How humiliating it must for feminists to have everyone talking about the great achievements that the Wachowskis have made for women in cinema, or Martine Rothblatt's breaking the glass ceiling. We're even letting dudes participate in women's sports, where--even with mediocre talents by male standards--they will quickly break records (and the bones of the poor girls we allow them to compete with).
If this expands, were going to see dudes in dresses out-performing real women in all kinds of fields. Amazing isn't it, that despite the fact that men and women are perfectly equal and that the transgendered are the most oppressed people ever, biological males out-compete biological females, even when they're oppressed by transphobia.
Please, please, bring on the circular firing squad. Let the madness destroy itself.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Monday, October 3, 2016
Newspeak and the war on noticing
Political correctness is (in the words of Steve Sailer) a "war on noticing." Thus, it employs a form of newspeak, a political manipulation of language, whose purpose is not to make it easier to describe and understand reality, but harder.
Thus, for instance, the concept and language of race and racial differences is attacked not because it has no biological validity (it certainly does, just as much as species, sub-species, family, etc.) or use in the social sciences (it is predictive of all kinds of social outcomes), but because it is "problematic." In other words, it makes it easier to see truths about the world that are inconvenient for the state ideology. Newspapers hide the race of criminals not because the information is irrelevant but precisely because it is relevant--it is not just noise but meaningful data from which people can draw generalizations and inferences about the world. Disallowing such crimethink is precisely the point. In order to keep us from noticing that blacks and (to a lesser degree) hispanics have higher levels of criminality, we are to be deprived of the language necessary for describing it. (We even shame people into not using race in totally benign situations: "What's your friend's name again? ... you know, the ... uh ... tall guy with, uh, dark curly hair ..." To keep us from noticing patterns, we must be deprived of the general language allowing for classification.)
Similarly, the attempt to classify people who are confused about their sex with the sex they identify with rather than their actual sex is a confusion of language for the purpose of making it harder to think. I recently read the beginning of a book discussing women, which had to start with an extensive caveat/apology that, in describing women, the author was generalizing about human beings that, for instance, have female sexual organs and chromosomes, were raised as girls, etc., but, of course, we know that there are women who don't necessarily have these characteristics, so, what she said may or may not necessarily apply to all women. She then proceeded to make perfectly valid points about the class of human beings that everyone, everywhere has always referred to as "women"--and, which, by an amazing coincidence, had limited or no applicability to anyone else that might be included in whatever broader definition she had in mind in her caveat.
Biological sex is a pretty fundamental aspect of the human person. As evidenced by what this writer actually did, as opposed to her PC caveat, the words "woman" and "man," understood in the traditional sense are really useful for talking about and describing human beings, making generalizations and thinking about them. Changing those definitions to base them on the felt or declared identity of individuals rather than biological sex obscures reality and makes it harder to think about rather than easier. And, that, indeed, is the exact purpose. We are to be deprived of the language for noticing that "Caitlyn Jenner" is not a beautiful, courageous, woman but a ridiculous, middle aged man in a dress.
The intelligent feminists see this quite clearly. Letting biological males classify themselves as women (and vice versa) makes it impossible for them to talk meaningfully about "women's issues." If a "woman" beats up "her" girlfriend, is it still the violence of patriarchy? If a "man" kills his unborn daughter, is it still an empowering "choice" for women? If the highest paid "female" CEO is a dude in a dress, does this count as breaking the glass ceiling? Is "she" an inspiration for little girls?
In the hierarchy of victimhood, trans beats woman, so the feminists must give up the privilege of cis-normative language for the rights of their trans "sisters."
Insanity.
Thus, for instance, the concept and language of race and racial differences is attacked not because it has no biological validity (it certainly does, just as much as species, sub-species, family, etc.) or use in the social sciences (it is predictive of all kinds of social outcomes), but because it is "problematic." In other words, it makes it easier to see truths about the world that are inconvenient for the state ideology. Newspapers hide the race of criminals not because the information is irrelevant but precisely because it is relevant--it is not just noise but meaningful data from which people can draw generalizations and inferences about the world. Disallowing such crimethink is precisely the point. In order to keep us from noticing that blacks and (to a lesser degree) hispanics have higher levels of criminality, we are to be deprived of the language necessary for describing it. (We even shame people into not using race in totally benign situations: "What's your friend's name again? ... you know, the ... uh ... tall guy with, uh, dark curly hair ..." To keep us from noticing patterns, we must be deprived of the general language allowing for classification.)
Similarly, the attempt to classify people who are confused about their sex with the sex they identify with rather than their actual sex is a confusion of language for the purpose of making it harder to think. I recently read the beginning of a book discussing women, which had to start with an extensive caveat/apology that, in describing women, the author was generalizing about human beings that, for instance, have female sexual organs and chromosomes, were raised as girls, etc., but, of course, we know that there are women who don't necessarily have these characteristics, so, what she said may or may not necessarily apply to all women. She then proceeded to make perfectly valid points about the class of human beings that everyone, everywhere has always referred to as "women"--and, which, by an amazing coincidence, had limited or no applicability to anyone else that might be included in whatever broader definition she had in mind in her caveat.
Biological sex is a pretty fundamental aspect of the human person. As evidenced by what this writer actually did, as opposed to her PC caveat, the words "woman" and "man," understood in the traditional sense are really useful for talking about and describing human beings, making generalizations and thinking about them. Changing those definitions to base them on the felt or declared identity of individuals rather than biological sex obscures reality and makes it harder to think about rather than easier. And, that, indeed, is the exact purpose. We are to be deprived of the language for noticing that "Caitlyn Jenner" is not a beautiful, courageous, woman but a ridiculous, middle aged man in a dress.
The intelligent feminists see this quite clearly. Letting biological males classify themselves as women (and vice versa) makes it impossible for them to talk meaningfully about "women's issues." If a "woman" beats up "her" girlfriend, is it still the violence of patriarchy? If a "man" kills his unborn daughter, is it still an empowering "choice" for women? If the highest paid "female" CEO is a dude in a dress, does this count as breaking the glass ceiling? Is "she" an inspiration for little girls?
In the hierarchy of victimhood, trans beats woman, so the feminists must give up the privilege of cis-normative language for the rights of their trans "sisters."
Insanity.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Christianity abolishes itself
The old priest admonished us to "throw away" the idea of God as judge. "It's garbage!" Jesus died on the cross to show us God's love not to reconcile us to God, because God never stopped loving us. God is nothing but love and mercy.
It's odd. The old priest is traditional in his piety. He says Mass prayerfully (even if he's a little loose with the words sometimes). It is obvious that he loves the Church.
But none of that stuff makes any sense if God's love and mercy negate, entirely, God's judgment. If the message of the Gospel is fundamentally "God loves you, you're OK, and everything is awesome!", why sacrifice? Why be converted? Why, indeed, should Christ die?
I know, I know. We should be good and worship God out of love, in response to his love. That should be enough. But how is sacrifice a meaningful display of love, how is the cross a meaningful display of love if it doesn't conquer our sin or accomplish our reconciliation with God?
I'm not talking about particular soteriological theories, here. I'm saying that if we get rid of the language of sin and judgment and atonement and sacrifice, then the Christian story is completely deprived of meaning. OK, the message is that God loves me. Great, but why should I care? If those things don't mean anything to me (and, in fact, they have become foreign concepts to our culture), God's love is an answer to a problem I've never had.
Indeed, it is as if Christ came not to deliver us from sin, but to deliver us from Christianity. Now that that mission has been accomplished, the good news has become, at best, superfluous, and, at worst, incomprehensible.
It's odd. The old priest is traditional in his piety. He says Mass prayerfully (even if he's a little loose with the words sometimes). It is obvious that he loves the Church.
But none of that stuff makes any sense if God's love and mercy negate, entirely, God's judgment. If the message of the Gospel is fundamentally "God loves you, you're OK, and everything is awesome!", why sacrifice? Why be converted? Why, indeed, should Christ die?
I know, I know. We should be good and worship God out of love, in response to his love. That should be enough. But how is sacrifice a meaningful display of love, how is the cross a meaningful display of love if it doesn't conquer our sin or accomplish our reconciliation with God?
I'm not talking about particular soteriological theories, here. I'm saying that if we get rid of the language of sin and judgment and atonement and sacrifice, then the Christian story is completely deprived of meaning. OK, the message is that God loves me. Great, but why should I care? If those things don't mean anything to me (and, in fact, they have become foreign concepts to our culture), God's love is an answer to a problem I've never had.
Indeed, it is as if Christ came not to deliver us from sin, but to deliver us from Christianity. Now that that mission has been accomplished, the good news has become, at best, superfluous, and, at worst, incomprehensible.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Possible and impossible
Today it is impossible for kids to abstain from sex or people to stay married to each other.
This despite the fact that, in very recent history, this society did expect these things and people more or less did live up to these expectations.
But today ... impossible. And you are a crazy person if you say that it's possible.
What is possible, today, though, is equality between sexes, races, sexual orientations, etc., etc.
This despite the fact that this has never happened anywhere at any time in history.
But today ... totally possible. And you are an evil person if you say it's not. In fact, it's wreckers like you that keep it from happening. Once you and you're ilk are out the way ... perfect equality.
This despite the fact that, in very recent history, this society did expect these things and people more or less did live up to these expectations.
But today ... impossible. And you are a crazy person if you say that it's possible.
What is possible, today, though, is equality between sexes, races, sexual orientations, etc., etc.
This despite the fact that this has never happened anywhere at any time in history.
But today ... totally possible. And you are an evil person if you say it's not. In fact, it's wreckers like you that keep it from happening. Once you and you're ilk are out the way ... perfect equality.
Friday, December 4, 2015
Universalism and the demise of Western Civilization
The November 20 Radio Derb has a couple of interesting reflections on the demise of Western Civilization. Derb contrasts the anger he felt over the attacks of 9/11 with his relatively emotionless response to the Paris attacks and suggests that, in Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross's stages of grief, he has moved from anger to acceptance with regard to the end of our civilization.
If we couldn't muster the clarity of mind to comprehend properly the menace that Muslims pose to our society after 9/11 and the attacks that have followed, we never will. All we can come up with are idiotic invade the world/invite the world solutions that are based on false universalism: if the Muslim world just had good democratic governments, if we just would quit offending them by supporting Israel/imposing Christianity/supporting tyrants/stealing their oil/etc./etc., then they would be stop hating us and become good modern, western citizens, separating Church and state, contributing to the GDP, etc.
Liberal universalism is like a kind of mental illness that has anosognosia as a symptom--it frames our experience in a way that we are unable to see it. We think the only solution can be more universalism, more multiculturalism, putting our perspective in perspective, understanding the other, etc. We can't see that this universalism is false. And, as long as it isn't shared by the other, it doesn't matter how much we think we understand him. We never will, unless we see that our universalism is as inescapably peculiar as his fundamentalism: that it is not truly universal, but is the peculiar characteristic of our people. It can only exist among those who share in its premises, and not everyone does. Those outside it are threats to it. And if we fail to recognize that, we open ourselves to be destroyed by them.
This is why universalism is a heresy. Christianity is universalistic in the limited sense that anyone can join the club. You don't have to belong to a certain tribe, speak a particular language. To some extent, it is even culturally pluralistic. But, to belong, you have to join the club and there are certain, minimal rules, that are not culturally dependent.
The heresy of universalism says that everyone is already a member of the club, whether they want to belong or not, whether they follow the rules or not. Liberal modernity is essentially an extension this Christian heresy. It started out by reducing the minimum to eliminate the specifics of Christian creed, then it moved to eliminate the specifics of Christian morality, now it eliminates all requirements. It literally thinks that it encompasses everyone. But this is a delusion.
This heresy is being disproven by events. Universalism is, in fact, a weird peculiarity of Europeans--especially northwestern Europeans (cf. JayMan). No one else believes it--they probably don't even think that we believe it, and so they are quite happy to exploit our blinding insanity to destroy our civilization. While we try to understand them--i.e. figure out how, despite their protestations, they are actually just the same as us--they are hard at work figuring out how to exploit and even destroy us.
If we say that victims deserve help and laws to protect them, they will claim to be victims. If we say that the non-Christians suffer from bias, they will yell "discrimination." If we say we must atone for our historical wrongs, they amp up their complaints about them. If we say that equality demands it, they will call for equality. But they are just exploiting our language--a peculiar feature of our culture--to grab what they want. They have no interest in preserving our universalistic culture. They are interested in preservation of themselves and their people. They are not interested in equality--not for us, anyway. If they were in power, they would not reciprocate.
What has become apparent over the last 15 years is that our disease is terminal. We are incapable of doing what is necessary to fight off the foe. We are not even capable of recognizing our foe. We are fat. We are effeminate. We are weak. We are old. (Derb brought up the "mouse utopia" experiment of John B. Calhoun.)
This doesn't just apply to the Muslims. It applies just as well to the racial grievance mongers within higher education. Like the Muslims, they have little or no interest in sharing in our supposedly universalistic culture. They have no interest in the cultural basis of the institutions we've built--they want the wealth and power that those institutions possess and produce.
They see our "reason" and "free speech" as white male constructs that exist for the benefit of white males. And, they're actually right, to a degree. The open culture of liberal modernity is, in fact, even more of a white male thing than Christianity. But its universalism has degenerated together with liberal Christianity. It has put aside the necessity of conversion. And so it has opened itself to exploitation and destruction by the barbarian who enters the gates and claims the benefits of citizenship, but rejects the duties that once went with it.
I don't know what the solution is. It doesn't seem like it has to necessarily be perpetual war, but surely some realism about whom we let into our countries--who is and who is not likely to assimilate (and have children who will assimilate)--would be the starting point. In any case, a realistic assessment of the real and perhaps irreducible differences between peoples seems like a better basis for peace than the illusion of universalism.
Muslims can have their own countries and live as they please within them--even if this necessitates excluding outsiders who interfere with their way of life. But certainly we ought to enjoy the same rights.
If we couldn't muster the clarity of mind to comprehend properly the menace that Muslims pose to our society after 9/11 and the attacks that have followed, we never will. All we can come up with are idiotic invade the world/invite the world solutions that are based on false universalism: if the Muslim world just had good democratic governments, if we just would quit offending them by supporting Israel/imposing Christianity/supporting tyrants/stealing their oil/etc./etc., then they would be stop hating us and become good modern, western citizens, separating Church and state, contributing to the GDP, etc.
Liberal universalism is like a kind of mental illness that has anosognosia as a symptom--it frames our experience in a way that we are unable to see it. We think the only solution can be more universalism, more multiculturalism, putting our perspective in perspective, understanding the other, etc. We can't see that this universalism is false. And, as long as it isn't shared by the other, it doesn't matter how much we think we understand him. We never will, unless we see that our universalism is as inescapably peculiar as his fundamentalism: that it is not truly universal, but is the peculiar characteristic of our people. It can only exist among those who share in its premises, and not everyone does. Those outside it are threats to it. And if we fail to recognize that, we open ourselves to be destroyed by them.
This is why universalism is a heresy. Christianity is universalistic in the limited sense that anyone can join the club. You don't have to belong to a certain tribe, speak a particular language. To some extent, it is even culturally pluralistic. But, to belong, you have to join the club and there are certain, minimal rules, that are not culturally dependent.
The heresy of universalism says that everyone is already a member of the club, whether they want to belong or not, whether they follow the rules or not. Liberal modernity is essentially an extension this Christian heresy. It started out by reducing the minimum to eliminate the specifics of Christian creed, then it moved to eliminate the specifics of Christian morality, now it eliminates all requirements. It literally thinks that it encompasses everyone. But this is a delusion.
This heresy is being disproven by events. Universalism is, in fact, a weird peculiarity of Europeans--especially northwestern Europeans (cf. JayMan). No one else believes it--they probably don't even think that we believe it, and so they are quite happy to exploit our blinding insanity to destroy our civilization. While we try to understand them--i.e. figure out how, despite their protestations, they are actually just the same as us--they are hard at work figuring out how to exploit and even destroy us.
If we say that victims deserve help and laws to protect them, they will claim to be victims. If we say that the non-Christians suffer from bias, they will yell "discrimination." If we say we must atone for our historical wrongs, they amp up their complaints about them. If we say that equality demands it, they will call for equality. But they are just exploiting our language--a peculiar feature of our culture--to grab what they want. They have no interest in preserving our universalistic culture. They are interested in preservation of themselves and their people. They are not interested in equality--not for us, anyway. If they were in power, they would not reciprocate.
What has become apparent over the last 15 years is that our disease is terminal. We are incapable of doing what is necessary to fight off the foe. We are not even capable of recognizing our foe. We are fat. We are effeminate. We are weak. We are old. (Derb brought up the "mouse utopia" experiment of John B. Calhoun.)
This doesn't just apply to the Muslims. It applies just as well to the racial grievance mongers within higher education. Like the Muslims, they have little or no interest in sharing in our supposedly universalistic culture. They have no interest in the cultural basis of the institutions we've built--they want the wealth and power that those institutions possess and produce.
They see our "reason" and "free speech" as white male constructs that exist for the benefit of white males. And, they're actually right, to a degree. The open culture of liberal modernity is, in fact, even more of a white male thing than Christianity. But its universalism has degenerated together with liberal Christianity. It has put aside the necessity of conversion. And so it has opened itself to exploitation and destruction by the barbarian who enters the gates and claims the benefits of citizenship, but rejects the duties that once went with it.
I don't know what the solution is. It doesn't seem like it has to necessarily be perpetual war, but surely some realism about whom we let into our countries--who is and who is not likely to assimilate (and have children who will assimilate)--would be the starting point. In any case, a realistic assessment of the real and perhaps irreducible differences between peoples seems like a better basis for peace than the illusion of universalism.
Muslims can have their own countries and live as they please within them--even if this necessitates excluding outsiders who interfere with their way of life. But certainly we ought to enjoy the same rights.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Racists and anti-racists now agree ...
Racists and anti-racists now seem to agree that freedom and reason are peculiar to white males and exist primarily for their benefit. They just disagree on whether that makes them good or bad things.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Science and reform
I stated that conservative Catholics only accept revision of Church teaching when it emerges from within the tradition and higher up in the hierarchy of truths. I think, in practice at least, there is an exception to this: conservative Catholics will accept revision to Church teaching based on clearly demonstrated scientific or historical facts.
For instance, I don't really know that the biblical creation account was ever taught definitively and formally as being literally true, but I'm pretty sure that it was more or less taken for granted that it was so until clear evidence emerged to the contrary. Similarly, with medieval geocentric cosmology. Likewise, I think that at least some of the conclusions of modern critical biblical scholarship (e.g. regarding authorship of the biblical books) are in this category. And, at least in this case, there were preliminary negative responses to these ideas from the Vatican--though nothing ex cathedra. While it's true that that these new facts were able to be assimilated because there was not clear, definitive teaching to the contrary and openings could be found within the tradition, it remains the case that what was assimilated was new information from outside the tradition.
Perhaps, then, what differentiates liberals from conservatives within the Church, to some extent at least, is that certain developments in modern society and thinking that conservatives view as errors to be rejected or resisted are held by liberals to be in this category of clearly demonstrated empirical truths--so the felt needs of the day are new "facts" that traditional teachings have to be weighed against. For example, the difficult situation of civilly divorced and remarried people is a new (or newly recognized) fact that in some way relativizes the authority of the anathemas of Trent. Likewise, modern psychology gives us new facts that force us to adjust traditional understandings of sin and culpability.
Things at this level involve conceptual errors about the meaning of moral truth and too slavish following of modern expert opinion claimed in the name of science and complete servility to the modern political order ... but it can still be seen as a difference in degree rather than in kind from the sort of development that a conservative would view as possible. In other words, not necessarily heresy.
However, many liberals tend to accept modern "facts" that work at a meta level to negate the tradition as a whole: so they also say that the facts of comparative cultural anthropology undermine any attempt to posit a universal, idea of unchanging human nature, making the teaching of universal moral truths impossible in principle; the facts of modern historical research force us to reject the naive idea that the tradition is continuous and binding; and the facts of post-modern Cultural Marxism force us to subject the entire narrative to critique in the name of the oppressed and marginalized.
This, surely, is the synthesis of all heresies.
For instance, I don't really know that the biblical creation account was ever taught definitively and formally as being literally true, but I'm pretty sure that it was more or less taken for granted that it was so until clear evidence emerged to the contrary. Similarly, with medieval geocentric cosmology. Likewise, I think that at least some of the conclusions of modern critical biblical scholarship (e.g. regarding authorship of the biblical books) are in this category. And, at least in this case, there were preliminary negative responses to these ideas from the Vatican--though nothing ex cathedra. While it's true that that these new facts were able to be assimilated because there was not clear, definitive teaching to the contrary and openings could be found within the tradition, it remains the case that what was assimilated was new information from outside the tradition.
Perhaps, then, what differentiates liberals from conservatives within the Church, to some extent at least, is that certain developments in modern society and thinking that conservatives view as errors to be rejected or resisted are held by liberals to be in this category of clearly demonstrated empirical truths--so the felt needs of the day are new "facts" that traditional teachings have to be weighed against. For example, the difficult situation of civilly divorced and remarried people is a new (or newly recognized) fact that in some way relativizes the authority of the anathemas of Trent. Likewise, modern psychology gives us new facts that force us to adjust traditional understandings of sin and culpability.
Things at this level involve conceptual errors about the meaning of moral truth and too slavish following of modern expert opinion claimed in the name of science and complete servility to the modern political order ... but it can still be seen as a difference in degree rather than in kind from the sort of development that a conservative would view as possible. In other words, not necessarily heresy.
However, many liberals tend to accept modern "facts" that work at a meta level to negate the tradition as a whole: so they also say that the facts of comparative cultural anthropology undermine any attempt to posit a universal, idea of unchanging human nature, making the teaching of universal moral truths impossible in principle; the facts of modern historical research force us to reject the naive idea that the tradition is continuous and binding; and the facts of post-modern Cultural Marxism force us to subject the entire narrative to critique in the name of the oppressed and marginalized.
This, surely, is the synthesis of all heresies.
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