There was a time – and being born in 1959, I am old enough to remember it – when the idea of Civilization needed no explanation or defense. Everybody knew what it meant. Civilization was tied to another term, now likewise mocked, and that term is Progress.
Progress was the idea that society was moving forward, upward, toward higher goals – better medicine, faster transportation, the brutality of hard labor replaced by stronger, then smarter machines; abundant energy, increased wealth and leisure: all of these things were greatly desired, and society was proud to provide them, proud to show them off in World Fairs and Expos and in the mythology of the movies.
Now “progress” and “civilization” are ironic terms, in sneer quotes, muttered with that pathetic, bored tone of cynical nihilism started by the narcissistic brats that I have been ten years behind for my entire life. Today, I try to exercise and watch my weight only so that I may live long enough to see the last of these radical hippies die in their sleep.
This is why Bill Whittle is one of my favourite reads. Read on. It’s all you’re getting today, because it’s enough.
I should have been a hippie: THANK GOD, I never was–Divine providence, methinks.
I ALTOGETHER agree with Bill! I LOVE the Judeo-Christian, British dispensation that made Canada the land of freedom, rule of law and good government it used to be–before the “radical hippies”, e.g., Trudeau et al, messed everything up. Bless you, Bill!
But it’s late (if one’s hippie age!): I’m sure I’ll be back.
I think Robin Williams said that if you remember the 1960s, you weren’t there. This obtuse chatter is evidence of that. What is the point?
Pardon?
That was good. The summary was great. The part about Clooney was choice.
Good quote by Robin Williams. Maybe in another 40 years you can reflect on it?
That Bill Whittle post, Kate, explains exactually why we have to fight the civilization destroyers every step of the way. Starting with the United Nations and ideas like ONE World Governance.
Bill Whittle explains how interdependent everybody is in this world. Like when the hippy/activist/enviro-nut steps on a jet to be wisked away to another tear-down-civilization-protest. Does he/she realize how many hard working people it took to provide them with the easy life they lead ? Transportation, food, shelter ? Of couse not. They are still stuck in the 60’s hippy fake world.
Bill is right; RACE DOES NOT CAUSE RACISM, CULTURE DOES.
Kate, I read the same post earlier today. I presume I had a very similar reaction to it. Along the chain of links and references that led me to the post, I came across this video. After watching this, I cannot imagine anyone in the west having much doubt about what is unfolding around us. I think the post you cite is helpful in understanding the reasons for our denial.
well said…born in 59 myself, i know exactly where you are coming from…when i enlisted in 77, all of my “hippie” cousins accused me of being a sell out, etc….yet, at any given time, ivan had 3000 tanks idling, with their loaded guns pointed at us….as well…talk about the hypocrite generation…they drive diesel volvos, live in 4000 sq ft log cabins…yet, they think they r environmentally friendly cuz they compost….it was the hippies/socialists/commies who, with their liberal/ndp consipirators, created the multi-cultural mess we have in Canada today with their social engineering….it will be nice to see the last of them..
I just like to wonder and marvel at civilisation sometimes. I mean I just shake my head at the sheer complexety and depth and breadth.
Currently I am building a new computer and just the other day I was looking at some of the indvidual parts and wonder how they were designed who did it how were they built the wonder of what they do when put together.
Anyway you get the point for me I can while some amount of time just thinking about the sheer elegance of it.
An analogy I’ve used with some success, in describing where we are today is this:
“Think of civilization as a great, inverted pyramid.
The point it balances on is the first step man took, when he picked up a stick to use as a tool.
Each layer above that is built, thicker and higher, on successive steps of technology, until you get to today’s world.
Instant messages, Ipods & cell phones, “poor” in America really more like middle class in other countries.
Now, imagine how easy it is to push that pyramid over, it being so topheavy, balanced on a point…”
Wow. Whittle punches through the clouds again. Thanks for the reference, Kate. So here it is, 03:00 on a Sunday morning, around me the city sleeps. Except, of course, for the unseen army of policemen, firemen, emergency doctors, operating engineers, and untold others who keep civilization progressing. Like me, for example. I’m working this early Sunday morning (well, technically I’m waiting for a massive file transfer while I write this, it takes an hour), so that when the engineers who depend on our systems to help keep large chemical plants safe get to work on Monday morning, they won’t find my work interrupting them.
You can see why the soldiers of this infrastructure and undergirding army tend to be less than impressed by, to use Whittel’s example, the Oscars, or to use one of my favourite egregious violations of reason, Allan Kellog’s conjecture in the Edmonton Journal to the effect that “Alberta’s arts sector is infrastructure and should be funded as such.” If you want to know what’s really important in the progress of civilization, just ask yourself how much you would notice the absence of something. For example, if the power grid supplying my office goes down right now, I’ll notice it immediately. However, if Kellog’s column doesn’t appear in the Edmonton Journal when it arrives in a few hours, I won’t notice it at all.
Don’t forget the words of Alan Charles Kors, who on 2003-10-19 wrote, at the Objectivist Center: “The cognitive behavior of Western intellectuals faced with the accomplishments of their own society, on the one hand, and with the socialist ideal and then the socialist reality, on the other, takes one’s breath away. In the midst of unparalleled social mobility in the West, they cry “caste.” In a society of munificent goods and services, they cry either “poverty” or “consumerism.” In a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives, they cry “alienation.” In a society that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians to an extent that no one could have dreamed possible just fifty years ago, they cry “oppression.” In a society of boundless private charity, they cry “avarice.” In a society in which hundreds of millions have been free riders upon the risk, knowledge, and capital of others, they decry the “exploitation” of the free riders. In a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth, they cry “injustice.” In the names of fantasy worlds and mystical perfections, they have closed themselves to the Western, liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction. Like Marx, they put words like “liberty” in quotation marks when these refer to the West.”
Much as I cannot abide rap music,* I enjoyed hearing an ageing hippie groaning about it once:
“Shit, I can’t believe my kids play music I hate all the time.”
Heh heh.
* The official musical choice of thugs, yardies, pimps and crack-pushers.
Bill Whittle has a way of thinking through and expressing what I inherently know. If the Palestinians valued the same principles as any of my ancestors: PROVIDING A BETTER LIFE FOR THEIR CHILDREN. Palestine would be a state and those children would be teachers, engineers, and true PUBLIC servants. What kind of society, with all the international aid they have recieved, would they have built?
My mom grew up the daughter of poor dirt farmers, 11 children born into the family. No birth control and every child was a precious farm hand and a beloved treasure. They struggled to grow what they ate. They literally made their own beds from cloth, thread, and gathered down. In a log cabin sleeping 5 in a bed, winds whipping through the cracks, and all using one outhouse that was too close in the summer and too far in the winter. No electricity. No plumbing. My mother never saw a TV until she was in high school. All “the state” ever gave them was free schooling when they didn’t have to miss for planting and harvest, access to public libraries, and some free government cheese and an occasional bag of beans. Each worked their asses off to rise out of poverty. Their hard upbringing drove them to work their way through college to become engineers, teachers, firemen, policemen, and war veterans. I know first hand that THIS is how America was built.
My ancestors were displaced by famine, war, and the exercise of imminent domain to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They moved on with the hand that was delt them and worked to make the best of their lives FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR CHILDREN.
I am living in America with every modern amenity that ingenuity and capitalism has provided. My mom grew up in America, too — THIRD WORLD AMERICA. ONE generation ago.
I often hear that we made progress because “America stole”. Tell me…WHAT HAVE WE STOLEN and from whom? I hear “Imperial America”. What Empire? WHERE IS IT? We have paid the world very dear debts already. What do we possible still owe it? Why are we so resented and unfairly and thoroughly HATED, while Islamic militants are revered? They have bared no burden that my own family has not. How did they carry it?
The Middle East would still be just another DESERT if not for Henry Ford and his successors. Market price was and is paid for oil and gas. What has Arab/Muslim society gained by this obscene wealth? Andrew Carnegie build libraries. What have the NATIVE sheiks and mullahs done with their fortune?
Apologies to Kate for bandwidth, but I do hope Jaymeister gets my reply to a related debate she initiated here: https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/004359.html#comments.
Jay,
I don’t think anyone here really knows Maliki well enough to know whether he is, or is not, an anti-semite. Howard Dean doesn’t either, and that is the point. The “Liberal” left (broadly speaking) can’t seem to ever put anything ahead of an opportunity to make political hay, no matter how presumptuous the basis of their “argument”. And that is all Dean was doing. He was not standing up for a value that he really believes in. This was an opportunity to honor a freely elected Iraqi head of state who has put his life on the line to help drag his people out of Saddam Hussein’s dungeon.
“It’s all about balance and calling people out for their shortcomings, while praising them for their strengths.” It seems the left believes that the only culture to be “called out for their shortcomings” is their own. Nothing wrong with any other. Anyone who sees issues with political and militant Islam are “Islamophobic”. I am all for healthy self-reflection, and consider it a hallmark of freedom. But, for the Left, it seems WE are ALWAYS the problem. Where is the praise for western liberalism among the (I will argue largely self-loathing) left? How do they project “Liberal” values to their fellow man?
I never hear a leftists wailing about the use of the death penalty in Iran or China. I never hear a leftist mention “gay rights”, or “women’s rights” in relation to the Arab world. In my opinion, THEY are the racist hypocrites. If they really believe in these “human rights”, shouldn’t they believe in them for every human, no matter their color?
Posted by: Tom Penn at July 29, 2006 08:39 PM
Apologies to Kate for bandwidth, but I do hope Jaymeister gets my reply to a related debate she initiated here: https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/004359.html#comments.
Jay,
I don’t think anyone here really knows Maliki well enough to know whether he is, or is not, an anti-semite. Howard Dean doesn’t either, and that is the point. The “Liberal” left (broadly speaking) can’t seem to ever put anything ahead of an opportunity to make political hay, no matter how presumptuous the basis of their “argument”. And that is all Dean was doing. He was not standing up for a value that he really believes in. This was an opportunity to honor a freely elected Iraqi head of state who has put his life on the line to help drag his people out of Saddam Hussein’s dungeon.
“It’s all about balance and calling people out for their shortcomings, while praising them for their strengths.” It seems the left believes that the only culture to be “called out for their shortcomings” is their own. Nothing wrong with any other. Anyone who sees issues with political and militant Islam are “Islamophobic”. I am all for healthy self-reflection, and consider it a hallmark of freedom. But, for the Left, it seems WE are ALWAYS the problem. Where is the praise for western liberalism among the (I will argue largely self-loathing) left? How do they project “Liberal” values to their fellow man?
I never hear a leftists wailing about the use of the death penalty in Iran or China. I never hear a leftist mention “gay rights”, or “women’s rights” in relation to the Arab world. In my opinion, THEY are the racist hypocrites. If they really believe in these “human rights”, shouldn’t they believe in them for every human, no matter their color?
Posted by: Tom Penn at July 29, 2006 08:39 PM
Uhhhh, scuse me, Kate — ignorant country boy on dial up. Please delete the accidental duplicatation.
Great Posts, Vitruvius & Tom Penn.
We appear to be surrounded by shallow, uninformed and uneducated, (regardless of the years they may have spent being ‘schooled’), individuals; (‘individuals’ who lack all individuality and whose ‘thought processes’ consist of little more than reguritated mantras).
Every time, (in my own hopelessly limited fashion), I try and identify the genesis of this societal peculiarity I return to highlighting the pernicious effects that ‘educators’, (as they now prefer to be called), inflict upon the young. People whose comparative workload is lighter than many, but who whine constantly about being overworked, (something they imply they’d be only too willing to do “But for the sake of ‘the children'”).
People whose remuneration/benefits/pensions place them in an enviable position, but who man the barricades in virtually unceasing strikes/threats of strikes and act as if they are being chained to sewing-machines in unventilated sweatshops.
And, even more importantly, people who seem not to comprehend, or pass along, the concept of perspective.
I peruse reader’s comments in the G&M on a daily basis, and so many posters repeat chants about “Both sides being in the wrong”, as if there are no absolutes……..I’m sure many of them would demand that police don’t ‘Take sides’ in the event of a mugging, and that both the the criminal AND the little old lady be thrown in jail until they learn to behave themselves. (Of course, this would involve a longer sentence for the little old lady, because the money she had obviously attained MUST have come from the backs of others, while the mugger, by virtual definition, has been deliberately excluded by society and NEEDS the cash to try and compensate for low self-esteem).
My pet theory, Nemo, is that all the people who are causing problems somehow fundamentally don’t like themselves, because I’m clearly causing no problems, and I really like myself. Heh. Well, folks, it’s 05:30 now, the new machines in Cleveland are up and running, the nightly machine status report emails have come through, and it looks like everything’s running smoothly, so I’m going to catch some sleep. Y’all take care now, y’hear, and have a great civilized Sunday: enjoy our progress, won’t you?
Hoping this c/p is not deemed OT.
“Saying farewells became banal.”
Fisher abhors sentiment; the mawkish kitsch of the left liberals exemplified by the nuance of Bill Graham, et al.
Fisher came from a railroad family; Fisher knows that society runs because of others labour.
Vitruvius knows, too.
Fisher has no time for saying farewells; Does Fisher know life is fragile; egg-shell fragile? Read on; there is so much in his last column.
Fisher cites/closes with the conundrum of Canada: What is to be done with crazy, old Aunty-American?
Fisher agrees: Look westward, the land is bright.
Bravo, Douglas Fisher.
Thank you, Douglas Fisher. …-
A Celebration of 50 Great Years
By Douglas Fisher
It’s time to go, probably past time.
My bent, as I write this last column for the Sun, is to be laconic about it. This skimping on sentiment probably stems from my early life in a railway family and years as an ordinary soldier in World War II. Saying farewells became banal.
…
In closing this farewell column, I want to ask and try to answer the great question: Where is Canada going?
My guess is that Quebec, so central to our politics during my time, is unlikely to depart (a decade ago, I thought it would).
The demographics on births, immigration and language preferences forecast a steady slippage of “la francophonie” in Canada. Within a quarter-century, I believe the West will be Canada’s most powerful region — the wealthiest, with the most federal clout. Meantime, Canada as a whole should be as prosperous as any country in the world, given our natural resources and people.
If there is any great and immediate question Canadians have to settle in the next decade, it is this: How do we come to sensible, workable terms with the most basic animus now affecting our polity, i.e., our rampant anti-Americanism?
If we cannot contain it and divert its force into a national determination to know our neighbours better and make them understand our grievances, we could face organized hostility and major troubles from the U.S.
To conclude, I wince when Canadians brag of our vast land and our superior ways in health care and peacekeeping — because bragging is so un-Canadian.
Nonetheless, at 86 and retiring, I am as positive about our country as I was in my 20s, coming home from the war.
In this century, there will be as much opportunity as there was a century ago in the opening up of our West, with the promise of a better society to the fore — if we cultivate our politics sensibly.
Excelsior! …-
http://www.paulding.net/bin/url.cgi/13359.6
Nemo 2, I hear you. I’m a teacher and the teaching culture, thoroughly subverted by the hippie mindset for the past 30 years, is now hell–pure hell. From an earlier post, I said (quotation marks only at the beginning and end):
“I’m a career teacher–literacy specialist–with a sterling track record. (I used to be respected. Now, when I advocate for higher standards, which I’m able to deliver in favourable circumstances–e.g., reasonable timetabling and curriculum demands–I get, figuratively, bashed over the head.)
The regulations and sycophantic enforcers (read: admin.) of the ministry and board I work for actually HINDER my ability to do the job properly. The public school teaching culture is a political quagmire. Altogether mixing my metaphors, doing my job in the gulag is like wading upstream in molasses in January, while shackled, hand and foot. Oh ya, my mouth’s covered in duct tape too.
The failure of public education to set high standards, academically and behaviourally, rather than appease, and the ministry’s inability to devise a “learn to mastery” curriculum–it needs to be “narrow and deep”, not “broad and shallow” as it is now–is an utter scandal. Heads should be rolling.
Unfortunately, heads are, but it’s usually the heads of parents and teachers who try to challenge the idiocies (and idiots) of the system. The unions are generally altogether non pro-active: They miss all kinds of opportunities to hold the boards accountable. E.g., When involved in cases where admin. has egregiously ignored and misused board rubrics, the union doesn’t produce or disseminate any documentation. Really! (Most board and union types–virtually all on the left of the political spectrum–are cut from the same cloth. Many are married to and/or party with one another.) Another scandal.”
As it strangles quality and integrity at all levels, the hippie-dippie mindset is alive and well in the education culture. Unfortunately, younger teachers were brought up in that leftie, feel-good, mushy-brained, don’t-rock-the-boat culture and sort of blend in. They’re not programmed for dissent, often have deficits in critical thinking and written expression skills, and they also know that any dissent is likely to be punished by our very powerful overlords, who are generally unaccountable: In my board, there is no assessment process for administration. How convenient for breaking the rules whenever it suits. This lack of accountability is a great incubator for a “culture of fear”, which is no exaggeration. It really is like a gulag. The leaders spout “equality” but don’t practise it, as they prowl about carrying their big whips.
Then look at the behaviour of the kids. The “rights” culture–without the balance of responsibility–has been handed to them on a platter. The worst ones and their parents use it relentlessly. Teachers who hang tough are often hung out to dry by the “cheese eating surrender monkey” administrators who cave nearly every time.
You said that teachers’ “comparative workload is lighter than many.” Honestly, that’s no longer true–if it ever was. After all the experience I’ve had, my workload SHOULD be less. It’s not. In order to accommodate all the “rights” and ever growing list of entitlements of all the public education stakeholders, all of which requires REAMS of paperwork, I’ve never worked longer hours or harder in my career. I also deal with behaviourally challenged–but entitled (hippie equality rum amok)–children on a scale exponentially different from 30 years ago. And on and on it goes . . . Rather a vicious circle.
sda is full of folks–thanks, Tom and vitruvius– who never got on or who’ve jumped off the utopian merry-go-round. There aren’t too many of those in the public education system, which is an ill omen. (The few of us out there are in the crosshairs of admin. and need to tread carefully.) But, Nemo 2, I hear you.
I have read all of Whittle’s early stuff and (mostly) enjoyed it. However this latest piece has confirmed to me that he needs a good editor.
Whittle’s article is based on a (liberal) theory (Nurture over Nature) that has been disproven. His article fundamentally rejects science and the nature of man to a shocking degree.
Whittle’s column is excellent; the Left Who Are Entitled ignore the infrastructure of civilization upon which they depend. If reminded of it, they assert that it was achieved ‘on the backs of the poor/colonized/whatever’. It wasn’t; it was achieved by reason and experiment and hard work. And the left most certainly doesn’t stop using that infrastructure of technological accomplishments.
With regard to Fisher’s comment on Canadians asserting their superior ‘peacekeeping’ – that’s quite an assertion by Canadians. Canada isn’t required, as is the USA, to protect this Western civilization. Canada has NO responsibilities.
Canada, for example, takes no responsibility to market its industrial products on the world market; it doesn’t compete; it just insists that the US buy all its products. There isn’t a country in the world which has a ratio of its exports of 85% to only one country. Only Canada exports 85% of its export to only one country, the US. That’s an extreme reliance on the US consumer.
Canada hasn’t developed an investor class, which invests money in long term future-oriented infrastructures of research and industrial dev’t. Instead, Canada relies on other countries to do the big money heavy investing. We then, just work in those factories; or work with the inventions developed elsewhere.
I don’t think that Canadians are deeply anti-American; I think they have been brainwashed into it by the massive propaganda arm of the Liberal Party control of Canada since Trudeau’s disastrous era. Anti-Americanism is a basic dogma of the Liberals, for, like the anti-West rhetoric of the ME, it enables us to ‘export’ all anger and dissent outside the country.
Anger and dissent at, for example, our disastrous health care system. We aren’t allowed to criticize it; if we do, we are told that ‘it’s worse in the US’ and ‘You don’t want to be like the US, do you??’. Heck – why not be like the US? So many of our citizens have to go to the US to get medical treatment!!
Anger and dissent at the reality that Canada has no role in the international stage. The Liberal pompous rhetoric that Canada is the World’s Peacekeeper’…is getting to be viewed as Just Words and Not True.
And ignorance. Ignorance that our middle class lifestyle is based, almost entirely, on the fact that we have an ever-ready consumer, the US, to purchase our goods. So, we don’t have the expense of competitive marketing, of competitive bettering of our products. No expenses; we just ship it all to the US.
No expenses for research – we just use the research contributions of the US and other countries.
No expenses for military – we just sit back and have the US pay for, and die for, maintaining our freedoms around the world.
Finally, wit Harper, we have a leader who is turning this Fake and Fraudulent Make Believe World of the Liberals around…and bringing Canada out of its FantasyLand and back into the light of reality.
And the MSM is relentlessly attacking him.
After all, for the Left and the MSM, it’s nice in the cool Cave of FantasyLand. They prefer to sit back there – and sneer at the World.
Bob –
‘science’ IS cultural. Science is not genetic; it is a rational examination of reality and a reasoned analysis of that reality. Therefore, it is ‘culture’ as differentiated from ‘natural’ or innate.
The innate nature of man is his reasoning capacity which allows him to adapt to his environment by means of cultural or social inventions. Man’s emotional capacity is beneficial (and harmful) because it enables him to desire change and then, move to his reasoning capacity to invent a new technology.
So, man can feel grief at diseases, can hope for a situation where he can control the disease, and then, move into a rational phase of examining causes of disease..and come up with a solution.
The innate aspects are the capacity for reason and the capacity for emotion. The social (cultural) are the actions of reasoning and the actions of emotion.
Whittle is right; you put someone from one background into another environment, and that new environment (culture, society) will affect their behaviour.
Kate: Thanks. Sublime! I was born in 1949, the exact 10-year gap he mentions. A boomer! But embarrassed to be in that generation which I consider the “worst generation”. I only hope to be still alive when the last hippy in government (that is an accurate phrase) is pensioned off.
Much of this reminded me of a very famous piece (in Libertarian circles) by Leonard Read, called: I, PENCIL.
http://209.217.49.168/vnews.php?nid=316
He is the founder of the venerable apolitical liberty think tank called the the Foundation of Economic Education (bookmark FEE, support it, get the monthly mag, The Freeeman).
lookout (a hero) and vitruvius, great! Nothing to add to that! As Kate says: “it’s enough”.
Obsession: What the War on Terror is Really all About
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6162397493278181614&q=Obsession%3A+What+The+War+on+Terror+Is+Really+About&hl=en
Highly recommended for people who search for “root causes” and think that the Arab/Israel conflict is just a dispute over land.
I’ve just read the whole article. This is what I wrote to Bill:
Hi there! I read “The Web of Trust” via small dead animals blog in Canada. I’m pushing 59 and hear you: I’ve NEVER been a hippie and, on that score, share your feelings exactly! As you can imagine, I’ve always marched to the tune of a different drummer and been somewhat a fish out of water re my contemporaries, who do, indeed, have a great deal to answer for.
As far as you go in your essay, I entirely agree with you: Many thanks for your wise insights. However, except for the reference to the preacher–your grandfather?–you ignored the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of the West. Without that foundation, there would be no Western Civilization. Really.
I’m a believing Christian–far from perfect–and the derision levelled at my faith is, I believe, a huge component in the ingratitude you so rightly identify and chastise in the West. (It’s actually a fact that Christians in the US–I’m very PRO-USA!–and Canada give the lion’s share of charitable donations in $, goods, and time. We actually ADD to the wealth of our nations, especially in the US. Unfortunately, on that score, Canada’s very socialistic and more like Europe. Most lefties brag that Canada’s better than the USA: That’s an utter crock.)
Keep up the good work. We need to hear the kind of thing you’re saying much more often. Whenever I can, I boldly stand up for Western Civilization, including insisting on acknowledging the importance of the Judeo-Christian code of ethics, which, among many other goods (musical and other artistic masterpieces, hospitals, schools and universities . . . ), led to Magna Carta, which led to peace, order, and good government in England and then in all its colonies, including the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. (And, to which countries have we seen mass immigration? Bingo! Those whose governments and judicial systems were founded on the Judeo-Christian bedrock of justice, respect for the individual, and the rule of law.)
Re the George Clooneys of this world: What utter hypocrites. I have no respect whatever for such sycophants. They live in a rarified bubble far removed from reality. Did you see Vanity Fair’s Green–for ecology–cover? Julia Roberts and a few other actresses looking like green Tinkerbells. I think Al Gore(y) was also included–green too. These people, with their 10 cars, 5 houses, personal Lear jets, servants, ALL the mod-cons, jet set lifestyle, etc. probably consume more energy in a week than my family’s modest lifestyle–one 8 year old Golf, one semi-detached house, no air conditioning, almost no flying around anywhere!–does in half a year. The lefty elites: whited sepulchres and Pharisees!
Bill, enjoy your flights. And here’s a poem for you, which you probably know. I was going to quote just a line, but then thought, why not send the whole, beautiful thing? (And, as you point out, we stand on the shoulders of brave men like Gillespie Magee. By comparison, George Clooney’s a moral pygmy.)
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941
May he rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon him.
One would think that the FAKEY, FLAKEY liberal-ness (mess) would someday collapse. Fakes usually are exposed for what they are and can collapse quickly and without warning. Just like the Berlin Wall. I know people who fled Germany in the 70s, thinking that socialism would overtake the west. I also know Canadians who voted Liberal all there lives because,.. because,.. Didn’t know. A lot of them now concure with virtually everyone of Prime Minister Harpers policies. Propaganda by the MSM is very, very persuasive. Or at least has been. Subtle spin, even just a little, can sway one’s thinking. After an “interview”, the reporter’s wrap-up, in all-knowing tones, can clinch the story line, even if it is biased.
I invite readers to read the following links; I’m sure you’ll agree with me that Whittle’s position on this issue, whether one agrees with it or not, is the liberal\socialist\marxist view on the issue. Let’s use that as a starting point:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_determinism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_determinism
I’d also state that almost nobody in the scientific community is a pure “tabula rasa” adherent, as is Whittle. The preponderance of evidence and general consensus of the scientific community at this time suggests something closer to 50/50 Nature/Nurture.
I don’t even need to suggest that Nature > Nurture in order to back my 2 points that a) Whittle is quantifiably wrong according to the best available scientific data; and b) Whittle’s position on this issue is quantifiably liberal\socialist\marxist.
So excuse the hell out of me if I express my displesure as I read a left wing baby boomer state his left wing nonsense while simultaneously telling me how much he hates left wing baby boomers. Chutzpah doesn’t even begin to cover this one.
Potted Durkheim. {yawn]
Excellent analysis, B.H.A. I actually have a friend in her 60s who’s always been a liberal–votes Green, actually! But she says she’s becoming–just now!–much more conservative and she admits that she’s quite impressed with PMSH. (Well, I do stand up for him a lot and educate my friend about what he’s doing, as well as discredit what she reads in the G & M.)
And you’re right about impostors, including ideologies. The fakery of the l(L)iberal dispensation’s all around us in the crumblimg of our ethical, communal–including families–and material infrastuctures. Lefty dogmas, which have trashed altruism and deferred gratification for “I want everything I want. For me. Now”–BTW, these are the “Charter values” PM Dithers kept referring to–simply cannot sustain healthy organisms.
The problem is that, like communism and facism, which have been totally discredited, the utopianism of the Left has had and still has the power to cause incalculable damage, even after it begins to be disabled: Trudeaupian clones have taken over most of the establishments of this country–education at all levels, government, mainline Protestant churches, the media, the judicial system (VERY BAD, with Trudeau’s Charter as its weapon of choice)–who are all very out of touch with reality and not willing to admit it or give up their perqs without a fight. And, as, at the moment, they hold the balance of power in this country, it won’t be easy to unseat them.
However, REALITY, of which PMSH and the CPC and Kate and sda are a huge dose, is beginning to slowly turn things around. Alleluia and pass the ammunition!
And I don’t mean weapons like guns or knives; I do mean much more powerful weapons, like–borrowing from scripture–the belt of truth–yes, there is such a thing; the breastplate of righteousness–yes, stand firm against moral relativism and false equivalency; and the sword of courage!
Now, my brave ones, onward and over the top: Let’s roll!)
bob- I don’t think that wikipedia is the Best Source for information. It’s good in many areas but must always be treated cautiously. Its viewpoints are sometimes lacking sufficient input and therefore, can be one-sided.
I don’t think Whittle was arguing in favour of the blank slate notion – at least, I didn’t read his comments in that manner. You obviously did.
I fully agree with you, however, in being against the Blank Slate notion. Humans are not ‘blank slates’ and as such, can’t be programmed like machines via their cultural nurturance. I agree with you that the 1940’s and on notion that ‘people are programmed totally by their culture’ is simplistic and empty.
Is that really the socialist viewpoint? That is, do socialists really think that humans are socially/culturally malleable and can be programmed to ‘be anything’ and ‘do anything’. That is a totalitarian viewpoint – and certainly, socialists have that tendency to control everyone!
However, I don’t get the impression from the left that they have any notion of causes of social behaviour; they never explore the environment as cause, history as cause. They seem to focus only on an agenda of rejecting social/cultural change in Other Peoples. A romantic Rousseau-based viewpoint.
I get the impression from leftist tracts that they tend to view themselves as superior, with the mission of ‘protecting the poor and deprived FROM education, FROM any social or cultural change. They have no intention of changing the ideologies or behaviour of these Other People. Their agenda is to prevent change.
Most certainly, more and more research is revealing that there are genetic differences between the genders in analytic and reasoning focus (Harvard’s Summer was right). That’s focus, not IQ.
However, as far as IQ is concerned, that’s an individual, not ethnic or group base. I’m sure you’ve heard of the asinine study that actually correlates IQ to nations! Can you imagine?! A nation is a political construct; an IQ is a biological construct. You can’t correlate a socially constructed attribute with a biologically constructed attribute. But, some people actually believe this.
My point is, that if you take a newborn from a society which lives by Hunting and Gathering, and raise that child in a modern industrial society, there is no reason to doubt that he/she might become a computer scientist. What might prevent him – is his IQ, which is HIS INDIVIDUAL, not group-based attribute. AND, the family in which he is nurtured, might have low aspirations. But, if his IQ is average or above average, and he’s raised in a scholastic environment, that child of a Hunting/Gathering past, can become a scientist.
Why? Because we are all members of the same species: homo sapiens.
Actually, mirabile dictu, I agree with Bob and Dawg re Bill’s faulty understanding of nature vs nurture. Human beings most certainly are NOT interchangable and nature is not as malleable as he suggests.
However, imperfect though his analysis is at the beginning, I believe Bill ends up with about the right conclusion re honouring the civilization of the West as a glorious construct, worthy of both our honour and protection.
Apologies if this is a duplicate post. Earlier effort disappeared.
Much of his piece reminded me of a famous essay by Leonard Read called “I, Pencil”. Read founded the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946 which remains a vital, venerable and totally apolitical think tank espousing liberty, free markets, and limited government. Check it out, bookmark the site; better yet, contribute to the cause and receive its monthly magazine The Freeman.
“I, Pencil”:
http://209.217.49.168/vnews.php?nid=316
Good posts Vitruvius (a hero in the trenches fighting against the forces of civilizatonal suicide)
ET: upon further reflection, you too are a hero for having these views despite being in the enemy camp of the modern university.
nature/nurture …. yawn. That is incidental to his central thesis which I read to be: the amazing complexity of western civilization despite the absence of an overarching plan. It is exactly this which drives left-lib elites (former hippies) beserk: that all this happens without their central plan.
There is nothing biological about IQ measurements. They are a sociological, culturally derived construct. They only measure, and poorly at that, the product of a long cultural learning experience. This is why the “assinine” study found the results that it did. To an extent, newborns ARE a blank slate, albeit tempered with a degree of pre-programmed species-specifc autonomic responses. THAT is why children of “hunter-gatherers” (an elitest viewpoint if there ever was one)can become “scientists” (whatever that means). Opportunity, appropriate sensory, cognitive and associative skill acquisition will produce a “scientist”, or “hunter-gatherer”, even, if its faulty, a Liberal. “IQ” has nothing to do with it. Adaptibility and culture will determine the success of the process, not IQ.
My apologies – that last post didn’t block out very well: ET up to “There is nothing biological…” Me, after that.
Testing 1,2,3 (with no links).
BTW, when did sda turn 3 million ? has almost added another 100k already !!
A fine article. Bill puts forward a number of interesting ideas in a lucid and entertaining manner. Well worth the read in its entirety.
I’ve been reading up on philosphical postmodernism lately. Postmodernism is rapidly falling out of fashion, but its “ideas” still pemeate many university departments. They precisely reflect the disdain for modern civilization that Wittle discusses. Many believe, for example, that science and technology are just “another way of knowing”, with no more claim to the truth than any other belief system. Postmodernists write these words, by the way, on modern workstations and send them on to their colleagues thousands of miles a way in a matter of seconds using e-mail. Such bizarre and willful obtusenes boggles the mind.
Many postmodernists also believe that heterosexual Caucasian males are the cause of all oppression in the world. We are, of course, but it’s impolite to point it out.
My feelings are that the societies we live in today are a reflection of our children and our children’s children upbringing. When there are no consequences for your actions, it simply means there are no boundaries. When appeasement is the parent’s response to a wrong by a child what message does it send? As adults these children feel that they don’t have to justify anything for their actions but a plausible excuse. The superficial caring and concern feigned by our society today is a direct result of the present artificial sound good look good social policies. We unfortunately get the society we raise.
Western Canadian: You said it! Thanks.
Maybe Immagration plays a part!
I note with interest that the graphic accompanying the referenced article includes a United Kingdom European Union passport. Until bilingualism took hold, the UK was by far Canada’s greatest source of immigrants and, for Britons, Canada was the “country of choice.” Currently, Australia has government representatives on the ground in the UK, interviewing educated and skilled applicants in an effort to recruit on the order of 80,000 of them per year. Last year, the Canadian government announced that it would be recruiting in North Africa for Francophone immigrants to settle in areas of Canada outside Quebec. One would rightly assume that education and skills are secondary. Is there really any doubt that an endogenous social engineering agenda has driven Canada’s immigration efforts?
(I tend to be more of a “cut, paste, and run” blog commentor, with good intentions (arguing on the net is both retarded and a waste of our good hostess’ bandwidth), but this is a fascinating topic for discussion. This is a tad long but it does contain a point, so permit me this and I’ll shut the hell up.)
I’ve said my thing from a scientific data point of view; I’ll try another perspective. The statement in the article that made me go “WTF???” was the following:
“In fact, I’ll bet my life on the fact that I can make astronauts and engineers out of any healthy babies of any color.”
“Astronauts and engineers” is sorta like me saying I could make “university graduates and Nobel Prize winners”; a little too much wiggle room there for my liking, but no big deal.
I can’t imagine this statement has much support among the public at large and particularly those who have raised children. I’d suggest if one were to go to, say, an online discussion board for parents raising children and posted the following:
“Hi folks. Some male geek with a blog is of the opinion that he can take any baby and raise – presumably alone, as a single geek male father, in a society that bans child beating and forces even homeschooled children to be taught crap – to be an engineer or an astronaut. In fact, since he’s willing to bet his life on it, we can infer that he is 100% certain of this and he completely discounts any possibility whatsoever that the kid could go bad, or even turn out “average”. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Thanks.”
…Whittle’s point of view would not be warmly received. And, in my opinion, rightly so.
Another thing to note is that is he 100% certain of his position, the implication being that he complete precludes any possibility whatsoever that said hypothetical kid could possibly turn out either bad, average, or just different than the expected outcome of engineer/astronaut.
This reminds me of a brilliant scene in an otherwise forgettable movie. The dialogue is between degenerate gambler/law student Matt Damon and his law professor Martin Landau:
– May I tell you a story?
– Please.
– For generations, men of my family have been rabbis.
In Israel, before that in Europe.
It was to be my calling. I was quite a prodigy.
The pride of my yeshiva.
The elders said I had a -year-old’s understanding…
of the midrash by the time I was .
But by the time I was
I knew I could never be a rabbi.
-Why not?
-Because for all I understood of the Talmud,
I never saw God there.
-You couldn’t lie to yourself.
– I tried.
Tried like crazy.
I mean, people were counting on me.
-But yours is a respectable profession.
-Not to my family.
My parents were destroyed, devastated by my decision.
My father sent me away to New York…
to live with distant cousins.
Eventually, l… I found my place,
my life’s work.
-What then?
-I immersed myself fully, I studied the minutiae,
I learned everything I could about the law.
I mean, I felt deeply inside that it was what I was born to do.
– And did your parents get over it?
– No.
I always hoped that I would find…
some way to change their minds, but…
They were inconsolable.
My father never spoke to me again.
-If you had to do it all over again,
would you make the same choices?
-What choice?
The last thing I took away from the yeshiva is this…
We can’t run from who we are.
Our destiny chooses us.
Great essay by Whittle. A kind of “I Pencil” on steroids.
E.T.’s right – there’s nothing in it that should foment a debate about ‘Nature vs Nurture’.
…wow, you actually mean there are people out there who think like Bill Whittle?
Being awash in the great Media bs, I was starting to think I was the abnormal one.
cheers
tom
’58 😉
PS- Gazooks, Kate you have the time to read other blogs while keeping this one running? You go girl!
skip – there’s nothing ‘elitist’ (whatever that means) about the term ‘Hunters and Gatherers’. It’s a recognized economic mode, just as ‘industrial’ is another economic mode, or ‘pastoral nomadic’ is another economic mode.
What ‘Hunters and Gatherers’ (H&G) means is that it is an economy based around, just as the words say – hunting, fishing, gathering. There is NO domestication of animals and NO cultivation of plants. The basic reason for this lack of domestication and cultivation is – the environment won’t support it. No animals that can be domesticated (ever tried to domesticate a lion?); and the land is not suitable for agriculture (too wet, too dry, soil too thin, too cold, too hot, etc). This economic mode makes NO effort to technologically change its environment; it’s a ‘no growth’ society which means it can only support a minimal population. It’s extremely stable BUT, has no capacity to adapt, because ideologically, the society does not define itself as ‘changing the env’t’.
A scientist, of course, is devoted to innovation and change. Get the difference?
I agree with you that our IQ tests are geared to our western mode, but, they have developed tests to measure non-western perspectives. I disagree that they only measure cultural learning. They measure logical or reasoning capacity – and that’s not learned and is a basic component of all members, no matter the ethnic group, of our species.
I think IQ does play an important part. You cannot make a child, with an average IQ, become a top-notch scientist, a ‘genius mathematician’. If that were the case, all yuppie children, who are sent to top notch schools, provided with tutors, given every advantage – would all become tops in their field. We know that this isn’t the case. Equally, you cannot make a child with a below average IQ, become a CEO of a bank.
rabbit – nice comments on postmodernism. I loathe and detest postmodernism! Is it falling out of fashion? I don’t think so. The thing about postmodernism, is that it is incredibly easy to do. You don’t need to justify, to validate, to prove your conclusions. No evidence, no data and most certainly no logical relations. All you do is state your opinions, add lots of emotional words – and there it is! Our academic institutions are filled, are packed, with tenured, soft-living, leftist postmodernists, all pontificating about nothing, all kept by the state, i.e., us taxpayers. And, incredibly dumb – filled with rhetoric against industrialism, as rabbit points out, as they type madly away on their industrially dev’t computers, cell phones, and etc. (And I’m an academic).
western canadian – I agree with you about our biased immigration policies, which heavily favour French-speaking immigrants – (Quebec deals with immigration on its own) – as Quebec tries to build up its declining population.
ET:
I just read that postmodernism was falling out of fashion. I don’t know it myself because I am not an academic – perhaps the claims are optimistic. Some of the stated reasons for postmodernism dying out are:
Even if postmodernism dies off, I’m sure some fashionable new idiocy will rise up to take its place.
“Tom Penn”:
“I never hear a leftists wailing about the use of the death penalty in Iran or China. I never hear a leftist mention ‘gay rights’, or ‘women’s rights’ in relation to the Arab world.”
Indeed. The silence of the “left” on such issues interests me, as does their continued political collusion with the Islamist extremists.
I would have thought something like hard-core Islam would have been pretty well anathema to the political left.
Apparently not.
I can only assume therefore that opposing evil old George Bush, his stooges Harper and Blair and the right end of the political spectrum over-rides all other ideological considerations.
Very Machiavellian.
“ET”:
“western canadian – I agree with you about our biased immigration policies, which heavily favour French-speaking immigrants – (Quebec deals with immigration on its own) – as Quebec tries to build up its declining population.”
Those “biased” immigration policies have sure been a big success for Québec demographics, haven’t they?
On the subject of George Clooney and other wealthy showbiz types when they make great pronouncements on the state of the world, I always think to myself:
“Actors. They’re so cute. And they say the darndest things, don’t they?”
Then I dismiss them entirely from my mind.
I have diligently dug away at Whittle’s article because I felt like the proverbial kid attacking a room full of manure with a shovel: there has to be a propaganda pony under this pile of horseshit somewhere. And there was.
The nature vs. nurture thing – bit of a red herring; it’s both, so what?
The “full-court effort to tear down civilization these days” – OK, what, by whom? Obviously TBA.
The “checkride” – descriptive and interesting, leading to the connectivity of civilization (I think.)
“Every time two people come together and trade, wealth is created. Out of thin air. By magic … Every trade, every transaction, increases the total wealth – for both parties.” Ah, we’re finally getting to the pony – the virtue of the free market creating wealth for everyone out of “thin air.” There are no victims of Enron etc., every marketing ploy and word of advertising is true, there is no zero-sum game in business. You’ve just got to love these “trade and trust relationships” that give “our incredible, magnificent Western Civilization, the clear, pure tone of a tuning fork.”
But: “Any permanent break in the Web of Trust and the Oscars…[and Western civilization] go away.” And the first “break” is right there: George Clooney and his ilk who show “why ‘liberal’ has become a dirty word in America.” But fear not, there is safety in – McCarthyism! McCarthy “was right. There were hundreds of people determined to undermine this system and replace it with one that has shot 100 million people in the back of the head at midnight in underground torture cells.”
Now this is the first I have heard of 100 million getting shot in the back of the neck by Communist secret police. Up to now the figure of 100 million has only been bandied about in right-wing circles as the number as victims of SOCIALISM, incl. Red Revolution and aftermath, famines, purges, WWII, labour camps, Cold War, Korea, wars of national liberation etc., with the victims of national socialism/fascism thrown into the socialist pool for good measure. But now they get the single-bullet treatment in prison basements. Does Whittle have any idea what he is talking about? Does it even matter?
And then we have real heroes, not the Hollywood traitors, but such as the “3,461 current Medal of Honor winners” who “gave their lives so we could live in the freedom, security and prosperity that alone allows us to be so callow, so cynical, and so relentlessly ungrateful to those who have sacrificed on our behalf.” We don’t “glorify” them – we glorify Clooney and other “Liberal[s] in Hollywood.” And a “civilization that is this debased when it comes to who and what they glorify is in some trouble.” Not just that, we complain, and “Civilizations fall because people bitch and complain when the electricity is off for fifteen minutes, and never give a thought to the fact that it has been on for their entire lives.” (A defence of deregulation?)
So under the pile of pseudo-science, economics, history, cultural criticism and “high flight”, we find the propaganda pony: don’t worry, be happy; the free market is great for all; abhor liberals; don’t complain about the small stuff, and be prepared to be a hero in war as well as at work. Otherwise civilization as we know it fails.
Who pays for such stuff?
agotfact:
You have a point. Not every trade increases the wealth of both parties – sometimes one of the parties makes a mistake, sometimes both end up regretting the contract.
But it is true that most trades, provided they are freely entered, benefit both parties. Otherwise why would both parties agree to it? This is the fundamental fact behind free enterprize, and is not as appreciated as it should be. It is a stupendous force for creating wealth.
Citing examples where things go wrong doesn’t change that. It’s like saying “modern medicine doesn’t work because my aunt died of cancer.”
If you had diligently dug away at Whittle’s article, Agitfact, you would have noticed that the first two words of the article were “Chapter One”, which would have left you less confused regarding the TBA nature of the article. Perhaps if you are a little more diligent after, say, Chapter Two, you might find yourself a little less confused.