates! Presto! Equity!
Want more black doctors? End MCAT. Want more black lawyers and judges? End the LSAT.
It will end in total disaster.
Which is why I will never go to a black doctor or lawyer. Sucks for the talented 10%, but they should have spoken up before it was too late.
The question is, will we have enough freedom and money to go to who we want? I do way more due diligence on doctors and doctors offices than I did in the past. For now, we have choices. We are going to have to fight to keep it that way in terms of medicine. For judges, the cards have been dealt, and we know the suite it is selected from.
I don’t think them.speaking up would have dissuaded lefties from doing what they wanted to do anyway.
“ For now, we have choices. ” Not sure that’s correct. You have choices if you are free to contract with whom you wish—that I agree. But what if not so? Even if there are no laws yet against such? I had a few weeks ago the misfortune to need to go to the emergency room of one of our largest hospitals. First time ever. No choice in the matter, really, unless I could consider chancing a drive to another facility and another wait time in the receiving area. Doctor on call nice enough fella—I’m not particular—but he looked like… Read more »
You can’t trust any professional now, since Caucasians and Asians usually have to cheat in some way to be competitive.
Want a pack o’ bling-wearin’ Hutus in the cockpit? Ban trigonometry.
Worse is the weaponization of “science” and making “science” a tool of partisanship. Frankly, I found it very strange that Covid was so partisan. Not so much how we respond, but literally everything about it came down to partisanship. There was a strict partisan divide on Covid from day one. While Tucker was reporting on the strange new disease called the Wuhan flu in China, Nancy Pelosi was giving speeches about why “Wuhan flu” was racist and how you’re a racist if you don’t visit Chinatown. They think they are rubbing themselves with the sweet fragrance of “science” but what… Read more »
“Frankly, I found it very strange that Covid was so partisan”. given that both the dems and gop were joined at the hip re: the coof, where did partisanship come in?
Surely between the covidians and the hetetics?
The partisanship came from the only group that is capable of independent thought, the dissident right (or whatever we are calling ourselves these days).
Partisanship came from opposing the Vax when it was the Donald’s thing, then pushing it when it was Potato Head’s thing.
I’d term it between Deep State/Uniparty and the Common Man/The Proles
It was pretty funny when The Science reversed itself. First it was licking Chinamen, rubbing hand sanitizer all over your body, don’t wear a mask. Then it was wear four masks and Blacks can protect themselves from covid by sucker-punching Chinamen in the street. Furthermore it was always wear four masks, just like we’ve always been at war with Eurasia.
That’s the point. The point is to obey whatever The Party says at any given moment. The content of the obedience was fairly meaningless. Eventually they did settle on certain things (masks) because they were humiliating and impressed on the follower his servile role.
“There was a strict partisan divide on Covid from day one. ”
That’s what got me a bit overexcited about the last couple of columns: there is a mechanism by which human groups split into sides.
The Divide exists in every human culture, but I still cannot discern its workings.
ps- I imagine there may be a math to it, like Mendellian math of heritable dominants and recessives, but that’s my lack of education talking.
It is odd that so many things seem to divide about half and half even when one half is obviously pretty deranged. There may well be some hidden principle at work.
There was no partisan divide on covid “from day one.” I’m defining day one as the day they announced that we had to shut down the world for two weeks. There was no divide at all. There was as close to unanimity as is ever attained. There were some lonely voices in the wilderness, but there always are.
It was months before there was any substantial pushback
Shutdown was in March of 2020. Most people were willing to go along because the media was telling us everyone was going to die. After the 15 days to flatten the curve, some began to venture out and not see dead people. I think as people were beginning to catch on to this and push back, wam bam we get George Floydd. Next thing you know, those who protested government overreach were called killers while those who protested for Saint George were called patriots. Things really were taken to 11 after that.
Makes you wonder, have we seen any organic political movements in this country since the early 1900’s? Or has everything since the 60’s on been various agencies homing their craft?
Funny that back in the day, people would try to assassinate someone like Andrew Carnegie or his underling Frick. Now all they do is shoot up schools and other people who have no bearing on their suffering.
Can’t go to work, don’t have to pay rent or any bills really for that matter. Some strange people offer to pay you and tell you to arrive at a location at a certain time where you find pallots of bricks and other “needed” protest items. Who knows what the truth is these days.
Didn’t the “authorities” also empty out the prisons during covid for some reason right before the rioting? Or am i misremembering that?
The Diamond Princess, and the fact there were no homeless dead being stacked like cordwood, showed what a fraud it all was.
Then came the George Floyd wildings, as if further proof was needed.
I’m talking January and February of 2020. That is when the partisan divide started. Remember hug an Asian bit in Italy or the go shopping in Chinatown or you’re a racist bit? Those were before lockdowns., Aside from that, I disagree the lockdowns weren’t partisan. Tucker was pointing out every night on his show that abortion clinics and state stores and marijuana dispensaries were open while churches were shut down. Remember parishioners and the pastor in the drive-thru mass being arrested? Then, later, when all the anti-lockdown protests started, protests were killing grandma. Then, the LITERAL next day, when Saint… Read more »
I recall that last one. I heard on the radio that some nurses union or something like that had decreed just that. Protests for St. Floyd of Fentanyl were essential because “racism is a worse virus than Covid”. I actually felt a sense of derealization, like I was in a cheesy Soviet propaganda movie or perhaps a parody of one. So for me this kind of stuff makes it easy to answer the question upthread from Mr. House “have we seen any organic political movements in this country since the early 1900’s?” I would say, likely not. Virtually all of… Read more »
“Frankly, I found it very strange that Covid was so partisan.” This stems from the extreme hatred our divided society has for the opposition. Leftists saw that most of the people questioning vax efficacy were the dirt people on the right. In order to profess one’s piety properly toward their religion, they have to take the opposing viewpoint. Facts mean nothing, it is the moral position that matters, and promoting vaccine efficacy, factual evidence be damned, is the morally correct viewpoint. This is why I have reached the point of no return with these types of people. I want them… Read more »
To some extent your wish may already have been granted by the lingering effects of the mRNA sacrament which the True Believers seem to have partaken of the most, per capita. 🙁
Several months ago I saw a poll that showed that the majority of those who refused the vax were in two groups, those who had not attended college, and at the other end, those with a PhD. The middle group, the college-educated, were more enthusiastic about getting the vax. (I love science!) It’s probably similar to race realism. If you’re at the far right on the IQ bell curve, you can understand race, how people have evolved, natural selection, etc. The mid-wit crowd is more likely to swallow the propaganda that race doesn’t exist, and think they’re above the less-educated… Read more »
The hicks have sound instincts and personal experience to guide them while the midwits don’t. The midwits have been indoctrinated (er, “educated”) to the extent that it overrides sound instincts.
At the other end of the spectrum you have people who have actually read up on race differences and don’t give a tinker’s cuss about what public opinion is.
Trotsky long ago noted it was far easier to propagandize the educated classes. All you have to do is attach some authority, however spurious, to nonsense and it generally worked.
“ The midwits have been indoctrinated (er, “educated”) to the extent that it overrides sound instincts.”
If I understand Dutton’s thesis wrt “midwits”, it’s less that they’ve been indoctrinated/educated than that their IQ does not permit such higher understanding (Covid vax pro’s and con’s) hence the term “midwit”. What they do understand is that their behavior, e.g., Covid inoculation, benefits their social status in the group (fellow midwits I assume) so they follow the herd.
People with low intelligence need an excess of healthy instincts to make it in this world, to make up for low intelligence. Charisma, wisdom, willpower, etc, almost like stats in a video game.
The average character, the NPC, no one wants to play as, is the midwit who took the clot shot.
How ironic that the people–Ph.D.s–most wisely sceptical of the so-called “vaccine” are also the people who created the nonsense of race being merely a social construct. On the other hand, I suppose it is possible that the anti-vax doctors are rightwing Ph.D.s who also know that race-denial is unreconstructed bullshit.
“How ironic that the people–Ph.D.s–most wisely sceptical of the so-called “vaccine” are also the people who created the nonsense of race being merely a social construct.”
Two different groups. The first are mostly in real subjects — STEM. The latter gained their doctorates in liberal arts. As C.P. Snow said decades back, “The Two Cultures.”
If you want to feel stupid, read STEM dissertations. If you want to feel homicidal, read liberal arts dissertations.
If you want a chuckle, read Machine Learning generated liberal arts dissertations designed by STEM students.
When I was much younger I worked a job handling microfilmed copies of doctoral dissertations. Frequently I’d be alone for most of my shift. When my supervisors would knock off early, I’d read them. One of the things that stayed with me was that length was inversely proportional to information content. Doctoral dissertations in pure mathematics rarely exceeded twenty pages, and some in computer science were not much longer. I was not qualified to understand everything I was looking at but grasped that there was nothing extraneous present. Doctoral dissertations in art, or sociology, or Poli Sci, or English Lit,… Read more »
When I was a teaching assistant in a large midwestern university about 25 years ago, I posed a question to one of my discussion sections: Which field, history or physics, would you consider to be the more intellectually demanding?
I assumed the responses would break about 95/5 in favor of physics. Instead, it was closer to 60/40. As strange as it may seem, many people have a very difficult time of processing involved verbal arguments and then recapitulating them clearly in written form. For some people, writing and qualification are more difficult than calculation and quantification.
I think this is because history has a cultural thread to it, which means there is a social element to it. math is about the right answer and the right proof. History is a social item, so to get it right means, to some degree, holding the correct opinions about the past.
” And these were published dissertations, which meant that the university panels had approved and signed off on them.”
The scandal of what has been allowed to pass for liberal arts PhDs at universities for years is mind-boggling and largely off the public radar. At some point along the way, people who knew or should have known better decided to play the “no standards” game. Auto-ethnographies are a particularly egregious example.
A friend, who worked was a conservative (actually paleoconservative) thinktanker, told me that there’s a lot of the beltway right who acknowledge race realism in private but being open about it is one of those things that will follow and haunt you forever, so they play dumb.
Tucker goes up to the river, and then stops on the DR3 riverbank. But if you discussed it over drinks, I bet he would be as realistic as any of us. It’s frustrating because he has the only show worth watching, but getting cancelled wouldn’t help anyone either.
Tucker definitely holds right on the line, and he can only dance on that line because he’s too popular and Fox knows they’d have no more audience if they dropped him.
Honestly, I don’t fault people like Tucker. They gain nothing and lose everything from talking about measuring negro skulls with calipers.
You mean they are being niggardly with their honesty? 🙂
I’d offer that what explains middle-class obsequious vax compliance is social anxiety. The people in the middle of that bell curve are the most susceptible to caring about popularity. The extremely smart either don’t have to care or lack the ability to understand social interactions. The left side of that bell curve tends not to be able to think about anything but the present. But the middle is animated by social anxiety and, especially for women, being socially ostracized is a fate worse than death. So vax/mask/hide/virtue signal … whatever it takes to stay part of the popular consensus. Same… Read more »
My own antedotal experience with very smart stem people is that few of them have common sense or political acumen, some of them that I know readily embrace the gay stuff and the blank slate stuff even though their top teams are white guys and Asians.
I am not sure the rich using eugenics to pick the most intelligent offspring is going to work out quite like they plan.
“My own antedotal experience with very smart stem people is that few of them have common sense or political acumen.”
Same here. But remember, “street smarts” is not their forte. They’ve developed in one direction, but not others. Some of the ones I’ve known have Asperger’s Syndrome. The ones I’ve known can literally not get on with ordinary people — no points of correspondence.
1. Speaking for myself, I have zero problems with science, and every problem with Science! Science is a powerful but limited tool. It’s perpetually skeptical, and anything that can’t be observed and/or measured might as well not exist as far as it’s concerned. It’s so good at what it was designed for that some of its practitioners lost their skepticism and essentially ceased being scientists, contributing to the new religion. Or maybe they weren’t suited to the sciences to begin with. 2. Social science is dangerous nonsense imo. Dealing with emotion, irrationality, and, frankly, mystery is an art, and subjecting… Read more »
Also, FWIW, the distinction between social science and human science is interesting. I’m assuming it’s the result of the science-über-alles attitude today, i.e., social reality isn’t sufficient, so there has to be a provable biological reality to back it up. It’s probably uncharitable to say that’s the charts and graphs mindset, but it’s certainly on that spectrum, and in any case I think it too will soon be rendered obsolete by the social reality, which is probably healthy in the long run. All the talk about common sense on the right, yet we have to justify what people just know,… Read more »
In the 1860’s Charles Darwin said things about the Irish that were utterly vile: a race so inferior to the Anglo Saxons they were more to be despised than the Hottentots. Today, in America, the Irish are included in the recent smogasbord called “Whites.” The Slavs were a separate and inferior race according to the rassenscienze of the Master Race. The Finns only recently achieved their white status among the Scandis. For all anyone knows, D’Souza may be a post-Dravidian Aryan like the guys and gals who mostly run Big Tech. And the “white” Persians, for a thousand years, have… Read more »
“For all anyone knows, D’Souza may be a post-Dravidian Aryan like the guys and gals who mostly run Big Tech.”
Too dark to be any kind of Aryan. The Indian caste system developed to preserve the ethnic differences and so Brahmins tend to be lighter-skinned. It’s like Brazil, where your socio-economic status is correlated with your skin pigment. If you ever take a look at the matrimonial columns of Indian newspapers (well, I suppose it’s all online now), skin color and height are stipulated and advertised.
“Skin color” is highly correlated with recent ancestry. The less “dark” recent ancestry, the more likely you are to be in the White (European ancestry) norm.
It’s not just Brazil. In all of Latin America, the lighter your skin, the higher your social status.
It’s not just India either. Worldwide, there is a curious thing going on where in “white” countries, the darker you are the more favor you receive, while in darker countries the lighter you are, the more favor. Happening simultaneously. Although the latter has been going on for longer.
Good point, but apples and oranges. The dark country discrimination toward lightness is based on realism, while the white country favoring of darkness is a virtue signal and political tactic.
With the demographic trend of a rapidly browning country, the obvious strategy the conservatives are running with is to appeal to non-whites. They’ve been doing this for a while, especially during GW Bush’s time. What’s different now is they’re trying to convince us that race is just melanin, and it means nothing, and we’re all the same. Dinesh D’Souza burst onto the scene by opposing affirmative action policies, especially for college admission with his book, “Illiberal Education.” (I think that’s the title) He argued that the left wants to end discrimination by race…..by discriminating by race! To conservatives who were… Read more »
It’s an impossible task, because even if race realism becomes widely excepted, what can be done about the disparities? It will be worth it to end the blood libel on whites and allow more freedom of association, but I could see progressives turning it on its head and arguing black intellectual shortcomings are an argument for more welfare and favors, not less.
New age science is about loyalty and obedience. It will work right on up to the point where the useful idiots don’t work anymore, and the mindless stinking masses start having THEIR wealth redistributed and find themselves being the ones expected to eat the bugs, own nothing and live in a pod.
One of the strangest examples was when some WEF bot talked about how meat will be a treat in ten years, and the “I love science” zombies immediately jumped on the bandwagon.
When these experts start saying how in the future, the elderly will be euthanized and used as fertilizer when they turn 70, you’ll see the same mindless approval. They’re march to their own destitution just to assure themselves they’re not like those stupid plebs.
Well, the 70 year old elderly used as fertilizer will be THE CURRENT THING. Tie it together with I LOVE F-ING SCIENCE and the libtard can’t resist.
Just look at the gas stove story. It is a perfect example of the scientism of the hive, but also the nature of the hive mind. In an instant, the drones were demanding you stop using a gas stove. It really was remarkable to observe.
Well, there are reasons that the Regime and their running dogs would want to curtail demand for natural gas use in the US, and using this spurious “you’re being poisoned by the fumes from indoor combustion, and think about how the black and brown are suffering more!” is just chaff thrown up to hide the scam. There’s lots and lots of money to be made from channeling the production of natual gas toward liquification and transport to Europe for sale. If the pious sentiments being voiced concerning how They (backed up by The Science!) are only trying to save us,… Read more »
It is much easier to cut electricity to a house than to know if there is sufficient natural gas on the premises to cook. It is all about control.
I actually look at the natural gas stove debacle as a good thing–people pushed back and claims were made it never was possible. There is still some fear, however justified.
It’s like as someone noted recently that the npc crowd gets their software updated overnight and wake up with new ideas and beliefs.
I’ll take one of the forbidden gas stoves when the black market emerges. We have electric and I really hate it.
The beautiful people use induction ranges, so they do not see the big deal in banning indoor gas. They just go out to their stone fire pit near the pool when they want that flame broiled look.
We use induction (nice Thermador cooktop with lots of hobs so cooking positions are not circumscribed by set burner locations), and it not only works well for cooking (instantly adjustable application of heating applied directly to the pans induction plates), but it also doesn’t throw off a lot of waste heat during the summer that you then must pay to remove, and no roaring, light-blocking hood fans. We do have a downdraft panel that can be raised up across the width of the back of the cooktop with three selectable fan settings that is very useful for dealing with steam… Read more »
A cloud’s worst fear is being mistaken for a dirt. This is probably even more pronounced in wannabe clouds.
Wannabe Clouds are the worst, and ironically they are the most dispensable people imaginable. The Help and whores, who believe in their worth while the Clouds smile, get kneecapped first when something isn’t delivered. We may be seeing that play out with “Biden” for some reason or another.
“The book and the review are a long form version of the old internet meme about Democrats being the real racists. You see, race never existed until it was invented by bad people to do bad things. Before those bad people, no one had ever noticed the vast differences in people. Then those bad people came along and coined the word “race” and then created “race science” to divide people along entirely arbitrary lines, that while easily measurable, are a figment of our imagination.” I think you’re misreading his review of the book. I think this sums up his review:… Read more »
Your points are excellent. The TLDR book review: “look! a black squirrel…”
Unfortunately, the plunderers have a million distractions available. After “race”, there’s the alphabet soup folks, trans, climate change, coof, etc. They can keep the show going for a long time.
I did not take it that way, for sure. Frankly, the book under review sounds a lot like Why Nation’s Fail from a dozen years ago.
Edit: I take issue with any effort to distract from demographics, which is the clear intent. The antidote to antiwhite race politics is not intellectualizing colorblind politics, which is just your surrender so they can maintain their dignity.
Whites joining the identity politics game is, by far, the biggest threat to our rulers. Neither the Left nor the Right could survive this happening, at least not in their current form.
Guys like Ahmari are just another tool to prevent that from happening. The Left tells whites to not identify as a group because whites are evil. The Right tells whites that nobody should identify as a group.
The question is whether whites ever will start to identify as a group. It seems inevitable, but places like California suggest that it may not happen.
I have a slightly different take. I think the game that is being played is one side tells white people they are responsible for all that ails the world, while the other side tells white people they have a duty to heal the world. Both side want whites to unite, but for the interest of nonwhites. The closing argument in both cases is the nonwhite as the exemplar of the best of white culture. The guilty are made to feel more guilty, while the altruistic are motivated to do more. The dumbing down of the elites is revealed in these… Read more »
“The reason the new Right has not gotten on its feet is both of these old tools are broken.”
I do not follow here. Shouldn’t the end of white guilt and widespread acknowledgement of how ridiculous and hollow the calls for “unity” are give the New Right the upper hand? Anecdotally, it appears everything is breaking in the New Right’s direction and away from CivNattery precisely because these tools no longer work. Am I misreading you? If not, why is this not an opening?
Don’t forget J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy”, which blames working-class whites for their travails. Whites just can’t win. If they’re down and out, it’s their own damned fault and if they’re not, they’re benefiting from “white privilege.”
Sounds like alchemy: dissolve, then coagulate in an improved manner. Take whitey, break him down, insert a new group identity to unify around, and you have taken base material and improved it! Look up “magnum opus” as applied to alchemy and tell me that the four-step process doesn’t sound exactly like the processing that is occurring.
Jack Dobson: it is an opening, but you won’t hear it on the news because it can’t be spoken in polite society. The pain hasn’t moved far enough up the socioeconomic ladder, but it’s getting there.
Great points. It isn’t just low-caste white people who they have gone after. It is all white people – even the ones stupid enough to participate in the pogrom against themselves. I read the review of the book. It sounds like the reviewer was just deeply offended that his buddy had racial pride because the music of the pinnacle of white civilization is vastly superior to any of another race. He seems terrified of whites regaining their self confidence and racial awareness. It is too late. The pogrom against white professional classes has made whites racially aware and there is… Read more »
Yuri Bezmenov gave an interesting talk some years ago. It sure explains a lot about what is going on across the West and why everything seems to be upside down –
Four steps of ideological subversion
1. Demoralization
2. Destabilization
3. Crisis
4. Normalization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9CJmvBXNTc
Sohrab Ahmari fills a desired role for white CivNats. He’s a non-white who gives them hope that colorblind civic nationalism can work, that non-whites really do think like whites. Candace Owens fills that niche for the low brow CivNats. Ahmari is trying to grab the high brow position. After all, Thomas Sowell can’t live forever. As Z notes, it’s all about reality avoidance. Even smart people like Steve Sailer and Charles Murray, who acknowledge group differences, tie themselves into intellectual knots to avoid the on-the-ground realities of racial differences. Unfortunately for them, nature always wins. Other races do show loyalty… Read more »
And try for decades our “society” still tries to force hat square peg into that round hole. I was talking to a civ nat, conservative friend the other day about this. He’s 53 and while he gets most things on our side, he just cannot come around to the race realism side. He’s one of those who explains away black violence with the “poverty” excuse. No matter what I share with him, he won’t budge. It feels immoral to him to face the reality of what black people are and their behavior. Another favorite of theirs is to point to… Read more »
When I encounter the poverty excuse, I paraphrase the following Ol’ Remus quote from his letter to blacks:
“Your air conditioned, smart phone equipped, EBT-financed “poverty” doesn’t wash to begin with, yet you’d have us believe poverty causes crime. There’s no payday for assault and rape and random killing. Police say 20% of your criminal violence is related to dope-dealing, okay, business disputes of a sort, but it says the rest of it is largely pro bono.”
https://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2015/06/frankly-my-dear-guest-post-from-ol-remus.html
Ask him what is the average height for adult American males. Then ask him if the existence of a 7 footer or a 5 footer proves he’s wrong.
Sailer and Murray have one inviolable belief: Being a midwit and being morally virtuous are the same thing. So everything the professional-managerial class, academia, and all who make “policy” do wrong—every injustice they inflict on the rest of us while toasting “To injustice!”—is mere error, correctible with a sufficiently obsequious internet post.
“If only Matt Yglesias knew!”
Enormously helpful that they both are very physically attractive. Lenny Bruce called that one in the early 60s.
The truth is presumably hidden in plain sight. The Human Genome research has, almost certainly, made it possible to locate the codon sequences associated with intelligence. These in turn could be correlated with racial groups.
My fearless prediction: this research will never get funded.
Without giving anything away, I can assure that the research is getting funded and is being put to work. If you are rich enough and connected enough, you can get some smart people to screen embryos for intelligence. You and the wife donate eggs and sperm, which are used to produce a set of embryos. These are screened for the genes that have been identified for intelligence, then the best are used for making your baby. The last time I looked into it, they were up to fifty-five genes that positively/negatively correlate to intelligence. It is at the very crude… Read more »
Think of what’s going to happen when there is gene editing for personality traits. Imagine a world where rich people edit genes to create ultra smart Gordon Gekkos.
There’s also a possibility these gene edits will have deleterious effects that will not be seen until far later. Think schizophrenia, autism, depression, heart irregularities etc.
But you don’t need to edit the genes, just put the odds in your favor. Granted, for one baby, it could or could not matter, but for 1,000 babies, it will definitely matter.
Euginics – the Forbidden Science
Funny thing about that science too. Those oh-so-filthy-Nazis should be hung from the gallows for even thinking of improving their own bloodline.
But my shitlib mother thinks they whole human race will be better off with mass mudsharking and birthing half breen goblins until we are all the same muddy shade of brown. Is that not eugenics too – in a stupidly applied way…?
Like the guy below says you’re not adding anything. You and your wife create 10 embryos and pick the one that has the best combo.
Your kid does this with their partner, repeat for 5 generations and voila…
You get a Chihuahua.
You’d be much better off rearing all 10 pairs to adulthood. The one smart one would then have some loyal midwit allies.
Gene editing (eugenics of a sort) is a well-explored topic in [science] fiction. Such may not have great value for predicting the future, but it often gives moral or other speculation. Based upon my random sample of such literature, I would hazard that here are some reasonable guesses: 1. (Already said) As with nearly all new technology, it is the wealthy that will try it first. 2. (When successful) genetic advantage will give great competitive advantage. 3. (When a failure) — well, that list is truly a dire one. Everything from seriously defective “humans” to institutionalize ? euthanize ? to… Read more »
those rich people should sleep with one eye open, because they are breeding monsters. extra high intelligence with no thought to morality, how can that go wrong??
Perhaps we’re in agreement. You’re referring to “micro” research for private reproductive strategies. I’m referring to “macro” population research on racial/ethnic traits.
Yeah, I do not see a system of decanting people anytime soon. I do think the rich will indulge the new research into eugenics and life extension, even when the results are negligible.
While the genetic engineering research is underway, elite identification and selection is a state sponsored enterprise. Guess where? Israel. They are trying to identify as early as 5 years old their most intelligent, put them in the Mossad/Military and then march them into tech firms or give them money to start their own. Netanyahu has been making the rounds for years bragging about their global tech state that is based on digital surveillance, Israeli military technology and their home grown eugenic selection program. The elites are no doubt building their own master race. It seems like that film Elysium was… Read more »
At least in fiction, there is always a snag in such world domination plans. It all sounds good in theory to choose, nurture, educate and otherwise favor those with true potential. One major stumbling block to such a plan is that darn problem of the instinct to favor one’s own genetic line. As such, this always explains why the true genius who could have saved the world instead is condemned to his life of digging potatoes or working in the mines, while the scrawny spawn of the high court, the youth with the intellect barely sufficient to pick his own… Read more »
Yes but there’s the old saw about Hitler or Beethoven. If you had a young girl impregnated by her uncle and another young girl from a family that had a large preponderance of blind and deformed members, which baby would you abort? If you selected the latter, you would have killed Beethoven, if the former, Hitler..
I would almost guarantee the Chinese and Indians are funding it.
If it ever appears that susceptibility to propaganda, which seems not to be correlated to intelligence, will be located and ended this will be shut down in a nanosecond.
I love how the Left immediately sets about destroying the thing they claim gives them legitimacy. They proclaim themselves classy and sophisticated, then make Bill Clinton their avatar. They shriek about how much they Fucking Love Science ™, then turn around and say math is racist. As you say, “science” then becomes shamanism — Science ™ is whatever the high priest says it is. You can tell he’s a holy man by all the letters behind his name. I’ve recently been re-reading Lucien Levy-Bruhl’s How Natives Think (very very badthought; get your copy now before it’s banned). It’s amazing how… Read more »
The primitivization of elite culture is even more obvious when you read old books. A century ago the smart fraction was operating at a different plane of existence compared to our current smart people. Of course, you can step back and see it without a reference point in the past. The whole trans kids thing is just human sacrifice. The Druids would feel at home with our betters.
The new science:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/astrophysics-steeped-systemic-racism-white-supremacy-colorado-college-science-professor
Detroit Scientist Makes Major Discovery
Dr. Jamal Washington of the University of Detroit, a visiting professor of biochemistry at Wakanda University in the capital city of Birnin Zana, announced yesterday a new discovery. He and his team have been researching previously unknown aspects of the digestive system. He claims to have isolated a previously unknown chemical element implicated in the production of flatus. The team has proposed the name Bustassium for the new element.
“The ordinary modes of human thinking are magical, religious, social, and personal. We want our wishes to come true; we want the universe to care about us; we want the approval of those around us; we want to get even with that s.o.b. who insulted us at the last tribal council. For most people, wanting to know the cold truth about the world is way, way down the list.”
― John Derbyshire, We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism
Truer words…
What the “right” absolutely doesn’t need on board are three non-White, non-Americans by the name of ahmari, d’souza and hazony…. As an aside, the entire university system needs to be burned to the ground and all the fake scientists spouting their fake science along with their slavering followers imprisoned in a gulag somewhere in Antarctica.