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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Whittle's Most Important Yet. Go. Now. |
| 2007-05-21 |
| YOU ARE NOT ALONE (Part 1) Folks, you are about to be hit with a BIG IDEA. It’s not entirely my big idea, but I’m willing to hang some tinsel on it and take credit for it. First, a brief set-up, and then (and I will make an announcement in BOLD CAPS) comes the Big Idea. Okay, the set-up: I’ve written a dozen or so major essays since I hung my shingle over this little corner of cyberspace, and received wonderful e-mails about all of them. But two – the last two – have generated a very specific response: more passionate; desperate, even. The first was Tribes, which basically posited that there were people who relied on themselves and people who relied on the State. The second was Seeing the Unseen, which took a look at conspiracy theories and the mental illness required to believe in ‘chemtrails’ and the 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB pathology. Those both generated reams and reams of heartfelt sentiment, and that sentiment was the much the same time and time again. I thought I was all alone, people said. And I see this sense of despair and resignation spreading all across the web; from individuals in comment sections, or in lonely posts on obscure blogs. Now here’s what’s interesting: this response is the same, again and again, although the stimulus is different. It might be increasing public irrationality and paranoia, or falling educational standards, or unchecked illegal immigration, or activist judges. Maybe it’s tolerance of crime, or endless lawsuits, or general mean-spiritedness. Perhaps it’s rampant defeatism, cynicism, a lack of common decency, and the sense that courage and honor are dying qualities that time is passing by. And maybe it’s the dawning realization that our elites in politics, academia and entertainment (which controls our mythology) are leading the charge not to salvation but to the cliffs that seem so obvious to so many common people. Something seems to be failing, something essential, as if all the nails and glue that hold a house together were dissolving all at once. And many people – perhaps you are one of them – watch all this happening and feel powerless to stop it. Well, you are not alone. So many stimuli, and always the same response: has the world gone mad? What do those stimuli have in common? Read the rest. Long! |
| Posted by:Glenmore |
| #5 The only problem is, Tit-for-tat has didly to do with how reciprocal cooperation works. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-05-21 22:22 |
| #4 I first read this in a Scientific American article years ago. Whittle's spot on in his analysis of the trajectory of destruction. I'm equally sure of his high level solution, but the implementation left me a bit disappointed: He's essentially positing a clone of Second Life, and the cost of the infrastructure needed to support the number of people on-line is going to be staggering. I've done some nosing around, and the infrastructure for Second Life is creaking at 10000 online. But don't let me discourage you from reading the article. Its a thought provoker. |
| Posted by: ptah 2007-05-21 22:10 |
| #3 Glenmore, Come join the Gathering of Eagles, you will definitely not be alone! DanNY New York Coordinator Gathering of Eagles |
| Posted by: DanNY 2007-05-21 21:49 |
| #2 Thank you, AC. I needed to know I was not alone. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-05-21 21:17 |
| #1 Whittle's Most Important Yet. That's saying a lot but this one lives up to it. It is apparent that almost all leftist propaganda is oriented toward undermining the logical strategy suggested in Bill's analysis: "cycle of violence" "fighting back only creates more terrorists" etc. At the same time, leftist cultural strategies are almost entirely directed toward minimizing their own accountability: "Amendment Zero" (the concept that leftists have a right to be immune to criticism and disagreement), historical revisionism, politically correct language codes, and so on. I have maintained for some time that the current conflict is a surge point in human evolution, with all the evil and destructive forces in the world seeming to coalesce on the same side. The reason for this is that these forces embody traits that were acceptable or at least tolerable at some point in human history, but which have become threats to long term survival in the super-industrial age. It was therefore inevitable that the incomparably powerful natural forces of evolutionary strategy would dictate that they be eliminated. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2007-05-21 20:34 |