The Revolting Masses
The battle for Brexit, the nature of the struggle, has become much more clear [than it was three years ago]. Before, it was, “Ooh, should we be part of the EU? Should we not be part of the EU?” Now, I think it’s much more clearly a class struggle… On the one hand, you have people who are very much part of the establishment, people who are in the public sector, or who are members of organisations that are paid for out of taxation, whose jobs depend on regulating the lives of others… the arts establishment, the university establishment… You can tell when you go to a party, say, who’s likely to be Brexit and who’s not likely to be Brexit… The media is an utterly ‘Remain’ industry, and they’re absolutely furious.
Peter Whittle interviews filmmaker Martin Durkin.
Two of Durkin’s films – Brexit: The Movie and Margaret: Death of a Revolutionary – have been featured here before, in full, and are strongly recommended. The subsequent threads are also worth a peek.
Update:
The old word is treason… A large part of the British political elite has deliberately gone and negotiated against their own country…. They regard [the electorate] with absolute contempt.
Via Samizdata, and very much related, David Starkey has some thoughts.
Also, open thread.
In other words, these people would be hypocritical vain superficial busybody curtain twitching Christians had they been born in yesteryear.
“Women hardest hit”
Because husbands don’t know how to make male friends, leaving their entire load of emotional washing to be dealt with by their wives. And it’s compulsory for her to blame it on “toxic masculinity”, which gets the story backwards. Dudebros and jocks are characterized by intense and loyal friendships that are strong enough to withstand the corner-clearing efforts of authorities suspicious of male solidarity. It’s the Mr Sensitive’s, alienated from masculine energy and masculine forms of sociability, who have difficulty making male friends. The burden on women with friendless husbands is unlikely to be because he’s macho and taciturn. but because he’s whiny and clingy and she feels like his mother.
They’re reaping what they’ve been sowing for decades. The trailer for the 1989 movie Say Anything, which was heavily promoted at the time, is a good example of the culture telling men how to be a good feminist boyfriend. John Cusack is getting PUA-type advice from a bunch of dudebros who hang out at the gas station, and he asks them how come if they know so much about women, this is where they spend their Saturday nights. And just as you’re laughing at that, the trailer segues into his friend Lily Taylor telling him not to be a “guy” but to be a “man”, something she’s an authority on from her feminine wisdom as a suburban high schooler. Men needing the presence of women to validate them individually as men and to grant status to their assemblies, men needing the wisdom of women to save them from their backwardness and show them how to be men. Over the years, quite a lot of men took to heart that worldview.
A couple of years ago, in another example of the recently-discussed blurting phenomenon, a woman at a party
I have resolved this issue by simply not attending any gathering of people where I’m going to run into people that I know are going to do this. There just aren’t enough years left in my three score and ten for me to put up with this.
In other words, these people would be hypocritical vain superficial busybody curtain twitching Christians had they been born in yesteryear.
Bingo. We got rid of religion. We didn’t get rid of the underlying problem that drove so many of religion’s problems. Consequently, the muddled thinkers and control freaks had to find a home somewhere, thus they end up in the controlling domain of the day. Government. To some extent, it was always thus. Just back in the day, religion and government were much more entwined. The Enlightenment attempted to separate the two. Until people understand what the limitations of government are, and more broadly what the limitations of controlling someone else’s morality are, it’s all just a re-labeling game.
WTP – completely agree. Maybe, despite all of Christianity’s myriad faults, it perhaps did a relatively better job containing the worst excesses of “muddled thinkers and control freaks”. These people don’t seem to be any less bent on petty domination once they lost the authority of God. In fact, they just up and appropriated that authority.
I imagine the word ‘treason’ is going to gain a great deal more currency in the wake of that podcast.
I imagine the word ‘treason’ is going to gain a great deal more currency in the wake of that podcast.
I heard myself using the word traitorous on Friday evening. I may have also muttered something about lampposts and rope.
Maybe, despite all of Christianity’s myriad faults, it perhaps did a relatively better job containing the worst excesses of “muddled thinkers and control freaks”. These people don’t seem to be any less bent on petty domination once they lost the authority of God. In fact, they just up and appropriated that authority.
Agree very much. In fact, I would argue that Christianity and Judaism, by teaching these things, exerts a powerful check on corrupt ambition:
(1) All men and women are brothers and sisters, and therefore are to be treated as such.
(2) The proper focus of a Christian’s attention should be on the discovery and rectification of his own sins, not on the seeking out of others’ sins.
(3) All men are sinful, and this naturally leads to the lesson that there should be limits on the power of the State.
Leftism, in contrast, teaches:
(1) All men and women who are of the wrong class and race should be treated as enemies. Kindness and fairness are reserved for members of your class, race, etc.
(2) The proper focus of a leftist’s attention should be on the discovery and punishment of others’ sins.
(3) Leftist ideology can bring about utopia, and therefore there are no proper, principled limits on the power of the State.
I don’t remember who first pointed out that leftist ideology promises to its followers that they “shall be as gods”.
And thus a cardinal attribute of Christianity is love, while that of leftism is hate (in spite of the left’s claim to being all about love.)
“Women hardest hit.”
I haven’t read the article yet, but WTH was expected when the screeching females demanded that men stop gathering in mens-only groups? No more Boy Scouts, service clubs (Elk Clubs, etc) and the like? All those spaces gave men a chance to make friends without a girlfriend or wife jostling their elbow.
See: Bowling Alone
PS There is the cohort of males who are jealous beyond reason of “their” woman having male or female friends but – in my experience – there is a much larger cohort of females who are jealous of “their” man having male friends and spending time with those male friends. This is unacceptable.
“We don’t want students to have the option not to take ethnic studies,” said Melina Abdullah… “It is as important as taking a lab science.”
Am I to understand that students have no option but to take a lab science? That will come as news to a lot of humanities and social “science” majors.
PS There is the cohort of males who are jealous beyond reason of “their” woman having male or female friends but – in my experience – there is a much larger cohort of females who are jealous of “their” man having male friends and spending time with those male friends.
This is something I observed many years ago about coworkers going out to lunch. For my group, it was a Friday thing. Look around a restaurant on a Friday at lunch time and you will see many tables of men, possibly with one or two women in the minority, but mostly men. Women will be there but it’s never a large group. Women tend to lunch in twos and threes unless there’s some obvious special occasion such as a birthday or someone expecting a baby or some office-driven thing and not a casual, “Well, that’s lunch” thing.
That will come as news to a lot of humanities and social “science” majors.
I was thinking the same thing, but I believe this was in the context of high school, not college. Gotta get ’em while they’re young too, lest this anti-college thing catches on.
Seventy years ago today sounds good to me.
The people I know who help out their neighbours or volunteer for charities or whatever tend not to bang on about it. They don’t seem to feel a need. And I suppose actually doing the routine leg-work isn’t as glamorous or self-exalting as blathering about pronouns and “whiteness,” or announcing how much you favour mass immigration and the abolition of national borders, which offer a kind of kudos, at least among idiots and fellow pretenders.
“Vanity is a powerful drug”, as our host would say.
“Vanity is a powerful drug”, as our host would say.
When you have educators denouncing any reservations about rapid demographic change and denouncing those who register the ongoing importation of third-world behaviour – and when you have supposedly educated, middle-class protestors, our would-be elite, demanding the abolition of national borders and with them any control over who comes and runs up a bill – then this isn’t so much politics as something akin to a cultural death wish.
It’s vanity, yes; a kind of neurotic preening. But it’s vanity with a real-world cost – the bill for which is generally left for some other sucker. An obvious example being the pseudo-altruistic chest-puffing of Mr Simon Schama.
“It is as important as taking a lab science.”
One teaches you to follow directions exactly, to make careful observations, to take thorough notes, and to learn humility because even when you do things right, you may not get the right results every time. It teaches the importance of reproducibility, of showing your work, of inviting others to test your hypotheses and your methods to see if they are really valid.
The other teaches you that everything is Whitey’s fault, and that you are a golden child who would live in a palace if that mean old Whitey wasn’t holding you down.
So sure — they’re exactly equivalent in importance to a growing mind.
OT but watch quickly before it gets taken down.
watch quickly
OMG that’s hilarious and very well done.
…and based on her fantasy lies about her heritage, it’s just the sort of comic book Indian she’d be.
it’s just the sort of comic book Indian she’d be
I always giggle when I remember she contributed a couple of plagiarized French recipes as “Cherokee” to a cookbook called “Pow Wow Chow”.
I remember she contributed a couple of plagiarized French recipes
A very serious character flaw for someone who wants to run the country. I can’t believe so many people are willing to support her.
As an American, I thought Brexit was going to lead to the EU and UK coming to an agreement and little actual change. How quickly it went from ‘(free trade, etc) benefits us both’ to, in effect, manically screaming ‘screw you’ because the EU project itself is more important than what the group can accomplish together.
The reactions to Norway and Switzerland rejecting the EU seemed to be considerably less hysterical. The reaction to the French and Dutch rejection of the Lisbon treaty was also telling.
the pseudo-altruistic chest-puffing of Mr Simon Schama.
That.
That.
It’s quite a thing, a telling example. And you have to wonder what it must be like to inhabit a social circle in which even the most naked hypocrisy can pass unchallenged, such that you don’t even anticipate the obvious objections, as if no-one would ever check on Mr Schama’s own rather exclusive living arrangements, his immunity from consequences. And so, he advocates a policy that would degrade the neighbourhoods of other, much less wealthy people, using them as a kind of third-world landfill – knowing full well it will never happen to him or to anyone in his circle – and he vehemently disdains those who object to their neighbourhoods, their lives, being transformed in this way. And Mr Schama even dares to pretend that his posturing is altruism, a mark of piety.
It’s just, rather conveniently, a kind of altruism that other people have to pay for and which costs Mr Schama sweet bugger all.
This is one of the reasons amateur sports teams are still important; rugby training is a spouse free zone, even if you’re going out with a lass on the women’s side.
“And if the area around him goes somewhat downhill because the neighbours all start to come from the rougher corners of Eritrea then Simon Schama can move.”
Even better for him, such a decline offers him more opportunities for power over law-abiding citizens, as they become more desperate to avoid being robbed and murdered.
as they become more desperate to avoid being robbed and murdered.
When the Mr Schamas and Professor Kotskos of the world are the ones whose doorsteps are being shat on and whose neighbourhoods are being enlivened with Congolese machete gangs, I may be more inclined to believe that they mean what they say.
They’d still be neurotic and contemptible, of course.
The New York Times tries to out Guardian The Guardian.
The New York Times tries to out Guardian The Guardian.
Well, there’s an image.
Feminism and excrement, together at last.
Feminism and excrement, together at last.
In a world where it’s menstrual blood this and menstrual blood that pooping can be a revolutionary act.
The New York Times tries to out Guardian The Guardian.
It’s easy to write these people off as not being well. As being insane. Etc. But keep in mind, they function quite normally in most regards. They get out of bed in the morning, feed themselves, can drive a car or navigate public transport, can write coherent sentences…unfortunately for the rest of us. They are functional adult human beings. What has allowed them to go so far out of kilter is that the productive part of society fails to push back. These articles and such are things that these people do.
They don’t grow/harvest food, don’t fix leaky plumbing, don’t design buildings nor engineer bridges nor create logistical systems. They are fed and cared for by people who do these latter things. They have been educated to the level of stupidity demonstrated in the NYT, etc. by the wealth produced by people who do these productive things. There’s not mystery that these journalists do the stupid things that they do. They do it for their kibble. The mystery is why do the rest of us passively tolerate supporting this idiocy? We’re the ones with the problem.
It’s like blaming an unruly dog when its owner pampers and spoils it. The dog, by his very nature, seeks to lead the pack/family. The dog will continue to do so until/unless the owner asserts his authority over it. Some dog trainers, and I ascribe to this as well, will tell you that by indulging the dog, you are not doing the dog any favors. The dog knows it is inferior to the owner’s obvious skills and, to the dog, mystical powers. Yet the dog still strives to lead unless/until you make it clear to the animal who is in charge. But the dog is not happy leading because the dog, unlike the owner, instinctively knows he is inferior. Personally, I manage my dog by making him sit and wait for my command before he can eat. I also require him to do a few simple tricks once in a while. But the idea is that the dog needs to understand where his manna comes from. Who is in control of the things that allow him to live. People are no different. The problem is we have let the dogs think they are the masters and we behave like the dogs. WTH should we expect to happen?
Shit-shaming has a better ring. NYT amateur hour.
The mystery is why do the rest of us passively tolerate supporting this idiocy? We’re the ones with the problem.
The number of Americans 18 years or older is 252 million.
According to Pew Research, the number of televisions tuned in to CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News averaged 1.25 million for the three networks combined. That’s less than 0.5% of voting-age Americans. Even if we assume that 2.2 people were watching each of those televisions, that’s still barely 1% of the electorate. Employment in those newsrooms was estimated at 2,700 workers, compared to 2,950 fifteen years ago.
On the broadcast side, viewership for ABC/CBS/NBC evening news averaged about 5.3 million. Again, assuming 2.2 viewers per TV, we’re talking about 4.6% of Americans over age 18 who are tuned in to the big Evening News broadcasts.
Newspaper circulation was 28.5 million (11.3% of voting-age Americans), and it was estimated that 38,000 were employed in newspaper newsrooms. Fifteen years ago, those numbers were 54.6 million and 72,000 workers.
Granted, I help support cable news by reason of the fact that I subscribe to cable television, and so part of my monthly bill goes toward the licensing fees of those channels. (I think we’ll leave ala carte pricing for another discussion.) Still, cable subscriptions are falling as more people choose to “cut the cord” and rely on various streaming services, so even those “built-in” revenues are falling.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that “we” are actually doing a lot to limit the stupidity, by turning our eyeballs elsewhere and denying the idiots an audience they can market to their advertisers. Still, it doesn’t take that much of an audience to pull some serious advertising revenue, so I fear that we’ll forever be condemned to see these idiots doing their thing in public.
For me, the really scary thing is realizing how much of the world’s conversation is driven by so few people.
“They,” if it means the Times or journalists more widely considered — they aren’t dogs and “we,” whoever we are, aren’t their masters.
First off, journalists do work just as useful and productive as the bridge builders and greengrocers and so on. Sure, the valuable part of any newspaper (newscast, newsfeed, …) trails along with it a variable amount of waste, fault, and folly. So what profession is faultless? A bridge still gets us across the river though it’s a blot on the landscape; the broccoli is fresh and crisp though they cut the stalks too short lately. We consumers make do with what’s good in their productions, and discard or disregard the rest.
There’s really no chance “we” will start treating journalists, or just Times or Times-style journalists, as “our dogs.” It would be monstrous, and it’s not going to happen.
I’ve come up with a new name for Them.
You know, the people who may or may not be elite, but who definitely have enough money, status, and living arrangements to do what they want, and complain that they’re not being taken seriously.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present:
The Cushion Class
Not elites (although they’re certainly included), but people who are cosseted and protected. They don’t go to jail for drug abuse, they go to rehab. They lose a job? Their friends and supporters get them another one. Wreck a car? Why not buy a new one?
They’re the people to whom nothing bad has happened to them (so far, of course), but who loudly proclaim their intelligence, and their virtue, and wonder who all those people are, off in the distance. Why, it appears they’re pointing. And laughing.
The cushion class. Because consequences are for other people.
First off, journalists do work just as useful and productive as the bridge builders and greengrocers and so on
Not the journalists who write about women being oppressed by their poo. Or WTF that’s about. I didn’t say ALL journalists. I really wasn’t speaking of journalists. I was speaking of these kinds of people. Though I did say “There’s not mystery that these journalists do the stupid things that they do”, I was referencing this specific instance of the wokeness. Could apply to academia and a few other occupations as well.
No, they are not our dogs and we are not their masters. But they do defer to us, whether they know it or not, to provide them their kibble. Articles like this, or the teaching of such stupidity in philosophy or social science or whatsthisinmypants studies, are not economic contributors. They are leeches. We need to cut off the funding so that these people are forced to find some manner of being productive and thus masters of themselves. And I do think, to some degree, deep down inside, many of them understand this. They are simply drawn to these…occupations due to a lack of selfesteem, an inability to see that they can contribute. It’s this idiocy that we teach in our schools that “oh, you can’t make it without government’s help” or “only the privileged can ever be successful” that eats away at their humanity.
The book ‘Intellectuals and the Masses’ by John Carey goes over this ground. How they hate ordinary people.
The Cushion Class
It’s an old story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4fLThwiAr4 starting at 1:12
A very serious character flaw for someone who wants to run the country.
Speaking of serious character flaws. Here’s my country’s Prime Minister being called on the magic carpet.
There are really only two types of journalist that matter:
1) Those writing on specialist subjects for an informed audience, since they actually face professional consequences for being wrong
2) Those who can inform the reader as a result of their access to knowledge that would otherwise be unavailable. Reporting from a war zone, genuine investigative journalism – that sort of thing, that involves some degree of autopsy.
Most ‘journalism’ is just pompous idiots giving their opinion, or moron twenty-somethings rewriting Wikipedia articles over the course of an afternoon in between lengthy bouts on Twitter.
pompous idiots giving their opinion
[ Wipes bar, acts nonchalant. ]
Most ‘journalism’ is just pompous idiots giving their opinion…
Don’t forget lazy idiots merely rewriting press releases from companies and activists.