Blogger David Thompson suggests that his round-up of the year might be of interest to Samizdata’s readers.
His email to me quoted how this roundup begins:
The year began on a highbrow note as the University of Denver’s Professor Ryan Evely Gildersleeve informed the world that laziness is a “a political stance,” a way to “combat the neoliberal condition,” and a “tool for contributing to social justice.” Half-arsed incompetence is, we were assured, both radical and empowering. The professor also shared his belief that plastic is sentient. Inanimate objects also troubled Dr Jane Bone, a senior lecturer at Monash University, Melbourne, who specialises in “feminist post-structural perspectives” and the political implications of problematic furniture. Dr Bone’s research involves quite a lot of “embodied knowing,” i.e., visiting IKEA and sitting on chairs. Her work, she revealed, is “not necessarily logical.” Further feminist insights came via Phoebe Patey-Ferguson, whose feminist fight club is “a mode of resistance,” because the spectacle of unhappy ladies body-slamming each other and breaking each other’s ribs is an obvious way to “destroy the Conservative government” and “bring down the patriarchy.”
Thompson adds:
That’s January. There’s another eleven months to get through.
You can read all twelve months here.
This piece by Thompson has already been noticed by Instapundit, as have quite a few of his pieces in recent months.
David frequently gets linked by Instapundit, deservedly so. He’s awfully restrained in that he doesn’t pass the begging bowl around until just as they’re about to leave.
He’s awfully restrained in that he doesn’t pass the begging bowl around until just as they’re about to leave.
Heh. I reek of class.
Words fail.
Yes the left are correct in thinking that such things as undermining the work ethic, encouraging people to be lazy and incompetent, is a way of destroying both individual lives – and society in general. However, the are mistaken in what they believe will happen after the destruction.
The left believe that after the destruction of traditional society (such as the family – which they call “patriarchy”), and “capitalist” economic production, a wonderful new society would emerge from the ashes of the old. They are mistaken – all that their methods will in fact produce is suffering, destruction and death. Leaving nothing but the echoes of screams in a land of ashes and dried blood.
I think this is a rather important error by the left, which makes their control of the education system, most of the media, and much else…. a very serious problem.
Not his, thankfully. 😆
😆
Is it the altitude in Denver? Hypoxia, or some-such?
Or the conspicuous consumption of “green, leafy material”?
All of the above?
I like Theo’s Place as well:
http://www.theospark.net
Mock SJW’s all you want, for now. But they are winning all the battles hands down, and soon you will not be permitted to mock them.
Bob, true, that’s why we have to make the mocking as effective as we can, while we can.
Oh, ye of little faith.
They’ve been winning for some time, but right now they’re back on their heels. Trump is popular. Brexit is popular. A huge percentage of the public decries PC. A large percentage decries the new genderless strategy. Unlimited immigration is ending. Nationalism is rising. PC’s mouthpiece – the MSM – is losing influence.
I won’t say we’re winning, but we’re fighting back – a new phenomenon – and they’re no longer winning.
And now I have to get in my truck and drive out to a state entirely filled with people who don’t realize they’re all libertarian – an entire state of people who look at SJW antics and say “enough with this idiocy.” Apparently, “hope for the future” is distributed according to the rule of real estate – “location, location, location.” If you hang around the PC cities, you’re bound to be depressed about the future.
Paul Marks says “I think this is a rather important error by the left…”
I am not sure it is an error. That pays the left the compliment of believing that they are well-meaning but mistaken, rather than consciously and deliberately destructive – in a word, nihilistic.
Consider the passage in Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ where Dagny realises that Dr Ferris, Eugene Lawson and their allies are dreaming of a return to a low-technology, pre-industrial world – the world where an indolent rajah class lives by thieving a few grains of rice from millions of starving peasants, for no better end than to spend their idle days on a chaise longue running their fingers through their jewel collection. Ferris and Lawson would be right at home among today’s SJW’s … well, until they were denounced for sexism and male-privilege in calling for women to spend their days at the spinning wheel and the hand loom.
I am with bobby b on this.
In addition to Trump+Brexit, he could have mentioned Italy, Austria, Central Europe, the Nordic countries (all except Sweden with “”far-right””, i.e. anti-establishment parties, effectively sharing power at the moment); and going a bit farther afield, India, Brazil, and Israel.
And then look also at the ridiculousness of Merkel+Macron.
Paul and Zerren offer some speculations on the motivations of “”the left””.
This is of some interest, but i prefer not to get distracted by such speculation: as i said before, i think that the ruling class has a collective intelligence that transcends the conscious motivations of any of its individual members.
It is not a “speculation” Snorri – it is no secret that the left (and why the scare quotes?) want to destroy the existing society – they say so, repeatedly, and work tirelessly for this goal (both trying to undermine society economically and socially – culturally, undermine the work ethnic, undermine the traditional family, undermine non political mutual aid societies, and on and on).
Now there are two reasons they could be doing this – either they wish to destroy society for the sake of destroying, for the sake of destruction (because they like the idea of vast numbers of people starving to death, tearing and rending each other, consuming the flesh of other humans, and-so-on). Or we could TAKE THE LEFT AT THEIR WORD – that they are trying to destroy Western society because they believe (sincerely believe) that a much better society will come from the ashes of traditional “capitalist” society.
I take the left at the their word – I do not believe they are trying to destroy society simply out of pleasure at the thought of suffering and death. I believe that they are sincere in their belief that a new society will emerge from the ashes – I just think they are MISTAKEN in this belief.
In short you might say there is a “knowledge problem” here – the left (or at least most of the left – there are, of course, a minority of vicious sadists with genocidal intent) would NOT be trying to destroy society if they knew that a wonderful new society would NOT spring from the ashes, that all there would be would be the ashes – and dried blood.
And I doubt that the left are losing – yes, you are correct, such things as a conservative President of Brazil has occurred (or will occur on January 1st 2019). But we have yet to see any real roll back of the “Social Justice” forces either economically or socially (culturally) in Western nations – winning a election is one thing, rolling back the harm is quite another. The harm (the decay and destruction) has become the “spirit of the age” – and whilst I am an enemy of Hegel and his stage theory of history, I understand that this is a serous and deadly foe.
Take, for example, the on going campaign to censor and drive off social media enemies of the left (and enemies of Islam – with which the left has made a tactical alliance, against the common enemy of Western civilisation) – a campaign in which many big companies are involved (including the PAYMENT PROCESSORS – a very easy “choke point” for the Social Justice forces to use to destroy people who still resist them).
Now where I think you are CORRECT Snorri is when you say that many important people (the term “ruling class” is the one you use) do not really understand all this – but go along with it, because that is the way the tide is flowing, and they are scared of social sanctions.
For example, I AGREE with you Snorri that (say) the founder of Patreon does NOT go to bed each night thinking “How can I further the destruction of Western Civilisation? What evil deeds can I do tomorrow – deeds that would make the angels weep!” No he is just a badly informed man who does not understand that he is being USED – for example by the “Trust and Safety” committee (rather like “Committee for Public Safety” in 1790s France – it sounds nice, but it is not nice) of his own company.
No doubt Samizdata will, eventually, cover the way big business is being used to push the agenda of censorship and political and cultural persecution.
The Marxist wants horrifying levels of Power over others. It is a social supremacist ideology which primal objective is social extermination.
Why? maybe narcissism, fear of others success, fear of solitude…
As we can see after they get power the “causes” of a Marxist go out of window if it is convenient. Anyone saw any Leftist horrified at poverty in Socialist Cuba? no they just don’t care, they already have Power there. The causes are only instrumental.
Marxism is wining, US, Italy, Brasil etc are just only roadblocks and partial ones, not a roll back – like Paul says – because there isn’t a cultural movement to roll it back. If that existed it would mean University thesis, books written, plays played, films made, TV series made.
You just have to read the Torygraph to see it. Half of it is Marxist drivel.
Paul: it’s not that i disagree with your analysis, but it applies only to those people “on the left” who, as you write, explicitly say
That obviously does not apply to our elected “representatives”: they would not get elected if they said the above*. (Except in places like Berkeley, perhaps.)
It also does not apply to top bureaucrats in Brussels, DC, and State and national capitals.
It also does not apply to many opinion makers, such as Soros and Krugman.
Strictly speaking, it does not even apply to Chomsky, who is on record as saying that there is no such thing as “capitalism”, and that to the extent there ever was, it disappeared at the beginning of the xx century.
* It goes without saying that the vast majority of people who vote for the Democrats in the US, for Labour in Britain, etc, do NOT want to destroy Western society: they actually want to give more power to the ruling class, a class that would lose ALL power if Western society were destroyed.
But here is the fact: the few but vocal people who explicitly say they want to destroy Western society, are the useful idiots of the ruling class.
I applies to some of our elected rulers Snorri – for example the Prime Minister of Sweden has (in the past) said such things, and the Prime Minister of Canada sort-of has – although his grasp of human language is somewhat limited, so it is often hard to know what he is saying.
However, I agree with you – someone like Prime Minister May does not think about these matters clearly. The lady (like so many Western rulers – both political and in business) supports “Social Reform” and “Social Justice” because she was taught to do so at school and university and this constantly reinforced by the media and the Civil Service – a person such as Theresa May does not (I AGREE with you) ask herself such question as “what is the logical end of Social Reform – if we just carried on these policies to their logical conclusion” (of course the logical conclusion is the extermination of civilisation) or “what actually is “Social Justice” the thing I keep saying I am in favour of” – Social Justice (as you know Snorri – but Mrs May does not) means the “fair distribution” of income and wealth by the collective (the state) according to an egalitarian principle – in short “Social Justice” means (for example) that the rich banker husband of Mrs May should have his wealth confiscated and should be killed if he resists. I agree with you that it is rather unlikely that Mrs May wants her husband to be robbed and murdered – although (without knowing it) she works for this conclusion every day, and clearly states (again almost every day) that she supports Social Justice – which means exactly this (that her own husband should be robbed and murdered – as an “exploiter” and “oppressor”).
Of course with the media it is a rather different story – many of them DO KNOW.
For example, the BBC broadcasts the traditional Christmas science lectures – what were they like this year?
I turned them on and then had to turn off – instead of science, the lecture was a tissue of lies about how migrations of people were always beneficial and how there was no such thing as a native population as everything was in a state of constant flux. Of course (as the BBC and the academics know perfectly well) the population of these island had been basically the same ethnic groups (Celts [including pre Celts], Anglo Saxons and Norse) for a thousand years before the last few decades – they were not making an intellectual mistake, they were lying and lying with a political agenda. The agenda being that the nation was not in danger from recent and on going mass migration, because the nation DOES NOT EXIST (just constant flux). As the old Russian saying has it “first they smash your face in – then they say you were always ugly”. First they work to destroy the nation – then they say it never existed.
Much as, for example, someone were to push the destruction of the Netherlands by saying that there never had been any such people as the “Dutch” (no Dutch history or culture) and that, therefore, the Islamic influx could be no threat to the nation – because the nation never existed. And all this presented as “science” – Michael Faraday would weep.
A more blatant case…….
The BBC (BBC4 I think) is broadcasting a series called the Greeks.
It is well known (at least every educated child USED to know) that Mycenaean civilisation (the civilisation of the Trojan war – that Homer sang of centuries later) was destroyed by the invasion of the Dorians (tribes from the north who largely destroyed the Bronze Age civilisation of the Mycenaeans) and that even centuries later the Greeks were divided between Dorian cities (such as Sparta) and Ionian cities (such as Athens) in areas which the Dorians had not managed to conquer. We still talk of (for example) Doric and Ionic orders of architecture.
None of this was in the BBC “history” series – no mention of Dorians and their native foes. Instead we are told that Bronze Age civilisation collapsed because of INEQUALITY (no I am not making this up) “the workers” did not get the wealth that was the “product of their labour” (Marxism) and “markets collapsed” “much like today” (pictures of stock market collapse – as if there were stock markets in the Bronze Age), but that this was a GOOD THING – because it meant the birth (in time) of a new and better civilisation.
You see I did not have to work hard on the leftists to get them to confess Snorri – their confession was openly on BBC television. They are quite open with their brainwashing of children – and their objective is plain.
Destroy the present civilisation – in the expectation that a better one will emerge from the ashes.
Yes there is difference between the Marxist BBC (technically Frankfurt School of Marxism BBC – hence the “diversity” stuff that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels would not really have liked, although they would have liked the OBJECTIVE that it is really for) and the (utterly ignorant) Prime Minister May – but they are both working for the same end, it is just that Mrs May (and Western leaders like her – in both politics and business) do not know it. They work for the destruction of the West – some of them know what they are doing, and some of them do not know what they are doing.
I fear that lucklucky is correct.
First of all, my best wishes for 2019 to anybody who is still reading; and in my thoughts, also to anybody who isn’t.
In response to Paul: we are getting closer to an agreement, the differences are getting smaller.
Not sure what the Swedish and Canadian PMs said, but i note that (contrary to popular opinion) the Swedes are much more averse to “diversity” than the Americans. And yet, the Americans elected Trump! It baffles my mind to imagine what would happen if/when the Swedes overcome their deference to the current ruling class.
I agree that the media are “to the left” (ie more invested in culture wars) than the political class. That is partly because the media do not have to do anything about it, they just have to talk.
But the main point is that i don’t think that many people in the media want to actually destroy Western culture: they want to improve it, and that does require destroying part of it. (By a strange coincidence, they want to destroy the parts that limit the power of the State.)
OTOH the people that David Thompson likes to mock, do want to actually destroy Western culture.
It is of course easy to find examples supporting one’s own thesis. The series on the Greeks, however, does not fully support your thesis, in my view. That is because wanting to reduce inequality is not the same as wanting to destroy Western society.
I note the irony that a very famous Greek, Aristotle, warned about the dangers of mixing people of different backgrounds in the same polis, giving several historical examples (in Politics, Book 5).
This is an aspect of Greek culture that the BBC will hide, since it conflicts with the Christmas science lecture.
I also note that i agree that inequality leads to social collapse … when the inequality is one of political power (power of coercion), not when the inequality is one of wealth or income. In a well-constituted republic without slavery or monopolies, wealth does not confer arbitrary power of coercion.
I watched the Christmas science lectures on the BBC that Paul Marks refers to in his comment timed at 1.44pm.
I do not recognise his description at all.
As I recall there was one short section about how humans spread out of Africa.
If Paul Marks would like to point out other references to migration, helpfully with details of which lecture and at what point in the running time, I will watch them again on iplayer.
I did notice the ethnicity of the children brought up to participate in the activities at the front. There seemed to be fewer white children than would be expected from the percentages of ethnic groups in the population as a whole.
I did write a reply, quite a long one actually, but I got “error please submit a valid address” – I am not going to type it all out again.
Bugger the internet.