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Over at my Taki Magazine’s column on the predictions of The Bell Curve after 20 years, commenter erik_ny notes:
I was recently at an informal seminar that included a lot of bright sophisticated 20-somethings who are, let’s say, very good at passing exams given by some of the nation’s best schools. And one thing I noticed mixing with them is that they know “all the right things to say.” I’m convinced that any one of them could withstand grilling at a day-long legal deposition without ever once saying anything they weren’t supposed to say. Candor… ? Forget trying to get any out of them. I’m convinced they aren’t brainwashed in the least, those bright unblinking eyes taking in everyone and everything like searchlights. But what they actually think is never revealed. They do a brilliant job of concealing themselves. In a way you could say they’ve been hopelessly muzzled and repressed but it’s having an interesting side effect: enhancing their intuitive grasp of things, rather like someone whose eyesight is failing develops a more acute sense of hearing. The smartest ones are almost clairvoyant. It was an uplifting experience. They are perfectly calibrated for life in a surveillance state. Candor can get uploaded to facebook, right? It can come back to haunt you… and never go away. We have an entire generation now that has grown up with this reality so they are quite comfortable with it. Telepathic communication is the obvious workaround.
I gave an all-day deposition once in a corporate lawsuit. It was fascinating learning how to be as boring as possible. The coaching from our outside counsel included:
- get a decent night’s sleep so you won’t be cranky and get into arguments with the other side’s attorney
- don’t get a great night’s sleep so you feel like you have the energy to make the other side understand
- No caffeine in the morning or at lunch
- Do not try to understand what the other side is trying to get at with their vague questions
- Just answer the questions they ask, not the questions they ought to ask
- Never rephrase their questions for them to make them more relevant
- Never try to be funny
- Never try to outsmart them
- Answer yes or no whenever possible
- “If you start out any of your answers with ‘Interestingly,’ ‘Ironically,’ ‘By the way,’ ‘It just occurred to me,’ or so forth, I will kick your shin under the table, hard.”
- Don’t sit on the edge of your chair, but also don’t sit in a super casual position that makes you feel at ease like you are gossiping with a friend after office hours.
I followed all the directions so well that the other side’s attorneys called it a day two hours ahead of schedule. But what a way to make a living.
No honey, they are just dumb.
I used to think that there were thoughts going on behind those eyes. No, no thoughts. There’s nothing there. Sorry.
the idea that these guys are being excrutiatingly political in their communications is novel but extremely charitable
Death by lawyer.
“Live not by lies.”
As a 20 something, this description does not fit my experience with my peers.
We have an entire generation now that has grown up with this reality so they are quite comfortable with it. Telepathic communication is the obvious workaround.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
We have an intuitive grasp of what to say because we’ve been well programmed by a homogeneous media. I know some conservatives who’ve become Machiavellis to get by, but all of my liberal friends are true believers.
I’m sure it’s heightened because of technology, but haven’t Ivy Leaguers always been this way?
Now they work at investment banks and IT companies and look down on such sacrifice as fodder for "losers" (i.e. rural Christian whites).
This is a very keen observation. I have trouble relating to younger folks, precisely because of this. They seem to rely on “vibes” in their social interactions more than words of substance, which I think is this clairvoyance to which the commenter refers.
I was raised to mean what I say and say what I mean. I’ve been told numerous times by loved ones that I should “take it down a notch” on the bluntness meter if I am to function socially in today’s environment.
These two modes of communication do not mix well at all. I see the other as effeminate and evasive; the other sees me as aggressive and abrasive.
But we have a good time manipulating you to be candid.
I just finished reading Peter Watts’ sci-fi novel Blindsight. The protaganists confront a mysterious advanced alien race who, it turns out, possess no form of consciousness despite being capable of e.g. interstellar travel, instead operating entirely on non-conscious stimulus-response feedback loops unencumbered by the need to actually think about anything. A crewmember speculates that they perceive references to introspective thought processes in human communication as a form of electronic warfare.
Spoiler: In the end, the human spaceship destroys the aliens in a suicide attack, leaving the protagonist to drift back towards Earth on a centuries-long low-energy transfer orbit in an escape pod. He wakes up every few years to hear humanity slowly being displaced by a subspecies of sociopathic cannibals (implied to be at least on the way to eliminating self-awareness) who were originally created to make decisions on behalf of baseline-human corporate and political elites.
“Eventually everyone in the world would become expert at the modest words, kind smiles and bland assurance that gloved the iron hand of ambition.” – Len Deighton, Bomber
I’ve prepped a lot of people of average intelligence who stayed cool under fire, stuck by their guns, and spotted the curveballs from a mile away. I’ve also prepped highly intelligent men who just chuckled and nodded the whole time I’m talking to them, confident that once they get in the conference room and just gratuitously explain everything to the pit bull on the other side of the table he’ll promptly dismiss the case.
Twinkie,
“These two modes of communication do not mix well at all. I see the other as effeminate and evasive; the other sees me as aggressive and abrasive.”
You’re both correct.
They actually love masculinity/straightforwardness/truth (the word is “based”, as in fact-based), but its got to be authentic and not a power play. They’ve had their fill of that already from the Progborg, and can see right through it. They don’t have much patience with defensiveness/temper/pandering = signs of weakness, don’t have time for that.
What could be so uplifting about a brood of vipers?
I, for one, am not impressed by skillful liars.
I, for one, am not impressed by skillful liars."
Indeed. These people sound like the forerunners of Peter Watt's "sociopathic cannibals," also mentioned in this thread.
I have freelanced as an illustrator for advertising since the 1980s. When I started, the art directors were all 20 years older than me–guys in their 40s and 50s. Now the art directors are all 30 years younger than me.
I remember how alarmingly blunt the old guys would be. They swore a lot. They said things like “this guy you drew looks faggy” or “this old lady is supposed to be cute–she looks like she would have vaginal odor.”
The young ones are painfully polite. They seem to be concerned about my feelings, not realizing my feelings were ground off long ago by their predecessors. I have to tease their opinions out of them with careful questions, lest they be dissatisfied but reluctant to tell me. (They might fear hurting my feelings so much they stop giving me work.) I have to tune in to their subtle cues, “This guy’s hair. . . I was thinking. . . no, never mind, it’s good. We’re good.” That kind of hesitancy demands I get to the bottom of what they’re bothered by lest I be written off.
Steve’s commenter is onto something.
I'm reminded of an experience I had in Savannah a couple years ago. My girlfriend and I were having coffee and planning the day at the local Starbucks near the riverfront. The table next to ours was crowded with Macbooks and flamboyant, lisping students from SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design, working on a project. An older gentleman came in and was called over to the table of proto-designers; seems he was an instructor and they wanted his opinion on something. He asked what they were going for, and one piped up, "A tampon ad as done on Mad Men!" My girlfriend was laughing so hard almost shot Pike Place Roast out of her nose.
I was just reading Lothrop Stoddard’s The Story of Youth today. The Ivies of the 18th century–both of them– seemed to be freer places then. And that was under Puritan orthodoxy!
This ties in nicely with the Saturday Night Live skit featured here, about Whites celebrating (somewhat wistfully, but mostly with great enthusiasm) the demise of Whites. Most of the people here thought they could catch hints of subversive meaning in the skit, that the Whites were saying “We really are pretty special” beneath the comedy of SWPL types acting goofy.
Others of us saw nothing subversive about the skit. It was simply more blatant anti-White crap cleverly mocking Whites and seeking to affirm they should be resigned (and happy) to be done with.
Here, too, erik_ny suggests that the younger generation has a clue, but that they’ve been so well attuned to hide their true thoughts and feelings that we’ll never know for sure, but we should still marvel how expertly they can pose.
I can’t agree. Those finely tuned kids aren’t hiding subversive or unorthodox thoughts and not because they think the subversive or unorthodox thoughts are wrong or in bad taste or will get them in trouble–it’s very straightforward and simple: they just don’t believe anything subversive or unorthodox. They have adopted the operative narrative about race, gender and the rest because to them nothing could be more obvious than that the narrative is true, not just subjectively but objectively.
I say this because of the huge numbers of them in support of gay marriage. How something so ludicrous could be accepted as worthy of any consideration is beyond me and that’s the point. It’s beyond me, but not beyond them. There’s nothing ludicrous about it to them. We’re talking about a tectonic shift in less than a decade. You don’t have that sort of shift without true belief. It’s not make belief or politeness motivating them. They believe.
Those sharp, inquisitive eyes of the Ivy League 20 year-olds you see are sharp and inquisitive in ways most of us here cannot hope to understand. They belong and believe in a different religion and reality.
Or do they just don't believe anything, period? That is predictable if everything your elders say is ridiculous. Remember ante-deluge France.
It’s hard to have any opinion in the Facebook era. Anything you say will be used against you publicly in front of everyone you know. We didn’t evolve to withstand gossip in this scale.
In fact it seems we’re all turning sorta Asian. Social media is having the same effect as rice farming high density villages in Japan; you’re always surrounded of people so watch what you say. SJW are the odd law enforcement Samurai.
What commentator Eric_Ny is describing seems to be some sort of a politician. But isn’t that what lawyers are – professional liars and schemers?
Coming from a blue collar background(IT and Industrial electrician) I wouldn’t trust the sort of buggers described as far as I can throw them. I’ve worked with all sorts of men. Old school gun packing black radicals, crazies, one guy with a god complex, a ex-SEAL, you name it. But all these guys were straight up front when they talked to you. None of this soul killing namby pamby PC/MC content free BS.
As far as I’m concerned the more the corporate and social world embraces this garbage, the more I hope the country is over run by Mexicans. Because we don’t deserve to have a country when this is the sort of spineless, backstabbing deviants our best schools produce. These people are more of a embarrassment to humanity than some illegal alien is, irregardless if the have a IQ of 140. They’re two legged vipers and parasites of the worst kind.
There are no rebels among the 20 somethings. None.
Just try to think of one. What’s it like to be a 20 something while not even understanding the possibility of rebellion?
There used to be the idea of a l’enfant terrible who would say and do shocking things. Who does this now? For a sophisticate, all rules in existence are liberal already, and can only be broken therefore by deviating into something backward and evil.
In some ways it’s like the turn music took early in the twentieth century toward atonality. What rules are left to break? The future becomes an endless loop of the same stale “surprises”.
Nowadays the only “surprise” we are treated to in our culture is from the scold who tells us that we are more racist or sexist or homophobic or transphobic than we ever imagined!
Such a shocker, you know?
In other words, chick crack.
Yes most 20 somethings are believers but rrality is likely to slap them hard. Belief shattered during the Black Death and never really recovered. The Renaissance was possible bc the Medieval certainty of belief died in the Plague.
My head is usually cloudy but I had the greatest illumination in my life. Epiphany of epiphanies!
I realized why Christianity is so worthless. Jesus, His Disciples, and St. Paul were all Jews. No diversity. How can anything be good without diversity?
I realized why Greek arts and philosophy are so useless. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, and etc were all Greeks. No diversity. How can anything be good without diversity?
I realized why Chinese culture is so worthless. Confucius, Mencius, Han Fei Tzu, Lao Tzu, the inventor of gun powder were all Chinese. No diversity. How can anything be good without diversity?
I realized why German music is so worthless. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, and etc were all Germanic. No diversity. How can anything be good without diversity?
I realized why English literature is so worthless. Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Huxley were all British–and white too. No diversity. How can anything be good without diversity?
Boy, that sure clears things up now.
A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone.
The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline. The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, CRIMESTOP. CRIMESTOP means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. CRIMESTOP, in short, means protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body.
DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.
Lawyers just reflect their clients.
[…] Source: Steve Sailer […]
If anyone wants to know what corporate law is really like, read an article titled, “Clients Against Lawyers,” which appeared in the Sept. 1967 issue of Harper’s. The author, Bazelon, worked at Cravath. Not free, but well worth the charge.
That’s a crucial point. When a younger person earnestly expresses support of homosexual marriage (and it’s usually fairly easy to tell when it is perfunctory and done in order to satisfy social or professional pressures and when it is genuine), I feel that I can safely assume that they are almost certainly incapable of thinking outside the box. They’d make good middle managers, but they are unlikely to prosper in roles of leadership and responsibility. Homosexual marriage, per se, really isn’t the biggest issue in the overall scheme of things, but I suspect that the reason certain elites pushed it so hard upon us was that it makes acceptance of the plainly ludicrous both a fact of everyday life (having to refer to Bob in accounting’s lover as his “husband”) and a litmus test.
In other words, unthinking, wholehearted support for sodomite gayrriage is a form of conservatism for young people today. Being against sodomite gayrriage is radical, subversive, and shocks the moral conscience.
I don’t mean to be flippant, I really don’t. It seems to me that at least with the women, this “concealment” reflex that the commenter refers to would also have the effect of preventing orgasm. I think it’s one reason these kids are so miserable. Does anyone here believe these kids have the screaming climaxes we remember from the ’70s?
Just try to think of one. What's it like to be a 20 something while not even understanding the possibility of rebellion?
There used to be the idea of a l'enfant terrible who would say and do shocking things. Who does this now? For a sophisticate, all rules in existence are liberal already, and can only be broken therefore by deviating into something backward and evil.
In some ways it's like the turn music took early in the twentieth century toward atonality. What rules are left to break? The future becomes an endless loop of the same stale "surprises".
Nowadays the only "surprise" we are treated to in our culture is from the scold who tells us that we are more racist or sexist or homophobic or transphobic than we ever imagined!
Such a shocker, you know?
I imagine a good number of modestly successful , urban men (and perhaps a few women) from prestigious schools in their mid-to-late twenties read this site and subscribe to the views herein.
The best deponents are those who, without appearing as if they are stonewalling, convince the deposing attorneys that they are too dim to have known of any misdeeds that have gone on.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=365337323570777
So, why is the white guy judged for his race and appearances by PC tards who made the video.
Just try to think of one. What's it like to be a 20 something while not even understanding the possibility of rebellion?
There used to be the idea of a l'enfant terrible who would say and do shocking things. Who does this now? For a sophisticate, all rules in existence are liberal already, and can only be broken therefore by deviating into something backward and evil.
In some ways it's like the turn music took early in the twentieth century toward atonality. What rules are left to break? The future becomes an endless loop of the same stale "surprises".
Nowadays the only "surprise" we are treated to in our culture is from the scold who tells us that we are more racist or sexist or homophobic or transphobic than we ever imagined!
Such a shocker, you know?
Except the man seeking competitive advantage in the sex market will want to pose not as pajama boy, but mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
In other words, chick crack.
Yes most 20 somethings are believers but rrality is likely to slap them hard. Belief shattered during the Black Death and never really recovered. The Renaissance was possible bc the Medieval certainty of belief died in the Plague.
Eh, I have a corporate job, I’m blunt about everything, and it works out pretty well. My ability to tell people they can’t have what they want is appreciated. I’ll never be CEO, obviously, but a few people like me are useful for dealing with people from other parts of the corporation who are demanding customers.
http://www.radixjournal.com/blog/2014/10/8/taking-a-stand-in-budapest
No. Ivy Leaguers used to die for their country with pistols in hand, rather like British aristocrats.
Now they work at investment banks and IT companies and look down on such sacrifice as fodder for “losers” (i.e. rural Christian whites).
People here might not like Israel, but one reason to wish it well is that it preserves many of the West's best traditions and ideas until the West wakes up and figures out why it had them in the first place.
It’s almost as if we don’t trust anyone over 30.
I used to think that there were thoughts going on behind those eyes. No, no thoughts. There's nothing there. Sorry.
Like he said: perfectly calibrated to life under a police state.
Now they work at investment banks and IT companies and look down on such sacrifice as fodder for "losers" (i.e. rural Christian whites).
Israel is the only Western country where this notion prevails. The most talented men, especially if they are not brilliant computer geeks whom Unit 8200 can recruit, seek to join infantry combat units, where they become officers (in the IDF, everybody starts out as a private, but advancement is quick for those who desire and merit it) and lead from the front. Much like how WWI casualty rates were higher for British officers, who hailed from the aristocracy, than for enlisted men, because officers were taught an ethic of being “first over the trenches,” Israeli officers had disproportionately high casualty rates in Lebanon and Gaza. 40 years ago, the Netanyahu brothers, who all had genius-level IQs, each served in Sayeret Matkal, the most elite IDF unit, where the eldest paid the ultimate price in Entebbe. Yet, as Israel has grown wealthier and more secure since, this ethic has not weakened, but only grown stronger. The second-most powerful man in Israel at the moment is Naftali Bennett, a former high tech guy a generation younger than Netanyahu, but also a Sayeret Matkal veteran. Daniel Levin, the 31 year old founder of $10 billion company Akamai who is believed to have fought the hijackers on 9/11, was a Sayeret Matkal veteran.
People here might not like Israel, but one reason to wish it well is that it preserves many of the West’s best traditions and ideas until the West wakes up and figures out why it had them in the first place.
I quite liked my Sabra companions. Most of them were tough if a bit unkempt gunslingers - I felt extremely safe with them. They also seemed earnest, loyal, and of good cheer. Good drinking companions and good allies to have, provided our interests coincide. I didn't care for the American transplants playing cowboys and Indians though. They looked like wild-eyed fanatics with chips on their shoulders.I got no beef with Israel. It's looking out for itself in a tough neighborhood. But that means its people should expect my country to look out for my country and my fellow citizens first. And I do have a problem with the American Jewish lobby in my country trying to do what's best for Israel, not for its own ostensible country, the United States. I don't believe in dual loyalty.
And I agree with Martin van Creveld of Hebrew University. Israelis are Mentschen. Diaspora Jews are often (not always, but often) "men without chests."
Conversely, I find many JAPs shrewish and grating. Israeli women, on the other hand, struck me as earthy, appreciative (of menfolk in general), and very, very charming. I never partook, though, so my knowledge on that score is based on surface interactions only.
#10 ivvenalis
Blindsight by Peter Watts is available online free here.
“When a younger person earnestly expresses support of homosexual marriage (and it’s usually fairly easy to tell when it is perfunctory and done in order to satisfy social or professional pressures and when it is genuine), I feel that I can safely assume that they are almost certainly incapable of thinking outside the box. They’d make good middle managers, but they are unlikely to prosper in roles of leadership and responsibility.”
In other words, unthinking, wholehearted support for sodomite gayrriage is a form of conservatism for young people today. Being against sodomite gayrriage is radical, subversive, and shocks the moral conscience.
“The coaching from our outside counsel” … I was informed that it was called preparing, not coaching.
My own take on gay marriage, having had the full privilege of heterosexual marital bliss, is that they are welcome to it. And gay divorce, gay alimony, gay custody disputes, gay adultery, gay domestic abuse, lesbian bed death, &c.
I expressed my perspective in front of a representative of today’s political correct youth (leaving out lesbian bed death), and was informed that this was, indeed, not an uncommon view among more radical gays. Or queers.
“Rather than being merely anti-marriage, the book deliberately articulates multiple alternative visions – such as building and valuing our own grassroots familial ‘networks of accountability’ – thus edging us closer to true ‘equality,’ or dare I say liberation, celebrating our differences as queers.” – Jessica Max Stein – See more at: http://www.againstequality.org/stuff/against-equality-queer-critiques-of-gay-marriage/#sthash.ikStOjQc.dpuf”
After the initial surge of gay marriage fetishists achieve bliss, I think it will prove to be unpopular.
I was in an arbitration involving being deposed several times. Our lawyers told us that being deposed is strictly defense. Never say anything untrue but never give any information other than the minimum required even if you think its favorable for your side.. Try to answer questions with a simple yes or no as much as possible. Once one of the opposing lawyers tried to bait me into getting into an argument but I was able to suppress my natural emotional response and coolly answered “no” to his insulting question.
We won but the legal expenses made it almost a “Pyhrric” victory.
I remember how alarmingly blunt the old guys would be. They swore a lot. They said things like "this guy you drew looks faggy" or "this old lady is supposed to be cute--she looks like she would have vaginal odor."
The young ones are painfully polite. They seem to be concerned about my feelings, not realizing my feelings were ground off long ago by their predecessors. I have to tease their opinions out of them with careful questions, lest they be dissatisfied but reluctant to tell me. (They might fear hurting my feelings so much they stop giving me work.) I have to tune in to their subtle cues, "This guy's hair. . . I was thinking. . . no, never mind, it's good. We're good." That kind of hesitancy demands I get to the bottom of what they're bothered by lest I be written off.
Steve's commenter is onto something.
I’ve 35 years in the graphics industry, Harry, and you’ve left out the biggest difference: the younger art directors are mostly gay. And once they’re comfortable with you, they’re as blunt as anyone. They respect that, when they haven’t sold me on an evolving concept, I say, “Take off the fucking beret!”
I’m reminded of an experience I had in Savannah a couple years ago. My girlfriend and I were having coffee and planning the day at the local Starbucks near the riverfront. The table next to ours was crowded with Macbooks and flamboyant, lisping students from SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design, working on a project. An older gentleman came in and was called over to the table of proto-designers; seems he was an instructor and they wanted his opinion on something. He asked what they were going for, and one piped up, “A tampon ad as done on Mad Men!” My girlfriend was laughing so hard almost shot Pike Place Roast out of her nose.
Steve,
The deposition coaching you received is spot on, although I’ve never counseled clients on the amount of sleep they should get. I always emphasize to my clients they must listen to the question carefully and only respond to the question. Then I give them this hokey, pedantic example:
Q: “Do you have the time?”
A: “It’s four o’clock.”
Wrong answer. The question was whether you had the time, not what time is it. The answer should have been “Yes”. Let him ask the follow up “What time is it.”
The other point I make to calm nervous clients is explain the concept of perjury. People routinely believe that if you say something in a deposition that turns out to be incorrect, you have committed perjury. That is absolutely not the case. Perjury is making a factual statement under oath, knowing it is false. If you simply have a faulty memory from something that happened 4 years ago, you’re not committing perjury, you’re merely human. That’s why direct testimony, even given confidently, can be so misleading. People forget. Deponents often think that answering “I don’t recall” is being evasive. Unless abused, that is untrue. Often, that response is both the appropriate and correct response.
Thanks for indulging my drudgery.
Q: "So you did it?"
A: ------
You would not say a word in response. No question was asked. Rising inflection does not turn a simple statement into a question. Depositions are like "Simon Says": once you get on a roll and start answering quickly, you are lost.
These people graduating from the Ivy League are probably not all that much different from such people in the past. Essentially they are courtiers like those at say the Palace of Versailles during the reigns of the Bourbons.
These people are pretty much standard issue courtiers and syncophants such as have always been common in history. If one is a hanger-on at say the Court of Louis XIV and he asks you what you think of the War of Spanish Succession one is not going to say “Damn, that was one hell of a fuck-up on your part.”
As a person who is on the most elderly cusp of the millenial generation (and from the deep south) here’s my view:
Anything you say or do today sticks around forever on the internet. Say something non-PC, have that put on the internet next to your name, and then watch as every HR department on Planet Earth passes over your resume until the day you die.
Our unwillingness to speak our minds in public is a direct result of a few factors:
a. our (relative) worthlessness in an extremely competitive labor market.
b. 80-90% of our lives have been spent in an academic system that punishes original thought and any opinions that didn’t “come directly from the text.”
c. Learning from past leaders. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, every successful CEO in existence — these were all men who kept their damned mouths shut unless it was something PC-approved. How many rich, powerful, successful men have reached their positions by delivering “Harsh truths” to the PC masses? None.
“they just don’t believe anything subversive or unorthodox. They have adopted the operative narrative about race, gender and the rest because to them nothing could be more obvious than that the narrative is true, not just subjectively but objectively.”
Or do they just don’t believe anything, period? That is predictable if everything your elders say is ridiculous. Remember ante-deluge France.
Just two prime examples: Brian Beutler lost his spleen to a black in a mugging turned shooting in DC a few years ago. Beutler was/is your standard liberal blogger, the epitome of the self-confident progressive. Did it change anything, did he reflect on his own personal tragedy? Not in the slightest--he's gone out of his way to say the black on white confrontation had nothing whatever to do with race and much to do with how badly he responded to the mugging, resulting in the shooting.
Matt Yglesias: also beaten pretty badly in DC in a black/white attack (but didn't lose a spleen or other organ). It changed nothing--he's just as adamant as before that what happened to him was random, isolated, says nothing about anything those bad whites might think it means.
These guys are not cowards. They stand by their convictions. If they had to choose between more beating and shootings (more organs lost, perhaps confined to wheelchairs) or acknowledging fatal flaws in their progressive worldviews, bring on the beatings and shootings.
It's all so early Christian martyrdom for these freaks.
Its fascinating how this is such an unprecedented state of affairs. It used to be anyone could speak ones mind and suffer no social consequences. For most of European history there were no speech codes, no “right” thing to say, and now suddenly, unaccountably, there is.
I mean, its not like the 19th century had speech codes, you could be an outspoken atheist or support gay rights and suffer no social consequences, none at all. People would simply respect your right to your opinion. Or even pre 1950s America – you could say what you like, and no one minded.
I wonder what is so special and unique about this moment in human history that speech codes have suddenly come into play. Its almost as if human nature has changed in some basic way – except that we know human nature doesn’t change. Well, if human nature doesn’t change, then maybe there is nothing unique about this situation, but a brief survey of the history shows us plainly and clearly that no other era had suffocating and restrictive speech codes except ours so clearly, this situation is unique.
A strange puzzle and mystery. I simply don’t know HOW to unravel it.
Well, I shall certainly mourn the passing of the golden age of free speaking that has lasted so long and seems to have only come to an end in our time.
Nobody claimed what you pretend they did. However, as recently as in the 80s, that was not the case. (with "that" I'm talking about the existence of speech codes in the USA)
Now they work at investment banks and IT companies and look down on such sacrifice as fodder for "losers" (i.e. rural Christian whites).
Considering that the Ivies were founded by “rural Christian whites”, that shows how far we’ve come.
Or do they just don't believe anything, period? That is predictable if everything your elders say is ridiculous. Remember ante-deluge France.
They believe (i) the world would be a lot better if they and people like them got to decide everything, (ii) the reason the world isn’t better is that other white people not like them get to decide (and have decided for centuries) everything, (iii) these other white people not like them are irrational, unscientific, bigoted, greedy, just wrong on everything that matters, and (iv) all white people (good or bad) should be eager to sacrifice during this beautiful transition from a society based on ugly parochial prejudices to one based on pure equality.
Just two prime examples: Brian Beutler lost his spleen to a black in a mugging turned shooting in DC a few years ago. Beutler was/is your standard liberal blogger, the epitome of the self-confident progressive. Did it change anything, did he reflect on his own personal tragedy? Not in the slightest–he’s gone out of his way to say the black on white confrontation had nothing whatever to do with race and much to do with how badly he responded to the mugging, resulting in the shooting.
Matt Yglesias: also beaten pretty badly in DC in a black/white attack (but didn’t lose a spleen or other organ). It changed nothing–he’s just as adamant as before that what happened to him was random, isolated, says nothing about anything those bad whites might think it means.
These guys are not cowards. They stand by their convictions. If they had to choose between more beating and shootings (more organs lost, perhaps confined to wheelchairs) or acknowledging fatal flaws in their progressive worldviews, bring on the beatings and shootings.
It’s all so early Christian martyrdom for these freaks.
In truth, it’s only the white kids who accept and support it. Those of other colors just play along because they know on which side their “light bread” is buttered.
I fear Miss Sontag may have been on to something. If we weren’t the cancer of history before, we seem to be working overtime to earn the title now.
Well, the first step toward understanding the phenomenon would be to recognize that it didn’t start with the millenials. At Christmas dinner in 1994 I made a joke about how, ah, unrepresentative the Cosby show was, and my 1962-born sister was scandalized. “Did you hear what he said?!!”
The deposition coaching you received is spot on, although I've never counseled clients on the amount of sleep they should get. I always emphasize to my clients they must listen to the question carefully and only respond to the question. Then I give them this hokey, pedantic example:
Q: "Do you have the time?"
A: "It's four o'clock."
Wrong answer. The question was whether you had the time, not what time is it. The answer should have been "Yes". Let him ask the follow up "What time is it."
The other point I make to calm nervous clients is explain the concept of perjury. People routinely believe that if you say something in a deposition that turns out to be incorrect, you have committed perjury. That is absolutely not the case. Perjury is making a factual statement under oath, knowing it is false. If you simply have a faulty memory from something that happened 4 years ago, you're not committing perjury, you're merely human. That's why direct testimony, even given confidently, can be so misleading. People forget. Deponents often think that answering "I don't recall" is being evasive. Unless abused, that is untrue. Often, that response is both the appropriate and correct response.
Thanks for indulging my drudgery.
Another example:
Q: “So you did it?”
A: ——
You would not say a word in response. No question was asked. Rising inflection does not turn a simple statement into a question. Depositions are like “Simon Says”: once you get on a roll and start answering quickly, you are lost.
I followed all the directions so well that the other side’s attorneys called it a day two hours ahead of schedule. But what a way to make a living.
Great, now I am going to be suicidal for the rest of the day.
I used to think that there were thoughts going on behind those eyes. No, no thoughts. There's nothing there. Sorry.
strong agree, I think their ADD and prescriptions contribute to their overall haze
the idea that these guys are being excrutiatingly political in their communications is novel but extremely charitable
The deposition coaching you received is spot on, although I've never counseled clients on the amount of sleep they should get. I always emphasize to my clients they must listen to the question carefully and only respond to the question. Then I give them this hokey, pedantic example:
Q: "Do you have the time?"
A: "It's four o'clock."
Wrong answer. The question was whether you had the time, not what time is it. The answer should have been "Yes". Let him ask the follow up "What time is it."
The other point I make to calm nervous clients is explain the concept of perjury. People routinely believe that if you say something in a deposition that turns out to be incorrect, you have committed perjury. That is absolutely not the case. Perjury is making a factual statement under oath, knowing it is false. If you simply have a faulty memory from something that happened 4 years ago, you're not committing perjury, you're merely human. That's why direct testimony, even given confidently, can be so misleading. People forget. Deponents often think that answering "I don't recall" is being evasive. Unless abused, that is untrue. Often, that response is both the appropriate and correct response.
Thanks for indulging my drudgery.
Before my deposition our lawyers told me that it’s like no other type of human communication. I remenber the opposing lawyer would stick some document in front of me and ask me if I recognized it. Often at first the document would draw a complete blank in my mind and then a vague memory would form from years past that I had seen this document at one time but I wasn’t sure about it.
I think I did OK considering that I had never been deposed before. Although we finally won the legal expenses ate up a substantial part of the judgement awarded to us.
People here might not like Israel, but one reason to wish it well is that it preserves many of the West's best traditions and ideas until the West wakes up and figures out why it had them in the first place.
I admire Ivrim for the characteristics you mention, including their hardihood, bluntness, clear thinking and admirable race loyalty. It is quite refreshing, healthy and honest, particularly when compared with the galut yehudonim we have over here.
Would you be willing to take some of them off our hands and turn them into Men? Please?
Generation Deposition – The hubris, emptiness and irony of the zeitgeist and how to deal with it.
Steve, I see a pitch for a movie here.
I, for one, am not impressed by skillful liars.
“What could be so uplifting about a brood of vipers?
I, for one, am not impressed by skillful liars.”
Indeed. These people sound like the forerunners of Peter Watt’s “sociopathic cannibals,” also mentioned in this thread.
Millennials suffer from a nearly Asiatic fear of being the nail that sticks up, and this manifests in an existential fear of being “that guy.” The US version of the TV show “The Office” displays this by making the boring, unmotivated Jim the everyman/office cool guy who gets the girl while the overly earnest, hardworking, sincere and far more interesting Michael and Dwight are the office dorks lacking self-awareness who regularly put their foot in their mouth.
“Millennials suffer from a nearly Asiatic fear of being the nail that sticks up, and this manifests in an existential fear of being “that guy.””
Can you explain more about this “Don’t be That Guy” meme that I’ve been seeing for a number of years but have never comprehended?
There is that character in The Office who routinely makes social and PC fauxpas'. I might be wrong but I think it was in relation to him.
Israel isn’t a Western country.
I mean, its not like the 19th century had speech codes, you could be an outspoken atheist or support gay rights and suffer no social consequences, none at all. People would simply respect your right to your opinion. Or even pre 1950s America - you could say what you like, and no one minded.
I wonder what is so special and unique about this moment in human history that speech codes have suddenly come into play. Its almost as if human nature has changed in some basic way - except that we know human nature doesn't change. Well, if human nature doesn't change, then maybe there is nothing unique about this situation, but a brief survey of the history shows us plainly and clearly that no other era had suffocating and restrictive speech codes except ours so clearly, this situation is unique.
A strange puzzle and mystery. I simply don't know HOW to unravel it.
Well, I shall certainly mourn the passing of the golden age of free speaking that has lasted so long and seems to have only come to an end in our time.
There is little more trite and annoying than a snarkster on the internet.
Nobody claimed what you pretend they did. However, as recently as in the 80s, that was not the case. (with “that” I’m talking about the existence of speech codes in the USA)
I think it’s essentially an informal version of “sensitivity training”.
There is that character in The Office who routinely makes social and PC fauxpas’. I might be wrong but I think it was in relation to him.
the idea that these guys are being excrutiatingly political in their communications is novel but extremely charitable
What is it with you and your beef with Millennials PMan? I never really got it.
Steve: You know that guy, who’s always asking questions about memes he doesn’t understand years after they came out? Don’t be that guy.
That’s all there is to it! Very easy meme to use.
Seems to me the first appearance of the “That guy” concept had to do with raising your hand in class. In law school in 1980, when class participation was no part of the grade, there was a stigma attached to volunteering too many answers. And we didn’t have Kingsfield.
Mark Ames:
http://exiledonline.com/the-rally-to-restore-vanity-generation-x-celebrates-its-homeric-struggle-against-lameness/
Both of them? What are you talking about? Cornell is the only Ivy League school founded after 1769.
Don’t be that guy? I always assumed they meant me.
***********************
You know, the topper, who has to have the best joke, the last line. He’s not your garden variety know it all though, he’s just so … don’t be that guy. Be cool, not Lloyd Christmas as Jim Carrey: forthright, somehow confident, maybe slightly lovable, but not really getting that at the same time his movie his going on, everyone else has one too.
That’s my interpretation. Narcissism that gets on people’s nerves.
It was at one time. However, it has grown increasingly Levantized in recent years. Sad, really. Israel was a much more charming place when it was an outpost of Mitteleuropa in the Middle East.
And now, it's not just "Levantized," it's also "Russianized" and "Ethiopized."
Now they work at investment banks and IT companies and look down on such sacrifice as fodder for "losers" (i.e. rural Christian whites).
People here might not like Israel, but one reason to wish it well is that it preserves many of the West's best traditions and ideas until the West wakes up and figures out why it had them in the first place.
Who wants to sling guns and eat dog shit on some dusty mountain when you can just try out for a singing show and become a star!
People here might not like Israel, but one reason to wish it well is that it preserves many of the West's best traditions and ideas until the West wakes up and figures out why it had them in the first place.
You don’t have to tell me about ‘em. I spent some time in Israel and in the disputed West Bank (Judea and Samaria if you prefer).
I quite liked my Sabra companions. Most of them were tough if a bit unkempt gunslingers – I felt extremely safe with them. They also seemed earnest, loyal, and of good cheer. Good drinking companions and good allies to have, provided our interests coincide. I didn’t care for the American transplants playing cowboys and Indians though. They looked like wild-eyed fanatics with chips on their shoulders.
I got no beef with Israel. It’s looking out for itself in a tough neighborhood. But that means its people should expect my country to look out for my country and my fellow citizens first. And I do have a problem with the American Jewish lobby in my country trying to do what’s best for Israel, not for its own ostensible country, the United States. I don’t believe in dual loyalty.
And I agree with Martin van Creveld of Hebrew University. Israelis are Mentschen. Diaspora Jews are often (not always, but often) “men without chests.”
Conversely, I find many JAPs shrewish and grating. Israeli women, on the other hand, struck me as earthy, appreciative (of menfolk in general), and very, very charming. I never partook, though, so my knowledge on that score is based on surface interactions only.
Yes, yes, and yes. It was better when some folks still spoke Yiddish despite government pressure (good job, Israeli government, now it’s trying to preserve it and failing). It was like visiting a Turkish café run by Germans.
And now, it’s not just “Levantized,” it’s also “Russianized” and “Ethiopized.”
Happening everywhere in the developed world.
Who wants to sling guns and eat dog shit on some dusty mountain when you can just try out for a singing show and become a star!
In fact it seems we're all turning sorta Asian. Social media is having the same effect as rice farming high density villages in Japan; you're always surrounded of people so watch what you say. SJW are the odd law enforcement Samurai.
I like that sentence about gossip and agree with it, but I’m not at all sure Steve’s commenter describes the same effect, despite superficial similarities. Village people have no concept of privacy. In a village, everybody knows everything about everybody and everybody’s business is everybody’s business. I observed this first-hand too. They don’t understand why you don’t know everything there is to know about your relatives, for instance, or why you aren’t always gossiping. The people Steve is talking about are rather like Stalin-era Soviet citizens, who know in their bones it’s only safe to be candid inside your own skull, because even your closest relatives can turn you in. See under Pavlik Morozov. Children were actually taught to behave this way, maybe that’s where Orwell got the idea. North Korea is a relatively uncontroversial modern example.
“I got no beef with Israel. It’s looking out for itself in a tough neighborhood.”
I absolutely loathe it when ignorant, stupid Westerners (particularly those who believe themselves to be “informed”) say that.
It’s almost like Israel didn’t come to fruition in one of the most despraved, disgusting and unjust series of events in recent history.
In other words: “looking out for yourself” when you’re squatting on foreign soil, (given to you by imperialist filth that had no right giving you anything, whatsoever, since it isn’t their land to give) is a shameless reframe of persisting violence.
This is why people want to cut your heads off. This is why there was a smoldering ash heap in NY 13 years ago.
You’ll never learn, will you. Idiot.
So quick to insult anonymously and so slow to read and think. This truly is the Age of the Coarse.
My disposition toward the Israelis has to do with their present conduct. I do not blame the current generation for the deeds of their grandparents. I suppose you want today’s Israelis to make up for the sins of their refugee-colonialist ancestors by driving themselves into the sea.
I don’t agree with a lot of Israeli government policies. But they are there and have a right to defend themselves. As all nation-states do.
I have a dim view of their ethnic kin in my country agitating for Israel rather than for our shared country, which should be the sole recipient of all national loyalty of our citizenry whatever the ethnicity. But that is a related, but a somewhat separate matter.
This is either idiocy or depravity. Israel has existed for nearly 70 years, during which time the United States has supported its existence. If the latter policy were the reason for the 9/11 attacks 13 years ago, Arabs are certainly very lazy in their vendetta. Furthermore, I counted exactly ZERO Christian Arab among this terrorist bunch, and arguably Christian Palestinians have been the most victimized party in the Arab-Israeli conflict. For that matter, was there ANY Palestinian among those who attacked the United States 13 years ago?
On the other hand, Salafists are mainly from KSA and the Gulf States, which were the least affected by the presence of the Israelis in the region. They hate the West. The Israelis are merely a convenient excuse.