Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[a_majoor]

The left is eating its own. While rather entertaining in of itself, the larger problem is the "long march through the institutions" means these civil wars are taking place within many of the institutions that are needed to keep civil society functioning. Burocracies, Academia and the courts riven with internal bickering over status, privilege and power simply will not be able to create the outcomes that are needed for the rest of us to carry on (and indeed can only harm anyone caught within their nets i.e. virtually everyone).

One can only hope that these antics cause a quick implosion and the rest of us can pick up the pieces and rebuild these institutions in a more useful and relevant form:

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2015/06/03/the-left-continues-to-devour-itself/?print=1

The Left Continues to Devour Itself

Posted By Ed Driscoll On June 3, 2015 @ 2:41 pm In God And Man At Dupont University,Liberal Fascism,The Return of the Primitive | 28 Comments


“Liberal Professor: My Liberal Students Terrify Me” — so naturally, he goes to Vox.com, the home of Matt “Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is sometimes the right thing for advocates to do” Yglesias and Ezra “Not everything the Nazis touched was bad” Klein to spill his worst fears. In response, Ace of Spades writes, if a leftwing professor is feeling terrified by his fellow leftists still in the larva stage, “Then all is right. Terror is virtue, Robspierre said. It is through terror that we compel virtue”:


I say it’s sort of worth reading because the writer is such a leftist coward. The entire piece is framed around the argument that this New Reign of Terror is bad chiefly because it limits the potential for leftist political victories. He’s such a scaredy-cat he cannot go two paragraphs without coming back to his major point — or, possibly, his chief defense at the academic kangaroo court which will be investigating him for his heresies — that his real problem is that this gonzo identity politics militancy just blocks us from effective action to protect abortion rights. (No really, he says that.)

I’ve cut that twaddle out. Not just because I’m anti-leftist, and thus this argument bothers me on a subjective level. But because the argument is basically this: Terrorizing people into political conformity could be or would be a valid form of “arguing,” if it actually advanced leftist political goals, but it doesn’t, so it isn’t.

I tend to think that stupidity, solipsism, and social cruelty are objectively bad things, and not just bad because they fail the Marxist Ends Justify the Means test.


I’m a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

by Edward Schlosser on June 3, 2015

I’m a professor at a midsize state school. I have been teaching college classes for nine years now…

Things have changed since I started teaching. The vibe is different. I wish there were a less blunt way to put this, but my students sometimes scare me — particularly the liberal ones.

Not, like, in a person-by-person sense, but students in general. The student-teacher dynamic has been reenvisioned along a line that’s simultaneously consumerist and hyper-protective, giving each and every student the ability to claim Grievous Harm in nearly any circumstance, after any affront, and a teacher’s formal ability to respond to these claims is limited at best.

As I said, read the whole thing, especially Ace’s take-no-prisoners response to Schlosser’s Robespierre-like cri de coeur shortly before the revolution really devoured him. By the way, is the article at Vox yet another terrified academic, or was it written by the same professor who wrote anonymously this back in March? [Same author; see update at end of post -- Ed]


Personally, liberal students scare the shit out of me. I know how to get conservative students to question their beliefs and confront awful truths, and I know that, should one of these conservative students make a facebook page calling me a communist or else seek to formally protest my liberal lies, the university would have my back. I would not get fired for pissing off a Republican, so long as I did so respectfully, and so long as it happened in the course of legitimate classroom instruction.

The same cannot be said of liberal students. All it takes is one slip—not even an outright challenging of their beliefs, but even momentarily exposing them to any uncomfortable thought or imagery—and that’s it, your classroom is triggering, you are insensitive, kids are bringing mattresses to your office hours and there’s a twitter petition out demanding you chop off your hand in repentance.

Is this paranoid? Yes, of course. But paranoia isn’t uncalled for within the current academic job climate. Jobs are really, really, really, really hard to get. And since no reasonable person wants to put their livelihood in danger, we reasonably do not take any risks vis-a-vis momentarily upsetting liberal students. And so we leave upsetting truths unspoken, uncomfortable texts unread.

There are literally dozens of articles and books I thought nothing of teaching, 5-6 years ago, that I wouldn’t even reference in passing today. I just re-read a passage of Late Victorian Holocausts, an account of the British genocide against India, and, wow, today I’d be scared if someone saw a copy of it in my office. There’s graphic pictures right on the cover, harsh rhetoric (“genocide”), historical accounts filled with racially insensitive epithets, and a profound, disquieting indictment of capitalism. No way in hell would I assign that today. Not even to grad students.

Beyond that recent experience of deja vu, we’ve seen all this before, haven’t we? (And much more recently between the national and international socialist revolutions in France, Germany and Russia.) Back in December, after the left all-but-destroyed Ferguson, Ben Shapiro tweeted:


Race riots, anti-capitalism attacks, and attempts to slander the folks who keep us safe. Welcome back to 1969, Dems.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 9, 2014

Trigger warning: we’ll have more painful ’60s flashbacks right after the page break.

To follow up on Shapiro’s tweet, just as areas such as Ferguson and Baltimore are reverting to the bad old riot-filled days of the Johnson era, today’s college environment is very much like the late ’60s as well; back then, the radical “New Left” went to work devouring the New Deal-minted “Old Left.” As David Gelernter wrote a few years ago in America-Lite, the Vietnam War was a purely left-on-left battle between Johnson-era old liberals and the new leftists, whose movement preceded Johnson’s escalation of the war:


Antiwar protests were powered by the New Left and “the Movement,” which originated in Tom Hayden’s “Port Huron Statement” of 1962, before the nation had ever heard of Vietnam. And the New Left picked up speed at Berkeley in the Free Speech Movement of 1964 and early ’65, before the explosion of Vietnam. Bitterness toward America was an evil spirit shopping for a body when Vietnam started to throb during 1965.

Similarly, today’s blue-on-blue academic environment sounds like a late night repeat of R.P.M., Stanley Kramer’s disastrous, unintentionally camp 1970 “message movie” about blue-on-blue student protests. Or as I wrote last year, after I forced myself to finally watch R.P.M. (short for “Revolutions Per Minute,”)  after it aired on TCM, and much like Easy Rider’s unintended happy ending, I found myself cheering the cops at the end of Kramer’s film, when they cleared the thuggish effete student protestors out of the campus computer building they had hijacked:


After the tear gas clears, parents pick up their kids on bail. Paco [Anthony Quinn's earnest liberal college professor] meets with the school regents, to sign the student bail forms and other post-riot paperwork. One university regent (played a young Donald Moffat, who would go on to play a Data-like android a few years later in the craptacular Logan’s Run TV series, and then Lyndon Johnson, the ultimate ‘60s authority figure, in the film version of The Right Stuff) tells him, “Look, it was rebellion. Out and out rebellion. What the hell could you have done?

“Oh, I could have stayed in there with them.”

“And let them break the computer?”, Moffat’s character replies.

“To help them get what they want,” Paco mischievously smiles.

“What the hell do they want?”, asks another regent.

“Oh, they…they want to keep us awake at night,” replies Paco.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” asks Moffat’s character.

“If we can sleep at night with what is happening, then we ACCEPT what is happening! They won’t,” Paco tells him, while pointing towards the door, and the students being arraigned outside.

William F. Buckley couldn’t have tossed nearly a half century of liberalism and progress down the ash heap of history any better himself; that these were self-hating liberals who were wallowing in the failure of the Great Society made it all the more fascinating. You can hear the first draft of Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech in Quinn’s cri de Coeur, along with Eric Voegelin and Buckley’s admonishment to avoid immanentizing the eschaton.

So why didn’t more liberal colleges fight back against student protestors in the late ’60s?  In her 2007 book, The Death of the Grown-Up, Diana West gave one clue:

Indeed, at the University of Chicago, which may be the one campus where administrators acted swiftly to expel students who had occupied a building, “parents took out newspaper advertisements protesting the draconian punishment visited upon their darlings, thus providing a clue to what had gone wrong with their children.”

Likewise, who wants to be the leftwing professor today who wants to tell similarly leftwing parents how it all went wrong for their leftwing students before they even arrived in college?

In other words, just like the ’60s, it’s blue on blue on blue, all the way down.

For those who would like to escape this sort of madness, Kurt Schlichter offers “4 Pieces of Conservative Advice For Young Conservative Men.”

Young conservative men would be well advised to read it — and not just because, as Schlichter boasts, his career choices have led him to marry “an ‘exceedingly hot wife.’ For that reason, if no other, you should listen to me.” And to bring this post full circle, young men in and out of college would be equally well-advised to heed this advice from Schlichter: “If you see a chick hauling around a mattress, keep moving no matter how open to experimentation you hear she is. Do not become the lead in some daddy issue-plagued hysteric’s personal psychodrama.”

Related: “California’s sexual re-education camps are coming soon.”

What’s a leftist revolution where everyone on campus is guilty until proven innocent — including the professors — without the re-education camps?

Update: At NRO, Charles C.W. Cooke confirms that two articles I linked to above are both by Schlosser and as he wryly observes on Twitter, “Funny that the moment campus insanity began to hurt progressivism, progressives began to speak up…” In his article on Schlosser’s lament, Cooke asks, “Whatever became of the virtues of the cold spike of fear? Did its gleaming edge strike a little too close to home?”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from Ed Driscoll: http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2015/06/03/the-left-continues-to-devour-itself/

 

[Kilo_302]

Deconstructing "Conservative" thought:

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/15/inside_the_conservative_brain_what_explains_their_wiring/

Tom Metzger, the leader of White Aryan Resistance, expressed a perception of human nature in which competition is taken to the extreme. Metzger believed that little had changed since Hobbes’s state of nature, since life remained a war pitting man against man: “either I am strong enough to defeat you or you will smash me. It’s simple,” he said.

Ezekiel uncovered a similarly dangerous worldview among a Detroit cell of neo-Nazis. What most impressed the ethnographer about the neo-Nazis after his months of fieldwork with them was the emotion of fear: “These were people,” he explained, “who at a deep level felt terror that they were about to be extinguished. They felt that their lives may disappear at any moment.”

A palpable fear of a dangerous world figures prominently even in the mainstream American far right. Glenn Beck, the Tea Party–aligned public-opinion leader, feels that people are out to get him. Beck wears bulletproof vests when speaking in public. He also planned to build a six-foot barrier around his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, to barricade his residence against bullets (but the security wall conflicted with local zoning ordinances).

Beyond these individual cases of political leaders, is there any hard proof that right-wingers in general fear a dangerous world any more than run-of-the-mill liberals do? Beyond conventional questionnaires, innovative lab research has shed important light on this human-nature problem. University of New Mexico psychologist Jacob Vigil used computers to alter photographs of human faces; he simplified the photographs into “sketches,” and then blurred them to create emotionally ambiguous expressions. Next, Vigil had 740 adults interpret the emotions on the faces. Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats to see threatening or dominating emotions in the hazy faces (other factors such as gender, age, and employment status, however, did not affect their perceptions).

 

[Brad Sallows]

Time for another round of "science says right-wingers are psychologically unbalanced", is it?

Another hypothesis: "fear" is just "acknowledgement and recognition of reality", while the non-"fearful" are merely naive.  That tends to fit the "mugged by reality" political transition behaviour.

 

[a_majoor]

Of course empirical evidence also shows that conservatives are far more likely to give to charity, volunteer for charity work and be involved in their communities than "liberals".

But Kilo isn't about empirical evidence, unless it supports the narrative. Think on the other recent thread where Kilo decries the idea that America passed on a chance to become another Sweden, even though more people from all over the world choose to go to America, and Americans are quite a bit wealthier than Swedes, per capita. Once those facts were pointed out the thread became suddenly silent. Imagine all the other tropes that will be trotted out as the American election campaign swings into high gear. The ones that are being pushed by the American legacy media will be the ones Kilo will enthusiastically promote, while contrary evidence will be ignored.

In fact, I will point out one for the upcoming Canadian election. While waiting for coffee to brew, I listened to the CBC news report on the Senate expense scandal. The commentator talked a lot about Sen Duffy, mentioned Sen Harb not at all, and quickly passed over the fact that seven other senators were now under investigation by the RCMP at the end of the story. Why so quickly? Five of the Senators are Liberal and only two are Tories. The Duffy affair has a huge possibility of blowing up in the faces of the Liberals and opponents of the CPC in general; I predict the story will be allowed to "fade away" since it no longer supports the "narrative".

 

[Underway]

But Kilo isn't about empirical evidence, unless it supports the narrative.

Your posts above are yes less inflamitory and to a generally receptive audience but generally are also to support your own narrative even when they are opinion pieces with little to no evidence yourself.  Now I find where Kilo's quotes clumsy and overly inflamatory it is true that conservatives come across as afraid and illogical.  There is a reason Tory's in the UK are called the nasty party.  And don't say this is a media construct.  I've met enough libertarians, religeous conservatives and hard core party faithful to make my own assessment thank you.  I used to think the same myself until I read "Rescuing Canada's Right"[/url] and learned what a small-c conservative was.  And then I realized that I was a small-c conservative in many ways.

In fact, I will point out one for the upcoming Canadian election. While waiting for coffee to brew, I listened to the CBC news report on the Senate expense scandal. The commentator talked a lot about Sen Duffy, mentioned Sen Harb not at all, and quickly passed over the fact that seven other senators were now under investigation by the RCMP at the end of the story. Why so quickly? Five of the Senators are Liberal and only two are Tories. The Duffy affair has a huge possibility of blowing up in the faces of the Liberals and opponents of the CPC in general; I predict the story will be allowed to "fade away" since it no longer supports the "narrative".

So whats the excuse for CTV coverage then? The Globe and Mail? The National Post? Is it a big conspiracy?  Mike Duffy IS the story because he's the most obvious star.  He was well known around the country for his TV presence and also made things worse because of his loud mouth ill advised PUBLIC responses to the investigation.  If Harb was as arrogant and flamboyant when investigated then he would be more of a story.  But Duffy just can't avoid stealing the show even when he should keep his mouth shut.  He's also probably the worst offender as well, and the entire PM staffer giving him a "loan" connects him directly to the PM's office.  Grassroots conservatives HATE this stuff.  Its the story not the CBC necessarily.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Duffy was "connected" to the PMO by a lot more than the $90K loan from Nigel Wright.

He was recruited into the Senate of Canada by the PMO because of his excellent communication skills ~ he's a damned good speaker, and his high public profile ~ he was, generally, well liked by Canadians, and because of his (presumed) good relations with the mainstream media. He was featured in TV and, especially, internet advertising campaigns and was sent out to "light up" lackluster Conservative candidates.

In short, he was thew PMO's "man," an important part of the (perpetual) campaign team. Mike Duffy bought nothing to the Senate except his media/campaign skills, but that's why the PMO wanted him.

But Mr Duffy's waistline should have been a warning ... he likes the trough too much.

 

[Kilo_302]

Of course empirical evidence also shows that conservatives are far more likely to give to charity, volunteer for charity work and be involved in their communities than "liberals".

But Kilo isn't about empirical evidence, unless it supports the narrative. Think on the other recent thread where Kilo decries the idea that America passed on a chance to become another Sweden, even though more people from all over the world choose to go to America, and Americans are quite a bit wealthier than Swedes, per capita. Once those facts were pointed out the thread became suddenly silent. Imagine all the other tropes that will be trotted out as the American election campaign swings into high gear. The ones that are being pushed by the American legacy media will be the ones Kilo will enthusiastically promote, while contrary evidence will be ignored.

In fact, I will point out one for the upcoming Canadian election. While waiting for coffee to brew, I listened to the CBC news report on the Senate expense scandal. The commentator talked a lot about Sen Duffy, mentioned Sen Harb not at all, and quickly passed over the fact that seven other senators were now under investigation by the RCMP at the end of the story. Why so quickly? Five of the Senators are Liberal and only two are Tories. The Duffy affair has a huge possibility of blowing up in the faces of the Liberals and opponents of the CPC in general; I predict the story will be allowed to "fade away" since it no longer supports the "narrative".

And charity has largely been proven to be ineffective and symbolic. In reality it's public policies that have the most effect.

Then again, conservative minds cling to symbols like religion and nationalism against all evidence and logic (getting rid of the long form census is merely more evidence of this). 

I also don't see the connection between this and the "legacy media" in the US or that 5 of the 7 Senators in Canada accused of improper expenses are Liberal. I don't support the MSM in the US (it's largely a joke, as it is in Canada) and I certainly am no Obama supporter. I also despise the Liberal Party.

Finally, if you're using my silence as evidence that you have somehow won an argument you're mistaken. My point was simply that the countries of the world that have in place policies that you decry as being socialist seem to have far better standards of living than the US. That is reality. If you want to live in a country where private bondsmen have reality TV shows, everyone owns a gun and a trip to Denny's might turn into the OK Coral, then go there. You're on the wrong side of history. Most Americans support Obamacare (15% wanted something even MORE liberal, imagine that), and more Americans are realizing that austerity is a lie, just as conservative thought is. If you're not a millionaire you're voting against your own interests.

 

[a_majoor]

Narrative: Americans want Obamacare.

Empirical evidence:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2015/obamacare_by_the_numbers

Obamacare By The Numbers
Thursday, March 26, 2015

President Obama yesterday celebrated the fifth anniversary of Congress’ passage of his national health care law, but most Americans still don’t like it.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of Likely U.S. Voters view the law unfavorably, while 44% share a favorable opinion of Obamacare. This includes 15% with a Very Favorable view and 35% with a Very Unfavorable one.

Democrats continue to be strong fans of the law. Most Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party don’t care for it. Generally speaking, the older the voter, the more critical he or she is likely to be.

Just after the first of the year, overall unfavorables fell below 50% for the first time since October 2013 but now appear to have rebounded to levels seen in surveys for several years.  Prior to that survey, favorables for the law ranged from 36% to 46% since the beginning of 2013, while unfavorables ran as high as 58%. Passion remains on the side of the opponents with Very Unfavorables continuing to outdistance Very Favorables.

Only 13% of all voters believe the law should remain as originally passed by Democrats in Congress. Not a single Republican voted for it. A plurality (46%) continues to think Congress and the president should go through the law piece by piece and improve it, but that’s down from a high of 52% in November. Thirty-five percent (35%) say they should repeal the entire law and start over.

Sixteen percent (16%) say they have been helped by the law. More than twice as many (35%) say they have been hurt by it instead. Forty-seven percent (47%) still have felt no impact, but that number has been inching down from the mid-50s since the law formally went into effect in November 2013.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to rule later this year on a major legal challenge of the health care law that would eliminate the taxpayer-funded subsidies for many of those who have signed up for health insurance through Obamacare. Nearly half (48%) of voters think it’s a good idea to hold up the law until court cases like this are resolved.

The cost of health care  has been voters’ number one concern in surveys since the current health care debate began several years ago. Fifty-nine percent (59%) think reducing the cost of health care is more important than mandating that everyone in America have health insurance.

Supporters of Obamacare argue that this so-called individual mandate will reduce the current cost of health care. But most voters continue to believe those costs will go up, not down, as a result of the new law.

Just 26% think the quality of health care will improve because of the law. Forty-four percent (44%) expect the quality of care to get worse.

Seventy-four percent (74%) think the law is likely to cost taxpayers more than projected by its supporters.

Also factor in that most voters have health insurance they like. But as recently as late November, 39% said their health insurance had changed as a result of the health care law, and 66% of those voters said the change had been for the worse.

Voters continue to favor more individual cost and coverage options than the law allows.

A big problem for Obamacare opponents, though, is the growing number of Americans who have bought subsidized health insurance through the federal or state exchanges established under the law. Nineteen percent (19%) of voters say they or a member of their immediate family now have bought health insurance this way, up from four percent (4%) when the exchanges first opened in late 2013.

Seems Empirical evidence does not support the narrative at all. For the logically minded, this means the narrative is false (unsupported by evidence) and people should stop making stuff up, or repeating falsehoods as truth.

 

[vonGarvin]

Seems Empirical evidence does not support the narrative at all. For the logically minded, this means the narrative is false (unsupported by evidence) and people should stop making stuff up, or repeating falsehoods as truth.

That's the tactic: keep repeating the lie over and over until some of it sticks.  Once part of it sticks, the rest will follow.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

You mean like Global Warming?

 

[Underway]

You mean like Global Warming?

[valleygirl]Um thats climate change.[/valleygirl]  Global warming is so 1990's, the phrase has now been coopted by climate change deniers. That's like going around thinking the Blue Jays are winning world series and it's still team Christina vs team Brittany.

 

[a_majoor]

Limosine Liberals and Silk Stocking Socialists are not only "not" helping the poor, they are actively working against them. This book lays out what some of us know already:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1496960319/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1496960319&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwviolentkicom&linkId=MUDVAK64CMMCKTMC

The Left's War Against the Poor: Rethinking the Politics of Poverty
Paperback– February 9, 2015
by John Pepple(Author)

Leftists have been waging a war against the poor since the 1960s. During that decade, the left began turning its attention to other causes and in doing so began a war against the poor. This war is not an intentional war, but it is a war nevertheless. It manifests itself in a number of ways: by environmentalists who never think about the impact that their policies have on the poor; by well-meaning people who destroyed the public schools; and by people who support criminals over their victims, who are almost always poor people. Why did this war happen? It happened because the left, despite its focus on the poor, has almost always been controlled by the rich. When the left adopted new issues several decades ago, these rich people refused to listen to those among the poor who protested. But while the left's war against the poor goes back only a few decades, the fact that the left has been controlled by the rich ever since the left began means that the left has never really been wholly committed to helping the poor. Instead, the analyses and policies formulated by rich leftists have helped rich leftists (who get to keep their wealth and to control the government) more than the poor. This book argues that a leftism by and for the poor will be strikingly different from leftism as it now exists. While Rich People's Leftism blames capitalism for exploiting the workers and wants a redistribution of wealth, Poor People's Lefism wants job creation. The more jobs there are for the poor, the less they are exploited. It is job creation more than anything else that will help the poor escape from poverty.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Finally, if you're using my silence as evidence that you have somehow won an argument you're mistaken.

Arguments are not "won".  Your worldview either becomes more accurate and factually sound in the face of what is presented, or you exercise your right to freedom of belief and it does not.

 

[a_majoor]

Glad to know that everyone is focused on all the "correct" issues of the day. This illustrates why Progressives, SJW's and other leftists are increasingly irrelevant in today's world, despite having achieved control of most of the levers of political, judicial, bureaucratic and academic power:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-off-stage-horror-amid-the-euphoria-1435355279

Love Among the Ruins

Hurrah for gay marriage. But why do supporters save their vitriol for its foes instead of the barbarians at our gates?
By
Bari Weiss
June 26, 2015 7:02 p.m. ET

On Friday my phone was blowing up with messages, asking if I’d seen the news. Some expressed disbelief at the headlines. Many said they were crying.

None of them were talking about the dozens of people gunned down in Sousse, Tunisia, by a man who, dressed as a tourist, had hidden his Kalashnikov inside a beach umbrella. Not one was crying over the beheading in a terrorist attack at a chemical factory near Lyon, France. The victim’s head was found on a pike near the factory, his body covered with Arabic inscriptions. And no Facebook friends mentioned the first suicide bombing in Kuwait in more than two decades, in which 27 people were murdered in one of the oldest Shiite mosques in the country.

They were talking about the only news that mattered: gay marriage.

Unlike President Obama, I have always been a staunch supporter of gay marriage, and I cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling making gay marriage legal in all 50 states. But as happy as I was, I was equally upset on Friday—and not just with the Islamists who carried out those savage attacks.

Moral relativism has become its own, perverse form of nativism among those who stake their identity on being universalist and progressive.

How else to explain the lack of outrage for the innocents murdered on the beach, while vitriol is heaped on those who express any shred of doubt about the Supreme Court ruling? How else to make sense of the legions of social-justice activists here at home who have nothing to say about countries where justice means flogging, beheading or stoning?

How else to understand those who have dedicated their lives to creating safe spaces for transgender people, yet issue no news releases about gender apartheid in an entire region of the world? How else to justify that at the gay-pride celebrations this weekend in Manhattan there is unlikely to be much mention of the gay men recently thrown off buildings in Syria and Iraq, their still-warm bodies desecrated by mobs?

It is increasingly eerie to live in this split-screen age. Earlier this week I received an email from a progressive Jewish organization about how Judaism teaches “that the preservation of human dignity is important enough to justify overriding our sacred mitzvot.” The rest of the email was about respecting dignity by using preferred gender pronouns.

On my other computer screen, I looked at a photograph of five men in orange jumpsuits, their legs bound. They were trapped like dogs inside a metal cage and hanging above a pool of water. They were drawing their final breaths before their Islamic State captors lowered the cage into the pool and they drowned together.

What was that about human dignity?

The barbarians are at our gates. But inside our offices, schools, churches, synagogues and homes, we are posting photos of rainbows on Twitter. It’s easier to Photoshop images of Justice Scalia as Voldemort than it is to stare evil in the face.

You can’t get married if you’re dead.

Ms. Weiss is an associate book review editor at the Journal.

 

[Underway]

Glad to know that everyone is focused on all the "correct" issues of the day. This illustrates why Progressives, SJW's and other leftists are increasingly irrelevant in today's world, despite having achieved control of most of the levers of political, judicial, bureaucratic and academic power:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-off-stage-horror-amid-the-euphoria-1435355279

Thucydides, as much as I admire your dedication to using any possible scrap of media to bludgeon the terrible leftists with a dedication bordering on fanaticism this article completely misses the point.  Because its over there and doesn't effect me directly, therefore few care.  We rarely do.  We care more for lawn watering restrictions than children starving in some 3rd world country because human nature is inherently selfish.  The leftish FOX News never even ran a story on terrorists in France (may have been on later in the day but you get my point)  because gay marriage will move the ratings in the US.  Civil rights in the US on controversial issues are always a BIG DEAL for Americans.

This has nothing to do with the left, progressives or anything of the sort.  Its all about "me" for all of us.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Thuc, that article is some of the greatest bull I have seen in a long time, particularly the first portion you underlined in yellow, which is collection of philosophical babbling meant to convey nothing (which is all it means in reality) but confuse people with big words that don't go together and no one understands.

Here is that sentence again:

"Moral relativism has become its own, perverse form of nativism among those who stake their identity on being universalist and progressive."

And here is how it translates using the most generally accepted definitions (I have used Britannica and the Encyclopedia of philosophy):

The theory that holds that moral values are strictly human inventions and not from god (whether "individual" [Nietzsche] or "cultural" [Montaigne]) has become its own perverse form of the doctrine (destroyed by Kant) that at least certain ideas (such as god, infinity or substance) must be innate because no empirical origin of them could be conceived among those who stake their identity on advocating loyalty to and concern for others without regard to national or other allegiances and on favouring or promoting political or social reform through government action (even revolution) to improve the lot of the majority.
/i] 

If somebody can tell me that this makes any sense or means anything, then more power to you, 'cause its meaningless drivel to at least 99.99999% of the world's population.

 

[Kirkhill]

  Its all about "me" for all of us.

As fair a statement of classical liberalism as will be found.  The difference between the socialist and the capitalist is that the socialist allies himself with others to secure that which the capitalist has and they have not.

 

[Underway]

As fair a statement of classical liberalism as will be found.  The difference between the socialist and the capitalist is that the socialist allies himself with others to secure that which the capitalist has and they have not.

I come at it from game theory and evolutionary ecology.  If it's in my best interest I'll do it.  If that means I'm socialist then I'm socialist.  Next week I might be capitalist. 

 

[vonGarvin]

Thuc, that article is some of the greatest bull I have seen in a long time, particularly the first portion you underlined in yellow, which is collection of philosophical babbling meant to convey nothing (which is all it means in reality) but confuse people with big words that don't go together and no one understands.

Here is that sentence again:

"Moral relativism has become its own, perverse form of nativism among those who stake their identity on being universalist and progressive."

And here is how it translates using the most generally accepted definitions (I have used Britannica and the Encyclopedia of philosophy):

The theory that holds that moral values are strictly human inventions and not from god (whether "individual" [Nietzsche] or "cultural" [Montaigne]) has become its own perverse form of the doctrine (destroyed by Kant) that at least certain ideas (such as god, infinity or substance) must be innate because no empirical origin of them could be conceived among those who stake their identity on advocating loyalty to and concern for others without regard to national or other allegiances and on favouring or promoting political or social reform through government action (even revolution) to improve the lot of the majority.
/i] 

If somebody can tell me that this makes any sense or means anything, then more power to you, 'cause its meaningless drivel to at least 99.99999% of the world's population.

Au contraire.  Put simply, Moral Relativism holds that morals ("Good" and "Evil") are all, well, relative.  And subjective to what people believe.  It is without substance and illogical. It is simply opinion held as fact.  For example, today I identify as a woman, therefore I *am* a woman. Tomorrow, I identify as a Klingon, therefore I *am* a Klingon.

The polar opposite of Moral Relativism is Moral Objectivism.  It hold that there is a "Good" and "Evil".  Religious people hold that these come from God.  Others hold that these just *are*, just as 1+1=2.  It just is.  And we can know or recognise "good" and "evil" through the use of logic, reason, observation, etc.


If someone is a Moral Relativist, then silly things like objective science are simply barriers, because, well, truth is relative, right?  It sounds absurd, because it is.  But in a society in which Moral Relativism runs rampant, truths are no longer universal.  Think of this next time you hear someone criticize or justify something based on the year, and not based on reason. ("It's 2015.  That shit shouldn't be allowed!"....I'm not sure what 8:15 pm has to do with right or wrong, but hey, who am I to judge, right?)
/hippy

 

[Kirkhill]

If everything, then nothing.