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From the American Interest:
THE CLASH AT 25
Huntington’s Legacy
FRANCIS FUKUYAMASamuel Huntington was not right about everything. Rather, his greatness lay in his ability to conceptualize big ideas in a wide variety of fields.
Since Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations has been contrasted with my own End of History in countless introductory International Relations classes over the past two decades, I might as well begin by tackling at the outset the issue of how we’re doing vis-à-vis one another. At the moment, it looks like Huntington is winning.
I reviewed the Fukuyama vs. Huntington question in 2011 in The American Conservative.
Huntington famously warned, “Islam has bloody borders.” But at some point in the 1990s, mainstream liberal democrats started to assume that the triumph of Fukuyama’s liberal democracy required, in effect, importing Islam’s bloody borders into the heart of the First World.
For example, a few hours before 9/11, Bill Clinton told some Australian business leaders that he believed in “the ultimate wisdom of a borderless world.”
What thinker was responsible for that? It’s often tougher to figure out who spread Conventional Wisdom than the ideas of fairly distinctive right-of-center thinkers like Fukuyama and Huntington.
I’m starting to think Mr. Borderlessness was a fellow who has been hiding in plain sight all these years as longtime president of the Brookings Institution: Bill Clinton’s Rhodes Scholar roommate Strobe Talbott.
Strobe, a distant cousin and bete noire of George W. Bush, wrote thunderous cover stories for Time in the 1980s explaining that Reagan’s policy toward the Soviets would prove catastrophic. When that didn’t exactly come true, Bill Clinton made him #2 in the State Department. Then he ran the Establishment Brookings Institution until a couple of years ago. Strobe’s father-in-law was gossip columnist Lloyd Shearer, who was kind of the Roger Stone of the Democrats.
Talbott would be a boring choice as the mastermind behind What Went Wrong, but the Talbott–>Bill–>Hillary–>Everybody Who Is Anybody pathway sounds plausible.
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Let’s get Steve to do The End of the Clash of the Histories of Civilization.
Francis Fukuyama = Cuff Yank samurai.
Good on Fukuyama for acknowledging the obvious.
Isn’t Fukuyama being a bit too modest? Nothing has replaced communism as a successful ideological rival to the West, despite pretensions. None of the major conflicts look even remotely like a clash *between* civilizations.
How exactly is Huntington winning?
For Fukuyama to win we all have to do the Macarena.
Somebody says "but dancing is haram" -- and has ten kids more than you, and is also spreading globally -- Huntington wins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwWRjvwlLKgReplies: @Anonymous
Sorry, they are commies so it's reeducation camps.
the third world as a whole is currently benefiting from this demographically (and will until the global economy collapses and everyone starves)
however in addition to the purely demographic aspect the neoliberal war on populist opposition to ever cheap labor is effectively cultural AIDS which particularly benefits Islam
so yes, not really a clash of civilizations in the usual sense as Islam's borders have been statically bloody for centuries but a gates of Toledo scenario where the dominant civilization is being betrayed from within by greedy sociopaths.
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
How many public intellectuals have had the courage to say that they might have been wrong ?
Huntington’s brilliance cannot be overstated. Most of what he predicted in Clash of Civilizations have come true, and he wrote that in 1996! His other book Who Are We? is equally brilliant. The man was a true genius. My only critique of his work was that he was not forthcoming about the influence of the Zionists on American politics.
Actually, he was.
Might as well re-post this. Fukuyama’s solution to our current difficulties:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2018-08-14/against-identity-politics?cid=soc-tw&pgtype=hpg®ion=br1
OT Hmmmm.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6106613/South-Africa-withdraws-white-farmland-redistribution-bill-Trump-tweet.html
“South Africa has withdrawn its white farmland redistribution bill – six days after Donald Trump warned he was closely studying the situation.”
How exactly is Huntington winning?Replies: @J.Ross, @Whiskey, @Anonymous, @notanon, @AnotherDad
tldr Muslims.
For Fukuyama to win we all have to do the Macarena.
Somebody says “but dancing is haram” — and has ten kids more than you, and is also spreading globally — Huntington wins.
“Samuel Huntington was not right about everything.”
Actually, he was.
How exactly is Huntington winning?Replies: @J.Ross, @Whiskey, @Anonymous, @notanon, @AnotherDad
Islam is a rival. The Shia beatdown of Sunni jihad has drilled it for a while but it is still global. China does not have 5-6 million Uighurs in concentration camps for nothing.
Sorry, they are commies so it’s reeducation camps.
Hey, go easy on Strobe. America owes a huge debt to him. All Ronald Reagan had to do in the 1980s was read Strobe’s advice in Time magazine on how to deal with the Soviet Union, and then do the exact opposite. Presto, the Cold War ended.
Looks like the social constructivists of IR theory are winning. Now they just need to come with an empirically testable theories and research program!
Would highly recommend reading the early works of Alex Wendt as a more advanced intro. Some of it can be a bit dense, but the underlying logic is in line with Huntington (and Fukuyama). His later work is a bit… outside the mainstream.
https://polisci.osu.edu/people/wendt.23
and where we read about:
Wendt's recent book, Quantum Mind and Social Science (Cambridge, 2015) That Alex Wendt? The one who wrote: " I and other social constructivists argued that “anarchy is what states make of it.”"
And would you, al-Gharaniq say that you are the same Alex Wendt? Are you peddling your pathetic wares here?
How exactly is Huntington winning?Replies: @J.Ross, @Whiskey, @Anonymous, @notanon, @AnotherDad
Yes, the primary conflict appears to be between Western neoliberalism or globalism, and an internal reaction against it by populists, a reaction which may not even be strong enough to persist.
He was a registered Democrat.
For Fukuyama to win we all have to do the Macarena.
Somebody says "but dancing is haram" -- and has ten kids more than you, and is also spreading globally -- Huntington wins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwWRjvwlLKgReplies: @Anonymous
Huntington proposed that the Islamic world was a cohesive bloc. In reality, there have been internal civil and religious wars and Muslims have been spreading because migrants and refugees from those wars have been fleeing and have been allowed to immigrate, not because their “bloody borders” have successfully expanded.
At the end of the day the Ummah are all in lockstep with regard to the elimination of the infidel.
2 more kills of white democrats tonight in very winnable races for them, FL and AZ Gov. Had the pale white democrats made it in the primary against AA and Hispanic candidates, they would have been favored, now our guys will be favored. One of them Ron Desantis will be a 2024 favorite if he pulls it out.
Wonder what is going on in minds of liberal whites?
Huntington famously warned, “Islam has bloody borders.” But at some point in the 1990s, mainstream liberal democrats started to assume that the triumph of Fukuyama’s liberal democracy required, in effect, importing Islam’s bloody borders into the heart of the First World.
If Huntington had more honesty, he would have said Imperialism has bloody borders.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it was the West pressing into Muslim borders, not vice versa. 9/11 was blowback. Seriously, would it have happened if not for US wars(often for Israel) in the Middle East?
For every single Westerner in EU or US killed by Muslim terrorism, how many in MENA were killed by cruise missiles, jets, tanks, drone strikes, sanctions?
Who destroyed the borders that protected the Middle East from the West? With the end of the Cold War, the Middle East no longer had Soviet support. It was vulnerable and ripe for US invasions. As Zionists gained greater power, there was more pressure to push for sanctions and invasions for Israel’s interests. The effect has been devastating.
The fact is most of Afghanistan had NOTHING to do with 9/11. If any two nations sponsored Osama(if indeed he was the culprit), it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two close allies of the US. Also, they fostered terrorists with the full cooperation of the CIA that had found Sunni terrorism useful against Soviets and Iran. So, the three nations most responsible for 9/11 were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the US(and Israel). But it was used as excuse to invade ALL of Afghanistan. And then Iraq was framed and was destroyed too. But the madness even extended to Libya and Syria under Obama. And US has been backing Saudi war on Yemen.
As for Western borders against Angry Muslims, guess who undermined that? Jewish globalists and their cuck-collaborators. Destroying borders in both the Middle East and the West. Making a mess of everything.
Huntington was right that lots of Muslims can lead to problems. But the momentum for invasions and migrations didn’t begin in the Muslim world. It was hatched in the West under increasing Jewish control.
While the old Wasp establishment was also neo-imperialist, they were more ‘objective’ in dealing with other nations. Under rule of realpolitik, they were willing to work with any nation for US interest. For instance, during the Cold War, the US was close to Japan and hostile to China. But when relations improved with China and when Japan seemed to getting too rich in the 80s, the US grew closer to China and cooler toward Japan. And then, when Japan’s economy stalled while China expanded, US grew closer to Japan again. So, even though Anglo-style hegemony was opportunistic, it was ‘fair’ in the sense that the US was willing to work with any nation in US interest.
But this became impossible in the Middle East. Israel had to be favored no matter what, EVEN AGAINST American interests. Any Anglo realist who called for balancing Arab/Muslim interests with Zionist-Israeli interests was purged. In the Middle East, Realpolitik was replaced with Zealpolitik.
http://buchanan.org/blog/how-bill-kristol-purged-the-arabists-5085
US foreign policy operated over there(and elsewhere) to serve Israeli interest. But it went beyond that. After all, Russia is no threat to Israel. So, why is US so hostile to Russia? Because Russia is hated by Jewish globalist interests. So, US foreign policy must serve both Israel and Jewish supremacist ego all over the world.
Imagine if Japanese had such control of US government and foreign policy that US policy in Asia had to praise and favor Japan at every turn, EVEN IF Japan acted badly and alienated all of Asia against the US. It’d be ridiculous. But Israel has that kind of control over the US.
Isn’t most of this for oil? Which we have plenty of now. Anyway, I doubt it’s because there’s a Jew in every woodpile. I’m Protestant. I’d like to think we still run everything. Badly. Let’s take a Daiquiri time out.Replies: @notanon, @Digital Samizdat, @Gracebear
One is either conquering and controlling others, or one is being conquered and controlled.
You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is most certainly interested in YOU.Replies: @anonymous
They all face Mecca five times a day, effectively mooning us in the process. That’s cohesive enough.
If Huntington had more honesty, he would have said Imperialism has bloody borders.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it was the West pressing into Muslim borders, not vice versa. 9/11 was blowback. Seriously, would it have happened if not for US wars(often for Israel) in the Middle East?
For every single Westerner in EU or US killed by Muslim terrorism, how many in MENA were killed by cruise missiles, jets, tanks, drone strikes, sanctions?
Who destroyed the borders that protected the Middle East from the West? With the end of the Cold War, the Middle East no longer had Soviet support. It was vulnerable and ripe for US invasions. As Zionists gained greater power, there was more pressure to push for sanctions and invasions for Israel's interests. The effect has been devastating.
The fact is most of Afghanistan had NOTHING to do with 9/11. If any two nations sponsored Osama(if indeed he was the culprit), it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two close allies of the US. Also, they fostered terrorists with the full cooperation of the CIA that had found Sunni terrorism useful against Soviets and Iran. So, the three nations most responsible for 9/11 were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the US(and Israel). But it was used as excuse to invade ALL of Afghanistan. And then Iraq was framed and was destroyed too. But the madness even extended to Libya and Syria under Obama. And US has been backing Saudi war on Yemen.
As for Western borders against Angry Muslims, guess who undermined that? Jewish globalists and their cuck-collaborators. Destroying borders in both the Middle East and the West. Making a mess of everything.
Huntington was right that lots of Muslims can lead to problems. But the momentum for invasions and migrations didn't begin in the Muslim world. It was hatched in the West under increasing Jewish control.
While the old Wasp establishment was also neo-imperialist, they were more 'objective' in dealing with other nations. Under rule of realpolitik, they were willing to work with any nation for US interest. For instance, during the Cold War, the US was close to Japan and hostile to China. But when relations improved with China and when Japan seemed to getting too rich in the 80s, the US grew closer to China and cooler toward Japan. And then, when Japan's economy stalled while China expanded, US grew closer to Japan again. So, even though Anglo-style hegemony was opportunistic, it was 'fair' in the sense that the US was willing to work with any nation in US interest.
But this became impossible in the Middle East. Israel had to be favored no matter what, EVEN AGAINST American interests. Any Anglo realist who called for balancing Arab/Muslim interests with Zionist-Israeli interests was purged. In the Middle East, Realpolitik was replaced with Zealpolitik.
http://buchanan.org/blog/how-bill-kristol-purged-the-arabists-5085
US foreign policy operated over there(and elsewhere) to serve Israeli interest. But it went beyond that. After all, Russia is no threat to Israel. So, why is US so hostile to Russia? Because Russia is hated by Jewish globalist interests. So, US foreign policy must serve both Israel and Jewish supremacist ego all over the world.
Imagine if Japanese had such control of US government and foreign policy that US policy in Asia had to praise and favor Japan at every turn, EVEN IF Japan acted badly and alienated all of Asia against the US. It'd be ridiculous. But Israel has that kind of control over the US.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @hhsiii, @Anonymous, @The Wild Geese Howard
You left out Christians. You used a beaner’s pejorative for Americans. Both are grounds for suspicion.
I love this, from the late Harold Covington:
Cohesive bloc or not, do you count them as Western?
But if that’s what Huntington’s theorizing amounts to, then obviously it’s quite trivial.
Fukuyama instead believed that all cultures would soon follow the Western model.
Huntington's theory can't be too trivial, if it makes predictions opposed to those of Fukuyama.
Fukuyama is so blunt! – (Very) interesting. As I answered you in the comments section of the point roughly 2+ years back, Steve, – and claimed, that Fukuyama had no political way to his Danish utopia. He basically assumed things would just work out well. Now he admits, that they don’t: All kinds of history – will go on.
Fukuyama echoed Hegel’s thought about the end of the art-period and transferred this idea to the realm of politics. Thing is: The Hegelian thought had turned out to be wrong too.
Even the art-period resisted coming to an end, quite the opposite. Kant had seen that coming, too.
Fukuyama echoed Hegel's thought about the end of the art-period and transferred this idea to the realm of politics. Thing is: The Hegelian thought had turned out to be wrong too.
Even the art-period resisted coming to an end, quite the opposite. Kant had seen that coming, too.Replies: @Steve Sailer
What’s “art-period” mean?
(Man kann wohl hoffen, daß die Kunst immer mehr steigen und sich vollenden werde, aber ihre Form hat aufgehört, das höchste Bedürfnis des Geistes zu sein.) Goethe thought - in parts - almost like Hegel (he was much more subtle and knowledgeable, too in these artsy things than Hegel was) - anyways, there was Goethe, there was Marx and there was Hegel all thinking, that classical Greek art was most valuable. Then Geothe died and Heine, - having studied with Hegel and having met Goethe (albeit without being in his right mind to say anything of interest to this much admired man...being awe-struck altogether) - Heine, I say, was at the same time being friends with Marx and wrapped the whole affair up and coined the term: The end of the art-period, which - in my mind, too, - now stands for the whole affair.Kant did not buy into this Hegelian concept, that you could - by sheer force of your mind (= judgment (=Urteil) somehow preside over any part of the human history. He, therefore, opened up the arts as an eternal and specific field of transgressions and discoveries (= a field of experimentation and consolidation at the same time) - what Schiller understood right away and managed to write down very charmingly and clearly in his Letters Concerning the Education of Mankind.Of course, Heine thought the same way like Kant and Schiller. He too did not buy the idea, that art could end, or has been perfected and thus ended by the old Greeks. So - Heine made fun of Hegel a) by outliving him, and b) by just keepin' on keepin' on in his efforts to find the cracks in everything, to make sure, that the light of play, and joyfulness and insight even - kept pouring in.(The last irony in all that is, that Hegel - for very good reasons, is known as the thinker, who understood first, that modernity consists of (= is, basically)a form of time-consciousness (=undeterminatedness, unstableness) here and rationality (=planning, control, stability) there(cf. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity, p. 57 ff).But here starts another story, because the element of time, which is one of the constituents of our times (=modernity) (= forms modernity's core), this very element of time is something basically uncalculable - therefor the hermeneutic (=structural) benefit of hindsight (= the systematic hermeneutic need for distance) (cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Truth and Method" (=the "urbanization of Heidegger" (Habermas made that quite telling remark about both Heidegger a n d Gadamer). Fukuyama's Hegel reception does not take into account, that a) there is no way to decide over the end of societal trends after Gadamer and Heidegger (there never will be last words about such subjects, as long as anyone thinks about them, because time will always stand in their way) and b) that Hegel, in the one famous case, in which he did try to have the last word - which is his theory of the end of art - failed big style.Replies: @Twinkie, @Desiderius, @Twinkie
https://youtu.be/iOk6HB609po
Lots of things are kind of trivial when you know the answer.
For example, in 1937 21-year-old Claude Shannon wrote his MIT M.A. thesis pointing out that electronic information engineering could be converted from an art to a science by importing Boolean algebra into EE. This was one of the best ideas anybody ever had, and it seems obvious now. But nobody had the idea before Shannon.
And he was a radical minority of one when he went up against the titans of behaviorism and empiricism. But as he told his colleague, Morris Halle, when they were walking into a planned ambush at a 1950s linguistics conference, "I don't care how many people try to shout me down--i have the *arguments* on my side. And I'll get something better than their agreement; I'll get their smart students."
I just leave this here:
Huntington: Demography is winning over me.
Dividing the world into civilizations wasn’t a new idea though. Spengler, Toynbee, etc., were popular figures.
“Democracies have mechanisms in place for correcting mistakes”
lmao
Democracy IS the mistake. Virtually all authoritarian countries have healthier societies than democratic ones, even the ones that are piss poor.
I’m not a fan of Huntington. I would argue that there ARE universal values–authoritarian and hierarchical ones, observed in every society from the dawn of history, and not just because people were dumb and brutish. By comparison, liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western cities.
Real-world examples would include Marcus Aurelius and Lee Kuan Yew.Replies: @Corn
No, there are universal TRUTHS. Most individuals, whether from dumb, brutish societies or pseudo-sophisticated ones, deny those truths in favor of relativism - of culture or values or truths. This does not change the balance between truth and error, but it certainly does change the consequences.
The release of Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” theory in 1996 has to be one of the clearest examples of a self-fulfilling prophecy around. At the end of the Cold War, Huntington saw the world was a happy hunting ground laid out before America. He then intellectually rolled up his sleeves and began breaking this big project into its component parts. Fukuyama only differed from Huntington by saying “this might be easier than it looks”.
https://www.indy100.com/article/jackie-chan-daughter-etta-ng-chok-lam-gay-homeless-bridges-homophobia-china-8330446
Clash of Sillizations
Steve, why are you burying the joke?
Strobe was, of course, a Russian asset. Comrade J indentifies him as such which is one reason the book was buried (by the same people who now claim to be so interested in Russian conspiracies)
lmao
Democracy IS the mistake. Virtually all authoritarian countries have healthier societies than democratic ones, even the ones that are piss poor.
I'm not a fan of Huntington. I would argue that there ARE universal values--authoritarian and hierarchical ones, observed in every society from the dawn of history, and not just because people were dumb and brutish. By comparison, liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western cities.Replies: @Rosie, @johnd, @The Wild Geese Howard, @3g4me
You seem to ignore the possibility of populist democracy (i.e. national socialism). In so doing, you adopt the (((globalist))) definition of “democracy” as neoliberalism, whether the demos want it or not.
Strobe was, of course, a Russian asset. Comrade J indentifies him as such which is one reason the book was buried (by the same people who now claim to be so interested in Russian conspiracies)Replies: @anonymous
Tretyakov doesn’t say he was running Strobe as an agent–the KGB filed him under *special contact* along with, eg, Raul Castro.
As Pinker has pointed out, all you had to do to resolve the debate in Chomskys favor was have kids.
And he was a radical minority of one when he went up against the titans of behaviorism and empiricism. But as he told his colleague, Morris Halle, when they were walking into a planned ambush at a 1950s linguistics conference, “I don’t care how many people try to shout me down–i have the *arguments* on my side. And I’ll get something better than their agreement; I’ll get their smart students.”
For Hegel, the European art from the middle ages on to his (=romantic) times, had become too subjective, too decentered, too off of the once perfect ways, in which in classical Greece the arts and the world of ideals hit a perfect match of form and measure of things (=harmony, restrictedness, clarity vs. the modern – romantic especially – transgression, lack of form and discipline and structure).
Hegel in his Lectures on Aesthetics, I ,2: “You can only hope, that art will climb even higher and might manage to perfect itself, but its form has ceased to fulfill the highest needs of the mind” (mind = Hegel’s “Geist”).
(Man kann wohl hoffen, daß die Kunst immer mehr steigen und sich vollenden werde, aber ihre Form hat aufgehört, das höchste Bedürfnis des Geistes zu sein.)
Goethe thought – in parts – almost like Hegel (he was much more subtle and knowledgeable, too in these artsy things than Hegel was) – anyways, there was Goethe, there was Marx and there was Hegel all thinking, that classical Greek art was most valuable. Then Geothe died and Heine, – having studied with Hegel and having met Goethe (albeit without being in his right mind to say anything of interest to this much admired man…being awe-struck altogether) – Heine, I say, was at the same time being friends with Marx and wrapped the whole affair up and coined the term: The end of the art-period, which – in my mind, too, – now stands for the whole affair.
Kant did not buy into this Hegelian concept, that you could – by sheer force of your mind (= judgment (=Urteil) somehow preside over any part of the human history. He, therefore, opened up the arts as an eternal and specific field of transgressions and discoveries (= a field of experimentation and consolidation at the same time) – what Schiller understood right away and managed to write down very charmingly and clearly in his Letters Concerning the Education of Mankind.
Of course, Heine thought the same way like Kant and Schiller. He too did not buy the idea, that art could end, or has been perfected and thus ended by the old Greeks. So – Heine made fun of Hegel a) by outliving him, and b) by just keepin’ on keepin’ on in his efforts to find the cracks in everything, to make sure, that the light of play, and joyfulness and insight even – kept pouring in.
(The last irony in all that is, that Hegel – for very good reasons, is known as the thinker, who understood first, that modernity consists of (= is, basically)a form of time-consciousness (=undeterminatedness, unstableness) here and rationality (=planning, control, stability) there(cf. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity, p. 57 ff).
But here starts another story, because the element of time, which is one of the constituents of our times (=modernity) (= forms modernity’s core), this very element of time is something basically uncalculable – therefor the hermeneutic (=structural) benefit of hindsight (= the systematic hermeneutic need for distance) (cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Truth and Method” (=the “urbanization of Heidegger” (Habermas made that quite telling remark about both Heidegger a n d Gadamer).
Fukuyama’s Hegel reception does not take into account, that a) there is no way to decide over the end of societal trends after Gadamer and Heidegger (there never will be last words about such subjects, as long as anyone thinks about them, because time will always stand in their way) and b) that Hegel, in the one famous case, in which he did try to have the last word – which is his theory of the end of art – failed big style.
(Man kann wohl hoffen, daß die Kunst immer mehr steigen und sich vollenden werde, aber ihre Form hat aufgehört, das höchste Bedürfnis des Geistes zu sein.) Goethe thought - in parts - almost like Hegel (he was much more subtle and knowledgeable, too in these artsy things than Hegel was) - anyways, there was Goethe, there was Marx and there was Hegel all thinking, that classical Greek art was most valuable. Then Geothe died and Heine, - having studied with Hegel and having met Goethe (albeit without being in his right mind to say anything of interest to this much admired man...being awe-struck altogether) - Heine, I say, was at the same time being friends with Marx and wrapped the whole affair up and coined the term: The end of the art-period, which - in my mind, too, - now stands for the whole affair.Kant did not buy into this Hegelian concept, that you could - by sheer force of your mind (= judgment (=Urteil) somehow preside over any part of the human history. He, therefore, opened up the arts as an eternal and specific field of transgressions and discoveries (= a field of experimentation and consolidation at the same time) - what Schiller understood right away and managed to write down very charmingly and clearly in his Letters Concerning the Education of Mankind.Of course, Heine thought the same way like Kant and Schiller. He too did not buy the idea, that art could end, or has been perfected and thus ended by the old Greeks. So - Heine made fun of Hegel a) by outliving him, and b) by just keepin' on keepin' on in his efforts to find the cracks in everything, to make sure, that the light of play, and joyfulness and insight even - kept pouring in.(The last irony in all that is, that Hegel - for very good reasons, is known as the thinker, who understood first, that modernity consists of (= is, basically)a form of time-consciousness (=undeterminatedness, unstableness) here and rationality (=planning, control, stability) there(cf. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity, p. 57 ff).But here starts another story, because the element of time, which is one of the constituents of our times (=modernity) (= forms modernity's core), this very element of time is something basically uncalculable - therefor the hermeneutic (=structural) benefit of hindsight (= the systematic hermeneutic need for distance) (cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Truth and Method" (=the "urbanization of Heidegger" (Habermas made that quite telling remark about both Heidegger a n d Gadamer). Fukuyama's Hegel reception does not take into account, that a) there is no way to decide over the end of societal trends after Gadamer and Heidegger (there never will be last words about such subjects, as long as anyone thinks about them, because time will always stand in their way) and b) that Hegel, in the one famous case, in which he did try to have the last word - which is his theory of the end of art - failed big style.Replies: @Twinkie, @Desiderius, @Twinkie
Wouldn’t “spirit” be a better English translation of Geist here?
Unfortunately, for the same reason, the highly materialistic cast of the modern outlook makes it very difficult to translate meaningfully at all.
Similarly, in a recent conversation with a modern, university-town educated young woman, I described a disease with no physiological source as a "soul illness". Her response: "What's a 'soul'?".
If your fundamental belief is that everything is just particles colliding the void, then fine distinctions about the "meaning" of the intangible is just so much white noise.
If Huntington had more honesty, he would have said Imperialism has bloody borders.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it was the West pressing into Muslim borders, not vice versa. 9/11 was blowback. Seriously, would it have happened if not for US wars(often for Israel) in the Middle East?
For every single Westerner in EU or US killed by Muslim terrorism, how many in MENA were killed by cruise missiles, jets, tanks, drone strikes, sanctions?
Who destroyed the borders that protected the Middle East from the West? With the end of the Cold War, the Middle East no longer had Soviet support. It was vulnerable and ripe for US invasions. As Zionists gained greater power, there was more pressure to push for sanctions and invasions for Israel's interests. The effect has been devastating.
The fact is most of Afghanistan had NOTHING to do with 9/11. If any two nations sponsored Osama(if indeed he was the culprit), it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two close allies of the US. Also, they fostered terrorists with the full cooperation of the CIA that had found Sunni terrorism useful against Soviets and Iran. So, the three nations most responsible for 9/11 were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the US(and Israel). But it was used as excuse to invade ALL of Afghanistan. And then Iraq was framed and was destroyed too. But the madness even extended to Libya and Syria under Obama. And US has been backing Saudi war on Yemen.
As for Western borders against Angry Muslims, guess who undermined that? Jewish globalists and their cuck-collaborators. Destroying borders in both the Middle East and the West. Making a mess of everything.
Huntington was right that lots of Muslims can lead to problems. But the momentum for invasions and migrations didn't begin in the Muslim world. It was hatched in the West under increasing Jewish control.
While the old Wasp establishment was also neo-imperialist, they were more 'objective' in dealing with other nations. Under rule of realpolitik, they were willing to work with any nation for US interest. For instance, during the Cold War, the US was close to Japan and hostile to China. But when relations improved with China and when Japan seemed to getting too rich in the 80s, the US grew closer to China and cooler toward Japan. And then, when Japan's economy stalled while China expanded, US grew closer to Japan again. So, even though Anglo-style hegemony was opportunistic, it was 'fair' in the sense that the US was willing to work with any nation in US interest.
But this became impossible in the Middle East. Israel had to be favored no matter what, EVEN AGAINST American interests. Any Anglo realist who called for balancing Arab/Muslim interests with Zionist-Israeli interests was purged. In the Middle East, Realpolitik was replaced with Zealpolitik.
http://buchanan.org/blog/how-bill-kristol-purged-the-arabists-5085
US foreign policy operated over there(and elsewhere) to serve Israeli interest. But it went beyond that. After all, Russia is no threat to Israel. So, why is US so hostile to Russia? Because Russia is hated by Jewish globalist interests. So, US foreign policy must serve both Israel and Jewish supremacist ego all over the world.
Imagine if Japanese had such control of US government and foreign policy that US policy in Asia had to praise and favor Japan at every turn, EVEN IF Japan acted badly and alienated all of Asia against the US. It'd be ridiculous. But Israel has that kind of control over the US.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @hhsiii, @Anonymous, @The Wild Geese Howard
A lot of that came after 9/11. Iran-Iraq war (when Saddam was our boy) was pretty bloody. Of course that was partially blow back for our Iran meddling in the ‘50s. Which was prodded by the Anglos. Then Saddam invaded Kuwait. April Glaspie’s mistake. A lot of this is residue from England’s retreating Empire, but that doesn’t mean they’d all have been peaceful over there otherwise. England just replaced the retreating Turks. Who were too exhausted to maintain peace over there. The Shiites and Sunnis would always be at each other’s throats. England used that to advantage but didn’t create that. Pre-existing condition.
Isn’t most of this for oil? Which we have plenty of now. Anyway, I doubt it’s because there’s a Jew in every woodpile. I’m Protestant. I’d like to think we still run everything. Badly. Let’s take a Daiquiri time out.
- the Oded Yinon plan
- the Clean Break memoUltimately, you'll start to realize that the Zionists played the star role in both putting the plan together as well as putting it into action.Replies: @Thea
lmao
Democracy IS the mistake. Virtually all authoritarian countries have healthier societies than democratic ones, even the ones that are piss poor.
I'm not a fan of Huntington. I would argue that there ARE universal values--authoritarian and hierarchical ones, observed in every society from the dawn of history, and not just because people were dumb and brutish. By comparison, liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western cities.Replies: @Rosie, @johnd, @The Wild Geese Howard, @3g4me
No some values are more present in some cultures than others… some behaviors are more robust in some cultures than others…
Clinton’s private speeches to the banks (leaked by wikileaks) showed the banking mafia pay politicians to privately support open borders in exchange for campaign contributions.
(also bank deregulation – it was Bill Clinton and Blair who around 1998 changed the banking rules in US/UK which led to 2008)
the banks want open borders cos (pick one or more)
– cheap labor
– divide and rule
– they hate white debils
– they want white extinction for practical reasons (they want an 85 IQ planet cos white debils periodically get uppity over the banking mafia’s parasitism)
the most fundamental arithmetical problem with this policy (independent of all the fundamental HBD problems) being if cheap labor was good for an economy then Africa would be rich. in the real world cheap labor makes certain people very rich in the short-term but in the long-term causes economic necrosis (cos people have no spending money).
(no spending money is why usury eventually causes economic necrosis as well – which is what made white debils uppity in the first place)
the banks’ open borders policy is why Fukuyama’s otherwise possibly correct prediction was doomed.
it’s always the banks.
How exactly is Huntington winning?Replies: @J.Ross, @Whiskey, @Anonymous, @notanon, @AnotherDad
right – neoliberalism (aka global capitalism unrestrained by populism/nationalism) is destroying itself through its craving for ever cheaper labor
the third world as a whole is currently benefiting from this demographically (and will until the global economy collapses and everyone starves)
however in addition to the purely demographic aspect the neoliberal war on populist opposition to ever cheap labor is effectively cultural AIDS which particularly benefits Islam
so yes, not really a clash of civilizations in the usual sense as Islam’s borders have been statically bloody for centuries but a gates of Toledo scenario where the dominant civilization is being betrayed from within by greedy sociopaths.
Isn’t most of this for oil? Which we have plenty of now. Anyway, I doubt it’s because there’s a Jew in every woodpile. I’m Protestant. I’d like to think we still run everything. Badly. Let’s take a Daiquiri time out.Replies: @notanon, @Digital Samizdat, @Gracebear
one of the middle east’s problems is it’s too diverse – too many different ethno-sectarian populations living in the same polity – the best solution would be Switzerland i.e. every ethno-sectarian group has their own canton.
the oil aspect of the problem is not that the US wants the oil to use itself; it’s the banking mafia wanting oil to be sold in dollars.
Still the most dangerous man in America – “Inside Stephen Miller’s hostile takeover of immigration policy”: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/29/stephen-miller-immigration-policy-white-house-trump-799199
Your old magazine, The American Conservative, has printed articles by one Cory Massimino, the “Mutual Exchange Coordinator” at The Centre For A Stateless Society. As much as anything, this sums up what Conservatism Inc has become.
Francis Fukuyama = Yanks’ mafia fucur.
Unrelated, but interesting: https://hotair.com/archives/2018/08/28/officer-acquitted-manslaughter-now-teaching-class-ferguson-effect/
Talbot was not wrong about Reagan. The policies of the first Reagan administration could’ve well ended in disaster, if the Soviet leader at the time were someone like Khrushchev.
Similarly, if Putin weren’t so almost super-humanly cautious and thick-skinned, American treatment of Russia would’ve resulted in a major blowback long ago. But no one in America’s elite understands this because they learned exactly the wrong lesson from the Reagan years.
Russia is weak Putin has tried to bring blow back several times but then had to bitch out cause his mouth is bigger than than his biceps.
Putin isn't cautious or thick-skinned - he's limited in what he can do because his conventional forces are not up to snuff and his nuclear forces aren't usable against a nuclear power like the US which has very good early warning systems and thousands of nukes' worth of counter-strike capability. The man is fairly adventurous, but the imbalance of power is clear, based on the damage that the US has done to his economy with even a fairly limited set of economic sanctions.
It’s interesting how French and German both translate “mind” as “spirit”. Judging by Wikipedia, the Spanish and Italians have equivalent words with the same root as the English “mind”. Even so, the word “mind” has Germanic roots: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mind#Etymology
"Geist" has the same cognate as English "ghost," hence "Der Heilige Geist" ("The Holy Ghost").
The dangerous clashes of the future are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness. – Samuel Huntington
And may I add African fecundity.
“By comparison, liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western cities.”
Actually, I’d suggest that liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western rural areas.
The infamous small town democrcy in New England, the expression of independent patriotism in Massachussetts during the Revolutionary War (read about Lexington and Concord), the independent townships that grew up on the frontier as Westerners moved into the Plains and Mountain States: the most successful expressions of the will of the people were done by Westerners who were essentially isolated (in terms of communication and bureaucratic reach) from others. Westerners, because they were essentially children of the Enlightenment. Isolated, because that meant they made decisions for themselves (rather than had decisions made for them by a higher authority).
Cities, on the other hand (and our national government) are really expressions of non democratic, bureaucratic rule.
Simple example: a small prarie town, before the Department of Education, could collectively agree whether your kids can eat cupcakes at school for someone’s birthday. A school in Chicago, today, can’t.
joeyjoejoe
Isn’t most of this for oil? Which we have plenty of now. Anyway, I doubt it’s because there’s a Jew in every woodpile. I’m Protestant. I’d like to think we still run everything. Badly. Let’s take a Daiquiri time out.Replies: @notanon, @Digital Samizdat, @Gracebear
Oil almost certainly has something to do with our current ME policy, but it’s definitely not the whole story. The war in Iraq (2003 -), for example, hasn’t done much to increase our control of the ME’s oil supply, as most of the new contracts doled out by Iraq’s post-invasion government have actually gone to non-western oil companies–Russian, Chinese and Indonesian, especially. Yet despite that, Washington went and effectively repeated their ‘democracy promotion’ strategy in the ME by heavily pushing the so-called Arab Spring in 2011, which hasn’t really increased our control of the ME’s oil either. It is therefore safe to conclude that oil is only an ancillary motive behind our contemporary ME policy.
In my view, a far more compelling explanation is that there is a concerted effort to balkanize the ME completely, in order to justify a permanent US military presence in the region (the ‘War on Terror’), and–most importantly–to deny any other power, such as Russia or China, the chance to make alliances with local states in the region. Additionally, a ME in a permanent state of chaos would make a splendid incubator for more jihadism, which would justify permanent police states and more ‘refugee’ resettlement in the West, while simultaneously serving as a springboard for destabilizing neighboring regions such as (predominantly Moslem) central Asia. The latter would be very useful for keeping Russia and China permanently bogged down in their own backyard and preoccupied with crushing domestic insurgencies in places like Chechnya or East Turkestan.
Oh, and it would dovetail nicely with Tel Aviv’s ‘Greater Israel’ plan.
Here are a few search terms that should get you up and running:
– Col. Ralph Peter’s map of the middle east
– the Oded Yinon plan
– the Clean Break memo
Ultimately, you’ll start to realize that the Zionists played the star role in both putting the plan together as well as putting it into action.
If Huntington had more honesty, he would have said Imperialism has bloody borders.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it was the West pressing into Muslim borders, not vice versa. 9/11 was blowback. Seriously, would it have happened if not for US wars(often for Israel) in the Middle East?
For every single Westerner in EU or US killed by Muslim terrorism, how many in MENA were killed by cruise missiles, jets, tanks, drone strikes, sanctions?
Who destroyed the borders that protected the Middle East from the West? With the end of the Cold War, the Middle East no longer had Soviet support. It was vulnerable and ripe for US invasions. As Zionists gained greater power, there was more pressure to push for sanctions and invasions for Israel's interests. The effect has been devastating.
The fact is most of Afghanistan had NOTHING to do with 9/11. If any two nations sponsored Osama(if indeed he was the culprit), it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two close allies of the US. Also, they fostered terrorists with the full cooperation of the CIA that had found Sunni terrorism useful against Soviets and Iran. So, the three nations most responsible for 9/11 were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the US(and Israel). But it was used as excuse to invade ALL of Afghanistan. And then Iraq was framed and was destroyed too. But the madness even extended to Libya and Syria under Obama. And US has been backing Saudi war on Yemen.
As for Western borders against Angry Muslims, guess who undermined that? Jewish globalists and their cuck-collaborators. Destroying borders in both the Middle East and the West. Making a mess of everything.
Huntington was right that lots of Muslims can lead to problems. But the momentum for invasions and migrations didn't begin in the Muslim world. It was hatched in the West under increasing Jewish control.
While the old Wasp establishment was also neo-imperialist, they were more 'objective' in dealing with other nations. Under rule of realpolitik, they were willing to work with any nation for US interest. For instance, during the Cold War, the US was close to Japan and hostile to China. But when relations improved with China and when Japan seemed to getting too rich in the 80s, the US grew closer to China and cooler toward Japan. And then, when Japan's economy stalled while China expanded, US grew closer to Japan again. So, even though Anglo-style hegemony was opportunistic, it was 'fair' in the sense that the US was willing to work with any nation in US interest.
But this became impossible in the Middle East. Israel had to be favored no matter what, EVEN AGAINST American interests. Any Anglo realist who called for balancing Arab/Muslim interests with Zionist-Israeli interests was purged. In the Middle East, Realpolitik was replaced with Zealpolitik.
http://buchanan.org/blog/how-bill-kristol-purged-the-arabists-5085
US foreign policy operated over there(and elsewhere) to serve Israeli interest. But it went beyond that. After all, Russia is no threat to Israel. So, why is US so hostile to Russia? Because Russia is hated by Jewish globalist interests. So, US foreign policy must serve both Israel and Jewish supremacist ego all over the world.
Imagine if Japanese had such control of US government and foreign policy that US policy in Asia had to praise and favor Japan at every turn, EVEN IF Japan acted badly and alienated all of Asia against the US. It'd be ridiculous. But Israel has that kind of control over the US.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @hhsiii, @Anonymous, @The Wild Geese Howard
I smell a basement in Tehran…
The concept of an essentially borderless world that is run of, by and for WASP Elites aint new. It is merely an expansion of earlier notions, such as a borderless Prydain ruled of, by, and for WASPs, and a borderless set of British Isles ruled of, for, and by WASPs. And borderless oceans ruled of, by and for WASPs – meaning WASP Elites
As Hegel was a thorough Materialist, I’d say that ‘Mind’ is better.
The Islamic world is cohesive in that it is based on a religion that has but 1 official language – Arabic: there is not even an official translation of the Koran to another language – and is a deep and totally encompassing reflection of non-Jewish Semitic culture. Nations Islamized become Semitized. That is true whether Sunni or Shiite.
I was at a lecture with Samuel Huntington at the University of Copenhagen 22.years ago. He said that the term “cold war” that was used for the western relations with the Sovjet union was used for centuries by the spanish after the reconquest in their relationship with the muslim world.
What he’s saying is Hegel was unable to complete the system of German idealism. Here, just watch this:
Speaking of clashes of civilisations:
There is a new analysis using data from the Bureau of Economic Affairs you may find interesting regarding affordable family formation, Raj Chetty’s theories about magic dirt, Affordably Destroying White People in Suburbia and Rural Areas, etc.: The real value of $100.00 = $78.70 in San José, Mexinchifornia, but $126.90 in Beckley, West Virginia. Interesting to see things normalised.
https://taxfoundation.org/real-value-100-metro-2018
Is that a parody out of Cholly Bilderberger?
“This is fine.”
Strobe Talbott is an evil baby boomer globalizer who pushes open borders mass immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.
Mass immigration lowers wages, increases housing costs, swamps schools, overwhelms hospitals, harms the environment and causes urban sprawl.
Mass immigration brings ISLAMIC TERRORISM and MULTICULTURAL MAYHEM to the United States.
Strobe Talbott is just as much of an enemy of the American people as the corporate media.
Tweet from 2015:
Semantics.
At the end of the day the Ummah are all in lockstep with regard to the elimination of the infidel.
If Huntington had more honesty, he would have said Imperialism has bloody borders.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, it was the West pressing into Muslim borders, not vice versa. 9/11 was blowback. Seriously, would it have happened if not for US wars(often for Israel) in the Middle East?
For every single Westerner in EU or US killed by Muslim terrorism, how many in MENA were killed by cruise missiles, jets, tanks, drone strikes, sanctions?
Who destroyed the borders that protected the Middle East from the West? With the end of the Cold War, the Middle East no longer had Soviet support. It was vulnerable and ripe for US invasions. As Zionists gained greater power, there was more pressure to push for sanctions and invasions for Israel's interests. The effect has been devastating.
The fact is most of Afghanistan had NOTHING to do with 9/11. If any two nations sponsored Osama(if indeed he was the culprit), it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two close allies of the US. Also, they fostered terrorists with the full cooperation of the CIA that had found Sunni terrorism useful against Soviets and Iran. So, the three nations most responsible for 9/11 were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the US(and Israel). But it was used as excuse to invade ALL of Afghanistan. And then Iraq was framed and was destroyed too. But the madness even extended to Libya and Syria under Obama. And US has been backing Saudi war on Yemen.
As for Western borders against Angry Muslims, guess who undermined that? Jewish globalists and their cuck-collaborators. Destroying borders in both the Middle East and the West. Making a mess of everything.
Huntington was right that lots of Muslims can lead to problems. But the momentum for invasions and migrations didn't begin in the Muslim world. It was hatched in the West under increasing Jewish control.
While the old Wasp establishment was also neo-imperialist, they were more 'objective' in dealing with other nations. Under rule of realpolitik, they were willing to work with any nation for US interest. For instance, during the Cold War, the US was close to Japan and hostile to China. But when relations improved with China and when Japan seemed to getting too rich in the 80s, the US grew closer to China and cooler toward Japan. And then, when Japan's economy stalled while China expanded, US grew closer to Japan again. So, even though Anglo-style hegemony was opportunistic, it was 'fair' in the sense that the US was willing to work with any nation in US interest.
But this became impossible in the Middle East. Israel had to be favored no matter what, EVEN AGAINST American interests. Any Anglo realist who called for balancing Arab/Muslim interests with Zionist-Israeli interests was purged. In the Middle East, Realpolitik was replaced with Zealpolitik.
http://buchanan.org/blog/how-bill-kristol-purged-the-arabists-5085
US foreign policy operated over there(and elsewhere) to serve Israeli interest. But it went beyond that. After all, Russia is no threat to Israel. So, why is US so hostile to Russia? Because Russia is hated by Jewish globalist interests. So, US foreign policy must serve both Israel and Jewish supremacist ego all over the world.
Imagine if Japanese had such control of US government and foreign policy that US policy in Asia had to praise and favor Japan at every turn, EVEN IF Japan acted badly and alienated all of Asia against the US. It'd be ridiculous. But Israel has that kind of control over the US.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @hhsiii, @Anonymous, @The Wild Geese Howard
TLDR;
One is either conquering and controlling others, or one is being conquered and controlled.
You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is most certainly interested in YOU.
The clash of civilisations with regards to actual adherents on the 2 sides (the Godless vs the Monotheists) can be easily won by your side. You fellows obviously have the means to wipe out Muslims, and surely some of you even have the nether itch to implement it too. We will have to see if the Almighty One allows that. ;)
But, with regards to pure theist ideology, it will prove to be a totally different battle. Your hero, Huntington, would have learnt that on the 24th December, 2008.What does that even mean? Islam is only interested in the godless YOU insofar as your salvation is concerned. Since you have chosen hell, that is okay too.Replies: @The Wild Geese Howard
Strobe Talbott always secretly struck me as someone who must owe his success to the fact that his name annoys the hell out of me.
There: it’s out.
William the Conqueror was a "messenger of destruction" to the Saxon ruling class of England.
Strobe Talbott was a "messenger of destruction" to American national sovereignty and American cultural cohesion.
Plenty of Normans benefited from the dislodgement of the Saxon ruling class, and Talbott was an ideological front man for the globalizers who wanted to destroy the sovereignty and ethnic integrity of the United States in order to concentrate wealth and power.
lmao
Democracy IS the mistake. Virtually all authoritarian countries have healthier societies than democratic ones, even the ones that are piss poor.
I'm not a fan of Huntington. I would argue that there ARE universal values--authoritarian and hierarchical ones, observed in every society from the dawn of history, and not just because people were dumb and brutish. By comparison, liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western cities.Replies: @Rosie, @johnd, @The Wild Geese Howard, @3g4me
I am beginning to believe that rule by an enlightened despot is the best humanity can do.
Real-world examples would include Marcus Aurelius and Lee Kuan Yew.
Democracy may not bring out the best in governance, but it can, for at least awhile, avoid the worst.Replies: @Samuel Skinner
Sam Huntington of Harvard did not have calves the size of cantaloupes; but, Steve “Calves The Size Of Cantaloupes” King was hinting at Huntington when he said you can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.
Tweet from 2017:
Sam Huntington knew that mass immigration was a national security issue and a civilizational issue.
Tweet from 2014:
It often is, as Geist straddles both English concepts of “mind” and “spirit” describing, as it does, the intangible side of existence.
Unfortunately, for the same reason, the highly materialistic cast of the modern outlook makes it very difficult to translate meaningfully at all.
Similarly, in a recent conversation with a modern, university-town educated young woman, I described a disease with no physiological source as a “soul illness”. Her response: “What’s a ‘soul’?”.
If your fundamental belief is that everything is just particles colliding the void, then fine distinctions about the “meaning” of the intangible is just so much white noise.
There: it's out.Replies: @Charles Pewitt, @Alfa158, @Anonymous
Strobe Talbott’s surname means MESSENGER OF DESTRUCTION. His people must have been some of the Krauts who came over with William the Conqueror to slaughter all the Saxons who needed to be slaughtered.
William the Conqueror was a “messenger of destruction” to the Saxon ruling class of England.
Strobe Talbott was a “messenger of destruction” to American national sovereignty and American cultural cohesion.
Plenty of Normans benefited from the dislodgement of the Saxon ruling class, and Talbott was an ideological front man for the globalizers who wanted to destroy the sovereignty and ethnic integrity of the United States in order to concentrate wealth and power.
Sam Huntington said the United States is a British Protestant settler nation.
Pat Buchanan says the United States is a European Christian nation.
The Sam Huntington against Pat Buchanan battle is a contest of how to describe national identity between two guys who had reasonably similar worldviews.
I agree with Pat Buchanan, but overall Sam Huntington is correct.
Tweet from 2014 links to John O’Sullivan article on Huntington from 2004:
Steve’s background is not overly British, but he seems to grok such concepts as limited government and freedom of speech.
I think the correct way to put it is Huntington was less wrong than Fukuyama, but only because Huntington accepted the obvious. Modernity brought Western man and his weird ideas into greater contract with the rest of the world. Conflict was inevitable.
As far as who may be the Lex Luther of the borderless world, I have a different take on that idea. I think open borders is the natural evolution of democracy. This same process turns up in other areas, like the quest for new markets, or the search for new talent, etc.
Do not forget Feliks Koneczny and his ON THE PLURALITY OF CIVILIZATIONS. pdf is on the web.
Connect the dots.
26 February, 1993 – World Trade Center bombing
Summer 1993 Issue of Foreign Affairs publishes Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations?”
A borderless world is a center-right idea that follows naturally from libertarian thinking and free market idolatry. Maybe Fukuyama is not the father of that idea, but he is certainly an uncle and bears responsibility.
There is actually a big difference between “open borders” as proposed by leftists and the borderless world dream beloved by neoliberals and corporate CEOs. The former in practice means “open for me but not for thee”, i.e. the West has a duty to allow Mexicans, Somalis, Congolese, etc. come in whenever they want, but those countries are apparently justified in denying Westerners the rights to own land, open businesses, buy farms, or even just live hassle-free in their countries. To be fair to Bill Clinton, I suspect he is more in the Fukuyama camp where there would be no borders at all and the entire world would be an English-speaking neo-liberal paradise with cubicle jobs, Amazon overnight delivery and craft beer on tap from Guatemala to Gujarat.
Mass population transfers were a commonplace occurrence in historical empires, almost exclusively for the benefit of the imperator(s), as in the present case of electing a new American people.Replies: @Anonymous
Huntington merely regurgitated well-known point. This was well-known before Samuel Huntington was born. In fact, in some states this knowledge was one of the foundations of their foreign policy.
So yes at one time it was obvious to the same degree that it was obvious that a tranny is not a woman, but times change.Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
National socialism is anti-democratic on the grounds competing interest groups would rip apart society competing for power.
In fact, in an actual democracy, some variation on national socialism will win every time. This view underestimates the power of patriotic feeling. Was it in the interests of White working class men to March off to War one hundred years ago? Most certainly not, but they did it anyway out of a sense of duty, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. Of course, all of this depends on a homogeneous population with a sense of ownership in their society. We don't have that anymore.Replies: @Samuel Skinner
OT-
Steve has commented on this before and has a better hypothesis than Dr. Harden
There: it's out.Replies: @Charles Pewitt, @Alfa158, @Anonymous
I always thought it was a perfect name for someone who lives in Newport, wears ascots a lot, is a middling rank polo player, and whose profession is listed as “sportsman” in his wedding announcement.
open borders/one world:
Holy Roman Empire > Dick Coudenhove-Kalergi > Pan-European Union>Charlemagne Prize (check recipients-who’s who of thieves and reprobates) > European Union > George Soros > Open Society Foundations > Money to corrupt US politicians (almost all?) > voilà – open borders/one world
I took Huntington’s main idea to be that the distinct cultures of the 90s would remain distinct, and that those which weren’t Western would oppose being assimilated into Western culture. He certainly saw an impending clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, and perceived it as tending toward violence.
Fukuyama instead believed that all cultures would soon follow the Western model.
Huntington’s theory can’t be too trivial, if it makes predictions opposed to those of Fukuyama.
The guys wiki page is a dystopian nightmare. His grandparents would not have been proud. Grandma was an anti-suffragette and grandpa a war hero Brigadier General who served in three wars. Strobe’s daddy turned out less than, and the only mentions I found were that he was a warrior against Climate Change.
So I’m back to my musings about ‘regression to imbecility’ and how, if you are immensely successful you may prevent your legacy from becoming absolute shit. Is there any foundation (ie Ford, Rhodes, Mott, etc) that hasn’t become the evil twin opposite of its benefactor’s wishes? Are there any kids or grandkids of our titans of industry or war heroes who haven’t become globohomo SJWs? And what, if you are immensely successful, can one do to preserve your legacy? Order your entire net worth converted to cash and have your corpse immolated atop of it?
Howard Hughes created a medical foundation. However, it's main asset was Hughes Aircraft Compayy. Al Mann gives 100 million dollar gifts to universities to build biomedical research institutions like at UCLA and USC. Henri Samueli donted enough money to have UCLA and UC Irvine's Engineering Schools after him. However, his partner in Broadcom, Henry Nicolas provided large numbers of recurring grants to his drug dealer.
There’s still a market for Fukuyama’s ideas — or at least the irrationality behind them. Popular young-ish left-wing brocialist podcasters “Chapo Trap House” released recently a popular book(?) that, from the extracts I’ve seen, repackages Fukuyamist end-of-history overoptimism for lazy millennial men(?) who want to be told that the 1% will all pay AND they won’t have to work.
O/T: Krugman in NYT claims that if Republicans retain control of Congress we will become just another “Poland or Hungary” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/opinion/trump-republican-party-authoritarianism.html
O/T: Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez in hot water over 2013 Instagram post featuring a pro-second amendment message and an image of Hitler (used in a negative context.)
How many commenters here have actually read books by Huntington or Fukuyama?
I read Huntington’s Clash Of Civilizations, it was a fascinating page turner. I feel like there are too many political books to read, but that was just hard to put down, and there were gems on every page. I’m reading Who are We (which unfortunately isn’t on the major ebook services). It’s absolutely a must-read for any fan of this blog. I’ll read Fukuyama next.
I’d request a Steve Sailer recommended book list.
Today “democracy” means “maintaining neoliberal hegemony at any cost”. Absolutely meaningless term, especially with the neon glow stars around it nowadays.
Francis made the mistake that so many on the Left have: assuming that history is a linear path to gay space communism with no idea of how to get there beyond “make everyone think like me” and no conception of other people having a say (or different ideas!).
If I recall The End of History correctly, there were data and comprehensively explained anecdotes to support Fukuyama’s premise and his historical narrative was grounded and well-researched.
From this essay:
“Neither the China model nor the emerging populist-nationalist one represented by Russia, Turkey, or Hungary will likely be sustainable economically or politically over an extended period. On the other hand, democracies have mechanisms in place for correcting mistakes, and a big test of American democracy will occur in November when Americans get to vote on whether they approve of the presidency of Donald Trump. Moreover, the rural, less-educated parts of the population that are the core of populist support are, in countries experiencing economic growth, in long-term decline.”
So our democracy is successful not merely when people are able to think and debate freely, and to vote, but only when they vote for certain things. This is Huffpo-or-equivalent-rag-level demagoguery.
It must’ve been a small check from American Interest. Mr. Fukuyama is a smart man, in spite of his biases and chronic wrongness. This essay is mostly crap. I doubt he wrote it over more than a couple hours or with any forethought.
The work that needs to be brought up to date, and Steve would be a good person to do it, is “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” Or perhaps it should be crowd-authored, with Steve having overall editorial control.
They are all happy to see the West Islamify.
John Tierney on mandatory freshman brainwashing courses now at 90 percent of universities, Coates reading required, taught not by professors but rather by diversity administrators.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/first-year-experience-16137.html
What’s the deal with New York Times science writers going rouge after retirement? Is that behind the more recent science writer (((hiring pattern)))?
OT
They said it couldn’t be done, but Claremont’s Harvey Mudd College was able to recruit representative numbers of black and female students into its prestigious, rigorous STEM program.
Not content to sit on its laurels, Harvey Mudd is embarking on its next challenge: figuring out why so many students are suddenly flunking out.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-a-Liberal-Arts-College-Is/244383?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1
Open borders is a euphemism for empire.
Mass population transfers were a commonplace occurrence in historical empires, almost exclusively for the benefit of the imperator(s), as in the present case of electing a new American people.
(Man kann wohl hoffen, daß die Kunst immer mehr steigen und sich vollenden werde, aber ihre Form hat aufgehört, das höchste Bedürfnis des Geistes zu sein.) Goethe thought - in parts - almost like Hegel (he was much more subtle and knowledgeable, too in these artsy things than Hegel was) - anyways, there was Goethe, there was Marx and there was Hegel all thinking, that classical Greek art was most valuable. Then Geothe died and Heine, - having studied with Hegel and having met Goethe (albeit without being in his right mind to say anything of interest to this much admired man...being awe-struck altogether) - Heine, I say, was at the same time being friends with Marx and wrapped the whole affair up and coined the term: The end of the art-period, which - in my mind, too, - now stands for the whole affair.Kant did not buy into this Hegelian concept, that you could - by sheer force of your mind (= judgment (=Urteil) somehow preside over any part of the human history. He, therefore, opened up the arts as an eternal and specific field of transgressions and discoveries (= a field of experimentation and consolidation at the same time) - what Schiller understood right away and managed to write down very charmingly and clearly in his Letters Concerning the Education of Mankind.Of course, Heine thought the same way like Kant and Schiller. He too did not buy the idea, that art could end, or has been perfected and thus ended by the old Greeks. So - Heine made fun of Hegel a) by outliving him, and b) by just keepin' on keepin' on in his efforts to find the cracks in everything, to make sure, that the light of play, and joyfulness and insight even - kept pouring in.(The last irony in all that is, that Hegel - for very good reasons, is known as the thinker, who understood first, that modernity consists of (= is, basically)a form of time-consciousness (=undeterminatedness, unstableness) here and rationality (=planning, control, stability) there(cf. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity, p. 57 ff).But here starts another story, because the element of time, which is one of the constituents of our times (=modernity) (= forms modernity's core), this very element of time is something basically uncalculable - therefor the hermeneutic (=structural) benefit of hindsight (= the systematic hermeneutic need for distance) (cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Truth and Method" (=the "urbanization of Heidegger" (Habermas made that quite telling remark about both Heidegger a n d Gadamer). Fukuyama's Hegel reception does not take into account, that a) there is no way to decide over the end of societal trends after Gadamer and Heidegger (there never will be last words about such subjects, as long as anyone thinks about them, because time will always stand in their way) and b) that Hegel, in the one famous case, in which he did try to have the last word - which is his theory of the end of art - failed big style.Replies: @Twinkie, @Desiderius, @Twinkie
Pls try again with less Sokal.
Interested in what you’re attempting to say.
Speaking of winning, another article about Stephen Miller
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/29/stephen-miller-immigration-policy-white-house-trump-799199
Perhaps Miller’s most important move has been identifying and promoting lower-level staffers who share his anti-immigration views, some of whom he helped place into key agencies, essentially embedding foot soldiers across the federal government.
…
A White House staffer who admires Miller said the Trump confidant is in contact with many more career staffers across the government who support his views, even lawyers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Miller has asked people to look at every policy change possible within the executive branch’s authority to be stricter on immigration, the White House staffer said.
The former White House official warned, however, against exaggerating Miller’s reach, saying that although he has a solid “kitchen cabinet” of advisers, “there’s a mythology that’s crept up that overstates their influence.” Miller, the former official added, has promoted that “myth.”
National socialism isn’t populist democracy. It’s more of a secularized version of Catholic authoritarianism or clerical fascism.
OT – Is DeSantis the next Trump? This is hilarious:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/404151-desantis-florida-voters-shouldnt-monkey-this-up-by-voting-for
Mass population transfers were a commonplace occurrence in historical empires, almost exclusively for the benefit of the imperator(s), as in the present case of electing a new American people.Replies: @Anonymous
Population movements in commerce based empires like the British Empire and the current American empire tend to be dictated by commercial needs. Jamaicans are black instead of Taino not because the British wanted to elect a new Jamaican people as an end in itself, but because commercial interests were prominent in driving British policy.
In more authoritarian, less commercial empires, like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, mass population transfers are generally state directed affairs done for political reasons.
Religious Catholics in Bavaria, Sao Paolo, and Manila would also be happy to see the world become Catholic. That doesn’t mean they’re a cohesive bloc, and they’re split into different blocs in Huntington’s model.
One is either conquering and controlling others, or one is being conquered and controlled.
You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is most certainly interested in YOU.Replies: @anonymous
You can conquer and control Muslims, but you can never conquer or control the ideology of True Monotheism. You fellows will use the delusions of Paganism\Polytheism aka Godlessness to conquer Monotheism? I laugh at you all.
The clash of civilisations with regards to actual adherents on the 2 sides (the Godless vs the Monotheists) can be easily won by your side. You fellows obviously have the means to wipe out Muslims, and surely some of you even have the nether itch to implement it too. We will have to see if the Almighty One allows that. 😉
But, with regards to pure theist ideology, it will prove to be a totally different battle. Your hero, Huntington, would have learnt that on the 24th December, 2008.
What does that even mean? Islam is only interested in the godless YOU insofar as your salvation is concerned. Since you have chosen hell, that is okay too.
It means that, as an ideology, Islam is explicitly in opposition to the idea of, "live and let live."
So I’m back to my musings about ‘regression to imbecility’ and how, if you are immensely successful you may prevent your legacy from becoming absolute shit. Is there any foundation (ie Ford, Rhodes, Mott, etc) that hasn’t become the evil twin opposite of its benefactor’s wishes? Are there any kids or grandkids of our titans of industry or war heroes who haven’t become globohomo SJWs? And what, if you are immensely successful, can one do to preserve your legacy? Order your entire net worth converted to cash and have your corpse immolated atop of it?Replies: @MarkinLA, @Crawfurdmuir
Order your entire net worth converted to cash and have your corpse immolated atop of it?
Howard Hughes created a medical foundation. However, it’s main asset was Hughes Aircraft Compayy. Al Mann gives 100 million dollar gifts to universities to build biomedical research institutions like at UCLA and USC. Henri Samueli donted enough money to have UCLA and UC Irvine’s Engineering Schools after him. However, his partner in Broadcom, Henry Nicolas provided large numbers of recurring grants to his drug dealer.
Isn’t most of this for oil? Which we have plenty of now. Anyway, I doubt it’s because there’s a Jew in every woodpile. I’m Protestant. I’d like to think we still run everything. Badly. Let’s take a Daiquiri time out.Replies: @notanon, @Digital Samizdat, @Gracebear
Credit Where Credit Is Due:
I am very glad to hear mention of U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie (America’s first female ambassador to an Arab state) who can be credited with having ‘“started the whole damn thing” ( my phrase, meaning U.S.wars in the Middle East), when she told Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait.” Years later she said she had “no regrets.” She said that “no one wants to take the blame” but that she is “quite happy to take the blame.” Her cluelessness reminds me of Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s statement in 1950 that the U.S. ”excluded Korea from the U.S.’s area of concern,” a remark possibly opening the gate for the Korean war. (Wikipedia articles on Glaspie and Acheson)
Is it really possible that all these tragic horrors were triggered by the verbal and intellectual carelessness of two of our diplomats?
\
Glaspie's remark is perhaps excusable; Acheson was supposed to know wtf he was doing.
(As a general rule, I don't think the U.S. should be sending women as diplomats to Muslim countries because it can lead to cultural problems and misunderstandings, but this wasn't one of them.)
The most generous explanation I can think of is that in the spring/summer of 1990 all eyes were on Eastern Europe (which was in a state of turmoil) and nobody was paying attention to the Middle East.
Real-world examples would include Marcus Aurelius and Lee Kuan Yew.Replies: @Corn
Perhaps so. But the despot who governs after the good one retires or dies may be lousy or outright abusive.
Democracy may not bring out the best in governance, but it can, for at least awhile, avoid the worst.
It blocks Fukuyama from victory (even though this decisive triviality as presented does not yet get Huntington to a win), so Francis probably doesn’t consider it to be trivial.
Strobe Talbott – a Robert MacNamara for the new century, failing ever upward.
I don’t know what kind of catastrophe Strobe had in mind but it sounds quite a bit like saying that Mom wasn’t right to warn about that Russian Roulette thing, everything went well and you would do it again in a heartbeat.
Remember Able Archer.
This is true but it should be brought up that the Muslim Brotherhood has effected a great coup in the Obama era, where the academic and institutional understanding of Islam was completely transformed. I was flat-out told in an otherwise respectable Muslim history class that all Muslim expansion was peaceful, which is insanely wrong, but which is also consistent with this new orthodoxy. Stephen Coughlin was an Islam expert with a famous lecture at the Pentagon (the “red pill lecture,” on youtube) who was thrown out as part of this. These are the same discussion rules under which using straightforward terms like Ummah (“Muslim world,” but the Ikhwan want it reserved for a later, wider one), Caliphate, and Islamic State was forbidden. It’s an implementation of Edward Said’s ridiculous arrogance that white people cannot have a legitimate observation about Muslims.
So yes at one time it was obvious to the same degree that it was obvious that a tranny is not a woman, but times change.
If only the rest of our foreign policy establishment was as honest and self-aware as Mr. Fukuyama…
If we really had the comedic and satirical situation that Colbert pretends we have then this would be a movie or a series. Instead the closest we get is that castrated one-off comedy about the foul-mouthed alcoholic British journalist.
OT Defendants from the New Mexico Salafist school shooting training compound, where a child was murdered in a religious ritual, have been let go on a technicality.
If judges start going missing, then what on Earth will these people say? After all, the culprit might be the child-murdering terrorists that these judges bent over backwards to release. Everybody who ever had a business lunch with Trump needs to be investigated, but murdering a child is legal.
“Mind” is derived from “Gemund”/”mentis” (“thought”) where as “spirit” is derived from “espiritus” (“breath”).
“Geist” has the same cognate as English “ghost,” hence “Der Heilige Geist” (“The Holy Ghost”).
Correction: Certain national socialists oppose democracy on the grounds that competition for power would rip society apart.
In fact, in an actual democracy, some variation on national socialism will win every time. This view underestimates the power of patriotic feeling. Was it in the interests of White working class men to March off to War one hundred years ago? Most certainly not, but they did it anyway out of a sense of duty, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. Of course, all of this depends on a homogeneous population with a sense of ownership in their society. We don’t have that anymore.
There is also the issue over time the socialism part of national socialism becomes more and more free stuff.Replies: @Rosie
National socialism us the natural outcome of populist democracy, which is why populist democracy is not allowed. If neoliberal capitalism was the natural outcome of populist democracy, we would have populist democracy.
Hobbes and Huntington were right and Rousseau and Fukuyama were wrong.
End of.
Alas the great and good and the vast majority of our policy makers have it arse about face.
How exactly is Huntington winning?Replies: @J.Ross, @Whiskey, @Anonymous, @notanon, @AnotherDad
Islam. Chinese–authoritarian nationalist development. Russia–whatever the heck Putin is doing, he isn’t knowtowing and to the American deep state and/or the deep state’s Jews that makes him a rival.
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn’t a strong ideological rival to “liberal democracy”. Well depends a lot on what you mean.
–> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
–> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem–and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly …
–> Our elites–or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class–are defining “liberal democracy” to mean basically anti-democracy or “what Ivy educated Jews want”. Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they’ve defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be “illiberal”, then by defintion “liberal democracy” has clear rival–i.e. what used to be called “liberal democracy”, normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation’s people.
China and Russia are sovereign nation-states acting like sovereign nation-states. Huntington included southeast Asia and the Korean peninsula in the Sinic bloc, and southeastern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece in the Russian bloc. This failed to predict actual political developments in those areas. SE Europe is part of the EU and NATO and has conflicts with Russia, SE Asia and South Korea has disputes with China, etc. Any kind of reasonable, traditional cultural analysis would have included Japan in the Sinic bloc, but Huntington had to posit a separate bloc just for Japan in order to make his paradigm fit at the time. If he were alive today, he'd have to fiddle with it again in order it to fit with actual politics.
Some other pipelines with more realistic views need to be built.
Your identification of Western elites' changing conception of "democracy" is insightful. I wonder if this shouldn't be classed with PRC as a form of authoritarianism.Replies: @Samuel Skinner
Are current conflicts the result of identity or ideas?
In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, identity is referenced on 39% (119 of 302) of the pages of primary text. If identity is at the heart of current conflicts then it appears that Huntington was correct. In contrast Fukuyama was pointing to the importance of ideas, not identity, and the superiority of a certain set of ideas.
I already used my "agree" button, but this is a vital point. It's the conflict between HBD and the Blank Slate writ large. Unsurprisingly, HBD is winning.
BTW SS, I don’t dispute that certain kinds of democracy would have this result, particularly highly decentralized systems that naturally favor deep pockets. This is not the only kind of democracy, though. Elitists just pretend it is because it works for them. A populist democracy would naturally prefer a strong executive authority. I suppose you could call that an authoritarian dictatorship of a kind, but that doesn’t make it undemocratic in the sense that ordinary people understand that term, i.e. that power flows from the people.
The way the left gains power is they claim x, then sabotage y so that x happens; thus people can see they have power and align to them. If you have a leader who can arrest people for claiming x or arrest people on the suspicion of sabotage or hire and fire any member of the government at will, you have a leader who has the power to do anything they desire.
At that point, it isn't clear what the difference is between your government and elective monarchyReplies: @Rosie
Francis made the mistake that so many on the Left have: assuming that history is a linear path to gay space communism with no idea of how to get there beyond "make everyone think like me" and no conception of other people having a say (or different ideas!).Replies: @Rosie
What’s more, I object to this whole idea that “liberal democracy” won some sort of contest of ideas. Communism buckled under its own weight, but national socialism had to be destroyed by ruthless, total warfare. Neoliberalism will prove to be only slightly more durable than communism.
This is supporting evidence for your post a few years ago (I can’t find it with a few minutes’ searching) with details of which institutions of third level learning were most and least likely to give one a better financial life outcome, controlled for those of similar background who didn’t attend that institution. All other things being equal, Yale was most likely to ensure an alumnus had an income less than that which he or she would have had, had he or she not attended Yale. The institutions which gave the most positive returns either trained pharmacists, or were very blue-collar Catholic places. Not a place to learn great decision-making!
Pat Buchanan says the United States is a European Christian nation.
The Sam Huntington against Pat Buchanan battle is a contest of how to describe national identity between two guys who had reasonably similar worldviews.
I agree with Pat Buchanan, but overall Sam Huntington is correct.
Tweet from 2014 links to John O'Sullivan article on Huntington from 2004:
https://twitter.com/CharlesPewitt/status/543063563837784064Replies: @Stan Adams
This makes sense, given that Pat Buchanan is a Catholic with Irish, English, Scottish, and German roots.
Steve’s background is not overly British, but he seems to grok such concepts as limited government and freedom of speech.
So yes at one time it was obvious to the same degree that it was obvious that a tranny is not a woman, but times change.Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
Edward Said is unreadable and his “scholarship” is, obviously, a convoluted faux-academic excuse for Ummah’s horrendous backwardness, in terms of real development. But, since most in the West do not really read Russian classic literature and never bothered, say with Dostoevsky’s description of simple soldier Foma Danilov’s (in Dostoevsky’s Writer’s Diaries) torturous death from the hands of Muslims and explanation of why Russia was forced to finally stop a rather massive centuries’ old slave trade of Russian peasants from Southern Urals and what today is known as Kazakhstan, it is difficult to explain to them also how fast war in Chechnya turned into the religious war. With Saudis and other Gulfies’ shitholes pretending to be countries and good US allies, lavishly financing all kinds of “freedom fighters”. Ah, wait (wink, wink) before that there was Afghanistan, no–not 2000, 1979.
I hope so they do–a good start will be introduction to a humanities field in the US a basic concept of causality–that cause cannot precede the effect and that everything has its consequences. I noticed there were some issues with this concept in the US for quite some time;-)
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
There you go!
Google really doesn’t make it easy to get to my Taki’s Magazine essays:
http://takimag.com/article/alma_mater_blotter_steve_sailer/#ixzz4lINDpuwg
Damn, correction–of course effect cannot precede the cause. Duh. LOL.
After Heine (and Wittgenstein), it doesn’t matter that much, whether (thanks, Reg) you speak of the mind or of the spirit. The translations vary – you find Hegel-translations from the late 19th century, which use “mind” and at the same time, you find “spirit”; lately, it’s rather “mind”.
I’ ve mentioned Heine and Wittgenstein because both depotentialized the rather long tradition of the “word-realists” – dating back to the days of a writer, who was part of the struggle between the realists and the nominalists in the middle ages and still gets mentioned by Steve every once in a while, because he used to go to Jesuit-school, I suppose – and this writer is Occam, of course. –
Well, the universalia argument (=the problem of the universals), was a discussion between (amongst others) William Occam in Munich and Thomas von Aquin and Eckhart in Paris (both were at times in Cologne, too). The word realists such as Thomas held, that the holy words contained the holy, or consisted thereof, whereas their counterparts made a distinction between the words and their meaning.
Nowadays, the substantial concept the word realists believed in is gone, nobody shivers any longer when hearing a word like spirit. For us, the quality of a word depends on the way, a word or a symbol is understood by a certain speaker – or listener. The context is now, what makes words work (that’s the late Wittgenstein – “meaning is the way, in which a word is used”).
The quarrel over universals is still simmering on whenever claims are being made, that there is a ghost in the machine for example. Or that computers “think” etc. Or that you could construct the truth – construct a philosophical system lets say, which makes sure, that everybody speaks the truth, simply by following its rules (hard constructivism).
This is a long story which has formally come to an end with Gödel (and not with Sokal; Sokal is just a footnote in the defeat of (or at least: fight against) postmodernism and deconstructivism). Gödels theorem claims that perfect formal systems in logic/mathematics don’t exist, or – if they exist, produce contradictions, which destroy them. The only exception Goedel accepted: If the system is fairly simple (= not capable). As soon, as formal systems are complex (=interesting, productive), they produce contradictions – out of the sheer necessity of their formal structures (inner limitations). Logic is only useful as a means, but shows no path to security, stability, let alone redemption or release or some such; because our existence thrives for something, which formal systems just don’t deliver: Something you can hold on to, or trust in, when in existential troubles (when looking for sense – and sensibility – – and faith (etc.).
Thanks, Steve! That wasn’t exactly the article I was thinking of, but the article I was thinking of must have been based on Raj Chetty’s data, as that one was, and the NYT presents data supporting my point above (but not underlining it, because that would lead to complaints from Yale reader grads): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/yale-university
Not quite true. They produce indeterminacy. Some statement are not provable. It is only when you try to complete the system by assigning True or False to undecidable statements you create contradiction that will kill the system which is rather trivial.
Also you got it wrong about Gödel and postmodernism. I think, Gödel made postmodernism possible. Not that he had much choice. He proved what was provable.
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
BTW AD, it bears notion that this is why (((they))) mean when they call Trump a “Nazi.” They consider moderately patriotic, cohesive societies with a social safety net and an economy that is regulated in the best interests of the native working class to be “national socialist.” Of course, they are not wrong. Contra Dugin, national socialism is not a defeated ideology of the past. Rather, it is an ever-present specter that haunts them and constantly threatens to dispossess them of their rightful place at the top of the social hierarchy.
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
Islam is mired in civil and religious conflicts.
China and Russia are sovereign nation-states acting like sovereign nation-states. Huntington included southeast Asia and the Korean peninsula in the Sinic bloc, and southeastern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece in the Russian bloc. This failed to predict actual political developments in those areas. SE Europe is part of the EU and NATO and has conflicts with Russia, SE Asia and South Korea has disputes with China, etc. Any kind of reasonable, traditional cultural analysis would have included Japan in the Sinic bloc, but Huntington had to posit a separate bloc just for Japan in order to make his paradigm fit at the time. If he were alive today, he’d have to fiddle with it again in order it to fit with actual politics.
That’s not what typifies “national socialism”, as that could describe social democracies and even liberal capitalist regimes like FDR’s New Deal era. What distinguishes national socialism is aggressive nationalism, irredentism, and expansionism.
- the Oded Yinon plan
- the Clean Break memoUltimately, you'll start to realize that the Zionists played the star role in both putting the plan together as well as putting it into action.Replies: @Thea
I’m afraid there isn’t even that much forethought regarding a policy for the Middle East. It appears to be very haphazard. The american government completely lacks experts on Iran for starters.
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
The Founders were wealthy planters, merchants, money lenders, and land speculators who feared majority rule. They looked to republican models in the past that were not populist democracies and were often oligarchic.
There: it's out.Replies: @Charles Pewitt, @Alfa158, @Anonymous
Brink Lindsey and Jody Bottum also irk the hell out of me that way
Similarly, if Putin weren't so almost super-humanly cautious and thick-skinned, American treatment of Russia would've resulted in a major blowback long ago. But no one in America's elite understands this because they learned exactly the wrong lesson from the Reagan years.Replies: @Sam Haysom, @Johann Ricke
Cool counterfactual inertial want to bring it to the White House.
Russia is weak Putin has tried to bring blow back several times but then had to bitch out cause his mouth is bigger than than his biceps.
The Fatal Conceit by Hayek
lmao
Democracy IS the mistake. Virtually all authoritarian countries have healthier societies than democratic ones, even the ones that are piss poor.
I'm not a fan of Huntington. I would argue that there ARE universal values--authoritarian and hierarchical ones, observed in every society from the dawn of history, and not just because people were dumb and brutish. By comparison, liberal democracy is a flash in the pan, and mostly limited to western cities.Replies: @Rosie, @johnd, @The Wild Geese Howard, @3g4me
@29 Jason Liu: “I would argue that there ARE universal values . . .”
No, there are universal TRUTHS. Most individuals, whether from dumb, brutish societies or pseudo-sophisticated ones, deny those truths in favor of relativism – of culture or values or truths. This does not change the balance between truth and error, but it certainly does change the consequences.
Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics is much better and more predictive.
In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, identity is referenced on 39% (119 of 302) of the pages of primary text. If identity is at the heart of current conflicts then it appears that Huntington was correct. In contrast Fukuyama was pointing to the importance of ideas, not identity, and the superiority of a certain set of ideas.Replies: @3g4me
@112 Curtis Dunkel: “If identity is at the heart of current conflicts then it appears that Huntington was correct. In contrast Fukuyama was pointing to the importance of ideas, not identity, and the superiority of a certain set of ideas.”
I already used my “agree” button, but this is a vital point. It’s the conflict between HBD and the Blank Slate writ large. Unsurprisingly, HBD is winning.
But the populism wouldn’t exist in Europe and North America if not for Subsaharans, MENAs, and Hispanics. So another way to conceptualize the populism is that Western Civilization is in conflict but there is a subset of Westerners who curiously refuse to acknowledge that. It just happens that subset has substantial political power.
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
That’s a salient point. A “pipeline” has been built into the judiciary; academia; journalism; public service; etc. Those who advance have been vetted for views that serve current power.
Some other pipelines with more realistic views need to be built.
Yes well given that this movement is very much political in nature that pretty much puts us in the second category doesn’t it.
Ahh, Strobe Talbott. A name pronounced with teeth firmly clenched and mouth drawn at both corners. A holdover from the old WASP Ascendancy…one of Slick’s fellow Rhodies and ultimately one of his “Wiz Kids”.
You mean like all of Asia?
If your point now is that from the perspective of the West there isn't a strong ideological rival to "liberal democracy". Well depends a lot on what you mean.
--> China is that rival in terms of a rising power.
--> Islam would only be an ideological rival in some fraction of the world, but since our elites insist on bring muslims into the West it has become a rival/problem--and with time will demography will inevitably make ita huge rival/problem.
And most importantly ...
--> Our elites--or at least the Jewish guys and gals who form the bulk of the chatting class--are defining "liberal democracy" to mean basically anti-democracy or "what Ivy educated Jews want". Elites get to impose their will judicially and bureaucratically to suppress any annoying nationalist or populist tendencies, and insure globo-cosmopolitanism, free flows of capital and labor and minoritarianism.
Since they've defined traditonal republican government and nationalism to be "illiberal", then by defintion "liberal democracy" has clear rival--i.e. what used to be called "liberal democracy", normal republican govenment acting in the interest of the nation's people.Replies: @Rosie, @Rosie, @Anonymous, @Anonymous, @bomag, @Chrisnonymous
Yes, authoritarianism is a main rival. We don’t recognize this because there are no “Chicomm Birchers” so to speak–ie, no one is raising an alarm. When the Navy told Congress that China is now in command of seas, it went largely unnoticed.
Your identification of Western elites’ changing conception of “democracy” is insightful. I wonder if this shouldn’t be classed with PRC as a form of authoritarianism.
Give us some gems. It’s subscriber only.
Gotta love that Liar’s Paradox!
Just put this blog into the Osterizer.
I don’t know why Francis Fukuyama is so universally misunderstood. He is both Hegelian & Nietzschean. True, he has, having used Platonic theory of soul throughout his book, carefully eliminated all alternatives to liberal democracy & capitalism. But, in the last chapter, Fukuyama’s inner Samurai has awoken, and he started to doubt whether a liberal democratic society could exist in the long run.
His ambivalence is this: in liberal democracies, people tend to become “hollow chested” or, they suffer from the lack of thumos/thymos, passionate & energetic driving force in life. So, at the end, Fukuyama has left the door to future open: perhaps liberal democracies will indeed be the end of history as we know it (meaning, it would be the final form of government). But- this all may also collapse because people want fight, pride, energy, struggle, collective expansion- in essence, while megalothymia may be dangerous, microthymia could be unlivable.
Not sure, but the earliest reference to “borderlessness” or “open borders” I know of is from a speech by George H.W. Bush to the UN in 1990, a few months before the first Iraq War. The context is Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, though he nods at the end of the Cold War, which wasn’t far away in October 1990:
“I see a world of open borders, open trade and, most importantly, open minds; a world that celebrates the common heritage that belongs to all the world’s people, taking pride not just in hometown or homeland but in humanity itself. I see a world touched by a spirit like that of the Olympics, based not on competition that’s driven by fear but sought out of joy and exhilaration and a true quest for excellence. And I see a world where democracy continues to win new friends and convert old foes and where the Americas — North, Central, and South — can provide a model for the future of all humankind: the world’s first completely democratic hemisphere. And I see a world building on the emerging new model of European unity, not just Europe but the whole world whole and free.”
Source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=18883
Of course, in the context of the Cold War “open borders” could mean “not totalitarian” but that’s clearly not what he means. He’s talking in Wendell Wilkie, “One World” style tongues here. Not sure but I think I read somewhere that Strobe Talbott was an admirer of Bush I. And the elder Bush was a former CIA man, so maybe they shared a deep state longing to invade the world/invite the world. Might help to know who his speech writer was, as he/she may deserve a share in that dubious honor as well.
Thread winner.
But yeah.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGn-9A4mFhwReplies: @Twinkie
(Man kann wohl hoffen, daß die Kunst immer mehr steigen und sich vollenden werde, aber ihre Form hat aufgehört, das höchste Bedürfnis des Geistes zu sein.) Goethe thought - in parts - almost like Hegel (he was much more subtle and knowledgeable, too in these artsy things than Hegel was) - anyways, there was Goethe, there was Marx and there was Hegel all thinking, that classical Greek art was most valuable. Then Geothe died and Heine, - having studied with Hegel and having met Goethe (albeit without being in his right mind to say anything of interest to this much admired man...being awe-struck altogether) - Heine, I say, was at the same time being friends with Marx and wrapped the whole affair up and coined the term: The end of the art-period, which - in my mind, too, - now stands for the whole affair.Kant did not buy into this Hegelian concept, that you could - by sheer force of your mind (= judgment (=Urteil) somehow preside over any part of the human history. He, therefore, opened up the arts as an eternal and specific field of transgressions and discoveries (= a field of experimentation and consolidation at the same time) - what Schiller understood right away and managed to write down very charmingly and clearly in his Letters Concerning the Education of Mankind.Of course, Heine thought the same way like Kant and Schiller. He too did not buy the idea, that art could end, or has been perfected and thus ended by the old Greeks. So - Heine made fun of Hegel a) by outliving him, and b) by just keepin' on keepin' on in his efforts to find the cracks in everything, to make sure, that the light of play, and joyfulness and insight even - kept pouring in.(The last irony in all that is, that Hegel - for very good reasons, is known as the thinker, who understood first, that modernity consists of (= is, basically)a form of time-consciousness (=undeterminatedness, unstableness) here and rationality (=planning, control, stability) there(cf. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity, p. 57 ff).But here starts another story, because the element of time, which is one of the constituents of our times (=modernity) (= forms modernity's core), this very element of time is something basically uncalculable - therefor the hermeneutic (=structural) benefit of hindsight (= the systematic hermeneutic need for distance) (cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Truth and Method" (=the "urbanization of Heidegger" (Habermas made that quite telling remark about both Heidegger a n d Gadamer). Fukuyama's Hegel reception does not take into account, that a) there is no way to decide over the end of societal trends after Gadamer and Heidegger (there never will be last words about such subjects, as long as anyone thinks about them, because time will always stand in their way) and b) that Hegel, in the one famous case, in which he did try to have the last word - which is his theory of the end of art - failed big style.Replies: @Twinkie, @Desiderius, @Twinkie
One more thing, because I like to poke bears. Shouldn’t “das höchste Bedürfnis des Geistes” be translated as “the highest desires of the spirit,” rather than “the highest needs of the mind”?
Being a ‘Democrat’ today is a different thing than it was when Huntington was alive.
Yes. Because in a dictatorship, no diplomat says anything that is not 100% the policy of The Man. Or else. So their world view is that our diplomats do the same.
Glaspie’s remark is perhaps excusable; Acheson was supposed to know wtf he was doing.
Nowadays reason or Science!
But yeah.
https://youtu.be/jln3fAv8ZBU
I’ve sung it countless times for my kids bedtime.
You’re like Holy Water to the Googferatu.
His ambivalence is this: in liberal democracies, people tend to become "hollow chested" or, they suffer from the lack of thumos/thymos, passionate & energetic driving force in life. So, at the end, Fukuyama has left the door to future open: perhaps liberal democracies will indeed be the end of history as we know it (meaning, it would be the final form of government). But- this all may also collapse because people want fight, pride, energy, struggle, collective expansion- in essence, while megalothymia may be dangerous, microthymia could be unlivable.Replies: @Desiderius
The present (and recent past) outbreak of this liberal democracy (sic) is largely an allergic reaction to Hiroshima and the consequent Atomic scare during the formative years of our ruling class.
You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced listening to Van Halen’s Panama on your phone at high volume (with earbuds), in a very foreign land, kind of dozing from exhaustion, and then suddenly hearing a bunch of dudes doing those prayers. The refrain mixes weirdly with the prayers!
But yeah.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGn-9A4mFhwReplies: @Twinkie
I’m a minimalist, so I prefer this:
I’ve sung it countless times for my kids bedtime.
Not much,
Would highly recommend reading the early works of Alex Wendt as a more advanced intro. Some of it can be a bit dense, but the underlying logic is in line with Huntington (and Fukuyama). His later work is a bit... outside the mainstream.Replies: @Charles Erwin Wilson
Is that the Alex Wendt mentioned here:
https://polisci.osu.edu/people/wendt.23
and where we read about:
Wendt’s recent book, Quantum Mind and Social Science (Cambridge, 2015) That Alex Wendt? The one who wrote: ” I and other social constructivists argued that “anarchy is what states make of it.””
And would you, al-Gharaniq say that you are the same Alex Wendt? Are you peddling your pathetic wares here?
Democracy may not bring out the best in governance, but it can, for at least awhile, avoid the worst.Replies: @Samuel Skinner
Nope. If you have limited suffrage that is true, but universal suffrage democracies transition to importing voters to win elections and paying off voters to win elections. Society and the economy is strip mined for resources and it dies.
In fact, in an actual democracy, some variation on national socialism will win every time. This view underestimates the power of patriotic feeling. Was it in the interests of White working class men to March off to War one hundred years ago? Most certainly not, but they did it anyway out of a sense of duty, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. Of course, all of this depends on a homogeneous population with a sense of ownership in their society. We don't have that anymore.Replies: @Samuel Skinner
Actual democracy gets subverted almost immediately since to guard against subversion you need to have someone with the power and authority to smack down any attempt to become top dog (which democracy lacks).
There is also the issue over time the socialism part of national socialism becomes more and more free stuff.
I’ve heard that refereed to as Authoritarian Democracy, Illiberal democracy or Presidential Dictatorship. It isn’t impossible (Russia is the most obvious example), but it slows down the rot, not eliminates it.
The way the left gains power is they claim x, then sabotage y so that x happens; thus people can see they have power and align to them. If you have a leader who can arrest people for claiming x or arrest people on the suspicion of sabotage or hire and fire any member of the government at will, you have a leader who has the power to do anything they desire.
At that point, it isn’t clear what the difference is between your government and elective monarchy
https://www.britannica.com/topic/monarchyReplies: @Crawfurdmuir
Your identification of Western elites' changing conception of "democracy" is insightful. I wonder if this shouldn't be classed with PRC as a form of authoritarianism.Replies: @Samuel Skinner
No; ‘authoritarianism’ refers to regimes that are stationary bandits. Liberal democracy is run by roving bandits.
There is also the issue over time the socialism part of national socialism becomes more and more free stuff.Replies: @Rosie
I don’t know about that. Again, so long as you have a population with a sense of ownership of society, the majority of the population will have an interest in maintaining fiscal health over the long term. As I have said before, I don’t think nationalism without socialism is possible over the long term, because individuals will rationally maximize personal gain if there is no safety net.
Now repeat that for every other lever of policy and government and you can see how things rapidly fly apart.
For examples, lets take Germany. The Social Democrats were banned until 1890. They became the largest party in 1912 and keep that position until the Great Depression when the Nazis displaced them. In England Labour was founded in 1900 and displaced the Liberal party shortly after universal manhood suffrage. In both cases socialism was merely a provisional tactic; the current incarnations of both parties heavily push diversity and mass immigration.It is so because people want power and status. Redistributing status goods gives the redistributor and the people getting the largee both; thus they are attractive. If the goods were destroyed instead of redistributed, people would still support it for positional reasons.It doesn't work. It optimizes for the appearance of empathy, not the substance- see the prison system. Slavery and beating look bad so people decry it to show how empathetic they are and replace it with putting people in small concrete boxes for years at a time.
Why would this necessarily be so? Again, here you make the mistake of assuming the rational homo economicus and forgetting the centrality of the irrational in governing human behavior.
The way the left gains power is they claim x, then sabotage y so that x happens; thus people can see they have power and align to them. If you have a leader who can arrest people for claiming x or arrest people on the suspicion of sabotage or hire and fire any member of the government at will, you have a leader who has the power to do anything they desire.
At that point, it isn't clear what the difference is between your government and elective monarchyReplies: @Rosie
Hmmm. I thought monarchy was hereditary by definition.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/monarchy
The papacy held temporal power until the Risorgimento and functioned in its secular government as an elective monarchy. While Venice and Genoa referred to themselves as republics, their doges amounted to elective monarchs.Replies: @Rosie
Your definition is what ordinary people understand by the term, and it is not correct insofar as you ignore the “socialist” part entirely. If you look at the way the elites actually use the term Nazi, a social democracy with a strong national identity and borders is exactly what they mean.
You’re right, I – writing late at night after a long day of work – left out the step in Gödels Theorem, you put in its right place.
Except for that – Gödel can be used as a door opener for postmodernism and deconstructivism. There are quite a few postmodernists who argue this way (and there are modernists like Adorno, who come to the almost same conclusions – in the footsteps of Nietzsche, mostly – cf. J. Habermas’ The Philosophical Dicourse on Modernity the perfect book about these things).
Perfect too is a poem about Gödel by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, which is aptly titled Gödels Theorem – can be read in one minute, but – might take a while be understood – and there are quite a few in the intellectual world, who will never succeed in understanding it, I guess…
On the other hand, Kant, the intellectual founder of our modern Trias of 1) hard sciences (those who measure and count), 2) the social world, in which norms exist, which are at times (law-) enforced, and are therefore valid/important 3) The realm of tastes – the realm of individuality/faith/ art…and personal freedom – Kant the big founder/foundation of our present-day enlightened modern thought system has no problems with Gödel whatsoever. Thus the conclusion I wrote in my post above. So – you might be a tad too pessimistic here.
Ahh – and the postmodernists/deconstructivist who fight reason – you know, because of Auschwitz, because Kant’s modern thought system is the root cause of Auschwitz (it’s mostly Auschwitz, you hardly hear something about the Armenians, or Pol Pot or the Hutu and the Tutsis etc. …) those Kant-critics usually just have no clue what they are up against (have a very vague and inaccurate idea about Kant).
I would agree that universal suffrage is overrated.
The clash of civilisations with regards to actual adherents on the 2 sides (the Godless vs the Monotheists) can be easily won by your side. You fellows obviously have the means to wipe out Muslims, and surely some of you even have the nether itch to implement it too. We will have to see if the Almighty One allows that. ;)
But, with regards to pure theist ideology, it will prove to be a totally different battle. Your hero, Huntington, would have learnt that on the 24th December, 2008.What does that even mean? Islam is only interested in the godless YOU insofar as your salvation is concerned. Since you have chosen hell, that is okay too.Replies: @The Wild Geese Howard
I shall do my best to keep this simple.
It means that, as an ideology, Islam is explicitly in opposition to the idea of, “live and let live.”
Well, Steve Sailer himself was wrong on predictions. Texas and Florida voted a lot republican for governor than blue collar whites in the upper Midwest. What gives. Most of the manufacturing under Donald Trump had its fastest growth in Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona not the upper Midwest. There is a reason why manufacturing is growing 3 times faster in Texas than Ohio. Texas has a fast growing population companies love to locate there because of less labor unions and a larger labor force. In fact Trump’s recent agreement with Mexico means in the long term auto jobs don’t go to Michigan but more likely Kentucky, South Carolina, and most of the south to cut down on labor costs due to the 16 an hour requirement of 40 percent manufacturing. The auto companies will be smart instead of heading back to union Michgian they will head to the US south. In 2020, probably Michigan and Pa will vote Dem while Trump wins Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconian and ads Nevada. Nevada voted more Republican for governor in the primaries than Michigan or Pa. This is a good development because the white working class is dying in the Midwest and has expanded to the south and west. Also, the upper middle class in the south is less Dem. A rich Republican in Texas will vote less Dem than a blue collar white in PA.
I meant Islam.
To be more specific–is a reaction to Europe being destroyed in WW II. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were merely “icing on the cake”. Christopher Caldwell left a good treatise on the genesis of this whole “liberal thing” in Europe and at least acknowledged the factor of continental warfare as being decisive in the “outbreak” of modern “liberalism”. Any discussion on the state of contemporary world without serious discussion of a defining factor of continental warfare is reduced to a shallow faux-academic BS. One of the major reasons of specifically American contemporary philosophical and geopolitical thought being largely shallow, derivative and sterile is precisely because of the US “intellectual” and political class being totally detached from the realities of war on a massive scale as past and, especially so, current US military doctrines testify manifestly. That and US geopolitical doctrine-mongering, much of which is detached from the realities of the outside world. I don’t think so this huge issue can easily be addressed or mitigated. In the end, number of voices in US–one such example is Daniel Larison of TAC–are constantly heard about the huge problem of America not having knowledge of the outside world.
So I’m back to my musings about ‘regression to imbecility’ and how, if you are immensely successful you may prevent your legacy from becoming absolute shit. Is there any foundation (ie Ford, Rhodes, Mott, etc) that hasn’t become the evil twin opposite of its benefactor’s wishes? Are there any kids or grandkids of our titans of industry or war heroes who haven’t become globohomo SJWs? And what, if you are immensely successful, can one do to preserve your legacy? Order your entire net worth converted to cash and have your corpse immolated atop of it?Replies: @MarkinLA, @Crawfurdmuir
There was one – the Olin Foundation. It was structured with a limited lifespan, so that it would expire before most of the trustees appointed by Mr. Olin had been replaced by persons he had never known. This was his way of ensuring that his foundation would not succumb to mission creep or fulfill the prediction of Conquest’s second law – “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
Conquest’s second law – “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
And I think this law should be amended, “Any organization, explicitly right-wing or not, will eventually be corrupted to become left-wing.”
But foundation or not, somehow this applies to one’s progeny as well doesn’t it? I beat up on the Ford family a lot so let’s use another case in point, the Stryker legacy. Gotta keep it in the HBD Mitten anyway. Old Homer was quite a guy:
http://www.kpl.gov/local-history/biographies/homer-stryker.aspx
But his grandkids? Not so much.. Grandson Jon:And granddaughter Pat:Granddaughter Ronda, the only one who isn’t homosexual, seems to at least be trying (like Elena Ford-Niarchos)..
We have some exceptions like the Prince, DeVos, and VanAndel families here, but just give them time. They’ll come around I’m sure.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/monarchyReplies: @Crawfurdmuir
Poland long had an elective King. Monarchies in Sweden and Norway were originally elective. The Holy Roman Emperor was an elective monarch, chosen by the electoral princes. The position became effectively hereditary only because the Habsburg family came to control the electoral college of the Empire. The last time this was seriously challenged was with the election of the Protestant Prince Frederick V, the Elector Palatine, to the elective throne of Bohemia, which also held an electoral vote. That election began the Thirty Years’ War.
The papacy held temporal power until the Risorgimento and functioned in its secular government as an elective monarchy. While Venice and Genoa referred to themselves as republics, their doges amounted to elective monarchs.
What Godel showed was that in a sufficiently rich but finite set of axioms or axiom schemata — such as Peano Arithmetic or anything able to prove Peano Arithmetic — there will either be some true statements that aren’t provable, or the system will be inconsistent, that is, able to prove anything. If the system is in fact consistent, then by definition there will be a model of the system, and in this model there will of course be a set of statements (infinite in size) that capture all and only truths in that model. But there will be no way for us to characterize that set of statements in a proof system, or by any truly finite means. Put it another equivalent way, there’s no algorithm that will enumerate all and only true statements in such a system (the set of truths is not “recursively enumerable”). One may say that we will never “know” all the truths of arithmetic, and a fortiori of mathematics, because our minds are inherently finite in the number of independent things we can “know”.
But not to worry. We can certainly affirm, say, ZF set theory, and perhaps throw in the Axiom of Choice. That set of axioms is both finite as we could ever want, and also plenty enough to prove virtually all of mathematics. All of modern mathematics is not, I think, trivial.
And I hardly see Godel as a key inspiration for post-modernism. Only confused people will see his utterly precise result as justifying general confusion. But they will have started with their own confusion anyway, and will always, in their confused way, find something to justify general confusion.
So, in effect, the munitions manufacturer blew up his foundation? Better than immolation of his wealth to cremate his corpse, but basically the same concept no?
Conquest’s second law – “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
And I think this law should be amended, “Any organization, explicitly right-wing or not, will eventually be corrupted to become left-wing.”
But foundation or not, somehow this applies to one’s progeny as well doesn’t it? I beat up on the Ford family a lot so let’s use another case in point, the Stryker legacy. Gotta keep it in the HBD Mitten anyway. Old Homer was quite a guy:
http://www.kpl.gov/local-history/biographies/homer-stryker.aspx
But his grandkids? Not so much.. Grandson Jon:
And granddaughter Pat:
Granddaughter Ronda, the only one who isn’t homosexual, seems to at least be trying (like Elena Ford-Niarchos)..
We have some exceptions like the Prince, DeVos, and VanAndel families here, but just give them time. They’ll come around I’m sure.
The papacy held temporal power until the Risorgimento and functioned in its secular government as an elective monarchy. While Venice and Genoa referred to themselves as republics, their doges amounted to elective monarchs.Replies: @Rosie
Fair enough. Perhaps we can rebrand national socialism as “elective monarchism” and see where it goes. Either way, that’s what we’re talking about.
I don’t know about that, but I certainly think you can have a decent society without it, provided that a wide range of interests and points of view are represented. For example, without universal male suffrage, women’s suffrage is indispensable IMO, because I wouldn’t trust an all-male, property-restricted electorate to empathize with working-class families. Though here again, even that might work so long as women have freedom of speech. That is non-negotiable, because the way I see it, the freedom not to listen is effectively the freedom to be an arbitrary and capricious tyrant.
You don’t have to be moneyed or a genius to vote but show us something is going on upstairs.
I don’t necessarily support property or financial restrictions because I think that is just warmed over plutocracy or oligarchy. That being said remember how naturalized citizens have to ( or used to have to) take tests showing knowledge of American history, government and institutions? I’d require the same for voters.
You don’t have to be moneyed or a genius to vote but show us something is going on upstairs.
Are you saying that this is not so? While I would never blame Gödel for postmodernism and that his result must lead to postmodernism but they can be used in rhetoric justifying postmodernism. They can argue that all thought systems are constructed and deficient. They either contain contradictions and thus they are useless or that they are incomplete and thus not as powerful as one might think.
Gödel is an exceptionally succinct expression of the general phenomenon.
Except for that, those formal systems do nothing and are of no help.Gödel says, that formal systems have their limits (he walks in the traces of Hegel's Science of Logic because there, Hegel found something, which is exactly what Gödel says. But Hegel drew his conclusions not while tackling a formal system, but by describing the way, language works. The difference between Hegel and Gödel lies not in the result but in the method. Hegel in The Science of Logic uses simple examples to show, how language makes use of contradictions (and is essentially based on them), whereas Gödel shows, that formal systems need to be self-contradictory in order to flourish.The wrong conclusion the postmodernists draw is, to claim, that these limitations of our language as of our most advanced formal systems show, that reason is flawed altogether and is a necessarily false construct. From this point of the argument, it is not far away to the holy grail of postmodernism/deconstructivism = to claim, that reason itself is a means of unjustified power. That this holy grail could not come into existence without performative self-contradictions at its own foundations is usually too much for the proponents of postmodern/deconstructivist thinking, which means, they wrongfully think, that this basic contradiction within their system can quite easily be swept away, because logical thinking is in itself contradictory - so: Being against postmodernism/deconstructivism they hold, is based on the wrong presumption, that formal systems would be free of those self-contradictions, which were discovered by Gödel and Hegel. - Ehh - that's just about the most elaborate way, in which postmodernism/deconstructivism can go wrong, and the foundations of this highway into confusion and obfuscation rests solidly on - - - Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud.
If you look at all the Nietzschean confusion through the enlightened lens of Habermas' (almost) perfect "The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity", then it all depends on the question, whether one thinks that Nietzsche was basically right or not. I follow Habermas in claiming, that Nietzsche's idea, that reason itself is basically flawed is wrong. In defending this argument, one defends modernity and reason.
Our modern times are a bundle of different voices (Habermas). These voices are at times in tune and at times out of tune (cf. the remark of Carles Mingus about Joni Mitchell's modal system on"Mingus"). But there's no way to decide, what sounds good and what sounds bad from God's eye view (being in tune is not necessarily right - and vice versa. Joni Mithcell's open tuning makes sense for her melodies, even if it (or just because it is) being basically wrong. To be able, to decide over such questions, we have to find out and decide - and sharpen our senses - and educate our tastes. Bach, the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was anathema for that reason for hundreds of years after he had died. And he was second, if not the third choice when he began at Leipzig; and so much so, that Leipzig officials apologized for hiring him. It took the world a while to understand (and estimate) the world with Bach (or Glass). Or the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic mindset (cf. Max Weber - the best illustrator of Kant's 2nd Critique - Critique of Practical Reason).For those who doubt this stuff, I recommend a bicycle roundtrip through the neighboring valleys of the Kocher (highly industrialized, Protestant) and the Jagst (extremely well preserved scenery, very old bird-protection societies, castles and churches and a dream of a monastery (Schönthal - nowadays a hotel - not expensive, but very interesting and charming - one of the windows has even two - maybe 100 years old - engravings reading: UNZ) in northern Baden-Württemberg. Or a city trip to Sion (Catholic) and Genève (Calvinistic) in francophone Switzerland.Replies: @Desiderius
Correct. This is what I said, I think. However the emphasis on ‘true’ statements is meaningless. Because it is about ability of the system to decide whether the statement is true or false. If a statement ‘X’ is true but not provable the statement ‘not X’ is false and also not provable. Assigning logical value to the undecidable by expanding the set of axioms will inevitable lead to inconsistency of the system. I said this:
I agree that Godel was not a key inspiration for post-modernism but his results were used in rhetoric promoting and justifying it. Freud’s ‘you want to fuck mother’ had much bigger impact than anything what Godel did.
WWI in fact moreso than WWII, but certainly all of a piece.
Postmodernism is the fever; Modernism the infection. It was happening one way or another.
Gödel is an exceptionally succinct expression of the general phenomenon.
Similarly, if Putin weren't so almost super-humanly cautious and thick-skinned, American treatment of Russia would've resulted in a major blowback long ago. But no one in America's elite understands this because they learned exactly the wrong lesson from the Reagan years.Replies: @Sam Haysom, @Johann Ricke
There’s nothing Putin can do short of committing nuclear suicide by launching a first strike against the US. Like many Russian rulers before him, starting with Dmitry Donskoy, Putin presumably wants to be remembered for leaving the Russian empire a little bigger than it was before he took the reins of power. If Putin commits nuclear suicide, not only does he lose most of his family and friends, he also ends up being remembered as the man who finally reduced Russia to what it was before all the empire-building started – perhaps a country the size of Germany, but blanketed with radioactive fallout. Russia east of the Urals, perhaps including the various stans of the former Soviet Union, would swiftly become Chinese territory. Russia west of the Urals would be divided up among various European countries.
Putin isn’t cautious or thick-skinned – he’s limited in what he can do because his conventional forces are not up to snuff and his nuclear forces aren’t usable against a nuclear power like the US which has very good early warning systems and thousands of nukes’ worth of counter-strike capability. The man is fairly adventurous, but the imbalance of power is clear, based on the damage that the US has done to his economy with even a fairly limited set of economic sanctions.
The issue is with each additional citizen the level of ownership goes down and self interest and national interest diverge. Lets take taxation. A secure autocrat is going to go with a tax level that maximizes long term profit- the money they get and money they get in the future from long term growth. An unsecure leader (autocrat and democratic) are going to tax in such a way to damage their political rivals and become more secure. A democracy is going to raise taxes as much as possible to pay for votes.
Now repeat that for every other lever of policy and government and you can see how things rapidly fly apart.
For examples, lets take Germany. The Social Democrats were banned until 1890. They became the largest party in 1912 and keep that position until the Great Depression when the Nazis displaced them. In England Labour was founded in 1900 and displaced the Liberal party shortly after universal manhood suffrage. In both cases socialism was merely a provisional tactic; the current incarnations of both parties heavily push diversity and mass immigration.
It is so because people want power and status. Redistributing status goods gives the redistributor and the people getting the largee both; thus they are attractive. If the goods were destroyed instead of redistributed, people would still support it for positional reasons.
It doesn’t work. It optimizes for the appearance of empathy, not the substance- see the prison system. Slavery and beating look bad so people decry it to show how empathetic they are and replace it with putting people in small concrete boxes for years at a time.
Are you sure you’re not projecting?
You are completely ignoring the hostile elite factor, assuming that all would have wound up the same with or without the Jew. I disagree.
So they can reflect on their actions and improve from the inside out. That’s why it’s called the penitentiary. You assume that the current prison system is the culmination of progressive criminal justice. That assumption is unjustified and fatalistic. The difference between you and me is that I believe in trial and error, and you don’t.
I'm not saying it would be the same. The elite appointing Jews over its subjects is generally a sign they intend to screw them; the elite losing out to the Jews is a sign there is something seriously unhealthy with the elite.Boredom doesn't cause people to improve. If you want people to improve, beat them and forgive them. You do it publicly because it is hard for criminals to conceptualize how prison sucks but easy how to conceptualize pain.
Prison reform is a progressive movement. It provides jobs for supporters regardless of whether or not the reform works.Replies: @Rosie
Envy is one of the 7 deadly sins because humans experience it, not because the Catholic Church thought 7 was a lucky number.
Russia had Jews and a communist revolution. China lacked Jews and had a communist revolution. The US has Jews and a nosediving TFR. East Asia lacks Jews and has a nosediving TFR. The West has been importing hostile foreigners and East Asia is also doing that (there are Nigerians living in Japan- imported them in the 1980s).
I’m not saying it would be the same. The elite appointing Jews over its subjects is generally a sign they intend to screw them; the elite losing out to the Jews is a sign there is something seriously unhealthy with the elite.
Boredom doesn’t cause people to improve. If you want people to improve, beat them and forgive them. You do it publicly because it is hard for criminals to conceptualize how prison sucks but easy how to conceptualize pain.
Prison reform is a progressive movement. It provides jobs for supporters regardless of whether or not the reform works.
Skinner, our elites quite agree with you about democracy. You see, elections "loom" like a terrible storm or battle or other catastrophe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/02/sweden-democrats-far-right-anti-migrantReplies: @Samuel Skinner
No, Glaspie wasn’t ad-libbing foreign policy but was following official state department policy, which was re-iterated by a DOS spokesman in Washington a few days later. There was no misunderstanding.
(As a general rule, I don’t think the U.S. should be sending women as diplomats to Muslim countries because it can lead to cultural problems and misunderstandings, but this wasn’t one of them.)
The most generous explanation I can think of is that in the spring/summer of 1990 all eyes were on Eastern Europe (which was in a state of turmoil) and nobody was paying attention to the Middle East.
I was offline deep down in the Black Forest for a few days.
Systematically this song about the struggle between our modern and our postmodern times should rather be sung this way:
Our world consists of three ways of reasoning & thinking: 1) Formal (based on counting, and it’s s formal offspring – logic, mathematics, 2) Social, (the law, norms, customs), 3) Aesthetics (taste, play, poetry, irony, drama) ((these are what the neo-Kantians called the three Kantian spheres of value (= three different kinds of values, too))). By pointing at these three value-spheres, the neo-Kantians clarified (and simplified without reducing it’s complexity (=big scale usefulness) Kant’s thinking.
From this foundation on, one can quite easily admit, that formal systems may or may not embody contradictions, because the idea, that sense and sensibility and faith and so on rely on formal systems such as mathematics or logic is a misconception of formal systems. Those systems rather follow their own logic and this logic is important if you want them to work. – You have to (detect and then) follow rules, in order to make proper use of them, such as predict the amount of energy, necessary to keep economy x afloat.
Except for that, those formal systems do nothing and are of no help.
Gödel says, that formal systems have their limits (he walks in the traces of Hegel’s Science of Logic because there, Hegel found something, which is exactly what Gödel says. But Hegel drew his conclusions not while tackling a formal system, but by describing the way, language works. The difference between Hegel and Gödel lies not in the result but in the method. Hegel in The Science of Logic uses simple examples to show, how language makes use of contradictions (and is essentially based on them), whereas Gödel shows, that formal systems need to be self-contradictory in order to flourish.
The wrong conclusion the postmodernists draw is, to claim, that these limitations of our language as of our most advanced formal systems show, that reason is flawed altogether and is a necessarily false construct. From this point of the argument, it is not far away to the holy grail of postmodernism/deconstructivism = to claim, that reason itself is a means of unjustified power. That this holy grail could not come into existence without performative self-contradictions at its own foundations is usually too much for the proponents of postmodern/deconstructivist thinking, which means, they wrongfully think, that this basic contradiction within their system can quite easily be swept away, because logical thinking is in itself contradictory – so: Being against postmodernism/deconstructivism they hold, is based on the wrong presumption, that formal systems would be free of those self-contradictions, which were discovered by Gödel and Hegel. – Ehh – that’s just about the most elaborate way, in which postmodernism/deconstructivism can go wrong, and the foundations of this highway into confusion and obfuscation rests solidly on – – – Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud.
If you look at all the Nietzschean confusion through the enlightened lens of Habermas’ (almost) perfect “The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity”, then it all depends on the question, whether one thinks that Nietzsche was basically right or not. I follow Habermas in claiming, that Nietzsche’s idea, that reason itself is basically flawed is wrong. In defending this argument, one defends modernity and reason.
Our modern times are a bundle of different voices (Habermas). These voices are at times in tune and at times out of tune (cf. the remark of Carles Mingus about Joni Mitchell’s modal system on”Mingus”). But there’s no way to decide, what sounds good and what sounds bad from God’s eye view (being in tune is not necessarily right – and vice versa. Joni Mithcell’s open tuning makes sense for her melodies, even if it (or just because it is) being basically wrong. To be able, to decide over such questions, we have to find out and decide – and sharpen our senses – and educate our tastes. Bach, the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was anathema for that reason for hundreds of years after he had died. And he was second, if not the third choice when he began at Leipzig; and so much so, that Leipzig officials apologized for hiring him.
It took the world a while to understand (and estimate) the world with Bach (or Glass). Or the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic mindset (cf. Max Weber – the best illustrator of Kant’s 2nd Critique – Critique of Practical Reason).
For those who doubt this stuff, I recommend a bicycle roundtrip through the neighboring valleys of the Kocher (highly industrialized, Protestant) and the Jagst (extremely well preserved scenery, very old bird-protection societies, castles and churches and a dream of a monastery (Schönthal – nowadays a hotel – not expensive, but very interesting and charming – one of the windows has even two – maybe 100 years old – engravings reading: UNZ) in northern Baden-Württemberg. Or a city trip to Sion (Catholic) and Genève (Calvinistic) in francophone Switzerland.
I'm not saying it would be the same. The elite appointing Jews over its subjects is generally a sign they intend to screw them; the elite losing out to the Jews is a sign there is something seriously unhealthy with the elite.Boredom doesn't cause people to improve. If you want people to improve, beat them and forgive them. You do it publicly because it is hard for criminals to conceptualize how prison sucks but easy how to conceptualize pain.
Prison reform is a progressive movement. It provides jobs for supporters regardless of whether or not the reform works.Replies: @Rosie
You just proved the point that getting rid of democracy won’t solve the birth dearth.
This is where you’re wrong. East Asia will not succumb unless they are influenced by US Jew media.
Prison seems to work fine as a deterrent to White men. Prisoners should be forced to work, though.
Skinner, our elites quite agree with you about democracy. You see, elections “loom” like a terrible storm or battle or other catastrophe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/02/sweden-democrats-far-right-anti-migrant
“Since the early 1990s, opinion polls have consistently shown more people wanting to reduce numbers than increase them,” he said. “But that was never reflected in official policy.”
-
There is no connection between the views of the people and the policies of the government. The election won't change anything. The Social Democrats are expected to get about 25% of the vote. How likely do you think it is the other parties will turn out to be as independent of each other as America's uni-party? Remember the SD only want to freeze immigration (and are still afraid of emboldening the far right)- once the 'refugees' are old enough to vote the facade is no longer needed.Replies: @Rosie
Skinner, our elites quite agree with you about democracy. You see, elections "loom" like a terrible storm or battle or other catastrophe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/02/sweden-democrats-far-right-anti-migrantReplies: @Samuel Skinner
The cause of the birth dearth is feminism. We know this because our enemies loudly tell everyone about how wonderful women’s education is because it suppresses birth rates. If you can do that in a democracy let me know.
South Korea and Taiwan’s TFR’s are between 1 and 1.2. Those countries will not exist in two generations.
Everything seems to work until you compare it to the previous punishments.
–
“Since the early 1990s, opinion polls have consistently shown more people wanting to reduce numbers than increase them,” he said. “But that was never reflected in official policy.”
–
There is no connection between the views of the people and the policies of the government. The election won’t change anything. The Social Democrats are expected to get about 25% of the vote. How likely do you think it is the other parties will turn out to be as independent of each other as America’s uni-party? Remember the SD only want to freeze immigration (and are still afraid of emboldening the far right)- once the ‘refugees’ are old enough to vote the facade is no longer needed.
“Since the early 1990s, opinion polls have consistently shown more people wanting to reduce numbers than increase them,” he said. “But that was never reflected in official policy.”
-
There is no connection between the views of the people and the policies of the government. The election won't change anything. The Social Democrats are expected to get about 25% of the vote. How likely do you think it is the other parties will turn out to be as independent of each other as America's uni-party? Remember the SD only want to freeze immigration (and are still afraid of emboldening the far right)- once the 'refugees' are old enough to vote the facade is no longer needed.Replies: @Rosie
Even MENA countries have low birth rates, because they have access to artificial birth control. You don’t want to give that up do you, Skinner?
Yes, and it is a wonderful thing to reduce the birth rate from 7 or 8 children per woman. How many people do you think the Earth can support Skinner?
So long as they don’t allow mass immigration, birth rates will rebound as a result of cheaper housing and higher wages. Or maybe they won’t. The question remains: Why do you attack women’s access to education as opposed to the more proximate cause: free access to contraception?
Your solution: even less democracy. The people have good instincts. The elites are treacherous. Yet you wish to empower the latter at the expense of the former.
It isn’t a matter of want. If you have a tfr below replacement you die out- it is as simple as that. We either get rid of things that cause us to be below replacement or are replaced by those who do.
Hunter gatherers are the only long term sustainable lifestyle so about 5-10 million. Why?
Why would this necessarily be so? Again, here you make the mistake of assuming the rational homo economicus and forgetting the centrality of the irrational in governing human behavior.
Because people openly state that they are using access to education to reduce birth rates. By contrast contraception should not reduce the birth rate among married couples.
The solution is an autocrat to rule over the elites and prevent them from strip mining the society in their competition for power. Empowering the people does not work or it would have prevented us from getting into this mess in the first place.
Except for that, those formal systems do nothing and are of no help.Gödel says, that formal systems have their limits (he walks in the traces of Hegel's Science of Logic because there, Hegel found something, which is exactly what Gödel says. But Hegel drew his conclusions not while tackling a formal system, but by describing the way, language works. The difference between Hegel and Gödel lies not in the result but in the method. Hegel in The Science of Logic uses simple examples to show, how language makes use of contradictions (and is essentially based on them), whereas Gödel shows, that formal systems need to be self-contradictory in order to flourish.The wrong conclusion the postmodernists draw is, to claim, that these limitations of our language as of our most advanced formal systems show, that reason is flawed altogether and is a necessarily false construct. From this point of the argument, it is not far away to the holy grail of postmodernism/deconstructivism = to claim, that reason itself is a means of unjustified power. That this holy grail could not come into existence without performative self-contradictions at its own foundations is usually too much for the proponents of postmodern/deconstructivist thinking, which means, they wrongfully think, that this basic contradiction within their system can quite easily be swept away, because logical thinking is in itself contradictory - so: Being against postmodernism/deconstructivism they hold, is based on the wrong presumption, that formal systems would be free of those self-contradictions, which were discovered by Gödel and Hegel. - Ehh - that's just about the most elaborate way, in which postmodernism/deconstructivism can go wrong, and the foundations of this highway into confusion and obfuscation rests solidly on - - - Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud.
If you look at all the Nietzschean confusion through the enlightened lens of Habermas' (almost) perfect "The Philosophical Discourse on Modernity", then it all depends on the question, whether one thinks that Nietzsche was basically right or not. I follow Habermas in claiming, that Nietzsche's idea, that reason itself is basically flawed is wrong. In defending this argument, one defends modernity and reason.
Our modern times are a bundle of different voices (Habermas). These voices are at times in tune and at times out of tune (cf. the remark of Carles Mingus about Joni Mitchell's modal system on"Mingus"). But there's no way to decide, what sounds good and what sounds bad from God's eye view (being in tune is not necessarily right - and vice versa. Joni Mithcell's open tuning makes sense for her melodies, even if it (or just because it is) being basically wrong. To be able, to decide over such questions, we have to find out and decide - and sharpen our senses - and educate our tastes. Bach, the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was anathema for that reason for hundreds of years after he had died. And he was second, if not the third choice when he began at Leipzig; and so much so, that Leipzig officials apologized for hiring him. It took the world a while to understand (and estimate) the world with Bach (or Glass). Or the difference between a Protestant and a Catholic mindset (cf. Max Weber - the best illustrator of Kant's 2nd Critique - Critique of Practical Reason).For those who doubt this stuff, I recommend a bicycle roundtrip through the neighboring valleys of the Kocher (highly industrialized, Protestant) and the Jagst (extremely well preserved scenery, very old bird-protection societies, castles and churches and a dream of a monastery (Schönthal - nowadays a hotel - not expensive, but very interesting and charming - one of the windows has even two - maybe 100 years old - engravings reading: UNZ) in northern Baden-Württemberg. Or a city trip to Sion (Catholic) and Genève (Calvinistic) in francophone Switzerland.Replies: @Desiderius
The spiritual enriches, enlightens, encourages, and encompasses all three. Without her they are barren, as one sees in this dispirited age.