Whether you agree with Kirkpatrick or not, or Trump or not, or Will or not, Kirkpatrick’s analysis provides a deep insight into conservative American politics—George Will Is Right—Donald Trump IS A Threat, to Cuckservatism Inc.
Tag: cultural norms
China makes an Orwellian game that scores how good a citizen you are
I hope this isn’t true, and if it is, I hope people disrupt the hell out of it.
There’s a new game in China called Sesame Credit. You gain and lose points when you play it.
“But instead of measuring how regularly you pay your bills, it measures how obediently you follow the party line.” (see article below for link)
It goes live in January and will be voluntary until 2020 when it become mandatory.
An article with more detail can be found here: China Just Launched the Most Frightening Game Ever — and Soon It Will Be Mandatory
A voice they don’t want you to hear
The string-pullers on TV and in DC don’t like diversity of views, especially when they can’t control them.
And they don’t like the people expressing those views for a similar reason—they say things you’re not supposed to hear.
This explains both the popular appeal of Donald Trump and the barrage of attacks he faces daily.
James Kirkpatrick describes it well:
The rise of Trump isn’t “fascism,” but long overdue resistance and self-defense from an occupied people tired of being treated like enemies of the state in the country they built.
You have to go to alternate media sites to get reasonable analyses of American politics today because mainstream media is all about controlling the message, controlling what you hear.
Kirkpatrick’s essay is well worth reading in full: Trump’s “Fascism” Is Just White America Finally Hitting BACK.
Kirkpatrick on Obama:
But even as the lying Main Stream Media shrieks about the imminent Trumpreich, there is an eerie silence as Barack Obama’s Occupation Government engages in actions which would be termed “fascist” if directed against non-whites and non-Christians. Chief among them was Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s declaration to a group called the “Muslim Advocates” that her “greatest fear” was the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric.” Lynch said the Justice Department would “take action” against those who engaged in speech that “edges towards violence.” (same link as above)
It’s ironic that it takes someone who is very rich to actually speak for a huge segment of the American people who are not, but that’s how it is.
Washington and Jefferson were rich. A rich person with good intentions can do a great deal of good.
I don’t see Trump as fascist or dangerous, but rather as the first candidate in decades who may actually do what he says.
Two essays about White people
The first essay discusses rising death rates among middle-age Whites and sort of concludes that they deserve it. When I saw the piece was by Barbara Ehrenreich, I clicked on it immediately because I usually enjoy her work. Not this time. I think the essay, Dead, White, and Blue The Great Die-Off of America’s Blue Collar Whites, is terrible. If you read it, I urge you to look at the comments, many of which refute her points very well.
The second essay, The Nation Publishes Ethnically Motivated Anti-White Hate Propaganda Screed, is a response by Guillaume Durocher to an essay that appeared in The Nation magazine.
Durocher’s piece reads somewhat like the comments following Ehrenreich’s. A basic point is that White people as a group have needs and interests and that they should be allowed to speak about them without being called “supremacists.” (At the time of this posting, there are no comments under Durocher’s essay.)
I have written about White identity on this site once, making the point that:
I see nothing wrong with White identity or White identity groups, especially defensive identity groups that want to conserve and promote the values and culture of White people, who can be defined as people of predominantly European extraction.
The issues discussed in Durocher’s and Ehrenreich’s essays are well-worth thinking about and discussing with friends. I doubt they will be settled soon or that they can be reasonably summarized in a few sentences. I raise these issues because they are important and controversy can be a good thing, especially when it is resolved peacefully through words.
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Edit 12/07/15: National Data: November Jobs—Americans Lose Ground As Immigrant Job Displacement Ties Obama-Era Record
On Freudianism and the assertion of interpersonal meaning
Freudianism is an extreme example of the assertion of meaning where there is none, or very little.
It is extreme for two reasons: 1) because it is scientifically groundless and 2) because so many people believed it.
Communism, many religious beliefs and practices, fads, styles, ethnic myths, many “historical” misinterpretations, and much more are examples of false meanings that are asserted and believed by large numbers of people.
You could say that pretty much all human culture is a similar stew of strongly asserted falsehoods mixed with some facts.
Freud was an interesting writer and his ideas were and are worth considering, but they should have remained minor points in the history of psychology and never become “meanings” that influenced the entire Western world.
In this respect, Freudianism is an excellent sociological or macro example of what individuals do psychologically, on micro and meso levels with themselves and others.
Humans are extremely prone to append or assert meaning where it does not belong either because there is no “meaning” in that context or because the “meaning” being asserted is incorrect.
Freudianism shows how powerfully and massively wrong we often get meaning and how wrong our analyses of human thought, emotion, and behavior can be.
At the macro level of trends like Freudianism, we can and should have asked for evidence.
At the micro and meso levels of human psychological understanding we can and should ask for evidence or confirmation from the person or persons about whom we are asserting psychological meaning.
If you do this frequently with a trusted partner, you will begin to see that many of the “meanings” you append to that partner and to yourself are false.
False macro meanings like Freudianism can be corrected through science. At the micro or meso levels of the individual, wrong meanings can only be corrected through a practice like FIML.
In the future we may be better able to understand micro and meso levels of interpersonal meaning through the use of brain scans, but even brain scans need interpretation and will be difficult to use during real-time, interpersonal interactions.
See Micro, meso, and macro levels of human understanding for more on what is meant by these levels.
Simplicity and complexity in the public and private spheres
I will contend in this post that human communication tends to be simple unless agreements to be complex have been previously made and rules for greater complexity have been previously established.
Human communication can be understood in fractal terms. Conditions that characterize the small world of a single person can be understood as a fractal of the conditions that characterize the world of many people (communities, cultures, nations, etc.).
This can be easily seen in the ways public figures present simple stories about themselves to communicate with many people. And it also can be see in the ways individual people present simple stories about themselves to communicate with whatever social group they may be part of.
A successful public figure is almost always someone who presents a simple picture of themselves while associating themselves with simple views—liberal, conservative, party boy, sensitive babe, intellectual, etc.
For not famous individuals, the story is much the same—simple concepts are the norm. In most social settings, most people want to know others and be known themselves in simple terms, such as nice guy, good personality, reliable, good-looking, etc.
I don’t think there is much we can do with present technology to make the public communications of public figures more complex. The race for president or events in Paris will be displayed and spoken about in simple terms no matter what. Mainstream essays or talk shows that examine the candidates or the terrorists with more complexity will only add a bit of dressing to the already simple narratives, changing nothing for the vast majority of people.
Good science is based on previously establish rules and agreements to be complex and therefore good science does not shy away from complexity. One joins the scientific community and is expected to endure a long apprenticeship learning the rules of science before one is allowed to speak as a scientist. In the ideal, this is very good. In practice, not so much due to human failings and human tendencies to reduce complexity to simple expediency by cheating, lying, being biased, being paid for holding a view, etc. The same can be said about any field.
On an individual level, how do we introduce more complexity to our understandings of ourselves and others? If I expect you to see me in the simple terms of what my personality is or what my simple biography is and if you expect me to see you in similarly simple terms, how can we change that to add complexity and greater enjoyment?
In most cases, you can’t because it is too unsettling for most people to even contemplate doing that. In some cases, though, it can be done by making prior agreements to be more complex and by establishing rules for how to delve into and handle that complexity.
I do not believe it is possible to communicate with satisfying complexity with others unless you first establish clear rules and agreements with them.
If you want, you can make up your own rules and agreements. Or you can use the FIML rules and agreements, which can be found at the top of this page and which are discussed in the majority of posts on this site.
I strongly urge readers to do FIML or something like it. It will gradually free you from a veritable prison of delusive simplicity in both the ways you interact with others and with yourself.
The New York Times’ 9/11 Propaganda
The New York Times led the propaganda behind 9/11 and the 9/11 Wars. It did so by ignoring many of the most relevant facts, by promoting false official accounts, and by belittling those who questioned the 9/11 events. The Times eventually offered a weak public apology for its uncritical support of the Bush Administration’s obviously bogus Iraq War justifications. However, it has yet to apologize for its role in selling the official account of 9/11, a story built on just as many falsehoods. Instead, the newspaper continues to propagandize about the attacks while putting down Americans who seek the truth about what happened.
It has always amazed me that the NYT, which is based in NYC, has not produced a single decent investigative report on 9/11. It is alarming that this one paper is still the main “official” arbiter of what issues are important for the USA and how they should be interpreted. The NYT is the paper that is read by members of Congress and largely provides them with a scripted “reality” they are all but forced to support. The NYT script is also largely followed by all other mainstream news outlets in the USA, so no matter what you read or watch in mainstream journalism, you are getting a good deal of NYT spin.
I am solidly in the camp that 9/11 has never been honestly investigated by any “official” US institution or pursued even close to adequately by mainstream media. Kevin Ryan, and many others, have done a great deal of the investigative work on 9/11 that the NYT has failed to do. His blog and books are all well-worth reading. There are hundreds of fascinating 9/11-related stories that could fill the pages of the NYT for years, but that is not going to happen any time soon. I also recommend looking into the anthrax attack that happened shortly after 9/11. Graeme MacQueen’s The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy is an excellent summary of that event. ABN
Semiosis, symbiosis, and optimization
In this post, I want to avoid words like psychology, personality, instinct, normal, abnormal, etc. to describe human beings. I want to throw out all of those usual ways of thinking about people and replace them with just three terms–semiosis, symbiosis, and optimization.
In this context, semiosis means all symbols, meaning, language, philosophy, belief, value, etc. An easy way to grasp semiosis is to equate it with the way an individual’s culture, or subculture, works within their mind. Symbiosis denotes relations to other people. An easy way to grasp symbiosis is to equate it with an individual’s social group(s)–their marriage partner, family, friends, clubs, religious groups, job, etc.
All humans are a combination of some sort of semiosis and symbiosis as defined above. What we want to aim for in our lives is optimization of our semioses and symbioses. The only way I know how to do this is with FIML practice because only FIML practice gives partners the tools to grasp and manipulate—to understand and improve—their semioses.
The main area where this optimization occurs in FIML practice is in the symbiosis of partners’ semioses. Semioses are shared. Partners share in a symbiotic relationship the semioses they both carry around in their heads. FIML partners must become conscious of this level of human interaction because it happens whether you are conscious of it or not. If partners are not conscious of it and/or can’t deal with it, they will not be able to optimize their relationship (or their own lives). Rather, they will be forced to cling to public semiotics, private neuroses, or most commonly both.
If partners are optimizing the symbiosis of their shared semioses, their core behaviors will spring from dynamic principles rather than static codes, vows, or agreements. FIML is nearly contentless in that it does not tell partners what to think but rather how to observe and analyze their shared semioses.
Now, as an example, let’s say you experience a mix-up with your partner. Something didn’t go right; one of you misspoke or did something bothersome; then you had an argument or at least difficult emotions arose. So what should you do? At times like these, many people will separate for a while to cool down and then gloss over whatever it was when they get back together later on. At that point they will rely on some sort of static notion of their relationship and on that basis try to recapture good feelings. This technique works to a point, but it is not the best because it does nothing to optimize the relationship. It just covers up the problem. When you avoid a problem, you underscore your inability to deal with it while allowing it to grow.
A much better way for partners to deal with a problem like the one above is recognize that it is definitely going to affect your shared semiosis. Once you both accept this fact, you will probably find it easier to stick with the issue. Rather than separating for a while, face the issue and start a FIML discussion by analyzing what has happened and why. Even if it takes you an hour or more to reach a resolution, it will be well worth it because you will be optimizing your relationship. By doing a FIML discussion, you will avoid hiding from a problem while profoundly increasing your mutual understanding.
This is how mutual transformation often works in the real world. If you do small things like this enough, both you and your partner will become convinced that you can really live and interact on a higher level than what you probably had thought possible before.
Mutual transformation
The right goal of interpersonal relations should be mutual transformation. To be more precise, mutually beneficial mutual transformation.
Most of us would agree with this and most of us would hope that that is what we are doing in our important relationships. But are we?
I am sure many of us have joined groups or pursued friendships where we felt that this was what we were doing–often both parties have felt this way–only to discover that, eventually, something goes wrong and the mutual part or the transformational part gets lost or damaged.
This happens because one or both parties begin seeking stasis rather than transformation. Or one or both become selfish rather than mutual. And these sorts of outcomes occur because–assuming both parties were sincere in the beginning–they cannot maintain mutual understanding. They develop “artistic differences,” as the saying goes, or become “incompatible” in one way or another.
Sometimes people part ways and sometimes they soldier on, accepting the moderate warmth of stasis over the coldness of loneliness and starting over.
If we base our relations on emotions only–love, affection, friendly feelings–and fail to make them consistently mutually transformational, they are bound to founder or become unsatisfying. One way people try to get around this is to make their relations mutually beneficial in material ways. All this does is mutually trap people in material conditions and a material outlook.
Children often form mutually transformational relationships with each other because they are growing quickly and have loads of new material to digest and understand. Isn’t that one of the main reasons we sometimes miss being kids, being able to act like kids? We miss childhood not just because we had less responsibility then but also because we grew along with our friends in ways that were mutually transformational. Of course, it was never all like that. But life for most of us surely does get flatter or more static as we become adults. Where kids are dynamically socializing, adults too often are socialized into static subcultures that do not even permit transformation. As adults, we have to play the angles, get along, be careful what we say, etc. Being a “mature” adult usually means being socialized into a static subculture that requires us to maintain the same beliefs and practices for years, if not decades.
You cannot expect mutual transformation in most jobs or in most clubs or in most religious groups or in most groups of friends. Why? Because groups usually are held together by static semiotics–they have rules, codes, beliefs, attitudes, required behaviors. And those things foreclose transformation away from those things.
Mutual transformation is a good standard for assessing what is happening in your life. It can help us gain insight into a wide range of human relationships. Mutual transformation depends on equality and lateral communication. Equality and lateral communication is fundamental to finding your way out of the overweening semiotics of whatever culture or subculture you belong to. Cultural semiotics are mental events. They happen within our minds. How can you transform them or transform yourself out of them if you cannot grasp them and discuss them with your most intimate friend?
Mutual transformation requires that both parties be able to change. Rather than be unwilling to admit we are wrong, we should be delighted to discover that we have been wrong because now our lives have one less error in them. Politics is generally boring largely because politicians almost always have to be consistent and never admit fault. That is the opposite of mutual transformation, personal growth, or real Buddhist practice.
The purpose of FIML practice is to help partners mutually transform themselves. FIML gives partners the tools to use language in ways that transform both of them for the better. In a way, FIML lets us be kids again–kids with adult brains that have at last come to understand how to use our minds and tongues to speak honestly, creatively, wonderfully to each other.
Why so much Jewish fear and loathing of Donald Trump?
There is some anxiety among Jews about Donald Trump’s candidacy. In fathoming why this might be, one could perhaps start by asking how Trump departs from the ideal presidential candidate. For Jews, the ideal candidate is (1) predictably and fanatically pro-Israel; (2) predictably liberal/left on social issues, particularly anything related to immigration and multiculturalism; and (3) in need of big campaign money contingent on satisfying (1) and (2).
This analysis by Kevin MacDonald is well-worth reading. ABN
Roger Williams
Roger Williams (c. 1603—1683) was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America, the First Baptist Church of Providence. He was a student of Native American languages and an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans. Williams was arguably the very first abolitionist in North America, having organized the first attempt to ban slavery in any of the original thirteen colonies. (Source)
This Wikipedia article is worth reading. Williams was a strong and early advocate of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. His ideas probably influenced the principles expressed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Buddhists, and others, would do well to reflect on the great importance of the First Amendment, which reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
“Religion” means something different today than it did during Williams’ life, but Williams’ underlying belief that each individual must be free to follow their own religious convictions is as fundamentally important today as it was back then.
American Buddhists obviously benefit from these protections, but even hard atheists and those who dislike all religions should ponder the profound importance of the individual right to believe what you want and to profess your beliefs without interference from the state.
Good discussion on government corruption and how and why it is covered up
There is a lot of information on the nuts and bolts of corruption in the US government in this video. The discussion includes James Corbett, Sibel Edmonds, Wayne Madsen, and Peter B. Collins.
The posted title of this video is Pedophiles Run the Government and No One Gives a Damn. I don’t care for this title because pedophilia in itself is not morally wrong unless acted on. As for why no one gives a damn, well, we do, but know they have us cornered. All societies everywhere in history have been cruel or corrupt. There is nothing humans can do, given present technology, to change this.
Marijuana legalization favored by a majority of Americans
The very long time it has taken to change marijuana laws is a lesson in why you always want to be careful when enacting new laws.
A recent Gallup poll shows the move to legalization of pot is gaining. From the article linked below:
- Majority favors legal marijuana for third consecutive year
- Younger generations more supportive than older generations
- Older generations more supportive than they were in the past
Hero worship, entrainment, academia, and culture
I confess that I look at the Daily Mail almost every day.
It lets me feel that I am in touch with something common—common people and common emotions generated by uncommon people.
Today I learned that Taylor Swift earned $1million a day this year…, making her the highest paid musician in the world. I also read about the much more ordinary safest diner in the most dangerous neighborhood in America, a story about a guy who is not afraid to live and work in Detroit and how he is supported by his tough clientele, many of whom get murdered.
These two kinds of stories typify the contents of the Daily Mail and reveal something about how humans think and feel.
Taylor Swift’s primary audience is teenage girls and younger. They worship her. Jovica Trpcevski, the owner and cook at John’s Grill, is more like us as are his clientele, though Trpcevski also commands loyalty and allegiance from his “fans.”
All of us at one time or another follow some celebrity, musician, author, thinker, religious figure, or news analyst or are impressed with or proud of some local person who is doing something we can’t.
Swift’s audience illustrates hero worship, or whatever it is, in its most basic form. The developing young brain is captivated by music and the style of someone more mature and cannot get enough. Trpcevski’s fans are older, wiser, and more jaded, but are still capable of a similar bond, a similar entrainment of the brain on a social or local community vibe.
This is what people do. We adulate and follow other people, usually famous people. Trump is better at getting that entrainment than Jeb. Chomsky was better than Skinner. For many today, the Buddha is doing it better than Jesus.
The followers of others—including Trpcevski’s fans—also conform to each other. They form groups whose members imitate each other as much as their star.
And it’s not just teens and tough guys who do it. Academics do it as much as teenage girls and with far worse effects. The toxicity of the PC atmosphere in American academia should be obvious to anyone who has gone near it.
…the image of a cowering cuckold is far more appropriate for the vast majority of academics than that of a dashing rebel against the establishment.
That quote is from Liberal Bias in Academia: Will Being Self-Conscious About It Help? The answer to that question is no because:
“…academics censor each other… they create a climate of conformity where if you want to get on in an academic career, you don’t stick your neck out and you don’t say anything controversial.”
Students pick up on this and begin to follow suit. Before long, debating, challenging and wrestling with ideas and truth claims becomes obsolete, replaced by a classroom full of silent witnesses who refuse to contest the academics teaching them…
“Then there’s no need for external restraints on academic freedom because academics are doing it for themselves – they’re restricting their own academic freedom.”
Students who don’t conform are self-selecting themselves out of university. (Ibid)
No hope for academia, most religion, most culture, most anything. It’s what we do.We conform and restrict our own freedom due to biological and social pressures. It starts early and often lasts a lifetime.
I do think we can break the spell by understanding that we learn from the Swifts and Trpcevskis of the world and from the others who are learning from them along with us. But after we learn, we can move on and think for ourselves.
AI here and now
This video about IBM’s Watson is well worth watching.
American Buddhist Net 