“I only trust you as far as I can throw you.”
“Trust, but verify.”
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Trust is important in the smallest of transactions, but trust is essential to the continued operation of a civilization. With trust comes commonality. If I trust you, that means I found something in you that I also find in me. I can take risks with you and still expect to be dealt with fairly.
Expanding out to a society as a whole, trust is the lubricant that makes life run smoothly. You trust your employer to pay you for the work you do. You trust the seller on eBay to include your product and not just a handful of rocks. You trust eBay to fix it when the seller sends you rocks. You trust your neighbors to not take advantage when you go on vacation. You trust the justice system to make your neighbors pay for the damage when they take advantage.
Commonality. They are like me, so they will deal with me in a predictable and stable way. They may not do the right thing every time, but I can count on the consequences catching up to wrongdoers and the benefits catching up to those who do wise things.
Until recently, the myth of commonality was still strong. It may not have been as true as people believed it to be, but the fact that people, by and large, operated in good faith tended to smooth out many of the wrinkles. Commonality has tended to work better on smaller scales. Village, community, town. Not so well on larger scales. What do I, suburban flyover inhabitant, have in common with your average Harlem resident? Not much. And that’s where the cracks began to form. The illusion of national commonality was more of a mainstream culture thing. For the longest time, a very WASPy thing. Ignore the blacks, ignore the immigrant enclaves, ignore the Amish and the natives. The mainstream culture was one of national commonality in the 20th century up until the 60s.
As the rifts began to form, the commonality declined, but the patriotism of the people, the slow moving nature of the culture, and a heaping helping of lackadaisical disinterest in rocking the boat by a large majority of the country resulted in this common inertia. Race relations were improving, internicene bickering was background noise. “This is fine” was the motto as an unseen rot chewed through institutions.
What unseen rot? Deconstructionism. Those smarmy assholes who are on the front lines of killing various institution of repute, gutting them, and skinsuiting them. The media, academia, corporate HR departments, non-profits, local governments, school boards. All infested with the amoral termites chewing away at the commonality and culture that has held this country together for over a century.
Now we see the result, weaponized institutions. The problem they have, though, is the fact that they’ve moved too fast. People still remember what it was like when the country didn’t hate itself, when every decision wasn’t dissected looking for the slightest hint of heterodox thought to be labeled with whichever form of bigotry fits the mob’s fancy. The result is a very quick and pronounced descent into a culture of low institutional trust.
When people are bombarded day in and day out with boys crying wolf, eventually people either lose their minds or tune it out. “Wolf!” shouts another one. With a weary sigh, the people demand a pelt before they believe it. The inherent trust is gone. People have their guard up at all times.
The biggest problem with living in a low trust environment like today is that everybody feels the need to walk on eggshells. Companies talk about “bringing your whole self to work”, but everybody who doesn’t voice the company line knows that the company is just beckoning you to come take a look at the wolf they’ve caught, oh and ignore the baseball bat they’re brandishing. Activists talk about having conversations, but people know that they’re liable to be labeled a wolf for saying or not saying the wrong thing. Beyond just a lack of commonality, people have begun to assume discommonality in others. They hunt for the slightest sign that others are not in common and use that difference as an excuse to close themselves off. Instead of bring their whole self to work, people are bringing a highly curated facade that doesn’t say untoward things.
The thing is, though, people crave that commonality. It’s the basis of community. As we move away from a society where community could be quite large, with people trusting in the commonality of total strangers, we’re seeing a tightening of social circles, where even old friends are viewed with a wary eye. “Are you one of them? Are you going to ruin my life because I say something you don’t like?”
As our tribes shrink, there’s a certain measure of trust that will be regained, but I don’t think we’ll ever return to that innocent culture in the 20th century when people broadly trusted in the commonality of others. National commonality and institutional trust are gone, and closing the barn door isn’t gonna help.
Trust me means Fuck You in Californian……
>>with living in a low trust environment like today is that everybody feels the need to walk on eggshells.
because of this I tend to keep my head down and my opinions to myself.
Which, in turn, causes an echo chamber with my more liberal friends and associates. They no longer hear me challenging their political beliefs – as much.
This
My filters are off. I feel no obligation to tolerate others’ totalitarian opinions anymore.
I’m basically paid to keep my mouth shut about politics. As I told my boss on one occasion. She is a totally in-the-bubble partisan Dem, and knows that I am, well, not.
I think she decided it was best for everybody if I kept my mouth shut.
I own and run my own business, so I have less to worry about in this regard. Never mind that my primary customers are contractors, not a particularly liberal group.
Yep, if I’m holding my tongue at work or the bar its’ because some knuckle-dragging mouth-breather is spouting off whatever drivel he heard on Hannity the night before. I don’t really care for political talk at work or at the pub regardless if it’s left or right wing, mainly because it’s almost all talking points, very rarely do I encounter some one that actually wants to discuss an issue (or if they want to they aren’t capable). Of course I don’t like talking to randos at the bar about sports, work, or family, either.
Most people are morons.
Therefore, most people who want to talk politics are morons.
Ergo, I prefer listening to people talk politics who have different opinions than me — because it shows me that people who disagree with me are morons.
I rarely if ever talk politics with customers. It’s a treacherous thing to do.
I will occasionally curse about something on the television news in the office.
Too bad your boss isn’t paid to keep her bitch mouth shut, too.
Work, I’ll keep my filters up and strong, with large amounts of deflection and dissembling.
Sitting out a brewery or a bar. Nope. Filters off,
This.
Even at work, I’ll occasionally let my mask slip. Yesterday, we were gathering for a meeting and everybody had their masks off (because vax) except one woman, who was sitting next to me. As we got pulled together for the meeting, she asked if I minded if she took her mask off (she was the only one in the room with one on).
I told her I preferred it, as I thought they were ineffective and totally unnecessary. Pretty sure my voice may have carried. The room was full of doctors not wearing masks and not social distancing. Nobody contradicted me.
The universities are ground zero for the trust implosion.
So many overpaid and unnecessary professors that seek to maximize their worth by becoming the arbiters of all things good and evil. Only by creating a system that is in constant flux and with a unending struggle for power can they secure their positions as the high priests of the New Order. They are the experts, the credentialed, the chosen few that will guide us through this intersectional maze of shifting stacks and invisible biases. By contrast, we are the inhabitants of Plato’s Cave, incapable of seeing the world for what it is without the guidance of our philosopher kings.
Institutional rot in academia really got jolted into high gear with the arrival of the Frankfurt School bunch coming here. We should have shot the rat-bastards the instant they set foot on our soil.
The National Socialists shot many of them but not enough. Too many of the cockroaches escaped. The National Socialists apparently weren’t as good at that sort of thing as they get credit for.
Universities have replaced religion as the arbiter of morals for half of our population. Professors of humanities are the high priests, with students the lay. One consequence of this is the need to reject any and all heretical voices, ie anyone who is a conservative. And this is why we are reentering the demon-haunted world.
This really makes me sad, as it was the family profession.
I remember what I think was Sagan’s last or nearly last informative film. It was about the sun. For an hour he went on and on about how powerful and large the sun is. How much effect it has on the earth…basically all of the systems here are driven by energy from the sun…then at the conclusion he started yammering about global warming and how the sun had nothing to do with that it was all our own fault.
“Jeebus on a pogo stick, you too Carl? You have to be kidding me.” *Picard level facepalm*
He had a demon of his own.
“Professors of humanities are the high priests,”
Bless you my son.
Interesting read, Trashy, thanks. I’ll be rolling that one around in the old brain-pan for the rest of the day.
Related: coming from a 1980s punk rock background, and being part of the local scene in the 1990s, it’s strange to see these rebellious kids (and a smattering of friends) grow up. They’ve lost their distrust of the state only to become their biggest champions.
an example – my childhood best friend is a smart and very unusual individual. Back then he used to be part of a local gag religion: Church of Jesus Christ, Physicist – and also do Bob Dobbs graffiti; along with listening to the Dead Kennedys, etc
Now he’s a Democrat supporter, especially Warren. It’s hard for me to understand such a shift; other than he lives in Austin now and doesn’t have me challenging him. It’s easier to go with the crowd of like-minded people than to go against the flow, which has always been my natural inclination. I don’t trust those in power; since POWER CORRUPTS. I don’t pretend to have the answers; nor do I want to find out if grandiose schemes will actually work. Why not more freedom? We can’t “save” everyone from their own inclinations.
Because the Democrats effectively branded themselves as the anti-establishment party, all evidence to the contrary.
The anti-establishment establishment party. Now with more laws, more arrests, more control, and more oppression.
People fixate or imprint as adolescents/young adults. Back in the day, leftists were anti-establishment, and there will always be loony leftists who are anti-establishment even though the left now owns the establishment. Like a lot of punks, I supect he caught leftism back when it was “cool” and oppositional.
I know I kinda caught it, but what I took as leftism was really libertarianism. And that isn’t what the D’s are all about, not now.
Not much of a stretch to go from group signaling to virtue signaling.
If someone feels the need to tell you that they are virtuous….well, that is someone you don’t want to turn your back on.
Good point
I should add that there are a few blokes from those days of yore that are still very much libertarian in thought and deed. Sure they may be married and have kids but they still have a natural rebellious streak that shines through.
That was the worst part of my now-departed corporate life; having to quash that “fuck you” attitude.
related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GPGcP7-FfQ
I can relate to this. I also grew up in the 80’s, and had artsy and punk and new wave friends. “Free Nelson Mandela”, “Say No to Nancy”, that sort of thing. They are mostly party hacks now. But I have been working behind a desk for 25 years and I still struggle with that rebellious streak. Mostly I struggle to keep it going.
Fuck you, attitude!
It seems to me that a lot of punks back in the day were happy to live on the dole. That’s hardly someone who is anti-government.
Yeah, I have an old girlfriend was called herself an anarchist. I would ask her “if you want state medical care, how are you an anarchist?”
Never got a good answer. Now she is a psychologist.
There are still a fewactual punks that haven’t succumbed to groupthink.
Yep. Seen the same shift in quite a few of my friends. It’s disheartening.
Every bit as annoying as the former hippies who protested wars until they were wars orchestrated by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And I know they’re not just getting too old for protests because they turned out on every occasion to yell and scream in the streets about Trump. They just stopped caring about bombing innocent civilians at some point.
Best thing I’ve ever done to keep myself sane (subjectively speaking) was to stop watching television.
Now just the sound of television makes me angry, seeing someone watching television with eyes wide open and unblinking, mouth agape, disgusts me viscerally.
I firmly believe that television is part of reason for societal leprosy.
Where’s my tinfoil alyoominium hat.
Cutting the cable was the best thing we have done. It doesn’t perfectly fix all the issues (and we still watch some TV), but the changes to the family because we don’t have 100 channels of the worst humanity can offer blasting into our heads 24/7 are palpable.
“I don’t really watch the news” is like garlic to the TMITE-bitten vampires. They start writhing and acting visibly uncomfortable in your presence.
I don’t really watch the news, but I do read twitter, various dissident places like this place, etc. I don’t think I’m any better for being informed. FWIW, this place makes me feel so much less crazy. Knowing I’m not alone and things really are amiss means a lot.
Same here. You are not alone and you are not crazy. Here is one I get a lot…
“Suthenboy, you say such outrageous things. That isn’t true!”
Me – “Uh, yes it is true. Look, right here, there is the proof right in front of your eyes.”
“Gah! I don’t want to see that. You know what, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Me – “Ah, so it isn’t that I say outrageous things, it’s that I say things that are true. Got it.”
None of us here is alone, (many) thanks to this site, but it doesn’t mean we’re not crazy. Sometimes the crazy can see what the “sane” can’t.
“He maybe out of his mind
But some day you will find
That sanity’s left us all blind
And dragged us all behind.”
–A7X, Save Me
I just give them Mark Twain’s quote: Those who don’t read the papers are uninformed. Those who read the papers are misinformed.
I was going to add. I don’t really think of much of the news I absorb is information. It’s just the narrative du jour.
At best, the news can provide second-order information, if you ask the Two Questions:
Who wants me to believe this?
Why do they want me to believe it?
Somebody here quoted Seneca wrt religion “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful”.
I apply that to modern politics.
I think the people here, sharing life lessons and knowledge, have a better grasp of reality than anywhere else.
Libertarian heaven.
Another daily video of life on Kensington Ave.
*Alt-text: This is what you get from decades of Democrat controlled policies*
Seriously, try watching it.
JFC! third world conditions indeed,
Pretty bad, but I started noticing that all the cars (even the parked ones) were newish and a lot were pretty nice. Don’t think I saw any rusted out shit boxes. May not mean anything but I found it interesting.
I think the “cash for clunkers” program took most of the junkers off the street. Now everything looks alike so they can be driven longer without looking out of date.
Our 2006 Sonata doesn’t look out of date yet. Our 2006 Azera does a little bit.
That’s an interesting point. I had not considered the effect of creating a “baseline look” of cars that way, making it less obvious when older cars are still in use. The ones you really notice are the ’90s and early ’00s cars still on the road, because they are typically driven to death (hello, Ohio drivers!).
I think the baseline look of cars is dictated by aerodynamics for fuel efficiency reasons.
Also safety regulations.
/waves from Ohio.
Keep in mind that people have been complaining about all cars looking alike for a long time now. I think you can blame CAFE/crash regulations for that.
I’m not really talking about them looking alike, so much as the styling of “old” cars seems newer. Not sure exactly how to describe it.
Sort of the idea that styling has changed less between 2008 and now than it changed from 1990 to 2008.
Well yeah, but you’re cheating by 1/2 or 1/3 depending on which way you do the maths.
I’m still driving a 2008 Infiniti M35x. Not a lot were sold so it’s not something that’s gotten old from too much exposure. And sedans are now unpopular – compared to crosssovers – so once again it stands out from the crowd.
My dad, for example, had no idea the Infiniti was so old. Same with other people who were taken aback when I call it the clunker of our two cars. 122k miles and it still runs and drives great – that made in Japan over-engineering helps.
EF’s Audi is newer, faster, and quieter – and has technology up that wahooo but I prefer the Chevy Caprice like qualities of the Infiniti for day-to-day city duties. I just wish it got better mileage instead of the truck-like 15mpg.
We’ve got 2008 and 2014 Toyota FJ Cruisers (the last Toyota cars sold in the US that were driven onto a boat in Japan). 190K and 90K miles, respectively. Not even a rattle on either one of them, and none of that godawful electronic crap they put on vehicles these days. My current plan is to drive them, not until they die, but until I die. For funsies, we were speccing crate engines with drive trains recently. Even throwing in new suspension and brakes, it looked like a much better deal than a current-gen car.
Cash for clunkers was so fucking dumb. But all the dumb shit the government did back then is such small potatoes compared to the challenges of today.
I watched about a quarter of it. It looks like a scene out of a Fallout game–probably New Vegas–not counting the functioning automobiles.
Videos like that make my heart ache. The amount of despair and hopelessness.
Yeah. So many bowed heads and slumped shoulders. It really makes you feel for the people.
But those same people keep voting in the same assholes who are responsible for their current condition. That really, really tempers how much I “feel for the people.”
How many of those people are actually going to vote? Absent some abject vote buying, I don’t see more than 10 or 20% of those folks stumbling into a voting booth to do their civic duty of voting Democrat.
I doubt those people are doing much voting. Well, there’s probably votes recorded in their name, but you know what I mean.
That doesn’t make me any more sympathetic, honestly.
I don’t think many of those people are voting unless someone comes by to “harvest” their votes.
Same here. Such a tragedy.
“The amount of despair and hopelessness.”
I had a closet commie try to defend Nikita Khrushchev (and the USSR as a whole) to me not a week ago. What you are seeing inn that video is fairly representative of the vast majority of the Soviet Union in its heyday and for the same reasons.
Okay, I made it all the way through. Things I noticed – at least one person apparently shooting up on the street, a used-needle drop box, and the white van from which the filming was done, grimly reflected in store windows. So many stores shut down and boarded up. So much filth.
average Harlem resident – this sounds vaguely racist. Also i though average Harlem residents trot the glob as such know all the peoples including the lowly flyover staters
/ignoring the glibness
Yes, it’s a racial thing. Those were the fracture lines used effectively in the 60s. Race, gender, sexual mores, religion. It’s no coincidence that’s where they’re drawing the fault lines again.
Marxists gain ground fastest when they find a nugget of truth and cover it in a cubic mile of shit.
i think these so called fracture lines were used way earlier than the 60s
Of course… the point is that the culture permanently fractured in the 60s on familiar lines, but in unfamiliar ways.
I am not that sure it is more fractured now and less closer to closing the fracture than in the past, but I am not American…
If anything is was less fractured in the 2000s than now or the 60s
People still remember what it was like when the country didn’t hate itself, when every decision wasn’t dissected looking for the slightest hint of heterodox thought to be labeled with whichever form of bigotry fits the mob’s fancy. – when were these fabulous 6 months?
Somewhere around 1956.
I remember the summer of 1956… not the best
At least you weren’t in Hungary.
ah Hungary. the food is good and so are the women. but I repeat myself
Now *that’s* how you nightlord.
When people are bombarded day in and day out with boys crying wolf, eventually people either lose their minds or tune it out.
I have lost my fucking mind. Fortunately I lost it early and was able to use much of the past year rebuilding it. My views of the world a decade ago are really quite pollyanna-ish compared to today. Rapid deconstruction will do that to you. Cheers.
In a free market, institutions would follow the same birth/death model as any other organization. The problem is institutions that are being subsidized by taxpayer money – a sure sign that the free market would let those institutions die if given the choice.
The first mission of any institution is to take actions and build structures intended to ensure self-perpetuation.
Like man, no institution can serve two masters. It is up to the individual to constantly reevaluate each institution he interacts with to determine if the institution has switched masters.
Mr. Mojeaux and I have been watching History Channel’s The Men Who Built America.
Let me preface this by saying that capitalism is good, but it has its weak points, and its weak point is where enlightened self-interest flags with the possibility of MOAR MONEEEE, which occurred to me in the last episode we watched, which was Carnegie’s steel mills and how his lieutenant Frick treated the workers. Then that gave rise (skipping over several steps of societal evolution here) to the progressive movement in the 1890s.
My contention is that if the titans of industry had done what Ford did (pay workers well and ask for a 40ish-hour work week), the progressive movement may not have gotten started, or at least lagged by a few decades. I don’t fault the Rockefellers, Carnegies, JPMorgans, et al for wanting to maximize profits. I question their wisdom* in not keeping a thumb on the pulse of their companies so much so that they got themselves shafted by T. Roosevelt.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and while the robber barons** did, in fact, build America, they also screwed themselves by screwing their employees.
*Hindsight, yadda yadda yadda
**Used affectionately.
I would argue that the monopolies of the gilded age could not have existed without the active intervention of state actors. The likes of JP Morgan lined the pockets of politicians in order to make potential competitors go away.
The trick is that enlightened self-interest is supposed to be long-term self-interest.
Yeah, you can screw somebody today and be better off in the short term, but screwing people as a business model doesn’t make better of in the long run, so its not in your enlightened self-interest.
Enlightened self-interest also isn’t purely economic. Living in a totalitarian society won’t make you better off in the long run, so doing things that make it more likely isn’t in your short-term self-interest even if it plumps your quarterly P & L.
That show is a bit of propaganda itself.
The two big waves of German immigration were responsible for most of the socialist movements. The first wave wasn’t really bad – those people were smart enough to know what the Prussians/Bismarck were up to and got the hell out – the second (larger) wave were the ones who sorta bought into the Prussian/Bismarck agenda until it turned on them. When they immigrated they took their stupid politics with them.
I would argue that Rockefeller, Carnegie, et al are no different than the Zuckerbergs and Bezoses of today – they are happy to pay off politicians to protect them and the politicians are more than happy to take the money and then renege on the deal when it’s convenient for their retention of power.
Yes. I’m taking that into account as I watch.
The progressive movement started before the gilded age. The shakers, the harmonie movement, Fourier (sp) were all reactions to industrialization and capitalism. But, yes, if the robber barons hadn’t been such awful people, things would be different
There is an aspect to that that I learned when I tried to be a robber baron. If you are going to accomplish anything you will have to do it in spite of everyone around you. People will line up with their hands out wanting money (greed) in return for nothing. People will line up to horizon to kick your legs out from under you to try and get you to fail (envy). You really have to fight like hell to win and. you get conditioned to expect one or the other of those behaviors out of everyone you meet. There is a reason those guys were such hard-asses and that reason is other people.
Let me preface this by saying that capitalism is good, but it has its weak points, – humans have their weak points. the free market brings out the least bad
My contention is that if the titans of industry had done what Ford did – Ford lived in a different time and had different requirements
One of the problems with capitalism is it came after feudalism and inherited some of the mindset and some of the problems. Could things have been done better? SUre. But not by as much as some think. Capital needed to be accumulated productivity needed to grow,
The biggest problem with living in a low trust environment like today is that everybody feels the need to walk on eggshells.
I have to do this. I work in a hyperliberal environment and have to carefully parse every word for neo-colonialist meanings (just made that up but I’m sure it’s a thing) before I say it. On the plus side, one of my new hires has no filter and says ridiculously funny things that would cause dropped jaws at my company and prolonged laughter here.
I know being a manager isn’t popular, but one of the key advantages is being to select your team and protect them from the HR insanity as much as possible. Maybe it does as much good as spitting into a hurricane, but it’s all I can do to pushback against the decline of institutional trust and try to keep some sanity for myself and likeminded colleagues.
This. And family, too. I owe my brother a deep debt of gratitude, but we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. There is no way I’m saying a word.
The OTHER problem is that:
a) if I did push back, I would need to be well versed to be able to think on my feet, and hard data to back up my assertions
but
2) I am not well versed and I don’t have time to be because I’m busy surviving AND I don’t know whom to trust
AND
III) even if I had hard data, my conversants would dismiss the sources out of hand.
What do you do when you can’t ascertain the truth, quantify your doubts about the narrative, and all your sources are written off as not valid?
So I do not try.
If it sounds like a nightmare, that’s because it is.
Heh. My very orthodox and proper religious mother said something about so much suffering in the world, and I said, “What if this life is really hell? Not a burning lake of fire hell, but still actual hell?” I thought she’d push back on that, but she didn’t, which tells me she’s open to the idea.
What did I do to deserve this?
Dunno.
My theology says this life is a step of our progression toward eternal joy and must be endured for the reward.
Well, all of Christianity pretty much says this.
Augustine on the topic:
To paraphrase CS Lewis – we aren’t bodies that have souls, we are souls that happen to have bodies right here at the moment.
C.S. Lewis, in “The Great Divorce,” posits that Hell is basically just being made to stay on perpetually in a world just like what we inhabit, or perhaps a bit more like Philly.
My theology concurs. I think souls are genderless too. The idea that you can have a male or female soul seems so bizarre to me.
Eternal joy? All of the time forever? That sounds like hell.
My Grandaddy: “Hell is having your dreams come true”
When I make a meal I include sweet, sour, hearty, light, hot, crunchy and something comforty.
Variety… spice and all that.
“Hell is having your dreams come true” – I call nonsense. I would take my chances
“Hell is having your dreams come true” – I call nonsense. I would take my chances”
He only lived to be 99, what did he know? I will tell you what, I will keep a rope handy and when you have had enough wave at me and I will toss it to you and reel you in.
The idea of unearned, or magically, fulfilled wishes being granted in the most perverse/pedantic way possible is a fairly universal trope, no?
PieInTheSky:
Twilight Zone did it.
As someone (George Carlin?) used to say: “The more miserable you are, the longer God makes you live.”
The idea of unearned, or magically, fulfilled wishes being granted in the most perverse/pedantic way possible is a fairly universal trope – the idea is having them granted in a non perverse way
“The idea of unearned, or magically, fulfilled wishes being granted in the most perverse/pedantic way possible is a fairly universal trope, no?”
Yes, and for a good reason. If you have to march your way to your goals you have time to choose your steps, time to recalculate your path or even your goals. You gain wisdom. If you are magically transported to your wishes you miss the opportunities to see missteps and foreseen consequences become unseen.
I said eternal joy, not eternal rest. 😉
Our eternity involves work, goals, creativity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn9E5i7l-Eg
My Mom believes in something like that too. She tells me hell is real and hell is here on Earth. She also believes heaven is here on Earth too. Reincarnation? Depending on the day. She, like myself, is nominally Roman Catholic.
The question itself “is this life hell?” lends itself to reincarnation as an answer because you must have done SOMETHING to deserve what you’re getting.
“Deservin’s got nuthin’ to do with it.” – Noted wise man, William Munny.
But what’s the point of reincarnation without memory of what has gone before?
If one starts each time as a blank slate, there’s no learning or growth possible and reincarnation is pointless.
even if I had hard data, my conversants would dismiss the sources out of hand.
Ding ding. I was talking to my sister-in-law over Thanksgiving. She is both a smart cookie and a bubble denizen (sadly, not mutually exclusive), and was totally sold on the lockdowns. I told her there was no correlation between lockdowns and good results, showed her the scatterplots, and asked her what she thought of the Great Barrington Declaration (issued by top-credentialed epidemiologists, etc.). She simply . . . dismissed it all out of hand.
And we have a winner. What I usually get is “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
I suffered through something like this when all my relatives were going absolutely gaga over Obama and tried to persuade me to vote for him:
“I can’t support him given his stance on gun control.”
“Obama doesn’t want to take your guns away! You’ve been reading too much of that NRA magazine.”
“He has voted for a lot of bills over the years that are extremely restrictive.”
“What was your source for that? The NRA magazine is not a reliable source, remember.”
“I may have heard about a few of them there, but I looked them up on the official websites of the Illinois Senate and the US Senate, and his name is down on record as voting for these things.”
“Mmmm, I don’t know about that. Besides, he has other wonderful ideas that are much more important than gun ownership, like his plan to finally give healthcare to every citizen, ending this domestic spying that Bush started, end the Iraq War, etc.”
“Mmmm, I don’t know about that. ”
“Yes, you do. I just told you.”
“Mmmm, I don’t know about that.”
This isn’t an argument. I am not trying to convince you. It is a matter of record.
“he has other wonderful ideas that are much more important than gun ownership, like his plan to finally give healthcare to every citizen, ending this domestic spying that Bush started, end the Iraq War, etc.”
That is impressive. Now that he knocked all of that out we can go on to solve other problems.
I would never let them live that down.
After my brief spell of political proselytizing in my early twenties, I kept my politics to myself. Part of it was likely the result of learning early in my military career that drawing attention to yourself rarely has good outcomes. It meant grinding my teeth as a lot of stupid went on around me, but I managed.
Like the time the division CSM was touring morning PT and asked me if I was satisfied with the PT and I was honest, telling him that we ran too much and should probably do more weight training/upper-body work? For the next month or so, at every formation, I had to come up next to our 1st sgt. and maintain the front-leaning rest position until we were all dismissed.
Bach at Noon
Music starts at about 9:12
Are you local? I can practically see that church out my window. I always forget who tells me they are local.
No, but I have a good friend who is a member of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.
Neat. I walk by where they rehearse a few times every month.
I used to work with a younger woman who wanted to talk politics at work. I generally resisted that. She once told me she couldn’t understand why people don’t want to talk about politics and religion at work. It’s like she didn’t understand that those potentially very polarizing topics weren’t necessarily appropriate for a team trying to get along and accomplish things. At first she sounded a lot like a libertarian, but over the couple of years we worked together, she began to say more and more progressive leaning things, until at the point Bernie Sanders got popular, she started calling herself a socialist.
she couldn’t understand why people don’t want to talk about politics and religion at work
“We’re paid to work. Your job doesn’t involve politics or religion. Get to work.”
I’ve always thought it counter-productive to keep my mouth shut when someone else brought up something with which I disagreed. Had that argument with Mrs. Creech on Sunday.
The pastor, in her sermon, made some ridiculous comments about it being unjust to incarcerate people out of proportion to their demographics. I said “I’ll have to ask her about it next time she speaks to the Men’s Fellowship group.” I was told to keep my mouth shut, don’t make waves, don’t challenge a pastor in front of your friends who may agree with her, etc. etc. If no one challenges it (and I tend to use the Socratic approach) then won’t she assume the congregation agrees with her? How will anyone with an open mind hear opposing views unless one speaks up? Didn’t a whole nation end up in deep doo-doo about ninety years ago when “Good Germans” keep silent? No, I’m not going to get in your face about some pet issue of mine, but if you bring it up then I’ll feel free to comment. I guess one of the benefits of retirement is not worrying that you will lose a job or lose business connections or customers if you speak your mind.
If no one challenges it (and I tend to use the Socratic approach) then won’t she assume the congregation agrees with her?
For a while. As some more traditional denominations start to embrace wokism, they are discovering that even they aren’t immune to people voting with their feet.
We’re church shopping for various reasons that all tied back to the church we attended for the last year being too superficial. They were struggling to get people to come back to service, and frankly I don’t blame the people. They weren’t missing all that much.
Interestingly, the more conservative and counter-cultural churches we visit are packing it in while the milquetoast contemporary churches are 3/4 empty. Also interestingly, the conservative churches are more racially diverse. ??
Intellectually inconsistent is not attractive to most people.
I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school. It was a very conservative environment.
If you can think of a culture or a race, we had ’em. We were kids and didnt think a thing about it. We all palled around together and the subject of race just never came up.
We had one kid that was racist…a black kid. His racism was fairly toxic and everyone avoided him as much as possible. I learned later that his racism was taught to him by his parents who were flaming racists themselves.
Take that for it is worth.
Ok, Doctor Faustus
Good article, Trashy.
“What if this life is really hell? Not a burning lake of fire hell, but still actual hell?”
I’ve been studying Buddhism lately and I’m finding that it doesn’t contradict my Catholic upbringing much at all. The Buddhist view is that we are continually reincarnated, and our life circumstances at birth are a result of what we did in our past live(s). Once we reach enlightenment, we break the cycle and move on. As a Catholic, it would be like being stuck in Purgatory for several lifetimes until we figure it out. Hell would mean being stuck and never moving on.
I can accept purgatory.
This is something I’ve thought about. The adoption of a valueless, nihilistic worldview has come on so fast it must be jarring even to a substantial portion of those who ostensibly agree with it.
Hell would mean being stuck and never moving on.
That’s my take, too.
“You’re not going to be reincarnated as bug. You’re going to be reincarnated as yourself, over and over and over,”
I like Terry Pratchett’s take:
Everyone sees their life flash before their eyes before they die. Its been doing that the whole time you’ve been alive.
Hell is having to watch your life through other people’s eyes.
Everyone is the villain in someone else’s story. –Random internet meme
If I am going to have to slog through this shit again, the next time around I want to be younger, taller, smarter and better looking.
Hell, we are all born the same…naked, scared, screaming our heads off and wanting to know just what the hell is going on around here. Just about the time you get it figured out…damn…it’s time to go.
We’re born alone, we sleep alone, we die alone.
Oh, and good post, trshy. Consistent with my observation? thinking? fear? that our society is taking terrible damage right now that is not apparent to most people. Our cultural/societal capital is being vaporized right before our eyes. And the day is coming when many people are going to look around and say “But I didn’t know!” when they see what they have wrought.
I have come to believe there is no undoing the damage that leftism is causing, in the sense of going back to the way things were before. I don’t know when that window closed, but closed it is. When the dust settles, we will indeed be living in a fundamentally transformed country. Maybe that transformation will be (finally) driving the leftists into the sea, maybe it will be living in a dystopian panopticon run by sociopaths convinced of their own righteousness, maybe something else that I can’t get a glimmer of.
And, right on cue, Google Translate is also in the censoring business.
Those battles were wars of aggression by Muslims during their expansionist heyday, and are used as points of inspiration by jihadis. Google, however, would prefer that you not be exposed to this information. So unless you can read Arabic, you’re not.
He was dumb enough to use google? *snort*
Burbclaves would be the best possible outcome.
Funny you mention that.
I live on the edge of Tucson, in an area which is, well, not poor. Sometime last week, somebody dumped an old couch by the side of the road, somwthing I haven’t seen anywhere close to my neighborhood in over 8 years. An example, in my mind, of declining social mores, the kind of thing garbage people do. I don’t want to live in a neighborhood, hell, in a city or country, where garbage people feel free to dump their crap by the road.
I immediately began thinking about the most efficient place to put roadblocks in our area, to keep the garbage people out. Because I believe that will not be the last time somebody decides my neighborhood is a good place to take a shit by the side of the road. Only suckers pay tipping fees, amirite?
If my development/HOA got walled off tomorrow, I think we’d be just fine (and well armed).
Mine is, but its very small. It has a single gated entrance, although there is offroad access from the back, and of course access by foot. With three, maybe two, reasonably skilled snipers, you could shut off all access (yes, I have scoped out the hides for this).
Unfortunately, a managable number of, err, access control points (4) for the larger neighborhood (call it 1 – 1.5 square miles) would require closing around six roads. Everything would still be accessible, but some people would have to take a different route. A neighborhood with access controlled by its residents would be a running start on a burbclave.
garbage people
Ahem. We prefer to be called trash monsters.
*cancels Dean*
In the end, cancel culture comes for us all.
*sad trombone*
Like it or not your neighborhood is going to go through the normal life cycle of all neighborhoods.
Likely so. But given its age and demographics, it should be a generation or more from declining to the kind of place where people dump their garbaage by the side of the road. Regardless, its a sign of decline.
Ayup. The neighborhood I spent the second half of my childhood in started as a corn field surrounding the farming neighborhood I spent the first half of my childhood in. Over the next 25 years, I watched it grow into a safe, quiet upper middle class neighborhood, peak, and slowly start to decline. By the time my dad moved out earlier this year, it was unrecognizable. B&Es were starting to happen on occasion. A few houses were known drug houses. Almost all of the housing transactions were long time neighbors to rental companies and/or individual landlords. The local high school was going all in on CRT.
I don’t know how much of that is natural and how much is a product of the times, but the grow/peak/decline cycle was obvious to me (looking at closer suburbs) even growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. People were raising kids in the growing suburbs and then moving as empty nesters from the already peaked suburbs to the ones just starting on the growth curve (if not the plain rural areas just outside the city’s influence)
“Maybe that transformation will be (finally) driving the leftists into the sea, maybe it will be living in a dystopian panopticon run by sociopaths convinced of their own righteousness, maybe something else that I can’t get a glimmer of.”
I read an interview with an Englishman years ago. He said when the Empire fell they (rural Englishmen) did not see any change in their lives. The Empire falling might as well have been news from a country half-way around the world. I suspect it may be the same here.
This cootie bug nonsense has not changed my life one bit and I see almost no one paying attention to it around here. Want to censor my text messages? Good luck with that. I don’t send texts. I barely make phone calls. I call family on weekends to see how everyone is doing, that’s about it. I suppose the only insight the creepy leftists have into me would be my presence here. Have fun with that.
“We’re paid to work. Your job doesn’t involve politics or religion. Get to work.”
This.
First off, great article, trshmnstr!
One thing struck me:
Those smarmy assholes who are on the front lines of killing various institution of repute, gutting them, and skinsuiting them. The media, academia, corporate HR departments, non-profits, local governments, school boards. All infested with the amoral termites chewing away at the commonality and culture that has held this country together for over a century.
This gets to something I’ve been thinking about for a while. And that’s credibility. One (I think important) element of the high-trust situation you describe is the credibility of the leadership. Leaders (in business, politics, culture, military, religion, academia) expected themselves to maintain a degree of credibility because the credibility was understood to be more important than the short-term advantage from violating it. But, the smarmy assholes seem to have abandoned that expectation. And they’re under the illusion (consistent with their worldview) that the position of authority forms the basis for that credibility. And there’s something wrong with those who challenge them. But, the louder they scream and damn those challenging them, the more patently obvious it is that our leadership’s credibility is, in fact, shot. Credible leaders don’t need to pull out their status or position.
You hit the nail on the head. If you have to tell people you are in charge, you are not.
And the day is coming when many people are going to look around and say “But I didn’t know!” when they see what they have wrought.
I’m not so sure that’s going to do much good. When the Gods of the Copybook Headings extract their payment, I don’t think noble intentions are going to count for all that much. Our civilization has been prosperous long enough that a lot of us can’t really imagine even modest poverty. Sadly, that includes all too many people with all too much influence on our society. When the fecal matter impacts the rotating oscillator, I think a lot of people are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.
IMO, this is one reason why everybody is so reactive to recessions. They know a real downturn would snowball massively, so they try to head things off via aggressive economic changes.
Of course, with inflation setting in, interest rates near zero, and people not bothering to get off of unemployment, the toolbox is bare and we’re staring down supply chain disruptions, economic malaise, and general instability.
See mine and RC’s comments upthread. They will go into denial and rationalization overdrive. It is the same mentality of ‘That wasn’t real communism’.
They will hand waive it away, deny they ever supported it or just tell you they don’t want to talk about it.
They know. They just have defense mechanisms to avoid facing it.
Y’all have fun. I am off to a pool party and steaks at my son’s place.