2020-07-02

Face without a name 

Pull us down, try to forget

History repeats

On the same Theme

Though they have tried to forget you

 Pulling down your image in spite

  The reprieve they get to forget 

   Must only last a night;

   

Indeed, they call you a bitter name

 And it rises on their sour breath

  Another curse, all the worse

   And suffered after death;

   

Yet it is the living who must pay

 It is they who bear the debt

  If indeed, they seem to need

   Your memory to forget;

 

God remembers all, his lessons

 A forgetful one still meets

  As none is free from memory

   History repeats.

   

Don't Believe Internet Just-So Stories

Just so stories are well known by some, they are the stories that supposedly demonstrate some behavior or fact but are not themselves factual; they are 'just so'. Now, Kipling wrote some of these, but they are clearly myths, and so don't really count. Men understand the world through stories, and the role of myth so-called is produce a story-structured concept for things for which there may be no story. 

Just-so stories fit well into the modern 'photographic' and 'realistic' and indeed 'hyperfactual' mindset because there can be no category for the mythical (except skepticism about supposed superstitions) or traditional; there is only 'what has happened in history'. I'm not a fool; to demonstrate something in history is a hundred times more powerful than producing a myth or remembering a half-lost narrative about it. If this were not so, what need would there have been for God to enter History as the Christ?

Just-so stories are in fact myths, but they are myths for the 'educated'. The ignorant often beleive myths as though they are fact, mostly because the ignorant don't have a strong grasp of the hard difference between a fable and an account. For this reason, we might emphasize, hyperstition works well on them.

Just so stories allow cunning people to treat the educated again as ignorant; and if you think you're free from this, perhaps you believe that at one time man existed as a series of unaffiliated individuals, 'nature red in tooth and claw', or perhaps the not totally disimilar ideas of Locke's. Chesterton, being a good storyteller, understood completely the difference between what we know, and what we presume based on what we know. About 'cave-men', he said:

"This secret chamber of rock, when illuminated after its long night of unnumbered ages, revealed on its walls large and sprawling outlines diversified with coloured earths; and when they followed the lines of them they recognised, across that vast and void of ages, the movement and the gesture of a man's hand. They were drawings or paintings of animals; and they were drawn or painted not only by a man but by an artist [...] Now it is needless to note, except in passing, that there is nothing whatever in the atmosphere of that cave to suggest the bleak and pessimistic atmosphere of that journalistic cave of the winds, that blows and bellows about us with countless echoes concerning the cave-man. So far as any human character can be hinted at by such traces of the past, that human character is quite human and even humane. It is certainly not the ideal of an inhuman character, like the abstraction invoked in popular science. When novelists and educationists and psychologists of all sorts talk about the cave-man, they never conceive him in connection with anything that is really in the cave."

Many people have read what are called 'greentext' stories on the internet from the imageboards; there are subreddits devoted to people 'asking' for advice which follows upon an alleged account, and there are the more famous claims of people that their eight-year old child had a political awakening.

Believe none of it. You may say, "it is proof that things are much worse than people believe! It's a clown world!" It is doubtless that these accounts are at least based on real events, but people tend to forget that spreading false stories on the internet for various reasons (because you are anonymous) is a grand tradition, and more than this, besides the sordid profession of fan-fiction, there is pornography.

The internet seems to be full of all kinds of pornography, and Reddit, since Tumblr was shut down because of course if you allow any pornography, you allow those who truck in and those seek for a certain kind of truly awful and illegal sort, it all ends up on Reddit. Reddit, for those reading later, was a site that replaced another site called "Digg", which was more or less used to share just-so stories on the internet (as well as memes.) Like all such sites it eventually got taken over by the most rabid people who proceeded to outlaw pranks and jokes from people they didn't like, and ensure that not a single one of their just-so stories ever got published. Needless to say, this is no way to run a non-niche website.

The question one should seriously ask about any of these stories (and greentext stories are more tongue-in-cheek) is, "is this really a kind of pornographic fiction?" Having said this, one also cannot dismiss the possibility that, in the grand tradition of copypasta (stories copied verbatim usually to induce terror) these stories are simply lifted and slightly altered to gain attention. Perhaps they are part of a prank; everyone has pranked 'noobs' (new players) by telling them something like, "yes, Alt-F4 will solve your speed issues while playing" and find that other experienced players repeat the story, 'verifying' it to the detriment of the new player, who of course quickly discovers the prank. At least it was funny.

In a sense, when a story is presented 'as though fact' our ability to analyze it as a narrative, and pay attention to the motives of the author are greatly diminished. In some cases, they seem to vanish entirely, as they often do when a person views a staged photograph. 

We of course pat ourselves on the back because we don't believe a liberal's child had a political awakening at eight years old. No one believes that but liberals. Yet, when we see a just-so story that confirms what we already believe, we don't question it. 

Why not question it? Certainly, publicly, if it's politically advantageous, people won't speak against a questionable narrative, because indeed this is the Nash equillibrium; neither side goes out of its way to check the factuality of narratives that benefit it. Yet even privately, we must admit we believe these 'just so' stories more often than not.

I'm not suggesting that people on 'our' side should be 'publicly vigorous about factuality of reported accounts' - this cannot happen in a democracy! The least you can do is understand that almost every one of these stories is false, and at best are based off of something sort of like that which the writer may have overheard.

See! Now you know, for I have told it to you.

2020-07-01

A seat is a seat

Kings come and go, it remains

Lacks but a footstool

Write again for me music

 That my soul desires to hear;

Will you lift your pen

 Will you sing again?

Inspiration is silent

 as though in great and dreadful fear

Dares not utter verse

 Blessing, no, nor curse;

Write again, if you hear me

 And together count the cost

Of what must be done

 Why remain ye mum?

All must hear of your thund'ring

 What remains shall soon be lost

Since your voice is dead

 I shall sound instead.

 

No One Believes in Freedom of Speech (anymore)

One illusion conservatives labor under is that they are the party which respects freedom of speech. Of course, let us be clear: the left also labors under this illusion, special pleading nonwithstanding. As always, both sides appear to themselves to be the champions of what is fashionable, whether or not this accords to reality.

Let me preface this: I am perhaps one of the most open-minded people you will ever meet. That is not to say I am fashionably open minded; as Chesterton put it, the point of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close it on something solid. There is what is called the 'big five' psychological exam, and I always score very high on 'openness', which if you knew the stridency with which I hold my opinions, would seem unusual to say the least.

The fact of the matter is this: when you have really investigated (or so you think) and have concluded such and such (or so you think) yourself, you tend to be that much more unyielding in whatever opinion was this way formed. Liberals often show surprise that a person who 'reads books' has any sort of opinion that differs from what they consider 'open minded' (fashionable) thought. One should not! There are many different ways of looking at the world, and thus many different ways to explain the facts of history, even respecting them as they are, and these ways are often contradictory!

Openness to new ideas is essential for a thinker, but it doesn't mean one is necessarily open to the ideas that one thinks one ought to be. It is rather hidebound to think of all ideas as being on a kind of level playing field, or all perspectives as being equal - there is hardly a more conservative style of opinion, even if in some eras this opinion does not appear among conservatives.

This is because this thought - equality among opinions - is really equality among accepted opinions, which lo and behold is 'the status quo'. Very liberal conservative of you, conservative liberals!

Among people who read there are generally three kinds: those who are reading for some tangible goal, such as a class or a project; those who are reading fashionably and read or want to appear to have read fashionable books, and those who want to read to know things. The last class alone are people who are in any real sense 'open minded', but it is usually the second class which bother with the title.

Thinking for yourself is dangerous, if for no other reason than it is easy to become very opinionated about things whose opinions would be very detrimental to your life at present, irrespective of whether these opinions reflect a true understanding of reality or not. Merely being open and reading in pursuit of knowledge itself poses a danger!

To test this for yourself, take an opinion you hold very strongly and try to convince someone for whom that opinion might be a threat. For best effect, it should not involve physical violence, since such opinions easily earn one approbation anyway. You may find that defenders of free speech or open minded people are not! 

I've probably been banned from more conservative spaces than liberal ones; this is because I always make the mistake of thinking I can convince conservatives of things, being more from that background, than liberals. I would never assume I could convince an abortion-believing, democrat-voting liberal of anything, and don't try -- I assume as soon as I open my mouth I will be banned for hate speech. (This probably isn't true, but on this assumption I've never been banned from Twitter.)

In this I find that both spaces lack openness, there is very little in the way, in any such spaces, of discussion. This is not a new problem, by the way, but has certainly grown worse over time. The internet has if nothing become good at passive-aggressive suppression of speech; Reddit innovated in the shadow-ban, where people literally do not know that others cannot hear them. More recently it has become more active in shutting down things it does not like to hear; it especially does not like to hear this!

People who believe in freedom of speech do until the point at which I open my mouth and tell them, for example, that democracy is a sham. "Well," they might say, "did you think they might be right in considering that beyond the pale?" I used to think so, too! Yet, I have only proceeded in understanding by carefully considering new ideas, and attempting to synthesize them. Many fail the test, and I must admit you eventually do get a sense for which ideas hang together, and why, which gives people the impression you are close-minded.

It shouldn't be thought that an open-minded person is simply open and fair with every opinion; and again, no one really considers open-minded-ness a virtue. What I like to offer at least is an attempt to explain to a reasonable person why I believe they are wrong. Rather than coming off as 'open minded', the force of my opinion comes across as close-minded. Yet as I explained above, the close-minded person is least likely to engage in a debate, for to them either an idea is already among acceptable (but toothless) opinions, or it is to be silenced without discussion. 

People believe in freedom of speech up until the point at which they encounter a truly novel opinion (to them;) forcefully presented. The entryist's art is to never forcefully preent their opinions until they have the power to do so. Though honesty is worth nothing today, one could at least say I am honest. I am, however, a very poor entryist. 

Why would anyone, though, believe that all opinions deserve an equal hearing? Lèse-majesté shall be the whole of the law, or at least it persists at all levels of discourse. If only many thinkers understood this concept, they would understand why freedom of speech is impossible. When people say that some certain speech is 'violence', they are referencing the real concept that speech could threaten what they regard as something vulnerable which in their view should not be attacked. 

One reason why I attack democracy, such as attacking the concept of voting, is because in addition to being true, it can be used as an object lesson in Lèse-majesté. If one were to successfully invalidate voting in the public eye, such that the futility of an individual voting in the former USA's national system became common knowledge, the whole system would be thrown into crisis, wounded perhaps mortally. I expect to be silenced, and this is further a demonstration that Lèse-majesté has not been done away with, with the concept of the republic or of democracy. 

The biggest failure in our system was to not more clearly, honestly, and openly define what 'freedom of speech' means for a republican or democratic system. At the current time it appears to mean prostitution but not a defense of itself as a concept; yet how is one to have expected, at all, that the political class could publicly discuss (and only the discussions of the political class in a republican context are at all 'public') issues so as to inform voting, without explicitly outlining that this was the purpose of said freedom of speech? 

Yet of course, who, having attained power in a democratic system, would brook speech being used to threaten their power? 

And so it goes.

2020-06-30

All man's providers

Good God and the garden bean

Lowly, evergreen

The child complains till it gets its way

A very common thing for us to see today

A peaceful protest isn't something that exists

A protest is something that violently persists

Until adults take action, and put it all away

Some involved will not again see the light of day;

Everyone wants to think he will live like a king

No scrubby grass, for each hand a diamond ring

Palaces for everyone, no spot of weathered paint

Clothes breathing perfectly, never make you faint

They saw a photograph, it was probably touched-up

In an advertisement, they're paid to drink the cup

But everything they touch is discolored like the pox

Not uncommon for the human coming right out of the box--

If it falls to dust, someone will have to take the blame

Except when no one's left, and these places have a name

A sovereignty is where you step up and you pay,

But the child complains until it gets its way.

Democracy is the Problem

I've written this before, and I'll write it again. Democracy is the problem. While there are a number of ways to explain the problem of democracy, and obviously at this point reams have been writtten on the topic, it's worth getting a quick and fresh perspective, so some context can be had for understanding what comes next. 

If you can't read what follows for some reason, I can encapsulate it into a simple idea: it only matters who rules you, governance structures matter inasmuch as they determine who rules you. Democracy means the majority cannot be ruled in their own interest, but in the interest of those who have the power to manipulate them.

Some of this has been covered in Popular Government, but when we look at democracy as a system for selecting who rules you (which is what it is--) we find that rather than people choosing in their own interest, their interests conflict on most issues and they are not of one mind about the common good. Any household can experience this, and there is almost no rule that guarantees agreement; people of the same class will not agree with one another (Sorry Marx) people of the same race (Sorry Adolf) and even people who vote for the same party will not. 

Therefore, we have to conclude that the choices being made by most voting bodies, especially those of a certain size, are not at all determined by a collective will bending towards a common good. They are in fact determined by other things, and most of these things involve the action of more powerful people within the society manipulating public opinion, or as a general rule, manipulating procedural outcomes.

This accords with experience, in that most of us understand that even as voting cannot establish the truth, voting among a small group of like-minded people does have a certain force and a common expression of will, but beyond a certain number (20 they say is the limit at which the will of the council becomes invisible, essentially) voting acts more as a rubber stamp for more powerful wills within the whole.

These wills can be concealed, and their concealment depends on the belief in the common will, because it is this belief permits one to think that these powerful wills are accidental, rather than essential, to a larger voting body.

As such, because of the difference in class developed by difference in social power and role, so the wills manipulating the crowd will have different interests. They therefore guarantee that the 'who' in the 'who rules whom' equation will be hostile; the reason has two parts to it. The first is the difference in interests, which although distinct within the same nation must still by nature be connected, and the second is the irresponsible nature of manipulating a crowd; it is by nature an escape from responsibility towards the crowd, and therefore it cannot be, by its nature, made responsible for their well-being.

If the crowd were a formal army, there would be a chain of command and the crowd would know who its leaders were and could make demands directly of them; indeed, there would be some relationship between the two and pressure would exist for the leaders to be responsible to the crowd and consider its interests. The 'wire puller' however, has no unique relationship to any crowd in particular; to him they are mercenaries that he does not have to pay. They are interchangeable warm bodies.

Yet because he, or those who manipulate him, controls the crowd and therefore controls the selection of leadership, a contrary result occurs. Now, those who manipulate the crowd must additionally become afraid that the crowd, not being complete marks, will discover they are being sold a bill of goods and vote for some outsider who will throw their unstable and informal system of domination into mayhem. This isn't a common occurrence, but it is fatal. 

From this, they must find a way to restructure government so that not only does the crowd believe they still have power, but they in fact, in voting, have as little power as possible. By moving decision-making from elected officials, whether formally or informally through social pressure and money, to permanent government ministers, they can effect this. 

While this would seem at first glance a positive development, and certainly anyone who wished to effect it would need broad popular support, it continues the fundamental manipulative antagonism between the people and the 'wire pullers', while also removing the possible safety valve in the case of ruling-class insanity that an occasional up-and-down plebiscite affords.

In short, democracy, as a structure or theory of government, produces rulers who are antagonistic. It is its nature to produce irresponsibility, and often 'more' democracy produces even more wire-pulling and more antagonism. In fact, in much democratic thinking, the idea that those who rule are even rulers is unthinkable. It therefore in addition produces an antagonism between the ruled and the ruler as well; this problem not only includes the rightful disdain towards manipulators, but also a misdirected lack of gravity towards elected officials.

To the point about who rules you mattering more than systems or principles of rule, if you are honest with yourself, you will find most people's objections to certain policies or actions are rooted more in who is doing them, than what is being done. Sometimes this isn't obvious, because a shared set of expectations are involved, but when we see armed protestors, we assume they will be violent, whereas when we see armed homeowners, we assume they will be peaceful unless provoked. We have reasoning for this, but much of it is rationalization; we instinctively know that protestors are not our friends, and so them being armed is a threat to us, whereas homeowners, even if not our friends, are not our enemies, and so their being armed is not. In both cases, the same basic rights are in play - to bear arms. We know however that one we can trust with a gun, the other we cannot. 

Therefore the core of the political for the common person is this: does he who rules me have my best interests in mind? To the thinker, this adds one layer, and that is, does the structure of government aid or harm in the process of ensuring rulers have our best interests in mind? 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg as to why Democracy ensures none of those things.

2020-06-29

All-time favorite

Bullet-proof under pressure

Nice for the summer

Quatrains

I was not born for revolution;

My fathers of fathers were lords

Of a genteel country, no solution

To their sort regicide affords;

But I was not born under a king

Increasingly, beyond my will

I have become fixed upon a thing

And I am bent upon it still;

I who do not vote, have come to see

It is not fashionable, I have said

Yet, easy it does not come to me 

That I must take a new path instead;

I was here before you, knowing well

The futility of the ballot-box alone

Rejecting its enchanting spell

I became like a standing-stone;

A fool I was, and so still remain

Praying in an open field, did God

Come and put this idea in my brain--

I who stand upright in the sod?

I must swear, while my arm is strong

I must understand my conclusion--

I am the future, this is its song;

I was not born for revolution.

"Karen", and Other Memes

A common meme these days is 'Karen'. What is a Karen? I've heard the allegations; the Karen is a social climber, she calls the manager to gain power over the organization. Karen is always serious; she does not get jokes. She talks over you while she claims she is speechless. The only thing Karen has a sense for is power.

I have also heard people trying to connect Karen with Mrs. Grundy. Sadly, this connection is spurious. (I even saw some go so far as to connect her with Hera or Juno - sad ignorance!) First of all, Mrs. Grundy is clearly uncool; she is very unfashionable, unattractive, a nag, and by her name lacks the social power she tries to exert 'for other peoples' good'. A grumbler, unattractive, moralizing... if Mrs. Grundy was Karen, she might be effective, rather than the butt of jokes for over a century.

For a good idea of what Karen "means", in the poetic sense, one should listen to (and read the lyrics for) Cake's song "Short Skirt/Long Jacket". Unliky "Grundy" which sounds like a combination of "Grungy" and "Grumble" and a number of other deprecating words, Karen is an objectively attractive name. Now, I'll grant you I'd never have married a woman named Karen - I will be honest with you! - but the name holds an attractiveness to both men and women. Like its maladroit companion "Kevin", it is a strong word, simple, and communicates a certain power.

The Left, and particularly those self-disapproved agitators love this term to attack white women who are trying to get the system to help them against threats of personal violence -- and this alone should give us pause. If we look at the list of 'approved' slurs for "white people" by some of these same people, we find that there is but one single commonality in all of their memetic ideas: they are bad.

Like the attempt to 'hurt' some people by calling them "Chad" and "Stacy", Karen is likely to end up being an ironic compliment, and certainly calling a woman Karen doesn't make her seem weak, foolish, or any of the other things that effective memes do. What we get from the idea is that Karen talks too much. And if we look at all of the "Karens" we find that really, we're dealing with a gal who just has an overactive mouth: honestly, in the right circumstance, Karen could be very useful. 

Of course Juno (or Hera) is not Karen, either. "A Juno" is the term given by Romans for the closest thing to Genius there could be in a woman. Juno as a negative picture is more about the needlessly warlike tendency of powerful women (borne out clearly by the tendency of Queens in history to start more wars in the same amount of time compared to their male counterparts.) Juno is *definitely* closer to a Karen than to a Mrs. Grundy -- but Karen, unlke Juno, is not a queen. She is trying to grasp power for herself, she is kind of a shadow of Eve, of whom it said, "and he will rule over you." Karens vanish like smoke before a breeze because other than speech, which "alone is flaring thing", they possess no power at all. 

A Karen! Imagine relying on such a meme. 

[sketch note: not bad for a first try!]