Peter Risdon slaps Chris Dillow’s testicles. Metaphorically, I mean:   

It’s more appropriate to talk of Marxists being indoctrinated than it is most people, who take less doctrinal, more experience-based and pragmatic approaches to issues. Marxism belongs with traditional religions to a bracket of improbable, dogma-based belief systems that require faith to maintain, in the teeth of what could politely be called conflicting data. As with traditional religions, you get ‘Why I am still a Marxist’ and ‘Why I am no longer a Marxist’ essays and columns – Chris himself wrote one – which are very similar to ‘Why I am still/no longer a Christian’ type pieces.

You don’t get ‘Why I am still a slightly conservative pragmatist’ essays in the same way.

Oh, there’s more. 

Robert Stacy McCain on atrocious feminist writing: 

Her paucity of ideas and her unwillingness to do actual research led Mary Daly to the crucial insight that consumers of radical feminist books didn’t really care about facts or logic or coherent argument. No, the feminist readership consists of disgruntled misfits who want someone to give voice to their inchoate rage. My theory, then, is that Daly discovered she could spend a few hours a week sitting in front of a word-processor, probably with a supply of whiskey and ice near at hand, typing any kind of stream-of-consciousness nonsense that popped into her head. So long as her rants were aimed at the phallocratic patriarchy, and invoked the celebration of radical liberated womanhood, the incoherent nature of Daly’s prose was actually a feature, not a bug. No one could refute her “arguments,” because no one could make sense of them.

Peter Risdon notes the modesty of a certain Marxoid titan: 

It’s as though each narcissistic personality disorder has its own unique signature.

And Theodore Dalrymple on assault, sentimentality and moral cowardice: 

I was alarmed but not altogether surprised to read that Marie… did not want [her assailant] to be locked up but rather that they should receive a punishment “so that they understand.” Understand what, precisely? That hitting a defenceless woman in the face ten times with a knuckleduster isn’t a nice thing to do? But they understood this already, only too well: It was precisely their understanding that impelled them to do it… Presumably Marie had in mind something such as psychoanalysis, perhaps mixed with a little compulsory social work or planting flowers in municipal flowerbeds. This is like trying to talk reason to Pol Pot at the apogee of his power, to get him to stand down by persuading him that what he was doing was wrong. 

If Miss A suddenly finds herself being beaten by Thug B – repeatedly, ostentatiously, with premeditation and knuckledusters – and then insists her assailant should face only the most mild and inconsequential punishment, this looks an awful lot like moral preening. “See how lenient and saintly I am.” The next victim of thug B – and there usually is a next victim – may not appreciate this display of moral (self-)elevation. 

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.

Peter Risdon: 

Marxism is, in general, cleverness for stupid people. You get to use words like ‘hegemony’ and analyse the world, albeit in unusually fatuous terms.

Readers may wish to alternate the word ‘stupid’ with ‘pathologically unrealistic’, or ‘vain and sadistic’, or some suggestion of their own. 

For readers who missed last week’s fundraising post, this blog is now an Amazon affiliate. Which means that, should you do any shopping via this link in the UK, or this link in the US, or using the Amazon search widgets at the top left and right of this page, your host receives a small fee at no extra cost to you. If that’s not an incentive to shop, and shop deliriously, I don’t know what is. 

Among the items already bought this way are several books found on my own shelves, including Fabian Tassano’s excellent Mediocracy, a sort of devil’s dictionary of modern inversions and dishonesties; David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin’s One-Party Classroom, an eye-widening overview of dogma and question-begging masquerading as education; and Thomas Sowell’s no less marvellous Intellectuals and Society, which was discussed here and here. An extract:

If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values, etc., then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation resulting from those beliefs. But to be for “social justice” and “saving the environment” or to be “anti-war” is more than just a set of beliefs about empirical facts. This vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate, someone who is for peace in the world, a defender of the downtrodden…

In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other vision does not. These visions are not symmetrical. Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls – and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their vision are not surprising under these circumstances.

Should anyone feel compelled to make a direct contribution to the upkeep of this blog, and thereby boost my self-esteem, there’s a PayPal button top left. And by all means use the comments to suggest other items of possible interest. And thanks to Pierce. 

Via dicentra, Kevin D Williamson on the many heads of modern feminism: 

Feminism is not an idea or a collection of ideas but a collection of appetites wriggling queasily together like a bag of snakes… A useful definition is this: “Feminism is the words ‘I Want!’ in the mouths of three or more women, provided they’re the right kind of women.” Feminism must therefore accommodate wildly incompatible propositions – e.g., (1) Women unquestionably belong alongside men in Marine units fighting pitched battles in Tora Bora, but (2) really should not be expected to be able to perform three chin-ups. Or: (1) Women at Columbia are empowered by pornography, but (2) women at Wellesley are victimised by a statue of a man sleepwalking in his Shenanigans. And then there is Fluke’s Law: (1) Women are responsible moral agents with full sexual and economic autonomy who (2) must be given an allowance, like children, when it comes to contraceptives.

Walter Russell Mead on how to ruin your life: 

Enrol in a college you can’t afford. Take really easy, fun courses [e.g., Politicizing Beyoncé, or The Sociology of Hip-Hop: The Theodicy of Jay-Z]. Don’t worry about marketable skills. Blame society for the consequences (unemployment) of your attitude problem. Then demand the government (or your parents) bail you out. We guarantee you all the misery you could ever want.

Robert Stacy McCain argues with a middle-class communist: 

The extreme egoism of communist leaders is a trait displayed throughout the history of the movement since Marx’s ridiculous insistence that only his socialism was “scientific.” Yet such is Jesse Myerson’s egoism that he imagines himself superior even to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. At least they had the integrity to admit that the abolition of private property — the expropriation of the bourgeoisie — could only be accomplished by violent revolution, and that the victors of such a revolution would have to employ the methods of violent terror to establish their dictatorship.

And Daniel Hannan on the politics of spite:  

Ponder the graph above. Sixty-nine per cent of Labour supporters would want a top rate tax of 50 per cent even if it brought in no money… This is a blog about the mind-set of people who see taxation, not as an unpleasant necessity, but as a way to punish others.

As we’ve seen here many times, some Labour supporters are quite happy to parade their vindictiveness as if it were virtue. 

Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.