This seems to be a key thought
The “LIV” is a conformist. To marshal the “LIV” to your agenda, set the zeitgeist to your agenda. The “LIV” will conform to it. Engineering the zeitgeist is an activist function.
I would phrase it differently, but I’ve been thinking about that lately.
Most people don’t question what they hear; they take it in. And the vast majority don’t want to think differently from their friends or from what the smart people writing in the newspapers or teaching at the university or writing the novels say. It’s threatening and unpleasant to disagree, and ideas about politics aren’t important enough to them anyway, or at least not interesting enough to them. They aren’t motivated to spend a lot of time and energy on the topic.
Why this changed for me I don’t know, but it started (slowly) after 9/11. After that, I found myself—much to my great surprise, dancing outside the ring.
From Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
Circle dancing is magic. It speaks to us through the millennia from the depths of human memory. Madame Raphael had cut the picture out of the magazine and would stare at it and dream. She too longed to dance in a ring. All her life she had looked for a group of people she could hold hands with and dance with in a ring. First she looked for them in the Methodist Church (her father was a religious fanatic), then in the Communist Party, then among the Trotskyites, then in the anti-abortion movement (A child has a right to life!), then in the pro-abortion movement (A woman has a right to her body!); she looked for them among the Marxists, the psychoanalysts, and the structuralists; she looked for them in Lenin, Zen Buddhism, Mao Tse-tung, yogis, the nouveau roman, Brechtian theater, the theater of panic; and finally she hoped she could at least become one with her students, which meant she always forced them to think and say exactly what she thought and said, and together they formed a single body and a single soul, a single ring and a single dance.
As I wrote ten years ago:
We all want to dance in a ring, to a certain extent. It’s wonderful to be part of a coherent movement, a whole that makes sense, joined with others working for the same goal and sharing the same beliefs. But there’s a price to pay when something challenges the tenets of that movement. When that happens, there are two kinds of people: those who change their ideas to fit the new facts, even if it means leaving the fold, and those who distort and twist the facts and logic to maintain the circle dance.
“Eric” says we need to change the music of the circle dance, because people won’t give up the strong desire for dancing in a ring. I’d think I’d rather give up circle dancing entirely, because I see circle dancing itself as a lack of critical thinking, and dangerous. But expecting any significant number of people to give it up may be a distant and impossible pipe dream.
“To marshal the ‘LIV’ to your agenda, set the zeitgeist to your agenda.” [Eric]
. . . or as Andrew Breitbart oftentimes pointed out, politics is downstream from culture. Influence the culture and you influence the politics. This, of course is Gramsci all over again.
“Circle dancing is magic. ” I have to admit that I have no idea of what that means; or means to someone with whom the base idea somehow resonates.
I know the meaning of the words, “circle”, and “dance”. But I just cannot grasp what kind of mentality it is that the notion Kundera describes as “magic” is supposed to reference.
Maybe it’s about “wanting to be part of something good, or emotionally satisfying, and not left out”?
I can for example imagine a child feeling morose at being left off the invitation list to a birthday party, or an adult male actually experiencing the strange impulse to get up and dance with his wife at some wedding reception they attended; but this circle dance thing seems to refer to more than just missing an opportunity like that.
Or maybe not.
By the way, what’s an “LIV”?
DNW:
It means “low information voter.”
And the circle dance desire is one of the deepest human motivations: to not be an isolate, to be an accepted part of a group.
LIV = low information voter. It is also low IQ voter.
Be nice to them, they elect your Presidents 🙂
Harold, I agree; but, shouldn’t you have finished the thought with a sad, or even angry, face?
Thanks for asking DNW. I too had not a clue, but didn’t want to seem to be outside the ring by asking.
I wonder if for much of American history most Americans “danced outside the circle?” This allowed the creativity that caused economic growth that made us first among nations of the world, encouraged people to come to America and create more neat things. Today more of us dance in the circle, deny it and via various pressures force more people into the circle and once there no longer able to “think outside the box,” or in this case the circle, but that circle means America is now only rated the 17th most economically free country all because too many of us do not understand freedom or want “free stuff.”
And if you have to ask, it means ….
I see circle dancing itself as a lack of critical thinking, and dangerous.
Circle dancing is too broad a wash deposited by too broad a brush. The envelope never needs to be pushed; it only needs be the default position. Critical thinking is not necessary to arrive at that which is natural, traditional, palatable; its place is within that world of timeless truths, the good and the beautiful. Assign to anyone they take up critical thinking from point minus zero (-0), i.e., reinventing the wheel, and invite the Gnostics to makeover the world, its nature, and human nature.
It’s not for nothing that they had started “we hold these truths as self-evident”
Bheind every successful man in the past is a woman freeing him up to succeed…
behind every successful despot in the past and now, are many academics providing the justification for the actions taken
Hmm.
I guess I can kind of understand that. Some circumstances might temper that feeling of “need” a bit. For example if you had, as I did, a virtual society composed of your own relatives. Probably had 70 or 80 cousins. 15 parent’s siblings combined, and add in their spouses.
Then too, like many of you, I was brought up to be contemptuous of ” doing what the others do just because they do it”. I am sure that most here had teachers and parents who, as mine did, constantly hammered that same point.
Add to that that I am shocking attractive to women and overwhelmed with attention from fawning admirers of every description every day of my life … well then ….
I do remember being a kid though and wondering if it wasn’t the pool as much as anything else that had the neighborhood kids flocking to our house.
Seriously for a second though, we all do recognize that being in a group, brings about many burdens and irritations and demands for compromise – often pointless – as well. It can be suffocating … especially when you are expected to tolerate, say, your wife’s sister’s worthless nephew, or something along those lines.
Trust me, running a deer camp makes clear just how pointless and destructive it is tolerating worthless nuisances in order to salve some third party’s emotional needs.
Hmm …
Hey Neo. That last one was crap. Deep six it eh?
Thanks,
DNW
on another note
harles Manson, leader of the 1960’s cult group the ‘Manson Family’ was found dead in his Corcoran State Prison cell early Monday morning. Correction officers approached Manson’s cell after they heard strange noises of banging and hollering at approximately 3:17 AM on September 14. When they arrived at Manson’s cell, they found him on the ground with a slit throat — alongside him, a suicide note which read:
“As I write this letter on September 14 at 2:20 AM, I feel my soul rising to greatness. I am God, a great leader. These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them. I just tried to help them stand up. But you will see, I am immortal. My body may lay here right now, but in less than 24 hours I will rise from the dead just like the great Lazarus, exactly like Jesus — because I am God!”
hoax or real, we should find out soon…
he then will mark the start and end of an era
Artfldgr Says:
March 26th, 2011 at 8:50 am
this is why as we move forward from that era to today the music is more simple, more primitive, etc… not just because of adorno and his group wishing to make academics take off their clothes and dance in circles with primitive music…
There is a social aspect to it too / People want to have their circle dance to be social. Even if they picked the circle in question with reason.
The problem is the main culture. If we let the tune be changed from the classical liberal founding revolution to noise about the labor movement (it has a history, with holidays and such… to displace the old US history… it’s why I mention it), billionaires and lobbyists, and other left wing social movements… well; some people will take up that tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67_imEHTPE
I linked that before, but the Handbook on human farming is pretty funny.
And it provides much of the experimental reasons for why people are as they are today.
Without a sufficient fundamental grasp of certain events and human cycles, it is difficult to understand mind control or why certain things like it are even possible. Getting so many people to obey without a slice of guilt without an ounce of hesitation.
BTW, I, for one, can not could never tolerate circle dancing, group hugs or “Kumbaya.”
As I was told when I was growing up: “If everyone jumps off of a bridge . . . “
“And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game”
” But expecting any significant number of people to give it up may be a distant and impossible pipe dream.”
The people who desire the comfort of community are still under the control of their tribal instincts. Tribes needed to stick together. Their numbers and unity meant more ability to hunt and gather, better defense against wild animals and foes, and better possibilities of survival.
The circle dance is as old as humanity. I had never done a circle dance until a Jewish neighbor taught us to do the Hora. The Hora is a dance of community and solidarity. Perfect for tribal life. It provides a feeling of unity, common cause, and strength.
Those who need to be associated with a tribe are the least individualistic of humans. Those who willingly left their homes to come to the colonies (English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, German, Italian, Scandinavian, etc.) were individualists who felt the need to get out of the overpowering sameness and intolerance of their cultures for better opportunities. That is why this country was founded on the ideal of individual dignity and autonomy.
The tribal instinct is strong. It still dominates most societies. It is gaining strength here. Communism is the tribal ideal. It served early humans well. Or well enough for humans to multiply and populate most of the Earth. It works best in small, homogenous groups that hunt and gather for their livelihood. When agriculture and manufacturing were introduced into the mix, the need for private property and government arose. We’re still trying to sort that relationship out. Our representative government, private property laws backed by courts, and relatively free markets are the acme of the drive toward individualism. But tribalism keeps pulling us backwards.
To change the zeitgeist the ideal of the individual as a valued member of society with an equal opportunity of success has to be established as the preferred ideal. The present zeitgeist that there is no equal opportunity except through government regulation/intervention has to be demonstrated to be false. It can be done, but will require a long march through academia, communications, and government.
Most of the wonderful conveniences which have become necessities (at least in for most) were invented and promoted by people we have never heard of. We live in an age of unbelievable luxury and convenience compared to what life was like when I was a child- 80+ years ago. We should be giving daily thanks/praise to the individuals who, using their creativities and work ethics, have taken us to this place. Instead the zeitgeist is blowing in the opposite direction.
To change it will require, in the words of Churchill, “Blood, sweat, toil, and tears.”
Artfldgr Says:
September 15th, 2015 at 12:21 pm
on another note
harles Manson, leader of the 1960’s cult group the ‘Manson Family’ was found dead ****HOAX****
http://www.gossipcop.com/charles-manson-dead-death-hoax-suicide-note-died/
Agreed. Neither the circle nor the dancers.
There’s an even more contemptuously apt term to describe the focus of the activity; but it cannot be used here.
Must have had the same teachers.
Frankly I had never heard of a circle dance as a well defined and acknowledged activity, even as a metaphor, till I saw it here.
At most I would have figured it as some kind of Hollywood style Indian war dance or European witch’s ritual. It doesn’t seem quite right, in a human sense, to me.
. . or as Andrew Breitbart oftentimes pointed out, politics is downstream from culture. Influence the culture and you influence the politics.
Yes, Breitbart nailed it. Such a loss.
I think the circle dance is an excellent metaphor, the holding hands (connection), all dancing to the beat of the same song; they are a single, emotional mass.
Read Kundera’s book if you want a clearer idea – he’s written several about life in communist Czechoslovakia.
Well, I guess I do remember something of the idea …
effin pagans
Conservative Tree House
We are all currently distracted by so many things political; however, consider this a head’s up as we are about to move from ObamaCare Outrage Stage #6 to Stage #7…. The pain is soon to appear, and become an even bigger crisis.
-=-=-=-=-=-
The false impression was the one they stated publicly. This was the one to make sure the electorate voted as they needed. The real impression is what they were doing, and what they actually did — in the architecture and construction of the new national healthcare.
It does not provide value to rise up against the false impression — it’s a snipe hunt. The uprising needs to be focused on the real action that took place. Actions speak louder than words, yet so many people fail to focus their push-back approach on the action; instead they get stuck focusing on the words.
-=-=-=-=-=
The architects, including Gruber, wanted private insurance cancellations. They designed private insurance cancellations.
That’s just one of the things you identify when you focus on the action, not the words.
-=-=-=-=-=
Roughly 16 million people who were on the individual market in 2013 were structurally assigned to lose their coverage. Six million lost coverage between October 2013 and January 1st 2014.
Between now and next October (2015) the remaining ten to eleven million will lose their private individual market coverage.
These “real impression” realities are why you saw the White House threaten both employers and insurance companies to stay quiet about the future of health insurance.
-=-=-=-=-=
√ Stage One — The “taxpayers” can’t identify their cost until it’s too late (Oct/Nov 2013) — — — and for those postponed until after the 2014 election (Nov/Dec 2014).
√ Stage Two — The “taxpayers” lose their current coverage and cannot replace with anything except Obamacare coverage (2013/2014)…. and ongoing.
√ Stage Three — The “taxpayers” find out they’re going to pay more, much more, for less freedom, fewer choices, more mandates they’ll never use because of the regulations no one was paying attention to.
√ Stage Four — The “taxpayers” find out their doctor and/or provider is gone, opted out. Provider options, depending on region, become limited to non-existent.
√ Stage Five — The “taxpayers” realize their previous healthcare premium was considered a pre-tax deduction. (Progressives call these “tax expenditures”).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Stage Six — The same year employees realize their W2 now shows their employer healthcare benefit as part of their taxable income — Employers will drop their employee coverage. (October 2015 notices for January 1st 2016 cancellations) ALSO (The 2015 W2 and I-1099 forms will show the movement of premium to income).
Stage Seven — The “taxpayers” are joined by the previous “non taxpayers” as the bills come due and tax returns are filed. (April 2016 and April 2017) ALL Tax refunds are reduced substantially as revenues are needed. Folks realize their subsidy is now part of their earnings — that have a bigger tax liability.
Stage Eight — Election year 2016 ! Introduction of “Clintoncare” Hillary Clinton steps in with previous plan from 1990’s, and the nation votes on essentially a single payer plan with promises of lower taxation, et al. By that time so many people will be enrolled in the ACA “Obamacare” the selling point will be around transition to “Clintoncare” being actually easier.
Stage Nine — Medicare is rolled into Clintoncare — Nationalization is complete.
Neo sez:
It’s threatening and unpleasant to disagree, and ideas about politics aren’t important enough to them anyway, or at least not interesting enough to them. They aren’t motivated to spend a lot of time and energy on the topic.
Time and energy, for a population bombarded with unprecedented levels of information inputs, is a scarce commodity. That’s one factor. There’s just so much to process, it’s easter to just say “yeah, that’s what he said”, instead of reading between the lines for depth and insight.
Another factor: how much critical thought is encouraged or exemplified in today’s educational system? The “healthy non conformist” was rare when I came of age in the 70s (I attribute my own sense of this from a rural upbringing, where examples of “if you don’t do, who will?” are with you everyday. It was never explicitly taught).
If you do a little reading on current management philosophies, they stress the fact that today’s under-40 set (gen Y, millenials) are happiest when they’re working in groups, and very uncomfortable when working alone. I’ve seen ample proof of it in my own profession; a millenial may be able to go solve problems as a solo activity, but they clearly resent it, and if they’re given the option to take a high-risk/high-reward choice over a low-risk/low-reward group situation, they will take the group situation every single time. It’s an immensely frustrating phenomenon when one is short staffed. But, it’s the way they were raised and educated.
Which all sets the stage for an abundance of confirmation bias when someone upstream with a big mouthpiece sets an agenda.
And I want to make it clear, not all of these kids are what I could classify as “low information”, they soak up an amazing amount of it. That does not change the fact that they’re almost conditioned to groupthink.
That does not change the fact that they’re almost conditioned to groupthink.
Not almost, they are. Just as Europe’s human livestock are conditioned to obey, even if that means cheering on the Invasion of Islamic rapists and serial killers.
A person is often faced with two solutions to challenges.
Change yourself.
Or change the world.
Guess which one weaklings tend to pick up.
Many people think they are changing themselves by conforming to culture. That is not real self change, that’s more like having the world change you.
To reduce it to an even simpler venue, people who choose to change themselves are capable of resisting external influences from outside their body/mind/soul.
Those who wish to change the world, are ultimately trapped by the world’s logic and customs. They are changed by the world and forced to conform, more often than they do anything to affect the rest of the world.
And of course Democrats often tell us that their self righteous idiocracy of elite rulers will “change the world”. I often wonder to myself, “what kind of a ruler are a bunch of child rapists and murderers going to give us?”
Those who are sure they are independent and stand alone may just have disguised their group aspirations from themselves. We aren’t misled by the zeitgeist – oh no, no us.
We are misled by the counter-zeitgeist. Which is why we enter circles on connected networks of blogs and try to establish rapport – or at least a reality check.
Reality checks are good. Nothing wrong with that.
There has been considerable discussion over the years over at Volokh Conspiracy about how little effect the vote or persuasion any of us has on the culture, and that our political and social beliefs are chosen largely for their utility within the personal groups we aspire to be part of. We certainly see that this is true in many others. It affects all of us, more but hopefully less, unless we are schizoid PD or something related.
We are social creatures, after all, and the ability to adapt and get along is largely good for survival. Too much of it and we all go over the cliff, of course, but there is a good reason no nation has ever arisen in which its citizens all live in splendid isolation, each inventing his philosphy and life for himself. We each of us hope that when need arises we can go it alone in opinion, resisting the easy and the go-along route. But such times must be the exception or it is no virtue. There would be no shared culture without it.
i didnt know where we could display this as this was not covered by neo, but it IS something that may make quite a number of people respect some others more and not see them as a monolith…
kudos to seatle sea hawks player R Sherman!!!!
“I did not believe this when I heard about it. I watched your videos. I started a life in the ghetto..I banged like a fool till I woke up. I was not suppressed by any man or woman, white or black.
I worked myself up from Compton High School to a scholarship at Standford University and I did it myself. I take pride in what I have accomplished both as a black man, and an athlete. I could have stayed in LA and banged and used drugs and thought that it was all the white man’s fault. But that would be a lie. We are who we want to be, that is what is great about America. We are all born with the same chances in life..white or black…YOU choose to be a woman-abusing racist loudmouth. I would love to debate you on national TV. And if you condone senseless black shootings of whites and police officers, you better make that a debate on Springer, so I can bitchslap your ignorant ass!
You are what is keeping and making the black race look bad. Wake up fool. Do not glorify this half a man, he has worked for nothing. He chose to keep himself where he is, not the white people. It is time to take responsibility for your own actions, and not act like a stinking fool. Kids and young black men and women look at this site, and believe that they are abused. That is a bold-faced lie. It is out of the mouths of cheap thugs like you that are hurting our young and taking away the chances they have to make themselves a productive part of society. Brothers and sisters: the only slavery in America now is the one you put yourself into. Rise up like Doctor King as taught us, and be a real human being. We are all in this togehter, white and black. Peace to all, and I hope this stupid fake hate stops real soon. We are all brothers and sisters. Do not be fooled by the tyranny of evil men like this. Lift yourself up, educate yourselves, and work hard for a good life. No one owes you anything. Stand proud as a person of color, and do something meaningful with your life. I did and I am the best at what I do! Peace out, R Sherman.”
Whattabout crying circles?
Doom.
DNW Says:
September 15th, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Well, I guess I do remember something of the idea …
effin pagans
Whattabout these effin pagans.
Sing for Change’s website tells us who created this [cough, cough] effort:
As Sunday approached, a neighbor volunteered a home. Production wizards got wind of the project and offered their help in recordingit. The likes of Jeff Zucker, Holly Schiffer, Peter Rosenfeld, Darin Moran, Jean Martin, Andy Blumenthal, and Nick Phoenix rearranged schedules to participate. Holly Schiffer was able to get three High Definition cameras (Panasonic HVX250’s), and an AVID editing facility. When Jeff Zucker went to pick up the camera package, Ted Schilowitz happened to be there and offered a RED camera set up on a SteadiCam.
“Production wizard” Jeff Zucker appears to also be President & CEO of NBC Universal Jeff Zucker. At least David Zucker (apparently no relation) sticks with adults for his political work. Will Sing for Change get its own variety-hour special next?
The usual crowd … nothing learned.
Cough, cough ….
artfldgr, do you have a link? I’d like to send it around to my friends who are Seahawks fans.
artfldgr, do you have a link? I’d like to send it around to every American citizen beyond the age of 7.
“Engineering the zeitgeist is an activist function.”
Get those folks in touch with the Hillary folks who are engineering her spontaneity.
There is close to zero “activist” creativity and imagination on the right, although O’Keefe is one very notable exception, and Ace of Spades occasionally goes down the unbeaten path. But look at how vastly more influential O’Keefe is to Ace, just to show you the problem. O’Keefe not only goes for the jugular, he sometimes hits. He just has too many jugulars.
How many conservative activists do the effective job of one woman’s study professor in a middling university? TOSIAR?
Every age in every region of the Earth will have human beings, meaning everyone everywhere will probably be an LIV unless there is a strong tradition among the HIV of logic, Western Civilization, Dead White Men, and some coherent religious ideas of wonderment (even if it is true agnosticism).
Just to use an example, one example, there is nothing all the most excited conservative activism in the world which could come close in achieving a desirable goal as the single political goal of getting government out of education.
But maybe there is more. Maybe someone sometime will give an example of what the activism looks like.
artfldgr, do you have a link? I’d like to send it around to my friends who are Seahawks fans.
Richard Sherman Blasts ‘Black Lives Matter’ Activist
He might pay a price for this utterance …
TWANLOC, They never stop, they never tire, they never rest, they never sleep, they never give up.
“To marshal the “LIV” to your agenda, set the zeitgeist to your agenda.” Eric
Unfortunately, Eric is kidding himself, as is anyone who thinks that our current leftist zeitgeist, (reinforced every day in the schools and minute to minute by the media)… that “the dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time” is going to be changed by a campaign of counter-propaganda. It will take a huge dose of grim reality for the left’s narrative and proscriptions to be discredited, thus allowing a new zeitgeist to emerge.
“Most people don’t question what they hear; they take it in. … I see circle dancing itself as a lack of critical thinking, and dangerous.” neo
Mental laziness is one aspect of it, another is that we all filter information through what we believe to be true. There are many people on the right who are also LIVs. Many of those (far from all) supporting Trump are LIVs.
“Communism is the tribal ideal.” JJ
One could argue that at base, all totalitarian ideologies are inherently tribal in that they seek to create one supra’tribe’.
It will take a huge dose of grim reality for the left’s narrative and proscriptions to be discredited, thus allowing a new zeitgeist to emerge.
That only applies to trying to reform or change the system from inside out, such as what the Germans under Hitler had to deal with. Hitler was destroying Germany but until Hitler died, the country would never get better, even if it did somehow win the war. A new zeitgeist couldn’t be created under Germany because Hitler controlled Germany.
However, the Leftist alliance does not control every human organization in existence, not even in the United States. Internet nomadic raiders, pirates, and various other sub culture tribal organizations are still relatively free of the Left’s occupation forces.
beliefs are chosen largely for their utility within the personal groups we aspire to be part of. We certainly see that this is true in many others. It affects all of us, more but hopefully less, unless we are schizoid PD or something related.
We are social creatures, after all, and the ability to adapt and get along is largely good for survival.
It’s not utility, it’s resources. People cooperate because they are afraid of dying due to lack of resources or power to secure them. For people who are free, they must have an independent ability to generate their own resource, without raiding or stealing other people’s. Islam raids for harem slaves and to control the enemy population, a more rational society just generates more internal population and uses freedom of trade to control the enemy population.
Being social creatures and adapting to society isn’t connected. The best lone wolves are also the best social resources and cooperation focuses. They aren’t tolerated by society because society is ran by fools too conscious of their status quo to risk their position against newcomers.
The history of science is its own proof of how human organizations are stuck in a box, too afraid to get outside of the status quo. The Race and the society itself, did not advance due to cooperation. Rather, it advanced due to individuals who didn’t cooperate with society, but at the end, somehow got enough influence that society cooperated with them.
To be a social creature is to have 1 leader, 7 followers, 1 useless person, and 1 traitor in store. Because not everyone can or should be the leader, that’s what people see in cooperation. Statistically, once the leadership slot is filled, most people become content, except for the useless person and the traitor.
Of the 7 followers, one is the guardian, the other is the spiritual leader, and sooner or later, somebody comes up with a rebellious notion like Martin Luther did under Catholicism.
Essentially, every cycle of stable eras and prosperous results, were carried out by anti social people in one form or another, who changed the organization they were in or invaded some other person’s organization and took it over. Wars and migrations.
The reason why people don’t see humans living in isolation is because humans living in isolation has nothing to do with being anti social, that’s more like xenophobia or anti human than anti society.
A person can be as anti social or as asocial as Islamic jihad killers, and still live in an infidel society they hate but take money from. There’s no inconsistency there, because all you need to be anti social and still live amongst humans, is for there to be more than one society a person is loyal to. There and then, you get a very easy way to get crazy people who don’t live in isolation but are still crazy.
Which is why pure and true independence can exist even if a person has to deal with his fellow human beings. But the differences are still existent and noticeable.
The older I get the more I appreciate that human beings are fundamentally and incorrigibly tribal, and I use that term in its most literal, primitive sense. Everyone feels a need to be a member of an in-group or even better said (if you will pardon the mid-century American vernacular), “in with the in-crowd” (I know those lyrics sound corny now but believe me when I say that they were quite poignant ” back in the day’).
Seems to me that this fact of life is what the Left has successfully exploited. It has the monopoly on cool, and I don’t see that changing until we face some kind of shattering existential threat (orders of magnitude worse that 9/11) that brings us all back to basics. Until then the circle dance of the dominant tribe, along with the associated self-worship, increasingly irrational groupthink and uber-conformity will continue to rule the day.
One can only hope that a better tribe will emerge from the ashes. The Founders were as tribal as anyone, but they were blessed to be alive during late stages of the Enlightenment. We have been living through its end.
Politics has slowly succumbed to fashion. Which there is fashionable thought, Mitt Romney was made the equivalent of a Members Only jacket. This aint rocket science. Its Madison Avenue peer pressure to define who is hip and connected.
Get folks to see how they are brazenly manipulated by this and things will change.
This is the kind of thing we’re up against in a battle to define the zeitgeist — coming soon to a theater near you “Dan Rather’s Moment of ‘Truth’: The Movie CBS and George W. Bush Don’t Want You to See”:
For LIVs everywhere.
To become a billionaire is easy. First, get a million dollars ….
A person formerly known as a little old lady but now called “someone” attended a lecture on cosmology and came up to the lecturer to ask in consternation: “How many years did you say it was before the universe self-destructed?” Told “ten billion years” the person exclaimed with relief “Thank goodness, I thought you said ten million.”
Has anyone read the last parts of War and Peace, where Tolstoy talks about Napoleon’s actual effect (or not), and the historians’ take on Napoleon’s actual effect?
What separates the Big Endians from the Small Endians?
Someone wins Powerball, and it is not most of us. And the guy who does win, is usually worse off than most of us.
Horrible cliche and scary thought that it is, to most of us a pleasant hello is the best we can affect the world, and worse that most of us are incapable of that.
Sorry to rain on your circle dance here but there is a basic flaw in the article.
Look where the circle dancing supposedly started and look at the moral equivalence from which the argument in the article is derived. Here is the revealing sentence:
“First she looked for them in the Methodist Church (her father was a religious fanatic)”
Religious fanatics? Methodists of all people! It is hard to imagine a more bland group who if anything are inclined to circle dance to apostate leftist motifs rather than to genuine Methodist Christian motifs. And to compare them to Communists and Maoists who have killed millions of people in the name of their ideology as if there is some type of moral equivalence. Ridiculous.
Perhaps the author is presenting the premise from the faulty perspective of the professor. But even them the article fails since it leaves the false impression that there really is a moral equivalence between Christianity and Communism. Protestant Christianity is the very antithesis one of circle dancing since it encourages people to think for themselves and to reject the edicts of so called elite. Traditional Protestants are among the most fiercely individualistic people in the world.
To move away from some of the abstract topics I used before, the Left runs its own experimental models all the time on the subject of Obedience vs Individual Resistors.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/214543/
And they have their ways. But they don’t necessarily produce absolute compliance all the time, there’s generational friction and sometimes failures as well where people just aren’t doing as they are told, where the fear of social ostracisim doesn’t make them bend over as much as it does the majority of… people.
There are also economic examples of independence, such as Duck Dynasty or independent self published authors. They aren’t the prototypical abstract rendition of hermits or independent rebels who don’t mingle with humanity. While their individual production and worth is due to trade interaction with humanity, their individual output is still high enough to be considered independent. And the test generally comes when the Left seeks to use social pressure to gut them. Some will fold, others will not.
If the Duck Dynasty had been weaker, they might have been put in a situation where the studio called the shots and thus they would have been pressured into Obeying. Because they sought to remain independent minded and economically driven, the Left’s methods of coercion failed on them, generally speaking.
But even on people who lack individual resources, they may rebel, such as various people targeted by Leftist homos and the Gaystapo. Being part of a community and being a lone wolf resistor, are not mutually exclusive. And economic independent generally doesn’t mean living on an island either.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/leo-obey-or-else/
G6 and others who doubted and blamed LEO corruption over Ferguson and this country, were quite right. They were quite right to doubt the Status Quo reports and the pressure from people, including those here, who commanded or merely expected that We Obey Law Enforcement or else as they said, “we’d get shot”, as natural right.
Well, you’re still going to get shot, because.
Dennis:
It’s not an article. Kundera is a novelist and short story writer who writes fiction, although his fiction sometimes has a political slant in certain parts. He is using a florid set of examples to describe a character in one of his books, and her beliefs. He is also a Czech, and his books are set in various European venues, so he is often describing European versions of something.
Wow. Extraordinary. The reaction that takes place when the number and concentration of neurotics reaches a critical mass …
The reaction that takes place when the number and concentration of neurotics reaches a critical mass …
It is going to get even more interesting:
Sex with robots will be ‘the norm’ in 50 years, say experts. Men are considering the prospect with curiosity and a sense of humour. But academics and feminists are terrified and calling for them to be banned. Let me tell you why:
SEXBOTS: WHY WOMEN SHOULD PANIC
They might be camps:
England’s most influential radical feminist was asked whether she believes “heterosexuality will survive women’s liberation”:
It won’t, not unless men get their act together, have their power taken from them and behave themselves. I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight — we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.
I hope heterosexuality doesn’t survive, actually. I would like to see a truce on heterosexuality. I would like an amnesty on heterosexuality until we have sorted ourselves out. Because under patriarchy it’s sh—.
And I am sick of hearing from individual women that their men are all right. Those men have been shored up by the advantages of patriarchy and they are complacent, they are not stopping other men from being sh—.
I would love to see a women’s liberation that results in women turning away from men and saying: “when you come back as human beings, then we might look again.”…
Meet Julie Bindel.
The reaction that takes place when the number and concentration of neurotics reaches a critical mass …
And how do you know when someone deserves to be protected or not DNW?
Neo said:
“He is also a Czech, and his books are set in various European venues, so he is often describing European versions of something.”
That explains a great deal about the misunderstanding. I’m surprised he even knows what a Methodist is.
Dennis, Methodists were fanatics when they started out. And I say that as one who wishes they were more fanatical now.
See also Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, Quakers…
True believers. They often used their faith as a shield and as a sense of purpose.
Quakers were known to turn the other check, even as rapists and criminal raiders attacked their caravans.
To many in the Wild West, armed for bear and humans, that made no sense at all. Even if it was a religious thing.
” Ymarsakar Says:
Adults? When they have demonstrated a willingness to defend themselves and a conviction that they have a right to do so.
Why should I spend my capital purchasing them something they neither want nor value?