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Nov 21, 2023Liked by Theophilus Chilton

The only issue I have with your analysis is that it also sums up the right as well as the left.

Any person watching a MAGA rally cannot but be stunned by the insane childishness of the audience. This is exacerbated by reading a transcript of a Trump speech (at a rally).

He was very articulate in his inauguration speech, a wonder piece of political intent, but at a rally he is talking to three year olds.

Americans, and about 50% of the west, have an emotional age of about 5. Unfortunately it goes with an intellectual age 5 years and 6 months.

A quote I recently saw " We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won't be offended "

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

Isaac Asimov, Newsweek, 21 January, 1980.

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Well, you're not wrong...

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The quote is from Dostoyevsky - tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.

We’re definitely at that stage.

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I tend to disagree with your analysis. The problem is, paradoxically, too much intellectualism. And at the same time there has developed a contrary reaction towards insanity. It's all happening as a reaction to the Age of Reason. We now live in the Age of Kneeling Nancy.

Of the Greek gods only Dionysus was murdered and reborn. The giants who killed him and ate parts of his body were the ancestors of humans. If you can think metaphorically about that it means Dionysus himself was a sacrificial victim and humans are descendants of his murderers.

Concerning Dionysian madness, the maenads of today are obsessed with abstractions called racism and sexism (and human rights). But these are Apollonian in character, manufactured by intellectuals, and are an attack on natural order, one would think. Therefore, Dionysian nature is asserting itself by destroying modernism, not traditional Christianity.

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You are welcome to disagree, but I doubt that 1% of the population could spell paradoxically let alone explain what it means and that my friend is why 'intellectualism' is nonexistent.

Talking in circles using buzzwords like patriarchy, misogyny and transgenderism makes them 'feel' intelligent but in fact only exposes their lack of maturity. Children reciting nursery rhymes without any understanding of the meaning. Ring-a-ring of Roses, Little Jack Horner, Oranges and Lemons all have meanings and backgrounds, but the children merely recite the words with no understanding of their history.

Not one in a hundred thousand (including myself) has (had) any idea who or what maenads were. Thank you for that.

Millions of people each week practice cannibalism and feel it appropriate.

You may wish to explain how racism is Apollonian in character, personally I consider both Racism and Sexism to be Dionysian in character.

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An intellectual uses words the same way one can describe an abstract painting. The more abstract the image the easier to project whatever ideas, feelings or meaning you want onto it. Even the ADL can't determine what the word racism means. In my humble opinion there is no such thing as "racism," or the many other isms, in the real world. There are abstractions that humans use for various purposes that may or may not describe something.

On the other hand the word "book" means an object we can touch and pick up and read. Show me a racism or sexism or a right.

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Ah, another Humpty Dumpty :

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’

'The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’



’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Personally I use words to communicate, therefore one has to have a common understanding of words.

Thus I use a dictionary.

You are really being silly to argue that only physical objects have reality or meaning.

You introduced the terms racism and sexism and now claim they have no meaning or existence.

You may wish to consider the term pseudo-intellectualism.

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You might be right, but those (or at least most of those) at a Trump rally aren't there to hear a replay of the inauguration or the Warsaw speech or any other masterworks of 21st century oratory.

They know he can do that. They're at a rally to have a good time, get some reason to feel positive about the future of the country, and above all to watch someone fight back in ways hardly anyone had.

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".. They're at a rally to have a good time, get some reason to feel positive about the future of the country, and above all to watch someone fight back in ways hardly anyone had." you are right.

It is not that 'they know he can do that" because they did not understand 90% of what he said.

There are a group of people calling themselves 1st Amendment auditors, who ask policemen (and others) what are the 5 elements of the 1st amendment. 1 in a hundred can name them. What is the 3rd amendment? Not 1 in 10,000 know the answer.

They would rather be children than adults, immature rather than mature, safe rather than free. Trump is their 'daddy' not their inspiration.

"People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self--sufficient and self--confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility." ~

Eric Hoffer "The True Believer"

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You clearly have never read Marx.You also clearly do not know what the heck you are talking about.

Where and how does the 'Frankfurt School" have any relationship to Marx or any of his theories?

What the hell are 'Cultural Marxists'?

What and where does the Frankfurt include Freud's theories?

Freud never mentioned or had any theory of the 'subconscious mind'.

Apart from these minor details, I am sure you are right.

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I've been thinking a lot about this recently. Just this past weekend I saw some guy in Seattle tell someone trying to get signatures for some petition about some trans issue or something "Fuck trans rights" and flip them off, as if that was some epic comeback that would cause the girl with the clipboard to start bawling and slink away, when all it did was ignite a screaming fit between two bleating retards who weren't able to articulate a coherent thought between them. Then, I go back to my own little deeply Republican enclave and see "Fuck Joe Biden" and "Let's Go Brandon" flags flying in the yards. Still.

I feel like some sort of narcissist thinking that it's all so juvenile, but when I hear some old fogey at the local watering hole say "Let's go Brandon" and then be met with a chorus of raucous laughter... it's insufferable.

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Your problem is that you (and I and some others) are outside the matrix.

Bernays described this elitist view of the world in 1928:

“Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.” – Propaganda

Huxley wrote this:

"The surest way to work up a crusade in favour of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”

Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

"The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist. We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand that people rarely have the strength to be uncommon." -- Eugene Ionesco

"Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. " -

Albert Einstein

Courage mes Enfants.

"But we in it shall be rememberèd—

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;"

My resolution lasted 3 days this year.

"New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time."

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"New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time."

Please stop taking up my time.

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Playing the kids against the parents and against the past has been a standard tactic of Marxist regimes since the Russian Revolution.

But this perpetual childishness does seem new. While Modern Indignation Studies do enhance this childishness, I think there is something else going on. Maybe it's too many early vaccines mucking with brain development. Maybe it's too much use of daycare. Maybe it is the attempt to cram in too much academics too early at the expense of play. Maybe it's too much video games and TV instead of outdoor play due to our excessive safety consciousnesses.

The latter factors share a theme: kids are not getting enough childhood while they are still children.

The full on temper tantrums remind me autism. And diagnosed autism is up bigly.

Maybe the Left displays mental illness because we have a mental illness epidemic.

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It is narcissism. We misuse the word to mean high self regard. A bit full of yourself.

At its core narcissism is a form of arrested development. The small child, in response to a trauma, retreats and projects a fake persona as a coping mechanism e.g. projecting a fake image of the perfectly behaved child to avoid punishment. This fake persona is then adopted permanently, and it is this that develops while the real persona is buried behind the act. Life for narcissists is a 24/7 performance. The perfect child becomes the perfect student, the perfect wife, the perfect worker etc. Maintaining this image takes over their life. But buried inside is still that small child and he's driving the bus. When a narcissist is seriously challenged the mask slips and the real persona reacts with outrage, which is all a small child really has.

What we are seeing are psychological toddlers who cannot cope with real life.

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Our whole society has been infantilized. It's socially acceptable, nay normal, for grown men to read comic books or even *dress up* as their favorite characters. The standard father / son bonding activity is playing video games together. Skill and danger have been removed from everything. Effort is the enemy, and anyone preaching effort must be destroyed.

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My favourite is Zoom calls with adult men and behind them in their den are "collectibles." I did that with a 35yo project manager a while back and there was a ton of Star Wars lego behind him. I mistakenly asked if it was his son's. Nope. It was his.

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To quote Trump, it's a disgrace.

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It's a sign. A hard reset is coming.

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You nailed the mentality inherent in so much of the screeching left. Said screeching is insanely not confined to its younger cohorts. All I hear when they talk is a child screaming, "You can't see me! I am wearing my invisibility cloak!" But they have facial hair and jobs. We're doomed:)

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I think that Care and empathy are concepts that most children are not born with, but are developed ( or not ).

The handlers of the ' entitled generations '; those born in times of abundance are disabled by pleasure, when life is not about the search of the happiness goal.

It seems to me that the happiness goal is a psy-op to make life seem constantly unsatisfactory.

Many teachers from the east believe that life is about lessening suffering, and once one is not suffering, to try to relieve the suffering of others.

I am most aggrieved by the weaponizing of care and empathy... For other people and our unfathomable mysterious, beautiful and harsh natural world.

I feel for those extreme leftists that actually believe that they are helping people, as they are the most passionate about caring for others and thus are our most powerful opposition, because their intentions are good.

God save them from themselves when they find out the truth.

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Great discussion!!!!! (Wish I could say something more intellectual than that, but I take it that here I’m safe from cliqueishness..)

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Proverbs 24:6 “For by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.”

Wise guidance obtained in consultation with an abundance of counselors is the key to Victory whether in war or in any circumstance that requires might and Power. Wisdom carefully acquired in applied is the means of success in all of life.

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being childish makes one biased as kids are, and so I've tried calling out leftists for "circular reasoning" and it definitely makes them trip-up.

It works so well, b/c leftists always assume that they're correct; they never check their premises.

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to elab: the basis of liberal politics & immaturity is the desire to always be happy all the time, thus the desire for happiness opens the lib. up to accusations of happiness-prejudice; he is prejudiced against things that need pain: deep thinking, boldness, determination, endurance, checking one's premises, etc.

The same with lib's much vaunted rationalism; for rationalism is mere circular reasoning since reason cannot prove reason w/o illogic. Only theism can defend reason.

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Wow, ONLY 19 comments? This is an excellent recapitulation of our current problem - thank you for reposting.

A few comments:

-These traits are a fortiori true in the Anglosphere. But goto the Mediterranean and it's not the same.

-Arguably the culprit is helicopter parenting and extreme feminization of parenthood and pedagogy (foisted upon us INTENTIONALLY since the 60s). I'd go so far to say that when you remove discipline this is the devolution you get. Parenting since the 60s has increasingly attempted to occlude causality by fetishizing a "let kids be kids" childhood. It is thus befuddlingly ironic that the Regime's consensus now includes letting kids be kids by allowing them to cut off their genitals, etc.

-I'll quote my favorite line from Shakespeare where Ulysses scolds the Greek failure to take Troy: "Take but degree away, untune that string, and, hark, what discord follows!"

The Left's attempt at levelism by infantilizing society is more a ploy, however, to simply restratify the Order with them at the top (ie. intraelite competition).

-I think I will disagree with your conjecture on IQ. While some hen-pecked beta-males high on the rungs will raise the average, the typical Leftist/AWFL I think scores pretty low. They have little capacity for rigorous reasoning or critical thinking (which is perhaps why they're always harping on why Libtard Arts degrees teach that!). But absent a class definition and statistical testing I could be wrong.

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The idea of family, home, ancestors and the sacred as inter-connected and essential to the individual's path to membership in his culture may well be universal. In his autobiography and testimony to spiritual awakening, Russell Means wrote about his experience as a young Native American who rediscovered his "home" in his traditions as an Indian and not as a member of the white man's tribe: "In that humiliating moment, I came to realize how white people look upon us: We're not real human beings, we don't exist, we have no care, no rights, no sensibilities. We're tourist attractions." Russell Means, ''Where White Men Fear to Tread'' (St. Martin's Press, 1995) p. 111.

When you think about it, the typical modern man the author describes does tend to look at tradition-oriented normal white people in a similar fashion. They're kind of a dangerous tourist attraction, the deplorables, who are holding them back from utopia on earth.

Then, in a cat-and-mouse game they play with themselves they find they believe in nothing at all.

The idea of the sacred home is absent. A cold gaze in a godless world does not help lead the individual to the ancestors, and the sacred makes no divine appearance. (Jean Baudrillard, ''America'' Verso, 1989). The visible world can now only exist by the operation of "objectification" through the intellect:

There is nothing real outside ourselves; there is nothing real except the coincidence of a sensation and an individual mental tendency. Be it far from us to throw any doubts upon the existence of the objects which impress our senses; but, rationally speaking, we can only experience certitude in respect of the images which they produce in the mind. (Herschel B. Chipp, ''Theories of Modern Art'', Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger, from Cubism, 1912 (University of California Press, 1968) pp. 207-213.)

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There is certainly an inability to grow up. As Roger Scruton put it:

An extreme and immoderate aversion to the sacred and the thwarting of the connection of the sacred to the culture of the West appears to be the underlying motif of oikophobia; and not the substitution of the culture by another coherent system of belief. The paradox of the oikophobe seems to be that any opposition directed at the theological and cultural tradition of the West is to be encouraged even if it is "significantly more parochial, exclusivist, patriarchal, and ethnocentric". (Mark Dooley, Roger Scruton: Philosopher on Dover Beach (Continuum 2009), p. 78.)

Scruton defines it as "the repudiation of inheritance and home," and refers to it as "a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes." (Roger Scruton, ''A Political Philosophy'', p. 24.)

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The Normans were Christianized pagans. I'd say they did pretty well. You need a proper balance between European pagan virility and Christian feminine civility. Anyway, you either believe in divine order, or not. You are essentially a materialist, which is fine. Most people are.

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