" If they really wanted to wipe us out, of course, they could just put out a New York Times that sucked less. In a million years, that won’t occur to them." "the overall quality level of mainstream news plunged so low so long ago, audiences were starved for anything that wasn’t rancidly, insultingly dishonest."
" If they really wanted to wipe us out, of course, they could just put out a New York Times that sucked less. In a million years, that won’t occur to them." "the overall quality level of mainstream news plunged so low so long ago, audiences were starved for anything that wasn’t rancidly, insultingly dishonest."
Heh. Kind of the same thing among the Morally Better/So Much Smarter ilk in all sections of society. They get angry at people getting the attention they think they should get, so they lash out ("ban Dave Chappelle!" "outlaw Fox!") instead of look inward at why no one wants to read their newspaper, laugh at their "comedy," trust their credentials, be around them...the people I encounter like that in life increasingly shriek that they're "experts" while saying some of the most absurd things and sneering at others in their increasingly impenetrable bubble of self-righteous cluelessness. The collective delusion is so, so tiresome.
Our elites used to be better right? I ask seriously. During even times like the gilded age, I’m not crazy in thinking they at least had some class or sophistication that modern elites are bereft of? It’s wasn’t that they just had better control of the narrative and flow of information, but that they were better?
It’s a question I ask myself because I’m shocked at how unlikable, and pathetic, the modern elite has become. I guess there could have been elites like this before, who were completely out of touch and lacking any honor, in France right before a certain revolution. Or at least that is one plausible theory if our elites really are as bad as I suspect.
Yes. Of course. I can’t stand when people answer questions like this with cynical aphorisms and personal anecdote to feign wisdom.
Rich elites have always done terrible things. But sometimes certain circumstances have restrained them.
For example, a sense of obligation, family and otherwise. Read Andrew Carnegie or any of the Roosevelt. Regardless of whether you agree with their specific acts and beliefs (you won’t), you cannot deny they were concerned about morality, God, family, community, values like hard work and courage, etc. alongside the worship of mammon.
Also, after the War, the rich felt just a tad chastened. The Depression had flattened wealth quite a bit. The War had demanded sacrifice from all. Wealthy families had seen powerful elites in other countries brought low by defeat or revolution. They had less power in a more equal society and also felt pressure to be quiet about the power they had.
Then there was the explosion of narcissism chiefly driven by affluent young people starting in the late ‘80s, particularly affecting women.
Also, a particularly childish brand of atheism triumphed without bothering to erect any new moral universe in its place, leaving society vulnerable to both nihilism and fanaticism.
So yes, Virginia, the rich were different once. Once they faced limits. Now they have none.
Those limits will be imposed, one way or another (this isn’t some veiled intention, just the laws of nature).
When new atheism came around I was sold. Now I’m kind of embarrassed to consider the moral superiority I felt then. Now I’m even considering religion where I had not before as I live around enough religious people and I can say that I see something good there that I don’t see in the people that are like myself a decade or so ago (some religious people can be the worst, there is and always will be a lot of grift in those circles, but I see genuineness in the most practitioners). Regardless, I see the same result of the atheism movement as you do and I wonder if the people most associated with it question themselves at all.
When I was in college, open adult atheists had spent more time thinking through the moral dimensions of their convictions than any random pew-warmer ever had. Now it’s mostly memes and emojis. Hardly enough to separate man from beast.
It’s clearly not working for them either. Hence the triumph of the woke cult.
One of the simple observations that really changed my outlook to religion is just asking who would help me and my family if I need it among my neighbors? The answer was, and this has since been confirmed many times over, the neighbors who were religious (and really I mean Christian since I don't have any other religion represented that I'm aware of). I want to live in a culture and community that helps each other out and values families. I looked for it within atheism but while there was plenty of philosophy that demonstrates that religion is hardly a prerequisite to these values of kindness and charity, and often times distorts it (this is the moral superiority I was talking about), my real world efforts to find it have largely been in fruitless.
I certainly don't believe you have to be religious to be a good person, I mean I personally try to go out of my way to help my neighbors, but I do think if you value strong social cohesion in your community then the community might have to be religious. In other words religion scales while atheism does not. That hardly means that Jesus is the Christ, etc, etc, but it does mean something.
Along your point, atheism's problem to me is they demonized traditional religion to the point that now people have adopted perhaps the least scalable worldview in woke-ism when they found atheism doesn't provide meaning both personally and within a community.
No doubt. John Rockefeller is the Howard Zinn lib punching bag. What did he do-put some damn efficiency in a chaotic industry and then give most of his profits to charity. Oh, and he sometimes worshipped at black churches and gave the seed $$ to start Spellman College-it’s named after his wife. Dude was as non-racist as anyone in the 19th century
No, I'm pretty sure they always sucked. Opposition parties are separated in Parliament by a specific width calibrated to the length of a sword, specifically to stop them stabbing each other in the days when, you know, it was normal to carry swords around all the time.
Some of the 'elites' greatest hits in the 20th century:
1. World War 1, a Great War in aid of a cause so moral it requires a textbook to explain and even then you won't understand it.
2. World War 2, another Great War, this time the motivation was so simple it could have come straight out of a Marvel comic book yet somehow enough elites thought this was a good idea that it took the combined efforts of the entire Anglosphere to put them back in their box.
When you factor in war things do become more clear. I was thinking they at least built institutions but then the modern university is largely to serve the interests of power and not otherwise (same as media and that doesn’t even get into the cia). Well they at least presented better than our modern elites. They at least had a modicum self respect and stoicism.
The romanticized idea of the truly superior, noblesse oblige, aristocracy comes from an age when the elites were far better educated than the peasants. This made them much more secure and put them in a position where they could actually benefit the rest.
That's all flattened now due to technology. So all we have is concentrated money at the top.
Well, you know the East Coast Rich Intellectual Liberals Bill O'Reilly used to fly off the handle at? My (ex)Partner and I got to have dinner with them one night, because she was speaking at some school in Boston the next day. They pretty much pretended we didn't even exist throughout cocktails and the subsequent meal. We wondered why they bothered inviting us at all....
Sadly, Billo was right - they truly are every bit as self-righteously puffed-up, and out of touch, as he claimed they were. It really peeved me, since I hate giving that lot credit for anything.
I didn’t watch bill or Fox News. I was the NYT reader that was sure ever word printed was the Truth (or a close approximation). That’s an interesting experience. I can’t imagine being closed off like that yet they often claim to be doing things for the people they are closed off to.
Well, they are bound to hit a target once in a while, if only by accident. It's like they find a big pile of horse shit on the sidewalk and go off on a rant about horse owners, horse radish, stables, horse racing, unicorns and horse shit on the sidewalk.
On the east coast, the second generation preferred shabby and anonymous. Smart. Their heirs however are loudmouth twitter narcissists who live in mortal fear they’ll lose their privilege
"On the east coast, the second generation preferred shabby and anonymous. Smart."
Paul Fussell writes extensively about this in CLASS, IMHO the best sociological study of the Silent and Boomer generations. Paraphrasing, but it's something like "A dentist drives a Mercedes-Benz. Old money drives an old, shitty Buick."
Aye, this has been my genesis theory for our current state as well. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And when Trump, the ultimate grandiose caricature of narcissism, came on the scene - Boom!
You could see that most overreactions to him, from leaders in politics and media, to everyday people, were actually the result of being "exposed", subconsciously.
All the man did was hold a mirror up to these people - they didn't and still do not realize that what they don't like about him is what they don't like about themselves. Sure enough, their more poised, covert form of narcissism became unravelled and the projection was off the charts.
Seriously the educated left today is really (& I don’t like this cliché either) the indoctrinated left and I despair over the knowledge and critical thinking their ‘education’ fails to give them. The bullies turn into bullies - nothing new under the sun
Thanks. I've been looking for a self-identified "progressive" that's honest and smart enough that I can stomach reading them. Maurer certainly shows those traits.
" If they really wanted to wipe us out, of course, they could just put out a New York Times that sucked less. In a million years, that won’t occur to them." "the overall quality level of mainstream news plunged so low so long ago, audiences were starved for anything that wasn’t rancidly, insultingly dishonest."
Heh. Kind of the same thing among the Morally Better/So Much Smarter ilk in all sections of society. They get angry at people getting the attention they think they should get, so they lash out ("ban Dave Chappelle!" "outlaw Fox!") instead of look inward at why no one wants to read their newspaper, laugh at their "comedy," trust their credentials, be around them...the people I encounter like that in life increasingly shriek that they're "experts" while saying some of the most absurd things and sneering at others in their increasingly impenetrable bubble of self-righteous cluelessness. The collective delusion is so, so tiresome.
Our elites used to be better right? I ask seriously. During even times like the gilded age, I’m not crazy in thinking they at least had some class or sophistication that modern elites are bereft of? It’s wasn’t that they just had better control of the narrative and flow of information, but that they were better?
It’s a question I ask myself because I’m shocked at how unlikable, and pathetic, the modern elite has become. I guess there could have been elites like this before, who were completely out of touch and lacking any honor, in France right before a certain revolution. Or at least that is one plausible theory if our elites really are as bad as I suspect.
Yes. Of course. I can’t stand when people answer questions like this with cynical aphorisms and personal anecdote to feign wisdom.
Rich elites have always done terrible things. But sometimes certain circumstances have restrained them.
For example, a sense of obligation, family and otherwise. Read Andrew Carnegie or any of the Roosevelt. Regardless of whether you agree with their specific acts and beliefs (you won’t), you cannot deny they were concerned about morality, God, family, community, values like hard work and courage, etc. alongside the worship of mammon.
Also, after the War, the rich felt just a tad chastened. The Depression had flattened wealth quite a bit. The War had demanded sacrifice from all. Wealthy families had seen powerful elites in other countries brought low by defeat or revolution. They had less power in a more equal society and also felt pressure to be quiet about the power they had.
Then there was the explosion of narcissism chiefly driven by affluent young people starting in the late ‘80s, particularly affecting women.
Also, a particularly childish brand of atheism triumphed without bothering to erect any new moral universe in its place, leaving society vulnerable to both nihilism and fanaticism.
So yes, Virginia, the rich were different once. Once they faced limits. Now they have none.
Those limits will be imposed, one way or another (this isn’t some veiled intention, just the laws of nature).
When new atheism came around I was sold. Now I’m kind of embarrassed to consider the moral superiority I felt then. Now I’m even considering religion where I had not before as I live around enough religious people and I can say that I see something good there that I don’t see in the people that are like myself a decade or so ago (some religious people can be the worst, there is and always will be a lot of grift in those circles, but I see genuineness in the most practitioners). Regardless, I see the same result of the atheism movement as you do and I wonder if the people most associated with it question themselves at all.
When I was in college, open adult atheists had spent more time thinking through the moral dimensions of their convictions than any random pew-warmer ever had. Now it’s mostly memes and emojis. Hardly enough to separate man from beast.
It’s clearly not working for them either. Hence the triumph of the woke cult.
One of the simple observations that really changed my outlook to religion is just asking who would help me and my family if I need it among my neighbors? The answer was, and this has since been confirmed many times over, the neighbors who were religious (and really I mean Christian since I don't have any other religion represented that I'm aware of). I want to live in a culture and community that helps each other out and values families. I looked for it within atheism but while there was plenty of philosophy that demonstrates that religion is hardly a prerequisite to these values of kindness and charity, and often times distorts it (this is the moral superiority I was talking about), my real world efforts to find it have largely been in fruitless.
I certainly don't believe you have to be religious to be a good person, I mean I personally try to go out of my way to help my neighbors, but I do think if you value strong social cohesion in your community then the community might have to be religious. In other words religion scales while atheism does not. That hardly means that Jesus is the Christ, etc, etc, but it does mean something.
Along your point, atheism's problem to me is they demonized traditional religion to the point that now people have adopted perhaps the least scalable worldview in woke-ism when they found atheism doesn't provide meaning both personally and within a community.
@ Majorsensible ✔
A proselytizing atheist is either an unapologetic hypocrite or only a partly recovered dogmatist.☸
EA😎
No doubt. John Rockefeller is the Howard Zinn lib punching bag. What did he do-put some damn efficiency in a chaotic industry and then give most of his profits to charity. Oh, and he sometimes worshipped at black churches and gave the seed $$ to start Spellman College-it’s named after his wife. Dude was as non-racist as anyone in the 19th century
No, I'm pretty sure they always sucked. Opposition parties are separated in Parliament by a specific width calibrated to the length of a sword, specifically to stop them stabbing each other in the days when, you know, it was normal to carry swords around all the time.
Some of the 'elites' greatest hits in the 20th century:
1. World War 1, a Great War in aid of a cause so moral it requires a textbook to explain and even then you won't understand it.
2. World War 2, another Great War, this time the motivation was so simple it could have come straight out of a Marvel comic book yet somehow enough elites thought this was a good idea that it took the combined efforts of the entire Anglosphere to put them back in their box.
3. Communism and its various spinoffs.
4. Vietnam, the CIA, etc.
5. The war on terror.
Our elites have never been elite.
When you factor in war things do become more clear. I was thinking they at least built institutions but then the modern university is largely to serve the interests of power and not otherwise (same as media and that doesn’t even get into the cia). Well they at least presented better than our modern elites. They at least had a modicum self respect and stoicism.
The romanticized idea of the truly superior, noblesse oblige, aristocracy comes from an age when the elites were far better educated than the peasants. This made them much more secure and put them in a position where they could actually benefit the rest.
That's all flattened now due to technology. So all we have is concentrated money at the top.
Well, you know the East Coast Rich Intellectual Liberals Bill O'Reilly used to fly off the handle at? My (ex)Partner and I got to have dinner with them one night, because she was speaking at some school in Boston the next day. They pretty much pretended we didn't even exist throughout cocktails and the subsequent meal. We wondered why they bothered inviting us at all....
Sadly, Billo was right - they truly are every bit as self-righteously puffed-up, and out of touch, as he claimed they were. It really peeved me, since I hate giving that lot credit for anything.
I didn’t watch bill or Fox News. I was the NYT reader that was sure ever word printed was the Truth (or a close approximation). That’s an interesting experience. I can’t imagine being closed off like that yet they often claim to be doing things for the people they are closed off to.
Well, they are bound to hit a target once in a while, if only by accident. It's like they find a big pile of horse shit on the sidewalk and go off on a rant about horse owners, horse radish, stables, horse racing, unicorns and horse shit on the sidewalk.
They get the sidewalk part right.
On the east coast, the second generation preferred shabby and anonymous. Smart. Their heirs however are loudmouth twitter narcissists who live in mortal fear they’ll lose their privilege
"On the east coast, the second generation preferred shabby and anonymous. Smart."
Paul Fussell writes extensively about this in CLASS, IMHO the best sociological study of the Silent and Boomer generations. Paraphrasing, but it's something like "A dentist drives a Mercedes-Benz. Old money drives an old, shitty Buick."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60044.Class
Nice. Did you write this Goodreads review Boris ‘...refreshingly bitter and cruel? My kind of book & my kind of review
Narcissism was becoming prevalent 20 years ago, and now we're here.
Aye, this has been my genesis theory for our current state as well. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And when Trump, the ultimate grandiose caricature of narcissism, came on the scene - Boom!
You could see that most overreactions to him, from leaders in politics and media, to everyday people, were actually the result of being "exposed", subconsciously.
All the man did was hold a mirror up to these people - they didn't and still do not realize that what they don't like about him is what they don't like about themselves. Sure enough, their more poised, covert form of narcissism became unravelled and the projection was off the charts.
This.
Thanks for this rec. He is hilarious.
Seriously the educated left today is really (& I don’t like this cliché either) the indoctrinated left and I despair over the knowledge and critical thinking their ‘education’ fails to give them. The bullies turn into bullies - nothing new under the sun
He is definitely self-aware, which is nice (and rare.)
Thanks. I've been looking for a self-identified "progressive" that's honest and smart enough that I can stomach reading them. Maurer certainly shows those traits.
ps) Team Some.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Team Smidge