I'm generally of the mind that most people pushed through college, despite their lack of ability, will find it bites them in the butt, later in life.
They will become the bitter, angry people, who complain that they have UNFAIRLY been passed over for promotion, are not earning the money that someone with their STERLING CREDENTIALS deserves, and generally making a ridiculous spectacle of themselves in front of people who know damn well that they are considerably below average in quality.
Here's the thoughts of a person who has seen truly worthy people succeed by their own efforts, along with the stories of several of them who died too young.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Please Share This
I'm one of the many who has an Epipen stashed away for emergency use. I've only had a few allergic reactions that necessitated a hospital visit, but they were doozies!
Most allergic reactions are not that bad - you itch, become congested, feel horrible. A dose or two of Benadryl will get you back to normal.
I've had a few that were more serious - once, while teaching class. The nurse was great - she brought a bottle of Benadryl, and directed me on dosage. She didn't leave until the reaction was brought under control. That was one that was caused by penicillin.
So, the doctor prescribed an Epipen. I've had one for years (replaced annually), and never needed to use it. It's more than due for replacement, but I hesitated to do so, because the price had jumped so much.
CVS has made a strong effort to stock the alternative, at a price that is affordable. Here is a coupon that can be printed out, that will likely reduce the price even further.
Please share this - many people, like me, are hesitating to replace an aging medication, due to the cost. It can be a lifesaver, if medical care is not immediately available. People need to know about lower-cost alternatives.
Most allergic reactions are not that bad - you itch, become congested, feel horrible. A dose or two of Benadryl will get you back to normal.
I've had a few that were more serious - once, while teaching class. The nurse was great - she brought a bottle of Benadryl, and directed me on dosage. She didn't leave until the reaction was brought under control. That was one that was caused by penicillin.
So, the doctor prescribed an Epipen. I've had one for years (replaced annually), and never needed to use it. It's more than due for replacement, but I hesitated to do so, because the price had jumped so much.
CVS has made a strong effort to stock the alternative, at a price that is affordable. Here is a coupon that can be printed out, that will likely reduce the price even further.
Please share this - many people, like me, are hesitating to replace an aging medication, due to the cost. It can be a lifesaver, if medical care is not immediately available. People need to know about lower-cost alternatives.
From Merit To Certification
It becomes ever more important – nay, critical — that one who wants to grasp the reasons for the deterioration of American society and the American Republic be aware of history, including the history of major institutions.
Not many persons are aware of the history of American higher education. (Indeed, not many are aware of the history of education period, but that’s a tirade for another day.) The institution we call a university was a rare item before 1900. They began to multiply with the blossoming of large-scale American commerce, as men who had become successful in monetary terms produced sons and sought distinctions for them other than wealth. Colleges and universities were billed as places for intellectual advancement, but on a deeper and arguably more important level they provided sheltered gathering places for the progeny of the commercial elite. They facilitated the formation of the acquaintances and relationships the sons of wealth would exploit in later life.
A university such as Harvard or Yale served its patrons in several ways, apart from whatever actual learning it could confer upon them. For two, it provided the aforementioned watering hole for the sons of wealth, and it awarded them the distinction of association with its name (i.e., “He’s a Harvard man”). But these things had a superstitious effect upon subsequent generations. Americans of less wealth came to believe that a college degree could somehow lead them to exceptional success. The universities, while they might not have actively encouraged that notion, certainly didn’t do anything to discourage it. The demand for degrees from degree-granting institutions exploded, as did the number of such institutions.
The postwar G.I. Bill added a huge amount of impetus to the demand. Never before had so many common citizens, persons who possess neither great wealth nor any other special status, flocked into universities seeking degrees. Because the immediate postwar period was also a time of unprecedented advancement in the sciences, much of which lent itself to commercialization through technology, for a while there appeared to be a positive correlation between material success and degreed-ness. But other things were happening as well.
The degree came to be regarded as a credential: a ticket for admission to a new kind of elite. Whether the degree holder has anything much between his ears became secondary to the degree itself – and, of course, to the name of the institution that had granted it.
Hearken to Arthur Herzog on this subject:
Since a good proportion of those in college are dullards (those who weren’t to start with may have become so through education), courses must be invented that are interesting enough to keep the students awake, “relevant” enough to make them feel “involved,” and easy enough to let them pass so that they stay in school. The trivial and the obvious are elevated to the level of course requirements, and the student is taught that faking it and the real world are interchangeable. A great many fellows in fakery of one sort or another emerge.
Herzog wrote that in 1973, Gentle Reader. It was painfully true then; it’s both tragic and incontrovertible today.
Via the indispensable Never Yet Melted comes this Yuval Levin observation:
For much of American history .. [t]he apex of American political, cultural, and economic power was largely the preserve of a fairly narrow white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant near-aristocracy, centered in the Northeast and exercising power across generations. This was never an absolute barrier to others’ rising, of course, but it was a major obstacle.The claim to power of this WASP elite, like that of most modern aristocracies, was a mix of heritage and rearing. They possessed their privileges by virtue of their birth, but they were raised and educated in ways intended to prepare them for responsibility and authority. And they were—at least in principle though in many cases also in practice—expected to subject themselves to a code of behavior, a commitment to public service, a degree of personal reticence, a regard for the rules of fair play, and a sense of responsibility that was rooted in the implicit recognition that their power was an inherited privilege, not an earned achievement.
This is a reasonably fair and accurate characterization of the elites of the early Twentieth Century. The sons of men who had risen strictly through commerce could elect some form of public service to make their own marks on the nation. Not all of them entered government. Many established themselves as what we would now style “public intellectuals:” persons of repute who declaimed, usually through the pages of a newspaper or other print organ, on the issues of the day. It was the case both here and in England, from which most such persons traced their heritage.
The multiplication of colleges and universities throughout that century naturally gave rise to a stratification into more and less prestigious levels. The “Ivy League” stood at the pinnacle of the pyramid; the mostly young state universities were at the bottom; many other, mostly private institutions stood between them. The distinction attached to graduates from the upper levels of that pyramid greased their paths into the niches they sought, whether in government, opinion journalism, or at the universities themselves. Persons with degrees from less prestigious universities had to make do with the leavings.
As the universities steadily came under the control of successive generations of their own graduates and the trend Arthur Herzog noted toward educational vapidity advanced, the college degree became commodified: a purchasable credential of a significance no greater than its price. The more prestigious ones, of course, commanded the highest prices. The recent purchased-admissions pseudo-scandal involving a couple of minor actresses should be viewed in that light. The universities, of course, would prefer otherwise.
Today’s “elite” has little in common with the elite of a century past. A good working definition of the new “elite” would be “those who matter to those who think they matter.” In particular, the ethic of genuine public service, understood as a responsibility to provide others with something of real value to them, is largely absent. But they wave their credentials at every opportunity. This is particularly noteworthy in the American political class.
Consider in this connection the members of “Conservatism, Inc.:” the bastion of “NeverTrump” pseudo-conservatives such as Bill Kristol and Max Boot. To such persons, the all-important priority is to maintain their status in the “elite.” Regardless of the height of their perches or the bluster with which they orate from them, the majority of them have little of value to offer anyone. But they can brandish all the best credentials: all the right associations and associates. “They matter to those who think they matter.”
Merit is not a term I would associate with such persons. Certified “elitists,” yes; persons with important knowledge and insights they will share with others, no. The time has come for this recognition to emerge from our national subconscious and be made explicit.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
This Might Work to Stop the TN Teachers Strike
I'm seeing a lot of push for the TN teachers to strike - it would be an illegal strike.
The threat is that the school boards couldn't replace ALL the teachers.
Well, wrong.
They could tap into an existing virtual K12 school, or allow parents to choose either a charter school, a virtual school, or home schooling.
Average teachers salaries - range of $41K to $55K - likely location dependent.
For a taxpaying worker with a high school diploma, that's a LOT more that he makes.
Yes, teachers are important (I'm a retired teacher, and many in my family are teachers). However, those salaries should be proportional to the average income and cost of living in that location. This is not the best time to hit the school boards up for a raise.
The threat is that the school boards couldn't replace ALL the teachers.
Well, wrong.
They could tap into an existing virtual K12 school, or allow parents to choose either a charter school, a virtual school, or home schooling.
Average teachers salaries - range of $41K to $55K - likely location dependent.
For a taxpaying worker with a high school diploma, that's a LOT more that he makes.
Yes, teachers are important (I'm a retired teacher, and many in my family are teachers). However, those salaries should be proportional to the average income and cost of living in that location. This is not the best time to hit the school boards up for a raise.
A Garland Of Hyperlinks For Your Tuesday
(With brief yet pithy commentary from Your Curmudgeon.)
1. What Is A Religion, Really?
Bookworm has some thoughts, and as usual they’re eminently worth your time. As it’s a deeply personal reflection that segues into a philosophical discussion of religion as a category of mentation, I’ll forbear to quote from it. But I will quote from an old essay of mine:
A religion must have two components:
- A mythos: The supernatural “backstory” the believer accepts as the higher aspect of existence.
- An ethos: What the believer must and must not do.
Each of these aspects of a religion can be found, separately, in other creeds. For example, the Army has a definite ethos, but there’s no mythos behind it, merely the certainty that your platoon sergeant will kick your ass into next week if you should “sin.” Conversely, addicts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer adhere to a mythos about vampirism, demons, and the soul, but without an associated ethos to govern their behavior.
No creed that lacks either component will qualify.
2. The “Gig” Economy.
“Diversify your boss!” Scott Adams has exhorted us. He has a point. Job security is mostly a laugh line these days, and the prudent American wage earner does his best to stay braced for unpleasant developments. Many employers prefer this state of affairs as well…until they learn that But one of the consequences is a complete absence of “employee” loyalty:
For 21st-century Mafia managers, old-country recruits “have what they believe are the old values, because the American-born kids don’t have the right stuff anymore,” that official said.The problem in the US may be a lack of loyalty and dearth of talent in a diminished Mafia (paywall), David Shapiro, a distinguished lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and former FBI agent, who also spoke to NBC News, suggested.
“There was always the assumption that there was command and control in the mob families, like our American corporations,” he said. “But I don’t think that applies as much anymore. Today the business units are more fluid. The cells are smaller. There is not that loyalty to the boss and the underboss that there used to be.”
“You know the gig economy?” he also said. “Well, we’ve got a gig Mafia now.”
(In the Mr. Spock voice:) Fascinating.
3. Alms-Giving.
From the Gospel According To Matthew:
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. [Matthew 6:1-4]
But from the Democrats’ own Harold Stassen clone, Joseph Biden:
Biden claims to be a Catholic. Pull the other one; it’s got bells on.
4. A Detectable Asymmetry.
Concerning the Christchurch massacre, the lamentably quiet Emperor Misha notes:
If the brutal mass murder of 50 innocent Muslim men, women and children is newsworthy, and it most certainly IS, then one has to ask oneself why the brutal mass murder of more than 120 innocent Christian men, women and children ISN’T.Is it because Christian lives don’t matter? Is it because the US media don’t expect any better from the “filthy wogs?” Is it because it’s not nearly as easy to use mass murder of Christians as a political tool?
Or is it because there have been so many Islam-powered, Muslim-perpetrated atrocities that they’re no longer considered newsworthy?
5. “They’re All Thieves” Dept.
And all that matters is whether they think they can get away with it:
Elizabeth Warren a.k.a. Fauxcahontas is a candidate for the presidency. Remember that as the campaign season progresses.
6. “They’re All Murderers” Dept.
And they no longer try to hide it:
America Rising PAC posted a video of presidential candidate Robert O’Rourke responding to a question of whether or not he supported unnecessary third-trimester abortions.America Rising seems to think he dodged the question, but he didn’t. He was clear when he said it should be up to the woman. That brought raucous cheers from the Democrat audience.
Pace Hayek, the worst really do get on top. They strive to, anyway.
7. There Is No Longer A Republican Party As We’ve Been Led To Understand It:
The GOP is already moving in to curb the President’s emergency powers, The Hill reports. These are the same people who didn’t do it while Barack Obama was President or when George Bush was President.The President overrode the Senate and House votes for a bill to stop his emergency powers to build a border wall. They are now looking for a way to make it easier to stop his use of emergency powers.
The Republican senators believe Congress gave the President too much power in the past. Only Congress should appropriate funds, which is true.
The thing of it is, they already appropriated money for the wall. It’s been approved. They just didn’t follow through at the time.
They believe the Act needs to be reformed and that does appear to be true, but couldn’t they support building the wall?
No, they couldn’t. It would have gone against the wishes of the donor class, and they can’t have that. So much for platform statements in favor of a fortified border and strengthened immigration system.
8. Wisdom Won For Us By The Agonies Of Others.
Kurt Schlichter is here to tell you. Here’s the Sunday punch:
The fact is that an armed citizenry is a true backstop to tyranny, an obstacle to total control over society by a small elite that seeks unbridled power. Will we ever have to use it? We hope not, but think of it as a fire extinguisher for fascism – better to have it lying around than not to have it when you need it. This, along with the joy of rubbing your noses in the fact that they can strip you of the dignity that comes with being a citizen and not a subject, is the real reason the urban coastal left is so hellbent on taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding Americans and leaving guns in the hands of people they control. Remember, the left is pro-guns. It’s just anti-you having guns too.The existence of murderous creeps, combined with a rising crime rate and the media beaming us scenes of oppression in Venezuela, where those dummies compounded their foolishness in electing socialists by allowing themselves to be disarmed, reinforce the imperative of American citizens remaining armed and unruly.
Tyrants always disarm their victims-to-be. It’s the first and most reliable sign of a tyrant. Draw your own conclusions.
9. “Learn To Code.”
Charlie Martin, a software engineer “by trade,” has some thoughts about it:
[T]here is a whole body of knowledge that isn't necessarily mathematical (even though it is built on mathematics) and that isn't learned through multiple choice exams. It's not what programming is based on, it's what programmers do. It's a skill. It's a craft.Like plumbing and welding, it's a trade.
I don't think a lot of people recognize this. Computer Science departments dare not: why, then they'd stop being an academic topic, they'd be a trade school. Shame too great to be borne.
I’m of two minds about this. The other occupations normally referred to as “the trades” are essentially matters of learned procedure practiced on a defined domain of problems. In that regard, computer programming is like them. And of course, the software specialist does “trade” his expertise for payment of some sort. (Very few of us are “old money.”) But there’s a significant distinction that remains to be noted and appreciated: the software specialist must learn and comprehend his customer’s needs, even if the customer doesn’t grasp them himself.
I’ve dealt with innumerable customers who could not articulate what they wanted in a coherent fashion. All they knew was that they wanted “a system” that would somehow improve their operations and reduce their burdens. That’s all very well, but the software specialist has to reduce that to comprehensible requirements that can then become procedures embedded in software – and not just any software, these days, as it must be comfortably usable by cretins workers uninterested in the intricacies behind the pretty screens they confront.
The utterance I’ve heard most frequently after presenting a customer with what I thought he needed: “That’s not what I need.” And they’ve nearly always been right. I just had to draw their true needs and desires out of them item by painful item, as they’ve struggled to articulate them.
In that regard, software is a vocation, a bit like the priesthood. A priest must often drag a penitent’s sins out of him one by one, amid much backing, filling, and qualification. At least, I have no better explanation for why they always come out of the confessional looking as if they’ve just moved sixteen tons.
That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. It’s time for me to put what’s left of my nose against what’s left of the grindstone. Enjoy your Tuesday.
On Irishness, and How Those Immigrants Differed
Some say the Irish are different - and, in some respects, they were - and are.
Like most immigrants, the Newcomers to America were clannish (for those younger readers, that refers to the extended family grouping - denoted by the color and plaid of their kilts - known as a Clan). When they first started arriving - around the 1830s - they weren't desperately poor and starving. They did what most immigrants do, working at various jobs, gaining experience, and putting away money. The indentured servitude system was over, apprenticeships were available, and the economy was growing.
Some of the more educated men drifted into better jobs: clerks, railroad workers, cops. The Irish had a leg up on some jobs, as they were relatively fluent in English, had lived under an English system of law, and were culturally more of a fit than other immigrants. They wormed their way into government.
The later arrivals, from 1845-1849, were desperate. They'd had a terrible existence even before the Famine.
Now, to be fair, the English reformers wanted to "de-Irish" the rebellious land for some worthy reasons. They believed that conversion, use of the English language, change of their schools, and other efforts would actually improve their lives. And, the changes might have, in a purely economic sense.
But, the changed people would no longer be Irish. Their culture would have changed beyond recognition.
In America, the Irish were permitted to be Irish. They generally gave up speaking Gaelic over time, as their familiarity with the dominant language of English enabled them to push ahead of the other immigrants, whose command of English lagged behind. They had few barriers to practicing their faith, living as they wished, and creating little enclaves within the cities where Irish ruled.
Because the earliest arrivals preceded the Famine, the cities had influential people in power postions who helped the newcomers acclimate to the new land. When war broke out - the Mexican-American war - the Irish were there, in large numbers.
Same with the Civil War - the Irish joined up in numbers large enough to justify their own units. After the war, the pressure in the cities was relieved by the Westward Expansion.
Like most immigrants, the Newcomers to America were clannish (for those younger readers, that refers to the extended family grouping - denoted by the color and plaid of their kilts - known as a Clan). When they first started arriving - around the 1830s - they weren't desperately poor and starving. They did what most immigrants do, working at various jobs, gaining experience, and putting away money. The indentured servitude system was over, apprenticeships were available, and the economy was growing.
Some of the more educated men drifted into better jobs: clerks, railroad workers, cops. The Irish had a leg up on some jobs, as they were relatively fluent in English, had lived under an English system of law, and were culturally more of a fit than other immigrants. They wormed their way into government.
The later arrivals, from 1845-1849, were desperate. They'd had a terrible existence even before the Famine.
The French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont, visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote: "I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."The English despised the Irish. They thought them superstitious, dirty, stupid, given to sloth and debauchery, and generally a lesser form of human being. Despite many centuries of trying, the Irish persisted in remaining Catholic, rather than converting to the English Church. They fought back against armed men, used sneaky means, such as organizing boycotts, to evade the King's laws, and generally refused to cooperate in the pacification of Ireland.
Now, to be fair, the English reformers wanted to "de-Irish" the rebellious land for some worthy reasons. They believed that conversion, use of the English language, change of their schools, and other efforts would actually improve their lives. And, the changes might have, in a purely economic sense.
But, the changed people would no longer be Irish. Their culture would have changed beyond recognition.
In America, the Irish were permitted to be Irish. They generally gave up speaking Gaelic over time, as their familiarity with the dominant language of English enabled them to push ahead of the other immigrants, whose command of English lagged behind. They had few barriers to practicing their faith, living as they wished, and creating little enclaves within the cities where Irish ruled.
Because the earliest arrivals preceded the Famine, the cities had influential people in power postions who helped the newcomers acclimate to the new land. When war broke out - the Mexican-American war - the Irish were there, in large numbers.
Same with the Civil War - the Irish joined up in numbers large enough to justify their own units. After the war, the pressure in the cities was relieved by the Westward Expansion.
Monday, March 18, 2019
Love, Dating, And Romance, 2019 Edition
No, I don’t “date.” The C.S.O. would take it amiss. But I do keep a finger on the pulse of the dating-and-mating scene. I know a fair number of unmated persons who, for whatever reason, like to lament their singlehood and its persistence to me. It helps me to emit the appropriate “Uh-huh” and “Mmm” sounds if I know broadly what they’re talking about.
My sense of the romantic rodeo is that it’s tougher than ever just now, both for reasons that have obtained for several decades and for certain new ones. Here’s the essence of Aaron “Captain Capitalism” Clarey’s take on it:
I roughly estimate less than 5% of the female population are conditioned AND CAPABLE of being a wife and mother, which falls incredibly short of the 82% of men who wish to marry. Ergo, you can have your Ford in any color you want, as long as it's black. And most men today can have a wife as long as she's an NPC leftist.But did you ever wonder how women became so standardized, common, democrat, and (ultimately) boring? Did you ever wonder why there's truly NO diversity in thought, life-goals, and life-philosophy among young women? Did you ever wonder why ALL of them want a career, an education, a party-lifestyle, shoes, handbags, and none of them want a husband or children? Well, allow me to ask you a question:
How many trillions did you spend training and programming women to be good wives and mothers?
The reason I ask this question is because while it seems absurd (why would you spend any resources programming women to be anything?), trillions have, in fact, been spent on programming, training, and ultimately indoctrinating women into becoming NPC leftists….if you look at the feminist indoctrination young girls received in K-College to put their careers above all else, you can in an accounting-like-sense attribute at least a couple trillion towards a clear and obvious intent to make women want to be wage-slaves, while belittling, even criminalizing being a wife and a mother.
This is devastating, but it’s also perfectly accurate. The media that are principally consumed by women have been denigrating the womanly virtues with such ferocity that a young woman can hardly escape from the educational mill capable of enumerating them.
I’ve just indulged in a bit of crimespeak here, as I’m sure you’re aware. To suggest that there are specific virtues appropriate to a woman because she’s a woman is near to a hangin’ offense these days. Yet it is so. Just as the sexes have different strengths and weaknesses, they have different virtues. The virtues are a consequence of those strengths and weaknesses.
My gentle Readers can review the manly virtues at leisure. Today I’ve set aside for the ones a marriage-and-family-minded man must seek: the womanly ones.
There follow three reprints from the late, lamented Eternity Road.
Love in The Time of Combat, Part 1:
The typical American woman, of whatever age, height, weight, race, color, creed, or walk of life, is a profoundly confused creature. This is inescapable; most women don't have the intellectual horsepower or the strength of character to deal with the barrage of conflicting dictates and desiderata to which being an American woman in the year of Our Lord 2005 subjects her. Therefore, the typical American woman lives a life marked most plainly by incoherence and bafflement. In short, she's out at sea, with no buoys nor moorings in sight.
Women would like to blame this on men, but it's at least as much their own fault.
When a creature rebels against that which has been pre-programmed into it by genetics and reinforced by natural selection, it will be badly stressed. If the rebellion is conscious, some of the stress will be intellectual and emotional. Here is the foundation for American female malaise, and for its low-grade hostility toward American manhood.
The syndrome manifests itself most visibly in single women, whether never married or divorced. Married women, if they're to make a go of married life, learn to thrust it out of their conscious minds, to bury it as deeply in their subconsciouses as possible. Those whose marriages succeed have done an adequate job of interring it; it's a necessary condition. Those whose marriages fail have often allowed it to rise again. Like the South, this is a cause lost well in advance.
Our typical case should have a name; let's call her Mary Smith. For starters, let's imagine her to be single, self-supporting, and living on her own rather than with a husband, lover, or any other variation on that theme. Let's have a run-through of typical Mary's typical day.
She rises early, as do most working Americans, and heads for the shower to bathe and groom herself. What to wear? Well, dress codes, except for a very few customer-contact-intensive businesses, are all but extinct, so she has her choice. But here's where her conflicts begin.
Glamorous clothes tend to be less comfortable than not-so-glamorous ones, but there's that nice Ben over in Marketing, whose eye she thinks she might have caught. She'd like to explore that possibility further, and dressing attractively might help. But it might also bring more of the attentions of Larry, her pantingly overeager coworker in Accounting, and that she definitely doesn't want. Also, her work involves some to-and-fro in a largish building, so form-flattering clothes and high heels have some practical negatives attached.
But she's thirty-two, unmarried and childless. Her job, her fitness regimen, maintaining her apartment, and practicing her pastimes have sharply limited her social opportunities. If she doesn't snag a mate at work, what's she supposed to do? Sleep alone forever? The bars are no help, and don't even think about the lonelyhearts' ads.
She decides one way or the other, agonizes in the same fashion over makeup and perfume, and heads out to her car to drive to work.
Oh damn, the car won't start. It won't even crank; she's left the driver's door slightly ajar, and the cabin lights have drained the battery. Well, at least it isn't raining.
She unearths the battery charger her most recent boyfriend urged her to buy, and pops the hood on her car. There's the battery, those are the terminals: red for positive, black for negative, just like the color codings on the charger leads. Just clip red to red and black to black, plug the charger into the extension cord, and plug the extension cord into the wall. What could be simpler?
In prying the protective cover back from the red terminal, her grip slips and her hand flies into the propped-open hood. She bruises her hand and breaks a nail.
Crap! That manicure was only five days old. Money is tight; she hasn't the thirty bucks she'd need to get her nails redone. To say nothing of the swelling, which looks as if it might blossom into an impressive bruise. She'll just have to hope no one notices. She certainly hopes Ben and Larry don't notice, albeit for different reasons. Unfortunately, some of her cattier coworkers are odds-on to spot it and mention it in public. Competition never ends in the single career woman's world.
Thirty minutes later, the car starts, and she's off to the Place of Little Appreciation where she earns her daily bread. Traffic is no worse than usual, but the usual is quite bad enough. Unfortunately, the alternative is moving into the city, or the quasi-urban belt around it, and that's something she just can't afford. The combination of traffic delays and her automotive mishaps puts her forty-five minutes late in getting to her desk. Heads come up as her coworkers note her tardy arrival. She doesn't see The Boss, but he'll know as well. He has his ways.
Work is, well, work. There's too much of it, and little of it is rewarding apart from the salary she gets for it. She keeps to her desk, straining to maintain her concentration as the life of the office swirls around her. Some of the girls are sporting flattering new outfits and hairdos. Suzie, that transparent trollop, came to work in a tight silk blouse, skin-tight leather toreador pants and five-inch sling-back stilettos. All morning she parades around as if demanding admiration -- and she gets it. Mary can't help but notice the comments: barely polite lust from the men, unconcealed resentment from the women. Suzie bathes in it. Mary wonders about her own relatively conservative habits of dress, and whether she'll have to modify them to have a chance with Ben, or with any of the office's other single men. Whatever else she might say about Suzie, at least the girl is never alone.
To avoid having to stay too late, Mary declines an invitation to join her coworkers for lunch and works through her lunch hour, munching a vending-machine sandwich as she ages trial balances and projects exposure ratios.
The afternoon is just more of the same. Ben doesn't stop by to chat her up, but then, neither does Larry. At least no one comments on her bruised hand or her broken nail...in her hearing.
By the time Mary's ready to leave, it's dark out, and there's no one else on her floor. She's moderately frightened of the dark, as most women are, but she'll be damned rather than ask the male security guard to escort her through the parking garage. However, she makes it to her car without incident, gets in, and heads off.
Let's see: is this a Yoga night? No, not on Wednesday. But she's low on several staples, so she can't go directly home. Damn. A stop at the supermarket means she'll miss tonight's episode of Survivor: Buried Alive In A Manila Landfill. Well, it's that or not eat.
At home, she discovers that her cat has knocked over her amaryllis plants and peed into the soil. Damn cat. She ponders yet again whether having something to love is worth all this trouble.
There's a message on her answering machine. Her mother wants her to come home for dinner on Sunday. Except when the invitation is for a holiday, that's a sign of trouble. Trouble meaning a set-up with one of her friends' unmarried relatives. They're all so dull, so earnest, and so conventional. Granted, they're all employed, they all make decent livings, and she can't imagine any of them being actively dangerous, but where's the thrill in that? They'd all want her to give up her job and stay at home with the kids, and what's a woman without a job? Just a homemaker. Mom is much too ardent for grandkids. She's being a Thirties throwback with these introductions. Mary can do her own penis-hunting. She decides not to return the call.
Half an hour later, the groceries are away, the mess has been cleaned up, and Mary is perched on her sofa before the television, her Caesar salad made from packaged, pre-shredded lettuce and packaged, pre-cooked chicken strips, dressed with bottled raspberry vinaigrette from a socially conscious maker, nestled in her lap. There she'll while away the two hours she has available for leisure and personal maintenance.
The shows are all about glamorous single people with glamorous lives, pursuing and being pursued by other glamorous single people with glamorous lives. They seem to spend all their money, time, and energy on sex and clothing. It's unrealistic, two-dimensional, even bizarre to imagine that these are representations of real lives she's seeing...but the faces, bodies and clothes are so beautiful, the settings are so appealing, and the lifestyle so magnetic...
That's what you want, whispers a tiny voice in her backbrain. She's heard that voice many times over the years. Indeed, what she sees on the screen is a refined, upscale version of the life she lives...set out to live. Maybe she hasn't gotten anywhere lately, but there's still time.
At ten o'clock, she shuts off the TV, undresses, removes her makeup, and slides into bed. She has no alternatives: she has to get up at six to make it to work on time, after all. She notices on her nightstand the book she'd been reading, but that she'd neglected for three nights running: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. Lots of good stuff in there about men's oppression of women through fashion and popular standards of attractiveness. It has to go back to the library by the weekend, so she'd better get cracking.
Mary's too tired to read with attention. A page or two is all she can manage. But the book stirs her thoughts and pulls her away from the threshold of sleep. Even after she's masturbated, she can't relax enough. Men are exploitative, dictatorial thugs. Why should a woman have to primp and preen and decorate herself to catch a man's eye? Why should she have to strain to be attractive and desirable to fit into the happenin' world? Why should it make a difference whether she looks young, fit, and vital, or like a puddle of dissolving flesh? Doesn't she have a right to a passionate, exciting marriage, children, and relief from all this pressure? Doesn't she have a right to be happy?
Where are her answers to come from?
Mary marks her place, puts down her book, and turns out the light. She falls asleep with tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
Mary Smith might be a composite, but she's important nonetheless. She's an American Everywoman: determined to Have It All, clueless as to what that really means, bombarded with conflicting desires and enticements, and seriously underequipped for the life she's set out to live. All women are.
The array of opportunities and enticements offered by the Official Portrait of the Glamorous Life contains a number of important contradictions. Mary simply cannot Have It All. The parts conflict. Until consciously admitted, the conflicts seriously strain a woman's psyche. In particular, she becomes incapable of a relaxed relationship with the opposite sex.
That's bad enough, but there's worse. Much worse. The emphasis on sexual desirability trumpeted by the entertainment media and our popular tastemakers applies almost solely to women's presentation of themselves to men. Men's appearances, within a relatively generous envelope, don't matter that much to women. Women sense that men are far more relaxed about their dress and grooming than they, and they resent it. Why us? seems the most common reaction, as they do all they can to stoke the mostly-visually-triggered fires of men's lust.
The ongoing myth about male oppression of women and the continuing insistence that a woman must maximize her sexual allure to get and keep a man's love are mutually immiscible. These things require that a woman simultaneously believe that a man is an elusive prize to be won only by daunting, unceasing effort and self-discipline, and an enemy, sworn to break his woman to his will, who should be fought with every weapon to hand.
Torn by these conflicting dictates, many American women -- millions, if not tens of millions -- go quietly, undetectably insane. They simply haven't got either the intelligence or the emotional fortitude to work their way through to the truth. Worse yet, their strongest traditional bastions in times of trial, family and faith, have been excoriated by the very taste-and-opinion-formers who promote the conflict from which they suffer. The family is a source of traditional wisdom about a life well lived. It's so five minutes ago! And you'll never see our Mary at church on Sunday. It's unfashionable. The characters on television don't go to church! Besides, one of her coworkers might see her. She wouldn't want that. She might get a reputation as...as...as one of those Christians.
We're creating a womenfolk peppered with lunatics and child murderesses.
Love in the Time of Combat, Part 2:
It is possible to possess a huge number of great gifts -- good looks, high intelligence, affluence, social grace, the ability to put 9 out of 10 rounds through the X-ring at 100 yards -- and still be unable to mate happily and securely. There are factors in the mix that no individual, male or female, can control. Moreover, they dwarf the things one can control, utterly and irrevocably. Therefore, it's-just-not-fair plaints about one's romantic difficulties or defeats are pointless; indeed, they indicate an inability to grasp the essential nature of reality.
What are these uncontrollable factors before which even the most gifted of us are powerless? Other individuals.
If you want to guarantee yourself a life of helpless frustration in everything you do, here's the shortest route:
If we omit the special case of hatred -- the desire that harm come to an innocent person -- there's no such thing as a "wrong" desire. In the nature of things, there cannot be. There are wrong actions, of course, but simply to want is above all judgments but God's -- and lately He's been silent on the subject.
Inasmuch as courtship is a two-person pursuit, which can be ended by either party with no need for the other's consent, it should be obvious that to keep the thing going requires each participant to accommodate the other's desires. Partnerships of any sort require some of this, of course, but on the field of romance it's the sole, indispensable glue that holds two people together.
To love is to risk. To love is to drop one's general defenses and let another inside, and to extend the borders of self to enfold that other person, despite any flaws or maladies he might carry. To love is to incorporate the well-being of another into one's own highest priorities, even though one can never protect another half as well as oneself.
To love is to grow.
The emotional crescendo of love involves the dissolution of "I" and "thou" into "we." Your priorities gradually merge into hers, and hers into yours. At its completion, on essential matters at least, neither of you could fail to want what the other wants, nor could either of you fail to detest what the other detests. Each ego is not submerged but enlarged by the incorporation of the other.
This approach to love has some important corollaries. First, when love fails, it's because that merger has come undone. The egos begin to see themselves as distinct from one another once more. When clashes of desire arise, the partners can't quite remember how they melded them long before. Drivers that propelled the original coalescence appear no longer to function. Which is why one should practice well the habits of love -- the "doing," apart from the "feeling" -- to sustain him through his rough patches. We all have them, even the strongest, wisest, and most passionate of us.
But second, and more important to the unmated, there are persons with whom we are irremediably incompatible. It doesn't matter how strong the sexual attraction is, if one or more of her essential desires strikes you as loathsome. And of course the converse is true as well.
Many persons will split hairs over this, will claim that "you can get used to almost anything," and that a sufficiently strong willed commitment will trump even the deepest revulsions. To which, if I may borrow a page from the oeuvre of my colleague the Curmudgeon Emeritus, I must reply:
An essential desire is one that is "of the essence;" that is, it's a value integral to the nature and identity of the person who holds it. If you're to merge with her, it must become one of your essential desires as well -- and if it really, truly repels you, how on Earth will you manage that?
There might be exceptions. For example, you might harbor strong but irrational prejudices against the sorts of persons she prefers as friends. Perhaps you could unlearn them. Alternatively, if they really are lowlife scum, perhaps, in the light of your company, she'll come to see them for what they are. But if she's a militant atheist and you're a devout Catholic, or she's unalterably averse to having children and they're your fondest wish, or she's a passionate socialist and you're a passionate libertarian, forget it! You have no practical chance of making it work.
Compatibility of essential desires is not sufficient, but it is necessary. I speak from experience.
Over the millennia, men have remained more or less constant in what we require from a generic mate:
- Sex,
- A calm and stable home,
- A modicum of emotional support in our times of trial,
- Space and time for our autonomous pursuits.
Because our essential desires are few, and because some of them don't demand that others share them or participate in them, as a rule we're fairly easy to please. We have a few "thou shalt nots" -- keep your cotton-pickin' hands off the remote control, babe -- but apart from the desires enumerated above, we have virtually no "thou shalts." You want your own friends, ladies? Your own involvements? A career outside the home? Fine, as long as none of it compromises the home itself.
Because we're so easy to please, and because ours is the sex upon which the romantic / sexual initiative has been bestowed by Nature, most of the human race eventually marries. Granted, a lot of modern marriages don't last, but at least men still set forth to get mated, and we almost all succeed at that much.
At this point, I'd like to digress a bit to cover a contentious topic that badly needs elucidation: sexual allure.
Do men prefer certain female somatotypes? Yes, we do. So do women. Moreover, they're the same ones. They're not the ones sported by supermodels. Women that fragile, that dependent on clothing and makeup to attain desirability, and whose bodies are that likely to be ravaged by the passage of years into something stooped and desiccated are not appealing as long-term partners. The mind boggles at the image of one of those praying-mantis figures sporting the bulge of a full-term pregnancy. How could such a woman survive, unless she did what Victoria's Secret icon Tyra Banks did: cast off the emaciated look demanded by the fashion photographers and allow her body to develop?
With regard to glamor and its appurtenances, these have their place. A woman who knows how to use them, and uses them when appropriate, can add sparkle to her life, and to her husband's eyes as well. But a sensible man knows better than to expect the missus to make dinner in movie-star makeup, a Givenchy gown, and five-inch heels. At least, not every night.
The bottom line is simple:
- One must have a basic, if unarticulated, understanding of love to love successfully.
- One must somehow find a mate whose essential desires are compatible with one's own.
- One must learn to do love as well as feel love.
Everything else is peripheral, marginal, or superficial. Great loves and enduring families do not form around couples united mainly by their fanaticism for Toad the Wet Sprocket, the New York Rangers, or pepperoni pizza. They don't form between persons who badly want to get laid and find one another sufficiently un-repulsive to do it with. They don't form between persons obsessed with themselves and their extrinsic goals in business or commerce. They form when a man and a woman with compatible values allow each other's desires to become equal in importance to their own, and commit themselves to the sort of life and the sort of self-discipline that implies.
There's a word I've been hesitating to use, in part because it's so seldom mentioned in connection with love and romance, and in part because I use it so often. But I can resist it no longer; it's too critical to this whole matter of allowing one's beloved's desires to enter the space where he keeps his own, and to blend with them inseparably.
The word is humility.
The humble man accepts that certain things are beyond his control. Among other things, it requires that he accept what he is by virtue of being a man -- or a woman. Among the many things over which we have no control, our natures as men and women must surely be numbered. Were we to accept ourselves as what God made us, and our opposites in their turn, a tremendous fraction of the romantic / sexual malaise that stifles and hampers relations between the sexes would be dissipated at once.
Apparently this is easier said than done.
Love in the time of Combat, Part 3:
Single Americans, of either sex, have never before in history been as free to do as they please with their bodies and their leisure time. Relations between the sexes have never before admitted so many alternative arrangements. The broadening of the mores has applied to both sexes equally: where it was once commonplace for men to "get away cleanly with behavior for which women would be roundly denounced, today's sexual ethos no longer discriminates between them. What has happened to the old notion that, were women as "free" as men to do as they please, all the courtship and mating differences between the sexes would attenuate to nothing? Why are they exchanging patterns instead?
It's possible that no such exchange is actually in progress: that to generalize from the cited article, plus conformant anecdotal evidence from one's personal knowledge, would lead one astray. But it's also possible that the article has identified a genuine trend. How can we know?
For the moment, I would posit that we can't. The reported excesses of a segment of American women might or might not be representative of the whole; similarly the seeming "stodgification" of American men. Far more data, more broadly gathered and over a longer span of time, would be required to reach any firm conclusions. Given only what's been reported in articles such as the above, we can't know.
But that is precisely what makes this the time in which to contemplate what sort of results we'd prefer, and what sort of changes we should make in the instruction we give our children.
For some thirty-plus years, American children have been bathed in suggestions, intimations, and proclamations that there's no downside to commitment-free physical indulgences of any sort. The mantra of the prevailing gospel has been "If it feels good, do it." It would take an unusual degree of credulity to maintain that all those exhortations can have no relation to the changes that followed them:
- 1,500,000 abortions every year;
- Three out of every ten babies born out of wedlock;
- A divorce rate nearly half of the marriage rate;
- Surveys that put the percent of adulterous spouses at over 30%;
- An unprecedented number of "blended families" ("lumpy families," in Maggie Gallagher's phrase) composed of children from two or more sundered marriages;
- A rising degree of marital unhappiness, as evidenced not merely by the divorce rate, but also by the great popularity of marital counselors and institutions that vend services for the relief of marital distress.
- Last but not least, the steady advance of the average age at first marriage:
- Median age of bride in 1970: 20.8 years.
- Median age of bride in 2003: 25.3 years.
- Median age of groom in 1970: 23.2 years.
- Median age of groom in 2003: 27.1 years.
(NOTE: It's usually the case that one who presents statistics such as these will then cry for government action of some sort. I have no such intention.)
The case could be made that the above trends demonstrate a widening rift between the sexes: increasing distrust, increasing unease about the risks of long-term bonding, decreasing effort going to the maintenance of the marital bond, and decreasing interest in progeny. What interests me most particularly is the possibility that changes in female behavior arising from the new, heavily promoted sexual hedonism, have stimulated the changes in men's attitudes toward women, matrimony, and family-making.
Correlation is not cause. Correlations merely suggest an avenue for further investigation. But the correlations presented here, coupled to the sociological trends suggested by the cited article, are food for thought, particularly to him who wonders at fiftyish divorcees who grocery-shop in tube tops and Daisy Dukes, while single men in their forties seek lesbians to be host mothers to their as-yet-unconceived children.
Here endeth the reprints. The essays cited were first posted in the Year of Our Lord 2005. Things are worse today.
Could it be any clearer that, as Aaron Clarey has said, the educational system and other cultural messages have warped American women away from the virtues American men seek in a wife-to-be – the womanly virtues? And is there anyone who would dispute that the attitude expressed below:
…is a shortcut to romantic failure?
Despite the campaign against them – no less vicious or sustained than the campaign against the womanly virtues – the manly virtues have succeeded in resisting extinction. The womanly virtues totter at the edge of the abyss. It’s rare even to hear them spoken of, other than in terms of condemnation. Instead what we get are “Girls, you can have it all” exhortations, when anyone even superficially conversant with the trends of the last fifty years must know that that’s a lie. The consequences have been dire…and the worst of them might not be here yet.
The worst of them, I fear, will be the ones that stem from political differences.
There’s already been a lot of chatter about the agonies involved in dating someone whose politics one finds to be toxic. What makes it worse than ever is the success of the Left, once again through its media annices, at promoting the notion that everything is political. This has seeped into romantic undertakings as well.
Sharp political differences are difficult enough to bear when they occur between friends of the same sex. Romantic matches of the James Carville / Mary Matalin variety are as rare as snow in the Sahara. Most of us are unable to bear up under constant political assault. We retreat; we pull into our shells; we say “fuck off” to the haranguers and give our attention to matters we can address in peace and privacy. And the Left’s greatest successes have been among women. By contradiction this points at the opposed womanly virtue: devotion to (and skill at) the maintenance of a calm, peaceful home. Such a home is the reverse of politicized.
We’re more than five thousand words from where we’ve begun. There might be more to say, but this probably isn’t the place for it. The womanly virtues:
- Domestic skills;
- Skill at community relations;
- Nurturance of husband and children;
- The maintenance of a calm and peaceful home;
…are seriously endangered. Not just in these United States, as many men whose careers compel them to roam the globe have reported.
Whether the First World will retreat from the abyss by recovering and reasserting them, or disappear into it for the abandonment of them, remains to be seen. Several nations have already passed a demographic point of no return. Consider Japan.
Have a nice day.
CNN Aficionadi Should Avert Their Eyes
…because I just had to steal and post this:
As my sainted father liked to say, “Don’t lie down with no whore, won’t get up with no whore.” Acosta and his network have sown the wind. The whirlwind has arrived right on schedule.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
If You Enjoyed “Villeins”
…and would like a copy to keep or send to others, you can find it at Smashwords:
…as a free download, without Digital Rights Management.
Daggers
I once referred to myself as Irish-American. Then I ran across this statement by Theodore Roosevelt:
“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic.”
For lagniappe, have a compatible sentiment from Woodrow Wilson:
“Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.”
Very strong words, these. As it is Saint Patrick’s Day, it seems appropriate to reflect on them, and on a few daggers that have been plunged into the American Republic by persons who carry hyphens about with them.
Some time ago, concerning a “Puerto Rican Day” celebration in the Big Apple, I had this to say:
No one gets to choose his parents. (Yes, we’re getting closer to being able to choose our children via genetic engineering, but that's a subject for another tirade.) No one gets to choose where he’s born. Insofar as ethnicity is taken to imply cultural norms and practices, some are exemplary, some are tolerable, and some are most definitely vile. But the norms and practices are detachable from accidents of geography, as the experiences of Man’s “diaspora” demographics clearly demonstrate. Nothing prevents me, with my Irish-Italian parentage and my fiercely American allegiance, from adopting Russian, Iranian, or Indian norms and practices, except for my distaste for them...particularly their ideas about food.Pride in one’s achievements is rational and acceptable, as long as it doesn't lead one to denigrate the legitimate achievements of others. Pride in accidents of birth or geography is simple lunacy. It's intended to foster a collectivist mindset that the lightest brush with rationality would dispel...which says a lot about the intellects of those who immerse themselves in such a mindset, doesn't it?
The same could be said about any accident of birth – and any choice of a creed.
I’m sure my Gentle Readers are aware of the recent mass shootings at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques. Perhaps you’re also aware that the Islamic mouthpiece groups are trying to fabricate political and social capital from them. Needless to say, any attempt to get an accurate assessment of the 35,000-plus incidents of Islamic atrocities since Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 is routinely shouted down by those same mouthpiece groups as “Islamophobia.”
These folks don’t call themselves Americans. At best, they’re “Muslim-Americans.” Note the hyphen.
One righteous Australian senator has dared to express himself on the subject:
…and of course was immediately attacked by the Australian prime minister and other custard-headed Aussie politicians for his “racism.”
Islam is not a race. It is a violent, imperialist ideology whose Koran and other core documents command Muslims to seek to conquer the world – not merely religiously but politically and legally as well. It wears some theological decorations that it uses to gain protection under Western freedom-of-religion laws. But Nazism used essentially the same disguise – the “Aryan race” as God’s chosen people and Adolf Hitler as its standard-bearer – and we don’t confer special respect or protection on that, do we?
At this point all the daggers are unsheathed. There’s no longer any dissembling about the animosities among the races, the creeds, the ethnicities, and so on. Intertribal violence has erupted several times already. We’re likely to see a lot more of it.
The one good thing about this state of affairs is that it’s bringing a degree of clarity to what’s really been going on: a massive, multi-front struggle for power, from which each tribe seeks to emerge supreme, capable of dealing as it likes with the others, without resistance or repercussions.
Hearken to the late George Alec Effinger:
"Good afternoon. This is Bob Dunne, NBC News in New Haven, Connecticut. We're standing here in the lobby of the Hotel Taft in New Haven, where the first international racial war has just been declared. In just a few seconds, the two men responsible will be coming out of that elevator. (Can you hear me?)
"—elevator. Those of you in the western time zones are probably already—"
The elevator doors opened. Two men emerged, smiling and holding their hands above their heads in victorious, self-congratulatory boxers' handshakes. They were immediately mobbed by newsmen. One of the two men was exceptionally tall and black as midnight in Nairobi. The other was short, fat, white, and very nervous. The black man was smiling broadly, the white man was smiling and wiping perspiration from his face with a large red handkerchief.
"—C News. The Negro has been identified as the representative of the people of color of all nations. He is, according to the mimeographed flyer distributed scant minutes ago, Mary McLeod Bethune Washington, of Washington, Georgia. The other man with him is identified as Robert Randall La Cygne, of La Cygne, Kansas, evidently the delegate of the Caucasian peoples. When, and by whom, this series of negotiations was called is not yet clear.
"At any rate, the two men, only yesterday sunk in the sticky obscurity of American life, have concluded some sort of bargaining that threatens to engulf the entire world in violent reaction. The actual content of that agreement is still open to specu—
"—or at any later date."
A close-up on Washington, who was reading from a small black notebook.
"We have thus reached, and passed, that critical moment. This fact has been known and ignored by all men, on both sides of the color line, for nearly a generation. Henceforth, this situation is to be, at least, honest, if bloodier. Bob and I join in wishing you all the best of luck, and may God bless."
"Mr. Washington?"
"Does this necessarily mean—"
"—iated Press here, Mr. Washing—"
"Yes? You, with the hat."
"Yes, sir. Vincent Reynolds, UPI. Mr. Washington, are we to understand that this agreement has some validity? You are aware that we haven't seen any sort of credentials—"
Washington grinned. "Thank you. I'm glad you brought that up. Credentials? Just you wait a few minutes, and listen outside. Ain't no stoppin' when them rifles start poppin'!"
"Mr. Washington?"
"Yes?"
"Is this to be an all-out, permanent division of peoples?"
"All-out, yes. Permanent, no. Bob and I have decided on a sort of statute of limitations. You go out and get what you can for thirty days. At the end of the month, we'll see what and who's left."
"You can guarantee that there will be no continuation of hostilities at the end of the thirty days?"
"Why, sure! We're all growed up, now, ain't we? Sure, why, you can trust us!"
"Then this is a war of racial eradication?"
"Not at all," said Bob La Cygne, who had remained silent, behind Washington's broad seersucker back. "Not at all what I would call a war of eradication. 'Eradicate' is an ugly term. 'Expunge' is the word we arrived at, isn't it, Mary Beth?"
"I do believe it is, Bob."
Washington studied his notebook for a few seconds, ignoring the shouting newsmen around him. No attempt was made by the uniformed guards to stop the pushing and shoving, which had grown somewhat aggravated. Then he smiled brightly, turning to La Cygne. They clasped hands and waved to the flashing bulbs of the photographers.
"No more questions, boys. You'll figure it all out soon enough; that's enough for now." The two men turned and went back into the waiting elevator.[George Alec Effinger, “All the Last Wars At Once”]
That’s what’s coming if the daggers aren’t resheathed. But resheathing them appears to require the segregation of the various tribes into geographically distinct nation-states – voluntarily if possible, but by force if not. In particular, the historical enmity Muslims bear toward Jews and Christians seems beyond any resolution. The deliberately fomented enmity American Negroes bear toward whites may be irreparable as well. Time will tell.
I wrote a foreboding about one element of this some time ago. It seems unnecessarily limited and restrained today. The internecine slaughter in George Alec Effinger’s story has come to seem more likely if the tribes – racial, creedal, ethnic, what-have-you – don’t agree to go their separate ways. Doubt it if you like; I can’t.
While I continue to pray that the tensions will somehow be dispersed and we all return to something approximating mutual tolerance, I will tell you frankly, as few others will: should it come to blows, I’ll be with the white Christian American patriots, and I’ll be shooting. I’ll have no choice, as it will be a matter of survival.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.
Ethnicity and Identity
This has been festering for some time. It's not a concept that the Elites want to address - they want to pretend that all ethnicities are exactly the same, except that the darker ethnics are BETTER - more noble, more compassionate, better lovers, richer in family life, oh - BTW - they were also ALL kings in their ancestral country, etc.
This is, of course, nonsense. All ethnicities are NOT identical. Some of that is due to their environment, growing up - the often-commented upon lack of physical grace in Anglos - "White men can't dance" - has, partly, a basis in the unimportance of dancing in most White households. In other words, we don't punctuate family moments by spontaneously breaking into The Dougie, or other steps.
But, I have seen that in other ethnic households. It's a way of bonding, using familiar traditions. And that, to an extent, will explain most of the differences in ethnicities.
But, not all. There is also something to be said for physical being, which is - almost completely - a genetic heritage. If you don't have the right kind of flexibility in your joints, you just aren't going to be able to make those movements smoothly.
Many White Americans descended from laborers and peasants - strength was important, flexibility and agility, much less so. The genetic heritage is likely responsible for the relatively stiff ligaments, shorter, stockier build, and tendency to mesomorphic proportions.
Few people would argue that. The physical evidence is hard to deny.
But, in fact, the mental component is also a combination of culture, and genetics.
I am NOT saying that some races are smarter. In general, the average of any race is smart enough to manage their life without needing someone to tell them what to do.
Smartness is relative. There are some undeniably high-IQ individuals that are - in terms of common sense or 'street smarts' - dumb as posts. And, the reverse is true - there are some that seemingly have limited brain power, that manage to work, raise a successful family, and earn the regard of neighbors and community. That's what I would call Life-Smart.
BTW: a successful family may be defined as: are your kids living in your house, on drugs/alcohol, or trailing a passel of kids of indeterminate fathers? Then, you are NOT successful. If ONE out of the bunch falls into one or more of those categories, but the others do not, that MIGHT be just an accident. If all, or nearly all, do, your family was a failure.
But, the various types of intelligence are NOT evenly distributed. Singers come in every ethnicity, but perfect pitch is 100% inheritable. That trait Both musical and artistic giftedness express themselves at an early age, and certainly indicate one type of intelligence.
The so-called 'street smarts' accounts for the successful careers of many salesmen, and is likely to be primarily the result of an outgoing personality (extroversion) and the kind of brain that can sense those subtle facial and body movements that indicate the inner feelings of the subject. Again, likely inheritable - the extroversion/introversion orientation can be sorted right at birth - it's clear that early (probably exists even before birth, but means to determine are not readily avaiable).
Introverts used to excel at school. Today's noisier classrooms make it harder - sometimes, nearly impossible for them to have the quiet they need to think clearly.
Let's look at just ONE of the physical indicators that many differences in people are likely genetic.
Perfect Pitch. It was a factor in the developed musical talents of Mozart, Beethoven, and the musically-inclined Bach family. While not a substitute for training, it gives possessors a huge leg up.
Geneticists have begun narrowing down the gene(s) responsible for that trait. Will that discovery, along with genetic tinkering in utero, bring forth a new generation of musical prodigies?
Not without some cultural/familial prodding. And, even with it, that trait is only ONE of the components that affect musical genius.
Similarly, many of the brain differences affect only a few parts of our lives. But, those differences exist, and account for many facets of ethnic distinction.
Do those hard-wired differences also affect culture? It would be hard to make an argument that they do not.
So. What does all of this mean in a world that is increasingly trying to fit all ethnicities, and genders, into the same mold? Trying to pretend that there are not differences in abilities, which would lead to different outcomes. Not to mention picking "winners" and "losers" in the race.*
Chaos. And resentment. And ethnic strife.
*If you think Whites are uniquely favored in America, consider this - you could not call the men of any ethnicity "losers", without triggering the Hate Onslaught upon you.
Unless that ethnicity was White men. In that case, let's laugh and agree with that characterization.
This is, of course, nonsense. All ethnicities are NOT identical. Some of that is due to their environment, growing up - the often-commented upon lack of physical grace in Anglos - "White men can't dance" - has, partly, a basis in the unimportance of dancing in most White households. In other words, we don't punctuate family moments by spontaneously breaking into The Dougie, or other steps.
But, I have seen that in other ethnic households. It's a way of bonding, using familiar traditions. And that, to an extent, will explain most of the differences in ethnicities.
But, not all. There is also something to be said for physical being, which is - almost completely - a genetic heritage. If you don't have the right kind of flexibility in your joints, you just aren't going to be able to make those movements smoothly.
Many White Americans descended from laborers and peasants - strength was important, flexibility and agility, much less so. The genetic heritage is likely responsible for the relatively stiff ligaments, shorter, stockier build, and tendency to mesomorphic proportions.
Few people would argue that. The physical evidence is hard to deny.
But, in fact, the mental component is also a combination of culture, and genetics.
I am NOT saying that some races are smarter. In general, the average of any race is smart enough to manage their life without needing someone to tell them what to do.
Smartness is relative. There are some undeniably high-IQ individuals that are - in terms of common sense or 'street smarts' - dumb as posts. And, the reverse is true - there are some that seemingly have limited brain power, that manage to work, raise a successful family, and earn the regard of neighbors and community. That's what I would call Life-Smart.
BTW: a successful family may be defined as: are your kids living in your house, on drugs/alcohol, or trailing a passel of kids of indeterminate fathers? Then, you are NOT successful. If ONE out of the bunch falls into one or more of those categories, but the others do not, that MIGHT be just an accident. If all, or nearly all, do, your family was a failure.
But, the various types of intelligence are NOT evenly distributed. Singers come in every ethnicity, but perfect pitch is 100% inheritable. That trait Both musical and artistic giftedness express themselves at an early age, and certainly indicate one type of intelligence.
The so-called 'street smarts' accounts for the successful careers of many salesmen, and is likely to be primarily the result of an outgoing personality (extroversion) and the kind of brain that can sense those subtle facial and body movements that indicate the inner feelings of the subject. Again, likely inheritable - the extroversion/introversion orientation can be sorted right at birth - it's clear that early (probably exists even before birth, but means to determine are not readily avaiable).
Introverts used to excel at school. Today's noisier classrooms make it harder - sometimes, nearly impossible for them to have the quiet they need to think clearly.
Let's look at just ONE of the physical indicators that many differences in people are likely genetic.
Perfect Pitch. It was a factor in the developed musical talents of Mozart, Beethoven, and the musically-inclined Bach family. While not a substitute for training, it gives possessors a huge leg up.
Geneticists have begun narrowing down the gene(s) responsible for that trait. Will that discovery, along with genetic tinkering in utero, bring forth a new generation of musical prodigies?
Not without some cultural/familial prodding. And, even with it, that trait is only ONE of the components that affect musical genius.
Similarly, many of the brain differences affect only a few parts of our lives. But, those differences exist, and account for many facets of ethnic distinction.
Do those hard-wired differences also affect culture? It would be hard to make an argument that they do not.
So. What does all of this mean in a world that is increasingly trying to fit all ethnicities, and genders, into the same mold? Trying to pretend that there are not differences in abilities, which would lead to different outcomes. Not to mention picking "winners" and "losers" in the race.*
Chaos. And resentment. And ethnic strife.
*If you think Whites are uniquely favored in America, consider this - you could not call the men of any ethnicity "losers", without triggering the Hate Onslaught upon you.
Unless that ethnicity was White men. In that case, let's laugh and agree with that characterization.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Planning, Systems, And Epiphenomena
There’s a pervasive myth abroad that various human activities can be planned out a priori, and that the activity can somehow be compelled to follow the plan without deviation. Many persons in the engineering fields are aware of this myth by virtue of having had it imposed upon them from above, typically in response to a nightmare such as the ISO-9000 system.
It’s a sham and a delusion. The reason for its illusory character is simple. Let it be known henceforward as The Curmudgeon’s Pessimistic Axiom:
Before he actually does it.
There are a few exceptions, but they all relate to the simplest of simplicities, such as arising from slumber and going to the toilet. Nearly fifty years in software engineering has convinced me of this. Would anyone care to argue the point?
But I’m not here to talk about engineering. Not really.
This morning’s stimulus was provided by Mark “Mad Dog” Sherman:
Is Income Inequality Fair?The point of income inequality is to give those learning to be productive an incentive and a goal. The progressive left wants to destroy these incentives because in the end some, but not all, end wealthy. At least this is the argument used. I doubt this is the underlying reason at all. I am more inclined to believe progressives want to control others and want a reason to confiscate wealth, and income for their own uses.
Mark’s contention about the Left is, of course, absolutely correct. What piqued me was the suggestion that income inequality, which appears to be a feature of every economic scheme, has a “point:” i.e., a preconceived purpose that partially animated the “design” of the economic system.. Granted that, as Mark states, in a largely free economy such as ours, income inequality provides a spur to learning and the acquisition of valued skills. However, even in a system planned out as rigidly as the most absolute totalitarianism would permit, income inequality would arise. It always has. There’s no reason to imagine that that will change.
Whether or not the planners plan for it, there will be income inequality. But why?
The key word is epiphenomenon.
An epiphenomenon of a system is a characteristic that arises unplanned from that system. It is a consequence of lower-level characteristics of the system…sometimes, of fundamental properties built into the laws of nature. There are sometimes means by which an epiphenomenon of a human-designed system can be altered, but in the usual case, it involves altering designed-in fundamentals of the system. That will always have other consequences, not all of them desirable or benign.
Every system of any kind will possess epiphenomena. This flows from the Pessimistic Axiom, but equally from another important law of nature:
Alternately:
All causal reasoning must take this aspect of temporal reality into account.
The point of this tirade is not to discourage people and corporations against planning their activities. Planning is yet another inevitability. However, the point of planning should not be to create a rigid blueprint for the action that follows. Rather, a plan should be viewed as a guide to optimal results under optimal circumstances…which we already know will not exist. The most important function of a plan is to stimulate learning and adjustment: the constructive acceptance of our fallibility and the recognition of necessary changes as we encounter them.
Quite a long time ago, I had an intricate exchange with the C.S.O. about metaphysical fundamentals. The details, though fascinating, aren’t really relevant here. What was most memorable was when she summed up my argument in a single brief sentence:
And that is exactly correct, albeit with a small edit: replace the conjunction or with and.
Yes, God did it. But shit does happen. Quite a lot of it, actually. People and things change in unpredictable and therefore unpredicted ways. We must cope. Sometimes we fail to do so adequately. One way or another, the consequences will include epiphenomena we did not plan for and might have hoped to avoid.
Hearken to Theodore Sturgeon, from his magnificent novelette “Slow Sculpture:”
Only the companion of a bonsai (there are owners of bonsai, but they are a lesser breed) fully understands the relationship. There is an exclusive and individual treeness to the tree because it is a living thing, and living things change, and there are definite ways in which the tree desires to change. A man sees the tree and in his mind makes certain extensions and extrapolations of what he sees, and sets about making them happen. The tree in turn will do only what a tree can do, will resist to the death any attempt to do what it cannot do, or to do it in less time than it needs.. the shaping of a bonsai is therefore always a compromise and always a cooperation. A man cannot create bonsai, nor can a tree; it takes both, and they must understand each other. It takes a long time to do that. One memorizes one’s bonsai, every twig, the angle of every crevice and needle, and, lying awake at night or in a pause a thousand miles away, one recalls this or that line or mass, one makes one’s plans. With wire and water and light, with tilting and the planting of water-robbing weeds or heavy root-shading ground cover, one explains to the tree what one wants, and if the explanation is well-enough made, and there is great enough understanding, the tree will respond and obey—almost. Always there will be its own self-respecting, highly individual variation: Very well, I shall do what you want, but I will do it my own way. And for these variations, the tree is always willing to present a clear and logical explanation, and more often than not (almost smiling) it will make clear to the man that he could have avoided it if his understanding had been better.
It is the slowest sculpture in the world, and there is, at times, doubt as to which is being sculpted, man or tree.
Systems, especially those that include living actors, are like that: difficult to plan and filled with epiphenomena, some of which will always run counter to the preferences of the planners. For we don’t know what we’re going to do until we’ve actually done it.
Time to go furniture shopping. Enjoy your Saturday.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Attention: Free Fiction! (Sticky Through 3/15)
On Friday, March 15, 2019, my short romance novel Love in the Time of Cinema will be free at Amazon:
At 28 Jana Tyrell is already Hollywood’s top actress, but she’s at odds with Tinseltown’s culture. When boyfriend Eric Feiglin dumps her, she seeks someone of substance. She finds it in Tim Beaufort, an obscure writer from New York. Jana’s choice of Tim confounds her colleagues. Eric Feiglin sees it as an insult to him and seeks revenge.
Free for just one day, so get it while you can!
Juggling Chainsaws Again
…with the giveaway and related crap, so have a little music from the late, deeply lamented Sandy Denny, from her eponymous album Sandy:
The young man rose his pretty face,
All for to feel the salty spray.
When storms are mustering they say
I'll come and take you all away.I am a traveller by trade,
I only have what I have made.
A fortune teller too, they say,
And I can take you all away.Listen, listen to him, do,
He is the one who is for you.
Listen, they say,
He'll come and take us all away.And over there the young man stayed,
Upon on the rocks so rough and grey.
Watching the buoy. Watching the day.
Thinking of how he came to be.A young man he, he is so real,
And nevermore to go astray.
He is a farrier now, they say,
And he can take himself away.Listen, listen to him, do,
He is the one who is for you.
Listen, they say,
He'll come and take us all away.
If I could produce just one thing that simple and beautiful, I would consider my life well lived.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Progressives Need to Step Away From the Abyss
First, they held that we were terrible people - Deplorables - who were obstructing the Right Things to Do. Not Nazis themselves, but deluded, confused, easily led and Not-Too-Bright underclasses.
Then, they said we were, in fact, Nazis, or, at least, Fascist Sympathizers. Most of us were bewildered by the idea that those who were attacked - physically and financially, through boycotts, intimidations, forced firings/resignations, harassment at home, being ejected from public places and social media - could possibly be this Enemy of the People.
But, so the charge was lodged. The fact that it was alleged was used as "proof" that the charge was true. They backed up their charges by citing extreme Left 'authorities' such as the SPLC.
Violence against politicians - if the victim was not a Leftist - were buried and minimized. They recently refused the nearly-killed Congressman and Majority Whip Steve Scalise a chance to speak at a hearing on gun violence, as an actual victim of a gun crime.
The new congresswoman from Michigan, hours after being sworn in, cursed in vulgar language, swearing that "We're going to impeach the motherf****r." She did not use asterisks, she flatly used the full word. That was Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich). Video below.
And, now, a newly elected Congresswoman from MN asserts that Trump is not even human - video below.
Then, they said we were, in fact, Nazis, or, at least, Fascist Sympathizers. Most of us were bewildered by the idea that those who were attacked - physically and financially, through boycotts, intimidations, forced firings/resignations, harassment at home, being ejected from public places and social media - could possibly be this Enemy of the People.
But, so the charge was lodged. The fact that it was alleged was used as "proof" that the charge was true. They backed up their charges by citing extreme Left 'authorities' such as the SPLC.
Violence against politicians - if the victim was not a Leftist - were buried and minimized. They recently refused the nearly-killed Congressman and Majority Whip Steve Scalise a chance to speak at a hearing on gun violence, as an actual victim of a gun crime.
The new congresswoman from Michigan, hours after being sworn in, cursed in vulgar language, swearing that "We're going to impeach the motherf****r." She did not use asterisks, she flatly used the full word. That was Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich). Video below.
And, now, a newly elected Congresswoman from MN asserts that Trump is not even human - video below.
Many of us who are Not-Left have been wondering if we are approaching Civil War 2.0. American Claremont's American Mind site says - and I agree - we are BEYOND that point.
It's here. Now.
They hate us. They have contempt for us, and no hesitation about displaying it openly. They viciously attack us in public, in our homes, and use thug tactics to threaten our livelihoods, our safety, and our ability to function in a modern society.
I hate this. I have family and friends on both sides. When it's all over, there will be a putative victor (because a fight so infused with hatred must end in complete surrender for one side), but there will not be peace. It will end in bitterness, lasting distrust, and unwillingness to associate with the other side in any way. It will be the end of the United States, as we have known it.
Logic has not stopped their lies. Resort to the courts is a lost cause. They have taken over the legislative bodies, maligning and intimidating any opposition, threatening the established leadership, and using underhanded means in their climb to power.
I don't see an end that doesn't culminate in death - many of them.
Honesty, Clarity, And Other Virtues The Left Strives To Suppress
To one whose highest priority is power, anything that might obstruct or impede his pursuit of power is a fault to be avoided. That includes any of the conventionally recognized virtues.
Today the great Chris Muir has something to say about that:
Note the unabashed use of a word tabooed by our sociocultural shamans. I have no problem with it. American Negroes use it freely, and I refuse to allow anyone to tell me that what they can say to and about one another, I cannot. But then, colored people have a lot of strange ideas, don’t they?
Chris expressed an important observation in a striking fashion: clarity. Moreover, he bull’s-eyed it in the process: honesty. Clearly, he’d never fit in on the Left. Somehow I doubt that it troubles him overmuch.
Now let’s look at how Left-wing activists would view Chris’s “American white men are the nigger of the whole world” statement. Would they salute its unflinching honesty about the bigotry being exercised against the nation and the race that built the modern world and three times saved it from irrevocable tyranny? Clearly not, as it runs counter to one of their major weapons for advancement: the inculcation and exploitation of undeserved guilt among American whites.
Well, what about its clarity? Would that draw the approbation of Leftist activists? Again, clearly not (note the irony). To be clear about an injustice being perpetrated by the Left is to paste a target onto one’s chest. (If you’re a white male you’ve already got one on your back, as the Left prefers to strike its targets unaware. Cowards are like that.)
Virtues we were once taught to pursue in our spoken and written communications are anathema to the Left. Whenever a Leftist expresses himself on any subject, you may rest assured that both honesty and clarity will be absent from his emission. Nor would it advance either cause to ask him “what do you mean by that?” He’ll simply call you a racist and walk away.
The Western nations are rooted in Christian ethics. I’ve referred on several occasions to the First World as the nations of the Christian Enlightenment. The Enlightenment thinkers may have been indifferent to Christianity as a faith, but they absorbed its ethos whole, and never departed from it. The core of that ethos consists of seven virtues:
- The three theological virtues:
- Faith,
- Hope,
- Charity;
- And the four cardinal virtues:
- Prudence,
- Justice,
- Temperance,
- Fortitude.
For political purposes, faith should be regarded as a secular attribute: i.e., faith in the rightness of the ethos for public action. I’m sure my Gentle Readers need no help in discerning why those seven virtues are anathema to the power-seeker. All seven are clearly – a little more irony there – essential to the maintenance of a free and harmonious society.
So the Leftist, the ultimate power-seeker, must act to suppress and extirpate the seven virtues wherever they are found. Certainly he must avoid practicing them himself. And he must struggle to suppress the comprehension of why he does so…among others, of course.
“Mr. Rearden,” he had said once, “if you feel you’d like to hand out more of the Metal to friends of yours—I mean, in bigger hauls—it could be arranged, you know. Why don’t we apply for a special permission on the ground of essential need? I’ve got a few friends in Washington. Your friends are pretty important people, big businessmen, so it wouldn’t be difficult to get away with the essential need dodge. Of course, there would be a few expenses. For things in Washington. You know how it is, things always occasion expenses.”
“What things?”
“You understand what I mean.”
“No,” Rearden had said, “I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
The boy had looked at him uncertainly, weighed it in his mind, then come out with: “It’s bad psychology.”
“What is?”
“You know, Mr. Rearden, it’s not necessary to use such words as that.”
“As what?”
“Words are relative. They’re only symbols. If we don’t use ugly symbols, we won’t have any ugliness. Why do you want me to say things one way, when I’ve already said them another?”
“Which way do I want you to say them?”
“Why do you want me to?”
“For the same reason that you don’t.”
The boy had remained silent for a moment, then had said, “You know, Mr. Rearden, there are no absolute standards. We can’t go by rigid principles, we’ve got to be flexible, we’ve got to adjust to the reality of the day and act on the expediency of the moment.”
“Run along, punk. Go and try to pour a ton of steel without rigid principles, on the expediency of the moment.”[Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]
Rand’s prescient vision was largely focused on the economic sphere. Yet it applies without distortion to every realm in human intercourse. The Left is savagely determined to suppress all the virtues of the Christian Enlightenment, and to do so without ever admitting its mission. Therefore it must treat honesty and clarity as mortal enemies to be destroyed. Should those virtues in communication make a true comeback – should we all return to speaking plainly, using words according to their common meanings and eschewing all dissimulation – the Left will go down to a most ignominious defeat.
So by all means ask the Leftist haranguing you “What do you mean by that?” Smile when he calls you a racist, sexist, xenophobe, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, or whatever. Then tell him, “Your response has been video-recorded. Have a nice day.” Tot it up as your good deed for the day.
Food for thought.
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