Maverick Philosopher

Hey Wokester!

You won't teach your students grammar, but you will 'teach' them the 'right' pronouns?

..................................

J. E. comments:

Having fled to a tavern following the presentation at an academic conference of a paper on modal verbs, I found your recent remark about the woke approach to grammar and language indicative of my broad experience as an English teacher. I would point out only one thing: when you say the wokester won't teach his/her/xe students grammar, a reader might presume you are attributing to the wokester the ability to teach grammar but the willful refusal to do so. Not so. Most that I have encountered could not distinguish a participle from a particle, though whether cause or consequence of their enwokened state I can never tell. Thanks for your time in reading this missive.

And thank you for your well-written response.  I fear that you are right. But at least the wokester knows what a pronoun is. What hasn't dawned on him, however, is that his exiguous knowledge of grammar makes him partially racist since we all now know that grammar is racist and for the same reason that mathematics is.

I will add that grammar is propadeutic to logic, or, as I heard a German say, Grammatik ist logische Vorschule. But we all now know how utterly racist logic is, precisely because of its having been secreted by the brains of  dead old white racists.  Please forgive the pleonastic expression, 'white racist.' 

And if my employment of a German sentence isn't racist enough, here is a racist gloss on the foregoing:

"Propaedeutic" is from Greek paideuein, meaning "to teach," plus "pro-," which means "before." "Paideia" and "paideuein" both spring from the root "paid-," which means "child."

But you don't know that word, do you? You probably attended 'schools' run by leftists. Would it be an exaggeration to say that leftists specialize in the erasure of history and the erosion of standards? How much of an exaggeration?

Real and Merely Apparent Incoherence on the Left: Four Examples

1) Leftists, supposedly 'for women,' champion the right of biological males to compete in female sporting events.

The incoherence here is real and rooted in the conflict between opposing leftist commitments. On the one hand, leftists champion the downtrodden, the oppressed, and the marginalized, even when the latter  bear the lion's share of the responsibility for their condition.  On the other hand, contemporary leftists embrace an absurd social constructivism  according to which racial and sexual differences are social constructs with no basis whatsoever in biological reality.

The incoherence is easily avoided. Leftists need to temper their enthusiasm for the downtrodden, etc. while jettisoning the absurd social constructivism.  They need to show more respect for biological science. Don't they fancy themselves on the side of science?

2) American leftists, much exercised over the COVID-19 pandemic, support draconian measures against citizens while allowing illegal aliens from all lands to flood into the country untested and unvaccinated. If they are convinced that the Chinese virus, so-called because of its origin, is so terrible, why do the leftists who control the current administration permit the incursion of illegals who bring a variety of diseases with them, not to mention Fentanyl which is also a major threat to the health of the populace?

In this example the incoherence is merely apparent. There is no logical conflict  between infringing the liberties and livelihoods of citizens while inviting in and celebrating noncitizens in all their glorious 'diversity'  if one is motivated by globalism and hatred of one's own country. The left is being the left by not allowing a crisis to go to waste.

3) Leftists, supposedly 'for the workers,' allow and indeed encourage an influx of illegal aliens the economic effect of which is to drive down wages for the working-class citizen.

This example is like the immediately preceding one. And again the incoherence is merely apparent. If one is motivated by the desire to destroy one's own country, as she was founded to be, then it makes sense to impoverish the lower and middle class citizens who stand athwart the left's globalist agenda and to support and empower illegal aliens who do not share or even understand American values and  can be expected to enlarge the ruling elite's power base.

4) Pro-lifers who insist that all black lives matter, including pre-natal black lives, are accused by leftists of being white supremacists. 

Here too there is no real conflict between competing leftist commitments. If you see politics as a form of warfare, and want to win at all costs, then you will use every tactic at your disposal including the 'Orwellian smear' to give it a name. 

Truth and Power

'Speaking truth to power' is a phrase leftists love when they are out of power; in power, they exercise it, and truth be damned. They imbibed mendacity with their mothers' milk.

A Sane Populism is not an Anti-Intellectualism

Here is a statement that is not only extreme but also manifestly false:

In fact, you could wipe society’s table clear of every writer, artist, actor, musician, professor, dancer, reporter, tastemaker, producer, influencer, teacher, lobbyist, politician, everyone on TV, everyone who doesn’t get their hands dirty, and our world would keep turning just fine. 

If there were no trucks, there would be no truckers. If there were no automotive technology, there would be no trucks. If there were no engineering (applied physical science), there would be no automotive technology.  If there were no theoretical physics, there would be no applied science. If there were no pure mathematics, there would be no theoretical physics (in the technologically implemental, post-Galilean sense of the term).  If there were no people who never got their hands dirty, there would be no pure mathematics. And there would be none of this if there were no philosophers.

It all began with philosophy, the attempt to know man and world by the use of reason applied to the data of experience.  If there were no philosophers, we would still be retailing cosmogonic myths.

And if there were no philosophers like me, there would be no one to explain all of this to you, something I have just done, in an admittedly inadequate bloggity-blog sort of way, without getting my hands dirty.

That being said, I fully support the peaceful and eminently democratic  protests of the Canadian truckers and their American confreres.

And I heartily condemn the anti-democratic fascists of the Left, both here and to the North, who use the power of the State to suppress individual liberty, and then engage in the Orwellian subversion  of language to cover their tracks and gaslight the citizenry.

For example, the foolish Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, claims that the trucker protests are racist. But what does race have to do with them? Nothing. When he's done misusing 'racist,' he will go on to misuse 'domestic terrorist' and 'insurrectionist.'   What sort of person is terrorized by the blaring of horns? What does terrorism and insurrection have to do with these legitimate and eminently democratic peaceful protests? Nothing.

And isn't Trudeau famous for his asseveration that "Diversity is our strength"?  One who dissents from fascist clamp-down is holding a view diverse from that of the fascists.

"Trust, but Verify!"

I said:

Perhaps the greatest diplomatic line of all time was uncorked by Ronald Reagan in his confrontation with Mikhail Gorbachev, he of the Evil Empire: "Trust, but verify!"

The Reagan riposte makes sense diplomatically but not semantically. If I trust you, I do not verify what you say or do. If you think otherwise, then you do not know  what 'trust' means.

Dmitri  replies:

This expression "Trust, but verify" is, among other things, a literal translation of a very popular saying in Russian. I am sure this is part of the reason Reagan used it.

 

And you can trust and still verify, because the person or institution you trust could be worth your overall trust, but err on occasion. In short, you can understand the meaning of trust and, at times, verify a trusted party at the same time.

I counter-respond:

I didn't know that the expression translates a popular Russian saying. Thank you for informing me of that.

On the point of disagreement, I persist in my contention.  Set aside institutions and other objects of  potential trust/distrust. Consider an interpersonal situation with exactly two persons. Suppose that person A says to person B: "I trust you with respect to your assertion that p, but I must verify that p." This was the situation between Reagan and Gorbachev. Gorbachev had made a specific assertion and Reagan said in effect that he trusted Gorbachev's veracity but but still had to make sure that what Gorbachev had asserted was true.

That is what I am claiming makes no semantic or conceptual sense. If I trust that what you are saying is true, then I cannot consistent with that trust verify what you are saying. I am making a simple point about the concept trust.  If you were to deny that there is a unitary concept trust expressible in different languages, then I would say that I am making a simple point about the meaning of  the word 'trust' in English. 

But if I deem a person overall trustworthy with respect to what he asserts, I may, consistent with that overall trust, tell the person that I need to verify a specific assertion that the person makes. So in the end I don't think Dmitri and I are in disagreement.

Various philosophical questions wait in the wings. What is the difference between the meaning or sense of a word and the concept the word expresses, assuming the word, on an occasion of use,  expresses a concept? What is a concept? Are concepts mind-dependent? Are they all general, or are some irreducibly singular?  Should we distinguish between the concept trust and the essence of trust where essences are mind-independent ideal or abstract objects that exist or subsist in splendid independence of minds and language? Is a linguistic prescriptivist committed to the existence of essences?   

Disingenuousness

One politician accuses another of being disingenuous. But isn't such an accusation itself disingenuous inasmuch as disingenuousness is itself necessary for polite, politic, civil, political behavior? Could one have diplomacy and  civility without fakery and phoniness?  Perhaps the greatest diplomatic line of all time was uncorked by Ronald Reagan in his confrontation with Mikhail Gorbachev, he of the Evil Empire: "Trust, but verify!"

The Reagan riposte makes sense diplomatically but not semantically. If I trust you, I do not verify what you say or do. If you think otherwise, then you do not know  what 'trust' means.

One root of Trump hatred is his refusal or inability to play the political game in the conventional way. In a world that runs on appearances, social success demands more than a modicum of fakery, dissembling, white lies, and such.  If Trump could learn to play the game in a more conventional way, but without any reduction in the size and efficacy of his political cojones, he would be unstoppable.

But this world in which there is more seeming than being is also a world of severe limitations.  You cannot expect a man of action with a popular appeal to be also sensitive, articulate, refined, and literary. And vice versa. Those who are the latter tend to be of the milquetoast sort.  Someone as précieux, as 'precious,' as Bill Kristol is not cut out to lead.  

Preciosity does not suit the populist.

 

The Erasure of History at the University of Leicester

Another incident in the suicide of the West. And in England of all places. The battle appears to be lost in the mother country and in the rest of the Anglosphere with the exception of the United States of America. Here is where the West will make its last stand, or else begin to turn the tide. 

Is the meaning of 'last stand' such that the defenders, fighting against overwhelming odds, always lose? That is what 'last' implies. Custer's last stand was the end of Custer. He stood no more. Or does the meaning of the phrase allow for the defenders to sometimes prevail? Onkel Ludwig taught us that meaning is use. I take it to be an empirically verifiable lexical point that the phrase is used in both ways.  Sometimes linguistic prescriptivists such as your humble correspondent have to acquiesce in the ways of a wayward world. Kicking against the pricks is somethimges pointless. I am tempted to dilate upon 'kicking against the pricks,' but I will resist temptation. 

Jillian Becker: A Terrorism Archive Lost:

If one of the primary purposes of a university is to protect and hand on intellectual heritage, commitment to archive preservation is fundamental to that purpose. Perhaps the reason why the University of Leicester did not protect the IST archive was because it is now committed to erasing the past. An indication of this is in reports that the administration wants to “decolonize” the teaching of English literature by eliminating medieval studies (so Chaucer, inter alia, is to be removed from the curriculum), and “focus on ethnicity, sexuality and diversity,”

Ceasing to teach something does not necessarily entail the destruction of materials used for teaching it. Is it likely that a university entrusted with documents of national and international importance would deliberately discard them because they are no longer useful to its teaching? Would it choose to waste the fruits of long, hard, even dangerous effort exerted against a malign force threatening the Western world? Sadly, I suspect it would if it came to believe that the Western world was systemically at fault and needed to be transformed. But if therefore it would no longer protect documents of public importance, should it still be funded with public money?

The loss of an archive, whether by negligence or decision, is a calamity. To lose it by negligence is barbarously callous. To discard it deliberately is an act of intellectual vandalism, the equivalent of book-burning. If, in either case, a university is responsible, the disgrace must leave a permanent stain on its reputation.

Jillian Becker self portrait (early 1970s)

Other photographs of Jillian Becker

Honor thy Mother

Our biological mothers bore us into the world of matter; the mother tongue into the realm of objective spirit. Both deserve respect and honor, the latter more so than the former inasmuch as the spirit is higher than the flesh.  What the mother tongue  receives from the matricidal Left is neglect and abuse and Orwellian subversion and distortion. Ingratitude and retromingency are marks of the leftist. To the Left's retromingency in point of pissing on the past I now add the retromingency of the Left's pollution of the headwaters of its expressivity.

Was Kyle Rittenhouse a Vigilante?

I have been known to refer to David French as a useful idiot in the sense usually attributed to V. I. Lenin, but I won't repeat that legitimate charge here. I'll just say that French is exasperating in the Trump-hating pseudo-conservative style of David Brooks, George F. Will, Bill Kristol, Mona Charen and the rest of the all-talk-and-no-action bow tie brigade.   Here is French in The Atlantic,  publication in which is a good tip-off as to one's political stance:

When Kyle Rittenhouse walked the streets of Kenosha in the midst of urban unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake holding a rifle in the “patrol carry” or “low ready” position, similar to the positions used by soldiers walking in towns and villages in war zones, without any meaningful training, he was engaged in remarkably dangerous and provocative conduct. But that dangerous and provocative conduct did not eliminate his right of self-defense, and that self-defense claim is the key issue of his trial, not the wisdom of his vigilante presence.

French fails to note that the police shooting of Blake was justified inasmuch as the black criminal with an impressive rap sheet refused to obey police commands and pulled a knife on the officer. French is undoubtedly aware of the lethality of knives and indeed that their lethality is in some circumstances in excess  of that of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. But let that pass.

Note the phrase "vigilante presence." A vigilante is someone who takes the law into his own hands. But the authorities had abdicated and  Kenosha was at the time lawless. Someone who defends life, liberty, and property in a Hobbesian state of nature against armed barbarian arsonists, looters, and potential murderers is arguably not a vigilante. But of course it depends on how one defines 'vigilante.' 

If a citizen shoots a home invader who threatens death or grave bodily harm to the home's occupants, no one calls that a vigilante action even though the citizen has taken crime prevention and law enforcement into his own hands.   The law makes an entirely reasonable exception in a case like this thereby suspending in such circumstances its monopoly on the use of force in law enforcement and crime prevention. This exception allows for others. When the authorities abdicate, they no longer can claim to have a monopoly on the use of force since they have refused to employ force in the upholding of the law. So it falls to the citizen.  When the authorities are in dereliction of duty, their authority evaporates.

It is thus a cheap slander on the part of French to tar Rittenhouse with the pejorative 'vigilante.'   Later in the article,

But there is also an immense difference between quiet concealed carry and vigilante open carry . . . .

Two points. French is suggesting that open carry, as such, is a vigilante action. It is not, although it is inadvisable in most circumstances. If that is not what French wanted to imply, then he is a sloppy writer. Second, Rittenhouse was out to deter the thugs and concealing his weapon would not have had that effect! 

Can you appreciate why someone would consider French to be a useful idiot? Instead of standing up for the rule of law and condemning both the politicians who want to defund the police, and the leftist prosecutors who refuse to prosecute criminals, he wastes his energy attacking an idealistic. good-hearted  17- year-old  boy who bravely if unwisely stood up against the barbarians. The net effect is to give aid and comfort to those French ought to be opposing. Like Rod Dreher and others, he doesn't understand that he has to take a side here and that it is impossible to float above the fray as if he were a transcendental spectator with no stake in the outcome.

The question to put to French is: Which side are you on?

Related: David French, Christianity, and Politics

Why Women are 'Over-Represented' among Realtors

Have you ever wondered why women are 'over-represented' among realtors? It is because they excel men when it comes to conciliation and mediation.  I don't mean this as a snarky put-down of the distaff contingent.  I mean it as praise.  And if females do not take it as praise, are they not assuming the superiority of male virtues? 

It is a non sequitur to think that if the Xs are 'under-represented' among the Ys, then the Xs must have been the victims of some unjust discrimination.  Men are 'under-represented' among massage therapists, but the explanation is obvious and harmless: men like to have their naked bodies rubbed by women in dark rooms, but women feel uncomfortable having their naked bodies rubbed by men in dark rooms.   It is not as if there is some sort of sexism, 'institutional' or individual, that keeps men out of massage therapy. If you retort that some women do like massages from men not their intimates, then you don't understand generic statements.  

Blacks are 'over-represented'  in the NFL and the NBA. Is that because of some racism 'institutional' or individual, that keeps whitey out?  Of course not. Blacks are better than whites at football and basketball.  Jews are just terrible.  Chess is their athletics.  Jews dominate in the chess world.  Is that because the goyim have been suppressed?  

Does my talk of blacks and Jews make me a racist and an anti-Semite ?  To a self-enstupidated leftist or 'progressive,'  yes.  For they are too often incapable, or have rendered themselves incapable, of distinguishing between a statement whose content is race and a racist statement.  If you accuse me of retailing stereotypes, I will point out that some stereotypes have a basis in reality.  Leftists tend to embrace negative and groundless stereotypes about stereotypes.

I am treading a via media between the excesses of the neo-reactionaries (NRs) and the even worse excesses of the leftists. My challenge to the NRs:  How can you fail to see the importance of equal treatment of men and women?  One NR of my acquaintance claimed that the notion of equality of opportunity is vacuous. Why?  To require that applicants for a job not be discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, or creed, is not vacuous.  It has a definite content. That it could use some spelling out is not to the point.  

What I mean is this. Some creeds are such that people who hold them must be discriminated against. Suppose you are an orthodox Muslim: you subscribe to Islamic law (sharia) and hold that it takes precedence  over the U. S. Constitution and Anglo-American law. You ought to be discriminated against.  You ought not be allowed to immigrate into the USA.  The U. S. Constitution is not a suicide pact.  

The Leftist as Denier of Distinctions

The 'woker' the leftist, the broader the scope of the denial of distinctions necessary for clear thought and rationally informed action. Here are just some of them:

• citizen-noncitizen
• asylum-illegal entry
• legal immigration-illegal immigration
• immigration-emigration. This distinction elided by talk of 'migrants.' 
• hate-dissent
• sex-gender
• dissenting speech-violence
• tax-penalty
• buy back-confiscation
• et cetera ad nauseam.

Propaganda

Despite the term's largely pejorative connotation, propaganda is not by definition false or misleading or harmful. Propaganda is anything of a verbal or pictorial nature that is propagated to influence behavior. Propaganda can consist of truths or falsehoods, good advice or bad, exhortation to good behavior or subornation of bad. Anti-smoking and anti-drug messaging are propaganda but the messages are salutary. Leftist propaganda is destructive, as recent events make abundantly clear,  while conservative propaganda inspires ameliorative action.

Don't Surrender to the Left on Language

The Left's destructiveness extends even unto language. The subversion of language is the mother of all subversion. Punch back against the linguistic hijackers. Here's some argumentative ammo from Peter Kreeft's Socratic Logic, 3rd ed., p. 36, n. 1:

 

The use of the traditional inclusive generic pronoun "he" is a decision of language, not of gender justice. There are only six alternatives. (1) We could use the grammatically misleading and numerically incorrect "they." But when we say "one baby was healthier than the others because they didn't drink that milk," we do not know whether the antecedent of "they" is "one" or "others," so we don't know whether to give or take away the milk. Such language codes could be dangerous to baby's health. (2) Another alternative is the politically intrusive "in-your-face" generic "she," which I would probably use if I were an angry, politically intrusive, in-your-face woman, but I am not any of those things. (3) Changing "he" to "he or she" refutes itself in such comically clumsy and ugly revisions as the following: "What does it profit a man or woman if he or she gains the whole world but loses his or her own soul? Or what shall a man or woman give in exchange for his or her soul?" The answer is: he or she will give up his or her linguistic sanity. (4) We could also be both intrusive and clumsy by saying "she or he." (5) Or we could use the neuter "it," which is both dehumanizing and inaccurate. (6) Or we could combine all the linguistic garbage together and use "she or he or it," which, abbreviated, would sound like "sh . . . it." I believe in the equal intelligence and value of women, but not in the intelligence or value of "political correctness," linguistic ugliness, grammatical inaccuracy, conceptual confusion, or dehumanizing pronouns.

What a sexist Neanderthaler this Kreeft fellow is! Send him to a re-education camp!

 

 

Critical Race Theory Attracts the Uncritical

People are suckers for Critical Race Theory (CRT) because they cannot think critically.

A key word in the CRT arsenal is 'equity.'  ('Arsenal' is the right word given the Left's weaponization of language.) It is an Unbegriff, an unconcept. It combines something good with something unattainable except by the toleration of grave evils. Let me explain.

'Equity' sounds good and so people are thoughtlessly for it. It is like 'social justice' in this respect. They don't realize that leftists, semantic distortionists nonpareil,  have hijacked a legitimate word so as to make it  refer to equality of outcome. Being uncritical, people don't appreciate that there is an important  difference between equality in its formal senses -- equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality in respect of political/civil rights, etc. -- and equality of outcome or result. Formal equality is an attainable good. Material equality is unattainable because of group differences.  To achieve material or non-formal equality, equality of outcome, the means employed would be worse than the supposed cure.

Given undeniable group differences, 'equity' does not naturally arise; hence the only way to achieve 'equity' is by unjustly taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive.  The levellers would divest the makers of what is rightfully theirs to benefit the undeserving takers. 'Equity' is unjust!  It is unjust to deny a super-smart Asian or Jew a place in an MIT engineering program because of a racial/ethnic quota.  Judging candidates by merit and achievement, however, naturally leads to the disproportional representation of Asians and Jews in such programs. That is a consequence that must be accepted. Candidates must be judged as individuals and not as members of groups.  Indeed, the superior black must take precedence over the inferior Asian or white, but not because he is black, but because he is superior. 

Suppose you disagree. Then I argue as follows.

The state apparatus needed to bring about this 'equitization' or equalization of outcomes is vastly larger than the one permitted by our founding documents.  The attempt to achieve it brings us closer and closer to an omni-invasive totalitarian police state.  That would be worse than a situation in which natural hierarchies are respected.

In any case, natural hierarchies always have the last word. If the USA weakens itself by going 'woke,' it will become easy prey for its foreign enemies.  Their dictators are salivating as we speak. Never forget that states are in the state of nature with respect to one another, and that nature is red in tooth and claw. A 'woke' military is a weak military. 

The paradox should not be missed: the equalization project requires agencies of equalization vastly more powerful that the groups they seek to equalize.  The upshot, then, is not equality of power and position but a situation of material inequality in which the governors oppress the governed.

Is CRT a theory?  A commenter on my Facebook page correctly notes that

The advocates of the current re-education program are not presenting a theory but rather requiring their victims to signal their uncritical, obsequious acceptance of a canon of dogmas. Calling a dogma or set of dogmas a theory is a rhetorical ruse used to disguise their insidious indoctrination with the a veneer of real educational activity.

My commenter is right. CRT is not a theory to be discussed and tested but a set of dogmas to be imposed on children of all ages whose critical faculties are no match for the indoctrination.

'Political' is not a Dirty Word

Years ago I heard a man on C-Span whose name and the name of whose organization I have forgotten. The man headed an outfit promoting a strict interpretation of the U.S. constitution. Throughout his talk he repeated the remark that his organization was not political, not political, NOT POLITICAL!

 

Nonsense, say I. What the hell else could it be? What could be more political than questions about constitutions and their interpretation, and organizations that promote a particular style of constitutional interpretation?

 

'Political' is not a dirty word. How could it be when the human being, by nature, is zoon politikon, a political animal? Aristotle, who made the point, also appreciated that the political life cannot be the highest life. That honor goes to the theoretical life. The vita activa subserves the vita contemplativa. The doctor angelicus follows in the footsteps of the Peripatetic. 

Can the American Flag be Politicized?

From my Facebook page, toned-down and slightly expanded.

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Some know-nothing at the New York Times claimed that conservatives have politicized the American flag. That's quite a trick! How can you politicize what is already and inherently political? Can you 'meteorologize' the weather? The American flag is a POLITICAL symbol. What it stands for is a political entity. It stands for the American POLITY. "The Republic for which it [the flag] stands" -- to borrow a formulation from the Pledge of Allegiance -- is constitutionally-based, and that constitution includes POLITICAL statements among which are ones that state what the government may and may not do. For example, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . ." (from the First Amendment).

 

The American flag cannot be politicized. It is a political symbol and what it symbolizes is not politically neutral. If you don't like the political arrangement that the flag stands for, a constitutionally-based republic, then you should say that and own up to being anti-American. But Democrats and other leftists are not known for their honesty, Orwellian abusers of language that they are.

Why Do I Write about Political Topics?

People are increasingly 'siloed into' their positions. I don't write to change the minds of our political enemies. Why do I write, then?

First, to arrive at the truth as best I can for my own edification and enjoyment. People like me like to figure things out and understand things. On our good days we theoreticians approach the blissful self-sufficiency of Aristotle's NOESIS NOESEOS.

Second, to provide argumentative ammo to those on our side. The choir DOES need to be preached to, so as to be fortified, and provided with tools for ideological combat.

Third, to persuade fence-sitters, people with open minds who can be nudged one way or the other.

Fourth, to let our enemies know that they will be opposed, and their lies exposed. Enough of us protesting loudly, but with wit, style and solid arguments, can have an intimidating effect on our enemies.  Winning in a war requires intimidation. To intimidate is to induce a weakening fear in the enemy.

Fifth, because I'm a natural-born scribbler who takes great pleasure from writing and re-reading what he has written. The hunt for the incisive formulation that penetrates to the heart of the matter is a source of pleasure.

Could I Pass an Ideological Turing Test?

On 11 January 2017 I wrote a post that begins:

Could I present liberal-left ideas in such a way that the reader could not tell that I was not a liberal?  Let me take a stab at this with respect to a few 'hot' topics.  This won't be easy.  I will have to present liberal-left ideas as plausible while avoiding all mention of their flaws.  And all of this without sarcasm, parody, or irony.  Each of these subheadings could be expanded into a separate essay.  And of course there are many more subheadings that could be added.  

The post attracted some very good comments. The consensus was that I flunked.  

Four years have past since I made that entry. That is a long time in this age of social, political, and technological hyperkineticism. If I were to rewrite it today it would have to reflect the increasingly delusional quality of leftist 'thought' as we jerk, not merely accelerate, toward our cultural collapse. 

Jerk?

Thanks to 'progressives,' our 'progress' toward social and cultural collapse seems not be proceeding at a constant speed, but to be accelerating.  But perhaps a better metaphor from the lexicon of physics is jerking.  After all, our 'progress' is jerkwad-driven.  No need to name names.  You know who they are.

From your college physics you may recall that the first derivative of position with respect to time is velocity, while the second derivative is acceleration.  Lesser known is the third derivative: jerk.  (I am not joking; look it up.)  If acceleration is the rate of change of velocity, jerk, also known as jolt, is the rate of change of acceleration.

If you were studying something in college, and not majoring in, say, Grievance Studies, then you probably know that all three, velocity, acceleration, and jerk are vectors, not scalars.  Each has a magnitude and a direction.  This is why a satellite orbiting the earth is constantly changing its velocity despite its constant speed.

The 'progressive' jerk too has its direction:  the end of civilization as we know it.

 

For the Left, the Subject is not the Subject: Why Math is 'Racist'

It has often been noted that for the Left, the issue is not the issue.  David Horowitz:

As President Obama’s political mentor, Saul Alinsky, put it in Rules for Radicals: “One acts decisively only in the conviction that all of the angels are on one side and the devils are on the other.” Here is another statement from Rules for Radicals: “We are always moral and our enemies always immoral.” The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the immorality of the opposition, of conservatives and Republicans. If they are perceived as immoral and indecent, their policies and arguments can be dismissed, and even those constituencies that are non-political or “low-information” can be mobilized to do battle against an evil party. (emphasis added)

"The issue is never the issue." The issue is the gaining and maintaining of power so as to "fundamentally transform America."  For example, if leftists (Democrats in U. S. politics) were really concerned about the spread of COVID-19, they would not open the borders to illegal aliens as the Biden administration has now done. Whatever concern they have about the spread of disease is trumped by considerations of how the problem can be exploited to enhance their power.  Power first, public health second, if that. Never let a crisis go to waste; that is, never let it go unexploited for ideological leverage.  And now a further step left: never let a crisis end.  

It occurred to me the other day that something structurally similar explains the absurd claim that mathematics is racist.  No one believes this, not even the most febrile of leftists, just as no one believes that a serious health crisis will be unaffected by allowing disease-carrying illegal aliens to flow into the country in great numbers unchecked and unvetted. 

So why do so many on the Left  say that math is racist? Because the subject is not the subject. The subject is not mathematics, a discipline about as far removed from ideological taint as can be imagined, but the supposed 'systemic racism' of American society.  There is no such thing, of course, but no matter: invocation of this nonexistent state of affairs is useful for the promotion of the leftist agenda just as he inefficacy of masks and the uselessness and outright deleteriousness of lock-downs is no reason not to make use of masks and lock-downs and draconian rules to further the destruction of the American republic as she was founded to be.

Merit and 'Equity'

Those who lack merit too often seek to achieve by political means what they cannot achieve by accomplishing something. Leftists aid and abet them. Equality before the law and equality of opportunity are not enough for leftists: they demand equality of outcome.  But this cannot arise naturally due to differences in interests, attitudes, abilities, and work habits among individuals and groups. So equality must be imposed by force by government. Thus arises what leftists now call 'equity.'  The word is an obfuscatory coinage of the sort one can expect from Orwellian language-abusers. The typical leftist is a stealth ideologue. His mendacity disallows an outright call for  equality of outcome or result, and merit be damned; he smuggles his thought into sleepy heads with 'equity' in violation of one of the traditional meanings of the word, namely, "justice according to natural law or right." (Merriam-Webster) "Equity' as used by a leftist language-hijacker has a meaning opposite to the traditional one. Hence my accusation of Orwellianism. 

(As you know, Orwell himself was not Orwellian, but the opposite. Interestingly, to call him Orwellian would itself be Orwellian.)

Among the things 'equity' obfuscates is the contradiction in enforced equality of result: the governmental agencies of enforcement are vastly unequal in power to those upon whom they seek to impose 'equity.'

Of late, Big Tech and 'Woke' Capital have proven to be exceptions  to the old rule: their Croesian* economic clout  allows them to buy off the governmental enforcers.  More on this, anon.

________________

*An adjectival form of 'Croesus.' You know who he was.  After coining the (non-obfuscatory) adjective, a little Internet pokey-wokey searching assures me that the adjective is in use in such publications as WSJ and Forbes.  

"One Man's Datum is Another Man's Theory"

Why do I use 'man'? To exclude women? No, to exclude leftists, both men and women. I believe in equality when it comes to the exclusion of the destructive.

In the '70s, when it first really got going, gender-inclusive language seemed to many a very good thing indeed. It showed a welcoming attitude to the distaff contingent, a salutary openness, a gracious concession to those females who felt excluded by (what in fact are) gender-neutral uses of 'man' and 'he,' not to mention a praiseworthy recognition of the excellence of many women in many hitherto male-dominated fields.  Gentlemen are considerate of the feelings of others even when said feelings are unsupported by reason.   And surely it is true that some women are superior to some men in almost every field.  And surely people should be evaluated as individuals on their merits. 

It all started out with good intentions, and many conservatives went along with it, oblivious to the unforeseen consequences. But now, a half-century later,  we see where it has led. 

And so if I use the sex-neutral 'man' and 'he' and cognates, it is not because I am a knuckle-dragger, one who hails from the valley of Neander, but because I am a man of intelligence, discernment, and high culture, a member of the Coalition of the Reasonable, who is doing his tiny bit to resist and if possible reverse the subversion of our glorious alma mater, our fostering mother, the English language.   I am resisting politicization, tribalism, and the weaponization of language.   Can I ramp up my charge to the allegation that the Left is committing matricide against our dear mother?  I'll essay this later.

For I say unto you my brothers and sisters, the subversion of language is propadeutic to the subversion of thought.  The latter, I fear, is what our enemies intend, the thoughtless being the easier to rule and control.

Conspiracy Theories?

The Language Nazi doesn't much cotton to the loose lingo that leftists love.

Hillary spoke of a "vast right wing conspiracy" directed against her husband.  Maybe that's where the linguistic mischief started. How can a conspiracy be vast and composed of half the population?

A conspiracy is a clandestine agreement among a small group of people to achieve a nefarious end, typically by means of treason or treachery. The members of a conspiracy are called conspirators. They meet in secret and in small numbers.   Hillary's abuse of English is plain: conservatives do not form a secret organization; they are not few in number; and their opposition to Bill Clinton and his policies was not nefarious, treasonous, or treacherous. 

A conspiracy theory alleges that a conspiracy is under way or has occurred to bring about some event. An example is the theory that 9/11 was an 'inside job.' Some conspiracy theories  are true, and some false; some are well-supported by evidence, others are not.  None of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are well- supported in my opinion. But that in not the present point. The present point is that it is a mistake to assume that every conspiracy theory is false or baseless.

It is also a mistake to refer to any theory or any  bit of groundless speculation as a conspiracy theory.   Not every theory is a conspiracy theory.  A conspiracy theory alleges a conspiracy where 'conspiracy' is  defined as above.

Finally, it is a mistake to oppose theories to facts, as if no theory can be true. 

'On His Watch"

What happens on a person's watch may or may not be his responsibility.  Or will you maintain that a Republican president is responsible for the arson and looting tolerated by Democrat mayors?

The Hyphenated American

One may gather from my surname that I am of Italian extraction. Indeed, that is the case in both paternal and maternal lines: my mother was born near Rome in a place called San Vito Romano, and my paternal grandfather near Verona in the wine region whence comes Valpollicella. Given these facts, some will refer to me as Italian-American.

I myself, however, refer to myself as an American, and I reject the hyphenated phrase as a coinage born of confusion and contributing to division. Suppose we reflect on this for a moment. What does it mean to be an Italian-American as the phrase is currently used ? Does it imply dual citizenship? No. Does it imply being bilingual? No. Does it entail being bi-cultural? No again. As the phrase is currently used it does not imply any of these things. And the same goes for 'Polish-American' and related coinages.  My mother was both bilingual and bi-cultural, but I’m not. To refer to her as Italian-American makes some sense, but not to me. I am not Italian culturally, linguistically or by citizenship. I am Italian only by extraction.

And that doesn’t make a  difference, or at least should not make a difference to a rational person. Indeed, I identify myself as a rational being first and foremost, which implies nothing about ‘blood.’ The liberal-left emphasis on blood and ethnicity and origins and social class is dangerous and divisive.  Suppose you come from Croatia.  Is that something to be proud of?  You had to be born somewhere of some set of parents.  It wasn't your doing.  It is an element of your facticity.  Be proud of the accomplishments that individuate you, that make you an individual, as opposed to a member of a tribe.  Celebrate your freedom, not your facticity.

If you must celebrate diversity, celebrate a diversity of ideas and a diversity of individuals, not a diversity of races and ethnicities and groups. Celebrate individual thinking, not 'group-think.'    The Left in its perversity has it backwards.  They emphasize the wrong sort of diversity while ignoring the right kind.  They go to crazy lengths to promote the wrong kind while squelching diversity of thought and expression with their speech codes and political correctness.

So I am an American. Note that that word does not pick out a language or a race; it picks out a set of ideas and values.  Even before I am an American, I am animal metaphysicum and zoon logikon. Of course, I mean this to apply to everyone, especially those most in need of this message, namely blacks and Hispanics. For a black dude born in Philly to refer to himself as African-American borders on the absurd. Does he know Swahili? Is he culturally African?  Does he enjoy dual citizenship?

If he wants me to treat him as an individual, as a unique person with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto, and to judge him by the content of his character rather than by the color of his skin, why does he identify himself with a group? Why does he try to secure advantages in virtue of this group membership? Is he so devoid of self-esteem and self-reliance that he cannot stand on his own two feet? Why does he need a Black caucus? Do Poles need a Polish caucus? Jim Crow is dead.  There is no 'institutional racism.'  There may be a few racists out there, but they are few and far between except in the febrile imaginations of race-baiting and race-card dealing liberals.  Man up and move forward.  Don't blame others for your problems.  That's the mark of a loser.  Take responsibility.  We honkies want you to do well.  The better you do, the happier you will be and the less trouble you will cause.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre distinguishes between transcendence and facticity and identifies one form of bad faith as a person’s attempted identification of himself with an element of his facticity, such as race. But that is what the hyphenators and the Balkanizers and the identity-politicians and the race-baiters and the Marxist class warfare instigators want us to do: to identify ourselves in terms extraneous to our true being. Yet another reason never to vote for a liberal.

It must also be said that the alt-Right identity-political counter to POC tribalism is just as bad, although it may be excusable as a pro tem tactic on some occasions.

'The Wrong Side of History'

(An edited re-post from 15 May 2012.)

I once heard a prominent conservative tell an ideological opponent that he was 'on the wrong side of history.' But surely this is a phrase that no self-aware and self-consistent conservative should use. The phrase suggests that history is moving in a certain direction, toward various outcomes, and that this direction and those outcomes are somehow justified by the actual tendency of events. But how can the mere fact of a certain drift justify that drift? For example, we are moving in the United States, and not just here, towards more and more intrusive government, more and more socialism, less and less individual liberty. This has certainly been the trend from FDR on regardless of which party has been in power. Would a self-aware conservative want to say that the fact of this drift justifies it?  I think not.

'Everyone today believes that such-and-such.' It doesn't follow that such-and-such is true. 'Everyone now does such-and-such.' It doesn't follow that such-and-such ought to be done. 'The direction of events is towards such-and-such.' It doesn't follow that such-and-such is a good or valuable outcome. In each of these cases there is a logical mistake. One cannot validly infer truth from belief, ought from is, or values from facts.

One who opposes the drift toward socialism, a drift that is accelerating under President Obama, is on the wrong side of history. But that is no objection unless one assumes that history's direction is the right direction. Now an Hegelian might believe that, one for whom all the real is rational and all the rational real. Marxists and 'progressives' might believe it. But no conservative who understands conservatism can believe it.*

The other night a conservative talk show host told a guest that she was on the wrong side of history in her support for same-sex marriage.    My guess is that in a generation the same-sex marriage issue will be moot,  the liberals having won.  The liberals will have been on the right side of history.  The right side of history, but wrong nonetheless. 

As I have said more than once, if you are a conservative don't talk like a liberal. Don't validate, by adopting, their question-begging phrases.

_______________

*Memo to self: this entire problematic needs more careful thought. What about the theist who believes that God has a providential plan and that what happens happens in accordance with the divine will?  And doesn't Christian eschatology in good measure drive the Hegelian and Marxist schemes?

Protesters?

BLM and Antifa members are 'protesters' in the same sense in which Rodney King was a 'motorist,' Trayvon Martin was 'a child on the way to the candy store,' Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri was an 'unarmed teenager,' and Adolf Hitler was a 'statesman.'

Sam Harris and the Problem of Disagreement: Is Conversation Our Only Hope?

Sam Harris:

More and more, I find myself attempting to have difficult conversations with people who hold very different points of view. And I consider our general failure to have these conversations well—so as to produce an actual convergence of opinion and a general increase in goodwill between the participants—to be the most consequential problem that exists. Apart from violence and other forms of coercion, all we have is conversation with which to influence one another. The fact that it is so difficult for people to have civil and productive conversations about things like U.S. foreign policy, or racial inequality, or religious tolerance and free speech, is profoundly disorienting. And it’s also dangerous. If we fail to do this, we will fail to do everything else of value. Conversation is our only tool for collaborating in a truly open-ended way.

[. . .]

. . . conversation is our only hope.

Fascinating and worthy of careful thought. Here are the main points I take Harris to be making.

1. A successful conversation produces a convergence of opinion and an increase in good will between the participants.

2. The failure to have such conversations is the most consequential problem that exists.

3. Apart from violence and other forms of coercion, all we have is conversation with which to influence one another.

4. Our failure to have civil and productive conversations about important matters of controversy is dangerous.

5. If we fail to do this, we will fail to do everything else of value. 

 

Should we agree with any or all of these points?

Ad (1).  We shouldn't agree with this.  It would not be reasonable to do so.  Neither of the two conditions Harris specifies are necessary for a successful conversation.  I have had many successful philosophical and other conversations that do not issue in agreement or convergence of opinion.  And I am sure you have as well.  What these conversations issue in is clarification. The topic becomes clearer, as well as its implications for and relations with other topics, the arguments on both sides get better understood, as well as one's views and one's interlocutor's views. Mutual clarification, even without agreement, even with intractable disagreement, is sufficient for successful conversation.  If we come to understand exactly what it is we disagree about, then that is very important progress even if we never come to agree.

In fact, I consider it utopian and indeed foolish to think that one can achieve (uncoerced, rational) agreement on truly fundamental matters.  On some matters rational agreement among competent interlocutors is of course possible; but on others just impossible.  If this is right, then agreement on all important matters of controversy cannot be an ideal for us, a goal we ought to pursue.  Ought implies can.  If we ought to pursue a goal, then it must  be possible for us to achieve it.  If a certain goal is impossible for us to achieve, then we cannot be obliged to achieve it.

A reachable goal is clarity, not agreement; toleration, not consensus.

Consider religion.  Is it a value or not?  Conservatives, even those who are atheistic and irreligious, tend to view religion as a value, as conducive to human flourishing.  Liberals and leftists tend to view it as a disvalue, as something that impedes human flourishing.  This is an important, indeed crucially important, question.  Does Sam Harris really think that, via patient, civil, mutually respectful conversation, no matter how protracted, he is going to convince those of us who think religion important for human flourishing to abandon our view?

If he thinks this he is naive.  I respect Harris, something I cannot say about some other New Atheists.  But Harris is out beyond his depth in philosophy and religion.  And he has a foolish belief in the power of reason to resolve the issues that are of deepest concern to us.  Reason is a magnificent thing, of course, but Harris appears to have no inkling of its infirmity or limits.

As for the other condition, an increase in good will, surely it is not necessary for a successful conversation.  The quantity of good will may stay the same in a discussion without prejudice to the discussion's being productive.  It may even decrease.  Admittedly, without a certain amount of initial good will, no fruitful conversation can take place.  But it is false to say that a successful conversation increases good will.

Ad (2).  If (1) is false or unreasonable, then so is (2).  Suppose I have a conversation with an atheist such as Harris and fail to budge him from his position while he fails to budge me from mine.  Such a conversation can be very productive, useful, successful, not to mention transcendently enjoyable.  The life of the mind is of all lives the highest and best, and its being these things  is not predicated on achieving agreement about the lofty topics that engage our interest while quite possibly transcending our ability to resolve them to our mutual satisfaction.  The failure to meet Harris's conditions need be no problem at all, let alone the most consequential problem that exists.

Ad (3).  Harris tells us that it is either coercion or conversation when it comes to influencing people.  This is plainly a false alternative. One way to non-violently and non-coercively influence people is by setting a good example.  If I treat other people with kindness, respect, forbearance, etc., this 'sets a good example' and reliably induces many people in the vicinity to do otherwise.  In fact I needn't say a word, let alone enter into a conversation.  For example, with a friendly gesture I can invite a motorist to enter my lane of traffic.  In doing so, I ever-so-slightly increase the good will and fellow feeling in the world, profiting myself  in the process.  In this connection, a marvellous aphorism from  Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, #1056 comes to mind:

The essential sermon is one's own existence.

But more importantly, there is teaching which in most cases is a non-violent but also a  non-conversational mode of influencing people.  For example, teaching someone how to change a tire, play chess, use a computer.  If I have a skill, I don't discuss it with you, I teach it to you.  Much of elementary education is non-violent but also non-conversational.  Teaching the alphabet, the moves of the chess men, the multiplication tables, and so on.  There is nothing to discuss, nothing to have a conversation about.  The elements have simply to be learned.  Controversial topics open to debate will arise late on.  But there is no point in discussing the Peano axioms if one does not know that 1 + 1 = 2.

What about ethical instruction?  Only a liberal fool would advocate conversations with young children about theft and murder and lying as if the rightness or wrongness of these acts is subject to reasonable debate or is a matter of mere opinion.  They must be taught that these things are wrong for their own good and for the good of others. Discussion of ethical niceties and theories comes later, if at all, and presupposes ethical indoctrination: a child who has not internalized and appropriated ethical prescriptions and proscriptions cannot profit from ethical conversations or courses in ethics.  You cannot make a twenty-year-old ethical by requiring him to take a course in ethics.  He must already be ethical by upbringing.

Harris's thesis #3 is plainly false.  But this is not to deny that respectful conversation is much to be preferred over coercive methods of securing agreement and should be pursued whenever possible.

Ad (4). Harris tells us that it is "dangerous" to not have civil and productive conversations about important and controversial matters.  But why dangerous? Harris must know that even among competent and sincere interlocutors here in the West who share may assumptions and values we are not going to come to any agreement about God, guns, abortion, capital punishment, same-sex 'marriage,' the cluster of questions surrounding 'global warming' and plenty of other economic, political, and social questions.  How can it be dangerous to not have interminable, inconclusive conversations?  Conversations that go nowhere?  That are more productive of dissensus than consensus?  That contribute to polarization?  Well, I suppose you could say that if we are talking we are not shooting.

Ad (5).  Harris is really over the top on this one.  Exercise for the reader: supply the refutation.

Conclusion:  Conversation is overrated.  If it is our only hope we are in very bad shape.  We need fewer 'conversations,' not more.  And we need more tolerance of opposing points of view.  More tolerance and more voluntary separation.  We don't need to talk to get along.  We need to talk less while respecting boundaries and differences.  We need less engagement and more dis-engagement.  Everybody needs to back off.  Trouble is, totalitarians won't back off.  They want a total clamp-down on belief and behavior.  And it doesn't matter whether they are 'liberal' totalitarians or Islamist totalitarians.

So there looks to be no way to avoid a fight.  Unfortunately, it is reason herself who teaches that it is often the hard fist of unreason that prevails and settles the issue when the appeal to reason is unavailing.

Don't Talk Like a 'Liberal'!

When you do, you validate their obfuscatory and question-begging jargon.

For example, leftists believe in something they call 'hate speech.' As they use the phrase, it covers legitimate dissent.

It is foolish for a conservative to say that he is for 'hate speech,' or that 'hate speech' is protected speech. Dennis Prager has been known to make this mistake. We conservatives are for open inquiry  and the right to dissent. Put it that way, in positive terms.

If leftists take our dissent as 'hateful,' that is their presumably willful misapprehension. We shouldn't validate it.

Don't let leftists frame the debate. He who controls the terms of the debate controls the debate.

President Trump's Mount Rushmore Speech

Roger Kimball appreciates its magnificence and writes about it brilliantly:

The president was especially strong in challenging what is perhaps the most obnoxious manifestation of our petulant antinomianism—that species of politically correct intolerance that has come to be called “cancel culture.” In essence, cancel culture is the malignant inversion of liberalism’s defining virtues, openness and tolerance. It is born of historical ignorance and a stunning lack of empathy—an ironic fact, since one of the chief premises of cancel culture is its own supposed superior sensitivity. 

In fact, the emotional payload of cancel culture is not more sensitive than its accommodating alternative, just more narcissistic. It operates by proxy, filing claims for redress on behalf of a ghostly population of abstractions: “indigenous peoples,” slaves of yesteryear, and on and on in an endless litany of complaint. 

What is not at all abstract, however, are the effects of cancel culture. As the president noted, it is wielded as a weapon, “driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.” In a word, cancel culture is “the very definition of totalitarianism” and is “completely alien to our culture and our values.” It should have “absolutely no place in the United States of America.” And here is where his speech took on a steely seriousness. “This attack on our liberty must be stopped,” he said, “and it will be stopped.” 

In short, the president has promised to cancel cancel culture. Is that a contradiction, a violation of the spirit of tolerance he has promised to uphold? No. 

The enemies of civilization routinely use and abuse its freedoms in order to destroy it. Candid men understand this and act to prevent it. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”

[. . .]

We know that all of our most pathological cities have been run as Democratic monopolies for decades. Donald Trump had the temerity to point this out. We know that our public schools are increasingly factories of left-wing, anti-American indoctrination. The president had the temerity to point that out as well. The narrative is that Trump is a crude and bumbling ignoramus, but can you imagine Joe Biden or any other Democrat in office today having the moral courage and clarity of mind to say this:

The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities run by liberals, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism and other cultural institutions. Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country—and to believe that the men and women who built it, were not heroes, but villains. The radicals’ view of American History is a web of lies—all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition. 

Was Jesus a Socialist?

No way! He actually fed people.

.......................

I came to this witticism via Karl White who got it from someone unnamed.  It is too good not to repeat and propagate.  So do your bit and spread it around.

You can't battle the Left effectively with just one weapon: the whole arsenal has to be brought to bear.  Sweet reason has its uses with some, and the hard fist of unreason with others. Mockery and derision can be effective. And throw in some contumely for good measure.

Don't forget: it's a war. If they win, we lose. They never rest, and so we must be ever-vigilant. Right now the bastards are doing their best to deploy the Chinese virus against Trump and his supporters.  Their nefarious actions are legion. One is the exploitation of the crisis to empty the prisons. They had that goal all along; now they can use the Chinese virus as an excuse.  Another is to use the crisis to close down the gun stores.  

Typically leftist: take the side of the criminal element, and violate the rights of the law-abiding. There is nothing progressive about leftists: an appropriate appellation is 'transgressive.' Open the borders; empty the prisons; violate the Constitutional rights of citizens.

Anyone who identifies as liberal, left, progressive, Democrat must be met with the (defeasible) presumption of scumbaggery: they are to be presumed morally obtuse  and intellectually self-enstupidated until they prove otherwise.  They bear the onus probandi.

But the presumption is defeasible. Allow those under scrutiny the opportunity to defeat it. Be tough, but fair.

I call this the political burden of proof.  My previous formulations of it have been too polite.

Break Contact with Political Opponents?

Should one break off contact with those whose social and political views one finds abhorrent?  

Let me mention one bad reason for not breaking off contact.  The bad reason is that by not breaking off contact one can have 'conversations' that will lead to amicable agreements and mutual understanding. This bad reason is based on the false assumption that there is still common ground on which to hold these 'conversations.'  I say we need fewer 'conversations' and more voluntary separation.  In marriage as in politics, the bitter tensions born of irreconcilable differences are relieved by divorce, not by attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable.  

Let's consider some examples.  In each of these cases it is difficult to see what common ground the parties to the dispute occupy.  Lack of common ground makes interaction pointless, time-wasting, and disruptive of peace of mind.  The less common ground, the stronger the reasons for the political equivalent of divorce, or at least mitigation of contact.

1. Suppose you hold the utterly abhorrent view that it is a justifiable use of state power to force a florist or a caterer to violate his conscience by providing services at, say, a same-sex 'marriage' ceremony.  

2. Or you hold the appalling and ridiculous view that demanding photo ID at polling places disenfranchises those would-be voters who lack such ID.

3. Or you refuse to admit a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.

4. Or you maintain the absurd thesis that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity at the present time. (Obama)

5. Or you advance the crack-brained  notion that the cases of Trayvon Martin and Emmet Till are comparable in all relevant respects.

6. Or, showing utter contempt for facts, you insist that Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri was an 'unarmed black teenager'  shot down like a dog in cold blood without justification of any sort by the racist cop, Darren Wilson.

7. Or you compare Ferguson and Baltimore as if they are relevantly similar. (Hillary Clinton)

8. Or you mendaciously elide distinctions crucial in the gun debate such as that between semi-auto and full-auto. (Dianne Feinstein)

9.  Or you systematically deploy double standards.  President Obama, for example,  refuses to use 'Islamic' in connection with the Islamic State or 'Muslim' in connection with Muslim terrorists.  But he has no problem with pinning the deeds of crusaders and inquisitors on Christians.

10. Or you mendaciously engage in self-serving anachronism, for example, comparing  current Muslim atrocities with Christian ones long in the past.

11. Or you routinely slander your opponents with such epithets as 'racist,' 'sexist,' 'xenophobic,' etc.

12.  Or you make up words whose sole purpose is to serve as semantic bludgeons and cast doubt on the sanity of your opponents.  You know full well that a phobia is an irrational fear, but you insist on labeling those who oppose homosexual practices as 'phobic' when you know that their opposition is in most cases rationally grounded and not based in fear, let alone irrational fear.

13. Or you bandy the neologism 'Islamophobia' as a semantic bludgeon when it is plain that fear of radical Islam is entirely rational. In general, you engage in linguistic mischief whenever it serves your agenda thereby showing contempt for the languages you mutilate.

14. Or you take the side of underdogs qua underdogs without giving any thought as to whether or not these underdogs are in any measure responsible for their status or their misery by their crimes.  You apparently think that weakness justifies.

15. Or you label abortion a 'reproductive right' or a 'women's health issue' thus begging the question of its moral acceptability.

16. Or you think biological males should be allowed to compete against biological females in sporting events.

And on, and on, though the entire litany of leftist lunacies. 

Senatorial Scumbaggery in Excelsis

There are decent folk among rank-and-file Democrats, but the leaders of this party are vicious, vile, destructive, obstructionist, and slanderous.   "Ongoing war against immigrants." That's slander, besides being stupid.

Is 'Wuhan Virus' Racist?

I'll grant you that it is if you grant me that leftism is a deadly virus and that leftists, 'liberals,' 'progressives,' and members of the Democrat Party in the USA knowingly and willingly carry and transmit it.

Do we have a deal?  But if 'Wuhan Virus' is racist, then then so are the following:

• West Nile
• Lyme (named after a town in Connecticut)
• Spanish flu
• German measles
• Norovirus (named after Norwalk, Ohio)
• Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
• St. Louis encephalitis
• Lassa fever (named after a town in Nigeria)
• Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
• Ebola (named after a river in Africa)
• Legionnaires' disease (named after the American Legion)

If the bulleted entries are not racist expressions, then neither is 'Wuhan Virus.'

Class dismissed. Above list found here.

Is There Such a Thing as Racial Profiling?

A re-post from 5 December 2014

.................................

One of the tactics of leftists is to manipulate and misuse language for their own purposes.  Thus they make up words and phrases and hijack existing ones. 'Islamophobe' is an example of the former, 'disenfranchise' an example of the latter.    'Racial profiling' is a second example of the former.  It is a meaningless phrase apart from its use as a semantic bludgeon.  Race is an element in a profile; it cannot be a profile.  A profile cannot consist of just one characteristic.  I can profile you, but it makes no sense racially to profile you.  Apparel is an element in a profile; it cannot be a profile.  I can profile you, but it makes no sense sartorially to profile you.

Let's think about this.

I profile you if I subsume you under a profile.  A profile is a list of several descriptors.  You fit the profile if you satisfy all or most of the descriptors.  Here is an example of a profile:

1. Race:  black
2. Age: 16-21 years
3. Sex: male
4. Apparel: wearing a hoodie, with the hood pulled up over the head
5. Demeanor: sullen, alienated
6. Behavior: walking aimlessly, trespassing, cutting across yards, looking into windows and garages, hostile and disrespectful when questioned; uses racial epithets such as 'creepy-assed cracker.'
7. Physical condition: robust, muscular
8. Location:  place where numerous burglaries and home invasions had occurred, the perpetrators being black
9. Resident status: not a resident.

Now suppose I spot someone who fits the above profile.  Would I have reason to be suspicious of him?  Of course.  As suspicious as if the fellow were of Italian extraction but fit the profile mutatis mutandis.  But that's not my point.  My point is that I have not racially profiled the individual; I have profiled him, with race being one element in the profile.

Blacks are more criminally prone than whites.*  But that fact means little by itself.  It becomes important only in conjunction with the other characteristics.  An 80-year-old black female is no threat to anyone.  But someone who fits all or most of the above descriptors is someone I am justified in being suspicious of.

There is no such thing as racial profiling.  The phrase is pure obfuscation manufactured by liberals to  forward their destructive agenda.  The leftist script requires that race be injected into everything.  Hence 'profiling' becomes 'racial profiling.'  If you are a conservative and you use the phrase, you are foolish, as foolish as if you were to use the phrase 'social justice.'  Social justice is not justice.  But that's a separate post. 

Addendum.  There is also the liberal-left tendency to drop qualifiers.  Thus 'male' in 'male chauvinism' is dropped, and 'chauvinism' comes to mean male chauvinism, which is precisely what it doesn't mean.    So one can expect the following to happen.  'Racial' in 'racial profiling' will be dropped, and 'profiling' will come to mean racial profiling, which, in reality, means nothing. 

___________________

* See here:

Any candid debate on race and criminality in this country would have to start with the fact that blacks commit an astoundingly disproportionate number of crimes. African-Americans constitute about 13% of the population, yet between 1976 and 2005 blacks committed more than half of all murders in the U.S. The black arrest rate for most offenses—including robbery, aggravated assault and property crimes—is typically two to three times their representation in the population. [. . .]

"High rates of black violence in the late twentieth century are a matter of historical fact, not bigoted imagination," wrote the late Harvard Law professor William Stuntz in "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice." "The trends reached their peak not in the land of Jim Crow but in the more civilized North, and not in the age of segregation but in the decades that saw the rise of civil rights for African Americans—and of African American control of city governments."

Lie or Exaggeration or Bullshit? Politics in an Age of Bullshit

A redacted re-post from 30 November 2016

......................................

Over the weekend, Donald Trump bragged in signature style that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Lefties are calling the statement a lie.  But it is no such thing.  In the typical case, a lie is a false statement made with the intention to deceive.  In the typical case, one who lies knows the truth, but misrepresents it to his audience out of a desire to deceive them.  But no one knows the truth-value of Trump's braggadocious conditional.  It could be true, but neither Trump nor anyone else has any evidence of its truth.  Although verifiable in principle, it is not practically verifiable.

When lefties call a statement a lie which is not a lie should we say that they are lying about what it is?

Was Trump exaggerating when he made his remark?  That's not right either.

I think what we have here is a species of bullshit in the sense pinned down by a noted philosopher.  According to Harry Frankfurt, a  statement is bullshit if it is

. . . grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth — this indifference to how things really are — that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." (emphasis added)

Professor Frankfurt has a fine nose for the essence of bullshit.  The bullshitter is one who 'doesn't give a shit' about the truth value of what he is saying.  He doesn't care how things stand with reality. The liar, by contrast, must care: he must know (or at least attempt to know) how things are if he is to have any chance of deceiving his audience.  Think of it this way: the bullshitter doesn't care whether he gets things right or gets them wrong; the liar cares to get them right so he can deceive you about them.

Now if the bullshitter does not care about truth, what does he care about? He cares about himself, about making a certain impression. His aim is to (mis)represent himself as knowing what he does not know or more than he actually knows. Frankfurt again:

. . . bullshitting involves a kind of bluff. It is closer to bluffing, surely than to telling a lie. But what is implied concerning its nature by the fact that it is more like the former than it is like the latter? Just what is the relevant difference here between a bluff and a lie? Lying and bluffing are both modes of misrepresentation or deception. Now the concept most central to the distinctive nature of a lie is that of falsity: the liar is essentially someone who deliberately promulgates a falsehood. Bluffing too is typically devoted to conveying something false. Unlike plain lying, however, it is more especially a matter not of falsity but of fakery. This is what accounts for its nearness to bullshit. For the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony. In order to appreciate this distinction, one must recognize that a fake or a phony need not be in any respect (apart from authenticity itself) inferior to the real thing. What is not genuine need not also be defective in some other way. It may be, after all, an exact copy. What is wrong with a counterfeit is not what it is like, but how it was made. This points to a similar and fundamental aspect of the essential nature of bullshit: although it is produced without concern with the truth, it need not be false. The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong. (emphasis added)

When did the Age of Bullshit begin in American politics?  Perhaps with the inauguration of Bill Clinton.  But it really gets underway with Barack Obama.  Obama is the shuck-and-jive precursor of Trump.  So let's recall some of his antics.

As Frankfurt points out, the essence of bullshit is a lack of concern for truth.  But truth and consistency are closely related notions.  Two statements are consistent (inconsistent) just in case they can (cannot) both be true.  Now I do not know if there are any cases of Obama contradicting himself synchronically (at a time), but there are plenty of examples of him contradicting himself diachronically.  He said things as a senator the opposite of which he says now.  Victor Davis Hanson supplies numerous examples in Obama as Chaos:

. . . when the president takes up a line of argument against his opponents, it cannot really be taken seriously — not just because it is usually not factual, but also because it always contradicts positions that Obama himself has taken earlier or things he has previously asserted. Whom to believe — Obama 1.0, Obama 2.0, or Obama 3.0?

When the president derides the idea of shutting down the government over the debt ceiling, we almost automatically assume that he himself tried to do just that when as a senator he voted against the Bush administration request in 2006, when the debt was about $6 trillion less than it is now.

The problem here is not merely logical; it is also ethical: the man is not truthful.  Truth, falsity, consistency, inconsistency pertain to propositions, not persons.  Truthfulness, deceitfulness, lack of concern for truth and consistency -- these are ethical attributes, properties of persons.  Obama the bullshitter is an ethically defective president.  When Nixon lied, he could be shamed by calling him on it.  That is because he was brought up properly, to value truth and truthfulness.  But the POMO Obama, like that "first black president" Bill Clinton, apparently can't be shamed.  It's all bullshit and fakery and shuckin' and jivin'.  There is no gravitas in these two 'black' presidents, the one wholly white, the other half-white.  Everything's a 'narrative' -- good POMO word, that -- and the only question is whether the narrative works in the moment for political advantage. A narrative needn't be true to be a narrative, which is why the POMO types like it.  Hanson has Obama's number:

But a third explanation is more likely. Obama simply couldn’t care less about what he says at any given moment, whether it is weighing in on the football name “Redskins” or the Travyon Martin trial. He is detached and unconcerned about the history of an issue, about which he is usually poorly informed. Raising the debt ceiling is an abstraction; all that matters is that when he is president it is a good thing and when he is opposing a president it is a bad one. Let aides sort out the chaos. Obamacare will lower premiums, not affect existing medical plans, and not require increased taxes; that all of the above are untrue matters nothing. Who could sort out the chaos?

[. . .]

The media, of course, accepts that what Obama says on any given day will contradict what he has said or done earlier, or will be an exaggeration or caricature of his opponents’ position, or simply be detached from reality. But in their daily calculus, that resulting chaos is minor in comparison to the symbolic meaning of Obama. He is, after all, both the nation’s first African-American president and our first left-wing progressive since Franklin Roosevelt.

In comparison with those two facts, no others really matter.

Is 'Again' a Racist 'Dog Whistle'?

We must never forget the contemptibly vile things that regressive 'progressives' and illiberal 'liberals' say about us. This is a repost from 25 May 2016.

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Some liberal-left idiot is arguing that 'again' in Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' is a racist 'dog whistle.'  The suggestion is that Trump wants to bring back slavery and Jim Crow.  This is yet another proof that there is nothing so vile and contemptible and fundamentally stupid that some liberal won't embrace it.  If you think I go too far when I refer to contemporary liberals as moral scum, it is incidents like this that are part of  my justification. 

Mark Steyn supplies some other 'dog whistles' for your delectation:

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared this week that Republicans use "Chicago" as a racist code word. Not to be outdone, his colleague Lawrence O'Donnell pronounced "golf" a racist code word. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell observed that Obama was "working to earn a spot on the PGA tour," O'Donnell brilliantly perceived that subliminally associating Obama with golf is racist, because the word "golf" is subliminally associated with "Tiger Woods," and the word "Tiger" is not-so-subliminally associated with cocktail waitress Jamie Grubbs, nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, lingerie model Jamie Jungers, former porn star Holly Sampson, etc, etc. So by using the word "golf" you're sending a racist dog whistle that Obama is a sex addict who reverses over fire hydrants.

I must reiterate my principle of the Political Burden of Proof:

As contemporary 'liberals' become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I will call the political burden of proof.  The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so  morally and intellectually obtuse as not to be worth talking to.

Elizabeth Warren: "That's not Who We Are!"

This stock leftist exclamation, silly as it is, is sillier still coming from the mouth of the Cherokee Maiden, Fauxcahontas herself, who doesn't know who she is!

Define or Drop

For leftists, words are weapons. If you are a lefty, and you disagree, then I invite you to define 'fascist,' 'racist,' 'white supremacist,' and the rest of the epithets in your arsenal. Define 'em or drop 'em.

Show us that you are people of good will.

Suppose I point out the incompatibility of Sharia with Western values and you call me an 'Islamophobe.' You thereby demonstrate that you are not a person of good will.  A person of good will does not dismiss the arguments of his rational interlocutor as driven by a phobia.  Here is a good illustration of what I mean when I say that for leftists, words are weapons, or as I also like to say, "semantic bludgeons."

Although conservatives are far less offensive in this regard, they too must be held to the standard of define or drop.

There were those who called Obama a socialist. But there can be no reasonable discussion of whether he is or isn't without a preliminary clarification of the term.  If a socialist is one who advocates the collective or government ownership of the means of production, then I know of no statement of Obama's in which he advocated any such thing.

Am I being soft on one of the worst presidents in American history? No, I am just being fair.

Of 'Pussy' and 'Pusillanimous' and Politics

A friend of mine recently maintained with a straight face that 'pusillanimous' derives from 'pussy.'  As an etymological claim that is of course preposterous. But there are two questions here that we ought to distinguish.

The first is whether  'pusillanimous' has roughly the same meaning as  'pussy' when the latter is used as it is used in American slang.  I'd say it does.

The second question is whether 'pusillanimous' is etymologically derivable from 'pussy.'  No. It comes from the Latin pusillus (very  small) + animus (mind, soul) --> L. pusillanimis --> late Middle English pusillanimous. And that reminds me of a certain pusillanimous former president.

I asked a reader about a month before the 2016 election whether the graphic above was too tasteless to post to my high-toned blog, adding,  "But then these are times in which considerations of good taste and civility are easily 'trumped.'"  My reader responded with a fine statement (emphasis added):

Of course it’s tasteless, but it’s funny.  We should go to battle with a song in our hearts.  Never had patience for the hand-wringing by the beskirted Republicans and professional “conservatives”.  How could anyone be surprised by the locker room braggadocio of a man who appeared on the Howard Stern show 600 times?  Trump is a deeply flawed messenger of the right message, but politics is a practical affair.  He’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard in this go-around.  After all it’s only the very foundation of the republic at stake.  So let’s have some fun while beating the drum for him.

My reader is right.  Trump is all we've got.  And the very foundation of the Republic is at stake. He has a dubious character, but then so does Hillary.  This may not be obvious because, while Trump broadcasts his faults, she hides hers.  This is part of her being a slimy, mendacious, stealth ideologue.  That is part of what led to her defeat. People saw through her flip-flopping opportunism and refusal to come clean.

Given that both are sorry specimens on the character front, it comes down to principles, policies, and programs. And now, well into President Trump's first term, it is obvious that we who rolled the dice for Trump have been vindicated in spades.  

'Expressive Individualism' is Becoming a Buzz Word

Or rather a buzz phrase. What does it mean, and where is it from?

Where [Alasdair] MacIntyre used the term emotivism to name our moral predicament, in their classic 1985 study of American society, Habits of the Heart, the sociologist Robert Bellah and his co-writers identified two powerful strands of American thought that in some ways correspond with the managerial and therapeutic types: utilitarian individualism and expressive individualism.

[. . .]

. . . American culture is arguably even more strongly influenced by the second form of individualism, which arose in opposition to the drive toward ever greater efficiency and control. “Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized.” The archetypal expressive individualist, according to Bellah, is Walt Whitman, whose most famous work, Leaves of Grass, begins with the words, “I celebrate myself.” For Whitman, in contrast to Franklin, the goal of life is not to maximize efficiency for the sake of material acquisition but rather to luxuriate in sensual and intellectual experiences, to take pleasure in one’s bodily life and sexuality and to express oneself freely, without any concern for social conventions.

The article infra vigorously attacks Trump as the president of expressive individualism.  No mention is made, however, of that expressive individualist, the sexually insatiable Bill Clinton, who gave his girlfriends copies of Leaves of Grass and who, unlike Trump, went beyond 'grabbing pussy' to actual rape, or so it has been plausibly alleged.  If, as Never-Trumpers believe, character is so important, how can they turn a blind eye to the defective characters of the Clintons?

Like so many such articles, it offers no plan of action, no way forward, no recipe for national renewal. The author hates Trump and mixes in some solid criticisms of the man with some scurrilous ones.

But now let's get practical. You've heard me say more than once that politics is a practical game. It is not just talk. Trump is all we conservatives have. He alone has the courage and the ability to punch back effectively against the omni-destructive Left and impede their destruction of our republic. You say that he's an expressive individualist? Suppose I agree. So what? Hillary is not? Are we not better off now than we would have been under Hillary? Obviously we are on so many fronts: abortion, religious liberty, SCOTUS, Israel, the economy, gun rights, and on and on.

What would the Never-Trumpers have us do? Retreat from politics altogether? There is no retreat from the totalitarian Left precisely because it is totalitarian. Leftists want the whole enchilada. Never-Trumpers don't seem to grasp that politics is always about better or worse. Trump may be bad, but he is better than Hillary or any electable Dem.  They go on about how he lies.   Many of his 'lies' are not lies at all but self-serving exaggerations or self-aggrandizing counterfactual speculations. To paraphrase: Had it not been been for all the illegal votes, I would have won the popular vote too! A self-serving, unverifiable, braggadocious, counterfactual conditional.  But because counterfactually conditional, not a lie. A lie is a deliberate misrepresentation of an actual state of affairs. One cannot lie about a merely possible state of affairs.  And when the Orange Man does lie, his lies tend to be harmless unlike the egregiously destructive lies of the Clintons, Obama, and recently Nancy Pelosi who lied brazenly and destructively when she said that the invasion of illegals from the south is a "manufactured crisis."

Members of the "French resistance" will say, "What doth it profit a man to win the culture but suffer the loss of his soul by supporting Trump?" My answer: I don't endorse Trump the man and all of his sybaritic and self-aggrandizing ways; I support his beneficial policies and programs.

The central stupidity of the Never-Trumpers is that they do not grasp that what matters primarily are policies and programs and judicial appointments that will be in effect long after a given president is out of office, not the personal life and shortcomings of the person who serves a term or two.

 

americamagazine.org

Donald Trump: the president of expressive individualism