Month: September 2022

26SEP2022 – Quote of the Day

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The history of civilization details the steps by which men have succeeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos. Fragile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed: there lies within him a fund of energy, operating intelligently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe, that it is competent to influence and modify the cosmic process. In virtue of his intelligence the dwarf bends the Titan to his will. In every family, in every polity that has been established, the cosmic process in man has been restrained and otherwise modified by law and custom; in surrounding nature, it has been similarly influenced by the art of the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan. As civilization has advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; until the organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the present day have endowed man with a command over the course of non-human nature greater than that once attributed to the magicians. …a right comprehension of the process of life and of the means of influencing its manifestations is only just dawning upon us. We do not yet see our way beyond generalities; and we are befogged by the obtrusion of false analogies and crude anticipations. But Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, have all had to pass through similar phases, before they reached the stage at which their influence became an important factor in human affairs. Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science, must submit to the same ordeal. Yet it seems to me irrational to doubt that, at no distant period, they will work as great a revolution in the sphere of practice.

Thomas Henry Huxley

 

To Paraphrase Huey Lewis and the News, “It’s Hip to be Unwoke.”

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According to the New York Times there is a troubling trend among some avant-garde kids to assume the trappings of traditional institutions, like the Catholic crucifix, and defy the virtue signaling mantra of their generation’s elite guardians.  So, the Times is looking for a sleuth to ferret out the details of this heresy and hopefully expose the malefactors so that they can be properly punished and then allowed to recant and declare their love for Big Brother.

This New York Times project is described in an article in the City Journal that goes on to try and explain these young rebels as the first fruits of a rebellion of the young against the dominant culture which in this case is the current all encompassing orthodoxy of woke-ism.  In other words, these young people are organizing a counter-culture against what used to be described as the Left’s counter-culture against western civilization.

The author states: “Few things are more natural for young people than to push back against the strictures and norms of their day, even if only to stand out a little from the crowd and assert their independence. A counterculture forms as a reaction against an official or dominant culture—and today, it is the woke neoliberal Left that occupies this position in America’s cultural, educational, technological, corporate, and bureaucratic power centers. In this culture, celebration of ritualized, old forms of transgression is not only permitted, but practically mandatory. Dissent against state-sponsored transgression, however, is now transgressive. All of what was once revolutionary is now a new orthodoxy, with conformity enforced by censorship, scientistic obscurantism, and eager witch-hunters (early-middle-aged, zealously dour, tight-lipped frown, NPR tote bag, rainbow “Coexist” bumper sticker, pronouns in email signature—we all know the uniform).”

Apparently, these young rebels can be found in trendy areas of lower Manhattan and their cachet as members of the avant-garde worries the gatekeepers of public morality at the Times and the author equates this worry with genuine peril that the youth among the elites could be corrupted and driven over to the dark side where one day they would produce a new consensus to shift the balance of power away from the monolithic progressive world view.  And a new regime could populate the Deep State with acolytes of the Dissident Right.

Well, I don’t know about that.  I know that Curtis Yarvin is interested in the lower Manhattan scene being discussed and he is of the opinion that the only way to neutralize the Deep State is to peacefully displace it with a new elite.  But in both of these examples I wonder at the circumstances and the time line that would bring about such a transformation.  Some kids in Manhattan adopting Christian symbology isn’t a bad thing but what is the larger significance?  Do these young people hope to change the values that guide modern life?  Are they looking to traditional values to give meaning to their existence?  And how many people are we talking about?  A handful, a few thousand or a growing trend?

And what will be the reaction of the gatekeepers?  I’m sure they’re already busy looking to siphon off any discontented teens with a Tik-Tok influencer who sports a trans-friendly pseudo-Catholic rosary that involves anti-Pope Francis’ official rainbow seal of approval.

I guess, on balance, any fear on the part of the official organs of the state like the Times is a good and promising symptom.  Therefore, I won’t rain on their parade.  But I think I’ll wait to celebrate until I see some larger more widespread evidence that the Zoomers have begun to rebel.  Possibly the “Let’s go Brandon” cheers (or their actual words) at football games could be interpreted as the first real sign of popular unrest of the young against the Left.  But I’ve assumed that was more of a reaction to the COVID lockdowns by the Biden administration and not a general anti-woke reaction.  We’ll need to see clearer signs such as voting trends or support for traditional institutions like religion and marriage.

But I’ll end by saying that anything that hints at the young abandoning the woke cult is encouraging.  Even if it’s a minority movement, it’s a start.

25SEP2022 – Quote of the Day

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To the gross senses the chair seems solid and substantial. But the gross senses can be refined by means of instruments. Closer observations are made, as the result of which we are forced to conclude that the chair is “really” a swarm of electric charges whizzing about in empty space. … While the substantial chair is an abstraction easily made from the memories of innumerable sensations of sight and touch, the electric charge chair is a difficult and far-fetched abstraction from certain visual sensations so excessively rare (they can only come to us in the course of elaborate experiments) that not one man in a million has ever been in the position to make it for himself. The overwhelming majority of us accept the electric-charge chair on authority, as good Catholics accept transubstantiation.

Aldous Huxley

Forget Politicians, We Need a Huckster

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One of the reasons that Donald Trump did so well with the American public is that he’s a salesman.  He knows how to talk to people and he knows what they want to hear.  Can you imagine listening to a speech by Mitch McConnell?  Not only is he a hopeless boob of a speaker but he doesn’t have a clue about what the voters want.  And he doesn’t care.  So even in politics you need someone with people skills.

But my point is that politicians can only fight a battle against the Left in Washington and the state capitols.  And, no doubt, winning the political wars is important.  But what is just as important and what has been completely neglected is the social life of the Right.  Currently we are not served by any of the corporations that provide cultural products and services.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Books, movies, games, music and entertainment of all sorts are specifically and intentionally curated to exclude anything that might appeal to the Right.

Go to Amazon and look for books that appeal to you.  You’ll be fighting an uphill battle even if you already know the names of some.  And when they recommend other books (as they always do) they seem to be selected from the LGBTQ Book of the Month Club.  And forget movies and tv.  The number of tolerable selections is miniscule and also hard to find.  And that goes for music, games, comedians, dating services, sports channels and on and on and on.

Recently a very few social media outlets like Rumble and Truth have come into existence.  But these are primarily political outposts that currently have only a small following and don’t fill much of a niche in terms of “social impact.”  And I think the reason for this is that no one with a true huckster’s skills has arrived on the scene.  What is needed is a showman to orchestrate an exciting and engaging social experience.  Someone has to look intelligently at this enormous underserved market and identify a way to make a ton of money serving it.

And honestly, there’s no reason why someone doing this wouldn’t be able to make money off of the rest of the market that isn’t right-wing.  Maybe the blue-haired cat ladies and LGBTQ freaks would boycott it but regular progressives are just as interested in getting stuff at a reasonable price as we are.  You can sell the same dog food and toilet paper to everyone from Karl Marx to Ronald Reagan.  All you have to do is make sure that you have an aisle in your “store” that has our stuff too.

I’m surprised that supposed geniuses like Elon Musk and Peter Thiele haven’t recognized the opportunity to go head-to-head with Bezos and Hollywood.  They could make a fortune.  And all they’d have to do is package it all with some glitz and showmanship.  There’s a demand for wholesome entertainment for children.  And it could start small.  A small studio and a small publishing operation but one that has invested in talented creative types could do extremely well.

This could be a lot more profitable and a lot less expensive than buying Twitter.  Taking money away from Disney and Amazon with their lame Star Wars and Rings of Power franchises is a no-brainer.  They’ve abandoned tens of millions of fans by making blatantly woke and boring products that ignore the underlying stories that these fans value.

So, Musk, Thiele and anyone else who has money and wants to make more of it, open your eyes and put on your ringmaster’s hat, tails, boots and whip and address the “ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages” to pay their ducats for a chance to enter the tent and be entertained.  Just make sure the female trapeze artists are actually women.  And while you’re at it, we wouldn’t complain if they were pretty.